#but most of them are vehicles for the plot first and foremost

[pippastrelle]

We in the Warrior Cats fandom are enamoured with the potential depths of characters and culture because the stories are based in inter- and intra-Clan politics and have sprawling communities of characters. Because of this, we're consistently disappointed. What's hard to come to terms with is... Warrior Cats has never actually cared about distinct characters and relationships. From the first arc onwards, they've been the minority. They are not a priority for the writers and they have never been. Stories aren't always character-driven and they shouldn't have to be, but I'm surprised such a sheer divide in expectations between the fandom and the authors hasn't resulted in a bigger implosion.

[asktheyigamaster]

Hi Mr Kogha, what's your opinion on all four of Hyrules champions? If you weren't mortal enemies, do you think you'd get along with them?

Well this is a very big if isn't in? Would you ask the Rito Champion if he would be more pleasant if he hated flying? Or the Princess if she would be sympathetic to the Yiga if she wasn't a princess? That's an entirely different life you're asking about.

But oh well, I can try.

First and foremost, allow me to astonish you: I'm glad Championd exist. Obviously as individuals, as people they are horrible, but Champions are also pilots of Divine Beasts. And Beasts deserve to have pilots. After 10 000 years alone and immobile, burried underground, they deserve to have someone close to them, someone who allows them to fulfill their purpose as vehicles and move around. The Divine Beasts wouldn't bond with someone they are incompatible with, so they are in good hands.

It would be dishonest to say that I never feel bitter that the Pilots of Divine Beasts are my, I mean Yiga, enemies. The King ordering them dug back out on a whim also feels like an insult. And it is! But the Beasts were always meant to belong to their respective tribes afterall. No gift-back-sies and all that.

It also is annoying how little Champions know or understand about these machines, purely as someone who does. I am sure they haven't even considered the implications of the fact that Ganon managed to bond to, and seamlessly pilot the beasts for 100 years. And that the friendly Daruk had the most trouble bonding with Vah Rudania compared to the rest of them.

But if there were no Champions when Calamity Ganon emerged 100 years ago, the King might have scrambled the excavation efforts. And the vindication of Hyrule's doom, wouldn't have been as delicious without the involvement of the Ancient Sheikah weapons. So that's good.

If we weren't enemies I would be begging to be taken on a ride daily.

Now to the individuals

Daruk

is easily the most capable Champion of the bunch. When it comes to his skill as a warrior, mage, member of a team, everything. Without his cheerfulness their group would've crumbled within weeks. There is a good reason why among all Champions, he is the only one recognized by his own people as a hero. Not a just as a skilled individual, or leader, or royalty, a hero.

And I think in this timeline where I'm not trying to kill his friends around him we would get along swimmingly! To be honest, he feels almost as if, if I showed up at Goron City right now, without a disguise, said "I'm on vacation from villainy, wanna show me the sights?" Daruk would agree without a second thought. Not for being gullible, but because his massive body comes with an appropriately sized heart, AND if I was lying about the vacation he would prefer himself to be the closest Goron to me when something happens.

I should actually try that

Urbosa.

Why did ALL the Champion's had to miraculously return? I would prefer none, but her too feels personal.

The 100 years after the Calamity when she was dead... What a great time to be a Yiga. But no, the greatest party pooper in all the land can't just stay dead.

See, the THE DESERT is a rather difficult place to live in, and Gerudo would be a great help with that, on account of being easy to steal from. If it wasn't for their Chieftain. Stiff and humorless, consistently thwarting Yiga plots is one thing, understandable even. But somehow sucking any fun to be had from the back-and-forths is unforgivable.

She is ridiculously dedicated to normalcy, to keeping things the way they are. Somehow even passionate about it. The way she fights and speaks and calls down lighting, you only see it in people with real fire in their hearts. To me this sound like an impossible contradiction, but there Urbasa is, very unfortunately real.

I had to deal with her longer then anyone around today. Even Champions, including the big frowny herself, don't realize that without Urbosa's one and only soft spot for Princess Zelda, she would long have cut the rest of them down for being annoying, or just diched the group altogether. This is true! You would agree if you tried to crack a joke around her before blondy came about!!

Could I get along with her? Never. Even if I didn't hate all of Hyrule, even if the Yiga were accepted people of the kingdom, if we're in the desert we would not know peace with Urbosa. Maybe with the Gerudo in general, but not her. The only timeline where we don't try to kill each other is the one in which we never cross paths.

Mipha

or as I like to say, The Better Princess. How good for the people of the Zora Domain to still be able to call their leaders kings and princes, despite being subjects of a larger kingdom with its own unrelated monarch. Good for them. There is good reason why after two back to back apocalypses their domain is holding out by far the best.

I don't think I can tell much about the Zora Champion though. She's just too damn quiet, I barely see her. If a proclivity for healing sorcerery is any indication she's probably really nice and caring.

Given the honor of being personally dispatched by Ganon at such a young age... Honestly, 100 years ago I thought Dorephan was going to be the Champion, but I guess you need to fit into a Divine Beast to pilot it.

With Zora longevity, I do think Mipha would understand best of all Champions, what it's like to hold onto a 10 000 year old oath of vengeance. Her brother would even better.

If the rulers of the Zora Domain had some bravery, they would proclaim the lands of now destroyed kingdom of Hyrule their territory, their lake city the new capital, and their throne the new seat of power for all the land. They would rule better then any Hylian, that's for sure. The Yiga would support them.

Afterall, the mission of the Yiga is the destruction of Hyrule kingdom at the hands of Ganon, and the end of the Hyrule royal bloodline. If Zelda stays childless, we don't even need to talk about some kind of timey boogaloo. Mipha has the power to end our status as archenemies right now.

Revali

Speaking of actual children personally slain by our Lord and Destroyer. Yeeesh! What a fascinating lad. The Rito already don't live long and they still somehow managed to pick a fledgling to fly die for them.

The only Champion unrelated to a Sage. I say it without shame, it took centuries for Kohga to be called Master and here is the Rito equivalent throwing the title around after being alive for only 0.2 times that time. And being a Master is special. No chosen-one-ness, no noble blood, nothing compares. It's not a real title or position either, you only become one when people start referring to you as such and noone argues because it obviously fits. A Master is someone of incredible skill, a pride of their people, a leader, a mentor, a backbone of society and an inspiration. Someone everyone can look to for guidance and aid. And you have to be all of that and more, you can't slack on anything, you have to be perfect. All the time, you have to be what your people need at every moment.

And while I personally am not sure Revali would qualify for the same prestige had he been a Yiga. Afterall, a gloomy, mean-spirited attitude such as his is a clear sign of weakness, a concession to the hardships. How are you to inspire others to strife for your greatness if you yourself are a depressive wreck? Noone wants to be unhappy, obviously, why would they want to be you if you aren't having fun? But this is not my decision to make, but that of the Rito people. And they sure are quite unanimous.

I guess achieving something completely unique, never before seen, especially something as critical and useful as being able to fly upwards AS A BIRD PERSON, would condemn anyone to greatness, no matter how badly they take to hormonal flushes. Can you believe he got as close to obscurity as he did? Within two-three Hylian lifetimes he was reduced to a mere legend, his signature skill not considered an impossible fantasy only by, frankly, the most insane of his kind? Scary thought.

Truth be confessed, I keep returning to thinking about modifying our age manipulation technology so that it may slow Rito aging. If they lived longer lives, had a need for sturdier homes and monuments. Had enough time to develop a proper grudge. Would they be allies to the Yiga? Quite probably. Not probably enough to risk this much resources and Sheikah attention though.

[schizosamwincester]

can u say more on the oklahoma thing . im a classical music in general geek so . pray tell

Okay, obviously Oklahoma isn't actually too good for a wincest playlist or whatever. That's nonsense. The Beatles are foundational to modern music; Mary still sang "Hey, Jude" to Dean. But my knee jerk reaction is still "don't dirty the sacred text by associating it with supernatural!"

So. Oklahoma! was the first modern musical. Like, if you go see musicals from pre-Oklahoma times (and there are some that still get produced.. mostly the Cole Porter ones), they have generally been rewritten. A lot of jazz standards, namely the ones by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and George and Ira Gershwin, were originally from musicals. Those musicals generally aren't produced anymore because they're so dated and no one really knows them, they just know the songs. You can go see musicals with Gershwin songs in them, but they are ones that were written decades after the fact. They're effectively jukebox musicals, just for classic theater songs (see: Crazy for You, An American in Paris).

Musical was originally short for Musical Comedy, not musical theater. These were all, first and foremost, comedies. They were fluff. The plot did not matter. It was just vehicles to get you from one song to the next, and the songs were barely connected. They weren't telling story through song. Plot would happen, and then everything would grind to a halt for a musical number. Oklahoma certainly still has some of that—the songs aren't quite as integrated into the plot as you often see now—but compared to the shows of the time? It was revolutionary.

Another first was that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the songs together. Traditionally, the composer wrote the melodies, then sent them off to the lyricist to write the lyrics. Working together was not the done thing, but that was how they did it, and that's how it's usually done today (although there are exceptions. I believe Andrew Lloyd Webber just kind of hands off his melodies to whoever he can find).

And then there's the subject matter. Again, by today's standards? Oklahoma is pretty fluffy. There's the A-story love triangle and the B-story love triangle. Many songs are there just to be funny. The whole B story really is just comedy. But. There's also an entire song about suicide. And most notably, it ends with a character being killed on stage. That was another first. That is dark, and at the time, it was not done. A lot can be and has been said about Jud, and I'm going at this from history and not analysis, but like... He is both a legitimate threat and fear and a sympathetic character. He's not a mustache twirling villain. He has pathos.

The Golden Age of Musical Theater was basically just Rodgers and Hammerstein. Like. There were others I guess. Learner and Lowe did write My Fair Lady and Camelot. But really, it was them. For a solid 20 years, they were musicals, and that all started with Oklahoma. Oklahoma was so influential that for a while, every musical that came out had a random ballet sequence in it just because Oklahoma did it.

Basically, if you have ever seen any musical, you have Oklahoma to thank. Every single modern musical is built on its foundation.

On a personal note, I sang People Will Say We're in Love at a competition when I was 11. It was my first time competing not with a group. It was awful. My cousin plays piano and also loves old theater, and I used to sing it to his playing a lot until I stopped seeing my family very much. I own the vinyl. I've seen Oklahoma! twice, once a very traditional production at a local professional theater, and once as the tour of the 2019 revival. Which. Fun fact. When I saw it, both Ado Annie and Will Parker were played by trans actors, so that was a T4T couple in a major national tour. They didn't even advertise that! I knew Sis was trans, because there had been talk about her when the tour cast was announced, but the Will actor was a replacement and I didn't know he was trans until an article about his role in Sweeney Todd came out that mentioned it.

And yeah, let's tangent about the 2019 Daniel Fish production. That revival completely transforms the musical without changing a word of dialogue. It is shocking. Like I knew exactly what I was walking into. I'd read about it. And I was still very much walking out in horror of what I just saw. People were walking out during bows because it was not the traditional fluffy show they were expecting. It makes you feel sick. It makes you feel complicit. It makes you think. It is far from perfect, just because there is only so much you can do to make a musical that was intended to be light and fluffy dark. It does its best to manage the tone, and generally does well, but it still isn't quite cohesive. Still, it highlights everything that isn't quite morally right in the original.

More than anything, productions like the Daniel Fish Oklahoma are why theater as a medium is important. Every production of a show is different, because it is always done in a different time and a different place. We all bring our own takes to the material. Directors do shows different to fit the environment they are staging them in. You can make a show completely different without changing a word. See the most recent revival of Cats for that (good god. Now that was good). And this is true of not just big Broadway revivals, but especially of local theater and small theater. Every performance and production of a show is different. And it will always say something different.

I am not like, a old time musical purist in the sense of "oh all theater now is bad." I mean, don't get me started on like, Hadestown or the Florence Gatsby. By god. But at the same time... I am just a sucker for that old theater sound. I like the older shows. They're the style I'm best at singing, and nothing quite hits like them. So yeah, Oklahoma is going to be close to my heart.

Oh! And have my favorite fun fact possibly ever! Oklahoma was originally titled "Green Grow the Lilacs," then "Away We Go." It was only retitled Oklahoma after its tryout in New Haven. And then, after the Boston tryout, they changed it again—to "Oklahoma!" I find it very amusing how important the exclamation point is to be worth adding.

[helluvagirlboss]

Hi! I’m relatively new to the fandom and for a while I had also wondered why this criticism was so prevalent because I myself was not intrigued by Helluva Boss until it began turning into a more character-focused story rather than being comedy first and foremost.

The argument that it should have just stayed as a "murder of the week" show had frustrated me because a show should be allowed to grow beyond its initial premise, but when speaking to people who critique the show in good faith, I began to understand what more people were actually saying, even if they weren't articulating it well.

It's not the direction necessarily. It’s the execution of it.

While I myself enjoy the direction the show is taking, I have no problem admitting that they did not shift to that direction flawlessly.

Let me explain.

When people say it should have been just about IMP, I think due to the way this critique is worded, fans misinterpret this as people asking for episodes that are exclusively about the missions, similar to episodes like "CHERUBS" and "Unhappy Campers", which were both poorly received.

But what I think people mean is that they wanted is for the business itself to feel relevant to the plot and for it to be the vehicle that pushes the character drama forward.

In S1, the murders themselves for the most part were not the point, but the episodes' plots were often kickstarted by the business itself, mainly episodes 1-6:

"Murder Family" - Is a standard murder of the week episode but it's also the episode that establishes everyone's dynamics and it kicks off what will become one of the more central conflicts of the show with Stolas and Blitz, especially the book deal. The job isn't the point but it's the reason this episode's plot is even happening.

"Loo Loo Land" - While it’s not a job-focused episode, it does showcase Blitz's skills as a marksman and that he is good at his job, while balancing out how his business deal with Stolas is affecting Stolas's life. Once again the job is not the point, but Blitz's business is the reason this episode plot is happening at all.

"Spring Broken" - Again, while the job itself is not the point, it is the reason this episode's plot happens at all and it’s the vehicle that allows the characters' interpersonal problems to come to light, mainly with Blitz and Loona.

"CHERUBS" - Okay this is just a mission episode and while it's not one of the show's best, it introduces villains that are going to become huge problems for this team moving forward. Once again the job is the reason this episode's plot happens.

"Harvest Moon Festival" - Not a job episode, but their jobs are still used as a vehicle for the characters' conflicts in the episode, mainly with Millie and her family judging her for going freelance, Moxxie feeling inadequate to Striker and his insecurities really hitting him hard when Blitz said he had offered for Striker to join IMP, and Striker trying to blackmail Blitz into joining him by saying he can be more than what he is currently doing. Not to mention the Stolitz business deal is the reason Stella hires an assassin to take out Stolas. So again, the job isn’t the point, but it is the reason these conflicts are happening in the first place.

"Truth Seekers" - Literally happens because they were doing their jobs on Earth. The job itself is not be the episode's point but, say it with me now, the job is the reason this episode happens at all. This episode has a great balance of comedy and character drama, and it brings Moxxie and Blitz's insecurities to the forefront, and it pushes for them to repair their relationship.

As you can see in the running thread of what I've been mentioning, the jobs themselves are not the point and were never the point even as early as the first episode, but they were the reason the episodes' plots happened and the reason why heart of the character conflicts were explored.

It had a very clear focus and consistent thread, even if not all the episodes were a 10/10.

But after "Truth Seekers" a very jarring shift happens in the story's focus, which brings us to "Ozzie's."

"Ozzie's" is the first episode where the job is not used as the vehicle to push this episode's plot. As great as this episode is, and as much as I still love watching it...when I watched it for the first time, I was thrown off by the direction. This was a very different formula than the previous episodes. And it's the same thing for "Queen Bee", where the assassination job is completely irrelevant to the story, even if I do like the episode.

So with the jarring shift, I could tell that they were trying to switch gears to a more narrative style story than simply episodic, which I was down for.

That brings us to Season 2. While a lot of the best moments in the show happen in this season, this is where the confused direction of the show's focus begin to rear its ugly head.

As much as I like S2, I cannot disagree with the critique that it feels very unfocused. It reads like the show realized what direction and tone it wanted to take, but they were stuck in the episode structure and tone of S1.

The first half of S2 felt like the plots were jumping around from one storyline to another, and it lacked a connecting thread.

This was also true in S1, but it was saved by the fact that one consistency throughout the episodes was that IMP was a plot device.

That is not really the case in S2.

"The Circus" is very much Stolas's origin story, and I still think it's one of the best episodes of the show in its current form. Because not only does it give us great insight into Stolas as a character, we also get to see how Blitz got ahold of his means to start his business. So IMP is still a relevant part of the episode.

"Seeing Stars" while this is not a job focused episode, it is an episode that showcases the problems that would occur should the grimoire, the very thing the cast needs to do their jobs, fall into the wrong hands.

The first two episodes felt like a very natural progression of the story, and IMP still felt like a relevant part of the episodes' plot structure, even if the show was growing beyond that.

But then S2 returned in 2023 and this is where the major flaws of the show's structure and focus began to be prevalent.

"Exes and Oohs" was a very Moxxie centered episode and a very exciting one, it served as a chance for Moxxie to show how joining IMP got him away from a life he hated and how he got to build a life that he wanted. And it was going well...but then Moxxie got knocked out and had to get saved by Millie and Blitz, and he doesn't actually get to show off "how good [he's] gotten at [his] job."

"Western Energy" shifted between two plotlines that kinda didn't feel like they belonged in the same episode even if I genuinely liked both of them, and it ends during a massive "oh shit" moment at the end. But IMP is completely irrelevant to this episode's plot. But considering the massive "oh shit" moment that it ended on, it seemed like there was going to be a follow-up to this.

And that follow-up was..."Unhappy Campers."

Okay I'm not going to beat around the bush, this was not a good episode. Moxxie and Millie were wildly out of character, the B-plot with Blitz and Barbie needed a LOT more time to breathe, and it seemed to be the episode that killed a LOT of hype for the show, and I understand it.

IMP may have been relevant to the episode, but the fact that that aspect of the episode was poorly handled, and the character drama was also poorly handled, and the fact that the events of "Western Energy" are not addressed at all kinda killed the momentum the show had been gaining.

The next two episodes "Oops" and the "Mammon's Magnificent Musical Midseason Special" were a vast improvement over some of the previous episodes, but they did expose two problems that people were having with S2:

First, that IMP had stopped being the vehicle that drove the episodes' plots.

Second, that it felt like the show was trying to find the plot.

"Oops" at the very least served a larger purpose to the overall plot because it wasn't strictly about Fizzarolli, it was about Blitz making up with someone he had wronged for the first time, and giving him hope that he can still make things right with the people in his life, which ties into Blitz's growth as a character, how he navigates his relationships, and how he navigates his business.

The Mammon episode however, I can't help but feel like it was a side quest that deviated from the main plot thread because it didn't tie into the Stolitz plot or IMP. It was and still is a very good episode, but it felt out of place

As good as episodes 6 and 7 of S2 were, the fact that Fizzarolli, a side character, had gotten fleshed out before Moxxie, Millie, and Loona who are all main characters is a writing choice I still don't understand.

Pair that with the fact that the episodes' plots were jumping around without one thread connecting them all when the team clearly wanted to take a more serialized approach to the show had started to frustrate some people, and honestly I get it.

During the first half of S2, the plot thread of IMP connecting all the episodes was dropped, but it also felt like the new plot thread of the season, that being Stolitz, had not been properly focused on because of the seven episodes in S2a, only three of them focused on Stolitz, and in two of the three of them, Stolitz was a side plot.

So when these episodes were airing with such large gaps of time in between them, if people couldn’t figure out where the show is going, or if they could figure it out and they just simply didn’t like it, it was easy to lose interest and drop the show entirely.

Which is a shame...because the second half of S2 actually improves on the problems of the first half as far as structure and focus goes.

The episodes began to focus more clearly on the Stolitz plotline and getting to the heart of their problems, mainly how fundamentally not on the same page Stolas and Blitz were.

"Full Moon" and "Apology Tour" both displayed how this relationship in its current form negatively affected them, and then "Ghostfuckers" showed the consequences their fuckery had on IMP because the ways in which Blitz fucked up with Stolas distressed him so much, he completely self-destructed and almost ruined the one thing he is most proud of: his business.

It took him completely breaking down and opening up to the friends he still had in his corner, specifically Millie, for him to get out of his funk.

And then in "Mastermind" we finally got to the consequences of their business and the Stolitz deal: they almost all got executed.

It took Stolas pulling out all the stops and manipulating the narrative to paint himself as the villain to save them all.

The finale ends with the consequences of everything Blitz and Stolas have done catching up to them: Stolas is exiled, stripped of his powers, and disowned by his daughter, forcing him to actually see the way Blitz lives his life.

Now the two of them have to navigate their relationship and the dynamics of IMP with a new outlook.

The latter half of S2 connects the episodes to each other and makes both the Stolitz plotline and the IMP plotline the connecting thread, and it begins to bring Millie, Moxxie, and Loona back into the spotlight.

So to make a long story short, the problem the show has isn't that it shifted to a more character focused drama rather than being about their job. It's that it didn't figure out what its focus wanted to be yet, and it didn't figure out how to balance the new direction while keeping the core of their initial premise intact until the middle of S2.

It felt like the show spent the first half of S2 trying to find the plot and by the time they actually found the plot, a lot of the show’s initial fans gave up entirely.

This valid critique has, unfortunately, been marred by people wording it very poorly and often with a tone that's so condescending and aggressive, that even the fans who agree with them don't wanna engage.

The abundance of bad faith, Vivziepop-hateboner-driven, analyses that don't actually critique the show thoughtfully and just assume the absolute worst of its messaging and of the characters' intentions, does not help at all.

But now that the new direction is clear, while I think it is valid to walk away from the show because it's no longer what you're looking for in it, I don't find it valid to keep watching the show and endlessly hating on it and saying the new direction in and of itself is bad writing, especially when they are executing that new direction with much more finesse than they did previously.

And I'm not saying that from the perspective of someone who thinks you can never critique this show ever.

I just made an entire post critiquing it.

But what I did was focus on what the show is trying to do and how well or not well it's doing it.

But if all your critiques boil down to hating what the show is trying to do, the characters arcs it's working to expand on, and hating its themes in essence...maybe that's a sign that the show is simply not for you, rather than the show's quality.

This show's new direction is not going to be for everyone. It is for me, but it won't be for others, and that's okay.

Besides I think it's important to be able to recognize when a show you like gets things wrong. Helluva Boss is not a perfect show by any stretch of the imagination, but I still love it. I love these characters and like I said, it has improved in many aspects even if the problems are not gone entirely.

In my honest opinion, I genuinely think this new direction is better for the show long term because it opens up more room for character development, I just hope that the improvements they've made in its execution in the latter half of S2 continue into S3. And based on the way S2 ended and with what the VAs and the creative team have been saying about S3, I have a lot of hope for that being the case.

If there’s anything in here you disagree with me about or you think I didn’t explain well, or if you think there’s something I was uncharitable in my criticisms of, I’m open to discussion!

I am extremely excited to see what the show has in store moving forward. Season 3 cannot get here soon enough!

(P.S. I'm living through my first proper Helluva Boss hiatus and it is KILLING me lol)

Can someone tell me in the helluva boss fandom how this series should be just being about the imps killing fuck ass humans is somehow more interesting than what’s happening right now.

Because as someone who grew up and still watches monster/situation of the week stories (power rangers, TMNT, kamen Rider) I don’t see the appeal like at all.

[anbroids]

i am loving your dirkjake fic so far. your characterization of jake hits close to home for me? i sometimes feel like all the complexities he has in canon are hard to translate into fanworks but i think you are doing him justice and i just wanted to say it is very appreciated!

hooooooooooooly shit literally the best compliment to receive ever i'm foaming at the mouth thank you so much

100% most daunting part of writing a homestuck work was the jake writing (right next to jane) justtttt personally bc i didn't want to write over his issues / flaws for the sake of storytelling and more importantly writing dirkjake. idk how successful i was at that because with so much shit just going on in the story i wasn't sure if i was striking a good balance between character driven moments and plot points, so it feels great to hear that some of those complexities still felt present and hit home for you! thank you so much for reading and leaving me this lovely ask <3

i have like ten million jake thoughts inside my head at all times you have no idea so i am absolutely going to take this moment to go on a tangent under a read more

i love all the alpha kids so very dearly but out of the four of them i think jake is probably the one that makes me feel the most batshit insane (also how i feel about jade with the beta kids too) he's got all this layered shit going on in the comic. like i truly want to dissect him under a microscope.

i must credit tomatograter for a lot of the ways i read him as a character. if you haven't already, go read their dirkjake manifesto right nowwwwww it is full of delicious meta analysis.

i think that just due to the nature of dirk's popularity as a character and the amount of time spent in the comic that flush out his issues in canon and post-canon (specifically while handling those issues seriously-ish (?) and not getting into too much jokey or cruel territory, which is how i believe jake's issues are treated in canon and post-canon just in my humble opinion espppppp post-canon), a lot of dirkjake fanworks put dirk and his issues as sort of the front and center of the narrative. i find that a lot of works in the hurt/comfort category set up dirk as the one hurting and jake as the comforter by proxy. but this seems to extend outside the genre too like i just often see works that are a little more dirk centric and jake primarily functions as the "love interest" role.

when you write jake as the comforter, it’s easier to write him as more grounded, confident, and secure so he can be the vehicle for dirk to figure his shit out. but, i am first and foremost a jake enjoyer specifically because i think his flaws are SO FUN......... i like that jake is a coward. i like that he is so guided by fear and self preservation that it makes him neglect or hurt the people around him and cause problems for himself. a lot of people read this as jake being kind of a selfish person which i think is a sound argument sure, but i like the term self-preserving a little bit more because of the contrast it makes with dirk, who is so frequently cutting off his own head self-sacrificing for his own agenda. i like that he’s embarrassing and a crybaby (affectionate) and does a lot of cringe shit all the time. and i didn’t want to erase those qualities for the sake of "fixing" dirkjake.

there is a lot i could add here too about how i don't think dirk centric dirkjake stuff is bad either. the derse characters esp the striders are popular for a lot of reasons in the comic that i won't get into and i do honestly feel like people get hung up on their popularity just to be contrarian sometimes and it comes off a bit mean-spirited to me? all of that being said, ig sometimes i wish there was more of an attitude when interpreting characters meta relationships etc of if it's not for you, just leave it at that. no need to call it bad or wrong or cringe etc.

and god there is so much MORE i could say about how i personally do enjoy any and all readings of hs characters. i dislike subscribing to one kinda reading and even if someone writes or interprets a character like jake differently from me i still find it very interesting and enjoyable and fun! and i appreciate that there is a variety of writers and fans that interpret him in all kinds of ways, i think he's just an interesting character to explore in general? so all this being said i am very glad this reading hit home to you! but also i don't want my response to come off as... YES MY READING OF HIM IS THE ONLY CORRECT ONE bc what the fuck do i know... this is just my own reading for one particular story. i think it's good to have an open mind to all kinds of hcs. i'm a believer in the more takes the merrier, i like to see em all.

but anyways yeah i... don't really know how well i've done in portraying all these jake thoughts so far in the work but i guess those were just my intentions going into it? to balance them both out and keep the jake writing feeling authentic to those certain flaws. those are the things i really like to see explored in fanworks myself so i hoped to do the same!

for the first homestuck work i published i wanted it to be like a proper chaptered adventure au with some world building and an actual set-up, climax, conclusion situation just to try something new for me but in the future i would love to just do more jake-centric oneshots where i try to dissect his brain for a couple thousand melodramatic words and call it a day. now that's indulgence baby.

god but i could really go on about dirkjake as narrative foils for days but i won't. i already wrote an essay here and will leave it at that.

[strangcrdoctor]

∞So here’s a headcanon that I’ve been meaning to put into words for a long while but have never taken the time to. But I’m going to put it under a cut because it has to do with the details of Stephen’s accident and the medical trauma he survived therein.

This is specifically based off of the 2016 film (which I also think did a spectacular job of justifying the crash, btw - road conditions, model of car, impact points and all), but I’ll toss in a few cents about how comic iterations in previous generations might be different just for shits ad giggles and because I love shit like this. 

First and foremost, especially working from the earliest DS comic canon, the cars were of the age and variety of “screaming metal death-trap.��� Seatbelts weren’t required by law in the 1960s, and in fact many cars didn’t even come with them from the manufacturers because they weren’t considered a safety requirement. Granted they were made of hard body steel and could take impacts well by virtue of being fucking tanks, but the tire quality and torque ratios were... not made for the speeds they could suddenly get to, which did top out at 80-110 mph (in luxury models) with suspensions that were not clement for sustaining speed and road grip at the same time. It was statistically common that even non-reckless driving could result in horrible injuries under the wrong circumstances, therefore. Add in a 1960s inflated male ego, and frankly it’s amazing Stephen didn’t just die. Which is the entire plot point, I’ll grant. I also headcanon that in that era (and even regarding modern Stephen’s collector’s dream cars) Stephen would likely have been in a Rolls Royce Phantom or a Cadillac Coupe de Ville. He would definitely have his eye on a Jaguar E-Type (still does), but back in the 1960s maintaining one would have been more trouble than it was worth even by his standards and budget.

All that aside, let’s talk about the crash in the 2016 Doctor Strange movie. First and foremost, the overall accident itself is totally feasible for the model of car Stephen was driving. Lamborghini and other luxury super-car manufacturers have exceedingly specific impact testing, which is focused - unfortunately - more for track condition impacts than civilian driving conditions. In essence, super cars are built to handle rolling and lateral shear impacts to frankly insane degrees. They are not, however, well built for head-on collisions by nature of the priority of aerodynamics in the design. This feeds into why the Lamborghini in particular was undoubtedly an active choice on behalf of the producers. What’s notable about the crash is that in spite of the glance off of the side of the other car, the Lamborghini stays relatively solidly on the road surface which is design accurate. (There’s actually an entire other tangent I could get off on about this, but I will refrain.) Where things go haywire, however, is where that glancing blow hit on the vehicle. Now with many super-car companies, they mount the engine in the “trunk” of the vehicle, which improves traction and opens up space for the frankly insanely large engine blocks that, oh, I don’t know, V12s require. This pushes the cabin toward the front of the vehicle, and leaves the “trunk” space on the front end where most standard cars keep the engine. This makes the front light, but because of air intake and drag it maintains traction via the aerodynamics of the front grille. The back also has improved traction from the weight of the engine sitting over the rear axel, which is a big additive benefit because most sports cars are rear-wheel drive, and in front-engine vehicles this makes the back axel lighter and prone to fish-tailing on tight corners. Not so with Stephen’s Lamborghini. In essence, the weight of the vehicle sits on the axel that bears the drivetrain.

That rear traction is precisely what makes everything go wrong for this particular crash. Because the weight of the vehicle and the wheel drive are all centered in the back, having that portion of the vehicle get bumped is like flicking a coin to get it spinning. The front end of the vehicle, which is substantially lighter and only has the steering column and brakes to counter the inertia of that rear engine, is abjectly disadvantaged for regaining control of the vehicle. Even the most experienced racer doesn’t have the reaction time to regain control on a two-lane mountain highway, in the rain, at night, from an accident that realistically takes less than 10 seconds from impact to exit through the guard rail. In essence, there was zero chance of Stephen being able to recover as soon as the front end of the vehicle impacted the rock wall and put the car’s trajectory onto “death frisbee” instead of “manageable swerve.” 

This is also the second instance where the super-car design seals Stephen’s fate. So because Lamborghinis have an empty front end - again the “trunk” is where the engine is on most other cars, so essentially empty, un-structured, un-reinforced space - head on collisions absolutely crush the front ends. This also explains and in fact makes viable why Stephen’s hands go through the dash in the compound impacts: the front end is getting folded in like a tin can.

Now we get to the dark and scary medical part of the accident. Obviously the accident was catastrophically bad considering the car careened off of a steep mountain slope and impacted all the way down until it reached the river at the bottom of the ravine. But as we saw from the post-accident scenes, Stephen’s injuries weren’t isolated to his hands only. As was made clear from the state of his face, he definitely had cranial trauma - to the point that it seems very lucky he didn’t lose his left eye - which involved contusions at least to the orbit of his left eye and very probably a concussion, and it seems all but impossible that he didn’t also have thoracic and potentially leg trauma as well. Thoracic either from directly impacting the steering column (which I find very likely), or impacting the door (feasible, and does feed into why I think his left hand is worse off than his right, given from the production stills his left hand has eight - five pins and three plates - of the eleven in his hands). He definitely would have had broken ribs and internal bruising or bleeding from those impacts. The leg injuries are also probable for drivers especially because of impact against the dash and steering column.

Now we start getting to the painful part. Yes, just now. So as Christine mentions after Stephen regains consciousness (probably not for the first time but probably the first time cogently), the “Golden Hours” passed while he was in the car waiting for the mercy flight crew to find him. Now, the Golden Hours is actually the Golden Hour - it’s the span of 60 minutes immediately following intense trauma and injury. So not only was Stephen upside down, in and out of consciousness, alone, half-submerged in a river, in a car that could blow at any moment, for more than an hour, it surpassed the hour that was most vital to his potential for nerve recovery. It’s also frankly astounding that Stephen didn’t die from shock, hypovolemia, or hypothermia during the hours it took for them to find him. I will also just mention in passing that jaws of life situations are touchy enough as is with cars, but with someone as injured as Stephen was, in the exceedingly precarious position his car was in, the emergency responders would have had a hard fucking time getting him out alive at all.

But wait, there’s more! So after all of this, he has to get flown back to New York where the actual work of saving his ass begins. And again, I will emphasize that it’s unavoidable that Stephen - who was canonically on the table for ELEVEN HOURS - was not only in surgery for his hands. As a matter of fact, medically his hands would have been the lesser of many priorities. They would have spent some preliminary time trying to make sure his circulation was intact, but to be frank, amputation is a safer, viable option for hands, and they would have openly made that choice on his behalf and prioritized any cranial or thoracic injury. Hell, even prioritize saving his eye, because the trauma of eye removal/optic nerve disruption has a greater chance for fatality than amputation. So Stephen’s hands didn’t just lose the Golden Hour, but would not have gotten operated on for up to three to five additional hours, and that’s under-estimating the complexity his other, higher priority traumas.

Put it all together and what do you get? A man that, by rights, shouldn’t be alive at all. And who, rather than valuing the life that he got to still have, held it against himself that he could no longer inhabit the life he’d had. 

Secondarily, in light of all of the above and the seven consecutive surgeries that Stephen put himself through, you can absolutely bet your lunch money that this man developed an addiction to pain medication. It takes the body up to six months to filter out anesthetic, and given Stephen surely pushed his surgery scheduling to be more quick than advisable for recovery, his endocrine system would have been in free fall. To say nothing of the fact that the only way to deal with that much invasive surgery isn’t just eating healthy and hydrating...

Also please never forget that Stephen’s intern, Billy, was on the phone with him when the crash happened. So Billy was absolutely the one that made the call, and was undoubtedly sitting there, watching the clock as the Golden Hour slipped by and Stephen’s chances of survival dwindled by the second.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.∞

[seyaryminamoto]

Been thinking for a while that I’d like to do a light behind-the-scenes glimpse into one of the themes in the newest Gladiator story arc. While it’s not the very core element of the arc, the source of Azula’s current struggle in the story came from... an unexpected place.

Unexpected as in, it came from LOK.

Okay, in all fairness, it’s not quiiiiiiiite something that came from LOK itself, but it’s a take on an idea I had while pondering the various reasons why Asami’s character wouldn’t really take off for me in the show. Well, beyond the obvious reasons why it wouldn’t *cough* Book 2 *cough*... 

I’ve always said I’m more than a little confused by how a character like Asami, with just 20-something years of age at the time of LOK Book 4, has enough talent and know-how to not only be a top-of-the-line engineer (which, yes, is believable enough on its own), but to also be a CEO in her own company (I gueeeess since the company falls into her hands and she mismanages it plenty in Book 2, it’s not that impossible to feature this in conjunction with the first thing?), a clothing designer, an architect AND a urbanist, capable of driving every machine known to man, an outstanding hand-to-hand fighter...!

... If you really think about it in cold blood, it feels like a little too much.

BUT. Instead of boringly accusing Asami of being a Mary Sue (which I’m sure some people might) for having a thousand talents that we don’t really see her work for, that she just developed offscreen, I thought the show would have benefited greatly from actually focusing on how Asami is handling the constant, desperate need of so many authorities in Republic City to have HER resolving all their problems.

Therefore, instead of a Reunion episode with a conflict focused on rescuing a kidnapped Wu (whom I profoundly dislike as a character, not for his role, but his personality is simply barf-worthy for me and the amount of focus Book 4 gave him was, as a lot of things, detrimental to the show as a whole, in my opinion), I thought LOK’s Book 4 could have instead featured a Reunion episode focused on Asami... which, of course, would also be a nice way to fix some of the lackluster onscreen development of Korrasami. So... let’s go onwards with my episode pitch:

Picture that Korra is about to reunite with Mako and Asami for the first time in all those years, same as in canon. Asami arrives! Yay, Korra is happy, Asami compliments her hair, just like in canon... aaaand then Asami says she can’t really stay, she just dropped by quickly because this REALLY matters to her, but there’s this pressing issue going on at the company and she has to deal with it RIGHT NOW, because no one else can. So, woops.

Korra is completely disappointed (and probably doesn’t even understand WHY she’s so disappointed, hinting at deeper feelings for Asami that Korra hasn’t even stopped to reason with yet), but she sees Asami off while pretending this doesn’t bug her (for Asami’s benefit), and ends up spending the evening with Mako but clearly she’s not enjoying it as much as she hoped to. Which could result in Mako being pretty surprised by whatever closeness and bond those two seem to have now, noticing that he seems to have fallen to second place in Korra’s eyes somehow.

So! Skipping ahead, perhaps to the next day, Korra tries to check on Asami again! :D Oh, but she’s got to work on the airbenders’ outfits, some have been having trouble with the aerodynamics of it, and it’s just not working as Asami intended, so more calculations are needed! She takes to studying on the subject frantically, has to figure out what formula she’s missing or messing up, and while Korra offers to help, she knows there’s not really anything she can do to give Asami a hand since this stuff is well out of Korra’s area of expertise.

Then, when Asami is finally finished, OH NO! An emergency in the train she inaugurated at the start of the season! Asami has to go deal with that too! And of course, Korra goes too, while wondering how TF does this damn city even run without Asami...

... And then realizing it actually doesn’t. There’s a president who basically dumps all the difficult issues on Asami because she has the know-how and the resources to deal with all the city’s problems, there’s an airbending master who requested for that same girl to help with the designs of his people’s combat outfits instead of dealing with it himself or finding someone else to help, there’s an entire vehicle company (ranging from cars to AIRPLANES) that depends on HER. And it’s just SO. MUCH. SHIT. For a girl who’s like... 20? 21? How old is Asami at this point? xD I don’t even remember. But the point I’m trying to get to...

Is that Asami should be overwhelmed. She hasn’t had anyone helping her, she deals with everything alone, and it doesn’t matter how hard she tries to work through this, there’s always one more problem, one more obstacle, one more bothersome thing she has to tackle, and nobody seems to stop and think that maybe she could use a break. That maybe she needs a nap because she hasn’t had one in 20 months. That maybe things in this damn city would be in a better place if people didn’t rely on her, and her alone, to resolve the bulk of their problems.

Korra, though, with her latest character growth (... that I’m not really fond of anyhow, but still...), has become a lot better at understanding people’s emotions. And her job as an Avatar is, amongst many things, to help people: someone she cares about deeply, her best friend future girlfriend, is currently going through so much crap and the truth is, Asami needs help. Whether Asami realizes it or not, she needs it. And so, whether it’s Korra’s job or not to help her, that’s all Korra wants to do right now. 

So Korra enlists Mako and then all three deal with whatever that train emergency might be! Asami probably rejects their help at first, out of force of habit of doing everything alone lately, until Korra tells her she doesn’t have to do that anymore. And then Asami’s mind is blown because yeah, maybe there’s a bunch of older people in charge who are happy to dump all responsibilities on her! But that doesn’t mean she has to accept it meekly and save all their asses time after time... and it also doesn’t mean she has to deal with everything alone.

After the train problem is resolved, Korra and Asami (maybe Mako too? But for Korrasami’s purposes, it can just be those two) get to have a small chat about what life has been like for Asami since Korra vanished. The conversation doesn’t merely focus on Hiroshi, which... *cringes* let’s not get into that. It focuses on Asami and the hardships she’s dealing with, seeing as the city is basically using her as a non-bender Avatar, in the sense of leaving all the problem-solving to Asami alone. Korra probably apologizes, Asami probably tells her not to feel guilty, because she has had it rough, and Asami understands that better than anyone, especially after what she’s been through lately.

It’s a cute, heartfelt moment, not necessarily romantic yet, but featuring a strong, meaningful bonding scene between these two! Asami wants to go back to work on some pending stuff, and Korra respects that, though she warns Asami not to overdo it. Asami promises she won’t... and the next time Korra checks on her, Asami is asleep on her desk or something like that. Korra smiles and puts a blanket on her shoulders, and when someone else arrives to say something REALLY BAD is going on, Korra shushes them and decides to deal with it herself (as long as she can), and, if she can’t, she’ll find someone else to do it in Asami’s stead so the girl can sleep safe and sound for the first time in ages.

Episode pitch over! :’D

*siiiiiiiiiigh* alright, so yeah, this was something I originally thought of as a replacement episode, to further explore and establish a bond between Korra and Asami that wouldn’t really resolve all of the rushed-Korrasami problems... but it would make it so much clearer that those two share a different bond, and a very special understanding of each other, that the other two Krew members simply don’t have with either of them. It’d deepen their relationship, but the most important element about this for me was that it’d be an Asami-focused episode and plotline. However brief it would have been, my idea was to feature Asami facing her own problems, not problems based on her relationship with other people (be it family or romance). It was also a way to show that she’s not indestructible or just the go-to problem solver with neverending resources and talents that the plot can exploit at leisure whenever it feels like it. And, most importantly, that Asami can’t and SHOULDN’T be the answer to every problem in Republic City, especially when she’s only delivering those answers off-screen, offering the viewers next to no chance to see her in action, kicking ass at all the things she apparently has insane expertise on.

As far as I know, the two LOK comic trilogies haven’t really done much for Asami either. I haven’t read them so I could be wrong, but from what I can gather from comments of people who have read them and the books’ summaries, she’s still Korra’s girlfriend first and foremost, gets kidnapped so she can be used as a hostage to manipulate Korra, and then gets brainwashed into fighting against Korra...? If this is truly how it is, again, Asami just gets reduced to a satellite character, in the sense that she just revolves around other people as though that’s all there is to her character, canon-wise. Which... makes me sad. She had potential, plenty of potential worth exploring, if only the show’s writing had been more paused and allowed their characters to breathe and grow organically, as a consequence of their own actions and decisions rather than by being forced into hellish situations persistently until they broke out of desperation.

So... LOK really had the chance to explore a much more human side of Asami that they’ve neglected to acknowledge so far (from what I know), a chance to deepen her character by displaying that no one of such young age should have so many difficult responsibilities dumped on her shoulders... which, again, could be expanded into a metaphor for the Avatar’s role, showing both Korra and Asami as two highly capable women who could achieve great things... but who need a chance to be normal too, once in a while. From the looks of it, neither of them have had that chance in canon (yes, Korra was stuck in a compound all her life but Asami must have been stuck in constant lessons at every discipline she has mastered? If she can deal with all those jobs of hers as flawlessly as she has, I don’t think she had much of a life before LOK started), and it would have been really nice of the deeper, darker show LOK wanted to be to acknowledge that a bunch of grown-ups, who had relatively smooth lives in their youth, dumping so much heavy work on a pair of girls who are just becoming young adults and barely had childhoods of their own, is just damn nasty :’D just as it was nasty in a show featuring a much younger cast... *innocent whistling*

Alas, this was just one idea that won’t ever go anywhere in canon, as is obvious. I’m sure I mentioned it at least once before, not as thoroughly as I did just now, but this is more or less what I had in mind. If you dump a thousand things on a character, it would only be fair to let them suffer for it, to a fault. Maybe don’t feature them whining because they have soooo much work to do... but turn them into workaholics! Show that they’re struggling to make everything pay off, that this kind of burden isn’t child’s play because in real life, it simply wouldn’t be.

But, as there’s next to no chance Asami will ever get this sort of development, I merely stashed this idea on my back burner, in case it might come in handy in the future... 

... And then I returned to it once Gladiator’s Enforcers became a solid reality. Azula has been dealing with challenges that are rather different from those Asami dealt with... but ultimately, the responsibilities both girls have taken up, Asami in canon and Azula in my story, were just insanely big. Azula, in Gladiator, has had very little time to spare for “secondary” pursuits since the previous arc, and in the current one that has become a problem because she simply CAN’T stop working. She goes home and instead of going to bed, keeps on working. She’s constantly on edge, assuming that any time not spent working is wasted time, time she should take advantage of to further improve her projects and endeavors... to the point where people are starting to notice she’s slightly overwhelmed, extremely stressed out, and needs to calm down :’D

I really had wanted to explore these themes in overachieving characters, who take up far too many responsibilities, more than are reasonable. While I’ll always consider it a really big waste of potential that LOK never gave Asami this particular dimension, despite her character 100% warranted it, at least I had the chance to explore this with Azula instead, and I’m honestly really pleased with the result, because it suits her really well too. The outcome won’t be at all like what I just outlined for the LOK episode that never was, and the current story arc will take a vastly different direction... which is why I thought it would be fun to explain where this particular, new dimension of Azula’s character had come from.

Aaaanyways... the bottomline is, Return to Shu Jing is here. And I reeeeeally love this arc. I hope that those of you reading and staying up to date with the story will love it too!

[forevercloudnine]

Selina is my favourite DC character and I still can't explain why Tom King's version of her BOTHERS me. Can't put my finger on it. I appreciate him giving me more of her, I won't lie... I just wish she was... a bit different...

...Mayhaps the dialogue is a part of it?

[sigh] I have a complicated relationship with King's writing. He's got concepts I find very interesting, and he clearly puts a lot of thought into his stories, which I've had a lot of fun analyzing. But his execution leaves to be desired more often than not. Wish he had a better editor, who could catch the fact he makes most of characters sound too similar... both in internal narration and in the dialogue of multiple characters, King has a favorite pattern that goes "I establish this fact exists. I exist, I manifest, I come into being." Statement X, then repetition of it with various rephrasing, exactly like in the panel above. Once you notice it, it becomes quite grating. Then there's the overuse of poetry excerpts or songs for "deep" reasons, which again, an editor could've toned down a bit, but alas.

With King's portrayal of Selina, you can tell he wants to write a Smart Independent Woman Who Needs No Man. He wants her to come across as Feminist and Empowered, but he doesn't quite know how to do this kind of character justice; how to show it, and not tell it. He makes Selina say stuff like the above, proclaim that she doesn't want to let men control her or tame her, but he doesn't really manage to explore that in more depth through her actions. Or, he veers into the extreme with showing it, like with Selina fighting and jumping around on rooftops while obviously far along in her pregnancy, or her chopping up Joker's corpse into bits and then decorating a Christmas tree with it (examples from Batman/Catwoman, like the panel above). Obviously this is just my personal opinion, but I hope this helps in figuring out what bothers you about Selina's portrayal.

Tbh, I have similar problems with King's depiction of Bruce, and many other characters he writes. In his stories, characters are often the vehicles of a concept; furniture in a room. They don't manage to feel like separate real people, but rather cogs in the machine that is the narrative. Which is why they can come across as hollow, and when you read their dialogue you hear the writer, rather than them... if that makes any sense.

[starsfadingbutilingeron]

@lesbianjubilee​ i agree with you completely. the portrayal of tinkerbell in the disney fairies movies when she’s the protagonist is completely different from her iteration in the books by gail carson levine and even in the disney peter pan movie, in both of which she is short-tempered and mean. it’s been a long time since i read the books so bear with me, but when i first read them what struck me the most about them initially was that tinkerbell was not the main character. i think this was very clever of levine because it allowed tinkerbell to remain as she is in the animated movie without sacrificing a protagonist who is kind and more mild-tempered. also, tinkerbell not being the main character in the books set the stage for the story being more about pixie hollow and the different types of fairies and the interplay between neverand and the mainland rather than being all about one specific character who just so happens to live in this really well-developed, dynamic setting. by making tinkerbell the main character of the movies, not only did her character get completely changed to fit this disney mold of “dewey-eyed, sweet-tempered, optimistic but ultimately clueless young woman” but the movie suffered a lack of the intricate world-building the books provide because the plot was so centralized around trying to legitimize tinkerbell’s re-characterization that nothing else really happens except for her individual character arc. 

i’m starting to ramble here but you can even see this problem in the choice to switch the core secondary fairies (fira, rani, beck, bess, and lily in the books) to characters who were only tertiary in the books (iridessa, silvermist, fawn, and rosetta in the movies). it has never sat right with me that this change was made, and now that i’m older i think it’s because even as a child i could recognize it as a way to make exploring the world of pixie hollow less interesting than legitimizing this new tinkerbell. in the books, the different fairies each have their own unique personalities and eventual individual subplots, serving as vehicles to take the reader to different parts of neverland and show the unique uses of each fairy talent. in the movie, as far as i can remember, the secondary fairies exist to show that there are different talents among fairies but first and foremost exist to give tinkerbell a posse of yes-men. the only secondary character that retains her status from the books is vidia, and that is only because she’s portrayed as the short-tempered, mean, cynical antagonist to tinkerbell. even there though i take issue with the portrayal of vidia in the movies as being simultaneously much more conniving and much less ruthless than she was in the books. where vidia commits serious crimes in the books against mother dove, in the movie her actions are reduced to being mean to tinkerbell just so tinkerbell can have an adversary to stand up to. 

all of this to say, tinkerbell’s not the only element from the books that was watered down to make this movie a “disney brand” success. although i will acknowledge that i don’t think these movies are necessarily bad (the later ones have some interesting elements), altogether i think they are a heaping pile of disappointment to those of us who read and loved the books as children. it’s a problem endemic in disney films where the writing is afraid to take risks with the protagonist, especially in movies marketed towards young girls. off the top of my head, i cannot site you one female disney protagonist in recent memory who had a truly undeniably negative personality trait that got in her way. it’s weak writing, and children can recognize it. i recognized it when i was eleven, i recognized it when i was sixteen, and i recognize it now. the tinkerbell movies are the first memory i have of being disappointed by a film adaptation of a book series i loved, and it’s something i won’t forget any time soon.

[ssaalexblake]

for the meme: criminal minds, doctor who, star trek (choose any!), the west wing, buffy or angel series

I literally have no idea how to rank these in preference order, wow. I’ve been staring at this for a week.  

A lot of these show i love them when i love them and hate ‘em when i hate ‘em??? 

6- Angel. This is a show i keep revisiting because i really love the cast of characters (mostly), Angel, Cordy, Gunn, Fred, Lilah and Darla first and foremost, but i have nothing against Wes, Lorne and Doyle? Lindsay was a boring villain, imo, and they missed such a chance when they decided to play him off angel more than Lilah because i think they could have made Far more interesting points by comparing them, tbh. That’s a pet peeve but i have a Huge shitlist for this show. But i really Do love the characters, and on occasion the plots Do show moments of brief, utter brilliance but then they swerve away from it Every Time and it’s So Annoying. I did not mention connor here because literally Everything to do with him is one of those ‘brief moments of brilliance that were swerved away from like they were contagious’ things. 

5- btvs... I Love this show but a lot of that is tied into childhood nostalgia??? If i watched it for the first time now it’d be hard to get through because i’d not know which parts to skip through for ease of watching, because i have very firm ideas on what episode and scenes need to be muted or skipped full stop by now and i feel like my ability to edit the show to my liking May have clouded some of my judgment on its quality on the whole lol. But my version of the show? Where i only watch the parts i like? Way higher than 5 here. 

4- TWW, would rank higher but seasons 5 and 6 are very slow. And I have to suffer through the Sorkin Self Insert Character(tm) because it’s a sorkin show. Loses more marks for creating female characters to shove Terrible feminism opinions on so it’s Socially Acceptable b/c it’s a woman saying it not him. In the shadow of two gunmen parts one and two are two of the best episodes of tv full stop, though, and honestly, season 2 on the whole is one of the stronger seasons of tv i’ve ever watched. I also really like s7, unpopular but it’s well paced and by like ep4?? it hits its stride and stays that way the whole time. Though, idk if i’m the only non american with this feeling, but on occasion some of the every day american value politics on the show is so Batshit i lose all sense of immersion? Not the Big Plots, i know those americanisms because of an awareness of rl politics and it no longer surprises me, but the small taken for granted stances that they mention offhandedly that make me go... what??????

3- Criminal Minds. Just over half this show was... at best average and at worst just straight up Bad, but damn when it was good it was good. I’m actually still mad at Patinkin for ruining the end of the Gideon arc because i may not Like the character as a man, but Damn he was such a well written and fascinating character and the story they were telling with him was fascinating and it was ruined. Also, this show will always have a place in my heart for killing him off years later out of sheer passive aggression. Honestly? i could write a 5000 word essay on my feelings on this show on the whole and i could never hope to say so briefly, but when it got it right this show Really got it right, and that actually makes up for a Great many hours of bullshit i watched in the name of it. And since it ended Tons of people have started loving Blake and i am Vindicated. 

 2- Star Trek Discovery - This show only has two seasons so it’s probably benefitting from not having ‘been on air too long-itis’ but i really do love it. And, truthfully, i could pick at it because it’s made some Choices and done some Real bullshit, but others could and have deconstructed that better than me... But also it has some great stuff in it too? i’d just end up writing an essay, again, but imo the good outweighs the bad, and this is way more my Thing in style than the older ones because?? idk, it just is. (tho.... !Picard Spoiler! what Does the trek universe have against gay latin men named Hugh??? That is weirdly specific.)

1- Doctor who - Okay, full disclosure, i won’t watch a lot of the new stuff, sometimes because i find the writing bad and sometimes because it’s written well enough to be infuriating, But like, when i love it, i really love it? I can honestly say watching s12 was the most fun i’ve had watching a season of tv in at least a decade and It was so satisfying to see all the threads everybody had picked up on in s11 come to fruition (and, also, vindicating lbr) and to see 13′s veneer fracture so completely. But then again, i’ve always enjoyed things for their character writing first and foremost and imo, chibnall’s always been good at that. The fact that the plots make sense 95% of the time too is an added bonus i would not actually expect from any era of dw. I just watched ten work a phone by putting a stethoscope to it. The fact that i don’t actually feel it needs to make sense probably helps it placing this high in this very over thought random meme i’ve spent a week on. Classic who is Also great because usually even when it’s bad it’s funny due to monsters made of carpet and papier-mâché. I even like the cybermen as villains in classic who and i am Not a fan of them in nu!who (the whole frankenstein mary shelley angle won me over b/c it was an interesting take on it with how they merged it in with classic horror, but i’m not big on them as a villain. Probably helped that they were kind of a vehicle for the main plot more than there for their own trouble making abilities? i find the whole type of narrative based around them is said better with the borg in star trek tbh). 

thank you! i did just win the over thinking prize, though. 

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: You Should See Me in a Crown

I’m not a massive fan of the classic Sherlock Holmes tales. I’ve read them all and appreciate the legacy and what they’ve inspired in other works, but they’ve never been my favorite tales. I actually enjoy the various interpretations and re-imaginings much more than the core mythos. I like RDJ’s take in film and the more modern spin with Elementary but, by far, my favorite rendition of Sherlock was the BBC version that made Benadryl Cumquatt a star. That show is inspired, at least the first two seasons, and it blessed me with one of the greatest television villains i have ever had the pleasure of witnessing; Andrew Scott’s Moriarty. My goodness, is he the greatest adaption of that villain! He even looks the part. I say all of this because Enola Holmes dropped today on Netflix. It’s a completely different take on the Holmes mythos centering on Sherlock’s younger sister, Enola and starring Millie Bobby Brown of Stranger Things fame. This is her vehicle, i think she’s producing it, so I'm curious how well it’ll fare. These Stranger kids are all growing up and trying to transition into adult stardom. Finn Wolfhard is doing fine and Millie seems to be taking things into her own hands. Let’s see in those hands are steady enough to push her into the next phase of her career.

The Good

I’m not one for that old timey Victorian aesthetic but i can appreciate the effort it must take to give it life in the modern age. The costumes and sets in this thing are exquisite. This is gorgeous and meticulously crafted film.

This film’s direction is pretty okay. The narrative, itself, leaves a lot to be desired but what is presented, has been deftly constructed. Credit to Harry Bradbeer for that. Dude has directed a few episodes of both Fleabag and Killing Eve so he’s got the chops. I just wish the fare this time was a little more substantial so he could really sink his chops into it.

This cast is loaded. There are several names in supporting roles worth note. Adeel Akhtar, Fiona Shaw, Frances de la Tour, and Susie Wokama all make memorable appearances. Louis Partridge is a little flaccid in the love interest role but he does enough to distract.

Millie Bobby Brown makes this movie. Her Enola Holmes is brilliant, witty, and full of that ardent, rebellious, energy all teenage girls are filled with. Though er story is one of mystery and intrigue, it is, first and foremost, kind of a coming-of-age tale. Brown does a decent job carrying this film and never falters in the same space as older, seasoned, actors like Helena Bonham Carter and Fiona Shaw.

Henry Cavill is basically playing Superman. His Sherlock Holmes is easily the weakest I've ever seen. Dude simply doesn’t have the chops to pull this off. I might be judging him too harshly considering the caliber of actor to have filled this role and made it their own in recent times. These are big shoes to fill but they fit ill on Cavill. This ain’t his story so we don’t really get to see that brilliant deduction but i don’t know that he could have pulled it off even if we did.

Helena Bonham Carter as the Holmes matriarch, Eudoria, is a pleasure. She steals every scene she’s in, even if there aren’t many. The Mrs. Holmes is mostly absent but the specter of her charisma permeates every facet of this film and it’s very welcomed. I just wish there was more of her.

Sam Caflin’s Mycroft Holmes is a very interesting take on the character. Dude is effectively the villain of this narrative. He’s out to force Enola into doing everything she doesn’t want. Dude is the overbearing pops or whatever. It’s awkward seeing Mycroft this way but he is ably portrayed by Caflin so i don’t have too big an issue with him.

The Bad

This thing exudes female energy. It is every bit Enola’s story. Now, I'm not too mad at that. Millie is decent in the role and it is unmistakably her film but that is, in this current climate, very abrasive to some. There is a strong feminist slant in how this narrative is presented and that might turn a lot of people off, depending on if they feel that is “controversial” or not.

There is just SO much exposition in this thing. It’s the nature of the genre, cats have to talk there way through problems or whatever but I've seen this part of these types of stories done much better. Sherlock, for example, found a way to visualize this and did it very well in the first two seasons. This film does not do that. It’s not super terrible but it did take me out of the story a little bit.

The music in this is very distracting. There aren’t many scene where the narrative just let’s you breathes. There’s always a whimsical swell or a punctuation flare to emphasize a shot. This feels like a callow tactic to give more levity and agency to the film where there really isn’t any to be had.

The writing in this is kind of weak. I thought, with how everything was progressing, that it might have been written by several people bu it wasn’t. One person crafted this tale; Jack Thorne. I’m really familiar with the bulk of his work but, if it’ anything like this, i imagine his is an underwhelming catalog.

This thing doesn’t feel like a movie. It feels like a series or that it should have been a series. I don’t see how this thing could have succeeded in the theater and it should count it’s blessings it found a home on Netflix because this definitely would have flopped. This thing feels like a proper Netflix movie, not a Hollywood outing.

As if to dive my previous point home, this is definitely sequel fodder. This film was made with several to follow in mind. Enola Holmes is a whole ass book series so there is definitely material to be had there. There’s six book so content isn’t lacking but i kind of feel like that ending should have felt a little more finite. This cash grab attempt at film universes and sequel bait is the most disingenuous sh*t ever outside of microtransactions in games and i kind of hate it. It’s wild to see everyone release sub-par entries on the hope they can patch the sh*t with sequels but everyone forgets that Iron Man was exceptional. It’s easily the third best MCU film and was the first to release. That first film has to be solid enough to bare the weight of a entire franchise and Enola Holmes ain’t doing that level of heavy lifting.

This film wears it’s Young Adult categorization like a badge of honor. You can tell this film is just a step and a half up from the likes of Riverdale or Nancy Drew. As a grown as man, this was not for me and i understand that very well. That said, it falls into that same, tropey, nothingness that the worst of the YA genre is known for, which is all the more reason this should have been a serial not a film. It’s not aggressive in it’s cliche but, if you’ve seen as many films as i have, you pick up on it immediately. For me, that’s the biggest issue with the film but for others. it might not even be worth mentioning.

The Verdict

Enola Holmes is a very cute, but flawed, viewing experience. It’s an interesting take on the Sherlock formula, injected with all of the GRRRL power you’d expect from a film starring a teenage woman in the lead. It’s not pretentious or forceful about it’s messaging but you definitely understand that there is a message it wants to convey. Millie Bobby Brown is excellent as Enola, easily the second best thing about this movie after the scenery chewing Bonham Carter, and there are some strong supporting performances. Cavill is a miss as Sherlock and Mycroft might as well be a mustache twirling villain but, in service to this particular narrative, the change in character makes sense. The film, itself, is ably directed and it’s a legitimately gorgeous watch but there are severe shortcomings. The writing is pedestrian, the plot is cliche, and to cover up these weaknesses, the music is leaned on too heavily. The foremost mystery isn’t one of true merit, i figured it out about halfway through, and it eschews the real conundrum for later time. The whole premise of this movie delivers a relatively intriguing situation but that is left for a later film to resolve and i kind of hate it. Sh*t was mad bogus. None of these issues are very pressing but they are noticeable and, at times, a little grating. Still, i was never bored and it is a rather well put together film, overall, even if it does feel like it should have been a proper miniseries. Enola Holmes is worth a watch but, understand, mileage may vary. I thought there was potential going forward but this thing should have definitely been a series and not a film.

[diepower]

THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

MUN NAME: Kaiman     AGE: 27       CONTACT: IM, ask, discord

CHARACTER(S): Meninas McAllon, Orihime Inoue, Retsu Unohana, Mashiro Kuna, Tier Harribel, Charlotte Chuuhlhourne

CURRENT FANDOM(S): That I write in? It’s gonna be Bleach, OVW (super selectively im just here for one person), ASOIAF (barely- literally when the mood strikes and that one is private also). I have a lot of current interests in general though.

BLEACH FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR: While I don’t have anything fully established... I’ve been working with an ASOIAF au (for Harribel & Unohana specifically, though I’m considering it with other characters too), A Dorohedoro AU (for Unohana and Orihime), as well as a Persona AU (more specifically 2&3) for Orihime. I’ve also got a number of post-canon AUs or continuities for all my characters as well!

MY LANGUAGE(S): English, super basic Spanish, barest ASL, fairly good French

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: FANTASY / SCIENCE FICTION / HORROR / WESTERN / ROMANCE / THRILLER / MYSTERY / DYSTOPIA / ADVENTURE / MODERN / EROTIC / CRIME / MYTHOLOGY / CLASSIC / HISTORY / RENAISSANCE / MEDIEVAL / ANCIENT / WAR / FAMILY / POLITICS / RELIGION / SCHOOL / ADULTHOOD / CHILDHOOD / APOCALYPTIC / GODS / SPORT / MUSIC / SCIENCE / FIGHTS / ANGST / SMUT / DRAMA

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: ONE-LINER / 1 PARA / 2 PARA / 3+ / NOVELLA (2para is a sweet spot but it really doesn’t matter to me)

ASKS CAN BE SEND BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS / PERSONALS / ANONS.

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?:   YES / NO    ONLY BY MUTUALS?:  YES / NO

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: CRACK / CASUAL NOTHING TOO DEEP / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK.

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?:   YES / NO.

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS.

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?:  YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. (i let them build up too often but some of yall are too quick to reply jkglfjdgsd)

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ / MONTHS / YEARS / DEPENDS ON MOOD AND INSPIRATION, AND IF I’M BUSY

I’M OKAY WITH INTERACTING: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / A RELATIVE OF MY CHARACTER (AN OC) / DUPLICATES / MY FANDOM / CROSSOVERS / MULTI-MUSES / SELF-INSERTS / PEOPLE WITH NO AU VERSE FOR MY FANDOM / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS (italicized are okay, but under really specific circumstances)

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS  

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING:  I’m pretty anal about plotting in that I often refuse to RP unless it’s been plotted or I liked a starter call. And in the case of the latter, I’ll still hop into DMs to plot further depending on where the thread takes us. That said, the best way to reach me is through IMs or Discord (available on request). The only time I turn down plots is if I feel like it would put my character in an OOC situation, and I especially dislike my character being one-sidedly used as a tool to further another character’s development without anything being reciprocated (this happens often especially wrt my healer characters)

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER: Communication is really important to me, especially with regards to comfort regarding certain plot elements, and approaching other in-character situations that might have multiple different solutions. I think it’s important that both characters involved get the same amount of development out of writing a thread, and I really hate the idea of being imbalanced as far as that goes (more on that below). That said, I’m always perfectly down to spitball plot ideas and tweak/refine other concepts because I really do enjoy plotting, it’s just super important to me that things are communicated clearly. I get extremely distressed and frustrated IRL if people just kinda throw stuff at me, and it often kills my muse.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?: I make an active effort to come up with plots that are engaging and beneficial fairly equally to both parties. I mentioned this above, but especially in the case of writing my healer characters, I have a huge disdain for characters being used as tools to further development while getting nothing substantial in return. That said, I try to be very aware of this in terms of a potential writing partner being on the receiving end. IMO it feels like shit, but I definitely don’t want to make someone else feel that way either. That said, so long as stuff is plotted out clearly and me and the writer are both okay with it, then it’s fine. COMMUNICATION IS KEY, BASICALLY.

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?:  I kinda just like to throw spaghetti at the wall and whatever sticks, I’m down to fly with. I have a lot of ideas, but again, I like to give my partners the option of doing whatever they’re comfortable with, and h aving equal contribution opportunities.

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS.

- AND WHY?: Everyone has their own circumstances, I really don’t mind. If it’s one I’ve been especially looking forward to, I might be bummed, but it’s no skin off my nose really.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?: I don’t typically drop threads or abandon them during their writing. The only thing that would make me do so is offensive content, or huge plot elements being introduced that makes my character ooc and wasn’t previously discussed during plotting.

WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS.

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO.

-AND WHY?: I already feel like I need to take a lot of extra steps to understand others and be understood, and that isn’t something often reciprocated. In my experience, just honest communication is the quickest solution to issues that crop up during writing. For those who HAVE actually had me reach out to them in this way, I really do try to be polite and respectful while being straightforward so the situation can be resolved without any hurt feelings.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGATIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: As long as it’s constructive, and not merely negativity, I welcome it. After all, I can’t fix a huge flaw in my writing without having an alternative solution. I’m open to accepting feedback and critique, especially wrt Meninas since my portrayal is quite a large departure from popular fanon perception (from those who choose to pay attention to her, lol), but I also thrive on suggested remedies and solutions to issues in my writing.

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO.

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: I like to tell stories, and I like to tell narratives that take root in emotional expression and how those feelings can act as a vehicle to the storytelling. I want to move people through feeling, because it can be a powerful experience. I use a lot of inspiration from themes in my other favorite series, as well as inspiration from my own personal experiences as well. I tend to pick characters who have one or two traits in common with myself, whether those be negative or positive. I’m very excited to share all the things I have planned for Meninas, as she’s certainly my most ambitious project to date.

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS:  For Meninas specifically, I want to interact with Squad 11 and Squad 9 during the CFYOW verse I have planned. Hisagi specifically would be interesting because of the clash of ideals, in addition to being the only other living person to be able to relate to the horror of being under Pepe’s thrall. I’d also like to steal Ikkaku’s bankai, and have more fight scenes. Lastly, Meninas doesn’t do much of anything in CFYOW, so more interactions with Mayuri and Squad 12 would be cool.

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE: I don’t mind briefly referencing darker themes in my writing, especially wrt my own personal experiences, but I want to be very clear that I refuse to write at length or romanticize these themes. I refuse to write anything involving rape, homophobia, transphobia, racism, pedophilia, etc, with this in mind.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: Unless previously discussed, I struggle with starters that have a character pushing mine away. If the situation is super OOC for my character to be in, or frankly too mundane. In Meninas’ case, most domestic stuff is a snoozefest for me (but I LOVE this for other characters).

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?:  *saoirse ronan voice* Women. UHHH but no, for real... I like fleshing out female characters quite a bit. Personality types are varied, but I like characters who have some level of nuance to their emotional expression whether it’s an internal or external struggle. I like powerful women too, and the exploration of “strength” as a theme (esp at the intersection of the theme of “femininity” and its expressions) whether this is external strength or internal fortitude. I think I play a wide variety of characters who have vastly different thoughts, beliefs, and forms of expression, but I try to find something in common with who I portray to act as a touch stone. I also like characters who have themes of “justice” and nuanced morality.

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?: 99% of male characters. And I also hate tsunderes gjklsdjfd

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I really like my writing style especially wrt using emotion to set a cinematic scene and overall tone. I think I’m really strong with conveying emotion, especially with things that are often unspoken. I try to communicate with partners clearly and establish rapports. I love writing headcanons and have a TON of plot ideas as well.

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: Oh I’m the slowest replier on the planet and I’m apparently intimidating lol

DO YOU RP SMUT?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS.

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS (i prefer to go into detail about sensations, rather than the actual acts as it comes off stifled and weirdly technical)

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN?: YES / NO

- WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?: Honestly I just do what Meninas tells me.

- ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?: Kink stuff is weird territory for me, absolutely gotta be discussed in private and comfort levels clearly established.

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?: YES / NO. Relationships in general rule, and while I do have a romantic ship that plays a large part in Meninas’ plot, the romance comes secondary to the plot itself. I really enjoy writing and developing romances, but more than that I like establishing connections. I love the relationships I’ve got planned with Giselle, Candice, Liltotto, and Bambietta because there are going to be a LOT of drastically different things that inform my portrayal of Meninas coming from these relationships (both positive and negative, but ultimately places of growth).

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES / NO. Like I said, plot comes first. And especially in the case of Meninas, she has a lot of self exploration and reflection to do before she can engage in a healthy relationship or address any feelings of romance. I do place a large focus on the formation of her relationships and how they shape the way she relates to other people and grows as a person, but I am extremely sensitive to making sure I’m not writing a female character who’s entire development is dependent on a romance with a male character- perish the thought lol.

DO YOU USE READ MORE?:  YES / NO / SOMETIMES WHEN I WRITE LONG STUFF.

ARE YOU:  MULTI-SHIP / SINGLE-SHIP / DUAL-SHIP  —  MULTIVERSE / Singleverse.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?: For Meninas, it’s a matter of her acknowledging, understanding, and accepting that she can be worth more than how useful she is to others. She had a series of traumatizing and character defining experiences regarding love, romance, and personal worth that strongly shaped the way she perceives her relationships to others and her emotional expression. Trust is another huge factor for me, Meninas needs to be around someone she believes in. Strength is another aspect. She likes someone who challenges her, keeps her on her toes, and is sturdy like physically. Because she’ll break you. THAT SAID- Meninas tends to be open wrt her body, but closed off when it comes to her heart. Hate to see it, love to write it.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO. As long as the premise makes sense. I like relationships to have some matter of significance and planning, especially because of how I’ve written the way Meninas picks and chooses who to get close to in Silbern depending on what suits her interests. Genuine friendship is a weird thing for Meninas, as most of her relationships are formed out of convenience. If you aren’t useful to Meninas’ schemeing, then she has no interest in dealing with you beyond platitudes and keeping up appearances and will interact with you as such.

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: WE LOVE DUPLICITOUS WOMEN! No, but at the core of my Meninas characterization, the sentiment is “Everything is not as it appears” even down to the relationships she has with others. Meninas’ entire personality is constructed as a survival tactic from an early age (in addition to being a way to make herself more useful as a tool to others, and thus seen as having more worth in general), and as a result, she hasn’t really allowed herself to live life as a fully realized person. Her plots generally offer silent rebellion, playing a role in regards to her self presentation, chaotic mean girl level bullshit, and cool fights/training. Also you get to interact with a big buff lady. That said about her personality, it depends on the verse. CFYOW Meninas will be more unhinged, while post-CFYOW Meninas will be more honest and rowdy.

- WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?:  Muses who are standoffish or disengage right at the start. Meninas doesn’t interact with people without a certain purpose, so if they aren’t interested, she’s not going to be either.

- WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, IS THEIR GOAL?:  Revenge, strength, redefining what “power” means in terms of how the world works. She wants to see the Shinigami dead for their role in her parents deaths, and feels the same about Yhwach.

- WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?:  Ability, potential threat, perceived strength, where loyalty lies; how potentially useful you can be to her.

- WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?:  Strength both in a physical sense, but also in belief and convictions. Honesty, and understanding the flaws of the world they live in.

- WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?:  Fighting, beauty, freedom, abolishing Quincy classism based on blood purity, music, fashion, blacksmithing.

- WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?: Blind loyalty to Yhwach, talking about the horrors of war as if it doesn’t concern them, Bambietta, Quincy supremacy,

- DID THEY EVER WENT THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?:  Her parents were killed in the first Quincy war and she was left abandoned and grew up literally fighting for her life and living on the streets. She often likens fighting pits to the bowels of Hell (and I often play with the ironic theme of crawling out of hell to appear as an angel or something divine). She is consumed by a quest for revenge, and strongly believes her ends will justify the means taken to fulfill her ideal. As a direct result of these experiences, her emotional health and maturity is severely affected, and she doesn’t view herself as a person worthy or capable of feeling as much as a tool who, in the right hands, can be utilized to bring about the revenge she craves.

- WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?:  (1) Men who feel non-consensually entitled to her body. That said, she’s done a fairly excellent job at maintaining control and an unassuming threatening nature despite the widely known understanding of her Schrift ability and how it augments. (2) Someone touching her Quincy cross, as it’s her most precious and private item. (3) Anyone who dares get in the way of her plans that can’t be manipulated in some other useful aspect.

- IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?:  Meninas hates Yhwach, and the Shinigami most predominately, but she also harbors disgust for Hollows as an instinct. That said, her young life was spent detached from Quincy culture (in addition to being a Gemischt and the inherent isolation that comes with that status), so despite her early induction into the Wandenreich ranks, Meninas does not harbor the same Quincy nationalism and loyalty that others of her race do. They’re a means to an end, and just happen to help her become stronger.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?: She comes off as easy to approach, but if you want genuine Meninas I’m sorry the number you’re trying to reach has been disconnected. Goodbye!

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: Everything I’ve written about her is based in headcanon! I’ve got both a lengthy biography as well as headcanons gathered in the sidebar links on my blog.

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

TAGGED BY: @bazzardburner​ TAGGING: i think this has made its rounds so steal it!

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Geddon #5 Thoughts

Very mixed feelings.

This issue is a difficult one to talk about, partially because there was simply SO MUCH in it and each piece has its own pros and cons. As such this is going to be a bit on the piecemeal side of things.

Let me get a general criticism out of the way. The constantly changing artists was very noticeable. However on the flipside each of the artists participating were very very good. So the art wasn’t consistent but it all looked lovely.

Additionally there was a fun sense of bombast and action to the comic book, it was everything and the kitchen sink but in a good way.

I also appreciate that Gage (and yes I’m 99% sure all of these were Gage) in a sense apologized for aspects of Spider-Verse Chief among them was the resurrection of MC2 Peter Parker, righting a wrong that should NEVER HAVE HAPPENED!!!!!!!!! But we also have the Engima Force being useful as compared to Spider-Verse where it was stupidly ineffective in a cheap attempt to build up Solus. Gage does a deft job of not exactly contradicting that but at the same time showcasing Captain Universe as a power player.

Now let’s talk about individual aspects of the book.

As I said the Captain Universe element was appreciated. I also liked that the Enigma Force didn’t automatically confer Miles as worthy which is appreciated as for several years now stories, creators and fans alike have been worshipping at his feet, often at the expense of Peter. Here Miles got the Enigma Force but only after talking it round and was conscious about doing something to render himself unworthy, whereas Peter was simply always worthy. It is also a great way to let Miles shine in a series which exists to promote/benefit from his movie at the time and which was supposed to be his vehicle first and foremost. On the flipside though the Enigma force being wary of the Spiders as unworthy because they let some people die is illogical. 616 Peter had made similar or more mistakes but was still worthy. Additionally Miles asking what worthy even means came off as Gage throwing some shade somehow. Finally I have mixed feelings on the Venom blast being as powerful as it was against Solus. On the one hand it’s the Venom blast again being a cheap OP ability Miles has but on the other hand even if it was toned down to be very reasonable the Enigma Force probably would amp it up and it wasn’t like it won the day. Over all this element of the story worked more than it failed.

What about Ben Reilly? Well again I think this was Gage apologizing for Clone Conspiracy, though this is rather strange. Ben throughout the story seemed normal enough so what does ‘factory settings’ mean exactly? I guess the idea is that Ben is now...redeemed? Maybe? It’s very under developed and more problematically there is little acknowledgment of his and Peter’s relationship when that should be a big deal if they meet face to face. This is the first time they have seen one another since Clone Conspiracy after all. I get this isn’t a Peter centric event but then don’t have them meet up.

Speaking of Peter, I didn’t like how it was  Gwen leading the charge instead of him. Whilst the letter’s pages claim this event was to highlight non-Peter Spider Heroes the event really wasn’t about Gwen. She disappeared by issue #2, so if she gets prestige via her tie-in books shouldn’t Peter too? More prestige in fact given how he both beat the main villain of the original story (for the third time) and you know...is the real Spider-Man? Speaking of which the shot of the NINE Spider-Heroes from Earth 616 really just said it all to me. There are too many in the same universe and it is ridiculous. Especially when you consider Venom, Madame Web, Doppelganger and other probable candidates were excluded. I mean as of this writing we know 2099 is coming back to the present and Spider-Gwen will be coming to 616 too!

Of those 616 Spider-Heroes Spider-Man 2099 and Silk were present...where the fuck were they during the rest of this story. Silk maybe had a line or two, 2099 I don’t recall right now seeing him before this damn issue? Oh well, at least they addressed Kaine’s fate and made it clear he was still on Earth 616.

Keeping with Earth 616 lets talk about Otto. Think issue was consistent in basically kissing his ass. He was the main driver for the resolution to the story, he came up with the plan to fix everything and dammit it was a good plan; as was tricking Jennix. I hate saying that because Superior is a colossal douchebag of a character and I don’t care what happened here or in ASM #800, Peter shouldn’t give him free reign. He joined fucking HYDRA!

However I must admit I did enjoy his interactions with the Gamerverse Spider-Man as it bookended the event rather nicely going back to issue #0.

Before I move onto more interesting characters we must address very briefly Spider-Gwen. The origin of her new codename was eye roll worthy and the brief dialogue saying she can transverse dimensions now was out of nowhere. It was underexplained for someone like me who was not reading her tie-in series, and frankly I shouldn’t HAVE to read a tie in to get pertinent information when I’ve already paid $5.00. That’s about it.

Let’s talk briefly about the Spider-Girls. I’ve already lauded MC2 Peter’s return, but it was also nice to see Mayday get a lick in on Daemos. Too bad it was for exactly one goddam panel. We got more resolution from her fighting an illusion Daemos in the Spider Island mini-series! The Spider-Girls basically going all Morphin Time was cheesy and yet I loved it. However it was yet more BS dues ex machina crap from the end of Spider-Girls. It makes me hate the ending of that series even more now, especially since it amounted to so little here. However I did like the over all dynamics with the RYV crew and Mayday, what little there was in the story.

Now let’s talk about the Inheritors. They also represent a mixed bag. They continued to be aggressively bland characters right up until the end, but their ultimate defeat was a good compromise to beating them without killing them. That being said I appreciated that Gage had characters acknowledge how wrong it felt to be in the act seemingly killing them. Speaking of that resolution it was perhaps the biggest mixed bag of the whole issue.

On the one hand the reveal that the Inheritors never actually had to consume totemetic essences is disgustingly convenient to the point of being contrived and trite. On the other hand though it does wipe every Inheritor off the board with the possible exception of Morlun, allowing the possibility for him as the most famous and ‘popular’ Inheritor to return in future stories if needs be whilst the obviously shitter characters get hand waved out of the series.

Finally Spider-Norman’s plot thread goes completely unresolved. He was seriously underutilized in this story and even his machinations didn’t amount to all that much in the story. It’s just set up for something else, and I pray that something else is just a storyline in Superior Spider-Man and not another goddam event, let alone Spider-Verse 3.

Over all this issue had more I enjoyed than disliked I must admit (maybe that was the lovely looking art though) but the series as a whole was all over the place and mostly bad.

Gee I wonder if that one Ghost-Spider Issue I have left to read will change my over all feelings on this event...

...Regardless I would recommend you give this a read anyway, if for no other reason than the satisfaction of seeing MC2 Peter come back.

[screenwritersdream]

Captain Marvel, “the recruiting tool of the Air Force’s dreams.”

First and foremost: This post is not meant to be read as bashing of Captain Marvel or any of the actors involved. It. Is. NOT. The. Point!

I also want to start this off by saying that I enjoyed Captain Marvel, and that I greatly appreciate what its box-office numbers mean to the future of female-led movies in general (and especially in the superhero genre). 

But when I left the movie theater last saturday (the opening weekend), I expected my thoughts to have been “f*ck yeah! Carol is so freaking powerful!! And I feel the same way!!” But instead, I left thinking, “Well...that’s another Marvel movie alright.” Which, on its own, it’s not a bad thing at all. Marvel movies make people laugh, they make (some) people feel empowered, and most importantly to the studios, they make money.

Like most people on this planet I enjoy Hollywood movies (full disclosure, some day I hope to work there), but to me movies are way more than something you turn on so you can turn your mind off. Movies are vehicles that can deliver powerful messages, influencing generation after generation (-cough- Birth of a Nation -cough-); and as such, movies should be made with extreme care and consideration.

And that brings me back to Captain Marvel.

When Carol switches the color scheme of her suit, it made me roll my eyes. In the movie [SPOILER ALERT] she had just begun to reconnect with Maria and her own previous self, she had no real reason to choose the American flag color scheme, but the Air Force and Marvel studios needed that shot; they needed the audience to see Carol--the heroine of the story--choosing to fight for the “good guys”, aka, the US Military.

New data keep emerging on the topic of military influence in Hollywood, and their agenda is more than obvious: CLEAN OUR IMAGE, AND RECRUIT!

On my way back home from the movie theater, I kept thinking of all the young girls who would want to go into the military because of Carol, and how the entire American culture is carefully curated to hype people into enlisting without warning them of all the hardships they’ll have to go through IF they come back home. 

So for a movie about a soldier being brainwashed into killing innocent aliens only to find out the truth and be disgusted with what they made her do; for a movie like that to be used as military propaganda left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth...

My point with this post, as I said before, is not to bash the movie, it’s to keep the conversation about active audience participation going. As the audience of any type of media, we can choose to engage with the material we’re consuming instead of just letting it wash over our conscious and subconscious mind. And now, when the president of the United States spews plot points from movies to justify his fear-mongering, we need to be extra careful and critical about how we consume media.

“In societies already eager to use our hard power overseas, the shaping of our popular culture to promote a pro-war mindset must be taken seriously.“ - Tom Secker and Matthew Alford

[kuiperblog]

Searching: how to do a satisfying mystery

First off, before getting into spoilers below the fold, the quick spoiler-free review: Searching (2018) is a great movie.

The plot centers on a man (John Cho) trying to find his missing 16-year-old old daughter, and the story is told entirely through computer and phone screens (sort of reminiscent of a found footage style of movie, even though it’s not actually a found footage movie), with actors appearing on screen only on the moments when they’re using webcams for FaceTime and such. That’s all that I knew about this movie going into it, and I really think I benefited from not seeing any trailers before watching it for the first time, so if the premise intrigues you I’d encourage you just watch it without looking up any trailers.

I’m a fan of the format, both for being something different and experimental, and for being a great execution of what it tries to be. It’s a great format for telling what turns out to be a great story.

The film is, first and foremost, a thriller, and it works excellently on that level, there’s lots of tension and suspense. But it also plays with some classical mystery/investigation elements in a way that really elevate it from “cool movie built on a unique concept” to something really superb. It’s impossible to say much else in praise of this film without spoilers, so here we go:

Like a lot of investigation films, Searching gives us a lot of red herrings along the way. We (and the main character) learn about a suspect, we investigate them, and we find that they’re not the culprit responsible for the crime that happened.

Red herrings can be a frustrating thing to deal with.  One of the most frustrating things to happen in any story is a lack of a sense of progress, and any time that you watch an episode of a serial TV show and end up exactly where you started, it can fill you with the feeling that the last 45 minutes were a waste.  So a critical part of doing a red herring is to avoid frustrating the audience by giving a sense of meaning and purpose to the diversion, rather than having it simply be, “The investigator spent a day chasing down a false lead while the real culprit had even more time to escape.”

Of course, scenes can do more than one thing.  A scene that we think is going to be about the detective finding the criminal could actually turn out to be a scene about how the detective is starting to go crazy and is letting their personal feelings about the investigation cloud their judgment.  It’s a bait and switch -- you thought we were going to catch the criminal, instead we learned more about the main character.  And a lot of the time, we’re okay with that, because we got something interesting, even if it’s not what we expected.  That’s the critical part of the “bait and switch:” it’s not a “bait and then disappear,” it’s not “promise the audience something and then give them nothing,” it’s “imply a promise to the audience and then give them something different from what they expected.”

There’s a moment near the start of Searching when the father thinks he’s found a classmate of his daughters who was involved in her disappearance: the dude has left thirsty messages on all of her status updates, and photographs on his social media show him smoking what we can presume to be marijuana, proudly wielding a gun, and all sorts of other things associated with danger. The father contacts the boy, demanding to know where he was on the night of his daughter’s disappearance. The boy starts off evasive and quickly clams up, causing the father to grow increasingly agitated...and then discover that the boy actually did have an alibi.

So, we spent several minutes caring about this subplot about the father investigating this one particular boy, only to discover that the boy was innocent.  Was that time wasted?  As it turns out, no.  Later, the same boy posts a flippant remark in a Facebook post, talking about how he’s actually paying the girl to have sex with him. The boy obviously intended this as a terrible joke about a missing person and not an admission of guilt, but for a father who’s spent days worrying about his daughter, not even knowing if she’s alive or not, it’s enough to send him off the handle.  He confronts the boy in public, a physical altercation ensues, and that incident results in him being taken off the investigation.

The red herring didn’t actually lead us nowhere, it set the stage for a critical moment in the story where we see critical character development from the father and a critical development in the film’s plot.

Later, the father discovers a series of messages between his daughter and his brother (the girl’s uncle), discussing some clandestine activity. They’ve been meeting up late at night for a transaction of some kind, the brother has kept this a secret from the father up until this point, and the father assumes the worst -- only after confronting his brother does he realize that his daughter had been getting pot from her uncle (and, as it turns, out, getting some serious emotions off her chest).  Once again, the subplot with the brother doesn’t lead us to the culprit, but it does provide a critical bit of character development, as the father realizes that he didn’t know his daughter as well as he thought he did -- and more worryingly, that he had actually been holding his daughter at arm’s length emotionally, to the point where she couldn’t confide in him and felt the need to turn to another family member instead.

The last red herring we see is a criminal who offers a false confession before an apparent suicide.  This man was not responsible for what happened to the daughter, but the identify of the “fake kidnapper” does provide the father with the critical clue that leads him to the real culprit.  Once again, the red herring is not a “waste of time” or a diversion leading us away from the truth; it’s carrying the plot forward.  In this case, it’s less a moment for character development and more a vehicle to advance the plot, as the “fake kidnapper’s” main function is to provide one of the final clues that exposes the true culprit.

There are many red herrings, but no “dead ends.”  Every subplot leads us somewhere interesting, even if the suspect we’re investigating happens to be innocent.

(Everything above has been kind of “soft spoilers” that don’t really ruin the film, but I would not recommend reading further if you have not seen the film and have any interest in seeing it, as it gets into the nature of the ending and the “true culprit.”)

Searching also handles its “twist ending” with finesse, the kind that can only be done when you suddenly realize how much foreshadowing it had been doing without you realizing what was going on.  Again near the start of the film, the father of the missing girl talks with the lead investigator on the case, who tells the father that she (the investigator) has a son of her own, and she knows what it’s like to be a worried parent.  As the father grows distraught by realizing that his daughter was engaged in more teenage mischief than he would have ever expected, the investigator offers him reassurance in the form of a story about her son, who also defied her expectations as a mother: the son (who had always been a “good boy”) one time went around the neighborhood soliciting donations for a fake charity.  The father of the missing girl asks the investigator what she ultimately did about her son’s misbehavior, and she admits that her “solution” was to corroborate her son’s “white lie,” letting him get away with it rather than forcing him to face the consequences of his actions and admit to the neighbors that he had essentially stolen their money.

This moment in the film made me do a double-take.  “What a terrible parent,” I thought to myself.  “She would go that far to let her son avoid consequences?  You let him get away with defrauding the neighbors without so much as an apology?  And not only that, you set a terrible example for your son by corroborating his lie, becoming part of his tangled web of lies.  Some cop you are.  If I were the father on the other end of this conversation, I would not be reassured in the last by the fact that you were handling my case.”  But, as it turns out, this was a brilliant piece of foreshadowing, because that is precisely the crux of the film’s twist ending: the investigator’s son was responsible for the series of events that led to the disappearance of the girl at the start of the movie.  Not wanting her “good boy” to face the potential consequences of his actions, she covered up the incident, volunteering to serve as lead investigator for the missing person case so that she could make sure that the evidence of her son’s misdeeds was never found.  That moment that stuck out to me as “this doesn’t feel right” turned out to be the key to the puzzle all along.

[tcthepcinte]

ROSA SALAZAR, FEMALE, SHE/HER -——- ridley shaw has been identified as a twenty five year-old resident with portal creation/manipulation. their files indicate that they work as a professional ballerina, and have no affiliation. they are known to be intelligent and stubborn, and knew the deceased because her parents were friends of his and invested their money in the heroes union.

Background

Ridley’s family came from money and her childhood was filled by being more of a prop for her parents to show off her accomplishments to their friends rather than any real quality time, she was enrolled into anything that she showed even a slight amount of competence for. Though many of these activities fell short, varying from the violin to ice skating, there were a few that did manage to stick. It quickly became apparent that the young Ridley showed great promise for ballet and so her parents dropped all her other extra curricular activities and nurtured her talent with only the best ballet academies and teachers that money could buy.

Of course her ballet wasn’t the only thing that the Shaw’s funnelled their money into, charmed by Raul and his initiative they were more than happy to make it known they were donating funds, further encouraging their daughter to represent their family by being an active part of the heroes union. And for years that is exactly what she did, under the alias ‘Blink’ as a young hero Ridley’s days were either filled with whatever she could do to please her parents and their high standards and very little for herself.

And then the unthinkable happened, after donating into yet another project easily convinced again by Raul not even hours later it was all gone. The entire Shaw fortune had vanished and no one seemed to be able to work out how or who had done it. In the midst of their financial fortunes Ridley was handed what she considered to be a golden ticket, offered a scholarship for her ballet in New York. Leaving behind her parents to pick up the pieces of their lives Ridley packed up and left without much of a thought about them or the heroes union.

Six years passed in New York, the relationship with her parents grew to be civil though somewhat restrained and their few visits were very much centred around her larger achievements. Ridley was beyond thrilled to be accepted into the prestigious New York City Ballet company shortly after graduating, it had grown beyond her parents drive and become her passion in life to thrive as a professional ballerina, her time as a hero long since forgotten.

She was forced to step away from that life and return to Diamond City when she was informed that her father had become seriously ill, and though her parents had steadied themselves financially it was nothing close to what they used to have and so needed Ridley’s help to fund his care. She was eagerly accepted into the Diamond City Ballet Company and quickly became a poster girl since she had links to one of the foremost dance companies in the world, and for the most part Ridley didn’t mind though part of her didn’t feel like she had earned the honour. Though it certainly meant a good paycheck which helped her parents and allowed for her to keep her own apartment in a comfortable lifestyle.

Since returning Ridley kept her distance from the Heroes Union even before Raul’s death, sure deep down that both he and the initiative had something to do with the Shaw’s going bankrupt. Now with all the rumours swirling around she is even more sure of it, though without proof there is little more she can do.

Portal Creation & Manipulation

“The power to create portals for transport between two non-adjacent locations  The user can create, shape and manipulate portals, allowing them control portal size, location/destination, etc.”

When Ridley’s powers first manifested it was fair to say it often ended with disaster, mostly in her sleep she would dream of a location and when she woke found that she had transported herself and sometimes half of her room there with her. It was strange for a good few years as she tried to curve this nighttime disappearing act, especially as she found that during the day she struggled to make a portal any bigger than an apple. With time and practice Ridley managed to get control over her abilities and learn exactly what she could and could not do. Eventually the nighttime mishaps became infrequent, and now they are only the result of bad dreams when Ridley is particularly vulnerable and loses control. It did mean that Ridley was able to travel places without any need for vehicles or other public transport, though if she hasn’t been to a place before her landing spot can sometimes be a little tricky.

[ PROFILE ]  [ APARTMENT ]  [ SOCIAL MEDIA ] 

** honestly I’m awful at having open plots so pls just hit me up either on here or discord if you would like to plot with Ridley!! **