#shadow meta series post 5

[shannankle]

Shadow Meta Series Post #5: Anurak and Trin, Trauma and Power

I'd planned for the next piece in this series to be about the Asian horror boom and technology, but I ran out of time before part 2 aired and then took a break for end of the year festivities. So I'll be pushing that one back to talk about Anurak and Trin once again. This post is part of my ongoing Shadow meta series on technology, time, and horror. I touch in previous posts on both Anurak and Trin, and I'll be picking up, adjusting, and further developing some of those threads here.

We'll be looking at the relationship the show is drawing between trauma and power through Anurak and Trin, starting in 1976 and moving to 1998/9.

I want to start with Anurak. In my post on Anurak and technology, I put forth the theory that Anurak is a queer man who was traumatized (going on the one-armed man theory, which turned out to be true, congrats once again @wen-kexing-apologist), and that he now serves the system out of fear. I was kind of right. Just off in terms of the catalyst and how much him explicitly being queer would factor into that (okay I was a lot off on that).

So let's begin by looking at Anurak through the lens of trauma and power with the full story in mind. I don't want to waste too much time covering what Anurak went through, since it really stands for itself.

But I do want to begin in...

Anurak's office 1976 

During the violence of Red October, Anurak tries to protect the college students, but his ability to do so is undermined through technology when his desk is bugged. I don't know much about bugging technology, but given that it's used by the military, I have to imagine that it was cutting edge for the time. In my previous post on Anurak, I noted how he surrounds himself by technology from the 1970s or earlier (okay I said 1979 specifically, but I imagine the show runners just said pre-1980s and called it a day). It marks the way he has become stuck in the past, and with the bug, we can see how technology became a trauma point stopping him from moving forward.

Anurak's Office: 1999 to 1976

While the future Anurak (1998/9) is stuck in the past, he is also trying to suppress this past at the same time. This becomes apparent in a lot of ways, but is perhaps most striking to me in this scene in episode 12:

Anurak confronts Dan and Josh over the weed found in their room, and the scene eventually culminates with Dan setting Anurak on fire and discovering he's the one-armed man.

But what is particularly notable to me is that this is really the first time we see this part of Anurak's office, including the cabinets on the wall.

At the start of the scene we only see the cabinets' edges or they're blurred out of focus. But as Dan and Anurak begin to fight, they come into clear view.

This is the first time we see this angle of Anurak’s office. All of the shots prior are very careful to only show specific angles of the space. Shadow consistently hides this part of the room up until we get our official reveal that Anurak is the one-armed man.

A few episodes later we'll learn that this closet was the place where the last college student was shot and Anurak’s last hope of saving anyone died. 

The show literally hides his past trauma from us both narratively and visually. 

And for Anurak, it marks the way he is constantly running from the past but can never escape it. He tries to hide it from view, to avoid that part of the room, but he remains in his office nonetheless. Just as he remains at the school and surrounds himself with technology of the past.

Both past and present are touched with trauma. There is no escape.

From 1976 to 1998/9

We can see that in the past, Anurak was much more open to change and was genuinely coming from a desire to help the college students. He was willing to leverage his position at the school to try and protect the students from state power and violence up until this threatened his and his colleagues lives.

But by 1998 and 1999 he is clearly operating under and holding up the power system out of fear and trauma. And, unfortunately, what he hides comes with a cost to those around him.

He restricts what the students get to know about the past, particularly Red October. He's absolutely doing this out of trauma. On the one hand, he is trying to create a distance from himself and the event to prevent himself from being triggered and re-traumatized. On the other hand, he likely feels he is protecting the students by shielding them from the consequences of resisting the government.

It seems at this point that the government itself hasn't banned the information, since it's Anurak and one other instructor who are the main objectors at the school. However, his censorship would still prevent students from developing a political consciousness. Because if the students know the wrongs of the past, how could they not be moved to object? Anurak has seen the cost of that consciousness--not only did he witness the college students being murdered for it, but he has lived with the trauma (including survivor's guilt) himself.

He's reacting in a way he feels will protect himself and the students. However, in reacting this way, Anurak is also aiding the overall political project to hide this history and suppress political consciousness.  

1998

This places Anurak in direct opposition with Trin. In the flashback of Trin questioning Red October, Anurak tells Trin that he should be setting an example as student president.

In a previous post, I discussed Anurak scolding Trin for pushing his campaign promises. In that scene, Anurak emphasizes logic to shut Trin down. In this first encounter in episode 10, Anurak makes a point about Trin's behavior rather than his ideas. However, in both cases Anurak emphasizes the effect Trin has on the school as a community.

According to Anurak: Trin's not thinking about who will pay for or clean the bathroom. Trin's not considering how he is being a bad model for other students by distributing information about Red October.

By emphasizing his role as student president, Anurak also perhaps hopes to use the language of democracy to influence Trin. Trin is clearly still angry, but visibly resigns; leaning back in his chair, he backs off for now.

Their back and forth continues after Trin's love letter is circulated. Anurak responds to Trin's explanation by asking him: "Didn't I tell you you have to set a good example to your peers as student body president?" Again, Anurak uses Trin's role as president to play on Trin's sense of duty to community and constituents.

Of course, this comes with an added sting because he is also weaponizing Trin's expression of his feelings and queerness against him. Yes, Trin put Joe and the school in a tough spot by writing to a teacher, but Anurak doesn't specify here nor address the impact of the homophobia Trin is facing.

Trin pushes back on the idea that he has failed his community, stating that "It's just an expression of my feelings for a person." On one level, Trin pushes back on the homophobic framing by emphasizing that it is simply feelings for a "person." On another level, he is re-situating the conversation around his personal "feelings" rather than how the world feels about him. He is arguing for the private in a context where society deems his sexuality always a public matter.

In another post I discuss how Anurak feeds into a trend in the show of queerness and alterity always needing to be narrated. And here I discuss the way Trin continually loses his narrative agency to others.

These trends continue in this scene as Anurak punishes Trin for not respecting the narrative. Compared to earlier confrontations, here Trin is not just being punished for political opinions but for something that he can't fundamentally change. Of course, Anurak also has something he can't change in his left arm. He chooses to hide this difference along with his trauma, and he censures Trin for not doing the same. Ultimately telling Trin to "keep a low profile"

When Trin's appeal to privacy doesn't work, he threatens to resign as president. If the system can't be changed, if it doesn't have space for him to be himself without acting a part, then Trin will opt out.

Anurak comes at Trin with his usual moves--an appeal to logic and community. He calls Trin's proposal "utter nonsense" framing it not only as illogical but lacking in narrative weight, thus cutting off his options and narrative agency once again.

Anurak seals the deal by escalating his appeal to community. He tells Trin that "It would be absolute chaos" to hold another election, then digs the knife deeper when he forbids Trin from seeing Joe. All through this we see Trin's face go from resigned to heartbroken as he leans back in his chair (this time with no anger just defeat).

The system is hurting Trin, but Anurak, fearing that leaving the system will harm Trin, refuses to let him leave.

This dynamic plays out in horrific ways in Trin's unraveling and death/disappearance. During this period, Anurak reacts to any moves Trin makes by desperately hiding the truth, weaponizing Trin's mental illness against him, and eventually using physical force to stop Trin.

In the very space where the college students faced state violence 22 years ago, Anurak uses physical force that cuts Trin's head. This moment mirrors the scene in the art room in episode 8 where the bust falls and it's head is smashed. In a post about art in the first part of Shadow I mention how this can be read as the failure of logic. However, here it takes on another dimension, where the reason and logic Anurak uses to cover his trauma leads him to enact harm and violence.

In addition to Trin's injury, the bust has parallels with the statue that must ultimately fall to reveal the past. This statue is a saint that has been tainted by a history of violence and murder. It thus mirrors Anurak's own path from resisting power to enacting its violence. All of this rooted in a mire of trauma and a misguided attempt to help.

While Anurak tries to keep the past hidden, this past threatens Trin's life and causes his mental decline. We know that the spirits may not be malevolent but are communicating in the only way they can (perhaps another example of trauma leading to more trauma). He tries to opt out in multiple ways, by quitting his medication, by cutting his arm, by taking pot, by leaving the community and it's collective trauma behind. The pot is a reprieve, but it isn't a sustainable escape. He still has to go back to school and society. But there the haunting escalates until Trin can't take it anymore. He turns to the forest shaman and the shadow.

1999

As the show reaches it's climax, Anurak must finally reckon with the past. Dan has collapsed after the play, and at this point we see Anurak say something very familiar to the school board. He tells them he will "resign from [his] position."

I think this is Anurak's attempt to finally remove himself from authority, to stop clinging to the system for safety. Like Trin, if the system is doing harm, he'll leave it. Of course, it's too little too late; Dan dies at the end of the same episode. And we already know from Trin's fate: staying in the system harmed him, leaving it harmed him. If Anurak stays he perpetuates more trauma, but if he leaves he will experience trauma in another form. He tries to leave, but trauma won't let him. So he takes his own life, hoping that at least then he might stop the cycle and atone. And even this path forward is thwarted.

The Shadow

What happens when you're always seen as a threat to the community (for your political views, queerness, disability, trauma, etc) but without community you lose your sense of belonging and self? What happens when opting out of these systems of power leads to trauma but conforming to them results in its own traumas?

I'm still thinking a lot about @brifrischu's review of Shadow where he notes how the show places characters like Dan in an in-between state. I think the show gives us the answer to my questions above in the shadow. It's a horror that encapsulates the grotesque "neither-nor" dynamic of this kind of trauma. It speaks to the way such power structures don't just kill us but leave us as nothing and no-one trapped in a shadow's realm.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

WKA Gay Analysis Assembly

Hello! Welcome to my blog, please note I am unhinged about my silly little gay shows and as evidence I give you an exhaustive list of all the analysis posts (and some non-analysis posts) I have written :)

I will be updating this post as I write more, and the most recent show I am watching/writing about will be listed first. Please know my DMs and my Inbox are always open!

By, For, and About Queers (The By, For, and About Queers posts are not about any particular show, and are instead a little write up of the way I categorize the BL shows that I am watching)

By/For/About- Part 1 (a conversation with @absolutebl)

By/For/About- Part 2 (a conversation with @solitaryandwandering) Also check out the really lovely response from @solitaryandwandering here

Toxic and Messy: TharnType v. Only Friends (aka We Trust Jojo) (a conversation with @absolutebl and @respectthepetty)

The Sign

Feelings Made Visible: Design Choices in The Sign

Fantasy v. Reality in The Sign

Last Twilight

Episode 1 Thoughts (in which I state my fears that were later realized)

Reflections in Last Twilight (Episode 1-2)

Physical Touch in Last Twilight (Episodes 1-3)

Thoughts on Last Twilight, Ep. 5 (aka when I still thought the show was good)

Last Twilight, Ep 12 (in which I rant about the ableism in the narrative and the undermining of the show's themes)

Shadow

Shadow thoughts

The Left Hand of God

Is Brother Anurak the One Armed Man?

What Happened to Trin? aka Paying Attention to my Favorite Straight Boy

I Feel You Linger in the Air

Let's Talk About Sex: ESSAY #69!!! (breakdown of the sex scene in IFYLITA Episode 8)

Only Friends Academic Essay Series

Only Friends, Boston, and Queer Culture

Only Friends and Respectable Promiscuity

Only Friends, Racism, and the Commodification of Queer Asians Everything else

Ray and Rehab

Boston the Slut

Hypocrisy

Who is Mew, Anyway?

You're Mine No Matter What: The Commodification of Sand

Explosions (fight night round two, Ep. 6)

Fight Night (scene breakdown of the fight in Episode 5)[Sand Addition by @ranchthoughts]

Poor Boy (a discussion on the beloved Poor Boy t-shirt)

Watch The Warp Effect before Only Friends

Misunderstanding Top? (a conversation with @respectthepetty)

What the Fuck is Boeing Doing Here?

Only Friends Reflection

My Ride

Rain, BL Boys, and Reciprocity

My Ride Finale

Be My Favorite (how did I get here, I wasn't planning on watching this!)

Permanence in BMF (in conversation with @stuffnonsenseandotherthings)

Lack of Touch in BMF (in conversation with @wanderlust-in-my-soul and @dropthedemiurge)

Cupid's Last Wish 1. Trans Allegory in Cupid's Last Wish (in partnership with @so-much-yet-to-learn and @lurkingshan)

La Pluie

The Language of Love In La Pluie Ep. 8

Ep. 8 Stray Thoughts

Hands in Ep. 7

Hands in Ep. 6

Subversion (a conversation with @lurkingshan)

Pee Peerawich Can Fucking Act

Connection

Body Language in La Pluie Ep. 12

Step by Step

On the Subject of Pat 2.0- A Defense

On the Subject of Pat- A Timeline (a conversation with @waitmyturtles)

Totally Normal About Episode 7

Lighting in Ep 9 (a conversation with @istanchan)

Going Out- Sharing Space with the Unhoused

Compartmentalizing

Workplace Homophobia and Relationship Development Between Pat and Jeng

Our Skyy 2

OS2 x The Eclipse - Characterization

OS2 x BB x ATOTS- Phupa and Queerness aka Damn You WMT (that's right! Damn you, @waitmyturtles!)

OS2 x BB x ATOTS- Validation! aka Phupa and Queerness- Part 2 (and a shout out to @lurkingshan and @waitmyturtles for writing such brilliant meta I almost...almost didn't have to write one myself)

Pat, Pran, Losing Parental Relationships, and Sex (a conversation with @shortpplfedup)

Our Dining Table

Silence (including conversation with @laowen)

Yutaka and Yukata

Bed Friend

True Colors? (a conversation with @dribs-and-drabbles and @respectthepetty)

Uea and Red

Reflections + Uea and Yellow

Uea and Gray (a conversation with @respectthepetty) Uea and Gray but this time not tacked on to RTP's post

Mommy Dearest 2.0

Uea's Episode 7 Costumes

Bed Friend and Reflections- Part 1

Bed Friend and Reflections- Part 2

Bed Friend and Reflections- Part 3 (this is my favorite of the parts)

Water, Songkran, and KingUea

Moonlight Chicken

Heart Confrontation Scene

Heart and Li Ming Colors and Stripes

Red, Wen, and Blue

Naming the Deaf Character Heart

Heart's Communication

Wen's Badge Parallel

Modern Thai Sign Language to American Sign Language Index

Heart's Vocalization

Mommy Dearest (Jam and Li MIng)

Isn't it Difficult to Be Born Poor?

Moonlight Chicken is for the Queers

Resolution

Heart's Signs Translated (this one is not mine, but I don't want to lose this post so I am placing it here)

Best Criers in MLC

Worst Parallel

Utsukushii Kare

Self-Deprecation Harms Everyone

Our Flag Means Death

Over-analyzing the Color Red

Silk as Symbolism for Ed's Heart

[silicon-tmblr]

[Reposting this because I'm dumb stupid and don't know how reblogs work! This was supposed to be a reblog of this post by @g0nta-g0kuhara, a multi-part analysis of Kokichi Oma in Chapter 4]

Ooh a meta post! Sends me back to when I was first researching the DRV3 fandom before playing the game (I'm a little backwards, I know...). I only read the one part, but I wanted to chime in with some additions on top of the existing analysis.

Interestingly, the "neutral Kokichi face" that's highlighted in this post is one of two "neutral faces" that Kokichi makes throughout the game. That would be stand_005_037, or Kokichi's 37th sprite.

The other "neutral face" is the next sprite over, stand_005_038, which appears in a different context from the previous sprite. The difference between the two is really not terribly noticeable at a glance, so here's a visual.

Up to now, I've considered sprite 37 to be Kokichi's "unserious neutral", as his expression appears more relaxed than that of sprite 38, what I've thought to be his "serious neutral".

You know he's not serious when he's agreeing with Maki.

With the information from this analysis, though, it might be more accurate to call it his "masking neutral". Kokichi will use sprite 38 in low-emotion situations when he has a point to get across, like here in the Chapter 3 post-trial.

However, in high-emotion situations, as said in the initial analysis post, Kokichi is likely trying to hold himself back. That's when sprite 37 comes in.

Bro is either stifling a laugh or seething with anger in there

Regarding Kokichi's sprite 38, there's some stuff I've come across which loosely implies that it initially had a different design. When Kaito recaps his conversation with Kokichi in the hangar in the Chapter 5 post-trial, the conversation is portrayed with a sepia tone. The sprites for this conversation aren't really "sprites", per-se -- the entire scenario is actually stored as a series of background images in the game files.

One image that caught my attention, however, was bg_201_11:

On my first playthrough of the game, I dubbed this sprite "Kokichi angy"

This image stands out at a glance because of the Kokichi sprite, which isn't seen anywhere else in the entire game. Compared to the other images in the set, this image actually seems to be from an older build of the game, as the shadows in the background, shading on the sprites, and position of Kokichi's arm-belt-things are different.

bg_201_11 vs bg_201_01

My guess is that this unused sprite was an older version of sprite 38, especially since the current sprite 38 has similar errors as the older sprite.

Personally, I'm glad "Kokichi angy" wasn't actually used in the final game. He looks a little too much like a wet cat.

On another topic, also related to the linked analysis: let's talk about the ever controversial whiteboard note written by Kokichi under Shuichi's photo which, in the English localization, reads "trustworthy?"

As many people have pointed out, both now and in the past, this note was translated oddly and the original text was 「油断ならない？」 (yudan naranai?).

Though it's often translated by fans as “sneaky or cunning”, the literal translation is actually “don't be careless”, with “yudan” meaning “careless” and “naranai” meaning “must not (be)”. This is translateable in most situations as “dangerous”, hence that being the stock translation supplied by Jisho.org.

After all, "don't be careless" has essentially the same meaning as "this is dangerous", in most situations at least (think mountain climbing, or traveling through a dark alley; you wouldn't want to be careless because it is dangerous, you don't know what to expect so it's treacherous and sneaky).

When translating a note regarding a person, though, I would think "don't be careless" would be more appropriate, especially considering Shuichi isn't particularly dangerous compared to some other people in the academy whose dangers are well known (*cough cough* Maki)

You can find the independent translated meanings of yudan and naranai on Jisho as well as on Wikitionary (yudan, naranai).

So, Kokichi is essentially telling himself to stay on his guard around Shuichi, since he doesn't know what to expect from him. His attempt to team up with Shuichi in Chapter 4 was probably his confirmation that Shuichi wanted nothing to do with him, and that he should formulate his plans accordingly. It would probably have been ideal for him to have Shuichi on his side, as he saw Shuichi as a wild card (rather ironically; I'd imagine the group perceives Kokichi as the wild card of the group). So despite the translation error, the points made by the linked analysis still hold decent ground.

All in all, despite my belief that Chapter 4 is absolutely ridiculous, the linked analysis is quite good when one assumes Chapter 4 is logically sound (it's not), and still holds up even to someone like me who really dislikes Chapter 4 for its severe logical fallacies (my suspension of disbelief was absolutely thrown out the window when I played it... but maybe that's a matter for another day)

[aspoonofsugar]

Hi,.....if you don't mind me asking, can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from Hazbin Hotel? And why you loved them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Sorry if you've answered this question before....Thanks....

Hi!

Thank you for this fun ask :D

FAVOURITE CHARACTERS

1- Lucifer

He's a disaster and I love him :''') He is very well written so far. He has a strong characterization, which combines a comedic side (bumbling dad + airhead) with more serious traits (depression). He is also set up to have a wonderful arc, which ties with important themes for the series, as a whole. Dreams, redemption, freedom and love. His relationship with Charlie is especially sweet: he is very very flawed as a parent, but through his daughter he finds hope again and makes some steps to grow. Plus, he is a mix between Barnum (the greatest show) and Walt Disney, which is very meta when it comes to the themes of creativity and enterteinment.

2- Charlie

Charlie is one of the rare protagonists I adore! She feels both classic (she is a Disney Princess) and original (she is the Princess of Hell). The premise to have such an idealistic character as a high profile demon is both hilarious and very strong thematically. Not only that, but Charlie's conflict is actually pretty deep and layered. On the one hand she genuinelly wants to help Sinners and is right about redemption. On the other hand she is also using her dream to run away from her problems and hide her self-issues. Charlie is deep down a child, who felt abandoned by her parents and who doesn't fit in her own Kingdom. The Hazbin Hotel is a home for both Sinners and herself. A place where she can stay for a while, find familial bonds and grow. On a writing note, I like how active she is. She drives the conflict beautifully in a way which is almost refreshing.

3- Alastor

Here comes another disaster! Alastor is clearly the key character of the series, both when it comes to plot and to theme. He is clearly linked to Lilith's mystery somehow (either because he made a pact with her or because the reason of Lilith's disappearence ties with whoever Alastor made the pact with). He is also a challenge to Charlie in how she believes everyone can be redeemed, but Alastor will try very very hard not to be LOL. And he will probably fail :''') Apart from it, he is very well used in the first season. His mystery is built up and he manages to stay active and move the plot without taking central stage. In a sense, he stays in the shadows, which is fitting for a shadow character.

3- Angel Dust

Angel is a sweetheart, who hides his feelings and goodness out of fear. I like his sibling bond with Charlie and how selfless he is towards his loved ones. His stay at the hotel isn't really about redemption, as Charlie thinks. Rather, it is more about healing, finding a stable environment and escaping a toxic relationship. I like his small step towards independence. His story is just beginning and his arc is just set up, but it has already the potential to be great.

5 - Adam, Sir Pentious, Vaggie, Sera (basically a bunch of characters LOL)

Adam is a villain I enjoyed immensely. He is just fun to hate LOL and I am curious to see if he will gain some depth. Either through coming back or post-mortem. I also like he is a play with School of Rock's Dewey Finn. He is in love with rock and metal and even uses rock rhetoric, like "Stick it to the man". Except that he embodies everything rock isn't. He himself is the man. He is a mediocre authority figure who uses his power against the weakest. Sorry Adam, but Charlie is way more punk rock than you :P

Sir Pentious is adorable <3 His arc is simple, but well done. I love how he slowly opens up to others and his crush for Cherri Bomb is adorable. I am curious to see where his story will go.

Vaggie has a very interesting premise in how she foils Lucifer as a fallen angel (and will probably foil Lilith, as well). The reveal of her background was great and I love her design and her focus in Hello Rosie, where she finds a mentor in Carmilla. Still, I want more of her and feel like her arc is just set-up as for now. It ties with trust, which is a great theme for a love story.

Sera has only appeared once, but I like her characterization. She is sympathetic, but also very clearly in the wrong and the main responsible for the whole conflict (yes, even more than Adam as she wields more power and could have stopped him). I like her bond with Emily and I am curious about her relationship with Lucifer, since what happened to him seems to have scarred her.

FAVOURITE MOMENTS (IN NO ORDER)

More than Anything - Charlie and Lucifer's confrontation

Charlie and Lucifer discovering each other and affirming their familial love is beautiful. Charlie reveals she still adores her father, despite his flaws and neglect. Lucifer finds in himself the drive to dream again.

You Didn't Know - The questioning

The whole courtroom scene is brilliant thematically. The main conflict goes from redemption for sinners to questioning the system. It is poignant how Lute and Adam are stuck in their heads and unable to either ask nor answers questions. Charlie and Emily instead keep interrogating others and themselves. They discover the reality around them is complex, starting with their loved ones (Vaggie and Sera). Still, these doubts will make them stronger in the end.

Lucifer's Big Damn Heroes moment

Lucifer joining the fight to save his daughter is a great conclusion to his arc this season. Plus, he manages to be both badass and hilarious at the same time :''') His short skermish with Adam is pretty funny, as well and it was cool to see his demon form. Plus, we got some more hints to whatever happened in Eden, which is bound to be important for the story as a whole.

Ready for this

This is Charlie's big moment this season. It is when she realizes she can do this. She has within herself the strength to inspire people with her voice, just like Lilith. Rosie and Alastor encouraging her is great, as well. And the whole set-up with a town full of kind and cheerful cannibals is hilarious.

The Show Must Go On - The Finale

The final song is perfect as a conclusion to Charlie's journey this first season. She starts it by singing alone, with everybody dismissing her. She ends it surrounded by her loved ones, with everyone "singing her song". Lucifer and the whole Hotel Crew encourage her not to give up and help her re-build her dream. The hints to future plot-lines (like the Vees and Alastor) are also great.

[twig-tea]

✨2023: A Summary✨

tagged by @dribs-and-drabbles and @lurkingshan 💕

I couldn't be bothered to toggle on/off privacy settings so I did this manually instead!

January to June 2023:

[I was a lurker through to July so we start there]

July

Popular: Translation note in Laws of Attraction ep 3

Favourite: My Ride rewatch (& self-reflection)

August

Popular: Be My Favourite ep 11 clown checkpoint

Favourite: : Be My Favourite ep 11 meta roundup [shocked this was less popular but it was linked in the other one so maybe people reblogged only the one]; Tonhon Chonlatee [this was a response rather than an original post; it felt good to get this this out of my head]

September

Popular: Only Friends episode 6 scene by scene [when the brainrot was real]

Favourite:  Love Class 2: A Love Letter, In Defense of Dan and Yok [had to give it to two this month; the second is a response]

October

Popular: Only Friends finale reaction

Favourite:  IFYLITA and found family

November

Popular: Liminality in Last Twilight

Favourite: [ditto; I had a hiatus this month so this was one of the few things I posted but I'm so glad I was able to get this out before real life took over]

December

Popular: Cigarette in the Cake from Last Twilight [by a landslide lol and thank you everyone for being as obsessed with this as I am]

Favourite: Beyond the Star rant [I wrote this entirely for me lol];  Why Phaya took the couch in The Sign [response]

[And I've added these two additional categories so that i can use this as my new pinned post lol]

2023 end of year round-up posts:

2023 Watch List

Top "5" (lol) characters I would help bury a body

Top 5 Couple fights

Top 5 Yearning scenes

Five other posts that I want to highlight because I can:

Why R U Korea mistranslation

Alternatives to Measure Your Life By

Grand Guignol review

Love in Translation review

Shadow the series squicks and scares

Ask game re: my BL start and fave shows [previous pinned post]

[brw]

[id; a banner of wanda maximoff from marvel comics surrounded by various avengers. they are all out of focus aside from wanda. she wears her classic costume & casts small wisps of magic with one hand, wearing a forlorn expression. in white font with a hard red shadow reads "comic scarlet witch week" with decorative white spirals. underneath in smaller, plainer text reads "aug 1st - aug 7th". artist is peter v nguyen. end id.]

Hello! I'm happy to announce I'm running #comicscarletwitchweek again, like last year from August 1st to August 7th. Unlike last year, the themes for every day are more loose, with very simple words for people to put any meaning they wish to. I will leave suggestions for what each day could represent, but these are only suggestions for anyone who might need a little inspiration or guide.

As always, this week is centered on Wanda's comic book appearances. MCU & MCU adjacent content is not what we're looking for & won't be reblogged. There is no expectation to participate in every day, this is merely a week to share your love for Wanda's comic book appearances!

Please tag your posts with #comicscarletwitchweek or #comicscarletwitchweek2023. You can also use my personal tracking tag #userbrieuc. If anything is missed, you can submit it or send an ask or a DM to let me know!

Like last year, all types of content are accepted, and you can make as many submissions as you like! What we don't accept is content depicting the MCU version of Wanda, & any content that is incestuous or pedophilic in nature. Content includes;

Fanfiction

Fanart

Graphics (edits, icons, headers etc)

Gifs

Playlists

Meta posts / headcanons

Cosplay

Fancams / AMVs

Anything else you can think of, this list is non conclusive!

Themes for each day under the cut.

Day 1, 1st of August, Tuesday - Solo

definition; done by one person alone; unaccompanied. You can take solo to refer to one of her solo comics, wherever that be her 4 issue limited from 1994, James Robinson's 2015 series, or Steve Orlando's upcoming series. You could also take it to refer to Wanda by herself, to reflect on who she is divorced from her other connections. Maybe you want to write about her delivering a sick guitar solo in a band au!

Day 2, 2nd of August, Wednesday - Identity

definition; the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. Wanda has many idenities accumilated over the year; sister, wife, mother, teacher, and many more. This day offers an opportunity to explore one or more of her identities in whatever way you want to or to focus on one particular aspect of her. Wherever you want to focus on Wanda's identity with motherhood, the way her identity with herself has changed & evolved over the years, or a headcanon for her being queer, all are welcomed & accepted!

Day 3, 3rd of August, Thursday - Fairytale

definition; a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. This could entail Wanda reading a bedtime story to her children, Wanda reimagined in a fairy-tale based alternate universe, expanding on the Wanda's depicted in the Marvel: Fairy Tales series, Wanda dealing with some fictional creature from folklore or something else.

Day 4, 4th of August, Friday - Teamwork

definition; the collaborative effort of a group to achieve a common goal or to complete a task. This could be interpreted as making something for Wanda & your preferred team with her, or Wanda teaming up with another character, etc.

Day 5, 5th of August, Saturday - Family

definition; a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or adoption. Wanda has grown an expansive family over the years, thanks in part to many retcons. Here, you can focus on her relationship with her brother, or the family she finds in the Avengers, or the family she & Vision build in Vision & the Scarlet Witch, or her various revolving door of parents.

Day 6, 6th of August, Sunday - Power

definition; ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something. This could apply to Wanda's physical powers & how those have changed over the years, her status as a Nexus Being, or the ways in which characters like Chthon have attempted to rob Wanda of her power & how she's grown for that, or an idea for an interesting application of her powers.

Day 7, 7th of August, Monday - Free Day

Do anything you want! Expand on a day, do something AU based, do a roleswap, just use it to do something general / nonthemed, anything goes!

Please remember these are only suggestions, & do not have to be followed at all! You can make these themes as limiting or as broad as you want.

[luckydragon10]

KinnPorsche Ep13 Lines of Power

Penultimate episode! I'm here to break down lines of power, staging, and framing for the second-to-last time for the season. (OMG, are we there yet? Are we there yet?)

First, check out this post by @heathyr about Porsche's reflection for a cool shot. Heathyr nailed is, so no need for me to cover it. Whee, one more space for another shot.

More LoP posts: [Trailer] ... [Ep09 Part 1] [Ep09 Part 2] [Ep10] [Ep11] [Ep12] [Ep14]

I have a quibble with this one.

All of my three favorite elements are at play:

Line of power: The fountain comes between Kinn and Porsche, showing division between them.

Framing: The outer doorway frames the shot and once again looks like a theatre's proscenium, much like in my Ep9 Part 1 LoP post with that scene of Porsche standing over Tawan in the chair.

Staging: ... this is where I have a quibble.

Kinn and Porsche are staged oddly, just a little too far apart. That's a weirdly wide distance at which to talk about intimate, private matters. And, sure, sure, you might argue that the staging is deliberate to show Porsche trying to keep a distance, but for me? It simply reads as a mistake; I feel as though a more natural staging was sacrificed in order to enable the line of power and the framing.

I would have looked for an alternative setup. Natural staging should be a higher priority.

HOWEVER, quibble aside, please keep in mind the frame in the foreground that acts like a theatre proscenium. This effect happens repeatedly in this episode.

The table runner is a line of power pointing to Korn. This is an easy one. (I hope you'll cut me some slack. I am drowning in meta for the Meta Doc right now.)

By the way, does Korn just have his bodyguards haul that big-ass heavy wooden table out to his patio on the regular? I sure hope the guards are well taken care of if they throw out their backs...

Porsche has a super-dark background, unusual for him, plus he has those two doors framing him. The doors feel like pressure coming at him from both sides.

Not only that, but the frame is tilted, askew just a little and tilting to the left. (You can see this most clearly by looking at the right doorframe.)

Meanwhile, Kinn is all greenery and natural light, and the line of the patio ledge behind him is completely level. Um, Kinn? Kinn? Alarm bells, please, have some alarm bells going off. The Porsche is NOT okay.

In short, great contrast between these two.

Tableau again!! It didn't hold for long, hardly counts, but I feel like this moment is right up there with my other top two tableau moments in Ep 5 and Ep 11. However, Papa Ironfist with his superhero pose will never NOT make me giggle.

AND there's that theatrical proscenium again! Look, look, the frame in the foreground again makes it look like we're watching a stage production.

Okay, if you've been following the LoP series all along, you know I've been looking for a reversal of the whole "Kinn on his throne" thing. I think... I'm probably not going to get it. 😭 However, I do really like this little moment where Porsche joins Kinn on his throne. King and Queen, together at last. (Sadly, later we see Porsche standing next to the same throne as a bodyguard, so we really aren't all the way there yet... but still. Please indulge me.)

Ahh, but all is not well. We are not in paradise. Their body language is telling its own story. Their legs are crossed in opposite directions, a hint toward them being closed off from each other.

And I will let the color theorists tackle the blue tinted sky. Something something Porsche's emotional arc for the ep something something...

Woaaahhh, super dramatic split screen.

Okay, lots of things going on. First, notice the black and white backgrounds. Second, the lighting casts Vegas with significantly more light that shows is face in red, whereas Pete is all in shadow with only a few neon highlights.

*Galadriel voice* He has fallen into shadow...

Bonus points for making Bible seem taller just with the staging. 🤣 I jest, but actually his higher positioning is pretty important, showing that he's the one with all the power here.

I'm not sure I can do this shot justice. I'm not sure anyone can do this shot justice.

The blinds act like a cage, speaking to both of their extremely difficult situations at once...

The split coloration shows Porsche in orange/red and Pete in teal/green... With green being generally accepted as a code for danger in this series, I think what I would interpret is that Pete's emotional state is its own danger.

The thick, black dividing line comes between them, but Porsche reaches across to try to help Pete...

This is a masterpiece. I will happily stare at it for ages and ages.

Ahh, a familiar shot from the opening credits.

Kim is looking small, alone, and lost in darkness. He doesn't know how not to be alone, but he wants it and is scared shitless. All the things that ARE wrong and COULD go wrong with his relationship are in direct conflict with what would make him happy...

Basically Kim.exe has stopped working. Boy is going through a malfunction caused by one (1) Porchay Kittisawat. I don't think he's ever looked quite this helpless.

It's interesting to me that this moment was shown only in the flashback. Everything is blurred except for Kinn and Porsche's clasped hands. Also, their bodies and the gravestone act as a frame. The promise to hold onto each other is significant. (Hear that, Porsche? Are you listening?)

This shot is used to highlight Kinn's empty hand after Porsche scurries off to Find The Truth.

Wow, I'd say "everything hurts and nothing is beautiful," but the cinematography continues to be beautiful. So, everything hurts and everything is beautiful. 😭

One more theatrical proscenium for this post!

I feel like the framing is appropriate given that we have a lot of drama going on, so much that I'd even say melodrama. I'm only sad Korn and Porsche didn't get their own theatrical frame in the final moments of the ep.

Basically, I feel like the show is telling us that the stage is set for the final confrontation. Dun dun DUN! I mean, I'm sure I'm stating the obvious, but there you have it.

///

More LoP posts: [Trailer] ... [Ep09 Part 1] [Ep09 Part 2] [Ep10] [Ep11] [Ep12] [Ep14]

For more great meta from folks across the KP Tumblr fandom, please visit the Damn Good KinnPorsche Meta doc.

[epicfranb]

Guide to Franny's awesome AU's

So, i have a lot of AU's, and now that I've posted a bit about (almost) every one of them, I decided to make an introduction post for every of the major AU's I'm working on.

1. Crossdressing Cafe AU: where Etho and Bdubs are maids and Pearl and Cleo are butlers. This exists barely for a story and more for the fun outfits. There is a little bit of a worldbuilding, but I never posted it.

2. A Shadow is an Absence of Light - aka Shadow Ethubs AU - where Etho is a shadow that haunts Bdubs. This one is purely story that i have posted some snippets of, but not all of them. Snippets is all it really is and all it really will be, as I have no intention of making it into a full-fledged written story.

3. Necromancy AU - that i started posting about recently, where Cleo is a necromancer and Bdubs is her apprentice, in a world where spirits exist and evil ones haunt people and good ones are worshipped. Some other characters there, clethubs storyline included. I don't know if it's going to be a fully written story, but so far I'm happy with just having an outline for things that happen. It's a fun exercise for worldbuilding.

4. When you're offline - real life setting ethubs au where ethubs were friends in school, but got separated when Etho completely cut all contact with Bdubs. Slow burn and angst as they are now forced by their friends Tango and Skizz to reunite and get to know each other all over again, rebuilding their broken trust. Slowly writing a fic (to the best if my abilities). I'm about halfway into the first act, and it's going to have 3. I doubt I'm gonna bring it to the point when I consider it complete, but, like with all the previous ones, I'm happy with it as it is. I have not posted anything about it, only showed it to a few trusted friends :] Maybe sometime later I'll post it. For now, I offer you this playlist, featuring the song that was the main inspiration for the AU, it's the first one with the same name. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnZZSabxPkx6Bd1FI7V9s0rB3iwLI7BFk&si=i8a9Nrb7oDR6myqT

5. nth life_ - life series concept, specifically commenting on the way the fans perceive it, characters being separate from the people, creating a narrative, specifically a meta-narrative that still includes the actors as a major element in the story alongside the characters that exist inside of it... Idk, I'm bad at explaining it. In the end, i guess it could be described as a love letter to the fandom. Honestly kind of forgot about it 😭 it's sort of on the back burner, idk what to do with it and just think about it from time to time. Probably like it more as a concept than something I'd actually do.

[skysometric]

top 5 sonic games go

warning: i am inviting you to poke a hornet's nest and i am the hornet

oh i am very aware of your Unique sonic opinions...

by contrast my opinions are gonna be more on the basic side! i'm a simple gal, i like going fast and letting the wind take me down routes i've never seen before. getting to explore big, open levels is one of the series biggest strong suits!

this is a hard list to narrow down, partly because the sonic series is so diverse and there's so much to love... but mostly because i haven't gotten to play a whole lot of sonic recently? i'm slowly trying to change that, like i just finished sonic battle last week and sonic origins the other day. to keep it easy, we're gonna stick to the main series only – i'd probably explode if i had to rank the spinoffs...

all told, that means my two biggest ranking factors here are Level Design and Nostalgia, so i doubt this list is particularly set in stone. as i replay more of the games, my top 5 will probably change – but for now, here's my best attempt at:

My Top 5 Sonic Games

5. Sonic Advance 2

the Rush games are stylish, fluid, and set the blueprint for modern sonic as we know it – but the granddaddy of them all was Sonic Advance 2, and i can confidently say that i've sunk more time into this one than any of its successors.

honestly, advance 2 is one of my most replayed games of all time! it's so easy to jump in from the beginning and let the game carry you through to the end in one sitting. i always think of the other sonic games as more of a commitment, something i have to plan around playing... not so with this one, i can blast through it in an hour or two and love it the whole way through.

i'd say this game's biggest strength is its level themes – this is peak modern sonic aesthetic, with some really unique level tropes and some of the most gorgeous pixel art on the gba. i know the gba's sound chip isn't for everyone, but i think advance 2 makes great use of it!

i know this game has a LOT of flaws – the chaos emeralds are a pain in the ass to acquire, and so many of the game's best features are locked behind getting the emeralds with every single character??? but i'm not thinking about the meta-game when i choose to blast through the levels in one sitting, and i've played it so much that i know where all the bottomless pits are and how to avoid them.

all told, sonic advance 2 is my most comfy sonic, so it deserves a spot on the list.

4. Sonic Adventure 2

if you read the story behind my least favorite game, then you probably saw this coming – adventure 2 is the game i played most with friends, long ago when i had my dreamcast. of course i still have a soft spot for it!

what i didn't mention in that post is how much mileage i got out of the chao garden, but that's because i put in most of those hours on the gamecube. i was obsessed with boosting my chao's stats with the little critters i found on my adventures 💙 so one of my favorite comfy ways to spend a saturday morning was to go collect animals for my chao...

...in the hunting stages. i actually love the hunting stages! and i really like the mech stages too! this isn't just nostalgia for sonic and shadow – i genuinely love playing the whole game, through and through.

thinking about it now, i sunk SO MANY HOURS into this game... that i got a little tired of it and stopped playing it for years. even when i picked it up on pc as an adult, i had no desire to actually replay it – why would i, when i have the whole game memorized? but maybe it's time to revisit this for a casual playthrough sometime soon...

3. Sonic Generations

i will freely admit that this one's cheating: half of the reason i love this game is because of the Unleashed Project mod. i haven't yet played unleashed, but one thing this mod taught me is that the level design is immaculate – infinitely replayable, highly rewarding to get good at, and a feeling of speed unlike any other sonic game.

but it's also kinda hard for most casual players! this is where the original generations comes in: it has less punishing low routes, and as a result, it was my gateway to modern sonic in 3d.

my pipeline was simple: i loved the hell out of my first playthrough of generations, so i replayed it enough to learn the stages and routes. by the time unleashed project released, i was good enough at modern sonic to not fail endlessly – so i loved my first playthough of unleashed project, and replayed that a ton to learn the (more advanced) stages and routes. a perfect pairing!

...but don't sleep on classic sonic either! i genuinely enjoy the classic sonic stages in generations, and i think it's a crying shame that people love to hate on them these days. it makes me think less "classic sonic" and more "sonic advance 4" in a way that makes my nostalgia happy 💙

1. Sonic Mania

no, that's not a typo, and i didn't skip one: my top 2 sonic games are tied for first place. i can't choose which one i love better!

what is there to say about mania that hasn't already been said? it's classic sonic perfected for the modern era, with gorgeous pixel art and the best level designs in the series. if you've never played a sonic game, start here and you'll fall in love.

sonic fans sometimes rag on the fact that mania leans so heavily on reused zones and nostalgia, with only a handful of new zones. that's a fair criticism, but let me flip that on its head:

i love that they revisited these old zones, not for nostalgia's sake... but because they could revisit some of the old games' biggest flaws, and smooth those over. then, in act 2, they expanded each one with new mechanics and flavors, remixing the nostalgia into a new experience that's more than the sum of its parts.

that is the impossible dream for a sonic game! that's never happened before! and it may never happen again. but at least they caught lightning in a bottle once, and it'll be with us forever, just like the memories of old.

1. Sonic 3 & Knuckles

shocker: sonic fan likes the popular game, more at 11

no, see, i grew up with sonic 2. and to be honest, i'm a little sad i didn't get to fit it on this list for nostalgic reasons. sonic 3k is everything i love about sonic 2, but bigger.

i just got through replaying this in sonic origins, and the game is just as magical now as it was when i was a kid. possibly moreso now that i know how to get past that damn barrel! let's be honest, the original games had some mean level design, and my recent playthrough wasn't 100% smooth... but nostalgia wins the day.

this game defined my childhood – even when it kicked my ass – because i had the power of a long lost art in video games: cheat codes. i got my mileage out of exploring this game simply by picking whichever zones i wanted to play in the level select and going ham! even the game's debug mode turned each zone into a playground where i could spend hours just experimenting and exploring.

then, one day, i got good enough at the game to beat it legit, with all the emeralds... fulfilling a journey that lasted so many formative years of my childhood. this is a special game to me for so many more reasons than i could list in one post, but i hope i summarized it well.

...oh, and even with all the debug mode as a kid, i still found new routes in this game last playthrough lmfao

[askseriousrainbow]

Alrighty, here are games 90 to 81 on my list! If you haven't read part one yet, the link's under this sentence now! Here we go!

Link to part 1. Link to part 3. Link to part 4. Link to part 5. Link to part 6. Link to part 7. Link to part 8. Link to part 9. Link to part 10.

90. Saints Row IV

I love the Saints Row series, and Saints Row IV is my favorite of the Steelport games, because of the ridiculousness of it all and meta aspects. I do love meta when it's done right. Also, the flight mechanics just flow perfectly. The gameplay is fantastic, as well.

89. Serious Sam 2

Damn, I love Serious Sam, obviously, and Sam's third adventure (though second game since The First Encounter and The Second Encounter are part of the same game, that's how I reference it) is wacky, insane, and just a blast. You don't have to care about the story, because the game doesn't care about the story, it's just silly. It's not my favorite favorite, but it's still good.

88. Prison Architect

Ah, the building genre, one of my favorites. Prison Architect takes the familiar formula and applies it to prison building. You really need to keep track of your inmates and guards, and make sure no one dies. The story mode isn't too bad either, it helps you learn the mechanics of the game.

87. Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

Shantae, Shantae, Shantae. I love me some Shantae, and Half-Genie Hero is great. This is the best game to start with if you've never played the franchise. It's not a true metroidvania, but that helps players acclimatize to the style of gameplay.

86. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Ah, Bloodlines. It's an underrated cult classic that's been fixed up by its unofficial patch, and it's a great RPG that has wonderful characters and multiple endings. The voice work is great too, getting some real talent like Grey DeLisle and John DiMaggio. Definitely get this if you're into RPGs.

85. Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards

Sierra adventure games are just good, for the most part, and the first Leisure Suit Larry is a fine, if short, game. The remakes aren't too bad either, so go with any version.

84. Theme Park

Ah, Peter Molyneux. One of those creators you have to wonder if they had any talent at all nowadays because of their lies. But in the Bullfrog days, he could actually pull his games off, and Theme Park proved that, especially with the code being written by Demis Hassabis. It's a hardcore management sim with a whimsical coat of paint, and one you shouldn't miss.

83. The Outer Worlds

One of Obsidian's better RPGs, The Outer Worlds takes the Fallout formula, transplants it into space instead of Post-Apocalypsia, and makes a great RPG. While it was partially Epic-delayed (I played it on Game Pass first.), it's still a fun adventure.

82. Blood

I live, again. One of the holy trilogy of Build Engine titles, Blood is as great as Duke or Shadow Warrior, and has its own personality, with Caleb being more “evil” than Duke or Lo Wang. It's basically a Villain Protagonist against an even eviler group, to use TV Tropes language.

81. Hotline Miami

“Do you like hurting other people?” It's a question asked a lot in Hotline Miami. Sure, you feel exhilarated while taking on each level, but you have to walk back through your carnage with a drone of dread. Add the mind-screw of the story and you have one unique game.

Part 3 will be up tomorrow! :D

Link to part 1. Link to part 3. Link to part 4. Link to part 5. Link to part 6. Link to part 7. Link to part 8. Link to part 9. Link to part 10.

[chasingfictions]

I posted 15,696 times in 2022

That's 3,009 more posts than 2021!

1,893 posts created (12%)

13,803 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@marinxttes

@spikedru

@chasingfictions

@bebidocrimes

@smellingwormholes

I tagged 10,266 of my posts in 2022

Only 35% of my posts had no tags

#btvs rewatch - 761 posts

#ask - 333 posts

#&lt;3 - 247 posts

#btvs meta - 247 posts

#yellowjackets - 147 posts

#btvs script - 105 posts

#hi - 102 posts

#prev - 94 posts

#so true - 88 posts

#yeah - 70 posts

Longest Tag: 82 characters

#🫡🫡🫡🫡🫣🫣🫣🫣🫣🥹🥹🥹🙃🙃🥺😳😳😤😤😤😤🤫🤔🤔🤔🫣🫣🫠🫠🫠🫠🤭🤭🤭😶🫥😬😬😬😬😬

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

will never stop being emo about how Buffy’s relationship, structurally, to her shadow selves and narrative foils shifts entirely after s2. the way that compared to Cordelia and Kendra she’s the freak and the wild one and the loose canon and then compared to Faith and Spike she’s the conservative and repressed and careful one and thinking about how her entire emotional landscape is forever altered by the angelus trauma and the loss of kendra, how she never gets to be that young and untroubled again :)))))))) and I feel FINE about it why do you ask :))))))) thinking abt how by mid series she’s so far away from being integrated with her own innocence that her innocence now lives in an externalized figure, dawn :)))))))) thinking about how there’s something about how buffy dying and returning in the s1 finale gives her this buoyancy, this power, this strength, this ultimate final girl narrative energy, and then her finding kendra’s dead body in the s2 finale is this narrative mirror to that. because that’s her, that’s a part of her, that’s not the only freak / not any more and how can you look at someone who is a part of you, dead on the ground in the same library where you gloated over the master’s bones, and not go a little bit hard inside, not curl up and retract and try to protect yourself because it’s not safe otherwise ….

631 notes - Posted January 14, 2022

#4

it’s never too late to achieve your dreams. spike btvs died a virgin at age 27 and went on to become one of the sluttiest vampires of all time <3 dream big <3

734 notes - Posted February 25, 2022

#3

i love her so much i love them so much i love them so much i love her so much

1,696 notes - Posted August 19, 2022

#2

when the girlies are really eating it up

13,181 notes - Posted April 1, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

ideal ship dynamic

61,875 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

…., vibes insane in here ……

[shannankle]

Shadow Meta Series Post #1: Clocks and Masculinity in Shadow

This is the first post in my Shadow meta series on technology, time, and horror. You can check out my introduction and plan for that in this post!

Let's start the first post off by looking at clocks, clocks, clocks and a dose of toxic masculinity!

When Dan first arrives at the school in the first episode, he enters the school with brother Anurak. The transition is marked by a shot of the school: a clock above writing that simply says “school building”

This immediately signals that Dan is entering a space where time and temporality will be thematically relevant.

The question is: what role is time playing here?

Is this simply a visual hint of how Dan and the audience will experience the slipping of time throughout the story? Or is it doing more?

My initial hypothesis was that clocks would be a visual marker for when we would either get a flashback or have Dan jumping around in time. However, while this pattern didn’t pan out entirely, there was a particular episode where this was absolutely the case. 

So let’s jump in! I’ll go over a few things I noticed and then do a reading of episode 4 in particular.

Places where we see clocks:

The face of the school building

It’s shown in episode 1 as a transition shot when Dan arrives

The lower half is shown as a transition shot after Dan’s first dream post losing his ring in episode 

Later in episode 7 we get a full close up just before we see the students watch Anan and his father. This is right before the scene in the art classroom. 

2. There’s a clock in Dan and Josh’s dorm

This would make sense as a symbol of atemporality since much of Dan’s dreaming takes place here. But it’s not always visually shown. It shows up more frequently when Josh is in the scene, and is on his side of the room divided by the line on the wall 

3. Anurak’s office

There are at least two clocks in his office.

4. Joe’s office/instructors' office (there’s more than one desk so I’m assuming the latter)

5. The headmaster’s office

It doesn’t show up in early episodes, but it does show up later (it can be seen when Dan and Anan are called in)

6. The infirmary

We don’t see it in every scene, but it is present when Nai and Dan first chat about homophobia and Nai’s past

7. Throughout episode 4

The hospital room where Dan’s father stays

Dan’s home in his flashbacks has multiple clocks 

Dan’s dad almost always wears a wrist watch

Other Notes:

I was expecting to find a clock in the art room where reality and dream slip for Dan. Like a few other moments, Dan’s and our sense of time is also being played with in the scene. But no clock! I’ll return to why I think this might be after going over episode 4

Nowhere did I see a digital clock. Every clock in the show (at least that I noticed) is analog! For context, digital wrist watches have been on the market since the 1970s and radio alarm clocks with mechanical-digital displays were available by the late 1960s.

Episode 4: Chess

While my theory that clocks would signal temporal shifts and flashbacks didn’t consistently pan out on the whole, it did do so in one particular episode. In episode 4, we have Dan navigating his relationship with his father. Every time we jump between present and past there is a clock to be found. 

Our flashback journey starts with Dan falling asleep in his dorm. We get a shot of the room in this scene that fully shows the clock on the wall. Instead of a dream, we move to a flashback of Dan’s father in the hospital. His hospital room is shown with a clock.

After this point, most of the flashbacks occur between scenes in the present that take place in or nearby this hospital room, even if the clock is not shown in every scene. 

Within the flashbacks, there is always at least one clock (with a particular exception I'll explore as well)

The first flashback shows us Dan’s parents fighting. Both his mom and dad have wrist watches on in this scene. While his mom never wears one after this, his dad continually wears his.  

In the next scene we can see Dan's dad has his watch when they visit his mom. He hesitates to comfort Dan raising his left hand but not actually placing it on Dan's shoulder.

Next we see Dan’s mom and Anurak talking in the hospital. There’s no clock…yet! Dan and his father enter, and Dan’s dad has his wrist watch on. Time and Dan’s dad enter together as an impending threat in this scene. 

With this in mind, I’d argue that clocks/watches, at least within this episode symbolize patriarchal violence and toxic masculinity. Or perhaps even the violence of heteronormative time (see my previous post about hamlet and queer time here). 

In the following flashbacks we see the build up to his mother’s suicide. In addition to the dad’s wrist watch, we also get a number of clocks showing up in these scenes. When Dan’s dad confronts his mom about her letter with Anurak, there is a wooden clock set behind the desk. As Dan and his mother eat breakfast we can see a clock next to the kitchen. And finally when Dan finds his mother, there is a clock set on the wall next to the stairwell. 

It’s as if the clocks are bearing down on her, a constant presence like the abuse she faces. In this way she is forced to escape time and patriarchal abuse through death, much like Dan begins to escape through his dreams and the shadow. 

In the next flashback we have his mother’s funeral. Once again Dan’s father has his watch on. However, Dan chooses to go outside, to leave this temporal space, and this is when he meets Anurak again. Their discussion is free of clocks/watches, much like the scene between Anurak and Dan’s mom before his father arrived. 

Given that Anurak is surrounded by multiple clocks in the present, it’s hard to get a sense of what this might be doing outside of episode 4. But within it, Anurak continues to be unmarked by time. Perhaps this signals his relationship with Dan at the time which was one of safety and refuge from his father’s violence. Or perhaps, if we read him as the one armed man (see @wen-kexing-apologist 's big brained post on this theory here) it's a mark of how he falls outside of the traditionally masculine through his queerness and disability. The left arm is where wrist watches are traditionally worn after all, and it is the left hand that Dan's father raises to hit his mother. If Anurak is the one armed man, he can’t signal masculinity in this way. Perhaps too, the fact that Anurak has clocks in the present suggests his changed relationship with Dan, from one of safety and escape to one of conformity and confinement. 

The connection between patriarchal abuse and clocks is brought home in the following scenes as Dan and father return home. The transition to them in the dining room directly focuses on the dad’s watch first. We don't see it, but we know from earlier scenes that the kitchen has a clock as well. All of this is framing Dan’s return to a space dominated by his father and his abuse. And this culminates in Dan’s father forcing him to eat food he’s allergic to.  

As the flashbacks wrap up, we get Dan in his bed having a shadow nightmare. It’s hard to tell 100% but it does look like there’s a clock on his night stand. When he sees the shadow he runs to the hallway calling for his dad. His dad doesn’t answer, and like his absence there are no clocks in these shots at all. And it is here that Anurak enters and offers Dan a sense of safety, a space of comfort outside of his father’s abuse and outside of time. 

At this point the flashbacks are over. In the present Dan slips into a dream where he’s able to talk with his father. They discuss abuse and Dan’s dad makes it clear how he views masculinity in a rigid and toxic way. Throughout most of their conversation, his dad’s left wrist is hidden. That is, until Dan flips the table. The watch’s presence becomes visible again at the moment Dan loses control of the space. This culminates in Dan beating his father, who, to Dan’s horror, suggests he grew up just like him. In this moment time symbolizes not just his father’s abuse, but the possibility and horror in the idea that such patriarchal violence will be internalized and passed on to the next generation. 

Concluding thoughts:

While clocks in episode 4 are used to visually mark shifts in time, they also come symbolize patriarchal violence and the oppressiveness Dan and his mother felt living with his father. We might consider then the role of other clocks in the show as perhaps an extension of this symbolism rather than a marker of moments where time will blur. The school itself is framed by a clock, and it is certainly a space where Dan, Nai, and Trin all experienced heteronormative violence. Even in spaces like the infirmary where Dan and Nai open up to one another in a way counter to this framework, the clock hovers over the space. 

With this in mind, I want to return to the art classroom. In episodes 1-7 this is probably one of the most striking moments where reality blurs for Dan. It’s also a moment where his sense of time is played with (notice how he jumps back to reality before even speaking with Nai, more on this scene here and here). Yet there’s no clock to be seen in the room. This is in contrast to two scenes earlier when we are given a full close up of the school clock. 

This might be a pre-emptive reading, but I would put forth the idea that Dan and the show are offering up a queerer avenue to time. Dan, Nai, and Trin all experience the supernatural in ways that transcend linear time. Through haunting and the blurring of a sense of time the show is working to explore the tension between queerness and heteronormative violence. The school clock looms, but Dan still enters a space in the art classroom and through his waking dream that can’t quite be contained. 

I talk a bit about this in my post on hamlet and queer time, but there's a lot more to be said from a Thai context. In her book Ghostly Desires, Arnika Fuhrmann discusses the way some contemporary Thai cinema has used haunting as a way to forge a space at the moment of death where desire, particularly queer desire, can operate. This lies in contrast to the time of the nation and the time of capital which flatten time in order to shore up ideas of national identity and sexual normativity. It’s all quite a bit more nuanced than I’ve put here. I plan to write a much longer post exploring this dynamic in Shadow through discussions of horror films and the context of changes in Thailand in the late 90s and aughts. Coming soon!

[darkqueenofshadows85]

I posted 341 times in 2022

That's 301 more posts than 2021!

102 posts created (30%)

239 posts reblogged (70%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sweetpeauserboxes

@inthetags

@adventures-of-team-dystopia

@hater-of-bad-sonic-stories

@kuroiyuki96-new

I tagged 295 of my posts in 2022

Only 13% of my posts had no tags

#sonic the hedgehog - 71 posts

#other people's art - 36 posts

#darkqueen's thoughts - 28 posts

#opinion post - 21 posts

#darkqueen says things - 19 posts

#the brave little toaster - 17 posts

#vent - 17 posts

#blog post - 16 posts

#shadow the hedgehog - 15 posts

#hive don't look - 15 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#losing both my best friend and my comfort au is the absolute worst trauma i've experienced yet and that's against some stiff competition...

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

So I just watched the new Sonic Drone Home short on YouTube, and, well, two thoughts popped into my head while I was watching it...

One of them was, "aww, this is so cute and wholesome", and the other one was "oh fuck, that reminds me... I still haven't finished writing my Sonic Movie 2 review yet..."

18 notes - Posted May 24, 2022

#4

Say hello to the newest additions to my Sonic plush collection! >w<

Tangle the Lemur

See the full post

19 notes - Posted April 19, 2022

#3

Now I'm genuinely curious as to where Shadow was during the events of Sonic Frontiers

Perhaps this year's Sonic Twitter Takeover event could elaborate further on that...? 👀

40 notes - Posted November 12, 2022

#2

What Ruined Shadow: The Downfall of an Amazing Character

Introduction

Greetings, mortals! Today, I will be analyzing Shadow's peak characterization in the Adventure/Dark Era and the steady decline in the Meta Era.

During this analysis, I will explain how Shadow went from being a likeable, well written and relatable character in the 2000's, to a truly detestable character in the 2010's.

I will focus mainly on Shadow's characterization in the games, since I haven't watched the animated Sonic shows in a long time (I will make it a point to rewatch them all eventually though), and my knowledge of the comics is limited at best, but from what I've read of the comics, Pre-Reboot Archie Shadow's characterization is really good, Reboot Archie Shadow is just as much of a piece of shit as the Boom/Pontaff version of the character is, and IDW Shadow, while he's not exactly as bad as he is in Reboot-Archie/Meta Era/Boom, I still hate how stupid he can be sometimes, and that really showed in the Zombot arc.

I haven't watched Sonic X in a long time, but from what I remember, Shadow's portrayal in the show was similar to that of his game counterpart. As for Boom Shadow... I'll explain my stance on him later.

Anyway, let us begin! ^^

Shadow's Four Game Arc

Shadow is the only character in the Sonic series I know of whose character arc happened over the course of four games, starting with SA2 and ending in 06.

In SA2, Shadow believes he is destined to exact revenge on humanity for killing his best friend, Maria, but then the memory of Maria's true wish (to protect humanity) made him realize the error of his ways, so he sacrifices himself to save humanity from the ARK falling towards Earth.

See the full post

113 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Here's some interesting things I found out about Sonic Prime's voice cast:

• Tails is voiced by Ashleigh Ball, who you may recognize as the voice of Rainbow Dash and Applejack from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

• Amy is voiced by Shannon Chan Kent, who made a brief cameo as the Roadhouse Waitress in the first Sonic movie

• Dr. Eggman is voiced by Brian Drummond, who voiced Knuckles in Sonic Underground back in 1999

• Shadow and Big share the same voice actor (Ian Hanlin)

225 notes - Posted October 27, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[woonietune]

Calling your attention to fandom contributions by my fandom wife thememoryofthatday. She's been regularly posting episode summaries of Warrior Baek Dong-soo every Sunday on Archive of Our Own. Not your ordinary summaries--they are full of wit and charm and historical links and behind the scenes info; they call out all plot holes like Swiss cheese in the script and poke fun at characters while maintaining a total adoration for (most of) them and the glory that is the Dong-soo/Woon ship (and others). Memory is a history nerd and will zero in on sageuk crazy errors, but she’s also caught some storyline inconsistencies I’d never noticed in all my years of fangirling and ficcing for this drama (Hong-do can teleport! Dong-soo rides a horse that flies through time and space!) The comment section is full of rambly, fun meta (and alternate Gwang-taek thirsting/bashing, relentless jokes about Chun’s alcoholism, the size of Dong-soo’s dong, and a decidedly WHY CAN’T THE GIRLS FIGHT MORE pissiness). 

Each ep summary includes 1) a 60 sec recap 2) a long-ass recap 3) beautiful screencaps and gifs 4) funny captions 5) tally of body count, awards for dumbest moment, most romantic moment, etc... 6) Clips from the official SBS YouTube channel. QUITE THE GIFT TO FANDOM. Since I kinda hate the show (really), I’m using this episode guide instead of the show as my major source material for fics in the future, so I don’t have to fast forward through so many scenes that are yuck, boring, or downright triggery for me (ohhhhhhh, wait until you see what Memory has planned for that trainwreck of ep 29 and... um... an all new interactive ep 30!)

Recently, Memory covered covered the famous jailhouse scene in EPISODE NINETEEN HERE. Go look.

Also, Memory is at work on a longfic that I’ve been telling everyone will be the best the fandom’s seen. Just you wait. It’s characterization of Woon is so razor-sharp, true to canon, wonderfully imaginative yet fair to the “what if” of a very believable canon divergence.

In the meantime, enjoy the latest in her Under the Sun series. From the viewpoint of Gak the royal guard, this is just a wonderful short piece that makes sense and saves Woon (YES, LET’S SAVE WOON--I Iove stories that save Woon) in a way that honors canon. I beta-ed this fic, but I still haven’t put my mind together as to what to say about it in the comment section because it’s just such a beautiful piece I have to measure my words. At the very least it’s tiny scene with Yi San has inspired my next fic (and yet again postponed another chapter to my WIP).

Sunrise

thememoryofthatday

Summary:

(Sequel to Second Favorite.)

Baek Dong-soo wasn’t the only one with Yeo Woon in the wheat field... nor is he the only person on Woon’s side. A companion piece to After Sunset with a much happier ending.

Notes:

For Tepid_T.

If Warrior Baek Dong-soo is new to you, you may want to start by reading my guide for fandom-blind readers.

Many months ago, I wrote a story that I still hate called After Sunset. It’s a short piece about the aftermath of Woon’s canon death, as told from Gak’s POV. Ever since I posted that story, I have been promising to rewrite it with a happier ending - which obviously means Woon has to live.

So this is the rewrite I’ve been promising for the better part of a year. I’m sorry it took so long.

This story falls into the Under the Sun series and overlaps with the events at the end of my first WBDS story, Shadows of What Would Have Been. If you haven’t read that story, this one should still make sense, but that longer story provides more details about why Woon survived, as well as some of the conversations that you don’t get to see here. Because this is an alternate version of After Sunset, some of the dialogue and events are the same as in that story. Self-plagiarism is fine, right?

Thank you to my lovely beta shalomdebbie for fixing all of my errors and convincing me not to delete most of the things I write.

Finally, this story is dedicated to Tepid_T, whose first experience of this fandom was that cursed canon-compliant story I mentioned above, and who loves Sang Gak so much that she wrote him a fabulous porn story that everyone needs to read: The Threat to Hanyang.

Tepid, you are a marvelous writer and an even more marvelous person. I’m so happy we met, and I can’t wait to see what you do next.

[pagerunner-j]

No one ever plays along if I post ask memes and that just gets depressing, so…fuck it, I’m pretending somebody cares and living in my own delusion for a few minutes.

CRITICAL ROLE ASK MEME ANSWERS THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR (except for me, and I’m in charge here)

1. Character you don’t particularly like, but will defend vehemently when people dislike them for the wrong reasons.

Orym. I have…issues…with Liam’s inability to let go of his dead character’s girlfriend, because not even counting Vax, we’re on character #3 who has something to do with or a deep interest in Keyleth. Wee little bit suspect, my dude. But if you ignore the matter of backstory, Orym’s just a little guy who likes pie, loves his friends, and is trying his best to do the right thing, and he’s an absolute kick-ass fighter. I’m enjoying him in combat more than anyone else on the field right now. Most importantly for this question, he is not boring just because he’s good or because he isn’t wearing all of his trauma (okay, a little bit of his trauma, but not ALL) on his sleeve. I really gotta wonder sometimes about all y’all folks who can’t get invested in anybody who actually has their head screwed on straight.

…welp, apparently I’m in a mood. Okay then. Onward:

2. Favorite unhinged shopkeeper.

There are so many candidates. It’s still hard to beat Victor, though, and Matt embodying him on screen that one Halloween only solidified it. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES!!

3. Minor character people in the fandom are obsessed with that makes you go “them? why?”

Kynan. Let’s review: hero-worshipping nerd boy with stars in his eyes but no sense gets his ego bruised by being (sensibly) rejected for the adventuring life, and takes it so poorly that he runs off, attaches himself to an ascendant supervillain instead, and is there at her side when she murders one of our heroes. Then half the fandom (and, to my dismay, Matt even made comment about liking the idea) decides that he deserves not only a redemption arc (okay), but also to be handed Cassandra as a romantic partner and, I don't know, fucking consolation prize (NOT OKAY). Again, let's review: she's the traumatized sister of the guy he helped murder, who was abused and tortured in large part by the lady he decided to work for.

ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME.

(remainder of this rant redacted because my first outburst was not kind.)

4. Minor character you are (correctly) obsessed with.

I thought about this for a while, drew a weird blank, and then my brain provided me with the Shadow Baker just because the name is so fucking funny. I would go to the Shadow Baker any chance I got. I want delicious shadow pastries. Shadow breads. Shadow cookies. Fruity, chocolatey, shadowy tarts. Shadow everything. Dusted with powdered shadow sugar. 

And now that I said all that, I hope there’s also a Shadow Dentist.

5. Meta you would write if you did not fear people would be SUPER weird about it. This is also an invitation to write that meta and block the haters.

I…think I might’ve already done that. *looks upward a couple paragraphs*

6. NPC you would most like to see as the subject of a Tales of Exandria series.

I’d say Cassandra, except what I actually want is novels, and I want to write them. 

7. Alternate outcome in a main campaign that you don’t necessarily wish happened, but that you wish you could see played out in an alternate universe before returning to ours.

The Sunken Tomb going differently,* i.e. with Percy ending up with the Raven Queen’s armor. I also would have color-shifted it. Somewhere in my head there’s an image I can’t shake of the gun-wielding White Raven, blood artistically spattered across his otherwise pristine feathers, because that dude still and always deserves to be as anime as goddamn possible.

*P.S. Since I keep tripping into rant mode anyway, here’s another: I hate dungeon design so damn much, and I have infinite sympathy for anyone who doesn’t think to check for traps on every possible object. A: No real thing is ever actually built like this. It’s just in games because GAME LOGIC. B: I’ve done enough time as a rogue to be bored to tears and dissuaded from ever playing the class again because I'm so sick of having nothing to do but check for traps every five steps. I have a hard time blaming Percy and/or Taliesin for any of what went down. Also, anyone who tries to add that Vex was being greedy is going to get an intimate introduction to my fist.

8. You may personally require that Liam O'Brien plays a non-core four (ie, not a Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, or Fighter) character for at least 10 episodes - he cannot in any way be one of those classes, even as a multiclass. If you like Orym, assume this has no impact on him. What class or multiclass do you have him play?

I want him to take a page from Imogen's book and go wild magic sorcerer. I want it to be as chaotic as possible and to fuck with him seven ways from Sunday. I want uncontrollable Polymorph. I want him to be beset with sudden hordes of flumphs. I want him to hit himself with a fireball like Caleb gone wrong(er). I want him to become a potted plant. I want Liam the prankster to prank the hell out of himself simply by existing.

9. Location in Exandria you’d like to see in a possibly canonical one-shot/EXU but with non-main campaign characters (as in Song of the Lorelei/The Darrington Brigade)

Mostly I’d be interested in places we haven’t been before. There’s a lot of Issylra that we still know nothing about…

10. Favorite and least favorite Matt Mercer Original Subclass. (edit mine because like I said, I'm in charge here. And also I read it wrong the first time. Oops.)

Blood Hunter kind of occupies both slots. For reasons.

11. A common stance within the fandom you would most like to eliminate on the specific grounds of hypocrisy/self-contradiction.

Skipping this one because stuff like this melts my brain. Except maybe for my rant above, I guess.

12. Best ship of the literal seafaring vessel or skyship variety.

The Joyful Damnation. …wait, wrong D&D show. (but please watch Oxventure it’s great okay moving on)

I think I’m cheating and just saying every skyship BECAUSE SKYSHIPS. Insert picture here of Scanlan and Percy romantically pining over the idea of having a skyship of their very own.

(I mean romantic in a general, conceptual sense. Not in a shippy way. Except that it’s actually about ships. Scanlan/Percy/Skyship platonic OT3.)

13. Favorite D&D PC (guests & EXU included but must be a PC) of ? 

Brain still melted, sorry. THIS IS A LOT OF CLASSES TO COVER OKAY and so let’s just go to:

14. Describe the art you would most like to create or commission if talent/money were no object.

See above re: the White Raven. Also, someday I am going to put my meager artistic talents to the test and attempt to draw a single tarot card: Caduceus as the King of Cups. My friends, there is life beyond the Major Arcana. Please try to remember that the entire fucking rest of the deck exists and it’s symbolically interesting too so crack open an analysis book sometime and learn something please and thank you and I’m stopping there before I go any further into a run-on tarot rant that, again, nobody asked for.

I’m not sure what happened to my commas tonight. Sorry. It’s been a day.

15. Favorite one-on-one conversation (can be between two PCs, or a PC and NPC).

I can’t even begin to narrow this one down. Percy and Vex in the Feywild. Caduceus reading Trent for absolute filth (respectfully). Imogen and Laudna just…always. Jester and Beau talking tarot. Tary and Pike and the flashcard scene. (Oh, god, the flashcard scene.) Grog and Craven Edge. Fjord awkwardly but sincerely wooing Jester. Percy and Vax in the bathtub, mostly for what happens after (sorry, Liam). Keyleth and Percy talking legacy. Jester and the Hag and Laura Bailey winning D&D. Jester sending messages to…anybody. I’m forgetting, like, thirty-seven things. You can probably tell who most of my favorite characters are, though… *awkward cough*

16. Favorite group (all/most of the party) conversation.

Two-parter: the blazing row when Scanlan left, and later in that episode when the rest of the group met Tary. Absolute whirlwind of emotion and a masterclass in character from all concerned. Plus well-deserved Nerf-dart chaos and Laura ineffectually hurling wads of Kleenex. Can’t top it.

17. You know that post that’s like “I wish you could filter in ao3 on ‘attitude towards a canon event’?” In the world of imagination, you can! What’s the event or attitude?

Mostly I avoid this problem by avoiding whole damn characters, I’m not gonna lie.

18. Share one unpopular opinion but it must specifically only pertain to Sam’s ads.

They didn’t deserve to get crucified for the Wendy’s one-shot. (It was a sponsor, he DMed, it counts.) It’s not actually much worse than any other sponsored event or ad partner, and just because people decided to get all high and mighty about worker rights for this one company doesn’t mean that there isn’t just as much bullshit of a different flavor happening at other companies that they’ve happily partnered with and which none of you objected to at the same scale, or, for that matter, at all.

*side-eyes the fuck out of, oh, I dunno, let’s start with Blizzard*

19. You can swap one subclass (not class) for any one main campaign main cast PC. Which character, and what’s their new subclass?

*blanks out completely while staring in the vague direction of the PHB* I’m…claiming amnesty on this one. Sorry. T i r e d .

20. What non-D&D TTRPG would you most like to see Critical Role run a one shot in?

Blades in the Dark. Please, please, Blades in the Dark. We got close when Aabria started seeding in bits of it for EXU. I want more. It’s such a good system.

21. You can eliminate one ship that did not become a canon, reciprocated relationship from the fandom’s consciousness. It is entirely gone - no fics, no posts, no doctored out of context gifsets inexplicably claiming that Travis ships it, no anon hate, no drama. Your blocked tags list becomes several entries shorter. A weight is lifted from your shoulders, and you take the deepest breath you’ve taken in a long time. Anyway, now that you’re feeling relaxed and inspired, what do you think Bertrand Bell’s fighter subclass was?

Caleb/Mo……oh. Um. Bertrand. Right. I wish I knew, but as I have already proven, D&D minutiae makes my head hurt and I am tired and sad today and very smol so let’s go on with —

22. Assume that every single non-multiclassed wizard PC OR significant wizard NPC (includes EXU Calamity) are in a battle royale, and all are level 16. Who would you bet on as the winner?

Rincewind because he’d run away to safety before anyone could hit him.

…I don’t care if he’s not a CR character, I said what I said.

23. You can guarantee that Vax lives at the end of Campaign 1. However, you must trade his permadeath for the permadeath of a different PC who was dead for more than a minute. Your options are Percy dying permanently in 1x68; Scanlan dying permanently in 1x83; or Laudna dying permanently in 3x34. Do you choose to do so, why, and whose death do you trade?

Vax stays dead. Listen: Vax had a STORY. He had stakes, he had joy, he had sorrow, he got conflict and resolution and dramatic payoff to some of his deepest personal storylines, he got a bittersweet romance, he got his heroic sacrifice, he got the gentlest possible ending anyone could possibly have asked for under the circumstances, and all of it makes for an arc that has completed and is done. Everyone else would just have been interrupted before their story got where it needed to go (like, even though you didn’t mention him, Molly). Scanlan dying there would have served no narrative purpose at all and would have paid off nothing, and it would have deprived us of SO much good stuff in the fallout. Percy actually did get to a point where if he’d stayed dead, I would have been sad as hell but would have understood it, because the way that story built up, it made sense and it wasn’t cheap. It’s still much better that he came back and got to complete the character development journey he was on (somewhat despite himself), though. And Laudna just absolutely does not fucking deserve dying, not now and not for a long time yet. She’s just barely getting the chance to live for herself at all. Let her stay.

And for the love of fuck, let Vax go.

24. You can guarantee that one Evergreen Question you write is pulled on 4-Sided Dive AND that the four cast members you most want to answer it are on that month. What’s the question, and which cast members answer it?

What’s your favorite type of evergreen tree and why is it the Douglas fir?

….actually, that’s just me answering the question. Because #CascadiaNow.

(We have a flag.)

(The tree is on it.)

(*waves flag*)

25. What class do you most want to see Matt play if he is in a future EXU campaign as a new (not Dariax) PC?

I want to see Matt play a class invented by somebody else at the table. I’m thinking Sam and Liam should collaborate on this. (Liam because he can probably crunch the mechanics best of anybody, Sam to bring the chaos.)

26. You must swap one nat 1 die roll with one nat 20 die roll. They must both be from the main campaigns, but can be cross-campaign. Which are they, and why?

I’m having a hard time thinking of any I’d want to change. Sometimes the failures are too interesting to mess with. (Grog falling over dead in the snow, I’m looking at you.)

27. Pick one character, ship, or party; and one song you associate most with them, and explain why. This song cannot be on an existing playlist from the main cast. It also cannot be We Have it All by the Pim Stones nor Dust Bowl Dance by Mumford & Sons; I love those AMVs but please think for yourself.

- the whole party

- any party

- “We Like to Party”

(I am bad at character playlists, okay? ONTO THE VENGABUS WE GO)

28. Think back to all weird or bad opinions (pertaining to Critical Role) you’ve seen but which were not elaborated upon. You get to make one, and only one, person have to provide an honest response about what the fuck they were thinking. Which opinion do you receive the honest explanation for?

I have done my best to strategically delete these from my memory and am not going to attempt file recovery.

29. You can give any PC a Staff of Birdcalls. Who do you give it to?

Jester. This isn’t even a question. Just give her one now, please.

30. What is your favorite theory or headcanon that has absolutely no bearing on the plot and isn’t important at all, but which is completely compliant with canon?

The entire notion of getting that invested in headcanon mostly just wears me out, and I’m saying this as a fic writer, which I acknowledge makes very little sense. Yet here we are.

31. A really weird fey entity grants you the following boon: you can magically make it so that whenever people try to draw Imogen with glasses, the glasses magically disappear. All you need to do is hit the DC. The DC begins at 15, it is a simple d20 die roll with no modifiers/additions, and you can reduce it by one for every month you live with canon, pre-episode 2x26 Mollymauk Tealeaf. You do have your own room, but the walls are thin. After 15 months you automatically succeed and Molly disappears as though he had never existed. How many months do you live with Molly?

I’m in it for the long haul. I will learn to make my peace with chaos. I will make friends. I will maybe even join in the party. I will enjoy getting more of Molly’s presence and I will do my best not to go crazy in same.

Because fuck those glasses.

(I love glasses; I wear them myself; I give them to characters at the slightest provocation; but canonically she doesn’t wear them, so please just stop.)

32. If the CR main cast were to play the original 7 tombtakers per The Nine Eyes of Lucien (Brevyn, Cree, Jurrell, Lucien, Otis, Tyffial, and Zoren) in a one shot, who should play whom? Assume Matt DMs, but you do not need to have Taliesin play Lucien.

Hate to admit it, but I’m not invested enough in any of those characters to care.

33. You may ask any member of the cast one, and only one lore clarification question. What do you ask?

Mostly I don’t want to nitpick or pry, and honestly, most LORE(tm) as nerddom treats it both irritates and frustrates me. I don’t want to reduce all of narrative to filling out subheadings on a wiki page and then insisting that anything that doesn’t match up bREaKs CaNoN and is BaD. What I want is folklore, not Lore(tm), and there’s a very real difference.

On that note, I want Taliesin to tell me absolutely everything about Melanie de Rolo, and every other specter haunting that place from before his character’s time. Ghost stories for days. Bring it.

34. You meet an old woman in the grocery store and help her with her bags. In return, she tells you she can guarantee that Campaign 3 will be fantastic, and that there will be a Campaign 4 set in Issylra that is also fantastic. However, she warns you, the price is that Marisha and Laura’s characters will never be in a romance together, nor will Taliesin and Liam’s, though there will be significant queer romances aplenty, both F/F and M/M, in said campaigns. Do you take her up on her offer?

In a heartbeat.

ROMANTIC SHIPS ARE NOT THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

and pleading for personal vaidation via smushing your faves together because it HAS to be CANON or else it is a BETRAYAL and PROBABLY HOMOPHOBIC because YOU ARE BAD IF YOU DON’T GIVE ME WHAT I WANT is unhinged

neither of these pairs have to fuck ever

we’ll live

…sorry I think I started yelling somewhere in there

I’ll stop

35. You can set the time and place of the next EXU series, but it cannot be within 100 years of the Calamity nor Divergence. When and where do you set it?

Naples, 1973

36. Every cast member must create a main campaign character loosely based off a character they played in a one-shot not set in Exandria, a la Chetney from Chutney (as a result, Travis is excused from this exercise). Who should they choose? (Please note that Bar Room Blitz is set in Exandria. You cannot pick Jayne and you’re boring for thinking it.)

MANCUBUS!!!

Because MANCUBUS!!!

37. You have to take a 16 hour road trip with one NPC from each campaign (all at once, ie, three other people). The NPCs cannot shorten the road trip in any way and the road trip must be via driving but you can do it in two 8 hour days and share a motel room if you’d like. Who do you pick?

Tyriok; he’s the map guy and will get us where we’re going. Eshteross to bring delicious cookies. And Iva Deshin to read us passages from her favorite smut books from Chastity’s Nook and keep us all entertained (and Tyriok absolutely scandalized, the poor dear).

38. Assuming that your rent and basic living expenses are paid regardless, nothing cataclysmic happens while you’re there, and your race and class are perceived as completely average and nothing to comment on, which city in Exandria would you most like to live in for a year? You must spend the vast majority of your time there.

Whitestone. I want to get in on their technological boom. The intersection of magic and the mundane, and how those things inspire, leapfrog, and challenge each other, is my absolute jam.

39. Favorite parental figure NPC?

Veth had the best arc here by a mile. It’s hard not to like Marion, though.

39. What named but as of yet unseen character do you most want to see onscreen?

Imogen’s mom.

I want this story, like, yesterday.

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Sunday, September 18

Master: Yes. Come forth, my child. Come into my world. Buffy: I don't think it's yours just yet. Master: You're dead! Buffy: I may be dead, but I'm still pretty. Which is more than I can say for you. Master: You were destined to die! It was written! Buffy: What can I say? I flunked the written.

~~Prophecy Girl~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Deviless (Buffy/Faith, M) by Anonymous

Softer Stones (Buffy, Jenny, G) by The_Eclectic_Bookworm

A Mother Reincarnated (Crossover with Charmed, T) by BrennaLynn

Bouquet (Buffy/Spike, T) by sweetprincipale

[Chaptered Fiction]

Giles Gets a Message, Part 7 (not rated) by ILLYRIAN

Keeping Up With the Scoobies, Chapter 15 (Buffy/Spike, T) by Takara Phoenix

Ballad of the Swan, Chapter 4 (Buffy, Giles, T) by PsycoCypher

Extra Ordinary, Chapters 11-12 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Twinkles

Damage Case, Chapter 21 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Axell

The Slayer and the Vampire, Chapter 78 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by violettathepiratequeen

Sisters, the adventures of Sam and Buffy - Year 2, Chapter 5 (Multiple crossings, FR13) by fpb

Story seeds, Chapter 223 (Multiple crossings, FR7) by Dmitri

Daisy in the Dark, Chapter 6 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by Dusty

The Worst Day Since Yesterday, Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Dynamite

[Images, Audio & Video]

Wallpaper: Tara maclay wallpaper by emmatheslayer

Comic: [COMIC] D-Straction Day: All Night Long- Chapter 1 (Buffy/Spike, NSFW) by HappyWhenItRains

Sims: Buffy the Vampire Slayer : The Sims 4, Spike & Buffy including living room from Buffy's home. by Spritebubblegum

Moodboard: Buffy Summers by monstergagaholic

Artwork: faith post-chosen by malvymary

Artwork:An experiment with Spike and shadow by k1lljoys-make-some-noise

Gifset: [Is there anyone here who hasn't slept together?] by starryeyesxx

Gifset: 4.07 | The Initiative by buffy-verse

Gifset: 7.20 | “Touched” by dailybuffysummers

Gifset: every btvs episode- 1.09: “The Puppet Show” by mr-giles

Gifset: 6.07 | Once More, With Feeling by neshamas

Video: Rose City Comicon 2022 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Panel by Samantha

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1x01 "Welcome to the Hellmouth" fandub | Sneak peek by A Pixie's Whisper

Video: Buffy and Angel Halloween Video by Robby and Sam Fan

[Reviews & Recaps]

Slayer Sunday-Bad Girls by Jane Talks Reel

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER S3 EP7 (REACTION) - GIVE ME GLOVE by CLC Reacts

OUR QUEEN!!! - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reaction - 5x14 - Crush by TheLexiCrowd

Angel 1x05 - "Rm w/a Vu" Reaction by DodoReactions

Communication and Storytelling Buffy's Hush by Incidental Mythology

[Fandom Discussions]

[On Faith thinking Angel was dead, meta] by coraniaid

[Buffy's Hero's Journey] by paprikarox

made Ted's mini pizzas--the robot knows how to cook by stormfet

The creature design in BTVS is amazing. I've never seen anything quite like the queller demon, nor as creepy as Gnarl. Which are your favorites for the makeup, prosthetics, etc? by socialpronk

i feel like xander’s hells bells issues were never properly addressed by mzjolynecujoh and multiple authors

We don't talk enough about how gut wrenching this was. The betrayal and heartache is so immense. [Once More With Feeling] by multiple authors

Kennedy (Spoilers season 7) by multiple authors

Why were there like four people living at Buffy’s house and she was the only one working? by multiple authors

So, do you live here in town?- I love the relationship between Joyce and Spike by multiple authors

Why is Season 4 considered being the worst? by multiple authors

I have a question regarding Angel (the series) and watching it in tandem with Buffy by multiple authors

What’s your favourite Buffy music moment? by multiple authors

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

PUBLICATION: Buffy Star Explains Remaining Silent On Joss Whedon Accusations via Screen Rant

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