#its been 2 times now that someone added my tag commentary on their post and babes it doesnt matter if you dont put my name on there

[saifuckr]

we used to be safe

[ainulindaelynn]

@staff

After reading the strategic plan posted today, I want to offer some constructive criticism about retaining users from someone who's relatively new around here.

I joined Tumblr less than a year ago and agree that there’s steeper learning curve than other social media sites... but am a bit baffled by the disconnect. I want to be clear about what made this site hard for me as a new user and propose some easy fixes, because I think it’s pretty straightforward.

Suggestions in blue.

1. Confusion about Reblogging

The etiquette for reblogging was the most anxiety-inducing part of getting started. The language was a bit confusing, coming from non-tumblr blog culture. It also took me a while to understand that there was a difference between reblogging and reposting. There's (rightly) so much animosity for reposting, but to an outside perspective, they seem like the same term, which discourages engagement. Once I realized reblogging is the norm and creators ENJOY reblogs - that it's not theft and their name stays attached, linking directly to them - everything became simpler. There are always three names floating at the top of a post, but who the extra two are is something you pick up along the way without explanation. Understanding earlier would have been a game changer. A few more tutorials at launch would have made a huge difference: This is your blog. You REBLOG things here - that's normal. And here's the basic structure of a post. That would have made the transition a little smoother. Also, if you want to go above and beyond, adding a quick blurb about the difference between reblogging 👍 and reposting 👎 would probably ease tensions on a few fronts.

In short, Tumblr is ahead of most other mainstream SM sites when it comes to prioritizing creators > content and long-term, that's a strategic advantage. Keeping that culture in place requires a little more explanation on the front end though.

2. Confusion about Interacting

Another thing that baffled me in the beginning is that on other sites, hashtags are largely ignored except for organizational purposes, so I didn’t even notice people were leaving their commentary there at first. Now that I know, I actually LOVE that quirk of this site. It’s an introvert’s dream. Every other social media site is pushing other people's opinions in your face all the time. It’s exhausting. Here, I only see people’s comments if I CHOOSE to. If I want, I can interact with the content directly without being distracted by the noise around it. This is a huge draw, not only as a scroller, but also as a poster. I never (NEVER) post on any other site, because I know it’s going to bring it to the top in everyone’s feed and I don’t want to bother with everyone else’s opinions ABOUT my opinions - the endless cycle that inevitably leads to conflict in common spaces like this. Every post will be scrutinized and picked apart on other sites. Here on tumblr, I can put my thoughts on a post and no one sees it except the original poster and people who are *actively* curious about what I think. It’s a system that allows less pressure around posting and fosters more diversity of thought. It creates an environment that makes contributing easy. It’s very, VERY freeing and very, VERY rare in social media.

I wouldn’t mind seeing some rethinking about the way tags are handled if it supports the search engines, but now that I understand the way Tumblr uses them, I actually find this to be one of its greatest strengths and can’t imagine a way to preserve that quality while rearranging the tag system. As is, adding an ‘Anatomy of a Post’ tutorial like I mentioned would clear confusion about this and point new users toward the easiest way to interact with a post.

3. Confusion in Connecting

I did struggle to connect to content and communities at first, but it stemmed from a basic lack of understanding about how the site works. Once I found the pathways, other users pulled me in. Connection actually happens more easily here than on any other site I’ve EVER been on. Tumblr has incredibly useful tools for this; they just aren’t explained to beginners. The tag system is a great entry point. When I realized that I could search a tag and chronologically see EVERY SINGLE POST that had ever existed for it, it was magical. Now that I follow tags (and know the Your Tags tab exists… 🙃), new creators pop up in my feed all the time and get pulled into my communities seamlessly.

A quick tools tour at launch would solve this. And the ‘Anatomy of a Post’ tutorial I mentioned earlier would highlight the spot you can see other people who reblogged the same content. These connection points are easy to use, they just need to be more visible at the start.

That’s all, honestly.

Those are the only barriers that slowed me down in the beginning. They can ALL be solved with a few beginner-friendly tips on launch:

Intro to Dashes (Following, For You, & Your Tags + a brief personalization suggestion)

Intro to Search Features (basics + following tags)

Intro to Your Blog (basics + encouragement to personalize if the bots issue isn’t going to be resolved, because let’s be real… being mistaken for bots is probably why most people quit early these days😉)

Anatomy of a Post (basics + ways to interact)

Restricting the algorithms to the For You tab is really refreshing coming from other sites. It’s there if I want it, but , I can breathe here in a way I can’t on any other site. And honestly, the other reason I’m still around is that people are fucking weird here, which means I have freedom to be too. Any changes that don’t take those two strengths of this site into account risks losing the center and disintegrating the core. Foster a personalized experience. Prioritize avenues that let people interact at whatever level they’re comfortable. Support creator culture. Those are the things that make this better than the competition.

Oh, yeah, and if you're still reading... the organizational tag system needs some upgrades and these pornbots are killing us. Thanks, bye xD

[biolizardboils]

Sooooo i wrote up the whole Dog Man Comix thing for r/HobbyDrama! Link to that here, full copied text below. (Note to self: pin this post if it ever starts spreading again)

——————————————————————————————————

Finally done with my first Hobby Scuffle! It’s not a full Drama because I was involved, and it’s not History because it’s been happening on an off for five years now. A special thanks to u/nissincupramen, u/ailathan, and u/Dlight98 for showing interest and giving advice!

(Disclaimer: All profiles linked were public at the time of posting. Please don’t harass anyone involved, they probably don’t remember said involvement anyway.)

[Literature] Dog Man Comix: How a children’s book page fooled the Internet

Dav Pilkey has been making children’s books since 1987, and has earned nearly every award the career can offer (Caldecott, NYT Best Seller List, getting banned for trivial reasons). Captain Underpants, his biggest claim to fame, is informed by his experience of growing up with ADHD and dyslexia in a less-than-accommodating school system. (He’s been very open about this during school visits and interviews—here’s a transcript of one.)

His cheeky commentary on the issue has garnered a following of kids and adults with similar struggles. Sometimes pages from his books will circulate online, causing insightful discussion and laughs aplenty along the way.

And sometimes, they lead to Wil Wheaton (and many, many others) cheering for a kid that doesn’t exist.

But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story…

Chapter 1: Background and Original Post

On March 22nd, 2017, DreamWorks dropped a trailer for Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Millennials worldwide exclaimed “Woah, I loved these books and I love how faithful this is to their tone and art style!” Then, “Woah, this series is even better than I remember!” and “Dav wrote 4 more CU books after I grew out of them, and their commentary on how American schooling fails neurodivergent kids is sharper than ever!”

I took part in this moment in history, and it was awesome. It was also the catalyst for the biggest mistake of my life.

20 days later, I saw some of Dav’s more recent outings in a bookstore and read them out of curiosity. One of them was Dog Man, a graphic novel spin-off penned by George and Harold, the young protagonists of Captain Underpants.

The first book (and only the first, for some reason) contains in-universe documents from the boys’ kindergarten days, when they first made comics together. My favorite of these was a refocus form Harold was punished with for copying said comics with a teacher’s printer.

“How will my behavior change in the future?: [sic] be more Quieter When making copies of Dog Man Comix in office.

I am ready to re-join the classroom.: No

Why?: Too busy making Dog Man comix”

I thought it was hilarious. So hilarious, in fact, that I had to share it with the growing CU community. So I took a photo and posted it to Tumblr.

Please note how I tagged the post with Captain Underpants, Dog Man, and Harold’s full name. Please note the 200,000+ likes and reblogs, as well.

(cont. in next reply)

Chapter 2: Initial Spread ft. Wil Wheaton

I don’t know how or when the post escaped the CU fandom. My best guess is that someone with way more followers reblogged it without the tags, and thus without the context. All I know is that one day in early May, my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.

When I checked it, The Post was getting more notes at a faster rate than my blog had ever known before or since. I was delighted to finally be “Tumblr famous”… until I read the comments and tags. Turns out, people thought my photo was of a real form, written by a real kid.

Maybe if I’d edited The Post’s main body and added the context, its spread would’ve stopped then and there. Instead, I commented on it in a way people were guaranteed not to notice and left to do something else.

It hit 3k later that day. The next, it reached 7k. This is when the floodgates truly opened, and I learned the true magnitude of my mistake.

Day in and day out, people were asking where they could find these “Dog Man comix”. Others cheered Harold on for fighting the system, promising to support his future career. I got DM’d under the pretense that I was Harold’s mother.

And if you’re thinking “surely somebody here grew up with Dav’s books and recognized Harold,” you’re correct! Lots of these commenters either deduced Dav’s involvement or found out through Google. (More than one accused me of fooling everyone on purpose.) But for every one of those comments, there were ten more that were oblivious. Even better, some came close but fell just short (i.e. “isn’t this how Dav Pilkey started out lol”; “Someone needs to get this in front of Dav Pilkey stat”). These ones were so funny and frustrating all at once that they’re my favorites to this day.

So why did so many people think the form was real? I’ve had lots of time to ponder this, and I’ve boiled it down to these factors:

People who grew up with CU won’t necessarily know about Dog Man. The eighth and ninth CU books came out six years apart: more than enough time for young readers to grow out of the series or even forget its existence. I know I did before the Movie was announced. Even post-announcement, not everyone hyped for it was guaranteed to look up what Dav’s been up to.

The elements that mark this as something from CU are obscured just enough to pass detection. Harold Hutchins’ fictionality can be confirmed with a Google search, but his last name is initialized on the form. Every teacher in the series has a punny name, but Ms. Construde’s is misspelled here in a way that obscures this. (Not to mention she didn’t appear in the main series, and “misconstrued” isn’t a common word anyway.) Harold’s sketch of Dog Man himself is hard to make out under Construde’s notes.

The book’s pages were shiny, which should’ve been a dead giveaway (nobody laminates refocus forms, AFAIK). However, I took the photo in a dimly-lit bookstore at an angle that minimized the shine to the bottom-right corner.

Finally, refocus forms were kinda upsetting as a kid. Getting your drawings written over in angry red ink was scary, too. I got yelled at more than once for doodling on my notes, and a LOT of people commented with similar stories. Honestly, it’s easy to choose not to research something if its message hooks you in at first sight.

As for how everyone overlooked the red background or the improbability of a kindergartener using a printer… yeah, I got nothin’.

Now, I will admit to leading a few people on, hoping they’d look up the names and realize their error. (Not sure if that ever worked.) But for the most part, I explained things to anyone who asked to see more of Harold’s comix—sometimes in my own words, sometimes with just a photo of the book’s cover. I made a specific tag for these responses and related posts, which is how I’m able to cite so many old comments and accurately track The Post’s growth. (You can read it in chronological order here, if you dare.)

But by then, new comments were coming in so fast that I had no hope of replying to them all. At some point I resigned to simply changing my blog’s description whenever The Post flared up and hoping people would check it. I don’t remember what it said, but I have record of it working exactly once.

Anyway, Wil Wheaton reblogged The Post that September and commented, “Stay strong, Harold.” It had a sizable spike in activity right after, but I didn’t know it was due to him (or even who he was) until a friend alerted me.

By winter, I’d developed a routine. Check The Post. Pray it wouldn’t flare up again. Freak out whenever it did. Change my blog description, maybe pin an explanatory post. Reply to some angry and sad comments, reblog some funny ones. Wait for things to calm down and return to Step 1. The guilt was killing me. I had to come clean with what I’d done, and all the confusion and upset it had caused.

And when you’re dying to confess your sins, you might as well head to the very top.

(cont. in next reply)

Chapter 3: Coming Clean

Snail mail aside, there’s only one way to reach Dav Pilkey and reasonably expect a response: his Instagram. He’s on hiatus at the time of writing, but when the Movie came out, he liked and commented on nearly everything tagged as #captainunderpants. He even filled in minor details about his characters when asked, like their birthdays and middle names, as chronicled here.

No one knew how long this direct line to God would stay open. (He kept going for 3 years, but semantics.) And so, on Christmas Day, I explained myself to him in this admittedly badly formatted post.

He responded that same night. (Here’s me freaking out about it.)

“This is pretty amazing! Would it be okay if we reposted it?”

“@petey_haw_haw Absolutely! Thank you Mr. Pilkey!!”

Nothing ever came of that, AFAIK. Maybe he spoke before consulting his literary agent or something. No hard feelings, though—I’m still just glad he was so chill about it!

The holidays ended on a high note for me that year. Now that the man himself (and maybe his higher-ups at Scholastic) knew about The Post, I thought, maybe the relevant info will get bumped a little higher in Google, and less people will fall for it. Maybe it would even stop spreading altogether!

Chapter 4: To Make A Long Story Short

It didn’t.

Chapter 5: Further Spread

Before we get to The Post’s biggest break, let’s backtrack to a few months earlier. While I was watching the original Tumblr post like a hawk, the photo itself snuck away to infect more websites. First Facebook, then r/pics, Imgur, and…someone’s personal blog, I think? (Sorry for the tiny screencaps, I swear they were bigger when I took them five years ago. Also the ads for Dog Man books in the rightmost photo still kills me.)

Fun fact: I became a Redditor to comment on the photo whenever it got posted here. Besides r/pics (here), it’s popped up on r/me_irl (here), r/funny (here), and… a certain political sub that has since been quarantined and thus can’t be linked to. IIRC, I naively asked that last one to take it down because Scholastic might raise offense. In hindsight, I might’ve dodged a bullet there.

But the worst outbreak was still yet to come…

April 24th, 2021. I was at my day job. When my lunch break rolled around, I checked Twitter and saw that Dog Man was trending.

First I assumed it was about the Michigan cryptid. Then I hoped to God that Dav’s next book was just enjoying a stronger ad campaign than usual. Anything, anything but my photo.

Yeah, it was my photo. Cropped and straightened, but still unmistakably mine. This time it was posted by a family physician with military experience.

I tweeted at him offering to explain things and prove that I was the OP. He never replied. The Tweet itself lost steam less than a day later—possibly due to people’s kids setting the record straight—but not before amassing 18,000+ retweets, 3,500+ QRT’s, and 132,000+ likes. I was terrified the whole time.

This person declared it as “maybe the pinnacle of twitter,” though. I can boast that, at least.

Chapter 6: Conclusion and The Foreseeable Future

The Post hasn’t seen any major activity since April of last year, on Tumblr or elsewhere. Perhaps it’s finally fading into obscurity like it should have long ago.

Speaking of long ago, a recent Tumblr update has made tags and reblogs from 5+ years ago nigh-unviewable. As hard as it was to keep up with them at The Post’s peak, I’m glad I reblogged and screencapped so many when I could.

For all my complaining about The Post ruining my life, I do respect how the response it got exemplified what Dav’s works are about. Many of the people who shared their own school stories added that they were neurodivergent. I’m autistic myself, and school was a constant struggle all the way up to college. I waxed lyrical once that Dav’s jokes about school, “[…] albeit being exaggerated to the point of hilarity, [are] still hauntingly accurate and can strike a chord with readers even long after they’ve outgrown its age demographic”. Seeing that in action for five years straight felt like a curse most days, but if it made any of those commenters feel the slightest bit less alone, I’m willing to call it a blessing.

That being said, I’m still paranoid that said commenters might get wise and hunt me down for fooling them. Specifically in the next few years, because DreamWorks is working on a Dog Man movie. If this account ever goes dark, now you know why.

In the meantime, I shall continue to explain The Post wherever it pops up and contain the beast I unleashed… however in vain that may be.

TL;DR: Author writes school form from Kid’s POV. I post form without enough context. Hundreds of thousands get upset on Kid’s behalf.

[bazzybelle]

Magical Equality Within The World of Mages

I’ve been thinking a lot since I finished reading Any Way The Wind Blows, and there are SO many things that I still need to process. I took my time with reading it, I’ve listened to the audiobook and I plan on re-reading it several times, once I move into my new house and have THAT stress done and over with. I cannot wait to re-read it on my back porch with some iced tea and a notebook to annotate and comment on pretty much everything that gave me feelings.

But for now, there is one massive issue that I want to address, and it plays into the plot for all three books.

Warning for those who have not read Any Way The Wind Blows, this post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution. I am tagging this appropriately, but adding an extra warning just in case.

Huge thanks to @carryonsimoncarryonbaz for reading this over and making sure I didn't sound like a rambling mess.

The World of Mages is an incredibly toxic place! This is especially true for anyone who isn’t a magical powerhouse, or stupid rich.

I’m going to not focus on the obvious socio-economic bullshit, because I’m not familiar enough with the British class system to properly comment on it. But if anyone wants to add onto this with a whole meta like that, please do so!

Instead, I’m going to focus on magic use and how detrimental it can be to grow up in this world if you aren’t one of the few who are blessed with the RIGHT kind of magic (I say right kind of magic for a reason, and I’m going to come back to that). I want to focus my attention on three characters (two of whom were drawn into Smith-Richard’s fake promises, and one who was just fed up with it all): Martin Bunce, Daphne Grimm, and Agatha Wellbelove.

1) Martin Bunce: We first hear about Martin Bunce in Carry On. He’s Penny’s dad, a renowned scholar and is leading a team researching the effects of the Insidious Humdrum. He’s a highly respected individual, in his own right. Penny adores him, she only speaks his praises, and I get the feeling she gets along better with Martin, then she does with Mitali. When Penny needs help with Shep’s curse, she trusts her dad to help her after her mother flat out refuses.

While Martin is respected in the community, he isn’t a magical powerhouse. In fact, he isn’t very powerful at all. Baz makes a cheeky little comment about how he must have come from mundanity with a name like “Bunce”, and he doesn’t teach any magical classes at Watford, he focuses mainly on Linguistics.

Professor Bunce is one of the people taken in by Smith-Richard’s message, and I’m kind of glad he is. It shows that Smith-Richard’s message can reach anyone, even someone as scholarly and learned as Martin. Martin Bunce is intelligent, loving, devoted, and the apple of his family’s eye. But, when push comes to shove, all that does not matter because in the end, he isn’t as magically powerful as his wife and kids. How many times has Martin been compared to his wife? How many times has he been compared to his kids? What was it like going to Watford and having to hear about how you barely scraped by in the magical classes? His whole family is obsessed with magic, his daughter's best friend is the Most Powerful Mage. Martin is constantly surrounded by people making comments about power and magic and being strong enough as a magician.

That stuff stays with you... So when you see someone performing magic that can pull you to your full potential, of COURSE you grab onto it and hope that it’s a real thing.

Something interesting to note here; Towards the end of AWTWB, Martin casts a drinking spell, and Baz makes a comment about anyone who could cast that spell in quick succession doesn’t need a power-up. Now, was Martin truly not powerful, or did he just not have the right type of magic? Could he have been a better magician if he was able to find the right situations where his magic responded better? If he was allowed to learn in a way where his magic could have reached its full potential, without the use of a horrible curse?

I have a teaching background, and I’ve worked with a lot of kids in Inclusive Education. I’ve had to differentiate practically all of my lesson plans so that all the kids in my classroom would understand the lesson and be able to reach the goals outlined for them. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve taught, but I look at stuff like this in the World of Mages and my teaching ear perks up.

2) Agatha Wellbelove: Another person who comes to mind, especially with not having the right kind of magic is Agatha Wellbelove. Agatha does not see herself as a very strong magician. She tells Simon that magic for her is like holding a muscle. Pair that up with a mother who is OBSESSED with magic and power and who’s got the most power, and which magical matches will bring about powerful children, and you get someone who becomes resentful of the whole effing thing! I’m not even going to touch the whole “dating the Chosen One” thing because that’s a whole other can of worms.

When we first meet Agatha, she’s already fed up with magic, and wants nothing to do with it, and I can’t say I blame her. She spends all of Wayward Son running away from magic, and meandering through life, being still so unsure of herself and of her place in the world. She calls herself a poor excuse for a magician, yet she manages to save both herself and Penny from the NowNext by summoning fire! That’s a huge flipping deal! Not everyone can do that, yet Agatha is able to summon the power inside herself to do so! Imagine the wonderful magic she could have done if she was taught in a way that spoke to her.

In AWTWB, she is the ONLY person who is able to get through to the Goats. Her magic seems to be connected to nature (if I had to guess). The Dryad, all the way back in Carry On, tells Simon that she and the others find Agatha “peaceful”. That’s her magic. Agatha was able to come full circle by finding peace with the magic she has. She was able to find a place for it. What’s sad is that she felt the need to run away and not want to have it in her life anymore. Her magic is beautiful, yet not enough.

3) Daphne Grimm: So, this is the character that stood out to me the most. Daphne is the reason I even wanted to write this commentary. Those of you who know me, know that I adore this character. Partly because, I’m obsessed with the idea that Baz has people looking out for him and who care about him.

Anyway, Ms. Daphne Grimm is the apple of my eye essentially. I love her, I adore her, and she is treated SO UNFAIRLY by the World of Mages.

What do we know about Daphne? She is Baz’s stepmum, and has four kids with Malcolm. From the first book, there are snarky little comments about Daphne’s lack or power and magic. Baz himself makes a shitty comment about how Daphne’s “blood is as thin as gruel”, even though Daphne goes out of her way to make sure he’s got food sent to his room. She’s extra careful in making sure Baz feels safe in his own home. She suggests to Malcolm that Baz should see a therapist for everything he’s been through, making her the ONLY parent who not only acknowledges her child’s trauma, but tries to do something about it!

She is a GOOD mom!

Ok, we know that Baz wears a ton of masks of indifference in Carry On, and he softens up tremendously in Wayward Son, calling her lovely while teaching him to drive a car.

We learn a lot about Daphne in Any Way The Wind Blows. Namely that Fiona has some pretty nasty opinions about her. (That comment about her kids not being legitimate, and that she’s as “thick headed as she is thin blooded”. Now, imagine you’re Daphne, and the widower of the Great Natasha Pitch asks to marry you. That’s already some MASSIVE shoes to fill. You accept, and you do the best you can, taking care of his son and being a positive presence in his life, meanwhile going to all these posh functions where EVERYONE talks about power and magic. Then to have the sister of your husband’s first wife make snarky comments about your level of power and magic.

That stuff sticks with you.

Daphne doesn’t want her kids going to Watford, the ONLY magical school in the UK (as far as we know). She wants her children to succeed and be known for everything they are capable of doing, instead of being ridiculed for all the ways they’ll come up short. According to Baz, the only reason Daphne graduated from Watford was because she was smart enough to pass every exam (yet, Fiona still makes snarky comments about her intelligence).

Daphne is well aware of how painful it can be to live in the World of Mages and not be a powerhouse magician. Like Martin, she takes matters into her own hands and seeks out a way to make herself more powerful.

It is heartbreaking to look at these three amazing, beloved characters, and think about the suffering they have had to endure by their peers. Both Daphne and Martin get frustrated when those around them question their choice to follow Smith-Richards, stating “you don’t know what it’s like”. Luckily for Daphne, Baz makes an effort to actually understand her, and doesn’t judge her. Even when Fiona mocks her, Baz defends his stepmum. When Daphne berates herself and compares herself to Natasha, Baz reflects on how Natasha would have killed him (something Daphne would NEVER do to any of her children).

We know that Watford did not allow magical creatures, or differently-abled magicians (I use this term for a reason) to study there until the Mage came around and allowed everyone into Watford. This was a great thing, because now, every magical child was given the opportunity to learn how to speak with magic.

However, it should not have stopped there. I spoke earlier on differentiation and on finding the right place for everyone’s magic. What if magicians like Martin, and Daphne, and Agatha are all powerful in their own right, and they just haven’t found their place where their magic fits? Instead of finding the right way to teach these magicians, they are left to struggle and ultimately resent their magic and the magic of the world around them.

Do I hear a social commentary on the state of standardized education? I can’t really comment on the British Educational System, nor the American one, as I am Canadian. What I can say, from my own experience in Canadian classrooms, is that for all the talk we do on making education inclusive, there is still a big push from higher ups for high grades and standardized testing. If any of my followers are British or American and care to share your two cents, feel free to do so. Let’s keep the conversation going!

I think this post might have gotten away from me. I think my point was to act as a defense for people like Daphne and Martin who found themselves fished into a scam all for the promise of feeling like they are enough in their world. I also wanted to defend people like Agatha, who did all she could to run away from all of it, only to find the place where she (and her magic) belonged.

I remember having this discussion on Discord, and one of the points that came up was that maybe The Greatest Threat to the World of Mages was this deeply ingrained prejudice over magicians with different sorts of magic. Magicians who need that extra bit of help to find their way.

We’ve seen in this series how these prejudices can threaten to split the World of Mages apart, and it looks like magicians like Penny, Baz, and Agatha are learning from these mistakes. Only time (and us fanfiction writers) will tell how they end up shaping their world for the future generations.

[streets-in-paradise]

Let’s talk about the amazingly on spot social commentary on The Boys

Warning: This post contains spoilers from Season 1 and the first three episodes of season 2 of The Boys 

Tags: @nehoymenyoy asked to be tagged. I don’t know if my tags are working well but if they don’t i will send you the link of the post. 

I decided to make this post because i finished all the avaliable episodes of the series two days ago and, having a long talk with my sister about this topic, i tought this is too awesome to not discuss it here. We are both studying in careers of the social field, i'm in sociology and she is in social work. We watched the show together and talking with her inspired my own ideas i would like to share here.

This show was a wonderfull surprise in terms of social commentary. I haven't watched one with such a great commentary since American Gods. In that case i was expecting some degree of progressive commentary because i had read the book previously and i was aware the source material had some, the one added for the series is even better and it was great, but it wasn't a shock to find it. For The Boys i haven't read the comics first and , even when i loved the show for lots of reasons, the amazing on spot social commentary was a hell of a surprise. I have been frustrated lately in terms of the messages in entertaiment products because, even when there is a lot of intention for part of the makers to make more progressive points in their stuff, everything becomes bland marketing to me most of the time. I remember that some years ago media used to came out unintentionally with some really cool progressive messages ( like, for example, " a bug's life" and its anti capitalist message). That stuff seemed soo genuine and today i feel that everytime a product targets my demographic in that sense what they deliver it's soo bland and fake that the progressive intention of the message gets lost in the absolutely obvious intention of selling something to me using my ideals as catch. Precisely this is an important point of critic in this show. I didn't expected at all to get a genuine feeling in the social commentary of a superhero show. I'm not saying that this means i think the makers believe in this (after all, it's amazon), what i praise here is how good they did it. In a time when most productions claim to have a social commentary behind to come out as cool but result in shallow fake bullshit this series has provided me with something that feels autentic. Like American Gods, what i feel the show is trying to tell me actually gets me.

Before starting with the proper talk i want to dedicate a few línes to recommend a few scenes of the show i just mentioned. I was super dissapointed after finding out they will probably end up turning it into more bland fake bullshit for season 3 but, to anyone who likes well delivered social commentary, check on Orlando Jones's scenes as Anansi. He is my favourite character from the show and all his scenes are a blessing. 

I would also want to clarify that this post and the opinions displayed on it are from an anti capitalist, intersectional feminist and latin american perspective. I know the show is very american, the issues it discusses are most of the time worlwide but it has particularities of the american context so i will try to talk only of what i feel i know enough to have a word. I'm argentinian and we have our local versions of some of this problems but i will stay in the series territory trying to be as faithfull as i can to the american reality it gets inspiration from. Also, forgive me for any mistakes on my writing and expresions. English is not my native language. 

Superheros are modern mythology. How would this work in real life?

This is the basic premise of the show’s worldbuilding. The great thing is that this concept is not developed in an edgy, pretentious way. It is serious and painfully real because it’s not only a subversion of tropes, it says a lot of what superheros are to us as a modern times myth. In a superficial view, the world of The Boys feels like what the MCU could have become after the Sokovia accords if they would have been efficiently followed on a worldwide scale.

In that particular universe i use as reference, our superheros are noble and morally heroic individuals.State intervention is the factor threatening to corrupt their actions making them follow the interests of the system. The risk there, along with some very shady violations of human rights to powered people, is having superheros tied to something as unstable as political power. You can fear, for example, what a Trump-like president could do if he had power over the Avengers because, again, the heros are not corrupt, their line of command is. Now, if we strip away all the idealization we had putted on this bunch of powered persons and see them as what they truly are at the end of the day, people like everyone else. Why are we supposed to believe they are immune to corruption? If we also consider the phenomenon of strong privatization of security that has been growing worldwide . Wouldn’t they be more like security workers working for a private contractor? Less like heros and more like private military / security officers?  Now, this is what we are talking about. 

What feels so different from this show is that it assumes a surprisingly realistic point of view on a modern fantasy we are very used to consuming and still constructs a new power fantasy that empowers the viewer. I’ m saying this as an MCU fan, I had grown too comfortable with this optimistic fantasy and this twist from it is brilliant. To put some context on what i want to say here i will try to explain myself first on why i think that superhero fiction have this enormous popularity today and it has become such a huge thing in entertainment. Besides of the obvious reason of big companies producing big exciting action blockbusters for the genre, it’s curious to think on how much these stories gathered a lot of progressive audiences. In past decades action blockbusters didn’t felt progressive, today’s superhero blockbusters were embraced by progressive audiences and this was the start of a twist in general for the media. I think that there is a contextual social reason for this, not the only factor but one i feel is considerable. 

Late Stage Capitalism crushed us, we are so used to injustice and the control the system has over us is so big that we have slowly stopped dreaming of changing it ourselves. Instead, the fantasy of a superhuman who has the power we don’t have saving us from oppression feels really comforting. Captain America becoming such a huge icon in the middle of a time where extreme facism is rising again all over the world, for example. I don’t know much about his comic counterpart but, at least from what i see in the movies, Steve’s ideals feel to me like all those aspects from French Revolution’s  Enlightenment that capitalism dropped away once bourgeois defeated their feudal rivals and capitalism got consolidated, the freedom and equality that feudal lower classes fought for. Today, we feel too small to make a difference so we enjoy the fantasy of powerful persons leading the fight for us. Capitalism feels more unstoppable than ever, it is the only thing who seems strong to remain in a terribly chaotic world. The suffering this cruel system brings to this world is overwhelming, we feel only a miracle can save us now. This is what feeds the narrative of the superhero as modern myth and saviour of humanity.

The Boys tosses aside all our hopes and dreams, presenting us with the most realistic escenario. Superheros are not the miracle we are waiting for, they are humans like everyone else. They are not sacred entities existing beyond our societies, they are part of the system and they insert on it as part of the security industries. They can be corrupted and they work in corrupt institutions in benefit of the ruling class like every other security provider in capitalist societies. They become a new face of the security forces in constant tension with police and military because the myth of the superhero provides them with the public trust those other two forces lost. People lost their trust in cops but they trust sups because they are supposed to be this noble individuals mobilized by their personal feelings of injustice trying to make the world a better place … right? Police are the forces of the ruling class but superheros are supposed to be with us, or at least this is what common sense and propaganda claim, having our hopes as a base to work on. 

For someone so used to the typical superhero fantasy this felt like a slap on my face back to reality. It soo accurate , the system tends to capture any revolutionary input and turn it into profit. Even if the sups could had been a revolutionary factor at the beginning, the most likely thing to happen is for them to become a profitable industry. If we add to this what we already know of the actions of police and military in our real world we have a combo for disaster. The realistic twist is so fresh and painfully real, i can totally see this happening in real life if superheros were a thing. 

We have already introduced ourselves in the world of this story, let’s check on the first main character this series introduces to us. Hughie Campbell, a college age guy who works in an electronics store, lives with his dad and has the most boring average life you can imagine. This guy who is too afraid to ask his boss for a pay raise changes overnight when a superhero kills his girlfriend in front of him and the big corporation the asshole works for covers up the whole thing. The “average guy becomes a hero” trope is not new at all, but the use it has here feels fresh because it is not there only to feed the male geek power fantasy. Hughie is not a geeky average guy only so geeky average guys can identify with him in an action series full of geeky references,he is not there to be the nerdy guy from Robot Chicken. Hughie’s characterization makes a point for everyone. The smallest most unimportant person, the one who can't even stand up for themselves in everyday situations, can make a change. Remember Samwise Gamgee fighting Shelob in Lord of the Rings? Hughie killing Translucent gives me that vibe. If we consider the point i already stated about superheroes being there when we feel too small to fight back injustice, this is the exact opposite. This is a fantasy that gives us the power, makes us think in our own strengths. Hughie is standing up for himself for the first time in his life and he inspires us to fight for our rights. 

Pharmaceutical,Security and Entertainment industries and their business system : Superheros as lab rats,elite security forces and celebrities. 

This part of the post is the hardest to write and the most exquisite. There is so much to talk about about this system Vought shaped tying these three billionaire industries together. The first thing i want to mention, as a point to start, is Butcher’s ramble over the teddy bear with a camera inside in his meeting with Hughie. Perfect introduction for the character with a delightful moment of commentary. In our current societies people live in constant fear for hundreds of reasons. Fears over street crime had skyrocketed all over the world even when crime is not growing uniformly in every country and that accelerated the privatization of security, fears of parents over the strangers they leave they kids with when they are not home inspired products like the one mentioned in the series’s moment, fears on the effects of processed foods are an impulse for the diet industry and i could keep naming lots of other examples. Fears, and the emotional response they trigger , are the base of profitable businesses. 

I had been reading some authors that describe this stage of capitalism as an emotional one. Capitalism preached science and rationality during the past century but today its base of support is an emotional one. To excite the sensations of the people as consumers, to eliminate rational criticism, to push anti popular agendas through emotional excitement and mass hysteria. To cite another example that you can consider bounded to the series, Right Realism in Criminology is now almost common sense and there are people who keep asking for harsher punitive systems. This ideology, with the help of media panic, goes straight after their feelings and fears of being victims of violent crimes. Rational thinking is not the area of discussion, the base of the argument is on fear and pain. Fear of being potential victims, pain shared with the victims thinking in solutions that sound more like revenge than justice. 

Going back to my point, in the world of The Boys this type of punitivism seems to have succeeded even in a greater way than in our current world because it has superheros as backup. If real life harsh punitivism feeds on fear and a wish for social revenge, in this world it has the positive emotions supes inspire on people as a trust certificate for the persons who may not feel that way. They are loved and worshipped celebrities, their faces are everywhere, they have thousands of fans… who would see flaws in what they do? Can you imagine a world in which we worshipped cops and soldiers like we worship celebrities? This is it, people put their blind faith in them because most of them seem to be their fans. Even the people who are against brutality in the actions of security forces would end up trusting them because they are famous people. Our culture has taught us to make ourselves blind to the bullshit we see on the celebrities we love. Fans have a strong emotional attachment to their favourite celebs and this can turn into emotional manipulation in this context. If actors or singers in real life can have a fanbase that forgets to see them as human people how would these actual superhumans not end up being worshipped as gods? 

There has always been military propaganda in entertainment but this marriage between the industries through superheros is far more sinister than that. It makes you think about the unfair amount of credibility we put in celebrities. The plane crash scene of Homelander and Maeve it’s even more devastating looking at it from that perspective. Those persons had their full trust in them and they were safer with the terrorists. Can you imagine being a Homelander fan and dying there?  That’s horrible, the last thing you get in your life is the biggest disappointment ever from someone you trusted and stanned. 

 Speaking of Homelander, he is a right wing wet dream and one of the best villians i had ever seen, he makes me feel sick with how fucking despicable he is. His character is an excellent point to start the ramble on the third wheel of this corporate nightmare. Superheros are products of the pharmaceutical industry, injected with a drug since they were babies. In his particular case, he was raised like a lab rat and the series is realistic even in this detail. The lab rat kid with superpowers is another common trope that we see pretty often and here it also gets twisted. I’m thinking for example on Eleven from Stranger Things, she has been raised by abusive scientists who treated her as an experiment, yet she is this sweet kiddo who has a hard time socializing. Instead, Homelander is a monster without conscience or mercy and seems to be severely affected by his abnormal childhood. Brilliant, he is the ultimate product of this corporative triangle and depicts everything that's wrong with it. 

The cycle is pretty clear: drugs create them, they play their role in security and their media notoriety justifies their actions. As it is shown in season one,  the security aspect of the corporate complex represented mostly in Homelander’s actions craves to grow bigger and get supes into the military since, in the startpoint of the series, they only work with cops. Since the industry feeds on fear and Vought seems to have a monopoly in the production of powered persons there were no threats big enough to justify the intervention of superhumans in wars. Dismissing the importance of this monopoly for the company, Homelander suministrates the drug to terrorist groups in an attempt to create the first super villains. This is a perfect analogy of how the american war machine works. There is no way for terrorist groups from Third World countries to get access to sophisticated war technology without help from the ones who wield that power better than anyone. The first mentions of the supe terrorists reminded me of when i was in my course of worldwide history in college and i learned there how most of those famous names in middle eastern terrorism were actually friends with the CIA before at some point. Here in South America we have other history regarding the style of USA intervention, the Plan Condor dictatorships in the 70’s and early 80’s. I was just starting my career when I had a month of history classes about the Middle East and, being pretty ignorant on the matter, it shocked me the way in which the US villainized people they used to work with. I think the series makes a great point with this part of the plot because it hints something of this war mechanics. 

Gender politics of the series: a surprisingly complex approach on the topic of sexual assault ,a realistic critic to bland white feminism and the empty cashgrabbing ways in which mainstream media adapts feminist discourse.

This topic was even a bigger surprise for me. I wasn't expecting such an interesting approach of gender issues, mostly because this is the area in which media wannabe woke messages had become more dissapointing to me lately. Specially in a show about superheros, i wasn't expecting to get very interesting points.

I will start talking of the portrayals of sexual assault. We have two sexually assaulted characters in the series, Starlight and Becca. First, i think it is great that they didn't used the "rape as character development" trope. Actually, it's cool how they mock this conceptions. When Starlight saves a woman from being raped on the streets or when she makes a public statement about her sexual assault it's the people behind her, building her public image as a character, the ones who push that trope. In the first time their great character development idea is to sexualize her outfit, after the second event mentioned they literally push her sexual assault as development. I love how the public relationships team acts oftenly in a men writing women way, serving as mirror for the most common mistakes of writers on pop culture products when they write female characters.

Going back to my point, i like the effort they putted into portraying differences in both cases. Homelander is the typical portrayal of a rapist, a narcisistic monster without remorse, a deranged son of a bitch. The Deep is also a piece of shit, but of a different kind. There is a phrase that feminists of my country had popularized " los violadores son hijos sanos del patriarcado" ( it means, the rapists are healthy sons of the patriarchy. It tries to explain they are not crazy individuals who act outside societal circunstancies), the Deep reminded me of that.

He is not crazy, he is an insecure guy with a super fragile ego who abuses women for power. Insecurity on men under patriarchy tends to become bashing of women. This is not a black and white portrayal of a sex criminal, it is surprisingly complex. Of course,his actions were unexcusable. He will never repay what he did to Starlight and other women before her but he has chances of working on his issues and, eventually if he trully wants to get better, stop being the scumbag he is. He is not a deranged criminal whose only fate is to be neutralized for the safety of others.

I think this is important because, at least in my country, i had seen people using sex offenders as an example of why countries without death penalty should implement it. I don't support extreme autoritarian security measures and it makes me sick to hear that there are people claiming those as solutions in the name of women's safety. I like the approach they took to portray The Deep as the piece of shit he is but still showing the complexity of this issue instead of going for a more traditional dichotomic way.

Back to the mocking of mainstream media's attempts of adopting a feminist approach i mentioned, the season two got even better at this commentary on the "Strong Female Character" trope with the introduction of Stormfront. She is the literal embodiment of what shitty marketing says an empowered female character must be and has the biggest "I'm not like other girls" complex ever. That interaction she had with Starlight in "pink = bad, pants = cool" mood was super annoying and blaming her for the assault?? Freaking disgusting.

Honestly, i hated her soo much even before she showed her true colours completely. Stormfront represents everything i hate in Hollywood's feminism and the crappy meaningless messages it's pushing lately. She reminds me to all the fake "woke" advertisements i had seen on tv, like a Carefree (pads brand) advertisement that pissed me off last week because with the slogan " self trust is beauty" it portrayed girls who wear make up as fake and insecure.

Now, speaking of that particular scene of her killing Kimiko's brother. I felt literally sick, even sicker than in every Homelander scene. This bitch is worst than Homelander because at least he gathers a public that serves to his views. If you ever need to provide someone with a proof of why intersectionality in feminism matters use this racist bitch. Horryfying racism hidden behind the progressive mask of a bullshit privileged version of feminism, the thing i hate the most. She has a strong nazi terf vibe. I think she absolutely applies as mirror of critic to stuff like Rowling's terf nonsense. 

The introspective look this series has regarding the multiple issues on today’s attempts of gender approach on media entertainment surprised me. It’s everything i would had wished something to point out but nobody seemed to have the guts to make it happen because, as i already said, the current trend is what it’s being focus of critic here. 

I will end this now, i feel there is plenty of more stuff to talk about but this post is getting very long and, if i get more ideas i want to discuss, i can always make a second post. As i said before, this expresses my humble opinions and i’m open to hear different interpretations that can enrich my views. 

Thanks for reading this extra long ramble. 

[aurorawest]

⭐️ ooooh! can you please give a "director's commentary" on chapter 2 from "Foundations" where Loki and Thor are in a pub and get confronted by these two awful guys??

Yeah! Gosh it feels like a long time ago that I wrote Foundations!

Some general commentary about this fic - one of my struggles with writing Loki was how to get into his head and make sense of the fact that in Thor 1, we have that deleted scene where he tells Thor that he loves him, and to never doubt it. Obviously that scene was cut, but Loki’s entire arc really does bear out that he loves Thor, so I really needed to find a way to reconcile, “Never doubt that I love you,” with Loki’s douchebaggery in Thor 1. So that really was the impetus for this fic - what are some things that have happened between them that could lead to Loki’s love for Thor never wavering, but would also convince him that keeping Thor from the throne was a good thing, so good that he should resort to fairly extreme measures to achieve it? I wrote this fic a bit out of order—chapter 3 came first, then 1, 2, and I wrote 4 and 5 more or less simultaneously.

The men watching him didn’t seem like a concern anymore, either. They were the princes of Asgard. Who would dare attack them?

“Drinking by yourselves, princelings?” a voice said from above them suddenly.

So in chapter 2, I wanted to show Thor’s hot-headedness, and I wanted it to involve Loki, because I wanted to show a conflict between Loki loving Thor for looking out for him...but also hating Thor for looking out for him.

Spoken too soon. Loki’s head snapped around much faster than Thor’s did. It was the two men who had been watching him. Surprise.

With a smile that he hoped was charming, rather than sloppy, Loki said, “Well, I wouldn’t say we’re alone.” Wait, was that supposed to be clever? The drink was getting to him. The drink had gotten to him.

Thor scooted his chair over and slung an arm around Loki’s shoulders. “Only because we haven’t found company yet!” he thundered. Loki tried to slither out from under his arm but Thor’s fingers clamped around his shoulder, so he resigned himself to his brother’s drunken clutches. “Join us, friends. And well met on this beautiful evening!”

I tried to mimic the dialogue patterns of Thor 1 and TDW for this fic much more than I typically do. Since most of my fic takes place post-Ragnarok, and I really love the tone of Ragnarok, I draw a lot of my style and tone from that. But I wanted to give this fic a feeling of being set in the past, long before Loki and Thor encounter 21st century humans.

[...] The men looked at each other and Loki felt another twist of uneasiness. One of them, his hair a fiery ginger that Loki couldn’t help letting his eyes linger on, 

This is a very subtle (like so subtle that I’m sure literally everyone missed it) reference to Theo Bell in the novel Loki: Where Mischief Lies, who’s a redhead. I have a head canon that Loki has a thing for redheads.

elbowed the other, who was brawnier and uglier, with a nose that looked like it had been flattened by someone else’s fists on more than one occasion.

Could I have just said his nose had been broken? Probably. I still kind of like the way I worded this.

“Perhaps if it was just you here, Your Highness,” the uglier one said. Loki stiffened, but Thor didn’t react. Either he didn’t get it or didn’t care. But Loki wasn’t so far gone in drink that he didn’t understand, nor did he miss the way the redhead’s eyes narrowed at him. It sparked a flash of irritation in him—he was the prince, they had no right to look at him that way. But he looked down at the table, a habit honed in court, where it was easier to bow his head and dig his nails into his palms rather than argue with Father.

Loki digging his nails into his palms hard enough to draw blood has become one of his tics, the more I’ve written of him. This...may have been the first time I referenced it?

With a chuckle, Thor said, “It is just us here.”

The man laughed too. It was much less nice than Thor’s dumb, likable laugh. “Aye, Prince. You and your greasy brother.”

Head canon: Loki’s hair looks greasy because he hates its natural curl and he dumps product on it. He would rather it looked bad in any other way than be curly.

The smile fell off Thor’s face and he removed his arm from Loki’s shoulders. “What?” he said, suddenly sounding far less drunk.

“It’s not the grease we mind,” the redhead piped up.

Loki raised his head, sensing danger. It was best not to be looking at your lap when you knew it was coming. His daggers were a comforting weight on his forearms, but Thor hadn’t brought a weapon tonight. Why would he? Loki went out into the city by himself all the time, and he never had any trouble. And if one of them was going to have trouble, it would certainly be Loki—less trusted, less loved. Too pale, too quiet. Unnatural.

Loki is definitely an unreliable narrator here. He sees hatred and distrust everywhere he looks. There’s obviously an element of truth to that (as we’re about to see), but on the other hand, he’s been drinking at this pub for ages with no trouble. He knows the bartender. Loki’s mind really prioritizes negative experiences (I guess most people do but Loki, anxiety and depression ridden Loki, really does).

“No, not at all,” the man said. “Who hasn’t skipped a bath now and then? No, the thing is, we don’t drink with faggots.”

I remember after I posted this fic, I went back a few days later and added the tag ‘period typical homophobia’ because of this line.

The room didn’t actually fall silent, but it might as well have. There was a loud ringing, and it took Loki a second to realize it was in his own ears. His chest felt like something heavy, like the hammer Mjølnir that was kept in the weapons vault, was compressing it to nothing, and he was fairly sure that his heart had stopped beating.

Thor hasn’t been given Mjolnir yet.

The man’s grin was practically ghoulish. “Probably thinks no one sees him going into that whorehouse, the one where they keep the lads—”

I purposefully left it vague whether this is true. But since this is the director’s commentary, I can tell you - it’s true! Loki does frequent a brothel with male employees. He actually has sort of a long term relationship with one. The guy is in love with Loki. Loki is...not. There comes a point where the guy confesses his feelings to Loki. Loki never comes back after that. Later, on The Statesman after Ragnarok, Loki finds out the guy was killed in Hela’s purge. He feels pretty awful.

The scrape of Thor’s chair on the wood floor was deafening. [...] “That,” he said in a dangerous voice, “was not a very nice thing to say.”

Kind of an understatement, Thor.

The redhead took a step back. The ugly one, who’d just aired Loki’s—dirty laundry? Skeletons?—didn’t. He was mixing metaphors. This was something he’d preferred to think of as simply a thing that he just didn’t talk about, but now that it had been announced to a roomful of people, it seemed like something he should have been much more ashamed of. Surely people didn’t stare like that otherwise.

Loki is...not exactly uncomfortable with the fact that he’s attracted to men. He knows, or thinks, that it’s outside the norm, but he doesn’t think that he’s doing something wrong. I have a reference in some fic...somewhere...I can’t remember which one, about how Asgardians live such a long time that most of them will try having sex with someone of the same-sex, even if they don’t really think they’re attracted to people of the same sex. It might be in one of my fics for the Loki Rarepair Bang? Anyway, later, Loki will come to understand that. At this point, he’s still kind of like...I don’t know anyone else who likes this. I was really trying to walk a line between him being ashamed and him knowing, deep down, there was nothing wrong with him.

Then again, they may have been staring because of the look on Thor’s face. “Apologize to my brother,” Thor said.

The man looked at Loki and grinned. Loki folded his wrists inwards and fingered the hilts of his daggers, but he said in a low tone, “Thor, it’s fine.”

[...] “Best listen to your brother,” the man said with a leer. “Or maybe I should say ‘sister.’”

Personally, Loki didn’t find this insulting, 

Probably because it’s a terrible insult.

but Thor clearly did. 

Loki isn’t entirely comfortable with this fact. Thor sends mixed signals. He doesn’t have a problem with anything about Loki, and yet, he still gets mad about an insult like this. Obviously, it’s meant as an insult, which is why Thor gets angry - it’s not the content so much as the fact that these assholes are attacking Loki.

[...] Loki knew that a normal Asgardian should be offended by all of this. The disrespect, if not the accusation itself. [...]

But all Loki could see were repercussions spidering out from this moment, repercussions from getting angry, from standing up for himself, for fighting back. An Asgardian was supposed to fight back. But Loki knew that he couldn’t win either way. If he fought back, his father would say he should have calmed the situation. If he didn’t, everyone would think he was weak. And in any case, the fact that there’d been a confrontation in the first place would be blamed on him.

At the heart of a lot of Loki’s issues is this idea that he can’t do anything right. He knows what he would naturally do, but knows it’s not acceptable. He knows what he “should” do, but he also doesn’t think that’s acceptable. He feels caught in this impossible place where it’s literally impossible to win the approval of his father...which is the one thing he wants.

[...] In a blur, Thor’s fist swung out, connecting with the man’s face with a wet crack of bone and cartilage. The man dropped like a stone, but when he hit the ground he tried to roll away. His red-headed friend stepped forward, bringing a fist up.

I remember really, really not wanting to write a fight scene here, haha.

In a second, Loki was on his feet, holding out a hand that was suddenly grasping a dagger. The redhead jolted to a stop as Loki extended it so the point rested inches from the tip of the other man’s nose. With an icy smile, Loki said, “I wouldn’t.”

I very much love writing Loki wielding his knives.

The redhead’s face twisted in a snarl, but he lowered his hands to his sides. There was that taken care of, at least.

Thor kicked the other man out from the table he was trying to crawl underneath, grabbing him by one of the pauldrons on his shoulders and hauling him to his feet. The man took a wild swing at Thor and missed. In return, Thor head-butted him, smashing his already ruined nose to an unrecognizable, bloody pulp. Then he slammed the man down on the table, one hand around his neck. The tabletop splintered and bowed with the force of the blow. Their ales splattered everywhere.

“Thor,” Loki said warningly. “That’s enough. He’s an idiot—let him go.” But Thor was too far gone. The rage of battle, he liked to call it. Loki preferred to think of it as dumb, animal bloodlust. The man’s face was turning red while he wheezed, and his attempts to hit Thor were growing weaker.

“Thor.” Loki took a chance, lowered his dagger, and stepped forward. He wrapped a hand around his brother’s shoulder and pulled him back, though of course his strength was no match for Thor’s. If Thor wanted to kill this man, he could, and Loki would be powerless to stop him with mere strength. Sorcery, yes. But that was what had gotten them into this in the first place. And besides, Loki didn’t think Thor would thank him for magicking him. “Stop. It’s not worth it.” Thor bared his teeth and squeezed his fist tighter around the man’s neck. The man’s eyes popped and his wheezing became a thin whistle, then the absence of anything in his gaping mouth as Thor cut off his air supply.

For a moment, Loki studied the man. He’d thought—he’d assumed—that he would feel a bolt of horror, of a desperate need to stop this so a life could be spared. But as he looked down and searched for that feeling, he just found a cold emptiness. What did he care if this man died?

I believe that Loki is a deeply sensitive person, who cares and loves with absolute abandon...if you make it to the very inner reaches of his heart. Otherwise, he probably doesn’t give a shit about you. I want to show that here, that Loki has this very cold-blooded side. It’s not that he likes killing people or inflicting pain, but it doesn’t bother him.

What he cared about was not causing more trouble than had already been caused. About making sure Thor didn’t do something rash and stupid. And about not getting the blame himself for something that he hadn’t started, because for his whole life, people had been ready to believe the worst of him.

Here’s some set-up for Loki’s eventual scheme to prevent Thor from taking the throne. Loki knows Thor acts without thinking. Here, he wants to stop it. Later, he’ll use it against Thor. Here, Loki is very much fighting against people’s perception of him. He wants to be loved. This flips for him later, where he embraces what (he thinks) people think of him and really tries to become the villain. It’s not a natural fit on him.

“Brother, please,” Loki hissed. “Stop. Think.”

This is an intentional echo of Loki’s dialogue to Thor on Jotunheim in Thor 1.

And why should this work now, when it rarely did? But Loki felt the tenseness go out of Thor’s shoulder, and after a second, he released his hold on the man, pushing him away. The force of the push slid the man across the table and headfirst onto the floor, but he was moaning, so clearly he wasn’t dead.

For the first time, Loki glanced around the alehouse. If there hadn’t been silence before, there certainly was now. Everyone in the place was staring, and not in a friendly way. The look in Birger’s eyes was unmistakable. 

I used the name Birger for the bartender because I figured I wouldn’t want to use it for a more important character.

[...] He [...] smiled as though nothing was wrong, met Thor’s eyes, and walked to the door. Spine straight, shoulders back, the half-smile on his face that he wore when he didn’t want anyone to know how much he was breaking inside.

Loki is a practiced actor. There’s far more going on inside his head than he’ll ever let on.

He didn’t even know why this, of all things, should crack one more piece of him. Certainly, it wasn’t the idea of gossip about him. There was already gossip about the fact that he liked men as well as women. Mother already knew, anyway. She’d sat him down one day, several months after she’d noticed his eyes following not just some of the attractive serving girls, but also boys, and had the excruciatingly awful Talk with him that he was sure Thor had gotten from their father, not from her. “You know to take precautions to prevent disease, not just pregnancy?” she’d asked, and he’d managed to stammer, his face bright red and burning, “Yes, Mother, of course.” Honestly he hadn’t thought much about it, but the only thing that could have made that moment worse was admitting ignorance.

“Will you be my fester-man?” has Loki remembering talking about his attraction to men with Odin, and how absolutely mortifying it was. Odin’s side of this talk is telling Loki that whoever he wants to sleep with is fine, but he needs to marry a woman and produce an heir.

But Thor was here to witness this, and maybe that was what made it seem so awful. Thor, who meant the world to him, but whom he worried saw him as lesser. Lesser than his friends, the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif, lesser than every other Asgardian. Lesser than Thor himself. Why wouldn’t he see Loki as lesser, when Thor was going to be king? When despite this display tonight, he’d receive no more punishment than a stern talking-to from Father?

Loki had kept his cool, Loki had defused the situation—they were walking away from this with everyone alive because of him. And yet he was the one who everyone would see as the one who hadn’t done things quite right, while Thor, who’d nearly killed a man out of anger, would have his actions waved away. Loki’s circumspection was a flaw, while Thor’s hot-headedness was a virtue. Loki would never hold the throne because he wasn’t Asgardian enough, and Thor was too Asgardian for his own good.

Really the core of this section and Loki’s bitterness—Loki can do nothing right, and Thor can do no wrong. Loki sees his outsider status as both a flaw, but also as an advantage. He does feel he did the right thing in this situation, but he knows no one else will feel that way. Thor’s reaction was maybe not good, but it’s what everyone would expect.

It wasn’t that Loki didn’t appreciate that his brother had almost killed a man to protect him. It was just, he didn’t need to be protected, and he could see the outcome of this writ large as though it was scrawled across the front of the palace. It made him want to scream. It made him hate Thor with such a scalding fierceness that it scared him. He couldn’t hate Thor. But nothing was fair, and Thor never did anything about it.

He hates Thor. He loves Thor. One thing this fic really taught me about Loki was how he lives with cognitive dissonance every moment of every day. He holds these massive contradictory feelings inside him and they just sit next to each other, totally irreconcilable. 

The two of them walked the dark streets of Asgard in silence, Thor’s heavy breathing quieting the farther they got from the alehouse. [...] “I suppose you want to know if what they said is true,” he said, staring straight ahead into the dark. His eyes found the palace, shining golden in the distance.

Thor made a noise. In his periphery, Loki saw his brother look towards him. “I know it’s true,” Thor said. “I mean, maybe not the part about the…um, establishment, but you liking men, I already knew that.”

Swallowing, Loki said, “And?”

“And what?”

Loki stopped walking and it took Thor a couple steps to realize it. As Thor turned back to him, Loki asked, “And… [...] Do you care?”

[...] “Why would I care?” Thor asked. And then, “Did you think I would care?”

“I…” Loki hugged his arms over his chest until he realized it looked childish, like he had something to hide, something to be ashamed of. Dropping his arms to his side, he said, “They cared in there.”

Thor snorted and shook his head. “They were fools. I’ve never known you to put any stock in the opinions of fools, brother.”

“So you don’t,” Loki pressed. It seemed of the utmost importance that Thor actually say these words. Loki needed him to prove it, not with his fists, but on Loki’s territory, by saying it. Out loud. Unequivocally. Plainly.

Loki needs to be told things verbally. He needs people to tell him, straight up, ‘I love you.’ ‘You’re worthy.’ Etc. Which I think is why Odin’s ‘No, Loki,’ is so devastating to Loki. Loki places so much important on words and doesn’t really look at people’s actions (Thor, incidentally, is the opposite).

Shaking his head, still looking befuddled, Thor said, “No. There’s nothing to care about.” Then he paused and took a step closer. Reaching out to put a hand to the back of Loki’s neck, he said, “Loki. Even if there was, you’re my brother. And I still wouldn’t care.”

I remember really wanting to get this right. I think when I first wrote this line, I had Thor say, “You’re my brother; of course I don’t care.” But I wanted Thor to just...not care. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Loki, Thor just isn’t a bigot. But I also wanted the sense of like, even if he did care, the fact that it’s Loki would make him rethink this.

Loki wanted to hug him. But that vein of resentment was still there and it stopped him. Instead, he swallowed hard and just stood there for a moment, Thor’s hand cupping the back of his head while he felt something inside him splintering.

And for the first time, he identified it. It was the feeling of his jealousy and love butting up against each other, two immovable forces that wouldn’t yield to the other. With a flash of insight that felt more like seeing into the future, like a faint hint of his mother’s witchcraft (none of which had been passed down to him), he realized this battle was going to shape his life.

He’s right.

And right then, he wasn’t sure love would win.

Nooooo Loki, it will!

“Loki?” Thor said, sounding unsure.

He forced himself to smile, and as he met Thor’s eyes, the resentment receded. Reaching up, he wrapped a hand around Thor’s forearm and said, “Thank you.” There was more to say, but it was beyond him. It was too much.

“Nothing to thank me for,” Thor said, sounding relieved. Then, he ruffled Loki’s hair, which he knew Loki hated. But this old, familiar argument was safe, and they retreated to it as they continued their walk back to the palace. Loki smoothed his hair down and wished he could do the same with the cracks in his life. Something felt changed, and it was frightening, and he felt in his bones that there was no going back to safety, no matter how much he might try.

Safety is an incredibly important feeling to Loki. I return again and again to it in my fics. There are certain people that make him feel safe, and these are the people he loves above all others. You can count them on one hand: Thor. Frigga. Stephen Strange. There’s an element of physical safety to this, but mostly it’s emotional safety. There are people who will let him be who he is, and he’ll do anything for them because of it.

Thank you so much for asking!! It was really fun to return to this fic.

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

[just-random-obsessions]

Funny Moments In Thor The Dark World

Find Thor 1 here

Find Avengers 1 here

This is the second part of me watching all three thor movies and the avengers movie and comparing the humor pre-ragnarok to the humor in the 3rd Thor movie. And, as before, I’m writing this on my computer where the I and U keys don’t work so sorry for any spelling mistakes.

Tag List: @nikkoliferous @fyrecrafted @lokijiro @miskiett @darthxerik @icyxmischief @iamanartichoke @juliabohemian @official-and-unstable-satan @melodylnoelle @just-another-human-2019 @fandomsfanfiction @mentallydatingahotcelebrity @cateyes315 @burningarbiterheart @imnotacreepijustlikeyou @usedtobegoodfriend96 @alexakeyloveloki

Official-and-unstable-satan and fandomsfanfiction weren’t tagged sry

Anyone who wants to be added/removed to the tag list please let me know! and if I missed someone please also let me know. Sorry this post is so long

~ “Hello Mother. Have I made you proud?”

~ “Please don’t make things worse” “Define worse”

~ “I really don’t see what all the fuss is about”

~ “Just like you”

~ *That smile!!!!*

~ “I’ve got this completely under control!” “Is that why everything’s on fire?”

~ *About the Scary MonsterTM: “All yours”

~ *Thor says hi to the Big Scary MonsterTM*

~ “I accept your surrender”

~ “Anyone else?” *All the people simultaneously: NOPE*

~ “Perhaps next time we should START with the big one”

~ *Odin obviously shipping Thor and Jane* (idk I got a kick out of this)

~ *Jane awkwardly avoiding her date*

~ *Date: hi*

~ *Him awkwardly talking about his ex*

~ “And the fact that she kept sleeping with other men” “NO!”

~ *Darcy being mistaken for a waitress*

~ *Darcy mouthing “Cute” to Jane about Richard*

~ *Darcy embarrassing Jane by talking about Thor*

~ “Is there a point to all of this cause there REALLY needs to be a point to all of this”

~ “That’s what I said!”

~ “That’s what I did!”

~ “He’s not interested” “I’m interested” (Am I the only one who feels like his awkwardness was actually kinda cute?)

~ “He’s my intern.” “You have an intern?”

~ *Intern is fucking adorable like Richard*

~ “I have totally mastered driving in London!” *Has not mastered it at all*

~ *Selvig running around Stonehenge naked*

~ *Darcy keeps calling Ian ‘Intern’*

~ *Darcy calls Jane cause she didn’t wanna shout*

~ God I fucking love Darcy she’s so criminally underrated

~ “I am not getting stabbed in the name of science”

~ “It’s okay, we’re Americans!” “Is that supposed to make them like us?”

~ “We’re scientists-well I am” “Thanks”

~ “That doesn’t seem right”

~ “I wanna throw something! Jane give me your shoe!”

~ *Jane ignores Darcy*

~ “Give me your shoe”

~ “Were those the car keys?”

~ *Ian’s face when he realizes he threw the car keys to another planet*

~ *If you have to bury so many people then you’re doing something wrong you hot dumb fuck* (I mean that’s basically what Heimdall said right?)

~ “Typical” *after being left behind while Jane goes to talk to her boyfriend*

~ *Jane! Love of my life and most talented and beautiful person in the world oh how I love yo-SLAP*

~ “As excuses go, its not terrible”

~ “I know” “You do?” “Do what?”

~ *Darcy interrupts the KissTM*

~ “Um I’m pretty sure we are getting arrested”

~ “How’s space?” “Space is fine”

~ “He’s my intern… My intern’s intern”

~ “Holy shit!” (after Jane went up in the Bifrost)

~ *Heimdall calmly dodges the car*

~ “We have to do that again”

~ “Hello”

~ “What’s that?”

~ “It’s a soul forge” *No I’m pretty sure that’s a quantum field generator*

~ *Jane being ready to fight Odin for comparing her to a goat*

~ “You told your dad about me?”

~ “It must be so inconvenient, them asking about me day and night”

~ “Please meet my mother” *Jane shies away from Thor*

~ Loki casually tossing the thingamajig in the air like the cute little shit he is

~ Lord, he’s so damn pretty

~ *Kurse being like: Lol I ain’t touchin’ that boy with a ten foot pole*

~ “It’s as if they resent being in prison”

~ “There’s no pleasing some creatures”

~ *Loki calmly reading a book while all Hel breaks loose*

~ “You have my word that no harm will come to yo-” nvm bitch die

~ *THAT look between Sif and Jane*

~ *Frigga immediately seeing through Odin’s bs lies*

~ *Heimdall: I have defeated the big space ship!! The bigger one behind him: Bitch you thought*

~ “WITCH!!!!” *Now I know who Loki gets his amazing aforementioned smile from*

~ *Selvig using shoes to explain complicated science*

~ *Selvig then using pencils*

~ “Any questions?” “Yeah, can I have my shoe back?”

~ “What’s SHIELD?” “It’s a secret”

~ *Darcy’s cute af face when she sees that Selvig is in the mental hospital*

~ “Are you sure you wouldn’t just rather punch your way out?”

~ *Loki shapeshifting into the guard*

~ “Mmm Brother, you look ravishing”

~ “Costumes a bit much”

~ “So tight!”

~ “I can FEEL the righteousness surging!!”

~ “HEY wanna have a rousing discussion about truth?”

~ “Honor?”

~ “Patriotism?”

~ “GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

~ “At last. A little common sens-”Bitch are you really fucking kidding me? (What do you mean that’s not what he said?)

~ “I thought you liked tricks”

~ “I’m Loki, you may have heard of-” SLAP

~ “That was for New York”

~ “I like her”

~ *Loki gazing lovingly at Jane in the background*

~ “Betray him, and I’ll kill you.” “It’s good to see you too Sif”

~ “If you even think about betraying him-” “You’ll kill me? Evidently there will be a line”

~ “I thought you said you knew how to fly this thing.” “I said how hard can it be?”

~ “Whatever your doing brother I suggest you do it faster.” “Shut up Loki

~ “You must’ve missed something.” “I didn’t, I’m pressing every button on this thing”

~ “Well don’t hit it. Just press it, gently.” “I aM pReSsInG iT gEnTlY AND ITS NOT WORKING!!!”

~ *Thor starts slamming buttons and it starts working*

~ *Volstagg: Oh fighting is much fun- OH SHIT IM FALLING!! HELP!!!*

~ “I think you missed a column.” “Shut up”

~ “Why don’t you let me take over? I’m clearly the best pilot”

~ *Bitch I’m the one who can actually fly*

~ “Oh dear. Is she dead?”

~ *Thor knocks over a column* “Not a word”

~ “Now they’re following us”

~ “Now they’re firing at us”

~ “Yes thank you for the commentary Loki, it’s not at all distracting”

~ “Well done, you just decapitated your grandfather”

~ *Seriously, whoever wrote the escape scene is a genius!!!*

~ *Loki yelling at Thor about how thIs was a bad idea you dumb fuck- wait wtf are you doing AAAAHHHHH!!!!1*

~ “You lied to me. I’m impressed”

~ *That smile again snfnejaihfeqrqrsbdsalxdjewonjfeq*

~ “For Asgard!” YEET

~ “Nothing personal boys!”

~ “If it were easy, everyone would do it”

~ “Are you mad?” “Possibly”

~ “TADAAA”

~ “Oh yeah, my father. Eric Selvig”

~ “And these” “yeah… those”

~ “How did you find me?” “You were naked on television”

~ “I don’t get paid enough. I don’t get paid at all”

~ “What’s happening? Birds? Birds are happening?”

~ “All right are you ready?” “I am”

~ *phone rings* “It’s not me”

~ “Why are there so many shoes in here?”

~ “I’ll just text her”

~ “So who’s Richard?”

~ *Thor hanging his hammer on a coat hanger*

~ “Where are your pants?” “Oh he says it helps him think”

~ “Loki is dead” “Oh thank God!”

~ “Better get my pants”

~ “Do you even know what these things do?” “No” “…Neither do I”

~ “Ooh get the guy with the sword!”

~ “Oops”

~ *Ian’s high-pitched scream*

~ *Does car insurance cover My Car Was Sucked Into Another Planet Due To A Cosmic Event That Only Occurs Once Every 5000 Years or no?*

~ *Thor and Malekith fighting between worlds and poor little Mjolnir trying to keep up*

~ *The two of them against windows*

~ *AAAHHH*

~ *Awww! Look at the cute little Jotunheim monster! He’s so adorable I wanna pet him so much!’

~ *Darcy and Ian kissing after he saved her life*

~ “Darcy?” “Jane!” “Ian?” “Selvig.”

~ “Myuh Myuh!!”

~ *Thor ends up on the subway*

~ *The girl taking 50 photos*

~ *Thor and the woman colliding into eachother*

~ “I’ve come to accept your surrender”

~ *Malekith gets crushed by his own ship. Now that’s some lovely karma right there*

~ *Darcy and Ian go back to kissing*

~ “He kinda committed treason on our way out” oops

~ Jotunheim Puppy chasing birds

Wow I’m so sorry this was so long. But guess what? It’s gonna get even longer. Sorry, again.

So one of the differences between the first and second Thor movies is that Thor 2 has humor in the climax whereas Thor 1 doesn’t. This is because of the differences with who is the villain. In Thor 1, Thor is having to fight his brother. To quote Avengers, they “played together and fought together” for several millennia. Of course there’s not going to be any humor in it cause there shouldn’t be. The climax at the end of the movie isn’t supposed to be some epic battle between the forces of Good TM and Bad TM. It’s supposed to be tragic that he’s having to fight his own brother because Loki lost his mind due to so many factors. The last joke in the film is “You’re an amazon liar brother, always have been” “It’s good to have you back”. There’s nothing else till the end credit scene. That’s because Kenneth Branagh knew that this was supposed to be viewed at as being sad a hopeless, not some awesome upbeat battle.

Thor 2 on the other hand, is exactly that. Thor has known Malekith for.. what? 2 days? Maybe 3? His relationship and dynamic with Malekith is different than with his brother. To Thor, this is just another enemy attacking Asgard. And I’m not sure whether this was intentional or not (because I remember reading somewhere how Allen Taylor had a bitch of a time in the editing process so I think the movie came out different than he intended) but the lack of any personal relationship will Malekith means the film can make really funny jokes and still have it fit with the film. If anything, I might even argue that the humor helped the film to maintain a very nice positive vibe. Idk I can’t think of the right words to explain it but the jokes actually fit the film very well.

However, then we move on to Ragnarok. With Ragnarok, Thor is fighting his sister. While (just like Malekith) he has only known her for two days, that still doesn’t take away the fact that he is having to fight his sibling. And I’m not a film director but if I had the option of approaching this situation and taking it the Thor 1 route or the the Thor 2 route, I’d go with Thor 1. Because it’s actually incredibly tragic that Hela has been driven to insanity like Loki (though ok a different level) due to Odin’s shitty parenting. She is the horrible way she is because Odin made her that way. And that could’ve been an AMAZINGLY complex story with the audience feeling so much sympathy for Hela like we did with Loki in Thor 1, but the narrative just falls flat for two reasons. 1) Taika admitted he didn’t want the film to be emotionally complex so 2) The humor in the climax completely detracts from the seriousness of the situation.

Also, some side notes: Yes, this is edited from the original. I accidentally deleted everything and then had to go back and add everything back in. So I also had to re-tag people too. And I also added a bit more explanation at the end. I meant to do so when I originally posted but it never got done till now. Sry. Also sry that it’s so long

[bookenders]

Storyteller saturday! What was the first thing you knew that /had to be/ included in your wips? What's special about it? What is giving your motivation to work on your current projects? What's a neat worldbuilding thing you came up with?

Storyteller Saturday!

Hey hey @timefire25! Thanks so much for the asks, friend!

I’m gonna tackle these fantastic questions in order: 

[H2H = Heart to Heart

FF = Fish Food

AOPC = All Our Painted Colors

TND = The Neither Days]

1.  What was the first thing you knew that /had to be/ included in your wips?

H2H: Lesbians. Happy, live-beyond-the-end-of-the-story lesbians who can do magic and are ridiculously wholesome. Also: a strong, loving community; social commentary; enough fluff to stuff a whole set of pillows; cool science stuff.

FF: Humor! Without it, this story would be super duper way too dark. Also, lots of social commentary on… *checks notes*

That. And legit depictions of mental health issues.

AOPC: A culture centered around ART. I love art. And stories.

TND: Okay so there’s this one scene coming up that’s super rad and I’m really excited about it. It’s been in my head since the beginning and it’s like, the second scene I thought up. I love the imagery and the symbolism and the feelings. It’s great.

2. What’s special about it?

H2H: Sometimes you need to read something that will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Fluff makes the world go ‘round, ya know? And lesbians gotta survive. Also, I’m passionate about found families, which is why the story has one at its very center. I love writing stories about people who don’t feel at home somewhere, so they find with other people who feel the same and call a new place theirs. It’s an important thing to learn: there’s always somewhere for you, and always someone out there who can catch your drift. 

FF: Stories like this one are ways to see the truth of reality. Okay, that sounded super intense. What I mean is that this is a story about a group of people who have been used coming together to fight back against a system that’s doing its best to tear them down. Including accurate and respectful depictions of mental health in this story is important to me, too. I feel like this genre is a great place to explore that. 

Also, I need to work on my humor writing so that’s pretty special, I guess. 

AOPC: I loved the idea of a culture based on art. What do they value? How to they keep records of events and their history? How do they share information? What do they hold dear? It’s sort of my own version of the Legato Conservatory, for those who listen to TAZ. I don’t know of any other fantasy cultures 100% centered on art, either. It’s a story about storytelling and all the ways you can use it. And I think that’s pretty special.

TND: The metaphor and the symbolism, with the context of the canon, is so full of feels it makes my heart clench. It’s an unexpected coming together, a reaching out of two hands that meet in the middle while the world spins off-kilter around them. It’s an oh and a gasp in the same breath. It’s a fall that feels like flying.

That’s about as poetic as I can get without spoilers.

3.  What is giving your motivation to work on your current projects?

Right now, not much, to be honest. It’s midterms time and I’m a grad student, so life is pretty much study hell right now. But my stories are my creative therapy, so I expect I’ll start writing again pretty soon after all my business chills out. 

But on the regular: I really want to tell everyone about the big giant spoilers and how they happen in H2H, and one of the big confrontation scenes in FF (seriously, it’s a huge twist I don’t think a lot of people will see coming - one of them anyway 😉), and I want to figure out what the hell happens next in AOPC, and in TND, I really want to get to the switched POV chapter because it’s full of mutual pining and it offers a lot of really good insight into one character’s head (it’s my motivation to finish this transition chapter too because it’s taking forever).

4.  What’s a neat worldbuilding thing you came up with?

H2H: The magic types I developed are pretty cool! Astromancy, Totem Magic, Sigilcrafting, and Pact Magic. There are a few others, but that’d be spoilers, my friend. Making these info posts was also very fun. I got to do nerdy research about magic and science! 

And something I haven’t mentioned yet: liminal spaces are very important in this story! The town of Linsay is a liminal space. Gemma’s house is a liminal space. The police station is a liminal space for Oz. The lake is a liminal space. This is important: transformation takes place at liminal places. Magic is strongest there. The old is left behind and the new is just ahead. And the fae inhabit liminal spaces.

FF: I made a WIP page that mimics the Coalition of Heroes’ database! It took forever and it was really hard but I did it! And I think it looks rad. 

In-world, hmm… I really like Lithium’s bar. It’s a place that’s like a hero-themed TGI Friday’s or Red Robin, and it’s also the hangout for off-duty heroes. They all chill there like it’s a cop bar for officers who are all undercover. It’s great. None of the civilians who go there know that they’re sitting next to high level super heroes. And Lithium thinks it’s hilarious.

AOPC: There are so many cool worldbuilding things in this story. One is the marriage ceremony I made up. The couple stands before the Namestone and the most senior Elder binds the bride’s left hand to the groom’s right. Then the men of the tribe line up behind the groom, and the women line up behind the bride. They’re ordered so the people closest to them, like family and lifelong friends, are first. One by one, the women dip their right hands in purple paint and mark the bride’s back with their hand print. The men do the same with green paint on the groom’s back.

After everyone’s marked the bride and groom, the Elder blesses the couple, holds their foreheads together, and then they turn around and press their backs together, mixing the paint and blending the colors together. The party starts as soon as their hands are unbound. 

TND: Since most of the worldbuilding for this has already been done by the canon, here are a few recurring story threads I’m working with: Crowley vs. ducks, liminal spaces being the most comfortable and calming, “a good shock to loosen the tongue,” and the kinds of miracles that don’t work. 

Thank you so much for these awesome questions!! 💜

I’ll add my tag lists since there’s a lot of information worth tagging about:

H2H

WIP Intro Post | H2H WIP Tag | Character Page | WIP Page | PowerPoint Intro

Character Tags: Gemma | Mel | The Ladies | Fred Coriander | Officer Oz

OC Intros: Harry | Mary | Oz | Jill | Treena | Fred | Gemma | Mel

H2H Tag List: @katekyo-bitch-reborn, @cawolters, @wasting-ink-not-youth, @quilloftheclouds, @snickertoodles, @mvcreates, @writeness, @half-explored, @dcdarrells, @aslanwrites, @minusfractions, @purpleshadows1989, @royalbounties, @waterfallwritings, @the-clockwork-anything, @kriss-the-writing-nerd, @abalonetea, @timefirewrites, @tricksexual, @introspective-outreach, @alternativeforensicscientist, @sumoranges, @hermiones-writeblrr

[Let me know if you want to be added or removed!]

AOPC

AOPC Tag List: @quilloftheclouds, @snickertoodles, @half-explored, @chemistwriter, @purpleshadows1989, @waterfallwritings, @kriss-the-writing-nerd, @abalonetea, @alternativeforensicscientist, @hermiones-writeblrr

FF

WIP Intro Post | FF WIP Tag | WIP Page | PowerPoint Intro

Character Tags: Iron Will | Overseer | Lithium | Babylon | Nightmare | Sparkplug

OC Intro Post:  Phase 1 | Phase 2

Individual Intros:

Phase 1 (Main Cast): Iron Will | Overseer | Lithium |  Babylon | Nightmare

Phase 2 (Supporting Cast): Sparkplug | Battalion | Ferro

***

[Let me know if you want to be added or removed!]

Fish Food Tag List:  @theevolutionofledarose, @kriss-the-writing-nerd, @quilloftheclouds, @waterfallwritings, @dontwritethatone, @aeschknight, @abalonetea, @ladywithalamp, @writevevo, @danger-writes, @anika-writes-things, @sunlight-and-starskies, @writing-every-other-star, @shadeshadow234, @jaimistoryteller, @leave-her-a-tome, @dowings, @alternativeforensicscientist, @sumoranges, @notanalien51, @hermiones-writeblrr​

TND

Link to Story | Story Tag

TND Tag List: @every-book-has-a-secret, @at-thezenith, @ofinkblotsandscript, @alternativeforensicscientist, @abalonetea

[letamreviews]

Top of 2019

With 56 films watched and 27 favorited in 2019, I composed a list of my top. By pure happenstance, the list is almost an exact third (18) of the total films watched. Be aware that I don’t have as much to say about some of these because I took no notes after.

Because I’d be biased towards them, I don’t count the National Theatre Live plays.

Since the list is likely to be altered between now and the end of February (to accommodate for films missed), check the Lettboxd list later on to see an up to date listing, but be aware that it intentionally lacks the details provided here.

EDIT (01/04/20):

Woke up this morning religiously re-reading this and caught some grammar errors. It’s almost like staying consistently well-rested is actually beneficial. While I’m at it, Blind Rating (BR) is how worthwhile the film is watching “blind” (or knowing nothing). The scale is 1 (worth it) to 5 (you must). ‘Eh is essentially a 0.5.

1. Midsommar (USA)

Saw the original and Director's Cut in theatres and discussed them with a group immediately after both times. I’m somewhere between really liking it and loving it. Still unsure. Hell of an experience with a lot to notice, debate over, and pick up on during the second viewing. Don’t even get me started on the Christian/Dani matter. Dat tension, tho. Blind Rating: 4/5

2. Us (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. I’m digging the allegories and the way (I think) it reflects on society. Dem reveals, tho. Blind Rating: 4/5

3. Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. Two things probably play a huge hand in this not being atleast 3 spots lower: my demographic and the fact that her older self constantly reminded me of my grandma and a certain middle school teacher. Regardless, it’s an entertaining, interesting, and lively documentary with its many personalities on-screen all giving their take on matters along with Ms. Morrison herself. Glad they managed to finish and release this 1.25 months before her death. Blind Rating: 0/5

4. When They See Us (USA)

Saw on Netflix over the course of a month. Y’all, this one hurt too much to watch again any time soon. Admittedly, part of the reason why it hit me so hard is because I could easily have been one of them. Dat ending, tho. Don’t forget to watch the Oprah followup When They See Us Now after. You’ll ball (again). Blind Rating: 3/5

5. Parasite (South Korea)

Saw an advance screening in theatres and watched a live post-film Q&A. I really like it. This hit me in such a way that it’s one of three films I’m writing an essay on. Planing on watching it a second time soon so I can finish with a sense of accuracy. This isn’t one that I would recommend looking at images for. There are some that will spoil the experience of the second half. Seriously, block the “Parasite” tag from your feed if you can. Blind Rating: 3/5

6. Luce (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. This was is so~ good as a thriller and especially in regards to being Black in America. Wanted to watch it a second time but never managed to squeeze it in before it left theatres. Dem performances, tho. Dat tension, yo. Dat score, bro. Blind Rating: 1/5

7. Them That Follow (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with someone immediately after. I love it. Blind Rating: 1/5

A drama influenced thriller about a religious and somewhat self-isolating community that's effectively blanketing a realistic romance. (snip) —Letterboxd review

8. The Souvenir (United Kingdom)

Saw in theatres (partially because so many movie peeps were shitting on it). I love it, but I didn't fucking love it. Was tempted to see it again, but didn’t get the chance. Dat ending, tho. While it was a movie peep telling me the whole plot that caused me to gain so much interest in it [Cabin in the Woods (2011) all over again, amiright?], I must say that the less you know the better. It’ll make for... a more immersive experience. Blind Rating: 3/5

9. After the Wedding (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. I thought I really liked it, but I love it. This was a trip down unexpected lane, le'me tell ya. The trailer is a spoilerful lie, but the Landmark's description is very accurate. People's experiences will have a heavy hand in how they react to it and feel about certain characters. The way they made this feel like a constant thriller was excellently done. Dat cinematography, tho. Go in knowing nothing more than what the previous link provides. Blind Rating: 1/5

10. Joker (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. I really like it. Blind Rating: 1/5

(slight spoilers)

This was difficult to watch at times, but hella captivating throughout. Arthur's reasoning is believable, his sanity is questionable, and his life is indeed one hell of a joke. Like watching an extreme example of what happens when people on the lower end lose access to social programs. This can very easily be taken as a commentary on mental illness kept unchecked. More than that, it's a story about a guy who accepts his "crazy" and transcends poverty, circumstance, and societal bullshit... at everyone else's expense. (snip) —Letterboxd review

11. Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. I really like it. Captivating documentary in a very similar style to Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, but with Mr. Davis never joining the “talking heads” (as people like to call it) and instead being heard as a constant narrator of his own biography. Regardless of how I feel about him on a personal level, this shit was a great watch and the ending hit hard. Still need to get his autobiography, though. There’s a nostalgic factor for me here since I was partially reminded of my grandpa while watching it. Blind Rating: 'eh

12. Queen & Slim (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with someone immediately after. Fuck yeah, I enjoyed this one. Dat soundtrack and cinematography, bruh? 👌🏿 The throwback soundtrack, main characters’ racial group, and fact that they went to New Orleans definitely play a hand in why this one’s not atleast 1 spot lower. Blind Rating: 1/5

13. Dwelling in the Fuchon Mountains (China)

Saw in theatres during festival and attended discussion days later. I really like it. Was long, but in a good way. Similar to Ash is Purest White (2018) in that I kept thinking "please end here," but would be glad it didn't later. It's beautifully slothy and has absurdly long tracking shots. The cinematography during walking conversations is notable. Dat trick, tho. Blind Rating: 'eh

14. A Girl Missing (Japan)

Saw in theatres during festival and discussed with a group immediately after. Bruh~, this is a hell of a personal trial. Didn’t expect it to go the places it did. Blind Rating: 1/5

15. Dutch Angle: Chas Gerretsen & Apocalypse Now (Netherlands)

Saw on MUBI on phone. I love it. This goes over his childhood (for 8 minutes), career paths, photography of 9/11/1973's Chilean coup d'etat, the 6 months he spent on-set photographing Apocalypse Now (1979), and him as a person. What I didn’t expect was how much he would get into the details of things happening during that film’s development. Along with those details are interesting photos presented excellently in a way that’s reminiscent of manga at times. I like the way the photos take center point and are treated like the foreground. It’s like the director and editor forced themselves to remain aware that the documentary was showcasing 15% of the total slides housed in the Nederlands Fotomuseum’s archives in Rotterdam and that most of his Apocalypse Now photos were never seen. Dat score, tho [Ex Machina (2014) vibes]. Blind Rating: 0/5

BTW, it had its official (Dutch national) release by EYE Filmmuseum on 12/19/19 in the Netherlands, so maybe it’ll come to the USA soon. 🤷🏿‍♂️ Forgot to mention it’s been added as a special feature to the 40th anniversary 4K blu-ray disc of Apocalypse Now: Final Cut (2019).

16. Receiver (Ireland)

Saw on MUBI on phone. I really like it. A very interesting short film in three odd segments. First was disturbing; second was about activism, protests, and politics; third was about the person I assume the film was made for. All compose what I took as a film about the importance of having reliable sound and hearing. Needs to be watched alone with good sound quality (for immersion). Blind Rating: 'eh

17. Bacurau (Brazil)

Saw in theatres during festival. I really like it. This was some Most Dangerous Game shit with a hell of an ending. The whole game is an allegory of civilized people's obsession with hunting wild animals for "sport". I really like the portrayal of history here and enjoyed the racial matters it lays bare. I can only imagine someone watching this without knowing a thing. Kinda wish I didn’t even read the description beforehand. Digging the soundtrack. Blind Rating: 1/5

18. Little Women (USA)

Saw on 35mm and discussed with others on separate occasions. I really like it. This was just warming and sad. I felt for the main characters and actually felt satisfied with the way it ended. Considering the type of film, there are handful of typical things for me to complain about. That being said, the movie earned its stars back. I mean, did you not see their attic performances? Shit was dope. Blind Rating: ‘eh

[ain-t-bovvered]

14x10 Commentary

Zeta and Giuls scream together, and then die.

Me & Zeta will watch together season 14′s episodes as they come out and we’ll do our commentary while watching.

1 2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9

14x10 Nihilism 

-I did not want to see Jack like that again thanks

Zeta: true

- And there was a need for some wings there honestly .

[ comes back crawling]

HERE

Zeta:  the bar sceeeene

-.....THAT’S A DAMN SQUIRREL WITH A AVIATOR CAP ON ( also I re wrote squirrel four times before getting it right) 

- MOOSE!!! 

-......The Moose has a tag with “FAMILY BUSINESS” written on it----lol Jensen

Zeta: What’s her name

- PAMELAAAAAAAA . Damn woman I went a bit Bi there

Zeta: OH YES.

- [Music: and I’m searching for a rainbow] .....WOW

-[on the counter] Daphne loves Fred.

 my monkey dirty brain: Daddy loves tips. 

-hot. want that.

Zeta: the tequila or the bartender?

Bitch please . both.

- D: “ What are we, savages?”

Zeta: Oh the lips

-Cosmic Cowboy. *chokes*

-FB

-why is it always a ghoul case?

-Lol but who’s the drunk guy tho

Zeta: Bitch, look at her biceps

- some Bi slippage there too I see. FOCUS

Zeta: also indeed. Who is he?

-D:”I’ve never had anything this nice”

Also....I would be like Dean if I had a bar. One for the costumer and one for me! woohoo .

- D: “How come you always have a boyfriend?”

  P: “How come you always want what you can’t have?”

[looks into the camera like in the office]

- D: “This is my dream” 

I kinda see it tho....old grumpy Dean Winchester being the Bobby while running a bar like that. Yes....I like it.

- I knew it . I wanna see someone closed behind that “closet” *wink wink*

Zeta: Oh oh

Zeta: the slo mo.

-NICE .You are welcome for this gif where I let you enjoy the full over the count jump. Nice healthy middle age man over the fence jump ( nevermind this is an italian oil ad ).

-The blood. So cute

Zeta: I’m famous

- mmm

Zeta: shit

-Hello M boi, I missed you fam

Zeta: Changed clothes

- OMFG are you saying that the Archangel Michael macVanity von DramaQueen really just angel mojo changed into his Peaky Blinder wanna be in front of them?

He’s so flamboyant , I love him .

Zeta: The close up

- M making three men kneel with so much as lift his hands.  WHAT A MOOD. WHERE CAN I GET THAT? I WANT 10.

- M : “ I saw everything”  Yeah no shit we kinda see that coming too

-DoN ‘T IntERrUPt mE 

Zeta: Don’t interrupt me

-I’m-

I’m so bothered right now. Dom Michael for the win

-OH WOW

- Sam just “assbutted” Michael lol.

Castiel : Sam....did you just molotov my brother with holy fire?

Sam: uh ....No?

- HE ANGRY

- Dean’s not home right now...

Zeta: Please leave a message

*giggling* I love him

Zeta: His voice GOD DAMN

-yes

- Castiel hair tho.

Zeta: Do you? Cocky much

-but needs to play it cool. Can’t risk to mess up the pomaded hair.

- S:” We the angel cuffs on , Michael is under control”

 M: “Keep telling yourself that “  ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

I *clap* LOVE *clap* HIM *clap*

- S: “Dump him in the trunk of the Impala” ... DUMP HIM .ahahahahaah

-Garth is in the trunk

Zeta: it’s a big trunk

-M: “ It’s a party!”

- J: “ It’s not like any of us can fly”

 M : “ Well one of us can”

 S: “ STFU”

- J:” Sam, are we gonna die here?” ... wow Jack...babe...stfu

-Yes OMG I forgot about the stalky reaper

Zeta: You mess up so many things

- it ain’t wrong

- [in john Mulaney’s Trump voice] we locked Death away and enslaved the reapers

Zeta: Poor Cas

- ok but WHO....death? Michael is asking himself that too.

-Yes , put him in the dungeon. HOT

Zeta: shit

-I can hear you

Zeta: Shit

-Ahahahahahaahah

Zeta: SHIT

-I’m loving this

Zeta: Bring back Crowley.

Zeta: We left Garth in the trunk looool

- that....everytime we don’t see a character for long that’s it...they are in the trunk.

Zeta: Castiel

-CASTIEL . so strange, I love him, he’s such a sarcastic asshole.

- M: “Yes, uh, put a chair against the door”

Zeta: This pretty smile as I rip you apart

-I’M SHAKING. YAS.

Zeta: Control yourself

- S: “Cass this is all we’ve got”

Zeta: Again?

- well it is a loop.

-MORE SHOTS.  (me)

Zeta: The only thing missing is “heat of the moment”

- what if the woman is his conscience trying to get him out and if he sign he’s out? ...like....testing his resolution?

-Little insulting

Zeta: you’re nothing

Zeta: Why is he so perfect in this?

- J: “Dean---is strong”

  M *disgusted face*: “ Is a gnat “ . WOW

-OH SHUT UP OOOOH

Zeta: Emotional abuse.

- M: “ he was not happy, but he didn’t care-- Cause you are not Sam, you are not Cass.” 

[ me looking smiling to the Castiel/Misha hateclub]

-M: “You are a weak helpless thing”

- Jack , babe ....get away tho 

Zeta: LISTEN TO YOUR DAD

- M: “no I’m not and I can still hear you”

Zeta: Prick

- Love that prick..... literally 

- I care so little for the others I swear

- M: “Look at you, play nursemaind for a nephilim”

-C: “You are confusing loyalty and compassion for weakness”

Zeta: Damn what am I watching?

- [looks into the camera like in the office] Sexual tension

Zeta: so done. this. Close up

- M “and now...that I’m in here, I know why” 

-CHUCK

Zeta: He churn our draft after draft

- M speaks like he’s singing and mocking you at the same time. He has this musicality in his speak and I love it

- C: “Why would he do that?”

 M: “BECAUSE HE DOESN’T CARE!”

- good lord I swear all the angels are just brats throwing temper tantrum because they have a trash dad.

- M: “But now , I just want to burn every one of his little worlds until I catch up to the Old man”

Zeta: Even god can die.

- oh ok....overachiever much

Zeta: Hurt Jack

- No no Jack babe...keep your fucking soul .

Zeta: Cool science project

- Michael’s mind: if you mess up my perfectly combed hair Cass I swear-

- M: “ I give it a solid B- .....uh oooh”

 me nervously: .....wtf lol 

- M: *snorts* Oh Cass, I believe in you.

So rude...so nasty 

- j: “ What should I do?”

Zeta: Pray

-Thanks Cas, that’s-......that’s great

Zeta: You are all mine

- ..... YESSIR TAKE ME

Zeta: Dean’s mind.

- ..... if it was a funny episode they could have made so many jokes about being empty lol.

- me looking around haters mind ^

Zeta: This is what you are gonna become

-omg

- THAT WAS DEAN IN HELL.

- Dean’ “NOOOO “ at Castiel death is vibrating into my bones.

- S: “Dean is strong”

- C: “Sam, we’ve been through a lot and Dean is more than strong”

- S: “Dean thrive on trauma.” 

WE’VE BEEN KNEW

Zeta: Smart moose

- Somebody has been reading some meta tumblr posts

- P: “You really know how to talk to a lady don’t you?”

 me already at Castiel’s feet : wha

- That’s us fans watching 14 seasons of supernatural ^

-Bloody Cass is 100. *licks lips*

- P: “get me a shot. With your braaaain”

Zeta: Well hello.

- C:” That was- that....DeAN ThAt WaS An ACcidENT”

Zeta: Babyyyy

- them baby faces

- C:” WE NEED YOU TO COME BACK”

- S:”POUGHKEEPSIE”

- Dean’s mind : [ old modem sounds]

-M [Slow clap it out.] : Hey Fellas

-AND THE HAT IS BACK

Zeta: I’m you

Zeta: He gripped you tight and raised you from perdition

-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAH I’M DYING SO BAD.

-BITCH I’M DEAD AND GIGGLING I CAN’T.

-but also....but the fuck is Mary at?... like wow.

- also....everything that Micheal is saying right now is causing me actual fucking pain.

- Ok and both Sam and Cas faces? well thanks

Zeta: He’s buying time

-WOW. Slow smile, oooooH

-S: “So in here, you are all talk”

- oh that’s why he doesn’t use his powers. Serviceable .

Zeta: So happy. Fuck

Zeta: Prove it

- Um...yes hello 911? 

Michael getting his hands dirty is too hot for me.

-Fucking Tiger man.

-Come on baby 

Zeta: Jack will do something “stupid”

- Well he is his parents’ son *shrug*

Zeta: that

- D:” Then we don’t kick him out, we keep him in”

-oooooh M goes in the closet, lol

Zeta: Oh my god.

- ....Well that was stupid AHAHAHAAH 

- I can’t stop laughing .

- M [ROAR] 

  me: ....

Zeta: I’m the cage.

-HE IS THE CAGE. That doesn’t seem right tho...come on.

Zeta: So now Dean has Michael locked up

-ooooh the magic hurt him. Forgot about that. My baby.

Zeta: Concerned Dad.

- The way Cass say : “you understand?” killed me....so soft...so worried...

- The little smile! Kill me now.

Zeta: He’s not ok.

-Dean is not ok.

Zeta: [henley alert]

-He’s like....naked. ( still has another tshirt under it tho)

-Oh he’s mad 

- I’M CRYING . HE LOOKS LIKE MY CAT WHEN I REFUSE TO LET HIM OUT .

amazing.

( Sorry for the not that clear gifs but I wanted to cut and past all the bits of that because it’s amazing)

Zeta: He’s suffering so much.

-That troat

- That door is not that sturdy tho

Zeta: Oh hell no

- oh hello death . 

-Aw hell naw.

- Death :” Except one”

-AW HELL NAW

Zeta: Which one?

- UGH

Zeta: No

-NO

Zeta: NOOO so much hurt

-OH FUCK

Zeta: Actual literal pain in my chest

YA KNOW WHAT?....I DON’T LIKE THAT LOOK .

NOT ONE BIT.

.

- lol I don’t even wanna look at tumblr now

Zeta: well you know me....I have

- of course you did

post gifs comment: I didn’t do my crack gifs for now, but they will be done in a separate post.

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If you want to get tagged in the future ones send an ask HERE or to @waywardbaby or a smoke signal, idk whatever I’m tired af.

TAGS: @supernatural-teamfreewillpage  @destiel-honeypie   @mariekoukie6661   @dragontamerm    @closetspngirl @rainflowermoon @mattiecat   @bunnybaby121115  @aliaitee @jacks-word-of-the-day @4evamc

[dimples-of-discontent]

(part 1) im gonna preface by saying sorry if you've answered this before or it's obvious, but I wanted your opinion on something. I can't really read Misha at all when it comes to Destiel. I wanted to know if you think Misha plays Cas as being in love with Dean? Do you think Misha sees that relationship or is too in the moment to view it the way we do (similar to Jensen). I'm asking because I know he has gotten questions about it before and something that is obvious 9/10 times when he answers...

(part 2) is that he turns it into something sexual. I know he obviously wont say either way whether for higher up backlash or simply because he’s Misha, but I never got if that is just his wink wink to the fans because he’s supportive of our beliefs or he thinks that we only see sex so he’s like yeah perverts. He genuinely seems insightful at times and I do love the way he has described their relationship on several occasions. i know a few years ago there was a moment where, if i remember…

(part 3) correctly might have been one of the only times he answered without really joking? he seemed incredibly in tune with the audience talking about it but there seemed to be a sad/awkward air to his words. most of the things i have seen are from a few years ago though (pre-season 11) and we have gotten some incredibly deep destiel scenes since then so I guess im asking if you think he sees it, if so, when he might have started, if he thinks it now, if he thinks its just sexual, ect. thanks!“

Hi Nonnie,

First off, it sounds like you actually know a whole heck of a lot about Misha’s take on Destiel so I’m flattered that you would ask for my opinion on it too. I haven’t formulated a whole post about it, though I have reblogged and commented on some really great ones that I will also link you to here. 

I think it’s important to distinguish between Misha’s take on whether it is an intentional part of the show (do the writers write it that way? do he and Jensen play it that way?) vs. his response to fanfic and fandom commentary on Destiel. About the second, he tends to wear his snarky persona and call us perverts and joke about how “me and Jensen write most of that stuff anyway.” That’s easier. It’s a deflection. If faced with a question about intentionality and whether he thinks that the show has been amping up the romance tropes, it’s far safer to instead talk about the fan response and how “I would never have imagined seeing myself depicted giving so many blowjobs.” How much Cas fanart have you looked up Misha? FFS! 

So when, as you say, he immediately jumps to making things sexual I don’t at all think that it’s because he thinks that accurately reflects the way the character is written or how he plays him. After all, as recently as S10 he had Cas stare at a porn site and say, bemusedly, “What is ‘Fortune Nookie’?” (10x03). In 13x21 Cas was obviously embarrassed both by and about Gabriel and Rowena. And, as we learned from S12, the sacred oath that forbids human-angel sex must be very much on his mind. Now, some of us are of the opinion that this season in particular has been revealing Cas to have some understanding of or interest in sex even as an angel but YMMV on that one. But it’s safe to say that no matter how many jokes Misha makes about Cas being a creeper and perving on Dean he knows that that isn’t in the show. He’s responding to a particular, over-exaggerated fan version of Destiel. And he’s doing it because it’s safe.

It’s actually Misha’s standard deflection now because, in my opinion, not only do they want to avoid pissing people off but they are all bound by NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) of some kind when it comes to the actual show…but not when it comes to the fans. So he can say whatever he likes about fanfic or fanart or “what goes on on oil rigs” and neither risk offending people as deeply (since he’s clearly joking around) nor violating any contracts. I don’t know if he really thinks that all fanworks are all about sex. I think….perhaps. And, honestly, given the kinds of things people bring to cons for them to sign I can’t blame him. The linked post also shows how totally ok both he and Jensen are with smutty fanart, as does the infamous Cockles video that I’m adding here because, well, why not:

If you can’t hear the audio it’s Jensen describing two different pieces of fanart that they signed, one of which they drew penises on the other of which was already nsfw that he captioned, and laughing about it and draping himself all over Misha ew. 

But back to your original question, which was whether Misha plays Cas as being in love with Dean or sees that relationship as inherently romantic. I’m actually just going to flat out answer: he does. Misha is an intelligent and sensitive reader (which is not to say the other actors, especially Jensen, are not but that Misha approaches the script as a reader in a way I don’t think Jensen does because his process is so different). I believe Misha has always seen that in the character. As @amwritingmeta​ discusses in this epic post on Jensen, Destiel, and Dean’s bisexuality:

“Misha started out talking rather openly about how Destiel is an intentional part of the narrative - almost going so far as to get pissy about how this was even a question, if rumours are to be believed - then less openly, until he, as early as last year, was scuttling around the Destiel question like it was on fire. Why? I would venture a complete guess and say that it’s most likely to do with all the negativity thrown his way whenever he’s engaged with it, accusations of queerbaiting flying at him and the show, when this couldn’t be farther away from what they’ve actually been doing all these years, delivering a narrative the likes of which has never been seen on television before.”

Comments he made about his initial decisions, staring at Jensen “as if I was looking into his soul”, and the teasing that he garnered, “We’re missing the gay angel,” indicate that he–and Jensen, fwiw–were fully aware of the homoerotic aspects of the character and his portrayal.

I think that the convention clip you’re thinking of might be this one from NJcon 2013 where Misha first says that he ought not to talk about it but then goes on to say that there is a “very profound bond” but that “I will leave you to read into that what you will” and remarks that he doesn’t want to be accused of queerbaiting, which he felt was unfair because he is such a supporter for the LGBTQ community overall. He’s absolutely sad there. He concludes by saying “It’s a lot of things. It’s deep and meaningful, you know. Is it love? Probably. What does that mean? It’s a million different things. I don’t know” which then becomes a joke about “you know, my boyfriend is a wavelength of celestial intent.” He ends by saying outright that “They love each other” before adding “but it’s purely sexual.” That backtracking is frustrating but totally characteristic because otherwise it’s just too definitive. (I’m gonna keep my tinhat in the closet on this one but I can’t help but murmur about actor bleed.)

By 2016, at DCcon, he was delighted to get out of the Destiel question by having West throw balls at him. He talks about how he was discouraged from even mentioning that relationship when he came on the show and how he then flouted that rule because he didn’t see the point. The implication, though, is that he now does see why he shouldn’t discuss it and I can only imagine that a lot of it has to do with the vitriol that often came his way. Most of his answer is a joke on this panel, “How would you approach it if it happened” becomes “face-forward” and “How would you set the scene” becomes a seduction joke. Rich and Rob are there to help out and keep the carnival atmosphere going. (Cockles sidebar: I had never noticed that he answers the question of “How would you set the scene” with “In another language; in Russian.” CAN YOU SAY ACCENT KINK??) That’s a huge difference from 2013′s serious answer, though it’s not easy to tell whether that change is due to something contractural about the show or Misha’s own desire to avoid upset. I kind of think the second.

His most recent comments are from Seacon 2018 where he says that he could “go on and on and on” with his thoughts about Destiel and that he and Jensen do have conversations about it. He again uses it as an opportunity to talk about the fandom response and reflect on changes in attitude within the fandom not on the show…which is interesting, of course, but not really what we are fishing for. As he says at the end he gets in trouble with someone no matter what he says on the topic. And then he will deflect with a joke (”Jensen and I don’t write a ton of Destiel fanfic”) before giving us a tiny glimmer of hope (”because we live it all the time”). The whole cast is certainly much more open about it than they used to be, even Jensen. And I’m not sure whether or not that can be attributed to the deeper Destiel scenes you mention or not. I do think it would become much harder for them to deny the existence of a romantic element and that the way they are coping with that is pure humor.

I hope that helps a little. It’s a very complex question, since it’s bound up with so many other things about the show and about Misha’s character and his relationship to the fans. (I have tags for both “misha and destiel” and “misha about destiel” if you want more.) I agree with you that he is the most in tune with the fan view of the relationship and supportive of it as an interpretation. I think he’s either not legally able to say more about it or, perhaps, is too conditioned not to by previous negative reactions from the fans. His jokes that make it sexual, or refer to fandom and not the show, are simply a clever deflection and one which he does much better than either Jared or Jensen (though Jensen has learned from Misha and gotten markedly less defensive in general, e.g. “There will now be fanfiction written about what goes on on oil rigs” “Don’t let us down”).

My gut feeling is that, yes, Misha has seen the romantic element since Day 1 and that lines like “I love you. I love all of you” and “I know who you love” confirm for him that it is there for Cas. I think that he supports that reading of their relationship but we will likely never get to hear him say that…unless something miraculous happens on the show so that he feels free to.

[arukou-arukou]

Fandom histories: Japan

So for those of you who don’t know, my specialty outside of fandom space is Japanese literature and right now I’m working my way towards a PhD. (*insert screaming gif here*) I think it’s really stupid to just absorb all this info, think about it, and then do nothing with it, so I’m going to try to share my occasional thoughts and feelings about the stuff I’m reading here. If that’s not your jam, you can block the tag “arukou attempts academia.” However, if you’re at all interested in knowing what the hell PhD students even do, please feel free to come with me on this weird bizarre journey. And feel free to ask questions if anything’s unclear. I’m trying to write in a way I think is more accessible, but if shit’s weird or unfamiliar, go ahead and hit me up for clarification. I’m also going to cross-post onto a tumblr exclusively for this, so if all you’re interested in is the Japanese Lit and not the fannish stuff, you can head over there and follow. On with the talk!

I know we talk a lot about “Classical fanfic” in the Western canon--Milton and Dante were writing fanfic of the Bible, just about every major poet has written poetry about the Greek/Roman deities at some point in time or another, philosophers have imagined conversations with Plato and Aristotle. But Japan has also been plugging away at its RPF for more than a thousand years.

(THERE IS A READ MORE)

In class today we read The Tales of Ise, which is considered one of the three foundational pieces of literature from the Heian period (794-1185, give or take). We do not know who composed the Tales, partially because they were gradually compiled over the course of a century. They were eventually completed in the mid-900s and tell the story of Ariwara no Narihira.

Ariwara no Narihira was a real dude who lived from 825-880 and his major claim to fame is erotic and otherwise elegant poetry. The guy was a connoisseur, and notoriously slept with all sorts of people he shouldn’t have, including the Ise Virgin and the daughter of a Fujiwara, which, suffice to say, is not a family you want to be on the wrong side of. A sampling of his Fresh, Hot Sex Poetry (TM):

1) The reddish glow on the lower petals of the white chrysanthemum-- it looks like the sleeve of the one who plucked it

2) I am reputed to be like a sacred wand, and yet though it may drift is there not a shallow where the wand rests at last?

...It’s very sexy and erotic, I promise.

So we know from historical accounts that because he ran afoul of the Fujiwara family, he was a bit of an exile, so instead of vying for political power, he chose to cultivate sexy poetry and get himself some lovely women. And it worked. Historical accounts also say of him that he was considered one of the most handsome men of the court, he was reputed as a shameless lady’s man, his poetry was widely respected (a very desirable quality in Heian times), and he was also incredibly egalitarian in spite of (or maybe because of) the rather rigid court class system.

After his death, his poetry was compiled into all sorts of volumes and collections, and somewhere in there, someone started adding commentaries giving historical context. At the same time, rumors of his adventures and deeds and conquests continued to circulate around the court. As more people added to the commentaries, which are usually just a line or two, they started embellishing. They wanted more context, more Narihira, more dashing poet lovers.

The result is the complete compiled Tales, which read as a bizarre pastiche of historical and fictional accounts praising Narihira for being good to his women, dissing the hateful Fujiwara’s, and making the best of exile to the distant Kanto plain. The transfiguration of the real into the fictional had its first round and Narihira was immortalized as the first great lover of Japanese literature.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

It’s theorized that The Tale of Genji, written in the early 1000s, was perhaps inspired by Narihira’s exploits in The Tales of Ise, and may be a more fleshed out exploration of what Murasaki Shikibu imagined the ideal(?) (that debate is for another day) man to be. And there’s fanfic of The Tale of Genji (the Sarashina nikki) that slightly post-dates that!

I think it says a lot about human nature that our impulses not only to immerse ourselves in the stories (real or fictional) that captivate us but to reimagine them and embellish them, to mold them into the stories we’d like to see next, can be traced back literally thousands of years. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And the better a guy treats his girlfriends, the more likely he is to be remembered a thousand years in the future.

That’s a terrible moral, don’t quote me on that.

[dyed-red]

Get to Know Me

I was tagged by the loveliest @prince-of-elsinore for this get to know me tag game :) I’m going to mostly answer these questions as being about this blog, even though it’s a sideblog. For the folks I tagged, there’s a clean version of the questions below the cut if you’d like to answer!

-

1. why did you choose your url?

I have a deep fondness for the song There Goes the Neighbourhood by Sheryl Crow

2. any sideblogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

This is a sideblog :D I started it first as a place to dump posts that might be more controversial so I could get into tumblr arguments without alienating or exhausting a bunch of followers, back when I was a bit more self-conscious. I barely used it for years until I tripped head-first (back?) into the SPN fandom and was using it as a place to drop a ton of wincest posts as fic-inspo. Eventually it started to take on a bit of it’s own identity

@coldtomyflash is my sideblog for DCTV / arrowverse on the CW. It was my first sideblog and I created it so that my main didn’t become completely overrun with coldflash (the flash / captain cold) when that became my hyperfixation several years ago. still post from time to time and there’s an AO3 pseud with all my coldflash writing that is predominately connected to that blog. at some point i’m gonna join a new fandom and have to decide which pseud to post under...

@forthebothofus is a new and not-much-used sideblog I parked the url for in case I ended up getting really into Walker (CW). I’ve reblogged some stuff but I only have one foot in that content right now so idk where it will go, if anywhere.

@phynali is my main

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

since sometime in 2012, if not a bit earlier

4. do you have a queue tag?

not on here that i can recall (i tag very sporadically on here? it’s still partly a place for me to dump every SPN post i think looks pretty) but on @phynali it’s #thank queue for coming

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

i explained why i started this sideblog up there, so to explain why i joined / started @phynali: it was for fandom. livejournal content was drying up and i couldn’t find new dedicated forums or communities, but i started noticing people link their tumblrs on AO3. i found out an irl friend who wrote fic had a tumblr so I asked her to show me the ropes

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

the first theme i setup for this sideblog was all winter imagery, maybe because of my love for captain cold or maybe because it was mid-winter in canada when i set it up (who can say). i haven’t changed the image because i’m both lazy and resistant to change

7. why did you choose your header?

brb checking what my current header is because i think i actually did change it recently -

ahhh right okay so there’s this sort of neon aesthetic i’m into related to an original writing project of mine called Rest for the Wicked and this is one of the images i dragged up for vibe i’m going for with one of the characters

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

on this blog? i honestly don’t know, i mostly reblog and add commentary so tracking notes on original posts doesn’t mean much. on @phynali i know that my post arguing against exclusionary bullshit when the ace discourse was in its heyday on here got 10k notes in the space of a day. i can’t claim all the notes though; i was arguing against the OP because she was spewing pastel-coloured bullshit, and the post blew up because because my friend moderated a well-followed discourse blog and reblogged my argumentative reply.

related to SPN, my post with the most notes is likely my one about Sam and bodily autonomy

9. how many mutuals do you have?

do... do people count??? i have no idea?

10. how many followers do you have?

on which blog...? @phynali has 1100+ but this blog has under 30, and tbh I’m kinda shocked it has any, given the lack of original posts or anything approaching a tag system. it’s all added commentary and reblogged art and somehow y’all are into that and i am delighted

11. how many people do you follow?

121 and it’s. too many. just. too many. i need to cut that down. i try to keep it under 100 and this is the most i’ve ever followed.

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

on @phynali yes, numerous times, mostly about my friend being the zodiac killer

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

there used to be days where i was on all day every day with it the background. now i’m mentally healthier and my adhd is medicated and being treated so i have a bit more control over my social media usage. i’d say i’m on most days 1-2 times (morning and evening), but whether i just pop in to check if i have messages or whether i stick around and scroll varies depending on what else i’m doing that day. 

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

hahahahahahahahahahahha - 

uhm. yes. note what this sideblog was made for in the first place: an easier space to argue with people (ironic that it’s the only blog i’ve ever had where i haven’t got into an argument with someone). 

i’m a scrappy little shit and at any given time you can assume i’m actively restraining myself from getting into unnecessary internet arguments. i literally got off facebook because i got a reputation for take-down arguments in the comments of my friend’s posts, back in like 2010. 

i don’t always win, but i either learn something, change my mind, and concede, or else i’m going to say i won because i’m stubborn like that

15. how do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

utter garbage. i hate guilt appeals. the surefire way to get me to not do something is to try and guilt me. i will bite off my nose to spite my face before i allow someone to guilt-trip me

16. do you like tag games?

i do! they’re often fun :)

17. do you like ask games?

i also do! assuming we mean the ask lists you can reblog, that is. except they’re often very horny, romantic, or deeply personal? or maybe it’s just that the people i follow reblog those ones the most frequently. either way i don’t reblog them much because i’m seldom interested in the questions listed

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i’ve been here near a decade and still don’t know what constitutes fame on this website. there’s like 5 blogs i think of as tumblr famous whereas the rest of us are just chilling in this amorphous space.

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

a crush-crush? no. a writer-crush? @lovetincture‘s writing is so beautiful i want to drown myself in it and they’re a good part of the reason i dipped my toe onto twitter (at which point my adhd promptly sucked me in because wow that website is constant stimulation just like this one). so i guess that counts?

20. tags?

if these folks are interested (no pressure though ofc): i know you already tagged @fallcolorspringrapid so how about @lovetincture, @redmyeyes (who recently posted this fic y’all should go read), and @digitalmeowmix  :)

clean copy of questions to copy/paste below the cut

clean copy:

1. why did you choose your url?

2. any sideblogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

4. do you have a queue tag?

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

7. why did you choose your header?

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

9. how many mutuals do you have?

10. how many followers do you have?

11. how many people do you follow?

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

15. how do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

16. do you like tag games?

17. do you like ask games?

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

20. tags?

[arpeca]

and the explanation for that post, not that anyone cares:

so, six months ago. wondercon. i’ve been talked into going to the she-ra season 2 preview panel by a friend. the cast have opened to questions. a very cute kid asks aj michalka who she thinks would win in a fight between stevonnie and catra. i don’t remember who she said would win, but i remember distinctly that she misgendered stevonnie, and i winced. no one said anything. i didn’t say anything. in my head i pictured the shitstorm if she’d said this in an AMA on Tumblr, and, i cannot stress this enough,

AS A JOKE

made the post that i imagined someone might make. “cishets are fucking cancelled over a mistake made by one person on the spot in front of a large group of people”. i thought it was absurd enough to be understood as satire. i tagged it nonbinary, steven universe, and she-ra, for some stupid reason. a dumb oversight on my part. i did not explain anywhere in the post that it was a joke, another dumb oversight on my part. it got five notes, maybe, and no one interacted with it. i forgot i’d even made it less than thirty minutes later.

two days ago as i type this, @lethal-cuddles (i am tagging you in the hopes you see this, because you apparently didn’t see my direct response to your reblog or chose to ignore it, i can’t tell which) found it, presumably among one of the aforementioned tags. they reblogged it, adding a commentary about how it was clearly a mistake and i was overreacting.

i didn’t see it was getting notes until it was spiraling out of control, and i desperately tried to reel it in. i reblogged it from everyone that had so far, explaining that it was a joke, but the one person that did respond didn’t understand what i meant and engaged in an argument with me instead of understanding. i’m just exhausted now. i can’t message everyone who has reblogged it and ask them to delete because it would be a waste of my time. if even one person doesn’t delete their reblog, the cycle can restart, and i can’t keep chasing reblogs down forever. i can only hope that linking this at the top of the original post will stop at least some of the people who might come to my blog to vilify me in an ask. maybe the post will lose steam and peter out on its own. i hope it does.

[worldwrestlingfanatic]

Classic Review: WrestleMania 20

Its been awhile since the last time I posted, I'm sorry for that. I've been sidetracked with finding work and lame adult stuff like that but I'm back now with this review, a fastlane prediction post sometime next week and I'm sure I'll have another review up sometime next week as well. This WrestleMania is one of my personal favorites, it's not like this is a fantastic wrestling show from start to finish but this has so many great "wrestlemania moments" that make me feel nostalgic with the ruthless aggression era being my favorite era in the companies history.

Big Show (C) vs. John Cena

The crowd was super hot for Cena during his run with the rapper gimmick and during this time is probably the peak of that heat. The match wasn't anything incredible but we got a pretty neat Cena promo before the match started to get the crowd hyped so at least there was that. This match was just mostly Big Show flexing his strength throwing Cena around and overpowering him. The end comes when the referee has his back turned, Cena hits Show with brass knucks then hits him with an FU and picks up the win. This was the first wrestlemania where Cena had a match and in his Mania match debut he picks up the United States championship.

Booker T & RVD (C) vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. Garrison Cade & Mark Jindrak vs. La Résistance

An underlying theme of this show was overbooking multi man matches for the sake of getting as many people booked on a wrestlemania card as possible. I couldn't tell you one memorable thing Garrison Cade and Mark Jindrak ever did as a team and I totally forgot RVD and Booker T ever being a tag team until I rewatched this show. I dont mind multi man matches if everyone can really participate and it still be entertaining, I'll never complain about something being entertaining no matter the circumstances, but that wasn't the case. In an overall uneventful match Booker T & RVD win, retaining their tag team titles.

Christian vs. Chris Jericho

It took until the third match on the card but we got a really solid match. Also a slight side note, this event Jericho wears one of my favorite wrestling attires ever so if 2k wants to sell copies of their next game definitely make this attire Chris Jericho (Retro) attire or a side attire. But, I really enjoyed this match, but this is nothing new since Jericho and Christian would feud for a little while after this and they would continue to have some entertaining matches. Trish would end up making an interference but she doesn't really come in play until after the match. Christian ends up getting the win tonight and Trish turns heel by smacking Jericho twice and follows Christian up the ramp and laying on a French kiss on him.

Randy Orton, Batista & Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley & The Rock

This was a pretty "middle of the road" kind of match for me. It wasn't boring but I wasn't overly entertained, it's like they did just enough to keep my attention. The evolution squad of Orton, Batista and Flair get the win tonight which is odd since they got the Rock back just for this match. If they did this match today, it would be a no brainer that Foley and Rock would win. Part timers at Mania almost never lose especially since the feud would continue to the next pay per view. The main feud going into this match was Foley vs. Orton by the way. Looking forward, a loss tonight and a loss at Backlash the next month made Orton look great but it didn't really do much to make Foley look like a real threat.

Torrie Wilson & Sable vs. Miss Jackie & Stacy Keibler

(Playboy Evening Gown Match)

This match was a perfect example of the relationship between WWE and its female talent at the time. A tag team match between four half naked woman (hence the evening gown stipulation) and the match (from bell to bell) was under 3 minutes. As a male it intrigues me but as a wrestling fan it disgusts me. Its like fighting with myself to determine if I enjoyed what I was seeing or not. This match was a result of all these woman wanting to be that months cover of playboy, Torrie and Sable got the cover and Jackie & Stacy didn't so they were upset and had a match. Torrie and Sable ended up getting the win here but this feud was over two woman being upset because they didn't get to pose naked for a magazine sooooo.

Chavo Guerrero (C) vs. Akio vs. Jamie Noble vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Ultimo Dragon vs. Billy Kidman vs. Funaki vs. Nunzio vs. Shannon Moore vs. Tajiri

If it seems like theres too many people in this match, it's because there is too many people involved in this match. This was like a gauntlet match, it started with two people in the ring and when someone got pinned, they would go to the back and the next superstar would come in. The twist here is that the superstars wouldn't run to the ring when it was their time to come out because while two superstars were competing the other superstars were surrounding the ring like a lumberjack match. They mentioned on commentary that this was supposed to be a one on one between Chavo and Rey but because of unexplained reasons eight other people were added to the match. No two competitors went at it for more than five minutes anyway so I'm convinced a one on one match would have been infinitely more entertaining especially since the last two superstars in this match ended up being Chavo and Rey anyway. Chavo ended up winning due to interference by his dad (Chavo Classic) and he retains his cruiserweight championship.

Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar

(Special Referee - Stone Cold Steve Austin)

This match is one reason why this wrestlemania is remembered. That's only because of how uneventful and disappointing this match was. Word got out that both of these guys would be leaving WWE after this show and the crowd let them hear their disappointment. Brock was leaving to pursue a career with the NFL and I dont remember why Goldberg decided to leave but its possible that he just wanted to step away from the wrestling business for awhile. This match was pretty much these two staring at each other from across the ring and putting each other in rest holds the whole time. Goldberg ended up picking up the victory and Lesnar gave double middle fingers to the crowd. The most entertaining part of this match was Steve Austin delivering stunner to both men, what a way to send both guys out.

Rikishi & Scotty 2 Hotty (C) vs. The APA vs. The Bashams vs. The Worlds Greatest Tag Team

Just like with Raws tag team title match we've got SmackDown doing the same exact thing with their tag team title match. I will say this match was better than the previous tag team fatal four way we saw earlier in the night and it was shorter. Everyone got their stuff in and it was faster paced because it didn't get as much time. It wasn't overly entertaining but it was serviceable. I absolutely love the tag team of Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas so seeing them lose was a bit of a disappointment because they're both legitimately great workers and it would've done great for them and the image of the titles. However Rikishi and Scotty ended up winning and retaining here tonight. The crowd didn't react much but I can only assume at this point they're burnt out on all the multi man matches plus this match had to follow Brock and Goldberg.

Victoria (C) vs. Molly Holly

(If Molly loses she must have her head shaved bald)

At least this show had a womans title match is about all I can say. I didn't hate this match, it just didn't do anything for me. Which is a perfect summary of every womans match during the ruthless aggression era, I think. I like Victoria, I think she was one of the few female talents in WWE at this time who had an entertaining character and could also carry someone to at least a mediocre match. This match was close to seven minutes in length which is pretty generous for womans match around this time. Victoria picked up the win here, retaining her title and shaving Molly's head at the top of the stage.

Eddie Guerrero (C) vs. Kurt Angle

Its been awhile but we finally get a super entertaining wrestling match on the show but with Eddie and Kurt you've just gotta know that you're gonna see something special. Two guys who really have a love for what they do and a willingness to always push the limits to put on a great match. I dont think this is even they best match they've had, I've seen some old SmackDown shows were I think they've had better matches but I for sure dont wanna take anything away from this match, this was awesome. Eddie ends up retaining after slipping out of his boot when Kurt had the angle lock locked in and off the distraction Eddie got the win. Its matches and superstars like this that made the ruthless aggression era so special to me, not even the era, its performances like this and so many more during this time that made me make a special place in my heart for wrestling/WWE and it's why I dont think I'll ever have it in me to just give up on wrestling.

The Undertaker vs. Kane

This match was short but entertaining. This was a wrestlemania undertaker match that went under ten minutes so that came as a bit of a shock, especially against Kane with the history they have. No "mind blowing" or overly entertaining moments but it was straight and to the point and because of that I can appreciate it for what it was. Undertaker got the win over Kane setting his wrestlemania record to 12-0 at the time.

Triple H (C) vs. Chris Benoit vs. Shawn Michaels

This match was the whole reason why I even thought of reviewing this show. Just so I could watch this match. These three guys bring such a different style to the match that when thrown together you knew you were going to get something entertaining. The great heel work of Triple H, the exciting offense of Shawn Michaels and the technical wrestling ability of Benoit. Some would argue that a one on one between Shawn and Triple H would've been a great, and a more deserving way, to main event a wrestlemania but Chris Benoit was incredibly over with the crowd at the time and he had the skill to back up the hype, Benoit wasn't going to be denied. I really feel like these three gave everything they had in this match and it resulted in one of the more memorable wrestlemania moments/matches of all time. WWE would never acknowledge this matches existence, and for good reason I suppose, its just a huge shame that the actions of one man under the influence of performance enhancing substances will forever wipe this match off the record books in the eyes of the WWE. Chris Benoit picked up the win tonight and won his first World Heavyweight championship and he even made Triple H tap out to do it. Yes, Triple H tapped out to Chris Benoit. Say what you will about Triple H but I'll always feel like he always had what's best for the business as a priority over his own personal gain. When Triple H knew a superstars popularity and skill was too much too be denied he didn't mind doing "The job". That was the case in this match. Triple H did the honor of putting over Benoit. It's not like he was going out on injury, he wasn't leaving for any reason, flat out, he did the job and put over the popular, deserving talent. What really made this a wrestlemania moment was Eddie Guerrero meeting Benoit in the middle of the ring after the match and celebrating with him. Eddie retaining his title earlier and Benoit winning his first World title with the confetti falling from the sky, it couldn't have been booked any better, a true feel good moment between two of the greatest wrestlers ever. Unfortunately both men passed away way before their time but with moments like this they'll live forever. I'm glad I got to grow up with this. WWE loves to market a wrestlemania moment nowadays, well for me, it doesn't get better than this. A genuine moment that the fans loved. It's crazy that a scripted event can cause some of the most real emotion a fan can feel.

Pros: Christian vs. Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero vs. Kurt Angle, Benoit vs. Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H

Cons: Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg, too many multi man/team matches

I know this show isn't a complete wrestling masterpiece but ultimately what I ask for out of a wrestlemania is the major championship matches to be entertaining and for the show to end on a positive note, and in my opinion, this show succeeds in doing that. Multi man/team matches were a bit annoying and the female talent didn't get the love or appreciation it should've had from the start but I grew up in a time where that was just the norm, all I can do is just appreciate that its different today. In my opinion this wrestlemania had the best end in the wrestlemania history and when it came to Eddie and Benoit I really felt like I was watching two guys live out their dream and as a wrestling fan theres no better feeling than knowing your favorite wrestlers are living out their dream and having a great time doing it.

3/5

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Girls’ Last Tour 1 - 2 | Juuni Taisen 4 - 5 | Ancient Magus’ Bride 2 - 3 | Idolish7 1 - 2

The only one I’ve properly kept up with out of my 5 shows this season is Juuni Taisen, so I’m going to roll out the tag for that show first. Also, the Idolish7 first two episodes became free recently so I cover them here too.

Girls’ Last Tour 1

Pipes…grunge…hey, doesn’t this look familiar? *glares at Princess Principal*

I’ve only seen one episode of Made in Abyss but I get a bad feeling about these character designs…

I’m worried about this falling into the Yuri Divide. Sure,the fandom can do what it wants, but please don’t ship the lolis.

Oh right. Wind, meaning there’s an opening somewhere.

That dramatic eye opening made the outside world seem like an anticlimax. C’mon, show. You can do better than that.

I feel like Chito says “shut up” a lot, even though she’s only said it twice. I get how she’s kind of relatable, but this show’s not on the level of MMO Junkie or even Juuni Taisen. It’s just kinda…average.

Did Tangled ever teach you how to use a pan, Yuu?

Everything’s kinda WWI-esque. It’s kinda unsettling for a person who’s never properly seen war.

Even in this snowy world, you could still learn to hunt and cook, right?

If you kill your friend in a post-apocalyptic world, you’ll be lonely by war. Don’t kill each other, kiddos. Lives are precious.

This is serious, kiddos! C’mon!

Eating snow is meant to quench your thirst, but it’s not any good for hunger. Apparently.

Well, I’m quite lukewarm on this. I’ve already found my seasonal hits and I study globalisation, so it’s no surprise I find this stuff a lot like my weekly content. Nonetheless, whoever decided to put Classicaloid behind a paywall’s gonna have to pay (pun not intended)!

Girls’ Last Tour 2

I half expect a “hey you!” joke but they don’t work in Japanese…

What are the wiggly things on the ground next to Chi and Yuu in the OP??? Leeches???

Oh geez. Now they even draw cleavage on the lolis. Meaning these guys are just drawn young. That’s both a good and a bad thing.

Those letters seem to be…no language in particular.

Book burning. What a thing to throw in.

Oh. The blocky writing is actually hiragana or katakana. You just need to look at it closely.

I think that was meant to be comedy…but it was so cruel. Poor book.

I think what they’re saying is “don’t burn history”, but I think we learnt that a long time ago when the Chinese burnt books.

Maybe if these gals had Bear Grylls they’d survive a bit longer…?

Lemme guess: either Yuu burnt them all, destroyed them all or read them all.

The original joke was gomen wa, where ne is similar to wa. At least, I think it’s a wa. It could be a re.

The red circle said Yuu wrote the me wrong, so it’s actually probably gonun ne.

Well, someone funded a sakuga ending. Like the one from ACCA with dancing Lotta.

Juuni Taisen 4

I find it heavily symbolic that Nezumi likes eating eggs. Eggs represents chickens…and conundrums…

Ooh…bam. Nisio Isin’s going the Middle Eastern proxy route.

Hmm. Interesting, it’s basically Bystander Effect: the War.

The anime’s currently ahead of the manga, so I got slightly startled by Boar’s appearance. However, I’ve read some spoilers elsewhere, so I knew she was going to be in Monkey’s story somewhere else. I just didn’t think it was this soon.

Recycled footage…bad show! Bad!

LOL, CGI tank. Sorry for ruining the mood, but that stood out a bit too much for my liking.

“…participation is mandatory…” – Huh. I never saw that detail coming.

“Ow. I thought you were against violence.” – (LOL.) Yeah, but apathy isn’t good when something’s coming to get you in the sewers, so I’m with Monkey on this.

Wa-wait! Y’mean, Rabbit can use Chicken to use Eye of the Cormorant…so Monkey will die this ep??? [Monkey dying]’s exactly what I’ve been fearing for the duration of this episode. Update: If you want the spoiler version from the end of the ep…she didn’t die.

Notice Monkey uses moves that use the strength of her opponent against her. It’s a very pacifist touch, so to speak.

There are a series of images that flash by before the casual clothes part of the ED. If you observe them closely, you’ll see a lot of them involve the number 12. (Example: the cubes have lines on them that read “12”.)

LOL, I think I only just now spotted the bodyguard behind Boar. He’s hard to spot behind all the splatter.

Home boy and his T-bars make me laugh every time. Then of course, there’s Mr Floofy Jacket.

Oh, it’s Duodecuple who’s doing these next ep previews. I couldn’t figure out who it was last time I tried.

Juuni Taisen 5

Genius, with a capital letter? They keep calling him the Genius of Slaughter in his backstory, so I guess that’s where it’s from.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is the same in Japanese as it is English, so at least the pun is there.

LOL, this episode is pretty much all “stuff goes kaboom!”, and that’s pretty much the way of the Sheep. Haha.

Of mice and men, eh??? (I read enough spoilers to know who the victor is…but I don’t know how they win.)

Whoa, yeah, baby! Bring that action! (That happens to be exactly the way I imagine my own action stories – from the front seat, so to speak.)

The snake’s winking! So cute! I want me some plushies like those!

Old-Timer. Haha, great pun on so many, many levels.

Ancient Magus’ Bride 2

I started doing a productivity blog and got caught up in it so much, I neglected anime! Imagine that – me, neglecting anime!

Oh, there’s a little “open” sign near the door.

It’s anime Hogwarts! Only the train is more colorful…LOL. (Actually, Little Witch Academia is anime Hogwarts, so scratch that.)

Ooh, Elias has a good taste in faces. Not that I’m complaining or anything. (Looks like En-chan, to boot.)

Elias is like the NEET genius of the magic world here. It’s kinda funny.

What’s a Gem’s Bee? (No spoilers, I’m not a manga reader!)

Angelica’s like her (Chise’s) mother, LOL. Seeing Elias properly emote is hilarious, hilarious! (Why I procrastinated on this show? Because it’s a slow mover that should be appreciated in its own time, but I’m not good with binging so…that’s why I’m only watching it now.)

Oh! No wonder Angelica seems like a mother. She is a mother.

Ooh! Ice flowers. Pretty. I’ve already gotten way too many screenshots for my own good out of this show…As a writer, I feel like I could never make a story like this.This is a story best fostered under someone else’s hand.

Poppies, eh? To me, poppies symbolise war and sticking out, but that’s just a product of where I was born. In the case of war, poppies represent the blood of the fallen and those who rise above that.

Speaking of stories I couldn’t write, I’m currently bringing Next to Me to a close. I feel like that’s my best match to AMB, which is why my thoughts dwell on stories so much right now. Next to Me is one of those stories where the world matters just as much as the character building, if not more, which is why the understated majesty of AMB is a good match.

Seeing a blonde Englishman use –kun like a Japanese is a bit disorienting.

Simon really treats Chise like a child, eh?

The “open” sign now says “close”. What is this house, an apothecary?

The CGI door was a bit weird…

Whoa! That was a bit of a fast approach into the dragon scene, but apparently the dragon part of AMB was really hyped…

Ancient Magus’ Bride 3

How does skelly-man see like that?

The dragons look like…Pokémon! (That was my first thought, LOL.)

This blonde is Lindel from the promo material I’ve read. He looks like zaShunina (Kado), so it’s best to be wary of him.

Ooh, now there’s an application of shadows I’d never be able to think of!

Holy flame spirits, Batman! Elias has a tongue! (I got spoilered on that by ANN, but it’s crazy seeing it in context.)

Ancient mages shouldn’t be hot like zaShunina! Where are the real old fogeys like Kiku(hiko, SGRS)?

Uncle Nevin! I found it extremely charming this uil has a name beyond “Uil”.

Can these dragons read minds? Or is it just the power of Dragon Knowledge (TM)?

When they say “Anime saved my life”, I guess they never meant it this literally…or at least, Chise never meant it this literally.

That dragon has way too many eyes!!! Yipes.

Huh. I haven’t felt this feeling since SGRS. The feeling of a masterpiece on my eyeballs.

羽鳥チセ <- That’s how you write Chise’s name, so they did another “Western creature uses Japanese knowledge” thing…

D’aww. That was beautiful! No wonder people like it, now I like it too. Nothing short of majestic, guys, nothing short of majestic.

Hey, the guy who voiced Nevin is called Ryuuzaburo. Ryuu means dragon in this case. (Meta pun!)

Idolish 7 1

Crunchyroll really tried to hype this thing up! Wow. So, here I am at what could pretty much be called a premiere event of the simulcast commentary. Enjoy, friends.

By the way, I’ve tried a bit of the Idolish 7 game (but since it was on BlueStacks, I couldn’t do the “rhythm” part of the rhythm game very well and subsequently couldn’t get too far) and of course, there’s a vested interest through Shirai, Masuda and Nishiyama. Update: There’s no Nishiyama in sight. Sorry, guys.

Oh wow. This is exactly as I remember it in the game, right down to the word!

Yay! I was looking forward to seeing the basketball scene adapted, since it’s possibly the only scene I got to experience in the game in its (Japanese) entirety. Bring the dang game to the Western world, Bandai!

Riku is such a pure cinnamon bun when he gets the basketball back.

LOL, Nagi is such a flirt, kyaa~ (semi-sarcastic).

I don’t remember them dropping Trigger’s name so early…geesh, my memory must be sketchier than I thought it was.

Just as a reference, Iori (black) is 17 while Riku (red) is 18.

Ooh, I just spotted a Trigger ad on one building during that cut.

Ooh, good sense of drama these guys have got going.

Idolish 7 2

Expressiveness for a grump like Yamato, LOL.  

LOL, there’s a shark in the back…

Iori has a cat shirt, hahaha.

Cool and sharp…stationery? Like a compass?

Iori’s so sarcastic, I can’t tell f he’s ever being serious or not.

I don’t know who’s my favourite so far out of these i7 boys. Probably the one similar to my husbando, Tamaki.

Ahh, gotta love me a good, honest hardworking anime gal. You don’t see them very often, y’know. It’s refreshing.

That was a great Iori impression Mitsuki did, even visually (note: I didn’t listen to Mitsuki do the impression, I only read the subs…hence my comment). Troyca really captured the style of the game, to boot, which is another cherry on the cake.

Notice Iori stands in front of the D.C. (da capo) and leaves to reveal it.

I researched who Riku’s brother is while I was watching ep 1 and…(spoilers for the uninitiated!) the brother is Tenn of Trigger!

There was a soba ad in the back in one lingering shot…

Hey, I get the feeling there’s CGI involved in this dance segment, but it’s…hardly detectable! Amazing! These guys seem to have gone a long way since the horribly animated Monster Generation MV.

Notice they (Troyca) only use CGI in (mostly) shots which don’t involve closeups.

Of course Nagi winks in the middle of his performance…

Whoo, yeah. That was a bold move by Crunchyroll, and of course that would grab me more than just leaking the first ep. I wonder if any critics covered this on their blogs…? Or would it not matter, since critics wouldn’t cover this “uncritical slop” anyway? Nonetheless, I covered it, and that’s what matters! (Update: Yeah, all the critics – Frog-kun, Lauren in Space, Mage in a Barrel etc. - passed on it. As expected of those critics…)