#im saying it wouldnt have made sense narratively for it to end any other way it just wouldnt have made sense

[nomaishuttle]

i think she would kill her brother in any universe (said in a very sad voice)

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

[toxicsamruby]

hello! i have to ask: what do you think about supernatural au's where monsters don't exist/monster hunting is not a thing? do you think the characters could even exist out of that realm? i honestly have conflicting views on this because on one hand i do enjoy the character dynamics but i also feel it would be wrong to just take away something that is fundamental to this show, idk though

i LOVE this question. thank you. im going to write a very long post now

obviously there are infinite ways to interpret a story, right? but sam and dean (and castiel too of course) as characters are completely inextricable from their backstories, and their backstories are inextricable from themes of transience, poverty, loneliness, violence, familial duty, masculinity, otherness, american protestantism, horror, humanity, and monstrosity. i dont think that it’s Wrong to take away the monster hunting as an element in the story, but i DO think it would be bad storytelling to do so bc the fact is that these characters w these personalities wouldnt EXIST without a few VERY crucial plot points/themes. and thats a GOOD thing!! say what u will abt the writers (and i do. i do) but the early seasons do an EXCELLENT job of building characters who are inseparable from their stories, characters whose every action is reflective of the Story itself in a bigger sense, characters who are interesting because of the way that they’re used to tell that bigger Story. there’s a sense of cohesiveness between character and theme and narrative, and removing one of these aspects would lessen the other two. that is the mark of good storytelling (that, in my opinion, distinguishes seasons 1 and MAYBE 2 from all the rest; although funnily enough i think castiel’s arc in s4 is the best example of what im talking about outside of s1-2. but anyways).

without these crucial themes and narratives, who ARE sam and dean? why do they even matter? what’s the value of them as characters? aus that strip away all those VERY important themes and plot points strip away the actual artistic value of the characters, and reduces them to objects of the audience’s emotional whims. the only reason u have any affection for these characters in aus is because you know and understand the source material, and you remember why those characters STARTED to matter to u in the first place. this is something that happens in a lot of fanfiction i think: the most essential themes of the original work are ignored for the sake of emotionally expedient scenarios where both writer and reader can clock out of having to do a bigger analysis of the story and just focus on, for example, a certain ship getting together and/or having sex, or a certain character getting a happy ending. and like i wont deny that theyre fun to read! they are essentially transplanting already-developed characters from their already-developed stories into a new fun scenario without the themes and narratives that actually made the characters compelling. and sure, sometimes a truly good author offers us a compelling new set of themes and narratives, ones that are interesting and make us think, but i’d argue that the characters in those rare good fics are 1. not...really the same characters from the show, since the story they’re in has been so completely transformed 2. basically shortcuts for the author to cut their teeth on writing original fiction. in any case, a vast majority of fics that remove the themes and narratives of the original story DONT offer a truly satisfying replacement, so the point is almost moot.

my answer, in short, is that aus without monster hunting destroy the character-theme-narrative cohesion that all good stories require, and by extension doesn’t require either author or reader to think critically about the story as a whole. you know that joke that goes around about supernatural just being a crate full of toys that we’re all sitting around and playing barbie dolls with? that is what the fics ur talking about basically are. it isn’t seriously engaging with a story as a piece of art, it’s grabbing a few barbies from a box and putting them in different clothes. and i think the fact that supernatural does fall apart both thematically and narratively so early in its incredibly long runtime is what allows people to treat it as a box of dolls, because most of the time it seems like the writers themselves treat the show as a box of dolls instead of a story that deserves respect and care and thought. so i actually do understand the urge to play with the barbies, so to speak, and to a certain extent i dont even think it’s a bad thing. but i DO think that sometimes, especially online, ESPECIALLY with a show like this where the lines between genuine engagement with the text and playing barbie dolls gets so blurred, people actually start to lose track of which is which, and THATS what irritates me. people start to view the ENTIRE STORY as just a way to see their personal favorite character do what they want that character to do. the character (and their emotional attachment to said character) becomes the whole reason for the story, instead of the story being the reason for the characters. playing barbie dolls is fine! but it DOES need to be balanced out with actual engagement, with literary analysis, with criticism if the story needs it (and my GOD does supernatural need criticism!), and there needs to be an understanding of the difference between genuine analysis and personal loyalty to a character. 

like, not to be a snob or anything, but it is important to engage truthfully and fairly with a text. things arent good just because you want them to be good, and stories can only offer you genuine satisfaction and critical/artistic growth if you truly engage with them. engaging with supernatural means thinking/writing about monsters and the Other, and to remove monstrosity as a theme and narrative hollows out the story completely.

[aprito]

hello <3 since i got these asks at the same time i decided to combine my thoughts on them in this post. yet another annoying sjw essay from yours truly on this blog 

before i get into these i think i need to preface why im like. i guess overly hyperfocused on a certain unproblematic base (same age au / platonic canon) for them and avoid the ped0philic content like the plague lol

tw for pedophilia ment, rape ment if that makes you squicky. ALSO THIS IS LONG AND RAMBLY

as i’ve mentioned a couple times already, ive been into the ship since i was 12, back when it was very very common to not only post untagged (nsfw) canonverse content of the two in writing and in drawing but also non con and the like, so you can imagine how bad my first impression online was. thinking back on it ...as a child i found it disturbing but didnt really register how problematic it really was?? (i know, but i also lived in the middle of nowhere and had no one explain this to me) 

skip to 2014 aka me coming back to naruto at 17ish and i had kinda become hyper aware of the fact that there was an increasing amount of people online who had come forward with explaining how fictional problematic content, mostly pedophilia, had been used to groom them into starting relationships with adullts. it was also a time where a lot of people didnt believe these victims, not registering how common it was for minors to be online friends with adults who had no boundaries and no qualms exposing them such content. not gonna get into my personal life here but i was lucky to not having gone through this myself. like... it kinda was my first time truly realising how fiction can EASILY be used to manipulate others irl (and yes i will not argue this, if you dont think fictional media can form and manipulate people’s opinions on attitudes, countries, cultures and virtues, pick up a book about the effects of propaganda media at least once please) 

i, being young, still liking the dynamic but not really the romance, would point this out here and there in the fandom and get into fights with grown adults in their mid 20s who assumed i automatically hated the ship(s) and tried to restrict their freedom of speech or whatever, heard everything from the “age of consent doesnt exist in naruto” to the “sasori looks like a child what does it matter” despite people clearly playing on him being older and experienced. it made me so upset that people were just consuming all this content uncritically and exposing children to it tbh?? not really just sos but a lot of minor/adult ships in naruto in general. and thats where i sat down and thought, i do not want to be a grown adult talking down to children that point out how unsafe the fandom is. theyre absolutely right in drawing these boundaries and calling out adults who defend the uncritical consumption and creation of this content. i do not want to consume or create content that predators could use to groom minors, and i absolutely do want to let younger people in fandom know that i am respecting their comfort zones and want them to have a safe and fun experience. after all, naruto is not an adult show and i think a lot of people forget that!!!! i am not perfect in that regard but its something that i, at the age of 23, am very passionate about and strive towards to.

and i guess thats where same age au was born for me and i have been sticking to it ever since. 

so finally we can move to the first question 

aside from the fact that we both dont like canon sos, i dont think it would work out even if i wasnt prejudiced to it anyways. in all honesty, 35 year old canon sasori is not a redeemable character to me, given the fact that he’s easily amongst the cruelest villains in naruto (torturing and killing and taxiderming people for his own fun personal gain, never for a goal that served anyone but himself. how do you redeem having over 300 corpses in your backpack that you felt absolutely no remorse for killing). sasori was legit one of the only cruel villains that didnt had someone else pull the strings, which sends a clear message on kishi’s part, who absolutely loves to redeem villains LOL.

being that old, he obviously had already been very manifested in what he believed in, even if it was shakey, to the point where the first crack in that world view (sakura and chiyo protecting each other) immediately had him give up on his life all together. that, in my opinion, is not a man who’s going to know what healthy relationships would look like, regardless of it being romantic or not. 35 year old sasori to me has the same appeal as an expired can of tuna and he’s probably very happy 6 feet under. he’s supposed to be a failed gaara in that sense that he had no one to look out for him and therefore was never going to experience anything but a bad ending in life. its fine that hes dead honestly, it wraps up his short character development the best IMO.

adding to that, seriously, sakura was obviously interested in knowing why he was that way, and called him out for being seriously fucked in the head, but it’s weird to me that people assume she had any interest in actively rehabilitating him, let alone starting a serious romantic relationship with him. sakura who’s not only very, uhm, immature and straight forward when it comes to her romantic viewpoints also, as a big bootlicker, wouldnt soil her standing in the village by starting anything with a disgraced and far too gone criminal like sasori. shipping that version of sasori with sakura intimately is still going to set her up for a huge power imbalance that would be difficult to handle imo, even if she was the one in the fight ultimately exerting her power over him. i would still look at it and think damn she deserves better than having to play therapist for man like that lol.

additionally, even if you ignored all of this, you cant really ignore that sasori had already known her as a child, and that had been his first and most impactful impression of her. i dont think that sasori would look at 35 year old sakura and see her as a grown woman and not the little green girl she was in the fight. plus, you easily fall into predatory comparison territory between the “childish” and “womanly” and i have seen way too often in fic just being boiled down to her now being fuckable. a lot of of ships do this and i would just like to remind yall thats it not normal for adults to want to start relationships with children they have seen grown up or known as a child when they themselves were fully grown adults. therefore, maybe if sakura hadnt met sasori before it would be less of a problem? but that also obviously defeats the point of the dynamic and the reason he died in the first place. so yeah, it sounds kind of doomed especially if you were to make it romantic. 

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE SECOND QUESTION

let me preface this that im not fundamentally against age gaps, even if im not super interested in it. after all, colorblind had a 5 yr age gap (with sakura being 21), even if, say, i wrote similar fics today i probably would make it smaller lol. i think it can be handled well if both parties have enough life experience to deal with it, and the author is cautious of where the age gap starts, i think a 10+ year age gap would be fine in a scenario where the younger party (i guess sakura) was at least 25-27ish, meaning she has completed most of her most formative life stages and probably had been in relationships before, meaning she would be able to handle it without having to fear a huge power imbalance. the older the younger party is the less the age gap is going to matter tbh .TsukiHoshino and AngelOfDeath10 both handle age gaps in their fics really well imo, so i do not mind reading about them.

unfortunately, a lot of people in this fandom think making sakura barely "”””legal””””” (18, not even 20 which is hilarious to me because the source material is obviously japanese) because they both cannot stand her being past her “prime years” of being young fertile and fuckable to much older men as well as thinking a 20 year old is automatically old enough to handle that type of relationship. ive seen a lot of unironic takes that believe it will absolve them of callout posts if they throw around age of consent and “shes 18 now suckers!!!” enough lmfao. absolutely hilarious. aging a minor up without aging the adult down seriously reeks of predatory “cant wait until youre 18″ narratives and thats why i find it similarly disturbing as straight up pedo shipping.

ultimately, sasosaku is and will always be a inherently problematic ship in canon, which is why i think it should always be handled a little more responsibly in fandom spaces, ignoring or outright excusing the main problem factor, which is sasori, isnt going to convince anyone that the dynamic in itself is well written and interesting enough to explore in aus, like giving sasori the redemption most of us wanted him to have by aging him down to a point in time where he was still realistically going to allow being positively influenced, similar to gaara. 

so really, what i think is well handled age gap and how most people handle age gap in the naruto fandom are two different worlds at times lol 

tl;dr

canon shippers have never been anything but gross when i was younger and i didnt wanna be like that, even if youre “smart”enough to differenate, actual creeps dont really care and might use your content to blur the lines, sasori isnt rly redeemable so romantic canonverse realistically wouldnt make much sense and is still iffy, age gaps are fine if they are handled well, but given that the dynamic doesnt really need the age gap to still work im not that invested on making that an essential part of my shipping experience.  

thank you for reading and hope this makes sense!

[dumbdancemomssideblog]

S1E1: The Competition Begins

okie dokie first ever episode of dance moms rewatch starts now :0 i actually remember watching this the very first time it aired on lifetime because i was channel surfing and saw a commercial for it earlier that day. that was the summer between 8th and 9th grade. ah memories... i didnt know what to expect because i did dance when i was a kid but not on a competition team and it was mostly ballet so i was pretty unfamiliar with this whole world. 

anyway lets begin. this is probably gonna be a longer post than what i’ll end up writing for the other episodes in season 1 bc the first episode introduces so much info, just a heads up

Act 1: (aside: yes its insufferable to divide this into “acts” when its really just like “segments separated by commercial breaks” but thats how they’re called in actual tv scripts so im just going with that cuz i cant think of a better/easier way uwu)

god this is so fucking early 2010s lmao

i miss these days where they were just talented nobodies from pittsburgh on a low budget reality tv show that nobody even knew would be successful. and the bad hair and makeup but idk if that was also just a 2011 thing lol

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES GREEN SCREEN INTROS IM DYING

the chalkboard !!!! they werent doing the pyramid on the mirror yet 

(apparently abby never did anything similar to the pyramid thing but the producers made her and it became a whole Thing on the show and thats why the moms were like wtf is this bullshit the first week)

mackenzie looks like a toddler. chloe is so tiny. theyre the 2 who changed the most physically over the course of the show

i remember watching this for the first time being used to ballet lyrical and jazz but never having done or really seen acro/gymnastics in dance choreo and being SO flabbergasted. i was thinking “a chin stand is not dancing what the actual hell” and yknow what? i was right

melissa: “my boyfriend knows how much i spend on dance because he signs the checks...............hermehhemrherrmehermh” (the most awkward laugh omg)

maddie is wearing a fucking bumpit in her hair i cannot

melissa deadass just said out loud “im here for my daughter im not here to make friends” ok everybody mark that one off on your catty women’s reality tv show bingo card!

camera man accidentally getting in the shot filming right in front of the huge wall-mirror.... what is this, amateur hour? i’ll let it slide since its the first day of filming rehearsal but step it up, boys

aw i forgot about maddie getting sick and crying :/ poor kid

melissa saying “i cant stand a chid that’s sick” sounds so edited like the intonation made it seem to me like they just cut her off mid-sentence i love lifetime

oh this was still when they were wearing normal stuff to class/rehearsal like black leotards bc they werent getting sent a trillion crazy 2-piece dancewear outfits for free yet bc they werent famous, man those were the days

Act 2:

[obligatory b-roll footage of downtown pittsburgh] 

the maddie chloe paige trio !!!! this is making me feel so nostalgic

“knees together, paige. you’re bow-legged, you need to fix that”

“you’re tall, you’re skinny, you’re a beautiful girl, you can do better than this. FOCUS” shes like 10 abby what the hell

“people think im tough and i guess i am but i would rather be the one to make your kid cry in the privacy of my studio than at an open-call audition in front of hundreds of people”

okay unpopular opinion alert: i agree with a lot of what abby says about stuff like this but her delivery is flawed, to but it euphemistically, that being said i think the production team of the show and the fame inflating her ego changed all of this somewhere over the course of the second season and its really sad to see :/ i can expand on that thought later tho

aw paige crying bc abby correcting her (but not saying anything personal or out of line, just technique corrections (at based on what we were shown, we dont know everything she said oop)) shes a sensitive kid she never should have been put on this show :( 

paige looks exactly like her mom i didnt realize that before

nia and holly were done so dirty throughout the whole series in terms of the narrative the producers set up about nia being the weakest link :/ 

Act 3:

cathy’s entire involvement in the show from the very beginning was so painfully obviously scripted (or at least heavily staged) 

vivi was also done dirty by the show’s narrative and she was only 6 and they presented her as like the butt of the joke bc her mom’s “character” was crazy and also she wasnt good at dance. i wonder how she feels about the show now that shes a teenager hmm. she really seemed not to give a fuck about dance for better or for worse when she was a kid tho so maybe she doesnt care ?

in what universe would an owner of another competitive dance studio bring her own kid to another studio more than an hour’s drive away, AND be under the impression that she could compete with them in a week, especially when they showed the kids’ and moms’ shocked reaction at the start of the episode to having to learn a dance in a week and compete it? like really what is the point of cathy and vivi being a part of this show im so ????

Act 4: 

THE MINISTER DAWN OUTBURST HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT THIS

this fight is about 50% of what got them a full season 1 and then things took off from there tbh. the other 50% was the electricity dance but thats a point for next episode..... :)

“you’re a minister act like one” “YOU’RE RIGHT I AM A MINISTER! LET’S PLAY THE BIBLE GAME ABBY, WHEN JESUS SAW THINGS THAT WERE WRONG HE WENT AFTER THEM, AND YOU’RE NOT GOING TO DO THIS TO MY KID” ma’am i think the wrongs jesus addressed were of slightly more importance than a preteen being told she cant take a dance class if shes violating the studio’s dress code

this is so good bc it wasnt staged afaik and there are regular students all throughout the building just STARING at them like lmao what even is going on, so im pretty sure this is real???

regardless, yeah dont wear socks and a tshirt to an acrobatics class, thats common fucking sense

another cameraman-in-mirror sighting, but its hard to think about angles when filming spontaneous drama like this, so i wont count it against them

“you called me fat” (i remember that being in the episode but thats not on the episode available through lifetime on demand that im watching from my moms tv hmmmmmm) “i told you to close and tuck in your two-piece costume, theres a big difference. HOW CAN YOU REMEMBER THAT BUT YOU CAN’T REMEMBER TO TURN YOUR FEET OUT” uh scream

she really called the police on this woman i cannot handle this. can you imagine being a police officer responding to this call? 

“we have a parent thats out of control. pardon? no shes doesnt have weapons, just her mouth” iconic

im sorry im still not over the hair and makeup. the flat hair with the side bangs. the black pencil eyeliner applied all the way around the eye. why did any of us think this was a look :( why did we do this :(

Act 5:

they went all the way to phoenix to compete 3 numbers, only 2 of which are shown in the episode.

i think this is the only time they ever went to west coast dance explosion because its an actual competition and they wouldnt allow filming after this lol i think they did go to wcde one weekend in addition to a competition where they were filming but it wasnt shown or mentioned at all

abby not wanting brooke and paige to have a french manicure on stage if theyre the only ones in the group with the french tips is perfectly valid idk why it was framed as some crazy micromanaging shit

i also am really not a fan of the whole “high functioning alcoholic wine mom/crazy stage mom” schtick they were pushing for the first few episodes of this show

in retrospect i feel like so many of the quips in this episode were intentionally fucking crazy just to get the audience engaged enough to want to watch more episodes...

“see those girls down there, those girls with the legs? thats who you’re up against, so step it up”

abby warning them that its dangerous for their little party hats to slip when they’re doing aerials and pirouettes and stuff: “what if you were at radio city music hall and they had the ice rink out and you were doing a side aerial and fell 13 stories down and died, huh?” fantastic point abby thank you for saying that to 5 girls ages 8-12 less than 5 minutes before they went on stage. perfect time for a teaching moment like that :)

i forgot how bad the camera work was in the first few episodes for footage of their performances. like they really didnt think the show’s audience would actually want to watch the kids dance, the producers and editors thought we just wanted to see stage mothers yelling at each other lol

also the mic feed over the music of abby talking to herself giving them corrections while watching them dance on stage.... im so glad they quit doing that. i dont remember them doing it like that for any other episode, i hope im right

this choreo is very basic and its a cute dance i guess but its very cringe in some places and for the first episode this is such a forgettable group routine

their scandalized reaction to placing third and the sad piano music is so funny honestly

and maddies reaction in the interview which was almost definitely fed to her by the producers where shes like “i win all the time i dont really know what its like to LOSE i always win or get runner up” so many of maddies lines from season 1 interviews sound so fake and she was probably too naive to know they were getting her to say that stuff so they could paint her as a conceited brat (she was EIGHT)

the trio costume was so ugly im sorry (is it supposed to be like a 50s pinup bathing suit?) (and the headband thing looks so bad) and also the music is bad but they had no real authority over that bc of copyright stuff

chloe’s headpiece coming forward and the ensuing drama was another moment in the episode that really solidified public interest in the show imho.... 

“YOU’RE IN THE BAR HAVING A DRINK AND YOUR KID’S HEADPIECE IS FALLING OFF” “it did not FALL OFF it CAME FORWARD it was FINE!!!”

“mistakes happen, we’re human.” “YOU are. mistakes like that dont happen to me”

and then the “next time on dance moms” with the WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE electricity dance, of course. genuinely that was really smart of the producers in terms of structuring things to generate intrigue lol. and obviously it ended up working....

[heartofsurgingflame]

hey hi so basically would you please do us all the honor of maybe saying your opinions on all the characters of tcomc? I know you love V4, just curious about your opinions on everyone else

*CRACKS KNUCKLES* ok so im gonna put this under a readmore because theres a good amount of these bitches. i’;ll look on wikipedias list of characters so i dont forget anyone

dantes/monte cristo: I LOVE HIM A LOT ACTUALLY, i know i dont talk about him as much as i talk about veeyfour partly because everyone likes him so everyone talks about him but theyre tied for my favorite character .... i relate to him a lot and i want him to be happy :(

abbe faria: i dont tend to like static characters often but the concept of an old guy you meet in prison who knows everything and adopts you, and also hes a priest, is so fucking funny so i have to like him. rest in peace my old bro

bertuccio: he sucks because hes mean to v4- just kidding i enjoy him. he’s a good guy i think, definitely a better person than v4, only thing i can really complain about is his whole “oo benedetto is a nasty little man because i didnt hit him” for personal reasons i strongly dislike that but hey it was the 1800s

luigi vampa: ok so hes one of those people who you can only refer to them by their full name. i think hes good as well. wise bandit leader. monty how do you even meet these people

peppino: oh god i dont even remember this one that well sorry

ali: don’t like that he exists..... slavery’s bad

baptistin: dont remember forming an opinion on this guy either

jacopo: he’s cool i guess. i like how they changed him in 2002. absolute bro

haydee: THAT GIRL IS DAUGHTER TO ME i used to be ehhh on her but then i realized i just don’t like that she and monty get married. she’s fucking good

mercedes: *WAILING* definitely one of my favorites i get so emo over her i really wish she had a more fulfilling ending. i would like to have seen more of what she was like pre-dantes getting sent to prison too, she was really fun at the beginning of the book like she would Not take fernand’s shit

fernand: awful awful man and i think he should’ve suffered more but as a character i like him he’s just... kind of a moron but also evil and half of everything he says ever is a lie

albert: who could forget dear albert he’s fucking crazy in a good way like it makes sense because mercedes was very like... set in her decisions and kind of drastic with what she says in the beginning of the book. and fernand is fernand. like you know his parents are crazy so he’s crazy. he’s a good kid though despite being a rich brat

franz: god bless him he’s the only one who realizes monte cristo is kinda suspicious. unless you count countess g---- but she just thought he was a vampire. but it’s good to have franz itd be a bit boring if monty was like loved by everybody instantly

danglars: YES i like him a lot he’s just evil and does not feel remorse he’s really fucking funny too because he’s a cuckold but he owns it. you know

hermine: well she was fuckin . that’s her prerogative i guess. has good taste in men except for her husband. i think she can do whatever she wants

eugenie: *SHOOTS LASERS FROM MY EYES* I LOVE HERRR i take back saying her mom should be able to do whatever she wants eugenie is the one who should be able to do whatever she wants forever. like she was not in the wrong at all unlike some people in this book

villefort: ok i know you know bhow i feel about this man but i just want to say he’s like... i think i don’t have a single issue with him the way he’s written is just so good and i wouldn’t change anything which is insane. yes im serious i wouldnt even make him actually gay because, thatd be weird, he is evil. also i relate to him too not as much as i relate to monty usually but

renee: what did she do even i guess i dont have much of an opinion on her. i like her dog in that one fuckign i watched like 2 episodes of the british miniseries the one in black and white. she has a little fluffy dog in it

the saint-merans: i guess theyre pretty funny because theyre rich people and have to put up with the way that villefort is. i love how all of villefort’s extended family just destroys each other

valentine: not a huge fan of the subplot with her and max, like i understand its narrative purpose and i wouldnt take it out by any means but i dont really care about those two together. i do like her quite a bit though. she managed to break the cycle of being a shitty person because of your family and im proud of her for that

noirtier: LEGEND he made a few points. like fuck napoleon but noirtier at least had a spine , perhaps a bit too much but you know how it is. he’s really funny because he does not respect his son in any way

heloise: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I REALLY LIKE HER nobody properly appreciates her like i’ve seen people view her as just a punishment for villefort like   shes her own person. and though murder is bad shes kind of a victim of the way that society was. similar to villefort. the problem is capitalism am i right

edouard: WHAT son? i don’t have an opinion on him

benedetto: he’s the closest i can come to disliking a tcomc character. like i dont like that ali exists but that’s dumas’s fault. benedetto is uh. horrible. he’s a bit funny though (sorry i keep saying characters are funny) is it hypocritical of me to be like i dont like benedetto because he’s evil but like danglars because he’s evil? maybe

morrel: dantes’s dad #3. he’s a good guy i appreciate that he was fully ready to shoot himself to save his family

maximilian: i like him, not as much as i like valentine but he’s cool

julie and her husband: no opinion really. glad things worked out for them

caderousse: a merderer............ ok i actually like him i’m sorry i don’t pay as much attention to him as i do to v4 fernand and danglars i should. probably change that. i think its funny that wikipedia basically describes him as a tailor who turns to a life of crime

whatever the hell cad’s wife’s nickname was: ok so the chapter where she dies can be interpreted in a number of ways right like i know one is that caderousse was nervous because he had decided to kill her but i like the idea that she had the idea to kill the jeweler first and caderousse was like do i have to and she was like ya. and then he just decided to get her too in the spur of the moment. would have liked to know more about her

dantes’s dad: :( he was nice.... we get like one nice dad and he dies. ok morrel is there too but...

lucien: DANGLARS POLYCULE he’s REALLY funny i like him quite a bit. he’s like. snarky

ok theres like at least 7 other characters but theyre minor and i odnt have much in the way of opinions on them. that’s all

[sasukebarmitzvah]

what makes sasuke and narutos dynamic so compelling is literally that they are so similar and they are the only people who really understand each other and yet it takes them sooooo long to articulate that properly so for so long they just act out in different ways instead of talking about their feelings kfhdvsvsv like they SEE each other they CARE about each other even if it hurts. it wouldve made so much sense for naruto to follow sasuke out of the village at the end like again. they finally got to a place of mutual understanding they respect and care for each other so much. naruto values sasukes opinion and also has recognized how konoha has hurt each of them why wouldnt he want to go fuck off for a bit and spend time with sasuke. theres that thing naruto says to sasuke during 5 kage where hes like "i can see how easy it wouldve been for us to have been in each others places" like exactly. their narratives share parallels going back to their childhoods bro idk what im talking about anymore idk what the point of this post is i just wanna say that applying any sort of imbalanced power dynamics to their relationship is out of character and dumb and a disservice to their characters separately and together

[aplpaca]

ok so like the following is almost entirely looking way too into things and also loosely rooted in canon at most, but since the narrative reason for ferrings existing in era 2 is bc of more recent mixing with non-terris people (and theres a wob that sazed isnt the one who “split” it), and allomancy and feruchemy are at least partially genetic related, that and other stuff make for entertaining theorizing about what a hypothetical genetic mechanism for the two investitures could be.  i put the bullshit under the cut bc despite being super simplified and ignoring several things, its long af

So with allomancy, at first glance there are 2 more-obvious potential genetic systems.  Under one, each allomantic power has its own gene, with alleles to either express the power or not (no-powers allele would be the dominant).  A mistborn, in this system, would be someone who is expressing the genes for all metals.  Under the other, each allomantic power would be a separate allele for the same gene, with additional alleles for being full mistborn and a dominant no-powers one.  

However, neither of these systems really match whats seen in the books.  Under the distinct-genes system, you wouldnt have the all-or-one mistborn-misting dichotomy.  Itd be rare, but you would definitly have people with multiple, but not all, allomantic powers.  Under the different-alleles system, youd need 2 of the same allele for someone to be either a misting or a mistborn. Therefore, theyd be homozygous and could only pass on the same power to their children.  And since misting children dont necessarily use the same metal as either or their parents, that doesnt work. (straff would be a nightmare for this one like the ma was a tineye and managed to have elend with no powers, zane the mistborn, and a whole shit ton of other misting children, most of whom were not tineyes. and he had all his misting/mistborn children with skaa women. who would be super unlikley to carry any of those genes)

Jumping to feruchemy here, which was all-or-nothing in era one.  This dichotomy implies that all feruchemic abilities are included in a conglomerate gene sequence. They cant be separate genes or alleles bc if they were, ferrings would have been a thing for a while (and also that system wouldnt work as explained in the previous allomancy bit).  Since they werent a thing until the terris people started intermingling with everyone else post-lord-ruler, we can assume that whatever genetic factor results in the ferrings and mistings originated in allomancer populations.

So the “official” explanation is that with the intermingling, feruchemy genes began to “break apart” bc of the mixing with allomancy but im gonna ignore that bc genetics dont work that way.  Even if allomancy made sense as separate genes/alleles, interbreeding between allomancers and feruchemists wouldnt “break apart” feruchemy genes, youd just end up with a full feruchemist who has an additional misting power.  And since ferrings with no allomantic powers are also a thing, this implies that although the splitting of powers was introduced by allomancer poplulations, is it not the allomancy genes themselves that do it, but some other genetic factor.

So since having separate genes/alleles for the different metals doesnt work for  either of the two investitures, it would make sense for the metallic powers for both allomancy and feruchemy to be included within their single gene groups (for visualization purposes, the genes would be something “analogous” to metalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalmetal).  The powers that you end up expressing are controlled by some other genetic factor, like some complex suppressor or a difference in splicing of the genes, thats inherited separately from the actuall allomancy/feruchemy gene-thing.  

(brief splicing explanation here. so to make proteins, genes are copied into rna that gets taken out to give directions to make the proteins.  Splicing is how the rna copies of genes are cut before they go out to do the protein thing.  a lot of genes have more than one way they can be cut, and the different patterns will result in different proteins being made/different things being done, even tho they were copied from the same original sequence)

this hypothetical other genetic factor is what would have gotten introduced into the terris population to make ferrings (twinborn or not) a thing. additionally, it could also explain how kids can get different powers from their parents - theyd get the full allomancy/feruchemy genetics but inheriting different controls/splicers/whatever could result in different expressions of investiture than their parents.  yay.

(im gonna ignore more complicated stuff like “how could the same supressor/splicer/whatever would work the same way for different gene sets?” by saying that since both allomancy and feruchemy originally came from shards, my man Fuzz wouldve been like “here have these” and made them work on conveniently compatible genetic mechanisms to better preserve their functionality. also i refuse to put any more time into this so thats just going out the window. yeet.)

[pigletsbigmovie]

endgame spoilers i watched it a couple weeks ago here are my complaints lol

nebula and gamora...... were done so dirty lmao....... i am not surprised, i knew this was gonna happen but still.

i mean i really liked nebula in endgame! i love seeing how far she’s come since gotg! she played a larger role in this film than i was expecting and that was nice!

i just disliked the fact that she ends up killing her past self?? it’s such an example of the problem with these big ensemble films... other characters’ arcs take precedence over other characters and so like while killing her past self makes sense for the overall narrative... it doesnt make sense for nebula’s character arc....

or like how since this the last film in which we’ll be seeing all original avengers together, of course it’s them that are prioritized over other characters which means Of Course it’s tony that ultimately defeats thanos even tho really it makes more sense for thanos to be defeated by nebula and gamora and that would’ve been a rly big development in their arcs but guess not! i guess! no can do!

they tried to make the tony vs thanos conflict this Big Dramatic Thing but in reality it is sooooo impersonal....... which makes the conflict and the resolution of that conflict just not very interesting to me...

like imagine if the gotg films were it’s own franchise. no other marvel movies exist, it’s not connected to anything else, it is it’s own thing. then that would mean the gotg franchise has thanos for itself and those films would be leading up to the defeat of thanos which can be fulfilled by nebula and gamora because theyre protagonists of these films. imagine how satisfying that wouldve been!! like gotg has always focused on themes of family! that franchise ending with nebula and gamora defeating their abusive adoptive father with the help of their new found family wouldve been so emotionally impactful and satisfying!

but nnnoooo instead we get tony vs thanos. they don’t even know each other. they’re just that one guy that got in the way of their desires. just an obstacle. that connection is not deep enough to be interesting

ok i went off on a tangent there but back to nebula killing her past self.... Why. we know that given time, the nebula that we see can change for the better! we know bc we see that nebula right there! our nebula! but nooope instead of getting a powerful scene about nebula literally staring her trauma right in the face and how she feels about that now that she’s grown so much...... she just kills her? i mean she tries to appeal to her? but this past nebula isnt given the time she needs to grow! she’s just killed off with 0 compassion......... and it’s such... a sad and unsatisfying development... like there’s a difference between “letting the past die” and killing your past traumatized self.... like if her past self deserves to die and isnt worthy of compassion then that just goes against our nebula’s entire existence? she is the person she is in the present bc she was shown compassion and was allowed to grow! why is this nebula not deserving of that? it’s literally just bc it’s inconvenient to everyone else... thats awful.

then there’s gamora...... like she finds out about this future in which thanos succeeds in his plan and........... she fucking WAITS???? SHE WAITS TO STOP HIM??? IM SORRY BUT WHHHAAAAT THE FUCK??????

like!!! this is literally around the time in our timeline when gamora enacts her plan to ditch thanos and steal the power stone for herself as soon as she finds out that he’s found it’s location in order to stop it from getting into his hands. you’re telling me that gamora waits A LONG SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME after thanos gets all the information he needs to get not just the power stone but ALL THE OTHER INFINITY STONES before attempting to stop him?? YOURE ASKING ME TO BELIEVE THAT?? THAT SHE WOULDNT IMMEDIATELY OR AT LEAST AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TRY TO STOP HIM?

like if i remember correctly, by the time she teams up with future nebula to try to stop thanos, he’s already made significant progress in formulating/enacting his plan to get all the infinity stones..... like she doesnt try to sabotage/steal the information re:time travel in order to keep thanos away from the stones??? it doesnt make sense. it does not make sense that she would wait i cant get over it what the fuck alsooo...... while im glad that gamora isn’t just Dead now and that there’s an alive gamora out and about.... it Upsets me deeply that this isnt our gamora lmao. and this isnt just me being unnecessarily sentimental. it just sucks storytelling wise. gamora underwent so much development from the 1st gotg up to infinity war...... and now all of that is all Gone bc new gamora didn’t experience ANY of that! like saying her development was retconned maybe isn’t exactly true bc all of that development still happened and is Canon but... it’s basically all irrelevant now bc! again! this gamora didnt go through any of it! when peter and gamora reunite in infinity war and peter is emotional and gamora is like What the Fuck? like ha ha yeah funny but...... peter and gamora are very important to each other. theyve been through a lot together. whether or not you like their romance is whatever but them telling each other “i love you” in infinity war was such a HUGH DEAL considering everything they went through as individuals..... and now that development is Gone. and it sucks.

rly i felt all the female characters in endgame got the short end of the stick in this movie :/ like sure theres that One Group Shot... and sure it made whiny men cry so that’s great... it’s cool but like it felt so shallow to me! the bare minimum! very few of the women in that scene actually significantly contributed to the plot of endgame.... like it’s So Easy to put all these women in one shot but it’s a whole other thing entirely to give those women actual Roles in the plot. they even fridged another women in the Literal Exact Same Way they did in infinity war! the exact same way! like the 1st time they did it was unnecessary and unjustifiable to me and then they really went and did it again exactly the same! ALRIGHT! COOL I GUESS!

also captain marvel was so hyped up as being the Key to defeating thanos but the film comes out and i dont think she’s even in it for like 5 minutes total screentime. i mean i wont lie. seeing her fight thanos no problem was really really cool and i loved it but then it lasted what? 10 seconds? 

idk it’s just. rly rly easy to give superficial nods to the strength of these women and while, yes, it bothers whiny man babies and isnt harmful... it’s still superficial <:/ like these are just tiny itty bitty baby steps. it’s 2019 please allow female characters to play larger more significant roles in stories..... alluding to their strength is not the same thing as that. hire female writers.

overall i didnt have a Bad Time watching this movie? i actually laughed plenty. all the scenes with scott are wonderful. but overall the movie was just... fine... and left me feeling empty and indifferent like a lot of other mcu films leave me feeling <:) despite it’s faults i enjoyed iw a lot better and so endgame felt anticlimactic to me which is yknow. bad. considering it’s supposed to be a big finale.

sorry to be a big ol No Fun Allowed boy but i mean. the thing that i find so attractive about these films is Character! like ive only rly enjoyed a handful of mcu films but the reason i keep coming to watch the new ones is bc the idea of these characters is so attractive to me! this expansive superhero universe gives a big opportunity to explore a whole bunch of different characters and a whole bunch of different character dynamics. and while for the most part the mcu is good at producing distinct, conceptually interesting characters.... theyre generally not very good at utilizing them and building them up... which is why they leave me feeling empty

[morceauoleander]

its been almost a year since i wrote a post about what i think about August/raz’s relationship. i worded it more like a defensive stance against people who formed extremely negative views of Augustus, n nowadays im not very happy with how i said that. i understand why people have theorized or assumed much more negative things about Augustus based on what we’ve seen in game but i also hope other people feel free enough to form different views as well- a majority of talk here in the community is... majorly headcanon based or theories off of what we have seen, aka expanding the narrative because we only have so much right now. i respect everyone’s ideas on it as we really have yet to confirm any thing for sure. i do hope we find out what is up in PN2 for real though considering we will likely see Raz’s fam.

im going to properly explain my own ideas of how i think Augustus was with Raz and his family! you do not have to agree with my theories and ffs please dont be mean to me if you disagree, im just taking what i see from canon.

SO

ever since I looked over raz’s first vault again, and some people a while back gave their own commentary, this is how i assume Augustus to have been with his family.... I think Augustus is aware of him and other family members (raz, himself, frazie, maybe more) being psychics. I dont think Augustus was abusive to the point of actively telling his family not to ever practice psychic abilities and that he hated them for it (after all we know raz assumes his dad hates him simply because his dad didnt actively encourage these abilities...even tho raz suspected his dad had the powers too)- i think he just....didnt actively indulge any of his family in it. I think he just never wanted to bring it up in detail (possibly because of fear), his kids knew they had abilities but were never actively encouraged to practice them or use them so they generally didnt- instead they just did their family circus thing. And i think because of their travelling circus life style, they never actively heard or learned about “psychonauts” and whatnot and thus none of this family would ever think more about psychics outside of their little powers- that is until Raz came across it. Of course he was enamored to find that people actually did all this cool stuff with their abilities. 

Now this is where Raz’s first vault comes into play. Raz seems to have left the day he got this pamphlet and his dad tore it up.... it may not seem major but i think looking at his family’s expressions in the background is kinda important and kinda led me to some ideas

with the face’s of his family in the background, it makes me think they didnt expect that??

considering the short time span of these events (getting the article, his dad seeing it and ripping it up, raz leaving) and the reactions in the background, i think this burst of anger from his dad was not long term and was definitely new to everyone

The big problem imo with what we are presented is a lot of what we hear are clearly assumptions Raz has made after running away practically night-of, about his dad. When his dad appears it seems there was some miscommunication, right? His dad certainly didnt seem as mean as in Raz’s mind when he gets to him in real life.... and his dad doesnt seem to hate Raz for his powers, in fact his dad has powers too! So is this correct...? Are they just hiding deeper abuse..? Well, i dont think what the game shows us is wrong exactly, i think we are seeing some rash assumptions Raz is making about his father. I also don’t think Augustus hates Raz the way we are led to believe by Raz for a majority of the game. Honestly, I think it was just some impulsive reactions on Raz and Augustus’s end- Augustus was irrationally angry and tore up Raz’s dreams right in front of him without finding time explaining further, he could’ve talked it out instead and risked less in the end. Raz ran away because he was upset, and he didn’t stop to say anything because his dad failed to take a moment either.... I dont think Augustus was actively that mean before hand though- i dont think there was “abuse” that was long term exactly- i think because Raz never being opened up to anything psychic related made Raz not trust his dad however. His dad did not give enough positive reassurance to Raz that he wouldnt be mad that Raz wanted to be a Psychic. I think a lot of it was left so vague to Raz he didnt think his dad would react that way ever. 

dont take this as me saying “both are in the wrong!” - no no. raz IS a kid, augustus is an adult. it is fully Augustus’s fault for not telling Raz that he didnt actually hate him for his powers- rather he was probably more afraid because of the Galachios and what they did and that putting himself out there as a psychic could get him into a lot of danger. but my conclusion is that Augustus was abusive in a long term sense- rather his family never actively went into their psychic abilities after they were cursed. just never even spoke of it, did everything to not mention psychics in their family- but that led to raz never realizing his dad (or mom) had any fears or issues related to psychics, thus leading Raz and Augustus into that issue when Raz wanted to be a psychonaut.

(we dont know when that happened- i want to assume it happened to them all at a very early point, maybe before the kids were all born or old enough to know about it, so their parents just kept psychic stuff on the down-low ever since)

[samwinchesterisourhero]

Sam WInchester: The Reluctant Hero

When we wonder in frustration, as to why Sam seems to suffer more than Dean does, instead of being angry at a narative bias, or assuming the show runners hate Sam, take into consideration that Sam and Dean, though equally heroic, are different types of heros  Dean is a willing hero. He has been proud of his job as a hunter since he was young, even if sometimes he was bored with it, or would have liked to persue a career as a machanic. From what we see in flash backs, Dean was boasting “Im a hero!” since high school, where Sam just wanted to be like every other kid.  Sam’s first choice in life is not to be a hero. Not directly anyway. He was studying to become a lawyer.  Azazel said he was becoming a Tax Attorney, but Dean saw him as a Criminal Justice Attorney in What is and What Should Never Be, which I think is more fitting for Sam. The indirect hero that would get justice for the victims. He would make a wonderful psycholigist also. Dean would be a very good cop, or soldier, or first responder.  This is not to say Sam wouldnt run into a burning building to save a family, he most certainly would, but his interests seem to lie mostly in long term after care. So for Sam to be in the front line with Dean, is something he does because its the right thing, not because it’s his chosen life path (early life anyway. he has stated in his later life that he did chose this life for himself) and this makes him a reluctant hero. The problem with that though, is that in literature, the reluctant hero always suffers the most. 

Its no argument that Dean suffers too. Both brothers have broken my heart on many occasions, but Sam’s suffering over any event, stretches far past the season he suffers it in. This is so we, the viewers, have an idea as to how much of a hardship Sam is willing to endure to save Dean and to save the world.  Sam and Dean both willingly went to Hell, but their experiences were greatly different, and unfolded on the show wildly unbalanced. Dean sold his soul for Sam, so Sam would live. He didnt want to go to Hell, but he did it willingly. in Dream a Little Dream, Dean said to his dream self, that he didnt deserve to go to Hell, and even though he made the choice on his own, I think we all feel like it’s a horrible punishment for a guy who just wanted his little brother to live. I know I hoped they could find a way to get him out of the deal, but unfortunately, he didnt. He stayed in Hell for 4 months, or 40 hell years. He was tortured by Alistair for 30 years until he became a torturer himself. Cas raised him out of Hell, completely whole, even old scars were gone, but we didnt know for a while that the memories were haunting him. How did we find out? Because he told Sam. He tearfully confessed to Sam on more than one occasion, what happened, what he did, what it felt like at the time and how it was hurting him then. What came of it is that he got to confront his torturer, and even though he couldnt kill him himelf, Sam killed him for him. Dean got justice.  Sam on the other hand, also willingly went to Hell to save the world, but he felt like he was mainly at fault for breaking the world in the first place, when it was expressed that it wasn’t only him, and he was completely unknowingly breaking it when he did. He obviously didnt want to go to Hell, but he felt it was the right thing to do. What he got for that though, was his soul in Hell, canonically, for 1.5 years, 180 Hell years. He was torured by Lucifer himself in the most brutal ways imaginable. Cas raised his body, soon after he went to the pit, but we arent given an exact amount of time, whether it be an hour or so, or a few weeks, we just know he was physically out for the majority of the year, but I can’t imagine 10 minutes in the cage with Lucifer is a picnic. However, he came back incomplete, without his soul, which endured unimaginable torture. If that’s not enough, while soulless, Sam did things he wasn’t proud of when he got his soul back, and suffered with this, Once he got his memories of Hell back, a whole new level of suffering began.  How was this handled? To our knowledge, he never told anyone the details of his Hell tour. All we know about it, was shown in flash backs and hallucinations, that ended up driving Sam insane. Sam was “fixed” by Cas, by simply shifting the pain to himself, not by Sam talking about it, or confronting his torturer, or anyone killing Lucifer.  Sam didnt get justice in any sense, and he still carries all of this with him. He has even had to work along side Lucifer to try to stop Amara. No one even brought this up, even though Sam had very recently been back to the cage and had to face Lucifer and the trauma all over again.  Season 13 and still Sam hasn’t been given justice or seen closure when Dean’s was answered in only a few episodes. How can we not see the imballance? Well, when we look at it as Sam is the long suffering Reluctant Hero, suck as it may, it makes more sense. It plays into the narrative that the pain piles on Sam, and Sam stuffs it down. We ourselves may forget this happens, if the show itself didn’t bring it up.  The case of Tracy Bell for example. A girl that pops up out of nowhere in 9x2 for no reason than to remind Sam that he let Lucifer out and people got killed. I know a bunch of you blame the writers of the episode for that, as though they hate Sam or Jared, but that was part of the Gardreel story. Something that the producers must have told the writers they wanted. “Bring something painful up from Sam’s past, so that when he feels good at the end of the episode, we can be reminded that theres an Angel healing him from the inside” is probably close to what was said in the meeting. We the viewers need to be reminded that Sam never lets things go, at the same time as he never really speaks of them either.  It took 13 seasons, but Dean confirms for us in 13x4 that Sam doesnt admit things or it makes them real, and then he has to deal with it. Sam even confirms it himself in 12X3 when he says he knows Mom is burying herself in hunting instead of dealing, through years of personal experience. Now that we understand this is part of Sam’s character, we can better understand why we dont get to see his emotional POV very often, and his traumas rarely get worked out.  The differences between Sam being the reluctant hero, and Dean being the willing hero, manifest in many ways.  Dean gets very antsy if its been a few days that they havent had a hunt to go on. Sam however, is content to stay home researching. Their short time of trying to live a domestic life with their girlfriends shows reluctant vs willing also. While Sam was with Amelia, he had nothing to do with hunting except reading the news paper and believing other hunters were taking care of things. He refused to tell Amelia about that part of his life. Dean didnt hunt, but he kept it at arms reach. He kept devils traps in the door ways, a rosary in water under the bed and a gun nearby, and he let Lisa know all about that part of his life, and even tried to live it and maintain a life with her.  Dean is the kind of guy who will show you every scar and tell you the details of how he got it, while Sam will hide his scars. Dean suffers when innocent life is lost, but he holds on to the fact that he’s saved more people than he’s hurt and it can help him make it day to day. Sam feels like he failed if he didnt save someone. This is precicely why Sam suffers the burdens of his wrongs for years,  and Dean doesnt. Dean did a lot of crap while he had the MoC but he hasnt had to visibly suffer from it after the fact. Sam however, is reminded of his poor choices for seasons after the fact. Now since its not a matter of Sam goes to jail for things and Dean doesn’t, we only need to realize its part of maintaining a character trait for us, so we dont forget that Sam never forgives himself and suffers for years over what he considers failures.  Now, this willingness vs reluctance shows in their relationship also. Im not going to try to prove one loves the other more, because I am convinced that Dean is #1 in Sam’s world and Sam is #1 in Dean’s world and they love each other as much as any two people can love each other (to steal from the mouth of JP) they both take care of each other, and neither had to be told to do so. Even when Sam was too little to actually take care of Dean, he still did the best he could by wanting to be with him, and giving him gifts. Dean didnt have to learn 100 ways to make mac and cheese, he did it because he wanted to make Sam happy. That being said, lets move on… Sam’s reluctance in their relationship, isnt that he loves Dean less, or doesn’t want to protect him, but his biggest fear is letting Dean down. He can save Dean’s life a million times but considers himself a failure if he let Dean down. Dean’s biggest fear however is Sam dying. He can let Sam down, he can piss him off, but if Sam isnt alive and well, Dean considers himself a failure. When Sam assumed Dean was dead in S8 and didnt look for him, he was going on a promise that he wouldnt look for him. Since we didnt get enough insight to Sam’s state of mind at the time, Im going to assume that Sam was crushed that Dean was dead, but for himself, it was more important, that he didnt let him down by breaking that promise. He saw how angry Dean was when Dean thought he made a deal that raised him from Hell, so he “knew” Dean would be disappointed if Sam looked for him now. Dean however, needs Sam to be alive, so he will risk Sam being disappointed and possibly hating him, as long as he’s alive.  So now in S11 its brought up again, that Sam didnt look for Dean in Purgatory, and Sam hadnt forgiven himself for it, its not the writers hating Sam/Jared, its showing us that Sam still hasnt gotten over letting Dean down. He’s a long suffering character, and doesnt see that he was justified in his actions, but instead blames himself for inaction. This fits right into Sam not finding a Win in a case where he couldnt save everyone. He knows he helps more people than he hurts, but the fact that he hurts people at all outweighs the good in his eyes.  There will be a time Im sure, and hopefully soon, given the events of the last 2 seasons, that Sam may collapse under all this weight. Maybe he will have some time to voice how badly things hurt him. But if he doesnt. try not to write it off as no one caring about his character, but understand his character feels like a burden if he unloads to people, even, and especially to Dean, who Im sure he believes has enough burden on his shoulders, without Sam sharing his. So try to be patient my friends. This would come out differently if it was a written story. The writer would be able to show us inside Sam’s head easier than they can this way. The only way into Sam’s head is through someone vocalizing it. If Sam does, then we dont see him burying things, if someone else does, it sometimes looks like hes being picked on for no reason…. but there is a good reason. It’s to keep his character consistant as the longsuffering reluctant hero. By @missjackil

[ravenaveira]

People that say Taka was the best team/friends for him is like saying a drug addicts friends who are also drug addicts are whats best for them simply because they went along with and encouraged their habit rather than trying to get them help and off a toxic lifestyle

Just because you have friends that support your bad habits doesnt mean their good friends and whats best for you

Friends who try to get you out of that toxic lifestyle to a better place where your clear-headed and healthy THOSE are real friends who want the best for you

I know this is a weird topic to touch on after the previous episode which I'm not downplaying because I thought it was wholesome, but the fact that people blatantly ignore how toxic and unhealthy Taka was for Sasuke AT THE TIME really just rubs me the wrong way

Do I think his relationship with Team 7 perfect? course not, but you can definitely see the difference between how TRUE friends behave and how enablers behave

Whenever Sasuke talked or thought about Team 7 he viewed them like family and precious bonds he had to cut in order to focus on and pursue revenge

Whenever Sasuke talked or thought about Taka he treated them as strictly subordinates, we never see him bothering to interact with them other than pursuing his goals and once they were no longer needed? he discarded and abandoned them without a second thought, he didnt even know Karin was an Uzumaki or that he even met her in the past which shows how little he cared about any of them on a personal level, the only one I can say Sasuke even remotely cared about to that degree is Jugo

None of them tried to empathize with Sasuke, none of them tried to talk to him about his struggles or problems and let him suffer alone, none of them cared for Sasuke to that point and if they did then they had one hell of a way of showing it

So my point? yes I think Sasuke cared somewhat about Taka in his own way and yes I think Taka cared for Sasuke as well I'm not saying they didnt, I'm just saying they didnt care enough

And it seems crazy to me that the same people who complain about the injustices done to Sasuke and his clan are the same one who support Taka and them supporting Sasuke and his crimes against pretty much everyone

Yes killing Danzo was a good thing but it was still a crime, Sasuke and Taka joined Akatsuki and tried to kidnap the 8 tails which was a crime against the Cloud village, Sasuke attacked the 5 kage summit and every single kage there making him an international criminal regardless if his goal was just Danzo it was still a risk of them getting involved, Sasuke just being a rogue ninja joining another rogue ninja is a crime, Sasuke attempting to kill all the 5 kage after the war would have been a crime

Yes some injustices can be resolved through violence but that is not the one and ONLY solution, Sasuke going rogue unfortunately even from a narrative standpoint yea it needed to happen for him to train with a Sanin etc but the only way to resolve Konoha’s injustice was to go through the right channels and expose to corruption that was in it, once Sasuke left and started committing crimes he lost the moral high ground and anything he said or did would easily be ignored and just thought of as another crazed Uchiha who deserved to die

You can argue yes but then Naruto and Kakashi could have said something once they found out but by that point it was like Temari said, it was FAR too late for Sasuke and even with the truth revealed how does that excuse his actions at the summit? against Bee? joining Akatsuki? killing Itachi and Danzo MIGHT have been able to be excused but the rest? there's no way that was getting overlooked even with the corruption exposed Sasuke was still just as much in the wrong now

I'm a huge Sasuke fan but even I can acknowledge that not every single one of his actions was 100% right and just, his actions towards the people who actually wronged him WERE in the right, but his actions in everything that didnt? yes he was in the wrong no ifs ands or buts about it

So for those who think Taka is so much better for Sasuke because they supported his criminal actions [except Jugo I believe he’d be fine either way] but not Team 7 who wanted Sasuke to stop his criminal actions and return to his senses and be in a healthy condition again, truly make me wonder if they actually care about Sasuke’s well being or just think everyone who isnt a yes man to everything Sasuke did somehow dont care about his feelings or the injustices done to him and just wanna change him

Yeah, change him for the BETTER not worse, if anything Taka tried to do the opposite of that but hey I guess being a bad influence is better than being a good one

And listen we can go back and forth all day about Sasuke's situation after the war because I agree wholeheartedly that thats bullshit, but realistically speaking the fact that some things about the Uchiha massacre are unresolved like those two elders even being allowed to breathe, realistically speaking what CAN you really do? the Uchihas are dead and the main man responsible is dead and Hiruzen who failed to stop it is also dead so what would exposing everything do at that point? everyone directly involved is DEAD so exposing it really is pointless even if only to clear Itachi’s name which I'm gonna say something alot of you wont like

But the Uchiha’s were not all innocent victims, atleast not the ones involved and planning the coup, yes they were treated unfairly but does that mean the best approach to fixing this is to overthrow the government? how does that make you look? your proving their suspicions of you right by attempting to be the threat they all think you are, that is NOT how you get your point across and demand justice for your clan by planning a coup that would result in many lives lost including your own

Does that mean do nothing? course not, but if you want their trust then you have to EARN it and if you want justice and equality then go on strike and refuse to serve them until their willing to talk and compromise, seriously the Uchiha was a HUGE asset to Konoha so them refusing to obey and offer their services definitely would have gotten their attention and force them to listen and find a compromise, if that didnt work they could have tried spreading the word to fellow citizens and gain their support as I'm pretty sure not EVERYONE in Konoha felt the same way towards them and would have joined their cause for equality

But no, they chose the path of violence and it resulted in their entire clan's downfall and they end up with NOTHING but a bad name, so what did they gain? absolutely nothing, so was it worth it? NO

So lets stop acting like Konoha’s the big bad villain that did nothing but wrong and the Uchiha’s were pure innocent souls that did nothing wrong to deserve what happened to them because Ima say it THEY DID and their downfall was entirely their own fault for their approach, was it right? of course not genocides never ok and just as the Uchihas could have found another method Konoha could have as well so they were both in the wrong not just one or the other

Itachi also isnt a saint for the same reason the Uchiha’s and Konoha isnt and thats choosing the wrong approach to resolving the problems, there were many other paths he could have chosen but he chose the worst ones every time so just clearing Itachi’s name because of his good intentions wouldnt be right because his methods were beyond fucked up on so many levels

So my point is Sasuke was a victim of both sides wrongdoings, Taka didnt help with that at all, Team 7 tried to empathize and tried to understand and console him and save him from himself, its just that Sasuke didnt let them and pushed them away and thats of no fault of theirs since they did try but mainly Sasuke and them being mostly in the dark about everything

Yet Taka knowing almost everything didnt even try to reach out to him or help him cope in any way, Karin you’d think would understand and get through to Sasuke the most, cared more about her lust for him and seeing his ‘smile’ than actually empathizing with him and helping him through the turmoil he was in, Suigetsu made it clear he was out for himself from the start and Jugo is just wholeheartedly loyal to Sasuke no matter what

The fact that in the end, Sasuke makes no attempt to visit them until he needs them for something speaks volumes of his attachment to them, I think Taka thinks more of Sasuke than Sasuke does of them

He didnt even say goodbye to them before he left for his redemption journey nor did he bring them along on his years-long mission which again speaks volumes

So all Im saying is, Taka being the best team for Sasuke and his true friends is complete bull because I have yet to see any argument or reasoning for this be anything other than he chose them and that they went along with everything he did without question

If you have a better reason for why you think this then please share with me I welcome it maybe you can change my mind, but as of right now all the arguments I see is bullshit or occasionally shipping based which isnt a legitimate reason btw, so if you can be civil then I'm all ears

Note: I didnt mention the other Kages because it should be obvious their ways were screwed up as well and ruined a lot of lives, however what does Sasuke’s idea of basically ruling as a dictator resolve? how does that fix and reform the system? Sasuke wont live forever so what happens when he dies? he cant be the enemy that unites everyone once he’s dead and gone it’ll return back to how things were and thus mission failed another Uchiha dies for nothing, Sasuke’s approach to the situation was just a temporary solution not a permanent one and one that wouldnt last long anyway so lets not pretend Sasuke had the best solution to the problem when in all honesty both his and Naruto’s solutions were flawed and it makes sense that they’d work together using both methods rather than one and compromise, again we can argue about Sasuke’s situation after the war all day but fact of the matter is just gotta accept this is what it is and move on, at least Sasuke achieved partially what he wanted which was a bright future for the next generation and the villages to be at peace with one another without the need of a common enemy anymore, are things completely resolved? no, but its progress, and 15 years is nowhere near enough time to fix decades worth of damage so its still a work in progress and will be for a long time

[loyalbreed]

M Y    G A W A i N     V  S   whatever the fuck people think about him. Im throwing hands down in this post so lets go. A few things before we begin, there are no real canonical?? Ages--to be honest I find this to be debated rather widely. I always hc Gawain to easily be my own age in his Mid 20′s due to where it is he is taken in life. I’m going to apologize in advance the names of some people slip past me, as someone who works 40 hrs a week and is trying to research other things at the same time!! My ability to retain information isn’t as good as I use to be. FURTHER there are many iterations always of the Arthurian Legends. As well as mass amounts of thesis and research material, this is my own pull from reading what I have. O O 1 .  ( This may be a bit touchy please read at your own risk! ) The Tale of the Green Knight is a story about Gawain more or less finding himself. He is youthful at this age in my interpretation he’s roughly in his teens. My biggest gripe and interest in this is the whole Ordeal with The King  ( Bercilak ). Gawain asks to say in his castle for the time being, waiting for his challenge etc. Bercilak agrees on one condition, whatever gifts he receives that he must return to him by the end of his stay. My  G R i P E and own individual interpretation which imo heavily reflects his personality as of now when dealing with women. Is ONE OF HIS GREATEST challenges in this story is his plight with Chasity. Gawain had that more or less taken by him, pushed and pulled--forced on him to think about. The Grand Ol’ King sends his wife purposely every knight to Seduce Gawain. Who refuses her, where he often times is just there sitting. Admitting that she is most beautiful and coaxing his nerves that he finds her most darling. She pushes himself onto him time after time. Night after night. And he is subjected to this. In some narratives it is him desiring her back but making the choice not to because he knows it is the right thing to feel. In others he is most uncomfortable, where its described she is kissing him where he is just there feeling it.  What  i m p o r t a n c e  does this have? A lot actually;  Imo Gawain is a victim in this story. First of all he is unacknowledged that in some cases his own damn mother put this all together. To ‘Challenge’ him as a man and a Knight. Forcing a woman onto him to test his ‘Chasity’--which if we all Know Gawain is thrown out the window as he often finds himself wooing women and before the battle of Camlann comes to Arthur in a dream surrounded by women. However he is forced into this subject at the beginning of his ‘Youthful’ endeavors as ALLOCATED in the story this is PRE KNIGHT Gawain this is one of is basically the story that makes him who he inevitably becomes!! So yes this is established in a air of his youthful tidings.  Also I think this is a great underlined issue on how people don’t think men can suffer the same things women do when they are forced into sexual situations they dont want to be. Hey so lets remember that.  ALSO HEY, afterwards he is put in situations afterwards where women are woo’d by him most easily. Want him. Desire him. Etc, I do not recall reading a moment where he was ever quipped with the desire of WANTING someone himself. Not at all. He loved and enjoys women, but there was not entirely a moment where he himself pursued anyone specifically? If there is I’ve yet to read it and there are far more times where the latter is true. Take the story of Ragnell, Arthur fucks up and in order to save his ass he needs basically to ship his favorite Nephew ( GAWAIN ) off to some old hag lady. Gawain much obliges, he understands and loves his King. Admitedly doing anything for them. The story of Ragnell is great I’d love to write a meta( like with the Green Knight )about that but rn, the point is. Gawain didn’t want to marry her it was an arranged marriage. So when he comments about having left his marriage behind and wishing to pursue women freely again. Like at least he knows what he wants? 10/10 .                 And ontop of that, despite it turning out all well in the end. Gawain was the MOST hospitable husband. He was loyal to her. He loved her. He respected her. And he made damn well sure he was the man he need be for her. It’s stated time and time again that Gawain was a Knight established with this romanticism about him. As if to say he was more or less the ideal Knight for women. This is established more in all sorts of literature as he is always very endearing toward standing up for women. And believing in what women do and their own choices. Further I stated that Gawain never truly pursued women and was always swept up by them in text. Gawain is use to making women happy, when he is around he is most pleased to make them smile. To see them smile. He is around women and they ARE ALWAYS happy. That is just how it is-- FOR ME I INTERPRET THIS as a means that he MUST ALWAYS make women happy. He almost sees it as a job or a conditioned fault of his that he must do. And if he fails--then this is bad on him as a knight and as a person. It is sad in a sense that with a lot of his literature imo it comes off this way, that he just need be this way. he must always be the Knight whom women most love and respect. But what does this have to do With N A S U ‘s interpretation! Actually a lot!!!!!!! I love Nasu’s version of Gawain its rather spot on save for a few sexist things that I feel are a matter of cultural differences. That could easily be omitted and chalked up to Gawain being an idiot, rude, Blunt more likely, or just daft. Most of his rude comments are almost always because the other person has done something that he himself feels its warrant by to say. Where as someone may state ‘well you should know better.’ Gawain would out right tell you, ‘You were stupid and deserved what happened to you.’ As such is the difference, Gawain calling Nero a Whore despite being an adversary of women in arthurian legend marked me as odd??? For Nasu to do that, something I kinda was like mmmmmmmmmmmm. I do not agree, but then I remember how hot blooded Gawain actually is in Arthurian Legend. He has killed people for lesser reasons, started fights because he didnt get his way, and ultimately was a bit??? A brat. So him being mad and choosing the route of acting like child and making rather uncomely comments could make complete sense. Im down for this aspect / interpretation of Gawain. Even the comments about breasts and constantly having a taste or judgement of women. Which makes me laugh because I joke he is a fuck boy cause he kind of is? But he would never? Like he might tell a woman ‘You are not my type because I like this type of women.’ It would not be to insult them but to make that evident! But in my interpretation I make it that he has fetishes ( big breast etc ), but would genuinely adore all types of women. Also that he would be a bit dejected and confused if a woman denies him but he wouldnt be so much as--harmed by the ordeal?  Tbh hes more like THOR so I append any comments I had jokingly though Gawain to be mildly sexist. It really isn’t that he is not purposely saying bad things, he genuinely likes women. Wants women to be women and do women things. HE just knows what he wants. Likes what he likes and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE WOULD PROBABLY TAKE A YANDERES LOVE AND BE LIKE???? OH SHOOT YOU WANNA KILL THE PEOPLE I LOVE??? I UNDERSTAND U ARE MOST EXCITED BUT I BEG OF U TO CEASE AT ONCE! Also if they kill him hes just like ‘well u are most welcome to try ma’dam.’ GAWAIN STRAIGHT UP WALKS IN ON BRYNHILD AND SIEGFRIED--WITH BRYN HAVING TIED HIM UP AND STRAIGHT UP WAS LIKE oh this is normal I apologize for intruding. As wel las Hakuno and Kiara--like Gawain is just stupid/daft/is chill with a lot. Which honestly if you put in aspect of a lot of the things with what I said prior. It can all tie neatly over and make a lot of sense.  Okay I think Im done venting/talking about him in this aspect!! I don’t condone his rather shitty words he’s an ass and says a lot of stupid shit. But I enjoy that he has personality--like dont get me started on his loyalty. This was about him + women + his lore and how this effects my interpretation thanks for reading.

[missjackil]

Sam Winchester: The Reluctant Hero

When we wonder in frustration, as to why Sam seems to suffer more than Dean does, instead of being angry at a narative bias, or assuming the show runners hate Sam, take into consideration that Sam and Dean, though equally heroic, are different types of heros  Dean is a willing hero. He has been proud of his job as a hunter since he was young, even if sometimes he was bored with it, or would have liked to persue a career as a machanic. From what we see in flash backs, Dean was boasting “Im a hero!” since high school, where Sam just wanted to be like every other kid.  Sam’s first choice in life is not to be a hero. Not directly anyway. He was studying to become a lawyer.  Azazel said he was becoming a Tax Attorney, but Dean saw him as a Criminal Justice Attorney in What is and What Should Never Be, which I think is more fitting for Sam. The indirect hero that would get justice for the victims. He would make a wonderful psycholigist also. Dean would be a very good cop, or soldier, or first responder.  This is not to say Sam wouldnt run into a burning building to save a family, he most certainly would, but his interests seem to lie mostly in long term after care. So for Sam to be in the front line with Dean, is something he does because its the right thing, not because it’s his chosen life path (early life anyway. he has stated in his later life that he did chose this life for himself) and this makes him a reluctant hero. The problem with that though, is that in literature, the reluctant hero always suffers the most. 

Its no argument that Dean suffers too. Both brothers have broken my heart on many occasions, but Sam’s suffering over any event, stretches far past the season he suffers it in. This is so we, the viewers, have an idea as to how much of a hardship Sam is willing to endure to save Dean and to save the world.  Sam and Dean both willingly went to Hell, but their experiences were greatly different, and unfolded on the show wildly unbalanced. Dean sold his soul for Sam, so Sam would live. He didnt want to go to Hell, but he did it willingly. in Dream a Little Dream, Dean said to his dream self, that he didnt deserve to go to Hell, and even though he made the choice on his own, I think we all feel like it’s a horrible punishment for a guy who just wanted his little brother to live. I know I hoped they could find a way to get him out of the deal, but unfortunately, he didnt. He stayed in Hell for 4 months, or 40 hell years. He was tortured by Alistair for 30 years until he became a torturer himself. Cas raised him out of Hell, completely whole, even old scars were gone, but we didnt know for a while that the memories were haunting him. How did we find out? Because he told Sam. He tearfully confessed to Sam on more than one occasion, what happened, what he did, what it felt like at the time and how it was hurting him then. What came of it is that he got to confront his torturer, and even though he couldnt kill him himelf, Sam killed him for him. Dean got justice.  Sam on the other hand, also willingly went to Hell to save the world, but he felt like he was mainly at fault for breaking the world in the first place, when it was expressed that it wasn’t only him, and he was completely unknowingly breaking it when he did. He obviously didnt want to go to Hell, but he felt it was the right thing to do. What he got for that though, was his soul in Hell, canonically, for 1.5 years, 180 Hell years. He was torured by Lucifer himself in the most brutal ways imaginable. Cas raised his body, soon after he went to the pit, but we arent given an exact amount of time, whether it be an hour or so, or a few weeks, we just know he was physically out for the majority of the year, but I can’t imagine 10 minutes in the cage with Lucifer is a picnic. However, he came back incomplete, without his soul, which endured unimaginable torture. If that’s not enough, while soulless, Sam did things he wasn’t proud of when he got his soul back, and suffered with this, Once he got his memories of Hell back, a whole new level of suffering began.  How was this handled? To our knowledge, he never told anyone the details of his Hell tour. All we know about it, was shown in flash backs and hallucinations, that ended up driving Sam insane. Sam was “fixed” by Cas, by simply shifting the pain to himself, not by Sam talking about it, or confronting his torturer, or anyone killing Lucifer.  Sam didnt get justice in any sense, and he still carries all of this with him. He has even had to work along side Lucifer to try to stop Amara. No one even brought this up, even though Sam had very recently been back to the cage and had to face Lucifer and the trauma all over again.  Season 13 and still Sam hasn’t been given justice or seen closure when Dean’s was answered in only a few episodes. How can we not see the imballance? Well, when we look at it as Sam is the long suffering Reluctant Hero, suck as it may, it makes more sense. It plays into the narrative that the pain piles on Sam, and Sam stuffs it down. We ourselves may forget this happens, if the show itself didn’t bring it up.  The case of Tracy Bell for example. A girl that pops up out of nowhere in 9x2 for no reason than to remind Sam that he let Lucifer out and people got killed. I know a bunch of you blame the writers of the episode for that, as though they hate Sam or Jared, but that was part of the Gardreel story. Something that the producers must have told the writers they wanted. “Bring something painful up from Sam’s past, so that when he feels good at the end of the episode, we can be reminded that theres an Angel healing him from the inside” is probably close to what was said in the meeting. We the viewers need to be reminded that Sam never lets things go, at the same time as he never really speaks of them either.  It took 13 seasons, but Dean confirms for us in 13x4 that Sam doesnt admit things or it makes them real, and then he has to deal with it. Sam even confirms it himself in 12X3 when he says he knows Mom is burying herself in hunting instead of dealing, through years of personal experience. Now that we understand this is part of Sam’s character, we can better understand why we dont get to see his emotional POV very often, and his traumas rarely get worked out.  The differences between Sam being the reluctant hero, and Dean being the willing hero, manifest in many ways.  Dean gets very antsy if its been a few days that they havent had a hunt to go on. Sam however, is content to stay home researching. Their short time of trying to live a domestic life with their girlfriends shows reluctant vs willing also. While Sam was with Amelia, he had nothing to do with hunting except reading the news paper and believing other hunters were taking care of things. He refused to tell Amelia about that part of his life. Dean didnt hunt, but he kept it at arms reach. He kept devils traps in the door ways, a rosary in water under the bed and a gun nearby, and he let Lisa know all about that part of his life, and even tried to live it and maintain a life with her.  Dean is the kind of guy who will show you every scar and tell you the details of how he got it, while Sam will hide his scars. Dean suffers when innocent life is lost, but he holds on to the fact that he’s saved more people than he’s hurt and it can help him make it day to day. Sam feels like he failed if he didnt save someone. This is precicely why Sam suffers the burdens of his wrongs for years,  and Dean doesnt. Dean did a lot of crap while he had the MoC but he hasnt had to visibly suffer from it after the fact. Sam however, is reminded of his poor choices for seasons after the fact. Now since its not a matter of Sam goes to jail for things and Dean doesn’t, we only need to realize its part of maintaining a character trait for us, so we dont forget that Sam never forgives himself and suffers for years over what he considers failures.  Now, this willingness vs reluctance shows in their relationship also. Im not going to try to prove one loves the other more, because I am convinced that Dean is #1 in Sam’s world and Sam is #1 in Dean’s world and they love each other as much as any two people can love each other (to steal from the mouth of JP) they both take care of each other, and neither had to be told to do so. Even when Sam was too little to actually take care of Dean, he still did the best he could by wanting to be with him, and giving him gifts. Dean didnt have to learn 100 ways to make mac and cheese, he did it because he wanted to make Sam happy. That being said, lets move on... Sam’s reluctance in their relationship, isnt that he loves Dean less, or doesn’t want to protect him, but his biggest fear is letting Dean down. He can save Dean’s life a million times but considers himself a failure if he let Dean down. Dean’s biggest fear however is Sam dying. He can let Sam down, he can piss him off, but if Sam isnt alive and well, Dean considers himself a failure. When Sam assumed Dean was dead in S8 and didnt look for him, he was going on a promise that he wouldnt look for him. Since we didnt get enough insight to Sam’s state of mind at the time, Im going to assume that Sam was crushed that Dean was dead, but for himself, it was more important, that he didnt let him down by breaking that promise. He saw how angry Dean was when Dean thought he made a deal that raised him from Hell, so he “knew” Dean would be disappointed if Sam looked for him now. Dean however, needs Sam to be alive, so he will risk Sam being disappointed and possibly hating him, as long as he’s alive.  So now in S11 its brought up again, that Sam didnt look for Dean in Purgatory, and Sam hadnt forgiven himself for it, its not the writers hating Sam/Jared, its showing us that Sam still hasnt gotten over letting Dean down. He’s a long suffering character, and doesnt see that he was justified in his actions, but instead blames himself for inaction. This fits right into Sam not finding a Win in a case where he couldnt save everyone. He knows he helps more people than he hurts, but the fact that he hurts people at all outweighs the good in his eyes.  There will be a time Im sure, and hopefully soon, given the events of the last 2 seasons, that Sam may collapse under all this weight. Maybe he will have some time to voice how badly things hurt him. But if he doesnt. try not to write it off as no one caring about his character, but understand his character feels like a burden if he unloads to people, even, and especially to Dean, who Im sure he believes has enough burden on his shoulders, without Sam sharing his. So try to be patient my friends. This would come out differently if it was a written story. The writer would be able to show us inside Sam’s head easier than they can this way. The only way into Sam’s head is through someone vocalizing it. If Sam does, then we dont see him burying things, if someone else does, it sometimes looks like hes being picked on for no reason.... but there is a good reason. It’s to keep his character consistant as the longsuffering reluctant hero.

[kosmicdream]

im at work binging the ffak faq tag because fuck it (also its 76 pages) and I have a Q: do you think you've had any significant changes to ur influences from 2 years ago?

Omg Im so sorry, the ffak faq is in.. a desperate need of organization. Its something i want to try to get to at some point but it also really overwhelms me. Thankfully though I don’t think i’ve gotten this question!

I’d say yes? there has been a couple significant changes in my influences. I’ve been through a lot in the past 2 years and some of my tastes have reflected that. However its probably not a whole lot. I’m the kind of person that is very nostalgically committed to things, so once something has made its way into my heart at some point it pretty much just stays there forever. Even if i don’t really think or care about it that much I’ll reflect on it and what about that work might have influenced me as time goes on. I also dont really take the time to experience new media. If i do, i want to experience all of it at once in a binge reading experience and I can really mess up my schedule in the result of doing that lol.

I’d say the biggest impact has been Vinland Saga which I think I read sometime in.. I think after july in 2017 sometime..? I’m not completely sure of the date, but it was in 2017. I love Vinland Saga so much now that I think its my favorite manga at this point. A place in my heart where I used to reserve for.. Berserk, i think. Berserk used to be (and of course still is) one of my strongest inspirations but my feelings towards it have kind of gotten more and more sour and critical even though I still deeply appreciate it and I wouldnt be the same artist without -- I still want to see the fruition of that story. But. Its not really my sweetheart anymore lol. I think its a common thing to relate berserk and vinland saga as well (or at least, I’ve seen the comparison quite a lot in reviews?) despite how those two stories are actually significantly different from eachother and its probably kind of a cheap comparison to make. (i think berserk is often just Used As A Comparison To Things because Its Berserk. Its just that kind of series.)

BUT the reason why I’m using it here, is that for me-- both these comics affected me very deeply, during very dark times in my life, and unlike in berserk which almost sucked me into a deeper depression of hopelessness-- vinland saga had a resolution of sorts that felt cathartic, healing and hopeful. in a way i have not really experienced in a story before. it was genuinely one of the BEST reading experiences i have ever had and even if that story is still unfinished, the conclusion of an arc was enough for me to feel like i got a satisfaction from this story in a way i didn’t expect to come at ALL or so early. It makes me feel so happy in my heart and I love it so much for what it gave me. (I also was very fond of thorfinn from the beginning of that story, which i usually dont care for protagonists that much, its usually some other character i get attached to.)

I don’t really expect berserk to give me a ‘pay off’ at this point and so I’m kind of thankful that i have found another series that i can connect with in this very specific deep way like i did with berserk, but also kind of gave a sense of closure so that I can almost appreciate berserk more now instead of feeling bitter towards it. I dont need it to do anything more because vinland saga helped give me that already. Vinland Saga also, from a visual standpoint, inspired me a lot to work more on my art and pages. (or specifically, spend more time on my pages to make them look better.)

I think besides that comic, which is the hands down #1 biggest influence, i also have very recently read Houseki No Kuni/Land of the Lustrous and it also inspired me quite a lot but in totally different ways. I could probably go on and on about it as well but I think to summarize my feelings is that it made me excited about manga again. I want to see more stories like this which are creative, yet simple and flexible and the art perfectly compliments the narrative. It really feels like the artist knows what they want to talk about and they are comfortable drawing in the way they like to.

Other comics I have read recently and its completion are: FMA, Eden: its an endless world!FMA was very solid and I feel it completely deserves the attention it gets but i also don’t feel like I really need to think about it anymore now that I’m done reading it??? I guess its almost too polished for me? I still am thankful i finally decided to read it and I enjoyed it a lot. Alphonse is wonderful. Eden made me annoyed for... a lot of reasons LOL but I also really think its going to be a comic that ill dissect my emotions over and think about in detail. and i can really appreciate when a story might not really be my think but was different and still interesting enough to make me fuss over. Also for whatever reason the scans i read of that comic had hilarious, and i think purposefully so, sound effects and i have not laughed so hard at such inappropriate moments in a manga ever before and I think that makes that reading experience so special to me. in such a strange way. and i absolutely want to use sound effects like in that comic.. thing

I think in the past 2 years i also finished rereading Parasyte (because i never got to the ending when i first started reading it) and i also kind of feel kind of a mixed bag with that story. The premise was so exciting when i first read it years ago, i think in 2010 is when i first read it, but i ran out of volumes and never got back to it. Now that i finished it I was like oh that was it? ok i guess. and I dont really feel like i was as excited about it.I also read Devilman in the past 2 years and that was interesting? to reflect on from like, a historical significance point of view but like. I didn’t super duper get into it. It almost felt like a needed reading requirement that i had put off for way too long and Now i feel like I have a better context to the evolution of many of my favorite comics and where they draw influence from in this series. (Also it was very fun to watch the yuasa adaptation recently bc yuasa is one of my biggest art influences for his kemonozume series specifically)

Hmm I’m trying to think of anything else, but honestly Vinland Saga feels are still pouring thru so I guess... vinland saga lol.

Oh! I finally read Pluto by Naoki Urasawa in the past couple years (i think) and, like, i already love Urasawa (Monster is hands down one of my favorite comics/animes), i love tezuka (i will literally read anything he made), i knew id adore Pluto and.. i did! I think one of my new projects (replacer) was definitely influenced by pluto in a huge way.

A couple weeks ago i read Witch Hat Atelier and it was gorgeous, but short so far.

Ok I can’t really think of anything else but I hope this has been interesting/informative of what is circling around in my head at the moment! :D thanks for asking.

[saints-row-2]

ok secondly ! do u have any advice on developing ocs? bc it seems like so much fun and ud Think i wouldnt have a problem w it bc im a writer and yet..

(i hope its ok to post this publicly, i just figured other people might find it interesting. let me know if you dont want it up) 

developing a complex character is hard dont get yourself down… and its the kind of thing you constantly second-guess yourself on, i dont think anyone really believes theyre a good writer who does everything exactly right.

the most important tenements of character development for me are: backstory, relationships, and specificity. this is just how i personally work, not everyone is going to automatically think the same way, but those are the things that matter the most to me. 

a big way i develop ocs is through what i call cause and effect. if theres a particular way i want a character to behave i think about what in their history would have created this particular way of thinking. or vise versa, if theres a particular event in a characters backstory, i work out the ways in which that might affect someone. 

for example, with my oc Ezra-Kane, i knew in his backstory he was surrounded by people who didnt pay him much attention and he spent a lot of his childhood being very lonely and needy. thinking about how this would affect him as an adult, i decided that he would be someone whos very starved for affection and attention. however, due to other events in his backstory, he is extremely mistrustful of people and very anti-social. 

a lot of people who are emotionally neglected in childhood form attention-seeking habits, but because id already established that Ezra-Kane doesnt trust or like people very much, that wasnt something hed be likely to develop. he doesnt want attention from people if he doesnt like them! however i knew still that he craves love: and so he developed a great kinship for dogs, and has a lot of pet dogs as a way of keeping him from being lonely. 

backstory gives you an enormous amount of information about the way people behave and why, and i care a lot about the why. dont let character history just boil down to “they had a bad childhood because their parents died.” thats part of what i mean when i say specificity. be specific with what happened to your character in the past and how it affects them. 

relationships are enormously important to me when it comes to writing in general, which definitely isnt true of everyone, but i basically cant make an oc function unless i have two or three characters to bounce them off of. how your character treats other people and is treated by other people can help define them to an enormous degree! 

if youre trying to work out a single character, try thinking about important people in their life because once you start thinking about how a character interacts with certain kinds of people and how that character is seen by the people around them (because i think its really important not just to be able to get into your characters head, but to also understand what that character looks like through the eyes of others) it can really drastically alter how you think of them. 

and then yeah being specific: dont just paint your character in broad strokes. “nice” “funny” “mean”…. delve deeper than that! people are pretty fuckin individualistic and imo the most interesting characters are the ones that are varied and contradictory. your character can be a stone-cold professional killer and have a softer side. they can be a warm, loving person but be completely unforgiving and unrepentant. dont let a single thing define them. “theyre evil” and “theyre good” are pitfalls that are really easy to fall into. what do your characters think and why do they think that way?

when i make a character i generally start off with a single concept in mind (a supervillain who wants to rebuild their former glory, a jock bro in space, a bad kid who wants to protect the school but cant help but be an asshole) but Dont constrain yourself. my best characters have been around for years and are constantly shifting and taking shape as i let them grow. 

a lot of the time my characters end up the way they are because it just makes sense for them to be like that; theres an organic nature to the process sometimes, and unless you have a certain reason for not wanting a character to be a certain way, going with your gut will lead you towards whatevers the most interesting for You. 

dont be afraid to look at the kinds of characters you love and draw inspiration from them! what is it about characters that you like in specific? how would you write a character with that quality if the scenario was different, the backstory was different? what would you do if you had that character idea but total control over the plot? break those characters down into parts.

characters, in my opinion, are made up of lots of little parts. dont take any character as a whole. a lot of character sheets just break them down into “flaws and good traits” but theres a fuckin lot more to consider than that. their identity (gender, sexuality, race, religion, etc), personality, goals, ideology, family, backstory, position in society, job, not to mention the arc that you want them to follow in any narrative you might have in mind… these all play a part. 

dont worry about characters being likeable or sympathetic. dont worry if theyre too similar to a character in something you like. dont worry about being self-indulgent. whatever you start out with, i can guarantee your character will be very very different in no time at all.

i guess… yeah just the most important advice i can give is to think things through. let yourself be drawn to certain ideas and concepts, but think about what those things mean for your character and the people around your character. 

i hope this was at least interesting to read