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writings-of-a-hufflepuff · 4 years ago

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‘Big Killer Clone’

Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars + Original Character

Collection/Series: N/A

Pairing: Captain Bear (Clone Trooper OC) x GN! Reader

Writer: @writings-of-a-hufflepuff aka @hufflepuffing-all-day-long

Rating: T

Warnings: Angst, a senator is a dick to our boy. He’s very unhappy and upset, but there’s a lot of comfort. Swearing, a lot of angst, my friends.

Summary: There is only one person Bear wants to see after a senator makes a comment about him being a danger to the younglings, and that is you.

Notes: Inspired by this comment by @alamogirl80: I bet he specifically requests to work in or near the Jedi temple so he can escort the crèche younglings. And it breaks his big ol heart when certain clone hating senators make comments to the crèche master that it’s dangerous to let a “big killer clone” like him around the kids.

I just picked a random corrupt senator for this.

Mando’a:

Shebs’palon - asshole

Shebs - Ass

Vod - Brother

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Bear likes working in the Jedi temple, he likes the Jedi themselves. They’re respectful, generally kind and do not treat him as if he is some mindless machine or identical clone without a personality or views of his own. But, what he likes most about working in the temple is that he is almost always put on creche and youngling duty.

It is a well known fact that Bear enjoys working with the little ones, even more so that the little ones enjoy his presence. He has a ‘way’ with them as he’s been told time and time again, something many of his other brothers struggle with. He enjoys being asked to escort the younglings through the temple or to stand watch during their break times between lessons, to make sure they do not get up to mischief or in some cases help them get up to mischief. Some clones complain that it’s glorified babysitting, but he likes babysitting. He’d rather nurture and protect the little ones than fight and kill. It suits him better.

It is fun for him to stand there and smile as the little ones run and play, as they act like children for the few precious moments they are allowed. It warms his heart when little arms wrap around his legs in a hug or the children choose to use him as a living climbing frame. He feels wanted, needed, useful. The children do not balk or shy away from him despite his large size, they are not scared of the scar that covers his left cheek and they do not mind his deep voice. Instead they run to him and call his name and demand he play with them, they like him, and it is in many ways bittersweet.

They are lovely, sweet. They cause a smile to light up his face, and yet, they are a reminder of what he isn’t allowed to have. What he isn’t allowed to have with you. He is a clone trooper, romantic relationships are not allowed. He breaks that rule regularly to be with you. Families, children, aren’t allowed either. A babe would be harder to hide, a family almost impossible and so they remind him of the thing he so desperately wants but is told he cannot have. He hopes...he hopes that one day he can have that, but hopes are not realities.

Still, it is his favourite duty and so he does not expect to leave the jedi temple that day in a foul or unpleasant mood. He expects to be full of life, energy and smiles, after a day of children chattering away at him, drawing new things on his armour and sharing their new tricks with him. He always left the temple in the best mood.

But that shebs’palon of a senator Danry Ledwellow, the Er’Kit, small and blue, had ruined his day. Completely, entirely and only with a passing comment hissed out from behind sharp teeth and a look of distrust and disgust. It didn’t matter that Master Yoda had come to Bear’s defence or that he didn’t care much for the senator at all, the fact remained that his mood had been ruined.

He was used to comments. He was a clone. There were many people that distrusted them, disliked them, and made it clear what they thought whenever they were given the chance. When he was shiny, it had bothered him more, as a cadet he would get angry, frustrated, irritated. As he grew he learnt to shrug it off, that it didn’t matter so much. Once you’d heard one insult, you’d heard them all...or so he thought.

He’d been watching the younglings train when Dandry had made a passing comment with disgust riding his voice to Master Yoda, about how ‘dangerous’ and ‘irresponsible’ it was to have a ‘big killer clone’ like him around such small and defenceless younglings. As if Bear would ever hurt them, as if he could ever be considered a danger to them, as if he knew Bear and knew who he was and what he was capable of.

He had, in the moment, chosen to stare straightforward, to bite his tongue and let the feeling sit inside his chest. His helmet was in place and that helped to hide the anger he was feeling. He was surrounded by little one’s, many under the age of 7 and he refused to give into emotions that would only confirm that senator’s views or scare the little one’s. He left Master Yoda speak in his defence, in truth, barely hearing the words. His mind was cloudy with frustration,fixed on replaying the words ‘dangerous’ and ‘killer’ over in his mind.

The children had noticed a change after that, tugging on his fingers and demanding he sit as they clambered around him and told him stories. They tried to lighten his mood, something he was grateful for but that failed. He pretended for them, although he suspected many did not believe him, their natural intuneness with the force allowing them to sense his mood better than many.

Kal and Delta didn’t ask when he stormed into the barracks intent on putting away his armour and leaving as soon as possible to see you, knowing that you’d find a way to brighten his mood like you always did. It was obvious to the two of them that an angry Bear was best left well enough alone, they didn’t see their captain storming around often. They shared a look, both deciding they didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his shitty mood. Kal returned to cleaning his blaster and Delta pretended to fall asleep in his bunk.

The new kid, Jammy, or Shiny as they’d taken to calling him looked on with trepidation. He’d not been with the squad long, a couple of months, and in that time his Captain had always been smiley and cheerful or neutral at worst. He’d never actually seen him angry, it was...a little intimidating given Bear’s already immense stature. He decided it was best to just not stare at his captain.

Sunny didn’t seem to have the same worries as the rest, “What’s eating you, Cap?” He’d stopped mid way through messing with those vibrant orange curls of his, hand still raised to the top of his head. It was clear to Sunny that his vod wasn’t his usual self, especially considering it was known he’d been working with the younglings that day. He was never in a bad mood after working with the younglings.

“Don’t want to talk about it.” He’s already by his bunk unlatching each piece of his armour and putting it away in his footlocker. He doesn’t want to hang around and the intensity of the stares from his brothers isn’t helping his mood. He’s not usually quick tempered, that’s Kal’s thing. In fact, he rarely finds himself having any sort of outburst, but he can feel it rising in him today. It’s unwelcome, unfamiliar. He doesn’t like how angry he feels. How his mood is changing, shifting. How one stupid senator could change his whole mood just like that. It was stupid. Who cared what a low level, unimportant senator thought? It shouldn’t even bother him...but it did.

“You sure?”

“Yes!” It comes out clipped and harsh, a shout that has Bear’s shoulders dropping with a sigh. He turns his eyes on Sunny, with an apologetic frown, “Sorry...I just, I don’t want to talk about it, Sunny, okay?” The regret mingles with the anger and frustration and it tastes like rot on his tongue.

“Yeah, yeah, hey. I shouldn’t have pushed. Anything we can do, vod?” He’s concerned for Bear. Sunny has never seen his brother, his captain, so agitated and it’s worrying. But he knows Bear will tell them about it later, when he’s calmed down, when he’s got his head back in the right space. He was the most level headed of all of them, he’d sort it out himself, even if he didn’t ask for help. At least, not from them. The whole squad knew there was only one person he’d want to see right now, you.

Bear shakes his head, dark brown curls flying with the movement as he lets them loose from the big bun he’d shoved them in that morning to get his helmet on.

“No...Just need some time.”

In truth Bear just wants to get away from the Barracks and run to your quarters, to hold you in his arms and bury his face in your shoulder, to breathe you in. You are a comfort to him, greater than anything he’s ever known and his soul is calling for you, calling for your gentle touch and soothing words. He knows you’ll have the right thing to say, that you’ll ease the anger that bristles his shoulders. You always manage to brighten his day, to make things seem better even when they’re at their worst.

It’s you that he runs to after a difficult mission. It’s you that he seeks out when he wakes in the middle of the night from some bad dream or memory. It is you who he goes to when he needs comfort. He loves his brothers, but he is still their captain and there are just some things he can’t do around them. Being entirely vulnerable and open is one.

“I’ll...I’ll see you late, vod.”

They don’t ask where he’s going as he storms out of the barracks in only his blacks. They know.

The corridors are filled with his brothers, some nod in recognition, others ignore him, not knowing him personally. None stop to talk to him, perhaps they notice his mood or perhaps they’re too busy, either way Bear is grateful. He’s even more grateful that your quarters are down an empty and quiet corridor, where no one can see him coming and going or stop to question why he’s there.

It’s late enough in the evening that he knows you’ll be back soon, that your shift will end and the medical droids will take over for the night, unless there’s an emergency.

You gave him the code to your quarters months ago, he’s memorised it so well that he doesn’t even have to think as he inputs it, muscle memory does the majority of the work for him instead. He knows your quarters as well as he knows his bunk in the barracks, has his own drawer of clothes there, nothing fancy, but you insisted he have something comfortable and cozy to wear when he stays over.

He uses the refresher first, cleans the dirt off his skin and if he turns the temperature higher and lets the hot water attempt to burn away the comment, then that’s something he won’t mention later. It helps, a little, but not entirely.

You're tired when you finish your shift, always are. Being a doctor for the GAR was exhausting and today was no different. Still, you have enough wits about you to notice the lights are on and there’s a familiar pair of boots by your door when you enter your quarters.

“Bear? You here?” You call out to him, kicking off your shoes and shrugging out of your doctor’s coat. You hear a muffled ‘here’ from the direction of your bedroom and wander in that direction.

You can tell he’s used the refresher before you see him, just by the smell of warm water and soap that permeates the air in the corridor, there’s a warmth to it that says it wasn’t long ago and that’s confirmed by the sight of him still wrapped in a towel on the edge of your bed.

Bear has his elbows on his knees, hunched over with his face in his palms. His long brown curls are wet and mussed, his skin has a tint to it that says he had the water on too hot and he looks decidedly unlike himself. It worries you the moment you see him and you find yourself kneeling beside him, knees unhappy about the hard floor. It matters little when he’s so clearly upset.

You’re gentle as you pull at the hands covering his face, they are easily double the size of your own and cover him too well, hide him from you. The moment you can see his eyes they shift to you, deep and sad, it’s clear something has happened and it makes your chest ache.

You keep a hand in his while your other cups his cheek, stroking softly over the freckles that dot his skin like constellations without names. He leans into your touch, a heavy sigh that falls from his chest and with it some of that tension that he holds in his shoulders too.

“What happened, big?”

Your gaze feels like it’s scanning his soul, intent, but not unwelcome, he begins to speak freely for the first time all day. His mouth wraps around the words like they’re poison and each element of the story only deepens the frown that furrows your brow.

“Senator Ledwellow stopped by the temple today while I was watching the younglings, shebs thinks I'm a ‘danger’ to the younglings, a ‘big killer clone’ he called me, as if I'd ever hurt them! I’d die for those little one’s, I’d...I’d...I’d never...I’d never hurt them!” There are tears streaming from his eyes, big fat ones that call to how deeply the thought of ever hurting those children or being thought of as a danger to them cuts him.

“I know, big, I know! Hey…” You cup both cheeks with your hands, pulling his face closer to your own as you reach up on your knees to meet him. His skin is warm against yours as his forehead comes to rest against your own, but his tears are cool and wet as they drip from his skin onto your own in rivers.

You stay there, rocking slightly with him as he cries. It is the sort of cry that wrenches free from the depths of his chest hard and raw and causes your own throat to close up with emotion.

You have seen Bear sad, you’ve seen him scared, but those were small things. The melancholy of a bad memory or the fear from a nightmare, this is...this is different. It speaks of the fear he has deep within him that he is a danger to those children, that he is the big bad killer clone and not who you know him to be. Safe. Kind. Gentle. Caring. Loving. You have never doubted your safety in his presence and you have never doubted the safety of any child around him either.

You want to storm from your quarters and find Senator Ledwellow, to slap him across the face or at least give him a good talking too. To even think, to even suggest that Bear was anything but gentle with those children, to suggest he would hurt them, be a danger to them...it lowers your opinion of the senator and swaps your mood from worried to angry.

Still, Bear needs you more than the senator needs a slap, so you stay and you hold him to you. Letting his tears wash over your skin and his large hands grip at your back and shoulders as if that will ground him and keep him sane.

It feels like hours by the time the tears and the gasping slows, and a quick glance at the time tells you it has been. You are gentle as you tug him to his feet and help him dress, there is a new exhaustion that fills his bones now. The sort that can only come from crying out all your emotions. He is grateful as you tug his legs through a comfortable pair of trousers and carefully maneuver his head and hair through a shirt.

“Sit down for me, big.” You sit him at the edge of the bed again and grab a comb from the side, the one that goes easily through his curls and pulls the knots free. He is quiet as you tug at the knots and braid his hair back and out of the way for sleep.

It’s a little thing, something he would have forgotten to do, but that makes the world of difference when he wakes in the morning. It is the little things you do that make his chest ache for you, his heart hurt in the best sort of way. You know him. You care for him. You treat him with a tenderness that most don’t because of his size and his place as a clone trooper. Today is a day that he especially needs that tenderness, so he lets you braid his hair without comment and lets you ease him under the covers of your bed before you get into your own night clothes.

You look radiant. That’s what he thinks when he watches you dress. There’s something about the low light of the lamps across your skin and the fabric of your night clothes, silky and shiny, that makes him wonder if you aren’t secretly part Diathim, glowing, angelic and something more.

You tread carefully, turning down all the lights before slipping under the covers with him and urging him to rest on his side, back facing you. He doesn’t question nor does he complain as you curl against his back, holding him as if he were smaller than you and capable of being the little spoon.

It is comforting, the way your legs tangle with his own and your arms wrap fully around him. The weight and warmth of you at his back as you press little kisses into the space on the back of his neck.

“I know you, big. I love you and I don’t think you’d ever do anything to put those children at risk or hurt them. I hope you know that about yourself too.” You murmur it into his ear, soft and quiet, almost afraid to speak too loud and disrupt the peace. You tighten your grip on him and hope, hope that he doesn’t think he’s a danger to the younglings, hope that he doesn’t doubt himself because he is the gentlest person you have ever met.

He can’t find words, not really. Can’t express the gratitude and love he has for you in that moment. That you allow him a safe place to cry and feel, so be something other than captain and clone. Instead he reaches for your hand on his stomach and holds it in his own, presses it to his heart with a squeeze before pulling it to his lips and pressing a kiss to your skin.

His beard tickles the back of your hand, like always, and it instantly makes you smile. He doesn’t need to say it, you know he loves you and you don’t expect to hear it tonight. Not after the tears and the clear pain he’s gone through.

Still it is a lovely surprise to hear, when he clears his dry throat and quietly whispers, “Love you too, Sunshine” at you. His voice is raspy and deeper than normal, dry from his crying and his words are soft and quiet, barely audible.

You pull him tighter against you and hold him, rubbing circles into his chest and pressing kisses to his neck for a good hour before he falls asleep. The quiet little snore he does, oddly not irritating or disturbing at all, a noise you’ve grown fond of, rhythmic in nature lets you know he’s officially asleep.

It’s only then that you let yourself fall asleep as well. Only once you know he is asleep and won’t be awake and alone that you can allow yourself to drift off, content in the knowledge that he’d be okay. You promised yourself that if you saw Senator Ledwellow any time soon you’d have a bone or two or maybe ten to pick with him.

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@charradelange @belfry-bat @gabile18 @beccaboo929

#clone trooper oc #clone trooper oc x reader #clone trooper x reader #star wars oc #star wars #clone wars #star wars reader insert #clone wars reader insert #gender neutral reader

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call-sign-shark · 2 years ago

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My baby Brummie, sorry for the delay but I wanted to answer properly to your lovely comment. You can’t imagine how much I enjoy reading your reactions, they are the best — especially the lives ones teehee.

It’s true that this chapter starts in a very anxious and claustrophobic settings, with the details of the rope pressing on Heaven/Reader’s throat. I am so moved by you thinking my writing is immersive: I don’t know if I’m a witch too —maybe?— but knowing I’ve managed to make you feel so many strong emotions is the best reward a writer could have. Because even if Heaven is an OC, she is also the embodiment of Reader. Also I particularly love the parts you’ve quoted about her threatening the guards with her look and the demons being scared in hell because those details are very important to understand the dangerous vibes that emanate off Heaven — and which are easy to forget since she’s frail-looking and soft with the people she loves —. She’s a kind of Mama Bear, and now she is furious. 🤭 Regarding Polly, she has forgiven her rude behavior. Somehow she understood why she was suspicious. After all, she was worried for her family and especially for her slightly naive nephew, Arthur.

Honestly, I love Heaven/John in an indescribably way. Writing about them always make me smile. As I’ve told to some friends here, your question about John’s flirty banters with Heaven is relevant. I like to let readers choose either they want John and Heaven to be like siblings, or if they prefer John having a crush on her. I see you’ve chosen the platonic path 🥰 I’m in love with your analysis of their relationship because, you’ve summarize perfectly: Arthur is her other half, her soulmate, but John is definitely as important to her. He’s always her to make her laugh, and she knows she can trust him. And we can see that in her way of not being afraid to talk to her deepest fears with him. He is good at reassuring her 💚 Im gonna send you a John to brighten your life, Brummie 🤭 I’m glad you liked her demand of him walking her down the aisle, it shows how important he his in her life.

YOU HAVENT MET KAISER BEFORE??? You need to read the one shots about him, you’ll love him even more! He’s a giant but adorable disaster 🤣!!

Now the wedding 🥹

Arthur cannot help but worry — I think he is a character full of doubts. And he hates himself so much he can’t believe someone like Heaven would want him as her husband. But once again your analysis is on point: her presence soothes him even when she’s not there. Also, thank you so much for your sweet reaction at both the entrance and her outfit, it’s very difficult to write a description that’s as smooth as easy to imagine, so it means a lot!! Can you imagine? Even Tommy had forgotten he hated her for a few seconds 🤣 Talking about little king Shelby, it’s true that Arthur’s wedding is a complete opposition to the one of Reader and Dark!Tommy in Killing Me Softly. Poor baby Y/N 🥺

“Arthur, No tongues!!” I DIED. He’s like:

Come on, you’re asking too much! He could not help but add a little tongue, but still he behaved well … At least for the ceremony 🤣🤣 Honestly I am fucking happy you highlighted the little part of Arthur almost ruining the cake because he got angry! Like — even in love it’s still good old Arthur Shelby. In truth, I feel for Polly who had been so worried for the whole wedding that she was running everywhere to make sure everything was fine. She was a bit exhausted and tired, so seeing her nephew coming with his hair messy, his shirt filled with folds and his fly open annoyed her asf LMAO.

To conclude I’m delighted you liked the pillow talk — this is such a soft scene and knowing I’ve immersed you in their fluffy bubble is a win! Thank you so much for always writing long and wonderful comments. You never fail to make day and I’m proud to have you 💚 knowing that the writer who is working on my fav Tommy series thinks my series is the best make me fucking happy 🥺

Heaven in Your Eyes || Arthur Shelby x Reader!OC

Summary: Six months after being released from prison and cleared of murder charges, you and Arthur are finally getting married. All you have to do now is hope for the wedding day to be spared from some Shelby chaos. Featuring John Shelby x Reader.

Words: 6k

TW: tooth-rotting fluff, light angst, allusions to smut, one ruined wedding cake, Tommy not being a dick for once, otherwise it's a well-deserved soft chapter to start this new act. Let's not break your heart too soon.

Notes:

✞ This chapter is the beginning of Act II of Heaven in Your Eyes. The timeline is S4.

✞ Heaven is OP's original character but written with the use of « you » (Moodboard here).

PREVIOUS || Masterlist || NEXT PART

The beating in your heart was so erratic, so fierce, that its constant drumming echoed in your skull and ears as painfully as if someone was smashing your brain with a hammer. You clenched your jaws at the painful bite of the rope the police officer behind you had placed around your neck. The way the noose compressed your windpipe, already giving you a foretaste of what was awaiting you, made the act of breathing laborious. Sucking on a sharp breath, your throat whistled like a dying bird. Down below I go, you thought while nervously playing with the wedding ring Arthur gifted you weeks ago. He had barely made his proposal when policemen snatched you from him and threw you both in jail. With your back straight and your crystal eyes glaring at the officers who were present in this slaughter room, you managed to keep your dignity. They might hang you, but they would not see you cry. In fact, if you went down they would have to watch you, so that your piercing irises would haunt them until, one day, Death would come for them too.

I love you Arthur.

I love you Dad and Mom.

I love you little sister.

I’m so sorry I’ve failed you.

Could you ever forgive me?

Your teeth dug into the flesh of your inner cheek as seconds flew, each bringing you closer to your inevitable end.

“WAIT!!! PLEASE WAIT! ”

A far cry in the distance. Were you dreaming? Or were demons already afraid of you down in Hell?

Officer Kat Wilson’s heart missed a beat when the familiar voice boomed in the warehouse, as loud as a foghorn. The blonde policewoman turned around, eyes filled with hope as she saw the silhouette of Sergeant Moss bathed in the blinding outside light that had rushed into the place when he had opened the warehouse’s heavy doors, “Do not kill her! We’ve just received a new order from the Crown: Heaven Lavey and Polly Gray are proven innocent of the crimes they had been accused of.” He said, forehead glistening with sweat. He had probably run as fast as possible to deliver the news quickly. Kat Wilson felt all of her muscles relax at such an unhoped-for plot twist.

“Take the noose off her neck now.” She ordered, trying his best to sound strict despite Moss standing right here, running out of breath.

Innocent? Take the noose? Sentences were melting in an intelligible treacle because of the emotional roller coaster you were undergoing, hence you only caught a few words. When your mind finally made sense of what was happening, a long sigh came out of your quivering lips. Then, the policeman behind you set your throat free. You blinked several times and looked at Officer Wilson, who replied to your confused gaze with a faint, supportive smile illuminating her usually oh-so-severe traits. Then, she proceeded to free you from the handcuffs that were sinking into the frail flesh of your wrists. As she did, Kat brought her lips near your ear and whispered so only you could hear, “Arthur’s safe. The warrant includes the Shelby family too. I’m sorry for the mess, doll. ”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and glanced at the woman, trying not to let too many emotions show. Not that you wanted to play the tough girl, but you were so overwhelmed by your feelings that you were not even able to let out anything except confusion. It was all… Too much. “You knew they were going to release us.” You stated with a quiet but still slightly shaky voice as the revelation struck you.

“Let’s say I hoped they’d interrupt your death sentence in time.” Her soft yet hoarse voice replied, highlighted with a cunning little something.

Kat Wilson gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze before leading you outside the sinister warehouse, unwilling to provide you with further details. And somehow, you did not bother to ask. The only thing you wished for was to run away from this killing floor. Thus you walked bare feet on the gravel ground, the peaky sensation of the tiny stones against your flesh keeping you grounded to reality, andyou stopped in the middle of the yard. There, you threw your head back and closed your eyes, relishing the soft caress of the wind on your face. You breathed a sigh of relief, for the clouds above you had shifted from the sun, whose rays were warming up your frozen skin.

You were alive.

“Heaven!” A woman voice called you.

You reopened your eyes and looked around you, “Oh my God, Polly!” You suddenly exclaimed when you recognized her. Seeing Aunt Polly running to you and almost tackling you in a desperate hug was all it took for your emotions to finally flood you. Tears dawned at the corner of your eyes as you pulled her into a deeper embrace. Polly sobbed in your arms, her body quivering because of her cries.

“I saw them Heaven! I saw the spirits. Oh bloody hell, the spirits…”

“I know Pol,” You tried to comfort her the best you could, your grip tightening around the poor woman in the hope of helping her calm her panic attack. Still, you knew she was shaken to the core by her freshly canceled rendezvous with Mr. Death, “Everything’s fine,” You whispered, and let one of your hands lose itself in her short dark hair, “I hear them too.” You admitted. Polly gradually grew quieter in your arms, running out of tears. Nevertheless, you did not let her go. What you did, though, was to silently thank the policewoman with your gaze, your irises sparkling with genuine gratitude. No matter her role in all this mess, you knew Kat Wilson contributed to setting you free.

You were alive.

Alive, for sure, and indescribably furious.

1925 - Six Months Later

You had been absentmindedly looking at your reflection in the mirror for long minutes when someone knocked at the door and snatched you from your contemplative state. A growl escaped from your lips for you had let everyone know you did not want to be bothered— truth be told, you needed a bit of time alone with you to soothe your anxiety. However, the uninvited guest came in before you allowed him to do so.

“True gentlemen wait to be invited before entering a room, you know? Especially when a lady is in it. ” You said with a faint smirk on your plump and glossy lips as you recognized the guest by the sole fragrances of his cologne.

“A part of me hoped to see you undressed, that’s why I didn’t, little Angel.” The masculine voice answered, its tone filled with tease. You snorted at such a stupid answer, kinda expecting it, and rolled your eyes in amusement.

“Idiot.” You simply retorted, glancing at him through the mirror you were still facing.

“Idiot? That’s it? I’m used to better roast from ya, eh!” John exclaimed, surprised by your lack of wit. He wanted to tease you again you but your sudden silence kept him from doing so. Something was off. Worried, the young Shelby brother frowned a little bit and walked to you, not minding your desire of being alone. You jumped slightly at the sensation of his two large and warm hands squeezing your upper arms, “Oi, Angel.” He gently called, the tenderness in his voice wrapping you in a comforting haze, “Tell me what’s wrong please…”

For sure John Shelby had a soft spot for you since the day Arthur introduced you to the family. No one had ever doubted it. Without the slightest explanation nor apparent reasons, you both immediately grew fond of each other from the moment your eyes met. In truth, your relationship with the Shelby family had been quite tricky for months following the first meeting. Most of them didn’t want you to be a part of the clan, partly due to the witch rumors around you and Arthur’s obsessive love. It was only now, a solid year and one murder later, that everything had started to flow more smoothly with them. Even Esme, who had been terrified of you and would usually avoid you at all costs, had learned to live with your presence in the family. According to Polly, you had deserved your place among them more than any other women the boys brought home. The only threat to this harmony had been and still was Thomas Shelby himself. The mutual resentment you shared for each other was rooted in deep and far too complicated reasons, the most recent one was him selling you to the police for murder charges. However, you came to terms with the idea of maintaining a mutual hatred as long as he did not step between Arthur and you ever again.

So, apart from Tommy and Esme, you were now getting along with everyone. But with John… With John, it was unlike anything you had ever experienced, apart from Arthur. Whenever your man wasn’t there, John would do everything that was in his power to keep you company and bring a smile to your face. Not only he loved to visit you and spent his free time with you, but he truly cared for your well-being. Sometimes he would make a surprise visit to your house. In fact, he would stand there on your porch with the most adorable smile you had ever seen etched on his lips, a basket filled with food in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other. When Arthur and you decided to leave Birmingham, your heart ached at the thought of moving away from John. Following your departure, rumors said John’s eternal smile had not be seen for weeks. However, once you had well adjusted to your new routine, even distance could not shake your unique bond: John never ceased to visit you when he could.

“What’s the matter, little angel?” He inquired, genuinely concerned by your silence and the melancholic gleam in your aquamarine eyes.

“I’m scared John. I’m fucking scared.” You finally admitted, closing your eyelids a few seconds to take a slow inhale. The weight in your chest had vanished from the moment words left your mouth. At such a surprising answer, the young gangster’s grip tightened on your arms and he gently forced you to turn around to face him. Still, you avoided his gaze, fearing judgment.

“It’s your wedding day, Heaven. What are you scared of?” He carefully asked, taking care not to make you think he was mocking or judging you.

“I’m scared because now I’ve got something to lose,” You fell silent for a tiny while, fighting again the desire to remain silent, but you knew you could open up to him, “I have a magnificent house in the forest cradled by the sweet chant of a peaceful stream. I have the loveliest man I could have dreamt of by my side, who loves me to the moon and back. God, I even got a dog!” Another brief pause you took to avoid crying, “And one day there will be one or two kids…” John listened to you carefully, still wondering what the problem was, “If I'm being honest, I’ve never thought I would be allowed to be this happy. At one point in my life, I got used to the idea of dying alone, hunted down by bad memories, and drown by guilt. But, look at me now. Look how far I’ve come… That’s why I’m scared of losing it all. Fuck, John — I’ll die without him.”

To your greatest surprise, the young gangster replied to your lament with soft chuckles, “Heaven. I don’t know what it is between Arthur and you, but I’ve never seen a love fiercer than you one you share. Bloody Hell, you’re so addicted to each other it’s even a bit scary sometimes, not gonna lie eh,” His fingers trapped your chin in one soft movement and, with indescribable tenderness, he raised your head so that he could observe each trait of your angelic face, “Having something to lose makes you cherish what you have even more. Plus it doesn’t mean you’re gonna lose it. “ The corner of his charming lips curled in a sweet smile, “Moreover, there’s more chance for Tommy to like you than for Arthur to leave your side. He’s not gonna let you go… To my greatest sadness.” John winked at you and, despite everything, his last flirty comment managed to make you laugh. Sometimes, you didn’t know how he always succeeded in cheering your up but still he did, “Listen, I knew you’d be a bit nervous for your wedding day, so I got you a little surprise.”

“A surprise?” You asked, curious, wiping away the tiny tears that had formed in the corner of your eyes while being careful not to ruin the stunning siren-eyes makeup Ada did. It would be a shame to have more mascara on your cheek than on your eyelashes the day of your wedding. John walked to the door and put his large hand on the knob, looking at you to maintain a small suspense “I know he’s not supposed to see you before the ceremony but he would not stop crying without you so…” He was about to open the door when he stopped mid-action, “Oh and I’m not talking about Arthur by the way. Even though I’m pretty sure he’s also doing that.”

“Fuck off, John boy.” You poked your tongue out, feeling cheerful and far less anxious thanks to him. He grinned in reply and finally opened the door.

“Oh! This is... So cuuuuute!” You almost squealed, for you were welcomed by the sight of Kaiser, the huge Cane Corso Arthur’s had brought home one night, sitting in front of the door with his mouth open in a big smile and with his drooling tongue hanging, “Come here big boy!” You called him, kneeling on the floor without minding your wedding dress now that your fur baby was here. Kaiser did not need to be asked twice: he walked to you and put his huge head between your frail hands to get his scratches, looking at you with so much love in his hazel eyes you could not resist smooching his wet snout “I can’t believe you’ve put a bow tie to my dog!” You laughed, “Look at this distinguished gentleman... He’s gonna steal all the women!” The massive beast barked loudly as to agree with you. You delicately wrapped your arms around his muscular frame to hug him, the sensation of his fur against your face erasing the last bits of anxiety left in you “Oh you’re the most handsome man of the whole family, baby Kaiser... Yes, you are. ”

His tail wagged. Of course, he was!

“Couldn’t participate in the wedding if he wasn’t all fancy, eh. I've also put a fake mustache on his snout but he ate it so I gave up on the idea,” He shrugged, “I thought it would make you laugh and help you relax.”

“Thank you, John! Thank you so much, you’re lovely I swear.” You said, looking at him with your gaze filled with genuine affection all the while cuddling with Kaiser, who seemed to be in paradise judging by his blissfully happy face.

“So — are you ready?” John finally asked.

“Yes, I am.” You replied, then stood up and took a quick look at your reflection in the mirror to fix your long white mane, which had been styled in wavy and adorned with a few diamonds from there and then, giving your hair an otherworldly shine. As you focused on your hairstyle, John rearranged your dress. At one point, he stopped what he was doing to look at you with a dreamy expression.

“You’re stunning, little angel. Fuckin’ bewitching.” He whispered before shaking his head, “Let’s find your man now, eh. Alright?” You nodded, the butterflies in your stomach flying at the sole mention of Arthur.

“I’m ready but before we go can I ask you a favor, John?”

“Anything.”

“You know, I’d have loved my family to be here. Mom would have been prolly crying during the whole wedding in Dad’s arms while my little sister would have thrown white petals at everyone’s face for fun…” You let out a charming but oh-so-sad chuckle “But no matter how fiercely I’ve prayed for it I know they won’t be there. So I’ve got two choices left: either I walk alone to my husband or I ask someone to accompany me.” You had barely finished your sentence when the celeste blue of your eyes dived into the sky blue of his, “I’d like you to escort me down the aisle, John.”

He remained silent, stricken by surprise at such a touching demand. He had not been expecting it. Words were at loss, however, they were not necessary for you to understand his answer: as the sun rays crossed through the windows and enlightened John’s face, you could see the precious shine of one sole crystal tear running down his cheek.

The powerful sound of the organ resonated in the whole church, the vibrations of its melody resounding in Arthur’s chest and making him tremble from within. He was standing in front of the altar with his manly hands interlocked in front of him. For the occasion, he had bought the most elegant and expensive tailored three-piece suit he had ever owned: he was dressed in all black, except for the white shirt he was wearing under. Moreover, Tommy had put some traditional white flowers in the pocket of his vest, while Polly had slipped an emerald pillar pendant around his neck and hid it under his shirt before he entered the church— a marriage blessing, from what he had understood from Polly’s emotional speech. The woman was so proud of her older nephew she could not help but already weep with joy. Arthur nervously glanced at his brother who was standing by his side, slightly in front of him at his best man’s place. Then, his steel-blue eyes shifted from Tommy and searched for his Aunt, who sat a bit further in the audience beside Ada and Finn. To be honest, Arthur’s anxiety kicked in. The more the second passed, the more the unpleasant impression his heart was about to burst from his chest was overwhelming. Nervously spinning one of his silver rings, he tried to control his nerves the best he could but it was harder than he thought: a part of him, admittedly irrational, was terrified by the possibility of you not showing up.

What if you’ve changed your mind? What if you’ve come to the conclusion you did not want him? What if your wedding did not work out, just like his first one? Maybe the problem hadn’t been Linda but him?

As was always the case when he was panicking, his self-whipping thoughts banged together in his skull like a hive of furious buzzing hornets. Nevertheless, Arthur knew, deep down, that you were soul mates and that there was no actual reason for you to flee. What really helped him to calm down though was taking a deep inhale and focusing on the hundred of candles’ flames that were illuminating the room with tiny dancing flames. A comforting wave of warmth almost immediately wrapped his heart as he did, for this church was the place in which you met for the very first time. He still clearly remembers the fire that had lit in his dying soul at the way your fingers grazed him when you had cleaned the blood off his face with a torn piece of your own dress. Not only had you purified his soiled skin, but then you had allowed him to put his head on your thighs and proceeded to pet his hair all the while lulling his demons to sleep with that enchanting voice of yours. From that night, Arthur made a promise to Almighty God, who had been kind enough to answer his prayers and sent him his most precious Angel. And that promise was that he would marry you in this same place to show God how well he would treat you and how happy you would be with him.

The organ roared louder in the church all of a sudden, causing him to refocus.

You were coming.

The gangster straightened his back, quickly slicked his hair back one last time to look perfect for you, and then stared at the church’s heavy wooden doors with both anxiety and anticipation in his eyes. His blood boiled with impatience, for you had been separated for too long because of the traditional “don’t see the bride before the ceremony” the Shelby women — and John — had insisted to establish. That being said, it had been torture for Arthur, who was aching so much from your absence that he felt almost as bad as when he went through rehab. Hands shaking, cold sweat running down his back, breath hitching, Arthur could definitely not live without you by his side. — you were the most exquisite drug ever created, against which even opium could not even compete.

The doors opened and panic rushed even more brutally into his being. At first, he thought he was about to die from a heart attack, but then, all these negative feelings vanished in dust when his piercing blue irises met your tantalizing silhouette. When you erupted from the almost supernatural light that was surrounding you, Arthur widened his eyes and stopped breathing. Here you were, your seductive body adorned with a graceful Greek goddess-inspired dress whose cut let the pale flesh of your back for the world to see while also forming a graceful and long wedding cape that was cascading down your shoulders. The whiteness of your outfit, equaling the wonderful snow-like color of your hair, was enhanced with gold jewels: armbands and a choker. One look at you was all it took for Arthur to feel the stinging of uncontrollable tears dawning in his eyes, for a tsunami of emotions had crashed in his soul at such a holy sight. As you walked to the altar at John’s arm, the wind blew in the church and made your cape dance behind you. For a few seconds, Arthur was convinced he saw wings in your back. Mighty feathery wings.

Divine. It was the only word that came into his mind when he watched you breaking the distance between you. And the more you approached, the more he was stunned by your ethereal beauty. So stunned he had to keep himself from falling on his knees at your feet, deeming himself unworthy of standing in front of such a pure seraph. Even Tommy, whose resentment for you was a secret to none, found himself in awe at your pulchritude. He, along with the groom, had to blink several times to make sure they were not dreaming.

Your glossy lips stretched in an enamored smile overflowing with emotions when you looked at your future husband: he was so charming in his suit that you fell in love with him for a second time. Your grip tightened around John’s arm for your heartbeat quickened until you finally rejoined Arthur. As soon as you reached him, the tall gangster took you by the hands — yours: small, delicate, and freezing. His: large, calloused, and burning. You dived into each other’s eyes, and the rest of the world disappeared.

“You’re so handsome.” You whispered, causing an adorable pink shade to blossom on your soon-to-be husband’s cheeks.

“C-Come on. Did ye see yer own reflection? Ye took me fookin breath away, Angel.” His hoarse replied.

“Arthur, we’re in a church.” You discreetly snorted.

“Oh Fook. I mean shi— Whatever.” He slightly stuttered. At this moment, it did not matter that he was a grown man in his mid-thirties: he felt like a flustered teenager in front of his first crush all over again. And to be true, so you were — to the point you both did not hear much of what the priest was saying, for you were far too hypnotized by each other’s presence as well as fighting hard against the urge of devouring each other’s lips. The only moment you both came back to your senses was when you had to pronounce your vows.

Then came the final moment.

Arthur Shelby, do you take Heaven Lavey to be your wife? Do you promise to be faithful to her in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love her and to honor her all the days of your life?

I do. He answered with haste. You trapped your lower lip between your teeth, gathering all your strength to hold your emotions, but the crystal tears in your aquamarine eyes betrayed you.

Arthur Shelby, receive this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The caress of your fingers along with the cold sensation of the golden ring on his skin sent shivers down his spine. Observing you as you sealed your love by slipping the ring around his finger, Arthur’s smile grew a bit larger and made his teary eyes squint, digging adorable crowfeet at their corners.

You can kiss the bride.

The priest’s last words brought him back to life — that’s what he had been waiting for what seemed to be an eternity. Unable to wait any longer, the gangster brought one hand to your cheek and broke the excruciating distance between your lips until they crashed together under a thunder of applause. The feathery caress of his moustache on your skin mixed with the sensation of his eager mouth warmed you all over. Arthur deepened the kiss by parting his lips slightly so that his tongue could find its way to yours and give it a gentle stroke. But while hungry, the press of his mouth remained chaste. Carried away by his softness, you felt your body flickering in his arms, as fragile as the church’s candle flames.

You were his, he told it to himself. And he was yours. All yours until death tears you apart.

No, fuck that Reaper cunt he thought, even Death would not keep him apart from you.

The hundreds of candles and lanterns that were scattered through all Arrow House’s garden enlightened the night with their warm hue. Shortly before the wedding, the Shelby family suggested hosting the party in Tommy’s Mansion rather than in your place for practical matters. By celebrating your marriage in Arrow House, all the family and, by extension, friends, could reunite together without having to drive for miles. Moreover, the mansion was far bigger than your and Arthur’s house, which made the place far more convenient for partying. For the event, all of Arrow House and its gargantuan garden had been decorated with lights, candles of every kind, white drapes, and flower wreaths that gave the place a supernatural atmosphere. The cheerful cacophony of chatter and music hovered above the garden as the guests were indulging themselves with food, alcohol, and innocent fun. Even Officer Kat Wilson, who had been invited following her implication in your release from prison, spent the whole night partying with the Shelby family. Surprisingly enough, no one dared to disrupt the celebration with illegal activities. Just a few bets here and there. The only incident to declare had been the moment when Arthur, faithful to himself, almost smashed someone’s head in the wedding cake —he got angry when one of the guests looked at your cleavage—. However, if Arthur failed with ruining the cake it had not been Kaiser’s case, who ate half of it by himself.

“Where are Arthur and Heaven? Can’t believe the bride and the groom had disappeared!” Polly asked Tommy and Ada, visibly unhappy. The latter was a bit tipsy judging by the red shade of her cheeks and the glass of champagne in her perfectly manicured hand.

“Last time I’ve seen them they were dancing with flower crowns on their heads,” She hiccoughed, “I nearly died from laughing. Arthur. With a flower crown. It was so sweet and ridiculous!”

“That ain’t fun, Ada. I really need to find those stupid lovebirds. I swear I’m going bonkers: first Arthur’s tantrum, then Kaiser ruining the wedding cake, and now the newlyweds are late for the picture!” She complained. Overall, it had been Aunt Polly who made sure everything ran smoothly, hence her discontentment.

Tommy rolled his eyes at his sister’s inebriation, then he squeezed her shoulder with his large hand, “I think your question will find its answer really soon, Pol.” He stated with his quiet and deep voice as his turquoise eyes caught sight of your silhouette walking toward them, holding Arthur by the hand. You were both exchanging glances and light enamored laughters.

As surprising as it sounded, Thomas Shelby and you had managed to put your mutual hatred aside for the sake of the wedding. Of course, you were carefully avoiding each other the best you could, but when you were together in inevitable family moments, your exchanges remained polite.

Polly turned to you with her eyebrows furrowed and pressed her fists on her hips with an angry- mother expression when you and Arthur joined the small group.

“Ah! There you are! The photographer has been fuming for half an hour! Where have you been?” She scolded.

“We really need a map. This place is a fookin’ maze eh. We got lost.” Arthur tried to justify himself, his fingers firmly intertwined with yours, “I mean I wanted to show her the mansion but hey, I quite forgot which way to go and —“

“Arthur?” Polly cut him.

“Eh?”

“Your fly.” She simply stated. Holding much power, those two tiny words made Arthur almost jump. He let go of your hand in one vivid movement.

“OH FOOKIN HELL!” His gravel voice exclaimed when he looked down at his trousers. He quickly zipped the fly up under Ada’s hysterical laugh and Tommy’s mocking smirk. Admittedly, you could not help but giggle too for his reaction had been quite priceless. Oh Arthur, you thought. The only one who was not laughing was Polly, who looked at him with such a desperate face that you were sure she was about to facepalm herself. Or slap his face, it depended on her mood.

“Men and their cock, I swear. Look at you, idiot,” She said affectionately, “Your hair is all messed up! You’re going to look awful in your wedding pic!” She growled, grabbing her oldest nephew to rearrange both his hair and his tie.

“Don’t be mean Pol, he just needed to release the pressure.” You said, watching the scene with a faint smile on your juicy and glossy lips still swollen from Arthur’s lustful kisses, “The whole speech thing worried him.”

“Mmmpff— true.” He grunted, embarrassed.

“Yeah of course.” The beautiful Ada started before coming to you and smoothing the folds of your goddess dress with a teasing grin “What a long and difficult way to say you just wanted to give him a blowjob.” She teased.

“Piss off Ada.” You gently retorted, rolling your eyes in a fake outraged pout, “let’s take that picture before Polly strangle us all.”

“OI. Everyone fucking gather together for the picture! Bring the damn dog too!” Tommy yelled to the crowd, “John! Made them pose in front of the mansion!” Orders flew and Peaky Blinders were soon taking the crowd in charge to help the photographer take the most perfect picture he could take. When everyone was ready, he pushed the button of his camera and, in a blinding flash, captured the most beautiful moment of your whole life in a picture you would cherish like the apple of your eye.

“We… We really should … Like… At least try to get in bed.” You giggled, your cheeks still adorned with a pink blush. Admittedly, talking had become quite a challenge after the second bottle of wine.

“Not gonna lie, love, I can’t fookin’ get up for the life of me.” Arthur pulled you closer against his bare chest and slipped one hand into your messy long hair, not willing to move. The tenderness of his caresses made your whole body relax and you melted in the warmth of his freckled skin. To hell with the bed, you thought, the floor would do the trick.

When the party had come to an end, Arthur had carried you bridal-style to one of the mansion’s magnificent bedrooms, despite being completely drunk. The whole walk had been tedious with poor Arthur staggering in the stairway, but you could not have cared less — you were as wasted as he was and could not walk anymore. Maybe the alcohol contest with Kat and Uncle Charlie had not been such a great idea after all… Once you reached the bedroom, Arthur and you collapsed on the large fur rug that was on the wooden floor and clumsily took off each other’s clothes between heated kisses and steamy moans. He had impatiently waited for the wedding night, calling you “Mrs. Shelby” and “me lovely wife” all the way. That being said, a few intoxicated chuckles had embellished the symphony of your love when alcohol made one of you missed the other’s lips. No one could tell how many hours went by nor how many times you made love — Not even you. You were only coming back to your senses now that you were both snuggling naked on the floor, your legs entangled and your mind still clouded with your latest orgasm.

“I don’t want this wonderful day to end,” Arthur said, his gruff voice finally breaking the comfortable and peaceful silence that had settled in the room. A slow and long exhale escaped from your nostrils at his words before you laid lazy kisses on his chest. Your lips, still hungry for him despite your drowsiness, trailed up until they reached the golden cross pendant he was always wearing. A shiver ran down his spine when you took it between your full lips and looked up to his eyes through your Bambi lashes, “Fook — you make me so… Happy.”

“And I’ll do my best to keep you happy every day of your life.” You replied after a little while, setting the pendant free from your tantalizing mouth. “That was a pretty successful day.”

“It was, eh.” Arthur softly smiled at your words, his piercing blue eyes enjoying your mesmerizing beauty and his long fingers gently massaging your scalp, “We got a letter and a bouquet from Mrs. Solomons, y’know. She wanted to come but her husband’s back was hurting too much. ”

“Oh yes? Rosie is a sweetheart.”

“And her husband’s a cunt.” He growled, “Bloody bastard.”

“I know right? But she’s great. She’s been teaching me so many interesting things about feminism! Really made me want to attend her next meeting!”

“Women… You’re all going to overpower us one day.” Arthur said, his voice tinted with amusement. His free hand quickly grabbed the bottle of whisky that was next to him and took a mouthful of alcohol.

“It would not be a bad thing,” You pressed a kiss against his chin and he hummed in response, delighted by the way you showered him with tenderness. Arthur would have been purring under your touch if he had been able to do so. It just felt good — so good the whole world could have gone down in flames he wouldn’t mind as long as you kept pampering him like you were doing. You made him feel loved. You made him feel at peace… And God knows how much he needed that. “Especially for Michael. Have you seen his girlfriend Nora? She looked exhausted.”

“She just gave birth to her second child. Of course, she’s exhausted, love.” He said. His hand, which had been playing with your hair until then, slowly ran down your naked back.

“Hm.” That was all you replied, for you felt Michael’s girl was more than just physically exhausted. Something was definitely off in their relationship, but you did not want to mingle. “Their daughter is lovely, though.”

“She is.”

Another silence fell in the bedroom, only embellished by the relaxing cracking of the woods burning in the hearth. Both of you had closed your eyes, slowly drifting away into Morpheus’ kingdom.

“Angel?” He called you with a sleepy voice.

“Yes, Arthur?” You answered, dozing off.

“ I’d love to have kids with ye, eh. Little white-haired and blue-eyed us running barefoot in the forest… Little embodiments of our love brightening our life.” His voice was merely a whisper now for he was slowly falling asleep, “I’ve always wanted to be a dad… but thought I was too messed up for that.”

“You aren’t.” You smiled and let your fingers lazily graze his skin, your nails crossing through his chest hairs and ending their race on his heart, right where his tattoo was “I want it too Arthur. I want it too.”

Sleep made the last word of your sentence die on your lips. Now, the hullabaloo of the party was no more. All the remaining noises were the harmonious murmurs of your slow breathings and the lullaby sung by the fire, which had never been so comforting.

✞ Any comment, review, reblog, or constructive criticism is welcome. Your reactions really motivate me and keep me alive, so please don't be shy. English is not my first language.

✞ Tag list: @adaydreamaway08 @theshelbyclan @jomarch-wannabe @esposadomd @zablife @woofgocows @anathemasworld @anastasia000 @kate654 @kxnnxy @babayaga67 @meowtastick @shelbyssins @sarai-ibn-la-ahad @bluevenus19 @raincoffeeandfandoms

✞ Nora Gray belongs to @amidst-wonderland || Rose Solomons belongs to @raincoffeeandfandoms || Kat Wilson belongs to my sweet partner @callme-fox

✞ Each chapter of this series can be read as stand-alone even though it's far more enjoyable if you have read at least the previous chapter.

#Brummie 💚#HYE squad #comment rb #Fooling death is Heaven’s favorite hobby

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whatareyousearchingfordean · 4 years ago

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Supernatural Series Finale

It took me a couple days to collect my thoughts on one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to watch in my life. Like I said a few days ago, I cried even harder watching it the second time around. But now that I’ve had a chance to process and also see what other people were saying, I think I can finally put into words my impression of the finale.

Buckle up, this is a long one....

Let me preface this first off by saying that as an adamant Dean girl that has said numerous times over the years that all I’ve ever wanted was to wrap Dean in a blanket and give him some forehead kisses and tell him everything is going to be fine, this episode gutted me. I fully believe that my boy did not deserve to fight so hard for so long to just die as soon as he was free. He deserved a lifetime of truly enjoying time with his baby brother, the person he loved most in the whole world.

Now with that being said, having watched this series so many numerous times, I truly don’t believe that the show could have ended any other way. It’s something that has been pointed out by the creator, the writers, the actors, and even the characters themselves in the show. Dean never saw anything else for himself than dying doing the one thing he knows best, hunting. I saw a post that discussed how this would have happened numerous times already had Chuck not been interfering in their lives, and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.

And Dean had been raised to never think anything of that. It goes back to Cas’ declaration that he is “the most loving human he has ever met”. Dean is and always has been a man of duty. He would gladly die at the end of a blade if it meant he saved someone from the fate his family was ‘destined’ to live. He has always cared more about other people than he ever has himself. It part of the reason that his freak out in 15.17 didn’t throw me because for fuck’s sake wasn’t it his turn to be a little bit selfish for once?

Anyway, I digress. Dean has been fighting for others his whole life. And as stated in 15.19, him and Sam were free to finally write their own story. Is it not 100% on character that Dean would die a hunter’s death? As we see in the beginning of the episode, the Winchesters could have chosen to walk away from the life then. They could have chose the apple pie life, a wife and 2.5 kids. But they didn’t, they chose to continue saving people, hunting things. They were writing their own story, even if it ended tragically. But that’s life, it’s messy and depressing, but it’s also beautiful and even if Dean only got a small taste of that, I can be happy.

I know a lot of people feel like that negates their character growth throughout the seasons, but I disagree. I think that the way this ended shows just how much both of them had grown. Sam very well could have went to Jack and begged him to bring Dean back and Dean could have asked him to. But neither felt that it was necessary any longer. Without Chuck pulling the strings, that scary, neurotic, codependence they used to hold was gone. Dean was okay with dying and Sam let him go. Dean told him how much he loved him and how scared he had been to go get him at school. Dean opened up, something that season 1 Dean never would have done. Just look back at “Faith”, the episode where Dean makes every joke in the book about dying instead of facing the truth that his time was up and Sam refuses to accept it so much that his one source to save him (unwittingly) is black magic. The men I saw in 15.20 were far from the men we met in season one.

Coming back to finally being free, I have to talk about the dammed paperwork in Dean’s room. I’ve seen the speculation about that. But that’s all it is, speculation. We have no idea what that was supposed to be about. If they had meant for us to see it, they would have shown it to use like they showed us the “Dean’s other other phone” sticker. But they didn’t. So it’s perfectly fine to speculate about it, that all a part of art interpretation, but in my opinion, even if Dean was working on ‘something else’ I don’t think he ever could have fully walked away from hunting. This ending was for all intents and purposes, inevitable.

For all the rest, as a writer, I fully understand the way that they chose to do this episode. Sure covid played a role but the boys had said that the crux of what the episode was did not change. There is a certain nuance to storytelling, like I posted back on Thursday and something that is probably one of the most famous lines from this show. Endings are hard. Writing is hard. It’s impossible to please everyone and even harder to tie up all loose ends. At the end of the day, the writers had to be satisfied with the story that they put out, irregardless of what you or I think. As Jensen so beautifully puts it, Supernatural is a piece of art, one that has numerous hands in the pot. From writers to actors and directors. And art is always up for interpretation. But that’s the beauty in it.

I talked to a dear friend, @waywardbeanie after the episode and was like “I want to know x.y.and z” because a part of me wanted all the answers from them. I’ve always been a person so very deeply rooted in canon (I know as a fanfic author that sounds weird but stay with me). I trust the information given to me and take it as face value. I seen my stories as an extension to canon, not trying to rewrite it. So it took me a few days, and more conversations with other fans of the show, like @winchest09 , to understand that the facts left out of the final were most likely intentional.

This is a show that has such a passionate and loving (mostly) fandom. Together we have done so much good for the world, and that is something even if you hated the finale, you can’t take back. The writers left the ending open for us, to write our own stories, whether it’s just your thoughts or if you actually write a piece of fanfiction. There is so little about what happens after Sam leaves, presumably for Austin (don’t even get me started on the essence of that cause I might cry again), because it’s our job to decide. Did Sam quite hunting all together or was he a pseudo Bobby, manning the phones for other hunters? Did he finally go to law school or end up getting some other mundane job? Who was his wife or girlfriend or baby momma in the background? Was it Eileen? If not did she know about his life? One could drive themselves crazy answering these questions, and it’s your right to do so however it will make you happy. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter to the story.

At the end of the day, what mattered was the peace that the boys found together, in heaven. Sure Dean missed Sammy when he first got there, but he didn’t fuss, because as Bobby said “he would be along”. So Dean did what he’s always done, he took a drive in Baby, and Sam was there when he finally brought her to a stop. In the end their story ended just as it had started, our boys together.

And I know a lot of people are angry because one of the big themes this show touched on was that family doesn’t end in blood. And I agree wholeheartedly that I would have loved more familiar faces or even the mention of them (I screamed when Donna was mentioned), but at the end of the day, something Eric Kripke has been saying since season one, this show is and always has been about the brothers and their relationship. I in no way think that this negates the family they found along the way or how they could not have done a lot of it without them but, it’s not their story. I’m sorry but it’s true.

It’s not about Cas, Jack, Bobby, Crowley, Ellen, Jo, Mary, Eileen, etc. It’s about Sam and Dean and it sucks that people can’t let that go, but I get it. I can’t imagine putting so much time into something to let something like that ruin the whole experience for you. I hope that you can find peace eventually. I guess that’s my blessing, that I never really cared for anyone besides Dean. Which isn’t to say I didn’t like characters but what happened to them never mattered to me, as bitchy as that sounds.

I’m at peace with this ending, no matter how much it hurts me. And I think it’s just the finality of it that hurts. Jensen and Jared and Kripke are satisfied with their little show that could and that’s what matters most to me. Because those are the real people with real feelings that I care about.

So there you have it. I have zero tolerance for negativity, so please keep your comments off this posts. You are free to your opinion but I don’t want to see it and put any seed of doubt in my acceptance of this ending. I’ll be the first to admit I’m too easily swayed, ha!

But if you need to talk, my inbox is always open. I’m still coping with the loss of this show and everything that comes with it. I don’t do well with change or facing my own mortality, something that has rattle me these past few days. I feel a million years older and that scares me. So know your feelings are valid and I’m here.

#supernatural #spoilers #dont spoil the final hunt #spn finale #supernatural finale

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gch1995 · 3 years ago

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If you know about ATLA the airbending monks were everything people pretend the Jedi were and when the masters heard about the impending war, which would turn out to be the genocide of the airbenders, some of them wanted to send 12 year old Aang the chosen one away to another temple train for the war, going against their air-bending principles, but the point was that it was framed as completely wrong AND Aang's teacher, the monk who raised him, protected him from that fate. I'd love to tell more.

I’ve seen ATLA. I loved watching that show! My favorites were Katara, Sokka, and Zuko! The writers treatment of Azula could have been better. Yes, she was a bitch, and when I was a kid, I hated her, too. However, much like Zuko, she was a victim of her father, and a broken and dictatorial Fire nation’s brainwashing. Unlike Zuko, she never had her mother’s love, or if she did, she was clearly the “unfavorite” of Ursa. In spite of his father’s abuse and brainwashing, Zuko had Iroh and Ursa who were both decent influences on him, which was why he was able to redeem himself in the end. Azula only had her father, who was a downright awful person with no redeeming qualities.

Nonetheless, now that I look back on ATLA, it also very much was an idyllic westernized East Asian fantasy. None of the young characters really behaved much like believable children, except for Aang, Toph, and Sokka. It was easy to forget that these kids were 12-16 and being allowed into war zones. Yes, Katara and Sokka weren’t exactly groomed for warfare, and, thankfully, Giazo stopped Aang’s grooming for warfare. However, they’re still allowed to go off into warzones alone, and even the characters who are supposed to be good parents, such as Iroh and Hakoda, are actually okay with it. Aang’s a different story because he literally has no parents left. No adult is putting a stop to this, even at the end.

In my opinion, a realistic narrative would consistently point out that it is wrong to conscript anyone for warfare under the age of 18. As much as I love ATLA, it doesn’t consistently do that, except for with the kids in the Fire Nation, and even with them, it’s dodgy, because Zuko becomes the Fire Lord at 16, and he is completely okay with that responsibility. For someone who was shown to be an arrogant and emotionally unstable teenager less than a year ago, in spite of having a good, kind, and well-meaning heart underneath it all all along, I don’t totally buy that he suddenly would be able to handle all that responsibility and be okay. Why were Katara and Aang ever a couple? Why were the issues with Toph’s parents never addressed?

For all of Star Wars flaws since Filoni, Hidalgo, and Disney took over and ruined everything, though, I do actually think the OT and PT movies and novelizations do a good job of writing believable and relatable character reacting realistically in traumatic war zones, relationships with abusive, manipulative, and oppressive authority figures, and situations that they weren’t ready for from childhood having lifelong negative emotional/psychological effects on Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader because there were very limited to nonexistent options for healthy support, therapy, and escape from such toxic environments his whole life. While Anakin/Vader does hold a level of responsibility for his crimes as an adult that is on him, and no one deserved to be murdered, I think the writers did make it consistently clear that, while well-meaning, the Jedi Council and Republic were also very broken and dysfunctional. They never should have been taking in children to train for warfare.

Then, in the OT, we have Luke breaking the cycle of abuse, crime, and oppression that his predecessors contributed to, perpetuated, and suffered under as an outsider from that systematic corruption with enough clarity of mind, realism, stability, normalcy, and compassion to do so. While there’s no excuse for perpetuating abuse, child conscription, murder, oppression, and war crimes, it’s a very hard cycle to break and see through as wrong when it’s almost all you’ve known your whole life, there’s limited to nonexistent options for viable safe escape from it, and/or healthy and non-biased support within it.

The problem is that the majority of the OG Star Wars fandom kept bitching about how they didn’t like the dystopian tragedy take that George Lucas went with in the PT, even though it showed signs of having been a problem in the OT too since Obi Wan and Yoda knew Darth Vader before when he was Anakin, claimed to have failed him as his teachers, and did nothing to stop him themselves within those 19 years before Luke came of age. Sure, it is completely reasonable to believe that Vader would be better off dead in self-defense and/or for execution of his crimes, but the fact that Obi Wan and Yoda are both Jedi who knew about him for all this time before Luke showed up, and did nothing about it in those 19 years he was terrorizing the galaxy as Sidious’s attack dog, only so they could attempt to recruit his son to finish off the monster of a man they both contributed to luring his father to become as his guardians who failed him? Fucked up and cowardly as hell.

But again, the majority of the SW fandom didn’t like George Lucas’s take that the Jedi weren’t “completely blameless” and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader wasn’t “pure evil.” It was a systematic issue of abuse, crime, and corruption that they all contributed too and were too afraid to stick up against.

Thus, we got Dave Filoni, Pablo Hidalgo, and Disney canon Star Wars who keep muddling, retconning, and undermining George Lucas’s original story about good and evil not being this black-and-white issue to cater to the, surprisingly many fans who never liked the fact that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader wasn’t the badass and cold-blooded cartoon villain murder machine man they thought they were going to get in “New Hope.”

#anakin skywalker #darth vader #atla #i like atla but it is largely fantasy that with a dodgy ending #the majority of the Star Wars fandom sucks and George Lucas isn’t perfect #but I do think that George Lucas had the right idea about child conscription cultism and child enslavement fucking kids up in Star Wars #i like a lot of things about ATLA but it doesn’t feel as real to me because it’s okay for kids to be in war #and political positions #to me it’s not okay for people under the age of 18 to be involved in war or politics #and in spite of how much the Jedi apologists bitched about it I think George Lucas was on to something

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twdeadfanfic · 3 years ago

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Cheer up :) I'm sure the Leah plot is almost over after last episode, she'll be gone, dead or not, soon! You sound so sad but it's amost over, don't give up on Daryl!

Thank you, sweetheart 💜 (Are you the same anon always? Are you different people??)

The thing is, my problem is not that, and Leah been gone or not, are not going to change that. (Besides I'm not that sure she's going to be gone...)

My problem is not her (I mean, yeah, sure I'd have dreamed someone different for Daryl's love of his life), is not Daryl having a girlfriend, not really. I'm going to try to explain myself but I'm not good at it.

My problem comes from Daryl giving up his family for her. I don't mean now, he's not going to give them up when they're not only in danger but hunted by Leah's family obviously, I mean before, years ago, when she asked.

So Leah asks him to choose her over his family, Daryl's unsure, but in the end, he does choose her. If Leah hadn't left thinking that he'd left her, Daryl would have chosen her, he believes they belong together, and he'd have been with her even if that meant giving up his family and not seeing them again...when there was no reason for that, when he could have had both, his family and Leah, who now was his family too. That, Daryl choosing her over his people, especially over Michonne and the kids, it's the thing that hurts me.

It's made worse but the fact that it was not a choice that he made out of loneliness. In these new episodes (especially the last one), he's made clear that he's been missing her and thinking about her all this time, that he regrets leaving and getting separated from her, and that if he could, he'd go back and not leave, he'd stay with her, giving up his family and his people, for her.

That hurts twice. To know that he'd rather be with her, than having gone back to his family, to the time he's spent with Judith and RJ, with his family. That it's what really hurts me for real.

If he'd have found her again now, but his family was not in danger (either starvation or reapers) and they weren't in different sides of a fight, I'm pretty sure he'd have gone back to her and left behind Judith, RJ, ane everyone else. Because despite the fact that he doesn't show it (because the writers don't care to show it) he's in love with her to the extent that he regrets not saying yes the moment she asked her to choose her over his family, back when they weren't enemies.

That, that is what hurts me. What makes me unable to write Daryl, I struggle so much, I can't feel him anymore, I don't know him anymore. I can't even re-read my own writing to edit it. Because I am, I'm afraid, an idiot hahaha.

They messed Leah's character too, I don't mean the weird religious cult thing, because that's something more in-depth and of which I don't really blame her. I mean that she's totally devoted to her family (and Daryl became that for her when she believed to have lost her own). A person devoted like that to family and who protects them so fiercely, would have never put Daryl in the situation of having to choose between his family and her, especially out of the blue and when there was no need. Daryl's not the only one done dirty by the writing, Leah too.

She literally asked him where he belonged with, with his family or with her...that's something that the Leah we've been seeing now would ask, because she knows that would be the answer, what would be her answer too... but, Daryl decided that he belonged with her, over his family, and that too is something I never thought I'd see Daryl do. It makes me sad. (Reverse the situation, Leah would have not said that she belonged with Daryl more than with her family, yet Daryl did and it kills me.)

It also upsets me that we're never shown any love, affection, trust or intimacy between Daryl and Leah, and despite having a full episode for themselves, we weren't shown their relationship when in love, they've never been shown in love...nor in friendship or companionship either.

If Leah showed any gesture of affection, of love, of care towards Daryl (and him towards her) I wouldn't be so upset and hurt. Hell, I could even support it or like it, if they did it properly (not like they're doing it). I used to be so scared, sad and wary that Daryl would get with Connie, but then they showed them getting closer and being super adorable together and I became a lover of their pairing...but they did nothing to show any love between Leah and Daryl, like, almost not even any friendship or partnership at all...

Or am I blind?

So yes, my hurt, my problem, it's not going to go away. Because they already ruined the chance to show any love and intimacy and partnership between Leah and Daryl, and because the fact that Daryl regrets not choosing her, not staying with her even if that meant not seeing his family and the kids anymore, that is not going to change even if she goes away, dies, Daryl dumps her or whatever, and my main source of pain is that.

So yes, I am sorry if I sound like an idiot, but I don't think I'll feel better about him any time soon.

Also, I'm kind of sad too that when now we see Daryl in love, he's so no affectionate to the person he loves, even kind of distant (and I don't mean only now because I know they're in the middle of conflict, I mean also in their own episode together when they were supposed to be in love), I never imagined he'd be so cold and not affectionate when in love (like even when they were lying next to each other, he didn't even look at her or touch her, it was Leah always). But! That's my own fault for imagining things when there was no canon to prove them.

I'm also not too sure about Leah going anywhere. Daryl wants her by his side, that's for sure, and I don't think he'd give up on her, or would stop trying to get her with him. Leah loves him and wants him by her side too, well, wanted him, but I think she'd feel the same one she's past the hurt and see that Daryl didn't betray her, neither he abandoned her back then...or maybe not, because the writers are really screwing her writing too and you never know how she really is.

But yeah, the situation is fucked up at this moment...if the writers want them together (I won't be surprised) I really don't know how they're going to work around it, how Daryl and Leah are going to be able to trust each other again...considering that we didn't even see any trust before them prior that, and that they didn't seem to know each other at all, I wouldn't put past the writers to just go and say "yeah they're back together they trust each other again, all is fixed, no need to show it" lol. But yeah, it is complex in both sides...and just because I dont' like this relationship and the way it was handled, doesn't mean I cant see Leah's side too...but...I really hate how this has been handled.

Damn this got long, sorry...and thanks! And sorry again!

#please don't hate people...or hate me but don't come to tell me...

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filmmakerdreamst · 5 years ago

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‘Boy Meets World’ Re-watch (as an Adult)

‘Girl Meets World’ doesn’t count as a sequel. Not because of the writing/tonal choices but because in the original show - despite continuity issues - the characters felt like real people e.g. the way they spoke/acted/dressed was the way people behaved in the 90s where as in the spin off, they were Disney characters e.g. hyper versions of themselves especially Cory and Eric. And the transition between both shows didn’t come naturally. It’s not an objectivity badly written show but it was pretty much a re-do of the old show with the same storylines/tropes without continuing the story. (I say the same thing about ‘The Incredibles’. vs ‘Incredibles 2’.) Also there were too many cooks in the kitchen pushing one way or another. You could see Micheal Jacobs style, all the aspects were there, but he was also creating a ‘DISNEY’ show at the same time. I don’t know about you but the one message I took from the original show was ‘finding out that life cannot be packenged into a lovely little present ’ which kind of contradicts everything that the new show is. If anything GMW is an AU universe (and it really felt like that, rewatching it right after BMW e.g. it felt flipped) almost like Disney’s version of ‘what happened next?’ The primal difference between both shows is BMW is portraying what is real and GMW is based on what is real.

Going off my point, I will however be always thankful that it exists because I probably wouldn’t of found out about ‘Boy Meets World’ otherwise. Although saying that, I never thought that the original show needed a continuation of any kind (a lot of things make sense about the spin off if you acknowledge that Disney requested it - I think it would of been much better off on its original platform) ‘Boy Meets World’ was very much a product of its time i.e. when tv shows were still relevetivley new and had no rules - like there is stuff in there that not even adult shows today have. Plus there was something about it that felt very personal (such as the characters and setting) as if the creator based it on his own childhood growing up and I think that was part of its charm and why it had such a big effect on pop culture - I’m not so sure you can repeat that.

BMW is big on meta I’ll tell you that. I love how it’s so aware of itself. The amount of depth that it has never ceases to amaze me. It’s whole universe is so dense and huge. Every quote/storyline is so unique it sticks in your brain forever. (I swear the humour got more and more deranged every season). The show was also incredibly queer and progressive. It didn’t give a crap about sexuality. Much more than I remember. Proof to never use ‘but it was made in the 90s’ excuse.

I loved how the show kept reinventing itself every season as Cory grew up so you really felt you were growing up with him and all the characters. The Character Development on this show was so natural/authentic. Every single character got a chance to shine. No one changed their look in one episode and no one had an intervention every time someone had an identity crisis (GMW) My favourite development was Shawn Hunter. He went from a cool kid to a ladies man to a poetic soul. It was so satisfying to watch.

I realised that Cory Matthews is actually my favourite character (before it was Eric or Shawn) I already have a special soft spot for ‘annoying’ characters because they tend to be the most memorable/real. For example, Karma Ashcroft from ‘Faking it’ was my babe while everyone was hating on her. I really related to his anxiety/self hatred about being average and I loved that he constantly made mistakes. It was very refreshing. He’s also incredibly queer-coded. I found that alot of his mannerisms make sense if you see him with extreme compulsory heterosexuality (because identity’s such as bisexual or gay couldn’t exist normally in the 90s) There are moments in the show where he literally mimics his best friend’s behaviour around girls e.g. when the class pretty much gets brainwashed by the sex ed video in ‘Boy Meets Girl’ Shawn gets asked out by a girl, making Cory jealous - which pushes him to ask out Topanga.

It’s funny how a few years of life experience can change perspectives completely because when I was sixteen (aka the same age as Cory and Topanga) watching BMW for the first time, I was mad at Amy for ‘not understanding that they were in love’ (in ‘A Walk to Pittsburg’) but now that I’m older I’m actually agreeing with her. Yeah, what do they know about love? Because all season long they were acting quite superficially.

Cory and Topanga became somewhat of a toxic couple in seasons 5 -7. Reminded me of my parents relationship because my mum gave up her chosen university to be closer to my dad and they aren’t together any more. Topanga’s love for Cory was very conditional and Cory cheated on her multiple times/openly begged for sex (Again like my parents) And you should never be in a relationship with someone who makes you say “You make me think not so very much of myself” There are arguably much more signs of emotional abuse than love in their relationship especially from Topanga’s side. Plus their story was altered so many times to give it more basis (they retconned Shawn and Cory’s friendship to do this) I could write an essay on how Kevin and Winnie’s love story on ‘The Wonder Years’ is much more believable because it actually addresses how toxic it was and they grow apart in the end. If GMW was a realistic continuation, they would be divorced with a little girl - leave them in the 90s where they belong.

Alan and Amy were couple goals! Cory and Topanga wish that they could have what they have. Literally the definition of ‘a healthy relationship on tv that keeps thriving and over coming obstacles without big drama’. Best TV parents ever.

I loved the Matthews family; how they all had individual arcs and developments of their own. One of my favourite arcs was in season 5, when Eric and Cory were both jealous of what they ‘didn’t have’ with their dad, so Alan made an effort to give them both that they needed. Honestly, I had never seen so much healthy communication on TV before. Alan is the best father around. His whole personal arc of giving up managing a supermarket because he wasn’t passsionate about it anymore and buying a mountain store was so inspired. I found it funny that the family had more of a relationship with Shawn than Topanga.

Shawn Hunter never caught a break. It got a bit tiring. He was never allowed to be happy for five minutes. Every time he laughed or smiled, 5 years were added onto my lifespan. Why didn’t Johnathan Turner adopt him? I loved their dynamic. Why did he let him go back to his abusive father who just dumped him anyway?

Jack and Shawn’s complicated dynamic was possibly the most unique/interesting arc of the entire show and no one talks about it. I don’t care what y’all say - despite them being very different, Jack was the only one who fully took care of Shawn without second thoughts (Turner and the Matthews family had doubts)

I liked Shawn and Angela. I thought they were much better suited than Cory and Topanga. I honestly wouldn’t of minded if they ended up together even though I always had a feeling they wouldn’t. (Like I’m glad she went with her dad in the end) And considering how important they were as a interracial couple in the 90s, GMW handled that very poorly.

Shawn and Cory should of ended up together. And before you come at me with ‘it’s important to have m/m friendships without toxic masculinity’ (which is an important arguement to have) - yeah no shit there’s an entire Industry based around that/pitting women against each other. While it is important to have those friendships between men that are close and even intimate (take Chandler and Joey, Schmidt and Nick, Isak and Jonas and Jake and Charles for example) there was also another layer to their relationship which the narrative played off sometimes as them “going out” or “in love”. I actually recently found out that a writer - who came into the show in season 3 - confirmed that she wrote gay undertones into their relationship on purpose ‘In my opinion as a writer, they thought they were “straight”, they both didn’t realise or understand their feelings for eachother’ but couldn’t deliever because the producers wanted to keep the show “kid friendly”. Kind of like Xena and Gabby. I know people prefer Jack & Eric (I love them as well) but everything got ruined for me as soon as they introduced the ‘love triangle’ and I always tend to prefer emotional tension over sexual. They were just so unconditional with each other/ their friendship was so good and healthy and now I’m so bitter that it never happened.

I never understood why Shawn and Cory had to stop being best friends after he got married. He’s not Topanga’s property. I always hated how Topanga tried to interrupt/interfere with their dynamic — although now I realise it was because the two of them purposely left her out. Looking back at it, If it really was just a intimate friendship then why would she get so easily jealous if she didn’t sense there was something else deeper going on? You should never marry someone who puts you second.

I didn’t like Topanga when she was with Cory (or vice versa) Especially after they got married. She was a great character on her own. Feminist before her time. Hermione Granger before her time. I always felt she deserved a lot better than him in a way e.g. if someone I considered a friend speard a rumour around high school that we slept together - I would never speak to that person again. SHE SHOULD OF GONE TO YALE GOD DAMN IT. And as someone pointed out the other day, if the roles were reversed some of the stuff she does or says to Cory would be considered domestic violence. ‘She’s always blaming Cory on shit that isn't even his fault or makes him feel bad or shuts down his emotions and turns it around so he's comforting her instead.’ There was even a moment in GMW (not that I consider that show a continuation) where she locks him out the house for a few days after he insulted her chicken, and his son Auggie had to bring him spaghetti. If Cory was a woman, that would not be played off as a joke - that would be considered abuse. They were however a better couple in GMW ironically.

Angela Moore is now one of my favourite characters on BMW. She was beautiful. Her friendship with Rachel (and Topanga) was the best. And I frickin’ loved her and Cory’s friendship development - when they could of easily not played into that. I hate that she got villiaized in GMW.

My favourite seasons are 4, 5 & 1. My least favourites are 3 & 2 & 7. And even then the show was still pretty darn good.

The back and fourth clash between Turner and Mr Feeny in season 2 was very entertaining.

Mr Feeny and Eric are my favourite relationship on ‘Boy Meets World’. I love how Eric was the only person that Feeny directly told that he loved him. Also, why didn’t Eric become the new Mr Feeny? He showed more traits of becoming a teacher in the show than Cory did.

Eric and Tommy was probably the most heartbreaking plot line in season 6. (That season was an emotional train wreck) I cried for a fourth time. The world doesn’t deserve him.

I loved the development of Shawn and Topanga’s friendship. Even though there was a silent competition over Cory, they eventually became good friends. I found out that the song ‘She will be loved’ was inspired by them which is awesome but it’s also proof that people ship for less if it’s an m/f dynamic - just sayin’. I however see a more convincing potiental romance with the two of them than Cory and Topanga sometimes.

On Cory and Topanga again - they weren’t a bad couple overall. I liked them in s1 - 3. They had some great moments. But upon my rewatch (getting out of that 90s idealised headspace) I found them to be too similar at times - chafing as another person put it - to the point where they cancel each other out. A lot of people pointed out that Riley and Maya paralleled them and I was thinking “That��s not nesserily a good thing.”

‘Dream. Try. Do good.’ is on my mantelpiece.

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gayregis · 4 years ago

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Do you have any thoughts on TWN using non polish actors to portray characters from polish fantasy book with dense polish culture and roots? And on how most of the cast apperereance are drastically different than in the books? Like Foltest, Renfri, Fringilla or Calanthe? (Sorry this is the correct one, i forgot to add Fringilla on my previous question.)

i feel like the witcher should not be handled by a large american company like netflix. it is clear that a lot of decisions were made to “dumb the series down” in a manner that would make it more of a pop culture phenomenon that could be used to profit off of from viewership, subscriptions, social buzz, and merchandise, instead of an opportunity to demonstrate actual artistry, storytelling, character depth, and poignant messages. the company that handles it CAN be american or another nationality besides polish, but it shouldn’t be a huge one focused on making as much money and social sharability as possible, that will ruin things. (i also feel like the witcher should not be a live-action adaptation, but this is kind of besides the point... to better gauge how i think the feel of a visual-audial witcher adaptation should look, my dream adaptation would be that of a more “adult version” (”adult” meaning in themes like war and despair) studio ghibli or laika).

in regards to casting, i feel like it’s fine to not use an all polish cast as long as they fit the character description in a way that is actually relevant to the plot. so many people in response to people of color being cast in the witcher were volalitely racist and demanded a “polish cast” - as if polish MUST = white. even though poland is not as ethically diverse as some other european countries, people of color do exist in poland, as they/we exist everywhere. if you want an “all-polish cast and production,” that’s fine to me, i don’t think it’s inherently necessary, but i think if one is doing so, that doesn’t mean that it would be wrong to cast actors of color in roles.

i think the issue lies more with storytellng, for two reasons. one is that eastern european people involved on set seem to actually understand the witcher and what it’s about way better than any of the british cast, and by that i mean sakharov and baginski, who have demonstrated more understanding of like, the style of storytelling (not every scene needs to be jammed with action, drama, sex, gore), what the characters actually mean to each other, and the lore in general. this makes sense because i have read some articles and such before about how the witcher was and is important to its fans in poland and eastern europe because very little “slavic fantasy” ever gets exported and represented internationally, and of course sapkowski involved many cultural references in the series, so it’s recognizable to people from those regions (or are diaspora from those regions) who grew up hearing these fairytales, etc. it’s more of a meaningful callback and less of a “foreign curiosity,” if that makes sense. so for those reasons, i think it’s important to have a majority polish and/or slavic writing room/directors/etc, people behind the story and how the story is told - but that doesn’t mean the writer’s room should be all white men, though. diversity in gender, race, etc should be considered.

the other reason is that the casting for the netflix is inaccurate, but not for reasons of race. the issue with anya chalotra as yennefer isn’t that she is indian, it’s that her hair is incredibly straight and flat and not like yennefer’s curly stormy hair at all, and that her face is so soft and childlike, she doesn’t look stern and cold like yennefer at all. there are many casting issues amongst the white members of cast, such as henry cavill, who doesn’t fit the description of geralt at all because geralt looks like he’s starved constantly, and joey batey, who ... well, dandelion is supposed to be blonde and curly long-haired... but of course, these are the appearances which don’t really “matter” in regards to the story. except i think geralt’s build, as well as yennefer and ciri’s proximity in age, which makes me nauseous to think about how they only have a 6 year age difference

one physical description which does actually matter to the plot/lore is that of calanthe, pavetta, and ciri, as they are a matrelineal line, but in netflix, they don’t look related at all. i saw so many people complaining that they should have chosen a white actress for calanthe, but why is she the problem? why not cast people of color for calanthe, pavetta, and ciri altogether? they should look related and have the ashen grey hair/green eyes, but that doesn’t mean they have to be white. it’s a similar issue with yennefer and fringilla. they are supposed to look similar, and i saw many people complaining that they chose mimi who is black to be fringilla, they are just using “they need to look similar” as an excuse to hide their racism and anti-blackness, because anya is more white-passing than mimi is. from my perspective, why not then cast a black actress who looks similar to mimi as yennefer, then? “they need to look similar” again does not mean “they need to all be white or white-passing.”

we should have cast actors that both fit the descriptions of the characters in the books AND are diverse, without it being “random diversity to appeal to a diverse audience.” lauren thought she was so clever by throwing the actors of color in the roles of background characters, stereotypes, forgettable and disposable aides to the white leads, or super evil villains... i see what you did... why not center actors of color in an actually proud and leading light, with lead roles, where the casting makes sense and isn’t there for tokenization that does nothing to empower people of color? actually incorporate people of color into your artistic projects in a way that respects them and makes sense and not just so you can get more views to make more money

other divergences from canon like foltest were just piss-poor and demonstrated the lack of understanding about the messages of the story. foltest was supposed to be handsome, elegant, and as a refined a king as any, to show how those in power are actually corrupt and as prone to disgusting acts as any other human being, that foltest is not a better man than geralt because he is beautiful and sits on a throne. by making him disgusting on the outside, they totally missed the point that he is supposed to mask his disgustingness on the inside with beauty on the outside. also i feel like (maybe related) twn really made a whole joke out of foltest and his relationship to his sister because in one of the flashbacks (in the sorcerer? gala? party?) foltest is shown as a kid with his sister and his mom grabs his arm or whatever and is like “foltest stop bothering your sister” as like some kind of fucking joke... literally they made a “funny ahaha incest joke” like seriously wtf. the story of the striga in particular should be taken seriously imo because of how rawly the tragedy is depicted... this is probably why it’s one of my least favorite short stories... its so sad and also incest disgusts me horribly

for renfri i feel like she was just sooooo ... more “likable” as a character, a lot like how yennefer’s character was changed. you feel feelings of pity and curiosity towards her rather than actually being intimidated by her. renfri in the books actually made me so mad because i think she represents something like what ciri goes through across the saga, just how when you have the choice on how to respond to your abuse, you can easily become consumed with revenge, and i think renfri made me think of myself in that way so i really disliked it when they changed this terrifying raw aspect of her anguish and hunger for retrubution that made her lose her humanity into like, more of a palatable manner of killing... it really was just “girl with sword” and it was so boring. the lesser evil literally makes my stomach turn and that’s why i only read the story like once as well...

also to return to fringilla, i liked mimi and i thought she should have been cast for yennefer instead maybe.... i just was really upset at how much they changed fringilla’s character in the writing to be a “generic evil villain” when in the series she actually is kind of unique in my opinion. she is like, not allied at all with the main characters, but ends up saving both yennefer and geralt’s lives. she’s not good or bad, she’s not super loyal to the empire but she is still nilfgaardian/beauclairoise, and she just exists as a character and that’s why i actually like her in the books (asides from all of the unnecessary library nonsense). i thought mimi could have handled that complex role really well but they totally took that away from her and just made her a flat boring forgettable “evil” character that does “forbidden black magic” and is super loyal to an empire that brought her purpose because yennefer was mean to her once or smth ig... yeah ok. also i fucking hate how they had cahir of all fucking people order her around. idk how old cahir is supposed to be in netflix because he’s obviously not like 16-20 as he would be in canon during this time period, but to have him be the boss of fringilla... that is dumb as hell. i just try and think about that ever occuring with books verse cahir and fringilla and i think she would smack him off of his horse and into the mud. she’d tell assire and assire would get mawr to drag him off by his ear as he tries not to cry. also of course i hate cahir’s casting and the fact that they showed his face. why. it ruins like every message that his character had...

oh also because i HAVE to talk about it. i hate how they tried to make jaskier more masculine/boyish with not giving joey a wig or flamboyant setting-appropriate garb, i think they are allergic to men with long hair that’s not a grime, dirt-covered mess... literally just give half of the production wigs or better wigs i swear to god ... also like this is totally for another post but i don’t think making jaskier a flirt is inherently misogynistic like he acts in the books at times. like just write the misogynistic bits out and it’s fine... flirtatiousness is not evil when it’s consensual and appreciated ... i think they just really wanted geralt to be the one that gets large amounts of p*ssy because he’s muscular or w/e and jaskier became this sort of helpless annoying barnacle on his side instead of a real character and friend to him. and to bring this point back to the main point , i think character appearance really affects their characterization: jaskier in twn has short, boyish hair with no facial hair, which makes him look kind of juvenile, jaskier in the books has curly long hair with some light facial hair, which kind of brings up ehhh what would you call it... 70s casanova energies maybe, a man that puts oils in his hair and such, male thottery...

#the witcher netflix #anon #ask

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silver-spider-art · 4 years ago

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ToA: Trollhunters vs Wizards

First I don’t want to come off like I don’t think people should enjoy Wizards. Its a fun story and as a stand-alone or an AU its funny with so many call backs to favorite characters, and many emotional moments. Lots to enjoy on its own. However, it is AU. It doesn’t fit in the same timeline of events as what was hinted at and implied in ToA:Trollhunters. I believe the biggest reason beyond the tight time frame the crew had to work under is just that the main writers that were responsible for the majority of the original script for ToA:Trollhunters didn’t return to Wizards for whatever reason (they are back for the movie so fingers crossed). The people who wrote Wizards mostly had teleplay credits on ToA:Trollhunters (edited the screen play but didn’t write it) so while they’d been deeply involved in the original... well clearly a lot of ideas were lost in the swap.

So, why do I say the timeline was screwed up by Wizards version of events?

The opening of Wizards tells us that it’s the late 12th century and then says the present is 900 years later. We know that the current year is 2016 because Enrique’s crib in the Darklands lists him as born in 2016 (so while this doesn’t directly set the shows date it can’t be much past that and assuming Enrique is less than a year old, we can say it is 2016). Now 2016 - 900 is actually 1116 which is early 12th century, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

This drastically changes how we understand the history of this world. If Deya is the first Trollhunter, then all other Trollhunters existed between 1116 and 2016. We see at least 14 troll statues in the Hero’s Forge and we also see several others in storage when Claire retrieves Angor Rot’s head for Morgana, so we can assume a minimum of ~20 Trollhunters. This gives us an average of 45 years as the life span of a Trollhunter. And yes that might seem long to a human but we are told the oldest troll was 5,352 years old and since Vendel, Blinky, Arrrgh, and Draal are all there to see the first Trollhunter chosen and thus well over 900 years old (Draal is straight up said to be 1200 years old during ToA:Trollhunters), then to be chosen by the amulet would be a quick death sentence. Now, while Blinky does only say that the Trollhunters date back to the age of Merlin, this is implied to be further back than the lifetimes of the trolls of Heartstone Trollmarket. Draal talks about spending his entire life training to be worthy of it. Kanjigar pushed his son away to protect him from the dangers of the Trollhunter’s duty implying Draal was young and not an adult during this time, and the absolute faith the trolls have in the amulet and their reliance on the protection of the Trollhunter implies that they’d grown up seeing this as normal. Yet as shown in Wizards, Draal was an adult when the amulet was made. If this was the case he would've seen the amulet pick literally anyone other than him for 900 years and have no reason to think it’d pick him now. Also while showing Jim the box of stones to try in his amulet Vendel talks about Maddrux the Many from legends of old. So old they’d all forgotten what the stone’s actual power was, thinking it was the power of great strength and not the ability to make copies of yourself. 900 years, as we’ve established, isn’t long for a troll. Would you call something a legend of old if it was an event you were alive for? Even if Maddrux didn’t hang out in Heartstone Trollmarket, Maddrux wouldn’t have been an ancient legend. Vendel would've been alive for every Trollhunter to have ever been, so would’ve Blinky, yet they talk about the Trollhunter and the amulet in a revered way that doesn’t befit something which happened within a single lifetime, a single troll generation. 900 years is long for humans, but not for trolls. They would all have to have such bad memories if this is to be believed.

Another point of contention is Angor Rot. It is shown in a flashback that Angor Rot gets power from Morgana in 1297 with the location stated as Bulgaria, Black Sea... which Wizards shows us Angor Rot taking Morgana here after she drowns... but Camelot is in England/UK (in the normal legends)... that seems quite the journey for a dead girl he randomly found but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. He calls her forth by 4 names Argante (queen of Avalon or another name for Morgan Le Fey), Pale Lady, Baba Yaga, Eldrith Queen. So one, Angor Rot knows who he’s calling to, he’s not addressing the other spirits that Wizards showed using this place. Also it implies that Morgana has gained quite the legacy of power and influence. Now, when he gets her attention he says “Gunmar’s war for the surface lands has ravaged my village. I need the power to protect my people.” This very heavily implies that the war is ongoing. Based on Wizards, Gunmar was sealed away 181 years ago. It’s also strongly implied that all the Gumm-Gumms except Bular are gone now. So... who’s destroying Angor Rots village? Also we see Morgana’s hand in this scene, so either she’s really good at manifesting or she hasn’t been sealed yet. And if it was a manifestation, why would she make a physical ring? Regardless, she tells him he’s to seek Merlin’s Champions and kill his Trollhunters. Angor Rot was later sealed away in an ancient ruin of Aysa-Thoon in Ranthambore, India (which is in the middle of a tiger reserve btw). It’s old and overgrown implying he’s been there a while. Otto also says he found the location in old tomes so at the very least Angor Rot has been sealed away for centuries. So he runs around killing Trollhunters for ~300-400 years. If this is after the Killahead Bridge battle as Wizards would have us believe, then the only trolls on the evil side killing Trollhunters are just Angor Rot and Bular... which just seems off to me for how everything else is talked about in ToA:Trollhunters.

The Janus Order and the changelings are another confusing point that Wizards makes worse. When asked about changelings Blinky says that in the Old World Gumm-Gumms stole their young and did something unnatural to them and that their main purpose was to spy on the surface lands. Blinky also says that the Janus Order is an ancient guild of changeling spies, as old as they are mysterious. The phrasing of both these points imply that changelings have existed for a very long time by troll standards, not something that happened well within the lifespan of every troll seen in the show. In Wizards we see all of one changeling who’s already an adult and implies his power is new. Gunmar uses plural when he talks about Morgana’s changelings but they are also very clearly a brand new thing. From ToA:Trollhunter we know that human babies and changelings are exchanged through fetches into and out of the Darklands but if Wizards is to be believed and all the Gumm-Gumms except Bular were sealed away after the Killahead Bridge battle in 1116... who was stealing the babies? Bular? Considering how much Bular hates changelings I have a hard time picturing him setting up the exchanges to get the Janus Order established entirely on his own. If we assume there were a few changelings left loose after Morgana was sealed away... maybe... but Morgana and Gunmar just met and have worked together for like 3 days max... why are they so reliant on each other. And if most of the changelings were made after Morgana was sealed away then why are changelings like Otto so beholden and worshipful towards her? In his Janus Order orientation speech Strickler calls her their Lady Creator and that seems undisputed by any of the changelings. It is implied that Morgana is the only reason their are changelings. NotEnrique says he’s centuries old which means he’d been waiting in the Darklands as a baby until he was needed which I always took to mean that all the captured troll babies had been changed by Morgana before she was sealed away. If Morgana isn’t actually needed to make changelings, then why do they worship her and answer to her over Gunmar? Also Morgana only whispered to the changelings like Otto, never to Gunmar in the Darklands, so she couldn’t have helped set up the changeling magic from that side.

Then there is Morgana and Gunmar’s relationship. What we see in Wizards, Morgana becomes the champion of the 3 new elemental villains, she makes a changeling (off screen) and sends him to kill her brother, only then does she go see Gunmar. When Morgana talks to Gunmar she immediately brings up the Eternal Night, which... if she’s the champions of the 3 elemental beings who want the humans dead to bring balance to the world... how does the eternal night help them? It certainly wouldn’t help Nari of the Eternal Forest and I can’t think of any reason the other two would want that either. It only helps trolls (trolls who don’t realize that all their food sources need sunlight to exist). After we see her add the mind control power to Gunmar’s Decimaar Blade we don’t learn anything else she does for the Gumm-Gumms. To be honest, if I were Gunmar at this point I’d assume she set me up. Some sorceress shows up, is the king’s sister, she frees your son with a new troll hybrid thing you think is impure in order to get you to trust her and gives you a weapon upgrade to make you think you should go all in on the next battle and then you and your whole army gets locked away for 900 years... kinda no reason to think she ever had your back, especially not to the point that you trust people who say they’ve gotten visions from her in a worshipful way. She very clearly did Gunmar no favors in Wizards.

Merlin, oh Merlin... one, he’s entirely useless in the entirety of Wizards and always doing something wrong or just not having any power to do anything which is just baffling compared to the power he was throwing around in ToA:Trollhunters. As we see Morgana get sealed away in Wizards, it’s Douxie doing the sealing and Merlin has already fallen down and is asleep for some reason. This despite the fact that in ToA:Trollhunters he claimed he needed to use nearly all his power to seal her away and that was why he was asleep. That her being free meant he could get his power back which just... isn’t how anything happened in Wizards. Also Merlin very pointedly claimed that Jim couldn’t defeat Gunmar as a human, that he would die. But, in Wizards Merlin had originally been building the amulet for Arthur, a human. It was only afterwards that he decided to make it for trolls. So was the only reason Jim had to be a troll because the Jim he met was a troll? Because that is just really fucked up. The speech he gave Jim about needing to sacrifice his humanity, it implied that Merlin had planned this all out, seen this moment... but Wizards Merlin was just constantly in reaction mode and was completely backing Arthur and ignoring literally anything anyone else said until right before they went to the trolls for help. Merlin didn’t give a shit about trolls and they also hated him... but afterwards they love him to the point that they’ll talk worshiply about him? And why did they have to go back to the past? Merlin was so insistent they go back to the past at the start of Wizards... implied like they needed to flee the enemy but a moment after the kids are lost in time he just defeats the skull ship and no one that’s left on Camelot is in danger ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Also when Merlin and King Arthur go to the trolls to ask for help, at this point in Wizards it’s mostly been shown to be a battle between Gunmar and King Arthur for territory. It’s implied that the other trolls have until recently been more hurt by Arthur than Gunmar and Gunmar is only now trying to force them to join because he needs more recruits. Yet in ToA:Trollhunter the war was stated to be mostly a disagreement between Gumm-Gumms and all the “good” trolls and the humans just the victims. Everything in ToA:Trollhunters implied that humans didn’t stand a chance against trolls, Gunmar was endlessly dismissive but in Wizards King Arthur and company were a real danger to trolls, Cal/Deya was nearly taken out by an arrow. In fact the trolls of Dwoza were so useless that they needed humans to train them how to fight. They had no warriors? Where were Draal and Kanjigar during the fight with Arrrgh? So all of the trolls who would become the Heartstone Trollmarket trolls (including Bagdwella) had to be trained to fight by humans before Killahead but then were so disgusted by human Trollhunter Jim that they fainted? That they thought the very idea that a human could fight a troll was laughable? Yeah, that doesn’t make sense.

And Killahead Bridge, let us not forget. It is the portal to the Darklands but as Cal/Deya walks over it she dismissively says its nothing but a bridge over a dried up river so clearly Wizards is saying that Gunmar isn’t actively using the bridge as a portal, in fact we see no portals or any sort of magic used by trolls in Wizards, not even the door like in Heartstone Trollmarket, Dwoza just has a physical door. The only person who seems to have known that the bridge was a portal was Merlin as he is making battle plans. This also implies that the whole point of the amulet was just to seal Gunmar away in the Darklands. Which is just... why? The amulet hadn’t even been tested against Gunmar yet at this point. This brings up so many questions about the Darklands that are more confusing like how anyone figured out the fetches if travel back and forth from the Darklands wasn’t a thing until after the bridge became a sealed door.

As for the Trollhunters themselves, what were they all doing if every other Trollhunter existed between Deya and Kanjigar? Deya defeated Gunmar and sealed him away leaving only Bular and Angor Rot and the changelings. We know they weren’t fighting the Janus Order because Blinky had to look them up in a book and Blinky has actively been involved in several instances of Trollhunters (at least Kanjigar and Unkar) so he should know. Jim killed both Bular and Angor Rot, to whom everyone else just died. So what were they doing? Just cleaning up Gnome messes and Goblin battles? If there were no other Gumm-Gumms to fight, why was it a revered position that anyone wanted. The way Wizards sets up the timeline its more a curse that just means you have a countdown timer until Bular kills you. Also every single Trollhunter in the void tells Jim its suicide to fight Gunmar, even after he killed Bular. But by Wizards logic the first time the amulet was used against Gunmar it was able to seal him away forever with hardly a fight. If anything they should think Bular was more powerful than his father by that logic. It all just makes no sense.

There is more, like character backstory elements that upset me. For example how Arrrgh’s trauma over his treatment as a pet by Gunmar was ignored by Wizards and how his fear of violence was intrinsically linked to that trauma which fueled his insistence on pacifism and how Wizards showed him just casually hitting people after swapping sides with out any issues and that is just very upsetting to me, but that’s a very different rant.

In conclusion, Wizards has a lot of fun elements to it and can be a very fun watch, but it comes off like fan fiction to me, an alternate universe unconnected to the rest of canon. It doesn’t understand the world building that was established in ToA:Trollhunter and absolutely breaks its own timeline.

I’ve always pictured the line of Trollhunters stretching back to the Broze Age and the beginning of humanity, a war that has lasted several millennia, long enough that every troll in Trollmarket grew up in war, their lives shaped by it. A war that stretched out into their parents and grandparents generations. Which is completely doable from what we know of troll ages. Gunmar could easily be 4,000 years old (he looks it with all his cracks) and still not beat the oldest troll on record. Merlin always felt inhuman and ancient (centuries long nap and he just has to crack his spine), so he could be far far older than the Arthurian legends and have gone by many names. Also I clearly wasn’t the only one with this idea as if you read the Trollhunters novels or comics based after ToA:Trollhunters those authors assumed as I did. One novel has Jim and the gang go back to 501 AD to see Gunmar lose his eye to Orlagk. The Comics show an early Trollhunter interacting with humans from the stone age. To me this makes so much more sense. Trolls are old and long lived, it only makes sense that their perception of what constituted ancient be very different to what we humans see as ancient. They are also shown to be very slow to change, which is why it makes sense that the Trollhunter mantel is something that has been around longer than the current living trolls.

So anyway, I just really hope the movie doesn’t rely on too much of the nonsense that was shown in Wizards and is a fun romp. I loved full troll Jim and I miss half-troll Jim already. It just feels like his whole sacrifice was meaningless, that by undoing it and showing that humans can fight trolls just fine that it had been for nothing. Its just very disappointing. But that’s just my opinion (but then I’ve always voted for a Jim who can change back and forth and really have one foot in each world).

#trollhunters #toawizards #tales of arcadia #toa wizards #toa trollhunters

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handlewithkara · 4 years ago

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Lying about your Superhero identity: Why Clois and Westallen (Flash tv) just work and Clana (Smallville), Lauriver (Arrow) and Kara&Lena (Supergirl) don’t

A while ago, I wrote a bit about why I think the way Mon-El lied to Kara about his real identity is fundamentally different from when Kara lies about her superhero identity and the fact that she is an alien (tldr: Mon-El lies about his past, Kara lies about her present and things that are fundamental to her character).

This made me think about superheroes and their relationships in general. I have long since maintained that if one applied real life relationship standards (whether as a friendship or as a romantic relationship) to Kara and Lena, they just have a really, really awful relationship, steeped in lies and distrust.

Kara and Lena fans have always claimed that their relationship has a lot of parallels with Clark and Lois. I for one, have always felt that those so called parallels are extremely superficial and tenuous and to me completely miss the core of what Clois are about as a couple. That those things they do NOT have in common (such as being reporters who work together and Lois being drawn to Superman first, the fact that Lois does not go full on hateful psycho when she finds out the truth) are actually really important in regards to what make Clois tick.

So.... why does Clois work?

If you look at the core of it, Clark hiding his identity from Lois is, especially if looked at with modern sensibilities, is kind of skeevy.

I argue: the thing that is most often levvied against Clois as a couple and Lois as a character, namely the fact that Lois initially fawns over Superman while ignoring or discounting Clark in one way or another, is actually one of the key factors that make them work as a couple.

We can discuss whether the tendency of people to take this as the reason to call Lois is shallow (for overlooking the niceguy(tm)) is problematic in its own way. But regardless of whether it is or isn’t, it is the way that Clois has worked for the majority of its existance.

Lois being hot for Superman (or “The Blur”) while partially disregarding Clark allows them to set up a situation where both partners are flawed and both are “at fault” (Clark for lying, Lois for being “shallow”). It is what allows the reveal of Clark’s true identity to go over a lot smoother, because there is a lot more room for Lois to be portrayed as either “I should have seen it” or “Maybe I knew on some level”.

I truly think that the creators of Flash understood that and that’s why Iris initially very similarly has a flirtation with the Flash and at the same time has a good reason to not see Barry as a romantic option (one could argue that this is one of the ways that Flash “softens” or improves on Clois, because this element of Lois teasing Clark or belittling him isn’t there for Westallen and also the timing for when Iris finds out is very different from the way most longer running Clois stories (comics, cartoons, tv) do it).

A lot of the time it seems like some writers are dissatisfied with the concept of “shallow Lois” and feel tempted to “fix” the Clois formula by writing the woman as loving the “Clark” side of the Superhero. This is the case with both Smallville’s version of Clark and Lana and Arrow’s version of Ollie and Laurel, where they made them childhood sweethearts from before Oliver becomes Green Arrow.

But they all overlook that “sweetening” the woman by having her love the guy under the mask first actually completely ruins the Clois formula. Because if the girl sweet and attached to the hero, it makes the hero lying to her about his secret identity so much more morally worse and makes a bad reaction to it a lot more called for (or makes the story feel like it is missing something when there isn’t one, because then it is even more that the superhero was just basically being mean to the nice girl who loves him). It makes the relationship way more unbalanced and hence causes it to not work longterm.

I truly believe that the writers of Smallville loved Lana the character and even loved the torrid, tragic nature of Clark and Lana’s relationship. But I feel, once they introduced Lois, they noticed that ... Clois just works. No matter how unsatisfied people might be with the concept of “shallow” Lois, this story archetype just works and almost writes itself, allowing Smallville to transition from Clark and Lana as the driving relationship to Clark and Lois to the driving relationship, allowing the show to stay on the air for many additional years.

They wanted to strengthen the Clana relationship by giving them a dynamic closer to Clois by having Clark hide his identity from her, not realizing that this actually weakened them as a couple in regards to longterm potential by pitting Lana into the unattractive long suffering woman position. I believe this is the reason why they kept giving Lana so many other partners, in a deperate attempt to “balance” the scales between Clana and give Lana a bit more power in the relatinoship.

In the comics, the triangle situation of Clana versus Clois arises specifically from Lana knowing the secret and Lois not knowing it, and the core dynamic of the nice girl high school sweetheart versus the challenging high maintainance city girl. Because of this, I’m fairly certain that any attempts to do a Lana/Clark/Lois triangle will not work on the new Superman & Lois show because the Clois versus Clana dynamic (even as it is generally considered as being already decided), doesn’t work even short time when Lana does not at least temporary have it “over” Lois that Lana knows the secret and Lois doesn’t. If neither knows (like on Smallville) and if both know (like potentially on Superman and Lois) Clois is just cleanly superior.

To me this is also shown in Lauriver versus Olicity, where when you have the Smallville Clana archetype (girl loves the guy before the hero and is lied to), in that circumstance, the girl who knows (Felicity) suddenly gets the upper hand.

I think a lot of male writers fall into this trap of trying to “fix” the Clois archetype and ruining it in the process, because they view the story only from the point of view of the male character and look at it as “Oh, but wouldn’t it be so angsty if he has this girl he really loves, but he was like forced to lie to her, because he’s like just such a damn big hero and he angsts and it is this big sacrifice” and don’t realize that while it makes a good foundation for hero angst, it makes for a really crappy basis for an actual future long term healthy couple.

(I might also eventually do another post on this topic where I argue that the Clois trope is a very male centered trope and why it makes sense that it was not chosen for any of Supergirl’s romantic relationships, for the record, I think Supercat was slightly closer to having a somewhat Clois like dynamic, even though there were still some significant spins and changes to it )

#clois #clana #lauriver #westallen #anti-supercorp #supergirl #olicity #supercat #karamel

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zukoshotleafjuice · 4 years ago

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The funniest thing about june teasing katara and zuko about being a couple is that she just sees a pretty girl and an attractive guy, both looking almost the same age which immediately makes her go "you two must be a couple" and it just reminds me of zvtara shippers, you know what i mean? I'm convinced one of the reasons a lot of ppl ship them is bc of their looks. katara being the female protagonist and also a pretty, smart and powerful girl & zuko, despite not being the male protagonist, being the most attractive guy in the gaang. Boom, a "bomb ass ship". It is worth to recall that "people ship zutara bc they projected onto katara and had a crush on zuko". And if they say they don't ship them for that reason, then it's bc they read too much between the lines in every interaction they have. So, back to june, she didn't even care if they had chemistry or if they were friends or anything, she just straight up teased them about being a couple lmao. Because in all honesty zvtara can be an appealing ship in anyone's eyes but THAT'S IT, it doesn't go further than that. I can be testimony of that😅Before even watching the show i was like june, one day i saw a zk fanart and was like "wow aren't those zuko and katara from atla? They look so good, she's gorgeous and he's hot" i already knew kataang was endgame and that mai was zuko's love interest but seeing zuko and katara together was pleasing to my eyes. However once i watched the show for the first time (2 months ago i think) i realized there was really no romantic chemistry between them, nothing, literally nothing, i mean, i wasn't even waiting for the zvtara content in the show that made ppl ship them so much, i was actually very neutral about ships, i couldn't care less about them, but i still realized nothing was happenig between them and that it was obvious since book 1 ep 1 that kataang was endgame. Zuko and katara were two teenagers from opposite sides of a war that tried to kill each other multiple times and when zuko changed sides they developed a completely platonic relationship. As i said, people either ship them because it's an appealing and aesthetically pleasing ship (water/fire, enemies to lovers, opposites attract, the common red & blue ship) or they just love reading too much between the lines, OR BOTH, because they were so thirsty about it they ended up convincing themselves there was romantic tension between them, that they liked each other and that zvtara was scrapped when it was never planned in the first place. Not to mention the reasons why they claim zvtara should've been endgame are based only on symbolism and things they have in common that are just so ??? Random. e.g. (i saw these on a post on facebook and the comment section was hilarious, it was full of ppl being sarcastic about it & making fun of it) saying they should've been canon bc:

1. "They both lost their mothers at a young age" (?)

2. "katara was good but had rage in her heart and zuko was bad but had good in his heart so it was like yin and yang, and that was the main purpose/topic of the show" (?)

3. "they both had alter egos (painted lady and blue spirit)" (???) this one sounds like saying maiko was canon bc zuko worked in a tea shop and mai worked in a flower shop😂

4. "Zuko was the only one who supported katara in taking revenge on her mom's assassin" (?) if you ask me, that just proves zuko is not right for katara, he led her to do something she was gonna regret later (not trying to hate on zuko, i love him, and since i love him i acknowledge his flaws. I understand why he thought it was the best thing to do, he's an impulsive and resentful boy (he would've done the same if it was his mom) and he noticed how thirsty katara was for revenge, ofc he wanted to help her + he wanted her to accept him and thought it was the right thing to do in order to gain her trust, but it wasn't) unlike zuko, aang tried to make katara come to her senses and do the thing that was best for her: forgive and let go, and it was basically what she did at the end. She didn't do what zuko expected her to do. She did what aang expected her to do. She didn't forgive her mom's assassin, but she forgave zuko, and she didn't do THAT thing she (and aang) knew would regret later. Aang knew katara and what was the best thing for her to do.

5. and the most ridiculous one, "they both saved each other's lives in the final agni kai"(???????) and the funniest part is that it was followed by "WHAT MORE PROOFS DO YOU WANT???". Honestly wtf did ppl expect? Did they expect zuko to stand there and watch katara die? Did they expect katara to just stand there and watch zuko lay on the floor & die? And this has been said a million times and i am going to join and say it once again: zuko would've done that for ANYONE from the gaang, he would've done the same for toph, sokka, suki and aang. Because he learned to care about them. As for katara, she would've done that for anyone too wtf she healed aang once too and even brought him back to life. (I wouldn't be surprised if zk shippers used that as a parallel for romantic zvtara proof bc they're just like that💀)

There were more "reasons" but they're just so stupid and taken out of context like "they care for each other" & "katara was the one who encouraged him to talk to his uncle" like yeah that's what friends do. Basically all zvtara shippers do is REACH.

Also, i just can't see it happening. I like the enemies to lovers trope, maybe if the writers really intended to make it canon, i would have been down for the ship, it would've been interesting to see how it developed, but,, they didn't, and later i came to the realization that if it would've really happened, it would've been so... weird. Time to bring up the "colonized and colonizer ship" and how some ppl feel uncomfortable about it. Besides the fact that a relationship between zuko and katara wouldn't have worked (they're incompatible af, katara is a girl with a strong character and zuko is a guy with anger issues that takes everything personal, they'd be at each other's throats 99% of the time) it's just weird to think that katara would choose to marry a man from the fire nation, the nation that caused a big war that traumatized her, the nation that took her mother away from her. Imagine katara ruling along with zuko a nation she despised for years. Fire lady katara doesn't sit right with me, and i'm sure it doesn't sit right with a lot of ppl as well. I don't see katara doing that, and yes, i know she forgave zuko, but still, she would've never done that 🤦🏽‍♀️ i think it would've been so OOC tbh.

Another thing i laugh my ass off at is when they say "zuko should've chosen katara instead of mai" as if they were ever in a relationship for zuko to say "ok imma choose katara i wanna be with her". As if katara was EVER an option for him. They never showed interest in each other, what's not clicking?????? And zuko only had eyes for mai, not to mention that despite zuko and mai had a rough relationship, no girl would've dealed with zuko's bs better than mai. Can you imagine katara dealing with zuko blowing up over everything? Because i can't. Also people saying things like "zuko deserves someone who is always there for him and listens to him" (and ofc they're talking about katara) like, ok, you hate that katara is aang's "therapist" but you want her to be zuko's therapist. Logic? Where? And I do remember mai being a supportive gf and trying to cheer him up multiple times. Did they watch the same show as me?

Zvtarians try to play the victims about how they were "robbed" bc some voice actors shipped them and from what i've read people who worked for the show suggested to go for zk, but that's stupid, it doesn't count as "they planned it but scrapped it, we were robbed". The only word that counts are the creators' voice and they have stated they were always rooting for kataang, so no, you were not robbed.

People are just so in love with the idea of zuko and katara together they really convinced themselves it was likely to happen. Honestly zvtara it's a fine ship as fanon but ppl ruined it for me and what i hate the most is when they ship it and hate on aang and mai at the same time and make them look SO bad to invalidate kataang and maiko. Saying aang is abusive and mai is toxic is complete ✨bullshit✨ and lastly, it's ridiculous when they say the creators were cowards for not making it canon. They're cowards for not fulfilling your greatest childhood wish? Something they never planned? It is THEIR show. If you hate sm how things turned out then quit atla once and for all and go find another show that you know is gonna give you what you expect,,, it's tiring that they've been crying about it for 15 yrs , like, i joined the fandom recently but i can imagine how tired old atla fans must be of this.

OK so I have a lot of thoughts about this and firstly,,,anon I appreciate the dedication that it took for you to write this, and I agree with many of your points. However, the attitude I have on this blog towards Avatar ships is far more neutral than what you’re saying.

Ultimately, romance is not and never was the focus of Avatar. Romantic development was always secondary or tertiary plot, and the entire show was far more focused on platonic relationship development. My attitude towards shippers on here - including Zutara shippers - is that people can ship what they want, as long as they’re respectful of each other and of the other characters that “interfere” with their ship. End of the day, shipping is irrelevant to the core of the show.

People shipping something because they find it aesthetically appealing is honestly,,,fine. Personally, I think it’s reductionist, but I don’t care if you do because everyone has the right to enjoy media however they want to.

That being said, we absolutely should call out racist or problematic tropes that we see, including ‘fire lady katara”. I also agree that it’s upsetting when people bash other characters in order to further their ship, as much of the bashing is also pretty racist and/or misogynistic. Calling that out, however, is separate from calling out every single person who happens to enjoy certain ships.

“She didn't do what zuko expected her to do. She did what aang expected her to do. She didn't forgive her mom's assassin, but she forgave zuko, and she didn't do THAT thing she (and aang) knew would regret later. Aang knew katara and what was the best thing for her to do.”

I understand where you’re coming from, but I honestly disagree with this take. Both Aang and Zuko were approaching the situations from their own life experiences, but Katara didn’t do what either of the boys wanted. She chose her own path, by both sparing Yon Rha’s life but also refusing to forgive him. The episode is about Katara and her personal trauma and its focus should not be on her relationships with either Zuko or Aang.

When I make posts such as this, it’s less about hating Z*tara and more about how this fandom focuses all its attention on romance and shipping, to the point where if you acknowledge a relationship’s importance it’s assumed you pair the two romantically. I don’t read Zuko and Katara’s relationship as romantic (for reasons that it would take too long to explain here), but their relationship development is extremely important, the two of them share tons of parallels and the final Agni Kai marks the culmination of both of their character arcs. Yes, Zuko would have taken the lightning for any of the characters, but it’s thematically important that it was Katara. None of this inherently means it’s romantic, but refusing to acknowledge the significance of the relationship between them is equally reductionist.

This isn’t an attack on you, anon, and you’re 100% allowed to have negative feelings about a ship. But at the end of the day, it’s not worth getting this worked up over. If I were you I’d focus more on creating/consuming content for a ship you like than bashing ships you don’t!

#kind of nervous about posting this but oh well #atla #avatar the last airbender #shipping #zuko #katara #aang #asks

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