#i don’t want to watch a show if the writers aren’t being treated fairly.

[apollos-boyfriend]

“the writer’s strike will impact your favorite tv show!!!1!1!”

[queen-breha-organa]

I wanted to briefly come back online and discuss the WGA and, in turn, the current writer's strike.

I know my opinion matters very little, and I don’t consider myself an expert or a valuable voice in this matter. However, since I talk about Star Wars a lot, I wanted to discuss the strike because these things go hand in hand. I think it’s unfair to ignore the real-world circumstances that shape the media you enjoy. Knowing the context of something is important. And beyond that, this situation has just been on my mind, and I wanted to express my thoughts somewhere. 

Firstly, all workers should be paid living wages. All workers deserve to be treated fairly and compensated fairly. All workers deserve safe, productive, and fair working environments—end of story.

I’ve been seeing a lot of jokes along the lines of “I didn’t even know media had writers these days,” and while I understand the joke and the potential humor in it, I feel like it’s important to realize that this is entirely why the WGA is striking in the first place.

The writer’s rooms are shrinking. Writers are being overworked. Writers are being underpaid. Writers are being dismissed and undercut. These factors lead to poorly written and poorly managed shows because the individuals who write the bones of the shows are exhausted and burdened by corporate interference, unreasonable deadlines (especially in animation), unfair wages, and stale corporate agendas.

Additionally, these writers often aren’t given the opportunity to oversee or manage their writing while it’s being filmed. Instead, companies are acting as if the writing process ends before the filming process so that they can shorten the writer's contracts and pay them less. However, in actuality, the writing process is often most valuable during the filming process. 

Some things work on paper but don’t work on the day. Maybe the joke doesn’t land, or an actor can’t deliver the line as intended. Writers are needed on set to rework and revise these lines, so the process can run smoother without sacrificing story and believability. Now some actors are incredible at improvising and can make these things work. However, overall, without writers on set, you usually end up with awkward/stiff dialogue or scenes that make no sense. Writing doesn’t stop in the writers' room.

Another massive force driving this strike is the evolution of streaming services. 

With “traditional” tv reruns, the network airing the media has to purchase the viewing rights of the episode or the show. This money is then extended to the people who worked on the show in the form of residuals. It makes sense. Something you worked on makes money, so in turn, you get money. 

However, streaming services have broken this mold by allowing consumers to watch whatever media whenever they want. Streaming services claim that it is no longer possible to pay residuals for these shows since they don’t know how often or when the shows are being watched. This is a lie.

Companies will brag privately in shareholder's meetings and publicly in articles about streaming shows that have done well. We’ll read headlines like “Stranger Things’ Was Most-Streamed TV Show in 2022” or “‘Star Wars’ vs. Marvel: Which Disney+ Shows Are Most-Viewed.” These articles and the data within them prove it is possible to know how frequently shows/movies are being watched on streaming services. Still, companies are only willing to shell out this information for bragging rights and not for fair payments.

In 2021, Disney CEO Bob Chapk earned $32 million. In contrast, the WGA website states, “Median weekly writer-producer pay has declined 4% over the last decade. Adjusting for inflation, the decline is 23%.” These writers are merely asking for 3%, while CEOs are given the moon.

This is unacceptable.

If you’re reading this post, if you’re on Tumblr and engaging with fandoms enough to have this post written by me, a Star Wars blog, circulate on your feed, media writing has affected your life. Writers have impacted you and your daily routine and hobbies. 

You should care about this strike. You should be supporting this strike. 

We all want our favorite shows to come back, we all want to reunite with our favorite characters, and we all want to see their stories, their triumphs, and their struggles. 

But the real people behind these stories and behind these characters are far more important than any fictional narrative. 

These writers have crafted the worlds and stories we love, and by supporting them, we can return the favor and craft a better world for them too.

[the-bi-space-ace]

Is There An Echo In Here?

No. There isn’t.

Alright. Here’s the thing. Echo is my favorite character so I’m going to want to see him all the time but I can still understand his absence even when I miss him. His absence in season 2 hurt me but it made total sense. He needed to go. I love him for doing what he needs to and not giving up what he values. It’s part of why I love him.

What I can’t understand is what happened in episodes 6&7 of season 3.

I’ve been fairly positive in my outward opinions for the most part. I rarely loudly complain. I rarely throw in the towel but I do still have opinions that aren’t positive and that’s okay.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of episodes 1-4. Not in the way that I didn’t like them bc I did. They had moments that I really really liked and I genuinely had a good time watching them. But they didn’t wow me. Tbh they don’t have to for me to enjoy them. They just have to be fun in my book. There’s no problem in having fun and not being wowed by every episode. I think that’s just how it goes. You can’t please everyone and I never expect to be happy about everything. It’s part of why I’ve kept my love of this show for so long.

I don’t have high expectations going in so I am rarely ever totally dissatisfied.

This is the exception.

I was absolutely thrilled with episode 5. Finally Echo is back. The Crosshair content was top tier. There’s jokes. There’s heart. It’s fun. It’s exciting. Loved it. It’s everything I want out of the show. They’re together. They have really heart wrenching moments right up against heart warming ones. It’s perfect. I was feeling pretty positive about moving forward.

Then 6&7 happened and I think I lost a huge chunk of hope for this show where Echo is concerned.

I still liked the episodes! I think the episodes were really really good. I love Rex. Crosshair really shined again so my heart rejoiced. There’s intrigue there’s excitement there’s plot. I skew more towards character growth and plot focus than anything else so a lot of my boxes are getting checked here.

Except for one very large thing that made me unhappy.

I’m not counting Echo’s two appearances in these episodes as him being there. Seeing his face and him saying one line really…. Doesn’t count. Not in my book. So far out of 7 episodes he’s really only been in one. I’m almost convinced the writers have forgotten he’s a main character with the way they’re treating him.

The first four episodes were very focused on the different characters and what they’re doing and how things are going. I love these types of episodes. I do this in fics when I want development to have a lot of focus! Split them up! Follow them around! Put them in different pairs and watch them grow! I love that! So… why didn’t we get an episode like that with Echo? Since we’re showing them all split up where was Echo’s episode to focus on what him and Rex were doing? The show followed Crosshair and Omega three times. It followed Hunter and Wrecker. Why would there not be an episode following Echo? Or at least having him meet up with Hunter and Wrecker and following those three for an episode.

When we finally got Echo back my heart literally rejoiced. Episode 5 was the first episode that got me excited about where this season was going.

And then, yes! We’re going to see Rex. We’re going to see what’s up with the clone network and Echo *checks notes* has carpool duty???? Are you serious? These two episodes were possibly the best ones to have him around and he’s just… not? Why? So he can pick them up at the end of it?

It doesn’t make sense to me.

At this point it truly seems like this show is just sidelining him because they don’t feel like writing him. Is this how the rest of the season goes? Is he not with the batch for the majority of it? Are we going to have two maybe three episodes that he appears in at all?

It hurts. It hurts because it’s starting to feel purposeful and not even in a good ol’ he’s got something good coming in the plot kind of way.

If we get some good Echo focus in the later episodes then fantastic! Maybe this post will be meaningless and I’ll be proven wrong. I’d honestly really love that tbh. I’d love to look back and go: huh. I was so worried for absolutely no reason.

Otherwise if the season continues with how it’s been then I don’t have much hope for my little Echo loving heart.

As always I’ll still write Echo-centric fics and yell about him all day. Hell maybe I’ll write a long post for Echo like I’ve done for Crosshair. Give him some extra love and attention in these trying times.

As a last note: I love this show. And my criticisms or opinions are never a declaration of hatred for this thing that we all love. I’m simply screaming into the void and hoping people who love Echo as much as I do hear me.

[omegansamurai]

Heyo!!!

Hope you're doing well and I hope I'm not being too much of a bother, but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on Toph's characterization on the ATLA comics, please? 🥺

Especially from another Taang shipper, I think you're perspective is really knowledgeable and interesting (and you seem so smart with your words)

Oh my goodness!! Thank you! :D I was just about to message you! ^_^ 

LOL, well, I was the fortunate one to not read the comics, as I heard horror stories about them. XD But I just feel like...Toph isn’t treated really fairly in those comics? Like all Bryke can do is make her snarky and tough, but it’s like...she’s so much more than that? She can feel, she can cry, she can even act girly when she wants to! It’s like Bryke are so sheltered, they can’t make her interesting...maybe it’s because they see her as a dude-bro, and don’t want her to be involved with Aang, because Aang has Katara, but...well, why not? You think Aang would be totally fine with just having one girl when there are other girls out there that he can communicate with(like Toph?)? Like let’s be real, he’ll be a teenager soon, and he’s gonna notice some changes in girls...and the whole ‘Aang is a saint thing? Like...kid, you’re twelve. You got a whole life ahead of you. Meaning, different tastes in women change. And honestly, they, being Bryke, screwed up Aang as well. Like he’s too preachy, he’s too...I mean, I like Aang, I just don’t like Bryke’s Aang. Aang could’ve been so much more of a character that grows, but we don’t get that, we just get him to go through the easy way out, without any growth, just so he can get the girl, that girl being Katara. It’s just...it’s lazy. 

Honestly, I’m not even going to watch the ATLA grown-up movie, because it’s going to have Bryke at the helm. I know it’ll be a trainwreck, because they have to make them the way they were in the show...which, look at Korra, they did spectacularly with that show, didn’t they? X( Like, the writing is not on par with ATLA. And even then, the third season of ATLA felt botched. Like they just don’t want him to grow, and they want him to get the girl, which the story of Avatar is so much more than that! Like, care about your story, dudes! DX

Really, what I’m actually waiting for, is the Netflix live-action ATLA. At least that could be good without Bryke’s influence on the show. And it sounds great from all the stuff that’s been said about it! Like, seriously, the live-action sounds like it’s going to be good. I don’t even know what Bryke was pitching a hissy-fit about after they left(it could be ship preference, I don’t know!), but if it’s doing good, just know that they want in on that fame. XP

Okay, I’m gonna stop here, because I feel like I could go on and on about certain things, but just to end this message, the only reason Avatar is so different right now, is because the head writer and his talented writers aren’t on Avatar anymore. Bryke scared them away, because they are petty and stupid enough to cancel a fourth season for (get this) the greenlit of The Last Airbender movie! D: And they threw M. Night under the bus when it did very poorly when they had a hand in it as well! X(

Either way, yeah, I just don’t like Bryke. XP

(Sorry, I feel like I didn’t answer your question. I hope I at least kind of did. ^^; )

[babybluebex]

laszlo kreizler nsfw alphabet

so yeah this... Happened. the zemo version is coming soon, stay tuned! (probably tomorrow morning bc a bitch is tired lmao)

(gif credit to @lindir)

A = Aftercare.

Laszlo is such an aftercare king. He’s checking on you in every way he can think of: asking you if you feel alright, maybe massaging your hips if he had you in a weird position, offering you dinner or wine, maybe even a hot bath, if you’d like (and the bath would have special perfumed oils he had sent from Paris because Laszlo is SUCH a self care whore, he’s got soaps and perfumes out the wazoo).

B = Body Part.

His favorite part of yours are your breasts. No questions, hands down. He likes using your breasts as a pillow at night— just settling himself between your legs and resting his head on your tits is a dream he indulges in frequently. He also really loves seeing you in the new French-style of dresses that have a lower neckline, and, if you wear one of those dresses to dinner without telling him beforehand, he’s as good as gone. He’s staring the whole time and can only manage simple sentences.

C = Cum.

I think Laszlo likes to cum inside you, but he also wouldn’t mind cumming on your tits. If you’re on your knees, sucking him off, he’ll pull himself out of your mouth and almost rip your blouse in his haste to set your tits free before his orgasm rips through him. He only chooses to cum inside you if he can’t cum on your tits (for example, if you’re having slow, kissy sex and he can’t bear to leave your wet heat).

D = Dirty Secret.

Laszlo. Loves. To. Be. Degraded. From a psychological standpoint, he understands that his desire to be brought down and ridiculed is born from some sort of childhood trauma that DEFINITELY involves his father, but he just can’t help himself from getting so ridiculously turned on when you call him a dog for humping your leg while you try to sleep. Bonus points if you use his title while you do it: “Just like a little bitch in heat, aren’t you, Doctor Kreizler? You’re so aroused, you can hardly handle yourself. Are you too dumb to touch your own cock? Do you need me to do it? Oh, Doctor, what a dumb little thing you are.”

E = Experience.

Even Daniel himself has said that Laszlo has like NO experience. Laszlo got ZERO bitches (which I find hard to believe but ok whatever you say, writers of The Alienist), so, the first time y’all have sex, he’s more likely than not losing his virginity (let’s not get into the debate of “virginity is a social construct” because a.) IT IS and b.) Laszlo would lecture for hours about this). HOWEVER, these things come naturally to him. He is just Good In Bed. He figures it out very quickly, so, while you make fun of him for going a little stupid when he’s aroused, he makes up for it by bruising your cervix and apologizing later.

F = Favourite Positions.

Laszlo loves that soft, slow, kissy sex, so he’s into whatever position makes it possible for him to be inside you and to kiss you at the same time. Missionary is a go to, but sometimes he’ll have you sit on his desk and kiss your neck as he hikes your skirts up and fucks you all slow and nice.

G = Goofy.

Hardly ever? Laszlo is pretty serious most of the time, and the only time we ever see him Not Serious in the show is when he’s wasted after John’s bachelor party in season 2. So, maybe y’all went to dinner at Delmonico’s, then a ball for members of high society, and he had a little too much champagne and schnapps. He’s not like giggling and all, but his cheeks are red and he’s smiling more than usual, and calling you sweet names “Oh, mein Kätzchen” and “Meine kleine Prinzessin”. That’s Laszlo’s version of goofy.

H = Hair.

OK, my train of thought here is: LOOK AT THIS MAN’S BEARD. HIS BEARD IS NICE AS SHIT. If he treats his facial hair that good— regular trims, the beard oils we all know he uses, even if it isn't strictly canon— then his downstairs hair is nice too. Definitely soft, if maybe a little wiry sometimes (but tbh whose isn’t), and it’s a nice little cropping at the base of his cock. He also has a thin happy trail up his soft tummy, and a good amount on his chest (as we see in the show lol that much is canon).

I = Intimacy.

Laszlo is ALL ABOUT intimacy. You’ll know he’s in a ~mood~ because you’ll ask what’s being served at Delmonico’s that night, and Laszlo is like “I thought we might stay in tonight. John gave me his grandmother’s recipe for chicken soup”. He’ll light candles and pour you wine and play nice music on his gramophone, and he’ll romance you throughout dinner with little hand touches and sly smiles, until he’s kneeling in front of you and slowly kissing up your leg.

J = Jack-Off.

Honestly, he hardly does it. Of course, I’m sure he did it A LOT before he met you, but now he doesn’t need to pleasure himself anymore. He’s got you to do that. The only exception is if he has to travel for work and you can’t go with him. Even then, he’ll hold off until he absolutely can’t stand it, and then he’ll like read a letter you sent him or look at a sketch that John did of you while he whacks off; sometimes, he’ll just hold your letter to his face, and the faint trace of your perfume is enough to do the job.

K = Kink.

He likes impact play a lot (and perhaps a little roleplay wrapped up in it). On the rare occasion that his fucking is anything but soft and lovely, he’s gonna be hitting your ass and the backs of your thighs as you cling to him while he rails you stupid. Laszlo would try to hit your cheek, but he feels too bad when you wince at the pain of it. Spanking your tits is good to him too. His favorite though (and here’s where the roleplay comes in), is caning your ass. He’ll bend you over the desk in his home office and pull your skirts up past your hips, and he’ll make you count the amount of times his thick wooden cane connects with your soft asscheeks. The roleplay is, more often than not, you were his assistant who did something wrong and needed to be punished. If you miss one or forget to thank him accordingly “Thank you, sir”, he’ll focus the next hit on your thighs.

L = Location.

Either the bed or his desk. Laszlo is a little older (I don’t think we ever get an explicit age? But if we say he’s the same age as Daniel, then he’s 40 to 42-ish) so he can’t do it against a wall or anywhere too crazy (not to mention his right arm can hardly support much weight, so if he needs to hold you up, it’s probably not gonna happen). The bed is a special time for you two because of his arm; he’ll hold himself up with his left arm and rest his hand on your hip or wherever to give himself at least a little leverage. But the desk is usually easier because you can sit, or you can bend over and he can grab your hip.

M = Motivation.

He loves you and wants to worship you. It’s truly as simple as that. He loves you and thinks that you’re the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen, and he wants to show his reverence for you by making love to you.

N = No.

He can’t get into the role of “daddy”, nor can he call you “mommy”. Childhood trauma aside, he will be goddamned if Sigmund fucking Freud is correct about his bullshit Oedipus complex or whatever, so he just eliminates that whole thing entirely.

O = Oral.

He’s very good at it. He’s just… His lips are soft and his beard is good, and he’s not afraid to get a little messy with it. He’ll eat you out until he absolutely has to come up for air, and he’ll have a little bit of your wetness clinging to his mustache, but then he’s right back in it. His medical degree is also put to good use here because he remembers his female anatomy and he’s locked onto your clit the entire time. The first time you ever squirted, it was because Laszlo was nipping at your clit and sucking your wet little hole and pressing his thick fingers into you, and it was A Lot To Process, but you squirted and Laszlo came in his pants instantly because he’s like “I didn’t think women could actually do that… I thought that was a thing that penny novels made up”

P = Pace.

Again, he’s a little older, so he doesn’t fuck like some wild boy. He takes his time with you, touching you and caressing you and kissing you, and his pace is the same way. He’s slow and gentle, but has the capacity to go faster and harder if you ask for it.

Q = Quickie.

Hates them. Never. Never ever ever. If he can’t properly romance you and take his time with you, then what’s the point??

R = Risk.

Surprisingly, Laszlo is a little schemer, and he loves running a risk. He’s already looked down upon by other society members, so what’s the harm in squeezing your ass at a party? PERHAPS it’s inappropriate to get caught in a dark corner with your hand down his trousers and him kissing your neck, but it’s easy to blame it on the alcohol.

S = Stamina.

Once more, he is firmly middle aged, so he can do one round— maybe two, if he’s feeling particularly frisky. Usually, though, one is more than enough for both of you.

T = Toy.

HAVE YALL SEEN SEX TOYS FROM THE 1890S?? SHITS ARE SCARY. Laszlo does not like toys, but he understands their need for existing, so he may not like them but he tolerates them. That being said, he likes to watch you use them. LIke, he’ll sit in a chair by the bed and request you “put on a good show”, and he’ll watch you fall apart, and he’ll only come and touch you if you beg and plead for him to.

U = Unfair.

Mhm, so, in Laszlo’s mind, sex and pleasure are not just a give and take, it’s a two way street. They can (and often need to) coexist. He doesn’t like to initiate something if you won’t be able to reciprocate, so he’s not too into teasing or things. At the aforementioned parties, he’ll only goose your ass if he knows you’re 100% down for it.

V = Volume.

He’s fairly quiet. His mouth is usually really close to your ear, and you’re the only one who gets to hear his pretty little noises. The loudest he’ll be is when he’s come home after traveling and it’s felt like ages since he’s made love to you, he’s gonna come inside you, and his little gasp and moan are louder than usual.

W = Wild Card.

He is down to be tied up. He doesn’t like to tie you up, but if he’s the one being restrained, he’s all over it. It’s nothing too intense, just using a ribbon for your hair to tie his left hand to the headboard, not super tight but enough to make his fingers a little tingly, but he loves it. He loves the switch of the dynamic, how he’s fully at your mercy and you can use him however you please; usually, you just suck him off and ride him, but the endless possibilities get him hard as soon as you pull out the ribbon.

X = X-Ray.

Laszlo has Big Dick Energy, so he has to have a big dick. The best example of this sort of energy is in the very first episode after he goes and interviews Wolf, and comes to speak to Teddy, and Teddy is like “you interviewed the suspect? On whose authority??” and laszlo is like “Mine” like OH HIS DICK IS BIG I KNOW IT. He’s got an above average length and girth, but we know our man likes to eat, so some of his weight goes to his dick, so it’s like,,, He’s got a fat cock, sorry, I don’t make the rules

Y = Yearning.

Constantly. Neverending. He’s at work and he’ll catch a glimpse of a pastel drawing that you commissioned from John for Laszlo’s birthday that sits in a frame on his desk, and his heart starts to hurt from missing you. When he comes home, he’ll embrace you and kiss you like he hasn’t seen you in years, and he’ll want to hear all about your day. You have your doctor so whipped for you, and it’s a different kind of whipped than being pussy whipped. He’s, like, feelings whipped.

Z = ZZZ.

He’s a sleepy little baby after you guys finish. His eyes will be a little heavy and sticky as he’s cleaning up and caring for you (and you definitely coo at him “Oh, Las, you’re so sleepy!”) but when you’re both back in bed, our little man is circling his arm around your waist and nuzzling his cheek into your shoulder. He’s so soft and affectionate, and he’s out like a light when you kiss his forehead and tell him you love him.

[reawritesthings]

work this out | luke patterson 

summary: loving luke was hard, harder than you thought. but, somehow luke felt the same. he just needed an extra push. 

words: 1.5k

a/n: kinda proud of this? i kinda changed the prompt a little but yeah! pls reblog and share what u think :) 

masterlist | taglist 

You didn’t quite understand the relationship that you and luke were in; it was something that you could never explain unless you were there when it happened. It’s been a month since you and Luke had a moment, something that was waiting to happen but, neither of you wanted to act upon it.

It was a simple new years kiss. It was nothing but, for you, it meant something. It wasn’t just a quick peck or a light touch; it was something that clarified that this was supposed to happen. You tried to ignore the feelings that became stronger each day whilst Luke just brushed it off.

It was Julie’s birthday, and you were glazing around the house, watching people grind against each other. Some would describe as stalking but, you never were the person who would freely dance as Flynn or Julie did.They always offered to take you to the dance floor, but you always managed to come up with an excuse.

When Flynn caught your eyes and motioned her hands for you to come, you just lifted your red cup and shook your head. You weren’t really in the mood to party as you were stupidly waiting for Luke to appear. You knew Luke didn’t feel the same way which hurt but, your heart didn’t want to let go of the ‘if’s’.

You checked your watch, hoping it was near to wrapping up but, the frown that invited itself on your face told you that it just barely began. To pass time you decided to wander around trying to see if you could find Luke. Despite your feelings, he was still good company. Alas, you found him with a girl, a blonde to be specific. Usually, when you see your crush kissing another person, that would finalise the if’s, but it didn’t for you which made this more frustrating.

You suddenly dipped yourself down, hiding behind the island as you accidentally catch Luke’s eye. You closed your eyes shut hoping he didn’t notice but the soft touch that radiated your skin, showed your clownery.

“You good?” Luke said, crouching down to your level. You causally made eye contact with the first thing that came to your mind; Dust.

“Yeah. I just... saw some dust.”

“Dust?” Luke questioned, laughing a little.

You gulped, trying to make the reason more realistic. “Hayfever season...”

Luke hummed, shaking his head as he helped you up. “You want another drink?”

You shook your head, wanting to get far away from him as possible. Luke frowned a little, watching you leave his aroma. He wasn't stupid, and neither were you. In fact, he was just slower. He found himself lurking around the room for Alex, as he knew that Alex has the answers to everything.

“Yo, Al. Can I ask you something?”

Alex groaned, excusing himself from the cute quarterback he was talking too. “This better be worth it.”

“I think Y/N saw me kissing Tayla...”

Alex titled his head back, hissing at himself as to why he thought it would be something important. “And?”

“I think she is upset and I don’t like it when she is upset with me.”

Alex wasn’t drunk, but he felt like he needed to be. He was tired of being the messenger of the two of you. He loved you guys but, it was suffocating hearing it again and again.“Can I be real with you? Like, I’m going to tell you the truth and, it is up to you if you want to take the statement and do something.”

Luke wasn’t sure if he was ready. Alex seemed serious and Luke hated serious. “O-Okay..”

“First. I don’t blame her for being upset. You don’t just kiss her on NYE, take her on a date and show up to her house uninvited whenever you have a hissy fit with your parents. - it’s like you are using her, Luke. That’s not even the worst thing - it’s the way she normalised it. She is so infatuated by you that she doesn’t even care if you string her along, and that’s not healthy for her.”

Luke didn’t say anything he just gripped his cup to allow Alex to know that he was listening.

“It’s not fair for her to wait around for you because you are taking away her confidence and freedom to mingle with others. The number of people who asked her to dance, have a drink and even talk is shocking but she turned them down because she is so in love with you. You know she is and you still choose to not address her feelings and be an adult.”

“I didn’t know she loved me... she never told me.” Luke barked but Alex just chortles at Luke’s stupidity.

“She shouldn’t have to tell you. It’s pretty clear that she does.”

Luke allowed Alex to pour into him some more, a stream of tears trickled down his skin as he was now remembering all the times you were there for him, cared for him to only kiss and flirt with other girls. He was taking you for granted and, he hated himself for that. What was worst than all of this was finding out from his best friend.

He thanked Alex with a hug before running to find you. He wasn’t exactly sure where to find you but, he did have faith that you would be somewhere only the both of you would know. As Luke tried to avoided Tayla, which was impossible as she was the clingy type. He quickly divert her attention and dipped, running up the stairs.

He knew Julie’s house quite well, too well for Ray’s liking but Luke assured him that Julie and Luke were friends. On the other hand, the other reason why he knew this house well was due to your little rendezvous whenever the other’s fell asleep or arguing.

He knew where you were, and that only made him realise that maybe he had some feelings too. You were standing on the balcony, with a blanket wrapped around your figure whilst you looked up at the night sky.

He slowly walked towards you, hands getting clammy as he was a few steps behind you. He took a deep breath and waited for you to acknowledge him.

“Hey... I knew you would be here.” Luke whispered, bumping your shoulder.

You didn’t say anything but you didn't refuse his company.

“I just wanted to ask you something....”

You faked a smile, dreading the question about you catching his gaze when he was kissing Tayla.

“Do you love me?”

Your eyes widened as you heard those words. You certainly wasn’t expecting that. You closed your eyes shut, panic was rummaging around your body and your mind was hoping this was just some dream and that you would wake up in any given moment.

“Y/N....” Luke whispered.

“I do. But, it doesn’t matter.”

Luke frowned, hating himself for making you feel this way. “It does matter.”

“It’s honestly fine, Lu. I don’t mind if you don’t feel the same. You can go back to kissing Tayla.”

Luke shook his head. He didn’t want to kiss Tayla, he wanted to fix this. “I don’t want to kiss Tayla. I don’t want to keep kissing strangers and pretending they are you. Fuck, I don’t even know what I was thinking. I just, know that I’ve been a jerk and haven’t treated you fairly.”

You were stunned by his confession, you weren’t sure if Luke was drunk or not. You didn’t want to get your hopes up but you couldn’t deny the small smile that rang across your lips. “I don’t understand, Lu. You can’t just say that. You can’t just confess these feelings to me.”

“I know and I’m sorry. It took me so long to realise that maybe I should be kissing you and not her.”

You frowned, still trying to process the confession. “Did Alex say something? Whatever he said, he was lying...”

“Stop that. Stop trying to find an excuse for me. Don’t make me the good guy. Stop trying to tell yourself that this is normal, okay? You don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it.”

“What can I say Luke? I’m not going to be that girl who tells you who you can’t or can kiss. I’m not going to stop you from flirting with other girls. It’s okay to not feel the same or want this. I’ll get over it.”

“What if I don’t want you to get over me? What if I want to flirt with you and maybe kiss you?”

“You aren’t makin-” He cut you off with a kiss. It started off small, just an ordinary kiss but, when his hand found your neck, slowly caressing, the kiss was something you only dreamed about having. You closed your eyes and placed your hands over around his neck, pushing yourself closer to him. You allowed him to take charge, as you both knew you weren’t that experienced. As he parted his lips, he met your gaze and kissed your nose.

“Does that answer your question?”, he smirked as he rubbed his thumb across your lower lip. You nodded, as you grinned stupidly at the kiss. He could tell you were shy and allowed you to bury your head in his neck.

“I don’t know what this means but I want to work it out together... only if you want too?”

You looked up at him, brushing the curls out of his face before agreeing with him. “Together.”

@thatphannie @dpaccione @kiss-themoongoodbye @sageellsworth05 @killingbxys @sunsetcurve-h @poguestyleskye @lolychu @emotionalbruv @andycanbeemotional @talksoprettyjjx @kinda-really-lost @echocharm17618 @thesweetestsinner @edgeofgr8 @lukewearingbeanies @cordeliascrown @jeremygilbertss @jatpfan99 @ontheouterbanksofthemcu @caitsymichelle13 @jazzyhalestorm @makebank @indiecline @lukes-orange-beanie @joyjoyner @merceret @bright-molina @calamitykaty @lazydaisy19 @wonderful-writer @rosylinn @rafehogwarts @crybabyddl @sargent-barnes @weasley011 @yourprincess-maybe @motheroffae @mysterygurlrandom @sovereignparker @katie-navarro @g7aesthetic @spooky-season-bitch @tenaciousperfectionunknown @notasoftie @averyharrypotterandjatplife @brithedemonspawn​ @thesweetestsinner​ @lukeys-giggle​ @kelieah​

[anarchy2021]

PSA Day! (Rp etiquette)

{ID: A person standing next to a flipchart. They're thin, and have medium-length brown hair, pale skin, and dark brown ears. The ears are angled horizontally. They're wearing thin-rimmed glasses, and their expression reads as confident. Their hair is partially tied up in a bun. They also have a long tail the same brown as their ears, with brown fur the same color as their hair on the end. They're wearing black trousers, a black waistcoat with a white shirt underneath. Additionally, a black overcoat with gold edges is draped over their shoulders. The inner lining of the overcoat is red, and partially visible behind the person. They have their right hand on their hip, and with their left hand, they're holding a stick up to the flipchart, which reads "RP 101 :)". The 101 is underlined. END ID.}

Greetings! You may not recognize me (unless you were watching the debate perhaps, then, sup) as I admit I’ve been a bit…. Behind the scenes as it were (as secretary of VOID there is a lot of looking at the void, usual routine for me mhm mhm). Regardless, I’m Days (or Nights, either or) and for today’s PSA I’m here (along with some words from our recently freed from totally-not-prison president, Graphite, at a later date) to talk to you about roleplay! More specifically, rp etiquette and terms and how that relates to the DSMP and how it should be talked about. 

Now now, you might be wondering “oh but what is your experience?” Glad you asked! I’m a long term text rper with over 5 years of experience- and my main avenues of rp are rps similar in structure to that of the DSMP- long term improv driven sandboxes that also have important events planned ahead of time in some regard but are often player driven most of the time. Now, let’s get into it!

Head writers/admins

Let’s start off with a pretty hot topic regarding the server, which is the existence of a ‘head writer’ (usually in reference to Mr. Soot). Now, mainy take this as meaning quite literally a writer- like in a show, but, with what information we have I think it’s safe to say he’s not really that and more along the lines of an rp admin/head. The admin’s main purpose is to keep things structured and organized, as well as putting together the events they’re in charge of. This is pretty much how everyone treats the man anyways, BUT, while an admin is in charge of a lot they do NOT have the final say over everything, particularly in regards to the characters and their players. 

Players in an rp for the most part have full control over their characters (within reason and the confines of the rp setting) and an admin enforcing their will onto a character (such as enforcing certain backstory choices that don’t seem particularly wanted. For example, the fridge with c!Phil) is often frowned upon unless there is a good reason for it and discussed with the rper. 

It is also notable that just because there is an admin, that doesn’t mean they’re the sole writer/organizer/etc. It is not at all uncommon for specific subplots and or other important events to be headed by players involved in it in this type of rp. This can be seen in practice with how the Eggpire plotline was headed by BBH and the prison plotline was mainly written by Dream and Tommy. 

Summary:

- head writer/admins do not and should not control everything

- organise and structure events

- players might admin their own smaller plots within a rp

Narrative consequences

Now, another hot topic- especially in regards to character discourse (my abhorred personally). Narrative consequences. These are generally referred to when someone thinks a character is not getting the consequences for their actions in the story that they should, or (more rarely in my experience) when they feel a character is being punished too hard for their actions. While this is an understandable feeling to have, at the end of the day narrative consequences just aren’t much of a thing in roleplay, at least not to the same extent as a book or tv show. 

This is for one simple reason, consequences rely on the character’s actions and how they respond to others around them, if a character does not feel like it’s fit to react or if it angers their character- it is 100% within their right to respond accordingly. 

However, there is also an argument that can be made if a character responds to something in a way that doesn’t align with a character’s usual actions. For a personal example, one time in a rp I was playing a character who was intervening when another character was being hurt, however, my character was met with scorn from being somewhat aggressive regarding it- I felt that this was unfair as none of these character showed the same scrutiny to characters who did worse things, and none of these characters had been established as hypocrites. 

This grudge lasted the entire rp until my character died. This is a point where believing that the consequences to a character are unjust is more or less fair, but, a character simply not getting immediately smited or a character getting scorn is not automatically a point against the character, especially since an rper cannot reasonably make their fellow rpers react a certain way.  

Summary:

- narrative consequences are not the same in RP as in other mediums

- can't force characters to react, or force players to react in a way they don't feel is fit

- but can critique RP if things feel unfairly ooc/inconsistent

Retcons

Next up, retcons. What is a retcon? It’s short for retroactive continuity, in essence it’s when in a piece of media something is changed retroactively- such as a character’s personality, how an event occurred, etc. for an outsider audience perspective retcons are often looked upon unfavorably, as it’s changing something already established which can cause friction among those attached to certain ideas, but in reality retcons are both a neutral concept and fairly normal to occur in rps. 

Rps are (generally) not professional writing, they’re things made up on the fly with perhaps a base to work off of (and depending on the rp, not even that. However in the rps I’ve done we generally had character sheets and the like for backstories and all) and thus sometimes mistakes happen. One of the main causes for minor retcons is when details are confused or left out that would have realistically affected the situation or how characters would have responded to it, unless in severe cases these usually happen on the spot and don’t cause much of a fuss. 

Major retcons often fall along the lines of players and how they choose to present their character. This is especially common when a player is using a character for the first time or even if they’re just new to an rp in general, sometimes as we rp we simply decide to take things in a new direction and sometimes that direction may cause things already established to be retconned, even if not outright stated. 

A good example of this is the enderwalk with c!Ranboo, the enderwalk as it was first introduced is very different than it is portrayed now, likely as a result of Ranboo taking a new direction with his character since then. More widespread retcons may happen if people are unhappy with a certain plot thread, in this case an example would be the canon status of SBI, Wilbur used to push it but Techno (and later Phil) didn’t want it to be canon, so anything about it previously said has been soundly retconned. 

In my own case character retcons very often happen to me when I first use an oc, as the character takes a different shape than what I put on the paper in practice, even sometimes within the same rp (one of my first ocs was practically unrecognizable as the same character in the beginning of an rp as compared to even just a few weeks later).

So, retcons are fine and normal to occur, but, like I said- they’re neutral. A retcon can very well be done poorly and cause problems. This is mainly in issue with retcons made that affect highly established and built upon aspects without discussion with all those who’d be effected, this can cause confusion, plot holes and cause characters to be in a weird limbo if they don’t know how to have their character act without whatever was retconned. Major retcons need to be discussed in order to prevent these problems, and in some cases should be avoided entirely- instead it being better to work for a compromise and rework events rather than removing them. 

Summary:

- retcons are normal and neutral

- small retcons happened frequently in RP to help keep things going in an improv heavy medium. Usually unnoticeable

- large retcons tend to have with new players, or if the story is taking a new direction.

- large retcons require a lot of communication, and sometimes whould be avoided, instead working to compromise and rework the direction of the RP

Metagaming and godmodding

Metagaming and godmodding are two very important terms to know for rp etiquette and if you’ve done any rping you’ve probably seen these words thrown around in rules lists and such already. These are both ultimately negative things that should be avoided at all costs. What are they? Metagaming is when you use information that you know OOC and use it IC even though your character should not have that information. Godmodding is when a character is taken over by another person for one reason or another against the player’s will- such as having a character react to something without letting the actual rper do it. 

The former is a big issue when it comes to discussion of the DSMP and how people interact with it, mainly in the chat and donos. When you are trying to get a character to react to information that they shouldn’t have you are trying to get them to metagame, which is heavily frowned upon in an RP. This is also important to note in discussion, a character not responding to certain important events is not a mark against them if the character has no way of even knowing what was going on, or would not reasonably respond to it with the information they have. 

Summary:

- both frowned upon

- god modding is taking over someone elses character

- metagaming is using out of character information to do in character acting

- Meta gaming is relevant to DSMP particular in how it relates to donos and chats. Don't encourage meta-gaming

All of these factors are important to consider when discussing the DSMP and it’s narrative, it’s not going to function the same as other forms of media nor should it- as once you go in that direction you’re competing with the big boys over at tv and at that point things would fall apart. Improv and it’s unique variables is what makes the DSMP, and anything else like it, special and interesting to follow!

[fruitless-nonsense]

Well… turns out I have a lot of opinions on characters I don’t even think strongly of. Who knew?

No joke, this is probably not as thorough as I like, but this idea came to me and I have so much to say that I don’t know how to structure it. Okay? Let’s talk about Damon Salvatore!

If you read any of my previous posts, you’ve probably gotten a decent idea of how I feel about him from my quick snippy remarks. I genuinely believe he is the worst character in the show. Yes, other characters can be more boring than him. Yes, there are people that can be more infuriating than him. It’s not simply who his character was, it’s how the writers wouldn’t stop messing with him that convinced me he was utter trash. Sit back, cause this could take awhile.

Let’s start with season one and the two brothers. Theory time! I’m strongly of the opinion the writers wanted a love triangle between Elena, Stefan, and Damon from the very beginning. Not that crazy to believe considering this show was born off the heels of Twilight’s grossing fame, not to take credit away from all the other shows at the time which featured a love triangle or two. From fanfics to original stories written by tweens I read when I was thirteen, love triangles were huge back then (in a way they still are fairly popular, but not like back in the day. Now I feel old). So they wanted a love triangle? Sounds cliche enough to be in the vampire diaries, what’s wrong? Well, there’s a bit of an issue with the candidates, or more specifically candidate. You see, Edward was a creep and Jacob was an incel, but you can say they weren’t monsters (well by my standards they were, but by YA standards they were pretty normal). I mean, the movie made a point to say the Cullens didn’t feed from humans, and they’re only seen killing in self defense, meanwhile Jacob is treated like a good person throughout despite everything. My point is, at least at the beginning, the story didn’t want to paint either candidate as irredeemable. Back to tvd season one, Damon tortures Caroline, kills Zack, two random humans, and that one football coach/history teacher, mentally and physically tortured Vicky Donavon before turning her against her will and made it impossible for Stefan to remedy the situation until he ultimately had to kill her to save Elena, and this is all from the first seven episodes.

Now, I used to think at least Damon was a fun villain, but was he really? I mean, yeah he could be funny, got a few chuckles outta me, but besides humor and violence what was his character? For example, in season one we are introduced to Stefan, a supposed “good vampire” who has taken a liking to Elena due to similarities between her and his ex before admiring how much better of a person she is and wanting a true connection with her. We later learn that his experience with his ex Katherine was extremely one-sided as he was compelled to love her to satiate her needs. Even later (still season one), we learn that his only drinking animal blood is because he is a ripper or “blood addict” as I call it cause even one taste of human blood and he’ll go on a rampage. So by seasons end we have a character who was a victim of serious abuse (which is never truly addressed in the show btw) and carries a rare vampire trait that makes not being a murderous psychopath incredibly difficult, yet he still tries to beat the odds and not hurt people. This is a lot to learn about a character in its first season, and it helps us gravitate towards wanting him to succeed. Stefan is what you would call a good character (at least for now). So that was all we got on the first candidate, what about option number two? Well, he’s funny and he likes to kill people, that’s about it. That ripper gene that Stefan’s fighting, Damon’s not someone who gave in to the gene to explain why he’s so murder happy, he doesn’t even have it! There’s nothing making him be a bad person, he just is one! Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The most we get is learning he had real feelings for Katherine and was never compelled to love her as an explanation for why he hates Stefan so much. Wow, two brothers at war over a girl one of them doesn’t even like. You can’t even say it was because Stefan turned him, because Damon says it blank that it’s cause of Katherine in 1x20, so don’t. So Damon kills for no reason, hates Stefan for a stupid reason, and has no personality traits outside of humor, murder, Katherine, and hates Stefan. With all of this on the table, my question is this, how do the writers expect me to pick Damon over Stefan in this love triangle with everything we got in season one? And the writers realized this.

Season two starts this long “arc” asking if Damon can be redeemed, or that’s what the writers wanted. Second theory: the writers realized they couldn’t justify Elena picking Damon over Stefan without ruining her character (lol), so they decided the best way to keep this love triangle idea afloat was to redeem Damon. The theory comes in when they realized they couldn’t completely redeem him because they had written themselves into a corner and being a murdering psycho with quirky one liners was his entire character, therefore redeeming him would take away what made Damon himself and so likable among fans (not me). I’m gonna pull the rug from under ya, remember when I said klaroline was not actually a love story, but was positioned and is still believed to have been one despite this fact? Same applies here. Did Damon ever go through a redemption arc, or did the writers want you to think that he did so they could have their cake and eat it too? Is there any actual story progression that show growth in Damon as a character? Nope. He’s sadder, wouldn’t say that’s him being a better person. In the early seasons, his characterization feels more like a seesaw than an arc. Sometimes he’s chill and helping with a plan, and the next episode he’s biting a chunk out of more innocent bystanders while abusing more women (*cough* *cough* justice for Andie). The longest I can say he was a genuinely decent person was in season six when he was trapped in the prison world with Bonnie (cause she’s the only character that would put up with his bs). Everywhere else, an inconsistent character, and I feel like that was intentional. They wanted to keep Damon how fans liked him while making him seem like a better person. An example is the introduction of Enzo, which I think was a ploy by the writers to make it seem like season five Damon was interacting with a season one Damon to show how far he’s come, but that doesn’t stick at all (mostly because Enzo’s crimes in the show compared to season one Damon’s feel less psychotic and malicious). All in all, to me Damon on his own was a truly boring character and even more boring villain. No motivation and no personality outside his infatuations. Which leads me into the worst plot line of my entire cw experience: Delena.

If you haven’t noticed, I hate this ship with a fiery passion. The only reason I think it’s slightly better than klaroline was at least the writers tried to write a story with them (keyword tried). I said they would have to ruin Elena’s character to have her choose him over Stefan, and I was right! Not only does she cheat with him (2x22 and other scenes from season three), it’s never explained why she likes him in the first place (actually in season six they say it’s cause he gave her Stefan’s gift necklace despite being in love with her, which is so stupid it made me laugh). Furthermore, why does Damon develop feeling for Elena? Supposedly it happens while he’s still obsessing over Katherine, so is that it? The turning point which pushes them together is revealed to all be fabricated by a sirebond. For real, the only reason Elena fell out of love with Stefan is because a bond out of her control made it impossible for Stefan to help her through vampirism and thus she had to lean on Damon for support. I know the show states the bond didn’t create her feelings merely heighten them, but it did isolate her from everyone else she loved and made it so she had no choice but to rely on Damon, and that’s not exactly better than the former. Let me say it louder for the kids that were corrupted. Codependency. Is. Not. Healthy. It’s toxic, and the trope in romance needs to die a horrible death. And the show knows it’s toxic, they bring it up all the time in season five and six thinking that will excuse them to keep going with it. Sorry hun, self awareness does not give you a pass. The worst part is the pacing. I mentioned the sirebond storyline in season four which takes up a huge amount of the season with them debating if her feelings were real before abruptly deciding Elena doesn’t care. Great conclusion, but it gets worse. Season five is pretty thin as far as a story, so what fills the run time is a storyline straight out of fifty shades. Fighting, sex, fighting, sex, breaking up because they aren’t healthy, sex, fighting followed by getting back together followed by more fighting and more sex. I can’t tell you what was gained after everything that transpired in the season. Lastly is season six which took time away from the first interesting villain since season three to give us an amnesia storyline! I’d tell you more, but if you’ve ever seen a movie you could probably explain it exactly. All that time that could’ve been spent in better ways, was given to something I stopped caring about by season fours end.

Honestly, the fact that the show treats this like the greatest love story of all time makes me less angry and more concerned, because the audience who watched this show weren’t adults who understand what love really is, the people who watched this was made up of mostly tweens and teens. I can’t get too mad, this trope is everywhere, girl helps abusive guy be better person while sapping away all her energy in the process was done before and is still being done today. All I ask is that the young adults who remember this show fondly understand how wrong this is. How people like Damon should not be pitied and relationships like Delena should not be celebrated. Ship whatever you want, but please tell me you’re okay. Are you okay? In conclusion, Damon is trash and Delena wasted my time along with being extremely toxic and abusive. Goodnight everybody!

[petersthree]

Okay so I’ve seen a lot of conflicting responses to Buddie this episode, from it being clear to people that they’re getting together, to thinking the writers have unintentionally messed things up to thinking it’s purely queerbait.

And I get the different responses, I do - tbh I’m somehow in two camps, where I simultaneously believe it’s a slowburn but I also think it’s bait. And those are two very different opinions to have and it got me thinking about why we have these different responses as fans to the possibility of a queer ship (namely two men who would presumably be bi/pan) being canon. 

While people talk about how it’s just people wanting two characters to kiss or entitled fans - sure, that’s existent in every fandom, but I think there’s also a very real fear from queer fans who don’t want to get their hopes up and I d on’t love how the conversation has shifted to calling queer fans stupid for having hope, so I kind of wanted to break it down into 3 aspects that I’ve noticed: 

How writers portray bi characters and why that makes fans hesitant to have hope

What queerbait actually means as a concept

How much “slowburn” has changed in procedurals

1. How writers portray bi characters

Something I’ve thought about a lot are the bi characters I’ve seen on TV - Darryl (CEG), Sara Lance (Arrow), Lucifer (Lucifer), just to name a few. These are great characters imo and I think you’d have a fun time watching but a thing to note is that all these characters were established as bi within the first season of their respective shows and they all fairly quickly fell into a clear romantic ship as well (with the exception of Sara as she spanned multiple shows). It may have taken time for them to say the word bisexual, but it was still clear these characters were queer fairly quickly on. You could maybe argue that Lucifer was a slowburn, but then (while it does not take away from him being bi/pan so do not use this as an excuse to be shitty about him) it’s a m/f ship which is still not the point of my post, to find a m/m or f/f ship that has that same treatment.

Some writers have done it - like for Valencia in CEG, or Petra in JTV - when they saw that fans read them this way, but trying to find those characters were few and far between, and when I looked at popular queerbait ships (whether or not they actually are queerbait) it’s usually ships where the characters are largely viewed as bisexual. A lot of times this also comes with pushback from both straight and to be frank, other queer fans as well. Straight fans don’t always see the signs that queer fans do, so to them a queer character who hasn’t been explicitly clear from the start comes out of nowhere. And what I’ve seen from certain queer fans are concerns that people aren’t appreciating the canon queer characters in a show - and I think there is a conversation to be had about that, but I don’t think the response should also be about then demanding less representation for people either. 

If we go back to 911, people talk a lot about how it has canon queer characters, which it definitely does - Michael, Hen, Josh, Karen, and David are all canonically gay/lesbian and that’s awesome, and we absolutely should talk about fans (white fans in particular) ignoring these characters. It also does not change the fact that none of these characters are bisexual and that is the representation people are looking for. Both of these things are true - these characters are often under appreciated in canon AND people deserve bisexual representation. They don’t contradict each other and to act like one negates the other does a huge disservice.

And even if a character was made bisexual in the canon text we don’t get that slowburn. This may be true for things like Leverage, or LOK, but there’s also a real fact of censorship that affected these shows and the fact that general audiences may not understand the queer text tjat the writers intended. It doesn’t make the writing any less wonderful or the ships any less poignant or beautiful or important, and there’s ofc shows like She Ra that made this more obvious (or the.....mess that was Supernatural that made it. Half true?) but these are still real things that should be acknowledged on why people are so hesitant to call it slowburn - because it’s something most queer fans haven’t SEEN DONE, because m/f ships will get that care for slowburn when it’s done but it’s not done for m/m or f/f ships in that same capacity.

2. What queerbait is

This one’s fun because I don’t think many people understand what it is, but queerbait is very dependent on the intentions of the writers/creators/etc. - which tbh can be hard to gauge, because a genuine intention that ended up not happening or someone baiting fans or someone trying to support all ships and not be rude all have very different intentions but to a fan who only sees bits and pieces of this person on social media, it can be hard to gauge.

Honestly with how much the 4th wall gets broken because of social media now I’d personally say we’ve probably moved into a different definition of queerbait - unintentional vs intentional - because we’re at a point where a show knows what ships are popular and at what level of excitement fans are for it - but that being said, there’s still a clear spectrum of intent. And imo? I don’t think 911 has that intent of queerbait - whether it’s a slowburn or they have a different vision for buddie that I (probably) won’t agree with remains to be seen, but this show usually treats its storylines with care. Are they perfect at it? No, definitely not, I definitely think that they’ve dropped the ball a few times (especially with just how many characters they have lmao), but they also clearly do their storylines with earnest and with genuine care for these characters.

Is 911 getting them together? I want to say yes. I don’t think this was always the plan, just something that they decided along the way, but I also don’t think that changes anything about the ship. A lot of people point to Tim Minear being vague about the ship, or the actors and their interpretations, but 1. We have no idea what they’ve been told about Buddie moving forward and 2. No show runner is going to spoil their show that much. 911 may be keeping quiet because they have a different plan for buddie, sure, but also maybe because they’re still figuring out how exactly they want to do this and/or they want to make this slowburn and don’t want to give it away.

3. Slowburn in procedurals

I feel like this is something that procedurals have started shying away from, but slowburns used to be very common - Bones, Castle, their ships didn’t get together for literal years, but that’s just not something that many shows do nowadays, even for m/f ships. Even things like Deckerstar will have the characters get together after ~3 seasons and explore the relationship onwards, whereas a few years ago, y ou’d pr obably be watching a sh ow and it’d take them 7 seasons to get together. My assumption for this is that shows are afraid  of getting canceled, but there’s been a pretty big shift in getting a couple together after say, 6 seasons to now getting them together about halfway through the show. I don’t think either one is bad or good - in good writers’ hands, either can be amazing - but that shift has made it so that a lot of younger fans in particular, I think, don’t fully recognize slowburn when they see it.

911 as a show tends to run pretty fast - it kind of has to with its depth of characters they have - but when they do have slower running storylines they really do make use of that as well. Bobby’s addiction is something that’s always going to be present in his character, May’s suicide attempt was brought up again front and center after 3 seasons, even Chim’s dynamic with the Lees was brought up again and it was reinforced again that they’re his family. There are certain storylines that have to be continuous and aren’t a one and done type of thing, and that includes Buck and Eddie, especially if you want to establish them as queer to a general audience who doesn’t think about these things.

And honestly, despite my fears, I think they are laying groundwork there. We have Buck learning to be more confident in his relationships, we have Eddie ready to date and learning to follow his own heart, we have Buck and Eddie both establishing that Buck is family and will always be there for Christopher. These are pretty big steps to do for a ship and we’ll obviously have to see how the show goes forward but they’ve already insinuated Eddie and Ana are breaking up, I’m sure Taylor and Buck may last a season and be over, but we do have to see what this next season brings. Do I think they’d say this? No, definitely not.

tl;dr: 

911 is a show with good viewership, but there’s always a possibility they can’t continue with their season and then their promises would feel like a lie. Or they may still be hammering out the details as this season hasn’t been written. Or they may just simply not want to spoil their show,  or they don’t want people criticizing a story before it’s finished, all of these could be reasons. The showrunners, writers, actors, ultimately they owe nothing to us as a fandom to potentially spoil their series, or do something, change it or their schedule for it, and get accused of bait. 

But it also doesn’t change why fans are wary of this storyline either, and I wish people would have more nuance and compassion for fans who are worried about queerbait (whether they think it’s not queerbait and dislike people worrying about it or if they do and are calling people idiots for believing it). There’s a lot of reasons why fans are wary and don’t want to have hope, and it’s not necessarily about 911 specifically as it is a pattern of writing seen in other pieces that have fans worried. These things can all coexist and I wish we as fandom in general could acknowledge that, because pretending that they don’t and criticizing each other/people’s intentions or knowledge when they have certain expectations also doesn’t do much to help.

[cakebeam]

Thoughts on RNM 3X08- continued. Again, if you are not wanting to read anything negative about this episode, best to just pass on this.

Now let’s get to my biggest issue with this episode which is also my favorite- Malex. 

Did everyone enjoy their journey to this point? What was it Chris said, their “friendship”?. 7 entire episodes with only 5 minutes of Malex getting screen time just for the writer’s to push all of Malex’s growth interaction into one episode. Alex talking about trying to build a better future, “for us”? Uh, what “us”? You have barely been talking to Michael this season and neither of you have even come close to talking about your feelings for each other yet. Now there’s an US? And Michael’s, “hell of a time for a grand gesture Manes”. UM HE WROTE YOU A SONG! And sang it in front of you and an entire full bar! Is the show ever going to bring that up? Where is MICHAEL’s grand gesture? We’re still waiting on it since he was pretty much a d*ck to Alex in all of season 2 while dating Maria and choosing her over Alex again and again. Like HELLO?!

And then there’s Michael hugging Maria (which, btw he’s only ever hugged Alex once and it was last season) in front of Alex, deeply, when he has not one time, declared his feelings for her to be over this season. Nor as he ever said he was happy that they broke up. Or that he only want’s Alex. None of that, no conversation about his feelings for her at all (or for Alex) just straight to hugging his ex who he told he loved her and was upset when she broke up with him. And again, neither seem to care it’s in front of Alex. And then here’s Alex, who also doesn’t care apparently that Michael is comfortable hugging Maria (when she’s only been talking badly about Michael this season as per usual and screaming at him and shoving him), and hugs her as well as if she didn’t just take the guy he loves when she was fully aware of his feelings or pushed herself on to him in a f*cked up threesome. Nope, apparently Alex will never be allowed to show being unhappy with Maria’s selfish actions or be allowed to set boundaries with Maria. And Michael will always be in love with Maria, even if she won’t date him anymore. No worries, seems Alex is available since he’s giving Michael all these grand gestures and all and expects nothing in return from Michael. Not even clarification that Michael is no longer in love with Maria. Nope, hug the hell out of Maria Michael, Alex seems to be fine being second to her and nothing should be weird about it 😑

This is what I mean by writing Malex unfairly. This is what I mean by a homophobic narrative. Michael still not declaring his love for Alex over Maria and Alex still not being written to declare Maria’s behavior being unacceptable towards him because you CANNOT treat LGBTQ+ people disrespectfully by disregarding their feelings and crossing their boundaries. Throwing all of season 2 under the rug does not work for Malex to have a solid foundation. The entire reason they were not together in season 2 was because of Miluca. Maria chose Michael over Alex’s feelings and Michael chose Maria over Alex as well. Neither chose Alex first, as a friend or as a cosmic love interest. You can’t just write one of the love interest’s to be in love with someone else for an entire season, have them get broken up with, and then write them to barely talk to the other love interest until finally having them kiss halfway in the following season with no development. THIS IS NOT HOW A LOVE STORY WORKS. Was the kiss scene great? Yes. Was it shot and acted well? Yes. But was it deserved? I don’t think so. I’m not here to just watch a gay kiss, I’m here for a cosmic love story involving gay/queer characters. That’s what I as an LGBTQ+ viewer was promised.

There’s no build up to Malex in 3x08. They had all of 5 minutes to share screen time with, none of which was romantic at all or of them talking about their feelings, until this episode. Malex’s foundation is still not being written in. Miluca is still not being discussed between them. Michael’s feelings for Maria is still not being discussed between them. As a writer, you can’t just move on and pretend it’s all ok now because they kissed when none of that development to wanting to be together has been shown on screen. This is not fair. The writer’s are not writing Malex’s love story fairly, it’s still being wrapped up in homophobic narrative’s of a gay man propping up Maria (”my dream girl Maria Deluca?”) and Michael still bending over backwards for Maria after choosing her (because it was “easier” than being with Alex, a man) for an entire season. After two entire seasons of Michael saying him and Alex aren't good for each other and that Alex ‘messes him up’; while being with Maria, a woman, is only talked about as a positive. This needed to be fixed before Malex got together. Before they ever were to hug Maria (which why even write that? WHY!?). They haven’t even hugged each other yet this season but SHE, Michael’s ex, gets one from them? What the f*ck?

It’s very clear that the writer’s are continuing the homophobic narration into season 3. It’s clear they’re not addressing the Miluca problem with Malex or Maria’s inappropriate behavior towards Alex or possibly even Michael choosing Maria over Alex (several times in season 2). And that’s a huge problem for this love story. I think it’s done guys, Malex (especially Alex) moving forward in whatever happens for them, is not going to get a fair or just storyline as a love story and the homophobic narration is most likely just going to continue down the line. God speed fam.

[sleepingcrisis]

Sk8 The Infinity: Thoughts

I- like many- have finished Sk8 and have a lot of thoughts about the show. I was going to make this three parts but opted for just one. This is split into three sections though: 

Adam’s “Redemption”

Character Relationships

Overall thoughts

Adam’s “Redemption”: 

Okay let’s not get it twisted, Adam wasn’t really redeemed. At least I don’t think he was. When I initially pictured a redemption I pictured an ending where he got along with Cherry and Joe and the three were skating together again or something. That would be super badass for a shot- but it wouldn’t work and would have ruined any tension between the three in my opinion. So in the eyes of our main six Adam isn’t redeemed which is nice. If anyone wants to argue that he is then… sure? You can do that- I don’t really care though because it is quite clear that he isn’t redeemed in their eyes. 

This doesn’t mean I like what they did with Adam’s character though. First of all, he was never going to jail. They set that up to build suspense but it was never really going anywhere which I hated. Despite him not getting redeemed in the eyes of our main six, he still didn’t face any consequences for what he did. I understand that him going to jail would not have been him facing consequences for his actions at S, because they weren’t related, but he got off. In the eyes of the viewer him going to jail would have been consequences for everything he did at S even if that wasn’t why he would have been goin to jail it still was supposed to serve as consequences. Instead he faces no consequences for what he did. He was never going to jail either which is what really pissed me off. The writers of the show made it so that the threat of him going to jail was sorta a red herring. It was something that was under developed and that a lot of viewers really cared about, but if you went to the bathroom during the episode you might not have even known about this subplot at all. The least the show could have done was make this a genuine threat and not something that was just used to build suspense- and it wasn’t even done well. 

I get not wanting to send Adam to jail though, I really do. He is a central character who a lot of people really like (even I really like Adam as a villain- I think he makes a really effective villain and his character is explored decently well). Perhaps sending him to jail would have been an ending to his character that was too clear cut. The ending they did decide felt too good for him though. In my opinion he hadn’t earned it. While I’m not entirely sure if I wanted him to go to jail, I think that he should have faced more consequences for how he behaved. Again I think if anything the end of the show paved the way for him to have a larger character arc.

Character relationships: 

Oh what probably everyone is here for: the topic of queerbaiting. 

If you are reading this in hopes that I support the idea that this show was queerbaiting then you won’t find that here. I don’t think the show was queerbaiting in the slightest. I think that it is incredibly obvious that Cherry, Langa, Adam, and Tadashi are all queercoded as gay characters. Every other character is up for interpretation, yes Reki and Joe are included even if I personally headcanon them both as bi. 

The show presents some beautiful friendships and handles them in a way that I love. Reki’s breakdown and self doubt feels realistic and how he and Langa reconnect was handled well and I think the pacing was good too. Langa and Reki contrast one another really well and obviously the same applies to Joe and Cherry. I have said it before but a spin off show with Joe and Cherry as central characters would be *chef’s kiss*. 

Had these two pairings been explicitly flirting with one another then yeah we would have been queerbaited. Does that mean you can’t interpret romantic undertones from all of this? No it doesn’t mean that at all, I interpret both relationships as romantic- but they also make really well written friendships. 

Where the show falls flat on its face and where I do take issue with the queercoding is the ending. By the end of the show I think it is quite obvious that Tadashi/Adam is canon. Their relationship isn’t normal by any means but they are in a relationship. Do I think it is a healthy relationship? No. Like k*nks aside- Adam treated Tadashi like shit through the bulk of this show. Adam is the most heavily queercoded character in the show so it rubs me the wrong way that this relationship is the one they make the most explicit. It rubs me the wrong way that Cherry and Langa’s sexualities are made more clear after having interactions with Adam. It presents the narrative that gay people turn other people gay and by having Adam be a flamboyant gay character it pairs gay with the idea of being evil and promotes sterotypes. Someone made a really good video covering this and I can’t find it- If I do I will repost this with a link- or if someone else wants to comment it then I’ll repost and add it into post. Flashbacks aside I wish we had gotten some scenes where it was a little more obvious that Adam cared about Tadashi. Don’t get me wrong- I know he does- but Adam acted like an asshole towards tadashi for the majority of the show and then pulled the “all is forgiven” between the two right at the end. Healthy relationships aren’t needed in a show and I don’t think these two need to have one, but having it be the only/most explicit relationship in the show is upsetting. I would have loved to see a healthy queer relationship be made canon. 

Not having these other relationships be made canon is fine. I understand wanting representation, but it is just eh- 

I get both sides of this- the side that desperately want’s queer rep that they are willing to settle and thirst over the crumbs they get and then demand an explicit relationship when we aren’t handed one. I also understand the argument of the cultural differences and how I can only ever look at this through a western lense. Japan has a vastly different culture and their media reflects that even if obviously they do try and appeal to a wider audience. I am very conflicted on this and am totally fine with matchablossom and renga not being made canon even if I do understand the appeal. Again what rubs me the wrong way is the relationship they do decide to make pretty much explicit. Anyone who wants to argue me that Tadashi/Adam is a healthy queer rep can- but from what we have seen… it really isn’t.

Overall Thoughts:

I love sk8 the infinity and I hope they get another season. The difficulty it must be to tell a full story with fleshed out characters in around four hours of run time is something I can’t imagine. Every single character feels fairly well done and they are all loveable in their own way. I understand the appeal people have towards any character. In fact there isn’t a single character that I actively hate. At the end of the day Sk8 The Infinity is meant to be a light hearted anime about having fun skateboarding. The animation is amazing, the music is wonderful- in fact I don’t think it could have been better- the characters that fill this world are all incredibly lovable, the show is so much fun to watch. The creators did that, they gave us a beautiful and fun show. Ending the show with Adam going to jail would have pulled away from what the show was trying to accomplish. The show was trying to have fun and I sincerely hope they get a second season so we can see every single one of these loveable characters again. I hope I got my thoughts across in this show but I am definitely willing to clarify if anything is confusing.

[asterekmess]

I’m fairly new to the Teen Wolf fandom (Dylan O’Brien is the only reason I even bothered to watch the show), but I couldn’t help to notice that there’s a scary streak of abuse apologism in the Scott McCall Defense Squad. Scott can repeatedly gaslight, belittle, victim blame and dehumanize his best friend, assault rape and abuse victims to prove how much better and superior he is, and treat everyone like shit to his heart’s content. But it’s okay! Scott did it out of love! Scott is a True Alpha!

Oh well welcome to the fandom! I’m sorry that your introduction doesn’t seem to have been all that pleasant. I’m a bit torn here, because while I know that there are fans of Scott who truly, honestly believe these things and think they’re okay, I’m also very much aware that the show is built to make them think that way.

I think I made a post recently where I talked about the show’s framing telling us repeatedly that the ends justify the means, but only when Scott is the one doing the means. When we see Derek bite the teens and train them to fight by hurting them and generally treating them like crap, in order to have a pack that could protect itself so that he wouldn’t be killed by the Argents when they come to town, it’s very clearly portrayed as bad. As it should, because however much I love Derek and the Betas, his behavior with them was inexcusable. Explainable, but inexcusable. However, when Scott does similar things, like lying to everyone around him including his best friend, and putting the same teenagers he swore to protect because “they’re innocent, that makes them my responsibility” in serious danger by working with the man who wanted them dead, or in a slightly more recent note ducttaping a terrified teenager into his bathtub, this behavior is explained AND excused. Yes, there is sound (awful) logic behind Scott’s choices both in S2 and what he did to Liam. But that doesn’t make any of it okay. Except that, the show Does say it’s okay. There are fans of the show who are Scott Fans (tm), but there are also a LOT of fans of the show who only like Scott because he’s the ‘protagonist.’ They aren’t entrenched in fandom and meta like we are. They don’t want to look past the surface and that’s okay, because just wanting to enjoy a fun show about werewolves isn’t an unreasonable request.

And for those people, there’s no reason for them to feel that Scott did anything wrong. The show Constantly tells them that he didn’t. That what he did was Just and Correct and the Right Thing to Do. While to some of us it might be incredibly obvious that what he did was awful, other people (usually people who don’t have experience with these toxic behaviors/traumas) don’t instantly make the connection between Scott making Derek bite Gerard, and the abuse Derek suffered under Kate. They just see the climax of the episode and the Plot Twist of Scott being one step ahead of Genius Gerard.

Now, for those that DO entrench themselves in fandom, who spend all that time looking at meta and examining the characters to find their motivations/construct personalities and lore about the characters and STILL do not see this behavior...them I try not to interact with. It’s toxic and it’s horrible, and it’s upsetting to deal with. It’s frustrating to know that I can look at my favorite characters and acknowledge that they did some fucked up things. Sure, I usually blame the writers, but I also accept that it DID happen and the characters aren’t perfect. I can change all I want when I write au’s or make hale pack shitposts, but I know what is canon. And for some reason, these people can’t do the same with Scott. They cannot look at him and see his flaws and toxic, disgusting mistakes, while also liking the character. If I’m being really salty, I’d say that it’s because those behaviors and that mindset is so much a part of Scott’s core being that if they ever acknowledged it, their entire view of Scott’s sweet puppy personality would crumble, and they aren’t willing to lose it. For some people, I really do think it may be about his race. Representation for mixed race kids is rare. And So Often they’re this half an episode character who dies or is the kid that peer pressures others. The villain. And Scott, however much we dislike him, IS portrayed as Teen Wolf’s Hero. I don’t blame people for wanting to see a hero in him. For clinging to that representation that they Deserve. But doing that involves outright refusing to acknowledge canon elements of Scott’s story.

I would highly suggest just staying out of that fandom space. Don’t interact with it, don’t get in fights (this is hypocritical of me bc i’ve been blocked by more than one scott fan for getting in arguments with them), just avoid it entirely. Curate your online experience so that you can enjoy fandom and feel safe with the fans you interact with.

If you ever wanna talk Sterek, my ask box is always open. XD

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. 

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

[mst3kproject]

The Monster Maker

I could have sworn J. Carroll Naish was on MST3K at some point but the only thing I can find from his filmography that has appeared on this blog is Dracula vs Frankenstein, in which he played Dr. D'Ray.  Not that it matters.  The Monster Maker's producer, Sigmund Neufeld, also brought us MST3K feature The Mad Monster, and writer Sam Newfield penned both that film and I Accuse my Parents (not to mention the world's only all-midget cowboy musical, Terror of Tiny Town), but mostly I'm watching this movie because... well, you know, it sucks.

I know what you're thinking, and as far as I can tell, no, Sigmund Neufeld and Sam Newfield are not the same guy who's just bad at pseudonyms.

Anthony Lawrence is one of the world's greatest pianists, but with a concert tour finished he's looking forward to relaxing and spending some time with his daughter Patricia and her fiance Bob.  Sadly, this is not to be, as Patricia has come to the attention of Dr. Igor Markov, who believes her to be the reincarnation of his dead wife Leonora.  He spends weeks harassing poor Pat, until her father storms over to Markov's office to tell him where he can shove his attentions. Little does Lawrence know he's walking into a trap.  Markov has been experimenting on animals in his basement, and if Lawrence doesn't hand over Patricia, the next syringe is for him!

I have mixed feelings about this movie.  It surprisingly subverts several tropes of the mad scientist movie, including some it deliberately sets up only to pull the rug out from under them, resulting in a surprisingly happy ending.  On the other hand, it does this in ways that aren't always very satisfying, and its treatment of the disabled is frightful.

For an illustrative example, let's take Dr. Markov's caged gorilla.  The movie never tells us why he has a caged gorilla.  He says it's vital to his work but we never see him do anything much with it... I assume it's there because the caged gorilla was a standard part of the mad scientist lab equipment in the 1940s and 50s.  The only time we see him interact with it is when he sets it loose in the middle of the night to murder his traitorous assistant, Maxine, who had threatened to go to the police.  We cut to the gorilla back in its cage the next morning, and we assume Maxine is dead – only to have her walk in and tell us that her protective dog drove the gorilla back to the lab.

This is kind of a fun moment, not only because it's a surprise but because everything in it was set up, not just the gorilla but the animosity between it and the dog.  It also enables the eventual happy ending – after Markov is killed, Patricia worries that nobody else will be able to help her father. However, Maxine is familiar with Markov's work, and assures her that Lawrence will be just fine with a few weeks of treatment.  That's all quite nice for a mad scientist movie of this vintage!  It's also interesting in that it tells us these tropes were around to be subverted – that audiences in 1944 had already seen enough stupid mad scientist movies to know that the gorilla is supposed to kill the traitorous assistant and that the ending is supposed to be a tragedy.

The problem is that this leaves the gorilla with no reason to be in the movie at all besides to fake us out.  It ultimately has no effect on the plot whatsoever other than to establish Markov as a bastard, which by now we already knew.  You cannot put Chekov's Gorilla in a cage in act one, wave it around in act two before putting it back with a 'psych!', and then not have it break somebody's neck in act three.  It still has to do something, or you're just being a tease.

The fact that Maxine is able to cure Lawrence speaks to the fact that The Monster Maker is surprisingly respectful of its women.  Maxine is quite intelligent and knows her love for Markov is self-destructive, but feels she has devoted too much of her life to him to leave him now.  Patricia is a less substantial character, but her father treats her with great respect – when Markov demands Patricia in exchange for a cure, Lawrence continues to refuse even after the mad doctor has robbed him of his friends, his passion, and his career.  Pat's fiance Bob has fewer principles, as he repeatedly lies to her in the belief that he is protecting her from the truth, but this too is presented as the wrong thing to do and I hope we're meant to believe Bob learns from it. The screenwriters' general attitude seems to be that women should be allowed to make up their own minds about things.

Markov, as the villain, is also the movie's misogynist, and this is in no way subtle.  He wants to marry Patricia because she resembles Leonora – and that's it.  Her personality, her background, and her wishes mean nothing to him.  All he cares about is her face.  What she represents to him is an attempt to undo the wrong he did to Leonora herself.  We eventually learn that Leonora left him for another man, and in revenge he injected her with his monster juice.  He had hoped that her new love would leave her because she was no longer beautiful, but in fact Leonora committed suicide because she couldn't stand to look at herself in the mirror.

This tends to make one wonder what would have happened if Leonora had tried to crawl back to Markov.  At the time this happened, he didn't yet have a cure for his creations.  Would he have gone on to find one sooner in order to help her?  Or would he, too, have rejected her now that she was ugly?  I kind of suspect the latter.  He's only sorry about any of this because she died.  He wanted her back less than he wanted her to live in misery, knowing that without her looks she would have no value.

Interestingly, this also applies somewhat to Lawrence.  As his condition progresses, he locks himself in his room and puts records on so that nobody will realize he is now unable to play the piano... but he also keeps the lights off and refuses to admit anybody, too ashamed to show his face.  Ugliness apparently makes both sexes unfit company for the rest of us.

Markov himself speaks with a German accent despite having a Russian name. He manages to be slightly less creepy than the Great Vorelli or Dr. Carlo Lombardi, but only because he never resorts to rape via hypnosis.  Upon realizing he has found a cure for a terrible disease, his first reaction is to triumphantly declare that he can charge whatever he wants for it... eighty years later, that's still depressingly relevant.

So all this is okay and at times fairly progressive for the 1940s, but now we have to get into The Monster Maker's attitude towards the disabled.  I've been a little cagey about exactly what it is Dr. Markov is doing to his victims, and you've probably been picturing some sort of mutagen that makes them go all lumpy and melty like that guy in Robocop. Unfortunately, no.  Remember acromegaly, the hormonal disorder that Richard Kiel and Rondo Hatton suffered from?  Yeah.  Markov has a bottle of it in his cupboard.

I don't know how you bottle acromegaly, but at least they did better than the people who made Tarantula and fucking spelled it right.

Acromegaly is not a cheerful diagnosis.  Lawrence's doctor tells him it's not fatal, but that isn't always true – a lot of sufferers, including Hatton, die from the complications.  It disfigures the head, hands, and feet, and would definitely be a devastating disease for a pianist... all of which makes it that much worse that this stupid movie keeps using the word 'monster'.  Lawrence even describes himself as such, comparing his situation to that of Frankenstein's Monster and declaring that he will similarly kill Markov for what he has done to him.  In the end he does exactly that, and the movie never addresses it on any level besides 'boy, good thing the bad guy is dead!'

This is probably because, clearly, the real monster Markov has made is himself... but that's subtext.  In the text, his monsters are his overgrown pigs and Anthony Lawrence.  I just blasted Tarantula for spelling the name of the condition incorrectly, but that movie at least did not even imply that its human acromegaliacs were 'monsters'.  They were in every way victims, even when their sufferings were as a result of experimenting on themselves.  Lawrence is also a victim, but the movie plays up the 'monster' idea in more than just the title: Lawrence's condition also makes him restless and prone to violence, as he repeatedly attacks Markov and at one point must be tied to a bed to prevent him doing so.  Markov suggests that this is a side effect of the hormonal problems, but Lawrence's own belief that he's becoming a 'monster' also appears to have something to do with it.

In the end, this movie is way too much like The Brute Man, in telling us that the ugly and disabled can never be an accepted part of society.  Hal Moffat was forced into the shadows, while Anthony Lawrence takes to them voluntarily, but for the same reason: ugliness is made for gawking at, not for normal relationships such as that between partners, or parents and children.  Fuck that.

[ato-matsuri]

On Agartha

Been a while since I’ve written a long text post, most of all one about Fate. It honestly inspires a lot of rambling in me, after all. But I don’t think, this time, it’s due to its good writing, the emotions it makes me feel, or anything good. This, my friend, is about Agartha. I should probably prelude that this contains a metric shit ton of Agartha spoilers. If you haven’t seen Agartha, and you’re actually wanting to see the story -- scroll past. But, having played through Agartha completely and rested on the story for a bit, I think I want to repeat what everyone else has for ages lol.

Agartha, on paper, is incredible. A subterranean world built off fantastical story off fantastical story, made by a woman known for her ability to weave story after story, within stories, on the fly, and from a database of every possible Arabian Nights tale. Where the fear Scheherazade has due to Shahryar's endless abuse and fearmongering has stretched even to men as a whole due to literal years of having to survive Shahryar. Where the only leaders were queens, where the only rebellion force was a man so horrifically corrupt that he'd easily fall for the tricks she played. Her intent -- to reveal magecraft forever, removing any power magecraft has, saving her from ever having to fight and face kings -- and die -- ever again. That... sounds pretty good when I describe it that way, huh? Now if only it were executed with any modicum of sense.

From the beginning, Agartha's writing struck me as remarkably odd. It was like I was watching someone desperately try to emulate Nasu's writing style -- but had absolutely no idea what made Nasu's writing so good. Its exposition dumps, rather than being interesting, ended up being thoroughly boring -- as they focused on the mundane, like the fact that moss glows to light up the landscape -- instead of the magical implications of a world like Agartha even existing to begin with. Albeit, with the mystery of Agartha at that time, we can safely assume that there wasn't much to focus on, but then why spend so damned long talking about this stuff?

The worldbuilding, while passable, feels fairly flawed in execution. The idea of a world made the way Agartha was could've made for some interesting commentary about the way men treated (and still do treat) women in modern society, but Agartha not only misses the point, but tumbles head-over-ass into the uncanny valley and makes the whole thing sound like a continent-wide BDSM session. There's barely any actual subtle or well-done symbolism to showcase misogyny in this way -- and while hyperbole can serve a good point at times, the hyperbole combined with the strangely sexual writing of these segments makes it feel less like commentary and more like a badly-done doujin.

For example -- El Dorado was as simple as it gets. Men are slaves/breeding machines/whatever. The whole 'breeding machine' thing is played off extensively, even with Penth -- a minor at this stage, mind you -- comments on using the protagonists as such breeding machines. I'll come back to this later, because this serves as another point.

Ys was a fucking cool concept -- a world ruled entirely by rampant consumerism and chaos. Men, in this world, are still second-class citizens, pretty much the playthings of the women around them. I say that Ys is the best kingdom comparatively, as it was at least more bearable than its other kingdoms, but it still felt weirdly sexual in its writing tone. Of course, following tone, Dahut (who I'll get back to later) smashes men constantly, and is very keen on fucking Guda as well, following a trend. It's played for comedy, mostly, but it's still uncomfortable as all hell. Even so, I note it's more bearable because it's a very slightly more subtle take on the whole 'misogyny' allegory -- these people are using men for basically whatever they want, and tossing them away after. I'd compare it to a few true crime cases of people who murdered, or assaulted women for no good reason at all, purely out of a want that was either denied (for good reason), or that the want itself was to inflict harm. While the allegory still does feel unintentional here, it's at least slightly less unintentional. It was probably mostly just by accident due to Agartha's generally uncomfortable writing style, but the allegory here feels a little more potent when it's not so blatantly a BDSM fic.

I hate the Nightless City, despite it again being a cool concept. A 'utopia' where speaking out at all means death -- where men are in concept free citizens, but in practice fall victim to the law if they look at someone funny. Again, in concept, great allegory. The law does not treat men and women the same -- and while it differs depending on the case which is preferred, the vast majority of the time, women are pretty much shafted by the legal system (see Brock Turner), especially in very conservative areas. Cases can be made for both genders being shafted, of course -- but for the purpose of this allegory, picking out the prejudices of the legal system against gender is a fair critique. But, like everything else Agartha does, these neat ideas fall flat in practice.

They barely touch at all on the allegory, and nobody seems to even realize it in the cast, making me further believe the allegories aren't intentional at all. In due fact, it's as if the writer didn't even realize that this could be read as an allegory. The men's plights make some sense, as they were yoinked out of nowhere into a world that hates them. But the Servants and Guda don't think about it at all past the 'wow men are slaves that sucks' -- barely even considering that this could be an allegory the world's creator made due to their own horrific circumstances. They do point this out, but to my knowledge, it's very late -- when Scheherazade's called on her bluff, only then is it ever mentioned, and only in passing at that. If anything, the fact they point this out so close to the ending makes the ending itself that much more insulting. But before I get to the ending, I think there's something else about Agartha that sets the scene for just how awful it is -- and that's the way the characters are written, and the dialogue that comes of it. For this, I'll split it up into the characters who portray this the most. I'll even describe their personalities in Agartha's context.

Guda: Crouching pervert, hidden Mash stan. A few non-sequiturs of Guda complimenting Mash despite the mood being completely broken by it. Guda's incapable of taking a situation seriously in Agartha, even when the world's basically due to be changed forever. They keep cracking jokes, creeping on Astolfo/d'Eon, and other such things even when people are literally dying all around him. For that matter, I clearly recall the scene where -- for no real reason -- Guda just changes gears with Mash in tow, and starts trying to decipher d'Eon's gender. There's absolutely no real context to this, nor any reason for Guda to do this. Further noted is the fact Guda has worked with d'Eon before, and should've probably realized d'Eon's situation by this point. The Nasuverse has always been a bit, er, behind on gender norms and such, but it's so prevalent in any scene with d'Eon it hurts -- especially in that particular scene.

Astolfo: Oddly enough, the most tolerable person here (sans one other person). Agartha's refusal to take itself seriously works remarkably well for Astolfo. And while Astolfo isn't exactly written well here either, the fact that Astolfo's always been a bit loopy makes them seem, well, more in character. They're responsible for some of the funnier moments in Agartha, with their input composing approximately 3/4 of the, like, seven or eight funny moments in Agartha proper. Even so, Astolfo's appearance sometimes hurts Agartha as much as they help it, probably since Astolfo is a bit of the reason Agartha won't take itself seriously.

d'Eon: Deserved fucking better. The previously mentioned scene was the worst offender by far in my eyes, with it coming out of fucking nowhere. d'Eon's paired with Astolfo as a buddy and fighting partner, which itself could've made for good material -- instead, d'Eon is constantly dragged into Astolfo's fanservice-y gimmicks, and d'Eon themselves are pretty often creeped on by Guda. I'd go out on a limb to say that d'Eon's implied dislike of gendered clothing (see the maid outfit) made their scenes wearing such outfits far more uncomfortable, especially with how distinctly sexual the Agartha humour is. I just hated it.

Columbus: I can't fucking believe I'm saying this, but Columbus was the funniest character in Agartha. And I don't even think that was intentional. Something about how unabashedly horrible he was caught me completely off guard -- I thought he'd end up sort of like Napoleon at a glance, someone whose Spirit Origin was completely changed due to Europe's collective worship of the dude -- but holy FUCK was I wrong. Something about the hilariously cursed faces Columbus pulls, combined with his loud-and-proud irredeemable evilness, made him a blast to watch -- and an even bigger blast to beat the shit out of. His, uh, toothy grin still cracks me up even a few weeks after playing it.

Penthesilea: One of a very large amount of people who really deserved better. She barely ever shows up -- and when she does, she voices her desire to turn Guda and co. into a breeding machine/slave (recall she's like. 16?), and pretty much throws the whole 'reasonable-ish zerk' thing out the window instantly, because Agartha decided to forego decent writing in favour of 'funny berserker hates achilles haha brrrrrr,' therefore losing pretty much all the characterization they could've given her. The lack of 'alternate views' that show her in greater detail make this far worse, which I'll go into later.

Dahut: God, wasted potential out the asshole! A woman who made an entire world that fucked around and needlessly consumed stuff, she's the epitome of such a belief. But that's all she is. I'd be able to forgive this awful writing if Scheherazade, who 'implanted' Drake onto Dahut, was a bad writer -- but she's fucking Scheherazade! Dahut's a completely flat character, who constantly tries to bed (and kill) Guda, and generally likes the idea of needless consumption. That's literally it. Again, could be explained if Dahut had difficulty keeping control of Drake's body and conscience -- but this isn't explored either! She's just a walking, talking missed opportunity.

Wu: God, look at her design. Do I even need to say more?! She falls under the same problem that the other rulers do -- shallow characterization, no opportunities to flesh them out, etc.

Scheherazade: She could've been so fucking amazing. Scheherazade's story is one ripe with interpretations the Fate series so loves to utilize -- and on paper, her character is amazing. It'd only be natural for someone like Schez to be this deeply traumatized after so many days on death's door -- not many could really get through that okay. The incredible storyteller who fears death, kings, and unconsciously, men as a whole -- creating Agartha as a subtle way of ensuring none of them harm her while she prepares her ultimate plan of revealing magecraft to the entire world. However, as with the other Agartha characters, she becomes cripplingly one-note. Bringing her fear of death above all else, she comes off as an unreasonable asshole, constantly freaking out about death and preserving exclusively herself to a fault. While one could argue it's partially due to a Pillar's influence, Phenex doesn't seem to have a hold on her at all -- it's a basic alliance, and nothing more, as the ending shows us. It just leaves her as a one-note death avoider, with no other character traits at all. I'd go into further detail, but I'm saving that for later.

Fergus: God fucking damnit, man. A literal child version of Fergus, who the entire cast constantly expects to sexually harass every woman in sight. He's a one-note flanderization of Fergus, just without the one character trait Agartha gave Fergus. It just makes him... boring, a character whose only character trait is his refusal to hit a woman. Like... Come on. The fact the entire team is so sure this literal child will start trying to hit on women is just uncomfortable to witness, and the fact he slowly starts gaining these traits feels less like him 'meeting his fate' as Fergus, and more like Agartha wants an excuse to sexually harass more of the cast.

The Fucking Ending I'm giving this its own category, because of just how much of a punch to the face it was. In short -- the plan to reveal magecraft is revealed, more jokes are made, bla bla bla. Agartha can't keep a serious mood at all. ...But the final few scenes take it to a whole other extreme.

Wu Zetian comes out of nowhere despite being squashed by Megalos earlier, stuffing Phenex into a pit of her weird water shit, placing Phenex in a state of 'life and death.' Child Fergus then sac's his own Spirit Origin to summon Fergus inside himself(???), thus gaining the power of Caladbolg to weaken Phenex enough for the player to destroy. ...However, Child Fergus just summoned Fergus inside his own body. So, what happens when you put Agartha!Fergus, a one-note sexual harasser, into the body of a child? You get the final scene of Agartha. For some reason, I guess you need more help from others to take out Phenex. To this end, Fergus decides to convince Schez to join their side. I'd like you to recall that FGO!Scheherazade is implied to have the trauma of Shahryar's abuse, sexual and physical, burned into her memory -- not just the whole death thing. In every form of the story, Shahryar abuses her in such a fashion almost nightly. It's to the point where Schez' first line of defence, and much of her skills, are as much oriented around storytelling as they are charm and seduction (moreso the former than the latter, albeit), because her defence mechanism was that as much as it was storytelling, to keep her abuser happy. This is a part of why Agartha is the way it is -- to keep such men away from her. Hell, there's not a single King in sight, save technically Fergus, and Chaldea's d'Eon and Astolfo. Fergus knows this. Hell, he heard this being called out. He's well aware how terrified she is. So, what does he do?

SEXUALLY HARASS HER. He claims she has to live to have kids. That men and women have to live to have kids. He claims that she should live, because he'd smash her. ...Now, that's insulting enough -- moreso, that it's played dead serious. Nobody even as much as calls him on such a shitty persuasion tactic, and nobody even mentions how awful it is to sexually harass a woman who'd been sexually assaulted at best for the better part of almost three straight years. AND IT. FUCKING. WORKS.

SCHEHERAZADE. IS IMPLIED. TO BE INTO IT.

And because of this, she's swayed to join the heroes and seal Phenex away for good -- giggling about how Fergus' worldview was partially correct even as she fades away. The epilogue features Fergus, sexually harassing Scheherazade ON SIGHT -- calling out 'tits on my 12:00' or whatever, as Scheherazade darts off. However, Schez isn't avoiding him due to trauma. She's avoiding it because, while she's into it, she doesn't want to 'die' so fast. This fucking ending highlights among the biggest issues with this damned Singularity. Even Blavatsky coming out of fucking nowhere to Deus Ex Machina a grail and help into Guda's hands -- despite seemingly being slaughtered by Columbus in a (admittedly a bit funny) way to get the base of the Resistance -- means nothing to me compared to the blatant slaughter of two characters at once. Fergus is a total horndog even outside of Agartha's reach, but he even notes he respects his partners' consent, and doesn't overstep his bounds if he makes them uncomfortable. Scheherazade isn't exactly trusting in the slightest, least of all in Agartha - she barely even begins trusting Guda due to Guda treating her with actual respect. Even then, she isn't actively prostrating herself for Guda in that sense, very likely due to the fact that's more of a defence mechanism to her rather than something she'd enjoy, due to extreme trauma. Albeit, Fate writing does leave the possibility in the air for Guda specifically, but that's very likely just due to Guda being Guda and being careful to treat her properly and help her than anything else (and also the whole 'self insert harem' thing, I guess, but that's a hell of a lot easier to ignore esp in contrast to Agartha) And yet, we see that epilogue, that butchers both of them in one fell swoop so badly that I almost ended up hating both of them. Agartha's biggest problem is that it tried to be deep and intriguing, while having the writing quality of the goddamned Valentine's events. It picked all the right characters to have an incredibly intriguing storyline, and fell flat because the author decided that playing sexual harassment, d'Eon's everything, and even the most serious scenes for comedy was more important than telling a story even half as meaningful as the chapters before it. Lo and behold -- to my knowledge, Minase wrote it. Of course he did. He chose the best, the most interesting characters he could find, and made them so fucking one-note that the story lost all its charm in moments. He chose to emulate Nasu without understanding what made Nasu's writing so good. He chose to make Agartha a laugh fest despite simultaneously trying to make it 'deep.' He chose to fall head-over-ass over a possibly interesting allegory into misogyny and fall right into sexualizing it to the point of feeling like a femdom BDSM fic. And go figure the only character he did decently was Christopher fucking Columbus. I have a hatred for Agartha I can't reasonably place anywhere else. Prillya was just as shitty, but I ignored it, because Prillya itself wasn't great, so of course the crossover sucks too. Valentine's events written by him weren't great, but whatever, it's a Valentine's event. Septem, written by someone else, was similarly not great. But it wasn't insulting. It simply wasn't great, and had a lot of wasted potential. But its ending wasn't out of character to the point of being insulting. Its story didn't make incredible mythological and historical figures too infuriating to like anymore. It didn't almost ruin entire Fate characters for me. Not the way Agartha did. I should probably contextualize that Scheherazade is among my favourite mythological figures. I introduced myself to her through Magi (lmao) due to further research into the base stories -- as well as a favourite Magic: The Gathering card, Shahrazad, which forced you to play a game within your game, like how Arabian Nights featured stories within stories.

Even in Fate outside of Agartha, I liked her. Her design didn't make much sense to me considering her character, but whatever, I didn't need to think too hard of it. It's just a design, and despite my hatred of Penth's design, I still love Penth as a character, so I can handle Schez. But Agartha painted her in such a way that all the subtlety and interesting parts of Schez went completely out the window. No longer was there any hidden references to the aftereffects of her life beyond 'i dun wan die,' and there was hardly an ounce of sympathy or kindness in her bones at all. While her being an anti-hero made some sense, especially as she was only a normal person with far above-average storytelling prowess, there was a point when she stopped being a 'good, but terrified person' and started being a complete asshole. And Agartha was that time. If it weren't for her Interlude, which redeemed her considerably, and Ooku, which did wonders for her character despite being written by Minase (as I believe Nasu was overseeing him at that point), I very likely would've never gone for her at all, despite my love of the myth. In Conclusion This rant is just to say that Agartha is bad. Horrific. Insulting, even. At every step where it could've been good, it tumbled head-over-ass into the most insulting, uncomfortable shit you could imagine. It failed to take itself seriously, and paced itself like a comedy event, but simultaneously acted as if it expected its audience to take it seriously. Like a clown brigade deciding to take on Les Mis, it loses all of its punch when every few lines is interrupted by a jab at Fergus, sexual harassment, or something that comes close to being cool before suddenly turning into a badly-timed joke, or suddenly becoming laden with dialogue so sexual it feels straight out of a porno. It's aggravating, awful, and with only brief reprieves of bareable comedy in between long, long lengths of hellish text and awful characterization. The only good part was the gameplay -- which, laden with interesting mechanics not seen elsewhere, was legitimately fun. My take? Avoid all Agartha cutscenes and plot, and just play the gameplay. The gameplay's fun, and if enjoyed on its own, would probably make for a far better experience than observing the story surrounding it. But good gameplay doesn't make up for a horrible story, especially in a game where plot is as important as it is in F/GO. Agartha's a pile of shit in my eyes, but that's ultimately only my opinion, and nothing more. If others have an opinion counter to mine, that's completely fine -- and don't let this analysis ruin your fun with Agartha if you enjoyed its plot. To be frank, I'd be happy if you enjoyed it where I could not. And if you think my takes are misinformed, or if I missed a spot (or overreacted to a spot), that's what the reblogs and comments are for! I'm definitely not the kind of dude who has the final say in matters like this -- this is only what I picked up. Thank you for reading!

[dramaticviolincrescendo]

The thing is, Ian was right. Mickey doesn't know any better, the writers on the show made sure of that, because for them the only important thing about Mickey is his devotion to Ian. But we're a bit more realistic about it and can analyze Ian's actions without being limited by someone's poor imagination.

There’s a lot to address here, so please forgive me for the lengthy response, anon! 🙂 I’ll preface all of it by saying this: my general opinion is that if Mickey has what makes him happy, we should support that regardless of how we feel about the other party (with obvious exceptions like physical abuse, etc.). If Byron was what made him happy, I would support him even if I couldn’t stand the guy. The same goes for any other character in any other franchise, at least for me. Now, onto your points:

I’m not sure which scene you mean when you mention Ian saying he doesn’t know any better, but I’m definitely with you on our ability to analyze Ian’s actions. The problem here is that analyzing will always be colored by perspective and implicit bias. If your fave is Mickey, anything that hurts him will look a whole lot worse than what he does that hurts Ian and perhaps lead to conducting a less than thorough analysis or rejecting sensible arguments about Ian’s character. Based on the number of posts I see about how Mickey is the only good thing on the show, I’d argue that that is a very real danger in many of the takes on Ian as well as everyone else. I’ve seen some pretty heavy demonizing of characters who hurt Mickey’s feelings or aren’t actively sweet to him, which is a bit unrealistic since that’s life and Mickey certainly never seems to mind or let it keep him down for long.

As far as him not knowing better, on the whole, I don’t think that gives Mickey much credit at all. Actually, it doesn’t really give him any credit, which is sort of surprising given how vehemently people defend his IQ, academically and emotionally, against what amounted to a joke. Mickey knows that Ian messes up and does things that are questionable at best and hurtful at worst. He’s not an innocent, pure character who endures heartache after heartache to throw himself at the brick wall of earning Ian’s attention. He gives as good as he gets and has hurt Ian too. They’re human and written very realistically in that regard. Their love for one another allows them to forgive transgressions and move on, not hold grudges or “not know any better” with regards to what they deserve. Love isn’t about what we deserve, and I think it’s important to remember that a relationship won’t last if it’s based on an arbitrary numerical score of who has done more harm than the other. Things happen. Poor decisions are made. They can allow that to break them or work through it. Mickey has actively chosen to work through it because at the end of the day, he loves Ian more than he is interested in finding something else. In earlier seasons, Ian similarly chose to work through it with someone who might never be in a position to come out and begin the full relationship that he so desperately wanted. That’s beautiful to me, not contemptible.

As far as the only important thing about Mickey being his devotion to Ian, we’ll also have to agree to disagree. 🙂 In the early seasons, while Ian was certainly the catalyst for it, Mickey’s story was about coming out more than his devotion to Ian. That’s why we have the scenes where he taunted Kash (focus: keeping his secret), purposely got sent back to juvie (focus: hiding from Terry if he found out), and got married (focus: self-preservation). We do absolutely see a rising devotion for Ian during this period, of course, and there’s no argument that his character was written expressly to be Ian’s love interest. The writers still made him a well-developed one with his own motives, fears, and desires outside of Ian in a way that later love interests didn’t get. (My own belief is that they didn’t intend for the later relationships to last like they did Mickey, but regardless of the validity there, Mickey was written as a character with more depth from the very beginning and existed before anything with Ian ever happened.)

The first half of s4 shows Mickey on his own merits. He’s handling his new position as a patriarch of the family, running the business while Terry is fairly hands-off and watches. He decides to help the Russian girls and ends up going into business with Kev. We learn a lot about Mickey’s character outside of Ian during that time. In fact, there are only a couple of scenes that really focus on him missing Ian until finding him becomes Mickey’s task: asking Kev if anyone has heard from him, the bathroom scene, and the later Alibi scene. Otherwise, the early s4 writers showed us a Mickey who was compassionate, ambitious, utilitarian, entrepreneurial, and collaborative—all without tying it back to Ian. Kev and V are renowned friends of the Gallaghers, but Mickey doesn’t grow closer to Kev in an attempt to learn more about what happened to Ian. He doesn’t help the girls because he thinks Ian would want him to. In fact, with the exception of those scenes I mentioned, we have no reason to believe that Ian is on Mickey’s mind at all while he’s doing these other things. He has a life outside of Ian just like the opposite is true, and s4 went to great lengths to show us that.

The second half of s4 is, once again, about keeping his secret until he decides to come out. (Read: decides to, is not forced to. More on that in a moment.) Yes, his devotion to Ian is once again the catalyst for some of his decisions, but there’s much more to it than that. Once again, we still see scenes with Mickey operating on his own for his own purposes. He doesn’t leave home entirely because he wants to be with Ian—he also wants to escape from his wife and pretend that things are the way they used to be. He doesn’t scam money from the rich guy or take more than his cut from the register at the Alibi to protect Ian—he does it for self-preservation so that Svetlana won’t get him killed. He doesn’t go to the baptism to keep up appearances and protect Ian—he does it to keep up appearances for himself and because...well, like it or not, that’s his son. The lattermost is something Ian specifically does not want him to do, and if he does, he wants to be there. Mickey goes against his wishes because it’s about protecting himself (and perhaps, by extension, their relationship), and rightfully so. Coming out at the Alibi does once again tie to Ian as a catalyst for change in Mickey’s life, but it didn’t have to happen. Mickey could have grabbed his coat, told everyone goodnight, and left with Ian. At no time did Ian tell him that he would leave if Mickey didn’t come out to everyone or admit they’re a couple, even if he did make reference to the fact that Mickey was hiding and not free. All Ian wanted was for Mickey not to treat him like a mistress or expect him to stick around if he did. Instead, it was a logical culmination of Mickey’s written development to come out. He’s stronger and more independent than he used to be. He’s capable of taking care of himself and surviving in the world without relying on Terry. He’s in a position where yes, he’s still justifiably terrified of coming out and what it’ll mean where Terry is concerned, but he’s able to do it. Ian is a catalyst for it, but being devoted to him isn’t Mickey’s only reason.

In s5, a lot of Mickey’s story does revolve around his devotion to Ian, but not any more than Ian’s revolves around devotion to him in the second half of s3. We still see Mickey doing business and running the family, but having Ian be his more central concern makes sense because Ian is sick and the writers have already told us that his health is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. In denial or not, Mickey knows this. And so we see his story center around Ian because, to an extent, it has to. Ian is mentally and physically sick. He’s adjusting not only to meds, but to a label that makes him feel ashamed and afraid. Mickey is devoted to him, and so Mickey does everything he can to take care of him. But here’s the thing: that scares Ian too. He’s seen what happens to the people who try to take care of Monica. He knows how it felt to try only to be ignored or betrayed or abandoned. The breakup isn’t about anger at being coddled or, by my interpretation and Ian’s own words, him being selfish. It’s about him seeing that Mickey’s devotion is going to keep him from living his life and ultimately (in his opinion) hurt him beyond repair, and so he sets Mickey free. It hurts him, yes, but it does work.

Because even though we don’t see it happen on-screen, s6 through s9 can’t possibly be Mickey sitting in a prison cell pining over Ian. If that was going to happen, we’d have seen it in s4. By this point, we know who Mickey is outside of Ian and can assume that he’s operating in much the same way on the inside until he figures out what he wants to do. We know he and Svetlana had a business arrangement where they took out contracts for work he could do in prison. We know that he makes a business acquaintanceship with Damon, which means he was probably involved in dealing or smuggling while there. Neither of these things can possibly revolve around devotion to Ian because they could conceivably keep him from Ian longer. His sentence is fifteen years, and if he’s counting on being out in eight to be with Ian, he needs to be on his best behavior. He’s not. He’s unapologetically not when he sees Ian again and talks about what Damon is. Ian looks less than comfortable with it, but that’s not why they ditch him—it’s because he might get Mickey caught with his behavior. Even breaking out happened once he was able to solidify an opportunity working for a cartel, so while Ian may have been another catalyst (besides the obvious desire to get out of prison), the decision wasn’t about devotion to him. The only decision that was about that was the one he made at the border to let Ian go without making him feel worse about it. He’s devoted to Ian, so he knows that dragging him along on the run into the unknown won’t be good for him. He needs stability and a support system and medication, none of which Mickey can provide if they cross that border together. So, out of his devotion, he lets Ian go. They have a heartfelt goodbye and separate for what they think is the last time.

Does Mickey’s devotion lead him to turning himself in? Absolutely. But not before spending another long stint living his own life. The writers make sure we know that he had a life without Ian playing a role in it, once again conducting business and operating successfully on his own merits. They’re limited in what they can show because Noel wasn’t available, which made logistics important, but they didn’t leave him high and dry or insinuate that he was waiting around in Mexico for an excuse to return to Ian. He was once again a successful businessman in the illicit economy. When he returns in s10, his storyline does then appear to revolve around devotion to Ian more—but it doesn’t. Mickey has people he hangs out with in prison separate from Ian and with no ties to him. With the Byron situation, it wasn’t about proving devotion for Ian when he thought Ian questioned it—it was about hurting Ian because of what happened at the courthouse, even after he found out what Ian was really afraid of. If the writers were only interested in showing his devotion to Ian, he would have ditched Byron the second Ian told him that he was scared of his disorder and ruining them. He doesn’t. He sticks it out because Mickey is so much more than his relationship with Ian: he’s independent, vengeful, hot-headed, impulsive, and stubborn. These are traits that have been set up by the writers throughout the series both with and without ties to their relationship, and he very adamantly adheres to his revenge-plot-turned-catalyst-for-Ian-pulling-his-head-out-of-his-ass because he isn’t all about devotion to Ian.

I completely respect your opinion on the matter and appreciate the opportunity to discuss it at length! Ultimately, it boils down to this for me: the writers get a lot off flack for some of the narrative decisions and, of course, they won’t always be to our liking. Opinions and preferences assure us of that. I don’t think it’s about us being more realistic or more capable of analyzing a character, though. Everything above was written. It wasn’t spelled out and handed to us, no, but the writers put it there so that we could then analyze it. There’s no analyzing a blank slate or someone whose only narrative is devotion to Ian. The writers have given us a wealth of things to consider when it comes to all the characters, Mickey included, and we wouldn’t be able to have this conversation if they didn’t. Mickey is intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, and more than capable of standing on his own two feet as both a fictional person and a character. If he chose Ian, then it’s because he has weighed all these things and found them to be nothing in the grand scheme of their love for one another. Again, though, we can agree to disagree. Thank you for this ask—I find myself writing more about Ian, so I had a lot of fun thinking back over the series to answer it! 😃🧡