#And Izzi is legit a canon character.

[angel-dust-addict]

//So if I were to do something like make some actual OCs, would folks be interested? I struggle with Cypher and Izzi, who are canons, but one's an AU and the other has like 4 canon facts about him. So I'm a little unsure about trying to introduce actual OCs. I mean, I'm mostly finished getting the barebones of their blog ready, so they already exist. I'm just trying to gauge if it's worth trying to bring them here, or if they should be Discord-only.

[alex51324]

OK, so I'm now caught up on Interview With the Vampire (TV). I have some observations:

Wow, was that trial ever a master-class in poor-little-meow-meowification! I was legit getting flashbacks from the (season 1-hiatus) Izzy Trenches, with the whole, "Pointing out that he doesn't have to put up with my behavior, and he wouldn't recommend anyone else do so either, is--due to Meow-Meow's personal circumstances--an act of such exquisite cruelty that it excuses pretty much anything he does while he's upset about it," and "sure, yeah, this thing Meow-Meow did sounds bad to you normies, but because we're pirates vampires it's barely anything; a slight loss of temper for which he should be forgiven completely because the other dude said something mean", thing, plus the side of "Oh, but that threatening to leave is the most brutal form of abuse thing applies only to Meow-Meow, and in only one direction; it's fine for decide to part ways with anyone else at any time for any reason, and nobody else has any right to find that at all upsetting."

(To be clear, I genuinely liked this in IWTV; it was interesting seeing an audience falling eagerly into this trap, when the audience is also fictional, and the show itself is winking and nodding to us about it.)

(I do wonder if the show is going to grapple with this at all next season--the reunion suggests that Louis had also fallen into this trap. I'm unconvinced by the fan-theories suggesting that Lestat was an unwilling participant in the trial; there might have been some use of vampire mind-powers to keep him on-script during the proceedings, but I think he genuinely didn't realize he gave a shit about Claudia until it was too late.)

2. The aging-up of Claudia's character (she was a little little girl in the books) puts her at right about the same age as The Vampire Currently Known As Armand was when he was originally sex trafficked as a human, and I wonder about that stirring up some long-buried feelings. Does the grotesque parody of innocence inherent in Baby LuLu have some parallel in his experience as a sexually exploited child? What happened to Arun--or to Amadeo, even--if he failed to play his part with a reasonable facsimile of enthusiasm?*

On the one hand, I'm interested in these potential parallels; on the other hand (glancing back up at point 1), it's a tricky needle to thread, to see these parallels as contextualizing Armand's actions, but not excusing them. I do not entirely trust fandom not to turn this into, "Well, she reminded him of His Worst Trauma, so everything he did to her was basically self-harm, and he pretty much had to kill her in order to achieve closure on that period of his life**."

(*Some of this may be addressed in the books? The Vampire Armand came out on the waning edge of my Anne Rice phase; I'm pretty sure I read it, but I don't remember much about it, and I don't have a copy. The parallels with Claudia wouldn't be, though, because in the books she was 5.)

(**Izzy Trenches flashbacks again.)

3. As someone who read the books back in the day, I appreciated the brief mention in S1 that Louis's grandfather had owned a plantation, worked by men who "shared his complexion but not his circumstances." To me, that line opened up the possibility of reimagining Book!Louis as also being Black.

(To be clear, he canonically could not have been; beyond that fact that It Would Have Come Up, in the first few pages--which I just re-read--he is described as being bone-white. Even if he was mixed and white-passing, it doesn't quite work.

However, Anne Rice did write a book, Feast of All Saints, about a mixed-race protagonist, who was the son of a slave owner and a woman he enslaved. I remember almost nothing about it, except that the white father had promised to free him and send him abroad to be educated, but broke that promise. Porting some of that over onto a book-canon-era Black Louis could be very interesting.

I'd have to re-read both books--and probably TVL, too--to be able to even think about writing it, which is...unlikely, but I put that idea out into the universe.)

[destinygoldenstar]

Using The Sims 4 Genetics To Make TD Kid OCs (This was a mistake) *Part 1*

Title says all.

I used the Sims 4 Genetic System to make TD kid OCs. Why?

I don’t flipping know.

So I have Sims of TD characters. Not all. But I did this cause why not. And I regret my choices cause some of these kids… ugh.

I did a girl AND a boy to make things even. And I randomized their names so… idk someone on the Internet finds this and used these A.I generated characters as OCs.

I really don’t care if you do.

So let’s do this…

Oh, and if you want to suggest a ship I do this with, leave it in the reply or reblog of this post.

Owen & Izzy

So these are my sims of these characters. So you know what they look like.

My Izzy Sim’s got abs. That’s canon, right?

So let’s see what Sims Genetics came up with…

OH NO…

I already hate it.

Their faces are just… NOT that appealing…

I mean Owen and Izzy aren’t TRADITIONALLY ‘pretty’ people. Still.

Why is the boy so muscular? Where did he get that from?

I think their outfits are suitable though. They both got the white going on, and the girls shirt looks like something Izzy would wear.

Izzy seems to have the dominant genes when it comes to hair. They both became redheads.

The face structure just ruins it for me.

I randomized it; The girls name is Madison. The boys name is Elias.

You know, I can see that.

Owen & Justin

Since Owen canonically had a crush on Justin, I’m including it. It’s not a popular ship but since we’re here.

I’m wondering if the kids of Justin would look good.

Let’s see…

OH MY-

Okay.

I swear this was randomized.

The girl. 10/10

I LOVE this Sim’s look. Idk where she got blue hair from. But I LOVE her look. I love the jewelry, I love that it matches, I love her outfit, she’s really pretty.

She looks like a legit Total Drama character design.

10/10 look for this girl.

The boy is… okay. Could’ve been a lot worse. I can see he inherited Owen’s messy hairstyle. I actually think the blue eyes look great for him. He loses me on body proportions.

I expected the Owen kids to be on the chubbier side, but no.

The girl is Kyra. The boy is Brady.

…make as many Beth jokes as you want.

Owen & Noah

Nowen Stan’s. Here we go. You me, we gotta do this one.

I’m a little worried cause they’re so different in appearance…

OH NO…

I hate it.

Why is the boy a punk?!?!?

Sims really said. “Owen and Noah, yeah they’d have a punk bad boy kid”

There are several bad boy characters, game. Why?!

Why are their noses so big?!

I don’t understand.

I don’t like it.

I guess on paper if I were to readjust them, they’d work. But randomized… the noses just ruin it. They’re too distracting.

Girl is Jacklyn. Boy is Stewart.

Gwen & Trent

We gotta do Gwen & Trent. We gotta.

Personally I love my Gwen Sim. I think this is just such a good design and I’m proud of myself for it.

I apologize for Trent though… that’s my bad. I made the sims.

Which are also all on the gallery in the Total Drama hashtag of the game if you want to use them. I have ones for the first gen and the 2023 gen.

So I’m worried this kids are gonna look bad…

SPLIT. Huge split.

UUUUUUHHH

The boy. Uh…

Game. TRENT is the father, right????

I think you got the wrong one in mind…

He doesn’t look that bad, it’s just… I can’t not think of Gwuncan with this one. And this is supposed to be the Gwent kid.

The girl on the other hand. I love her.

She looks a bit like Heather

BUT I still love it. This is a near PERFECT outfit. I love the braid in her hair. She’s really pretty.

She looks like a legit Total Drama character.

I might keep this sim and use her. She’s fantastic.

I don’t see a lot of Gwen in these though. They look like Heather and Duncan and not Gwen. I mean I guess they inherited her skin tone but that’s it. I guess it would be hard cause she’s a goth style character.

Girl is Hana. (That’s pretty). Boy is Daniel.

Gwen & Cody

I hate the ship. But that’s not the point here.

They both look good though?!

They MATCH in outfit?!

The girl has black on?! And makeup?!

They’re both pretty?!

I like that the boy has glasses. That just fits idk. Their hairstyles are really nice.

There’s legit character here.

I hate the ship they came from, but they’re really good.

Girl is Victoria. Boy is Henry.

*Will Be Continued*

[katyahina]

Hey so are Izzy’s admirer and beastclaw Jozef different characters or the same guy actually?

The complication seems to come from the fact that with some Tomb Prospector summons and enemy variants, their face data are identical! So, enemy variants of Executioner are sharing the sliders with Queen Killer, enemy variants of average Tomb Prospectors share the sliders with Gremia (technically, because they have generic placeholder face model instead of sliders used to create NPCs)... and Izzy's Admirer hostile NPCs are just enemy variants of Beastclaw Josef!

(Josef)

(Izzy's Admirer/Successor)

You can already tell they have identical faces! I would like to 1000% confirm this, if I get a decent free-camera tool for Bloodborne to do this, but so far it seems legit! Another interesting detail is that the summons (Gremia, Queen Killer and Josef) have absolutely identical weapons and clothes sets to their "enemy" counterparts! I take this information from a certain Bloodborne wiki all compiled by one guy (@Mephistophea on Xitter, absolute chad) where many datamines are included just to confirm lack of differences! Here ( x ) is the page for Izzy's Admirer, confirming that he has the same clothes and weapons (Charred Hunter set + Beast Claw) as Josef, and here ( x ) is the page for a nameless Tomb Prospector that has the same clothes and weapons (Tomb Prospector set + Rosmarinus and Ludwig's Holy Blade) as Gremia! Mind that there is a variant of hostile Tomb Prospector NPC that has different weapons (Kirkhammer and Repeating Pistol). And... well, with Queen Killer, you can say that hostile variant is the same - naked NPC except for Gold Ardeo and Logarius' Wheel :p

The thing is, two of these hostile NPC are found in preset (so, "canon" dungeons): a single preset Izzy's Admirer in Lower Loran and a single preset Tomb Prospector in Isz! Needless to mention that 'Izzy's Admirer' somehow earned a "profile picture"...?

So yeah, I personally think that this is valid to make an exception for these specific two hostile NPCs since they are found in preset dungeons and make them their own characters! But also, these hostile hunters are just variants of generic hostile NPCs found all over Root Dungeons, besides they respawn... And ALSO, 'death' is a very loud word for Bloodborne lore, so for all we know preset Izzy's Admirer and preset Tomb Prospector might be Josef and Gremia but more in "shadow of the past" form. Like, we kill Henryk and after that we can summon him for the hunt! ...but also, we never need to kill these preset hunters to summon Josef and Gremia...

My answer is, it is up to interpretation! Because Chalice Dungeon summons and enemies specifically went under the 'videogame mechanics' razor the most imo! The certain thing is though, that 'Izzy's Admirer/Successor' is a covenant, and they all use Beast Claw, roam Loran dungeons and wear Charred Hunter set! My headcanon is that they just try to find whatever 'epiphany' that Irreverent Izzy had (in Loran), and wearing Charret set might be either because of their fear before fire (as those seeking beasthood power), because they all were Powder Kegs that agreed with Djura but went above and beyond, or a mix of both ideas! I myself choose to personify Josef and Izzy's Admirer from preset dungeons, and see them as different characters!

___________________

Somewhat relevant information:

(Image from official guide, found on Xitter ( x ))

Here you can see all hostile Chalice Dungeon hunters, SOME of which also made it into being summons! Gremia is Tomb Prospectof B, as you can see! But also, there was a plan for a Vileblood Drifter summon named Leo and Bone Ash Hunter summon named Carla! These names are cut content and I found here ( x ) (together with mysterious 'Defeated Hunter'). Fandom has an agreement that the face data for unused NPC that still exists in the game files is likely Leo:

So yeah, in the conclusion, I myself apply the known face data to Hunter summons (Queen Killer, Josef and Gremia), make unique one for hostile variants found in preset dunegons (single Izzy's Admirer and single Tomb Prospector B) and reuse the unused hunter face for Leo, which I count as Cainhurst character! (I combined the Cainhurst portrait of female Knight and cut NPC Carla, because Carla is a very Cainhurst name and I would not put it past a Vileblood to connect with their ancestors and join Bone Ash Hunters to defend her clan from their own curiosity, but that's another story lol. Though actually this is an idea of @val-of-the-north, I just stealeded it :> )

(Here is the face data page: ( x ))

[katyspersonal]

2, 7, 12 and 14 for maria!

(Asks from this ( x ) meme)

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

There are many... I think this is her complexity! She disliked bloody antics of Cainhurst but still honored her roots enough to represent them in her clothing and weapons, she hunted monsters but some things were just too much for her, she did not want anymore maleficent curiosity of people to drive them to further atrocities but did work at Research Hall where people did try to peer into mysteries of the cosmos... well, she was helping the Healing Church but was vary when it was her friend that joined as a Blood Saint. She is written just like an actual person despite very short dialogue. Someone not so straightforward, someone you can't just "figure out" and need an essay to properly describe!

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

I love fanart and writing of her interacting with other Old Hunters, not just Gehrman! LOST it when she was pictured together with Gratia and (female) Izzy and still thinking about how good that art was <:3 But Byrgenwerth interactions are very good too!

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

I have a lot of them! I like to think she is no less of a bookworm than Laurence or Micolash, but just like Laurence she would be glad to read books out loud to the patients (the ones who could listen and needed to relax). He used to do that too before growing colder, so seeing her like this would cause him pangs of pain. She read all the books in Old Hunters Workshop and meeting in the library was bigger part of her interactions with Byrgenwerth scholars 🤔 Unlike Mico though, Maria and Laurence enjoy fictional novels too, not just pragmatic "textbooks and documentary" kinda thing.

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

Judging from both Doll clothes and her Hunter outfit, I think her wardrobe would contain both 'autumn girl' look (cute beret, warm fluffy plaid skirt going below the knees, sweater west, long coat, you know that look) and that kind of uh... 'dandy' style? Think of this:

Not sure what it is called, but if you legit search 'female dandy' you will find a lot of pictures of a fitting vibe! Shared with Henriett I think, but Henriett would use more of the top hats, pretentious canes and maybe high heels, whereas Maria is a bit more on the "modest" side (always chains and/or flower-shaped accessories though!). I guess this is just a female Hunter moment x)

Thank you for asking!

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (22-28 Oct 2023)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🙂 The Golden Spoon (Jessa Maxwell, author; full voice cast narration) - a perfectly cromulent book: totally predictable to anyone who's read more than 1 mystery but still entertaining in both characters and plot. Gerald, my autistic king, you were definitely my fave. [I did like the idea of having a different voice narrator for each character, since the chapter POVs switch, but the narrator for Stella sounded like the Tiktok automated voice about 90% of the time. I could tell I was going to get annoyed with that & with the way audio draws things out when I can read text so much faster and it became clear the plot was going to be so predictable, so I switched over to reading text ~35%.]

🙂 The Sleeping Beauty Curse (who_la_hoop) - 152K, drarry, accidental soulbond

😍 i come back to the place you are (pizzabones) - 211K, steddie canon-divergent post s4, extremely satisfying slow burn, loved the dual POV structure with eddie in a coma for the first 10 months the fic covers

💖💖 +79K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

soldier keep on marching on (waiting on that morning sun) (songofswiftsunrise) - LOTR: gen, 4k - lovely 'Boromir Lives' AU, inspired by emily martin's incredible art

Pursued by Bear (Zenaidamacrouras1) - MCU: shrunkyclunks, 19K - reread, forever fave, inspired by that tweet about the UFC & Shakespeare conventions occurring in the same hotel

A Tricky Bit of Spellwork (AidaRonan) - OFMD: gen, 1K - legit the only way I'll accept Izzy not being dead is this

Ready for Love (idiopathicsmile) - Singin' in the Rain: Cosmo/Don/Kathy, 13K - the Singin' in the Rain OT3 fic I didn't know I needed

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Mock The Week - s21, e2

The Graham Norton Show - s31, e3 (Laura Linney, Dawn French, London Hughes and Adrian Edmondson)

Taskmaster - s16, e5

QI - series J, ep 12; series T, ep 1-2, 4

Shakespeare & Hathaway - s1, e1

Murdoch Mysteries - s15, e18-24; s16, e1-5

Dirty Laundry - s3, e4

D20: Burrow's End - "Last Bast" (s20, e4)

D20: Adventuring Party - "The Bast of Us" (s15, e4)

Our Flag Means Death - s2, e8

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

⭐ Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Oil and Blood: The Osage Murders

Shedunnit - Spooky Sleuthing

Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals - Teaser 11: Shirley Jackson

⭐ Decoder Ring - The Fast Decline of the Slow Dance

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame

⭐ Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - Auto-Tone

⭐ Song Exploder - Kesha "Eat The Acid"

⭐ Hit Parade - This Ain’t No Party?! Edition

Re: Dracula - October 24: Not Yet Reported

Into It - Britney Was Always Trying to Tell Us Who She Was

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Venturing Into the Twilight Zone with Susan Casey

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Frasier

Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals - Teaser 12: Bram Stoker

Ed Zitron's 15 Minutes In Hell - Episode 12 - Kari Byron

Simply Reflecting - Are We Back?

Re: Dracula - October 25: To His Doom

Vibe Check - I Put A Spell On You

Shedunnit - Bonus: A Haunting in Venice Review

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Great Plains Dinosaur Museum

⭐ Decoder Ring - When Art Pranksters Invaded Melrose Place

Switched on Pop - Chartbreakers: Mitski tops the TikTok chart

⭐ Today, Explained - Why does the US always side with Israel?

Ologies with Alie Ward - Teratology (MONSTERS) with W. Scott Poole

Re: Dracula - October 26: Continue Our Watching

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - The Art of the Heist with Noah Charney

99% Invisible #557 - Model Village

Off Menu - Ep 211: Steve Coogan

Into It - We Will Never Recover From What Justin Did to Britney or: the End of 'Into It'

Dear Prudence - I’m Making Bitchy Comments to A Dog! Help!

What Next: TBD - Self-Driving Cars Crash Into Reality

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Naked Attraction And What's Making Us Happy

Endless Thread - Endless Dread: Campfire Chills

Re: Dracula - October 28: Awful Straits

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Killers of the Flower Moon: Osage Chief Jim Gray In Conversation

Overinvested - Ep. 287: The Exorcist

Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! - Bernie Taupin

Hit Parade - The Bridge: Down at the Rock n’ Roll Club

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Land (1975-2002) [Patti Smith] {2002}

Presenting Talking Heads

Presenting Blondie

Mania [Ramones] {1988}

Nightmare City Punk

[knowlesian]

I can't believe how much "izzy is a beard" sums up in terms of who izzy is to ed. that and your takes on why ed chose izzy exactly FOR his lack of emotional intelligence or desire for friendly closeness are going to be rolling around in my head for ages now

HERE HAVE MORE TO ROLL and watch as this is borderline incoherent/i just end up repeating this when i finish my longer piece, but i have been puzzling over this for ages and trying to figure out how exactly i would guess the lines shook out back in the day.

i think about ed's pre-canon life and choices a lot in terms of "what's the utility", because this team was really good at crafting realistic emotional journeys and people amidst all the outsized and/or ridiculous plot and aesthetics.

the boiled down way to express it would be... metaphorically, ed has always had that red silk close to his chest, but he's only just now beginning to to pull it out and look at it; he can't admit he wants to wear it openly.

it feels safe to say this started faaaairly recently, and it's been going on long enough for izzy to start getting fed up because ed isn't acting like the walls up, mask on version of ed izzy knows and expects to see. who knows the actual length of time and when exactly ed first started to show the cracks in the facade: i legit won't even bother with a guess.

(because look: i just feel like timelines on this show are p much jeremy bearimy, baby. i have stopped trying to guess how long ed and izzy have known each other, when fang joined up, etc etc etc. these characters are all ages at once; maybe izzy has been on ed's ship for five years and fang for five hundred, who could really say. maybe this is ALL occurring in the dot above the i.)

i would definitely say izzy is able to observe the empirical behavioral changes that come from ed getting tired of keeping up the act, but because he can't read ed that's what he labels 'erratic behavior'. erratic means unexpected or unpredictable and out of character, not depressed, and maybe my hottest izzy take is i don't think izzy knows ed is depressed.

(i swear this is leading to actually talking about the old days! at some point!)

and obviously the usual caveat applies that whooo fuckin' knows if i'm reading it right, but i don't think it's a mistake we never see izzy witness ed break down in s1. he's up on deck during the fuckery, he leads lucius to the fort but we don't see him interact with ed during the fort era. by the time izzy interacts with ed again that we see, ed's singing his song on the deck and cleaning up the cabin.

i don't think it's necessarily as cut and dry as 'izzy has no idea ed ever gets upset (not angry)', but when ed says he might try dying because why not!, izzy is baffled. that doesn't speak to me of izzy knowing the depth of ed's pain, or seeing how close he is to legit just saying fuck it and letting all his spinning plates crash because he's tired of maintaining them all and he's not getting much from the effort anymore, where parts of the life used to thrill him.

so izzy can tell something is not right because like... duh, but he's just not good at reading people and ed is very good at obfuscation.

whiiiiiich finally gets me to the old days.

the ed of those days built the kind of toxic ship culture where you cut off toes for a laugh as regularly as you go on benders. (sidenote because i am always lowkey wanting to stress this, the "for a laugh" toe context in e9: very important for analyzing the toe scene, imo. without canon establishing that the blackbeard izzy wants ed to be is a man who cuts off toes for a laugh/that ed knows he doesn't want to be that man anymore, that scene plays out very differently so they definitely included it for a reason. i'm with stede when i say uhhhhh that's a shitty joke! but when you factor in that setup and context, it's pretty clear izzy is legit thrilled because ed did what izzy said he should do. whether or not he knows deep down this is bad for both of them or would have preferred another method: up for grabs. either way the toe was a return to form, and in their old world it was done as a fun little prank and not as a punishment. that's just canon, personal feelings on if that is cool and okay aside.)

back on subject, beyond the 'they shit everywhere' parts ed instituted the pet rule because "the love of a pet makes a man weak". grammatically speaking, that means a lack of that love— a lack of softness, even— makes a man strong.

so: ed's ship culture was set up to stamp out softness, and make men strong. make himself strong. keep those red handkerchiefs hidden, boys, keep your hearts locked away and perform the kind of violence that means evvvvvvverybody understands you are the realest sort of man: a man who cannot be fucked with, or ELSE.

and helLO, mindset izzy hands can fuck with.

so there's point one in izzy's favor for ed. he's already on that train, he's going to go SO HARD enforcing this shit without ed even needing to step in.

there's the other practical aspects: he's a good fighter, he's a good enough sailor to keep up with the standard expected from ed's crew.

i would argue the bulk of 'why izzy' is more emotional, though. ed doesn't want to be alone, izzy won't leave him alone; ed asked for loyalty above all else, and when izzy promised he'd give it he meant that. his loyalty is... you know, the kind of loyalty that leads him to run crying to the navy when ed forces him to play by the rules of a game izzy thought were fair when he also thought they were tilted in his favor, but hey. sliding scale, and ed of the old days was not exactly seeking healthy relationships and good communication.

he's also not seeking to be seen and understood as his full authentic self; he is in fact actively cultivating a persona and lifestyle that is all about hiding in plain sight and making sure nobody questions if he's lowkey full of shit and feels like he's a bad person who doesn't deserve nice things.

selecting a first mate who can see right through him is counter to that goal. enter, izzy hands.

izzy can't read ed, but ed can read izzy and he knows his whole blackbeard shtick is already exactly what izzy wants.

given that izzy tends to see what he wants to see in general (it took this man two solid weeks to begin to wonder if ed just had a crush, and even then his conclusion was 'ohhh, stede is magic and he broke ed's brain' because that's a thing? somehow? jesus christ, izzy. your issues, they are fuckin legion) that means ed would have to know izzy's natural tendencies would combine with a desire to keep serving under a legend and help paper over any slips ed might make in maintaining the facade 24/7.

and alongside all that, as hard as it is for a viewer who looks at izzy and goes '...fuckin what IS THERE to like, though' to imagine, ed clearly got to experience the very best parts of izzy over the years, and subsequently valued them. (...whatever those are.) i very much doubt ed would have kept izzy around if his cluelessness and rabid loyalty and ability to stab were all he had to offer, because you can find all that in a package that isn't otherwise giving you nothing.

that's not to say izzy was once a shining paragon of any sort, since the ed of old was a no pets, no moonlight, no heart to hearts in that moonlight kind of guy— he wasn't looking for somebody like stede back then, because his fear of being known overwhelmed his desire to be known, and (preconceived notions and miscommunications and all) stede is the kind of guy who can't do anything but look at ed and see him for who he is.

it is saying that i think ed saw the best parts of izzy, weighed them against his worst parts, considered all the practical reasons he worked, and it added up to: this is a person i understand but who will never see past what i want him to see, who is even more obsessed with upkeeping my legend than i am and who will never, ever leave me.

aaaaand back in the day, that was what ed wanted; now, it's what's driving them right the fuck on into the rocks.

which is fuckin' tragic on both sides and some very deft writing.

[dylanndr]

Why yes, reblog tag commenter, I do indeed have opinions about that one Izzy/Lucius photo.

TL;DR: it's a hot photo, it's not canon AFAIK (and for good reason), but you can massage it until it's in a plausible shape if you are so inclined

It was taken by OFMD set photographer Aaron Epstein, who shared it on his socials. I'm assuming this is from an unused take from the beginning of episode 10, where Izzy is telling Lucius to go see Blackbeard, and not to speak of what he witnesses on pain of death. But it could possibly be from some other deleted scene, or it could just a moment of Con O'Neill and Nathan Foad goofing off between takes. Both Con and Nathan got a bit horny on main about the picture (to be sure, "horny on main" appears to be Con's default state, but I digress). Given how much improv and "yes, and" drive the show, we can assume there's at least some willingness on the part of the actors to explore this dynamic further.

But, as much as I love the shit out of this image, I agree with others who have said that this was the wrong vibe for Izzy and Lucius, from what we know of their canonical behavior thus far. For me, one of the biggest issues is that, as furious as he might get, Izzy has never actually attempted any kind of physical violence against Lucius, and I think it was a very good call not to go there.

Izzy has pushed Stede around and stabbed him in the guts, he's pulled Fang's beard, he's shoved and smacked Black Pete. But, in his confrontations with Edward and Lucius, he stops it at shouting. While he doesn't have a formal sub/dom relationship with either of them, Izzy's instinctual behavior towards them says touching them aggressively is off limits. The only time Izzy initiates physical contact with Lucius is when he grabs Lucius by the arm to pull him into a private conversation at the beginning of episode 10. It's not done in a threatening manner, and Lucius isn't frightened or intimidated by it.

For Lucius's part, we know he likes tough guys with soft, chewy centers. We don't know what precisely he does with them sexually, apart from moaning about it loud enough for the whole ship to hear, but that's his type. Pete and Fang, though, are never anything but sweet and gentle with Lucius. Izzy definitely has the look Lucius is weak for, but sweet and gentle are nowhere to be found (YET?).

Whatever soft, chewy center Izzy has (and I do think he has one) is currently locked in a fortress that's only accessible via a narrow, creaky bridge that spans a moat of lava. I would argue Lucius has breached at least some of the outer defenses, given how radically different Izzy treats Lucius in episode 10 vs. episode 5, but I don't think Lucius is at a point of feeling safe with Izzy, and that's very probably a dealbreaker.

So this photo doesn't quite fit with how these characters behave in current canon. But let's say we really want this photo to be legit because we appreciate the, um, artistic merits of it. How might that work?

You could sum up the relative bottomish tendencies of these two like so:

Lucius: I want a guy who could break me in half, and then doesn't Izzy: I want a guy who could break me in half, and then does

Here's an interesting thing about that photo (reading it as the characters interacting as opposed to the actors messing around). As much as Izzy appears to be the aggressor here, his hold on Lucius's hair looks to be a stage grip. Right at this moment my hair happens to be about the same length as Lucius's in that photo, and I cannot get a hold at that spot where my fingers don't slide off immediately, even with an actual grip instead of a fake one. If Izzy wanted to drag Lucius by the hair in earnest, he'd need to grab on at the top. This means Lucius can get out of that position quickly and painlessly if he wants to, so we could interpret this as Lucius choosing to be in this situation, perhaps playing out a previously negotiated scene.

Izzy's grasp of consent is shaky at best, and for sure his horniest scenes with Edward/Blackbeard are not negotiated even a little bit, but also Bratty Sub Izzy lays down some sabotage when he genuinely doesn't want to do something Edward tells him to do. So formalizing the proceedings is more about Lucius's comfort zone, I think. He would need to feel safe negotiating this kind of play with Izzy, and be assured that Izzy is also into it, because that's the kind of person Lucius is.

One way I could see this coming together is that Lucius breaks Izzy in half emotionally (hey, there's a soft, chewy center in here), and in the process of doing so gets to a place where he does indeed feel safe around Izzy. Izzy gets positively ecstatic about making sure Lucius is content, and then Lucius is like, "here's how I want it."

Being ordered to do this by someone he's into, for a scenario he's into, and being told exactly what he's supposed to do so he doesn't have to make decisions or engage in awkward social guesswork, might be the best way to get Izzy on board with topping like this.

Anyhow, that’s a lot of words for a photo about which we have almost no context, but that’s my read of it based on what we currently know.

[ladyluscinia]

Still rotating the woobification of Edward Teach a bit in my mind.

Putting this under a cut because I'm not actually trying to vague anybody specific, including OP of that post I responded to, but I do think this is very common in this fandom and liable to feel targeted toward a lot of people (especially as a wall of text).

Like, fundamentally, what happened on screen in 1x10 is Edward was hurting emotionally and he decided to try and murder 7 people about it and maim an 8th.

We can extensively break down what comprised "hurting emotionally," what other factors were in play, if edward shows signs of multiple personas or cptsd or mental illness, how vulnerable he was feeling, etc etc and some of the analysis can be really awesome, but he still tried to murder 7 people about it. If your conclusion starts trending toward how tragic it is for Edward that he did that, and how other people need to hurt him less as the way to "fix" it, then I think you are putting on major blinders toward Edward's culpability here... which is woobification.

The Izzy thing too. We can debate the severity of Izzy's actions and how affected Edward was by them, but they can be pretty damn severe and still objectively not warrant mutilation as punitive justice (or the really gross excuse of "he wanted it"). Because that's pretty universally a Bad Thing To Do. It was an outsized and extremely fucked up response, and if the writers were kinda fucked up and wanted you to excuse it anyway and think Edward was still a mostly good guy, then I don't see why they would pair it with trying to murder 7 other people. (Or not just make Izzy textually a lot worse. That's the kind of shit you put in text, not subtext.)

Edward is a very sympathetic protagonist, and he's in a very forgiving show where this is clearly not meant to be a Moral Event Horizon of any kind. He does have a lot of canon trauma and mental issues that make fans want to sympathize with and identify with him, but if focusing on how he chose to become the Kraken and hurt people seems too dismissive and insulting toward his emotional state and trauma, it's possible the issue is over-identification on their end, not the accusations of woobification on mine.

Now I'm thinking of someone who pointed out - and I cannot remember who or in what context for the life of me - they pointed out that if this is a reaction that is on the table for Edward, especially after he waits for several hours and puts thought into the decision, then Stede was in legit mortal danger if this was not blowing up before he got back. Whatever unaddressed baggage Edward is carrying around that leads to this level of violence doesn't just go away. It's a landmine, and someone was going to trip it eventually.

That, I think, is a major reason I'm so unconvinced by the idea Edward was on a track to healing at any point. Maybe, if Izzy had said nothing and his talent show had gone off without a hitch, he might have delayed the explosion, but any issues that lead to trying to murder 7 people after a few hours are going to crop up again. And soon. Stede was going to fuck up or get into a fight with him (or hell, just return from his abandonment and say the wrong thing in greeting) and someone was going to get really fucking hurt, and it wasn't going to be Edward.

The setup for S2 is also the setup for Edward's character arc, and for that to even be an arc Edward must be in need of character development. If he's already the guy that he'll be at the end of the show, and all this is just the result of outside harm that needs to be soothed away by his true love, then I reiterate from my previous post - that's Boring As Fuck. If you haven't identified a character flaw (or likely set of flaws) that is causing the Kraken turn and is in need of resolution, then maybe you ought to look for some. (And, no, "being traumatized" is not a responsible flaw. We don't treat trying to murder 7 people as a reasonable part of the slow process of healing.)

(I'm sighing dramatically a lot as I type this, if you want to retroactively add that to your mental read.)

I suppose, in conclusion, there's not much anyone can do about this trend, other than hope S2 is explicit about Edward's mindset in a way that steers people into more flaw-based analysis. And getting a canon resolution will let fans uninterested in rooting for morally dubious characters just jump to that point in canon and pretend none of the prior stuff happened (a slight improvement to pretending Edward isn't morally dubious right now because they like him).

But until then, there's going to keep being posts made openly about how Izzy is really the one responsible for Lucius being shoved overboard and the crew being marooned. And for every one of those, there will be dozens about how Edward was ready to heal and retire and the whole situation can be resolved with nothing but a love declaration from Stede, which makes Edward hurt less and therefore fixes everything.

And I'm going to keep being annoyed by them, I guess.

[bullagit]

my friend you are so refined. nice to see posts appreciating stede every once in awhile lol love to clown on the dude but i also feel like the fandom has pushed me into full apologist mode too. like yes he’s wack he has problems but i am also so bored of reading the same takes over and over about why he needs to castigate himself for absolution or be responsible for the actions of other adult human beings lol. ik this is kinda spicy lol but just wanted to let u know ur appreciated

its always rad to know you're not alone in these takes!! i dont consider it spicy at all i think it's completely valid tbh. this got way longer than i planned hold on if u want the tldr its that you are right

anyway at this point im gonna stop even doing the like, "i know stede [xyz about flaw or mistake he made]" preface when i type up meta, unless i'm posting specifically about his flaws or mistakes. 🤷

especially if what i'm writing is about ways stede has been legit wronged, or how parts of fandom only seem to invoke historical accuracy/paying attention to very specific minutiae when it's done in a way that makes stede come across as way more self-aware and self-important than he is in any canon capacity lol. i get tired of meta and interpretations where everything bad that happens in stede's relationships is solely on him, and reconciling is solely on him, and maintaining is solely on him!

these characters are all flawed human beings who bring their baggage to relationships. all of them. and those relationships are two-way streets, from the issues to the repairs. and it's unfair to see it whittled down to like... thoughtful fleshed-out considerations of ed and mary and their circumstances/points of view and how that contributes to their actions, occasionally to the point where even THEIR missteps are suddenly recontextualized to be technically stede's fault. while stede gets surface-level bad faith takes that ignore the context of his actions and the history he has that contributes to his issues. they've all done things that were hurtful, they've all done things they need to work through.

like. just because mary says stede left his family on a whim doesn't mean that's literally what he did! we know full well it wasn't some idle whim he had. the thing is, demonstrably, she and stede do not really know or understand each other. to HER understanding, it was a whim. to stede it was fumbling for hold of a lifeline after a lifetime of slowly drowning. and it doesn't make it less of a terrible thing that he left his family without a word in the night. and it doesn't make it less of a terrible thing that she literally tried to murder him without a word in the night. in the same way that just because they were able to come to an understanding at the very end of the season, it doesn't mean that they could have magically had a satisfying life together If Stede Had Only Been More Open Sooner.

and just because stede did something that broke ed's heart doesn't mean it's stede's fault that ed, a 40+ year old man, attempted the murder of people he knows stede cares about. in the same way that while izzy pushed ed’s buttons and was generally fucking awful to ed in the aftermath, it was ultimately still a choice that ed made to maroon the crew and literally throw lucius overboard!

(and like, i think there's a lot to be said about the fact that if stede had straight-up been intercepted more permanently in some way, if he'd not shown up bc he was hurt/killed/captured/etc, ed's assumptions-- the fact that he at no point seemed to consider that something could have gone wrong with their little plan-- and ultimate awful reactions would have played out the same way. i think there's a lot to be said about the fact that he historically seems to have trouble picking up on stede's issues; being so in love with the whole forest that he tends not to pick up on the state of the individual trees that form it, etc.

but god that's a whole thing i don't even have energy for that rn)

[uselessheretic]

Lmao "how dare you not make fanworks of this canon bland wholesome couple with no conflict between them and no major personal flaws, you must be ableist" or the other acussation which is that you hate bald men (??? These people are shipping Lucius and his dumb sideburns and Izzy who's also not what you'd call traditionally hot??? Why would they balk at bald????). Lucius/Pete is just boring for the popular fic tropes. Like I have yet to see one person say they dislike them in canon! But there's what's good and enjoyable to see on screen as a background pairing, and there's what's going to get its claws deep enough into the brains of people who do transformative fandom to compell them to write fic about it. These two do not provide the correct brainworms.

Izzy is sort of catnip for fanfic writers which I called as soon as the oooh daddy Thing happened. He's a mess and so are all of his possible relationships (also kinky on main without wanting to be kinky on main) but at the same time if you go the "if you touch him right he melts" or "if someone railed him he'd calm down" route it's also believable, bc he's a mess, so you dont have to commit to a 60K angst fest to fix his life or make it worse either. Fandom bicycle pathetic little meow meow.

It's also why so much Blackbonnet content is about their reunion when it's not pure fluff or a pwp, it's the closest bit of relationship drama that has to be resolved (even if you flatten them into uwu cinnamon roll non-pirates and thus ignore any other issues they'd need to work on to make their relationship not implode, you still have this fight to resolve! If you dont do that both of them have so much shit to work on to survive past the honeymoon phase and get better as people together that you do probably need like 70K of fic, maybe a series. This is why they're the central relationship in canon lol. Given the Steddyhands fic Ive read it seems to me to have hit bc if you put Izzy in that mix it's so volatile they HAVE to talk shit out they cant just ignore their problems for 48 chapters without Izzy leaving or dying of stress??)

Cant comment on how the actors being hot factors here bc im too ace to tell when none of them are like. Hollywood Hot/a model?? They're too normal people I could see on the street in real life to like. Rank.

it's just silly because this keeps popping up about the canon pairings as if izzy's going to steal their spot and it's like?? that is not a threat?? i'm trying to not be too heavy on ship hate or whatever but iont even like Lucius/Pete as a pair, but ik they're gonna stay canon and i hope they do bc lots of people enjoy them! but otherwise fandom's just a lil sandbox for me to play in and i wanna see izzy kiss ppl.

i think the "this is problematic" discourse is funny though because i think people are struggling to find a way to make it more woke when both ships are literally white m/m with not much else. you can't even argue a problematic age gap since izzy and pete's actors are only 4 years apart. (lucius confirmed for on a dilf hunt btw) so you just get stuck with "conventionally attractive" which i stg is discourse that only ever happens around white men. (tbf i think people are super out of pocket when they say a poc isn't conventionally attractive. like someone said taika was unconventionally attractive once and like dude. taika is hot in a very like traditionally handsome way??)

and then it's odd because i feel like it's like?? kinda an appropriation of the language used when talking about the racial biases people have against characters of color in fandom. it is an issue when character of color are sidelined or erased in favor of white characters. or sometimes people just? erase canon aspects of characters/pairings to make them flatter than they actually are. like people call jim/olu a fluffy low stress ship, but they're not? their meet cute is a murder and they have ups and downs with separations and communication issues. i do legit think if they were two skinny white cis men that people would be more on them with writing angst and other drama, but :/

either way that concept's being stretched too far where people keep talking about ships where izzy usually just replaces another white guy so what does it matter. even if people wanted the pair to breakup in canon and be replaced with izzy it like... doesn't matter? representation isn't being lost? who cares lol.

i think maybe people just need to work on their propaganda or smth tbh like i didn't find con oneil hot at first and im p sure i got brainwashed into being super into him by fandom. maybe people need to stop complaining about pete being bald and just start talking about wanting to slap him on his bald ass head while topping him and get the tumblr girlies in on the action

[bronyinabottle]

MY LITTLE PONY: A NEW GENERATION (G5 Movie) THOUGHTS

It’s finally here. The beginning of Generation 5. Though before I get into the movie in some detail I’m going to reiterate one more time what G5 means for my content and a non-spoilery summary of the movie.

Again, I will say that the movie nor will the G5 series coming later have much of an effect at all on any of my blogs. The revelation in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear that life itself is also magic means that a world that implied to have no magic for years would mean the extinction of all life (Perhaps resulting in the wasteland we saw in the Season 5 finale). There may be something I’ll probably do at some point on a certain different blog. But even then, that may likely be a one-time thing and probably come around the time the series is starting to air.

That said, just because I’m continuing with mainly G4 content doesn’t mean I disapprove of G5. In fact, my non-spoilers thoughts on the movie is I think it is a good start for this new generation. There are questions I have that I’m not sure will be answered (Though many of those questions are the same ones I had in my Trailer/Preliminary thoughts) quickly enough. But the movie is structured well enough, in fact it’s probably a better movie as a whole compared to any of the movies G4 had (The 2017 movie, Rainbow Roadtrip, and all 4 Equestria Girls movies). As the 2017 movie was fun, but it jumped around a lot, sometimes scenes transitioning too fast. And while Rainbow Roadtrip may have been this on purpose, the entirely slice-of-life story taking up a long length… made it something of a less interesting plot to follow. It feels like some of that special could of been cut to at least a two-parter length and keep the same beats they hit. And while i have a soft spot for the 3rd and 4th Equestria Girls movies, I’ll always say a full-length pony adventure feels better suited for what I want to see out of MLP then spin-off movies with high school movie cliches and weird pony/human world shenanigans.

So movie-wise I’m not a G4 purist. It’ll take some time to see how Gen 5 compares to Friendship is Magic when we get to the series. As I feel it’d take a lot for it to surpass G4 in my mind. But I’m going to try to be as fair as possible and judge on it’s own merits. The implied connection to G4 by referring to G4 being ancient Equestria is going to naturally get the staff and hasbro pressured by fans to tell us what happened in-between the generations. Because that’s the trap they put the writers in when they made it so they want to try to say it’s in the same universe. That’s the double-edged sword Hasbro chose to have, trying to appease the G4 fanbase and keep at least some of them around. But at the cost of questions both nitpicky (Such as character design being inconsistent) or actual honest questions that need to be known (Why did magic disappear, and what happened to the Alicorns) for some of us to truly see this as the same Equestria.

After the break, I’ll have more spoilery thoughts

Even for a brief moment, it was nice seeing the Mane 6 and 2D animation. The former because of course those are the ponies many of us that saw all of G4 loved. And the latter, because while the animation wasn’t bad in this movie. I’m one of those who’d prefer to have 2D animation in an animated film. As in most cases aside from Pixar, it’s just a strong preference of mine. If this had the animation of the 2017 MLP movie but otherwise everything else was generally the same here, I feel that would of have been great.

I wish they didn’t have to have Sunny��s dad die off-screen, as he seems like he could of been a compelling character. And not to mention if perhaps he has any connection the “ancient” days in any fashion. But *sigh* I get it, it’s an old trope where part of the character’s offscreen growth is not having their parent(/s) around.

On a side note there’s quite a few times during the beginning of the movie that somewhat foreshadow what happens to Sunny later. 3 times where she had a fake horn and wings on her. Once in the flashback, then 2 separate times when she’s doing her protest where she has her own costumed wings and horn. As well as the helmet and mechanical wings.

Also, there’s no way around it. Some of the discussions this movie are going to get quite political. (Namely one part of Sunny’s song that could be seen as having a double meaning of a jab at Trumpsts regarding “Building your wall”) From the very premise in the early times, we know that the inspiration for the story was last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. Which honestly, I do support the message they’re going for. Having an anti-racism message to tell kids from the very beginning and making a focus on it is important when in G4 it only got briefly touched upon in Bridle Gossip and the Heath’s Warming Eve play. Although it certainly rose up to some form of prominence with Season 8 and onward. Still, while you can argue if G4 executed the anti-racism message well. it does come with something of a problem that the series finale left Equestria in the least divided it’s ever been.

And personally, I feel it’s a terrible interpretation of time to say “Well, it’s a realistic take. Racism has existed for years in our world. Same should go for the ponies” and while yes, racism is still rampant in today’s world. That said, that ignores that if we went from The Last Problem to the start of G5. There’s a huge difference between our world and Equestria. There is no ancient civilization that we look at like “Yeah, those were the golden days of world peace” when normally the “Golden age” was reserved for the high classes of Ancient Greece or Rome. It was most decidedly not perfect, with slavery rampant and wars for the sake of expanding an empire. While if you look at The Last Problem’s Equestria, you not only have peace between the three main types of ponies. But you literally have non-pony citizens in Equestria. You can see a dragon handing off a flower to a pony which can imply cross-species romantic relations. With the Friendship school still going strong, and was the reason that the world was saved in The Ending of the End. While perhaps it may be too glowing to say that future is perfect for everyone even in-universe. It’s certainly a hell of a lot better outlook then comparing to how we view even the so called Golden age of ancient civilizations. The Last Problem’s Equestria implies it looks to ally with every country outside of Equestria, not conquer them.

So it should still be a valid question on just how this world collapses to the point it gets to where G5 is at the start. I at least assume that it’s not the fault at all of any of the Mane 6 nor Twilight. Or at least I hope it isn’t, as I’d rather the MLP fanbase not have to deal with a The Last Jedi Luke Skywalker situation. (Where after the joyful end of the original trilogy, things go wrong as Luke almost murders the son of one of his best friends and his sister despite trying to hard and succeeding at redeeming his father who at that point in the canon was a galaxy-wide known ruthless mass-murderer.) I assume we’re at a point where everyone of the Mane 6 sans maybe Twilight are presumed dead. And even in Twilight’s case, there’s a chance that G5 decides to say that G4 overestimated the whole Alicorn immortality thing. Though I wouldn’t put it past Hasbro to have some event where the Mane 5 of G5 meet the Mane 6 in some special event whether that’s a a Season finale or a sequel movie/special. Where either the Mane 6 return in a limbo situation similar to the Pillars at the end of Season 7 or Time travel gets involved. They may even string us along on answering just what in the heck happened until they involve a meet-up with the Mane 6 in that way. Though I hope they don’t, I’d really like the beginning of the series (Or I guess this supposed special coming up in Spring supposedly?) starts to answer some questions. G5 should get a chance to stand on it’s own, but I hope the writers are actually well aware there will be so many questions people have and address them in the show. A cynical part of me feels like they’re likely to string us along until at least the Season 1 finale.

Onto the characters for a bit. I think Izzy Moonbow was absolutely the most stand-out character in the whole movie. She was energetic, funny, and aside from “The pegasi are bad news” she along with Zipp and Sunny were the most averse to the way the world was. She was already the most popular due to the tennis ball memes. But now it feels like she legit stands on her own and most certainly deserves to be the most popular character of G5 thus far. Behind her in a bit of a surprise to me was Zipp, who I thought would be mainly a Rainbow Dash-expy. Though she really helps out Izzy and Sunny in Zephyr Heights. Despite having Twilight be my favorite pony from the very beginning of G4 all the way to the end, I didn’t feel as strongly about Sunny for some reason. So she’s in the middle of the pack, she could grow on me later. I just don’t know if I click with her as much as I did with Twilight. As for the last two, while I don’t hate either of them. Either one could be the lowest of the 5 for one reason or another. Pipp (Although I will say she's probably my favorite character design out of the 5) feels like she doesn’t do a whole lot in the movie and it takes until she’s forced to be an outlaw because the other choice was to get imprisoned like her mother was. So she may come off as quite pretentious, though it’s arguable Rarity was the same way early in G4. But she definitely grew later. Could be the same case for Pipp. And as for Hitch, he has shining moments in the film. But what might hurt him is the fact he was such a bad friend to Sunny up until the campfire scene. “I’m the last real friend you have. You really want to lose me too?” is not a healthy friendship. Hitch may have been Sunny’s friend the longest, but it definitely feels like Izzy connected immediately. I don’t know if this show will get into shipping any of the main characters between each other mid-show, but if they do. I hope it’s between Izzy and Sunny currently, cause Hitch and Sunny just gives bad vibes even with Hitch getting better later.

None of the songs I felt were particularly too special. Though I think the closest was Sprout’s “Danger, Danger” song that has similarities to Smells Like Teen Spirit in some parts of the song since I tend towards more rock/metal-esque music.

I touched upon it earlier, but there’s perhaps a stand-out reason for why the G5 movie outdid the 2017 MLP Movie. They have the typical “Our heroic group splits after a sad moment before coming together again for the climatic good end” in Sunny seeing that that the two crystals don’t instantly bring magic back, and when Twilight left the group after an argument that happened with Twilight trying to take a pearl. They perform the same purpose in the movie. But the crystals not working, crushing Sunny’s hope for a little while works better into the story. Where as Twilight’s part frustratingly brought the sea pony scene to an end too quickly and/or doesn’t feel right of Twilight to have done that. It felt forced in the 2017 movie, but works out in the G5 movie. Especially since a part of it is that it’s not the crystals themselves capable of bringing magic back. But it’s the journey going after the crystals that brings the ponies themselves their magic back.

Just a small note on dictator Sprout, he tries to cause a war. Though admittedly the film seems to treat him as a joke the entire time despite his seriously evil ambitions. With the only repercussions is he gets a wishy-washy answer on if he was a good sheriff from his mom. I don’t quite know how I feel about that yet, but I wonder what they’ll have in mind for Sprout given his actions. He and his mom are the only ones that feel like a true antagonist. Though they seem to be ok with things fast when the magic comes back.

But anyway on to the ending, we see that Sunny becomes an Alicorn. Which I guess with no other real Alicorns around, I guess it makes sense to alicornify her since she’s the real leader behind what united the leaders of each type of pony again. Though there is of course this weird thing where her horn and wings don’t seem like as much a part of her body compared to very obvious connected wings on Twilight when she got hers. Sunny keeps her horn and wings to the end of the movie, and has colored streaks in her hair. Though I do wonder if that;s truly permanent. If it is permanent, I suppose at least they got to have a headstart and have it established at the end of the introductory movie rather then have it shock people at the end of a shortened 3rd season. I still feel like Twilight had well earned her alicornhood considering that besides what she did in the series. She has a whole childhood and time as a teenager learning under Celestia. Which had to mean something, and I’m not sure Celestia just leaving her to live the rest of her days with her friends in ponyville was that. Sunny has no doubt been trying countless time to try to spread friendship throughout her life even after the tragedy of her father’s passing. So there’s no doubt she’s been through a lot, and may indeed be worthy of being an Alicorn at this point. Though in terms of screentime before Alicornhood it's definitely a lot less then Twilight had. And it is at least nice to see that it is possible for non-unicorns to become one. (The only case of that we sort of got was a children's book that may or may not be canon that implied Cadence was a pegasus before she ascended)

Though you have to wonder if the visual differences such as Sunny’s alicorn horn and wings, the cutie mark only on one side (Yes I know that’s how it was normally in the MLP generations before G4. But a distinct visual difference between shows is still noticeable even if the context of G4’s cutie marks on both sides of the flank was about it being easier on the puppets for Flash), and how animals can have wings or weird round shapes such as those bunnies when G4 has normal looking animals. There’s enough striking visual differences for any nitpicky G4 to say “This isn’t the same Equestria”. And if someone tries to say maybe some sort of evolution happened. That’s still trying to put a little too much real world logic on this fantasy world. And evolution tends to take millions of years to have such dramatic changes. Not 1000 years or so, there should still be normal looking animals at this point and time. And these small details are probably going to be the things most ignored but nonetheless can build a case that this isn’t the same Equestria. Even if they touch on the important questions like how magic disappeared and what happened to the Mane 6, there will be details they make different that will add to the case that this is it’s own universe if it doesn’t quite matchup with what was remembered about G4. There will be fans who will be that nitpicky to call G5 out of continuity for small details like that. That is again the trap they put themselves in when they decided to try to say it’s the same Equestria.

All-in-all though, I think that’s at least a good enough chunk about my thoughts on the movie to end off here. If there’s something I missed or something from the movie you’d like me to give a particular opinion about or elaborate on something feel free to ask me here. G5 is indeed off to a good start, just I will be along the many hoping some questions get answered sooner then later. And I’m not sure I’m confident in getting anywhere until a Season finale or a 2nd movie. And it’ll be a year before the series starts proper (Though again I guess there’s a 44 minute special coming in Spring to try to hold us over). But I could definitely see G5 finding it's own following, now there's just the inevitable clashes between some of the more vocal fans of each generation bickering at eachother. But hoping there will be enough that take the movie's lessons on divisiveness to heart and be able to enjoy both even if there may be preferences.

[inthehausofholbein]

So I guess you have seen Atypical after seeing some fanart, so could you maybe do Casey for the headcanons ask? ❤️

I have seen it! It's been a really long while and I mostly played it in the bg so I don't remember much of it, but I'll try my best.

1: sexuality headcanon

She is canonically bisexual.

2: otp

CAZZIE! Who else?

3: brotp

Not gonna lie, I don't remember much of any character from Atypical besides Casey and Izzie (they were legit the only reason I watched the show), but I like her relationship with Sam. And I'm not sure if they talked post-break up, but her relationship with Ethan, I surprisingly liked.

4: notp

That one boy in Clayton I don't remember what his name is that used to date Izzie.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

She's very prince charming-like with Izzie: always complimenting and comforting her, touching her lovingly, carrying her??, etc.

6: one way in which I relate to this character

I tend to be impulsive sometimes, but I can also be pretty soft.

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

Probably when she acts out in public.

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Cinnamon roll. Ugh, the Cazzie scenes in s4 eps 5-6 (I think) make me so fucking happy. "I'll be your support system." and when she made her custom tarot cards, just AH.

[laufire]

@equusgirl replied to your post “(fandom) shadowhunters if not done yet”

There were so many times I legit snorted or lol’d throughout this I love you and your sense of humor. And yessssssssssss *join me in the Shadowhunters nostalgia*. I’ve actually started that Hades and Persephone AU bc I’ve gotten nostalgic after my mourning period 😂

nice!! my mourning period seems to over too lol (I didn’t watch s3b and it still got to me lmao. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE RAPHAEL HUMAN UGH) and this ask & other convos I’ve had about the ‘verse in the last month(s) have hit me with all the nostalgia. I think now I even have enough enthusiasm to actually finish my WIPs yay! (only after I’m done with the immediate Marvel & The 100 WIPs I’d like to write first, so it might take a while -I’m aiming for late 2020/early 2021 lol).

and I’m gonna use this post as an excuse to ramble about my SH WIPs because I can xD

-the most pressing would be finishing the damn Relizzy WIP that’s been on my ao3 account for over two years now xD. the problem with it is that it got derailed due to Certain Plot (it’s all Meliorn’s fault) and I had to pause it to re-evaluate things. I think if I picked it up again it would get longer, because a lot of the side plots deserve more attention --it included Magnus getting challenged as High Warlock before the show did it but with more focus on, you know: Magnus xD; Camille escaped which meant Aldertree & Robert returned to the institute, complicating things for everyone (especifically with Camille/Magnus and Alec/Aldertree lol); Ollie and Maureen had their own plots; the Wild Hunt appeared; I included Meliorn’s secret from the books, I wanted to explore Jace’s post-resurrection angst... yeah, it’d definitely get long.

-a Rizzy ‘50s AU (aka, with just-turned-vampire Raphael) that I really love. It included background Maryse/Valentine and Alec/Jonathan (and established Dot/Magnus + Camille/Magnus as exes, and Camille & Raphael), because I’m super self-indulgent lol.

-a Maia-centric post 3x08 AU where she becomes the alpha of her own pack. it included Maia & Raphael friendship, exploration of Maia’s canon ships (Jordan, Simon, Jace, etc.) and other relationships, my own interpretation and takes from the books’ plots I looked up...

-I have a plot bunny for a Jace/Magnus s2 canon-divergent AU that doesn’t leave my head lmao. the more I think about the ship the more I love it and see all it’s potential. basically the story has a lot of pining!Jace with established Alec/Magnus and if I get to write it it’s gonna be suuuuuuper petty and probably get me anon hate xDD

Those are the ones I definitely want to write & focus on the most; the first two might even warrant one-shot “spin-offs” for the secondary characters and pairings smh (Magnus (+Camille), Alec/Aldertree, Camille/Aldertree and Jace/&Jonathan for the first one, Maryse/Valentine and Alec/Jonathan for the second one... Maybe more because I can’t help myself lol).

But there were SO MANY OTHERS: relapse!Izzy s2 AU with Rizzy and Sebizzy, young deruned!Maryse right after the first one (which might’ve included Magnus/Maryse or Luke/Maryse or both or ot3. who knows. probably some past Maryse/Valentine because I’m me), role reversal Rizzy AU with vampire Izzy and shadowhunter Raphael (I actually have two wips with vampire!Izzy but the other one is less likely), the Sebizzy smut AU (yes, it’s just smut. It has the unintending effect of giving me tons of Jonathan feelings, ugh xD), Alec/Aldertree Marriage of Convenience AU, yet more Camille/Magnus relationship stuff across history... But with those it’s more likely that I’ll write what I call “snap-shots” fics --instead of developing as much as I’d like to, I’d jump straight to the action from scene to scene and it’d take me a lot less time.

[faejilly]

i hate how everyone felt the need to dictate what alec should or shouldn’t do to save his bf like if izzy didn't jump in front of simon risking her life to save him&jace didn’t risk everyone and everything for clary, same w clary yet when alec thinks of becoming a vampire as a way to save his fiancé that'll still keep him "alive" they flip out like hypocrites

basically what im saying is they all get to do whatever tf they want without getting alec’s thoughts on the matter and when alec does they don’t care (and the narrative glorifies them and gives them moral high grounds like always) but when it comes to alec and magnus suddenly there has to be a whole meeting for everyone to feel comfortable

Hmm. 

Well nonny. I both agree & disagree with what you’re saying here? Like, it’s a consistent problem in the show that everyone does stupid shit all the fucking time (because it’s a melodrama and also they’re mostly all 19 and I’m sorry to my younger readers but everyone is an idiot at 19, we just are, I’m including myself in this, there is no getting around it; we may all be idiots in different ways but it’s still there!) but Alec is both older & the only one who has a story/character-arc about reconciling one’s mistakes, so he’s the only one who ever has to deal with consequences and that is super shitty. It makes everyone else look like assholes even when they’re not supposed to, and it makes his storyline heavier and sadder in comparison to potential hero-moments that other people get. (He never gets to be right, not really, and that’s exhausting.)

Like, I don’t think anyone’s disagreeing that that’s a thing the show does and also that it’s crap. Alec gets judged and everyone else (mostly) gets away with shit. (Every time Clary charges out of the Institute to Do Things™ in season 1? Alec’s legitimate tactical concerns being framed as jealousy over Jace? Izzy & everything remotely related to her sub-plot in 2a? Every time Jace refused to tell anyone anything about what was wrong in 3a? SUMMONING LILITH IN 3B ANYONE? Dear lords. *sighs forever*)

The counter to this is that Alec gets AGENCY, he gets to make decisions about his life and act on them; even when they’re shitty decisions they’re his, and everyone else is mostly just sitting around and reacting to things all the time. (Especially Magnus in 3b OH GODS I WILL NEVER BE OVER THAT, but sorry, different post.)

um

I will say, there’s a meeting about Magnus/Heavenly Fire/Edom because Lilith is going to try and destroy the world and so it’s not just about Alec needing to rescue his fiance. It’s not that everyone got together just to judge Alec for making emotional decisions when he’s, you know, legit emotional about things, they do have other issues to discuss.

I also think there’s a difference between most of the crew’s tendency to impulsive & stupid decisions in the field, and Alec’s ability to think tactically and make a decision and throw himself at it in .5 seconds while everyone else is still standing around going wtf? Like, it’s one of my favorite Alec traits, but it’s a little concerning to watch if you love him and don’t know he’s fiction and thus it will all work out in the end.

Like, you can see Alec, in his head, in the same amount of time it takes everyone else to think: oh shit, can we even get to Edom? What now? going: 

I can’t go to Edom as a Nephilim. 

De-Runing won’t work, still have angel blood, how to get rid of Angel blood? 

Some sort of blood curse would be dangerous and would probably take too long and I don’t even know if it would work, have to be a Downworlder. 

There’s no known way to turn into a Seelie or a Warlock, Werewolf change isn’t guaranteed and won’t go into effect until the next full moon, so that’ll REALLY take too long. Vampire will have to kill me and also might not work but the odds are better than curses or Werewolf and I’ll be ready to go tomorrow… any other way? No? 

“Simon Make me a Vampire”

THAT’S NOT NORMAL. 

It’s delightful and I love him, but that’s not how most people’s brains work, so I don’t begrudge the fact that everyone else around him went: what, NO. 

I went oh no, baby, don’t do that and I was totally with him on the thought process. (He will die and he might stay dead and not get up again. Also what’s he gonna eat in Edom? What happens if he loses control and bites Magnus? What’s he going to do in a hell dimension for FOREVER while Lilith tries to kill Magnus? That’s only the start of a plan, where’s the rest of it? And of course he has to kill himself as part of the process! That’s different on a visceral level than the rest of his family’s ability to throw themselves between someone and a sword in the heat of battle.)

Now, to Alec’s credit, I think he’s completely aware of all those follow-up questions, it’s not that he doesn’t know he only has half a plan… he just doesn’t care. His longevity is never a factor when he’s making tactical decisions. 

Which is traumatic for the people who love him, and gets them being all judgey at him when he does it. (Which may not be the best way to express concern but hey, sometimes people are really dumb even when they mean well.)

So yes, I hate that Alec is consistently held up to higher standards than the rest of the cast, I hate that they let him bear the consequences of everything that happens to everyone ever, that the show mostly framed this as reasonable because it was always busy shoving Clary & Jace into the Next Disaster™ and that no one except Magnus ever even seemed to notice that Alec carried everyone else. 

That said… I don’t think everyone being upset at Alec’s “TURN ME INTO A VAMPIRE” plan was really a case of them being hypocritical so much as it was a case of them being in denial about how bad the situation they were in actually was: No, that can’t actually be the only way to do this, there’s got to be a better option, right? 

/shameless self-promotion: for further thoughts on Alec as Vampire, pls see my insomnia-fueled not!fic.

Now, part of their disbelief can be attributed to the fact that none of them (except Simon being raped & murdered by Camille, and Isabelle and her yin fen arc) have ever actually faced the consequences of their terrible decisions before, and in both those cases they kind of… never addressed the consequences again later? But I’ve always taken that as a failure in the story-telling  rather than a character trait, iykwim.

The show never deals with consequences and emotional aftermaths, it’s not that sort of show. Can you blame the characters for that, or do you assume it happens off screen and we just never got to see it, because the story never told us that part for anything? (Except notably Magnus’ flashbacks after the agony rune, and there’s a reason that arc is one of a lot of people’s favorites, and it’s mostly HSjr’s amazing performance but it’s also that it is one of the few moments of proper emotional catharsis & follow-through in the whole series.)

It is really just personal preference, I mean, you have to base the characters on what the show gives us, but sometimes, idk. You can disagree with canon. Sometimes canon is wrong, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with basing your enjoyment of media on that premise.

For me it’s important to acknowledge the limits of the media, the style of the show and the pressures of production and scenes where it seems clear that what they’re trying to say and what ended up on screen may not be the same thing, to take character inconsistencies and wonder which ones are part of the character, (because people are inconsistent) and which ones are a side-effect of production errors. *shrugs* ymmv and all that though

[katyspersonal]

Ogay now your turn, who was your blorbo(s) before???

Damn... This is a harder question than it seems, because it is... hard to remember? My brain got SO rotted with Soulsborne world that I legit am forgetting how things used to be before that? It doesn't help that my feelings about the character and how much I talk about them / do for them do not always match! As a result, I have three types of blorbos:

1) The 'real' blorbo: The one that evokes the most feelings and I actively fantasize about being with, one that sparks yearning and attraction and consumes the most of my thoughts, but I won't do enough with

2) The 'productive' blorbo: The one which I practically breathe life in and create entire story and world for when canon didn't provide much and/or this character is unpopular. They often become crucial part of my online identity, or JUST my identity o_o'

3) The 'fanmade' blorbo: It is either an AU version of the character, an interpretation so unfitting and far from canon vibe that it almost works as an OC, or JUST an OC. I actually love/hate this one, because this is the asshole that will always make me stray from working on canon!! They will make me focus so much on them that depending on the nature of the character, I will forget the canon vibe in my love for this version or will forsaken general source material to join an AU/RP where this character is. Let me focus on canon-palatable creativity and stop wasting my time, dipshits!!

So, to give you the idea, in Bloodborne, type one would be, of course, Micolash, Edgar and Maria (but mostly Micolash)! Type two would be Rom and Izzy. And since recently my Laurence is between 1 and 2 because he is really S E X Y but also I have to create everything for him xD. Type three would be... uh...

My previous "fandom" was UTDR, but that stay was a little short-lasting, since Deltarune is work in progress and Undertale did not have the same grip on me. In there, my type one blorbo were Rouxls Kaard and Mettaton! You can tell I love the flamboyant sexy man with fake depth, fair level of depravity but not evilness, and intelligence of a brick dshhfdsdds My art never felt good enough to capture Mettaton's confident energy, however, I'd like to show this fanart of Rouxls:

Type two blorbo were Mad MewMew, Catti, and Diamond King! The latter two were sort of underdeveloped in canon at the time, and for MewMew I actually had a bunch of things, and even RPed as her for some time! Developing Diamond King was quite fun, though he was dangerously close to type 3 because of AU stuff where HE was the bad guy and not Spade King (and Catti was the 'monster' of the prophesy). Besides, we did give him a wife who is not getting used in canon but exists in the cards deck that WAS used for the 'cards'.

(EDIT: I made these sprites and I forgot that I made them and not Val o_o" Because it's been a few years ago + I am scatter-brained. Oh jeez)

And type three happened when I delved into helping to work on an AU for Deltarune, a project a passionate person started in hunger for completion of Deltarune, following after Chapter 1 and ignoring everything. Basically, attempt to finish the game that had AMAZING story and characters! I lended many designs, ideas and characters for it, improving it very significantly. I no longer work on that project and gave all rights to my designs and creative solutions to the developer, but it was FUN. And like I said, distracted me from the canon-palatable creativity. And helped me to finally come to terms with the fact that I am way better at nurturing, supporting, editing and improving someone else's projects than creating my own. It was a long time coming realisation considering how half of my drawings for any fandom used to be fanart of other people's ideas and OCs or fanart for our RP plots. Not something that can happen in this fandom because... you know. But yeah, I've always been the guy that would draw a pile of everyone's OCs/interpretations in the community, or help someone with no coherent design idea to GET that design down!

...ak-hem, where was I? Right, blorbos. So, the 'fanmade' blorbos were, of course, our version of Diamond Queen and... this BITCH:

This is Ace of Hearts! And Insight joke is actually something I just made up, since I made this guy before I knew anything about Bloodborne! It aged like fucking milk, hahahahaha!! To give you the idea of what I had to do to design the Aces, here are the cards by Kanotynes that Toby was using:

These are the face cards ( x )! If you saw Deltarune's chapter one, you can see how and which designs were used, and which changed.

And this is the only image of all cards I can reliably find ( x ). You can see that number cards were de-personalised and are just various things. So what I did was combining the face card look and find a way to "fuck it up", since Aces learned A LOT of 'Chaos' and not only part of it like Jevil (and now Spamton)! Here are the rest of them:

You can tell, even in healthy forms, they'd still be a bit... 'strange' compared with face cards. Ace of Clubs in healthy form would have only one head and one horn, and his 99 Insight Chaos version has 11 heads each with one peace of their body or face... And Ace of Diamonds would be a snake with 'umbrella' skin, which is nothing like other Diamond suits!

I was the one to insist that we have Aces in the project, conceptualised them, designed them, wrote them lore etc. And Ace of Hearts was my favourite, and also the scariest one. (of course I like the most creepy one -_-) It was also the first situation where I got obsessed with my OWN non-canon stuff... although, technically, they are no longer mine, since I passed the designs and right to write and use to the owner completely. Maybe it is to the better, as I moved closer towards enjoying my own content more!

(Idle sprites I've made back then!)

___________

Thank you for listening and giving me nostalgia, lol xD