#imo they can be a little weak narratively

[aroacenezhaanddainsleif]

the New Gods movie series (by Light Chaser Animation studios mainly, I believe) really has no right to go as hard as it does, aside from being really cool retellings of Chinese myths.

it’s the video-game-esque animation style. it’s the massive spiritual godly forms. it’s the classic rock riffs. it’s the futuristic punk settings. it’s iconic.

[alicentes]

imo Alicent and Rhaenyra are both victims of the “benevolent misogyny” trope. The writers cannot bring it in themselves to write ruthless, politically minded women because that’s “unnatural”, women must always be perpetual victims.

Alicent is no longer the leader of Team Green, that’s solely Otto who has so little respect for his daughter he doesn’t even tell her about the coup to put Aegon on the throne. The QUEEN CONSORT/DOWAGER/MOTHER OF WESTEROS is so weak and lacking in any real power some lowly Lord is sexually abusing her, and we’re meant to believe this makes total sense.

It’s also incredibly ableist that they gave Larys a foot fetish.

Rhaenyra isn’t ruthless nor do her enemies fear her, how can you even suggest a fragile woman like herself would order a man’s death and then feed his carcass to her dragon?! It’s way more realistic that she runs crying to her daddy to save her and then Daemon acts on his own accord because no way would she demand he kill Vaemond.

It’s not just them btw:

Baela: no longer the spunky Arya Stark of HotD, she’s a background character with 0 personality.

Rhaena: the peacemaker to her more hot headed sister is gone, now she just stands around looking pretty. I have a funny feeling they won’t even include Morning.

Rhaenys: she can’t think for herself, everything she does is because her husband tells her to. Gone is her supportive mother/daughter with Rhaenyra, now is a woman who genuinely believes her DiL killed her son but supports her anyway because her told her to. Where’s the logic in this?

Helaena: she’s an autistic coded dragon dreamer but this isn’t developed on, she just rambles but no one bothers listening to her. She has a role in the Green Council, urging Aegon II to make peace instead of declaring outright war. This is removed and instead she’s another habitual victim no one cares about

Laena: the biggest victim of the writers, a misogynoir cocktail ensured she never stood a chance.

You've put everything wrong with the way women were written perfectly and I absolutely agree with every point. By trying to make the female leads more likeable they ended up giving more power to men which is something they attempt to criticise in the narrative. I would love for these problems to be fixed in s2 and for Baela, Rhaena and Helaena to be fleshed out but I'm not holding out hope.

[just-your-average-tangerine]

This is reviews and ratings for the narrative/ fiction podcasts I have/ am listening to. This is mostly for me but if you want to use this as a recommendation go for it but be warned I'm not talking about plot or giving a description, there's no mentions of potentially triggering material so do your own research first if that's something your concerned about.

Welcome to Night Vale

-Night Vale owns my entire ass, no one does it better. I've been listening since the beginning and while I do think the quality has dipped a bit in the last few years its still really good. 9/10

The Magnus Archives

-Nearly perfect. Holds up and even improves with subsequent listens. The final season drags a bit imo but worth it in the end. 9/10

Old Gods of Appalachia

-really good story, gives you a lot to keep track of character wise but is written well enough that its not too hard and you can still follow the story if you forget some. 8/10

Moonbase Theta Out

-I can't wait for this to be over. Unfortunately, the storyline has a chokehold on me, and i need to know how it ends. Otherwise, i wouldn't be listening anymore. While there are several pretty good voice actors, there's enough bad ones that it's hard to listen to. Took the idea that characters should be flawed a little too far and made nearly every character completely insufferable. Nearly everytime a character is being given critical and emotional information it cuts away, in what I assume is an attempt to save the audience from listening to the same information over and over again, but instead it deprives the audience that look at how the character reacts to the information, which could go a long way in making them seem more fleshed out, instead you only see them emote in angry outbursts or melodramatic soliloquies (which is not helped by the subpar acting). 2/10

Death By Dying

-pretty funny but I don't think there's been enough episodes to make a educated review or rating

Hello from the Hallowoods

- very good overall. Good story, heartfelt and well written. Percy's story hits close to home for me, which sometimes makes me mad because he comes across as very weak and insecure and it gets on my nerves. But honestly that's less of a problem with the Percy or the writing and more of a problem of him being one of the very very few trans masc characters in existence so its extra disappointing when i find him irritating. Polly owns my ass, I would die for him. 8/10

Where the Stars Fell

-I binge listened up to the current season which I feel wasn't the way to go but it's still pretty enjoyable. 6/10

Midnight Burger

-Very funny. I love the characters and their dynamic and just the idea of a time a space traveling diner, it's beautiful. The beginning of this new arc confused me a bit but it's starting to come together. 7/10

We Fix Space Junk

- Very funny but with the underlying terror of what's going on with automnicon. Looking forward to new episodes. 6/10

The Sheridan Tapes

-started really strong but has been spending too much time on the characters agnst and not enough time actually progressing the story. At this point I'm just looking forward to a conclusion. 4/10

Camp Here and There

- it was pretty good, nothing exceptional but not bad but then I took a single glance at what was going on in the fandom and it was so obnoxious that it immediately ruined it for me. I feel bad lowering the rating due to the fandom but like, yikes. 2/10

SCP Readings

-very entertaining, easy to follow even if you don't have any prior knowledge about scp, which I do not. 7/10

The Amelia Project

-I think I'm to early in this one to make a solid judgement but I enjoy it so far. Venerio haunts me.

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

I just wanted to say that I am really envious of the way you write the Vees. As someone who struggles with making characters woobiefying and with characterization in general, I appreciate how you can write these characters perfectly that the show didn’t have time to portray. I didn’t have a specific request, but now I was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to analyze and write a character, even if you have a personal bias towards them?

Awww thank you so much ❤️ I don't have like any degree in literature or anything that would give me credibility in giving writing advice, usually I just go with the flow. But I'll do my best!

Imo the most fundamental thing is the way you think about characters. In fandom spaces, we very often see them as "people we like" - hence all the discourses like in Valentino's case "if you like him it means you are a bad person". I think that woobification is influenced by this cognitive dissonance caused by liking characters that should be unlikeable. For me the way out of it was giving up "characters as people" mindset and changing it for "characters as tools". Bacause that's what they are - tools you use to build your narrative. When I say I love Valentino I don't mean I would shake his hand - I mean he's my favourite toy I can do multiple things with. And it's his flaws that make him so much fun. Because outside of the comedy genre, narrative cannot exist without conflict. The more flaws a character has, the more conflict it causes. That's why villains are such a powerful driving force for stories (here are some great essays about it: 1, 2). Put any character in the room with Val and you have an interesting bit not only because of the usual character differences that could happen between eg. Vaggie and Husk but also because stakes suddenly become high. What will he do? Will he hurt them? We saw what he's capable of. Will he be nice? Man, that's even worse because it means he has his own motive to be nice. What might it be? That's what keeps the audience engaged with your writing. Extra points if you give him some human weaknesses or conflicting desires. When it comes to characterization, nuance is the key. That's why I love VoxVal so much - two characters that are absolutely awful but they are fiercely in love. How could Valentino be capable of simply caring about someone but himself? What kind of human is buried underneath all this evil? So much to unpack here. Nothing I'd like to experience but everything I'd like to see from a safe distance. Consider: would you even like the Vees so much in the beginning if they were just other guests at the hotel? In the show, neither of them has a single redeemable quality. And yet, here we are.

When it comes to writing characteristics it's also important to watch characters from different perspectives - that helps with giving them nuance. Let's take Vox. People seem to like and respect him, he's obviously an influential figure (he has a lot of social power). But from Alastor's perspective, he's just a pathetic little attention-seeking looser (he has a fragile ego and lowe self-esteem). Yet his assistant seemed to be scared shitless while talking to him (he had done things that made people from his closer look aware that he's dangerous). Angel knows he watches his abuse and hangs out with Valentino (at best he's indifferent to other's suffering, at worst he enjoys it). Carmilla doesn't respect him but they are on terms good enough, Vox wants to do business with her (he's a competent business partner). For the rest of Vees he's smart enough to listen to him but at the same time he's their cringefail naurospicy bestie. Add all of those perspectives together and you have yourself a multidimensional character that can interact with other elements of the narrative in vastly different ways. Also, from that point you can build up, asking yourself other questions "What would they think/do/say?".

Also, the last thing: every character needs a clear goal that influences all their decision. Choose it and always keep it in mind. Bonus points: a character has two main goals that are contradictory. When I write Vox he has two goal: power and adoration. He always has to choose which one is more important to him because while he has measures to achieve great power, some things that he would want to do are socially undesirable. In Valentino's case: hedonistic pleasure and immediate gratification vs love for Vox that demands sacrifices and compromises.

So anyway I hope that will be helpful to you <3 And don't be too hard on yourself when it comes to writing, not everything must be Game of Thrones. Especially in fandom spaces, sometimes we all want to indulge in some simple fluff or crack.

[topnotchquark]

I lost it at your tags... binning the situationship (not even a relationship 😭😭😭) when a cult leaders charm breaks 😭😭😭

Thank you anon! I love the little Marc ranch trip circa 2014 moment all of us were having on the dash a couple days back. Rosquez is the epitome of a situationship lol. An intense but confusing connection born of deep regard for each other's talent existing in a highly competitive environment that is fundamentally antithetical to any love will never achieve the equilibrium required to turn it into a relationship.

Back then Vale was constantly under pressure to chase that evasive 10th title. Vale had come into the game and set the rules for it, he had many years of wiping the floor with his rivals, but the game was changing in front of his eyes. He needed to prove himself among a crop of riders who brought intense training and precision to the table. Vale was a media darling who was born with the knowledge of how to appear cool but it just wasn't cutting it anymore. The sun was setting on Vale's empire a little, and he was grappling with the knowledge that he might not be at the pinnacle anymore. Otoh Marc was sunshine personified. I rlly do believe that it will take maybe another generation before we can get to see someone like Marc again. The skill combined with the obsession with winning so resolute that it would make gods take notice. Now you have these two singular freaks and of course things didn't go right. Like. The narratives write themselves etc etc.

I joke about Vale being like a cult leader but imo he reluctantly fills in that role. There isn't any inherent desire to grab onto power and influence people but imo it's more that people willingly submit to Vale's tutelage. Especially the academy boys back in 2014 or so. Vale probably realises how difficult it is to inhabit your full humanity in front of (much younger) people who rely on you. Can't convey your weaknesses and myriad sources of misery lest they lose faith in you. Which is why the Marc ranch visit is so significant. The academy boys got to see a relationship that Vale shared with an equal. And maybe one of the only few real equals he's had in life. There were news reports that Vale was probably affected by Marc bringing his mechanics to the ranch. I wonder how the boys absorbed that emotional response from Vale. Like being a kid and watching for the first time as your parents struggle with adult problems. The boys still hold Vale in extreme regard and everyone is still very much aware of the fact that Marc is worth more than his weight in gold as driver. So I reckon they are all sharp boys lol, but yeah, what a strange little blip in time that we're all talking about it years later.

Anyway, thank u again for popping into my inbox I loooove receiving asks. Hope u have a good day, glad I made you laugh 💗

[avelera]

OK, let's do this one more time....

NEW THEORIES for the "Beyond the Spider-Verse" after seeing "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" a second time...

1 ) We're setting up a whooooole thing where Prowlers are the dark mirrors of Spider-People

2 ) Miguel's got claws, as Miles points out with surprise, because he's not a "Spider-Man" originally, he was a Prowler who saw that Spider-Man had died in another universe and took over his life and his identity. The fact that Miguel began as a villain has compounded his sense of guilt over that universe getting destroyed and his adoptive daughter being unmade: he was never supposed to be there in the first place. But he has since developed a strong sense of right and wrong based in that trauma and is sincerely trying to be a better person / save the universe.

3 ) This is going to be important because Miles G., the Miles Morales from Universe 42 who is now Prowler, is going to pull the same stunt. That's why he asks if Jefferson, Miles' dad, is still alive in the other universe. Miles G. comes from a shit universe and he feels robbed (or he will) when he learns that original Miles has all the happiness he deserved. He's going to lock up original Miles in his universe and go to take his place, just like Miguel did. This puts Miles in the further awkward position of needing to parrot what Miguel said about how disruptive Miles G. going to his universe and disrupting his life would be.

4 ) There are numerous clues pointing towards this "You become Spider-Man or you live long enough to see yourself become the Prowler" dichotomy where there's more than one Spider-Man who was once Prowler. Hobie Brown is canonically a Prowler, originally, who impersonated Spider-Man. So hidden in Spider-Punk's name is this set up for the dark and the light side of Spider-Man being Prowler. But also hidden Hobie Brown's character is the fact that you don't have to stay Prowler. With a little dose of anarchy and bucking the system, the original thesis of Spider-Verse is reasserted: anyone can wear the mask. Even Prowler. Even a villain.

5 ) Miguel is not actually entirely wrong. We are going to tragically learn that for all his villainy at the end of ATSV, he's still an antagonist, not a villain. On the re-watch it really stuck out to me how much he's not a mustache-twirling villain. He's not being a jerk for the sake of it. He's traumatized and he is, genuinely, trying to help others and save other universes.

Most interestingly of all the narrative has not proved him wrong yet. For all Miles' optimism about altering the canon, he's not been proven right yet that disaster can be prevented. We didn't see Pavitr Prabhakar's Mumbattan get rescued! We don't know if Miles was right yet! Gwen's dad might be saved because he resigned the badge, but just rescuing them might not be enough. Miguel might still be proven right or, more likely, something more complex needs to happen to alter the canon without risking disaster.

6 ) Part of the lesson Miguel is going to learn is just because he was once Prowler, doesn't mean he was damned by the narrative for taking Spider-Man's place. He can still wear the mask. Anyone can wear the mask. IMO, he will be redeemed along these lines but we are going to learn about his guilt and sense of being a Prowler who doesn't belong among Spider-People and how he's overcompensating to overcome that.

One reason being that if he's some other villain, like Venom, and his intentions were to destroy the Spider-People of the multiverse, which I originally suspected, it means every single Spider-Person got duped, which is hard to believe when they're all heroes. IMO, the only way to trick them all from a narrative morality standpoint, is if Miguel is sincere and really is a Spider-Man trying to make the world a better place. Then the other Spider-People's weakness isn't being stupid, it's that they gave in to the sense of being doomed by the narrative, of despair, that they couldn't try to save the lives and lessen the tragedy of their multi-verse counterparts.

TL;DR - Next film we're getting Miles G. trying to steal Miles's life, while Miles is also trying to save his dad's life and stop the Spot. We're going to learn all about how over and over, it's Prowler vs. Spider-Man/Person, how Spider-Man can become Prowler, how Prowler can become Spider-Man, how you're not doomed to be a hero or a villain, that anyone can be Spider-Man, and indeed, we're gonna get some redemptions. Miles G. is almost certainly going to become Spider-Man in his universe by the end. Miguel is going to possibly get his family back and learn he can be Spider-Man without guilt. We're gonna learn how to save the world, save Uncle Ben, and not disrupt the canon. We're going to learn that the Spider-People are stronger together and that the only way to be doomed by the narrative is to give in to despair.

Ok, I think that's all I got for now!

Edit: OH, PS!

I'm not convinced that Miles G. is actually a bad guy. A lot of his scoffing at Miles and a lot of Uncle Aaron's scoffing at Miles is very ominous but it could also be them laughing because Miles is telling them they don't have to be bad guys.

But for all we know, Prowler and Uncle Aaron might be the only ones protecting New York from the bad guys! They might be angry at Miles for insinuating that they're bad guys when in truth they're busting their asses trying to save the world.

That still doesn't mean that Miles G. is going to like Miles. He might be pissed off at him, actually, for robbing him of the super powers he was supposed to have that would make his life easier. He might still want to steal Miles's life! But on the re-watch I a much, much less convinced that Miles G is actually a bad guy and not that we're supposed to think he is because we're seeing the scene from Miles's point of view, and he's scared and alone and seeing enemies everywhere. Miles G. might actually be a hero in his universe and it's a bait-and-switch.

[camillahex]

okay i've been thinking a lot about the rat grinders (abbreviated as rgs) and here are my ideas on the different roles they could have this season and an analysis of their appearance so far (putting this under a read more bc it got long)

major antagonists - the rat grinders are directly involved/responsible for whatever the big bad is this season. something like they are causing the quangles in order to get aguefort to leave school and take over w/ Grix to change everything to be hyper rules oriented in order to fuck over the bad kids or take over the world or whatever the big bad actually ends up being. quite frankly, i don't think this is at all likely and it wouldn't make for a very good story imo

minor antagonists - not directly in league w bb but indirectly a part of the problem. one theory i've seen around is they have somehow reprorammed grix (potentially with henry the artificer teacher who has the same last name as the rg bard) and are trying to change the school bc they are fed up w agueforts loosey-goosey ness (this is mainly based on kipperlilly) and they tangentially aid the big bad by doing this as well. i think this is more likely and could be good depending on how it unfolds

antagonistic but not antagonists - feud stays purely in the academic/school life. the rgs maybe show up the bad kids a little, do better than them in classes or at sports, take some of the wind out of their popularity (like at this now abandoned party), maybe kipperlilly even wins pres - but it's not deeper than just being the school worsties of the bad kids

reluctant allies - kind of plays off previous; rgs and bad kids end up having to work together at various points and even battle together (maybe for like the big finale battle) bc they can recognize that saving the world id more important than their school feud

genuine understanding - also plays off previous two; interactions lead to interpersonal conflict at first but through being forced to work and battle together they each begin to see that there is more to the other. bad kids acknowledge that rgs have a lot of raw skill and strength in their own right (as already evidenced by mary ann's athletics and kipperlilly's inplied rogue abilities) and that it takes a lot of dedication and (especially) discipline to work as a party killing rats for three hours every day. rgs acknowledge that large-scale adventuring requires a certain loose attitude for the "rules" and that having being specifically subject to arthur aguefort's chaos may not necessarily be a good thing

now, narratively speaking, i think the rat grinders as a party will have immense specific strength and skills, but will not be prepared for more "real" life or death battles. improvisation really is the better part of planning (thanks calroy) and a plan never survives first contact with the enemy, but they likely have not needed to create complex, or on the fly plans, or improvise when the bad guy throws out some insane shit, while simply killing tens of thousands of rats, spiders, and tree gremlins. none of those beasts would have taught them how to practically deal with ranged weapon attacks or any kind of spell attack, and i could also see them not being the best with playing to each others strengths and covering each others' weaknesses due to the sheer monotony of only ever battling the exact same creatures. i'd also be surprised if they have any experience at all with genuinely dying and having to be revived or even with going into unconsciousness. i do think classes go over that kind of thing but learning the theory of something and then actually having to apply it under pressure are two radically different experiences.

one thing that could complicate this is that the rgs have recently gotten a new cleric party member, who we know is a transfer from highcourt, helioic, and loved by kristen's parents (as an aside, this is going to be so juicy and cause so much conflict w kristen, i'm so excited). clerics are pretty vital for parties going on intense adventures, being the strongest healers of the group, so there are two ways i see a cleric introduction as having to occur. one, is that the rgs have never had a cleric and spending your days killing low level creatures likely does not create much in the way of life threatening scenarios or injuries a long rest couldn't heal. and now that they feel they're strong enough, they want to move to more extreme adventures and feel they need a cleric to make it work

however, option two is that the rgs did have a cleric, and that at some point their cleric fully died. as we've learned, parties who have a member die immediately go on pass/fail and don't have to do a yearly project. if this happened to the rgs last year (or maybe even their first year, i forget if the pass/fail was only through the year or not) they would not have had to do the sophomore year project, and it would explain how they've manages to keep only killing low level creatures. also, this could be especially narratively significant, because, the bad kids had party members die on their very first day of school, one of which was their cleric kristen. they were only revived by aguefort committing ritualistic murder-suicide to bring them back to life. this could definitely read as preferential treatment from aguefort, even though the bad kids could have been anyone and aguefort was just doing his own plan to sneak into heaven and stop being poisoned. a dead cleric would be another level of parallel the rgs would have with the bad kids and could be an aspect of their resentment.

on a more meta/symbolic level, i feel like the rgs, and in particular kipperlilly and her campaign spiel, are representative of an intensely regimented, regulated education system where everyone must do the exact same things, get the exact same help, and all be measured on the exact same axes of success, in a very standardized testing kind of way. now, abstractly, in a vacuum, in a perfect world, this is fine; this is equal treatment under the rules. but the realities on life and people are messy and complex. there's any number of reasons why someone might need more help, different accommodations, and be measured on a different metric of success than someone else and none of it makes it preferential treatment; it's just that everyone has different needs. the solution should always be more diversity in accessibility, not less.

and to bring it back to the narrative, we've been told that adventurers, and by extension the students of the adventuring academy, are basically vigilantes doing, uh, extralegal vigilantism. a regimented system based on grinding out experience by killing rats in the woods would in no way produce successful adventurers, just like really strong exterminators. the things the bad kids have gotten in trouble doing are things it has been explicitly said they are supposed to be doing ad burgeoning adventurers, and the only reason they got in trouble in the first place and weren't allowed to do their thing solving mysteries (as presumably, many many parties before them have done) was because aguefort was missing. even when adaine was kidnapped by fallinel, the school protections she invoked protects all of aguefort's students. we have heard many times that students throughout the adventuring academy's history have been encouraged to act as the extralegal vigilantes they are training to be, and haven't seen anything that suggest it's only been selectively applied to favorites

ultimately, i hope that the realization develops that the school has been failing both the rat grinders and the bad kids. we haven't seen a lot of the rat grinders but based on kipperlilly's complaints i think it would be a failure in a lack support in helping the students find their own adventures (as opposed to just keeping on going killing rats in the woods) and/or a lack of protection for when they bite off more than they could chew (if they did in fact have a cleric who died). for the bad kids, it would be a lack of support and accommodation for when you do find a big adventure and can't keep up with schoolwork, a failure to recognize and interfere when you see students struggling before it reaches a critical breaking point (kristen and fig being close to expulsion), a lack of support wrt university funds/scholarship or required school supplies funding (riz and adaine), a refusal to recognize when students exceed in ways outside of the typical curriculum (gorgug and fabian).

the enemy is the system, not your fellow classmates

[samglyph]

Ok this is my blog I’m allowed to post my opinions

Hazbin Hotel pros

1. Characters: I like the lesbians. Angel dust is good. I have a Jeremy Jordan bias and I enjoy pathetic men so of course I enjoyed Lucifer’s scenes. Originally I thought that they were overusing Alastor (since imo those types of overpowered chaotic characters ie. Bill cipher, Kayne, etc. work best when their scenes are limited to amplify the mystery and the threat) and while I still kinda think that, with the context of the last episode I understand that he needed some extra scenes to make the audience more invested in him specifically, and also since setting him up over and over again as a powerhouse makes it more rewarding when he gets his shit rocked. Also because he gets more screen time we get one of my favorite songs, so I’ll allow it.

2. Music: the music is fun! It’s punchy! It serves narrative purposes. Personally I think some of the slower songs are a little weak and a bit too exposition heavy but the performances are decent and I like jazz and broadway singers. Moving on.

3. Narratives and themes: listen. My favorite theme. Of anything. Is “‘bad’ people can improve if provided with a support system”. And also “things you’ve done in the past and things that have been done to you don’t have to define you” So obviously I was going to like that. Plus I was raised Catholic so that whole scene up in heaven. Oofta. Probably second favorite song. Emily come with me let’s work out our trauma of parental figures lying to us about morality.

Cons

1. Pacing: suffers from what I’m going to refer as “Witcher 2019 syndrome” where it does such a bad job of actually showing time passing that when someone says “there’s only one month until the deadline” you the audience member are like. What do you mean. It’s only been like two weeks. Tops. What do you mean it’s been five months. No it hasn’t.

1.5 (since this is the same problem continued) Length/format: Hazbin hotel, in my opinion, would work best as a 20 episode season, with each episode having an A plot focused on a member of the hotel doing the growth thing, and then have the through line of the season be the heaven thing, which they obviously TRIED to do, but since they only had 8 episodes, they had to give more time to the heaven plot and less time to ensemble character growth, which I think really causes the plot (and the characters!) to suffer.

2. The pilot: the show works less if you haven’t seen the pilot, and since the pilot isn’t included in the seasons episodes, that means if a viewer stumbles across the show without knowing about it before hand, they’ll have a harder time connecting some things, and the hotel isn’t explained well enough right off the bat. Like, it’s easy to figure out, but without the pilot certain things just aren’t explained.

3. Some of the character designs irk me.

I know this is technically more cons than pros but I do think the pros make it watchable. It’s just. Fine. Like it’s an ok show. I post about plenty of ok shows.

[kerres]

First 3 eps of Solo Leveling thoughts! From someone who has never read it!

For my tastes, the first two episodes were pretty jarring. Blood isn't a huge deal to me, but watching someone suffer that intensely wasn't fun. I do appreciate it for the storytelling though! Elsewise, let me tackle this chronologically henceforth.

Everyone loves an underdog story, and I think the "isekai"/adjacent category needs more of it! Sure, they can start out pretty lowly, but their special skill spikes up their usefulness unnaturally so. Of course, I'm sure that will happen anyway, but I'm at least satisfied that it isn't a pure isekai in that the show has taken a GATE approach. All in all, the dungeon gate dynamic is pretty neat to me -- really reminds me of mmorpgs.

The fact that these characters are from a modern world looks more interesting to me than arbitrarily requiring a death from a previous life to get to the fantasy world. Getting to have a full life's worth of information then relatively starting over somewhere else without the same technological advancements makes the protagonist able to just.. "invent" them there, drastically boosting their overall status for no real effort of their own.

Back to it though, a character being known as The Weakest is a compelling enough beginning to me. Of course, there has to be some amount of concrete scaling, so the rankings were inevitable. The precedent of an inability to change your base power-level was of course gonna be a part of the story. (I will say, the "second awakening" gimmick already feels a little suspicious/dull to me, but we'll see how it's handled.)

The fact that the token weak girl healer character is actually not all that weak of a healer just really doesn't like the job much and only does it out of necessity was a great angle imo. Just like the average mmo, nobody wants to play support, and for someone who didn't even want to play the game, having that responsibility sounds tough to argue with. Using the kind of trauma she ended up with as a fridging method didn't bother me at all. That's a very reasonable reaction!

Though the protagonist looks like he's going to have a pretty generic story given the title, I do also like that he doesn't have a history of gaming. Nearly every protagonist is a NEET or gamer otherwise, but he had to ask his sister. He gets the hang of it, which is to be expected, but he has to ask her what to look for initially. That just furthered the narrative that he's had to work extra hard this whole time so she could live a peaceful and average life. I appreciate that kind of consistency and detail!

---

I drafted this, then didn't get back to it for a week or so whoops! I'd like to be more consistent, and I'm sure I will be, but let me just get this out of my drafts for now. I'm excited to eventually get a reasonable pacing out of this project!

[candiid-caniine]

I'll literally never understand cis people cause why are they exactly and oppositely wrong with their genital expectations? They're all like biopenises are all ugly and they have to look ugly and be massive and gross and strong and biovaginas have to look demure and dainty and they're all pretty and small and weak. Like no bitch biovaginas are like biblically accurate angels they're strong and horrifyingly arousing and biopenises are cute and soft and little friends. Idk if you get what I mean but cis people are weird. -jjba anon

dude omg yes 😭 I totally get what you mean. a flaccid soft lil penis is so cute and beautiful and nuzzle-able. when that shit gets hard it's so cute, like an excited ouppy 💕

don't get me wrong. I'm down for the narrative of intimidating, proud, jutting dicks as well. just *not* when they're tied up in cultural paradigms of masculinity, sex-as-male-conquest, and body authoritarianism. dicks can be soft n baby and cutesy, or rabid and scary and bulky, or whatever the person they're attached to wants them to be - so long as ones attitude towards sex is ethical, inclusive, and free from patriarchal expectations. imo.

same with cunt. it's musky and mysterious and commanding and sublime, the labia are like armor, the clit is a little general hiding within, it takes you, sucks you in, doesn't let you go.

or it's sweet and pretty, like a flower, needy and shivery and fragile. it's whatever you want, separate and apart from obligate gender norms, obligate heterosexuality, obligate patriarchy. if the person attached is being respected for who they are, and giving the same in return - love and do as you will.

if it gives you gender euphoria to have your genitals used and seen as any particular thing, demand it. if it gives you and your partners sexual joy to interact with each other's bodies a certain way, chase it.

overall, don't let cisheterosexism, patriarchy, ableism, fatphobia, or intersex erasure, or any other malignant body/sex paradigm inform your view of your and your partners' bodies. nor of the roles you and your partners wish to perform during sex. binaries aren't real; people are not computers or checklists.

I love you soft shy cock, I love you strong angry cock, I love you sweet demure pussy, I love you overwhelming dominant cunt. /rant

[nightcolorz]

i’m late but for the ask game: armand 6, 8, 25

YIPPIE!! Thank u sm for sending this, I’ve been pretty severely injured lately and I woke up feeling so shit and sad, so getting this notif absolutely made my day. Armand !!! He is my favorite character in anything ever. I have literally never been so insane about a guy before. U picked some great questions so I’m super excited about this.

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

I identify strongly with Armand for a lot of weird little reasons. I think the root of it is transgender and autism stuff if I’m honest 😭 Im going to try not to get tooo personal 👍👍 but I will let’s be honest, I will get personal. I can relate to being fetishized and characterized for my sort of androgynous/pretty/boyish appearance while I feel like how I look doesn’t truly reflect who I am as a person. I definitely get the struggle of being demeaned and treated like a child bcus of the juvenile ish appearance transitioning can give you. I also can relate to being demeaned and treated like a child because of my social awkwardness (due to autism) that causes many ppl to assume I’m unintelligent or immature, need to be treated gently or talked to slowly, etc. I see these parts of myself reflected in Armand ofc in different more vampiric ways, and having a character who is infantilized and talked down to while also fetishized and sexually exploited for a perceived innocence that isn’t reflective of who he really is at all, a guy who is also very strange and awkward and doesn’t act right, who is also simultaneously very bad ass (imo lmao) in his shamelessness and his overtly violent and freak of nature attitude, is weirdly very validating and empowering for me, lmao. He is like the weak shameful parts of myself if the weak shameful parts of myself had teeth. 👍👍👍 Yeah 😁😁😁😁 Armand 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

lmfaooo, I’m so happy u picked this one bcus I love complaining and being a hater 😍 I am sorry in advance if I say anything that ruffles any bodies feathers, just bcus I don’t like these things ppl do doesn’t mean I don’t like the ppl who do them, y’all do u I’m not stopping u. Anyways.

I don’t enjoy how a handful of amc exclusive fans characterize Armand, because you can tell they rlly only understand him based on Wikipedia reads and his brief appearance in the show so far, which results in this sort of glaring simplification of his character in fan content. This wouldn’t rlly bother me if not for how prevalent it is 😭 like it’s genuinely difficult for me to find interesting and in character fanfic about Armand bcus so much of it is uniformed. The amc fandom sort of dominates the tvc fandom, it’s just so big. I don’t like when Armand is reduced to Louis’s new scary hot boyfriend/Lestat replacement/potential villain. It feels like he’s often perceived through this lens of a role in the story, like “hm this guy seems like a potential villain”, “no I think he’s a new love interest”, which is a conversation I find no appeal in at all considering you can’t fit the Armand I love into any of these narrative boxes. This isn’t rlly smth I have personal beef with bcus there’s no harm in fans of the show characterizing armand based on there limited knowledge while they wait for the next season, but for me it’s a pet peeve you know, as someone who rlly rlly likes armand a lot 😭.

(This is the exception to my no hate to u if u do this disclaimer btw, all the hate to u). on the subject of amc fans, I also often see this hostility towards fans of book Armand, where I’ll see amc fans talking about how perverse he is conceptually in the books and how gross ppl who like him are, which REALLY makes me very mad, because ok. Listen. Show armand is not a character yet, any and all things you enjoy about armand as of now as someone who hasn’t read the books are 1. How he looks. And 2. Things from the books that you apply to him in a new context. Assad’s performance, the people working on the show, the writers, everything that you base your enjoyment of armand in, is from the books 😭 But god forbid someone enjoy the source material over the hypothetical character who barely exists yet? God forbid someone do the same thing u do (take smth arguably morally dubious and interpret it in a way that u find interesting and compelling while acknowledging the morally dubious source material) just not in the context of an adaption. Ok. God forbid I enjoy and identify with an adult character trapped in the body of a child who is misperceived for his youth and sexually abused, it’s not like this is the same concept of beloved amc Claudia anyway. It’s also not like I am capable of enjoying something while criticizing it and disliking it’s flaws, and coming to conclusions based on critical thinking and analysis of concepts that may have been executed poorly, that I still admire and enjoy, bcus I am capable of complex thinking, and I don’t need to blindly enjoy every part of smth and perceive it as flawless to enjoy it. We all know that’s fake ! Anyways sorry for the angry rant 😭😭😭 moving on.

On a separate note, I also sometimes have beef with how fellow book armand fans portray him. This is small and sort of petty but it bothers me when Armand is drawn as like, very small and skinny. Maybe it’s bcus I head canon him as chubby and sort of cherub-built, maybe it’s bcus in TVA armand describes himself as strong in build and “not waif-ish”, but either or it does feel sort of wrong and off putting when I see Armand drawn as like, so small and petite that it’s emphasized. To me this reads as a missing of the point, if you will. An emphasis on physical qualities representative of innocence and youth that aren’t reflective of Armand’s character, only rlly how some other characters see him. I can often tell when an Armand fan enjoys him for the superficial qualities (eternally young, angelic looking, etc) over who he is, and it always encourages me to steer clear. I hope I’m making sense lol. This is also sometime present in fic but it’s more subtle and difficult to describe. Anyways

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

I was thinking about this yesterday! I was first introduced to Armand when I was maybe 11 or 12, my dad put on 94 interview with the vampire for me and my twin sister while he did work around the house etc. he started watching it with us (he loves 94 iwtv) but by the time Armand showed up at the half way point he got up and started doing other things, so my sister and I were alone in front of the screen. For some reason lost to time my sister and I were very excited about seeing Antonio Banderas, maybe because we knew him from Zorro, so in the aftermath of the buffoon scene with Santiago that we found really funny, when Antonio Banderas appeared on screen we were hyped tf up. We were so enthralled in the moment of his cunty ass entrance we started cheering and clapping and screaming 😭 I think shrieking ARMANNNDDD!!!! At the screen (with no knowledge of who armand even was) Till I started laughing to tears is in my top ten formative moments. My first viewing of iwtv was just like that 😭 there was smth in the water that had my sister and I loosing our fucking minds with excitement over that movie. Anyways, I only immersed myself into the fandom and got rlly into tvc just last year, when I read interview with the vampire (smth that’s always been in the back of my mind since my first viewing, I really did love that movie) and then the rest of tvc. When I was reading interview with the vampire I had that subconscious excitement over Armand’s half way point appearance brewing from the get go (every time my sister and I have watched iwtv together since we were 12 we’ve done the same screaming at the screen ritual for armand) so when I was re introduced to him I was instantly attached to him. I very quickly discovered how much I was enthralled by this guy, like by his first appearance and description it went from a weird little nostalgic affection to a “omfg I feel many inexplicably strong feelings for this guy”. He was just so magnetic and weird, I was intrigued by every thing about him, like Louis lol. I started drawing him a bunch b4 I’d even finished the first book, and by the time I was introduced to him in tvl he was my favorite character. Tvl really solidified my armand obsession, and queen of the damned made me the person I am today 😭 insane. I think my impression of him now should be obvious at this point 😔 he is my silliest guy every morning I wake up and he is the first thought in my mind I cry about him daily I worship him like he’s my god sometimes I see a blender and I am so overwhelmed with emotion I want to scream if a professional looked into my brain and saw all the armand in there they’d diagnose me with super mega autism. I like him a lot. 🫶

Thank you sm for sending this ask once again! I’m sorry it’s so long lol, hope my responses were interesting. This is the ask game in question for anyone who may potentially want to send me more asks: https://www.tumblr.com/nightcolorz/734243514562510848?source=share I would cry with joy if so.

[volfoss]

HIIIII for that game you just posted about (<- guy who likes these things) 💜 my favorite emoji

YIPPEE sorry i WILL infodump a bit because i do think you could go so insane over mistos. for many reasons but im putting it under a cut both for like the 3 mutuals who are interested in it and dont want spoilers and also bc i dont want to make a 5 million paragraph long post.

so mistos is i guess the deuteragonist in volfoss but his deal requires a bit of explaining about the narrative before i can get into why i think youd like him based off the other guys you like :) so volfoss is basically about dealing with the repercussions of seeing your trooper group (troopers are basically mercenaries who get requests to clear out monsters or help people in other ways) getting killed in front of you and chasing the guy who did it down and also theres a war (dw about it. the horrors happen). mistos personally had to see a lot of the slaughter, to the point where well. mistos sees the man who did it partially and their leader's body (who in terms of the game, we see referenced as someone who both mistos and shalvas (the protagonist) relied on a lot) laid on the killers feet as some sort of sacrifice. mistos lives with a lot of guilt that he really couldnt stop the massacre from happening (bc it wasnt just one guy) and has a lot of complex feelings on what he wants to do when they find the guy who did it. shalvas meanwhile is well. pretty clearly like yeah i want his ass DEAD for what he did to us. also important to know this guy did nearly kill mistos. so he has a good reason if he didnt like him and wanted him dead.

but the thing is, mistos in either ending, doesn't want him dead. they confront this guy in a tournament at the end of act 1, and the way they deal with him depends on if you're on the good or bad ending path. on the good ending, he actively stops shalvas. the man who did it (keeping it vague bc i stay sillay ok) literally pleads for mistos to kill him but mistos refuses. hes a character that to me is really interesting because of this, and that on the evil route um. shalvas does kill him pretty brutally in front of the audience and mistos is actively trying to stop him. i think hes honestly very complex and the fact that it caused him an insane amount of trauma to witness the attack and yet. in both variations, he forgave him and moved past it.

in terms of personality, mistos is very sarcastic and jokes around a lot but is a really good strategist. he pretty much took over silver fang (the trooper org u are part of) and is NOT enjoying adjusting to that (from what ik, he used to be a pretty involved and strong trooper before this, but he took the responsibility so shalvas didn't have to). he has a lot of kindness though, he's very patient with shalvas (who has like. some form of memory loss) and he's really sweet to rially (who is a girl that basically comes to hang out somewhat often after they helped her defeat some monsters). like i think a lot of the way he shows care for people is kind of joking around but he also has a really hard time i think getting into his issues unless he makes them as jokes. like the first mission shalvas goes out alone, shalvas is really upset that mistos wont be there (due to the fact that at that point in the game you are weak as fuck lmao) and mistos kind of jokes about how its a ton of work to keep the base guarded and that he's basically really risking his life (which imo. was a combo of his sense of humor leaning towards self deprecating and also trying to make shalvas feel better about going off alone) by taking care of the base. but every time before shalvas leaves, mistos will always offer advice. and after every mission he and shalvas go to grista (a bar) and have a little how was the mission talk. he does genuinely deeply care for shalvas (and the other surviving member of their group, marica, but she appears a lot less so its hard for me to really get into their deal)

he also fights by using really sharp threads (his attack name is called the thread waver) and he DOES kick ass but unfortunately he doesnt fight alongside you a lot of the time. but i think youd like him due to how he takes a lot of the burden on himself and also stays silly. he loves to antagonize one specific guy at the start of the game but eventually grows to be good friends with him and idk :) hes just a nice and silly guy

[h-f-k]

Thoughts on ttpd ?

THANK YOU lmao.

incoming long ass raaaaaaant, wohoooooo

(anon who also asked me about what i liked and disliked i hope this could answer your question as well!!)

I think i need to give a bit of context of my first thoughts on it back when it was released: i disliked it. i thought the lyrics were clunky, the productions was super meh, the album's topic of discussion was just also incredibly meh.

i decided to give it a second chance bc i kept seeing my friends talk about certain points that were interesting and i also wanted to listen to the album in peace without some random weirdo screaming that x song was about joe alwyn or matty heally or her current boyfriend trevor.

I think i will start with the things that changed for the better for me:

The album is good. I think it's definitely an improvement from midnights and i think this time there's kiiiiind of a clear direction and purpose behind it rather than being a collection of songs about specific topics that kept her up at night or whatever, which tbh that was incredibly random but ok. The pacing of the album felt good, it's not too long yet not too short, there's a good balance between the songs and even tho some of them have a very mid production they're still fine, i can vibe with them and i can listen to them (except but daddy i love him, that shit is unnecessarily long) if they come up on shuffle. I think lyric wise there are really strong moments, some very mid and others that are quite weak but still there's not a song that's terrible or unbearable to listen to.

Some of the production elements are really good, i LOVE the violent drums on florida, i would kill to hear that song live. And while the production of little old me reminds me A LOT to a florence + the machine song it's really really good, the cellos and the overall bass scratches a part of my brain and it's so good. Her vocals are also really good and i know it's not her strength but i'm glad she included a bit of harmonies with her own voice in so long london, it contrasts so well with the rest of the song (aaron dessner my beloved)

It's definitely a grower and to some that's a good thing, for others it's a bad thing and for some others it doesn't mean anything. TO ME is 50/50, i think there are many layers we can discover each time but i also feel like the album once you start peeling them it falls short which brings me to the negatives: __________

It's still quite a superficial album to me imo. i think the concept is quite solid and had SO much potential yet once again she chose the easy way which is diluting it so it's appealing to everyone, which is fine! but at the same time it leaves me with this feeling of wondering what this album could've been if she really committed to it, if she really dived into the tortured poet concept and translated that into the songs. It makes me wonder if she could've skipped the anthology and sort of blend all of that and make small interludes that could convey the same feeling and explore the same narratives. It could've added WAY more layers, bc she could've added spoken word versions of some poems (which is my problem with taylor in this era, a poem is not a song and a song is not a poem and it seems that taylor swift does not know the difference) like she does with seven during the intro of folklore!! that could've been SO cool and way more enriching for the overall concept she wanted to create. Aaron's brother Bryce composed some pieces for the album i think and i wish taylor could've take more advantage of that. Aaron and Bryce both composed beautiful pieces for the movie Cyrano and this album could've had some of that. I know her strength is lyrics but sometimes just because an album has a shit ton of lyrics doesn't necessarily make it good. I do like that he produced most of the songs from the anthology and i do really like some songs like the albatross, the prophecy and i hate it here but the rest is just there. Again, transform the general concept of the anthology intro interludes, or just adding interludes would've made everything way more exciting. To sum up: i liked the album and i will still like it if i don't really think much of what could've been, which i think is something that i will have to stick with with this current taylor which sucks lmao but oh well i have other artists i can listen to. I don't think i see myself going back to the album but i do see myself listening to the songs i really liked more than once, it's just good, it fits maybe in the middle of my ranking.

[deviantly-inspired]

Hi! just wanted to tell that I've read your analysis of Astarion's approval/disapproval vs his background and it is amazing!

It ties a little bit into my post I've made about instant gratification. if the player starts an evil playthrough, all they see is that Astarion agrees with every horrible, evil, kill everyone on sight decision which then leads them to believe this is what he is and gets instantly rewarded by Astarion ready to pounce at them.

BUT if Tav pushes back on his tendencies and more so decides to talk their way out of conflict, he likes that. He's not given instant gratification by killing someone but instead shown there's a different way to deal with a problem at hand.

It all culminates into the ritual scene where yet again Tav tells him: you have a different option other than mass murder of 7000 innocents. you CAN be better, you already are.

being a good person around Astarion is more challenging and it's a but of a slow burn but it's so gratifying and rewarding at the end.

to each their own, but being evil is boring 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yeeesssssssss exactly!!! I think i mentioned it but there are actions that can net you huge amounts of disapproval/approval: the drow in moonrise towers can net you +5 per approved option in one conversation, with a max of… I think 15??? From one interaction!

But all of his disapproved “nice” actions are all… -1. It isn’t fair at all to say that Astarion disapproves of good actions and approves of evil. I definitely understand the approval system and why it’s the easiest option to implement in a video game medium. Game devs make games for everyone, not just folks who have been doing it for years. But I also think the players take it a bit too much at face value.

It’s much more accurate to view the approval/disapproval system as a narrative device rather than a “good choice/bad choice” game design. And nothing proves that point more than Astarion and the dryad In Act 3, IMO.

Astarion DISaproves if you answer honestly. If the approval/disapproval were just a right/wrong or good/evil system that wouldn’t make sense. It’s not a game design; it’s a narrative tool more than anything. Astarion as a character despises being vulnerable. He doesn’t want strangers to know his weaknesses. And your character saying all these things about him to a stranger? Of course he doesn’t like it!

It’s such a brilliant story telling device.

[escarlatafox]

Okay so here’s some more substantial kfp4 thoughts/opinions (Kung fu panda 4 spoilers!)

-

Overall, as a movie experience, I mean, I didn’t have high hopes going in. I carefully kept my expectations low, so it wasn’t like, a complete and total disaster imo but it certainly had its issues. I was someone who sincerely enjoyed the third movie and didn’t actually really mind the third movie’s pacing, and while the third movie showed certain cracks of lowering quality, they could be looked past well enough. Like, for me, the final fight/villain showdown etc with Kai in the third movie, him getting beaten by Po, etc, was all narratively really satisfying to me and I was chill with the pacing for it. This most recent movie was like, kind of decent in parts… but fell apart towards the end with the villain confrontation scene and takedown. I was fine with movie 3’s pacing but this one’s was off. While 3 was narratively satisfying to me, 4 wasn’t. There was insufficient build-up, and so much of it felt unearned. The final confrontation was too quick for me, it was just… not great. Didn’t really pack the same punch that 3 did for me.

As for them bringing past villains back… man.

What was Kai even doing there. Like, my understanding of 3’s ending is that Po obliterated him within the spirit realm, thus utterly erasing him from existence entirely. You could make an argument for him just being like, kaplowey’d into spiritual Bits which could eventually make their way back together again hence him coming back into existence, but uh yeah… His presence in 4 actually cheapens the final confrontation in 3 for me. Because Kai getting “destroyed” in 3 had this sense of finality to it. Death in general just feels cheapened – I know that the Spirit Realm =/= Heaven, and it’s only kung fu masters who go there, but like, if you keep bringing these characters back + even Kai’s death wasn’t permanent, it just feels kinda ???

I can imagine that Tai Lung fans would be annoyed with this movie, what with how he was teased (being on the poster and everything!) I was actually cautiously optimistic for a little while before seeing the movie about how Tai Lung’s role would be handled, but no. It felt off, and like, if they were gonna bring back the character, I really do think he should have played a greater role. He just feels like set dressing/weak fanservice and imo didn’t add much. His presence is/should be a big deal and it felt kiiind of cheap to me, idk. I just wish it was handled better. On learning that he + the others got their kung fu abilities taken away thus rendering them useless, that was a fun idea to me – it would render them quite ‘harmless’ and put them all out of sorts. I would have loved to see more of Tai Lung and/or the others struggling with the simple fact that their abilities have been wiped and they’re kinda ‘helpless’ (I mean, in the case of characters like Tai Lung, their still strong and imposing, but have none of the actual kung fu moves). I was misled into thinking Tai Lung would be ‘tagging along’ with Po or something like that within this movie, and while I was on the fence/worried about how it would be executed, none of that even materialised anyway. Why was he on the poster he was barely in the film and given so little to do…

Like. Seeing e.g. Shen there was just jarring as well cause he’s just There. He doesn’t do anything. And apparently he was a late addition to the film like they slapped him in there last minute and I’m just like. hm

THE VILLAINS BOWING was very egregious to me. I call bull. Unearned. Out of left field. They WOULDN’T! And even if they would. It was absolutely not sufficiently set up for THAT kind of payoff. You need to put in WAY more work to even try pull something like THAT off. Yeah, they were annoyed by their treatment from the Chameleon. They would be ‘grateful’ to be saved by Po or w/e but even THEN. I cannot see it. I was in utter disbelief when that happened I was just like… there’s no way. I saw Masha talking about how Shen would ‘never’ bow like that and I agree 100% I’m just like… Hello?

Again… For me personally the Tai Lung stuff just felt kinda awkward and unearned. Like, if they wanna do that, they gotta give him more screentime. They gotta give him more stuff to DO. Let him get free somehow and briefly fumble/awkwardly try to help out Po in the absence of his kung fu abilities idk (the enemy of his enemy is his friend, etc etc, he’s fed up with the Chameleon so he wants her taken down, and so on). Of course, part of this stuff comes down to the movie’s short runtime + poor pacing. And if it’s true that this was done very intentionally because ‘kids can’t watch long movies’ then man that is just so depressing to me. This movie badly needed a longer runtime and it could have done so much with it.

Okay random positive thing to end this off... I love the whole deal/concept with a building like, on the edge of a cliff and w/e and the lampshading of how much of a bad idea it is amused me (but tbh I do think there are in-universe reasons, like, the 'danger' aspect of it is part of the appeal/point of its establishment in-universe as well). I'm a sucker for fight scenes that make use of the idiosyncracies of the surrounding environment so that's always gonna be a plus for me.

The villain lady was cool she had a nice imposing atmosphere. I like her voice

It was like, not a disaster. It was fun. it amused me. But it wasn't satisfying in a way that 3 was for me. Movies 1 & 2 were perfect, no notes. 3 was still GOOD. 4 was like... :/ like it was alright. Just didn't hit the spot.

[fangirleaconmigo]

My problem with s2 arc for Yen is that all the things you beautifully described that makes Yen Yen were undone by her betrayal. They spend the first half of the season to show us that Yen is more than her magic, she didnt even need magic to win a powerful mage but then with two simple soldiers she's powerless and needs baba yaga and then at no point she can outsmart voleth meir? She didn't even had her in a spell or anything, it was simple: do that and get your power back and at no point Yen, after meeting Geralt and Ciri, couldn't fight it? That makes her weak, the opposite of what the first episodes showed us and we know that Yennefer is. Also the fact that she showed her good heart with everyone in s2 but the two people that were supposed to mean everything in the world for her, is imo the ultimate book Yen betrayal from the writers. Maybe they'll work on that in s3, maybe now i'm mad with the writers and I don't have the patience to see where this is going but I doubt they are talented enough to write a great original story so to deviate from the book to give us this makes me angry. And her sacrifice at the end didn't felt genuine for some reason (bad writing). And I still wonder why, show Yen - like every character in the show - was different from book Yen in s1 too but she was so well written, you could feel everything she felt but that was gone in s2. Lauren said that they didn't know what to do with Yen in s2 and that was shown. Hopefully now that in s3 they have a clearer idea of her story they'll do better. Sorry for the rant and I hope I didn't bother you a lot.

No, nonny, you didn't bother me at all.

Can you guys tell I'm catching up on asks?

This was in response to my post on how TWN S2 treated the women characters. It was mostly positive, with a few critical things.

Again, since there is critique in it (along with the praise, it is balanced) I'm going to tag twn critical.

PLEASE MUTE TWN CRITICAL IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE

Yes, even though I loved a lot of Yen's story, I agree that the Voleth Meir and Ciri decision didn't work.

It wasn't about them changing Yen from canon (tho that hurt), it was about their own story not working. For me, Yen's Voleth Meir decision, to bring Ciri to her and endanger Ciri (changing her mind too late), was in conflict with the first part of her development, and that is part of why it didn't work for me.

For example, they show you Yen upset and wanting her magic back because she sees a little girl being taken and she is powerless to help her.

So, the narrative is establishing that she does care and she does want to help, and she wants to protect little girls SO MUCH that she wants her magic back.

So. Then. If at least part of her motivation is her anguish that little girls are being harmed, how does that follow that she almost throws a little girl to Voleth Meir to get her power back? It doubles back on itself. It wants to have its cake and eat it too, so to speak.

It isn't IMPOSSIBLE to get there but it's thematically weak storytelling for me.

You know how some story telling and character development is thematically so cohesive and you completely understand why they do what they do to the point where it's almost tragic sometimes because you're like...that decision is bad, but I know where that character comes from and what their flaws are, so I know this is almost inevitable? You know how you get like a rush from storytelling that good?

That just wasn't it for me.

I'm with you on that one.

And I also agree that they have gone out of their way to develop Yen as someone who, when faced with an A) and B) choices, says "Actually, I'll take F) for Fuck you" and I love that, that is exactly who she is, but then her Voleth Meir decision didn't fit that either.

It just felt jammed in. And yeah, I don't think it's possible to undo and get the relationship we would want between them, at least not in a way that is satisfying and authentic.

But I will be watching, and we shall see. I want them to do my Yenny boo right ffs.