#yes the two versions of the story portray the characters and relationship dynamic very differently. but girl. cmon.

[trans-xianxian]

that art trend where cql wangxian and novel wangxian meet and cql wangxian are like shocked that they're married and shamelessly in love or whatever is so funny to me. local media fan does not understand the concepts of censorship or subtext

[navree]

Visenya + Maegor are Alicent + Aegon 2.0 ? If Aegon the Uncrowned was older and had better supporters could there be the first Dance much earlier?

I'm never one to smack down headcanons, especially when everything surrounding the Conquerors and the sons of the dragon and those generations are incredibly open to interpretation due to the lack of concrete information we have on interpersonal dynamics, but I don't personally see them as proto Alicent and Aegon. For one, it does depend on which version of Alicent and Aegon someone's thinking of, just because the show versions of their characters are vastly different from their book versions (Alicent in particular is incredibly different even though I love both versions of her, and Aegon in the book is significantly more well adjusted than our wet eyed king as portrayed by TGC). For two, the relationships do seem to be incredibly different. One of the things, to me at least, that shaped Visenya and Maegor's relationship is the isolation. Yes, Viserys doesn't seem to have been very involved in the upbringing of Alicent's children in the book, and we know in the show that he was the deadbeat dad to end all deadbeat dads, but Aegon and Helaena and Aemond and Daeron still had other people in their support systems. In both versions of the story, they had Otto and they had Criston Cole and they also had each other. Maegor is his mother's only child, raised primarily at her side, in a time where she was not involved at court and was keeping to herself on Dragonstone, which passed down to her son keeping to himself as well, and he doesn't seem to have interacted with any kids his age beyond just beating them in swordfights and unseating them in tourneys. He canonically wasn't close with Aenys when they were kids, and he did not grow up with his father, their relationship likely confined to whenever Aegon spent time at Dragonstone, which was rare given how he and Visenya had already pulled away from each other and lived separate lives at that time. Maegor and Visenya appear to have only had each other, which I think can be found in Maegor's later life, particularly in his search for wives and the way the one he was the most attached to, Tyana, is the most like Visenya (not entirely dissimilar to the way that Henry VIII kept looking for wives that closely emulated his mother, Elizabeth of York). So Visenya championing Maegor's cause as a contender for the throne, and Maegor's willingness to go along with it, comes from a much different motivation. It's Visenya looking out for, at this point, the only person that really matters to her, and putting her blood and her only love over everything else. Alicent's motivations, while they do contain a similarity (Alicent in both versions is also clearly motivated by love for her children) with Visenya's, are a lot more varied, based on things like her own issues with Rhaenyra and the law of the land and concerns about the fate of her children during a Rhaenyra monarchy that Visenya wouldn't have had for Maegor if Aegon the Uncrowned had been able to take the throne. There's also the fact that Maegor and Visenya and Alicent and Aegon are all incredibly different people, and as such would obviously have vastly different interpersonal dynamics based on who they are, even if there are some surface levels similarity of "monarch who wasn't thought of as the successor by the previous king takes throne, has mom who's on his side about it".

As for whether a Dance-esque situation could have arisen if Aegon the Uncrowned were older and had better supporters, I don't think that would have happened either. For one thing, Aegon was sixteen/seventeen and legally an adult according to all Westerosi societal customs during this time, so age wouldn't have mattered that much (and Aegon II was also pretty young when he took the throne, 22 in the book and 19 or 20 at maximum in the show) in the grand scheme of things. But there are a lot of much more complex factors at play. One of the reasons why the Dance was so contentious and such a disaster for the realm at large was because of how muddied the waters were. There really wasn't a "wrong" side to support, both because Rhaenyra and Aegon had competing legal claims with their own individual merits and also because birthright monarchy is a scam and the only right side would have been the creation of democracy, but I digress. There were a lot of factors at play making things complicated when everyone started picking sides that just didn't really exist in Maegor and Aegon the Uncrowned's struggles. You can't really call anyone in the Dance a usurper, for instance. But what Maegor did is very clear usurpation. He was pretty far down the line of succession, no matter which way it was cut. If the Targaryens wanted to follow absolute primogeniture, then during Aenys's reign he would have been behind Aegon and Aerea and Rhaella and Viserys and Jaehaerys and Alysanne. If the Targaryens wanted to just go with male dominant primogeniture, then he still would have been behind Aegon and Viserys and Jaehaerys. He was well down the line and there was a plethora of heirs ahead of him with a more direct claim. Unlike Aegon, who is relying on the legal precedent of male inheritance that's been the law in Westeros for quite some time, Maegor didn't have that loophole. He literally just took a crown that he was not entitled to in any legal way, simply because he had the biggest dragon and he wanted it. And that's the key thing here. Because the thing is, none of the rest of it matters. Even if Aegon was older, if that were a factor, or even if he had more loyalists, it wouldn't have mattered. What made the Dance as drawn out as it was compared to other Targaryen dynastic disputes, like Maegor and Aegon the Uncrowned, was that the Targaryens involved were evenly matched when it came to firepower. Each side in the Dance has a wide variety of dragons under their commands of varying power (the Blacks have more, but a lot of them are young, whereas the Greens have less but they're all pretty well disciplined and old and therefore more powerful) that keeps everyone on their toes. There's a reason why the Dance kind of effectively ends after the Blacks lose nearly all of their dragons; with Sunfyre as the oldest and most powerful dragon left in active combat (Rhaena's is way too small and Nettles had already vanished with Sheepstealer) the Black claimant, Rhaenyra, does not have anything to fight him and Aegon with, and as we know, it ends badly for her. And what doomed Aegon the Uncrowned in his fight against Maegor was dragon firepower. Aegon could have had all the allies and ground support he wanted, and maybe it would have made life harder for Maegor, but Quicksilver cannot square up with Balerion. In a straight fight, Quicksilver loses, which is exactly what happens. And even if Aegon had more support, it still would have pretty quickly dissipated after Balerion full on eradicates him and Quicksilver below God's Eye.

The Dance overall was just a very different set of circumstances that can't really be applied to other eras of Targaryen history and other dynamics and other squabbles, that's what makes it so unique and so interesting.

[forest-of-stories]

I decided to write a bit about my recent NaNoWriMo project, in the form of an imaginary Q&A, for my own amusement (and hopefully yours).

What did you write during NaNoWriMo, Nevanna?

My project (which is ongoing, since I reached neither a conclusion nor the 50,000-word goal) was a multi-chapter fanfic for The Magnus Archives, whose working title is Eye to Eye, but I’ve been referring to it as the Hypnotists AU, after the book series on which it’s based.

Those are kids’ books.  Are you aging down the characters?

Some of them! The original Archives crew, among others, will be portrayed as teenagers – which is a bit older than Gordon Korman’s protagonists, but I’m taking creative license in a number of areas, including this one.

For the sake of teenage romance?

Yep.  And also teenage super-powers angst.

How closely does your fic follow Korman’s plotting?

It’s difficult to say for sure at the first-draft stage, but I plan to echo at least a few of the plot beats – primarily the ones that I liked, which is by no means all of them.  More on that in a moment.

Do the Fear Entities (and their cults) exist in this world?

Not as such, no.  This is a “characters from Fandom A, meet worldbuilding of Fandom B” fusion.  That said, I will hopefully have the opportunity to bring in some familiar faces from TMA and incorporate aspects of their signature imagery and methods.

Do readers need to have read the Hypnotists trilogy to understand your fic?

I am hoping that they will not! I’m writing this for TMA fans, first and foremost, since I know a lot more of them.  However, if my fic prompts some of those fans to read the books, I’d be interested to hear what you think of them.

So, you’d recommend the books to people who haven’t read them?

Yes and no.  A lot of the world-building and plotting choices actually bothered or just annoyed me: specifically, the use of the “here is how many pivotal historical events and achievements were the result of supernatural meddling” trope, and the repeated emphasis on the protagonist’s Special Bloodlines in particular.  Also, some of the humor is mean-spirited (an overweight side character is the butt of several jokes), and I am hopelessly cynical about the political conspiracy that provides the main conflict in the first volume.  However, I was already an adult when these books were published, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed some of these things when I was in their target demographic.

All of that said, despite my feelings about that main conflict, a lot of the smaller, personal struggles and relationships are very well-realized.  No matter your age, if you enjoy the “school for psychic kids” trope, if you enjoy stories about the terrifying implications of mind control (both for the people who can use it and the people who are more or less helpless against it), or if you enjoy manipulative, charming mentor characters, you will probably find something to like about the series.  I enjoy all three, so part of the inspiration for my project was the “these storytelling choices are really cool, how would they work in a different story?” reaction that I had upon rereading the books.  A fusion with yet another intellectual property isn’t the only answer to this question, of course, but it’s where I landed.

Which pairings do you plan to include?

At the moment, I plan to devote some attention to at least three canon pairings (including one that, when I started contemplating this version of their dynamic, surprised me with how invested I was!), and I’m contemplating one or two that arose from popular fan interpretation.  All relationships will be appropriately tagged in the AO3 metadata, of course.

So you plan on posting this?

Yes, though I don’t have a clear timeline for when I will be sharing it.  I hope that I’ve interested some people enough that they’ll give it a look when I finally do!

[theravennest]

Let’s Talk About Shang Chi...

I just got back from seeing Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I had a great time with it. Just a lovely experience.

The fights were dope. The music was rocking. The actors’ performances really sold me on everything. I loved all the Xianxia elements. Y’all know fantasy worlds are my JAM!

But it was the characters that really drew me in. Every one of them were pitch perfect for me. The final act got a little jumbled, imo, but the characters and their dynamics were so good that it was enough for me to completely forgive and overlook the somewhat messy final battle. 

The story had a lot of heart. It was so personal and so anchored in real emotions. I highkey fell in love with all the main characters. I love their journeys and their complex  and grounded relationships with each other. I really liked the movie’s examination of grief, loss, and pain and the lengths people will go to in the wake of being overwhelmed by those feelings.

Let’s dig into it! This is gonna be a whole discombobulated mess, I just know it. lmao

***Spoilers below the cut!***

I really felt for Shang Chi, Xialing, and Wenwu struggling to figure out how to be a family again after they were all broken in different ways by the loss of Mama Ying Li. And each one of them trying in their own way to heal from it, some to extremely destructive degrees. 

How Wenwu treated his kids after being consumed by grief and violence was so utterly messed up but in two completely different ways. 

He treated Xialing like she was anathema, like she was literally nothing. Even when they were older and she had grown into an adult, he barely spoke to her in the entirety of the movie, could hardly even look at her. Partially because she looked like her mom and he retreated utterly from the pain of that, and partially because he constantly underestimated her in favor of her brother. This, of course, seeded the resentful tension between Xialing and Shang Chi from the start.

I’m a real sucker for sibling dynamics, as you all know. They’re my favorite types of family-oriented stories. (Side note, I really love the way the MCU has dedicated several stories to sibling relationships. It’s like my favorite thing in the MCU as a whole.)

I completely ate up the harsh and tricky relationship between Xialing and Shang Chi. Shang Chi completely let her down when they were kids, for her POV. (Not really his fault, he was a scared and traumatized 15 year old. Totally understandable.) But there is something to be said about the fact that she was also a child. A child dealing with her mom’s death too AND her dad’s aloofness. Then she was utterly abandoned by her brother. It’s no wonder she never quite forgives him, even though they mostly team up in the movie. They still have a lot to work out between them.

I really loved that she took on leadership of the Ten Rings at the end. The moment Shang Chi said she was “dismantling” their dad’s empire, I knew what was up. Though, the softy in me does hope that eventually they can find true reconciliation between them. I’m excited to see what we’ll see from her in future movies as a potential enemy of Shang Chi. It’ll be really interesting to see how Shang Chi tackles having to go up against his little sister.

And Shang Chi!!! OMG! Let’s talk Shang Chi and Wenwu now. When Wenwu drop kicked him into the ground and started the blame game for Mama Ying Li’s death like bro!!! I was so heated. He was 7 years old. A whole baby! She died because your thousand years of violence and conquering shit finally came home to roost. 

But that one line when Wenwu said Shang Chi’s 7 year old self “just stood there and watched” while his mom was killed actually revealed so much about Wenwu’s character. (The cutting way Tony Leung, a literal legend, delivered that was masterful, btw.) 

I actually think that it was the first time Wenwu has ever verbalized that he blamed Shang Chi for Ying Li’s death. Like maybe he’s always felt that way and all this time he was partially punishing Shang Chi for what he thinks of as a failure to protect or help the woman who meant so much to them.

Like, yes, he was training Shang Chi to take his place with him in the Ten Rings as an assassin but maybe he also wanted Shang Chi to kill his mom’s murderer as penance for letting her die in the first place.

Of course, it’s clear to see that Wenwu was absolutely shifting his own feelings of conflicting guilt onto his kids. Guilt that his past as a warlord is what got her killed. But also guilt that he put down the Ten Rings in the first place when if he had stayed a warlord, this never would have happened. But also the bone deep knowledge that if he hadn’t put down the Rings, Ying Li might never have stayed with him and loved him in the first place.

When Shang Chi threw it back at him that Ying Li probably wouldn’t love the person Wenwu had returned to, Wenwu looked so shook up. Phew! Perfect emoting from Tony Leung in that moment.

Honestly, Wenwu was having a very tragic and confusing time of it in this movie. Which is probably how that creature from beyond was able to find a crack in his psychic defenses and lure him to the gate. I had a lot of empathy for him even though I disagree so much with what he did to his kids, emotionally.

I really respect the fact that the movie never lost that sense of compassion for all of their feelings including Wenwu. I also respect that the movie really gave them space to grieve not just the loss of Ying Li but also the resulting dissolution of their happy family.

It’s just too bad that Wenwu’s grief made him push his kids away instead of pulling them closer. He completely emotionally abandoned them. A thousand years of power and supremacy yet he was broken because he never in that time fully learned how to process his emotions in a healthier way and his kids paid the price. They could’ve leaned on each other and on the love they found with Ying Li to help them get through but alas that’s the tragedy of the movie. 

I really wanted somehow for Shang Chi to make it through to his dad before he went too far to come back again. I genuinely did not want to see Wenwu die at the end. I wanted him to live and see Shang Chi’s changing dynamic with his father continue. I wanted to see him finally acknowledge his daughter as his true heir and see her accomplishments (dark though they will likely become considering the “softer” version of her is the one that ran an illegal fight club in Macao lmao).

Though I am happy Shang Chi got through to him enough at the end for Wenwu to save Shang Chi’s life, willingly pass the rings onto his son, and somewhat accept his own death after a thousand years of life. That was such a poignant moment between them. And I wonder if in that instant, Wenwu had the thought that in dying he’d at least see Ying Li again.

(Side note: I really hope his soul and the souls of everyone that got eaten were freed when Shang Chi killed the monster. I really want them to be able to move on to the next phase of existence. I really hope they weren’t destroyed after being eaten. I want Wenwu to reunite with Ying Li even in the afterlife, gotdamnit! Sue me, I’m a romantic.)

Let’s talk Simu Liu’s performance here for one second. He was incredible throughout. I completely bought into this strange but so real feeling that while he has a lot of anger towards his father, so much hurt, he also felt a lot of heartache and love for who Shang Chi wanted him to be. And the strange desire to want to help a man who emotionally scarred him so badly.

Simu really brought both sides of Shang Chi’s journey to life. Like, he was tying to find his own path, reconcile with the mistakes he’s made in the past (his sister, killing his mom’s murderer), and facing up against his father’s ideals and expectations. But there was also a side of Shang Chi’s journey that was about finally understand both his sister and his father’s point of views, and of learning/embracing his mother’s history. 

That moment by the lake when he revealed to Katy that he had actually killed the man who killed his mother. Whew boy! The emotions were so poignant. Simu Liu played it like *chef’s kiss* beautiful.

Speaking of character choices, I really rate this decision to have him actually go through with the assassination. It puts Shang Chi in an interesting position emotionally and somewhat morally. Instead of having his breaking point be him unable to kill as his father wishes, it’s instead the feeling of guilt and shame that he actually did kill the man.

I wonder if he felt a sense of satisfaction before the disgust and shame settled in. Because Shang Chi literally watched his mom die, he probably initially wanted to help his father hunt down the man because of that bit of dark need for vengeance. Until he got it, and felt ashamed to fully face his mother’s memory afterwards.

I’m interested to see how future Shang Chi movies and Simu will dig into and unpack that little bit of darkness these events instilled in the character.

Let’s talk Ying Li for a second here. This woman was incredible. An incredible martial artist, for sure, a mystical guardian and warrior...but she was also just an incredible person in general. Mama Ying Li was so self-assured, so steadfast in her convictions. She struck me as someone who knows exactly what she wants and is never afraid to reach for it.

Fala Chen portrayed her with such grace, warmth, and strength of character. It was extremely easy to see why Wenwu fell in love with her. She met Wenwu, a literal thousand year old warlord, and through shear strength of character led him to put down his weapons and his empire to make a home with her.

This man threw away his entire shadow army of assassins, threw away his whole plan to literally demolish her village in the pursuit of power...in order to play Dance Dance Revolution with her and their kids. (The highlight of their romance and the family flashbacks, for me, tbh.) 

And I know it’s not necessarily...positive BUT there is something...hmmmm, crunchy in the fact that Ying Li so completely altered Wenwu’s life by simply loving him that when she died he was willing to raze the whole world to get her back, damn the consequences.

Trying to properly explore toxic and negative turns in previously loving family dynamics is such a difficult task to take on. I really liked the complexity of the Xu family. All the actors really sold the family side of things. It was an almost tangible thing how much you could see how the love they felt had turned bitter and painful over the years.

The final battle was epic and mind blowing (There was a fucking DRAGON flying around for gods’ sake!) but I do wish it had stayed a little more grounded for longer in the beginning of it when the Ten Rings were fighting the Ta Lo warriors. I wanted to see more of that fight before they had the turn to becoming temporary allies against the soul suckers. It became a little too much of a CGI mash, for me, in some parts of it.

Still, the emotional beats held and the core of the story of this grieving family trying to hold on to the tatters of their world stayed consistent even through the final battle. I can forgive a lot because of the strong sense of character and connection there.

Plus, it’s a comic book movie. Spectacle is the name of the game and at least this one had cool fantasy beasts and dope fight choreo. 

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Let’s wrap it up here. Suffice it to say, I had a wonderful time with this movie. I’m ready for the next one!

[raith-way]

🎬 and your last written OC

thank you for the ask!! the last oc that i wrote for is emma motley, so this is going to be a twisted supernatural mess. some spoilers for emma’s fic, but i’ll be sticking to the actual canon as closely as possible.

how they’d be introduced

in the first episode of season five, emma would bust in while meg and the demons had dean cornered and bobby possessed. she’d stop bobby from stabbing himself and instead exorcise the demon while dean and then a returned sam dealt with the other demons. once the commotion was over, bobby would thank emma for showing up so quickly after he called her. it would be revealed that she has a year left on her demon deal, and that she’ll tag along to john’s storage as backup. once there, zachariah would tell the winchesters that their sister won’t be needed for what’s coming. after castiel shows up and zachariah is gone, castiel is able to confirm that emma is john winchester’s daughter. despite the distrust and tension, it’s agreed that emma will help with the apocalypse because she doesn’t want the world to end and not because she suddenly has brothers.

who the fandom ships them with

michael. as the apocalypse winds down and before her deal comes due, emma says yes to michael to spare dean and sam. (because despite their rocky beginning, they do grow close over their year of getting to know each other.) michael and lucifer fight, and dean and sam open the hole into hell. emma takes control long enough to say goodbye to her brothers and then grabs lucifer to pull him into hell along with herself and michael. emma isn’t seen again until season fifteen, when her and michael are finally released from the cage. by that point, they’ve grown close and trust each other completely.

why the fandom loves them

emma’s only around for season five and isn’t seen again until season fifteen, but she is a fan favorite. she has a personality that’s similar to dean’s while having no problems with being emotional, and she can be equally fun and heartbreaking. it also helps that she isn’t shipped with any of the male leads.

why the fandom hates them

she tries too hard to be a female version of dean. she’s proof that john and mary didn’t have a perfect marriage like fans were led to believe. shoehorning in another sibling detracts from the sam and dean dynamic.

what the cast relationship would be like

zoey would absolutely love jensen, jared, and misha. would most likely refer to them as her boys. she would adore rob and richard, despite never sharing the screen with them, and would go all out for the singing parts of the cons. zoey and mark pellegrino would be the closest of the cast, and she would really look up to him and enjoy just spending time with him.

what was their audition scene

zoey’s audition scene would come from closer to the end of season five. after saying yes to michael, she would have to play two roles while the two of them had a conversation. basically, acting by herself and portraying two vastly different characters. very dialogue heavy and emotional on emma’s side.

dependent on the fandom, who they’d be on a press tour/at comic con with

zoey would occasionally be paired with jensen and jared, but she would usually be with mark pellegrino to play up the “michael vs lucifer” story.

if they spoil things

zoey is a locked box, especially after her descent into the cage at the end of season five. mostly because she has no idea what’s going to happen next and had no idea that she would ever return.

if the show/movie has ended, are they happy with their character’s ending and the ending at large

zoey, as both emma and michael, was able to appear several times throughout the last season. after emma is resurrected by jack and realizes that michael is truly gone, she leaves a note for sam and dean at the bunker explaining that she’s going to be on her own for a while. the last shot of emma is her driving away from the bunker. zoey doesn’t like her ending, that emma abandons her brothers after everything and that michael never got a chance to experience freedom. she also doesn’t like the overall ending. she always believed sam and dean would go out together, and don’t get her started on castiel’s death.

[garrothromeave]

let’s talk about minecraft diaries rebirth.

and why it’s literally amazing. (warning: this will contain spoilers. lots of them. also, long post ahead.)

i think a lot of people hate mcdr because they were expecting a remake; but the point of rebirth is for jess to rewrite it. it wasn't supposed to be exactly the same.

honestly i went into mcdr with a closed mind. as an og mcd fan, i thought that this was going to suck ass and that i'd rant about how bad it was to my friends later. but actually watching it, i just... couldn't help but immediately fall in love with it.

ik im probably the only motherfucker that likes mcdr, but honestly how could i not? for one, garroth and zenix actually have personalities at the beginning. AND; the villagers? actually amazing. donna made me smile, visher made me laugh and cry, brendan was just bein as good as ever. like... i even didn't despise emmalyn with every ounce of my soul like i usually do?? the characterizations of them were GOOD, man.

and honestly, aphmau like--the way she spoke, her whole thing. it was reallyyy well done in my opinion. she was oblivious to things, but it wasn't overdone and wasn't done in a way to make her annoying. she's a very appealing character in mcdr, a main protagonist i do not mind following along with. her dynamics to the characters are really cool and all very unique.  gonna cut it here so i don’t clog y’all’s feed cuz i got a lot to say :)

the early use of aphmau’s powers was actually pretty cool as well, it also really showed how clueless aphmau really was to everything going on around her. AND UH, THE FACT THAT SHE THOUGHT THAT GARROTH FELT FAMILIAR? GOLDEN. absolutely golden.

AND GENE OH BOY, the early introduction of gene? ik a lot of people are upset about it, but god DAMN i love it so much. his role in the story is very important in original, and i cannot express how much joy this brought me learning that he was actually getting the proper attention for it. and the fact that gene and aphmau were working together?? i mean ik gene was just trying to use her to get back to the "shadow abyss" (pretty pog replacement for the nether, gg) but god DAMN i loved every moment of it. i found their dynamic to be pretty fuckin funny to be honest, would absolutely love to see more of it.

i might be biased considering gene is one of my absolute favorite characters, but i honestly think that introducing gene this early on in the story was a good move. again, he's literally the right-hand man to the shadow lord. it makes you really wonder why he didn't have as much of an important role in season 1 or even 2 of the original mcd plotline. also, we get some of that good-ol-fashioned exposition with seeing early on how vylad and gene interact. vylad’s at a very strange point in the story right now; his motives are unclear, even to the side he’s ‘supposed’ to be taking (aka, a shadow knight.)  another early introduction to a character is zane! this, my friends, is good. really good. i’d say that zane is the main antagonist of season 1 in the original series--and he wasn’t even introduced until like, episode 50. it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but him being introduced this early on really gives the audience a better understanding of what threats are out there and what our protagonist will have to encounter in the future. in the original series, there’s not much explanation as to why lords are disappearing/dying left and right--and while yes, that was supposed to be the mystery of it, having some of that early information is a better move in terms of writing. 

AND IVAN?? BEING A PART OF THE JURY OF NINE?? I COULD NOT HAVE ASKED FOR ANYTHING MORE LIKE GOD DAMN that was a very pleasant surprise i'll just say that, thank you jess :)

and no i did not loop the 4 minutes of screentime laurance got in that one episode haha who would do that i would never do that anyways

SPEAKING of laurance, im so glad jess actually wrote him in this early :) she totally could have just waited for the first time aphmau visits meteli and meets him there, but no! she put him in an early episode. i dont even care if she did it just to shut up the fans about laurance but man that made me so happy seeing him, even if it was only for a bit.

okay i kinda wanna go over the guards real fast firstly; garroth. ignoring how weird the helmet showing emotions is, i really like how garroth is portrayed. he's under a lot of pressure because the village is putting a lot of the blame on him for malik's death, and he's trying his hardest to keep things running. the fact that garroth utterly refused the to take up the position of lord and even got a little snappy about it was actually really cool to see as well. and while he doesn’t have that same “reserved, quiet, observant” feel as the original mcd version of him had, this version of garroth is absolutely awesome. he’s more direct and blunt, is significantly more sarcastic, and isn’t as stiff or as much as a pushover as he is in the original. he even has a sense of humour. also, no homo, but he’s kinda adorable.  plus, the desperation that he goes through during the whole thing is just--it’s really cool to see how hard he’s trying to prove himself and help the village. my rating for mcdr garroth? 9/10. the helmet... the helmet is the main thing throwin me off, i can’t lie. next, zenix. oh BOY do i have a lot to say about this man. first of all, his and garroth’s dynamic is incredible. when i saw how the interacted with each other, my first thought was: father and son. zenix has this immaturity to him that is so fucking fun and interesting to watch, and seeing how garroth scolds him is so fuckin good man. and! seeing how he interacts with the rest of the village... honestly, if jess ever picks this story up again, i would probably cry when zenix (literally) backstabs garroth. HELL, i hope that’s something that still happens, it’d be heartbreaking to witness this character that we’ve come to love hurting his mentor, the man who took him in. he’s just a really good character all in all, and much more appealing than the original mcd zenix. ...except season 3 zenix. no zenix can be better than that one.  either way, zenix is amazing written to be the comic relief and he’s just an all-out lovable character in this series.  finally, dale and brian. yes i’m going to group them up because there’s not much to say regarding them, but i do want to address them. for starters, we have brian; who’s already 16 when the story starts. good on jess for doing that, because in the original aphmau watched brian be born and age INCREDIBLY quick, haha. THOUGH i do feel like there’s a slight connection lost there--one of the hardest things about brian’s betrayal in the original series in the fact that we watched him grow up in phoenix drop. we were there from the moment he was born, to the second he betrayed phoenix drop. BUT OF COURSE, this version is a lot more realistic, so it’s understandable. i just think that if it’s brian who’ll be betraying phoenix drop again (if it even goes down that same route), it won’t hit as hard unless jess really takes the time to grow the connection between brian and aphmau.  as for dale; gotta admit, love it. and like, i think one of the main things about how good of a call it was to make him a drunkard from the beginning is considering how much the village is struggling. the fact that the second-in-command is literally drunk all of the time really conveys the message of, “yeah. this village needs help.” plus, he’s another good comic relief character. i loved seeing molly and dale’s relationship too, it was very funny.  PLUS. we were blessed with a well scene, in which aphmau had to help villagers out of the well. i don’t know about you guys, but that was one of my favorite nods to the original series. i cannot thank jess enough for that, there was a smile on my face the entire time. another amazing thing--visher’s character. instead of just being introduced to this quirky lil merchant who only had one or two interactions with aphmau like in the first one, we got to sit there and really get a feel for someone worth remembering and worth mourning over. we had a reason to be sad over his death, it wasn’t just some npc getting blown up suddenly. this was different, and this hurt.  one of the major things that i hope is to come out of this is for jess to fix the major mistakes she had when writing the first series. she’d expressed how unhappy she was with some of the decisions she made, and i’m glad that she’s getting that second chance to undo the things she didn’t like. this series also gives her a second chance to really, really dig into characters and their motives. like, gimme laurance backstory in better detail. or like, garroth and zane’s relationship from back when they were kids? or how vylad died and who killed him? etc etc. she’s already done an excellent job so far, and i can’t wait to see where this goes. that is, if she ever continues it. god, i wish there were more episodes so that i could seriously let you guys know how beautiful of a series this is. there’s so much i want to say about rebirth, but i think i’ll stop here. i might say some more shit about it later, but if there’s anything i’d want you to take away from this, it’s: give minecraft diaries rebirth a chance. there’s a lot of potential, and this is a chance for jess to really change things for the better! ... but again, that is if this ever is continued. 

[olivieblake]

As a writer or even just a consumer of media do you find people are less willing to accept “flaws” in characters and stories? I’m not talking like this character is a murderer he’s evil no one should like him type stuff, though as someone who started off writing dramione I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of that but just like when characters are ever short of perfect. Like when a strong female character is kinda insecure or a couple isn’t communicating well or has a heated fight everyone gets mad that it’s a toxic relationship or bad writing. I once read a review of a book where someone stopped reading it after two chapters cause it had bad therapy practices, ie. the character still had shit to work through and therapy isn’t magic therefore they weren’t always doing the healing right and it’s like? that’s the whole point!! it’s an arc the character is gonna grow! It’s also made clear early on that the therapist didn’t agree with the coping methods (overly controlling their life) so it wasn’t like they were trying to portray it as a good thing. I know you’ve mentioned people have ✨opinions✨ about your DFS Hermione for having flaws and staying flawed and her flaw is just that she kinda thinks she’s right a lot and maybe isn’t the most self aware nothing even serious lol. I’m not saying don’t be critical of media but it’s kinda overwhelming reading think piece after think piece about why this thing you enjoy is actually the literal worst™️. Like am I toxic for having some of the same flaws ? Am I a problematic creep for enjoy stories where everything isn’t always sunshine, I don’t want to have a train wreck of a relationship but sometimes reading about one can be kinda fun? Is that terrible?

there’s a lot here that I’d like to discuss and I’m thinking about how I’d like to do it (I’ll inevitably chat about it in a video because it’s interesting and complex but I think I may have too many topics for this monday)

let’s see I think I will start by saying: in general, critical discourse about media (books, tv, film, fanfic) is a good thing, but it has definitely gone awry from what I consider to be its origins. I think the whole point of viewing media critically and making observations about what we are portraying via fiction is crucial for amplifying/protecting marginalized stories and reducing harm—specifically, the harm that minorities and women face by being inundated with bigoted, prejudiced, hateful, or ignorant tropes, caricatures, or relationship dynamics. I definitely believe that we should consider what we consume and how we consume it, particularly when it comes to the marginalized voices who do not see themselves represented well or fairly in white male dominated media

that being said, I do think it has led to the expectation that fiction cannot have ANY problems, which is absurd and counterproductive. it’s also extremely reductive, particularly when it comes the Strong Female Character™ thing you mention, where a woman STILL only has value if she’s strong in the “correct” way. I mentioned in one of my other posts and also last week’s video that there’s some kind of disconnect between the VERY GOOD intentions of things like #ownvoices or the movement to empower female characters and the actual outcomes, which make it so that any flaws in a marginalized fictional character are magnified to represent the entire group. the very reasonable request to see ourselves in fiction has somehow become an exponentially convoluted demand to see ourselves a certain way in fiction, where any character who does not reflect our personal experience is bad and wrong. previously, the expectation was that white male stories were universal whereas everything else was only for that specific group, and now, ironically, everything that is created still has to fit that universal quality and please everyone, despite that not being the point. the problem is when you only have ONE movie about this topic or ONE book about this ethnicity, then of course it hasn’t done enough to exemplify an entire subject or culture. there has to be an entire body of work the way there is with white-dominated media, where no single film or book accurately represents the experience of being white

plus we have twitter which is a horrifying hellscape where you get rewarded by the algorithm for making loud, obnoxious points so add that to the list (yesterday I saw that one of the top 3 reviews on Beloved by toni morrison is a 1-star review written by a white man and I was just flabbergasted by the lack of self-awareness) 

but anyway that’s like, more of a macro look at what I think is going on but you’re right that people are not very forgiving of flawed characters. to some extent, I get it; the one thing we don’t want our characters to do is annoy us, and that’s fair. but I also think people have lost the sense that “oh, this thing isn’t for me” and thus can’t successfully identify the difference between critical failure and personal dislike

now. as for Divination for Skeptics. let me start by saying it’s not like I don’t understand why people find hermione in Divination for Skeptics annoying, because I get it. if you’re taking the story very seriously then sure, maybe you want her to change her behavior and it’s frustrating that she doesn’t. fair enough! to that I say it’s a comedy and if you don’t find it funny you’re perfectly welcome to dislike it, it’s not a big deal to me if I don’t make you laugh. however, I DO take issue with people who claim she’s too flawed or doesn’t grow, because they almost always do it in a very specific way: they say that she doesn’t show enough empathy, aka how dare she not read draco’s mind and simply alter her personality and behavior to suit his. it genuinely infuriates me that in my opinion, people who voice that particular “criticism” have seemingly internalized the belief that women should be emotionally perceptive; that for them, hermione’s “flaw” is that she does not take on the emotional labor that draco refuses to perform. (her actual flaw is that her survival technique/coping mechanism is a hyper-rationality that incorrectly assumes she has perfect information; i.e., that everything she knows is accurate, and therefore all of her decisions must be sound.) whereas draco knows this about her—knows and acknowledges it—and yet cannot bring himself to voice his feelings out of a fear-based desire to hedge his own emotional risk. who, then, is more flawed in the context of the story? 

I don’t really have a conclusion yet so I’m going to pause for now and we’ll revisit this; I think mainly it’s that the more media diversifies, the more people will struggle with the preconceptions they have and the presumption that everything they consume is for them, and therefore that they are the metric for whether something is “good.” I think good art, good media, will reflect the world as it exists, but it will still only be the world according to one tiny fraction, a sliver of the actual human experience. does bad representation mean bad art? when it harms people yes. but when it speaks to a deeper truth (the truth of “we are all given to vice and imperfection even if it is not this specific version”), no. but that requires quite a degree of sophistication and self-awareness to identify, hence the discomfort of continuous vitriol or bad takes

[smylealong]

I have long debated whether or not I should write this, but @rain-hat​ convinced me that I should. So here I am, penning this diss meta about The King: The Enternal Monarch. Starting off with the disclaimer that I love this show. This is the show that introduced me to the wonderful Woo Do Hwan and for that I can never be thankful enough. But I have issues with the show, and I will enumerate them here. Brace yourselves for a tirade.It’s long, so putting a “keep reading”.

 1)    Manpasikjeok: Let’s start with the basis of the series. The Manpasikjeok. The series never delves into what the Manpasikjeok is. It’s a flute, yes. But it doesn’t delve into the background of this all-powerful plot device. I understand that the Manpasikjeok is a part of the Korean folklore and thus, probably the makers did not feel the need to delve deeper. But for non-Korean viewers like me, it was very confusing. So, before I speak about the details of what exactly bothered me about the flute, I will present the story itself.

After the death of his father King Munnu, King Sinmun of the Silla Dynasty heard the rumors of an island floating toward the temple that he had built in the honor of his father. A fortuneteller told Sinmun that the late King had become a sea dragon and his loyal General, Kim Yu-shin, had become a heavenly god. The fortuneteller also said that if he were to visit the island, he would get an incredible gift. When Sinmun went in search of this floating island, it looked like it had a turtle’s head and a bamboo tree on its back. In the mornings, the bamboo looked to be split into two while at night, it would join. After braving through seven days of storm, the King reached the island. There the sea dragon told him to make a flute out of the bamboo tree. This flute was said to provide magical properties. When the flute was played, enemy forces would retreat, and diseases were cured. Also, the magic flute would bring rainfall if there was a drought and stop the rains in floods. Ever since then, the bamboo flute was called ‘Manpasikjeok,’ meaning a flute that calms down ten thousand waves and it became a national treasure. This is the folktale.

 If I am to nitpick, time travel and parallel universes are not mentioned in the folktale. But that is something I am willing to let slide, because you need something to make the story work and the makers chose a mythical object from the folklore. People do it all the time, so I am not going to penalize the makers for it. What I am going to diss them for is the way they spoke about the spirit of the flute. Was it a demon? A spirit? A god? What? Why did it not allow Lee Lim to age? If time passes differently for the owner of the flute as Lee Lim claims, why did Gon’s time seem normal for the most part? The only difference in time seemed to be when the portal was opened and time stopped. So, before Gon opened the portal, time did not stop for Lee Lim. Why then did he not age?

2)      Post series events (part I): Which brings me to the second problem I have with the series. Post-series events. I understand Ta Eul retaining her memories of the alternate timeline because, she was in the portal and thus, remained untouched by the effects of the changed timeline. Fair. I get Gon retaining memories, because he was the owner of the flute. Granted. Why did Jo Yeong retain the memories when everyone else forgot about it? The only explanation I have is that it was because he was in the past timeline when the timeline changed? But the show never bothers to give an explanation for it. Also, if the events in altered timeline happened almost exactly as they did in the original timeline, then Yeong came to Republic of Korea. If Yeong came to Republic of Korea, then he met Jo Eun Sup. As did Gon. Why then did Eun Sup not recognize Gon at the end? Why does Yeong say that Eun Sup will not remember him? Is it because Yeong retained memories from the altered timeline and hence believed Gon when he said that he was going to the other world? Then, it stands to reason that Yeong did not go to Republic of Korea. Then things changed! They did not go exactly the way it happened in the series. Ah! My head hurts.

 3)      Corea and Korea: They are parallel worlds. I get it. But at times, they were nigh indistinguishable. This is @rain-hat​’s input and I agree with it completely. Why are the people in Corea dressed like Westerners and why are we not seeing more Hanboks? Why are court ladies the only ones dressed in traditional garb? Also, what is the official religion of Corea?

 4)      The characters: This is going to be a long one, so brace yourselves. I have issues with the characters. I’m going for bullet points, because I have LOT TO SAY.

 ·       Kang Shin-jae: Other than messing with him in all possible ways, what was the purpose of this character. As my editor once said, you must ask yourself what purpose does a character serve to the overall story? The litmus test of it being, if the said character is removed from the equation, does it impact the overarching plot of the story in any significant way? And much as I love this character, I’m sorry to say, his removal would not have impacted the story in any way. Yes, I’m aware that even Meyong Seung-ah does not pass this litmus test, but she does not occupy nearly as much screen time as Shin-jae. I wish they had utilized the character more than just use him as a material to evoke emotions.

·       Koo Seo Ryeong: She is portrayed as a villain/b*tch. Why? Because she has political ambitions and is a woman who is not above playing the ruthless game that the men around her seem to be playing? She is a woman who has clawed her way to the top in a man’s world. Can we please stop demonizing women like this?

·       Jo Yeong: Yes. Surprise, I know. He is the reason I (and many others) kept watching the show. The man who stole the show, the one who carried the show. A startlingly pretty face backed by a phenomenal performance, Jo Yeong is a treat. BUT, for a character as spectacular as Yeong, he was not utilized enough. I wish the show had actually given him something to do when he was in Korea. They wasted a talent like Woo Do Hwan.

·       Jeong Ta-eul: I loved Ta-eul when she first came on screen. Badass, no nonsense, tough as nails cop in her thirties as out leading lady? HELL YEAH! But then she meets Lee Gon and all the things that I loved about her seemed to evaporate. She became a cry baby and I just could not handle that. K-dramas, can you please stop turning the badass female leads into a prop for the leading man’s “bravery and heroism”. (Fervently hoping Nine Tails doesn’t do that, because I love Jo Bo ah’s character there).

·       Lee Gon: Oh, I hate this character with a passion. TKEM gave me SLS like no other drama before or since. I sincerely want to ask Lee Min Ho; just how many versions of Gu Jun Pyo are we going to see from him? Rich, powerful, privileged man who does whatever he wants? I’m getting really tired of it. I like Lee Min Ho, but really, you need to branch out, dude.

5)      Post series events (part II): Speaking of Lee Gon, my man, you posses the all powerful tool to travel through parallel universes and time, and you use it to go on dates? WHAT THE F***? AAAHHGHHKSJJGFHVJHMDSYFHJVHKJNSKLJHG. Lee Lim was right. You’re WASTING it. Ugh. Personally, I felt as though the entire romance plot could have been done away with.

6)      JoGon: The series teased heavily about this relationship and the fandom lapped it up. Beautiful fanart and fanfics emerged. But, I have issues and no, it’s not because they’re a same sex couple. My issue comes from the power dynamics of the couple. It is skewed beyond belief. The dynamic works perfectly when it is a king-bodyguard relationship. But the second it becomes a romance, there’s problem. All the power in the relationship is with Gon and Yeong has almost no agency in the relationship. And I love Jo Yeong too much to subject him to a relationship like that.

7)      Product Placement: Yes, it was tough, but there was a series somewhere between all those product placements.

In closing, this series had the potential to be so much more. Yet, it failed. Spectacularly. I liked and enjoyed this series, but I have so many issues. SO MANY. Do you have any issues you would like to add? Please feel free.

[ljones41]

"MIAMI VICE" (2006) Review

"MIAMI VICE" (2006) Review When I had first heard that Michael Mann had filmed a remake of the 1984-1989 classic crime drama, "MIAMI VICE", I was excited. Despite the disappointing way it went off the air, I had remained a big fan of the show – especially its first two seasons.

Then word began to circulate that the movie version, which starred Jaime Foxx and Colin Farrell was not as good as the NBC series. I heard that it lacked the style of the series and had a poor story. But despite all of the negative comments that had circulated, I was determined to see the movie and judge it for myself. "MIAMI VICE" - namely the 2006 movie - began with Miami-Dade Police detectives Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, James "Sonny" Crockett and their colleagues working undercover at a Miami nightclub to bring down a prostitution ring. In the middle of their sting operation, they are contacted by their former informant Alonzo Stevens, who believes that his wife is in danger. Stevens also reveals that he has been working as an informant for the F.B.I. and believes that he may have been compromised. Tubbs and Crockett learn that Stevens' wife was killed. And when they inform the informant, he commits suicide. Through their supervisor, Lieutenant Martin Castillo, the partners are recruited by F.B.I. Special Agent John Fujima to pose as drug smugglers, investigate a highly sophisticated Columbian drug ring and discover the identity of the Columbians' informant. Tubbs and Crockett manage to infiltrate the Columbians' drug ring, but in doing so, they come across Jose Yero, the paranoid associate of drug lord Archangel de Jesus Montoya. Even worse, Crockett becomes romantically involved in Montoya's mistress/financial adviser, Isabella. Needless to say, I had ignored the negative comments about "MIAMI VICE" back in 2006 and went to see it anyway. And I enjoyed it . . . a lot. I enjoyed it so much that I saw it for a second time in the theaters, before I bought the DVD copy when it was first released. Like many others, I had expected to be very similar to the 1984-1989 television series. The sleek, colorful style from the series remained, which the fast cars and boats and sleek fashion for the cast members. But cinematographer Dion Beebe utilized colors that seemed less pastel and a little more darker. But the music - up-to-date - remained intact. I also noticed that the plot written by Michael Mann utilized elements from the television series' episode (1.15) "Smuggler's Blues". "MIAMI VICE" also featured some great action sequences. My favorite proved to be the outstanding shootout in the movie's finale that featured the Miami-Dade Police and the Aryan Brotherhood working for Yero. My only complaints about "MIAMI VICE" proved to be its opening and fade-out scenes. Both seemed a bit too abrupt for my tastes, but that is Michael Mann for you. He did the same with his 1995 movie, "HEAT" and his 2004 flick, "COLLATERAL". Aside from Dion Beebe's photography, the other changes featured in the 2006 movie proved to be the relationship between Ricardo Tubbs and fellow police detective, Trudy Joplin. Despite the on-screen chemistry between Philip Michael Thomas and Olivia Brown in the television series, Tubbs and Trudy remained friends and colleagues during the series' five-year run. Michael Mann changed the nature of their relationship in the movie by allowing them to be both colleagues and lovers. In fact, the movie featured a very sexy and romantic love scene with Jaime Foxx and Naomie Harris, who portrayed the characters in the film. And unlike the television series, Sonny Crockett is not divorced, nor did he have a troublesome relationship with another colleague, Gina Calabrese. Instead, Crockett found himself falling in love with drug kingpin Archangel Montoya's lover and financial adviser, Isabella. Both Jamie Foxx and Colin Ferrell were great, along with Gong Li, Naomie Harris and the rest of the cast. The partnership dynamics between Foxx and Farrell in the movie seemed to be different than the one between Thomas and Don Johnson in the television series. Do not get me wrong. Both Foxx and Farrell were excellent and had great chemistry. But their chemistry was different than the one between Johnson and Thomas. In this film, Tubbs is portrayed as the more mature partner; whereas Crockett served that role in the television series. And I was especially impressed by Foxx. For a guy that started out as a comic, I thought he made a very commanding Ricardo Tubbs. Whereas Johnson seemed to dominate the partnership in the television series, Foxx seemed to do so in the movie. This is not surprising, considering that Foxx is nearly a decade older than Farrell. The one other performance that really impressed me came from the always talented John Ortiz, who portrayed Montoya's paranoid henchman, Jose Yero. It is a pity that the public and critics did not appreciate "MIAMI VICE" when it was first released back in 2006. Perhaps they honestly believed it was a mediocre or below par movie from Michael Mann. Then again . . . perhaps they had expected it to be more like the the television series from the 1980s. Yes, the movie had its flaws. But despite the latter, "MIAMI VICE" proved to be one of my favorite Mann films. And I had never expected for this to happen.

[bloody-wonder]

Every time I come across one of those posts or fics about how Andrew should feel bad about choking Kevin/how it was bad writing for Nora to have Andrew do it, it always seems to be Kevin superfans who are upset that Kandreil didn’t make it into the final draft. And every time I’m just baffled. How can people possibly feel so slighted by the exclusion of a pairing that Nora has said wouldn’t have made sense or been healthy in the final story anyway? The entitlement is just ridiculous

wowowow some juicy unpopular opinions are on the menu today!

i have a lot to say so buckle up. it’s gonna be one of those rants.

i have answered an ask about choking already. to sum it up: is choking kevin an acceptable mature way to express frustration at your bf being kidnapped by the mafia? no. is it in character for andrew? yes. will andrew apologize for it? no. will he and kevin still be friends? yes. 

first of all, i personally don’t see why kandreil would be unhealthy. i haven’t read nora’s statement about it but she didn’t elaborate, did she? it would be interesting to know why she thinks so but that’s unlikely to happen seeing as every word she utters about the characters she created gets her unproportional amounts of hate.

that being said, i totally see why kandreil would be out of character for the versions of kevin, neil and andrew that we see in the books. the relationships between kevin and the other two are certainly intense but i wish i didn’t have to suggest in the year of our lord 2020 that relationships can be intense without being sexual or romantic.

lets look at neil who’s canonically demi which means he has to have a profound emotional bond with a person in order to feel something like that for them. he has developed this bond with andrew throughout the books because they have similar backgrounds and are uniquely positioned to understand each other but more importantly because neil was put in a situation where he had to constantly actively communicate with andrew. andreil dialogues take up a large part of the books and enable us to see how andreil develops and works. nothing comparable happens between neil and kevin. they have a different dynamic altogether where neil looks up to kevin in the beginning for his exy skills and in turn kevin looks up to neil in the end for his being feisty in the face of imminent doom skills. neil chose to throw his anonymity away in order to stand up for kevin at kathy’s show which must mean he values kevin a lot, but he also antagonized him throughout the books, faulted him for not getting over his trauma in a timely manner and said the meanest things to him. a great and complex dynamic by all means. i have no complaints whatsoever and certainly don’t see them falling in love.

now lets look at andrew who isn’t aspec and has probably checked kevin out seeing as kevin is conventionally attractive. kevin & andrew is one of the most complex and interesting relationships i’ve ever seen in fiction. when we first encounter them their interactions are so intense that many readers (and neil) have interpreted them as a couple (because like i said before we tragically live in a society where tension is always seen as sexual). kevin and andrew met at such a time in their lives when they sorely needed something only the other was able to give: for kevin it was someone to stop him from returning to an abusive environment and for andrew it was someone who could see his real potential and worth behind his hostile manic exterior. so they started this weird co-dependent non-friendship which didn’t turn into anything else because - my big guess - neither of them wanted it to. andrew knows when he wants to fuck someone and knows how to arrange it but he didn’t with kevin because he already was a more important person to him than, for example, roland. the risks outweighed the benefits. but andrew did “arrange” it with neil probably because neil had something to offer which kevin had not. unlike kevineil where extensive relationship development had to take place in order for it to happen, kandrew could happen just because one of them suggested it. but guess what neither of them did and it’s canon. i for one am very happy that this unique exciting relationship wasn’t spoiled by romance.

finally lets look at kevin who isn’t a pov character like neil nor a character who’s constantly in neil’s focus of attention like andrew. we don’t have a comparable amount of information about kevin’s inner world so we have to surmise a lot of it just based on what neil cared to impart. so naturally the interpretations will differ. i personally see no signs of kevin being attracted to any person or any gender at any point in the books. there’s thea of course but she’s such an obvious last minute addition that i don’t even want to consider her. the kevin i know is living his best life as an unmarried childless aroace exy legend surrounded by friends and family and friends who are family. i’m aroace and imagining kevin single and happy is very important to me. it’s probably equally important to kandreil shippers to see some good polyamorous rep which is only slightly less rare in media than aroace rep. but the difference between me and kandreil shippers is that i have a magical ability to disagree with the author without cursing the very earth she walks upon.

ah yes, another difference is of course that they have an argument set in stone - kandreil was canon in earlier drafts. but do you know what else was there in the earlier drafts? jean was dead in them. so was erik in some of them which made nicky a different person altogether. also i distinctly remember nora writing that she has been developing this story for so long that she has shipped all the possible pairings at some point or another. kandreil aren’t special in that sense. what i am getting at is that in order to have a productive discussion we have to choose a particular draft of the story and stick to it, so if it’s a kandreil draft we have to know what else was different in that version, and if it’s the books then well kandreil isn’t canon in them end of story. 

that of course doesn’t mean that people can’t write absolutely stellar kandreil fanfics but it does mean that they have to dial down what you called “the entitelment”. because aftg means different things to different readers and if you insult the author for writing it the way you don’t like you also insult the readers who see themselves represented in the way the story is written. and kandreil fans are so aggressive. it’s smart of you sending the ask on anon cause otherwise they’d come for you so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you. just the other day i saw a post which basically said that the reason kevin is portrayed in fics in such a reductive way and writers don’t know what to do with him except make fun of his exy obsession and alcoholism is because andreil is built on the bones of kandreil and, being excluded from this relationship by the author, kevin can never be happy. this take right here illustrates very clearly that the shipping culture damages human brain in such a way that a fulfilling life outside a romantic relationship becomes inconcievable. fic writers diminish kevin to those things not because nora decided she wants her final draft to be about andreil, but because most of them aren’t able to write about a character unless they’re in a relationship. maybe some day fanfiction will develop past that but today is not that day.

i have read some kandreil fanfiction to see what the fuss is all about and my expert opinion is that all of it is ooc. clearly in order for kandreil to happen some manipulations with the existing characters have to be made. i consider myself a kevin superfan but i mean the kevin as he is in the books (and in my awesome hc). the kevin in kandreil fics i don’t know, he’s a character from a book i didn’t read so he can do whatever and date whoever, i don’t care either way. i only care when people insult the books, andreil or nora because they’re bitter that their ship isn’t canon. what a way to live in the year of our lord 2020. 

[asotin]

what're your thoughts on castlevania (the netflix show, not the game, ive never played the game) what do you like, what don't you like? make it as long as you want. i don't care if i have to scroll for 5 minutes. go feral (personally trevor is extremely hot and i would like to date sypha. i'm not really into alucard's whole sickly victorian child aesthetic, yknow?)

oh god this is way too long, but you did say to make it as long as i want, and i have a lot of thoughts that i need to inflict on the world

i played two castlevania games, both from the nintendo gameboy era, so please don’t get mad at me, gamers

details below the cut, but since i’ll be talking about season three, i need to preface this with content warnings for mentions of: graphic violence, rape and sexual violence, racism, and the holocaust

before i get into it, i usually don’t go for alucard-type characters either, but knowing that he was redesigned to be bishounen sexy specifically because the boring, middle aged man look he originally had in the games wasn’t appealing makes me enjoy him. and he’s fun with trevor and sypha

do like:

the voice acting

it’s all good. i can’t think of any characters whose voices were awkward or fit poorly. they don't make sypha’s va use the standard flat affect or false high voice women tend to be assigned, trevor sounds suitably worn out but not monotone, and alucard sounds exhausted but in a sexy way

and the spanish dub is killer, arguably superior

the animation & design

it isn’t full-on artsy, but it’s definitely got a distinctive style that’s easy to look at. the color use and effects are gorgeous. it’s a story set in the medieval era, and the mixture of desaturated and oversaturated elements works so well with that

dracula’s castle and the belmont bunker aren't revolutionary in design, but they didn't need to be. they're suitably creepy and empty, and i enjoyed them

the monsters were unique enough to have obvious different types, and the scene where a monster commits blasphemy in a church by accusing a priest of committing blasphemy was good writing

lisa

she shows up to a stranger’s spooky home and scolds him for being rude. she really looked an ancient vampire in the face, told him he had no manners, then had a kid with him. what a phenomenal woman. 11/10, no notes

“start with me, and i’ll start with you.” you know what? i’d fall in love, too

dracula

this ancient, unfriendly vampire let a human woman walk into his home and tell him he’s got no manners. and that made him fall in love with her. just like that. lisa walked in and handed him his ass, and dracula thought “oh i love her”. and when she was killed (more on this in the bad section), he raised literal hell to destroy the world for doing it

speaking of lisa being killed, it fucks me up that it happened because she convinced him to leave the castle and experience the world. he left her alone to see what she loved so much, only to come back and find that the people he’d come to like- the people lisa had loved so much it drove her to help in a way that got her killed- had burned her at the stake. i love a good tragedy, and that’s good tragedy

the way he weeps when he has to fight alucard?? during a showdown in their home?? the “i must already be dead” moment in alucard’s childhood bedroom??? when he speaks to lisa about killing their boy, her greatest gift to him??? poetic cinema.

the trio’s dynamic

three bisexuals with two total brain cells and only alucard bothers using them. incredible

i went so hard for this ot3. it's right there and so good

sypha

she initially seems to be assigned the role of the adult™️ ie she's the only woman and gets stuck being responsible, but surprise! she’s just as annoying and dumb as alucard and trevor. she dropped a castle she didn’t understand on the ground and didn’t think too hard about it. then she argued about breaking it. i love her

if we don’t get an ot3, then she needs to have a dumb gf

alucard

he's got a stupidly low neckline and lower pants. they really leaned into ayami kojima’s redesign, as they should have. his little curl annoys me, though. why the fuck does he have a random section of hair that’s like three inches long when the rest is shoulder length or longer? love that he really looks like lisa

if you say he's canonically bisexual and polyamorous, no he isn't. yes he is. no he isn't :)

trevor

disgusting. a nasty man whose appearance mirrors his state of mind. he's 50 mental illnesses in a dirty jacket and his coping mechanism is… alcohol? maybe? he’s a mess, and i dig it

him trying his trick of kneeing alucard in the balls during their fight? and finding out it doesn't work? (which…… why doesn't it……?) juvenile but suitable

hector

his love of animals makes him my favorite. normally, i won’t touch anything with this much animal death, but i’m willing to set that aside because hector loves them so much. he’s so sweet and kind, and he loves his monster pets

yes he sided with dracula and has some really fucked up ideas about what constitutes humane treatment of people, and yet i love him. 11/10, but i have a lot of notes

isaac

i support him, including his murdering and his decision to support dracula. dracula throwing him out of the castle to save him was so cruel in that it was an attempt at kindness from a man who hated the whole world, but it was against isaac’s wishes

his time with the captain was great

idk enough about islam to know if he's portrayed correctly and haven’t seen any complaints, but given the show’s track record……… i wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not great

the forging

very cool. fresh and interesting! hector creating pet friends is cute and heartbreaking. love isaac for his dedication to reducing, reusing, and recycling

season 2’s big battle with all those vampires

the new version of “bloody tears” is phenomenal

this goes back to the animation, but listen……. it's so good. i loved the smoke vampire, and alucard’s fluid wolf transformations. his flying sword looked really good, and incorporating them together? super good to watch. and trevor’s whip?

the type and level of violence are suitable for what it is. it would be weird for a gritty show like this to be bloodless, but i don't think it would work if it were bloody to the extent of a slasher. it's also more clean violence, if that makes sense. you don’t linger just to look at gore; you see it because stabbing someone spills blood. the games weren't about extended, gritty scenes of realistic murder, so the show sticking with quick, slice and dice type fights fit with what i remembered of them

please watch this fight if you don’t remember it or haven’t seen it (part 1, part 2)

trevor’s whips

trevor’s weapons don’t follow the physics of normal whips, and they shouldn't. they’re heavily stylized and clearly a fantasy weapon, but they still have rules that they (mostly) have to obey. his morning star-whip hybrid in particular is so good 

it’s easy to follow, too. a lot of times, speedy weapons disappear, which is an understandable effect but one i find boring because there’s nothing for me to do. i’m just sitting on my ass with nothing to do

trevor’s whips don’t disappear. they’re fast, but you can always see them. and they have weight! you can see them slow down and gain speed. i don’t need physics to be real; i want movement to be pleasing, and that’s exactly what i get with the whips

don’t like:

fridging lisa

she could have been kidnapped (possibly make dracula think she was dead bc people want to lure out her scary demon husband, idk), then s2 could have ended with her and dracula reuniting as he died. she and alucard go on a trip together to attempt to make amends for the pain dracula wrought in lisa’s name. orrrr she dies a tragic death with him and we’re left to hope that they find each other in the afterlife. do vampires get to go to the afterlife? can alucard reintegrate? can he be happy with his new friends? or will he go back to his crypt and sleep again? will he ever be rediscovered? if so, what will he do? deep questions. i would prefer to cogitate on these instead of experiencing the shitshow that is s3

season 3

they should have ended it with dracula’s death. the quality of storytelling goes down immediately. just plummets. i’m sure there were problems in the first two seasons, but this one is so bad, i genuinely can’t remember

but i may as well get specific, so here we go:

abandoning alucard

trevor and sypha leave their friend alone in his childhood home where he just killed his father. where they helped him kill his father who, as i’ve said too many times, raised literal hell to get revenge for people burning alucard’s mother to death

yt they don’t talk about alucard. they don’t make any plans to touch base ever again. trevor’s entire family got killed. sypha’s culture, from which she’s now estranged, is family-centric. if ever two people should give a shit about alucard and know why alucard shouldn’t be left on his own, it's them

so what the hell is going on?

trevor and sypha’s relationship

look. it could be good. it would be better with alucard but they could be together and it could work fine

but this……….

trevor hates what they're doing. he hates traveling around and fighting. he's clearly tired and deeply depressed

sypha not only doesn't care enough to address it (did they forget the first two seasons?? sypha is annoying partly because she doesn't stop poking people) she might not even notice? yes, she's having fun, but trevor is basically dead on his feet in front of her

racism

hector, sumi, and taka all got done dirty 

sumi and taka

i hate the way they died. i hate that i’m certain that the plot won’t bring japan back into the narrative (or if it does, i don’t trust it not to be shitty). i hate the fact that by killing them off, i’m not going to get any more of them. they were interesting!!

speaking of the japanese vampire: the biphobia, arguably, given what happens with alucard

the addition of sexual violence

i don’t need or want lenore. if all she’d done was manipulate hector, i could have lived with that. she’s a villain, so she does bad things. that’s the point. but what she did was a massive escalation. we hadn’t had any sexual violence, and then the last few episodes gave us 

tumblr feminists who love her for how she treated hector need to be quarantined until their brain worms have been cured

everything that happens to hector

what was this shit? why did i open my netflix app and tap castlevania and find them making this man walk around naked in the cold to torture him? and starving him? he got manipulated, degraded, chained up, collared like an animal, and raped. and why? to show us how bad lenore is? that the other vampires are bad because they let her do it? i didn’t sign up for this

the holocaust reference

the imagery at the end of s3 when it’s revealed that the judge has been killing people he’s decided are undeserving to live and collecting their shoes in that barn was chillingly close to images of shoes taken from victims of the holocaust. there's no reason to invoke the holocaust here. it’s unnecessary and in bad taste

[bitch-b0i]

...Thoughts

So The Hollow Season 2 happened and I have opinions. 

Spoilers under the cut. Obviously

“dude I’m gay” !!!!!! Beautiful. I am Fed. I am replenished. Faith in humanity? Restored 

It was brought up so... organically? Like that is a scenario that I could see in real life, it worked so well??? The “she’s not my type”???? YEs????? 

In all seriousness I don’t think people fully understand how important that scene was. My friend and I had to pause it because we were both crying. This is huge you guys. And Mira’s 2 dads??? Excellence

... That being said. 

This season slightly disappointed me not going to lie

Baseline? Fairly ok continuation of the story from season1. Cool twist, didn’t see it coming. New. Exciting. Fine. 

The character development in this season was astronomical, and I mean like, I genuinely don’t know whether to praise or critique it. On the one hand, it’s really freaking exciting that these characters have so much that the fandom can build from, and that we got the chance to really understand why each character did what they did (for the most part). But at the same time, it very very much felt like the season could not decide whether it wanted to be a character-driven season, or a plot-driven season, and it was sort of distracting throughout most of the season past episode like three 

This really came through when they killed off Skeet. I really didn’t understand why they did this other than to show the others that they weren’t playing the game anymore, and I really, really didn’t understand why if that was what they were going to go for, they gave him some really interesting character development first. They made us care about this character and gave us information about him that had so much potential for what the rest of the season would look like, and then they killed him. And the whole season we were expecting him to come back, because this show kills people all the time, and he never did. And that felt a little off to me. Of course, feel free to disagree with me on this one

The romance? Who??? Allowed this??????

I’ve seen a lot of people saying that the show really didn’t force any romance into this season, and I did not get that at all 

For one thing, no, technically nobody ends up together, but imo romance in shows isn’t exclusive to doing the kissy-kissy wif somewone 

They brought up that Mira kissed Adam again, and it was brought up when Kai mentioned that he had a crush on Mira, when it was basically a dead thing from season one. That didn’t feel very organic to me 

Skeet randomly brought up that he and Mira never “dated” despite the fact that literally nobody asked???? 

Now, feel free to @ me about this, because I could be off base, and I’m very open to discussion, but to me, this show does relationships (not just romance, like friendships and other relationships between characters) in a really confusing way. There is hardly a way to tell whether a relationship between two characters is implied or meant to be romantic or platonic (and don’t tell me this show is not involved with romance, because obviously there is something going on in it), so you sort of have to take hints from what surrounds the characters’ relationship development 

For example, Mira and Adam are childhood friends, and their friendship is very nicely developed as a long-standing friendship, but their relationship is framed very differently from Adam and Reeve’s friendship (/relationship?), even though they’re sort of in the same ballpark. Adam is childhood friends with BOTH Mira and Reeve, but his relationship with Reeve felt almost forced within the show. They’re almost presented as exes, (yeah everyone got that, I know) and the show felt like it was trying to put them together again arbitrarily, and I was basically yelling at the screen for them not to do that, not because I don’t like the ship, but because I would have been all for it if it was developed in a meaningful way, but it wasn’t 

Adam came out as gay. Oh Look, a boy. Perfect 

Just. Ugh. I don’t. Ugh. 

It felt like this season was sort of pushing this “the other team as the love interests” as a subplot, like Mira and Skeet will end up together, and then Adam and Reeve, and then (most annoyingly) Kai and Vanessa

And all of these romantic or weird relationshippy dynamics that were going on as subplots came across as being super annoying to watch due to the forced character development 

There were so many character arcs to follow I almost wasn’t paying attention to the plot, which is what initially drew me to The Hollow 

And that would be FINE if they wanted to focus on character development, but they were trying to do such a complex plot thing at the same time and it just. Came across as very jumbled and messy and chaotic and hard to follow. 

The characters also felt like they were exaggerated versions of their season one selves, if you get what I mean? But like done in a really bad way. 

Adam felt way angrier and more aggressive than he was portrayed in season one. Like, excessively so. Angry latino?? Ahaha we love stereotypes 

Mira is the single brain cell (which was cool, she was like the one person I consistently rooted for this season, but got a little irritating after a while of her being the only logical person around) 

Reeve was distrusting and cold and an asshole, because what else would he be 

Kai was stupid. Kai was the comic relief. Like even his parents’ neglect and dysfunctionality was played for laughs. What the fuck man??? 

Don’t even talk to me about Vanessa (just kidding please talk to me about Vanessa) 

I thought that maybe these sort of “off” versions of their characters maybe was the show’s way of saying that they weren’t entirely themselves, which was supposed to foreshadow the big twist? But it was done sort of messily and, again, annoying to watch 

I hate to be that predictable bitch, but does anyone else feel sort of baited with a queer relationship? (Adam and Kai and/or Reeve?) 

I’m hesitant to say this because people are going to yell at me that Adam is canonically gay and so it’s not queerbaiting, and that’s not what I’m saying! I recognize that Adam’s arc was an incredible step forward for us! Like I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I cried. It was so emotional for me, and so perfect and well done... 

But that being said, if the show had said from the beginning that it was completely unconcerned with romance, it would have been a perfectly acceptable resolution for me 

But it didn’t 

It is obviously concerned with romance at least on some level, and don’t get me wrong, I also recognize that none of the straights got canonization of their ships either, but think about this for a second

Kai and Vanessa? They’re basically dating at the end. They fly into the sunset together, they hold hands, don’t @ me about this. Kai/Vanessa shippers got what they wanted 

Mira and Skeet didn’t get much, because Skeet fucking died, but I promise that if he had lived, they would have probably had something similar 

Adam? He and Reeve and Mira are friends again. Yay. 

But twice throughout the whole series it’s been implied (I mean “implied” the way I described before) that Adam might have a love interest. Kai and Reeve

It was even STRONGLY SUGGESTED in the trailer with Adam’s flag and the whole holding hands scene that it would be Kai, which would make sense building off of season one 

But in the end, Kai gets Vanessa, and Adam gets his dysfunctional friendship with his ex back. How nice for him. 

ANYWAY

ALL OF THIS is just my way of saying, I really liked season two, but it was in NO way without its flaws and serious downfalls, all of which sort of tampered with my enjoyment of the season on the same level as season one, which I thought was something really special 

Feel free to discuss with me, I love discussion and good discourse as much as the next guy 

At least they didn’t pull a Voltron and fuck everything up supremely. If there is a season three, there is hope for all this shit to NOT go south, so pray for the show y’all 

AND I will be fixing most of this shit on Ao3, so there.

[littlemisssquiggles]

So ...about "The Warrior in the Woods"...

Okay so this morning, this squiggle meister took a read at a preview for one of the stories that would be featured in the upcoming RWBY: Fairy Tales of Remnant set to release this year September 15th. It’s titled “The Warrior in the Woods”. If you haven’t read the small preview of the tale for yourself, you can find it right here on kobo.com where you can also preorder a digital copy of the book.

Speaking of, does anyone know where one can preorder a hardcopy version of this book? Or do I have to wait till it comes out in September to order the hard copy version then? Of all the upcoming RWBY-related projects that I was most looking forward to, it’s definitely this one and I’d definitely love to own a tangible copy of the book for myself if it’s available.

Anyways let’s talk about “The Warrior in the Woods” story specifically. Obviously I read it and without spoiling much from the short story, all I can say is that I definitely loved it. I think right out the gate, I’m going to peg this one as one of my favourites of the fairy tales purely because I found it to be a rather sweet one.

[SPOILERS AHEAD! NUFF SAID]

Plot-wise, the tale focuses on a young boy who ends up getting lost in the woods after wandering out too far from his home village while out playing with his friends. Basically the gist is that the people of this boy’s village have lived in peace away from the Grimm; so much so that the villagers; as well as its youths had never encountered a creature of Grimm before.

While lost in the forest, the boy is attacked by a Bolbatusk Grimm (I believe) during which he is rescued by a woman with silver eyes. In a nutshell, the boy is saved by a Silver Eyed Warrior which leads into a routine where every year from the day they met, the young boy would always return to the forest in the hopes of meeting the Silver Eyed Warrior again.

Let’s get into what I liked about this tale:  The whole relationship between the young boy and the Silver Eye who I will hereby refer to as “Warrior”. From the get-go, it’s very evident that the Boy is infatuated with the Warrior but what I found adorable was that this boy’s interest in the Warrior was what encouraged him to brave the forest in the hopes of seeing her time and time again for two to three more years (I believe if I’m remembering correctly). And what I thought was interesting was that each time the boy ventured into the forest, he was described as being much braver and stronger than previous encounters.

During his first encounter with the Warrior, the boy was completely powerless during his first run in with a Grimm but as the years went by, the boy would learn from his experiences and would go in a little more prepared each time. While he still needed the Warrior to come to his aid (which she always did in spite of saying she wouldn’t save him and telling him never to return), I definitely dug how much the boy began to mature with each time he met the Warrior as reflected in his growing combat competency.

I liked the angle of the Boy being motivated to become a stronger person thanks to his meeting with the Warrior. I liked that just as much as I love the angle of how much the Warrior in turn grew to care for the Boy in her own way.

When we first meet the Warrior, she described as strong and beautiful (by the Boy) yet hardened and reserved due to her past experiences since according to her story, her kind were known to be hunted and slain by humans because of their power (as we the readers are aware of from the main series as of V4-V6).

So due to this, the Warrior has basically settled into a life of solitude and survival. This is even reflected in her initial attitude towards the Boy since after saving him the first time, she warned him never to return again.

Unfortunately for the Warrior, she had underestimated the Boy’s persistence since he did return to her and each time they’d meet in the woods upon her saving him, the young boy would bring her gifts as a token of his appreciation and fondness of her as well as a symbol of their growing bond.

And in spite of pushing him away at first and all the times they would “meet” afterwards, I liked how it was shown how much the Boy had grown on the Warrior and how his compassion had warmed him up to her to the point that I think she began looking forward to seeing him in a way---or rather she expected him to always return to her in a sense.

Until one year when the boy returned to woods, he would find his Warrior gone. Whether that meant the warrior had eventually met her fate or simply moved on, I don’t know. It is of my assumption that the Warrior was ultimately killed in battle. The ending of story in regards to the Warrior’s fate felt a bit ambiguous to me. The story mentioned the possibility of the Warrior being dead but honestly never confirms it. Not really. So for me, I’m only assuming that the Warrior did die since that’s how the tale left her conclusion.

Now for the real meat of this post---the comparison that I’ve already seen my Rosegardening peers make after reading this tale and now I’m going to chip in and basically say the same thing too. 

Yes, the Boy and the Warrior definitely remind me of Oscar Pine and Ruby Rose. 

It’s actually kind of hard to NOT make that stark comparison.

After finishing the tale, my theory is that the Boy was probably around the same age as Oscar is currently when he first met the Warrior. Probably 14-15 years of age and I’d like to think that he was probably 17-18 years old by his third and last encounter with the Warrior since later in the story, the author began referring to the boy as a “young adult man” (I believe).  

As for the age of the Warrior, that one has me stumped to be honest. In the story, she is described as “woman”. I also recall the author describing the Warrior having strands of silver in her hair which made me think she was probably a much older woman---probably in her 40s.

Then again…women in their late 20s to early 30s can start showing signs of grey hair. Not to mention that people as young as 18 can start greying out due to family background and stress. 

So…in that case, I dunno. Going off the featured artwork of the Warrior in the preview, she doesn’t look to be that old at all. So I’m going to safely assume, that compared to the Boy, she was probably in her late 20s or so.  

That’s my cookie crumb deduction.

Either way, here we have yet a second example of a RWBY content featuring an adolescent male expressing romantic interest in an older woman with the writers behind the tale treating this dynamic as something wholesome and rather quite sweet. I would be lying through my teeth if I said I wasn’t rooting for the Boy and the Warrior to end up together-together.  I am NOT sorry. My hopeless romantic of a shipping heart couldn’t help but find the boy’s interactions with his Warrior to be adorable since the story treated it that way.

It’s for this reason why despite the story’s ending, a part of me is still kind of hopeful that the preview isn’t the whole story for that specific tale; y’know what I mean? Like I’m kind of hoping that once the full book is out, there will be more to the Warrior in the Woods story that potentially reveals the young boy and the Warrior reuniting and having their happy ending together.

I could be completely wrong here but dagnabbit, they got me again folks. Not gonna lie. I want this now. I need Roosterteeth to adapt this book into a new animated series like World of Remnant. These characters don’t even have names and already I adore their bond and story together.

Overall, as you can tell, I’m smitten with the relationship between the Boy and his Warrior. And the ending where the boy; now a man, professes his love for his Warrior since the day they met only made me gush even more over this pair. In the squiggle shire, we stan “A Boy and his Warrior”. That’s what I’m going to call this pair.

I guess the point that I’m trying to make here is that it’s nice to see a love---even if it was unrequited in a sense---between a young man and an older woman be treated respectfully in literature. We live in a time when people would screech over the slightest age difference while ignoring the context of the relationship itself.

Though only a short story, I’m happy that the author of Fairy Tales of Remnant portrayed the rapport between the Boy and his Warrior as a sweet relationship.

It’s here where I’m reminded of the Rosegarden dynamic. For the most part, the CRWBY Writers have always treated the bond between Ruby and Oscar as wholesome. It’s what makes the arguments against it in regards to their small 2-year age different sound so silly in my opinion.

So that being said, thank you CRWBY and E.C. Myers for creating yet another sweet dynamic between a young adolescent teenage boy and an otherwise “older” and much more experienced Silver Eyed Warrior.

“…I wish I could have been there for her,” he said slowly, “the way she was there for us.” If she was dead, she had died alone.

“Why did you keep going back there, year after year?” a village woman asked him. “Because she saved you?”

“For that reason, and for many more,” he said slowly. “But I believe she knew the deepest reason of all.”

The group waited. He gazed into the fire.

“I fell in love with her the moment I saw her silver eyes.”

- “The Warrior in the Woods” | Fairy Tales of Remnant by E.C Myers 

 I would like to say more about this story but I’m afraid right now, all I can give are my first impressions. In a way, my mind is all a tizzy with how much this tale got me thinking in respect to the growth and potential future of the Rosegarden relationship.

I’m not trying to imply that I’m taking this as a sign of their endgame. Nah. That would be too premature of me. But it did get me thinking and excited for them in respect to Oscar’s continued development.

I think what I loved and enjoyed the most out of this tale is how much the Boy reminded me of my favourite little prince and how his endearing love for his Warrior made me think of how much Oscar looks to Ruby as someone to believe in and perhaps, even fall in love with.

And what got me the most was the line about the Boy wishing he could’ve been there for his Warrior the same way she had been there for him and by extension the people of his village.

That line hit me deep since that’s exactly how Ruby has been with Oscar from the moment the two met!

Out of everyone amongst the hero team, Ruby has supported Oscar the most from the start. She’s always stood by him. Looked out for him. Protected him and believed in him or supported him even when others were reluctant about that.

She was the first person to mention how brave he is in spite of his fears. And above all else, Ruby inspired Oscar to be a stronger person. Not just for himself and the huntsmen in his care; like his teammates. But for her.

The Boy was inspired by the Warrior to become a stronger man, not just for himself but also the people of his village. Not only that but I loved how the young man even wanted to be strong enough to support his Warrior too

“…I wish I could have been there for her,” he said slowly, “the way she was there for us.”

I love that. I love that line because it reminds me of everything I’ve been saying about Oscar and his inspiration from the Little Prince.

What was the lesson the Fox taught the Prince? Love and responsibility. To be responsible for the people who love and support you just as much as you love and support them.

I got the same vibe from this story from the relationship between the Boy and the Warrior. The sad reality is that the Boy never got a chance to be there entirely for his Warrior and thus she was believed to have died alone; never truly knowing the whole truth of how much she meant to him and how much he loved her.

This is a parallel that I’m hoping for in V8 in respect to Oscar’s side of the story with him on his own in Mantle with only Oz. I’m hoping that during his journey back to Atlas; Oscar comes to terms with his feelings for Ruby. What would even be amazing is if at some point, the tale of the Warrior in the Woods is brought to life and told in the main series.

I would absolutely love it if at some point Oz would tell Oscar the Tale of the Warrior in the Woods when the little prince starts thinking about his rose. Even better, what if…“The Warrior in the Woods” is how Oscar learns the “Fox’s lesson to the Little Prince”?

Imagine if…Oz, fairy tale and it through hearing that story and learning of the Boy’s dedication to his Warrior that it helps Oscar realize how much Ruby means to him!

Overall, what I’m mainly anticipating is for Oscar to come to terms with his true deepest feelings for Ruby. For me, I would love it if Oscar really is no different than the Boy in the fairy tale. 

What would even be more of a trip is if Oscar is a descendant of the Boy or meets someone in his travels who is related to that boy in the tale and it’s a story and lesson that’s been passed down throughout their family for generations.

I know that might be pushing it a little bit but it’s not a bad concept. Either that or…Oz is the one who tells Oscar the Tale of the Warrior in the Woods. It would make sense for Oscar to hear that tale through Oz since, ironically, isn’t he the one who compiled the Fairy Tales from Remnant book? Correct me if I’m wrong. I know his notes are a feature of the book.

Anyways,  either way, I want to see Oscar realize how much he loves Ruby and it’s his love for her that further fuels his drive to support and protect her.

The Boy never got his chance to be there to protect his Warrior. While he kept her legacy alive through her story, the sad truth is the Warrior died alone never knowing how the Boy felt for her.

This is something I’m expecting NOT to be repeated with Rosegarden. I want to see Oscar promise to Ruby that he will always be there for her; fighting by her side for the cause they both believe him: Saving humanity. And above all else, I want to see Oscar realize his love for his rose in the hopes of one day telling her that to her face.

While I don’t know if we’ll have Ruby return Oscar’s feelings. Regardless, this is what I’m anticipating to see at least for Oscar’s side of things and this fairy-tale gave me more believe for that. Then again, it’s just a story and only time will really tell for what the CRWBY Writers have in store for V8. But a squiggle meister can wonder and hope, right?

In the meantime, like I said, I’m excited for the official release of Fairy Tales of Remnant.

I don’t plan on reading any more of the previewed stories though. I don’t know about some folks, but for this squiggle meister, I more want to wait till the book is out so I can hopefully get a hard copy because I do want to own the book itself.

That way I can read it through, make notes of things and always have that stuff on hand when I want to make a point of analysis for future musings and headcanon posts. Plus I really want that book. This is one of the sure-fire times where RoosterTeeth will actually get my money. (Still waiting patiently on dem Oscar merch though).

So with that being said, I think “The Warrior in the Woods” will be the ONLY story preview I will read and talk about for now.

I know there are previews for the other stories available but I’d rather not read them now. I think I’ll wait for the full book to go through and give my official thoughts then. We’ll see. Until then, this is all I got to say for now folks.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[k-odyssey]

Dramas I’ve Been Watching in February

I was going to wait till the very end of the month but I’ve already written the post so… Thoughts are under the cut like last time, and I tried not to include spoilers.

Crash Landing on You (finished)

I’ve already mentioned this one last month. Also it’s been all over my blog for a while now. My post about the finale.

The spoiler-free version is that I loved the journey this drama took me on. Did I love the ending? No, but it wasn’t bad. It was just okay.

The romance ticked off most of my favourite tropes and the acting was flawless.

Se Ri is such a good character. Businesswomen are often portrayed as cold and heartless, and it’s kind of how she’s perceived in SK, but it quickly becomes obvious that she’s anything but. She’s extremely warm, funny and charismatic, and if she trusts someone (basically, if they’re not her family) she actually shows her vulnerable side. Also it’s great to see her thrive when she’s around people who care about her.

Great ensemble. The secondary characters are so attaching. The non-evil ones I mean.

Extraordinary You (ep6 of 16)

Teenager figures out that she’s a comic book character and, unhappy with the direction of her story, takes matters into her own hands.

It’s still early on for me but I love this fresh take on the concept. I actually don’t know where this is headed, and I’m anticipating the twists and turns.

I love a heroine who takes charge of her life.

Mysterious love interest is adorable and getting more fleshed out and compelling every episode. I can’t hate Baek Kyung though. At least not so far.

Joy of Life (ep36 of 46)

Mentioned last month.

I’m still enjoying this one a lot. It’s as funny and interesting as ever.

Wan’er doesn’t get that much screentime but she’s a great character. I loved that scene with the princess in ep30 or 31.

I’m still in love with Fan Xian.

Forest (ep12 of 32)

Businessman and demoted surgeon are reunited in a countryside village when he becomes a rescue worker for all the wrong reasons.

This one comes with plenty of mysterious childhood trauma and fate.

Gorgeous forest shots.

Park Hae Jin’s character has a soft side, but I have to say he often rubs me the wrong way with his attitude and values. Although he is changing. Jo Bo Ah’s is a lot more likeable, but I’m not in love either? BUT they have an interesting love-hate dynamic that I really like.

It feels like I can predict where the story is going and I’m not sure I’m going to like all of it, but we’ll see!

Chocolate (finished)

Mentioned previously.

I ended up liking it a lot.

The hospice setting was original, you don’t see too many kdramas speaking about palliative care. And if they do it tends to be about one particular character who’s dying.

Lots of food. Lots of heartbreak, which comes with the territory.

I loved the kids and their conversations with adults.

Lee Jun, who isn’t one of the leads, ended up becoming my favourite character. I found that I could relate to him more. Like, honestly I wrote a whole post about that and then I got self-conscious and didn’t publish it.

The romance at the centre of the story is somehow the least memorable thing for me, although there were a few great emotional moments. Usually tearful ones.

Terrius Behind Me | My Secret Terrius (finished)

Fugitive spy turns into the perfect babysitter for his neighbour, while investigating her husband’s murder.

I’d watched 4 episodes back in november, and kind of picked up where I’d left it.

It’s a lovely, heartwarming drama. Terrius with the kids makes for great comedy. That and the network of neighbourhood sort-of-spies, stay-at-home parents.

Go Ae Rin is a lovely, resilient character.

Yes there’s some big conspiracy and spy stuff but ultimately it’s more of a drama about two people dealing with the loss of a loved one in different ways, and learning that they can lean and rely on each other. (And their community.)

Find Yourself (ep19 of 42)

Supervisor and intern 10 years her junior begin a secret office romance.

Full disclosure: I skipped significant parts of these 19 episodes, that happens when I’m watching stuff really late at night and I need to know what happens next. Not before ep9 or so though.

The drama gives a great insight into the kind of pressure chinese women may feel to get married and have children by a certain age. For that reason, many interactions are very frustrating to watch.

So many characters dismiss He Fan Xing’s every accomplishment because she’s single, and I really want to slap some sense into them. She’s 32 but everyone acts like she has one foot in the grave.

Also very frustrating: the plot. As funny and entertaining as it can be, I get mad at the many misunderstandings and entangled relationships. I hate it when I can see the trainwreck coming episodes in advance. Maybe that’s just a “me” thing. It makes me anxious, which is why I’m currently taking a break from it. I think I’ll try to finish it though.

In a way it’s a great guide to what not to do in a relationship. I guess they’ll end up together in the end, but it’s not a smooth ride. Like, I hate how at some point she just assumes he can’t afford the gift he gave her and returns it without telling him! Girl, learn to communicate. There’s lots of lies on both sides tbh.

They do have chemistry though! Also Zhang Yu Jian from Le Coup de Foudre plays the main character’s brother and I enjoy seeing him in this completely different role a lot. I had no idea he had this whole range of facial expressions due to the fact that Yan Mo had a blank face 99% of the time.

My Holo Love (finished)

Lonely, faceblind woman ends up with expensive AI, falls in love with it. Unless it’s the hot human lookalike she’s into…

It’s only 12 ep, perfect if you like shorter dramas.

I can believe a human falling in love with an AI very easily, but the AI becoming sentient is usually were my brain draws the line. It’s still a very enjoyable drama. The hologram aspect gives it a fresh twist. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of relationship portrayed between an AI and its maker.

These are two very good-looking people. Not that the other dramas don’t have pretty actors but, just saying.

Best thing about it: it has a proper ending, which is a rarity for netflix shows. I hope they make more like this from now on.

[echodrops]

I just read your post about shipping and energy and I finished it with an interesting question in mind. A los of the examples you use to defend the theory the "tension" Or energy beetwen the characters have some Interactions that could be consider "Toxic" Así a relationship, but because of that tensión that just make more fans ship it. Emotions of jelaously, hate, self worth bla bla. I would like to know your opinión on Toxic relationships on shipping and the difference (1/2?)

And the difference of how people Accept it depending if the ship is Slash or het. Dont get me wrong. What I try to exploin in My crappy English is that sometimes I have seen shippers calling Toxic and unhealthy het ships (I can give you plenty of examples) but at the same time drowning in feelings about the exact same concept on Slash. It can be domination, bickering, power dinamics etc.   Please a dont send this ina negative context its just something I have notice (2/2)

No worries, I got you. I think your point is really valid and there are a lot of discrepancies in how people ship when it comes to het versus slash.

In this case, my answer to this has three different parts to it:

1) I am always very, very cautious about applying the term “toxic” to a fictional relationship because--and I am aware this is not a popular opinion to have on tumblr--I do see a clear distinction between fiction and reality. Can systemic, widespread efforts in media to normalize something have impacts on public perception? Sure. Japan’s thing for twelve-year-old girls in anime is fucked up, my dudes. But in terms of fictional relationships, would any sane person look at things like, say, a psychopathic villain and hero ship and go “Oh man, Sephiroth/Cloud is such relationship goals; can’t wait to find me a serial killer!”? “Yeah dude, I really hope my next girlfriend is a yandere who will stab me sixteen times in non-vital places for fun!” “I can’t wait to engage in armed combat with my evil boyfriend who has enslaved my best friends and won’t give them back unless I let the rest of the world perish!” ...said no real person ever. Lots of things happen in fiction that we--as readers and viewers--can fully appreciate would never be okay in the real world. (And yes, this does extend even to more realistic things like jealousy, bickering, bullying--I like Bakugou as a character, but I’d never be able to tolerate a person who acted like him in real life.) 

I wholeheartedly believe that, outside of illegal things which should obviously be reported, each person has responsibility only for their own fandom experience, and I highly encourage people to make full use of the blocking and filtering features available in fandom spaces to avoid any content that makes them feel uncomfortable or any ships they find to be unhealthy.

So: My opinion on toxic ships is that virtually any ship in this world could be perceived as toxic by someone, and that the alternative--a world in which the ONLY ships we’re allowed to write about or draw or even just like are those which are perfectly healthy pure pure love-fests--sounds horrible to me.

2) Very few people ship without an endgame in mind. I can’t think of anyone who looks at two characters who absolutely hate each other and thinks “Wow, I can’t wait to write a 100,000 word fic in which their relationship does not evolve in the slightest and they end the story hating each other exactly as much as they did on Day 1!” JK, maybe I can, I was in the Durarara fandom, after all. When people ship “toxic” relationships, it is almost always with the idea of character growth and change in mind--the idea is “They are not healthy for each other now, but the whole point of my story or art is that they’ll become healthy for each other over time.” The power of love can heallll peopleeee.

Are the characters jealous of each other now, aggressive toward each other now, enemies right now? Obviously in the shipper’s mind, these are challenges that can be overcome in time by the characters learning and developing into better versions of themselves. Perhaps this is an overly optimistic worldview that leads people to make bad choices in real life--awful people in real life rarely change as much for the better as characters in fiction are capable of changing, but that’s the beauty of fiction: it doesn’t show us people as they are, but people as we wish they could be. We want to believe that the toxic pair of characters can find common ground and heal each other. That the people who are jealous of each other will instead come to appreciate each other by the end. That the misunderstandings will be cleared up. That mistakes will be forgiven. People typically aren’t shipping a toxic ship because they love toxicity--they’re shipping that relationship specifically because they see potential beyond that tension.

We typically ship with “happily ever after” in mind, with the understanding that the life is too hard and people too flawed for that road to always be an easy one.

3) I think you are right that there is a discrepancy in the way that people view het ships and slash ships; namely, there is a discrepancy between the way het ships and mlm ships are viewed.

There are probably a lot of long and complicated sociological explanations for this that someone with more research in the field could explain better, but my first thought on this is that the discrepancy is based primarily on how fans understand male and female dynamics versus male and male dynamics.

For example, society is coded strongly to view a man who hits, dominates, or is aggressive to a woman as a very, very bad guy. (Perhaps this is something widespread media depictions have normalized?) Whereas “dude kicks another guy’s ass” has a whole different connotation in modern views. It is certainly a double standard, and part of the reason that so many male victims of abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, etc. go ignored. Men are viewed as “too strong” to be victims; therefore, even many of the “wokest” fans can accept two male characters having a violent dynamic, when they would never accept that scenario between a male and female character.

That said, I think we also need to recognize that the way female characters are portrayed in media contributes to this problem. A preponderance of female characters in media are limited in what they can do and the situations they are allowed to engage in. As with BNHA, for example, “good” women are not allowed to be violent, jealous (other than over boys), aggressive, etc. Women are simply treated as not eligible for a wide variety of the dynamics that fictional men are written with. A male character having a superiority-inferiority complex over his also-male rival? Not surprising in the least. A male character having a superiority-inferiority complex over a female rival? Pshhh, yeah right. A female character bitterly jealous over a male character’s power, leadership, or skill? Surely she just admires his ability. Through a combination of misogyny and toxic masculinity, the stories themselves tell readers that unhealthy dynamics are commonplace and acceptable when they happen between two males, while “good” female characters should only be a source of healthy, supportive dynamics.

If we’re talking about unintended messages that writers send readers/viewers when it comes to character dynamics, this is definitely one of them!

tl;dr: Writers train their readers to expect and want certain things, but often do so carelessly or while unaware of the ways their own stereotypical societal views and cliche genre conventions will be taken and transformed by fandoms.

[bolbianddolanhouse]

Book 3 FAQ!

Need to catch up? Heres all the previous FAQs 1 * 2 Heres the master post of all three books 1 * 2 * 3

Wow...you would think that with the whole pandemic that I’d get these chapters out faster. But alas this year got the best of me too. I’ve been a lil vulnerable in the tags with y’all and the check-in messages really touched me. So thank you very much to everyone that has checked up on me and enjoyed the chapters! I appreciate all of you :3 So lets roll out the questions!

Q: Who is Iwata based off? A: Iwata is based off my self-insert, which is also me. I know that sounds a lil narcissistic but it’s that real life reference that you’re a spitting image of your parent. Iwata was designed to look and act very similar to his mother based off that. What made him a little more original and not a copy of my self-insert is the tropes I added. I mirrored the trope of that of the relationship between Steven and his mom in Steven Universe; where he adored, then hated but then came to terms that he is not his mom but someone better. A whole journey of self-discovery and self-worth.

Q: The representation is amazing! How did you come up with these queer characters? A: Glad you liked them! Like I’ve said in previous FAQs and in the tags, all these characters were dreamt and I just build upon them in writing. So yes, most of my characters were created queer in my dreams but I make them more in depth by setting up how they discovered they’re queer. I did a bit of research on coming out stories and self-discovery epiphanies to have these characters more relatable so a fellow queer reader feels seen in a way. There’s already too much hetero works out there, I just want to gay it up in a respectful way. 

Q: The culture mixing is really good and consistent, how do you do it? A: For starters, I am latina. But the culture mixing stems from my knowledge about other cultures through language. I’ve been studying Japanese for almost a decade now and Chinese for about 4 years, so it’s no surprise that I’m referencing them in my work. Maybe what I depict isn’t what other half-Japanese half-Latinx families do, but it’s what I’d do if I started such a family. Plus there’s some overlap within those cultures and it makes it easy to put into writing.

Q: So. much. drama! Why is this book more dramatic than the previous two? A: Book 3 is were main on-going plot gets picked up more and shows signs of resolution. In book 2, it was to focus on not only Lili and the family dynamic but to remind the reader that life moved on with little resolve for the self-insert character. Iwata has a HUGE role in the resolution but in his own special way. And I’m not saying the answer is love...but it’s leaning there. 

Q: You reference specific food and snacks in this AU/ what are your favorite Cheetos? A: Like I said, I’m latina! Of course I write in the food of my home culture. Mainly the home cooked meals my mom would make for me and my siblings. It might not seem like much to the reader, but those simple meals add to the narrative of being home and traditions that help them embrace their mixed heritage. The reference of Cheetos are all over this AU because they’re my favorite hot chip. Naturally, my favorite Cheetos are the Hot con Límon with chamoy. 

Q: Love that there’s no canon character deaths in this book so far, but are there any major deaths planned? A: Just one but it’s not a tragic, hero fallen type death. It’s a natural death but it’s gonna be a tear jerker. That death won’t come until the WAY end of this AU, so I’m not gonna spoil anything yet.

Q: Can’t believe you predicted Dabi’s true identity. A: It was obvious tho. I didn’t really predict anything canon if you’re an anime only for BNHA. In this AU (without spoiling too much) there’s no Endeavor redemption and Dabi doesn’t cause that big drama on live TV. So if you’re an Endeavor hater like me, you’re gonna love what I have in store for them in the next book!

Q: I love Tenya being a dad and loving husband in this AU! Will we see more dad moments? A: Glad you like those snippets of dad Tenya! I love writing them for my own indulgence since there isn’t enough love for this character in the fandom. Plus I see a whole lot of consistent readers are Iida-stans and that makes me want to write more married fluff whenever I can.

Q: Beizu is best boi/Who is Beizu based off of? A: Beizu is the genius trope in this book. I made his character a more chill version of his mom but with that ‘who is my dad’ trope. Beizu is part of a trio that’s to mirror the agent trio of Ita, Jin and Mimi. The third member is yet to be revealed but they’re a BIG plot device in the coming book. But Beizu is one of my favorite OCs, maybe I’ll do a ranking of my OCs when everyone is introduced. 

Q: The villains and Hawks plot has me SHOOK! What’s going to happen to hero society when this case gets solved? A: Without spoiling it, the truth is going to expose the corrupt higher ups in hero society. The kids in the household has a part in taking down hero society as well but in their own, special way. Iwata has the biggest part in closing the case (but it’s spoiler if I say how), Lili and twins help tearing down minor things like education systems and laws. I will say though, the case gets resolved after the trio retires because Ita gets to return to America and found an heir to the company before they could draw to a conclusion. Which is a happy ending at the end of the storyline, no major deaths!

Q: Confirmed weddings? A: Yes :) because Lili and Iwata deserve good things and love. The twins have it easy in the coming book. Lili’s comes first and Iwata’s comes later than expected (can’t say why yet, gotta keep reading :3). I guess I can say that all of them get married but Lili’s and Iwata’s are the only queer ones. All the spouses that marry into the family take the Iida name, so Lili and Hanaka don’t change family names when they get married! Y’all already know those wedding chapters are gonna be lavish and take up most of the chapter, you’ll love them.

Q: But are the kids Joji stans? A: Oh jeez...they are the same way we like 80′s music. It’s pleasant to listen to but kinda cringe when you see your parents dance to it. I don’t really portray it, but the family digital library has all of Joji’s music in a playlist called ‘Sad hours Soundtrack’. If you ask Mr Muffins 2.0 who last listened to the playlist, they’ll snitch who and how many times it has been looped. That’s how Tenya knows who needs cheering up.

Q: I love the little references to their childhood, what else can you tell us about their pre-book childhood? A: As I said a few times in the tags, I cut a ton of stuff that isn’t relevant to the plot. Most of it was their childhood and how they manifested their quirks. Lili really liked to scream before she learned to talk, a very fast learner and at 3 years old got her engine quirk and later that year showed signs of a second quirk. Iwata was very quiet child, hardly cried or gets upset but latched on to mom a lot. His first words were in Spanish but struggled a bit with Japanese before entering kinder. Tensei was born first, then Hanaka followed 10 minutes later. Hanaka’s fire quirk manifested after the first breast feeding when she was getting burped by mom in the hospital. Mom likes to believe Tensei came out first to warn everybody that Hanaka can breathe fire. Tensei didn’t manifest his metal quirk until the age of 7, making him a very late bloomer. Though very different in personalities, Hanaka and Tensei get along and get very creative when it’s playtime. Up until the age of 5, mom would place Hanaka in kindling to get the BBQ grill or bonfire started. Hanaka has been known to randomly burst into flames as a baby, so Tensei had to sleep in a different crib for his safety. Tensei spent more time reading as a child because everyone was focused on managing Hanaka’s flames, thus making him a very studious boy.

Q: Not an AU question, but how are you doing?/ We don’t mind waiting for the chapters! Please take your time. A: I’ve been getting check ins and validation in my asks for the inconsistent schedule. Too many things came at me this year, both good and bad. I was doing well in speech and debate that I went to nationals and prepared myself for some serious competition, leaving no time to do chapters. Then I fell in and out of depressive episodes during lockdown where I’m from. In the summer my grandmother passed away from the virus in Mexico, then my beloved dog Mr Muffins passed away of old age. Those deaths hurt me and my family the most that I was having a hard time trying to cope plus trying to be responsible by adhering to CDC guidelines (I’m in the immune-comprised group). In my want to get over my grief, I trained and received my certificate in ordained ministry (yea I know that’s not the best first step, but I just needed to feel like I’ve achieved something being cooped up at home). I’ve very grateful that theres some readers that see the tags and check up on me. All your kind words gives me a little strength to write and finish every chapter at my pace.

Q: More art please? A: Yes :3 I have one coming up real soon! After the end of this book is where I’ll be releasing some art as a sort of place holder.

Q: Is the the estate drama eluding to the ending? A: Yup! And it will show up every now and then in the next book.

Q: This is a really good self insert AU! There’s complexity to your character and others...how do you write these interactions/relationships really close to actual ones? A: Thanks for the complement :3 When I first started this AU, I was in the middle of my semester of a creative writing course. Near the end of book 2 was when I finished the course work for it and by then you could see the progression in writing. ALSO, I’m a communications major as well! Writing these relationships and other social things were things that I remembered learning in my interpersonal communications class. I was a bit on fence on whether or not to start this AU because I didn’t think my writing skill was at all that good. With some encouragement from my classmates and friends, I pushed myself to write this whole AU out. I don’t plan on stopping until I finish the storyline, plus I hate leaving things unfinished.

And that wraps up this FAQ! Hopefully I got everyone’s questions since most were check-ins for me. But expect the last chapter for book 3 in the next few days. After Book 3, I’m going on a lil hiatus until the end of February. I have so many life events happening in the upcoming weeks that I’m gonna need time to recharge before resuming this AU. Y’all know I bounce back as promised, in the meantime, I have some art things queued to remind y’all that Book 4 is in the works. Only 2 more books to go! Thanks again for reading and I’ll talk you y’all again later in the tags~

-Love, Palma-sama

P.S. Heres the end of Book 3 for your connivence :3 other links are at the top of this post!