#tbh he deserves a more nuanced characterization

[fan-mans]

The Suchong rant/theory/speculation

So, I know that a vast majority of the Bioshock fandom fucking hates BAS (Especially on here) for very good reason. But, I will say that, when it isn’t being racist, destroying canon, and insulting all the characters- it does bring a few interesting things to the table. This is especially true for Suchong’s character, his motivations, personality, and his relationship to Jack and Tenenbaum.

Ever since I read the note Tenenbaum left Suchong, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’ve gone down a bit of a wiki rabbit hole, investigating Suchong and Tenebaum’s characters to answer all the questions that came up. I mean, if Suchong was really as much of a soulless bastard as people like to portray him, why would Tenenbaum try to appeal to his emotions? It makes no sense to me that Tenenbaum would try to appeal to the sensibilities of a man who has given no indication of compassion or remorse.

So, I posit a theory: Suchong and Tenenbaum both began to feel remorse for their actions at roughly the same time, leading to Tenenbaum writing the note to save someone she was friends with and could possibly aid her.

Now, I know this may sound ridiculous but, after applying a little bit of logic, Suchong showing some remorse but going on with his work makes more sense than Tenenbaum appealing to someone she knows doesn’t care about the kids and that she doesn’t care about either. And before I get into my evidence, I am using what is present in the games only as I have not read the novels, nor do I care to.

So, why would Tenenbaum even begin to care about Suchong? Well, one could argue that she just wanted help with the little sisters, but there are plenty of good people in rapture so her bothering with Suchong in particular feels important. Of course, he did do the mental programming on them, but Tenenbaum herself states that the children can grow out of it and forget, so Suchong would really only speed up the de-conditioning process.

Instead, I want to bring forward the idea that Suchong and Tenenbaum were good colleagues, and maybe even friends. Listening to Gilbert Alexander’s audio diary “Improving on Suchong’s work”, it’s easy to hear the sadness in Alexander’s voice, which can imply a lot of things, most prominently that there was some level of camaraderie between them. Other cut audio diaries from Alexander similarly imply a strong amount of sadness about Suchong’s death, furthering this point. Okay, Suchong probably had friends- so what? Well, it means he could’ve easily have had a positive relationship with Tenenbaum! Since we don’t know the date of Suchong’s audio diaries “Mozart of genetics” and “Plasmids are the paint”, we can’t say for sure how long ago those thoughts about Tenebaum were, though both are implied to be early in their relationship. Even while looking down on Tenenbaum, Suchong still very much admired her skill as a scientist, which at least to me, indicates a clear avenue for solidarity and mutual respect between them. 

As there are no audio diaries mentioning Suchong and no radio messages giving her clear opinions on him it’s a little tough to gauge her perspective on her colleague. However, Tenenbaum being outright friends with Suchong, I feel, makes much more sense when you take her note into consideration. Tenenbaum’s note being an not only appeal towards someone who can make saving the little sisters easier, but an appeal to a friend, a man she respected, who she raised multiple children with, makes the effort of writing it and putting it in his secret lab make so much more sense! It makes the appeal at all make more sense as well. Tenenbaum is a very hopeful woman, yes, but if she was talking to a friend, someone she knew even somewhat intimately, over a man she barely knows or actively dislikes, then her confidence in convincing him to her side skyrocket.

Now, speaking of kids, let's talk about Jack and the little sisters. I don’t think people really acknowledge that Suchong had put just as much, if not more, work into raising Jack as Tenebaum. I personally think that though Frank was present, he did leave most of the work of raising and training Jack to those two. The little sisters, on the other hand, he had no care for other than funding. Suchong, however, is directly addressed by the girls as “papa’ multiple times, indicating that he is their father figure like Tenenbaum is their mother figure. 

Alongside this- there doesn’t seem to be much outright hostility between him and the girls. Of course, in Bioshock 1, there is the ghost scene of the little sister crying about not wanting to be ‘put on the table’ and the infamous ‘protection bond’ audio diary where he slaps a child, but nuance can put those instances in a new light. First, the ghost scene has no context other than the words spoken by the girl, so, this could easily be a case of Suchong turning an orphan into a little sister- still bad, but expected of both him and Tenenbaum. The audio diary on the other hand, as well as the real time version in BaS, does require a deeper analysis.

So, prior to the event, we see Leta and Masha rescue and befriend a big daddy, creating the protector bond, the girls disappear and later re-appear, as we come across Suchong venting to his audio diary, trying to figure out his massive problem. The girls enter and enthusiastically try to get his attention. Now, let’s pause here and ask a few questions. First; why would kids he’s very cruel to regard him with such enthusiasm and second why are they trying to get his attention? My conclusion to answer these questions is as follows; Suchong was NOT as cruel as implied and he communicated his problem with the protection bond to the girls. 

If Suchong was super abusive, why would the kids actively seek his attention? Would they not fear angering him if they bother him, especially at work? The enthusiasm the girls have and willingness to approach him (As well as Suchong allowing them to roam around freely) indicates a more relaxed relationship. Despite what he says about children sometimes, calling the girls brats, and generally regarding children as stupid and unruly, there is room to plausibly infer that he didn’t hate them 24/7. Even more so, as evidenced by both of the coded notes, the problem with the protection bond is on the Big Daddies, not the little sisters, their conditioning is well in effect at this time. With the added detail of the girls jumping to find him after the bond is made, then it stands to reason that they understood the problem and were going to tell their papa the good news. I figure that they either sensed a change in his behavior or he outright told them the problem and to find him if there was a change, leaning toward the latter explanation.

Okay, now let's go back to Suchong's death scene. So the girls bug him a bit, don’t take the hint to leave him alone, and he loses his temper and slaps Leta. The girls not taking the hint to fuck off tells me that him telling them to scram is pretty rare. What seems just as rare is slapping one of the girls- Masha rushes to Leta’s side and both seem pretty shocked at the turn. Suchong gets killed by the big daddy and the girls rush to said big Daddy’s arms once he becomes docile again- which one may say implies that they didn’t like Suchong or were happy to see him die. However, I would argue this is mostly the mental conditioning. The girls easily changed their minds about the injured big daddy, going from fear to willingly helping him in an instant. This happens again during the death sequence- what normal child would watch something that violent happen, even to someone they hate, and jump into the perpetrator’s arms? The answer is in the strong mental conditioning- so powerful it overrides any form of logic.

With that out of the way, let’s look at his relationship with Jack. Again, if he really hated the kids, why would he let Jack and the sisters call him papa? Logically, he’d want to distance himself from any kind of parental role- but he didn’t. With Jack especially, he lingered in the old baby room- likely often enough that Tenenbaum knew he’d see her note there. Hell, his damn sandwich is still fresh! I also can’t find any instances of him insulting Jack. He never calls Jack by name, but neither does Fontaine or Tenenbaum, which makes me believe he was only given a proper name after being sent topside. There is also the matter of the puppy Jack had- but we aren’t given enough context on how Jack obtained her to know why she was killed, she could have very well been killed on Fontaine’s orders. Like with the little sisters, I don’t think Suchong was outright cruel to Jack- at least not most of the time. If anything, he gives Jack more respect than the little sisters and potentially prefers him to the girls.

Now, how about Suchong’s personality? I think his personality, other than ‘cruel evil doctor’, and ‘coward’ gets overlooked by the fandom. I’d argue that Suchong isn’t a coward per se, but rather that he won’t pick a fight that he doesn’t think he’s got a chance at. He’ll really only fight people he sees as equals or underlings- caving only to superiors. This is why he made himself useful to the Japanese rather than fight them and it’s why he easily transitioned to working under Ryan after Fontaine ‘died’. He’s smart, he knows when he’s got a chance and when to pick a fight- though he clearly isn’t afraid of bitching about his circumstances or spitting sass. It’s clear that he is greedy for money like a lot of rapture characters, outright stating that it was good that he was the only one who knew about the little sisters after Fontaine and Tenenbaum went down, as well as scientific progress.

I would even go as far as to say that he may have regretted his actions after Jack left or had some weakening towards Jack specifically. I have two reasons for this, first being Tenebaum’s note and the ‘send to Ryan’ note. The verbiage of Tenebaum’s note strikes me as odd- specifically the line ‘It is in your power to be a different man’-  that line screams to me that he has shown some sort of remorse for his actions prior to Tenenbaum leaving. The line ‘They are children… and yes, they will forget’ also strikes me as Suchong not wanting to Kill the sisters and having some kindness towards them. Now the big one to me is ‘What can Ryan take from us that we have not already sacrificed…?’ That tells me Suchong is afraid or hesitant to change because of Ryan. There’s also the note Suchong left for himself.  He clearly planned to send the evidence of Jack to Ryan but something made him chicken out. What event exactly is unclear, perhaps Fontaine's ‘death’ or Tenenbaum's disappearance or the overtaking of his job. Whatever it was, something made him feel brave enough to start a whistleblower plan and something else made him stop.

So, with all the evidence (A.k.a. me pulling at threads) together, let’s set up a very rough timeline for Suchong. He enters Rapture, meets Tenenbaum, and begins working with her on plasmid tech. Initially the two don’t get along and he retains a low opinion of her, but slowly they begin to warm up to one another and some level of respect for each other if not outright friendship blooms between them.

Fontaine then entrusts them with the Little Sisters program, putting them in charge of children for higher ADAM production. With the addition of children, things get complicated. The more immoral side of their work begins to be less excusable as before the little sisters, they really only experimented on adults. The kids are hard to care for but a necessary evil to continue producing Adam to meet customer demand. They cannot sedate the girls so Suchong attempts to alleviate some of the struggle of working with them, as well as encourage his ‘Adam recycling’ by implementing mental conditioning in the girls. This works to an extent, but they nevertheless remain children, in both mental capacity and physical strength.

Fontaine, seeing this mental conditioning, then entrusts the WYK program to Tenenbaum and Suchong. The girls at the orphanage already referred to Suchong and Tenenbaum as ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ respectively, but now they have even more responsibility and intimacy in raising this child. In an attempt to stave off the growing softness for the child they are now raising as a killing machine, Tenenbaum and Suchong don’t name him, only calling him ‘baby’. They recognize the growing instinct they have for the children both in themselves and each other, but do not discuss it, likely because of Fontaine’s eye over them.

Suchong breaks first, giving baby Jack a level of affection that he does not show the girls. Tenebaum sees this but does not say anything, intending to protect her colleague. Fontaine begins to notice Tenenbaum going soft, however, and sets Suchong up to keep lot 192 a secret from her. Project WYK wraps up and they send the baby to the surface, Suchong and Tenenbaum shoving their feelings back down and returning to work on the sisters. Still, Suchong cannot get the baby out of his head, often returning to the child’s secret room to the point of Tenenbaum noticing. Nonetheless things are normal. 

Tenenbaum has a change of heart and her actions become far gentler with the girls, which gives Suchong the strength to re-asses and begin a whistleblower plan. That is until Tenenbaum disappears, sapping all his confidence away as Fontaine becomes increasingly erratic. The civil war breaks out and Fontaine vanishes. Suchong is the only person aware of the sisters now, without an employer and needing somewhere to go until Ryan forcefully takes his job over.

At the same time things get bad in Rapture, the Little sisters need protection from being harvested. Suchong can build the big daddies to protect the girls but cannot get them to imprint. The girls are too terrified, despite their mental conditioning, to interact with the big daddies. He explains this problem to the girls, hoping some level of self-reporting may give him a leg up. Mind still stuck on baby jack, he returns to the secret room and finds a note from Tenenbaum, encouraging him to change his ways. Suchong, perhaps feeling betrayed by her simply leaving, rejects the letter and leaves to figure out the big daddy problem angry, leading him to lose his temper at the girls when he normally wouldn’t. Or, perhaps he is stricken with fear, knowing Fontaine is still alive and watching his back. Either way, he dies at the hands of his own creations, at least knowing the girls will be protected now by the big daddies.

So yeah. TL;DR: Suchong, though not the best person, wasn’t entirely evil either and may very well have had the same revelation as Tenenbaum but no chance to act on it/may have backed out because of Fontaine. The way the girls and Tenenbaum act display a certain level of complexity to his character, a hidden softer side where he may have acted much better than his audio diaries initially let on.

One last thing: I want to point out that applying any sort of soulless/heartless characterization to an Asian character like Suchong (The only Asian character in Bioshock 1 and one of four Asians in the entire series) comes with some very nasty racist baggage. Now, it’s no surprise to any of us that Ken Levine is a racist bastard, so his writing characters of color as racist stereotypes is expected. However, I’m disappointed to see no one has directly addressed the fact that the portrayal of Suchong as ‘cold and heartless’ is in and of itself a very old racist stereotype. Everyone seems to only shit on BaS and Infinite’s racism (For good reason) but no one seems to point out the inherent racism in the first Bioshock game. So, my first instinct is to break that stereotype, even if it goes against canon. Because, in the end, when it comes to keeping the integrity of a racist canon versus breaking it and fighting stereotypes in fiction as well as what resides in the racial consciousness of the society I live in, breaking canon will always be the better option. A canon that is shitty should be improved upon by fans, not upheld.

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

Curse Servant concept: Foreigner Draupadi with her being possessed by C'thalpa

Given what they did w Yang Guifei that wouldn’t even surprise me. That being said she had 5 kids not six so it wouldn’t be a perfect matchup. Not that that’s ever stopped fate before

Honestly I get worried about draupadi getting put in fate for a lot of reasons esp bc even if they don’t do weird stuff with her origin there’s a very good chance they’ll look at things that say ‘yeah the inciting event for the kurukhestra war was her humiliation and desire for justice’ and be like ‘ah so all those deaths were her fault and her fault alone. Got it. Time to make weird comments abt her being tainted and obsessed with vengeance and sexualize the shit out of her despite her being a sa survivor’ which just. Leaves a very bad taste in my mouth because they’ve done similar things before in varying degrees and it’s definitely more complex than that, but how they’ve angled the war so far makes it seem like one where they want to remove the nuance to…idk make it more pro-kaurava? Or they’d do some wack shit like ‘she and karna were Secretly in Love’ or ‘she resented having 5 husbands’ or whatever and just. Idk man I don’t want to see that

And even if they DID write her perfectly and she was a fully realized human being given the respect she deserves the fandom is obsessed with ntr and goblin r*pe and I can’t deal with the knowledge people would put her in some scenario like that w/o understanding every guy who thought they could try shit like that ended up getting literally dismantled.

[shrinkthisviolet]

Ralph Dibny, Lisa Snart, and Nora West-Allen 1.0 for the character bingo!

Ralph Dibny:

I like him in fanon, but in canon…eh. He’s got the charisma and humor that somewhat endears me to him, but there’s also the way he talks about women sometimes that just…well it could be worse, but it’s not great. Though at least that’s mostly toned down at least halfway through s4 (iirc? At least by the end). Then again, s5 with the whole Book of Ralph stuff was 💀 really something.

At least in fanfics, that aspect is toned way down, so it’s easier for me to like him. Plus, he’s your favorite (or one of them) from what I understand, and I like the way you talk about him 😂

Lisa Snart:

Honestly, a super fun villain, and I love her aesthetic and her vibes. I also LOVE her and Len’s sibling relationship 🥰 and I might be coming around to her and Cisco as a ship…we’ll see once I meet her again in my rewatch.

s5 Nora (Nora 1.0):

I LOVE HER 💞 also tbh I love both Nora’s but I love s5 Nora a bit more. s7 Nora is wonderful, and has the happy life she deserves, but…s5 Nora is SUCHHHH an interesting tragic character with so much nuance and complexity and ANGST

Now, do I dislike the way Future Iris was handled? Yep. I don’t deny that Nora being an adult and still not knowing about her powers was strange, but…Witt the context of metahumans being illegal in Nora’s future, and not made legal again until after Flash s5 (thank you, Legends), I 100% understand why she’d be paranoid of her baby being taken away by ARGUS (especially since Nora is reckless, and it’s difficult to explain the scope of “hey, your existence is illegal and the government hates you” to a child).

Yes, Future Iris should’ve told Nora when she was an adult, but the show doesn’t try to show her perspective at all, which I find a shame. Nora got to reconcile with Present Iris, but not Future Iris :( I wrote a fic to fix that (and also to fix the fallout of Nora’s reveal because…ugh what a mess that argument was in canon), but…I wish we’d gotten to see it play out on the show, with all the wonderful complex emotions that could’ve brought. Even if the resolution was “I understand why you did it, but the fact that you didn’t tell me even after I became an adult still hurts, Mom,” that would’ve been fine—at least it would’ve been something!

Also, Nora being in her mid- to late-20s is…strange, considering she doesn’t act like it. If I didn’t know her age and that she apparently has a job, I’d peg her as 20 at oldest—and really, more like 18, considering she acts like she’s newly independent. Making her an 18-year-old freshman in college would’ve worked wayyy better. Since I’m working with canon’s characterization of her, I tend to write her as 18 for that reason.

(Alternatively, they could’ve written her as an actual 25-28-year-old, like in this amazing fic series).

I could go on and on about examples of “canon isn’t real if I don’t look at it” for s5, but…this is about Nora specifically, so I’ll cap it here 😅 talking about Future Iris already got me on a bit of a tangent.

Also…she’s @negative-speedforce’s favorite 💞 so blorbo by proxy

send me a character (or multiple) and I’ll fill out the bingo!

[ashesandhackles]

Unpopular opinion: I think a lot of Snapedom bases their interpretation/analysis on Sirius solely based on the Prank, which leads to a lot of meta and characterization of him feeling incorrect (and not even necessarily saying that it’s more negative than he deserves, just that it feels wrong and not in character). James and Remus tend to be evaluated more wholistically.

Broadly, yes - but this might due to the circles we run in, tbh. Snapedom is not a monolith after all.

It feels like circles - pockets of Snapedom that does get Sirius, and I know a circle of Snapedom that does get Remus. And circles that understand neither xD but Snapedom's willingness to explore Marauder flaws in nuanced way genuinely has birthed some of the best writing I have seen.

Metas and analysis are also reflective of the process the writer is going through in making sense of their thoughts. I had my own journey in finding Remus. I never could find a characteristion that I agreed with - something that captured both his wonderful qualities and the really stark flaws I saw in text. I had to really sit with his core - Snape and Sirius, in contrast, come to me very easily. I "get" them. Once I spoke with other people who sat with Remus' character longer than I have, I discovered my understanding of him and a characterisation that suits me. And now I can write him easily too.

So perhaps people are going through through their own journey. We are never going to experience characters the same way. And especially character that hurt a fave? To find understanding for that is a process.

[1eos]

🔥 vixx as actors

HMMMMMMMMM!!!!! this is based on the few tidbits ive seen so i def don't know the nuances of their acting but:

sanghyuk: he's so stiff 💀💀💀💀 like cannot take him seriously that's my wife's son but he is not a good actor. i DO think he's best at campy acting bc vixx know how to commit to a bit so even when the concept is cringe you can tell hyuks in on the joke and is going all in. other than that....i just

hongbin: another one that gives me nothing. he cries on camera well but characterization? not getting it. ironically i think hongbin may be a better singer than actor bc the only time ive ever gotten any kind of emotion from him was in some cover song he did 💀

jaehwan: honestly? have never seen gifs or clips of him acting in anything but he pretended to be all cutesy for years while hiding an aries temper so he CAN act i know it nd i get the feeling he characterizes well bc his on nd off switch is insane

leo: he was made for musical acting tbh 🤔 he's really good at overdramatic expressions nd gestures nd he big as hell so it Works. i also think he connects well with his costars nd from the pics from frankenstein i saw he's got really good body language which makes sense. he don't talk 😭😭😭 . also i think leo's really good at getting into the character like you could really tell when he was being the Monster nd when he was just chilling. the vibes totally different

hakyeon: the member who gets hyped up the most for his acting nd idk if it's all deserved but i definitely think he's an above average idol actor. hands down. from the bits i saw of bad and crazy nd then children of nobody he definitely has the trademark vixx boy talent of committing to the bit bc he stands out the most in super dramatic or super campy moments but when i see him doing normal more romance stuff he still low-key be looking at the girls like he's a serial killer 😭😭😭😭 bitch calm it down!!!

[frick6101719]

I have no idea if you have watched this or not but: Loki! for the ask game

Oooh I have! Here we go:

favorite male character: I'm torn between Loki and Mobius. I've always loved Loki but tbh this show really did NOT impress me with his characterization, so I'll say Mobius #vivalajetski

favorite female character: Sylvie. Her relationship with Loki was SO interesting right up until THAT happened and I'm really looking forward to seeing more of her in season 2, and maybe other parts of the MCU too! She had such an interesting way of being hurt but still soft, and I think in general she's the sort of female character we deserve to see more of in tv.

least favorite character: There wasn't really a character that I strongly disliked in this show, actually. I was pretty underwhelmed by He Who Remains; it feels like the "incredibly-powerful-being-who-is-just-a-silly-childish-goofball" thing has been done to death. I'd like to see a little more nuance, and from what we've seen of this dude so far (and I've been told he's someone very cool, so that will be nice) he didn't feel all that special.

prettiest character: Sylvie. Have you seen those gorgeous floofy curls? The entire first half of the last episode while I was being bored by the plot and whatever I was just staring at her hair. I love it, and she's just such a cutie.

funniest character: Mobius. We all owe Owen Wilson SO MUCH because he KILLED IT as Mobius, and his particular brand of comedy was just perfect for this character.

favorite season: Well there is only one so far, but fingers crossed this won't be my favourite one lol that would be big bad news

favorite episode: 1.4 - The Nexus Event. Watching these two Lokis running around, wreaking mild havoc, and learning things about themselves/each other was so much fun. It was such a cool idea to have Loki meet an alternate version of himself who is in so many ways like him, though still different enough to not be a complete clone. And this episode takes place at a point when there was just... so much potential...

favorite romantic ship: I don't even know. I mean disclaimer, I am moderate-to-severely aromantic, and I know I have a tendency to not realise a relationship is supposed to be romantic without someone spoon-feeding it to me. I watched this show with my mom and after episode 4 I spent like an entire day thinking about it and then finally asked her if this was supposed to be a romantic relationship or like a "long-lost twin" relationship (which is how I had been thinking of it) and she was like "yeah Mav it's definitely romantic." Which I wasn't like... opposed to? It felt a little weird, but I was like "okay I can get behind this they DO have great chemistry and could be so good for each other" but then the execution was just fucked. They had me, then they pretty much lost me. Loki/Mobius I think never really hooked me either because so much of their interaction is Loki acting very unlike himself, (in my opinion), so though I LOVE Mobius I think the dynamic didn't feel right to me because it didn't seem like LOKI.

That said... All three of them together I can get behind. That's the ship I want to see, and I don't give a fuck if it's romantic or platonic or found-family I just think the three of them would have a super interesting dynamic that would be way more interesting than the way they treated either of the two ships in season one. Loki x Mobius x Sylvie 4 life

favorite family ship: see above.

favorite friend ship: also see above.

worst ship: I'm not going to belabor this point any more than I already have, but yeah. Both ships had GREAT potential and NEITHER even came close to living up to it. We could have had it all!

~

Oi. I apologize for all the salt?? I did not know I had this many unresolved issues with this show! I really REALLY wanted to love it, and while I did enjoy it and am looking forward to season two, I just never managed to hit that level of obsession I expected to. Thank you so much for the request--it clearly let me get some things off my chest haha 💚💛💚

Leave a TV show or movie in my ask box and I’ll tell you…

[splitting-infinities]

Top 5 TMA monsters?

oooooo good question! thanks for the ask! This is actually a tough one. After some debate, I decided to do my rating by story and scare factor, since that might be objectively more fair. 

If I was going off personal favorites, it’d probably be like, Jon the whole way down. 

*Fairness aside, Jonah Magnus is not on this list because frankly he does not deserve it out of principle haha.

5. Jane Prentiss - not only were the worms super gross, but Jane’s story helped me appreciate the nuances of horror. TMA was the first foray I made into the genre, and while my initial thoughts were just that Jane was scary, TMA showed me why her characterization makes a good story. She’s not conventionally evil, and to some degree, she views her circumstances as something lovely she wants to share. But there’s still an Entity controlling her, and her status as an unreliable narrator still pushes this into horror territory. There are lots of layers to her character (and her statement!), which I appreciate.

4. Daisy Tonner - The sheer poetry of killing off monsters while becoming one yourself is just great. Daisy is one of those characters I never really got attached to emotionally, but her story is well designed - it shows the full capacity of the horrible things humans are capable of even without monstrous powers, and then we see it swap.

3. Peter Lukas - The best monsters are the ones that are insidiously genial. We never hear Lukas “act” like a monster the way most TMA ones do. He comes across as reasonable, likeable, and unintimidating to me, even as he’s vanishing random people into the Lonely. And yet, that’s exactly how he gets what he wants. For all this display of sincerity and calmness, it’s just to lure people in and let them trust. He embodies what it’s like to intentionally isolate yourself: he’s that voice telling you it’s better this way because you feel nothing, and isn’t that better than feeling fear? It’s a creeping, anesthetized, falsely kind way to hunt victims. Terrifying.

2. That one “The blanket never did anything” monster from Tucked In - I’m not even going to look up whether that dude has a name. I can’t even read the summary of it on the Wiki, tbh. That episode is the only one that genuinely messed me up. I have night panic attacks, and using a blanket to remind myself I was safe used to be my best coping mechanism. NOT ANYMORE.

1. Annabelle Cane - What makes Annabelle such an awesome “monster” is twofold. First, by nature of even just knowing she is Web-aligned, it’s impossible to know how genuine her intentions are / whether she’s manipulating you. It’s impossible to take her at face value even if she’s being honest, because your brain will always second guess you. Second, she knows this about herself and uses it to her advantage.  She is frankly impossible to trust and that scares me more than almost anything in this entire show.

[lilyhoshikawa]

🎥🎶💕🏳‍🌈💎 for hunters perhaps? >:3c

Oh golly! Ok fndkfnfn let me do this then. This may be difficult-

🎥: Do you have any favorite scenes from your hyperfixation?

This is hard bc I have a lot of scenes I like and good scenes keep happening dhdjfn.

There are a lot of stand-outs so far. Among them is definitely like, the confrontation in the car between Blake and Sakio, and the recent social link scene with Blake and Lena on the boat.

Scenes that DON’T involve my own character that I adore include. The scene with Sakio and Camellia at the graveyard. The scene with with Lena and Twitch outside the store. The Sammy’s scene where they read Tango’s letter. Also the scene with Sammy and Masumi bc it was just extremely funny.

🎶: If your hyperfixation has songs / an OST, what is your favorite song from it?

Hm. Well time once again to advertise my Blake playlist, which I’m constantly putting a lot of work and thought into tbh dhjddb, I’ve deleted a fair number of songs from it when I feel they don’t fit, and I’m constantly messing with the order of the songs in relation to Blake’s prospective characters arc, and adding more as I find them fndkfnf I’m always on the lookout.

Also, vane is constantly updating the official playlist with some real bangers, and I appreciate that. Amil’s and Twitch’s themes are real good.

💕: Tell us about one of your favorite characters and why you like them!

Everybody has really really good characters, heck. One thing that strikes me is that even with taking the backseat and having to be on autopilot for several sessions, Camellia still has such a strong and distinct personality, to the point where everyone is on the same page abt them, and I think that’s just really amazing dhdjfjf, that’s how strong an impression they make every time they’re around.

Lena is also so good, she’s like… I think abt her frequently. Sometimes I just start giggling when I think abt Lena, bc she is a national treasure, and I hope she knows I care abt her. She’s great in this way that she’s both very funny/cute and also has a lot of depth and nuance to her arc, and I’m so excited for more.

In the same vein, Sammy. No one character has made me go from giggling to sobbing as fast as this green goat. One moment Sammy is making their cat do a little greeting and I’m rolling on the floor from the cuteness, and then the next second they’re crying and saying they don’t want to be left behind, and then I am also crying. How do they do it. The absolute range.

I also really appreciate Ilse like, particularly in contrast to Blake sometimes, in that Ilse is very smart in a way that’s quiet, self-conscious and careful, while Blake is at times recklessly arrogant, and those two bounce off each other well. Ilse feels mature at times but every time they quietly like, try to be the bigger person, or to not make a problem of themselves, I wanna give them a hug and be like “u deserve to be recognized and acknowledged and u deserve better” dhdjdndjdn. When u have big personalities like Sakio and Lena and Blake in the party there’s something compelling abt Ilse being with them and not asserting themselves as they try to do their best, if that makes sense, and I want them to know I see and appreciate them.

Sakio is also so good and I’ve talked abt this to vane plenty before but holy shit. There’s so much obvious care and love and effort and skill that went into writing a character who is both wrong in many ways, and who many player characters antagonize for good reason, and yet still so incredibly sympathetic, so likable and so compelling. The fact that both Blake and Lena have this relationship with Sakio where they don’t like or trust her, necessarily, but also can’t deal with her not being there, is so fucking good, it creates such powerful conflict in the smallest of ways. Sakio is great bc I love her and I understand her and I appreciate her, but I also wanna yell at her and think she is absolutely horribly wrong about incredibly crucial things and u can FEEL that turmoil in her as well, with her knowing on some level that her actions are going to cause harm, and she’s just waiting and hoping to take the fall, thinking, maybe foolishly, that she can, and that doing so will save everyone else.

I also fucking love so many minor characters we haven’t seen much of so far. I absolutely love Bee and I’ve told vane abt this but she’s just a total icon. Theo is also great, he is the only valid he/him in the entire campaign djdkfj. I love Twitch as well and I’m very excited for some of the interesting stuff in Twitch’s arc that has been hinted at coming to fruition later on, that’s very exciting. I’m also very excited to learn more abt Amil’s whole deal, I appreciate them a lot and I feel bad every time I have to make Blake come pester them fndkfnf. Oh also Prim, how did I forget Prim… what’s going on with her, I have no idea, but she’s a mean lady and my love for mean ladies is well-documented. Also her look is iconic. Also also Puck, the fact that he’s a child and I didn’t know it for several months shocked me to my core but it has made his brand of Shakespearean mischief that much more endearing, and now I seek only to give him snacks and let him sit in his funny garbage throne. I forgot abt Puck earlier so I’ll say he is the second valid he/him in the campaign but frankly I think Puck should take some neopronouns for a spin, he deserves it.

🏳️‍🌈: Do you have any headcanons (LGBT, race, neuro, etc.) that are important to you?

(*throws neurological disorders at Blake*) jdkdnfkf no but jokes aside. I love that this party is like, 5 player characters, 4 of whom use they/them. Just. The raw power of a persona series written by LGBT+ ppl…

I can’t speak on other ppl’s characters too much but as for Blake, they’re a closeted transfem and also too much of a disaster for a coherent sexuality but probably bi. Autistic, and an abuse survivor who experiences paranoid delusions and self-destructive tendencies. Probably more, but specifics are messy, they’re a fucking mess, what’s going on with them, they don’t even know.

Masumi is a binary trans lesbian, also an abuse survivor and manages quite a bit of paranoia of her own, dealing with mood swings and occasional delusions of grandeur, most of it she keeps internally managed which isn’t great for her mental health.

💎: Are there any fun facts or trivia that you would like to share?

Blake’s original characterization was thought up prior to the campaign and was very different from their finished characterization. They lived on a farm with their parents and were pretty quiet and passive before being arrested for a murder they didn’t commit (this part is the same) and their personality was way more quiet, reserved and passive, with the whole celebrity aspect completely absent. They were still going to be the sort of clever leader type character but leaned far more into the background. Their design was also different, with their hair in a low ponytail rather than high and scars on their face from scrapes and accidents working on the farm.

I realized that, even though this character was more of an original idea than Masumi (who I was playing in another campaign at the time and who was characterized somewhat differently as well) I didn’t find myself excited to write them, couldn’t get invested in them in the same way, and as I kept workshopping them I decided to be more self-indulgent and lean more into shamelessly making them an Akechi expy in more ways.

And what resulted from that, ironically, is what I feel is a better character in the end. Blake feels more dynamic, lively and interesting now than the old iteration I first thought up, back when I was intent on making them My Own Creation with their own arc. At this point I’m comfortable saying that Blake, for all their similarities to Akechi, has evolved over the course of the campaign into a more interesting character, into someone I recognize as distinctly different and who stands out. They feel unique to me, and feel like my own character. And I think that only could’ve happened through playing them in a TTRPG like this, in developing them along with others, and having to adapt, and I think that’s the beautiful thing about developing characters with other people. The Blake I’ve ended up with is one I’m really happy with, who I feel is more interesting and dynamic to me than if I had just tried to force something unique just to not feel cringe about making an expy. And maybe I need to learn that lesson before I go through the same thing with Zee fjdkfnf.

[mallowstep]

Just out of curiosity what’s your opinion on leopardstar and blackstar?

leopardstar

have i mentioned how much i hate the new ask editor? i had to manually debold the text thrice. this text is here to make sure that everything is formatted correctly. and again, i had to click to create the bullets that's fucked up

anyway

reading crookedstar's promise and discovering i was right, she is hella spoiled, was very satisfying

also, okay, she's such a well written character. like, in a shadow in riverclan. it's just. so good.

i could go on a very long tangent here but in summary, we see a lot of really good characterization and i'd actually argue a shadow in riverclan sets up mistystar's isolationism.

(altho the fact that we don't have any riverclan pov is criminal i want to know what's happening erin)

okay anyway, that said, i'm really excited for her super edition. i would have preferred a blackstar super edition and leopardstar novella, but i'm really, really excited for it

crookedstar's promise was so good and i really hope leopardstar's honor carries the riverclan energy

but okay, the biggest leopardstar thing ever: is she a lesbian? and what's the deal with tigerclaw? (n.b. i've made the decision to refer to them as tigerclaw and tigerheart unless i need to call them tigerstar to avoid confusion.)

so. tigerclaw first. i...don't know. i think she was drawn to him in some way, definitely. but i think it was a combination of pride and fear that kept tigerclan going for so long

and like i said before, a shadow in riverclan really sold me on her

i would've said i had 0 thoughts on her if i hadn't read it

i wish we had more riverclan pov tbh because there's so much drama and intrigue. every leader since hailstar has been an interesting, nuanced, and complex character, and we've barely gotten to see any of it

that said, i...actually kind of like the super edition development of riverclan

like, i think leopardstar is better suited to a super edition, over main arc development, because it will give us the time we need to really sit with her emotions

the alternative would be to cut down the pov across books, and while i'm happy to see we've started to cut down, i doubt we'll ever get six books with just one pov

but i digress; my point is, i like the super edition model for riverclan because when you force a book to be one clan, one character, you have to develop an interesting and rich world for them.

now, am i possibly setting myself up to be disappointed? yes. super editions are wildly hit or miss, and i don't know what their current quality is like because:

i refuse to read crowfeather's trial (even if it has ashfoot)

squilf's hope contained only the sisters. nothing else. that's all. otherwise her desire to save bramblestar would make 0 sense, so it contained only and exclusively the sisters.

i have a weird mandela effect where my brain tells me greystripe's vow came out in 2011. precisely 2011.

anyway, i'm very off topic, i'm just really hoping leopardstar's honor is good because i really, really want it to be

(otherwise i'm just going to have to write a long leopardstar fic)

(i might anyway when i was writing the bone pile scenes in "where the spirit meets the bones" i got ideas)

okay, uh, moving on

blackstar

boy they sure did him dirty

don't get me wrong, blackfoot's reckoning made me cry, just a lil.

i don't usually like the novellas: hollyleaf's story was good, and there are occasional really good ones, but for the most part, i find them disappointing

i still haven't recovered from the 5d10 psychic damage and 3 levels of exhaustion that reading leafpool's wish gave me

but i digress, blackstar

uh...i think he's interesting, but i don't have a ton of thoughts

i know i said i would have preferred a super edition, and it's kind of because...he has a lot of potential?

seeing his guilt is really good. (erins take notes: leaders with no problems/fake problems = bad. leaders with deep character flaws that have negative externalities = good.)

anyway, seeing his struggle to restore shadowclan, especially with the knowledge that he will ultimately fail, is really good

i kind of have this theory that shadowclan was never a "villain" clan. like, it's a new thing. because, well, cats like the shadows. they belong in them.

and blackstar's struggle, just, mm. good shit.

as a character...i don't know.

ultimately, i think he's just. he's a character that deserves development, but i don't really know where to take it

except, uh, why the fuck does his mother name him blackkit? like? what??

and also; what happened to all the foot names? there was a time when we had three out of four deputies with foot (deadfoot, mistyfoot, and blackfoot), and just. uh. are we ever going to get another -foot?

(before anyone @'s me a

[norgestan]

I'm going back for seconds! Viri/Hugo, Nora/Miquel, Lucasim, Emma/You. Lol tbh I just want an Emma ship and I feel like we haven't properly settled for one. 😔 Who should end up with Emma, Mia excluded since you haven't watched Druck yet?

ardi round 2, i loooove this :)

VIRIHUGO:

i think at the end of the day i’m just resigned to virihugo’s existence. do i hate that they just Start pining for each other with no setup at all? yes. do i hate that their relationship was a noorhelm+vilde esque get-together where dylan is the one who ends up alone? yes (imagine if noora had told william something like “oh lol vilde is just some slut that goes for every boy around her, she’ll get over it soon and she doesn’t really care about us being together ;)”. bc that’s essentially what virihugo did LOL). do i hate that half of their clips are they just standing still and monologuing about each other? oh yes. do i care? not really. i would resent them a lot more if viri had been the protag of s3, but eskam had really compelling couples with noriquel and norandro so i just spend my time focusing on them and not the lesser part of the season.

viri is an endearing character, and although i didn’t like most of her subplot in s3, i do think eskam made her an interesting character with what they had and i’m happy she got a nice boyfriend that she has lots of fun with. moreover, norandro was lacking the enemies-to-lovers snarky interactions (too busy being a really compelling couple!) and the trope was picked up by hugo and viri. which i kinda dig, because those interactions were the only things that i enjoyed about various noorhelms in the skamverse - if most of them were like that and less bad abusive boy feminist girl jerk-fest, i wouldn’t loathe noorhelm as much as i do. although this also makes me wish viri and hugo had been that kind of dynamic from the start, and just gotten a lot of will-they-won’t-they glances from their friends throughout the show until they finally got into each other on s3. but i guess that would’ve made it impossible for eskam to use dylan just to *checks notes* make every person in the love triangle insanely infuriating, oh well.

tl;dr: they are allowed to exist.

NORIQUEL:

ardi, you just want to see the world burn LMAO

to me it’s hard to dislike any pairing with nora on it because she’s a very good character and that just means she’ll always have great dynamics with other good characters. and oh is miquel a good character. in a lot of ways, eskam gave us two great williams in one season: my boy alejandro, who is the perfect candidate for a nora love interest, who earned his place and then helped nora earn her place as the best candidate to be his love interest as well, and then miquel, that has just enough characterization to be exactly what the narrative of the season needs him to be - not only a mustache-twirling antagonist who will punch out then smirk his way out of situations, but a real person.

see, they could’ve made miquel into a one-dimensional asshole that nora is stupidly into because he’s hot (does that sound familiar to you? LOL) but oh no, miquel is way more than that. he earns nora’s trust because he’s not an asshole, he resents olga for cheating on him and you can see how nora waits until the moment where he’ll call her a slut but it NEVER comes, he defends nora in front of his friends... he gives her what she needs, and he fits right where she expects him to. and that’s so important in a season where every other character is challenging nora in one way or another: alejandro doesn’t fit in her box of “incorrigible fuckboy”, viri doesn’t fit in her box of “helpless friend who needs my pity”, emma doesn’t fit in her box of “s/a victim”. being with miquel is easy, when he just humors her and spits out thoughts that nora agrees with all the time. it’s just REALLY great to watch. not only is her season a display of how emotional abuse looks like, but also her entire relationship with miquel showcases her shame, her flaws, the things she needs to work with to better her relationships with the people who ask more of her because it’s only fair.

i honestly never was in the miquel hate train. once you get the point of the character, it’s easy to love him for what he is. as i said before, miquel was also a call of attention because the conversations that he had with nora reminded me of talks with male friends i’ve had in my uni years, and it really put it in perspective and made me realize that i have been humoring numerous miquels by sitting through their “i’m actually a feminist, ya know” think-pieces and agreeing with the general feeling of it. and i don’t think a character like niko could EVER make anyone feel like that.

i’ve checked the middle square because that was my reaction every time eskam made a point to parallel noriquel to noorhelm. like YES. YOU DO GET ME. TRULY A SEASON FROM NOORHELM ANTIS TO NOORHELM ANTIS. what a skamverse treat. this relationship is good for the SOUL. that’s why i never got infuriated watching the couple, despite knowing what the point of their existence was: at the end of the day, i knew that the signs of abuse weren’t pointless and just fillers for an end-of-season sex scene, but they were actually going to do something interesting with them. and that’s exactly what they did. noriquel is actually a perfectly crafted relationship for what its message is and it deserves to be remembered as that.

LUKASIM:

oh BOY.

i just.... kasim is in this relationship. that already makes this REALLY difficult to tackle it. the thing about kasim is... if you only watched the season as the movistar+ channel shows it, kasim is simply a plot device. he’s not a character. he’s only there to introduce conflict and stir some shit and then fuck off to the sunset. he doesn’t have an og counterpart which meant that eskam didn’t have to actually try with him, and kasim is just what they need him to be: a way to introduce the main conflict, a reason for dounia to hate amira, boy on boy action for that sweet fanservice, misogynist microaggressions towards amira, a loose way to wrap things up at the end of the season and absolve her from any guilt or shame, etc. he just shows up when the plot needs him and then walks away very swaggily. and that’s why kasim is an essay kind of topic because to talk about him, you have to tackle the racism in s4 and all the ways they could’ve made a conflict-inducing gay muslim guy actually likable. which i won’t do here.

but then if you look at the lucas extra clips... he’s actually LIKABLE. he’s a character: he has personality, he’s funny, he doesn’t take lucas’ shit, he will only be with him if lucas apologizes and changes first. and as someone who desperately wants to protect kasim from the shit characterization and treatment he got in the show, i treasure those clips immensely - which i don’t think a lot of people do, and i can see why. it’s just sad that the moments where kasim was a likable, real character were hidden behind a paywall, and drown in a convoluted plotline of outing people when they behave badly as a good punishment. the thing about their get-together is that their impact relies only on amira, and is meant to make her life a living hell. other than that, there’s not really a narrative or character reason why they’re both into each other. is it only because they’re conventionally attractive guys and the only recurrent mlm in the show? wow, that shit’s BORING.

sigh, anyway. in a slightly better world, kasim being gay wasn’t actually a nuance as it was presented in the show. rather, kasim was out and confident about it, close to his sister, probably a regular in las labass where he could also work with organizations of other queer muslims in madrid. this also means that lucas and kasim’s relationship wasn’t the typical hidden gay love story that they were in the actual show, but they’re just, ya know. typical gay kids who made out in the club and then became just friends. or lucas’ activism on s2 warranted some instagram dms and then they upgraded to acquaintances. it’s upsetting that lucas is the only eskild who doesn’t really get to hangout or be in queer circles like other eskilds are implied to, so it would be great for him to actually have gay friends that he enjoys just as much as his primarily friend group. like, their version of lucas’ queer lifestyle being going to bars and hooking up with older guys it’s so....................... why. they didn’t have the time to say anything interesting about it and so obviously they didn’t do it lol. at this rate lucas’ only platonic queer companion is cris, which is lackluster to say the least.

the decision of making kasim lucas’ endgame is just another one on the list of things s4 got so, so wrong. what for? why does lucas need (another) boyfriend, again? why does every queer person in this show have to be dating someone and also come out to their parents? again, their relationship is just another rushed hidden gay love story that i found interesting at 13 years old and then never again. they could’ve taken it into ANY other direction, please. i’m begging.

anyways, you had really nice headcanons of lucas being the only eskild willing to revert to date a muslim guy, so that’s the only reason why i’m open to the idea of them being a couple. in a better universe, eskam actually made a case for these two being a good couple, and i agreed with it. as it is for now, it’s just really pointless, and rooted on the fact that kasim is not a real character to begin with. so i’m OBVIOUSLY sending them to superhell <3

EMMA/ME:

standard wlw relationship that would probably get sooooo much backlash about how neither of the characters Really feel like wlw and the emma love interest being boring as fuck, tbh.

alright, now that we’ve covered all that.... should dear emma grace even end up with someone in the skamverse? maybe one of the skamau girlies, given the proximity? maybe she’ll hook up with the female eskild that i know so many people dislike? idk. emma deserves a nice love story, in the same wavelength as nora. she deserves someone who is patient, who communicates well, who establishes boundaries and asks for respect, who understands she’s not only the act of crazy party girl and there are really interesting, carefully placed layers around her. maybe someone who went through a similar situation or at the very least sits down with her and tries their hardest to understand all the things going on with her life. like... there’s something about emma dropping the accusations and then dipping to another country, away from her parents and even her hometown in the states, just to throw herself in a city as busy as nyc is, that is desperately asking to be explained and explored. in a lot of ways, emma’s story is the other side of the noora story that couldn’t be told through nora’s perspective. in a perfect universe, there’s a spinoff that takes place right between s3 and s4, where emma gets the news of how much of a shithead miquel actually is and she has to question all of that yet again, and break the sense of normalcy and comfort she had built during all those years. it would be great if that story featured her closest friendships, and a newfound love. yes i was serious when i talked about the emma grace spinoff @ movistar+

[chal-lelerc]

ok so like. here’s my harry potter house thing. i’m ngl i tried to do this but then i deleted it bc it was getting too long and i didn’t have the attention span but. it kept sticking in my brain so i decided to pick it back up and as such, i’ve lost the original post but it was a quarantine activity (sort drivers into houses, assign quidditch positions, explain) posted by @verstappened​. houses done first, then positions, then explanations for both. i tried to make feasible teams, i.e making sure there arent too many of a single position per house, so this really screwed some of the sorting but oh well.

i did the houses first, then positions, then explanations in that order for the most part.

5/13/20: the sorting was mostly done before i heard all the differing opinions (of which there were many!)

5/19/20: alright so this is literally like 2 months old but i’ve just finished it lolol

Lewis Hamilton:

Slytherin: THE GLORY MAN. the aloof kind of superiority, confidence, is top dog, he’s simply the pinnacle of it all. kind of lethal and doesn’t do the whole ‘looking up to others’ things (outwardly, but he seems very soft on the inside tbh). very majestic and is almost a gryffindor, the kind of slytherin that Merlin is. hard-working, got here from incredibly humble beginnings, which kind of stands out from the rest, but he’s clearly now at the top level of society. still very protective of Others. scarily ambitious. Was originally a gryffindor but I wanted the brits to be in different houses for their quidditch positions to work. Could honestly go either way though.

Seeker: more glory. periodt. he stays winning and scoring the most points. clutch-man. Speedy boy, kind of in a different world than everyone else when competing (he’s always at the front lifetimes away from everyone else lmao. playing a diff game.)

Valtteri Bottas:

Hufflepuff: HE SEEMS. LIKE. A. BIG. CHILD. always relegated and brushed off but is literally God-Tier and no one can convince me otherwise. i consider him to be rather reliable (reflecting only the 2019 season at least lmao). a bit of a vindictive streak bc he knows what he’s Capable Of even when others underestimate him. has a very bright smile.

Beater: have u seen him. he’s a big boy even though he’s 5′8 and only an inch taller than lando norris he seems bigger than he is ok

Charles Leclerc:

Slytherin: this bitch. what a snake. hiss hiss.

Chaser: he wants what lewis hamilton has but chose the wrong position. still a star in his own right. pride and joy of his house, will be at the lead of every formation play unless told otherwise by his head of house, to which he will brood and complain ab but comply in the end bc he wants Team Success and loyalty to his Family. scores the most points on the team and people act like he carries even though he literally has a partner(s).

ok but fr my gut said charles is a slytherin (do i really need to explain why? very critical, doesn’t accept inferiority, somehow succeeds. just a feeling his brain seems to fit motorsport politics well), but i was seriously contemplating whether he’d be a gryffindor to max’s slytherin instead. but then i saw someone mention the whole lion schtick and i was like for all of max’s brattiness he is Gryffindor so sharl is snake. sorry don’t make the rules just follow them.

further edit: this was written before he started streaming (this is how old this draft is) and can u believe him he’s the epitome of the “not all slytherins r evil wenches” idea

Sebastian Vettel:

Ravenclaw: idk for all of Seb’s goofiness he just seems cerebral to me. Seems to know mildly irrelevant facts and is really quite smart however is hopeless in the modern age. Kind of that wise old(er he’s not that old) man knowledge. I’d trust him to give me all the life advice I need but also to write a 10 page essay on the nuances of the effect of emotion on verbal language (which we all know he is very experienced with).

Keeper: it’s the protective Dad Power.

Max Verstappen:

Gryffindor: WAS REALLY GONNA PUT HIM IN SLYTHERIN BC HE’S A NASTY LIL SHIT. TOTAL BRAT. GIVES FUCK ALL WHAT OTHERS SAY. BUT HE IS LION AND LION IS HE SO GRYFFINDOR IT IS. also just bc he needs to oppose sharl in every way possible it’s called Poetic Cinema. also his driving style is clearly the bravery and confidence to the point of recklessness that is prevalent among gryffindors.

Chaser: again, he must oppose Charles. so, not a seeker although he’s clearly singularly the most prized competitor. just like Charles, pride and joy of house, their star chaser. the comparisons never end. the competition never ends. the fighting never ends. one of the most interesting and dynamic performers to watch, is predictable in that he’s not predictable except that he will always be aggro to the max. will always be in trouble for getting rough bc that’s Not His Job but that’s just the gryffindor disregard for rules. master point scorer.

Alex Albon:

Gryffindor: was really a toss up btwn this and Hufflepuff but the ultimate deciding factor was the fact that I wanted all the British Boys to be seekers. he really just sticks it out as max’s teammate like a real one (nothing against max, everything against Helmet Merco) for the good of the team, still is sweet with max anyway. fitting that they’re in the same house too.

Seeker: he’s not the small boy that lando and lewis are but he is (thai/)British. very special boy (big ups on the promotion even tho it was Sad Times for Pear) deserves very special job. also he has a hot girlfriend (alex albon who i only know lily he’s boy toy) idk how that’s relevant but it seems fitting.

Carlos Sainz:

Ravenclaw: bc he’s a spaniard but is still better at english than Lando (i think everyone is tbh). Seems to be a quiet type of smart, sensible, but perhaps this is just the consequence of being compared to Lanno at all times LMAO (no hate all love bby Lannd). would be the type of ravenclaw to follow his friends on absolutely idiotic ventures but would step in to prevent near death or likely-legal-problem causing actions (and only then; otherwise it’s every man for themselves and everyone is free to make a fool of themselves and break some laws. carlos may dabble in such practices.)

Chaser: seems to be a go-getter, not going for points doesn’t even cross his mind. will always be the one driving up the pitch, the strategist of sorts bc he seems big(ger) brain (than lando lololol).

Edit: I wrote this part ab him long ago but this entire section of this post is now irrelevant and canceled.

Lando Norris:

Hufflepuff: you all know why. zero explanation needed. like, none.

also has a bit of an aggressive streak which tends to catch ppl off guard. is not afraid to confront u (hello pageNO) and at times defies the hufflepuff stereotype of being perpetually happy go-lucky (he has his bad days!). but when with His True Crew he is absolutely a hufflepuff ball of energy.

Seeker: small and speedy. energetic to the max. small. quirky and different from the rest, so he gets the special job. small. everyone would kill to protect him. small.

Daniel Ricciardo:

Gryffindor: AW I DIDN’T EVEN REALIZE THAT I PUT HIM AND MAX TOGETHER. LOOK I EVEN MADE THEM BOTH CHASERS. AH HOW BIGBRAIN MY MIND IS. everything ab dan is gold. golden skin, the colors in redbull and renault, his smile, just the vibes. he’s just got the enthusiasm and charisma and this intensity of a gryffindor. super aggressive, his late breaking (from his rbr at least) is legendary and maddening with how he pulls it off. is almost a hufflepuff but the gut said no.

Chaser: is Max’s teammate. so yeah. was obviously the star until younger max came to the show. a bit lost in limbo bc of it but they still work well together.

literally want to make him a hufflepuff so. bad. but i couldn’t split up maxiel. also his vibe is just different from other ‘puffs like stroll so.

Esteban Ocon:

Slytherin: ask max.

Chaser: being characterized off of their relationship with max seems to be a theme here. will go head to head with max w/ absolutely zero shits given. talented, but the rivalry with max is entirely secondary to charles imho. still yet to show his full potential but is still quietly a thorn in max’s side. many are interested to see what he is able to do in the immediate future.

Pierre Gasly:

Hufflepuff: GUYS HE WANTS TO OWN A PANDA

Chaser: constantly trying to prove himself and score big boy points. had a stint as seeker until lando came along. did not do as well as ppl had hoped, returned to chaser and proceeded to crush it from there. praticed a lot with charles as children (the friendship dynamic w/ their houses was definitely unforseen but is amazing).

Daniil Kvyat:

Hufflepuff: really wanted to make him a slytherin but the quidditch positions didn’t work out. firmly believe this works though. more of the rough and tumble type, definitely the kind that will sock u in the nose if u write off hufflepuffs as a joke. could honestly probably be a gryffindor too with how unapologetically aggressive he can be in the name of His Beliefs. gives me big dumb himbo vibes now that i think ab it tbh which is mostly the justification here. also he has a child omg.

Chaser: but the one that’s always headbutting bludgers out of the air (torpedo bitches). also had a stint as seeker before but it Was Not His Thing. he’d much rather be chasing and throwing things than seeking things. also he’s pierre’s mate :,) would’ve been a beater but romain and valtteri will not be anything else so daniil took the boot whoops.

Sergio Perez:

Slytherin: it’s just the vibe. knows his weaknesses and is able to make up for it with his confidence and talent in his strengths. very ambitious, plays the right cards at the right times to get the right results. something ab him puts me on edge, but like in a good way; i feel like there’s always a trump card up his sleeve, like when he gets to q3 out of fucking nowhere in a racing point.

Keeper: he gives me the same vibes as seb idk what it is. very dependable, backbone of his team.

Lance Stroll:

Hufflepuff: guys have u seen the guy. he’s just here to have a good time. may seem a bit airheaded at times but he means well 99% of the time. untapped potential. seems like a no thoughts head empty canadian hockey boy (and every one of these types is a hufflepuff don’t fight it); may or may not be the only accurate description of him.

Chaser: he’s just trying his best out here. i

KEEPER?: SO I DID A QUICK GOOGLE AND HE USED TO BE A HOCKEY

GOALIE?????

so scratch my initial thoughts (tbh i didn’t really know where to put him and i originally had romain as keeper but that’s an issue to fix later on now) BECAUSE LANCE STROLL IS A keeper GOALIE AND NO ONE CAN REFUTE THIS. ABSOLUTELY NO HUMAN OF THIS EARTH. WHAT GLORIOUS INFORMATION TO STUMBLE ACROSS.

Kimi Raikkonen:

Slytherin: guys i really don’t have an in depth analysis of this but i don’t think iceman needs one.

Beater: see above^. y’all must get the vibe.

tbh could also be a keeper tho similar energies to seb and checo, but honestly his no fucks given attitude is ultimately what swayed me

Antonio Giovinazzi:

Gryffindor: he just has that majestic quality (that could also fit a slytherin but i only see red when i see antonio). look at that lion’s mane. also he’s one of kimi’s to paddock friends? seems fitting that he’s a gryffindor to kimi’s slytherin.

Chaser: plays second fiddle to the duo that is max and daniel, often regulated to vibing on the side. but he’s there and he’s important and he has potential (i’ve been seeing ppl talking ab a ferrari move and i’m positively shaken). [edit: again, this post is old.]

im sorry its glaringly obvious idk much about him asdfjasldkd

Kevin Magnussen:

Slytherin: guys lots of these are just self explanatory sorry if i seem like im taking the cheap way out but it’s fact. brundle and crofty call him a great white shark for crying out loud.

Beater: unapologetically chaotic. lurking around the edges making people feel hunted. spends more time playing baseball in the middle of the matches than quidditch and sometimes it backfires but it’s good fun and it sometimes works.

Romain Grosjean:

Hufflepuff: y’all he’s such dad energy and he likes to cook. gets written off a lot but he actually cares (he’s a part of the grand prix drivers assoc.!). he seems so wholesome and he spends time with his kids and their school work when he can do u feel those water drops yeah those r my tears.

Beater: i really wanted to make him a slytherin beater to make him teammates with k-mag but he’s just. not a slytherin. but i kept the beater part. spends the majority of the hufflepuff v. slytherin matches sending bludgers kevin’s way even when he doesn’t mean to. it’s always reciprocated.

George Russell:

Ravenclaw: I’VE SAID IT BEFORE AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN THIS KID. is so marvelously well spoken and he just has such a simple yet effective way with words. he knows what’s reasonable to expect but never fails to expect the most that he can given his circumstances. again, mentioned this before but a lot of it is his accent. the glottal stop is a historically stereotypically rural (i.e. “uneducated”) thing but I’m American and I Don’t Listen to the Rules, so the accent just makes him seem so sophisticated to me especially when he’s saying things like “horriiiiiiiific” and presenting his hefty powerpoints.

Seeker: my British Boys Are Seekers headcanon continues. definitely a Golden Boy of the team kind of guy (hello tragic dumpsterfire that is williams :/ ).

Nicholas Latifi:

Hufflepuff: same boat as lance. his twitch streams are so wholesome he’s just chilling man. twitter made me write him off as daft and unnecessary at first but like fuck twitter i’m all here for ninky latvia now.

Chaser: lowkey gives me keeper vibes as well? the sensible, level-headedness. but obvs that’s lance so chaser it is. still the level-headedness that helps him hold down the fort btwn pierre and daniil who can tend to get a bit imaginative, and also the energies of them + lando.

5/19/20: so it’s quite clear to me that i grew tired of brain functions the more time i took on this and the later ones are a bit lacking and for that i’m very sorry. that being said i’m still happy to see this finished bc the idea was VERY exciting for me.

[sugarplumsfairy]

 alright um 

some initial thoughts 

overall, i thought this movie was super thematically thin (even for an mcu movie). given how long we’ve waited for this film (10 years), i think the final result highlights that this movie came too late -- and it is even more unfortunate that natasha is dead (at the moment) so it didn’t feel like it added much. tbh i’m more disappointed by the film itself than its depiction of russian characters, which is something i’m surprised about actually LMAO

it was entertaining, and Natasha is an absolute G for breaking her nose like that, damn. what a woman i love her. and i liked the relationship between natasha and yelena :’‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘

baby natasha wins for best spoken russian (but that’s milla jovovich’s daughter...i know she speaks in russian to her children so....of course); though short, her performance was great

how do you cast olga kurylenko and have her speak no russian lmao я не понимаю 

ot fagbenle was so underused in this movie my goodness, he better return to the mcu because that was huge disappointment - he deserved better

the accents in this movie were not the best, but most certainly not as bad as i’ve heard in other movies. something i noticed is that the accents were not too over-exaggerated (which is common in american cinema when non-russian speakers play russians) 

one thing i did notice is that often the ending of words didn’t carry the russian accent, idk how to put it and at times it was inconsistent (which to be fair, i won’t harp on given the context that Yelena grew up speaking english for a bit--like an american. accents in life are not always consistent.) i’d have to watch the movie again to really listen to the nuances of the accents 

but overall not too grating

OH SOMETHING I DID REALLY LIKE: in that flashback of younger natasha (de-aged scarjo), i liked that you could hear her original accent, because accents can change over time too

the spoken russian ... ye

personally, instead of “извини меня моя маленькая сестра ” (or whatever she says), they should have used a diminutive. something didn’t sound right to me. idk if it sounded clunky because that piece of dialogue was clunky or because of how scarjo said it, but honestly i feel it’s both, and now that i think of it maybe прости меня would have been better since she’s asking for forgiveness. 

the spoken russian wasn’t the worst i’ve ever heard, some of it was decent,  but again there were times i was like 👂🏼??? 

thankful that the written russian was at the very least actual russian instead of just a random scrambling of cyrillic letters (NOTHING WILL EVER BEAT THIS GEM)

though it’s possible i missed something, but for the most part the written russian was passable

the opening title sequence was so sad, and i’m glad they were unflinching about the red room being human trafficking

i really liked the russian characters more than i thought i would but one thing i will say:

when hollywood needs russian or eastern european heroes, they’ll hire white americans or british folks who know NOTHING about our cultures

and when they need an antagonist they’ll cast someone whose an adjacent ethnicity -- in this case olga kurylenko (but she turns out to be ok in the end, so not too bad)

and it’s gotten to the point where marvel was ok with whitewashing the maximoffs, unambiguously romani-jewish characters because in the eyes of hollywood all eastern europeans and eurasians are exactly the same. (white and russian-coded)

i believe yelena is supposed to be ukrainian as she was born in kyiv ukraine. they completely erased that part of her story sigh -- i guess all eastern europeans are russians ! /s 

the point i’m making is that hollywood has a narrow view of eastern europe/eurasia and the mcu perpetuates it

growing up ukrainian+russian-guatemalan american, i had to watch both sides of my identity get skewered by american cinema in the name of american propaganda. (And then see how americans internalize those ideologies as children) other than pavel chekhov, i have yet to see an eastern european character that i can actually view as an eastern european (or as in my case, a russian+ukrainian), and who is given a positive characterization, and is played by someone with the correct, or at least adjacent ethnicity. 

as a film though, black widow made me sad knowing we won’t get more of natasha :’’(

though this stream of consciousness was mostly critique, i did enjoy watching it, and by no means did i dislike this film, and i’m not hating on it.  

david harbour was sublime as alexei, :’) 

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, LIA! You’ve been accepted for the role of MACBETH with an approved FC change to Dev Patel. Admin Rosey: Ladies and gentlemen, we are incredibly excited to announce that we have our Macbeth! Mikael Falco is a difficult character to capture simply because writing him is like a balancing act - you have to understand his own wants and the wants of those he loves and find balance between the two. Lia, you managed to capture him and his voice perfectly making him wholly unique and stand out in an unapologetic way. We are over the moon to have out Macbeth and even more excited to see what ruin he'll bring to the dash! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Liar

Age | 21

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Activity Level | I pop in every few days for replies, and I’ll definitely be even more active once school ends in a few weeks.

Timezone | EST

How did you find the rp?  | The RP tag many, many eons ago.

Current/Past RP Accounts | *points at Ro*

IN CHARACTER

Character | Macbeth— AKA the wonderfully indecisive and useless Mikael Falco. I would also like to request an FC change to Dev Patel. Dev is 29, so I was hoping to age him down to 31 or 32? That would also make me much more comfortable with the age gap between him and Lucrezia!

What drew you to this character? | Honestly, after I read Macbeth in my Shakespeare class, I began looking at Mikael in a different light. I think there are many people in Verona with  one track minds and desires, but none as plagued by their owns demons and indecision in the way that Mikael is. He was told exactly who he was supposed to be. His parents outlined all the steps, set him up with all the tools and knowledge necessary to secure notoriety for the Falco name. This man yeeted his own parents out of Verona. Like who does that? I think I’ve fallen in love with the potential Mikael sees in himself, but his own inability to make anything of it, and I am v excited to see how he can potentially wreak havoc (or not) when he finally does something (or doesn’t, but if he does it’ll probably be stupid lbr). Being a dark, immoral asshole means nothing when you don’t have the intelligence, aptitude, nor motivation to act on it tbh. He’s not the obvious pick for someone in pursuit of throne— but I believe his inability to quiet the lust within him will potentially get him damn near close (or damn near dead).

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

I DARE DO ALL THAT MAY BECOME A MAN; WHO DARES DO MORE IS NONE— Mikael definitely isn’t the most moral of characters. His parents instilled one goal within him. They never said he had to do it in the most right or moral way. I am interested in exploring his own loyalty to the mob, or the lackthereof. I see him taking the most convienent possible route in order to obtain the one thing he acquires most, and that is the crown. Whether that be through the Capulets or through the Montagues.

IT WILL HAVE BLOOD THEY SAY. BLOOD WILL HAVE BLOOD—The ambuigity in his connection with Matthias is something I adore. It never concretely states whether or not Mikael actually killed his father, but considering all the people he’s killed, whether it be for the Falcos, the Capulets, Lucrezia, or himself— Mikael has accumulated a plethora of bodies in his wake, and quite a few ghosts to follow. A HUGE charactaristic that defines Macbeth, and Mikael too is his own paranoia. He’s always convinced someone is out to get him, and that his own actions (mostly lackthereof), will come back to haunt him. This plot isn’t super concrete right now, but I want Mikael to something (or many) deliciously stupid. Maybe it’ll work out, maybe it probably won’t. These are mostly traits I hope to explore through further characterization and plot development.

SHALL HE DWINDLE, PEAK, AND PINE— There aren’t many people nor things Mikael fears (maybe Lucrezia and his own mind), but Theodora definitely creeps him the fuck out. He won’t make it easier for them, he wants to be chased, pursued even, before he ever considers giving in. What happens when they offer him an escape? Through the experimentation of his own body and mind? What happens when they offer him a potential way to quiet his demons? Mikael has never been one to indulge in drugs, Lucrezia has always been intoxicating enough (an equal parts a headache), and I’m interested in how they might end affecting him— for better or for worse. Will it make him more active? Will it make him even more inactive then before? It would take time because Mikael is stubborn as fuck, but these are all things I hope to discover ;-)

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Pls. Don’t let Lucrezia do it though :|

IN DEPTH

In-Character Para Sample:

1. Mikael born to a family that coveted immortality, to the point where they’d procure it by any means, and for any imminent amount. They would appraise their SOULS, and solicit them to the highest bidders. It would be the Capulets that accepted their terms, and from that moment on, their names would forever be intertwined with the Capulet reign. A symbiotic liaison was formed, one that depended on a child, a son, in particular, to propel forward. But hadn’t they saw how precarious of a position they’d left him in? How difficult it was to make a proper namesake for himself, one severed from the Capulet name, when the only prosperity he’d known was flung to him in scraps from their bloodied, opened palms? They’d grown far too content with being the Capulet’s lapdogs, and they’d managed to commit the greatest sin that any mortal man could carry out against him. Doubt. As they boarded their flight back to India, after a very convincing conversation with Cosimo Capulet expressing his concern for their dwindling minds, his parents were then reduced to the nameless commoners that they’d once been all those years ago. They should’ve known better, but they hadn’t known better— and that’s when Mikael understood that he was not the GOD he believed himself to be and that a total recreation of  himself was vital. He would no longer be the child of two people utterly content with being subjected to the will of another. Those were not the kind of people that were IMMORTALIZED by scripture long after they were gone. He would become the man unwilling to settle for anything other than absolute IDOLIZATION, no matter who would have to be eradicated from his path in order to do so. He were a man willing to forsake even his own parents; how could anyone believe he would not obtain what he wanted at any cost?

2. He would know of LUST before he knew of love (though can he say he truly has loved? When the only love he’d had known has been distorted and corrupt to its very essence?) That terrible, that wild desire— it was instilled in him from his earliest moments of comprehension. This insatiable want; this unquenchable need for something more. It would lord over him in his youth, towering over him like an ominous cloud, but it wasn’t until adulthood that Mikael would dally with it, exploring its various nuances and potentiality. It wouldn’t be until his parents denied him of what he believed to be rightfully his that he first succumbed to it. The second time would be when he saw her. She’d been a dancing flurry of reds, vivacious energy ricocheting off of her and into the minds of her spectators— men and women of all ages. But there had been a crucial disparity between Mikael and the rest of the onlookers, as he would coo to her months later. They were wholly content with being graced by Lucrezia’s presence. A glimpse of her was all they thought they deserved. He’d been greedy, not wanting to settle for a meager glimpse. Mikae had never been one to stop at what he simply deserved. That same lust that had driven him to exile his own blood was the same lust that electrified him in his pursuits of Lucrezia. He’d been a man of scarce variety in his own thoughts, and a man of even scarcer actions. And truthfully? Mikael had known he wasn’t good enough. Not at that moment when he’d first saw her. But his desire fueled his insignificant life with purpose, and despite his own habit of capitulating to inaction, he were determined more than anything to become good enough. No one could deny Mikael of that— of his unquenchable resolve. Lucrezia could ask him of anything, to stare down the GODS themselves, and he would’ve done so. At that moment, he had been nothing and she had been everything. They would BECOME something together. She would breathe life to the Falco name. He’d signed away his soul and commenced with his dance with the devil. Lucrezia wanted a chase— she wanted him to leap through rings of hellfire for her favor, and he’d indulged her with little resistance. He had not expected the softness her love would instill within him, and how wholly determined he would be to keep her happy. She would become the spark that would ignite his flame; she breathed life into the Falco name as he’d expected, but she’d breathed life into him too. He’d been completely enchanted, blind to the power he’d gradually begun to sign over to her. His soul had gone first, followed by his cognizance, a suspension of disbelief replacing the parts of his mind that were meant to be logical. Mikael would come to know that flame Lucrezia wielded, that flame that once frequently warmed him— and that it was just as capable of SCORCHING him all the same. She’d seized all his shortcomings, and how plentiful they had been, and stored them in her ARSENAL of weapons to be wielded against him. And wield them she did. Each TAUNT bounded him tighter and tighter to her. He was incapable of overlooking his own inferiority in her presence. That inferiority that he’d promised himself to overcome, was now being used to keep him constrained, confining him to his own mediocrity. Maybe this is what he deserved for existing as a being ruled by only lust. Mikael told himself that a lesser man would have befallen the same fate, but how could he truly have known, when that lesser man himself met him every day in the mirror?

Extras: my love and adoration b/c I took too damn long on that para sample sokefgoegek Btw, all my bold text disappeared. :( I redid it twice. And it’s gone, yet again

[wintermutal]

#hes a manchild. like thats what he is #i WILL bring the receipts out on this 👀 bring out the receipts lad. i wanna indulge in some victor vale snatchery

(spoilers for the book ‘vicious’ by E.W. Schwab ahead, i don’t go over anything from ‘vengeful’ here.)

honestly all the evidence i need to support victor vale being a little whiny manchild with a tiny weenis is during the first quarter of vicious, when Schwab is still setting up characterization for the story and goes out of her way to describe the absolute galaxy brain tantrum victor throws and the INCREDIBLE abusive red flags in his behavior along with it. this is by no means is this a comprehensive list of receipts but i cannot stress like, how uncomfortable this made me when i was first reading the book

you know when you’re in a grocery store and u hear a kid down the aisle start whining a little in a way where u know you gotta yeet out of there before they start wailing like a fucking tornado siren? this is victor’s pre-tantrum warm up here. look at this absolutely galaxy brain little manlet. “adrenaline was HIS research topic” i love it when authors write 3 year old protagonists. but okay, whatever, everybody gets jealous sometimes, surely that isn’t a true indicator of victor vale teetering on the brink of a mommy-give-me-tendies style tiny weenis man breakdown. let us continue documenting this absolute specimen as the story progresses

here’s eli being like ‘wow its wild that this god i believe in brought me back from the dead’ but no. little weenis man isn’t happy with that. little weenis man wants to make sure eli has the record straight. it was LITTLE WEENIS MAN who brought him back from the dead, NOT god. how DARE eli worship something when eli SHOULD be worshipping WEENIS MAN SUPREME for his SUPREME WEENIS shown by following the instructions of eli, who is a medical student, when eli dies, including using the equipment eli secured from his medical job, because victor vale’s absolute GALAXY BRAIN single handedly RAISED THE DEAD and there IS NO SUCH THING AS GOD. thats right buddy pal dont get fucking confused. tendie man wants to play god and by fuck is he gonna throw a tantrum until he gets the attention he deserves

here we have him right after his friend gets superpowers but HE doesn’t get ANY superpowers and OBVIOUSLY that isn’t fair, the little weenis man DESERVES more than this. he COULD be happy for his friend for doing something he worked hard for but no. tiny weenis man wants his tendies and hes about to fucking tell the world. little weenis man has a plan. 

thats right. tendie man is going to get his fucking superpowers because eli didn’t even try THAT HARD for them while clearly little tendie man deserves them more. sure eli’s worked hard for this but victor doesn’t care. sure victor has no idea about eli’s past and all he’s been through, but it doesnt matter bc little tendie man wants to be Big Special. the toddler is stripping off their pants in the produce section and hes about to go hog wild

here is this absolute manlet deciding that if ELI wont help him get big special powers then hell just find somebody ELSE to do it bc ELI wasnt that special anyway. obviously this is worth roping in an innocent bystander. ‘you see, angie, if YOU dont help me, theres no telling what i would do to myself. if i do something wild and YOU turned me down helping me than it’s YOUR fault that i died so you better help me fucking kill myself’. this is abuse. like this is straight up manipulative, abusive behavior and we can see that this isn’t an isolated incident, this is a pattern of behavior because he’s a little manlet weenis man who wants his FUCKING tendies. 

this is honestly disgusting. like idk if anybody else felt like this while reading this part but like. wow. this freaked me the fuck out. this was one of the most disturbing parts of the book for me, like, this set of scenes where victor has roped angie into this and is faking being in pain and shit so he can get special manlet powers. this is awful. this is like, secret-history-level gut wrenching awfulness. 

so, the tantrum has come to this. here we have this absolute specimen. hes manipulated this innocent person, who by the way is eli’s girlfriend, into this horrible situation because hes a little manlet man throwing a tantrum about how his friend got superpowers and HE didn’t. look at how happy this little bitch is. he sees absolutely nothing wrong with this because the little manlet man is getting his fucking tendies and that’s all that matters. 

angie is dead and victor vale is so fucking tortured. surely it is a curse to be so GALAXY BRAIN and RATIONAL at a time like this but SADLY, the little tendie man must hike up his pants and make a run for the automatic doors at the front of the grocery store. sure he manipulated and killed his best friend’s girlfriend, an innocent person to this entire situation, but like who cares about that, you know? 

say what you will about eli ever but he absolutely hits the nail on the head saying ‘she was a person, not a thing, and you murdered her’. and what is the little beenis man’s response? ‘oh, well, it’s YOUR fault for not helping me tho. like if YOU would have helped me i would have never been FORCED to kill your girlfriend, and also you called the cops on me when you heard i killed your girlfriend and I could have called the cops on you, you fucking traitor, how could you do this to me? i, the little weenis man, am the victim and you hurt my feelings’. what an absolute specimen. what an absolute galaxy brain manlet. victor vale’s dick is the size of a hot wheels toy car

anyway like. he keeps doing this shit. like through the entire two books. like ‘aw he ends up caring for sydney’ yeah he fucking cared about eli and angie too but had no fucking problems with nerfing either of them when they stood in the way of his little manlet goals. hell, like, remember when he brought sydney to an abandoned building to revive a dude so he could murder him again in front of her? 

honestly i swear to god mitch is a goddamn blessing who sees little tendie man for who he really is. like. lets not forget this scene either

mitch fucking gets it. no, eli isn’t a saint. yes, victor isn’t always 100% cartoonishly a villian, and actually rarely is (that’s like….a major theme of this series to begin with, i.e. moral greyness). but victor is fucking dangerous because he doesn’t care. he’s a narcissist. hes a little tendie boy. victor vale WILL throw a tantrum that WILL include taking out anyone he gives a shit about for his own goals and mitch fucking knows it. 

sydney is totally buying into it because of the shit victor pulls acting like he’s helping her, while meanwhile her situation is just really fucking convenient for victor’s own motives. sydney is easy for him to manipulate so long as victor stays on eli’s tail, and mitch desperately wants her to know that as much as he cares about her and wants her to be safe (because mitch is the only fucking stable person in this story i swear to god) victor is not safe, and if victor tries to pull shit on her she shouldn’t be afraid to bite back. but sydney is literally a tween, and thinks victor is super cool doing this shit for her, and mitch knows that there’s not really an easy way he can really explain the nuances of who victor vale is and how he operates to her, so he settles on wishing she would just be a little bit afraid of him, because as we know from eli and angie, trusting victor without thinking is pretty fucking dangerous. it’s heartbreaking, tbh. 

anyway tl;dr victor vale is a little whiny tendie manchild who will throw a tantrum and does not care who he takes down in the process

[necropsittacus]

fuckoff long post about my skeksis language thoughts below the cut. i ought to do more with this but it’s been sitting in my files for a couple months now and i want to Show People  

-i've talked about this hc on here before, but i like it enough to repeat. the existence of names like skekmal and skekvar indicate that they have some means of producing labial consonants with a beak (presumably the skeksis can pronounce their own names. also, while i am very fond of assuming the same "this is translated from what they're actually saying" conceit tolkien uses applies to tdc, it seems unnecessary and overly complicated to assume anything of the sort about *character names,* especially ones that don't sound like real-world names to start with. i am going to assume unless told otherwise that those are their actual in-universe names and not "translated" for human benefit). my favored solution is that they have syrinxes like a parrot’s rather than humanoid vocal apparatus.

-there are separate extant skeksis and gelfling languages. (evidence for this: the skeksis were straight up originally supposed to speak their own language in the movie. "shadows of the dark crystal" has a comment about how well skekso speaks gelfling. also, "shadows of the dark crystal" does some things with speech patterns for the skeksis, which i will get into below and which, with the possible exception of chamberlain and novels!hunter, make most sense to me to treat as second language difficulties--i have a hard time seeing, say, emperor deliberately speaking ""wrongly"")

one might expect that the skeksis, being the way they are, would install their own language as the official or state language. given that "shadows of the dark crystal" specifies that skekso's accent in the Gelfling language is pretty good, in a scene taking place in the castle ("his voice sounded almost cultured, his accent in the gelfling tongue much more perfected than the stilted broken phrases of the Chamberlain" (*shadows of the dark crystal* 202)), i'm assuming that *isn't* the situation, and for whatever reason they're using Gelfling for state business. given the skeksis in general, that sure isn't out of a sense of benevolence. 

one option: the skeksis treat their language as a Special In-Group Thing that they don't want to use with or maybe teach to outsiders. it's become essentially a ritual thing (which might in itself warrant an explanation as to how that came about, tbh), or they do use it for casual purposes but only among themselves, something like that. 

another option: there's some specific reason the skeksis lang would be impractical as a state language--i think the most likely thing for this is that there's some aspect(s) of the skeksis lang that are just anatomically difficult or impossible for gelflings to produce, perceive, or both (my initial thought was just "they might have sounds a gelfling doesn't have the right anatomy to make," influenced by the syrinx idea, but tbh going with that same idea i think like, crows, have fairly nuanced signals that we might just hear as "caw" across the board, so a species with both that sort of vocal anatomy and their own language could conceivably have nuances of sound difference a different species wouldn't Pick Up On, either?)

and these aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, either

-name vs title: (this is as much my friend skye's (@deerpunk) idea as mine, so i don't want to take full credit for it) using a skeksis's personal name vs their title is a formality distinction pretty similar to the T-V distinction, except that, due to the skeksis being How They Are, the more positive familiarity/intimacy sense has been lost in most contexts, for most skeksis, and most of what's left is the insult sense. (there are some exceptions to this: skekvar to skeksil, when he's decided he trusts him, maybe skeklach and skekok (although that strikes me as half-jokingly rude friendship, so it could be both tbh), skekmal's death--and that could be a breaking down of formality expectations because the situation is so dire.) because strength, respect, ornamentation, dignity are so important to the skeksis, using someone's title to refer to them is the default, and using a personal name is specifically marking something. this is also why we very rarely see anyone call emperor "skekso" (with the exception of, to the point i’ve gotten to in the novels at the time of writing, skeksa and skekmal--and those two seem more likely to talk back to skekso anyway tbh)--it would just be rude as hell and there might be consequences

it's also of immense interest to me that at one point in "shadows of the dark crystal," skekmal refers to emperor as "so." i have not seen this kind of shortening anywhere else. it's either a peculiarity of skekmal, which would check out, given how weird his speech patterns generally are in that book, or an additional level of informality, which presumably no one but skekmal has the guts to *use* (especially for skekso holy shit). 

-"shadow of the dark crystal" gives several skeksis specific fucky speech patterns (presumably in the gelfling language), *besides* what's going on with chamberlain, which i think can mostly be attributed to like. Chamberlain. chamberlain has multiple scenes in AOR where there are only other skeksis present (so i think it’s a fair guess that they’d be using the Skeksis language), and his speech patterns are just as weird, in the same ways, as when he’s talking to gelfling. 

so what i'm saying about this is mostly discounting chamberlain, although i will say that the “using the same weird speech patterns in sentences that are in-universe presumably in skeksis and gelfling” thing, to me, suggests maybe that he actually has a different kind of fucked up speech pattern across languages, and it’s being “translated” as the same for the benefit of the viewers (i would guess the skeksis and gelfling languages don’t have exactly the same grammar; i would also guess that chamberlain talking kind of weird is, as iirc the wiki suggests, a deliberate choice meant to project a certain image). it’s also interesting that from the very little information i have just from “shadows of the dark crystal,” chamberlain does not make the same errors as emperor (possibly he actually speaks gelfling fairly well and is playing up “oh look at poor harmless chamberlain, i don’t speak your language too good, be nice to me :)” ?)

i'm going to talk about *shadows of the dark crystal*!skekmal separately, since his speech patterns, as mentioned above, are kind of wild and have some commonalities with both chamberlain and the other skeksis in the book. i feel it necessary to distinguish novels skekmal from aor skekmal, who talks normally if a bit melodramatically. (also i'm getting the impression they have slightly different personalities, from what i've seen so far, but that's not relevant to this monstrosity of a post)

i am going to list the weird sentences individually in a bit here. the most notable oddities (discounting chamberlain and hunter) are copula omission, verb number agreement (possibly person, too, but english has so little verb agreement that that's hard to judge); "gelfling" being pluralized as "gelfling," which i think is common enough in tdc but in combination with the previous point made me wonder about pluralization errors? the omission of definite articles, and some odd word order stuff that could also be taken as sheer pretentiousness

copula omission: 

"gelfling the ones that do the fixing" (202)

"gelfling causing problems for us, lord skeksis (202) ("lord skeksis" there also feels odd to me; i think i would have expected a definite article, and maybe a different word order)

"all gelfling traitors" (211)

verb agreement: 

"we love gelfling, we do, we loves them" (203)

"after all skeksis does for you! gelfling came here just to tell such lies!" (211)

misc: 

“daughter-soldier” (202) is not egregious but a bit odd

“yes?” to end a wh-question (202)

"silverling is sounding like a traitor herself" (212)

"see the crystal herself" (214) is not terrible but feels a Little weird 

“we care not”

hunter: (not sure whether to even count this for Skeksis Speech Oddities because his speech patterns are SO wild)

"skeksis tower"

also drops first person subject pronoun (222)

"end this now, skekMal will do" (222) -- third person for himself, weird word order

omission of third person subject pronoun also 

consistent omission of articles, except "skekTek the Scientist"

"not if skekMal make and take it for *himself*" - verbal agreement error

"what we does with Gelfling" - verbal agreement error

more subject pronoun omission and verb agreement errors- "silverling wanted to know what we does with gelfling. wanted to see for itself...got what it deserves" (222)

"hard to fight while carrying stone" (225) - this is okay but feels kind of weird (at least personally i’d probably say “it’s hard to fight…” in this context) 

skektek also omits subject pronouns (238)--"gets to see the crystal *now*"

we don't see skektek omit first person, which is interesting; i’m taking that as essentially a characterization thing--it makes sense to have skektek in particular emphasizing his own presence and relevance 

"skeksis taking care of it, taking care of gelfling" - past progressive expressed as simple progressive with no copula (243)

"how's skeksis to protect little gelfling when crystal cracked?" - agreement error, article omission (243)

"when growing old? growing weak?" (243) - omission of both subject pronoun and copula

negative concord--"not one with nothing"--(245)

"where the one with wings" (248) - copula omission

"skekmal smells 'em" (248)--is this the first place we get a potentially animate pronoun used for a gelfling by a skeksis? and it's plural?

"what says gelfling"

"gelfling wings comes fluttering out to save it" (248)--with "it" being gurjin, presumably, since skekMal would be unable to grab naia since he doesn't know exactly where she is. so this would be "gelfling wings comes fluttering out to save gurjin;" "gelfling wings" could be interpreted as "gelfling with wings" or "gelfling's wings" with about equal workability in this sentence--"gelfling with wings comes fluttering out to save gurjin" or "gelfling's wings come fluttering out to save gurjin"--Gurjin takes it as the second ("gelfling wings fly her to ha'rar")

"skekMal kills this one, then it kills the others" (249)--skekMal using not only third person, but inanimate third person, to refer to himself. skekMal using third person like this could be taken as meaning that referring to yourself in the third person either has a different connotation than in english (i tend to think of it as sort of childlike or cutesy, and skekMal is REALLY not that), and most likely different connotations for skekMal doing it than chamberlain doing it, or this is just a really weird take on him.

also, I’ve mostly been assuming the skeksis using “it” for gelfling is just a “they don’t see gelflings as fully sentient” thing, but that can’t really apply to skekMal; i wonder if the skeksis language doesn’t have a pronoun animacy distinction, or it doesn’t work the same way as in english, and they’re just Worse about remembering to use the right ones for gelfling, because of the “not seeing gelflings as people” problem? 

you could take that farther and say the skeksis language, or maybe the urskeks? don't have third person pronouns at *all;* (at any rate, my personal headcanon has always been that they didn't originally have gendered pronouns, or really gender at all per se, and skeksa and (probably) skeklach (and by extension presumably their urru counterparts) just heard this "she" and "woman" thing from non-skeksis and went "yeah i want that")

also this could have relevance to chamberlain and novels!skekmal using third person for themselves so much

my friend skye, mentioned above, took this and suggested the skeksis lang is grammatically similar to japanese, in connection with the urskeks being super collectivist, which i like. It would also jive with the verbal agreement and pluralization errors, inconsistent use of articles, and copula omission.

this post may be updated with more novels stuff later on, because This Is What I’m Doing With My Major I Guess.