#i genuinely think scar is one of the most interesting characters every season

[vantabrooke]

I think there's something poetic about tl!Scar telling tl!Grian to kill him once it was just the two of them, and sl!Pearl doing the same for sl!Scar when it was just the two of them left. Scar is able to inspire a sense of sacrifice, not just in others but in himself.

[kiwinatorwaffles]

I found This is About a Stuffed Bird bc of you and its one of my favorite fics ever. Do you by chance have more suggestions?

hermitcraft/mcyt fic recs? :0 let's go!!

i get a lot of my fic recs from other friends since i don't really go out and search on my own all too much for this fandom. but there are lots of great works out here! i will be listing out some of my favorites :3 mostly hc but a couple general mcyt ones that i think are an excellent read no matter what. all of the fics i'm listing will be genfic without ships!

also i just realized a lot of my bookmarks are grian-centric which is funny i guess because i am admittedly quite picky about content of my other favorites and grian just tends to have the most content in the fanbase. hope that'll be alright

(i hope some of my friends and mutuals don't mind me tagging them for their works)

hermitcraft longfics:

the last days of the free angel of carrows by @theminecraftbee - loved stuffed bird? here's another great longfic by second! this one is about joe and cleo in an urban fantasy mystery setting. again, second writes our beloved hermits into an captivating au!

leaping and hopping on a moonshadow by @lunarblazes - a fantasy au by luna my beloved! pearl suddenly gains magical powers and goes on a quest to find her long-lost friend grian who might know what's happening to her. she meets a lot of familiar faces along the way!

Recall by @redwinterroses - hey, i was the artist for this one! :D mumbo goes missing, so grian and scar search for him. they find that grumbot has been up to some... things along the way. the fic isn't finished but i think the chapters red put out is worth a read if you don't mind leaving off on a cliffhanger because it really is super interesting

dramaturgy by wormcity - a universe where gem and pearl join in a season 7 that was never finished. mumbo became the mayor, but the turf war went so very wrong afterwards. admittedly i have not finished reading this yet because ummm short on time xD but it's super interesting with a lot of layers of drama(turgy hahaha)!

hermitcraft short fics/oneshots:

for trying. by @autistic-evil-xisuma - a stuffed bird universe oneshot of x and xisuma during their lab days. great if you want to be sad over the doomed brothers again :D

the wheels on the bus by sparxwrites - a hilarious post-s8 oneshot about grian being a little shit towards the watchers. one of the first fics i've read from this fandom and i still love it

a body is an object by ruffboi - grian is a mimic, and pearl's arrival in s8 shakes him up. she hasn't seen him in a while and is quite upset to learn that the grian she knew died a long time ago. a great read for familial connections and conflict of friendships!

Goatman and the Rift by TheDepressedCanary - doc's eldritch powers start acting up when the rift appears. what shenanigans will ensue?

other mcyt fics/crossovers:

late at night, when the stars don't look quite right by @lunarblazes - an excellent empires s1 and hermitcraft crossover longfic, where grian lands into the server and is discovered by pearl! very great worldbuilding and relationships, i especially love the dynamic between gri and pearl and pearl and gem :D

every new discovery is just a reminder by amaranthinecanicular - grian begins pulling alternate versions of the hermits from the life series into the server. he does save a lot of them, but at what cost? it does end on a cliffhanger but this is genuinely one of the most captivating oneshots i've ever read... argghhh

The Fair and the Brave and the Good by @slashmagpie - an afterlife smp longfic centered around the shelby, scott, and sausage. i have never watched afterlife smp before in my LIFE and this is still one of my favorite pieces of literature ever. the characters and worldbuilding is impeccable and perfect if you like something dark with themes of hope and renewal.

Two Can Keep a Secret (If One of Them is Red) by anonymous secretmcblog - a 3L oneshot! ren suspects grian has stockholm syndrome with his pact to stay with scar, but his expectations are wrong. a truly excellent read and one of them first fics i've read! i still go back to reread it from time to time

dog at the door by fluffy_papaya & iamsolarflare - a longfic where doc and ren take a trip on a van on their way to s8. ren, however, is not quite himself, and doc has to learn to befriend the red king.

devil town is colder in the summertime by @bananasofthorns - a oneshot from a 100hsmp/life series d&d au! team BEST ventures into a cursed evil fucked up forest. uh oh.

Interview with the Aftermath by @ranchersrevenge (wanderlasts) - the last life contestants are invited for an interview. the responses vary greatly.

stars, smoke, and stolen car keys by wormcity - a 100hsmp modern au oneshot where grian, scar, and joel go on a hike. it doesn't go quite as they expected.

the beehive state by amaranthinecanicular - a dsmp oneshot after wilbur moves to utah. tommy visits him, and the two reconnect. i have to say i stopped following dsmp a long time ago but this fic made me BAWL. i don't even think you need to know any of the characters that well to really enjoy just how amazing the writing itself is

Can't Go Back (This Time) by @duckmumbo (musicaltvbooks) - soup group goes end raiding and accientally finds themselves in afterlife smp. nothing goes wrong, surely! also admittedly i havent finished reading this either but roy i swear i will. this is a great read nevertheless and the soup group dynamic is impeccable!

TommyInnit's unbeatable method of avoiding sudden death by eneliii - on the train of dsmp fics, this is the superhero au longfic that inspired my own hc superhero au, vdhau. it's a lot of funny shenanigans with tommy and his friends. the fic does take a dark turn at the end, but that can be skipped entirely (as said by eneli herself) if you just want the wholesome aspects.

if you don't mind a little self promo, here are some of my fics!

it takes two to play (the game of mutual secrecy) - the aforementioned hermitcraft hero au. this installment is centered around xisuma and evil x as brothers resolving their issues through hero work and solving the mystery of welsknight's disappearance :D there are other works that are set in the same universe if you're interested for more!

how to form the ultimate besties dynamic: an unreliable tutorial by hypnotizd - a oneshot! hypno is a warlock who goes treasure hunting under the sea. he meets a guardian who later becomes his unlikely friend.

smoke and mirrors, the hunt perseveres - grian's arrival in empires s2 unwittingly brings the watchers' suspicions with him. cue jimmy freaking out and a lot of shenanigans.

ballad of etho’s lab - my newest installment! a oneshot about etho's storied life as the redstone god.

i'm also currently working on the sequel to the game of mutual secrecy and a new (well not exactly new since i made concept art for it) au called private detective gem tasey! these will likely be released sometime late january or february. have fun with these fic recs! i haven't been reading as much lately but i hope ill be able to find more if anyone else asks in the future. cheers!

edit: the fics are out! here they are!

hiding in plain sight (the meaning of trust) - sequel to the hermitcraft hero au! it follows an escaped lab rat trying to acquaint themselves with human society while avoiding suspicion and making friends with familiar faces from tgms ;D

private detective gem tasey: a rotten mystery in london - a hermitcraft detective au where gem gets hired for a case that spirals completely into drama and politics!

[kidflashimpulse]

You’ve kind of already answered this in AAIT but I’m high off of no sleep and figured it couldn’t hurt to ask anyways <33

Do you think Bart would every tell Ed, Jay, or Jaime (or anyone else) about anything regarding his past? Alternatively, do you think any of his loved ones would infer certain thoughts based on his actions, scars, etc? Super curious as to what you think (dissecting all Bart thoughts on your brain fr)

this is one of those things that varies depending on what type of plots or seasons of YJ i’m thinking about. All in all, i do think Jaime could know the most primarily because of his (or rather Blue Beetles) involvement in Barts time. I just feel like generally, it would start because he’d just want to know exactly what type of atrocities blue beetle is capable of and also out of some type of (albeit unecessary but he’s a little sensitive like that) self sacrificial/hating form of repenting, but of course with the passage of time when he becomes genuine good friends with bart he also just wants to know out of concern for his friend. And because he probably already knows the most to begin with, and is possibly bart’s first closest friend, it just makes it easier for bart to divulge the extra details if he’s either in the right mood or prompted in some way. Because Jaime already has a grasp on the major things, it would be very easy for Bart to just build on what he already knows. Theres a lot of potential for complexities to be considered in this, like mixed feelings of jaimes guilt / bart possibly having some innate sense of hate at the very early stages of talking about it and having no problem making jaime feel bad / bart starting to completely genuinely like jaime (if he didn’t from the get go) and then feeling guilty about his friend needing to share the burden. Just a lot to consider in what it means for Bart to share about his past with him. In terms of to what extent and how much bart shares with him, well that can be up to debate, but i do feel like Jaime can possibly have the best idea of it among bart’s family/friends circle.

With Ed I feel like it would be very unnatural for him to know as many details as Jaime for the first few years, i just don’t see bart divulging such details without making Ed into a “therapist friend” type of character, which i don’t see him being, because it’s not a nice type of friendship to have, and i don’t see Bart jumping into that type of friendship either. Doesn’t mean Ed isn’t incredibly sympathetic nor a good friend to talk to about these things, nor that he doesn’t use his background to prompt these types of talks. It just means that throughout the course of their friendship, whilst he probably has gotten more details than most people, you know as a result of actually getting to know someone especially if ur interested in them, doesn’t mean that Bart is prompted to share as much about the gory details of major things of his past. I imagine that throughout the possible collection of tender moments they might have shared between eachother, he has probably gotten the jist in a summary type of sense. Maybe as they start dating, he’s more motivated to be a bit more upfront on things out of curiosity and attributing certain traits that can be explained by understanding someone better, and bart would also feel more comfortable to just naturally talk about things too.

in terms of family, I feel like because Jay and Joan spent the most time with him due to living together, they might have inferred quite a bit of things, but not early enough that would be expected of them being u know, his guardians. I kind of go into this in the next chapter of AAIT (which takes on a very different pace/setting compared to the previous chapters)

Barry is kind of hopeless, if he knows anything it’s either through others or by some stroke of luck lmfao

Iris probably infers quite a bit herself and probably has some good talks with Bart

Generally i don’t think it’s something Bart is intentionally hiding for the sake of keeping it a secret, he just doesn’t have any crazy incentive to divulge these things in the first place. i think the most natural thing is for him to just drop things here and there and if anyones paying attention or can put the 2 and 2 together, they can infer quite a few things about him. Because like i said he’s not explicitly hiding it, he’s just kind of counter intuitively low-key like that . something that also helps him with this alot is the fact that he’s a time traveler in the first place. alot of things can be handwaved away by ppl with the fact that has “not from here” rather than because “he’s from that specific timeline” of that makes any sense.

sorry for the essay lol, i don’t have the clearest of answers to this because it’s something that can develop with certain plots, but these r my overall thoughts i guess :)

thanks for the question <33 and thank u for reading AAIT <333

[lara-cairncross]

I’ve been seeing a few people mention how much they want some kind of flashback to baby/kid Hunter, and the more I mull it over, the more I think we might actually have a good chance of it happening in a later episode!! 

For one thing, Hunter is the only member of the Hexside Squad whom we haven’t seen a younger version of. Amity and Willow had their own flashback-filled episode in the first season, “Understanding Willow”; Gus got a flashback during “Labyrinth Runners” of when he first met Willow as younger kids; Luz got  those video recordings of her younger self during “Thanks to Them”; and even Vee got flashbacks to her past/younger self in “Yesterday’s Lie”. And yet, Hunter— who arguably has one of the most interesting and allegedly messed up backstories of any character in the series— has had nothing so far beyond his own recollections to Gus.  This isn’t any kind of hard evidence, but I think it would be cool of the crew to show us flashes of every character’s childhoods, at the very least so we can draw comparisons between them. Also, I just think it would be super adorable to have the full collection of baby Hexside kids!! 

Secondly, based on that one interview, season three is supposed to be heavily focused around the themes of both grief and neurodivergence. We’ve already seen a bit of this in “Thanks to Them”, but from what it sounded like in the interview, there should be more to come; and I’m hoping part of it will be focused around Hunter and being autistic. Most of the fandom (myself included, I kin him so hard) already headcanon Hunter as autistic, and it seems like the crew is writing him that way. I think some kind of flashback or memory-dive via the Mindscape would be a great way to show other autistic traits via a young Hunter, before he started masking so much. It could even show the process of Hunter starting to mask, which could be a really important theme in a kid’s show for ND children! Again, not hard evidence, but something I think could be really beneficial! 

Thirdly, I think there might genuinely be some kind of build-up being laid out in “Thanks to Them” for Hunter’s full backstory. Not only did we have small instances of Hunter revealing parts of his time in the castle, such as the bowing to Camilla and the conversation he had with Gus, but we also have more information on the Wittebros’ backstory and what happened between them. These hints, at least to me, make it seem like the crew is planning to revisit the whole picture later on— everything that happened with the Wittebane family finally laid out for us, Hunter included. Additionally, with all the obvious hinting towards Hunter growing up as an abuse victim, I can imagine some kind of storyline in a later episode where Hunter gets to finally confront Belos following their “meeting” in “Thanks to Them”, and exposes some of the truly horrifying things Belos has done as his guardian (the goop spikes are what I’m thinking of, we all know how Hunter got that scar). Naturally I’m hoping he gets retribution, but I also think a situation like this would be a good way for the crew to sneak in flashbacks to his childhood growing up in the castle and show what abuse can look like. It just feels like an important message to put in a kids show, especially one that’s dealt with other topics like losing a parent and LGBTQ+ themes. Long story short though (sorry for the rambling), the direction it seems like they’re taking following the possession storyline seems like it sets up a few possibilities for a Young Hunter cameo. 

Lastly (and let’s be honest this is probably my best “evidence” lmao), we have this image done by one of the crew members, and it’s caption!

I mean. “See you in our memories”?? Paired with the GG mask and the staff in the dirt?? This just screams to me that we’ll be getting some kind of plotline with Hunter’s mindscape, or at the very least, Hunter’s memories and past. And if that’s the case, I think we have a fucking good chance of seeing baby Hunter!!! 

Anyway this whole post is just me being excited cuz OH MY GOD I WOULD GIVE MY LEFT ARM (sorry eda) TO SEE BABY HUNTER,,, THATS MY BOY MY SON MY ANGEL MY BLORBO MY SKRUNKLY MY LITTLE WET CAT !!! I WANNA SEE KIDDO HUNTER !!! Literally if that’s the only thing I get in the next episode I’ll be happy, RIP my mental stability until January ig. thanks for reading my rambles idk how coherent this was <3

[rosewood-multifandom-writer]

So, now that I have fully digested every story element about Hobo Bison, I can safely say, I got mixed feelings still. But it lands more towards me viewing Bison in a positive light somewhat.

First, the negatives. Idk why the SF writers have a thing for making Juri Bison’s punching bag. Like him ripping out her eye twice wasn’t enough? He couldn’t have gone after someone else? Like, maybe Ryu, the guy delivered the final blow with a singular Hadoken? (Still so lame). Probably one of the few times I’m actually on the side of character fans/stans. In this case, I can understand why Juri mains were upset and annoyed. Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

Speaking of which, I hate how people were saying that Bison was Rule 34ing Juri during his Arcade ending. Like… dude, get the porn out of your mind, that is NOT what’s happening here. I’m not referring to the ones that are joking about it, I’m talking about the ones that sound genuine and not a joke.

Secondly, he’s back to wanting to dominate the world when he regains his memories. Alright, then, here we go again I guess, lol. Get ready to “die” for a fifth time Bison.

Third, I saw the unused concept art, and this is just a nitpick, but I think they shouldn’t have played it safe, but I get why they did it, because otherwise Bison would be unrecognizable. But even still, some of the unused designs could’ve been nice. I mean, he has a lot of backup bodies in case he dies for real.

Fourth, as usual, World Tour has to make finding Bison more tedious than Akuma’s master mission of using fighting styles I don’t even use or care about.

With all that out of the way, the positives. M. Bison’s moveset is fun to use. Especially the psycho power ticking time bombs.

Next, his design. Specifically, his hobo default outfit. His scars, his tattered cloak, and the long hair is a look he rocks. Don’t care about the classic, because it looks like a dude cosplaying him and it looks the most out of place in a game that has semi-realism. It’s a small nitpick, so moving on.

I love his dialogue with the characters too, it shows that even though he has amnesia, he is still evil.

His motives I can actually get behind this time around, because he seeks power more than anything else (well, it is one of his likes). It makes his whole world domination thing make a tiny bit more sense. It’s still cliched though, do not get me wrong. Both his and Junko Enoshima’s (Danganronpa) motivations to rule the world is a villain cliche that is not everyone’s cup of tea. But both are iconic and are good villains, but have cliches that could bring their interesting factors down.

I also like how it’s heavily implied that the Bison we see in SF6 could be just a vessel that hasn’t fully gone through the process with his memories.

The build up to Bison was also good. I would say more about the foreshadowing in World Tour and in most of the Arcade mode stories, but I already made a post about it before and this post would be longer than it already is, so I’m leaving it at that.

And that’s about it. I may have mixed feelings about Bison’s place in the story, but I do enjoy him being a part of the roster, since he is an iconic and long established video game character decades ago. I still think DLC wise so far, the Season 1 DLC characters are all equally the best. I mean, A.K.I is literally the number one most voted popular character from the latest poll. Plus the people who hated Ed now love him or tolerate him. And of course, Akuma is Akuma, he’s really cool too. Rashid was also a good start. Bison is just okay, and I think Capcom started with him first to rip the bandaid off just in case there was backlash.

[iguessricciardo]

Hi, im going through something. Its gonna be long so im sorry in advance, i just really needed to get this out of me. I really dont think some people can comprehend what fangirling means or how it affects your life or it actually comes at a point where you needed it the most thats why you develop that obsession. I KNOW it seems stupid to everyone but my obsession with any celeb, band, fictional character, show, team or sportsperson came at a point when i needed it the most. To help me get through something that i was genuinely hurt and scarred by and couldnt stop thinking about. So i ran into the way of that obsession. Which is exactly what happened with my formula 1 but specifically daniel ricciardo obsession. I swear to go god he was the getaway from my depressing thoughts and ideas and the sickening headspace i had been on for months. I was the most heartbroken and hurt ive ever been in my life and at a mind where i thought noone could never love me for who i am bc im not worthy. Then i started to get involved with f1 and him. I needed to hold on to something that could make me busy in my own head and i could love and support and follow up. I SWEAR TO GOD nobody or nothing helped me as much as that man getting on that car every weekend or his silly goofy mood videos from past. You know that video with his nephew when he falls trying to say hi and daniel laughs and he falls and daniel laughs harder?? That was the first thing that put a genuine smile on my face and made me laugh in a while when i saw it. I had been the most silent ive been in my life during that depressing period and everyone around me was worried bc i genuinely lost my spark. But then i found myself talking about daniel, his funny moments, achivements to everyone around me, discussing it with such an interest and that was the only thinh that kept me engaged and happy. And mostly for me, those obsessions or hardcore fangirling slowly fades away in time when i start to heal. And i can tell you that him just being him helped me heal even tho this year was also one of his most struggling seasons. But im not ready. Im just not. Im absolutely sobbing writing this. Im not ready to let him go, neither from my headspace nor from that sport. It sounds so silly when i say this but he means so much in my life. Im just not ready and i dont know what to feel other than that wave of sadness

this!!!!!!!!!! you’re absolutely right about everything you said and i couldn’t agree more. I’ve been going through so much this year and literally the only thing keeping me together is a man driving a car even though he mostly had shit races, i needed a distraction and he’s there and seeing how he gets up after every fucked up race and can’t wait for another race weekend gives me so much motivation to this day. and seeing how he needs a break, i understand that, i really do. hopefully he’ll still be around and give us more videos and we can still connect with him i guess.

[memryse]

The magic of 3rd Life, or why such a simple hardcore miniseries works as well as it does

For a series which only lasted for eight sessions, 3rd Life has had a profound impact on the MCYT fandom. While it did go comparatively unnoticed on Twitter (as is consistent with YouTube-based Minecraft content as a whole, admittedly), Tumblr and other platforms have fallen in love with this series, and it’s become a vector for many fans to familiarise themselves with Hermitcraft and Empires SMP as well. But at its core, 3rd Life is a simple vanilla survival series with a gimmick. What about it resonates so much with so many people?

I would argue that its simplicity, its small cast, its vanilla gameplay “with a twist” is certainly part of it. It’s an easy series to consume, with many POVs totalling four hours or less, and it doesn’t require any prior knowledge of any of the members. Its mechanics are easy to understand. As a standalone, it functions perfectly – it’s immersive and can be followed easily by anyone, regardless of any prior knowledge they may or may not have. However, these factors alone don’t quite encompass what makes 3rd Life so special. Its true charm point lies in the format of the series, and how well it utilises improv.

[more below the cut; this is a fairly long post about 3rd/Last Life meta and my love of its improv. I'm mostly talking about 3rd Life here as it's a completed series, but this most definitely does apply to Last Life as well]

3rd Life is an entirely improv-based series. Whilst members may have a brief concept of the direction they’d like to take their series in – how heavily they want to roleplay, for example – the actual content of each session is fully improvised. Each episode is recorded in one three-hour block, and members are not allowed to play on the server outside of the allotted time other than specifically to finish builds. This time constraint prevents any planning from going into each episode, and interactions between players are completely spontaneous. Players simply run around the map looking for others to interact with (which is significantly easier with the limited world border) and chat about various events on the server, form alliances or deals, etc.

By definition, this almost completely negates the possibility of bad writing. Each player’s reaction to any server event is spontaneous, a legitimate reaction; they aren’t trying to play any specific roles or shoehorn in any specific events (with the exception of the Red King/Hand of the King roles, who were still completely improvising). Even the finale – a distinctly heart-wrenching and tragic scene – was improvised without Grian or Scar attempting to tell any specific story. According to Martyn, they weren’t roleplaying, they didn’t have any aims with that scene. It just happened to turn out in the way that it did, and they were legitimately sorry to one another. The server progressed in this natural way, and every person’s perspective tells a completely different story. It’s hard to identify any specific heroes or villains – fans of the Dream SMP can surely relate to this feeling, but I would argue that 3rd Life takes this one step further. 3rd Life is a tragedy from all perspectives, a tragedy which tells one cohesive story in its entirety before stopping as abruptly as it began.

3rd Life hinges entirely on its interactions between its members. Whilst solo content does exist – base building, for example – the majority of each session is spent interacting with others. 3rd Life is carried by its dialogue; nothing else drives the story, and yet many episodes are between 30 minutes and an hour long. It’s that dialogue-heavy. Members of the server have expressed trouble with even editing their videos because there is so much key dialogue that they don’t want to cut. People don’t watch 3rd Life for the actual gameplay, at all – there’s so little of it! They watch it for how each member interacts with the people around them. This is something not found in any other SMP I’ve encountered. SMPs livestreamed on Twitch have plenty of downtime, and people will happily watch streams on that SMP no matter what’s occurring on the server; people often watch them for their interest in specific members. Other currently popular YouTube SMPs, namely Hermitcraft and Empires, are well-balanced between solo content and interactions, and all server content hinges on the members’ various skills like building and redstone. 3rd Life is, to my knowledge, the only SMP which does not rely on building or redstone skills (what’s the point, when they’ll be dead the next week?), it doesn’t rely on the creator doing solo work talking to their chat, it doesn’t rely on planned roleplay. People legitimately just want to hear various members talking to each other. It’s a fascinatingly unique series in this regard. This dialogue-heavy aspect of 3rd Life ties back to my earlier point about 3rd Life feeling like a completely different series from all perspectives; with all of this dialogue being conveyed through proximity chat, so many events are entirely left out of other POVs, or presented in very different lights.

The pure improv format also helps significantly with worldbuilding, whilst also leaving plenty to the imagination. MCYT fandoms always require a significant amount of imagination to become invested in them, let alone make fan content of them, and 3rd Life is no exception to this. As discussed in this post, which was incidentally the inspiration for me to write this one, 3rdLife is full of lines which flesh out the series, which illustrate what happened better than can be shown in Minecraft. These lines are improvised on the spot, and are often complete throwaway lines in the creators’ eyes. In the fans’ eyes, they make 3rd Life feel alive, they provide plenty of material on which to base headcanons. Again, this isn’t necessarily unique to 3rd Life, it’s a common aspect of all Minecraft series, but I think this is where the rather angsty nature of 3rd Life comes into play. A dramatic survival game, entirely unscripted, with all events hinging entirely on your interpretation of them? It’s not hard to see why 3rd Life fans are so creative with character designs and fanfiction – hell, a lot of 3rd Life fics simply narrate canon in their own more dramatic light. Canon-compliant fics are significantly more common for 3rd Life than other fandoms I've encountered, because people hear these simple lines and want to dramatise them, put their own spins on them. I don't feel that this would be possible with any other series, not to the extent that 3rd Life fans do it. Other series' canon is either already dramatic, and so rehashing it can feel repetitive, or so lighthearted that people write AUs/new storylines. 3rd Life strikes a brand-new balance.

The development of its characters is also bolstered by improv. As no events on the server are pre-planned, members have to react completely spontaneously to anything that occurs. They don’t get time to think – only to react as though they genuinely were in that situation. As I said at the start, 3rd Life inherently lacks bad writing, because it’s not written. Ren, for instance, began 3rd Life as a kind and harmless person, with others often walking right over him. His reaction to his death by Grian and Scar’s trap spurs him to become the Red King; he raises an army and goes to war, and ends the series having taken countless lives, becoming hardened by war. He begins Last Life by isolating himself from others, seeming jaded and unwilling to form alliances, ready for another war to break out. Being improvised, it’s impossible to say how much of this was deliberate, or if Ren just started building his base without thinking about continuity from the previous season. This improv is what makes it feel so natural. It isn’t planned beforehand. This is Ren’s natural reaction to starting Last Life. It makes his character feel so much more real than it would if this was all scripted beforehand.

3rd Life is, overall, a testament to the power of improv. It manages to be compelling and dramatic without any acting feeling forced or wooden. Its characters’ arcs feel natural, because they are natural. Placing such a heavy emphasis on dialogue, with the gimmick of the server being a vehicle for interactions to happen rather than the sole appeal of the series, makes it truly feel as though we’re getting a glimpse into the characters’ lives, rather than watching a story which has been written beforehand. We get to watch everything unfold in real time. 3rd Life has a magic to it that, to my knowledge, no other SMP has been able to recreate.

[thelaithlyworm]

DMBJ Meta: Bai Haotian

So, since I’m in the middle of a Sound of Providence rewatch (I’m up to the murderous puppet theatre), I’m also having thinky thoughts about one of the supporting characters, Bai Haotian, also known as Xiao-Bai (Little Bai).

She’s present in the webnovel as well, incidentally, though she and Warehouse 11 are much less filled out. Anyway. (Some spoilers to follow.)

So Little Bai is a short drink of water, tiny, bright-eyed, who appears when Wu Xie enters W11. She’s extremely helpful, and also extremely mysterious, but after several mini-adventures it’s revealed that the giant flaming crush on him is entirely genuine and also, she’s a third-gen manager of the Warehouse (which is why she knows so much). In season 2, she’s recruited for the Thunder City arc as a diver; in the second half she’s involved in the W11 shenanigans that fill out the season. 

She’s adorable in her own right, but what interests me in the narrative sense is how much she is like Wu Xie when he was a Baby Adventurer, Very Staunch. Young, brilliant, family connections to weird shit but also very sheltered, doggedly loyal to the people she admires. She’s got a lot of talent but also needs some teaching and seasoning before she can compete in the big bad world. Does that sound like our Xiao-Xie? And it’s nice to having someone in that ingenue role since he’s thoroughly aged out of it by now, but also.

If we treat Xiao-Bai as an analogue for Young Wu Xie, in that story Old Wu Xie is a mash-up of two different roles - Xiaoge (his long-time crush) and San-shu (uncle, mentor, tricksy manipulative bastard). And I think that Wu Xie, at least, is aware of the parallels.

So when Wu Xie tells her, “You’re young: you don’t understand the difference between love and worship,” is he also talking to his younger self? Is he looking back fifteen years to the young sprat he was and kindly patting that boy on the head for being enormously silly but sweet? Does he think whatever his *waves hand helplessly* Thing with Xiaoge is, it’s stronger than that or does he also worry that after all this time he’s still... the wide-eyed infant to Xiaoge’s tired self. I mean, on the surface level she’s just found out he’s dying and he wants her not to grieve so much so he’s trying to de-escalate her feelings, and that’s a solid bit of story-telling right there. But Xiao-Bai, and Piaopiao for that matter, have a lot of parallels and resonant themes with what’s going on with the Iron Triangle, and I think this is one of them.

And! A large part of drama plot is Wu Xie’s drive to prove that San-shu (the first one, at least, the one before the Xisha Shipwreck Tomb) was a decent man. That whatever bloody deeds he had done, he was forced into it, that he meant well, that he was doing his best.

The point being, this is Wu Xie post-Sand Sea, where he spent most of a decade being tricksy, manipulative, pragmatic, bloody-handed, using his allies as harshly as his enemies. The actor Zhu Yilong made sure we remembered that every morning he spent extra time painting a bloody great scar on his neck. The text reminds us by bringing in Jiang Zisuan and his accusations which are... inaccurate regarding A-Ning’s death but not without weight, either. Wu Xie’s walked in the footsteps of Third Uncle: he’s done some shit. So it’s interesting to me, and sweet, and bittersweet to be honest, in this quest to prove San-shu was a good man, just how much work Old Wu Xie puts into keeping Xiao-Bai, this mirror of his younger self, safe.

Also she’s cute. Did I mention she’s cute? OMG I could just die.

Anyway, back to the show... Run from the clams, my good man! Run!!

[egg-emperor]

Eggman might be a rather realistic sociopathic and/or psychopathic villain. He can blend in well when he wants to and strikes coldly and indiscriminately simply due to not giving a damn. He can easily act like he'll help you then stab you in the back. His charisma got him buddy buddy with the president in Sonic X. Hell, his hypocritical characterization in Sonic X (Despite so fans reaching in order to criticize it.) is pretty on-point.

TL;DR: The guy is a monster. Also, if he wanted to, he could blend in with society and that makes him more dangerous.

If anything, he's not the typical cartoony villain because he's more realistic than that. Hell, in Sonic Adventure 1 Sonic interprets everything he says as cheeky jokes. Tails on the other hand is scared of Eggman and interprets everything as menacing threats (The truth is probably in-between. But, Sonic treats everything as a game, so.... He doesn't seem to take Eggman seriously as the threat that he actually is. Maybe it's his ego, age, and/or the fact that he's being manipulated by Eggman.).

Shadow seems to be the only one who sees Eggman as the actual threat that he is and understandably wants to end the man when he finally gets the chance. Shadow has lost loved-ones before. Shadow has the scars and PTSD. It's not just a game to Shadow because he sees the actual grim reality of letting Eggman live while Sonic wants to play like a child.

I really think he is, along with being the perfect example of a narcissist. It's interesting to read into his actions and analyze him deeper while acknowledging and understanding this and his personality, behavior, and actions for what they're really shown to be. I feel that those who try to put a whole other spin on it are missing how cleverly well put together and accurate he is. He's genuinely self-centered and it reflects in all his actions. Everything he does is for the purpose of furthering his own goals and he'll do great evil to accomplish it and that's a part of what makes him so interesting. I don't need every bad guy's actions to have a nicer deeper meaning, a more sinister one is way more interesting to me after seeing so much of the former.

And it's true too, Eggman's narcissistic behaviors and apathy aren't fake and that's how he can do what he does. He isn't hiding a secret nicer and more caring side because he's so bold, confident, and unashamed to be evil and cruel and that's why he's never felt a single ounce of remorse for his actions. The only thing that ever really gets hidden is his evilness when he's lying and manipulating people or forming a truce, which always ends in backstabbing and going back to evil without hesitation after he gets what he wants. He can have the charisma and great acting skills to make people believe a huge untrustworthy liar like him regardless of his reputation and that makes him even more dangerous.

It shouldn't downplay his actions in the way people try by saying "but he's not so bad, look at this time he wasn't evil/he did a nice thing." Instead, it actually emphasizes his evil because he's capable of doing good and could choose to be for genuine reasons if he wanted to- but he does it only when it's necessary for the sake of his own selfish gain, goals, and the safety of himself and the world he wants to rule. It's always about himself and what he can get out of it. He is a selfish sly, manipulative, cunning, and backstabbing monster at heart, and how he can be cold, cruel, and merciless one time and can blend in and do seemingly good things while faking goodness the next to get what he wants is great. It shows he'll do whatever it takes.

Eh, I like most of X Eggman but that hypocritical moment in particular in season 3 wasn't really in character in the way it was handled and it's a part that bothers me most about his otherwise almost perfect and deeply beloved portrayal of him to me. It looked like it was implied to be a genuine belief of his, instead of him playing up a sly act as usual, as if he just suddenly had a huge change of character with no development leading up to it whatsoever and it blatantly contradicted his prior actions in the show. He can indeed be a hypocrite but the show didn't handle it the right way when it gave people the completely wrong idea of his character.

But when it's done right it's another of the many most interesting and entertaining traits that can have a lot of impact when it's handled well and proves how sly, calculated, and heartless he can be. Especially when he takes advantage of kind-hearted, soft, vulnerable people and then laughs in their face and mocks them for it when he gets what he wants, or doesn't care and is completely apathetic towards the pain that he's caused and shrugs it off.

I don't think you can really put the blame on Sonic for Eggman still being alive, though. Even if he does tend to mock him more than he blatantly vocally acknowledges how serious of a threat he is, though there are moments of the latter where Sonic realizes there's no time for jokes and gets serious. He clearly doesn't go easy on him in consideration of his safety, there are many times where he's been careless towards what happens to Eggman in a defeat despite the dangers, even if it could possibly result in his death.

So there are multiple factors, Sonic does love the thrill of adventure and the challenges Eggman brings, sometimes treating it like a game, just like Eggman can too. But depending on the situation, he can certainly get serious. And it's not really a matter of him letting Eggman go, it's that he always manages to get away/escape unscathed and is amazingly durable too, it seems nothing can kill this man lol (except for a karate chop apparently and the one time he couldn't evacuate/survive an explosion but those weren't canon :P)

I don't think Shadow is the only one that recognizes Eggman as a threat, he just has a different style of dealing with threats and just isn't the type to make jokes or make a game out of it in the way Sonic does. Shadow is also more often willing to kill when he feels it's most necessary than Sonic with his antihero status, but Sonic still isn't really carelessly letting Eggman get away, it's not like he doesn't leave him in danger at the end of many of his defeats despite all the great destruction, explosions, and falls that he caught in as a result.

Both still want to take him down when he's causing trouble and will do whatever it takes but neither can bring the man down for good because he's that good at surviving and getting away.

[witchy-jadda]

rott spoilers ahead

so i’ve given myself some time to think about everything and try to process it all and here are some of my thoughts on trollhunters: rise of the titans...

- straight off the bat, i loved the intro. opening with blinky telling the story of what happened up until this point was incredible. i would have loved if they had circled back to this though (i saw someone else say it should have been him telling the story to jim and claire’s kids and i loved that idea!)

- i also liked that they didn’t waste time at the start, instead they just jumped right into the action which was fun.

- honestly, i thought jim’s plotline throughout the movie where he basically thought he was useless without the amulet was just really not fun to watch. i understand why it was there and it played into the climax but i really did not find it one bit necessary seeing as i felt that we have grown beyond that. i felt it was overused. we’ve been there before and jim is aware that he’s the trollhunter, amulet or not.

- douxie being so soft with nari was genuinely one of the most heartwarming parts of the movie. i feel that we were really robbed of so much potential with douxie in this movie though. we didn’t see nearly enough of him. it seemed that the writers were picking and choosing when to remember how powerful he is. switching with nari and connecting to her are two examples of when they actually used his power, but aside from that they just disregarded it a lot.

- and speaking of forgetting how powerful people are... i’m genuinely so hurt and let down over what they did to claire. do they not realise how powerful she is? did they just forget about her character arc? it sure felt like it. she got to use her powers a few times (connecting to nari, portalling the titan, etc) but mostly it felt like she was saying she was spent and therefore unable to do anything. she is so strong and so powerful, and that’s just so empowering - especially for young girls. and then it kinda felt to me that rott was reducing her to basically nothing more than jim’s love interest.

- okay another quick note, it kinda felt to me that krel’s potential was also pretty wasted? he barely did anything and i just think he deserved more too.

- ew okay i don’t even want to think about it but i know i can’t discuss rott without talking about the mpreg thing. seriously, what the fuck was that? at first, i thought it was going to be a joke. i thought aja and krel were gonna wind steve up and see how far they could go with making him think he was pregnant just for a little bit of comic relief. but then he was actually pregnant. and so i laughed, because even though it was dumb it was kind of funny. weird and unexpected, but kind of funny. but by the time the movie was over it just didn’t sit right with me. looking past the fact that it was just more of them making steve’s character into a joke, i couldn’t see the logic in giving so much time to that subplot when other characters (claire, douxie) and other relationships (claire and douxie’s friendship) were sidelined. maybe if he had gotten a whole season the mpreg thing could have been included as comic relief or whatever, but with such limited time i really don’t see the point of wasting so much time on something so pointless. 

- speaking of steve, i need to talk about creepslayerz... they really deserved more :( like i get that eli literally helped steve through child birth and then named one after him which was lowkey adorable but i loved their friendship so much and i was really hoping to see more of them. i was kind of hoping they’d get to do more as well. look i gave up on hopes of a romance long ago (even though i still really wished it would happen) but i hoped that at least we’d see some more of their friendship.

* by this point my brain has decided to forget absolutely every point i wanted to make... cue the brain fog (we don’t like her) and allow me to take a moment to read back and try to find my point again *

- i don’t think i can stress enough how much i loved the visuals in this movie. holy fucking shit it was just phenomenal. like wow. the art was absolutely fantastic and i’m really hoping for another the art of... book because i love the art of trollhunters and i feel that they could do with updating it to include the newer stuff. but yep, the animation quality was incredible and i don’t have a bad thing to say about it because just wow.

- speaking of art... a moment of appreciation for character designs. just wow wow wow. we love to see such intricately designed villains. we love to see growth in our other much loved characters. and the locations too? fantastic. beautiful. amazing. loved it.

- another moment of appreciation for jim. the hair. the scars. the injuries. the winter jacket. the fact that he looked a little older.... loved it. loved it, loved it, loved it. i cannot wait to spend hours pouring over reference pictures to draw them all.

- and claire... her armor being weathered and worn. her eyes!! her hair looked great as always. i just love her...

- nari nari nari... my goodness, her magic is so beautiful. i wish we got to see more.

- also, the jlaire moments were very cute. their kisses? so soft. they literally love each other so much. i adore them.

- what happened to the babies from the darklands btw? is not enrique just chilling in the lake’s house with a ton of babies? 

- barbara deserved better. i would have liked to see her and strickler happy.

- on that note, why the actual fuck did they think a few explosives would win against magic?? literal ancient magic and these dumbasses were like huh i guess we should blow it up. i’m sorry, what?? y’all are stupid.

* currently trying to think of every possible point that isn’t to do with the ending because i really don’t want to think about that yet *

- the whole thing with archie and charlemagne felt super unnecessary. like usually characters sacrifice themselves and it’s like sad and you can see the reasoning and stuff. but they literally could have gotten out. i really did not vibe with that. it felt like they just did that to leave douxie with no one.

- that trollmarket was beautiful though.

- speaking of trollmarket... they really restored the heartstone just like that? are you joking? i was not impressed at all. the heartstone was dead and gone, could not be destroyed. did they just forget that? half the shit in wizards wouldn’t have happened if the heartstone could have been restored. very pissed off by that. it was dead, that was it.

- okay back to jim... love that he pulled the sword from the stone. it was cute that it was a group effort, kinda would have preferred if it was just him but that’s just a me thing. and maybe me and my daylight tattoo are biased here, but excalibur is not half as pretty as daylight.

- not gonna lie, jim yelling come on trollhunters! kinda got me. i was very emotional watching this.

- i think the most in character jim moment of the whole movie was when he dropped excalibur, he didn’t have his armor, he was all alone and he decided to make a fist and fight the wizard/god with literally no weapon or means of defence. i don’t think y’all understand how much i love this dumb self sacrificing selfless boy. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, he is literally one of my most favourite characters of all time. i love him with all my heart.

- the armor!! wow wow wow. that was a fucking cool scene. beautiful.

- jim getting stabbed or whatever with that fucking spear thing nearly killed me.

- okay here goes... toby. my sweet toby. jim and toby’s friendship is one of my absolute favourites ever. my goodness. and toby getting in the van and going to save jim was incredible and such a toby thing to do. of course he would think of doing that.

- but like seriously... claire and douxie are so fucking powerful and they were both just like lol i guess we can’t do anything to help jim? i’m sorry what?? don’t tell me that claire wouldn’t go full on black and purple eyes and get herself up their to him. i just... i’m so bothered by the fact that they were sidelined y’all :|

- also, do not seriously try to tell me that aaarrrgghh!!! would let toby go on his own. he would have went with him. he would have followed him.

- literally as jim was falling the first thing that went through my mind was oh aaarrrgghh!!! is gonna run up and catch him.

- and while we’re on the topic of aaarrrgghh!!! why tf did they have such a build up that something was going to happen to either him or blinky for literally no reason? wtf

- aaarrrgghh!!! would not have let toby go alone!!! if he had been there, he would have protected toby, he would have saved him and none of that mess of an ending would have happened.

* ugh here’s the bit i was dreading... the ending *

- first off, i am choosing to ignore it.

- time stone? really? we’re... we’re gonna do this? literally one of the most original things i have ever watched is now - at the literal last possible minute - rip off another movie?? really?? whyyyy???

- i literally cannot express how much i hated it. it was so fucking unnecessary.

- he didn’t need to go back that far!!!

- i’m actually trying to block this out but i suppose i have to at least touch on it. jim would never ever put that burden on to toby. he just wouldn’t. before even looking at all of the other issues with toby getting the amulet, i need to say that. it just wouldn’t happen. he struggled so much with being the trollhunter, he wouldn’t put that on toby. 

- also toby literally never wanted to be the trollhunter?? he never wanted the amulet? he wanted to be a duke and have his war hammer and go on adventures with his best friend and his wingman and eat mexican food.

- okay so um i guess they all just forgot about unbecoming? cool cool cool.

- seriously though, was it not established many times that jim literally had to be trollhunter? and if he wasn’t it would be draal and everything would go to shit? did they just forget about that??

- having jim just decide to give toby the amulet literally takes away from the entire meaning behind jim getting the amulet and becoming the trollhunter. the amulet chose jim. merlin chose him. out of all of the creatures in the world, it had to be jim. he can’t just give that to toby!!

- and as much as i love toby, he would not last a day as trollhunter.

- and that’s not even beginning to mention all that jim erased by not becoming trollhunter. no father son relationship between him and blinky. they didn’t stop steve from picking on eli so no steve redemption and no creepslayerz. is he just going to allow enrique to be taken? toby will not have the same incentive to go into the darklands to save him if that’s the case. strickler will not show any sort of sentiment towards toby either. and then the big one...

- IS THAT FUCKER REALLY GOING TO ALLOW CLAIRE TO NOT GET HER POWERS??? WHAT???

- if jim isn’t trollhunter and the whole thing with enrique doesn’t happen then claire will never get her shadowstaff. let’s be real, strickler probably wouldn’t even need angor rot with toby as trollhunter. somehow i can’t see him making it that far...

- if claire doesn’t have her shadow staff then the whole thing with morgana won’t happen. she won’t destroy the shadow staff and then she will never develop her powers. would jim really rob her of that?

- okay i can’t do anymore, it’s too much for me now...

- i touched on this already in a separate post but i gotta say it again... i did not enjoy the destiny is a gift bit at the end. first of all, jim having toby find the amulet literally takes the meaning of that speech and his destiny away instanty. and second, i just could not stand hearing emile hirsch say the words that belonged to anton yelchin. it was just uncomfortable.

aaand i think i’m done. maybe i’ll have more later but i have a headache now from all of this.

[tuiyla]

hi :)

this is sort of a strange topic, but i've been thinking about klaine and brittana over the past few days and how their storylines would've been different if say, kurt and blaine had both been girls instead and brittany and santana had been guys. i talked to a couple of my friends about it and one of them gave me this brilliant response to my question about klaine.

so as a brittana fan, how do you think brittana's storyline would have changed if they were both boys instead of girls (maybe popular football players who slept together instead of cheerios?) how would their characters be different? would there be aspects of their storyline that would need significant adjustment?

obviously not expecting as long of a response as the one i linked (unless you want to 😂) but i would like to hear your opinion because i always enjoy reading your takes :)

Hello hello! Oh I love that response, excellent content by @hummels-turn. Can't promise to be as detailed haha at least not now but I might return to the topic in the future and in any case, honoured to have been asked for a Brittana perspective!

I think the big thing is that everything in Glee is so gendered, much more than I've seen fans acknowledge it in analysis so far, and that's doubly true for Klaine and Brittana because of the queer aspects. And then of course Glee's own sexism as a show which, is A Thing, but for this answer I'm just gonna pretend abominations like IKAG didn't exist - we're gonna erase it from existence anyway! Yay, I'm already loving this thought experiment. I’m also gonna assume it’s not a complete gender swap for every character.

This is mostly about background/first two seasons stuff and less a reimagining of specific plotlines and more just a general thought process of how they’d even come to be as an mlm couple. The sections are barely separate thoughts but I needed to break it up somehow lol; I’m long-winded, not cruel. I’ve seen the names Santiago and Brett used for gender swaps before and even though I don’t, like, Love That (because of a Santana/Brett fic that scarred me), I’ll use those names to keep it simple.

Titans instead of Cheerios

I think they’d definitely be on the football team because that’s the most surefire way of keeping their popularity and overall status. They are also still athletic and I feel like the Cheerios was about a sense of belonging, too, so being Titans instead of Cheerios makes sense. There are already differences here because of the inherent contrast between being a jock and a cheerleader cheering for a jock, so basically what all of this is already making me realize is that there’s so much to talk about with Glee and gender dynamics. But I won’t digress, another day.

So Santiago and Brett are both football players and I think it’s interesting if they use their sexuality in much the same way, i.e. essentially to gain popularity but more so a reputation by sleeping around. Only in this version they’re not the slutty cheerleader archetype but more like what Puck is in canon: the stud who really gets around. At least Brett is because Brittany’s (bi)sexuality even in canon is always presented as such a casual thing. She just genuinely enjoys sex and sure, there’s an aspect of reputation to it and there’s much to speculate about deeper issues, even, (”alien invasion” and all that) but it’s not a conscious social status thing like it is for Santana. So Brett is also very sexually liberated and fluid and him being a guy, he isn’t considered a slut because of it. And Santiago also gets around a lot and gets much the same admiration for it but much like Santana, he has a more well-defined albeit on/off relationship with a Cheerio - the Santana to his Puck, so to say.

But here’s the biggie with the gender swapped version: Santiago and Brett simply can’t happen the same way Brittana did. Brittana started out as a thing for the male gaze, both in- and out of universe, and the dynamics of that would be completely different if they were guys. Not saying Santiago and Brett stand no chance and far be it for me to imply that it’s any easier for wlw, but Brettiago(?) can’t work the same way Brittana did. Them making out at parties would come with instant homophobic vitriol instead of being dismissed or cheered on as hot. I think they’d still find each other attractive and might even begin a secret thing like Brittana did but their story would unfold very differently.

Santiago Lopez

Santana’s whole thing is that she can have her cake and eat it: make out with Brittany and still be considered hot and popular, even more so because of it because people dismiss wlw attraction as being for show. And Brittana fully take advantage of that, as seen through their date with Finn. So she has her cake and is kinda with Brittany but eats it too because she’s not out and labelled as a lesbian. Except, eating it makes her so, so miserable in the first two seasons and it comes with comphet (which--- is an essay we’ll get to, as I’ve promised to you and many others lol) and self-sabotage and to the general detriment of her relationships. So it’s not really a win-win, and it’s very far from being that for Santiago.

Because of the differences in how lesbian and gay attraction are treated, Santiago suffers and deals in different ways. Let’s assume he still has Alma as her grandmother and an abuela like that would mess up any nieto. For some reason I have this feeling Alma would feel differently about a grandson, putting him on a pedestal and spoiling him a little but still with the same belittlements that Santana refers to - maybe just more subtle. Basically, thanks Abuela! And her homophobia might be a lot more open and hateful of gay men specifically, which is bound to affect little Santiago. So now he not only internalizes homophobia and externalizes it as anger like Santana did but has the added pressure of being a disappointment to his abuela in a way that’s different to Santana’s fears.

Santiago would know that something’s, well, off about himself but it would be Brett who kisses him one day when they’re hanging out or at, uhm, football camp? If that’s a thing, I’m neither American nor a sports person. So anyway, they start out as best friends much like Brittana did but there’s less open affection because it’s not socially acceptable, so Santiago freaks the f out when Brett acts on the tension that’s been building up. He can’t rationalize it the same way Santana did. It’s not something football players would cheer on, it’s something they would viciously attack. And before I get too deep into the actual relationship, let’s just stay with Santiago for a moment because I think he’d be one of the guys using the word gay to describe things that are bad and as a general insult.

Santana made some homophobic comments for sure but it was never targeted or specific with her, just her general cruelty manifesting. Much like I think Santana does, Santiago would also feel very angry because of the feelings he has to repress and because he knows the world wouldn’t accept him and I think he also externalizes it and lashes out at others. If anything, whatever happens with Brett he’d be that much more anxious and terrified and I think he’d use homophobia as deflection so he’d actively participate in that kind of bullying as well. Basically what I’m saying is that Santiago is much like Karofsky because I still firmly believe that Dave was the male Santana so, you know, makes sense that the male Santana would essentially be Dave. The “homophobic bully is actually just gay” trope has Issues, sure, but in this case and in Karofsky’s case it can actually be traced back to their own internal fight and externalizing that through homophobia as a way of trying to prove something to the world and themselves.

The question is, where does Santiago go from there? Because we saw how his own terror almost drowned Dave and canon Santana is reluctant to vulnerability as is, and I think that’d be amplified with Santiago as a guy who’s taught not to express any real feelings that make him seem less manly. And it was hard enough for Santana to conquer that fear of what people will say - heck, she never actually came out; she was outed. So what, would Santiago also “need to be outed” to be able to exist as an openly queer person? Side note, don’t we just hate how Glee’s solution to both its deepy closeted queer people was to out them and get it over with, only to spend little to no time on the aftermath. Anyway. It depends on so many factors how Santiago’s coming out would go. Santana’s journey relied heavily on the fact that she was able to explore much of her sexuality with Brittany early on and sure, there was a fear there don’t get me wrong, particularly when feelings got involved, but it’s almost as if sex came first, then love. I’d hazard to say it could be the opposite with Santiago because intimacy wouldn’t be as encouraged but he can still quietly pine.

Brett Pierce

Here’s where we jump to Brett because, as much as I think Santiago would be so much like Karofsky in how he takes his own internalized homophobia out on others, the key difference is that Santiago has a Brett. Santiago has someone also on the football and also a popular guy who’s not like either of them. Much like Brittany, Brett would be comfortable with his sexuality and specifically bisexuality, once he has a word for it. It’s just the way he feels, the way he’s always felt and he’s never much been concerned with how others view him so being labelled gay or even some nasty words doesn’t affect him, or at least doesn’t terrify him to the extent it does Santiago. But I feel like I also once again have to note the different gender dynamcs.

Brett would not be able to express his sexuality as a bi guy in the same way Brittany did as a bi girl. I think they’re both limited by the homophobic world they live in but in different ways. With Brittany, the underlying assumption was that her attraction to women is temporary or not serious and she’d “stray for penis” (🙄 f u Glee and your biphobia). With Brett, I think he’d be limited in the sense that at the first sign of showing attraction to the same gender people would immediately label him as gay and he’d be stuck with that identity even if it doesn’t reflect reality. If, like Brittany, he had opposite sex midgames I think they’d be different dynamics and a sense of doubt about his attraction to them, as if he’s only using them as beards. Which wouldn’t be true, just as Brittany’s relationships with Artie and Sam were valid in their own right.

All that said, I don’t think this limitation and others’ judgement would faze Brett much. If he’s the same as Brittany just a guy version then he’s also comfortable in his skin and his much bigger insecurity is intelligence and how he’s dismissed and belittled in that way. Which is also an interesting comparison between genders, btw. But yes, as far as sexuality goes I think Brett would also sleep around a lot but more so for fun than the reputation it gives him. Santiago would, too, like I said, though I think he’d have a less, shall we say, active sexual life than Santana did because sexuality was Santana’s way of maintaining her status and that meant constant availability. Santiago would only need to sleep with a few girls, brag, have his on and off Cheerio and he’s already a legend among the Titans.

Brettiago and the rest of the story

Back to Brett but also going more into Brettiago, like I said I think he’d initiate things. He wouldn’t consider “what will the others say” and “what does this mean for us”, he’d just think Santiago looks super hot (cause he would lol) and go for it. And I think there’d be an initial rejection from Santiago and it’d be rough, emotionally, but they might have a secret thing going on eventually. Only, that’d make Santiago even more terrified and someone’s bound to catch on eventually so when it all explodes there’s still angst like there is for season 2 Brittana. Maybe they’re a casual hookup thing and Brett has a girlfriend like Brittany had Artie, and maybe Brett would like to talk about things like Brittany did in Sexy.

There are just so many variables. Like, do they even join Glee Club? Sue would either have to be the football coach instead or they follow Puck after Preggers for, uhm, some reason. I honestly think Santiago would need a better reason than “dancing is fun” because Santana’s spy reason was convenient but singing and dancing was also more socially acceptable for her than it would be for closeted football player Santiago. Finn got so much shit form the football team and very specifically gay insults so I don’t think Santiago would be able to tolerate that. Speaking of, in my mind Finn and Santiago have an ongoing rivalry. And what about people like Quinn, Rachel, Kurt and others? How would Brett and Santiago relate to them if everyone else stays the same gender? Smells like sequel bait to me.

But to close it out, for now, with answering your core question of how Brittana, or in this case Brettiago plays out: there are significant adjusments because a lot of early Brittana is inherently tied to them being hot cheerleader girls. Brettiago would face different challenges - not necessarily easier or harder, just different. They’re still best friends first, they still feel drawn to each other, Brett is still more casual about all things sex and Santiago still more terrified. A lot depends on how we view their coming out in this scenario but I’d like to think Brettiago would still reach (some of) the same milestones and conclusions as Brittana. After the secrets and shame and angst they’d still choose each other and find a better life after high school.

Oh and I realize now I never followed up on the “difference between Santiago and Dave is Brett” thing. Maybe Brett and his open heart would be the reason Santiago doesn’t end up as Karofsky. At least that’s my hopeful interpretation. Maybe, just maybe, Santiago could come out in his own time, unlike Santana and Dave.

[marieanneline]

wait wait hold up i am actually seething about the reveal

ya boi's not a dabi stan. at all. the only reason i'm remotely interested in his character is if he's actually related to shouto and how that would affect hero society in general. i remember reading the training camp arc, seeing him being one of the villains there, him saying todoroki's full name, and thinking "SIBLINGS?????" because agshdfjlk their EYES are SO SIMILAR!! i really want to give credit to horikoshi being able to portray their similarities from artstyle alone because that's talent.

(it's more apparent in the anime since you see the eye color— but appearance-wise, shouto takes after rei and dabi takes after enji the most, so this definitely isn't the best photo to prove my point...)

anyways,,,, dabi's ideals of heroics fall in line with stain's ideals and so we all already theorized how if he was the long lost big brother touya, it would be because of the fact that his father really wasn't a hero. this makes sense. and so, we're all fucking right. props to us, really, and props to horikoshi for all the foreshadowing because i had fun :)) in terms of story and plot, i think this reveal is fantastic.

alright, on to why dabi is a dick

(i'm assuming this was his choice and no one pressured him after all)

the todoroki family is on the road to recovery!!

- shouto finally visits his mother back in season 2 and visits her every chance he gets. you see the effort he makes and it's nice to see him change from season 1 to 2 (early-roki!!)

(guys he even sends her letters- look at that sparkle by his face!! he's sweet :)) and rei's smile!!!!)

- enji (whether we wanted it or not, i don't mind much personally) is trying to atone for everything he's done to his family

- natsuo, who originally wasn't fond of shouto because he had their father's attention (although he does come to the horrible realization that shouto was one of the most unfortunate) and mother's attention (because she wanted to protect shouto), has a closer relationship with his little brother now (can you believe he didn't even know shouto's favorite food was cold soba until ch. 192?? i was sobbing). he really regrets the prejudice he had against shouto and he's trying to be an actual brother to him now.

- rei's almost recovered enough to be released from the hospital!!

- fuyumi and her idyllic "happy family"– wHICH, BY THE WAY, ALMOST CAME TO FRUITION. their mother coming home, shouto connecting with his siblings, and enji being not-the-way-he-was-before is the best outcome they could have hoped for. and it was happening.

and i realize that all of that setup is for this very moment

this? this. this. this is being broadcasted. to everyone. that means the citizens know that their new #1 hero is directly related to a member of a really bad villain organization (i almost called it a terrorist group oop-).

by ruining endeavor, the citizens faith in heroes will collapse. this also affects shouto's reputation as an upcoming hero, and i am so terrified of what this could mean for him. imagine your career ending before it even started, just when you found your passion for being a hero again. all that progress he's made for himself since starting UA could be seen as pointless to him and i would hate for him to retrogress like that because it's not his fault. i would absolutely hate it if the media starts bashing shouto for being related to a villain, when he was also a victim of abuse.

seeing this look on shouto's face is making me dehydrated istg i'm fucking SOBBING— he doesn't even look angry!! in the last few chapters he was angry and worried for his friends, teachers, father maybe, other heroes... but he just looks sad. and the fact that the panel chooses to show the left side of his face is.... there's so much to unpack.

but yeah, this is being broadcasted. does fuyumi know? the cameo she had showed her working so maybe not. natsuo's cameo showed that he was at a lecture, so he also probably didn't see.

but rei did. that's like- that's the person i would want to keep this from the most.

the effects of this entire reveal genuinely scare me. how will this affect rei's mental state? she'll realize that what enji did is actually so much worse. their first child being a villain?? i'm terrified for how she'll react, she's doing much better in recent chapters after all. her kids are visiting her, shouto sends her letters to keep in touch, and enji sends her flowers and respectfully keeps his distance. i really don't want this reveal to result in a relapse. and if she does relapse, then fuyumi's ideal of a happy family is once again out of arms reach. the future of their mother finally coming back home is so far away again and it's genuinely so heart-breaking.

:(

plus— how will fuyumi's little elementary school students react to her being related to a villain? will the school fire her because of her connection to a villain and how that might cause concerns for students and parents????

it's also hard to say exactly how this will affect shouto and natsuo. natsuo was the closest to touya when they were kids so what would his whole opinion be of what touya's become? will he have a moral crisis?

in terms of moral crisises, i guess i'm more concerned about shouto. the boy knows he wants to forgive his father, but this is just making it so much harder. and after this, will he still want to? and finding out that his own sibling is a villain... remember the stain arc? there were some parallels between midoriya's, iida's, and todoroki's positions in the last chapter and i'm worried about what that could foreshadow. from that arc alone, we know that shouto doesn't agree with stain's views at all [i forgot what he said but it was really compelling]. we know that dabi's a stain follower though, so will this disrupt shouto's sense of justice? i hope not.

but family has always been kind of a weak spot for shouto, hasn't it? i hope this doesn't affect his resolve to be a hero because i do think that there's a way to– somehow– not have a corrupt hero society and i want him to fight for that.

touya being a villain is perfectly valid though, i don't doubt that. it's just disheartening to address that while every other todoroki was working hard to become a normal family, here's their oldest brother, who's not really dead. what's going to become of that altar at their house now?

learning the extent to touya's hatred towards endeavor is truly terrifying. we know enji is or was a horrible person and his redemption arc is based on the very fact that he can't be forgiven, despite some of his family trying their best to do so or at least get over it. but the fact that touya has even thought about killing shouto? that's just. ouch. touya's definitely gone through too much abuse, and all of the todoroki family problems are because of enji's bad parenting. but this does not justify murder and especially that of his younger brother, who also got the brunt of the abuse.

needless to say, i am a fool. i don't know if anything i just said will ever be true, but the important thing to take from whatever the heck i just shat out is that all of this is/could be a result of this reveal. it's the fact that dabi seems to have no sympathy. it's the fact that he doesn't care if his blood related family crashes and burns. really, if this is solely about endeavor and what he did, there's no need to bring the rest of the family into this. rei was sent to a hospital for god's sake. shouto has a scar. it's excessive and unmoral and although questionable ethics and values are key traits of a villain, it doesn't justify how much he's hurting the todorokis.

(look at this shit eating grin he has. no remorse. he really doesn't give a shit about the others but I DO and I'M so SAD)

and assuming that the whole "endeavor's wife admitted into hospital" was swept under the rug in terms of media, will that suddenly come back to light? because it shouldn't. maybe it should be known that she's in the hospital because of marital abuse but either way rei should not be dragged back into this disaster, and neither should the rest of them. there's also a chance that the media will accuse rei of having abused her kids too, which is messed up for different reasons. they're trying so hard to have any semblance of a normal family, and if dabi's way of revealing this to the world ruins that in any way then i hATE THIS REVEAL ASDFGHJKL—

[bloodbenderz]

Can I ask what your season 1 Lok reboot looks like?

this is about 3k words i checked lmfao dont say i didnt warn u

a key part of the whole thing is that korra gets way more perspectives and more experiences representative of like, normal people in republic city bc i think something that really defined what a good avatar aang was was how many people he met and got to know and how he didnt exclusively or even mostly associate w cops and bureaucrats and leaders. so mako and bolin. well first of all their backstories are a little more fleshed out and we get a less black and white view of the “triads” (lol) and mako and bolin’s experiences w them. cuz the show very much does the whole thing of like Criminals Bad but dont worry even tho mako and bolin did commit crimes theyre not Criminals!! so just a little more nuance on the alleged gang problem and the poverty in the city

korra does start out very naive w very black and white ideas (ex. “you guys are CRIMINALS?”) i think a really good way of developing her away from her sheltered naive worldview is putting her in whats clearly an incredibly complicated city w an absolute cesspool of political conflicts, ethnic tensions, the lasting effects of colonization, etc and having her try and understand the needs of “the people” in a more complicated way than “i have to save the good guys from the bad guys” ykwim? and i think the absolute WORST way to do that is what they did. bc we get mako and bolin who could contribute genuinely compelling thematic elements to the story: one parent who was indigenous and one who was from a colonizer background in the decades directly following the end of the war, kids who grew up in poverty apparently without any familial support, and who now are trying to be “respectable” members of society (especially mako). and then most of that is pretty much tossed aside bc asami swoops in w her capitalist dad and her piles of money and the class issue is just never talked about again.

so the way i’d fix all that is like. introducing more, like, normal people. some nonbenders, more workers, more immigrants, etc, to show what daily life is actually like for people. because. we dont know! we dont have any context about whether the nonbender oppression thing is actually an issue bc we dont KNOW any nonbenders with normal lives! and spoiler: the nonbender oppression thing is not an issue. bc it doesnt make historical sense. lok is set 7 decades after the end of the war. that is not by ANY stretch of the imagination long enough to heal from the scars of imperialism, ESPECIALLY not when lok is also set in a settler colonial state. like that fact should have featured PROMINENTLY in the political and social setting! realistically, nonbenders arent an oppressed class, earth and water nation people are, regardless of bending status! as in all settler colonial states, the colonizers and their descendants (in this case fire nation people) retain most of the financial and political capital, leaving the colonized and racialized immigrants (in this case earth kingdom and water tribe people respectively) generally impoverished and politically suppressed. like aside from the fact that theres no way toph would have become a cop, it’s so ridiculous to think that an established privileged class of fire nation colonizers would EVER accept being policed by earthbenders!

imagine how much more nuanced and interesting it would be to set republic city as a remnant of a colonial past still fraught w the violence and tension that colonialism and the associated ideology imposed?? instead of some vague ideas of criminal who wear 1920s outfits and harass shopkeepers think about why extralegal and violent groups like that might form! earth kingdom people trying to push for the reclamation of their land? ethnic groups protecting themselves against corrupt cops? ESPECIALLY w the history that the fire nation has of SPECIFICALLY jailing and killing earthbenders and waterbenders BECAUSE of the potential they have to resist against fire nation imperialism like it just makes no sense at all that earthbenders would be privileged on land that, 70 years ago, they would have been imprisoned on! like these various paramilitary groups falling along these different ideological or ethnic lines, fire nation or earth kingdom or water tribe, pro colonization or anti colonization, pro cop or anti cop, pro immigrant or anti immigrant, and then you juxtapose that w depictions of a govt thats failing to keep this all under control w tenzin trying desperately to keep it together despite the fact that it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the state has no interest in taking the conflicts seriously and would rather just point vague fingers at criminals and gangs? and THEN you bring in korra, who has no idea about any of this and thinks that all its gonna take is kicking some ass every couple days, meeting normal people who offer all kinds of different opinions abt the efficacy of the state and the different violent or nonviolent groups and ideologies clashing in the city and the way all this shit is affecting people’s lives and livelihoods and relationships w other citizens??

theres so much good shit there so many incredible things u could do w that like Where do we go after colonial atrocities? is it possible for a settler colonial state to take revolutionary or indigenous ideas seriously? is liberal reform enough in a state like this? and then all the growth that korra could do going from a simple black and white life about mastering the elements to this messy complicated sociopolitical knot of a city? and all the different kinds of characters u could introduce in this city? like why would u EVER think that the most interesting characters that this story has to offer is a police chief a congressman and a billionaire????

but anyways. that’s what the Setting of my idealized version of lok is. as for the actual plot, it is as follows

it starts out similarly as the show. republic city is MUCH more fraught w political tension and violence and korra knows this but assumes that it’s just a matter of throwing a few gang leaders and corrupt officials in jail. tenzin manages to come see them in the south pole and intends give korra real lessons while he’s there but they receive news of a terrorist attack in republic city only a few days after he gets there so his family has to pack up and leave again.

korra stows away to republic city (katara catches her leaving and gives her blessing im a SUCKER for that moment). she does have a hard time adjusting but she doesn’t do what she did in the show lol the first person she meets in the city is this older woman who works on the docks, directs her to a place where she can eat and gives her a roof to sleep under for the first night. so korra’s first exposure to republic city is just about forming connections w ordinary people like ship workers and a family owned restaurant and people practicing their bending in the park. and by the time she reaches air temple island a day or so later her head is spinning w all this new information and the way that nothing is really what she expected it to be. tenzin gives her his own perspective on everything and pema gives her her own perspective on everything and even those two seem wildly different from all the people she’s already met. and so korra starts to get a kind of outline of the conflicts plaguing the city as extremely complex and a lot more influenced by older ideas of fire nation imperialism and earth kingdom land reclamation than she had any idea about.

mako and bolin are still pro benders but not like. super famous like they are in the show. korra’s picked up a couple friends by now and one of them takes her to a gym where a lot of amateur pro bending (is that an oxymoron? lol) matches happen and thats how she meets mako and bolin and joins their pro bending team. Unfortunately for korra, this gym is run by lin beifong, and also has the distinction of being one of the most notoriously anti settler state organizations in the country. lin beifong is NOT a cop but she runs this gym (and the pro bending league) as a way to offer support to local earth kingdom/water tribe youth, teach self defense skills, a center of community organizing, and sometimes to act as a front to hide revolutionary/combat organizing against the pro fire nation paramilitaries/police force. tenzin is DISTRAUGHT that korra does this and this is where the friction btwn them comes from bc (from tenzin’s perspective) she does things like this without thinking or even fully understanding the context behind them and tenzin will have to deal w the political fallout of the avatar openly aligning herself w a very divisive figure in the community and (from korra’s perspective) tenzin is too unwilling to take sides in a conflict that’s claiming lives and when the state is clearly not taking sufficient steps to protect people well then why the hell shouldnt she align herself w lin beifong, who IS taking steps to protect and support people?

as korra more fully integrates herself into the city and learns more abt how different people think abt everything going on this is where the real exposition abt the equalists begins. they’re a paramilitary group w an ideology thats gaining increasing support among middle/upper class fire nation people, esp nonbenders. on the face theyre abt putting checks on “bender oppression” but really it’s an excuse to persecute and surveil earthbenders waterbenders and airbenders, bc fire nation people have all this leftover fear about benders who arent fire nation Rising Up Against them and these people who r using their Savage Excuse for Bending to terrorize good innocent (fire nation) people. theres all too frequent terrorist attacks that the equalists claim credit for mostly against monuments to earth/water/air nation people and earth/water nation community centers (one like it was the event that forced tenzin back to republic city) but also like the govt doesnt take a lot of these seriously or if they do only a couple people are charged without doing damage to the entire organization

this is also around the time that they meet asami and she becomes part of their friend group. asami likes pro bending but her dad HATES it so she sneaks out to watch matches at lin beifong’s gym (korra says ironically like don’t u know how ~divisive~ that is and asami answers that the only reason its Not divisive is that gyms like beifongs are the only place where nobody recognizes her). and asami alongside korra is also kind of developing a more nuanced perspective on the city that she lives in cuz obviously the only worldview she’s ever been exposed to is her father’s right? and she keeps pushing it off making excuses not to bring mako and bolin and korra around to her house or even not to be seen w them in certain neighborhoods until they call her on it and she’s like Well honestly my dad might do something awful to u! and i dont wanna risk it!

and as time goes on we see more abt asami’s home life like her father’s hyper conservative politics and asami keeps these secrets abt her hobbies and her friends from him but she’s still clearly under his influence and mako bolin and korra r getting increasingly worried abt it cuz like...asami seems to tend to make excuses for him so that she wont have to be drawn into conflict and originally they think its just her being privileged and thats def part of it but the more they find out abt it the more they realize what a tight fucking grip he has on her and the way that like. asami sneaking out once or twice a week is the Only thing she does for herself. and it really starts freaking them out how influential this billionaire is and all the information theyre getting from asami abt what a piece of shit he clearly is. and so that whole plot thing comes about and shows us how deeply embedded these “equalist” ideas are in conservative republic city politics and how much influence theyre actually having in policy making and law enforcement.

asami suffers in the aftermath of this like being forced to truly confront the harm her father is doing both to the city and to herself. and she ends up leaving home when this discovery really breaks. but bc of the deep corruption in govt and police sato isn’t really....dealt with? like this big story breaks and everyones like Oh, My God! Hiroshi Sato Is Funding An Illegal Paramilitary Group! and theres all kinds of inane political discourse about it and he’s arrested but he bails himself out immediately and his finances are examined but he maintains control over them and after a few weeks the gang (bc they Have become close among all this w much less interpersonal drama lol) has to admit that this news story hasnt done what they thought it was going to it hasn’t dealt the equalists a real hit its just given them a very high profile ally

and this is when things really start to ramp up in terms of action like up until now korra’s daily activities are mostly like hanging around in the city w her friends  (which in part entails doing little avatar stuff that people dont feel comfortable going to police with, like Can you help me my ex husband wont pay child support or Please help i got robbed and i really needed that money for rent next month or Help my son keeps skipping school can you talk to him cuz im worried abt him being safe and doing well in school) and pro bending and airbending lessons (which i know ive neglected this part of the story in terms of her whole spiritual/physical conflict but it’s more of a subtle thing like it’s one of tenzin and korra’s more frequent arguments like tenzin says she needs to focus on spirituality and korra asks why she even needs to bc republic city is a sociopolitical problem not a spiritual one) but now the equalist threat seems to really be looming on every level of society like the storyline of equalists preventing pro bending matches happens here and everyones just at a total loss of what to do next. plus increasing and scary rhetoric about tenzin and his family that destroying the last airbenders is necessary to preserving the integrity of the united republic

and so theres the equalist takeover of the city. the people who are mostly resisting this are lin and ragtag group of people who have been resisting colonial rule for a long time (including suyin, who is part of a communist anti colonial community outside the city, because i said so and i think it would be fun), people who have been visiting her gym for years, members of her amateur pro bending league, plus asami and korra and tenzin. korra and tenzin have a sweet moment (bc they do genuinely care abt each other a lot even if their relationship has been marked w a lot of tension and arguing) where tenzin says like you know i think that ive lost focus on the kind of spirituality that might actually help you. korra says what do you mean? and tenzin kind of gestures to where theyre sitting with people buzzing around organizing to take care of innocents and civilians and to fight the equalists and he says this is a kind of spiritual too, isnt it?

and something something plot plot blah blah i havent decided on the details of the plot climax yet but that’s the climax of korra’s character development and what helps her connect w her spiritual side in order to protect the city: the realization that community is its own kind of spirituality. and it kind of represents the real development that i want her to have going from somebody who thinks that the world is divided into criminals and victims and she has to save the victims Into the kind of avatar who understands the people that she’s bound to serve. she becomes an avatar of the people!

and then happy ending lol korra and asami get together lin and tenzin reconcile after years of being at odds the show ends on a hopeful note that the inhabitants of republic city and the united republic as a whole Can move on from the scars of colonialism by reckoning w the remnants of fire nation colonial ideology and reparations to the earth kingdom people whose land this is and destruction of colonial systems that have maintained and enforced colonial violence all these years

[theonceandfutureking6481]

BBC's Merlin Season 1 Episode 6: A Remedy to Cure All Ills Analysis

Spoilers for the show

This episode is interestingly about Gaius, it is his arc we see here, not Merlin's or Arthur's and so this is a very interesting episode to watch because it is a vision of the world of Uther, and a vision of Gaius' own flaws. It is a world Merlin and Arthur will one day change and redeem, but as of yet this is a story more about the past then the present.

Gaius

This is something I believe I will come back to later, I'm pretty sure there's another episode later on that also addresses this idea and that is Gaius' deeply flawed nature. We as an audience love Gaius, he's a good character and Merlin loves him like a father, so we can't really help but love him too. But Gaius is flawed in perhaps one of the most dangerous ways, he is not cruel or even a bad person in any real way, but he is a coward. He is the person who in the face of injustice stands by and does nothing. His flaw is in some ways the most understandable, at least for me, its hard to be brave and to oppose power is not easy. Gaius has been a coward and has been complicit in the pain and deaths of so many in his silence, although arguably there wasn't really anything he could of done to stop it. This is revealed most of all in an exchange he has with Kilgharrah (though the 'blind eye' is also mentioned with Edwin).

Gaius: I will not choose between them (Uther and Merlin)

Kilgharrah: Then turn a blind eye. That is, after all, your talent

This is one of the first times we've seen Kilgharrah openly express emotion aside from telling Merlin about his destiny, its perhaps the first hint that he is more personally invested than he lets on. And its in an interactions with Gaius, and you can hear the disdain in his voice. This dragon has been a mouthpiece for destiny, for everything that's going to happen, he's a mouthpiece for the future and in this you realise that he and Gaius have a past, that there is more darkness in the past then we've previously understood. In this you realise that Gaius has failed to be the person he should've been, he's been a coward, and he has betrayed an entire people in his silence.

Gaius elects to turn a blind eye again by leaving, in some ways he's choosing Merlin but in leaving he's making it so he's not really making that choice, he's leaving whatever will happen in other hands. And Gwen says one of the most powerful lines in the show when he tells her that he has no choice.

"In life we always have a choice sometimes its easier to think that you don't."

Cause we do, Gwen's right. It's dangerous and easy to think that you don't have any choice but one, and everyone in this show makes that mistake at some point. Uther probably thinks that he has no choice but to persecute magic users because they're are evil. Everyone seeking revenge on Uther thinks they have no choice but to do so, and in doing no choice but to let collateral damage happen. Because if you accept that there is a choice then you accept responsibility for your actions, you accept that you are responsible for any damage you cause. You may still make the choice, but you are accepting that it is a choice you choose and the results are one's you have chosen to be acceptable. But I also love Gwen's response when Gaius tells her that he is choosing to leave, its a non-choice and also in Gwen's view its the wrong choice, but she doesn't judge him at all for it. She just says "then I'll miss you." She doesn't expect him to be brave, and she continues to care about him even as he doesn't do the right thing.

There is another note here that will be of more relevance later on. Gaius is and has been a coward, but Merlin is his redemption. Merlin is the redemption for everything Gaius has done (or hasn't done) that has helped facilitate Uther's regime. Obviously in sheltering Merlin, Gaius is already rebelling in a more meaningful way then he has in years but later in the show he will make choices to support Merlin and his destiny that will redeem him, and like so much of the show it is for the love of Merlin that he makes them, emphasising the importance of love once again.

Edwin

In many ways this is an uncomfortable episode for someone who is both not a kid and has already watched the whole show. Out of every villain in the show, Edwin is in some ways set up as the least villainous. He takes no collateral damage, he risks Morgana's life yes but ultimately he gets Gaius fired and tries to kill Uther. He doesn't even try to kill Gaius until the end, his revenge is so proportional, so seemingly justified, he hates Gaius but he doesn't try to kill him. Ultimately the show (in this episode at least) doesn't really address that complexity, they have some last minute making Edwin more evil ( he tells Merlin that they could be all-powerful together, the trying to kill Gaius and Merlin (though that was an under danger from them situation), and his parents having practiced dark magic). This ultimately succeeds, and we can go away happy in the knowledge that good triumphed over evil. This works this early in the show, this early on and we are not really sure how to feel about magic, how to feel about the great purge, how to feel about Uther, so we can accept the shows presentations of Merlin protecting Uther with little questions.

Ultimately I'm not opposed to Merlin protecting Uther, but that's largely due to how the show questions it later, because the show does address it. It does address whether or not Uther should be protected when honestly most of those seeking revenge are at least justified in the killing Uther part of their revenge.

But this has not been addressed yet, so we're left with a villain who ultimately did not seem that evil being killed and then Uther being saved.

This is also paired with this episode being perhaps the first one to truly address the horror of the great purge. Edwin's backstory is chilling, the scars on his face are there because he tried to run into the fire to save his parents when they were being burnt at the stake by Uther. There's also this sense of a barely spoken history between all the older characters, Geoffrey and Gaius don't want to remember that time, Kilgharrah reminds Gaius of how he turns a blind eye, and even in Uther and Gaius right at the end.

Uther: Do you remember them, his parents?

Gaius: I remember them all, sire

This happens, even after everything that has happened in the episode, so the episode itself doesn't even entirely erase the confusion regarding Edwin, and we don't really know who was really right. It's also an interesting moment for Uther, a moment where we see his resolve about magic slightly shift, and there is a hint of unacknowledged guilt there.

The fact that immediately after this Uther apologises to Gaius really cements this, Uther rarely admits he's wrong and he only does so when his own sense of his rightness has been questioned. He doesn't admit he was wrong with magic (and he never will), but that feeling perhaps prompts him to be able to admit he was wrong to Gaius.

Why Gaius serves Uther

Now this is a question that's hard to answer, because ultimately Gaius does serve Uther loyally for much of the show, rarely opposing him and it goes somewhat beyond just not being able to do anything else because Uther's the king, and Gaius both can't do anything but also just isn't a very brave person (though that is certainly part of it). We do find out later that Gaius ultimately doesn't think Uther's a bad king, he believes that Uther on the whole is fair to most of his people (except magic users), he's not great but he's better than a lot would be. And you see the hint of that in:

Gaius: You have always done what you believed to be right

Gaius perhaps sees in Uther a king who isn't purely driven by selfishness, a king who does genuinely seek to act in the interests of the people, and I guess that's probably better than most kings.

I also think there's a warning in that, a warning about doing purely what you believe to be right. And by that I mean acting purely in accordance with your own feelings without reference to the possibility of being wrong. Doing what you feel to be right is not always the right choice, and its something Merlin does often consider, not only because consequences are often far beyond what one person can consider, but because you may be wrong. Every person is blinded by their own experiences, Uther's blinded by his anger and hate and he mistakes that for righteousness.

Also, ultimately I might note, Gaius is physician. Most of the time serving Uther does not ask too much of him, he saves lives, he helps people, he doesn't usually have to participate in the bad. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that he still does occasionally, and he is reasonably loyal.

I enjoyed this episode, but its never been one of my favourites and it's hard to go away from this one entirely satisfied that all right ends have been achieved. The show chooses not to fully address the moral complexity at the heart of it yet, and that's fine this is after all a children's show and we are still so early in it but that does mean that in setting up complexity and not going through with it there is a level of dissatisfaction, as we struggle really to know if right really won here.

[hoodlessmads]

Thoughts on Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka Vol. 3

I finally finished the Sayaka light novels and I really enjoyed them. They’re not high art but they don’t have to be. I just love Sayaka.

It’s been long time since I’ve engaged with Bloom Into You (basically since the manga ended) and reading these novels has given me a chance to remember how much I love the characters. Especially the titular character herself. (Well, technically Touko is my favorite character in Bloom Into You, but that’s a given since my favorites are always the emo disasters. Otherwise, the best character is obviously Sayaka.)

Why is Sayaka so great anyway? A lot of reasons, I think. I love her in the manga, but these novels really bring out her likable qualities by putting us in her head. Hitoma Iruma’s first-person Sayaka is exquisitely spot on and if you like Sayaka, it’s bound to be a joy to read just for that alone. I love how overly serious and reserved Sayaka is, traits that she has had since childhood but that have been compounded after experiencing multiple heartbreaks. But also how she constantly tries to be brave and change herself, even when she fails at doing so out of fear. And I love how lowkey judgy and snobby she is. But actually, at her core, Sayaka is just a very soft, kind, and good girl (Best Girl) who craves being loved and appreciated, whether she realizes it or not. She needs someone to break through that reserved shell. I just want someone to give her a hug all the time and love her.

Which brings me to the third novel, which was a joy to read simply because someone actually loves and appreciates Sayaka (romantically) in it. I feel pretty ambivalent about Haru as a character, but I’m okay with that because all I really care about is that she loves Sayaka. Well, appreciates her, at least. Here we have a character that finally fawns over Sayaka the way she has always deserved, damn it.

I know that Haru’s personality is really different from Yuu’s, but literally every time I looked at the illustrations of her I swear I could not see a different character. My brain was just like, “Yuu,” every time. Was that intentional, Nakatani-sensei? Was it? Because no one ever points out that the two of them look alike in the book itself, which makes me think she wasn’t intended to look like Yuu necessarily and Nakatani Nio designed her that way after the fact. I’m probably wrong. But like. Did they really just slyly ignore the glaring similarity in their appearance? Why does she look like Yuu anyway? Was Nakatani Nio trying to troll us, ship tease us, hint at something, or did she just have a hard time coming up with a more original design? (That last one, I doubt.) Plus there were literally multiple instances in this book where characters insinuate that there’s some kind of a thing between Sayaka and Yuu. Sayaka vehemently denies it both times, but it all feels a little “she doth protest too much” to me. I SWEAR TO GOD, STOP TEASING ME. I ship Sayaka and Yuu a lil bit so the ship tease is sending me.

I think one of the reasons I found it hard to differentiate between Haru and Yuu is not just her appearance, but the fact that I don’t feel like we ever get to know that much about her. In Bloom Into You, the relationships are so compelling because we really get to know them, their fears, their flaws, their regrets, their quirks. We don’t really get to know much about Haru except that she’s a lesbian, that she likes Sayaka, and that she’s a hyperactive go-getter. Granted, a light novel offers a lot less room to develop an original character, but still. The novel was 225 pages and focuses entirely on the two of them. I think there was plenty of room.

Also, Haru herself never really gives us much information about why she likes Sayaka other than that she likes her face, which is a funny running gag in the series, but still. The whole point of this novel, for me, was that I wanted someone to appreciate Sayaka for who she is. I think it’s clear that Haru does like Sayaka for her personality and not just her looks, but I wanted to know more about that. Since the novel doesn’t really explore the things they like about each other very much, it doesn’t make for a very compelling relationship, in my opinion.

But again, Sayaka is happy, she has a girlfriend, Haru likes her, all is well.

The second volume of this series gave me a newfound appreciation for Sayaka and Touko’s friendship, which is often fraught in the manga and gives off an impression that the two of them could never get closer because they didn’t really understand each other. A sort of genuine-ingenuine friendship. But reading that novel, I was able to look back on the manga with a new view of their relationship. They really did care about each other and they were genuinely close. If not for that unfortunate unrequited love situation, they could have really been best friends.

I was happy to see their friendship continue in the third novel, even though it makes me really sad to have it implied that their relationship has sort of concluded. I think it was a well-done conclusion, for what it’s worth. As sad as it makes me, it feels appropriate that their friendship would pretty much fade after this point. Sometimes things that are said can’t be unsaid, things are too awkward, and too many scars remain. It’s just how it is. Everyone goes through changing and fading relationships at some point.

I think it’s funny and so very Sayaka that she’s been dating Haru for like...eight months or something by the end of the novel and she’s still like, “No, no, it’s way too soon for sex, that would be so indecent!” and meanwhile Touko and Yuu went at it like basically right away. I find it hilarious to imagine Sayaka’s reaction to this. She would be so scandalized. 

Actually, there were several moments in the third novel where I really felt like Sayaka’s situation mirrored Yuu’s with regards to having someone confess to them and not really being sure how they felt about it but not outright rejecting it either. Their situation was uncannily similar, in fact, and I thought Sayaka really could have used talking to Yuu about it and getting her perspective. But then I realized that Sayaka still doesn’t know like, basically anything about Yuu and Touko’s relationship, and I get the vibe that that is intentional on her part. You can tell by the end of the novel, post-Haru, Sayaka is feeling much more comfortable with the idea of knowing things Yuu and Touko’s intimate relationship, but up until then she is understandably extremely sore about it. If she found out what Yuu and Touko had actually been up to during that period when she was still gathering the courage to confess, and found out that they had actually been involved for way longer than she realized, like all through her second year of high school, I’m sure that would sting like hell.

I think that’s it for my thoughts. It was fun seeing some of the other characters besides Sayaka post-series, if only briefly. Being greedy, I wish that Sayaka got better than Dollar Tree Yuu as a love interest (like really? she has to get the discount version of Touko’s love interest? jk) but I like Haru well enough, and I think these novels are well-written overall. Having Sayaka find the happiness she has always wanted with her a girl who genuinely loves her is the best way to conclude the Bloom Into You franchise that I could think of. A very satisfying send-off.

Of course, when I say conclusion to the franchise, I do mean not counting the SECOND SEASON OF THE ANIME ARE YOU READING THIS TROYCA HEY WAIT DON’T IGNORE ME YOU CAN’T IGNORE THIS WHERE IS SEASON 2 DON’T BLOCK ME I KNOW YOu’RE MA

[itsclydebitches]

About crosshair. Again lol

Regardless of his scar not lining up with chip scar or the headaches or “soldiers follow orders” again. Or him without a chip being a liability to the empire. I just don’t buy his personality change in the end. I’m the pilot episode they hammered it over our heads it’s very unlike him to follow orders. He said himself “empire or republic, what’s the difference?” But now in the end he cares about the empire protecting the galaxy? Responds to hunter his choice is “soldiers follow orders”? Wtf, really? So he genuinely believes his only personality is being a soldier now? when it’s been established in both in cw and tbb that cf99, including crosshair only cared about completing the mission. I get that people change but not that abruptly especially if we are to believe techs “unyielding” description of him to be true. Echo is the one true soldier of the group. He keeps repeating to hunter “we are soldiers not smugglers”, “there is no other way than being soldiers” etc. but he is clearly loyal to the republic. And I never saw echo and crosshair to be similar in that

So yeah , I think it’s very out of character for crosshair to just see himself as soldier and being content with following order or being a pawn(which he must realize he is cause he’s not dumb) especially with his mega inflated sense of self importance. Just my two cents

Crosshair is a complicated character! There's a lot to discuss :D

That's a good point though. And yeah, as acknowledged the quick personality change could be chalked up to chip influence if it's still having some kind of impact... but if it's not, then what do we make of that?

Putting aside the "It's just bad writing" possibility, I think there's a key difference between not following orders and not being loyal to the organization giving those orders. They're not necessarily the same thing, though it's easy to lump the two together. Yeah, we see early on that the Bad Batch isn't known for doing things the "right" way. Rex and Jesse are pretty unsure about their methods when the Batch first shows up in TCW. In the pilot Tech has a line about how "We're more deviant than defective" emphasizing that they tend to do things differently. Crosshair's sudden willingness to follow orders to the letter, not just in spirit, is questioned during their time in the cell, etc. So yeah, they don't obey the rules, but I don't think that's because they're not loyal. They're not refusing orders because pff, screw the Republic/Empire, who cares about those guys. They're refusing orders because they recognize that their way of doing things—the unconventional methods that deviate from the standard clone playbook—is more likely to net them, and the Republic, a success. They seem to be against the Republic's rules because they want the Republic to succeed, recognizing that their way is the best way to get that. Wrecker takes great pride in their successful missions, keeping tally marks on their room's wall. Crosshair is constantly pointing out how the higher ups called them in because the Regs couldn't complete a mission, likewise emphasizing his pride in being needed. When Rex and Hunter finally start bonding, it's through Rex's decision to charge the droids head on, precisely like the Batch would, rather than following the "correct" strategy of carefully picking them off from the tree line. They bond over the understanding of, "Yes. This is the best way the Republic wins." Perhaps most significantly, the Batch was still willing to complete missions for the Empire up until they were ordered to kill civilians. Killing Jedi resulted in an acknowledgement of how messed up that was... but no solid intent to leave.

All of the above is important because it establishes the Batch's need to be loyal to something other than themselves. The kind of loyalty that is shown through intense, life-threatening acts of service. Hunter's line about them being loyal to each other rather than some Empire, while true, is a simplification. Their loyalty to the Republic and their loyalty to one another overlap in many, many significant ways, simply because the Batch was created for the Republic. They have literally spent their entire lives living, breathing, fighting, and almost dying for the Republic. Their core identities stem from the Republic's desires: skills they want them to cultivate and even personalities they want to foster, if Tech's theories are to be believed (that conversation with Wrecker in the mess hall). The loyalty the Batch feels, those bonds they formed over the years, stem entirely from completing missions for the Republic. Their love for one another is, at least at the start, a product of the Republic's desire for Good Soldiers. And yeah, they sometimes did things the Republic technically didn't like, but it was always in service of achieving the Republic's end goal, whatever that may have been. They were very good soldiers, just soldiers that understood the value of creative thinking. "You want me to reach this location? Of course! I'll reach it by cutting across the grass, despite you asking me to follow the path already laid out. But our goal and the Regs' goal is exactly the same: fulfill your mission. That's our purpose in this life."

And then the Republic became the Empire.

Every one of these characters has a need to serve some higher purpose, to complete missions for the benefit of another. Overlooking the very literal ways in which they may have been genetically predisposed towards this (like the chip), and the cultural brainwashing that went on the second they were born (this is your duty, this is your purpose, this is all you exist for), this is, simply put, all they've ever known. Though it's possible to walk away from that need, it's by no means easy. So what saves the majority of the Batch from falling into that "Republic, Empire, what's the difference?" thinking out of a need to serve someone?

Omega.

I think it's crucial that the second they abandon one mission—killing civilians for the Empire—there's already new mission waiting for them to focus on instead—rescue and protect Omega, indefinitely. That's Hunter's thinking. We're not going to do A, we're going do B instead. All they did was put that single-minded focus onto a new target, but the focus—the need—still exists. And we see that throughout the first season, where everything the Batch does is in service to Omega. Their life decisions revolve entirely around her, from very small things (here's your own room on the ship) to the much larger (we need to stay on the move to help you avoid bounty hunters, even if we may want to find someplace to stay). The purpose of a soldier has been mapped onto the purpose of a parent, with the new, ongoing goal being "Raise Child" as opposed to "Win War." Putting aside for the moment the fact that this is an action-adventure show and thus exciting plot has to happen, I think it's notable that no one suggests non-soldier-y things to help them make money. Tech isn't offering his intellect as an easy way to make credits, nor Wrecker his strength. No one is seriously thinking of a planet they could hide out on, even from bounty hunters, so as to raise Omega in peace. They are still, fundamentally, the people they were during the time of the Republic, people who need to fight for something. Literally fight. It's just now they're chaotically fulfilling missions for Cid so they can give Omega a halfway decent life, rather than chaotically fulfilling missions for a general so they can give the Republic a chance at winning the war.

Omega is the new focus, the new Republic stand-in, but what happens if she's not an option? (Would have been really interesting to see what the Batch did if she'd actually left with Cut.) Without the chip affecting his thoughts, I fully believe Crosshair would have left with the others. Why wouldn't he? That's his family and, per Hunter's orders, Omega is the new mission. But the chip ensured he missed that chance and by the time he came out of it (if he came out of it), it was too late. His squad was gone, they never came back, and Crosshair needs to find a new place in this galaxy, just like they did. Except his options are far more limited and suck a whole lot more. I can't recall anything that implies Crosshair thinks the Empire will save the galaxy, but he does think it's going to control it and he's looking for his own purpose in this new life. Why not find purpose in the winning side? He can serve the Empire just like they served the Republic. He can serve the Empire just like his squad now serves Omega. The need to belong somewhere, to have that larger goal, outweighs those pesky ethical issues, at least for now. Though to me the "Good soldiers follow orders" really, really still sounds like chip influence, it can also be read as a broader acknowledgment that yes, they are fundamentally soldiers and yes, they do need orders of one kind or another. They need that mission. That goal. That purpose. Someone who helps to guide them in this new, crazy galaxy. Yeah, they've always bent and gotten creative with the orders, but until 4/5ths of them left the Empire, they'd never ignored the orders as a whole. None of the Bad Batch went, "I'm not taking this mission because the Admiral was an asshole to us about it and I don't feel like it :/" They suck up all the hard parts—the awful treatment, the danger, the general difficulty—because they have a goal to fulfill. They live for having a goal, literally in the sense that this is what they were made for. The Bad Batch is still doing that with Cid, putting up with bad treatment, dangerous situations, and general difficulty because they have that larger goal of taking care of Omega. Crosshair missed out on that, so he latched onto the Empire instead. Which circles right back around to previous points that if the Batch had tried to rescue him and/or been more welcoming when offering his return, Crosshair likely would have joined in on the Omega mission too. It's the best new purpose for all of them.

Crosshair sees himself as a soldier because, right now, being a soldier of the Empire is the only way he can find the purpose and belonging that the rest of the Batch maintained with each other and Omega, back when he was left behind. No, he's not dumb, but the logistics of the situation outweigh his knowledge that things are far from perfect. Do we think the Batch doesn't also realize that Cid is continually taking advantage of them with 70/30 splits? Of course not. But they need a way to survive and, right now, this is it. Crosshair likewise recognizes that the Empire is treating him as a pawn—I think he was in denial prior to the bombing, but now he definitely knows—but what other option is there? Not his squad. As discussed, he feels strongly that he's no longer welcome with them, with good reason. The only other option is to go off on his own, something that's incredibly foreign to clones who were bred to serve that higher purpose alongside many, many brothers. Yes, we've seen one or two who manage that—like Cut—but they're the outliers. Rex found his new purpose fighting the Empire with Ahsoka. The Batch found their new purpose taking care of Omega with each other. Crosshair's new purpose is... nothing. Not unless he swallows down his misgivings (and his ego) and keeps serving the Empire until a better purpose comes along.