#the person i swapped it was definitely from some parallel universe given she was not a human. no wait she was a human? i cant remember?

[creechurfoundincheckerboardvoid]

i wish my subconscious was a sentient separate part of myself so i could ask it questions mainly WHAT and more importantly WHY THE FUCK did it make me dream that

[sepublic]

Unpopular King Opinion

           Unpopular opinion I’m about to repeat AGAIN; But King actually has a lot more depth and nuance than people give him credit for, and he has that depth regardless of whether or not he was an actual king of demons or has some mysterious, all-powerful backstory or whatnot. If we look at him just as-is, at face-value, with what we actually have in canon, no speculation; King IS a very interesting character, actually, with a surprising amount of darkness!

           There’s the parallels with Lilith that I’ve brought up in the past. King is a very artistic individual who wants glory and recognition, but on his own terms; He wants to be appreciated for stuff he cares about and feels he has agency in, not because he’s superficially adorable or anything! But at the same time, King DOES want to be coddled and cared for, given a sort of childhood he never really got- But he just wants some respect and agency with that as well, is that too much to ask for?

           And that fits with how Luz babies him, but in a way that respects and listens to King’s requests, taking heed of his advice and lessons; Eda treats them both with respect and a proper level of accountability, while also protecting them because they’re both kids who don’t deserve that. This contrasts with Amity who’s kind of forced to grow up and is superficially taken seriously, but on the downside, she’s severely emotionally stunted and feels like she has to do all of the heavy-lifting for herself and others, by herself.

           King is kind of coming to age in his own way like Luz, learning to take accountability and responsibility for his mistakes, as part of that quest to be taken seriously and respected, while still getting to be treated kindly and looked after, and then looking after Luz by himself occasionally. He wants power and control, but he sometimes has issues with the responsibility that comes with that, with demanding attention from Luz in Really Small Problems, and how King has to step up to his alleged leadership role by owning up to his mistakes, how we see him be a great teacher at Hexside for a day. 

          We see him start as a terrible teacher in I was a Teenage Abomination, before he improves in The Intruder, and by The First Day he can win the hearts of an entire class of teenagers, kids he once thought were terrifying after Once Upon a Swap- But who he grew to better understand thanks to his experience in Luz’s body, as well as learning to understand Luz herself and be a better person to her! Even when his fears of judgment aren’t fully conquered during Grom, no thanks to Eda’s own personal experiences and warnings- Gus manages to encourage King’s eventual confidence to speak out!

           King’s got a disconnect with Luz and Eda in that both are only really demonized or looked down upon, as criminals and troublemakers, a cursed witch and a human, dehumanized… While King has been mostly fetishized, but that too is also dehumanizing, reducing him to a prop and a toy, a doll and a pet; One that people like Roselle, Dottie, Tibbles, and Boscha think they can just buy and own without permission. Just a cute animal to own and be carried by his collar by say Lilith, who also dehumanizes Luz as another one of Eda’s ‘pets’.

           And as I said, that disconnect about being fetishized and seemingly ‘wanted’, to Eda who was cursed and ostracized and seen only as a monstrous freak; It means she doesn’t quite understand and even downplays King’s issues with that, which it’s why it’s important she literally walks in his shoes during Once Upon a Swap, that Eda realizes that being fetishized isn’t fun either, that her and King both just want respect and agency and to be treated by people with their own agency, and not like, say, someone’s younger troublemaker of a sibling who doesn’t understand what she’s getting into, as Lilith sometimes feels about her.

           Likewise, King has issues with feeling outpaced and left behind by others, we see it literally happen in Covention and Really Small Problems. And this inferiority complex makes King convince himself that it’s okay if he acts against his friends, THEY can easily handle a minor loss or two when they’ve got so many wins under their belt, when they’re much farther ahead; King just wants to catch up, to be on equal footing with them! And he IS, Luz and Eda do respect and care for him, even if they sometimes forget to, but it doesn’t justify King working behind their backs, using Eda’s owl-beast form to get revenge on a toddler, or taking the credit for Luz’s work and even trying to make her friends disappear.

           He’s got very artistic inclinations, if King were a witch he’d easily be a Bard AND Beastkeeper at least, maybe in Abominations as well! It provides a sense of control over mindless, obedient people… But honestly, I don’t think King is THAT obsessed with power. He just wants to feel in charge when for so long he’s just been brushed aside, ignored, and talked over. When he’s in a good environment and feels safe and in control to a reasonable degree, I don’t think King would actually care for an army to command as much, if at all.

           I’ll say it again, but it’s hilariously meta that people ignore King’s depth and personhood, his individuality often, and just boil him down to the cute pet, a borderline shallow mascot; Just another pretty face, a garnish to a more important criminal like Eda on her Wanted Poster, or as Luz’s little furry animal companion and sidekick. That’s what the characters in-universe do… And it’s what the fandom kind of does, in a sense? People in-universe don’t even have the luxury of getting to know King intimately as an audience member.

           …Mind you, I STILL love adorable King fanart and memes to death! I am not at all trying to fault anyone who doesn’t recognize King’s depth this way, I can see why you’d miss it in a sense, and I’m not implying that anyone is somehow a ‘bad person’, or a ‘fake fan’, or whatever, for not considering this a lot more. You do you, and I’m not saying it’s a personal requirement that people intimately discuss and consider King, I will always enjoy the cute fanart and depictions of King, the Incorrect Quotes, all that stuff! I just kinda wish we could have that, AND more acknowledgement of King…

           So I want BOTH things, so even if I’m missing out on one- I’m definitely going to enjoy the other, and it’s okay if one wants to as well! Go ahead, enjoy King as you please, guilt-free… I just wanted to get this out there, and anyhow, I’M not the boss of anyone, it’s not like I can tell anyone else how to engage with this show, its characters, or the fandom through the content that’s produced! I’m just another fan and viewer.

[imreallyhereforplance]

On Marinette!Mouse/Fox

This new post is a continuation / major elaboration of my Multimouse duplication theory.

A very lovely and clever anon left me this message in response to this post I made. The anon reminded me about the mouse/fox fusion leak for Marinette and also made me aware of a theory alternative to my last one: Based on the leaks, Marinette (as the mouse/fox fusion) would create an illusion of Ladybug using the fox miraculous in order to hide her identity from Chat Noir.

I personally disagree with this only because the illusion still can’t cleanse the akuma/amok, which was the major reason I created the duplication theory. Nonetheless, the implications of the mouse/fox fusion leak are intriguing, so I began to go through different scenarios in my head to try and investigate the plausibility of each one...

~~~

Discussion time! Let’s assume for a hot second that it’s definitively true Multimouse only has one appearance (for Marinette, at least, as it seems Mylène will have the mouse miraculous sometime in the future). At some point during this single appearance, Marinette is going to don the fox miraculous as well. It could go any one of the following ways:  

1. Marinette took the jewels herself - We get no parallel to when Ladybug chose Adrien for a miraculous in Desperada. Kinda disappointing, though I wouldn't be completely surprised. I really would like Chat to get the chance to choose a holder, though, and I would be surprised if he didn't choose Marinette given that opportunity, both for dramatic irony and because it’d be the logical choice in-universe. 

To be honest, I don't see this option coming true. For a single appearance, I don’t know why Marinette would get a mouse costume design and then an additional design for both mouse and fox if she was just going acquire the jewels simultaneously. Or even not simultaneously - even in a single episode generally, I wouldn't expect all these new and never-again-seen costume changes. Also, if there was something threatening the city, I’m not sure why Marinette would forego her Ladybug powers, including akuma/amok cleansing, in the first place (unless her earrings were stolen/missing, but that seems like a major episode). Rather, if she really needed the fox and mouse powers, I’d expect her to seek out Alya and some new holder.

2. Chat offered the mouse and Marinette rejected until she could get the fox from Fu - In my opinion, this is more plausible than #1. Chat offering Marinette the mouse is a more believable premise for her using it than Marinette deciding to use the mouse on her own (though that’s mostly because I wonder why she doesn’t want/need to have Ladybug’s powers in the mouse/fox fusion). It would give Marinette time to think and judge the situation carefully before committing to Multimouse, thereby rushing into the job before she can figure out how to handle hiding her identity while also being able to cleanse the akuma/amok. Again, though, an illusion of Ladybug still can’t use Ladybug’s powers. 

I wonder if Marinette, who, keep in mind, is both mouse and fox at the moment, would use a giant illusion involving Multimouse (since she can’t show Chat that Multimouse has the fox miraculous) and Ladybug stopping and cleansing the akuma/amok. Assuming that the actual akuma/amok is docile enough that it doesn't ruin the credibility of the illusion. And Chat...just leaves I suppose? Without the Pound It where he’d find both ladies’ fists intangible? Nope, wouldn’t work - he’d try to take the mouse miraculous back from the Multimouse illusion. 

Basically, a lot could go wrong with this option. Very convoluted.

3. Chat offered the mouse and Marinette grabbed the fox later on - Same problems as #2. In some places the logic is better and in others it’s worse. Enough said.

~~~

So, what did we learn?

It is extremely unlikely that Marinette with the mouse miraculous only makes one appearance.

Why is this important?

I seriously doubt that Multimouse and mouse/fox fusion Marinette appear in the same episode.

Again, why is this important?

Because that means Marinette will not be using an illusion to hide her identity as Multimouse. 

I mean, that’s assuming the Multimouse episode happens before the mouse/fox episode, which I am 99% sure of since we got the Aspik episode (Desperada) before the Snake Noir episode.

Yup, Snake Noir. The snake/black cat fusion for Adrien. Of course we got to see the snake and black cat seperately before we saw the fusion - just makes sense. Same will happen with seeing the fox and mouse separately before we see them fused together.

~~~

Alright, so now that we know Marinette will have the mouse miraculous more than once, let’s get back to the discussion. Why does she have the mouse alone once and the mouse and fox together once? What are the implications of this?

It really comes down to who Adrien sees as behind the mouse mask.

1. “Ladybug” is Multimouse - What this means is Ladybug made the decision, very openly with Chat, to don the mouse miraculous for some reason (like I described in #1 of “single appearance scenarios ^^). I don’t know what that reason would be - like I said, I’d expect that if the powers were needed so much, Ladybug would keep her own powers and find a holder for the mouse. Ladybug is the only one who can capture akumas/amoks, so unless her earrings are unavailable, I don’t know why this would occur. 

What I’m saying is, if the writers can find a reasonable premise for this, then it’s definitely the least complicated. In future episodes, Ladybug would simply swap her own powers for the mouse, and then for the mouse and fox. Honestly a lot simpler than the alternative option.

2. “Marinette” is Multimouse - This is...VERY interesting. Why, you ask? Well, because it makes me wonder why Marinette is once entrusted with the mouse by Chat, and then sometime later entrusted with both the mouse and fox. Or, of course, gets the mouse from Chat, then takes the fox on her own and claims Ladybug gave it to her. Either way, I ask the question why. Why would Chat trust Marinette with this much power? Or, why would Marinette choose to give Multimouse so much power instead of trying to find a way around it and remain as Ladybug in Chat’s eyes?  

Hm. Getting back to that, let’s look at the other fusion design - Snake Noir.

You know what’s kind of funny? How, unlike with mouse/fox, which doesn’t include Marinette’s ulterior identity, snake/black cat does include Adrien’s ulterior identity. Both of them, actually. Marinette once saw “Adrien” with the snake and has seen “Chat” with the black cat. Interesting. So, is this fusion “Chat Noir” or “Adrien” in Marinette’s eyes? Chat, right, since why would Adrien be entrusted with the super powerful black cat miraculous? And also the snake miraculous again when it didn’t work out the first time?

But then look at Snake Noir’s hair design. Whenever Marinette sees “Chat Noir” (as Chat, Mister Bug) his hair looks a certain way. Bananas, I’ve heard. But this hair design on Snake Noir looks a lot like Aspik’s. But then again, his name is Snake Noir, which is a direct reference to Chat Noir. So...probably Chat.

But in that case, why would Marinette as mouse/fox and Chat as Snake Noir be fighting an akuma together for a second time? Especially with these huge power-ups? So surely Multimouse must be “Ladybug” and not “Marinette”?

Or maybe this episode happens after the reveal.

Not sure, of course. Probably not true, but just a thought.

Maybe the mouse/fox and Snake Noir appearances happen in different episodes. All I’m saying is, if Multimouse is indeed “Marinette” and not “Ladybug,” then the episode with mouse/fox is going to be very interesting, either because the reveal has happened by that point or Marinette is going to be a freaking boss in front of Chat.

And like I was insinuating before, Snake Noir might be “Adrien” over “Chat,” not sure. Could be, but not as likely (again, unless the reveal has happened).

~~~

In conclusion, it is very possible that Multimouse is “Ladybug” over “Marinette” and will not need to make excuses as to why Ladybug isn’t present during those episodes. If Multimouse is “Marinette,” though, I don’t believe she will be using the fox miraculous along with the mouse for her first appearance (she will have more than one), thus I still think my duplication theory holds. I will be very curious to see the dynamics of these characters during the fusion episode(s).

[omnifiglot]

Many conflicting feelings

Just got back from TRoS.

Spoilers, of course.

Many many feelings.

I doubt my opinion will fit neatly into any one category of those who are for vs those who are against, etc.

The pacing left much to be desired. The film would have benefited from being at least another hour long.

This was not a character piece like The Last Jedi. This was definitely a plot plot plot piece. There is a lot of plot in this film. This film is crammed with plot.

I can accept the ending if and only if it is officially established that Palpatine was Anakin’s father (in some way). This was written into an earlier draft of Revenge of the Sith and heavily heavily implied during the Darth Vader comic series. In this way, Rey as Skywalker is of the same bloodline as Luke and Leia, sort of, and can more directly carry on their legacy, sort of. Further, we’ve established that force ghosts can interact with the physical world, so there definitely needs to be some luminous being/crude matter dating going on post credits. We need force ghost space babies.

Re: this not being a character piece, I can at least understand where the writers were coming from in some cases, though the metralhadora pacing is not helping. Finn’s story arc, arguably, was finished in The Last Jedi, in that his transformation was completed, though I don’t know what making him force sensitive really accomplished. Rey’s lineage severely undercut what I thought was a perfect message in The Last Jedi about greatness coming from anywhere, but it’s possible that this was JJ’s plan for her from the beginning and it was just the rotten luck of him being given the reigns to finish it. TFA novelization sure sounded like that was the direction it was going—this was actually my original Rey theory back in 2016. But I’m still not fond of the development in light of TLJ. It smacks a lot of the retcon of Luke being Vader’s son. Rose was probably the worst-served in TRoS, though if I’m giving JJ the benefit of the doubt, I could rationalize that it’s because her character in TLJ was actually a static character who served, alongside DJ, as the shoulder angel and devil who furthered Finn’s transformation. She didn’t really have a character arc in that film, but that was no reason not to give her one in this one. This was foreshadowed in the most recent canon novels, so I was kind of expecting it.

I confess that when Ben finally becomes one with the force, I had to suppress a laugh, but not because I’m a horrible person or anything, at least I hope. But because after so many fake out deaths between him and Rey, it was starting to feel like a Whack-a-Mole game. Will they stay down this time?? That really is the key decision I don’t know if I can stomach. Possibility that, since he faded together with Leia, that Leia was force projecting Ben’s illusion to comfort Rey? You know ... comfort ... her ... by dying ... maybe he’s still at the bottom of the chasm and at the end, he’s like, “Hey, guys? Anyone?” And we just didn’t see it because we didn’t stay through the credits.

The plot itself, well, I felt a lot like I was reading some deep Sith lore from SWTOR rather than the conclusion of the Skywalker saga. To be fair, I love SWTOR, but I never had any ambitions of seeing it in a theater. I enjoyed the Indiana Jones vibe of the first half, and noted that it paralleled in many ways The Last Crusade specifically. I enjoyed the cult-like element of the Final Order. I kind of enjoy the thought that Palpatine has a Snoke factory just churning out Snoke clones. And while it does seem to contradict some canon, I appreciate that they wanted to honor Carrie Fisher, who had, as I understand it, really wanted Leia to have become a Jedi. She wanted to have a lightsaber. So I had a little bit of heart melting at that. Though I’d have preferred it if hers had been purple, which she had wanted.

Satisfying conclusion, though? For me, not so much. If Ben had made it to the end, sure, I’d be a lot happier with it. If we had seen Rey starting a new Jedi temple at the old Skywalker homestead, maybe a bit, because it would have ended on a hopeful note. But like ... what was resolved? The Galaxy is still a mess, the Skywalkers are gone (see possible caveat up top), the First Order wasn’t even destroyed (just the Final Order ships and seemingly all their high command), and the Resistance is led by Generals Finn and Poe, not providing a new government alternative to the First Order. If we had seen a Jedi temple being erected on Tatooine, that would have at least been something.

So mixed feelings all around. On the plus side, I’m reminded of the old Expanded Universe. Well, that’s kind of the era we’re in right now: no canon future for the saga, as far as we know, and so it’s back to novels and comics and video games, which holds so many fond memories for me ... we’ll hopefully get to explore the post TRoS world there. And if we don’t, well, the old EU was created by the fans, for the fans. Nothing’s to stop us ...

Gives me some good future direction for my current AU Star Wars fanfic where Luke and Leia’s places were swapped in ANH.

[tatticstudio55]

GOT vs ASOIAF: my theory on Daenerys’s endgame in the books

It’s been a while since I posted THIS (more than a year, in fact), but back then I hadn’t read AFFC, and some of the stuff I found in the book gave me pause, because it actually corroborated what I’d said in “Clocks and dragons”:

-That the Wall was the reason behind the abnormally long seasons in Westeros, and

-That the lands beyond the Wall stood outside of time, and

-That dragons were a symbol of time.

As it turns out, Ser Arys and Arianne Martell have this discussion in A Feast for Crows:

 "Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?"

He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?"

"The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again.

(The soiled knight, AFFC)

 And in the prologue, we’ve got this:

 And beyond, where the Honeywine widened into Whispering Sound, rose the Hightower, its beacon fires bright against the dawn. From where it stood atop the bluffs of Battle Island, its shadow cut the city like a sword. Those born and raised in Oldtown could tell the time of day by where that shadow fell. Some claimed a man could see all the way to the Wall from the top.

 Which does locate the lands beyond the Wall “outside of the clock” (i.e., outside of time), so to speak. I do suspect that the Wall will also be brought down by a dragon in the books. Thematically, it’s fitting. However, I do not expect the deed to be done by an undead dragon. Rather, Daenerys will be the one to destroy the Wall, and not by accident either. In THIS post (also an old one), I discussed Meereen as a metaphor for the land of the dead, as per greek mythology: that the city was enclosed behind “impenetrable” walls, with harpies perched on top, in the middle of a wasteland and surrounded by a dirty river (the Styx/the Skahazadhan), with people inside worshipping the god of death in the fighting pits, etc. This passage from ASOS, where Dany recall the sack of Meereen -

 If a war galley could ram another ship, why not a gate? That had been her thought when she commanded the captains to drive their ships ashore. Their masts had become her battering rams, and swarms of freedmen had torn their hulls apart to build mantlets, turtles, catapults, and ladders. The sellwords had given each ram a bawdy name, and it had been the mainmast of Meraxes - formerly Joso's Prank - that had broken the eastern gate. Joso's Cock, they called it. The fighting had raged bitter and bloody for most of a day and well into the night before the wood began to splinter and Meraxes' iron figurehead, a laughing jester's face, came crashing through.

Dany had wanted to lead the attack herself, but to a man her captains said that would be madness, and her captains never agreed on anything. Instead she remained in the rear, sitting atop her silver in a long shirt of mail. She heard the city fall from half a league away, though, when the defenders' shouts of defiance changed to cries of fear. Her dragons had roared as one in that moment, filling the night with flame. The slaves are rising, she knew at once.

 - could then be foreshadowing of Daenerys herself destroying the walls of a (much more literal) “land of the dead” – the lands beyond the Wall –, where dead slaves also “rise”, once her dragons are fully grown.

There’s both Doylist and watsonian explanations for Dany to destroy the Wall. There’s already the fact that she’s a dragonrider (a “bringer of time”, in a manner of speaking), and the maybe-significant foreshadowing with Meereen. More importantly, though, @oadara and @khaleesirin have written excellent metas laying out the parallels between the Others and slavery in Essos, as well as Daenerys’s own status as an “Other”. And here’s the thing: the Wall itself is an “otherizing” element. This is mostly apparent with the wildlings, and how, South of the Wall, the definition of “Others” slowly shifted from “surnatural beings made of magical ice” to “wildlings”, and how the mentality shifted from “they’re beyond the Wall because they’re Others/a threat to us” to “they’re Others and a threat to us because they’re beyond the Wall”. In-universe reasons for Dany to destroy the Wall might be 1) that she needs to get pass (to fight whatever’s beyond, I suppose, maybe even fly to the lands of Always Winter), and we now know from Fire & Blood that dragons CAN’T cross, or 2) intuitively guessing that the destruction of the Wall will awake an old magic (waking an ice dragon, perhaps? If Others are vulnerable to “frozen fire” (dragonglass), I assume that an ice dragon would make a more than fine asset against them, especially with a half Stark, half Targaryen, half ice half fire young prince around to ride it. But I digress.)

So, what if the show had given Dany’s most shocking moment to the Night King (because… he had to be given something interesting to do?), then tried to make up for it by handing some of the Night King’s traits to Dany in return?

(I know I’m linking a lot of previous posts, but it’s just all coming together right now.)

While it’s true that Daenerys destroying the Wall doesn’t necessarily mean that she won’t also destroy King’s Landing, whether of not by accident, I would personally find it redundant. Right now, I’m more inclined to impute the (eventual) destruction of King’s Landing on Dorne.

Anyway, these are my reasons to suspect that the show swapped the destruction of the Wall with the destruction of King’s Landing for Dany. But do let me know what you think, I’m curious.

[raeynbowboi]

The Other Ships in My Fleet

So, I’ve already made a post talking about how I feel about certain ships in My Hero Academia, and another post about some of my other fandoms. Both posts got a lot of likes and reblogs, so I figured I’d talk about my ships from other fandoms. If this post also gets a lot of positive feedback, I’ll consider starting a second page to post my fan content for all of my fandoms, while still maintaining this one almost exclusively for My Hero Academia and Kiribaku specifically.

Klance (Keith x Lance) Voltron: Legendary Defender

I’m fully aware that this ship is probably not going to happen, but it’s really the only ship in the series that speaks to me. I will not lie, I am a big fan of dark and moody dating happy-go-lucky, and the rivals to friends to lovers element is just icing on the cake. It’s only further helped by Lance being Keith’s second-in-command. They help each other grow, and the trust that forms between them is cute and endearing. They also shared a major element to their characters. Both of them feel out of place, Keith because of his Galra heritage, and Lance because he doesn’t have a niche role.

Rabies/Rae x BB (Raven x Beast Boy) Teen Titans (2003)

While there wasn’t a lot of shipping fodder for these two in the 2003 iteration, the two are a canon couple in most versions of the teen titans, having been married in the comics (more than once, I think) so this is sort of a unique ship in that I ship it across every version of the two characters. Sporting a snarky moody goth and a lovable goofball, their dynamic was like that of an old married couple, or a moody teenager and her annoying little brother. Still, the two were good friends, and even though their personalities were polar opposites of each other, they had a lot of quiet, emotional moments together in the series. Whether you want to read them as friends or potential lovers, I think it’s hard to deny that there was a genuinely nice bond between the pair.

Garnet/Rupphire (Ruby x Sapphire) Steven Universe

As the show’s literal physical manifestation of love and a perfect relationship, it’s hard not to like the relationship between these two adorable lesbians. With the show sometimes being edited to remove the queer elements, it’s absolutely hysterical that they had the two get married in an episode very important to the plot, and put Ruby in the dress so that absolutely nobody could misinterpret her as a male. Editing it would only confuse viewers as to why everybody is in wedding attire, thus taking a very satisfying stance against censors and bigotry. Garnet also marks a first in children’s programming as the first same-sex wedding in a children’s animated show, at least as far as I’m aware.

Pearl x Mystery Girl Steven Unieverse

Although only featured in a single episode and having no dialogue, Mystery Girl (possibly named Sabina) is a very important element to Pearl’s character, being her first step toward moving on from Rose Quartz. There were fans that hoped that Mystery Girl would come back, but even if she doesn’t, she’s still important to Pearl’s character development.

Amedot (Amethyst x Peridot) Steven Universe

I know a lot of people prefer Lapidot, but frankly I find Lapis too selfish and cold-hearted to be ready for a relationship as she currently stands. I find Amethyst to be a better fit for Peridot, since they both share issues with their height. That, and the way the show frames them has romantic comedy tropes interwoven into their scenes. But even if they’re just friends, Amethyst’s approval means so much to Peridot.

Stevonnie (Steven Universe x Connie Maheswaren) Steven Universe

I’m not usually a fan of lead boy dates lead girl ships, as they tend to be very poorly done, and many feel forced, or are just boring and predictable. However, the bond between these two feels very genuine. They don’t feel like a lead boy and lead girl forced into a relationship at all. They come together very naturally, and the show takes its time to build their friendship up slowly. The show remembers that they’re kids first, friends second, jam buds third, and love interests last.

Tomstar (Tom Lucitor x Star Butterfly) Star Vs the Forces of Evil

Considering the show’s themes of monsters, racism, and not judging evil at face value, this ship serves as the most thematically poignant to the narrative that the show is setting up. It also makes Star a stronger parallel to her “evil” great great something grandmother, Eclipsa. Both are monster sympathizers with monster boyfriends. While the blood moon bonds complicate things, I see this ship as the most relevant to the themes and messages the show seems to want to send.

Tomco (Tom Lucitor x Marco Diaz) Star Vs the Forces of Evil

More of a joke/crack ship, I know it’s unlikely, but the entire episode of Friendenemies had romantic comedy written all over it. Between the literal in-universe break-up song to the show’s promotional art being inspired by dime store pulp romance novels fuel the fire that keeps this ship afloat.

Bumblebee/Bumbleby (Blake Belladonna x Yang Xiao Long) RWBY

Partners, teammates, and close friends, the ship really took off starting in season 2 during the episode “Burning the Candle”, as Blake spiraled into self-destructive habits due to obsessing over her problems. Nobody is able to get through to her until Yang comes in to talk to her. She doesn’t lecture her or beg her to stop. She instead forms a bridge of trust by first opening up about a similar situation she’s been in, and how she knows first hand that this sort of spiraling can only have negative impacts. They are shown to be parallels, as both girls are negatively effected by a loved one no longer in their life, and the trust issues that spring from that loved one’s actions. Yang was abandoned by her mother, a problem which she mentions Blake repeated. For Blake, it was the uncertainty of trusting someone’s character, and being afraid of someone slowly turning into someone else. She explicitly states in season 3 that her ex started off a nice guy, like Yang. The first time he hurt someone, there was a reason. There was always an excuse. Until eventually, she became the pardoner. The one excusing his actions. And, she expresses the fear that Yang could be following a similar path. Both girls have been hurt by someone in the past, and both girls are afraid of being hurt the same way again, and inadvertently hurt each other the same way as someone else has. It’s also known that RWBY characters tend to represent or be based on fairy tale characters. Yang is Goldilocks, and Blake is Beauty from Beauty and the Beast. However, based on the lyrics from Red Like Roses “Black the Beast descends from shadows, Yellow Beauty burns gold”, there seems to be an implication that Yang is the Beauty to Blake’s Beast. This is interestingly supported by Blake’s name. Blake is a Celtic name meaning both Black and White, and Belladonna literally means Beautiful Woman in Italian, but is also the name of a very poisonous plant often mistaken for the harmless blueberry. The duality of her name could be pointing to how she plays the dual role of both Beauty and Beast.

Seamonkeys (Sun Wukong x Neptune Vasilias) RWBY

A bit more of a crack ship, these two lovable idiots are far less likely to be canon, but since Sun is Yang’s main competition for Blake’s heart, I have no problem shipping him off elsewhere with his goofy best friend. Although they act more like usual best friends in the canon show, their relationship does have a much gayer tone in the less canon comedy show RWBY Chibi, where Neptune almost seems to act like a jealous clingy girlfriend a lot of the times. I doubt the ship would ever sail, but I mostly ship it because they’re cute together. Although, with season 6 just starting, I got the vibe that Sun was stepping aside to let Bumblebee sail uninhibited. Sun doesn’t really have a third popular ship, it’s just Black Sun and Seamonkeys, so this ship may be gaining validity in the future.

Gumlee (Marshall Lee x Prince Gumball) Adventure Time with Fiona and Cake

The male counterpart to Bubbline (Princess Bubblegum x Marceline), there’s no real difference between the two pairs other than their genders, and Gumball preferring baking while Bubblegum prefers science. Because they are effectively just gender-swapped clones of the canon ship, anything canonical between the girls is also technically canon with these two. It’s not that I don’t like Bubbline, but when given the choice between gay or lesbian versions of a couple, I’m going to be naturally inclined to lean toward the gay version.

Sasunaru/Narusasu (Sasuke Uchiha x Naruto Uzumaki) Naruto

Maybe there’s a cultural aspect I’m unaware of, but it’s a bit of a running gag in the Naruto fanbase at this point that Naruto is obsessed with Sasuke. So much so that he seems to care about him way beyond normal friendship. With how much these two obsess over one another, it’s no surprise why this became such a popular pairing. Their dynamic even dwarfed Hinata’s heartfelt confession of her love during the Pain Invasion Arc, because as soon as that ended, did Naruto go talk to Hinata? No, he immediately started thinking about Sasuke. Hinata definitely got the shaft in part II, which is a shame because I really loved her character.

Bob and Linda Belcher Bob’s Burgers

More of an honorable mention than a full on ship, I wanted to highlight them as one of adult animation’s only married couples that actually still like each other. In the wake of the popularity of the Simpsons, and the cementing of the genre with Family Guy, the stock dynamic of idiot husband and enraged but supportive wife became a recurring trope. Before long, every single animated sitcom-esque family fell into this very annoying cliche. So, finding a couple in adult animation that are not only married but still manage to show they love each other is amazing. Their marriage isn’t on the rocks, they find time to at least try and be romantic, and even when they have bets or are on opposing sides of something, the show never forgets that these two love each other at the end of the day.

Captain Swan (Killian “Hook” Jones x Emma Swan) Once Upon A Time

This relationship between Captain Hook and the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming might sound odd on paper, but this couple is by far one of the healthiest relationships in the series. Both Hook and Emma come from broken lives, and together build themselves up to something stronger. In a melodrama surrounding fairy tales, both characters are surprisingly grounded, realistic, and skeptical cynics, a very stark contrast from the usual wide-eyed lovey-dovey couples Disney is known for. Emma’s tendency to put up walls and Killian’s tendency to always put himself first are both slowly broken down over time as Killian tries to tear down Emma’s walls and get to know her while she works on building a foundation of trust between them. The pairing feels very organic, and they definitely feel like the most realistic couple in the series as they both take turns stumbling and working toward being good for each other.

Rumbelle (Rumplestiltskin x Belle) Once Upon A Time

In the early seasons, this couple was beautiful to watch. I truly loved their chemistry and dynamic, as both of them were given such strong characteristics without simplifying either of them. However, as the show went on, it started to lose that power. The couple started to feel toxic as Belle kept waiting for Rumple to change, and he kept on lying and lying. It even reached a stopping point. A perfect one. Rumple was redeemed. He was a good man again. He could be the man Belle deserved. But instead, he slipped right back into his old ways. It was then that I fell off the band wagon for this ship. I loved it once, until I got sick of watching him hurt her over and over.

Daenerys Targaryen x Khal Drogo Game of Thrones

Although together only for a short while, this power couple won audiences over very quickly, as Drogo’s gruff but passionate affection mixed with Danny’s growing confidence and rise to power made these two iconic.

Renly Baratheon x Ser Loras Tyrell Game of Thrones

Another short-lived relationship, the remarkable thing is that Renly was literally the only character vying for the throne with fully good intentions for the realm. He was concerned with the needs of the people, and was the only morally good candidate in the War of Five Kings. Sadly, the ydidn’t get much screen time, but they were still a strong couple.

Peraltiago (Jake Peralta x Amy Santiago) Brooklyn 99

A rare exception to the don’t force the leads to date rule, the show let them form a bond over time that went from a friendly childish rivalry to a friendly dating rivalry. While each character experiences change and growth, it is not at the expense of their personalities, and the progression feels like it was meant to happen.

[ollyarchive]

LET IT BURN: YEARS & YEARS

With Years & Years’ second album ‘Palo Santo’, Olly Alexander is smouldering away all negative energy and shaping communities from the dancefloor.

By El Hunt on 27th April 2018

Years & Years’ ringleader Olly Alexander - clad in a magnificent pair of PVC overalls; his second costume change of the day - is currently milling around an East London photo studio, thoughtfully munching on cookies, and discussing Mariah Carey in great detail. The megastar pop icon has hit the news this same week after speaking publicly about her bipolar disorder diagnosis for the first time, and Olly’s quick to commend her bravery in letting down her barriers. “I think it would be nice to believe that pop stars and famous people are just incredibly happy and fabulous; that they move glitteringly through the world, and that everything they touch turns gold,” he reasons. “But it’s a fantasy. Actually, I think vulnerability - and being able to be vulnerable - is a sign of real strength.”

You sense that Olly Alexander lives by these same words as he navigates the landscape of being a pop star in 2018. In the three years following Years & Years’ rapid rise to the highest echelons of the charts, Olly has gradually morphed into something of a public figure, too. A prominent spokesperson on mental health and LGBT activism in particular, Olly dedicated the band’s landmark Glastonbury show in 2016 - which took place roughly a year on from the release of their debut album ‘Communion’ - to pride, promising to “shove a rainbow in fear’s face” in an emotional speech to the assembled crowds. A year later, Olly took a camera crew back to his unassuming hometown for a moving BBC documentary titled ‘Growing Up Gay’, and was very honest in discussing his experiences with bullying, eating disorders, and anxiety. ‘Palo Santo’ - Years & Years’ second album - is a continuation of this, combining ridiculously overblown, brilliantly lavish sci-fi landscapes and gigantic pop ambition with an amped-up sense of honesty, and a space-reclaiming edge that defies the presence of negative energy. Today, Olly observes that one of his chief goals as an artist is to write the songs that would’ve lifted him up as a teenager still searching for a community.

After spending several years moving around the country living next to a variety of theme parks - the singer was born in Blackpool, where he lived next door to the Pleasure Beach, before moving down the road from both Alton Towers and Staffordshire’s Drayton Manor - Olly Alexander and his mum settled into rural Gloucestershire life when he was thirteen. Trading in the garish Blackpool illuminations for the distant glimmer of the Severn Bridge, it was a drastic change in pace .“It always gets described as sleepy, Coleford,” Olly grins, having swapped his neon-orange PVC vest and chain necklace (another of today’s outfits) for something a little more practical. Up until it became the hometown of Years & Years’ frontman, the small market town boasted a ukulele expert as one of its most famous residents, and was perhaps best known for being the location of the world’s only Ribena production plant. It wasn’t exactly the epicentre of queer culture for a teenager searching for a community, especially given that the nearest gay bar - Flamingos - was thirty miles away in Bristol, and located the other side of a toll bridge.

“I was actually too scared to go to Flamingos,” Olly remembers, laughing. “I love that as a name for a gay bar. Flamingos!” he announces, with grand intonation. ”[Coleford] was never a place that felt connected to anything queer when I was growing up.”

“I did like growing up around trees and fields, pretending I was a fairy,” he adds, chirpily. “I enjoyed getting that experience.”

“Being able to be vulnerable is a sign of real strength.”

Rather than heading to the now-closed Flamingos (R.I.P), Olly surrounded himself with a sea of pop bangers growing up instead, worshipping at the altar of Christina, Britney and TLC. And speaking of worship, he also remembers taking notice of another prominent community in the town: the church next door to his house. Though organised religion wasn’t his bag, the strange rituals - decorating an orange for Christingle, reciting the Lord’s Prayer at his local Church of England primary school - proved intriguing. Later in life, he’d grow to view songwriting as a cathartic and mysterious kind of healing ritual, as well as noticing odd parallels between a church’s sense of belonging, and the celebratory freedom that exists in a space filled with dancing, thrashing bodies, and filthy, sexy pop.

As Years & Years were starting to etch out the first strokes of ‘Palo Santo’ at the beginning of last year, Olly explains he was “newly single”, and reading a lot of books in his spare time. Besides taking on the mammoth task of conquering David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, he also picked up Andrew Holleran’s cult novel Dancer From the Dance; set amongst New York City’s LGBT disco scene in the 1970’s. As well as being flamboyant and fun - presenting a campy, fabulous surface world that’s soundtracked by The Marvelettes and Sister Sledge - it’s also a heartbreaking read, documenting the “psycho-sexual drama” of desire, and touching on both loneliness and immense inequality. It’s a double-edged sword that also exists in ‘Palo Santo’.

“It talks a lot about how the club is like a church; a church for gay people to go and dance, and I was like, yes!” Olly says, excitedly. “This is putting into words how I’ve been feeling for so long, and what I’ve been trying to communicate in music. It really inspired me to write a lot,” he says. One song on ‘Palo Santo’ directly credits the book as an influence. ‘I breathe the rituals of the dancer’s dance,’ Olly sings on ‘Sanctify’.

“When I see dancers, their body is their medium,” Olly notes. “The art is their body. What an amazing embodiment of creativity, to literally be your limbs and your expression and movement! I’ve always been enchanted by dance,” he says. “Plus, I think a pop video should have dance in it, too. It’s a prerequisite! A bit of choreography! You want that fantasy moment where everybody’s going to burst into dance. Some choreo! I just think, if you can’t do that in a pop video, where can you?”

Such considerations rule on ‘Palo Santo’, an album that pushes every last bold facet of pop to the maximum extreme. Set in a high-concept, futuristic world which plays on traces of real life to sneaky, allegorical effect, it also sees Years & Years more fearless than ever. One pulsing highlight, ‘Hallelujah’ dives straight onto the dancefloor to find healing in letting loose, while Olly’s current favourite ‘Lucky Escape’ confronts the more unlikeable aspects of our own emotions. “It’s such a petty song!” he reasons. “I was quite sick when I recorded the vocal for it, and I can really hear when I listen to the song that I’m not feeling very well. I don’t like the person that’s saying those words in a way, but it’s an honest reflection of what I was feeling at the time. I’m proud to put that on there.”

“I’ve always been enchanted by dance.”

Over the past three years, Olly says, he has started to realise that pushing his own boundaries reaps creative rewards. “Putting yourself in an uncomfortable position - in terms of the creative process - it usually means you’re going to get something worthwhile,” he adds. “I really had to get past the levels of pettiness…. sometimes it made me laugh. I’d be writing a song when I was so angry at my ex boyfriend. I would never want to present this to the world, where I’m just this bitter ex who’s still hung up on him!’ Olly admits. “[But] actually, sometimes we are hung up! It’s an ugly, but also truthful and beautiful, side to our humanity. I had to be okay with it.”

Another standout track called ‘Rendezvous’, meanwhile, contains hints of Jennifer Lopez’s euro-banger ‘On the Floor’ (“it does!” Olly exclaims in agreement) and explores hook-up culture, along with unpacking his immediate feelings as a relationship draws to a close. “After a relationship you think, maybe the things they did weren’t as well intentioned as I thought they were?” Olly says. “I was in my petty, angry phase. I have had a lot of experiences with guys where the sex has felt like this depressing inevitability. We’re gonna meet up, and we’re going to have sex. That’ll kind of be it, and then onto the next person. What’s happening in that interaction, and what happens in that interaction when it’s someone you want more from?” he asks, pausing. “I also just really wanted to write a song called ‘Rendezvous’!” he adds. “I think I’d smoked a really big joint before I wrote that song, so there’s that, too. Beyonce would have a song called ‘Rendezvous’ and she’d kill it! She has ‘Deja Vu’, of course. Britney loves a French moment, too. With stuff like that, you just need conviction.”

Conviction is a world that springs to mind easily when you’re talking to Olly Alexander. As well as his commitment to sharing his own experiences with unwavering honesty, this new era of the group feels like a step onwards from the anonymous throngs of bodies that once grabbed at Olly way back when the band released their video for ‘King’. Performing solo gyrating routines for a panel of extra-terrestrial judges as Years & Years returned with ‘Sanctify’ - a bit like a filthier Strictly Come Dancing if it were set in an alternate universe - it’s the very definition of conviction. And with his bandmates Emre Turkmen and Mikey Goldsworthy also taking on a slightly different role this time around - acting as behind the scenes production wizards and, as Olly puts it, “his musical husbands” - there’s a sense that he’s also careful when it comes to handling his newfound platform responsibly.

“What is the point of a pop star in 2018? What should they be saying?”

“What is the point of a pop star in 2018?” Olly asks nobody in particular. “What should they be saying?”

Heading into ‘Palo Santo’ with the aim of creating a record that tackles the intricacies of belonging in a world that feels increasingly dangerous and fragmented, the band crafted an entire fictional landscape to explore the darker grit. “It felt too monumental, hard or depressing to set everything in our real world,” he reasons. “I thought a lot about where I could make a place where we take out all the rules surrounding gender identity and sexuality. I thought, well, why don’t we just have everybody be androids?” Olly laughs.

“I’ve always loved artists that take people to their mad world with them, like Bowie, Prince, Gaga. I thought, I want to do something like that, and go as big as possible,” he concludes with resolve.

In ‘Palo Santo’, Years & Years have done just that, flinging open the doors on a vastly ambitious universe that ignites life’s bullshit in a blaze of euphoria. Infiltrating the mainstream with dagger-edged pop - and doing it in fantastical, glittering style - Olly Alexander might just be the most important pop star we have in 2018.

[nookishposts]

I have decided that 57 and 3/4 years old is a good age to be. And though there will always be things out of my control, I am determined it’s all just going to get better. Universe, are you listening? Actually, I am coming to understand You’ve been the (mostly gentle) voice in my ear all along, people like Brene Brown are bang on and I’m not saying anything new. That doesn’t mean I can’t tell my version. I urge you to do the same.

Remember the days of sitting around a campfire and telling stories? Or laying inside a tent while it rained, desperately trying not to touch the canvas sides for fear that the wrath of an “I told you so!” would cause a huge leak and drown us all in our sleeping bags ? The best storytellers used the shadows and the night sounds as props, incorporating them into a well-spun , mildly creepy yarn of a summer’s night. Firelight dancing on faces, the creaking of a tree branch, scorched knees and chilled backsides, knowing at some point you would have to get up and pee but delaying until the last possible, painful and risky moment to do so: because it meant leaving the circle of warmth, the reassurance of light. Gosh knows, you might miss something. Bugs alighting on the outside of the tent wall..or wait, they are actually OUTside, right? That faint little hiss of a breeze through dried leaves... hopefully not a snake? The sudden overhead flash of light..a dropped flashlight by the outhouse, or the bogeyman from underneath it? And darned certain, right in the middle at the very best part, when you were holding your breath for the next plot twist, some jackass would run a wet finger along the back of your neck and scare the bejesus out of you, and hopefully you’d already attended to that bursting bladder or you could have a whole new story to tell. (Lots of us, right?)

Our stories make us who we are more than anything else. They way that we choose to tell them is also highly definitive of how we feel about ourselves. It’s critical to have bosom pals and sleepovers and frister gatherings, or just one person you know will hear you; somebody that won’t try to “fix” anything , and will join you in the cringing self-deprecatory squirms of recounting the time you peed your jeans. Or farted in church, or laughed at the wrong moment, or went to your first dance in borrowed clothes and split a seam doing the Hustle. We have so much more in common than not, but our differences are just as share-worthy. 

Circumstance can be so defining. I know a fellow who was born of deaf parents, but his own hearing was just fine. He agonised over the disloyalty he felt he was showing his parents, by learning to speak in a mostly-hearing world. As a child he felt he had to make a choice between the two, but never felt fully embraced by one or the other. If he brought a hearing friend home after school, he felt like it left his parents out of the conversation, and he was very self-conscious about his ability to act as an interpreter, because when he would translate, either party would take him aside afterward and ask :” Okay, but what did she REALLY say?” as if he had some kind of code he wasn’t supposed to share. Imagine a child in that position. On top of all the other stuff most of us endure as we grow up, he had this dilemma to work through. Of course he did; his parents reminded him he had his own life to live, and a few of his buddies bothered to learn ASL so they could respectfully address his parents. But I think that story could parallel quite a few more. At key moments in our lives we find ourselves feeling neither fish nor fowl, certain that we are “other” for all kinds of reasons. Our language, our clothing, our heritage, our gender, our partnership status...there’s nothing like sitting at a table of divorcees when you have a happy marriage or being looked at sideways because you chose not to have  children. Usually, we get through it. In time, we get over what we perceive we are “supposed” to be, and just get on with the business of being, of figuring out who we really are, what we really want, what gives us joy and what we have to offer the world. The fellow who was born hearing to deaf parents? He became among other things, a college level ASL teacher. He decided it was the best way to build a bridge between 2 cultures, and he was the perfectly logical choice to do that. Part of his teaching is telling his story.

Social media can be an extraordinary set of tools in terms of connecting and re-connecting with other people, with vast libraries and galleries, concerts and cultures.When we communicate on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, even though we are doing in in byte-size pieces, we are telling the nugget of a story. Sometimes, it’s filtered or deliberately skewed in our favour, but so what, it’s a start. Through such forums we merely introduce the idea of a conversation that can be continued either in person, by phone, skype or personal message. Sometimes we just want to share something that made us giggle, inspired us, or made us question it. The trouble starts when somebody decides to take exception to a story without having all the facts. It’s the risk we take having any kind of public face. And let’s face it, the public “truth” has taken one hell of a beating in recent years. Any tool can become a weapon. It’s hard to know what to believe.

The only way to wade through the muck is to make sure we understand as much of our own stories as we can, and draw strength from them. We can hear and respect the differences in our stories and build bridges instead of blowing them up in self-righteous indignation for the amusement of a pot-stirring bandwagon. There’s always a way to ask questions if you have them, be brave enough to be curious without apology. Learn as much as you can by asking for the story. Be prepared to share some of your own when the situation calls for it.  Keep safe those things you aren’t ready to share, or find someone who can help you express them in safety and support. Understand that we all need both of those things in varying measures.

Saying I am  57 and 3/4s makes me sound like a distant station on the Harry Potter Hogwarts Railroad Line. In some ways it’s true. I ate up those Harry Potter books as greedily as the kids did, because they were just plan good story-telling, in the manner of the campfire circles: a little spooky, a bit instructive, sometimes funny, and always entertaining. Who wouldn’t want to keep believing in magic given the chance? My life has had it’s magical moments, and there’s lots of track ahead, with  new travelling companions at every bend.

There’s a difference between the stories we tell to others and the ones we tell ourselves. No matter how long or how hard we try, we can never truly lie to ourselves for long. By the time I was ready for bi-focals, I found I was also reminded to look a little more clearly into the mirror. Talk about scary stories! (insert rim-shot here) The grey hairs and the wobbly bits are just packaging for all the stories inside, hints of which invariably show up in the wrinkles of my forehead, the upturned corner of my mouth, or the sudden wistfulness in my eyes. We cannot take one look at each other and know all the stories that made us, but we can at a glance see each wonderfully complex human being who has stories to tell, some details of which we might already share. At the ripeness of middle-age, we all understand loss, yearning, joy, angst, and wonder. We know we can survive them, often the wiser for having done so. We sit on the age-crest of being the “wise ones” even though I have heard so many my age express how they feel like in some ways they are just beginning to understand themselves. But that in itself is pretty cool. Because it means we’ve gotten past the stories that weren’t true or derailed us for short bursts and we are in fact seeing the real deal, maybe for the first time. Maybe we are telling our stories again, but in a new way, with some self-appreciation. Think of the scars we bear as chapter titles for the prose that grows in succinctness as we re-read ourselves in that mirror. We’ve done mighty fine, really.

I’d prefer to sit with you by a crackling fire, or at least at the same table rather than through a computer screen as we swap our stories, but if that’s where we meet, that’s just fine too. The details are much richer when you can look someone in the eye, feel their energy, and better understand their inflections. Yet great novelists and writers can make us feel as if they are right there in the room. It’s your story, tell it however you like. Just never believe that it isn’t important, that it isn’t valuable, that it doesn’t matter. We need the strength that is generated around our campfire, bugs and all, if we are ever to get past  public lies and remember who we are and what we can overcome, because it is always worth the magic and the wisdom, found in a good, true story.