#what's that going to mean for the story? will there be significant rewrites to account for time passing in and out of universe?

[neobastard]

🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨

tnt has officially put the void within on pause between chapters 7 and 8. according to their statement on the official twitter account, it's to "make exciting improvements based on your feedback".

all plot activities (void essence collection, battledome fights, volunteer shifts, and story updates) will be on hold, and voidworks specifically will be getting an update.

the void within is slated to return in early 2025, but the team's assured us that there will be plenty of holiday activities in the meantime.

i have absolutely no clue what this means for the future of the plot.

but i'm going to trust that tnt made this decision because they felt that the feedback they received required such a long hiatus to make changes around.

[horizon-verizon]

Imo the significance given to B&C was always exaggerated in the fandom and my impression is that its not so much about the actual event but more about the hope that it changes the minds of casual fans about the Greens and makes them more justified in their actions. It wouldn’t, no matter how they shot it. It’s part of the reason some of them are so enraged at the idea of HOTD not showing the gory decapitation of a child in HD. It’s truly fucked up.

Also, I think we should not ignore the bias of whom ever is reporting on the Blood & Cheese incident in the book. My point being that if it is safe to take Mushroom account with a grain on salt on what it concerns the sexual dimension of his testimony, it is also important to acknowledge that F&B is written by the maesters and the maester’s are in Oldtown, the seat of House Hightower, and they likely exaggerate the circumstances of Jaehaerys’ murder (and straight up invented some details).

Taking Mushroom with a grain of salt or being careful abt his descriptions of what happens doesn't mean that we throw out everything he says but more think of how he'd have access to some information and the way he describes himself in those stories. Yes, F&B is written by maesters who were biased against dragons, magic, the Targs, and women with masculinized authority/all women and girls. Yes they were funded for years and even had members from the House of the Hightowers. Yes, they mostly lived and worked in the relatively insulated Citadel at Oldtown, also under the domain of the Hightowers. However, i don't think this is one of the times they were exaggerating. The sheer horror of the event and Helaena going literally mad from the circumstances I describe in this post make me think that all these details happened as they did. Plus Alicent was there--in the bk-to witness it.

It does strike me now as odd that we had Blood and Cheese risk the payout of their job by actually being willing to kill more than one child. Or to lose time and stretch out the job by torturing Helaena first to make said choice. Unless ordered to, which was never even proven in-text. Their instructions were to kill one son; after they killed Jaehaerys, they immediately left. So I suppose by this argument, we may validate the show's rewrite, but as I say in my past B&C post, I still think that on top of how they wrote Helaena as "Cassandra" so she has no real effect on the action of the plot or character development (too static), she just seems even more a trapped female character.

[alicelufenia]

Going back through Practical Guide and realized I was mentally mispronouncing a ton of places and names. And while the rewrite is going to change quite a few names/terms on account of perhaps unfortunate implications (soninke is a real-world West African ethnicity, so MAYBE not the best choice for the dominant ethnicity of your setting's signature Evil Empire, even if it's based more on Rome. The rewrite and webcomic change it to sanke) there are plenty others still used that I had no idea how they were supposed to be pronounced, or for that matter, what the words actually meant in real life.

Quick disclaimer, I am painfully American so my basis for a lot of my gut pronunciations come from that background.

Laure, the capital of Callow, is apparently pronounced "lah-r", sounding like "Lore" with the r dragged out a bit. Not enough French lessons for me I guess. Meaning-wise it means "laurel", about the only significance I can find is the laurel is a symbol of victory, honor, and triumph (hello William) in ancient Greece.

One of the most important cities in the entire story, Liesse, I was mispronouncing all throughout my reading. It's "lee-eh-s", meaning "joy" in French.

Meanwhile Praes is pretty much how I thought it'd be pronunced, "pray-ehs", and in Latin (what the Miezan language is based on) means something like "surety" or "bondsman". Given the modern Dread Empire is a post-colonial polity and the Miezan occupation is known as the "War of Chains"; it being a reference to the slavery they shook off when the Miezan Empire collapsed is pretty clear (It's stated outright so in one chapter, but I have no idea which one).

Speaking of, Miezan seems to be "mee-zuhn", an arabic word meaning "scales" or "balance". Given how little we know about the Miezan Empire, you can make of that what you will, though a technologically and magically superior expansionist civilization could reasonably think of itself as bringing order or "balance" to "lesser" people. As for the Baalite Hegemony, being the Guideverse equivalent of Carthage, is Semitic and is pronounced, not surprisingly, "bah-light", meaning a worshipper of the canaanite deity Baal (not that one!)

As for the language, we know Old Miezan isn't spoken anymore (comparable to latin), while the equivalent of "common", at least for Callow and Praes (so only in the east on Calernia) is Lower Miezan. It could be easy to just think of it as English since that's what so many of the cast default to and the novels are indeed written in English, but if it truly has roots in latin it'd probably sound more like the romance languages (Italian, Portugese, Romanian, etc.).

We actually don't get many examples of "in-universe" words as they're said in Lower Miezan. One example is the Old Miezan word "turbelus", which according to Hakram is "horde" in Lower Miezan. Near as I can tell, the etymology for "horde" comes from slavic languages: czech, polish, turkish. It could be a loanword I suppose. The other example, might not actually be an example as it looks like a typo to me. But Akua at one point says the word in Lower Miezan for "other" is "nyengana". Which, given the context of a conversation between two Praesi high borns, probably was meant to be Mthethwa, which is based on Swahili. Speaking of, the reprints and webcomic also changed the language name from Mthethwa to Ecane. Again, probably to use less real world terms, but now I have no clue how to pronounce ecane, so HMPH.

Akua Sahelian being one of my favorite characters from the Guide, I naturally wanted to double check the pronunciation. Sahelian was easy, it's "suh-hee-lee-uhn", and means "of or from the Sahel region in Africa". Not literally in the Guideverse but it keeps to Praesi naming conventions. But there's two options for Akua that I found. First is the Akan name used by people from Ghana, which is "eh-kwee-yah", meaning "born on a Wednesday." Fair enough, BUT, I personally prefer the Hawaiian name, which is "ah-koo-wah" (even inflection) and it means "God, goddess, spirit, ghost, devil, image, idol, corpse, divine, supernatural, godly" which is just PERFECT.

There's a ton of other examples I could go into, but will stop here.

[anakabura]

Tips for when you're struggling to "just write"

I'm sure we've all heard the advice to "just write" at some point. And while it's totally correct, the actual act itself is usually the main battle. Obviously we're all different and how we work and stay motivated etc. will also be different, but here's some stuff you can try if you haven't already!

Change the medium You'd be surprised how much this can help sometimes. Whatever you primarily use to write your stories- whether it's paper or computer, try switching it up. I usually use my computer to put my stories down, so if I'm struggling I bust out a notebook and pen. If you can't do that, simply making a new document or using a different writing app/site can help too. Hell, cut out the writing aspect entirely and just record yourself talking! Oftentimes, the hangup is centered around trying to pick up where you left off, and the pressure of "carrying the vibe/momentum" of the most recent scene. A "blank slate" can help remove the pressure if you're not looking at your other scenes. This ties into my next tip.

New scene!!! Like I said- sometimes, part of the pressure behind writing is when you try to pick up where you left off. It isn't just daunting, it's impossible when you genuinely don't know where to go next. Personally, I often run into the problem of "now what?" I don't know how to create "connective tissue" scenes, or (as I said), keep the momentum as I finish a planned Important Scene. So picking a random point in the story- whether that's the next Important Scene or one I haven't even figured out a place for yet- and just writing from there can really help. And this point also ties into my next tip!

FUCK PROSE. Seriously. I get VERY hung up on words not Wording properly, and it drives me insane. Often, I get so hung up on HOW to say what I MEAN to say, that I'll never end up writing anything down- and then I end up forgetting what I was going to say at all. Bulleting out my lines can help, but it's often even harder to translate those bullets into actual dialogue for me, so I try not to do that. Instead, I actually write out the scenes- but I do it really, really directly and plainly. Obviously, if inspiration strikes on a line, that's fine, but the point is to have a scene written. I try to be as quick and direct as possible, like a report or stage directions. "Oh, but I used 'muttered' to describe dialogue 3 times!" Oh well. "But this is just a full page of dialogue and no action or movement!" Too bad. The point isn't the pretty prose. You can cry about that later, after you actually write it. That's what revisions are for. You know you're just gonna obsess over and rewrite your work anyway, no matter how much time you're gonna spend on it the first go around. Save that headache for future you. They were gonna have one anyway.

Get up and go! It might surprise you, but sometimes it's the scenery of real life that you need to worry about. Whether it's getting up and moving to a different chair in your room, or moving to an entirely new building, sometimes being somewhere else rattles something loose inside your brain. Especially if you tend to write in your room- I personally can't do homework in my room because of all the clutter, but also because my mind associates my room with relaxing. I sleep, play video games, and tinker with my pet projects in my room. So if I can't focus, I go to my dining or living room, or even my campus library. Something about being around other people makes it easier to hold myself accountable.

Set realistic goals. Sometimes part of the problem is that you can't seem to find time, or that even when you do find time, it's never enough to make significant progress in your story. I struggle to dive headfirst into a scene even when I'm bursting with ideas- I need to review the most recent scene before I can start generating words. But knowing how much progress- or lack thereof- that's been made on your story can sometimes make it really overwhelming to even approach it. But like any other task, it's easier when you break it down. If the most you can write on the average day is three sentences, aim to write three sentences a day. Even if you end up scrapping them later, WRITE THEM. At the very least, it'll help build the habit and make it easier for you to seek out time and write in the future.

Take a break. Sometimes you really, really just can't write. No one else can assess what you need better than yourself. If you feel like you need a break, take one. Whether that's reading someone else's story, or taking a walk, or taking a nap, or just staring at that one spot on your wall, just PUT THE DAMN STORY DOWN. This is probably one you've heard before, but I'm saying it anyway, because some of you aren't listening!!!!! PUT IT DOWN, BESTIE!!!

That's all I can think of at the moment. These are all things I try to do personally, and while I'm not some award-winning novelist, I'm definitely writing things and trying my best!!! So maybe this will help someone else who's also trying their best, and just hasn't come across one of these methods yet.

[sentimental-writer25]

PROLOGUE: Usually when I write, it is very easy for me to keep going once I’ve started. 

It has been over 2 years now. All I have is an idea and fragments of memories that I am trying to piece together in order to write down my story. 

I am always so ready to tell people my story. I am far too open about it if I am being honest. 

But to write it down, from my thoughts to paper—- to put it poetically--

Nothing about it was poetic. 

The story is pathetic. I was pathetic... 

The little girl who was so excited to grow up and become a strong woman, ….just wasn't. 

Usually when I write, it is very easy for me to keep going when the idea comes to my head. This one has been circulating for a while, I can't even seem to type down a word. 

Two years have gone by, I am ashamed 

I am so ready to tell people my story. But if I do, will they only see a coward? 

MAIN STORY: 

It’s strange how someone can leave but still take so much with them—things such as who I was, who I thought I could be. 

There are scars, some I can see, others I just feel. The ones you can’t see are the hardest to explain because when I tell people “it’s over— it’s not happening anymore” — it should mean it’s over and won’t affect me anymore. 

But it’s not, it’s never really over.  Not when you’ve spent so much time being torn down that you don’t know how to put yourself back together.

No one else acknowledged what he did to me, therefore hold him accountable. No one batted an eye especially when I started spiraling hard. 

Yet my body and mind certainly acknowledge it.

Sometimes I think the pain is gone but then the smallest of things will happen to me and suddenly im not able to sleep for days. I’m clutching my chest not able to breathe…. To feel my heat beating out of my chest. 

Shocked by how much additional trauma comes from being traumatized. And this isn’t something people are told. 

And it feels like an insult to injury. Having gone through something, thinking it’s over. And then being washed over with feelings of isolation, feelings of being lost, feeling worthless at times,  dysregulated - even more hypervigilant, etc, etc….

And this— it’s lasted… and the second I felt it, I knew one thing: This— this gonna affect everything forever. 

I find myself thinking; is there some significance to this? Trying to find meaning within it all 

When we watch movies, read books, we are always shown that people overcome their traumas. We are told they preserve in spite of everything. They come out on top, every time. Without set back. 

But sometimes it feels as if im just composed of the memories of what I went through. 

I am composed of fear, regret, sadness….

And it’s been two years. 

Nothing is actively going on

And then I think I’m my own sickness. I am my own ailment. 

Despite this…

I wish I could go back, I wish I could go back before anything happened.

Tell myself to run, tell myself to stand up for myself and not let fear get the better of me. I will tell myself that it wasn’t my fault. God knows I would be the only one telling me that back then. 

Looking at her— is like looking into a mirror. she’s there, her face is a warped reflection of my own— the same nose, mouth, and eyes— but they are empty. The light cannot be seen in her eyes. She just stares at me, not speaking. But her silence fills the entire room.  

I’ve held onto her tighter than I thought. 

But she’ll look at me, teary eyed.

Wishing that she was me instead. Wishing to be out of it already. To be supposedly past it all. 

She’s haunting me, reminding me of the past. She feeds onto my longing to rewrite the past, give it a different ending. But I can’t go back 

I keep reaching back for her because all that time she was reaching for me…

Epilogue: 

Usually when I start writing, it’s easy for me to keep going. We all do what we can to endure 

I am the furthest away from myself from two years ago. 

The feelings linger and they always will. 

It is not easy to forget the thing that nearly killed you. 

I hope the endless falling feels effortless floating. I wish everyone a safe return to who they were and who they can be.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Okay, so if Frey arrived in Athia on 12/25, and she fought the dragon on 12/28, and if we're assuming she fought the dragon first thing in the morning, that's three days of travel—the 25th, 26th, and 27th.

Now, according to the map, the distance between Junoon Castle and Junoon Castle Town is a little over a quarter of a mile (1444 feet, give or take, from castle gates to town gates). That makes sense, honestly. Castle towns don't typically have three days of travel between them and the castle they're built around. Even taking monster ambushes into account, there's no way it would take Frey three days to travel a quarter mile. It takes me fifteen minutes to walk to my bus stop half a mile away, and I'm slow!

So Junoon Castle to dragon fight seems like a bad sample to take for my translating-Athia-to-realistic-proportions endeavor. Is that gonna stop me? No. Let's do math anyway.

We're going to pretend there's a ridiculous number of miles between castle and castle town. No I'm not accepting this as canon, I just went into this intending to do math, by golly I'm gonna do math!

Average walking speed is 3 miles per hour, and the average human adult can walk 25 to 30 miles in a day. That's roughly eight to ten hours of walking per day on the high end, and leaves 14 to 16 hours for rest, meals, and potty breaks. Seems doable to me, but let's cut the distance traveled down by half to account for monster encounters and recovering from those, because Athia is a nightmare and everything wants to eat you. So, let's say 12 to 15 miles per day.

The average medieval city (at least according to my brief research that I conducted in like five minutes on Google) would be about a mile or two from end to end, so mostly we're looking at the distance between the castle gates and the city gates.

Assuming Frey had a full day of travel on all three days she would be traveling, and that she didn't use Flow for any significant portion of that travel, that's somewhere between 36 and 45 miles between Junoon Castle and Junoon Castle town, or approximately 190,080 to 237,600 feet. Let's take the average between the two, and say 58.5 miles, or 308,880 feet.

1,444 feet in game versus 308,800 feet rough estimate real-world proportions based on estimated travel time and distance. A quarter mile versus fifty eight and a half. That's... a doozy of a difference. But also interesting!

If we accept that to be the case, or at the very least to be a rough estimate to the scaling we're working with, that would mean that at full scale, Athia (at 7.21 in-game miles from east to west at the widest point; my memory was a tad off) would be roughly 1,542.26 miles across. Assuming I did my math right.

Which is still a bit less than half the size of the smallest continent on Earth (Antarctica is about 3400 miles across at its widest), but it's more believable to me than a mere seven miles.

So basically long story short, Athia is smol but deadly and I'm going to assume miles and miles of wilderness between any towns on the in-game map, likely with tiny little hamlets scattered in between. Probably more Pilgrims Refuges in between; I kind of headcanon those are no more than a day's walk apart anyway.

...god dammit if I have to rewrite my self-insert shenanigans again because of this I'm going to laugh my ass off XD

You know what. No. There's magic in this world and I can use that to my narrative advantage.

Maybe it's my inner Tanta Cinta talking but Cipal has way too many fecking stairs. Where's the ramps? How are merchants supposed to wheel carts and wagons of goods throughout the city? Are they expected to just carry everything on their backs? Or construction materials! How did they haul around all that stone to build the place? And what about their elderly or disabled citizens? It's an accessibility nightmare.

Honestly. I'm going to go with my usual theory when it comes to game worlds: what we see is only a symbolic representation of what the actual world would be like if it was real. I mean otherwise there's no way Cipal can fit thousands of people, let alone the thousands of refugees on top of its usual population that it took in when the Corruption hit. And also if we stick with only exactly what's in the game, Athia is an island, not a continent. It's only about six or seven miles from end to end. My commute to work is roughly half that, which would mean that round trip I bus the length of Athia every day.

This is one of the reasons I wish we had a day/night cycle. If I knew how long 24 hours in-game took in real time, I could use average walking speed to get a rough estimation of how big Athia is supposed to be in-universe based on how long it takes to walk to any given location. I did this with Eos in FFXV using the time it takes to drive from the Insomnia Blockade to the Rock of Ravatogh at 60mph, I can do it again for walking speed!

...wait a minute

I know what day Frey came to Athia. And I can find out what day she fought the dragon. I can calculate from there based on average walking speed and an assumption that she didn't walk for 24 hours straight how far it is between Junoon Castle and Junoon Castle Town. The existence of Flow might throw off my math a little, though. Hmm...

Where there's a will there's a way. I'ma find out.

[taekooktimeline]

Hello,

In light of some comments I’ve come across today on Facebook (more on the account at the end) I thought I’d reiterate what should be obvious. This timeline, as stated in the pinned post, is THEORY / OPINION. In NO WAY should this blog ever be considered point blank fact. I don’t know how much more obvious I can make it between a pinned post and heavy disclaimers throughout the blog but apparently some people still take issue with my blog and want to criticize. I can’t tell people what to think, so if someone agrees with what I write fine, and if they don’t, that’s fine too. But I can’t be faulted for what someone else says or thinks and I’m astounded I even have to address this. You’ll see in more recent posts I have done my best to be more factual, and let actions speak for themselves. In prior years, Sara and I did theorize. Now that I’ve worked the blog as long as I have, I wish in retrospect I could go back and edit. Unfortunately, tumblr doesn’t allow this without being completely cumbersome, so my hands are tied. I think some theories should stay. I think January 26 is significant. I think Tae reading the CMBYN monologue that he did, during pride month, and then saying “I want to be happy too🥺” on Weverse is pivotal. I am always going to be proud of him for that moment, as it was brave and powerful. I think both “sweet night” and “your eyes tell” are interesting, and should be considered, but I would love to delete all other song speculations and leave this more focused on action. It’s a shame tumblr doesn’t make it easy to modify old posts. I consistently provide links and clips so YOU, the reader, can decide for yourself if you disagree or agree. And if I have to heavily theorize I stated as much. Ultimately, I’m not here to convince anyone. I’ve said that so many times. Whether you believe or not is entirely your prerogative. I will never try to persuade you otherwise.

I appreciate those who stop by to read, and those who support and recommend this blog. If someone doesn’t agree then that’s ok too! I disagree with analysis I come across. We all should be thinking and believing as we want, and what our gut tells us, not based on what someone else says or thinks. I’ve also been consistent in saying this but apparently it needs to be said again.

I’ve been asked before, and thought about it, “is there anything we’ve said I look back and disagree with?” All I can say is yes, if I could go back I would erase some needless theorizing and speculation. It’s fun to speculate things - when they first kissed, first confessed, etc. but I think if I could do things over I’d leave that out. It’s a guess, there’s no way to know. Taekook speak for themselves and that’s the ultimate meaning of the blog for me -letting their actions speak their story (and to archive them). I would also delete song commentary out besides “sweet night” and “your eyes tell”. I didn’t write the analysis of songs, though at the time of publishing I agreed with it all. In retrospect I just don’t think it’s necessary or appropriate honestly. If I could rewrite, I would just provide moments and write the facts as is, which is what I strive to do now to the best of my ability. It is what it is. Tumblr isn’t ideal for things so I have to deal with it. To be clear, I still stand by the blog, I will ALWAYS believe and support Taekook as a romantic couple (though again, if someone doesn’t see that that’s their right and I won’t debate). I would just cut the speculations out, leave it at just facts. I can only hope in newer moments you see I’m doing my best to do that. If I do want to share a fun theory or opinion, I consistently note it. I’m not sure what more I can do to make it clear this blog is theory. At the end of the day, this is a labor of love I do for free, in my free time. It’s supposed to be fun. And I hope it can stay that way. My anxiety messes with me enough. I never expected the blog to get the traction it did. I remain in awe and humbled by it, but hope the love, respect and positivity we strove for at the start can remain. At the end of the day, we’re all here to support. Whether you agree or disagree with my THEORY, we should be united as Taekookers who love and respect Taehyung and Jungkook - as individuals and a couple, as well as ALL the members. We get enough hate. It’s frustrating to see someone arguing about my THEORY when I’ve said enough times it’s that.

In other news, and I may have said this before, but I’m not the best with dates so if I ever get a date wrong, please message me here or on Twitter. If it’s a newer post I can quickly modify (I’m not able if it’s too far in the timeline due to tumblr restrictions). My goal is to be as factual as I can, so I’m happy to edit if I’ve gotten something wrong. Im human!

Please remember it’s just me working this blog now. Sara has stepped down (since approx April 2021) and is running her version on word press. Her current theories and beliefs are not mine, but again, the beauty of existing is we’re all entitled to think and believe as we do.

Real life comes first, and I update this blog with all the love and respect I can when I have time. But it’s not the priority and I hope you understand. I’m going on a very much needed 2-week vacation next week. And I am going to California in December for my first BTS concert (yay!). I did my best to knock out some pending posts before I go. The rest I’ll get to when I can when I’m back (I’m going to be behind on IST episodes 4-5🥲)

I will keep asks closed because I just don’t have time or energy for the type of questions we received. Im sorry.

Finally, Jungkook released a cover of Harry Styles’ “Fallen” today. It’s absolutely beautiful. There’s a reason he’s the golden maknae, the best voice💜if you haven’t heard it please listen and show your support! I am so ready for his mixtape 😭

PS - TK for adults can block me on their Facebook page, delete comments, try to rewrite the story and pretend they weren’t bullying all they want. I was minding my business and came across a very ugly post about my blog and me as a person. I don’t like arguing but I will ALWAYS defend my blog and myself. I will always support Tae and Jungkook. I don’t expect everyone to agree - as this is theory, which I’ve stated multiple times- but there’s NO need to be rude about differences in opinion and write ugly things. At the end of the day we’re supporting Taekook, and BTS. Differences in when they confessed, kissed, etc is irrelevant to the crux of this - that we support. People who come to this space can understand and appreciate my blog is opinion. That’s on them that they can’t do the same💜and I hope going forward to not entertain such trash with my energy! I hate to even make this post but it needed to be addressed. And now I will continue in a positive path. Thank you for reading and supporting 💜💚

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

Storyline Study: Order Mentor

When you joined your Order at level thirty and met your mentor at level forty, each of the three was instantly revealed to be a different person altogether from the other two.

Tybalt Leftpaw, Lightbringer of the Order of Whispers, was on his first-ever field mission. He was very blatantly calling for you in a sort of undercover way, and simultaneously panicking when you tried to mention the full name of the Order. Your supposed mentor was as new to this as you, had a (sometimes very human-teenager) sense of humor, and had a rather sad backstory balanced by his good nature. You knew he liked apples.

Sieran, Magister of the Durmand Priory, was full of reckless abandon, disregard for authority, boundless curiosity and a heart for the little things. She was confident in her role and her ability, and unhesitatingly took you into dangerous places for the sake of exploration and adventure while brushing off rebuke like a tree sheds sap - even when it was heartily deserved. You learned to be rather frightened for her.

Forgal Kernsson, Warmaster of the Vigil, was an archetypal gruff, stern old mentor whose every drop of praise spoke volumes. But he also carried a sort of wildness to him, that rough edge from growing up a hunter in the Shiverpeaks, coupled with every willingness to say it like it was if it was true. He could be surprised, he could observe calmly when something was new, he could snark like the rest of them and even say things he didn't mean from time to time.

They all fought the dragons - they each more or less took it seriously. But Tybalt was a partner and friend, you were keeping Sieran in check, not the other way around, and Forgal trained you mercilessly.

You all grew together - they had each changed for the better by the time they died. Tybalt had learned that he was worth something, Sieran had learned friendship was worth everything, and Forgal had learned... well. He'd found a student to be proud of, a partner to fight with, a friend to trust... a child to carry on his legacy. But I'm not sure, exactly, what Forgal learned - what the point of his story was.

Sieran was more-or-less well suited to her role in the story; she symbolized innocence and cheer and optimism and the beauty of the world - so you could recognize what was being lost by the dragon's onslaught. Tybalt's story was one extremely well-suited to his character; he taught you that working together was vital to survival, even when neither of you knew exactly what you were doing - a valuable lesson as the story progressed. Both of their stories fit well enough into the three-mission story sequence concluding in their death.

But Forgal was different. He was the mentor who dies partway through. He was the one who trained you and taught you all he could, who died imparting one last gem of wisdom. Or, he should have.

I am not attacking Forgal. I am attacking ArenaNet. We had too little time with Forgal for the story Anet was trying to tell with him. He was like Obi-Wan but without showing up again as a ghost, without the prequels, without being able to send Luke to Yoda - without, most significantly, being able to explain why he'd said Luke's father was dead.

We don't know Forgal. We don't understand him. We only know his family died to Icebrood... but why is he with the Vigil, specifically? Why is he a good friend of Almorra's - allowed to butt in and insult a diplomatic ambassador with barely a reprimand? Forgal is the character that tells me the Vigil has been around decades, not a mere five years. Was he in another military? Forgal was over a hundred years old. You don't join a military at that age and, five years later, are a highly self-disciplined warrior such as he was. Maybe he was Lionguard? Hear this: Forgal is actually older than Lion's Arch. If he'd survived, he would have been old enough to bear witness to all three incarnations of that city. But, apart from being able to recognize the Orrian Scout on sight, this is only a trivial piece of lore.

After he judged us worthy, we should have had long training sessions with him - sparring matches wherein he would easily fend off our blows while simultaneously teaching us about the world, all the wisdom he'd gathered, expounding just a bit on the history of the Elder Dragons (perhaps customized for player's race!) - and then we go off and have a real Vigil mission. Perhaps remove the racial sympathy 'choice' and have all five! A sparring match before each one, with a different lesson (the racial sympathy missions were awfully short anyway). And if you want to keep the idea implied by the term 'racial sympathy,' you could change the tone of some of them, make the player more reluctant and Forgal more impatient, have a middle-of-mission lecture on why it's important to work with everyone - this way you joining an Order feels less 'oh you've always been sympathetic to other races' and more 'wait who are these people.' But you know the real kicker? These training sessions would have made us actually feel like we were a treasured part of his life, the kid he never had, that he takes the effort to train us and takes the time to correct us when we're wrong, that he shares his history with us.

And then, at Claw Island, he would place a hand on our shoulder and tell us - hey - don't worry. You did good. You tell my tale and you take my lessons and put them to good use, you hear me? Listen to Trahearne over there - I've told you a bit about him - he's a good kid, he's smart and he knows what he's doing. And - partner? Partner, I need you to put me down if that blasted dragon raises me.

And we're in tears and Trahearne standing there also puts up a fight and tells him not to go, but Forgal goes anyway, roaring his defiance at the dragon - and his famous line, "you may win the battle, dragon, but you will never defeat our spirit!" And maybe he adds - "you may defeat me, but I will be avenged!" like some cartoon villain only you know - you know that means you.

That is the storyline Forgal deserved. (I selfishly also fixed it just a bit with regards to Trahearne, but...) I don't care if we add an extra ten or twenty levels to the game to account for the four extra racial sympathy story chapters.

And see, now you'll argue that that's biased in favor of Forgal, to do all that with him but not the other two - and that's part of the idea.

Forgal isn't like the other two. He shouldn't be compared to the other two. The storyline we have is good for the other two. Extending their stories would feel... false. Yes, there are supposed to be parallels between the three Orders, but... in that case, ArenaNet should have done something entirely different with Forgal.

How about this: Almorra assigns us to someone else for a mentor, but we show such epic promise she switches us to Laranthir. His storyline? It's right in his idle dialogue at the Vigil Keep - he's always sought love. This puts his storyline on par with Sieran and Tybalt. What about Forgal? He's a Lionguard that all three Order mentors know well. We do racial sympathy with Forgal plus our Order mentor (doing those with only one ally is kind of absurd anyway). This can help set-up and foreshadow the tactical significance of Claw Island, too - and hey, maybe Forgal can even survive that! Or maybe he doesn't survive it but our Order mentor does! (Yeah, that fits better, since Laranthir is important in HoT.) And then, once the Pact is formed, their stories end more naturally without regard for the Order parallels, which would keep the story unique - where your choice of Order still matters even when it doesn't anymore. Tybalt didn't have to die - in fact, it's kind of absurd that he did since his story was about finding his own heroism, and then he dies. He can die later, perhaps, after he's thoroughly proved himself. (And hey, throw in an encounter with his old warband! Bonus lore points!) And Sieran 0 maybe Sieran could go through a heartbreaking transformation in Orr, the land of the dead - you see something far more heartbreaking than her death as she loses her spirit, and you and Trahearne both resolve that even if you're super-busy with the Pact, you can still cleanse Orr together to save Sieran. (This makes cleansing Orr a personal thing for you as well as Trahearne!) And Laranthir - well, I don't know what he was doing originally. Maybe he stayed back at the Vigil Keep to manage things, but you still see him now and then and he gives good advice and (since his storyline was about falling in love or something) you get to tease him about whatever's going on in his life, and then later he shows up again in HoT.

I'm going to stop - I already just presented a rough outline of a whole rewrite of core PS, I'm not going to step into HoT territory. (But since his storyline was about falling in love - ? Anything could happen really. Maybe his love died in the crash (we don't actually know of any characters who died in the actual crash. Awful shame) and that's why he takes the lead against Mordremoth. That would give him a cool motive.)

Anet I want this now.

I only wanted to say how unfair Forgal's story was to him, and then I came up with this whole thing - ? Some of it included a few helpful fixes for the Trahearne hate - this isn't something I can write out into a whole fic since I have a main fic and while this is a significant AU it's not quite enough for a whole fic but also far too much for just a headcanon - maybe I'll invent a new Commander.

[harrypotter-imaginess]

A/N: So this is kind of like the prologue to a Fred and George Weasley story I wrote several years ago, that I am currently rewriting. I think I actually prefer doing the “Would Include’s” over regular imagines, they’re a bit less pressure, and I can always expand them into an imagine if I (or you the reader) want.

The lovely @youreanangelbaby​ made a playlist for this series for her follower celebration: Spotify I Tidal

Imagines Series Based on this post:  Part 1 Here! / Part 2 Here!/ Part 3 here!

- You’re probably not from their house. You’re most likely either from Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw

- You’re a year younger than them, and a year older than the golden trio.

- It’s probably George that notices you first.

- You’re just this painfully shy, beautiful little thing.

- He feels this rush of affection, and his heart swell. He feels like he has to protect and guide you.

- So he ends up talking to you inside class first.

- “Snape’s a bit of a git ain’t he.”

- You just look at him with wide eyes, nod slightly and look back at your work.

- And then George tries to talk to you about your interests.

- “You like quidditch?”

- “Yeah”

- It’s the first word he’s heard from you.

- “Have you thought about trying out for your house’s team, I heard they’re looking for a Keeper.

- George thinks the friendship is pretty one sided until Snape calls on him in class one day

- “Mr. Weasley, what is a standard ingredient in Swelling potion?”

- “O-oh um-“ he hadn’t been paying attention to be honest.

- From the corner of his eye he notices you furiously tapping on the word “Puffer fish” written on your parchment.

- “Puffer fish.” He says without a second of doubt. And you almost smile, granted he probably didn’t have anything else, but no one has ever trusted you like that before.

- “Puffer fish eyes, Mr. Weasley.” Snape drawls. But George looks to you and grins

- You’re both closer after that. You help George with homework, and he helps you with quidditch

- Fred noticed the friendship, and half to support his brother and take interests in his interests, and half from curiosity, ends up befriending you through quidditch as well.

- “No you can’t stay in just one spot (Y/N),” He tells you, moving you a bit to the side.

- “But it feels like it’s risky to move in this kind of situation.”

- “If you don’t move goals you’ll lose.”

- Somehow, quidditch practice turns to sneaking out on weekends with the marauders map.

- “Where’d you get that thing anyway?” You ask

- George shrugs

- “Found it in Dad’s things.” Fred says.

- “So we’re going to Zonko’s?” You ask, and they both exchange a look before asking:

- “Where do you want to go?” In unison

- You can feel the heat creeping up your neck and onto your face.

- You’ve never had this much attention before.

- “I want to get fireworks from Zonko’s.” And then a quieter voice you admit, “I’ve never been.”

- At that George grabs your hand pulling you forward, while Fred pushes you from behind

- “Well now we really have to go to Zonko’s”

- Getting into lots of trouble.

- “Fred you’ve got to hurry up!” You mutter, looking around the corner as George stands on the other end of the hall looking over that corner, and Fred rummages through the potions closet.

- “And be careful! Snape’ll notice if anything’s out of order.” George hisses.

- Helping them brew love potion

- “So uh,” And you feel sweat form as you sit in the back of the empty corner of the greenhouse. “Who is this for?”

- Coming to Hogwarts, you’ve never had all that many friends. So the thought that one of your two closest friends may leave you to spend all their time with someone else, makes you a little sad.

- But you want to be happy in their happiness, even if drinking a love potion probably isn’t the best way to do it, so you put on a brave face and smile.

- “Mrs. Norris.” They say in unison

- “Excuse me.”

- And then they tell you their elaborate plan to get Filch’s cat to fall in love with Fang, and how it’ll drive him crazy.

-Despite yourself, you’re a little relived. And a little disapointed in yourself, you should know better by now.

- Knocking on their dorm window, as you float on your broom, just to tell them that you made it onto the quidditch team.

- “I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you. I was just so happy when I found out and I wanted to tell you righ-“

- They both pull you inside the dorm and give you a big hug

- “We knew you could do it”

- “I’m so proud of you.”

- The next week, you wake up and there’s this poorly wrapped pair of brand new quidditch gloves from them on your nightstand

- And you just start to tear up, because you know that they’re not rich or anything, and that they could spent their allowance on candy or pranks from Zonko’s.

- But instead they got you these gloves.

- So when you see them in the corridor, you grab them both into a hug.

- “I love you guys.”

- They’ve never really heard those words from anyone outside their family. They don’t really know when it started, but somewhere along the way, you started to make a great big home in their hearts.

- “I love you too.” George says it first, and gives you a squeeze back. Before he gets shoved by Fred.

- “Oi, why are you making me look bad?” Fred glares at him as his twin laughs.

- “You don’t have to say it back Fred, I ju-“

- “I love you too.” He says, the words roll out in a rush, and his face flush’s bright red. George can’t seem to stop laughing.

- “Let’s just go to class, we’re already late!” He mumbles, his face is lobster red at this point, and George and you move to keep up with him.

- “Since when do you care about class?” George jokes.

- “Since today!”

- Hanging out with them means your public profile has increased significantly as well.

- “Hey, who’s the (guy/girl) always around Fred and George?”

- “I don’t know, but they’re cute aren’t they?”

- It’s true, you’re adorable, especially when you’re laughing at something Fred said

- “Who’s the (Girl/Boy), who you’re always with you?” Angelina asks, and Fred shrugs

- “Thats (Y/N).”

- “They’re f*cking adorable.”

- Fred’s a little taken aback and just laughs. Yeah you are pretty cute. But it’s more like how he see’s Ginny than actual attraction.

- “That person you’re always with the new keeper for (Y/H)?” Oliver Wood asks casually as they’re changing for quidditch practice.

- “Yeah, they’re good aren’t they?” George says with a grin, he’s awful proud you made it on, especially since he and Fred basically coached you.

- “They’ve certainly got a pretty face.” Oliver says with a hum, and that makes George stutter to a stop. He feels a mild twinge of jealousy but brushes it off.

- “You fancy them mate?” He asks, a teasing grin spreading across his face. And he doesn’t miss how Oliver’s ears turn red.

- “You want me to put in a good word for you?” He says between howls of laughter and Oliver just rolls his eyes and shoves him away.

- “I’m just glad you’re in love with something other quidditch!” George shouts as Oliver begins to walk away.

- You probably have a small crush on Oliver as well. He’s older for one, and the other being that he’s very good at quidditch.

- Oliver doesn’t share emotions very well, even though the feelings are reciprocated.

- “You should quit quidditch.” He tells you after a match.

- And your heart plummets as he abruptly walks away.

- He meant that you should quit quidditch because you might end up getting hurt, or getting scars on your face.

- You took it as if you were a terrible player, and should quit while you’re ahead.

- Afterwards Fred and George probably comfort you in your dorm.

- “Oliver’s a prat, doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” George says.

- “Want me to turn his hair pink?” Fred asks and you laugh.

- The next week Oliver’s hair is lime green and he’s chasing Fred and George on his broom.

- “Sorry we couldn’t make it pink.” Fred says later, and you just laugh.

- The fact that they did anything at all is more than enough.

- You can tell them apart, it’s something you don’t even realize until the moment comes.

-You’re walking out of potions class, Fred ran to the bathroom, and you manage to catch up to George.

_”Hey George, did you manage to catch what pages we’re supposed to read, my ink got smudged.” You say, holding up your ink stained hand.

- George grins, thinking he’ll have a bit of fun.

- “George? I’m Fred.” He shakes his head, biting back a smile. “And you call yourself our best friend.”

- You look at him for several long seconds, and George can already feel the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand.

-”No, you’re George.” You tell him, looking back down at the parchment. “So did you get the page numbers or not?” You ask, and the entire moment’s so casual for you. 

- You miss the significance of it completely, finally waving down another classmate and asking them for the page numbers.

- George can’t hide his dumb struck expression. George, by all accounts, is identical to Fred. No one can tell them apart. 

- To be honest, since he was a small boy, he didn’t really see the similarity. Fred was so much bolder than he was, more charismatic and charming. 

- Where he saw himself as more diplomatic, a bit quieter, and more sensitive as well. 

- Since their childhood, the two could only notice differences between them. Though they shared some interests, they were very different people. 

- George smiles, of course you would be able to tell them apart. 

- They talk a lot about their family, and you find yourself a little nostalgic for a place you’ve never even been.

- When Christmas comes around, you get a sweater from Molly Weasley herself.

- “Yeah, it’s pretty embarrassing.” Fred starts

- “You don’t have to wear it-“ George is about to say, when he see’s you hug the sweater to your chest.

- “It smells like you.” You tell them, like honeysuckle and sunshine.

- “I love it.” You say with a giant smile on your face.

- Endless amounts of mischief

- And endless adventures.

[ineffableuser]

A Dance Of Two Lovers

(A TenRose short story)

By Ineffableuser

Word count: 1856

Constructive criticism is highly appreciated!

I know this is probably impossible in the canon universe, but it’s been inside my head for almost two months, plus I did not make a tumblr account to stick to canonical content.

I’ll publish an Italian version right after this; some words may be slightly different but it is the same story.

If you like it, please consider reblogging, but likes and comments are fine too.

Enjoy!

“What’s that?”

The Doctor’s attention shifted from the TARDIS component he was tinkering with to the spot the girl was pointing at from the seat.

“Oh… that,” he said, frowning and glancing one last time at the problem that he knew was there, but simply couldn’t find. After a bit of mumbling that Rose couldn’t hear, he got up from under the grate that served as the TARDIS’ floor; he raised his head to look at the peculiar helmet that was hanging a few meters over their heads and slid his hands in his pockets.

“It’s the Chameleon Arch. It’s a device that rewrites a person’s DNA: if a TimeLord uses it, their genes get modified until they become human,” he started gesturing a bit, imitating the movement of interlocking the Arch and the watch, “and their memories get stored in some kind of fob watch that you put there... in the front.”

“Luckily I never had to use it—it probably hurts a lot, too—but if there were a menace that required for me to not be a TimeLord anymore and/or to not remember anything about my life, I’d use thi—I’m sorry, is there something wrong?”

His speech had become more and more hesitant once he had noticed that Rose was staring at him as if he had told her that the TARDIS was going to grow a mustache.

“Rose?” He heard his voice tremble slightly, his body now turned completely towards her.

She blinked a couple of times and shook her head, apparently awake from the trance she had appeared to be in until a few seconds before.

“No… no, everything’s—I’m OK, it’s just that… a machine that can turn you human, I didn’t think it was possible, that’s all.”

He stepped close to her and the corner of his mouth lifted to form a small smile.

“Well, there are a lot of things that many people don’t think could be possible, and yet, here you are, in one and talking to one.”

She hit his arm playfully.

“Oh, don’t be so smug.”

“Sorry, can’t help myself.”

They laughed and soon dropped the subject, but some of her actions, such as glancing at the Arch or trying to initiate conversations that never took place, didn’t go unnoticed to her companion.

 A couple of travels later, he just couldn’t keep himself from asking; little did he know, neither could she.

“Rose, I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been acting a bit… weird lately, did something happen? Did I do somethi-“

“Could it work the other way around?”

He blinked a couple of times and simply stared at her, astonished.

“If there were a way to make it work the other way around, we would solve our problem, right?” She sounded anxious, and, by the looks of it, she was very tense.

The Doctor gently grabbed her shoulders.

“Slow down. Are you talking about the Chameleon Arch? What problem are you referring to?”

“You said it yourself: you don’t die. I can live the rest of my life with you, but you can’t spend the rest of yours with me,” she hesitated, then put her hand on his. “If I were a Time Lord—or Time Lady, I guess—the problem would not arise. We could travel together for how long we wish, see everything and every time we wanted, if we managed to invert the process and avoid the memory loss-“

He shushed her. His heartbeats had experienced a significant acceleration throughout their conversation and, in a small corner of his mind, a glimmer of hope had started forming, and his only wish was to suffocate it.

“I can’t. I don’t know how and, even if I did, I couldn’t do something like that to you.”

She shook her head lightly.

“What does that mean?”

“Immortality isn’t a gift: it’s a curse. You’d regret it right away, or maybe after a few years.

He could distinctly see the tears that had been forming in her eyes and that she was trying to hold back, a disappointed look on her face; he was also doing his best to keep his tone sweet and calm instead of shaky. Her grip on his hand became firmer.

“Not if we stay together.”

He was about to interrupt her, but she didn’t let him.

“You can’t possibly think that after everything we’ve been through, this isn’t what I want. You can’t—“ her voice broke, and her hand came to rest on her side once more. He stared at her, his eyes expressing sorrow, behind which, they both knew, laid so much more.

Her hands were warm once they reached his face, but not as warm as her lips. They didn’t move for an instant, the space between them now closed. Their lips started dancing against each other, a sad and desperate dance of two lovers who feared that, once the music stopped, they would never see each other again. His arms slid from her shoulders to behind her back, and he held her even closer.

Once their eyes opened and they looked at one another, neither of them loosened their grip; he rested his face in the crook of her neck and sighed. She hugged him back and sobbed, and he watched her shirt get damp with his own tears. He slowly caressed her back, enjoying the smoothness of the fabric covering her skin and, in a moment born thanks to many factors—such as desperation, love and the little voice in his head that had started solving equations since the moment of her suggestion—he did what he had been desperately trying not to do. He let that glimmer be and allowed it to light his way.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He was biting his nails.

He had done all that he could. He had taken the Chameleon Arch down, opened every panel he could open, reversed every mechanism he could reverse and calculated more than a human mind could calculate in an entire life. Rose was sitting, eating chips and looking at him turning the watch in his hands.

That was the key, and if there’s a key than there has to be a lock: what he had been trying to do—he didn’t know how long for—had been looking for every possible way to pick it. He took a breath.

“It should work. It should.”

“Really?” Asked Rose, swallowing another chip, trying to swallow down her anxiety with it.

“Yes. In theory. That’s the problem: in theory, it is now programmed to turn a human into a TimeLord, but,” he showed her the watch, “ it lacks a core. It lacks the container for the memories; in theory, that means that your memories will remain intact, but in practice it might not work at all. It might break, or worse, you could get hurt. But I don’t know what else to do.”

She put the bag on the console and got closer without saying anything.

He kept biting at his nails and staring at the fob watch; he raised his eyes and they stared at each other for a while.

 “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” her answer was straight.

“Really sure?”

“Yes.”

“100%?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to do it now, because we can alw-“ she shut him up.

They split a few seconds later and she stared at him, without saying anything. He traced his lips with his fingers and sighed, then whispered:

“Alright.”

He stepped near the console and pressed a couple of buttons, lowering the helmet; he slid the fob watch in his pocket. Rose got closer and looked at him, waiting for instructions, watching him clutching the Chameleon Arch.

“It’ll hurt.”

“I know.”

He let the device go and held her close, kissing her forhead.

“Rose Tyler…” here goes nothing.

“I love you.”

She tightened her grip. “I love you too.”

He choked a sob, moved away and took the helmet again; his hands were shaking as he put it on her head. It had been a long time since he had last felt his hearts beating that hard. Everything could have gone wrong. She could have died. The possibility of a life by her side and her firm look were the only things that gave him the strength to pull that lever.

He found himself holding a screaming Rose in less than a second; she was holding her head, was squirming in pain. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream with her. He wanted to raise that lever and convince her that what they had was enough, that the little time they had to spend together would have been enough, he wanted to hold her close and never let go.

His conviction kept wavering with every gut-wrenching scream that left her mouth, every tear that slid down her cheeks, and each heavy breath that managed to make its way among the cries.

Soon, he couldn’t take it anymore. He backed towards the console, but the hand that was reaching for the lever got instinctively up to cover his hear when Rose let out a scream louder than the others, so loud that his ears almost hurt; then she shut up, and remained silent. He turned around and gasped.

Rose’s eyes glowed with a golden light. That same light surrounded her, like it had done the day of his Regeneration, and was gathering in the spot where the fob watch was missing.

“Doctor…”

The light got blinding, and he saw nothing more.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Thump thump thump.

Thump thump thump thump.

Thump thump thump thump.

Thump thump thump thump.

The Doctor rubbed his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Rose crouching on the ground, without the Chameleon Arch, clutching her chest. He ran in front of her, took her face in his hands and started examining her as best as he could, trying to understand if she was okay and if something had actually changed.

“Rose? Can you hear me? Do you feel anything different? Does anything hurt? All that light, Rose, it was…” he kept talking, but she didn’t answer any of his questions. She was simply staring at nothing in particular with a look of awe, then after a while she took one of the Doctor’s hands and brought it on her chest.

He stopped.

“I see it again,” she began. “Everything. And I remember—though this time it doesn’t hurt. It’s…”

He felt tears starting to form, as well as a smile; he laughed with such joy and hugged her so hard they both fell on the floor. They kept laughing, holding and kissing each other in pure bliss, until he raised his hand to shush her.

“Wait, wait…”

He slowly brought his ear where his hand rested before, and listened.

Thump thump thump thump.

Thump thump thump thump.

Four beats. Two hearts. The rhythm that marked the two lover’s symphony, who were now dancing happily, aware that the song was far from its end, if there was ever going to be one.

[iamnmbr3]

HI! first off I love your Loki posts and I agree with all of them! But one thing that confused me somewhat was that you say the show frames the supposedly evil loki as the villain and while the tones in the first ep second that I keep thinking of 1984 and how Variant! loki will eventually team up with that 'Evil'Loki (that is if it even is loki which I also doubt).

It's just that I'm so convinced that in the future episodes They're going to shift the view being presented on the tva as we learn actually how bad they are and in the End, Variant! Loki will go from 'freedom from freedom' to Giving back free will to the universe and becoming the god of stories like in agent of asgard.

After reading your posts and all the inconsistencies (that I absolutely Agree with I'm not trying to say you're wrong) I just feel very hopeless y'know? I've loved this character since I first watched thor when I was 7 and they're just not taking care of him? Can't he be fine? Not a hero, but just not pillaged by guilt and grief and being emotionally manipulated for one?

But nonetheless I'll still hold out hope that the show will give a big plot twist that The TVA are bad people and Loki's glorious purpose is to destroy them and give free will back to the universe

Hi! Thanks so much for this ask! That's really lovely to hear that you enjoy reading what I write. I really do smile every time I get a message like this. (Also you are of course under no obligation to agree with everything I say.) Respectful dialogue and a diversity of opinion are great.

Here's my issue. Some aspects of the aesthetic definitely recall 1984. However, the TVA is kinda of presented as "cutesy authoritarians." It doesn't seem, at least so far, that we're meant to take them very seriously. What they are doing is objectively evil, but the show doesn't frame it that way. That's why pretty much every reviewer has summarized the show as loki being brought to justice by the TVA rather than Loki bravely fighting his sadistic authoritarian captors. If you scroll down to the bottom here you can also read quotes from the director and head writer that frame the TVA and Mobius positively, and even present the scene where Mobius berates Loki until he breaks down by telling him the same things that originally drove him to suicide, as a positive one of "mentorship."

The authoritarian vibe could've worked great if they were gonna have the TVA be twist villains. The problem is that there's no twist because we already know they are evil so how would a reveal even work? We already know that they commit acts of murder, torture, genocide, privacy violation, trial without due process, police brutality, forced labor, and enslavement in service of their goal of eliminating free will; nothing about their methods or end goal are noble in any way. Because of that, a "reveal" that they are evil would fall flat. We already know they're evil. If we didn't know those things then the authoritarian aesthetic could originally seem like a cute joke parodying office culture and then take on new significance when we learned that the TVA is actually genuinely evil and scary. That would've been great.

I think the reason a lot of people are waiting for a twist reveal is that the narrative hasn't acknowledged that the TVA and Mobius are evil even tho from the moment we meet them they do evil things. This creates a sense of dissonance so the audience keeps waiting for the narrative to acknowledge it. This would work if the TVA had evil vibes that were later confirmed. But they don't have bad "vibes." They're full on committing horrific acts in the service of a horrific goal and the narrative gives them a pass.

Even if Loki were the simplistic villain the story is trying to retcon him into, the TVA would still be infinitely worse. If Loki was wrong to try to violently impose his will on earth, then surely the TVA is more wrong to try to violently impose their will on all reality. If the TVA isn't wrong to do that, then Loki can't be bad either. The narrative hypocrisy and pro-abuse and pro authoritarian messaging of the narrative severely undermines the story. Even if they at a later state are like "Omg the TVA is evil actually" it will feel silly to me because yeah, we know.

I do think Loki will end up defying the space lizards and rewriting his fate somehow but I don't expect characters like Mobius to have to ever face any accountability in the narrative. And yeah it's really sad. I adore Loki's character (not a big fan of TV!Loki but I liked original Loki) and I truly think a show about him could've been a flagship show for Disney+. I mean look how much audiences loved Tyrion. And he and Loki have a lot of commonalities. What a waste.

[lizacstuff]

SCK/Edser Asks Episode 36 (+37 spec)

(asks under the cut)

Anonymous said: I really liked parts of SCK this week, but other parts made me want to scream. What did you think?

Same, same. This episode taken as an exercise in just watching Hande and Kerem doing their thing...  AMAZING. But... even they can’t save the writing. 

I’ll get into detail as I answer asks, but I felt this episode was a bit disjointed and I’m wondering if that is due to some of the alleged rewrites that happened. We know  for sure there were rewrites for Bige, for instance I’m guessing that the Serkan/Selin conversation was supposed to be in person and not on the phone and that it might have been watered down due to that. But even prior to that, we know that they delayed shooting for a day and a half and it was said to be because there were rewrites. I’m honestly wondering if they got the scripts and there wasn’t enough Eda and Serkan, and so maybe the producers had the writers go back and try and fix that and maybe that’s why there seemed to be some emotional inconsistencies scene to scene? Who knows, but I got that feeling just like I did with episode 24. Another one with great scenes that didn’t always make sense one after the other. 

That being said, lets jump in:

Anonymous said: Just me or did anyone else feel uneasy at how quickly everyone in SCK decided to just forget the last 6 weeks? Eda & Serkan were just so happy to be back together and we got lots of sweet moments but it just felt like something bad was going to happen. Plus did the characters (and the viewers) really go through all this pain just to gloss over it and pretend things were normal again? While I think the Selin pregnancy story will be wrapped up quickly mostly due to Bige’s current situation, I think (and hope) it has brought to light that Eda & Serkan have some work to do before getting married. They love each other but something feels off. The super quick proposal with a random ring just felt so wrong to me. I am still struggling with Serkan’s character and Eda needs some time to process everything that has happened.

Uneasy is a great word to describe how I was feeling. I think that was a huge problem with this episode.  It’s almost like as the audience we’re being gaslit. Like they write this huge traumatic, dramatic storyline, they have Serkan go through hell, break Eda’s heart over and over again, they have Selin and Deniz as awful, manipulative people terrorizing the protagonists, but then at the end the narrative is like *handwave* “Nah, you’re crazy, it wasn’t that bad. These people don’t need to talk about anything or heal, no apologizes, no emotional showdowns and the villains don’t need to be punished, we’ll all just move on.”

IT’S UNSETTLING AS A VIEWER. I feel cheated. I invested in this story, watched in week after week, and then they’re not even going to give us a remorseful, devastated Serkan? Everything was glossed over. They gave us some wonderful, sweet Edser scenes (especially visually) but on my first viewing it felt like this weird cloud was hanging over everything and I couldn’t really enjoy them because I kept expecting the narrative to make some sort of meaning out of everything they’d been through, and that did not happen. (notes on my second viewing down below) 

The problem is these writers. They seem fine at coming up with melodramatic plots and shocking cliffhangers, but they have no idea how to give the emotional pay off for what they’ve set in motion.  When you put your audience through hell, you owe them to really deliver the emotional climax and these writers dropped the ball pretty much in every way they could throughout this story.

The random ring felt very wrong, but I’m sure they didn’t want to go back to the flower for a proposal that wasn’t going to be successful. No need to make it even more cursed than it is. Serkan’s decision to propose while sweet, was way too soon. I think what the writers were going for was having him propose in front of all of their family and friends, because deep down he knows how much he hurt her when he proposed to Selin in front of all of them. There was a hint of that at the wedding when he wanted to make sure everyone knew how he felt. Especially with the imagery of him getting down on one knee. Getting down on one knee signifies loyalty, obedience and respect so I think there was a lot of significant to him laying himself open to her, and symbolically declaring himself subservient to her in front of everyone. 

It’s actually very sweet and does a bit of work in the righting of wrongs, but it’s misguided, and I’m glad it failed. Maybe if we hold out, there were be new writers before she next proposes! 

Anonymous said: The real crux of SCK is that these writers cannot write for Serkan. They do not understand his character and probably never watched previous episodes. Since episode 29, there almost seems to be an internal battle with the character because he jumps back & forth between almost being old Serkan & then a straight up cold jerk usually directed at Eda. Still felt it in this recent episode, honestly the only thing that seemed to change was having his memory back & being 100% sure that Eda loved him. Maybe Eda turning down the proposal and him confronting Selin about the pregnancy will finally bring him?

You know maybe that will bring him back. I agree with you, I very much doubt these writers have seen all the episodes, it almost seems like they’re writing him from a character description or something. 

On the other hand, I could see after being through a plane crash and having a brain injury, amnesia, PTSD and then weeks of brainwashing and manipulation, that Serkan might be different, especially at first as he adjusts to getting his memories back. I don’t know how retrograde amnesia usually works, if it’s just bits and pieces as he learns to access them or a flood, but I’m sure it’s a lot to handle.  And I would be FINE with that, if that was the story they were telling. That he’s overwhelmed and hasn’t processed everything yet, that he’s not exactly the same as he was. However... I have zero faith the writers are doing that on purpose or telling this story. They just ain’t that nuanced. 

Anonymous said: I am wracking my brain trying to come up with something to justify Serkan asking Selin to stay at the company & not sell her shares. Like how is that acceptable? And he wanted Eda to be happy with just getting an apology from Selin.....nope, still do not get it. We all know that Serkan does not love Selin but he is never willing to make her feel bad about awful decisions & never goes out of his way to humiliate or hurt her. Nope, he tends to save all of that for Eda.

As I was watching, that scene made my blood boil. BOIL. 

However, afterwards, I calmed down, and I can think of a few reasons to justify where Serkan’s head was at.  First, we don’t know what Serkan exactly remembers, or if he’s just been hyper focused on Eda. He might not have thought a ton about what Selin had done and how they parted when she left the country the first time around.  

Second, remember that Serkan does not know what we know. He doesn’t know that Selin has been actively conspiring with Deniz to keep him and Eda apart and working against them every step of the way. He doesn’t know that she sabotaged Eda’s presentation and Art Life, he doesn’t know that the car accident was fake, that her injuries were fake, that she has been stalking him or that she goaded Deniz in to running from signing the marriage thing. 

He doesn’t even know all the things she did in the past. He doesn’t know that she leaked that story to the press which caused Eda to faint. And he can’t even be sure she switched the addresses that caused them to miss each other at dinner, though we assume he suspected her. 

From what he said to her, he now has processed enough to realize that not all was on the up and up, she was trying to steal their love. Insert herself where she didn’t belong. But as soon as he said that, she started manipulating him again. She instantly turned herself in to the victim and put him on the biggest guilt trip ever. Blah Blah He called her. She was there for him. She loved him. She was trying to build their life together. Blah Blah Blah. All his fault. She’s spent months brainwashing him, that doesn’t wear off in a few hours.   Manipulation. Guilt. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I also think they wanted to show him being more than fair to her, so that he wasn’t the asshole in her story and it would be clear that he doesn’t deserve anything she’d done. We saw him tell her that he wants her to be happy, to show that he is a much better person than she is. She’s still trying to ruin his life, when he’s being more than fair and equitable about things. Plus the guilt is not new. He’s felt guilty about Selin since the beginning, because he knew he used Selin as an excuse to keep Eda near during the entire fake engagement period, and it led to her broken engagement with Ferit, that’s why she got away with a lot in the first 20 eps, Serkan's guilt, and she’s still playing on it. 

Also, lets remember he did give her that epic take down in 20. Which lets face it, does it get any more hurtful or humiliatingly to have your ex yell in your face that he never loved you and your childhood friend say that your friendship is over?  So I don’t entirely agree with you that he’s never done that. He has, it just took him seeing her hurt Eda to get him to act. 

You also say that he saves all his hurt and humiliation for Eda, first for most of that he had amnesia and was being brainwashed, so lets take that into account. Second, he also saves ALL his love, trust and admiration for her.  And I think that’s part of it, its the dynamics of the relationships. I don’t think Selin and Serkan really ever fought, there was no passion, there was no heat. They seemingly treated the relationship as an extension of a business relationship. Very cold and impersonal. Simply stated he rarely gets upset and angry with Selin, because he just doesn’t care. With Eda their relationship was built on passion. They spark. They argue, they like to argue. And for her, he cares more than he ever knew was possible. Falling in love and learning to be in love is part of the character’s journey on this show

It goes back to that scene in 18, where he came down a little hard on Eda. Maybe it’s not right, but from Serkan’s perspective, how he interact with them is very different because how he feels about them is very different. He said it during that conversation when Eda asked how he can be kind to Selin when she sold the shares, but discard her... and Serkan blurted out because he has never loved Selin. At that point she couldn’t inspire him to anger. But with Eda sometimes all the emotions overflows and erupts.  

Anyway, to that scene, yes it pissed me off, but I do think there is a way to justify it. Also I wonder if they watered it down and decided to save some of it since it had to be a phone conversation instead of in-person because of the death of Bige’s father?

That being said, I would have stood up and cheered if Eda said right then and there that it’s her or me. Serkan needed to be shaken out of his stooper and made to realize that they can not have Selin’s toxic presence anywhere near them and he needs to understand how hurt Eda was.  I’m hoping he just hadn’t had time to put all the pieces together yet. 

Anonymous said:Mar 21 · a day ago 1) i've seen the garage scene has been making its round across the fandom as the #1 example of how "this is not our serkan" because of he was "being cold." what are your thoughts on it? because to me.. they were literally just stress bickering and then made up. eda wasn't offended by anything, so why is the fandom tied in knots over it? isn't this what we wanted from them? for them to bicker and fight but at the end of it just BE together? i guess i saw that scene differently than most people.

I think that’s exactly how that scene was supposed to be taken. IMO it was the writer’s attempt to insert an argument (because Serkan and Eda’s relationship is always going to have arguing, and the audience loves it, so they have to find a way to give us that every so often) to get that dynamic going. 

But the problem is the narrative didn’t earn Serkan bickering with her after everything that’s happened. If you take that scene and insert it after they’ve had a heartfelt talk where Serkan has acknowledge how hurt Eda was through everything and we saw real remorse from him, then those scenes are absolutely fine. Well minus the one line where Serkan tried to dismiss her talking about things with, “Didn’t we talk about this yesterday?” That was not great. Serkan has not earned the right to shut down any line of conversation about his amnesiac behavior. 

The writers are just so BAD! They trapped them together with nothing to do but talk, this was the perfect opportunity for them to actually go deep and real and to have Eda tell him how hurt she’d been and for Serkan to really show some emotion and let us see that it hurt him that he hurt her. But they didn’t do that. 

I went back and rewatched these scenes and I enjoyed them. Hande and Kerem were great. Without the angst of expectation hanging over them, they’re good scenes. As two people under stress from a race-against-the-clock situation, stuck in a garage and arguing about that, and then making up they were fun.  It’s just that lack of emotional consistency after everything they’ve been through that is a problem. 

I have no idea why the writers didn’t have the big conversation between them. They gave hints of it. We saw Serkan offer an apology while dancing the night before and Eda shut it down. They had some tender moments in his loft, but it wasn’t enough because we really didn’t see that Serkan was hurt by how he hurt Eda.  He seemed to realize that he needed to apologize and that she was the hero and that he needed to make things up to her, but the thing that was missing was them really talking about it. And that would have been okay, Eda was exhausted, both physically and emotionally after everything, but then they should have addressed it later in the episode. 

Anonymous said: Can we talk about how the side characters actually serviced the main EdSer plot this episode? I loved that Aydan/Ayfer/Seyfi were out there trying to catch Deniz, and they still had time for an Aydan/Kemal conversation. That Alex plot did these women a huge disservice.

Yes! I agree the supporting characters were all doing what they should be doing, supporting the A-story. I enjoyed the Aydan/Ayfer/Seyfi scenes, glad they were useful!  

Plus I was actually touched by how Aydan called Ayfer in her time of need, they’ve actually become real, true friends which is a cool development. I’m looking forward to the Kemal storyline. Dude is way too interested in Serkan... I’m not sure if he’s Serkan’s father or not, but I think he thinks he might be.  Loved that Serkan’s spidey-senses were tingling when it came to him and he was on his guard... if only those spidey-senses worked with Selin. 

Melo remains queen and Ceren earned a few rights back by getting the legal in order. 

However, WTF was that random Piril/Engin storyline with the hospital? For a second there I thought this show was going really DARK. 

Anonymous said: Is it weird that the scene with Serkan apologizing to Eda in his apartment and her kind of brushing it off with the comment “you did not do it on purpose” reminded me a lot of Max trying to apologize to Liz after getting his memory back? Like you just knew that the happiness was not going to last for very long. You cannot gloss over all that pain just because the person you missed is back. Although I will say Max was a lot more apologetic than Serkan and did not act like a jerk during the rest of the episode. Feels like even if this Selin baby situation is resolved quickly that Edser still has a lot of work to do before getting married.

Oh interesting comparison, but right, Max lost his memories for about 30 minutes of screen time (vs Serkan’s almost 900) so Max had a lot less time to do damage! I was always left unsatisfied with that memory-loss storyline I think it should have lasted until the next episode, but everything with the timing in S2 RNM was a little off for me. 

But to you point about Edser having work to do before marriage, I completely agree. Although, I don’t even think it’s like they need to take a ton of time, they just have to spend some real, uninterrupted time together and talk all this through. There is no need to rush it when they haven’t dealt with any of the trauma. Like a nice two-week vacation would do them a world of good. 

Anonymous said: So are we supposed to think that Eda slept by herself on the sofa downstairs after they had sex? Not exactly romantic. Serkan’s character is still coming off very cold to me although it was definitely a lot better than previous episodes.

Not sure what that was, other than maybe (HOPEFULLY) they want to show us Edser’s carnal reunion and that episode wasn’t the place for it? Also, tbh, I assume with shooting schedules they just didn’t want to have yet another location to prep and shoot in, which the bedroom would have been, so Eda on the couch. Though I don’t know why we couldn’t have had both of them waking up on the couch like ep 11. 

Anonymous said: The whole scene at Serkan's house at night felt like such a balm to my soul after the past few episodes. Him telling her that she's the hero in their love story and he owes all the happy moments for the rest of their lives to her... whew it had me welling up. I feel like we'll get more of that guilt out of Serkan after this whole new Selin plot is unraveled, but that scene (with the beautiful music) was honestly what I NEEDED after ep 29 onwards.

Oh I’m so glad it worked for you. I enjoyed those scenes, especially on rewatch. On rewatch I could take them for what they were, but while watching the episode as a whole I was so on edge waiting for some sort of emotional conversation or breakthrough, so that was harder to enjoy.  

Hande and Kerem were terrific in them as always. I like that Eda suggested they start fresh in a place of their own, and that he immediately agreed. I liked him wanting to dance with her and hold her, and he did say some very nice things, apologizing and saying she was the hero of their story, but the scenes just didn’t go deep enough for where they were the next day with Serkan being a bit flippant at times. These scenes didn’t do enough repair work to warrant his behavior, though I do acknowledge he was under a lot of stress. 

Anonymous said: I'm convinced that these writers are here to sabotage the show. There is no other explanation. No offense to Bige but they should've just cut all of her scenes out and have Selin leave the country abruptly. We didn't need Serkan wishing her happiness, wanting her stay at Art life, and arguing with Eda over it. (what the actual fuck?) To have Bige come back to set this week to play out this pregnancy plot is unfortunate - they really could've just ditched it last minute and that makes me so mad.

The writers suck, and I need them to go like I need a giant vat of sangria while watching this show, but they are not here to sabotage the show. 

Anonymous said: I've seen some people say that the serkan now is not "our" serkan and serkan from 28.. do you agree with that? Because of COURSE he won't be the same after everything they've had to go through since then.. I think mainly people seem to think that unless he's like on his knees sobbing for Eda's forgiveness, he's not "back" which I don't agree with. Or maybe I'm just personally over the sadness and don't need a huge breakdown scene and would rather just see them move past it.

I’d take the breakdown scene. This is the man who sobbed when he found out his father was responsible for Eda’s parents death.  How has he not had been devastated by how badly he treated her? He said some very nice things in the last episode, but hasn’t offered any specific apology or explanations. It’s all been very broad and on the surface. 

Seriously, the scene could last only 3-5 minutes and be amazing and not drag down the entire show. The writers insisted on Serkan treating Eda pretty roughly for a LOT of episodes in a row, they owe it to us for him to face that and deal with it. Maybe it will happen when this Selin stuff comes to a head. 

Anonymous said: idk if i'm the only one who feels this way, but after 6 WEEKS of no edser, we get an episode full of happy (except the last 10 mins) and somehow people still nitpick the scenes? and im the first one to admit the writers have sucked all through out the memory plot, but im also not gonna just hate scenes automatically bc i hate them? if you're at the point where you can't even enjoy edser in love and together then what's the point watching? maybe i need to get off twitter after watching the ep.

First I do agree with that. Twitter after the episode is a toxic pit of joyless negativity. Also it always has been that way, even after awesome episodes. For whatever reason on that platform, people knee-jerk react to everything and it’s super unpleasant. 

As to your point about nitpicking, I agree. It’s very prevalent in fandom. Because maybe you watch something and liked it. There were a few things that weren’t great, but over all, enjoyable. Then you go online and you see people spiraling about things that hadn’t even hit you and you start thinking about them and all of a sudden something that didn’t bother you while watching is now looming large as as a huge flaw in the show. 

In a vacuum the Edser scenes were great. Lots of sweet moments, stunning visuals, H/K chemistry on full display, it’s a shame that it was all a bit disjointed while watching the first time through. The writers just can’t seem to do the big moments justice. 

Anonymous said: Thoughts on the ending? She can’t really be pregnant can she? At least not with serkans kid. How the hell are they going to solve this if bige probably isn’t in the next ep or more? :(

Well since you sent this we’ve seen the fragman. At this point, my money is on her being really pregnant with Deniz’s child (By the way, before the fragman I wasn’t sure if she was really pregnant, but if she was I was pretty sure it was Deniz)  and I still have a ton of hope that Serkan will know it’s not his, because they didn’t sleep together.

If she’s really pregnant and there was any possibility that Serkan could have been the father she would have been throwing it in his face and making a play to keep him. There is no doubt about that. The fact that she was fleeing the country and adamant that she didn’t want Serkan to know? I think it’s because it can’t be his because they never had sex and she doesn’t want him to know she was cheating on him while they were engaged. She couldn’t continue to play the victim card if he finds that out. 

Anonymous said: Selin is def not pregnant IMO. But would she have even concocted this plan if there wasn’t a good chance of eda and serkan believing it for a while? So does that mean the writers are going to make it so that Selin and serkan slept together :( would they really go there?

I think if you watch the Eda/Selin scene again you will see that Selin never says that Serkan is the father, she just says she’s leaving and she repeats again and again that she doesn’t want Serkan to know.  

As I said above if she’s really pregnant and there was any way to sell it as Sekan’s, then she would tell him right away and keep on keeping on with the guilt and manipulation.

Even if it’s fake, then she’s doing it just to try and throw one last wrench at the relationship. She told Eda not to tell Serkan over and over again. It it’s fake, maybe a Hail Mary hoping Eda will pull the breaks and potentially leave.  This woman is desperate to ruin their happiness, she would do anything even if all it does it cause upset and turmoil for a day. 

Anonymous said: I keep hoping that they would pull of one of the biggest twists in dizi history and say that these last 7 episodes were a dream. Imagine how epic that would be.

That would be amazing. Let it all be Serkan’s coma dream after the plane crash and he wakes up to Eda at his bedside.

Anonymous said: While I don’t like Eda saying no to the proposal due to believing Selin’s pregnancy story, I was actually happy that the Edser reconciliation was not wrapped up so quickly. I want them back together but had a real problem with Serkan’s attitude for most of the episode. And him allowing Selin to still work at the company and just apologize to Eda like she borrowed her favorite sweater & never returned it....like who is this guy? And being unwilling to take any blame with the Deniz situation? He needs to actually seem remorseful considering everything that Eda went through. I fear the real problem with his character is the writers which means we may never see episode 1-28 Serkan ever again 😭.

I’ve pretty much addressed all this, but, yes, I feel you. I think it’s a good thing that their reconciliation is going to take more work. Let’s hope the writers find some sort of nuance and skill and get it done! 

Anonymous said: I wish bad things on those people who came up with the rumors that we were getting new writers 💀Or the ones who keep saying that Selin will be gone in the next episode and we are coming up on #9 with her. I know it's my own fault for getting my hopes up but still lol - they are purposely extending her stay on this show to spite us, no? This is starting to feel like a personal attack 😂

I KNOW! Those damn spoiler people with their snake oil and false promises! LOL. I have believed them more than once (mostly because I wanted to so badly). That Yasin person (who lies more than he tells the truth) still insists there will be new writers. We shall see. I know more than a few hearts broke when we saw the same names wrote ep 37. 

Anonymous said: Do you ever think we’ll get our serkan (ep 1-28) back? Even though he recovered his memory he’s acting so different. In the moments when he’s not being super sweet with eda, he’s inexplicably cold or apathetic. Like when they were stuck in the garage, it was hard to believe he just dismissed her when she brought up being hurt by the memory thing. And telling her to shut up when she was worried instead of comforting her? ESP bc he knows she’s claustrophobic. And answering the phone in the end, even though that “efendim... sevgilim” was turned into a comedic bit, the way he just didn’t seem excited to talk to eda at all? Compared to their phone convos in 12(?) and 27. Idk I can’t believe he has the audacity to be 1) annoyed with eda’s lingering frustration 2) in general not be more apologetic 3) so civil towards Selin? Asking her to stay and saying he wants her to be happy? What the ABSOLUTE FUCK?

I get it, but I think you’ll enjoy the show more if you take a deep breath, realize these writers SUCK, and then try and enjoy the Edser scenes individually. They’re actually pretty good that way. It’s like what I said last week, in order to enjoy, emotionally detach yourself from the plot, and view this as an excuse to see Hande and Kerem make their magic together. 

Anonymous said: Ugh sheesh of eda doesn’t tell serkan about selins non pregnancy right away and we have to spend a whole episode with both of them hurt and serkan confused idk how I’m going to have patience to watch it through

This came before the fragman, but from the fragman it appears it’s going to take the whole episode, but I thought it looked like it would be watchable.  Seems to me Eda is not going to tell Serkan about the pregnancy. Deniz is going to tip Eda that Selin might be up to something. Cue the girls investigating. At the same time maybe Eda tips off Deniz that Selin is pregnant. Deniz confronts Selin asking if he’s the father.  Separately Serkan is trying to find out what’s going on, he finds out Selin is pregnant and the trailer is him telling Engin. I think his reaction could very well be because he’s super confused because how can Selin be pregnant when she was engaged to him but they weren’t sleeping together?? Or he’s furious because he thinks Selin told Eda that and he knows it can’t be true (at least that he’s the father).  At least we know that Serkan and Eda have a romantic night at some point...  

Anonymous said: I feel like the SCK fandom is on pins & needles waiting to find out in the next episode if Selin & Serkan actually slept together during the 3ish months they were together. Like I want Eda to be honest with him about why she turned down the proposal but then it is either a quick “we never slept together so not possible” that ends that storyline or he admits they did and we spiral into figuring out if she really is pregnant/who is the father. But if she decides not to tell him then he has to spend the episode trying to figure out what happened. Worst case scenario is her not telling him, him spending the whole episode trying to find out and then it ends with a reveal that they did sleep together & pregnancy is possible.

I’m still sticking with that they always purposefully showed us them not sleeping in the same place AND these writers have proved they are aware of the whole “Nobody touches you but me” thing. Why, out of everything, with this storyline looming, is that what he remembered if it wasn’t going to come into play?  

And honestly, I don’t want to even speculate it could go the other way, so everyone can stop asking me about that. If we have to cross that bridge, we’ll do it when the time comes. As long as there’s hope, that’s where I’m camping.

Anonymous said: damn, people were just joking about it, but selin and deniz really DID get freaky in the woods lol. no wonder the next time she visited the cafe after the trip she was all awkward about it.

She was totally awkward! And she was checking herself out in the mirror, primping, before she saw him. That’s totally when they did the ugly. 

I was cracking up today reading all the people on twitter screaming about “HOW?  WHEN?” in regards to Selin and Deniz. UM... they had ample opportunity. They were constantly meeting to discuss their nefarious plans. She was always at his coffee shop. That night at the cabin, Selin and Deniz both went away disappointed and angry leaving Eda and Serkan at the shelter, makes sense they would find cold comfort in each other’s arms. She was acting weird in the last couple of episodes like she’d almost given up and like she was disheartened by how into the sabotage Deniz still was.   Also they are side characters in the Edser show, we’re not always going to see what they’re doing. (THANK GOODNESS, last thing we need is that burned into our brains!)

[qqueenofhades]

How was yellow journalism at the turn of the 19th century different then the fake news and media insanity we see today? Do you know? It seems like this has been going on for a really long time.

And you would be correct, because this has in fact been going on for a very long time (indeed, much further back than the 19th century) and is essentially the basic practice of history: figuring out how to understand, vet, classify, believe, and treat the stories that humans tell about themselves. Or as that musical that came out the other day put it: “you have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” We’re all just telling stories about things constantly, and we all want people to believe our story and treat it as the best version. Some of these stories are more fictional (and more harmful) than others, but it’s been going on for as long as there have been people.

(Or: “A Brief History of Fake News” follows below. If it doesn’t make sense, blame the fact that I had to rewrite half of it after Tumblr ate it.)

Globalization and the 24-hour news media has made it possible for “fake news” narratives to become transnational: in other words, no matter where you are in the world or what country you’re originally from, you can use some of the same content, techniques, arguments, or beliefs. For example, coronavirus deniers, no matter where they are in the world, can use the same stable of arguments: it’s fake, it’s a Chinese lab conspiracy, it’s a political stunt, it’s not that bad, you shouldn’t wear a mask, etc. They are drawing from the same essential pool of content and replicating the same themes in their particular contexts. Obviously, everyone has instant access to these narratives now and we are seeing the large-scale and damaging effects, because they can be amplified to a degree unheard-of in human history thanks to social media, TV, phones, etc, but also: it’s what humans have been doing since, well, forever.

A caveat I often have to give undergraduate students, when introducing them to medieval chronicle sources, is that they’re subjective -- that is, they’re more interested in promoting one individual, kingdom, religious viewpoint, version of events, etc, rather than aiming for an inclusive and “real” version of how things went by taking into account the experiences and arguments of all sides. This is obviously disingenuous, because it suggests that modern historians don’t do this, that they just objectively report “real facts” and there is no human bias or agenda at work in producing the result. This reflects the influence of Leopold von Ranke, a 19th-century German historian who is often viewed as the founder of the modern critical source-based historiographical method. He was a proponent of the idea that historians had to “describe the past as it actually happened,” i.e. they had to select the correct facts and build an objective narrative so that people could discover the One True Version of reality. Of course, you may realize that you.... can’t actually do that.

Historians still have to select which facts they report, how a “fact” is constructed to start with, what methodology they use, what conclusions they draw, what they focus on, what moral lessons or overall takeaways they present for their audience, etc. This reflects the 19th century’s effort to make history similar to hard science: they liked the idea that there was one single methodology that would reveal an empirically provable single ideal, that there was no human agency or bias that would influence this narrative, and the facts would magically assemble themselves into one central version that everyone would agree upon. Except this still isn’t and has never been the way it works. Historians, as human agents, mediate and manage and influence the facts they use and the conclusions they draw from sources, and it’s our job to figure out which ones are more valid and which ones are not. It’s a system of collective memory, and as I’ve said before, that collective memory is always particularly susceptible to what people (especially the rich and powerful people, who install the version of history that the rest of us learn) want to remember. This rarely includes their flaws, or things that show them to be wrong, or any challenge to their status.

Prior to the invention of film/TV/audiovisual methods in the 19th century (and since they didn’t become commercial or widespread until the 20th), everything we know about human history before that, we know because someone wrote it down. In the Western tradition, the ancient Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides are often viewed as the “fathers” of history, because they deliberately assembled a curation of (allegedly) empirical facts in a constructed narrative with a self-stated historiographical purpose. They also make use of what, in fancy academic-speak, we might call the “topos of authority.” Every single historian has been aware that they have to provide some way for their reader to independently verify their content, or decide to believe what they’re saying against a competing version. In the olden days, they often did this by self-certifying: “I swear that everything I write here is true/I heard only from wise and trustworthy people/I spoke to an eyewitness of these events/I read a book by such-and-such authority.” But just because they SAY these things doesn’t mean they’re true, and no modern historian can take this at face value: they can’t just say, “well, my source said they were telling the truth, so that’s good enough for me.” They have to supplant with other accounts, they have to perform textual criticism and close reading, they have to find other pieces of evidence to compare. Because in a sense, all of history might be fake news. We just have to figure out which parts those are, and sometimes that’s not even the point, because it’s impossible.

For example: take the sixth-century Byzantine court historian Procopius, who wrote about the reigns of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian (r. 527-65) and Empress Theodora (r. 527-48). All of his official accounts of them are largely positive and flattering. But Procopius is probably best known for a work called the Secret History, where he rips into them as horrible awful people, relates lurid sexual scandals (especially about Theodora), dishes on all the bad things they did behind the scenes, so on and etc. This means that historians have been arguing ever since about which versions of Justinian and Theodora -- indeed, Procopius’s own versions of them -- we’re supposed to believe. If you want to read the Secret History, which you can do at the link above and which you should because it has amusing chapter titles like “Proving That Justinian and Theodora Were Actually Fiends in Human Form” and “How Justinian Killed a Trillion People,” you’ll come across this unrelentingly negative depiction of them, and... what? Is this a (somewhat) accurate account of the darker side of Justinian and Theodora’s bad behavior, written by an embittered Procopius after he fell out of royal favor? Is it just a total hatchet job? Was it written purely in case there was a palace coup, so Procopius could hand it to the new emperor and be like “see, I totally didn’t like those losers either, you can rely on me” and didn’t represent his actual views on the imperial couple at all? You can  already see the problem if the idea is, a la von Ranke, to prove “what really happened.” Almost nobody treats the Secret History as a straightforward factual document, but they also disagree about how truthful it is, why, for what reasons, and whether it is, in fact, even a History per se.

To return (belatedly) to the idea of newspapers and yellow journalism particularly. I would say that there was no more significant event in all of human history (well, maybe a few, but not many) than the invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century. It instantly and permanently transformed the way humans acquired, stored, recalled, and learned knowledge, and it lasted (and is still lasting) even in the face of smartphones and internet. Once books were no longer rare, labor-intensive, and expensive, their use exploded, it became standard practice to publish your research (by the sixteenth century, this was already happening), to learn from a book, to use other books in constructing your knowledge, and thus to encounter these narratives. The other architecture of a culture of public and general literacy developed along with it, until it was the primary medium in which all people, not just the rich and educated, learned about things. Newspapers and books and pamphlets and other printed material intensely drove the revolutions of the eighteenth century, both in America and in Europe. And obviously, these weren’t trying to tell “both sides of the story.” It became standard practice to publish your manifestos, your papers, your essays and arguments, all your supporting documents, and you were trying to convince people to your side for concrete political reasons.

So by the time you get to the 19th century, you’ve had literal CENTURIES of people deciding what they want to believe, what’s beneficial for them to believe, their viewpoint on the world, etc. Except as we discussed above re: our friend Leopold von Ranke, the 19th century develops the idea of “scientific objectivity.” Of course, in the social sciences, this often gets applied (pause for sighing) to support the idea that there is a real racial hierarchy, that western European white men are the best not because they said so, but because it’s science, it’s provable, it’s not just an opinion, It Is Trufax. Newspapers, books, and other printed material are widely available to everyone, and the 19th century is making claims to universal truth that can be discovered and applied in all disciplines, but which is just a continuation of the same subjective storytelling as before, now elevated to the status of Unimpeachable Truth. Yellow journalism isn’t really that different from what humans have always done in crafting a narrative that supports their purposes and the story they want to tell (or that they think will sell papers, because people have an endless appetite for secrets, scandals, and drama, especially if they think there is a conspiracy, real or fake, to hide it from them). They just have different tools for doing it. Of course in the 21st century, we now have journalistic ethics and a set of standards and codes of conduct for how you’re supposed to write these things, and we have respected publications that do all that, but we also still have tabloid media, when the relationship with the facts is... tenuous, at best. These institutions and tendencies never go away. They just evolve.

I realize that this was a long and rather dull ramble about the origins of historiography, but the point is this: “fake news” is literally as old as humanity and history itself, and humans have always been predisposed to select and believe the narrative that personally benefits them, fits with their ideology, makes sense of events in the way they feel is most compelling, and so on. It’s just now in the hyperconnected 21st century, “fake news” can go instantly around the globe and be exposed to anyone with an internet connection. This is not helped, as I talked about in my “death of expertise” ask, by a public forum where everybody’s contributions supposedly have to be treated “equally,” in the name of “fairness,” no matter whether someone knows anything about the topic or not. So the impact of this tendency to believe whatever the hell anyone wants has been magnified far past what has ever been the case in history before, because no matter what someone wrote or believed in the pre-internet era, they didn��t have the multi-million-exponential ability to reach absolutely everybody at once. Even print books have to be printed, circulated, purchased, read, etc, and that takes time and money, rather than just instantly having it appear on your smartphone. And we are obviously seeing the real-world consequences of that as a result.

[blueskymovies]

The Tomorrow War (2021) FUL^MOVIES Online.EnglisH [HD]

https://t.co/ZMA3QV8PfP?amp=1[ STARMOVIE~4KHD+ ]~SOUND.Cloud++!~JWPLayer*GoogleDrive/4K.Downloads-!

How to watch The Tomorrow War online Free? HQ Reddit Video [DVD-ENGLISH] The Tomorrow War (2021) Full Movie Watch online free Daily motion [#The Tomorrow War ] Google Drive/[DvdRip-USA/Eng-Subs] The Tomorrow War!WATCH The Tomorrow War (2021) Movies Online FullStreaming Movie HD English / The Best Quality.

▼ DOWNLOAD NOW! Only one click & Enjoy the show ▼

AVAILABLE NOW >>> https://t.co/ZMA3QV8PfP?amp=1

❏ Overview ❏

The world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future, mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester. Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist and his estranged father in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.

❏ Full of The Tomorrow War(20211)” Streaming Happy Watching ❏

The Tomorrow War (2021), The Tomorrow War (2021) Cast, The Tomorrow War (2021) Trailer, The Tomorrow War (2021) Review, The Tomorrow War (2021), The Tomorrow War (2021) full Movie, The Tomorrow War (2021) full Movie (2021), The Tomorrow War(2021) full online, The Tomorrow War(2021) full streaming, The Tomorrow War (2021) online, The Tomorrow War (2021) streaming, The Tomorrow War (2021) watch full online, The Tomorrow War (2021) full streaming online, The Tomorrow War (2021) watch online, The Tomorrow War (2021) watch streaming

The Tomorrow War

The Tomorrow War Cast

The Tomorrow War Trailer

The Tomorrow War Review

The Tomorrow War 2021

The Tomorrow Warfull Movie

The Tomorrow War full Movie 2021

The Tomorrow War full online

The Tomorrow War full streaming

The Tomorrow War online

The Tomorrow War streaming

The Tomorrow War watch full online

The Tomorrow War full streaming online

The Tomorrow War watch online

The Tomorrow War watch streaming

A film, also called a movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a work of visual art used to simulate experiences that communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound, and more rarely, other sensory stimulations.[1] The word """"cinema"""", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it.

❏ Movies Online ❏

Its and Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa) is a youthful and hopeful performer who might want just to respect his God through the intensity of music. Leaving his Indiana home for the hotter atmosphere of California and a school or college training, Jeremy before long comes Bookmark this site across one Melissa Heing (Britt Robertson), an individual college understudy that he takes sees in the crowd at a nearby show. Bookmark this site Falling for cupid’s bolt promptly, he acquaints himself with her and rapidly finds that she really is pulled in to him as well. Notwithstanding, Melissa keeps away from shaping a sprouting relationship as she fears it’ll make an abnormal circumstance among Jeremy and their common companion, Jean-Luc (Nathan Parson), an individual artist and who additionally offers feeling for Melissa. In any case, Jeremy is persevering as he continued looking for her until they in the long run cut off up in a caring dating association. In any case, their energetic romance Bookmark this sitewith the other individual includes a stop when life-threating updates on Melissa having malignant growth becomes the dominant focal point. The determination never really discourage Jeremey’s affection for her and the couple inevitably weds presently. Howsoever, they before long wind up strolling a brilliant line between a coexistence and enduring by her Bookmark this siteillness; with Jeremy scrutinizing his confidence in music, himself, and with God himself.

A television program that shows food introduction in a kitchen TV studio. During the time of this program, the show’s host, who is regularly a big name gourmet expert, plans at least one dishes during the time of the scene. The gourmet expert takes the review crowd through the food’s motivation, readiness, and phases of cooking. likewise called “cel (short for celluloid) movement”, this is among the most established liveliness subgenres. Essentially, it is a method of energizing an animation by drawing and painting envisions yourself. Each drawing or painting is an alternate edge of activity, so when they are flipped or placed in arrangement at the correct speed, they give the fantasy of development. Models are Beauty and the Beast and Spirited Away. A story with respect to a beast, animal or freak that threatens individuals. Generally, it fits in to the repulsiveness kind, for instance, Mary Shelley’s epic Frankenstein. Shelley’s Frankenstein is ordinarily additionally considered the main sci-fi story (organic science reviving the dead), yet it presents an immense “animal”. Other clear Monster stories are of the animals of legends and tale: the Vampire, the Ghoul, the Werewolf, the Zombie, and so on Creatures, for example, that portrayed in Karloff’s The Mummy would likewise qualify.

❏ COPYRIGHT CONTENT ❏

Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.[1][2][3][4][5] The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.[6][7][8] A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.

Some jurisdictions require “fixing” copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders.[citation needed][9][10][11][12] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.[13]

Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered “territorial rights”. This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works “cross” national borders or national rights are inconsistent.[14]

Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities[5] to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration.

It is widely believed that copyrights are a must to foster cultural diversity and creativity. However, Parc argues that contrary to prevailing beliefs, imitation and copying do not restrict cultural creativity or diversity but in fact support them further. This argument has been supported

by many examples such as Millet and Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, and Monet, etc.[15]

❏ ADAPTATION ❏

As referenced, I Still Believe is coordinated by the Erwin Brothers (Andrew and Jon), whose past executive works incorporate such Movies like Moms’ PARTICULAR DATE, Woodlawn, and I COULD Only Imagine. Given their partiality fascination strict based Christian films, the Erwin Brothers appear to be much the same as an appropriate decision in presenting to Jeremy Camp’s story to a realistic portrayal; moving toward the material with a specific sort of gentBookmark this siteleness and truthfulness to the procedures. Much like I COULD Only Imagine, the Erwin Brothers shape the component around the life of a well known Christian artist; introducing his humble begiings and the entirety of the hardships that he should look en route, while melodic tunes/performaBookmark this sitence mulling over significance of the film’s account story movement. Saying this doesn’t imply that that the film isn’t without its heavier minutes, with the Erwin, who (once more) know about strict hints topics inside their undertakings, outline I Still Believe convincing messages of adoration, misfortune, and recovery, which (as usual) are very crucial to watch and experience throBookmark this siteugh misfortune.

This even addresses the film’s content, which was peed by Erwin siblings playing twofold obligation on the undertaking, which has a lot of sincere emotional minutes that may surely pull on the heartstrings of certain watchers out there along with give to be a significant drawing in story of going directly through misfortune and difficulty and finding a reclamation circular segment to get away from it. That is particularly made bounteously clear when working with a deadly ailment that is like what Melissa goes through in the film, which is pretty all inclusive and intelligent in everybody’s reality, with the Erwin Brothers painting the agonizing excursion that Melissa brings with Jeremy close by, who must sort out some way to adapt to agony of a friend or family member. There is a “twofold edge” blade to the film’s content, yet I’ll specify that underneath. Get the job done to express, the film settles rapidly in to the recognizable example of a strict religious component that, while not actually cleaned or unique, could be the “comfort food” to a few; anticipating a healthy message of confidence, expectation, and love. By and by, I didn’t know about Jeremy Camp and the account of he and Melissa Heing, so it was a significant impactful excursion that was contributed unfurling through the whole film’s procedures. As a side-note, the film is a lttle bit a “tragedy”, so for people who inclined to crying during these emotional ardent motion pictures… .get your tissues out."

[a-second-chance-su-au]

How did you decide which episodes would be impacted and had scenes that were significant enough to include? I’m working on a canon divergent fanfic for another series that’s pretty much just the story with one more character. I want to know how necessary these things would be.

That is an excellent question!

I am on mobile and don’t have a page splitter at the moment, so WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD.

When rewriting canon, I like to stick to 5 hard-and-fast rules, being: 1) know your character’s arc before going in, 2) know the episode’s overall message, 3) don’t take away from other characters, 4) adding original content must be done as-needed, and 5) DON’T BE AFRAID TO CHANGE THE WHOLE STORY. This can either be exceedingly easy or extremely hard.

1) Know your character’s arc before going in. This one seems obvious, but it can be very easy to get distracted. What would happen if this character was present for this scene? What if she/he/they followed this character around? Stuff like that. The whole thing on this particular blog with Spinel being present for the climax of Maximum Capacity is certainly tempting, and fun to think about, but does it do anything for Spinel’s arc in this AU? In my case, no. So she will not be present. You want to make sure you have some kind of roadmap either on paper or in your head of when and where things should happen, keeping in mind that character’s relationships, mental space, and goals. If Spinel wanted to fuse with Amethyst, she’d have to do it when the two have a good relationship, and something like that takes time to develop. She cannot fuse with Ames in the beginning of the series, absolutely not, but she will later on. Knowing facts like that on when things can and/or SHOULD happen is essential. So episodes like “Giant Woman,” “Horror Club,” “Crack the Whip,” or “Keystone Motel” will not be included in the list.

2) Know the episode’s overall message, and who is in the spotlight. You’d think that on a show like SU, that’d be easy, but often, it can be hard to pinpoint exactly who we should be focusing on. Fun fact: it usually isn’t Steven, which is why when Steven lets us into his head a little, it’s always such a huge, emotional bomb drop. I will keep using Maximum Capacity as an example. That episode was focused on Greg’s and Amethyst’s relationship with each other, their past friendship, and how each of them handles the stress of the past differently. Amethyst wants to loose herself in “Little Butler,” but Greg wants to do other things, too, causing them to come to a crossroads. It’s a coming-to-terms story for the both of them, and with this AU, I don’t want to disturb that. “Giant Woman” was about Amethyst and Pearl. “Joyride” was about Steven. “Keystone Motel” was about Ruby and Sapphire. “Steven the Sword-Fighter” is an example that can be shifted, because the purpose of that ep was to teach the viewer about poofing. It was less about Pearl and more about Gems in general, making it okay to try and change a few things around (so long as the poofing of... a gem still happens). Knowing when an episode is about a character, a relationship, or world building is really important, and helps to try and decide which to alter.

3) Do not take away from the other characters. Know their arcs, too, and why certain choices were important. Example being “Crack the Whip,” where Amethyst hits her lowest low and her quest to be stronger begins. That one, if you want to change it, you can, but if it were me, I would leave in Amethyst getting poofed and Jasper getting defeated without her, as it begins a huge moment for her character. By changing up that scene, she doesn’t have the chance to confide in Steven, they don’t fight, she doesn’t hit her lowest low (which all or most characters need to hit at some point), and then Smokey Quartz cannot exist. They exist because she trusted Steven and the two of them felt equal to each other, and trusting, and loving. THAT allowed them to fuse, and if “Crack the Whip” never happened or was altered too much, that all that goes out the window. So I am not going to have Spinel grab Amethyst and pull her out of the way or anything, or have her fuse to beat Jasper, because that undermines the whole point. However, I CAN say that Amethyst’s arc affects Spinel’s. Not saying this is canon, as this is just an example, but maybe Spinel becomes more attached to Amethyst after that, trying to protect her from being poofed again because she feels guilty for not being there to stop it. Then that affects Amethyst, makes her feel like Spinel is her bodyguard, which Amethyst doesn’t want and feels she doesn’t need. It’d serve to make her angrier, and could lead to she and Spinel getting into an argument or a fight. In this scenario, would I replace “Steven vs Amethyst” with “Spinel vs Amethyst”? No. But something similar COULD happen. It’s all about where you want to go, and what works best for these characters.

4) Adding original content must be done as needed, not whenever you feel like it. Does this mean do it sparingly? Depends on the story you want to tell. For me and my AU, that means I need to pay attention to Spinel’s arc and when she needs to learn/do things. Take “Man of the Mountain” for example. It takes place directly after “Bubble Buddies,” and is the result of Spinel being jealous of Connie eating up Steven’s time and friendship. So, she seeks to strengthen their bond as reassurance to herself that Connie is an inconvenience at worst, and at best, she’ll fade away eventually. She and Steven are still best friends, and she’s gonna prove it, darn it! Then the events of that episode may or may not affect what happens next, or later down the line. For this AU, Season 1 is mostly going to build things that are yet to come, and the episodes don’t directly feed into each other, meaning I am using original content sparingly. 5 originals compared to 52 actual episodes? I think I did good on that front. xD But, don’t be afraid to add an episode for an information dump, or to come to a conclusion. That can’t be the only thing IN the episode, of course, but if that’s the pure reason the episode exists, then fine. Do it. Whatever makes your story flow and make sense. But by making every other episode about Spinel, suddenly it’s only about her and not the other characters. Might as well rename the show at that point. The other characters get the spotlight they need/deserve, with Spinel getting her time to shine as well.

5) DON’T BE AFRAID TO CHANGE THE WHOLE STORY. This is one I’m struggling with, but I feel it worthy to mention anyway. If your character is psychic, then have them use their powers when it’s a good character choice and makes sense logically. If that throws off the entire tale, then roll with it. Get stuff back on track. Or maybe you need to take out that character for a bit. Formulate a way to do that. But if your character had a chance to shoot a blow dart at the main villain and take them out, perfect for capturing them and dismantling their army, wouldn’t they take it? If not, there had better be a good, in-character choice. Maybe the villain’s entire plan changes to account for the character’s psychic powers, creating a decoy or sending out a squad to trap/kill them specifically. If it’s in-character and it makes sense, heckin’ DO IT. Get creative! Get weird! Stories write themselves; you just need a beginning and a good grasp on the characters. Then the characters will take your story and run with it. Your job then becomes keeping up. I wish I was joking. I’ve had characters completely derail my stories before because they just couldn’t make that one character choice that was the lynchpin for the whole next scene, and it made me mad, and no I’m not mad about it two years later! You have the map, they steer the ship. You just gotta trust them.

This version of Spinel was left alone for 625 years, then cast away like a worthless toy. She’s been through war, lost almost all her friends, and had her #1 idol taken away and replaced with a smaller, weaker, half-human male version of her. She’s been through the ringer on emotions, and although she values herself as a friend first and foremost, that doesn’t mean I- and by extension, the other characters- can’t challenge that point of view. Make the character struggle. Know how they interact with others. How do certain events change them? Will they change every episode, or only some? Which are important to their arc? And most importantly, what is the point? By changing this thing here, what are you doing for that/those characters and/or the story? Is it a quick, harmless, funny moment, or is it to show a darker side to a character we’re familiar with, and to see them change now that there’s a new presence beside them? These are questions only you can answer as you chose which episodes to pick.

I hope any part of this was helpful. Feel free to ignore any of these points, or add your own. Again, every story is different, and each story should be treated as such. No creator is experienced equally, and we all have different interpretations of characters. Nothing is right or wrong, so long as you, the author, can justify it, even if it’s just “I thought it’d be cool.” It’s your AU. Go for it!

Thanks for listening to me ramble. Scene.

[norahastuff]

Dean was applying to be a cop in the finale!? Gosh it’s like someone who’s never seen the show or only seen the first season wrote it. Deans never been a dog person. Dean would never leave Cas like that and have fun at that pie fest talking about moving on. Jesus not even a second of that episode was in character. I’m so sick of shows having s1 HIMYM like endings ugh

The thing is HIMYM? Yeah it was a bad finale and it didn’t make any sense to shoehorn in the ending they’d written back in s1 at the end of an 8 season-long series - characters grow and change in ways you wouldn’t expect them to back when you first created the series - but HIMYM foreshadowed that ending. A lot. The entire final season they pointed towards what was going to happen. Actually, even the season before had a couple of pretty anvil heavy scenes that showed what the endgame was eventually going to be. Spn didn’t do that.

I can very easily accept series finales I don’t like as long as they make sense and I can see how we got there. I’m a very “journey, not destination” kind of tv watcher, so a bad finale doesn’t usually ruin the rest of the story for me...this is kind of a first though. Because why spend so much of your season (seasons plural?) focusing on found family? On how important Dean and Cas’ relationship is? On what a profound impact Cas had on Dean’s life? On how Cas’ powers were fading? On all the problems with heaven and hell and the empty? That last one was a pretty big thing that was referenced in multiple episodes and then just no follow-up. All of that (besides the Dean and Cas stuff) was just handwaved by Bobby saying Jack fixed it. Actually that’s not true. Bobby said Jack fixed heaven, nothing about hell or The Empty.

I’ve been thinking about it lately trying to make sense of it all, and it felt very in tune with Singer’s vision of the show, or at least my perception of what I see as Singer’s version of the show based on the way I’ve heard him talk in interviews/panels over the years.  And I want to stress this is all just complete speculation on my part and I’m not even saying it’s what I think happened, we don’t really even know enough to say, but from everything I’ve heard him say in the past, it did seem like he had a very brothers only view of the show, and that his ending would reflect that. I mean Dabb wrote the episode...but he’s also been the showrunner that put the most focus on found family and growth, and you can’t see either of those things in the finale. I do hope that by some magic we someday see a pre-covid version of the script. It’s entirely possible it mightn’t be good either, Jensen did have problems with it, but I have to imagine it would at least make a little more sense. 

I mean at least we might have been spared Dean not being allowed to interact with anyone and anything in heaven besides his car and the double carry on extravaganza. Maybe there would have been some resolution of all those dropped plotlines. Maybe Cas and his impact on Dean’s life would have been granted more importance than a brief smile from Dean...though I still maintain how easy it would have been, even in this nonsensical version of the finale we got, for Sam and Dean to have a short conversation where Dean talks about how he’s trying to be the man Cas thought he was and needs to carry on and perhaps even *gasp* show some emotion about his best friend of12 years dying for him. That was the subtext of what Dean was doing anyway so why not just say it?

But if originally in the finale there was supposed to be some kind of acknowledgment of Cas from Dean (I’m not talking explicitly romantic here) it would maybe be possible to write off Dean not saying anything at the pie fest because we’d perhaps see it at another point. But in the version of the finale we saw, there was no “Dean’s feelings for Cas” related moment (Jimmy Novak related or otherwise - don’t get me started!) so it just seems hollow and empty.

I don’t know if Dabb was just done by the time post covid rewrites came around and didn’t want to revise the script taking into account that there wouldn’t been any Cas/Misha/Jimmy (lord help me) appearance. I mean it’s not a conspiracy to say Misha was supposed to be in the finale so Cas’ significance was going to be felt in some way (regardless of how big or small that was supposed to be) and yet in the final version there’s no real indication at all that Cas mattered, to the story or to Dean. Like it’s not rocket science to say if an important main character who’s been on the show for 12 years and has profound relationship with one of the lead characters, a relationship that was given extended focus in the final season, if that character or actor is supposed to have an appearance in the finale and it gets cut for whatever reason, you rewrite a scene or two to reflect what would have been shown in the cut scenes. And Dabb seemingly didn’t do that, for whatever reason.

So yeah...to be honest that’s kind of where I’ve landed on this. It looks to me like Dabb stopped trying and/or caring at the end, whether that’s because of external pressure or because he just thought “meh good enough” (I don’t doubt that Singer probably thought it was good enough) I mean I don’t think that’s something we’ll ever know unless he talks, and he’s not exactly known for being forthcoming. 

As for finding out the details of the original ending? I don’t know if/when that will happen, but it certainly seems more likely than Dabb revealing his motivations and decision-making process. 

Oh and the job thing...not to defend the finale but was it ever proven that the application was to be a cop? I didn’t notice it when I watched the ep, and I have no intention of rewatching it. I mean Dean’s in the database a dead serial killer many times over. Don’t think that would go down too well at the interview. 

Yeah and in regards to the dog...I got nothing. I think the thought process was Jensen looks adorable hugging a dog and since we’re throwing the rest of his character’s personality out the window, what’s one more trait?