#been meaning to make this gifset for a couple years now and given that it's actually lent rn... perfect timing lol

[auldcine]

No, permanently. RONALD REAGAN and ELEANOR PARKER in THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE (1947)

[heartbellamy]

hello my darlings! it’s that time of year again, where everything is pink and fluffy and heart-shaped. last year i did a countdown series of some of my favorite ships, which was challenging but fun! but this year i thought i might do something a little more interactive. that’s where you come in!

this celebration is a little mix of a follow forever and a creator game. the part where you come in is down below! it’s a mix of popular content creator memes and some extra goodies i threw in for fun, and all you have to do is pick whatever one calls to you and send me an ask with the mentioned information, and voila, you’ll get a custom fanwork! how fun is that? not only is it a way to give back to my little community, but it also strengthens my creativity, so i think that’s a win-win, no? plus there’s options for both visual and written content, woo! ✨

take a look below and then send something in here!

color palette meme: send me 🎨 + a color palette and a character, ship, show, movie, etc. and you’ll get a gifset inspired by it timestamp roulette: send me ⏱ + an episode or movie and you’ll get a gifset of random moments make me choose: send me 👯 + two (or more) characters, ships, episodes, shows, movies, etc. and you’ll get a gifset of my fave! wardrobe meme: send me 👗 + a character, movie, or show and you’ll get a gifset of my favorite outfit superlative meme: send me 📚 + a superlative (best smile, cutest couple, etc.) and you’ll get a gifset of who i think best fits the theme writing prompt: send me 🖋 + a prompt for a one-shot fic! can be as detailed as you want, as long as you include the ship, character, fandom, etc.

as for the follow forever part of this post, i suspect this might get a little long, so i’ll be putting it underneath the cut! but don’t worry, i love you all imensely and am so happy you’re here. i might get mushy, but hey, valentine’s is a good excuse right?

love fest aka follow forever is down below!

@togetherkru my darling stef! or as i call you in my head, my partner in crime clarke. first of all, i’m so thankful and lucky to have you over at @dailyclarkegriffin, i really had no idea what i was getting myself into and i really can’t thank you enough for the help! secondly, i honestly can’t imagine being in this community without someone as wonderful and positive and supportive as you. i’m sure i’ve said it before but you really are such a light in this community and i hope you know how much we appreciate you! a sunflower for a sunflower 🌻💛✨

@bellamyblake iva, i can’t express how grateful i am for the support you’ve given me from the start. whether it’s my own creations or bcso or just a chat now and then, you’ve always been around to support me and even offer me kind words when i wasn’t at my best, and i hope you know that truly means a lot to me! as someone who came back to the t100 fandom later on, it could feel a bit like being the new kid coming in during the middle of the semester, but your support has and continues to make me feel included 💙

@klarkegriffin lynn, obviously everything i said about dcg goes for you too, the love and support i got when opening the doors was so lovely and my little clarke partners are just two wonderful people honestly. on top of that, i wanna talk about what you’ve done in the community. i know you do a lot and keep up a steady flow of ways to keep the creativity in the community alive, and i hope you know that it is greatly appreciated. i don’t have to tell you that this fandom can be tough, but the projects you’re involved with have done so much! you’re a wonderful part of the community and i’m glad we have you 💞

@queen-of-the-wallflowers15 i don’t think we’ve actually talked here on tumblr! but it felt silly not to mention you when all the work you and lynn do has helped me and my writing process so tremendously. i honestly don’t know where the bellarke writing community would be if not for you two. bellarke hub has been an absolute godsend for me and my writing process, even when i feel like i’m in a total rut, seeing the prompts and the microfics and everything are really so inspiring and have helped me when i thought i couldn’t even write a single sentence. plus i love all the writing you do yourself! basically this is a big thank you 📚💜

@infp-with-all-the-feelings @carrieeve @spacebell @ninappon @igotbellarkeforthat @bookwormforalways @moreflowersthanweeds @pendragaryen @natassakar my sunflower kru! this is getting long even under the read more so i just wanna mention the bellarke gang that keeps this fandom alive and together, you’re all grand and thanks for including me even though i don’t always show up 😂💗 (sorry if i forgot anyone! i went by my mentions but just know i love and appreciate you all!)

HONORABLE MENTION TO ALL THESE BABES 😍☀️🌻💛✨

@agentsofoakenshiield @andromedabennet @astridandoddsandends @aucelu @behlamy @bellamyblakru @bellamysgriffin @damn-salvatore @divinepairings @emziess @excuseyouclarke @fandomscraziness22 @fearingdark @frecklesandfanfics @gansxythethird @harpermiller @helloeurydice @hey-there-juliet @iheartbookbran @imcristinayang @immortalpramheda @isweartobreathe @izloveshorses @jeanie205 @kateemcintyre @kombellarke @lee-em-dee @loveforbobandeliza @luminouswriter @nakey-cats-take-bathsss @nathanmillers @ohtwilight @pawprinterfanfic @searamour @soulintheskies @sparklyfairymira @star-kovs  @starkzmalik @starsinyourskyes @stealing-jasons-job @superficialseer @travllingbunny @userlexi @whateverthehellhewants @who-needs-reality-anyways @writetheniteaway @xxawalkinwonderlandxx

[travllingbunny]

Thank you for the tag, @ryder616!

This tag game has unexpectedly led to an interesting discussion about what exactly an “Endgame Ship” means... which seems to be largely open to interpretation. I’m still not sure how I see that term, but for the purposes of this post, but to narrow it down and not mention way too many ships, I’ll take Endgame in two different meanings: for “Favorite Ship(s) That’s Endgame”, I’ll take it to mean pairings that were together and in a happy relationship at the end of the story. But for “Ship(s) You Wish Had Been Endgame”, I will take “Not Endgame” to mean that the ship was not treated as these characters’ main romance at the end of the show, or at least there was a lot of ambiguity and/or a rival ship for one or both characters was instead the current one at the end of the story. (A lot of my favorite ships have the tendency to end up unhappily in spite of being portrayed as the main romance of the story..)

Warning: this post contains spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Agents of SHIELD, The Hunger Games, The Leftovers, The Americans and The 100 (though if you’ve spent any time on my blog, you’ve certainly already been spoiled for the ending of The 100) and .

1. First Ship - When I was about 4 or 5, I was obsessed with Lady and the Tramp (I had a book version with a few pictures and it fell apart from how much I was reading it - it may have been my first book that wasn’t mostly a picture book), so I guess my first ship was two dogs (which is really appropriate, since I love dogs). If we’re talking TV, again going back to my childhood, before puberty and before I even knew what “shipping” was, I remember being pleasantly surprised when Raquel first appeared on Only Fools and Horses as a love interest for Del Boy - the show was an episodic comedy where the two brothers, in the early years, usually didn’t have a serious love interest. I thought “oh, he really is in love with her! And she feels the same, and they are so cute together.” I hoped she’d come back and wouldn’t just be a one episode character but a long-term LI. And then I was so happy when that very much did happen. I guess this can be considered the start of my TV shipping (and also an early sign of my love for contuinity and longer arcs on TV).

2. First OTP - Ignoring pre-puberty: at the age of 12, I was really obsessed with Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff and Cathy and read the book who knows how mny times. Regarding TV, I’ve shipped over the years, but I guess the first TV ship I would really call my OTP was in This Life, a 1990s UK drama about a bunch of 20-somethings in London, which I watched on TV in 2001. which now sadly seems almost forgotten. Anna and Miles had an on-off, love-hate relationship throughout - they were sexy, snarky, and it was painfully obvious that they were in love, but these idiots had trouble admitting it to themselves and even more to each other. If it had been a romcom, they would’ve been certain to end up together, but it was a realistic drama.

3. Current Favorite Ship - Bellarke - oh, what an OTP of all OTPs that was before it was stupidly destroyed out of spite. Over the last couple of years, Dark (season 3 mostly) made me really love Jonas and Martha (the first pairing I’ve made gifsets about), and most recently (last month!), I binged Halt and Catch Fire and fell in love with the show and with Joe and Cameron’s relationship (which, I just realized now, shows that my taste in OTPs hasn’t changed in 20 years).

If we’re talking current as in, in current shows rather than finished ones, then  Kanej (Shadow and Bone), Harlivy (Harley Quinn), Gereon and Charlotte (Babylon Berlin) and  Roy and Keeley (Ted Lasso).

4. Your ship since the first minute - I really rarely ship anything from the first minute (unless we’re talking Morticia and Gomez, who are of course already a perfect couple and nothing ever changes there). It usually takes time for me to fall for a ship. A rare exception is Roy and Keeley - their first one-on-one scene in S1 already had huge OTP vibes. 

5. Ship(s) You Wish Had Been Endgame - Do I even have to say it? BELLARKE. A hundred times Bellarke, who were portrayed as endgame before the showrunner decided to retcon and ruin them together with the show overall.

Others: Jessica and Luke in Netfix Narvel shows, May and Andrew on AoS, Willow and Oz; or, depending on how you interpret Endgame, Willow/Tara (some argue that it is Endgame as Tara is definitely portrayed as the love of Willow’s life regardless of everything else). Spuffy (again, there are different opinions as to its status as both the show and the comics ended ambiguously and tried not to have a clear Endgame pairing for Buffy’s character), Xander/Anya (if you take comics into account).

6. Ship You Wish Was Canon - Some would say Bellarke, again, but I tend to consider it canon. It’s debatable, for sure (if you only consider making out/sex and/or “I love you” as markers of canon, it is not canon; if it is enough for the show to make it so blatant in the first 6 seasons that you have to actively search for ways to deny it to make it sound platonic, and for actors to confirm it was portrayed as romantic- than it is.)

So my answer would be: Kastle (Netflix Marvel shows), QuakeRider (AoS), and Octavia and Diyoza (The 100) and maybe Faith and Buffy (mostly in the sense that canon could have explored the nature of Faith’s feelings for Buffy a bit more and a bit more openly).

7. Ship that Most of the Fandom Hates, but You Love - Angel and Darla, May and Andrew, Coulson and Rosalind (hated how it ended though). Miller and Bryan (because they were more interesting than Mackson, and Bryan had a personality), Though “ships that most of the fandom ignores” would be a more apt term. The one that most of the fandom does hate and I like it is Octavia/Ilian - I liked it for what it was, two damaged people finding comfort together in what could have grown into something more - instead of the “we’re ve just met and talked to each other once and we’re already IN LOVE!” trope that the writers of The 100 were so fond of.

8. You Don’t Even Watch the Show, but You Ship It - Why would I ship something from a show I don’t watch?

9. Ship That You Wish Had A Different Storyline -  BELLARKE (duh - the ending). Veronica and Logan (the ending, again). Coulson/Rosalind - they had such an interesting and fun dynamic that could have been explored much more; instead, the writers opted for one of the worst tropes there are, and I hated that entire plotline for so many reasons. Tyrol and Boomer on Battlestar Galactica - what they did with Boomer was crap. Baltar and Caprica - all the bad writing in season 4. This is a weird example of a ship that I shipped so hard for 3 seasons and that was given Endgame in every sense of the word, but, by that point, I barely cared anymore, because the writers forgot about their relationship throughout the final season and made it seem like they didn’t even remember each other, and then slapped a last minute happy ending. Plus they retconed/explained their connection in such a stupid and anticlimactic way that ruined it retroactively.

10. Favorite Ship(s) That’s Endgame - Everlark, Nora and Kevin (The Leftovers), Philip and Elizabeth (The Americans), and Josh and Della on Night and Day (a really obscure early 2000s UK show that was watched by maybe 100 people.) Some others worth mentioning: FitzSimmons, Niles and Daphne, Tim and Dawn (original UK The Office), Jake and Amy, Memori (the only bright spot in a rubbish ending). And of course, there’s Morticia and Gomez, though they are less Endgame and more AlwaysGame.

Tagging: @jeanie205 @kizo2703 @poppykru @sheigarche @weareagentsofnothing @sometimesrosy @misskittyspuffy @otp-armada @carrieeve @sexy-zeitreise-detektiv @jonaskanwalds @immortalpramheda @ladyofthefrostfangs @tennyo-elf @fandomkru @natassakar @hadrianvonpaulus @sillier-things @angearia @thekawaiislartibartfast @foolishnymeria @erikiara80 @heartbellamy and anyone else who sees this - sorry I didn’t tag you and please consider yourself tagged. :)

[ohhthereuare]

cannot believe we’re back to shipping wars in the year of our lord 2021 but with the overwhelmingly stupid cancel culture and moral police on every corner making it almost impossible to simply enjoy stuff these days I had to chime in my 5 kruge cents or else I’d choke

nobody gives a flying fuck about who you ship and neither should you because this is very rarely up to you. it’s like a god-chosen enlightenment, a sudden rush of serotonin that mysteriously dictates what’s gonna rock your boat from now on. that is great. grab that wheel and get on with it.

you don’t have to justify any of that. and I wish it was clear enough but apparently it still isn’t that villains are called villains for a reason and murder is murder no matter the motive. we know. trust me we do. but I guess that’s half the charm of a work of fiction that a character can be interesting despite its flaws. hell most of the time it’s interesting thanks to its flaws. when you say you like them it doesn’t mean you run to justify their sins and therefor imply these new moral conclusions to your everyday life and real people in it. it just means that this particular fictional creature makes your brain go happy. be them a ball of sunshine or a ball of darkness. you’ll enjoy their actions in a specific media and then get on with your life as an intelligent, morally responsible member of a society that will definitely not go on a killing spree because a fictional guy in a cool cape that doesn’t even exist did so in a story.

now getting that lengthy introduction out of the way I cannot believe that people cannot engage in an intellectually stimulating critical thinking discourse (that back in the day we just called meta) without criticizing every thing or else apparently they’ll go to literal hell. the Darkling is overall a bad guy and Mal is overall a good guy. that’s what the story it built upon. then again both of them are grey to some extent as people are because they are people. they have thoughts and desires and justify themselves because they believe in a greater good that sometimes they personally created. there’s no reason to compare the Darkling who’s straight-up a millenium-old murderer who just happens to be very charismatic and sexy to Mal who’s more human and the mistakes he makes are less of the murderous nature and as it unfortunately happens he’s just more plain. I’d be happy with Alina ending with either of them, knowing full well that there would be good and bad sides to either of the endings. even if the positive outcome of Alina ending up with the bad guy was only a sense of aesthetic fulfillment. that is all. I can say I see and understand the manipulation and the toxicity and still enjoy a power couple dressed in black cloaks the same way I’d enjoy childhood sweethearts leading a safe and quite life. whatever rocks my boat.

if we look at Leigh Bardugo’s work in a simple, quite superficial way then yes it is the question of black and white, good and bad. but it’s more than that and it’s one of the many reasons why it’s one of my favorite books series ever (let’s not go all JKR on her because as I’ve seen some of you do because apart from obvious situations no creator of anything should to held to impossibly pure moral standards making their work morally flawless because it’s based on their own personal experience and it’s impossible to stop some of it from seeping into the work itself even if you personally might find it problematic but they’re human just like you and me and I cannot believe I even have to type this rn). now I’m not wasting my time writing this essay and you reading it to stir up a ship war and I am NOT here as a darklina shipper because in the end I was quite happy with malina getting their happily ever after. but I cannot STAND this sudden wave of frantic justification and of hate towards it because it’s all missing the point.

the Darkling is a villain. the Darkling is a human being (to some extent). the Darkling is the bad character but he’s more grey than black and it’s Alina’s own opinion. THAT’s what’s so interesting about their relationship. he hurt her and the people she loved and hurt people she didn’t even know only to pin the blame on her to guilt trip her to do his bidding. we know it’s toxic and manipulative. Alina knows that too. she hates him and fears him and at times would kill him without hesitation. but she also comes back to him and can’t help but marvel and his beauty and genuinely sheds a tear when he falls. it’s hard to say whether she loves him to some extent, I think even she wasn’t sure and felt quite guilty about it. there’s was a strange pull she couldn’t deny, a wicked sense of understanding that could not be matched by anyone else. despite their chemistry she couldn’t overlook the murder part and that’s who she chose. that’s also who she became because if she had accepted his offer and went down that powerful path we would have been given a completely different story with Alina being a different character. it’s that magic of fiction that lets you explore such extremes but it still is just fiction. it’s okay to type lengthy essays about it to pick it apart and examine with interest but there’s very little point to criticize something so obvious or defend the impossible.

now still on the topic of the Darkling that’s what I love about the show. how Ben Barnes looked for the human parts in him (which is also literally his job as an actor to find parts of the character that he could sympathize with idk why are y’all so surprised and scandalized and y’all better leave my man Ben alone). parts that might have been lonely and misunderstood because that’s how the Darkling saw himself. he had to justify his own actions somehow because he believed he was right. a bad villain is bad by nature. a good villain makes you question whether he’s really bad, makes you justify his villainous actions with him. showing the Darkling express real emotions towards Alina, hope for their shared future, tears in his eyes as she turns her back on him just made him that much more interesting and multidimensional as a great character should be. a great character can still be a murderer. a murderer can still be a great character. it has nothing to do with them being a good person. but it doesn’t erase the toxic behaviors just by being sexy the same way that toxic behaviors have a hard time erasing the sexy part and if you find it sexy in fiction that’s great go on reblogging passionate darklina gifsets and if you can’t stand it even on paper that’s fine too enjoy your heartwarming malina handholding posts. fill in your “rip to alina but I’m different” preferable scenario and let it bring you joy.

Leigh Bardugo is a great author. Ben Barnes is a great actor. actually all the actors are great actors and they did a marvelous job of bringing our beloved characters to life and we cannot even imagine the burden of responsibility they must have felt. let’s try to be less negative and more grateful for a really well-done book adaptation and surround ourselves with people that share our likes and dislikes in a respectful and positive manner and hopefully not foolishly trust that people can tell the good from the bad in real life and still enjoy both in a work of fiction.

[0reblogufufu0]

Spoilers Ahead For IPYTM EP 4!

Well, it happened.

So, they broke up. Wow, that was surprising. Yes, of course it was the right decision, but man it is not common to see in BL’s. A lot of BL relationships are rocky at times, or they take breaks that aren’t really breaks until they kiss and make up, but rarely do we see the words ‘break up’ actually used and there being a scene specifically for it. I didn’t expect them to go in so deep with it. Now, I want to say this because I’ve been thinking this for the last couple episodes, the acting isn’t great this season. No, it’s not bad, and man, does it sure carry a lot of the scenes without development, but it does fall flat a lot more often here then it did in ITSAY. There are moments when it is still and especially tired. I’m talking specifically about PP and Billkin here, since their performances are the focal point of the series. I don’t hate it, but it does make some scenes uncomfortable, and I’ve noticed during certain emotional scenes they sort of just make the same expressions over and over with it feeling really fake at some points (like when Oh-aew cries to his friends at the end of the episode). I’m by no means bashing any one, really, I just wish they gave this all more time. It’s obvious they were tried and so much had to go into getting into the headspace for this show, it’s clear it took a toll on them. I wish they had more time to rest, things must’ve been non stop for them since ITSAY with not only IPYTM to film but also interviews, brand deals, the documentary, photoshoots, etc. Hope they rest well soon. Now, for the episode.  Well, just as I said last time, not sure how I feel about Jai. He obvious feels guilty when he hears Teh talk about how he feels for Jai in the aftermath of talking with Oh-aew, but it doesn’t redeem him all the way because he still intentionally made Teh think they had a spark of something together not just with the kiss but everything else, like talking about his ex or taking him down to that view, period, and well, it’s not a very good thing to do, manipulating someone’s feelings so they’d act how you want them to in your play. Anyway, Jai is complicated, but seems to be mostly a background character in the story again with the end of the episode.  Judging from the gifs I’d seen, I really expected more of angry break up scene, but it was very hushed and vulnerable, even when Oh-aew was telling Teh to leave him alone and how he didn’t want to see him anymore. I like the choice not to include music till a certain point, it definitely helps because this is one of the most crucial as well as one of the better acted scenes of the series. I think PP and Billkin thrive best in scenes like this where there is a lot beneath the surface they try to hide or hold back, allows them to now go full in ugly crying but also strays from just sitting normally. I like the responsibility given to Teh and his actions here. We know he knows he messed up, but also that things are more complicated than just admititng that or just giving up what he felt for Jai. What he did was undoubtedly wrong, but nothing is ever just that simple, so there is a struggle on both ends. We see a lot of call backs this episode to things from the first episode clothing wise, etc. It stands to prove how big a part of each others lives they were and still are. The bed reminds them of night together, when they think about school work they think if the other is doing well, break ups aren’t easy, we all know that. Thought it was a bit of a weird place to put Teh’s roommate as an actual character, but, whatever, I like him. Towards the end of the episode we get  another look into an independence storyline, this time not just with Oh-aew, but also with Teh, them both trying to build a foundation without one another. Teh in acting without Oh-aew’s support and Oh-aew in agreeing with his friends to forget Teh. They’re both trying to find a life without one another after not having thought about it in years, but in the end, I think it’s better for them to be apart. I am worried seeing the preview though, cause it looks an awful lot like we may see them together again or reconsiling in some way, by the set up to have Oh-aew be helping Teh in work, presumably before a performance of some sort, which always leads to a heart to heart with pressed time where they may or may not have to choose between one thing or another. No matter what, an hour isn’t enough to cover anything new developing between them, but there would be no purpose filling an episode with just their solo lives, not really. So, hoping we get a Oh-aew centered episode after these last two (though this one was sort of split), and not having too high of hopes because no matter what, one episode just isn’t enough. I know there will be some beautiful shots though, so I’ll enjoy the gifsets.  And, for those wondering, it is past 7 AM now and I am tired, so if this is lazy, sorry I’ll organize better for the last one since there isn’t anything to wait for after that one.

[ja-khajay]

2020-2021 Animation Watch(ed)list

I haven’t posted about animation in a while that I remember, and I know a lot of my followers are into it as much as me so I decided to make a list of the animated movies and series I watched on the past year or so, coupled with my short, spoilerless take on them. Enjoy!

Organized by

Things I saw for the first time

Things I rewatched

Under a cut for the sake of your dashboards! PS: I have not added any images yet. If you are interested in knowing more about the visuals of these movies, I might make an old fashion ask-prompted imageset list.

Part One: Things I saw for the first time

The Bear’s Famous Invasion of Sicily

Movie, 2019, Italian/French

9/10, a delightful little movie with amazing visuals. It feels like an animated picture book.

One of those “plot is in the title” media! I had never heard of this before but was heavily recommended it by my family members, who all loved it! It’s a sweet story, nothing groundbreaking but the unique colorful visual style alone makes it worth it.

The Castle of Cagliostro

Movie, 1979, Japanese

10/10. Reminded me of all the books i loved reading as a child

I assume its because it’s so old and the art style and themes are so different that it gets little to no love compared to other Ghibli movies, which is a shame! It’s fun with an endearing cast and as always, great animation and music

Mushishi

Series, 2006, Japanese

10/10 three episodes in I knew it was going to be my favorite series ever

One of the few things I’ve seen I’ll describe as life-changing. It’s absolutely lovely but never toots its own horn about it. Humble, calming, emotional and surprisingly mature. It’s pretty impossible to binge due to how intense the experience is. I just want to walk in the forest now...

FMA: Brotherhood

Series, 2009, Japanese

6/10 Dissapointing adaptation of a classic story

I read the manga for this when I was in middle school and remembered loving it. The animated version does an ok job of presenting the characters and worldbuilding and has some nice action scenes but overall looks really damn cheap and just. Not very good. Seeing I already knew most of the plot I did not have the element of discovery that made me marvel so much reading the original. It’s still a nice series but I really recommend reading it instead.

Code Lyoko (s1+2)

Series, 2003, french

3/10. 1.5 being for the opening song alone

This show sucks ass if I hadn’t been watching this with my bestie I would have dropped it two episodes in. The art style is ugly the stories are always the same and the first season has a (later removed thank fucking god) LITERAL “erase any consequences” button as a plot device in every episode. If you watch it for one thing let it be the nostalgia factor of early 00s Vidya Game Plot

The Legend of Hei

Movie, 2019, Chinese

7/10. Impressive visuals and a poor story

I finally watched this, peer pressured by the load of gifsets on my dashboard! It’s a sweet movie with really impressive animation, sometimes a bit too flashy for my taste (the action sequences go so ham they become not very readable...) but the story was just ok? The setting is barely explained and you are instead bombarded with vague epicspeech about powers and stuff that made me fondly remember Kingdom Hearts lol but that asides it’s a really good time! I need to watch more Chinese movies the few I know are just delightfully off the shits in how they approach action and I love that

Hunter x Hunter

Series, 1999, Japanese

9/10. Superior to the recent one!

I first got introduced to the series via the 2011 one. Comparatively, the 99 series focuses way less on action and way more on the characters, which I love because that fits my personal preferences! Despite mediocre filler episodes and some weird slight pointless plot changes, what it changes from the original manga doesn’t have much of an impact on the characters. The animation quality isn’t always consistent including a huge art style change for an arc (???) but it’s overall pretty nice. The series really shines in the last arc it adapts.

Oban Star-racers

Series, 2006, Japanese/french

9/10 a lovely surprise

This series is completly obscure despite having been created by people famous for their other series (Cowboy Bebop, Code Lyoko that i can name) and it’s a crime! It’s a kids show but without being stupid about it who tells the story of an inter-planetary race. If you liked that one scene in the star wars prequels you know what I mean. It’s got surprisingly nice animation for a TV series, and some truly great character design. The art style is a bit unique in a not for everyone sense, but I didn’t mind it much. It’s also THE most offensively 2000s series i’ve seen in terms of visuals. y2k kids assemble

The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

Movie, 1963, japanese

8/10. Classic fairytale format with incredible visuals

Watched this for the art style because I know it inspired Samurai Jack, and it delievered! I dont’ have much to say about this one, it’s a very simply film but it’s sweet. For my pirates out there if you want to find it in good quality with english subtitles it’s VERY hard to find. If you just want to see the looks of it, it’s on Youtube with portugese subs.

We now enter the Gobelins Shorts Zone....!

My Friend Who Glows In The Dark

10/10 makes me cry each time

Pure delight...great animation writing everything. A little short about death and friendship but not in the way you imagine!

Colza

9/10

Visual treat...homely and nice :) not far from a 10 but a 9 because nothing about it is that groundbreaking

Sundown

9/10

If you’ve ever been ten minutes from failing a group project because of a single dude you will REALLY enjoy this. Loved the colors and personality

T’as vendu mes rollers?

10/10

It’s SUCH a sweet little short I loved that one so much

Dix-huit kilomètres trois

10/10

Surprisingly well written dialog. Visuals are great but the humanity of the characters carries this to another level

Un diable dans la poche

9/10

Amazing visuals and the most tense/creepy of Gobelin shorts i’ve ever seen. Chilling

La bestia

8/10

I had some issues with the pacing. Interesting story and visuals choices but I was not fond of the art style

Goodbye Robin

5/10

Confusing but predictable. Both at once??? Yes!

Le retour des vagues

6/10

Cool animation stuff but felt pretty pointless

                                                                ***

Part Two: Things I rewatched

Ruben Brandt: Collector

Movie, 2018, Hungarian

10/10. Underrated as hell

Watched this fully blind for the first time in an animated festival and rewatched it with friends. It’s a crime I never see anyone talking about it given the amount of whining I see about the lack of both adult animation and 2D movies? This film is a unique love letter to art in the form of a weird mix of charming crime story and psychological horror with amazing visuals. I recommend watching it blind and also buying it to show appreciation for how nice it is!!! WATCH THIS MOVIE...

Mononoke

Series, 2007, Japanese

10/10 Visual/storytelling masterpiece in the weird shit departement

If you can stomach intense stuff watch this. The visuals are incredibly unique and beautiful and under the jewel tones and art direction high takes it’s a really cool horror series. My only obstacle to enjoying it the first time I saw it was how dense it is - simply put, it’s so...culturally Japanese it’s not very accessible to me who doesn’t know anything about the culture? Watching it for the second time helped understanding the stories more! 

Corto Maltese in Siberia

Movie, 2002, french

9/10 but really close to ten. A great adaptation!

I’m a huge fan of the original comic so I entered this a biiiittttt suspicious it would suck but it was a really pleasant surprise! It has all the wonder and charm of the original and the animation was surprisingly good for the little budget. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s a sort of geopolitical action/adventure movie but with it’s own really poetic vibe to it. It’s almost impossible to find online but happens to be fully on YouTube so go ham I guess?

Redline

Movie, 2009, Japanese

10/10 cinema was invented for this, actually

Every review of this movie i’ve seen gives it five stars and starts by talking about how immensly stupid it is. I’m no different. It’s a masterpiece of escalating energy with the depth of a puddle and it fucking rules. It’s free on YouTube too so there really is no excuse to not watch it. Watched it for the first time on a huge cinema screen and despite this my second rewatch on my small laptop was as/even more enjoyable. If you watch this stoned with friends you might travel to another dimension

Spirited Away

Movie, 2001, Japan

10/10 deserves the love it gets

I watched this a single time as a kid and had little memory of it! I mean it’s Ghibli you know it’s going to be good as hell but this one rly shines in how colorful and detailed it is and in it’s world! It made me remember I had a huge crush on the dragonboy as a kid. I’m gay now

Kung-fu Panda (1&2)

Movie, Usa

10/10. KFP fucking rules

Honestly my favorite franchise of the whole disney/dreamworks/pixar hydra. It’s fun as hell, doesn’t skip a single beat and has amazing animation and character designs. If something is a good time I will not care if it’s deep or not and boy I fucking love these movies

Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas

Movie, 2003, Usa

5/10 Some great some really bad and overall generic

I tend to hate american cinema and this includes that era of animation I have no nostalgia for. Sinbad is in a weird place because I love adventure stories and the visuals of the movie absolutely deliver but it’s very predictable and TANKED by the addition of the female character, pushed in your face as “look we have woman!!!” despite her writing being misogynistic as hell lol. The evil goddess rules tho. This movie would have been a solid 9 if instead of the girl the two dudes had kissed

[queenmercurys]

Ah, I'm so sorry to hear that you've been getting hate for shipping Jo and Laurie. People can be so terrible. :( I'd love to hear more of your thoughts about them, but I understand if you prefer not to share more out of concern for the hate. Regardless, thank you for your answer.

Thank you! It’s really not a big deal, but I’m kinda at that point in my life where I really don’t need to be reading hateful comments about fictional ships on a website like Tumblr. And worst of all, most of these comments are added by people to gifsets I make. So, like, not only do I now feel like it’s risky to even post gifsets about Jo and Laurie, but also the very small amount of interaction I do get for my work is negative feedback. Not a good time. And it confuses me, because I kinda thought Jo and Laurie were a popular ship. And even if they weren’t, who cares? Amy and Laurie shippers already got everything they wanted in the film, why do they have to come after people who ship Jo and Laurie? Doesn’t make much sense to me. But yeah, overall I don’t think I should engage in the ship wars, I’m in my early twenties, I really am too old for this shit. But I will say this: to anyone who thinks it’s ok to comment (or write in the tags) negative things about a ship on an edit someone has spent time making and posting, you need to think about your life choices. And yes, this includes people who reblog the stuff and go “I hate the ship but I love their friendship” because bruh, that was not the point of the edit so like, just don’t interact. It’s that easy. If you don’t like something, don’t interact with it.

Sorry about that mild rant, Tumblr is very frustrating. But yeah, no, I think I’m good with talking more about them, and if someone is offended, they can (and should... I dare you, please) just block me. 

For some AU things, I really love the idea of Laurie actually receiving Jo’s letter and the consequences of that. I’ve seen a few fics kind of delve into that, but not really in the way I see it. So, maybe one day I’ll write like a fic based on it. Though that would make me kind of have to address the Amy situation, which I’m not really interested in writing about. But even as just a concept, Laurie finding Jo’s letter and reading it when it’s “too late” is just so bittersweet and I both love and hate the idea. Their entire scene in the attic is just full-on bittersweet. 

I fully subscribe to the idea (I mean, it’s not an idea, it’s what it says in the official script) that Jo didn’t actually run after Friedrich, and allegedly did end up marrying no one. Mostly because it’s what she wanted, ultimately, and also because I really don’t think she and Friedrich were compatible at all. I’m not really seeing it as “if Laurie can’t have her, no one can”, I just don’t see that relationship working. Even if Laurie and Jo had ended up together, I’m not confident that they would have needed to get married, or get married right away. They could have traveled around Europe together, as Jo had always wanted, and gotten to know each other as romantic partners and seen where it’d go from there. I don’t think Jo and Laurie are one of those traditional couples (or friends) in any aspect, so I can’t imagine the basic “marriage, then kids” formula for them. 

I really would have liked to have known what Jo wrote to Laurie in those letters while he was gone, the ones he never answered. I’m not expecting them to have included anything romantic (because if they had, Laurie probably would have felt more positive about answering them), but still, I would have liked to have read them. I truly think the two of them were best friends and as close as two people could possibly be, so their separation is even sadder because of that. I also hate that Laurie was not there for Jo when Beth died. Obviously that’s because he wasn’t in the country, but that’s when she needed Laurie the most, and he wasn’t there, which sucks. 

I’m not sure if anyone else noticed this, but Laurie is still wearing the ring Jo gave him even in the scene where Amy draws him. I just find it really heartbreaking that even after everything, he still couldn’t let her go. And Jo, too, still wears the red scarf shared by her and Laurie (which I assume originally belonged to Laurie) after all those years. I don’t think it’s that easy to let go of your first love (or any love), and Laurie’s facial expressions and reactions around Jo and Friedrich say everything I need to know about how he felt. 

My main headcanon for how I would have wanted Jo and Laurie to end up together would’ve been essentially what would have happened in the film if Amy had not gotten involved. I think I still would’ve wanted Laurie to go to Europe and Jo to have that time to figure out her thoughts, and when he’d return, she’d express her feelings and then, maybe they would go back to Europe together, because I really do want Jo to have that trip. Or alternatively, she figures out her feelings earlier and joins Laurie in Europe. A bit of a romantic sentiment not really befitting Jo’s personality, but the impulsivity is there. And that way, she could, again, see Europe. 

I think overall, I respect everyone’s opinions about the ships in this film, but I have found that I can’t personally understand where the reasoning for Amy and Laurie or Jo and Friedrich comes from. That is, no doubt, reflective of my own personal preferences and biases, and doesn’t reflect any kind of “truth”. This is just my opinion. In the script, they refer to Laurie as Jo’s childhood love, and I really do believe she loved him, and that they could have been an amazing couple. And as a lover of the good, old-fashioned friends-to-lovers trope, I would have liked to see it. A couple with mutual respect, admiration and 100% comfort around each other is a rare thing to find. All too often, Hollywood ships consist of two people who seem to hate each other, but that “hate” is supposed to be translated into some kind of sexual tension (also present in LW). I never understood this, so for me, Jo and Laurie were pretty much perfect. And, as kind of a sidenote, I adore how out-of-the-norm their aesthetic is. How many ships can you name where the man and the woman swap clothes consistently without it being a big deal? The two are so comfortable around each other, I’ve never seen anything like it. I think their chemistry is outstanding, their story is beautiful and even though they weren’t endgame, they’re still definitely my OTP and the only ship I’ve given a damn about in years. So, I think they did some things right. 

[leqclerc]

There are many things I don't expect but you turning into a sebchal blog and vettel stan is probably the thing that surprised me the most😂😂

Is that a bad thing?

Tbh you and me both! I surprised myself with this, too. When I tentatively got back into F1blr a couple of months ago after a lengthy absence (I probably stopped actively blogging/making content mid-2017?) I sort of figured I’d continue where I left off and focus mainly on Brocedes.

But it’s been years and things have changed. You can’t really picked up where you left off when a lot of the prominent fandom members/content creators/fic writers have moved on and left - be it to focus on a different motorsport category or go and do something else altogether. Yes, there’s a special sort of fondness for Brocedes but perspectives have changed, I think. A lot of new people have come into the fandom since 2016 (which is a good thing!) and they don’t remember Driver Nico, really, just Pundit Nico or Youtuber Nico or Entrepreneur Nico, and view him through that lens. There’s so many different interpretations of him now, and tbh I don’t really feel qualified to explore the “new” Nico - nor do I want to, really. My focus was always on Racer Nico and all the ways in which he tangled with Lewis, on and off the track. And I’m not sure there’s much room left to explore that anymore without it feeling... I guess exhausted or stale.

Of course I still like the fics I’ve published over the years, I’m still proud of them - although looking back there are things I’d do differently, but I think that’s normal - and I have no intention of, like, orphaning them or deleting them or anything like that. I’m always really happy and really grateful whenever someone messages me and tells me - “Oh, you’re that person? I remember reading your fics, I loved them.” That genuinely means a lot to me and although my contribution was fairly small and humble I’m glad someone’s out there enjoying it.

Which brings me to Sebchal. Honestly, I’m not even sure how I first stumbled upon Sebchal content on Tumblr, but my initial thoughts weren’t, admittedly, super shippy. But I liked ‘em. That was my gut reaction, without knowing much else - I like this. Especially after the Seb/Kimi Ferrari lineup which was honestly kind of meh for me...this intrigued me. So I started digging, I started researching it, and slowly pieced the 2019 season together in my head. And boy, did it get spicy. Then I ended up meeting a lot of really wonderful people who enabled me further and suddenly I thought, “Yes, I’m really on board with this?” It wasn’t a conscious decision that I made or anything - “I’m going to start shipping this thing now” - it’s more that it really appealed to me? So it just happened naturally and hey, we are where we are now, I guess. lol. I have so many ideas for them - be it a new gifset, or a fic, or whatever - floating around in my head at any given time it’s honestly...just so exciting? I haven’t felt this inspired in a long, long time and tbh was starting to feel like I would never feel that way again (especially given the year we’ve had.) And this got me out of that creative slump and I’m just... happy now, where I am? I like thinking about them, I like making content for them. Even if it’s just a tiny, niche fandom with like a handful of shippers. It’s not about the numbers, it’s about the passion, the intensity, the dedication. And we’re a dedicated bunch. lol

I wouldn’t even call myself a Seb stan, really. It’s just that - as I’ve explained to someone else - I never really paid much attention to him before. He was just...there. Floating, somewhere in the background. Between 2014-2017 I was solely focused on Nico and Nico/Lewis and everything else didn’t really matter as much - the hamsters that power my brain would get overwhelmed if I tried to have my fingers in many pies at the same time, lmao. But now I’ve gained a sort of appreciation for him, I suppose. I can see the appeal - I like him. I’m not a Seb stan by any means but this - a Ferrari lineup with Sebastian and Charles - just feels so right to me. Like I’ve finally found a place for him in my mind - he’s not “in between” Brocedes anymore, he’s busy being tangled up in his own intricate web of affairs with his new teammate. And I think that’s beautiful. ;’) Who knows what will happen after he goes to Aston Martin. I’m just trying to live in the moment and appreciate whatever time we have left with them and hopefully, hopefully keep them alive a little bit longer.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

I was just going through my #odaat meta tag and I re-read this one of yours [post / 172076218500 / i-love-your-meta-on-schneider-and-his-need-to-be] and now I kind of want you to update it for S3--like, how S3 built upon and added to all the things from the previous two seasons. But I know you have a long list of fics to write and gifsets to make, so no rush, no pressure. But if you're inspired, I'd love to read your thoughts!

as s4 starts tonight, now seems like a great time to update that meta series :D

since it’s been two years, here are the adorably retro rambles i wrote back then (i was so newly in love with schneider and his found family! it’s cute to see!):

part one & part two

for those who don’t want to spend all day reading them, the gist is that an ask invited me to discuss schneider, and i did…and then i got another ask disagreeing with a claim they thought i was making about schneider in the first one. but my conclusion overall was:

S1 of One Day At A Time gave us [smudged first name] Schneider, who is always there when anybody needs him, and it told the audience that he considers himself a member of Penelope’s family.

S2 of One Day At A Time took the Schneider we were told about in S1, and it SHOWED us where he came from, how it led him to who he is now, and why that makes him a part of the family.

During the quinces dance in 1x13, when Schneider joins them on the floor, the audience laughs.

When Schneider tells a comatose Lydia in 2x13 that her family is also his family…nobody laughs. Because it’s not even a little bit funny. It’s just true.

That’s how you develop a character without changing him. And that is why this show is everything to me.

in this case, you didn’t ask for a new specific angle like i had for the previous metas, so i’m just going to ramble about how schneider, his place in the family and his sobriety are further developed in s3…behind this cut!

honestly s3 is a goldmine for those of us who love schneider. he has more story, he gets to show even more range as a flawed but lovable human, and we get to fill in more details about what continues to be his interesting but not-that-deeply explored life. (i will not rest until we know if schneider’s original mom is alive and neglectful, pushed aside by his dad–or dead and replaced. I WILL NOT REST.)

there’s a lot that happens in s3 that i was even specifically wishing for. besides the fact that i wrote his sobriety chip going in the museum as a fic before it became canon (can’t i just write for the show already? i’d be good at it!), i really wanted to see some proof that his friendship with penelope was not as one-sided as it looks in s1 and 2. 

as i mentioned in last year’s metas:

Schneider is the epitome of someone whose emotionally neglectful childhood turned him into an adult who is desperate to be loved. Who expects people to leave him or not like him very much…who is himself full of love and gives it away to people who deserve it AND people who don’t. He’s unconditionally devoted to his best friend and her entire family, he’ll be their mentor or support or punching bag when they need it without hesitation, which is so pure it hurts my heart.

Ir hurts my heart even more that he doesn’t demand anything back, though. He focuses on them and their needs completely, and while it’s easy to list off moments that demonstrate why Schneider is Penelope’s best friend, times he has helped and supported and openly loved her, the reverse is harder. I think those moments are there, but much like Lydia visiting Schneider in rehab prior to S1…we haven’t gotten to see them.

well, now here we are. i got my wish, and it broke my freaking heart, but in the good way. penelope wasn’t just there for him in the ways you would expect, like trying to be chill and supportive when his father was going to visit–and then working through her own issues to offer him love and reassurance about his value to her as a person after their resulting fight.

she also faced what was probably one of the worst case scenarios she could’ve imagined for schneider, given everything she’d already lived through with the kids and victor. and she never once hesitated. she did everything she could think of to help him, even when that meant planting her feet and refusing to get out of his way to stop things from getting worse. 

penelope looked at her best friend and knew not only what he was going through in those terrible moments but also what he was capable of in his better ones, and decided not to let him go. not then, not ever, as long as he was willing to keep trying. which of course he was because s3 also told us that losing his true family would be the worst thing he could imagine for himself.

speaking of his sobriety, that was the area where his character was developed in huge leaps this season. i wasn’t expecting that to be his s3 arc when i said this, but again, i give past me a lot of credit for being psychically linked:

In the first season, all of Schneider’s sobriety mentions are played for laughs, until Elena’s coming out storyline. We get a lot of mentions, actually–about his addiction to gambling, his stints in rehab, his five year chip–but he talks about it breezily and other characters don’t invite him to elaborate.

As viewers, we know he’s an addict and an alcoholic who’s working a program but since he’s not the focus of the show, we’re not asked to think about it much. However, since Penelope is separating from someone who is also struggling with addiction and we know they celebrated Schneider’s milestone right after moving in (when they barely knew him), we can infer that she takes this very seriously.

one of the interesting things to me about victor’s storyline at the end of s1 is that the show doesn’t try to draw parallels between them at the time. the season is just so not about schneider that it doesn’t come up, not even with victor staying at schneider’s place after penelope kicked him out. 

the two times schneider seriously discusses his history with penelope are instead in relationship to elena’s coming out (one of the central arcs of s1) and in relationship to penelope’s mental health (one of the central arcs of s2). which makes sense. but by the time we’re heading into s3, we’ve also seen schneider talk to lydia about his past, in more heartwrenching detail than ever before, while she’s unconscious. 

so as much as it hurts to watch it happen because of a relapse, it’s also nice to see him get much more serious moments related to his sobriety in s3. from his counseling of penelope about alex smoking pot, to the alvarez museum, to the balcony with dr. b, schneider talks about it a lot without it being a joke at all. this is awesome and fitting--he has earned being taken more seriously as a character and a family member. 

not all the time, it’s still a sitcom obviously, but in s3 he’s treated like an honorary family member with a serious history of addiction, not just a hipster landlord they like having around.

and the relapse storyline teaches us so much about schneider that we didn’t know before: what triggers him, how well he can lie when it matters to him, what a different person he becomes once he’s no longer sober, and most importantly, what he values enough that it can convince him to stop drinking again after he’s started. all of the pain involved in those reveals makes him seem more like a real person.

in terms of schneider’s growth, i was also really hoping that he would get to experience a healthy romantic relationship at some point. to quote me again:

And Schneider trying to do romance…wow is he lowkey out to break your heart. Thanks to what he witnessed growing up, he thinks a good relationship can be two people who don’t even like each other, that love probably isn’t real, and he jumps at the chance to be married, like he just needs a person to belong to–anyone who’ll have him.

s3 did give us some growth for him on that front, though not as much as i would have liked. he met someone he really liked, who seemed to really like him for just who he is, and who seemed to want more than a surface-level relationship of hooking up.

since we don’t know what happened with avery after his father came to town, i’m not comfortable saying that they did have a healthy relationship–we��ve got no proof they didn’t, but also nothing concrete to say that they did. we just know that while they were broken up, they missed each other a lot, and they were really happy to be reunited. 

i won’t feel good for schneider about finally finding his first stable and healthy love in avery until we actually witness them work through an issue rather than just moving past it with no real discussion. ‘i came back and you’re sober again’ is not automatically the same thing as ‘everything is now fine and we’ve learned and grown from what just happened and are a stronger couple because of it.’

also it worries me a lot that schneider thinks of avery as perfect. he has so little experience trying to do the real relationship thing, i need him to learn she has flaws, and that means it’s okay that he does, rather than keeping her on that pedestal and believing he’s unworthy. because that’s already a vibe he’s given off since we met him, and i just want better for him than that.

and when it comes to schneider’s place in the alvarez family?whereas s2 left him as a firmly self-identified alvarez, s3 kicked off by showing us that he had been enveloped into the larger family with the funeral--and then both of his major storylines this season, his father’s influence on him and his relapse, solidified it even further. 

elena puts extra work in on the whole building to help makes schneider’s dad proud of him, and the whole family welcomes the man despite their valid misgivings--with penelope even very impressively not punching him in the throat. it was entirely for schneider’s benefit that they tried so hard, especially pen. he deserved their love and effort where his father really didn’t.

and when his father’s presence threatens to take him away from them in a fundamental way, turning him into someone they don’t recognize, i honestly think it scares penelope. she gets angry, and she lashes out, sure, but underneath that she’s scared too, because she’s supposed to be able to count on schneider. he’s one of them, he’s family--not one of those guys. ‘the man.’ 

so their reconciliation not only mends their bond but strengthens it, because all that penelope wants is for him to stay family. to stay theirs. 

which is a priority she probably would not have expected to have back in s1, but it’s crystal clear that it’s true in s3, especially once she realizes schneider might be drinking again. 

her immediate reaction to the possibility is denial, which i love because it shows how deeply she really does trust him at that point. he’s not just the friend who sends her dogs in wigs and drinks coffee with her mom: he’s a man she expects to be stable and present in her life, even though she knows his history includes decades of addictive behaviors. 

it also shows that she doesn’t want it to be true, possibly even more than she believes it couldn’t be. she knows how addiction works, she has to know that schneider’s not guaranteed to stay sober even after five years without a drink. but she needs him to be.

the way the rest of the family rallys around schneider further makes it clear: he’s part of them, yes, but not because he’s forcing his way in. he’s wanted there. in s3, schneider is an IMPORTANT member of the family, who is loved even when he makes bad choices and breaks their trust and has to earn it back. 

and that’s the biggest evolution for his character, to me. after the way s3 ended, it’s hard to imagine schneider not being a part of their lives--not because he refuses to leave them alone, but because they wouldn’t have it any other way.

now, much as i like to share my grievances about parts of s3, schneider’s characterization isn’t on that list for me at all. it remains remarkably consistent for a character who started out on the periphery. and honestly, before i reread these metas today, i hadn’t thought about that much. 

you can finish watching s3, where schneider is 30 days sober and still trying to pull his life back together after relapsing, and then start watching the pilot episode, and there he is–the same guy we know and love and understand better than we did in the beginning.

so, to end this the same way i looked back at the first two seasons...

S3 of One Day At A Time took the Schneider we had gotten to know better in S2 and showed us a completely foreign side of him, using that to make clear just how important he is to the family now.

After Penelope told Schneider he wasn’t really part of the family in 3x10, she went to lengths she never had before--handholding and sincere compliments--to make sure he knew that wasn’t true. And afterwards, when Schneider put them above his own father, because her family is his family and everyone knows it...it was a completely serious moment.

That’s how far Schneider has grown in Penelope’s esteem, and as a character, in just three seasons. Without losing what makes him Schneider. Which is why this show is still everything to me.

[angrycowboy]

A couple weeks ago, I decided that for my birthday, I was going to attempt to put together some of my favorite things this fandom has created. I say *some* because this is an incomplete list. There are so many wonderful and talented creators in this fandom that this list would go on forever otherwise. If I have I ever reblogged something of yours, flailed in the tags, reached out to via DM or sent you a message, talked on discord or even Twitter, know that I love and adore not only the things you’ve created, but you yourself as part of this fandom.

And now, without further ado…

FIC

memento by @nielrian

I was obsessed with the idea of coming up with the backstory to the photo we see Michael look at in 1x02. When was it taken? Does Alex have a copy? Did Alex bring his with him to the other side of the world? How often do you think Michael looked at his own copy? And Nicki took a little prompt of mine, and wrote an achingly gorgeous piece about one photograph, and it’s significance to Malex in less than 700 words.

a little something to make me sweeter by @partsofthesamecosmicbeing

Camluca + D.E.B.S. is like a recipe for the perfect fic. I freaking love the movie, and when I saw this fic pop up on tumblr one day? I couldn’t even contain my excitement (seriously, the tags on my reblog were just me flailing wildly because it felt like Ly had reached into my brain and written something I wanted to read before I even knew it myself). Casting Alex as Scud and including Malex in the mix just made me love this fic even more.

And the Sun Rose Red by @michaels-blackhat

A Miluca Kissing Kate Barlow AU? SIGN. ME. UP. I adore Christi, and I adore her writing. One day she was like, “miluca kissing kate barlow au?” and the only appropriate answer to that is HECK YES. Michael/Maria is also a dynamic that just works for this AU, given their canon relationship, and Michael’s penchant for fixing things and Maria’s desire to have someone just be there for her. *runs off to re-read fic*

something broken in this town by @irolltwenties

Okay so, Meagn is one of my favorite people in this fandom. We kinda ramble at each other, and one day this happened where she started talking about the parents. About the relationship Jesse, Jim, and Mimi had as kids, as teenagers, as young adults. How they got sucked into aliens and government conspiracies. How they became the people we see and hear about in S1. If you’ve ever had the privilege of talking with Meagn, you know how amazing her mind is, how she takes these characters and the mere scraps we’ve been given in canon with some of them, and creates entire lives for them, and it’s beautiful.

open up my eager eyes by @haloud

It took me a while to get into Mylex, but apparently it was just because I hadn’t read Hal’s series yet. I’m usually terrible about multi-shipping, but once I find a writer that nails the characters down, I could probably read anything they write. And Hal writes all three of them perfectly. (I mean, Hal is just a phenomenal writer in general, but I digress.)

META

Michael’s bisexuality by @chasingshhadows

There’s been a lot said in the fandom about Michael’s bisexuality and how it’s been portrayed. While the show was airing, I was having trouble finding people who felt the same way I did about how it was being shown - that it wasn’t problematic, but that it was good and accurate. Not to mention that it made me feel seen. I tried writing out what I was feeling but nothing sounded right - until Chasing wrote this piece. It was everything I’d been trying to find the words to express, and it remains one of my absolutely favorite pieces of her writing.

Semiotics of Roswell by @hannah-writes

Hannah did this amazing thing where she took the camera work of RNM and analyzed the shit out of it. And in some moments of doubt, where I was still worried about Malex because of the direction the show had been taking, Hannah’s semiotics (or better known as “Why Malex is Endgame”) pointed out how the camerawork for Malex and Echo is very similar, not to mention deliberate as fuck.

Maria Can’t Catch a Break by @ober-affen-geil

I adore Maria Deluca. She has gotten such a bad rap in the fandom because of the “love triangle” business. But fandom in general has done her dirty in that without removing the shipper goggles it is very hard to see that the show has established Maria as a character in her own right, just as much as it has with Kyle and Alex. And that’s why I love Riley’s meta about everything that Maria is dealing with, what she’s going through, and what it’s been like for her to be the one left behind 10 years ago.

GIFSETS/EDITS

i would know him in death, at the end of the world by @vlamito

I don’t even remember now who told me I had to read The Song of Achilles - it was pre-RNM hyperfixation, but I absolutely loved it (I definitely cried while reading it). And then I saw this gifset, oh mah gawd. Mich just has this ability to find quotes from other media and fit them seemlessly into Malex. And the moments she chooses for her gifsets are utter perfection. I think everyone has probably seen this now, but it’s a gifset I just keep going back to over and over again.

Are you okay? by @maxortecho

So I adore Echo. There is something about their softness, the way they look at each other, the way they act around each other that is just beautiful. Mo made this set, and pointed out in the tags that Liz pushes her arms underneath Max like she’s going to hug him, and it broke me. Like, I thought that scene in the finale was heartbreaking enough, but pointing that out? It hurts and I loved it.

Leading Ladies Appreciation by @lsobelevans

Lucie does some amazing things with color that truly make her edits stand out, and stick out in your mind. And it’s one of the things I love about her gif sets especially - it makes them uniquely hers, her own signature if you will. And this edit is no different - the splashes of color, the texture used for the background, the highlighting of the leading ladies is stunning work. 

Same page/Different book by @bisexualalienblast

Let’s just say that picking ONE gifset of Amanda’s is an impossibility for me, okay? Amanda’s sets are the reason I wanted to learn how to gif - her gifs are beautifully colored, they’re crisp, she always picks the best fonts, they’re smooth, and her ideas are stellar. Anyway, she more recently made this set, which just so perfectly illustrates Malex’s issue IN TWO GIFS. That’s it. Their entire problem in S1, right there. Beautiful.

VIDEO

Juice | Women of Roswell by @isakvaltersnake

Katie is a wizard with the video editing. She’s going to be a force when we’ve got more than one season of footage to play around with. And this video is fun and hot and LOOK AT THE WOMEN. They are smart, they are kind, they are flirty, they have agency, and they’re all hella sexy.

Weird Science | Liz & Michael - Science Bros by @soberqueerinthewild

Hands down, this is one of my favorite videos from the fandom, and definitely one of my favorite things Christina has made (though I basically love everything she does). It’s silly and ridiculous and 100% fun. She found every bit of footage in S1 and matched it to the song perfectly. It’s impossible to watch this video and not smile and laugh - it will instantly brighten your day.

MISC

RNM Texts From Last Night by @audreyblanche

I am slightly biased here, because while Irena came up with the idea, I encouraged her to actually go through with it, promising her that the fandom would enjoy it. So because of that it’s next to impossible for me to pick a favorite out of all the ones she’s done for this series (though the one where we settled on the Camluca ship name, as well as one I specifically requested for Malex come close), and I’m hoping that with the new season (and when she returns from hiatus), she can pick this up again.

[geraltcirilla]

Your latest daisy/sousa gifset ? Gorgeous, is the quote you used from a showrunner chloe or is it like from someone in the fandom also ie agent carter, everyone was white like the two main female characters were right and so was everyone else, and I don't think it had anything to do with the time period there are shows set way before that are 1000% more inclusive like anne with an e or black sails also no lgbtq characters although that's an issue aos had as well

Thank you!! :’) The quote I used is from Maurissa Tancharoen from this interview with Hypable. I’ll go ahead and give you the entire Daisy portion of that interview because it’s filled with gold.

On the romantic side of things, Chloe Bennet (and several of her co-stars) couldn’t be happier with Daisy’s choice of Daniel Sousa as her partner.

“He’s so stable, and so supportive, and so willing, and so understanding of who she is,” Bennet says. “[Daisy needs] that kind of stability in her life, and that support. And I think it doesn’t hurt that he’s a strapping young man!”

“She has become such a kind of a power house, physically,” Bennet continues. “I love that he kind of brings her down to Earth a little bit.”

For Enver Gjokaj, Sousa’s relationship to Daisy’s power was a crucial factor in their developing bond.

“They don’t seem to have a lot of [things] in common,” he notes, “But the fact that he’s attracted to strong women, and that he’s worked with strong women in his past, and that’s who he is — I think that becomes the foundation for a relationship. The fact [that Daisy’s power is] not threatening to him at all, that that’s actually a positive, that… made total sense to me.”

“And [Gjokaj] played it with such a quiet confidence, and just you’re so grounded,” Bennet continues. “Sousa is so grounded in himself, and he’s not threatened by her as an entity and by Quake, and it actually finds it slightly amusing. which I think is really sweet, actually.”

Clark Gregg also expressed a certain relief at Daisy’s choice, which he feels reflects maturity on the part of friend and castmate Bennet.

“One of the things that happens, especially when you do play a character for 200 years as I have… is that the life and art blend together,” he says, noting that it was challenging to repeatedly “watch Chloe/Daisy go through these various things and get her heart broken, and have people die.”

So “to have Enver show up and create — recreate — the new version [of Sousa], dealing with different kinds of stuff, was just cool!” Gregg says. The character’s new incarnation on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was “tough. Not calling attention to himself. It felt so real, and I love so much what he did, and the way that [he and Chloe] just kind of quietly backed into this thing that everybody has been rooting for. [It’s] such a testament to their work in the chaotic final season, and how lucky we were to get Enver. It’s just facts!”

For their part, showrunners Jeff Bell, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jed Whedon felt it was critical that their cast of female characters be seen as much more than partners in relationships, regardless of how matters concluded.

“They’ve had relationships [but] we never defined them by that,” says Bell. “But Daisy hasn’t had great luck in the past, bad things that happened or it hasn’t worked out. And so when Enver showed up, it was more than we could have imagined. We’d hoped that they would have chemistry, and the fact that it worked so well was great.”

Bell also observes that even more significant than the romantic developments was Daisy’s re-formation of a new kind of family for herself.

It was important, he says to let Daisy’s sister “Kora come over at the end and [give] Daisy family to continue. So it wasn’t just ‘Now I have a boyfriend!’ It was like she had a new unit. I think that was something that happened organically through the force of the storytelling that was a nice thing that we hadn’t foreseen.”

“The whole drive of Daisy’s character arc was, she was in search for her identity. She was in search for her family and where she came from,” agrees Tancharon. “And what she stumbled upon was new one, and so at the end, it’s very clear that she is actually starting her own little family in space, with the man she loves and her actual sister.”

I really love this interview and I’ve loved EVERY interview the cast has done post-series. I don’t think I’ve ever shipped a couple quite so beloved by every single cast member, even people totally uninvolved like Clarke Gregg and Elizabeth Henstridge. This interview was especially sweet because Maurissa confirmed that Sousa and Daisy are in love, which we all though but it’s nice to get the showrunners backing that.

//

Re: Agent Carter, even when it comes to the female characters Peggy Carter was the only one listed as main cast. Peggy, Jarvis, Jack, Sousa, and Dooley are main cast, Angie, Dottie, and Ana are credited as reoccurring. And Angie was only in s1 (she made a brief cameo in s2 in a dream sequence), and Ana was only in s2. Only Dottie was in both seasons 1 and 2 and she was a villain. So I don’t think I can even give Agent Carter credit for having white women in the show. It’s really bad if you can’t even have white women in your main cast.

Agent Carter had an issue with lack of women, lack of BIPOC cast, and lack of LGBT characters (like you said AOS also has that last issue). The writers of the show actually claimed at the time (because even back then people were calling them out for this) that they were just being “truthful to the time period”, which we all know is a crock of shit. As you said BIPOC and LGBT didn’t suddenly spring into existence in the 2000s and lots of other period piece shows include them as characters. 

Also as I said in my previous post, the writers have this unsettling need to woobify and coddle bigots because “they’re a product of their time” and the writers are constantly justifying their behavior and actions and trying to make them seem sympathetic. 

But not only that, the feminism felt incredibly shallow and performative.

For example, one of the famous “feminist” lines of the show was “I know my worth. Anyone else’s opinion doesn’t really matter.” Peggy said this after Jack Thompson took all the credit for her work and effort in s1. I remember at the time people were livid because that was a terrible message to be sending women and girls. It’s okay if a man steals your work so long as you believe in yourself...? No. Hell no. That’s not how society progresses forward. Peggy should NOT have accepted that outcome and should have FOUGHT Jack to demand he give her her proper credit. But she didn’t. She rolled over and took it, and we as an audience were supposed to applaud her for it.

Another “feminist moment” is when Sousa catches Peggy helping Howard Stark and the SSR think that she’s a terrorist. So after they arrest her they all take turns interviewing her and she calls them out, saying: “I conducted my own investigation because no one listens to me. I got away with it because no one looks at me, because unless I have your reports, your coffee, or your lunch, I’m invisible.” Except this isn’t exactly true. She wasn’t invisible to Sousa and she didn’t get away with it because he literally caught her. Since episode one Sousa was investigating a strange blonde-haired woman with a scar on her right shoulder who he believed was helping Howard Stark. That woman was Peggy. And he actually figured that out in episode 1x05 and tried to arrest in her 1x06. Given that this is only an 8 episode season Sousa knew about Peggy for almost half the season, but was hunting her for technically the whole season. How is that you being invisible? How is that you getting away with it? How?? 

Peggy continues and says: “You think you know me, but I've never been more than what each of you has created. [At Dooley] To you, I'm the stray kitten, left on your doorstep to be protected. [At Jack] The secretary turned damsel in distress. [At Sousa] The girl on the pedestal, transformed into some daft whore." This statement was also weird as fuck to me because Sousa never thought she was a whore, never called her a whore, and never accused her of being a whore, etc. When the SSR found out Peggy was helping Howard Stark they were trying to figure out why she would do it. A working theory was she was in love with him (a fair theory given Howard’s a bit of a womanizer and actually has hit on Peggy in the past). So Sousa (along with literally everyone else interviewing her) accused her of having an affair with Howard. But somehow only Sousa received that scalding drag, when technically it was true of everyone. Also how was he viewing her on a pedestal when he called her out all the time (during their “quirky banter”) and once again, investigated her for terrorism. Some pedestal huh. (This quote actually bugs me a lot because some people to this day will reference it as a reason to hate Sousa - “He was obsessed with her and then when he thought she was with Howard he called her a whore!” That never happened, that’s Peggy’s false version of events. I have eyes and a working brain and I watched the season myself and it’s simply untrue.)

Peggy will just say stuff that sound Cool and Empowering but if you break it down and analyze it, make no sense and mean absolutely nothing. It’s just cringey.

And let’s not even get in to the ableist implications of Peggy fantasizing about Sousa suddenly having two legs and being able to walk perfectly. That was her romantic vision of him. A version that could not only walk, but dance. Who throws aside his cane like it was just an accessory. Okay.

I really did not like Agent Carter at all (problematic stuff aside the actual plot sucked) but I watched the whole thing because I was a fan of Peggy Carter and Jarvis and I really wanted to make it work. When it was cancelled I didn’t cry about it, I was actually relieved I wouldn’t have to watch a third season. That show was just such a cringey, embarrassing mess.

Sorry for the long rant about it. It’s been a long time since I talked about this show and it still bothers me to this day because people reflect on the show so fondly and are still making petitions to bring it back as if it’s wasn’t a heaping mess.

Thank God Sousa was saved from that show. lol

Disclaimer to anyone reading this: Me hating the Agenter Carter show is not me hating Peggy Carter. Obviously I love my mans Sousa, and I also love Jarvis and Angie. I loved a lot of the characters and my issues with the show has to do with the showrunners and the writing.

[margridarnauds]

ronan & olympe for the ship opinions? (also please let your previous anon know that they're the funniest person in the world and i love them)

So…interesting thing, there. And something I’ve been increasingly thinking about as I think back on my last few years of fandom, my evolving feelings towards M/F shipping, and how fandom, as a whole, treats M/F ships. I’m going to apologize in advance for the length since I KNOW you didn’t sign on for 1.5k words of reminiscence. 

Also: BEAGLE ANON, YOU’RE THE FUNNIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. 

When I first started out with 1789, in about 2015 or so, I was actually pro-Ronan/Olympe. Like, I wanted NOTHING more than fix-it fics where they retired to the country and had babies. I listened to La Guerre Pour se Plaire for HOURS, getting caught in the gothic atmosphere and the passionate, conflicted lyrics. But, at the time, the overall fandom environment was…well. Not conducive to it. And I was young, and I wasn’t strong in my opinions yet, so I stood back and kept it to myself. I think that might be part of why I ended up backing away from 1789 when I did. Yeah, I liked it, but I didn’t have a strong sense of community, and most of the attention, at that time, was in the Mozart, L’Opera fandom, and I wasn’t a major picture there. I attended streams, yeah, but I wasn’t a CONTENT creator, and it was easy for me to fade into the background, I think. Maybe because I was too afraid to be a content creator, back then, because that would involve possibly expressing my own opinions. I accepted that Ronan/Olympe was No bad, terrible, awful based on that desire to fit in, because it was so much EASIER. Just like I accepted that French 1789 was a disaster, that MOR was much better, and that, really, it wasn’t worth the effort. Just an inferior musical. (The problem, of course, was that I NEVER liked MOR as well as I liked 1789. Maybe it’s better put together, but I don’t ENJOY it as much, and imo it drags quite a bit at a few places, a problem shared by its German counterpart.) 

I came back to 1789 around…2017, with the European Musicals Streaming event, with the Takarazuka one totally stealing my heart, specifically Lazare/Ronan. Suddenly, I was IN, and I was creating content. Yeah, most of the French musicals fandom didn’t give a flying fuck that I was creating content, with most of my support coming from my friends and Takarazuka fans, but I was CREATING CONTENT, for the first time since I joined fandom. I was finally starting to figure out my way in fandom, finally starting to get noticed. In 2018……..for reasons I won’t give out, at least publicly, there was a massive rift in the old French musicals fandom, a lot of bridges got burned, and, naturally, I was far enough from the fire. But this DID give me a shot at carving out my own 1789 experience, for once, without them hanging over my shoulder. I do think that the reason why the 1789 fandom’s as strong as it is now is because of that rift, because it left a sort of power vacuum. Suddenly, there was a space for other French musicals, and we didn’t have to worry about the constant comparison to MOR. BUT. Keep in mind. 2-3 years ago, the overwhelming consensus on Ronan was pure, unadulterated hatred. There were a few Ronan content creators in an already small pool, but the general consensus was that Lazare was better in every way and Ronan was a terrible protagonist.  (I know fully well that some old members of the French musicals fandom, to this day, won’t engage with Ronan content. At all. And I can say this as openly as I do because I KNOW they don’t follow me.) As a Peyronan shipper, I was in an awkward place, especially as time went on and I realized that I actually did like the little shit. One half of my OTP was absolutely beloved, one half was hated, and, while there was definitely some content on the Tumblr side of things (I definitely did NOT single-handedly invent the ship out of thin air, I don’t take credit for it, and I’m grateful to everyone who kind of. Took me in), the fan fiction side of things still tended to lean Ronan/Olympe. If, today, it seems like the fandom consensus is Ronan/Lazare, that’s because I fought tooth and nail to get my own place in the fandom. 

I…suppose you could say that I justified my place in the fandom by tossing Ronan/Olympe under the bus. It was easier, that way. It meant that I could forge alliances with anyone who wanted Solène/Olympe instead, though I was still on dangerous ground since I still wanted precious Lazare with Ronan, and, of course, the show would be better without Ronan. (You’ll note that the VERY FIRST fic I ever published on AO3 was Solène/Olympe. Why? Because I knew it would be a safe option to test the waters. That. And I really did just write it the night before my GRE.) But, at least I wasn’t a Ronan/Olympe shipper, right? I was safely gay. (Biphobia, thy name is fandom.) When I talked about Ronan, I talked about him as gay, I talked shit about Ronan/Olympe whenever I had the chance. All properly tagged, of course, in the proper channels. I’ve never been the sort to actively hurt someone who DID ship it, I just took pains to not associate myself with the Icky Het Ship. When I talked about Ronan, I talked about him as GAY, VERY GAY, not a hint of bisexuality to him. Because if he was bi, that might mean that Ronan/Olympe had a leg to stand on, you see? You’ll note that, to this day, I almost never acknowledge Ronan/Olympe as a thing that HAPPENED in any given fic continuities, because it was so much easier if he simply fell into Lazare’s arms instead. Wiping that little spot clean. And. Well. Here I am. About 5 years after I first got into 1789. And, looking back, I wonder if it was REALLY that bad, or if I just nodded my head because it was easy at the time, since it’s only been in the last year that I really, really began to develop my own spine. (Honestly, props to Marie Antoinette the Musical and, specifically, Morléans as a ship for that one.) For the most part, I’m proud of how far the fandom’s come in the last five years, and I’m proud of the work that I, individually, have done to help get it there, whether it was streams, gifs, or fanfics. But sometimes, I do worry that anyone coming in who ships Ronan/Olympe, like I used to…might feel out of place, and I never want to treat them like I was treated back in the day. 

Do I ship it? Not really. That ship’s sailed for me (I didn’t mean to make that a pun but here we are). I’m fairly firmly Lazare/Ronan and Solène/Olympe (though I’m not as firmly pro-the latter as the former, simply because I REALLY don’t have as much material to go off of there.) Not just because of the old pressure, but just because…looking at it in, say, the French cast…there’s really no chemistry there. At all. The Takarazuka Olympe looks mildly terrified to be in Ronan’s presence at any given moment. I DO actually kind of like it in the Toho production, especially with Teppei Koike and Sayaka Kanda, since the two of them fit together SO naturally and their voices are like two pieces of the same puzzle, but I’m not sure it’s something I’d particularly want to create content for. In fact, when I tried to write Ronan/Lazare/Olympe as an OT3, my HARDEST dynamic to write and justify was Ronan/Olympe. I do think that “La Guerre Pour se Plaire” is a stunning song, musically, it’s probably one of my favorite French musical songs. I do kind of tend to see Ronan as gay, simply because Takarazuka Ronan in particular is………..forceful, to the point that I can see him forcing himself to believe he’s in love with Olympe in order to distract himself from Lazare. I feel like the French cast, while arguably realistic in it showing Ronan/Olympe’s relationship having problems, also shows a couple that, really, beyond the physical attraction, couldn’t have made it work had both of them survived. And I feel like fandom, back in the day, was far too willing to take Olympe’s side over Ronan’s in that dispute, ignoring how Olympe’s own relationship to her side of the conflict is…kind of toxic to her. And while Ronan went about it in an ass-backward way (“I will kill your friends and family! To remind you of my love!”)……..he did make some Points. And Toho Ronan/Olympe, particularly Teppei/Sayaka, are more two kids in love who just want to give it a shot. (Kato Kazuki/Nene Yumesaki were more….forceful, manly hero/prim and proper governess with a spine of steel. Which is OKAY, but not really personally as interesting to me.) I do give the Toho credit for really, really making me see that, okay, it might not be for me, but it CAN work on stage. Mostly. (I still hate that forced kiss.) 

 I will say that there are times where I find myself writing Lazare rather similarly to Olympe in terms of him going through the same feelings of guilt, shame, and duty, and I’m just like “....hm. What have I really changed? Did I just substitute Lazare’s face for Olympe because it was easier? Or copied the existing dynamic and pasted a dude’s face over Olympe’s?” (I do think that there are definitely DIFFERENCES to Olympe VS Lazare, it’s just...eerie in those individual moments.) I do think, at the end of the day, the story of forbidden love during the French Revolution....we’ve HAD it before, in the La Revolution Française musical, and in my opinion it does work best as a queer narrative. And, unfortunately, Ronan/Olympe just...isn’t developed particularly well enough on stage to justify it as an EPIC ROMANCE. 

Overall, I think that I’m fairly settled in my ways at this point, but I also don’t hate it to the extent that I once did. It’ll never be my favorite, I can’t really see them getting married and having kids, and, frankly, the relationship just isn’t as interesting to me as the alternatives since we’ve SEEN it played out on screen, and I can’t really see myself making content for it or really engaging with it in any meaningful way outside of reblogging gifsets/reading fics, but like. I don’t HATE it anymore. I’m neutral to its existence. And, when it comes down to it, I have read fic/engaged in content for it, because, at this point, it’s STILL part of my favorite musical. If I could have done things differently….maybe I would have stayed with it more, for longer. Maybe I’d have written that happy country babyfic (you know. In 18th century France. Where raising babies in the country was so painless). Maybe I’d have gone over to Peyronan earlier and not looked back. Maybe I would have written Ronan more consciously as a bisexual man instead of a gay man. Who knows? Maybe I’m just a tired bitch these days and so am hyper-dissecting everything. But I definitely never want anyone coming into the fandom to think there isn’t a place for them just because they ship Ronan/Olympe. 

[lemoncakepanda]

Top 50 NaLu Anime Moments {Pt 2}.

Read pt 1 here.

Without any further delay, let’s get back to my top 50 anime nalu moments, and today we cover moments 40 up till 31! This part of the list is probably the most fluffy one, as it’s about to get kinda angsty from the next part on, but hey, let us enjoy our small moment of happiness.

40. Lucy's naked bell roll with Natsu. (Ep 194).

And we starting off kinda kinky, but hey, it’s a form of love, lol. Anyways, I truly love this moment because it was one of the first where you could start seeing that Natsu was actually attracted to Lucy. The anime didn’t include it (idk why) but in the manga he gets all blushy after having his face and hands rubbed in every single inch of naked Lucy, and I loved seeing how he reacted to it. And the first official boob grope (!!!) that results in Natsu getting slapped, which he deserved, lol. While not the only one, this is probably the most fanservice NaLu moment you’re gonna get on this list, so don’t worry, I didn’t include all the boob/@ss gropping scenes, I just really love this one especially.

39. “If any of you bastards hurt Lucy, I will turn all of you to dust.” (Ep 83).

Okay, but listen! As... as an honorary Natsu fan, I love when he gets all serious and goes all out on his enemies, and this scene, esp for someone who was slowly losing hope on this ship, really fired me up! It’s moments like this one where you can see how Natsu really cares for Lucy, at the point of injuring himself in the process. And the line, I love that line so much! I often use it in gifsets I make because I adore how protective he is of Lucy, even now that she’s able to fully defend herself, he still... wow. At last, I like this scene because it showcases how close they are and how much Lucy means to Natsu; ofc he’d be upset if any of his other friends got hurt, but y’all know he’s especially protective of Lucy and has been for a while, even back when the ship was only platonic, and there is a reason for it.

38. “Someone give us hope.” (Ep 119).

As I’ve commented on this moment before, I don’t have anything much different to add this time, only that it gets to my heart how much trust these two have in each other, and how much they inspire each other. I chose this moment because it’s one of the most obvious to how Natsu and Lucy’s relationship works: they give each other strength. When one is feeling down or hopeless, the other will step up and stand by their side. It’s a beautiful cycle between them. Zeref commented once that Lucy was a cheerful person, who had a huge impact on Natsu’s growth, and he ain’t wrong about that. This moment is proof of it.

37. “Let’s reform our team.” (Ep 109).

Or in Kain’s words, Natsu and Lucy getting all “flirty and hot”. God, I love Tenrou Island arc. Not only it’s what turned me into a hardcore nalu shipper, but it’s also great storytelling, and very compelling fights. The choice to combine Natsu and Happy with Lucy vs Kain and Ultear was a great one, considering they’d been kinda distant from each other since Edolas and had not really interacted much, and even during arcs like Oracion Seis and Edolas, which had been successors of the Fantasia and Tower of Heaven arcs, which barely had any Nalu in it, it felt like a breath of fresh air to see them together again and staying together, like the team they’d been since the beginning. It also showed how in sync they are with each other and how well they work together. Truly one of the things that made Tenrou Island such a great arc.

36. “Lucy, come home already.” (OVA 4).

Words cannot describe how much I cherish this omake, or in this case, the ova, where Lucy follows Natsu to find out where he and Happy live. For those of you who have not watched it, it’s set in a flashback where Lucy tells the girls about the day she followed her two lousy friends to get revenge on them for always breaking in her house; she successfully finds their house, and there she finds out Natsu keeps memories of all the jobs he’d gone to, two of which include the first job he and Lucy ever went in together and her old maid outfit, which brings a sweet smile to her face. Despite finding their house, Lucy’s plan to surprise them fails because they never show up, so she goes back to her apartment. And, surprise surprise, that’s where Natsu and Happy had been all this time. And we’re left with the heartwarming conclusion that, although they annoy the fck outta her, eat all her food, mess up her stuff, and hog her bed all to themselves, Lucy loves having them around. They turn her house into a home, they give her someone to come home to, they give her all the company she never had when she was a child. ‘Twas a very nice conclusion to the story, and served as a nice confirmation to something we’d always suspected.

35. Watch Out for the Guy You Like! (Ep 50).

This, in my opinion, is one of the most hilarious FT episodes; even though it results with Lucy finding out all her delusions of Natsu were, well, just delusions, and Natsu just wanted her help to dig a hole, I have so much fun watching those delusions, watching Lucy stop for a moment to actually consider being with Natsu; I think it’s what opened the door to her crush, even if she completely closed her eyes and tried to ignore it. Also, shoujo-like Natsu was a blessing given to us by Mashima which I’m forever grateful for, lmao. But really, I think this omake/episode is actually very important to Natsu and Lucy’s relationship; it showed that all her delusions depicted Lucy’s idea of how a romance should be, and then (spoiler) in the end, she kind of gets that romance, but not in the way she imagined, and it turned out to be exactly the way it needed to be. So, for that, I really like this and find it essential to the ship.

34. Their reunion. (Ep 276).

This moment, originally, was not part of my top 25 Nalu manga moments, and that’s because, while I do love it in the manga, I love it so much more in the anime. It felt more dramatic, with the camera shifting from Natsu and Lucy finally locking eyes after one year apart, and they’re both so goddamn shook! I like that they added this detail in the anime, because you could really feel like it was two people who used to always be together, and then spent 365 days without seeing each other, being only there ever in thought. I also like how they’re both blushing, that little showcase of how happy they are to see the other again, and the small tingle of bittersweetness because we know it’s not 100% okay between them. You know drama’s gonna follow because actions have consequences. But for that one moment, you’re just as happy as Natsu and Lucy to see them reunited once more, the way it’s supposed to be.

33. Lucy makes her choice. (Ep 49).

While I feel that this one goes without saying, the reason I chose it can be explained in two sentences: 1) Lucy has met a guy who’s like the male version of her, is kind, a gentleman, and has a nice vibe with her, but she puts all of that potential aside for the one thing she is sure of, and that’s her partnership with Natsu. 2) Have you seen Natsu’s face when she shows up in that train, ready to leave with them? He’s so shook, he blinks like three times, as if trying to make sure she is really there, that she’s real. And then he just opens the biggest smile, because she chose to be there with them; it’s the first time they’re not dragging her to a job, she simply chose to come along, and you can almost hear the sound of Natsu’s heart going all fluttery when he realizes she cast her ‘date’ aside to go with them. Another moment that, I feel, helped deepen and shape the relationship these two have today.

32. “Make me purr!” Drunk Lucy round 2. (OVA 9).

Again, nothing really different to add on this moment, only that I like how the ova extended and showed Lucy jumping on Natsu in the most s&xual way ever, and how Natsu has all the strength in the world to remove her from him, but “supposedly” is unable to do that when she’s all over him touching him in a very intimate way. Aham. I see right through you, dragon boy. Also, isn’t it interesting that Drunk!Lucy directs all her attention to Natsu if he’s around? Nvm that there’s other guys around, all she cares about is him. I love that. It says a lot about Lucy’s hidden feelings.

31. Reaching out for each other before being separated. (Ep 247).

Tartaros is my favorite FT arc, despite not having that much Nalu in it, it’s probably the arc with most emotional weight, because of everything the characters went through and makes you really feel for them. And although I love the ships, I love the story 1st and Tartaros was indeed amazing story-telling. With that said, I also enjoyed very much the little/subtle/few Nalu moments the arc provided, and one of them is the scene where Natsu and Lucy are being pulled in by the Alegria, and they reach for each other. It’s commonly said that when things get tough, you focus on what’s important to you, and it was very sweet/heartbreaking to watch Lucy and Natsu struggling to get to each other, as they were both unaware of what was going to happen, they were just trying to stay together. You can easily say it’s only because they were alone together, but hello, Mashima did not need to make it like this. It was his choice to make Natsu and Lucy reach out for each other in a way that’s mostly seen between couples, esp in shõnen, and the anime made it even more beautiful.

Part 3 will come up tomorrow!

[datleggy]

I’m autistic and one of the things I have trouble with is change. I’ve watched 911 since the third episode and now they have a second one? Idk. I’ve been seeing a lot of good things about it but I’m not sure if I want to watch it. Basically what I want to know is if it’s worth watching. Is it good? Are there any parallels between the new one and the Buck one? Who are the characters and what are they like? Will you start writing for this series instead of the other one? %

so, this got WAY longer than i thought it would, sorry!!! TL;DR is at the very very end!

tbh i didn’t wanna really give 911 lonestar a chance originally, i was lowkey annoyed bc it felt like they were like “oh u guys want buck and eddie, who are CLEARLY meant to be and have all this canon chemistry and relationship development to eventually get together??? lol NOPE but here’s a spinoff where u get ur white/latino gay ship :D”

which i do genuinely hope to god isn’t the case, like, i really need OG 911 to be like PSYCH here u go, some DIAZ-BUCKLEY fam. as a treat.

i did end up watching it bc curiosity and too many awesome gifsets finally got to me lol

and im only a couple of episodes in (haven’t had a chance to watch the 3rd ep bc of work and other things D: ) and so far i gotta say, i like the OG 911 calls that they get sent to more than 911 lonestars calls but again, im only 2 ep in, maybe they get more “woah thats crazy/hilarious/hearbreaking!” as the show goes on.

i honestly don’t see too many parallels between Buck and TK—the only thing i noticed where they’re pretty similar is how much they both enjoy easy physical contact. buck is very touchy feely and comfortable about showing affection/feelings and i feel like TK is the same regarding physical contact (with his dad at least)? but that’s about it.

for what it’s worth i do think the show is pretty entertaining and worth a watch!

my main reason for watching past the first episode is my enjoyment of the characters. i just think they’re all neat.

this is from a post i made when i first watched the show lol:

captain strand: good dad to all of his children

tk: hot gay messy boi

grace ryder: a fave, no nonsense beauty, judds better half

judd ryder: tragic big boi

captain blake: chaotic good w baby voice

marjan: wild feral messy gurl

mateo: if anybody’s mean to my SON im throwin hands bih

paul: again, if anybody’s mean to my SON im THROWIN hands

officer reyes: ready to dick tk down

here’s a more descriptive/longer summary of the characters if u wanna know more, if not skip down to the bolded sentence below lol:

owen strand is the captain (played by rob lowe) and to me he gives off chris traeger vibes (from parks and rec if u watched?) but with more depth. i like his character a lot, he’s a caring dad, seems like he knows what he’s doing, and like, c’mon, it’s rob lowe (i fell in love with him a million years ago when he played soda pop in the outsiders nipr;guebwuogrnofw)

tk is his son and a hot gay mess w some substance abuse issues (tho a lot has happened to him in only 2 ep i really don’t know how to feel about him entirely, bc besides stuff happening TO him, i don’t feel like he’s reacted in a way that shows much of his character?) idk maybe it’s just me. but he is a certified cutie so. lol

grace ryder, she’s smart (one of the only characters with more than ONE brain cell lmao) and gorgeous and an emergency 911 operator. she’s very supportive of her husband and what he’s going thru (which is A LOT), she herself has been thru a lot bc of the big incident at the beginning of the series and is still somehow held strong in spite of it all, she’s a personal fave of mine.

judd ryder is kind of a dick at first but i think its very understandable given the hell he’s been thru, im actually surprised at the amount that i like him. he’s very raw and vulnerable but has this “don’t worry im fine, back up” attitude that i loooove. 

captain blake is the captain for EMTs, she’s got this soft teeny baby voice that contradicts so hard with her give no fucks ima do what i need to to find my missing sister actions irwughqwgoriegjf i like. she’s caring and does goes out of  her way for the little guy.

marjan has ZERO chill but in a good way, i can already absolutely see her getting into trouble by doing some crazy impulsive thing on a call in order to rescue someone—-TBH she actually reminds me a lot of Buck from OG 911 in that way. like yea she’s reckless and impulsive but u can tell its bc she CARES and this firefighting thing is what she’s meant to do. i really like her.

mateo—-OH MAN. he’s 10000000% my favorite. it hurts me everytime he’s on screen, bc he’s such a sweet and HARD WORKING man and he deserves to be a firefighter and do what he wants/has been waiting for for so long, im so HAPPY captain strand gives him a chance. i think he might have some learning disability or maybe he grew up in a household where maybe his family was too busy or didn’t care to check up on how he was doing in school and they neglected to see how much he was struggling—this is all just pure speculation from the fact that on the show he tells captain strand during the interview that he’s always passed the physical exam to be a firefighter but keeps failing the written part :( i love my son.

paul is a trans firefighter who’s mainly known for his crazy good observational skills in the field—there’s an ep—ep 2?—that shows off his talent but like, i found it unintentional funny bc the way they did it was in a scene that honestly truly felt to me like a scene I MYSELF would write in a fanfiction if i wanted to show off a cool skill the character has but was also too lazy to make it look good???? lmaoooo im not trying to be mean but like, if u do watch it, its the 2nd ep i believe, the “office meeting” scene. other than that tho there’s only been a few scenes with paul in it (my personal fave being the skin care routine scene lol) but i look forward to more scenes of my son being a lil sherlock holmes :)

officer reyes is tk’s potential new mans. he seems like a good cop from what little ive seen of him doing police work. so, i saw a post someone made basically saying how ugly are the men in texas that officer reyes is out here thirsting over tk so HARD—and not to be rude, but he really is!!!! reyes is a goodlookin guy, so idk what’s up with that, maybe he likes messy bois? bc same.

p.s. im not sure how to feel about reyes and tk together yet bc it doesn’t really seem as if they have too much chemistry. hopefully that changes? i do kinda like that they haven’t started off their potential relationship on the best of foots, bc i love drama, an indisputable fact.

ONTO THE FINAL QUESTION!

OG 911 will always be my first love and i just don’t see this changing anytime soon. buddie will always be the #1 ship in my heart! and i have about a gazillion awesome prompts i need to work on so me switching over to 911 lonestar isn’t gonna happen. i love OG 911 way too much iuqhur4ogfoie3jwnwjinioj

tho i may occasionally—per the request of prompts i’ve gotten in the last week or so–take a couple of the characters from 911 lonestar and put them in a 911 fic as a crossover? we’ll see.

this ended up soooo long oruhibgruoeqwp i hope some of it helped tho?

tl;dt: 911 lonestar seems fun and the characters are interesting enough to keep me entertained so i say give it a chance  :)

[eirenical]

Q, T, U?

OK, last one of these for now, but [If anyone else would like to send letters, feel free!]  ^_^

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

ahahaha... oh you’re going to get me into trouble.  -.-;;;  First of all, I’m not sure I can say that I’ve properly abandoned it, because I do still write for it and I do still love it and I do even reblog things for it, but at this point... Les Mis.  And WOW that’s hard to say.

Part of it is that just... too many of my Les Mis friends have drifted away to other things.  And when fewer and fewer people are posting for a fandom, it gets harder and harder to sustain an active fannish interest.  And that was a lot of my issue.  Part is that just... a lot of the currently prevalent headcanons and interpretations were just... not things I was interested in?  Like, more and more, I felt like I was talking an entirely different language to the rest of the fandom and it was getting very frustrating.  And finally... people were getting worse and worse about reblogging or commenting on things and that just sapped my desire to create anything new for the fandom.  And some of that was probably also due to the other two things, but some of it is just a trend.

Compare that to my currently largest fandom of interest... I posted a gifset+meta for Guardian fandom and it got like 100 notes within a couple of days and sparked off a huge and AMAZING debate about magical healing jackets that I STILL have to respond to pieces of, because it’s such a small fandom in comparison that any new content is appreciated and it was so warm and welcoming that, I stg, I almost cried.  Like... fandom hasn’t made me feel that good in a while, and I’ve MISSED IT.  (I had a similar experience when I got into TUD fandom on a larger (albeit slightly less personalized) scale.)

So, yeah.  Have I really abandoned Les Mis?  Probably not.  If nothing else, I AM going to fucking finish Muet, damn it.  And I’m still going to run Feuilly Week in October.  But yeah.  I don’t think I’ll be as intense as I was about it before, and that still makes me sad.  :(  I mean... Les Mis was the longest fandom stop I’ve had in a while.  8 years?  And I made a lot of friends there.  So, I don’t think I’ll ever completely give it up, but I definitely need a break.

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

MY ARO/ACE JIANG CHIANG HEADCANON.  THAT IS ABSOLUTELY A HILL I WILL DIE ON.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

JUST THREE????  *dies*

OK, let’s start with Guardian...

Shen Wei: I am a sucker, a complete and total sucker, for the immortal(ish) character with the weight of the world on their shoulders, who insists on throwing their own health and mental wellbeing under the bus at any and every given opportunity if it will protect the people they love, BONUS POINTS if they are somehow also just a little naive and don’t quite know how to people or how to friends, because they’ve been alone for so long.  ALSO, the “I appear totally shy and harmless and probably wear sweater vests and sleeve garters, but secretly am A TOTAL FUCKING BADASS” thing never, ever gets tiring.  ;D  And just... FUCK.  There is not a SINGLE favorite character box that Shen Wei doesn’t check for me.  ...also, he’s very pretty when he breaks.  *eg*  ^_~

The Untamed...

That’s a hard toss up between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian.  XD  But a lot of the things that draw me to She Wei also draw me to WWX, so I’ll just say “Ditto” on that and do Jiang Cheng.  ;D

Jiang Cheng: (Cribbing a bit from another answer...) He is the aro/ace disaster bb of my heart and he just wants his family to be HAPPY and TOGETHER and have ALL THE THINGS THEY WANT but also for them to be safe and to not leave him.  And I relate SO HARD to that.  I also relate to the fact that no matter what he says, it seems to come out wrong and just get him into further trouble.  Because that is also one giant fucking mood. But seriously, he just loves his family SO MUCH and he tries SO HARD and life just keeps kicking him when he’s down, but he STILL TRIES TO BE THERE for the few loved ones he has left and I just... fuck I just love him so fucking much and HE DESERVED BETTER.  TT^TT

And a third, a third, a third... hmm... how about Star Wars?  ^_^

Obi-Wan Kenobi: So... I feel like a lot of the reasons I like a character boil down to “they’re pretty when they cry... and canon makes them cry a LOT.”  XD  But more importantly than the fact that canon does the best to break them... they keep GETTING BACK UP.  They keep putting a smile on their face, even if sometimes it’s forced, and they KEEP GOING.  And just... FUCK I am weak for that.  And Obi-Wan is the epitome of that particular trope and I love him for it.  TT^TT

[scavengered]

IMPORTANT TROS  ( canon divergent ) NOTES THAT  influence my portrayal in all of my TROS threads:

               this is not a full framework (yet), but rather a couple of important moments I felt I needed                to clearly write out & present on my blog.  Once the film is properly released, I may consider                writing out a full framework, or leave it like it is, if it solely concerns a few scenes !  Should                you want to write with me, but would like to see a few things adjusted, do not hesitate to                contact me !                          please keep in mind that these notes are my  own  headcanons and ideas                          based on what happened and/or how I would have liked scenes to be played                          out.  I ask that you respect them and do not steal.  I consider these notes to                          be  my  canon.

 ALLEGIANCE TO THE RESISTANCE

As stated in my rewritten TLJ verse, Rey struggled with her allegiance to the Resistance after delivering the droid back to its master.  She had not signed up to be part of it, nor the war, as her sole intention was to return a droid to its master.  The more time she spent with the Resistance, the more she came in contact with the loving and caring qualities of others.  Having been isolated from interactions on the desert planet where she grew up on, she initially watched as she saw Resistance members enjoy and appreciate every day that they were still out there fighting the good fight.   Hope was strong within them, and it was fuelled by love.  Others cared for her        and in return, she started to care for them.  She had formed relationships and some grew to be more than  simply  friends.  Witnessing it all, General Organa had decided to tell her about family; how it it was not always by blood, but sometimes by choice.  The words needed time to sink in, but eventually the realisation hit that she had found family of her own, in members of the Resistance.

COMPASSION

Like we have seen in previous materials, Rey’s compassion goes a long way, but it certainly has its limits.

her compassion  is for two scavengers she knew not to trust, who saw an opportunity and got away with a ship she had restored to its former glory, along with a bit of their help. her compassion  is for the droid with a bend antennae, looking for its master, whom she freed from the clutches of a Teedo. her compassion  is for a defected stormtrooper who told her a lie she believed, was the first to ask her if she was okay, and was not someone she wanted to lose when he wanted to run. her compassion  is for a pilot who might bicker with her, but they both know their lines and the base on which they bicker: love and friendship. her compassion  is for a Wookiee who lost his best friend, and entrusted her with the millennium falcon. her compassion  does not forgive and forget. her compassion  does not forgive her abuser.

DOUBTS

Rey, in my rewritten TLJ verse, had been trained in the Force by Jedi master Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To.  Her skills in using the Force developed through this training, though she still felt vulnerable and somewhat insecure in using them.  Especially with the threat of the Dark Side rising, there was much more at stake than before.  Her  insecurities  increased, and eventually it led her to ask General Organa for extra training, once they had found a new and secure base for the Resistance. Her extra training caused her to be on the ground much more than in the air        where she could have used her flying skills and aided the Resistance in what was familiar territory for her, doing what she could do best        much to the annoyance of some Resistance members.  This annoyance, along with the threat of the Dark Side, Rey sensed that expectations were high, and she felt the pressure from everyone, which she struggled to deal with, as well as her new surroundings that encouraged  team work. Team work was encouraged amongst Resistance members, as they believed it would pull them out of the darker moments and made victories        no matter how small or big        feel that much greater.  Rey, however, had sworn off team work back on Jakku, where she had initially been in service of others.  After a few years, when realising that she knew the tricks of the trade and did not need others to survive, she became aware that she could do the same work on her own.  This  independence  allowed her to keep whatever she got out of a trade, all to herself.   Another reason for working alone was  distrust;  she could not trust anyone on the desert planet, nor see through someone’s genuine intentions.  From that moment onwards, she had vowed to work alone, a belief that had worked its way into her mind.  Over the years, she had convinced herself that she was someone who did not work well with others.  To Resistance members who survived off the strength and support of each other, this vow seemed to be foreign.  The gap between the two beliefs        where Rey found herself and what the Resistance expected of her        had to be crossed, in order to earn her spot in the Resistance.  How else could they trust her, if she did not trust them?   In essence, the thought of  trusting  others was an uncomfortable and daunting one, and the fear of letting them down, exactly when they needed her most,  scared  her.  Rey found herself in a position that was the stark opposite of when she was back on Jakku, where she knew herself and her skills, and relied on them.  It was a dangerous place to be in        to not be able to rely on oneself        and knew this was the sort of thing that could mean death on a planet as harsh as Jakku.  As a consequence, Rey felt uneasy and did whatever she could to strengthen herself in the use of the Force, even if that meant sitting out on missions.

FINN’S FORCE SENSITIVITY

In an ideal story/trilogy, I would have liked to see Finn realising and coming to terms with his force sensitivity around the time TLJ took place.  In my opinion, and the way I write and portray Rey, she would not push him to come forward to her about this.  Instead, she would allow him to do so when he felt ready to share this discovery.  I believe Rey would have sensed his force sensitivity somewhere along the way, and would respond with a simple  “ I know ”  , before handing him her lightsaber to practice with.                for more finn and rey dynamic, see  ‘that lightsaber scene’                at the bottom of the post.

FIGHTING STYLE

Once six-year-old Rey decided to stop working for others, she was no longer able to enjoy the protection of a group.  Others saw her as an easy target, and to survive on Jakku, she had to defend her salvage, as well as herself.  It took time, but eventually the young scavenger started to win more fights than she lost.  Rey would use whatever was available to her, whether that be random items lying around, her staff or her fists to punch with and legs to kick        there were no rules to take into consideration: all was fair in a fight that resulted in either survival or death.  Her reputation grew, and over time others knew to stay out of her way and leave her be.   When leaving Jakku, Rey did not leave her rough and scrappy fighting skills.  Even in a lightsaber combat, she would use what she could to get the upper hand,  rather  than solely relying on striking with her lightsaber.

PARENTAGE

In my main verse for episode IX, Rey will remain a nobody.  The power she wields is  entirely  her own.  There is no one who can answer questions about her parents and there is no hidden mystery behind it.  Rey was abandoned on Jakku as a five-year-old and has had to fend for herself, believing her family would one day return for her.  Instead of them returning for her, she was taken on an adventure when encountering, defending and taking care of a Resistance droid.  Any parallels between other Legacy characters would be  coincidental  in this AU, not hinting to anything more. This darling desert flower child has gone through and survived so much, and she deserves her power to be  hers,  not something she owes someone / a certain lineage. Alongside of  this  reinvented canon for my Rey, I have added an AU that follows most events  ( as they happen in my own canon )  but in which she is a Skywalker.   Way back in 2016, I was inspired by these gifsets  [x]  &  [x]  and started to plot extensively with a specific Luke        because come on... that  IS  the Skywalker strut, and you cannot deny that resemblance  ( both physically and in background ) !  Not wanting to force this parentage onto another mun/muse else, I kept it between the person I plotted with.  We spoke how Rey was his daughter, but he had to get her to a safe place due to the looming threat of the Dark Side.   As mentioned, I kept this between the person I plotted it with,  until now.  Though her parentage has been revealed in The Rise of Skywalker, it is not necessarily one that makes a lot of sense, in my opinion.                So, here’s my  own  headcanon on this matter, that will              influence  my TROS/post TROS verse: For my Rey’s lineage, she is Luke’s daughter and Anakin’s grandchild, given the name Kira upon her birth.  Luke gave his daughter to the “parents” she still remembers leaving her on Jakku.  The reason for this was that he needed someone to take care of young Kira, as his attention would be on training the new Jedi order.  Luke had not entrusted Kira to just anyone, he made sure to select a couple who he had known from the rebellion, people he knew and trusted with his own life.  Eventually, years later, training young Jedis went horribly wrong.  Luke might have managed to get a message out to Kira’s caretakers, mentioning them to be careful, that something was about to happen and to keep Rey safe no matter what.   Given Kira’s caretakers’ ties to the rebellion, they possessed the mentality that, even if tortured, they would not reveal Kira’s location or give her up any other way.  They fought for her survival to the point of them paying the price for it.   Sacrificing themselves for the safety of the five-year-old left Luke and Kira on different places in the universe, with no way for either of them to contact each other.  Young Kira        who over time forgot her name and aptly named herself Rey when inspired by finding a rebellion helmet with the name Raeh on it         still held out for the return of those she believed to be her parents, whilst Luke searched everywhere for his young daughter.  Not having any luck in finding her, he expected the worst and turned his objective to seeking out and destroying the Sith. Skipping forward to the end of The Rise of Skywalker, in my headcanon-y verse, Rey is told the surname of her caretakers        those she believed to have been her true parents        as well as discovering that she is Luke’s kid.  The choice of the surname is hers, and she takes everything into consideration.  She cannot verbally express what her caretakers have meant to her; they have kept her save and protected her, knowing it would lead to their demise.  She considers what Leia and Luke have meant to her, and what her life, stepping into their legacy means        she is given the choice to choose her family.  Her family is the Resistance, and she chooses to attach the name Skywalker to it once and for all. To sum it up,  the lineage for Rey in this AU will therefore be:              Strong force sensitive Shmi    >  Anakin Skywalker  >  Luke              Skywalker  →  entrusted caretakers  >  Rey Skywalker small disclaimer:  as seen in the background story I have come up with for Rey, I am using other characters.  Should you want to write with me, but do not necessarily agree with what I mentioned, please contact me so we can look at the possibilities that could work for us both.

KYLO USING HIS LIFE FORCE ON REY

First and foremost, this is, and  always  will be, an ani-r*ylo blog, as I do not ship someone with her abuser.  Still, my paths crossed with this quote from a pro-r*ylo blog in one of my tracked tags: “he used his life-force to resurrect rey because he loves her and he can't live without her.”  .. ..  . .      f u ck  no.

If I am being completely honest, I think that Kylo opted to save Rey from a selfish, weak and cowardly point of view.   Let us not forget that Kylo has committed genocide, emotionlessly ordered and committed murders, tortured others to gain information and patricide.  He is responsible for the death of millions and time and time again, he has shown no remorse. I believe, which in this topic goes hand-in-hand in regards to Rey’s beliefs,  Kylo saw this as his escape from his responsibilities  ( to own up to his crimes )  and took it.  In doing so, he did a  small  good thing        to be fair, he could have stabbed himself with a lightsaber        but he chose to give his life force to Rey.  Still, I believe it came from a selfish place, as this action allowed him to escape all the crimes he had committed. Important note:  I  do not  believe Rey actually died in this scene, but rather that she was unconscious.  It is a  sickening  thought that she should owe her life to her abuser, and I  will not  allow that to be  my  canon.

REY STABBING KYLO  &  THE AFTERMATH

The scene in which Rey stabbed Kylo with the lightsaber, went a little differently in my head, which is the canon I accept.  During the lightsaber fight, Rey managed to get the upper hand and stab Kylo, just before Leia sought contact with her son one last time.  Rey felt this, too, and  did not  decide to heal her abuser.  Instead, she told him to  live  with the damage he had done and the horrors he had caused.  Rey took Kylo’s ship, which realistically is the only transport off the Death Star, assuming the dangerous waves did their damage to the Skimmer by then.  To clarify, Rey has stabbed and left her abuser with no way to escape off the Death Star.  Rey would still take off, but sent out an emotional message to Poe and Finn  ( most likely to the Millennium Falcon )  before she would be out of reach, in which she explained her reasoning for doing this.  Despite having worked together really well and having faced danger together, that she saw no other way but to set out on her own to finish what others before her had started        to end the Sith.  Rey continued the message by apologising for leaving them behind like this, but revealed not to know of another way to keep them, the family she  chose,  safe  ( in her mind, she acknowledged the fact that she, too, had once been left behind on a planet for safekeeping, ouch ) .  Upon hearing this message, Finn and Poe decided not to accept this, and they head back to base to try and find out where she could have gone. Once back on Resistance Base, Poe sought out the ones in charge of tactics and comms, and Finn headed straight for the Jedi books Rey had been reading up on, remembering her talking about the topics the books covered        and what Luke had been up to.  In accordance to the film, Poe would catch word of Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing showing up on their tactical screen, and it would become clear that it was Rey sending her signal to them.  I reckon that Rey realised, with some  guidance  from Luke, that she could not complete this task alone.  “ You’re stronger when you work together, Rey. ”  The Jedi master had told her, which caused her to turn on her signal transmitter, which she made sure was sent to the Resistance receivers, so that they could track her.  Finn and Poe immediately realised Rey’s intention by doing this.  Convinced team work is the way to take down the Sith, Rey’s actions make my  ‘doubts’  topic on Rey and team work come full circle. 

THAT LIGHTSABER SCENE

Given the topic above and my thoughts on it, removing Kylo from the narrative would provide the perfect ability for Finn to put his Jedi training to the test, along with his lightsaber skills he possesses, and take out the Sith  side by side  with Rey.  Should the scene have happened with Finn and Rey, it could have shown their growth from when they faced Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens, and now stood opposite of the entire Sith together, to bring it down.   A scavenger and a defected stormtrooper, side by side, with lightsabers that previously belonged to Luke and Leia.  We  deserved  this, and even more so, Finn and Rey  deserved  this.

SPICE RUNNER... POE...

Lastly...  although this is the one note/thought that does not have any sort of connection to Rey, I still wanted to express my thoughts on this.    no .    it is stereotypical  and  racist.  The only way this would be  slightly  possible, would be if Poe used this as a sort of undercover job to gain the trust of a group he had to join to gain intel or something else of value, via which he could have met Zorii  ( who I personally think is definitely nothing more than a friend to him ) .