#did you think for a second that her only plot function was to show that CARMY is incapable of choosing not to self sabotage

[captainofthedefiant]

I’ve also had a blast being able to read multiple “eras” of fanfic for this show, and we’re so lucky to be able to do such an archaeological dig on something so, idk, simple? it’s really interesting to see what fanfic writers cared about, down to the little details, in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, etc. the fact that 2025 would be the SIXTH decade this fandom has endured is by itself incredible. but the SH fandom has also thrown me into a greater interest in researching fandom history and understanding it in context with its time.

like one random thing I’ve noticed is modern fanfic is more squeamish about bodily function and is more likely to gloss over or outright omit if not explicitly necessary for a plot. older fanfic just seems (anecdotally, to me) to be a lot grittier in that way, and I’m not sure why that is but it’s interesting. maybe if your only blueprint are real novels where world building like that is important, you copy it; whereas now we see our fanfics as our escapist fantasies and the details don’t necessarily matter. rose colored goggles and all.

also modern fanfic loves kink and exploration of gender. and i see very little of this in old starsky and hutch fanfic. you and I both touched on this in our posts but there’s an inherent heteronormativity to a lot of the sex that I think simply comes from a lack of experience (not personally, but like, there was no internet to get curious about a really specific kink. And was a 23 yr old girl in 1982 writing fanfic going to go to the sex shop for an explicit book? I dunno lol).

I like to think a lot of these stories have stories behind them from the authors*, and it warms my heart when the stories work through the issue of queerness and come out the other side (no pun intended) with a brighter perspective on the tender variations of human experience. And all this through some silly buddy cop show where the actors were weird and obsessed w each other and hated every second of their time doing it except all the times they got to love on each other! like are you joking…

(*I know charlotte_frost used to have a page on her (recently defunct) website where she explained the background for all her SH fics and why she explored what she did in each story.)

one fascinating thing i notice in starsky and hutch fanfic (usually older ones) is this distinct desire to talk in circles around being gay vs not being gay. “im not gay i just love you and want to be with you” and not really working through that feeling to come to a comfort with their sexuality, labels or not.

one of many reasons I love flamingo’s “total eclipse of the heart” (and per the story’s fanlore page it seems like this was the author’s explicit goal with their story, as a queer person themselves (Unsure about this part so apologies if this is not true!)). this story is unabashedly queer and it involves all the uncertainty of understanding one’s own sexuality after denying it, in addition to the broader plot of a dub-con experience (which is also done fantastically). i also am extremely in love w queer stories/history in general from this time so i really just enjoyed how vivid it was

i wonder if there is a divide between queer people, who know that you must eventually work through the feelings of self loathing or self judgement for being “different” (speaking from my own experience) vs straight people who think, oh you can just be gay while still kind of hating being gay, and that would somehow result in a happy ending. I know there are plenty of people who don’t ever lose the discomfort, or are socialized to feel it, etc. but i find it to be trite the more i see it in fanfic. I find it to represent an unconscious mission statement of inherent discomfort with sexuality - which of course for the time makes sense

but back to the show/its fanfic, I imagine this common dismissal of sexuality comes from a) the time period and b) the fandom building on its roots, which are stuck down in that origin of inherent discomfort with being gay that stems from the era. And then I think this dynamic just becomes fanon when it’s written so much.

this is why I have also loved a few fanfics I’ve read where it’s starsky who is more comfortable with his sexuality than hutch is. poor hutch gets to suffer from fanonization unfortunately because he “looks more gay” than starsky does (typical stereotype of well mannered, likes music and cooking, well groomed, “pretty”), though tbh i don’t see much of a clear divide that would lead to what the modern reader would call “top/bottom discourse”, lol. Which I think would be fairly progressive (aka not leaning on- effeminate man bottoms, masculine man tops, no exceptions for character).

as an aside, even paul glaser himself in an interview said something like, we’re all a little homoerotic or we’re all a little attracted to the same sex (I think anyway. It could have also been David soul who said this. Me “which one are you”-ing them irl), and this to me is also such a product of discomfort with sexuality because I remember thinking “no no EVERYBODY likes girls a little” when I was still coming to terms with my own sexuality. You just wanna slap yourself with a wet fish and say “no, you’re just bisexual”.

did I write this entire post just to gush about “total eclipse” being THE s/h fanfic of all time? And then get wildly off track? Only kind of.

[enslaughts]

claire tried to be carmy's pete bla bla she doesn't even know who pete IS.... she literally just fell in love with the worst person anyone could ever fall in love with at age like fourteen. it's not that deep i promise

[whileyoureinschoolidothisallday]

Fixing MHA's Ending So It Follows Through With Its Core Themes (And It Basically Fixes Itself)

I don't like retconning at the best of times, but turning what started as essentially a Hope focused narrative into a "realistic" tragedy at the very last second is some wild work.

So I'm gonna do what I do best as a fic writer and fix it!!!!!

The Summary

So, I'm pretty sure all of us were on mostly the same page up until the very last panels of the Shigaraki fight (Having AFO being just "born evil" was probably the start of things not being great, but I'm willing to let that slide because it doesn't really effect the overall function of the story that much). Once that and the epilogue started is where I mostly saw people being like ????????? to a lot of choices, so I'm going to focus on those two sections only.

We're gonna be rewriting:

-The deaths of the Villains + Kurogiri (obvs)

-The overall post-War actions and reactions

-The continued existence of the Commission and the Hero Rankings

-Hawk's fate

-Spinner's fate

-A liiiiitle tweak to Chisaki's fate

-Slight tweaks to the Todorokis

-and finally What to DO with the Villains + Kurogiri now that they're alive

And we'll be starting with...

Toga

Now for a battle that was so beautiful, this really did end up completely falling apart.

I'm not gonna justify every single Villain Rescue I do, but Toga's really comes down to one simple reason for me:

Her bullies literally wanted her to die as atonement.

You don't...typically make your character's fate agree with their bullies or abusers (otherwise???? why are you explicitly portraying them as bullies and abusers to the audience if you want us to ultimately agree with them?????)

Throughout most of the story prior to this, Hori made it a staple in the show that dying for the cause, hurting yourself for the cause, martyring yourself or otherwise telling someone to kill themselves for the cause is a vile thing to do. So, it makes ZERO sense why he would suddenly retcon this at such a critical moment, especially since he already set the stage for it to be wrong in the first place.

(also does anyone also think it was weird/creepy that Hori LITERALLY has her do this with Twice and she very explicitly says "Don't be stupid I don't have to give all of my blood away"? No? Just me?)

Everything happens the same, she still thinks she's sacrificing herself, "If only, if only", blah blah blah

AND THEN...

Hawks

This is such low-hanging fruit plot-wise it actually feels offensive that it went nowhere

Nothing happens with Hawks. We all say it, fans and non-fans alike. He is wasted potential incarnate. His story is a circle and it so easily did not have to be that way because of one simple writing decision:

Hawks and Toga share a blood type.

Up until now, it really did seem like Hawks learned nothing from Jin's death. The first thing he says when he sees the clones is, "We have to kill them now!" But then, picture him still battered and broken from his fight with AFO, wingless, but there is still SOMETHING he can do to save someone's life.

And he puts the needle in his arm instead, and before she can question it, he tells her Jin would want her to live. He's not gonna make the same mistake twice.

(I also think it'd be nice if he said something like how lucky she is, to really go full circle with the Jin story, but I'm not trying dialogue here lol)

And that leads us to...

Shigaraki (and Kurogiri!)

This is a double feature because with the way I'm doing it, I can't save one without the other.

So, something that happens during this and is super anti-climactic and seemingly pointless is Midoriya losing his hands. He gets em back in like 2 seconds, because Eri gives him a surprise rewind almost immediately after. The actual point of it was just to show the brand new rule that physical damage that happens in the vestige world also happens in the real world, so that killing Shigaraki a few chapters later would still make sense.

We're gonna get rid of that rule entirely and just say that Midoriya does not lose his actual arms in the fight, and psychological damage in a ghost world does not reflect physically in reality (or idk. If you DO want that to happen, then just say the embers of the vestiges protected him one last time or something).

And because he doesn't lose his arms, Eri still has a surprise rewind to use.

But before we get to that, we actually have to save Shigaraki. So, here's the super complicated rescue rewrite I came up with. Ready?

Kicking AFO out of his brain and giving him back full control over his body simply does not kill him.

That's it!!!! That's really all that needed to happen!! It was a very conscious choice to make that kill him! It's actually more work and details to kill Shigaraki than it is to save him!! Hori already went out of his way to say that Nana's vestige protected him so that he wasn't completely swallowed by AFO, just so he could say goodbye before fading away anyway. What if, considering the fact that hatred of Nana is what damned him, love FROM Nana actually just plain ol saves him? Full stop? We come full circle. It would make it a fantastic mirror to the Todoroki fight and solidify the theme that love from your/a family, even a broken one, will save you!!

And then further in the background, Bakugou doesn't randomly kill (?????? Even after reading it again I'm still really confused about how Kurogiri dies. I think this is what happens?????) Kurogiri, and instead starts to lose control like they feared. But then, refusing to give up on him, Aizawa hits him with the now-available Rewind Juice and it finally, finally stabilizes his mind for good.

The day is saved.

And that just leaves...

Touya

Unfortunately my stupid husband can't stop trying to kill himself for 2 seconds despite my best efforts to convince him otherwise, so there's really nothing I can do about the extent of his injuries

However, there's LOTS I can do about the way we're treating said injuries! =D

First of all, because Touya is my favorite, I do wanna allow myself the space to briefly rant about how his entire situation was handled because brother. first of all. It's so incredibly obvious that he was supposed to die on the battlefield with his comrades. That man had no fuckin eyeballs by the end of that fight, bffr. And then it was like Hori remembered the thing about the noodles and was like 'oh shit I better at least wrap that up lol' so he brought him back--eyeballs and TEARDUCTS magically intact btw so naturally the audience with reading comprehension was like 'oh he's healing somehow I guess'--just to get that specific moment on the books (and maybe just to draw Touya in his Batman Who Laughs era because I mean he does look pretty sick in the tank) and then turned around and killed him again. With no explanation what the random functioning tearducts and magical regrowth of eyeballs was about.

Like...my guy, you ain't gotta do all that. Again, it's so much harder and more complicated to kill him than it is to keep him alive. Not to mention he was killed OFF-SCREEN. WE DON'T EVEN GET TO SEE ANY--IF ANY--CONVERSATIONS HE HAS WITH SHOUTO OR HIS FAMILY, WHICH WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF NOT KILLING HIM ON THE BATTLEFIELD. INSTEAD OF THE SEXY SHIRTLESS SERVING-FACE-AT-A-FUNERAL IMAGE OF TOUYA WE COULD'VE SEEN A FLASHBACK OF THEM TALKING AND HIM SMILING AND BEING HAPPY WITH THEM FOR WHATEVER TIME THEY HAD AND THAT STILL WOULD'VE BEEN MORE SATISFYING. Y'KNOW. BECAUSE THAT WAS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF THE TODOROKI PLOTLINE?????????????VSSSBBNM,.;;PUSAAXXGHIIRWDFGG

But anyway.

Fixing Touya's death is really simple. We can do two things, actually.

Work with the deus-ex Ice Quirk a little bit, make the Phoenix Theory canon. Ice heals him, the tank is a giant fridge. Lo and behold, it would explain why he magically healed eyeballs and tearducts. It's an incredibly slow process, but eventually he'd heal enough to be out of the tank and in a normal hospital setting for the rest of his recovery. It also gives him a goal to pursue for the future, I.E learning how to control the new side of his powers and mayybeeee getting interested in studying Quirk Biology in the process 👀

He simply!!!!!! Doesn't die!!!!!!!!! Out of ALLLLLLL the MHA characters, I would 100% believe you if you told me that Touya Todoroki nevertheless persisted. That's like...his entire character. You don't even need to give me a reason. His entire character up until now has been 'the one that's somehow still alive' to the point that the fucking Dr. Eggman lookin ass mad scientist that brought him back to life in the first place (in WORSE condition) was like 'yeah no idea how he's still here that's scary'. I'm sorry, the entire fucking show I've had to see A. An old man without a face with a back alley ventilator system shoved directly into his stoma that's somehow fine and talking perfectly, and B. Another old man missing his ENTIRE digestive tract for years and is still up and walking around somehow with no G-tube or colostomy bag to be seen, so I think by the power of God and Anime, Touya could probably survive his injuries and it would be within the realm of believability for the show. In fact, it's LESS believable that he stayed alive through all that by spite alone and then when he finally gets offered love and acceptance, that determination and tenacity to stay alive suddenly goes out the window. If anything, it should've made him MORE determined to live.

Sorry I got carried away with that one. But there. Everyone is saved and the core themes are intact.

Now we just have...

The Overall Actions and Reactions Post-War

Gonna sum this up really quickly:

-The cameras never turned off. They're built for Quirk resistance because they're a fucking newscast in a Hero society if their technology broke every time there were heavy Quirk exchanges there would never be any fucking news. Making them conveniently lose footage so none of the civs can see the Villains humanity is just rubbing salt in the wound and serves no narrative purpose in line with pre-established themes. Everyone saw what was recorded, and it helped the Villains' cases for rehabilitation.

-We do not censor out this battle in future history books. Everyone is very familiar with the final fight and the events and circumstances leading up to it. It is not erased from public memory as soon as possible. In fact, it's frequently studied and referenced when making new policies to avoid making the same mistakes. Hori. Wtf.

-We do not reinstate the Hero Rankings in any way shape or form, and Shouto is the biggest voice in dismantling this system. Voila, this is now actually the story of how they all became the greatest Heroes, because they aren't ranked. They're all literally the greatest Heroes, and so will everyone after them.

-This IS actually portrayed in the epilogue, but yes, let's be LESS reliant on Heroes and police and MORE invested in the community!!!!!!! Even more so than what's portrayed!!!!! Take another bit from Spider-Man: Anyone can wear the mask!!!!!! Let's make a world where Heroes have too much time on their hands and not just make more of them, right????????? Remember that????????

-WE DO NOT REINSTATE THE COMMISSION. WE GOT RID OF THEM CORRUPT HOES FOR A REASON!!!!!! NO A CHANGE OF THE GUARD IS NOT ENOUGH TO FIX IT WE'RE NOT 7YRS OLD!!!!! HORI. WTF. The only thing I want them to be in charge of is licensing Heroes. I want these fuckers to be the DMV of the Hero world and that's IT!!!!!!!

Which brings us to...

Hawks' Fate

I don't even fuck with this man like that, but he did not deserve to become CEO of the organization that groomed and abused him since he was a child when all he wanted to do was chase tail and fuck off to a beach somewhere. Considering the fact that he also, like, killed people he shouldn't have, let him retire like Endeavor, please. We're done giving the old guard power and privilege, especially when they explicitly did not and do not want it (and when they did have it, they misused it). The only thing I want this man involved with is Toga's recovery alongside Uraraka. Specifically, I want him paying for it and anything else she might need. Fuck it, you know what, make HIM Endeavor's personal aide instead of Rei!!!! He gets to be a little simp and Endeavor gets a replacement son to fill Natsu's spot. Everyone wins.

(He does deserve that hairline tho. I ain't fixin that.)

So that leaves...

Spinner's Fate

I'm not changing much here, besides the fact that now Shiggy is alive and I think they should be ✨Roommates✨ eventually (and obviously he's gonna be much less riddled with survivor's guilt). I still think he should write that book, but I also think that with his multiple Quirks, he should team up with scientists to understand how Quirks work in the body (and maybe get some of them removed from his).

And next...

Chisaki's Fate

I just think this guy needs to be in the same place as the other Villains, at least for a fraction of the time. Why is he just...out. He was also in that daycare and could definitely use some help before we just let him loose in the streets because he said sorry (Can the League just say sorry then??????????).

I do think afterwards he should get involved with something chemistry related tho, cause those bullets of his came in clutch.

And on that note...

The Todorokis' Fates

And by Todorokis I mean two of them, specifically Rei lol

Yeah, she's not gonna be Endeavor's nurse for the rest of her life lol. That man has more money than God, he can hire an aide like everybody else. In fact, they're not even living together. Do you remember how earlier in the series, he gave them a new house? So they could live away from him and he would be in the old house by himself? I liked that plan. Let's go back to that plan. I'm not gonna go as far as to make them divorce, if they're together they're together, but I think separation is a necessary must at this point because if they MUST stay together, they should at least try dating for once???????? Girl was actually bought like maybe they figure out if they even still like each other at all, or ever did.

(Also, I have to laugh as a motorized wheelchair user that Hori drew her pushing Endeavor all happy and blissfully. Motorized wheelchairs are not meant to be pushed like that lol. They have push features for emergencies and small around-the-house distances of course, but uh, mine's 350 pounds without me in it. It's not usually anyone's first choice.)

But there is one more Todoroki I have a lot to talk about, so that finally brings us to...

What Do We Do With The Villains + Kurogiri Now That They're Alive???????????

We take everything from comic books except what would actually makes sense with the story lol

Surprise!!!!!! We're doing Arkham!!!!!! This is another low-hanging fruit thing that I'm almost a little offended that it wasn't implemented. Obviously Arkham has its problems in the Batman canon that we're gonna try to avoid, but I honestly think Batman villains and the core MHA Villains are pretty similar in their execution in that they are primarily mentally ill victims of society who have done very terrible things, but the audience (and Batman himself) is actively rooting for them to get better over just rotting in jail or being killed. Two-Faced has killed sooooo many people and has relapsed a ton, but I ultimately still want to see him get better because he was Batman's best friend once and a good man, and what happened to him was a tragedy. I think all the Villains deserve a space where they can humanely heal from their issues and gain support, while also being safely separated from society while they're still dangerous to themselves and others.

Oh, but Batman and his endless money bought Arkham. Who do we know who has access to trust fund money, an investment in the mentally ill, and the bonus of a medical background that could fund such a thing?

Ladies and Gentlemen, please put your hands together for...

Natsuo Todoroki!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My mans graduates from college and immediately uses his money as a doctor and his inheritance to open up Rindou Sanctuary, in honor of his mother Rei and named after her favorite flower (I don't think he'd want to give Enji the satisfaction of his last name attached to his greatest achievement). He's head doctor on site and the board, and visits Touya every shift once he's healed enough to be transferred to the facility. He is very invested in his brother's treatment and refuses to lose him again--at least not until they're proper old men.

It is publicly funded by donors and taxes alike, and Enji, naturally, is always the highest donor. Call it reparations.

And there you have it! That's how to fix the epilogue. It took longer to type than think about. I could care less about canon shipping, so y'all can keep that (or not). I'm just here to fix the structural problems that have no reason to be here at this point. As I said, once I redrew lines Hori already set up and just abandoned, it pretty much fixed itself.

Hope you enjoyed it and I hope it eases the grief a little!!!!! They're alive look I fixed it!!!!!! <3

(also feel free to use anything I said in here in your own fix-it fics!!!! Just tag me so I can read them 👀)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Regarding the “Is Marinette a Stalker?” post, I want to say thank you! Because I did something like Marinette and self-doubted my younger-self’s actions. A bit of context, I’m (37 y/o, female) one of the many adults that loved MLBCN when it started airing. When I came disappointed at the show by S4, I turned to the fandom to look out for fanfics, and was surprised by the salty side.

Don’t get me wrong, I kinda get the why’s and the reasons, and even though I enjoyed a Mari-salt fic titled “The Schedule” (iirc), I… sorta felt ashamed at myself? When I was 19, I fell in love with this guy, and it seemed that he liked me too. Our university had a system only for students where we could do lots of administrative stuff, like choosing our classes. At my time, there used to be a search tool on it to look out for our classmates’ schedules; in my curiosity, I searched for his just to see if we shared free periods. (Btw, today I do feel that it was wrong that my university had that function).

At my defense, after finding my crush’s schedule, I also searched for my friends’, just so I could organize with them to set up a table for our LAN parties. At the end my feelings weren’t reciprocated, my heartbreak ocurred close the next semester’s start, so I searched his schedule one more time, but just to avoid having classes with him.

When I read that Mari having Adrien’s schedule was “stalker behavior” I was like “OMG, was I a stalker? And worse, I was legally an adult!”, but I can’t remember my friends being creeped out by me. I don’t know if it is a subject whose meaning has evolved as time went on, or maybe it can change according to our different cultural/countries’ POV. But we do crazy stuff when we are young-adults, and worse when we are adolescents, add first love/crush feelings, and well… (just look at Hey, Arnold!’s Helga, she had it bad for Arnold and went to do stuff that by today’s standards is a serious case of bullying).

If the issue is the “breach of privacy” and the “3 years”, well, the first one isn’t touched on the show, maybe Mari got the pattern by observation, or Alya helped by asking Nino, or maybe even Chloe said something loudly, or my personal fan-favorite: as Class Rep, Marinette has access to that information to make easy her duties! And as for the second issue, they are 13-14 years old, my bet is that if their school makes fixated schedules for its students, so it wouldn’t be difficult to guess Adrien’s schedule for the next 3-years, and since his father was Marinette’s favorite designer, she might have followed his seasons releases, and might been easy for her to add it to Adrien’s schedule.

I want to clarify that I’m not looking to invalidate people’s feelings about this, or saying that they are wrong. In the end, we all must remember that Marinette is just a fictional adolescent character in a cartoon show, and cartoons will exaggerate actions just for the sake of the plot. We don’t like something about the characters’ actions and/or personalities? We teach and explain to the children why is wrong; and as adults, we tell ourselves to be wary if anything about it is in our daily actions, so we don’t fall into the “hating something that is a reflection of us” projection.

I like to think that I was a good adolescent and young adult that didn’t do anything morally or ethically bad, so it really freaked me out that part of the Marinette salt fandom. So, a thousand thanks! And sorry that your friend, cousin and you had to deal with that stuff.

(Post this ask is in reference to)

Before we get started, I wanted to say that your university having that feature seems incredibly dangerous. Most people are going to use it the harmless way that you did, but boy does that have the potential for misuse. Way better to let students decide if they want to share schedules on their own.

Anyway, while I will absolutely agree that the show occasionally takes Marinette too far, leading me to understand why her behavior bothers people, I think that biggest issue in her writing is actually something you sort of brought up:

I fell in love with this guy, and it seemed that he liked me too.

It sounds like you had some sort of relationship with your crush and that makes a world of difference to how your actions are going to be perceived by others. Checking the schedule of a guy you don't know? Kinda creepy. Checking the schedule of your friends including the friend you have a crush on? Normal.

Let's look at a personal example to show you what I mean. When I was in high school, I learned parts of my crush's schedule. On my way to lunch, I would purposely walk by the area where he hung out so that I could say "hi" to him as I walked past.

This statement probably raises some questions in your mind like how did I learn that he'd be there? The answer is incredibly innocent. I learned that part of his schedule by accident because his hangout spot because was also my hangout spot during my free periods. I just happened to go by one day to see a different friend and ran into him, thereby learning a bit of his schedule. After that, I took path A to lunch instead of path B because they took the same amount of time and I liked seeing him for two seconds every day.

It's also worth noting that we had the same hangout spot because we had a mutual friend group! We were in the same small club and spent a lot of time together. We even hung out together outside of school and club activities. We eventually dates for several years because he asked me out! So when I said, "hi" to him every day, it didn't shock anyone or creep him out because I wasn't some random girl. I was a friend taking a moment to acknowledge his existence before going about the rest of my day.

An additional mitigating detail is the fact that I could have told you details about several platonic friends' schedules because that's just what happens when you know people and pay attention to their lives. We all know random crap about the people we care about. Crushes simply enhance your attention, making you way more aware of everything you do, say, or think about this person. That heightened attention might make you feel creepy at times, but that feeling doesn't automatically make you creepy. It's more complicated than that. The details of the situation matter because there's a ton of nuance around this topic. Nuance that actually makes it hard to give examples because this stuff can be incredibly personal. What person A find cute and charming is a hard no for person B.

That nuances goes beyond crushes on people you're close with. For example, you don't need to stop going to your favorite coffee shop because the new barista is cute! You are not stalking them by maintaining your usual habits! You're not a bad person for experiencing attraction toward a person who is working! It only gets weird if you start crossing social boundaries like if you start asking them on a date every time you see them even though they are very clearly uninterested and you've never actually talked to them beyond simple pleasantries.

This is where we circle back to Miraculous.

While the early seasons of Miraculous gave Adrien and Marinette a few moments of friendship like playing games together in Gamer, those moments quickly stopped. By season three, they barely interacted. This happened for an obvious reasons. Miraculous is an episodic formula show in almost the purest sense of those terms. The writers have made it clear that the episodes are designed so that they can be watched in any order leading to all sorts of weird moments like Felix telling Marinette that Gabriel is Monarch only for her to act like this is new information in the next episode. This was explicitly done so that people who missed the first reveal didn't feel left out:

Talking about previous episodes, [the writers] then say that... the 5 last episodes of season 5 (Collusion - Revolution - Representation - Conformation - Recreation) go together and there is a direct continuation between them. (However, one of their rules as Miraculous writers is that these episodes can also be watched and understood independently.)

This ridiculous rule* means that the on-screen relationships can't develop and grow as that makes the show feel too serialized. This limitation meant that Adrien and Marinette could NOT become functional friends with a developing relationship as that would require a certain viewing order. The same was true for Ladybug and Chat Noir's relationship. They could not become stronger over time. They had to stay stagnant.

Without those friendships, Adrienette was reduced to being all about Marinette being unable to function around Adrien and Ladynoir was reduced to being all about Chat Noir flirting relentlessly while Ladybug constantly shot him down. The only side of the square that was allowed to be a true friendship was Marichat because they could interact without it leading to a romance since they weren't in love, which is a major problem since Adrienette is what became canon in spite of it having the substance of unset jello. How are we supposed to ship a couple that never knowingly interacted???

This inability to have developing relationships is why the writers wrote Marinette more like a fangirl than a friend with a crush. But fangirl behavior only plays well when there's a level of separation between the fan and the object of their affections. The fan can't actually know their crush because that makes the fan feel creepy and weird. This is Marinette's main problem. The thing that understandably turns a lot of viewers off. The way her crush is written simply doesn't fit the story canon is going with.

If Marinette and Adrien had been written as true friends and were allowed to have more of those early show moments where they did non-romantic things together, then Marinette would come across light-years more relatable than she does in canon even if her actions didn't change.

It's not that Marinette never has questionable moments, she absolutely does! It's just that a lot of those moments are only questionable because of the nature of her relationship with Adrien. They would all feel wildly different if Adrien was her close friend or boyfriend.

To see what I mean, think about how much less creepy it would have been if Marinette claimed to have Adrien's schedule after she and Adrien started dating. Your instant assumption becomes that he gave it to her! You also have the addition of Gabriel's controlling nature to mitigate the way Marinette's rickshaw date plan comes across. It goes from awkwardly over-the-top to sweet because she's just trying to find a way to spend a few minutes with her boyfriend whose life is too controlled to allow for proper dates. Same exact episode setup, wildly different read because context matters.

It really is sad how much the writing failed Marinette because it's normal to be a little weird around your crush. Wanting to get to know them better and spend time with them is completely understandable and common behavior! But the writers didn't just decide to keep Marinette and Adrien from being good friends. They also decided to give Marinette an active running gag of trying and failing to confess. This gag requires her crush to be extremely active while the show's formulaic nature meant that the crush could never have true progress. This lead to the show constantly putting Marinette in awkward positions and questionable situations. It's a terrible call if your goal is to actually tell a romance. They would have been way better off to make Marinette shy and afraid to confess as a contrast to Chat Noir's bold flirting. The most I'd do in that setup is to let her have the occasional secrete admirer thing where she leaves Adrien a gift or sends him a note like we saw in The Bubbler. That way a much stronger way to play Marinette's crush.

*Quick note: status quo rules are fine in shows that don't have overarching plots, but Miraculous is a romance with an overarching plot. Both of those elements require you to have some level of serialization to your story. I recently used ABC's Castle as an example of this. Almost every episode it a unique murder mystery, but the characters' relationships progress over time. There are also several plot lines that run through the show, leading to a handful of episodes that do need to be watched in order. Notably, all of the major status quo changes happen in that handful of serialized episodes. This is the type of show that Miraculous needed to be for its main story lines to work.

[litnerdwrites]

Not sure if this is a hot take or not, but there should've been a larger time skip between ACOTAR and ACOMAF.

It would've given Feyre more time to mature, to learn the Spring Court, and Prythian. During that time, the overt ways in which Spring is framed as not being meant for Feyre (the traditions, rules, lack of support, Ianthe, and relationship issues) could begin to deepen and fester. Become something more understated, that appears to be a functioning relationship on the outside, but through Feyre's POV, we'd see what a fragile foundation it's standing on.

I don't hate Tamlin, and honestly, I think what Feyre did was worse anyway, because she dragged innocent people into it, who didn't do anything to hurt anyone. But I think it would've been interesting to see their relationship become more mutually toxic, and show that they're bad for one another. After all, their relationship seemed very rushed. If you remember, Tamlin needed to make a human fall in love with him to break a curse. It wouldn't matter if he loves her, just that she loved him.

Given how desperate he probably got, it would make sense that Tamlin would do anything to make Feyre fall in love with him. In which case, being stricter about things like tradition and governing would be a reasonable change to see in him. It would also be more compelling to see these parts of him clash with Feyre's free spirit. I think it would be easier to see a clear contrast between the way Feyre lived in Spring, and the way she lives in Velaris.

That's why her fears in ACOMAF, about moving on too fast, and how it would look, then her getting over it the second she realised she and Rhys were mates, would feel less forced than having Feyre need to worry about Spring because she's spent time growing to love it, and becoming responsible for its people.

The plot where he allied with Hybern to save her could still be there, but maybe add in details and context, like hearing rumours about Feyre stealing from Summer, or running through the Middle to give him a sense of urgency, as well as providing more reasons to believe Feyre is being controlled. It would also give Ianthe more information to manipulate to begin convincing Tamlin that every fear and paranoia she planted in his mind were true.

I also think it could play into how naive Feyre is compared to these fae, reminding her of her human instincs when she thinks they're gone. Feyre's destruction of the Spring Court could've been done in a way where she didn't intend to allow civilians to get hurt, but either through naiveté, the machinations of others, and just plain carelessness, people did get hurt, and she helped it happen. Give her some consequences, let her learn just how smart and cunning and otherworldly those ancient fae are, after we spent ACOMTAR and ACOMAF slowly separating ourselves from the human lands, their beliefs while growing accustomed to Prythian and the fae. I want to There could be more subtle reminders of this humanity through Feyre's sisters too, that she may initially turn her nose up at. I want to see juxtapositions between humans and fae throughout the books, leading to a moment of realizatdion and fear, that has her feeling human again, but in the most vulnerable way.

I think that seeing Feyre slowly become the Feyre from ACOTAR, to something more similar to Feyre from about ACOWAR onwards would've been a lot less jarring if she had more time to transition. Feyre feared what she might become if things in Spring didn't change, if she was stuck there for too long, she might turn into something as spiteful and vicious as Amarantha, and I think that should've been played into more. It would've been much more interesting to see. Feyre having to struggle between her morals and what she needed to do, not just regarding her relationship with Tamlin, but adjusting to life in Night.

Perhaps have Feyre push to request the book of breathings in a more diplomatic, and honest way, but only steal it when that fails. Let her snap and snarl at members of the IC, or random citizens, for remaining untouched under Amarantha's reign, and let her have some crueler impulses from time to time, to show how she's changed, rather than justifying the cruelty she committed.

I think much more time should've passed between Feyre returning to Spring from UTM, and Feyre leaving for Night. One that allows for comparisons, contrast, context, and and a far more emotionally complex and layered story that feels like more of a natural progression, than what we got. One that ends with her embracing the roll of villain. One where more comparisons can be made between her and Amarantha. One where the NC aren't just hypocrites and assholes, but intriguing, morally complex characters, that are able to learn some kindness and humanity from Feyre. They can learn to ditch the mask, and be more honest about the good intentions behind their actions, and willingness to repent for it.

[myddle]

Okay Uzi, lets start Murdering, some Drones

The finale of Murder Drones has come and gone, this show has successfully buried it's way into my cerebral cortex, and I will now think about it until I die

Anyway, lets speculate on what the fuck just happened in Episode 8 (And Episode 7 a bit too I guess)

Warning: Biggest Post Yet, Spoilers, Opinions

I Was Wrong About The Admin Thing, And I'm Okay With That

Last time I did a post like this, I speculated that Uzi's Administrator status would be the key to victory against the Absolute Solver. In truth, it was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it lore point, which makes sense in hindsight, because the whole Admin thing was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it lore point to begin with. This kind of environmental storytelling is good to put in a text, of course, but casual viewers need to be able to follow the plot without it. Truthfully, this is actually an area where the show usually stumbles a little; if there's one criticism I have for Murder Drones, it's that it show-don't-tells a little too hard sometimes. Luckily, this show is good enough for me to want to excuse it's flaws by any means neccessary! FOR EXAMPLE,

Khan Doorman: Mischaracterised, Or Traumatised?

So, Khan was kind of acting a little too badass at the end there, huh? This drone was a delusional door maniac at the start of the series, but now he's this stoic badass with a goofy side? Huhwhat? Explain THAT, Smart Genius!

How about I do? Call it a theory, but I think that THIS, is the real Khan, and the dingus we saw at the start of the series was a broken shadow of him.

Khan was a respected man, seeming leader of the Worker Defense Force, front of the line in finding Nori and Yeva just after the Core Collapse, and say what you will, he can build a good door.

And then tragedy strikes. The Dissassembly Drones strike, and while the WDF fends them off, they are not without casualty. Nori is devoured by nanite acid, and Khan beats her head in to end her suffering. The worst has happened.

While Nori's heart sneaks away to go make the plot happen, Khan spirals. His efforts to fight the DD scourge have failed, so he turns to doors. He doubles, triples down, becomes obsessed with the only thing that hasn't failed him. His daughter still wants to take the fight to the enemy, but Khan rejects the thought so hard, he rejects Uzi with it, hence his "doors>uzi" bullshit in the first episode (for the record, I'm not justifying it, I'm just explaining it, he was still a piece of shit for this).

By the time "Pilot" rolls around, Khan has been in a door-obsessed fugue state for... maybe years, I don't think we ever find out how long ago Nori's "death" was. But by now, he's barely functional; Uzi's second excuse to go outside literally only worked because it was door themed. His fear and delusion almost kill his only remaining family.

But as the events of the show go on, Khan is shook out of routine, and his stupor begins to fall away. In "Heartbeat", he defends his daughter's eccentricities. In "The Promening", he clumsily attempts to be part of Uzi's life again, and watches her build an alliance with N and V. In "Cabin Fever", he opens up to Uzi, revealing the darkness that haunts him and admitting to his mistakes. By "Mass Destruction" his mind has mostly cleared, and while he's still a door-loving goofball, he trusts his daughter, knows what he needs to do, and is ready to kick some Solver ass.

Wow, turns out I had a lot to say about Khan friggin' Doorman, do excuse me. Alright, onto the actual finale, now.

And Now, A Summarisation Of My Thoughts On "Nuzi"

yes

TradJedy: A Bootlicker To The End

I've seen some people are unsatisfied with J's villanous and, lets be honest, kinda pathetic role in the finale, but as sad as it is, I think it was true to her character. J is, above all, two things: Tessa's closest, favourite drone, and a corporate underling for some reason. Cyn wearing Tessa's skin was no doubt the most demoralising for J; Tessa is dead, the killer is pantomiming the life she never had, and you can't stop her. Plus, J likely knows better than anyone just how powerful the Solver is, how futile resisting it's conquest could be. But, to have a place alongside it? An offer of safety? Why wouldn't she take that offer? Hell, even V was tempted by it; when Cyn confronts her, she almost instinctively says "I can still...", as if her survival instinct is telling her to serve. J simply gave in.

Anyway, onto some details:

"If I promised you anything, it tricked me too."

I've seen people get confused by this line, but I think J is speaking on behalf of Eldritch J, formerly the J clone that led N & V's DD squad. That J seemed to fully buy the JCJenson cover story, at least to me, and J Prime appears to have deduced that. I don't think she has all of Eldritch J's memory, though; that "PRIOR HAZARD" poppup strikes me as the impersonal knowledge of an error report, rather than personal experience of getting blown to pieces.

"I never needed either of you."

Yeah, buuuuuullshit. J definitely doesn't really mean this. She's in bridge-burning mode, trying to convince herself more than anything that she's moved on. That offer of safety has gained a heavy price of two old friends, and J is pushing herself to pay it.

Local Autistic Teen Fights God And Wins

This uno-reverse-card moment felt a little out of nowhere at first, but on a rewatch, I think I get it. While the past few minutes fighting Cyn were utterly nightmarish, and some of the most gruesome stuff I've ever seen get done to humanoids, it did teach Uzi one thing; resisting the CallbackPing is suprisingly easy. Before this episode, it seemed like the USB Patch was the only hope for escaping the Solver's clutches, but apparently strong willpower and personality is enough to stop it temporarily, and that gets a lot easier to pull off once you know that you can do that. A single "Bite me" or the hand-hold of love is enough to stop Cyn's advance, and once Uzi fully realises that, it stops scaring her. In addition, Uzi's use of the [NULL] shows that she is a very quick learner, and can easily adapt to Cyn's tricks, allowing her to pull this "no-u" and turn the tables on Cyn. This quick thinking is also what wins the battle against Cyn in the end, catching on to how she uses the teleport.

Teleport... that seems familiar... hey, WAIT A SEC-

Doll Is Alive And I'm Not Coping; A Thesis

Everybody has pointed to this frame after Uzi eats Cyn's heart; the box that says "UZI DRN" briefly says "RSN DOLL" instead. But funnily enough, that isn't even the first thing that made me suspect that Doll might still be alive deep within Uzi's code.

If you look closely at Uzi's new gradient eyes, you'll notice that thEY'RE SO PRETTTYYY AAAHHH <3 <3 <3

*ahem*

If you look closely at Uzi's new gradient eyes, you'll notice that a subtle but distinct tint of red sits in between the yellow and purple ends. Admittedly, you can also see pink and orange, so it's not airtight evidence, but it was enough to get me speculating. Obviously, that RSN DOLL frame basically confirms it on it's own, but I found some other stuff too, and I thought it was interesting enough to share.

Uzi consumed Cyn's heart (some of it anyway), and Cyn lived on inside Uzi, possessing her tail in the post-credits. Back in "Mass Destruction", Cyn consumed Doll's heart, and while the scenarios aren't one-to-one, it can be reasonably inferred that Doll might live on in Cyn, who now lives on in Uzi, resulting in a situation oddly reminiscent... of Russian Dolls. BWAM BWAM BWAAAAAAM

It's thematically resonant, which means it's basically canon, right?

[There used to be another thing here about Solver Powers, but it turned out it was a lot less airtight than I thought, so I'm moving it to another post. Thanks to @1-800-hellyeah for the catch]

In conclusion, Doll lives on in the depths of Uzi's code, and that matters. The ramifications of this are unclear, and there's another thing with Doll in the credits, but we'll get to that in a moment with...

The Credits Scene Lightning Round

The credits are full of scenes of the surviving cast enjoying life after the Battle For Copper 9, and while I haven't heard anything about their canonicity... I mean, they look canon. Liam has stated that this is the end of the series, and I'm inclined to believe him, but a lot of this stuff feels like plot hooks he could pick up in a second season someday, if he wanted. Or maybe he just left them to feed the fanfic crowd long term. Either way, lets see what we've got to chew on!

J Prime, Alone

Man, despite how much of a prick she was, I feel kinda bad for J. She gave up everything for the Solver, only for the Solver to get defeated anyway, at least for now. She's repairing one of the ships she destroyed, presumably to leave the planet, but where is she gonna go? What is she gonna do? Fake Tessa's JCJenson credentials imply that the company might still be operating out in space somewhere, but trying to pal up with them feels like a long shot, especially since J Prime probably has some blood on her hands from Cyn's orders. ...What's left for her?

Goopy Ghost Doll

Okay, so if Doll is in Uzi's code, how is she also here? I honestly have no real clue, but my best guess is that since Uzi is arguably the most powerful entity in the setting now, Doll could utilise a fraction of Uzi's power to project herself out into the world, unnoticed? Maybe? That's the best I've got. Anyway, she's probably gonna try to kill V again, knowing her.

And don't say it's just a hallucination or something; everything* in the show has either been real, or an illusion with a clear source. They've been very good about not pulling the hallucination card, and I'm inclined to trust they wouldn't do it now.

*I just remembered the weird skeleton thing behind V in "Home", I'm not sure what that counts as

Yeva's Corpse, Or Lack Thereof

People have seen this shot of Doll's house, and said that the absence of one of the covered bodies implies Yeva is also alive. While Nori proves that your body doesn't even need to be missing for you to maybe be alive... I don't know. I'm hesitant. If she's alive, why get her body back now of all times? It feels like there are other much simpler explanations, like maybe her body is just on the floor now, 'cause everything started floating at the start of the episode, and actually, didn't N pull the cover off of those two, anyway? Maybe he put it back, I don't know. Make of this what you will, I got nothin'.

Eldritch J, Alone

Oh, SHE'S alive. Now THIS is interesting. Her heart did survive the explosion in "Heartbeat", and I guess nobody's been down to the Cryosleep wing since. Understandable, I wouldn't exactly be eager myself. But it's possible Eldritch J was able to recollect all the matter that Cyn "gathered" with her back then, and has grown back to full size.

Now that Cyn isn't around to run the Solver, Eldritch J is probably fully sentient and aware now. That must have sucked to wake up to; last she remembers, she got shot in the face by a purple gremlin, and now she's this fucking thing. Oh man, my brain is already writing the fanfic where J Prime finds her whilst infiltrating the Outpost for ship parts. (That concept is free to grab it anyone wants to)

Alright, lets finish this off...

Cyn

I've long wondered about Cyn's true nature, whether Cyn is a remorseless mastermind or a tragic puppet of the Solver's true will... The finale didn't give us a straight answer on this - The two seemed narratively entwined in Cyn's heart, but in the post credits scene she seems... friendly. Friendliest she's been, potentially. Plus, The illusory camera heads appear in Uzi's reflection seperately, implying a seperation between Cyn and Solver.

After everything, I think I've personally settled on somewhere in the middle. Cyn was a willing accomplice to the Solver... for as much as that can mean for Cyn. In "Home", Cyn is contacted by the Solver on the brink of death, and is offered salvation, to not be discarded like she was before. Her life before this was likely very short; her owners probably threw her out pretty quickly due to her "quirks". Tessa tried to give her the love she gave to her other drones, but it was already too late; Cyn would spend her formative years under the influence of the Solver, so it's no wonder she ended up so morally twisted. She talked about her "back-ups" to excuse the deaths and suffering of her fellow drones... was it an excuse? Or does she genuinely think that made it okay? How much does she understand... anything?

She's acted without remorse, but she's only had the full perspective of a detached eldritch being that only cares for consumption. But even then, her personality shines through. She seems to have genuine affection for N, even if she expresses it in horrid ways. Her alignment with the Solvers goals seems to come from a personal desire for revenge on humanity, considering how she plays out the gala. And despite the circumstances, she's visibly enjoying herself in "Absolute End", having an absolute blast fighting the trio. It's like a game to her.

Her crimes are great, but she's hardly the only one in this show with a kill count. I believe that if someone gave her that USB Patch, then sat her down and explained how reality works, she would have a full change of heart and crisis of remorse.

In a way, she was a lot like J; a willing, but coerced minion to the Solver of The Absolute Fabric. The Void. The Exponential End.

I like to call it The Voiceless One.

[tikiki05]

Miles and Gwen’s relationships outside of being spider people really could’ve changed the tone of the movie but alas here we are. Now I don’t read many comics, but I can speak for the recent Spider-Man PlayStation games that Miles and Ganke’s relationship is way WAYYYYY different that what Across portrayed. I’m still pretty sure it’s like this in the comics I hope but Ganke was more excited to be involved with helping Miles when he became spider man (Ganke was the biggest Spider-man Miles fan I guarantee you). And not only that, I don’t know if you know but Itsv released scrapped scenes which showed a dynamic between Miles and Ganke where Ganke also played an active role in assisting Miles in figuring out how his powers functioned and who he could be. Sadly that idea got scrapped and fast forward to 2023 and we got a Ganke that takes a complete 180 from other versions of him. It’s kinda hard not to look back at Across and then start to wonder if they just so happened to change Ganke’s role in the story just for them to push this narrative that there’s only one singular person who can truly know Miles. And the same thing can be applied to Gwen. (I’ve never read her comics throughly to know how she balances friends who do and don’t know about her second life)

I’m probably on the minority side, but I have mixed feelings about Gwen blowing up at the Mary Jane’s in the opening scene. Granted, it’s not easy to open up about about being a spider woman much let alone about all of the other spider people you learned about that live worlds away. All I’m saying is that those girls were trying to understand why Gwen wasn’t being herself which is what good friends do despite not knowing the whole truth. And I could say more stuff but this all goes back to my main thing: the writers attempting to convince the audience that both Miles and Gwen HAVE to depend on one another and that they can truly know the other is just a huge, random stretch.

Now don’t get me wrong, Miles and Gwen go through certain things that only other spider people get , but the movie is trying to convince us that in a span of a few weeks these two are attached to the hip and can’t live without one another?? The sudden jump just doesn’t make sense.

Oddly enough it could be an interesting plot line in Beyond for Miles and Gwen: Miles learning that his infatuation with Gwen led to false expectations and he views her differently (not in a bad way, but more cautiously as they have to build trust back). Gwen coming to terms that she still isn’t properly healed from when she was close with Peter and lost him. And I think understanding that Miles clearly isn’t the same person he was a year and a half ago, he’s not that amature spider man anymore and he’s grown in his ideals and aspirations and he’s allowed to make his own calls about certain situations

Good morning and thank you for the lovely ask! This has been on my mind a lot since I reblogged that one tweet.

In terms of Ganke, as I keep saying, I think it’s great that they’re trying to do something that’s different from the comics, but it continuously gets harder to support that when I keep hearing about how the comics are better!!! Like yeah, be unique, but also be good and make sense please??

The Mary Janes scene is honestly frustrating when I think back on it. I understand how hard it can be to reach out for help, cause mental blocks can prevent you from doing things that are in reality very easy, I’ve been there. But I find it so hard to sympathize with Gwen when her friends were actively reaching out to her because they were worried about her, and she loses it at them. Did they come at her with some attitude? Yes, and maybe that was unnecessary, but Gwens problems were disrupting their band time, so their upset is understandable

Ahh, this is why spider-verse Gwen is so frustrating to me as a character! They somehow made a character with struggles I absolutely relate to and who I want to feel for, but simultaneously just make her (in my opinion) extremely unlikeable and unsympathetic??? Maybe that’s just a me problem but does anyone relate?

I just don’t even know what to expect from Beyond the Spider-Verse at this point, nor what I even want from it anymore. The anticipation is killing me and I want it out now now now BUT also want the animators to work at a reasonable pace that is most beneficial to them. Cause when the animators thrive, the movie genuinely will too.

I’ve said this before as well; the movie we got with ATSV was spectacular, but if the production side of things weren’t so bad, I think it could have been even better. And the characters deserve better! Because they are good characters, I just feel they’re not reaching their full potentials under the constraints and shitty directing (lookin’ at you, Phillip) (I guess he’s not the director but still you guys get it I hope lmao)

I really wish they would stay friends too, because I want to see strong powerful friendships more often in media, especially amongst opposite gender friends so that when it’s a guy and girl, they can show audiences it doesn’t always have to be about romance. But no, they can’t do that, because the spider-verse movies are about the “love story” between Miles and Gwen, for some reason. Even though it doesn’t make sense. And right now is just a one sided unhealthy attachment caused by refusing to seek help elsewhere when it’s readily available to her (this is Gwen I’m talking about Gwen 😐)

Ah this was a long one lol, thank you so so much for the ask! Idk where else it’s happening but I’m going to an Oktoberfest today, so, have a happy Oktoberfest i guess!! 💖✨

[skarkkk]

1. Now, the romance.

It's turning into a soap opera. I would know that, I'm Brazilian, I grew up with soap operas. National, Mexican, Turkish. I literally write some drama. And that's what's going on. Drama.

If this triangle→trio→triangle really wants to become a functional trio, a lot of things will have to improve. Like communication. A lot of communication.

Max needs to stop thinking only about himself and Avery and consider Tristan. There's no 100% certainty that he's really the father.

Max needs to stop assuming and forcing Avery to make a decision that he wants. It's her life, her body. Tristan taught him a lesson when she said she was pregnant and I hope he shows more of that. That the pregnancy is about her and her decision. Whether she wants to keep or abort the child. Whether she wants to raise or put it up for adoption, for whatever reason. It's her decision. Max and Tristan should just provide support and acceptance for whatever SHE wants.

I see a lot of problems in their relationship, pregnancy or not. Insecurity, jealousy, lack of communication, internalization ( because we know, Max ), lack of communication, power imbalance, did I say lack of communication? I feel like I need to say lack of communication.

Max and Tristan. In the same position. Tristan leaning against the ‘post’ and Max on the side. Like in the first ( second? ) episode. Again about Avery. I want something to be just about them.

Tristan clearly feeling uncomfortable in his interactions with Max. I love his expressions, seriously, he is very expressive. That's why it's easy to see his passion, his insecurity, all the emotions. Like the discomfort.

— Mommy Issues? You're gonna say mommy issues.

Because yes, you have a lot of mommy issues Tristan. I think it's interesting that this is actually being brought up. And I hope it plays a bigger role in his story (serious alcoholism? I lived to see that). Also, Max is the one who pointed this out, but he doesn't have a mother (stroke, I think), so...

Jake Peralta core? I don't know, he didn't exactly show the connection between Max and his mother.

— You're fresh meat, baby.

Tristan saying to Max and twisting his head towards Max. Oh my god. I got my hopes up again.

Even with the assurances I've been getting and the actors saying they're working towards a threesome, it seems so out of order that it's making me anxious. Because I understand that there are several types of polyamory. And that the probability is that it's both with Avery, accepting this, but not with each other. And I don't want that. I want everyone together and happy, and gay scenes, please.

This little interaction just seems simpler than friends/colleagues/acquaintances (what the hell are they?). Maybe the pet name, maybe Max's head-twisting, which I, as a writer and reader, am reading too much into, but it just feels like more than just a little interaction.

Tristan and Avery. I love their dynamic (it could be better), but I do. And my god Avery, I need you, carnally, please.

Yes, I agree that it feels like she's already made a choice. But. No. Because they're so fucking confusing, seriously. It feels like they've made a decision, then it doesn't anymore. And that's kind of maddening. 

— Are you ready to be a father?

I think it's a good point to bring up, because I don't think Max or Tristan are ready to be fathers. Not even Avery to be a mother.

— I'll prove your wrong.

That doesn't sound good, Tristan. That doesn't sound good at all. That sounds really bad. Because Tristan reminds me of Evan Buckley. And that's never a good thing. Because it means risky situations, embarrassing scenes or near death. And don't get me wrong, I want trauma, I need it, but still. I'm quite the hypocrite.

2. I hate pregnancy plots.

I already hated it when they put one in, with the Trisal that is going to a triangle. And now with the captain too?

My exact reaction was: Fuck you, another pregnancy plot? Dude, seriously. Another pregnancy plot?

Worse, I focus on the romance and the captain, but my god. The mothers. The lady, who knows if she's actually going to have the baby. Avery too. And it's going to completely change their lives.

— I'm pregnant. And your definitely the father.

I don't even know who said that, but I loved it.

"Nine, nine, nine x I don't know how many times" him turning German. Nein, nein, nein.

3. The COVID plot:

I hated it. It doesn't interest me, it doesn't captivate me, it didn't bring anything.

The world suffered for I don't know how many years, with thousands of deaths and then the fucking show anyway. First COVID patient? Seriously? That woman who didn't give a damn pissed me off. Besides being selfish and only considering how it affected her, she put others in danger by exposing herself. I hate people like that.

My reaction to Max having COVID again:

If Max has COVID, I'm going to fuck myself.

He has COVID. I'm fucked.

4. Oh. My. God.

Tristan calling Max. Tristan calling Max. About work? Yes, but he called. 

The contact being saved as 'Tristan'. Not Tristan Silva. Not his full name. This is practically marriage in gay TV shows. Seriously. In 911, I'm sure that with Michael and David, the full name was saved. I don't remember if it ever appeared, the same with other couples.

— Atta boy.

I don't know, I just had to bring it up. I liked it. I really liked it.

— You'd both be fools for not cherishing every moment you had've together

Wnd then Avery looking at Tristan. I'm loving his maturity. The character growth from the first episode to this one is already huge, seriously. And I love when they bring up this anguish. This is the second character (maybe) who feels comfortable opening up to him. A drag queen (I want her back, I want more Queer Week) and a sick MILF. I liked the type.

I want people to notice that he's matured, but I'm also scared. Because of the preview of the new episodes.

Max smiling at Tristan and Avery, who seem to be flirting, but are actually talking. Then he takes a second look. Out of jealousy. Max smiling, at both of them, because of both of them, and then he re-analyzes something about the scene (his own feelings? I wish) that makes him look again. And the jealousy is written all over his face. And the jealousy, hopefully, about both of them. Not just Tristan with Avery, but Avery with Tristan.

I need Max to be jealous of Tristan, especially if it's Tristan getting close to another man. And I need Avery to put these two in their place (under her), because all three of them need to be together.

This is the first series where I've seen a threesome mentioned as a focus (I think, I can't remember, and I haven't seen Sense8 yet) and I need it not to just change to a triangle at the end. That said, if it's not a threesome, I don't want Max to be with Avery.

5. Promo for the next episode.

I would have been excited for Tristan to make out, but all I can think about is him having problems with alcohol.

[cellarspider]

Since I’ve been thinking about it all morning: here. A partial introduction to my favorite villain.

In the days of yore, when I was a teenager and video game hype was almost exclusively magazine-based, I saw a kid reading a copy of Game Informer.

“Hey,” said I, “could I see that for a second?”

The kid, not knowing what they were about to unleash, handed me the magazine.

I had seen this on the cover:

I had no idea what this was, but I knew that I wanted whatever it was selling.

I found out that this was an advertisement for City of Villains, an expansion to the previously-released MMO City of Heroes. I’d never played WoW with its Alliance and Horde split, so the idea was new to me. WoW also failed to present me with anything like the vibes of the newly-introduced lead villain, Lord Recluse.

Yes, they liked this art so much they did it twice, and I’m glad they did. More below the fold on why he was so appealing for a young queer kid, for those who are intrigued.

I’ll keep this focused on a single topic for now: The intensely queer vibes that Recluse acquired over the course of the game’s plot. Keep in mind that this game came out in 2004, so the actual amount of openly queer content was very minimal. However, CoH/CoV developed a reputation as an extremely queer-friendly space, with a community Pride event becoming a semi-official yearly celebration, complete with the devs showing up as major NPCs, custom assets, and spawning in unique raids that tanked everybody’s framerate. Equivalents of this have carried over past the game's tragic shutdown in 2012, with community-run servers still staging their own Pride events.

If the art above doesn’t make it clear, Recluse had a much-beloathèd archnemesis, Statesman. If the art above doesn’t make it abundantly clear, this was always an extremely fraught relationship, with a complicated backstory that became more and more tragic the deeper you got into the game lore, eventually bordering on cosmic horror. But one thing was for certain, this was Hark A Vagrant levels of obsession over a nemesis.

The game at first seemed to backstep on that: oh, it turned out, Recluse had once been villainous life partners with a woman who went by the villain name Red Widow. She died decades ago in the collateral damage of one of Recluse’s nigh apocalyptic confrontations with Statesman, and her death left him with nothing but his obsession. So sad.

And then when Statesman died in the course of the game’s plot, Recluse spiraled into depression and nihilism that was only halted when someone managed to dig Red Widow’s soul out of storage and resurrected her.

It was always deniably presented, but the implication was very much that the two were functionally equivalent emotional anchors to his psyche, and losing both of them was something he couldn’t survive.

Also, there was that one time that the game’s Valentine’s Day event was advertised with a heart split down the middle, half Statesman’s iconography and half Recluse’s, topped with a banner that read “AMOR OMNIA VINCIT”, meaning “LOVE CONQUERS ALL”.

And that’s without getting into the first tie-in book. A prequel starting at the end of the 1920s, it was a delightfully and deliberately pulpy book, which… centered around a complicated man slowly dying of lingering health problems after his exposure to mustard gas in WWI, and his very good friend, estranged from his family for unknown reasons, who’d devoted the last ten years to caring for the protagonist, and helping him seek a cure. This has carried on year after year, even though the man’s illness has made him unresponsive to the emotional needs of others, something they both know is going to culminate one day in the two parting ways.

…And then they get superpowers, and their relationship does not get any healthier from there. But what it does gain is a surprising trans metaphor as our now-antagonist slowly metamorphoses into the spidery villain I know and love.

I completely missed this back in the day. I have no idea if it was intentional. But there’s a scene where this man looks in the mirror and sees the first signs of his oncoming physical transformation, and he likes what he sees. He has no idea where he’s going, but he’s excited for it.

…And he’s started killing people who refer to him by his former name, in the most literal case of “dead naming” I’ve ever seen.

Throughout the rest of the series, Recluse is unapologetically who he is, putting him in that category of queercoded villain that doubles as a power fantasy. He’s grown physically monstrous and loves it. He has respect from everyone around him, either legitimately for his capabilities or out of fear of what he can do to those who don’t give him his due. A new demigod who is only matched by the man he’s never stopped obsessing over. He wins just as often as he loses, and often salvages something from his defeats in ways that nobody expected.

He is terrible. And he is wonderful.

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

what the fuck is the Wire Mother book. Sociology has lore now?

oh boy okay

so you remember the Divergent books? the YA boom of the early 2010's? The Wire Mother was one of those series. they turned the Harlow's monkey experiments into dystopia factions.

yeah. i know. bear with me

The first book, The Wire Mother (2010) is pretty standard YA dystopia fare. There's this girl named Leo Groves (the Leo's short for Leonore) who lives in the court of the Cloth Mother, a city where people live in comfort and camaraderie and a general vibe of hold hands around the campfire and sing, except for the people who die at random. This is accepted with unsettling what-can-you-do calm from the main characters. (Eventually, it's revealed that's happening because only a 1/5th of the food served in the city is real, so most of the people are dropping dead of starvation but their bodies are quickly hurried away as to not kill the vibe, so no one worries all that much about it).

Which could have been cool speculative fiction! A handy story about desensitization to violence or complacency or something. Unfortunately, this was 2010 YA, so the concept is quickly kicked under the bed in favor of. yeah. A love triangle. Leo, being a special little narratively significant thing, finds her way to the mysterious other city on the other side of her hometown, the court of the Wire Mother. And when she's there, she meets a boy. Coil 54810.

Coil goddamn 54810.

That brooding son of a bitch. His last name is 54810 because the concept of last names and family doesn't exist in the court of the Wire Mother, only functionality, so 54810 is just the number of Coils there's been in the city. He's not a clone or anything, it's just the amount of people who've had that name. It's like being named Jeremy 54810. Killer of plot pacing. Swoopy of hair. He would have deserved to be named Jeremy.

God, anyway, I'm talking a lot about this. Anyway: The Wire Mother is exactly as good as the average YA dystopia book from the time period. It has some high points (the Cloth and Wire mother are cool ominously looming entities, and the main antagonist Jane-Mary has a level of batshit mad science energy to her that makes her the most fun villain in the series) and some low points (the forced Romeo and Juliet references. the forced romance. It is so clear that Benjamin St. Jobs, the other guy in the love triangle, doesn't stand a chance, but we have to keep who-will-it-be-ing for so long anyway. And Coil's a dick), but it mostly just balances out.

There were three more books in the series. There was supposed to be four, but. Well

Anyway. Book Two, The Wire Mother: Hounds' Toll (2012), actually kind of slapped. It went to more tragic and horror-influenced places than the original book. One thing I'll give Angela Lee (the author) credit for: I don't think this was a sequel for the sake of having a sequel. I think that the series was always supposed to be a pentalogy.

Some of the stuff in this book has still stuck with me to this day- I have to hold myself back from adding ominously ringing church bells in so many of my projects. Also, it really filled out Leo Groves as a protagonist- I could take or leave her in the first book, but I started to genuinely like her by the second. And the stuff they do with Stellarose Ardent, her best friend turned rival... God, I could make a whole post about Stellarose Ardent.

this book series is good, readers thought. surely the third book will be as good if not better

THE THIRD BOOK WAS HELL. The Wire Mother: Ordained Voltage (2013)...I think it did everything wrong. There was a reason that there was a two year break between the first two books, and book three being out only a year after Hounds' Toll really shows.

It's incredibly rushed. Leo barely gets to do anything. Stellarose is killed off in the most unsatisfying way possible. And while it seemed like Book Two had neatly put the love triangle to bed, no! It claws its way out of its grave!! To torment me specifically!

The only good thing we got out of this car wreck is Anesthesia 3, lab rat girl and apocalypse maiden extraordinaire. I adore her. She's got real Fish Inside A Birdcage vibes. Everything else, though? Horrors.

But readers held out hope. At least the characters ended up trapped in an interesting setting at the end of book three. The merciless, multi-layered prison of Tithonus, the central antagonist of the series. It seemed like that was a good set-up for a prison escape storyline. Those have to be entertaining, right?

Somehow, some way, no. Book Four, The Wire Mother: Endless Sentence (2014) is not just bad. I could forgive bad. But it is bad, and it is boring.

so boring that I'm not even going to waste my words on it. It's a school night. I'm not staying up to describe that thing. The only interesting thing about it is how it could manage to be boring while being an homage to the fucking Stanford Prison experiments.

And that was the end of a lot of people's hopes for the Wire Mother series. Only one good book out of four isn't a great track record, you know? A lot of readers were willing to put Hounds' Toll down as a one-off.

Then, in November of 2014, the preview for Book Five, The Wire Mother: Quantum Claws came out. It was three chapters long. And people lost their shit.

First of all, it was good. Maybe as good as Hounds' Toll. Maybe better.

But more than that, it was a break from the relatively grounded, safe, company standard dystopia of the series. Because this bad boy was going to be about time travel. Tithonus, in his evil plans to live forever, had built a time machine and activated it just at the right moment when the plucky heroes were about to kill him once and for all.

Which seems like something that would be a train wreck, right? If this author can't handle the easy-to-please tropes of prison breaks and romance, what business does she have trying to handle a time travel story without completely fucking up the series?

And maybe that would have been true. But the first three chapters were insanely promising. They were refreshing, original- they got time travel. We were able to get characters like Stellarose and Jane-Mary and Turpentine back after the story cast them aside so soon. And it promised to really examine what Leo Groves meant for the book's world. So, hopes rose again.

Unfortunately, we'll never know if it would have been good or bad. The fifth book was never published. We don't know why. It was just promised, for months and months, and then. Poof. The updates stopped. It was gone.

And it haunts me. If you haven't stopped reading by now, you can probably tell that. The fandom was like a fraction of the size of the Divergent fandom, and I don't know anyone IRL who's read these things. I don't even know if I can or should recommend them.

But sometimes something doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece to burrow into your brain and not let go, I guess ASJSJS

[qoldenskies]

Hey me again *frothing at the mouth* What Are You Doing To Me

Also I had a question this time but feel free to ignore or leave it if it'd be spoilers or something. In clipped wings will they find out and get revenge on the (presumably witch yokai) who placed the curse? I know you said the focus of this segment would be the recovery but I am nothing if not a sucker for some good ol revenge :3

It was so fun to know that the other yokai in the bathroom would be important from the very start but not fully why; to then finally make the connection with April that it was probably a witch from witchtown???? *chefs kiss* good stuff right there I say I do say. I honestly never got around to watching the entirety of the show (too much second hand embarrassment) and Donnie vs Witchtown was one of those episodes I skipped, so now I'm wondering if this is a previously introduced character or someone brought in solely for the sake of the plot. And who knows this may not be relevant to the fic whatsoever but I'm curious and rabid with feelings *bats eyelashes at you cutely*

And if there is revenge I'm so excited because Leo clearly meant that he would kill whoever did it but also he was delirious with grief and also actually killing someone would be so disastrous. Sure the three may feel better about it but I can't help but feel it would truly prove to Donnie that they have full capability to actually kill him. They didn't before but they still have that power of course it would only take a few slip ups before he's out of luck. Would he feel any relief in knowing that the one behind all of his pain was gone forever and no longer able to harm him? No because its so so deeply ingrained in him that it's all his fault and now he's gone and gotten someone Killed over him. Ihxogsgkslhdlhxigdykxgkc

Sorry I lost myself a bit there. Anywho I'm still feral about all of this and I don't think I will be able to function properly for a very long time and I am so sorry I'm apparently incapable of being normal about this. Thanks again! :D

HIIIIII //WAVES EXCITEDLY

i saw your last ask yesterday and i could have SWORN i responded but then i saw it in my ask box and was like SHIT.......... and then i came back and there was another so NO MATTER!!! I WILL RESPOND TO THIS ONE (and get to the ao3 comments in the morning because i get so easily overwhelmed by them even though they are my lifeblood LMAO)

secondhand embarrassment is quite a valid reason to skip around episodes, although if you want to know what happens in the ones you skimmed over the rottmnt wiki has transcripts which i tend to use when going back for information for fics! and the witch isn't a pre-established character, no worries!!! (i somewhat considered bringing back mira and gentry, but as it is right now i dont think they'll be appearing at all) i could have just used an oc but ive decided to LOOSELY adapt idw kitsune and not really worry about how adherent she is to her original characterization; i just know she does some brainwashing in the idw comics, so she was the best to snatch! also foxes are cool

AND THERE WILL BE REVENGE! some stipulations have to be met first so i cant really reveal the circumstances without going too deeply into spoiler territory, but they have an extremely pressing issue they don't even know about yet, so they'll be distracted with that before they can do anything along those lines (and the way they fix it will even play into the revenge!). i should probably warn, though, that the witch in the bathroom was not actually the one who did the curse, but she WAS still responsible,,,, let's just say the magic that was used for it is not typical of regular, mortal witches. ;)

and as for the way donnie will respond, i cant say much about it yet!! things are going to be very different by the time we get to that point heehee

[beetleviolet]

What i would have done for

Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure: Seasons 2 (and 3)

(Mostly just how the entire thing could have focused on Varian that would have made it SO FIRE BRO)

So maybe I'm out of my depth here, because I didn't watch season 2. Why? Because there was no Varian! His amazing arc was the only reason I watched the show. And I'm sorry what they did with Cass SUCKED.

Let's talk about why it sucked :D

Cass's character is meant to contrast with Rapunzel. Raps is super peppy and happy and positive, and Cass is sarcastic and more dead panned, leading to a fun dynamic! The thing about Cass is, while she is more serious and sarcastic, she's still nice. She cares A LOT about her friends. This is why her arc made no sense. The core of Cassandra's character is that she loves her friends, but doesn't always show it.

I understand she was being manipulated by a demon but like. Her being mad that Mother Gothel went with Rapunzle? Why was locked in a tower for 18 years of her life?? While Cass got a loving, if overprotective, father?

This twist is interesting, and I wouldn't have minded it being explored, but I really think that they should have had a max of 2 episodes talking about the wedge this drove between them, and then how they overcame it as friends.

I also hate how Rapunzle handled Cassandra vs Varien. She never gave up on Cass, even after she, a grown adult with full autonomy, was actively trying to hurt everyone. I just felt like it went on for too long with Rapunzle still not wanting to fight her. Meanwhile with Varian, a grieving child, was immediately thought to be dangerous or evil. I understand Rapunzle not being able to help in the moment of his fathers death, but he didn't have to be dragged out of the castle! She could have told people he didn't attack her! Hell, even just sending someone to check on him after, or checking on him herself, might have been enough to push him away from a revenge plot.

Sorry I'm getting off track I just- THIS ALWAYS MADE ME SO MAD LIKE WHY-

Anyway.

The second season! Here's what I would have done:

Rapunzle is going on a magical quest to find the mystery about the rocks! Great! Who is the resident rock-genius? You guessed it! I think they should have taken Varian with them.

I get why they didn't do this, since it would take a lot of attention away from the other characters, and they were afraid to stretch out his arch for fear of it getting bland (you know, LIKE THEY DID WITH CASS-) but I really think Varian had enough character stuff to remain interesting!

Think about it, man. It would be cool of they thought they needed him for it, and he agrees on the premise that they have to save his father with the power they find. Throughout the episodes, they go from Varian in chains to them actually becoming a functioning group. They have trust building experiences (cough trauma bonding cough) that slowly bring them closer.

Ok, so cool. But then who would take the moonstone?

VARIAN I SAY!

Wait, but didn't you just say he was good?

THATS WHAT MAKES IT SO GOOD! Despite everything they've been through, everything they've done together, Varian still doesn't trust them to help him.

[that-within]

That’s not how Jane Austen works…

There’s something deeply amusing to me about how fundamentally wrong Aziraphale is regarding the function of balls in Jane Austen’s novels:

“People would gather and do some formal dancing and then realize they had misunderstood each other and were actually deeply in love.”

No ball in any Austen novel works like this. Not one. You know how they actually work? They build tension (dramatic, romantic, sexual, and/or other). But in all of her six novels, there is not a single ball where everything suddenly clicks between two characters, all misunderstandings are cleared up with just a glance and a touch of a gloved hand, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Since Pride and Prejudice is the novel repeatedly cited in the show, let’s analyze the functions of its two main balls:

The first ball is where our protagonists meet. They lock eyes, they get introduced—and almost immediately he calls her a 5/10 and she runs off to drag him with her gal pals. Rough start. We haven’t even gotten to the plot’s true misunderstandings yet (“I meant you were tolerable in a nice way!”), but this ball is the crucial setup for how those misunderstandings will develop throughout their relationship. Tension established.

So far we’re 0/3 for dancing, clearing up misunderstandings, and deep love realizations. Bummer.

The second ball is The Big One. So how do our protagonists come together to reconcile in the candlelight? Spoiler: they don't. Instead, Darcy musters up all his introverted mettle to grind out a dance proposal and Lizzy only says yes because she can't think of a polite way to say “I’d rather eat glass.” 

And not only does the dance itself not clear up their misunderstandings, it actually cements those misunderstandings through a series of progressively passive aggressive barbs. It’s wonderfully charged, but in a HIGH-VOLTAGE FENCE: DO NOT TOUCH kind of way. 

(For those keeping score, we’re 1/6 because they did actually manage to dance this time. Woot)

And that’s it. No, literally. There are no more balls in the whole novel (at least attended by our protagonists). So how doth our heroes fall in love without the eldritch horrors making them do it delicate pluck of a fiddle in a crowded room?

Well, first there’s the catastrophic marriage proposal where Darcy basically negs Lizzy for a solid minute before Lizzy spends a solid five minutes telling him where to stick it. Divine. 

Crucially though, this is where the “realize they had misunderstood each other” stuff actually begins. It’s only when one of them is pouring their heart out to the other that the giant gaps in information, misinterpreted actions, and fundamental differences in worldviews start to make themselves known (anything here ringing a cathedral-sized bell?).

And of course, this still doesn’t magically make everything better. They both go off to lick their respective wounds for a while, but, slowly, they begin to process this paradigm shift and change their thoughts and actions accordingly. 

There are many reasons why Pride and Prejudice has lasted the test of time, and a big one is that it never pulled a “ball” deus ex machina. Lizzy and Darcy both put in actual work to improve themselves and to reconcile their differences. It’s slow, it’s imperfect, it’s messy. And, very importantly, it takes them being brutally honest with themselves and each other.

It's only after all of this that they finally get to the "were actually deeply in love" part.

Aziraphale must know this. He’s read Austen. Hell, he probably read Pride and Prejudice the year it was published. So where is he getting this bizarre idea about balls being a magical cure-all for everything? 

Maybe it's as simple as an angel who's spent 6000 years teetering on the edge of something with a demon devising a cunning plan to teeter them just a little bit closer. 

Maybe it’s as complicated as an angel who can convince himself that if a human relationship might be “fixed” by a ball, maybe a cosmic relationship might be “fixed” by undoing a fall. 

And, to quote Crowley, “now, that’s unbelievable."

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s6 ep17: Spirit Folk

More holodeck shenanigans in Fair Haven- now with even more Irish stereotypes.

It always bothers me whenever people think that everyone in the past was stupid, and this episode certainly does. But I guess since they're holodeck versions of 19th century villagers, it's not as bad as if they were supposed to be real, but still. You have to get past the condescending view of silly supertitious Irish villagers to really enjoy this one. I can't say that I did, but it's not a huge deal, since everything here is light and silly, and totally inconsequential. It's an hour of fluff with no more substance than cotton candy, so I can't really get too upset over it. We get to see our Voyager characters in 19th century outfits again, so that's good enough for me!

This ep features a classic holodeck malfunction plot- the Fair Haven program has been running continuously for months, which is causing the program to degrade. Specifially, the character settings that keep them from noticing holodeck command functions has stopped working. So now every time a crew member resets something in the program, the holo characters are aware of it. They think that objects appearing and disappearing at their command is magic, and that the Voyager crew must be faeries. (How is this a real plot of a real Star Trek episode?!) Hijinks ensue as the crew tries to repair the damage before the villagers try to capture them.

It's so ridiculous that there's kind of no point trying to critique it- it was meant to be a silly crack episode, so we'll just appreciate it for what it is. And Captain Janeway looks fabulous in her 1890s dresses- Kate Mulgrew was born to be in period dramas, she looks perfect in 19th century clothing. Ironic that she ended up being famous for playing a character from the future, but at least they kept finding excuses to put her in Victorian dresses on Voyager all the time. Whatever this shows flaws may be, at least they got that part right!

There's an attempt at being somewhat serious here as Captain Janeway is forced to tell her holographic boyfriend who she really is when he finds out about Voyager. (He even takes a stroll through the ship with the Doctor's mobile emitter, and it's the second time we see a hallway with windows on Voyager- the first time was in the episode 'Bliss', and I honestly think these are the only times in all of Star Trek that we see a hallway with outside windows on a Starfleet ship.) Of course, being a good hologram, he accepts her for who she really is, and convinces the rest of Fair Haven not to burn Tom, Harry, and the Doctor at the stake, or whatever they were going to do to them after they shot the control panel and accidentally turned off holodeck safety. (But if the safeties were on before, the holographic gun couldn't have damaged the control panel in the first place... but like I said, I'm going to ignore it, and try not to apply logic to a holodeck crack episode.)

B'Elanna is kinda my hero in this one, rolling her eyes at everyone's obsession with Fair Haven, and refusing to have anything to do with it after all the patches she's already had to make to keep it going. I feel you, girl. (But she would've looked fab in historical dresses too- I'm constantly fighting between the half of me that thinks B'Elanna is cool and badass for not being into Fair Haven, and the other half of me that's like 'but she would've been so pretty in Victorian dresses!')

And of course this one gives us the absolutely bonkers exchange between B'Elanna and the Captain, where they need to find a way to rescue Tom and Harry from the holodeck, because of course, the transporters suddenly don't work, because of 'too many stray photons' (lolwut!?). B'Elanna rightfully thinks they should just shut the program down, despite the risk of damage to Fair Haven, but everyone else is just as worried about their beloved program as their actual crewmates, leading to an appropriately horrified B'Elanna reminding Janeway that her boyfriend can be reprogrammed, while Tom and Harry can't, leading to Janeway's absolutely unhinged, perfectly calm reply: 'one problem at a time, B'Elanna'. CAPTAIN. MA'AM. THAT IS INSANE. Holocharacters are not as important as real people. (Even if one of them is your holo boytoy.) WTF.

Live B'Elanna reaction:

(Okay, this gif isn't from this episode- but the general sentiment is the same.)

But naturally, everything works out fine in the end. Though they have to stop running it 24/7, they save the Fair Haven program. The holocharacters now know and accept that the Voyager crew are from the future, and still want to be friends with them. Awww. We end the ep knowing more Fair Haven adventures are in store for our crew- though thankfully we never have an episode about Fair Haven again. (So basically it's happily ever after until the crew gets bored and moves on to a new holodeck program du jour, but don't tell the Fair Haven characters that lol)

Tl;dr: An extremely silly fluff episode with nothing terribly consequential to worry about. Empty calories, so to speak, but a nice palate clease between heavier Borg stories.

[wrose-writes]

Greetings and salutations!

You can call me Rose, pleasure to meet you (probably)

My main blog's @theroseempress, I mostly live over there but I decided to make a side-blog for writing stuff in order to make it easier to find.

Also I have a Wordpress: carolinaauthor, if you want to read actual writing pieces that's where I put them.

oh yeah here's my WIP Intro Slideshow go check that out!

anyway time for 'current list of my main projects with Quick Descriptions'! If any of these catch your interest feel free to ask about them or ask to be taglisted for the rare occurence of me talking about my writing on my writing blog!

current list of my main projects* with Quick Descriptions-

WishWIP- Currently my 'main' project, which really needs a proper name with how much focus I've given it by now, this is just the main character's name with WIP after it. Anyway I want to make this one into a comic because I apparently don't have enough to do already. The plot is currently going through scripting in a libreoffice doc . Also this is the second fall in a row where I have become suddenly interested in this project so that's. odd. Basic Quick Description- Wish is just trying to find Someone for perfectly innocent reasons when she runs into an evil magic eating Creature, Song, who is a Very Normal and Not Being Chased By Assassins At All Girl, and the plot, in rapid succession. 'hey what if we went to the Library and you were my bodyguard?' Song suggests. 'no reason for that last part really just Girlish Worries.' she says, normally and casually. Wish looks very suspiciously at her but agrees nonetheless. You can find stuff for this one in #wishwip. Main Cast**- Wish, Song, Lyric, Rhythm, also a whole bunch more people who only show up in the second arc and might kind of be spoilers IDK so they're not here.

Libraries- Probably my other main WIP! Born from me thinking intensely about libraries for no apparent reason. In case you couldn't guess, there are libraries in this project. Except they're called Libraries. Capital L. Also all of the Librarians (capital L) have magical abilities and are very badass. As well as being libraries, the Libraries double-function as how churches used to. I have a whole note doc of worldbuilding on the Libraries can you tell. You can find stuff for this one in #libraries. Basic Quick Description- Sori is a Librarian and quite content with her life as such. And then Firefly shows up, followed somewhat laggingly by the plot. This... has consequences! Anyway now Sori, Mikka, and Firefly are going on a quest oh my. The inciting incident happens surprisingly far into this book, so I have to be unfortunately vague about the plot as to avoid spoilers. Suffice it to say I like this one ;). Main Cast**- Sori, Mikka, Firefly, Tai and Nin, Ashe, Caro, another guy I've forgotten the name of and don't feel like looking up atm, and Renna.

fallenstars- Another more recent WIP of mine. I really like a lot of the worldbuilding and plot in this one, it's one of my more recent projects and I rotate the main four guys in my head pretty frequently with varying velocity. (Fun fact a fair amount of the main four for this WIP's characterization was born of me playing with the incorrect quotes generator, which should give you a pretty good idea of what they're like.) You can find stuff for this one in #fallenstars. Basic Quick Description- A long, long time ago, the stars fell from the heavens. A slightly less long time after that, Rekha and Ven found them. Or at leas they think they did. That's what the ~expedition~ is for! Featuring; most of the cast being a little (or a lot) unhinged, most of the cast being a little (or a lot) traumatized, and certain members of the cast being very badass. Also magic. (hard magic systems my beloved). Also names. Names are important. Main Cast**- Vivian, Arielle, Jai, Mirren, Rekha, Ven, Sapphire/Saph, Auburn, and various other people also.

sky pirates- *faux grumbling* I read ONE TWENTY PAGE PAMPHLET about pirates... Anyway yeah this one's pretty self explanatory. Sky pirates. That combined with another idea I've had for a year or two, where people hunt through dangerous ruins of skyscrapers for useful stuff to sell (that one never went anywhere because I had no plot) (now I have a plot) You can find stuff for this one in #sky pirates. Basic Quick Description- Lute (who is Completely Normal) and his crew are just going about their normal scrapper life and doing normal scrapper things (supposedly), when suddenly a girl runs away from the army and runs into them. (they help. they're polite like that. also they (for good reason) don't like the army). And then they discover she can manipulate the Mist. And then they discover a bunch of people want to steal her. And then she explains she needs to get to an old ruin for Magic Reasons. And now they're going on a quest. Main Cast**- I didn't remember naming anyone in this, but apparently the crew (Lute, Vanya, Blake, Robin, and Chess) all have names. Nobody else though. I should really get on that.

Mercy City- Was my main WIP for a while, I haven't worked on it for a longer while though. I still like it though. it's nice. I want to put Caden in a salad spinner desperately (smug little bastard) and I regularly make angsty head AMVs for Kiseki. Felice my beloved. You can find stuff for this one in #mercy city. Basic Quick Description- The world is made up of Resonance and we can manipulate that. Everyone is born with an affinity (can manipulate a certain bit of Resonance without needing to know the formula for it) except sometimes they aren't and even more sometimes they're born with Too Much Affinity. Too Much Affinity is bad because you blow up. Kiseki has so far avoided blowing up, and his sister Felice (who has No Affinity) would like to keep it that way. And then the plot happens. whoopsies. Main Cast**- Felice, Kiseki, Caden, Sophie, and a lot of other characters but I'm trying to keep it more to the main cast so probably just these four? idk. there's more guys tho.

mecha project- A project born of me smushing my appreciation for mechs, space, and academy settings into one place! I'm less 'actively working' on this one and more 'actively imagining it as a TV show'. We'll see if that ever happens to it! (probably not) (but you never know) You can find stuff for this one in #mecha project. Basic Quick Description- space. mechs. people go to mech academy. fights in space. bad guy wants to take over universe. different visually appealing species. the main character is part dragon. one of the antagonists wants to dissect him (For Science). this is partially inspired by my dislike of the voltron reboot thingie that i watched like six seasons of and then bailed on. also that one time i wrote out a whole rewrite concept for high guardian spice. anyway mechs in space. Main Cast**- there's people but none of them have names. yet. ahaha. did i mention the main character is part dragon.

The Golden City- The oldest project on this list! I recently discovered the plot to this thing is a lot longer than I'd previously thought, so right now all I'm doing with this WIP is rotating it at high speed in my head while trying to figure out what the next two thirds of the story is about. You can find stuff for this one in #the golden city or #tgc. Basic Quick Description- Felix is just going about his normal life and definitely not being a criminal, except oops, he's been arrested now, oh dear, and how he has to go on a quest to Not Be In Jail >:(. Also people are blackmailing him to essentially cause a civil war. He's doing his best, guys, be nice to him. Main Cast**- Felix, Helen, Shannon, Florian, Tay (Taylor), Bricriu, Nikolai, Nerium, Iris, Raz.

keyWIP- a concept that was born entirely of me thinking about keys for too long. I'm not really actively working on/thinking about this one at the moment, but I like the idea (and Melody) so I'm keeping it here in the event I get more interested in it. You can find stuff for this one in #keyWIP. Basic Quick Description- There are keys that can open any door to any other door and also shapeshift! Conor gets harassed by the Scholars' Council into inviting all the people who have keys to come tell the Council that because [SECRET PLOT POINT]. To the surprise of both Conor and some other people, this actually works somehow. Things proceed to escalate rapidly from that point. Main Cast**- Melody, Kit, Conor, Shalom, Hope, Adora, Varian, Jasmin [redacted] (so yeah this cast list is just all the people with keys (excluding Conor)).

If any of these project descriptions catch your interest, please feel free to ask to be on the taglist, which will mean I'll tag you in the rare posts I make about my WIPs!

Or just send an ask about something you're curious about, I don't bite and I love talking about my little fictional guys :)

(*what I'm currently working on changes very suddenly and frequently so I can't really tell you that, but this should at least give you an idea of what I'm doing).

(**trust me, there's very probably more, I just listed the main people)

[acewizardinspace]

So Sabine is training as a jedi. Lets just say I have mixed feelings.

On one hand, I actually love the idea of a jedi who is not very force sensitive. In contrast to characters like Anakin who were just naturally talented, a jedi character who has to train much harder has a lot of narrative potential. A jedi that is only a little force sensitive sounds really cool! (A little force sensitive, not not-force sensitive. Two different things, one is a cool idea, the other sucks.) This is a story I would absolutely be down for seeing and I think there is a lot of potential here.

I also think giving Ahsoka a student is a fantastic idea. Giving her a padawan would force her to face her past and make peace with the reality of what Anakin did and who he became. It could allow her to finally embrace her lost culture by following one of their most important customs: teaching. It would functionally let the audience know that even after tragedy their culture survived. This could be an amazing story.

So, in theory at least, I should love this idea, right? But I don't.

If this has been another character, I think a new one would work best, I would love this! But it just doesn't make sense for Sabine.

For one, it is a huge retcon and causes rebels to retroactively not make sense. There was no foreshadowing that I can recall about Sabine being force sensitive. This just comes out of no where. (Don't say using the darksaber is foreshadowing. Its not. Other, none force sensitive people have used a lightsaber before.)

I think the explanation they are going for is that Sabine has so little force sensitivity that no one ever noticed before, but that just doesn't make sense. If she had meet a jedi once or twice, sure maybe they didn't notice, but for how long she was with Kanan? This leaves three possibilities.

Kanan really never noticed, which retroactively kind of make him look bad? Like you were with her for how long?

Kanan noticed and didn't tell her, which makes him seem like a jerk tbh. You have no right to keep info like that from someone.

Kanan did notice, and he did tell her, but it was so unimportant that it happened off screen and was never shown to us. I don't think I need to explain why that one is bad writing.

The second reason it doesn't make sense for Sabine is that she already has an established backstory and culture. There is literally so much you can do with Sabine's character already! You don't need to add jedi stuff, or if you did, it could (and should) be showing what she learned from living with jedi. Things like handling your emotions, letting go and living to help others.

Frankly, a lot of people love the mandolarians. It seems odd to me that they wouldn't want to center the plot on that part of her heritage? She would be the perfect opportunity to show off non violent parts of their culture. (I think this is the consequence of forcing Ahsoka's show and the rebels sequel together.)

This writing decision creates plot holes were there were none, and for what? What was gained with this decision. The only thing I can think of is that they wanted two popular characters to interact and this was the best they could come up with?

When it comes down to it, I just really dislike that they keep wanting to retcon stuff. We liked rebels the way it was, please don't retroactively change it!

But, even taking my initial dislike of the concept into consideration, I am still hype for the show tbh! I don't want to be negative, I want to like the show so so bad. I truly like the idea of Ahsoka getting a padawan and barely force sensitive jedi. So, I'm staying hopeful.