#why am i creating make believe drama between children?

[isekyaaa]

May get in trouble for saying this, but Lovi, Verut, and Aurele are setting up to be like a love triangle in the future. Verut liking Lovi, Lovi liking Aurele, and Aurele being too preoccupied with his goals being inside his mind to notice anything. uwu

[cartooncreep]

**CHAOS THEORY SPOILERS AHEAD**

Speaking on the Darius,Brooklynn and Kenji drama.

Now when I first started this show back during Camp Cretaceous I was fond of dinostar, i thought it was a given that they would end up together, I mean its a tale as old as time; main guy ends up with main girl (excluding the lesbians). However, as the show went on and the probability of dinostar becoming cannon withered I ended up having a growing respect for the Camp Cretaceous team. For me at least, and for the general audience I would say, they subverted expectations. However small of an act it was, making dinostar not cannon was monumental in children's story telling not pushing an ideology that men and women can't be platonic friends.

Darius being one of the only one's without even a hint of a romantic subplot was also incredibly refreshing as too often storytelling gets bogged down by romance plot that are so badly written it makes me want to cry as to why it took precedent. It was also so comforting to finally have a character in western children's media that could be feasibly headcannoned as arospec without having people use their romantic interests as an argument against.

The introduction to Darius's feelings towards Brooklynn I thought was well handled and very mature, the writing team knocked it outta the park with how they made the characters mature with the way they handled emotions and tension, Darius's confession to Kenji felt so real. I swear I've seen/experienced one to one scenarios in my own adult life. It is despite this the confession felt like I watched the first cannonball blow through the hull of this story.

As most of you know the fandom was far from pleased with the pairing of Brooklynn and Kenji in the first series so I am grateful that they show not only allowed us to experience a glimpse into how wholesome their relationship was and how they genuinely DID work together only to have had them break up. It made it feel less like a retcon and more like a realistic path for a teenage to young adult romance to follow. Another thing that was important about their relationship was that Kenji was the one to end it.

Too often in this series Kenji has been dismissed as "the dumb one" by not only his friends but his own family. It occurs to a point where Kenji would have likely ended up agreeing with everyone else as to avoid being laughed at for having his own opinions. To have Kenji take matters into his own hands and put his own wellbeing first, to have him be the one to end things, makes me genuinely love and appreciate how these characters have matured and changed with time.

Now, back to Dinostar. I wouldn't have minded Darius and Brooklynn having a romance this series if there wasn't a previous relationship. Having a found family trope is one of my favourite things, but a trap that media falls into way too often is creating an incestious friend group dynamic. The reason why these sort of friend groups don't work out in highschool (which is where you will most commonly come across this dynamic) is because of the incurring jealousy. Jealousy breeds contempt. Having the original pairs maybe swing apart and then back together wouldn't cause as much as a rift as different friends falling for each other and causing strain on past and present couples.

I believe building up this relationship between Darius and Brooklynn will muddy this beautiful found family trope this show has built. Maybe the characters themselves will be fine with the end solution however I can't help but think the audience will be able to look at this show through a lense of reality and be sobered by the fact that having dinostar become cannon causes irreparable rifts.

[real-total-drama-takes]

I have a dumb question?

Why everyone mad at the smut?

But those say I would never draw questionable outfits to many said characters, but it's not smut they will say.

When I go on AO3 I was 12ish mostly was more not kid friendly or teen friendly, I guess.

My solution is baby gate:

We kick out all the kids and teens out. Call their parents, snitch on them for looking up smut, block their access to internet, and never let them grow up ever. In fact, we should ban total drama for the new generations because it's too grown up for them in general (I am joking... this a joke)

See that's not nice or solving anything.

Or other solutions we ban anyone from the fandom we just don't even dox them to point the take their own life (I am not serious about this too)

So either you think teenagers should never see anything related to smut to sexual to inherently grown in general.

So, do we raise children who are not our own and band together to ban them off Tumblr and the total drama fandom as a whole to save "purity" and protect the children in general?

Because most of you sound like the church.

I want safer ways of teenagers to grown up in general, do want teens reading smut or watching porn.... NO. I rather they not but I can't raise or control these teenagers.

BUT... I don't want them to end up like me.

I was sexual assaulted growing up a lot sometimes reading a safe smut scene between who teens that loved each other at that time made me understand what happened to me was wrong. I don't want to realize years later they were groomed, abuse, and used like sex thing because instead of exploring it out in a fictional space of writing then doing it in reality.

So maybe we should write more with tag only for adults, toxic relationship included, main characters aren't good people here.

Sex is not everything.

Love is not everything.

A lot of things aren't everything for many.

You sound like bitter old people, and I am higher than Jesus for not liking smut or ever writing smut.

People exist even if we don't want them too.

Smut and porn been here longer than this fandom as a whole.

We can do something about it but with understanding, respect, and without judgement as growing adults and adults in this fandom.

Also, you can mute writers, block, and call people out ONLY WHEN NEEDED TO!!!

Point in case this more complicated than it seems.

Courtney to Leshawna to Katie to Alejandro to Lindsay to Heather are often in sexualization, stereotyped, and fucked in manner that I don't like at times.

Like if you go I am writing this for letting you know from my own personal experience that I been sexualized or harassed as a child to teen as black teen like Leshawna or in case of Alejandro stereotype... I wrote this story to release my pain, confusion, fear, and the placed burdens of others off me for now in my story of fanfic.

You go WELL I DIDN'T LIKE IT AND THAT NEVER HAPPENS IN REAL LIFE....

Your ignorance is a privilege I wish I can say I crave as a child to teen. Unlucky for me I had to go through awful shit then if it's in my stories then why are you still here if your judgement is I don't belong to you- you who is high and mighty so damn powerful- even skilled writer at that.

You complain but not create.

You don't like what you see or read then create better and make it a safer place for others like you.

Shame is badge of honor at one's home were parents don't believe you growing up.

Some others are here to escape, some for joy and community, some for since 2007 times them growing up with this fandom but now we divide ourselves like we aren't in a fandom called total drama.

We need to address the fact that no wants to hurt child, we don't want any child to teens scarred or burden at a young age, but to not realize they themselves are people makes me feel like maybe we should do something in were maybe whole 2 weeks just teen/child friendly context for the new generation joining the fandom.

From an abused child to teen that had no sex education until 16 years old due to the lgbt+ club in my high school forced in my system after saving me from getting sexually harassed by an 18-year-old boy that I thought was being just nice to me. Now a growing young adult in therapy who can't live with themselves and what happened to me.

It's just cartoons and fandom to some of you.

Some people find families to love to reasons to live in brain rot of total drama.

I really like sillies here and the stories some you of you put on AO3. We can't always control what we like or dislike...

Some writer age them to 33s to 40s

But I will say I don't like 12 to 30 ship or rareships that only smut. That's problem I don't want to open up on

I don't like self inserts or OC dating Duncan and being friends with Gwen but hate on Courtney 24/7 or something similar to that only because that's my own opinion to deal with, but I am not like oh I would never... I am like could never and mention each time without doing something about it.

You know how I deal with it? Mute.

Even Block as last option.

So the point is we can do better as a fandom, yes! And no!

No because you guys keep fighting with yourselves more than anyone else I have ever seen.

I don't write smut, but I make drawing of the said characters in very tiny to sexual context, yet I am not like those awful smut writers!

Dude... you are at the level of the smut writers too. Bestie the glass house of the fandom is in shambles from the hot air and rocks we keep throwing and missing at each other!

So maybe tag as only mature and not for teens.

UH>>>>>>> there must be more I left out too.

I am fanfic writer, and I want to leave because I think I am more harm than good now with some of your talks what should not be in this fandom or what should.

I regret to inform you that I wish to cancel my mind and never wrote if it meant you guys were going treat me like I am in church again and I am their hopeful for belonging but instead everyone wants me to never be me or even be there because I am not like you.

I don't know how to please you when I am trying to just exist and write stupid cartoons kiss, be parents, and be mature.

Instead I guess I can only write 55 million words of 33 million stories of them never growing up, no kissing, no friendship, no affection, just drama and competition in general to please thy holey moley of the fandom.

Also we should write more asexual or queer relationship in a health manner.

AND STOP BEING RACIST TO LESHAWNA--- WHY YOU ARE LETTING HAROLD AHHHHHHH AHAHAHHFH DO THAT TO LESHAWNA

I am emotionally not okay, and I didn't know where I can say this. But the point is I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FANDOM DO YOU WANT FANS WHO FEEL SAFE, HAPPY, AND CREATE FOR THE FANDOM OR SHAME ALL THAT AREN'T LIKE YOU OUT HERE.

LOOK THERE'S SHIT WE NEED CALL OUT AND NO ALLOW BUT ARE WE MORAL POLICE

DO THE HEAVENS SAY TOTAL DRAMA FANDOMS MUST NEVER WANT SEX OR GROWN UP?

I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON BUT YOU GUYS ARE FIGHT?

ARE YOU FIGHTING?

FIGHTING FOR WHAT?

FIGHTING EACH OTHER OR SAFER PLACE FOR ALL?

SOME US NEED JOBS AND BASIC NEED MET BUT WE GO HERE HAVE FUN THEN SEE THIS AND I AM LIKE WTF IS HAPPENING?!

ARE WE FIGHTING? WHY?

I need someone else to explain to me like I am 3 years old. To do less harm in general and understand wtf going on

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Hello!! I love how much you dive into the whole anti taylor thing and make valid criticisms. Something that's bothered me a lot is the folklore love triangle and I never see anyone talking about it. She outright says Betty ends up with James even though James cheats on her. He tells her it meant nothing, that he was thinking about her even as he spent the summer with another girl. Even in her fictional world with fantasy characters, there's an element of cheating and being forgiven for it/not making a big deal of it. It makes me so uncomfortable. Is it just me? What are your thoughts on this?

Absolutely!  

I also find this "fictional love-triangle" that she created so uncomfortable. As a fan, I would more or less ignore her insistence that this was a coherent storyline because it so obviously is not. However, she seems to really believe she did something incredible with this arch- I disagree.  

There was a lot about her music that I straight up ignored while I was a fan- now I am ready to actually pay attention to it all and see it for what it is.  

She is clearly so interested in cheating... I just really think her moral compass is so skewed that she doesn't actually see why glorifying cheating is morally corrupt. 

But for the song "Betty" I agree with you completely- her main “moral to the story” for the song arch is that it's okay to cheat as long as they forgive you...  

It's especially concerning that the "Love-triangle" sees envisioning is happening in a high school setting. I just don't fully understand why this woman cannot write about anything other than high school aged people! They are literally Children!!!!! I'm so sick of relationship drama plotlines revolving around children in high school! (This is absolutely a broader problem in Media- it's not solely a weird thing that Swift does; however, it is still concerning that she seems to envy the youth while also only writing about the youth- it's getting weird.)  

Anyway, I think you raise a perfectly reasonable concern within her music. It glorifies cheating- which is diametrically opposed to her own insistence as the most moral pop-star. She thrives on the image of the clean-cut perfect suburban housewife, so it's a confusing contradiction to see her so fervently normalize something like cheating.  

One thing that concerns me too, is that in the "sequel" to "Betty" she writes "August" which is supposed to explain the other girl's backstory- which is that the other girl is like a pathetic fangirl who follows the guy around until they ended up sleeping together? It makes the guy seem like a morally corrupt ass who would manipulate people's feelings in order to sleep with them. I fail to see how any of us are supposed to be rooting for any of these characters? They're all a bit awful and immature- none of it is redeemable and, worse still,  Swift doesn't even give us a good "moral of the story."  

It's fine to depict negative aspects of reality like- people cheating on each other or being otherwise too immature for a relationship- especially if the characters are young, however it is up to the author to embed a message, a meaning, a moral into the mess. Without the moral of the story all we are left with is a self-indulgent rant.  

Especially in short story format. If I had to draw an analogy between the format of overarching, interconnected songs and a format in literature, I would pick the short story to draw a connection there.  

Okay, and here I’m going to break the point of this ask into two parts because if I do not it will become far too long – simply put you’ve inspired me to write, and I thank you for that.  

I thought you raised an excellent point so I went a little wild in my mind trying to pinpoint the exact reason why I found her attempt at narrative so uninspired, dull, and morally repugnant-  

[i-guess-im-into-this-now]

The Apothecary Diaries

S1E6 First Watch

Here's where I watch The Apothecary Diaries for the first time and give my thoughts, analysis, predictions, and occasionally I stumble into a joke.

If you want to start at the beginning:

Episode 1

My character cheat sheet:

Yinghua - pink flowers LIW

Lady Lishu - child bride concubine

Lady Lihua - concubine Maomao saved from poisoned powder

Crystal Pavilion - Lady Lihua's Pavilion

Lihaku - officer giving out a lot of hairpins

It's the garden party and I'm so excited!

Cryptic openings are what this show does. And this one starts with palace gossip about someone who is apparently a picky eater. The gossips state:

It's not like it's going to kill her or anything.

What terrifying foreshadowing.

Now we are finally at the party. There is dancing and music. Everyone is freezing. That probably includes the infant princess who is also at this party.

Oh that's the dowager empress holding the baby! This is the first we are seeing her. And yeah... she's got to be Jinshi's mom. It's like the artists were told to design a female Jinshi.

Apparently the empress gave birth to the emperor at a nauseatingly young age because it freaks Maomao out even though we never hear the number.

Oh the empress actually has two children. You don't say. There is a younger brother, who is conspicuously missing from his place of honor on the stage. But according to gossip he has a weak constitution and has rarely been seen. Sure.

In my best guess, prince #2 has been away with the military which is why he hasn't been around. Upon his glorious return the emperor immediately assigned his handsome brother to the rear palace. It's only speculation at the moment, but I don't think I'm far off.

Someone mentioned earlier that this event seems designed to pit the concubines against one another. And yeah it is. I guess that sort of thing appeals to the emperor, because he has created drama between the ladies before when he went to Lady Gyokuyou to request that Maomao take care of Lady Lihua. Wow, it occurs to me that maybe he wanted to meet Maomao in person because he realized his younger brother was interested in her. That's probably not good.

Yinghua has managed to get involved in some kind of drama with Lady Lihua's ladies. Oh they're talking smack about Maomao! Lady Lihua has the absolute dumbest ladies in waiting. They literally cannot recognize Maomao because she changed her clothes and put on some eyeliner. That's lucky for them, because they wouldn't be saying any of this to Maomao's face since they are legit terrified of her.

Maomao must have inflicted some lasting psychological damage on those ladies because they run the moment they recognize her. I do love that Maomao's friends are defending her though. She's not in this alone.

Yinghua: Don't listen to those bullies. I mean, just look at how adorable you are!

Maomao: Oh. I don't care.

I believe her. Maomao's self-esteem isn't on the outside. Instead she prides herself in her skills, and particularly on how she can use them to help others. Insults to her looks can't touch her. After all, she was trying to worsen her appearance to protect herself. Now, if she ever failed to help someone or if she made a misjudgment or mistake that hurt someone, that would probably crush Maomao.

I love her delulu pavilion friends. They view Maomao in the most sympathetic way and want to protect her. And they're all in on JinMao (probably have the ship half built).

Yuck. This girl was made a concubine at age 9. Maomao's appalled. So am I. This show doesn't pull any punches. And I do think this show has a lot to say about the oppression of women. I'll try to refrain and let someone more qualified analyze that. Please share if you've seen someone talking about this issue.

Lady Lishu makes it a point to rudely ignore Maomao while she's holding Lady Gyokuyou's baby. Maomao notes that she is wearing a color that clashes with Lady Gyokuyou and wonders if it's intentional. I'm sure it is. And here is someone for you to keep an eye on. She should not be underestimated just because she's only 15. She's actually been in the palace for 6 years, which I think is longer than Lady Gyokuyou.

Maomao sees the idiot ladies of the Crystal Pavilion shivering and despite their treatment of Maomao in the past, and earlier that day, she can't bear to see someone suffer. She offers them something to warm their hands and they flee in terror.

Oh Maomao observes someone exchanging a hairpin, Yinghua explains that it's some kind of recruitment thing and that there is a secret meaning, however Maomao doesn't care... But this is relevant! Considering she just received a hairpin herself that very morning! Yinghua also calls bullshit and says, hilariously:

Excuse me, I'm trying to gossip with you over here!

She's dying to tell Maomao the hidden meaning behind the hairpins, but we never find out what she would have said.

In any case, Maomao promptly accepts another hairpin from the first stranger she meets, a bouncy officer named Lihaku. Directly after she gets another one from Lady Lihua. This one is given with a compliment and a great deal of warmth. Maomao's going to look like a pin cushion before the day is done.

Also, where is Jinshi? These folks are making moves on your girl!

The next part of the garden party has commenced, with everyone waiting motionlessly in lines. Maomao has taken off all of her hairpins and looks around while she waits. She thinks Gaoshun looks good, like a soldier, and realizes he has a higher position then she realizes. She gets a polite acknowledgement from him when he notices her attention. She also spots the cute bouncy officer, Lihaku. She breaks the 4th wall to wonders where Jinshi is:

I don't see our ✨sparkly✨ eunuch anywhere, but, who cares.

Maomao is such a weirdo about poisons. She loves the stinging sensation.

Maomao is noticing a lot of things going on around her during this meal. Lady Lishu has a severe issue with food. This isn't someone being a picky eater. Maomao is brushing it off for now, but I assume she'll help this girl at some point. Some other lady is witnessing Lady Lishu suffer and she's giving a creepy smile. Maomao isn't happy to have seen it. But it will force her to figure out whatever mystery is playing out here.

And Maomao just ate something that made her blush and lick her lips, so it's either an aphrodisiac, or poison. I mean it could be any tasty food, the girl loves to eat, but it's probably poison. Yup, it's poison. She's so into it though...

Jinshi finally arrives (where was he?), just in time to... not attend the party and follow Maomao instead. To be fair he deduced instantly that she may have been poisoned. And then he knows she has been because she's smiling at him.

Meanwhile Maomao is fantasizing about being incompacitated by poison. And I don't know ethically where to fall on this one. I'm not one to kink shame but I don't support self harm either. Jinshi doesn't have that problem, he is very much not happy about it. He's dragging her to medical care. And this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say I'm glad Maomao has people in her life who care about her well-being because, for as good as she is at caring for others, she doesn't take care of herself.

She wants more of the poisonous soup and Jinshi has just about had it with her. Turns out some dumbass ate the rest of her soup and collapsed at the party. Anyway, Maomao offers a solution to treat him that involves more poison. Jinshi does not approve.

Maomao notices Jinshi's new hairpin and jumps to the best conclusion which is that he got it as a gift from his secret male lover. I'm not even going to offer a guess of my own because I hope Maomao is right.

The stress of this day has made Jinshi upset. He's not bothering to try and keep up any pretenses. Maomao is seeing him unmasked, and she prefers it.

Maomao receives some impressive drugs that make her purge. The moment she's done Jinshi asks her to immediately solve this case.

She asks to speak with Lady Lishu. She knows she has an allergy to fish. Her nasty food taster did not. Maomao lets her know that trying to give fish to Lady Lishu is the equivalent of trying to poison her. The issue now is that Lady Gyokuyou's fish meal was swapped with Lady Lishu's non-fish meal. Most likely by her own food taster, as a way to torment Lady Lishu by forcing her to eat fish. However, the dish that was intended for Lady Lishu, the one she never received, was the one that poisoned Maomao. So, now the question is, who tried to poison Lady Lishu?

Maomao terrifies that food taster and is confident that she won't allow Lady Lishu to eat fish again.

Maomao is left alone with Jinshi and Gaoshun. Jinshi promptly lays a hand on her shoulder and gets told:

Please, I'm of lowly birth. It's not right for you to touch me.

Jinshi doesn't like that.

Jinshi: You're the only one who has ever used that excuse.

Maomao: That's just because everyone else is being nice to you.

And Jinshi hates that.

And it may seem like they're playing around, and bantering as they both like to do, but in fact they are drawing up new boundaries. Things have recently taken a turn for them into something more serious. And this is the first time they've been able to talk.

First Maomao shared her story about being nearly assaulted, and then being kidnapped, which made Jinshi react in a powerful way, he gave her his hairpin which carries unknown meaning, then Maomao was poisoned, and Jinshi got pretty scared for her, and she caught a glimpse of the real Jinshi. All of this happened today!

And neither one of them has any idea where things stand between them. Jinshi pushes forward. A hand on her shoulder. Maomao pulls back. She removes his hand - no.

And she tells him something true that he needs to hear. We are not of the same class. There are rules to these things and you are breaking them. I'm not going to break them for you.

And then she tells him, something that hurts worse. People don't treat you authentically.

From the only person who does see him as a real person and not just as some lofty official he hears I see you but I won't get close to you. No one else will either.

Jinshi is trapped by the elevation of his station. People are unwilling or unable to interact with him in any real way. And he has a role to play that requires him to mask himself, and do things like manipulate servants, and flirt with concubines.

Maomao is right that the people around him are just being nice. And Jinshi hates it.

He wears different masks to achieve his goals in the harem but he's desperate to take them off and have someone see him. It's why he loved when Maomao glared at him. It's why he delights in her sarcasm and biting comments. And now she's pulling away from him.

Jinshi is completely alone.

And here is where Maomao and Jinshi serve narrative foils to one another. Because Maomao is authentic with everyone. She speaks her mind, behaves how she wants and people see her and adore her. She has real relationships all around her.

Maomao is loved.

It is worth noting, that even though Maomao is putting up a boundary between herself and Jinshi, she did not return his hairpin. She is drawing a line, but she isn't completely walking away.

Maomao, exhausted after everything:

What a day.

Indeed.

If you want to read these from the beginning:

Episode 1

Next episode:

Episode 7

[away-ward]

Hmm, I just read the ask where anon discusses if the guys will leave their group for their significant others. And I must say that was one interesting ask. It made me think will they? Or won't? I can't believe I am praising Michael but it's true if Rika asks him to create distance he will, HE ACTUALLY WILL. He would not leave them permanently but created enough distance so that Rika would be comfortable. *oh my god 👁️👄👁️ I had to praise Michael, will I be accepted in this fandom now? I can't believe I said that*

As for Damon, he will be okay to leave, Alex, Emory, Michael, kai in a heartbeat but not will, because he just needs Will, Banks amd Winter in his life and he is fine (maybe rika too)

Kai, he would have a serious discussion with Banks, why? Did something happen? Why didn't you tell me? We can always talk with them. So, he will be reluctant to create distance, he would never leave nor will create distance it would be banks who will have to adjust you know, like she normally does and kai didn't do anything with banks insecurity.

Will, he just can't live without his friends and I don't think emmy will have problem with anyone, she doesn't speak that much or create drama. She is easy going that way. Her patience will break only because of Alex if she continues being an annoyance to willemmy. And even if emory had an issue she will take months to approach this topic with will, she herself won't want will to be away from his family, she knows he loves them alot. Emmy loves will and is just happy to be with him. And if she does demand from will to create space between his friends and Emory he simply won't he wants both of them or maybe he will just ask Emory to make peace with it or adjust. Just like banks, Emmy would be the one to silently take it all.

What do you think ko? Well if you don't want to don't post it or even respond to it, I know sometimes it can get a lot. I just wanted to share my thoughts.

I want to talk about gurls too, how would they react if the guys ask them this, and all I can think about is banks

I had to praise Michael, will I be accepted in this fandom now?

The eventual praising of Michael happens to all of us eventually. I guess at some point, if you’re here long enough, you start seeing some of the better traits even in the characters you really dislike.

But to go along with you’re idea, I agree. For the most part. Overall, I choose to think all of the guys and girls would pick their SO over their friends, but the part of the story that is supposed to feel good is that they would never have to because this is a chosen family that supports each other through everything. Again, execution aside, I think that was supposed to be the intent.

There is, however, a scale between who would find it easier and who would find it more difficult to break away from the family, if their wives asked.

I agree that Michael would find it the easiest. He is the leader of the Horsemen, but he would follow Rika to the ends of the earth. If Rika thought for any reason that the life they had created was too much of a threat to their family, and asked Michael to break away, it would hurt, but he’d do it. He has a track record of sacrificing his wants and pride (since the events of Corrupt, not necessarily before) to keep Rika, and I think he’d be able to do this, too, if she asked.

I think Kai would struggle losing Michael the most, but let’s be honest: if Banks is asking to leave, it’s because of something Michael did. Thing is, I think Banks would have a problem leaving Damon (and Rika, but mostly Damon). It would have to be serious and something they can’t talk out or forgive (geez, Michael, what did you do?) So, really, Kai would have to decide between Michael and Banks. Would we finally get a “She is everything” moment from him? Possibly, but I don’t think it would be the same energy that Michael's had. More sorrowful and guilty. His heart would be torn, but ultimately, Kai would put Banks, his children, and his parents first.

I actually think Damon would struggle the most. He has abandonment issues, control issues, and struggles with letting things go. If Winter put her foot down, and told him she was leaving with the children, and he could either stay or come with her, I think Damon would try to negotiate. Like you said, he would mostly struggle with leaving Banks and Will, and also Rika now that he knows about their blood relation. He wants to remain close to them, keep his connection to them. And if he’s allowed to remain close to them, what’s the problem with the other three. This is a lose/lose situation for Damon, and he hates those. There’s no way he gets through this without destroying something in the process.

I don't think emmy will have problem with anyone, she doesn't speak that much or create drama. She is easy going that way. Her patience will break only because of Alex if she continues being an annoyance to willemmy.

And this is where I get confused with the “Will wouldn’t stick with Emmy/He’d leave her if she made him choose between her and Alex.” argument. To start off with, I see Emory as being so chill about Alex. She lets Alex stay (we can talk about how dislikable Alex as a character is all we want, but in the story, they’re friends). And even if Alex thought there was a chance between her and Will, Emory can shut that down so quickly. Will has wanted nothing but Emory for over 10 years by the end of the series. He is not picking the girl “he couldn’t love” over the girl he hasn’t been able to get out of his head. I don’t think Emory is the least bit threated by Alex, even if Alex did have some nefarious plot to steal her man. Emory would be annoyed at Alex, but not scared that Will would leave. But maybe that’s my willemmy blinders.

If for some reason Emory decided she needed to leave Thunder Bay, and leave the family, Will would be heartbroken. Because, while Emory was all he wanted, his ultimate dream was having the girl, his friends, and his town. That was his dream life, and for a while he had it and it was good. Will would go through the five stages of grief over this: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. And that’s where he comes to the realization that after however many years it’s been, plus a decade, he really can’t live without Emory. At least he’d get to keep Micah and Rory, right (assuming they’re still “his guys” and still friends with Emory more than any of the others)?

Well if you don't want to don't post it or even respond to it, I know sometimes it can get a lot.

Of course I’ll respond to you! Thank you for sending the message.

While I think this is an interesting conversation, it’s more for the fun “what if –?” of it all, since the family coming apart has never been a serious concern for me. I’ve never once doubted that these people are going to live together and die together in that small town that is their own design. They’re going to be legends in Thunder Bay forever.

I want to talk about gurls too, how would they react if the guys ask them this, and all I can think about is banks

If the one of the guys wanted to stop being a horseman? I don’t know if they can. That bond is too out of this world. I think the girls would have an even easier time than the boys. It is, after all, the Horsemen’s bond that brought them all together.

Rika, I see questioning everything, and not willing to let Michael walk away just yet. She loves this family with her whole heart, and if there’s a problem, it needs to be sorted. Still, she struggles with communicating unless there’s pressure, so the whole group might end up in another Conclave situation.

Banks I think would find it the easiest to leave. I don’t even think she’s put up much of a fight if Kai wanted to go. She, however, would keep up secret communication with Damon. I don’t think she’d give away information that Kai wouldn’t want her to, but she’d let Damon know they’re okay and doing well. And if for some reason, she and Kai ever found themselves in trouble, Damon is her first call.

Winter would be confused as to why Damon would want to leave. Thunder Bay is his domain. This family is his to protect. She’s known for going behind his back, such as with the Christiane situation. So I think she’d agree up front, but behind the scenes be trying to figure out what triggered the decision, and then try to undo it so they didn’t have to leave.

Emory would be on Will’s side, but she knows her husband. He would never seriously want to leave his friends or Thunder Bay. I think she would try to get him alone and talk to him. See if his reasoning is solid, or if something’s spooked him and he’s trying to protect her and the kids. If it’s the first, then yes, they’ll leave. If it’s the second, she’ll try to soothe his worry so they can figure out what’s actually going on. But she’s there for him either way.

These are just my rough ideas. I’m totally open to other thoughts!

-KO

[transhawks]

My guy, Hawks is unraveling more and more each chapter and I’m just wading in it like a wave pool. Absolutely giddy. I’m not sure how correct this translation is, but someone said he told endeavor to stop dabi “at all cost” and if that’s true, what an absolutely buck wild thing to do. Because the subtext is pretty clear. He’s telling enji to kill his son.

Yep. No, it's very exciting when Hawks gets like this, like all aboard the Hawks-acoaster, murder attempts ahead. I have no idea if this pun works in Japanese, but man, was this dude spot on about creating a world where heroes have time to kill.

(badum-tsch. thank you, I'll be here all night.)

Giddy is really the perfect word for it. Hawks's premonition about cornered people is honestly about himself. He says he feels "Free" in 299, but also tells us that true natures come out when people feel cornered or feel finally free. And like, according to Hawks he's currently the latter, but he's about to be the former.

And that the people around him won't see his true nature until he feels cornered. Or at least the hero side, because Jin did and Dabi learned too late about what sort of person Takami Keigo is.

Between having to face his actions (Twice), his fantasy of heroism breaking in front of his eyes (the Todofam drama), and the immense amount of pressure on him at the moment, this is Keigo's time to break. Hence why I wrote that little meta on his veneer cracking.

So, yeah, after four and a half years of being one of the most complex and confounding and contradictory characters, to the point where my initial statement from my first meta, that Hawks is a character that says one thing, thinks another, and does something else entirely, still applies, we're finally going to see who he is.

And the fact we have Dabi involved, who we all knew would be involved in this from the moment we saw them in 191? Heck, even earlier?

And that's he's repeating himself - he said they need to kill the twice clones (and Toga i guess), and now he's telling Enji to put his son down? Yeah, that's the thing - that's who Hawks is. This is the man who smiled at another man and called him good and a friend and none of that stopped him from killing him.

None of that stopped him from singing his praises after killing him, either. One of the fascinating parts of his whole deal.

I think it's just going to be abundantly clear that Keigo is this ruthless person who just doesn't understand ties of friendship and family as well as other people. He tells us he understood his parents were broken, It was hinted at during the raid when he essentially told Dabi he wasn't reacting right to the death of a friend, but I think it showed that Hawks has a very set idea, almost textbook like, of human behavior and it needing to fulfill certain patterns.

This is, of course, very common in extremely abused children. And children raised in institutions have this issue. I also want to make it clear that Hawks believes he's doing the right thing. Or necessary things for the right reasons. That's a core part of his personality no matter what. He might be extremely ruthless and lacking in what others take to be humanity, but Hawks wants to be a good person. You can't understand him without accepting that he does awful things for what he believes are good reasons and manages to keep "sane" by telling himself that they need to happen or that he has no choice in the matter (removing his own agency to not take accountability).

Hawks is at once both extremely perceptive but also somewhat incapable of understanding some of the nuances of complex relationships. I don't think he truly understands why Jin picked the League over what he was offering him, even if he admires the kind of person Jin is (in a moment of self-awareness knowing that he isn't that sort of person and likely cannot be). And I am very, very sure watching Enji Todoroki reach out to his murderous, villainous, and likely in Keigo's eyes, irredeemable son at the expense of their society (and thus Keigo himself) will be the final straw for him. Because Keigo never got that from his parents. Keigo has done 'good' all his life, and is now shunned by the people (civilians) he's been breaking himself for.

That TV that so captured his attention as a child is about to lose its signal.

I don't think Hawks will able to understand why Enji would want to save someone who doesn't want to be saved. Remember what he told Jin? That when neither side (heroes or villains) don't want to give up, someone has to die? That's what he sees here, and the main issue is that Hawks will absolutely see this as Enji giving up. Endeavor isn't Endeavoring (which means Enji isn't doing the things Hawks likes him for). So, yeah, I think he'll either try to do it himself or snap and harm Enji (which would be a perfect time for Shouto to stop him).

So, yeah, I'm excited. I mean its awful that he's telling Endeavor to kill his son, but man have I waited for the follow breakdown when Enji doesn't do this for years.

[adamwatchesmovies]

There's Something Wrong with the Children (2023)

I'm unsure how to feel about movies whose titles clearly give away what the movie will be about. There's no ambiguity in a statement like There's Something Wrong with the Children but the movie keeps its cards close to its chest for a while. Maybe it's titled that way to make sure those who seek it out won't be disappointed?

Margaret and Ben (Alisha Wainwright and Zach Gilford) are vacationing with their friends Ellie, Thomas (Amanda Crew and Carlos Santos) and their children, Lucy and Spencer (Briella Guiza and David Mattle). While hiking through the woods, they come upon a delapidated building. Inside is a deep pit. Lucy and Spencer become fascinated with a light within only they can see and begin acting hostile towards Ben. Or maybe the kids haven’t been replaced by malicious dopplegangers and Ben’s pre-existing conditions is what’s causing him to become paranoid.

This horror film gets a lot of the basics right. The cast is small and you get to know them quite well, so you worry once things start going south. In fact, the adult drama stuff would almost be enough to be a movie on its own. As Ben begins accusing the children of all sorts of things, tensions between the couples escalate until they reach a breaking point. At this point, all hell breaks loose between them. The friends say some deeply hurtful things towards each other, the kind that could make this weekend getaway the last time they ever talk. You wonder what’s coming next but then uh oh, the kids are up to something and everyone forgets all about the drama.

Another thing director Roxanne Benjamin nails is the creepy kids themselves. All “bad seed” stories have an inherent problem: an opponent you could pick up and throw out the window is hard to make scary. The film knows this and begins by focussing on Ben to keep whether or not something legitimately malicious is happening ambiguous. You might say it’s a spoiler to reveal that indeed, there is something wrong with the children… but that’s what the title tells you. Anyway, once the sinister behavior is confirmed, much of the evil stuff is kept off-screen. We see the consequences, not the actions themselves. First, it makes this scenario much more believable. Second, it keeps what’s happening ambiguous. There are many unknowns in this picture. The green glow coming from the cave. Who or what created it? Why were only the children affected? Now that they’ve been “infected”, what do they want? We don’t know for sure. There are hints, such as an eerily effective moment where one of the children’s shadows begins to morph into an insect-like shape. Maybe that’s just panic making the person we’re following at the time imagine something otherworldly. Maybe it’s a hint that they’re now slaves to a glow worm queen living deep underground. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re dangerous and prey upon the adult’s trust.

The score by The Gifted is terrific and the film ends on a strong final note. There’s Something Wrong with the Children takes some interesting turns along the way, and makes some unexpected choices to keep you on your toes. So why, at the end of the day, am I only giving it three stars out of five? It’s because of the running time. 92 minutes shouldn’t be too long, but there isn’t quite enough meat to fill that time. To prolong the action, our protagonist has to make some dumb decisions - hiding when they should be going on the offensive, making obvious mistakes, etc. Yes, the characters in the film don’t know they’re in a film and they’re under much more stress than the audience but for the most part, everyone has a solid head on their shoulders. It becomes frustrating to see them do things only (seemingly) to keep the story going on longer than it needs to.

There’s Something Wrong With the Children is no game changer but it does enough new things and enough things right to make it worthwhile. It’s tense, the drama before things go south is engaging. There are some neat visual tricks, and the protagonist provides us with an interesting point of view. It might feel too long at the 2/3 mark but the conclusion is strong and with that killer soundtrack, you’ll find yourself enjoying the scares much more than not. (August 26, 2023)

[edelweissacermacrophyllum]

It's open to interpretation

Exodus 13-14, Proverbs 2:20-27, Matthew 27: 45-66

As I understand it, there are two main interpretations about the whole point of the cross. The first is some bet between God and Satan, which is the tactic that The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe takes. Humanity (Edumund) sins therefore belongs to Satan and since both God and Satan are bound by the same narrative structure, God offers Satan a trade in which They sacrifice themselves for Edmund. But it's a trick and Jesus (Aslan) doesn't stay dead.

The second made a lot more sense to me after reading another C.S. Lewis essay where he talked about a concept he called (I think) translation, in which something that has a deep spiritual meaning looks mundane. He uses the example of a 3 dimensonal being talking to a 2 dimensional being and trying to explain spheres. Obviously you would pass a sphere through the 2D plane but the 2D person would say, "Oh yes, we have those. But we call them circles." And so they would totally miss the point.

As I understand it, if we're going to believe in the supernatural and the existenc of infinite minds not bound by our phyisical reality, we're going to have to understand that there is perspective we cannot gain and things we will not know. We are stuck in a world of circles. And while the higher dramas of heaven and hell cannot help but affect us, we cannot see them in context.

So I see the crucifixion of Christ. It is a circle in our universe, an event that does not make sense, no matter what theologians say. My explanations up until this point have made it out to be performative, an act of God that says, "Suffering isn't so bad because I can take it too." I do not worship a sacred mystery. That, as Eliezer Yudkowski said, is only to worship one's own ignorance. But I am comfortable with sacred mystery. I worship God for the parts of Them that I do understand and I accept that there are parts I never will.

Since we cannot think in higher dimensions than our own we are left with metaphor and parable. I have always appreciated the parent metaphor for God. All parents suffer for their children, and all parents offer their children choice to a certain degree. When children screw up, it hurts their parents and parents can try to help, but at a cost.

Or consider a train engineer whose locomotive is broken. They must spend hours of work, often suffering burns or other injuries to fix this train. Which they do because they care so much about it.

I guess in simplicity I'm trying to say that love costs. And to love something imperfect comes at the cost of pain. Every time something breaks, somebody will bear the cost of fixing it. Standard dogma holds that Jesus bore our sin on the cross, a sacrifice for all of our sins. Christians are notorious for acting like this makes sense when it really doesn't. But I have found a bit of sense in the idea that it is the translation, the circle in our world which represents some much greater reality of God accepting the consequences for our rebellion, for Their creation deciding to be selfish and arrogant.

And if you hate this, that's fine. I am not attaching a huge amount of significance to the doctrine of why God needed to die in order to let us into heaven. It's weird that we see all these limits imposed upon an all powerful being and our doctrines have their ways of explaining that. My questions remain, but I take comfort in the fact that most of what I do understand about God makes him worthy of worship, and so I will continue to do just that.

This may be the reason I have dealt so skeptically with the historical accuracy of the bible. There are many times where it portrays a God that I do not feel is worthy of worship and I would rather slander a book than God. But maybe this is just an easy way for me to create God in my own image.

[ramayantika]

An unofficial beginning of the Nrityamasika

This is going to be more like a casual write up because this struck me right now. To be honest I have always thought about it but chose to express some of my thoughts right now.

I have seen some of the young people coming up to me telling me how classical dance is restrictive and does not allow one to express themselves.

This is both true and untrue.

What actually is the purpose of dance or let me say nrityam. Now as soon as we write a sanskrit word, we think oh my god this is going be something complex or mystic.

Let's begin with the Natyashastra which is the backbone of all forms of dance in India right from the classical dance forms to the folk styles.

Note: The difference between folk dance and classical dance is another topic. I will soon post something about it.

So the Natyashastra is a manual for music, dance and drama. What's common among them? Stories. Be it a tune from a flute or a tabla, the tunes sparks imagination inside one's mind and imagination leads to a story. Moving to dance -- a dance is a story of movements. Movements form a story. Let it be the abstract dance piece, they still create a story. And drama is obviously again a story, a presentation of a story which could be fictitious or be based on a real incident which again is a story.

Now the youngsters issue. Classical dance is majorly based on the topics of worship and devotion. The items only talk about a relationship with the divine. 'I don't relate to it.'

From my personal experience, I could never relate to dance piece on Ganesha. Even though I have always adored the festival of Ganesh chaturthi, I could never invoke the bhava and rasa on ganesh vandana. But it is in the tradition to first learn the ganesha item. (That's what we do in odissi. The Manglacharan begins with Ganesha)

Does that mean I should find it restraining? This artform has its steps to learn. To find your presence, your touch in the artform, you need to find ways to make it work according to you.

Who to blame for people not liking or enjoying the classical arts? It's all of us. Today I see parents sending their children to dance class because their neighbour's child won a prize in their dance competition. It is no more a learning experience for the child but some kind of a race.

Why will a child find interest?

Ten years back or back when the veterans of the classical arts learnt under their respective teachers, dance was taught along with music, poetry and literature. Today parents and children are in a rush to bag performances and arangetrams/rangapravesham/manchapravesh. In a two hour class or one hour class once a week the sole motto is to end learning this artform and move on the next.

A five year old child should be provided with ample of time to know these stories. Personally I believe to express your own self through dance can happen when one is well versed and thoroughly trained and learnt the traditional format. Surely new ways of teaching methodology can be implemented due to advanced of science and technology as well as for the ease of understanding in children.

But the root core? The philosophy on what this dance is based on. Before one heads to stage to express oneself, it would be better to find themselves through the 'traditional' characters they are taught to.

Today the dance training is limited. It's sad to see children choosing other forms because it is seen as more liberating.

I choose to end it over here. I am aware of many people learning dance and would love to hear their views. Surely this topic is open to debate, but I wanted to put forward some of my own thoughts.

For me, this is a misconception that classical dance is restrictive. It isn't only limited to a performance showcasing a devotee worshiping Nataraja or any deity. Dance has been used to showcase various philosophies and themes but these shows haven't bagged much spotlight.

That's it. Thank you.

May you keep dancing always in this dance of life.

[soulmate-game]

“Are you paw-sitive this is alright?” Selina half-purred half-asked. The slender cat thief was dressed casually— for her, anyway— in a floor length amethyst purple gown that swept just barely above the floor, accentuating her curves and coming down in a deep V neck that was just barely within the constraints of being acceptable for public appearances. Her companion, almost half a foot shorter even in her short heels, was a stark contrast. It was as if all the two women had in common was their hair color, a rich deep black that shimmered blue in the right lighting.

Marinette, with her hair done up in two buns and wearing a sensible pink-and-white cheongsam top with apple blossom embroidery paired with an ankle-length denim skirt that had a knee-high slit in the front, nodded even as she eyed her friend’s choice of outfit with a small frown.

“Of course. Bruce is in the media’s eye all the time, and he knows I don’t have a care for the spotlight. But you do,” Marinette stopped talking for a second, snapping her fingers and reaching into her purse. She pulled out a gorgeous inch-thick collar necklace that was made entirely of thick panels of flawless silver and high-quality diamond. At the very center of the collar necklace, where it would hang right in the center of Selina’s collarbone, was a diamond-and-obsidian cat face. “I knew I was forgetting something! Bourgeois owed me a favor for doing the outfit for her last magazine cover pro bono, so I asked for this as payment. It’s exactly what your outfit is missing.”

Just because Marinette didn’t like revealing clothing didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate someone else wearing one well, after all. And Selina wore her dress perfectly.

Selina quirked an eyebrow, eyeing the necklace with her expert gaze. Gently, she trailed her fingertips over the tops of the diamonds in the thick bands of the collar as a small smile flicked over her lips. She raised her eyes up to Marinette’s, light green eyes sparkling with mischief and knowing.

“You got this as a bribe for me, didn’t you kitten?”

Marinette smiled unashamedly. “I know you’re a proud lesbian, but would you mind playing the role of Bruce’s girlfriend, just for the media? And only while you’re single, of course. If you ever want out, you only have to say the word. Bruce already agreed, but he also doesn’t mind continuing to play the careless bachelor if you aren’t willing.”

Selina scoffed, rolling her eyes and grabbing the necklace. Effortlessly, she swung it around her neck and clasped it in place. “Please, darling. You and I both know it drives you up a wall when Brucie is hounded by gold diggers every time he steps foot out of that mansion of his. I’ll play the camera-girlfriend, but only for a maximum of a year. And you two can only call on me one a week at most, a girl’s gotta have some time to herself.”

Marinette nodded eagerly. “That’s fine! We probably won’t even call on you that much, Bruce is planning to play the ‘we want to keep our relationship pretty low-key’ card for now. Just an appearance once a month or two ought to satisfy those vampiric paparazzi.”

Selina just smiled. She had practically adopted Marinette years previous, during a trip to Paris where she had found out she apparently had a male doppelgänger. Now the two were sisters in all but official (Not-forged) legal documents. And because of that, Bruce had somehow become her brother.

Which Bruce later found out, meant that Selina would relentlessly tease him every time she needed to appear as his “girlfriend.”

Relentlessly.

But Marinette and Bruce had a Plan. She wasn’t quite ready to make a public appearance as his real girlfriend, mostly because of loose ends that still had to be tied back in France. She was making so many trips back and forth between the two countries that they couldn’t see each other in person much to begin with, so they also didn’t want their few in-person meetings tainted by greedy D-rate journalists.

But yes, they had a Plan. One year was the perfect time frame for the last stretch of said plan. Marinette would tie up the last few things she had to do in Paris, start an official branch of her fashion company in Gotham, and they would stage an entire break-up with Selina, a three-month “break” to “recover” and then a suitably dramatic, romantic “meet-cute” between the two of them to start what the media would see as a love-at-first-sight, fairytale relationship.

Nobody needed to know about Marinette and Bruce’s five-year pining session, or their one-year fumble through figuring out how to date one another before actually getting it right, or the most recent three-years of dealing with the fact that they were both highly experienced hero/vigilantes, the leaders of their own hero teams, and highly accomplished business people.

It was a hard relationship utterly riddled with drama, but they had finally reached the stable point where they were ready to commit. Sort of. They just needed Selina to fake-date Bruce in the public eye for a couple months, and then everything would be fine.

—*—*—*—*—*

One year and three months later.

Marinette shifted her purse on her shoulder. This would be her first time in over five years actually setting foot inside the Wayne Manor. She was excited to see Alfred again, and to hash out the last details for her and Bruce’s public “meet-cute.” But Alfred didn’t open the door this time, a short green-eyed boy with an all-too-familiar frown on his face did.

And once again, Marinette knew that Selina was not the mother. Her pseudo-sister was, as she had said so long ago, a very proud lesbian. But Marinette did know of a past fling of Bruce’s who did possess the proper genes to help create a child of this age.

Marinette smiled, pushing her inner rage at the thought of Talia Al Ghul out of her mind. She was still pissed beyond all rational thought when she heard about what Talia had done to Bruce. But this child was not at fault for any of it, only an innocent by-product.

“Hello. My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Would you mind telling Alfred I’m here?”

“Tt. Why should I?” The apparently bratty boy asked, crossing his arms and glaring straight at her. Marinette felt her eye twitch.

“I am a close friend of Bruce— Would I be correct in assuming he’s your biological father?” Immediately upon her question, the boy’s eyes widened ever so slightly in shock before his glare intensified. Marinette chuckled. “He didn’t tell me that he adopted any new children, and he always tells me when he adopts. Which means he didn’t have to adopt you, suggesting you are related to him directly. You can’t be a cousin or nephew, he has no living blood family. And all his pseudo-siblings are alive and fine, so you weren’t left to his care in anybody’s will,” she deduced out loud for him. “Plus, the green eyes and tan skin— I know of exactly one of Bruce’s past… suitors… who happens to fit the timeframe and features necessary.”

The boy raised an eyebrow. “Most assume that I am that harlot Selina Kyle’s spawn,” he snapped, but it lacked the same heat this time around. He was now analyzing her face closely, and Marinette noticed. She was careful to keep her eagerness toned down. She really just wanted to see Bruce and be able to hug and cuddle him for the first time in almost a year, and this child was her only obstacle at the moment. A very stubborn one.

Marinette sighed. “Selina is like a sibling to me, don’t call her a harlot. If Selina was ever pregnant, I would have known. Hell, Selina would have given me her baby to raise because she doesn’t have any interest in being a mother. Now, the polite thing to do when someone introduces themselves is so introduce yourself back. Not interrogate or intimidate them.”

The boy huffed, straightening his emerald turtleneck and rolling his shoulders back. “I am Damian Wayne,” he replied imperiously. “And Father has never mentioned a friend by the name Marinette. Which leads me to believe you are yet another no good hopeful suitor, and Father is still recovering after he and Kyle finally split up for good.”

Marinette froze, and slowly her eyes narrowed. “He never mentioned my name? Ever?”

“Tt. I already said no.”

Finally, the shape of Alfred Pennyworth came into view behind Damian. He had obviously heard the last bit of the conversation, because he just sighed and shared a long suffering look with Marinette. It was that look that made Marinette’s eye twitch a second time.

“Alfred,” she said slowly. “Has he mentioned me at all to any of his kids?”

“He has not,” Alfred replied. “And furthermore, Miss Selina would not stop giving him a hard time whenever he had to call her out for an appearance. It seems all of the children mistook their relationship for actually being of a romantic nature.”

Damian spun to the butler, eyes wide and swimming with a multitude of emotions. “What do you mean, ‘actually’, Alfred?”

“He means,” Marinette began before Alfred had the chance. Her eyes were narrowed, matching storms of dark, furious blue. “That Selina was only pretending to be Bruce’s girlfriend so that the press and gold-diggers would leave him alone. And apparently I need to beat some sense into my stupid, idiotic boyfriend, who I should have known would do something like this,” she looked up at Alfred, jaw clenching. “That man would never be able to pass for a functioning human without either you or me keeping his head screwed on. Where is he?”

“Not at the manor currently, Mademoiselle Marinette.”

“Alfred.”

The butler gave Marinette a rather mischievous little grin. “Master Bruce has forbade me from telling you where he is currently, he wanted you to stay at the manor and sleep the jet lag off until he got back. But I can tell you that he is not currently on Earth or on a mission.”

“Alfred!” Damian hissed, shocked that the man would say something so revealing. Alfred was the perfect secret keeper, why would he tell someone Bruce had never mentioned something so telling?”

“Oh, calm yourself Master Damian,” Alfred soothed. “Marinette has known about Master Bruce’s nighttime activities since before you were born. If anything, I believe he rightfully deserves the wake up call he is about to receive.”

Marinette nodded, eyes still stormy and determined. “Alright, so he’s at the Watchtower. The Zeta tunes are still in the Batcave, right?” When Alfred nodded, Marinette wasted no time. She easily slid around Damian and stormed into the manor, finding her way to the Batcave on pure muscle memory and rage.

“Wait, Alfred! I demand an explanation!” Damian’s loud voice slowly grew quieter as Marinette stormed down into the cave, ignoring how Alfred began to calmly explain the situation to the boy. She just slid right in to the Zeta tube, and commanded the computer to send her to the Watchtower.

“P-001, codename LADYBUG, recognized.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Batman pinched his nose from where he stood at the head of the meeting room in the watchtower. The briefing was supposed to start over an hour ago, but Hal Jordan had been twenty minutes late. No surprise there. But still, SuperMan had insisted that they wait until everyone arrived. And really, normally Batman would too. Except that his long time girlfriend was going to be landing in Gotham any minute now, and he would rather be back at the manor to greet her.

And the asinine argument that had been going on for the past forty minutes was finally going to end, even if Bruce had to hogtie every last one of his insufferable coworkers himself and force them through the rest of the meeting strapped to their chairs.

“Okay, can we PLEASE begin the meeting now, or so help me I will break out my kryptonite restraints,” he threatened darkly. He might have only mentioned Kryptonite, but everyone knew that that threat was actually aimed at all of them. Batman knew every last one of their weaknesses and was not above being petty when they strained his last nerve.

Quickly getting the hint, the entire room rushed to fill their seats and at least fake at paying attention. But of course, nothing goes quite right in the life of Bruce Wayne. Right as he turned on the slideshow he had prepared and began the meeting, the sound of an enraged woman’s voice echoed down the hallway in a deafening roar.

“BRUCE THOMAS WAYNE, YOU ARE IN SOOOO MUCH TROUBLE!”

Batman felt as if someone had just shoved him into a cryogenic freezer, a harsh shiver of dread running down his spine. There was exactly one person who could terrify him with a single word, and it just so happened to be the woman he was hiding a wedding ring from.

For the past eight years, but that’s neither here nor there.

“Oh shit,” Bruce breathed, but found he was unable to move from his spot. Yes, he wanted to see Marinette so badly that it hurt. But he also would like to stay alive.

SuperMan leaned forward, not really concerned since Batman would have reacted much differently had the voice been coming from a real threat. Instead, the man leveled his old friend with a very teasing smirk.

“Why is your heart suddenly racing?”

Bruce could only glare daggers at Clark before the door to the meeting room swung open, a tiny French woman standing there in a long, formal white-and-pink knee-length gown with a cheongsam neckline and one of her leaf-green heels held in each hand threateningly.

“You absolute idiot! When I said I wanted to keep our relationship out of the public eye, I didn’t mean to keep me a secret from EVERYBODY!”

“But darling—“ Bruce cut himself off as he was forced to dodge one deadly-accurate piece of flying footwear. “You don’t understand. The boys cannot keep a secret to save their life.”

“They have secret identities, don’t they?” She slipped her other shoe back on. She had known that her shoe never had a chance of hitting, and with Bruce in full Batman gear, even if it had hit him the high heel would have felt like she had only thrown a pillow. Had it been otherwise, she wouldn’t have even joked about throwing her shoes at him. But as it stood, she knew none of the normal things she had on her would be able to so much as make Bruce say “ow.”

Marinette placed both of her fists on her hips, marching up to Batman and pulling him down the full foot it took for him to be able to look her in the eye. His resulting gulp was clearly audible, and visible, to everyone else in the room. “You absolute, emotionally dense moron,” her voice had dropped from a yell to a mildly fond, but still very annoyed, grumble. “Your kids are mostly adults now, you know. And you never told me about Damian either. Did you honestly think I’d be mad?” Bruce looked away from her, which was honestly all the answer she needed. Marinette sighed, letting him go and softening her voice. “You need to trust your kids more, Bruce. I never wanted you to keep me a secret from your family, or even your close friends. Just the annoying ass paparazzi. And trust me a little bit more, yeah? I know it isn’t exactly your strong suit, but I’ve known you long enough that you should know I’m not gonna run for the hills just because you have a biological kid that wasn’t with me.” Marinette risked giving him a slightly vulnerable, lopsided smile. And Bruce immediately deciphered what it meant. His shoulders slumped.

The cost of using the Ladybug Miraculous for so long was that Marinette had to give up her fertility. She could never have children of her own, and Bruce had felt guilty that he had had a biological child, even though he hadn’t exactly consented to it, without her. But now he could see where he went wrong.

Marinette was just happy to have another piece of him to take care of. She never would have resented him for what had happened with Talia. And, seeing all of those facts written on her face now, he felt more than a little blind.

“... sorry.”

Marinette just huffed out a short, soft laugh before grabbing Bruce by the bicep. She turned to look at the other heroes still in the room, half of them uncomfortable with seeing such an emotional display while the others looked like they were incredibly invested in a good soap opera. She shot them a grin.

“I’m stealing him for the next few days, okay? Don’t worry, I’m sure you can make do with making Diana read the slideshow. I know from experience that it has everything you guys need to know and more. Don’t call us, I’ll field all your contact to Agent A!!” With that, she dragged Bruce by the arm out of the room.

To be fair, he wasn’t exactly resisting. Even if the reunion was far from ideal, just having this little bit of contact was extremely relaxing for the vigilante. When they reached the Zeta Tubes, he stopped Marinette and pulled her in for a kiss.

When they inevitably pulled away for breath, he smiled at her. “As soon as we get back, I’ll call everyone in and explain the situation,” he promised. “And then, we can spend the rest of the night doing whatever you want.”

Marinette smiled back, shoving him into the Zeta Tube. “Then get ready, because I wanna sleep off this damn jet lag and I plan on cuddling you like a koala the whole time. No escape.”

“B-001, Codename BATMAN. Recognized.”

“Can’t wait,” he replied right before he was whisked off. The sound of the love of his life laughing followed him through until he reached the other end of the teleportation.

—*—*—*—*—*

@maribat-writing-and-prompts

[thegreaterlink]

Reviewing Star Trek TNG - S4E3 “Brothers”

In retrospect, that title doesn't quite fit the episode. But they already called the last episode "Family," so hindsight is 20/20. Though "Droids From the Same Noid" was still ripe for the taking.

THE PREMISE

After a misguided prank between two young siblings exposes the younger of them to a deadly parasite which they're unable to treat aboard the Enterprise, they're en route to a Starbase where the boy can be treated. Suddenly Data returns to the bridge, sets a new course and triggers a life support alarm, forcing the rest of the senior crew to evacuate the bridge while he locks down the ship.

MY REVIEW

Golly gee, two episodes in a row focusing on family. Vin Diesel must be happier than a pig in shit right now.

Depending on who you ask, Data's complete takeover of the bridge is either pretty effective in showing how intelligent Data is as a character or in showing how crappy the Enterprise's security measures are when one rogue android can take control of the entire ship.

Then again, they were once held hostage by a hologram who couldn't even leave the room projecting him, so I guess it isn't that much of a stretch. Plus I doubt they could've predicted Data using his voice to impersonate Picard.

Wait a minute.

Well, I’ve got egg on my face.

But yeah, Data manages to make his way through the ship without difficulty due to programming a series of force fields to keep the rest of the crew at bay... despite multiple points where I feel like the crew could've gotten to him. Feels weird. But he still manages to beam down to the planet with the Enterprise still on lockdown, and finds himself in the home of that weird old guy from the header image.

Speaking of that weird old guy, he reveals himself to be Doctor Noonien Soong, Data's creator and kind-of father, who is apparently still alive. He's also played by Brent Spiner in layers of old-age makeup which look much better than the series' earlier efforts.

Soong gives some vague exposition about how he somehow survived the crystalline entity which destroyed his colony, as well as disappointment that his "son" joined Starfleet instead of becoming a scientist, pretty standard stuff. But Data at least takes the rare opportunity to ask why Soong created him in the first place. Brent Spiner has a nice conversation with himself as they arrive at the conclusion that it was part of humanity's inherent need for continuity.

Data: I suppose it is a factor in the human desire to procreate.

Soong: So you believe that having children gives humans a sense of immortality?

Sure, what’s the difference? They’re both overrated.

But before I can dish out any more spicy takes, a familiar face (in more ways than one) shows up.

"Looks like we have ourselves a... family reunion."

Golly gee, I sure am glad that attaching that file for a single joke went off without a hitch! I definitely didn't accidentally delete an entire review the last time I tried that!

Yeah, don't be surprised if you see a re-review of "Evolution" on your dashboard in the near future, cuz that review doesn't really exist anymore. Or maybe y'all could hunt down a reblogged version and send it to me. Just saying.

Anyway, yay! Family reunion!

So yeah. Lore is back. After being beamed into space way back in season 1 and being left to drift for two years, he made his way here after being picked up by a Pakled ship. And honestly, that scans. He made his way back through the same homing device that called Data back, and Brent Spiner gets another few days of overtime.

This episode must have been a pain in the ass for him to film. But it’s a testament to his acting prowess when he can make the three of them feel like different characters, even when two of them look exactly the same.

As Brent Spiner warns himself not to trust himself, we get some of that sweet, sweet Soong family drama, with Lore resenting both Soong and Data for how they treated him and almost leaving before Soong reveals to both of them that he's dying. Something which you could probably guess just by looking at him.

Lore: What do you mean you're dying? You look fine!

Sir, he looks like a baked potato.

Dr Soong explains to his favourite son (and Lore) that the reason he summoned Data there was to bestow upon him an emotion chip to allow him to feel the same broad spectrum of emotions that Lore can.

However, Soong arbitrarily decides to rest before the procedure, rather idiotically leaving his two sons unattended. I say so because when he performs the operation later, it turns out that Lore managed to incapacitate and deactivate Data and switch clothes with him (which is exactly what he did last time and exactly why Data tried to warn Soong that Lore couldn't be trusted), and despite Soong's warnings that the chip isn't compatible with him, Lore fatally wounds his creator and beams away.

Wow. Lore went rogue and betrayed them. Whosoever could have predicted this. Certainly not I.

The rest of the crew of course beams down and finds a deactivated Data in another room. They had their own subplot about removing the ship's lockdown and tracking down Data which I chose to ignore.

Still, Data at least gets a nice moment of... grief probably isn't the right word... where he stays with his creator in his final moments.

"Everybody dies, Data. Well... almost everybody. Goodbye, Data..."

"Goodbye... father..."

And that's pretty much it. While the Soong family reunion is interesting, it feels like Rick Berman (in one of his handful of writing credits, despite being a longtime producer on the franchise) didn’t have enough of the runtime to do what he was going for. Which is ironic, considering we apparently had time for an entire damn subplot about two children who we’ll never see again.

Yeah, remember them? The impetus for the episode's entire plot? They were just vibing in sickbay the whole time, taking up way too much screentime trying to resolve their little spat. I haven't mentioned them at all because all their scenes are boring filler.

I mean, they try to justify it by throwing in some last-minute parallels between their relationship and Data’s relationship with Lore, but it ends up feeling pretty forced, even if it is the main source of tension since . But to be honest, I haven't cared so little about a threat to a child's life since I last watched an episode of Caillou. Just remove all the shit about the two brothers and free up more time for the Soong family sitcom.

I think that's my biggest problem with this episode - there's just not enough time for anything meaningful to happen. Data takes almost half the episode to even get down to the planet, then it takes even longer for Lore to appear, and all the while valuable runtime is being eaten up by the Enterprise crew trying to find them and an unrelated subplot which none of us care about.

The whole situation with Lore and Dr Soong feels more interested in setting up a later episode than focusing on its own goddamn story. This script isn't bad, far from it, but it definitely could've used another draft or two to weed out the unnecessary shit and tighten things up. I'm sure we'll see Lore again (you don't set up something like an unstable emotion chip in an already dangerous android without following it up later), but I just wish his appearance here had been more interesting.

Wow. Look at me actually reviewing an episode in a review.

6/10 - Feels like wasted potential.

Previous Episode | TNG Masterpost | Next Episode

[chdarling]

Definitely feel free to ignore this and I know JKR has messed up a lot and it’s impt to critique that but I just. Feel like i am constantly hearing in the hp/marauders fandom how JKR did things “by accident” or just “didn’t notice” what she was creating and I have to say, I’ve never heard this get said about male writers. It just smacks of very ~how to suppress women’s writing vibes and belittle the genius of women authors. Like yes she’s problematique now but JKR revolutionized children’s and YA literature…HP did that. Idk it just really feels like misogynistic undertones to me how quickly the fandom is ready to dismiss the creativity, brilliance, and wonder of the series’ author in a way that i never see happen in any of my fandoms where it’s a male creator….just random thoughts that make me sad, don’t mean to stir fandom drama. Love TLE1 and 2, thanks for everything!

Oh, let me clarify: I definitely don’t think she created the Marauders by accident. At all. They are a hugely important backstory to the main plot line and, in my personal opinion, a lot of the heart and tragedy of the series. The interplay between characters, the doomed plot, the friendship…it’s my favorite thing about the stories and I think it’s incredible writing. My whole fanfic is firmly rooted in canon (or at least, I’m trying), so I have a lot of respect for the world she created and the talent that she used in creating it. I’m just piggybacking here.

That said, I do think James Potter’s development in particular was ignored in the canon, and I do think a lot of the James that has sprung up in fanon is, well, fanon that was definitely drawn from all the bits and pieces we get in the books, but never fully realized in the actual story. He just kind of gets the shaft in the books. That’s just my personal opinion, and not an indictment of the whole story. And honestly — he wasn’t a hugely important character to the main plot of the series, so I do understand why we didn’t get a whole book about JP’s exploits or Jily’s get-together. 😂

Look, I have really conflicted feelings about JKR. She was my childhood hero, HP was my escape as a queer kid in a hellishly homophobic environment, and frankly is still my escape as a stressed out adult. These books inspired me to write. I have a lot of love for the story. I also have a lot of hurt related to it — as I think a lot of fans do in 2021.

And sometimes I do feel defensive about it because there’s a lot of negative piling on to the HP fandom these days — I for one get super frustrated when I see those “actually HP was always bad and you’re dumb for liking it” posts, because imho that’s the coward’s way out, and it’s revisionist history. The stories were a genuine cultural phenomenon that got tons of kids to read AND ALSO the author has done some real shitty things. These things can both be true and in my opinion, the latter doesn’t erase the former. It complicates it. So my intention is never to act like HP is no good or happened by accident. I don’t believe that at all.

As far as the criticism being because she’s a woman — honestly I can definitely understand why you’d feel that way because I have definitely seen a lot of misogyny thrown in alongside genuine and important criticism. It sucks and it’s gross and it takes away from the genuine discussion of the harm that she’s doing.

But I am in general very critical of the things I love, which is mostly because the creators of the things I love have let me down a lot. I’m a big believer in never meet your heroes, but sadly all my heroes got Twitter. 🙄 I mostly talk about HP on this blog because that’s kind of my thing right now, but I promise I am just as critical of men. I adore pretty much all the shows in the OG whedon-verse (yeah, even dollhouse) and I will rip Joss Whedon to absolute shreds if given half a chance, for instance. Please hold for my ten page essay on how all the best bits of Buffy happened despite Joss’s best efforts…😤

Anyway, my post about James was just meant to be fairly flippant. 😅 I don’t generally wander into JKR discourse because I don’t have much to contribute other than: She wrote an amazing story with amazing characters that I will always love and will always be grateful to have grown up with and also she is doing active harm in the world that hurts me, hurts my friends, and (imho) goes against a lot of the messaging in her books. It sucks.

(Also, I am very much no JKR or any wildly successful published writer (obviously) but I have had people comment pointing out these really deep and beautiful connections between different scenes that I totally didn’t do on purpose. 😂 so I think it probably does happen sometimes where things writers don’t intend take on a life of their own. I doubt JKR ever imagined when she started writing that Harry’s dead dad would have his own fan base and a discord devoted exclusively to his romance with Harry’s dead mum but here we are.)

Lots of love ❤️

[cassandraclare]

Jessa/Wessa ship wars

teenagefunbouquet said:Isn't it enough Tessa&Jem got a wedding comic, two kids (and you say more), a lifetime as the only mates for each other and your most explicitly written sex scene After the Bridge? Wessa are the most popular and we get nothing, every wessa moment is shared with Jem while Jessa get to be alone, Wessa fans got no "anticipation" like jessa fans are getting now everyday you give them a book in jem's pov or a short story or a new kid. it feels like wessa is dead.

I’ll be interested in people’s thoughts on this. (I left the username as is since it’s a blank account, probably created to ask this question, so no one’s really getting hurt in this minor drama.) Most of my long and somewhat crabbish post is under the read more.

First, let me reply with the obvious, which is the Jessa rebuttal: “Isn’t it enough that Will gets to be Tessa’s first love and Jem only gets to be her second? Isn’t it enough that Will and Tessa had sex when they thought Jem was dead? Isn’t it enough that there’s a whole series about Will and Tessa’s kids but we only find out that Jem and Tessa had a kid in a short story? Isn’t enough that Jem and Tessa have spent half their relationship looking for a kid who’s related to Will, not either of them? Isn’t it enough that Will and Tessa got two biological kids they got to spend eighteen years raising and Jem and Tessa only get like two years with Kit? Jessa are the most popular, but half the stories in Ghosts of the Shadow Market happened while Will was still alive! And now Wessa fans are getting content every day and have two more books of Wessa being married and doing cute stuff to look forward to. Every day they’re getting a special edition of a book with a whole short story about their wedding. It feels like Jessa is dead.”

Not that I believe any of that either: I think both complaints are equally silly and selfish. But they are complaints rooted in the same logic, which is “My ship is the best and most popular, and every time I see something that in my mind supports the ship I hate I feel angry and diminished, and rather than perhaps examining those feelings I’d like to vent them on other fans and the creator.”

So. My feeling about this is: I am sad to see there is still some kind of a ship war here. As far as I am concerned...

the Wessa/Jessa ship war ended in 2012 when we found out Tessa loved both boys equally and would spend a lifetime with both of them. The end. Quibbling about irrelevant details like how many kids each couple has subsequently or examining closely the explicitness of their sex scenes seem bizarre and pointless. It has nothing to do with how books and stories are made, or how they work, or what functions they serve. At this point it’s like you decided your favorite football team could definitely beat another team, and you spend all your time obsessing about it even though they will never play against the other team because the other team is a hockey team.

When I see people say that “Wessa got” something or “Jessa got” something, it makes me cringe. It reduces stories that are about other things, often friendship, to being about a ship war I am not a part of. (Not every story or book in which a couple appears is a story about that ship. Sometimes they’re just grouting their shower or fighting a demon.) Wessa and Jessa are not dueling pop stars fighting over who gets to perform on the Tonight Show. In fact, they are not fighting at all, which is part of the underlying problem. People are used to love triangles where two guys are fighting over a girl and are jealous of each other. Will and Jem are not jealous of each other. They are not fighting over Tessa. To believe that it lessens Will and Tessa’s relationship that Jem is around and alive, or that it makes Jem and Tessa’s relationship better that Will is dead, is a fundamental misunderstanding of these characters and the story they are in. You are trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, and it will cause you endless misery and frustration.

For instance, claiming that “every Wessa moment is spent with Jem.” Well, that’s ridiculous. Obviously, Will and Tessa spent an enormous amount of quality time alone together in TID. (Otherwise, you would have no investment in this relationship in the first place. There’s a reason you’re attached to it.) Jem did not attend their wedding. He is around in Chain of Gold mostly in his role as a Silent Brother: tending the sick, helping James, bringing news. He is not around during the scene where Will and Tessa make love, or when they kiss and cuddle in the drawing room, grossing out their kids. (I had to fight very very hard to retain even one scene of Will and Tessa alone: in a normal YA book, you would never see a sex scene between the parents, from their point of view.)

The problem is not that there is no “Wessa content” to “anticipate.” The majority of Wessa fans are happy to enjoy stuff like the wedding story or the Wessa moments in TLH. The problem is that the person asking this question will only accept a TLH book in which Jem isn’t mentioned at all as “Wessa content,” and since that would be a fundamental and appalling betrayal of the story and characters — something I would never write and never consider — they will forever feel they are not getting what they deserve.

Asker: if you think that it’s somehow better for Jem and Tessa that Will is dead, that they “get” something that Will and Tessa don’t by having had something awful happen to them, then I do not even know how to begin to speak to you. What has always been meaningful to me about Will, Jem and Tessa is that they all loved each other equally. If that is not the case, then they are not people I am interested in writing about. If that being the case makes you not want to read about them, then you are free to stop — please do — but the story is not going to become something other than it is because you feel your ship is the “most popular.” (Which it is not in my experience, the ships are about equal, and I don’t know why it would matter if it was.)

In After the Bridge, which is not an explicit sex scene but rather a short story that contains sex (they exist!) Will is mentioned thirty-two times. Here’s an example:

“Jem swallowed, running his fingers up and down the blade. “He had only just died,” he said. She didn’t need to ask who he was. There was really only one He when it was the two of them speaking. “I was afraid. I saw what happened to the other Silent Brothers. I saw how they hardened over time, lost the people they had been. How as the people who loved them and who they loved died, they became less human. I was afraid that I would lose my ability to care. To know what this knife meant to Will and what Will meant to me.”

If you think Will isn’t present in Jem and Tessa’s relationship just because he’s dead, you’re wrong. He’s mentioned constantly. (And if someone thought that made it not Jessa content, I would have the same discussion with them: If Jem and Tessa didn’t care about Will, I wouldn't care about them.)

As long as there has been fandom, there have been ship wars. Social media has added a new dimension to that, which is what you’re doing here: the ability to run to the creator and complain, hoping they’ll side with you or give you what you want.

Here’s the problem: it’s really really toxic to have been involved in a clearly vicious ship battle for years. It will destroy utterly your ability to read or enjoy the canon you’re arguing about. I’ve been there, I’ve had friends be there. If you think it’s a point for Jem and Tessa that Will is dead, if you went into Last Hours thinking Jem wouldn’t be in it, that is a sign of a profound detachment from the actual reality of the canon books. You are not interacting with what I am writing or the characters as they are. You are interacting with the fight you are having. That is why your discourse has spun so far off from the books it no longer resembles what is actually happening in them, and demands such extreme gestures to be appeased — like leaving Jem out of Lost Book when he’s actually from the city the characters are visiting, or cutting him from Last Hours even though it would be unrealistic, cruel, and a disappointment to the vast majority of readers.

Dismissing every single moment Will and Tessa have together in TLH because Jem is alive somewhere and it’s bothering you is a recipe for you to be miserable. Clearly you didn’t enjoy the Wessa wedding, or the Will and Tessa love scenes in Chain of Gold. Clearly you consider Jem and Tessa having children not to be a reason for happiness but rather bitter rage even though it is totally irrelevant to Will and Tessa’s past relationship. The only thing that would be satisfactory would be a rewrite of Clockwork Princess in which Jem was run over by a tank and Will and Tessa didn’t care and were happy and got married and we never had to hear about Jem again. But because that would require time travel and a rewrite of Will and Tessa as vile assholes, that is not a thing you are going to get. If you are determined to always be miserable about the reality of what this story is, than the only result of that is that you will always be miserable.

There is never going to be a winner of this love triangle. It isn’t that story. No amount of anything I do is ever going to change that: no short stories I write, or content I produce, or books or sex scenes or longform poems about either couple will change the fact that both Will and Jem ended up with Tessa and she loves them equally. If you want a “somebody wins” kind of love triangle, there are other books that will provide that for you. These will never be those books.

So why did you write this long screed, Cassie, the rest of you might be wondering, and fairly. Three reasons. One is that there are other questions that are carbon copies of this one (as in, written by the same person/small group of people) cluttering up my inbox, and I want to put a stop to the idea that this kind of thing is going to be acknowledged as a valid comment or complaint. It’s not. Second, we have all been driven bananas by quarantine and I am no exception. The third is that this is the last time I am going to address this kind of ship-fight-disguised-as-question. Any further demands for me to favor one Tessa ship over another will be responded to with a link to this post. In the end I’m hoping this will be a time saver once we’re all allowed outside again.

[poisonfallen]

Your take on cancel culture and stan culture?

Oh boy, oh boy, it's happening.

Alright, let's talk about toxic people on the internet. And keep in mind that my opinion goes beneath the mcyt community. I feel the same about the kpop community and any other community that is famous for having lots of toxic people. 

Also, keep in mind that this is my opinion about these topics, I don’t intend to offend or misinform anybody. I might be wrong, and if I am wrong indeed, please help me correct any mistake that I’ve done.

Cancel culture

Before ranting about its toxicity, let's understand what it actually means and how it works.

What is cancel culture? 

Well, according to Wikipedia, “cancel culture or call-out culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person” (source). 

Basically, cancel culture is the process of ceasing offering support to a public figure after saying or doing something that is considered objectionable or offensive. 

In theory, cancel culture is a good thing that helps the victims speak up and properly defend themselves, as well as preventing other people from doing the same mistakes. No harm done to innocent people, just a way of saying why a certain person or a certain company has done something that really hurt a category of people. Some even say that it’s an exercise of free speech.

However, while a culture that encourages calling out inappropriate behaviour is important, a culture that is quick to cancel and reluctant to forgive is something that divides the internet and starts wars in the trial of defending an opinion that is not shared by every single person on the internet, thus becoming the thing that its purpose is to defeat. (a vicious cycle of hatred)

So why is it toxic?

From my point of view, I don’t think that cancel culture is a toxic thing in theory. But the way people actually use it is what concerns (and bothers) me. 

In its current form, anonymous and fuelled by negative emotions, cancel culture has the power to destroy a person’s career in a matter of minutes. There are no gray areas, just the white and black pack mentality: “I am right and you are wrong”. 

The subject of the cancelation becomes “cancelled” for disagreeing with a certain opinion, and the cancelled one feels like the whole world is hating them. No one can argue that going through a cancellation, no matter how big or small it is, can severely affect one’s mental health and leave them scarred for life. 

Cancel culture, at this point, is bullying someone famous without facing the consequences. We are already used to surf the web and stumble across someone’s cancelation over something that not even in our wildest dreams we would be able to imagine otherwise. 

I think that all of us are familiar with a stupid cancelation, like canceling someone over a burger that somehow became the sole reason of obesity (see: Dream MrBeast burger). We can’t help but laugh at people trying to cancel someone for a stupid reason. 

But, unfortunately, not all of our cancelations are stupid or laughable. There are people cancelled over their physical aspect or them not being political active, people cancelled over being friends with certain people or over saying something that is now considered to be slightly offensive a few years ago. The ones who are under the spotlight can’t make jokes or take decisions by themselves, they are supposed to be the marionettes of their fans. 

(I do not intend to say that all cancelations are bad, but I’m trying to highlight how the majority of the most recent cancelations are out of place. If someone actually tries to actively harm your minority, your beliefs etc. you should call out that inappropriate behaviour, but without purposely harming that person as a means of payback) 

There is also a toxic behaviour that I’ve noticed in a cancelation: the “I forgive you”/”I don’t forgive you” phrase used by people who have no right to do so. If you are part of the minority who has been hurt, then you have every right to forgive or not someone for saying or doing something hurtful towards your minority. 

But if you are not a part of that minority, shut the f*** up. By speaking on behalf of a minority while you aren’t part of that minority you take away the right of actually addressing the issue from the people who are part of that minority. You can support them from the sides and let them express their pain with their own voice. They perfectly capable of addressing the issue, they need your support but not you taking the spotlight away from the actual problem.

What is my take on cancel culture?

I think that there are more civil ways of resolving an issue without actively trying to destroy someone’s career. Instead of cancelling that person, we could educate them (but not in that harmful way I’ve seen on twitter) on the subject and on why their words or actions are hurtful. 

We should remember that we are all humans and that every human makes mistakes. Don’t forget that children learn by making mistakes. And while I’m well aware that we are not talking about children here, you should also be well aware that we are talking about actual humans with feelings. 

Cancelation should be the last weapon we use, but only if that person refuses to give an apology and educate themselves on the subject. 

Overall, don’t. Just don’t cancel people. Don’t attack people on the internet. Don’t try to harm people on the internet. 

Some of you might disagree with my opinion and I’m open to criticism as long as you can help me educate more on the subject.

Now let’s move on to the other topic

Stan culture

Before I start talking about this one, I’d like to point out that stans actually scare me, a lot. 

What is stan culture?

“Stan culture describes an online phenomenon in which communities of stalker fans, or stans, engage in overly enthusiastic support of a favorite celebrity online (called “stanning”), including at times vehement, coordinated attacks against detractors and critics” (source). 

Basically stan = stalker + fan. 

There are also people who say that the word stan comes from Eminem’s song “Stan” which tells the story of a crazed fan. I do recommend listening to the lyrics of this song if Eminem is not your cup of tea, it’s a good intake in what stan culture was at the beginning of 2000′s.

To be honest, I don’t have anything more to add at this section. Anything more I’d say would, in the end, be the same as what was already stated. (but you can see my opinion on it with more comments at the end)

It stan culture toxic?

You have to live under a rock if you had never seen a stan on twitter or tumblr. You usually recognize them by their profile pictures, the content they share, their posts and their ready to argue behaviour in case you insult or disagree with the ones they worship. 

I’d like to point out that there is a fine line between a stan and a fan: stans know no length when it comes to defending their object of worship and often have really toxic ways of expressing their opinions, while a fan is there just to enjoy their favourite content without engaging in harmful discussion and hate speeches. 

This topic is filled with controversy. In essence, stanning should be a means of showing support. The majority of them don’t even realize the toxicity they spread only after leaving the fandom. 

The real problem here is the moment when they engage in conflicts without entertaining the thought that they might be wrong. Anything they do is right and their object of worship can say or do no mistake. This extends to the point of sending death threats and even doxxing. 

For those who don’t know about doxxing, short for dropping dox: doxxing is an internet slang that means to publish personal information (of an individual) on the internet. You can find more about it here.

With no intend to disrespect or disregard one’s religious beliefs, you can say that stanning is like being part of a religion. The stans are the extremist people who practice that religion, while the fans are those who practice it from time to time (eg. like a Christian who goes to Church only on Christmas and Easter - me). 

In the end, stan culture is toxic to both the stans and celebrities. 

Is there a connection between stan culture and cancel culture?

They are both toxic internet cultures, this one is right for sure.

From what I’ve noticed during my short timed stay on twitter, a lot of cancelations are made by stans from the same community or different communities. 

I’m part of mcyt community, so I’ve seen a lot of Dream fans and Dream antis fighting over the past months, trying to cancel each other and harm each other. It’s mental seeing people actively trying to do these kind of things just because they love or hate a certain person. Of course that we can’t tie the situation to a certain content creator. 

I know that his also happens a lot in the kpop community where stans are in a constant fight to destroy the career of each other’s favourite idol group or bias (someone's most favorite member of an idol group). 

What is my take on stan culture?

I feel like I need to repeat myself: stans scare the s*** out of me. 

It’s like their sole purpose in life is to support someone and don’t have the basic sense of boundaries. A lot of problems arise with this: like shipping people who are uncomfortable being shipped with, intense sexualizing (sexualizing the minors is the worst from my point of view), creating drama and intentionally ignoring real world problems just to make their favourite person(s) trend, and the list is so long that I feel like I’d create a record on tumblr for the longest post if I go on. 

We are talking about some weird adaptation of Lord of the Flies where children raise each other on the internet. It’s like a cult and they are brainwashed into believing what everybody else thinks. And the worst part is that I don’t think we’ll ever get better from this, things are only going south to heaven. 

I might be wrong and biased, so I do expect someone to help me understand these topics better, but for now these are my firm opinions. 

I’d also like to clarify, once again, that in the religion example I’m not making fun of Christianity, I’m just using it as a means to help people better understand my point.

[nanachingu]

Drama Review: In Family We Trust (2018) (Thai Drama)

My first Thai drama review is coming from In Family We Trust (2018). First, let me tell you how I found this drama and decided to binge-watching it. I often see this title when I scroll Netflix but never trying to watch it till someone attach me. My whole reason to start this drama is Thanapob Lee or we can called him Tor. He’s one of the main actor in this drama and I love him in his next drama Hua Jai Sila (2019). I think his acting in that drama is really good, he’s perfect potraying his character so I want to find out his another project. To be honest, before this drama I already see him in several movie like Ghost Lab and May Who? and shockingly he’s cameo in the end of The Stranded (Netflix series) but I don’t have any idea that it’s him all this time. Really Hua Jai Sila make me open my eyes and make me found this worth-watching drama.

So here I am ready to review this family drama with a touch of mystery and plot twist story that you can find it in Netflix. When I see the title, I already familiar with that name like I think I see this a lot when I scroll Netflix and just need like 3 days to finish this!!! This is one of my favorite genre, I’m weak with family drama and really love with plot twist story. Because this is a family drama, of course there are so many character in this drama. They’re of course a big family, Jiraanan family. Grandpa or called A-goong and Grandma we called A-ma have 5 children (but we only see 4 children in this drama) and of course their children have their family too.

So in the beginning of the story, we’ll be seen that each of Jiranaan family are get along with each other well and prepared to celebrate their A-goong birthday. A-goong and A-ma eldest son is Prasoet, followed by another son called Mate, and they have a daughter called Phatson, and the youngest son is Konkan. I think they have another child that already passed away because we can see one grandson that live together with A-goong and A-ma. Of course their sons and daughter have child too, so the family become much bigger. Let’s see the family tree first so we didn’t confused.

From the left, the son is Prasoet (Songsit Rungnopakunsi) and right beside him are his wifes. The one in the right is Cris (Sopitnapa Chumpanee) and their son is Pete (JAYLERR). This is the family that he brought into Jiraanan family.

Little does his family know, he had another son with another women who claimed to be his girlfriend in college. His another wife is Nipha (Apasiri Nitiphon) and his son Chi (Ice Paris). From the picture below, we can see Prasoet really love his second family eventhough they’re not officially Jiraanan’s family. This drama will revolve around Prasoet so finally in the end all know that Prasoet has another family beside his family with Cris and Pete.

Next, is Mate( Saksit Tangthong) and his daughter Meimei (Sawanya Paisarnpayak). Mate always pick up Meimei at school. This is quite a little family, but Mate really love his daughter and vice versa. The only daughter left in Jiraanan family is Phatson (Kathaleeya McIntosh). Phatson married with a police and automatically her last name changed into Suriyapairoj. They have 4 sons, the eldest is Yi (Thanapob Lee), 2nd is Ern (Captain Chonlathorn), 3rd is Tao (Third Lapat) , and youngest is Toei (Jackie Jackrin) who in the same age with Meimei. To be honest I love this family the most. So lucky that Phatson has 4 son that love and protect her. Next, they didn’t introduce the parents but A-goong and A-ma has grandson that live together with them called Kuaitiao (Porsche). Last, youngest son is Konkan (Lift Supoj). If we can choose which one is the most chill family, we could say that Konkan family is very chill~ They have 2 son, Vegas (JamyJames) and Macao (Ryu Vachirawich). (The parents like casino very much🤣).

So enough with the introduction, and I will tell a little bit of the story before doing an overall review.

This suspense drama revolves around the Jiraanans, a wealthy Thai-Chinese family that operates its own hotels in Bangkok and Pattaya. The drama follows the members of the family, which seem to enjoy a strong and unbreakable bond. But things are not what they seem. One day, the eldest member from the second generation mysteriously turns up dead in the family estate. His nephew Yi, the oldest son of the victim’s sister and the prime suspect in the case, desperately tries to find out the truth. Source: MyDramaList

Before an incident happen in Jiraanan’s family, all of them just celebrate A-goong birthday together. It is so warm to see a big family gather together, it must be a happy day for A-goong and A-ma that they live till now to see their son and daughter with their little family and have a handsome and beautiful grandchilds. We also can see that the grandchilds really love their A-goong and A-ma. It’s like their family are in happiest moment. Even they took a family picture together.

But who knows, that it’ll be A-goong last birthday. A few days after they gather together, A-goong passed away. This is the real beginning of the story about dark secret that Jiraanan’s family have but no one knows anything about it even the family itself. After A-goong death, it just going worse because of the tradition and old generation believe about differences between son and daughter in the family and honestly A-goong make it worse with his last will that shocking all the family because only his daughter that didn’t accept anything related to their business eventhough she work hard build their family business from scratch. All she got only his father savings; money. Instead, the eldest grandson from eldest son got 1/4 share of the family business. All of it, ended up we’ll see Prasoet the eldest son lying still on the floor.

Yes, the eldest son of Jiraanan family was shot dead. He was found first by his sister Phatson who came over to his house talking about their father’s will and end up screaming when saw his brother was dead. Another family at that time in their house hear someone screaming and rush to get out to see Phatson panicked and said that Prasoet was shot in his home so they ran and as we can see in the picture A-ma, Kuaitiao, and Meimei saw that Prasoet lying still on the floor in his bedroom. After that this murder case became the talk of the town, get into the news, so police tried to find the motive why the murderer killed him. Honestly, this event create a most damage for Phatson family. As people know, Prasoet rarely confront someone and had enemy but the last thing he argue with someone, it’s Phatson. But I said in this drama, it’s not over till it’s over. We can’t be sure that the killer is his sister itself because as we go through this we could see that Prasoet had a few secret that we didn’t knew before and it could be a motive to someone done a murder. We just need to see it clearly and evaluate it carefully. I’m not gonna give a spoiler in this review, but I think you guys will guess it right like I am.

My first thought about this drama is I like how the story always give us a new plot twist in almost every near-end episode and make us wanna watch the next episode as soon as possible. This is one way to make us never bored by the story and they can wrap it successfully. Although honestly I can guess the biggest plot twist of this story but still it’s interesting because this drama get some details that we can’t get pass and that’s also give us some plot twist. You can’t guess it throughly, like you can guess this overall plot but still you’ll miss the little part of plot twist that make this story much better. Because it’s a story related to family, it’s really deep even when we already know the real murderer and all we need to see is just see the person in trial, in another drama we usually feel relieved and happy finally the killer is captured. But I think this drama makes me feel more sad and broken?? When we all see the truth, I think the circumstances are not getting better. The story really revolves only between Jiraanan family and the story behind it give us more pain than the murder itself. It’s not easy left by people who we loved especially it is a family, but it is more painful when we know that the one who doing it also our family. But I can say that all of this happens because of karma from their all bad action that happened in the past. When we know literally all the truth we finally realized why all of this happen to them, because every each of them are deserved it. But it’s all in the past, so eventually we must move on. In the end, life goes on. They’re still our family. We just need to let go of the past, and open a new chapter because only family is the place that we can lean on again. I can really feel it how every character in this drama just doing everything that they could to save their family. They’re not bad people, they’re just doing everything to protect their family. Lesson learned from this drama;

Family is the most important thing in our life because in the end it’s only family that we can go back into, and only family that will stay on our side and tried the best to support, protect, and defend if we get into problems. They’ll do anything. But without us knowing, the closest person that standing with us that can hurt us the most, is family too. But in the end, because the name of ‘family’ that will lead us back together and family is the only place that we can still lean on. Mistake happens all the time.

For each family, if I have to choose whose family I love and attached the most, I would say that I really like Phatson family. I can feel their warm family and all of their sons are really get along well. They always root for each other, trying to protect the only woman in the house, their mother Phatson, and the eldest son Yi will do anything to protect and support his family.

One of my favorite scene is when Tao the 3rd son is a celebrity and when he feel he can’t hold back anymore he burst out to his brothers because only them that can give him comfort and feel protected. It’s also my best scene when they give us this brother scene gather together in one room and talking about anything and end up sleeping together on the floor. I can see from that scene, how they think that family is everything and they’ll never let them down because they have each other.

For the character, I have a few character that I like and attached my attention:

My favorite character; I got 2 character that I love, but first the character that I love the most is (of course) Yi. Despite in this drama his character more leaning to the bold action, like doing anything in a rush, bluntly, and doing a few illegal action but I think he did his best for his family. I don’t understand why he must critized by society in the drama because of his action? I think what he did was right because he already doing everything right and ask everyone that connected but no one helping him instead they just block him away. We can see that he never intented to hurt anyone else too so I’m pro to Yi side. I love his scene with his youngest brother, Toei. If I’m Toei, I’ll cherish Yi all of my life till I die. Because when everything is too hard for him, only Yi that confidently always stand on his side. (okay enough it’s a little spoiler). From this drama, I think I know why Thanapob Lee finally got casted in Hua Jai Sila. I noticed him because his acting in that drama was really really good, I can feel all his emotions there. It turned out here we could see him potray Yi perfectly, and it’ll really help him to get his next drama. He’s not only smart and catch the little detail in his family, but his action is always on point eventhough not all of that is always a right thing. But sometimes to get what you want, you need to do a little more dramatic so the thing you want will show up.

My favorite character; The next character that I like is Pete. Unexpectedly, for sure. To be honest I don’t think that his personality is thaaat nice. It’s about his first impression. When I his first scene with his mother, my first impression of him is he’s a boy who like to spent their parents money for fun and study abroad so he can get away from his parents to have fun🤣🤣 in my opinion; he loves money. TURNS OUT I’m 100% wrong. Pete is the most responsible person in this drama. His responsibility and his fair judgement is the best. He didn’t judge people by his relationship, if he know that this person is wrong then it’s wrong. I love how his attitude to his father’s another family. I just thought he’ll upset and didn’t accept them, turns out he accept them, and he cares them just like his father would do if he’s alive. You deserve happiness, Pete!

Ice Pariss as Chi. He doesn’t have much screentime but still his character ini this drama really shocked me. Kinda same with Pete. Look the picture above. Both of them looks like they have a personality that have anger issue but actually not. I watched his drama and movie like Bad Genius The Series and Ghost Lab, and I didn’t like his character but I admit that his face suited the most for that kind of personality. Being a jerk, brave action without thinking, not a literally bad person but not really a good personality too. So I thought he’ll become a jerk too since his dad didn’t bring their family to Jiraanan family and only went to their house 1 time/week. So what did he expect? But he has good attitude even to his step brother, he’s really polite and when he know that his family didn’t get single penny from his father’s will he accept it. He didn’t get mad eventhough in the end of his dad ‘s life, his mother was the legal wife. HE ACCEPT IT WHOLEHEARTEDLY. Okay, respect Chi!

From Pete and Chi, I learned that Prasoet maybe not the best brother, best son, best husband, and best father. But he did really well raising both of his sons to the point that his sons really have a good attitude and personality. I adore their personality so much!

(This is one of the difference between this drama and another drama. It is usually the first son didn’t accept that father has another family and another son demand his part from father’s will and clashed BAM!)

My appreciate for Jackie Jackrin for his acting as Toei. I just know him from this drama ( I think) and he’s potraying Toei really good. I can’t tell too much since it’ll become a spoiler but he can pour his soul and heart so well in this drama. I can see how much he adore his brother Yi so much and wanna say that you did it, you made it to survive with your consistency. You didn’t loose yourself just to make you free when your mother told you to do something. I think Yi had a big part that made Toei become a better person and learn from his mistakes.

The most disappointing character of this drama is *give an applause to* Vegas!!! This is the opposite of Pete. I put a lot of hope for him in this drama that he’ll become one of the rightest people but turns out a big nope. At the very beginning he shows us that he’s honest, fair, doesn’t like act wrong and even brave to tell his father lies. He’s the right person. But as the drama continues, we reach a point that Vegas just an ordinary boy who still has heart. His love is bigger than his principle. The only thing that I hope will be released in this drama, turns out it’ll hidden forever till end because of him. It’s the only proof that clearly helping this case but he choose to hide it forever. Another lesson learned I took from Vegas;

Sometimes we just know that human is not perfect. A person who always doing the right thing, eventually will become a bad person if someone we really love and cherish got a problem. They can ruin their life principle as long they can save their loved one. And often happens that the loved ones is Family.

In this family drama we learned that culture and tradition are taking a big part in our family. When a son and a daughter have a big gap in it, when a daughter didn’t considered as part of family just because she married a man and took his last name. Like having a daughter didn’t as good as if having a son. But actually if I think about it, the one who give birth to is a woman????? Why then a son is more valuable descent. They also differentiate their grandson status into a primary grandchild (son and daughter of the son’s family) and secondary grandchild (son and daughter from daughter’s family). But still we couldn’t get rid of the culture and tradition entirely. We just need to adapt well to the good culture and sort the not-so-good culture better.

Overall, I’m really happy that I found this Thai drama. I watch several dramas from Thailand but never found this kind of genre. A family drama that really warms heart but with a touch of mystery and dark secrets in it. But not like another drama that compete for power and will doing everything evil things between family and make things chaos and ruin their relationship as a family because their greedy and selfish will. In this drama we’ll have a dark secret but it’s not always about money, and I still feel their deep kinship, how this problems solved legally but a touch of their kinship because of their dark past. They need to let it go and open the new chapter because life still goes on for the living one.

Since I really love this drama, I’ll give 4.5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨. Thank you Tor for making me found this drama!

“Family is not always about getting along well everytime, but for sure Family is the place that we can always go back in the end no matter what happen.”