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doodles-with-noodles · 4 months

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*I hiss and scamper up a tree and throw rocks with my questions painted on them through your window*

Songs you associate with any of your characters? You know like the thing where you listen to a song and make up an animatic in your head?

What's everyone's favourite colour?

What do the museum archives people do in their free time?

Are any of your characters scared of storms? For no reason in particular.

Opinions on tea? (From the characters) (I mean you can say yours too if you want)

Are there any other metaphors?

What would happen if the main character(s) from all your stories met each other?

Is there anyone in specific the mind burglars are working for or is it just, like, highest bidder?

Similarly, what happens to the stolen memories? Do the victims still have them? How difficult is it do steal a memory? What makes one memory different from the one that happens after it? How many can you steal at once? (This one is like 5 questions badly concealed in a way too small trenchcoat)

Cats?

Alas!

AHHHHHH anyways

Some have more soundtrack feel but:

Jules: Mayonaka no Door/ stay with me, Charlie: Murder on the dancefloor by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Malik: Good-old-fashioned lover boy by Queen

Ed: Got my mind set on you by George Harrison, Anthony: Rocket Man by Elton John, Norna: You’re my best friend by Queen, Cecil: Long Away also by Queen, Maura: Killer Queen ALSO BY Queen, Roscoe: Don’t bring me down by ELO

Mathildis: Rowing, Cavendish Lab, Collapsing Inwards and A Spacetime Singularity by Jóhann Jóhannsson. All have a very nice science feel and kinda follow in the tone how Mathildis changes I think.

Treeve: Restless by Abel Korzeniowski and The Moon Will Sing by the Crane Wives

They both also have a song together ig? which is Your Blood by Aurora

The Kilmoores have I‘m Dying Mother, Cian has a more soundtracky song named QKThr by Aphex Twin which I think kinda fits (although it sounds a little more peaceful) because it sounds kinda disjointed and heavy. I had a really weird thought recently where I thought that sound design from Cian’s pov like in cinematic format would sound super neat.

2. I don’t know everyone‘s. I think Norna likes orange, Cecil blue, Ed purple, Jules like a burgundy red and Mathildis green.

3. They live in a city so. city stuff I guess. But they also hang out with each other and go pet animals at a shelter. Stuff I‘d like to do ig. They also listen to music a lot?

4. Malik maybe because he can’t hear that well when it’s stormy. It’s a little scary to him.

5. Tea‘s good with milk and honey (mine). The museum archive guys are indifferent. Roscoe is trying to push tea because it’s a little less strong than coffee that has his team all jittery (looking at Norna and Cecil). The science guys drink it if they want to be fancy. The Kilmoores drink tea like, all the time even if in crisis it’s only little ugly dried leaves. Maybe with a shot in it or smth.

6. Huh, idk honestly. The mind burglars have kinda this thing about how abuse (even if only emotionally) fucks you up. The museum archives look a lot at death and grief. Baldur‘s death is how people were manipulated and trained by politics during the war and what that leads to. Kilmoore is about how the war fucks people up directly. Yanno.

7. They‘d probably be confused as hell and try to stick together. Especially Cecil, Mathildis and Cian would be puzzled as hell at each other because weren’t they in different situations, they’d probably think the same. Roscoe wouldn’t like Treeve probably. Ed would try to explain communism to the Baldur’s death and the Kilmoore guys which is a bad idea because they’re alternate universe wartime people.

8. The highest bidder. They be doing it for the cash. Usually it’s corporate shitheads.

9. „Steal“ is more like „we remember the information and submit it.” There’s also overwriting, where you alter a memory to influence a person, but if done wrong, it can cause the person’s sense of self to deravel. Victims do still have them. Complete removal is impossible.

It’s difficult as heck, not only do you have to get past the person’s brain and manipulate them without noticing, you also sometimes come across some pretty fucked up shit in their minds and have to get through to get deeper, and you have to go deep a lot of times. A lot of times you need to keep the person unaware and make them feel as if they’re still conscious, which is why you need a team to tweak stuff. It’s not like you’re rifling through records; it’s like you’re in a place. Steal at once is difficult- the distinction between individual memories is not black and white, and as you go through you see and “steal” a lot of stuff. Fun fact: Cecil has trouble with his memories deraveling later in the story. Say Yipeee to traumatizing slow memory loss!

10. Cats are great. Most of them probably lovee cats.

#ask #ask post #character asks #character stuff #oc stuff #writing stuff #yayyy :)

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a-lucha-brother · 4 months

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AEW needs a HARD reset after All In 2024

I'd like to think the mass consensus from fans will feel the same about this and, for me, it's been a long time coming, maybe as far as all the way back when Collision first started this was needed.

But let's explore this.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong (good chance I am), but when TK announced Collision, what, only last June!? (wow feels like it's been about 3 years) he spoke of this being an entirely new show, with its own roster (to deal with how bloated the roster was and still is) AND its own championships (plenty of new ones have been created since Collision started, but I always assumed this meant the titles would just be spread out better) - and so far we've had NONE of those things happen.

Granted, I think a lot of events off-screen have led ultimately to the state we're in now - when Collision first started, it was billed as the show that would let the likes of Miro, Will Hobbs, House of Black, Ricky Starks etc reign supreme and vibe the night away as "top guys" since there was no room for that on Dynamite; at the time Dynamite was still heavily utilising, ironically, a lot of their "original" young talent that between then and now are either: Indefinitely suspended (Sammy Guevara) Indefinitely injured (Darby Allan) Exiled from the company (Jack Perry, albeit he's FINALLY came back, so there's hope here) Taking an indefinite break/might not even come back (MJF) Basically, the 4 pillars (should be 5 with Britt Baker imo but I digress as Taz would say). To my case and point right there, Miro isn't with the company anymore (idk if it's not official as of yet or anything, but he's leaving), Hobbs is injured (again), House of Black are AT LEAST doing cool shit and are still super over with this Cope Open shtick (should be the flagship storyline on Collision JUST SAYING hence this minor diatribe) and Ricky Starks is also injured (again) and potentially not coming back either. And NOW, we've just started this incredible Elite storyline, and brought in arguably 2 of the best wrestlers to have ever existed in Will Osprey and Kazuchika Okada (hell, we've even put a belt on Kaz in this time). And those are the types of talent that should be front and centre on Dynamite, cool, fine, but we're still squeezing Collision talent onto Dynamite and squeezing Dynamite stories into Collision. Both shows ave become so disjointed and wholly chaotic these days (like depending on who's coming out on Dynamite they literally don't care about The Elite hijacking the show or attacking their boss because "they're not in the storyline" give me a break!), and don't even get me started on Rampage, which seriously is just a waste of time these days. So, I'm left asking, what the fuck.

But it's okay! Uncle Kaz has got it covered (remember I'm not a booker). So okay, I've talked about nothing but problems (and probably leaving some stuff out) so let's quickly shift to solutions:

Clearly, we're building up to giving William Birdman a title (or THE title?) at All In, which is unofficially becoming AEW's answer to Wrestlemania (even though they'd probably prefer it to be Wrestldream) which is fine and totally makes sense (notwithstanding the whole ENGLISH thing). Now I'm going down the road that it's going to be the TNT Title, which even though I earlier mentioned Will as being "Dynamite talent", is a GOOD thing. Because if we're going down the road of hitting reset on AEW as a product by that point, then this would make for a good way to elevate "new" Collision (don't worry, I'll get to Rampage soon cause I have plans for that too). On a slight tangent, it's seems too painfully obvious that Mercedes Mone is winning the TBS Title at Double or Nothing, cool no problems. She would also be a great fit in a new Collision, if they decide to let her retain at All In (you best believe she's either walking in or certainly walking out Wembley as some sort of champion). So hypothetically speaking, if you were to have the likes of Will and Mercedes to ring in a new era of Collision after All In, I'd be....ugh, "all in" (god I hate myself) with that idea, cause they would just be placeholders before moving up to Dynamite to challenge for the "bigger" belts. That's not to say you couldn't do the same with Willow and Adam Copeland, far from it, but I'm just thinking as grand as I can. Another step to take would be to unify the Continental and International championship into the WORLDWIDE championship, and put that on Collision also. So let's take a look at what I'm proposing as far as championships are concerned: Dynamite: World Men's World Women's Men's Tag Collision: TNT TBS Unified Continental/International (WORLDWIDE) Women's Tag (NEW) Men's Trios

(No mention of FTW cause quite frankly, fuck that title wasting tv time every week and every ppv)

In my grand schemes, I'd love to make Collision a more Women heavy show, cause they hardly get any time on Dynamite, and if they do it's either to do with Toni Storm (via Mariah) or a backstage section with Willow (the ENTIRE women's division everyone, great!) and even then they feel like they're being crammed in, whereas utilising Collision for more women time would be so much better, BECAUSE the top of the women's division is so strong it's scary, but the midcard is woeful at best, so they REALLY need building up - I also created women's tag titles up there, because, come on, it's time, get with 2024 TK. I know Collision is looking title heavy, but Collision was ALWAYS meant to be about the wrestling, the literal theme of Collision is that "Saturday's are good nights for fighting" or whatever the fuck they say. Case in point, the Cope Open would serve so much better (as would HOB) on Collision where their pure wrestling storytelling would shine through far better than Dynamite with its heavy-handed focus on promos and spoken storylines. And for the love of everlasting fuck, can we PLEASE implement a factor in that the TBS and TNT titles can be sold for world title shots, it's been something TNA has had for the longest time that I've been flabbergasted as to why nobody else has done it. THIS would then give credence/allowance for Collision stars to start appearing on Dynamite (nod nod wink wink to Will Ospraey) and would dramatically eliminate the (correct) criticism of having randoms get title shots for no reason other than existing. And for god sake, I'm not saying implement a draft, but PLEASE just have two distinctly separate rosters, if I'm watching Danny Garcia on Dynamite AND Collision back to back instead of other wrestlers I'm gonna get a bit annoyed (I use Garcia here because I think he could do wonders on Collision as one of its top stars). I think doing this you can filter away people who might be lost in favour with the main Dynamite crowd (Jericho) without hurting his storyline or the AEW brand as a whole (Dynamite after all is the show they need to be successful here). As for Rampage, just make it into proto-NXT, assimilate ROH into it, make it 2 hours long, and will somebody PLEASE create a TV Title, my god! We're not doing anything with ROH, it's slowly dying, and stars on there, like Athena DESERVE to be on proper television (I can say that as a Brit who only gets Dynamite, Collision and Rampage on television here, not ROH). And just start developing raw talent on there. Say what you want about Dark and Dark Elevation (I miss them personally) but they did a damn good job of building talent up for AEW (you'd be surprised how many of your current favourites built up love with the fans by specifically being on Dark) and I think we can make Rampage into AEW's answer to NXT. In my mind I'm thinking, "better than WCW Thunder, not as good as NXT".

And with that, I'm spent, so to bid you adieu, as the best bout machine NOW, I'm gonna hit you all with the Rainmaker, with love...

#personal #aew #aew dynamite #aew collision #aew rampage #will ospreay #kazuchika okada #aew all in

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tabbbywright · 7 months

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Having a rare moment where I can string multiple thoughts together and those thoughts are about: Utena.

I have to say, as someone who picked up Utena because I heard it was Lesbians, and who loves it in part because the WLW content speaks to me, A Lesbian... Sometimes I am bothered by the fact that Utena is so often boiled down to being A Lesbian Media.

Like for one, that's not the entire show, but more importantly: people are bizarrely shitty about takes that go against the idea that Utena is A Lesbian Media. Like there's this weird idea that lesbians own this because of some Ikuhara interview from 20 years ago and I'm like ??????????? what the fuck are you on about??

So in this post: Tabby has various complaints about various takes and attitudes she's seen over the years with regards to this. Prepare for this to be a bit disjointed.

Honestly, I think people being weirdly possessive is more of a recent thing but my sense of time is bad.

tfw ppl are bizarrely invested in the label a cartoon character would use for her sexual orientation

So first and foremost: Utena is a cartoon character who never explicitly states her sexual orientation and Ikuhara saying that he wanted to portray Anthy and Utena as having something "like a lesbian relationship" in a translated interview does not mean Utena is a lesbian and cannot be interpreted in any other way.

It boggles my mind that people have gotten so weird about this? Like if you say you read Utena as being bi or w/e, you're Wrong and Why Won't You Let The Lesbians Have This. Like, I literally saw these takes when the Empty Movement twitter said something in this vein, and got QRT'd to hell and back by a bunch of people INSISTING that it is INCORRECT to read Utena, a cartoon character with no canonly stated sexuality, as anything other than a lesbian.

It is ABSURD that people behaved this way. It's absurd that people cite that Ikuhara interview as gospel. It is PARTICULARLY absurd that people will post shit like "WHY CAN'T YOU LET THE LESBIANS HAVE OUR LESBIAN REP" like ??????? what in the fuck are you ON about. You can interpret Utena as being a lesbian all you want, and I can still read Utena as being bi. I can read Utena as being bi, and you can still read her as being gay. In typing this, I have not taken Utena away from anyone--how COULD I? Even if I know a bunch of people who read her as bi, how does that STOP you from reading her as being gay???

It doesn't!

See normally if you're not a ridiculous person, if someone has an interpretation that contradicts yours for a story, even if you don't agree... you just go "oh ok" and idk get over it? If there's anything to get over in the first place? If someone says to ME "Personally, I read Utena as being a lesbian." my whole ass response is "Oh that's fair."

But because Utena has become A Lesbian Media, apparently a non zero number of people find "I interpret Utena as being bisexual" to be a Crime Against Lesbians or some shit??

On the topic of Ruka Tsuchiya

CW: talking about the concept of corrective rape, etc

So before I get into this, I'd like to reiterate that my interpretation of this show does not negate YOUR interpretation of this show. Like, I can think you are wrong and you can think I'm wrong, right? Right.

So something I've seen occasionally is the idea that Ruka kissing Jury was... an attempt at making her NOT a lesbian? That his actions were in the vein of corrective rape? And honestly this is the (second) most mind boggling thing I've ever heard??????

I legitimately do not understand how people land on this outside of the fact that he is a dude forcing a kiss on a woman who is in love with another woman. Like yes, that was bad, no shit... but to assume that the intention behind the kiss was to make her STRAIGHT is ascribing a lot of intent to his actions that is simply not there? Like, I've watched this show three times and have yet to spot the part that even remotely suggests that he thinks it's bad that she's in love with a woman vs his problem being with Shiori.

In the scene where Ruka kisses Jury, he's trying to get under her skin, and IMO he is PRIMARILY operating with the mindset of "Jury, I know you're in love with Shiori, but you shouldn't be. She sucks! She really sucks! She is manipulative and a liar and you should really get over her."

And listen: I LOVE Shiori. She's a great character! But I love her in part because she can be quite terrible! If a friend of mine was clearly in love with someone who was CLEARLY TOXIC AS HELL I would not kiss them but I WOULD be like "hey uh you know your crush sucks right?"

So when I see this take that says "Ruka assaulted Jury because he wants her to not be a LESBIAN" I can only assume that people landed on this conclusion because to them, Jury Being A Lesbian is THAT ingrained into the show for them, because this is a Show About Lesbians or something.

But a kiss in itself is simply an action. Alone, it doesn't have any specific meaning. People kiss because of attraction, sure, but sometimes it's an impulse. Sometimes a kiss says "I love you" and sometimes it just means "I like you enough to put my mouth on yours."

When Ruka kisses Jury, I don't think he's doing it because he wants her to be straight. Hell, I think he does have a crush on her but I don't think his intent is "make my crush straight, for me or otherwise," I think he does it because it'll let him get close enough to her to steal the locket AND piss her off. It is a shitty thing to do, duh, but to say his intent was akin to corrective rape is ascribing an intent to his actions that is simply not there!

Why are you so mad about this

I'm mad because Utena is one of my favorite shows IN PART because it is a story with a lot of room for interpretation, and when people boil it down to just being About Lesbians, you're ignoring like 40% of the show, and oversimplifying a lot of it! Like the Ruka thing only makes sense if you operate under the assumption that Ruka thinks Jury is a lesbian and like... does he? Or does he just know that she's in love with a woman? You can be in love with a woman and not be a lesbian!

Utena is an incredible show that yes, is PRIMARILY about a queer woman and her relationship with another queer woman but there is more to it. There is more to it, and it is not a show that The Lesbians own just because you can interpret Utena as being a lesbian.

If anyone actually read this: ty for ur time while I hopped on my soapbox.

#rambling #utena

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spandexinspace · 2 years

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He did it again. Another issue where he totally skips the action to make people stand around and talk about stuff, including recapping the action we didn't see. The Legion have done this type of misdirection confession plot before, but that version still showed us the action leading up to the reveal, unlike this one which is just a boring part of a pattern of not showing action.

And that one page feels like he just copy pasted a anti-Batman post straight into his script. It doesn't make sense in universe.

Brainy informs us that he's smart, but that remains a informed attribute. He doesn't even seem to have done anything to help with the confession gambit.

Then there's this attempt to, idk, tell us that the moral of the story is "don't time travel" also feels out of place. He should know that. He shouldn't have been complacent with all the shit they've already caused in the first place. He's already acted like an idiot about it, who is he to dictate what anyone should do about it? He's so deeply stupid, despite the constant telling and not showing of the opposite, and I hate this version of him so much.

We still know fuck all about the Gold Lanterns, but apparently they need a corps now because what this already severely underdeveloped incarnation of the Legion needs is competition for page space. Hell, even the GLC can barely support a book right now and you expect people to buy into a totally new and poorly defined corps that doesn't even seem to work with the established lore? Does anyone even care about them?

Are we just going to ignore the shitty not-actually-a-love-triangle-because-the-writers-refuse-to-acknowledge-each-other? Can Imra stop being a creep?

This book has been an awful, dull mess. It's overcrowded, disjointed, filled with loose threads and "funny" dialogue that totally misses the mark and it just straight up isn't good. I'd even shy away from calling it a story, it's so incoherent that it barely even follows a story structure.

This version of the Legion is boring and unfocused and barely even feels like the Legion. Almost nothing that's been added to their lore in this run has been good, most of it hasn't even been developed beyond an extremely superficial level and a lot of it has been built on a poor understanding of the DCU. It was supposed to be a "diverse" take on the Legion, but that too is just a surface thing and the entire thing is just filled with unfortunate implications. I hope we never have to see them again, or at least that the next person who tries to write them just ignores 90% of what's been written so far and actually tries to write them well and as themselves.

#dc comics #losh #Bendisboot #tuesday spoilers #tuesday comics #wednesday spoilers #wednesday comics

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summaryi · 2 months

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When the Moon Hatched - Sarah A. Parker

reluctant 2/5

ok i havent finished yet but

the world is interesting so far

not enough known about characters

-------

but the one thing that might push this into DNF territory for me DESPITE THE INTERESTING WORLD

is the fucking fantasy spelling of known and existing concepts

like fucking dae and day

if you make up a creature person place concept whatever

yeah have it your way

use the beautiful spellings of faerie instead of fairy

but fucking

having to read dae which means day when the word day already exists and dae just means day

not my cup of tea

but i press on

wanna know about these moons

and the POV switches are in such tiny font compared to the rest of the text i was flipping back and forth to find it

and something just happened but im like?? i didnt have the time to get invested

so this doesnt mean anything to me

---

ive kept reading and im really torn???? some parts are breathtakingly sweet and soft, like a nostalgic memory

and some parts are

disjointed

huh??

i feel like a third of it is lovingly crafted

and tbe other two thirds are just slapped together to fill pages

its a weird fucking experience

-----

im fucking incensed what the hell

one of the chapters ripped my heart out and tore it into shreds

and three chapters later there are so many fucking unnecessary made up fantasy words just crammed together holy hell

was this written by two different people

and if youre going to use your own made up words

give us some fucking explanation or show and tell

if i dont know whats going on because none of the words make sense how can i fucking read jesus christ

what the hell is going on in this book

im actually pissed because the quality of the writing is so inconsistent

----

ok i finished it

am i fucking stupid? is it the kindle editions? or do all these books keep fucking putting pronunciation guides and glossaries at the back with zero indication they're there, not even a * or page at the front

maybe its a me problem but holy fuck

put the map at the back and the definitions and pronunciation at tne FRONT

AND THE FUCKING TRIGGER WARNINGS TOO WHY ARE THEY the last possible item

is it me??? am i the problem???

but like, ok, have the separate pronunciation guide and the glossary or definitions at the end

i still want some kind of BRIEF in-story explanation

people DO this to GREAT effect

it's fucking practical

and it does NOT break the stupid "show, dont tell" rule to have a character just do a quick "oh, MC is new/amnesiac/willfully ignorant, here's a 2 sentence primer"

anyways

overall, hate this book

it is NOT for me

i can sort of see why its paced and split the way it is? but also i cant

it feels very.......... it just feels like only a tiny sliver of the entire book is well polished

and the rest of it is slag, just tossed in

like????

the parts that i enjoy were enough to get me to finish the book but holy shit im pissed off

it could be so good!!!! but it's not!!!! overall the idea and the plot and all the strings are very good!!! but its so badly woven!!!!!!! except for a few shining hero moments

but what the fuck!!! it should all be equally good!!!!!!!!!!!

am i just a hater??? idk everyones fucking sucking this books dick and like

its like

a delicious meal that got dropped in a puddle full of shit

like there are pieces i liked! they were good! i see the potential! but fucking christ it was not a michelin experience and those tasty bites were not worth the rest of this meal??????? aaaaakrslhbgliugraiaubefigawrlharfk

#When the Moon Hatched #Sarah A. Parker

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kenobihater · 3 years

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(I hope u dont mind me sending this as an ask i was gon do a reply but it ended up being long ;o;) idk if this classifies as romanticization but i love stories or hcs where witcher mutations are a bit more otherifying than we see in canon - such as changes in blood color/viscosity, maybe muscles that are anatomically different than nonmutated humans/elves, and the fangs like you said - the closer they hit Uncanny Valley the better. mainly because i think that its a little cheap that witchers look exactly like a normal human/elf (besides the eyes, depending on the canon, since i think in the books they keep their normal coloring - geral's eyes are described as "dark" often enough for that at least). visualizing the trauma inherent to witcherhood and making the metaphorical stripping of humanity/personhood manifest physically just Hits Harder, yanno?

and also i absolutely adore stories/settings/hc that actually acknowledge the witchers' enhanced senses and apply them realistically. cause like, we don't really know how far their hearing stretches, for example (at least i can't recall any specific details) but I think it's mentioned that witchers can hear heartbeats well enough. so they could easily be overwhelmed by sound even in a room so still and quiet that a normal person could hear a pin drop, simply because living beings are within that room - how difficult it must be for them to sleep in human settlements or share barracks freshly after the trial of the grasses when nobody speaks yet everyone is defeaned by their hearts and lungs and blood thundering in their eats. and hell, stomachs make lots of sounds that we can't usually hear - the witcher probably have a front row seat to all the fucked up noises all bodies make.

i dunno why i sent all that besides wanting to start a discussion to hear your opinions on it so i am a) sorry for bursting into your ask box like that and also b),,,,could you,,,,Rant About Things?? like both the whole discussion that prompted this and also whatever thoughts you have about witchers bc i love that (once again i am sorry)

i love getting asks, don't apologize! this is gonna be a disjointed and rambly response, so heads up for that lol! firstly, yeah, idk if that counts as romanticization, but i love the trope of a more heightened otherness too, and that's the kind of romanticization (if you wanna call it that) that i enjoy! anything that really makes them not quite human really helps to, as you said, stress the changes both mental and physical they go through during the trials.

secondly, yeah, acknowledgement of enhanced senses is totally my jam. i struggle to remember to do this in fics sometimes, but i've been getting better about it because it's just such a cool concept, yanno? balancing the right amount of enhanced senses in writing kind of reminds me how in my star wars fics i had to learn to acknowledge the force as a baseline sense for my force-sensitive characters. it's there, but you don't want to draw undue attention to it that would distract from the story. you want to use it to enhance, not hinder your plot, but it is important to recognize when it could actually be a detriment to the story you're telling and allude to that in the text (like, for example, in one of my upcoming fics i have someone lie to lambert and he mentally acknowledges it's a lie bc he can hear her heartbeat, but doesn't call her out on it for a reason. if i didn't acknowledge his superhearing now with the lie but bring it up later, it could ring false to the reader).

also, in the same vein of enhanced senses those are all wonderful points! sensory overload is something i occasionally experience and it is a cruel bitch, so having that due to enhanced senses all the time, and you're unable to turn it off and just have to learn to live with it and tune things out? oh, it's so good!

thank you for sending the ask, and also you're offering me free rein to rant? thank you! currently, the only thing i feel i could rant about is how psychosis is treated in the fandom by non-psychotics, particularly in regards to cat witchers.

you can't just decide to go the route of writing them as psychotics and then just go "oh yeah, this character is psychotic :)" and NOT elaborate properly! that's literally like saying "oh yeah, this character has Symptoms of a Disease" and not fucking telling us what disease they have! because at the end of the day, that's exactly what psychosis is - a symptom for several different diseases! usually, the only elaboration fic writers do is going "ooooh, they have psychosis so they are Evil and Violent now" which, i cannot overstate this enough, is the single worst misconception about psychotic people i know of, one that has real life repercussions for psychotic people and has caused untold pain and suffering. putting this dangerous misinformation into your fics because you want to write a character as Edgy and Morally Bankrupt and blame it on the psychosis is fucking disgusting, and if anyone reading this does this you owe me and every other psychotic person in the fandom $50.

also, i don't like the take that mutagens can cause people to be psychotic. to my knowledge, drug-induced psychosis is possible, but isn't permanent, meaning even if the cat mutagens caused acute psychosis in the people receiving them, it wouldn't last more than maybe a few months, and while it could trigger an underlying, latent mental disorder, it could not create one. there's no such thing as injecting someone with fantasy steroids and accidentally giving them bipolar disorder (because it's always bipolar, when the writers do deign to name it). brain damage is another thing entirely and can cause personality changes, but i don't know nearly enough about it to talk about it with confidence.

bottom line, if you're non-psychotic and wanna write psychotic cat witchers, do your research, don't imply the mutagens did it, don't act like their psychosis is linked with their violent tendencies, and really think about why you want to write the characters that are almost entirely referred to as evil and morally bankrupt (except for lambert about aiden) as psychotic. psychotic people can write whatever they want, hell, i'm writing aiden as bipolar, but the difference is i'm doing it to see myself in the character and i'm also not implying he's unhinged and violent. i don't speak for all psychotic people, but those are just my two cents on something in the witcher fandom that REALLY irks me, and i think i'm gonna write up an actual proper post on it. thank you for letting me rant, i really needed this because i'm Fed Up lmao!

#len answers #non-psychotics don't clown on this post or i will simply block you. this includes mentally ill but not psychotic ppl! don't speak over me!#long post #len's meta

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chaoskirin · 2 years

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Review (?) of Jurassic World: Dominion

Bear with me ‘cuz I have covid so this is gonna be a lil disjointed (probably).

So I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it. That’s not really a neutral analysis ‘cuz it was a... it was a movie? But it wasn’t really cohesive. Like all the parts were okay but. OK.

It was like a variety show of a movie. All these parts, but no centralizing plot. Right? The whole movie was side-quests.

Each side quest I would have probably watched on its own. Maisie getting kidnapped? Yes. Giant destructive locusts? Hell yes. Dinosaur underground? Yeah!!! Biosyn back on its bullshit! YEEEEESSSS

but none of those plots actually fit together into one ultimate ending. Like there was no convergence and that made it not worthy.

Not worthy of what? I don’t know. Brain said: write ‘not worthy’ and what am I gonna do, tell it no?

Also none of the stories were about dinosaurs.

But aeryn there were SO MANY DINOSAURS. Aeryn there were a RIDICULOUS number of dinosaurs. Aeryn why did they bring the terrible dimophodon model back!? AERYN

look, there were dinosaurs, but there were no stories ABOUT dinosaurs. It’s like they got to the end of the writing journey and were like “shit we need a story about dinosaurs in this dinosaur movie” and some intern walked in with a “Blue Deserved Better” shirt and they were like “WAIT, KIDNAP BLUE’S KID”

which okay, parthenogenesis is a thing and that was cool but the whole movie could have been about blue. Why did no one consider that? Why did the writers go like “okay we have this dinosaur franchise, we definitely need a whole story about locusts staring laura dern”

Does that make sense? Probably not. Like, the dinosaurs weren’t characters, they were props. In the original jurassic park, the T-Rex was a character herself. A motivating force. And in the end, she was the god-damn hero. The humans were all side characters, she was the STAR.

there was no star dinosaur in Dominion. I mean they even movie-womaned Blue and made her a whiny plot point for chris what’s-his-name. idk how you make a dinosaur whine, but she’d appear, bitch for a while, and leave. where’s that intern with the Blue Deserved Better shirt? get back here.

fuck i don’t know if any of that made sense.

like. this is not how we write movies in the year of our lord 8912 A.D. We don’t take a bunch of action, jam it into a blender, and call it done. DINOSAUR MOVIES ARE NOT MARVEL SUPERHERO MOVIES. we need nuance. we need a story that deals with the catastrophe of abusing science for our own ends. we DESERVE more RAPTORS.

not as bad guys. ugh don’t get me started on the random pyroraptor and the atrociraptors which were only in the movie because Scary Names like okay pyroraptor was a tiny little fucker. shut up. chris whatever could have just kicked it.

and ont any danboys be like BUT THEY ENGINEERED THEM TO BE WRONG right i’m the biggest JP fanboy there is and I’m sick of this shit. DUCK. I mean FUCK.

i’m very tired.

#jurassic park #jurassic world dominion #not bestiary

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makeste · 4 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 295: So How Are You Holding Up (Because I’m a Potato)

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi randomly and graciously decided to answer all of our long-standing questions about Mr. Compress, including “is he secretly hot,” “is he secretly related to that Robin Hood thief guy,” and “is he ever going to use his quirk to chain chomp a hole right through his ass??” with the answer to all three being “yes, of course.” As for our follow-up questions, “sir, is Mr. Compress going to die,” and “holy shit,” his answers were, respectively, “wait and see,” and, “I understand, really I do, but that isn’t actually a question.” Well, he’s got us there.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi finally ends the War arc with the speed and grace of an overworked college student scrambling to BS their entire midterm essay with five minutes left before the deadline. Deku’s Spidey Sense is all “what up, I exist, p.s. you’re in danger kid” like oh shit, no, you think?? Compress is all “I’m not gonna die but I am going to pass out and be captured” and honestly, at this point I’ll take it. Spinner is all “Tomura you can have this one last Souvenir Hand I found that was in the oven for too long” and slaps it on his face because HE’S JUST TRYING TO BE HELPFUL, SHUT UP. Dabi is all, “[currently in a marble].”Tomura is all “actually, I’m AFO.” AFO is all “hahahahaha” and summons all of the remaining Noumus to cart him and Spinner and Dabi off to safety. Deku is all “DAMMIT TOMURA I’M REALLY MAD AT YOU FOR KILLING, AND I QUOTE, ‘AN UNBELIEVABLE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE’, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, GET THIS, I TOTALLY WANT TO SAVE YOU TOO! LMAO ISN’T THAT WILD.” Fandom is all “OH MY GOD, NO WAY, is what we would say if we had literally never met Deku before, I guess.” And then the arc just ends, lol. See you in the new year, kids.

WAKE UP, LINK... I MEAN, DEKU

jesus christ Vestiges, not a one of you guys has got any chill at ALL. LISTEN TO ME. THIS CHILD IS DEAD. HE IS DECEASED. LOOK AT HIM. HE’S LYING THERE ALL DAZED WITH HIS ARMS AND LEGS TURNED INTO GREEN PUDDING AND YOU’RE ALL “GET UP LAZYBONES” LIKE I SWEAR TO GOD. CAN HE JUST REST?? CAN YOU ALL JUST CALL IT A DRAW WITH THE VILLAINS ALREADY SO WE CAN FINALLY END THIS TRAUMATIC ARC AND MOVE ON TO THE NEW “TRIAGE AND ROBOT LIMBS FOR EVERYBODY” ARC INSTEAD

LIE BACK DOWN YOU IDIOT!!

no you didn’t pass out because of a ~heatwave~, you passed out because he set you on fire while you were out here shooting Blackwhip out of your mouth with your SPINDLY ACCORDION LIMBS dangling uselessly from you like WINDCHIMES you RIDICULOUS BOY

“where’s Todoroki-kun” oh shiiiiiiit. right. god I hope someone caught him. BAKUGOU OWES HIM A FAVOR, HOW ‘BOUT IT

OH NEVER MIND HE APPARENTLY CAUGHT HIMSELF??

Todoroki Shouto has really highkey been the MVP of the entire fourth quarter of this arc. he deserves the world, and odds are all Horikoshi’s going to give him are lasting trauma, and a souvenir shirt that says “I survived this stupid arc and all I got was this t-shirt”

anyway now Deku’s being hit by a Lightning Bolt of Realization or some such? idk what’s going on, but I bet you it’s related to Tomura waking up again

OH SHIT??

LOL WHAT. THAT’S IT?? SPIDEY-SENSE?? I mean we all predicted Spidey-Sense being one of his quirks like ages ago, so Well Done, Us, I guess

but also, seriously?? all of that drama and intrigue about the fourth user’s quirk and this is what we end up with? what was All Might being so cagey about then? how did this dude die? I need answers goddammit. new, better answers lol

maybe it’s something to do with the fact that Deku keeps talking about how his head hurts?

I mean, for Deku of all people to be all “ouch that hurts”, it must really fucking hurt, you know? like oh my god Deku are you dying

lmao and SPEAKING OF PEOPLE WHO APPARENTLY DON’T FEEL PAIN

this man is out here FROLICKING, half-naked and half-torsoed, AND STILL FEVERISHLY RATTLING OFF HIS MONOLGOUE. YOU HAVEN’T EVEN ESCAPED YET YOU DINGUS. did watching Dabi pour bleach over his head inspire you to think of interesting new ways you could abuse your own body for the sake of Theatrics?? why are villains Like This

anyway so now Mirio’s punching him, because what else are you even supposed to do in this situation

I read this speech bubble three times in a row very carefully this time around just to make sure I was reading the words right. and then looked for a T/L note below. and there was none. whatever RHA, at least you all are out here enjoying yourselves

wait what?

I guess he hasn’t woken up yet after all?? so then wtf is Deku’s Spidey Sense getting all worked up about. I mean to be fair there’s danger all around them still so having a Spidey Sense in this kind of situation is kind of like bringing a smoke alarm to a BBQ

now what

wait did he put them back in the marble?? or is that panel just meant to show us how they were in the marble earlier?? Horikoshi please make this less confusing, I’m already having trouble staying focused as it is. and on top of everything else Compress is cascading blood like Niagara Falls right now and I’m starting to wonder if you really are going to kill him off

anyway so Mirio is still in mid-punch, and now he’s reaching out to punch Spinner with his other hand. heh. Mirio please be careful Tomura is right there, and I swear to god Horikoshi IF HE LAYS A HAND ON HIS SWIRLY BLOND HEAD SO HELP ME I WILL MAIL YOU A VIAL OF MY TEARS

okay seriously what the hell is happening

when you attach?? everyone?? to your body?? whose body?? who is this??

oh wait okay it’s a flashback to Tomura talking about his Hands

lmao this is so disjointed, I can’t tell what’s a flashback and what isn’t and whose thoughts these are lmao I give up. I’m just going to fire up a bunch of question marks until this starts making some goddamn sense. ???????

??????

????????

-- !!!!!!!!!!!

okay hold up. so did Spinner just slap Tomura’s last remaining Signature Fashion Hand onto his face just now for absolutely no reason?? is that what’s going on?? and fuck me but it actually worked too, lmao. is your buddy unconscious and unresponsive to stimuli?? no problem, just slap ‘em in the face with a burnt and shriveled severed hand. works every time

p.s. I SWEAR TO GOD HORIKOSHI. IF YOU TOUCH MIRIO!!! HE’S A GOOD BOY LEAVE HIM ALONE

??????????

OKAY WELL. I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WTF IS HAPPENING, BUT AT LEAST MIRIO’S NOT DEAD. KACCHAN GOT BLOWN AWAY THOUGH SOB. HOW IRONIC THAT THE GOD OF EXPLOSION MURDERS WOULD BE MURDERED BY AN EXPLOSION WHILE I WAS BUSY SAYING “OH MY GOD”

ohhhhhh, okay. so this is AFO’s narration

and that’s a partial answer to the question of “why did AFO bother raising Tomura up as his heir if he was planning on taking over his body the whole time.” apparently it makes it easier to control him. joy :’)

also this image of a potato wearing a Tomura wig is sending me fjkllkhl

oh my god he summoned all the Noumu to him like Aquaman and his sea creatures. this whole situation just keeps on getting better

-- oh hell no. oh fuck me, fucking shit

SHIT SHIT SHIT. I’M SORRY SPINNER, TOMURA CAN’T COME TO THE PHONE RIGHT NOW

oh my god. I fucking hate everything right now oh my god

I GUESS WE FIGURED OUT WHAT DEKU’S SPIDEY SENSE WAS WARNING HIM ABOUT, THEN ಠ_ಠ

fucking great!! so I guess nobody is getting a happy ending today, then. the heroes got their asses handed to them (sorry Compress, it’s a figure of speech, didn’t mean to be disrespectful); Deku and Kacchan died; Shouto’s evil brother came back from the dead to ruin his life; everyone and their dog lost various limbs; and the villains have now lost Twice (dead), Compress and Machia (presumably going to be captured), and now their fearless leader’s body has been completely taken over by AFO, which is such an unsexy development that it managed to completely undo all of the Mr. Compress Sexiness from last week. goddamn it

DAMN IT HORIKOSHI ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO END IT LIKE THIS

up close Hadou’s face is looking pretty rough. :/ that’s going to scar over isn’t it. at least she’ll look like a badass

meanwhile I appreciate that Horikoshi drew what looks to be a little puff of air next to Kacchan’s mouth, just to reassure us all that he’s not actually dead. that’s fine. you just lie there then. also his wound really is in the exact same place as All Might’s and it’s giving me all kinds of feels you guys but whatever I’m not gonna sit here dwelling on it all day

AND POOR SHOUTO. IS HE STILL CRYING OMG. AND ENDEAVOR, WAY TO DO NOTHING STILL. THE ALL TIME CHAMP OF SITTING AROUND AND STARING, GOOD FOR YOU

ARE YOU FOR REAL, ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW

(－‸ლ)

lol

“peace out, loser.” “SHUT YOUR TRAP, HO.” quality encounter right here

anyway so he’s blasting Deku with something and Deku’s just flying back all unconscious-like. so then, what even was the point of all that, huh

oh I see, it was to lead us into one last Deku monologue to close this arc out

oh my god Deku if you say you’re going to save him I will turn around and do a cannonball into a ballpit of feels right now, don’t do this to me

OH SNAP I THINK HE’S GONNA THOUGH

DID HE LOOK LIKE HE NEEDED SAVING?? I MUST CONFESS YOU AND I ARE OF A MIND HERE, YOUNG BROCCOLI. YES IN SPITE OF ALL THE MURDERS. WHAT CAN I SAY IT’S COMPLICATED

by the way I just have to point out here, that after all of those impossibly pretty close-ups of Hawks’s unconscious face, Horikoshi really did my child dirty here lmao

he looks like a squished cockroach. THAT’S MY BABY BOY

and it looks like the cavalry is finally on its way too! took them long enough. so I guess they can take care of any of the remaining Noumu stragglers, but first let Deku finish his speech. listen up Deku I really need you to say something cool and iconic to cap off this thus-far admittedly underwhelming Last Chapter Of The Year, here

AHHHHHHH YES HE REALLY DID IT HE SAID THE THING

well he thought the thing, anyway. close enough. I’ll take it!

so this is really the end of the arc then! or at least I hope, good lord. anyways, all right then so let’s do a quick status check:

it looks like the Noumu are hauling Tomura and Spinner away to safety, but it doesn’t look like they managed to save Machia or Compress. this honestly might be in Compress’s best interests though. the heroes can get him some medical help along with Kacchan and Endeavor and everyone else

Dabi is apparently hidden inside Spinner’s scarf, but do they have any way of releasing him without Compress there to undo the quirk? will he be all right in there. like how is he going to get food and water and air and stuff lol. does it wear off after a bit? can Compress undo it when he wakes up, even if he’s in custody? is there a distance limit on it?

and Skeptic was presumably turned into a marble as well, but Compress didn’t bother mentioning him at all. nobody cares about poor Skeptic lol

and bonus AFO theories status check:

Dad for One - AFO called Deku worthless and hasn’t seemed to take the least bit of interest in him despite getting to see his fancy SIXQUIRKS up close and personal. so if he is his dad he sure as heck is a terrible one, that’s all I can say

All for One for All/Deku is a horcrux - well the Spidey Sense seems to offer an alternative explanation to why Deku could sense AFO’s presence, but on the other hand it doesn’t explain why AFO was able to sense Deku’s as well (seeing his dreams and such). still thinking there’s a connection there, guys, idk

AFO is the final villain - five words for you: “EVERYTHING IS FOR MY SAKE.” is that concrete enough yet lol. pretty sure this arc marked both the beginning and end of Tomura’s brief stint as the Big Bad. Deku’s got it in his mind to save him now somehow, and we all know what happens when Deku starts getting determined to save people. look out AFO

as for the heroes, they’re all varying degrees of Fucked and I think it’s honestly too much to even take stock of at this point. maybe if I get a rush of hyperfixation in the next couple days or so I’ll do a separate post analyzing the impact of this arc and where things currently stand and where they might be headed from here

but in the meantime, ngl, this chapter was kind of a hot mess lmao. but whatever, I don’t even care because at least he managed to get all of it done within the allotted 17 pages, meaning that next week (or rather two weeks from now, sob) we really can get moving onto the aforementioned Triage arc! BRING ON THAT ANGST. I am so fucking hyped goddammit

#bnha 295 #all for one #midoriya izuku #shigaraki tomura #mr. compress #spinner (bnha)#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #idk why but this chapter was so exhausting to get through lol #I've enjoyed this arc so much but I guess at the end the fatigue just hit me all at once #almost 40 chapters we've been doing this #that's one chapter for every year iida has been alive #still it sure was epic though #now bring on that angsty aftermath

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wickymicky · 3 years

Video

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wickymicky’s Top Ten Kpop Songs of 2021

4: Billlie - Ring x Ring

Wow, ANOTHER rookie group??? This has gotta be the last one on the top ten list, right? Jeez...

Billlie, huh? Billlie. With three Ls? Sure, why not. My first reaction when I heard the song was just “god damn it, I hate that this slaps, because now I have to stan a group called Billlie” haha

Their concept is so unique and strange haha... they’re looking for a missing person? Or something? Is it supernatural somehow? In their Christmas song comeback, they have a yeti named The SNOWY Man? With SNOWY in All Caps? They added a member during the promotions for this song, with her debut stage being Ring x Ring’s goodbye stage... is that part of the lore? She’s not the Billlie that they’re looking for, right? All the lyrics in this song are about looking for this Billlie person, I think, and they’re kinda dark. “Is it blood?” “Is she dead?” “Can we talk? Not anymore” etc. That’s all so weird, and the music video is kinda disjointed, with the lore scenes and dance scenes clashing a bit, aesthetically speaking. But to be honest, there’s something kind of endearing and kind of fun about all of this. I’m on board, haha. I’m not gonna get super into their lore or whatever, but I’m down to see where all of this goes. And damn, this song slaps.

The synths in this song are so absolutely blaring haha. That turned a lot of people off, I know that because I saw a lot of people talking about how they think this song is garbage. They’re wrong though, because the noisiness of this song is exactly what makes it good. It’s not just that the synths are blaring, it’s that they sound so urgent. That fits their concept so well. This song sounds like a race against time. From the moment the song begins, it gets your adrenaline pumping. The autotune on their voices is tasteful too, not just because it sounds cool, but also because it makes it sound kind of off, kind of uncanny. Combined with how frantic the song is, I think it serves to give the vocals a sense of like... worry, or something. If that makes sense. That’s what I get out of it anyway. It sounds like an internal monologue you’d be having in a panicked situation. Am I reading too much into this?

God, this instrumental just goes and goes and goes and goes. There were so many minimalist girl group songs this year, but this song makes up for it by being maximalist as hell. And while a lot of those minimalist songs ranked highly on my list, as I’m sure you’re aware by this point, I mean... man, I really needed this haha. Ring x Ring just makes my brain light up. There’s so much STUFF. The first moment when I realized I was in for a treat was right at the beginning lol, right after the intro synths but right before the first lines are sung. It has that blaring, urgent-sounding synth and then this little synth melody that sounds like... like glass? Does that make sense? The synth sounds like glass. idk lol. It does though, listen to it. How would you describe it? And then Siyoon sings her first lines in that robot voice, while the instrumental explodes underneath her. This instrumental just has so much punch.

And damn, that chorus is so catchy. Both the “come find the miiiiiiissing” part, which is catchy in the way that many pop song choruses are, and the “oeroun himihan sumaneun ireumdeuri” part, which is catchy because it’s so frantic, so urgent, so fight-or-flight, especially when Suhyeon comes in with the vocal layering under her that raises the melodrama of the part up a couple notches... it’s great. This song is so great. The chorus ends with a more relatively calm part, the “neo-e bell-i ullimyeoooon (it’s truuueee)”, but then the panic is ramped right back up as the next verse begins. How many songs transition from chorus to second verse by turning their volume up?

And that dance break... oh my god. That dance break. That dance break, though. Even without watching the choreo, just on audio alone, that part just hits like nothing else.

Alright, I think I’m done here. I could go on and on. I’m not even gonna get into how incredible the bsides are. Hopefully I’ll do that in a separate list haha. I’m not even gonna talk about Moon Sua and her history, and how much people were awaiting her debut. I’m not even gonna talk about Kim Suyeon, now going by Sheon, who wasn’t in this song, but obviously is a pretty big deal, and was one of my favorite GP999 contestants and I am so happy for her. I’m definitely not gonna talk about Lee Soomin, who is known for being a predebut member of this group as well as a predebut member of Weki Meki AND Weeekly. There’s a lot that goes into this group and my decision to put them at the number 4 spot, but honestly, just this song would be enough.

links to the rest of the list: 10 - After School (Weeekly) 9 - Love So Sweet (Cherry Bullet) 8 - Odd Eye (Dreamcatcher) 7 - Eleven (IVE) 6 - Rub-a-Dum (TRI.BE) 5 - Holiday Party (Weeekly) 4 - Ring x Ring (Billlie) 3 - Zombie (Purple Kiss) 2 - ASAP (STAYC) 1 - First (Everglow)

#2021 list #billlie #ring x ring

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rvmmm21 · 4 years

Text

. you know who i am? .

k, so i didn’t mean for this to get so out of hand. also, my first time writing in present tense? idk how to feel about it, but i guess it’s different. it felt so different writing for like actual humans lol. my first ‘normal’ fic, this is!

please for the sake of this making sense can we all pretend jennie, joy and irene are around the same age? also look who had fun with brand names. moi.

anyways this is [badgirl/bully!joohyun ‘persuading’ clumsy freshman!seungwan to be her assignment buddy]

...

University culture is grating.

It’s overwhelming and it suffocates her. She has no time to prepare herself for the apparent runway the halls have become, what with the stupid-rich kids treating every day like it’s a fashion show; Seungwan can barely blink from one person to the next without being smacked across the face with fur coats from Chanel, Louis Vuitton sunglasses hidden under Prada nylon bucket hats and Off-White tracksuits tucked into Balenciaga socks. She hadn’t considered a future in law enforcement, but had she done so, anyone who tucked their trousers into their socks mid-calf would find themselves behind bars with the rest of the criminal scum. End of.

Just as she dusts her hands of that smug little sentiment, Seungwan finds herself with a face full of hair, and an even bigger nose full of what smells like laundry detergent. She lets out an embarrassing squeal, and the girl turns round to face her. A ghost of a scowl brushes across her face before she fixes her with an indiscernible gaze.

That scowl is an awful colour on a face as pretty as yours, she impulsively thinks.

Seungwan knows no more about the history of art and the intricacies of sculpture than the average Joe, but she’s sure Michelangelo missed the mark with David. She inwardly laughs at the thought of the man dedicating his entire being to crafting his flimsy idea of ‘perfection’ when she’d just bumped into it; the real thing. Of course, if that was defined by forming new constellations from faded freckles on flawless skin, or vantablack tresses framing sharp features like a painting, then yes; she was, by very definition, ‘the perfect (wo)man’. Easily outdoing anyone within a 50-metre radius.

Heck, make that 500.

The girl glares intimidation and Seungwan manages to save herself the humiliation of drooling in front of the white-hot beauty and her friends with a quick gulp, already feeling crimson seeping into her cheeks.

Perfect; now that she’s watched whatever new potential friendship this was blow up in her face, all she has to do is avoid her at all costs from here on out.

She mouths a haphazard apology and zooms past before anything can come of it, keeping her head down even after she’s well out of sight. Seulgi, Seulgi, Seulgi, save me, she brisk walks and begs all the way to class.

~~~~~~~~~~

A small commotion rings through the lecture hall of keyboard clicks and lethargic shuffles, calling to attention the girl who’s just spilt her drink down her front, now frantically digging around in her backpack for anything she can use to soak it up. A few jeering giggles are stifled, meanwhile students close by donate tissues and sympathetic looks. They are gratefully accepted with rapid-fire bows and machine-gun stuttered apologies.

“That freshman’s just ruined her rep, huh?” Jennie chuckles, “blindly walking into people… can’t even keep liquid in the cup. Give her a dog collar and a sign and she’s good to go.”

“Eh, I thought it was cute.”

Jennie’s retort comes quick.

“Sooyoung, you think anything in a skirt is cute.”

“What,” the girl says, ignoring the implication, “Haetnimie doesn’t wear skirts. And she’s not even wearing one right now. Plus, I didn’t say ‘she’s cute’, I said ‘it’s cute’. Learn the difference, idiot… it’s not like I wanna have at her or anything…”

Jennie shoots her an incredulous look and Sooyoung relents the banter. They both turn their attention to the girl sitting next to them, completely un-present in the moment. Sooyoung notices who she’s looking at and leans in to nudge her.

“Joohyun,” she whispers, poking her in the ribs when it’s obvious their friend is well on her way to signing a contract with NASA with how apparently well accustomed to space she is, “what do you think of her? Or are you still mad she walked into you?”

“Nah, forget it,” Jennie waves her off before she’s even had a chance to respond, “she’s not interested. I had to literally pay her money to go on a stupid double date with me in high school. I washed five cars for her to not even hold his hand once during the movie.”

Instead of participating, Joohyun sighs, casting the girl in question a seemingly uninterested stare. Unbothered eyes take in the sight she’s presented with: frustrated brows knitted together under a wispy caramel fringe and a blot of taro milk tea the size of Canada staining her baby blue jumper.

“I want her.”

The words are so simple her friends almost miss them entirely.

Sooyoung and Jennie battle for first place in an impromptu competition of ‘who’s-the-most-shocked’.

“You’re joking! Yah, you’re so annoying seriously, now?! You couldn’t have ‘wanted’ Min-seok in year nine?! I paid good, hard cash for that stupid boy!”

Joohyun looks at her, smug as a cat.

“I did it for you, Jennie. I didn’t even remember his name was Min-ho.”

“Min-seok.”

“Yeah, right.”

Sooyoung, wide-eyed and on the verge of passing out, grabs Joohyun by the shoulders, ignoring the glare she receives for it. “Joohyun, seriously? You’re serious. You want her like want her? Or want her like you wanted that cookbook after that trial week of Food Tech during summer break?”

Joohyun regards her, absolutely blasé. “I don’t follow recipes.”

“Exactly. Are you play-”

Sooyoung’s statement dies down with the rest of the class as the lecturer walks in. Furious clicking, hurricane scribbles and flipping pages are all that remain as the lesson kicks off, Jennie and Sooyoung casually scrolling through Instagram while the professor speaks. Joohyun leans forward, elbows on desk and chin resting on interlocked fingers. Her full attention is on the poor girl on the other side of the hall, intermittently peeling the cold, damp fabric away from her body, face flushed and avoiding all eye contact. Joohyun snickers at how uncomfortable it must be to have to sit through class in a wet jumper, how awkward and squeamish she looks.

Strawberry-tinted lips curl into the faintest smirk.

Hello cutie.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Yah! Kang Seul-Gi!” Seungwan calls out to chocolate-swirly space buns and baggy gym clothes hurtling towards her from across campus grounds, “where the heck were you?!”

“Sorry sorry! Overslept!”

“What!? Your class starts at noon! … and this is like… day 1!”

The girl looks like she’s barely had the chance to screw her head on the right way as she joins Seungwan on the steps of the university entrance.

Seungwan’s sweating buckets; physically and metaphorically, both from the waves of humidity and her all-exclusive one-idiot circus show this morning in class. That little muck up makes it to the tippy top of the endless list of embarrassing things Seungwan has stored in her long-term memory.

“You okay?”

Seungwan palms rosy cheeks as she takes another mouthful of her rainbow sherbet cone.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened to me.”

Seulgi chortles as her best friend recounts her ordeal, trying to subdue the sea of smart alec remarks bubbling under her skin.

“So that was great, too. And now I’m a laughing stock. A meme. They’re probably editing my stupid face as I speak…”

Seulgi reverts back to the first incident. Of course she would.

“Sooo… not like in the dramas then?”

Seungwan hangs her head, “not at all… she looked like she wanted to kill me.”

Seulgi lets out a snort before prodding her with more curious questions. The cogs in Seungwan’s brain churn and stutter as she tries to filter as many redundant adjectives as possible, only using ones she deems absolutely necessary to describe the most beautifully terrifying girl she’s ever seen.

Just then, as if Seungwan had meant to conjure hell itself, the three girls make an appearance from round the corner, chatting amongst themselves and taking Seungwan and Seulgi by surprise. The latter glances down where steely fingers are squeezing her wrist, as if that’d activate some magical cloak of invisibility. Seungwan’s as good as swallowed her tongue, shakily motioning to the girl in the middle of the black velvet storm with her eyes and a few nose twitches.

“H-her…” she stutters, finally getting her brain into gear after they leave, “… her.”

Innocent eyes double in size at the realisation.

“Wha-wait no, her?! You bumped into… her?! Her, Bae Joohyun leader of killer senior pack Bae Joohyun?”

Seungwan’s heart only thumps faster at the panic in Seulgi’s voice, but her words still mean nothing. The other girl swipes the dangling question marks off the top of her friend’s clueless head.

“Yo Wan-ah, you have to lay low. I mean why would you even – oh geez wow you really messed up. Can’t you look where you’re – I can’t even begin to – why would you – oh my gosh!”

Seulgi’s disjointed sentences allow enlightenment to trickle in and Seungwan slaps a hand over her forehead, mortified.

Oh god no. That’s the Bae Joohyun?

She’d heard the rumours. Many, rumours. Bae Joohyun who makes her juniors cry. Bae Joohyun; precious daughter of the most elusive mafia gang leader in all of Korea. Bae Joohyun; ice queen senior, sole roost-ruler of Hanyang University and the biggest bully you’ll ever meet.

Positively preposterous, empty claims with no evidence whatsoever to back them up… she hopes.

“Pft yeah okay she’s… mean, but she’s not like… jesus or anything she can’t… like… part the Red Sea or, turn water into vodka I don’t know,” Seungwan tries and fails at consoling herself, receiving nothing but an apologetic pat on the back from the girl beside her.

“Yeah well… she’s not the messiah but everyone treats her like it. And for the sake of your own neck, you’d better start too. Watch out, Wan-ah.”

Seungwan hadn’t paid any mind to those wet-eared freshmen whom she’d overheard during orientation gossiping about Joohyun and her charming little posse; but perhaps she should have.

She gulps, too afraid to think of anything else.

~~~~~~~~~~

Seungwan often fantasizes at work. There has to be some way to pass the time, after all.

Deep down she’s a sucker for romance, she knows it far too well; she envisions herself ten years down the line, letting whoever she has on the other end of the phone know that she’ll be home soon, that work has just been extra grueling today, and that she cannot wait to give them a cuddle. She’ll stir the dinner pot while she tells them stories, pausing in between to remind her lover how beautiful they are. Perhaps one day, the honour will be hers, to see her soulmate walking down the aisle.

But as the tinkling of the doorbell rings through her café, Seungwan files those cloudy fantasies for later and greets her first customers with a smile.

She hasn’t been sleeping very well, worrying her mind with ridiculous thoughts and impossible scenarios. All involving Joohyun as a tick-tocky alligator and herself as none other than Captain ‘I’m-actually-innocent-why-are-you-still-trying-to-eat-me’ Hook.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s five minutes to closing time. Seungwan suppresses the yawn in her chest and blinks away the moisture in her eyes. Just zero to sixty, five times in your head. You got this, Seungwan. Gosh, there’s no one in the café and hardly anyone outside. She briefly contemplates closing early.

“Small iced Americano.”

“Coming r – aii!! Ai…!”

Seungwan’s adrenaline spikes so high she could serve it ice cold in a coffee cup right now. Caught completely off guard, she begins stammering nonsense behind the till, crinkling the leather of her dark brown work apron and then using the hem of her polo shirt to wring clammy palms none the drier. All the while her customer stands there, brow quirked and card held out between slender fingers. Her expression, although slightly amused, threatens her to take her money, or else.

Before she can open her mouth, a buttery voice snaps her out of her trance.

“Hello, Seung – wan… hey, don’t we have Korean Literature together?”

Seungwan tries not to spontaneously combust on the job as she instinctively slaps a hand over her name tag. It’s useless though, it is now known. Known to her, of all people. The notorious Bae Joohyun; dressed in Acne jeans and an over-sized midnight Balenciaga cardigan, she looks like any other young, caffeine-dependent university student. But Seungwan knows a lot better.

Oh god save me… what the hell is she doing here!? This has to be a set up. She’s here for me. I’m going to die tonight. Mummy, daddy I love you.

“J-J-Juh…”

She can’t say it. All the years of schooling; learning the alphabet and how to enunciate your words drain out through the holes in her ears. She gawks dumbly, moving her head in what could be considered to be a nod.

“Ah, I thought I recognised you,” she doesn’t even bother trying to sound surprised, “I’m Joohyun.”

Don’t I know.

All Seungwan can do is nod again, hating herself for even breathing right now.

Joohyun clicks her tongue and fiddles with the card in her hand, impatient, “soooo… is this Americano free, or…?”

Yes, yes it’s free, please just take it and go! I’ll upgrade it to an extra-large if you want, on me! If it means I’m spared for the rest of my student life, take it all! Jesus, how did you even find me?!

“Ah, yes. Sorry! Uh, yes that’ll be um two fif – two… two thirty.”

There’s a shaky exchange of a debit card and a forgotten peace treaty iced Americano before Seungwan takes an unconscious shuffle back from the register, eyes glued to the smudge on the toe of her right sneaker, unable to meet Joohyun’s piercing gaze for too long.

“Thank you, Seungwan.”

The way she lingers on the ‘S’ whispers shivers down the girl’s spine. She glances up at the worst possible time, too, nearly jumping out of her mismatched Muji socks when she sees Joohyun’s hibiscus-tinted lips bloom into a coy smirk.

“I’ll see you around.”

And with what a shivering Seungwan could’ve sworn was a terrible attempt at a wink, Joohyun is gone. Clutching at her chest, she tries to slow her accelerated heartrate, praying she doesn’t need heart surgery after what she’s just been through.

Seulgi’s so hearing about this.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Daebak,” Sooyoung scoffs, side-eyeing Joohyun as she twiddles her pen.

“What else did you say?” Jennie presses, taking a sip of her chai latte.

Joohyun merely hums, disclosing no further details of her little cafe incident. She misses Jennie’s disbelieving grin when the walking, talking definition of awkward bumbles into the lecture hall, just on time, armful of texts and messy cinnamon locks matted to her face.

Sooyoung can’t resist a jest. “Joohyun, look. It’s idiocy on legs.”

Joohyun bites back a snort as her eyes follow the girl stumbling and murmuring apologies all the way to her seat. She slumps into the chair with burning cheeks, brushing her hair back with her fingers and fiddling with her gingerbread fringe. Too cute, Joohyun thinks, gritting her teeth.

It happens about mid-way in the class. The mention of pair work triggers the uniform eye-roll, groan and grumble combo, more so from the seniors, who sure as hell don’t want to be paired with icky, snot-nosed first-years who can barely lift their spoons to their mouths. The grumbling evaporates when it is stated that, although compulsory, it is not a fixed-paired assignment.

Seungwan breathes a sigh of relief along with a few others, content to set up camp in the aisles of the library, perfectly undisturbed. But she suddenly feels paler than chalk; flashbacks of heeled boots, midnight cardigans and heart surgery flooding into her veins once more when she catches a pair of stealthy pupils regarding her from across the room. A deceptively sweet smile sparkling on those dreaded lips, breath-taking and utterly petrifying all at once. Even from the other side of a bloody lecture theatre, Bae Joohyun has Seungwan sweating bullets and unconsciously fidgeting at her collar to release steam no one else can see.

About a minute away from hurling herself out the nearest window, Seungwan diverts her attention to her notebook at the last second.

~~~~~~~~~~

Seungwan stabs her chopstick into the egg yolk, watching it dribble all over her rice. She’s jealous of her own best friend who doesn’t have to live every waking hour with a red sniper laser dot on her back.

Should’ve majored in art too, goddamnit, she curses, poking her lunch in a dazed stupor.

“Wan-ah!”

She scoffs at the familiarity, but Seulgi’s crescent moon grin makes Seungwan momentarily forget.

~~~~~~~~~~

The black cursive of Han Kang’s literature stares up at her as she tries to digest what she’s reading, but she swears her brain allocates the worst times for that sneaky Bae Joohyun to pop up like an unwanted advertisement. Seems like now, she’s going to have to sit through an entire trilogy.

Despite the crippling dread, Seungwan can’t help but wonder. They’re so silly, but she wonders them anyway. She feels free to let her mind wander in the safety of the university library.

Bae Joohyun; Seungwan’s mind is unchanged; she’s the most beautiful girl she’s laid eyes on. It’s a unique kind of beauty; mysteriously edgy, knife-like and femme fatale. The grin Joohyun gave her in class this morning, she knows she should be running from it, but it doesn’t stop the fact that it’s been playing in her head on repeat ever since.

Seungwan unintentionally imagines what it would be like to kiss that sunset-infused smirk right off her face.

Too bad she’s a mean one, she sighs.

She doesn’t get much further with the actual task at hand when her blood-pressure plummets; she watches leader of the killer senior pack, Bae Joohyun, artlessly sit down in the chair next to her. It’s like the world stops spinning for the second it takes their eyes to meet, and Seungwan quivers in her seat, thoughts of literature fleeing out the back of her brain.

Trying to be polite, she gives her a courteous nod and returns to her reading. But Joohyun just sits there, staring, peppering her body with smoking bullet holes – it frightens her in the weirdest way. She can’t help the tiny bubble of… excitement? At the fact that Hanyang’s notorious Bae Joohyun is sitting next to her. Probably to get close enough to kill her, of course, but she’d count her blessings, no matter how terrifying. The thread finally snaps, and Seungwan is able to channel her inner stone statue no more, wordlessly excusing herself and stumbling to the bathroom.

It’s empty and silent; exactly what she needs. She flicks some cool water over the burning in her cheeks and dabs at the heat welled in the corners of her eyes.

But just as she’s about to leave, Joohyun’s standing in the doorway; cloaked in all her intimidating aura and eclipsing her only exit.

“Bathroom break so soon?” Joohyun’s voice drips into her ears like melted honey as she observes a wry smile crawl onto her face, “we’ve barely gotten started. Let’s get back to work… partner.”

It’s kicking in only now what Joohyun is saying. And it takes everything Seungwan has to formulate a pathetic response.

“Oh right, a-about that,” she nervously chuckles, averting her gaze and scratching the back of her neck, “uh, I-I was just um… I don’t wanna drag anyone down with – you know because you’re a senior and all – was m-maybe thinking –”

She doesn’t get very far when Joohyun begins advancing, walking towards her with such sure, dominating strides Seungwan has no choice but to back away, the piercing squeaks of Adidas sneakers easily drowning out the clicking of Louboutin heeled boots. Joohyun sports that coy smirk the whole time she’s cornering poor Seungwan, further and further back, until…

A tiny yelp is torn from her as her back hits the wall. Seungwan strains up to meet her eyes, 5 inch boots are a very useful intimidation tool. Her heart feels about as fragile as sugar glass, and she thinks it would do her good to invest in those styrofoam packing peanuts and a roll of caution tape.

Joohyun observes the little caramel-haired mouse girl she’s caught; pressed against the cool, beige tile, both hands out in front of her, quivering like a jello pile. She quickly notes the way the top of Seungwan’s head just about grazes the bottom of the wall-mounted paper towel dispenser, and it stretches her grin even further. She looks irresistible, those doe eyes the colour of warm cocoa. Who knew she had a thing for sweet faces, well-intentions and weak-hearts?

Realising her hands aren’t doing anything to keep the other girl at bay, Seungwan drops them like a tonne of bricks - she’s never felt so small and helpless in her life. The rich scent of vanilla and mint tickles her nose; Joohyun’s too close, and she really needs those fragile stickers to go over the thumping in her chest. But she also wants to nuzzle in closer to that intoxicating shampoo smell.

“P-please… I-I didn’t mean to…”

Her voice sounds so tiny and fragile, it tugs on Joohyun’s heartstrings.

“You know who I am?” she demands in somewhat of a growl, caging the smaller girl in with both arms pressed on either side of her head, causing her to gasp out, “you’ve heard?”

Seungwan shrinks a little more, petunias searing onto her milky cheeks at the proximity, but terror-stricken nonetheless. It’s burning, and it’s too much.

A small ‘mm’ and a teary nod is all she can offer.

Joohyun shoots her a challenging smirk, a kaleidoscope of obsidian pebbles flicker in her darkened eyes as she brings a single finger under the girl’s chin, tilting her so she’s forced to look up.

“And you still think you have a choice?”

Seungwan wishes she could rear up at the challenge, hammer some humility into that smug attitude in front of her; put Bae Joohyun in her place. But who is she to change the way the world works? Girls like Joohyun toy with what they want, and get what they toy with; the natural order of things Seungwan has no hope of re-routing. Her resolve, her dignity and everything she’s built up in her 20 years on earth crumbles at her feet; she doesn’t bother picking up the pieces.

With that, she looks up at the girl who still has her locked in with her eyes alone, and meekly shakes her head.

Seungwan can finally breathe when Joohyun detaches herself from the wall and runs both hands down the front of her blouse. She hears a chuckle and before she knows it, there’s an arm around her waist, moving them in tandem.

She doesn’t see the triumphant smile etched into Joohyun’s rosebud lips, like she’s swallowed a coat hanger. All she knows is that they’re now bound by this assignment, and that Joohyun is leaving with exactly what she came for.

Seungwan hides a shy grin of her own.

#wenrene #university au #bully irene #red velvet #i got carried away #seungwan the cafe worker #seungwan doesn't mind #red velvet scenarios #red velvet imagines #kpop scenarios #girl group scenarios

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betelgeusing · 4 years

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I’m caught up on the Stand here r some opinions (OBVIOUSLY spoilers thru episode 6)

good:

Glen Bateman, Tom Cullen, Nick Andros, Larry Underwood casting/rewrites/adjustments

(Jovan Adepo deserves full credit for me not only tolerating Larry but actually liking him most of the time cause hoo boy I hated his guts in the book)(also!!! he played Teenager Michael Murphy in The Leftovers and it’s TRIPPING me out because he is OLDER than me and I never would have guessed it watching that show!!!)

(also it’s SO nice to see Brad Henke playing a teddy bear of a guy bc he is shaped like a friend but I’ve literally only ever seen him play absolute monsters)(I luv Tom Cullen)

dayna jurgens best character in the book best character in the series

I wasn’t sure about Owen Teague as Harold bc book Harold is overweight and pimply and kind of greasy and off-putting and Owen is skin and bones and good-looking but he projects creepy and sus very well. he is doing my boy Justice

speaking of, odessa young REALLY sells "girl stuck with a creepy guy who has an unrequited crush on her" like you can feel the discomfort and borderline contempt streaming from her pores

appreciated the rewrites of Rita to make her whole deal not horribly sexist and weird (same goes for most of the women tbh). Heather Graham did great

updating it to 2020ish works well. Glen vaping all the time = legendary

they did a good job of trimming and conflating some of the stuff so the story stays focused. things they cut MOSTLY weren't super important

alex skarsgård scissors stab neck smeared in blood sexy

J! K! Simmons! CAMEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

meh:

james marsden is fine (actually better than I expected in this) but he always fails to excite me. gary sinise in the OG miniseries was a better vibe for Stu and they should've gone for someone with more of the everyman energy. Marsden looks like a catalog model and doesn't seem to be able to bring an observable personality to his roles (sorry man)(on a more positive note this is why he was a perfect Scott Summers)

Whoopi Goldberg is a fine actress and apparently in contrast to a lot of critics I’m actually fine with her casting but mother abigail is SUPER under-used and way less developed than she should be-- we know literally nothing about her outside of her occasional appearance to scold and/or guide and that lack of personhood plays heavily into into the “magical negro” trope which. ugh. at least in the book she had a ton of backstory and family and stuff to do outside of “be the magical prophet for everybody else”

I love the whole Skarsgard family and am always happy to see one of them. that said, Alex lacks Randall's bouncy gleeful chaos energy and sheer malevolence. also he whispers all the time and I'm not sure what that choice is all about (no lbr that’s just an askars acting habit and outside of Eric from True Blood it’s not a great one)

bad:

not enough dayna screen time

pacing is weird and makes it really hard to get invested. starting at the free zone in Boulder and only jumping back to how they actually started/how they GOT to Boulder in pieces every episode feels really disruptive. not that it’s hard to keep track of, but it’s hard to really feel anything for anyone with such a disjointed narrative. the trip to Boulder is half the novel and it’s super important for establishing character dynamics, rivalries, motivations and personalities and if you meet these people mid-story after their arc is half finished and only get fragments of the VERY IMPORTANT ESTABLISHING STORY every now and again it feels like being robbed of setup and then payoff? idk. I hate it. I think they should have started at the beginning and gone thru chronologically, the story works way better that way

for that matter, playing all coy and mysterious with Randall and only showing Vegas for the first time in episode 5?? when the book has us there every step of the way? I don’t need a 1:1 adaptation but I do think following Vegas developments is super helpful re: understanding stakes and how much of a threat your enemy is, and with so little focus ON the enemy, it’s just not scary?

SPEAKING of Vegas what the actual hell. apologies for going “but in the book!!!” so many times but literally in the book Vegas would be a very appealing prospect for just about anyone. there’s electricity, there are supplies, there’s peace, there’s structure and organization. iirc Dayna is even tripped out on her recon mission because she makes friends with people and is struck by how normal and decent everyone seems? WELL this adaptation just threw that out the window and just went full fledged hedonistic sin bin full of just deeply unpleasant people that are more caricatures than characters. everyone there sucks turds. lacks any kind of depth. HUGE swing and a miss bc it hits so much better if you’re like “these are largely decent people lured in by the promise of stability, making moral compromises because they’re scared and trying to survive and Randall’s leadership is a huge temptation” vs “every single person here would roofie my drink and not feel a twinge of conscience about it”

every single choice made with regards to Nadine. badly miscast, robbed of the kickass witch’s streak aesthetic, set up as a consummate villain from the beginning (her constant struggles with her fate are totally omitted till it’s way too late for them to be in any way believable), relationship with Larry is basically nonexistent, and the planchette incident from her childhood is revealed much too early so it’s devoid of any real sense of horror (portrayed as a catalyst for lifelong villainy rather than a late-in-story revelation that she was set on a path against her will). done right she’s complicated and sympathetic at least until her complete heel-turn, in this series she’s just 2d and dull

randall beating bobby terry to death instead of ripping him apart with TEETH was a stupid change made to spite me personally. I mean can you IMAGINE how good that scene could have been

#overall: enjoyable! with huge caveats #the stand

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panharmonium · 4 years

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some disjointed thoughts about stranger things 2 under the cut (concealed to hide spoilers from my sister)

so, season 2!

i’ve gone into every season of this show knowing absolutely nothing about it. i’ve had no exposure to the fandom or to reviews or anything that would indicate what it was about or how good the seasons are in relation to each other, which i like, because i know my opinions are my own. season 1 i watched back in the winter, i think, and it was amazing. blew me away.

i just finished season 2 and i’m like...not as into it?

and i’m glad i had no preexposure to anything, because if i had, i’d worry that i was just being influenced by other people’s opinions, but i genuinely don’t know what people think of the various seasons. i’ve been stringently avoiding anything about this show, have it blocked on tumblr, etc, so i could watch it cold.

i’d have to watch it again to really pin down the places where my investment was flagging, and i’ll probably do that eventually, because i know my roommate will want to see it, but my general impression was this: they had me hooked in the beginning, and then they started to lose me.

- i feel like overall it was 9 episodes where very little substance actually happened. plotlines were stretched out over a reallllllly long period of time and became paper-thin. like nancy and jonathan? the only thing they really did over those entire nine episodes was make a tape recording and send it to the paper. that was their whole story, and it could have fit in one episode.

- and what did happen felt like it suffered from a lack of focus. can i explain this in more detail without watching the show again? not really. but i just mean that in S1, i could tell you what each of the main character’s arcs were, and i could lay out how those arcs had clear beginnings, middles, and endings. in S2, i can really only do that for El (and even that i feel like got messy by the last third).

- the horror vibe was different this season. it was LESS scary, to me. S1 was a CREEP factor that had my skin crawling - it wasn’t like...creature horror - it was the unsettlingness. the whole parallel world thing was so - well, the only word for it is unsettling, like. you felt like you could take a step and accidentally wind up somewhere no one should be - the idea that you can be trapped so close to somebody and yet so far away - you just felt like the world was inside out (or upside down, if you will). and so much of the fear in the first one came from how incomprehensible and uncertain the entire situation was - you didn’t know how things worked and nobody believed you when you tried to tell them what was happening. that scene where the christmas lights spell out R-U-N? scariest fucking thing i’ve ever seen. but S2 changed it to be like...it felt like more of a monster flick. like a zombie movie or something - lots of creatures running around that you can just shoot with a gun - that’s just not really the same vibe as the first season, and i didn’t find it quite as interesting.

- i don’t want to be That Person, because i liked maxine as a character in general, on her own terms, but from a writing perspective - what even was the purpose of her introduction? her and her brother both, honestly, the whole family. i feel almost bad for saying that, because i can guarantee that there were people out there complaining about her being introduced because “they just wanted to have another girl; it’s so stupid, blah blah,” cue more sexist stuff, etc, and that’s really not where i’m coming from, but for me, from a general storytelling perspective, i don’t understand why she or her family were introduced. they were superfluous to the story. they didn’t need to be there. and since i don’t even feel like the returning characters got enough development this season (see point #2), i don’t understand why we spent so much time on her/her family/her introduction to the Party. it felt like filler.

- stranger things S2 did that thing teen wolf does where 2/3 of the way through the season it drops a tonally-different expository/flashback episode that does a lot of the legwork tying other shit together while also being completely disconnected from the rest of the plot, which is basically an info dump and is my least favorite way of relaying plot/getting characters to the spot the writer wants them to go. i think kali was the most interesting new character we met this season; i was rapt every time she was onscreen, but i don’t love the “we’re going to shove all of the character development and background info into this one episode and at the end El has had her turnaround and goes back home.” it didn’t feel believable to me. are we ever going to see those people again, or were they just a plot convenience to serve the aforementioned purpose? (idk, i haven’t watched S3 yet, so...we’ll see.)

- some weird...minor tonal changes/dropped plots? in S1 one of the running undercurrents was how mike and nancy’s mom wanted them to talk to her and she really did care about what was going on but they couldn’t connect to her and that bothered her, whereas in S2 it’s like - that theme has been dropped; she’s not involved in their lives really at all, and her and ted’s spousal relationship is just being played for laughs, and there was that REALLY weird scene with her like...lusting after billy?????? that was so fucking bizarre.

and until one line in the very last episode, they dropped the whole thing about hopper’s daughter, too - the way they wove that into the first season was brilliantly done, and just - you don’t see a bit of it in S2, and that felt off, to me.

- killing bob was a bad call. it was gratuitous, AND it was contrived - who the hell is running for their life and then just stops dead in the lobby to smile at their girlfriend? ANY SENSIBLE PERSON WOULD KEEP RUNNING FOR THE DOOR. like - bob died, but the doctor survived???????? the doctor, who was attacked and immobilized and defenseless in a stairwell, somehow wasn’t killed?????? of course not, because he needed to survive, so he could get El her papers later....that entire thing irritated me. it made no sense. that was actually the point where i said to myself “uh-oh. first Bad-with-a-capital-B decision this show’s made.”

- lack of consistency in terms of how, exactly, Stuff Works. in S1 it was like - the Upside Down is everywhere. the demigorgon could come through anywhere, if you were unlucky. that was part of what made it so creepy - there’s this whole other world and it is RIGHT THERE with you, and sometimes the fabric separating the two universes gets scary thin, and bam, you’re somewhere no human has any business being. whereas in S2 it’s like - ok, things are coming through this one portal and spreading through tunnels underground, in our own dimension??? like at first i thought hopper had actually entered the Upside Down in the tunnels, but then it seemed like the tunnels were still on our plane, just gross-looking. so why in S1 could the demigorgon come through the ceiling of will’s house, or through that tree in the woods, or take barbara through the pool? why did the lab people think burning that little gate would help, when the first monster from last season was obviously popping into our dimension from all sorts of other places?

- this is a minor quibble, but it was driving me up the WALL in the last couple of episodes - what in god’s name were they injecting will with??? and HOW. mike just grabs that syringe off the counter like “we need to make will go to sleep” - there is NO reason that anyone in the room would know what was in the syringe or what the correct dosage was or HOW TO GIVE AN INJECTION IN THE FIRST PLACE. joyce gives it??????? by stabbing straight down???????? into will’s arm???????????? what the hell kind of injection technique is that?!?!?! that’s not....how that works. ever. and maxine does it to billy too, in his NECK - just straight in there. there is no....look, people in human medicine can weigh in better than me here; maybe things are different, but just from the veterinary perspective, you can’t just stab a creature any old place you want, and giving something via any route that isn’t intravenous isn’t going to drop an animal immediately, AND you do not have control over how long they’re going to be out. if you give a sedative, you can’t just wake an animal up by wafting ammonia under their nose. AND the animal is likely not going to be actually asleep until you also give an anaesthetic induction agent, and if you do give an anaesthetic induction agent, you’d better have some monitoring equipment and a breathing apparatus hooked up to your patient!

look, it just - the “go to sleep” injection was used to solve too many critical situations for me to just ignore it. it bothered me.

anyhow. overall, i didn’t hate it. but i thought it was way less cohesive than the first season, and therefore way less effective. i’m still curious to see what happens in S3, but my expectations are lower now.

[if you wanna talk to me about this, you have my permission, but ONLY if you’re able to do it without talking about S3 in any capacity, including your own personal evaluation of how good/bad it is in relation to the other seasons. i like to watch without knowing other people’s opinions of things, otherwise i feel like my viewing experience is colored by what i hear. thanks! :) ]

#interdimensional babysitters club

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tfw-no-tennis · 4 years

Text

mtmte liveblog issue 15

death awaits!

oh god the cover. I aint ready

the cover of overlords open mouth w/rodimus floating inside or w/e,,,,the overlord mouth fixation continues i see

and of COURSE its by nick roche. of course

oh god the tension and dread in the first page, as we get overlords sinister promise to murder everyone, starting with rewind, and then seeing chromedome rush over to open the door, and knowing that 30 minutes have passed already...

that full page spread of everyone vs overlord is amazing

also I always thought that ambulon was trying to kick overlord but now that I look closer he’s actually jumping away from overlord, having just crashed one of those hover...thingys....into him...which is honestly cool as hell. also I'm never over the fact that ambulon kinda looks like he’s smiling here, just having a grand ole time as overlord tries his best to murder everyone

and chromedome just seeing this and saying ‘rewind?’ is fucking killing me thanks

PIPES NO DONT DO THIS. YOURE JUST RUBBING SALT IN THE WOUND. PLEASE don't talk about how much fun you're having on your wacky space adventure oh god, that’s just asking to be murdered,

GOD AND THERE HE GOES, DRIVING TO HIS DOOM. PIPES NO

AUGHHHHHHHHHH AND THERES OVERLORD WITH HIS GIANT FOOT. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

PIIIIIPES ;_;

his messed up goodbye thoughts are brutal...plus the final shot of him laying all busted up....god :(

that guy seriously had some awful luck this trip. rip lil guy

BUT he sounded the alarm!!! so good for him!! that's a pretty amazing final act right there

oh my god I forgot abt this scene where rewind is like ‘so brainstorm why is my husband saying your name in his sleep :))))’ and brainstorm is like ‘haha idk its certainly not because we’re working on a secret project together, so jot that down!’ lmao brainstorm....

also dw rewind brainstorm is not fucking ur husband, just look at his evidentially extensive collection of perceptor-style microscopes...my man is microscopesexual

I forgot abt the metabomb omfg

‘some of my favorite words are monosyllabic’ rodimus ily, himbo of my heart,

fort max :( rung :(

oughhghghg I forgot abt the scene of tailgate making cyclonus a new horn ;_; and then cyclonus materializes menacingly bc tg dared to volunteer their room for movie night hvbfshdjkfbaskj cyclonus anti-social icon

AUGHHHH GOD THE PANEL OF RATCHET TALKING ON THE COMMS AND OVERLORD IS JUST, RIGHT BEHIND HIM, WITH HIS BIG STUPID LIPS, OH MY GOD

what the fuck, is drift a flying car??? hello??? what the hell????

seriously he’s got like, rockets and shit, what the fuck

anyways, the entire exchange b/w ratchet and drift here kills me, for multiple reasons.... ‘my faith and my sword’ lmao love it. and then ratchet refusing to leave drift and calling him his friend ;_; aughhh

rodimus w/the squad like ‘lets go gays!!!’

also I guess cosmos WAS on the lost light lol, totally didn't remember that, I'm guessing he left at some point to go be in the other series lmao

I'm sorry but ‘amazing. you speak entirely in name’ is so fucking funny, but also like stfu overlord you're not allowed to be funny

MAGNUSSSSSSSS

now I'm confusing myself lmao, rodimus DID know abt overlord, didn't he??? wasn't that the whole thing???? I don't remember if he was involved w/the whole mnemosurgery plan but he at least knew that overlord was there...but we haven't been told that in-story yet so now I'm questioning that lmao

oh god I forgot that overlord almost kills magnus, jeeeeesus. good thing he’s a russian nesting doll otherwise he probably would've died fr

also damn that's gotta be scary for everyone else, bc magnus is The Big Guy, and a renown fighter...plus drift got all fucked up...yall are in for a bad time

tailgate gettin his panic on I see

swerve w/the meta narration lmao

cyclonus ily sm.......

rodimus charging at overlord....ohhh my boy not your best idea

cd and rewind both saying ‘I thought you were dead!’ HHHHHHHH I'm destroyed fuck it all

rodimus (inadvertently) saving the day by saying ‘til all are one’...iconic!!

FORT MAX IS HEREEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

drift just casually chillin w/no legs

chromedome going into extreme detail about all the mnemosurgery he’s been doing on overlord for WEEKS while rewind is Right There....my dude.

this issue has a LOT of completely white backgrounds but I cant even rlly blame milne bc this seems like more drawing work than usual

oh god cd don't say ‘we’ll finish this conversation later’ at a time like this, that’s never a good idea,

rewind no don't do it :( :( :(

that panel of cd’s arm getting cut off...AUGHHH

GODDDDDDD IM FUCKING CRYING. AUGHHHHHHHHHHH I.....

so incredibly fucked that cd does what’s best for rewind by blowing the pod up....hhhhh god

and then that last panel of cd laying on the ground....fucking destroy me!!!!!!!!

also I love that at the beginning of the issue we see whirl with the missile launcher thing, and that’s what cd uses at the end here....good bookends. jro is really great about putting stuff in the story that just seems like innocuous filler/fun character building but turns out to ALSO be plot relevant later

HOLY SHIT I forgot about the cast page with the big red X’s thru the dead people’s profiles....jesus christ

AUGH this issue was a rollercoaster, phew...and the emotionally devastating conclusion to this arc is still yet to come!

I will say that it’s super interesting looking back on this, in the sense that rewind & chromedome are introduced as the first ever gay tf couple, and a few issues after we get told this explicitly, rewind is killed. this doesn't really end up being an issue representation-wise bc literally everyone is gay and there are a bunch of other significant gay characters/relationships later on, AND rewind comes back later

but still! it’s interesting to think about how, at the time this came out, the phrase/concept ‘bury your gays’ wasn't really something that was talked about a lot (or like, it was, but not as often as nowadays, and not really under the term ‘bury your gays’ iirc), but at the time of publication this would have fallen under that trope (though rewind coming back later negates it imo). I think it would've been tough for this story to come out nowadays due to the backlash that would've occurred from rewind’s initial death (it also makes me wonder if there was any backlash when this DID come out)

to be clear, this isn't a writing criticism - in fact, the reason this is able to work at all is because of the crazy amount of representation mtmte has. it’s like, youre able to kill off gay characters without it being ‘bury your gays’ if literally all your characters are gay by default, and there are a bunch of significant gay relationships happening - technically speaking, any death in mtmte is bury your gays lmao

this is a completely disjointed rant but my point is like, if this issue came out in 2020 people would probably be pretty put off by rewind dying (understandably), but in the context of the series as a whole I don't consider this to be bad writing/bad representation/bury your gays

and like, WERE people really mad about this in 2013? I am curious now, bc I would definitely feel kinda betrayed if I didn't know all the stuff that happens later

but its pretty nice, because now I'm free to enjoy the writing and be emotionally devastated by rewinds death in a normal way, and not a ‘I'm angry at the writers for killing off one of the only gay characters’ kinda way

anyways I'm tired as hell so I'm going to bed, ill continue the emotional devastation later, phew

#lj rereads mtmte

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toast-the-unknowing · 4 years

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hey Toast! i love all your fics and your writing a lot - it always strikes the perfect balance between humorous and insightful and sweet and it's never boring. i've been having trouble finishing anything i write lately - especially when it comes to linking one scene to another in a way that's compelling and keeps to that narrative/not disjointed. idk whether that's just a lack of motivation or what but i was wondering whether you have any tips in that regard or re: pacing?

I don't think lack of motivation is usually a writer's problem, or at least, I think when that is a writer's problem they are probably aware of it. Is the script in your head "I don't want to write this" or "I want to write this but can't"? Because if you don't want to write a story, the solution is pretty obvious; I think it's much more common that the motivation is there but something is countering it.

Often for me it's fear. That people won't like the story, that I won't be able to make the story be what I want it to be, that maybe it says something about me if people don't like it or if I can't make it be what I wanted it to be. That fear is much more likely to strike near the end of a story than near the beginning, so it is specifically a “trouble finishing stories” issue.

Sometimes it's a problem with clarity. I can lose sight of a story as I get into it. Particularly near the end of the story, because I've written all the bits that are easy already, so now I'm drilling down into the hard parts, or the parts where I don't really have a good idea of what's supposed to go there, and in addition to being hard work it means I've zoomed way in on this one part of the story, which isn't even the part that made me want to write the story in the first place. Writing might become a huge drag because some part of me knows that the story has gotten muddled up along the way, that there's something missing or something that needs to change, and it's tugging on my sleeve trying to make me turn around and notice it. Or maybe there isn't anything wrong in the story, but I've gotten so caught up in these little details that I'm thinking of the story as this one problem area instead of the story that I wanted to write in the first place.

But whether it's fear or my internal editor or tunnel vision, the motivation of "I want to write this" is usually enough to overcome that. (Not always, and my ratio of stories I start to stories I finish is abysmal, but these days the ones that get abandoned are usually ones where I go "I don't actually want to write this, or not enough to put in the work it requires.") I just need to REMEMBER that I want to write it. What were the things about the story that made me excited about it, before I ever wrote a word? What are some of the things that I wrote along the line that I didn't expect that were wonderful surprises? What's something that I would be sad to realize I could never show someone, if I never finished the story? That can really help me find my motivation. It can also help me spot story problems if I have them -- reminding myself of the concept, the theme, the shape, the emotional beats I wanted to hit, that can help me spot things in my story that aren't serving it.

Also, just, sometimes I'm not feeling a particular story at a particular time. Sometimes my brain is in "generate idea" mode and not "finish and polish a story" mode. I have about two dozen works in progress so if I think that's what’s happening I just bounce over to a different one. I acknowledge this system wouldn't work for everyone but it does work for me and could work for someone else.

As for linking scenes and pacing, this is going to sound very flippant but I do not mean it that way, but sometimes the secret is just to end the scene and start the next one. You will mess up your pacing so much more by trying to force a link, or by writing past the end of the scene, than you will by just cutting from one thing to the next.

Scene changes make us think about our plot (”okay, just finished thing G, time for thing H”), but it helps to look at the tone, as well. If you have a very happy cute fluffy scene, and then a sad angsty scene, I can see why you want to build a bridge between them. If you couldn't think of what events should be happening to get you there, at least now you know the emotional slope you’re on. Do you want your scene to build energy and suspense, with more characters coming in or more dialogue or more events happening? Or do you want things to be slowing down and getting more quiet, maybe lingering on the scene after one or more of the characters has left. Or, if you do have a big shift in mood between scenes, acknowledge the characters' reality and anticipate your audience's reaction. Maybe the sad thing that happens is more devastating because they were just happy. Maybe the fact that the characters are laughing in this scene when the last scene was awful makes them feel surprised, or guilty, or hopeful.

It is super helpful to ask yourself "what do my characters feel right now" and "how would my characters react to the thing that JUST NOW JUST HAPPENED." (I feel like I extol the virtues of improv a lot when I talk about writing, but this is something that improv has helped me develop.) I get caught up sometimes in what a story NEEDS a character to be thinking or feeling at a certain point in time and ignoring where the scene actually IS. Then I have a hard time connecting two bits of dialogue that structurally only need a couple of sentences to fit together and yet...somehow...I cannot...write those two sentences. That usually means there’s a disconnect like "hey this character was just talking about something really personal and serious, would the person they're talking to really be making jokes/talking about their own problems a second later?" That's a problem within a scene rather than between them, but maybe two scenes feel disjointed because a character's emotions have changed in between them, without an obvious reason for the change and without the audience getting to see a non-obvious reason.

Sometimes you flat out know that you need something to go in between two beats -- for the pacing, for the emotional logic, to fill in a plot hole -- but you still don't know what actually HAPPENS in that scene. One thing that helps me there is to walk through the logistics of a character's life. If I really have no idea what should happen, I ask, what would the characters be doing right after this scene, or right before the next one -- going to class? eating lunch? visiting their family?

This is the kind of detail that I will HAPPILY throw out the window if it gets in the way of the story I want to tell, by the way. I'm not going to not write a really great moment because "well but wouldn't the character probably still be at work" whatever, don't care. And I'm not going to write a scene that doesn't need to be in the story just to satisfy that logic. But if I'm stuck that can be a source of inspiration.

Another good inspiration for when I know something's missing but don't know how to fill it in: think theme. What is the story ABOUT? Is there an event or action or bit of dialogue that would bring that in? What's the thing that made me go I WANT TO WRITE THIS! How can I channel that specific motivation into this scene? If the thing I was most excited about was one specific emotional beat or mental image, what is something that would resonate with that?

But also: you are allowed to write short scenes! You are allowed to write a montage of scenes! You are allowed to cut between things without it being "compelling," you are allowed to have invisible scene changes where the audience doesn't really think much of anything about the fact that the scene just changed, and arguably you should have more of those than otherwise! Even if you just cut between scenes abruptly so that you can finish the story -- hell, once it's done you can go back and look at those, maybe with a complete story in front of you, you can see a little clearer, remember your motivation a little better, and then the words will come out easier. But really if you've got that thing that makes your story your story -- a theme, an arc, one really cool moment that you're building up to, a character dynamic, a sense of humor, a mood, a trope, whatever was that thing you really wanted to play with and build on and show people -- if you've got that thing and you hold onto it, I don't think you need to worry about your story being disjointed.

#writing #Anonymous

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five-wow · 5 years

Text

now that i’ve had at least twenty-four hours to let the news of the impending end of our show sink in, here is my disjointed post with thoughts, to add to the wealth of voices already out there:

this is probably not a surprise and definitely not something nobody has said before, but i do think it’s important to be said, first and foremost: i am sad about this!! and that is okay and i fully understand and respect this decision by the cast and crew, but that doesn’t necessarily make it less sad.

i’m also very anxious about the sudden countdown. five episodes left to go feels very suddenly very limited for a show that always felt kind of endless to me. i thought i was looking at an ocean stretching towards the horizon and instead what’s left is a puddle. (by which i don’t mean anything bad about the remaining episodes - i have no negative feelings towards puddles. puddles could potentially be wonderful.)

related to the previous point, i’m only realizing now that i fully expected them to push this show into an eleventh (and probably twelfth) season come hell or high water, even if scott might have left (which always seemed like the more likely option than alex needing a break). so even though this is not really a surprise, it is more of one than i would have thought. (at the same time, it should be said that i’m very glad they didn't go the route i thought they would take. it's an unpleasant surprise to see the show end, but it’s also a strangely reassuring one, though it may take some time yet to fully feel the benefits of that over the more immediate sadness.)

to bring something a little more positive into this: i’m very excited for the cast and crew to be able start a new chapter their lives after this! it’s sad to see a thing end, and very emotional after it’s been in some cases a full decade of their lives and careers, but change is good and human and healthy.

not the most salient point, but it does make more sense to me now that we suddenly got irrefutably canon and together tani/junior. maybe that would have happened regardless, i don’t know (they have been building towards it for much longer, obviously), but it still seemed pretty “boom, there it is” to me in the end, because i expected them to draw things out even longer because i don’t think they wanted to write a show where two main characters are happily dating each other even though obviously they have been doing exactly that with steve and danny, but they don’t know that, so sshh.

another story thing: i SO HOPE this news means we get to end the show with steve and danny single and living together. THAT IS ALL I ASK FOR. ALL. I. ASK. FOR.

as a fic writer, this whole thing is making me a little anxious because a) new canon content is good to get the creative juices flowing and b) there is always a surge in readership after an episode airs. with no new episodes so soon, i feel a weird kind of pressure to make the most of this last month of content that will get the fandom active in large groups at specific times, even though that’s not something i’ve ever really taken into consideration while writing or posting fic before.

also, PLEASE show us grace again before the show ends!! she’s been very absent this season to the point where i’m not even entirely sure we’ve heard her name mentioned, let alone that we in any way know where she went to college or how she’s doing there.

same feelings about mary, to be honest. they’re both characters who have been a part of this show since all the way back in the very early episodes of season 1, and they’re also both very important people to steve and danny.

it’s been said, but i’m just. so so sad this thing i really enjoyed and that has been something i spent hours and weeks and months of my life with is now coming to an end. throughout all the other thoughts, that’s definitely one that keeps coming back.

but at the same time, i’m also strangely excited for the idea of series codas, because those are the only kind where no canon content will ever come along and tell us we were mistaken in assuming steve and danny finally figured their shit out. once canon is done, we will have complete free reign. (i’m assuming here that both steve and danny survive the series finale, because killing either of them off would honestly be a very bad way to end ten seasons of making us like them imo, but it would still be true regardless of whether they’re alive in canon. fix-it fic, yo.)

as down as i am, i do also keep returning to the near certainty that it’s better if they quit at a point where there is still some heart to this show left, instead of milking it until it's a walking husk of a thing that nobody recognizes. i’m thankful for that.

BUT ALSO. season 10 was SO GOOD so far. i was genuinely excited for this shift that they seemed to have made from season 9, so it's a little heartbreaking to feel like they're quitting just when things were looking up. (again, though, also a good thing in a strange way.)

totally different approach: i’m glad we're all being respectful about this whole thing! that is wonderful to see and just, generally, thank you all for being cool people.

i’m also grateful i haven't seen anyone say we need to fight to revive the show, especially because this seems to have been a decision made at least in part by alex for his health, which just. it’d be very bad to try to lobby for more in this kind of situation, but it sometimes seems like campaigns to reverse a cancellation have become a set part of the end of very nearly every show with an active fandom. i was a little scared to see that kind of thing here, but it hasn’t happened as far as i know, and that’s good.

in the end, idk, it just continues to be such an odd thing to have a show you love end. it feels like something died, but nothing really did (we still have ten seasons of content, and that’s not going to go away!) and nobody around me irl really shares that feeling, which is a little awkward. i'm in a weird mourning phase where i keep being reminded of The Sad Thing by little stuff and i feel a pang every time, but i can't keep going "this reminds me of h50" over and over and over, because i do that enough on a normal day as is, and it really doesn't need to be tripled. for that reason more than ever, i'm grateful for this fandom, and, weird as it may sound on the surface, grateful to see all of you be sad, too. it takes away the feeling of loneliness it would have carried with it otherwise, and it soothes the sting, and just generally helps process things.

so thank you. let’s make something wonderful out of this last hurrah for the show and characters, and, obviously, there is nothing to stop fandom even after canon is over. what’s left of the show may be a puddle, but fandom really is that ocean with no visible limits, and that should be some small consolation. ❤

#h50 #i feel like this post goes in circles but that's also what my brain is doing so i wouldn't know how to uncircle it at the moment #anyway #MANY HUGS FOR ALL OF YOU #*

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