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calowlmitygoddess · 1 year

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Ill fill the writing meme because i love talking about myself lmao

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting? Standart arial, and don't care, tought i tried the comic sans trick a few times

2. If you had to give up your keyboard and write your stories exclusively by hand, could you do it? If you already write everything by hand, a) are you a wizard and b) pen or pencil? Probably not, my handwriting is terrible, actually unreadable to anyone but myself. Ive used to write on papper back in highschool when i had to write basicly everyday, now i havent touched a pen in ages.

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed? No standart ritual aside from needing music, anything else distracts me. The two songs i listened the most while writing is Respite on the Spitafields by ghost and Sacred Worlds by Blind Guardian

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral? Can't think of any rn :^

5. Do you have any writing superstitions? What are they and why are they 100% true? I dont think i have any

6. What is your darkest fear about writing? That it all will be meaningless/no one will read what i do

7. What is your deepest joy about writing? Doing Something TM the whole, creation aspect

8. If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go? No dialogue, just write a piece of someone going trought their day, ive wrote a small exercise a while back that fit this.

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know No. Unless i hear a Noise TM then they are very real

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you? All my unfinished things haunt me daily. So much promise and so far nothing real. I had to write a thing to help let go of their ghosts

11. Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve? Only when it fits the narrative. I dont like killing characters whitout a major reason, usually thematic, otherwise it feels cheap.

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules. Have the skill needed to make my Big Project reality, Have it reach some form of Good greater recognition/popularity, the last one i would keep for later.

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy? Hard topics in general, big issues, relationships in any realistic way.

Literally just characters vibing, introspection, Over the top stuff.

14. Do you lend your books to people? Are people scared to borrow books from you? Do you know exactly where all your “lost” books are and which specific friend from school you haven’t seen in twelve years still possesses them? Will you ever get them back? No one ever asked for a book to me but id have no problem doing so. Im the one people shouldnt ever lend any books because i am very careless and would likely end up dropping coffee or something accidentally on it

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends? I dont write in margins, but i did dog eared books in the past, and i use the jacket(?) of the book to mark my pages.

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark? fuckenn... i dont remember tbh, again i use the jacket.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text. I have a post with a bunch of lore about the dragon species, i cant find it tought. But they are mammals that lay eggs, have no gender, their society mostly resemble that of bees, they have no currency, and the watsonian reason the main character goes by gendered terms despite not having one is because she thinks the words sound nice

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage. I dont think theres any passages that have interesting enough backstories.

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going? My dream since childhood was to write a book, ive always liked to tell stories, read and such, i would dictate stories that my mom would write down before i learnt how to do so. But then i got really into drawing and started to foucus more on that, and ended up shifting the foucus from writing text to comic making since every artist with ocs does that. I also changed foucus on projects faster than light, so i would write 2 chapters and give up the next day, or change the entire story the next week and such.

I stuck with comics as my goal for like the past 6 years, and only early this year i came to the conclusion that i really hate the comic making part of making comics, and that i like writting much better. Im very rusty+ the fact im not as avid reader as i used to, and the quality is not really good, but im having fun.

20. If a witch offered you the choice between eternal happiness with your one true love and the ability to finally finish, perfect, and publish your dearest, darlingest, most precious WIP in exactly the way you've always imagined it — which would you choose? You can’t have both sorry, life’s a bitch

Wip, finish the wip, thats all i wanted since i was 10, what even is the point of this question.

21. Could you ever quit writing? Do you ever wish you could? Why or why not? I just started writting 'seriously' so i dont want to quit just yet. Also i have a massive undeserved ego, i dont think even the most discouraging,awful negative review could make me quit doing it.

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud? I have one google doc, with outline+ chapters as i write them, i used to have different docs for lore/outline/chapters but its easier this wau

23. Describe the physical environment in which you write. Be as detailed as possible. Tell me what’s around you as you work. Paint me a picture.

In the inn i stay during the week and my actual room in my house are essentially the same place, Is my room, its messy and damp but its confy enough. My table is turned to the small window and during the morning the sun hist right in my face. The table is equally messy, with cups and glasses over it, pappers stained with coffee and tea cover its surface. My one company, a small succulent that rests near the window, and a carved small owl that i need to constantly clean because its constantly molding due to the dampness.

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it? Idk what kind of prep work you would do. I just sit and write mate.

25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story? Godamn i cant think of any rn. Most of my Extremely well developed characters are from my BIg Story, but it literally doesnt exist anywhere outside my head yet, so idk what is and isnt relevant to it. For my current wip is a little harder since the characters are like less than a year old. idk...Orick looks like a cat person, i think he would like to own a cat.

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place? I go "what would a person in this situation with this background do" and try my best to guess.

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why? Any character thats like a stategist or planner, because its hard to make them look smart without making it look like bullshit or predicting the future

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why? Meira. Her narration came very easy to me, guilt ridden but still professional and calm, also Big Gay.

29. Where do you draw your inspiration? What do you do when the inspiration well runs dry? I was never a very original kid, im a vampire that sucks the soul out of other things to fuel my own. My current Wip main characters are based out of HK characters they resemble nothing of. Im always on the prowl for new media to steal from be inspired by

30. Talk to me about the role dreams play in your writing life. Have you ever used material from your dreams in your writing? Have you ever written in a dream? Did you remember it when you woke up?

Sort of. I've dreamed with plots before, and i usually do my best to remember, but while at the moment i wake up feeling like that was the best idea in the world, after a while when i think about it again, its just sort of nonsense

31. Write a short love letter to your readers.

Literally Thank you to anyone who ever gave me the time of day. Im still a little haunted by those i dissapointed by never fininishing stuff but the fact that yall liked enough to make me feel guilty for giving up is also good in a way <3

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

'sometimes a dream is enough' - the last line from one of my favourite books. In context it drives me insane, it makes me rabid. But out of context its just neat

33. Do you practice any other art besides writing? Does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate? Im a Drawer! also tried sculpting in the past. And YES, my current dream is to have an illustrated novel.

34. Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go: No idea what an oxford comma is and at this point im too afraid to ask

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens? POV character being the protagonist, i just found it such a neat concept. Also the protagonist needing to be a Good Moral Character.

36. They say to Write What You Know. Setting aside for a moment the fact that this is terrible advice...what do you Know? Dinossaurs, i wanna write a story about dinossaurs one day...

37. If you were to be remembered only by the words you’ve put on the page, what would future historians think of you? Gay. Also very into dragons

38. What is something about your writing process YOU think is Really Weird? If you are comfortable, please share. If you’re not comfortable, what do you think cats say about us? I dont have any Weird habits i think? I can only imagine some kind of complain about how their current food sucks.

39. What keeps you writing when you feel like giving up? Not to be dark in the funny meme but giving up would literally remove one of the things that give my life some form of meaning

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

idk how to write poems sorry

#owl memes

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the-darkness-does-not-bargain · 1 year

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almost forgot but picture me breaking into your metaphorical home and plopping down a card because uno reverse card be upon ye: 9, 13, 15, 22, 28, + 8, 18, 25, 29 and 24 pa more. Random side note but you answering 24 with ‘i answered this, but i still have more’ brings to mind those ? boxes in mario where usually whacking em produces only the one coin once and no more, but then there are some that yield multiple coins lmao

and oh yeah, since this is still a metaphorical holdup 🔫, hand over (please share) some weird facts about your DA au, either watsonian and/or doylist

You're spoiling me lmao. I'll share facts in a separate post later tonight when they're all compiled 😁.

8. Song about drugs or alcohol. One Toke Over The Line by Brewer & Shipley, a classic.

9. Song that makes me happy. I think I'll give this one to I Need Never Get Old by Nathaniel Rateliffe and the Night Sweats (great name btw). It's groovy and folky with excellent instrumentation and a very cute little music video, and I really like the vocals. It's just fun!

13. Favorite song from the 80s. 99 Red Balloons by Nena! Nuclear holocaust has never bopped so hard!

15. Song that is a cover. There’s plenty, but I'll pick Janis Joplin's cover of Piece of my Heart, originally performed by Erma Franklin. Both versions are great, but Janis's is the one I grew up with.

18. Song from the year I was born. 1995 and honestly there aren't a lot from that year that I like. But Freak Like Me by Adina Howard is a winner.

22. Song that moves me forward. How Far We've Come by Matchbox Twenty. It just hits like that.

24. Song from a band that broke up. Previous answers here, here, and here. I still have more. Oasis was a hot mess of a band, and it really is for the best that they broke up, but She's Electric is a classic for a reason and one of my favorite 90s songs.

25. Song by an artist no longer living. So many now, but off the top of my head, Rebel Rebel by David Bowie, one of his best in my opinion.

28. Song by an artist with a voice I love. See, you can't ask this of me as a Florence fan because it just isn't fair to stack another artist up against her. So, we'll do it like this: Morning Elvis for Florence, and a curveball from left field, Anoana by Heilung. Seriously, watch the music video and don't try to tell me you felt nothing.

29. Song from my childhood. Aww yeah, baby, time to bring back the one and only, irreplaceable, unmatchable Groove Is In The Heart by Deee-Lite! Probably the first song I ever obsessed over, despite being 4 years old and therefore completely incapable of understanding or singing the lyrics. That's how you know it was a banger. God, it's so peak 90s, watch the music video if you dare but be prepared. Artists these days don't use goofy sound effects in songs the way they used to, and it's depressing.

#ask meme #music #florence and the machine #heilung

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bestworstcase · 3 years

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do you ever think about how a lot of the lore in tts comes from demantius and nobody challenges it. like you mean to tell me calliope didn't have a book about the black rocks or sun flower in her spire archive? you mean to tell me as inquisitive as varian is, he didn't stop and think "hmm maybe smthin fishy going on here".

not only do i think about this CONSTANTLY i--well there’s a reason bitter snow does lore in the contradictory patchwork way it does. xavier’s legends, everyone’s dreams, sirin’s struggle with faith, moira’s childhood memories, sitheach’s necromancy, sugracha’s lessons, zhan tiri’s folktales, demanitus’ book, adira’s heresies, rosalia’s lectures, sorchā’s epiphanies, calliope’s…calliopeness, helcha’s piety. and we haven’t even gotten to tisiphagos or donella or the great tree or tromus or ulla or demanitus or tanith or liora or edmund yet!! lmao like--tts reveals almost all its lore through the lens of demanitus’ narrative even if he isn’t the one telling it, but it also shows us juuust enough to confirm that 1. he’s a fucking liar and 2. his genius coexists with an abject lack of good sense, and that is like CATNIP to my horrible voracious obsessed with worldbuilding gremlin brain.

(sidebar i know the common refrain is the tts lore didn’t make sense but 1. the general thrust of it is literally not hard to understand and 2. all the details are coming from demanitus who is a fucking liar who thought it’d be a good idea to put his soul in a monkey using a bastardized facsimile of a spell he didn’t fully understand without testing any of it first, why would you expect his self-aggrandizing explanation of unknowable cosmic forces that he himself admits he never found to be anything besides a clusterfuck of half truths, omitted facts, wrong assumptions, inconsistencies, and blatant misunderstandings? lmao there are holes in the sundrop/moonstone lore wide enough to drive a truck through but that’s a feature, not a bug. it’s because demanitus is a liar and an idiot.)

ANYWAY--

the doylist answer here is of course that nobody asks questions about the crock of hot bullshit demanitus feeds them because the plot needs everyone to buy what he’s selling re: the drops must be reunited and rapunzel needs to be the one to do it, because destiny. pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. like, if halfway through season two rapunzel starts questioning why the it’s her duty to blow herself up to put a couple of magic space rocks back together, the whole story falls apart, you know? is rapunzel gets back to corona and the rocks are gone and figures cass did that and the crisis is over then… where’s the conflict when cassandra shows up demanding the scroll? “oh gosh, cass, you know i’ve thought about it a lot and i really think the moonstone is safest with you, and of course we’ll get you what you need to fully control its magic! wouldn’t want anymore accidents like those red rocks—that was pretty freaky, right? so glad you’re okay!” and then zhan tiri’s whole gambit unravels in the blink of an eye lmao. rapunzel believes demanitus for the same reason cassandra gets mad about gothel; to make the plot happen.

but on a watsonian level here’s my take: rapunzel is the choke point. she’s the one being guided towards this ‘destiny’, first by adira and then by demanitus, who advise her and share their agendas with her alone. (eugene is there in lost and found but the man is utterly infatuated and so believes in her destiny even harder than she does.) after the pretend-to-be-the-keeper thing is sorted calliope would probably have RELISHED the chance to spend five hours giving team corona a crash course in legends of the sundrop and moonstone or the history of the dark kingdom (hello mind trap) or the legacies demanitus and zhan tiri left behind… but none of them were about to stick around for it. rapunzel clung to destiny to cope with feeling powerless after the great tree, and then her experiences in the HOYT reinforced her conviction. then she returned to corona and filled varian in on the lore she knew as if it were certain fact, and asked him to translate a scroll, and he didn’t ask questions because 1. she’s the princess, 2. he’s desperate to make up for his wrongdoing by helping her now, 3. doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and that makes inconsistencies tricky to spot, and 4. he is sixteen and applying critical thinking in social contexts is just plain difficult at that age. so rapunzel passes her opinions on to him as facts and varian starts from there and proceeds by digging through demanitus’ research; he lacks the knowledge and experience he would need to see the holes where demanitus lied or was just plain wrong. so rapunzel--unintentionally--acts as a gatekeeper for all of this lore and because she’s an authority in the literal sense and also in the figurative sense of being the one with the magic, the rest of the cast trusts her and so inherit her unquestioning trust in demanitus.

and then whatever zhan tiri told cassandra about the drops beyond that 1. the moonstone responds to emotion (true), 2. she needs the incantation to fully control it (true), and 3. smashing the sundrop’s and moonstone’s powers together shredded a hole in the fabric of reality and that’s how zhan tiri escaped acid hell (true), we just. don’t get to see because the two of them are off screen for half a fucking year; so cassandra may or may not know a lot more of the truth, or part of it, or a version of it equally as unreliable as demanitus’ but from the opposite direction, who knows.

apropos of nothing i wish zhan tiri had gotten a song. and an episode focused on just her and cass while en route back to corona. and character development. the usual laundry list of what-could-have-been. gremlin baby we hardly knew ye

i think more tts fanworks should tackle the tts lore not with the mindset of “it was a mess and i’m gonna fix it” but rather one of feeling out the shape of the truth obscured by demanitus’ lies and speculation. like, just accept that he’s an unreliable narrator and throw like five more unreliable narrators who disagree with him and each other into the mix it’s fine!!!!!

#tts

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dying-suffering-french-stalkers · 3 years

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Finally watching Goodbye Partner! I’m watching the dub, but I have the subs on so I can read the date/location popups and signs, so I’m getting a bit of dialogue comparison. I’ll probably go back and watch a few scenes with the original audio as well (Kiyoshi Kobayashi my beloved).

Here begins the liveblog, but all in one post and under a cut so it’s not as insufferable:

Starting strong with a heist escape sequence as per usual! As far as openings go, it’s hard to go wrong with that.

Oh, hello, literal actual Chopin courtesy of a timeskip/flashback.

What are these RWBY-ass CGI piano hands?? Y’all warned me and you were not kidding. Traditional rotoscoping would never hurt me in this way.

CUSTODY_OF_CHILD.JPG

Lupin playing in those see-through inflatable “hamster” balls skdfjskjdflsl

Intricate Rituals. Jiglup gunplay confirmed

Epcar’s delivery here was so much more aggressive than Kobayashi’s.

“Area 61, Colorado” just say Cheyenne Mountain

EDWARD ZNOWDEN

Fujiko really is terrible with kids

Listen, I love a good Dutch angle, but I’m starting to feel like I should set up a CinemaSins counter at this point. I’m glad to have some shot variety but there are other compositions, you know.

Motorcycle Jigen returns!!

Loving this little Morricone shoutout, which I unfortunately cannot seem to find on YouTube.

[strangled Goemon voice] “MISTAKE.”

God. GOD. Tony Oliver’s delivery in the betrayal scene is so good. Lupin is clearly not buying it at all and is quite willing to play along with whatever the hell this is - until Jigen shoots him right in the heart. That’s going to hurt a lot more than literally when he wakes up, though 1) given that the movie’s barely begun, I’m guessing he’s still not completely buying it (rightfully so) and is gonna look into this and 2) unfortunately this franchise isn’t known for actually digging into all the delicious angst and implications it likes to sling around. Cowards.

Also, I like that Lupin seems to be wearing a navy shirt and pink tie like he had in early Part 2 instead of the blue shirt/yellow tie he has in the other Red Jacket movies. Not sure why that’s what they went with but I’m down.

Okay, I went back and watched the betrayal scene in Japanese and OOF, it hits DIFFERENT to hear Kiyoshi Kobayashi deliver those lines. He’s so utterly casual about it and it’s all the more angsty since he’s, y’know, a million years old, so here his Jigen sounds much more tired/resigned compared to Epcar’s brasher gunman.

The way that the shots focus on not only Jigen, but also Fujiko when the boss asks about the betrayal...nice. Fujiko doesn’t know for sure if Jigen killed Lupin, but I imagine such a possibility would shake her at least a little - not just because she cares for that silly monkey man, but because that partnership has been a surprising constant in her life. If even that could finally crumble, her natural cynicism is about to get a whole lot deeper. Morbidly, she wants to know if Jigen had the balls to do it. It’d be a hell of a lot more kindred spirit between them than she ever expected if so. It’s a shame this plot wasn’t used in a Koike movie; it would’ve been great to see the deliberate parallel/foil from TWCFM continue.

“Why don’t we talk about your future?” the boss says as Jigen’s whole demeanor screams What future? Even though Lupin isn’t dead and Jigen has his reasons for why he did this, Jigen hardly expects forgiveness after all this. Lupin may be alive but Jigen has just killed the best thing he ever had and he can never get that back (except he can, because movie and long-running franchise, but y’know, Watsonian vs. Doylist).

The Dark Crystal (1982)

HATSUNE MIKU??? ACTUAL HATSUNE MIKU????? (just her voice but aksdjfkajsdkfjaklsjdfljasjdflajsdf)

Ohhhh, the Lupin & Clarisse / Jigen & the kid’s mom (still haven’t heard her name lmao) parallel was just uncalled for, my heart

Let Jigen wear burgundy more often

...Mr. Epcar, I love and respect you, but is it too much to ask that you vary your inflection a little more? Where’s the PATHOS?

Slightly cried instantly, “The Wendy lady lives.” Then Peter knelt beside her and found his button. You remember she had put it on a chain that she wore round her neck. “See,” he said, “the arrow struck against this. It is the kiss I gave her. It has saved her life.”

BLACK JACKET

Burgundy suit + round glasses Goemon!!!

There’s no way Pops is getting his job back after this one

Goemon: [turns his usual hot girl swordsmanship up to 11]

Lupin: Well mark me down as scared AND horny! dot jpeg

Again with the CGI hand crimes.

Wow he straight-up said Jigen was cheating on him

Ah, see, that “waste of oxygen”/“huge mistake” bit of dialogue is the kind of inflection I like to hear.

WarGames (1983)

It took me entirely too long to realize the president was supposed to look like H.illary.

Goemon: [slices open a door for Fujiko]

Fujiko: “Oh, you.” <3

This is all very action-heavy and surprisingly decent for a Lupin film so far, but uh. why is Jigen once again a side character in his own movie?

Ayyyy, nice reference to Zantetsuken’s composition from Part 1. Still insane that they melted down three awesome swords to make a different sword though.

Goemon snarks back to robots confirmed. Not that Lupin would ever be stupid enough to buy an Al3xa/etc. but can you IMAGINE

JAZZ PIANIST FUJIKO! Fujiko having actual interests and hobbies!!!

Comrade Emilka

TRIPLE PARALLEL WITH JIGEN & ALISA NOW

They just?? left Jigen in the middle of the desert after the absolute minimum discussion of All That???? That’s...on-brand actually but give me the angst this plot device deserved >:(

Michelle Ruff I would die for you

This variation on the main theme is my favorite. I’ve probably listened to it about a thousand times at this point but I finally got to hear it in context.

Welp, that was one of the better Lupin movies I’ve seen, but I do wish they’d done more with the whole Jigen betrayal thing that ended up being more of a subplot. Thank goodness for fics that do the work.

Edit: “There are about four different plots going on at once in this movie, and they forgot to focus on the one that’s in the actual title.” - @theimpossiblescheme

#lupin iii #goodbye partner #jigen #long post

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icecreamkink · 3 years

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watched all of the untamed / cql in two weeks after my friend 1 told me abt mdzs a hundred years ago and my friends 2 and 3 tried to get me into cql for like two whole years and there are.

feelings.

very first scene is a very dramatic death in the middle of nightmare battle on sith planet land . i will forget abt it in the next tenish episodes and then will be very surprised when it becomes Extremely Painful

anyway magic flying gays and possession and human sacrifice! we are off to a great start

in retrospect, chaos goblin wei wuxian must have had a blast pretending to be so cRaZy and be as disruptive as he could as mo xuanyu lbr

listen. why is fire always evil coded. cant a magic clan wear red, black and orange and have flame motif while being wholesome?

For Legal Reasons These Are Not Zombies

i wish the politics of the sect were a bit clearer, especially at the beggining when the wen clan had sm power, was wen ruohan the chief cultivator? is that why they were so slow in responding to the attacks? im v confused by the pre yiling patriarch politics

fighting in the roof by the moonlight as way of flirtiiiiiiing. as i understand this is a wuxia/xianxia trope and honestly...... thank u for ur service

slight bullying and being a nuisance in general, as a way of flirting we love to see it

wwx: if i drink on the rooftop, thats not inside the cloud recesses! hmmm check and mate :D lwj: i will fuck u up so help me god wwx: :0

i lov them

through hell or high water (quite literally) wei wuxian rem ains a trashfire gremlin till the end and i love him with my whole heart

in the pt subs wei wuxian calls jiang cheng a stubborn duck and i dearly wish that had come back

my opinions on almost every character goes from love to hate u - Hmm Me Like U - BABY. ILY. and i am Very Pleased w that. its been a while since i loved such a complete cast so much i think

no really. i WONT go into a detailed rant abt what i love about each of these characters and each of their relationships to each other. but i COULD.

some lan disciples in the loudest whisper ever: YEAH THATS THE JIN BASTARD MENG YAO HEARD THE GOT SUPER HUMILIATED BY HIS DAD LOL SURE HOPE HE DOESNT TAKE SLIGHTS TO HIS CHARACTER TO HEART

lan xichen, immediately: i must Love him

being into problematic ppl is in the Lan genetics, we come to realize

wen qing deserves so many awards for so many things but not snapping and just stabbing wen chao is at the top

that scene at lan qirens class where wwx talks about using resentful energy to fight a violent spirit. exquisite.

It establishes Good Student lan wangji, wei wuxian as curious and questioning and not afraid of taboo, lwj sees that wwx is not, in fact, a dumb ass hes just a Dumbass, shows us the audience (esp. a western audience) how shocking the idea of disrupting the dead/dying and controlling resentful energy actually is, the theoretical foreshadow arguing, everyone else like ‘shUT UP’, “and how could you ensure that the resentful energy would obey you and not hurt other?” “well i havent thought that far” and of course, lan qiren just straight up lobbing a hard object at wwx head,. chefs kiss

fellas is it gay to bother the hot rule obessessed nerd from ur school and make drawings of him with flowers in his hair and then hide gay porn in his book to antagonize him and ask him to hold ur hand and be ur friend and talk to him all the time and get him drunk and give him bunnies bc you know he likes them and give him a lantern and always want his attention and dedicate yourself to getting him to smile-

and after all of that wwx rly said oh i Admire him, aksd like yeah we all were there in high school buddy

i have Learned. caves = gay.

accidental marriage +beint physically tied together with the sacred married ribbon+ gay panic+foreshadowing+bunnies! in the cave (1)

the story abt lan yi and baoshan sanren tho. i would like to see it

early days wen bros pull my heart strings like a guqin

EVERYTHING about the lantern scene; disaster hets jiang yanli and jin zixuan; how wwx made lwj a bunny lantern. how soft and touched lwj was. wwx gleefully pointing out he was smiling and lwj IMMEDIATELY PULLING HIW SWORD ON HIM LMAO. tragically foreshadowy promises to do right by pepople, living without regrets. lwjs 'oh no do i love him??' face. just. all of it.

i have it on good acc that in the novel lwj is explicitly Repressed Gay Panicked Big Horny which is delightful and rly Adds to the performance

baby lwj is really just conceal dont feel dont let them know u have EMOTIONS (derogatory)

jiang cheng rly went "why dont.u go play with HIM if u like him so much"

jc and wwx have big BIG annoying sibling energy dont think too hard abt it or youll cry

lotus pier is soo pretty :((((((((((((((((

up until episode 13 you could think this could be a magical ancient chinese gays pride n prejudice w swords and shenanigans ................youre just not prepared for the game of thrones of it all

seriously ha ha ha i cried so much w this show my eyes genuinely swelled up . like. physically. fun timez fun timez

that being said, its hilarious that wen xu goes to cloud recesses like 'come out or ill kill all these hostages' and then DOESNT WAIT FOR AN ASWER AND KILLS THEM ALL IMMEDIATELY. do u know how blackmail works sir

would like to make it recorded that from day one i was like 'CALL A GODDAMN CULTIVATION G20 THIS ASSHOLE SECT IS LITERALLY MASSACRING YALL!!' and it took them like 3 or 4 massacres to do anything and they STILL sent their heirs into their territory LIKE

when wwx cites the gusu lan rules to wen chao tho. that rebel/attention whore/cutie pie 'look lan zhan i DID memorize the rules after all' ‘also a big fuck you to the wen sect :D :D’ sweet spot that scene achieves . delicious

all the cultivator young masters being petty af even though they are practically prisoners at the cave is hilarious and i love them

hurt and comfort + gay mistunderstandings + watsonian gay declaration music + accidental evil acquisition! at the cave (2)

its like where do i start? the fact theyre both trapped and kind of heavily injured inside an isolated cave with a murder turtle? wwx gay panicking lwj into coughing up bad blood? lwj being jealous as wwx babbles abt mianmian? telling him he shouldnt play with people and wwx saying he never played him? wwx going Oh. I See what is happening. YOU like mianmian, and lwj absolute done face ??? (iconic) wwx touching the sacred married ribbon Again? the telepathic communication? the sword? WEI WUXIAN ASKING LAN WANGJI TO SING TO HIM AS HE IS PASSING OUT AND LWJ SINGING HIM. THE SONG. HE WROTE. FOR WWX. AND THAT HE CALLED. THEIR SHIP NAME????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

they are SO insufferable pleeeeease

in the words of my friend 1 : “CQL is so gay we were all amazed how it got past the censors Ofc unfortunately it can't be novel level gay But they did their best And we love them for it”

in the theme of songs THIS OST. WUJI HAS BEEN LIVING IN MY MIND RENT FREE SINCE I FIRST HEARD IT the whole ost is so so sO beautiful.

the costuming in this is also soooo exquisite. the embroidery? the fabrics? the details? how every sect and clan has a distinct style and architecture? (also ik they based each off of dif periods in chinese history which is REALLY fucking cool) just chefs kiss

the direction too!. i enjoy the unusual camera movements and i think they give it that Vibe, also their composition is PARTICULARLY good when it comes to telling the subtext through position of camera/position of character (like nhs off to the side in scenes he at first glance doesnt need to be/ how lwj is often centered when hes Jealous Yearning at wwx being affectionate w other ppl, wwx return from burial mounds etc)

ik madam yu is like Badass Milf Check and shes not getting any mom of the year awards but im delighted at how messy she is. IMAGINE that woman on tiktok

you better have enjoyed gay cave (2) bc its Just Pain from here on out!

jiang fengmian and madame yu win the Most Dramatic Way to show they do care about each other, actually ..... ever :)

i thought jiang yanli jiang cheng and wei wuxian forcing themselves to escape yunmeng barely holding on after their parents are killed was going to be the height of pain in this show. ha.

the family dynamics in general on this showwwww, both blood/ adopted/ found families, brotherly bonds and lifelong friendships just. rly. truly. fucked me up. theyre all so important and complicated and well rounded and beautiful and tragic

and beyond being a Win For the Gays im so glad the relationships w wwx and jiang yanli/ wen qing were NOT changed from platonic bc they are so much better like that imo. like maybe if we didnt Live In A Society it wouldnt be so, but the fact wwx and others can love and value them so much and theres nothing romantic or sexual abt it is like. so refreshing. especially @ jyl, with the way he and jc are overprotective of her and shes such a nurturing/care taker figure for them, it would just not vibe as well if they made it romantic

i love that this is a story abt Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch aka Actual Satan/Boogey Man/Village With/Public Enemy Number One , my dude is literally a necromancer who only dresses in black and has evil smokey black tendrils wafting out of him, but the really edgy one is still jiang cheng, pastel purple fashion icon

and speaking of best/worst siblings wei wuxian and jiang cheng *immediately starts crying*

The Golden Core Transfer i just. no thots only tears

wen qing and wen ning putting themselves in so much danger just.... to help them. wn saving jc from wen chao. wq finding a way to get wwx to transfer his core. like thinking about the monumental work these two did to help wwx and jyl and jc... jyl trying so fucking hard to be strong and keep on moving and giver her little brothers comfort after losing everything... jiang cheng. losing his parents and his home and his ability to do anything abt it and his complete desperation and lack of self worth and turning on them with agression when he didnt realize all that they did for him ... hhhhhhhhhhhhh

me, pointing at the whole cast “i just LOVE them mom!!!”

its sad tho, that BARELY ANY of the women have like.... actual important conversations let alone relationships with each other at all in the story. and like wq and jyl have stayed at the same place for extended periods of time, where wq actively took care of her TWICE, and still! not one measly convo, nothing! ................ .𝓌ₕᵧ

everyone in this show need a good sip of Self Worth and Stop Sacrificing Yourself juice

ngl the sword flying looks very dumb

“a-cheng, please bring a-xian back.” “i will, i promise.” ;-;

the whole calling each other by the More Intimate Version of the name, first as teasing and later as true intimacy. mmmhmmm yes

untamed where everythings the same but wwx evil flute song is eoeo

related that scene when wwx comes back from the burial mounds for the first time w demonic cultivation and he acts all formal and calls lwj hanguang-jun and keeps being evasive and distant and mean and soooooo................. facetious

and how hes kind of desperately trying to keep intense lwj at bay (A FIRST) and avoiding actually talking to either of them and its all tension ughhh and then he MOCKS his and lwjs relationship, he jokes w him in this like... mean echo of their usual ~banter~ oof

and like!!! uncertain but so relieved jc who just HUGS him w no reservations for once and its not like he isnt just as worried as lwj abt wwx and what hes doing, but he chooses in that moment to enjoy getting him back first and mmhmMMMmMm yes (maybe my favorite scene in the whole show? MAYBE SO. )

highkey hurt me but also. i might be into mean wwx. i will take no criticism.

lan zhans sad eyes tho :(((((((((

on one hand i wish we could have seen what happened at the burial mounds but on the other the timeskip adds so much flair to his return so im hnnn

also i love that hes been missing for 3 months reappears kinda melancholic and bloodthirsty and knowing malign tricks and jc is like 'so. are u sad bc of lan wangji'

when ur bae survived the war but he thinks ur evil/ might be evil so you cant kiss :///

hmmm talking at the rooftop under the moonlight not mentioning everything that stands between usssss

they are the two jades of lan and we’ll be the two heroes of yunmeng is the type of line u dont even need to know whats gonna happen to know thats gonna be sad

when they fight wen ruoshan at the nightless city i thought that was the battle we see at the first ep and its not and its so easy and theyre all like ‘yayy we won go wwx!’ i was just. SCREAMS WHAT is gonna HAPPEN

so like. post burial mounds/sunshot campaign pre yiling patriarch wwx is like. ultra arrogant, ultra mocking, peak lil shit and it gave me e v e r y t h i n g i wanted

even tho having the wen prisoners at the targets at phoenix mountain and still having wwx and jzx shooting the arrows was???? so.... tone deaf

wwx: fucking w demonic energy jyl: he has never done anything wrong in his life, ever <3 <3 (mood)

the parallels between meng yao/wei wuxian (and even xue yang a bit?) are Seen and they are Valid

wwx post burial mounds: can yall SHUT UP abt the goddamn sword (suibian left the chat)

LIKE truly, we talk abt the angst and yearning with wangxian. but what abt wwx and suibian. xianbian / xianqing angst and comfort 100k

take a shot everytime someone coughs up blood

zidian is simply the coolest spiritual weapon rip to suibian and chenqing and bichen and sendou and baixa........ but tis the truth

cons: everyones families died in a nightmare war! everyones homes burned to the ground! everyone is traumatized! pros: everyone gets cooler clothes and weapons!!

wen ning and a-yuan and yanli bestest babes squad dont touch me rn

everyone: brooding and fighting wq and jyl: why dont you try some acupunture/drinking some soup and calm down huh? how abt that bitch??

showing the battle/massacre at the nightless city first was genius actually bc then everytime we have a cute scene w yunmeng bros and theyre like 'we'll be together forever! uwu' youre like oh. oh no. oh no no no.

justice vs lawfulness vs means and ends 👁

jc: stay in the right path and practice the art of the sword wx: yeah thats not gonna happen chief

my reaction to wwx renouncing to the sect politics to help the wens was just that elmo burning gif in succession

the dramatic rain. wen qing desperately calling out to wen ning. the ghosts/puppets killing the guards. how terrifying wn actually was while wwx was controlling him :( lwj goeing after him to try and stop him and then he just; he Sees him and understands him even if he cant actually do anything about it other than let them go.

“there must be somewhere in this earth we can go to :(((((((((”

"IF I HAVE TO FIGHT THEM, I'D RATHER IT BE YOU. DYING BY YOUR HANDS WOULD AT LEAST BE WORTH IT." oh my god oh my god oh my goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddd

also lwjs umbrella is white w black smoke.. . . nice

yiling patriarch / demonic farming burial mounds settlement is like one of my favorite concepts. they an "EVIL" FARMING COMMUNITY LED BY THE VILLAGE WITCH COME ON

they planted TURNIPS and LOTUS FLOWERS and ONE (1) baby and made lanterns and a common hall :(((((((

wen qing and wei wuxian, baddest bitches and genius science best friends i absolutely LOVED to see it. they rly went ‘is anyone gonna sibling/project partner that’ and didnt wait for an answer

both wwx and jyl getting lotus ponds at the burial mounds and in lanling bc they miss lotus pier ;;;;;;;w

;;;;; wish jyl had actually gone into the burial mounds. we were robbed of jyl and wq meeting again and jyl meeting a-yuan and seeing the settlement and the homes and all ;w; at least jc did go, stab wounds and broken arms and all

wwx like... having thrown his whole life away to help the wens (yeah the sect leaders and jin guangshan in particular wanting his stygian tiger amulet was an Element but still) and not.... necessarily regretting it, but grappling with all of the consequences of it... becoming moody and drepressed at times, missing his family and lotus pier and his friends and probably simply missing being around people and causing trouble, extrovert that he is, lashing out at the wens and at a-yuan, just in general the whole messiness of that experience

the way the resentful energy does affect his temperament is rly nice bc its not too in your face,(i mean outside of the Shaky Hands of Rage) but like he clearly has a much lesser control on his anger and impulsivity (tall order) than both before bm and after hes ressurected

on that note A-YUAN BABIEST BABY BOY BEST BOY

lan zhan being like oh hey there wei ying fancy meeting u and our son here. just passing by u know how it is hmmmmMm and then PLOT TWIST having defied orders to go see him and being punished for it. oof;;

they habent seen each other in like? a year? and now theyre tgt 10 seconds and are already parenting a child together

also lwj rly kneels down in the snow way too much to be healthy

wwx: calm down guyssss i wont lose control of demonic cultivation omgggg . spoiler alert: he loses control of demonic cultivation

did u enjoy cute children? good bc now the Real Pain Begins

jiang yanli and jin zixuan rly out there APROPRIATING both disaster gays AND bury ur gays huh ;w;

i KNEW jin lings birthday was gonna fuck something up but the GASP that left my body when wwx lost control of wn and killed jin zixuan .. . .

im sorry and thank you aaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAaAAAAA

when wen ning and wen qing were telling wwx their plan i was saying NO NO NO NO NO NO out loud in despair

also can we talk abt how wq is definetely talking about only the both of them surrending themselves but then? everyone else just surrenders w them? IT MAKES NO SENSE LIKE WHY WOULD THEY what would be the Point

sometimes there are some pretty gaping jumps in logic and continuity that are just like ? ?

wwx: oh so when you try to murder me its justified but when i survive through dark magic and murder all of you its a "war crime"

unsurprisingly, his most feral, most spiraling moment talking to the sect leaders on the roof and attacking them and even fighting lan zhan is among my favorite scenes... its like, so painful to watch but also so thrilling (and maybe my wen bbs dying arose some resentful energy in me what can i say)

and its JUST, all they ever wanted was to do good but then... war. and trauma. and hubris.

jiang cheng on the ground clearly thorn between what to do and feel is a Mood, lets just say

i was already crying when jyl showed up, but if i wasnt-

i suffered SO MUCH through this series trying to figure out WHY jc would kill wwx. and when i understood. its somehow not as bad as i thought and also MUCH MUCH WORSE

a look into my group chat during the last flashback episodes:

SO ANYWAY. after the BLOOD BATH and RIPPING YOUR HEART OUT and FEEDING IT TO YOU the untamed goes ‘ayy back to the present!! tu du dud ud du’

literally it ends a quarter into an episode and then KEEPS GOING i had to pause and stare blankly at the ceiling for an hour

babie cultivators and detective soulmates . i do need some cute after All of That

(not that the pain is over LOL)

lwj is significantly less emotionally repressed in the present and its delightful. hes just ALL IN with wwx. and not just in the ‘i would and have killed various men and risked my reputation for you’ but also ‘ur tired here have a drink i brought it up cause i know u like it and it want you to be happy, always’

“when everyone praised me and wanted my power, you were the only one that challenged me. now that everyone hates me and wants me dead, youre the only one that stands by my side.” hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

and just filling in the blanks how lan zhan searched for him. for all of those 16 years he searched for him and was punished for it and raised a-yuan, the only survivor of the burial mounds settlement, as his own in gusu......

and jiang cheng. being the tough love uncle . having raised the yunmeng jiang clan from the rubble all alone, his whole family dead, some of it on the blame of his own brother, his siblings, his closest friends gone.......and only jin ling there needing his guidance.

THE PARALLEL BETWEEN JIN LING BEING A LIFELINE FOR JIANG CHENG AND A-YUAN FOR LAN WANGJI AFTER THE BATTLE AT THE NIGHTLESS CITY

great now i made myself sad

and like . the fact! that lwj and jc dislike each other!!. jc projects blame onto him for wwx both “leaving” him and indirectly causing their families deaths and when hes so consumed by it he makes wwx an enemy, lwj is there now? trying to protect him?? and lwj, who can never understand the pain that wwx , indirectly or not put jc through, but who was right there when jc tried to kill him and will never allow him to hurt wwx again. and how they like. in a way project blame of their tragedies onto each other while dealing with some type of survivor guilt and in their own way still loving wwx through it all??? amd in way its kind of fundamentally selfish but also tragically understandable? and like when u put it against the fact that after he disappears during the sunshot campaign they were looking for him together and fought together??

JUST. THE CHARACTERS. AND THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THIS. MAN. UGH. GOD.

and like i think thats what makes it so good? its such a sad and painful and violent story, edgy even, but its compelling bc at the center of it there are all of these relationships and different types of love and hope and. :( i love it

enough crying lets talk abt wwx sleeping at the jingshi with lwj and wearing his under garment for a minute 🙏

jin ling just has that Was Raised by JC energy tho lmao i love him

babie cultivator squad is the perfect ammount of cute and comedic relief while still bearing the weight? of the narrative in a way, both from sizhui and jin lings existences, and also. like. how do i put this. they feel hopeful? they were born after a war, they came of age at a time of relative peace, they dont hold on so closely to the resentments of their parents/father figures, they are specifically shown as more accepting and open minded. and its like.... Hope for the future

one of the ?? things i love the most is the fact that the main cast are often in situations where theyre hunted/running but they like. never wear disguises... just going around in their gorgeous expensive clan clothes and hair ornaments and distinctive spiritual weapons.... maybe w a straw hat on, just for kicks

wwx teacher 🥺🥺🥺

so this is why its called Yi City Misery huh

a-qing is such. an icon. im so sad. my girl even knew to leave xys dumb self rotting by the road but no one listens to her thats why theyre all dead or sad

her and xue yang measuring each other up was so entertaining lmao

its the funniest thing when hes like. HERES MY SAD STORY. FOR WHY IM A SADISTIC MURDERER. I BROKE MY HAND ONCE.

like ok someone broke his hand in a horrible way, and like Poverty, i get it but also like.......... that lost the brunt of a proper sob story like, 50 sadistic murders ago bby

and i love that xingchen does not entertain that for a second hes like ‘not ?????? good enough???’ and the best thing is he wasnt even like 'u hadto be the bigger person' or sth but ' well then break that dudes hand back, rip his arm off for i care, what do the rest of us have to do w anything???”

anjo sensato :(

xue yang is like..... the sexy sadistic evil version of a himbo..... a meanbo...

the fucked upness of xy’s feelings for xxc/ xxc and sl feelings for each other... like my dude literally gave his bf HIS EYES. and xy getting so attached to xxc .... the fucked up fake domesticity.... having him hurt sl..... then desperately trying to bring him back ...................... oof

song lan........... literally had his eyes AND tongue removed, his bfs eyes put in place, was almost killed, turned into a puppet by his bf unknowingly, manipulated by xy, sees his bf killing himself in despair.... and STILL finds the strenght to get up from there, and keep on traveling and helping people and attempting to fix xxcs soul.......... like, my man. damn.

wangxian looking at songxiao and seeing an Actually more painful parallel for themselves. ft. that Color Coding.

THE A-YUAN/SIZHUI REVEAL PUNCHED ME IN THE HEART but in a good way for a change

should have know that he would be the Best Boy the cute one w all the braincells

the butterfly AND the bunny lantern. i see how it is

u know is very convenient that no one can see the stark black veins on wen nings neck, ever

BAT WEN NING

wns face when lwj comes into wwx room like ‘:0 omg did u two finally get your shit together? good for you master wei good for u’

(they didnt) (yet)

DISASTER DRUNK LWJ. JUST. THRUST SOME CHICKENS TO SHOW UR RESSURECTED BAE THAT U LOVE THEM.

i have absolutely no idea WHY they gave lwj the same punishment for fighting his own sect/allies to protect the burial mounds as when they got drunk on cloud recess class days.... like? its such a ... emotional continuity error again

also is lwj gonna get an actual friend besides wwx , ever

mianmian marrying and having a family and a cute life after saying FUCK U AND UR SYSTEM TOO in a much less unhinged and dramatic way than wwx......... fills me w joy

also lol the idea that like. her husband not knowing that shes friends w satan/the boogey man/the village witch is hilarious

i love nie mingjue bc hes the resident Though Guy but also the most dramatic bitch in this show and thats Saying Something

jin ling cant have one uneventful relative can he

the fact that everyone present already knew “mo xuanyu” was wwx at the stairs is so funny, their faces are like ‘oh............ wow. that. sure is a development. shock”

in the tradition of extremely loud whispers wwx tells lwj with twelve guards standing like one meter away from them: HEY PSH LAN ZHAN PRETEND IM FORCING YOU TO STAY W ME DO IT

oh my god oh my god

the absolute Yearning on his face when he leaves wwx and a-yuan at the burial mounds and refuses to stay for dinner was already Enough but the fact?? they brought it back?? to this declaration of love?? their expressions??????? strike me dead right now just go ahead

lFor Legal Reasons We Cant Kiss but we will have a very sappy declaration of love and trust and look at each other in way that is the actualization of 💞💘💗💖💓💘💞💗💖💘💗💖💕💞

also icb all the sect leaders and guards are standing there watching them say they like like each other with a dozen swords pointing at their neck

i enjoyed the depiction of the fickle public perception and how easily it can be used to scapegoat people. when the sect leaders turn on jgy and wwx knows thats its more for convenience than anything else...

poor lxc is literally like 'oh so when YOUR problematic boyfriend gets called evil its a misunderstanding but when its MY problematic bf-'

ok like i cant get over nmj let jgy play a song that messed with his temperament at all, like maN u KNEW he might be shady wth

wwx: “hey dont say anything bad abt lan zhan hes not an arrogant dick, thats just his face.

ME ON THE OTHER HAND"

the cultivators as wwx is poking holes in their narrative is literally *nazaré meme*

"wei wuxian-!" "what did i break your leg, too?" not to be problematic but i laughed so hard

not as hard as "you dont have the rank to talk to me " tho

i Enjoy that, over the course of story, wwx sees that... theres nothing truly to Do, but move on. he saw how his arrogance and his mistakes hurt others, and hes trying to fix what he can, but he already did die for his mistakes and there are things he cant fix and that's. just how it is. even towards jgy, the narrative doesn't go gleefully and completely with "lets make THEM pay bc theyre the big bad" bc its not that simple, and it wouldn't lead anywhere but more pain...

re him and jiang cheng and the wens and kinda. isnt that what nhs did? scheming to displace jgy out of revenge more than any justice and doing so in the most painful way?

idk if that actually makes sense im truly just babbling

i thought the scene at the lotus pond would be CUTE but the context was PAIN again

jiang cheng finding out about his golden core and his conflict with wwx at the guanyin temple .... destroyed me but in a nice way kinda.... same way it destroys him look at his face oh god

and. the fact??? he sacrificed himself for wwx?? first?? and he'll probably never tell anyone much less wwx???? keeps me up at night

i havent decided if the neckbreak transition between jgy does sth super Evil or does he he does OR Does He yes he does O R does heeeee is sth i dislike or not

jin guangyao and wei wuxians most interesting parallel is that... theyve both seen 'hmm hey this system is fucked up' and wwx went 'so fuck it all i will renounce it and challenge it' and jgy went 'so fuck it i will use all of it to my advantage and manipulate it to my goals and whims'

the fact jgys mom was actually great and he loved her and his whole issue w it was more than simply being ashamed of being a bastard kinda got me ngl

never trust a dude with a fan.

nhs and jgy: the first rule to a convoluted and decades spanning violent revenge plot is to have fun and be yourself!

when a-yuan finally FINALLY remembers ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;-;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; wen ning has someone in his family back and a-yuan has someone to talk abt his wen family and wwx has him back bc he survived and lwj raised him anD HES THEIR SON. THEYRE MARRIED AND HAVE A SON. UGH.

and theyre allowed to heal. everyone is allowed to try and recover and be happy

netflix put all of the 3 endings on top of each other and it looks kinda weird actually BUT I DONT EVEN MIND :’’’’’’’’’)

the gasp that left me when lwj says ‘wei ying’ and wwx turns.........

there was also a screen with ‘thank you mxtx for creating these characters, we hope their wishes come true’ and i might. have cried then too. maybe.

that was . a ride. as is proven by this behemot of a ramble clearly i just really needed and Outlet. i am currently trying to convince dumb monkey brain to not consume the other medias of mdzs immediately bc i REALLY need to like. live. a life. and take care of real responsibilities. *longest oh boi ever*

#m.#ANYWAY #ENOUGH TALKING #THIS IS SO LONG #LOL #but whatever this is MY performative journaling i do what i want #rambling impressions abt what i watch is a thing i do now? apparently??#cql #untamed #the untamed #fun fact that chat is named 'k keeps on babbling abt the untamed' and it STILL wasnt enough #also it took me 15 episodes to realize lwj was yibo #IT WAS V SHOCKING #i did not recognize him at a l l #but in retrospect he WAS the perfect choice

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laufire · 3 years

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Imo, potential Saileen was better than canon Saileen. I shipped them when they were cute flirty friends in Seasons 11 and 12 and was upset that they killed her (and not just for ship reasons.) But when they brought her back in Season 15 and made it canon it just... didn't feel like them. All the spark was gone out of the ship. Plus it kinda felt like they shoved Rowena out of the way for it to happen just when I'd started to really get into that ship! (And a certain corner of fandom also killed my love for Saileen, but that's a story for another DM.)

I didn't ship them in s11-12; I didn't feel there was enough material for me to make up my mind one way or the other, but I was expectant regarding s15. Her death was bullshit, that's for sure.

With s15... that scene where he resurrected her pinged my radar, I felt something. But that was pretty much it. I shipped Samwena too and would've definitely preferred that, but I'm a multishipper so that wouldn't have stopped me from adding another ship to my armada lol.

Listen, I've half-joked before about how I never expected to be much of a shipper because I only ship Sam with people Dean wouldn't want him to be with LMAO. It's not just out of a "fuck you, Dean" impulse, I swear. Seriously, there's a direct correlation between how much Dean disapproves of one of Sam's relationships, and how beneficial said relationship is for Sam's narrative (hence Samruby being my OTP for him!).

Sam's narrative is at its best when he has relationships that give him a reason to fight Dean, Watsonian and Doylist-wise. The fact that Dean endorses Sam/Eileen is effectively a ship-killer as far as I'm concerned.

But I would've liked it to be, and I was a bit hopeful it'd be... a nice, uplifting dynamic for Sam; something last minute, not too explored, but something heartwarming that might leave you thinking about the future ~possibilities, you know? Last-season romances are a mixed bag, but I've seen some that managed to stick the landing quite well, and IMO this one wasn't didn't make the cut.

Given what I knew about the finale it was difficult it reached those expectations LOL, but it COULD have happened. Hell, everyone is free to imagine whoever they want as The Blurry Wife, as I've said before, Eileen included. But I don't want to imagine her in that role.

Like I said, with her resurrection and their tentative thing I could enjoy it a bit. But then comes 15x09, with the reveal that Chuck's machinations were what brought them together in the first place.

And that could've been the point where things got turned around and the dynamic could've become something really interesting!! I mean, c'mon, it could've brought at the forefront a lot of the themes of the season itself, Chuck controlling the Winchesters lives, the collateral damage that causes (in this case, Eileen getting used as a pawn and questioning her level of agency within their relationship)...

It could have been used to explore those issues, and to delve into Eileen's relationship (which I hope I get to write one day!), but instead, she leaves and never comes back. We're told the two of them are trying to see if they work, and they have one off-screen date. Then she dies alongside the rest of the world, comes back, and. Nothing.

Nothing.

So. We had option a.) something uplifting that gives you a bit of hope for the future; not an intense world-destroying love, but something softer and kinder; or b.) a chilling exploration of the themes of the season (and larger ones, if you think of how it could mirror John and Mary getting roofied by cupids on Michael's orders!). And the show failed to deliver on both fronts.

So yeah, I found their relationship disappointing. This might be my most controversial SPN opinion. Mutuals are going to desert me over this xDD

(lol I know what you mean. Yeah, it seems to be Sam's convenient ship to pair him off vis a vis Destiel. Something neither of the characters, nor the people that genuinely like the ship, deserve. Plus like, what's safe about a God-forced romance?? That deserves to be explored in fic, not made into the eternal "safe" ship smh)

#looking forward to that dm then xD #casa neurotica #replies #talking to the void #my thoughts #spn thoughts #supernatural #antisaileen for ts #not really but just in case

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dyketectivecomics · 3 years

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what would happen if the nightforce and shadowpact met? Like whod hate or get along with who, what shenanigans would occur? Like what potential dynamics would Occur

Another Long Response, so Under the Cut It Goes! (& apologies if Tunglr fucks up!)

OKAY! so its been a few months since I read Day of Vengeance ofc BUT- iirc, the team by and large got along really well with Lori! I’m sure the Doylist reason for her not joining the team permanently may have been one part her Newness and another part her character being used more sparingly in BoP at around the same time? (I like to think the Watsonian reason tho is Lori deciding “no im evil now >:) hehe” and joining the S6 instead fjdkla i think part of the actual in-universe reason was she was kinda fucked up about the whole thing with eclipso & spectre??? again its been quite sometime since i read it so like. grain of salt on that) ANYWAYS

would LOVE to think that these two teams would crash into one another like this:

Lori revisits the Shadowpact bc Something Something Magic

Lori becomes fast friends with Laura bc Teen Mystics

Laura is introduced to the rest of the NF bc YES! MORE FRIENDS!! HER OWN AGE!!!

Shenanigans Ensue

I did write a snippet abt the Shadowpact Hearing abt Laura hanging out with the NF and i do still Stand by it. BUT... let’s give it just a Smidge More Nuance ye?

From the Shadowpact’s End:

Still Think that Jim would be mainly Distrustful overall of the kids’ intentions but he’d slowly warm up to them as he got to know them! He can’t help his Dad Energy lmao

June would LOVE having more ears to lecture on witchcraft (actually wait..... June leading socratic lessons in witchery with the NF+Laura all together omigod. this is it.. this is exactly what ive been missing fjdkals;a)

Like to think that Rory, Eve, Zauriel & Bobo would be really chill about team-ups & would overall treat the kids the same way that they do Laura, as like, pretty fully formed heroes in their own rights ofc, but still with that Undertone of looking out for them bc They’re Kids

(I really want Danny & Eddie to go back to being like the Spiderverse Peter B & Miles meme, but they’d probably be a lot more like the Spidermen *pointing @ each other* meme when they see each other again ;-; c’est la vie)

From the Night Force’s End:

Already talked abt Eddie a little there, but other than maybe having yknow.. TO TALK with Danny, I like to think that he and Rory would get along rlly well after too :D

Raven would latch onto Eve. I can’t fully articulate why I think so fjdka; just vibe with me on that for a moment

its canon that Traci & Bobo have a Back n Forth fjadkl; not gonna change that ye

Zach & Klarion would get on everyone’s nerves but like... Zach’s doing it by accident bc he’s just Like That, and Klari’s purposefully trying to be a Nuisance bc he’s just Like That

Kinda Almost same with Lori, but she gets a free pass with the Shadowpact bc they consider her their Honorary Daughter (Laura is Fully their Collective Daughter tho. jots these things down!)

I’m waffling on if i wanna include Skye or Amy in this run down bc like... now I’ve been leaning towards leaving Amy on the YJ team and maybe possibly considering dropping Skye since she’s such a one-off but like... idk. they’re both blank slates as far as Interaction With Others go. I’d say they’d just be Agreeable with most everyone fjdkla;

As far as Specific Shenanigans go, I’d love a general crossover with the teams banding together to defeat a Big Bad™, and then some smaller, one-on-one team-ups here n there? Like little groups mix and matching? You can have some of the adults & kids maybe starting prank wars on each other, or pulling pranks together on other mystics who deserve it (*cough* Nabu and Winters *cough*). again, im still vibing REALLY hard with the idea of June taking all of the kids under her wing, and I do kinda maintain that while the JLD might be most ppl’s First instinct to pair the kids up with respective mentors (I know it was certainly mine)... the Shadowpact feels so much more like a family and esp like a team that they’d WANT to team up with and get to know, yknow?

anyways i think i hit everything? even if the last answer’s kinds vague... actually all of this feels p vague all things considered djkl;afd but also its getting late and i’d really want to like... just straight up write fic abt these two groups hanging out ahhh. talking meta and Potential only goes so far until you want to start like!!! writing it out line by line instead so!!!!! yeah on that note, thanks for coming to my tedtalk \o/

#asked and answered #anonymous asks #long post #(just in case)#randywrites #noncompliance #night force #new night force #shadowpact #!!!!!! i am ABUZZ with thoughts tho!!!!!!!#but its also getting so late aaahhh ;-;

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sclfmastery · 3 years

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I’ve just watched the doctor falls and am I going mad or did they never even mention the drums once?? Like I never expected them to carry that theme on with other Masters because it was something quite unique to RTD, but then when simm!master returned they just never even acknowledged it? Yet the last time we saw that incarnation he was on the verge of tears to the doctor saying he didn’t know what he’d be without them? Anyway I just feel like it sums up that they went to the trouble of bringing him back despite not wanting to acknowledge any aspects of the character at all (apart from a couple of small references to LotTL like calling the doctor grandad)

Not once is it mentioned, no. I genuinely think Moffat omitted it not because he believed that, by the close of End of Time Part 2, the arrival of Gallifrey through the Timelock resolved the Drums (although that is MY personal headcanon), but because they were a motif of suffering and too sympathetic. He wanted to force Simm into a reductive “bad impenitent Master” box, and Gomez into an equally reductive “listens to the Doctor and is willing to compromise herself and is therefore the good Master” box. Therefore Simm had to make forced, out of place lines like “you don’t have empathy now, do you?” and “is the future going to be all girl?” (don’t even get me started on how RTD and Moffat made a TIME LORD from a post-gender planet full of elite telepaths who use machines to reproduce into a common twentieth-century human sexist, it is my number one pet peeve lmao ).

Therefore Simm had to be evil just for the sake of being evil. Therefore any source of trauma or stress had to be eradicated from the fandom’s collective memory, including the HIGHLY complicated iconography of the Drums, which resonates with A LOT of fans (for instance, the neurodiverse and chronically ill).

That was the only way to make Missy the unequivocal “hero” Master completing a (really troubling and problematic) "Rehabilitation” that existed entirely to establish the Doctor’s idea of morality as The One True Way. The Doctor Falls ruined the Master and, I would argue, Missy, in order to make the Doctor look like the tragic superhero, the stuff of legends, the untouchable, the Impossible To Understand. To wit, Moffat’s own masturbatory Superego persona, a wacky “smart” white man who sighs and suffers to put up with all the cute dumb lesser beings that he has to babysit, but is himself ineffably brilliant and mysterious and sexy. (p.s. I love Twelve, especially when written by someone who is not Moffat. he was so warped ooc in series 10).

Mind, Moffat makes sure that (most of) the Doctor’s other actions are infallible, which further muddies the waters for any Simm fans. I certainly agree with the Doctor’s actions re the Mondasian ship, and rescuing the families and children on that platform, and I certainly roundly condemn the Master weaponizing robots made from living people to his advantage. But that doesn’t excuse erasing all memory of the character development around coping with and overcoming the Drums in order to (often Moffat’s raison d’etre) make the Doctor this superhuman hero figure, instead of the regular, eccentric bloke he’d always been.

And I think it’s interesting that as soon as the reins are handed over to Chibnall, he brings back the Drums: in Spyfall Part 2, with the famous Morse code scene.

But the worst thing that’s happened since The Doctor Falls? Anyone who’s a fan of Simm is presumed some kind of sexist as well: when we are just as likely to condemn the Doylist reasons for Simm’s behavior, which so many other fans mistake as Watsonian reasons. Moffat has weaponized his stans against people who love Simm’s Master. He has made his performative allyship seem somehow more “righteous.”

As convolutedly meta as ever, so very characteristic of him, Moffat has turned his stans into little Twelfth Doctors who are Misunderstood But Always Right, whose job it is to straighten out the Missys in the fandom, and condemn and give up on the Simms. It makes a tidy, satisfying little narrative for media consumption and wokeness, you see.

#ooc #Anonymous #moffat critical //#reference #feeling self righteous is addictive and moffat counts on that :))))#he counts on the most problematic sides of callout culture #while laughing his ass off at all of us #he is not a nice guy

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rabbitindisguise · 5 years

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I got three two options:

Drop two (2) classes and replace it with one (1) class because they were exciting in theory but in practice will overload me horribly

Drop one (1) class and continue to suffer (why??? no.) (my advisor said to do this but I get final say and I say Fuck This)

Do nothing (and stuffer, but at least pretend that I'm having an okay time)

Idk idk idk

Like I can just. Read the books. I went to class today and people just RIPPED Charlotte's Web to shreds. Sad part is, they weren't even eloquent about it, which would have been actually fun and exciting- I like loving a book people hate for good reasons. But nope. "I thought X character was annoying." Wow. Fascinating. Like the professor said something about emotional reactions being poor criticism, which is false- textual evidence isn't always necessary to make something good criticism. I know that's what the professor asked, I know it's the first day, I know I'm not being generous at all and definitely don't take my opinion as the standard English major type reaction. I'm a huge criticism elitist because if there's something that needs to be said, it should be, but not at the expense of trying to find literally anything to say at all.

. . . but

this comment was the equivalent of walking into a a debate about the merits of watsonian readings of Literature™ and saying "death to the author!" There was no overarching point, no tie in, no relevance, no grounds in theory, text, or the class itself. This isn't fucking Book Club folks. It was. A grad class. This was a g r a d student. I watched all my hopes and dreams for the field of English academia as the Place For Me wither and die right in front of me in that moment.

At least, all the ones that hadn't died during 200 theory. I'm just so much happier in Japanese, my WGST classes- literally any class that isn't an English class lately. The conversions are nails on chalkboard, no one take any exciting directions, the criticism attempts are bland and lack deep thought, the theories lack applications of the fields most recent research they're drawn from, everything is terrible, one of my English professors killed my crops AND my cows, my garden has been salted the night of my finals . . . There is no end to these terrors that ravage the earth in the form of English professors teaching in ways I don't personally enjoy very much!!

Anyway I'm done being dramatic

Is it too late to be a sociology major lmao Stuart Hall is the only person that Speaks to me at a level where I feel I'm learning something important about pop culture. I tested my hypothesis and the English curriculum Really Does systemically try to make people actively less capable of adaptive learning. I want off this ride now. All this nonsense fills me with the deepest ire I am physically capable of because a field of books should do anything but this monstrosity. I feel that knowing a proficient amount of any field makes me hate everything in academia about it immensely but there's no contact exposure in daily life for sociological studies these days so it has the appeal of my sweet, blissful, ignorance

That said: I'm way better at writing English papers than sociological papers. Sociological papers give me hives. Still. That because I'm learning. You know. The reason I went to college. Ugh.

#personal #academia #elitism

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stonefreeak · 8 years

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Hello! I love Chancellor!Obi-Wan ! I have a question though, we all know that sometimes Anakin has visions, right? But, what about Obi-Wan? 'Cause on the expanded universe, he is decribed to be very much in tune with the Unifing Force, wich is what grants Jedi and Sith, force visions... They say that since he was very young he was plagued by very strong visions... Is something like that going to be important at one point in this AU?

Well. Let’s start with Obi-Wan shall we?

I have no set headcanon on how prone to visions and stuff Obi-Wan is, but I am at the very least a believer in him having fairly decent precognition/prescience. Y’know, like his “bad feeling” during the Naboo crisis.

We’ve actually seen a bit of this in Chancellor Kenobi. For example: when he ducks during the first assassination attempt.

As for actual visions… nah, I have no plans to bring that into this verse. Right now, anyway.

Now on to Anakin.

Anakin, Anakin, Anakin…

Please don’t come after me for this, but: I don’t think Anakin gets Force visions.

Read my long-winded explanation beneath the cut. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Aight, so you might be thinking “Stone, wtf. Anakin has those dreams about his mom and later about Padmé! What are you smoking?”

Well, I don’t think they’re Force visions. There. I said it.

“But Yoda told him to be careful when sensing the future!”

Yeah, obviously. But it’s not like Yoda could be sure whether or not Anakin was really sensing the future or not, he’s not omniscient. Better safe than sorry. Especially when the dreams are about pain and suffering but considering that they’re at war and Anakin never says he thinks it’s from childbirth, obvs Yoda’s advice lacked a few necessary extra steps like “Take that friend to the Healers, you should. Double check their health, you should.” before the part about learning to let go and all that with its shade of “forgetting that not everyone else lives for centuries and has a different reference for the passage of time as well as life and death” lmao

Also, if Anakin was prone to visions, I’m pretty sure Obi-Wan wouldn’t be treating Anakin’s dreams about his mom as just dreams. It’d kinda be his responsibility and duty to check for that, so he’d probably ask for more details and ensure they’re not visions. Also, Anakin probably would have called it visions rather than dreams. But whatevs, lol.

So if we exclude Force visions from the explanation of Anakin’s dreams, what other explanation is there for him having them in the first place?

Well, from a Doylist/extradiegetic perspective the dreams serve a very specific function:

Anakin’s dreams about his mom, and the later discovery of her kidnapping and death, is only in AotC in order to set up the dreams in RotS. If the Tatooine business in AotC didn’t happen, the audience wouldn’t recognise “Anakin’s having dreams” as anything of worth. It would also be a bit confusing as to why he’s putting so much energy and basically laying everything in his whole life on the line over dreams.

So the dreams about Shmi + what happens on Tatooine exist to make the audience go “OH NO, WAIT, REMEMBER AOTC! IS PADMÉ GONNA DIE?!”

The dreams about Padmé serves to make the audience see why Anakin decides to do what he does.

From a Watsonian/intradiegetic perspective, however, things are a bit different.

Let’s begin with the dreams about Shmi.

They could just be force visions, absolutely. But as we’ve removed that from the list of possibilities for now, what remains is two options that I will explain.

1) Shmi is Force sensitive.

This idea is one of those that I can’t say for sure work because keeping track of time in Star Wars is a crap shoot at best. However, we know that Shmi has been gone for a month, because Cliegg says so.

In star wars, from what I can find, a month is 7 weeks of 5 day weeks. Aka 35 days. Then there’s the travel times, I’ve based it on this post, because what else would I use, as well as this map and this map.

Basically, from Coruscant (Core) to Naboo (Mid Rim) it’s about 84 hours of pure travel time, that’s 3.5 days. From Naboo (Mid Rim) to Tatooine (Outer Rim) it’s supposedly 24 hours, aka one day.

So that’s 4.5 days, let’s say 5 days (a week), of pure travel time.

That still leaves 6 weeks, 30 days, for: Anakin dreaming, mission days on Coruscant, and hanging out on Naboo. Aka more than enough time for the timeline to work out; in fact, it would even if you were to go really on the safe side and set two weeks for travel times instead.

So why the fuck did I check travel times and timeline for this, you might ask? Well, this idea is based on Shmi being Force sensitive. When she’s kidnapped and hurt, she subconsciously calls out for her son, who she so dearly would like to see at least one last time before she dies. She does so through the Force, and reaches Anakin through his dreams. She calls for him, and she’s in pain, of course that would make the dreams seem scary. Even if Anakin doesn’t know that she’s dying at first.

Considering that Anakin’s dreams seem to be progressively getting worse, that could be connected to Shmi being progressively more hurt and closer to dying.

That’s why the timeline is important here. If there hadn’t been enough time for the travels and stuff, the idea would be bust simply because Shmi would have gone missing after Anakin started having the dreams.

But as I said before, we have no such issues and this is a perfectly plausible Watsonian explanation. Especially since we’ve already seen that Force sensitivity is a bit hereditary in the Skywalker line: Anakin -> Luke & Leia -> Kylo Ren. Why not add Shmi to that?

So that’s one explanation!

2) Palpatine did it.

Of course this is an explanation. Palpatine could very well have set everything up, both with Shmi’s kidnapping (Force compulsion on the Tusken) and then ensuring Shmi stays alive long enough for Anakin to get there (after all, Darth Plagueis did learn how to keep people from death, didn’t he? Who says Sidious didn’t learn to do that too?).

Because really, how convenient was it that Shmi died just moments after Anakin finally reached her? Unless, whatever kept her alive felt Anakin reach her and stopped doing the whole “keeping her alive” thing.

After all, Palpatine wants Anakin to Fall and lose his shit. Setting up the death of Anakin’s mother is certainly not unthinkable for Palpatine.

Not to mention, the first time Anakin dreams about his mother being in pain and suffering calling out for help, is after he and Obi-Wan has been separated. Which could hint that well, finally time for Palps to make his move and ensure Anakin really goes to Tatooine. Because again, it’s really convenient that he dreams about his mother actually dying only now.

After all, Palpatine would want to make damn sure Anakin goes looking by making sure he dreams about more specific Bad Shit™, but if Anakin had dreamt about his mother dying while still with Obi-Wan, the latter would likely make sure they check that shit out “just in case” rather than say dreams pass in time—which is a totally valid thing to say when Anakin is just dreaming about his mom, and it could be memories for all Obi-Wan knows—which would be bad since Anakin probably wouldn’t go on to commit mass murder when Obi-Wan is right there.

ANYWAY.

So those are two plausible Watsonian explanations for Anakin’s dreams about Shmi that aren’t “Force visions”.

Next we move on to the dreams about Padmé dying in childbirth. So what’s my “not Force visions” explanation for this one?

Palpatine did it.

Of course it is. Considering everything else Palpatine has done, this really shouldn’t come as a surprise that he would.

But you might think “but the dreams about Padmé came true though! They even had Obi-Wan there!”, but I’d say that’s not actually correct.

1) Padmé doesn’t die in childbirth. Literally, does not die in childbirth. (Ofc, that could just be Anakin’s interpretation of the dreams). The med droid says “Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can’t explain, we are losing her.” and then they said they should operate immediately save the twins, because Padmé isn’t even in labour (I think it looks like they end up inducing actual labour instead of just doing a c-section… or else it’s a Space C-section). They said something about her having lost the will to live too. Palpatine did it

2) Yes, Obi-Wan is there, but that’s just about the only thing the dreams get right. Everything else is wrong.

The first dream has Padmé crying out “Anakin, help me!” which she does not. The next has Obi-Wan saying “Save your energy”, which he does not, and she answers him with “I can’t!” which she does not, and then he says “Don’t give up, Padmé.” which he also does not. So the dreams get way more things wrong than they do right.

Ofc, Obi-Wan being in the dreams makes Anakin suspicious and like “Obi-Wan was here.” and then goes on to say that “Obi-Wan and the Council don’t trust me.” despite everything Obi-Wan said before he left for Utapau.

3) Obi-Wan being in the dream and Padmé still dying lends a lot of credence to the “the Jedi can’t save her” thing Palpatine implies. After all, if Anakin’s dreams about Padmé dying has Obi-Wan being RIGHT THERE, then clearly Palpatine is right when he says that you can’t learn to keep someone from dying from a Jedi. Otherwise Obi-Wan would know and save her, right?

ALSO, both dreams happen after Anakin was recently in Palpatine’s presence, so bonus points for that, lmao.

Anyway, it’s 100% possible that I’ve forgotten something that breaks my whole argument, but whatevs. This is my take on it, lmao

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#Supreme Chancellor Obi Wan Kenobi #star wars #canon speculation #meta #so much speculation #visions #precognition #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #I got an ask!#anonymous #absolutely not what the anon asked for #sometimes i have opinions #and thoughts #sorry #lmao

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queensofmystery · 8 years

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Re: this post

#because you already do all that with someone else #back when he made all the ‘you’re not meant for a normal relationship’ to Joan I started hoping against hope #that it would lead to them developing a platonic romance where maybe they would seek sexual relationships with other people #but emotionally they would fullfil each other’s romantic needs #and now it seems like they’re actually doing that #sort of #like Sherlock is a 100% up for it but Joan isn’t #(also we all know tptb wouldn’t really do it) #and it pains me cause it would be so great (via @margoleon)

Gloria. Gloria write it. You know what, me, you, @disheveledcurls, we’re all thinking variations of the same thing - polyamorous Joanlock. Queer platonic, aromantic, asexual, a combination or none of those things, polyamory is a thing with these two, I just know it is. And they’re soulmates in every way who understand each other more than anyone else in their lives and we’re gonna write it I don’t even care.

Also I could go off on a Watsonian rant on why Joan feels differently than Sherlock, but that ties into the whole jealous!Sherlock thing that I still haven’t been able to organize my thoughts on, so for now I’ll just say: The emotional angst and repression between these two is the most infuriating wonderful thing to ever grace the small screen IMHO and I am a disaster

disheveledcurls:

god, yes to all that. i can’t stop thinking abt where they’re going w/ this and i don’t want to hope but they’ve written themselves into a little bit of a corner here… i mean i’ll write the fic anyway but if they actually do anything that points to them becoming a “”“couple”“”“ (i’m using that term instead of referring to the concept of romance bc u know i think that word is useless for these two) in a polyamorous/asexual/aromantic way i’m going to cry actual tears of joy, ok. like –to be very cortesian abt it–, they’re already right on that edge, or at least i think LL and JLM are playing it that way. for sherlock to admit that he values his work mostly because of joan and then right after insist that he is what he does, is at the very least a strong indicator that his feelings for her are veering towards sth unclassifiable which doesn’t exactly fit in the category of friendship they already have. (and maybe it’s codependency and maybe it’s not but either way they need to talk abt it.) we don’t know what joan feels bc the writers give us nothing (which never ceases to be infuriating) but if i were her i’d be at least apprehensive abt starting a relationship if my last boyfriend died because of me and my best friend’s ex happens to be a psychopath. so idk!! realistically*, i guess by the end of the season we could be looking at a relationship that will be coded as "romantic” (i.e. w/ sherlock and joan as a “couple”, not dating other people or looking for a “romantic” partner elsewhere) and asexual/platonic (with the implication that either or both of them could be looking for occasional sexual partners elsewhere). i don’t dare hope for more. but i guess they could give us this much if it were left on the subtextual level. clearly, they’re not brave enough to come out and openly give us an asexual/aromantic interracial couple. (and particularly this couple, since they’re so //adamant// on respecting the canon all of a sudden. #yourracismisshowing) but even if it’s implied, even if it’s subtext, it will be important and i will embrace it.

if they were good writers –paging the people who wrote s1 please, wherever they are– this would naturally tie into the question of the growing rift between sherlock and joan abt their professional lives, as posed by 5.04 (and 5.01 of course), bc clearly for them the personal and professional are impossibly intertwined. if they were good writers, this would lead to a) an unearthing of the pain joan has been delaing w/ (or rather, burying and denying) for years, with sherlock stepping the f*ck up to help her address it as she has done for him in the past, b) an open discussion of their careers and a renegotiation of their partnership so that it’s fulfilling and right for both of them (it has to be their world not just his), which could possibly involve joan going back to medicine in some shape or form in addition to her detective work, and c) a renegotiation of their partnership on a personal level, i.e., can they take it any further in any direction, and if so, how? or if not, are they happy with how they stand & satisfied w/ what they can give each other? i don’t trust these writers anymore, but at the very least some of this should come up throughout the season.

ange – i wanna read that rant. please write it. gloria, u keep on ranting too & write the fic. i’ll write my fic as well someday (i’m so slow i hate itttt).

*though also “realistically” they could literally give us the world bc these two love each other so much you could come back from a midseason hiatus telling me they got married for Reasons TM and i’d be down w/ it. again, they’re not gonna give us much, but they oughta give us something, especially if this turns out to be their last season.

@disheveledcurls "If i were her i’d be at least apprehensive abt starting a relationship if my last boyfriend died because of me and my best friend’s ex happens to be a psychopath.”

Rocío I’m so glad you said this, because yes I’ve considered how Joan’s traumas affect her complete lack of a dating life but /of course/ they would also affect any consideration of her deepening her relationship with Sherlock in any emotional capacity. I wonder if she’s even considered it consciously or if she’s buried that want along with the pain of her traumas so she can’t even properly recognize that’s something she would want.

Like, I just feel for Joan so much. I have to write with her because there’s so much she deserves that she hasn’t gotten. So much that I’m sure this fandom has already written the equivalent of several novels because her character needs and deserves that much consideration. As a writer and just, as a person who’s been through my own versions of loss, I want so much for Joan.

And like you I’ll write my own version of this amazing relationship regardless, but if this show even /comes close/ to implying that these two have more than a damn working relationship or a simple friendship, I will have some feeling of fulfillment. It will be small, but it’ll be something. Also #yourracismisshowing LMAO I agree sooo much but you knew that

#elementary #joanlock #negativity for ts #Rocio if you want me to take this down i will #i just wanted to make a separate post for this meta #but i don't mind taking it down either #s5 meta #my s5 meta #disheveledcurls #margoleon #episode #506 #season 5 #j x s meta #my jxs meta

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tonyglowheart · 8 years

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I think the show would have been more powerful if instead of, at every turn, trying to force Neal away, more people had fought to help him, had fought to let him stay, had fought to let him be left alone to live his life, whatever he decides to do with that. It would have been more powerful if Peter actually HAD been able to be a mentor to Neal, if the FBI had provided a support system for him, and he’d gotten to the point where he decided to stay on with the FBI of his own volition. It would have been more powerful if Neal had been allowed to set down roots, to find out who Neal Caffrey is to himself, in all his myriad complexities.

(read more to spare you all from my immediate post-series word vomit lmao)

Neal starts off as an unrepentant con man. He’s got other skill sets, but I think the con man one sticks out the most, it’s the one label I feel like I hear the most, and we get some pointed comparisons/contrasts with Rebecca. His is a character arc that, in my opinion, should have been about him setting down roots, of no longer having to cut all ties at a moment’s notice and move on, of him being able to settle down somewhere, and thrive. I think that’s why the ending doesn’t work for me, the ending was Neal Caffrey’s greatest con, which means his freedom ended up just a score. It wasn’t any sort of resolution for him or his characterization. The entire scope of the show had been about preventing Neal from setting down roots, and it ends with a final fundamental uprooting.

The ending....doesn’t work for me in a Watsonian sense. In a Doylist sense, where I’m acutely aware that this is a work of fiction and that there are several someone’s behind the curtain orchestrating it, I can see why it ended up going the way it did. But it’s unsatisfying, it doesn’t feel organic, it doesn’t consistently build or resolve character arcs, and I’m the kind of person who demands actual development and won’t just take lines fed to me by the creator that aren’t, in my opinion, supported by the meta-narrative.

“You were the only one who saw good in me,” uhh?? Hello?? From the first episode, what about June? (and can I also say how tragic it is how little the creators developed June and Neal’s relationship in any substantial way? I think there was a point a couple seasons in where they didn’t seem like they were a couple season’s worth of familiar with each other, which doesn’t make sense given how personable the both of them are. anyway) June literally sees Neal in a thrift store and sees something in him, and takes him into her house. Oh, but that’s right, the moral structure of this show is such that Legal = Good, which means since June had her less-than-legal connections, she can’t possibly count apparently.

He and Elizabeth??? strangely seemed to get on?? that one ep?? and then nothing, no explanation? (I don’t really entirely like the way they handled Elizabeth’s character either, but that’s another story) (although I do like Elizabeth as Mozzie’s unexpected bestie better than as Neal’s)

I hate how Neal never got a chance to build relationships with Diana and Jones either. I can think of no reason except for Doylist reasons for that. They spend so much time working together, Neal’s a naturally likeable guy, I refuse to believe they wouldn’t have overcome their prejudices and, maybe grudgingly, but eventually built up pretty good rapport with him. They spend that much time together, and cameraderie, no inside jokes, not even ironic ones? Oh but I forget, the Doylist reason for that is they’re On The Right Side of the Law which means in this show they have Magic Bad Guy Vision, which means they posit Neal’s likability as a BAD thing since he’s “a bad guy,” which gives “the good guys” immunity from it. what the fuck.

I mean I’ve said this before, but it makes....no sense to me. None at all....that Neal would be so adrift from the named characters, except for a one-sided cameraderie with Peter. We SEE him on this show getting on with the unnamed extras in White Collar; he’s not an unlikeable guy, it’s in the text of the show.

So yeah, I think the ending is highly unsatisfying, except for as a gifset so we get to see Neal’s dapper figure pulling off a mic-drop moment. It’s good in theory, but in practice it just means the FBI is no better than Keller. Just one more asshole trying to use Neal for his job, trying to bleed him dry of all he’s got with little-to-no recompense. So then...what was the whole point of the show? It wasn’t to rehabilitate Neal, it was to prove, in some accidentally conspiracy theorist swoop, that the alphabet agencies are not to be trusted, that Mozzie should be vindicated for his paranoia after all? That’s hardly an optimistic message to end a series on.

#white collar #neal caffrey #this is the end guys #I'll probably still complain about it a bit longer but you won't be constantly seeing me actively yelling in the tags anymore if you're not #into that lmao #long post #part of me wants to spite-rewrite the whole show #part of me is so heartbroken I don't have it in me to do that #the whole me is swamped with schoolwork so I can't do it even if I wanted to lmao #you know...I almost feel like the writers were afraid to strengthen Neal's other relationships for fear it would weaken his with Peter #which............#8) 8) that's not. how that works lmao.#it's like when my roommate 2 years ago was like ''wasn't it weird that Samantha fell in love with other ppl'' from Her #like. I think it's a very heteronormative concept #this idea that you can only love 1 person and it's your ''opposite''-sex spouse #that you can love your family but that like almost falls into a different not-THAT-love category or something #I think also it hurts bc this show was too Doylist...but it wasn't entirely creator-gimmick #we got glimpses of the show's soul from time to time #but in the end they didn't know how to handle it still and we got buried in fake bullshit #I think a good show is one that even if it's fantastical still feels organic #and this one....didn't manage that for me #or I mean if I do try to take a Watsonian perspective in looking at it...it's a depressing-ass ''moral of the story''#I don't know maybe I'm taking too romantic an approach #maybe this edgier ending is more ~realistic~#okay lmao I don't think so it still had its fantastical elements #I think it just wasn't tightly written enough as a series

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