#also something i think is funny is that literally everyone forgets about nuance when they have a 'hot take'

[maddy-ferguson]

something i think is very fun on byler tumblr is that very often 20 minutes to 48 hours after something's posted someone will say something that sounds like "if you think like this you're very dumb and i really hate you" and most of the time i haven't even seen the "bad" take and i even tend to agree with the criticism of it but the second post will still make me feel like shit🙏

[creatingblackcharacters]

This might seem like a weird thing to get hung up on, but in reference to your post about Wyll's hairstyling, someone made the comment that they imagined Mizora used magic to braid his hair as part of their pact. You replied that this was a racist idea and offered to explain why, but they never commented back. If you're still willing to discuss it, I actually would like the explanation. I'm not disagreeing that it's racist, I just think I'm missing some of the nuances/reasoning.

The only explanation I can think of is the way that Wyll's relationship with Mizora is treated, both in and out of game, just makes the joke really not funny. I hate that Mizora is treated as a quirky, love-to-loathe-her side villain when she's essentially Wyll's abuser. She should be treated with the same gravitas that the writers treat Astarion's relationship to Cazador, or Karlach's relationship to Zariel. Then you've got the fans, who can write loads of rants and analysis of Mystra "grooming" Gale on what I would consider very little basis (adults can have teachers too), but stay pretty mum about Mizora, who started manipulating Wyll when he was 17, isolated him from any support systems he might have had, and literally tortures him with the torments of Hell for disobeying her. I forget which conversation it is, but Wyll even describes her visits to him after he completes a task for her as her "saying all the right words" and "touching him in just the right ways."

Maybe I just haven't seen people talking about it because I'm not looking in the right places, I tend to keep most fandoms at arm's length so I'm not swallowed whole by their nonsense. I'm sorry if this turned into an extra long vent message, but I hope it shows I care about Wyll as a character and the work you're doing in general to improve the portrayal of black characters in fiction and fandom.

I mean, you pretty much said it all. I mentioned in my hair lessons that hair is very important to Black people, and that it's also a matter of consent. You wouldn't want just anybody touching your body, and that includes your hair, yes? So it would be incredibly violating for some white person that is essentially your abuser touching your hair, your body, something that is important to you! How can there be real consent if someone OWNS you? Hair is something that requires trust and intimacy. Especially with the idea that a white person would know better how to do your Black hair?! No thanks.

It's also something that ties into my most recent lesson with stereotypes, plus issues with how men are perceived with abusers. The idea that a boy should be "grateful" that a woman is attracted to/attached to them, even when it's inappropriate. For me, what I see when I see Mizora is a white coded woman allowed to mistreat a young Black boy into his adulthood, and treated as though he brought it on himself, as if he deserves to be mistreated by someone who took advantage of him. I see that people won't take that violation seriously, bc no one cares about the dignity of Black bodies nor do we offer them grace under fire.

Whereas if this were a young white girl, and an older Black coded male demon had done these things to her, all hell would break loose. Fans would immediately understand that that sort of relationship is not appropriate and we should not just assume that "oh well it's just sexy".

I mentioned in the last lesson that this sort of "attraction" has gotten Black boys and men killed at the whims of white women. It's not "funny" to me to think that some white coded woman is allowed to treat Wyll that way and everyone is just... Cool with it. I'd be very nervous to ask your opinions on real Black people.

It's honestly why I felt uncomfortable getting interested in the fandom to begin with, in addition to everything else involved with Wyll and his VA Theo. BG3 doesn't seem like a welcoming place fr, and I too have to keep fandom at an arms length for racism reasons, but as I've done with fandom before this: that's my chance to maybe create something that's missing. 👍🏾

[highlordofkrypton]

Clark ☺️

I-- U REALLY WANNA SEE ME EMBARRASS MYSELF ON MY HUH

How I feel about this character

My love, my life, my entire sunshine. Clark is a character that has been with me for a long time. I grew up watching him with my family and I don't have a great relationship w/ my parents, but Smallville and the OG Superman movies with Christopher Reeve are the only times we would get together and be normal. I actually don't have many other good memories of my childhood. The rest is absence or trauma!

Also, the irony of my love of Superman is when people tell me I should be nicer and absolutely good because I like him. I will poo poo on any man that tells me that, BUT I do believe in being the change I wanna see in the world which is why I choose to act with kindness first, etc. People forget Superman can be firm too.

I just think Clark Kent is such a positive and human character with great empathy. What a beautiful duality, an alien with godly powers who reflects the most wonderful parts of humanity. I know a lot of people think he's boring, too, but I think he goes through so much.

This character is my peace.

ANYWAY, I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!! MY LIL SUNSHINE ABSORBER!!!

Random story that had me wheezing in a high tea shop that you might find funny @tamlindair bc you'd know who this actor is, I have a Superman tattoo and he is not based on any real person (I specifically asked the tattoo artist who IS NOT BROWN BTW to not model him after any actor), and one of the hostesses who was brown asked me "OMG IS THAT SHAH RUKH KHAN AS SUPERMAN?" I cried I'm ITS NOT BUT LIKE HOW RANDOM 😂 (me when this happened: 🥲😭 )

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Everyone. Literally everyone. You give me a character and I will make it work. Who I've written him with so far (not all of them worked out): Lois Lane, Bruce Wayne, Barry Allen, Orm Marius, Gojo Satoru, Lambert (Witcher series), Thomas Wayne, Diana Prince, uh... that's who I can think of for now!

My non-romantic OTP for this character

BARRY ALLEN!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOOOOOD DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THEIR MIDWESTERN BESTFRIENDSHIP I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. It also helps that my writing partner's main muse is Barry, so they have been up to soooo many shenanigans and supportive of each other.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I like seeing the weight on Clark's shoulders when it comes to saving the world, it's one of the things I appreciated with the Zack Snyder series, if nothing else. I wish it wasn't the only thing showcased in that version because there's something to be said about the loneliness of hearing all the world's pain and still choosing to smile. I don't see many people diving into the loneliness/depression, but that could also be me projecting in my writing who knows! Either way, no matter how heavy things get, there's a reason he's called the Man of Tomorrow. (At least, that's how I like to see it 😊

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Oh my god, there's SO MUCH that happens in canon that I can't keep up. I'm not up to date with current comics, especially Supersons, but I really wish that there was more nuance to the choice of Clark having a child with Lois. I always imagined Lois to be hyper career driven, and I really like the idea of house-husband Clark. I wish we would see more of that; I know they both would support each other and prioritize their careers, but I'm really fond of Clark being a stay-at-home dad doing domestic things and helping Jon with silly school things. Love those lighthearted moments.

OH and I will ALWAYS take more of Clark with his nephews and nieces in the batfam (AND MORE FLASHFAM LOVE FROM CLARK TOO!!!) Barry and Clark deserve more screentime and adventures together, it would be SO wholesome!!

[m1ckeyb3rry]

No because bro got the sample platter of trauma ok now I have a much better grasp of that discrepancy in his Bible entry about him being both selfless and selfish ugshsbsjs yuki :,)

SO REAL that’s basically what I was imagining too like we all know Aiku’s the 30 yr old uncle but Rin’s time reminds me of like a pissy mid 20 salaryman who hates his 9-5 job and life in general

Bro I don’t even need to be in the fandom to know that the people are WILD

I had to double take at first like did I forget a character’s name but OMGG Yayoi is such a cute name….something about the little oi sound at the end is just >>> and you’re right it does match tabito well?? I wonder if it’s maybe the presence of o and i (on those lines eita and Seiko both have ei? I have no idea if this is actually why the vibes are vibing but…) wait actually that makes me wanna find characters (like Japanese language characters) to match with their names….if this were irl I’d typically be worried if the names would actually be like, nameable in society LMAO but in most media names are usually chosen with specific etymology and meanings in mind to match their characteristics (exhibit A: Karasu LMFAO)

NO FR like let’s push aside the nagireo debate and talk about that??? Bro was HARASSED

LMFAOOOOOOO BRO ok well I’m now increasing my bid to 25k (wait just to clarify are we jumping from 4 to 20 or gradually moving from 4 to 20 my brain is not braining today) wait….thats a good question….for my indecisive ass…..I feel like it’s funny hearing your updates…but at the same time…..being surprised……ok um hm maybe keep me posted until you reach like…12k….i love hearing about your little checkpoint updates but I think we both know it’s gonna be more than 12k probably so don’t mention the wc beyond that so I can keep my estimation like…distant if that makes sense (??? This doesn’t sound like it makes sense but um, yeah! LMAO Honestly anything works just don’t tell me the final wc so I can scream when I see it posted HAHAHA)

Ok judging by this paragraph I’m assuming you meant gradual from 4-20 LOL but I’m laughing like “bro I saw you piss yourself in preschool as a snotty little kid” LMFAOO

Oh yeah huh I forgot about anime only spoiler things oops ok yeah that makes sense…maybe it’s also because we’ve seen them in the movie credits? (That doesn’t rlly explain Karasu’s lack of appearance though) But since kurona like, barely exists in the manga maybe they’re throwing a bone to the kurona fans LMAO

STOPPP NOT THE WHY DID ZANTETSU TAKE HIS GLASSES OFF SHDBDJJSHDOS THATS a good point though maybe his dark hair blends too much into the dark screen room they’re in…and you’re so right they literally could’ve panned the angle up a bit to show his smirk but NO it’s just his blank ass chin (at least we know he doesn’t leave any stubble on his face)

Yuki is such a shoujo male lead like WHAT WAS THAT?? The LN was so much more emotional than the others like you’d forget this is about soccer…between his development from a shy kid to his earnestness and the continued cherry blossom representation like??? And then the heart wrenching he sobs his eyes out after hearing his diagnosis….what also really got to me is how it details how he jumped in to help the boy without even thinking it through clearly putting himself in danger and then the moment of regret as he’s lying on the ground after the boy basically deserted him like??? He’s so real and I love how they show all the inner conflict he goes through….if Chigiri and yuki get kicked out because of injuries I’m gonna lose it like every time someone makes a tiktok about who’s most likely to leave it’s always THOSE TWO like NO but yeah….some other light novels had their sad moments too but it never felt as complex as yuki’s….i know Bachira was bullied too and niko and kinda Kunigami? Shit why is everyone getting bullied…but maybe it’s because I didn’t bother reading them in Japanese and there’s some nuances we missed? The only other one I have on me rn is the Kunigami Hiori Niko one so I’m definitely gonna go back and look but even so something tells me it still wasn’t the same…..I did actually read Hiori’s because I needed to see the original stalking scene in all its glory but I definitely laughed a lot more than I did for yuki’s….for obvious reasons….I’m pulling up what I wrote down for Hiori’s to compare….and it was definitely still really sad in some parts (where he’s like LMAO my parents don’t love me it’s time to disassociate and try to keep the family together) but we see a lot more light hearted moments since Karasu’s there for like half the time!! I think it’s also probably the nature of their struggles too like while Hiori’s question his like idk will to live/motivation?? It feels like the fact that yuki knows exactly what he wants and what he is but he’s fighting to not have it taken away makes it sadder imo. Also laughing my ass off at Karasu helps with forgetting all the sad bits

Starting Barous and off the bat it’s 5 year old Barou being like damn these unsophisticated kids (they’re in the same grade) are so easily pleased (I’m not that far in but that’s the vibe I’m getting from the first five sentences LMAOO)

Aryu’s is by far the shortest at 5 chapters and based off how half the chapter names involve OSHA I’m gonna assume this may be more crack laced HAHA

Part of me wants to imagine that Otoya’s hair was highlighter green and gradually darkened with age (kinda how some people are born redheads but eventually turn blonde) I think that one colored panel of bowl cut Otoya kinda disproves that slightly but I still think it’s funny

Anyways I’ll return with Seiko Yayoi kanji and Barou chapters o7

-Karasu anon

RIN AS A NANAMI KIN omg we got the whole jjk cast here…aiku as toji and yuki as yuta…dare i say barou as a todo equivalent 🤔

RIGHT i thought it was such a cute name when i was doing research!! i do think the i + o helps it fit w tabito well and then the “ei” sound in seiko and eita make them sound similar too 👆🏻 going to be real with you i have this one random website by some person really obsessed with name research bookmarked so i can find non-basic japanese names for when i need to come up w given names for random characters (orie, seiko, yayoi, etc) so as far as i know they’re all actual names?? just on the rarer side (she gives the data of how many babies are given that name per decade and whatnot too which is rlly cool and it mostly is like 0.001% of babies have that name LMAOO but that also abt how many babies were given the names tabito and eita so i think it’s okay). i do usually look up names i use on like linkedin to see if any irl people have them and for the most part there’s always been a few results!! the author of the website includes possible character variations as well but like idk japanese so idk how accurate it is JFDLSKK let me add screenshots!!

i think for seiko the kanji for “force, vigor, energy” (if that’s what it actually is) would make sense for obvious reasons 🤔

HAHAHA okay i will keep you posted until we get to 12k and then after that you can see how close you were to hitting the mark 🤩 i do believe it will be above 12k for sure considering we’re gradually going from 4-20 for karasu and watching them grow up sooo 😫 omg no literally like bro you made me play trains w you why would i make the connection that you’re attracted to me now

iirc reo shidou igaguri and kurona were all on the same second selection team so maybe that’s why?? like maybe they’ll show kunigami getting “kicked out”/sent to wildcard in one of the earlier episodes…that’s the only reason i can think of for that particular group to be there together 😫 nah if they gave karasu stubble i’d cry scream shit tears he does NOT need that i hate it on aiku i’d hate it even more on him

NO BECAUSE THEY STAY GETTING BULLIED WHY IS IT ALL OF THEM (except isagi)?? i think a lot of the light novels either felt like very typical struggles/things we had seen before (chigiri w his leg, half the cast getting bullied), too fantastical to relate to (reo’s rich ass, hiori’s mega strict childhood), or mostly humorous (nagi getting called a demon, hiori stalking karasu) but yuki’s just feels very real and personal almost?? everyone’s had a dream that for whatever reason smth got in the way of them achieving it so seeing yuki struggle like that is very touching!! plus unlike w chigiri where narratively yeah he’s probably going to hurt his leg again, in-universe it’s not a guarantee whereas w yuki he KNOWS it’s going to happen and that there’s nothing he can really do abt it. the sense of inevitability/desperation is so palpable which makes it worse imo!! he’s sooo shoujo coded though especially with the cherry blossoms like free my man from soccer prison and get him into a slice of life romance STAT!!

HAHA i’m glad barou is just him being his usual self idk what i’d do if his backstory was horrifically sad…i’m excited to see what the whole random aiku matchup was abt 🤔 and PLSSS not the osha 😓 aryu is so hard to take seriously like even in fwtkac i could not write him without making him seem ridiculous but he’s genuinely just like that

wait that would be funny but also as a resident horse girl i must give the alternative: grey horses are super dark (like basically black) when they’re young and get progressively lighter as they age until they’re basically white when they’re old SO imagine his streak was super dark when he was a baby and gradually gets lighter so when he’s like 30 it’s going to be mint green or smth 😭

OKAYY I CAN’T WAIT but make sure to rest your eyes 👆🏻 no need to strain them hehe

[marat]

Every fucking problem I have with The King's Man (2021) and even then im probably forgetting some: massive spoilers under the cut

Look I really fucking loved the first two movies, like these were movies where I actually felt a thrill when I left the theatre, I absolutely love rewatching them all the time. I'm not even an action movies guy, but I saw the first one on a plane and I just couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks. And like. I'm a history major. Just finished up a class that was vaguely about ww1. I have been hyped for this movie for well over a year, so it's not the historical aspect that bothers me, it's everything else.

- It feels like they relied on the "hey it's a guy from history!" schtick way too hard, and forgot to make an otherwise good movie

-when they aren't doing that schtick it's "cringe reference to the first two movies, just to remind you you could be watching one of those instead!" It's like instead of making a really good standalone movie, they just went "Hey, remember Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)? Haha yeah. Anyway here's Lenin"

-Specific thing that bothered me the goddamn most: the "Disabled Character Gets Fixed™ and is All Better Now" trope is a major plot point, like they could not manage to write a disabled character doing something heroic at all without Fixing him first like holy shit

-the first movie was about a poor kid joining this group of traditionalist, aristocrat spies, which led to a really interesting dynamic and somewhat of a depiction of class conflict. This movie culminates with the Duke of Oxford deciding that aristocrats are better at deciding things than governments, and making a secret group for aristocrats to 'solve' world problems. I guess it does set up the setting for the other two movies, but the weird demonization of the bolsheviks and lenin combined with the supposedly 'evil' motivations of the villain do not provide any kind of nuance other than "england good and aristocrats good"

-the movie is so fucking self defeating. the first half is all about watching a man be utterly opposed to violence due to witnessing tragedy. they literally recite fucking dulce et decorum est to drive that point home. the second half is that same guy being like "no my son is a glorious war hero and now i have to do more violence" LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL???? like they literally take that poem and go "Yes! Dulce et decorum EST!!!!!!"

-like the "my son was a glorious hero of war and so i should be like him and do violence" WILFRED OWEN IS ROLLING IN HIS GRAVE HOW DID YOU MISS THE POINT THAT HARD. also the "heroic action to save everyone" winds up being "convince the united states to join the war" so yaaayyyy more dead people. how did they miss the whole fucking point that bad

-i might be confused but im pretty sure the movie insinuated that its fictional character was the real author of dulce et decorum est which is. so fucking garbage.

-i saw all the rasputin stuff in the ads and i was like "ha that's a funny character to include!" but after rasputin there's a secret villain. they throw in. wait for it. fucking vladimir lenin. and he's depicted as this emotionless robot death man. it's fucking insane i almost laughed out loud he just single handedly kills all the romanovs at once

-the "rasputin as a predatory bisexual" bit was. hhhhggughh

-the main villain's motive is that he wants england destroyed for oppressing scotland and like? yeah okay that's acceptable honestly. rooting for that guy

-the one female character just kisses the male lead on the lips after absolutely no romantic chemistry and it's just fucking weird? she apologizes to a portrait of his dead wife beforehand?

-all the scenes meant to be funny are not funny and the scenes meant to be tragic are too funny

-the lead covers his dead wife's body with his jacket, and while he holds his screaming and crying son, the camera zooms in on the jacket's tag, which says kingsman. i was just staring at the screen like no they would not fucking do that that's too fucking embarrassing

-a lot of the sets just seemed pretty weird. idk how to explain it but i felt like i was watching a youtube video

-and everything was just so fucking hamfisted? like i expect corny shit from a kingsman movie because they're meant to be corny action movies. but this didnt feel like a movie trying to be a corny action movie, it felt like an action movie trying to take itself seriously and accidentally turning out shitty and corny

-the scene where conrad breaks down after the bombing is actually a pretty decent and moving scene. after spending a semester reading letters from dead boys on the frontlines of ww1, it was actually kind of gutting. So why'd they make his death look like a fuckin call of duty kill cam lol. that whole fucking scene was so dorky and nonsensical and just a fucking stupid as hell plot point

-like the whole fucking point is a guy is really against violence. doesn't want his son to go to war because he's seen the horrors of war. the son wants to go anyway, and gets killed by one of his fellow soldiers. they fucking recite dulce et decorum est, the most famous ww1 anti war poem, the entire purpose of which is to tell people to stop fucking glorifying dying for your country because it's a fucking sham. AND THEN THEY GO AND GLORIFY DYING FOR YOUR COUNTRY, KILLING FOR YOUR COUNTRY, AND GETTING MORE PEOPLE TO JOIN THE WAR. HOLY SHIT

-oh also it heavily references dulce et decorum est and doesnt even feature a gas attack. show us gas attacks

Things I Liked:

-the georgian dancing was pretty epic

-i like how they included the real life fact that alpine ibexes can scale 90° degree vertical inclines

-i really want the lead's leather jacket it's so cool

-i might add more to this in the future i just love criticizing films. at the same time i just feel really disappointed cause this just feels like a sort of. shit on what the original movie was. anyway time to watch kingsman the secret service

[nattikay]

So I saw this post while browsing toa tags the other day. While I don’t think being obsessed with the school mascot automatically makes Toby a furry (though it is funny to joke about lol) since “being a furry” actually just means “being a fan of anthropomorphic animals” and doesn’t necessarily require any form of costuming or interest in such, it did get me thinking, hmmm...if he was a furry, what would his fursona be? 🤔 And from there I started wondering what Jim’s and Claire’s would be as well because y not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

BUT WAIT, I hear you say--haven’t you already drawn the trio as werewolves and wolfwalkers etc.? Wouldn’t those be their fursonas??

Well yes....but actually no.

I guess it’s a little hard to explain, but there’s a nuance between “[person] but as an animal” and a proper “fursona”. While a fursona is an animal character used to represent its person, it doesn’t have to physically resemble them at all as you would expect [person]-but-as-[animal] to. For example, if you were to design me but as a cat, you’d probably give it light brown fur and green eyes like I have irl. But my fursona, unlike my human self, actually has blue fur and purple eyes. You can give your fursona matching physical traits to your own if you want to, and some people do, but most use only a pinch of their irl appearance, if any at all.

The choices people make when designing their fursonas vary wildly from “it looks like me irl” to “it looks like who I want to be”  to “I just really like this color scheme” to “this particular color/marking holds deep personal meaning to me” to “this particular pattern represents a particular defining moment in my life” to “idk it looks cool and i vibe with it” etc. etc. etc. Everyone has different reasons of varying depth for the decisions they make in designing their fursona.

Therefore, to design a fursona for Toby etc., it’s less a question of “what would this character look like as [insert species here]?” and more of “how would this character choose to present himself with his own [animal] character?”

And that’s a much trickier game than just transferring a character aesthetic to a new species. ^^; We have to kinda dive into the characters and makes some guesses about how they, if given infinite creative freedom to design an animal avatar with no rules or limits, would choose to present themselves.

So all that said, here’s what I came up with:

Starting with Toby because he’s the one who inspired the post. I think Toby might choose a wolfdog fursona. A lot of people who choose wolves as fursonas consider themselves to be overwhelmingly loyal to their friends, a trait that fits Toby very well. However, while Toby likes to be “cool”, I don’t think he really thinks of himself as much of an “alpha” type--he’s more of a sidekick, and he knows that, and he’s ok with that. He’s the wingman. So what better way to incorporate that than to add dog into the mix? Man’s best friend=Jim’s best friend. Sociable, humorous, and unwaveringly loyal. Wolfdog it is!

With the species decided, we can move on to the design itself.

I can’t imagine any form of Toby in anything other than warm colors. This is extra emphasized by the flamelike patterns on his legs and tail, which both speaks to his desire to be totally awesome-sauce as well as acts as an allusion to his flaming warhammer. It’s fairly common (not universal, but common) for people to give their fursonas a more “ideal” physique than the person actually has as a sort of way to live by proxy physical goals or fantasies they’ve been unable to attain irl for whatever reason. Given that we’ve seen Toby struggle with fitness from time to time, it wouldn’t shock me to see him take this route. His wolfdog self is still relatively short and stocky, but it’s all muscle, babey. 

This fursona is strong, fun, boisterous, and generally just kicks butt. Concentrated awesomesauce flows through his veins. Just don't mess with his friends, or you’ll feel the flames!

.

Moving on to Jim. Jim was the hardest to nail down, and most definitely the hardest to keep my personal biases out of oof. Which I may have failed to do anways because yes, ok, I made my favorite character a blue feline, sue me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  But hear me out first!

For Jim I ultimately settling on a cheetah/lion hybrid.

Cheetahs, in a way, are sort of the underdogs (er...cats?) of the feline world--at least, in their local ecosystems. They are built wholly for speed, not strength--and as such, just about every other large predator in their environment has them beat when it comes to raw strength. Remind you of a certain Trollhunter? plus the long lanky legs. don’t forget those lol

However, because of this disadvantage, cheetahs...usually surrender. They know it’s not worth it to defend their kill from larger, stronger opponents, so they’ll give it up and just catch something else. This aspect doesn’t quite fit our protective, selfless protagonist all too eager to risk everything to save his loved ones--so a pure cheetah may not be the right choice.

So what animal is brave and protective? That’s where the lion part comes in, of course!

Why not just make him a pure lion? Well, a little similar to making Toby a wolfdog instead of a pure wolf. A straight-up lion feels a little too “chad” for our sweet Jimbo. Too much of a jock. 

Jim has the humble underdog nature of a cheetah as well as the bravery and fierce protective drive of a lion. Cheelion? Leetah? idk, but let’s design it!

Like Toby and warm colors, I don’t think I can possibly associate Jim with any color but blue. While it’s never directly stated, given that we’ve never really seen him wear any other color (with the exception of the Eclipse armor), I think it’s pretty safe to assume that that’s his favorite. Blue sweater, blue jeans, blue shoes, even his backpack and bedsheets are blue. So naturally, his fursona would be predominantly blue as well! Plus some yellowish accents to (somewhat) match the natural colors of his chosen species(s).

I imagine he originally designed the character without horns, but then added them after becoming the Trollhunter, since it became such a major and impactful aspect of his life.

His lion’s mane also continues down his back in imitation of the “mantle” found on baby cheetahs. This youthful feature could subtly represent the fact that he’s been forced to grow up too fast and take on so much responsibility so young--so his fursona can still be young and carefree as long as he likes even while his real self struggles with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

This fursona is relaxed, calm, and confident. He’s not just cool--he’s crispy!

.

Lastly but not leastly, we have Claire. Out of the three, I think Claire was actually the easiest to choose--or at least, I had the clearest idea of what I thought she might go for.

Claire is a bit of an interesting duck, because while she’s shown to be fairly popular at school, she’s definitely far from the stereotype of The Popular Girl™. Yes she’s smart and pretty, but she’s also a little spunky or even a bit quirky--she’s a theatre kid, she’s a huge fan of hard rock band Papa Skull, and while I wouldn’t quite call her “rebellious” per se, she’s certainly willing to bend some rules if she feels the situation calls for it (not telling her parents that she was going to the concert with Steve, literally sneaking into Jim’s basement to try to find out what was up with him, etc).

That said, I think Claire might go for a hyena fursona--something a little out of the box, but not totally out of left field. (she also shows a slight Gurl Power™ streak here and there “the staff was not meant to be wielded by man--” “I am not a man!!!”) and if you know anything about hyenas...well, yeah lol)

I think Claire would lean into her punk-rock “rebellious” side with her fursona design. This character is completely free of the pressure of being the councilwoman’s daughter and having to maintain her mother’s public reputation, and thus allows Claire to express a less restrained side of herself. She has a bold semi-edgy color scheme with bright accents (and some earrings to match her person’s hair clips) while still remaining feminine and (her own brand of) fashionable. 

This fursona is spunky and sassy; she’s spicy and sweet all rolled up into one. She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to chase it down. She lives her own life and she’s dang proud of it.

.

....sooooo yeah there’s my take on what Toby’s, Jim’s, and Claire’s fursonas could hypothetically be. And I guess since this post was inspired by a joke about Toby’s infatuation with the school mascot, here’s just some quick thoughts on how they might approach fursuiting to end us off:

Jim I don’t see as much of a suiter. He might try it once or twice if given the opportunity, but at the end of the day it’s not really his cup of tea--he’d rather act as the “handler” for his friends, if anything.

Toby and Claire, on the other hand, I could definitely see as suiters. In fact, with her interest in acting, Claire would probably particularly enjoy it--she’d be one of those suiters who really gets into character, absolutely refuses to break the magic publicly (outside of any actual medical emergency), and popular at cons because she just performs so well. 

Toby, meanwhile, would be the more chill type--uses his normal voice in-suit, isn’t really too stressed about “breaking the magic”, just kinda hanging around like he would normally except “look I’m a talking dog, cool right?”. 

also while I was typing this it occurred to be that since Eli is canonically a cosplayer then he could be a fursuiter as well; in his case i imagine he actually made his own suit it’s a protogen and it’s full of little LEDs and other electric gadgets, it’s not the prettiest thing ever as sewing is not his forte but boy did he try!! good for him. good for him

[alirhi]

Loki ranting

Okay. I had this thought in my head of like just compiling links of all the Loki shit I've posted/reblogged so far so that when I get into a conversation about the show and how it fucking disgusted me, I can just be like "here. here's this masterlist post, go read all this shit. This is my entire argument, and not only mine, but a lot of stuff posted by people far more intelligent and level-headed and eloquent than I am, whom I happen to agree with." Because the alternative is constantly getting fired up all over again, and that is exhausting.

BUT! I'm stupid and don't know how tumblr works. Apparently I can't just be like "give me all the Loki-tagged shit I've got" I can only search all the Loki-tagged shit on all of tumblr. And I'm not scrolling back through all of my posts. I talk too fucking much for that shit 😂

So, I'll try to remember all of my grievances with how the MCU has treated Loki, and all of the excellent posts made by other, equally upset fans, and put it all together here under this nice, neat little cut for everyone else's sanity and scrolling convenience...

For people who actually read my shit fairly regularly - bless you, you crazy, patient people. I love you! - this is going to be a lot of repetition of shit you've already read. Probably at least twice. I'm passionate and I have a terrible memory lol. Sorry.

Anyway, first, for those who don't know me and haven't been following my explosions of rage for the past couple of months, some quick background: I do not read comic books, so Loki's Marvel comic canon means nothing to me. I know almost nothing about it. The reason I'm so in love with the character in the MCU is because I am an eclectic witch and the deity I've actively loved and worshiped the longest in my life (literally for as long as I can remember) is Loki. So when he was mentioned in The Mask, I squeed. When they named Matt Damon's character after him in Dogma, I cheered.

When Thor came out in 2011, I just about died from happiness. I was hungry for any representation of this underappreciated god, no matter what it was. I didn't even bitch about how underpowered he was, because at least he was there. But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.

I can hear anyone reading this going "Why Loki? Isn't he, like, evil? Like basically the Norse version of The Devil?" Because I heard all this shit irl all the fucking time. And no. So let me give you a quick rundown of who Loki actually is.

Loki is a Trickster God. He's often referred to as the God of Mischief. He is not and never was evil, simply chaotic and hedonistic. Loki Laufeyjarson was the son of Laufey (that's mama; they changed her to a man for some reason in the movie) and Fárbauti. Right from the start, from his name, we get a sign of how Loki goes against traditional norms of the time, because in Norse culture, families were patrilineal, and surnames were "son/daughter of father" (which would have made him Loki Fárbautitason), not the mother. But Loki's surname is matrilineal. Feminist icon woo! lol

Though he's a Jotunn, Loki is counted among the Gods (Aesir) in Norse tradition. Depending on his mood, he is alternately helpful or disruptive to the other Gods. I'm not gonna sit and teach a whole text class on him lol but I'll use my favorite example of Misunderstood Loki - the conception of Sleipnir!

So, get this shit. This is also part of why I DO NOT follow Odin and never fucking will (a very small part, but still part of the reason). So, the other Norse Gods are petty motherfuckers, and they wanted some shit built but didn't want to pay the dude doing the building. So they were like "okay, if you can get it done in X amount of time, we'll pay you, but if you can't manage it NO MATTER WHAT, this whole thing is free." And they made sure he had NO help, nothing but him, his materials, and his Very Good Horsey. And this guy and his horse were fucking BAMFs. So it was looking like he was definitely gonna get it done in time, and Odin was like "nah, fuck that shit. I'm cheap." and so he sent Loki to distract the work horse. Loki transformed into a mare and lured the horse away, got fucked, got pregnant, gave birth to the 8-legged (for some reason) horse Sleipnir. Odin rides Loki's son into battle. Um. Kay.

So Loki helped Odin be a petty mf, and Odin got himself a new pet out of the deal.

Oh, also, because he's smart af and a shapeshifter and a master magician and genderfluid, Loki "fails" to fit the super fucking toxic and narrow Norse/Aesir view of "a real man". He prefers intelligence and manipulation to solve problems rather than violence, he's not afraid to behave like a clown if it gets shit done, and that grosses the Aesir out, so they constantly ridicule him for being "less than a man".

Loki is the God of the outcast and the misunderstood. The marginalized people from all walks of life. He is the God of the LGBT community. In modern terms, he's pansexual, polyamorous (married to Sigyn and they are deeply in love, but boy gets around and I've never seen any indication that Sigyn gives a shit) and genderfluid.

Okay. Focus, Ali. This is part of why I usually post multiple rants instead of one big long one XD The longer I ramble, the more I get sidetracked and forget the original point.

So. Loki's awesome, and being a Trickster, is powerful as all fucking hell. There's not much he can't do.

And now we come to Thor (the movie, not the deity). Loki's there! 24-year-old Ali is spazzing! All is right with the world!

Oh lord, they've actually done him justice?! Amazing! He's complex and nuanced and emotional, just like the real Loki! I loved this movie. Loved. It. The climactic thing with trying to blow up Jotunheim never really made much sense to me until someone made an excellent point the other day about Loki being raised in a racist society that was racist against his own race, he just didn't know it yet, poor child. Baby Thor was never corrected when he pledged to commit mass genocide, so Baby Loki probably absorbed the lesson then that Jotunns=evil and killing them all will win his father's love. Anyway, 2011 Loki was a beautiful, heartbreaking portrayal of the God I've loved all my life and spent 24 years longing to see depicted on the big screen.

Then The Avengers happened. And I saw another Loki very close to Norse mythology - mainly, how he's treated. In the beginning of the movie, he's sick, exhausted, and in pain. He can hardly stand, he stumbles and needs help when he walks. He was very obviously tortured, and the sickly blue light of the scepter's control is in his eyes. That gets less and less pronounced as the movie goes on, showing Loki working his way free of it, but in the beginning, he's a mess. Because he was tortured and used by Thanos. Marvel directly confirmed this, and that he was under the scepter's/Mind Stone's control. Loki's actions are not his own in The Avengers. He's under both threat and Thanos' direct control. The movie actually shows The Other directly threatening him to keep him on task, because this is not Loki's plan. It is not what he wants. He's being used and villainized... Just like in real life. It hurt to see this done to him, but the accuracy was too beautiful to ignore.

Thor: The Dark World comes out. I've heard people complain that this movie is the weak link in the Thor trilogy. I disagree. I think that's Ragnarok, for a bunch of reasons, but we'll get there. (And for the record, I loved Ragnarok, too. It was a funny movie. Infinity War and the Disney+ series are the only portrayals of Loki in the MCU that I truly fucking hated.) Anyway, good, fun movie. Had its faults, as all movies do, but it still followed Loki's real-life arc in a way. How? By having Loki dragged back to Asgard in chains and imprisoned underground. Again, not super happy that this happened to my love, and having to see it on screen was painful, but at least in the MCU he's not chained to a rock with venom dripping on his face for eternity, so there's that. (poor Sigyn. how tired do her arms get, holding up that bowl? best wife ever, amirite?)

In TDW, we're shown Loki's love for Frigga, who favored him and taught him magic as a child. We see his bravado; his attempts to mask his true feelings, especially grief. We see him slowly coming back to himself after the events of The Avengers, and slowly mending his relationship with his brother. He accepts that Odin will likely never love him, but Thor just might, because they were close when they were young. "I didn't do it for him." No, no my sweet, you did it for your brother, and a little out of guilt for what happened to your mother.

At the end, Loki fakes his death and escapes, taking the throne, and I have mixed feelings about this. Not the writer's choices here; I love that completely! A natural progression in Loki's story. But my joy is tainted by how closely they're following the Eddas now. Because Loki's escape from his prison heralds the beginning of Ragnarok. And Loki will die in Ragnarok. I don't want to see that play out in front of my face. I won't be able to handle the grief (spoiler alert! IW broke me. I almost walked out of the theater. Loki's death was legitimately fucking traumatic for me. I don't even care how pathetic that is. That grief was real, it was intense, and I still shake and cry when I think about it.)

Marvel announces that Thor 3 will be called Ragnarok. The internet treats this as a shocking revelation. I roll my eyes and mumble "duh" to myself and move on XD

Then they say Ragnarok will be a buddy comedy. I throw up a little in my mouth and no longer want to live on this planet. If they're going to make something called Ragnarok, could they at least treat it with even a fraction of the respect they've shown these characters thusfar? Jfc. I mean, I'll see it anyway, because I'm a whore for Tom Hiddleston lol. But come on, people!

I hated that they made Hel the long-lost older sister and Fenrir her fucking pet/attack dog. Those are my favorites of Loki's children! Hel is such an incredible badass that the early Christians named their dimension of eternal torture after her! They were terrified of her, to the point of naming the place that terrified them most after her. That's awesome! And Fenrir's just the best. I love wolves. Those two details, and Odin's retcon of "we're not Gods! ...lol, except your sister. she's totally a Goddess. and def gonna kill literally everything, so... good luck! byyyeeeee" pissed me off royally.

The rest was great. I genuinely liked this movie. Still do. And they finally used The Immigrant Song! That was pretty cool. If they'd thrown in Bring the Hammer Down and Thunderstruck, I might've called this movie perfect. XD

I wasn't totally in love with their portrayal of Loki in Ragnarok. Yes, the falling for 30 minutes line was funny, as was "I have to get off this planet" and "YES! That's how it feels!" And "Get Help" was funny as hell. But also, like... There is no way Loki would have been the dumb one in that first encounter with Hela. Also, he can teleport and project copies of himself and shit, so... He would not have been that desperate to go straight back to Asgard and bring her right along with them. Loki's not stupid. But whatever. Movie's gotta movie.

What I did love was seeing the slow mending of his relationship with Thor continuing, and the badass fighting on the bridge. I also loved that, like Real Loki, Movie Loki helped when help was needed, was quick and clever, and while he was carrying out the main plan, he was also planning ahead and grabbing the Tesseract. Yes, that drew Thanos right to them, but that's a whole other thing. Loki never would have left that thing on Asgard to be destroyed or lost.

And now Infinity War. Hooooly fucking shit. You know what? No. I'm not going into this. He was killed, years of character growth were erased forever, my heart fucking shattered. The end.

Endgame. IW hurt me so bad I didn't see Endgame until this year. I actually watched Civil War first (for context: I had actively avoided all Cap movies until this year because I fucking hate Steve Rogers. I find him insufferable. Did not realize what I was denying myself until I watched CW and finally saw the charms of Bucky. When he appeared in IW, I was so lost. XD I was like "...who dis? Murder Jesus?" also I just... didn't care. I was numb by then from crying through most of the movie over Loki)

So, anyway. Endgame. Loki picks up the Tesseract in alternate 2012, escapes, fans go "yay! he didn't actually die!" I go "yes he fucking did. Five years of his life, gone. Five years of growth and change, erased. Loki is dead. This will not be the same."

I was more right than I could have predicted. Now we come to the point of this rant. Sorry it took so long, but you were warned lol.

The Loki series makes me so angry I actually get sick to my stomach. It was fucking TRASH. When I praised Marvel for following Norse mythology so faithfully earlier? Yeah. I DID NOT MEAN TREAT HIM THE WAY THE OTHER GODS DID. I did not mean paint him as a pitiful clown, a joke, a caricature of who he truly was, with his pain and suffering played for LAUGHS.

This is supposed to be 2012 Loki, newly freed from Thanos' control. The Loki we saw in the beginning of TDW - snarky, exhausted, nihilistic. The Loki who rolled his eyes and said "get on with it" expecting to be killed.

The bumbling clown flipping on a dime from posturing to calling himself weak is not 2012 Loki. That is not ANY Loki. That is Tom Hiddleston in a black wig doing what he's told by a shitty writer who had no fucking idea what he was doing and was salty about his (bad) original script (for something totally fucking unrelated) getting killed.

In Episode 1, Loki is mocked, imprisoned, stripped against his will, tormented, belittled, and given a flippant summary of all the trauma Actual MCU Loki suffered that this one skipped out on, with no context, no acknowledgement of the trauma he's already lived quite fucking recently, and with the narrative twisted to not only erase all the abuse he's suffered, but to make it all his fault. And this is supposed to make him want to help these people?

And worse, IT FUCKING WORKS. WHAT?! I CAN'T- FUCKING WHAT?! Remember when I said LOKI IS NOT FUCKING STUPID?! So why is he STUPID?

Episode 2, he's a child. Mentally, this Loki is a fucking child. Now we've erased all the growth and development of his entire adult life. He's dopey, impatient, impulsive, desperate for a pat on the back and actually shows it. Yes, abused and neglected children crave the positive attention we never received, and we often grow up to be a bit emotionally stunted. But not all of us, and not Loki. Not as we've seen him EVER in the rest of the MCU. Playful and a bit callous at times? Absolutely! But not a big dumb fucking puppy.

Episode 3, a ray of hope, despite Sylvie! (I hate Sylvie) Loki casually admits he's pan/bi; labels never come up, but he admits to being with both men and women! He sings! Not really relevant to whether I approve of his portrayal or not lol but Tom has a beautiful voice, Norwegian ("Asgardian" lol) is a gorgeous, entrancing language, and I could watch that one bit on loop for eternity and never get bored. And then, finally, we see a glimpse - a glimpse - of Loki's power! He stops a falling building and pushes it right back up! Are we finally getting to see what he can really do? Will the next episode bring us Loki in all his glory?

Nope. 4 and 5 we see him mocked and pushed around and utterly irrelevant. Again. We see tiny reflections of what he could maybe theoretically do in other random Loki variants, but the "main" (lawl. main. it was the Sylvie and Mobius show. Loki was never the main anything.) Loki? Nothing. He wears his heart on his sleeve for no reason, bonds with the man who imprisoned, taunted, and gaslit him, is killed, and continues to be a moron and a joke. Always the clown. Always the dumb one. The one with the bad ideas. The inferior Loki.

Don't even get me started on that finale. I can't. This already took so much out of me. Fuck Marvel. Fuck this fucking show. I just... I'm done.

[plutoswrath]

hi luca! whos chart in nct r ur fav?? <3

Hello! x An eXCELlent question, truly, one of my favorite activities became gushing over anything nct related at this point asdfgh. Short disclaimer: No ones birth chart is ‘bad’, in astrology there isn’t such thing as a ‘bad’ birth chart, this is all just my personal preference and has nothing to do with the native of the natal chart, there’s no favoritism playing into this, just plain astrological interest! 

Continue to read under cut, long post ahead!

Taeyong: I think I’ve mentioned before that I really really like his birth chart!! I love the different elements and modalities playing into it, it truly is a very good representation of the chaotic, yet sincere and creative individual he is, just really following the beat of his own drum! Also, he’s such a warm and kind person that just really shows in his chart. I do have to say that I love love love Virgo Mars people, I generally love Virgo placements and people with profound Virgo influence, but Taeyong is really hard working and caring and it truly ties to the expectations he not only has for himself, but also that he feels responsible for other people by nature probably (Mars in Virgo in the 7th, especially in opposition to his Saturn) and his really bright and carefree creative streak really shines through with that Sagittarius MC and Gemini Mercury and Venus!! I also mean this with 100% positivity when I say he’s really quirky, always a little bit ‘out of the box’ compared to other people and still just a really authentic person, no matter how ‘odd’ he might come across and his chart just really shows that: being true and sincere because there’s nothing else he can do than being true to himself! An absolute unit, a cancerian enigma as it is written in the books!! 

Jeno: Finally I get the opportunity to talk about this chart!!! Because oh boy do I have opinions on this!!!! First of all: He is an earth sign with a Sagittarius Moon and I love love love this combination in general, especially with his Venusian sun and a Jupiterian Moon it makes for a person that can create a really nice atmosphere, just really pleasant to be with and probably values the good things in life (that defenitely included the small things!!). Looking at Jenos joyous vibe the combi just seems to make sense, I also love the combination of his Taurus stellium and the Aries Venus and Mercury, the dynamic of fixed earth and cardinal fire usually makes a person that is really determined and ambitious. I know it’s not the same as having an Aries Mars, but nontheless Aries energy can create sparks of creativity that the Taurean nature wants to pursue and can actually pull through, because if there’s one thing Taurus is good at then it’s being persistant about anything they love and put their heart in! 

Yuta: I’ve written quiet a bit about his chart, and to be honest my opinion of his chart changed over time, because of his personality and the way we got to know him. In a way, the more I’ve seen of Yuta, the more intruiged I was by the way his birth chart lives out; his chart seems pretty overwhelming at first glance, but what I do love are his two stelliums of Scorpio and Sagittarius. The dynamic of these two neighboring signs is literally diving deep, feeling even more deeper and then fully letting go of it to look into the future and at life with a hopeful and excited attitude. I think his birth chart also reflect the potential of someone self reflected and restless, always being up for transformation and not stagnating, because self developement is the only thing that make sense: with his the individual might feel like they need to surrender to this energy, and eventually it’s true. I think..he’s just a good reflection of his birth chart, I think there’s no other way for him than making sense of all this energy clusters that are in his chart anyway, but yes! I think he’s just an enigma and I’m here for it!!!

Xiaojun: Okay, I will say one thing I love Leo sun in combination with cancer placements, preferably Moon and Mercury. I just noticed that Leo people with profound Cancer in their chart are so incredibly warm people and they just want nothing more than love, they really just want pure and unfiltered emotion and they gladly give this back in return. I think needless to say this makes for a very sensitive person, and Xiaojun defenitely is that too, but it also makes them give that same amount of empathy back and especially the combination with Virgo Venus creates it a wish for devotion. I will be honest I usually I am always a tat critical when I see Scorpio Mars placed in the chart of a fire sign, but I think with him it just adds to this wholehearted and passionate nature of his, plus I think this makes for a really tough cookie, I think viewing his chart critically the first thing that one would notice is the huge water sign energy, but he also has lots of fixed sign modality playing into it, so I firmly believe he is a real go getter, motivated by his passions and working quietly on it instead of being a bragger (because this might just bite him back in the end). 

Kun: I will be very honest, the first impression of his chart was a ‘........oh no’ for me asdfgh, same with Yutas chart, just because of the huge stellium they both share, for Kun it would be his 5 planets in Capricorn. Stelliums are usually known to be a very tricky thing to have in ones birth chart, most of the time stelliums can symbolize a crossroad of potentials and thus can end in a lot of indecisevness for an individual. I think Kun is just one of the best examples of how far one can push the possibilities of a stellium, especially if we consider his confirmed birth time, thus giving him also a 6th house stellium. I think I’m just really fascinated how 6th house stelliums play out (look at Bang Chans 6th house stellium, that guy does everything and is everyhwere, just like Kun) and if we stick to the rules of astrology, hoh boy does his facial bone structure reflect this huge Caprciorn influence, and now to top it all of with my personal preferences: I have a huge huge soft spots for Taurus Moons and I think I like the combination of his Capricorn sun and Taurus Moon a lot, overall his chart just reflects his determination and ambitious nature, work is done thoroughly and attentively, and let’s not forget that his determination is also a big representation of how much he cares (Taurus Moon in the 10th?? It’s more likely than you think asdfgh). 

Jungwoo: It’s all because of his Scorpio Moon, I’m outing myself now, Water suns with Water Moons, especially when the Moon is in Scorpio and Pisces, usually have something very magnetic about them, same can be said with Water suns with Water risings. I think the interest and strong liking I build for his chart came along with his personality, another enigma at hands, Jungwoo is a really nuanced person and I really enjoy when he talks honestly about his feelings and other members in interviews, or just talks casually in vlives, because it gives you a good glance of anything beside his really funny and goofy side (which is by the way no form of complaint here, if there’s one thing no one wants to miss it’s Jungwoos shenanigans asdfgk). I don’t know why but teh first time I looked at his chart I just said ‘Huh???’ out loud because I was really suprised by his Moon sign and Venus. He has an Aquarius and Pisces stellium and i think this might overshadow the other placements a lot, especially since his Sun is in a degree of 0 and his Neptune as well (as Neptune rules Pisces it would be good to look at that planet as well lol). Well yeah, i think it only make sense that everyone got so intruiged by Jungwoo over the last time, I kind of feel the same as with Jaehyun with him, all that Aquarius and Pisces makes people have a harder time seeing them ‘clearly’ at times and also probably projecting a lot on them, so yeah. This is my statement asdfghjk

Sungchan: He’s a Virgo sun, what can I say, that already made me happy asdfghj but I do like the Earth Sun and Water Moon combo, it’s also funny that he has a planet occupying every sign from Gemini to Libra, especially since they’re all personal, plus his Mars in Capricorn of course. Since Sungchan is new to nct I still am very hesitant to making any statement but overall I just like to look at the chart, it seems just very balanced and I can’t wait to sotr his placements to various reactions and moments in a year when we have a lot of content at hand! 

Chenle: I know his sun sign could actually vary, but I will hold close to him being a Scorpio, he has an Aquarius stellium as well (seriously 60% of nct has an Aquarius stellium, despite the fact that they already have so many Aquarians in the band asdfghjkl), which squares his Scorpio stellium, and then add the trine to his Saturn and his Jupiter to it. Maybe that’s a very weird reason, but I like the way the chart physically looks (yes that is maybe not really based on any astrological explainations, but it’s just really interesting to look at). I also do know another Scorpio sun with Aquarius Moon in real life, and they do have their similarities, I also see a lot of Aquarius and Scorpio friends and couples in real life, so even though these signs square the other, I think they seem to find common ground or make amends pretty quickly. I think it’s just the mix of energies that clash here that are really intruiging to me!

[theonceandfutureking6481]

BBC's Merlin Season 1 Episode 4: The Poisoned Chalice Analysis

This is one of my favourite episodes, in this season, mainly for Merlin and Arthur. They are wonderful in this episode, and this is the first episode where you really see them starting to truly care about each other. This is a show fundamentally about love and the relationships between every character, and Merlin and Arthur are at the core of the show. Everyone in this episode though is so brave, and I admire them all so much. I talk a lot about a lot of different elements of Merlin on here but what I really love about this show is how much the characters inspire me, how much I admire them because I'm not sure I could ever be as brave as these characters, but I'd like to be.

Merlin's courage

There's not much in detail I can say about this but Merlin is so brave at the start of this episode. To burst into the king's hall and publicly accuse another king of attempting to poison Arthur. It's funny but one of the parts of Merlin's courage I most admire isn't his bravery to die for Arthur, it's his willingness to speak out when somethings wrong, his willingness to publicly embarrass himself, his willingness to be brave even when he could be wrong. It's a reachable form of courage, I don't think any of us frequently (or ever) have the opportunity to die for others, but in many ways the fact that we could all be as brave as Merlin in this way, that's what makes it feel so much more unattainable and thus more admirable.

The bigger courage though really is when Merlin drinks from the goblet, honestly even though Uther made him, Arthur probably would have drunk it but Merlin didn't let him. Merlin knew he would die if he drunk from that goblet, because he believed Nimueh to be telling the truth (which she was), but (as Arthur says) "he did it anyway." To meet death so willingly, it's not like jumping in front of someone in the moment in a battle, he had to make the choice to drink that poison because he is willing to sacrifice his life for Arthur's. And it hasn't got anything to do with destiny yet, he cares about Arthur, Arthur's his friend and Merlin's a good person. It's just a very noble moment for Merlin, Uther was making him but at the same time you could see Merlin choosing to drink from it, that's a choice and that was incredibly noble.

Arthur and Uther

There is tension between Arthur and Uther in this episode, between their views on the world and honour. It is, I think essentially summed up in.

Arthur: Because his life's worthless?

Uther: No, because its worth less than yours.

It's funny, you can see Uther's perspective here. He is right about one thing, Arthur is the future king, even if he's not inherently worth more than Merlin the stability of the kingdom rests on a secure succession and Arthur is Uther's only heir, there is more at stake here.

But Arthur's also right, a world in which any single person's life is protected more than others because of their social position is not a good place. It is not something Arthur believes in, but in Uther's world its just a given, it's not even a question that people ask.

Uther: This boy wont be the last to die on your behalf

Arthur: I can't accept that

Arthur never accepts this inevitability, he always seeks to risk his life first before any one else's and people follow him because of that, people (even his enemies) see the nobility in him because of that. His refusal to accept what to Uther appears to be an inevitability of kingship (Not a welcome one granted but one nonetheless) is what's going to make him a better king than Uther. As Morgana emphasises when she's persuading Arthur to go.

Morgana: And what sort of king would Camelot want? One that would risk his life to save that of a lowly servant, or one that does what his father tells him to?

Isn't this really just the point, Arthur will be a better king than his father because for him his right to rule is in some way always premised on his fulfilment of what he sees as right. Arthur is always trying to prove himself, especially in the early seasons. In Season 2 Episode 2: The Once and Future Queen when Arthur is fighting in a tournament under an alias so people don't know its him (and they will hopefully not let him win), you really see this.

Gwen: You have nothing to prove, least of all to me.

Arthur: I have everything to prove, to myself.

This is the fundamental point, Arthur is always trying to prove himself often to his father or others but always primarily to himself. Because he needs to prove to himself that he can rule Camelot, that he is deserving of it, so for the fact that he's going to be king to hold any weight he needs to do what he thinks is right, because if he doesn't then what sort of king would he be anyway?

This ties I think into what I mentioned in the last episode about Merlin and the greater good. The idea that Merlin never really makes the choice to kill Morgana or Mordred, except for in a moment where it was Morgana or Arthur, where it was a certain in the moment choice. Yes, he reaches a point where he tries to let them die but this is different to outright murder, and I think perhaps a Merlin who would have killed them is not a the Merlin we know, it is not a Merlin that could have formed Camelot. Arthur and Merlin's goodness comes from always trying to do the right thing, whatever the sacrifice to themselves, and if they hadn't been those sort of people then there is no way they could have been people who made a better kingdom.

Gaius: Arthur may give you a hard time, but at heart he's a man of honour. Not many people would have risked what he did for a servant

Uther

Uther's interesting in this episode, he has one of his worst moments in the show, not the worst thing he's ever done but certainly one of the worst things we witness. He purposefully lets Merlin die, we could understand it when he wasn't letting Arthur go after him, but to try to destroy Merlin's only hope for a cure to teach his son a lesson, that is cruel and so wrong. This takes valuing Arthur's life more than Merlin's to a whole other level, he values Arthur's obeying of him more than he values Merlin's life.

This goes to another feature of Uther's character I was just thinking about. He constantly mistakes control for love. He seeks to control both his children, he wants them to obey him, and if they openly defy him or disagree with him he punishes them. But he does love them, probably more than he loves anything else. When Morgana stages a coup against him and tells him how much she hates him he is broken, and he literally never recovers he does love them that cannot be denied but he spends so much of his life mistaking his controlling them for an expression of his love. It is an expression of his fear, he is scared of being out of control as he was when his wife died. Magic can be dangerous but mostly it caused him great suffering (although really it was him), so he seeks to control it absolutely, there is no nuance there and this is how he behaves towards his children. Hate and fear are terrible things to be motivated by, and Uther shows that. His hate comes from his fear, and his cruelty comes from there as well.

One thing, Uther does accept his fault at the end of this episode. It's not really adequate but its better than nothing and in its own way shows that Uther is capable of character development, and the fact that he will fail to do it in the most important ways is sad. His moment when he says to Arthur that Nimueh "is evil", it is so clear he is talking more to himself than anyone else. Isn't that a sign of trying to persuade yourself, he has to tell himself that Nimueh's evil cause ultimately she was just doing what he asked, and if he doesn't villainise her absolutely than its his fault too.

The one moment that really does redeem Uther a little in this episode is when he tells Arthur that "You did the right thing... I'm proud of you Arthur, never forget that." The last comment is telling, Uther knows he's not the best father, he knows that Arthur probably doesn't realise that Uther is proud of him. So the 'never forget that' is a reminder, I think, for when Uther inevitably forgets that himself. It is a reminder, for us, in its own way that Uther is trying to be a good father, and at least in this realm Uther realises that he very often fails.

Morgana

One interesting thing I noticed in this episode was how frustrated Morgana is with her life. I've never really noticed it before, but its in everything she says and does, even in the episodes before this. Even before she turns against Arthur and Uther and Camelot she is angry, not just at them, she's angry at her life. You can tell she feels like she doesn't have the power to do anything, like she's being controlled and perhaps like she isn't able to anything good or right because of Uther and her position, she feels pity for all the magic users but she is a part of the body that persecutes them. How do you reconcile that?

Morgana: Sometimes you have to do what you think is right and damn the consequences

There is so much frustration in that, and everything she says in this scene. I don't know exactly what this says about Morgana's character or her eventual place in the story but its interesting to note. Perhaps its to say her hatred of Uther and eventually Arthur isn't only because of her sympathy for magic users and eventually her own fear and feelings of being unloved but perhaps has its roots in her anger at this time, in Uther's control and her own powerlessness.

Merlin and Arthur

This is Merlin and Arthur's episode, so its kind of funny it took me so long to get to them, but there's really not that much to analyse in the wider scheme regarding them. They just are, and they are wonderful.

This is the episode where you see they do truly care about each other and they are truly good friends They risk their lives for each other with barely a second thought, and yes that is partially their own honour and decency but it is also fundamentally their care for each other that motivates them. You can tell when Merlin's thinking about destiny when he saves Arthur, it becomes such a huge part of his characterisation later on even though he loves Arthur more by that point he also admires him more so Arthur's destiny seems more important. Merlin doesn't really admire Arthur that much yet, he respects him and cares about him but the sheer admiration he will have for him comes later, and it is that admiration that makes him care even more about Arthur's destiny, because he believes in it far more. Right now though it is just their goodness and their friendship that motivates them.

The final moment between them though is beautiful. The moment when Arthur goes to Gaius' chambers just to check that Merlin's all right, even though he's obviously been told he is. He brushes it aside as usual, brushes how much he does actually care about what happens to Merlin (I mean Arthur did just go on a perilous quest that could have led to his death for him so I think Merlin gets it). But the moment at the end of that scene is lovely. There is just such mutual respect and recognition of each other and what they've done for each other, and the way they look at each other is just so wonderful.

Merlin: Thank you

Arthur: You too

Nimueh

One quick note about her. We will find out eventually what her motivations really are, that she's obviously not just evil. That she is angry at Uther and understandably so. And I wonder if in her there is a parallel for Uther I hadn't considered before. Both of them were involved in Igraine's death and Arthur's birth. And it was as a result of this action that Uther outlawed sorcery and began the great purge. She out of everyone knows best how hypocritical Uther really is. And in her own way, though it is obviously not her fault, it is her actions that set off the great purge. Uther made the choice to blame her and all magic but nonetheless it was a spell she cast that was the trigger, and I wonder if in her own way she feels guilty (just as Uther feels guilty about his wife's death) but like Uther she takes it out in anger rather than guilt. I'm not saying she should feel guilty, perhaps over Igraine's death but certainly not the great purge. However, she most probably does, and like Uther I think she's refusing to feel that guilt, and to avoid that guilt she chooses hatred and anger instead.

Bravery

Everyone in this episode though, is so brave. Gwen, Merlin, Arthur and Gaius all do risky, brave things that could get them killed, though maybe not killed in Gwen's case but certainly in huge trouble. Gwen sneaks into the dungeons and Gaius does magic. We will learn more about Gaius' character later but he is in many ways not a brave person, he is the sort who witnesses injustice and stays quiet, he's not brave. But he's brave here, he does magic, for Merlin, because he loves Merlin like a son. All the courage and bravery in this show comes from the love people have for others, and that's an important message, that the people we love and our own ability to love others can inspire us to be better people and to be brave.

Their immediate response to Merlin's apparent death moreover is guilty, they have nothing to feel guilty about, it's Uther's fault, but they blame themselves anyway. There is in that a contrast to Uther, who refuses to blame himself. They don't take their pain out in anger, they accept it and even though they have nothing to be guilty for the fact that their immediate response is guilt does say they are better people, braver people than Uther.

Other things

Morgana holding that butter knife ready to fight Bayard's men is the funniest thing ever. Like its an impressive butter knife, but it is still so clearly a butter knife.

Also so many bad guys plans in this show rely on Arthur or Merlin being fundamentally good people, like when your plan involves using people's goodness against them you need to re-evaluate your choices in life. I suppose its part of the point though- that they are willing to harm the innocent or take advantage of goodness in their anger. Uther punishes goodness in this episode.

My new motivational quote—> Gaius: "As the Old proverb says: Hard work breeds..........a harder soul." Merlin: "There is no way that's a proverb. You just made that up."

[dharmadischarge]

Top 5 Novels: or it gets dark around here early.

So now I am trying to say something. That is all. No, that will not do at all... Here is a list of my top 5 novels, with one short review and four long ones.

1, Jim Dodge - Stone Junction. Reading Stone Junction by Jim Dodge is like meeting the father you never had

2, Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow Subtlety is overrated... and just because you have a boner doesn't mean you're a terrorist. I mean, it doesn't mean you're not causing those rockets to come from the sky. But, still, that is beside the point.

For me, this book is about obliterating the arbitrary distinction between high and low culture. The ironically arbitrary distinction between good and evil and the dangerously subtle distinction between despondency and hope.

Fractured, layered, elusive, you could accuse Pynchon of all these things.

The way characters bleed into one another to make one voice. A hellish symphony of discordant cries of pain reaching out to a belief that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and paranoia is the glue.

Also, it is funny. Like in a dumb way and there are songs. Also, dumb.

Everyone will talk about how polarising this book is but I don't believe it. you can follow the bouncing ball and sing along or live in fear that at any moment the terror will become real and you will collapse into ellipsis...

It is the third and newer testament. An epilogue to western culture as racist cultural energy written by a crazy white guy. T.S. Elliot and his wasteland were a prelude, in hindsight, nothing but a john the baptist-like figure for the cross that Pynchon presents to all readers as their burden to carry with this book.

Hope is crazy painful, consciousness is such a fragile thing and the burden of consciousness is the pain of knowing that (beyond the act of effort itself) it is a futile one.

Jim Dodge once said, "a stone falls till it hits the earth, transcend what?" and that about sums it up.

3, Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian.

Blood Meridian is a kind of repetitious, primeval-hillbilly level of primitive interpretation of the morality expressed in the book of revelation fighting its way onto the page as barely literate poetry.

It is not a book of social niceties, justice, or the warm feeling you get when you do something good. also, this book could also easily be seen as porn for serial killers.

I scanned the reviews and saw all the campy (and not the good kind of campy) parodies this kind of book inspires in the age of irony we live in (though it seems like it is on its last legs). And while I like me a good parody, I find that Eli Cash did it better.

There is something to be said about how Cormac McCarthy (ab)uses the English language. The one good line I read from one of the negative reviews of his books was that a middle schooler could list what he doesn't like about the kids who bully him and that this list would have more emotional nuance and better use of punctuation than a Cormac McCarthy novel. This is fair.

The conceptional power of Blood Meridian though is that it frames cruelty and violence for what it is: reality. While also through its sometimes monotonous exaggeration of William Faulkners styled repetitions it creates a sense of unreality. A sense that like David Lynch's best work that we are walking, daily, through something so evil and violent that it borders on slapstick, and at last we laugh in self-defense.

I think the people who parody the book without much thought got trapt in the intellectual self-defense state that is part of coping and couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Civilization is a fragile thing, it is the human race trying to domesticate itself, and the longer it goes on the more it seems like we're just sweeping what we don't like under the rug.

4, John Crowley - Little, Big.

There is a kind of hokey-Americana style kitsch that most of my favorite writers could be accused of, from, Tom Robbins to Jim Dodge. John Crowley may be the peak of it. It could be because on the surface Americans don't have a unified culture we are a melting pot with capitalism only encouraging the lowest common denominator (the pursuit of greed as its own reward).

But in any creative act that does not presume to be the literal expression of anything but pure gratitude, there is politics. The politics of worth, of greatness, inherent value, and the desire to prove that the wisdom offered was truly earned. That a difficult pleasure does not mean that there is none.

This is an American fairytale. A once upon a time that seems eerily to remind of another Crowley, that codesigned the deck of Thoth tarot cards (A really good one for those curious) more than the writers of magical realism. And probably because I didn't read this in translation I preferred it to a hundred years of solitude. This may seem random to people of the fantasy crowd who know that genre is only a limitation to artistic merit if you want it to be (usually for cultural-political reasons). but people often compare this book to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's writing. And while they are both family chronicles with supernatural elements. this is kind of a shallow comparison.

Crowley's work is more in the tradition of an occult mystic, and Gabo is more a romantic using personal folklore as the vocabulary of that romantic expression (of which I think love in the time of cholera, is his masterpiece).

I am trying to not give away any spoilers, or even talk about specifics at all. but the ending is worth it. Like most things in life, it's your journey to go on so I won't ruin it for you, but they are out there waiting for you, where the lights never go out.

5, Neil Gaiman - The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

"words save our live's sometimes"

I was a frustrated borderline feral child, who could not deal with reality. My parents taught me how to read and not much else. I was homeschooled and weighed three hundred pounds by the time I was thirteen. I remember one night unable to deal with any more abuse that I laid down and decided my dreams would have to be enough, I close my eyes and went away for a long time. Lettie Hempstock's ocean is real to me I almost drowned in it.

When I was a teenager the cult-like fundamentalist atmosphere of my home life became less extreme, but the damage was done. I was still in the ocean. it says something about my state of mind that the closest I came to getting traction on reality was starting a habit of reading insistently, my favorite book was Stardust by Neil Gaiman.

Once on Twitter, I told him "thank you" for writing it. I later after reading this book I wrote a short review of this book and sent it to him. He said "thank you" to me in a @ mention. It was nice. I later @ mentioned him in a playfully sarcastic way and he deleted his original comment.

I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when I was twenty-four or twenty-five. I have been told I had childhood-onset schizophrenia. I have been told I milk it. I have been told that I self isolate.

I have been writing reviews tonight, going through my favorite books, and just live streaming my mind. Thinking about how they made me feel and what they make me think. Neil Gaiman's work always makes my brain retreat on itself. Possibly because of stardust. But more than that it is the wisdom he has. He knows that stories are true in a way that transcends a mere list of facts. communicating for those with an ear to listen that there is more than what we know, there is more than our understanding, there is more than us. More than you, more than me. There is an ocean that is healing for some while necessarily absent for others.

We forget, and we remember. Each other and ourselves. Cruelty and innocence. But there is an ocean and it is Lettie Hempstock's.

[fallout-lou-begas]

A lot of people have accused yjj of being racist, particarily in regards to one of their comics involving Joshua graham, and in general saying that they glorify colonization. I mainly understand the other things they’ve done, but the racism seems inexusable. A lot of people have also been saying that yjj and their followers have harassed people. I want to get both sides of the story on this, so basically I’m asking what the deal with all this is?

Hi, anon. I'll provide my thoughts since you asked politely.

This post is quite long and can be considered an extension of my previous post on the matter.

Besides the infamous and self-admittedly ill-informed chancla comic, for which they've apologized, essentially all of the claims that Yesjejunus is racist stem from their depiction of the Dead Horses and Sorrows relative to their depiction of Joshua Graham and their original character Joan in their fanfic No Light (and to a lesser extent Learnin’ the Blues), which is heavily grounded in the setting of Honest Hearts. I think it's unambiguous that the depiction of vaguely defined "tribals" in Honest Hearts, assembled through a mishmash of disparate signifiers and recycled stereotypes and named like Warrior Cats and completely helpless without Joshua Graham's guidance, is indeed thoroughly racist, even if it was intended to be more nuanced and came from a place of self-admitted ignorance on the part of the developers. What I struggle to understand is that the developers and writers of Honest Hearts—and of Fallout: New Vegas as a whole since the entire game is rife with such mishandled, insufficient depictions of "tribals" with no explicit inclusion at all of any specific Indigenous people or presence—are given miles and miles more sympathy and leeway for their poor handling of these characters in the source material than a fanfic writer is for using the tools and setting that they were given by that source material, including the "lore" and naming conventions of the Dead Horses and Sorrows, to tell a story that means a lot to them personally, inspired by their own deepest fears and experiences with abuse, and ignited by their charismatic yet deeply and blatantly monstrous interpretation of Joshua Graham. Given that it uses the setting of Honest Hearts as a backdrop, there aren't any living characters in Honest Hearts who aren't "tribals" besides Joshua Graham and Daniel, and post-canon, Daniel wouldn’t be there. When Yesjejunus is accused of sidelining the Native characters or relegating them to the background, it's because they're just not writing a fanfic about Follows-Chalk or Waking Cloud as main characters: they're writing a specifically intentioned story about the Courier and Joshua Graham, a story that for better or worse remains faithful to the source material’s depiction of Joshua Graham’s unilateral authority over the tribes in Zion, a baked-in element of Honest Hearts and a critical narrative component of No Light. To accuse Yesjejunus of being racist on this principle in and of itself would be like accusing me of being lesbophobic if I wrote a Dead Money-set fanfic with Father Elijah as the main character instead of Christine. If you want something that centers these other characters then you'd just have to read a different story, or write it yourself.

As a final note, I do think that Yesjejunus is a skilled writer. This thought exists simultaneously with the acknowledgement that like everyone else in fandom, they're writing as a hobby and do not have the oversight of an editor on the work that they produce personally and for free. It's not lost on them that there's things about their story that they could have handled differently or more sensitively, such as the oft-cited example of the death of the pregnant Dead Horse character in No Light, with more forethought or planning at the time—even if they were bound by the constraints of Honest Heart's own setting (such as the dearth of non-tribal characters who could have possibly been in the scene instead) while writing the story. Everyone is free to critique this aspect of the story as much as they are to critique any other aspect, or to be discomforted by the whole thing (given it's a very intentionally uncomfortable story throughout), but the suggestion of so many of these "callouts" that Yesjejunus must have been cackling maniacally about the plight of poor access to medical care among real Indigenous people is a suggestion made entirely in bad faith, and one that I simply don't care to entertain.

As for the point about harassing people: if anyone's only evidence of being "harassed" by a single, specific person is anonymous messages on tumblr dot com, then I don't believe the evidence. If people are accusing Yesjejunus' "supporters" or "associates" of harassing people, then if the accusation is that this harassment is occurring either on Yesjejunus’ behalf or otherwise with their approval, then it is also going to require more evidence than the mere existence of the mean anonymous messages themselves. This goes for the rumor that they have "spies" in fandom Discord servers or whatever, too, which is a rumor that I think has only manifested among its spreaders by either self-appointed individuals speaking on no one's behalf but their own, and by the metaphorical snake eating its own tail in paranoia. Yesjejunus, and I, and all of our mutual friends have been nothing but annoyed at best and horrified at worst by the efforts of some self-appointed individuals to "defend" them with such excess vitriol. Speaking plainly, we generally avoid literally any kind of anonymous or public interaction with anyone who's vocally opposed to us as a rule, specifically to avoid this kind of debacle, and when I say "we" and "us" I'm not referring to some sort of shadowy cabal of conspirators scheming to advance the nefarious YJJ agenda, but to a group of friends. I don't know how to explain to some people who question why we praise their work or share their art sometimes how normal friendships work online.

I also take severe umbrage with the validity of the breadth of these anonymous harassment accusations because of how patently fraudulent several other claims are. Yesjejunus has recently been accused of "grooming,” for example, an accusation only even worth considering if one temporarily forgets what grooming actually is and pretends that grooming is when someone older interacts in literally any capacity with someone younger. Some will say that they’re not accusing them of grooming per se, or not of grooming by that name, but in any case, the meaning is that Yesjejunus has interacted with minors and this on its own is intended to scare and upset you. I have seen only two users actually named as "victims" of these “interactions,’ however, sas-afras and comrade-shrimp, but both users have publicly refuted this accusation because neither of them were minors when they first interacted with Yesjejunus. Frustratingly, though, these literal refutations from the literal so-called "victims" are either dismissed out of hand or muddied by hand-wringing mutterings of "well, I could have sworn they were actually minors, though" and "well they claim that they weren't actually groomed, but who really knows." The spreading and trust in completely anonymous accusations, combined with the total rejection of statements from the only people named in these accusations when their statements contradict the accusations, suggests to me that the existence of these actual interactions (and assuming these interactions occurred both intentionally and with Yesjejunus’ being fully aware of the other person being a minor) is not nearly as important as pushing the narrative that "Yesjejunus is a groomer" or “preying on minors” onto the fandom, and ensuring that anyone who doesn't take this claim completely at face value appears complicit in something horrible. As for anyone who still feels "uncomfortable" at how sas-afras or comrade-shrimp or me or anyone who is very much an adult but just so happens to be younger than Yesjejunus could ever become endeared to them, I reiterate that sometimes I don't know how to explain to people how normal friendships work online.

I want to conclude by saying something that I've said many times before: you don't have to like Yesjejunus (or me, or everybody, or literally anyone else) and no one is holding a gun to your head to befriend them or read their work or look at their art. The block and filter and unfollow buttons are very conveniently located on your dashboard and are totally free to use. Everything I've written here is not intended as some argument as to why everyone on the planet needs to be following their blog and leaving kudos on Learnin' the Blues. Still, while I think everybody has the right to curate their own dashboard and remove the content that they don't want to see, I also think it's reasonable for me to not want my friend to get their name dragged through the mud by the exaggerated and misinformed claims of petty, grudge-bearing brigadiers and self-aggrandizing fandom security guards when they'd like to just dump funny shitposts about the Burned Man's chode in peace.

[seoafin]

the more that i think abt it, there has always been a casual racism in fandoms particularly towards the asian which then (over)sexualising them, it’s normalized to the point where ppl don’t even realize they have that sort of implicit bias, and we know ppl don’t rlly come on the internet to think critically. but unintentional racism is still racism. it still has an impact, still does damage.

ppl need to think intentionally and critically in how they consume and interact with media not made for them, but they don’t, instead choosing to come in with their preexisting biases, and bc of that, it’s easy for fandom members to dismiss the cultural/ politicial concerns of east asians/ ppl within the fandom. the racism comes from a place of moral superiority, of ownership, of this assumption that westerners are entitled to not just consume animes/mangas (or literally asian medias) but also bring their western lens and apply it to something that was never written for them in the first place.

and then i’ve seen this way more often than i think shld have. there are a lot of times when mostly korean and chinese aot fans call jpn on their james charles type of apology when they saw isayama’s right wing smelling propaganda in the series. then, i saw westerners barge in and said “ok then u can drop all jpnese contents if u don’t like it” and i’m just ???? what, like bby,, sometimes all u need to do is stfu, understand and learn when an oppressed group said that this content is anti-said group/minority bc that’s not discussion that u have any right to contribute to, they know what they’re talking abt. bc i saw a lot of ppl saying that they’re reaching or sum shit and IM TIRED of ppl dismissing pocs’ legitimate concern into “ur sensitive” and the variations of it. and looking at that response as someone whose country was colonized by both yts and the jpn bring mixed feelings bc tf are u smoking?

but then again, i just woke up and i’m not coherent enough to write so pls just delete this if it’s a flame inducing ask �� - 🐱

THIS IS SO FUCKING SEXY OF YOU TO SAY I AGREE THIS 100%

it makes me so livid when westerners say shit about how “anime is for everyone” no the fuck it isn’t LMFAO (and it’s always the ones illegally streaming like shut up you don’t get an opinion) there’s a target audience for anime and it’s japanese people first. just like kpop is for meant for koreans first (although there’s more nuance in this than just that since kpop has exploded onto the international scene but I can’t get into that now but god i could talk about the fetishization, infantilization, and dehumanization of kpop stars and east asian people as a result of it soooo much)

seeing people praise isayama (the amount of weebs talking about how isayama can do no wrong) really grinds my gears like as someone whose family suffers from the effects of the japanese occupation of korea (just like many other koreans) regardless of whether or not snk is pro or anti imperialist isayama himself has expressed pro imperialist views and if you don’t expect them to bleed into his work then I literally have nothing to say to you. it’s not the place of non asians to be accepting excuses/justifying isayama just because you like snk.

while many jewish people have said snk is antisemitic, there have been many other jewish people who have said that snk isn’t antisemitic, so honestly, i can’t really speak on that. it’s not my place. but it’s funny to me that in the western fandom it’s the antisemistism that gets brought up and rehashed over and over again when it’s a flimsy argument at best, and not the imperialism part :/ people are just.....

also im glad you brought up fandom typical racism because it gets brushed over a lot when it shouldn’t. people get real bold and forget that anime characters are ASIAN and most of the time takes place in JAPAN. some ppl are so blatantly disrespectful of the culture bc they don't understand it. on the other hand you’ve got others on tiktok calling anime characters ASIAN SLURS because they don’t like the character is one of the many instances of casual racism towards asians that go on in anime fandom spaces which is appalling. like how are you going to consume east asian media and be racist at the same time???

also i’m not in the haikyuu fandom but apparently people thought that haikyuu character (i think his name was suna or smt???) was a STONER BECAUSE OF HIS EYESHAPE??? i was and still am absolutely flabbergasted. crazy.

[dreamylyfe-x]

of all the things they could make mickey and ian fight over, why are the writers going with 2 so OOC storylines in the final season? the show never framed ian as seeing mickey's illegal income as not "real" work before. and mickey was never the slacker type, so why now? and mickey would never vague about monogamy. i'm so confused. if they gotta fight, why not over something in character and meaningful. this just feels like writers being mean to the fans, making us sit thru all this nonsense

Hey! Thanks for the ask. Made my (very weird and stressful) day. 

I’m going to be disappointing right off the jump and say that I don’t actually think any of this is OOC, per say. But. In GENERAL. Shameless is not the show it was. I think this is very normal for long-running shows. Take Friends: When you get into the back half of that show’s extensive catalogue, is starts to feel like the characters are a Xerox of a Xerox. Early season Monica is a bit OCD, and a clean freak who loves to be in charge -- but she’s also warm, and hospitable and emotionally available to her friends. Late season Monica is often a coked-out squirrel-woman who loses her mind if someone moves a pillow. That’s quality isn’t out of character, but it’s no longer being balanced with the warm and supportive woman we initially met. I think a bit of that might be “we already know you either like or hate Monica, so we’re just giving you the stuff that’s funny and/or dramatic. We got 22 minutes and six characters and we don’t have to build that other shit anymore.” 

I think that’s happening with Mickey and Gallavich. And I don’t think that’s weird for a) a show that has run this long and b) a character who was gone and then returned. They are giving us a Mickey that has always existed -- unbound by traditional manners, aggressive, blunt and obsessed with Ian Gallagher -- but we aren’t getting much of the Mickey who curls up with Ian at the worst time of his life and kisses his forehead. We aren’t getting all the verbal confirmation of Big Feelings they gave us when he came back in season 7. We aren’t seeing Ian and Mickey as a team, which is a big part of their mid-seasons dynamic. I think that makes people feel like these arguments are OOC, when they’re arguably reasonable issues, but aren’t being given a ton of nuance, or balance. 

Aside: There’s some balance in how the actors are playing the intimacy and the physical affection. The little touches and kisses are appreciated by me. 

So to dig into the OOC stuff -- first of all, it makes total sense to me that they’d have issues about the role crime plays in their lives together. I love that Ian never gave a damn that Mickey is a straight up criminal. But every time Ian lost Mickey, it was because the law intervened. When Mickey is not incarcerated, he’s with Ian. Ian is no longer 16, no one is a juvenile offender, Mickey was given a devastating sentence in season 6 -- 16 years -- Ian was 18! That was his entire living memory, if not more. They are married now, against considerable odds, and I completely understand why Ian doesn’t want Mickey to risk going back to jail. 

Likewise, I get why Mickey doesn’t want to do what Ian is doing. Mickey does not have the temperament for minimum wage jobs. He has a longstanding history of thinking it’s absolute bullshit to work hard for no money. Particularly when he’s smart enough, skilled enough and ballsy enough to make a LOT of money in an afternoon just by spotting an opportunity. 

Mickey has never SAID this on the show, but in canon we have seen him go to prison four times. Once, because Ian’s unhinged spurned groomer shot him; once because Mickey CHOSE to headbutt a cop so he could go to prison and avoid his dad; once because Mickey was consumed with a need to avenge Ian; and finally because Ian got himself tossed in prison, so Mickey CHOSE to join him. If Mickey has confidence that he won't go to prison if Ian isn’t a factor... Not the craziest idea. 

So -- writers spitballing ideas for Gallavich conflict? I think that’s a pretty good one. Two clear sides that both have merit. I’ve already written a bit about my thoughts on the monogamy issues... first, I’ve always figured they were monogam-ish, to reference Dan Savage. They are faithful to each other while they’re together, and when they are separated (usually by prison!) they aren’t. This isn’t the first time Mickey has voiced a lack of interest in being monogamous -- most notably “Great. Now we’re in a horror movie.” Mickey isn’t a traditionalist and I don’t think he feels like this is a make-or-break issue. But MOSTLY? 

MOSTLY. 

I really and truly believe what I’m about to say... 

Mostly Mickey wanted to do what Ian wanted. 

If he legit didn’t want monogamy he wouldn’t have tried to cheat of Ian’s paper. He didn’t like that “write it down and flip the paper” game. He wanted to match Ian’s answer. So he took a guess and he was wrong about what Ian -- who had literally just told him he found the concept of the rest of his life overwhelming -- had written. 

This is my head cannon: I think he liked that Ian wrote down monogamy. This is not my head canon: they are SUPER sweet to each other in the next scene. I am not convinced that the monogamy debate is going to be much of a thing beyond that scene. And I understand that, for a lot of people, that scene was extremely unpleasant. To me, personally, it made sense for it to come up. But I think it’s settled. I think they’re done with it. 

The one place where I’m like “What is this?” is the slacker stuff. I mean, I can meta why Mickey might be afraid of failure or whatever, but it’d be mostly head cannon. They haven’t given us a ton to build on there. The best we got is “Stop disappointing the people you love!” being what motivated Mickey to do something he didn’t want to do. But Mickey was right, if he thought that interview was going to be a disaster. Mickey knows himself and he is painfully aware of his limitations. 

As for why are the writers DOING this? Well. Ok. Here’s what I think it is: 

1. Story is conflict. So they needed one. And “struggle to adjust to marriage” really isn’t a bad one. Specifically, figuring out how to be married when you have no role models and have a few social strikes against you is a good one. 

2. The writers are amused by Gallavich fighting. They think it’s entertaining. And while there are a lot of people out there for whom Gallavich is EVERYTHING, Shameless’s viewership is also made up of people who think Frank is hilarious. No one ever send me an ask about why Frank is hilarious. I will not be able to figure that one out and the research might kill me. We definitely don’t all agree on what is and is not funny. 

3. They’re going somewhere with it. At least a little. 

I don’t KNOW three is true, but here’s something I believe about John Welles. I think he’s a biiiiit of a sap. I think he probably wants to leave each Gallagher with something nice. I don't think his plan it to send everyone off on an ice floe to freeze to death. So I think (hope?) that what we’re going to see is three (maybe four?) episodes of Gallavich At Odds and then I think we’re going to move into them trying to work together to make lives together. And they will probably still fight, because that seems to be part of the Xerox of a Xerox of Gallavich. I’m sure many people will find that cringey and problematic and annoying -- but I also bet we get a few moments we love, here and there. 

I don’t think they’re trying to be mean to the fans, but I think it’s serving 8 characters ... Nope. 9. (I forgot Frank. I always forget about Frank.) ... and we aren’t going to get the depth and breadth we want. And most of that will be on the side where we see Gallavich loving each other, because at this point they expect us to KNOW that. And some of it’ll be Mickey’s internal life because they tend to focus on the Gallaghers. But I do fervently hope we get a little more of that other side of the coin. Because I absolutely agree that one side is more fun than the other. 

[cinematicnomad]

Possible controversial opinion time - I can't help but see parallels between Buddie and Destiel. The writers spent 11 years showing how much Dean and Cas meant to each other, and yet it culminated in whatever that abomination of an ending was. I'm still so disappointed and hurt. I feel Buddie is headed that direction. I just don't think the show will ever follow through. It's hard to stay invested when I'm pretty sure I'll just end up sad again.

prefacing this with my usual i'm-a-pessimist-at-heart-and-won't-believe-buddie-will-go-canon-until-it's-happening-on-the-screen-right-in-front-of-my-face:

as much as i love destiel (and oh man, anon, i FUCKING love destiel), i don't think these ships, or shows, or dynamics, are comparable. bear with me for a minute as i provide some really necessary context that i think people tend to forget when making these comparisons:

supernatural was a bush-era (white, straight, cishet) male power fantasy tv show. like, not even the tail-end of the bush presidency, it started airing in 2005 right around the start of bush's second term. we were pretty firmly in the middle of the bush presidency. queer characters on tv were few and far between (usually relegated to one off guest stars or premium networks like showtime or hbo etc etc), gay marriage wasn't even legal yet, don't-ask-don't-tell was emblematic of the ~*coexist*~ ideology, and in the realm of tv even if they weren't overtly homophobic or anti-gay, they were culturally complacent. tv writers felt v comfortable making derogatory comments about queer people just for the ~*laughs*~ (please go back and rewatch gilmore girls and just....wait for the homophobic jokes to pour in, bc holy shit, there are a lot of them) and supernatural fell in line with that pretty squarely (haha everyone thinks sam and dean are gay, the motel owners are always offering them a single queen bed, dean's totally compensating for ~*something*~, isn't it funny).

and supernatural, despite growing and evolving over 15 years, really did hold on to that demographic. supernatural was one of those random shows that appealed to both democratic and republican viewers, and the network, the producers, the showrunners, the writers, WHATEVER, were not going to alienate their conservative audience. because: money.

9-1-1 just?? isn't comparable. the show started airing in 2018 and despite all the terrible things in the world, there HAS been progress in society and we can see that reflected in the show. we have several named main and regular queer characters on this show, who have plots and storylines that aren't just about their sexuality, who aren't used for the very-special-after-school-episode, but exist as fully rounded characters. hen is a main character and has been since e1 and we've gotten such beautiful storylines about her relationship with karen and their family and it is a jOY to watch on my screen compared to the types of (v limited) representation i saw as a teen in the mid-00s.

i mean...i think there are arguments to be made that bisexual representation still has far to go, and i have serious doubts that a ry*n m*rphy project will be the place to see any of that happen (he's biphobic af and i'm not talking about "oh there were some questionable plots in glee"), not to mention i still think that show creators have an easier time getting greenlit when pitching defined characters as queer from the outset compared to arguing for a character who was envisioned as straight-presenting at the start be allowed to evolve/grow/discover themselves through the course of the show (off the top of my head, characters who started out straight and came out several seasons after the fact...callie on grey's, willow on buffy, and marissa on the oc?). like i agree with you there! again, i'm a pessimist, so like i'm not telling you to be more positive or whatever?

but i just think that arguments that destiel and buddie are going to follow the same path lack a lot of nuance and tend to overlook some really important distinctions between both shows and the world writ large, and??

speaking of ship dynamics on their own, i'd just point to the fact that supernatural, for all that i loved about it, genuinely seemed to want to constantly run away from dean and castiel's dynamic? they spent entire seasons coming up with contrived ways to keep the two characters separate or to force them at odds with each other. like, ACTIVELY wrote plots and character arcs that undermined dean and castiel's bond at every turn bc the show didn't or couldn't address how much they mattered to each other. they'd give you like...breadcrumbs and then try to pretend like none of it mattered. (also this is when i plug that if you're not already you should 110% be watching bob weiss's destiel deep dive series on youtube)

on the other hand, whether or not buddie goes canonically romantic (which again! i doubt will happen!), 9-1-1 HAS canonically made their bond central to both characters and has repeatedly underscored just how much they matter to each other and just how involved they are in each other's lives. like, whether or not you think the writers will ever let them confess their romantic love for each other, the show DOES routinely center plots for both characters on their relationship with each other and repeatedly goes back to the same well to define just how much they matter to each other. s4 literally ended with eddie revealing that he made buck christopher's legal guardian like....they are doing the opposite of supernatural tbh.

this ran away from me so i'm just gonna publish this ask as is sorry

✨sleepover weekend✨

[straighttohellbuddy]

i'd really like to hear about 5, 27, and 32 for the 35 fanfiction writer question game! if it isn't a game/i misinterpreted what you meant, i'm really sorry!

It is an ask game! Also I love you thank you!!

I'm putting this one first because I've wanted to talk about it for a while, and yeah it should probably be a post of it's own but here we go;

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

I think there's a real art to being able to write X Reader fics, and I think the more you write, the more nuance you develop in order to weave a story around the reader's characteristics to make it inclusive while also personal. i think there's a conversation to be had about inclusivity in the YouTube x Reader community, and while the heavy prevalence of NB!Reader fics is amazing, we still have to look at what other biases we're inserting into our works. descriptions of, or moments regarding, the reader's skin tone, size, hair, clothing choices, family, etc, should be considered carefully if you're looking to make this as accessible as possible for the wide variety of readers. i appreciate people who specify if they're writing a particular type of reader (chubby!reader, or short-haired!reader, etc) because it sets a precedent for the fic, but if you go in without that caveat and suddenly the reader is being described as tanned or with long wavy hair or something, that breaks the immersion and alienates the readers who don't fit this narrow description. uh, also this is just a small thing, but when writing NB!Readers, don't forget about AMAB nb folks existing and being taken into consideration in your writing.

like i said, there's an art to being able to write around describing the reader, while still making the story feel personal. we just have to think about if what we're writing would make sense if we were not ourselves, if that makes sense???

also just personally i'd like to see more diversity in the people chosen for the representations of the read in IG/SMAU posts.

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

I actually don't have one definitive answer for this because I've been writing for a very long time so I have a few favourites for different reasons.

for this blog; once you say it out loud it can't be undone {Corpse Husband} | 17K. non-fatal hanahaki au ft. bes frend ethan gameplays. of course this is my favourite, have you read it? it's good!

Feelings are fair game for nine months out of the year, but God forbid you develop a crush during Hanahaki Season; three months of coughing up petals just because you’re in love with someone who doesn’t love you back? It’s a damn inconvenience. You haven’t had an active Hanahaki Season in the four years since you started YouTube, and you think that since you’re in quarantine, not going outside, not meeting new people, you’ll be fine this year too! Except that you start playing Among Us with a group of people you’ve never met before, friends of friends, including the elusive Corpse Husband, who’s kind, and funny, and may be flirting with you, but you’re not quite sure. The point is, you make friends with him not expecting much beyond a streaming buddy, but then you get talking more often, chatting and joking at all hours in DMs, and he’s calling you sweet nicknames on stream, and you wake up on the first day of your Season coughing up flower petals and cursing yourself for falling for a man who’s first name you don’t even know!

but also because i can and will plug my own shit

Reader Insert (also my Overall favourite rn); heard your name in every love song {Ben Hardy} | 72k. fwb-to-lovers, also the author clearly has an x-men hyperfixation. actor!reader.

When you’re twelve and you have a crush on your babysitter, your parents think it’s puppy love, think it’s cute, and you’ll forget about it soon enough. When you’re fifteen, and your former babysitter’s on TV in one of the UK’s most successful soap operas, and is still decidedly hot, all you can remember is the advice he’d given you, and how he’d let you win when playing videogames. When you’re nineteen and you score a supporting role in an X-Men film, the last thing you’d expected was to be acting opposite your former babysitter, and - as it turns out - romancing his character; he’s still decidedly handsome, and you’re definitely not a little kid anymore. He doesn’t even recognize you, and you know what? You’re glad.

OC Fic; Molotov Heart {Alex Summers} | 70k (ish). follows the sequel x-men trilogy and literally spans 20 years. ALSO CLEARLY THE AUTHOR HAS AN X-MEN HYPERFIXATION

Aoibheal Cassidy didn't hesitate to follow her big brother, Sean, when he's recruited by Charles and Erik, even if she's not technically a mutant (yet). By his side, she grows up as the youngest member of Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, but world won't wait for a girl to grow up, and her life is torn apart by war and disaster; things get worse before they get better. As the years pass, she realises she always ends up on Charles's team with Alex and Hank by her side, even if she's not the little girl they once knew.

and finally, purely canon fic: not from the absence of violence | Breaking Bad. 6.5k. au where jesse gets out of the business like he wants to in season 5, and comes home to find a teenage runaway living in his house.... actually its kind of a little bit of an oc fic but not the way my oc fics usually are.

Sometimes a family is one of the (former) best meth cooks in America, his two best friends who happen to be (former) meth dealers, a teenage runaway, and five million dollars. -- "...and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it." - Richard Siken

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

I feel very very lucky and very blessed to receive such lovely and kind comments on the fics that I write, but I've got two that stand out the most in my mind, and it's the comments @bingusmode and @marvelsmurphy left on the aforementioned once you say it out loud it can't be undone {Corpse Husband},,,, literally i would die for both of them. i reread the comments on that fic every so often because everyone is so damn lovely, but i just grin like an idiot and turn into that picture of kermit hugging his phone whenever i read their comments specifically. i love you guys

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less.

for my upcoming fic that i posted those memes about a few days ago; 'god's perfect idiot {Wilbur Soot}'

light-hearted streamer joins smp; shocks everyone with capacity for angst

I loved this!! feel free to send in more!!

[mayabishopapologist]

station 19 - season 4, etc

this is long but i want to put down my thoughts before thursday comes and i guess i have A Lot To Say.

honestly didn’t pay much attention to this show until halfway through season two—  always liked maya and was glad that they gave her more to do. going into season 3, i was excited for more character development &stronger storylines. however, by the end of  301 the dip in quality was glaringly obvious. a quick google search revealed that there was a new showrunner and, well, it showed. 

while the show had been going in a really good direction with balancing the screen time between andy and the other regulars, this season, the plot was all over the place. it was uber dramatic and just. so much happened just to happen? seemed like every other episode had a major event(deaths alone; ryan,rigo,pruitt?!!?). they were so frequent, it was hard to process. it was also hard to get invested as the characters themselves moved on(or were shown to have moved on, extremely quickly!) 

i enjoy the show for what it is and i have no delusions about broadcast tv shows (or shondaland productions, for that matter)but the suspension of disbelief.... i mean: a stabbing, a robbery, a shooting and a car crash? all in one episode? please! lmaooooo. drama for dramas sake is always boring and weakens the story.  

& as for the characters... .

everyone felt like a hollow version of themselves this season and it was hard to watch sometimes, actually. characters switched motivations /personalities for the sake of the current episode and i know this show is very ‘monster/emergency of the week’ but. some consistency! please! like—

maya: she’s always been determined and focused but they went so far with it this season, it was almost cartoonish. her competitiveness was hinted at in season 2 but she was always portrayed as self aware. ‘the beast,’ as she dubbed it to andy, was something she knew of and tried to contain, because she knew it could get out of hand. 

yet, in season 3 she suddenly forgets this and just. becomes the most power hungry/singularly focused person, ever. she goes after the captain position behind andy’s back, (citing andy’s emotional state, because of the death of her best friend as a reason she shouldn’t get the job?? huh. since when is maya this purely callous??!) she just doesn’t give af, suddenly, about andy at all, and goes for a job that she is hardly qualified for(she was lieutenant for like, a few months?)

and then after she gets the position, she just. loses all sense of reality? literally she was so unhinged(fun to watch but so much) and it was like. um?? maya has never been the uptight one (they've mentioned and depicted andy as being the one like this, multiple times!) and we know she knows how to have fun, so, for her to all of a sudden just. not know how to read the room? yeah okay. to make her so intense and severe, especially w the drills and training was, a choice. a bad one, on the writers part. like, i get that they needed her start as captain to be dramatic or whatever,  but there were ways to do that. and even the animosity with the team and her went so far, i just think that whole storyline was amazingly lazy, honestly.  

and the friendships!! andy and maya’s friendship is just, a mess. at this point they've spent more time at odds, and the idea that they're supposed to be best friends with this super close bond? yeah, i just... i dont buy it tbh. if they'd spent more time building up their connections and making us understand why they would be friends and showing them being there for each other past a few scattered scenes her and there? maybe. but so far, that hasn't been the case.  making that bond real, solidifying that friendship, would have made this conflict have more of an emotional impact. but doing it now? making maya ‘turn’ on andy, this soon and this drastically just. it made her seem like she was extremely jealous and had been waiting to pull the rug out from under andy all along. and also, why would they stay friends when, so far, maya has showed, time and time again, that she’s willing to let her wants/ambitions leech on her loyalty to andy? (jack thing, job thing, etc). although, it’s not like andy’s a good friend to maya either, she’s selfish and seems to like it when maya is in her corner but isnt always there for her. they went so far with the idea that maya was this coldly calculating asshole that she was almost a villain?? it was so silly to me.

and the traumatic home life plot they gave to maya was clearly their attempt at some adding nuance to her character and trying to explain why she would act the way she did, but to me? it fell flat. it was rushed, and they went from zero to 100(why did her mother come to talk about her divorce/abuse at maya’s job? like she was literally working? idgi. no boundaries lmaoo) 

and i actually relate and sympathize w maya a lot. and while i liked that they were exploring the many ways abuse can present itself, it was very... hm, ham-fisted. just super rushed and then wrapped up so quickly. they have, i think, written themselves into this dark place i fear they have no intention of exploring. 

and while i understand it, i hated how far they let maya go, especially because i don't feel they’ll adequately address it. they move on so quickly( maya was deaf for like half a season and then. she just. wasn't) and i hate the idea of her just being ‘fixed’. a relationship and an apology doesn't undo years of abuse, idc. also will they ever address maya’s um, thoughts about death??? because that was super heavy and not just something someone gets over? going to need for her to get actual professional help. that isn’t her girlfriend, like. asap. 

speaking of carina, i do like her and maya together a lot. big part of why i watch, ngl. but i need their relationship to be a lot more reciprocal. like, lets dial it back on the codependency, maybe. carina cant (and shouldn't have to) hold her up so much ! that’s not love. also maya needs to start being a good girlfriend. they started off that way, i know they can get back there. but like, we hardly got to see them settle into it, we got those cute 30sec clips of sweetness then maya was lashing out and cheating and it was like. wait a minute! what??? 

for s4, i want to see them working at reconciling—im talking, groveling, awkward in-between moments where carina isnt sure she can trust her. okay, tough conversations, hell, even jealousy because let's be real. maya working with jack is a lot for carina to just. take? i know i absolutely would not be happy about that, but i also wouldnt take maya back so... anyway! brushing over that would not just be a missed storytelling opportunity, but it would also be super unfair to carina and do a huge disservice to their relationship as a whole. as cute as they are, having cute moments with no real depth would get very old, very quickly.

carina: what can i say but-perfect, amazing, fantastic, WOW

seriously, carina is almost unrealistically perfect. she takes a lot and has been through the most (can they be nice 2 her this season? like just for fun) going forward, im going to need her to be more than a plot device to calm and soothe maya. i get that she was introduced as a love interest, but in season 4(as a season!!regular!!) that cant be all she is.

speaking of, it was really weird to me that she was promoted to station 19 and not greys because... what is a gynecologist going to do at a fire station? the general consensus seems to be that she’ll join warren’s PRT but like. she’s not a general surgeon so that’s a reach but, i want her around so ill buy it. i just want better and more for her tbh. not just screen-time, but also character development and depth! also friends! tired of carina being isolated, they did it on greys which. a waste! i meaaan, amelia was RIGHT. THERE. just look at the material! for s19, i want her, vic and travis to be friends or even just her and vic, like yesplease! i also want to know more about her and im tired of her being treated badly. like, i think society had progressed past carina being shitted on, thanks!

vic: my fave!!! they did so lazy by her this season ugh. she’s so charismatic and charming and just so good!! yet, her storyline was all over the place. we hardly got to see her sit with her grief  (spontaneous crying aside; barrett doss is so good!) she was just kind of... around. and that relationship w jackson. lol. it was so obviously for crossover potential and well. i didnt hate it or like it. actually, i was mostly indifferent. bored, even when they were onscreen together. i just didn't care and wanted more of vic, not vic and whoever. i know they're up in the air rn but i wouldn’t be torn up if he doesn’t come back. 

i want more for vic past just romantic entanglements. i know we’ve gotten a bit of her past, but i would like to see more! also, what about employment accomplishments? her artsy theatre friends? her family? just. more vic, please!!

she’s so fun and cool and when they let her, she shines. they need to let her! 

jack: my boy! so dumb, but i love him sm. he def needs like. major help, though lmao. and maybe it’s just me but im tired of his sex addict plot. like, we get it, but can we move on now? kthanks. they need to let him work on himself especially, the constant self sabotage. it's getting old. for ALL of them, actually, seriously, how many times can they all get in their own way.

andy: don’t really think about her. the mom storyline seems like it would be wonderfully dramatic, im intrigued. she and sullivan are cute, i guess. hope they make it.

ben: no major issues w his storyline, hardly remember it honestly. i liked the rapport he was building w vic and want them to explore that relationship more, its cute. 

travis: so funny and adorable, let him do more.

dean: loved him in all his entitled first born African son glory. i didnt so much love the baby plot but that always bores me. his sudden love for vic though. lol. since when? it def, came out of no where and while i really enjoy their friendship, to me, there is zero romantic chemistry there so i would prefer it if they just. stopped. lmao. also. the way he treated her because he could get a handle on his emotions? ridiculous. has humanity not like, gotten past the ‘he’s mean bc he likes you’ thing?? like grow up maybe?

and this isnt just about dean but like. are there not more single young people in seattle? why do they all have to sleep with the same 5 people. ik for the sake of plot, workplace relationships are easier but still. i think they should branch out. really. 

overall, i want better for all of them, and i think if the writers would just. take a moment and stop trying to tell so many stories in such little time, they could do better! also, whoever’s out there. please, enough w the crossovers! dont want to be forced to watch greys just to know what’s happening on 19. i get that they're in the same universe. it’s only mentioned every other episode. we. get, it. i liked what they did with private practice, it was like once every few seasons. and i know they won’t do that, but maybe, two a season. 

this is so much. but this how does have a ton of potential and i just really want it . like, get there.