#might end up exploring what a potential happy ending for the stans could look like. as a b plot or something

[godsfavoritescientist]

I finally did it. I fully outlined the first story arc for my fic

[lokiondisneyplus]

A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

[transhawks]

I got into dabi*hawks because of the potential of rivals/enemies-to-lovers and I thought they could have really interesting interactions and fics involving them could delve into some really interesting areas about morality and the grey areas (and the fact that they’re basically foils, a son of a villain who became a hero blinded to certain shortcomings and the son of a hero who became a villain because that was all he saw, yet they share similarities in their fucked up childhoods and the fact they’re basically going further down ‘bad’ paths in the current chapters, the fact they’re on different sides but in another life in another context in different events they may have been able to relate to each other..)..all to say I basically just started liking it because the idea of them interacting and their dynamic was interesting especially if they’re forced to consider the other’s views and work together (hawks in general I’m a big fan of vigilante or villain fics where he becomes more against how fucked hero society is and decides to take an alternate path to fix it) and I think hawks deciding to take more of the villains’ side is a more interesting plot line than if he ultimately dies trying to make up for his mistakes a hero, but..I feel like with how popular dabi*hawks got people think people only ship it because it’s hot or whatever and the view of it has significantly tipped down to where people get made fun of. (even though I feel hero/villain pairings are popular for a lot of these reasons in basically any media.) I have no idea where I was going with this when I started typing but I wanted to express my appreciation for finding a blog that can both like the content while neither pretending canon events didn’t happen/justifying bad things either one did nor acting like dabi*hawks fans are rabid yaoi fans who “ignore canon for their hot ship” or support abuse (I’ve never understood that one, they’re on opposite sides in canon and of course are going to fight, it’s not an interpersonal relationship in canon, so that’s basically saying all enemies to lovers is abuse regardless of context for no real reason, which is like of insulting as an abuse survivor)

One, the immense popularity, and subsequent lack of quality of shipping (as with everything, not everything made is good, and a lot of it isn't meant to be 'good' as you or I define it) does in fact give people the wrong perception or a very skewed one.

Additionally, some Dabihawks fans are in a bit of a tight spot where very hero-approving Hawks fans, the type who think he did nothing wrong, think the pairing is just a bunch of denial of little substance, meanwhile the other of the spectrum, a lot of hard-core villain stans hate it due to Hawks not living up to a lot of the 'promise' much of us saw early on.

And you talk about that promise; hit it dead on. Hawks's narrative is fascinating due to a lot of the could haves. It's why he is so richly paralleling most of the League. It's why his character is so goddamn complex.

Dabihawks started as a joke you know, I remember it. I was still new in the fandom and skipping ahead because I hate the overhaul arc when Hawks debuted. And at that point I hadn't really focused too much on the villains besides liking Dabi for being very obviously connected to Shouto, but Mirshroom kind of drew a "what if hawks and dabi went to hero school together and knew each other" thing even before we knew Hawks was a spy, and we all started calling it hotwings and thinking of the irony since Hawks was a walking icarus parallel to us...

And then.. The narrative happened.

Suddenly we were embroiled in a spy plot, and an intriguing story of a boy forced to become a hero who looked up to Endeavor, and Endeavor's likely son, born to be a hero but couldn't be one, so he became a villain. And Hawks had to work with him, pretend to be a villain.

It was beautiful.

It is beautiful.

It's gotten so much better: Hawks, the son of a villain, saved by Enji. Dabi, who has ruined Hawks's life, and yet, managed to free his shackles by destroying the cage, and yet Hawks will go back and defend the man he feels created him.

Even people who hate the pairing, and there are many good reasons I can list of stuff I don't care for in portrayals, might find it hard to deny; the setup reads like a Greek tragedy.

It reads like an epic romance novel.

And no one says those end happily, in fact, the appeal is, that they usually don't but so much of what affects us in the end is the knowledge it could have.

The clashing of two different ideologies, two perceptions of wrong and right, of justice.. One boy who was 'saved', one who wasn't.

There's so much richness that can be mined in the dynamic.

And, I guess, many are let down by canon not delivering. First off, clearly whatever this stuff between Hawks and Dabi is, it's still happening. There's unanswered questions and Horikoshi did not choose to end 299 and 300 in the exact same panel for both of them for nothing.

Whatever Hawks's fate is, it's tied to Dabi. It's tied to the Todoroki storyline. We don't know what will happen. There's been so many fics early on of us predicting one will try to kill the other - usually Dabi, and it's happened, but it might happen in reverse. That Hawks might try and kill Dabi.

The more optimistic among us, like me, can hope that Hawks somehow redeems himself by returning to his real origins - not of loving Endeavor, but being the boy who saved people he didn't know. By actually beinf a hero and saving someone who by all accounts shouldn't be saved, even if it means his life.

Even this far, through this much, can't you see how there's still so much ifs and can happens?

That's the beauty of it.

This is not a post, I think, saying other pairings are worse, or lack these qualities. Because that isn't true. But it is a post explaining why, even in the swamp of awful out of character portrayals, or people undervaluing the importance of the League, or ignorant inconvenient truths about Hawks's motivations and character, there is still so much promise and beauty in dabihawks. It's why I still ship it, and why I likely will until the end.

It's not happy. It's not neat. Like most enemies to lovers ships, there is messiness. But canon has provided a framework full of potential and exploration. And that's why it's still here as a ship.

Because we see the beauty in it.

[princeescaluswords]

All this is just further proof that fandom is DEEP in their own, self indulgent crafted narrative/au that they assert as "canon". They actually HATE the show for subverting common tropes. No, the broody and attractive white man from a distinguished lineage isn't the hero. Nor is the snarky white sidekick. Fanfiction would have you believe Derek was kindly offering lessons to Scott, who rudely snubbed him. Stans whine about the "lost potential" of exploring the Hale Family, but it WAS NEVER ABOUT THEM!!!!

Your question struck me because it's so completely true. They claim to be looking at canon, but they really aren't.

One story I read this morning had Stiles joining the Hale Pack and ending his friendship with Scott because Scott 'neglected' him after Gerard kidnapped him in Master Plan (2x12), because the fact that Scott 'left with Allison and Chris' shows that Scott didn't care about Stiles at all.

Except that we don't see Scott leave with Allison and Chris. The next scene we see is Allison breaking up with Scott and we know it's the same night. But there's no indication that Scott didn't talk to Stiles after Jackson's resurrection. And it certainly seems that Stiles and Scott are in a pretty good situation with each other at the end of the season. Why would their minds go to "Scott didn't care that Stiles was kidnapped and hurt!?!?!"

Especially when their minds don't go there after Raving (2x08). It took you a moment to figure out what I was talking about, didn't you?

When Victoria is using poison gas to kill Scott, Derek, who is standing next to Stiles and his mountain ash line, has to shout at Stiles to break the line because he's sensed Scott is in trouble. And Stiles huffs and breaks the line. But we don't see Stiles ask Scott if he's okay. We don't see Stiles help find Scott. We don't see Stiles at the Animal Clinic while Deaton is taking care of Scott. Derek's there and waiting, but Stiles isn't.

Why don't their minds go to "Stiles is selfishly focused on his own needs and is neglecting Scott!?!?" Because it would be a ludicrous conclusion to draw; Stiles has demonstrated his care and feelings for Scott in the past just as Scott has demonstrated his care and feelings for Stiles in the past.

Now, this is a double standard, one of many, many, many double standards in a fandom that seems to relish them. And one could make the argument that it's a deliberate and conscious choice to ignore one scene in order to support their desired conclusions in another, but after reading enough well-meaning author's notes which talk about how they think that "Scott was a better friend than canon portrays," I think it might be something more troubling:

The fandom has been indoctrinated so deeply by the culture to see non-white characters as inherently not as good or as interesting as white characters that they can't really judge fairly.

I know that there are a lot of minority readers out there looking at each other and going 'duh, stupid white man is just figuring this out now!?!?!', so let me elaborate. I've always assigned a certain level of malicious self-interest to this before, that they chose to ignore scenes that run counter to their desired end -- they wanted the show to be about the Hales and Stiles, but, as you put it, it wasn't, so they were going to get back at the production.

But I'm beginning to suspect that white supremacy is so fully ingrained in the culture that it's become like an optical illusion. They literally cannot see the scenes that establish the idea that this is Scott's story and he's the lead protagonist.

As an immediate aside, no one should possibly interpret this as me arguing that white viewers have no obligation to overcome this narrative illusion or that minority viewers must teach them otherwise if they want to be able to participate fully in fandom. Individuals are responsible for their own behavior, regardless of cultural influences!

But it explains how often well-meaning people can come up with interpretations so essentially disproved by the narrative, again and again. People can say that they like Scott but believe that Scott somehow had less virtue, less talent or less claim to the focus within the story.

It's why they can argue that Scott had 'shit control' because he didn't follow Derek, when Scott literally surprised Derek with his control in Heart Monitor (1x06).

It's why they can argue that Scott was a poor student or can't keep a secret or can't bake or can't do any number of things it is assumed that white characters can do without question, how he is a lovable idiot without any positive qualities that weren't given to him by the Hales or Stiles.

It's why they can scold Scott for not being able to tell that Theo was a chimera infiltrator but forget that Derek couldn't tell that Deaton wasn't an alpha and couldn't tell that Jennifer was the Darach.

It's why they hate Deaton for insulting Derek once and not 'helping enough' but think Peter was the Sassiest Happy Fun Uncle who cared for his family so much.

It's why Kira is a placeholder and annoying, but Cora somehow wasn't.

It's why Monroe being slashed up by the Beast, forced to cover herself with her friend's body, and then having to wait there for the sheriff to find her is a 'stupid reason' to start hunting supernaturals, but Scott telling Stiles to go talk to his father about the person he killed and then decided to hide it is grounds for the end of the friendship if not outright revenge murder.

It's why Stiles could never ever trust Morrell because she worked with the Alpha Pack and promised to euthanize him to protect others, but he would love, love, love, love, and have Derek Hale's babies when Derek worked with Peter and spent an entire season trying to murder Lydia.

It's why they so strongly believed that the show should have ended with Alpha Derek and the Hale Family reclaiming their family's legacy, with all the little betas following them around.

It's why the subversive nature of having the hero be the earnest Latino and not the broody white antihero flies over their heads. It's why they conjure up elaborate and self-contradictory fantasies of unreliable narrators.

They just can't believe that this is Scott's story.

I'm finding it harder to believe that every one of these people is a malicious asshole who chooses to ignore canon so they can get their white power fantasy fix. It's exactly how it's been described.

[takanova12]

My thoughts on the final chapter of shingeki.

I just wanted to say that I liked the ending, but it could have been better. If we had two or three more chapters it would have been better because somethings could have been fleshed out more. Mostly, there should have been more focus on ymir's story. I had expected for quite some time now that she was attached to king fritz but it wasn't a well thought out opinion because it sounded wrong in so many ways. Basically, this plotpoint should have been explored more.

Second besides mikasa, I wasn't really impressed with the conclusion of any other character arcs. They were all just thrown together in one room and were given meaningless dialogues. I was really disappointed how Reiner's last thing in the story was sniffing a married woman's letter about genocide potentially being the answer to their problems. So, I can understand why some people are upset that their favourite character's were either used for a poor attempt at some sort of comical relief or just nothing. Still, I personally think besides reiner there really wasn't anything to add with the rest of the cast.

It also got me wondering what was the point of connecting Mikasa to hizuru? At first, I hoped it was at least hinted that she was going to have some sort of role with hizuru. But then I realized mikasa was never interested in political dealings and my girl already made the ultimate sacrifice and ended the titan curse. It was her who cured ymir's pain and in return helped cure the world of titan curse. She doesn't need to concern herself with war anymore. She should live peacefully, far away from all the mess. She already did her part, so yes thank you isayama from keeping her away from all of it. And we should know that mikasa would never ever have wanted to be celebrated for killing eren. She would never want to be remembered in history books as someone who killed eren. So isayama did good by her.

And she is not alone, the possibility of her joining the alliance is open, they are coming to paradise; mikasa tells eren. She looks healthy, well-dressed and peaceful.

People were also complaining about the story promoting genocide which I don't think is the case. I think the initial translations were off which gave the wrong impression. And some amazing meta writers have already addressed this topic and I don't think I can handle this subject matter well because it's a sensitive topic so I'd rather not.

I saw some eremika stans complaining why eren and mikasa didn't get a more positive ending compared to the rest of the cast. And I have only one thing to say to this, a story as tragic as snk wasn't going to give a happy ending to it's heroes. Listen I don't mean hero in the traditional sense when referring to eren. What I mean by hero in this context is that Mikasa and eren made a huge sacrifice to give others a chance towards a better outcome. Eren didnt want to die. He wanted to be with people he loved. He was scared. Mikasa didn't want to kill eren but she did because that was the right thing to do despite the fact that it was the most painful thing she ever had to do. Mikasa embodied courage, loyalty and moral integrity. Isayama did right by her.

And it has always been a tragic story. Eren is the one who gave paradise and his friends a chance at a better outcome and mikasa is the only one who could have assisted him in actualizing this goal.

Eren told armin, he didn't know what Mikasa would do. And that nobody knew why it was mikasa who could save ymir. But we reader's do, we know why it was her. Mikasa showed ymir that loving someone doesn't mean you have to enable their worst traits, love doesn't mean blind devotion. It doesn't mean that you have to compromise your morality and ideals.

It's been evident since the start of the story that mikasa has always been in love with eren, and she followed him everywhere because she wanted to protect him but also because eren had never done anything to give mikasa any chance to doubt his humanity. To mikasa , eren was a kind soul and he was. He was humanity's hope for a long time and mikasa admired that. She thought eren would never hurt anyone because why wouldn't she? Unlike, mikasa eren couldn't bring himself to fight annie even though she was the enemy and eren innocently admitted the importance of his friends. So, why would she not follow the man she loves who also happens to cherish her and his friends so much. Why would she not follow him when he also happened to be humanity's only hope.

Then things changed, eren went and killed innocent civilians and children and mikasa couldn't follow him anymore. No matter how much she loved him and that troubled her. She was struggling between her morality and her love for eren. This is why post-timeskip the focus of her arc was about learning to let her morality and love for eren co-exist. To be able to call him out on his actions despite still loving him wholeheartedly. To be able to decide what is right. To be able to separate love from blind devotion. To be able to love the person she loves for who is. To love eren for all of him, the good and the bad. To realize that she can't be selfish when it comes to eren. She can't let eren destroy every life outside the island just because she is selfish to lose him.

Mikasa made the ultimate sacrifice. Let her mourn. It's her beloved's third death anniversary. Let her grieve. But don't reduce her pain to not getting over eren. We don't ever get over our loved ones. We move on with life but we keep mourning them. We never forget them. Don't bash mikasa when she is mourning her beloved who she had to kill for everyone's sake. Please respect her pain. She is so strong for it. And she was never wrong about her eren. He continued to love his friends till the every end. He is just a broken child, a broken man. He is a mess, he is a horrible mess. The confusion between all those memories from past and future f*d him up in the head. Mikasa and his friends are not wrong in humanizing him because at the end eren wasn't the fanon chadren who enjoy killing people or hurting his friends. Like the meta writer linkspooky once noted, eren is a crying child.

Understand my dishearten eremika friends, that mikasa sacrificed eren/her love for the greater good. How can she get something that she already sacrificed because it wouldn't be a sacrifice then, would it? At least not in our world or isayama's world who enjoys nothing more than inflicting pain.

Let me tell you, you are not alone, I also wished these two had a happy ending. I wish they got to be together. But they just weren't meant to be. Even if they got together, eren would have died after 4 years. Mikasa would have been miserable because she would have eventually lost armin to the curse. She would have been hunted for her ackerman or hizuru blood. Warriors dead too, the eldians in the world would still be prosecuted. Parents would keep losing their children to the 13 year curse. Eldians would have continued to be used as weapons or just completely wiped out. So, at the end, it all came down to eren and mikasa. They could have never been happy abandoning their friends only to lose each other eventually.

I don't lie when I say that everytime I come across a panel from this chapter, I can't stop myself from crying. I haven't been successful in distracting myself at all. I really want to. But I thought letting some of it out might help. So here it is...

We are all in this together.

[animationadventures]

Yesterday’s Lie was everything we hoped it would be!

Luz found her way back to the human realm, but not completely. She was able to see into it and talk to people, but she could not touch anything. To be fair, it was her and the house’s first attempt at building a portal door. I noticed that she tore off the thumb of Amity’s glove, so maybe that means they have four more chances to perfect the door and let her clear things up with her mom?

Once again, the show managed to surprise me. I thought that Creepy Luz was going to be some horrifying creature that Luz and Camila would have to confront together while clearing the air of where Luz has been the whole time and what she has been doing instead of attending camp. Creepy Luz is actually a greater basilisk- love the continuity reaching so far back to The First Day by the way- and she is a scared child looking for a safe haven from the Emperor’s Coven. I’ll admit that I did not recognize Michaela Dietz’s voice, my first impression was that they got the voice of Applejack and Rainbow Dash from MLP, Ashleigh Ball, to the voice instead, but I have since been corrected.

Through Luz and Vee’s, the greater basilisk’s name is Vee, trip around town to find magic for Vee to consume so she can continue masquerading as Luz, we got a greater glimpse at Luz’s home life. Her hometown is Gravesfield- how appropriate for a show exploring the demon realm and the horror genre- and Phillip Wittebane appears to have had a brother based on the town history, which raises a whole bunch of new questions regarding Belos and Hunter. Vee made friends at camp, and they seem to still enjoy their oddball hobbies like fortune telling, so maybe the camp would not have been so bad for Luz after all.

As it turns out, Camila is a veterinarian instead of a doctor or a nurse, which honestly makes a lot of sense since Luz probably brought a lot of wild animals like those snakes from the first episode home. She also came back and drove Vee, who had switched with Luz, to camp instead of having her wait for the bus.

Eda has made her mark in the human realm as a local legend, such as getting banned from a coffee shop for trying to buy stuff with a raccoon, and she made an impression on the villain of the episode, a local historian turned conspiracy theorist. I can’t believe they made a nod to the fan theory she was Stan from Gravity Falls’ ex-wife Marilyn, like they keep teasing us. She probably has a bunch of magic stuff scattered around that Vee and Camila will have to find to maintain Vee’s transformation.

Then we have the ending of the episode, which is a bittersweet note to finish the first half of the season on. Camila came to Vee’s rescue from the conspiracy nut and accepted her into her home, learned where Luz has been, and made Luz promise to stay in the human realm when she finally gets back. Luz is so happy and thriving in the demon realm, so for her to make that promise is a twist to the gut. Hopefully in time, Camila will see the support network Luz has now and release her from the promise like Amity did in Covention upon learning Luz could do magic in her own way.

Owl House is an amazing story. It has a cast of memorable, distinct characters; it has a creatively designed world with an equally inspired magic system. The show does everything exactly it’s supposed to- make you laugh, cry, and experience the whole spectrum of emotions. Not a lot of animated shows do that anymore, it’s all about cheap laughs from toilet humor and dumbing down the script so toddlers can understand what is going on.

Danny Phantom ended before it could reach its natural conclusion, and finished in a rushed mess. DuckTales ended before it could reach its natural conclusion, and finished with a sloppy finale and lots of hanging plot threads. Just two days ago, it came out that there were plans for a season 4 despite previous claims of intentions to finish with season 3. Infinity Train is currently in an unknown limbo, and could potentially end with Book 4 before reaching its natural conclusion with so many mysteries about how the train works still unanswered.

I refuse to let The Owl House suffer the same fate. You can help by sending letters, not emails, to Disney asking them for a full season four! It’s too late to extend season three, but there’s still a chance for more after that! Here’s the address:

DisneyTVA

811 Sonora Avenue

Glendale, CA

91201, USA

The USA part is only for international fans, so if you live in the States, you don’t need that part for the address. When writing your letter, remember to be polite and not accusatory or rude, because they will perceive anything sounding accusatory or rude as hate mail and throw it out without consideration. Also make sure to watch The Owl House on Disney + if you have it because they are watching the viewership numbers on there too.

Additionally, Rebecca Rose on Youtube has found some more specific addresses that might help make the push. These might be executives that have power over what gets renewed and what doesn’t. Write to them, tell them how much The Owl House means to you and what you like about it, but DO NOT accuse them of canceling the show and DO NOT be rude. Here’s the addresses she included in a video description about an The Owl House trend party:

Gary Marsh

811 Sonora Ave

Glendale, CA

91201

OR

Peter Rice

ABC Riverside Building, 2300 W Riverside Dr

Burbank, CA

91506

On Twitter and other sites, make sure to use #MoreTheOwlHouse in your tweets and other posts. There’s a trend party going on today to bring The Owl House to people’s attention and that we want more of it.

Looking forward to the second half of the season after the hiatus. Hopefully, it will not be as long as the wait between season one and season two was. Until next time!

Go Hexside!

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

(sees another fandom that I can ask you about and cheers) Orphan Black! Thoughts? I don't know Dr Who but Tatiana is one of my favorite actors period.

Anon you are so sweet! I'm always happy to chat about fandoms and characters and whatnot, and I will never not appreciate the majesty of Tatiana's acting. That is one of the greatest parts of the show hands down.

Orphan Black, to me, is a show that had incredible potential, but didn't really live up to the excitement it created. (Loooong post ahead.)

The thing is, Orphan Black builds a chilling mystery and background, the world it gradually creates as it goes for about the first two seasons, got be very invested and made me wonder a lot about where it was going to go and what the answers were. The setup is brilliant, right from the start with that iconic cold open of Beth's suicide. The unknown is what really helped this show get as thrilling as it was, because the actual answers behind the unknown were kind of hit and miss, and it seemed like far too often, the show just wasn't interested in telling it's story. Hijinks where the clones impersonate each other in slice of life events? That's fun at first and it really works well as they're still getting to know each other. But after a while, it gets tedious, and it seems like the show would rather fuck around and have dance parties (seriously, that scene was such a #BigLippedAlligatorMoment) than focus on the story and the threat that the sisters are facing. Virtually all of Allison's plotlines are like this, they feel like they belong in a different show, and for some reason the writers insisted on giving her one of these storylines like, every season. After Allison passively murders her own friend out of suspecting that she's spying on her, I just don't feel like an arc about her running for some PTA office position even matters. It doesn't feel right.

Speaking of that, here's another example: Donnie. Why did the end of the first season suggest that he was this secret mastermind working for Leekie? The whole idea just deflates in Season 2 and doesn't really go anywhere. He just goes back to being the bumbling sweetheart he was before. Why even have him be the spy? Maybe it should have been Ainsley. Do you want to know the exact moment that I think Orphan Black went wrong? Like, the specific scene? When Leekie was killed off. The character who had thus far been the Big Bad, gets taken out in the stupidest possible way, a literal accident on Donnie's part, and it's even played for laughs. After that point, the show really struggled to regain it's footing, though I don't think it completely went off the rails until about Season 4, and it was still generally hit or miss. Like, some stuff was really good. The introduction of the Castor clones, the development of Rachel's character (I'll get to her, trust me.) and the reveal of Kendall Malone. But it seemed like so much else was just forgotten or otherwise not resolved. Whatever happened to Cal? Sure, the show wanted to focus on the sisters...but Kira deserves to know her father if she wants to. That's just one example. It's a crying shame because this show is sometimes incredible. The metaphor that I always use for situations like this, is a card game. The show has all the right cards in its hand, they're just not being played.

The two strongest characters, at least to me, were Rachel and Helena. One of these characters was superbly written and went through a devastating arc. The other was Helena. We need to talk about her. In Season 1, she really cemented herself as a memorable presence with her trademark accent, her scars, her whole damn personality (again, hats off to Tatiana) and of course, that iconic screechy theme music that accompanied her. Which at first made us jump, but eventually made us cheer. I adored Helena, and I loved the development of her relationship with Sarah. Who went from shooting her in Season 1, to being deadset on rescuring her in Season 3, being furious with Siobhan for betraying her. (This is unrelated but Siobhan has the same " twist villain fakeout" at the end of Season 1 that Donnie does, and it's quite frustrating.) And yet, I swear, the writers just didn't know what to do with Helena half the time. They put her on a bus for long stretches, including one point where she just up and leaves Allison's house in Season 4, for no given reason. And the characters just kind of...don't care. The same thing happens when she gets arrested. No one cares to try and find Helena, even though she's unstable and often a danger to those around her. Even though she's by herself with no real ability to function in society. Even though she's pregnant. There is no excuse for this, and no Sarah, that "I'm sorry, I avoided you" scene in Season 5 is not going to cut it. It's such an afterthought.

I'm being rather critical, but I hope you can tell that this is from a point of passion. I genuinely enjoyed this show and getting to watch it. Just that sometimes it didn't feel like the show cared that I was watching. However, this was not true whenever Rachel was onscreen. Look, I'm a Merula Snyde stan, so you can probably already guess how I feel about Rachel. Despite her crimes, despite her constant slipping back the dark side, I felt so bad for Rachel at the end of it all. That scene with Kira really sums it up. "Who hurt you?" "All of them." And no scene is more intense than when she stabs out the eye cam. Like, I'm sorry, I pitied Rachel pretty much from Season 2 on. Her parents were horrible to her, and I'm supposed to think Ethan is the good guy here? He kills himself in front of his own daughter, telling her that she doesn't deserve him. And then Sarah shoots a pencil through her eye, causing brain damage and requiring a long recovery. I'm not saying that Sarah was wrong to do what she did, just that if I were in her shoes, I'd still feel a degree of guilt for Rachel's condition. In the end, I'm devastated that she was barred from Clone Club, when she made the right decision at the point it mattered. But there's just too much history there, and Sarah won't ever forgive her. (Though again, I do feel as though there's blame to share.) Rachel is my favorite character and I never expected her to be. But she's just so complex. Side note: "Enjoy your oophorectomy" is so damn quotable. I don't know why but I love that line.

So, Rachel's my favorite. Who's my least favorite? It might surprise you. It's Delphine. I'm sorry, but I just...I couldn't get on board with C*phine. Not after Season 3. I was waiting for the point that the show would push to finally redeem Delphine for her turncoat role, for all of the hell that she put Cosima through. By Season 5 though? I realized that as far as the writers were concerned? She already was redeemed. Even though she did nothing to earn it, except be presumed dead by Cosima. The way she treats Cosima in Season 3 is actually disgusting. Her reasoning for breaking up with Cosima is circular. She has to love "all the clones" in order to be with Cosima, and the way to do that is to take over Rachel's job, which means they can't date anymore? I'm not the only one who thought that didn't make sense, right? Oh and let's talk about how she stalks Cosima's date, breaks into her house, and threatens her life. Red. Flags. Cosima even says the line, "If you're not going to be with me, just let me go." I'm sorry, that should not be something she has to beg for. Delphine's behavior made me want her to stay far, far away from Cosima. Who is, incidentally, a sweetie and I absolutely adore her. I legit have trouble remembering that Tatiana's playing her because she just looks and acts so different. That said, even though I immensely disliked Delphine, I am so very glad that they made one of the clones gay. Just like I'm glad that they made one of them trans. (Though...Tony wasn't handled especially well.)

In general, I do think the earlier seasons were stronger. The Brightborn arc, while interesting, didn't really contribute much to the overarching narrative. We got the backstory on Beth's suicide and finally learned the truth about her, I suppose. Still, even though Beth is one of my favorite of the clones, and I never expected her to be either...I feel like the actual reason given for why she took her own life was rather illogical. She apparently did it because the investigation was putting the clones in danger of another Helsinki. Okay, but just because Evie Cho says you should off yourself, doesn't mean you have to. You could just, like...stop investigating. And if you die under mysterious circumstances without explaining anything to the sisters, they're not going to be put off from the investigation. They're going to look into this even more, because they don't know why they're not supposed to. The reveal that she and Art fell in love toward the end adds an extra gut punch, but it also doesn't make sense because wouldn't Art have referenced it during the period that he thought Sarah was Beth? On the other hand, Season 4 also introduced MK. And I have such a soft spot for her. I adore that sheep-masked sweetie. Everyone always asks "Which clone would you date" (because fandoms can think of nothing else I guess) and I never see anyone give any love to MK. Her death absolutely tore me apart. I am glad Siobhan avenged her even if she went down at the same time. Side note, her last word being the affectionate "Chickens..." Broke me.

Season 5 was a strange beast. In general, it seemed like we were finally getting some answers to the questions that were hanging over us. Exploring the deep mythos. But then they kind of turned it around and made it just be a Wizard of Oz style fraud twist. Westmoreland isn't really inhumanly old, he's a charlatan. I don't know why that was necessary in a science fictional show. I've seen the interviews and I get what they were going for, it just feels like it would have been cooler and far creepier if he was actually that old. The puppet master pulling the strings the whole time. We also finally get some answers for Kira's superhuman healing abilities (though we never learn how she's telepathically connected to the clones) and I'm loving it, but the trouble is, it's inconsistent. Ethan "Why is this guy so popular, he's an asshole" Duncan told Rachel specifically that Sarah being able to have children was a fluke, that the clones were "barren by design." I don't know, the whole concept of Revival and of the "magical island" was really foreboding and tied in with the earlier references to The Island of Doctor Moreau. Especially that song about "Revival's Children" just...the shudders, man. But just having it be a regular old scam is...a letdown. I know it may be more realistic, but I don't always need realism in my scifi. The finale is interesting, in that it's mostly an epilogue. I'm glad the clones (sans Rachel) got to live happily ever after, but there are two gut punches right at the end that are total nitpicks but they bother me. Helena naming her kids after Art and Donnie? And writing a memoir that she names "Orphan Black?" Those two tropes can go die in a hole. They can enjoy an oophorectomy, because I'm so sick of them.

The potential of Orphan Black was practically infinite. The results of Orphan Black fell frustratingly short.

[rinharu-purple]

Hi, nice to meet you!

As a fellow Gavin stan, I found your analysis quite interesting and I'm very happy that someone finally understand the other side of our ginkgo boy... Idk whether you play in CN server or MLQC. I'm just curious, what do you think of Gavin in S2? Because I hear that everything is gonna be different. Also, the latest main story in CN server--do you think the story will be more angst?

Thank youu..

Waiting for more analyzes from you ❤

Dear Anon, 

Thank you very much for your kind words and I’m also happy to meet you ^_^

Please excuse my belated answer. I waited specifically for cheri’s translation of the S2 CH11, so that I could give you a worthy answer <3

I play MLQC, because I don’t understand Chinese (yet), so I am following @cheri-translates on a daily basis for the season 2 material. (Thank you cheri, you’re the best! (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc) )

From what we get so far, Gavin shows some differences in his aura and character in S2 due to two main reasons:

1) He didn’t have the extreme teenage drama from S1 (except for his mother’s passing)

2) He and MC were companions during high school, so their relationship has a healthier fundament.

The events of the second season take place in a “parallel universe”, therefore MC’s relationships vary from those in S1. But also the Loveland City they are in is a different one, with different players but also different villains. So things DO change in S2 in general.

What do I think about Gavin in S2?

I - AM - IN - LOOOOOOOVVVEEEE - WITH - HIM!!! <3 <3 <3

Gavin was the main reason I watched the anime and downloaded the game in the first place. He was a very caring, understanding, talented and *ehm extremely good looking guy. He still is btw. This guy has a very big heart and is the most human among all LIs if you ask me. But sometimes I had the feeling in S1, that he wasn’t reaching to his full potential. His love for MC was at times awkward, mainly because he doubted himself a lot and was underestimating himself in many topics with regards to MC. His past with his father and brother was also weighting on him big time. Thus affecting his actions to a great extent. Gavin’s potential was bound by ball and chains and he didn’t seem to be able to free himself from them. And yet, he was a resilient guy, who made peace with his past, always finding the love&faith in his heart and following his own path. Those unnecessary insecurities caused by his experiences were Gav-babe’s downside in S1.

In the second season, we meet a very self confident Gavin who doesn’t get worked up in front of MC easily, let alone shy away from her. On the contrary, Gavin is teasing MC shamelessly and even toys around with her as he lets her hover over the ocean. Would you ever think that S1 Gavin would dare to do that? :D He interrogates her just for the kicks even though he doesn’t suspect her one bit, or asks her if he should detain her, since she looked like she was asking for it (I really recommend you to read the scene in CH11). Gavin is carefree towards MC and this makes him unbelievably attractive. Sure, I was surprised at first as I saw him immobilizing MC after meeting her for the first time after many years and was afraid, that he would be hostile towards her. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case...so far.

In S1, Gavin and MC were already in a harmonious relationship and were moving forward side by side gradually. But they were also having difficulties in terms of protecting each other from harm’s way and hiding their dangerous missions or wounds from each other. Which didn’t go along with a healthy relationship, even though they came a long way by the end of the S1. Plus, their positions weren’t even equal in respect of being a couple since Gavin was quite the simp and was insecure at times about his interactions with the MC. There was a teenage Gavin in him, who was telling him that he wasn’t good enough for her, that he is useless, that he is worthless. Therefore he always had his gloves on, so the speak.  

These insecurities are downed to a minimum in S2 and Gavin no longer has the self loathing inner thoughts, so it feels as though, he is the real Gavin. The Gavin who he could be, he should be. Up to this point (S2 CH11). I feel like we are watching a Gavin who’s reached, or is reaching, to his full potential. 

In S2, we see him co-operating with MC right from the beginning with little reluctance at first, which is natural since -you know- they are working for the opposing sides. But then we saw in CH11, that they make one hell of a team! In all honesty, Gavin and MC don’t even need to talk to each other to understand what the other thinks. We witnessed many times in S1 when they were thinking/saying/doing the same thing at the same time. But this time, they are aware of the fact that they can see through each other without words. Moreover, they banter with each other by calling one another out. Which is mostly Gavin calling her out btw. This almost flirt-like sweet bantering makes their interaction all the more titillating to me. The chemistry between them is very evident and Papergames makes sure to let us producers know, the attraction is mutual and on equal grounds. Maybe its only my opinion, but I find S2 Gavin way more sexier than the Version 1.0. But its probably because I find self-confidence to be the sexiest trait a person can have. 

On a side note, Gavin also doesn’t display jealousy as in S1 and I believe this also has to do with his self confidence. Jealousy is an emotion which arouses from lack of self-confidence and trust. And the level of trust Gavin and MC share in S2 is off the charts, dare I claim.

One might even say, that the tables have turned in S2. MC has her memories from S1 whereas Gavin has started having flashbacks or dreams about their past just recently. Because of that MC already carries her romantic feelings from S1, she is the one with denser emotions in the new chapters and is rather insecure in front of Gavin. Thus making herself vulnerable for his “toying sessions”. Gavin on the other hand is beginning to explore his heart’s desires towards MC only piece by piece. He cares a great deal about her and is drawn to her inevitably, but can’t quite put his finger on it. His body and soul is already reacting to her, but his mind is a little bit slow on this front. But as stated in R&S “Inevitable”, his heart is destined to get drawn to hers. 

Whether the story is going to get angstier...Let’s not fool ourselves, Papergames has the word angst in block letters carved in marble in their office. So yeah, I am pretty sure that the story is going to get angstier. But I haven’t seen anything as angsty as in S1 CH13, 14, 15, 18. Those chapters were really hard to read, but let’s wait and see.

Another important point about Gavin’s character in S2 is related to his position. He is now the Commander of the STF and therefore carries a heavier responsibility than in S1. We see in every chapter how strategically he is acting and picking the best option in which nobody gets hurt. He is still a maverick and does things in his own way and yet he is now well aware of the fact that each of his actions are affecting great numbers of people. With his subordinates he shares special bonds all the while keeping them disciplined and whatever he does, he prioritizes everybody’s safety equally (only with MC as an exception).  Of course, this was one of his strengths also in S1, but in S2, he can have a bigger impact, since he has more resources to do so. He has become the perfect leader.

Which can be tied to his balanced temper. In S1 there were times, where Gavin wasn’t able to control his Evol and caused mayhem. We haven’t seen any uproar like this in S1 so far. Gavin is in control of his Evol, his emotions and his blushes...hih...well... almost. But he certainly blushes much less in S2. 

So to sum it up, yes, Gavin is different in S2, but in all the good ways and I couldn’t find anything that goes in the wrong direction so far. We have a more mature, confident and experienced Gavin in S2 and I can simply say:

AMEN

I hope my answers can help you with your questions and you can always feel free the contact me if you have any questions...be it anonymously or not.

Have a nice weekend dear anon! d=(´▽｀)=b

[raggedydocs]

I made this as a thread on my twitter (@raggedyjodie) but tumblr is where I do most of my doctor who stanning and it doesn’t have a word limit so I figured I’d go into more detail with my thoughts on the BBC Press release for Revolution of the Daleks because there’s a lot to discuss.

I’ve said this already but this just makes so much sense and I’m glad that they are singling out Yaz’s loyalty to The Doctor because I love that about her character. We’ve seen it time and time again how much she loves travelling through time and space and there’s so many hints about how deeply she feels for Thirteen and how she would do anything to protect her, it just hasn’t been explored properly yet. I really hope that now the tardis team isn’t going to be so big there will be time to properly develop their relationship because Chibnall has already given them SO much potential as just the two of them and they could end up being one of the strongest pairings on the show.

I am genuinely going to miss the dynamic of the fam together, especially the relationship between Graham and Ryan because I love how their bond was built up in s11. I do think that their story is over though and it doesn’t look like their relationship as a team or with the The Doctor in particular is going to be built up much further so it’s definitely time for a refresh. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Yaz and The Doctor as a duo 😍

I’m undecided about what they’re going to do with Graham and Ryan’s departure and whether or not they’ll kill one (or both) of them off. It would definitely be amazing to see the emotional impact of that even though it’ll break my heart 😭

I’m ngl part of me kinda hopes that if one of them dies it’s Graham because although he has my whole heart and I want nothing but happiness for him, I don’t think that I can cope seeing him lose another person he loves 💔

I would love to see Jackham thrive but I reckon this dynamic will be between Yaz and Jack and I’m kinda hyped because obviously Jack is important to The Doctor and Yaz is going to be the main companion, so the relationship between the two of them will mean more than if it was with Ryan and Graham and I already love how she sees right through his charm 😂

Using Jack to set the tone for Yaz as someone who is big hearted and loving is a great idea and a brilliant way to establish why she is the one to stay on.

I also feel like it says so much that it’s Yaz and Jack that will go out of their way to rescue The Doctor whilst Ryan and Graham do their own thing with protecting the planet (at least that’s what it looks like to me but I might be wrong??). Like it wouldn’t sit right with me if it were the other way round since it would be out of character for Yaz to just forget about The Doctor and move on and then just hop on the TARDIS again when she returns.

Basically, this could all be great character development and I’m so excited for it 😍

[phynali]

Canonization and Fandom Purity Culture

I wrote a 1k-word twitter thread (as proof that I am Not made for Twitter and it’s goddamn 240-character limit) and am pasting it here with edits and updates (it’s now 2k words). 

I have thoughts to share (which I know have been stated more eloquently before by others) about this trend of demanding/obsessing that certain ships become "canon" and how it overlaps with the rise of fandom purity culture.

Under the cut.

Here in 2021 there is a seemingly large and certainly loud and active contingent of online fandoms who desire (or even demand) "canon validation" for a given interpretation of a source material. This is more true with shipping than anywhere else.

First, it is important to note that the trend is not limited to queer ships or to any single fandom. In the past few years I've seen it for Riverdale, Voltron, Supernatural (perhaps most extreme?), The 100, etc., and less recent with the MCU, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, Hawaii 5-0, etc. It is a broad trend across ships, fandoms, and mediums.

So if it is more common for queer ships, it is hardly unique to them. Similarly, pretending that it is about queer representation is a clever misdirect to disguise the fact that it is most often about ships and shipping wars. If you ever need proof of that, consider that a character can be queer without being in a given relationship or reciprocating another character's affections. Thus a call for more/better queer rep itself is very different than a call for specific ships to be made canon.

Also note that when audiences frame it as wanting to recognize a specific *character* as queer, it is almost always in the context of a ship. Litmus test: would making that character queer but having them *explicitly reject* the other half of the ship be seen as a betrayal?

(Note: none or this is to say we shouldn't push for more queer rep and more *quality and well-written* queer rep! Just that that isn't what I'm talking about here, and not what seeking canon validation for a specific interpretation or a specific ship is almost ever about.)

Why does this matter?

the language of representation and social justice should not be co-opted to prop up ship wars

it is reciprocal with a trend toward increasing toxicity in transformative fandom spaces

Number 1 here is self-explanatory (I hope). Let's chat about 2.

Demands for canon validation correlate with a rise in fanpol / fandom purity culture. What is fandom purity culture (and fandom policing)? This toxic mentality is about justifying one's shipping preferences and aiming to be pure (non-problematic) in your fictional appetites regarding romance and sex.

Note that this purity culture is so named as it arises linearly from American Protestantism, conservative puritanical anxiety around thought crimes, and overlaps in many ways with terf ideologies and regressively anti-kink paradigms.

It goes like this: problematic content is "gross" and therefore morally reprehensible. Much like how queer sex/relationships get labelled as "gross" (Other) and thus morally sinful, or how kink gets labelled as "harmful" and thus morally wrong. The Problematic label is applied by fanpol to ships with offset age or power dynamics, complicated histories, and anything they choose to label as "harmful". As such, they would decry my comparison here to queerphobia itself as also being harmful, because their (completely fictional) targets are ~actually~ evil.

(The irony of this is completely lost on them).

This mode of interacting with creative works leaves no room to explore dark or erotic themes or dynamics which may exist in fiction but not healthily in reality. Gothic romance is verboten. Even breathe the word incest and you will be labelled a monster (nevermind Greek tragedy or GoT).

As with most puritanical bullshit, fanpol ideology only applies these beliefs to sex and never to violence/murder/etc, proving what lies at its core. It also demands its American-based values be applied to all fictional periods and places as the One True Moral Standard. It evangelizes – look no further than how these people try to recruit others to their cause, aim to elevate themselves as righteous, and try to persuade (‘save’) others from their degenerate ways of thinking. 

“See the light” they promise “here are our callouts and blog posts to convince you. Decry your past sins of problematic shipping, be baptized by our in-group adulation and welcome, and then go forth and send hate to others until they too see the light.” In many ways “get therapy” by the antis is akin to “I’ll pray for you” by the Christian-right (and ultimately ironic).

(Although it has been pointed out to me that these fans are likely not themselves specifically ex-evangelicals, but rather those who have brushed up with evangelical norms and modes of thinking without specifically being victims of it. In many ways they are more simply conservative Christian in temperament and attitude without necessarily being raised into religion by belief).

What this has to do with canon validation is that these fans look to canon for approval, for Truth. On the one hand, if it is in the canon then it must be good / pure or at least acceptable. The authority (canon) has deemed it thus. It is safe and acceptable to discuss and to enjoy watching or consuming. In this way, validation from canon means a measure of safety from being Bad and Problematic. 

For example, where a GoT fan could discuss Cersei/Jaime's (toxic, interesting) dynamic in depth as it related to the canon, fans who shipped Jon/Sansa (healthy, interesting) were Gross and Bad. The canon as Truth provided a safety net, a launch point. "It's GRRM, not me, who is problematic." It wasn’t okay to ship the problematic bad gross incest ship, but it being in the canon material meant it was open for discussion, for nuance, for “this adds an interesting layer to the story” which is denied to all non-canon ships labelled as problematic.

(Note: there are of course people who have zero interest in watching GoT for a whole slew of very valid reasons, including but not limited to the incest. That’s a different to this trend. A less charged example might be The Umbrella Academy, where a brother canonically is in love with his sister and antis still praise the show, but if you dare to ship any of the potential incest ships then you are the one who is disgusting).

On the other hand, a very interesting alternate (or additional) explanation for this phenomenon was raised to me on twitter. (These ideas aren’t mine originally, but I wholly endorse them as a big part of what is likely going on): Namely, as with authoritarian individuals in general, they see themselves as right and correct, but the canon (which has not yet validated their ship) is not correct, and is in fact problematic, and so they can save the canon from itself.

As mentioned, these fanpol types see their interpretation as Good and Pure. So if they can push (demand, bully) the canon into conforming to their worldview and validating their interpretation, then they have shown the (sinful) creators the light and led them to the righteous path. This only works if the canon allows itself to saved though, otherwise the creators remain Evil for spurning them.

How is this different from fans simply hoping for their ship to be canon?

For a second here, let’s rewind to the 90s (since Whedon has been in the news recently). This “I want it to be canon” thing isn’t 100% new, of course. We saw this trend then for the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it was different then. At the time, fans who hoped for a ship to be canon might have been cheering for a problematic one to begin with (Buffy/Spike). So shipping was still present, minus vocal fanpol.

(And Buffy fans learned that canon validation...can leave a lot to be desired. A heavy lesson was learned about the ways that fan desires can play out horrifically in canon, and how some things are best left out of the hands of canon-writers).

These days, this is still largely true. Many fans hope for their ships to go canon, as they always have. There are tropes like “will they/won’t they” that TV shows may even be designed around, which a certain narrative anticipation and a very deliberate build up to that.

But while shipping *hopes* occur for many fans, almost all ships fans that *demand* to go canon and obsess over are now the ones deemed as Unproblematic, or as Less Problematic. I’m talking here about the ships that aren’t necessarily an explicit will/won’t they dynamic but do have some canon dynamic that leads them to being shipped, but which the creators aren’t necessarily deliberately teasing and building up a romantic end-game for.

These ships often have fans who are happy to stick to fandom, but there has also been a huge uptick in the portion of fans who are approaching shipping with an explicit lens of “will they go canon?” and “don’t you want them to be canon?” and now even “they have to go canon” and “the canon is wrong if they don’t make this ship canon”, to a final end-point of “if the ship doesn’t go canon, the source material is Wrong and Bad.”

These latter opinions are the one we see more by extreme fans (‘stans’), hardcore shippers, but especially by fanpol-types, the ones who embrace fandom purity culture at least to some extent.

Why them?

In pushing for canon validation, fanpol types seek to elevate their (pure) interpretation of canon. As mentioned above, it’s validation of their authority, a safety-net, and a way to save the canon from itself if only they can bully the canon into validating their right and good interpretation. 

There’s also another reason, which is that canon validation is a tool to bludgeon those seen as problematic. They can use it to denounce other (problematic) ships as Not Being Canon and therefore highlight their own as Right and Good, because it is represented in the True Meaning of the Work.

Canon validation then is a cudgel sought by virtuous crusaders to wield against their unclean enemies. It is an ideological pursuit. It is organised around identity and in groups sometimes as insular as cults.

How does this happen?

Fanpol tend to be younger or more vulnerable fans, susceptible to authoritarian manipulators. As many have highlighted before, authoritarian groups and exclusionary ideologies like terfs are very good at using websites like tumblr to mobilize others around their organizing beliefs. Fanpol tend to feel legitimate discomfort, but instead of taking responsibility for their media engagement, ringleaders stoke and help them direct their discomfort as anger onto others; “I feel ashamed and uncomfortable, and therefore you should be held accountable for my emotions.” Authoritarian communities endorse social dominance orientations, deference to ringleaders, and obedient faith to the principles those ringleaders endorse.

As these fans attach more and more of their identity to a given media (or ship), and derive more and more validation and more of their belongingness needs from this fanpol community, they also become more and more anxious about being excluding from this group. This is because such communities have rigid rules and very conditional bases for social acceptance. Question or "betray" the organizing ideology and be punished or excommunicated. If that is all you have, you are left with nothing. Being labelled problematic then is a social death.

What this means is that these fans cannot accept all interpretations of a media as equally valid: to do so Betrays the ideology. It promises exclusion. And, in line with a perspective around ‘saving’ canon and leading others into the light – forcing and bending the canon to their will is what will make it Good (and therefore acceptable to enjoy, and therefore proof of them as righteous by having saved others). As was also pointed out to me on twitter, endorsement from canon or its creators also satiates that deep need they have for authority figures to approve of them.

Due to all of this, these fans come to obsess over canon validation of their own interpretation. In a way, they have no other option but to do so. They need this validation -- as their weapon, as their authority, as their safety net, as their approval, as their evangelical mission of saviorship.

Canon validation is proof: I am Good. I am Right(eous). I am Safe.

(In many ways, I do ache for some of these people, so wrapped up in toxic communities and mindsets and so afraid to step out of line for fear of swift retribution, policing their own thoughts and art against the encroaching possibility that anything be less than pure. It’s not healthy, it’s never going to be healthy.)

In the end, people are going to write their own stories. You are well within your rights to critique those stories, to hate them, to interpret them how you will, but you can never control their story (it's theirs).

Some final notes:

This trend may be partially to do with queer ships now being *able* to go canon where before so no such expectation would exist. Similarly, social media has made this easier to vocalize. Still, who makes these demands and the underlying reasons are telling. There are also many legitimate critiques of censorship, queerbaiting (nebulous discussions to be had here), and homophobia in media to be had, and which may front specific ships in their critique. But critique is distinct from asking that canon validate one's own interpretation.

[starbuckie]

𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲

challenge: 1k celebration by @marvelgirl7

pairing: mobster!bucky barnes x reader

words: 1,460 words

warnings: sadness, angst, some mentions of violence, i think there’s like one sexual innuendo, and a little baby bit of fluff

summary: bucky comes back for his girl, and they leave together.

a/n: this is for @marvelgirl7‘s 1k celebration! congratulations on 1,000, darling! this is a one shot for @southernbell91, and it’s a continuation of their amazing mobster!bucky one shot, which you can find here. i also made a little banner for it, and it was so, so much fun. as always, thank you to my beta @transparentfestivaltiger​, and i hope you enjoy reading this fic as much as i enjoyed writing it! love you<3

main masterlist || sebastian stan characters masterlist

“Hello, doll, you miss me?” His voice rang in your ears. You thought you’d never hear it again after you ran away three months before, but it seemed that you never could escape it. Whether that was a good thing or not, you didn’t know. 

Tears filled your eyes, and you turned around to face James Buchanan Barnes. God, he looked tired, but still every ounce as handsome as the day you had left him. Deep bags surrounded his eyes, and he had grown out a beard at this point, but the steely blue eyes you had loved your whole life were still there. You could see the wet marks tracing his face left by the tears that had fallen, and you knew that he was as relieved as you were seeing each other again. “Hi, James.” You sniffled out. 

In moments, the tall man had dropped to his knees in front of you and buried his head in your stomach. His muscular arms wrapped around your waist and you ran your hands through his now long hair. His sobs and your sniffles rang out in harmony around the small apartment, and though you had the love of your life wrapped around you right now, you could only stare at the door ahead of you, which still hung wide open. While, yes, you were ecstatic to see Bucky, you had no clue as to how he found you or why he was there. Perhaps your father and Tony Stark used his high tech security to search for you, and they wanted you back so they could kill you, which scared you to the bone. It was no secret that mob bosses were harsh, but after witnessing your father shoot a man through the head at your own dining room table when you were six, upsetting any of them was your greatest fear. 

You had been promised to marry Bucky before being traded to the Stark family, as after their marriage with the Potts family, the Rogers family got bumped down to the fourth wealthiest in the city. Once you had found out that you were the peace treaty, you fled quickly and without a word, leading you to this shitty Montana apartment. 

“Buck, why are you here? Who sent you?” His arms dropped to his sides and you took a step back. As much as you wanted to stay in his arms, you knew that it was potentially dangerous, as he and his family were still good allies with your father. 

“No one sent me, Y/N. The trade is over.” He smiled briefly at it, tears still leaking from his eyes. You gasped. It was over?

“What did you guys negotiate?” You were curious, They hadn’t even told you about your own trade, yet here Bucky stood, telling you that all four families had come to an agreement.

“Well, our best boy Stevie has himself a wife now.” Your eyes widened as Bucky chuckled. “Yeah, he and one of Tony’s associates, Peggy Carter, got married, so now the Rogers and Starks are in cahoots. Tony and Pepper agreed to back out on your trade.” He grabbed your hands and pulled you into his chest. His hands desperately pushed into your back, trying to bring you as close as possible, until you grinned, feeling something by your legs. 

“Is that a gun in your pants, Barnes, or are you just happy to see me?” You giggled lightly, and he just rolled his eyes, but was secretly happy that he could get your smiling again. 

“That’s a gun, sweetheart,” he smirked and pulled the gun from his belt, making your eyes widen immensely. “So, now that you aren’t being forced into the Stark family, what do you say? Will you come back home with me?”

His smile, the one you loved so much, was so hopeful, but you were upset that you were the one to make it falter. After a few moments of silence, he spoke up again. “Y/N? You can’t be seriously thinking about staying here.”

Tears filled your eyes again as you met his blue eyed gaze. “I can’t go back, Buck. You saw how easy it was for my dad to get rid of me, and for what? So his friends and allies could stay rich? So his reputation wouldn’t be ruined? Bucky, to my father, I’m not a real person. I’m an object, a pawn, that he uses to gamble and play with. As long as I stay in the business, in the family, I’ll never truly be able to live out my own life. Sure, I was promised to you, but these past three months made me think a lot about the past twenty nine years of my life, and I’ve realized that I have never once made a decision for myself. I need an out, Bucky, and this is it!”

Taking a deep breath, he voiced his concerns once again. “Y/N, you realize how dangerous this is right? If you walk out now, there’s absolutely no coming back. Hell, your dad might come looking for you again! He’s almost got you right now, doll. He hit me a few times trying to get information on your location, but I didn’t know where you were until T’Chaka’s kid, Shuri, came by after hearing about your escape. One of her drones got footage of you outside a McDonald’s, and I found you from there. It’s not safe to leave forever. You’ve seen what our parents do, and they won’t hesitate to blow our heads off. If we go back now you can still have forgiveness, you can still-“

“No, Bucky! I’m not looking for forgiveness, and I’m way goddamn past asking for permission. All my life, I have wanted out, and if this is one chance I get, then I'm damn well taking it.” You tasted the salt from your tears as you sobbed your next words. “I’m leaving as soon as you make up your mind on whether you’re leaving with me or not. I won’t judge you if you go back, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to leave it all behind.”

The money. The power. The endless girls that would throw themselves at them, but through it all, he only wanted you. You, Steve, and him had grown up rough, all of your fathers being mob bosses and deals being made about your futures to ensure the security of the wealth that came from your families, but Bucky had never wanted that. Falling in love with you was the one of the only choices he had ever made by his lonesome, and he would follow you to the ends of the world. 

“Where are we going, doll?” His eyes glittered, and his signature lopsided smirk stuck on his face. As you stared up at him, he grinned even wider. “I heard that California is real pretty during the fall, and I’ve always wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge.”

Grabbing your packed duffle bag from the table in front of the moldy couch, you laughed with glee. You were going to spend the rest of your life with the man you loved, freely, and doing whatever you wanted. No pressure, no rules, no parents, no more mob. Just you, Bucky, and the rest of the world to explore.

You threw the keys to the apartment on the table, and walked out with Bucky. “We’re gonna need new ID’s, Buck. Our parents will try to track us down for the rest of their lives, we’re now traitors to the mob bosses of Brooklyn.” The thought made you high on adrenaline. 

“I already have some.” Walking down the empty street, you stared up at him with a confused look on your face. “I have many, many, friends, sweetheart, both in high and low places. We’ll need to get you some as well, but for now, it’s time for Ricardio Montalbaum to take a Californian trip with his fiancée.”

He flashed you one of his ID’s, and sure enough, it said Ricardio Montalbaum. Giggling, you took a long sigh and rested your head on his shoulder. The sky was getting darker now, almost night time, and the sunset was a blur of colors in the distance. People scurried around, and for once, it was nice to not have people cowering in fear. It was just Bucky and Y/N, a nice young couple taking a stroll down the streets of Montana. 

“Well, Ricardio, we better get some sunscreen then, because if I burn, I will not hesitate to beat your ass.” He smiled and pecked you on the lips quickly.

“That’s fine with me, doll, as long as I get to spend forever with you.” 

[slo-liveblog]

Witch’s Heart: Bonus Stage Final Thoughts

Hello hello! Honestly I can’t believe I finished Bonus Stage after all this time... took me quite a few months, oof. Many thanks to the handful of you that stuck around during all that, and to the few new people who popped in too! Hope you’ve all been taking care of yourselves, and don’t mind the long post.

CHARACTERS

Claire: After finishing the first game, I didn’t know it was possible to love Claire even more. I was absolutely wrong. The way she took charge at the end was incredibly powerful and I’m so fucking proud of her, even if it’s sad as hell. I really really like how the game both criticizes and respects her unconditional empathy, I think there’s definitely room for both conversations and they’re both incredibly fascinating. I do think she suffers from some of the most writing pitfalls out of everyone, though. Like I said while playing, there’s really no reason given why she wouldn’t confide in Leon, or at least acknowledge that he’s likely the person there she can trust most. In addition, I found it really bizarre that Claire just... never tried to talk to Reynaldo or Sirius after learning about their pasts. Like, at all. I understand why the emphasis on Ashe was important, but it was jarring and kind of unsatisfying to see Claire act so uncharacteristically by not even really acknowledging them after their stories were over. It’s more of a story problem than a character problem though, I think, and I understand why it had to be that way especially considering the conclusions will touch on a lot of the missing pieces- I just wish there could’ve been more of a justification for it. The way her personality was explored through her interactions with everyone, and how other characters were depicted based on their reactions to her ideals, was incredible and I would die for her.

Ashe: Oh Ashe. Fuck Ashe. I do appreciate the depth given to his character, he’s definitely far more complex than I expected and kudos on that. I don’t really empathize with him as much as I do the other four mains, but I do think his writing is incredible and his relationships with Leon and Claire continue to be some of the most interesting to see play out, if not THE most interesting. Star shaped carrots man. Fucked up. Super excited to see how his dynamics with everyone continue, and he’s probably the character I’m the most interested to see make decisions going into these conclusions. His arc feels the most... unfinished, he’s never really reached any sort of closure at any point of the story so far and especially not bonus stage so it’ll be cool to see where he ends up.

Reynaldo: MY BOY. I’M SO FUCKING PROUD OF HIM... going into bonus stage my expectations for him were pretty much rock bottom from the moment I realized he didn’t have a single line in the opening scene outside of saying his name. Like, I kinda made my peace with the possibility that the writer just wasn’t that interested in developing him, and would rather spend time on the rest of the mains. But holy SHIT did he pull through in the second half of the game. The subtle but noticeable build to him deciding to side with Claire was so, so well done. I still wish there was a little more solidity to his characterization- I do have to reach way further to understand him than I do any of the other mains- but I think what we DID get for him was wonderful and god, I appreciate him so much. Definitely the character that improved the most for me from the first game to bonus stage. I can’t wait for his conclusion, here’s to hoping we do in fact get it this year. The way his similarities with Claire were set up makes me SO excited to see how their relationship develops when it’s actually the focus, and how he’ll be fleshed out more in general so we can finally have a clearer picture. Because to be honest, as much as I like the development he was given in bonus stage... there’s still a LOT of gaps to fill in with him.

Sirius: continues to be the perfect human being 1000000/10

Leon: Sweet baby boy whose expressions always make me cry. Leon is still a character I’m sort of on the fence on. Like, he’s very well written and easy to sympathize with. But I realized I’m always far more interested in how OTHER characters react to HIM than the other way around, though. He’s not really a character I personally would find interesting in general, he’s a little simple for my tastes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not 100% invested in seeing him end up happy... eventually. Something tells me it might be a while.

Charlotte: I feel like Charlotte definitely got the short end of the stick in bonus stage, moreso than any other character. Her only memorable scenes that I can think of off the top of my head were when she told Leon he could kill everyone but Claire, when she thought about how Ashe probably can’t be saved, and when she reacted to Claire after the completion of Ashe’s backstory. None of those scenes even come close to hitting the same level of intrigue or emotion as the sparse Charlotte scenes had in the first game, even if that last one does have some interesting bits in it. I said at the end of the first game that we’d only really scratched the surface and I was interested to see more from her and, well, my opinion hasn’t changed. I don’t think there was much I would’ve wanted out of her here anyway unlike the boys, so I’m not especially disappointed. Just hoping we get more excellent Charlotte moments somewhere down the line.

Zizel: I would’ve liked Zizel’s deal to be... a bit more built upon, to be honest? I could just have missed things along the way, but her triumphant moment is a little harder to get in to when we know almost nothing about her or the way she thinks beyond stuff reveled about her in the same scene. I could definitely see that her siding with Claire was being foreshadowed, but I think there needed to be juuust a bit more characterization given to her for that particular development to have the impact it seemed to be going for. Still, it was a good moment, and I think it definitely made up for a lot of the sore lack of Zizel in both games. Can’t wait to see what she does from here.

Lime: Goddddd. Okay look, I still love Lime probably more than I reasonably should. She’s wonderful and I love her design and her personality and her backstory and her motivations but... yea she’s a very very bad person. Bonus stage did really make it clear that she’s not just lashing out occasionally, and this isn’t anywhere near harmless teasing. She’s full on the primary villain of the game, in some ways, and has been doing pretty horrific stuff knowing (and intending for) exactly what she’s causing. Which we sort of knew in the first game anyway, but now it’s very explicit. And like, damn dude... I do wanna see what’s gonna happen with her. It’s tough, wanting to see a character get their comeuppance and stop hurting others while simultaneously just wanting good things for them. this really is how y’all ashe stans feel huh

Side Characters: I gotta say, I really loved a lot of the smaller characters introduced in bonus stage and the way their presence added to the development of the mains. Dorothy and Nicholas, the old dude and the thief woman (I didn’t actually realize until just now but nobody in Wilbert’s backstory had a name, huh. It may not have been intentional but considering that he might literally just not remember that far back I actually really like that decision.), and Ashe’s family and friends were really smartly integrated into the story’s themes and I appreciated that a lot. also lucy and coco rights

Overall This one gets a fucking 10/10 from me chief, some small issues certainly but as close to perfect as they get, in terms of the kinds of stories I like.

STORY

I debated breaking this up into chunks, like I did in the first game with the scenarios, but I feel like the writing quality is more or less consistent throughout the game so it would be a little redundant. I definitely need more time to think on bonus stage before I have a really solid opinion, but at the moment I kind of think the story was even better than the first game? My only major issue was the aforementioned use of Claire’s character, where she’d only really react to the boy’s backstories as she finished hearing them, with the exception of Ashe’s. And her not confiding in Leon. But other than that, it was a constant rollercoaster, with pretty much every scene being jam packed with 3000 layers of character development and relationship building with lore sprinkled in. The elements that were amazing in the first game, like the fun dynamics between the characters and the subtle and unobtrusive exposition, are nothing but improved upon. I do wish we got to play more with the idea of the demon girls living alongside the mains, I think that aspect was severely downplayed almost immediately after it was introduced, but I’m crossing my fingers those potential dynamics get some time in the conclusions. Once again, my biggest gripes with the story are just that I feel like there’s so much more to explore and I can’t wait to see how the rest plays out. still giving this bitch a 10/10 on this one it was everything I wanted and more

GAMEPLAY

Combat: This was kind of... not even really utilized in bonus stage, which I didn’t actually realize until just now. There weren’t any real “boss battles” in the way there were in the first game, the closest thing to it would I guess be Dorothy’s showdown. Considering I didn’t even notice, I think that was a perfectly fine decision. The climax worked well without any actual fights. The battle mechanics continued to be functional and everything, just... not much of a thing.

Demon Requests: It could just be because I played a lot of bonus stage at a very different pace than I did the first game but the demon requests didn’t feel as frequent or intrusive this time around. I was always really excited to get to the request portion anyway cause of the photo booth and all the cool new areas, I had a super fun time using the deep sea bubble and I think overall the stuff that was added to the fantasy spaces was really neat. also lucy and coco rights

Minigames: Very hit or miss. It felt like the minigames were either so quick and easy they were hardly memorable or so tedious they made me wanna die. Take that with a grain of salt, though, I’m really bad at video games. There were very few of them anyway so it doesn’t matter much, but I guess it would’ve been nice if the minigames were less... Like that. To be fair, they were all still pretty charming or cool conceptually. Can’t really complain about getting to fucking shoot people as Dorothy even if it was hell to play.

Overall The demon requests were actually really enjoyable this time around, but the minigames and combat were kind of downplayed. Not to big of a deal, though, it’s not as if they were a focal point of the game to begin with. 7/10

ART & SOUND

Character Design: Not much to say that I didn’t already say after the first game, but the special bonus stage outfits are absolute bangers and I wish they got shown more often. And maybe I would’ve liked the guys to have a little more variety to their suits. But that’s nitpicking, Claire and the demon girl’s dresses are absolutely gorgeous.

Sprites and BGs: The overall art quality definitely got shaky in places but I gotta say, they pulled out ALL the stops for the sprites in this one. Ashe just fully has an entirely new set of them, and everybody else gets tons of new expressions too, all of which are super super good at conveying incredibly specific emotions. All I’m saying is, this would be a totally different game for me without the sprites, and I was always ecstatic to see new ones and figure out what was going on in the character’s head based on them.

OST and Sound Effects: Again, pretty much the same deal as the first game. I think there was a bit of a higher frequency for songs that made me immediately want to search for them so I could listen to them later though, thank god for that. So many good tracks.

Overall Continued to impress me, and then some. Only a slight improvement from the first game, in my opinion, but even that is pretty impressive since I didn’t have many issues with the first game to begin with. 8/10

So uh, in other words, I really really loved this game. Cannot WAIT to start best boy’s conclusion!!!

[the-unconquered-queen]

Please I wanna know more about your thoughts on Dan x mc relationship. I know its been age since ILITW ended but this is a hill I will die on. Like, I didn't romance anyone else on this book. If I couldn't have him then I didn't want anybody else, 🤧

oKAY, we’re going for it

This is the first time I’ve ever put an answer to an ask under a read more. That should really tell you something about me and about what you’re about to be subjected to.

I would like to start this off by saying that I couldn’t care less about when it ended because it is ALWAYS It Lives hours on my blog and that’s never gonna change. But let’s get into this:

I completely understand why Dan wasn’t an LI. It’s not the same case as with, say, Noah, who’s such a prominent character in the book they could’ve easily added him. Even though Dan’s influence is strong in the series - seeing how his absence brought the group together when they worked to save him - the actual Dan was in a coma for a sizable portion of the book, which would’ve frustrated his romancers to no end. This is why if you look up fan made Dan x MC content, most of it takes place after the events of the book (not including the epilogue), not during them, because at that point, there wasn’t much to go on.

I think that if ILitW had had a sequel that wasn’t an anthology, so a second book with the same MC focused on the same group (which obviously can’t happen because of all the possible combinations of deceased/survivors in book 1), Dan could’ve been made an actual LI in that second book, or maybe players would’ve gotten the first romantic dialogue at the end of book 1 if PB knew they were gonna commit to giving him a route in the sequel. The seeds are all there in the first book, from how close they were in their backstory to how that closeness seemed to linger ten years later even though they’d barely spoken during that time. Dan admitted to never talking to people about his struggles because he was worried people would think differently of him, but with a little bit of encouragement from MC, he opened up to them, which shows a very strong bond between them, which could easily turn romantic in his hypothetical route. I mean, he’d known Stacy for as long as he’d known MC, had interacted more with her since she was the only one who kept in touch with him out of the group and was concerned about his well-being, and yet it was MC he trusted with his feelings.

Also, like I said earlier, the way he spoke of them when they were kids in his scene suggests (to me, at least) that, after Jane, Dan was the one MC was closest to out of everyone in the group. And when, after not speaking to MC for ages, they show up at the orientation he’s attending and tell him they went solely because they knew he’d be there and they missed him, he thought they were joking, but was genuinely happy when they told him they were serious because he felt the same way, which shows that even though they had a falling out that lasted a decade, they easily fell back into a familiar friendly rhythm after just a minute together. Now, as much as I love this ship, I’m not really entirely sold on the idea of Dan having had a crush on MC since they were eight and having it last well into their senior year of high school, but I believe that their easy bond would’ve been a major factor in him developing that crush, and maybe it would’ve already existed by the time the orientation scene took place, only strengthening when they got to actually spend time together when they properly reunited.

But giving it some thought, I doubt he and MC would be a couple right away. I mean, Dan’s been through a lot, and he probably wouldn’t be in the right place to be in a relationship as soon as everything ended, even if he started healing after what happened in the cave. It’s possible that he and MC would’ve mutually acknowledged their feelings to each other so they’d know they were reciprocated but not actually acting on them for a while, just until Dan feels like he’s in a better place to do the relationship and get it right, because I can’t imagine him disregarding that just because he wants to be with MC so bad and then the relationship falling apart because it was too soon, too hasty, and MC would for sure understand that they’d need to take their time to make it work out. 

I feel like even before they got together, MC would be good at reading Dan’s moods when he has off days, knowing when he needs company or someone to talk to and when he just needs space, and they don’t take offense to Dan not being in the mood to talk sometimes because they’d understand that even though Redfield is gone, that doesn’t mean that he’d just go back to what he was like before the PTSD and everything else happened. Dan does the same in return, since he knows MC went through more than their fair share of bad stuff, but he’d also have to learn to navigate that, like I said in my other ask, there would be times when MC might wake up from a nightmare and he’d try to comfort them and find that MC somehow looks even more freaked out and then it dawns on him that MC might be having a flashback of when a dirt monster wore his face in their room and he’d have to talk them down and tell them it’s him.

Moving AWAY FROM THE ANSGT, an established, dating Dan and MC would be such a cute couple. If it happened in-game, the “define the relationship” talk would end with them kissing while the overhead achievement banner reads “Dynamic Duo” (guess why). I feel like it would be a chill relationship in the sense that they didn’t go straight from acquaintances to lovers, since they had a lot of history together being friends for a long time before dating, so they’d be so at ease with each other’s presence and so used to it that they wouldn’t need to be like some of the couples in their high school who’d need to always have their hands all over each other or constantly making out for you to tell they’re in love, because they could do the most low-key stuff and still be happy together.

They’re probably actual relationship goals. Dan would make such a caring boyfriend, always making small gestures that make MC smile, a real Pinterest-type boyfriend. You ever see those pictures of football players running to kiss their partners on the stands? Yeah, that’d be him, because you know MC would show up to every single game and be his personal cheerleader.

MC would probably get along well with Dan’s parents, too, since I bet his mom would be really grateful that Dan’s got someone close to him he can open up to and who makes him so happy. He and MC would probably have stay-in dates where they just cuddle up close and watch Star Trek while Dan’s cat is curled up and purring between them, and Dan’s mom probably makes them mac and cheese because MC missed her cooking from when they would all go to the Pierces’ for lunch. And when they do their stay-in dates at MC’s place instead, MC always pretends to get upset when their cat wants to be on Dan’s lap instead of theirs, but really they love it because, hello, cute boy being cute with animals? They fall deeper in love with him every time. Also, imagine some time later, MC and Dan’s cats having kittens and then they’re trying to co-parent a couple of furry little babies. No, seriously, imagine Dan sitting on the floor while a bunch of tiny kittens try to climb all over him. Get that mental image in there.

At this point I have written a lot about how much I love Dan and I am fully aware that I’m rambling BUT I JUST THOUGHT OF MORE. Okay, you know the iconic Dan x MC Captain Incredible team up? Imagine Dan and MC slaying every single couples’ costume contest ever. They coordinate that stuff so well that they just own Halloween and nobody stands a chance. I mean, I did say they were goals, didn’t I?

And then of course there’s MC being so completely supportive of him when he starts seriously thinking about pursuing psychology as a career to help people cope with trauma. I mean, they know how complicated his own journey was and they are so proud of him for choosing to dedicate his life to that, since his caring nature is one of their favorite things about him. They probably help him prepare for his exams by setting up study dates to keep him motivated and working so he can make his career happen, and he’s just as supportive when it comes to whatever MC chooses to do.

Oookay, not that I don’t have lots of feelings about this, you know, ‘cause I really just went on and on about how I feel about Dan off the top of my head without any organization whatsoever, but I deadass thought “hey, this is a very long response” and put it through a word count and it is, no joke, over 1.4k words, so I really should stop talking now because people are gonna forget that my brand was supposed to be stanning Andy x MC, but the gist of it is Dan x MC is an amazing pairing, even it It Lives in the Woods didn’t explore the romantic potential there.

[itsclydebitches]

It Chapter Two: Aged-Up Protagonists and the Umbridge Effect

Writing reviews, metas, and the like is a lot about timing. If you don’t craft your writing in the immediate aftermath of your source’s release, someone else will beat you to it and, chances are, your audience will be less enthused about reading the same arguments weeks later. (Admittedly, that’s up for debate. I for one am happy to read about the same shit for years on end.) Thus, when I didn’t have the time or the mental energy to write about It: Chapter Two immediately after seeing it in theaters, I knew within a few days that I’d lost a lot of ground. Fans and critics alike have already spoken about the film’s major draws, namely the update on Richie’s sexuality and the canonizing of a beloved, thirty-year-old ship. We’ve also covered the issues that arose out of those positives. In 2019, is it necessary to show a hate crime in such violent detail? By giving us queer characters, have Muschietti and King unintentionally fallen into the trap of treating them badly? One is dead and the other mourns while the straight couple passionately kiss beneath the lake. Faithful adaptation vs. modern activism is a tricky balance to strike. I could rehash all those arguments here, but why bother? They’ve been articulated better by others already. Besides, falling behind means that I now have the space to discuss something just as important to me.

The Losers’ ages.

Now, I’m not sure if you all have noticed, but fantasy adventures aren’t really geared towards adults. That is to say, stories often contain adult content, but that’s not the same thing as putting adults at the center of the narrative. I’ve experienced a niggling sense of displeasure that’s grown stronger with each passing year and it took until my mid-twenties to figure out what it was: I am no longer the hero of many of my favorite stories. Because I’ve grown up. Harry Potter is concerned primarily with the trials and tribulations of characters between the ages of eleven and eighteen. If we return to that world---such as through a certain cursed play---the focus must shift to the new, shiny generation. Anyone who falls through a wardrobe is bound to be a child and if they dare grow up? They’re no longer allowed access to such a fantastic place. Kids are the ones who find the Hundred Acre Woods, or fall down rabbit holes, get daemons, battle Other Mothers when the world gets flipped, or head off onto all sorts of elementary and high school adventures. Sometimes, even those who are adults mistakenly get caught up in this trend. Frodo might be in his fifties, but as a small, kindly hobbit he comes across as younger than the rest of the Fellowship. Since the release of Jackson’s trilogy I’ve corrected more than one new fan who assumed (somewhat logically) that he is in his early twenties, max. It’s an easy mistake to make when we’ve grown accustomed to children and young adults taking center stage in so many fantastic, high-profile adventures.

Of course, there are plenty of counters to this feeling. Just look at Game of Thrones. Though we see much of the story through younger perspectives---such as the Stark siblings---the vast majority of the cast is made up of adults, playing just as pivotal a role as the up-and-comers. Fantasy, Science Fiction, and other speculative story-lines are by no means solely in the hands of minors, yet I think it’s also worth acknowledging that a good majority of those stories do shape our media landscape. Or, if they’re not strictly minors, they’re characters who embody a sort of static young adulthood, the Winchesters and the Shadowhunters and all the television superheroes who might gesture towards markers of adulthood---we have long term relationships, hold down jobs, can impersonate FBI agents without anyone batting an eye---yet are still able to maintain a nebulous form of youth. They all (try to) look and act as if they’re right out of college. The standards of film and television demand that actors appear twenty-years-old even when they’re pushing forty, and the standards of much literature insists that twenty is simply too old for an adventure, period. I can still clearly recall two moments of shock (later agreed upon by my friends) when I encountered unexpectedly older protagonists in genre fiction: the realization that Sophie actually spends the majority of Howl’s Moving Castle as a very old woman and that The Magicians takes place in graduate school. “Wow,” I remember thinking. “When’s the last time that happened?”

What does all this have to do with It: Chapter Two? I don’t have any big twist for you here. It was just really refreshing to see such a fantastical story where our cast is all forty or older. Seriously, can we take a moment to appreciate exactly how much King undermined expectations there? The first half of the novel is structured precisely how we assume it ‘should’ be. There’s a mysterious threat, there are children caught up in the middle of it, and ultimately only they are capable of saving the day. We know this story. We even have the characterization of the town itself to reinforce this structure, a place so warped by evil that only the very young with their open-mindedness and imagination are capable of seeing Derry for what it truly is, illustrated beautifully in the film by Mr. Marsh straight up not noticing a whole room full of blood.

Though they’re It’s prey, children are also the only ones who have any potential power over him. You have to be able to acknowledge a problem in order to fix it and King could have easily ended his story at the first chapter alone, with the group somehow managing to defeat Pennywise for good the first time they set foot in the sewers. A part of me is still shocked he didn’t, if only because the young savior as an archetype was embedded within Western culture far earlier than It’s 1986 publication. From Carrie to The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Pet Sematary to Firestarter, King is no stranger to putting children at the center of fantastic tales. Yet he’s also given us numerous adult protagonists, managing to find an enjoyable balance between the two, both within individual novels and his entire corpus. It represents that balance, not just imagining a story where seven (yes, I’m counting Stan) middle-age adults manage to finally save their town, but actually setting up a twenty-seven year jump to allow for that. It's the best of both worlds, exploring the difficulties inherent in both childhood and adulthood, arguing that we need each---that imagination and that experience---if we hope to come out alive.

While watching It: Chapter Two I took note of how many people laughed throughout the film, and not just at the moments set up to be funny (looking at you, Richie). Rather, the film that two years ago had scared the pants off of movie-goers now entertained them in a much more relaxed manner. No one was hiding behind their popcorn; there were no shrieks of fright. I’ve seen more than one reviewer express displeasure at this change. What the hell happened? Isn’t an It film supposed to be scary? Well, yes and no. I think what a lot of people miss is how providing us with an adult cast inherently changes the way fear manifests, both literally in the case of Pennywise’s illusions and thematically in regards to the film itself. This sloppy bitch, as established, preys on children. His tricks have the illogical, fantastical veneer that reflect how children see the world: you’re scared of women with horrifically elongated faces, zombie-like lepers, and hungry mummies. They’re literal monsters emerging out from under the bed. Of course, as adults watching the story we’re easily able to see how these monsters represent much deeper, intangible fears: growing up and disappointing your father, falling ill like your mother always claims you will (to say nothing of contracting AIDS in connection with a budding queer identity), and the danger that comes with being alone and ostracized. Sometimes It: Chapter One gestures more firmly towards those underlying fears---such as the burnt hands reaching for Mike when we know his family died in a fire---but only once does it make the real horror overt, when Pennywise takes Mr. Marsh’s face and asks Bev if she's still his little girl.

Outside of pedophilia and sexual abuse, Chapter One’s real horror is mostly coded, symbolic, left up to (admittedly rather obvious at times) interpretation. It’s just under the surface and we’re meant to be distracted by the fact that, allegorical or not, there’s still a very creepy thing hunting our protagonists from the shadows. For two hours we take on a child’s perspective, biting our nails at all the things we once imagined hid inside our closets. We’re scared because they’re scared.

That mindset irrevocably changes once your group grows up. Forty-year-olds simply don’t freak out in the same way a bunch of thirteen-year-olds would, especially now that they know precisely what’s happening and have the mental fortitude to combat it. At least to an extent. Chapter Two isn’t as traditionally scary for the simple reason that the film now acknowledges what all adults eventually must: there’s nothing in the closet, there’s nothing hiding under your bed. Or if there is, it’s something tangible that can be handled with a calm(ish) demeanor and a well-placed ax. An adult might scream when something jumps out at them, but they’re not as inclined to cower. Adults might still be scared, but they’re better able to push that fear aside in order to take action. The group first reached that point in the sewers--- “Welcome to the Losers’ club, asshole!”---and now fully embodies that mindset with nearly three decades of growth and experience to draw on. This is why Ben investigating the library as a teen reads as teeth-chatteringly scary, but Ben and Bill as adults investigating the skateboard produces only a comment about how they're getting used to this nonsense. They know, and we as the audience know, what the real threat is and whether or not we need to shield our eyes when something starts clunking its way down the stairs.

All of which isn’t to say that Chapter Two isn’t scary. It’s simply scary in a much more realistic manner, killer clowns and Native American rituals aside. The fears have been aged-up along with the cast, stripping away the child-like fantasies that made us wet our pants in Chapter One. What’s the scariest moment outside of the jump scares? When two men and a kid beat a gay man and then chuck him in the river to drown. You’ll note that, unlike in the first film, Pennywise doesn’t actually have to do much work here. Seasoning people up with fear? The rest of the world is doing that for him. That first scene detailing a truly horrific hate crime (which, by the way, is based off of true events) results in a meal delivered straight to Pennywise’s arms. It’s people who targeted that couple, beat one of them within an inch of his life, and then tossed him over a bridge, bleeding and shrieking for help. All Pennywise had to do was scoop him from the water and take that first bite. He’s incidental to the film’s most cringe-worthy scene. We can argue all we want about how it’s Pennywise’s influence that “makes” the town this way, but any queer viewer knows that's simply not the case. In 2019 we're still living this horror, no Pennywise required.

Likewise, the two children we see murdered are much more overtly grappling with fears that have nothing to do with fantastical monsters. Dean, the little boy Bill tries to save in lieu of Georgie, is rightly petrified because a seemingly crazy adult is now stalking him. We as the audience know that Bill is just trying to help----that he’s not the real danger here----but that’s not the perspective this kid has, nor is it the issue the film is grappling with. We first see him approaching an idol of his, Richie, and instead of an enjoyable experience he winds up getting yelled at. The It films are only tangentially interested in the status of fans and their relationship with celebrities, but we know it’s a common theme for King’s work overall. Look at Misery and look at this cameo: a disenchanted fan of the 21st century, criticizing a writer’s novel and leveraging him for money. “You can afford it,” he tells Bill, swindling him simply because he can. The context of this little boy as a fan and Richie as the older, bigger, larger-than-life comedian adds another layer to the interaction. It’s not just an adult verbally attacking a child, it’s an adult this kid worshiped enough to recognize and quote his material from memory. Who easily walks away from that?

This little boy then finds Bill shrieking at a sewer opening, is manhandled by him, and told in the scariest way possible, born of Bill’s own fear, that he has to get out of dodge, fast. There are scary things out there, Dean freely admits that he’s heard kids’ voices coming from the tub drain, but right now the scariest thing is how badly the adults in his life are failing him: parents (from what little we can gather) are distant, his comedic idol is mean, and now this stranger is traumatizing him in the middle of the street. Once again, it’s easy to see how Pennywise isn’t needed to sow fear or even enact cruelty; he’s not a requirement for horrible things in the world, he’s merely their reflection. We see the same setup with the little girl under the bleachers. That scene demonstrates precisely how not scary Pennywise is. Here’s this child putting aside her discomfort over his looks and agreeing to be his friend. What’s worse than a clown with a creepy expression? The knowledge that all the other kids have already rejected you because of a birthmark on your face. Bullying is the far greater threat and one we’re 100% more likely to deal with in our lives than a killer clown, so the second film re-frames Pennywise to better acknowledge this. He’s scary because things like bullying and neglect exist to give him an easy in. He’s even scary because in this moment, hiding under the bleachers, manipulating this little girl, he’s fully embodying a child predator. Chapter One was a primal, “There’s a monster hiding in the shadows” kind of fear. Chapter Two is a, “We’re all going to die from climate change” kind of fear. Logical and largely inescapable. Characters like Richie don't need Pennywise to take some fantastic form to scare him. Homophobia has already done all the work.

Ultimately, I think of this as the Umbridge Effect. Who’s the most hated character in the Harry Potter franchise? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the Dark Lord responsible for two wars, attempted genocide, and the death of our title character.

We despise Umbridge because she’s real. She’s relatable. She’s grounded in a way that Voldemort could never hope to be. We have no fear that an all-powerful sorcerer is suddenly going to come out of the woodwork and attempt to enslave and/or eradicate everyone without magic. That’s just not on our list of things to worry about. A corrupt politician, however? An instructor who uses her power to emotionally and physically torture students, getting away with it because of a cutesy, hyper-feminine persona? We’ve seen stuff like that. We’ve lived it. Umbridge represents all the real wrongs in the world when it comes to bigotry and privilege. Therefore we hate her---we fear her---in a way we could never hate or fear Voldemort. Now, in It: Chapter Two, Pennywise is the new Voldemort. Is an alien clown with an unhinged jaw and three rows of teeth technically scary? Sure, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the real problems that plague the cast: abuse, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, the fear that someone will hurt or outright kill you over some part of your identity. These are things we continue to fear long after the credits roll and the lights come up, and they’re now barely coded in the story:

It occurred to me halfway through my viewing that the people laughing at the characters’ new plights were the same ones who didn’t flinch when a gay man’s head cracked into the pavement. I had both hands over my mouth during that scene and I wasn’t snickering whenever Eddie had a panic attack, or Ben’s self-confidence took a hit. Because those moments, like our opening, hit pretty close to home for me; I didn’t find them embarrassingly humorous in the way much of my theater did. So many reviews in the last two months have insisted that Chapter Two isn't scary, but I think that depends entirely on whether or not you're struggling with these now explicit threats. We're not dealing with mummies and creepy portraits anymore. Instead, tell me how you feel about holding your partner's hand in public. Do certain memories make you vomit? Or freeze? Consider heading upstairs to the bath? The horror is dependent on how the audience views Bill's stutter coming back, or the bruises on Bev's arms. 

The cast grew up. It’s a fantastic twist. It also means that the horror needed to grow up with them, resulting in a film that could no longer function as a simple, scary clown movie. Our ending reminds us of that. When did people laugh the loudest? When the Losers’ club was bullying Pennywise into something vulnerable. And yeah, I get it. It’s a cheesy moment that we feel the need to laugh at because it’s just so unexpected. Awkward, even. Since when are badass horror monsters defeated with a bit of backyard peer pressure straight out of middle school? If this were any other story, Pennywise would have been defeated by Eddie’s poker. The most scared member of the group finally finds his courage! He has faith that this simple object can kill monsters! He throws it in a perfect arc, splitting the deadlights in two! That’s a heroic ending. Something epic and fantastical, relying on the idea that the Good Guys will win simply because they believe in themselves... but that’s not how the real world works. That ending is a child’s fantasy. Sometimes you do the heroic thing and end up dying anyway. Which isn’t to say that the heroic thing is useless. It saves Richie’s life. It’s just that a single act can’t cure all our ills in the way that storybooks often claim they can. 

How then does an adult deal with huge, intangible problems like bigotry and mental illness---the things Pennywise now fully represents? By saying “Fuck you” to those things again and again with all the support you can possibly wrangle up at your side. You refuse to let those issues control you; you drag those child-like representations into the light and remind yourself just how small they really are. We don’t get to beat something like depression by spearing it with a fire poker in some overblown finale. If we did, we’d all be having a much better time. All you can do is band together with friends and scream that you’re not going to let your fears define you anymore. Pennywise is a symptom of all the true horrors in the world. Sadly, you can’t beat those with a baseball bat. But you can acknowledge the heart of the issue, literally in the case of five friends squeezing until that one symptom, at least, is gone.

Image Credit

#1:https://www.screengeek.net/2018/07/10/it-chapter-2-character-mashups/

#2:https://earlybirdbooks.com/the-re-read-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe

#3:https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/7/4/19413771/stranger-things-season-3-review-recap-hopper-elevenrussians

#4:https://comicbook.com/movies/2019/08/08/harry-potter-movies-review-10-years-late-snape-dumbledore-franchise/

#5:https://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/netflix/277257/give-the-dragon-prince-a-chance

#6:https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindamaleh/2019/04/23/she-ra-and-the-princesses-of-power-season-2-review/#ec7022c42953

#7:https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/avatar-the-last-airbender

#8:https://www.newsweek.com/buffy-vampire-slayer-turns-20-charisma-carpenter-shows-enduring-legacy-and-566123

#9:http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2009/alice-in-wonderland-the-movie/

#10:https://www.hindustantimes.com/tv/game-of-thrones-this-edited-out-scene-between-bran-and-sansa-reveals-so-much-about-finale/story-qFDHflH2dO6Kcki1wgsEyM.html

#11:https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Ender-Game-Best-Possible-Adaptation-Book-40110.html

#12:https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/supernatural-end-season-15-cw-1196579

#13:https://www.slashfilm.com/it-chapter-two-scene/

#14:https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/12/16286316/it-cleaning-up-blood-scene-feminism

#15:http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-208633/photos/detail/?cmediafile=21647122

#16:https://stanleyyuris.tumblr.com/post/188300897715/chaotic-losers

#17:https://whatculture.com/film/it-chapter-2-every-character-ranked-worst-to-best?page=3

#18:https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/7uhrkz/the_most_hated_character/

#19:https://9gag.com/gag/am2X2Z4?ref=pn.mw

#20:https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-hated-characters-unpopular-worst-ranked/quickview/17

GIFs1-5:https://the-pretty-poisons.tumblr.com/post/188344826978/why-is-everyone-looking-at-me-\like-this

[smuttymess]

bts astro soulmate reading | for deja

sign: gemini sun | pisces moon | libra rising

lover: Park Jimin | soulmate: Jung Hoseok

This reading is for Deja, a Jungkook bias who also stans OT7 with a particular affinity towards Jimin and Tae. With a maknae line like that, who could blame her? Please enjoy this reading, love!

Idealistic, imaginative and intuitive to almost a psychic degree, your star sign combination makes you one of the dreamiest in the zodiac. For better or for worse, you tend to see things as you would like to and not so much as the way they are down on earth. But honestly, who can blame you? The real world pales in comparison to your infinite nature of your imagination. Your intuition helps guide you through life, and you are innately in tune to what you and other people around you need. One of the zodiac's biggest thinkers and communicators, it is best for letting someone else figure out the logistics and details while you are off ideating and making power moves - unencumbered by little details - is likely how you achieve greatness in your life. Both Gemini and Pisces (air and water) are known for their duality, their desire to flow and evolve towards whatever they set their hearts and minds out to do, and as a result of your innate joie de vivre you have many admirers who want to be a part of your world. While in high demand, a result of your charming Libra rising, you are not someone who can be pinned down easily. Your friends have long given up on trying to get you to stick to any sort of schedule - whenever you arrive is right on time. They are happy to take you as you are, for when you are present you are able to express an almost unparalleled empathy, attentiveness and warmth which makes you all at once irresistible and unforgettable to those you love (and even those you've only just met!)

Gemini/Pisces is a duo of energy, movement, and passion: you move through the world on your own terms, seeking excitement and pleasure in everything that you do. This placement, along with your Libra rising, lends you to escapsim. It is not uncommon for you to want to take a spontaneous trip to explore a new culture, perhaps booking a house in wine country in order to blow off steam or avoid an impending work deadline - a little wine won't hurt! Upon arrival you're happy to find that your host is the incredibly attractive Park Jimin, who happens to own the entire vineyard, and you two immediately connect. Jimin is a true Libra, his charm emanating from his being with little to no effort, but it is not disingenuous - he is just naturally flirtatious and personable. His balance-seeking Libra rising and witty Gemini moon is familiar, as if he's known you for many years, making you immediately at ease in your solo travels and maybe a little horny too. You two both possess a gift of being highly sociable and fun to be around, Jimin's Libra Sun meshing almost perfectly with your Libra rising, and it is not long before you two become inseparable - likely making the other guests wonder if you are longtime partners or co-owners of the property.

After many long conversations and several glasses of wine, you are not surprised to find your lips intertwined, the plushness of his perfect pout pressed gently against yours. The Gemini/Libra relationship is a true escape in and of itself, one that simply requires existing as you are in the moment. Within your short time with him you become purely infatuated, his eyes sparkling as brightly as the stars above the vineyard as he smiles, the pure embodiment of romance and passion tanks to his Venus in Scorpio. Your signs share a love for leisure and pleasure, which lends nicely to long mornings in bed and walks across the gorgeous grounds, sneaking in tender kisses and under the sun before ducking away into a more secluded area. Gemini runs the show in this pairing, your hands feverishly running beneath his shirt and across his abs as your lock him into a kiss. Jimin is more than happy to have you push him against the wall, hungrily planting kisses along his neck as his hardness presses into your thigh. this Air signs tangle effortlessly together, as if your bodies were made for each other. Above all else a Libra lover wants to make his partner feel good, taking immense pleasure in seeing your lips fall apart as his fingers slip beneath your dress and across your clit. He knows how to tease you, his fingers brushing across your lips but never giving you the full relief that you crave, smiling as you become more and more desperate against his touch, practically fucking yourself against his fingers. My girl is so naughty, isn't she? The sex is so good you might almost think about making this vacation permanent.

Despite the beauty and charm of this duo, there is not enough stability or grounding in this duo to truly move this from a lovely fling and into a more serious relationship. Jimin's Libra values responsibility, balance and reliability, while Gemini/Pisces placements is notoriously flighty and seeking out their next adventure - where to next? This would not be so much of a problem were it not for JImin's Venus in Scorpio, which often shows love through possession, jealousy and control. Sure, there is a part of you that enjoys it (hello, Pisces) and you love how passionate he is about you and the things he cares about, but ultimately recognize that his need to really be attached to you, however sweet, is stifling. Additionally, these signs are both so consumed by pleasure that you will likely not accomplish anything outside of that, which is all well and good until the money runs out (commonplace with these two!) While this is likely not a forever match, there is a potential here for a long-term friendship filled with shared respect and admiration for the goodness in one another, with little to no animosity over the end of the relationship.

You have the mind of an artist, and it is not uncommon to find you in highly creative and artistic spaces that require out-of-the-box thinking. A leader in your own right, you could easily head a team of creative marketing professionals at a prestigious ad agency or a luxury fashion brand, putting together unique ideas to make a client's dreams come to life. It is in such an environment where you meet Jung Hoseok, your newest celebrity client, your eyes lighting up as he enters the room clad head to toe in starkly contrasting prints that somehow work seamlessly into a cohesive look. He possesses the signature traits of an Aquarius: confidence, independence, and originality. When his dark eyes move to meet yours, you can feel that rare, instant connection that cannot be ignored. While the physical relationship between a Gemini and Aquarius is often undeniable, it is your mutual wit and intellectual-thinking that draws you to each other over the course of your time working together. Aquarius Hoseok is unusual, charming, witty, and cool that gravitates towards your natural curiosity and boundless energy. You know he likes you, his eyes on your frame as you move about the room presenting your newest creations for his clothing brand. Together, you are two misunderstood individuals who innately understand each other on a profound level, as if nobody else is in the room. While neither of you are ones to wear your emotions on your sleeves or commit to anything too early on, you know quite early on that you will be fucking sooner rather than later - and you are certainly hoping for sooner.

Once you are no longer inhibited by the constraints of a professional relationship, all bets (and clothes) are off. The various debates you have and sharing of ideas while working together is all the foreplay you need, and the result is worth the wait. Hoseok has been thinking about every inch of your body that he wanted to feel underneath him, the little spots that would set you on fire the minute he could. He possesses a quiet, strong dominance about him that wants to consume you whole, which he does within minutes of closing the door to his suite. Moving closer to you to place his hand gently against your neck, you are almost overcome with desire as his eyes pierce into you before whispering into your ear. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. And now you’re all mine. Hoseok can be authoritative in bed, which you are happy to enjoy as your Pisces moon adores being ravished and devoured. Your sexual fantasies are of course rarely if ever just at home, your signs matched perfectly for mild exhibitionism or discreet public play. He enjoys hearing you scream his name, trembling as he thrusts you in the dressing room of a high-end retailer that he's rented out for a personal shopping trip. My baby looks so beautiful getting fucked in this dress - we'll have to buy it so I can take it off again at home. However timid or bashful your Pisces may be, you know that you are safe in his hands as they grab your hips and your breasts as they press against the floor to ceiling windows of the sprawling hotel penthouse he's booked for the week just to have a change of scenery.

The incredible emotional range of Gemini and Pisces alongside your tendency to go with the flow makes you very sensitive to others perceptions of you and also to criticism. While a Gemini can certainly speak off the cuff, perhaps offending a few people in the process, it is challenging for a Gemini sun/Pisces moon to receive words that are anything less than positive. As a result, you are prone to oversensitivity from taking things personally - your Pisces retreating into solitude away from the ugliness of it all. Hoseok is a perfectionist, his Aquarius sun propelling him forward as he seeks to excel in his own crafts, and while he is a creative thinker he is often very much entrenched in his beliefs. One of Hoseok's weaknesses is his ego, amplified by his Taurus moon and Uranus in Capricorn, which means when he is "right" it is incredibly hard to move the needle. You live in fantasy while he tends to live in reason and factuality, not shying away from criticism, and it is these differences that need to be appreciated for this match to go the distance. Your Pisces moon and his Venus in Pisces is effectively the saving grace of this pairing, allowing you to connect emotionally in a way that many other Gemini/Aquarius may not be able to. Instead of keeping things casual, this shared understanding gives you both with the empathy required to see and love your partner for who they are: an equally flawed and imperfect human trying to do their best.

This is ultimately a successful pairing that knows that in each other they have an intellectual match that should be cherished, forging ahead as business partners and moving the world forward with their incredible imaginations and creative ideals. Life together is not at all a normal one, because you show love through exploration and spontaneity, taking you to destinations around the world at a moment's notice and leaving little room for boredom or conventionality. You two allow each other to explore yourselves individually without restraint, knowing that your bond can't easily be undone. The home base you create together is one likely high above the cityscape, a sanctuary filled with fine art, personalized design, and plenty of space and light to establish a sense of comfort and creativity. While you two are not homebodies of any kind, this refuge gives you just the right amount of serenity so you can wake up and bring your dreamy, airy notions into the wider world.

[shaonsim]

Your take on grey characters 😈

An excellent question, and let me preface it with the fact that although I believe that every person is morally grey, I am also of the opinion that there is a difference between a grey person and a grey character. Fiction is always a little on-your-nose with everything, and a character with grey shades will have their complexities highlighted quite strongly, more often than not, as a direct contrast to a 'pure' white, positive character. And by doing that, fiction downplays the grey shades of the character standing on the moral high ground and that's really interesting and totally irrelevant to the answer, but I wrote it in anyway, because it fascinates me and kind of ties in with the stuff I hope to explore in the later parts of this answer, so, just hold on, I guess.

Let me also just point out, that fiction, as it says, is, and always will be, a little detached from reality. While it is true that fiction does not exist in a vacuum, it is a way for us to escape our worldly troubles and perhaps that's why sometimes serious issues get brushed under the carpet to give everyone a happy ending. It's an utopian world. And I bring this up because grey characters receive a lot of acceptance that they might not receive had they been real, flesh and bones, human beings. They also receive a lot of flak for not fitting into the 'good box', because more often than not, grey characters are show leaning towards the good side, as in, their actions directly or indirectly support the protagonists, or, in some cases, they go against the antagonist, thus leaving them on shaky ground. People would cry that they are being whitewashed (which, although it pains me to admit it, they are, but again, fiction is an utopia, even if we are talking about a zombie apocalypse).

Anyway, this too is confusing and I am terribly sorry for this disorganised mess of an answer you have to read through.

Forgive moi?

Okay, let's get back to the topic of grey characters. In the recent few years, I have come to sort 'grey characters' into different categories. So I'll just quickly (ha!) go over that.

GREY CHARACTER™

The characters who are introduced with the grey tag, by the creators themselves (or, in case of literary works, are addressed as grey by the writer(s) once the book is published and people have read it). Their moral ambiguity is their core feature, their whole personality is shaped up around that little nugget of information. The narrative gives them a layered, intriguing character traits (and a lot of snark - like, a lot of it), intricate backstories (and past trauma!!!) that remain hidden behind a facade of casual disinterest in everything that exists on our beautiful Earth, and we get snippets where they are being genuinely affectionate with their people, or where other, minor characters share a cordial, if not a little personal, relationship with them.

^ Another great way is to show them being polite to the staff, drivers and/or salespeople, that makes them likeable.

And it is extremely necessary that they are likeable, because these characters do plenty of questionable things. Some of their actions might even fall under the 'bad' category, where they commit crimes and plan to destroy lives (most of the time the plan fails, or they actively do something to redeem themselves with respect to that particular event, because they are grey characters, not the devil incarnate trope they go for when it comes to the villains and vamps).

Also, this type of a grey character is usually written in with a host of other characters, for whom the character will cross every limit, and a group of characters, with whom our grey character crosses all boundaries. The second group is the intended target, and the creative outlet for writing the morally questionable things that make a character grey™.

Usually, this type of a grey character gets one out of the three kinds of endings outlined below ⬇️

Grey™ but softer

Where they continue to do questionable things, but less frequently, or with less intensity. Nice trope. Moi likey.

Platinum grey, but grey™ if necessary

The go-to if they are the protagonist. I will explain about the 'platinum grey' bit later on, but this is essentially, this character has fulfilled (or abandoned) his course of doing questionable things, but if push came to shove, will not hesitate to destroy some lives. My favourite (♥️)

And the worst kind of ending - whitewashing

There is a difference between accepting the consequences of your actions, repenting for it (or not, both can work, but you have to acknowledge what you did), and justifying it because 'hey, look! I did one good thing in my life, I am pure™, love me!! ' This is my least favourite trope.

((can you guess which ending I have planned for Dhruba?))

TEAM GREY

This type of grey is usually reserved for influential side characters. Influential, in the sense that they contribute to the plot, and have relationship ties that leave a heavy impact on the story. My favourite people. These characters are not given the tag of 'grey', but they move from one camp to another, with their actions and thoughts that move the story forward. They don't switch sides, that's another type. These characters don't change teams because they want to support one side against the other. No, their actions are fueled by their own motivations, and that's what makes them special. They are often overlooked because of Grey ™ characters, but I love them so much.

THE FAKE GREY (AKA DAL BADLUS)

The narrative tries to make us perceive these characters as grey, and in their haste, they make these characters change teams every now and then, and the characters lose all credibility. They differ from 'team grey' in the sense that the reasoning behind them choosing sides is flimsy at best, non-existent at worst. They are inconsistent and ugh, how I hate inconsistencies. What irks me the most is that the narrative doesn't even try to establish them as complex characters (which isn't that hard, humans are complex!!!)

SUPPOSEDLY WHITE BUT OOPS I AM GREY NOW, PLEASE KEEP LOVING ME

I love these characters, if they are executed properly. Tons of potential. The story always reminds us that these characters are supposedly white, but their actions (or reactive action because of the circumstances/events brought on by the grey™) and I love to see them spiral out of control and become complex, layered characters. And if they have comic potential, then I am squealing with joy. Love these people. 

((spoiler alert: this is my Agni))

GREY BECAUSE I STAND IN THE NO MAN'S LAND BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE

Love, love, love them! Love characters who are not inherently evil and who do not engage in criminal activity, but also, they are not pure and white and good™ and they have their fair share of character flaws. They do lots of wrong things, but nothing destructive. All the love ❤️

((spoiler alert: this is my plan with Chandni))

I HAVE TRAVELLED FAR FROM THE GREY ZONE BUT I AM NOT TOTALLY BLACK, BELIEVE ME

Negative characters with plenty of redeeming traits, and a strong (and emotionally manipulative) reason behind their wrongdoings, with their motivation exploited by the antagonists. Can be very interesting if done well, and even the simplest of tracks is better than the plain old everyone is evil unless they are the protagonist (and their supporters). 

((spoiler alert: My rendition of Manju)) 

GREY BECAUSE I HAVE FALLEN FROM MY PEDESTAL FOR GREATNESS AND I AM NO LONGER WHITE ™

Another favourite. Genuinely good characters who do that one wrong thing, but it's pretty big and affects the plot in a bad way and that kind of behavior cannot go unchecked because we need to prove a point. Tons of potential. 

((spoiler alert: My rendition of Kakai)) 

<< are you tired of me screaming about my plans for the Fic Which Must Not Be Named? Sorry, not sorry 😈 >>

THE WORLD COULD NOT HANDLE MY GREATNESS, I AM GREY NOW 

Pure, sweet, soft characters who see the world for what and now they are either a very soft grey (as in their negative side comes out quite often, but it doesn't affect the story all that much) or a very manipulative person. Love this trope! 

((Deepti is a soft grey character, but that's more because she is bitter and she points that bitterness towards herself. Meghna, on the other hand, flits in and out of this trope))

TOO COOL TO BE WHITE, TOO SANE TO BE DARK 

All the snark! Brutally honest, mature, logical people who are cool™ and who do lovely, manipulative stuff. We stan! 

(( Ranja from my ff, not Ranjabati the warrior princess)) 

PLATINUM GREY (AKA SELF-DESTRUCTIVE ™) 

The protagonist, often used as narrative foil to the Grey™ or vice versa. They are portrayed as good and pure™ but have plenty of grey character traits that either get glossed over or are shoved into the cupboard to highlight the differences between the grey character and the protagonist. They also have serious self destructive tendencies where they ruin their lives on purpose and this is often complemented by a generous helping of saviour complex. Like, all the love for these characters. They are supposed to be white, but aren't, but they do shine bright, even if their flaws are sharp and in your face, like a cloudy sky that is a terribly cold, sharp white. I choose to use the word platinum because that's what comes to my mind when I try to visualise their place in the shade card of life, the color of a platinum band. This is my favourite trope when it comes to protagonists. Love them. ♥️

((Tara, Prabha, and Meghna - PLATINUM BABES))

Now that we have covered the type of grey characters in fiction (my brain is fried and I might have missed some, sorry! Feel free to reblog with your additions!!), let me tell you how much I love grey characters. I would choose them every time, as opposed to characters who can be neatly sorted into the black and white categories.

Every. Time.

We need more grey characters in fiction, especially the soft greys and the team grey ones. And we need to appreciate grey characters for how amazing they are!!!

In conclusion, I love grey characters (but you already know that, don't you? Come on Babe, you have known me long enough, you know how crazily excited I get about grey characters) and I need more of them ♥️♥️♥️

[ stuff for my 100th celebration ]