#and the characters are likeable too because they have FLAWS

[puhpandas]

I love ggy so much how did they accidentally make the most intriguing hypothetical gay romance ever

[buddieism]

tommy's character, bucktommy's inherent flaws, tommy & eddie as mirrors and buddie endgame; a (lengthy) meta analysis

honestly, what's really confirmed my feelings about tommy (and the imminent bucktommy bones -> buddie pipeline) is that there have now been multiple opportunities for the writers to actually make tommy a likeable/serious love interest for buck and they just…haven’t. because while fans are naturally going to overanalyse every little thing, the vast majority of the show's audience are regular viewers who consume the show at face value and don't think twice about it -- so if tommy was intended to be buck's endgame or anything remotely close to it, they'd absolutely want to make the most of his (very limited) screen time to present him in the best light they could. think about karen, the only non-main LI, and how she was introduced to us -- despite hen's cheating, we can see how dedicated karen and hen are to each other and how karen is a complex character in her own right who is immediately easy to root for and love.

comparatively, when we look at tommy's s7 appearances and specifically his interactions with buck, it becomes abundantly clear that there isn't really much depth to their relationship at all. which is fine! it's just... you know. fine. let's get into it.

following the cruise arc, we watch tommy through buck's eyes in 7x04 where he's basically wining and dining eddie -- flying him to vegas, getting them front row tickets to a fight, sparring with him in muay thai, playing pick up basketball with him -- tommy and eddie are so similar (which we'll come back to later), and we even get that line from eddie about how well they "click." as the audience, we are being subconsciously told to align tommy and eddie together -- and furthermore, we are told that tommy can easily make grand gestures when he wants to. now let's compare that to the bucktommy moments of the season.

bucktommy's first date: tommy makes a shady comment that would have outed buck if eddie or marisol caught onto it and then proceeds to abandon him on the sidewalk because he thinks buck isn't "ready" for a relationship with a man

i'll be objective here -- i understand in a show like 911 there's always going to be "unnecessary" relationship conflict for the sake of drama and i can also see how buck trying to play off their date as platonic to eddie might have put a bad taste in tommy's mouth. but we hear from tommy himself that he struggled with being open about his sexuality when he was at the 118 so he could have absolutely extended some sympathy towards buck for not wanting to come out on the spot to his best friend -- especially when tommy fully knows how important of a role eddie plays in buck's life. at the very least, he didn't have to leave buck alone on the curb. this isn't me trying to woobify buck because yeah, he's a grown man, he's fine -- but that doesn't mean it still isn't a bit of an asshole move.

the bachelor party: tommy doesn't dress up for the theme and dismisses buck when he's clearly disappointed about him doing so

tommy showing zero interest for the bachelor party buck planned is practically the writers waving a massive red flag in front of the camera -- him having to leave because he's on call is an understandable 'conflict' plot point but why not have him show up in an 80s themed outfit? it wouldn't have changed anything except that he and buck would have had a positive interaction; buck would have been happy that tommy cared enough to make that small gesture and it could have been a cute way to establish their relationship as one built on mutual effort. (btw, the bucktommy hospital kiss could be seen as a big gesture, sure -- but from a more practical viewpoint knowing how rushed this season had to be, it was also just an easy way for buck to "come out" to the rest of the 118 without having to spend too much episode airtime on it.)

the medal ceremony: tommy says 'enjoy it while it lasts' (which, LOL) and also is not shown reacting to buck receiving his medal. he also has a conversation with henren in a deleted scene.

again, i'm going to try to give tommy the benefit of the doubt -- i'm not saying he has to be sunshine and rainbows all the time and i have no issue with a character having a snarky/sarcastic side. but when his screentime is so minimal, every line of dialogue matters. and it's pretty damning that the writers aren't taking those few chances to give us something to appreciate about him. with buck, tommy makes a dismissive comment for literally zero reason, and with hen and karen, who are rightfully looking out for their friend, tommy refuses to take them seriously at all.

bucktommy's dinner in the finale: buck displays some vulnerability about losing bobby, and tommy... really doesn't seem to care.

honestly i refuse to rewatch this part of the ep because it really icks me out on another level but iirc: buck says he's glad bobby's okay because bobby is like the father he never had -> tommy says "your father's alive" -> something something joke about daddy issues. ignoring #that joke entirely, it's really insane to me that they have tommy even acknowledge the nuclear bomb that is buck's relationship with his parents. yes, we had a bit of a ham-fisted 'redemption arc' in s6 but that doesn't negate the buckley parents being absolutely heinous and the fact that buck verbalises how bobby played the role of the father figure because philip didn't -- all for tommy to basically deny that to his face -- is absurd. tommy has expressed on multiple occasions that he's jealous of the 118 family bond, so this line is just... very interesting to me.

now, let's recap all these events and bring eddie back into the mix!

post-bucktommy's first date, buck is more torn up about the fact that he lied to eddie than the actual date to the point that he has to vent to maddie about it. he then comes out to eddie, who is incredibly supportive (and oliver and ryan make some very curious acting choices indeed). eddie is reiterated as one of buck's most significant relationships.

pre-bachelor party, eddie is the one to suggest he and buck dress in matching (queer-coded) costumes. he then stays by buck's side at the party when everyone else leaves and although we'll never get to see it (tim minear i'm inside your walls👹), they sing an absurdly romantic karaoke song together. eddie is reiterated as one of buck's most significant relationships.

during the medal ceremony, when the camera pans to each member of the 118's love interest/family, it is eddie we are shown smiling at buck, not tommy. this is especially interesting considering we get buck reacting to tommy. i honestly can't get over how a reciprocated tommy reaction would have been an easy yet significant moment to cement bucktommy as a relationship, but they gave us eddie's instead (with chris in the background and marisol conveniently obscured, mind you). eddie is reiterated as one of buck's most significant relationships.

in the final episode, when eddie is experiencing his personal worst nightmare, buck is the one at eddie's side every step of the way. buck talks to christopher, buck reassures eddie (without judgement), and it's made clear that buck will be there for eddie, whatever he needs.

at every possible opportunity, we the audience are being implicitly told that eddie is buck's person. he is his place of support (buck having his more vulnerable coming out scene with eddie rather than his sister); he has buck's back (the bachelor party); he is his family (medal ceremony reaction), and ultimately, this goes both ways (finale).

some other things worth noting: when buck has his coming out scene with maddie, she tells him he's confused about his feelings in a way that seems to indicate she's talking about his feelings towards eddie ("if you there's something you need to tell eddie, you will"). in bobby's conversation with buck in the firehouse, he's verbally supportive of tommy and even asks if buck is going to see him, but buck goes to eddie's house instead. these were deliberate choices made by the writers; eddie has been consistently intertwined in bucktommy's relationship both overtly and subtextually throughout the entirety of s7. and let's not even get into the whole 'evan' thing, because that could be a whole other post in itself.

from the first moment we start to learn about tommy's character (beyond his... coloured past), we find out that he and eddie are practically mirrors. why not make tommy and buck share similar interests? why not give them something to bond over? why present tommy and eddie as almost identical in every way? because tommy is a placeholder for eddie. buck's initial bisexuality journey can't happen with eddie when eddie still hasn't come to terms with his own feelings. so, in the meantime, tommy is the "safe" choice in buck's mind because buck has nothing to lose with tommy whereas he's got everything to lose with eddie. buck can't confront what he truly wants yet because the risk factor is far greater and it's been repeatedly asserted that buck has an issue with people in his life leaving -- he would never do anything to jeopardise his relationship with eddie.

but ultimately (and in my opinion, fairly soon), we are going to get that moment where it "clicks" for buck and he realises that it is eddie he has feelings for. and when that happens, there's basically only one way it can go. we know buck can't keep secrets from eddie; we know eddie is going into s8 feeling "isolated"; we know tim loves making his characters suffer before they can be happy. in my mind, the narrative is going to go something like this: buck feelings realisation -> pining buck era -> eddie healing journey and a reevaluation of what buck means to him -> some insane life-threatening situation that really doubles down on how buck and eddie care more about each other than anyone else because it is 9-1-1 at the end of the day -> love confession induced by their dramatic near-death experience -> #BUDDIE_CANON !

when we factor in how there was a possibility of eddie having the sexuality arc this season instead, how tim has said buddie is one of his favourite dynamics of the show, and how supportive both oliver and ryan are of the ship, i really can't see how everything isn't building to buddie endgame. every other main pairing of the show has had seasons of development, of conflict, of bonding moments. buck and eddie have gone through that with each other time and time over (tsunami/lawsuit/shooting arc etc), which is why every other random love interest that's introduced for either of them falls flat in comparison. they quite literally are exactly what the other person needs; buck wants the stability of a home, a family, and unconditional love; eddie wants someone he can trust, a caretaker for his son but also a partner. buddie is the ship the audience wants to root for, because we know they work! now that we have canonically bisexual buck and eddie finally having to face his complicated feelings about losing shannon, buddie isn't just the logical conclusion -- it's the inevitable one.

[txttletale]

can you elaborate on the reasons ? what criticisms do you disagree with?

criticisms i disagree with:

"they character assassinated jane" amiguita there was no character to assisnate.

"they character assassinated dirk" dirk is at his most interesting and likeable ever and is just about the only redeeming thing about these

"they were just written to spite the fans" if true tht would have been Epic, and Based. but they very obviously werent

"its too violent and sexual for cheap shock humour" did you. read homestuck, the web comic? what were you Expecting... also like it or not the sexual content isnt just random or gratuitous it is obviously trying to be a conclusion to the whoel coming-of-age theme of homestuck as a work.

"so-and-so is out of character" homestuck characters are malleable little dolls that can be rearranged to suit the narrative at a whim. this is true about all fictional characters ofc but it is like explicitly textually metaphysically true in homestuck

my criticisms:

the heavy-handed political messaging is fucking tedious and awful and so profoundly of its time in a bad way. its clearly a reaction to trump but it doesnt have anything interesting to say about him or fascism or racism or anything, really, except, um. Cheeto in the white house?. the whole Evil Jane plot is too stupid and contrived for the sake of the satire to take seriously but also its awful satire written by liberals who think fascism as invented in 2016 by the orange man

god can we fucking talk about how fucking embarassing the obama shit is. jesus fucking christ. for a start it's a callback to a running jhoke in homestuck that is straight up just super racist. and they decide to pivot from the joke being 'its funny that theres a black president', which is good, but they pivot it to 'obama seems so heroic and magical now that we're stuck with the Orange Man', which, admittedly, is better than Being Racist, but also sucks shit. he killed people amiguitas.

'post-canon' is cheap bullshit. like, the work makes a big deal about tryng to talk about What Canon Is, without ever acknowledging the concept of, like, IP law. claiming to just be a non-canon continuation like any other when it's made by people with the Official Exclusive Legal Rights just feels hollow and detooths any liberatory/deconstructive potential there. unironically my opinion of it would go up like tenfold if it had been actually published in AO3 instead of just joking about it.

in general i think that all of the attempt to deconstruct fiction or storytelling is rooted in a really weird and flawed model of storytelling. a lot of it seems to be taking an extremely long route to writing something bad on purpose and then saying 'see, if you wrote something like this, it would be bad'. Okay. i like deconstructive collapsing narrative shit in e.g. if on a winter's night a traveller because i think calvino has trenchant and interesting insights about literature and storytelling. i do think hussie also has those but they essentially dropped and explored all of them in homestuck and the epilogues just seem like an attempt to connect ohomstuck's disparate and contradictory approaches to Narrative into one overarching schemata and then crtiique that schemata, which i think is a doomed project that results in little of interest to me.

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

tw // fatphobia, ed

I'm sorry, I love Hellaverse as much as the next guy but people cheering that "Fizz gained weight and it's a sign of healing!" are not serious. He gained as much weigh as Valentino lost between Masquerade and Welcome to Heaven aka he changed outfit. If they really wanted to convey this massage of healing, there are ways to do it in animation that don't make 50% of people doubt it's even real.

We can love the show and still acknowledge that Vivzie absolutely sucks when it comes to body diversity and 2 of 3 fat characters she has just perpetuate harmful stereotype that being fat goes hand in hand with being rich, lazy, incompetent and lack of self awareness (they are basically Dudleys of this universe). And that is intentional, see, the literal sin of Gluttony (not all fat people are gluttonous obviously but yes, eating more than someone needs - which gluttony means - makes people fat) is right there but apparently she's too cool and too nice to be fat. Beside Mammon and Adam we have Mimzy. Technically she is not that bad but let's be real she's hated more than the rapist or the genocidal zealot. And since writing in Hellaverse is vary smart in my opion I don't believe Mimzy was created to be liked by audience. From interrupting one of the best songs, to crossing Alastor's boundaries and just being a bad friend, she was doomed from the beginning.

None of the characters we should actually root for is fat. And while being fat is not something that "should be explained" by other character's traits, even if we chose to follow this very flawed logic there are plenty of likeable characters that have """a reason""" to be fat. Alastor and Rosie are foodie-coded, Husk drinks a lot of booze, Vox spends most of the time watching TV, Lucifer is depressed and barely leaves his room... Okay but honestly if we reverse this way of thinking and actually stop treating skinny a default body shape there is only one character that has """a reason""" to be this skinny and it's Angel Dust who - as a famous pornstar - has to be commonly (yes we live in the society and porn industry treats fat people like fetish, not actually attractive human beings) desirable and easy to sexualize. Any character in the shows could be fat but choices were made.

And by the way I think they did a terrible job with the whole Fizz's eating disorder thing because when he supposed to be "skinny in the unhealthy way" he looks like 95% of characters.

Anyway, even your favorite media deserves valid criticism.

[chaifootsteps]

Sorry this is gonna be long. Vivziepop doesn't understand the gravity of sin and hence cannot comprehend the idea of redemption.

It's so obvious Viv has had some bad experiences with the Christian church, but she is also totally unwilling to research the philosophy behind the religion. There are reasons we believe what we believe, and reasons why what we believe gets twisted and used to hurt people, and even reasons why our beliefs in their truest and purest form can STILL hurt people. But regardless of their effects, whether good or bad, there are REASONS those beliefs exist, reasons backed up by literal millennial of theology and historical/academic study.

The idea that her characters don't even understand HOW someone gets into heaven just proves she gave no thought to the other side of the argument. The premise of Hazbin Hotel is that people can change and deserve a chance to be redeemed, but she fails to illustrate any actual change or redemption.

Redemption is predicated on the recognition of what you've done wrong and the desire to do better. It is an internal battle of constant self-examination and dedication to improve. The people that make up her main cast are sinful. Whether or not their sins mean they deserved hell is up to interpretation. I'm not asking her to follow the Catechism of the Catholic church. But if these people are to be redeemed, they have to acknowledge themselves as full of fault.

Husk was a gambler. A gambling addiction is not a fun or quirky hobby. It, like any addiction, is a complete loss of control and subservience to a vice that destroys your life and relationships with other people. Alastor was a cannibal and serial killer, who took the lives of fellow humans and desecrated their remains for his own pleasures, showing a complete lack of respect for the sanctity of life. Angel Dust hurts himself over and over and over again through his addiction to pleasure and narcotics. Sometimes sin doesn't hurt other people as much as it hurts us, but it's still a sin because we are supposed to treat our bodies as temples. These are all massive flaws of the characters, sins that have overtaken their personalities and lives, and yes, they may be interesting and fun and entertaining, but that doesn't change the fact they did bad things.

Vivziepop can't redeem anyone, because she fails to set a standard of righteousness. Sin is just a mutation of virtue. It's taking prudence and turning it into greed. It's taking humility and turning it into self-flagellation. It's taking love and turning it into lust. Because of her, I'm sure, completely valid religious trauma, she fails to recognize the humanity of the people that hurt her. That they too are just people who struggle with their own sin and vice. She can't comprehend or give the benefit of the doubt that religious people have valid explanations for their beliefs.

She seems to think of heaven as just a place of stuck-up hypocrites who don't know how to have fun. She seems to think the rules and regulations of religion are just arbitrary rules someone made up for a power grab and not a detailed and dedicated attempt of humanity to understand God and his desires.

Viv's understanding of redemption is likeability. It's illustrated in Angel's scenes in episode six. Yes, Angel is being nice and kind and caring about people, but his problems were never a lack of caring about people. His problems were using substances to deal with his problems, and yes he did deny the drugs Cherry offered him, but there was no moment of reflection as to why he no longer wanted to take them. It seems more like he wants to make Husk happy with him than he actually wants to form better coping mechanisms or even a recognition that he doesn't need the drugs to numb the pain anymore now that he has a support system.

She seems to think that if a sinner is likeable, they don't deserve eternal damnation. That's why she woobifies every character she grows to like, because being a good person and sin cannot co-exist in her mind. People who are likeable cannot be bad people and thus a system that would put a likeable person in hell is rigged and stupid. But that fails to comprehend the multi-faceted of humanity and sin.

Sometimes people you love, people who are good to you, are bad people to others. Child molesters can be good friends. Rapisits can advocate for animal rights. Murderers can be good parents. A person who abused you could be someone else's best friend, and a genuinely good friend at that. A failure to recognize the complexity of virtue and vice is a failure to understand what redemption means.

She can critique the idea of perfection. She can critique the hypocrisies of the church. She can critique the tenets of religion. She can even say the things I believe in are unfair and nonsensical and evil. But she cannot make a good critique without understanding the other side of the argument. Because without that, she herself has no counter argument!

The plot of Hazbin is no longer that people can be redeemed, but that redemption is not necessary, because the rules that government heaven and hell make no sense. And that's a COMPLETELY different argument to be making.

I apologize for the length. I hope I've made some semblance of sense.

No, no apologies for the length. It was an interesting read!

Some would argue that all religions are nothing but arbitrary rules someone made up for a power grab, but it's true, there's at least supposed to be some kind of rhyme and reason to it all. In theory at least, it's supposed to improve yours and everyone else's quality of life, but that goes against Viv's theory that the only thing that matters is doing whatever you want all the time. Viv doesn't have to side with Heaven or go full blown scripture, but you can't tell me that Heaven doesn't even know what it takes for someone to get in.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[munchy-k]

danmei list that no one asked for (long post incoming)

ok so I've accumulated a pretty decent list of danmei that aren't as well known and I want to talk about them!! so here we go! these aren't in any particular order btw

Nan Chan

an aloof, listless immortal and a very hungry caterpillar fish demon go on an adventure to retrieve a runaway bell 🔔. and also they both have amnesia. CUE ANGSTY BACKSTORY REVEAL!!!! 🔪🔪🔪

I'm sure it's to no ones surprise that this is first because I'm a SLUT for nan chan. if nan chan has one fan it is ME and if there r no fans I am DEAD!! I love this novel so much it has the perfect combination of painful angst and sweet sweet lovin' !! the main couple's relationship makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside 🥺👉👈 (probably because I am a touch love language girly and these bitches be touching!!!) and I LOVE the characters sm. especially my little meow meow Jing Lin and his adorable little stone figure. I live for the interactions between Cang Ji and the stone figure! it may be a little difficult to read the first time around since the plot gets a little convoluted but it all makes sense in the end! 10/10 really recommend!!

How to Survive as a Villain

transmigration plot! rich ceo gets transported to a novel as the villain emperor and gets buddy buddy with the novel's MC so he doesn't get killed. ends up buddying too close to the sun and accidentally becomes the leading lady. drama ensues!

this is another favorite of mine!! this one is another good mix of angst and romance and the MC is so funny and likeable. there are also two cute side couples which is always fun! (one of them is f/f so it gets extra brownie points with me🤭) its also not too complicated which makes it great for casual reading ^^ p.s. this one has an official eng tl now! its being published thru rosmei (like nanchan) so it has to be ordered thru a 3rd party distributor but I think its worth reading 👀

Living to Suffer/ Till Death Do Us Part

living to suffer: ancient wuxia style prequel where the characters meet as a humble doctor and member of a demonic sect and their fate intertwines. this one has a BE

till death do us part: early to mid 1900s setting sequel. the reincarnated characters meet again as a elementary school teacher and rich playboy and face the struggles of having a relationship. this one has a bittersweet ending

THIS...... OK THESE NOVELS... let me tell you something. this made me SOB. oh my god especially the ending of TDDUP. I saw a review saying "I honestly could believe there lived a Shen Liangsheng and a Ch'in Ching, and that they fell in love..." and hard agree because something about this story felt so real?? which made it all the more intriguing and heartbreaking!! its set around the time of the japanese invasion of china and the cultural revolution so it does talk a lot about politics but it wasn't a difficult read imo. BUT BE WARNED! there is a LOT of smut. (not rly vanilla either..) and the relationship does get pretty toxic at times 😬 but it gets better by the end of the book and the toxicity actually does add to the story and character development. if u give it a try please read the prequel (living to suffer) first!

After Being Forced to Marry the Evil Star General

a deputy prime minister MC who's powerful, high-maintenance, and hated by the public is arranged to marry a laid-back general who is much loved and praised (but also rumored to be cursed!). this is an arranged marriage + enemies to lovers novel

I'm actually in the middle of rereading this one rn 👀. I think this one is also good for casual reading since it isn't very complicated. in the beginning the interactions between the main couple r rly funny because they just clash all day long lol. its also got a little angst sprinkled in 😎👍 I did see some reviews saying that the MC is not likeable since he does some kinda bad things and he's stuck up but I still liked him idk 😭 I feel like his flaws made him more interesting

Married Thrice to Salted Fish

a doctor MC who only wishes to study medicine (and poison oop) gets arranged to marry a guy whos dying. turns out that guy has been taken over by a transmigrator! transmigrator ML then proceeds to die and come back as someone else.. more than once 😭

if you love a couple that schemes together then this is the novel for you! the MC in this book kinda reminds me of the MC from the book I mentioned right above. (these titles too long man 😅) I found the repeated "reincarnation" plot to be pretty interesting. the interactions between the couple were pretty amusing as well and since the ML is from modern times he randomly uses modern slang. MC even picks some lingo up from him loll

Xiao Jiu

about a 9th prince MC whos trying to win the heart of the emperor's cold and aloof bodyguard! call him the prince of rizz because it works eventually 😎 this is an age gap romance with a smidge of angst and political drama

this a short and sweet story! the ML is described as cold a lot but he actually becomes rly sweet and warm later on so he isn't one of those stone faced characters. I don't have much else to say about this besides "its cute, I like it" 😅

Guanshan Muyu

wife-chasing crematorium story! it's about a outlaw MC who's kidnapped by the very guy who betrayed him. ML wants to win MC's heart back but issues from the past cause a bunch of misunderstandings :( but it is a happy ending!!

man.... I haven't read a wife-chasing crematorium story before this and I was not prepared for the amount of ANGST. basically everyone is miserable for the entire damn time! 😭😭😭 but that's not to say it wasn't a good story!! all the suffering made the ending feel even sweeter 🥰 if you cry easily maybe keep a pack of tissues on hand when you read this 😂

I wrote this in my notes app while reading and I feel like it summarizes the ML pretty well bahaha 👇

"qi yan: my girl is mad at me. I hope I die"

It’s Not Easy Being a Master

transmigrator becomes the villainous shizun in a novel he read and attempts to avoid a bad ending but *gasp* the novels MC (ML) has been reborn with all the past memories!! MC tries to get close to ML while ML is like wtf is going on ! seems like a typical "transmigrated as a villain" type plot until suddenly it's not... 👀👀

this one was rly fun! there's a big plot twist that I found rly interesting and unique! very fresh!! fresh produce!! 🥒🫑🥕🍅 I also like the MC a lot he had a rly silly personality hehe. I think this novel is good for people who like solving mysteries alongside the characters since a lot of hints are dropped throughout

Golden Stage/ Terrace

arranged marriage between a court dog and a general who's become phsyically disabled. everyone knows that the two HATE each other... but do they really? 👀 no, it's not an enemies to lovers, but the other characters seem to think so! 🤭

great novel!! very good!! I love the dynamic between the main couple! they love to banter so their interactions are entertaining. there's a bit of political plot but it's nothing too complicated and the angst is minimal. I also like that one of the main characters is a ambulatory wheelchair user. this one also has a official eng tl now but I'm not sure from which publishing house

Sharing Rain and Dew

MC whos staying in the palace dies a painful death but then gets reborn several months in the past. he spends his time stressing about his impending death but for some reason the Emperor has suddenly become super clingy and doting

this one is very very short, only 5 chapters + 3 extras, but it's quite funny and cute. despite being so short the story is actually pretty interesting? good for a quick, casual read

list over!! I have a few more but this is already too long of a post 😭 I hope someone can find this helpful for some reading recs!

[obae-me]

Yes! Finally someone said it!

At first when I saw the interaction I went- hey he's being such a jerk- Ohhhhh wait! This is literally him wanting us to stay soo fricking bad, but Mr.Pridey McPridepants just can't admit it. OFC HE WOULD TRY TO IMPRESS US (even if this emotionally constipated man can't differ b/w chivalry and being an asshole). He's trying to so bloody hard to sweet talk his way into us staying. Even if he's being forceful and manipulative; it's because he's so shit scared of giving us the choice and then us choosing to go cuz he KNOWS wherever we going must mean a lot to us especially when we are going such great lengths to return.

Not to say, that this behavior is ok or good but at the end of the day isn't obey me about flawed and morally grey characters? Even the ANGELS aren't perfect and morally sound, and if I dare say, sometimes they make decisions even crueler than the demons. We are literally talking about the AVATAR OF PRIDE HERE! XD

Literally as soon as you look past the image that he literally puts up cuz he wants ppl to see him that way, you will realize that he really is just a soggy, pathetic man who can't put aside his pride to ask us to stay like a normal person XD Also to point out a lot of ppl LIKE Levi and Mammon BECAUSE OF their pathos lol.

I have always seen that there is SUCH a double standard when it comes to him. Ppl say that he's being too fake and only cares about his image and not his brothers, but when he does show his softer side, they say he's not being genuine or he's pushy or something of the sort. What most ppl fail to see is that he loves his brothers and mc, probably even more than his own life but he's just so bad at showing it because he is held back by his own trauma and sin. While that does not make him innocent... that does make him like his brothers. He acts this way because thats literally the only way he knows how to keep things in his control and keep his family safe and ppl fall for it ... LIKE IT'S NOT THE REAL HIM! TvT

I have this theory (might be a hot take idk?) that most of the ppl playing obey me are pretty young, so they don't like Lucifer because they are anti-authority (I also am, its not a bad thing) but this man is anything but Authority and Power. I might be a lucifer apologist lol but all I am saying is for ppl to look at him with the same open-minded lens they see the other brothers with and you might find him a lot more bearable and dare I say... likeable?

Phew, sorry for rambling in your inbox but I have some strong feelings for that stupid old man XD Also, this feels a lot similar to how expectations are so high and rigid for the eldest sibling whereas these same expectations become a lot less severe for the other siblings...

Firstly, thank you for calling him a soggy pathetic man, that gave me a good chuckle.

And YES! All of this, 100% yes. He doesn't want to admit that there are other things out there more important than him. Not just because of his Pride, but because he finally let someone else behind the walls he put up around his heart (we saw this around Nightbringer lessons 11 and 12, when he was ready to be THE enemy to protect his family, only to end up admitting to himself that he cared about MC just as much) and now, after all that, MC is determined to leave. I'm sure somewhere in his mind, he feels like he's failed.

He's puffing up his feathers as big as he can and screaming "look at me, look at me, look at me"! The big peacock man is flailing.

He's afraid. He's hurt. And so now these weird (and problematic) safety mechanisms are being put in place to protect himself.

Things in his mind are SO 'not fine' that now he's parading around trying to convince everyone (including himself) that everything is perfectly fine! Everything is perfect, everything is great, the outfits he chose are pristine, the food he settled on is text-book. It feels like he's following some sort of guide, like even the things he's saying have been pulled from a novel somewhere. It's not quite the way he normally speaks. If everything can play out the way he sees it in his head, there won't be room for error. Right?

And this isn't new behavior either. It was the ENTIRE plot of season 1 in Shall We Date. Lucifer locked Belphie away because he was worried of what might happen to his sibling. But in a way, 'protecting' his brother was mostly protecting himself.

He's worked so hard to create what he has, that he can't stand the idea of losing it all.

There's also a whole spiel I could go into about how everyone in the family fills a certain "group" role that keeps everything balanced and running smoothly (as smooth as it can get for them). For example, Mammon is the energy of the group, the drive. Beel is the motivator, the encourager. Asmo is the dreamer, etc. Lucifer has to be the guider, the manager, the authoritarian.

While, yes on multiple occasions, he's dismissed his brother's wild antics outright, there have been so many other instances where his brothers say "I want ___" and he gives them the advice or the structure they need to accomplish it successfully. OR even ending up providing it himself should his brother's wishes be genuine (Mammon's car for example).

When he's more on his own, he can drop that uptightness completely. As we see again in Shall We Date, when they're taken to the video game world, and when he doesn't have the worries and responsibilities placed onto his shoulders, he's capable of skipping classes to take a nap on the roof. And fully enjoys it, with a smile on his face and everything.

At the very root of him, while he needs to fulfill the controlling dynamic, he does not want to. At least not completely.

I've always known this, but Nightbringer actually gave me a big confirmation boost! In Wanders Whereabouts, Barbatos gives Lucifer a video call in which he tells Lucifer about all the recent trouble the brothers have gotten themselves into. Barbatos then proceeds to let Lucifer know that as their guardian, the eldest needs to essentially work harder to keep them in line. Then Barbatos sends the damages bill to him.

If he isn't constantly keeping his siblings in line, he takes most of the blame!

And thirdly, I think you are correct, yes. I think especially with the addition of Nightbringer and the anime, a good portion of the fandom is a younger demographic, which doesn't surprise me (listen I played Mystic Messenger when I was a preteen/teen, I was there when the dark texts were written). And a lot of what appeals to that demographic is the coming-of-age, rebelling against conformity sort of story.

And, I want to repeat, my initial post that you are referring to wasn't meant to come off as a "oh everyone is so stupid thinking Lucifer is this way, you should all love him" but more of trying to explain the fullness of his character since it can be harder to spot.

Like, people in the fandom almost always completely understand Mammon. He's not just, "tough and grumbly man who steals things". He's someone who struggles with admitting his own feelings, someone who lets his ambitions blind him from the troubles they can cause, and someone who at the end of the day, loves his family more than anything. And most everyone in the fandom fully understands this.

And yet, with Lucifer, a lot of people tend to take him exactly at face value.

There's a lot of things I could explain about him needing to play a "Parental Guardian Figure" while also just being their brother at the same time, and in a lot of media where the older sibling is forced to become a guardian, they get a lot of flack for not doing it correctly.

Anyways, I could ramble on and on and on about Lucifer as a character, but I think this a good chunk of condensed thoughts. And thank you for sending this over, I always love a good Inbox ramble! Especially about my favorite grumpy, sleep-deprived man <3

[chochuuya]

manga genres.

matsuno chifuyu x fem!reader

disclaimer/note: lots of bickering, chifuyu is a hardcore, he called you a dork and actually roasts you bad but.. finally breaks his christmas curse? (｡- .•)

wc: 1.6k [1668]

you both can never get along when it comes to your manga preferences.

“shut up.” chifuyu sneers.

“no, you shut up!” you say in return.

it’s been about 30 minutes since you first started arguing. chifuyu is a softie at heart, and enjoyed the romance genre. while you were a person of action, enjoying the thriller genre much more.

“the art style is so much better. i don’t even know how you can read a story with such bad flow!” he argued.

you scoffed, turning your head away for a second before looking back at him.

“bad story flow? how dare you. as if your fav isn’t so predictable and mundane, chifuyu. trust me, action is sooo much better than romance.”

“well at least my favourite doesn’t have bad character development! at least they have likeable characters with diverse personalities, compared to your fav show where everyone is plain and boring.” chifuyu says, clearly not going to budge.

“oh, and your fav also has shitty romance.” he adds with a smirk.

he’s getting annoying, you swear you could punch his dumb face but you decided against it.

“well, at least my manga has plot twists and actually keeps their audience wanting for more! your romance? twelve episodes and we’re done. you can just read another of the same genre and you’ll get same plot every time.”

“oh no plot twists, huh?” chifuyu retorts gleefully.

“like who died in the latest chapter or some other bullcrap like that? i rather read and watch something where i can relax and enjoy.” the blond says, “you know, something that doesn't overstimulate your brain.”

“and plus, with romance i get to enjoy some sweet and spicy scenes that i like so much.”

he adds cheekily, “besides, i hate waiting a week for the next chapter. romance is much better than that.”

you scoffed in disbelief. the audacity and ego of his is something else.

“maybe your attention span is just too short to be watching or reading action, chifuyu!”

“and maybe your brain is a bit too simple compared to mine.” he retorts snarkily, “maybe you need constant action and stimulation to keep you entertained, because you get bored too easily.”

“and, it doesn’t matter how long a manga or anime is, it’s the enjoyment and the quality of it that counts. and clearly romance does it best.” he adds smugly, knowing he’s won in his eyes.

you actually rolled your eyes at his reasoning.

“maybe your authors keep dragging the story because they know romance and slice of life is just too simple without any action in it! yeah, what about that?”

“not to mention some of your favourites are quite questionable, chifuyu. what was it again.. oshi no ko? fruits basket? yuck!” you added.

chifuyu chuckles in amusement at your annoyance.

“you know what else is funny? i bet you can’t watch a romantic comedy without feeling cringe or getting embarrassed. and i mean real romcoms, like wotakoi and kaguya-sama.”

"and yeah, they’re my favourites, the anime just elevated them more. i mean come on, they’re cute and funny! and oshi no ko’s mystery and drama, even the comedy at times! how can you hate them?!” he states, annoyed.

“you bet i do, i don’t know how you feel all giddy inside when watching or reading them. maybe you’re just a hopeless romantic!”

you laughed wholeheartedly at your own remark.

“kaguya-sama? even i know better romances than you, ao haru ride and kimi ni todoke is so much better.”

“you know nothing, (y/n).” chifuyu says, amused.

“i admit kaguya-sama has its flaws, but it’s so damn good too. and ao haru ride is nothing but a sad, slow-burn romance that is painfully boring." he says, feeling a bit annoyed at your remark.

“and kimi ni todoke? again, slow-burn that is a bit too cliché.” he adds before saying, “i’d rather read or watch wotakoi. that’s a much better romance manga.”

you sighed in defeat. just hurts your throat trying to even get your argument against him.

chifuyu laughs, “told you! you clearly don’t know enough about manga and anime. you should learn from me, (y/n)!”

“and maybe, just maybe, if you try to change your tastes in manga and anime, you’d start attracting people who like the same thing as you.” he smirks, knowing he hit a nerve with that last comment of his.

you nudged him.

“you say that as if i don’t hear you complaining every christmas that you can’t get a girl, chifuyu. shut up!”

he goes silent, a slight redness creeping into his skin, “h-hey, c’mon! you didn’t have to point that out!” he says, trying to defend himself.

“besides, one day i’ll get a girlfriend.. just you wait—” he grumbles, looking away.

“yeah, whatever. i would probably be dead before you even can get yourself a girl.”

he goes silent again. his face seems to get redder, his annoyance clear.

“what’s that supposed to mean? you think i can’t have a girlfriend?” chifuyu retorts, annoyed.

he didn’t appreciate you mocking him like that.

“um, yeah. every time a girl talks to you, you chicken out. be grateful that i stayed.”

his face turns to disbelief at your words, still red with anger.

“i chicken out? chicken out?! that’s rich coming from you, who’s too scared to ask anyone out on a date.” he says, not backing down.

“and at least i’m not an introvert who gets anxiety whenever they meet new people, scared of embarrassing themselves and avoiding any and all social situations.” he adds, being as brutal as he can be.

your jaw dropped but you quickly compose yourself. don’t let him get to you just yet!

“h-huh? what do you even know about dating?! i bet i have more chance than you do, chifuyu.”

he chuckles in amusement at your outburst.

“oh you’re just all bark, no bite, (y/n). i’ve been on a few dates, sure maybe none of them really lasted, but at least i’ve been on some. you can’t say the same, can you?”

“and i doubt anyone would wanna go out with a dork like you anyway,” he adds with a smirk.

you had enough. you stood up from the floor of his room and exited the door. wow, so much of a hangout!

“hey hey hey, where do you think you’re going, (y/n)?” chifuyu taunts, standing up and walking towards you.

“the conversation isn’t over yet, now is it?” he adds.

“i’m going home.” you said plainly as you walk down the hallway.

“no, you’re not," he says, grabbing you by the arm and stopping you from continuing your walk.

“who says you can leave now?” he asks, annoyed and determined to carry on with his argument.

you nudged your shoulder, removing your arm from his grasp as you continue to ignore him.

coincidentally, baji came and opened the door. poor guy must be confused to see you leave right after. he stepped aside as chifuyu tried to chase after you.

“hey! what gives you the right to ignore me like that?!” chifuyu shouts, watching you walk out of the front door.

“damn it!” he yells angrily at you as you walk away with your nose in the air.

“way to go, chifuyu.”

“kindly shut up, baji-san.”

the next day at school, you were not in the mood. maybe his words got to you yesterday.

you stare into the void of your locker as you got your books out slowly.

chifuyu notices something is off with you. he decides to walk up to you as he sees you get your books out slowly, looking at you with a concerned expression.

he decides not to bring up the argument you had yesterday, for he knows his words can cut deep sometimes.

“hey (y/n), are you alright?” he asks quietly.

“hm.” you simply hummed in response as you shove your books into your backpack. you adjusted the straps before closing the locker and walks towards your class.

chifuyu follows you. he decides not to follow up with his previous question, and instead makes an attempt at being friendly.

“can i walk with you?”

“sure.”

he walks alongside you, feeling quite uncomfortable with your silence.

“so, um, do you mind if i ask what’s got you so down?” he asks, as he walks with you to class.

“was it that argument we had? or something else..?” he asks again, genuinely curious.

“maybe next time don’t call me a dork when you know i dislike it, chifuyu. i get it, i’m sensitive sometimes but—”

“that was yesterday, is that why you’re pissed at me still?” he asks, not fully understanding the situation.

“besides, i wasn’t being serious, (y/n)! we’re friends, you’re no dork.. i’m sorry okay?” he says, feeling a bit saddened.

“and besides, i like it when you’re sensitive. it’s adorable.” chifuyu says with a small smile. he felt that admitting that is rather embarrassing, but he wanted to reconcile with you.

you paused on your tracks as you look up to him. “did he just.. call me adorable?”

“come again?”

“you heard me.” he smirked.

“you being overly sensitive is such an adorable trait to have. not to mention, i would prefer my future girlfriend to be somewhat sensitive, instead of being a cold and mean person.”

he said it all so boldly that makes your mouth hangs open slightly. your cheeks are betraying you already.

“what..?”

he can see your cheeks getting slightly red tinted now. he was getting flustered himself.

“i.. uh..” he stammers.

“i mean, everyone would want their future partner to be someone they like. and i like you, (y/n).”

“plus, what i said is the truth. people do think you’re cute and adorable whenever you’re overly sensitive. even your anger is adorable.” he adds, giving it his all to persuade you into admitting you like him.

he’s clearly into you now.

and, you have no choice but to answer.

please do not steal, copy, translate, repost to other sites or claim my writings as your own. plagiarism is real!

chifuyu is so cute (i am biased) and a fluffy fluff is what he deserves (ง ˃ ³ ˂)ว ⁼³₌₃⁼³ i hope you like this one~ all reblogs & likes are vv appreciated!

[lyxurious]

So you like Luo Yunxi: A drama recommendation list

So you watched "Till the End of the Moon", and all you got is heartbreak, brainworms, and a shiny new lowkey or highkey obsession with Luo Yunxi (perhaps other people from the amazing cast too, but we're focusing on him here)? You want to see more of him, but you don't know where to start? Fear not, for this list is here to hopefully help you out with that.

Here be some (non-spoilery, but might mention if it generally ends well or not) spark notes on all his past dramas with him in the first male lead role, that are currently available with English subs (+ 2 very important supporting roles + 1 bonus). In chronological order, from most to least recent!

Light Chaser Rescue

Type: Modern, rescue missions, human drama, romance

Episodes: 40

Available at: WeTv, YouTube, viki

What's the deal? Jaded and cynical lawyer meets cute and icy doctor lady who is not here for his bs, and discovers the joys of love and most importantly, volunteer rescue work.

On the one hand: Detailed and extremely realistic scenes of all sorts of natural disasters happening. The production team collaborated with a real life team where anyone can volunteer and get training as a rescuer. They built a wholeass glacier for the final episodes and you could never tell it's fake looking at it even on HD. The side characters are mostly likeable (which is something you can't say for every drama), although flawed and human. FL is a cool-headed independent grownup woman who bottles up her feelings like a fine vintage.

On the other: The pacing is rather choppy and makes it feel like they planned out the disaster scenes/rescue missions first and everything else was added later to link said missions together and give the characters stuff to do in between. Since this is a drama and they have a limited cast, the team's abilities are a bit exaggerated at times (they turn up for everything that happens anywhere, doctor FL is a swiss army knife of specialties). Ending feels a bit abrupt.

Watch it if: You enjoy seeing Luo Yunxi suffer physically, you like stories with ordinary people being heroes while also remaining very much ordinary people.

Lie to Love

Type: Modern, romance, office, suspense

Episodes: 32

Available at: WeTV, YouTube

What's the deal? Local woman is convinced her one night stand during a mountain hike killed her father, so she returns after 2 years to go undercover in male nerdy Paris Hilton protagonist's glitzy hotel business and cancel his entire existence. Spoiler alert (but not really because this is actually not even the first 6 eps): he is a good guy and didn't do it and they fall in love and together they set out to uncover the truth and take down his shady uncle.

On the one hand: Objectively speaking, the plot for this is on the better side for a drama of its type. It's got suspense, it's got plot twists, it's got fluff, it's got drama, it's got more communication between the main CP than one would expect on a regular day, misunderstandings don't last long, the nice side characters are likeable, and 2nd ML is doing an incredible job at being a 2-faced creep. LYX is serving many a great business wear look in the 2nd half especially.

On the other: The FL is Cheng Xiao. A severely miscast Cheng Xiao in a role that is core in the plot and on paper, challenging. For fans, winner winner chicken dinner. For the rest of us, it's up to each viewer to decide if overall as a drama, the points in the above section are strong enough to balance this casting out.

Watch it if: You have a thing for men in suits and glasses (that makes two of us), you prefer ignoring the FL in dramas so you can make elaborate headcanons shipping the ML with the psycho stalker 2nd ML or the goofy rockstar 3rd ML instead.

Broker

Type: Modern, office, medical research, suspense, romance

Episodes: 42

Available at: YouTube, viki

What's the deal? Spy is ordered to infiltrate a lab and lowkey honey trap his way into stealing female scientist's multi-million research, is uno reverse carded when she fixes his broken heart and trust in humanity.

On the one hand: The rare case where he is a morally grey character in a modern setting. The other rare case where he gets to do action sequences in a modern setting. There's a shower sex scene (sit down, implied and partially dressed of course, this is still a cdrama), and one where he gets whipped on a table. There is a very badass sidekick girl who is just as broken as him if not worse, and very shippable with the FL's perky and spoiled little sister.

On the other: The premise is cool but sadly, there's way more filler office drama (in the lab) and 2nd CP being a frustrating snoozefest than spy activities. It's a drama that was held up for a long while in censorship limbo, and a considerable chunk of the ML's backstory and scenes were left in the editing room, which unfortunately throws the show off balance by a lot.

Watch it if: You are a diehard Luo Yunxi, Victoria Song or Xu Kaicheng completionist (in which case you have permission to come cry on my shoulder), you find yourself trapped in a cave, the rescue team is 48 hours away, and the only thing in there with you is a device that has no other data on it but all 42 episodes of Broker.

Love is Sweet

Type: Modern, romance, office

Episodes: 36

Available at: iQiyi, YouTube, amazon prime

What's the deal? Local woman applies for a job in huge investment banking company where she runs into her childhood friend -slash- nemesis after 10 years, they both gradually discover time makes people grow and occasionally fall deeply, ridiculously in love.

On the one hand: Sugar and fun and shoujo manga tropes aplenty! God tier CP chemistry! Some of the most epic makeouts to ever slip under the nose of the review committees. Characters that have actual profound growth under the "every romcom ever" cheeky banter. 2nd ML also offers shirtlessness and angsty backstory if you cannot live without those. There's even an adorable and very plot-relevant corgi!

On the other: The tremendous main CP chemistry has made this drama the exception for many who otherwise avoid both modern dramas and romcoms, but if that doesn't carry the show for you, I'm afraid there's not much else to see here. The 2nd CP is fuel for the "2nd CPs are annoying and waste screentime" complaint fire. (although, protip: even on the first watch you can probably skip their scenes without missing anything of value). The tear allergy is a bit of a ridiculous premise, but it's a real thing (who knew!), and it's not addressed much after a point.

Watch it if: You need something sweet and cute to fill the gaping hole Till The End of the Moon left in your chest, you love the tsundere overbearing CEO archetype but you also prefer it when he is more than a dry irredeemable asshole, you love romcoms because you enjoy both the "will they won't they" and the cute "we're an item now" domesticity.

And The Winner is Love

Type: Costume, wuxia, romance

Episodes: 48

Available at: iQiyi, YouTube

What's the deal? Dashing, elegant, fan-wielding dreamboat young master falls in love with girlie burdened with the heavy responsibility of leading a sect with bad rep and protecting a very powerful and thus dangerous cultivation manual. Supposedly.

On the one hand: Luo Yunxi looks like this:

for the whole drama. Every novel writer who ever wrote about a flirty and sophisticated young master whose beauty made flowers bloom along his path and women as well as men fell in love with him at first sight and all that purple prose-y stuff, has actually written about Luo Yunxi as Shangguan Tou whether they were aware of it or not. He is The Archetype and his popularity among bilibili fmv editors is proof. There's some great wire work in the first half. The soundtrack is pretty solid.

On the other: If you're looking for plot, run away and don't look back. I've watched the whole thing and I could not tell you how the story goes. I went in with a "idc about plot, i just want to look at Luo Yunxi in costume for 40 hours" mentality and I still struggled, make of that what you will. Chen Yuqi is the FL, saddled with a poorly written role and a choice of VA who arguably wasn't the best fit for her or the role. Chemistry is passable depending on your standards, but for most of the 2nd half of the drama it takes a nosedive together with the plot. Luo Yunxi got injured while filming this so they had to cut action scenes by a lot, so in the last 3rd or so it's wuxia without the wuxia. It's the only recent case where he also had to be dubbed (covid didn't allow him to get in the studio and do it himself, as he usually does).

Watch it if: You are a yumejoshi and need material to self-insert into a costume drama FL's position, you are more determined to watch lyx look pretty in costume, all else be damned, than Samwise Gamgee was determined to make sure Frodo throws the One Ring in the flames of Mount Doom.

Princess Silver

Type: Costume, court drama, romance, some wuxia elements

Episodes: 58

Available at: YouTube, viki

What's the deal? Princess RongLe wakes up one day with amnesia (no, hear me out) to the news that she is to be sent to another kingdom and marry a prince she's never met for political alliance reasons (no, hear me out!). There, she is faced with unexpected revelations and finds herself looking for the truth while she gets embroiled with the aforementioned haughty prince, a shady general, and her (sometimes a bit too?) caring and overprotective brother.

On the one hand: (mild spoiler alert?) His character ends up stealing the show. FL can act and has good relationships with other female characters (arguably better than with any man in this, even in the chemistry department). Story and plot are quite decent. It's one of those rare cdramas that builds up as it goes instead of deflating in the last stretch.

On the other: LYX is 3rd ML in this, so if he's your main motivation to watch, be prepared for limited screentime, especially in the 2nd half of the drama (until the final 8-10 episodes where it's all about). If you're not into the FL with either 1st or 2nd ML, the first half can be a drag, like, personally I started appreciating this drama for real after episode 25-30.

Watch it if: You are patient, you like getting emotionally sucker-punched, you love a good, earthshaking final plot twist.

Ashes of Love

Type: Costume, xianxia

Episodes: 63 (or 60, depending on the version, content is the same either way though)

Available at: Netflix, YouTube, viki, WeTV, amazon prime

What's the deal? Bottom of the food chain grape fairy who was deprived of the ability to feel romantic love and her life was honestly better and carefree like that, trips and falls into a love triangle with overconfident golden boy Heavenly Prince Phoenix, and his older brother, abused wallflower Heavenly Prince Dragon. Things go very great and not complicated at all from there. :))

On the one hand: Xianxia 101, it hits all the items on the checklist. The lavish costumes, the sprawling sets and world building, the entanglement over multiple lives, mortal arc, immortal arc, demon realm arc. CG that still holds up well for the genre 5 years later. The epic and emotional OST (someone has yet to surpass Sa Ding Ding's 左手指月 for the title of "best cdrama ED song", i don't make the rules). Arguably, The most iconic 2nd ML in a cdrama, responsible for a significant chunk of its long-lasting chokehold on the audience. Even if you've never seen the drama, if you're in the asian media adjacent internet, you've most likely seen this:

On the other: Xianxia 101, a double-sided coin. All the clichés are here, and if you're not here for them you get aboard the struggle bus. The show's views on romantic feelings can be a bit, let's say, old fashioned, even for the genre's standards. If you're not into the main CP, you're in for an uphill battle of frustration. If you're Team Runyu prepare to hate almost everyone for there is no justice in this land. (In AoL one is either Team Runyu or Team Xu Feng, no middle ground, and if you're reading this, especially because you liked lyx as Tantai Jin, I don't see how you could end up Team Xu Feng, so I'm gonna run with this assumption). (in theory you can also be Team No One, but in practice if you're that, sitting through this entire drama must have been as fun as having a tooth pulled out with no anesthesia)

Watch it if: if you're any degree of a lyx fan, period. Runyu is a mandatory class.

Children's Hospital Pediatrician

Type: Modern, medical, romance

Episodes: 42

Available at: YouTube

What's the deal? Aspiring surgeon -slash- frustrating disaster girl makes a huge blunder on her first day of her hospital residency, and can only stay as a pediatrician. She hates it and makes her literal saint of a secret husband's life miserable. We watch as she gets to grow as a person to the detriment of everyone else's mental health. Secondary cast has subplots of various dating entanglements.

On the one hand: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, hmmm..... well... there's a scene where lyx takes off his shirt for a physical exam, if that's a bonus (ep40, 27:13-28:05, you're welcome)? Queen Zheng Li is in it? I am scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

On the other: It's way too long for absolutely no reason, the FL is the most frustrating and irrational baby I've ever seen (which is by no means a low bar), 90% of characters who are not the FL get their development butchered to make her look better, 2/3rds of the cast are incompetent at acting and the other 1/3rd is being wasted in this mess. I am trying to be as objective I can in these, but I've got nothing for this one.

Watch it if: You have chronically low blood pressure that no medication can fix, you have watched literally everything else on the list and having a manic episode where you will chew on the walls if you don't look at Luo Yunxi's face in something you have never seen before, you want to watch some other mid drama, so you want to watch something worse first in order to appreciate the other drama more.

Fox in the Screen

Type: Costume, xianxia

Episodes: 22

Available at: YouTube, viki, amazon prime (as The Screen Foxes)

What's the deal? Orphan girl wins by drunken mistake a magical screen that houses 3 fox demon guys, they help her with her screen shop and also with crossdressing to pass the exam for the position of palace screen painter. She earns a grumpy boyfriend with a tragic past in the meanwhile.

On the one hand: It's short and goes fast, and in all honesty, considering it was made on a budget of 3 paperclips and a piece of gum, the story is much more concise and watchable than I, at least, personally expected. You get to witness the caterpillar stage of lyx on this path to guzhuang drama godhood. If you're one for tragic love stories there is one hiding under the DIY production. White Fox and the prince are a solid ship.

On the other: It is very much made on the aforementioned budget of 3 paperclips and a piece of gum, and it very much shows. Everything is rough, the costumes, the makeup, the editing, the acting for the most part. Having even half an expectation is the wrong way to approach this drama.

Watch it if: you have the heart of a mother watching her kids at the school play and admiring what a great job they are doing or if you are like Marie Kondo and love mess in an affectionate way.

Bonus: PhantaCity

PhantaCity was a tv show back in 2018, whose concept was making short plays and having actors perform them live in a single, do or die take for a studio audience. Luo Yunxi and Wu Jinyan, both with a background in ballet, are paired up in a short musical, acting as the hands of a newly repaired clock. If you ever wanted to see him dance, sing and act all in one thing, don't sleep on this. It's short and beautiful, and the official upload embedded above is subbed in English!

[yuikomorii]

Why do so many people love Ayato?

I like him too but I just don’t see what makes him so worshipped by the fandom (no hate)

// Other than his incredible visuals, a lot of people love Ayato because he got a particular charm that makes him stand out.

To put it mildly, he's truly a good character. What makes him distinctive is that he strikes as the perfect mix between generic and unique. Ayato is recognized in Japan as the orthodox Diaboy, and Karlheinz has confirmed that he is the most human-like of his brothers BUT this doesn’t mean his personality is not complex.

Rather than being forced to be likeable, his emotions are expressed in such way that makes him feel realistic. If things don’t go his way, he gets angry and starts acting impulsively. He’s also an arrogant brat when someone irritates him, yet… you can’t really bring yourself to hate him for that. Why? Because that’s how people are in real life too. Whether they were aware of it or not, everyone has behaved like that at some point since, in certain circumstances, such actions or thoughts are unavoidable.

The thing about Ayato is that he assumes his wrongdoings and ends up trying to fix his mistakes, instead of facing no consequences, being pushed by others to take responsibility or still being portrayed positively after doing something bad.

He needs to put in a lot of effort to reach his goals; sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he fails. He’s also canonically really brave, upright, mentally strong, pure-hearted, a good boyfriend & brother, which of course, are ideal traits and a bunch of people will respect him for that. Such a flawed person having such admirable qualities creates a good balance and it’ll be very easy to see yourself in him.

[orionsangel86]

I was once again flicking through the Sandman comics and thinking about the changes made to the show (as I am pretty much always doing) and something that struck me as interesting is why they chose to swap out Tales in the Sand for Men of Good Fortune.

In the comics, The Sound of Her Wings is the last story in Preludes and Nocturns. Dream’s meeting with his sister Death closes out the first of the overarching storylines within the Sandman saga, and it ends with Dream finding some measure of peace after speaking with her, and finding joy in hearing the sound of wings.

This can be interpreted as the first bit of real foreshadowing of Dream’s desire to die. Anyone who has read the Kindly Ones knows how important The Sound Of Her Wings is as it is called back to heavily at the end.

In the comics, the next issue can be seen as a one off, but is included in The Doll’s House book. This issue is Tales in the Sand - the tragic love story of Dream and Nada.

Right after Tales in the Sand, we get to the Doll’s House, which begins the exact same way that episode 6 of The Sandman Netflix show ends - with Desire calling on Despair to begin their scheming over the existance of the vortex.

I found it very interesting how the show swapped out Tales in the Sand for Men of Good Fortune - a story which in the comics comes much later within The Doll’s House storyline.

On the one hand, it makes sense to move Men of Good Fortune outside of the Doll’s House story for pacing reasons. But by putting it where they did they have drastically changed the tone of the story in a few ways.

1. It changes the end of The Sound of Her Wings. Show!Dream doesn’t leave his sister to sit and find peace in the thought of death, instead he does the opposite, he immediately goes and seeks out the one person he knows who is quite literally the antithesis of death - someone who finds joy in living. It still ends the Preludes and Nocturns story with Dream finding some manner of peace and happiness, but not in the sound of wings. Instead, it’s in the reunion with his friend who loves life so much he refuses to die.

2. It takes the place of the only love story we are given for Dream at that point in the comics. The Sandman comics have a tendency to avoid revealling too much information about Dream too soon and up until this point in the comics, all we know about his love life is that he condemned a lover to hell 10,000 years ago, based on a very brief conversation in A Hope In Hell. Tales in the Sand is the expansion of that brief conversation, giving us at least one perspective of how the tragedy played out.

I am really curious about why they decided to leave it out of the show completely. Partly I think its because it isn’t exactly a flattering look at Dream as a character. Probably didn’t seem like good business sense to the people who wanted The Sandman to perform well to basically destroy your main characters likeability half way through the first season (imagine all the Twitter puriteens and anti types who would get on their high horses attacking Sandman fans and Neil Gaiman alike for daring to like a main character who comes across a little bit rapey in this particular story - among other horrific character flaws).

Also, Tales in the Sand generally fits better with the Season of Mists story arc overall, and I think we will get a much kinder and more forgiving version of this story in the show.

So instead of being introduced to the first of Dream’s lovers, we are introduced to Hob Gadling. Make of that what you will.

3. It makes the immediate cut to Desire at the start of The Doll’s House story all the more eyebrow raising. Part of the reason why I think Desire’s scenes follow on from Tales in the Sand is because Desire had a lot to do with Dream’s bad behaviour in that story, and what ultimately happened is partly their fault. It is brought up both in comic and show when Desire tells Despair that “Nada was a mistake” but in the show, this comment remains a mystery, whereas in the comic, it goes some way into explaining the horrific story we have just read.

In the show, instead it makes for absolutely beautiful subtext as they cut to Desire’s realm and the song Desire as Desire says “Attend sweet Sibling” whilst we have just watched Dream reunite with Hob and smile the first real smile he has had all season so far. For a split second on my first watch I legit thought Desire was talking to Dream at that point and encouraging him to hook up with Hob. It was a very confusing few seconds!

At the end of the day, I think the change to the order of these stories was a very good idea, even without the added level of shipping fodder it gives us Dreamling shippers. In changing the end to The Sound of Her Wings in the show, it removes the foreshadowing of Dream’s desire to die, which I’ll be honest, so far I can’t see at all in the show version of the story. Instead, we get a Dream who is happy for the first time after reuniting with his friend - who apparently waited an additional 33 years for him and built/refurbished a pub in that time.

I have a bazzillion more thoughts on the changes from comic to show on the Men of Good Fortune issue in particular, but that’s for another post. I just had to get my thoughts down as the more I read and re-read the comics, the more I feel like the show is considering a different direction, a more hopeful happy direction. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

[alicentflorent]

Let’s be real the dragon show is bending on over backwards to make Alicent look as bad as possible it’s all “look how hypocritical she is? Having sex and being more concerned with hiding it than her own dead grandchild. Look how bad of a mother she is, not comforting her own kids manipulating her grieving son and coercing her grieving daughter. Her traumatised children and dead grandchildren are nothing but political pawns but she’s not even a good politician they don’t respect her the way respected Otto. She basically the anti Rhaenyra who fails in all the ways Rhaenyra succeeds.”

Mind you this is coming after they’ve stripped her of her agency to make her more “likeable” than her more villainous book counterpart. Book Alicent was not a good person and could be cruel but at least she was consistent. She had political goals, she wasn’t a great mother but she always stood by her children, she loves her family even if they’re toxic, she loved her grandchildren and helaena would take them to see Alicent every night before bed, She steps up to care for those grandchildren when helaena can’t.

They give her added sexual trauma and humiliation which did not happen in the book whereas the actual gender based violence trauma she suffered? Being attacked in her bedroom, at her most vulnerable, by an assassin? lets pass this traumatic experience to someone else! Watching her daughter get psychologically tortured to insanity and her grandson murdered? Well she missed it in show because she was having hypocritical sex! Oh and why was her role in b&c removed? Because it never happened to the “real” Alicent. B&C never happened like that. Alicent lied about being a victim because that’s what bad women who live for men do, they lie about being victims of assault.

Now her character has been stripped down to to a shell of a person. All that’s left of her is fragments of what Olivia is able to give us. She’s not allowed to be a complex, flawed character or even a villain. She’s just the anti Rhaenyra and too weak to continue to exist as a character in her own right.

Alicent Hightower, they’ll never make me hate you.

[66sharkteeth]

This ask is long overdue on my part, because it's something I've been wondering for awhile! You have said before that Rex was an OC you've had since like, middle school. Can you tell us more about that? Often I feel like, if a creator is too attached to their MC, it can show through, and make it less enjoyable as a reader, which is something that I worry about for my own creative work. But I never felt that way with Rex. Were there compromises you had to make for his character?

hmmmmmm -scratching head-

i'm not sure tbh. i mean to be clear, he's very different from the middle school version. i mean the VERY VERY first version of him was technically a stoic, edgy Cloud Strife rip off, but not long after I made the version that's more like what we know today. He was still kind of a silly goofball back then, but a lot meaner and mischievous. I remember in the RP with my friend that a lot of CoB came from, he literally pickpocketed Desmond, something he wouldn't do in a million years now. He has his faults now, but is still overall a boy scout compared to his original version (maybe the original version is coming out in his Scion tho lol)

Um... as for how I've kept him enjoyable though... Hm. I totally get what you mean when you can tell a character is someone's baby they aren't willing to change, but I think I've been lucky in the fact that I just like a lot of things that are enjoyable in MCs. Rex's biggest (personality) inspirations are probably Luffy from One Piece and Yato from Noragami, who I think are both very likeable characters (Yato especially is enjoyably flawed but still loveable).

I'm not gonna lie, the only "compromise" that comes to mind for me is maybe the shipping lol. If he was entirely self-indulgent OC, I'd probably have him end up with Desmond. But narratively, Bell is just the best character for him to end up with. I do love Rex and Bell to be clear but yeah i'm ngl, Rexmond's one of my favorite ships lol. They just have to exist in AUs unfortunately.

[raayllum]

Been thinking recently about the idea in fandom that boils down to, usually, "the Character that Changes the most being deemed 'the most complex'" and that character development (i.e. character change) being held up as The Golden Standard of a Good Character and...

I fundamentally disagree, but first, a little bit more explanation about what I mean

Very often shows and movies, when being recommended on tumblr, are sold on the basis of having enjoyable/in-depth characters. Often times this also means conflating enjoyable with likeable, but that's a discussion post for another day. And even more often, it means there are characters who are seen as Deep because of how radically they change over the course of a story.

Lots of times, this falls into two camps:

Characters change radically, but early on in the story, and remain largely the same past that point of change (think anytime in a first season) until the end of the story

People recommending shows based on characters having traditional redemption arcs (enemy or bully to friend / good guy / love interest)

Now, I'm not saying that 1) character change can't be deep or 2) that character growth is bad. Neither of those things are true, even subjectively. What I am saying is that 1) character change / a character changing is not the same as automatically being a good, interesting, or well written character and 2) character growth is not the be-all-end-all of character writing. Yes, there can be problems with characters be overly stagnant, but typically that's only an issue if 1) a work is serialized and concerned with character development and they don't change at all, 2) a character never adjusts (rightly or wrongly) according to their mistakes, or 3) all of the above but they're a main character.

However, assuming that Character A has to be radically different at the beginning of a story in terms of their personality/values/etc. as they are at the end of the story is just... not how it works, necessarily. This is, I think, one of the reasons why antagonists who get redemption arcs tend to be more popular than heroes who had good values the whole time, because there's more opportunity to point and go "look, they've changed! they act on and have basic compassion now!" Which, fair enough, but again: other types of characters are fine too.

Particularly for characters fandom tends to have the hardest time with: paragons.

Paragons are characters who are usually the central hero, pretty morally if not entirely moral upstanding, and because they already start out in a place of "always doing the right thing," they rarely radically change by the end of the story. Instead, paragons are used to progress theme/messaging and inspire other characters around them to change (a good example might be Buddy from the Christmas movie Elf and to a lesser extent - as he's more transformative as a character - Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, who's there to return childhood to his friends as an ideal and carry on Air Nomad values).

And for TDP, that's Ezran.

He's the youngest in the main cast and by far the most measured. While Callum and Rayla are off fighting, he keeps a level head. He assumes responsiblity largely without guilt, holds other people accountable most often without being cruel, he's kind and deeply compassionate, he shows regular empathy for his enemies even when he has to treat them like enemies, he loves his father but does not idealize him, he is king without craving power, he's trusting and honest and while he has his flaws (overly optimistic, his passivity, sometimes struggles to consider other people's emotions, naivety, etc), they - as of yet - are not overly connected to his sense of morality (which is a distinct difference compared to the rest of the main cast).

Now, TDP is less concerned with the theme of Childhood compared to something like ATLA, but Ezran being a child (again, in a way the rest of the cast is not) is also very important. Ezran, and Callum to a lesser extent, is the embodiment of the concept that children aren't born with hatred in their hearts; it's learned, or earned, through experience, society, and suffering. And as Ezran spells out for us in 4x03, he has suffered and been hurt - and he believes in breaking the cycle and believing in hope for a better future anyway.

Ezran's steadfast reflection of the series' core theme of "true strength - to break the cycle - is found in vulnerability, in forgiveness, in love" in both word and action does make him the closest thing to a paragon in the series. He's the one who finds the egg; he's the one who forgives Rayla and Soren; he's the one who still tries to help Claudia; he's the peacemaker, the literal bridge between peoples and species in spite of witnessing so many of their worst crimes/actions.

In both arcs, there tended to be a trio of characters who rapidly change, and a trio of characters who are more, comparatively, stagnated. Early S1 Rayla, Callum, and Soren are radically different in a ton of ways than they are even at the beginning of S3, but especially by the end. On the other hand, Viren - post 1x03 at least - Claudia and Ezran are far more consistent in arc 1; their circumstances change, but their viewpoints and realities and choices are largely the same from season to season - they just keep doubling down. This doesn't mean they don't change at all, but they don't radically transform - they just become more of what they already are.

I'd say that in arc 2, things have switched up, with Callum, Rayla, and Viren being the three who are radically transformed (thus far) with Soren, Claudia, and Ezran still being in the more stagnated corner. (For more notes on Claudia and Ezran's shared passivity, check out this pre-S4 meta.)

Ezran starts out the series as a good hearted, slightly mischevious little boy who loves his family and believes that people can be good. The point of the series is not to change these parts of him. It's to demonstrate the difficulties - losing both his parents, taking on the kingship, struggling to make the right choices, keeping his friends together, caring about peace and sentiment in a world that increasingly does not - of maintaining those positive traits, again, in a world that is determined to test those ideals and attributes.

Ezran is not here to be transformed by the storm, the same way his friends and some of his companions are. He is here to demonstrate the strength and necessity in weathering the storm so that the world cannot make you cold, or uncaring, or violent, even when those paths and emotions would be much easier to go down.

Good character development isn't about changing your character; it's about changing your audience's understanding and perspective of your character. Sometimes that means the character is also changing simultaneously, but that's far from a requirement for a character to be interesting. Like most things in writing, what it really boils down to is execution.

And I could go on about why I think people gravitate towards characters who start off evil (often part of imperialist empires or older, institutionally backed systems) and learn that the evil was wrong actually (and sometimes not even that) but that's a meta for another day, and this one is long enough.

TLDR; Ezran, like a few other characters in the show - antagonists and protagonists alike - is not meant to be a radically transformative, even though he very much has grown and changed. Instead, he's meant to exemplify the importance of not losing your sense of self in an increasingly cruel or difficult world, and what parts we should arguably try our best to hold onto as well.

[pruneunfair]

My rewrites for TRE characters in my fanfic

so about 6 months ago I fell into the Au pipeline and it ended up resulting in a bunch of stories that's basically if maximalism was a 7 season long book series. One of those seasons combines tons of characters from different manhwas I read but it's mostly a new interpretation of remarried empress with some Oc's.

Navier

One major change I made is that Navier isn't the protagonist anymore but I didn't want her to be a cold blooded villain either. If you ever went on history tik tok specifically the tudors and the French revolution, there's a lot of people who romanticize Anne Boleyn to the extremes of villainzing Jane Seymour or babying Marie Antoinette as a sweet coquette girly who was unfairly killed by "savage revolutionaries" or claiming Elizabeth I as a feminist girlboss who only wanted to end her fathers bloodline. These historic women weren't the most awful people and they definitely were victims but that doesn't mean they didn't have noticeable flaws that affected the lives of others. That's the direction I went for my version of Navier, she still cares for her loved ones and makes good decisions but she was raised with a classist mindset, not pouring wine on maids and poor people but viewing them as emotionless husks with only one purpose which explains her apathy to slaves. I also gave Navier a backstory beyond wanting to be a perfect empress which was a relationship with her mother that is inspired by Catherine the greats relationship with her mother, so yeah not very great. Unlike the original she is fully aware of what Heinrey is doing but she barely cares (not much of a change from the original tbh) the goal is that I still want Navier to be a little likeable while also making her complex and realistic as an empress.

Sovieshu

I didn't give Sovieshu as many changes and for the most part, he's the same as he was in the original: a toxic partner who pushes his faults on other people around him. In this version though instead of becoming cold and cruel to Navier to moment Rashta shows up, the two have already been drifting apart for a while and it only got worse when Navier had a miscarriage a year prior to the story. Sovieshu is more of a cautionary tale of how misogyny is encouraged in boys at a young age, in his youth, Sovieshu had all the love of his mother since his parents struggled to conceive and only had one son. He wanted his father's love more than anything but Osis was about as interested as you'd expect, only wanting his son to be a great Emperor and nothing else, to please him, Sovieshu started to emulate the misogynistic views of the men around him which grew to be his actual beliefs. The only person that kept Sovieshu from turning into his dad was the former empress until she takes her own life, leaving Sovieshu with Osis as his influence. I still want Sovieshu to remain a scumbag but it will be more of a tragedy in how the future generations can never improve if we continue the cycle of abuse.

Rashta

I think Rashta is the most altered out of all the original characters since she's not even a villainess but rather a sort of anti hero. Her past as a slave is more fleshed out, her childish manner is age regressing to try to gain back her stolen childhood and she doesn't try to befriend Navier after getting the message that Navier wants nothing to do with her. In this version she's the best friend and later love interest of the new protagonist who bottles up her past and feelings to please others so she can keep her cozy life in the palace and that becomes a problem as the lack of care causes Rashta to grow more depressed and even has a few panic attacks. She won't do a good portion of the horrible acts she does in the original since she now had actual friends and because some of her sins are just so contrived to make her hateable, but she still is petty and holds grudges so she doesn't feel too bad when she ruins Nians marriage or snubs Lebetti, she'll even be conflicted since she feels guilty that the slaves on the Rimwell estate are still suffering but she doesnt want to risk being removed as concubine if she tries to call for slaves rights but she does find her voice and will start to push for slaves to be freed mid-way through her term as the empress of the eastern empire. In the end, Rashta does become Empress of a different empire after spending a good 7 years healing from her trauma and getting a good education, she lives her days with her kids and dies at the age of 81

Heinrey

Hes one the main antagonists here, I kept his love for his wife and family though but it's not an "uwu my queen!" Or really anything puppy like. For Heinrey I wanted to make him a true white lotus and he's has more vibes of a comforting friend with soft mannerisms and tones in voice, he loves Navier dearly because I still think even monsters like him can fall in love but the reason he tortures and kills people who don't side with Navier isn't even because he's that adamant about Naviers honor but rather because if someone were to find out his sadistic nature to those who disagree with him, he can use the "puppy husabnd" excuse to appear as a sadistic sweetheart. It not only scares the shit of his people into respecting him but it also wins him a little sympathy points since "he's just a hopeless romantic" I wanted Heinrey to appear uncanny too, like you know somethings off about him but if you said anything people would just be like "what are you talking about? He just really loves his family." His death is also pretty brutal, naturally Heinrey makes a lot of enemies and during a war arc he is shot down while in bird form leaving him at the mercy of a former maid he pushed over the deep end, she offs him, plucks him, cooks him, and serves him to the remaining family members of Lazlo.

and that's only the main 4, I did almost all of them with the exception of McKenna since he's honestly the only good character thats written well in remarried empress.

[mal3vol3nt]

it is crazyyyy seeing ppl go all the way back to ITSV and trying to find things to hate about gwen even then.

like in atsv, she is a realistic portrayal of a traumatized teenage girl who doesn’t know what to do with everything that’s happened to her and therefore ends up leaning on and trusting the wrong people. she made mistakes and was more human, but y’all didn’t like that. people HATED her for her mistakes and went out of their way to portray her as some sinister person while simultaneously simping for and loving up on male characters who’ve made similar if not worse mistakes.

in itsv, she comes off as a badass who rarely slips up. this is mainly because we’re seeing her from miles’ point of view and he very obviously has a crush on her so…. like duh. point is, in that movie gwen is an extremely capable superhero who is pretty and a lil traumatized but it doesn’t interfere with what she’s able to accomplish in itsv. she doesn’t make many mistakes in terms of her abilities or her relationship with miles because throughout the movie she’s slowly opening up to the idea of allowing herself to get close to people. therefore, she doesn’t yet have a friendship with him since her arc consists of her cold exterior melting away so she can let him in as a friend.

by atsv logic, itsv-gwen is the far superior and should- be-likeable version for some people since she’s a female character who is badass and doesn’t seriously fuck up or have any perceivable flaws (beyond the flatness that inherently comes with). but nooooo. y’all still hate her from that movie too so like… she just can’t win. you don’t like her when she’s an idealized version of herself and you don’t like her when she’s a realistic version of herself. it’s crazy seeing people pick her apart in itsv when most of the time her actions, like every other character’s, were based entirely on the very intense situation of the damn collider. to pick her apart specifically for her treatment of miles (which i don’t even think was cruel or coming from a place of illogical underestimation considering lives were on the line and miles was a very, very fresh-off-the-bite spider) and not the other characters is insaneeeee.

like to use her actions in itsv, which i would argue were logical in the context of the movie’s plot and situation, against her to further prove that she as a person is undeserving of miles in either a platonic or romantic way reeks with a lil something…. something that starts with an m and ends with a y. idk tho it’s on the tip of my tongue…

anywhore i just wanted to rant. not arguing or debating with anyone cus i don’t got the energy.