#(which i think also makes sense from the standpoint of keeping her within the pearl clan)

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

also i know it’s not a common take but i DO think it would be really funny if sneasler and melli actually got along. turns out they just have Bitch Energy at similar frequencies and it results in a mutual understanding

[animezinglife]

I hate the drama on both sides and don't want to contribute to it. I have my bias, but I try to look at it objectively knowing what we do about the bond.

If Elain rejects the bond, all I ask is for Sarah to completely free both her and Lucien from it. Tap into some deep magic to do so if she has to, or have it severed in a way that won't then leave either one of them wondering, "What if?" Otherwise, it's going to be very hard--and unlikely--as a reader to feel any sort of investment in whoever they do end up with (if not each other).

It's hard to imagine though that after the pain and suffering Lucien went through losing Jesminda and the pain and suffering Elain's gone through losing Graysen that Sarah would then have a mating bond snap into place between them only for it to end in more pain and rejection. Lucien had thought it would snap with Jesminda. Elain was about to marry Graysen.

What an awful fate for them both then if they're forever intertwined in the way mates are and it doesn't work. If they are rejected. As much as people like to bring up the incompatible mates theory...they would then have to consider first any ways in which Elain and Lucien aren't compatible.

There's not one.

They're both two of the more uniquely kind characters in the series. Both have the ability to see things others can't, are relationship-oriented (Lucien's life and success depending on his ability to make and keep connections and it being a natural part of Elain's personality), and have a quieter type of resilience that's constantly underestimated by the people around them.

They have a thoughtfulness towards others--Lucien buying her enchanted gardening gloves to help her protect her hands, and pearl (which symbolizes anything from wisdom, protection, and prosperity to love, joy, and marriage) earrings. They're an understated, timeless, and serene gem: not overpowering or overbearing. They're also one of the only--if not the only--gem formed by actual life. Some consider them too to be a symbol of strength, protection, and the potential for a long, enduring love.

Pearls--true pearls, as her earrings are--are also extremely rare. We're so accustomed to manmade "pearls" that we don't typically think of them as such.

Elain doesn't know Lucien as we do yet. We've spent far more time with him than she has, know how he thinks, and we have his backstory. We understand his intelligence and what he's willing to invest in and sacrifice for the people he cares about and loves.

I think of Elain buying paints for Feyre when they could barely afford a meal: something that may not serve them in the long run, but that she knew would bring Feyre joy. Something Feyre could turn into something beautiful.

Just as she could do with those gloves.

I fully believe they think in similar ways when it comes to people, and that their love languages will be the same.

All this aside, though, it's possible Elain could reject the bond. However, I highly doubt SJM would ever have her do so without even getting to know Lucien (which would be a complete waste of a fairly life-altering event for them both from a storytelling standpoint) and without her ever having to actually confront the bond.

Right now, Elain is hiding from it. Running from it. She's actively keeping her distance from Lucien; shutting him out and not letting him get close to her.

He has respected that at every turn, even though it hurts him.

I guarantee it hurts Elain, too, even if she doesn't fully understand why.

What would make far more sense in terms of rejected mating bonds is to have it occur within characters who have a damn good reason for it: Helion and the Lady of Autumn, or Mor and Eris. It could even be both for all we know.

If Helion and the Lady of Autumn are mates, it makes sense that she would reject that bond. She's married with children. Her entire life--even though it's arguably terrible--is in another court. She doesn't love Beron, but she does love her children. Her love of Lucien is entirely clear, and I often think of the way Eris purposely angles himself to protect her in ACOWAR as a sign that she's shown him a great deal of love, too.

I think people who want to jump on this idea of her leaving and taking her sons with her are looking at it through far too modern of a lens. Beron is a powerful high lord. Those are his heirs--or at least, one of them is--too. She can't just file for a divorce and go run to Helion without there being massive, dangerous fallout for all involved. We all know what decisions Beron is capable of making.

If there is a bond that she rejected, she's sacrificed herself in the process, likely out of love for her children and love of innocent people who'd be caught in the crossfire more than fear.

That makes sense. For her character, and for the story.

I'm more than a little suspicious about the situation between Mor and Eris. Mor doesn't have a strong track record of honesty (ironic given her alleged power being "Truth"), and Eris always mixes truths with his lies. I'm far more inclined to believe him in that we don't know the true story of what happened, that Mor does, and that there's a reason she reacts so strongly to him when she seems to fare far better against males who've directly harmed her.

We would understand why Mor would reject Eris without getting to know him if she's inclined towards females. If she knows from experience that she can't feel the same degree of attraction and emotional connection with a male. Yet if there was a bond there she rejected, it makes sense why she can't stand to be in the same room with him (while she somehow fares much better with Keir and can gut her way through a battlefield without batting an eye).

I've also seen a theory floating around that Mor and Az could've been the rejected mates, and I suppose it's not impossible. She could have rejected him for the same obvious reason, and it could be why he's continued to pine after her so long. Although if I'm being honest, I just think that's Az's way and that it's a result of his childhood.

Of these two non-pairs and IF there is a rejected mating bond anywhere between them, I'd put my money on Mor and Eris.

Regardless, any of those three options gives us a story of ill-fated, mismatched mates who've rejected the bond, but in a way that we can understand them all being able to overcome and in a way that's still "satisfying" to readers. It keeps true to the idea of mates and what the bond means for them. What it does to them. It's not romantic, but it's okay.

The thought of it having to be "okay" for Elain and Lucien hurts my heart. It'd be a bit too close to reality to see the two arguably sweetest characters who've consistently had their hearts stomped all over end up having what's considered to be the catalyst for the highest form of the deepest love in their world taken from them once it's been given.

In my completely subjective opinion too, the chances of Elain deciding she doesn't like Lucien once she's gotten to know him are not exactly high.

Assuming he's never had that bond with Mor--and I don't think he has--I also want that happiness and love for Azriel. To pursue that with someone whose mate isn't him does him a disservice, too.

Idk about y’all but the idea of a rejected mating bond is so incredibly unromantic to me it makes me cringe. Who would want that

[itsclydebitches]

On that ask about show/tell, if I may, it reminds me in some ways of how Rose Quartz was treated by SU. She was always said by everyone to be perfect, yet everything associated with her in season 1 is dangerous, and what everyone says about Rose doesn’t match up with what the audience is shown. It seemed deliberate, to later sweep a rug out from under people's feet. Do you think it's possible that RWBY is setting up a similar rug with this idea of 'heroism=always right' and 'kids v adults'?

(You definitely may :D)

I’ll admit straight out that I don’t have the knowledge that a lot of other SU fans do. I’ve always watched the show purely for entertainment, mostly turning my brain off and just going along for the ride, allowing others to do the analysis, theorizing, etc. That being said, to my mind the discrepancy between show and tell in that case did seem deliberate, but the show actually acknowledged that conflict in a way RWBY has yet to. In SU we’re suppose to pick up on the disconnect and grapple with it, both to fuel interest—who is Rose Quartz really?—and, ultimately, learn more about the main characters. To provide a concrete example, we have Pearl’s obvious love and devotion, at odds with, as you say, the rather dangerous and at times even cruel choices Rose has made. We hear Pearl say “You’re wonderful” and watch her cry over Rose choosing to abandon them to give birth to Steven (among other potential flaws in her character). There’s a definite disconnect, but for me I never thought—like with RWBY—“Why is the show trying to convince me that Rose is 100% good when she’s clearly not?” The message seemed to me, “The show isn’t telling me to think anything, it’s providing me with information that I can now interpret for myself. Pearl believes Rose is 100% good, but we have seen otherwise. This tells us that Pearl’s perception is skewed. Her love has blinded her, just as their devotion and trauma have blinded the other gems. The stories they feed Steven are sanitized out of love (don’t speak ill of the dead), fear (did we lead that rebellion for nothing?), his age (he’s just a kid who lost his mom), and lack of knowledge (they don’t know a lot of what we’re shown). It makes perfect sense then that what they say doesn’t match up with our more objective knowledge. I wonder when the characters will learn/acknowledge what we the audience have known for a while: that Rose is a far more complex person than they’ve painted her as?” Which is precisely what the show does. We get to watch everyone grapple with these revelations and those arcs validate the audience’s reading of the text. We knew Rose wasn’t 100% good like everyone said she was and now we get to watch the rest of the cast catch up as they realize that. We knew that revelation was coming and anticipated it.  

This acknowledgement of the discrepancy is particularly evident through Steven. He’s the one always asking questions about his mom, expressing anger, doubt, becoming frustrated with these platitudes he’s given that don’t add up to the facts—he picks at that conflict between Rose the story and Rose the person like a scab and, because he’s our protagonist, we do too. We’re encouraged to grapple with it, question it, decide for ourselves where we fall before Rose’s true nature is finally revealed. RWBY Volume 6 had none of that. It would have been a very different story if Ruby had pushed back against the rest of the team. Or the team had pushed back against her. If our newcomer (Maria) had pushed in from the outside. If the story’s structure had provided hints (i.e. music that conveys the message that Ruby is making a mistake in attacking Cordovin as opposed to the triumphant music we got, things like that). In short, if the volume had done anything to say, “We’re providing you with multiple perspectives here that you’re meant to debate. Do you think Qrow was justified in hitting Oscar? Do you think they made the right decision in stealing the airship? We’re acknowledging that there’s no black and white thinking here.” 

Instead, the show insists it is black and white. That there’s one answer and the answer is The Protagonist Is Always Right. Every aspect of the show said loud and clear, “We agree with this! This is good! Hop on this bandwagon because absolutely no one is going to challenge it!” The closest we get to the story questioning any of the characters’ horrible actions is when the group reacts badly to Jaune attacking Oscar (and even then the show pulls back in the worst way: no one really calls Jaune out on his shit, no one reaches out to Oscar, there are no consequences to Jaune’s actions (like Oscar leaving, which everyone expected), Yang is only worried about him. The overall message is the same we got for episode after episode: the protagonists can really do no wrong. Even when we subtly acknowledge that they make mistakes there are no repercussions. There’s no growth. Those mistakes are inconsequential). It’s only through the viewer’s personal experience that we might question what’s happening on screen, because the story in no way encourages us to as SU does. It’s only thinking to ourselves, “Does someone who does all this really fit my definition of a hero?”  

Thus, there’s nothing within the story itself, to my mind, that tells me RWBY is setting up something larger; that this OOC, protagonist-centric writing is setup meant to be turned on its head. Is it possible we’ll start Volume 7 with criticism of their actions? Absolutely, but so far I’ve seen nothing that makes me terribly hopeful it will be there. At this point I expect that any push-back will be framed as largely undeserved: Ironwood reams them out for their choices but the scene is highly sympathetic towards the group. We’re supposed to feel sorry for them getting punished over something they “had” to do, not satisfied that they’re finally learning from their mistakes. We already saw it with Qrow. Rather than encouraging us to take his fears about stealing the airship seriously, we’re instead encouraged to side with the group in viewing him as a pessimistic drunk who doesn’t want them to succeed only because he’s given up, not because the plan is actually absurd. The show came down hard on the side of kids in the kids vs. adults debate, thereby undermining any criticism adults might have. The show made Ruby’s plan entertainingly badass, pulled strings to make sure it succeeded, had Cordovin change her tune in the most absurd way, Qrow too, Jinn is randomly team Ruby, they walk away with absolutely 0 consequences… from a narrative standpoint everything is telling us, “They’re heroes who did the right thing.” If even evil, mean Cordovin ends up approving of Ruby by the end of it all, who is Ironwood to question her? He must be delusional. He must be wrong. Because every other character and every plot point is holding up a neon sign claiming that Ruby is right. 

In comparing the two shows, it’s also worth keeping in mind that Steven Universe is just tighter writing all around. Is it perfect? Of course not, no show is, but it has been meticulously planned by Sugar from the get-go and I can easily see that work in the final product. When something doesn’t add up in Steven Universe, like with Rose, I have complete faith that this conflict is there for a reason. We notice it, the show confirms that we’re supposed to notice it, and it’s eventually resolved. Sadly, I don’t have nearly as much faith in RWBY’s writing. 

[profxcio]

How to Get Away with Parenthood

in which jayce calls out his soon to be ex-wife to try and discuss settlement ideas for sunny, and the conversation goes about as civilly as anyone who knows his soon to be ex-wife would expect it to go.

his lawyer would advise against this. jayce knows he would. but that doesn’t stop him from arranging a meeting with eunji. it’s in two star’s cafe and the place is well lit and well populated. she wouldn’t get away with a scene, so at least that precaution was set. sunny was nowhere to be found, spending the afternoon with lacey who still plays babysitter even when she’s not reaper7′s manager, so nothing but truth should come from this.

there’s something about the way eunji walks that allows jayce to always know when she’s coming. or maybe he’s just always been hyper aware of how much dead space lingered between each of her steps as she moved. hyper aware of her footsteps as opposed to the dozen other steps surrounding him in that little cafe upstairs. is that normal? is it normal to know the difference between your abuser’s steps and someone else’s, so that you know to be ready to react? 

when eunji sat down across from him, jayce noticed immediately that she’s wearing a new dress. he knows it’s new because it’s not something she’d pick off a rack herself. it’s formfitting and sleek, jet black with a thin golden chain around the middle acting like a belt. there’s a string of pearls around her neck too. and all at once it comes together that she’d been dressed and pampered by her new boyfriend to look presentable and put together. she’s also sporting a ring, a diamond in the middle surrounded by smaller ones. this is what really catches jayce’s eye.

“...you’re engaged.”

“he proposed at dinner last night. i was so surprised! “ she laughed, what appeared to be genuine mirth in her voice, “right before you called. so you’re the first to know. haven’t even told my parents yet. jaehyuk and i have to set a date but we’re planning to move in together and everything. it’s all pretty nice.”

eunji smiles in a way that almost makes jayce sick. she’s taunting him in the open. she’s moving on, she’s getting married, she’s so put together and beautiful and jayce is a single dad rooming with six men and a baby, drama surrounding them and currently on hiatus and only had one coffee date with an extremely busy barista who uses her paycheck to care for her mother and barely make ends meet planned. the realization of this all made jayce’s stomach sink, and it took everything within him to keep the bile that was rushing to his throat from coming up and he glanced down at his cup, taking in a breath to calm the rising panic.

“jayce? you sick? you look so pale.”

he looked up, “i’m okay.” there was something in eunji’s eyes when he looked up too. something jayce didn’t miss. amusement? satisfaction? it didn’t even take her words anymore to scare jayce into some form of submission. no threats, no tantrums. just looks, and salting wounds of insecurity that had yet to heal.

eunji cleared her throat and laced her fingers together, “so where’s soonhee? i was hoping to see her ”

“with lacey. i told you on the phone she wouldn’t be here.

“ahh. of course. she’s with her ‘mother’” she responded with a sigh and her tone dripping with venom.

jayce let out a frustrated sigh, “eunji, you can’t be angry at a four year old for calling lacey ‘mom’. she’s been there since she was a baby, and you only just came back a year ago. what do you expect from her?”

eunji never really liked lacey to begin with. there was some prejudice there. this clearly american woman making her way through the south korean entertainment industry. for some reason it didn’t sit right with her. the disdain was only made worse the day sunny slipped up and called lacey ‘mommy’. jayce had asked lacey to be sunny’s godmother, and sunny had overheard and translated that into ‘this is my mother’. jayce explained the difference, but sunny seemed unwilling to accept that.  since then, eunji has hated lacey hall.

“but she’s not my mommy. lacey-noona is my mommy.”

lacey is mommy. eunji is noona. and jayce is daddy who has failed to convince her otherwise. 

lacey had stayed up long nights with a screaming infant just to allow jayce to sleep for work. lacey organized play dates, changed diapers, helped her pick out clothes, helped with homework, brushed her hair, and answered every question sunny could possibly think of. lacey was definitely mommy in the little girl’s eyes. eunji was nothing more than a glorified babysitter at this point. 

“i can be upset if i fucking want to, jayce. my daughter is calling another girl ‘mommy’. you didn’t even try to teach her about me while i was gone. she didn’t recognize me when i appeared. did you ever even show her a damn picture of me?”

“i didn’t know if you’d ever come back!  why would i plant ideas of you in her head if didn’t know if she’d ever see you again. you just left us out of nowhere right at my debut!”

her hands slammed down on the table top and she rose from her seat. the table shook and scooted, making a loud enough scraping noise on the tile floor that other customers in the cafe began to turn to look at her. jayce flinched a bit and scooted back, memories of what normally followed these blow ups still to fresh in his mind.

“i was depressed.” she hissed,”i had postpartum depression!”

jayce reached out for her arm, urging her to sit back down, but she snatched her arm away. ‘don’t touch me’ she mouthed, and he sighed before responding with, “lots of mothers go through what you went through. they don’t leave their families behind.”

“yeah! some moms KILL their infant daughters! some moms shoot their husband and kid and then turn the gun on themselves! but i had the good sense to LEAVE instead of putting you both in harm, and i’m the evil one here?”

he shook his head, “i am not calling you evil. i’ve never said you were evil. but you refused to get help, eunji! me, my family, even two star wanted to help you and you just vanished for three years instead!”

eunji fell back into her seat, sucking her teeth and waving her hands in dismissal. in usual ‘i’m tired of this conversation, we’re moving on’ fashion. and maybe at some point in the past, jayce would’ve taken the hint and gone quiet about it. let eunji bully him into not speaking his mind, but not anymore. he continued.

“i didn’t call you here to fight, eunji. i called you here so i could try and maybe talk you into willingly passing custody--”

“no. lost your fucking mind...you could’ve asked that on the phone instead of calling me down here--”

“--because i know you aren’t thinking completely about this.”

eunji opened her mouth to speak, but the words hit her square in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. jayce simply looked at her, waited patiently for any sort of response from her. and once she’s composed herself, she responded, “and how’s that?”

“the fact that on paper, both of us look like completely capable parents. we both have steady jobs, we both take her welfare into account, we both can provide fully for her. from a strictly legal standpoint...neither one of us is any better than the other. so from there, it’s about where sunny is happier and i think it’s only fair for us to decide that, not a judge.”

jayce knows that’s not what she wants. he knows full well that this is a power struggle in her eyes and that ‘winning’ sunny in the eyes of the legal system would give eunji all the gratification she desires. but he wants to settle this politely and kindly and hopefully in a way that will cause eunji to turn her gaze off herself and on to her daughter.

“she’s so happy when she’s with me, you know?” eunji said, “hyuk and i take her out to the zoo and all sorts of great places. she eats well and then she completely passes out on the bed when we get her home and i hate having to wake her up to take her back to that crowded dorm of yours.”

jayce nods, “she talks about that. actually, sunny is in kindgarten--”

“i know she’s in kindergarten.” eunji snapped, and the small smile that had painted jayce’s features was wiped away.

 “ah--y-yes i know that you know i was just...i just meant that when she comes home from your place, she talks about how excited she is to see her friends and tell her about everything she saw. her teachers love her, she has lots of play dates. she has 6 older brothers and a zoo’s worth of animals to play with, and she’s even got a baby brother that she loves a lot. she’s gotten to travel and see the world with us and she’s got everyone at two star wrapped around her finger. she’s really happy in her day to day life...”

an impatient sigh and eunji snatched up her bag and jayce sat upright confused by her sudden impatience, “you’re just bragging.”

“i-i am not bragging. we were talking.”

“next time you want to talk about something, bring your attorney and i’ll bring mine so i’m not coerced by you.”

jayce stood from his seat to catch her arm as she tried to walk away, “i was not trying to coerce you!”

“you’re afraid of me because you know i’m better off!” she snapped back, that same sickening smile and glint in her eyes from before that made jayce release her arm of his own volition and fight back that bile threatening to come up once again.

“eunji-ah...”

“no. no ‘eunji-ah’.” her voice was quiet. calm. almost sinister sounding, “you’re scared because you know that she’ll live a better life with me. if you were so certain that she was happy and secure with you, you wouldn’t be trying to talk me into giving her up. because you know that on paper i actually look much better than you. i win, jayce. i’m taking her. not a damn you can do about it.”

jayce wasn’t sure how long he stood there after eunji left. it could’ve been minutes or hours, it all felt the same as he stood there with his stomach churning violently, panic rising again as somewhere deep down inside he truly believed she was right. and of course he wanted what was best for her. so if eunji was best then...shouldn’t he let it be?

no.

no he couldn’t accept that. he didn’t want to. he wanted his daughter to stay with him, and maybe he was being just as selfish as eunji, but in that moment he realized that he hadn’t called eunji out to talk calmly to discuss what was best. he did it for exactly the reason she stated. he was terrified. and he’d wanted an easy end to this struggle.

he wasn’t sure how long he stood there before his feeble attempts to keep it all down failed and he was suddenly vomiting on the floor of the cafe. they say stress and anxiety can do awful things to the body, but he hadn’t anticipated such a visceral response to it all. he hadn’t eaten in a few hours, what could he possibly be vomiting out? it felt like his insides. his thudding heart, his choked up lungs. 

when he’d finished, he’d been rushed out of the cafe and into the on-sight infirmary. when he was asked who he wanted to call to take him home, he’d said hajoon and the physician gave him water and asked about his symptoms. jayce listlessly explained he had none. just a stressful conversation and the physician wrote her a prescription of ‘go home, get some rest, and don’t let the stress of this life get to you.’

jayce let out a breath, “to late for that.”

[obdurare-archive-blog]

how do you feel about dmtnt?

Lmao oh. Oh, gosh, anon I. /sweatsOkay, yeah, no. I’m glad it’s breathed life into this fandom that I hold nearest and dearest to my heart. I’m glad to see more people in it and talking about it and drawing fanart for it (like this one bc I am not a Sparossa fan at all but the art is lovely and it’s still cute even it’s not my thing and I now subscribe to the headcanon of Hector with full-body freckles). Like I’m glad to see new people come in, and old people return. Feels like home again. I’m glad it’s made so many people happy.ALSO LET ME PREFACE BY SAYING: These are my feelings on the film. In no way do I feel this way about any DMTNT rpers or their interpretations on my dash. You guys are all fucking fabulous with what you’ve done, and I am here to play with you all, no matter how I feel about the source material. You’ve done an amazing fucking job with what you were given and I am in awe of every last one of you. Which goes to show how I feel means not a fiddly fuck, because you guys are giving pure gold. And know that if you wanna ever do a thing, just hit me up. Because I don’t give a good goddamn, we’ll figure it out. I want to write with you. Keep rocking the fuck as hard as you do, and know each of you are here because I want you to be.HOWEVER I have a lot of issues with this film.

I haven’t been shy about my issues with characterization and canon non-compliance within the film. And I’m not about to start now. Me? I hated it. There were a couple of things that rang true to me, that sounded IC to me, but on the whole I felt like it was a tangled, disjointed mess of a movie. But also understand I’m looking at it from a I really love my boy and how does this even work in actual canon standpoint. I think I’d be a lot happier with it if it were treated - in fandom - like a soft reboot with no bearing on the original trilogy? It could work that way. But as it stands, there’s just so much that directly contradicts 14 years of standing canon, I can’t love it, and I can’t really use it.So from a Hectormun perspective:Hector is hollow in this movie. I know a lot of people have feels about him, but from a squinting at his character from every angle view that I have, he doesn’t sound like himself. The Hector Barbossa I know and love would never hide in his cabin with a private band. The Hector Barbossa I know and love is an active, working captain, who is boots on deck at eight bells and out and about amongst his crew. Because he understands that his position as captain only lasts as long as they want him to be captain. He’s vain, but he’s not really flashy. His biggest physical vanity is his hat, and even then it’s feathers in muted, natural colors. He wears old and tattered clothes because that’s not what’s important to him. He doesn’t trim his beard because fuck what Jack thinks, have you seen Jack? He’s a walking disaster.From a character perspective, I have a hard time believing a man who baby talks his pet monkey could leave a daughter of his at an orphanage. Especially an orphanage of the 18th Century. I have a hard time thinking that he would let other people take the experiences from him of braiding his daughter’s hair and reading her bedtime stories. Say what you want about Hector - he’s a hard man - but once he loves, he loves just as hard. And if you don’t think he’d love his baby girl more than anything on the planet you are wrong. It would probably be the first time he’d experience the want to put someone else before his own desires and wants. I’m sorry, I just literally cannot buy he’d do this. Maybe it’s wanting to believe he’s better than what he is, but I don’t think so. I’m eyes-open on the things he’s done for survival. Aware of how terrible he can actually be. But as attached as he gets to his pets, and how the compass pointed to her the entire time he held it, I cannot believe he wouldn’t have had her literally strapped to his fucking side the moment she was born.I have issues with Jack. I have issues how we go from “I’ve never actually been that drunk,” to slurring his words, when Jack has never been like that. Ever. In four movies, and about twenty books. I have issues with Jack demanding tribute. @pearlsparable has written a great thing here about it, you should go check it out. Pirate captains do not demand tribute, or they do not remain captain for very long. I have issues with the production value, too, but that’s another thing entirely. I have massive issues with the change in how Jack got the Wicked Wench. It’s so integral to who he is I feel like changing it cheapens his character so much. It takes away so much depth the original storyline gave him. I have a lot of PoF love, y'all, you’ll pry it from my cold, dead hands. I also have issues with the compass giving. This whole thing has been built around him bartering it from Tia Dalma, and it cheapens her and him to rewrite it because…I haven’t figured out why. I feel like this whole script could have used a cursory wiki check.I have issues with Will and his being a morose bastard about things. Will knew the duty. Will knew he was more suited than Jack to do the duty. Remember that talk on the Pearl? “You have to do the job, Jack. Or end up just like Jones.” Will was meant for the duty. “A touch of destiny.” Tia Dalma knew, too, I believe, when she she laid eyes on him. Also lots of issues with how Henry (I’m sorry, babes, they should have kept with the Williams and this one should have been Willie, Henry jars really bad for some reason) is kind of. Left to swim back to his own boat. I have problems with Henry not being given any depth when he could have been so much more. Like there was so much potential in this film and it all feels flat.I feel like Salazar was so much wasted potential. As is, he’s still great, those special effects are hell unnerving and fucking zombie sharks, I am always here for zombie sharks. But I feel like he could have been expanded on so much more. Look at Hector from CotBP. That’s how you write a sympathetic villain. And Salazar tries to reach that same level of writing craft, but it’s not a fault of Javier Bardem, who is fabulous, but a fault of a shitty script that left him filling in too many details. I’ve seen rpers here who do a much better job of giving him depth and feeling and a solid feeling than that script did. So kudos to you guys for being awesome, too. You’ve made him into what he should have been, and I’m so grateful to see so many talented people picking up the slack there.I’m disappointed in the handling of this romance of Hector’s. She’s a name. A throw away line. If she’s someone Hector Barbossa fell in love with, then she was someone worth remembering. That I promise you. She should have been more than that.I’m angry that the writers can’t seem to write an intelligent female, apparently, so everyone else feels a bit dumbed down to compensate. I’m angry, because this is Hector Barbossa’s fucking daughter and they wrote her so blandly and I saw nothing at all of him in her and I wanted to. I wanted her to be as witty as she’s supposed to be. I want her to be everything she was supposed to be. I’m fucking pissed they give Hector this backstory that 1. doesn’t really jive with original canon and 2. do nothing to actually explain it, on top of short-servicing what should have been the two most important people in his life. You don’t give my boy this and tear it from him two seconds later. You don’t. I’m so glad to see so many good Carinas out there fixing this, making her everything she’s meant to be and more. I’m so glad. I know I can count on fandom when the official source fucks up.I’m super fucking pissed a lot of this with Hector was for a tortuted metaphor. I get why it’s supposed to be super feelsy, but for Hector’s character in totality it makes no sense. I’m angry his death was actually pointless as hell. I know it’s Geoffrey Rush bowing out, he’s said he’s done now, but I’m still mad.I’m just mad, anon. I’m mad I waited this long for this movie, and this is what I got. One that doesn’t even make sense with the rest of the canon and treats all the characters like cardboard pieces that can be moved with no autonomy. One that could have been amazing with a cursory continuity check and some better writers (we also almost had Russio back and I’m salty af about that, too). This movie is an example of something that could have been a wonderful chapter ending, that ended up a goddamn disaster.  I’m mad for all of us, because I feel like we all deserved better.Now that I’ve said all that, lemme say this. You DMTNT rpers? Keep doin’ what you do. Because you guys are 10000% better than the writers of this movie. You’ve actually given these characters some life, so I’m so glad to know each and every one of you. I may not be canon compliant for your guys for all of the above, but that never means I don’t want to write with you. Like I say in my rules, hey. My Hector won’t really have a clue who you are, but he’ll roll with it. And so will I. You guys are 100% welcome here, always. In no way is this a reflection on you, or your quality. Because I wouldn’t be following you if you weren’t quality, and you can take that to the bank like money.