#his best friends in canon and also do a certain writer can destroy all the aspects of his personality that MADE him Roy Harper

[waterberry-strawmelon]

Was just scrolling thru ao3 and noticed that apparently one of the prompt options for j*yroy week 2022 is “Roy chooses Jason over Dick,” and I just want to apologize to all of you who have been brain-poisoned by Scott Lobdell’s character assassination of Roy Harper. Whatever character yall see in your heads is NOT Roy Harper.

[x0401x]

I really thought that Gilbert was going to find out more about Violet's past. second Benedict said that he had found clues about his younger sister, but the subject is not mentioned again, we know that he has been saving to make another trip to find her

We should petition for Akatsuki Kana to write more, lol. Jk but I'd love if VE came back one day to explain all the shit that was never revealed or confirmed.

I am one of those people who first saw the anime and then read the novel, obviously I prefer the novel, without reading the novel, I realized that characters like Erika and Iris are empty, especially Erika who we only know that she wants to be a writer and iris i hate her

I like that “obviously” a lot. XD

Sorry it doesn't let me write much but it continued. Erika is a character who happens in limbo, she has nothing interesting and she has no chemistry with anyone. pffff Erika×benedicto seems like a joke, Cat, well at first it gave me a good impression, well you know I saw the anime first, but I prefer the Novela, even so it is the only one of the group of ch that I like as a friend of Violeta, or older sister, since they do have chemistry, I'm not satisfied with Cat anime, but I like it

Yeah, Tumblr has a character limit for asks! But don't worry, you can send me as many as you want whenever! Also, I agree, it felt like a joke. I guess it was a joke.

I agree with the take on Cattleya as well. She's the only canon character whose anime counterpart didn't bother me that much. But yes, she's a thousand times more interesting in the novel. I think I didn't mind her because they changed her appearance so much along with her personality that it felt like I was looking at an entirely different character, just with the same name.

I hate that they removed the gay part from the anime, but she is the only one in the anime who can be considered Violet's best friend, because they have a lot of chemistry. the only character that was created by the Anime that I like is Luculia, because unlike Erika and Iris (you don't know how much I hate iris) she is the only one who is interested in Violeta and wants to help her in a certain way, maybe they are not the best friends but they look good

Lux will always be the bestie and without her, there's no bestie at all! And yeah, I like Luculia too. I like all the characters from the Doll school, tbh. They were nice.

You don't know how much I hate Iris, it's something that has stayed with me since the 2nd chapter, she's a capricious girl and her reason for being a doll doesn't make sense, she doesn't seem to have talent either, in her story they want to make her look like someone who breaks stereotypes with him typical "there is more to life than marrying a man" and wearing pants

Not much makes sense in the anime, tbh. And actually, Iris did want to marry a guy, lol. Btw, her pants were a design choice in order to make the characters have different styles from each other, according to Takase Akiko. In the last movie, she's wearing a skirt.

without realizing Violet (more in the novel than anime of course) does not break, like breaking a pencil, if she does not put a bomb on the word stereotype and she is not a woman, she is a WOMAN (in the novel it is clearer why is more independent than in the anime, since in the novel he destroys even the universe) successful, hard-working, strong (strong if he falters if we talk about anime) and capable of anything for the love of his life (in this part I prefer put Gil novel)

I don't get why Violet's pronouns are masculine here, but I agree with this too.

Well, I've gotten off the topic of my hatred of Iris, she's an empty character, her actions have no motive or reason, they should have placed her in another section as a portfolio if she wants to break stereotypes so much, they should never have placed her as "Violet's best friend" that no one eats it

“No one eats it” I’m losing my shit at this bit.

Iris must have come across as someone who doesn't like Violet or someone who at first didn't like her, but now she likes her a little better, if we left her as a best friend she would be a bit toxic, don't you think?

Well, I don’t think they’re best friends. Even the anime never really mentioned that. Lux ftw.

Writing up to this point I realize two things: first, my hatred of Iris is more than enormous XD, second, violet anime does not have many "friends" and is much more lonely which makes me sad, because almost nobody really knows her

Yeah. That’s one of the things that gets me (in a bad sense) about the anime. It’s so unnecessarily lonely. So depressing. So bleak. Hardly anybody actually seems to have a deep connection with anyone, and when they do, it’s always the canon characters. The anime originals waltz in, do a few things, say some bullshit that supposedly is very deep, and boom, everything is solved. It’s so empty and so lackluster.

Violet anime does not have a solid relationship in the anime, rather she is alone, Gilbert anime, better not mention it because it would never end, Hog is an attempt at father, although in the end it is only if the boss who helped her and that's it, Erika and Iris are just coworkers, Cat is the only one who really cares about Violeta and supports her maybe not as much as the one in the novel, but she gives us a feeling of mother and daughter

I gotta disagree with that one. Even Cattleya was set aside in the movie. She was barely there and didn’t seem to miss Violet at all.

Benedicto is just a co-worker, Luculia will be like that friend you see from time to time, the real friend is Amy and it's sad that they can't see each other, that's why I don't think it's strange that Violet doesn't miss her classmates, when he leaves with PunkHoel Gil

Wow, this punk hoe Gil thing really will never die. XDDD

none can replace Lux who is quite interesting and has a certain resemblance to Violeta, and I have come to feel that they are like sisters and it shows that Violeta loves her very much, the one who half reaches her (well, she does not step on her heels) is Luculia who I felt similarity in wanting to help Violeta

Yep!

the ch team from the anime is a work team without depth and without development, you can't talk about them as "friends" or "Family" Hoggins and Cat would have a one night stand XD and neither has a friendly chemistry with Violet

Still not over the fact that Hodgins and Cattleya actually had sex in the anime. And Hodgins didn’t think much of it. Ugh.

the ch team of the novel are literally a Family there is a lot of chemistry between them and especially with Violet, they have a deep relationship and we can meet and sympathize with them

Preach!

in conclusion, violet anime does not have many friends, she is more lonely and does not have much chemistry with the other characters as it should be, in violet novel, she has a better relationship with the characters and I can feel that she is not alone and more with Gil novel violet novel can return home and feel a family a boyfriend and is safer, violet anime, returns home and only finds her co-workers

You get it!

I love you so much and sorry for writing a bible

I love you more! And I love bibles! Write as many as you want!

[silverthetheorist]

The end of L’manburg was disappointing (and why rollercoasters and fun)

I really wanted to like this war. I really did. And I did like many things (Which I will go through don't worry) but... Look, the event was not bad by any means. But this is the first big event that I can say was mediocre at worst and good at best. A solid 6/10 maybe (All other story arcs and events are from a 8/10 to 10/10), specially after the marvelous festival from yesterday. So let’s see first the things that worked: 

- FUNDY AND NICKY POPPED OFF. Them destroying the provisions before the start was great because it did not only made sense for their (Very tired of being sidelined and very tired of L’manberg’s bullshit) but it also had plot repercussion. In a story, for an action to be significant it has to have two things going for it: An emotional repercussion and a plot repercussion. This had both: Two og L’manburgian giving up on their nation and causing the L’maburg forces to be under-and I can’t stress this enough- very under prepared. In Eret’s case it is a lot harder to justify because her arc was never very consistent as I have said before. 

-The villains were very smart and intimidating. First the chose to attack L’manberg the day after the festival giving them little to no time to prepare. Second, they attacked earlier and devised a plan to cause the most destruction possible. Dream and Techno are many times smarter than many movie villains. 

-Tommy exposed Techno for the hypocrite and selfish pig he is. Good for him.

-Anything Ranboo does is gold of course. But, I think joining Phil is a bit of an iffy decision. For someone who doesn’t choose sides he surely chose the one that caused the most destruction and pain for all of his other friends. He is probably one of the most exciting people to watch in the future

-Tubbo jumping in front of Techno’s blast to protect Tommy (I do not want Tubbo to die because he is probs my favorite but that would have been a cool canon death). Tommy asking about Tubbo every 5 seconds. Both apologizing to each other and reuniting finally. Tubbo looking at everything he had built being destroyed, completely speechless. Tommy and Tubbo meeting Dream in the obsidian thing over L’manber. It had a weird final boss feel to it. I wish something had happened between the three there. Maybe a short fight or something. It was still cool.

So, yeah. There is a lot to like about the event. Now I have three main problems with this event: 

My first problem is that it all felt a bit... pointless. This reminded me a lot of the movie Captain America: Civil War. It was a great movie, but it did not have almost any consequences. In today’s event L’MANBURG WAS DESTROYED FOR GOOD THIS TIME and... it doesn’t feel like anything has changed at all. Tommy is still on about the disks even after everything he’s been through. Quackity is still... honestly I never know what is going on with him. Techno and Phil are still assholes and have all the power along with Dream. The badlands still haven’t done a thing (A shame). You can say that Wilbur is going to be revived, and yes that is pretty big, but he has been alive before (I actually love that he is being resurrected surprisingly, I’ll talk about it later). You can also say that L’manburg is gone now but... was it really there ever since Tommy was exiled considering everyone basically left?

It feels like we could have skipped everything after Wilbur blew L’manberg and everything would be the same. Like everything in between did not matter. Think of it, is there any major differences (Besides minor character changes) between the end of the Manberg vs Pogtopia war and now? Probably not many. This goes back to what I said in my first post: History is repeating itself a little to much. Another exile, another festival, another execution, another time L’manburg is destroyed. At least there is not going to be another election anytime soon. 

I think Tommy’s line to Techno that “You are repeating history but worse” is very ironic. The idea that history repeat itself is tempting and, when done efficiently can be amazing, but this was not the case. I cannot blame theme though, a “history repeats itself” story is very hard to write without feeling like you are repeating yourself. But they were so close. The Schlatt/Wilbur and Tommy/Tubbo parallels are a great example of it because it had the two things that a “History Repeats itself” plot needs: A new emotional background (The Tubbo/Tommy friendship breaking) and a final change (When both decide not to become like their predecessor). That’s right. You can argue that this war had a different emotional background but the end result was the seem. This type of stories are only satisfying if we see the change at the end, imagine how great it would have been if they managed to resolve their differences and truly unite against Dream and stop L’manburg from blowing up. 

That is my second problem. I am not against the idea of L’manburg ending for good. But it happened at a very random part of the story. L’manburg, the place that started it all perished because a pig felt betrayed by a friend and Dream was being his usual self. Compare this to the last time it blew up: A fallen hero destroying what he built because he wouldn’t let anyone else have it. It just doesn’t compare. And honestly, we are mostly sad that it is gone because of the first war, the election and the manberg vs pogtopia arcs. If the end goal of three months of storytelling is to destroy L’manburg, why did they spend three months showing how shitty it has become and how everyone left? This last point sections nicely to my last problem

My third and final problem is that it all seems a little samey. Now listen to me on this one. Do you know why the Deadpool movies are so effective at making you laugh? Because it mixes dramatic moments with comedy very well, each dramatic moment elevates the next joke and vice versa. It is also why Tommy’s lore streams are so good, when you juxtapose both drama and comedy it works very well. Like a rollercoaster, the fun comes from all the ups and downs. But can you truly say there were any up moments since the manberg vs pogtopia war. Not really, maybe some but nowhere new as good as the up moments in previous arcs and nowhere near as present. That is why this past three months feel very samey. It has been just constant dread and sadness with very few good moments storywise. Compare this to before when Wilbur was the main writer: Eret betrayed everyone and Dream blew up some of L’manberg, but they won the war and got their independence. Pog 2020 lost the election but Techno joined them and most people were secretly helping from the shadows. They got back L’manburg from Schlatt but Wilbur and Techno betrayed them. See how it has a great mixtures of ups and downs? Today’s event would have benefited from at least one ray of sunshine at the end, maybe a new piece of information returns, or Tommy and Tubbo have a final talk and resolver everything, or something nice for a change. (Wilbur being resurrected does not count, he traumatised everyone, I would not say that is a very happy thing, more of a mixed bag) 

But I don’t want come off as too negative. But now I am being cautious of the storyline. I think the next couple of stream are going to be key. There is still hope that some of these problems will be addressed. Even if they are not, the story will have suffered it’s first big dud (Which is a testament to how good and capable everyone is of telling a great story). 

PS: English not my first language. You know the drill. I am once again not sending hate to anyone ever. There is nothing wrong with criticizing what you love, I think it is kind of necessary in a weird way.

PS2: I also have hope because I believe that Wilbur is coming back as a writer. On a stream (When he saw Matpat’s theory) he said the was “not currently writing the story” which I found as very suspicious wording. That and Alivebur returning I think makes a pretty compelling case for his return as a writer, I don’t see him as the type of guy that would just return so that someone else would write his character. On another note I hope the current writer don’t feel pressured to follow Matpat’s theory just because he is a big youtuber. While not a bad theory by all means (As soon as Ghostbur said he wanted to be alive my first thought was Quackity and Schlatt) but I would prefer it if they were not manipulated by outside sources to make the story a certain way. 

PS3: I have other things I would like to cover. Mainly, I have three ideas for future essays: an analysis of the medium the smp storyline is being made and why it is harmful to it’s story (Specifically it’s eventual ending), a study of how Ranboo’s philosophy causes more harm than good and a “What if” essay of how many road the smp could have taken with it’s story after the manberg vs pogtopia war. I will probably do all three of them eventually but if anyone wants a specific one I can do it no problem. Also, if anyone wants to interact or give their opinions or criticize my ideas you are more than welcome to. I have no friends who are into mcyt and I love the back and forward of different opinions and ideas.   

[aot-snk-4238]

My thoughts on AOT No Requiem (Fanmade Ending) Part 1:

With another chapter of this story coming out soon, I thought now would be a good time to share my thoughts on the first part. Before I do that, though, I have a few things that I would like to get off my chest.

A part of me hates that this project exists. Not because I find it disrespectful, but because it serves as a bitter reminder of what a complete mess this ending caused among many fans. I'm still in disbelief how things got so bad so quickly. First, you've got the people who hated it. People began turning on Isayama and calling him a terrible or incompetent writer, regretting ever getting into the series, insisting that it was worse than Game of Thrones, the list goes on and on. People who liked the ending are now endlessly referred to as "ending defenders" or more crude names like "Isayama cockriders," as though they're a bunch of incompetent fools who don't know the first thing about reading comprehension all because they just happened to like it. And then of course you've got the other extreme end of the spectrum where the ones who were disappointed are accused of not understanding the story or they're only upset because their favorite ship or fan theory didn't become canon. This, too, is very demeaning and invalidating for those who grew up with this series that they gave their heart to and cherished for so long, only to have it do what they felt was a complete 180 at the very last second that undid every part of the story they thought was special and unique. It's one of the hardest slaps to the face you can get as a reader and long-time fan, and while I can't fully relate to everyone's feelings, I can at least understand and acknowledge that it's there and it shouldn't be laughed at. Now with all of that out of the way, here are my thoughts and analysis of this fanmade ending and how it differs from Isayama's.

To start things off, I found that part 1 started off similar to how 137 did in the canon manga, with Armin and Zeke conversing in PATHS. The biggest difference would be kid Eren being transported there and seeing his older self. To be fair though, this chapter was only about half the length of what we're used to reading, so I'm sure we'll get a lot more in part 2 onwards.

While Zeke is enlightening Armin on the history of the earth and how the life form that attached itself to Ymir sought to avoid death forever, young Eren is in PATHS too with his older self, witnessing the moment Ymir found the tree and fell in it to become the first titan. At first, there is no dialogue exchanged between them. They just hold hands and watch. Meanwhile, Zeke is still talking to Armin about Ymir and how she continued to serve her oppressive master despite acquiring godlike powers that would allow her to obliterate him whenever she pleased. This is where the team working on this project attempt to provide their own alternate possibilities as to why this happened in a way that would make more sense than what we were given in the canon story in which she simply had a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome and couldn't let him go no matter how much he made her suffer.

So what are these new possibilities? They come in the form of a question, so their validity is not made absolutely certain, but they're presented as the most likely candidates nonetheless.

According to Zeke, she was unable to separate her own desires from King Fritz and was a lost girl who sought meaning. A place to belong. Tragically, King Fritz was the only connection she had in her life, so she clung to it with everything she had despite it being toxic and abusive. I could argue that these are the very reasons why she supposedly loved the king in the official manga, as explained by Eren in 139, but they weren't explained or touched on as plainly as they were here. I feel like they could have been if Isayama had just been given more time, but sadly the whole thing was rushed and underdeveloped.

Moving on, Zeke states that despite his efforts in trying to understand Ymir and her feelings, it was Eren who ultimately was able to get to her and offer her the choice of freedom. The next page transitions to young Eren standing in the clouds with his arms spread out and a smile on his face just like in the official 137, only this time 19yo Eren is next to him. Now I'm going to be honest here, this is where things started to get a little corny for me. Yeah. I know a lot of people hate that argument, but that's just how it felt to me. And before I say anything else, I want everybody to know that I am in no way about to mock anyone's fondness of this Eren over the one we saw in 139, even if it was a little over-the-top. It's perfectly fine to prefer one over the other, I'm just going to try to explain myself the best I can without coming across as harsh or unprofessional.

Eren is drawn in these panels to be a stone-faced, determined and unstoppable force who will "keep moving forward until his enemies are destroyed." This is the Eren that many people grew most familiar with throughout the series, despite his occasional breakdowns, but something about the way it was executed just felt a little too overdramatic and exaggerated. For me, the contrast between this Eren and the Eren we were presented with in 139 is too jarring. It came across to me as the fandom's idealized version of Eren, the "chad" Eren if you will, rather than Isayama's portrayal of Eren who is cold and determined, but has also been experiencing stunted mental growth ever since the day he saw his mother get eaten; side note: I know that Eren himself was responsible for his mother's death, but that's a discussion for a later time. Not only that, but the "keep moving forward" line starts to get overused at this point. We already heard Eren say this a number of times before 137 where this first fanmade chapter takes place, so I didn't find it necessary to include that at the end, but it seemed to be the writers' way of trying to reinforce Eren's ultimate goal.

Regarding the rest of the chapter, young Eren asks older Eren what Ymir is still waiting for after he showed her that she's not alone. 19yo Eren proceeds to explain that while he was able to make her feel something again, she still needs somebody to free her. He shows his younger self all of the visions from PATHS that he's seen so far, ranging from past events to alternate realities to things that couldn't be changed no matter what. Now there is only one path left that he strives toward. The one that he believes will grant him and his people freedom. This next line is the one that stood out to me the most throughout this fanmade chapter. Still talking to kid Eren, adult Eren says, "When you wake up, you will forget what you learned, but not what you felt here. This will all feel just like a long dream." Only when he kisses Historia's hand will it all come back to him. This line more clearly explains why Eren woke up crying in chapter 1, but couldn't remember why. Then he circles back to how he intends to carry out his own plan to end the cycle of hatred once and for all. Despite his efforts along the way, he couldn't change the flow of PATHS and save the friends he lost or prevent certain events from happening altogether, so he had to accept that sacrifices had to be made. In this case, he will have to literally sacrifice the world, much to Armin's horror.

To wrap this up, I'm going to finish comparing this to the canon 137, but since the first part of this project only covers the PATHS portion of it, that's where I'll stop as well. To save a little but of time, I'm just gonna be lazy and copy the first part of a quick overview of the chapter I found as part of the wiki:

So clearly, canon 137 starts off focusing a lot more on Armin and Zeke's differing philosophies and does not provide any further insight into Eren's ultimate motives like this one does, at least not yet. Armin and Eren are bound to face off soon in this fanmade version, but it looks to me like this time the writers are planning on flipping the outcome and having Eren come out victorious instead, especially when I remember the name of this project and what it's based on. I guess that means that in a way, I already know what's ultimately going to happen throughout the rest of this project. Whether it's going to be considered superior to the actual ending is going to depend on if its executed properly. I could very well be wrong about some of this, though. I want to give it a fair shot since these people have clearly put a lot of hard work and passion into this, so I will refrain from further judgement until we get the full picture. On a side note, I just want to say that the artwork is beautiful so far and I commend every artist responsible for their efforts. I also liked the song choice at the beginning and thought it set the mood pretty well.

Thank you to everyone who read the whole thing. This took me far longer to write than it should have because I'm not always good at expressing myself in a way that does not come across as confusing or contradictory. I will continue to share my thoughts as more content is released, which by the looks of it could be any day now.

[zalrb]

hmm maybe you could just rank them according to your personal preference?? i think it would be a little different from the other one right

Sure! I’m sticking to canon ships.

1. Stelena

I have an entire masterlist dedicated to why Stelena is number 1.

2. Forwood

Oh, Forwood:

Caroline and Tyler were fundamentally altered because of their supernatural conditions and that shift was the basis of their relationship. Becoming a vampire empowered Caroline, she had a sense of strength that she never had, she was confident and centred, she became everything she wasn’t in season 1,

which allowed her to be emotional support for Tyler

who, because of the werewolf curse, became everything he wasn’t in season 1 too: humble and vulnerable and grateful for assistance

and that allowed him to actually take the emotional support from Caroline

so they actually grew together through this time, complementing each other and seeing different sides of their personalities, surprising each other even though they’d known each other since childhood.

And also no one gives Tyler credit for being a loving, whipped boyfriend

and like

and just look at them

I don’t care what anyone says, this is such a cute exchange

3. Stebekah/Steferine

I put them together because which one I prefer more depends on the day. I like Stebekah because they’re dark and there was a lot of potential there:

I think that Katherine unfairly gets credit for the second half of a Dark Stefan ship. Every time Stefan has been rebellious or dark and has had a woman at his side, it’s been Rebekah such as in the 20s:

And such as season 4. When Stefan was just tired of all the Delena and   Defan and triangle bullshit and was like fuck it, I’m doing something   for me, I don’t care if it’s a bad decision, he went to Rebekah for some  crazy sex with a crazy ass vampire: 

So I think Rebekah has insight into the depraved, dark, deviant Stefan because she relishes it with him

I like Steferine a) because of Dobsley chemistry b) because I find their dynamic interesting

[Steferine is] the one ship that the show portrays the baggage and the hurt and the sort of inescapability of certain connection quite well although it’s not emphasized so I wonder if they actually portrayed it well on purpose? But anyway.

The reason why I think it’s done well is  because I think the relationship contradicts the idea that loving someone is always good, Katherine’s “love”/obsession with Stefan in fact  continuously destroys him and hurts him […] She  is more in love with the idea of Stefan loving her than she actually is  with Stefan. That’s why she hijacks Elena’s body in season 5 and  attempts to seduce him because  let’s think about that. Katherine hijacked the body of a woman she  hates and tries to seduce Stefan as that woman, a woman whose break up with him was a trigger for his PTSD, a woman who was in a relationship  with his brother and she doesn’t think or care about how seducing him as this woman would fuck with his head:

It’s also why in season 2 she threatens to kill Elena while Stefan watches because it doesn’t matter if he’s scarred or hurt, what matters is owning him:

And Stefan knows that about Katherine and yet Katherine knows Stefan’s psychology, she knows how his mind works, she knows which ways to get through to him:

and that creates a lot of tension for Stefan and you see it because it’s like, “you legit ruined my life though, like you completely fucked with my head, fucked with my life, I hate you, like I legit hate you”

and yet, AND YET, I can’t help but be of comfort when you’re in need

and as much as I hate you, when you’re around there’s just, there’s this thing (because Stefan always looks like he’s a half-step away from having hate sex with her)

At the same time, Stefan is never able to let Katherine in completely

And  he also experiences catharsis by being able to torture her in season 2  then kill her in season 5 and despite dying with her, killing her again  in season 8, he gets to continuously avenge himself which other victims  on TVD don’t get to do

4. Beremy

Here is the thing about Beremy and my opinion on them is definitely framed by the fact that I now know that the only other relationship Bonnie is really in is with Enzo and I think Bonenzo is bullshit, but the thing about Beremy is that Jeremy goes hard for her (especially in season 2) and I don’t think that’s quite acknowledged.

I definitely think that Kat deserved a better screen partner because Steve didn’t really have much of a presence onscreen

but I do think his lack of presence is also why a lot of good and cute Beremy scenes go unnoticed.

and I don’t think their chemistry was bad, like it’s not Grahamwood chemistry, it’s not Somergraham chemistry but it’s not like Steroline flat or Delena cringey, it’s decent:

like their first kiss is a good first kiss

and I’ve also said that they’re at their best when they do angst, that’s where they live. It’s not Stelena angst or Forwood angst but it’s pretty good angst

The way Enzo is supposed to love Bonnie, I think we actually see with Bonnie and Jeremy

Jeremy is this puny pre-hunter human but he goes into the tomb for the moonstone so Bonnie won’t have to use her magic.

In 2x18 when it was all don’t tell Elena that Bonnie will die trying to take down Klaus, Jeremy essentially chose Bonnie by telling Stefan what was going to happen.

Like look at the way he smiles here:

but the writers really fucked this over: And here’s the thing about that. I can understand the fact that Jeremy never really got closure from Anna and that seeing your girlfriend get dragged out, screaming, by cops and knowing that your uncle killed her would be traumatic. But it’s like JP wanted to humiliate Bonnie with this triangle because first of all, Bonnie is the only character who’s been cheated on and not only are the overall stakes of the show super low for the consequence of Bonnie using her magic to be Jeremy being able to see his ex-girlfriends, it’s a petty way to punish Bonnie. Moreover, it’s not just that Jeremy kissed Anna, it’s not even just that he’d been talking to her and essentially having an emotional affair with her, it’s that he degrades his relationship to Bonnie for Anna and when Bonnie finds out, Jeremy legit couldn’t give a fuck and he does nothing to get her back and he’s just never apologetic about it, not toward Bonnie anyway and then it just gets to the fact that Jeremy has a tendency to only care about the women he dates when they’re about to die and it’s just, I understand why the whole Anna situation keeps people from shipping them or giving Beremy the time of day.

5. Maroline

OK Maroline gets a lot of flack and it’s not that I don’t understand why and it’s not like they didn’t have issues but 1) their coming together was organic and on a show like TVD, having two people come together organically is actually pretty rare, it’s basically Stelena, Forwood and Maroline. I enjoyed the fact that despite being opposites, they found emotional common ground, they bonded over the fact that they were both lonely and they both felt isolated and they were both desperately seeking someone to love them

and their respective stories support this interaction

it’s not just something that’s said to be said, we see Matt’s life, we see him have no parents, we see him to the best of his ability try and keep tabs on Vicki, who is dead but he thinks she bailed, we see Elena fall in love with someone else right in front of him, we see Caroline’s abusive relationship with Damon, we see her insecurities from Day One in the pilot but their bond didn’t just stay at them wanting company, they actually had fun spending time together, they actually liked each other

and I liked that it was no pretense, I liked that it was Family Guy and junk food. You know, Klaroline ha the champagne and the ball gowns, Forwood would just “be” a lot, you know, they were the enjoying each other’s silence kind of ship, Steroline as a couple .... but Matt and Caroline, like, hung out and I liked that.

2) They were super realistic for a teenage relationship and I respect that. Like this is so high school

I remember being 16 and doing things to “test” my boyfriend or the guy that I liked, I remember my guy friends being reluctant to express liking a girl because of what their friends would say, I remember being a teenager and just doing teenage things, which is what Maroline did,

I don’t fault them for that, and yes, in season 1, Matt would be like, we’re not going to last etc.

and I don’t blame people for being put off by that, I wasn’t because it’s pretty 16/17-year old boy but you also see how that doesn’t seem to be what he actually thinks

and we see that expand in season 2

which is why the infamous Mattlena hug scene in 1x17 had me, like, the writing is just contradicting itself now because in 1x16, we have this out where Matt  explain being over Elena and seeing her as a friend and at peace with the fact that she loves Stefan because he’s into Caroline so having Caroline look in on them again was like, we’ve already covered this especially since it’s not consistent after 1x17 either.

Like the whole thing is that she can be exasperating --- and people forget that Caroline actually can be exasperating, she made an offhand classist remark about Bonnie liking the bus boy, which Matt overheard, she was dealing with vampirism and Tyler’s transformation but Matt didn’t know anything about that so she just came across to him as hot and cold, he didn’t have context --- but he loved her anyway

With regards to when he finds out she’s a vampire, I like how people are more pressed about Matt being involved in trying to take her down when he has no frame of reference for vampires other than the fact that one killed his sister and they’re not like, wow Liz, that’s your daughter, but I also like how as they ‘grow up’ and become entrenched in the Supernatural, despite the fact that Matt consistently says he wants nothing to do with it, both of them look out for each other

6. Klaroline

I’m pretty indifferent to Klaroline, I don’t have strong feelings about them but I have maintained that they are better than Delena

Even Klaroline does a better job with that dynamic and those kinds of arguments than Delena because you see Caroline be like “I can’t do this, why the fuck am I even here?” every time they’re together  

the dynamic DE was supposed to have better, the “fiery” “passionate” thing works for them because they know how to argue and because they play up the conflict

I’ve also maintained they have good chemistry: and yet their chemistry begins winning me over in the scene and I think what really sells it is that Candice reacts to the phone call in a way I’ve only seen Caroline react to Klaus and it’s this sort of… she catches her breath/is stunned

I have a vid that’s basically just of their gazes because they’re always charged, they have a very seductive chemistry and it suits their dynamic because the more Caroline interacts with Klaus, the more she’s drawn to him and that shows with the kind of chemistry they have where, as someone who is quite indifferent to their dynamic, the more they interact onscreen the more I want them to remain onscreen, I start off unimpressed (much like Caroline) and move toward being engaged (again like Caroline) and like I said, they do their dynamic well too, Caroline’s annoyed-but-charmed and Klaus’ arrogant-but-charming

(although their physical chemistry is not great) I just don’t think they have any real narrative.

7. Simara

This is purely about Dobsley chemistry: I have spoken about Silas and Amara quite a bit actually, but honestly, mostly in relation to the chemistry between Paul and Nina because I think that the SIlas and Amara storyline is textually weak and it felt rushed, there isn’t much nuance so I don’t find their story particularly tragic because we didn’t spend enough time on it but I still find them tragic because of how Paul and Nina played the tragedy.

Like it was a storyline that just let Paul and Nina do their magic onscreen,

they didn’t have to try to undercut it with dialogue or anything so I appreciate Simara because I love seeing Nina and Paul working together but in terms of the content, I’m like I don’t really care.

Last: Delena/Bonenzo/Steroline

You can look at the masterlists!

[captain-lonagan]

one of the things that makes c!dream such a compelling villain to me is that he had, and if he tried honestly still could have, more than just whatever batman-joker dark knight thing he’s trying to do with c!tommy. like he was best friends with c!george and c!sapnap and was actually friends with c!tommy and c!tubbo in spite of their disagreements over l’manburg. but he just fuckin trashed all his relationships in pursuit of power. and like he’s smart about that pursuit, he recognizes the power of attachments and he has enough social awareness to pick up on who is attached to what (and, to a certain extent, probably why they’re attached to it).

but he still threw aside his own relationships and attachments. he destroyed what good he had in pursuit of what? blackmailing the entire server into obedience? a mongol peace where he shoots your dog if you don’t smile for the family photo?

like if he were just Some Guy Obsessed With c!Tommy i don’t think he’d be nearly as compelling as he is to me. like yeah he isolated a teenager and abused him but he had like, a life before that? usually with abusers in media i’ve seen they don’t have like, a backstory or life outside of their victim and i don’t blame writers for that, it’s a difficult line to walk without going into full abuse apologism. but here like, we knew this guy before he did this fucked up shit. we know he can do better than this.

and i’m not saying he and c!tommy should be besties again and forget everything, god no. even if c!dream were to genuinely feel bad about what he did and really wanted to change and be a better person i don’t think those changes for the good would happen in close proximity to c!tommy. the kid doesn’t seem to have emotionally worked through enough of what happened in exile to have a clear enough head for that. but i do think that if c!dream showed genuine remorse and wanted to grow then he could. because all those relationships he threw away? a solid amount of them miss their friend and want him back. c!sapnap still wants him at his wedding.

personally i’m more compelled by c!wilbur’s possible redemption arc because there’s more in the actual canon text for that to go off of. also the dsmp has yet to textually acknowledge that c!tommy was abused by c!dream and to go to a redemption arc for c!dream without fully recognizing what the fuck he did wrong (especially when what he did wrong was abuse a person in a very true-to-real-life way) just feels disingenuous. but i definitely get why some people would find a redemption arc for him compelling.

tldr: c!dream has/had more to him than just his obsession with c!tommy and thats part of what makes him so compelling to me. i don’t really see him getting taken towards a redemption arc since his character doesn’t really seem to understand that he did wrong and the writers don’t seem to be leading towards redemption, but i definitely get why some people would find a redemption arc from him interesting.

[chrysalizzm]

!!SPOILERS FOR JANUARY 4TH FESTIVAL STREAM!!

disclaimer: i can’t talk about everything because i have final exams next week and really should be studying so i can’t exactly go back and watch all the vods; i watched the entire thing from ranboo’s perspective and his acting was immaculate good on him. everyone that i discuss in this ramble are, of course, their characters, and not the actual ccs.

holy shit holy SHIT i cannot THINK brain go brrrrrr

okay i need to split this up because i physically cannot disentangle the jumble my brain and emotions are in right now my mind is just a pile of scrambled eggs

predictions??? or well thoughts about tomorrow

one of the things i thought of right away was clingyduo losing their last canon lives together, though this is on shaky ground because i seriously doubt “season two” (for lack of a better word) of the dream smp would end so quickly after season one, and because tommy and tubbo are both such huge catalysts for events happening on the smp, this seems pretty unlikely (they’re both too important for them to end up as a casual death for the sake of moving the plot along, there are a lot of other characters who aren’t on their final canon lives or even some that are that might die if the writers really wanted that bit of oomf, though i don’t really think it’s necessary for any perma-deaths to occur tomorrow). that said, i think toward the end of the smp storyline, or at least once it’s hit a steady storyline or has been around for long enough, it might be really poetic for certain things to come to an end with clingyduo dying together - it ties up the first arc of the dream smp, how everything began, and now how everything ends (this is how the world ends, indeed). also, tommy kept bringing up the fact that he and tubbo are on their final canon lives, and while i think this is mostly just a “bait the audience to subvert expectations at the last moment” move (as happened today kind of with tommy joining tubbo’s side), it’s interesting to hear that particular half of clingyduo contemplating his own mortality.

i think there’s a pretty low chance of niki joining dream and techno, despite my wishful thinking because i think she’d be a great asset to those two in making the l’manberg side falter emotionally and because she’s excellent at organising her thoughts and presenting a really solid argument, something that both dream and techno are just kinda okay at. we saw from niki’s argument that she has torn loyalties - plenty of characters do, but she’s pretty unique in that neither of the reasons she’s fighting for line up that much with techno and dream (i also like that niki’s the one who comes out and says outright that her loyalties are torn because she doesn’t like tommy). she clearly makes the distinction between fighting with tommy and fighting for l’manberg - she’s fighting for l’manberg - and for her, l’manberg outweighs all else. that’s the reason why she’s fighting on tommy’s side - because she knows that dream and techno will destroy what she’s fought so hard to keep whole and safe all this time, throughout the time she’s been on the smp. enemy of my enemy is my friend, all that.

pandora’s vault. MATE. it’s huge and we all know it. i think it’s possible that dream wants to throw everyone who opposes him into the prison - it’s large enough and secure enough to accommodate - but i don’t think he will, because current dream (and i want to make a distinction between current and early dream, because they’re so polar opposite that i’m inclined to believe something’s going on behind the scenes, probably associated with the book schlatt gave him, shoutout to dr3 @dr3amt3am3 on twitter for writing an excellent analysis of dream’s character) is motivated around causing chaos by using everyone. think eris from greek mythology when she tossed the golden apple between athena, hera, and aphrodite - he dips a toe in the water and all the fish fucking jump. he doesn’t need to make the mess because one little push and everyone makes the mess for him. so, no, i don’t think pandora’s vault will be used to imprison all those who oppose him. i know a lot of theories have been floating around about whether it’ll be tommy or phil or techno - those three seem to be the top contenders - and i think i’d like to plump for tommy, who’s probably the one dream wants to see suffer the most and is capable of causing the most damage - after all, look at him rallying the people of l’manberg with just a few sentences after he spent the last month condemned by them.

there was probably more but i have sbi brainrot now let’s move on

wherein i become an staunch techno apologist

i may be on tommy’s side, but i don’t agree with his reasoning or how he acted today. yeah, i said it. yes, he’s been deeply traumatised since election night, arguably even further back, what with being the sole witness as wilbur spiralled and watching his best friend get brutally murdered and being unable to stop techno from razing the nation he helped plant the seeds of to the ground and seeing wilbur get stabbed by their father and exile, gaslighting, panic attacks, this kid needs a goddamn break. but i vibe with techno’s ideals and actions a fair bit more than i do tommy’s. the fact of the matter is, technoblade has always been completely transparent about why he was doing things the way he did them and what they were for (with the exception of a few lies of omission to tommy about what he wanted to happen to l’manberg). from day one he’s made it clear that he’s an anarchist and that what he wants is to abolish the government, and he genuinely believes that anarchy is for the greater good. from techno’s perspective, he’s not wrong - every single problem on the server can be traced back to some form of government or political turmoil, from l’manberg’s fight for independence to this latest festival fiasco. furthermore, when you look at it from an unbiased perspective, techno’s only ever really been used and discarded. he hasn’t instigated any conflicts on his own; he usually gets roped in by whoever’s running the movement, used as a weapon/items cache, then immediately thrown aside as the winners of the conflict establish exactly the opposite of techno’s beliefs. i have a lot of things to say about techno’s role in the smp because i get all angy about it, but for something zingy to leave you with - have you thought about how tommy and wilbur said “we have the blade” - a weapon, not a person?

rip community house ;-;7

yeah no it was almost definitely dream. tommy gains nothing from griefing the community house to that extent, especially not in this political climate (i know the argument can be made that he didn’t have to grief george’s house either, but that doesn’t have the connotations that the griefing of the community house does. no matter how reckless tommy is, i don’t believe that he’s stupid). dream has more to gain at this point from destroying the community house than tommy does, and this shows the audience a lot about current!dream; we know it’s true, now, what he said when he threatened tommy: “i don’t care about anything, actually.” he doesn’t. he said himself that the community house is the most sacred thing on the server, the oldest build, the first and only thing to have remained since the genesis of the dream smp, and so for him to have been the one to destroy it where he’s been so careful to preserve things from the old days of the smp (his pet fish, the community house, spirit) - shocking, the difference between early!dream and current!dream. he’s actually willing to go to literally any lengths to take tommy down, even at the cost of things he once valued above all else. interesting stuff. ((shakes the smug green bastard /smp)) TELL ME WHATS IN THAT BOOK YOU FUNGAL PIECE OF SHIT

applauding the smp members

because WOW that acting was SO FUCKING GOOD special shoutout to niki and ranboo because they fucking NAILED IT

okay i’m gonna go lie down and think about african lit for finals now thanks for reading this incomprehensible babble

[thefriendlyfrog]

Too many thoughts on SPN 15x17, “Unity”

Welp, I don’t usually do this, but this episode was so great and packed with so many good parallels and callbacks I couldn’t help it! Meredith Glynn is such a great writer. So, let’s begin. Lots of spoilers under the cut.

The first scene opens up to Amara living life to the fullest in an Icelandic hot spring (I’ve been to some in Iceland and would 10/10 recommend – don’t bother with the Blue Lagoon, though). My eyes were immediately drawn to the super recognizable cover of Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood”. Now, I haven’t read this book since, like, high school (now realizing that was a DECADE ago), but I do remember the general plot and themes of the story (I should really reread that again, it’s a good book). Basically, the story is recalled by our narrator and protagonist Watanabe at a later point in his life as he is reminded of a time of life when the Beatles’ song “Norwegian Wood” plays. I don’t want to spoil the whole book, but basically it is a coming of age story that is steeped in themes of regret, sex, love, and death (among others, it really is a literary treasure trove!). Skip the next paragraph if you don’t want “Norwegian Wood” spoilers.

In short: Watanabe’s best friend from high school commits suicide which haunts him and his friend’s girlfriend, Naoki, for the rest of their lives. Watanabe and Naoki become close and romantically involved, but she leaves for a sanitorium. Watanabe wants to be with Naoki despite her telling him that she doesn’t think she can love anymore (she described herself and her high school boyfriend as soulmates). Watanabe later meets Naoki’s opposite, Midori, a lively girl who Watanabe grows close to and is also interested in. Watanabe essentially doesn’t move forward as he is waiting on Naoki while having Midori waiting on him. At the end of the story, it is revealed that it has always been Midori and he realizes he wants to be with her.

I thought that this was an EXCELLENT pick for Amara to be reading. It really sums of a lot of surface and not-so-surface level themes in Supernatural. Wondering if there is a parallel between Dean and Watanabe about sort of idealizing a life (with someone) that isn’t meant to be while ignoring love in front of you? Would love to hear all of your thoughts.

Moving on (I’m skipping through parts of the episode to just focus on some key observations)! Amara tries to convince Chuck to fight on behalf of this world and wants to show him some of his creations. So, she brings him to Heaven to see his ‘first children’ (i.e., angels). She also refers to angels as having prefect angelic devotion which immediately made me laugh because our fave angel Cas is really devoted to Dean humanity and not Chuck. Ahh! This whole episode just kept pointing out how special Cas is.

And then, callback after callback began. Amara brings Chuck to the bunker so Chuck says, “Is this a trap?” which made me think of episode 9 (“The Trap” by Berens). This was almost immediately followed by another callback when Chuck says, “You can’t hold me here forever,” to which Amara replies, “I can hold you long enough.” Um, Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets (12x10, Yockey), anyone?

Ishim: “You can’t hold me here forever.” … Lily’s powers are wearing off as Ishim approaches her until Cas stabs Ishim in the back with his angel blade. Cas: “You held him for long enough.”

Like, COME ON! Almost verbatim.

Skipping forward to Dean and Jack’s adventure to visit my favorite hippies, Adam and Serafina (like seriously, they were fantastic characters!). Adam refers to himself as, “…first dude off of the assembly line,” which is similar language that has been used to referring to angels in the past (again, invoking Castiel?)

Then Dean assumes the woman is Eve but they both just shake their heads and chuckle, “I’m Serafina,” I’m definitely not the first one to point this out but… the First Man being in a near-lifelong romantic relationship with an angel named Seraph Serafina?! Uh, yeah, ‘nuff said.

Serafina also mentions that she saw Jack when she and Adam were, “…sipping mushroom tea on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,” which made me wonder if there was some sort of connection with Glynn’s season 14 episode, “Byzantium” (14x08), which is the episode Cas makes his deal with the Empty. Babylon was a fortress of the Byzantine empire (not going to lie, my historical knowledge about the Byzantine empire is preeeeetty limited).  

I also loved the whole speech by Serafina to Dean: “I mean, just think of everything that has had to happen to get Jack to this place, to this moment. Baby, it was meant to be,” Dean, of course, is upset by this because he is probably thinking that this was all basically predestined, and he has had no free will. However, he just needs to wait a little while longer until Chuck tells him to his face that he has never been able to control Cas since he laid his hand on Dean saving him from Hell.

Serafina also heals Adam’s wound and it is, of course, super reminiscent of Cas healing Dean (although, even Serafina doesn’t directly touch Adam when healing him – it’s, once again, unique to Castiel). Obligatory hand squeal: HANDS!!!! Wow, they are not even trying to be subtle about the whole hands thing. It is so IN YOUR FACE begging for the audience to notice it.

Adam then mentions how much power is in his rib: “But this puppy? Is packing enough punch to create LIFE. Or, in your case, destroy God.” Well, at this point I think we can all be pretty certain that in the end it will NOT be used to destroy God, so will it instead be used for creation? Excited to see how they defuse Jack’s supernova bomb next episode.

Rounding off Dean’s vignette is a heartbreaking scene with him and Jack in the Impala. Dean says, “I don’t know how to explain it. When I learned about Chuck, it was like – it’s like I wasn’t alive. Not really. You know, like, my whole life I’ve never been free. But like, really free. But now, me and Sam, we got a shot at living a life…But now we have a chance. And that’s because of you.” Again, this is before Dean learns that Cas’ actions were made of his own free will, and from the sounds of it, Dean’s connection to Amara as well. I also immediately wondered if Jack bringing Dean some sense of freedom was what Cas saw when Jack showed him “paradise”.

Moving on to Sam’s vignette: Sam remembers that Sergei mentioned the Key of Death was in the bunker (how did he remember this, wasn’t he unconscious at the time? A little disappointed Cas didn’t get to provide that little fact but I’m also glad that Sam actually served a purpose this episode and was a bit more front and center). They find the Key of Death and there is an inscription in Latin on the box:

Viator mortalis, cave, quoniam scias Clavem Mortis pensare graviter. Il tamen desideres ut introeas illum abyssum obscurissimum artis opus est tibi porta.

Okay, fair warning: I took Latin for 4 years but it has been awhile so my translation is super not perfect, but I figured I would take a stab at it because the subtitles were wrong at times and Google translate is not perfect. I translated it as something like this:

Mortal traveler, beware, because you know the Key of Death should be considered seriously. However, if you want to enter the darkest abyss, this work of art is the gate/door.

Honestly, there were a few words that I couldn’t find the right conjugations to and I know this isn’t 100% accurate, but it gives you the gist.

Sam then visits Death’s library and finds the Empty there, killing people (?) to get in touch with Death, whom they hasn’t been trusting as of late. We learn that Death’s plan is to assume the role of New God and restore the world back to order, bring back rules. The Empty is wary because they don’t know if they can trust the promise of being able to go back to sleep. Trust issues, the Empty says, because of “your busted-ass friend in the trench coat,” another subtle-not-so-subtle mention of Cas. But why, exactly, did Cas give the Empty ‘trust issues’? Was it because he woke up in the first place? Because he has ‘traipsed in and out’ of the Empty without dying?

We also learn that only Billie can read Chuck’s Death book, and, this may be a crack idea but… maybe Cas should be able to read the book because he was the one that killed Billie and made her Death in the first place? Seems like Cas might have a connection to Billie. It would be cool if Cas were the one to read Chuck’s book.

Finally, we learn a bit more about the Empty, and how they can’t go to Earth unless summoned. Hmm…

Flash forward to Amara and Chuck in the bunker. Amara tells Chuck, “It’s not too late, brother,” and, if you’re like me, you finished that sentence with “it’s never too late (to start all over again)”. So many great Destiel songs out there, but “Never Too Late” takes the cake for me.

Amara and Chuck decide to become one, become ultimate balance. Chuck extends his hand and Amara grasps it as she is absorbed into Chuck. I don’t even know if I really need to say this, but… HANDS! (Destiel is already canon to me but if the show is going to make it more explicitly canon for the audience, it’s going to be through hands as I know people have been shouting about for several seasons now).  

To finish, let’s talk about that kick-ass scene with TFW 2.0 at the end of the episode. We find out that Chuck’s real ending is to have Dean regress and give in to rage and kill everything he loves, probably ultimately leading to his own death. Woof, what a tragic ending (tragedy ≠ good ending). So, we’ve got to subvert that which Dean does after a heartfelt plea from Sam (“You would trade me?”). I enjoyed how much Dean looked back at Cas during this exchange, especially after Sam tells Dean that Eileen will die again. The parallels, the connection.

Honestly, I’m not sure why Cas and Jack were in that scene other than to have some meaningful glances exchanged between Cas and Dean and because TFW2.0 is together in the next scene. But… whatever, more Cas so I liked it.

And finally, the scene that had me shaking with VINDICATION.

Cas to Chuck: “What, you consumed your sister?” Chuck: “We came to an understanding, so spare me your contempt Castiel, the self-hating angel of Thursday. You know what every other version of you did after ‘gripping him tight and raising him from perdition’? They did what they were told. But not you. Not the ‘one off the line with a crack in his chassis’” (Cas looks back at Dean after a moment)

Okay, so let’s break this exchange down. So much satisfaction with just a few sentences. Bravo, Ms. Glynn.

“We came to an understanding.” Didn’t Michael and Adam say the same thing after they decided to share equally in their bond and vessel? Callback #1.

“…self-hating angel of Thursday.” Ahh, it’s been so long since we got mention that Cas is the angel of Thursday. The last time was, what, when Crowley says it to Cas back in season 6? By the way, it was totally meant to be that Supernatural will finish off the series on a Thursday. Callback #2 (ish).

“You know what every other version of you did after ‘gripping him tight and raising him from perdition’?” This is the second time the show has repeated Cas’ first line to Dean near-verbatim in two seasons. You know, just in case the audience forgot Dean and Cas’ infamous first meeting (which I am like 99% sure we are going to get hella callbacks to next episode). Callback #3.

“They did what they were told. But not you. Not the ‘one off the line with a crack in his chassis.’” Again, Chuck is closely paraphrasing what Naomi said about Cas in season 8:

8x21 “The Great Escapist” – Naomi: “You're the famous spanner in the works. Honestly, I think you came off the line with a crack in your chassis. You have never done what you were told. Not completely. You don't even die right, do you?”

Callback #4. Seriously, Glynn packed four callbacks into such a short time period. Wizard.

My only *criticism* of this final scene is that Dean and Cas didn’t seem to react too much to Chuck’s news about Cas always having free will (although, I think Cas already knew this, but it is news and confirmation to Dean!). I highly suspect that will come next week, though. I’m SO excited (and also terrified) for next week. We are definitely going to be getting a lot of Cas next episode. Misha, in an interview, mentioned that we would get Cas’ ‘chapter’ in 18, and I’m wondering if this will be the true Cas-centric episode? I don’t know, maybe the Cas-centric episode was “Gimme Shelter” but I was expecting more of a “The Man Who Would Be King” kind of Cas-centric episode.  

All in all, 10/10. I keep reading and seeing things that are galaxy braining me, so it has been super fun reading all the meta and reactions to this episode.

Three episodes left. Get your tissues ready for Cas’ death (oops, is this even a spoiler at this point?) next episode. And remember, “Nothing ever really ends,” and “The end has no end,”

[popwasabi]

Why I don’t give a fuck about canon

Recently, after randomly coming across some dope pictures of Transformer toys on Instagram that gave me a strong case of nostalgia, I was inspired to revisit an old childhood favorite in “Beast Wars.”

“Beast Wars,” in case you never watched or heard of it as a kid, is the continuation of the Transformer’s story set in the future as descendants of the Auotobots and Decepticons, the Maximals and Predacons, respectively, accidentally travel to prehistoric Earth to continue a centuries long battle between the two opposing factions.

There’s a lot of to digest there, so I’m not going to go into extreme detail over the plot, but the cast features colorful characters such as Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rattrap, Dinobot and Megatron to name a few. They all have interesting and distinct personalities and generally play well off each other. It was a big part of my childhood and I collected an ungodly amount of their toys back in the day.

(This was my first ever Beast Wars toy and I think it’s beautiful.)

My rewatch though was…a mixed bag to say the least. The graphics have not aged well. The adventure of the week setup of the plot was repetitive and lacked real character development at times. There were characters that were added in last minute to the show clearly to promote a new action figure over the story on numerous occasions. Though I found the humor to still be pretty good, the action was stale and just lacked high stakes most of the time, save for a few episodes.

I was not shocked it didn’t land terribly well on my rewatch but you know what did? “Beast Machines!”

“Beast Machines” was the follow-up to Beast Wars that had the Maximals fighting on Cybertron where Megatron has taken control of the whole planet using a virus that changes Transformers into mindless drones to do his bidding. The remaining Maximals manage to survive however after Optimus discovers The Oracle which reformats them into animal robot hybrids that are both mechanical and biological. This sets them on a quest to stop Megatron and bring biological and mechanical balance to Cybertron once and for all.

The series is much more narrative based than the previous as it follows a steady trajectory to its epic conclusion. The animation is much sharper, and the soundtrack is fun as hell to listen to still. The pacing is much faster as the stakes couldn’t be higher for the Maximals and all the old characters from the previous grow in interesting ways and develop into more organic people (literally in some ways). Optimus is a more hardcore and emotionally damaged leader and Megatron goes from being something of a punchline in the previous series to a far more menacing and calculating nemesis. The story touches on themes of balance, authoritarianism, PTSD, love and reunion to name a few and for a kids’ show it is, dare I say…more than meets the eye.

I absolutely loved it as a kid and I might actually love it even more as an adult, so it was shocking for me, to say the least, when I read further into the history of the show, that a lot of fans straight up rejected it back in the day.

Common complaints I came across were they didn’t like how characters, such as Ratrap especially, “changed.” They didn’t like the new bio/mechanical Maximals and couldn’t believe that Cybertron was once an organic world.

Their big reason (in just about every forum and video I saw about it)? It didn’t adhere to “canon.”

Now, I’ll start this by saying there is no objective way to critique or even not critique a story. People can like or hate something for a variety of reasons that don’t follow a strict logical pattern. Gods know I have a few questionable/divisive favorites in my catalogue that I have written about here that are based on abstract ideas and personal experiences.

(The Matrix Reloaded is still great btw)

But I will say, if you judge a mega franchise’s latest entry on how well it is supported by established canon it is, in my opinion, a flawed way to critique a work of fiction.

Canon, sometimes referred to as “lore” by fans, is most often applied and used to describe the long running back stories of franchises that stretch beyond just the main books, movies or series, or even the original narrative of the plot. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and to a certain extent Harry Potter, all fall into this camp of series with so many interconnected parts, with more than one main character featured in each, that fans follow along this canon like ancient monks studying scripture and history books.

And they can be just as fanatical and over zealous about it.

(I wish they were more fanatical about proper hygiene or at least deodorant...)

My problem with the ways fans often view canon is that their conceptions of what a new story should be is based entirely on the past rather than what is happening right now with the story and what themes the writer is trying express with it this time. 

They base their impressions of the story on external continuity more than the internal continuity.

Yea, the changes in a series like “Beast Machines” are jarring to say the least. Cybertron was formally an organic world like Earth? Rattrap doesn’t have confidence in himself and actually at one point sells out his comrades? Transformers can be biological now? It’s a lot to take in but when watching the story play out it’s not like these elements aren’t explained through the text of the new story.

Cybertron lost balance between its robot inhabitants and its biological life forms and its why it’s out of balance now, and Megatron is the logical progression of that inbalance. Rattrap is struggling to understand his new form, half his friends on the Maximals have been turned into drones, and the remaining team out loud say they don’t have confidence in him. He has PTSD from both the events of this story and the Beast Wars and feels insecure because of how others view him and that’s perfectly logical to not just the story but also the canon. If a fan is willing to give a story a chance they will see that the canon hasn’t actually been destroyed in much of any way and the logical progression is actually there if they simply listen to what’s going on.

(Seriously, it’s not that deep.)

Fans need to stop confusing a character achieving a franchise long arc with being “suddenly different.” In this way, criticisms of canon in new entries in long running series reveal that fans really just lack imagination to connect the dots. It would be like complaining that Luke Skywalker can’t become paranoid and make a grave mistake in judgment because people never change, nevermind the character already has changed a lot from his origins in “A New Hope” to where he was in “Return of the Jedi.”

(Oh wait, people did do that…)

But that’s not to say you have to like the new direction either. You can understand these changes and still be like “well, it’s not for me. I don’t care for a PSTD angle or a new origin for Cybertron,” but that’s whole lot different than saying the new series “rapes your childhood” or “Bastardizes the canon.” All the old canon you hold nostalgia for still exists. My love for “Beast Machines” is not harmed by the existence of newer Transformers properties that don’t meet what I look for in the series.

Too often, fans take changes to established “lore” very personally because it doesn’t fit their expectations or have the same nostalgic feelings they had before. When new entries in mega franchises occur fans often try to judge it by how much it is like what they watched before, rather what makes it different and what it is saying now. Again, you don’t have to like new directions in tone or character but consistency to established work DOES NOT equal good storytelling.

I have not been immune to this myself in the past, of course. Back in the day I wrote a 2500-plus word diatribe on “The Amazing Spider-man 2” that mostly went after how it changed the character I grew up with in a bad way and butchered the established back story I knew him by.

You know what other story doesn’t follow canon very well though? “Spider-man: Homecoming.”

(Now, hear me out...)

Spider-man in the MCU is generally agreed upon to be a good thing by fans. Both movies were big hits both critically and financially and fans often go as far as to say Tom Holland is the “definitive” Peter Parker. 

But Holland’s Spider-man differs quite a bit from the comic-book webslinger. This Spider-man does not have a spidey sense. His best friend is not Harry Osbourne but in fact a retcon of a Mile Morales character. His father figure is Tony Stark, something that never happened in the comics, instead of Uncle Ben, which no matter what way you spin it is arguably his most important relationship in the series.

His character is a reverse of traditional Peter Parker too. Where comics Peter is a reluctant hero, who if anything hates being Spider-man and the burden of his responsibility, “Homecoming” Spider-man actively seeks out responsibility and in many ways enjoys his role as the famous webslinger. In fact, his whole arc is about him earning a spot as an Avenger. He wants to be THE hero and be worthy of it. It’s completely different from what we know of Spider-man.

(He just wants Tony sempai to notice him uWu)

Now I know some fans actually do complain about this Spidey from a “canon” standpoint, but most don’t. So why did this Spider-man get a pass for many but not “The Amazing” one? Quite simply it’s because stories, as cheesy as it sounds, are about feelings and stories like “Homecoming” tell a good story that effectively make those feelings connect with the audience.

We root for this Peter Parker and his journey to becoming an Avenger and successor to Iron Man because the story is told well, the emotions feel earned, and frankly both films are fun and enjoyable.

It’s easy to complain about canon for many nerds because it’s something tangible that they can point to and make a big stink about when they don’t understand why a movie isn’t reaching them. I don’t doubt that many neckbeards genuinely hate a film like “The Last Jedi” (Hell, I’m not a big fan myself) but when those same nerds enjoy something like “The Mandalorian,” a series that has its own loose relationship with canon and establishing new rules in the series, it tells me it’s not about the “lore” to them.

(Easy, fanboys...)

I have come to understand, in my growth as a nerd, that my problems with a lot of movies and TV shows in my favorite series rarely, if ever, have anything to do with the story not meeting some arbitrary guidelines regarding canon. It has more to with the story simply not connecting with me emotionally. The story isn’t drawing me in and keeping me on its narrative path. I’m not feeling the same magic that someone else might feel enjoying it because either a) it doesn’t feel earned to me or b) it just stylistically isn’t for me.

To paraphrase a line from another mega franchise, also owned by Disney, the canon is more like guidelines than actual rules.

(Didn’t expect to see ol’ Barbosa in this write up, did ye?)

It can show you where a story comes from but it isn’t law that you strictly adhere to it. Of course, when writing a new work in a popular series you should consider what came before it but I would like writer’s the freedom to try something new and most importantly fans to be open to it. You don’t have to like it but the idea that new entries in a story MUST remain strict to the canon is bull shit. Not even the original Star Wars trilogy adhered to its own canon perfectly, as clearly the writers were in fact making it up to a certain extent as they were going along.

(hmmmm...)

And that’s ok, because some of those changes were great! Made the story better and made the conclusion stronger.

Again, you don’t have to like every new entry that tries something bold or confrontational in your favorite franchise but if writers strictly followed canon to the T we wouldn’t have things like “Homecoming,” we wouldn’t have “The Mandalorian,” and we certainly wouldn’t have my favorite Transformers series “Beast Machines.”

Canon shouldn’t be a trap for writers and it shouldn’t be a litmus test for fans digesting it. There are so many better ways to judge a story than whether or not it fits neatly into established lore. A good story is a good story, regardless of whether or not it’s supported by something as static as canon.

“Beast Machines” has its flaws here and there, but canon isn’t one of them, at least not for me. Again, if you feel that the lore is important, that’s fine, you don’t have to ignore it but I would ask you to look beyond what came before when critiquing a new story.

Otherwise, you might miss something special that comes next…

Now then... 

[asterekmess]

I've started reading Sterek fic again after years away from fandom (purely because of your posts btw) and there is an alarming number of Stiles being pushed/kicked out of the pack and treated horribly but he still goes out of his way to help and forgives all with random Sterek thrown in at the end. I did not miss that nonsense at all. Why is that so popular?

That’s very sweet of you, and I’m happy that you’ve found a love of fic again!

So, this trope. I...I love this trope. A lot of fans do, obviously.

I’mma put this under a read more, just because I tend to ramble.

First off, I’m sure you’ve noticed that there’s a lot of...side-splitting within the sterek fandom? At least, for those of us who aren’t fans of Scott. You see a lot of “Hale Pack” versus “McCall Pack” stuff. A lot of that comes about because people don’t like that Derek lost his Alpha status (I definitely don’t like it) but also because Derek never actually joins Scott’s pack. He is always on the fringes, whether because he gets put there or because he puts himself there. It’s not hard to separate him from Scott’s group, because he was never a part of it to begin with.

For Sterek shippers, we usually want Stiles to be in Derek’s pack (some people who don’t mind Scott, or even like him, also like to make Stiles a sort of bridge between the two packs? Belonging to both and neither at the same time?) but that is kind of difficult to make when it’s so much more specific in canon about Stiles being in Scott’s pack.

I’ve seen lots of people argue that Scott never had an actual ‘pack’, just a group of friends, or that Lydia and Stiles were never part of his pack, and I don’t know enough meta to say whether that’s right or not.

I do know that throughout the show, Stiles (whether we like it or not) considers Scott his best friend. Many fans of Derek can’t reconcile Derek and Scott ever being close friends because of their history together, and that creates a sort of break. How can Stiles be friends with someone his partner hates, and how can he date someone his best friend hates?

So, writers do their best to separate Stiles from Scott’s pack within their fic. Sometimes it involves the rest of the pack also dispersing and Scott getting left alone, and sometimes the rest of the pack sticks with Scott and Stiles and Derek go off to be their own pack.

When it comes to Stiles getting ‘kicked out’ of the pack, I think it’s important to note that part of that is just the hurt/comfort of it all. How many of us have been cut out of friend groups, or family groups, and had to make our own way and wished there was someone on the outside who would take us in? So, we write that happening, giving Stiles that dream we wish for by having Derek help get Stiles back on his feet, or support him so thoroughly that he never hits the ground in the first place.

Another part has to do with how much more difficult and convoluted it can be to write him peacefully leaving Scott’s pack (since we’ve already established that in these situations, Stiles staying in Scott’s pack is a no-go). There’s so much more to explain when he’s still buddies with everyone and just...leaves anyway? Of course, it can be (and has been) done, but a lot of writers don’t want to put in the extra effort (I am one of them, tbqh).

Another part has surely come about from that scene in the rain. For a lot of Stiles fans, this was the absolute breaking point. Stiles had been kicked out of the pack (I haven’t seen the actual episode myself, so I try v hard not to bring it up in meta, bc I don’t know what the fuck I’m on about) and it became a catalyst for a lot of fics that show Stiles getting shoved away, put on the edges so much like Derek had been, and the two of them finding each other instead.

Now, on to the point of your message. The cases where the trope ends with Stiles forgiving Scott and whoever else was involved in him getting removed from the pack. Obviously, this would be a case by case basis. Every writer has their own reasons and we can only speculate most of the time about why they wrote something a specific way.

Some people like Scott, and want to see him grow. So they use the fic to work out their frustrations with his and Stiles’ uneven friendship, and end it with some forgiveness and leave the characters with the chance to grow back into better friends. Some people like those around Scott and don’t want to have to leave them out of the rest of the story just because they’re part of Scott’s pack and Stiles has left. So, even if they don’t particularly want Scott to be Stiles’ Alpha, they still want Stiles to be able to be close to and interact with Scott’s pack, which requires a bit of forgiveness. Another option, is related to how people perceive Stiles himself. We all project on Stiles’ character a lot, I think. Whether it’s projecting our own personality or just the personality we wish we had, we all do it, so we’ve all got very different perceptions of Stiles’ personality and behaviors.

Some see Stiles as ruthless, take-no-shit badass who will destroy you if you piss him off. The kind of genius who would hack into the local police department and screw with your permanent record. Most of the time, those ‘kinds’ of Stiles’ don’t do any forgiving, and usually they get some kind of revenge. Some see him as a really sensitive, broken, love-starved guy who just wants some fucking friends, damn it. Who would give anything for them and is always willing to help others, even strangers, because being helpful is just so integral to his character. Those ‘kinds’ of Stiles’ usually go running back into the fight to save people who’ve screwed him over, they forgive and they forget because they don’t know how to do anything else. Some people (myself included) see Stiles as a very broken and insecure guy. Not insecure about his body (though, yeah, I’ve written some stuff where he is) or about his own intelligence, but insecure about his relationships with other people. Also, as someone very loyal, to the point of immorality. They see Stiles as a guy with a select group of people that he actually gives a fuck about, and for those people? He is ride-or-die, with you to the end of the line, step into gasoline for you loyal. In those cases, Stiles often forgives people because he can’t bear the thought of not having this person in his life anymore, he isn’t capable of letting go, even if it’s for good reason. He helps them because they’ve been burned into his heart and he cannot watch them hurt or suffer. They are family, and he will burn the world down for them, even if he also kind of hates them?

So, there’s lots of reasons that he would do that, but I understand how frustrating it can be to see it over and over again, especially when you’re really displeased with certain characters (ethan or aiden or scott or peter, etc). The best I can suggest is to block certain tags. Using Scott as an example, rather than searching only for “Scott is a bad friend”  or “Scott is a bad Alpha” fics, which would massively cut down on the available fics for you, while also missing ones that may have that content without it being tagged, instead try blocking the opposite tag, so that at least you won’t be getting the fics that have “Scott is a good friend” or “Scott is a good alpha” as a main point of the fic. Again, this will definitely miss some, and you’ll still end up with untagged instances of it, but it will definitely cut down on it. Took me ages to actually think to do it, but I’ve been much happier reading fics since then.

[deerfests]

( 001. the young pope/the new pope || 002. lenny/brannox || 003. sir john brannox ) && ( 001. space force || 002. malloraird || 003. dr adrian mallory ) && ( 004. the new pope/space force )

just for the heck of it, and because i’m greedy ☺️

fandom ask

man wth that's a lot... 😂😂😂

Okay, off we go~

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my: + The Young Pope/The New Pope

Favorite character:

Sir John Brannox, because I love the emo pope. He's got so many issues, and he's lovable for it.

Least Favorite character:

Um... I guess I don't know. I don't want to offend anyone.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

I only have 2-- Sofia Dubois/Sir John Brannox and Lenny Belardo/Sir John Brannox. Judge me if you must *shrugs*

Character I find most attractive:

Lenny and Brannox gotta fight over that one. I like how both of them look.

Character I would marry:

My hand in marriage is saved for Trench, exclusively, and he's not even a character in the show. Sorry. 🤠

Character I would be best friends with:

Gutiérrez but that's cuz he's a nice man and stuff. The dude would be swept away by me doing bs and just end up enduring it, not because he likes me. Let's be real. Nobody in the show would like me enough to befriend me! Unless I somehow weasel my way to Brannox, and we bond over being sad bastards but I don't think I have the energy to deal with his moping...

a random thought:

I feel like Adam's grave fucked up the timeline, nothing adds up. I'm sorry, but how old is Brannox supposed to be?? I am confused.

An unpopular opinion:

I don't obsess with some characters the rest of the fandom seems to, so I guess that's my unpopular opinion.

my canon OTP:

Sofia Dubois/Sir John Brannox

Non-canon OTP:

Lenny Belardo/Sir John Brannox, because imagine how fun that'd be!

most badass character:

Fck, I feel it's Lenny in The Young Pope. He's just out there destroying things.

pairing I am not a fan of:

I don't desire to put a bullseye on my back.

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

Hmm, I feel like Adam is an easy pick cuz for real, they did fuck up the timeline with him.

favourite friendship:

Lenny and Gutiérrez

character I want to adopt or be adopted by:

Nobody!! AH, that would screw me up big time.

002 | send me a ship and I will tell you: + Lenny/Brannox

when of if I started shipping it.

Like love at first sight, I fell for that shit since I saw them doing the world's most awkward prom picture. I mean, look at it:

And then I was pissed off... I watched the whole season and while I enjoyed it, I didn't get nearly enough interactions! But what I got, I treasure... Even if it probably tricks you into thinking this ship's dynamic is different than what I actually headcanon for them.

my thoughts:

Lenny would fuck up Brannox so badly. Then probably feel guilty about it to some extent, and try to do something about his incredibly low self-esteem. :) This is the only sfw thought I have.

What makes me happy about them:

:)) wouldn't you like to know.

I love, love, love the energy they would have, ok!? Imagine, the constant contrast of Lenny and Brannox! Just...imagine.

What makes me sad about them:

Lenny's dead. :((

Also, Brannox has no self-esteem. :(

things done in fanfic that annoys me:

IF there was fanfic of them, which there is none of, I checked-- I would be annoyed if somebody thought Brannox had any power to hold over Lenny. Also, IF there was fanfic, I would not hesitate to read it even if it was garbage, but there's none.

things I look for in fanfic:

Actually existing fanfic. There's none. I gotta write that shit myself, and I'm trying, but it's hard!

My kinks:

:)) I can't. I'll get shadowbanned. Lenny fucks him up, let's just say.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

Sofia with Brannox, death with Lenny, I guess?? I'm quite happy how the show ended, but I've never been one to want my ships to be canon, most of the time.

My happily ever after for them:

They quit the clergy, I guess, and Lenny lives with Brannox in the estate and they slip into an awkward but working relationship? Brannox gets over his problems and so does Lenny.

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you + Sir John Brannox.

How I feel about this character:

I feel I got into it before, but I love him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Ah, this is a repeat. Sofia and Lenny, both in their own verses, never together at the same time.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

....Happiness/Brannox.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Not in the mood to put a bullseye on myself~

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

We got to see him interact more with ghost!Lenny. Like the scene at Adam's grave, just replay it 100x more.

my het ship:

Sofia and him.

my fem/slash ship:

Lenny and him.

my OTP:

Lenny/Brannox. But that might be cuz I love suffering and pissing people off.

my OT3:

None~

my cross over ship:

None???

my kink:

He has a praise kink.Probably cries during it, too.

a head cannon fact:

*gently puts a hand on Brannox's head* This bastard can fit so many obsessive thoughts in himself!

Also, sorry tumblr user sirjohnbrannox, I am stealing all your headcanons about him.

His parents probably mainly hated him cuz he was a non-straight punk, then started drugs to deal with his problems, and genuinely I feel like he's a little bit...how do I put this, not stable cuz of that. Adam was a perfect son, John meanwhile ended up traumatized and soft and scared. He has no self-esteem cuz his parents fucking sucked and played favorites!! And also probably blamed him for Adam’s death, I guess.  Fuck Brannox's parents!! I don't want to see them!!

my gender bend:

I don't have one, cuz I don't like them~

&&

001 | Send me a fandom and I will tell you my: + Space Force

Favorite character:

Dr. Adrian Mallory, duh.

Least Favorite character:

RIP in PEPPERONI, KICK !! I HOPE YOU DIE.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

I literally only have one ship, Adrian/Mark.

Character I find most attractive:

In this episode of Dickie sets up ridiculous fights: Adrian Mallory vs Mark Naird. For whoever of the two, I actually find most attractive. Because I don't know, but boys are good.

Character I would marry:

HHHHH no

Character I would be best friends with:

Adrian, but only because we're both could be judgemental af... together!

a random thought:

Man, I hope they didn't make Malk shave for season 2. I'd hate that.

An unpopular opinion:

I don't care that much for Fuck Tony, I'm sorry. He's fine, I just-- don't really see the appeal of him. Maybe, just maybe, I'm too much into old men.

my canon OTP:

I...no? IDK!? Ali/Chan is cute, I guess and they're canon.

Non-canon OTP:

Adrian/Mark, which probably will never be actually canon and we'll keep getting ship baited.RIP. Good that I don't care about my ships being canon all that much.

most badass character:

???? IN SPACE FORCE????

pairing I am not a fan of:

I do not care for Ch*ntony. RIP. Not a NOTP but I just don't see it.

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

Erin Naird. I understand where's she's coming from, but my god.... they really wrote it poorly.

favourite friendship:

Mark and Adrian in the canon lense I guess.

character I want to adopt or be adopted by:

Nope.

002 | send me a ship and I will tell you: + Malloraird

when of if I started shipping it.

When tumblr user sirjohnbrannox didn't shut up about it.

my thoughts:

It's cute, but my kinky hands will continue rubbing off on it.

What makes me happy about them:

Adrian being head over heels for a dense fool.

What makes me sad about them:

Nothing, cuz there's nothing sad in the show? Or at least nothing I am emotionally invested into enough to actually be upset about?

things done in fanfic that annoys me:

Y'all really think Adrian is vanilla? Y'all really think Adrian is anything but a brat?

things I look for in fanfic:

I am interested in a plot, that has a build-up for these two. So...my fic, In Need, which I am still working on. Cuz I literally stopped after my life fell apart and I couldn't handle the daunting comments. Anyways as I was saying. In Need-- except make it good.

My kinks:

:)) I don't want to get shadowbanned but Adrian is not vanilla, let's just say.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

Just keep Mark with his wife, I don't care. Adrian, anyone but Jerome. It was painful to witness Jerome. I'm sorry, but how do you write Adrian-- a fairly not too stereotypical gay man? And then write him to be with somebody like Jerome, which just comes off as "oh shit we need a character for this and we didn't establish anyone!"

Also-- Jerome/Adrian is, unfortunately, canon-- why does the wiki make it creepy and one-sided?!!?

My happily ever after for them:

Maggie gets out of prison, runs off with her guard lover (which I'm actually fairly certain will happen), and Mark slowly enters a relationship with Adrian which actually results in both of them widening their views on things and getting along.

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you + Dr Adrian Mallory

How I feel about this character:

He's pretty cool. Fun.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

I literally only ship him with Mark, cuz Jerome gives me the worst vibes that make me actively partake in Jerome erasure.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

404 BrOTP not found.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

The man's a brat.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I wish he would have sung that song about Mark, and it would have actually been one side and nobody would have figured it out (so no photo kissing at the end) lmao cuz that'd -- now that'd be cursed and fun. >:3c

my het ship:

He's canonically gay so none. Unless season 2 decides to make him bisexual, this will continue.

my fem/slash ship:

Him with Mark.

my OTP:

Him and Mark. God, doing these memes is getting repetitve.

my OT3:

None.

my cross over ship:

Lmao none. I mean, c'mon I don't even like crossovers 99% of the time.

my kink:

:DD are you trying to get me shadowbanned, bud.

a head cannon fact:

I have none that I can share here, or at least none springing to mind... but can we all agree that people saying Adrian is a spy or he has intentions for Space Force's downfall, is so funny, because it's literally not that deep. He's just gay and in love with Mark, how much do the r*dditors gotta overthink the damn show? It's not even that good to overthink!

my gender bend:

NO, I don't like them.

&&

004 | send me 2 fandoms and I will give yo my crossover OTP + The New Pope/Space Force

None of these, I am not answering this, cuz this is the worst crossover ever conceived by man and I don't even like crossovers enough to begin with and my laptop is dying from heat--

....;

no? ok.

Imagine poor ol' Brannox meeting Adrian. Goodbye.

[mysteriesofmarcy]

How would Star vs. the Forces of Evil have ended if you'd written the show?

I LOVE this question, anon. And sorry this is a few weeks late, but I wanted to finish writing my episode reviews before I wrote this answer. And I took a few days to type it because I wanted to make sure to give you the best answer I can.

For starters, I would not have (gasp!) forced Starco to happen. I said from the beginning that I would only be into Starco if it was done well, and I think even some hardcore shippers would agree that it was not. Like Marco said, the whole thing in Here to Help was kind of random, to the point where I couldn’t even remember which part of the finale it happened in. I probably would not have made it happen at all but, as a concession to the shippers, I would have left the door open for the future in which they could get together romantically (probably far into the future, similar to Phineas and Isabella if Act Your Age hadn’t happened).

If my co-writers somehow convinced me to make Starco happen during the show, I would have made it happen earlier and probably devoted a whole episode to it, probably in or around The Knight Shift. Then I would explore the relationship a little more in episodes after that. Maybe a kiss here, hand holding there, and I would also add at least one more episode solely focused on them. If I had to give up an episode to do this, it would be either Doop-Doop or Ready, Aim, Fire. (The Ponyhead Show at least had a good ending, unlike the Star show. Otherwise that would be my first choice.)

How would I have handled Kellco? First of all, let me reiterate that KELLCO IS NOT A SHIP. IT NEVER WAS. Kelly said that being breakup buddies simply meant that they would help each other with their respective breakups (even though Marco hadn’t broken up with anyone since coming to Mewni). To my (admittedly weak) romantic senses, the show seemed to imply that they were just “friends with benefits.” I probably wouldn’t have even hinted at there being anything there except friendship. The last thing we needed was another pointless love triangle situation.

Now about Stom/Tomstar. Obviously the way they broke up in the show’s canon was… pretty bad, to say the least. I mean, once Tom cleaned up his act and became a good character (sometime late in season 3), I couldn’t help but think that he deserved Star. The guy made a conscious effort to improve himself. Not only did he try, but he actually succeeded in that, and in getting the girl he wanted! That is how their relationship should have ended (in the scope of the show). Maybe later they could decide “Eh, we’re not really a great fit for each other” but that would be much later. But the show just decided to flush all that down the toilet because Starco Starco Starco!

On a similar note, I would not have made Jackie gay. I would have let Chloe stay, but no way is she dating Jackie. I’m… not really sure what I would do with them. I could see a few possibilities here, including, but not limited to: Jackie x Marco 2.0, Chloe x Marco, Chloe is weird enough to like Ferguson or Alfonso (or even Oskar), or “everyone just comes back together as friends”.

I would also have to seriously rework Cleaved, especially Star’s decision to destroy magic. There is no way that destroying all magic was the correct solution. That honestly sounds like communist propaganda. It’s almost like saying “Only certain people have guns; therefore, let’s take all the guns away from everybody.” (I say almost because while magic is an innate ability in Star’s universe, guns are a thing any upstanding citizen can buy in the US.) The fact that this action saved the monsters’ lives is irrelevant compared to all the untold damage it caused. I can see why Star’s “chaotic good” nature would lead her to believe this was the solution, but I would have had her just present this as an idea, rather than actually go through with it. They could have even used a version of this idea, concentrated in some way to destroy the magic within Mina. Kind of mirroring what Star did to Ludo at the end of Toffee.

The earth episodes would also get an overhaul. Namely, they would start a lot earlier in the season and there would be more of them. This would not only allow time to give all the earth characters proper conclusions, but would also allow us to explore their reactions to Marco’s time on Mewni in a little more depth. We could have had at least one episode to deal with each other earth character or plotline instead of just trying to cram them all into the Britta’s Tacos episode.

I would have to seriously rework the antagonists too. It seemed like Moon was slowly but surely accepting that most of the monsters are good too, but then she came out of nowhere and worked with the final boss. While I can understand the twist, it was just a poor decision to actually make it happen, especially with absolutely NO WARNING WHATSOEVER. We should have at least been shown more of Moon’s internal struggle over whether to hold on to her old habits, or accept the new way of doing things. Then, whatever decision she made would be more believable. My thought is that because of the conflict within herself, Moon’s attitude would be along the lines of “I am going to stay out of it, but please don’t hurt my daughter.”

Mina’s arc would have to have a little more substance to be totally believable. Yeah, she was introduced in season 2 as Star’s idol who had gone bananas, but I hardly call that a setup for her being the main villain of the finale. As recently as the middle of season 4, I remember there being debate over who the final villain would be and what exactly the conflict would be about. If we could have gotten an episode or even a longer flashback to explain Mina’s backstory, it would have been better.

Just a couple more isolated thoughts: It seems to me that most of the prominent female characters were written poorly in the final season and especially the finale, but all the prominent male characters were written well. And this isn’t me being sexist; the strength of the show as a whole is more based on its females. But Tom, Globgor, River, and Marco were the best characters this season and I think we can agree on that.

So that’s how I would have written the ending to Star vs the Forces of Evil. But if I couldn’t change the content of the episodes, I would have ended it at Toffee. Like I said in its episode review, it would have made the perfect ending to the series.

[mellicose]

Doctor ... WTF?

An impassioned rant about the steady decline of Doctor Who, the trajectory of the Thirteenth Doctor, and the righteous indignation after The Timeless Children, not only as a Whovian, but as a woman-

I love how certain people are spinning The Timeless Children as being good, yet the BBC has released (2)TWO statements basically telling fans the following:

“Doctor Who is a beloved long-running series and we understand that some people will feel attached to a particular idea they have of the Doctor, or that they enjoy certain aspects of the programme more than others. Opinions are strong and this is indicative of the imaginative hold that Doctor Who has – that so many people engage with it on so many different levels.

We wholeheartedly support the creative freedom of the writers and we feel that creating an origin story is a staple of science fiction writing. What was written does not alter the flow of stories from William Hartnell’s brilliant Doctor onwards – it just adds new layers and possibilities to this ongoing saga.”

Creative freedom, huh? Ask Joe Hill about it. Or Gaiman. The writers, including Chibnall, are only free to do what the Beeb and the other show investors tell them. 

They go on:

“We have also received many positive reactions to the episode’s cliff-hanger. There are still a lot of questions to be answered, and we hope that you will come back to join us and see what happens, but we appreciate that it’s impossible to please all of our viewers all of the time and your feedback has been raised with the programme’s Executive Producer." 

Uglylaughing.gif

There is a huge, monumental difference between 'not being able to please everyone all at the same time' and basically making a whole fandom, New and Classic, young and old, come together with the same level of disgust and disappointment.

I also find the people arguing "Canon? What canon?" about the Doctor now being the Lord and Savior of the Shining World of the Seven Systems to be foolish at best, and disingenuous at worst.

No canon?? So what have I been steeping myself in for years  - a vague approximation of a tale? Please. Of course, writers have embellished and alluded, but tampering with the unspoken but well-known 'no touch' rule about the Doctor's origin is ... well, it's canon, in and of itself...

...which Chibnall completely wrecked, and I can't imagine why. Hubris? By all accounts, he was a fan. I thought Moffat was a dick for bringing back Gallifrey, but now, to me, my disappointment then vs now is like comparing a fart to a shitstorm.

Please excuse the scatological references, but I'm using it deliberately. It is a swirling turd, which I and many others wish we could flush down and forget forever.

In another RadioTimes article - which basically is the BBC - amongst the usual apologetics, Huw Fullerton drops this little gem:

“The glory days of David Tennant et al were in a different TV landscape, and if the Tenth Doctor touched down now it seems unlikely he’d command anything close to the ratings he did over a decade ago.”

Yeah, you can all take a break to have a hearty laugh. Or throw up. Whichever. Did they just hint that, basically, the incarnation of the Doctor who continues to get as much love (if not more) than Four, who still consistently gets thousands of butts in seats in conventions worldwide, and has made the BBC hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling in merchandising “wouldn’t command the ratings he did in 2008?”

As Gary Buechler of Nerdrotic said in his response to this article: “Actually, if David Tennant had been given as many chances as Jodie Whittaker, it would’ve had Game of Thrones-level ratings.”

And I agree. Not because I’m a Tenth Doctor stan, but because it’s just ... categorically true. His seasons consistently got average rating of 7.5 to 8 million viewers - and this in a time before BBCiPlayer, so 7-day catch up ratings meant nothing. It was butts on sofas then, which, to me, speaks of a massive, sustained interest.

But Huw goes on to say that such things mean nothing. And that the huge, telling sink in both overnight and 7-day ratings between the 11th and 12th seasons, and the dismal 4.69m 7 day ratings for The Timeless Children - the lowest for a NewWho finale since its reboot - shouldn’t be taken as a loss of interest from the fandom.

Then, pray tell goodman, what does it mean? Does it mean that fans are following the Thirteenth Doctor’s adventures in spirit? Ratings are tanking. Outside of the precious few who blindly tweet and write articles about the show solely based on its now female protagonist, people are notoriously furious, especially after the execrable season finale.

Yet BBC’s Piers Wenger, who once produced the show, says “I don’t think it’s been in better health, editorially. I think it’s fantastic and I think that, the production values obviously have never been better.”

Right. Okay. So, putting Tom Ford makeup on a pig makes it haute couture, huh? The writing is appalling, and after two excruciatingly painful to watch seasons, the Doctor has failed to appear - all I’ve seen is borderline sociopathic navel gazing from an ‘alien’ wearing a pastel duster.

How dare you besmirch the unfailingly cool reputation of the long coat, Chibnall? Jodie? How?? 

I will not let someone piss on my head and call it rain ... ‘because it’s a woman.’ Assuming I’ll accept it just adds insult to injury. Who do they think we are, as female fans? I will not cosign garbage to further an agenda that is ultimately damaging one of my favorite things ever, Doctor Who. I agree that politics, and a positive moral, have always been a part of DW, but at it’s best the writing was so good that it only added to the entertainment. Now, the BBC is feeding us all the bitter pill, without the kindness to hide it in a piece of tasty cheese. It gives the impression that they believe we are already so indoctrinated that we no longer need artifice!

Well, not only am I not indoctrinated, but I refuse to ingest.

I refuse to allow people to silence me because the Doctor is now a woman, and so am I. That, I shouldn’t say anything, or complain, because it’s an act of rebellion on womankind, not only in entertainment, but in general. Well, to that I say ... er ... I disavow.

Disavow. Disavow.

And this from a woman who once criticized Peter Davison for saying that casting a woman was “a vital loss of a role model for boys,” taking it as a sexist comment when in truth, it was just a relevant narrative concern about gender-swapping the traditionally male-presenting Time Lord. Just changing a character from male to female doesn’t do anything but demonstrate a tone-deafness about the emotional and physical differences between men and women, which exist whether we want to address them or not. This is why genderswap reboots are terrible. They are trying to further the feminist agenda, while surreptitiously painting traditional, every day femininity as weakness, and something to be avoided at all costs. I reject the modern Hollywood representation of what a ‘strong woman’ is meant to be. I can be clever, yet sensitive enough to comfort a friend when they confide their fears about a cancer relapse. I can be funny, and not at the expense of the man in the room. I can be brave, but not at the expense of my friends. The mind boggles as to why they thought their current tack with the Doctor was going to be any good. The Doctor is a woman, but more importantly, she’s a Timelord. Where are they? Is the alien that we’ve known and loved for the last 60 years truly gone away, and Thirteen is from a whole different timeline? If so, I don’t want to know her. 

And it breaks my heart.

Why continue to support a corporation who thinks of me, the fan, as no more than a heartless, thoughtless consumer? A drone? A sheep who has no conscious idea of what I like or need?

I’m done. It’s been two seasons of absolute dreck, with absolutely no sign of a course-correction due to the overwhelmingly negative response. I may be many things, but I’m no masochist - even in the name of love. And Chibnall, knowing that many fans would go back to the classic stories to cleanse ourselves, went back to the beginning and took a giant shit there too. 

Oh, the cleverness! the absolute schadenfreude of not only tampering, but rewriting the Doctor’s origins! I suppose that tells me he truly was once a fan. But no longer. Even if it turns out that the Master is as full of crap as Chibnall and it’s all an orchestrated lie, I don’t care anymore. Every inexplicable, terrible thing that happened before has already exhausted my patience with the narrative.

As veteral DW writer and script editor Terrance Dicks said:

If you’re concentrating on putting forth a political message, rather than on doing a really good show, I think there is a danger, maybe, you can do both but it would be hellish difficult, and I think that there’s maybe a danger that the show wouldn’t as be as good as it could or should be, because you’re not looking at the right aims.”

It seems like all that has been lost in time. Big corporations are buying up beloved science fiction properties, and systematically destroying them by trying to mix their politics into the mythos. [see ‘the fandom menace’]

I say, don’t support things that make you unhappy, in the name of nostalgia. That’s how they continue to upset us, while lining their pockets with our hard earned money. Complaining amongst ourselves, writing emails, or making angry Youtube videos no longer works anyway. Now is the time to just ... let it go. No more special edition DVDs, novelizations, or pretty action figures. Hit them in the pocketbook. We will still have fond memories of better times. I will not let them hijack, retcon, and retool them too.

There is a telling paragraph hidden in the depths of the article, which makes my DW fangirl sink:

It’s not as simple as “the ratings are down so Doctor Who will be cancelled,” as for the publicly-funded BBC there’s an interesting question about exactly what ratings are for beyond bragging rights. Obviously they need to make TV that people want to watch – but which people?

Not us, Huw. That’s who.

[vierafication]

Last night around 4 am, I reblogged a certain post about "villainous rp" and added my own two cents to what had been discussed within it- mostly just venting about behavior I'd seen in the past. I didn't think much of it until I saw the next day it had been reblogged, and reblogged again, and again, by some folks who seemed pretty unhappy about what I'd said. I was told I needed to get a life, that I clearly can't separate IC and OOC, that maybe I shouldn't be writing at all. That hurt. I was irritated, then, feeling like I'd had words shoved in my mouth, like I was being purposefully misinterpreted. I typed up a clarification post explaining my previous points and pressed send, but it was seemingly ignored.

I talked with @damankjol about it later. He's the best, if you didn't know. And he rp's villains! I don't think he's a sociopath! He's very empathic and honest and understanding and cool, and he helped me realize that people weren't just angry at me, they were genuinely hurt by what I'd written. I went back and reread what I posted, as well as the responses, with a more critical eye. And... yeah. What I typed up wasn't clean, organized, or coordinated. I was venting and the tone that came off was irritated and rude. While not my intention, what I wrote sounded pretty fucking disrespectful and downright mean. And, frankly, my intentions don't matter, anyway, since I wasn't able to convey them properly. I just put some angry bullshit up on tumblr way too late at night, and I didn't expect anybody to even look at it, let alone reblog it- but I should have. Tumblr is a public platform and I should have approached my post the same way I'd approach any other one during the normal hours of the day. Thinking critically is always key, but audience is too- a vent post is a vent post, but I should have thought before I vented about a topic other people were sensitive to, and properly indicate specifics instead of vague generalizations. So, yes, I really wanted to apologize to anyone who that post hurt. I’m genuinely sorry. I should not have generalized like that. It wasn't even my intention in the first place. I was disrespectful and now that I think about it, incredibly hypocritical to boot. So yeah. I really am sorry. I respect @damankjol and @miqojak a lot as writers, and it would never be my intention to tear them down. Or anybody else, for that matter- rp only works when you rp with others, after all.

Once again, I'm sorry, and I hope you won't hate me for eternity or anything. Storytime and critical analysis under the cut.

One of my first, and worst, experiences in the ffxiv rp community was a good couple years ago. I was describing my character to a “friend,” and that character happened to be Lionnet Blodoint, my Ishgardian chirurgeon. Lionnet was not a good person by a long shot, to begin with, and from his time serving during the Dragonsong War, he’d developed quite a bit of PTSD relating to any and all things draconic. He hated dragons. He didn’t even like Au Ra. “Wow,” said the so-called friend at the time. “Your character is a nazi.”

“What? No!” I exclaimed. I tried to explain that he was NOT a nazi, he was just a traditionalist Ishgardian who hated dragons because they had been, at one point in time, absolutely hell-bent on destroying his home and everything he knew. I thought it was a pretty reasonable character trait to hate, or at least fear, dragons after serving in the Dragonsong War. The core of how I’d planned to develop him would be overcoming or at least coming to terms with his trauma, and no longer seeing it in every dragon or Au Ra he met. “No,” they said. “Your character is terribly written. They’re awful and nobody would ever want to rp with them. They’re boring because they’re so full of negative traits. They’re racist and thus, a nazi. And you are just as bad, because you’re defending them! You’re a nazi too!”

So yeah, they are NOT my friend anymore. But that whole convo really stuck with me, and I was afraid to bring out Lio afterwards- it took me another year before I actually began to use him in rp. And he turned out wonderful! His story became one of my favorite rp character stories of all time, and he had great relationship development and a happy ending. He’s still around, canonically, but I have a different main toon now.

So it shocks me that what that person told me about Lio is more or less the same as what I wrote in that post. I’m honestly dumbfounded at how I could just casually type that up and post it, when it draws so many parallels to the way I was bullied back then. So yeah. Huge hypocrisy right there. I swore to never act like that. And to an extent, I suppose I have. But that post I made was pretty fucking close- just directed at a vaguely generalized audience instead of a singular person and character. Maybe that’s actually worse. And I am sorry. I guess because it wasn’t directed at anyone but the void (even the op’s url doesn’t exist anymore), I just didn’t think about it. Which sounds like a lame-ass excuse, but... it’s true. I just wasn’t thinking. I was just venting. It’s really fucking with me that I could’ve hurt somebody so much completely unintentionally, to be honest.

So, what did I say- or, to be more clear, what was I attempting to say? What was my intention, and what wasn’t? I’m going to go over that now, more for my benefit than anyone else’s. Please note that I am not trying to make excuses or shove any blame elsewhere. I am just trying to clarify what I meant and address the issues that made my post so negative, for my own sake.

To begin, I’m gonna link this post by @lilac-memorials. It goes into detail about the trouble with “villain” discourse, and addresses a number of issues from a much more unbiased standpoint, far more eloquently than I could. Also, it seems to reference (the worse) parts of my posts at some points, or maybe I’m just paranoid. Regardless, it’s a much better post than the trainwreck that was the original one, and I agree with every bit of it. It also addresses the difference between a “villain” and an “antagonist,” which is something I attempted to go into but failed miserably.

Anyhoo. My post began with this paragraph:

Seriously. I do not trust anyone who refers to themselves as a “villain” rper. A character can take an antagonistic role in another character’s story arc, that’s fine, that works. It goes back to the “everyone is the hero of their own story” sorta thing. But playing a villain, only as a villain… what’s the point in that? It’s just someone roleplaying as an evil asshole that expects to be treated as stronger than other characters, expects to be feared. It reads like some twisted power fantasy. It doesn’t sound fun and it sure isn’t fun for the people rping with you. Like dude, calm down.

To begin with, yes, I am indeed a little distrustful of people who label their characters first and foremost as villains, before anything else. I am more suspicious of engaging in rp with them than I am with other types of characters, because I have seen some pretty crappy villains out and about and I just don’t wanna deal with that. Next, I go on to try to draw the line between a villain and an antagonist, and how I am much less suspicious of “antagonistic” characters than straight-up “villain” characters. “But playing a villain, only as a villain... what’s the point in that?” I ask. Very rudely. Insinuating that their is no point whatsoever in playing a villain. Which I didn’t intend to. But honestly, I don’t know how else that would’ve translated- I don’t know what I was thinking. I go on to describe this “villain” as somebody who is an evil asshole with a power fantasy, and how it ruins fun for anybody. Which can be read very easily as saying “all villains are like this.” No, they are not! I was describing the bad type of villain rper. The rper who “plays a villain, only as a villain,” and not as a character. Do you get what I mean now? The controlling, toxic, power-hungry rper that plays a villain as an outlet to be further controlling, toxic, and power-hungry, moreso than they ever could in reality. We all know that type of person exists. We’ve met them, somewhere. Sometimes they aren’t playing the villain at all, anyway. They’re playing the hero, or somebody else entirely. But here, I am just venting about that type of person. They are what my post is about. The key line should’ve been “playing a villain, only as a villain,” but it was shoved into a passive-aggressive question addressing self-worth instead of a proper sentence describing the difference between a well-written villain and a badly-written villain. And thus the post begins as if it had been rudely addressed to all villain rpers everywhere, labeling them as the evil asshole with a power fantasy, instead.

Next is: Anyway hot take but maybe the reason people kept trying to “redeem” and “change” OP’s character is because their character is boring af!

Yeahhhh, that one’s just mean. And, given the first paragraph, easily able to seen as an attack saying that if you are a villain rper, your character is boring af. They’re not! The op’s post is a little much, to be honest, and I guess I thought I was feeling spicy at 4 am. Now I think I must’ve just been being mean. Aurelia explains what’s wrong with the initial post here, though, instead of trying and failing to poke fun at it in that special pseudo-mean tumblr way like I did.

Lastly, Like, honestly! Play a character as a foil to another, play to fucked up ideas about morality, play an antagonist arc to a protagonist character, play a character who makes bad decisions. But don’t play a “villain.” Don’t play a character whose core personality traits are simply being cruel/evil. Don’t play a character whose sole focus is to kill npcs, be scary, and lord over other players’ characters. Don’t play a character who never develops or changes, and doesn’t facilitate change in other characters. Just don’t be an asshole edgelord. Don’t be flat and one dimensional. Don’t use rp to live out your fucked up power fantasy. Get therapy instead.

Honestly, I think this is the most clear part of my entire post, and also the worst, at the end there. I just am listing off behaviors that this figurative “bad villain rper” exhibits, and what offsets them. Play a villain that’s complex, had depth, nuance! I’m saying don’t play the “villain,” and then listing off what this specific hypothetical villain is. The opposite of deep and nuanced. The “bad villain rper” type the whole post is a vent about.

Then comes the dreaded “ Don’t use rp to live out your fucked up power fantasy. Get therapy instead. “ The villainous power fantasy. No, I do not think everyone who rp’s villains is like this. Yes, I believe there are people like this, who are INCREDIBLY few and far between, and if they solely use rp as an outlet to harass others both ICly and OOCly, that is bad! And maybe they should get help! And even, then, that was only half-serious! But therapy is a serious subject and I should have known better, and done better. Did all of that come off as intended? Hell no! Instead, it was the final nail in the coffin.

So! That’s what I was trying to say. Badly-written villains are a pain. If I had written up a post like I am now, with this long-ass thing, actually trying to be eloquent and clear. Not 4 am word vomit. This 4 am word vomit instead has gotten me to be read and interpreted as:

-being completely unable to separate character and player to the point where i think every villain’s player is a Real Life Bad Person and/or needs mental help

-saying all villains are boring because they’re not heroes, and thus are incapable of being complex and nuanced

-saying people who play dark/antagonistic characters are, in general, living out their fucked up power fantasy through them

-thinking that villainous characters are incredibly boring and just plain terrible

No! None of that is what I think! Absolutely none! I’m not going to go in and refute each of those claims, because, like I said, I’m not trying to make excuses here. But I WILL end this thing with what I do think of villainous characters and their players:

They’re fucking great, okay? A good story is made a gazillion times better by having a good villain in it, be the story a book, a movie, or an rp scenario. Well-written villain rpers are a TREASURE, and need to be appreciated! It is often harder to find rp with antagonistic toons, to begin with, and their players may find themselves getting shit on more often than others, which should absolutely not be the case. Characters that are complex and deep and nuanced are great no matter what their alignment is.

There ARE some pretty shitty villain rpers out there, too. And, in my own personal experience, they tend to be much more obnoxious than shitty hero rpers. A badly written hero will ruin a villain’s rp. A badly written villain may well try to ruin everybody around them’s rp.

Badly written villains suck. They’re the worst. And they make things worse for those that dedicate a lot of time and effort to crafting complex and cleverly written, compelling villains! Badly written villains are something I can and will complain about, just as well-written villains are something that I can and will praise. But I’ll try not to complain or vent on this platform anymore, to start.

And I do NOT blend IC and OOC. That’s the rper’s taboo! I will critique others who do it, though, which ironically is what I was sort of trying to do- complain about those specific villain players who do that. But anyway. If you’ve read this far, good for you! This has been way too long.

And. Please. If I do say or do something that hurts you in the future, regardless of what type of post it is, talk to me! Tell me what’s up! Thank you!

[blarfkey]

director’s cut, director’s choice of ⭐️Dear Fen’Harel⭐️? (Though generally speaking, I’m intensely curious as to how you develop characters because everyone you write is so brilliantly layered)

So um, this exploded. And I apologize. I am very much a character-driven writer versus a plot-driver writer. Also, how I develop characters is not a process I think about, it just happens, so this is also me finding out for myself how my own brain works, haha. If you want the full fucking three page essay this turned into, there’s more under the cut.

If not, and I don’t blame you, TLDR: I break a canon character down to their parts based on what I see in-game, I look at how their personal quest affects them, and I try to find a modern day equivalent to that. Each character has an issue they need to get past and I create situations to challenge those issues. And Ellana was created to be a foil for Solas and I dumped all my negative traits into her because neither she nor I can afford therapy so this is our best bet.

First of all, developing characters in fanfic is different than OC characters because I have a pre-set personality to work with rather than making someone from scratch. So for this, Ellana’s development is different from the rest of the cast.

For fanfic characters, obviously I look at the source material and see how they’ve reacted to certain situations and what they have canonically expressed about themselves in both deed and word. Honestly, I pay more attention to what they have DONE versus what they have SAID because a lot of characters tend to fool themselves into thinking they’re one way when they’re not (here’s looking at you, Solas).

Because DF is a modern AU, I take what I have seen in Canon (which is a lot because Bioware is very good at giving so much material to work with having all those different dialogue trees) and I apply it to the Modern Day. Some characters fit very easily – Dorian was made for Academia. Krem seems a more modern character anyway with how he constantly roasts Iron Bull. Josephine’s prowess in DA:I translates very easily to political science. Varric kind of has a modern writer’s career anyway.

Some are not easy – Solas is actually super hard for me to write in DF than he is in Thick as Thieves because so much of his characterization, his world views, his prejudices, are rooted in the fact that he is an ancient being out of time – which is impossible to have in this AU. I have crafted a sort of back story for him that might explain some things later, but it’s flimsy at best, haha.

So I’ve had to really look at what Solas is like in Inquisition when he’s pretending to be a “normal” hedge mage hermit from nowhere and how he behaves in his romance and extract from that. Solas is a nerd, he’s socially awkward from self-imposed isolation, he constantly struggles with what he wants and what is the morally correct thing to do and the temptation to be loved usually wins out over his convictions until the last second when he gets his common sense back and ruins everything.

It helps that in both DA and DF Solas is keeping a massive, massive secret from the Inquisitor about his identity that will shift the power balance between the two, so I’ve used that to guide me when I’m unsure. He still feels off to me, but it’s whatever at this point, lol. I did my best.

Once I’ve boiled a character down to their usual traits, I figure out how I’m going to have them grow throughout the fic and use their growth to help Ellana’s growth. I try to pull from their personal quests as much as I can, when I can get it to fit.

Some people, like Iron Bull, are static because they’ve already gone through their journey and have reached acceptance. I didn’t really know how to work his Leaving the Qun story line in the modern day, since it is tied so closely with war and potentially killing the Chargers, so by the time Ellana meets him, he has already left the Qun and made his peace with it. I use his static nature to help guide Ellana when she’s conflicted about her identity.

Some people, like Josephine, have personal quests that don’t fit with a modern era but I want to show them grow anyway, so I create something else for them. Right now, Josephine is mired in family drama and trying to figure out how to balance shouldering the weight of her responsibilities to her family with being her own person. That I drew from my own personal experience with being the only sane person in my family with their shit together, haha.

Or Cassandra, who is definitely NOT going to be Divine here, lol. So instead she gets to struggle with her art and how she can express herself in a way that leaves her vulnerable to scrutiny and yet can be so freeing.

Some people, like Krem, get a character arc that I think should have been explored but never was. Krem being trans is something that’s mentioned and talked about a little and never explored. I mean, he’s not a main character, so I get it. And I liked that Being Trans wasn’t his entire character. But there was no way to put him in the modern AU without his trans identity impacting some of his story and growth, even if he had already made his peace with it.

Now, I will say this upfront: I am not trans, and I haven’t had the opportunity to be close friends with a trans person, but I have done a lot of research on what trans people have said about their own experiences, and combined this with other research I’ve done over the years with other minorities and tried to put together what could be lingering insecurities for him and how he could overcome them.

I’m  definitely not saying that I’ve done this perfectly and I’m always open to any trans reader who would give me correction, but being trans was not an aspect of Krem’s character that I wanted to ignore just because I wasn’t familiar with it.

I will say that his romance with Josephine was Not Planned. It just kinda happened and I happily ran with it, haha.

Varric’s arc with Bianca is just wishful thinking because I hate her so so much and Bioware just dropped that bomb in Varric’s lap and then just lets him keep holding on to it and it’s bullshit.

The other character journeys are just ways to explore vulnerability in them that I didn’t think got enough attention in the game or I think they could realistically have even if it wasn’t in canon. Like Dorian dealing with his father. Now, in the game, Halward doesn’t have a disease and he dies unexpectedly. But I wanted Dorian to have a realistic reason why he would reach other to his estranged father in this AU and a ticking countdown to an inevitable death seemed right.

Now we get to see Dorian really struggle with this new-found connection with his father that he always wanted to have and now it’s temporary and heartbreak is inevitable and is it still worth it to him? I think Dorian has similar feelings in Trespasser when he found out his father was murdered because he still invested himself to rebuild a lost connection, only to lose it so soon after.

Zevran’s past with the Crows is also something that I really wanted to explore because in the game he is sad for a hot second and then moves on with the Warden and his newfound goal of destroying the entire Crow organization. So I wanted to see Zevran struggle with his inner worth, the fact that he can’t hide forever and his past puts his loved ones in danger, the fact that he can even HAVE loved ones and how it scares the shit out of him.  I wanted to have a character who puts on such a good front about not giving a shit about anything to hide how very deeply afraid he is. We are going to see more of this also before the story is over, lol.

Now, Ellana. Like all original characters, Ellana has a lot my personal experiences tied in her. But I originally created Ellana to fill a need for a type of character that I wanted to see with Solas and don’t really get to. I mean, I have not scourged the corners of the internet to find it so I’m sure there are other characters like her, but I haven’t found very many.

I see a lot of very beautiful, very delicate and feminine, very kind and gentle Disney Princess kind of Lavellans. I see a LOT of them. And I don’t hate that necessarily. I mean, Josephine is all of those things and more and I adore her and I sort of crack ship her with Solas anyway, in the secret recesses of my heart. And I love seeing a female character who is the epitome of a “weak” female use those “weak” traits to succeed.

But I am also not very beautiful, I am NOT delicate at all, I’m not gentle. I am not anywhere close to a Disney Princess or a Josephine. And it was disheartening to see Solas romance all these Ocs that were nothing like me after a while because it kind of gave me the message that someone like Solas, a character that I admire and def have a fictional crush on, would never want someone who looks like me or acts like me. That even with unlimited freedom in creating a romantic counterpart for him, I saw so much of what society already reinforces as an ideal that I will never match up to. It doesn’t help that Bioware’s body diversity for elves ranges is nonexistent.

So I made Ellana for me. Not because I want to hate on other Ocs or prove that mine is superior, but so that I would have something that I connected to. And I wanted to explore a dynamic with Solas that I didn’t get to see very often.

So when I first imagined Ellana, I wanted her to be strong and tall and muscular and powerful in a way that makes a lot of unenlightened men uncomfortable. I wanted somebody used to manual labor and dirt and the outdoors and solving problems with their fists and just totally unrefined because I wanted her to be the complete opposite of Solas. (So like Cassandra but in elf form, haha).

I did not want her to be soft or conventionally attractive at all. Ellana doesn’t shun femininity, because I don’t think femininity is inherently wrong, but she is uncomfortable with it and she doesn’t indulge in it.

(Just FYI I am NOT built like Ellana at all either, haha. This is the wish fulfillment part of the OC. I greatly resemble the dwarves, which is why I love them so much.)

But I also needed her to have a reason to leave home, and to have some points of commonality with Solas, so I made her a nerd. A jocky nerd who is insatiably curious and stubbornly independent. And then because I wanted Ellana to feel like a real person instead just a wish fulfillment fantasy, I needed her to grow. So I gave her all my complicated anger issues, my bluntness, my struggles with homesickness, the way I compartmentalize negative events in my life so I don’t have to deal with them just so they can bite me in the ass later, my experiences of going from a lifestyle where all my needs were met and I was oblivious to how great I had it to living with serious poverty for the first time.

And then I devised situations with her life and the other characters where Ellana has to confront these issues and learn to accept them and either move past them or learn to control them. Sometime she gains wisdom and imparts it to people like Sera or Dorian when their struggles come up. And her biggest challenge has yet to arrive, so she’s still cooking, so to speak. Ellana still has a long way to go before she really reaches maturity.

As far as her relationship with Solas goes, I wanted her to challenge him and give him a total upheaval everything he thought he knew about his own culture and his own self. And I wanted him to do the same for her. And then when all the pieces are done falling, they have grown into two people who can handle being together.

So that’s basically it. If there is any character in particular you want to know more about or why I made certain decisions, always feel free to ask!

[threewaysdivided]

I saw your conversation about Sam Manson. I was talking to Imekitty about this, but I’ve noticed a few things that (sort of) make Sam’s relationship with her parents seem more like teen-drama than actual hardship. If you look closely, she’s got a lot in common with them: outspoken political-activism, possible shared-interest in vintage clothes, and no shame in saying they don’t like certain people. Also, after the Fentons, they were the first to volunteer to use the Ecto-Skeleton, risks and all.

(In reference to this post.)

It’s been a little while since I rewatched DP so I’m not well-placed to do a detail-analysis implication-breakdown right now, but yeah - that fits with the overall impression I remember getting.  To me they came across as being sort of old fashioned set-in-their-ways conservative and snooty, and maybe a bit too Pleasantville -  but more often in the way of parents who do genuinely want good things for her and to be able to be proud of her despite not really understanding her interests, choices or friends and being very bad at expressing it.  Plus she seems to have her grandmother fully in her corner a lot of the time.

I really wish that the writers had committed to one or the other; either making it clear that Sam’s martyr/ persecution complex is mostly just regular self-inflicted teen-drama BS and giving her an arc addressing it, OR fleshing out the idea that she faces a lot of judgement/ pressure/ control/ nonacceptance in her home life and that her negative traits are a bi-product of defensive/ coping mechanisms resulting from that strained dynamic, rather treating things with Roger Rabbit Rules.  

(Which isn’t to say that a person can’t have similar interests/ personality traits to, and positive interactions with, their parents while still having a strained, broken or even abusive relationship with them on a deeper level, but the show never really goes hard enough in either direction to make it work.)

As mentioned the last post, this is kind of a consistent pattern across DP - the writers tend go with the low-effort first answer for whatever is Funny or Awesome or Convenient in the moment rather than putting in the work to find a solution that’s consistent with the characterisation, themes and world-lore overall.  There’s enough internal contradiction in the show that I don’t think it’s actually possible to take every canon detail as canon without fundamentally breaking things.  And in some ways that’s kind of cool; it makes the series more open to interpretation, and trying to distinguish authorial intent from authorial incompetence and come up with theories that account for as many pieces of canon as possible is really satisfying.  But, you know, it’s also kind of bad writing in general.

I think the thing that bothers me about Sam’s characterisation in particular is that - where it tends to be more obviously out-of-character when it shows up in other places - there’s a pattern to the inconsistency with how the writers handle Sam:

Throughout the series there’s a double standard in how Sam sees herself/ seems to expects others to act, compared to her own behaviour:

Despite being pro-pacifism she’s okay with smacking Tucker and encouraging Danny to destroy the trucks she doesn’t like

Sam values self-expression and is a feminist, but derides other girls for wanting to express themselves in a conventionally feminine way

Sam doesn’t like being forced to conform to others’ values but is okay with forcing others to conform to hers

Despite being anti-consumerist she shows very little discomfort at, or awareness of, her lavish home life and material belongings

She encourages Danny to take the moral high ground towards his bullies but has no problem antagonising and getting into petty verbal spats with Paulina herself

Sam stalks Danny and his love interest out of jealousy/ protectiveness but threatens to end their friendship when he does the same

In Mystery Meat, when Danny tries to express his discomfort/ anxiety, Sam hijacks the conversation to complain about her own parents instead of listening.

In One of a Kind Sam photographs Danny and Tucker hugging in their sleep, without their knowledge, with the stated intent of putting it in the yearbook, then uses it to blackmail them into silence. 

Side note: this joke is also tacky on a meta-level because it boils down to “male intimacy ha ha toxic masculinity no homo amiright?“ Would have been nice if show didn’t use low-key sexist humour as much as it did.

Instead of expressing that she’s hurt by Danny’s “pretty girls” comment in Parental Bonding, Sam retaliates by pushing him to ask Paulina out - a move she knows will most likely result in him getting publicly shut down and humiliated.

Then, after getting the result she wanted, she comes over to gloat and insults Paulina, rather than dropping it now that her point’s been made, which is what ultimately sets off the episode’s subplot.

In Memory Blank Sam permanently physically alters Phantom’s appearance to better suit her tastes while he’s not in a position to understand or give informed consent, then lies when Danny notices and asks about it later.

To be clear this definitely isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of her character and it’s not there 100% of the time - there are plenty of moments when she is loyal and generous and helpful and sincerely kind and where her stubbornness comes in handy.  But it’s the aggregate pattern of all these small instances that drives a crack through the foundation of her character integrity; producing this insidious undercurrent alternate-reading of Sam as someone who, at a deep level, just doesn’t respect or recognise that the emotional needs, pains, opinions, autonomy and boundaries of others are as real and valid as her own, and who responds to criticism with passive-aggressive hostility.

Again, I think that’s why people are so quick to point out that line from Phantom Planet, even though we all know the episode was a complete mess.  None of the examples above are particularly bad in isolation - you can’t really point at any one of them and say “oh no, bad girl” without sounding like you’re making a mountain out of molehill and irrationally hating on her just to hate on her.  It’s an uncomfortable slowburn pattern of subtle micro-transgressions that accumulates across the series - a “you might not notice it but your brain did”.  And it makes sense that it would be the worst-written episode that amplifies and brings that regular bad-writing undercurrent close enough to the surface for people to consciously recognise and use it to articulate those frustrations.

To wit: Not because it’s most telling of her character but because it’s most telling of the specific bad writing that regularly hurts her character. 

And again, from a storytelling point of view, it’s okay for Sam to have flaws.  She’s a teenager!  She’s learning.  She’s allowed to be egocentric and self-important and do things that aren’t the best at times.  It’s okay if these are her character weaknesses and a source of conflict with the rest of the cast.  But again, for that to be satisfying something really should have come of it.  It would have been nice if the writers were willing to have any self-awareness about these flaws being flaws that a person should recognise and grow past in order to have healthy relationships with others.  But they didn’t - because it’s easier to keep her as she is - to the point that they’ll actively bend the narrative to roll back or skip over moments that would have necessitated that growth.  So, even though they call attention to her flaws, the writers end up rewarding and enabling them instead of letting her learn.

And again, this isn’t meant to hate on Sam.  Hanlon’s Razor in full effect: it’s clearly a result of authorial/editorial incompetence rather than deliberate malice.  I know this isn’t the intended interpretation.

My preferred reading of Sam Manson is that she’s a Rosa Hubermann/ Hermione Granger/ YJS1 Artemis Crock-type character.  Someone who’s passionate and forceful and maybe a bit abrasive and hard to love at a glance, but whose core nature is compassionate and sincerely kind and loyal-to-the-death for the people they value.  I wish I could 100% like her without caveats; to be able to say that even if I don’t agree with her flaws I can at least understand that they’re a valid product of the life she lives, that they make her who she is and that she’s trying her best to be a good person who will get better despite them.  

But I can’t because the writers don’t give her that.  They’re always prioritising other things over the integrity of her character.  They don’t give her background enough time and context to make her negative traits feel resonant with it (because that would take time away from the Wicked Cool Radical Ghost-Fighting Superhero Action™) and the framing and plotting doesn’t give her chances to recognise or grow past them (because that would mean character development and those negative traits are an easy source of cheap conflict).  The writers just don’t seem to care all that much about Sam - her actual character, who she is, how she came to be that way, what she wants or how her negative traits would actually play against Danny and the others.

And that sucks.  Because she has a lot of potential to be a well-rounded and great character.  I’ve seen plenty of fics that seize that potential and roll with those gaps and the result is very good.  I wish I could like her canon depiction without feeling like I have to actively ignore a bunch of latent behavioural red flags as the price of entry.

She deserved better.