#... see THIS is why i don't write meta

[things-stronger-than-fear]

can we talk about the katniss/lucy gray parallels (or lack thereof) for a sec?

they're superficially the same, because of the things we talk about all the time: they're both female victors from 12. there are things that come with that culture and background -- the mockingjay, the plants, the songs. those similarities aren't so much between them as people, as individuals -- they're born of coming from the same culture. the most significant thing they share is their resilience; their spirit of resistance and rebellion. their defiance.

but really, all those things they share, only serve to demonstrate just how different they are as individuals (because personality is different from upbringing or values).

we parallel their sarcastic bows, but they're so so different. lucy gray is a performer mockingly curtseying and saying "kiss my ass", where katniss is a hunter who doesn't have time for this society bullcrap.

they both sing the hanging tree, but as i've ranted about, their renditions show how different they are: lucy gray, again, a performer with a spirit unbroken, loud and charming and sassing right to the capitol's face, daring them to defy her, daring them to look away. katniss, again, a hunter, quiet but unyielding, sparking rebellion under the capitol's nose.

they both won their games, but in such different ways. lucy gray charmed the snakes (both literal and in the form of one coriolanus snow), while katniss threw down with weaponry.

lucy gray said look at me, care about me. katniss said fight for me, fight with me.

and so what we see is that they are not at all the same person, but that's what's so important. because it's not just one person or one type of person that puts their foot down and rebels. we don't need a specific kind of Chosen One to light the spark -- anyone can.

[skrunksthatwunk]

idk if i've discussed it before (i have certainly THOUGHT about it) but someone on my kuwa suffering ep 89 comp mentioned it and i just had to go off about it like. ok. sensui tells yusuke something along the lines of "you heard itsuki" when itsuki's inside the uraotoko, implying that not only can sensui hear those inside the uraotoko, but that he expects yusuke to be able to as well. which means that yusuke Almost Certainly Heard And Kind Of Ignored kuwabara's prolonged mental breakdown and wailing about how much he needs yusuke to live etc. which. guHHH i hate him yusuke you ass but also listen.

the only acknowledgement yusuke gives to this (if any) is when he says something like "sensui you're sooo fucking cooked this plan's going perfectly (my friends are going to get strong and kill you when i die)." he's trash talking to sensui, ignoring the others because, i think, he doesn't want to acknowledge what he's doing to them.

yusuke is explicitly recreating the experience he had with kuwabara's "death" at the hands of toguro, complete with the announcement of intent (and power) to kill, the inability to impede the threat in any way (barring a power-breakthrough), and the target in some way racing towards/volunteering for their death. yusuke learns through doing, and through tough love-style approaches. it's only effective if it hurts. watching kuwabara die like that was devastating to yusuke, but it sure as hell fucking worked. he beat toguro because of that maneuver. so even if he has to (re-)traumatize his friends in the process, this method will make his friends stronger, and he feels confident in that. but he never had to live with the consequences of kuwabara's death, not really. that's something hiei makes clear before they enter the cave as well, that there are no fake-outs ready to make him or anyone else stronger. the only deaths here will be real. the only power gained will come at a high, permanent cost. hiei's warning is an attempt to keep everyone alive, to keep yusuke from being stupid. and then yusuke decides to take that fatality into his own hands, but it's kind of his friends who would pay the price. he's going to make them live through the days, months, years without him, the actual permanency of loss (assuming they survive for that long), something he never experienced with kuwabara (a new facet of that traumatic scenario), AND he's escaping the emotional fallout of this choice through death. he doesn't have to see them mourn, won't get yelled at, won't watch them fail to move on. he's tapping out and choosing to believe they'll be fine.

but i think he feels guilty. just a little. i mean, yusuke couldn't even believe that people cared about him enough to want him alive in episode one. he's staked everything on his friends, which means he still kind of... doesn't value his own life, at least not compared to theirs. but he believes his friends love him and want him around, and we know that because he has to, or else he wouldn't make a plan that depends entirely on that love. he is actively leveraging the care he doesn't think he deserves, trying to hurt them in a way he is intimately familiar with (only worse), for.... what, exactly?

this is kind of my sticking point tbh. i don't think the answer is... super clear, but let's start with what it's not.

yusuke is not doing this because it is the most practical way to save all of humanity; that would be the mafukan, which he stopped. it could be a gamble to save all of his friends? the mafukan strategy would guarantee koenma's death/eternal imprisonment, whereas this strategy gambles all of humanity on the chance that his friends come out of the Easy Break Oven strong enough to avert the end of the world. if the sacrifice of even one friend is completely intolerable, perhaps he'd accept those slim odds and their steep consequences. yusuke tends to take risks like that, especially when he's got fight-induced tunnel vision. he doesn't think things through too much; his schemes are usually dependent on surprising his enemy enough to oneshot them. truthfully, i think this is the closest we'll get to an answer, and it's a more conventional one for this kind of story. but there is another layer i haven't been able to get from my mind.

i think yusuke is gifting each of his friends an honorable warrior's death.

so, in case it needs saying, yusuke, kuwabara, kurama, and hiei all (at least once, if not several times) exhibit a desire to die in combat in a way they deem noble to give their lives purpose (usually by self-sacrifice, but sometimes by another metric of honor, like hiei's duel with shigure and his desire to die in mutual defeat against an evenly matched opponent; or even kurama's decision to fight shigure in his human form, displaying a sort of passive suicidality via placing being true to himself in this (somewhat symbolic/inconsequential) way over survival). they need to make their lives count for something, because they feel guilty for being alive (kurama and hiei feel guilty for their past actions (hiei's is most evident in his distance from yukina, though that's not its primary reason), hiei, kuwabara, and yusuke have all been ostracized and made to feel like burdens on/unwanted by their caregivers and general society; all four of them have felt profound isolation even from their loved ones (yusuke and hiei are rather obvious; kurama can never tell his mother about the majority of his life nor what she truly means to him in the context of it; and kuwabara is separated from his peers for his spiritual awareness and his "stupidity" (plus his parents aren't around? and he is Desperate to define manhood/manliness through a broader pop cultural one which includes the warrior sacrifice thing bc he has no male role models BUT that's for another post) (i will admit kuwa's the most tenuous one here irt isolation)). they want to die for a cause so badly it's actually physically painful to me. it is passive suicidality, and they define their lives and identities by their relation to, engagement with, and skill at doing violence, etc. they live to die by the sword. anyway. nobody talks about it but i think it's very important to understanding what yusuke's doing here.

because i think he knows that about himself and his friends. they're kindred spirits. at the very least he knows this about kuwabara, who literally made a speech about this before diving into toguro's fingers In The Event That He Is Recreating Explicitly. he is dying nobly like they all want to on the chance that they'll get to break out and fight sensui rather than dying without even getting to take a swing. it's about his pride and theirs. but i don't think yusuke necessarily believes they'll win. he knows better than anyone how strong sensui is, and how wide the gap is between sensui and team urameshi. his stated position that humanity is doomed and that he doesn't care about its fate is, i think, not completely genuine, but if we take it at face value, he's not killing himself so that his friends can survive the end of the world. something's going to come around and kill them eventually. he's doing it so they can survive long enough to fight sensui. he needs them (specifically kuwabara) to be strong enough to free themselves to begin round two. but he's given up on their side winning, on humanity surviving, on his own victory---why should he think his friends are capable of winning? this could be another case of yusuke's fight-blinders. it could be another gamble, more blind faith put in his friends. but honestly it reads more to me that yusuke's giving them a chance to die together on the battlefield. them winning would be great, but it's not his goal. it's a pipe dream.

he knows he's going to be killed. they're probably going to be killed, too. but to make it so they last a little longer against sensui, to make the odds a little more even, so they are killed not like livestock, but like worthy fighters, he'd die a little faster. it's the best kind of death someone like them can have; and he'll deprive himself of it just to make their ends a little sweeter. even if the road to that is far more bitter.

but it's not like yusuke's friends know what he's thinking or agree to it, and he can't exactly make his case for it in the moment. he's making that choice for them. whatever his intentions, whatever odds he thinks they have of beating sensui, he's kind of sealing all of their fates. so how the hell is he supposed to acknowledge kuwabara screaming at him not to die, trying desperately to express what yusuke means to him in what could be their final moments together? this plan is going to hurt his friends terribly. it is already doing so, and he can hear it. his choices to stop koenma from using the mafukan and to die for his friends' strength are both selfish in some way, no matter how you read the scene. if yusuke comforts kuwabara, he might not get strong enough. if he twists the knife, well... how could he forgive himself? and either way by responding he would have to face them all and say yes, i'm doing this regardless of your feelings (with the intention of hurting you). so i think he does what he often does. he avoids it. he lets that emotion glance off him and his bravado and his one-liners so he doesn't have to deal with the fact that he's hurting people, that he's scared and guilty and unsure of himself. that he's about to die again, about to put kuwabara through the grief he saw at his wake again, only worse; about to put his quieter friends through something similar.

yusuke is confronted with the responsibility one has to the people who care for them, and he runs from it in an attempt to give them some small peace. just like when he died before and thought hey, at least my mom and keiko won't be burdened by me anymore. because the only thing he can really do for them is die.

[necrotic-nephilim]

What are your opinions on Casstim?

i LOVE CassTim. i've actually written a CassTim fic that's mostly just fluff and smut, but i have a lot of ideas/thoughts about them that play with the more complicated aspects of them.

i'm of the opinion that Tim and Cass were a potential romance that DC left the door open for before Tim got adopted by Bruce. (and tbh, even after he got adopted there were certain interactions in Red Robin (2009) that felt romantically implied) a lot of their interactions have implied feelings on both sides so of all Batcest ships, i think this one has a *lot* of genuine canon backing despite it being one of the most underrated ships of the fandom.

the dynamic between Cass and Tim is really interesting to me because Tim doesn't want to be Batman in any capacity and thinks that goal is actually incredibly unhealthy and unachievable, whereas to Cass it's the thing she strives for the most and if anything she wants to be even more than that. (Batgirl (2000) #59 actually has a really interesting discussion about that and that whole post-War Games arc is fun for understanding how Tim and Cass feel about each other) so a lot of their interactions clash because of that and they can't always see eye to eye on what vigilante justice and Batman's vision should look like. their relationship with each other is always going to be dependant on their relationship with Bruce first, as well as the Batman mantle as a whole. so for them to love each other (which, they do without a doubt, romantic or not) they have to accept where they don't agree with each other.

there's such a gentleness to CassTim, i think? not because i think Cass (or Tim tbh) is gentle, but i think for the exact opposite reason. there is this fullness and drivenness in the way she loves and her undying devotion to them. she would do anything to protect her loved ones. and when you combine that with Tim, who's pretty self-sacrificial at his worst, you have some interesting conflict because they're both too-willing to die for the other. their lives are defined by violence, *especially* Cass', so for her to finally let herself be loved and protected by someone else as much as she loves others is something that simply makes me feral.

they've both been trained by Shiva, which i don't think gets explored enough because it's fun for exploring the way they fight and think in a fight being potentially similar. Cass is *far* smarter than anyone gives her credit for being, and has detective skills on par with Tim, in my opinion. they balance each other out in a lot of ways. they're two people who have *chosen* this fight more than a lot of the rest of the Batfamily. being Batgirl is so important to Cass and it's something she chose because of her desperate want to be good. and Tim chose to be Robin because he knew Gotham and Bruce needed that. while they don't always agree on it, i would argue Cass and Tim understand the nuances of the Batman mantle and what it represents deeper than almost anyone else. because of that i'm particularly interested in a future CassTim, where Cass becomes Batman and Tim is in a weird limbo where he wants to stop being a vigilante but can't seem to quite let go of the life and how they end up meeting in the middle of that. i think it could be really fun with a lot of complicated arguments between them that end in a slow burn romance.

idk man this is baseless rambling, but tldr i love them so dearly and there's so much that can be explored between them. also, i think TimKonCass should be a thing. i like KonCass more than most people do (why do y'all hate this ship it's so good pls hear me out-) and i think as a complicated weird throuple they'd be fun.

[katzell]

Midge and Lenny's alternative adventures

Enough luxuriating in my feelings about Midge and Lenny's goodbye at the airport. Here are some future adventures I'd love to see them have.

Midge and Lenny go on a tour together but after getting tossed off their train by some Christian fundamentalists they wind up roadtripping across the midwest trying to get to Chicago before their show. Susie forbids Midge from ever gigging with Lenny again.

While on a USO tour of military bases in Europe, Midge gets invited to perform at a diplomatic show in East Berlin. And what do you know? Lenny is also on the bill! It all would have been a fun little trip in and out through Checkpoint Charlie if that cat hadn't decided to adopt Lenny and Midge hadn't been convinced they could smuggle it out. How were they to know the cat already had a (high-ranking) family! Susie reaffirms that gigging with Lenny is verboten.

Midge gets offered obscene money to be one of the headliners on an international cruise. She's been in a dry spell because of some Watergate jokes that were honestly pretty tame! At the last minute Lenny gets added to the bill because the male headliner dropped out. Susie reluctantly agrees that they need the money. Of course trapped on a ship winds up being Lenny's worst nightmare so the two of them make a gettaway in Barcelona. Susie's life becomes a living nightmare for months dealing with the breach of contract.

Midge and Lenny never get married, never even properly date. But, yes, there is so much sex. Great sex. The best Midge has ever had. It's distracting really, which might be why she's always a little relieved when they inevitably have to go their separate ways. Love is one thing, but Midge can never let herself become part of someone else's life again. And Lenny is relieved not to carry that responsibility.

But sometimes they argue. Sometimes they have screaming fights and don't speak for months, even years. Lenny doesn't tell Midge things that Midge feels a real friend would know! (But they don't. Lenny doesn't really tell anyone everything). Midge gets stubborn and won't admit when she's wrong. And boy can she be wrong.

During one extended period, Lenny lets himself get talked into a marrying a nice, funny girl who is sweet to his kid and doesn't mind his dicier habits. She's not that sharp, but she's cool, you know. Easy to be with. Then Midge crashes the wedding and by the end of the night he's ready to follow Midge out to her car and speed away into the desert. The annulment goes through in a matter of weeks.

Midge marries three times. Lenny catches the first one in the paper. Some drunken shenanigans in Las Vegas that got out of hand. Lenny sends her a postcard saying "Mazel Tov." Mysteriously Midge writes back, "Once is an accident, twice a coincidence, three times a fucking problem." The second marriage to the singer was widely covered by the press from the moment they were caught exiting his hotel room in the middle of the night. Lenny sent another postcard, "The thing that concerns me most is your shit taste in music." Six months later Midge sends him a ticket to join her at a Diana Ross concert.

The marriage to the media mogul is the one that really pisses Lenny off. It's in the middle of one of their longest dry spells and Lenny sees it as the culmination of their argument: Midge tying herself to wealth, excess, and privilege instead of the subversive values he thought they shared. He almost doesn't go to the wedding, but a nasty part of him want to see this shitshow go down. The feeling deflates when he finds her crying in the bathroom, only an hour after the opulent ceremony. He offers to take her away, but Midge only dries her eyes and says, "Don't worry. I'm going to make him bleed." The divorce settlement becomes the stuff of legends and Midge has Lenny headline the benefit for Midge's new charitable foundation. The endowment will keep the organization is healthy financial shape for decades.

And maybe, just maybe, Midge and Lenny did get married after all. The captain of the cruiseliner said something about them being husband and wife that night they got tanked as they were heading into Barcelona. Neither properly remembers, or really minds. Marriages are dumb anyway. What matters is who sticks around.

[roxannepolice]

My most controversial take about thoschei is that they are fundamentally NOT tragic. They're practically anti-tragic in a way that needs to involve tragedy so it can defy all of its rules, the way comedy just can't. Sprinkling comedic elements just won't do the trick, tragedy having comic relief moments is part of the course. No, you need to have these freaks actually just like each other and the wink to the audience that the Master survived being as much part of the happy ending as their evil plans getting foiled.

If you can't do that, get away from me, even if BBC hired you.

[shimmerluna]

i do think there's probably something suspicious about the way everyone loves Ca$h and Quinni and their depth while essentially reducing Darren to their shared supporting character and/or the sassy black woman(/person in this case) stereotype, but I feel somewhat hypocritical bringing it up

[sumquiasum]

In honour of Tanz Hamburg closing, list of lines that enable my trans Sarah reading.

Sarah @ Alfred: "Du hast was ich gern hätt'"

Krolok @ Sarah: "Ich geb' dir, was dir fehlt"

Krolok @ Sarah: "Du wirst dich in mir erkennen"

[twitterdotcom]

If Izzy dies, I'm not watching season 3. This isn't even out of spite either, I only watched s2 because of Izzy, and if he's not there, then what's the point

[kacievvbbbb]

Let me just be clear I am not shitting on the show I geniunely believe it is an amazing story. And I am mostly talking about the anime I have not read the manga so I do not know how many of these things apply.

But yeah before we begin;

****trigger warning : Contains mild spoilers for Fire Force season 1 and discussion of sexual violence and abuse****

Fire Force fans that complain about people being put off by the "fan service" or angry that this makes the show not as popular really just show how much they do not care about women.

Because you are basically saying you don't care about the consistent sexual

Because the "fan service" in Fire Force is so drastically different that the sexual posing, the constantly bouncing half exposed giant boobs, or even the ass and boob shots which while sexualizing, annoying and have their own problems are relatively easy to gloss over. The sexualization in Fire Force is pervasive and bordering on harassment ad sexual violence.

Because while Tamaki's luck leacher is played as a gag most of the time it is also something that is shown to actively hinder her life. Not just in fights too, it practically led to her ostracization from society at an extremely young age. It is something we see and are told has such a negative affect on not only how the people that she worked with view her but on her mental health as well. And for fans to just regulate it to an annoyance that distracts from cool fights is so geniunely disgusting. especially when we are talking about a character that is canonically still a teenager and a minor.

But it's not even just that, at least that gag gets addressed by the fandom and has story consequences. The thing that really kills me and irritates me (and I'm talking about the anime because I haven't read the manga so i don't know if this happens there as well) is how no female character( except Maki whose running joke is how unfeminine she is which is whole nother discussion) can enter a single fight without ending up practically naked at the end of it. It's so disconcerting because this never happens to any of them men. They can take whatever kind of beating and their clothes will still be compeltely intact. But the women enter any kind of fight and if they dont comeletly lose their jacket it's in complete scraps.

like this is tamaki at the end of a fight

even worse cause she was getting completely beat up by this dude she really looked up too. And people use these images like they are sexy and cute. Hell it was used on a happy birthday post for her. And find Tamaki just lucky leecher right? Wrong

Here is Iris, a character that is supposed to be a nun at the end of a not even that serious fight.And that is arrow a woman who is literally supposed to be highly trained and had a bunch of men fighting with her whose outfits had not a rip in them.

and this is Shinra (main character) after a fight that completely pushes him to his limits and he was taking hit after hit.

His fit completely intact.

That arrow pic is the one all these youtubers have as their reaction video thumbnail. Like that just doesn't look like sexual violence. Like I don't understand how anyone can look at that picture, especually knowing the context of the absolutely horrible abuse she is facing in it, and not immediately feel icky.

And that's the thing in almost all the fights with female characters especially if they are losing (which when your Tamaki is often) they are posed in such ways that combined with their "artfully" postioned nudity looks a lot like sexual violence.

I'm sorry like look at this. How does this not just read as sexual violence to you. And maybe in this particular case you could make an argument that it was supposed to be implied because the bird man in the pic was supposed to be mentally manipulating her and it was all just generally really fucked up and abusive. But none of it was explicitly or even outside of this fight, implied to be sexual. It was just in the context of this fight and this and some other posing that felt so sexually violent. That i was honestly so disturbed when I watched it (which admittedly worked cause you were supposed to be disturbed by the levels of manipulation this woman suffered under).

but yeah for fans to not even acknowledge how disturbing this is how uncomfortable this is not only for the female character or the female fanbase but just anyone who might be sensitive to sexual harm or abuse. For alot of these pics to be used as sexy images like we don't know that the context is horrific violence because that's the thing all these pictures I used where taking from moments that these characters where experiencing not just tremendous overwhelming physical violence but also mental abuse and attacks. The least horrific fight here is Iris' but it was still mentally devastating for her as it was being done by someone she considered a sister. To divorce any of these pictures from their context and put them in thumbnails to catch perverted eyes is so genuinely disgusting I can't even fathom it. To not even recognize the sexually violent undertones of the image is genuinely baffling to me.

And I'm not saying all this to shit on fire force or discourage anyone from watching it because I do genuinely think that it has such an amazing story. And such an great representation they have loads of black characters that aren't stereotypically drawn (hell they even have a nigerian which i can't tell you really tickled my nigerian heart) and honestly despite what my post might lead you to believe the female character are so well thought out and incredibly nuanced and diverse. It honeslty does female characters alot better than shows that don't have this problem. Hell even with Tamaki's lucky leecher and the exploration of the deeper trauma of it was so artfully done that it almost made up for the amount of times I had to see this girls panties. The explorations of the different kinds of abuse and societal neglect or religious trauma and abuse, of living in uncertain times where you could die at any moment is so poignant and honestly so well done I've fully never seen in anime some of the ways that the aftermath of abuse is explored like was done in this show, trauma and recovery is not one and done in this show it is continueosly acknowledged and built upon. Hell one of my favorite episodes of the series is an exploration of how trauma can lead to the strangest coping mechanisms and soothing.

The show is genuinely compelling enough for me to push through all this to see the story unfold. Because again just to be clear while the posing looks very sexual no actual sexual violence occurs. And I will be going back to watch season 3 whenever it decides comes out. But it does lead me to just ask why? Why all the heavy sexualization, was there a fear that the show couldn't stand on it's own? It's one of the only animes I've ever seen where the amount of fan service actually hindered it's popularity. it was made by the same mangaka that did soul eater which Ive heard has it's fair share of fan service but wasn't hindered by it on the same level. Which gives me hope that atleast some people felt it but couldn't put their finger on exactly why it unsettled them. (because honestly besides Tamaki and the odd shower conversation scene outside of these fights the female characters aren't really sexualized one or two of them where a revealing outfit but it's just that a revealing out. which is what makes the sexualization in the midst of violence so fucking weird it's just ahhhhh) the show also occasionally falls prey to the MC saving all the damsels in distress because he's usually the one that does MC things to swoop in and save them. Especially with Tamaki but she will then use this not wanting to be saved anymore to try and get stronger. And she honestly goes out there and gets the teacher that taught the boys to teach her and she gets a training montage which I've never seen a female character "i have to get stronger like them" ever get before. so that's neat. It is also the first time I have ever really seen where a majority of the most powerful characters are female. Where there are a good number of powerful female character really who have agency both good and bad.

But yeah anyway I wasn't sharing this to discourage anyone from watching the show and honestly I'd recommend anyone that can stomach it (to reiterate there is no actual explicit sexual violence) to give it a shot, the story really is worth watching, and honestly if it wasn't for all this ick it'd have been one of my faves but only if you can stomach it. But yeah this was mostly me wanting to let people know what they were really getting into with the show and to share the thoughts I've had but never really been able to put into words since i watched the show. And my frustation with fans (mostly male fans) that say we are overreacting or just refuse to get it. But also fans that try to reduce the sexualization of a major character (who just so also happens to be a minor) to just an annoyance during your cool fight.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Worst Guy Ever - Also, Unfortunately, Very Homosexual Convo. (subtextually)

[provincial-girl]

No, but, for how tightly she clings to rules, I just keep thinking about how bold Greta is to talk about taking Carson on a date in the middle of a crowded clubhouse. They’re behind a half wall, but Greta, honey, you’re still in a crowded room where people can see you, probably hear you too if they wander too close. This is a risk, and she seems to know that, keeps looking back over her shoulder as they talk. No one appears to be nearby at first, but one of the Peaches crosses behind her and goes to a locker literally right next to the wall maybe a second or two after Greta’s last check.

She’s no more than a few feet from Greta and Carson, nearly on the same side of the wall as Greta, so whoever it is (couldn’t quite figure it out, one of the background Peaches) for sure heard enough of that conversation to know what’s up. I think Greta recognizes this too, because on her way back into the locker room, she makes a point of meandering close enough to have some sort of interaction as she keeps walking back towards Jess and Jo. I like to think she does that to gauge how much the other Peach hears of the conversation by her reaction to Greta approaching her.

And now I want a fic from the POV of that random Peach picking up on all these clues, some more subtle than others, that Greta and Carson are together. I want her to walk into the kitchen as Carson touches Greta’s face to go in for a kiss, then pretend she believes Carson’s outlandish excuse that she was giving Greta makeup tips. Or have her sneaking out to the woods to unwind and have a smoke, only to find Carson and Greta fully making out against a tree. Greta and Carson don’t see her that time, and she manages to sneak away just before Greta looks around for the source of the sound. There are other, smaller things that give them away too, lingering looks and adoring smiles that are easy enough to spot if you know what to look for. By the time Random Peach overhears Greta and Carson’s conversation, she’s more surprised that they apparently haven’t been on date than she is by the fact that Greta’s asking Carson out. 

Then Greta turns around and sees Random Peach there. Greta walks by super close and says ‘hi there’ as she gives Random Peach this meaningful look that seems to be asking what she heard. The player just nods and says “we’re good” and Greta’s face remains impassive as she keeps walking, barely breaking stride. 

Random Peach keeps that secret, but that doesn’t stop her from continuing to see and overhear things she definitely shouldn’t. Like the time she walks back into the clubhouse to get the lucky sock she forgot on the bench, and instead walks in on Carson pinning Greta against a locker, and slowly backs out as she makes sure the stubborn lock actually clicks shut this time.

Things like this keep happening at an almost comical rate, and she’s not sure why she’s the one to constantly walk in on these situations, to overhear these things. Random Peach continues to keep these secrets though, intervening or redirecting attention where she can when Greta and Carson are being Exceptionally Bad at hiding their relationship, which is more common than not. She finds out later that there are no fewer than four other team members doing the exact same thing, but that’s a whole story all on its own.

Despite not being super interested in typical romances, Random Peach actually becomes emotionally invested in the ups and downs of Carson and Greta’s relationship, so she’s pleased beyond words when she looks out the window of her cab as it pulls away from the boarding house and sees Carson kissing Greta against the side of the building. Random Peach feels an inexplicable thrill of victory that the relationship she’s invested so much time and energy into protecting appears to be working out.

She’ll only realize next season that one of the reasons she’s so invested in a happy outcome is because she’s a little bit queer too. For now, though, Random Peach is just glad to see a happy ending for two members of a baseball team that has grown into something that feels a lot like family. 

[aparticularbandit]

In which I spent forty minutes stuck in the snow in the driveway and am now safely not halfway in the road anymore and, uh. Hey, look, I have suddenly some free time, LET'S DO THE 2-4 CASE TRIAL.

[tathrin]

#i dont ship them but #LITERALLY THIS #gimli is so calm and collected about that kind of thing while legolas wears his heart on his sleeve

@cheriboms honestly my favorite thing about this relationship is that it's the same relationship whether it's romantic or platonic or who-the-heck-knows-what: they're just like this, no matter what. And I love that about them so, so much. It is absolutely the chief thing that makes them so wonderful and fascinating, to me!

With pretty much every other fictional relationship out there, the way they're written changes, at least a little bit, depending on if the characters are romantically involved in each particular story or not—but not them. They're just them, full stop. Always.

And they're sailing to Valinor and nobody can stop them.

I see a lot of stuff with Gimli losing his temper and Legolas having to hold him back from charging in axe-first at whatever has angered him (sometimes even picking him up to stop him) and admittedly I love this!

But also consider: almost every time somebody offends or insults Gimli in the books, his reaction is along the lines of declaring “I would take offense at your words, save that you are too ignorant to know how wrong they are” in I assume just the most refined, lofty voice you can imagine.

Whereas Éomer threatens Gimli one (1) time in front of Legolas and our Mirkwood madlad is immediately ready to throw-down with half* of Rohan’s army.

I’m saying what I would like to see more of is Legolas losing his temper, and Gimli being the cool-headed half of the pair that has to hold his lanky longshanks boyfriend back from doing a murder.

How about some more of that please, fandom?

[negativepeanuthoarder]

.

[fairyroses]

#can't stop thinking about this #i hate to say it but in general i'm leaning towards the luthor point of view here? i'm all for eyes being wide open #that said i feel neither pov is wrong #the kents have their reasons to believe the way they do and so do the luthors #it's just interesting when the differences between the families are brought into the spotlight #i feel that's when the show was at its strongest #it lost a lot when it became all about love triangles instead of this (via @raelis1)

100% agree and also this is why I claim 'eyes open' by taylor swift as a lex song:

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Since you've mentioned Scarlet Lady in one of your posts, what's your opinion on it?

I've mentioned before that I'm a big Scarlet Lady fan, which is the only reason that I'm comfortable answering asks like this one. I don't publicly criticize the content of hobby creators. That's wildly inappropriate! Punch up, not down.

The linked post was a general discussion of the adaptation process and how @zoe-oneesama did a fantastic job, so for this one, I'm just going to do some general gushing because I do actually like praising and enjoying things!

Scarlet Lady's chosen format (comic) allows it to have this wonderful conversation with canon where it can rely on the framework of canon to tell it's own story while also using canon for jokes and meta commentary. This means that Scarlet Lady is about as close as fan content can get to a direct reboot because it's able to have moments like this one from the comic's first post:

[Image description: Adrien standing in his room after transforming into Chat Noir for the first time. He is beaming and his eyes are shining with excitement as he exclaims, "This is gonna be awesome!"]

A single picture that communicates everything we need to know about Adrien getting his miraculous. When I've done this same thing in fanfic, I had to write out the full scene because that's how novels work. You have to give the full picture. With a comic, you can just quickly acknowledge this thing that we all already know and then move on to the new stuff. A picture really is worth a thousand words! (Or, in my case, more like two thousand...)

This allows Zoe to keep the same akumas that we get in canon without her story feeling like a boring rehash because she can focus on what's different in her version. A novelization of the same content would have to show both the stuff that stays the same and the stuff that changes for it to be coherent. That's a lot less fun to read and write. It's why I basically never revisit canon akumas in my own stuff. It's just too derivative for the written word.

This is one of the big reasons that I loved Scarlet Lady. Because it was able to have that more directly conversation with canon, it was able to take canon and say, "hey, why don't we embrace the tone that you established in season one and retell the story with that vibe?" That's something that I desperately wanted to see, but that is totally unsuited to my chosen artistic form. It couldn't be a novel. It had to be a comic.

If you want to know what a true formula show version of Miraculous would look like, Scarlet Lady is it. It does everything that Miraculous should have done:

Sticks to a lighthearted tone where nothing is ever super serious

Keeps Gabriel entirely unsympathetic

Has slow character development and background hints at a bigger plot as the only serial elements, allowing the individual episodes to be their own story while never feeling incomplete or rushed

Allows characters other than Marinette to shine while keeping Marinette as the clear main character

Makes Adrien narratively important

MAKES THE LOVE SQUARE CUTE SO I CAN ACTUALLY SHIP IT

Understands that Lila and Chloe can't coexist as antagonists

Reverses the love square, which is the best way to tell their story. Yes, I will die on my "love diamond" hill. It's a good hill. Come join me. I'll bring cookies.

I could keep going, but you hopefully get my point. While Scarlet Lady is certainly not the only way to do a formula version of canon, it's proof that a formula version does work! You don't have to go the serious route for Miraculous to be successful.

I want to take some time to gush about the ending, but I don't want to spoil it, so I'll put that gushing under a "read more" in case anyone hasn't seen it. I'll finish out this less spoilerish section with this:

I feel like some people are surprised when they learn that I love Scarlet Lady because - as some of you have probably picked up - it is quite different from my ideal version of canon. I'm not sure why that would stop me from enjoying a thing, though. It's important to remember that our personal ideals are not the only way to tell a good story. There are lots of ways to take what canon gave us and make something wonderful! It's part of the reason that I enjoy being in a fandom.

If I only wanted to see my ideal take on canon, then I'd stick to writing/imagining my own stories. But I don't want that! I like seeing alternate takes, too. Scarlet Lady is one of my personal favorites. It's completely different from anything that I'd ever think to write and that's why I'm so glad that it exists! I like being entertained just as much as I like creating my own entertainment and I don't want to only read stories that look like something I'd write. That's boring!

Spoilers below:

I've mentioned before that there are many, many ways to properly handle Chloe's character and Zoe did such a good job with her take on that! Chloe isn't absolved of all the things she did wrong, but she's also treated as a young woman with the ability to change.

While the comic bares the name of Chloe's alter ego, she was the never the main character. She never went on a journey. The story kept her to her shallow season-one self: a petty brat who just wanted attention. It did this because that's who Chloe was in canon and who Chloe needed to be for the comic to work.

The first time we see any complexity from Chloe is in the comic's final few episodes, which was absolutely the right call for Zoe to make! In a recent post, I talked about how the end of a formula show is the only time when you can break the formula in catastrophic ways and that's what Zoe did. She kept Chloe static until it was time to end the story and that's when the formula breaks. That's when Chloe gets depth because, once she has depth, the formula doesn't work.

That depth is not used to redeem Chloe, but to show us that there's hope for Chloe. That this petty brat who we've been dealing with has some serious issues and needs help. Help that she's going to get far away from the people that she's hurt because her issues aren't an excuse for what she's done. They don't erase the harm that she caused. At the same time, understanding her issues makes us hope that she can be better now and Scarlet Lady took a moment to give us that hope. To show us the START of Chloe's true story.

That is the kind of ending that I have wanted to see in so many properties!!! It was so wonderful to finally get one that did this right. A story that understood that full redemption to the team and damnation to death/suffering are extremes on a scale of possibilities. You don't have to go to extremes! You can fall in the middle and the middle is a perfect, natural place for Chloe to land in this kind of story. Fully redeeming or even fully damning Chloe simply doesn't work in lighthearted formula content. It's too big a lift as canon has already demonstrated.

I also loved Zoe's take on Emilie. I've mentioned that I don't like evil Emilie in part because it makes her revival feel like the start of a new story. She's back and she'd bad, so we have to take her down now! But I don't want that. I want the story to end when Gabriel is stopped. Zoe does this by giving us an Emilie that is another perfect middle ground. She matches canon's uncomfortable implications without feeling like a true villain who is a threat to society.