#not to yuck anyones yum but i Do Not enjoy his character in any way remotely related to horniness. even more than my usual ace unhorniness

[hawkeyequeerce]

Man I keep looking for star trek blogs to follow, particularly TNG ones and I cannot resist the electric lure of my boy data....but it turns out I am unexpectedly made INCREDIBLY uncomfortable by blogs that are horny for data or lore :(

[finnofamerica]

Professor, Please - Dr. Ian Malcolm x Reader || Fluff \ Smut

Summary: When your grades slip due to your fantasizing about your sexy professor, you would do damn near anything to get your grades back up.

Prompt: Would you be comfy with writing, professor! Ian x student!f!reader??? Like they started fucking because of “grades but in reality, they’re both head over heels for each other

Word Count: 1,179

Date Posted: 05.13.23

TW: Breeding, Exhibitionism, Dirty Talk, Nipple Play, Praise, Slight Edging, Teacher/Student Relationship.

Note: Remember that kink is customizable, and there is no right way to do it as long as you’re keeping safe. We play by Safe, Sane, and Consensual here, but there is also Risk Aware Consensual Kink and Personal Responsibility, Informed Consensual Kink. Don’t yuck anyone’s yum, I am willing to answer any questions that I can.

🔞MINORS DO NOT INTERACT🔞

|| Request Here || Masterlist || Fandoms/Characters || Req. by Anon

You were completely zoned in class. The only thought in your brain was how much you wanted to go home and rub one out so you could get back to work.  Not that you didn’t enjoy the subject. You thought that Chaos Theory was fascinating. It wasn’t your fault you were so out of it. The professor was the cause of your distracted state. 

Dr. Ian Malcolm was sex on legs, and arousal burned in you from the moment you first stepped into his class at the beginning of the semester. Black dress shirt partially unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, dark jeans that accentuated the length of his legs, paired with black boots - You practically came on the spot. Dr. Malcolm had these long, lithe fingers that you caught yourself fantasizing about constantly. 

“Class dismissed,” Ian called out. The sudden movement of your classmates snapped you back into reality. You’d missed the entire lecture. “Miss Y/L/N, I need to have a word with you before you leave.” 

Shit. Your stomach fell out of your ass. You packed your things into your backpack, hands shaking. You slung your backpack over your shoulder and nervously adjusted your shorts that had ridden up and settled into the crease between your hips and your thighs. You weren’t sure your legs would hold you up as you made your way down to the lectern at the front of the lecture hall. You could practically feel his gaze burning into you as his eyes followed you down the aisle. 

“Y/N, right? Is it all right if I call you that?” He asked, leaning casually against the lectern, arms folded over his chest, pulling his shirt open just enough for you to get a peak at his chest hair. 

“Yes, Sir, that’s fine.” You swallowed thickly, forcing your eyes to his. 

“Y/n, are you aware that your grades in this class are abysmal? Is everything okay? You seem distracted.” 

Of course, he could see right through you. 

“I’m sorry, Dr. Malcolm. I will try to be more focused in the future.” 

“At this rate, Y/n, you’re not going to pass this class. Even if you manage to focus up for the rest of the semester.” He sighed disappointedly.  “It's a shame, and You were recommended highly by the other professors when you signed up for this class.” 

“Professor, please, I will do almost anything to improve my grades. I can’t afford to fail this class.” 

“Why don’t we head back to my office to discuss your options.” 

You gripped Ian’s desk tightly, muffling your moans with your hand. Your shorts were pulled down around your thighs, just enough for him to slide in between your legs; your thong was pulled off to the side, the thin fabric surely soaked. 

“Fuck, Professor, please,” You moaned into your hand as he railed you from behind, one of his hands wrapped up in your hair. 

“God, you feel good, Y/n,” Ian growled, grip on your hair tightening. 

“Thank you, Professor,” You gasped out between thrusts. 

“You on birth control?”

“Yes, Professor.” 

“Good, ‘cus I’m not pulling out.” 

Your pussy clenched around him, a flood of arousal soaking his cock. 

“You just got so wet, Baby,” He tugged on your hair so he could growl in your ear, “Do you like the idea of me filling you with my seed?” 

“Yes, Professor,” You moaned as he slowed his thrusts just enough to give you a breather.

“Fuck,” He chuckled, “You’re a little slut, huh?” 

You whimpered underneath him. The threat of someone walking in on the two of you was not far from your mind. With the way that he was fucking you, you couldn’t care less if someone found you. 

“Just for you, Professor.” 

He thrust fast into you, your little breather over. The sound of skin slapping skin and moaning filling his office. He reached his free hand around your front, cupping your breast. Your nipples were stiff against his warm palm. The scratching of your bra against your taught had you whimpering beneath him. It was just enough to get you to the edge but not get you off. You would have given anything to orgasm while his cock was still buried inside you. 

“Tell me you want me to come in you,” Ian demanded, close to orgasm himself. 

“I want you to come in me, Professor, please,” You whined, desperate to tip over the edge yourself. His thrusts stuttered, and he buried himself as deep as he could in your pussy. You could feel his cock twitching as he spilled inside you. 

Slowly he pulled out, dropping to his knees. 

“What‘re you-” 

Your question was cut off by a long swipe of his tongue up your pussy, cleaning up the mess he’d made. He flicked his tongue against your clit, trying out different speeds and motions until he found the one that made you weak in the knees. 

You’d had a few boyfriends in your life, but none could compare to the way this man was devouring you. Ian was like a man starved. He was eating you out like you were his last meal. 

“Fuck, Professor, Please, I can’t take much more,” You whined. He gripped your thighs tightly but said nothing. The message was clear; you were not going anywhere until you came on his tongue. It was like every nerve in you was set on fire, as even your face began to tingle. You were so close, and that hot coil began to twist in your stomach. The eruption was imminent. Your legs spasmed beneath you as you orgasmed hard against his tongue, whimpering some form of his name. 

“Good girl,” He cooed as he tucked your thong back in place and pulled your shorts back up over your ass. “Meet with me every other week after class.” 

“Yes, Professor,” You nodded as you righted yourself, hoping to calm your flushed face before you left his office. 

“I expect you to focus in future classes, Y/n,” Ian said seriously, two fingers tucked underneath your chin so you couldn’t shy away from him. 

You were hooked on him ever since. Bi-weekly meetings in his office soon weren’t enough for either of you. You’d begun sneaking off to his condo in the middle of the night after your roommates were long asleep. Hookups turned into him making you dinner and stuttering excuses to your roommates when you spent the night. 

Tonight you were wrapped up in his arms, lying on the couch as some movie you weren’t really paying attention to played on the television. You drew lazy circles on his chest as he rubbed your back gently. You couldn’t imagine a more beautiful man at this moment. 

“What?” He chuckled softly as he caught you staring. 

“Nothin’. I just love you.” You were so relaxed it took you a full moment for your brain to catch up with your words. Neither of you had said it until this moment. 

Ian smiled, “I love you too.” 

Tags: @glowstick-anon

[vidavalor]

have u ever seen the "his name has Ra in it. Ra is the Egyptian god of sun. Sun has three letters. A triangle has three peaks. Illuminati is a triangle. That means that he's illuminati" videos?

cuz ur like that but cooler and more educative

The last line of your message means you can have chocolate pie. 💕*sets you up with a plate* I was getting a little nervous there for a second lol. I think that any book or show that causes its audience to engage so much is a great one and if someone is enjoying making connections like the ones you described, then it's their life to enjoy. I'm not going to yuck on anyone's yum but I have seen some theories that I honestly had difficulty following so I get whatcha sayin' and I appreciate the compliment.

If I said this next sentence with any other context but with regards to Good Omens, you'd all try to have me committed lol but here it is: I'm following language-related directions from The Voice of God. Literally. I have it in the works to do a post on that alone because the show is actually teaching the audience Crowley & Aziraphale's vocabulary and it's provided some keys at times as to where in the show you can find lessons in it. In S2, there's also a meta scene about it, which is the "Professor Rossignol" scene. Some brief thoughts on that and, since you were nice enough to drop me a note, also on Ra and The Illuminati while we're at it, just for kicks.

It's no good to make it evident to your audience that your main characters are speaking a secret language that they've made up if the audience can't be taught to speak it because then the meaning of what's being said is lost, right? And it is very obvious that Crowley & Aziraphale have their own vocabulary. There are a lot of examples of it but one scene, in particular, that stands out to me is 1967 because it is literally impossible to make heads or tails of what they're fully discussing unless you try to figure out what Aziraphale means by "dangerous." He tells Crowley that he's heard about Crowley's plan to rob a church for holy water and then says to him this, word-for-word:

"I can't have you risking your life. Not even for something dangerous."

What does that mean, right? If you didn't already get a sense that their words don't add up on the surface sometimes, you get smacked in the face with it in that scene. Aziraphale's phrasing puts "dangerous"-- a word with a scary, negative connotation-- in the position of a positive, cherished thing that Crowley would see worth risking his life for and the end result is that "dangerous" must mean something to them besides the surface definition of the word. [What it does is something someone else has asked me for so post on that to come.] Right there, though? You have hidden vocabulary. One of the most important scenes in the show and it makes no sense without an awareness of it. This is all long before Crowley's standing there saying "no nightingales" in 2.06.

There are other scenes where something doesn't add up without an awareness of hidden language being spoken. Why does Crowley melt into a puddle of burning goo at Aziraphale saying "We will win, you know" about Heaven winning Armageddon in 1.01? Because, as other scenes and The Voice of God's narration teach, when they're speaking of Heaven or Hell with pluralized pronouns, they're really talking about the two of them together beneath the surface. That's why Crowley's face melts into a lovesick gaze and hint of a smile when Aziraphale says "we will win"-- because Aziraphale is saying that he and Crowley will win.

In S2, Aziraphale says he learned French "the hard way" with "Professor Rossignol" in 1760. Aziraphale already speaks French. He and Crowley, as Crowley points out in the scene, speak every language of the world. It's a nod towards how you can speak a language but a secret language like theirs is one that can be built out of words that sound familiar but are put together in a way that you need to understand in order to comprehend what is being said.

In the course of the scene, Aziraphale speaks French to Crowley and what he says is a riff on "la plume de ma tante"-- a French phrase that refers to the kinds of sentences that you are taught when you learn a new language that you would never actually say in real life. This scene is actually nodding to the "la plume de ma tante"s of Ineffable Husbands Speak and where you can find them in the series.

The reason why those sentences exist the way they do when you are learning a new language is to teach as much vocabulary as possible alongside teaching people how to conjugate verbs, etc.. This is why you are never taught practical sentences like "Excuse me, where is the restroom?" or "Yes, I would like to buy that bread, please." but are, instead, taught sentences like "Is it true that you can buy white onions at the library on Tuesdays?" lol. It's because when you are a child and you learn the native language or languages spoken by the people around you, you absorb thousands of words just by living in that world but when you are a teenager or an adult learning a new language, you start almost from scratch. You need to learn as much vocabulary as possible as soon as possible, in order to become fluent. Aziraphale says he learned some "la plume de ma tante"-like sentences (in a language he already speaks but in which he wanted to play better) from a professor whose name eagle-eyed fans already translated as meaning "nightingale" in French, right?

Nightingales (the birds) and also nightingales (the skeleton keys). The Rossignol family created The Great Cipher that encrypted communications for the French government for centuries-- they literally built a secret language. If you want to learn Ineffable Husbands Speak, the show is saying, you need to follow the nightingales. So, who taught us about "nightingale" being a word related to Crowley & Aziraphale? God. Whose sentences, at times, smack of "la plume de ma tante"-like vocabulary lessons? God. What better character to teach us what we need to know than the literal Voice of God, right? God is our Professor Rossignol.

God's 1.01 line of "The Russian cultural attache's black bread is particularly sought after by the more discerning duck" is the most la plume de ma tante sentence in Good Omens lol and the four sentences-- of which that is one-- that God says to re-introduce us to Crowley & Aziraphale in the St. James' Park scene, when picked apart using language elements things suggested by God's opening monologue at the start of the series, contain almost every element of the vocabulary, with other scenes reinforcing and adding to it throughout.

Further suggesting this is the way to go is that if you apply the same instructions to the top part of Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings Who Walk the Earth (the bit above Aziraphale's entry), you'll find the guidelines repeated-- and notes to us that include everything you would need to unlock the hidden language in the entries for Aziraphale and Baraqiel (Crowley) beneath them. I'm not just randomly deciding this is what stuff means, is mah point lol. I'm taking lessons from Frances McDormand.

As for Ra and The Illuminati, well... to date, I've seen Ra come up as one of the many, many words in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings, which are hidden-in-plain-sight coded love letters. Aziraphale uses it in relation to Crowley. Ra is the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and was depicted as a figure that was half-bird, half-man. That alone would probably be amusing to Crowley & Aziraphale. Aziraphale referring to Crowley as the god of the sun is just romantic. The sun is a star and Crowley made them; the Earth and all life and their life on it would die without the vital warmth of the sun. There is no food and no peace and no life without it. Calling his very old serpent partner the god of the sun sure sounds like Aziraphale saying that he can't live without him.

As for the masons and Gabriel... I took it as a joke about conspiracy, actually, not something suggesting one. The bartender at the pub assumes that Gabriel and Beez are masons-- meaning Freemasons-- because he thinks that there is a local chapter that meets nearby. The bartender has made assumptions about Gabriel and Beez that add up to "not from around here" and assumes they're there for a mason meeting. Gabriel is well-dressed and clueless in a rich sort of way to the bartender-- he doesn't know what a jukebox is and he's in an expensive-looking suit. He also has an American accent so the bartender figures he's probably not a local. Gabriel doesn't dissuade the bartender from thinking that he and Beez are Freemasons because Gabriel has no idea what that is-- because the bartender said "masons" and, honestly, that actually is pretty close to what Gabriel is by his own definition.

A mason works to make things out of stone and the original meaning of the word was specifically related to those making stone walls. Gabriel was in Eden at the start-- the ultimate in stone walls built-- and he also just took Beez to see a statue of himself carved out of stone. Walls are really all Gabriel's ever overseen being built or ever reinforced or ever known before Beez. He's not the most poetic of beings but he can see an analogy there where he is the imprisoned imprisoner of those in Heaven and he just doesn't dispute it because not like he's about to tell the bartender that he's actually The Supreme Archangel of Heaven and Commander of the Heavenly Host 😄 so, letting the guy assume that he works in stone seems like a good solution, as it's actually barely a lie.

The irony is that, etymologically-speaking, the bartender is actually more correct: Gabriel, in the pub that night with Beez, isn't a mason. He's a free mason. Because he's with Beez and the two of them together are carving a path out of their prison walls. Gabriel has actually joined "The Illuminati"-- because he's been illuminated... he's been enlightened. Dude's going to be Grand Master Wizard of The Illuminati or whatever it's called in S3 and bring a whole lot more with him, Beez, Crowley & Aziraphale along the way. He consumes beverages now. There's nothing holding him back. 😂

Anyway, thanks for indulging my ramblings and have a great night. 💕

[mazzystar24]

I’m respectfully about to lose my mind at some of the fandom rn with the way buddie shippers are being treated… It’s like no one understands the whole point of shipping a couple is to want them to be together, so duh if something happens that could potentially lead to that pairing they’re going to get excited and theorize? Yes it’s absolutely important for Buck to explore his sexuality outside of buddie but the way people are trying to say that buddie shippers are homophobic for wanting endgame buddie….. when buddie is literally a queer ship? it doesn’t make any sense to me as a queer person myself because it’s like- y’all do realize that buck dating eddie would in fact mean that he is still bisexual, and that people have wanted thst for years, so A) why are we shocked and appalled at buddie shippers for being happy that they are one step closer to endgame buddie, B) why are we calling people homophobic or biphobic when they are quite literally shipping two men together, C) why are we all acting as if buddie endgame hasn’t been simmering just under the surface for YEARS and that if they were going to give us buddie, then thag means buck and eddie would both have to come oit as queer…

I’ve seen so many prominent blogs in the community who have made posts like “buck’s bisexuality has nothing to do with buddie and you are a horrible human for even insinuating that” and so many people are agreeing??? And not to mention the fact that now these same people are trying to villainize and trash on Eddie when in all honesty Buck’s behavior in 7x04 was NOT okay- physically harming someone because they’re not giving you attention is never okay (and i’m saying this as someone whi ADORES Buck, he still needs to be held accountable.)

It just reads very icky to me that so many people are screaming “bi pride” but then spewing all of this vitriol over a ship that would fit within Buck’s bisexuality…

It worries me that the writers are going to see this negativity from people and they’re going to just completely back-burner Eddie’s character in favor of Buck and it disappoints me because even outside of buddie, a major tv show portraying a repressed gay poc with religious and family trauma would be EQUALLY as powerful as Bi Buck is……

but i guess that’s just people only caring about the queer storylines when it’s about a white man since these are also the people acting like Hen and Karen or Michael and David haven’t been there the whole time

but that’s just me i guess….

I’m bullet pointing not to be curt by the way just because I prefer addressing part by part🫶

1. Agreed like this fandom was relatively peaceful then BAM it fully shifted overnight like in the words of Taylor swift THIS IS WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS

2. Yesss exactly like I’m very much a dont yuck someone else’s yum type of person so like even ships I don’t like I’ll be like okay respect 🫡 enjoy your fandom space love that for you AS LONG AS THEYRE RESPECTFUL TOO and I’m not gonna lie to you I see the primary source of negativity and stuff in the fandom be people who legit never watched anything other than the bucktommy related content (which I kinda have a whole other rant about but I don’t wanna give you miles and miles to read in one ask)

3. Yes to that 100% - buddie is a queer ship the cognitive dissonance it takes to call someone homophobic for shipping them is honestly fascinating atp, Buck is bi canonically now and y’all do realise that who he’s with or if he’s single even doesn’t take away from that right??? Like the rep is THERE and will always be THERE

4. You worded it a bit weird but I got what you meant (I hope) so anyone who didn’t may require a little clarification, the sentiment of bucks bisexuality being separate from buddie I think is 1000% correct and I agree wholeheartedly that a persons sexuality and their journey shouldn’t be just about their love interests but about themselves as a person, the issue people are taking is that 1. The people saying this are saying it on every buddie post even when the same blogs posting it have 177283 posts talking about buck as an individual and as a bisexual man outside of buddie and bucktommy, so it’s sort of become a weaponised statement if that makes sense 2. The buddie shippers are the ones who have been advocating so hard for the show to give us canon bi buck like that’s just fact no one can deny so to the og fans who’ve been here for YEARS (I’ve only started like 2023 ish so I’m not counting myself there) this must be such a total slap in the face to be receiving so much hate now

5. Oh yeah the Eddie bashers can personally come fight me

6. If I’m 100% honest I choose to interpret the basketball injury as being mostly accidental like I think he got too into it and forgot himself and his own force for a second rather than intentionally hurt Eddie, like it so happens in sports, I think it’s like just the after guilt that made him question himself and his motives, idk that may just be me denying canon because it just felt too out of character for me to believe

7. I think the fake bi pride stuff also irks me BAD like some of these people are looking for very surface level superficial representation and if you don’t push for more and more substantial and meaningful representation then you’re gonna get constant variations of the same exact thing and these are also the same people ignoring every other queer character in 911 which is just🙃

8. Idk how much the writers take fandom into account but I constantly say like if they were to listen to fandom they’d go the route they know people wanted for years

9. YES about Eddie’s character like I made a whole post about gay and comphet Eddie and how meaningful it would be because it’s just so so unique and unprecedented

10.HAHSKDK THE CROSSED OUT PART IS WHAT I JUST SAID BUT I DIDNT READ IT GAJSKDKFM

[moonstruckme]

Hello friend, I hope your don’t mind me asking, I just love your writing style…

Please could you do a request of post-Azkaban Sirius meeting a fem reader (Tonks’ friend) who meets him for the first time while he’s under house arrest at an Order meeting and she starts to awaken his flirtatious side after so long in Azkaban just because she so fun loving and outgoing it reminds him of his old carefree ways. It can be fluff leading to smut, vice versa or one or the other. Just something lighthearted and genuinely sweet.

This is just my vibe because as much as I enjoy reading snapshots of marauders Sirius there’s a part of me that thinks post Azkaban Sirius deserves a bit of cute, angst free flirtation and I guess occasionally I don’t mind a bit of old school romance ❤️

Hi lovely! I don't mind you asking at all, but I don't think I'd write for post-azkaban sirius personally. You're welcome to picture the characters I write any age you like, but I'm not really into writing older love interests (not trying to yuck anyone's yum, it's just not for me) so I don't think I'd be able to vibe with him. He does deserve angst free flirtation though, the poor thing!

Just sending this back out there in case you want to send the request to someone else :)

[buginateacup]

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately 

:green beetle: ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here (emoji is not working for me smh)

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

I was gonna say Drifter/Eris and that they both smell really weird in very different ways...

But let's be honest I gotta go Megarox. Megamind is a flower eater, he enjoys nectar, and Roxanne can and will encourage this, usually by bringing him flowers or when they go on walks in parks together (night walks, naturally. Those are the best kind), she plucks flowers and feeds them to him, usually by shoving them in his face because she is a terrible gremlin and it's why we love her.

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

My wife came out to a bunch of our friends and they are all so loving and supportive! She smiles so much now!

We are getting a patio installed out the back! It only took 7 years but finally we can eat out there without having to balance on gravel

There is a very cute cat loafing beside me

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

This is not me trying to yuck anyone's yum but I really, really cannot stand casting Megamind and Roxanne in parental roles for Keiko or her calling them her parents. It squicks me out to the point of repulsion. I am all for feral aunt and uncle to a wild niece, but fun characters who are NOT reduced to parenting (reluctant or otherwise) in sequels are so few and far between that I just don't want to see it. They can be supportive and caring without having to force everyone into Nuclear Family Unit.

And sure, a lot of this stems from growing up with the expectation in both media and irl that of COURSE becoming a parent is the only outcome for you. But that doesn't make it any less of an ick! We SHOULD be getting more non nuclear family options, we SHOULD be getting more it takes a village. But if your only approach to setting characters up as a family is to make them "Here is the mummy and here is the daddy and here is the baby" just no. Please. There are a thousand more possibilities there, open your mind.

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

Go for a walk, take some music with you, or do dishes or sweep (also with music).

Additionally, if you're wanting to write something but are holding off to find out if future canon will change things, stop waiting. Just go. Do you think we'd have anywhere near the creativity and wildness of fanfic if we had to stop and wait for canon's blessing every time. it's FANFIC! Who fucking cares if canon contradicts you down the track, it's not gonna be any less fanfic for waiting!

(I do think we actually saw a drop in the level of creativity and engagement with fandom ideas when the show was announced, which is a bummer. Kill the cop in your brain. Write shit that will be immediately contradicted, have someone come to your completely disproven fic years down the line and go "I thought this was going to not work because we know X but holy shit this is a whole new way of looking at things!")

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

I uh....no thoughts, head empty. How do I stop my cat attacking me for wearing jeans in the house? I got my other rants out up above so... *le shrug*

:green beetle: ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here (emoji is not working for me smh)

Oh you sneaky little shit, you got me writing!

(context: Look we aint supposed to let the prisoners get gifts. There's a whole chapter in the handbook about what happened last time we let the kid get so much as a bobby pin.

But you tell me how I'm meant to turn down such a sweet little old lady when she comes in with two pristine old shoe boxes, all carefully packed with tissue and hands one to the kid and the other to the repoter and with a quavery little voice about how she and her husband, god rest his soul, used to go dancing every saturday night for almost forty years and how they entered the ameature ballroom competitions together. Told us they were the last pairs they brought together, before the cancer took him and oh she'd never get these on over her bunions now but it would do her old heart good to see some use coming to these shoes which hadn't seen the light of day in nigh on twenty years.)

There's only so much a man can take right before retirement.

I might have been able to hold her off if she hadn't handed one of the boxes to Miss Primetime, who looked really touched and immediately buckled herself into a pair of sparkly red shoes to the encouragement of all the old biddies.

So now the kid's the proud owner of a pair of actual ballroom dance shoes, all polished black to go with the bright orange jumpsuit.

[seriousbrat]

Re: your last post about people replacing Snape with Regulus... oof it's my pet peeve. Regulus has potential to be super interesting and complex in his own right, but when he's made out to be a sarcastic potions genius with Dark tendencies who was groomed into the Death Eaters and who loves James and turns spy to protect him, it's always a little disappointing. Now he's just Snape-lite, but with all of Snape's less palatable, more interesting facets stripped away.

That's what i always figured it came down to: the messiness of Snape's story. It's uncomfortable and not aesthetic in any way. It challenges established fanon. It makes Snape difficult to flatten and fit into the standard fanon tropes. Much easier for people to take the parts they find interesting (more parts than i think people care to admit) and apply them to characters with less going on. It can sometimes feel like a lost opportunity; it would be cool to either explore Severus himself on a deeper level, or embrace the other characters fully and flesh them out with original ideas. Idk. I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yum here or anything, but just my own personal observations & lamentations.

I couldn't agree more with all of this. Exactly, I always really liked Regulus and I am super interested in him honestly, but fanon about him is so... random and also kind of boring and it makes me not want to interact with any of it lol. Like yeah I guess he was definitely groomed into joining the Death Eaters (by Bellatrix most likely, I hate when it's Snape), I mean he was 16 when he joined, but literally Snape was groomed too and imo probably in a more extreme way. Reg already had those beliefs growing up. I've always had I guess a sympathetic view of Regulus just because he was so young when he died. But it's imo unfair to his story to pretend he did it for James when u know who he actually did it for? KREACHER (my beloved) and that's so much more interesting, to me at least.

So true like he's absolutely given Snape's traits and story while Snape is stripped down into something barely recognisable. 100% it's because he and his story aren't aesthetically pleasing or simplistic enough to flatten into cute little tropes. Like it's not pleasant, it's tragic and messy and miserable. And you're so right to point out that this story IS actually compelling to people because they obviously do use it in a way. also lmao at reg being a potions genius that's so blatant

Idk it is a shame because as you've said, either snape or regulus would be really interesting characters to explore in their own right. People are totally allowed to make up whatever they want- imo they should be a little more discerning in labelling their fanon as AU/canon divergent/absolutely made up rather than insisting it's based in canon, that's all. Bc otherwise it creates a lot of confusion and also ill will towards people who actually enjoy the real characters

[shopcat]

the whole famous rockstar eddie thing is so exhausting to me now i literally have it filtered. i just cannot buy it. also at least lemonade mouth had them all be ridiculously talented - they show every member sing and play at least one instrument plus they had multiple songwriters i think. i have seen no such proof when it comes to c*rroded coffin and i do not care about the other boys in that band. i do not get the attachment some ppl have those boys are glorified extras.

i re-sent this with a little censor 2 be careful cuz i don't wanna yuck anyone's yums and i know it's all weirdly popular WHICH IS HALF THE PROBLEM...😭😭 also lemonade mouth was so awesome this is quickly becoming a lemonade mouth tangent. anyway LIKE YEAH i get it and it's fun to indulge in eddie being a hot rockstar i suppose and i've seen nice fanart and such.. but why would their highschool band suddenly #make it why would their highschool band go on TOUR.. who would this actually happen to...... also eddie is a loser and that's why i like him -_- i think ppl associate popularity and success with competency or like, passion and think he can't be good at what he does and be largely unacknowledged by the world at large for it but still content + satisfied... i don't think eddie would even enjoy being "famous" especially right after being INFAMOUS but he never even gave the vibe that he WANTED to be some sort of Rockstar to me.. hrm... like no one ~deserves to be famous no one deserves Success in this specific way just because it's like, validating? satisfying? your own love for the character so u want everyone to love him cuz he deserves to be acknowledged for his talents n stuff but everyone can love him and he doesn't have to have his gay little ass on billboards for it to be still true :)

also in a real way and what the #core of this is its so frustrating that people will fixate on these random side characters who each had like one or two lines and usually i'm like all FOR expanding on backstory to give complexity and w/e especially bc w/eddie we don't really have anything else!! but it just doesn't sit right with me that it's FAR more likely in my exp that someone will stan G/ARETH over like... lucas?! max?! any of the actual mile long cast list of main characters who deserve the depth and love you are giving to random extra #19 😭 i don't even think they all have NAMES and they definitely don't have like, last names. i think you need a last name to be a real boy. idk i'm just tired of it i also think eddie's most important relationship should be wayne first and foremost.

[plexxaglass]

I know I’m late to the chatter, but I am gutted to find out about how @mottlemoth was treated in this fandom. HoHW was the first ofmd fic I read and it was clear from the start that they are unbelievably talented. The fact that they shared that with us for fucking free!!?? It’s unfathomable that anyone would actually have the gal to complain about that.

I personally never saw any hate or criticism surrounding this fic, and I’m open to be given some context, but I also believe that nothing in this fic warrants the bullying they received.

Bottom line, Crew— please can we stop yucking yums? I’m the first person to call out that, I’m not a self-proclaimed Izzy stan/apologist, especially when it comes to the canon. But Christ, yall, this is a work of fiction. I can be weary of a character for the behavior they have canonically show us thus far, but also be open and curious to see how that might manage to be redeemed. Moth expanded upon this with flawless execution.

I think it’s possible to strike a healthy balance of, being aware of the reality of a character, and be able to enjoy fantasy created about them. Whether that be through fic or fan art. There are certainly those who I think take it too far, not keeping the reality in mind, but I don’t see HoHW as doing that.

This wasn’t an Izzy apologist piece and it wasn’t an Ed erasure piece. It was a redemption for both of these men, it was a story of love in all forms— toxic, complex— and how, when we allow people to sit in accountability for their poor actions, beautiful growth can happen.

HoHW had something for everyone in this fandom imo. I think there’s always a place for discussion surrounding Izzy’s canon homophobia/racism (see: white supremacy)/toxic masculinity. There’s also a place for discussion about Stede’s racism, privilege, sexism— his poor treatment of his ex-wife and the abandonment of his children. And no matter how much I love Ed, this “babygirl” persona that has been placed on him, while fun, had bred some really toxic mentalities and just flat out amnesia about who he is and what he’s done.

I don’t see anyone as blameless, although some hold more blame than others. I think Moth spoke to that. It felt healthy. It felt healing. For us as fans, and for the potential of the canon and wherever it takes us.

I firmly believe that the reason this show has blown up so big, so quickly is because of how flawed these characters are. We can see parts of ourselves in everyone, truly. That’s what makes good writing. It shows us parts of ourselves, even the painful parts that feel intimate and wrong.

I don’t know, I’m just sad. Grateful that we were given a synopsis to (so expertly) bring this story to a satisfying conclusion, but sad/angry that someone was run out of this fandom this way.

[z0ic3]

i will NOT be watching The Girl Before series... here's why:

WARNING SPOILERSSSSSS

I did not enjoy the book enough so i cannot put myself through watching a whole reiteration of it. i thought the book would be about obsession- and in a sense it was but it wasn't like the Netflix series "You" kind of obsession.

my main points so i dont ramble

meaningless characters + unsolved details

Edward tells about his stalker, a man that follows him and has a sort of obsession with his buildings. looking back, this man could have been simon, explaining his immediate hostility towards him when they first met. unfortunately, there is nothing to back this up.

edward is also made out to be very mysterious, closed off, secretly aggressive, repititive, and overall sus. but at the end of the book, all of the sus attributes are shifted from edward to simon once we realize that simon was the villian afterall. it feels incomplete and wrong in my opinion because why is edward a perfectionist? why is he so secretive? why does he go after women that all resemble his dead wife? why did he repeat the same phrases and go through the same routines with them? were these all meaningless but creepy details to make us suspicious of him? if so, i think that is a stupid way (i know that sounds rude but i cant think of another word) to get readers to not easily predict the ending. i think that in a book, everything should have a true purpose- edward's characterisitics never had any true purpose. he broke the teapot simon gave to emma when he thought that emma wasn't looking and there was no explanation as to why. yes, to prove he was possessive, but placing that scene in the chapter made it seem like foreshadowing that he was capable of crazy things due to his overwhelming emotions-- but no.

insufferable character attributes

Emma, one of the 2 female leads, mentions multiple times how Edward is the kind of man she prefers- an ALPHA man. Me personally, it was cringey and almost made me want to stop continuing my reading. I don't want to yuck anyone's yum, and the author may have done this on purpose to prove a point- but i was simply bothered by it. as the book goes on, emma even becomes more insufferable and starts calling edward daddy. to the point where i feel ashamed reading the book next to my classmates in school because i don't want them to peep over and see what embarrassing things i am indulging in.

no foreshadowing + poorly thought-out twist ending

these bullet points are kind of out of order but im too lazy to fix them and im sure u on tumblr dont give much a fuck. maybe i didn't properly go back in the book to search for these details, but simon never gave away that he could have been obsessed. Yes, it was obvious that he was deeply in love and attached to emma, but there was no sense of foreshadowing period- nothing to make the readers go "oh my gosh it all makes sense now!" or "how did i not realize before?!" maybe lack of foreshadowing was the way the author got us to not easily guess the ending but i think that a plot twist should at least SLIGHTLY be hinted at. because the ending , to me, seemed like it wasn't thought through all the way. I would have loved the plot twist of simon being the true killer if it had made sense. if edward's weird behavior had an explanatation,, if simon showed a bit more obsession beforehand,, if all the details in the book had a meaning that built up towards this plot twist... i would have been in love with the book. unfortunately, i cannot bring myself to sit through the show due to these details. (mostly because of emma saying daddy too many times for comfort.)

OVERALL

i am thankful for the journey of the book (mostly) but i could have had a better destination. i will not dismay people from reading it, but if i had the choice, i'm not sure whether or not i would take back the time i took out of my life reading The Girl Before by JP Delaney.

[storm-and-starlight]

thoughts abt the way fandom approaches eskel? im curious owo (hadn't played any of the games yet, and just went through half of the first book lol)

Okay, so I'm going to preface this by stating that this is... pretty deeply connected to a really rough patch in my life, so if I get overly negative here, it's probably because of that and I apologize. (Also because of this, I don't want to turn this into a discussion about Eskel; it'd just end up leading back into some bad places.)

Warning for fanon!Eskel criticism under the cut.

So basically all of this is my personal opinion -- I'm trying to keep direct criticism out of this as much as possible.

I guess it all boils down to the fact that I personally prefer characters with a bit more bite to them -- more anger, more sarcasm, more rough inter-character interactions, more trauma, etc. Eskel (or at least, my experience of fanon!Eskel) has absolutely none of that. He's generally portrayed as Nice and Soft and Kind, the Best Witcher and the Kindest, and generally Better than Geralt in Every Way, and it feels just... reductive? Like there's no depth to his character at all -- he's just there to be kind and polite and interchangeable. His entire personality is The Nice One, except that doesn't feel like a personality at all. Generally the only character conflict you get is "I feel like a monster because of the facial scarring" and that feels overdone, to the point where I don't even care anymore. Like... generically nice, sweet guy with self-esteem issues who feels like a monster because of cosmetic issues but who gets lovingly affirmed all the time and told he's perfect is just... not the kind of story I want to read. I prefer broken characters who rub each other the wrong way who try to find a way to fit together anyways, not... schmoopy fluff. (no shame if that's your favorite kind of fic, it's just not for me.)

And then there's Lil' Bleater. There was a point in this fandom where every single Eskel in every single fic I could find was just All About Goats All The Time. If he was there, so was Lil' Bleater. He was the Nice Goat Man and that was it. I could barely find fics where he seemed to have any other character trait beyond Likes Goats! It got... tiring, to say the least. Like... I'm ambivalent on the whole "big tough guy is actually super sweet and likes small animals" trope as a whole, but it was just so overdone that I ended up hating the goat. (I'm back to ambivalent, in case you were wondering lmao.)

There's also the way the fandom got... really pissed that he was a side character? Which I get, you want more of your faves, but he was a side character in the books, he's a side character in the games, he plays no major role in the plot of the books (in fact, the hansa is the most important found family in the series, instead of the witchers -- they show up for like the first half of Blood of Elves and never again) -- why are people getting so angry that he doesn't appear more?

Also, a side note, but Geralt is the character I identify the most with and feel the most strongly about, and having Eskel be more or less held up as the better version of him hurts. It's irrational, but it does.

Once again, I'm not really interested in discussing this, or in being sent recs for fandom content about Eskel -- I'm attempting to curate my own experience and the best way to do that for me is largely to just avoid him entirely. I don't want to yuck anyone's yum, which is why I try to keep this stuff off my blog, but like... there they are, those are my opinions.

TL;DR, I deeply dislike the way that Eskel ended up being portrayed in fandom and fanon as the perfect nice witcher who can do no wrong but still hates himself because of the facial scars and who is a huge burly man who is Softe and likes animals and especially goats and who is the Best Witcher -- it goes squarely against what I enjoy in character creation in stories, and is also so overused that I've moved past ambivalence to hate.

[miggydiaz]

For the salty ask 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 16, 20, 22, 23 and 26 for cobra kai pretty please

My answers are so long, so I am putting this under the cut @wonderwolfballoon! Also I just noticed your Daniel icon I SWEAR I’M NOT DRAGGING HIM TO BE MEAN!!!

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?* My biggest IDGI ships for CK are probably Elimetri or Kiaz. I’m not here to yuck other people’s yums or anything, but I do think there is something to the idea that Migueli isn’t popular because it’s a ship predicated on mutual respect for one another. Kiaz has the obvious enemies to lovers vibe and I just generally don’t sail those ships. Elimetri has... its problems, IMO, most especially around the idea that Demetri has to like... save Hawk from himself? Idk. I just like romances that I feel are based on love and mutual respect and not ...tropes.

 I am also not a Lawrusso shipper although I have a lot of those on my dash and you all are great! Again, not yucking yums! Daniel just makes me want to head butt him too much to pair him romantically with anyone 😂 I don’t even want his wife with him. He needs to self reflect~ 

4. Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?* 

I once saw someone ship Amanda and Anoush and I noped out of that so fucking fast I almost tripped over myself. I’m not sure if they’re popular. I just think some people feel the need to get Amanda out of the way to sail their ship and stuck her with Anoush which... no. Just no. Let Amanda be a messy single queen with a martini hobby, thanks! 

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?* 

Not in CK. I’m lucky because I pretty much stick to my little Migueli bubble and I’m okay with that? Lmao lord knows the Squad on my dash is all about the DISCOURSE™️ so idk if I just don’t feel the need to get sucked into the wider ship wars because we have good healthy debates, but so far, so good. 

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?* 

I never hated it... I just didn’t have many feelings on shipping with this show in general at first. Then I was in the CK tag one day and I saw Migueli fan art. Then I discovered @afurioushawk‘s falconry series and it was all over for me after that! So fandom DID make me love a ship, just not one I hated.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why? Oh boy. How much time do you have? In some instances, it’s a good thing season 3 happened because otherwise, this would be a multi-page essay on the problems with race and class privilege as it pertains to Sam LaRusso and just some... generally not nice comments about Demetri that I’m conflicted about because I’m not sure if the writers are intentionally trying to write him a specific way and it’s just not translating to me or what. But season 3 revamped both of their images with me a lot. I’m way more flexible in terms of Demetri, but lmao I was the number one Sam LaRusso hater for a minute there (or maybe number 2, I can think of at least 1 other person who was in that boat with me back in like... August/September, but I won’t call them out because I don’t want them to get hate...) However, I have grown a bit in my opinions of Sam, and even though I still think she’s responsible  for a lot of shit she NEVER gets held accountable for, I also think that’s a reflection of the adults around her too, and this includes my otherwise unproblematic queen, Amanda.

But honestly, my most hated character (other than the obvious villain that is Kreese) is Daniel. No matter how handsome Ralph Macchio looks in cable-knits, because Daniel has always been a sanctimonious, shit starting drama king and I say that about KK Daniel too. I’m not saying Daniel was the ~true villain~ or anything, or that Johnny was innocent -- I can only drink so much Red and Yellow Kool-Aid -- but Daniel’s always been annoying to me as a protagonist, and turning him into a smarmy wealthy car salesman who is also a class traitor did not do him any favors in my book. I will say, I also like Daniel more in season 3 than I have in previous season, but since he is the adult, I will be mad at him longer than I will be at the kids, ya feel?

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

 Johnny’s entire season 3 storyline. The sheer level of REGRESSION at every turn drives me bonkers. It’s like watching him go through all of the stumbling blocks of season 1 all over again, but without the “he’s learning! He’s going to make mistakes!” free pass that I was willing to give him the first time around. He regularly jeopardizes Miguel’s recovery and it’s played for laughs. He fucks up on every level with Robby. He spends most of his time running away when things get hard or too real. He drops the ball completely with Hawk, and like, not to put too fine a point on it, but a lot of Hawk’s issues are because Johnny put Hawk on this ‘flip the script and be a badass’ path and then offered him no guidance for how to walk that path and instead left him in the hands of Kreese. And then he has the nerve to go to Hawk and basically be like “I made you what you are!” lmao yeah Johnny, you sure did, that’s why he’s breaking peoples arms, hoss. And then all of the nonsense with Ali and Carmen, like... if you were planning on teasing KK fans with Ali and him getting back together, why write her as married in the first place? Why even tease the idea of Carmen and Johnny until after you were sure what you were going to do with Ali as a character? Instead, they do what they did in season 3 and it makes him look like a colossal jerk. So yeah. Literally every choice they made with Johnny this season, I hated.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom? People who hate Tory are not valid, sorry not sorry.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? I would have kept Miguel entirely out of Tory and Sam’s beef. Or at least not directly inserted him into it like he was with the kiss. I know the writers thought it was necessary to push Tory to the point of inciting a fight at school, but I am just so exhausted over girls being unable to fight about anything but boys. Also I would bring Aisha back.

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom? 

I am probably biased, but I still maintain it’s Migueli. Look, Miguel stood up to Kyler for Eli and Demetri both. Hawk joined CK because he saw what it could do for some skinny nerd who was getting his ass kicked. And he took to CK, really took to it! Even flourished before he started getting mixed messages. And he and Miguel were pretty much inseparable after that. They coordinated their wardrobes ffs. Hawk dubbed him El Serpiente and no one else calls him that — it’s Hawk’s nickname for him. Miguel confides in Hawk only secondary to Johnny, who is like a father to him. The entire Coyote Creek exchange shows they can fight and disagree but... well, to use the cliche, they don’t go to bed angry, you know? They’re square the very next day. Hawk is the first person at Miguel’s side when he gets kicked over the balcony and the LOOK he gives the second floor where Robby is? That boy is out for blood immediately to avenge Miguel. So much of his s3 behavior is fueled by that need for vengeance because MD is wholly responsible for what happened to Miguel. And Miguel is so confused and betrayed by Hawk’s shift in behavior, and yet still holds out hope that Hawk will see through Kreese’s BS and come with him to The Dojo I Refuse to Name. And when Hawk does make that deflection finally, he shows up at MD with Miguel. There’s so much more that I know I’m missing but whether someone ships them or not, that is a tried and true love and respect for one another, a willingness to fight for and defend one another that you don’t often see in TV friendships... or even in most tv relationships. And I just think that’s the best ❤️

22. Popular character you hate?

 Daniel, hands down. I mean... I don’t even necessarily hate Daniel, you know? I just think it’s really, pardon the pun, rich that a guy of immense wealth and privilege can’t get a therapist or turn to his far too patient wife for help with his existential crisis over his high school bully opening up a karate dojo to make some money and help a kid who is getting the crap kicked out of him. I get that Daniel’s narrative is necessary for the rivalry, but it does nothing to make him sympathetic as a character.

23. Unpopular character you love?

 Tory, definitely! Everyone hates her and then there’s me and the Squad over here banging away on our Coors Banquet cans yelling TORY RIGHTS! Seriously she catches so much flack for a teenage girl who is... the sole income provider for her family? At 17? While caring for a sick mom and a little brother? And fending off a creepy landlord? Tory has it so rough and then she meets a cool girl at her dojo who asks her to hang out at some fancy ass country club which is probably the nicest place Tory has ever been in, and then she gets talked down to and accused of being a thief and has another girl lay hands on her, only to find out that same girl is her new boyfriend’s ex and... ugh. I HATE that Tory gets shit all over when Tory and Sam wouldn’t even have beef if Sam had apologized to Tory as she SHOULD have. Tory isn’t innocent, but damn, I’d be pressed too.

 My other unpopular character I love? Nathaniel. Seriously that kid is THE best. He’s a literal child but is out there like I WILL FUCK YOU UP, even though he’s MD. Honestly, his Cobra Kai energy is so ferocious I won’t be surprised if he moves back to CK eventually. Anyway, I love him.


26. Most shippable character?

 Miguel, hands down. It’s because he’s so affable and sweet overall. And because his hair is so fluffy and pettable that no one can resist touching it. I like to imagine that one day he and Hawk are talking about their hair and Hawk makes a joke about how Miguel’s mane is getting so long that it’s going to be bigger than his own, and then he reaches out to ruffle it and internally has a bisexual meltdown because oh no IT’S SO SOFT AND NICE. But uh... anyway, yes. Definitely Miguel.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

I absolutely didn’t go back through and edit this at all and hardly any of this is verbatim but I tried to take notes on some of what Mae Catt said during her stream if anyone is interested!

EDIT: Here’s a cleaner post with most of the Q&A.

She says she doesn’t want to yuck anybody’s yums re: ships. She seems Arcee and Grimlock more as friends, but she didn’t say they can’t be in a relationship

They fell in love with Perceptor so they wanted him on the “End of the World fighting the Quintessons” team

They had to dedicate a lot of effort into Dead End b/c it takes time to send in info for modeling a character and deciding on their alt mode

She was pitching Obsidian from Beast Machines really hard. She didn’t know what his personality would be it was just a “Look how cool he is!” sort of thing

Thought it’d be fun to have someone pessimistic like Dead End be on the team

“According to us, Drift did not make it, but I fully endorse whatever you want”

“The brand team had grown up on the toys as we had grown up on the toons, so we just wanted to make the best thing imaginable.” That’s nice 

Rodimus was never considered for the show “it’s been covered to death”, but they were adamant about portraying Hot Rod as someone who wanted to be a leader

Hot Rod is someone who is learning to be a leader

“Please don’t tell JRO I forgot about Whirl” re: talking about why they chose each character for the “Anti-Quintesson” team

Q: Re: Why did Drift try to kill Roddy A: They said they needed a double-agent and they needed someone who would (seemingly) kill Hot Rod

She loves that Optimus is just trying so hard to rebuild Cybertron, I just want society to start rebuilding

Q: Since you mentioned Optimus's death... he didn't seem to have a plinth in "our" Matrix realm. Does that mean the list of Primes works differently? Like are the 13 more of a dynasty, rather than all being a group together?  A: They decided Optimus would be in the Alt! Universe matrix because they wanted to show he was dead. Logical backflips because he needed to be among the 13 to talk to Windblade. 

She says Starscream’s death hurt her most

They didn’t want to kill people off willy-nilly for shock value

"The audience will fall in love with Slipstream so she has to die" LMAO

She almost wanted Starscream to emerge from the Judge heads untouched but she’s ultimately glad that idea got shot down

Dead End’s eyes are white

She’d love to have a MTMTE Magnus / Minimus included. She wished and prayed to have Frenzy and Rumble

They wanted Jazz to be a lady!!!!!!!

These characters are like grown ups (kinda) with their own lives that we don’t see. Lots of stuff happening between episodes

“Rumble and Frenzy are always considered in my heart, but there wasn’t enough time or space or assets to do so”

“Alt Soundwaves also had their own Laserbeaks. I wonder if the scientist would’ve taken them out. He might’ve just gotten rid of them.”

“A lot of intelligent life is inherently mechanical” explaining why so much of the life we saw in the show were robots

She would’ve liked to have the other shows show up (TFP, TFA, G1, Shattered Glass) but they don’t have those assets or budget. “This will quickly become unclear to audiences who aren’t (you people).” They couldn’t have all these references when some of their audience wouldn’t get it

“Why does anyone collect what they collect? That’s a really angry dad who’s got five children and he plays music. Gotta have that” --re: the Scientist and Soundwave

Knock Out was considered but every Transformer under the sun was discussed at some point in the Writer’s room. 

Developing Sky-Byte’s character was simultaneous with Jetfire’s character, "We knew we wanted Sky-Byte to be a poet, and we wanted him and Megatron to be chummy”

From the getgo they didn’t want any humans distracting from the Transformers

Q: Is Megatron dead? A: “In discussions we wanted to kill him. Wanted to do a reverse Optimus death. However, in the final product, I kinda enjoy the ambiguity rather than the final decision. Can’t remember if we were decisive about that in the script.”

She wanted them to have IDW Tarn in there “OBVIOUSLY (the perfect decepticon) should look like this guy. A faceless mindless Decepticon that only serves Megatron”

Q: Is Dead End a good boyfriend? A: Dead End is a work in progress, but maybe Percy is patient enough to get him there

Q: Is Astrotrain a good boyfriend?” A: “No, no...he’s not a good person, really”

“When I was desperately trying to save Starscream’s life even though I brutally murdered Slipstream--” LMAO She wanted Starscream to have amnesia and she says she wanted to have a redeption arc. She wanted him to have a Windblade shard and have it be kind of like Castaway, where he only talked to it (and the shard only had 5 phrases it could say) and eventually Bee would befriend him Wanted to write Starscream as an abuse victim who expected the worse of the Autobots, but she wanted him to warm up slowly

Wanted a Starscream and Optimus episode where he’s like “you did your best and that’s what counts”

Q: Is Percy a good boyfriend A: “Absolutely--WAIT HOLD ON. He’s very blunt, he doesn’t mince words, if you can handle his bluntness then you’re good. He is what he is and you have to deal with him.”

Q: Is Soundwave a good boyfriend? A: Soundwave is not a good boyfriend. He’s a good casual romance but he’s not a good boyfriend. Soundwave would be a terrible listener. He hears a lot but he’d tune you out.

Percy did permanently take over Mac’s bar

She really wanted Obsidian and Transmutate to be in the show.

If Thunderclash was in the show he and Jetfire would HATE each other. Thunderclash would be a rival reality star (maybe) to Media Fire

Fave Episode was “I Am the AllSpark” b/c of that Megatron and Starscream dialogue Also S2 04 Soundwave and Shockwave

Transmutate would be more like the uprising version (?) but modeled more on the BeastWars version

The Starscream & Megatron beatdown was super severe and they were like “holy frick they’re really going for it” when they saw the boards for it

She likes the Windblade / Slipstream ship

Her favorite VA is Jeremy Levy, he’s a really cool guy

She thinks Starscream and Cheetor could become (not necessarily friends, but connected?) because of their connection to the All Spark 

Describes Starscream as an “Awful gremlin” several times

They say Megatron didn’t actually kill Starscream, just really beat him down hard

“Don’t take things I say as the end all be all”

She doesn’t think Bee would be a Prime, Windblade and Hot Rod would be a better Prime. He wouldn’t want to be a Prime. He’s the #2 to Primes!

With unlimited budget combiners could’ve been included, but it doesn’t seem like they thought about it

Astrotrain and the Insecticons are from Megatron X’s universe

Megatron’s priorities changed when he saw his doppelganger. Realizing he was a horrible tyrant, that scared him enough to return and not kill Optimus and make peace no matter what.

She thinks Cliffjumper and Bee wouldn’t get along, solely because of the IDW2 comic stuff

Got 26 episodes for season 3 because they got the 4-part movies

Megatron cares about his troops but not in a way that we would notice that care

Wasn’t a HUGE die-hard TF fan when she got into the series but she was a bigger GI Joe fan, she reread a bunch of things and did a lot of research

Cut joke: S2 E5 Megatron and OP finds the All Spark Decepticons and Autobots popping all over the world, Soundwave pops into Brazil where there’s a music festival and he’d crash the concert and hang out. He likes EDM the most?

The Titans want to be cities. They want citizens. They want to be lived in, that brings them joy (ouch)

Q: How did the Decepticons learn to stream? A: Because they’re deceptive! He knew he should dedicate some time to winning the hearts and minds of humans. Starscreams’ funeral was not the first time they streamed Optimus would use the official media channels, not a streaming service. Megatron would try to speak more directly to the people.

From the conception, the show wasn’t going to have humans

She thought people would ship Dead End / Percy but it wasn’t until she saw art that she started shipping them

Q: Is Optimus the type of streamer who would take 10 minutes to figure out how to un-mute his microphone A: Optimus is a dad. He has no idea what’s going on re: streaming. Optimus would say embarrassing news while Bee and Hot Rod are in the middle of streaming

Doesn’t ship Bee with anyone, she sees him as a little brother

Randolph put Rack ‘n Ruin in the show.

AcidStorm is genderfluid

Cold Construction doesn’t exist in this show. Maybe there’s one jet mode all the seekers really like

We have Mae Catt to thank for Whirl

Percy didn’t transform because not a good time to turn into a microscope while you’re trying to save your planet from Quintessons

If she were a transformer she’d want to be a stealth bomber. She’s 5′3 so she says she’d probably actually be a motorcycle like Chromia

They killed Prowl because it was Shadow Striker doing the killing and he’s a self-sacrificing lieutenant.

Enjoyed writing Starscream most, Clobber and Hot Rod became a joy, S2 E4 was her first one, it was fun getting into Hot Rod’s voice. She said it was hard doing Optimus’ voice, she’d always pass it off to someone to look at it.

She loves the idea of Wild Wheel robbing Astrotrain in train-mode, totally wild west-style

One of her proudest things was turning Lugnut into a gal

They wanted to include more female characters

They love Cosmos, she has a little toy of him. R2D2 but a transformer! They loved having her in the show

Blurr really was the fastest

Maccadam looking like a buff Rung was just a strange coincidence 

Q: Megop rights?  A: “Oh absolutely, duh”

Says we absolutely SHOULD write fanfic. Fanfiction made her into the writer she is today, she says you should write it

There’s a lot between episodes, people living their lives and characters living on the ship that don’t pop up in the show

She wrote non-stop Matrix fanfic from 12-20 years old, she learned a lot thanks to writing fanfic

Uses “They” pronouns for Rack ‘n Ruin but they both use “he”

Sad that Skywarp didn’t get a speaking line

Re: Starscream’s redemption arc: She wanted Starscream to have amnesia if they went the “he comes out of the ruins of the judge totally fine”. “A redemption arc needs to be facilitated by a character acknowledging that what they did was wrong. He would have a laundry list of excuses for everything, even if there was all that evidence to the contrary, but needs to acknowledge that reasons don’t matter because people got hurt. Needs to intend to do better. Let them try and let them fail, they don’t need to 180, it’s hard work to be a better person.”

Shadow Striker is taller than Optimus or is his height. She loves the gender-neutral designs for a lot of characters

She’s not going to say whether Ratchet finished medical school or not Laughed at the  "i don't believe that man has ever been to medical school" comment

Q: How would you feel about a female Optimus Prime? A: [GAY LAUGHTER] “So do you turn Optimus Prime into a woman, or do you take characters like Elita One and uplift her? I would want to lean more into giving Elita One more oomph, I do love how Optimus doubts himself and if he’s worthy of being a Prime.”

Says Rack ‘n Ruin are probably the Prime in that one weird universe lmao

Loves the idea that Transformers have siblings / families

She doesn’t think Cybertronians celebrate birthdays. “Why would you celebrate being alive for 4 million years that sounds like a nightmare.” She says that people would be celebrating milestones if nothing else

She’d kill to have Perceptor meet the other stunticons

She says she doesn’t post fanfic as much anymore. Sends them to Natalie as love letters (Ghost Busters fics specifically)

In a world where you had unlimited budget it’d be fun if Cybertronians were constantly shape-shifting and changing their forms, they’d like having Transformers who “grew a beard” and decided to “shave it”

Re: Ratchet and Medical school: she wants a “I choose to believe Ratchet has never been to medical school” shirt

Natalie (her GF) said hi 

She doesn’t understand cycles or astrocycles, she doesn’t understand the weird Transformers time stuff. (mood)

Natalie explained how ghost traps work and it was a delight "You're basically making a pocket dimension, that's how you capture ghosts" “The Technology for a ghost trap is like magic and science” 

Maecatt's bringing all her TF toys over to the camera 

Q: Elita prime when? A: All the time, in my heart! 

Q: Why are you so mean to Percy? A: He's so mature and pragmatic that he can take it, and is willing to take one for the team bc he understands that it's what he needs to do. Yes, he’s calmly feral.

Yes to the hurt/comfort Deadceptor fanfic joke answer

She jokingly says she's willing to buy Cyberverse fanart prints

“Arcee was fun to figure out because there’s an extra bit of pressure to develop a female character, there is extra pressure to do it well since it’s representing a different community (not that women are different species) more representation is needed. “What kind of woman can our Arcee be?”” Scared to write her poorly, but they realized she could be a fun dynamic duo with Grimlock, someone who could keep up with him, not a “girl” version of him, but someone who could stand on her own two feet

Collecting Soundwave because Soundwave is COOL. Wouldn’t you collect a single father of 5 who carries them around in his chest?

Shockwave altered his vibes to have maximum bad vibes to destroy the All Spark

Rebooting the franchise: she’d maybe do beast wars or something

Skullcruncher is a lady! She misses Mac but Percy takes good care of her

She loved Beast Wars Inferno, she loved that Inferno called Megatron a Queen. It was played as a joke because the 90s weren’t very socially conscious, but she liked that Megatron never corrected him or beat him down

She wanted to have Lightbright and Nickle in the show 

"Maybe Drift is alive, maybe he's rethinking his decision and he'll come back later" 

She said it's hard talking about writing a show because you're designing the experience and you have to make sometimes what sounds like cold and pragmatic decisions (eg: "we need a cold and spunky female") which sucks, but they need to balance out the show. She says she'd never do that just for the sake of doing it, but it's part of something that they do need to be aware of while working on a show “Starts from a weirdly cold pragmatic place, but we try and put truth in it”

Q: Is Skullcruncher Percy's bouncer now that he's running Maccadam's? A: Oh totally

She felt bad about the writing thing because she says "you could throw a rock in California and you'd hit a writer / director or whatever" but she says she really likes being an authority on things now, even if it’s weird

She said Drift would've been helpful in S3 for sure, maybe he'd come up with Repugnis

Q: If Tarn is the perfect Decepticon who's the perfect Autobot A: Someone with a Firetruck alt mode, Autobot insignia as a face. Nat and her talked about it a lot. She says Optimus SHOULD be a fire truck, it makes the relationship between him and Ratchet a little more fun since Ratchet is an ambulance, and Optimus has an AX. It just makes sense! She agreed that the perfect Autobot would be Thunderclash after the chat said that

“If you put the proverbial budget-gun to my head, I’d keep Unicron in planet-mode because it’s more mysterious, but I want both alt modes”

Her favorite Megatron is Beast Wars Megatron

They didn’t want to go the Unicron route because everyone goes that route

Q:  What sort of documents DID Optimus work on in the archives? A: Probably historical archives and working on all the Primes. Something like the French / American revolution equivalent, which informed his speech writing for Megatron and his own ethics. (NICE)

She doesn’t like Sky Lnxy’s design, it’s creepy. “He talks in the G1 episodes and the voice makes it worse.” She can’t get over his face

“Found” the social awkwardness for Optimus. Optimus depicted as a father figure in S1 because it’s from Bee’s perspective, S2 / S3 they were able to explore more and found the limits and found it was hard to maintain that level of heroic dialogue. Optimus would feel awkward about it too. Randolph did an impression of Optimus’ speech. “He can’t not be in war-mode” :(

Q: Were Optimus and Megatron friends ever, or did they just work together on the speech stuff? A: Oh hell yes, I think [the story] is always enhanced when they’re friends and when Optimus really believes in what Megatron was working on. Optimus’ rejection of Megatron is what pushes him over the edge, his best friend rejecting him pushes him into a place where he becomes a tyrannical person.

Q: Does Maccadam know we love him? A: *puts hand over heart and looks into the distance* Yes

“Who knows where Dead End ended up” then backtracks and says “Wait that sounds flippant”

Soundwave’s favorite Earth song is Despacito

Q:  What's the best selfie Arcee's ever taken A: Mae Catt loves the one with the giraffe. She likes the idea of Arcee having a bunch of human friends

Q: What do the Transformers think of the Florida Man? A: They can’t really tell the difference between humans, they don’t really get it. It just sorta looks like all the normal stuff they see on Earth (or something)

Q: Who's the Florida Man of the Transformers A: Rack ‘n Ruin or Skybyte. But he’s too nice hmmm.

Leaned into the wackiness of Wheeljack because of the VA

Q:  What does Optimus do when he's not giving speeches / being a leader when they were all hanging out on the ARK? A: I think he reads, he seems like a heavy reader. It’d be cute if he read really bad Earth romance novels. He seems like a guy who needs a break from everything.

Q: Does Optimus have hobbies? A: Not to borrow from Rung, but doesn’t it seem like Optimus would make model ships? Very quiet, very focused detail-oriented hobby. Oh duh, he also plays basketball.

“I’d love to see more jets [who aren’t our usual gang] and find out all jets are kinda snobby”. Kaon and Tarn would be fun, it’d be cool to make up places.

(Someone asking if Optimus would read 50 Shades of Gray, someone else saying “They’d take it the wrong way because Transformers turn gray when they die”)

Everyone on the Autobot side are friends with each other.

Q: Does Megatron do anything for fun or is he too angry? A: I want to say he’s too angry, he has fun beating people down but I don’t think he’s had fun for a long time

Q: Were you surprised that Jake Tillman was in his 20s listening to his Optimus the first time? A: Jake Tillman was a vine-r she listened to a ton. She’d heard him when he was in his teens

MaeCatt loves that Shadow Striker saved Windblade’s body and kept her safe

Q: what was most important to you personally to put out in each episode? like humor/characterization/arcs A: Wanted to make sure she didn’t write dialogue that was condescending, wanted to be true about the character. Needs to be true to the characters (and gay) 

Transformers probably don’t know what memes are. They know what they ARE, but they don’t get it. They wanted Hot Rod to be super into Earth culture (winning races and driving off before humans could realize no one was in the car), but they never had time to really get into that.

Wound up in the Cyberverse writer’s room thanks to her agents, says she was the only person who gave a crap about GI Joe stuff, the executives were so sweet and let her chat, and they said she wasn’t a good fit for the current live action project so they sent her to the animation side, they sent her to Michael Howzer and they hit it off talking about GI Joe stuff. She was a post PA, someone who helped editors finish things for TV, got a call with an offer. 

[outworldgay]

Kano NSFW headcannons please (I know some people are iffy about him so it's okay if you don't wanna)

I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum so my own dislike of a character won’t stop me from indulging yall.

cw for sex under the cut

Kano is a busy man, so he can’t exactly afford to be very picky when it comes to sex. He takes what he can get, where he can get it. All that to say sexual encounters with Kano tend to be casual but enjoyable nonetheless.

Sure Kano has got a vulgar way about him, but he’s surprisingly good at sweet talking you during foreplay. He knows all the right things to say to make you blush. It’s when you start to get down and dirty that the real filth starts flying out of him mouth, more on that later.

He loves a bit of a show so he’ll often encourage you to strip tease for him. He won’t shy away from thinking out loud about how sexy you are to him, unabashedly rubbing himself through his pants in the process.

While it’s not a necessity, Kano likes to have a little booze in you both before having sex; not enough for either of you to be debilitated, but just enough of a sensual buzz that has you both in a very giggly, bubbly mood.

Kano and dirty talk basically go hand in hand. That man has the filthiest of mouths and he is not shy about it. If you’re okay with it he’ll call you every name in the book. Now just because he calls you rude names doesn’t mean he thinks less of you. You’re not just any whore, you’re his whore.

Kano will always be in for a good blowjob. If you let him he’ll gladly just face fuck you, holding you firmly by the hair as he thrusts into you. He loves the sound of you gagging on his cock. This is when the dirty talk really comes out.

Kano isn’t exactly the most selfless of lovers, but it’s pretty easy to turn the tides in your favor if you need to. If you’re straightforward about being unsatisfied in a rather dry cut manner, you can basically shame him into doing better job. Speaking of shame…

Putting Kano in his place goes a long way as he has a bit of a humiliation kink. Call him disgusting, desperate, dirty etc and he eats that shit up.  It’s a sure fire way of getting him on his knees to service you. He likes being able to earn his right to cum.

I hope you like sloppy oral because he’s the king of it. He’s not one to hold back and almost immediately will dig his face right in between your legs when the time comes for it. He loves feeling you frantically squirm under him and will be sure to hold you down in place for his own enjoyment.

As a top his favorite position is having you ride his lap. He loves watching you bounce on him and put the work into satisfying him. He also really enjoys doggy style if he’s in a more impatient mood. He’ll just grab a hold your hip, his other hand pushing your head against the mattress, as he just relentlessly pounds into you.

As a bottom Kano prefers a bit of doggy as well. It pairs well with his humiliation kink as just hearing you berate him as you go to town on him from behind never fails to send him into a frenzy.

You tell when he’s close when the dirty talk slowly diminishes and gets replaced with guttural growls as he desperately seeks his end. He prefers to cum on your face or chest. He might even snap a picture of you if you let him. He loves his souvenirs.

Surprisingly into cuddling? He won’t really ask, but when you suddenly find yourself in the warm embrace of a sleepy post-coital Kano, You find yourself not wanting to slip out into the night like you usually would during these kinds of encounters.

[obsidianarchives]

Game of Thrones Recap: S8E5 - "The Bells"

Well, that was laughable. I try to avoid such sweeping declarations, but intellectually confounding or narratively unsatisfying don’t quite capture the forced climax and nonsensical storytelling at play in this week’s episode. I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum so if you enjoyed this week’s episode, don’t worry we’re still going to have fun, but it’s important to be clear about what didn’t work for so many and explore why. Two locations this week, so let’s get into it!

Dragonstone

This week opens with Ned Stark Varys penning a note, revealing that Jon Snow is the true heir of the Targaryen bloodline, when one of his little birds comes in to reveal her poisoning attempts have been unsuccessful thus far as Daenerys, fearing a traitor, refuses to eat. Foiled on Option A, the Spider of Westeros throws caution to the wind and approaches Jon in the open with treason and his plans to supplant his Queen in favor of her nephew, who flatly rebuffs him as he has done all season.

Tyrion, who watched the entire exchange from the parapet, immediately goes to snitch to Dany, who initially suspects Jon as the traitor. She rightly surmises that the spymaster only learned from her Hand, who must have been told by Sansa, who in turn learned from Jon, so it appears doubtful she’s letting anyone off the hook. For the moment however she deals with Varys’s betrayal, and he is forced to burn his Maury DNA test results before the Unsullied take him away. In a moving farewell between longtime friends, feeling honor bound to let Varys know it was him, Tyrion and the Master of Mess share a final embrace. Varys admits he sincerely hopes to be wrong about Daenerys for his friend’s sake as much as the realm’s. With a stealthy Drogon waiting in the shadows for Momma Dee to say the word, his sentence is pronounced as Jon looks on, noticeably disturbed as the husk of Varys burns in the background.

From that fire, we transition to Daenerys sitting in the hearth next to the Painted Table as she presents Missandei’s sole possession brought across the Narrow Sea to Grey Worm, her slave collar. A real No-Limit Soldier, he throws that mess into the open flame because, WHAT KIND OF GIFT IS THAT?!?!?!? Why would he want the mark of her enslavement to remember her by? Let that burn just like the racist Westorosi, but we’re coming to that. And that was her only possession? So you didn’t give your girl nary a dress? I see you Dany. Besides, Grey Worm already has all of her hair products in his room, so he’s good.

Their grieving is interrupted by Jon, who she consents to see in private, and both parties are clearly conflicted between the affection they feel for each other and their call to duty. Dany admits she has never felt the love of the Seven Kingdoms that Jon or even Sansa engender, only the fear to keep them in line. Jon professes his love for her, but when Auntie tries to get a little freaky, Jon has to tell her he got on board with Alyssa Milano’s sex strike and is withholding the Valyrian Steel. Stung by his rejection, Daenerys declares “alright then, let it be fear.”

Tyrion again pleads with Dany not to raze the city of King’s Landing, claiming the people will ring the bells in surrender if they know the fight is lost. It struck me last episode how unusual it was that the show seemed to be telegraphing that it was a foregone conclusion that Daenerys’s army would win, even as it took pains to show us how much more even the odds were now, and that continued this week. The conversations were never about how they would win, or if they even still could, but begging her not to run up the score too much when she inevitably did. It was an odd choice barring one hell of an unforeseen swerve in their fortunes, but we’ll get to that when we hit the capital. In any event Dany acquiesces to Tyrion’s wishes if the city bends the knee, but gives him a final warning that Jaime was captured trying to get back to Cersei, and that his next mistake will be his last. The fact that Tyrion is still alive at this point speaks wonders for Daenerys’s patience (and his plot armor) but put a pin in that idea.

King’s Landing

Joining the armies of the North and the Vale with what remains of the Unsullied and Dothraki, Jon and Tyrion arrive on the outskirts of King’s Landing where the troops are setting camp for the battle. Also making their way downtown are Arya Stark and the Hound, who pass through the lines to enter the city on a mission to kill Cersei (and Clegane’s brother the Mountain) and end the war before it even starts. Tyrion, who we saw earlier calling in a favor from Davos, meets with his brother Jaime and repays his debt from season four by freeing the Kingslayer from captivity and near certain death. He again drives home the notion that Cersei will undoubtedly lose the war and die in the aftermath unless Jaime can convince her to flee King’s Landing (in a ship Davos has set for them) and sail to Essos to start a new life with their unborn child. It’s another evocative scene, as the acting in the show remains unparalleled, drawing on years of history between the brothers, who know they’ll likely both be dead soon, but are damned to try and fight for their family and their own idea of chivalry.

Day breaks, and we’re treated to flawless cinematography and orchestral arrangements dripping in tension as the Iron Fleet and Lannister armies are joined by the Golden Company, preparing to defend the city. The peril of the common folk is made plain and they have no choice but to hide indoors and barricade themselves from the carnage as tightly as possible, which also serves to provide the context and spatial familiarity with the battlefield that was lacking in the Battle of Winterfell. Their best laid plans however are of no concern to a dragon as Daenerys knew what to expect this time and easily out maneuvers the Scorpions from Euron’s naval assault and those covering the walls, blasting through the main gate of King’s Landing and rendering the greatest sellsword army in the world entirely irrelevant. They really should have brought Cersei’s elephants.

Taking that as their cue, Dany’s army — fronted by a surprising number of surviving Dothraki — lay waste to Cersei’s defenders. It wasn’t as much a battle as a rout, with the ease of victory leading to the question of why she didn’t just do this as soon as she touched down in Westeros in season seven. Cersei, overlooking the city, is in full denial and tries to maintain the facade of being in control as Qyburn appraises her of the situation, repeating platitudes she knows are empty as her eyes can’t help but expose her fear. We get a great scene of Jon and Grey Worm (with Davos for some reason) side-by-side handing out the fade to anyone who steps up until the two armies have a stare down in a corridor of the city and the Lannister troops see no choice but to throw down their swords in defeat. The bells ring, and Daenerys has finally won the crown she has believed to be her birthright for her entire life. And then the episode goes off the rails.

Staring around at her new kingdom, Dany eyes the Red Keep, face quivering with rage instead of relief or joy, and she decides to fly off and burn stretches of the city and the smallfolk at random for funsies. Blame whoever decided to play “Sicko Mode” I guess because the beat flipped and she went off. Taking the cue from his Queen, Grey Worm restarts the attack, as it has now gone from a siege to a sacking. He looks back at Jon, who is trying to hold his forces back, in disgust and presses on with anyone who is here for violence. On the ground, the leader of the Unsullied is a broken man out for retribution and seeking to drown his pain in the blood of his enemies. It’s an understandable turn for a soldier, but what made Daenerys flip? Even Cersei, who burned the Sept of Baelor and everyone in it, was left looking at the scene more shook than she has ever been.

As I said in last week’s review, I don’t have a problem with Dany burning King’s Landing to the last ember if that’s what she had to do. It’s the how and why that was so perplexing, not the what. If she decided to come out of the gate bucking shots for payback and rage, I would have been with it. Instead she decided to be surgical and measured with her strikes, only taking out the Scorpions, and after breaching the city walls left the fighting to her troops. So why then, once the bells were rung and the city bent the knee to her, did she then decide to start roasting the citizens? That was the time to fly straight up to Cersei’s wine porch and burn the whole thing down if it was about her fury and loss. THAT’S revenge! Killing the smallfolk that Cersei doesn’t care about serves no purpose to either Dany’s ascent to the throne or a quest for vengeance and is wholly incongruent to who she has been shown to be.

Yes, the notion that Daenerys can be desensitized to violence and her knack for solving her problems with fire and blood is part of her character, but there’s a hop, skip, and a jump from that to wanton destruction of those who are not her enemies. If that descent is the story you want to tell, I’m on board, but tell that story! The arc could have been more believable if the series had shown eruptions of actual random cruelty instead of men baselessly whispering about it behind her back. Never has her wrath been shown to be directed at the truly innocent rather than those who she perceived to have wronged her, solely for the sake of sadism and fear. I could believe she’d willingly burn King’s Landing and accept incidental murder of the townsfolk if it meant pushing Cersei and her army off the throne. It is a complete paradigm shift to suggest she would instigate that wholesale slaughter for no other reason than a manufactured derangement. The unnatural progression and suddenness of her frenzy led to an immediate disconnect and incredulity that renders impotent what should have been a reveal full of that earned pathos. Failing to recontextualize the past seven seasons of her arc, viewers were instead thrust into a narrative that had been spoken into existence but never sufficiently shown.

Beyond that, her behavior in the episode flies in the face of her all-consuming motivation in taking the throne. Even if you accept that she would burn civilians for the sin of not loving her and embracing her as a savior, why would she wait until the very moment she had attained everything she’d ever dreamed of? For Daenerys, who we’ve seen be single-focused to the point of myopia and perhaps callousness, to suddenly veer wildly into ignoring the throne for the sake of indiscriminate violence just didn’t track. She didn’t fly straight to the Red Keep and claim her crown, nor did she seem concerned with killing Cersei, the pretender who was sitting on her place, blocking her destiny, and the woman who had her friend and advisor Missandei beheaded. So again, what was the point of it all? For all Dany knew, Cersei did sail to Pentos with a child no less driven to return to King's Landing and regain a throne after it's sacking than the Mother of Dragons had been for her entire life. But rather than a meditation of the cyclical nature of violence, or the corruption of power, the lesson seems to be don’t give a dragon to a pyromaniac.

In the streets of King’s Landing, Tyrion and Jon both got put into the Mr. Krabs blur and are confused as to why no one told them Dany might do something like this (Narrator: They all did). Jon in particular traded brooding on a cliff for brooding in the middle of a battlefield and killing anyone with the nerve to interrupt his smoldering in the distance. Meanwhile Jaime is forced to take the long way around and ends up in a disappointing and hilariously petty fight with Euron Greyjoy underneath the collapsing castle. There is some great cinematography here as the chaos above via Drogon falls down around the two tired men. Jaime is mortally wounded by Pirate Pacey, but still ends up killing the Crow’s Eye (with no Dragonbinder) who dies smiling, declaring himself the man who killed Jaime Lannister. Wrong!

Seeing the castle literally falling down around them, the Hound tells Arya to give up her need for revenge while she still can, before it consumes her wholly as it has him. It’s another affecting scene drawing on years of earned interactions, as the Hound has been the next best thing Arya has had for a father since she had to watch Ned lose his head in King’s Landing. The emotions swirl, as you remember this is the first time she’s been in the city since that day, probably the first time she’s been inside the Red Keep since Syrio sent her away to protect her, and now Clegane is doing the same. She thanks him, using his given name of Sandor, and for these two hardened warriors who have been sustained by hate and vengeance it’s the closest either of them can come to admitting they love each other. Arya reclaims her life, and the Hound goes to finally end his own suffering, but hopefully not before taking his brother out first.

Making their way to Maegor's Holdfast to try and survive the destruction, Cersei and Qyburn are escorted by the Queensguard when the roof caves in. While the Queen and her Hand are saved by the Mountain, three of her sworn swords are killed and the castle exposed. Meeting them at the foot of the stairs is the Hound, who easily dispatches the other three survivors and we’re finally ready for Cleaganebowl! Qyburn tries to reason with the Mountain, not realizing everyone has been waiting to see this for years, and gets yeeted into the fallen debris skull first, killing him. Seeing this, Cersei picks up her skirt and saunters right on out of the way of the blood feud because her name is Bennett and she CLEARLY ain’t in it.

In one of the most beautiful shots of the series, the Hound starts to summit the steps towards the brother that scarred and traumatized him, only having eyes for him as the world ends around them and Drogon flies overhead, lighting the skies ablaze. The burned man and his decaying inhuman tormenter hack at each other, each blow echoing back into eternity as for both of them this fight started a generation ago. Cersei, now completely alone, her ambitions falling around her as the very painted map of Westeros she commissioned to mark her new empire cracks and withers in the face of true power, her joy turning to ashes in her mouth, has retreated fully into despair, but who else is there in her lowest moment than her brother and lover Jaime? Shame on me for thinking last week that the writers were giving weight to his character arc and just hiding their hand, he went right back to exactly who he said he was as a simp for Cersei who can’t get right.

The Hound and Mountain continue their conflict as Sandor runs his brother through the gut with his sword, and Ser Gregor doesn’t even flinch. You should have gone for the head! Qyburn did his zombification job a little too well, a fact he’d likely lament if he weren’t already dead. The scene expertly cuts back to Arya, now trying to make her way all the way back out of the dying city, interlacing the pounding she’s taking on the streets dodging the carnage, with the blows the Hound is receiving from his brother as though they were one body. There are a few too many near-death fake outs for us to believe Arya is truly in danger, the way we might have if the POV character were, say, Ser Davos (who comes from Flea Bottom), but the connection between her and Sandor makes it worthwhile. As the Mountain presses his little brother against the wall strangling him, there’s a moment it feels like we might get another of his face smashing fatalities a la Prince Oberyn (RIP to a real one!), but the Hound pulls a page out of Lyanna Mormont (gone too soon) and stabs him in the eye. This still doesn’t kill him, because what is dead may never die, but Sandor Clegane masters his fear and rushes his brother, taking them both through the walls of the Red Keep and plunging into the raging fires of the burning castle where they both meet their end.

Finally having enough, as Dany’s path of destruction has now ignited the wildfire caches under the city left by her father, Jon puts away his sword and leads his troops out of the city. Arya meanwhile is forced to leap into action, trying to save as many people as she can, even if that’s only a mother and her daughter. Between the Dothraki, and nearly being burned alive by Drogon however, it takes a miracle for her to save herself.

Underneath the castle, Cersei and Jaime’s Pentoshi adventure is cut short as the falling rubble has sealed their only escape. Realizing she doesn’t want to die in a prison of her own making, her last facades fall apart and she crumbles in her brother’s arms under the weight of her folly. Both knowing these are their last moments, he comforts her, preparing to die as he’s always wanted, in the arms of the woman he loves. There would be no satisfying death for the longest running antagonist of the series, and many were disappointed as we had already seen Cersei “stripped of all her finery” as she took her walk of atonement through the streets of King’s Landing. With no cathartic payoff, or larger consequence to her oft-mentioned pregnancy, the lack of gratification is endemic of the problems many have with the writing this season, and one of the most deliciously evil, yet human characters of television history deserved a send off befitting of her stature.

As the path is now clear for Daenerys to take her throne covered in ash (not Snow) fulfilling the vision of her future from The House of the Undying in Qarth, Arya awakes to see the charred bodies of the innocent she was trying to save in a scene right out of Pompeii. She also finds a single, pale horse which she rides out of the city dripping in symbolism and riding out the end of the episode, closing with The Rains of Castamere.

On the whole, I will say that the episode was wonderfully directed and beautifully shot. For my disappointment with the Battle of Winterfell, Miguel Sapochnik’s work on the Siege of King’s Landing excelled on a visual level. The shots of Drogon destroying the Scorpions and later laying waste to the city gave great respect to the depth and dimensionality of the terror and awe of dragons and their ability to dispense death from above at any moment. The chaos of both that flight from destruction, and the mores of human depravity as Daenerys’s army abandoned any pretense of rectitude and gave into their hedonism was laid bare, and as always, was accompanied by a masterful score. The acting also needs to be singled out, as each character sold with absolute conviction the moments they were stepping into. It’s truly a shame that so much genuinely wonderful work was overridden by slipshod writing and character decisions born out of an artificially imposed deadline and a strained sprint to the finish line.

Either way, we’re here. Get ready for the series finale next week! Look forward to capping it off with you then.

[comprosedreviews-blog]

Sweet Black Waves by Kristina Perez (with Monica)

In the end, I gave it a two out of five stars on Goodreads, though I’m feeling like it should be closer to one and a half. 

I feel kind of bad for this story because I think part of the reason I ended up not enjoying it as much as I otherwise would have was that I didn’t know it was a fairy tail// legend// folklore retelling. Had I known that--and the story itself-- I think I would have enjoyed looking for the connections and differences between the original myth and the story the author chose to tell. 

But I hadn’t known, so I didn’t. 

I ended up finding out this was a retelling right at the entrance of the third act, and AS SOON AS I KNEW I googled the story, read a few different iterations, and tried to forgive the bits that I really disliked using this newfound knowledge and the (admittedly) skilled weaving of original story and imagination showcased in the debut. 

As you might have gleaned from my rating, however, this didn’t work out so well for me. WELL, MONICA--you might be saying--WHY DID YOU EVEN BOTHER TELLING US ALL OF THIS? 

Well readers, I tell you this because if you do know the story of Iseult and Tristan, then you very well might LOVE this telling of it and I really really do not mean to ‘yuck your yum’ as I am inclined to say. My initial ignorance and dislike of some of the tropes utilized in the book definitely affected my feelings for it and in the interest of being fair, I wanted to inform you of my bias. 

K? K. Now for my (mostly unspoilery) review. 

Firstly, here’s the summary included on Goodreads for your reference: 

“Two proud kingdoms stand on opposite shores, with only a bloody history between them. As best friend and lady-in-waiting to the princess, Branwen is guided by two principles: devotion to her homeland and hatred for the raiders who killed her parents. When she unknowingly saves the life of her enemy, he awakens her ancient healing magic and opens her heart. Branwen begins to dream of peace, but the princess she serves is not so easily convinced. Fighting for what's right, even as her powers grow beyond her control, will set Branwen against both her best friend and the only man she's ever loved.”

The weird thing about me as a reader is that I usually like to read the first or second paragraph of the blurb and then dive into a book because SO OFTEN now, events halfway through the book are spoiled in the blurb. In this case, it bit me in the butt. Why? Because in paragraph NUMBER 3 (which I never ever read) the fact that this is a retelling is made blatantly obvious. 

How. 

Stupid. 

Am.

I?

ANYWAY, from the bit I’ve included, I wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of this book. I was pretty sure it was going to read like a lot of other books I had picked up earlier in my reading life and I was definitely right. I almost DNF’d this book several times just because it wasn’t anything special. Don’t get me wrong, the writing was okay, the story was okay, but it just felt like it was a regurgitation of a lot of tropes I’d already seen and one that I really, really hated. 

Enter my rant about insta love. Because, yeah, that trope is in here. 

Enter mild spoilers. If you don’t want to see them (even though they happen in the very first few pages of the book) then go ahead and skip until you see a gif of a frustrated monkey)

The romance of the story starts almost immediately and it starts because of this sequence of events: main character sees pretty boy drowning. Falls in love with pretty boy’s abs. Realizes pretty boy is from a place she hates. Pretends that she hates him because of this but I as a reader didn’t buy it since every other sentence she was already convincing herself that maybe she didn’t hate this country because OH YEAH, this guy is pretty. 

I’m sorry, but if you really hate a place and a people that much, one handsome face isn’t going to change your mind in the course of A DAY. I mean, she basically blames this huge group of people for the demise of her parents... and we’re supposed to believe that she’s already changing her mind? She did like literally zero things to tell me she ever hated anyone. And sure, it takes her like, a week of going back and forth between the cave to FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM, but she kind of throws away a hatred we’re supposed to believe is super strong after thinking he was hot. 

No. I’m sorry. I hate hate as much as the next person, but I would have liked to see it devolve because of his kindness, or her realization that her misconceptions of his people were wrong, not because he was rocking a killer tan. 

In spite of the insta love, however, there was a day that I was reading this where I couldn’t put it down. Idk, call me a sucker for a romance or whatever, because that’s what kept me reading. I really like seeing love begin and all the stuff that comes in hand with it. Plus, earlier into the story I kind of liked our main character. She was responsible, a good healer, just nice to root for. And the friendship between her and Essy was done really well. 

But then things started to change for the worse for me. The main character kind of began to devolve and make decisions I thought didn’t allign with who she was and the story began to drag. I felt like whole sections of the book took me years to get through and could have been cut. I also think that-- maybe for the first time ever-- the story didn’t begin early enough. 

*gasp* I know. I just said that. 

If we had gotten the chance to at least see Branwen believe (or not believe) some of the things we were told she did/didn’t, then it might have been easier to feel close to her as a character. As it is now, it feels like I was info dumped too much and not shown enough.

(Again, minor spoilers.. so if you don’t want to read them, skip to the gif of Dumbledore. Everyone loves Dumbledore.) 

This is what the book did:

BOOK: Magic crap happens

Branwen (all of a sudden and out of nowhere): Oh yeah, by the way it’s kind of important that you know that I totally don’t believe in the Old Ones at all. What is religion? My parents are like dead and nothing saved them so yeah. No way.

Queen Alana (who has presumably always been very vocal about her Old Ones belief): Girl, they’re real.

Branwen: I HAVE BEEN ENLIGHTENED!!!

Me: ... ... ...

My other problem was that the climax didn’t feel too climactic. Stuff happens (WHAT A SPOILER OMG) that might appear climactic, but you honestly don’t even know some of it happened until all the action has stopped. And at that point, you just don’t really care. I’m thinking of one thing in particular and if you have read the book you likely know what it is. That was a shame to me because I feel like that moment could have really added to the feelings felt in the climax and brought this book up a peg. As it was I was left feeling like... this is it? That’s... all I get? 

All that being said I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. I predicted it like half a book before, but the way it was written really made me consider wanting to read the second. I’m a sucker for a good cliff. 

I feel like I just basically spat on the whole book, so before I say goodbye I just want to add this: there was nothing problematic in the book as far as I could tell. There wasn’t anything that made me think WOW this is garbage, it just wasn’t for me and that’s okay. If there’s an insta love moment in a book A LOT has to happen to win me back to that book’s side, and this book just didn’t make the cut.

Let me know what you guys thought if you did read it, and as always if you have any questions feel free to ask them on the blog or leave a comment below!

Thanks,

Monica