#(and canon wise you should try to forget literally every other run other than the one you're reading ig! it'll contradict them so wtf)

[laufire]

doing some reading on the reboot changes with the new 52 in wiki pages and a.) getting a tension headache here b.) man I REALLY didn't pay attention to comics for years lol c.) if I ever do read certain issues I'm going to add SO MANY writers to my kill list d.) wtf is canon anymore.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Top 5 Reasons Javier Garcia’s Pretty Great

Of all the games in TWDG, A New Frontier seems to get the most shit. Stick around this fandom long enough and that’ll become apparently pretty quick, especially on other platforms such as reddit and instagram... and y’know, I get it. ANF is far from perfect, parts of the storyline go no where and characters don’t get the development they should have, a lot of people were upset that Clementine wasn’t the main playable protagonist, and certain character models look like... well, they look like potatoes. 

Hell, I’ve talked to some people who flat out say they don’t even consider ANF as part of the canon and skip it when they replay the series, which.... harsh, but you do you. However, if you do skip over ANF for whatever personal reasons you have, you are missing out on what I would consider the best part of that game: Javier Garcia. 

I love Javi, and I will stand by the fact that he’s a pretty damn good playable protagonist. I just wish more love and time was put into developing ANF to give him an even better story but y’know... Telltale was goin’ through shit, so we got this... 

But, I still wanna talk about how great I think Javi is so c’mon, let’s take a walk. 

5. Javi’s relationship with David

Now this might come off as a weird one, especially if your Javi has a more hostile relationship with David. Even so, I find the dynamic between Javi and David to be one of the more compelling aspects of ANF and I wish it was more front and center than it is but y’know. 

So we got Javi, who is the younger, more irresponsible brother who became this hotshot baseball star only to lose it all by gambling. Then you got older brother David who is a military man with a couple kids and a second wife, and he’s always felt a little overshadowed by Javi. This creates this dynamic of brothers who do love each other, but don’t always know how to communicate and confide in one another and it can lead to a lot of tension or hostility.

The route I usually take with a Javier who tries his best with David, who wants this connection despite everything, who made the promise to their father to look out for David and be there for him, to stand with him when he needs it, y’know? 

Some stand out moments for me is during the baseball flashback when David’s trying to open up about something, but struggles because Javi isn’t taking a hint about the serious nature, when they stand together on the roof, and the last conversation we see between them if David survives. 

Oh, and ya can’t forget the “I love you”’s when David is two seconds away from murdering Javi... that’s the good shit. 

And y’know, on the flip side where Javi is against David every step of the way, you can still argue that acts as a more tragic yet compelling story of two brothers who never saw eye to eye, never tried to, and it ended in tragedy... I personally don’t prefer this route, but to each their own. 

Again, this is at #5 because it’s not handled the greatest and it’s a bit of an unpopular choice.... but I don’t care, Javi and his relationship with David is one of my favorites. 

4. He’s pretty charming, isn’t he?

I’m sorry, I can’t help it.... if a charming character can make me laugh, then I almost always end up loving them. Javier Garcia is so damn funny and I love him for it. 

Yeah, ANF is a mess but this dude makes it so much better with his dialogue, a great performance by Jeff Schine, great facial expressions, and just an overall charismatic air around him. 

He’s just super likable, okay? Even when you play him as a total bastard, I have a hard time not enjoying his presence. I’ll be honest, if Javi wasn’t the playable protagonist or if he was this bland, watered down version of himself... I might be one of those people who skip over ANF. 

He’s easily one of my favorite parts of this game and one of the few redeeming things about it. 

3. His growth as a character

Like I mentioned in #5, when we first meet Javi he’s this irresponsible ex-professional baseball player who wasn’t around, even though his father was dying from cancer. After his father dies and he runs to try and make it home in time... he’s too late and David and their mother are pretty upset with him. 

And then his father turns into a walker, and the apocalypse happens. Javi is now trying to survive with Kate, Gabe, and Mariana while everything goes to hell around them. But for someone known to not be around or to skip out when things get a little tough, Javi doesn’t abandon them. Nope, he stays with them for years, traveling around and surviving, making sure they have what they need. 

By the end of the game? Javi’s proved to be a leader, proved that he’s better than he once was. Again, this is ANF so this growth isn’t super smooth or the greatest, but damn it, Javi makes it work. 

He and his family, no matter the combo you got, are staying in Richmond and they’re going to try to start over and rebuild it, make it better than it was.... which I can only assume they succeeded because after that they were never heard from again. 

Also, Javi is constantly having shit thrown his way and somehow he manages to pull through. 

So good job, Javi, you did it. 

2. Javi’s got a lot of force

Listen... Javi is so fun to play as. Like okay, I know that Telltale games don’t have the most complex combat system... you literally just push the buttons as they appear on screen. But I don’t care because Javi makes that fun. 

Javi really puts all of his weight into each hit and you feel it. I don’t know how to explain it, but there’s something satisfying about the way Javi fights with a melee weapon, and it’s not something you feel when you play as Lee or Clementine. You do get it a few times when you place as Michonne in the mini-series, but even then, I would argue that Javi did it better. 

It’s especially prominent towards the end of ep5 if you go after David and Gabe,  and Javi’s on this motorcycle with his damn bat knocking over walker after walker until he finds them... then you get all this intense force when Javi is just gunning and beating down walker after walker to get to the vehicle Gabe and David are trapped in. I love it so much, it’s easily one of my favorite moments in ANF. 

Don’t get me wrong, I have fun playing as Lee and Clementine, but Javier Garcia hits different, y’know? 

1.  He’s really trying his best to care for everyone, okay? 

When we think of Lee as a playable protagonist, we tend to think about how wise he was, how he always seemed to know what he was doing and how much he was willing to sacrifice for Clementine... and when we think of Clem as a playable protagonist in S2, we’ve got this sad little girl who gets punished no matter what she does, she’s smart and often underestimated, but she makes plenty of mistakes which she learns from.

And then we have Javi who has a bit of both in him. He’s older and can have his moments of wisdom [like with Gabe and Clem] but he also has plenty of mistakes he’s gotta learn from and sometimes no matter what he does, everything goes to hell... but Javi does manage to stand out on his own among these two. 

Javi does what he can, he tries his hardest to look after these kids even though he never planned to be a father figure, he works with Kate to make sure they’re safe. When he fucks up, he tries to make things right... even though it doesn’t always work out. He loves Gabe and Mariana, and you can see and feel his heartbreak when he’s the one to bury Mari after she’s killed.... and now he has Gabe, who’s hurting, and he does what he can to make sure he doesn’t meet the same fate which.... sometimes doesn’t work out depending on your ending.

I just-- he’s trying, okay? Javi is trying his best and I love him for it.  

---

Honorable Mentions

-Javi has some of the best deaths/fails moments... seriously, I could watch him confidently run right into those metal stairs and fall to his doom a hundred times. -He’s a literal disaster bi.   -He fucking loves pudding and I mean, who doesn’t? Y’know?  -His bromance with Tripp is pretty good until Tripp dies for death quota reasons. 

---

So what are your thoughts on Javier Garcia? Do you agree with these reasons, or do you have any to add? Lemme know, it’s always fun to have character discussions.

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

Next week’s T5F

[firesign23]

Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears Theory

First of all, guys, your support on my whinging post was immensely appreciated. 💕 Secondly...

@bethanyactually said: I feel your distress. <3 Also, have you written a post about your CoT theory? *bats eyelashes*

I have not! I have a feeling I’ll end up ficcing it, but I need to watch it at least a second time beforehand. But I spent the mental escape moments of my day thinking of evidence to support it though, and I may as well share because god knows when I’ll have time to write it. So… *cracks knuckles* Crypt of Tears spoilers, mostly about the Phrack arc, below the jump:

First off, I’ll say (and haha, this is an element of GoT s8 as well so at least I’m consistent) that I don’t particularly care what the absolute intentions of the script as written were--I look at the final piece of media and evaluate it as a whole (script, acting, editing, etc) and look for internal consistency, and the veneration of Script Intentions Above All, as if scripts aren’t constantly shifting even as filming occurs, is one of those things that confound me. So Deb Cox could grace us with a video tomorrow saying the theory is wrong and I’d still believe it.

The theory itself is very simple: Crypt of Tears is not Phryne and Jack’s reunion following the events of Death Do Us Part (the season 3 finale), but a reconciliation arc after a previous attempt went awry.

Like, first of all, there’s nothing I saw in the film that suggests it is a post 3x08 reunion beyond fan expectations it would be, and plenty of evidence that it it’s not. And I know I’m going to forget some of my arguments to support this theory, but an incomplete list is better than none. (And some of these are not persuasive in themselves, but given the weight of evidence are worth including)

Dot’s line about Phryne breaking the inspector’s heart when she left actively contradicts 3x08. It doesn’t just take an interesting interpretation, it takes hope and relief and turns it into explicit heartbreak

Despite their estrangement, he calls her Phryne. He does, in fact, call her Phryne until the very end of the film when they are together. Why the fuck would he call her Phryne if they haven’t seen each other in 7+ months and he was mostly calling her Miss Fisher until that point?

Nobody is surprised that Jack is attending a memorial service in England--not Aunt P, not these perfect strangers. The depths of their connection are clearly somewhat public knowledge

In fact, the only person surprised he’s there is Phryne, which… if this is post 3x08 then she’d asked him to, why WOULDN’T he come to her memorial service??? (It’s more of a subjective thing, but this also explains the lawn scene a little better, emotionally, if they were together and the whole “I’m done with you” thing. Otherwise he’s done after a shitty aborted flirtation and not much else? Whatever, I’m not even trying to unpack that scene)

“You’re afraid I’ll turn you into a policeman’s wife”??? Nothing in canon supports this particular fear. General concerns about commitment, etc, sure, but that’s very specific and indicates a previous conversation/presumption. And connected to that…

“You said you weren’t the marrying kind and I respected that.” He knows she’s not, they have a conversation in Blood and Money about how it would take a brave/foolish man to propose to her. But respect? When would he be in a position to RESPECT that if they were literally never in a romantic relationship?

“I gave it to you a long time ago” I don’t think she’s talking about being in a relationship here, but it’s also odd phrasing--if you think she gives her heart sometime early season 2, she’s in love with him for six months or so before she flies to England, and then they haven’t seen each other longer than that (given the stage of Dot’s pregnancy). It’s fucking weird

That is not a first shag snog. It’s way, way too familiar given where we last saw them kissing-wise; it’s comfortable and playful and home. (BTW, guys, congrats on your fucking faces during that scene. That alone was worth the cost of the movie)

And finally, this is going into word of god/meta, but there were multiple interviews as the movie was being made/promoted that included things like “We find out what happened between Phryne and Jack” that certainly implied that we were getting a timejump and an incomplete picture. It’s the reason I went in expecting the film to be a classic reconciliation arc, because that’s an easy setup for new viewers. Nothing I saw in the film has persuaded me I was wrong. It’s possible everything went down via letter/telegram, but given their general disinclination to bluntly talk about their emotions I’m going with unlikely

While there are variables, the gist of what I think happened is this:

Phryne dropped her father off, either in London or (my personal favourite from the logistical/timeline POV) caught up with his ship/experienced mechanical problems/whatever that had her turning around home part of the way through her flight to England.

They were together, everything is new and giddy, they had discussions but didn't 100% commit to anything BECAUSE it was still new and wanting a relationship to work isn’t enough by itself. They are finding their footing

Some combination of (a) Phryne getting cold feet about a possible relationship (maybe Jack's reputation came up in the Sanderson-Fletcher case and made her think of a policeman's wife, maybe the intensity of wanting to come home hit her when she got there), (b) wanderlust, and (c) someone potentially requesting her help (possibly after the stock market crash, so not long after she got home) results in her leaving.

And, you know, this is new and even if they care a lot they aren’t going to necessarily leap to hashing out every single detail of their relationship--there are no concrete statements but they don’t BREAK UP either. They’ll just… pick up where they left off when she gets home

And then she’s gone longer and longer, because there’s always someone in the world needing to be saved (oh look, that makes sense of another line), and sure she’s communicating less and less, but Jack should have blind faith in her because even if she’s running scared she’s certain in them, what they do best.

Then WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM she's married and then dead in short order and she didn't even bother to tell Jack (though she did tell Lady Lofthouse), and Jack’s frustrations about her marriage come from the fact that she did not tell him herself.

So, yeah, that’s my theory. If anybody subjected to my rants on this subject over the last few days remembers more of my arguments in favour, feel free to add them on. 😂

[toonytoodles]

Here's another round of "these would be head canons except it's canon" or "random ideas I had and wrote down and I'm posting them to keep track of all my thoughts"

-

Sofia always gets a little nervous when walking up or down stairs, she's terrified to fall, unfortunately her room is upstairs, and no one knows of this fear

Pond has submechanaphobia (the fear of underwater objects)

Ponds younger sibling Brook has "nicknames" for her and her friends.

"Pon," "Avey," "Memma," "Fia," "Cememine," and the calls both the twins "Anby-n-Anby"

Pond can size shift in a way, being able to be small enough to fit in a glass, or be as big as a lake, she can change her size shape and form under the right conditions, but prefers not to

Andie doesn't swim- it's not that she doesn't know how, she just doesn't like getting wet, and she doesn't like swimsuits

Avery gets bored and thinks about random stuff a lot

The twins have done that cat nose boop to their friends, they were all touched by the sentiment, except for Avery who had to have it explained to her, then she happy-cried about it

Andie and Andy snuggle like actual cats do, often purring as they sleep

Andie is the older and more assertive twin

Every time Andie gets deadnamed Emma looms over the person with an angry look and just says "Her name is Andie." In a dead serious tone. It doesn't happen as often anymore, but I like to think after they run in terror, Emma checks to see if Andie is okay, then needs to be reassured that she's not actually that scary

Sometimes the others can't understand Avery due to her accent, to everyone else it's kinda funny, (though Emma does try REALLY hard to understand), but Avery gets kinda mad, especially if it's important or if she's already upset. Shes especially hard to understand if she's upset/panicking, it kind of sounds like gibberish at that point. That's usually when she gets pancaked by Em.

When Emma first met Sofia she PANICKED cause she had no idea what a dullahan was. Emma just started screaming and panicking, until Clementine and Avery calmed her down and slowly explained that she was fine, that she's supposed to have her head off. Emma didn't completely get it at first, but she's slowly adjusted to it and she understands it now, but then she was so scared. She's really really embarrassed by it, and feels bad about it, and Sofia was scared of her too, so it was just really awkward at first. They're cool now, but at first they wanted to run away from each other upon seeing the other

Avery doesn't like jewelry- it's too much sensory wise, she doesn't like the feel of rings, bracelets, or necklaces, and she can't wear earrings, they won't pierce through her scales

Avery absent mindedly lays on her stomach and is always wearing something that covers her stomach- she doesn't realize it, but it's a survival instinct, as her stomach is one of her biggest weak points. She's almost physically incapable of lying on her back, she can only do it when she's in a safe calm environment where she feels she can't be hurt. But again, this all happens subconsciously, she doesn't notice that she's doing it. Her other huge weak point is her tail, it's important to her balance, and it's directly connected to her spine, so should anything happen to her tail, it could be life or death. This one she is aware of, but there are other reasons she doesn't like people touching her tail in addition to the danger it puts her in. It's uncomfortable for her, it's hers and it's weird to her if you touch it. It's uncomfortable on a couple of levels, it feels uncomfortable and is literally uncomfortable, leave her tail alone. The only exception to this is Emma, and only because it can't always be helped, she might touch her tail some when she sits on her hand. But Emma tries to touch is as little as possible, as she knows how bad it bothers her. (also Avery can lay on her back in Emma's pocket)

Sapphire has a Scottish accent- that's where Avery got it from

Emma and Avery do eventually become a couple, they're just anxious and beat around the bush about it for a while. They're too nervous to tell each other, they're worried about rejection, ruining their friendship, and being good enough for the other. Once they're dating it doesn't change much, except they do call hanging out with each other dates and occasionally do couple things (and Avery does kiss her at one point, which Emma gets all flustered about)

Andie and Andy are identical twins

Andies enchanted flute can implant suggestions into people's minds, and she has the ability to talk to/understand feral animals, this is all she can do because she doesn't want to put in the effort to learning more, and 90% of the time she forgets she can do either

They all have a favorite ice cream flavor!

Avery - Moon berry ice cream with chunks of hot pepper and hot fudge on top

Emma - Chocolate with fudge chunks and chocolate syrup on top

Sofia - Vanilla

Clementine - Coffee flavored ice cream with chocolate syrup and marshmallows

Andie - Neapolitan, preferably in a sundae

Andy - Strawberry with strawberry syrup and when possible, strawberries on top

Andie is secretly scared of balloons

Emma's shoes are slip ons

Andie gets vocal training to sound more feminine, Andy pays for the classes out of his allowance

Emma's house has small platforms and walkways for beans. One of these elevated walk ways leads into Emma's room, where there's a small cubby hole that's a make shift room for beans. Emma set it up for Avery to give her some space when she comes over, she has a big family, and everyone in the family is big, and they all want Averys attention- it can be a bit much. When Avery is in the small room she's officially off limits, with Emma being close by to ward off her siblings. Emma worries about her small friends safety, and sanity, and tries to make accommodations for her, both with her size and her needs.

Averys stims/ticks are: Hand flapping, tail wagging, she has a pressure stim that helps her calm down, her feet claws dig at the ground absent mindedly, her leg bounces when she sits, she pulls on her hair, ocassionally grunts and/or whines, will scream at the top of her lungs when she's pushed past her limit, and rarely, but sometimes she randomly twitches/flinches, and hates when people point it out, like, she's not spasming on purpose, you don't have to be a jerk about it... Emma doesn't stand for it either, so people will shut up about it quickly. Avery doesn't have anything diagnosed, but it's very possible that she has adhd, a sensory processing disorder, an anxiety disorder, and/or is somewhere on the spectrum. I'm not going to officially diagnose her with anything, most of these things are based off myself, and I feel that they also apply to her. These seem very in character, Avery is impulsive, can't sit still, does things without thinking/ not realizing she's doing it, she can't stand certain feelings/sensations/ textures/ tastes, etc., she panics kind of easily, and it escalates quickly, she has several stims/ticks that she uses for basically every emotion, she likes to enclose herself in comfortable small spaces, she has certain people she goes to for comfort, this is all canon already, I've discussed most of it before, I just thought I'd try to list it all out for my own reference

In Averys particular subspecies, there's no way to tell what the sex of the draconic is before it hatches. Her parents debated on a while about various male/female names, but they didn't want to keep referring to the egg as "the egg," or "the baby," as they didn't just think of the egg as an object, so they decided wanted on a gender neutral name for the egg so it could work for either, eventually deciding on Avery

Emma has anxiety about accidentally hurting her small friends, sometimes causing nightmares and makes her want to distance herself from them

Emma doesn't like being upside down (she learned this when she accidentally shrunk herself down to borrower size and Avery accidentally picked her up upside down in a panic)

After buying new clothes, Sofia often sets her head on her bed then does a small fashion show to see how it looks on her- she finds it's one of the few benefits of being a dullahan

Clementine LOVES mind puzzles and being able to problem solve, anything that poses a challenge excites her

Sofia often carries her pet snake on her shoulders, wearing her ball python as a boa

Avery loves sour candy, Emma prefers chocolate, Clementine likes m&ms and small candies that can be eaten while studying, also she considers grass and raisins a candy, something that is a debate amongst her friends, Sofia likes gummies, Andie likes candy bars, and Andy likes hard candies, Pond doesn't eat, so she can't eat candy, but would absolutely love chocolate covered almonds if she could taste them

Pond can do impressions- she often likes to mimic Avery and Andie because she finds accents funny, for some reason? She doesn't really know what it is about them, she just finds them hilarious

Emma is determined to find a way to hug Pond, she will hug water, she'll figure it out someday...

Out of all their friends, Emma only trusts herself to help Avery when she really needs it. It's not that she doesn't trust anyone else, it's just that, well, she doesn't think her friends can handle it. Emma's little brother Aaron has a lot of the same struggles as Avery, so Emma's a little more knowledgeable and understanding than the others. Not to say that the others aren't understanding, but they're often confused or flustered or even scared of Averys behavior sometimes, whereas Emma sees her struggling and attempts to help. The others can't do much most of the time, whereas Emma can help her out by giving her a small squish to help her decompress, put her in her pocket when she needs to be alone, she's scared, upset, tired, etc.,and knows how to talk to her to help her calm down, and she's good at figuring out what it is that she needs/wants when she gets too elevated and is panicking and/or shutting down

[randomnameless]

I don't know if this has been asked before, but I was wondering what your thoughts on Rhea are.

Oh, I don't think someone asked it, but I remember a character meme.

Rhea's in the Julia tier : you're expecting things and the game doesn't give you any.

you asked for thoughts so this is long and rather unorganised even if i tried a bit and i feel like i repeated myself a lot so meh

If Edel and Rhea have one thing in common, it's being shafted by the need to make Billy the most special being every with the monstrous "I was lonely before you player-chan uwu".

Seteth'n'Flayn ? In the same trashcan Hubert went in.

Catherine, Shamir, the randoms living in the monastery? Dgaf but still she's willing to die for them so does she really gaf or not? Rhea's willing to give her blood and crest stone shards (to this day I still don't understand what those are) to trusted randoms who would become cardinals? "uwu player-chan". I know I've written a bit about it with the seirelm anon, but with the Canon-ish info? Post Zanado Rhea told a random dude she could turn in a dragon, gave her blood to the same dude and remained in his empire/fighting by his side for at least 30 years. Still “lonely without U Billy <3″

I've written this in the meme entry, but Rhea has her own net of relationships. They're not as important as Dimitri and his childhood friends, but erasing them for the sake of "player-chan" feels wrong.

Role and goals

Rhea's in an interesting place, being a former "legendary hero" like Athos, Sephiran etc.

Still her fight isn't over, she only defeated Nemesis and couldn't end the mastermind behind (a bit like Seliph if you only kill Arvis or Roy when you forget to pick up every legendary weapon). Also, if Seiros killed Nemesis, she hasn't won. In the current Fodlan, she still has to pretend to be a human, the Nabateans as a culture/population are dead. They're still 5 (ish? I think the apostles are lizards), she's still afraid humans will dice them if they learn the truth. Has she won? Idk. Could she win and make a Fodlan were lizards and humans could live together? I don't think so.

Her role as the Archbishop? Well, the game really liked Rhea as a red herring during white clouds and the way FE16 is built, around the monastery, reinforces it. Rhea's the head of the monastery, so she's the head of your world. Everything wrong with the world is automatically linked to Rhea.

So, when Marianne complains about people wanting to kill/ostracise her because of her crest, thinking it's a curse, we of course wonder "why Rhea can't tell to the randoms that no Marianne shouldn't be killed/shunned because of her crest?". Completely forgetting that, hey, Marianne's from the Alliance and heiress of Edmund, so if some people should intervene, it should be her dad "why the fuck are you trying to kill my daughter" or the Alliance council "Duke Riegan, could you please make a public statement about my daughter and how she isn't some sort of demonic beast so stop throwing rocks at her?".

Same thing with the Empire, why should you blame the church and the crests instead of the people doing shit? Hanneman's brother in law? Like is marriage so absolute that a husband can force multiple pregnancies on his wife to the point of literally killing her? The von Essar aren't as important as the Bergliez, but Hanneman's sister dying like that should have rang some bells? Hanneman's dad didn't care? No one wanted to appeal to the Emperor or something? If Jane the random or Karen the peasant died this way, it’d be usual class nonsense. But a noble woman??

Rhea should have done more to prevent crest abuse. She wrote tenets in her Bible and apparently doesn't discriminate in her monastery. But in the other countries? Idk. Her tenets are interpreted like your shopping list by Gloucester Sr "and add a part where interacting with foreigners goes against Seiros's teachings what yes I know better than those dunces from the eastern/central church".

It's not because Riegan Sr and Ionius aren't doing shit that she should do nothing too, but ultimately it falls on the usual landmine about Rhea's influence and power over Fodlan and if we consider Fodlan isn't just the Monastery we see but a continent made up of 4 autonomous states...

The so-called status quo isn't upheld by the church alone (if it is upheld in the first place!), but also by the empire and the Alliance... Lambert was toasted before making any changes, the Alliance is that weird thing where money is anything and crests/old nobility doesn't matter anymore, and the Empire is... Well. The Empire.

Regarding this, I find it really strange that Rhea went to Goneril and rescued one of their slaves, with how much she cares about protecting her monastery and not antagonising anyone, picking Cyril up, risking the ire of house Goneril, feels really risky from her perspective.

Imo WC doesn't sell me the "church rules over the continent" take.

Ultimately it doesn't matter because Rhea thinks she should have done more, and abused her position as the archbishop to rez her mom - I understand the "abused her position" as regretting her various omissions, like helping more people around etc etc.

I also feel like Rhea’s got a big survivor complex, and tries to fulfill impossible tasks. "leading/guiding the world?" she won't take an active role in it, but still resents the state of current Fodlan and wishes Sothis could restore some order (crest abuse? Or relics popping up right and left meaning more sibs dying). She wants to :

1/ guide the world and make it a better place (why complaining about the wayward Fodlan otherwise?)

2/ protect randoms who live under her protection

3/ make sure no one learns the truth about her appearance and relics at the same time.

I don't think it's possible given her current role and especially not possible on her own.

About 3/, call back to FE9 or not, but Rhea's paranoia is... Actually, not proven to be exaggerated in the game.

Ranulf was lynched in Crimea when he was discovered to be a laguz? In a certain route, Rhea's called a cruel beast due to her appearance, accused of not having "human" feelings and is depicted as a creature masquerading as a human. Hate and attack the woman all you want for things she did or might have done, but getting rid of her because she's not human? Rhea's right about not revealing her true nature, because, relics notwithstanding, humans will try to kill her for being a nabatean. Relic wise, in the DLC, we learn Aubin was recently turned in a relic, so that's even more reason to hide.

On 1/, wanting to promote peace in the land? National bias at play with rewriting history “to promote peace” issue. Rhea also built the officer's academy (if nobles from different states can live and study together surely they won't try to kill each other when they return home because they might have become friends?) and with help from the everyone in Fodlan (even the empire iirc?) built the locket to fend off Almyrian invasions. Not saying this is the best way to protect your borders but at least she tried to help instead of staying holed in her monastery.

Imo if Rhea didn't care about Fodlan, she'd have followed her bros and fortified herself in her monastery without accepting random humans to live with her, wouldn't have written a book about how everyone had to get along "unless it goes against the goddess" and wouldn't basically run what seems to be the biggest orphanage/place for the needy/and whatever is the abyss in the continent.

Not saying she doesn't have a priority, but Rhea tries to care, on her scale, about Fodlan's randoms.

About said randoms (and 2/)...

Well there's this bout with Lonato's rebellion and another herring where Rhea's all "I will destroy anyone who takes arms against the church and its believers" and it's extreme, I can’t deny. But if Lonato took arms and mounted a militia to attack Ositia's castle and its randoms? Hector'd have Armads'd Lonato without a second thought. Elincia had qualms about taking her weapons against her own countrymen who were used by Ludveck, but in the end, she took up her weapons to defend her castle, even if it meant she had to kill militiamen. Rhea's line seemed random and cold in the context, but it's the same general idea, attack her people and she will kill you. Still, if you don't take weapons against her, she won't react violently. Duke Gerth is apparently dick waving with Aubin's relic, but Shamir wasn't sent to recover the thing or to get rid of Gerth.

Ultimately Rhea blows her cover and abandons her dream to reunite with her mother to protect the monastery and its inhabitants in 3 routes (arguably in CF too). Someone once made a post about the differences between Seiros's and Edel's crowns and the symbolism of wings - the IO's wings are meant to protect. The IO is the guardian/protector. Rhea tanks missiles and buys time for the students to escape at the cost of her life.

Relationships

Rhea and Sothis? someone made a post summarizing my thoughts about their relationship, or lack of, and if we can argue Sothis was shafted by the devs like Rhea and Edel, ultimately the only important person to Sothis is Billy.

Billy doesn't warp Sothis's preexisting net of relationships, Sothis doesn't have relationships with anyone save for Billy. Rhea wants to meet her mom more than anything else (save for protecting randoms) but Sothis will never address that plot point. She only does in SS and off screen, and it ends up with Rhea wondering if she should live... so take it as you want, but to me it mustn't have been the "hug and pat on the head" kind of reunion.

Ultimately we see Rhea is able to let go of her dream (rez mom) in several routes, she understands and acknowledges Sothis will never return and Billy has her powers now, so either she dies more or less at peace knowing she can trust Billy with Fodlan's future, or she can return to Zanado and live peacefully with Catherine.

Which leads me to the Billy relationship,

As much as I hate player pandering, it makes some sense that Rhea would support Billy and not, let's say, Caspar. I still hate it though because Billy exclusive support means we were robbed of Rhea's other supports with, idk, her fam, Cyril, Catherine, Shamir, Alois, Hanneman, Manu etc etc.

In the beginning of WC, Rhea's pretty sure Billy's Sothis but without memories. Then in the non-cf chapter 12, she tells Billy they know what they are and thus must guide Fodlan, also telling Seteth Billy's a vector for sothis's powers, but not Sothis herself. In SS's finale she calls them "mother" but in her S-support finally acknowledges Billy's their own thing.

In CF Rhea's vicious in her trash talk but immediately jumps to the conclusion that Billy cannot be or hear Sothis, because, to her, logically, Sothis wouldn't side with Edel and her Agarthian allies (stealing the crest stones, Flayn, etc etc). Billy is something that stole Sothis's crest stone and sword and wants to finish what Nemesis started. I don't think CF Rhea snaps because Billy isn't Sothis, CF Rhea snaps because, again, someone is using her mother to kill her.

Rhea's also supposed to have been fond of Citrus to the point of talking to her remains (something she does with her mom) which could explain her sympathy for Billy regardless of the Sothis project.

Jeralt's a different issue, apparently they worked together for more than 100 years but Rhea never told him the truth about her nature, only about how he was saved. Still, Jeralt betrays when his baby is "weird" and unlike regular human babies so... Would he have ran away if he learnt what rhea was? Dumped Citrus if he knew she was an artificial being? Idk.

Catherine Shamir cyril and pals (Alois)? We don't know bcs the game dgaf about anyone not named Billy. As I said above, It’d have been nice to get more interactions with randoms she is working with, or at least showed some care, but nope. “Player-chan uwu” strikes again.

Seteth'n'Flayn? Rhea's close to them, she gets out of her room to look for Flayn and Cyril and Catherine note how she seems close to Seteth (who's totally her bro), but again, the game hates us. FFS don't think she has a line with Flayn!

Secrets and explosions

Tied to 3/ and 1/ from earlier, Rhea keeps a lot of secrets which could justify her lack of relationships/supports with the others... but this argument falls flat, because she’s not the only one with a secret and if Flayn doesn’t seem to care that much about hers, Seteth does and is still able to support students and staff members. Which leads to tragedies.

The Christophe incident is not well documented, and while we learn Rhea was the target of Christophe’s attempt because Western peeps told him so, it is not very well explained why she didn’t execute him on those grounds instead of falsifying charges about involvement with the Regicide. We are told it was to stabilise the Kingdom, but I still don’t know how the Kingdom would have suffered backlash if Rhea told the truth (maybe it would have led to open conflict between the western church and the central church in the kingdom, when the kingdom needed stability at that point? idk).

Still, Lonato wants revenge for Christophe, not because he was executed on false charges, but because he died ; imo, if Lonato learnt the truth, he’d still be out for Catherine and Rhea’s head.

Aelfie’s gambit is more of a direct result of Rhea’s secrecy, because she had “no words” for him about why Citrus was still in pristine condition, he gave up and tried to rez her. Would it had been different if she told him what Citrus was (and by extent, what she was)? Idk. Maybe, maybe not.

Still, Rhea doesn’t keep secrets from everyone every time - she once trusted Willy and told him about her alternate form and it exploded 1k years later, when Willy’s descendants are out for her head because she’s a creature masquerading as a human (I know mole people also played a part, but I guess it sticked more with Edel and the gang who already knew Rhea was a dragon ; trying to convince a random that “hey, this woman is a dragon !” would be more difficult). CF-wise again, Rhea trusts Billy with the SoC and, again, it explodes. In CF Rhea feels betrayed, she trusted some people and now the very same people (or their descendant in Edel’s case) are trying to kill her.

So it’s not a case of someone never trusting anyone, it’s someone trusting some people and regretting it afterwards (in both routes + CF at least, even if I firmly believe the “evil lizards ruling over the world” spiel doesn’t come from Willy, but from later emperors influenced by mole people).

There can also be a point made for Aelfie, who might have been able to merge with Citrus to create an umbral beast because he had Rhea’s blood and a crest stone shard - Citrus being a fake Nabatean and Aelfie having a crest stone + blood might have produced CS’s final boss? Rhea trusted Aelfie with a crest stone shard and her blood, and he became an umbral beast.

Interestingly, Rhea is hell bent on keeping her secrets regarding her identity, in SS Seteth has to beg her to reveal everything to Billy when Billy is the most important person in the world “uwu” or at least, the only person Rhea supposedly opened to. Even the “uwu” factor isn’t enough, on its own, to make her reveal the truth about her identity.

She gives Claude half-truths, and has to be on death’s door to tell him everything - still occulting Seteth’n’Flayn, to the point where Claude later wonders if there are other children of the goddess around.

Vengeful Rhea?

Rhea isn't a stale piece of bread like Julia. She says mean words to Nemesis but also brutally kills him. Rhea cannot forgive the Elites. I know it's very different, but Julia "dad is the kindest man I ever knew" making a 180° “i must atone for what dad did eff him” will always make me throw up - she doesn’t have to be vengeful or try to stab Seliph with a butter knife, but no acknowledgement of “dad’s the bestest” after his death, or even, of his death is meh.

To Rhea, Nemesis and the Elites are a trigger point, and everything related to Zanado. CF!Billy using her mom’s powers is like Nemesis, CF!Billy + Edel pillaging what remains of her siblings in Nemesis’n’Dudes. Flamey doing his shit with Flayn also parallels that. There’s the usual “vengeance sucks” speech to be given, but also the Tellius verse where Laguz aren’t depicted in a bad light when they want to destroy Izuka or when Tibarn learns Lekain was responsible for Serenes’s massacre.

Still, unlike Tibarn’n’pals, Rhea, unlike Macuil, doesn't seem to hold a grudge against descendants of the Elites. Maybe she had faith in them when she told them not to abuse the power of their crests, but then their descendants forgot or didn’t care and we’re in the so-called crest system.

In SS, Seteth asks the BE students if they want to return home to the Empire and how he won’t hold it against them. Seteth’s being Rhea’s right hand bro in this situation, I doubt he’d have proposed this solution without her approval.

She is vengeful and ready to pursue for more 90 years someone to kill them, but she won’t target that someone’s descendants or potential allies. I’ve read some takes about the Western Church being razed to the ground after Catherine’s paralogue, but iirc, Rhea’s only going to execute the Bishop there ; they appoint a new bishop in hopes to ease the relationships between the central and western church. There’d be no point to appoint someone to rule over a body that doesn’t exist...

Grey waves

Wave 1 : Another parallel with Edel is the will to sink in troubled waters to reach their goals.

However, Rhea stays on the surface.

Aelfie thinks Seiros failed to rez Sothis with the chalice because she didn't take more blood from the apostles. Blood rituals are creepy and gave an umbral beast. Seiros didn't pursue and sought another mean to rez Sothis without killing her bros. Rhea makes homunculi to host Sothis's soul? It fails but the homunculi isn't destroyed asap to make another one, hell, Rhea cares about them (which is all kinds of fucked up on its own).

AM wise, iirc, Seteth and Catherine say Rhea'd never forgive them if they run to save her instead of saving randoms first.

Still, making homunculus to create a vessel for her mom - making artificial lives - is problematic, she’s ashamed of it “i did questionable things” and Seteth berates her on her “questionable” experiments.

CF!Rhea eats babies during the final map. She burns the city to make her last stronghold and refuses to run away. CF!Rhea, at the end of this route, completely abandoned goal 1 2 and 3. She wants to survive, yes, but to recover Sothis, no matter how. She still seems to care about humanity, but takes everything too literally and is persuaded humanity and humans are after her to hurt her and her mother (i’m pretty sure uncle Arry was waiting with his Agarthan tech suitcase for Edel to deal with the beast in the background). Contrary to CF’s chapter 12, Endgame!Rhea doesn’t have lines when Catherine and Cyril fall. She’s still siding with humans, but she’s in this for herself now.

Of course, CF!Rhea is special, because CF!Rhea lives again through her trauma, CF!Rhea lost her home, her bro and niece a few chapters ago, she lost her human allies, apparently some peons from her church are deserting and Uncle is waiting with his portable electric saw to turn her in a shiny sword, because she trusted a corpse with Sothis’s heart and spine and trusted a human 1000 years ago with her secret. And now said corpse follows someone who rings at her door with an army, wishes to obliterate her unless she surrenders (?) and works with Uncle and his dubstep pals.

In the other routes, Billy doesn’t want to killer her with her mother’s spine and tries to defend her home, Seteth’n’Flayn aren’t forced into exile or dead and depending on the route she gets to see Uncle and his dubstep friends being buried under rubble.

Troubled waters to reach her goals also include slowing Fodlan’s technological advancements (but was it really slowing down Fodlan’s R&D’s department or cliking “no” when Mole People offer a free (for now) new technology that makes you advance from bronze age to the industrial era in one go?)

Wave 2 : Rhea’s anchored in the past, she wants to return to happier days with her mom and her family, but also wants to help randoms in Fodlan

She doesn’t seem to mind the present where humans do whatever they want, and yet will protect her people and tries (or tried since it’s history) to keep Fodlan safe.

I think the game wanted to tell us Rhea’s stuck in the past, but she also manages to form bonds (albeit fickle) in the present with Catherine, Shamir and, arguably, Cyril. Seteth’n’Flayn accept the past and try to move forward, Rhea cannot and yet is making baby steps forward, or at least to live in the present. “uwu factor” is supposed to mean Rhea’s stuck in the past and can only see Billy for what they are once she accepts to live in the present, but Rhea’s already fond of Catherine, calls Aelfie her child, was fond of Citrus and Jeralt, makes time for Cyril, etc etc. It’s not as clear cut as drinking tea with them but it’s still something that quashes the “lonely B4 U player-chan uwu”.

Rhea thinks her biggest grey wave is how she didn’t do enough for Fodlan and feels inadequate to walk in Sothis’s shoes as the guardian/protector of Fodlan - she could have done more, but she’s busy juggling with three goals, rez mom, protect fodlan, protect the fam.

I think one of her main issue (but the game was also made this way so) is to try to reach those goals alone, save for the “rez mom” goal, everyone in Fodlan, especially the heads of the three states should be concerned with keeping peace in the continent!

Lambert was BBQ’s, Riegan’s busy shitting on Gloucester and Ionius is... well, Ionius. Add to that Mole People starting up shit all around the continent and you have the recipe for a disaster. I’m not saying Lambert and Ionius should have participated to the “protect her family” goal, but at least not trying to eradicate them to turn them in relics would have been nice, sadly Ionius’s bro in law was an Agarthan.

Even if she is nearly immortal compared to a human, Rhea can’t do everything on her own. That’s why I ultimately think a SS ending is doomed to fail, Billy will try to be Rhea 2.0. and in 1000 years it will fall apart again.

AM ending? Billy will become like Rhea was post War of Heroes, but when Dimitri’s descendants start to do shit, his Kingdom disappears and humans start to return to their usual shitty selves, what will Billy do?

VW ending is kind of the same, Claude wants to open the borders and make everyone able to live regardless of their differences, but what if 940 years later an Almyrian president decides to build a wall between Fodlan and Almyra and make Fodlaneses pay for it? What is immortal Billy, who knew Claude and his ideals, going to do?

Wave 3 (lol i nearly forgot but remembered when i was rambling in the tags) : Rhea and technology !

The DLC book and Word of God said she slowed advance of technology in Fodlan to protect peace etc etc. But there’s a book where a cardinal said “eff to autopsies else people won’t rely on us with faith magic” which is... kind of weird. There’s a reason why Rhea might have approved that ban (Why does Freikugel look like a hip bone?) but it still deprived Fodlan’s randoms from the scientifical advance of autopsies... and made people reliant on faith magic.

Actually, the book goes

“Though it is widely believed that this is medically relevant, such actions upon a corpse are considered desecration of the dead. Since white magic can be used to a similar end, autopsies were deemed taboo. A notable cardinal asserted that if medical science were to excel over faith-based white magic, it would destabilize the foundation of the church “

I already pointed out the WTF between faith and white magic (Seteth doesn’t believe his mom is real so he has no faith boon) but interesting to note “desecrating the dead” is still something of an argument nowadays, not regarding autopsies but other practices like anatomical theaters etc etc. Maybe White Magic isn’t intrusive and yields the same results? idk.

Interesting to note, it’s a cardinal who edicted/justified that ban (Rhea as the head of the Church would have given her approval oc). As pointed out with the Freikugel example, Rhea’d have a personal interest in preventing humans to know more about anatomy (goal 3/). Would people stop looking to the church to be healed if “medical science” progresses too much? Maybe. From what we see in the curren Fodlan, it doesn’t.

Also, French version translated the “foundation of the church” as “stability” of the church - would the church become unstable or challenged if people could heal without using white magic? Again, we ultimately know that it doesn’t, magical science and medical science coexist, Manuela gives a short summary of the two - they have different effects.

As for things Rhea herself banned : Telescopes, Oil exploitation and Printed Press.

Telescopes were banned because Rhea thought it would increase violence during wartimes and would make it too easy to snipe from afar (TFW mages with bolting can do the same without telescopes, but they’re limited by their range and if they have a gloucester’s crest by Rhea’s sister’s femur’s range or whatever is Thyrsus). We know the mole people use (and most likely used before during the Sothis war) this technology. The “lessening the mystery of the goddess” thing is noted by Edel herself who wonders if the Goddess could really have come from space since it’s super far away. Edel doesn’t know the Goddess is an alien dragon-thing though.

Oil exploitation : “Misuse could result in accidental death” tfw random Faerghus countryman thought it was water and died :’(

Used tactically by those lacking magical abilities - like gambits? Was Rhea thinking that a random human cannot set fire to an entire city (lol) on his own with his limited spell pool/uses, but if he uses oil then he would only be limited by the quatity of oil? So it’d be easier to cause mass fires? Or whatever Robin did in FE13 with the ships and the Valmese army? Also, if Rhea thought oil could replace humans with magic, does it mean humans with magic were supposed to do everything oil can do? Like making a lamp or they still used something else as fuel? “Competition for it could cause strife” Rhea acknowledged that if humans discovered this ressource they’d deem it as essential and try to get their hands on it, even if they had to wage war?

Metal molding Printing Machine : “after careful consideration” Rhea banned it because it’d be useless for illiterate randoms - well yes, but why should this be an argument? You don’t ban something because it’s useless, look, no one banned airpods - risk of mass circulation of false information or rumors : rhea wanted to prevent redshit from existing This is a way to control information, but funnily enough in the game, we see the results or someone deliberately using manifestos spreading misinformation - risk of “increasing disparity between church branches” (fr version has “rivalry” instead of disparity) what does it mean? The central church would have more means to print books than the eastern church so the eastern church would be jealous? Or the Western Church could mass print its doctrine and have more zealots than the central or the easter church?

Ultimately, all those bans were lifted with time, Manuela performs Jeralt’s autopsy, Edel’s imperial science division managed to guess the distance between the Blue sea star and Fodlan, Oil is apparently used in several gambits, Edel’s able to send manifestos around the continent and Seteth can write children books and sell them without difficulties. Hilda can also lose books which would be a big no-no even if you are a noble if books weren’t, kind of, mass printed.

So why those bans? To protect Fodlan and the fam, but since they were lifted with time, I don’t think Rhea abandonned her goals, most likely, she thought humans were making small steps to discover those technologies, slowly learning about them so they won’t have them when they’re not “ready enough” to use them.

The “ready enough” thing sounds paternalistic or what can be expected from a more technologically advanced alien, but technically Rhea’s part alien and she lived through (or not?) an episode where humans received technology and did shit with it (mole people) so maybe she won’t hand them the car with the keys this time, and instead let them figure out how to build the car.

Still, this is HC because, as usual, the game doesn’t let us talk or question Rhea about those things, so we can only infer, read between the lines or between pixels.

****

TBH, I didn’t care a lot about her when I played, but when she had to eat babies in CF I grew more interested. Other bloggers already pointed it out, but Rhea’s a Tiki, but also a “traditional FE lord” in the sense she avenged her mom who was killed by the king of another kingdom, lived in exile and raised an army to fight against the King.

Still, Rhea didn’t end up as the leader of the world, or as the first Empress of United Fodlan, or something like that. She let Willy do his thing. Why? How? Why didn’t she became an integral part of the Empire, if she had been politically important, or a kind of seer/oracle, it would have been difficult for the Empire to go against her!

But nope, Rhea figged away in her mountains to rez her mom, sprout some “doctrine” (she could have done the same as an Emperor/Seer/Oracle) and watched over randoms who made up her “church”. She sometimes tries to intervene in Fodlan’s best interests, but it failed. Because Rhea doesn’t want to rule. She feels like she has to be a guide, but when humans don’t follow her? Well, what can she do? FE16 doesn’t show us Rhea sending her knights against the Empire when the Empire kicked out her Church and basically said “fig” to her face. FE16 doesn’t show us Rhea being angry and punching Gloucester in the face because he doesn’t show “real piety” and sprouts doctrine out of his rear.

Still, when she has to take a more hands-on approach and cannot be a distant figure/guide, she complains about maintaining a certain image as the Archbishop and how she cannot socialise with students or even walk around without Seteth randoms guarding her. She feels her mother would do a better job and tries to act as a proxy. Imo, Rhea’s bound by duty to her mom, to her sibs dead and living, and to Fodlan. She doesn’t reject her role, she accepts it, she doesn’t like it yes, but if going Gandalf in non-CF chapter 12 shows, she will fulfill it.

What’s most saddening though, is how her duty is a self-imposed one. Rez her mom? She personally took the challenge, because she misses Sothis the most and feels ashamed of this feeling to the point of not telling Seteth about it (interesting enough, Indech seems to be aware Billy’s Sothis incarnation and didn’t jump to the “Billy must be one of Nemesis’s kids with the crest of flames” conclusion, as if he knew Sothis could “incarnate” one day, but was he thinking Sothis would incarnate on her own or Rhea would trigger it? Flayn also suspects a thing about Billy being related to them because of Rhea). Rhea personally thinks she has to lead/guide Fodlan and make it a better place, ignoring the heads of the 3 states who should also be concerned with this goal. Rhea will create a false history to protect her living siblings when Macuil and Indech won’t give a fuck and live in their bestial forms somewhere, and when Seteth hides, but made it clear his only wish is to protect Flayn and the apostles, if they were really lizards, disappeared in random villages.

FE16 isn’t interested by Rhea’s story though.

That’s why I’m desperately waiting for a War of Heroes DLC or prequel of BSFE or whatever because I don’t really care about Fodlan in 1180 and who can have a perfect tea time with Billy or not.

I’d like to know why Birdie and Indech figged away, why Rhea thought letting Willy control the entire continent when he knows she’s a dragon was a good idea, why the Apostles didn’t take part in the Nemesis fight, why Fodlan’s humans decided to side with Willy in his brand new Empire instead of staying with King Nemesis, did Sothis have a previous faithful and what happened when she disappeared, were the Nabateans tyrannical rulers over humans which made some with Nemesis’n’pals, what were they supposed to do when they left Zanado, etc, etc.

So just like Julia and the baijilions AU ideas I came up with, Rhea’s a fuel for AUs because her base game dgaf about her.

[astharoshebarvon]

Good books

Almost a year later, I finally got Ten Count volume 6. I had to give myself a pep talk that it doesn’t matter if the bitch is part of the volume, just forget about her horrendous self.

In the end, my love for Kurose and Shirotani won and I bought it.

I am just so happy to have it in my hands!!! I love this manga so much! I can’t put into words how much I adore this series.

I also got Ameiro Paradox/ Candy Colour Paradox because I love that too. It’s funny as hell and is a wonderful read.

Did I mention how excited I am for Ten Count anime and Given movie? I can’t tell how thrilled I am that Given is getting a movie. I don’t know how many times I cried seeing Given anime, and the lyrics of the title song— just drive a knife through my heart why don’t you.

Fair warning, I am going to vent now. These are just some things which I don’t like in the slightest in stories and fandoms. If someone does, fine. Just remember, everyone doesn’t.

Let’s start with Ten Count. I saw some comments on a manga site that literally said the bitch ( I am not going to dignify her with a name. The slut doesn’t deserve it )  looked nice standing next to Kurose.

–She is cute even if she is evil.

–Yeah, I get what you mean. They look nice together.

I was shocked. I was so shocked. I was at a loss for words. Just because she is a girl some people are ready to forgive her for what she did and say ridiculous things like these. She ruined Shirotani in every way possible. How can someone even say that? I can’t put into words how disgusted I felt when I read that.

Do people even realise what OCD is? It’s not something to laugh about. What she and Shirotani’s father did, it wasn’t okay. I am glad Shirotani at least got the courage to talk to his father but that doesn’t erase the father was in the wrong too. Wasn’t he fucking a student?

My main problem is, why can’t people accept that some female characters are horrible?  What’s with this crap of not calling bad fem characters bad? And she wasn’t even good looking, she was creepy.

The girlfriend of Halstead in Kyou Koi wo Hajimemasu, she was a monster. She actually said Kyouta tried to force himself on her when he didn’t do shit. She was the one coming onto him like some slag. She destroyed two boys friendship and what, we shouldn’t say she was bad because she is a girl. She was horrible.

I adore Hinohara Meguru’s works, I really do. I love love love Secret XXX and I am definitely going to buy it next April when it’s released. I adore Itsuki and Shouhei so much !!!

I will buy Therapy Game too because I love it. I am hoping Kamisama will be licensed soon. I really want to buy it. Rin is so darn nice, he has to be with Chiharu.

But whatever nonsense that was shown between Yuka and Shizuma—it’s unrealistic.

People don’t even look at people like Yuka after they break up with them. Regardless of the fact they are in same college or work at a same place.

It’s pathetic at best the way Shizuma says he is weak to her voice.

Not to mention she was a fucking stalker and what? They are friends? Even after what she did?

She was sleeping with someone else and they are still friends. She cheated on him, hurt him emotionally, hurt his feelings and he still talks to her.

Wow.

That’s not how the world works for any relationship.

Get out of here.

She was a bitch and I have a very bad feeling she and Shizuma’s other coworkers will create problems for him and Minato in the sequel being serialised now. Minato was so uncomfortable in the first chapter.

I don’t understand why no one said this is not reality. This is stupid.

If you want to defend female characters even if they are horrible and bad, fine.

But then, you shouldn’t write things like these :  “This shows reality of gay couples.”

Pick up any tragic yaoi/shonen ai where one half of a couple marries a woman and the other is left alone. The reviews of the story have this line.

Those works are praised and applauded. Why? Is that really the reality of all same sex couples? Or are you just happy that one male got to be with a female.

If some people like reality so much, they should just go and see the news.

This reality factor isn’t present when female characters do horrendous shit (Yuka’s case). I didn’t see people saying, this is bull. Why does he even talk to her? And what the fuck does he mean by he is weak to her voice?

Dude, seriously. She cheated on you and you are weak to her voice????

This nonsense is present everywhere. Movies, books, novels, anime, manga.

Take Vampire knight for example. 

The author should have been honest and said somewhere along the line she started shipping Zero and Kaname, but since Yuuki is the main girl she couldn’t put the two boys together. Zero/Kaname is a far better ship than Zeki or whatever Airen thing the author is trying to show now. It’s laughable at best, both Zeki and Airen.

I don’t like Ai, she loved Zero and now she is after his daughter. It’s weird.

Just because Ai is yume’s daughter doesn’t mean she is wonderful. I don’t like her or Ren.

You know what, it’s not even about like. I feel nothing for them. When I saw the new cover, I was like, yeah, it’s very pretty, and it’s very sweet. I am going to save the larger version when it becomes available.

That’s it.  I could care less whether they are together or not. 

 Maybe there is a reason for Ai’s stupidity. She was raised among losers like Ruka and Aidou. Is it any wonder she ended up being weird as hell?

Ruka Souen was a horrible character, she was disgusting and I don’t understand why her husband, Akatsuki always threatened Kaname instead of talking to his oh so great love.

Dude, tell your girl to stop trying to get another woman’s man’s attention. Kaname doesn’t give a fuck about anyone except Yuuki Kuran, his love of life.

Ruka and Aidou were pathetic. The fucker even encouraged Zero to take Yuuki from Kaname, and this was supposed to be Kaname’s friend.

Yeah right. Hell, all of Kaname’s so called friends told Zero and Yuuki to get together, except, Takuma.

Have I mentioned how much I love the guy? He is the only real friend of Kaname. He had guts to say to both Zero and Yuuki what would they do if he said he had some reservations about their relationship. He brushed it off later though but at least he said it.

Except for Yuuki, Takuma and Seiren, Kaname held no feelings for anyone in this whole goddamn manga.

The only reason I am still reading this series is because I want my Yume happy ending.

Canon is shitty many times. Don’t force people to like a story or a movie. Or everything that happens in a story. Sometimes one just doesn’t like some things.

Whatever nonsense that was shown in avengers endgame (Steve–Peggy ). That was disgusting. It made my mother and me so uncomfortable that we didn’t even bother going and seeing the movie again. I saw infinity war twice but endgame – it was a horror fest.

If the movie makers wanted to show Steve with a woman that badly, well, Sharon and Natasha were right there. Why Peggy? It didn’t make sense and came off as creepy and gross. We get it, they became so scared of Stucky’s popularity that they had to show Steve with a woman. We get it.

For all three CA movies, Steve was all Bucky, Bucky, and Bucky. That’s it.

And he didn’t even talk to him in endgame. Right.

Steve/Nat was a good ship, they could have been together but what we got was some gross uncle - aunt - niece shit. Steve kissed Sharon right after Peggy’s funeral, that’s a fact. Where did his love go then?

Then again, this is the same character (Steve Rogers) who married female Tony Stark in one universe but otherwise fights with all male Tony’s.

God, could the writers get any more homophobic? Or maybe Steve saw Natasha Stark as a replacement for Peggy Carter too. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. Brunettes, women.

Yeah, that does make sense.

That’s why I hate when people genderbent one half of a slash couple. It’s inherently homophobic. Stop trying to justify your reasons. Don’t give ridiculous excuses like you wanted diversity and all that crap. You are only making yourself look stupid and dumb.

This rubbish need for diversity never arose with FM couples. So, please don’t.

Where are Female Tony and Male Pepper fics, where are Female Clint and Male Natasha fics? Oh, sorry, they don’t exist. Neither do female Tony and Pepper.

If they do, they aren’t that popular. And I am sure female Clint and Natasha doesn’t exist.

But one can find plenty female Bilbo, female Harry, female Tony fics. All these OC females paired with males. They are OFC. They aren’t real.

Some people just can’t accept them (Thorin/Bilbo, Steve/ Tony) as an MM slash ship so they change their gender.

It’s MM Slash. No matter how many times you write in fics, this is Fem Harry, this is Fem Tony, Harry is a girl. This is not slash in capitals.

Stop.

You are only coming off as desperate, nothing more.

Stop trying to undermine the MM slash ship. It’s a slash ship, it will always be slash.

Is there any female Ron and male Hermione story? Yeah, Granger wouldn’t look like a God now would she if Male Hermione attacked female Ron because Ron didn’t want to date him?

Another example.

Let’s turn Merope Gaunt into a man and have him rape Tom Riddle Sr who is a female. No one would give a fuck if Merope was abused then. Merope raped Tom Riddle Sr and I am still astounded by the fact she was portrayed as a tragic figure while Tom Riddle Sr was shown as arrogant.

Excuse me?

Nobody cared about him in the books. Did he deserve to get raped for months by Merope because he was what? A man? Arrogant? Fuck off.

Since she was abused that gave her the freedom to douse the man with Amortentia for months to make herself happy. What rubbish excuse is that?

He owed her nothing. If she was abused, that doesn’t mean he was obligated to like her or care for her. And after what she did to him, he made a wise decision to run away from her.

Merope Gaunt traumatized Tom Riddle Sr. The man never married, even after escaping from her. His fate was even worse than Merope’s.

I can’t believe that this was completely swept under the rug. No one felt sorry for the man. All sympathies were for Merope.

Many things in HP don’t make sense. Couples, characters, their decisions etc.

Its fine if many people love it but there are many who don’t like it too. Stop trying to tell everyone what they should like or not. If someone doesn’t, respect that.

Genderbending one half of a slash couple is annoying and irritating. It’s homophobic and will remain that. All the dominant male keeps on saying in those dumb fics is how much they want to fuck the female/genderment male or are enamored with her chest and body. It’s revolting to even read that.

And of course they want lots of babies. That’s a must. Hetero sex and babies. That’s the crux of almost all gender bent fics. The dominant male wants to see the OFC with his babies.

Great!

Slash haters don’t hate this, do they? Isn’t this fetishizing female anatomy? Or have you actually deluded yourself into thinking female Bilbo and female Harry exists. 

They don’t.

Harry Potter is a boy, so is Bilbo Baggins. Hell, Tony Stark is a man except for in one universe.

Steve can’t fall in love with Tony if he is a male. What did he fell for then? Fem Tony’s body?

Gender bent isn’t even crack, its worse than crack. Either these original character females are docile and nice or are BAMF’s like anything.

And don’t say don’t read if you don’t like it. Why not? Why shouldn’t we make fun of these stories?

These same people have the audacity to whine about slash ships on many platforms. Even in FM stories MM is not shown as something normal. I’ve come across many FM stories which literally made me want to throw something at the screen. Some were blatantly insulting to same sex relationships.

And let’s not forget genderbent FM stories which have this rubbish line: we are okay with fem slash, but not with MM slash.

Okay, fine. Good.

What the hell does that even mean?

Hmm, maybe that’s why genderbent FF couples don’t exist. This change is only meant for MM.

Right. Wonderful.

Yikes !

This ridiculous sentence is written on many fic writers profile and these same people changed one half of a MM slash couple into a female, with this lovely sentence at the beginning of their stories: This is not slash. It’s not SLASH. We can’t stress enough, it’s not slash!

How many times do these people  have to tell themselves that it’s not slash?

It’s MM slash and will always be that.

[vernonfielding]

The lies, the secrets

Story No. 3 of my Season 7 Countdown Project! Also: I’m still taking prompts for future missing scene fics.

Summary: “My time undercover in the mafia was actually kind of lame. I mean, I wanted it to be badass, but I'm good at computers, so I mostly just helped them switch over from AOL.”

The story of how Jake became the mafia’s IT guy. Takes place during Undercover. (Read on AO3.)

What he doesn’t tell any of them, after he’s back, is that going undercover with the mafia is mostly just- really lonely.

Jake spends most of the first week alone in the crappy one-bedroom the FBI hooked him up with in Bushwick, waiting for one of the Ianuccis to get in touch. At night he lies awake on his mattress on the floor, mustard-yellow streetlight glaring through the grimy bedroom windows, and thinks that he’s already failed his assignment, that he couldn’t pass himself off as a disgraced cop for even one night. (The irony does not escape him.)

Then a guy calls Jake’s burner at 3 in the afternoon on the sixth day, and he introduces himself as Derek and says he’s downstairs. It’s now or never. Jakes takes a deep breath and blows it out hard, then steels himself and heads down. By the end of the week, he’s got a pierced ear and a gold-chain necklace and a cigar burn on the back of his neck, just below the collar of his new silk shirt. Years ago, before he’d gotten into the Academy, Jake had thought about getting a tattoo (“yippee ki yay” in calligraphy, very classy) in that spot and he’s grateful now that Gina talked him out of it. The burn was an initiation, and it didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought it would, but the scab is itchy and sometimes when he thinks of the smell of it he gets a little nauseated.

Leo Iannuci sends him out with Derek on a couple of jobs – mostly picking up cash from people they’re extorting from, but sometimes they’re the ones making the threats and Jake hates that part, hates it so much. Derek’s a nice guy, an Academy dropout who seems to shed his tough-guy attitude with his velour jacket every time they leave a bodega or laundromat or some other business where he’s had to smack someone around. Derek always does the hitting, never makes Jake do it, and Jake can’t decide if it’s because he likes the violence or if he just senses that Jake really, really doesn’t.

Either way, he’s grateful, and he has to keep himself from feeling too much fondness for Derek just because he protects Jake from the dirty work. Jake’s gotten that talk from the FBI: It’s natural to think you’re making friends, making connections, they’d said. But you’re not. Don’t ever forget that. Jake is always, always on his own.

About a month in, Jake is at Leo’s penthouse in Flushing, reeking of cologne that one of the Sals had doused him in while another Sal held him down, when Leo swears loudly and slaps the side of his computer, a rickety old desktop with a fan that sounds like it’s working triple-time.

“Motherfucker, it won’t let me fucking update!” Leo slams his fist down on top of the harddrive.

Jake looks around the room but everyone else suddenly seems to have important business on their phones, so he approaches Leo and says, “What’s the problem?”

Leo snarls at the computer. “I had to add some new clients to the ledger and now this son of a bitch won’t save the changes.”

Le’s “clients” could mean extortion victims or dirty cops or assassins-for-hire or any or all of the above. Jake hasn’t seen the ledger yet – he wasn’t actually sure there was one before this moment.

“You want some help?” he says, casually.

Leo finally turns his glare to Jake, staring him down long enough that Jake has to fight to keep from shifting on his feet and curling his hands into fists. “You any good with this shit?” Leo says.

Jake shrugs. “Yeah, I know computers.”

“All right, have at it,” Leo says, and gets up from the desk.

Jake sits, and Leo grips his shoulders, sudden and fast, fingers digging hard enough to bruise. And then just as suddenly he’s let go. He stays behind Jake, though, watching him click through open windows to find the source of the problem. It doesn’t take long.

“You’re using AOL,” Jake says. His voice sounds a little strangled to his own ears.

“Yeah, I guess,” Leo says. “So what?”

“So that’s your problem,” Jake says.

Jake’s definitely not an expert at computers, but he’s always had an affinity for the basics and it only takes him a few minutes to fix the immediate problem – an outdated file type that the desktop won’t recognize anymore. Jake saves the document, which, infuriatingly, is a table someone made in Microsoft Works. It’s so horrifically formatted that Jake can’t help but imagine the devastating stroke that Amy would suffer if she even knew it existed. She would seriously start bleeding out of her eyes.

Later that night, Jake smokes his first full cigar and convinces Leo to let him move all of their documents to a Google drive. By the end of his first full month undercover, Jake’s become the mob’s IT guy. It’s exactly as dope as it sounds. (It’s not remotely dope.)

+++

It takes him a couple of weeks to transfer everything to the cloud; he has to carefully rebuild all of the ledgers in proper spreadsheets. Leo assigns one of the Sals to keep an eye on him, but after the first hour Sal gets bored and retires to the couch to play Kwazy Cupcakes on his phone (the sound effects touch off a profound homesickness that Jake tries his best to ignore). So Jake has no trouble copying the ledgers onto a thumb drive that he later passes on to his handler. It’s almost all the evidence they need. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for the FBI to get its teams in place, to mark the right time and place to take down the biggest targets.

Jake does a few more jobs with Derek, and he just misses getting sent on a drug run that ends in a shootout and two of Iannuci’s guys in the hospital (Jake was back at Leo’s penthouse trying to figure out why his computer suddenly refused to talk to his printer). He knows he’s dodging literal bullets, but that doesn’t mean he sleeps well at night, or that his nervous system doesn’t light up like a Christmas tree every time someone racks a gun near him (which is pretty much all the time – mafia guys love cleaning their weapons).

Jake ends up giving a seminar to half a dozen Iannuci men (plus two women) on file encryption and two-step authentication and he feels a little guilty for teaching the mob how to evade hackers – some of whom will surely be cops – but weirdly, he’s starting to get bored, and he figures none of them are going to remember any of his lessons anyway.

The night before Marco and Angie’s wedding, Jake gets super drunk with a bunch of the guys and he sings “The Longest Time” with Derek, slopping rye whiskey all over their polyester shirts. The next day Jake’s going home. But that night, for the first time in 62 days, he forgets to be lonely.

End Notes:

Title is from Feed the Beast (Bash Brothers).

I know there is a lot of mafia-Jake fic, and that this take is not like the others. But I always thought Jake’s comment to Pimento about what he really did undercover was interesting and worth exploring. I don’t think it means the job wasn’t dangerous or super stressful for Jake, though my version is probably less so than some of the more violent takes some writers have offered (which are just as valid!).

I couldn’t decide if this story should be considered a missing scene for Undercover or Adrian Pimento. It fit better here for obvious reasons, but the revelation is in the later episode. But really, it doesn’t actually matter.

My darling beta @fezzle wisely pointed out that Jake the Computer Wizard doesn’t exactly fit with what we learn about him in Ticking Clocks. My solution/answer to this is that Jake is actually pretty good with day-to-day computer stuff (there’s quite a bit of evidence of this in canon – or at least, evidence that he’s not BAD with computers), but hacking-level stuff is way over his head. That’s why he starts Ticking Clocks full of bluster with the so-called security expert and then eventually has to admit he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Unfortunately, what he actually says is “I don’t know anything about computers.” That could be the writers just forgetting their own canon, but I choose to believe that it actually fits just fine with Jake’s “I’m good at computers” in Adrian Pimento. It’s all about context!

[really-sleep-deprived-nerd]

Sanders Sides Percy Jackson AU!

SO! @moon-scribs and I have been working on this one for a while and we hope you like it!

BASICS:

Logan is a child of Athena 

Roman is a child of Apollo (The very extra son of a very extra god)

Remy is a child of Hypnos (Hypnos is the god of sleep)

Virge is a child of Aphrodite and Patton is a child of Hades (Bare with us for a second, we´ll tell WHY we did this below the cut)

Emile is a child of Epiope (The goddess of the soothing of pain)

Deceit Damian is a child of Hermes (Hermes is, among other things, the god of deception)

Thomas is a child of Iris (Y´know, the goddess of the Rainbow)

More about this under the cut! (Warning: Its ridiculously LONG)

Child-of-Aphrodite! Virgil

When deciding upon which god he should be the child of, we mainly thought about how he was before pre-acepting anxiety, how he felt like “The odd-one out”, how he felt like he “didnt belong here”. See where we are going with this?.

Virgil is supposed to be the child of the goddess of beauty, but he honestly cant see it. He is way too pale. Way too lanky. His hair is too messy. He has eyebags that are bigger than his fist. He isnt “pretty”.

His siblings arent helping with that either: They are incredible extroverted people, they actually care about their appearance, about trivial things like make up and clothes, they are known to be extremelly social, their fucking cabin its mOTHERFUCKING BARBIE MANSION PINK AND ALL.

He doesnt fit with them, sure, he can get along with most of them just fine, but he still feels wrong.

He has charmspeak, but he doesn't knows how to use/control it and its also heavily influenced by his emotions, so when he's really stressed out it activates, mostly to keep his friends out of danger. (Its basically like his canon anxiety demon voice, it can influence them like that scene where v's like 'GET RID OF THE PHONE NOW' and Thomas just throws it without thinking )

His first days on camp were pretty rough, and he was thinking of running away, that is, until he met a very cheerful son of Hades.

Child-Of-Hades! Patton

Patton “Hellhounds are just misunderstoods puppies!” Medina

Patton “Oh that kid looks sad and lonely and uncomfortable Im going tO BEFRIEND HIM” Medina

All the hellhounds just become big puppies around him, he has a tiny army of Cat-skeletons and dog-skeletons following him everywhere that are always either playing with him or trying to get pets of him. 

Since there is literally just one other kid of hades in the cabin most of the bunks are empty so one of them becomes the Cave(tm) of Patton´s bony friends (Its just a bunch skele-pets under a blanket) 

 Also one of the bunks is reseved for Virge, since sleeping in a pink barbie mansion surrounded by SO MANY PEOPLE made him incredible anxious. And Patton could not let his precious friend and crush suffer! He has already went through enough! 

 One of the funniest things to Virgil its the fact that the Hades cabin looks like where vampires would live and then BOOM SUNSHINE BOY 

Patton´s Brother: ugh it's too early to-is that the sun??? I thought there were no windows here??? 

Virge: No, that's Patton

He is the first one to discover that, despite Virgil not believing it, Virge is actually FUCKING gorgeous. Like, one day he makes Virgil giggle and Patton feels as his heart might burst: Virgil´s hair was messy and fluffy and it kinda covered his eyes, but you could see them sparkle with amusement and he had this tiny and kinda shy smile and all that Patton could think was: “goDS ABOVE IM TOO GAY TO FUNCTION- HELP”

Despite his sushiney attitude, lets not forget that, as a child of Hades, Patton is actually fucking powerful, and will not hesitate to absolutly destroy whatever and whoever tries to hurt his fami-friends and his home

Child-Of-Apollo! Roman

You know how Percy´s sword turns into a pen? Yeah, Roman´s katana turns into a golden and silver hairbrush. 

Was sent to camp since he was really young and trained in hand to hand combat until he became the best. 

Has an enthralling voice and incredible acting skills and he can dance like the muses, but cant shoot straight to save his life (Pun not intended lol) and if he tried to heal a paper cut it would probably get infected .

Loves the camp dearly, but he misses his family a lot so he Iris-calls them every saturday

Child-Of-Athena! Logan

Hands down the best strategist in the whole camp. 

Cant do hand-to-hand combat to save his LIFE, but he is amazing with long distance weapons. Bow and Arrow? Logan will pull a hawkeye shit where he NEVER fails. He is good at making traps, like, he studies what surrounds him and can make a scooby-doo-like trap with branches and shit he found laying there. People do not Fuck with him during capture the flag. 

You know how Athena´s kids are all terrified of spiders, right? Welp. Logan has a Patton-level fear of spiders.

“Pardon my crude language, but I don't fuck with those tiny ass demons”

Child-Of-Hermes! Damian

“You, my child, are amazing, but you have the moral of a chocolate muffin”- Thomas, to him, after spending 15 minutes alone together.

Will 100% fuck shit up, not in a “IM EVIL FEAR ME” way, but more in a “Remember my father is also the god of pranksters do not fuck with me Virgil”

Has definitely not pranked Roman and Virgil and had to unceremoniously hide in a tree top so this two would not murder him in the time it took for Emile and Pat to calm them down

Child-Of-Hypnos! Remy

He is a child of hypnos, and as such, drinks unhealthy amounts of coffee so he can stay awake.

He can make everyone he wishes fall asleep instantly just by touching them and he can make it last as long as he wishes (More than 4 hs per person tires him tho)

He doesnt have an ounce of common sense in his whole body and Emile still doesnt know how he managed to stay alive for this long.

Child-Of-Epione! Emile

He is not gifted with healing like some childs of Apollo, yet he is able to sooth the pain of others. No, not only as a psychologist (He is not one yet, but he wants to be one when he grows older), but also as an overall comforting presence: He is kind, his voice is calm, he is sweet, patient and emphathic. 

One hug from him will not heal all your pain, but will make it hurt less, giving you the strength to keep fighting it for a while.

Really, REALLY not good at fighting.

Cried for a whole day when he learned that the camp has no tv so he couldnt watch any cartoons while he stayed there

He was very lonely growing up as before getting to camp, so he used to watch A LOT of cartoons to keep himself occupied, to avoid feeling alone.

The human mind and emotions never ceases to amaze him.

Child-Of-Iris! Thomas

Thomas started going to camp at a very young age, so he kinda knows everyone. 

Despite that fact, he got claimed on the summer after his 15th birthday. 

He was walking across the camp towards the Big House to say hi to Chiron when a full on rainbow surrounded him and Iris´s logo started glowing on top of his head. He looked at the rainbow, then he looked down at his “could be gayer” t-shirt and burst out laughing.

He spends only summers on camp, and since he is a bit older than most of the campers, he became a sort of counsellor to new campers whenever he is in camp.

He helps the new ones with training, teaches them how to get around the camp, teaches them how to read in greek and greek history (To them its history, no mythology) if they dont know anything about it. 

He is super supportive of every new camper! Like, if they are training and one of the newbies fucks up (Drops his weapon, falls, trips, whatever) he will instantly start going “Its okay!! No one can do this right in their first try!! It took me like a year just to stop sucking at it!! You are trying your best and thats whats important!!”

He gave one look at Virgil´s angsty demeanor, Damian´s snarky attitude, Roman´s fake confidence, Patton´s pattoness, Logan´s insighful and wise opinios, Remy´s complete lack of self preservation and Emile´s internal screaming as he tries to keep the rest of his friends fucking mentally stable and immediatly decided “Im going to adopt them”

While Thomas is an excelent “counsellor” and loves his friends, sometimes he will be watching the other 7 human disasters run around and get into shenanigans and just be like: Those kids are already so fucking weird this might as well happen 

Asked to be tagged: @fandoms-till-the-end-of-the-line @thatgaydemigodnerd

[triciaisonline]

THE  GOOD,  THE  BAD,  THE  MISGUIDED  &  THE  BIZARRE.

WARNING:  THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD.  READ  AT  YOUR  OWN  DISCRETION.

THIS ISN’T A  FULL  REVIEW,  JUST  MY  IMMEDIATE  THOUGHTS  AND  REACTIONS  UPON  SEEING  THE  FILM

THE  GOOD

almost every performance in this film is well done. i felt there were a few small characters that were not the greatest, like the auror who gets the job offered to newt, the circus guy. but the main cast delivered. 

this film looks beautiful. colleen atwood’s costumes look beautiful. special notes to everything worn by leta lestrange, the woman who follows grindelwald & brings queenie to meet him ( did she get a name? i swear they never named her... but there are so many characters in this movie... it’s impossible to keep them straight ). i love tina’s Parisian haircut. it suited her really well and served as a good reminder of passing time between this and the first.

i do like seeing other wizarding cultures, even if they didn’t really show us french wizard culture as much as i would have liked. especially since fleur delacour, beauxbatons are already areas people are interested in... it would have been nice to see more but i liked what i did see.

i liked that leta lestrange wasn’t the dark bellatrix type figure / temptress people were fanoning her out to be after being mentioned in the first film. i actually liked her character so i’m really mad that she was killed. i liked she had complexity, even if some parts of her will be brought up in other sections.

i forget it’s name, but i really like that giant cat creature. it’s cute. i love it. i want 5 for myself.

i liked seeing queenie get overwhelmed on the streets, because she’s a legilimens and all those thoughts would be overstimulating to her. i just thought it was a nice touch.

bunty telling newt to take off his shirt to go swimming was a mood.

i liked how jude law incorporated the manipulative parts of dumbledore, but it wasn’t in a obvious way. it was so well done, i really love it. it showed the morally flawed nature of the man really well. basically everything jude law did was perfect. including how he was the only one that seemed to subtly implicate that gellert and albus were gay. it’s not perfect, but i think he actually read the books before hand and knew whom he was playing really well. 

i know we don’t like him, but i do like how gellert addressed the rally. how he talks to people. reasons with them. how he rarely does the horrific acts himself, its always his followers. it’s chilling and really clever. it brings to mind cults, extreme right groups, dictators trying to induct and enforce their beliefs on the mass. 

THE BAD

what the fuck was with queenie?  don’t get me wrong, i’m not against queenie turning to gellert’s side or her heart being what gets used against her... because that has the making of good conflict. what i’m against is how it was done. queenie is in a total of five-six scenes in the film. one is a plot dump for what we have missed off screen, one-two are her looking for tina but they are the same narrative thread they basically count as one scene just spliced within other scenes,  she meets the french lady whom i swear never had her name said... then grindelwald then she’s at the rally where the ending of the film happens. she turns so fast. the film covers maybe a couple days? and you don’t even see the full conversation with grindelwald. so not only does she do nothing in this film, she turns to the bad side on a dime for what feels like cheap and unearned dramatics at the end of the film, but they are overshadowed and never even really acknowledged by the other characters because leta has her sacrifice right after, and credence has his conversion and that one is more plot driven then queenie’s which just feels like an afterthought. honestly all of queenie felt like it was added in last minute. she just doesn’t fit the rest of the film. she looks for tina, never finds her, tina never even asks or wonders about her. we dont even see her REACT to her own sister JOINING GRINDELWALD. newt forgets about her, jacob talks about her a bit, but other than being funny to watch, jacob also really doesn’t have anything to do in this movie. ironically, jacob feels more validated as a component because at least he’s helping newt as he looks for queenie, over queenie the reason jacob is there in the first place...and who is meant to have this big shocking “plot”  if you told me that this was all added in a final draft, after seeing queenie and jacob be so popular, i wouldn’t be surprised at all. so really, queenie’s betrayal not only made sense, but it literally didn’t even matter to the plot of the film or any of the character arcs. 

i also didn’t like how she just essentually drugged jacob with love potion which has literally been likened to date rape drugs and everything in earlier canon and analysis but here it gets hardly any response outside of “oh that queenie.... drugging jacob again to make him marry her”. i felt at least newt should have had a stronger reaction to it. especially when a big plot point later is someone having magic used on them to essentially do the same thing and cause all this family drama for the lestrange family. i think it’s suppose to be foreshadowing, but it’s not really handled well.

this one is kind of unimportant, but i also felt like queenie’s hair colour really looked off this time. i don’t know if it was a different wig or dye or if the colouring just didn’t flatter it... but it really made alison sudol look washed out in scenes and looked the wrong shade in others. i really don’t know but it bugged me a bit. 

i’m really mad that they killed off leta lestrange, she had so much build up... and she was actually more interesting than other character plots... but then they just... killed her off. and she really didn’t need to die... like its framed like a moment for newt to finally join the war properly and he sorta starts to connect with his brother again after, but i feel the entirety of the movie was enough to get him involved. so really, we just killed off a really interesting female character ( a woc character too ) just... for the sake of a male’s plot. wonderful.

on the subject of leta lestrange, i felt that whole scene with her, her brother, credence, tina and newt to be weirdly paced and shot. like so much information dump happened and people kept revealing things and it was hard to keep straight. 

there are so many plots. too many plots. so many micro-plots, not subplots. but smaller. the whole movie is micro-plots that result in everyone at the same place for the climax of the film, which would be cool except many of these characters, places, etc get little to no explanation or build up. just “i’m here now’. and there is no resolution. 

on that note, THERE IS NO RESOLUTION. THE MOVIE JUST STOPS. it feels like this movie either was meant to have an extended ending that got cut.. or they filmed and wrote it like it was the first part in a two parter, except it’s not. its a film in a series but its only one part. so it’s just a movie that ends abruptly and awkwardly with no kind of wrap up of anything. like yeah you want plot threads to fuel the next film, but literally nothing gets any kind of ending or closure. unless you count newt and thesus hugging? but that is all relied upon throwaway lines and its really ( again ) unimportant in the long run.. so it doesn’t count. 

so in the end, credence gets a wand and grindelwald tells him he’s actually a long lost dumbledore because in 2018 joanne rowling doesn’t even know her own canon and the fact he only has two siblings. and i mean, i get its meant to be a secret surprise brother, but when so much of the deathly hallows FOCUSES on his backstory with gellert and how it intertwines with his siblings, it feels really poorly thought out. the dumbledores and grindelwald’s backstory is pretty set in stone from the deathly hallows as told by both rita skeeter’s book, aberforth and even dead dumbledore himself. how it destroyed their family, and all of that is the set up for their conflict now.. so throwing in a surprise brother after all of that feels kind of cheap and lazy at this point. and again, no build up. no set up. just... “here’s a wand. i made this bird a phoenix. you're a dumbledore. end movie’. nothing foreshadows it. just “you're a dumbledore, credence.” he’s like the worst version of the hagrid meme.

THE MISGUIDED

lets talk about nagini, i’m not the high most authority on the subject as a white female, but from my understanding of the controversy from people much more informed than i am, the fact that nagini turned out to be basically a nothing almost feels worse than when she was framed like this big controversial focal point for the film. okay so, nagini literally didn’t need to be nagini. at all. she’s a snake once, and it’s in such an obvious “look its nagini from harry potter”. moreover, she literally didn’t even need to be a snake. its such a irrelevant part of the story. which just shows how much this nagini thing was just slapped on the character to create controversy to sell tickets and get people talking about the movie. WHICH JUST MAKES IT EVEN MORE WORSE, when you factor in that nagini is a nothing character on top of this. she is essentially scenery. she does nothing contribution wise except be there with credence until he goes to grindelwald and then stands with the heroes at hogwarts at the end for some reason, she just tagged along i guess. AND ALL OF THIS MAKES THE CONTROVERSY FEEL SO MUCH WORSE, because it’s literally an insensitive & thoughtless character created for the purpose of nothing. there isn’t even a big plot reason, nothing is contingent on her. you could remove her from the film and it changes nothing. which makes this the second woc character to get the shaft.

okay so the first film set up that there was a love plot of some kind involving newt and leta that would be explored in future films. and it’s not that it wasn’t there. you saw that with leta and newt; but what isn’t explained is how 1) she ended up with his brother, 2) how she got him expelled, 3) how that affected things between them, and 4) where is his brother in all of this? and they killed leta... so are we just done with that now? because it was set up that this would matter and it really didn’t. not that i didn’t like that her whole character wasn’t around a love plot... but i also kind of want answers? but also don’t think i didn’t notice how her whole plot was related to men in her life. i liked her, but she wasn’t perfectly written.  truthfully this film is held together by amazing design and actors. zoe kravitz brought this to life.

i didn’t mind the flashbacks... but it was weird how they didn’t really do any camera or editing tricks to differentiate between present day and flashback. more for the hogwarts one, its edited so it looks like the movie just changes to another movie for like fifteen minutes ( its a long flashback you guys ) and then cuts back. it was just really weirdly edited.

so, when did we stop calling MACUSA... MACUSA? it was just called american ministry of magic this time and since it had a name that was a huge part of marketing for the first film and was used a lot in the film as well. it just felt weird that they dropped it. also, they dropped the no-maj thing except for once when grindelwald uses a bunch of terms to describe muggles in his speech. i mean, i know we all mocked it.. but once you establish a universe, its jarring when the rules of it suddenly are changed because of focus group testing not liking it. 

i briefly touched upon this with queenie’s note, but jacob really felt like he was added just because he was popular in the first one. like in the first one, he’s essential to the plot and the character arcs of the main characters as well as a good character on his own. but... he felt shoehorned into the film. like he had a good ending, and the implication that he found queenie in the end felt like a good solid ending to his story. but this time, he’s just there. he helps newt a bit, has funny lines... but again, if you cut him out... you lost nothing. actually, you could cut queenie out and the film would progress as normal. they were entirely subplot and background noise.

i know we wanted to build up tina and newt, but its been 9 months. they havent seen each other since new york... this whole bit felt forced and was essentially the “misunderstanding trope”. and again... there was hardly any reward or pay off for that time. the whole thing is dropped by the third act and become irrelevant again. because the movie just... ends.

THE BIZARRE

there were a lot of dead babies for a wizarding world film.  like two babies are killed/murdered in the plot of this film and that felt.. kind of dark for this series. its like they want to be edgy but can’t commit to it so they do it in small bursts but then the rest f the movie is madcap adventure. so it really stands out.

the cast and crew went out of their way to state that the gay stuff wouldn’t be a thing in this movie. the bullshit reason being “everyone already knows so why bother”. and yeah, this is a clear case of insincere representation  ---  but  then you have jude law over here giving lines deeper meaning with his acting... the blood pact having them entwine hands and fingers and framed intimately when shown on screen.... and i swear, while not heart shaped, the blood pin thing that newt steals from grindelwald invokes the idea of heart shaped jewelry... and even if its not.. its worn on his chest above his heart? so it invokes the idea that way. which makes me beg the question, if it was going to be subverted anyway... and EVERYONE HAS KNOWN FOR 11 YEARS.. why oh why was it being treated like a hush hush secret ‘ gay but not really gay’ thing. just fucking let them be gay. let them be shown to be former lovers / someone dumbledore used to love. even if they don’t say it to characters, there are ways to convey that visually. and the mirror scene isn’t enough. i’m sorry but its not.  like calm down. its 2018. it’s not a secret.

in the beginning, grindelwald looks a bit like haymitch from the hunger games

thesus looked like percy weasley in a lot of scenes.

I’LL HAVE MORE COHESIVE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS LATER ONCE I PROCESS IT ALL MORE. BUT THESE ARE MY INITIAL REACTIONS AND THOUGHTS UPON JUST SEEING THE FILM FOR THE FIRST TIME. 

OVERALL, THIS FILM HAS WAY TOO MUCH GOING ON. DOESN’T FOCUS ENOUGH ON THE IMPORTANT PARTS, NEEDS TO FLESH IDEAS OUT MORE.. A LOT OF THINGS HAPPEN BUT ALSO, NOTHING MATTERS TO THE STORY. IT FELT LIKE A LOT OF SCENES WERE CUT OUT FOR TIME. THE MISMATCHED NATURE OF PLOTS FELT MORE LIKE TV EPISODES RATHER THAN A FILM. BUT THE ACTORS REALLY GIVE THE FILM SOME CREDIBILITY AND MAKE THE RIDE AT LEAST ENJOYABLE TO WATCH, BUT I’M NOT ITCHING TO SEE IT AGAIN. A LET DOWN AFTER THE FIRST FILM, BUT I HOPE FOR IMPROVEMENT. ALL IN ALL, JUST STOP LETTING JOANNE TALK  /  WRITE. SHE MAKES BEING A HP FAN IN 2018 SO HARD;  AND GOD  BLESS JUDE LAW.

[supercasey]

So I watched Batman Ninja with my buddy Jason the other night...

Under a readmore because I'm screaming and y'all normal people don't need to see this shitshow.

So, like, to begin with; the animation is gorgeous- I will in no way try to deny that- and does a lot of cool things with the art style. You can tell a lot of work went into this movie, and while I personally find it so bad that it's funny, I'm not gonna shit on anyone who likes this film more seriously. (Also, I'm gonna shit on the outfits a lot, so sorry if that comes off as unintentionally racist. I am white and stupid.)

However, other than that... What the shit??? Was that??? I'm still reeling 48 hours later.

The basic plot of this wild ass movie (that I could figure out): Gorilla Grodd has built a time machine so he can go back in time and rule over Feudal Japan and change history (it never really specifies why he chose Japan of all places but go off, DC). He brings Deathstroke (my fav obviously), The Penguin, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and The Joker + Harley Quinn (because if you want your plans to work you should absolutely bring in the disaster piece of shit that is The Joker).

Also Catwoman is here but from what I can tell it was accidental on her part/I think she's the one who fucked up the time machine??? Unclear.

So everyone goes to the past, including Batman, Alfred, and all the Robins (Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Damian Wayne as Robin) (none of the girls but let's be honest, I think they dodged a fucking bullet).

Batman ends up behind everyone else during the time traveling??? Not really explained, but now everyone has been in Japan for two years and Catwoman has depression.

Okay onto me rambling:

They have this scene where every villain gets a title card/one-liner, and everyone else but Deathstroke gets a line that fits their shtick. I feel like they had no idea what to do for a pun/joke, so there's just a literal pause then "... Yeah :)" from Deathstroke. I straight up scream-laughed so fucking hard.

All the Robins look so fucking stupid except for Tim. Nightwing looks like Goku, Red Hood has the tallest bucket on his head I've ever seen, and Damian's hair... good fucking lord.

Also, Damian is completely out of character. The people making this movie, I think, have never read a comic with Damian, and just made him into "annoyingly happy child character that is annoying as all fuck and talks to animals for no reason except Baby" and let me tell you, I got such whiplash from seeing that. Also Damian and Red Hood are apparently voiced by the same guy and my buddy Jason is freaking out about it lmao.

Joker's fucking UGLY next question.

Harley sounds low-key annoying in this film but that might just be me... feels like a lot of people who try to voice her make their voices as high-pitched as possible and it's very grating after awhile.

There's an amnesia plot??? Where Harley and Joker get amnesia after a boat fire??? Red Hood beats the fuck out of them and while I feel bad for Harley, fuck Joker, he can die. They get their memories back by seeing a plant... that looks like Joker's face... as my boy Deathstroke would say: "... Yeah."

There's a clan of Batman ninjas from the past and, tbh, they look pretty fucking cool and I thought they were a really neat concept. Doesn't excuse the bat ghost thing.

OH GOD THE ENDING FIGHT

Through a series of unfortunate events, Gorilla Grodd and all the other villains start fighting each other in giant mechas in order to decide who will rule Japan because of course they do.

My favorite parts from the villain fights:

Two-Face's robot is the shit of nightmares. At one point Deathstroke and Grodd are going at it, Two-Face gets between them, then FLIPS A COIN FOR WHO HE'LL BEAT ON (very in-character I guess but I was still screeching). Btw, he chooses to attack Grodd, and Slade just stands back like "... Yeah :)"

Can you tell that I'm not over that stupid line yet?

PENGUIN HAS SEMI-SENTIENT PENGUINS WORKING ON THE INSIDE OF HIS ROBOT WTF!?!? WHERE DID HE GET THEM!?

Poison Ivy is beautiful, next question.

Okay, back to everything in general:

Grodd reveals that he has been low-key mind controlling all of the other villains this entire time, and that he's the one who made everyone build giant robots. He attempts to take full control of everyone, but Joker does instead. This is maybe the most sane part of this entire goddamn movie.

ALL OF THE ROBOTS MORE OR LESS FORM VOLTRON, LADS!!!

So now our heroes (Batman, the Batsquad, and the Batclan) need to take on this giant robot... so what's a boy to do? Well, if you're Damian Wayne in this movie, you get a magic flute from Grodd after he nearly dies for you, and with the help of your baby monkey friend, summon an army of millions of monkeys that form a giant monkey.

This is a Batman movie. Just thought I'd remind y'all of that.

At first it doesn't work, but don't worry! Another monkey (wearing a pink bow to remind us that she's a girl and the other monkey's love interest) comes and helps Damian play the flute better so the monkeys are better.

Monkeys still aren't enough, so with the power of bats and probably a lot of weed being smoked, the bats that came out of literally nowhere form a giant Batman to punch Voltron.

(Side note: they destroy the arm that Deathstroke was controlling so I don't know why he isn't dead. Never explained. He isn't even really hurt!!!)

The Robins enter Voltron to fight the villains because Joker loses control of everyone: Nightwing vs Penguin, Red Hood vs Deathstroke, and I forget the other match-ups, but nothing matters except that Red Hood walking up to Deathstroke and saying "Tell you what... I'll let you take the first shot" was badass and the best part of the movie.

Too bad we didn't get full fights scenes between everyone 🙃

Batman nearly died??? But lived??? I was so lost at this point and probably should've been paying better attention, but I was too busy trying to convince myself this wasn't a fever dream.

They got back to the present and everyone lived happily ever after, the end :)

Notes: I'm sure I missed some shit but Jesus fucking Christmas, it was a wild ride from start to finish. It was, like, not that great storytelling wise, but it was so bad it was funny??? It was the "The Room" of Animated Batman films.

Batman is a fucking HIMBO in this movie. I dunno how to exactly explain it, but he makes so many stupid ass decisions throughout the movie, it's so funny. When he's trying to blend in with the townsfolk HE LITERALLY CUTS HIS HAIR TO HAVE THE BATSYMBOL ON THE TOP OF HIS FUCKING HEAD!!! WHO APPROVED THIS MOVIE!?!?

I have decided that Deathstroke didn't die because trans rights. Is he canon trans? Well, he is in my heart.

Jason Todd's voice actor did a great job with him, tbh I wish he had been more prominent in the movie.

I literally forgot Tim and Dick were there most of the time they were so unneeded in the plot.

I hated Damian but whatever.

I honestly did enjoy the movie, but probably not for the reasons the creators wanted me to. Again, nothing against the creators, but this was such an odd movie for 90% of it's run time.

7/10 would watch again, if only because it was so funny and nonsensical.

Ratings all together:

Animation: 10/10

Voice Acting: 7/10

Story (If taken seriously): 2/10

Story (if not serious): 8/10

All together; watch this if you're a Batman fan that feels like having a hilarious time and doesn't mind seeing your favorite characters be OOC or doing weird shit. I feel like this movie is best enjoyed on call/while hanging out with friends.

[takaraphoenix]

Shadowhunters Finale Review

...I can’t even summarize my thoughts properly right now because I am just so wildly exhausted and disappointed and frustrated, so here’s the unfiltered running commentary I made during the two-parter, sorted by characters and due to length beneath the cut:

On Jonathan:

Jonathan back at it again, killing flowers. ~puuure eeeviiil~ (Sorry. Still not over Jocelyn being a fucking dickhead who is ready to murder her son over one dead flower he killed as a toddler...)

...I just... I'm so tired of what they did with Jonathan? When they set him up as Sebastian Verlac, he seemed to layered, but this season, they are completely reducing him to the Incest Boi whose only motivation is “Clary doesn't love me enough!” and absolutely no one has even half a fuck to give about everything he has suffered...? Every abuse that is driving him and forged him...?

He could have been such a layered character. I'm not even talking redemption wise, to use the abuse to make him A Good Boi, but he could have been such an interesting villain, there could have been so much to him. This is stupid and sad.

But I am chocking on my laughter at the Seelie Queen literally teaching him WHAT HE COULDA BEEN TAUGHT FROM THE GET GO. To channel his powers. Granted, she channels them into killing Shadowhunters. But they could have been channeled into killing demons.

With the right parent, the right training, without living in hell and being tortured, he could have been an exceptional Shadowhunter. But let's pretend that he is Truly Inherently Evil only because of his demon blood and hey it's legit because he wants to bang his sister so who cares about this guy LOL.

HOLY SHIT THEY REALLY MADE CLARY MURDER HIM WITH A HUG. What a fucking way to go. I don't... I don't even know what to say to that to be honest.

On Clary:

WHAT THE FUCK HAS SHE DONE??

“How do I come back after everything I've done”. What. What line is that. That's the line they could have given Jace in the first episode of 3B. You know, the guy who saw his own body commit 30+ murders, among them the murder of his own grandmother.

What... What's that everything Clary has done? Dress hotter than usual? Go to a rave? Try some Seelie drugs? Sure she killed Lenaia, but that was also a chick she didn't even know and so far she's not been very traumatized by like – killing her own biological father (seriously, the writers never bothered to give her a genuine reaction to that). Way to be overdramatic, writers.

Shitty Ex Machina Rune's existence aside; WHY does the Ex Machina Rune work?? RUNES DON'T WORK ON DOWNWORLDERS. That was like a whole thing in season 1. They kill mundies and they don't work on Downworlders?? Why the fuck is Clary allowed to play – not just an angel but an actual god at this point.

(But y'all know I am going to use this shitty dumb stupid rune in so many fanfiction.)

...But like holy shit. It is so callous to have her say that she wouldn't trade the Shadow World for anything and that “and I met Jace” like he brought all light into her life when the Shadow World killed her mother. Have the writers just completely forgotten that a month ago she lost her mother, her only biological family left?? Ah but it's totally fine because she has Jace now!!! And even though we literally started the episode off with her being devastated and wondering how she will ever come back after everything she has done, they are now only half an hour later already forgetting that she has just gone through major trauma, that she murdered her own father, that she lost her mother? But oh the Shadow World is super awesome, wouldn't wanna trade those past two, utterly traumatizing months for anything!!! Not even for my mom being alive LOL! Just... do the writers even care about the characters? At all?

HOLY FUCKING GODS THEY REMEMBERED JOCELYN. FUCK THIS IS RIDICULOUS ESPECIALLY AFTER HER CONVERSATION WITH SIMON IN EDOM. I am baffled. But I am 100% behind Jocelyn's message because Clary has been a scary motherfucker all this season now with all the things she has done and the rule-breaking. Fuck yeah she shouldn't be allowed to play God, which she DOES at this point.

But like, on a scale of 1 to 10 how dumb did they have to make Clary? Out of all of the ways she could have killed Jonathan, they decided “Nah man she is totally giving up her Shadowhunter self to hug her brother to death” instead of having Miss Stabby-Stab-Stab pull out a dagger and stab him to death? She literallly just got the warning and decides “LOL nope this is how I go out”. What---

There is a huge difference between a character sacrificing themselves for the greater good because there was 100% no other way and a character somehow turning a completely manageable situation into a self-sacrifice that is completely unnecessary... She could have just stabbed him. Or, you know, captured him with a trick instead of murdering. She could have stayed a Shadowhunter without using the Deus Ex Machina runes, living like a normal Shadowhunter. But they really made her go “If I can't play god, I'd rather give up the Shadow World”.

What the fuck even was that “One Year Later”. They literally just wasted a whole year since C/ace reuniting had zero negative effect on her? She didn't combust or anything. They could have literally went after her the day of the wedding, explained amnesia to her and brought her back. But the writers had to be dramatic bitches that put Jace through hell again, huh.

And what exactly did she believe happened? Like, Jocelyn and Luke and Simon?? Basically everyone she ever knew? What did she think happened to them and to herself? She just decided to go back to art school or what? Did they even think about this ending?

Honestly. It'd have been better had they actually Donna Nobled her and said she can never remember and has to be a mundie. But this? This year gap and bullshit and C/ace looking at each other and she suddenly remembers his name because True Love Wins? That makes it even dumber.

On Jace & Meliorn: (I'm trying to give each character their own for the finale, but... I can't separate those two in this case)

THAT STARTLED LITTLE BACKING OFF JACE DOES WHEN MELIORN TAKES IT TO THE BEDROOM. If that wasn't a coming on from Meliorn, I don't know what is. I am definitely living for this little bit of Jeliorn because that was a ship I was sure I'd never get to see proper interactions of. So, small blessings.

Hng. Jace can't lie. How pretty. Seriously his bond with Meliorn is like the saving grace from all of this. And how much fun Meliorn is having with this. Oh my gods my shipper heart is soaring.

SERIOUSLY I AM LIVING FOR THIS. “A serious question. How handsome do you think I am?” WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK THAT. Because you want to let my shipper-heart beat some. Thank you, Meliorn, personally, for my life. (Not to mention the answer. A NINE?? Jace. You so pansexual and into handsome Downworlders. It's canon now and I am blessed.)

I'm just absolutely living for Jace getting to interact with a non-Clary and a non-Alec (especially since all of his Alec-interactions this half-season have only been about Ma/ec...). It's... so refreshing to see them use Jace as... a character... instead of a prop. Even if he's played as a comic relief, I am taking so much more from this.

(ALSO: Jimon sparring! Jimon sparring and JACE BOOPING SIMON'S NOSE WHAT THE FUCK.)

On Alec:

What's with Maryse telling him to “take time to mourn”? What the fuck is that? XD He has literally been in Edom and gone back too. There's always been ways in and out. You're sure fast to bury him.

But also, maybe Alec should focus on the way to bring Magnus back instead of planning this fucking stupid wedding. You'd need your groom first.

Tonight. They're literally... I am weeping at how stupid this is. They got engaged yesterday and are getting married today. I had... actual, dumb hopes that the wedding would happen after a time skip. But I forgot this show doesn't know what time is. Ahahaha. Hilarious.

But holy shit am I angry about him being all dodgy and asking Maryse's permission to invite his own father to his wedding. Like. I am very rationally angry about the fact that all the kids sided with their abusive mother over their father, but that they are really all just treating him like that now is insane. Sure, he cheated on their mother, but he is still their father?? He has still been their father and he has been the good parent. If you can forgive Maryse's abuse just like that, how do you hold Robert cheating on Maryse over him like that? This is absolutely insane. What kind of priorities do those writers have to fuck it up this badly? Like the “oh no dad cheated on you let us all comfort you and totally forget the shitty way you have been treating your children!!!” wasn't bad enough on its own, but that they are completely acting like Robert was not just the cheating husband but somehow also the bad parent now? If this is where the show wanted to end it, they should have from the get-go also written him as the bad parent and her as the good parent, then I'd understand this, I'd understand the taking sides thing, the way they all completely turned away from Robert, the way Maryse blossomed and turned into an entirely different character. That ALL would make sense IF they hadn't decided in the first season and in 2B to write Robert as the warm rather and Maryse as the cold and abusive mother. The starting points and end points don't match.

On Magnus:

Magnus. On that throne. In that light. Now that's a look, to be honest.

Also, awkward conversations with the stepmother are very amusing. :D” (But, honestly, Anna and Harry playing off each other is really great. They play the power-dynamic really fascinating.)

Magnus being like “Well no need to close the door if we burn down the place right?” is a mood. It's so stupid and ridiculous, but like it's right. XD”

I'm glad Magnus at least said thank you to Lorenzo and even invited him to the wedding.

I genuinely don't know how to react to “High Warlock of Alicante” to be honest. Like. I don'T know what to say to that.

On Maia:

...I'd like to live in the alternate reality where Maia was more than just her relationships to boys. I'm still let down by the fact that the one (1) badass shot she got in the trailer was literally her walking away from Jordan's funeral fire, with her other ex and her future boyfriend flanking her from either side. If that doesn't summarize this show, I don't know what does.

And while I admire her decision to reconnect with her parents, it also seems rather messed up considering she literally just decided to be The Alpha. So let's leave the pack that has suffered so many recent losses... all alone. That's... not exactly Alpha behavior, even if it is the right thing for her as an individual at that point.

I mean like yeah sure she came back to become an Alpha, but still it's—a weird choice.

BAT BAT EXISTS BAT IS THERE I LOVE BAT HE GOT TO SPEAK. I am so so salty that he didn't get developed properly, that his relationship with Maia didn't get fully fleshed out.

On Isabelle & Simon:

Isabelle as the Human Torch is sure a very nice visual, to be honest.

(ALSO HELEN! HELEN! HELEN! I am 200% sure I can ship Aline/Helen/Isabelle in peace now. Don't @ me.) Though explain to me why Helen doesn't get the fuck away from Isabelle ASAP after realizing that Downworlders turn Isabelle into basically a bomb? I mean, she is half-Seelie.

...and can everyone maybe focus on “Izzy now catches fire when she is touching Downworlders” instead of “SHE WAS KISSING SIMON!!!”...? Like, priorities, dudes?

And how did she conclude “I explore when I touch demon blood. I should totally go to Edom! The place where demons live!”... and act like that should totally “”shield”” her from the atmosphere? What... logic goes into that? I'm serious, someone explain to me why “I explode when I come in contact with demonic stuff” leads to “but I'ma be extra safe in hell where all demonic things live and the very atmosphere should be demonic!!!”...

And Simon and Isabelle... kiss once... like... literally once and the next time they get a moment of being shown alone they literally already fucked. This show... knows that... you can actually go on dates and have a relationship with... oh no never mind this show has never heard the word “pacing” before I forgot sorry LOL

On Luke:

...But like why did his runes return though. I mean, getting turned into a Downworlder like... burned the runes away. They were gone. Why would him no longer being a Downworlder also immediately reapply all of his runes.

I don't know if I really like this, to be quite honest. I don't feel like we know enough about Luke for me to know what to feel about this? Like, he said he didn't want to be alpha and he's been turned against his will sure, but he's been a wolf for like 20 years now. It's... I don't know what to feel on this. Like, he seems really happy about this, but it also feels incredibly cheap due to the show never actually focusing on his thoughts and feelings??

Okay no now that I'm through with it I actually actively hate it. He should have become mundie. Erase it all. Let him live a mundie life with Clary.

On Lorenzo:

I love how Lorenzo brings up the Downworld Council. SOMETHING I HAVE BEEN WONDERING ABOUT TOO. What the fuck happened to that. But nope, SoRrY Lorenzo you are just here to save Magnus. Again. (Others too, but still. It's once again for selfish reasons of helping the Shadowhunters with shit.)

I really like where they took his character. I thought he was just going to be a shallow prop to take Magnus down. Petty and empty. But that they actually give him growth and personality and a personal goal and that they also made him rekindle with Magnus after admitting what he truly wants? That was... actually good. That was more than I ever expected from those writers. Huh.

ALSO FUCK ME I AM 100% BEHIND LORENZO/UNDERHILL.

On Max:

MAAAAX!!! MAX WITH GLASSES! MAX BEING PRECIOUS! He is literally the only thing about episode 22 that I liked. Like that entire final episode was a fucking shit-show.

On Raphael:

Honestly at this point just fuck this show. It is his father’s wedding and he is a mundane. But let’s just have him interact with his ex and her new guy so he can give them his blessing instead of having him actually interact with Magnus.

[azuresquirrel]

SO. MOULIN ROUGE BOSTON PRE-BROADWAY RUN PREMIERE. This is going to be massively unorganized, as I simply try to remember as much as I can from the show. And folks, this is a lot of show. This post is MASSIVE and needless to say I’ll be spoiling A LOT about this world premiere pre-Broadway run that may or may not have changes made to it.

(before I speak of the show itself, let me say that is was FUCKING CHAOTIC in the Colonial. Literally all seats but TWO were filled in the balcony, and probably the whole theatre, and they did not have enough people working there for this crowd. I didn’t even get a program because they didn’t have enough ushers)

 So like the overall take of this is that it is EXCESSIVE and OVERWHELMING. I mean that as a good thing. I of course have a bunch of nitpicks, and they could very well change things for Broadway, but this was essentially a Broadway-ready show that is set to be a crowdpleaser. Somehow they managed to capture the feeling of the movie itself on the stage with the direction and choreography, even with the numerous changes both necessary in terms of restructuring the story for a musical format, and just stuff used to differentiate the stage show. While a few things added I guess were something of an attempt to ‘deepen’ the story, largely they understand what this is – a big old sparking cupcake of musical and theatrical excess and it is goddamn enjoyable for it. It hooked me, it sure hooked the rest of the audience that hooted and hollered and clapped (I have bruises on my hands now).

DESIGNS ARE IMPECCABLE. The sets are ASTOUNDING (I gasped at a scene transition at one point). The scenery is extended outside of the proscenium with the windmill flanking one side and the elephant flanking another. The apron of the stage extended out and surrounded the front audience seats, who were seated at club tables a’la Cabaret or a much smaller scale Great Comet.  The costumes are EXCESSIVE and impressive even if they don’t fully match a few of the film’s iconic looks. The lighting design – my god, was the lighting designer on speed?? Or something?? Honestly don’t see this show if you are prone to seizures it is THAT MUCH. Choreography is on goddamn point.

The cast is pretty much Broadway-ready and I hope they don’t replace a single one of them.  Aaron Tveit and Karen Olivo are the perfect Broadway-versions of the Ewan McGregor-Nicole Kidman star power of the movie. I don’t know how the fuck Karen does it but she was at a TEN the entire fucking time, just belting every number like her life depended on it, and she really brought a lot of shading to Satine as a woman who has hardened herself to survive (one thing somewhat different from the movie, I guess with Karen not exactly being a youthful ingénue anymore was this idea of this being Satine’s ‘last chance’ but it melded into her arc pretty seamlessly). Aaron by contrast seemed to be holding back a bit/conserving his energy, especially in act one, but he fucking brings it when he needs to and his vocal command of that shitload of music is impressive, not a hint of strain. Christian is somewhat different from the movie version – he’s not British anymore he’s American (from goddamn LIMA, OHIO. GLEE.), and with act two being played for the tragedy he goes rather darker than movie Christian. Instead of a generic writer he is specifically a composer and the writer of love songs, and he’s somewhat less of the pure naïve innocent of McGregor’s Christian, but I thought it worked.

Danny Burstein absolutely nails it as Zidler, perfectly introducing the audience to the show and the tone. ZIdler is explicitly gay now in the stage show and largely it just fits the character that’s already there rather than making him ‘stereotypical’ (or rather not anymoreso than he already is). Honestly this is mostly a great change (I have a slight criticism for a plot point in act two), and it really helps his relationship with Satine and him becoming something less of a controlling sleazeball. This is especially needed because stage Satine’s goal is less to “fly away” and become a real actress, but rather to save the people of the Moulin Rouge, who she regards as a family. Thus Zidler is far less controlling over her, rather they feel much more like peers. Notably (AND A GOOD CHANGE) Zidler does not find out Satine is sick when she’s unconscious and withholds it from her, Zidler finds out she’s sick in act two and immediately tells her it’s consumption (which killed his first love, ANATOLE). Also he does not order her to break Christian’s heart to save him from the Duke’s wrath, that’s a decision Satine makes entirely on her own, so the plot changes to Zidler also strengthens Satine’s character and gives her a lot more agency.

By far the biggest change from the movie is everything about how they play the Duke. The Duke is not a foppish pathetic nebbish of a man who’s clearly no competition for Christian. Played by Tam Mutu, this Duke is sexy, threatening, controlling, and dominating (emphasis intended). Heck we’re introduced to him BEFORE CHRISTIAN (kinda nuts???). The love triangle is very much that, with the Duke being a very real villain who offers Satine everything she wants in terms of money but is also a controlling asshole (and extends that to the Moulin Rouge and the show within a show as well). He is not clueless and bumbling, Satine IS sleeping with him the whole time, and there’s no giant manservant, he makes his violent threats directly and you believe it (however they, WISELY I feel, cut the attempted rape during El Tango Roxanne, which is in the show but VERY recontextualized, even with act two being played more for tragedy it was wise to not go THAT dark with it). It will then not surprise you that one of the big movie numbers that’s cut is “Like a Virgin” as this would not fit this decidedly non-comic version of the Duke.

Sahr Ngaujah plays Lautrec, and he is a REVELATION as I was unfamiliar with him before. He is a FORCE OF NATURE. He is not a little person, nor is that played in this Lautrec (aside from like two lines of the Duke calling him “little man” which honestly read awkwardly). Rather he has a cane and a limp, and there’s now a really strong racial undercurrent to his devotion to Bohemian ideals as he is a Black man. He is charismatic and has a great voice. Since the bohemians in the stage version are really pared down (wisely, conservation of character) to just Lautrec and the Argentinian, Lautrec’s role is beefed up a lot, although it doesn’t always make entire sense. Lautrec is now the director and the book writer for the show-within-a-show, and his bohemian ideals are MUCH stronger as the show-within-a-show is dramatically changed. While there are jokes in act one about him going on about putting ‘proletariat’ ideals in his work, in act two he very explicitly stands against the Duke trying to change the show, so “freedom, beauty, truth and love” feels like it really means something to him rather than in the movie where they just seems a bunch of horny artists. On the stage, Lautrec is an old friend of Satine’s having met her when she was thirteen and dumps a lot of backstory onto Christian for us. He also says he was in love with Satine but never told her. This honestly leads to some character inconsistency – in one scene he’s telling Christian to “not make his mistake” and go for love, and in another he’s telling Christian to “forget about her, she’s made her choice”???? Also did we really need another dude in love with Satine with the central love triangle?

Let’s talk music – a lot of the music from the movie is still in there, though a few notable numbers have been cut, like the aforementioned “Like a Virgin.” They also added A LOT MORE MUSIC, including into mashups with other existing songs. MOST of these slot in amazingly into great numbers. In my mind there are two new numbers that really don’t live up to what they are replacing, but generally the new music sounds GREAT. Orchestrations and ensemble vocal arrangements are STUNNING on a few numbers, particularly the act two opener. There is, however, a SLIGHT tonal problem with some of the new music and the audience. A lot of new songs provoked laughter from the audience as they recognized them. For most songs this was not a problem, especially in the frothy frivolity of act one, but for the more dramatic numbers is kind of was (especially, again, in tragic act two). Please know that I will SO be getting the inevitable cast recording because everyone’s voices on these numbers are amazing.

NOW FOR THE NITTY-GRITTY. So there was ZERO pre-show announcement because THE SHOW TRANSITIONED INTO STARTING NEAR-SEEMLESSLY. About ten minutes before “start” actors slowly came onto stage, dancing, cavorting, entertaining the audience. Two of the very attractive women did a SWORD-SWALLOWING ACT right in front of the big Moulin Rouge sign. Then Christian comes onstage, observing off to the side, then hits the lights (there was a massive prop switch on one side of the stage that was used throughout the show for ‘the lights’), so the show can “start.” It begins right at the Moulin Rouge with “Lady Marmalade,” then Zidler’s entrance truly playing the crowd, including setting off THE CONFETTI CANON THAT IS CONCEALED IN HIS CANE, then into the Can-Can. Then the Duke enters with some contemporary song that honestly I SHOULD know but do not, and he sits in the booth on stage right. Then Christian enters with Lautrec and the Argentinian and they seat on stage left (the three of them also harmonize A BUNCH throughout the show and it sounds great).

It is only when Zidler begins to introduce Satine that the spotlight hits Christian and he begins “narrating” the story about the woman he loved. Christian has no typewriter like in the movie. Essentially what I got from the finale is that the show itself is him telling the story? He is a songwriter now after all? Anyway, at that point it transitions back in time to earlier that day when he arrives in Paris. This was the set change that floored me, immediately the stage transforms from the opulent Moulin Rouge to the streets on Montmarte in PERFECT GREYSCALE (one of the smaller but stunning pieces of stagecraft in the show is when Christian sings “the hills are alive with the sound of music” – when the spotlight hits him the backdrop goes from greyscale to full color in the light, then back again). So he meets up with Lautrec and the Argentinian, and they hit it off together to “Royals” (THIS ACTUALLY WORKS ASTOUNDINGLY WELL). They quickly hatch the scheme to pitch the show (which Lautrec wants to name “Bohemian Rhapsody”) to Satine, and we return back to the scene we left in the Moulin Rouge for Satine’s entrance.

SHE ENTERS DOWN FROM THE SWING. In a red feathered dress that later does an amazing quick change/reveal to a black diamond-studded lingerie number (Karen Olivo spends A LOT of this musical in fancy lingerie). On the swing she sings bits of “Diamonds are Forever” and then it goes into “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” For the “Material Girl” bit the female ensemble comes out in matching top hats that they all take off to reveal Madonna wigs. Then we have “Single Ladies” mashed up into it. Satine does not get back onto the swing to fall off dramatically, she simply has a moment in the song where she nearly faints, but she recovers to dance on top of a giant diamond platform.

Then her and Zidler have the mix-up of who is the Duke while the dancers dance to “Rhythm of the Night”, and then when Satine and Christian meet and dance it is set to a mashup of “Shut Up and Dance With Me” and “Raise Your Glass” (MUCH LIKE ROYALS, THIS SHOULDN’T WORK, AND YET IT ABSOLUTELY DOES???). Lautrec and the Argentinian also distract Zidler with some song and I think “We Are Young” is somewhere in all of this as well (HONESTLY I DO NOT REMEMBER EVERY SINGLE NEW SONG BECAUSE THERE WAS *A LOT* OF MUSIC IN THIS SHOW, “WE ARE YOUNG” WAS IN THERE AT SOME POINT).

Afterwards we get a backstage scene of Satine talking with Zidler and the main “Lady Marmalade” girls talking about needing the Duke’s money in order for the Moulin Rouge to survive and keep everyone off the streets. So here Satine’s motivation is much less “become a real actress and escape the Moulin Rouge” but instead “the people of Moulin Rouge are my family and I need to singlehandedly keep this place going.” Satine KNOWS she’s sick and is keeping it from everyone/doesn’t think it’s that big a deal.

-Now I should mention here as a slight tangent that one of the Lady Marmalade girls is um, well, she’s played as a transwoman. Mmm. I have. Thoughts. On this. For one thing, I can’t tell you the gender identity of the performer as I did not get a playbill. For another thing, while yes most of the characters are sex workers, and yes I appreciate putting a wider display of gender and sexuality onstage (which only fits the world of early-20th-century artist-bohemian Paris), do we really need more of the hoary old trope of the sexworker transwoman? It’s a small part of the show but still. CONCERN over that choice.

So obviously we don’t have “One Day I’ll Fly Away.” Instead we have . . . “Firework.” Number I don’t feel entirely works number 1. Now Karen SELLS THE GODDAMN SHIT out of it, but like. “Firework.” Not as a good of a number as “One Day I’ll Fly Away.” Also even though they obviously avoid the line about feeling “like a plastic bag” they do keep the line about FOURTH OF JULY in Paris, France. Even with Moulin Rouge being as over-the-top and fantastical as it is, boy does that stick out as WEIRD.

Then we go into the elephant set (it’s a garish room surrounded by an elephant proscenium, there are so many layers to this set), and “Your Song” remains in its glory, although we do not do the ‘dancing in the stars’ bit (NOT YET).

Now “Spectacular, Spectacular” is dramatically rewritten to reflect the show-within-a-show being VERY different as it is no longer set in India. Instead, Lautrec is playing into the actual revolutionary theatre style of the early 20th century of extreme realism (HONESTLY I FEEL LIKE I APPRECIATE THIS MUCH MORE THAN MOST AS A FORMER THEATRE SCHOLAR). Thus the play more resembles the actual La Boheme, or the “social dramas” of the time which is WHAT PARISIAN BOHEMIANS WOULD BE WRITING AND PERFORMING – Lautrec says plainly in act two that he wants to ‘hold up a mirror to Paris.’ So the show-within-a-show is set in Paris and is about the love triangle between a prostitute, a romantic sailor, and a rich gangster. Largely I think it’s a good thing to steer the hell away from the massive cultural appropriation of the movie’s Indian version, although this dramatically changes the climax of the show, as it now becomes a more intimate scene between Christian and Satine than the triumphant LOVE ABOVE ALL ELSE in the movie (more on that later). And my one BIG costume regret is that Satine is then in a dingy black dress for the climax (which is actually a plot point in act two with the Duke arguing against this), rather than the beautiful iconic white gown from the movie. Ah well.

So after Satine gets everyone out of the room but the Duke, they actually DO THE DO, after the Duke sings a mashup of “Sympathy for the Devil” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

After this we get a scene between Lautrec and Christian on the street writing the show, where Lautrec gives his and Satine’s backstory to Christian and sings “Nature Boy” gorgeously, eventually convincing Christian to go after her. The next scene is the Duke “negotiating” with Zidler, with Zidler’s male lover in there at the start (put a pin in that, we’re coming back to that in act two). By that I mean the Duke taking ownership of literally everything and agreeing to produce Lautrec’s show simply as “an amusement.”

We then go back to the elephant, and Christian is persuading Satine to have an affair with him behind the Duke’s back, and we have a revamped “Elephant Love Medley” with WAY MORE SONGS IN IT including “Take on Me”, “What’s Love Got to Do With It”, “Don’t Speak” and like LOTS MORE I AM PROBABLY FORGETTING. This morphs into the giant act one ender as HERE, once we hit “heroes” the stage transforms into the Paris skyline with all the stars out and the dancers wheel on the Eiffel Tower for Christian and Satine to dance on and EVERY SINGLE LIGHT IN THE THEATRE IS PROJECTING STARS and they quick-change into their starry blue costumes IT WAS ALL VERY OPULENT AND ROMANTIC.

So act one is very much a frothy delight of THEATRE!!!! MUSIC!!! LOVE!!!! BIG OLD PRODUCTION NUMBERS!!! And not to say that act two lacks those things but there is a NOTABLE tonal shift in act two to THE TRAGEDY of it all.

So act two opens with Christian narrating for the audience to think back to their first love affair, so that they can understand how he is driven to madness. He also introduces the “other” backstage love affair with the Argentinian and Nini, who are dancing erotically on the stage before rehearsal for the show starts. We begin the NUTSO act two opening number, starting as a duet of the two of them on motherfucking “Bad Romance.” It is AMAZING, particularly in the Argentinian’s growl. Then the other dancers enter, it becomes a group number which is then mashed up into “TOXIC” and “SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS” and eventually Christian and Satine join in with the whole group. The choreography for this whole number is NUTS the vocal arrangement OFF THE HOOK and it absolutely stopped the show.

So then we have rehearsals, including some prop comedy with Zidler that absolutely killed, and in a welcome change, instead of Nini divulging the affair to the Duke like in the movie (where it seemingly came out of nowhere), she instead WARNS Satine that the Duke is a dangerous man to mess with, telling about how another woman who cheated him ended up with her lover murdered in the river and the woman disfigured (this adds the legitimate threat to Christian and motivates Satine on her own). And the Duke gets the picture pretty clearly when Christian pulls the whole “SHE DOESN’T LOVE YOU” line in the rehearsal.

So after rehearsal goes shitty and Satine is conflicted about what to do with these two men, we get a scene of Zidler and the Lady Marmalade girls talking about how things are looking dire for the theatre. So essentially replacing “The Show Must Go On” from the movie we instead have Florence + the Machine’s “Shake It Off.” Number I have a problem with number two. Now this is a song that on its own I LOVE. But it honestly feels . . . out of place and unneeded. Again, the cast gives it their all but like . . . it just doesn’t fit in the way that “The Show Must Go On” did. I mean, I would see this as the number most likely to be cut or changed for Broadway, but honestly who the fuck knows.

The next scene is Satine going to Christian’s apartment. Here we have a full duet of “Come What May” (which is not a song in the show-within-a-show but just then straight-up singing about their love for each other).

Then the next scene is waaaaaay new as we have Satine with the Duke on a rich-ass boulevard with everyone in these extravagant rich-ass costumes that looks like Sunday in the Park with George was vomited on by Revolutionary Girl Utena and pastels (I’ll be real, the Duke is in the lavender suit with giant coat and tophat and I fucking wanted to wear the entire thing). The Duke shows Satine a house that he has bought for her and tells her all of the things he will provide for her – if she gives him “everything” including her heart, and she stops performing shortly after the show opens, as having his mistress parade herself onstage would be unbecoming to a man of his status. Satine, in her Sunday best but clearly on as “in fashion” as everyone else onstage, points out she doesn’t really fit his status. She then gets this . . . oddly sadomasochistic (?) makeover with the Duke singing a BIZARRE version of Rihanna’s “Only Girl in the World” (it does work, but I think it is purposefully bizarre in the scene) and Satine sings a dark reprise of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” while she is put into this Eliza Dolittle monstrosity.

With another rehearsal scene and Lautrec talking back to the Duke and Christian ready to lose his shit over the Duke treating Satine, and everyone else, as his possession, we then transition to Christian’s apartment the night before the show. He’s going mad with jealousy, threatening to kill himself, and the Argentinian and Lautrec are trying to talk him down. Eventually they tell him he needs to purge himself of Satine with absinthe. They take absinthe while singing Sia’s “Chandeleer” (their three-part harmony on this is STUNNING) and as Christian goes into a haze he hallucinates first Satine as the green fairy (COMING DOWN ON THE SWING AGAIN) and then eventually a whole sequence of different green fairies, dancing with men. Still enraged and jealous, Christian takes to the streets.

EL TANGO ROXANNE. It is still here but it is MASSIVELY recontextualized. It’s a much less literal number now, no longer set in the Moulin Rouge, almost more of a dream ballet (??) as Christian wanders the streets. We being with ZIDLER being the one giving the opening speech explaining the dance while the Argentinian and Nini do the dance to the side. Then the lights go out and come back on with the spotlight on Christian center stage and with tango couples around him. It begins with him singing the “his eyes upon your hand” bridge, and then the actual Roxanne part is sung BY CHRISTIAN. I was massively thrown off by this at first, I was looking forward to hearing this Argentinian sing this version, but it fits more with Christian here as motivating his actions rather than as the beset-upon innocent, and Tveit fucking GIVE S IT HIS ALL. We also have Christian seeing a vision of Satine and you know the red dress she’s wearing in all the promo pics? She’s wearing it here.

So then the scene in the Duke’s tower is hugely different from the movie. At the start Satine enters the room and the Duke is talking with the man who we saw before as Zidler’s lover. Apparently the Duke has been paying him to be “his eyes” at the Moulin Rouge (so my pin – the evil gay? C’mon guys. At least Zidler’s sexuality largely isn’t demonized but like c’mon), so he is VERY aware of Satine and Christian’s extracurricular activities. He then gives Satine the ultimatum – be mine or Christian will end up a corpse with his throat slit ear to ear. Christian, drunk and high, enters and sadly attempts to fight the Duke and professes his love for Satine. Satine coldly turns him down to save his life and breaks down crying when the men leave.

We now have Christian broken and alone on the street and he begins singing “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkely, which then transitions into “Rolling in the Deep” (this was probably the most awkward part of the show where the audience laughed at recognizing a song). “Rolling” continues on to everyone getting ready for the show at the Moulin Rouge, to Satine singing as well, then we see Christian off to the side LOADING A GUN, and the number climaxes with Christian and Satine singing on either side with the dancers in the middle performing the start of the show within a show.

Then we have the BIG CLIMAX of the show with the show-within-a-show, which is now a much darker affair since it is not a glorious wedding in ~exotic India~. Christian crashes the scene, coming up from the actual theatre’s aisles as we are now fully the audience of the Moulin Rouge. Here Christian doesn’t slutshame Satine and claim to “pay his whore” instead he pulls out the loaded gun (as a part of the written scene) but then turns into to his own chest.

To bring him back with the confession of true love, Satine sings “Your Song.” Then after their big kiss Satine VERY QUICKLY falls into his arms and starts dying (hence how it’s less of a triumph into eventually tragedy, but rather a personal scene with Christian and Satine that takes a VERY QUICK TURN). And after asking Christian to “tell her story” Satine of course dies in his arms.

After this, Christian gives a very brief epilogue explaining how he started writing again, and now he starts to sing “Come What May”, eventually joined by everyone else in the Moulin Rouge, sans the dead Satine. They keep these poses after blackout for the first round of applause.

THEN the curtain call asks you to forget about all that tragedy and SING AND CLAP A FUCKLOAD with a giant dance number/singalong of Lady Marmalade, the Can Can, and EVEN “HEY YA.” I should note that during this part the male ensemble comes out in the iconic movie look of the tuxedo on top and tutu and tights on the bottom. At one point the choreo has the female ensemble riding these men, and rest assured I yelled “IT’S EQUALITY.” THEN after that was the full cast bows, with Karen and Aaron last and together and then the men pull out cane which are ALL confetti canons that shoot out confetti and streamers so high it almost reached the balcony.

SO THERE IS THE EXPERIENCE OF SEEING “MOULIN ROUGE” ONSTAGE. It is indeed a RAVISHMENT OF THE SENSES and honestly there were probably a lot of bits of new music in there that I forgot, but folks, it looks great, it sounds great, the cast is phenominal, IT IS INDEED, EVERYTHING.

[mrswhozeewhatsis]

21 Supernatural Questions

Thanks to @sammit-janet for helping me procrastinate tonight!

1. When did you start watching Supernatural?

Early December, 2014. I’d been sick for a month, already, and had run out of other shows I wanted to watch. I decided to watch that show that Misha Collins was on that my goddaughters used to watch. I got through 9.5 seasons by Christmas. That first hellatus was awful, and it’s how I got into the fandom. I needed more, found con videos, then fan fiction, and the rest is history!

2. Who is your favorite in TFW?

It depends on the day. I usually say I’m Winchester-sexual, angel-curious!

3. Who is your least favorite in TFW?

Ugh. I don’t dislike any of them (though I miss BAMF early-seasons Cas who didn’t bleed much and could do things regular hunters couldn’t like see demons’ faces). If I had to rank them, I probably obsess over Cas the least.

4. Tag your top 5 Supernatural blogs.

You’d ask me who my favorite children were, too, wouldn’t you? Not falling for that!

5. Who is your favorite character (not including TFW)?

You’re killing me. You’re really killing me. I CAN’T PICK. Chuck? Donna? Jody? Rowena? I love John and Mary, but I don’t get squishy when I watch them on the show. Charlie? I literally squealed and frightened my husband when we saw AU!Charlie the first time. Ellen? There are too many and you can’t make me pick!!

6. Who is your favorite woman in Supernatural?

Donna. She kicks ass and calls it butt.

7. John or Mary?

Gonna quote @sammit-janet directly, cuz she said it well: “Both.  I know people hate one or the other, but you cannot look at these parents with real-world glasses.  John had the mother of his children burned on the ceiling and he had no fucking clue about the Supernatural until then.  Once he did, he was on a mission to find whatever killed his wife.

“Mary made a deal to save the man she loved.  She would have stopped Azazel that night in the nursery too, but Michael erased her memory.  Now that she’s come back, well, don’t you think it’s a little disorienting to spend 32 years in heavenly bliss and then get thrust back down to earth and find out her children are living the exact life she didn’t want them to?

“Also, don’t forget, EVERYTHING was stacked against them.  Heaven made 100% sure that they got together just so Sam and Dean could be born and play out the apocalypse.”

8. What were your first opinions of Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack?

Sam: Tall, but the hair, and he’s a baby, I feel like a pedophile.

Dean: Older, still tall, wiseass, heart of gold, if he loves pie, I’m a goner!

Cas: HOLY FUCK.

Jack: If he’s good, I will hold him and love him and squeeze him and call him George. If he’s evil, I will cut him down with the flames of a thousand burning suns.

9. What’s your favorite season?

I really don’t have one. I have seasons I love more, and seasons I love less, but none are my favorites. The writing in the beginning was tighter, and felt like there was an end coming, which made it more electric. But I really love watching the boys grow and change and make better, smarter decisions, or make stupid decisions for bigger, better reasons. I dislike the degradation of angel powers, though. I mean, remember when Cas could smite an entire diner of monsters or demons with just a bright light, but this season he was beaten to pulp by a demon gang? And now that Heaven’s gates are all open, can Cas fly, again? I mean, they couldn’t fly because the closed gates cut them off from Heaven, but now the gates are open, so LET CAS FLY, DAMMIT.

10. What’s your least favorite season?

Season 7, although that season does have an inordinate amount of things I like about it, so it makes no sense. Story-wise, I get it. They had to systematically take away everything the boys valued in order to leave Sam the destroyed mess he was when Dean and Cas disappeared. I don’t like it when my boys hurt, but I understand why they did it. On the other hand, season 7 gave us Charlie, and Frank, and Garth, and Kevin, and numerous dick jokes, and Sam tied to a bed, and Cas naked on Dean’s car covered in bees. So torn, but when I rewatch the series, I take a deep breath when I start season 7. (During my most recent rewatch, I also took a breath when Toni Bevell came onto my screen, so I guess I now put 12 in with 7.)

11. Opinions on Destiel?

Canon - Dean is straight. He’s said multiple times he doesn’t swing that way. I wouldn’t object if the writers decided to change that, but I respect Jensen and the writers in their decision not to go that way. There are more and more diverse characters on our screen every year, and I’m okay with letting Dean be a cis het white male who loves women of all kinds. I would love if they did a Human!Impala episode and the Impala turned out to be John Barrowman, though. On the other hand, Cas is completely unconcerned with gender and sexuality, so I wouldn’t mind seeing him have a romantic thing with a guy. Pretty sure that would break the fandom, though, so not holding my breath.

Fanon - Holy cheeseballs, that boy swings harder than an old-time saloon door, and I love reading about him being so open to everyone. Give me all the guys banging Dean like a screen door in a hurricane. Dean is all the door metaphors and memes, including the memes about Cas loving to destroy doors. Show me these two idiots falling in love any way you got it. They were roommates, you say? YES. There was only one bed, you say? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. Dean’s a fireman and Cas is a nurse? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME??? BRING IT.

12. Do you believe Supernatural queerbaits?

Not intentionally, or maliciously, but I can see why some folks might think that, sometimes. It’s a fine line the show writers have to balance on when it comes to scenes with Dean and Cas because of the fandom’s obsession with Destiel. They want to show the love between the two characters as brothers, but it can’t be too much love. (However, I sometimes wonder about certain things. I would love to sit down with Jensen, Jerry Wanek, and Robbie Thompson, show them certain moments, and ask why certain decisions were made regarding framing, editing, props, and such. If they weren’t thinking Destiel, what were they thinking??)

13. Seasons 1-7 or 8-14?

You’re asking me to pick my kids, again. 1-7 is Kripke writing, 8-11 is Robbie Thompson writing, NO NO NO YOU CAN’T MAKE ME DECIDE.

14. Favorite villain (plot wise)?

Crowley

15. Do you think they should end the Lucifer plot line?

YES. I’m cool with watching Nick progress into a big bad, but keep Lucifer in The Empty. (I just had a wild thought about The Empty, Lucifer, and The Shadow coming for Jack. Lord, I hope I’m wrong.)

16. Who do you think has gone through more trauma (Sam, Dean, or Cas)?

Quoting Sammit again: “Sam.  He found out he had demon blood in him, was one of Azazel’s “chosen”, died by being stabbed in the back, went to hell for 100 years, lost his soul, was driven mad by Lucifer, almost died doing the trials, was possessed by Gadreel…did i leave anything out?”

Dean and Cas have also had their share, but if you want to quantify it, I think Sam has had more. 

17. What’s your favorite Supernatural episode?

Baby, Dog Dean Afternoon, Don’t Call Me Shurley, most of the other episodes writing by Robbie Thompson, too.

18. Do you like case episodes?

They are a nice breather in between the episodes where I can’t sit back for  moment.

19. Who do you relate most to in TFW?

I switch back and forth between Dean and Sam. I relate to Sam wanting to go to college to get away from his family, I relate to Dean’s eating habits, I understand why Sam’s done all the stupid shit he’s done, and I understand Dean not wanting to delve into things because it’s hard. Oh, and I say awesome almost as much as Dean. Cas, though, is a mystery to me. The only time I relate to him is when he’s confused by pop culture references.

20. Why do you like Supernatural?

The characters. They’re just so fucking interesting, you know? And (with some notable exceptions) the writers have managed to keep them from getting too far away from who they were in the pilot, while showing them growing and changing and improving. I love the world, I love the fantasy, and I love how universal they all are. I mean, if you took characters from another show and put them in a Beach AU, I wouldn’t be able to see it like I can with these characters. They’re awesome.

21. If you could bring back one character and kill off another who would they be?

Keep Lucifer dead, bring back Frank. I also want to see more of Linda Tran. Or Ellen, though I don’t know what they’d do with her with Mary around. I’d say Crowley, but I know that will never happen, and I understand why, so I’m letting him go.

Tag yourselves!

[shootfortherightreasons]

;; I’ve been meaning to make a post for my headcanons on the result of the brain damage done to Carl when he lost his eye, so here we go.

Please be aware this post is massively gigantic by my standards. :’)

What is this about?:

This post has been a long time coming, so you’ve probably seen some instances of me making use of what’s going to be in this post in my threads already. I knew what I wanted to do, though this is the first time I’m making a full post of the collective damage done when he was shot.

Much of this is based on Carl’s mannerisms and speech that we see in the show, in which we see a very different Carl than before he lost his eye. It’s not just his self esteem, but his personality and behavior, actions, etc. Because Carl is recovering in the second half of S6, we don’t really get to see the extent of the changes, but they’re especially noticeable in S7 (and note, I’m not really going to include much consideration for S8 regarding any of this because S8 was all around a massive clusterfuck of bullshit with Carl’s characterization that completely erased anything he did in S7. If it overlaps with S7 and doesn’t just erase any previous logic from Carl’s character, it will be mixed in with my canon).

Please note I am not going to use every single solitary instance and example of the behaviors and affects listed here. I’ll have some that I explain in detail and bulk, but I’m not going to list every single thing Carl does in S7/8 that seems to have been a result of his injury.

How are you determining this?:

When Carl was shot, that bullet caused bone fragments (confirmed by Greg Nicotero) and could have had bullet fragments. Since we don’t know how far those fragments traveled, that leaves me to decide based on what I’ve seen during Carl’s screentime. I’m not a medical expert by any means, which means this is all based off any research I’ve done on the subject, but based on his behaviors, particularly in S7, I’m assuming there was at least minor damage done to the frontal lobe.

One thing that’s important to consider is that it is, from my understanding, extremely rare for a person to not suffer traumatic brain injury after a wound like this and not causing severe personality changes due to the injury. I see a lot of people question Carl’s decisions and personality in general, but it seems to happen a lot in S7 - particularly with his attack on the Sanctuary. Why didn’t he kill Negan? Why didn’t he kill Negan in 7x04 if he was going to go on a suicide mission and try to do it later anyway? Why did he go on the mission to Oceanside if he believes in peace and good people?

Note that you’ll see a lot of these damages intertwine with each other. They will pop up in sections not specifically for them.

What damage was done to his personality/behaviors?:

Known problems that Carl displays:

Memory (mostly headcanon based)

This was left out of the TV series, but I’m retaining a touch of it for my muse. For a short time (this would be, verse wise, during S6 before the Saviors take over) Carl will have to wait on regaining memories of things that happened years ago. On top of that, he’ll also have trouble memorizing things for a while. Though his memory will eventually be cured with time and some help from the people around him, it’s going to be an issue he’s always concerned about later (even if it doesn’t occur, he’ll be worried it’s happening when it isn’t). Sometimes, he’ll forget new names or forget explanations, etc of things he just heard, say, a day ago.

Social/Social cues

Though he and Enid had habits of not agreeing prior to the injury, once he had it, the two of them notably started arguing, and more often (and this literally starts the first episode we see him again post injury). There was also more tension between Carl and Rick because of Rick’s choices with the Saviors, such as Carl simply telling Rick, “see you in a few days” when he and Aaron go on a run to gather supplies for the Saviors. Normally one would expect anyone could die going out there. Most people have more verbal and emotional preparation when someone goes on a run. Carl doesn’t think far ahead here - he’s just thinking of his aggravation of why Rick is going out there. He’s thinking in the moment.

This also ties into thought process/thinking, but Carl is kind of slow (verbally and sometimes by physical reaction) after he gets his injury. His reaction timing is sometimes slower (likely due to blank thought process) and his decisions are done off pure impulse (another bullet point) sometimes. Carl immediately states to Enid in 7x05 when she’s jumping the wall that he won’t save her anymore. It’s an impulse response with no thought behind it, much like how he dealt with Rick in that same episode. Another instance with Enid is when he could have just explained to her why he wasn’t killing Deanna in her reanimated form. She ends up just arguing with him and he gets aggravated in return.

Damn, Enid has problems with this boy after the injury! Let’s not forget Carl giving zero consideration to Enid’s life when he says she should come with him to the Sanctuary. It’s not that he’s intending to be rude or thoughtless toward her life, but his reaction to her not wanting him to go was that they just therefore both go, but he to begin with was not planning on coming back. He expected to die there. Inviting her to go with him is basically inviting her to go die there too.

Mostly headcanon based because it never really happened in the show, but Carl may sometimes miss jokes or lighthearted comments.

Thought process/thinking + Plan formulating

This ties into impulsion as well. Carl acts before he thinks sometimes, or sometimes he won’t fully formulate a plan before taking action with the plan. The problem is, when he does take action, it seems done to him. He thinks, at the time, that the plan is fully formulated. He believes he’s gone through all possibilities, means and results. Headcanon related, sometimes he also forgets some of the things he planned out due to memory problems.

An example of Carl failing to fully formulate a plan and believing it was finished is when he’s telling Enid about his plan to kill Negan. While the plan was essentially a suicide mission with no plans to get out of there alive, he told Enid he watched Glenn and Abraham die because it would mean he would have no choice but to kill Negan (when the opportunity arose). As far as he was concerned, that was the deal sealer. He was going to kill Negan. There was no consideration of hesitation or how he would initiate the attack. The latter is shown in 7x07 when he gets seen in the truck and winds up shooting someone else first (which means he can’t keep hiding), failing to act on what he set out to do, and instead shooting someone else who was coming at him which led him to being thrown to the ground and completely failing what he set out to do (when all he really had to do there was shoot Negan or at least attempt to the second he realized someone was moving toward him).

Another example that stood out to me strongly was in 6x16, where Carl’s response to Sasha’s question is “yeah. We end it.” Considering how fast Carl decided on that response, there was no real planning behind it. His first reaction to that question was that they end the situation and wipe out the group blocking their path, with zero consideration for what may happen if they did/attempted to, or how that group may retaliate and overpower them. In this case he had Rick to change his mind, but it’s very apparent he had no thought of doing it the way Rick proposed until Rick suggested it.

There are also times he may decide to do things or go along with things that seem to contradict things he would otherwise do. An example of this would be 7x15 - Carl going to Oceanside when the plan was to basically invade another settlement to essentially steal all their guns or have the people fight with them. If they didn’t choose to fight, they would lose all their guns. No matter what, their lives are at risk in the end. Typically, this would be something Carl would question Rick on, similar to how he questioned Rick about his lack of trust with Gabriel, and later seen when he’s pissed off about Rick’s reaction to seeing Siddiq. If something doesn’t feel right to Carl, he’ll question it. Sometimes this doesn’t seem to happen, which I believe is a result of his lack of thought post injury. It doesn't mean it always happens, but it can (ex. he reacted pretty normally to how one would expect with Rick and Siddiq).

Basically, some things Carl ends up doing may seem hypocritical to his usual beliefs. Even if he understood they “had” to do it to survive, he would not do that without question and comment, nor would he condone attacking a settlement that has done them no wrong. Carl is shown through the entire series to prefer helping people who need it, and if those people wanted nothing to do with their war, Carl would not condone forcing them into their war or doing anything that endangers them (and taking their guns absolutely endangers them both with walkers or any other humans). The whole situation was a show of force and making others bend to their will.

Impulse

Carl has been shown to be very intelligent and has previously lacked negative impulse. His only main impulse shown to be a recurring matter on the show was his rushing to help someone screaming for help. However, he has social and action impulse post 6x09. As mentioned, he is shown to have social impulse with Rick and Enid. He has fast responses when he’s emotional with lack of thought behind what he’s saying. In 6x16, Carl tells Rick “they can do anything” and that “he’ll never let anyone die like Denise again”. It’s an impulsive, emotional statement with lack of common knowledge and thought behind it. They’ve been followed/surrounded/cornered just in that same day. There’s a massive group right on their asses. Rick’s behavior also probably influences this issue in Carl, of course, worsening his impulsive verbal reactions. Rick started getting cocky and believing they could do anything and take whatever they wanted in the world. In 6x16, that’s shown to be an issue Carl is starting to display, except worse: there’s no thought behind it at all. He just says it because he’s feeling it at that moment

Next, he has action impulse. Instances of this are in:

7x07 when he doesn’t kill Negan, but instead a Savior coming at him as previously mentioned. He shoots immediately because someone is coming at him. Negan, however, was not, and rather than impulsively shooting, he may have realized he did not at all think his plan through (making this an instance of impulse + plan formulating). He didn't consider he might get seen in that truck and have to shoot early. He didn’t consider that when faced with the situation, he wouldn’t be able to do it when his life was potentially in danger. He didn’t consider how surrounded he would be and that anyone could come at him or shoot him right there. Carl thought of how he would do it, but not the what ifs that surrounded the situation. When he was finally faced with that situation, I’m sure there were a plethora of reasons Carl stopped because of.

7x16 when he fires the first shots that start a massive battle with everyone on his side already held at gunpoint. We know - it turned out well for our survivors. Could it have backfired? Absolutely. It almost did. Also, though he did likely think it through somewhat because he did have time to do so (as in, he had time to think “I could just shoot this guy behind me while he’s distracted”) and he took advantage of an opportunity presented from Sasha becoming a walker, which is in itself an intelligent reactive and quick thinking response, Carl is the first person to start the war and the first person to get captured. Obviously we don’t see a lot that battle, but whatever he did, it didn’t work out very well. He wasn’t staying in a group, first of all - he was only with Scott from what we were shown, and Scott for whatever reason ran off, leaving Carl by himself, who does not have full vision range by any means. Staying in a group may have prevented that - let’s not forget Aaron, Eric and Francine weren’t at all far away from him when he first started shooting. It doesn’t seem he made the effort to stick close to a group. Starting the war was a brave thing to do and was absolutely done intelligently, but a social cue may have been a good way to prepare at least someone - say, Scott, who was right beside him - that he was about to shoot. The Saviors and Scavengers weren’t exactly blowing heads off for people looking around and moving their heads. One eye movement to Scott and back to his gun for example could have helped. Scott could have indicated to the next person, etc. I’m not saying it’s the only means of planning or attempting communication, but what I’m saying is he made no effort to do so. It was a smart move that he made to take advantage of the situation, but again, it was not fully thought through (and it caused a lot of chaos and confusion on both ends). He was definitely focused on Negan initially, so any thought he gave wasn’t that much. The moral of this massive paragraph? MASSIVE IMPULSE. Yes, I’m telling you Carl started all out war based on extreme impulse. Literally.

Flat emotion

Was Chandler falling short in line delivery sometimes? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it was intentional. Something I note is that it’s good to base flat emotion in Carl’s tone off of other big cues that were results of brain trauma. Even when angry, sometimes Carl’s voice falls a little short. Chandler has admitted to sometimes being lazy and tired due to schooling on top of acting, but luckily and thankfully for him, he’s also dealing with a character who very likely has issues with his emotional responses anyway. Carl is not shown with extreme anger or grief in S7. He cries for Glenn, sure. He gets aggravated with people and argues, sure. Think about 4x09. Think about the level of his emotional responses in that episode, both crying and yelling (and for reference, think about his thought process/planning in that episode and how well he got himself out of jams while alone).

Overall, Carl lacks a lot of strong emotion and it shows. He’s quieter and has a more bland tone (which isn’t always Chandler’s acting, because Carl’s voice was static like this throughout most of the season and S8). Things that bother him don’t always sound like they’re bothering him. Example, if someone were to hurt his feelings, it might be hard to even recognize. At best, his voice will likely lower in offense, but the emotion may have already been so flat that it’s hard to pick up on.

Headaches (headcanon only)

Also in line with his drinking habits in S9, Carl sometimes gets splitting headaches that he has to rest through or take medication for. Not regarding the substance abuse, this will still be an issue he has before that (just worsened when he’s drinking in S9). This may be used as a reason why he doesn’t fully go through with something in threads (such as needing to shoot someone or get away from something/someone quickly). His response time may be delayed due to severe headaches.

Mood/Personality/Behaviors

Carl is pretty rarely ever smiling or happy after his injury. He has self esteem issues and massive mood drops than shown in earlier seasons. More often than not, he’s pretty upset or aggravated. It’s practically his default mood. Granted, the situations surrounding him in S7-8 aren’t ideal, but he’s not the happiest person in the group by any means in S6, either. Yeah, he smiled a couple times. It’s not impossible for him to be happy or content. It’s just more rare.

Not only does he not talk as much as he used to, but he doesn’t really mingle with people like he used to either. He’s alone or away from people more often. He makes poor decisions without consulting other people about his intentions, or honestly, even his thoughts about a situation. This isn’t something he’d always done: for example, when he had his own thoughts about finding Sophia in S2, he told Shane those thoughts. He wanted his thoughts heard and he wanted to be considered in what Shane ultimately decided the group should do. Carl used to want his thoughts heard and considered (and there was a lot of this in S4). In S6-8 Carl does a lot of things on his own. He makes plans on his own.

Ironically, Carl becomes more observant after his injury. He looks around a lot more and more intently at people sometimes. He also stares a lot, which is not something he used to do. Sometimes this could be blank - he may just be looking around with nothing particular in mind. Jokes aside that he basically burns holes into people’s heads from his death glares, he does actually stare a lot in S7.

Despite his flat emotion and usual anger, Carl actually displays fear much more often after his injury. Perhaps it’s because it’s become instinctual after that injury and because of it, but Carl visibly displays fear or apprehension much more often in later seasons (which hasn’t really been an issue for him since S1-2). Watch 6x16, 7x07, 7x08, 7x16, and 8x08 over again and get back to me. :)

Substance abuse (headcanon only, S9)

Though Carl never previously drank alcohol, he was often exposed to it growing up when the apocalypse started. Such examples are at the CDC with all the adults drinking and some literally getting drunk (and Daryl the next day dealing with Jenner’s explanations with “I’m gonna get shitfaced drunk again” - an immediate example of getting drunk to deal with severe issues and easy to impression with a younger person), Hershel went to deal with his shock by going to a bar to drink (thus, also dealing with his issues this way), and Abraham drinking on the road after they moved on after Tyreese died (and I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure Carl sat there watching him at one point when they were all sitting down).

According to what I’ve researched for the sake of this topic, alcohol use gets worse around two to five years post injury. For timeline’s sake, let’s say it’s instead a few months that Carl has before the Saviors become a problem for them (because to be perfectly honest, I really don’t think Carl could have recovered to the point he was at in S7 in the amount of time the actual timeline was). Let’s assume because fuck canon that the war is a little longer. So with the first S9 timeskip, also counting the 35 day period between 9x01 and 9x02, average that to about two years since the injury. Shortly after the 35 day period Carl loses Rick. That’s when his drinking starts. Honestly, this was all part of my muse’s canon long before I began my research for this, so the two years fits in and though it is the minimal range given, that’s only when it begins for Carl. Carl struggles with drinking for another two years (so that’s now four years into the injury, which is still within 2-5). That’s when his drinking is at its worst, and though the habit continues on at a much less severe level later on, into the present time returning for S9 (as of 9x06), Carl retains his habit of drinking when problems come up or he’s dealing with heavy grief or stress.

Also worth noting is that alcohol will be stronger after a brain injury. His drinking can be bad (again, predetermined in my muse’s S9 verse) in those two years. Add onto that the brain injury, and if the effect is stronger than the fact that his habits are already dangerous (not necessarily life threatening because I have it headcanoned to my muse that while living with Daryl, Daryl has helped him try to regulate the problem and keep it from getting to that severity), as well as that alcohol can worsen depressed/low moods (again, worse with brain injury) Carl is basically A Fucking Mess for two years. I think that’s kind of putting it lightly.

Ultimately

Because this pertains to canon events for my muse, I can’t say Carl was left at Alexandria for the whole war, as my muse takes part in the war in S8. However, this will also give room for anything in this list to happen during the war prior to him returning to Alexandria (before 8x06, as him finding Siddiq and being there during Alexandria’s bombing is still in place. I’ve extended the war’s timeline for my muse to fit things in for writing). I will say though that it is possible in canon that Carl was left in Alexandria and didn’t join the war because of his impairments. Would you want your son going out into a war like that with half his vision???

Also, let’s not forget Carl more or less effectively got captured by the same group three times in a single season (effectively 6x16, 7x07 and 7x16). That wasn’t an issue at all before.

To sum this shit up, more minor issues (not day to day) involve memory and headaches. Major issues (day to day, meaning these are constant issues he can’t really fix save for the last one) involve social, thoughts/planning, impulse, emotion (often flat/lacking), mood/personality/behaviors and substance abuse (again, S9 specific, but when it happened, it was bad).

A lot of these issues are things that heavily frustrate Carl. He’s rarely aware of an issue when it’s happening or why it’s happening, but things will often not go his way or work out for him and that gets to him. There are times he can’t understand why a plan didn’t work out, or he has no idea why he’s arguing with someone. He can’t always figure out what is wrong with him or why something isn’t going right. Basically, I hope your muses are patient with him because patience is a big thing he’ll be needing!

I’m pretty sure I forgot things and I’m pretty sure sooner or later I’ll come back to this post to add stuff, but there you go. More hours of my life given to Carl.

[dccomicsbookshelf]

Bat-Sized

at the request of @midnightrooftops​ here are my headcanons/canon takes on the Bat Clan and their overall height and shape and miscellaneous tidbits related thereto.

Long Post is (Very) Long. I am sorry. I’ve been sitting on this one for awhile.

Bruce: People joke about Brucie all the time but I don’t think they realize just how good of an act Brucie is. Because Bruce Wayne is built like a prize-fighter. 6′2″ (188 cm) broad-shouldered, and just pure muscle. And yet he is widely believed to be the least physically dangerous person in all of Gotham city short of…I’m actually trying to come up with someone the Gotham public believes to be less of a physical threat and drawing a blank. Your average gothamite great-grandmother is more dangerous than Brucie. No one knows how he does it.

Kate: Apparently the tall genes are a Kane thing to go along with the vampire complexions. Kate is 5′11″ (180 cm). She walks around in mini-dresses showing off her arms and thighs. She is ripped, why anyone would ever look at her, even drunk, and think “lets mug this chick” I have no idea. She has a fondness for heels that boost her up into the 6′3″ range. She enjoys intimidating creepy old men.

Barbara: Babs’ adult height, stood on her feet, is 5′7″ (170 cm). She seems fairly unintimidating physique wise until you get a look at her arms. Babs has all the upper-body strength. She can outlast Jason at pull-ups. (And guys have a physical advantage at pull-ups because testosterone builds those muscles. The female body has to work for it.) It is acknowledged that Babs has the best arms in the whole family. She is able to still take to the sky even without having any use of her legs. She was fairly average growing up. Not tall but not short either, no shortage of muscle, as a competitive gymnast and later vigilante, but overall, fairly average for an Olympic level athlete!

Dick: I’m not going to talk about Dick’s butt because there are literally entire blogs devoted to it and I am part of Team Can We Please Stop Objectifying Dick Grayson So Much Thank You. Here’s the thing though, as an adult, Dick stands at 5′10″ (177.5 cm), definitely not short. But for some reason people tend to think of him as short? Which is actually a mix of several things. 1) Dick hangs out with a lot of really tall people. His first girlfriend was 6′5″ (195.6 cm) not counting any added height from her hair. 2) He was frickin’ tiny. Dick Grayson, up until he (finally) got his first major growth spurt at the age of 17 was generally guessed to be at least two years younger than he actually was. It was at its worst in his mid-teens, when most of his friends were at least 6″ taller than him. So a lot of people are just used to thinking of him as short, even though he isn’t anymore. As far as build goes, he’s fairly lean. He bulked up a bit while he was Batman, and hasn’t shed all of it. His current build is between Batman and Pre-Batman. He also has no spine. It’s the only explanation for why he’s still able to do some of the contortions he does. By all rights they should have become impossible for him by the time he was out of his teens. (It’s probably trace electrum from the tooth the Court marked.)

Cassandra: Is petite, though entirely made up of scar tissue and muscle. There was about a year where she, Tim, and Steph were all 5′5″ and they had fun with it, though unlike the other two she never got any taller. Literally every inch of her is muscle. She’s compact and tough as nails. Despite that, she’s on the slender side. Pound for pound she is easily the strongest member of the family. Is the only one who has biceps that could honestly give Babs a run for her money. What she’s really built for is speed and her reaction times are off the charts. Partly because she knows what you are going to do before you do.

Jason: See, here is the thing. Jason was always going to be tall and strongly built, that was never in doubt. He was predicted to grow up to be around Dick’s height and a little bulkier back when he first lived with Bruce. And then he got dunked in a Lazarus Pit which had the effect of removing the damage done by a childhood’s worth of malnutrition, trauma, and poor health. All of which is to say, by the time Jason is done growing he is a freaking tank. He will forever resent Bruce for the one inch the man has on him (Jason is 6′1″/185.5 cm) but he easily comes to match Bruce in sheer size. He enjoys taking advantage of his height and weight…well, advantage to torment his brothers. Dick doesn’t really care, its actually just about the only topic he can’t get Dick riled up on, and Tim just gives him a wearily resigned look whenever he starts looming. Damian stabs him when he picks him up to walk off with but it was totally worth it. Jason is a bruiser and a brawler and is built like the last guy you would want to run into in a dark alley. (Thighs and pecs are what get whistled at for Jason.)

Stephanie: Despite Damian’s insults and insinuations, Steph isn’t fat. She has a sturdy build and isn’t necessarily what you would call thin, but given that she grew up in Crime Alley, that is a point of pride as much as anything. She’s a bit top-heavy, the struggle to find clothes that fit both the boobs and the hips is so very real. So real. She stops growing when she’s still in her mid-teens, ending at 5′6″. She has fantastic core strength. Post-pregnancy, her hips have a tendency to go a little wonky on her, but it isn’t usually an issue. She’s very proud of her abs.

Tim: Tim somehow manages to give off the air of being either a scrawny little dweeb or a slim, trim, aristocrat, depending on the circumstances. It is a lie. Beneath the baggy hoodies and tailored jackets he’s lightly built, yes, but the boy’s got some muscle on him. He’s self-conscious because, comparatively speaking, his physique isn’t that impressive. He only thinks that because he’s comparing himself to Bruce, Cass, Jason, and Dick. By normal, not-obsessive-vigilante human standards he’s very impressive. Height-wise…He was always just slightly on the small side but he maintained a pretty steady growth rate up until he just…stopped growing. No growth spurts to save him, he reached 5′8″ (172.5 cm) a couple of months after his nineteenth birthday and just stayed there. That leaves him, once he’s done growing, two inches shorter than Dick.

Duke: Matches up to Kate’s 5′11″ with a build not dissimilar to Dick’s, though slightly stockier. Has fantastic shoulders. He likes his height, he’s safely in the middle of the Family, so he doesn’t get dragged into most of the “shorty/giant” hi-jinks. He was also tall and broad enough by the time he joined the Family that he has been able to (mostly) avoid Cross-dressing For Justice™. Was somewhat disappointed to find that his size is not enough to always protect him from being picked up/tossed around. Dick and Jason have both done so at least once.

Damian: Dami is a midget okay. He’s almost as small as Dick was at his age, just a slight bit stockier. (Dick was scrawny on top of being a shrimp) Damian weighs a lot though. He’s a solid little bundle of rage and muscle. The thing is, he won’t stay small for long. He’s going to hit fifteen in a couple of years and then shoot up like a rocket. By the time all is said and done Damian Wayne will stand 6′4″ (193 cm) and he will love it. He won’t ever be as bulky as his father or Jason, taking more after his mother in that respect. He is the tallest member of the family and never lets Tim or Jason forget it. Everyone still calls him things like “Baby Bat” and “Lil’ D”.

Alfred: Stands an even 6′ (183 cm) and, like most of the family, is deceptively muscled underneath his suit jackets.

To close out, a list from shortest to tallest, final adult height.

Cass - Stephanie - Tim - Barbara - Dick - Kate & Duke - Alfred - Jason - Bruce - Damian

Has been edited to correct my mix-up between Cass and Steph. Never try and transcribe your notes into coherent headcanon posts when sleep-deprived, kids.

[riskeith]

you just responded and i nyoomed to answer. yes my days consist of waiting for you. yes i’m not ashamed to admit it. <3

that makes so much sense actually? like A Lot of sense. i don’t think you should feel bad about that at all i mean if you are comfortable with how you perceive them then by all means! haha! what’s fun about fanfics is that people can take one character and shape them in so many different ways. canon doesn’t anyways give us depth to characters yet writers do which 🙏🏽 godsent. but then again, it can feel weird if someone makes them behave like ~someone~ else haha. i remember it used to be a hot topic in voltron actually, where people would portray lance as a weak and emotional guy only even if he’s arguably the bravest and most bamf... people didn’t like that very much. do you know what i’m talking about?

I’M SO EXCITED TO READ ALL OF THESE. thank you so much you just set my late night weekend plans 😏. and oh god esselle is the ao3 writer. i love their bnha fics so much. can’t wait to read their haikyuu stuff as well. kagehina too... 🥺 dude, i saw some oikage things last night and i have my eyes open.. 👁 i know you like them a lot so hm... i’ll definitely read that as well i love the summary already.

he’s puppy-like so would he like to play in the water? i want to say so, just bc i think it would be cute for him to splash around 🥺

just one?? wow now i get what you meant in your earlier messages, shskdhsk. all my current friends i’ve known since we were children, i don’t even know how to make new friends irl tbh.... AND SAME!!!! CHILDHOOD FRIENDS TO LOVERS GO BRR. and god the best thing is how things change but at the same time they don’t? like they start to notice little things and realize they’ve always liked them? or the ‘i thought best friends felt like this towards each other’.... aaaaaaaah. 🥺 but then again enemies to lovers.. the tension and the yearning? the moment everything just snaps? god i couldn’t pick my favorite i don’t think. i just love those two so much equally hahah.

if it’s cyberpunk vibes i will combust. i love those aesthetics so much.. (waiting for ps5 to restock so i can run around in night city in cyberpunk 2077 forever.) but yeah it makes sense for it to be themed like that but it’s so funny to think about transporting from the whispering woods to like... large billboards and grungy streets. AR 35?? oh that’s must earlier than i expected. so i take it the main story isn’t done yet?

how sexy, even though this blog is just our messenger app at this point snskdhkddhj.. once again, i’m sorry riskeith stans.. 🙏🏽

i wish i could get you all the cotton candy in the world. and wow kenma HAIR!! sounds so cute but wait oh my god,,, do you have short hair,....... 😳💗💓💕👁💘💝💓😭💗👀💖💓💘💝💞 do you? 😳💢 how was it shaving everything? must’ve been such a big decision!! 😳

ikr? like most of the fics i’ve read portrays them as a angst ship which i do love a lot but you’re right it’s funny bc in canon they’re just.. supportive idiots. i think it’s the oikawa fangirls thing and iwa being annoyed by it that people get hooked on. at least i think since it’s almost always there in the fics... :+ DO YOU LIKE IT? i’m so obsessed with it i saw a edit on ig with klance and that song earlier and it fits them so well too... 🥺 anyway back to iwaoi, i think i like writing from iwa’s pov actually? i haven’t tried writing much from oikawa’s yet but idk.,, iwa’s personality just speaks to me. also i like that oikawa’s personality is so complex to understand, it’s easier to spice up the angst that way. (I DON’T 🥺 it’s such a sad topic for me bc it’s my ultimate dream to drive but it costs soo much money to get it here and i’ve been too busy to invest... 😭 wbu?????) I KNOW MEMO AND OH MY GODNESS? i’m sure the fic is sooo good oh god.... the vibes. 😭 please tell me what it’s about. please. 🙇🏽‍♀️

OH it means that i’m just gonna reread your fics until you post something new... here i thought i was being clever and cute shshskdhdks

STOP YOU KEEP MAKING ME SO EXCITED aaaa ma’am please... think about my heart. 🥺

here’s a new topic to discuss; are you a coffee or tea person? (or neither.. please don’t say so)

kiss, m.a. 💘

i keep forgetting to check whether you’ve responded or not before shutting down my laptop and i’m left to answer on my phone 😭😭 and i too spend my days awaiting your responses <333 but i always forget to check after a period of time HFJSKFKSKCKNC i swear i’m checking like once every 5 min but the moment i forget you respond NCKSNDN

bro (do you mind being called stuff like that lol) writers give us everything canon is too cowardly to give.… truly blessed 🙏🙏 yeah i do!! there are a lot of complaints about mischaracterisation in hq fandom too actually… which i think is fair enough but at the end of the day just let these people have their fun you know.. it’s not harming anyone and if you don’t like it just don’t read! lol

i haven’t read much of esselle’s bnha actually (aside from tdbk) but i just know they’re absolutely amazing!!!!!! absolute legend i hope (i know you will tho hehe) you enjoy her kagehina toooo. and yes oikage!!!!!! omg pls 😭😭😭 i wish they were more popular aaaa

🥺🥺🥺 razor in one of those baby pools.. RAZOR WITH POOL FLOATIES!!! my goodness 😭😭😭😭

fjksnxksndm yeah but i think i might be an outlier in that… LOL oops. and you’re so right like they just grew up together and like grew in love it’s so natural and just comes to them like they were always supposed to be together and they are <333 bc soulmates <33333 BUT YEAHHH THE MOMENT EVERYTHING SNAPS YOU KNOW IT!!!!! god when person A SAVES person B even tho they’ve “hated” them the entire time...… but when they were faced with a tough circumstance they realised they couldn’t bear the thought of being without them 😩😩👌👌👌👌👌👌

omg ps5.… ngl i considered buying a ps console so i could play the last of us 2 chxjjskskxjxjs. have you seen all the cyberpunk memes tho? lolol. nah main story isn’t done!! i think the main story is supposed to develop all 7 worlds until we find our sibling so like.… it ain’t gonna be over for a LONGGGG time (lol omg could you imagine if mih*y* pulled a me and like 4 worlds in was just ‘ok soz i’m uninterested now you can imagine how the game would’ve gone’ HFJSJFKSKFKDJ)

HAHAHAHHA it legitimately is. riskeith who??? more like marriage anon stan account. fjdkfnnd anyways to my other followers hope y’all are enjoying the show 🤪

i do have short hair rn!!! lowkey a bowl cut but i’m also trynna grow out a mullet djksndksnd. and having a shaved head was so nice.. i literally just couldn’t stop touching it after cjskckksnfks. and it wasn’t that big of a decision to me tbh i’m not that fussed about my hair like i know some other people are djskkd the biggest obstacle was getting my parents to agree 💀💀💀 (much like i am trying now..…) i used to have my hair long for ballet, but once i quit i just kept getting it cut shorter and shorter and then voila! shave. GJDJKSKDND

true.. jealous iwa.. i have that in one of my wips i believe FJSJJCKSKDK (it might even be in the memo fic?) AND UHHHH i didn’t love the song ;–; it’s just… slow HFKALDLAKDK and not the mood i was in when i heard it cjdkslxllskcjskcnkscnkzmxmcm omg no not klance 😭😭 they have a lot of angst too.. (i say, as if there isn’t a single klance fic of mine that doesn’t have angst JFJDJSKDJ) OMG YOU LIKE WRITING IWA POV TOO???? you 🤝 me iwa kin. i joke that it’s because i, much like him, am very much in love with oikawa. (aw no i’m so sorry for bringing it up 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 but i’m on my learner’s rn!) IVE POSTED THE OUTLINE ONCE (not a good sign… LMAO) https://kaheyama.tumblr.com/post/190015338287/yall-want-some-iwaoi-angst THERE!! also wait i just realised it has manga spoilers.… maybe don’t look fjdknfjd (you could stop after “pining iwaizumi hajime” but i don’t want to accidentally spoil you 😭😭)

JFKSKSLAKFKSKCJLSKD IM so sorry it WAS clever and cute my brain was just not big enough at the moment to understand 😭😭😭😭😭 but thank u as always i appreciate 💗💗💗💗💗💗💗 so honoured you would even think about going back to them lord knows i don’t KFKSJSKA

HEHEHE NO MERCY!!! but ok ok i shall lay low until the day comes 😋😋😋

tea!! simply bc i can’t sleep if i drink coffee fjskfjsj. but that’s been happening with tea too so i haven’t even had tea recently 😭😭😭😭😭 flavour wise i think i like coffee more but also you get so much more variety with tea? hm. HAHA. hbu??

hugssss, c.r. 💝