#and his family is capable of being redeemed. It is insane how this show tries to push itself as progressive but it's riddled with

[theprinceandthewitch]

... The way i know these alternate versions of Adrien and Marinette are going to have a healthier relationship than the originals, but theyre gonna try framing it as a bad thing because they're "EEEVIL."

They're going to have open and honest communication with each other [since it looks like they're still choosing to work together as a team] and Claw Noir is gonna display some form of agency in his actions but the writers will be like "NO, this isnt good! Adrien can't have any agency of his own because he's too emotional and he exists just to be a pretty prize Marinette wins after defeating the villain."

[dangermousie]

Here it is - the moment my heart switches from like to love, for Crichton and the show, on every rewatch.

It is such a little moment. Aeryn and John escaped and Aeryn made contact with Crais, her superior officer. Of course, neither John nor Aeryn know that Crais wants to kill John because of the accident which killed Crais' brother (And this is so the Farscape ethos - John is doomed and hunted for a moment of pure bad luck that happened the moment he ended up here, a moment he did not know about and cound do nothing to change. As he said in a much later episode, they’ve basically found the map to the cruelty of the universe.)

And there is the scene. John is captive, peacekeeper guns all around him. Crais circling him like his personal piece of property (Poor John. This is only a start. This is not the Aurora Chair, not Grayza, not Scorpius, not Scarrans, not Harvey). John watchful and realizing the wrongness (and OMG his innocence breaks my heart) and Crais telling him he'll dissect him. And Aeryn speaking up and telling Crais (and I love this. She didn't have to say anything. She didn't have, she should know it's a risk in such a society) that she didn't believe John was capable of killing Crais' brother because he is not intelligent or brave enough. And Crais, crazy Crais, fixating on her and asking her in this tone 'just how much time did you spend with this human?' And. And. And. This is the moment I fell in love with John Crichton all over again. He gives this quick, intense glance at the situation and he speaks up (to Crais), quietly and a little bit desperately: 'Not much, not much at all.' Why? It's so hard to put into words. I think because in the middle of all this (where there is the probability of him being killed in a gruesome fashion) he speaks up for Aeryn automatically, without the second thought. Maybe because even though as an alien he has no idea what is going on, he catches on so quickly, judges it so quickly, recognizes the danger to her, before she does herself. Maybe it's the seriousness, and the intensity, and the reassuring little nod he gives to her. Even utterly helpless himself, he tries to save Aeryn. This Crichton is not yet the Crichton that will literally turn the galaxy upside down to save the woman he loves, not someone who will make impossible choices and bear it all, but it's all in there already, all the qualities, and you can see that. In a way, knowing how all of these people will end up makes it even more delicious. Seeing Crais, all neat and orderly, before he went so crazy and AWOL (and his dishevelment definitely paralleled his fall from grace) and way before he redeemed himself. Seeing D'Argo as a self-concerned, immature, angry being. Seeing Aeryn as Peacekeeper Aeryn Sun, not a complex evolving human being yet, not a woman, not a being of her own will. But the seeds are still there. I cannot imagine other peacekeepers speaking up for John, trying to save him a bit. When John says 'You can be more' that is the thing. There is a 'you' in her to be more. There is something to start with. She has a soul that is not warped past return. And the chemistry between the two? Amazing. Even in this first ep, where they are nothing more than reluctant allies at first, disdain on her part and confusion on his. Btw, that first meeting? I love it love it love it so much. I watched 'pilot' after I've seen S4 and I remember going, as Aeryn threw him against the bulkhead and hit him and then demanded his rank and serial number. 'John, meet the future mother of your child.' Heh. God. It amazes me how far the two will come and yet how organically. And it's so true about all the relationships. Watch D'Argo and Crichton interact here: the anger on D'Argo's part the 'he is crazy' on John's. They don't even tolerate each other and yet by the end they are the best of friends. I love that Farscape, even though its romantic relationship was so crucial (didn't David Kemper or someone describe Farscape as a 'love story') also had all these incredible, well-developed, organic, fascinating other relationships: friendships, familial. Another thing I love? John saves the day with his brain. God, how much do I love that. He is a scientist, not a military guy, not a 'space jockey' like his Dad. He is a scientist. And that is why he can never get used to collateral damage, to killing, no matter how much of it he does, he is forced to do. And the show never forgets that. Farscape is one of those rare fictions (because I am not just talking about shows, but movies and books as well) where I do get convinced that John is indeed brilliant. And that he loves the science, he loves discovery, he loves the work. Despite wormholes being tainted so much with everything else, he is genuinely excited, involved in working on them. I keep remembering the S3 finale where even though he is pretending to work for Scorpius, he can't help but get into it, where equations literally pour out of him in scribbles everywhere, on windows, on pieces of paper, writing on his own arms. John is an obsessive. Here it is yet small: he wants to prove his theory. And even in the middle of the escape he is excited that it's proven. His obsessiveness will of course be brought out spectacularly by his stress later on, and his feelings, but it's already here.   But to get back to what I was saying: I just love that he gets to win with his brain. And that is consistent. Because that is why he becomes the defacto leader of Moya. Not his amazing fighting prowess. He becomes quite competent in the later seasons, but he will never be pure warrior the way D'Argo or Aeryn are. It's his brilliant, crazy, completely creative plans. That, and the power of his conviction. John's conviction is an utter, absolute, contageous thing. It's not brought out fully yet, but I am struck by the foreshadowing of when he tells Aeryn to come with them, tells her she can be more, changes her life. It's the same conviction that will later have him walk into a Scarran station, unarmed, most wanted man in the galaxy, to get Aeryn out. And getting the Moya crew to come with him.   But then, all of John is already here, just not forced to the surface yet. His crazy humor as way of coping with the insane universe about him. The core of steel (he is lost and dazed in this new word which is great because he is in a way proxy for the audience, but he doesn't bend before D'Argo e.g. and he is adamant to D'Argo about taking Aeryn with them or no one escapes), the inner decency and basic kindness (that kindness will be almost beaten out of him but shadows will always remain) when he tapes up the broken eye-stalk of the DRD - “merely” a mechanical critter on Moya. Oh. GUH.

@mousieta I am so glad we are doing this!

[apenitentialprayer]

Hey! I just wanted to say that I thought the asks you answered were interesting. I’m not a Christian but I do a lot of writing and art that uses Christian ideas. I mostly focus on fallen Angels and their struggles with a loss of innocence. They do have some redeeming qualities in my writing at least amoung each other and how they still have emotions and suffer. I thought that your analysis of evil and free will was interesting. I don’t usually see the sort of morally grey view on good vs evil in Christian discussions. So I wonder if you have thoughts on these characters? Especially a character who is very evil but tries to protect another fallen angel who is more innocent and hurt. And does their suffering make up for anything they’ve done? Especially the weaker character who has never really done much wrong except willingly fall.

Maybe a strange ask lol, but I just am interested in a Christian perspective on these things. I thought your other answers were very thoughtful!

I'm glad that you liked my other answers. You might not like this one, though. Trigger warning, there's a pretty gory analogy in the second to last paragraph.

I do think fictional depictions of fallen angels who experience moments of goodness or even moments of redemption can be incredibly compelling - Tamara and the Demon comes to mind where such a character is brutal and violent yet kind of tragic ("not an angel or a demon, but a tortured soul").

But Christians don't see these beings as fictional things; they are a spiritual reality. And the reality is much more bleak, because angelic fallenness is not the same as human fallenness.

Humans are children who think they're adults; creatures limited by time and space who think they know more than they really do; beings who are ignorant of but hopeful for whatever the redeemed World to Come will be like. The fact that we live in time, and the fact that we only get to see an itty bitty part of God's overarching plan, means that any act of rebellion isn't final, is capable of being fixed, is subject to change based on new experiences and shifts in perspective.

But that is not the case with the angels; they are much smarter than us, they don't exist in time the way we do, and they are already capable of seeing exactly how they fit in the divine plan. And what is there to do when God creates the best possible plan of salvation for the world, and there are angels who demand that it go their way, or no way at all?

If we can call demons tragic, it's because they have an over-inflated sense of their own importance at the expense of the rest of Creation, and in embracing that over-inflated sense of self they lose themselves in that process (kind of the opposite of what I said in that first post about the problem of evil, where a human being who consistently subordinates himself for the love of others will ultimately grow into his truest self).

A demon is the closest thing we have to real life cosmic horror; a bleeding wound, a rabidly deranged animal, a miniature god throwing a tantrum and deciding that he must impose his will on what he can and destroy everything else. If Hell stands undivided, it is not in the sense that Heaven stands undivided; if Heaven is a community where individuals come together in love to serve one another and grow into a family, Hell is a mouth that draws as much as it can into itself and where the strong dominate and degrade the weak - and the weak's only complaint about the system being is that they should be the ones on top doing this to others. The problem is that God is the source of all goodness, all beauty, and all truth. And these beings so despise their connectedness to God that they close themselves off to these things. It's like a man removing his own organs with a box cutter to show he isn't dependent on biology to live; the reasoning is insane, and what you have left when you remove these things is nothing pretty.

Hell is the progressive deterioration of anything good in you, the growing isolation of becoming more and more sure that you are the only person worthy of the designation of 'person', of deciding that an eternity of loneliness done your way is better than an eternity of blissful relationships where you have real accountability. And a being that insists on needing nothing can only be offered nothing - and can only give nothing.

[mymelancholiesblues]

No, Mia isn’t  "low-tier" compared to Ada (morally speaking, or w/e) – a measured answer?/essay

So, a couple of Ada haters tried to put up a false symmetry between both of these characters there on twitter, and it inspired me to put my own thoughts down in a more articulate essay as to why that's (Ada's somehow being morally worse than Mia) not sustained by canon in Resident Evil.

standing there, killing time

can't commit to anything but a crime

all the good girls go to hell

'cause even God herself has enemies

and once the water starts to rise

and heaven's out of sight

she'll want the Devil on her team. ⁕

First things first: let us debunk the false symmetry that they tried to establish between these two characters with extremely distinct archetypes – and worse, the following replies to this false symmetry and its poor arguments trying to validate it, pointing out that, in fact, no, character B (that would be Ada, btw) – which is so evidently and ridiculously different from character A (and that would be Mia) – is, in fact, WAY WORSE than character A, and then proceeding to assert some unsupported propositions about misogyny in Resident Evil (which, tbh, definitely IS a recurring problem in the franchise, but that in this case particularly, little or does not apply AT ALL) and how Ada contributes to "the perpetration of a biological cold war".

Starting with what differentiates Mia from Ada grotesquely: we know NOTHING of Ada's true alliances in RE's world. Mia, however, canonically worked for a group that participated in the importation and exportation as well as the manufacturing, testing and marketing of biological weapons: "The Connections", a CRIMINAL SYNDICATE which, amongst other things, was also involved in money laundering, assassinations as well as weapons and drug trafficking. I don't care at all about Mia, so I don't intend to waste much of my time going on about her role in the plot, but people should've already realized by just that much how infinitely dishonest is to try to put these two characters as "similar" ones, or argue that Ada is somehow worse.

Another detail that shouldn't escape anyone's attention too, are the origins and nationalities of both – and yes, I intend to briefly bring up racism against eastern-Asian looking characters (a silent plague that takes form by each passing day in all fiction fandoms) and anti-China xenophobia, but for now, hold this tea there just before I drop it: Mia is canonically American, and previously a Texas-state resident; meanwhile, we have no confirmation of Ada's nationality except for her pretty evident Chinese ancestry. But, as I said, hold it there for a while.

i) espionage — the job

red so silent

wait a minute

or just a little while.

what are you looking for? ⁕

At all times that Ada's "job" was brought up in this franchise, in ALL of her cameos, she has NEVER been called a mercenary in the original Japanese. She's always referred to as a SPY. Even in RE2R, the most recent title in which she's featured in, the original text of the game makes a point of labelling her as a SPY (and not a mercenary) in the dialogue that transpires between Annette and Leon.

It's the North-American translation and correspondent localization that now and then falls for the equivocal use of this other term. This distinction is important since espionage NECESSARILY implies operating in an organized service for, perhaps a country, or a political cause, or a class/group, or a corporation, or whatever. While a mercenary is someone who's acting per their self financial interests, indiscriminately selling their specialized "labour" and skills to anyone who'll offer more.

Ada's not a mercenary, she's a spy. But Mia, in addition to being hired to a canonically criminal company, was also the handler personally assigned to Eveline. I don't care how exactly Mia got in that predicament but the fact is: Mia was canonically employed by a company that profited over illicit activities and directly watched as a family was destroyed and toyed with by this new killing machine (Eve). Yet, we can't state for sure that we know to whom or to what Ada is truly affiliated with.

ii) sources — check them

who's a heretic now?

am I making sense?

how can you make it stick?

and I'm on a trial

waiting 'til the beat comes out. ⁕

This fandom should put a little more thought into which translation and localization of the game texts, dialogues and files they are using to support their arguments. I know that in some cases the United States people have a bit of an inclination to think of themselves as the owners of the planet and deem English as the only language that matters in this world, but let's not forget that RE is a Japanese franchise (wow, insane, right?!). Therefore, the most valid script, with the greatest amount of details, and highest credibility, is the Japanese original. Throughout these years, there have been several errors in translation and localization of the Japanese original to North-American English. And, believe me, curiously enough, plenty of those concern Ada, since she's often mentioned or referred to in a very vague way – without the use of pronouns or adjectives or adverbs that could help in indicating gender. This ended up causing those details and mentions to her to get overlooked, even though in the Japanese text it was a clear reference to her character (per observation of context).

iii) the good guys — one of

head in the dust

feet in the fire

labour on that midnight wire

listening for that angel choir

you got nowhere to run

careful son, you got dreamers plans

but it gets hard to stand. ⁕

Yes, as much as haters try to minimize it, it is SIGNIFICANT that Ada saved so many important characters and stood for unquestionably heroic actions in so many moments - like stopping everything she was doing so she could help completely random Chinese civilians with the helicopter she managed to pilot in that chaos in China (yeah, I know you haters love to forget about this, but it happened, it's there in canon, and no, it wasn't her direct OR indirect responsibility what was going on in China: REPLAY RE6 and for the love of GOD, never again argue that what she did was somehow "the equivalent of evacuating a city after selling a WMD to destroy that same city". It's a case of pure intellectual dishonesty to say such a thing. It's canon that Carla was the one who caused what happens in China, PLEASE, PLAY RE6).

Furthermore, Ada shows compassion on some occasions even for characters who are directly putting her in harms ways, like Annette (in RE2 OG, right after - in order to defend herself - she slaps Annette leading her to lose balance and collapse over the sewers fences, Ada makes an effort in trying to pull Annette back and prevent her from falling) and Carla.

Replay RE4 and pay attention to it, pay attention to her solo campaign: getting involved with Leon's journey in Spain hasn't brought any real benefit to her mission or herself: Ada deviates from her main path several times due to worrying about him and trying to help him and almost ends up dead in several of these occasions over her insistence in doing so: by saving him from Bitores Mendez, by helping him and Ashley against Sadler, by confronting Krauser and stopping him.

It's so lazy to only read/listen to a file in which she says in English that "Leon might be useful to her plans" (this is way more nuanced in the Japanese original of Ada's Report), and ignore everything that was SHOWN in the game: every effort she made to ensure that Leon could rescue Ashley, remove the parasite from his and her bodies, and escape from that hell-island.

The jet-ski she left for their escape was ALREADY there before she was captured by Sadler (or you think she arranged it while she was caught?). Leon having to intervene and save her from Sadler WASN'T her plan. It WASN'T her plan to take the sample from Leon's hands. She wanted to help him get out of there with Ashley and she guaranteed he could do so, she wanted to get the sample by herself and escape too while sending that hell to kingdom's come. But, because she chose to help Leon rescue Ashley right in front of Sadler, she ends up captured.

On her end, Mia never did anything minimally compared to that, and all of her "selflessness" or self-sacrificing actions involved a much, MUCH smaller scope than Ada's: wanting to help her husband and HERSELF is not at all comparable to saving a few dozens of unknown Chinese civilians. So no, they aren't "cut from the same cloth". They don't come from the same place, nor do they share the same intentions or goals, and their contributions to the RE storyline are quite different.

iv) unknown true purpose (shades of grey)

lining up in the background

waiting for the crowd shot to be seen

in the shadow of the big screen

everybody begs to be redeemed. ⁕

In databooks, Ada is recurrently described as "a Chinese spy with extraordinary physical abilities, vigorous health and composed mind and spirit, capable of coping with grim situations and handling even the most difficult requests without losing composure". If we are paying attention to the storytelling ingame, however, we know that this isn't always the case: Ada did let her mask of unswerving emotional and physical strength fall and showed a very fragile side under strenuous circumstances a couple of times already.

Also, in these databooks, they often point out that "she has her own 'true purpose' and has FREQUENTLY betrayed organizations and clients to achieve it". Huh, we can AGAIN, by this only, see how completely different she's from Mia, who personally watched an entire family being driven to insanity by Eveline's hand.

Furthermore, in these databooks, it's often said that "this true purpose is still obscure and whether she truly cared for anyone or simply used her charms to manipulate people that crossed paths with her isn't ever clear". If people are willing to be open-minded and exercise their text comprehension skills, though, they'll see that in multiple occasions of emotional confrontation it has been established time and time again that yes, Ada DOES care. She wasn't capable of shooting Leon and there has been a couple of other times that failing to choose a cool, sociopathic calculation and pragmatical demeanour over empathy and humanity towards others has put her in harms ways: nonetheless she still chose it.

v) positive impact

I'm gonna break the cycle

I'm gonna shake up the system

I'm gonna destroy my ego. ⁕

To this point, RE's plot systematically leads us to believe that Ada has been covertly acting behind the scenes of multiple biological incidents COLLECTING INFORMATION (the job of a spy, who would've thought! lmao), that is valuable to numerous organizations, companies, groups and different contexts, but at the same time of allegedly offering to handle this knowledge for the right price to the big players involved with bioterrorism and clandestine trading of bioweapons, she's also working to sabotage said players.

This is evident throughout the franchise: she intended to hurt Umbrella's business. She outwitted and deceived Wesker multiple times. She even undermined Simmons, someone who was in a position of power in the US government and actively using that position to lead bioterrorist ventures on the parallel side.

There's no concrete evidence or hint as to what she does with the information she collects, and for all purposes and effects, I can presume that she's gathering this knowledge to assist in the discovery of countermeasures and vaccination studies. I might as well argue that she is a Chinese spy who is working against European and North-American capitalism and the imperialism that creates such monsters like the biochemical and bioweapons industry and that her real objective is to dismantle the market for bioweapons and bioterror supported mainly by the USA (see: Simmons and The Family).

That is, as long as it is unclear what her true purpose is, I have the freedom to surmise whatever the heck I want and that all of what she's been doing was for the sake of the greater "good" - and I'll even have canon moments to support this reasoning as it's clear that she regularly sabotages her customers (customers that are unquestionably established as playing for the "evil" side, with perverse intentions) - throughout the franchise. She did this on RE2, RE4, RE6 and Damnation. It's there, transparent in canon, people just choose to ignore it.

She laughs in the face of whoever she's talking to by the end of Damnation, saying she doesn't intend to deliver the Plaga; she scoffs at Simmons; she betrays Wesker and kills Krauser. She had been sabotaging Wesker for so long, that he sent Krauser to be the main agent in the mission in Spain, and Ada was just a "side effect" that he didn't have in control and had to keep an eye on, so he ordered Krauser to keep tabs on her. It's not a mutually beneficial dynamic. Ada doesn't want Wesker to succeed, she despises him; this is clear in the games in which they interact. There are even files that indicate that she was trying to double-cross and get in the way of his plans for at least 2 years before Spain, and he was constantly catching up with her. See here and here.

On her end, Mia was employed by and consciously working for a criminal syndicate.

vi) a (secretly) helping hand

oh, I'm a master pretender

just felt more alone

the further I'd go

but I'll stick around

I'll be your master defender

yeah, I'll stick around. ⁕

Ada approached characters such as John Clemens and Luis Sera, and both had a canonical intention to, in addition to putting an end to their connections with the criminal companies and organizations they've been working for, also expose and denounce them for their crimes. It's in this context that Ada comes into contact with them. And why is that?

Check John's background: he had made up his mind about disclosing Umbrella's crimes to the public. Check Luis' background: Ada went to Spain to assist in his extradition since he feared for his own life if he resolved to turn his back on the cult of Los Illuminados, and also dreaded the consequences of the liberation of Las Plagas on an international scale.

Keep in mind that Ada handed over to Wesker a USELESS Plaga sample. Wesker only got the sample currently circulating in the underground market because he went after Krauser's body. We don't know what Ada did with the master Plaga sample she obtained. We only know from Ada's Report and the Plaga Recovery file that she didn't deliver it to Wesker, and he needed to go out for a plan B to get it.

Even the G-Virus sample that fell into the hands of the clandestine business, it's possible to argue that Ada's involvement in it was flimsy, since Simmons CANONICALLY made over a thousand laboratory tests in Sherry, and, as we know, he was a leading figure in bioterrorism and bioweapons trading with the aid of his position in the US government.

But, guess what, Ada clearly is a non-white character with obvious Chinese heritage and Mia is white, so of course, OF COURSE, someone can so nonchalantly affirm that Ada, this "vile bitch", is somehow WORSE than Mia. The same Mia who watched the Bakers being destroyed. Right.

Also: trying to validate one's point by claiming anything related to the misogyny present in RE franchise, while IN THE SAME BREATH AND TWEET reducing Ada's entire character arc to that of "a sociopathic bitch cured by the magic dick of her love interest" is supposed to be a joke, right? No, really. Joke.

conclusion and a word against misogyny

we are waiting on a telegram to

give us news of the fall

I am sorry to report

dear Paris is burning after all

we have taken to the streets

in open rejoice, revolting

we are dancing a black waltz

fair Paris is burning after all. ⁕

To any Ada fan that has been reading this so far: PLEASE, I ask to consider refraining to use the "oh yes, Ada did some bad shit, bUT" take to defend the character because that isn't sustained by canon in RE, lmao. She didn't do anything evil that had an indisputable bad impact on the plot and other characters arcs. For one, I myself do love some villains, but that isn't the case with Ada.

She did do some unconventional shit yes, since she's a morally GRAY character and an anti-heroine, but by the end of the day, each and every action of hers had a positive impact on the journey of other characters and main plot. Just pay attention to it.

Like idk man, Black Widow, Elektra Natchios, Scarlet Witch and Black Cat from Marvel, Catwoman from DC, Yennefer from The Witcher (some pop culture examples that come to mind).

Saying that this is an "extremely selfish prototypal bad bitch except when it comes to the magical redeeming dick of her love interest" it's a grotesque reduction of a complex female character, and, in its attempt to critique the misogyny present in RE's franchise an expression of misogyny in itself.

Remember: Ada has actions and impact on the franchise ASIDE and IN ADDITION to her romantic involvement with Leon.

[gayregis]

do you have any examples of the witcher subverting common fantasy tropes? (other than the obvious like ciri being the chosen one but doing evil actions, the male lead being a pacifist etc) i like the books but i have friends who don't wanna read it bc they think it's just another generic fantasy story based off the netflix trailer, i obviously am not gonna force them to read it if they absolutely don't want to but it always hurts when good works go unnoticed because of misinformation

okay!! i won’t give book quotes for this one, this is just off the top of my head, because i think including quotes would take a really long time and wouldn’t helo the point. also there’s probably things i missed here

geralt 

tropes: Icy Cold Killer / Witches Stealing Kids

actuality: is a very emotional man who was born into his profession of killing and never had a choice in the matter. doesn’t want to kill for a living, is a pacifist at heart. adopts ciri because he truly is a good father and loves her and eventually teaches her witcher skills so she has a form of self-defense.

yennefer

trope: Bitchy Witch

actuality: sincerely selfless woman who risks her life multiple times to save her child from harm, does many things to save her lover, only seems bitter and closed off to the most of the world because she has been hurt by everyone she knows and doesn’t let everyone in.

ciri

tropes: Prissy Princess / Chosen One

actuality: she is a princess for approx. 1.2 seconds and then she loses everything she’s ever known, and will continue to lose everything she’s ever known. 

as the chosen one, her powers don’t help her much, she’s super powerful but still super vulnerable and her life continues to be shit - she loses everything again because of her powers, which make her a target. everyone is after her for her powers, she’s the macguffin of the story, she’s been reduced to the holy grail because of them. being the chosen one is more of a curse than a blessing.

dandelion

tropes: The Coward / The Freeloader / Slovenly Bastard

actuality: okay yeah he’s all of these things never mind he demonstrates incredible bravery and loyalty (doing something even though you’re scared to death to do it is bravery), he keeps being by geralt’s side not as a nuisance or a leech, but because geralt genuinely needs him there as his best friend.

milva

trope: The Girl of the Company

actuality: isn’t just there to be sexy while shooting arrows, is not a love interest to any of the main male characters, literally just exists in the company as a woman and no one is creepy towards her because of it. pregnancy arc is handled relatively well and she is given actual story and emotions of her own instead of being reliant on any male characters for developent

regis

trope: Every Single Vampire Trope Ever (esp. being heartless/part of an evil organization)

actuality: “the epitome of humanity,” is a healer/medic/surgeon whose profession it is to preserve life, is kind and acts with goodwill. 

the vampires in the witcher don’t drink blood to survive like hungry beasts or out of evil cultlike activities, but instead it’s like alcohol to them and they face the same social issues as humans surrounding it. also of course every other vampire trope is broken, like sunlight, garlic, wooden stakes, running water, religious symbols...

cahir

trope: Evil Soldier of Darkness

actuality: he is a young man who was manipulated by his family and his society into service of an imperialist nation, he never wanted to cause harm to ciri but raher just sought honor for his family. he then spends the entire rest of the saga redeeming himself.

angouleme

trope: Shitty Orphan Does Crime For Fun

actuality: she’s an extremely young woman who has faced abuse her entire life and has stolen and killed out of pure survival. she is actually a genuinely good person and warns geralt of the attempt on his and his company’s lives.

the sorceresses who were on thanedd and of the lodge

trope: Vain Women Get Nothing Done And Only Think About Men

actuality: 10 insanely powerful women form a powerful political cabal, at least one is a lesbian, they unanimously decide to bar the organization from men because they speak about how men are too emotional and can’t be trusted, they are capable and dangerous as an organization and would have succeeded if not for freak accidents.

witchers in general

trope: godless fiends who thrive on violence

actuality: they were created as a profession to eliminate monsters as being threats to humans, but the threat of monsters has faded and now finding work is more difficult than ever.

sorceresses in general

trope: witches steal kids

actuality: sorceresses take in unwanted daughters, from families who gave them up, and if they show magical prowess they continue to be trained

the striga (princess adda)

trope: Horrific Monster

actuality: a 14 year old girl who has been mistreated all of her life

a grain of truth

story: beauty & the beast

actuality: the real beast is the beauty who tries to rip her boyfriend’s head off

the lesser evil

story: snow white & the seven dwarves

actuality: snow white is no princess, she has been forced into a life of killing which she has become comfortable with

the last wish (heading into the bounds of reason)

trope: love at first sight

actuality: electrocute your ass at first sight, yennefer and geralt fight in the last wish, and after they fall in love date for 4 years they inevitably break up again because love at first sight doesn’t exist and they’re both too immature to hold a sincere relationship until much later

the bounds of reason

story: a peasant can kill a dragon, dragons are beasts that attack villages

actuality: you’d need professionals to kill a dragon, and also the dragons were trying to protect their child and are sentient, intelligence, respectable, and beautiful creatures.

dudu

trope: Evil Doppleganger

actuality: dopplers are incapable of being evil, they mimic forms to survive in this world dominated by violent humans.

the aen seidhe

trope: Elves Are Pretty Boys Who Don’t Do Violence

actuality: these pretty boys do a lot of violence. they kill humans because humans have usurped nearly all of their territory and pushed them out.

the aen elle

trope: Elves Are Pretty Boys Who Don’t Do Violence

actuality: these pretty boys do a lot of violence. they’re colonizers and slavers who take over entire worlds.

unicorns

trope: Unicorns Are Pretty And Docile Creatures

actuality: unicorns and elves have been at war, unicorns are incredibly intelligent and sentient and are their own civilization

nilfgaard

trope: Evil Empire

actuality: it is an imperialist nation, thus it is evil, but there are many nilfgaardian POVs throughout the saga which demonstrate that even though they are committing atrocities they are still very much human. they’re not faceless evil.

geralt’s company

trope: Grand Quest To Save The World

actuality: geralt in the saga, i think as one of the sorceresses said, is just running around lost, getting upset. geralt running around with his gathered company in the wilderness is not a grand march towards power or fame, but rather the journey of how geralt becomes a better person and a better father, he finally accepts help, he finally becomes a leader.

the quest doesn’t concern power or being a grand hero, it’s not a beautiful march. it’s a bunch of idiots traipsing through the forests, grasslands, and marches, trying to dry out their boots and footwraps because the ground is muddy. 

the goal of the quest is not to save the world or find great power or complete a prophecy or save a desperate lover, but rather to just get geralt’s daughter back. his daughter. because he loves her and wants her to be safe. that’s all.

you can’t step two inches in the witcher without breaking a trope. they’re strewn everywhere, like crackers on the sidewalk. step, step. now the pigeons are eating the crumbs

i think largely you have to look at sapkowski’s personal history with writing and fantasy bc iirc he was a scholar or something about arthurian legend and also he was influenced by many polish folktales

[gritsandbrits]

Descendants Rewrite: New Friend Or New Foe?

So recently I was thinking about a rewrite of Descendants 3 where Hades has more screentime and importance and came up with an idea where he ends up accompanying the Core 4 in a human disguise and fake alias and acts as a mysterious benefactor/trickster-type figure towards them and only reveals his true identity during a 1v1 with Audrey. Then I remembered your amazing Descendants OCs and how they replace the Core 4 in your rewrite and started thinking how hilarious it would be for them to have the literal god of the Underworld and the dead as their insane crackhead uncle figure and then this came into fruition. This can fit with either the canon-compliant rewrite or the second-gen rewrite, I didn’t really write it with a specific one in mind. Hope you enjoy!

Paige: “Look guys, I know that it’s difficult to stay positive with everything that’s going on, but we can’t give up hope! All of Auradon is counting us to save it, and we can’t let them down or let anything bad happen to them! I’m sure we can come up with something! Let’s take turns pitching ideas and-”

???: “Not so fast.”

(The gang, obviously startled by the mysterious voice, turn to the direction it’s coming from and see a tall, angular, glasses-wearing businessman with slicked-back black hair, dark blue eyes, and wearing a sharp black three-piece suit along with a tie held by a skull-shaped brooch approaching them.)

Soraya, wielding a spear similar to her mother’s and not hesitating to cut this SOB if he dares to lay a hand on her friends: “Stop right there! We’ve gone through too much to get to this point, and we’re not going to let someone like you send us back to square one! Take one more step and we’ll-”

???, having walked right up to her and is now gently pushing the spear down with his finger: “You must be fun at parties. Don’t get all antsy like that, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here ‘cause I wanna help.”

Aggie: “Wait...help? Help with what?”

???: “Whatcha think I wanna help you, kid? This, obviously! This whole little ‘save-the-kingdom’ bit you got goin’ on here. Hi, how’ you doin’!? Name’s Peter Davis, but you just call me Dave.”

Soraya, hesitantly lowering her spear: “You want to help us save Auradon?”

Dave: “What are you, deaf? I just said so three times already!”

Soraya: “But why? What could you possibly gain from this?”

Dave: “It’s less about what I gain and more about what you gain. You’re facing your biggest and baddest bad guy yet, and everyone knows that in order to beat a villain, you gotta think like one. And I just so happen to be one! Well, a former one, that is. Wanted to shake things up a bit once upon a time by taking over the world and causing all of humanity to plunge into chaos and despair and all that jazz. Honestly, who hasn’t dreamed of doing something like that at least once in their life? But after everything that could go wrong did go wrong, I decided to take a good long look at myself and thought ‘hey, maybe this whole evil business ain’t working out for me’. You live, you learn, you get thrown in a river and spend ages trying to pull yourself out.”

Arthur: “...is that last part supposed to be a metaphor?”

Dave: “Could be interpreted as one if you really look. Point is, I know how bad guys operate better than anyone around, and you could use someone like that on your team. And as for why I wanna be that someone on your team, I got a few reasons for doing so. Part of it’s because I wanna prove to everyone that I’ve turned over a new leaf and am just as much of a hero as any one of them. Part of it’s because I always felt like I was an outcast that was never really accepted by anyone and I finally want to be the spotlight for once. But I don’t wanna make you all teary-eared, so I’ll skip the sappy stuff and tell you my biggest reason for joining: because I’m bored.”

Aggie: “You’re...bored?”

Dave: “Bored doesn’t even do it justice! Work’s been as tedious and dull as watching paint dry, and it’s been forever since I got involved in a good hero’s journey. So when I heard about this little quest and the chance to finally get involved in some real action again, I decided to take a surprise vacation day and went out to find you and your traveling party. And what do you know, here you stand right in front of me! It’s an even trade: you get to the help you need to beat the bad guy and get your ‘Happily Ever Afters’, I get to take part in the adventure of a lifetime. We get to kill two birds with one stone!”

Paige: “But what about your job?”

Dave: “My kids can take care of it! They’ve got good heads on their shoulders, they’re capable of taking care of things while my wife’s away, they should be just fine. So, what do you say? Wanna add me to the party?”

Paige: (thinks for a second, then gives her answer) “...I think this is a decision my friends and I should make together.”

Dave: “Ah, you wanna think it over first! You’re smarter than you look, kid. Take your time, but don’t hold me up for too long. If there’s one thing I’m bad at, it’s waiting.”

(Paige assembles Soraya, Aggie, and Arthur into a group huddle and they start discussing what to do.)

Soraya: “I don’t think it’s a good idea to let him join. He doesn’t seem very trustworthy, almost like some sort of sleazy dealmaker. Something tells me that he’s hiding something from us.”

Aggie: “I agree with Soraya. He might end up stabbing us in the back or using us to further an evil scheme of his own.”

Arthur: “Well, we also thought that about the kids on the Isle at first, but they turned out to be better than we thought! Plus, if Ben were here, he’d let him join us. Isn’t that what he said all of Auradon should do? Giving everyone a chance?”

Soraya: “This is different. The kids on the Isle were like us. They were never that bad to begin with, they just need some help to get on the right track. This ‘Dave’ person is older than them and clearly has had more experience in the evil department, which means he’s probably perfectly capable and willing to use us for his own gain while knowing full well that what he’s doing is wrong and continuing to do it regardless. Besides, Ben isn’t stupid. He knows full well that not everyone can be redeemed. Some people are too selfish and cruel to ever want to better themselves, with Dave possibly being one of them, and we’ve got too much on our plate to consider taking this big of a risk.”

Aggie: “What about you, Paige? Should we let him join?”

Paige: “....Arthur’s right. I know what it's like to be an outcast, and his claim of feeling like one and wanting to be accepted seems like it’s genuine. And if he really is an ex-villain that wants to redeem himself, I think we should help him turn over a new leaf. As Ben always says, ‘self-betterment is never age-restricted’. Besides, we need all the help we can get right now, even if it's being provided by sleazy dealmakers. And if he really is using us for an evil scheme of his, he doesn’t know just who he’s dealing with. The second he tries anything, we can kick his butt in three seconds flat!”

Soraya: “...alright, if you say so. But don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

Aggie: “Well, I trust your judgement, and if Soraya’s agreeing to it, then that means she trusts it as well. I guess I’ll take my chances.”

Paige: “You guys are the best. I promise that I won’t let you down.”

(The gang breaks up the group huddle and Paige walks up to Dave.)

Paige: “Alright, we’ve decided to let you join us.”

Dave: “Good choice, kiddo.”

Paige: “If, and only if, you agree to help us the entire journey and not end up turning on us. The second you do, the deal is off and we won’t hesitate to kick you to the curb.”

Dave: “Trust me, kid: that ain’t gonna happen. But just to assure that I won’t, I’ll accept those terms and make sure to play nice. Wanna shake on it and make it official?”

Paige: “Sure, why not?”

(She sticks out her hand, and Dave gives it a quick, firm shake.)

Paige: “Wow, your hands are warmer than I thought.”

Dave: “What can I say, kid, I’m practically burning with excitement! I can’t thank you enough for letting me come along. Trust me, you and your friends are not gonna regret this.”

(Cue a catchy little song and dance number where Dave sings all about how far the kids will go with his help and cements his role as the designated chaotic neutral of the group.)

  (Author’s Notes:

Peter Davis and “Dave” are references to Ditis Pater and Dis, both of which are aliases for Hades. I thought it could be a nice reference as well as subtle foreshadowing. It’s also very plain sounding, which means it’s perfect for a god trying to blend in with humanity.

His human disguise is based on the appearance of his voice actor James Woods. I know Hades has a canonical human form in Descendants, but since I decided to have him align with James Woods’ portrayal of him rather than Cheyenne Jackson’s, I envisioned looking like a sleazy businessman in his mid forties as I thought it fit his personality better than the punkish biker/rockstar style he has in Canon!Descendants, and also because I pictured him still being in the Underworld instead of on the Isle here and ditching his very important job in favor of going on an exciting adventure, so I imagine that he wouldn’t want to stand out too much for fear of Zeus or Hercules finding him and permanently banishing his ass to the Underworld for fear of what happened the last time he visited the mortal realm happening again. Plus I think there was a video game or event at Disneyland or something that showed Hades dressed as a mob boss so it serves as another fun reference.

The wife Hades mentions is Persephone, and the kids he mentioned are the ones they managed to have together. I wrote them as together even in the Disney canon for three reasons; one, it helps show Hades in a more sympathetic light and better emphasize the point that there are villains out there who love their families and that Hades has decided to change himself for the better, two, it could lead to him bonding with Paige by giving her advice about love and marriage after she tells him about being unsure whether or not to accept Ben’s proposal, and three, because Hades and Persephone were such an iconic power couple in Greek mythology that I would feel like an absolute fool if I left them out.)

G&B: I AM ABSOLUTELY MINDBLOWN BY THIS 😍😍😍😍😍😍

[whateverisbeautiful]

Reveling In Richonne

#169: “What If They Needed To Be Saved From Me?” (10x13)

Question number four of these “saved” questions is, “What if TF needed to be saved from me?”. And it is illustrated in the trippiest of ways.

Starting with a callback to 6.12. And y’all we get Glenn back on our screen for the first time since 7.01. 😭 Even with these being old clips, it literally felt so nice and moving to see these beloved characters back on our screens.

We’re taken back to the day TF made their most controversial decision; to kill saviors in their sleep. And, even more significant, we’re taken back to the moment of Glenn’s first human kill.

However, it doesn’t last long cuz Michonne wakes up as a savior , and shoots Glenn and Heath. 😳 This psychedelic trip was already crazy to me but this is when I realized oh we bout to get crazy-crazy up in these dark dimensions lol.

It was insane thinking about Michonne being on the other end of that fateful night. It also again added some perspective to the idea that these Saviors were in fact people and there could have been some “Michonnes” that TF killed that night. Something I wouldn’t be surprised that Michonne thinks about because she’s mentioned often the way in which people can change and be brought back.

We see Michonne dodging the gunfire in that outpost. Particularly, her hiding from shots being fired by Rick Grimes himself. 🤭

The visual of R&M in the same scene low key made me so happy cuz we hadn’t seen them both in a scene in a long while. I know we were supposed to be like dang that’s crazy Rick and Michonne are on opposing sides of the fight. And that was definitely wild. But my first thought was definitely “look at my babies together again” lol. #Can’tHelpIt 😋

@spacecarols

And then the craziest of it all in this trauma trip...We’re taken back to the freaking line-up.

To date, 7.01 is Walking Dead’s most profoundly intense and brutal hour of television if you ask me. And it’s so surreal to see it play out again, starting it off with Rick on his knees looking dazed as it sinks in that there is no way around the major loss they’re in for.

Seeing just that initial clip of Andy’s stellar acting just pulls me right back into that moment all these seasons later.

And then Negan’s doing the eenie meanie miney moe torture and we’re seeing all our beloved character’s faces. Many for the first time in a long time. It’s interesting this episode definitely had the most non-cameo cameos. And even though our line-up family wasn’t really there I’m glad we got to see them show up in Michonne’s final episode because all of them loved Michonne and she loved them too.

But when Negan can’t decide who to bludgeon, he instead looks to his right hand woman, Michonne to make the choice. Again, I know this is all a hypothetical scenario, but it’s low key fitting that Michonne would be Negan’s confidant and go-to person cuz that’s who she was to Rick. And whichever side has Michonne has the advantage. Period. 💯

@hughxjackman

Then Michonne lurks around TF letting them know they made a mistake by killing their people in their sleep.

So far each scene in this trip has spoke to a very significant part of Michonne’s life. The day she saved Andrea, the day she became forever bonded with her Grimes boys, the day they took the lives of sleeping Saviors, and now of course the day (will come when you won’t be) Negan’s reign of terror began.

As she scolds TF for what they did to the Saviors, and how they didn’t know anything about them but still took their lives, it again speaks to the way Michonne can carry the weight of the lives they’ve taken over the years. When you feel called to save, it makes sense to feel heavy over those you couldn’t or didn’t save.

Especially since they did eventually take Saviors in and try to coexist with them so there is perhaps the added guilt of thinking “could some of these sleeping Saviors we killed have changed or been redeemed?”. My vote is probably not for a lot of them, but I’m sure Michonne can’t help but wonder.

Michonne has always been so aware of who she was and the dark space she could’ve stayed in and that has fueled this certain empathy she’s able to have with others when they’re falling down the rabbit hole.

It’s why she understood Rick in his haze in “The Distance” and at Alexandria. It’s why she made an effort to be kind to Father Gabriel and Spencer and King Ezekiel in their low moments. Cuz when people are going through trauma she gets it and tries to help. But during that season six moment there wasn’t exactly time to think like that with the saviors they killed at that outpost.

“Wild” is my word of the day for these posts cuz it really is such a wild sight to see Michonne standing above everyone else on their knees. There’s a moment where she gets directly in Rick’s face and intensely stares at him. I hate to keep using the word “crazy” too but it’s legitimately crazy to see the two of them like that. A husband and wife so at odds in this hellish dimension.

@spacecarols

And of course my Richonne brain was like “they still look cute together”. 😍🤷🏽‍♀️ But that’s besides the point. And then it breaks my heart when they cut to Carl “looking” at Michonne. The Michonne and Carl bond was always so special, so it’s painful to think of those two never having that connection and even being at odds.

What’s so trippy about this trip is that we know just how deep rooted Michonne, Rick, and Carl’s bond was. How much love they shared and how they were tried and true family. So to see them like this is just otherworldly and heartbreaking.

Plus, I felt it’s interesting to see sort of the parallel positioning of Michonne facing Rick in her hallucination as opposed to when Michonne faces Rick in Rick’s hallucination.

@michonnegrimes

Like the one in this episode is just cold and opposing while the other in s9 is so loving and warm. And for me, it emphasized how nice it is that Michonne got to live out the warm and loving reality with her man, instead of this dark and depressing one.

Michonne may have feared what horrors she could be capable of had things gone differently, but in the mind of her husband she is a complete symbol of love and hope and happiness. Cuz good is what she truly is at her core.

As Michonne waves the bat around to decide who to take out, I was super curious who it would be and I felt it was a really significant thing for her to have chosen herself.

Again, I think it ties into this idea of blaming herself for things, as though she’s the one that deserves the punishment cuz of the “blood on her hands”.

It also made me think about how everyone said Negan probably chose Abraham first because he could tell Abe would pose the biggest threat to him. And I’d say Michonne chose Michonne for the same reason.

So there’s layers to this decision to choose herself cuz by saying to herself “I see you as the threat” it also says “I see you as someone who can be game-changing in saving your people”.

And Michonne most certainly was game-changing in fighting back against the Saviors. I liked the reveal that she too was in the line-up cuz, even in this distorted drugged state, there is still apart of her that would be with her family. #always 😌👌🏽

@michonnegrimes

[black-streak]

Saturday night's alright for fighting (but Sundays are meant for rest) - It's Cute

Part 9

The awaited family reactions to the cuddle fest. Dear lord, this took so long to write! Probably should have tried writing these characters once before attempting to write all of them now, but oh well. They're all a bunch of cheeky shits. Bruce may be a world class detective, but he's clueless with his family. You cannot change my mind.

Aaaaaand Tags: @poshplumcot @emjrabbitwolf @mystery-5-5 @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @fandomkitty8 @dast218 @silvergold-swirl @shizukiryuu . @my-name-is-michell @kurogaya913 @elspethshadow @thecatnipmademedoit @shamefullove @ladylucina28 @crazylittlemunchkin

Let me know if you'd like to be added!

~---~

The first one to happen upon their new normal had been Dick, not that they were aware.

Around 9 in the morning, he'd found himself passing by the living room off the side kitchen the boys were allowed to use (the main kitchens off limits to all but Alfred himself, with occasional exceptions for Marinette or Jason) only to stop and backtrack, lips twitching into a wide grin.

There on the far couch, Tim lay passed out with his laptop closed on the coffee table. This in itself would be enough to endear Richard, seeing as he rarely saw Tim crash without it being face first into his work, but what really sold it was the tiny body curled up on the couch with him.

Marinette became a new normal around the manor, having been attached at the hip to their youngest around 3 months ago. Richard could still recall her first visit, half hidden behind Damian where he stood in front of her as though shielding his new friend from their sight. She'd had curious eyes trained onto them as he led her past and up towards his room. They'd all let Damian think he'd gotten her past them for the moment, bursting into speculation the second the two's footsteps fell out of hearing range.

The curiosity only grew as her presence became a near constant, Damian always a step behind or in front of her. Dick vividly remembered the suspicious look Tim had shot his coffee upon hearing the youngest call her Angel. At that point, they stopped feigning polite and sought her out. 

She took to their proding with grace, if a little overwhelmed and flustered from the fast switch in temperament. They'd all granted the two space for over a week only to all start approaching her on the near constant. And constant it was.

Richard knew he'd overwhelmed her a little in those first few weeks, but it couldn't be helped. He had never seen his babybat so protective and borderline sweet before.

Marinette turned out to be one of the most humble, affectionate, and downright considerate people Dick had the pleasure of meeting. She'd charmed them all.

From the recipes she shared with Alfred over an afternoon tea, to the little trips she took with Jason to bookstores. From random breakfast dates with Stephanie to quiet sleepovers with Cass whenever she made a reappearance. Babs and Duke had yet to meet her, but he was sure they'd find a liking to her just as easily.

Richard himself had been endeared to her the moment he saw how Damian softened around his 'Angel'. It only grew when she started coming to him, a bundle of energy, asking him if he really was versed in trapeze like Damian said. The attachment solidified upon her admitting a solid knowledge in aerial silks, afternoons between the two lost in the gym, talking through stretches and showing off to each other on their preferred apparatus.

And here it seemed Tim had finally found his endearment to her. 

It's not that the two hadn't interacted before. They were often found dying over their own caffeinated beverage of choice, lamenting to one another the struggles of running their respective business. While Tim may run WE as its CEO, he obviously respected and commended her ability to run her own technically small business, holding extremely high clientele, both local and world wide while keeping her workload contained to manageable levels. Meanwhile, she saw and admired Tim's insane ability to manage a massive sprawling company without falling over dead. 

Otherwise, you could occasionally catch them sharing playlists or texting random nonsense to one another.

That, however, seemed to be the extent of their interactions. Tim seemingly holding her at a distance for reasons undetermined.

The distance seemed pretty shattered now, Mari curled up to him, both dead to the world. Dick simply watched, smiling softly from the doorway. Finally, someone who seemed to be capable of persuading Tim into sleep. He really shouldn't be surprised that Marinette was the one to make it happen.

Lifting his phone, he snapped a picture and sent it to the family group chat with the caption, "Laying bodily on top of Tim seems an effective way to force him to sleep. Think it'd work for me?" Tucking his phone back into his pocket, satisfied with the near constant vibration from the chaos he reigned, he finally entered the kitchen, poured a bowl of cereal for himself and left before either of the occupants a room over could wake to find him.

..

Alfred had taken the sight of them cuddling in stride. It'd taken place around two weeks after seeing the evidence of such in the family chat, courtesy of Richard.

Carrying books back into the library, the elderly butler couldn't claim surprise at finding Timothy curled around Marinette in a protective huddle as the two napped. 

Ever since discovering the young woman's identity, he'd seen how Timothy watched her, intrigued and almost instinctively possessive. Of course Miss Marinette had befriended Damian first and the two were as thick as thieves, but in costume, she was Tim's shadow. She normally followed him everywhere and when she happened to stray, the young man would get restless and paranoid, no longer sensing her silent company. Eventually, he'd either group up with one of the others until he sensed her again or happen upon her handiwork and suddenly calm down. Alfred couldn't say whether Red Robin was even aware of his own actions or simply following his gut, but either way, the two were magnetized. It was only a matter of time before the same happened in civilian form.

Watching as Miss Marinette nuzzled his neck and settled closer in a deeper sleep, Alfred expected the two would be together by the end of the week.

…

Damian knew his Angel had found a body pillow in the form of his older brother. Of course he knew, she told him within hours of the development. He felt no need to confirm any further. 

This didn't mean he never saw them cuddle. No, it just meant it never took him off guard. Maybe a touch put off at times, but not surprised. One minute he'd be hunting the manor for his tiny friend and the next he'd find himself huffing to himself and begrudgingly leaving the two alone after inevitably finding her with Tim. Sure, he spent most evenings monopolizing her time to himself, but he already found himself having to share her with the rest of the flock enough during daylight hours when everyone wasn't otherwise occupied with work. The last thing he needed was for the one brother who left her mostly alone to start taking up all of her spare time. 

While Damian knew that Tim had redeeming qualities such as his diligence and intellect (his younger self was rolling in its grave at this admittance) he still couldn't grasp what it was his Angel saw there. His older brother was a certifiable disaster. A sleep deprived, caffeine addicted, sarcastic mess of a man. 

Then again, so was she. And somehow, that didn't end in a clash of personalities, but instead, led to breaking each other's more impractical habits. As much as he loathe to admit it, they worked well together and he knew it to be true everytime he stumbled upon their sleeping forms.

Leaving to find Richard after another failed attempt to collect Mari to hang out, he felt a small smile tug at the edges of his lips. Despite the confusion over the match, he took his small joys in knowing Tim kept her warm and happy.

….

Stephanie and Jason thought the picture from Dick was a once in a lifetime opportunity to view the workaholics at rest. That somehow all that coffee addled energy cancelled each other out and the two just passed out in the delirium next to each other only for Mari to become a koala in her sleep.

Imagine their utmost shock and delight when upon entering the library, bickering over something neither can remember, they find the same happy scene before them. 

A wicked grin crosses Steph's face and she sneaks closer to the couch, leaning into the space by Tim's face.

Jason, seeing her intentions, immediately rushes forward to prevent the inevitable. 

"Do you have a death wish?!" He whispered, unknowingly too late in his warning.

Marinette's eyes peek open right as Steph reaches to poke Tim awake, a low growl sounding in their ears in clear anger and annoyance, glaring Stephanie down until the blonde withdrew her finger from where it hovered an inch above his cheek. 

Eyes flying wide, Steph cautiously backed away from the pissed noirette, hands raised in surrender.

"Sorry, Mar, backing off now," Steph promised in reassurance and slight fear.

Suddenly Tim shifted, pulling Mari closer to himself as though sensing her discontent. 

Snuggling into him, she kept her eyes on the pair until she deemed them a safe distance before burrowing into his chest, falling back to sleep.

Stephanie could only stare before whipping around to whisper yell at Jason, "What the flying fuck was that?!"

"Pixie pop does not take kindly to being woken up. Learned that the hard way a while back. Imagine it's the same for waking up her personal heater there," he shrugged, carefully dragging her back out of the library. 

Glancing back at the pair, he couldn't help but shake his head. The little pixie sure had them all wrapped around her finger, didn't she?

…..

Cass…. Well she honestly didn't see how it mattered as long as the two finally got some sleep. If that meant forcing each other to nap, whether it be in the guest room of the manor or in the deserted Batcave, him slouched in the office chair and her draped across his lap, so be it.

If she played ignorant and never acknowledged to herself that Marinette definitely should not know about the cave, nevertheless be sleeping in it, no one was the wiser.

……

Bruce rarely regretted muting the family group chat. Only two hours into its creation, the notifications had reached into the hundreds. He muted it without a second thought and never looked back.

At times like these, he almost wished he checked it every once in a while. It might have prepared him better for what had transpired in front of him.

Sitting in his favorite high backed armchair by the fireplace, he'd briefly taken note of his youngest sitting in the corner of the couch, one hand holding a book in arabic up to read, the other arm wrapped around Marinette where she slept pressed against him.

He knew Damian hated being touched in his sleep, but perhaps his sweet little friend was an exception after all? It wouldn't surprise him seeing as she seemed to be the exception to all of Damian's rules. 

Bruce couldn't help the softening in his expression at seeing his son finally open up and accept the affection of another human. Sure, the kid had always been loving towards his many pets, but it was wonderfully new to see that extend to the young woman under his arm.

The first time he heard Damian call her his angel, Bruce had settled himself with the knowledge that this woman was to eventually become his daughter in law.

So absorbed in his reflecting, he almost missed Tim's entrance. 

Shaking out of it, he nodded to his second youngest and turned back to his book.

He almost became reabsorbed in his own reading when he noticed Tim approaching the opposite end of the couch.

What happened next, Bruce could only watch in dumbfounded disbelief.

Tim settled into the couch, shifting so he reclined comfortably and pulled the blanket off the back and across his body. Once he seemingly deemed the position suitably comfortable, he moved the blanket to the side of him and sat up, leaning towards the two on the opposite end. 

Damian lifted his head and made eye contact with his older brother, a silent conversation passing between the two, before moving his arm off Marinette and carefully moving her away from him and towards the other. The pass off went smoothly, her weight shifting easily from Damian's side and into Tim's waiting arms. 

From there, Tim gently moved her over to his side of the couch, laying back into his original position only now with her pressed between his side and the couch back. Lastly, Tim pulled the blanket back over the two and finally settled down. 

Marinette herself stirred awake once the blanket fell around her. She seemed to take stock of the situation, looking over to Damian and then turning to blink blearily up at Tim. A small, contented smile graced her face before it disappeared into his collar, where she buried her face, promptly falling back to sleep. 

The same sleepy smile crossed Tim's face as he ducked down to nuzzle the top of her head where he followed her lead. 

Completely thrown off guard, Bruce looked back to Damian only to see his youngest completely unfazed as he returned to his reading.

Clearing his throat softly, Bruce successfully gained the other's attention without waking the other two occupants.

"When did this become a thing?" He gestured towards the cuddling pair.

Damian simply raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"You really ought to read our messages. They've been like this for a month now." And with that, Damian went back to his reading, a smirk hidden behind the pages as his father gaped at him in disbelief. It was going to take a small miracle for his father to figure out the other two were dating at this rate.

Snapping his mouth closed and clearing his throat once more, Bruce turned back to his own book, filing the information away for later, thinking to himself, 'Perhaps Damian isn't as possessive as I thought?'

[multimetaverse]

Andi Mack 3x14 & 3x15 Reviews

Hammer Time and Unloading Zone were two good eps that were somewhat marred by filler. Let’s dig in!

Positives: 

It’s good to teach kids early that there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. 

I’ll give them credit for not bearding TJ and for having him explicitly say that that he and Kira are not together. Also really drove home how petty and manipulative Kira is. 

The Tyrus scenes were brief but not as angsty as I thought. It’s very clear they’re pushing the bounds of subtext and showing that Cyrus has a crush on TJ and wants to make that known but of course we can’t start moving into text until after the cut episode. I think this is the ep that probably clues in the casual audience that Cyrus does in fact like TJ as more than a friend though knowledge that they’re being set up to be a couple won’t come until Something to Talk A-Boot (unless they happen to see the promo with the Bench scene).

They’ve clearly set up Buffy as Cyrus’ crush confidante, making sure all talk of TJ is kept away from Andi and Jonah which is sad but unsurprising. It wouldn’t shock me if Andi and Jonah don’t explicitly know about Cyrus’ crush until after the bench scene itself. Great to see Buffy being so encouraging although she can’t explicitly say anything yet. 

I wonder if that whole ‘’brings out his eyes’’ bit will come back during or after the bench scene. TJ is wearing a green shirt at the party that would bring out his eyes. Maybe that will be a Disney approved gay version of the typical straight guy calling his love interest pretty.

Those were some great Muffy scenes. I know there were some worries on tumblr about their chemistry after 3x13 but those should be put to rest now I think.

Extremely easy to see the Muffy arc ending in a kiss in the finale. 

Bringing Garren back was a very wise decision on the writers part. That ‘’ I want to cross the finish line’’ with you line was a great little nod to them being endgame. And that piggyback ride Marty gave Buffy was sweet. 

Really good subtle message sent by the camp out that it should be totally normal for a straight guy to have sleepovers with his gay friend. 

Andi’s line about Jonah maybe not being capable of more emotional connection than his usual 6 emojis is damning but I also wonder if it’s set up for him to subvert that when he sings You Girl.

A sad reminder about Amber’s awful home life. It’s clear she’s seeking the love and attention she’s not getting at home from her parents but Jonah is really not the solution. 

In 3x15 we get some foreshadowing for Buffy’s later foot injury

Nice to see Jonah participating in the protest and I always enjoy when they lean into Jonah being kind of dumb.

We still managed to get an Alpaca cameo after all. Also confirms that the original 3x18 at Snuck Farm was indeed planned as the original wedding. 

The don’t hurt yourself lines Cyrus and Jonah had were very funny. 

Cyrus referenced the Tunguska event most likely

Lauren Tom knocked it out of the park with her emotional scenes in both eps. i wish we had seen more of this Celia in S3 instead of wacky grandma 

Liked Officer Penn’s Clint Eastwood impression. And interesting that they used a white male cop as a bad guy. 

Celia’s snow globe was a lovely gift. According to Disney PR, it was inspired by Terri’s snow globe collection and Lilan and Trent didn’t know what was inside the box until they opened it. 

Liked the Game of Thrones reference (at least the Andi Mack finale can’t be worse than that show’s) 

Loved the music in the cold open, it was the same they used for scene transitions in 3x07. 

I try not to pass judgment on the show because the whole Ham situation is so awful and unprecedented but that convo about him going to India really skated close to dark humour especially when Celia said ‘’don’t worry you’ll see him again’’.

Negatives: 

Notice how they kept Kira making TJ feel bad about his crush out of the previously on and instead focused on her disliking Cyrus because he’s Buffy’s friend. I do think Kira gets called out for that by TJ during the finale but it’s clear for now that they’re trying to pass this off as her hating Buffy and liking TJ and wanting him for herself. 

They had Luke and Raquel for a day but filmed quite a bit less than their typical maximum. TJ himself only got 2:45 minutes of screentime, including being in the background, which is a little less than his usual 3 minutes. 

Which isn’t a surprise, TJ’s screen time operates by a different math than other recurring characters. It’s the same pattern in both S2 and S3, he can be in 9 aired eps max and only 3 eps after the 13th ep of the season. Luckily in S3 Disney only ordered 21 eps so instead of only 3 TJ eps spread out over 12 eps we got 3 spread out over 8 until the FBI knocked that down to 7. 

It’s not a question of budget, they had a much higher per ep budget in S3, nor was it scheduling since Luke had no other projects and they were able to work around Garren’s GH filming schedule right through the finale and re-shoots nor was there a 9 ep limit on recurring characters as Emily was in 11 of the original 21 this season. 

Not to mention they’ve been drastically cutting TJ’s screentime with Cyrus. Luckily they do probably have to give him a bit more than 3 minutes in Something to Talk A-Boot and hopefully gets more than 3 in the finale. 

The Cyrus and Jonah plot was sweet but pure filler. I never expected Cyrus to talk to Jonah about his feelings or anything related to his sexuality but was there nothing else they could even briefly touch on? Jonah’s anxiety? Cyrus’ anxiety? Jonah’s family problems? It’s not like Terri didn’t know the show was going to end just 7 eps later in otl so why waste this time? It’s most likely the last significant solo time those two have and they should have used it more wisely.

Vivian turned out to be completely useless. Seems like they cut some of her lines but I really don’t get her purpose. 

The clothing protest was rushed and the ending was very unsatisfying. It hurt the plot that we never actually saw anyone connected to the company.

Celia and Bex didn’t really patch up either and I’m guessing things weren’t truly fixed until Bex agreed to put the wedding back on in 3x17 in otl. 

Amber is in love with Jonah? This is what they’re dedicating so much screen time to in these final eps? 

They really ruined the swings for nothing. At least we get nice scenes in Something to Talk A-Boot and the finale

Kira really is something. She’s trying to get a a guy she knows is gay to date her which is insane

I was expecting there to be very little in this final TJ ep before the original wedding in part because of Terri’s instagram post back in November right after Josh revealed the endgame had changed and right before they shot the original 3x18 where she screenshotted a tweet that said Andi Mack fans should stop accusing the show of queer baiting or blaming Disney censorship in regards to Cyrus’ story line. Writers let their work speak for them and that Terri posted that was a sign that the criticism hit to close to home. 

The show is not queer baiting and 3x11 was an all time great but to pretend there hasn’t been long running censorship from Disney is a straight up lie and excluding 3x11 there’s really been very little. I’m sure she had planned for the bench scene for a while but she couldn’t have known that she’d get it approved until it was time to write the finale. Disney seemed committed to some sort of Tyrus endgame but it very easily could have been just them standing together smiling at the end in which case this whole mess of a plot would have been for nothing. She was reckless but got very lucky that Disney didn’t screw her over. I hope whoever ends up making the next Disney show with a gay story line will know not to bite off more than they can chew. 

Looking Ahead:

Things are in some ways simpler and in some ways messier for Tyrus. TJ seems to have accepted Kira as a friend but is refusing to use her as a beard and still wants to hang with Cyrus. Cyrus thinks TJ is straight but has seemingly forgiven him for costume day so that conflict is swept under the rug. Either Kira does a complete 180 off screen and apologizes in her 45 seconds of speaking time in the finale or she’s just there so Cyrus can be sad and TJ tells her off and then goes to speak to Cyrus without her getting any real development or redemption. Either way it’s going to be wild going from closeted TJ to TJ having a boyfriend and being out to at least several people all in like 3-4 minutes of screentime.  

She really is only looking at something like 30-45 seconds of speaking time in the finale and not all that much more of background time if she’s lucky as Raquel was only on set for one day and it was the same day all the other main and recurring kids were also filming and she was only 14 at the time which means she can be on set a little less than most of the other kids. And her insta story shows that it was just her and Luke in the school room and after she finished class she was just hanging on set until they wrapped for the day. 

If she’s not getting a redemption arc than most likely they’ll follow up with what Buffy said and she’ll say something mean about Cyrus that will cause TJ to drop his willful blindness and tell her off or she gets tired of waiting and tries to demand that TJ dates her and he tells her off. Either way Cyrus would likely see them and mistake it for them having a moment. 

 This does mean that TJ doesn’t need to redeem himself so much in Something to Talk A-Boot at the theatre or the game. That TJ is even at those events and hanging with Cyrus over at least two days in universe means he’s either not hanging with Kira or he still is but is less vulnerable to her manipulation.

So the prop garbage was for community service after all. Wild

They really went there with the stereotypes about Asian people. I think great things can come of this plot and I’m excited to see Andi’s art plot line take off. 

Now we know why Jonah says ‘’why can’t it just be fun? Why does it have to be love?’’ There’s almost no chance this Amber in love with Jonah story won’t be a trainwreck but hopefully it’s an entertaining one. I really don’t know if there’s anything they can do for Amber’s home life. Her parents divorcing would probably help in the long term but it would be a very depressing ending to her arc. 

Really does seem to be no set up for Jandi but we’ll see how long they can keep their lead girl completely romance free. Lilan and Asher have both talked about Jonah and Andi being settled and Disney has been hyping up Jandi moments and of course Jonah sings You Girl so something is going to happen. With the new promos suggesting Andi might be moving away in the finale, probably for her art, I wonder if they have an ending where they’re not officially together but they know they like each other and that the universe will always guide them back to one another or some hippy crap like that. 

Presumably Bowie still wants to get married. Wonder how they’ll get the wedding back on track without Ham’s help. 

Mack chat kids hate Kira but no mention of Tyrus which is no surprise. On the plus side this means we get Luke guest starring for either Something to Talk A-Boot or the finale and it seems that Josh was a finale guest so they will have to talk about Tyrus even if only briefly. 

I’ll talk more about the new promos tomorrow but I’m so glad that they’re teasing the bench scene.

Only 5 more weeks left!

[starlightafterastorm]

WHO’S THE MURDERER?

So the big question of Season 1 is “Who killed Lilly Kane Jason Blossom?”

(Forgive me I HAD to put the Veronica Mars reference in there. It makes me laugh every time)

@somebooksmakeusfree and I have been going back and forth and we’ve compiled this list. Which we will probably go back and revise as we get closer to the reveal. My comments are after the “N” and hers are after the “A”

Buckle up, this might turn into some long speculations...

Who we can rule out for SURE:

Betty - N: Was in LA for her internship. Our Hitchcock blonde has a solid alibi.

             A: I know what you’re thinking, “...but what about ‘Dark Betty?’” ‘Dark               Betty’ may have  her secrets, but I don’t think this is one of them.

Veronica - N: Just moved in from New York. She had NO reason to be                                 anywhere near Riverdale/Jason.

                  A: Agreed.

Who we can PROBABLY rule out:

Archie - N: Because it’s fucking Archie and there was so much drama about                     him hearing the gunshot and even if we don’t have a solid alibi for him                 yet on the weekend of the 11th IT’S NOT GONNA BE HIM.

             A: Come on guys, Archie couldn’t keep a secret (or a girlfriend) if his life              depended on it. I know it. You know it. Jughead knows it.

Jughead - N: I’m willing to bet it’s not Juggie even if he doesn’t have an alibi           for the 11th. He’s one of the core four and Cole probably wouldn’t be                 joking about it if it actually was him (or would he? Cole is the trolliest of               trolls). Also they’ve already ruled him out in episode 7. And gave us a                 beautiful Bughead scene to boot. 

         A: Cole even rhymes with “troll.” So far, we haven’t been given a motive              that would explain why Jughead would ever murder Jason, even with                  his father’s entanglements with the Blossoms and the Sneks. (Can we               talk about how sad it is that he doesn’t have an alibi because he was                   probably spending that time alone...living in that shack of a drive-in                     theatre? *cries*)

Fred - N: My god, please don’t have THE ONE GOOD PARENT ON THIS                      SHOW BE THE MURDERER. I doubt it’s Fred.

            A: Fred is too one-dimensional of a character...unless crazy things                       happen when his ex wife returns.

Hal - N: The fact that Hal was shown to break into the Sheriff’s home to steal              the photos probably rules him out. The fact that they placed so much                  suspicion on him early on seems like a fake out. I think HE THINKS Alice            did it and he stole the pictures to protect her.

        A: Or he stole them because he knew the real reason Polly and Jason were         running away and he didn’t want anyone finding out about Polly’s                       condition or putting suspicion on their family in general. Definitely not Hal.

Alice - N: I believe Alice when she says she didn’t do it. I also believe her when        she says she would have done it if given the chance. She told Hal he                  should know what she’s capable of. It’s possible we learn more about                some sort of specific event that might justify that statement OR it might              just be that they’ve been married for close to 20 years and he should                 know her well enough by now. And also if she was a Serpent then HELLS           YEAH she’d be capable. but I doubt she did it in this specific instance. 

       A: Alice has really been redeeming herself lately. Could she have killed                Jason? Absolutely, she disliked him because he was a Blossom and                    because he “ruined” Polly’s life. Did she actually do it? Probably not,                  though Hal may secretly think she did. Anywho, I’m living for brick-                      throwing, Jughead-liking, emotional Alice.

Polly - N: I think the whole Cooper family is… not quite all there, Polly included.        But with the nuns and being locked up and being pregnant and everything I        don’t think Polly did it. Her distress at finding out Jason was dead was too          real. (HER FACE WHEN SHE ASKED BETTY WHEN HE WAS COMING TO          GET HER BROKE MY HEART) But also she was being held captive by                insane nuns. 

           A: Okay, my theory, if Polly did it, is that she had a psychotic break and              doesn’t remember killing him. WHAT IF DARK BETTY ISN’T ABOUT                    BETTY, BUT A HINT ABOUT POLLY? If Polly really does have                             Dissociative Identity Disorder or another mental illness, she may have                 repressed the act of murder. Why would she have killed him? Maybe he             decided he didn’t want to be around for her and their unborn babies, or               decided they couldn’t run away, or tried (like Hal did to Alice) to force her           to have an abortion. Then again, probably not. The details of the murder             seem rather difficult for a pregnant woman to execute, let alone a                       teenager that lives with parents and is locked up in a creepy asylum.

F.P. Jones - N. Nope. Not him. Same thing with Hal, it’s a fakeout with the                  jacket and the Serpents. NO DOUBT HE’S GOING TO GET FRAMED FOR          IT THOUGH

                  A. It’s too easy.  

Kevin Keller - N. Probably not but Kevin’s been acting sort of shady and there            have been weird cuts to him sometimes (though I thought that                            was more due to his hiding the fact he’s dating Joaquin). I don’t                         know. I hope it’s not him. 

       A. I can’t decide if finding the body rules him out or makes him more                  suspicious. I love Kevin so much. I don’t think he did it...and Joaquin better        not hurt him!!!

Cheryl Blossom - N. I had ruled out Cheryl but girl was acting SHADY in                     episode 9. I think her grief is real but… you know she’s got her own                     issues to deal with. And she’s not dealing with them well.

        A. She’s losing it, but I really don’t think she killed her twin.

Hermione - N: Same as Veronica. Even if Hiram was somehow involved and           Hermione is ok with shady dealings on behalf of her husband I think straight       up murder is where she’d cross the line.

       A: If Hiram did put a hit out on Jason, this doesn’t mean Hermione                      didn’t know about it though...

Reggie Mantle - N. Nah. Probably not Reggie.

                             A. I really doubt this too.

Dilton Doiley - N. Probably not but Dilton could have snapped and gone FULL                SURVIVAL mode on Jason.

            A. Not convinced.

Chuck Clayton - N. Maybe some revenge thing having to do with football? I’m      voting no on Chuck. ALTHOUGH HE WAS BEING SO SHADY WITH OUR            SHADY GIRL ETHEL. Was he really just apologizing? 

    A. Chuck is a lot of things, but I don’t think murderer is one of them. Besides,     his only motive would be to take Jason’s captain position, which I’m not            convinced he’d have been in the running for anywho, unless...well, ya                   know...nepotism. ***Edit: After episode 11 I��m starting to get weird vibes            about everyone’s favorite shady girl, Ethel, and Chuck. Are they working              together? Was all of this a big con? What would the reason be for that                anywho? I have no idea, but creepy Ethel creeping on the hot tub scene and      then Chuck and Ethel consulting civilly during lunch does not bode well...

The Pussycats - N. I don’t think it was any of them.

                            A. Nah.

Grundy - N. We haven’t seen her since episode 4. She might have been crazy         enough to do it but my gut says she’s gone for good (or until they bring her        back for drama’s sake in season 2).

     A. GRUNDY IS THE WORST!!! I don’t see why she would have any reason to      kill Jason though.

Viable suspects (BECAUSE WE JUST DON’T KNOW)

Clifford Blossom - N. DUDE DID NOT FLINCH WHEN HE WAS SHOWN HIS           SON’S BODY. We haven’t seen enough of him to really tell but he’s been             less broken up about it than his wife and daughter. And the shame of having       his heir/only son run away with a Cooper might have made him snap. 

      A. Cheryl really is the only Blossom who’s been genuinely upset. Both of the      parents are sketchy. Both of them are super creepy to Archie, the surrogate        Jason, which makes me wonder what they were like to the real Jason.

Penelope Blossom - N. Even if she didn’t pull the trigger, it’s highly possible                  she was complicit in the murder in some way. She’s creepy as hell.

            A. She is one creepy lady. Did she caress Jason like she caresses                       Archie at the funeral? I put nothing past her.

Ethel Muggs - N. Ethel was SUPER shady in episode 3. She enjoyed Dark                Betty and Chuck’s retribution a little too much. And as Jughead’s narration          of how that whole situation would have darker rippling effects no one could        have predicted, Ethel thanks B + V sweetly and Cheryl says                                 #JusticeForEthel. Also… what was the conversation she was having with             Chuck in Episode 11? (Also... that scene with Jughead. Was that                         supposed to come off kind of creepy and lovelorn? Was it just a nod to the         comics or something more?)

       A. Barb Ethel is definitely sketchy. If we hadn’t had the hospital scene, I              would have thought her whole ‘parents fighting’ story was made up.                   Something is off about her….

Hiram Lodge - N. He has been pulling some sneaky shit behind the scenes all         season. Maybe a pointed attack to the Blossom family that had been                 coming for a long time? (I FUCKING CALLED IT BEFORE EPISODE 9). I             want to say it’s not him though because i think he’ll become the big bad             antagonist of season 2. 

       A. He seems the most likely villain, but it’s just so easy. It’s too easy. For all       we know, he’s wrongly behind bars and the real mastermind behind all of           this has been Hermione all along...

Joaquin - N. We just don’t know enough about him to rule him out.

      A. He’s kind of the Snek’s errand boy, but he also clearly has a sense of               morality that seems like it might stop him from committing murder. Also,           #DontHurtKevin.

Sheriff Keller - N. Everything could be a cover up.

        A. He’s a terrible sheriff...

Mayor - N. It’s been mentioned before how hard it was for the mayor to get her           position as an African American woman. Maybe it was a power play                   against the Blossoms?

            A. Murder seems like bad politics, but then again, so does sexual                       assault and habitual lying...

Principal Weatherbee - N. Look we don’t have all the facts. It could be                       Weatherbee. It could not be. We just don’t know.

         A. Definitely don’t know enough about him.

Pop - N. POP. HE HAS A FREEZER. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT HE DOES IN HIS            SPARE TIME. HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN INTO A DISPUTE WITH THE                BLOSSOMS BECAUSE OF MAPLE SYRUP. 

         A This is it guys. This is my crack theory. Pop knows all the town gossip             probably, because...they’re clearly the only restaurant in Riverdale. He also         is the only one that we can confirm probably has a freezer large enough for         a body. What is his motive? No idea, but he’s definitely the most                          unsuspected person in town.

[todokori-kun]

‘I’d even ship him with Shuu’ what have you done now I’m actually shipping that (Shuu trying to be his usual romantic, flirtatious self and then realising Urie either doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to get it)

I KNOW IT’S SO SAD

TG’s quality does seem to be going down a bit these last few chapters (I think the real problem started with the Touken romance. I swear I’m not being salty about a ship I don’t particularly like being canon, I just feel like the pacing was a bit bad…Touka’s ‘are you a virgin’ came completely out of the blue, plus Touken has hardly interacted in Re before the recent chapters. It’s been YEARS since they’ve seen each other, wouldn’t things have changed? Neither of them are teenagers anymore. Both of them have grown and changed, but Touka chose not to stay near Kaneki and watch his growth, while Kaneki had no way to see how Touka’s experiences gradually changed her. But Ishida decided to suddenly make it canon and then start focusing on the Touka-Kaneki-Mutsuki triangle to the point where it feels like he’s abandoning his other plot threads… kind of like what Isayama’s been doing lately.).

However, I believe that Ishida is completely capable of making things better if he wants to (remember, he still has the Hide trump card- bring Hide back in a believable way that nobody has predicted and also adds to the story, and I imagine most of the fandom will forgive everything that’s gone wrong in Re so far) so I’ll stick around. Plus, I’ve just gotten too attached to all the characters ;-;

Ugh, y'know, even if it wouldn’t fit very well with all the implied Mutsurie, I wish Ishida would just pull a plot twist and make Ken/Urie or Urie/Saiko canon.

I think I kinda hate centipedes now.

1: Yeah, I don’t think that’s Mutsuki’s hand either (like you said, it looked pretty 'fresh’. Plus, I have no idea how Mutsuki would have gotten one of the limbs Torso cut off). The only reason I mentioned it was because of the parallel with Torso showing Mutsuki their own hand with a wedding ring on it…Ishida loves his symbolism so I thought this might actually matter to the plot.

2: I think it was probably either a stranger or an acquaintance, since she seems slightly surprised and not exactly 'happy’ to see this person, but not afraid or displeased either. I’m scared…why would Ishida not show us who it was if it wasn’t something important? If things went well Yoriko’s probaby just gained some knowledge about what’s going on (perhaps she’s been told where Touka is and why she can’t come to the wedding?), but if not…perhaps a villain’s blackmailing her…idk :(

3: I want to believe that too, but I’m not sure yet. If there’s a reason for Yoriko looking so serious then that might be connected with the mystery character who greeted her when she was out shopping.

Thank you, that really means a lot to me <3 What I’m really worried about right now is that I go to a piano 'hagwon’ (a cram school of sorts, I guess?) and this year they’re going to do a small concert. Everyone who goes to the hagwon has to play a song and I have no idea how I’m going to do this ;-; just trying to look a person in the eyes when I’m talking to them scares me, how am I supposed to get on the stage in front of a crowd (a small crowd, since everyone there to see the concert will be the parents/family of the kids participating, but seriously). Things are just a bit complicated XD

Adorable Shuu. I guess that would just make me tease him even more LOL I’d probably ruin all his dramatic moments.

(Now that I think about it, though, Shuu and I have similar interests: music, fashion, art, literature…though I guess he’s a lot more interested in food than I am haha)

Oh, I’m so glad you liked them! I tried my best ;)

I actually like doing matchup things so that may be why they’re acceptable…if I ever get a tumblr account I think I’d like to make a scenario/hc/matchup blog.

As for Storm in Lover, yep, that was from your 'the names are weird’ message XD after I decided to add Love Live into the headcanons I ended up going on YT to listen to a few of the songs. They were all really cool, but it just felt like Storm in Lover would be Urie’s guilty pleasure song (or maybe that’s just because I ended up likng SiL way more than I was prepared for?)

BLOW US ALL AWAY QUEEN LUNA

I’M GLAD MY HUMBLE HEADCANONS COULD HELP

I WILL WRITE MORE

AS MANY AS YOU NEED TO GET THROUGH NEXT WEEK

(Seriously tho

-since your hair is either 'too long and in a ponytail’ or 'really short and in a ponytail’, Urie is secretly very, very disappointed when you’re wearing it short. He likes playing with your hair when you’re too busy watching TV or reading to notice he’s being cute ok

-short or long, whenever Urie gets a hold of your hair, he WILL style it. Don’t you dare say no to the Captain of the Q squad. A simple ponytail? Unacceptable.

-Saiko approves of this relationship

-So would Sasaki, if Sasaki still existed

-Shirazu approves from beyond the grave

-Mutsuki doesn’t care)

Thanks! <33 And yeah, I think I’m slowly starting to get the hang of it ^^

I find all of those moments very relatable. Golfishes unite! :D

Burr is one of those weirdly shippable characters that almost every fandom seems to have…

And oh, I see! Honestly Tony is still one of my favorite avengers…RDJ really brings him to life. And if you’ve seen Captain America I definitely recommend The Winter Soldier and Civil War (next movies in the series)! So much Bucky angst ;-; Also the Thor movies, because I have a feeling you might like Loki.

Some of the best Loki quotes:

“Well done, you’ve just decaptitated your grandfather!”

“An ant has no quarrel with a boot.”

“Freedom is life’s great lie.”

“Oh dear, is she dead?”

Btw, do you remember the time I said I’d write a Heathers one-shot on the Yoi blog and never did? I think I’m getting over my writer’s block so maybe I can write that one-shot and submit it here?(And if that’s ok, do you maybe have any suggestions for which character I could use? I was going to write it as a Yuuri/reader but that doesn’t seem to fit so well anymore, so I might go with a TG character…I’d also like to use a character you like, since you’ll probably be the only person reading it ^^;;)

Speaking of Heathers though, when you have the time, is it ok if I try to drag you into that fandom again? Along with Dear Evan(s) Hansen. It’ll hurt you very, very badly but it’ll probably be worth it.

Oh dear, even more rarepairs. And I’m the one who ‘invented’ this one. Well, like I’ve said, as long as Urie is happy, I don’t care about whom he’s with. 

ISHIDA IS A GHOUL, ONLY HE DOESN’T LIVE OFF OF DEAD HUMANS, HE LIVES OFF OF PEOPLE’S SUFFERING!!!

Honestly, you’ve voiced my thoughts perfectly. I can’t help but get irritated at all the changes that have been happening. For me, it started around the time we found out about Mutsuki’s past. I mean, can’t we have one character who had a nice childhood and isn’t insane deep inside? At this point, basically everything is overdoing it for me. Let them have a break. A nice moment. A single day without a centipede or someone dying.  TG is slowly turning into shoujo manga. A sick, twisted shoujo manga, but a romantic one. That is the one thing I didn’t want from it. It was actually nice to have a manga without pointless crushes which play an important role in the plot, for a change. Guess I was wrong.

Dude, I don’t care who he kills, if Ishida brings Hide back, he is automatically forgiven for everything and anything. Well, I would care if he killed characters like, but other than that, he’s free to kill anyone he wants (like Furuta (or maaaaybe Mutsuki, but I’d like it better if they redeemed themselves (though that might be difficult))).

I just… I want the cookie to be happy. And Mutsuki is definitely not making him happy.

Gaaah, so many questions and symbolisms, it’s making my head hurt. Here’s my theory: This is a huge setup for everyone to be happy. Mutsuki will run away to New Zealand or something and restart their life, Kaneki and Touka will get married (tho I don’t quite ship it, whatever, as long as they’re happy), Urie will realise he’s loved Saiko all along and she’ll be there waiting for him. Kanae is actually alive and so is Hide. Kanae and Shuu get married. Hide finds himself a nice girlfriend (or boyfriend, not gonna discriminate), opens a pet shop and is happy.

Everyone is happy. 

Okay, but imagine this au: ghouls don't exist and there's no reason for so much suffering. Kaneki and Touka are two kids who knew each other from school and now run a coffee shop together. The Q squad went ri the same class and Saiko alway loved Urie. He recently realised it. And so on.

Ah, I definitely know how you feel. I went to music school as well, and we had yearly (or half-yearly, depending on how long you’ve played the piano) recitals. My method of calming down was to imagine I was at home, alone and just practicing. There was no one around me, and it didn’t matter if I messed up. I could always start again. Also, the audience was vegetables, as far as my imagination was concerned. It did help.

I know you can do it (๑و•̀ω•́)و You’re a fighter! The great Evans who can always cheer me up when I’m down. If I’m the queen, then you’re the king! All hail king Evans who’ll kick the recital’s butt!

Oh you would ruin all his moments, and it would be the most amazing thing ever. I’d always laugh at it, cause he’d be denied of all his theatrics.

They’re not ‘acceptable’, they’re absolutely perfect. I seriously can’t thank you enough, because they were very nice cheer-up material after a whole morning of cramming my two least favourite subjects. I’m pretty sure you’d do amazing if you got a blog. You do have amazing talent for writing.

Oh my~ Would you mind then if I listed a few more songs, my favourites?

Yozora wa nandemo shitteru no?

Bokutachi wa Hitotsu no Hikari (there’s a bit of talking in this one, it’s hard to find a version that’s not sped up)

Omoi yo hitotsu ni nare

Mijuku dreamer

Guilty Eyes Fever

soldier game

Thrilling・One Way

Ookay, I’m done ^^ I’m telling you, Idol Hell is very subtle. You won’t even realise you’ve been dragged into it huehuehuehuehuehuehue

Aaand there goes my heart, again. I have no words to thank you enough for writing those, since they help me keep my sanity.

however, we know whom we’d like from TG, but what about other fandoms we share? AoT? YoI? Kuroshitsuji?

Yeah, I’ve been told many times that I’d like Loki, but strictly looks-wise, I must admit I prefer his brother, and I prefer him very much. Idk, I just have a thing for guys with slightly longer hair.

All of that sounds suspiciously like something I’d say…

Of course, feel free to submit anything here!  As for the musicals, I’d be happy to listen to them, but after this week is over, because exams. Then, I’ll listen to both Heathers and Dear Evan(s) Hansen, despite the feels ^^

[dangermousie]

I love how they mirror each other, here they say the same thing in unison - they definitely fit well together (and that goes even in things like keeping the other person in the dark for their own good/taking decisions out of that person’s hands - this is such a pattern between them that honestly it doesn’t bother me because it’s clearly a basic character trait and it would be weird for it to disappear. She pushed him away on the mountain, he pushed her away repeatedly as Lord Bo, she drugged him to go and rescue his brother etc etc. That’s just how they are dysfunctionally built.)

This happens much later but I feel like bringing it up now so:

They have clearly cut the FUCK out of the plot. I mean, this comes out of nowhere - now she has super strength thing (and probably hulked out since she asked Snake Lady about whether she hurt her) like Wolfie used to but also black blood which means imminent death and WHAT HOW WHY I feel like I skipped five episodes. Honestly, the things I want to do to the censors should be banned by the Geneva Convention.

I mean, three versions - (1) she decided to take the hulk out medicine because she wanted to go rescue Fourth Brother so Wolfie won’t go and die. She didn’t care about the side effects danger because she doesn’t want to live without Wolfie anyway but they are even quicker and more severe than she thought. That doesn’t make sense since she has a whole army at her disposal, she doesn’t need to go by herself. (2) She took it as part of effort to find antidote for Wolfie’s issues and either it failed or she didn’t lie when she told Wolfie during their wedding there is an antidote (and there is some plot reason why he could have it but she can’t.) (3) Remember that weird as hell treatment the King told Snake Lady to give to her supposedly for her legs back way when and it was gonna be a means to control her and there was something creepy in the water but they never showed what and it seemed to have been dropped. I think the King could have ordered Snake Lady to give her that stuff, but it was only a little and maybe the plan went haywire later with all that happened, so it didn’t really catch up with her until now. 

I mean, I really NEED to know that stuff. It drives me crazy that it clearly had a very functional plot (no, it was never going to be Joy of Life or The Story of Minglan, but it clearly had a thought out dark fairy tale type of plot - certainly as solid as e.g., Prince of Lan Ling, Love and Redemption or similar) but because of the cuts, some of it now lurches as a no-leg monster. The drama still works so much for me because of its emotional, shippy and character beats, but objectively the narrative becomes a huge mess at times.

The other thing (I was talking about it to @andoqin​ and I am lazy and am stealing a lot of it from what I said in chat), is in the original Wolfie killed her father (just take a look at those scenes - the build, the weapons, the clothes, it’s Wolfie) and censors made them cut it. Which - then the story then becomes “I hated him but now I know he didn’t kill my dad, I do not” and that is a fun cliche but cliche. But it’s a factual mess and emotionally the other narrative is more interesting.

Factually:

1. She never talks during her big taking him back scene about “now I know you are utterly innocent of killing my dad” which you would think be the biggest relevant point. No, all she talks is his expiating and redeeming and paying back.

2. If he never killed her family and didn’t even know they would be killed (which wtf - the King clearly thinks he is capable of killing the woman he loves if the king asks, but will cavil at killing a random old man?) plus we never see his supposed atrocities, what does he need to atone for? Sure, he executed some people on orders of king but all we see are adult rebel types. And he was an epic jerk to her. But being a bad boyfriend and carrying commands of the king (and none of these commands are particularly depraved thanks to the censors) is run of the mill feudal lord behavior. I mean, the way the censors left things, he’s better than Feng Xi in Twisted Fate of Love who killed the heroine upon meeting her (and he didn’t know she was immortal and come back), whipped her (to free her from prison; at least none of Wolfie’s insanity included a whipping), and does a hell of shady stuff for noble vengeance reasons. But (rightly), there is no issue with Feng Xi because he has ok reasons for his actions, falls hard for DY, is willing to die for her etc. Feng Xi is certainly not being shipped to the mines and repenting like he’s been murdering babies. No should he be, I hasten to add, but in the modified narrative, neither should Wolfie! I mean his horror and repentance and hitting rock bottom and all that suffering become out of proportion to any of his wrongs (he is solidly middle of the pack as far as period cdrama heroes and bad stuff.) Like - unless they are all Quakers, he doesn’t have that much to repent for to that extent. “My father the king is a douche and I treated you badly” might be break up territory but it’s not REPENT SINNER one. (Same goes to everyone calling him a monster and him believing it and how hard it hits him just as it hits him hard when she insists he’s a human. Since he doesn’t turn into a literal physical monster any more nor has he even been shown to do horrific things other than some really veiled allusions, it makes me think all those other people calling him that are a bunch of hysterics.)

3. In this narrative, the Trio were the only ones who killed Daddy. Fine. But she has no interest in seeking revenge on the remaining two. None. 

And that brings me to the point that emotionally, the original narrative to me is so much stronger because there he (and Trio) killed her family but she can look past it because she realizes they were all tools of a monster who were brought up and gaslit and brainwashed and had basically no choice about any of it, and they genuinely cared for her. With respect to Wolfie, he was basically tortured into inhumanity but he still loved her so much and all of his actions where he was horrid to her were driven not by cruel enjoyment of her suffering or lack of feeling but by his love and need to protect her. And he literally tried to die to expiate. And I love that this is what matters to her - what was the deal breaker for her never was her family’s death because she understands even early on that none of them had a choice or even ability to fully consent and comprehend what they were doing. Her deal breaker was not that he (and the Trio) was damaged and was forced to do awful stuff, but that he enjoyed it, that he didn’t care, that his love was not genuine, that he didn’t have a loving loyal heart under all the damage. And honestly, that narrative is so much more powerful to me.

[therandomwatcher]

Sherlock Season 4 Review

There will be spoilers. You have been warned. There are some really in-depth reviews out there. This one won’t quite be that, but I will touch on some things that stood out to me. First off I would like to address Johnlock. I know there is a very dedicated section of the fandom that ships it like FedEx. That’s cool. I respect all ships even though I’m not a shipper of anything myself. That being said, it’s really not fair to the writers to accuse them of queerbaiting if John literally yells out “I’m not gay!” in more than one episode, and later turns out not to be gay. One of the redeeming features of this season I think is how many scenes are available as Johnlock fodder now. That’s some serious fan service and didn’t have to be there. If you are a Johnlocker, break out the fanfic and deviant art and go nuts! But don’t blame the writers for not doing what they said they wouldn’t do, that’s not really fair. Now that several readers have probably left in irritation, let’s get on to the episodes. If there was a theme to sum up season 4, I think it would be “No matter how smart you are, you always should study the night before the test.” Steven and Mark are very talented writers who have given us some absolutely outstanding episodes. But they were not at their best in season 4. The Six Thatchers

This episode I would say was the strongest of the 3. It was a straightforward case, with a few attached to the side for interest and wrapped up some interesting points about Mary’s past. But there were a few glaring issues. -John text-cheating with the Woman from the Bus There was zero development for it. You can’t write a character who fails spectacularly with the ladies for all of Season 1 *and* 2, and then try to turn him into 3 Continents Watson. It just doesn’t work. 

-The Aquarium Scene Boy, where to start with this one. Vivian has shown up and clearly has a gun in her purse. She has already had several people killed on her orders so it’s not a leap to believe she brought it here because she thought she would need to use it and is capable of doing so. The episode tries to pin the blame on Sherlock for “winding her up”. Except it comes across more like Sherlock is trying to distract her into shooting him instead of Mary since she’s got the gun on both of them. Perhaps Mary will be able to use her assassin skills to take Vivian out while she is busy shooting Sherlock. It’s not a great plan, true. But it’s about the only way left for him to keep his vow of trying to keep her safe in this situation. The London police are apparently worthless. Their idea of dealing with someone threatening two people with a semi-auto handgun that holds an entire magazine worth of bullets, is to stand and wait until they actually shoot the victims and then move in to arrest them...even though there are still several bullets left in the gun and they aren’t any safer for having waited (to say nothing of the victim). What the actual fark was that? 

The big one of course, is Mary being literally faster than a speeding bullet. I quite honestly laughed here. It was so ridiculously fake. We’re talking 1950′s serial tv show fake. Even if i were to believe that it is reasonable to expect someone to move faster than a bullet traveling at over 1,200mph, the fact that Mary, being closer, was able to jump in front, but Sherlock wouldn’t be able to jump out of the way, is not playing honestly with your own movie physics. There are quite a few completely understandable conspiracy theories out there now thanks to this scene.

The fabulous acting during the actual death scene was the only redeeming point of this entire scene. Shout out to Amanda especially!

Beyond that, we have the death of a character who they spent nearly all of season 3 developing, and then they just shuffle her off with the excuse that it needs to be about “the boys”. Except John has a baby now, and as anyone with a baby will tell you, you have zero free time to be running around with your best friend solving crimes. Mary could have easily filled the “I’m finally enjoying a normal life you need to go out and get some excitement” hole here, with perhaps the occasional professional opinion thrown in for fun. But no, they managed to make John’s situation actually *worse* in terms of being able to spend time with Sherlock.

The Lying Detective

-Sherlock being high the entire episode did it no favors. It got annoying after a while trying to figure out what was “real” and what was not. Nobody is watching Sherlock because they want to question reality. They watch for brilliant deductions of small minutia. This is literally the opposite of that.

-John in explicably blames Sherlock for Mary’s death. Sherlock inexplicably agrees. Regardless of whether you think Sherlock “wound up” Vivian, Mary leaping in front of the bullet pretty much absolves Sherlock of his vow to keep her safe. Neither of them are apparently capable of respecting her individual choice.

-Smith is a creepy farker. Props to the actor for that. It was a relief to see the listening device in the cane, some glimmer of “Sherlock” is actually showing here.

The Final Problem

I’m sorry, but this entire episode was teh suck.

We had an episode that was 2 X-Files episodes and a healthy dose of Firefly. I love both shows, don’t get me wrong! But when I order steak, I’m not happy to get pizza...regardless of how much I like pizza. I’m here for Sherlock...not X-Files or Firefly. The age gap is also a problem. The entire series runs without a “viewer discretion is advised” except for this episode. So anyone who might not be into darker shows has to decide if they will watch and find out what happens after years of waiting...or risk seeing an episode that will have a potentially very negative effect on them. That is profoundly not cool and I was very disappointed in the production staff about this. Evil River Tam is apparently Sherlock’s secret sister. Who is insanely smart, and was shipped off to a government facility after she killed his best friend when they were little. But she’s too useful figuring out terrorist attacks and such so they give her “treats” in exchange for her cooperation. Sherlock, utterly traumatized, has since blocked her out, and concocted a family dog in place of his friend. It got “put down” in the mind palace of His Last Vow, and now has drowned. This makes no sense without playing the ‘nothing is what it seems card’ to the point where you literally are telling the audience that nothing they saw up to this point is really part of the plot. “Things aren’t what they seem” as a plot device is a solid option, but don’t go full “Lost”. It is a serious disservice to the viewers who spend their time watching the show, to tell them that they have wasted a large chunk of it on something utterly meaningless.

While it wasn’t quite as bad as Mary leaping in front of a speeding bullet, we have John and Sherlock leaping out of glass windows and falling 2 stories onto pavement without any injury during an explosion. Such a far far cry from Molly coldly explaining how a bullet doesn’t hit with a spurt of blood and drama. (Oh wait, it did for Mary didn’t it?), it was disappointing to see them dive so far into movie physics after making the effort to *not* do that in other episodes.

We then get a tour de force of the “Pusher” X-Files episode where talking to someone makes you do what they say. And “Beyond the Sea”, with an unrepentant psychopath murderer that our hero wants to talk to for some unknown reason. Pity we didn’t have an equally awesome scene with Sherlock threatening that if John dies, to throw the switch and gas her out of this life.

Instead we get a hug, and that miraculously cures her of wanting to kill John. Who then uses a rope to climb out after gnawing off his own foot to free it of the chains....or something. The chains are gone somehow, we’re not told how even though there isn’t really enough time with the water level for John to unlock them easily. (Sorry, I really had to bite my tongue during much of the episode or MST3K/Rifftrax would’ve come out. My internal monologue had me chuckling a time or two though.) I won’t even touch on Mr and Mrs Holmes being absolutely unrealistically written characters now after learning that so much family trauma happened. It’s a minor detail that most people (except those who have been unfortunate enough to be somewhat familiar with) would not understand and so pales compared to the other errors in the episode. It’s still annoying though. Again, quality acting from two great actors though.

There are good points to the episode, Mycroft’s guilty pleasure watching old film noir detective movies is funny and potentially telling. The sword/gun umbrella is pure fan service and absolutely awesome. There is plenty of Johnlock, Adlock, Mystrade, and Sherlolly sprinkled about for the various ships. Now I know a lot of people are upset by how those turned out, but given the production schedule Sherlock isn’t likely to make any of them cannon. So the best option shippers have is a bit of everything to provide the fandom with countless gifs, drawings, and fanfic stills. There are also some great quotes in here, and solid dialog exchanges. The end of the episode wrap up was nice, but emotional whiplash after the darkness of the show. It did show us what BBC Sherlock *can* be, and we can only hope they will return to form if we get a season 5. Realistically, the absolutely superb acting held up what was a convoluted mess of a plot, that unfortunately crossed the line from complicated interwoven aspects, to throwing stuff together and changing our minds halfway through about what is actually going on. Steven and Mark are capable of taking this plot and doing it well enough not to need a “viewer discretion” or making it into the convoluted mess it ended up being. It would be tough and some of the other seasons still would’ve had some pretty big plot holes, but they are talented enough to do it justice at least. Unfortunately they weren’t at their best this time around and it’s a bit of a tough one for the fandom after all these years of waiting. You guys are still brilliant, but please study before the final next time, okay?