#can't believe so many people are THAT upset that she is more developed than just

[valtsv]

This isn't a gotcha, so please don't take it as such, but would yuou be willing to explain what it is about VAL that makes her such a favourite of yours? I can't stand her myself, she comes across to me as a bully given god-like power that she abuses for her own amusement, and I've seen you acknowledge as much, but we draw completely different conclusions from that. I just want to understand your perspective.

i've been anticipating a question like this for a while now, so i'm more than happy to answer for you!

you're right, VAL is in some ways a "bully given godlike power" as you put it, and there's no avoiding that (nor do i want to). and yeah, i do like her in part because of that, because i have a fondness for horrible fictional characters and in particular "bad victim" archetypes, of which VAL certainly is one. but i think what makes her compelling to me, rather than repulsive, is that she is fundamentally a cautionary tale and a tragedy. in-universe, she's the scapegoat. the example. the "make the right choices or this could be you". she's inescapably, heartbreakingly human in her awfulness, and that makes her terrifying, but it also makes her deeply sad (at least to me).

i also strongly believe in rehabilitative/restorative justice, so for me, wanting better for VAL is about my real-world principles to a degree. i can't and won't argue that VAL doesn't function as an uncomfortable allusion to a lot of atrocious crimes against humanity (by humanity) within the narative, and that anyone who finds her upsetting or even hateful for these reasons is absolutely justified in doing so. however, she's still a fantasy entity at the end of the day. she's not a 1:1 stand-in for real-world abuses any more than, say, a vampire or werewolf, which plenty of people are more than happy to explore the nuances of. and there's also the question of what punitive measures would even achieve in her case, beyond personal satisfaction for the one administering or spectating them (which is not to say that wanting to punch VAL makes you as bad as she is, just that her arc is, among other things, about how cycles of abuse and violence perpetuate). the worst that could possibly happen to her has already happened. she's been tortured. she's been taken advantage of for her mistaken belief that working for and with the system has the opportunity to benefit her, and died for it. there's nothing to be "learned" from her punishment that hasn't already been shown to us. that she hasn't already internalised. if she were ever to develop a stable conscience, that would be punishment enough in my opinion.

despite being a victim of people not entirely unlike VAL, i personally am not her victim, so treating her with sympathy and kindness whilst acknowledging the elephant in the room that is her many (fictional) war crimes is not something that requires any cognitive dissonance on my behalf. i would cautiously argue that the narrative agrees with me somewhat in this regard - the few times VAL is treated to a genuine act of kindness with no ulterior motives, it shatters her composure and outward conviction that what she's doing is necessary for her personal satisfaction, and even prompts her to reconsider on occasion (sparing the woodsman comes to mind). i'm not saying anyone needs to hug her and tell her she's valid, but if all it takes is some genuine good intent to get her to engage in introspection, i'm willing to be the person to offer it.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

I think my personal view on Padme is that she was introduced as a really interesting character who then sort-of got swallowed by the romance and Anakin's story taking more and more precedence over her own development. Lucas said a few times that TPM is, in many ways, Padme's story more than anybody else's. Which is cool, but it means that when she sort-of disappears into being nothing more than a catalyst for Anakin's fall and Luke/Leia's incubator, it feels a little strange and jarring. The Padme of ROTS no longer feels like the interesting character we had in TPM. Even in AOTC, most of her interesting character development scenes (like meeting her family, her speech about the war, even just the extended arrival on Naboo where she talks about how she set aside her dreams of a family to continue a career of service) got cut in favor of (presumably) focusing more on the romance and how that affects Anakin.

Padme is someone who got introduced in TPM as a person who wanted to avoid violence as much as possible, she tends to play things safe because she believes it's the better political choice to make, but by the end of the movie she's learned that sometimes she just has to trust her instincts and do what she believes is right (this is the whole point of her being on Tatooine with Qui-Gon and seeing him insist on continuing with the podrace idea and the way this works out for him leading to Padme then choosing to approach the Gungans for aid in taking her planet back by force, a plan NOBODY ELSE believes in but her). So they take Padme on this journey where she becomes someone who trust herself and her instincts above anyone else, but who also deeply cares about doing the right thing to help the most people which is why she's in politics at all.

When we get to AOTC, she's continued that into her senator years and apparently only gotten even more reckless with age. But when her feelings for Anakin come into conflict with what she knows to be her duty, she has to make a choice. Does she "follow her instincts" and do what she wants, or does she continue to make that sacrifice because it's the right thing to do? And in the end, she makes the selfish choice.

My problem with what happens in AOTC is two fold. For one, I don't think it does NEARLY enough to convince me about why Padme likes Anakin enough to throw away her morals for him. The overall journey Padme is taking in this film I think is fine, but I don't think the chemistry between them works and I think the romance has aged like milk, which leaves me just kind-of wondering why Padme would risk SO MUCH for... a dude who can't even be considerate enough to respect her boundaries and who she believes makes jokes about fascism and dictatorships (or more accurately, who she has to CONVINCE HERSELF would make jokes about fascism and dictatorship so that she doesn't have to come up against the much more uncomfortable truth that it's not a joke to him at all). Anakin is creepy, insensitive, and sometimes almost unkind to Padme all throughout AOTC, when I THINK he's intended to come off as awkward but charming, enough to make Padme feel sort-of "young again" (I know she's only 24 in this movie, but she hasn't allowed herself to really ACT young for probably about 10 years) in a way that sweeps her off her feet a little. The romance doesn't work, it just doesn't, and I think a LOT of people would agree with me that it doesn't work even if we might not all agree on why that is. The editing isn't good, the dialogue is clunky, the chemistry is practically nonexistent. So when Padme makes her big declaration about how she loves him so much and then marries him, I find it hard to believe, and that is a problem for the rest of the narrative of the Prequel Trilogy.

The other problem I have with AOTC is that Padme is told to us to be a very MORAL person, someone who believes very deeply in doing the right thing and gets righteously upset at people being mistreated. She's someone who ends up seeing Jar Jar more kindly than almost anyone else and is capable of extending that experience with him to the rest of his people enough that she goes to make a deal with them that allows the Gungans better representation and treatment. She gets upset when she realizes slavery still exists on Tatooine and always treats Anakin and Shmi very kindly. She is incredibly upset by the possibility that her people on Naboo could be suffering and dying at the hands of the Trade Federation, enough that she ultimately decides to leave the Senate behind and find her own solution. She barely is willing to leave Coruscant in AOTC for her own protection because she doesn't want to leave before the big vote about whether they're going to go to war against the Separatists or not. And so I have a hard time reconciling that person with the person in AOTC who hears Anakin advocate for a dictatorship and chooses to laugh it off, or the person who hears Anakin say he murdered an entire village of Tuskens and not only chooses to COMFORT HIM about it, but basically CONDONES what he's done by saying it's only human, and then MARRIES HIM. The moral Padme who cares deeply about people seems incongruous with the one who falls in love with and marries Anakin. Fewer people might agree with me on this one since it requires being critical of Anakin, but I think there'd still be a solid group of people who'd agree that this just doesn't seem to match up.

So by the time those two things come together, that interesting journey of this person who wanted to avoid violence as much as possible but had to learn to follow her instincts if she wanted to get anything done starting to give in to selfish desires because she's sacrificed most of her life to serving her people kind-of... disappears. Because I don't understand why she even HAS desires for Anakin, selfish or otherwise, and loving Anakin by the end of AOTC requires her to be so immoral that it feels out of character for her. I don't think the romance INHERENTLY ruined Padme's character at all, but I do think it was mishandled and ended up causing some unfortunate implications about her with the contradictions that exist due to it being a badly written romance.

I like that Padme is, in some ways, almost equally as selfish as Anakin is. She's giving up her morals to marry him just like she is, her job makes this relationship just as forbidden as his does (more so almost, since the Jedi clearly KNOW about the relationship to some degree and don't do anything to actually break them up until Clovis happens and Obi-Wan feels the need to step in a little more and even with THAT they clearly are still aware of the relationship having continued and don't do anything about it, while Padme believes that if the Queen found out about her pregnancy in ROTS that she wouldn't be allowed to serve on the Senate). I like the idea of Padme paralleling Anakin in this, that she starts off such a moral person and that it isn't Anakin himself who causes her to start veering towards selfishness, but the invasion of Naboo and the corruption of the Senate leaving her feeling like she has no choice but to do what SHE believes to be right. And she IS right in that instance, but the implication we get in AOTC is that she's kind-of gotten... worse since then. She follows her instincts no matter what and it leads her to reckless places, up to and including a marriage to a Jedi that is forbidden to her. I even like that Padme is SO selfishly invested in this relationship that she's willing to lie to Obi-Wan to protect Anakin from committing a genocide and then begging him to run away with her so he can escape justice rather than facing the possibility that this is WHO HE IS and she's just been able to ignore it up until now.

I actually like that and think that that's interesting as a character, this... devolution that she has throughout the trilogy in parallel to Anakin and the Senate themselves. She's an immensely flawed person and her connections to the other narratives about how good things go bad can't be a coincidence.

But what sucks is that, over time, Padme has kind-of ended up getting interpreted as this person who was above those kinds of flaws, who wasn't selfish, who WOULD put her duty over her desires. People see Padme as this person who did everything RIGHT and just ended up an unfortunate tragic victim of it like the Jedi when that just... isn't true. And I think it's a reaction to how contradictory Padme's actions (especially in AOTC) seem to be to her character from TPM to just defend her as being RIGHT to be in a relationship with the person she loved despite the reasons for it being forbidden, as being RIGHT to defend Anakin against Obi-Wan's accusations in ROTS, as being RIGHT to prioritize Anakin's comfort instead of condemning what he did to the Tuskens in AOTC. But it misses that Padme isn't just the catalyst for Anakin's choices, she's not just this perfect thing he couldn't live without, she's someone who ENABLED those choices by being selfish herself. She's ALSO someone who started off with such good intentions, such lofty ideals, and was brought low by greed and selfishness and an unwillingness to be mindful about herself and her own desires. Padme might not have ultimately caused a genocide as a result of her selfishness, but it doesn't mean she WASN'T selfish in her choices and that her selfishness helped lead Anakin down a bad path just as much as Palpatine's machinations did. Anakin's choices are obviously still his own and not Padme's FAULT, but I find it frustrating when people try to exonerate Padme of all responsibility for what ultimately happened and pretend like she never did anything wrong in this story, that her love was pure and selfless and free of any attachment.

So on paper, I LIKE Padme's arc and I find it fascinating and the romance is necessary for that arc, but I do think the romance part of it was mishandled badly to the point that it makes Padme feel contradictory and incomplete and underdeveloped. Like if I'm supposed to believe Padme is willing to set aside jokes about dictatorship and the massacre of an entire village of Tuskens when I've been repeatedly told that she's a moral person who cares about humanitarian issues above anything else, I need more than just "this pretty boy is kinda dorky and sweet sometimes." I need know what would DRIVE her to pursue a relationship she knows is forbidden for a reason with a man who is pretty clearly unstable and almost dangerously obsessed with her. What insecurity is making a relationship with Anakin seem so immensely compelling to her, let alone a MARRIAGE.

So either I think the romance needed to be a little more... romantic and eliminate the things like the jokes about dictatorships and the Tusken massacre so Padme doesn't seem like a complete idiot who believes it's okay to murder people so long as those people are Tuskens, or Padme needed to be more explicitly someone who was a little corrupt herself so that Padme being okay with murdering Tuskens and jokes about dictatorship doesn't feel so out of character for her. Or both, maybe a little of both. She's corrupt enough to enter into a relationship with someone she knows she shouldn't without giving up her position as a senator because it's what gives her power, but she's not SO corrupt that murder of an entire village down to the last child is okay so perhaps leave that bit out.

Padme is a character I REALLY loved as a kid when I first watched the Prequels (which were the first Star Wars films I EVER saw) and so I still really like her generally due to pure nostalgia, but my feelings on her have gotten far more complex as I think about her and her narrative more critically.

Ahsoka I think works fine right up until you get to the Ahsoka show where she's just blatantly and wildly out of character and completely flat at the same time. There's things I wish were done a little differently in TCW for my own personal taste, but I think that generally the idea of Ahsoka as someone who only really knew Anakin through the context of war and as a child actually does work. Some of his more violent outbursts can be more easily explained away through the context of the situation as well as a child's sort-of more naive outlook on the adults around them. Ahsoka also never sees him do anything as heinous as the Tusken massacre or make jokes about dictatorships (at least none that I can remember), so unlike Padme, she's not ever blatantly ignoring anything that should be a massive fucking red flag. Well, there's the abusive training from TOTJ, if we choose to consider that canon, which I think Filoni was technically on the fence about. But even that is something that seems to not cause any long-term damage and that Anakin tells her is for her own protection, so it's easier to set aside perhaps than the massacre of an entire village down to the last child.

What makes the Ahsoka show frustrating is that it doesn't ALLOW HER to have an adult perspective on it where she looks back and sees all of the things her child self wouldn't have been able to notice. She never looks back and sees the outbursts of violence or some of his more unorthodox comments about the Jedi as the warning signals that they were. She elects instead to IGNORE everything that he's done in order to double down on the opinion she'd held as a child (and that she'd been able to KEEP up until Malachor) that Anakin was a genuinely good person overall rather than acknowledging that while Anakin had good MOMENTS, he was in fact a bad person and a bad teacher, and she can only move forward if she LETS HIM GO. Ahsoka deserved that and now she'll never get it and it sucks.

Obi-Wan I sort-of disagree with you on in that I don't think Obi-Wan's ever BLIND to his faults. I think this is part of a major misconception of his character that a lot of people seem to share. But Obi-Wan spends like all of AOTC being VERY aware of Anakin's faults and has to figure out how to let go of his worries in order to have faith that Anakin has learned enough to fix and learn from his own mistakes. So by ROTS, it's not that he's blind to Anakin's faults at all, he's just chosen to have faith that even when Anakin stumbles, he'll always pick himself back up again. We see this most evidently in his reaction to Anakin's temper tantrum in the Council chambers about not being made a master where he's clearly disappointed in Anakin's behavior, but he later tells Anakin that despite that, he's still ON HIS SIDE and tries to give Anakin guidance on the situation. He takes Anakin's apology later as a sign that Anakin is sort-of figuring things out a little more, but he is uh. Wrong. Anakin's apology is sort-of half-assed AT BEST, but I can see where Obi-Wan would at least see it as good first step in the right direction. But I don't see Obi-Wan's faith in this film (or in TCW) as a flaw or a blindness because he cares too much about Anakin. It's his STRENGTH. Much like the Jedi themselves, just because his faith was betrayed and misplaced doesn't mean that he was wrong to decide to have faith in the first place. It was STILL the right, healthy choice to make.

The guilt we see him have in the Kenobi show is more a product of the uncertainty surrounding why Anakin did what he did than it is about Obi-Wan caring too much about Anakin to handle what he did. I think if Obi-Wan had KNOWN about Palpatine, and Padme, and the visions, and how all of those things came together, he might've had an easier time of it. But he knows VERY VERY LITTLE about why Anakin is making the choices he's making, and in that uncertainty, the easiest thing to do is blame HIMSELF. Especially since, at the beginning of the show, he believes Anakin to be dead. In some ways, it might feel easier to blame himself than it is to blame Anakin or even Palpatine. And this ISN'T healthy, but I don't think it's necessarily a problem because he blinds himself to Anakin's faults. His journey at the end is about accepting that he may NEVER know why Anakin did what he did, that there might not have BEEN anything he could've done differently or better to cause a different outcome, and that there is likely nothing he CAN DO to keep Luke and Leia from going down the same path. All he can do is have faith again, faith that he did the right thing by giving Luke and Leia to the Larses and Organas, faith that the Larses and Organas will raise Luke and Leia well, faith that Luke and Leia will not be like Anakin and repeat his mistakes.

Rex is definitely just a product of not knowing the truth. I imagine he'd have a LOT less positive gushy things to say about Anakin if he knew Anakin was the one who betrayed them all and became Darth Vader. I'm STILL waiting for someone to show us Rex's reaction to that because I would maybe DIE to see Rex react to finally discovering that particular truth. With what we do have though, I think Rex is mostly come to peace with what's happened to him. I don't think it's that he's choosing to ignore the things that hurt so much as that he's gotten himself to a place where he CAN just... let himself remember good moments with people he'd cared about. The end of it sucked and there were moments in the middle that sucked, too, but there are still a lot of good memories acquired during the war, good people he'd met, good lessons learned. Rex seems like he's in a pretty healthy place by Rebels, having had to live with the truth about the chips for a while and do what he can to live his life as happily as possible with what's left of his family. He can't do anything to change what happened, so he's let it go. He obviously does still have some PTSD from the war, that's always going to be true, but he genuinely seems like one of the most healthy characters in Rebels despite how shit his life has been.

[xenomorphicdna]

So what goes into managing an iterator?

Because when you think about it, managing a massive semiorganic sentient ai that you depend on for practically everything, might not be easy.

While iterators aren't brought online as children per se, from broadcasts in game we can assume that young iterators probably start out fairly stubborn with their thinking. And while iterators are far more complex and developed than our current good ol' chat algorithms, I think that trying to tell a machine designed to not make any errors, that it is wrong, may come with at least a bit of back and forth arguing.

There'd be a lot that would go into managing a machine as is, even more into one with feelings and opinions.

I believe the ashy green pearl mentions how there's a parental relationship between iterators and ancients (this might not apply to all ancients and iterators but for the sake of the argument I'm going to keep going with this). It also mentions how it's important to keep good relations with their iterator - they are reliant on them after all.

Booting an iterator up and instantly expecting them to perform perfectly how you need them too may not be entirely accurate. Perhaps more mechanical tasks are good from the get-go but more social tasks would certainly require behaviours that would have to be learned. There would have to be someone to teach them that emotional maturity and social skills.

So, going back to what does it take to manage an iterator. I think it's a lot of things, a large team effort of multiple people of different specialties.

Alright let's talk about the food chain here now ey?

Iterator administrators would rank at the top. The administrator title would probably be assigned to two or three house councillors. The role would come with being the voice for whatever iterator matters the public would need to know. They probably make decisions of, hey this important thing needs to be done by our iterator. But I doubt they have any real knowledge on the iterator ins and outs.

That would go to the people just below, the chief technicians, mechanics, programmers, architects, the folks that manage the more machine parts of an iterator. But of course iterators aren't all metal, they're semi organic too. So there would be those who specialise in the biological parts of iterators. And there would be psychologists as well to make sure our beloved machines with feelings are doing ok.

I'm not exactly sure where the common trope of ancients being horrible heartless assholes to iterators comes from. I certainly didn't get that impression from the texts. ?

I think the iterators were certainly respectable members of the community. I think many people cared about them too. The whole ashy green pearl talk about how they have parental obligations. They say how the discourse about five pebbles' construction displeases him. They literally say, hey stop being mean to our iterator, and go in to defend him. Even tho pebbles didn't exactly find the discourse upsetting, they still wouldn't tolerate insults at their iterator. You can't tell me that the ancients - even those at the top - didn't care.

Iterators were created as gifts to word. Five pebbles received drawings from kids. They had sky-sail festivals.

Moon did state her general dislike of her citizens, she calls them parasites with opinions. But I cannot imagine managing an entire city would be easy, and even despite that, she still calls them her parents. They were flawed, yes, but clearly there was enough love there for Moon to apologize.

[violetasteracademic]

I hope the translation won't let me down.

I've only been in the fandom not long ago, but in that time I've been shocked by the amount of hate and criticism towards Elain. I have my own "why" for in this regard. But what do you think?

Is it that she's is not courageous enough by the modern trend of female protagonists? Or is it that she's just not worthy of Azriel? I've had many discussions about this, as well as many discussions about why I believe Elriel is endgame.

Hello friend! The translation was perfect!

I must disclaim that this is 100% an opinion post. I stay as far away from Elain hate as humanly possible, and I do not want to seek out or share screenshots of upsetting things I have read or seen. But- I had a similar experience to you. I finished House of Flame and Shadow and noticed so many little Elain coded details throughout and hints for Elain and Azriel. I became so outrageously hyper fixated, finally joined the online fandom and, well...

We all know how that story ends.

I do think there are a couple of different things at play. Some are completely benign, some are sinister. Some reflect deeper parallels of unhealthy dynamics that many women and female identifying people live every single day. I have friends that are some of the best people I've ever met that either don't like or aren't obsessed with Elain, and their reasons are fair. There are women who dislike Elain for violently misogynistic and saddening reasons that are unfair. The reasons are vast and wide. But I'll start with the easy stuff first.

Benign reason number 1: Elain is extremely subtle in the books. There is not a single person I know (myself included!) that fully picked up on everything in a first read through. My first run, I didn't even ship Elain with anyone. I mean, this was years ago and I didn't realize we were supposed to be shipping anyone with anyone. I didn't know she'd be getting a book, I was just reading and vibing with the story at hand. I didn't dislike her at all, but I also didn't catch much of her development. Then on a second re-read, once I was very much aware she was getting a book, I was like OMG! Az and Elain are obsessed with each other and look at all these little cool details about her and now I can't wait for her story!

The same thing happened to my best friend who just read the books for the first time last month. I asked what she thought about all the sisters at the end and it was: Loved Feyre. Hated Nesta until her book. I don't really have an opinion on Elain yet because I feel like I don't know enough about her. I think that's probably the most common reaction.

Then, like many of us, she tried to move on to a different book series and was like- nope. It's not hitting, just gonna reread ACOTAR. All of the sudden she's texting me going- wait, Madja said a mate would know what was wrong and Azriel was the one who knew- does that mean Azriel and Elain are mates somehow? I totally missed that before. Is L/ucien's eye broken and he needs to get it checked out and that's why he's seeing a mating bond? (Yes that was legit her theory and I'm obsessed with her for it.) Wait- Elain stepped OUT OF A SHADOW? How did I miss that? Did Azriel help her? Can she use his powers? Wait- Elain is taking lessons in stealth from Azriel and the wraiths, is she gonna be a spy? Allllll of this happens on a second or third read through. There are a massive number of people that do not frequently re-read books or have not read ACOTAR more than once.

There are also a massive number of people who don't read novellas in any series, not just SJM. People widely say it's okay to skip ACOFAS. This feels like a crime, but I myself have skipped novellas in other series.

25 percent of readers skip prologues. What!?

Elain is subtle. She is going to get missed by a large number of readers who skip novellas, who maybe would skip a prologue, who read or listen at a very surface level and don't deeply process everything they are seeing or hearing. I think this is really common, especially in areas where people are just trying to have fun and be entertained. But I think, outside of the microcosm of the most aggressive fans online, this is probably the most common thing happening. People haven't noticed her yet. They don't see her. They don't get her. But they *see* and *get* their favorite men or G/wyn.

But once you see Elain, it's like the storm clouds break and angels sing and you realize what a deep, nuanced, and fascinating character she is and how INSANELY epic her story stands to be. And then you probably go talk about it on Tumblr every day and write hundreds of thousands of words about her in fanfics (if you are me.)

Bummer but still benign reason number two: So many us are Elain, and that can have a negative impact when it hits too close to home. Elain represents a lot of emotional, domestic, and mental load labor. With the addition of her visions, I cannot even imagine her mental load. I had a very beloved friend explain to me: I am Elain. I don't want to read a book about myself. That doesn't help me escape.

I am Elain as well (in large part but not entirely) and I see the potential in her story and connect with her deeply. But I understand this sentiment. I can't say for sure, but I think a lot of people who are Nesta's for example realized they were after her book and had to actually see her journey before they could identify with it. Mirrors are uncomfortable if you don't like what they are reflecting. I think these women who feel like Elain hits too close to home in a way that makes them feel on edge *might* change their mind after her book, but if not, that's okay.

I remember during the peak of the pandemic all of these COVID movies started coming out and many TV shows were incorporating it into their story lines. I was so stressed out and traumatized that I was like- why would I watch a show or movie about a global pandemic killing millions of people with a virus I'm terrified of while I'm living it. I intellectually understood that many people felt it could not be ignored, or they were processing it by making art about it. But I did not want anything to do with COVID movies or shows. It was too close to home. I could not indulge in entertainment about something that was too real at the time. Some women feel this way about Elain. She is almost too real to them and hasn't had her chance to become more than the quiet girl who gardens and bakes and self isolates while her own family expects that she isn't strong enough to handle anything. So this I understand.

Now for the sinister reasons. I could write a dissertation about the internalized misogyny, the sexism, the insidious vitriol towards characteristics that are considered feminine and the veneration of characteristics that are traditionally masculine. But if there is one thing that I would do anything to heal in our society that hardly ever gets talked about, it's this: The world can only handle one type of woman at a time. In books, in movies, in celebrities, women are treated in lather/rinse/repeat cycles. Jameela Jamil does some incredible work breaking down the "life cycle" of women in media consumption.

Women are treated as trends. Our bodies. Our hair. Our face shape. Our personalities. And when one type of woman is on trend, all other media representations will try to ride those coattails instead of asking society to enjoy or at the bare minimum tolerate a variety of women. I have seen this cycle play out over and over and over again.

I'm going to hold your hand when I tell you this- but Bella Swan and Alina Starkov are the same character in different fonts. In the early 2000s the popular YA ingenue archetype literally had to be a mousy brunette that was kind of socially awkward and not very noticeable, not that pretty, ect ect. That was required. They were trying to tap into the antithesis of the "popular girl" whether it was a high school romance about humans and vampires or a Ravkan war. People could not tolerate YA female leads as being too pretty or too good at everything or even socially adept. They almost had to get the attention of boys for no discernable reason. *eyes roll into back of head and drift into space*

Celaena was groundbreaking for her time. Please understand I am not saying SJM was the first or only one to do it, but it is still to this day historic and iconic to have a fucking hot young woman lead a YA fantasy series that loved pretty clothes and spending her money on perfume and lingerie and in general looking good when she wasn't assassinating people. That was not accepted on a large scale. For years female YA leads were not allowed to be too pretty or interested in feminine things. Then Celaena Sardothion was like- no shit all of these ungodly hot men are simping after me because I am ungodly hot.

Female characters have been archetypes for years. Men as well, but the difference is that when you hit the level of massive popularity that only some book series hit, only one type of female character can be popular and tolerated at a time en masse. Once the masses grow sick of it, they'll replace her with someone else. The cycle of replacing women plays a huge role here. Elain is not just disliked. She is being actively replaced.

And listen, Elain is not the only character that faces sexism in the fandom. All of SJM's women are separated into archetypes: the soft and unassuming types like Elain and Elide and Yrene, who are not warriors but strong in other ways. The Nesta's and Manon's and Lidia's. We break women down and categorize them to the point where we also start to assign belief systems to ourselves and others based on what type of woman we like.

As someone who pretty much loves all of SJM's women, I can't spend a single day in this fandom without seeing a think piece on how if I like Nesta it means this, this, this, and this about me as a human being. So although I think Elain takes a lot of hits, it is disingenuous to say that when it comes to women despising certain archetypes and only liking one at a time, Elain is not the only one who suffers.

Which leads me to my final point- Because Elain hasn't had her book yet, all of her stans are based on her perceived potential, whereas the other female characters have already shown us their potential. And en masse, women, unlike men, have to show why they are worthy and likeable first. *Eyes still rolling through space* Feyre, Nesta, G/wyn, Emerie, Amren, Mor, all the women in the ACOTAR universe have shown us what they can do. For many, they have shown us what is inside their minds.

Because Elain is a seer, and SJM has called her a walking spoiler, she was unfortunately primed to not give us as much as she could have to win people over to her potential story. And as far as the shipwars, people just don't care about Elain as a character the way that do about G/wyn, who has quite literally already climbed her mountain. Who has had a full story told. Who has gotten the chance to speak fully and truthfully on her trauma and the things that were done to her and how she overcame it. And because people also unjustly hate Morrigan, they don't realize that G/wyn is to Nesta what Morrigan is to Feyre. The women who were brutalized and harmed in unspeakable ways, but through their own journey of strength, helped the protagonist find her own strength.

Based on SJM's formulas, I think we'll get a pretty big reveal of trauma Nuala and/or Cerridwen have lived through as well, and they will help Elain find her strength by being a beacon for her the same way Mor was for Feyre and G/wyn was for Nesta.

And then there is the final reason, which is just terrible freaking timing. At this point, Elain has been on the page for over eight years and we are still waiting to fully see who she is and what she is capable of. That is a long time to wait. I believe a decent majority of SJM fans are more accustomed to high output romance authors, and less accustomed to fantasy authors that take decades or longer to finish their series. This is not a judgment at all, just based on my seeing a lot of people say they haven't picked up a book in years and then they picked up ACOTAR and now they are on booktok which is just like- consumption consumption consumption.

Elain has now had eight years to consistently be the most subtle character on page, while the two men she is in a love triangle with have developed absolutely rabid and feral obsession. (I include myself in this statement. It's not normal or chill how I feel about Azriel.) And then before Elain got the opportunity to have her book, a side character in her sisters became more beloved than her because it locked into our subconscious societal act of replacing women. And now even that character will have lived for at least four years, giving people way too much time to obsess and let their negative feelings towards Elain grow and grow and grow because she's either "in the way" of their favorite man ending up with a woman they like or "not being nice enough" to the man they are obsessed with.

*My eye roll is still travelling through space, avoiding an asteroid belt as it reaches the edge of the Milky Way*

I will admit that 8 years is a long time to have created such a build up around Elain's situation which has taken the driver's seat over her personal journey and character. I don't like it, but I also don't think it's completely shocking that it happened.

This is how women are treated. And it's not even just the characters, it's the authors. For fucks sake, do you know how many times I have seen a headline or comment that says Rebecca Yarros is going to dethrone Sarah J. Maas as the queen of romantasy? Like- what the fuck? Are we seriously saying there can only be one massively commercially successful female fantasy author at a time? Even though RY and SJM literally could not be more different as writers. There is hardly anything at all to compare between them.

That's exactly what people are saying.

Because people can only tolerate one woman at a time. SJM isn't writing fast enough or posting on instagram enough? Replaced. Elain hasn't done enough yet and revealed her character quickly enough before her book with Azriel? Nope. Replace her. I like G/wyn better. Replace, replace, replace.

Meanwhile George RR Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, and Scott Lynch just get to chill and vibe and take all the time they want and no one is threatening to replace them with another man. Their male characters get to live as long as they want them to and do whatever they want, good or bad, and audiences are not looking for a "better male character" or love interest to replace them with.

The only solution to this not continuing to happen is by not treating women as trends and only tolerating one type of woman at a time or only one woman's success or personality at a time.

It feels very, very far away.

And now I'm sad.

Sorry if I made you all sad.

I can't wait for Elain week tomorrow either way! 🥹😭

[moldybonessmell]

The Umbrella Academy season 3 review post

I finally finished season 3 of tua even tho I've watched first two seasons first day they came out and oh boy do I have things to talk about-

To begin with, the things I like about new season:

- The way we finally dug into Allison's trauma and how she starts going psychotic is actually a good plot line especially the accent on how she just like any other Umbrella Academy people indulges in self-distructive behavior, she's really just like them

- Diego getting a kid as someone with the biggest daddy issues out there is a realistic plotline because having a kid (even if Stanley's not actually his) heals him in this regard tho he and Lila would get a kid anyway eventually but they really should've been more sad about Stanley thanosing out of the existence you know

- Five being the founder of The Temps Commission makes so much sense as he's the one with the power to travel time of course he's more powerful than it seemed

- Good music scenes. Music is what season 1 was incredible for and what I love about the show. In season 2 there weren't many scenes that caught my attention but in s3 it's definetely better. We got Klaus's death montage with "Crystallised" by The xx and celebration scene with "Another one bites the dust" by Queen + Luther on moon and "Friday I'm in Love" by The Cure these were really nice.

- The Oblivion Hotel is such a cool location and concept (a place for everyone) I like the change of place of action a lot, but the way it's a portal is kinda overused imo

- Lila and Five are still the best characters and carried the season

- Fei is such a cool chara with a distict character design (which most of Sparrow Academy lack tbh)

Now things I don't like:

- Ben being just a placeholder character is such a bummer because instead of getting angst and drama we got a mostly one-dimentional anti-hero who has a completely different personality from Ben. We got a tiny bit of his character when he admitted he just wants to be involved with everyone but it's really minimal.

I can't believe Klaus says "He's an asshole and he's dead to me" like WHAT DO YOU MEAN fuck no Klaus would not say that shit and he would not just give up on him. Yeah Luther says stuff like "I'm glad to see you even if you're different" or whatever but it's Klaus who've spent the most time with Ben.

The way literally any other actor could have played Sparrow Ben and nothing would change is lame af I hope in next season we will see more changes

- Same goes to my dear Grace who's just a placeholder for black hole worshipper like what do you mean we just got one phrase from Diego and that's it??? This whole bit with fake god and stuff really threw me off it didn't go anywhere

- The Sparrow Academy being one-dimentional characters in general like I get producers probably didn't have enough episodes to actually develop characters but holy shit are they boring.

Even if you want to make them just antagonists we had such cool villains in two previous seasons they were original and interesting (aka The powerless podcast-fan male manipulator Peabody and The Cunty Handler)

Also the way the fisrt Sparrows who died were the most annoying and cliche assholes makes them just filler charas

- How show tried to make us feel compassion to Reginald Hargreeves holy shit do I hate this guy- After Klaus realised his father was basically killing him over and over in his childhood instead of Klaus getting mad or upset and having a breakdown we got nothing.

He even came back to new timeline Reginald who's "nicer" for this asshole just to hurt him AGAIN

- Klaus mostly being a comic relief in this season is so fucked I love this character and in previous seasons we had a great look at his life and experiences but now he's just kinda there being high and that's it

"mm I guess he died a few times it's probably enough" - plot writers

no character development whatsoever is just upsetting.

And the amount of unnecessary traumatising aka Reginald training him was really not it, even if it's supposed to be a joke.

- Reginald being a two-faced ass like holy shit is this terrifying. Pogo was the one who gave Sparrows pills and now Klaus helped him to stop taking them and this asshole is taking advantage of naive and vulnerable Klaus.

It is in fact a good plot twist but bro I really did prefer Reginald being a cartoonish villian instead of actual pure evil like how does he have shitty motivation but still does just so much shit.

- The Umbrella Academy family having no improvement in their relationship. They still don't care Klaus relapsed, they still don't care about Viktor. All they care about is their own misery which is really in character but with three seasons out of the way and only one more left I would expect at least something you know.

- Viktor is still left out. Like bro the only compassion he had is only when he transitioned but this is it?? Bro's still waiting till someone comes and cares about him but not only this doesn't happen, he even gets rediculed by Sparrow Ben for that and called emo are you actually kidding me what's with all the hurt with no comfort???

It feels a lot like when you're mentally ill and your family kinda "walks on eggshells" to not trigger you but it's in quotes because they don't actually care. They act nice just because they think you're psycho and you would make less problems if they pretend. And this is very sad, Viktor is such a tragic character.

Okay that's it for now. If you have any thoughts please share in comments!

[cursedeclipse]

is feyre boring, or do you just hate female characters?

i saw this text post and it got me thinking how strange it is that a series made by a female author, targeted towards a female audience, and is women-centered can be so heinous and quick to write off the main female main character in favor of side male characters.

feyre is often joked about being a "mary sue" or a boring self insert when she is easily one of the most fleshed out characters in her own series. we have three books full of her thoughts, depicting her trauma, and her story and somehow she's boring and a self-insert? based on what exactly?

even her "flaws" are used against her and joked about at wits end. jokes about her illiteracy, about how people think she is bad at art, and how she is a "bitch" for "destroying the spring court."

feyre isn't allowed to have trauma responses to tamlin, because when she pushes back against him a little bit she is antagonizing him. obviously, a hundreds-years-old male can't control his powers and his emotions, he can't help but to react aggressively towards her behavior! it's feyre's fault for upsetting him (let's not talk about how that is classic abuse apologist language though...). poor tamlin found a 19-year-old girl who was abused and neglected all her life, took her from her home, lied to and manipulated her, and gaslit her when she started showing signs of c-ptsd. why couldn't feyre just be nice to her abuser?

but feyre is also too meek and a doormat throughout the acotar trilogy. it doesn't matter that she was neglected and abused her whole life and that often gives someone a low sense of self-worth, it makes her boring and she's a liar about the abuse she faced in her childhood anyway!

why do people treat the main female character like this? people love to act like female characters are never written well or fleshed out, meanwhile, they will give todd the bus driver who appears twice in a book whole headcanons, fics, and fanart that centers around him. is that male character really more interesting than the many female characters or do you just see women as dolls to place prettily in the backdrop of a man's journey?

are eris, azriel, lucien, tamlin, and tarquin really all that much more interesting and well-developed than feyre, elain, mor, and amren? am i supposed to believe you when you say that azriel is more interesting and more developed than a male character like rhys and that elain is too boring for him?

is it a coincidence that people gravitate towards fleshing out 800 male characters in every fandom and make so much content out of mlm ships, yet when there are canonical gay women it's crickets?

i don't think that shipping azris or whatever mlm ship makes you a bad person nor do i think making content on mlm ships is wrong. however,these biases don't exist in a vacuum. it's the reason why female characters will be sidelined for imagined mlm ships. she'll be pushed aside and the fandom might hc her as a lesbian or a huge bitch so she's not "in the way". they might even make up a ship with a woman that there isn't a lot of homoerotic vibes with but post things like "omg they're gfs and who hold hands and they 'yass queen' x mlm ship i really gaf about! 🥺" and that's as complex as lesbians are allowed to be in comparison. (sidenote: as a gay woman, that is not allyship towards lesbians/bi women but comes across as writing the fmc off so she's not a threat to your ship btw).

why is mor hated on, questioned, called a snake, etc. while her abuser is paraded in this fandom unquestionably? there is mor/emerie content, but it's telling that the amount pales in comparison to mlm ship content. and that happens in every fandom. there can be 100 female characters in a series and let two men exist with like 2 personality traits each and people will flock to shipping them.

it's frustrating to see how well-meaning people can rush to being male-centered more often than not. that people will have a set of very high standards for female characters, and if they're not to their specific set of interests people rush to call them boring, undeveloped, or untrustworthy. whereas a man can have .01% amount of on-page time and people just automatically assume there is more to him. an abuser isn't just an abuser but he exists in the shadow of his horrible upbringing, expectations his family had for him, pressure by society, etc. men are allowed to be layered in their flaws/actions.

a female character has to be the most prolific female character in existence to be seen in any sort of depth. and that just makes me not believe people when they say that they don't show more support to female characters because, "only men are ever written well! it's not my fault the author can't write women." that is just using misogyny as a shield.

is feyre boring? or do you just not like how differently trauma shows up in people? is elain boring? or do you just not care to dissect her in the ways you would azriel or eris? is mor boring? or do you just hate it when women are strong-willed and confident?

[staratdawn]

I thought about au with blind Regulus and deaf Sirius. It is not congenital, most likely acquired after 5 years of Sirius and 4 years of Regulus at Hogwarts. Their mother's unsuccessful punishment spell hit both brothers. Total blindness forever for Regulus, too much damage to do anything about it, even magic is powerless. Sirius rolled down the stairs, hitting his head on all corners, causing serious damage to the head, including the auditory cortex. The predictions of the Black' personal doctor were positive, of course, no one was going to upset them. But the hearing does not return to Sirius in a year or two.

And this difficult for them, almost impossible to make contact, despair splashes, their psycho-emotional state is not just a light wind, it's a fucking storm, like, they never can be ok again. They need more than a one year to talk to each other again. It's been hard before, don't think they don't love each other, we all know true, and yet their family didn't anticipate the possibility of healthy communication among its members. But now it takes a lot more effort to talk. Sirius can't hear, but he can speak. Regulus can speak and hear, but cannot see. So, Sirius speaks. Sometimes Regulus answers and Sirius lip-reads, it gets better and better with the years but never perfect the meaning of some phrases is inevitably lost, but that's something they can at least handle. Sometimes Regulus writes — he remembers good how it's done, but still a little awkward, not nearly as perfect as it used to be, and yet understandable enough. They learn to use it more often. Talk more often. It is important for them not to lose connect. They seem to have lost it all their lives and only learned to fix it when it was too fucking late.This was exactly the moment when Sirius runs away from home and starts living with James. And Regulus needs time, his parents are careful with him, they no longer try to be as cruel as they used to be, mostly just words, and over the years he managed to develop a good immunity, they do not hurt as much as they could. Sirius hates himself for not being able to take Regulus. They still didn't talk back then, it was so difficult for them and Sirius couldn't just ask Regulus to come with him, he didn't believe he could protect him and felt incredibly vulnerable. But he offers in a year and Regulus agrees.

When they get back to Hogwarts, things clearly change. Honestly, even too much. Regulus has a specially trained guide dog, this is a collie named Lyra (actually, in honor of the constellation, but he did not tell anyone about it except Pandora), she is big, soft and fluffy, and she is also smart and really very strong helps him. He also has a cane inlaid with many spells, so he knows Hogwarts quite well, much better than the first years (which is a dubious achievement, but nonetheless).

Sirius is trying to cope with his condition, mostly not really knowing what to do. I'm thinking of a spell he might have found one day to help take notes, literally translate the words spoken by the professor into text (I know there's nothing like that in canon, but it would be fair if there was, and generally, I just don't care about canon, I REALLY don't care, it's there because I made it up right now). He carries around a notepad and pen so that people can write what they want to say to him, but he also often understands what they are saying by watching their lips move. He can also talk, but he can't hear himself, so it's often very loud/very quiet, he prefers to write, but in the company of marauders, he doesn't care if he seems stupid or awkward.

I think Regulus, even after losing his sight, plays the piano, it is important for him to hear and feel the keys under his fingers, it grounds him, calms him down, makes him feel whole. Sometimes it is unbearable, but more often it gets easier than worse. (As he gets older, there are days when his hands shake too much and he can't find the right keys. Then Lily kisses his temple and James puts his hands over Regulus', they play slowly, making Regulus feel more, feel integrity, pushing the keys until he's finally okay)

And sometimes their duet with Sirius is also heartbreaking. Sirius can't hear but can guide his hands, he just feels, he has enough feeling, he doesn't really like to play. He desperately wants to help Regulus. And he sees the keys, he may be his eyes.

So, speaking of marauders. Honestly, James was the first to know. I think Sirius ran away to him somewhere in the middle of summer vacation, so James went to Hogwarts already fluent in sign language and actively continuing his studies. They met Peter during that time, so he definitely found out, even if Sirius didn't want to show it, and sign language was incredibly difficult for Peter, but he tried!! (damn, he tries so hard to be tactful, I just know it, he doesn't want to offend him, he doesn't even speak in his presence, but mostly writes on a notepad to make Sirius comfortable!!!)

Remus only finds out at Hogwarts, not because Sirius doesn't want to tell him, but because Sirius feels bad and doesn't want to appear weak in front of his boyfriend, ok. In this universe, there is no prank, so they are really happy together, but Sirius's disability is very difficult, and he wants to withdraw into himself and never share his burden with anyone. But he still has to do it when they meet on the train, and it's, well, never been easy, ok? Sirius also believes that he is much more fortunate than Regulus and feels guilty because people surround him with care, it seems to him that he does not deserve it. 

I also think that Remus KNOWS sign language very well (I headcanon him with a large family, several younger and one older sister, I think one of his sisters is deaf so he had to learn sign language for her, I can talk about his sisters, in case anyone is wondering, I just love the concept of a big family where Remus is the middle child, and he is the only wizard, except for Lyall, if we are not talking about the fact that Pandora could be his sister. He also suffers from lycanthropy, and I think one of his sisters might, but that's another TALK....but, you know, he'll never be alone and his family is, well, a little wolf-family-pack. ..okay, just let me know if anyone is interested, this isn't even about Remus, I should fucking shut up) so that makes things a little easier? Except that Sirius himself needs time to learn sign language, but it's absolutely in his best interest, so he's trying so hard. Remus really tries to take care of him, he shares his notes with him before Sirius finds that spell (he's never done this before and it was never needed, but now Sirius is so grateful) and he's definitely taking the translator's position a bit with people who do not know sign language, he really is not a burden, because Sirius will never be a burden for him. Never.

And also I think that Regulus has a spell that makes the book read itself, which makes life easier, magic is beautiful. And he definitely learns to read braille later, but I don't think it's very common among wizards (he probably isn't at all. but over time his life is so closely intertwined with muggle world, he can't ignore it)

Let's talk about girls! I like to think that Lily was fluent in sign language before that, as if she seems like someone who will know it, or at least try to learn it. Mary and Marlene absolutely don't know but they are really good friends so they try. And Marlene is in love with being able to write constant notes in a notebook (gives atmosphere. She puts Sirius notes between textbooks, very, very many notes in a day, they become less over time, but she was never going to throw constant gossip with her bestfriend, thanks, even deafness will not interfere with her). Mary also uses her notebook to write for Sirius when she wants to say something.

I also think that Lily absolutely cares about Regulus (platonically or romantically, your choice), but she doesn't know what she can do for him, she just goes with him all the time, almost seems to blend in with the Slytherins. She reads books to him aloud because he likes how soothing her voice sounds, he actually has an amazing memory, he quotes something from what he has read before or from what he heard from Lily.

Evan and Barty don't know how to act at first. But over time it gets easier. Like there's no problem putting things back where they belong so that Regulus can move around the room with ease, at which point they're very clean. They try to spend a lot of time with him, sometimes it's even annoying, he can say it, but honestly he is grateful.

(also Lyra is absolutely delighted with Barty and Pandora, when Regulus is in bed and she doesn't help him anymore, she often goes to Barty's to get her helping strokes)

Dorcas is so excited when she finds out about this, she is actually so mad at his family. One of her best friends will never fucking see anything else because of his family (Regulus never told them the reason but they know. They all know). She is very afraid of how unsafe he can be in his house, but she obviously does not show it, it would be inappropriate and not quite in her character. She tries to be tactful and act like nothing has changed. And she's also very supportive, actually, she's just not clingy like Barty and Evan, for example, she's just expressing help in the little things, I would say. Her help is usually silent, but also surprisingly eloquent.

I didn't say much about Pandora, I'm sorry. They have an amazingly cute duo and an interesting way of getting around, when Regulus assumes his animagus form, he is also blind, but he is literally cat, so she often carries him around in her arms to his destination. It's faster. Oh, and she was the one who helped him find the spell to read!!

Also, I think Sirius's hearing will start to recover at some point, but it will never be good enough, it's just... some sounds, more sounds than total silence. I didn't mention hearing aids before and I don't think they're common among wizards, but he'll definitely use them when they get out in muggle London and, well, it won't give him perfect hearing, but it's a lot better than nothing...

(little bonus: when Sirius wants to be kissed, but he doesn't want to write about it in a notebook or make gestures because it will upset the mood, he puts his finger on his lips or on his forehead or on his cheek, my boy just wants kisses. And he spreads his arms out to the side when he's waiting for a hug and doesn't want to initiate it first. when alone with Remus, sometimes he just reaches out his palms. Oh, and he claps his hands when he tries to get someone's attention. It's easier for him not to talk than to talk so he keeps the conversations to a minimum)

[lucy90712]

Road to recovery- Part 4

Masterlist How did he find my instagram? Why did he follow me? So many questions were swirling around my mind. I know he asked for my number but I expected just to never hear from him again I mean he's a very famous footballer who has so many friends and fans wishing him well why does he want to talk to me. It felt so surreal that all of this was happening I expected my life to get a bit crazier with training for and going to the Olympics but once that was taken away from me I didn't expect to still be wondering how I ended up here. 

A few of my close friends from school and the gym were quick to message me asking how I was feeling but also freaking out over Pablo liking my post. They wanted all of the details but I didn't give it to them I just gave them a vague story as I didn't think Pablo would want me telling my friends about his personal life. Most of them quickly moved on to telling me I had to try and get him to go on a date with me but I quickly shut them down. As much as I would really love that to happen as I can't lie Pablo is cute and over the day we spent together I have begun to develop feelings I know that it's never going to happen as he could probably have any girl he wanted, someone who is so much better than me in every way. 

After not getting much sleep I went to bed quite early and slept in later than I have in years which to most people still wouldn't be that late but to me if felt like I'd finally had a full nights sleep. Like always I picked up my phone to check what I'd missed while I was asleep and I had a couple messages so I went through them until I got to one from an unknown number. As I read it I could feel my phone slipping out of my hand due to the shock. I quickly added the number to my contacts and typed out a reply as the text was sent a few hours ago and I felt bad for not replying sooner. 

Pablo

Hey it's Pablo I hope you're doing ok. Thanks for keeping me company in the hospital it was really nice to have someone to talk to. I really want us to keep in contact so feel free to text me at any time 

You

I'm doing as well as I can, I hope you're ok too. I'm glad you text as I wanted to thank you for keeping me feeling positive without your encouragement I don't think I'd be feeling as hopeful about my recovery. Also if you ever need anything you can text me too 

Pablo 

Don't worry about it you helped lift my spirits too so I had to make sure you felt the same I'm just glad we have each other and I really do mean it when I say if you need anything just text me 

You

Thank you I really appreciate it 

Just reading those texts made me smile. Maybe this injury isn't such a bad thing after all especially if I end up with a friend like Pablo.

Gavi's POV

Since I woke up I've written and rewritten a text to Lola probably 100 times. I want to text her as I really do want to be at least friends with her and I don't want her thinking that I just asked for her number to be nice and that I won't actually keep in contact. I just have no idea what to say I want to come across friendly but we don't know each other well enough for her to know how I text. Eventually I just decided to hit send but then I just kept checking my phone to see if she replied. The longer that went by the more I started to worry that she didn't actually want to hear from me or that I upset her somehow. Eventually I had to stop myself as there is so many plausible reasons that she hasn't answered me yet and I'm only making myself feel worse by thinking about it. 

There's not a whole lot I can do but I found something to watch to keep me distracted for a while. It worked until I heard my phone sound out from across the room and I couldn't stop myself reaching for it. As soon as I saw the text was from Lola I typed my passcode in at lightning speed and finally opened the message. 

She's so sweet I can't believe I was so cold to her at first I'm so glad she didn't take that to heart as having her to talk to has been so nice. Having someone who's going through the exact same thing and knows the struggle I think will really help both of us which is why I wanted to keep talking to her that and because she's so beautiful that I can't just let her leave my life without getting to know her properly. I don't know if it was because we were forced together or what but I found myself developing feelings for her and not feelings I've felt with any other girl so I have to see where that goes or I know I'll regret it later in life. 

I so desperately wanted to see her again but I know that we both need a bit of rest before we start doing too much and realistically we don't know each other that well and I don't want to move too fast and make her uncomfortable. I'm hoping that we can keep talking to try and get to know each other better and then maybe I can ask to see her in person again as I already miss seeing her smiling face across the room from me. 

A/n: sorry this is short it's kind of a filler 

[my-mt-heart]

Welcome back SF, really missed your input.

That's really kind of you to say 🙏 I'm watching this spinoff against better judgment and have a lot of thoughts on it, but I'll try to stick to production topics.

[W]hy giving so many visual cues for Carol?

Like MT and you yourself said, AMC realized (somewhat belatedly) that they can't Carol-ify characters (Maggie in DC/Isabelle in DD) and expect the audience to get excited. The studio knows Carol gets engagement, that's why they keep pushing the character on social media despite the fact that officially, she's not part of TWDU. I believe Melissa/Carol is so conspicuously absent from Nicotero's interviews for related reasons.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they shove Melissa and Angela aside to make their own spin off?

No, you're right, but each of the people wanting them off the project had their own reasons for it. It's not as simple as "Norman got a big head" from being the most marketed character (although there's an element of that too). There's a lot of people involved and they all had different things to gain from having these two women removed.

So, my guess right now is, it's about the money and someone less with an opinion, so both Greg and Norm have more creative freedom and a couple of spare millions to spend on their vision

AMC spent way more money this way than having Melissa be part of the show from the start, so no, it's not about money and making a TV show isn't a bunch of people compromising on what to do. (More on that a little further down.)

There are many reasons and @jaibhagwan mentioned one of them in a comment to my previous ask, "[W]ho has the most the gain by sabotaging Caryl to make himself look good writing his “love story” spinoff?" Gimple was heavily involved in S11, the development of DD and in part of pre-production, and like I've previously said, he doesn't want competition. (It shouldn't be a competition at all, since a TV show is a collaborative effort and as a viewer I'm capable of liking both Carol and Michonne. Not that the race is between the women, because Gimple doesn't care about either of them.) He wants DD to fail, so he can swoop in to save the franchise with his TOWL show.

Just so no one misunderstands this as a slight and gets upset: Michonne is one of my favorites and I hold Danai in utmost respect. I'm not comparing women or female characters. They bring different things to the franchise and that's a GOOD THING. I want more of that. I also think Clémence is a great actor and apart from the sweeping aerial establishing shots, she's the only enjoyment I'm getting from DD. My issue is with Gimple and Zabel (whose existence as a "fleshie" I can unfortunately confirm to anyone thinking he might be a cardboard cutout), and their no-good storytelling.

@rubberchickeny "They all ring untrue and like he’s trying to manage (badly) the image the media and the public have. He’s contradicting himself, and other information given."

I believe the obfuscation is on purpose and that AMC (by way of Nicotero) is also trying to shift blame for some of their more controversial story decisions.

Everything that happens on a TV show has been approved by the studio responsible for the production. It doesn't matter if you're an egomaniac actor, a spiteful hack of a writer or a burnt-out EP—no one can override the studio. Someone at the studio approved the respec of Daryl back to his S2 self, the choice to deny his found family, the nunbaiting, etc. Every single script goes to the studio for notes and then (eventually) final approval before it's locked. They approve of the episode edit; if they don't like it, it gets reedited to their specifications.

There's a method to the madness in everything Nicotero has been saying.

@kryptoniancape "So he blatantly lied about having no creative control in that hit piece?"

Yes 🤷‍♀️ and you're right, it's a hit piece. The question is why. Why do AMC and Greg Nicotero want you to think that everything that's wrong about this show is Norman's fault? I'm not saying he doesn't bear any responsibility, but this isn't a one-man standup comedy special on HBO. If he made demands AMC didn't want to meet, they could have pulled the plug on those delusions at any point.

SF

“I’m watching this spinoff against better judgment”

Translation: MT is making me watch so I can answer her long list of questions she sent me.

I guess my concern about a possible smear campaign is…are they expecting more backlash later on? If so, I’m terrified to find out what that is. I’m getting so many asks from people wondering why they should hope for a better story in S2, and even though I do think we can put some of our faith in Melissa, it’s still a valid question. Because they should be doing everything to rebuild our trust that was lost the day they announced the Caryl spinoff was canceled, but instead they’re preparing for things to get worse?

Again, all I want (as a fan and as another woman in the industry) is to feel reassured that Melissa’s getting everything a leading lady deserves and that Daryl and Carol are getting the story they deserve.

Fwiw: If Danai was the showrunner on her spinoff, I would’ve been SEATED for that. If Melissa got to showrun or direct, I’d be seated for that too. TWDU needs more women and poc making creative decisions.

[inkiest-silly]

ALL THE STUDIO INVESTIGRAVE VERSE SOUL SNATCHERS AU NOTES SO FAR!!! :3

Okay so like, i’d like to believe this ties into a more fantasy esk thing, kinda like the concept of serpent Vince,

But this includes multiple people from STUDIO INVESTIGRAVE (and probably if anyone else wants to add someone- very well)

Sigils(and markings),imprinted on their bodies to prove their ranks as a Soul snatcher,it changes as they grow and develop their powers,

Higher Soul snatchers need to fight more and gather more souls for their companions. Or the little silly colored things beside them that only a natural born soul snatcher will obtain- but they will only get them when they are around 7, being they are more capable of just accepting it and being normal with their companions

There is a slow decline in the race of soul snatchers, they have to disguise themselves being as they grow they also get more non-human features,

If other soul snatchers cannot recognize you at first glance you have a good physical outlook

Also their complementary color or favorite color will be their features color usually :3- like

Vince: red

Rody: orange

Winnie: blue + yellow

Augustine: a dark blue + orange

HEAVEN SAYS is one of the songs that could go along with the au,

More over the audio that does “I don't know i ended up here,i just-” then cuts into the main chorus.

Vincent and his companion are both killers to the fullest,his companion doesn’t like other people other than vince- if someone wants to touch it and reaches for it- it’ll dive into vince’s shirt or under his arm, just finding somewhere to hide on vince’s person.

Winnies companion is heavily social,loves being around other soul snatchers and their companions-

Rodys is slightly the same, but it just doesn't know what to do in a social situation. It and vince’s companion tend to be somewhat near each other

If I didn't make it clear before,Soul Snatchers are naturally born. They have human alliances, yes. But not many. Because humans tend to kill them because they are unnatural, killing out of fear.

Vince HATES being around humans- he has a pure distaste for them.

Manon was a human,a little worker at a nice cafe.

Rody visited it a lot,often conversing with her- finding the woman beautiful.

The more that they talked the more that they grew in love with each other…

Vince and Rody went to the same school, they knew of each other but never truly conversated, cause- well. Neither of them knew that the feeling they had was the simple recognition of other soul snatchers..they felt drawn but they were a little too nervous to say anything. So they never did.

Rody and Manon dated for a while,Rody doing the usual of most rodys- all attention,money, and topics. All around her. Manon started to get worried, but slightly too overwhelmed with all of his spending and “all for you!” she wasn't going to let him do that. And with everything,she got her things one night- placed a short, simple explanation and goodbye note on his desk and quietly left his place. That was a total mess…Manon never knew about rody being of the Soul Snatcher species- he was too afraid to show it to her - he was afraid that she would leave him over it. Obviously if he did or not- It would have made no difference.

Rody was heartbroken for MONTHS on end, he never really got over Manon- he didn't understand- he didn't get if he did something wrong or upset her. He Tends to vent to FIFI, having no one else to talk to. He was broke as fuck..so he needed to get a job soon. He had a friend he didn't talk too much- but when they met up they were pretty good friends- (I CAN'T FIND THAT GUYS NAME THAT LIKE- CANONLY KNOWS RODY- LIKE FROM COLLEGE-), He mentioned something about the Nice restaurant Down two or three blocks in the busy part of their location.. Lyon,France (franch/j).

Lyon is best known for its cuisine- so why not see if there are jobs available!

Winnie owns a tailor shop/fashion boutique down near Vince’s Bistro. He and Vince tend to talk when they're both on breaks, since they see each other a lot, Winnie is a regular at the Bistro,sometimes Augustine comes with. Bro just is a sad ass cashier- in winnie's place of course

They kiss in the staff room/j…/hj? Maybe you will never know

It all ends up in a little circle of acquaintances- they soon figure out that they are all the same in a way. Rody is still struggling through the break up that he and Manon had.. Manon was semi-regular at the bistro,before Rody started working. She had already run to vince. When Vince started talking about his new employee, she stopped staying at the bistro- soon the connection happened- but he didn't kill her.

Sometimes she soon returns to the bistro. It was Rodys' week to work through the small collection of waiters. Rody, obviously shocked to see her and tries to make small talk, but she looks a little nervous responding in tiny little sentences. Trying to tell him to save this for after his shift, his nerves spike but he agrees- and frequents her table and asks if she's alright. Vince kept his watch. Jealousy started to rise- he wasn't too sure why. He kept low and cool,he couldn't do anything. But oh how he wanted to.

After rodys shift, Manon at least tried to talk to rody about his problem- just didn't get it- he was stressing. Focused on her. She ended up telling him more sternly than she had before,he was too afraid to answer her. He couldn't help but agree and stayed quiet like a small puppy getting told off and thrown into the mud outside.

This caused rody to tend to get more nervous with stern talks when its people he really cares about.

Rody doesn't like to kill, but if it comes to desperate measures- he's going to hesitate- if its for Fifi- being it and any companion feed off dead souls. He’ll try and get Vince to do it- but your kills will either go to your companion or it’ll find its way to the gates.

Soul snatchers are huge cuddlers and group sleepers- they usually will have something to give them the sensation of sleeping with someone if they live alone- but since there's couples here-

Winnie will always get up close to auggie- in some shape or form. Even if it's in his sleep.

Vince is still paranoid about being open about his relationships- but the group does know and teases him about it- rody tends to giggle at them- Vince never knows how to react to any of the teasing-

Vince is the only other soul snatcher in his family- getting it from his Father- ofc he didn't know about it or whatever a soul snatcher was. Each soul snatcher will either figure it out on their own or get told by a friend who might also be one. They are in some legend books- but no one knows much about them so there's only a page or two.

How would I tie a child into this if I ever did ? They find one,that's been left somewhere- prolly winnie’s sympathetic ass bringing it back to the Group’s place and pleading to keep it- rody totally joins in- really liking it-

The other two soon give in- AUGGIE KNOWS JACK SHIT ABOUT KIDS- and has no idea at all how to help,brp just stands in the back, confused

Angelica fears herself,she's religious still,but not as much(like she really is…she's not what you think of when you think of a nun anyway..) she is a HALF BREED of a soul snatcher, so she's not fully one,

She doesn't have a companion of her own, though some get abandoned. But she will not kill for it she doesn't even know thats what feeds it and she wouldn't either way,even if she did know,she’d still feel bad for not being able to feed it properly (religious reason)-

. When she meets everyone else,they’ll help her (vince and augustine primarily-)

forcas is still well…forcas. But ofc au things. He's on earth,following angelica- but in human ways- he tends to forget that he's not able to use his floaty power like this..and falls on his face a lot.

Rody angelica and winnie hang out more than most do (vince is usually there if it's not just a them outing)

This is pretty much just a half religious lesbian,a bi failure of a man and a twinky cry baby friendship…😭-and live for it

NGL LISTEN MANON AND ANGELICA IN THIS. LISTEN HERE ME OUT HERE ME OUT Y'ALL-

Only two(3?) refs rn

[yackers]

I have mixed feelings about the cheating situation. In one sense they’re teenagers and I think everyone in the situation had their reasons for doing things and reacting to the situation, but I really struggle with Jerome’s reaction to the reaction. He’s a kid and I don’t think he should be held accountable for shit he did at 17 for the rest of his life when it’s this minuscule of a problem, but there were multiple scenes where people made digs at him for playing two girls and he truly believed that it was alright. Yes he apologized I get that, but even towards the end of the season he makes a comment about how he didn’t mean to hurt them…I truly believe Jerome didn’t think he deserved repercussions for hurting Willow and Mara. I don’t like that. Do I think they went too far with the revenge plot? Yes. Cause I wish they would’ve sat down and talked. Mara and Jerome, imo, needed to have a long conversation about it. Not with Willow. Not with Joy. But just the two of them. Their relationship arc had been from s1. Jerome had that little crush on her that blossomed and it eventually led us to s3 and the cheating situation. Maybe it’s me not understanding how he cheated on her with Willow, who I adore, I’m just not understanding how those two had any sort of chemistry or connection, but I wanted him to explain his sudden drawback. Joy defending Jerome those times were valid but her in that damn bedroom saying she thought it was all about revenge. It’s like the entire house lacked brain cells that season. The miscommunication trope was wild. What i’m saying is I think the cheating trope was interesting to the development of the characters. I just really don’t think Jerome realized what he did was wrong. I love Jeroy. They’re my favorite ship of all time. I just can’t stand how Jara essentially ended and there was no sit down conversation being like “Hey, I hurt you. This isn’t about me liking Joy it’s about me breaking the heart of the girl who fell in love with me and who i pined after for two years” I just needed something. Those teenagers couldn’t talk.

I have a lot of thoughts so please click below

see I do completely get what you're saying I do, and it's not that I disagree with you so much as that's just not really how things work. throughout the whole show, characters hurt each other and do shitty things because it's full of overwhelmingly human characters, but they can't just sit and talk it all out for hours in therapy speak until everyone is 100% okay. that's not how television works, that's not even really how life works. I don't honestly see how jerome and mara sitting and talking out every one of their issues would make either of them feel better and not more mad each other and it wouldn't be good television. hell, who in life ever sits down with their ex who cheated on them and discusses why and how and all of their personal feelings about it, especially two seventeen year olds who dated less than a year. I do understand that it feels like he should apologise further but the damage was already done, mara was too angry to hear it and jerome didn't know himself well enough to articulate why. I also just can't really name many shows where any (unmarried, childless, outside of a therapy environment) couples sit down and discuss in detail the end of their relationship.

I do disagree with you saying that he didn't think he deserved repercussions. he quite literally finds out that the three of them wrote a play specifically to embarrass him in front of the entire year group and accepts it and directs it anyway and says that he just hopes it helps mara move on and feel better. he does even repeatedly try to apologise to mara. he lets her say horrible things about his dad without fighting back and he backs off of joy around her as to not upset her further, all things he never would've done pre being caught cheating. he tells the house that they all need to get over it only when they're all being silent and glaring at him at the breakfast table because he still has to live there and he can't have every single person in house mad at him forever.

in terms of how he could have gotten with willow and his 'sudden drawback from mara', I really do not mean this to sound rude but like did you watch it? when he and willow first kiss in detention, mara had broken up with him like at least a week ago. he tried to win her back over and over (with admittedly hollow gestures I'm not like validating his behaviour just stating the facts of what happened) and she ignored him. by the time he kisses willow in detention, he thinks he fucked up too bad and he's never getting mara back, and so he's rebounding. he doesn't really have tons of chemistry with willow, that's kinda the point, she's just there and she's sweet and she's into him and it's a lot less complicated. it's only after all this that mara approaches him in the kitchen and is like 'congrats we're back together' and by that point he's already moved on from her enough that he's not willing to give up willow because he doesn't like either of them that much by that point. and this is not me defending him but like if he'd told mara then and there that he'd kissed willow even though she barely gave him a chance to, it still would've crushed her, because unlike him she didn't think they were done, she was just holding off because of the sisterhood. the whole situation isn't black and white, he didn't wake up and say "I'm gonna have two girlfriends" and it's a mess and that's the whole point of it. I've gone over the other jara stuff before so I'm not gonna repeat myself but idk, it didn't happen the way you're making it sound like.

and lastly, about joy saying "I thought it was all about revenge", the whole point of that scene is that both girls are lashing out each other because they're both broken hearted. it was the wrong thing to say, but it was an impossibly difficult and insane situation. and up until that point, mara didn't do a whole lot of crying and being sad because she got angry and stayed that way. the part about the revenge plotline that makes it so interesting to watch and why I liked it is because it was always going to hurt everyone involved and it was always going to be everyone's fault. jerome was getting hurt either way, joy was always going to fall for him, which was a betrayal to mara, but it was also an insane thing for mara to ask her to do in the first place. it blows up in everyone's faces badly, but both girls both eventually realise that it's okay that they're both upset and that it all only happened because of some incredibly poor decision making and that's that. the ending with mara deciding to put her friend's happiness above her anger is the most important lesson of all of it. also:

he does try to sincerely apologise for all of it one last time and she shakes her head with a smile and tells him that it's okay. the whole point of mara's arc is that she doesn't need that from him anymore, she's learning to deal with her feelings herself and know her own worth even when others don't, which is what she's been needing to learn to do the whole show.

tldr: I understand that cheating is a difficult topic that people have a lot of thoughts about and I respect that, but real life isn't therapy and what a lot of your takes tell me is that either you didn't really pay attention during their storyline or that it's been a long time since you watched it

[bookofmirth]

If Gwyn and Azriel do end up together how do you think their relationship will be built up? I definitely see them going from friends to lovers. In ACOSF, there here has not been any interactions between Az & Elain (that we know of) since solstice. Bryce falls into Prythian and I’m sure that took place a few months after ACOSF. In the upcoming CC book, I hope/think we get small (nothing too big since this is about Bryce) glimpses of Gwynriel, like his shadows wrapping around her wrist or trailing after her. I think Gwyn will try to help Bryce go back to her world since she works with Merrill who is researching other worlds. I’m worried/nervous how Gwynriel will play out and be built. If they do get together, I just hope Azriel sorts out his issues first. He doesn’t have to be completely healed, it’s fine, but he needs to work on his self worth issues and needs to acknowledge that he self sabotages. No one can fix that except for himself. Also, how do you think the whole situation with Elain/Azriel will be played out? I believe after CC3, we will have Az’s book and I’m thinking maybe he’ll acknowledge that it was a mistake and he only did it out of jealousy (since his brothers have mates) and not because he has genuine romantic feelings for her. I like that even though Azriel did save/rescue Gwyn, he didn’t immediately develop a possessive/romantic attachment to her. I’m sorry for the long ask! (Ps, do you think Azriel has a hero complex? That he needs to save everybody? This could stem from his childhood with his mother.)

For sure friends to lovers. They already know one another and regularly interact. In this post I mentioned how I think they will continue to work together, and I see it leading to some competitiveness and tension between them, because I think they will have the same goals (IE stop the bad guys) but the Valkyries will have newer, perhaps more progressive ways of doing so, while the Illyrians have an established way of working. I don't ship it 100% because broody sad boys are not my thing (anymore lol) but I can totally see Az and Gwyn having this teasing, challenging camaraderie with one another!

Definitely agree that I hope he gets his issues sorted first! I think talking to Mor will be a much bigger necessity than talking to Elain. Like you pointed out, he and Elain haven't interacted since Solstice (that we know of) so I honestly don't think it will be a big deal that he needs to address. But he has been holding out some sort of unrealistic hope for Mor for his whole life. So yes, I agree that he will admit with Elain he acted out of jealousy (for mating bonds, for what Rhys and Cassian have, not because he wants her in particular), but that will be it. With Mor, it's a much longer, more important conversation.

And yeah, I do think he needs to save women, because of his mom! I know I've talked about it before but I can't be bothered to search for it, so-

Examples are in acofas where he gets upset at dinner and Rhys explains to Feyre that it's because of the way that his mother was treated, the fact that he holds onto this anger about what happened to Mor, he has rescued Feyre, Gwyn, Elain, Briar... Who knows how many other women. I think that's partly why he rushes into danger, but I think it's combined with the fact that he feels deeply insecure about his place in the IC - he was tortured by his brothers, in what world is it okay or sane for him to torture other people as part of his job??? That's where his insecurity comes in, IMO. He does that because he feels like he doesn't have anything else to give, and he needs to earn his place. That's how I interpret it, at least. I mean, there really isn't any other reason for him to put that burden on himself, unless he feels like he deserves it. People have pointed out that Rhys could easily break into people's minds for information, so Az torturing people doesn't make sense.

This is also why I think he gets so angry at being told he can't/shouldn't do things that he thinks will be helpful to the IC (e.g. when Rhys and Feyre tell him he can't spy on Briallyn, when Nesta tells him he'll die if he tries to get Elain back from Hybern). If he doesn't have these things - the rescuing and the torturing for the greater good - then how else is he proving that he belongs?

[starlightshadowsworld]

Danganronpa 3: Future arc, episode 2

Thonks.

Soo after that fun episode, we are back to the killing game.

Fun.

I called it!

I knew Munakata was gonna Makoto for all of this. Even though it is not his fault.

Though he's definitely gonna blame himself now.

I mean I get it.

Munakata is grieving and of course you're gonna lash out at Makoto.

Because from his and everyone else's perspective he's the likely culprit.

He's already betrayed you once, Monokuma called him by name and this all happens when Makoto is being arrested.

But than, if Makoto is the mastermind why would he put himself and his friends in this?

To kill you guys? But than why not just kill you with the gas earlier and escape.

... Wasn't expecting him to tell Makoto to straight up kill himself.

Greif or not, what the fuck Munakata.

... Also how the fuck would that accomplish anything?

If you truly believe Makoto is on their side, if he kills himself especially on the basis that you were the one to make him do it... You're just gonna enrage them.

It's fucked and it's stupid.

Though now I'm sure he's gonna be like fine, I'll kill you myself.

... Yeah Chisa I don't think we can give him a chance, sorry.

Also Makoto in black and Munakata in white, we love to see it, visual oppositions.

The bracelets are dangerous.

I thought maybe they would be explosives but apparently they just inject you with death.

So that's fun.

And one person "the attacker" will be fine and can kill one person.

That person's a traitor... And Makoto is the traitor so more reasons against him.

"Why don't you gang up on someone you don't like and pray their the attacker."

Insert all the sprites surrounding and killing Makoto

.. What is this, the 5th trial?

So Makoto's fucked until they can prove who the real one is.

And omtop of that there's a "forbidden action" Something you can't do at all.

Or you die.

Man theres a lot to this one.

Given Makoto's luck, he's gonna get something bad isn't he?

Asahina, girl I love you but why are you acting like you haven't done this before.

And it's being televised...

Fuck I hope Komaru doesn't have to watch this... Again.

... And Usami is already here?

And apparently the avatar of Miaya, the ultimate therapist.

Who was apparently is one of the top developers for the neo world program.

Aka the simulator the Remnants went into.

Cool.

Though we all know this isn't gonna work, Usami can't beat Monokuma that's a fact.

Aaand Monomi is back.

Makoto: We need to work together.

Munakata: I couldn't agree more.

...You mean work together to kill Makoto don't u?

Because I don't believe you'd wanna work together with him.

I get why everyone's like find the traitor and kill them.

But Makoto being against that is gonna cause a rift, especially because their already is one and it makes him more suspicious.

... Also, who was the traitor in the first game?

And what happened to her because of all the infighting?

I doubt Makoto or Asahina especially want another Sakura situation happening.

"We can restrain them."

"Yeah, with your Super High School Level Luck, big shot .

Juzo...that's not how insults work.

"I'm not as easy to manipulate as Junko Enoshima."

WHAT?! 🤣Im sorry what???

There are many, MANY words to describe the chaotic mess of a human being that was Junko fucking Enoshima.

Easy to manipulate, are not those words.

I'm sorry... have you met, Junko?

In what world, is she easy to manipulate!??

Did you even watch the first game?

And he just hit Ryota... Fuck this guy man.

Talking about being in a war zone when he's acting like the big shot high-school bully.

I get your friend is dead and that's upsetting but let's be real my dude you'd be the asshole here either way.

There's no need for any of this.

This is what Monkuma wants and your playing into his hands.

There's always a big tough guy who has to be the asshole, to show he's strong when he's just as scared as everyone else.

Picking on people weaker than you doesn't make you tough, it makes you pathetic.

.... And because of your actions you've killed Ruruka because his forbidden action was "witnessing violence by participants."

Way to go, tough guy.

No one wants to share their forbidden action.

It's the "embarrassing memories" and the motive videos all over again.

And we all know how those ended.

Oh.. we're gonna just vote the person out straight away? With no evidence or anything?

Sure because that's a good idea? Munakata you are supposed to be smarter than this.

And it's not anonymous either... You're just creating tension.

I'll say it, the high schoolers handed this better than you guys.

He's totally gonna vote Makoto isn't he?

... Yup.

I can't imagine having such a disregard for human life that you're mentality is to kill everyone till you find the culprit.

Funnily enough, mass murder is not the answer.

Munakata saying Makoto understands that that the Remnants nerd to be eliminated at any cost.

... Like he didn't just go against that entirely.

Chisa, I know you're dead but you deserved better friends.

Gozu is officially my favourite member.

Dude shattered Juzo's knife with his bare hands.

Giving Sakura and Nekomaru vibes, the badass with a heart of gold.

And gas in the room, go go gooo.

... And Makoto is forbidden to run... Fucking hell.

Asahina got them muscles because she just piggybacks him away.

Concerned that Kyoko stayed behind.

The director of Hope's Peak telling someone violence isn't the answer.

Now I've heard it all.

Also he might not be Kirigiri but he giving them vibes.

Gozu continues to be the best person ever. Fighting Munakata one on one in the hallway.

Man we've got the ultimate wrestler vs the ultimate student council member.

I tell ya, fight of the century.

I'm sorry I can't take Munakata's talent seriously he sounds like the less cool version of Ishimaru.

Also Munakata your spitting bullshit.

How does killing, especially a person others care about stop despair?

That's like the textbook guide to causinh despair.

That's why the killing game happened and is happening now...Tf you on my dude?

Most unrealistic part of this is the future foundation lasting this long.

Annnd the floors caved in.

Makoto shutting the door the moment before Munakata threw his his knife.

And having Gozu in his side and carrying him.

Nice to see Makoto having some good luck here.

Even if... Yeah.

Times running on the bracelets.

I love the conversation between Asahina and Makoto. Telling her she's not alone, he and Kyoko are here.

They didn't know each other last time.

Now, they are a team.

And that, that's hope.

Plain and simple, it's knowing in your darkest hours you have something to hold onto to keep you going.

They might be in the worse situation on earth, again but they aren't alone this time.

They didn't have that before, not with each other.

It's something that the previous survivors are all banding together.

And the Future foundation members who have, because of the memory wipe, know each other longer.

And they have turned on each other.

Their split up, divided.

For an organisation built on the future, on hope.

They have none.

Not in each other, nor themselves.

I love Gozu adding into the conversation, remarking that Makoto was exactly the person he saw on the screen.

Because unlike Juzo's stupid ass, Gozu saw the killing game.

He saw that Makoto never gave up. Despite everything, he clung to that hope and inspired others.

It meant something to people, it changed lives.

Also him telling Makoto not to modest over his contribution, love this guy.

I love seeing the people who genuinely believe in Hope, who genuinely care for each other.

And than you have people like Munakata and Juzo who are just out for revenge and kill whoever disagrees with them.

I know Juzo says he's doing it for revenge but I don't believe him.

I believe Chisa's murder hurts him, but even if she hadn't died.

I can't see him being in this situation and not acting the way he is now.

Feels like an excuse, a justification to bring about his own perverse justice on whoever he wants.

And either way Chisa wouldn't be happy with either of them.

Makoto I love you but you're luck is more unhinged and complex than Nagito's.

It's not the best thing to rely on.

Times up.

I love how this just became the most dangerous game of Mafia.

.... NO

NO NO NO NO

FUCK THIS.

FUCK THIS OH FUCK NOOOO

ASAHINA 😭!!!

And the bloods literally on Makoto's hand so he looks the most sus.

What is this the first trial?

AHHHHHH

His face, oh Makoto... God this is Sayaka in the shower all over again.

They were just talking.

I HATE IT

I HATE IT HERE.

AHHHHHHHHH

[xsoulxsilencex]

I was thinking for a while how I should handle my (critical) thoughts on ep 95 on tumblr. And I decided that I will use the tags and simply hide my explanation under "keep reading" so you can choose to continue reading or stop already. Maybe some will end up agreeing with me, others might disagree and think "man, you missed the point/you don't get it" - which is fine.

So what to say about ep 95? Firstly, my opinion hasn't changed after watching it with subs: I didn't cry, I wasn't even really sad which might be weird considering I do like Nishaw and the Velgearians. (and I have cried for or was at least feeling a bit emotional about other death scenes, even in ygo so it's not like I'm just not caring enough or even cold-hearted)

But Idk... them dying didn't affect me and it might be because the "wrong" people were there to see it happen. I know this sounds mean but Asaka and Tazaki over Yudias (and the twins)? Really? And before someone says "well duh, he's not supposed to know so ofc we get nothing of him in that regard" - well, I don't like. I had a feeling from the spoiler summary that they would go down the "we don't want to upset Yudias so lets keep quiet about his comrades dying, we mean well" road and I still can't vibe with that, no matter how good the intention behind it is.

So on one hand, Tazaki can understand the Velgearians' feelings but he also knows that Yudias should know what's going on. And at first he made me believe that he would go back to UTS and tell him the truth - but no, he changes his mind and asks Asaka if she can give him some of her employees to act as the Velgearians for a while which is a pretty meh plan imo.

Asaka's reaction to this is basically mine:

Ngl, for a while, I thought Asaka would stay with her opinion that keeping everything a secret is a bad idea since that's not changing reality and the grief would just be postponed - and I agree with her. But it's not like she's uncaring since you see in her change of expression that it pains her too what's happening but it is how it is.

And then I thought Tazaki might change his opinion even if he still has this dilemma of trying to respect the Velgearians' last wish and letting Yudias know.

So, did Tazaki end up siding with Asaka? Well, we get no answer yet because Nishaw randomly shows up, looking kinda frozen. Asaka goes into explanation mode and exposes herself as a hypocrite:

At least she knows herself that she's hypocritical.

But still, I'm disappointed. I had wished in her not changing her mind even though deep inside, I had this (bad) feeling she's gonna side with Tazaki eventually and say nothing. Because it was the most predictable outcome no matter if she had lost or won. (*side eye at Luge vs Zaion*)

Also: Asaka freezing Nishaw to prevent him from dying feels like coming out of nowhere imo. And if freezing was really her best idea then why didn't she ever think of asking Luge? You know, the guy who can turn people into ice blocks by letting them see his boring manga? (and he can still freeze people despite being transformed into a massage chair iirc) Did she think he would refuse to help her or immediately tell Yudias and co. about her idea? Ngl, I do wonder if Luge's ice would've been better to prevent the death of the Velgearians than whatever Asaka developed since the former is ice made by alien power so it might be stronger than what humans developed. But I guess I will never get an answer for that...

When the duel ends, Tazaki holds a dead Valvelgear close while Asaka can just look at them with sadness. I know that many people got emotional seeing this and here comes my issue that I mentioned earlier in my post: the "wrong" characters witnessed the deaths. I like Tazaki and I'm overall cool with Asaka but no way this duel didn't happen mainly for some "Asana vs Galient" nostalgia similar to Rovian vs Princess Minstrel being a reminder of Romin vs Princess G. Nobody can tell me it wouldn't have been way more devastating to see the episode ending with Yudias or Yuhi holding Valvelgear with a tear-stained face since those two are the ones with the strongest bond with them. Did Tazaki even have scenes with Valvelgear alone before this episode? I honestly can't remember if yes - which is why I feel like they did that scene of Tazaki wanting to feed Valvelgear like a baby at the beginning of the ep + him using Valvelgear as a duel disk (like Yuhi usually does) to show that they have a bond even though it was pretty stupid to use Valvegear when the Velgearians in it are dying aka are already weakened and so shouldn't have been running around and pushing things just to work as a duel disk.

Nishaw was barely there but considering how sad Yudias and co. already looked when hearing about the Dudi people dying, they would've been sad to see him die too ofc.

The episode ends in Yudias and co. being back to MIK, talking with Phaser about the Rush Robot. And the very last scene is Yuga caught on camera. We likely just got Yuga there because he's gonna be the reason for the Yuna vs Manabu rematch.

I'm probably starting to repeat myself but damn... if the episode had actually ended with Yudias knowing what happened to his comrades and Nishaw (and the next ep would go more into his feelings after hearing that) instead... I kinda doubt that ep 96 will give us much focus on him considering the duel match up we get but I really hope that Yudias and the twins getting the sad news told won't be done off screen or in a quick flashback. Come on, I need to see their shocked faces, their tears and potential screams because no way Yuhi will just silently cry. Heck, he might be so mad (and maybe even feeling useless again after he had promised Valvelgear to save them and failed) that either Yuamu or Yudias must bring him back to his senses. I can see Yuamu either "just" looking sad or crying but not in a loud way.

As for Yudias... I think there are two ways he could take the news: He either starts crying and blaming himself for not noticing that his comrades were already dying and be very down (which Asaka and Tazaki wanted to prevent) - or Yudias cries but surprises everyone by not being completely crushed by the news but is still determined to find a way to save (and now also revive) his people. After all, we just know that the Velgearians in Valvelgear are dead. What's with the Velgearians who are still on Velgear? Are they already dead too or still alive? Is anyone even caring to check on them? And there's Dinois, Myuda and Zwijo too ofc.

Speaking of Zwijo: I dislike how he's always gone and in the middle of an arc, he comes back because the plot needs him. Like why can't we get a glimpse of what he's doing in the meantime? Where is he right now? Did he check on Velgear? Did he have contact with Yuga? Did he find something relevant? Is he maybe already too weak to do anything? Why do we always have to wait for such information until he's the focus again? Is it so hard having a duel between some characters and still show on the side what Zwijo's up to? He's the main rival and a freaking Velgearian! His kind is dying and we don't have a freaking clue how he feels about it and where he even is.

So yeah, those were my thoughts on ep 95. Sorry if they sound mostly negative but I really wished the writers had done some different choices there. But let's see how ep 96 and the rest of arc 8 will be...

[zalrb]

Are there any characters/ships you think had good development/performances, like, it felt like they had many seasons because writers and actors they made the most of it, but they were actually only there for one or very few episodes?

From another post of mine:

Ash and Michael in Star Trek Disco, I mean I remember @initiumseries rolling her eyes at the fact that it took a time loop for them to get their first kiss because she thought it was a cliche but I didn’t mind it because I thought that in a short period of time their relationship was established and established well.

They go through the entire arc of disliking-each-other-distrusting-each-other-but-then-finding-a-common-sense-of-respect-and-then-becoming-friends in one episode

and when the time-warping episode comes along in the next episode, in the very beginning of the episode, it’s established that Michael and Ash have been talking to each other, spending time together for a while through narration and montage

so that when the time-warping actually happens and different characters point out that Ash and Michael have a thing

and they do, I believe it

so there are ways to build up relationships in one or two episodes, shows — especially Netflix shows — just don’t do it.

Chris and Jal in Skins is sort of another example. Like, in series 1 there are certain moments between them that you can point to as them having some sort of connection but they are few and far between because in series 1 Chris was in love with Angie but in series 2, they do their romantic build-up, getting together, breaking up and getting back together again in one episode and it works.

It starts with them having a bet where Chris can't say "fuck it" anymore and has to try to get his life in order and Jal has to stop saying no to everything and let loose and have fun

and we see Jal take that bet to heart when Chris tells her to steal a hat and her doing it and Chris realizing she's amazing

and when he admires her for doing good on their deal, she tells him not to forget his end and he boasts about making fifty bucks selling pills but the whole point is that he's supposed to be getting his act together and finding a real job so she gets upset because he's not taking it seriously

and he kisses her

which works because you see throughout series 1, Chris doesn't have people in his life who push him to try, who believe in him, he's been abandoned by both of his parents, so Jal getting upset that he's not doing the work and through this showing him that she cares about him prompts that response and she urges him to try again and very importantly, instead of abandoning him, she reaches out her hand

and then they're just together and he gets a job, gets a flat, their relationship is working

and then he cheats on her because Angie comes back, he realizes he doesn't love Angie anymore, Jal catches them and they break up

and then he makes an impassioned speech

and they get together again by the end of the episode

Alisha and Simon in Misfits, as well. That came out of the blue in series 2 because Simon and Alisha are polar opposites and you would never think they'd ever get together but Simon comes back from the future very different than present day Simon, more confident and self-possessed so he comes back and straight up tells her, you fall in love with me and you see her fall in love with future Simon throughout the episode. I've run out of space to do gifs so I can't do a proper breakdown.

[sleepless-crows]

I posted 4,663 times in 2022

That's 4,663 more posts than 2021!

614 posts created (13%)

4,049 posts reblogged (87%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ketterdam-snack-bar

@sleepless-crows

@thenighttrain

@aroace-crow

I tagged 1,826 of my posts in 2022

#grishaverse - 188 posts

#taylor swift - 159 posts

#six of crows - 157 posts

#soc - 153 posts

#crooked kingdom - 131 posts

#kaz brekker - 129 posts

#inej ghafa - 93 posts

#just ranting - 76 posts

#shadow and bone - 68 posts

#kanej - 65 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#or maybe i'm just a huge procrastinator that gets upset and cannot move on from little things and does not know how to interact with humans

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I know an issue we had with Shadow and Bone season 1 was that Jesper did not wear his colorful clothing as he was described favoring in the books. But my first thought seeing Jesper in the season 2 teaser was that he was finally wearing some green.

115 notes - Posted November 5, 2022

#4

I said it once and I'll say it again.

I don't think Kaz is holding a knife. I think he is holding a letter opener. (A letter opener is a knife, but not my point.)

Reasons why:

There is no one around him to physically hurt.

He is in front of his desk.

There is an envelope on the desk.

He is holding the knife while he is in front of a letter.

It is a letter opener.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

128 notes - Posted November 16, 2022

#3

they actually nailed it with the casting because i would totally believe matthias when he says "he looks like he's about twelve" despite wylan being played by an adult

151 notes - Posted December 9, 2022

#2

None Of The Crows Will Die

I know many of us are afraid that when we get SoC 3, a Crow has to die. And many people think it's Kaz but just like a post @quillsthrills made, Killing Kaz is Killing Hope. (Sorry for the tag but you made a valuable point!!)

And I've also seen another or multiple posts about how Leigh can't kill off any of the Crows because how is she going to defend killing off a disabled boy with severe PTSD, a girl who also has severe PTSD and survived sex trafficking, a boy who has ADHD and is recovering from a gambling addiction, a boy who has dyslexia and had an abusive father, and a plus sized girl recovering from a drug addiction. (I don't know who posted this but please take the credit, I just typed this from my memory and understanding.)

And the reason Matthias died was because Leigh planned it from the start. She knew he was going to die, and his death was relevant to his character arc.

And I don't know if Leigh secretly plans to kill another one of the Crows but she can't justify killing any of the remaining 5 crows. And their deaths contribute nothing to their character development.

I also stumbled into this quote that I highlighted from my copy of Six of Crows.

This was during their trek through Fjerda, going to the Ice Court.

And maybe I'm not contributing any new points but I would just like to point out that the Crows are survivors, even Matthias said so. He wasn't including himself and I don't know if that's because he still didn't like associating himself with the rest of the Crows or if this was possible foreshadowing, which will be a stretch, but Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, and Nina are all survivors.

They represent and stand for all the people who've gone through the experiences they've had, which although are extreme to the average person, we still resonate with. And killing any of them wouldn't send a good message.

Leigh can't kill Kaz because he stands for the people who are surviving and living in spite of whatever challenges they face.

Leigh can't kill Inej because she stands for the people who are healing and have found purpose in the lives they live.

Leigh can't kill Jesper because he stands for the people who are learning from their mistakes and trying to do better.

Leigh can't kill Wylan because he stands for the people who have found peace and prosperity despite their upbringing and let go of the ones who hurt them.

Leigh can't kill Nina because she stands for the people who have faced an incredible loss and doing their best to move on and live life to the fullest.

These aren't the only reasons and just reflect my interpretation of the characters but I really believe Leigh can't give these characters tragic endings because they all deserve happy, hopeful ones.

346 notes - Posted November 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Thinking about how the first and last time we see Kaz (in the SoC duology) get into a sticky situation and out of it, he bluffed his way through, and got out alive.

He didn't set that girl's apartment on fire and he didn't bury Pekka's son alive.

Because When everyone knows you're a monster, you needn't waste time doing every monstrous thing.

494 notes - Posted November 2, 2022

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