#I hope this narrative carries on into future episode because it's and interesting one

[phantom-of-the-501st]

Thoughts/Analysis of Ep 9

@saturn-sends-hugs made a great post earlier talking about her thoughts on this episode and now that I have time, I’m gonna drop mine down below.

Two quick warnings as well. 1. This is long. 2. If the formatting is different from how my posts normally are, it’s because I’m writing this on the website, not the app, like I usually do.

SPOILERS FOR TBB S2

One thing that I was pleasantly surprised about was just how much of the episode was spent focusing on the Echo leaving situation. I thought they were going to go down the route you see a lot in Star Wars, which is to bring it up in one conversation and then just move on. But they actually talked about it!

Now before we get into any deeper analysis, I just want to touch on something that I’ve seen some people talking about online, and that’s the fact that the guys are only really having this conversation because a child is pushing them to do it. Now don’t get me wrong, I would love to see the Batch talking about their feelings without needing any encouragement to do so, but let’s be real, these are the clones we’re talking about. They don’t do that.

The clones have always been an emotionally repressed bunch. Because they lose so many of their brothers on the regular, they just learn to compartmentalise their feelings and move on because if they didn’t, then they’d spend so much time processing their feelings that they wouldn’t actually get much else done. Not to mention that feelings are probably considered a sign of weakness, so the clones hide their emotions so that the Kaminoans don’t think that they’re going to be a liability on the field.

It’s not healthy, but it makes sense.

Now onto the rest of the episode. I’m going to do a breakdown of each character in this episode and then touch on the entire thing as a whole.

Omega

Omega is clearly the one who is visibly taking this the hardest. I think the reason that she is so much more open about Echo than Crosshair is because she’s spent more time around him. Omega only joined the squad at the same time Crosshair left, so while she’s sad he’s not there, she doesn’t really know what it’s like for him not to be around. On the other hand, the entire time that she’s been with the Batch, Echo has been there to support her.

Echo was clearly very protective of her and took on more of the “mum” role within the group. I wouldn’t be surprised if Omega also felt a connection with him due to the fact that they were both the “odd ones out” in the squad. So when Echo left, she lost one of the few constants in her life. And what’s worse, is that he left willingly.

For Omega, she hasn't just got to process the fact that he’s gone, it’s the fact that he went away by choice. And it hits even harder knowing the conversations that she had with him at the beginning of the episode/show. Echo reassured her that their lives were not ruined by Omega joining them but then he leaves to join Rex. And the reason he leaves is because he can’t do what he wants to do with the rest of the squad, because they want to protect Omega. 

He assured her that he does not resent her for changing their lives and then left due to the fact that her being there is preventing him from doing what he feels he needs to do. Now obviously we know that Echo doesn’t blame Omega for any of this, nor does he want to leave her or the Batch behind, but she probably feels a level of guilt about the whole situation. She’s likely going to be questioning if it’s her fault he’s gone.

But then she’s also dealing with the fear that the Batch is going to move on from her one day. When Tech said that the squad existed before Echo and that it will exist after, Omega probably thought that they’d have the same stance about her. That if she were to go, then they’d just move on. It’s obviously not true, but she is likely to see it that way.

Tech

Poor Tech is clearly not doing as well as he thinks he is. He acknowledges that change is a natural part of life, but he maybe doesn’t cope with it as well as he thinks he does. Yes, the squad existed before Echo, but that does not mean that going back to how things were before is going to work. They can’t go back to how things were before.

First of all, Crosshair isn’t there anymore. Second of all, they’re living in a post-Echo, post-Omega-joining period of time. It’s never going to be the same as it once was and Tech is struggling with that change. Him and Echo became partners in crime, so suddenly going back to not having that extra person to help you out is making things difficult. 

The poor man is visibly stressed out, particularly in the way he treats Wrecker. Every little (and big) thing that goes wrong is just adding onto the pressure and Tech is struggling to cope with the situation. Too many things are changing at once and it’s becoming overwhelming.

And then Omega questions why he’s acting the way he is and Tech suddenly has to a) work out what’s apparently wrong with what he’s doing and b) find a way to verbalise how he’s feeling. And he realises that how he’s processing things isn’t wrong, but that Omega doesn’t understand why he acts the way he does. I love the scene in the cave so much because it’s not just a learning opportunity for Tech to assess what he says around Omega, but also a chance for Omega to learn that Tech just processes things in a different way. It’s not that he doesn’t care, he just takes a more logical approach to his emotions.

(I’m not going to go into detail about Tech and autism, not because it’s not important to the discussion, but because as a neurotypical person I don’t believe that I should be commenting too much on a topic I don’t necessarily understand. I would recommend checking out Florian’s videos on TikTok (Tall Man Tech/ @theflorianrey) because they have some great discussions about this subject).

Wrecker

Wrecker and Hunter are the two that I have the least to talk about here, not because I think they’re going through fewer emotions, just that they’re not addressed in this episode quite as much as Omega’s and Tech's.

But I found watching Wrecker in the episode very interesting because this is the first time that we’ve seen him so frustrated for so long. Wrecker is the happy go lucky member of the group and rarely expresses any “negative” emotion for longer than about 3 seconds (with a few exceptions). But him and Tech are really aggravating each other this episode. Everyone is stressed out and when Tech accuses Wrecker of being the reason why things started going wrong, Wrecker gets defensive and fires back.

And it doesn’t get better when the rockfall happens because not only is he mad at Tech, he’s also stuck in an enclosed space with him. We know that Wrecker is very protective over his family and losing two members is something he’s struggling with. He acknowledges Omega’s feelings about the situation being weird and I truly believe that his “you get used to it” is in reference to Crosshair, but I don’t think that “used to it” means over it. Learning to live with those emotions is not the same as processing them and it’s getting to the point where those feelings are starting to overflow.

Hunter

Hunter is the one who is having to mediate the situation, but that means he isn’t really working through his own emotions. Without his second in command (Echo), Hunter is the only person who really has the responsibility of making sure that the rest of the group is alright, which means putting his own feelings aside to try and manage the others. He’s very much trying to diffuse the situation without handling his own emotions first.

I saw a really great analysis from @thejedimama on TikTok, who was talking about how the four elements (earth, fire, air and water) are used to symbolise things throughout the episode. One of the things I loved from that analysis is the idea that the electrical storm is symbolic of the conflict between Wrecker and Tech. At the beginning of the episode, Hunter says that the storm is moving away from them, but it suddenly ends up catching up the them after Tech and Wrecker start fighting with each other. The conflict between them was brewing and caught up to them in the same way the storm did.

And it’s Hunter who is keeping an eye on that storm, much in the same way he’s keeping tabs on Wrecker and Tech. He’s trying to protect his brothers, but with the shear amount of things going wrong, it all kind of blows up in their face (haha, blows up... because of the ipsium... that was unintentional) and they’re stuck in this storm of emotions that Hunter is having difficulties controlling.

I think Hunter liked having Echo around because he had someone who could help him work through situations. Now, with everything going wrong, he really needs someone to confer with, but that someone isn’t there. Hunter is left struggling to keep up the front that he is okay because he has to try and help the people around him.

The Batch As A Whole

It is clear that the group are very much not having a fun time right now. They’re struggling to work through the emotions of losing two of their squad members and now with the added stress of being trapped in a cave and losing the Marauder etc. the feelings are all just bubbling over.

And actually, I think losing the Marauder is kind of symbolic of how everything is going at the moment. They have literally lost their home. They are stuck floating because the things in their life that they rely on are drifting away from them and it’s leaving them in the lurch. It’s more change than they can handle.

And I love that they touch on the practical issues that arise from Echo leaving as well. Sure, they used to be a group of four, but they haven’t had to deal with one of them being a child. How do you split up a group of four people when you don’t want one of them to be alone at any point? They were already struggling to get through Cid’s missions and now they’re trying to navigate one of their members disappearing at the same time.

The clones were trained for war, but they were not trained for this situation. None of them know what they’re doing.

I’m curious to see whether this narrative continues into the next episode. Imo, the next episode ("Retrieval") is going to be about them getting the Marauder and I’m curious as to whether this is going to symbolise them taking steps to work through the situation, to finally take something back, not lose it.

So yeah, I guess the summary is the Batch don’t know what they’re doing, everything is going wrong and everyone keeps fighting because none of them know how to process emotions. I’m definitely interested to see where it goes from here.

[I’m not sure if I like how this post turned out. Does it make sense? I don’t know. It feels like one of those situations where I have a lot to say but no idea how to say it. Oh well. This is very long and I hope I got the point across. Like I said in the post, there are some other creators who have touched on this topic who I recommend listening to because they also have some great thoughts.]

Edit: fixed a couple of grammatical errors. Definitely didn't catch all of them but good enough. 😅

[marinetteplztakeabreak]

The arc with the resistance in ml season five???? Is so good????????????? The way that???? Its been going on low-key for a while????? But theres this Massive Shift this season where literally the entire miracuclass stops running away from akumas or hiding???? And its like???? The fear is GONE by the end of the season???? Theyre not scared anymore theyre just pissed off????? At the system???? Not at the akumatized victims???? But also its not a “babying the akumas” thing either like when gabe is akumatized theyre like “WRONG BAD” at him????? Same with chloé???? But like the entire class will see a butterfly and start running TOWARDS it because theyre like “oh no someone needs help goddamit i gotta get there before hawkmoth” and they dont always win and they dont beat themselves up about it???? Like in confrontation, Juleka got akumatized despite their best efforts and theyre all like “ugh this sucks” but no one’s giving up hope or anything???????

And!!!!! The way that the anti-akuma charms work in that episode??????!?!??!?? The way the fandom has this trend of thinking like,,,, the only way to escape akumas is to push emotions away deep deep down,,,, thats how marinette and adrien have kind of been operating?!???? But then it’s revealed on no uncertain terms that the powerups of the anti akuma charms are reactive to emotions?????!?! That pushing things down doesnt help?? you have to Fight Back and FEEL on your own terms and accept others’ help and feelings?????

Juleka shutting down and curling up into a ball and trying to disapear didnt work!!!but her yelling about how its not fair and shes proud of mr damocles despite it all???? like??? Catalyzed the entire anti akuma charm shield thing???????

The way that this season has shown time and again that it’s okay to be mad and frustrated and hate the system and its okay to feel trapped and scared but you have to learn to reach out and find a good outlet for those emotions even if that outlet is yelling with your friends???? instead of isolating yourself and pushing away people who have your best interest at heart????? And lying and pretending it’s okay doesn’t help but looking for bits of real joy and support amidst the chaos does???

The way that ladybug and chat noir started this season as The Most Alone Theyve Ever Been with the miracle box stolen??? and realized by the end that no one needs powers to be heroes??? they just need to be able to trust each other and take turns carrying Hope for the group and remembering whats worth fighting for!? and as long as theres a drive to fight theres always little victories to celebrate??????????!??

(Also the way that Nino—who heads the resistance—literally calls everyone in his group including Bustier Comrade and the way that they talk about how sometimes it feels like no one’s listening and revolution is the only way?? and the way they address fears about spyware and technology only benefitting the elites and the school system being designed without students’ well-being in mind and environmental terror and the police being corrupt and they take all of that and they say “it is Still a worthy battle and it sucks but you are going to be okay,,, just do not give in to hopelessness… find the people who will help you keep fighting and keep believing in a better future and Cherish Them”)

People complain about this show going “off the rails” as it’s switching its target audience and addressing more “mature” themes or whatever but like do you guys understand how much every single narrative decision makes me scream

[ride-thedragon]

How I'd Write Rhaena Targaryen in Hotd.

(as someone who wanted to see her plot adapted)

I keep seeing people saying Rhaena fans will be excited for the rumoured change she will experience this season.

Spoiler here

I won't speak on that here without a spoiler warning because I want this to be about her book character and my hope as to how she would've been adapted this season. I wanted to see Rhaena Targaryen as played by Phoebe Campbell and adapted to the world of Hotd, and so far, I haven't. These are the issues I've had so far:

1. Mourning Luke.

The reason we don't have a scene about her and Luceryes after he dies in my opinion is because seeing as they send her off in episode 3 it would make Rhaenyra look odd to not grieve her son at the same time as his fiance. But respectfully, I don't care. We deserved dialogue about the loss she felt. It's a serious issue where her grief and reactions past Laena are overlooked entirely.

Even following her arc this season of feeling resentful, have her feel blamed for not claiming Vhagar, for bring engaged to Luke. Anything to give us that connection.

2. Her reaction to Rhaenyra.

I found it to be really well done the brewing anger with Rhaena then. She seemed like a child fighting for some agency for someone to consider her, and she's met with Rhaenyra’s fatal flaw of refusing to acknowledge and give validity to her children's emotions. I didn't like how the dragon eggs were meant to operate as a catch-all in the narrative so we don't make Rhaenyra look too bad. It was a great attempt and one that I was shocked by because Rhaenyra is wrong.

3. Give her Morning.

If Rhaena nearly died last time she tried to claim a dragon, why not give her her book egg and future dragon before she leaves. This was another failing of the egg scene for me. Not only would adding that pink egg give some mystery to the audience, we would have book lore. Even let Rhaenyra apologise for her original approach and give Rhaena the egg personally, not as a beacon of hope for the house alone but for herself. It's an easy moment that plays into the book narrative better. For those unaware, the eggs were Dany's 3 eggs plus Viserys'.

4. Jeyne Arryn.

No, I did love the they were both angry but not ill mannered. They are talking out of anger and mutual frustration, and by the end, they have a shared interest. My issue is that this is the scene Rhaena finds out about Rhaenys dying and that she isn't with her very young brothers. She deserved another scene later on.

5. Baela

I love that they spoke together and that they addressed actual issues, that's it. I don't like that they don't have more, and that Rhaenys could be with Rhaenyra but not her grandchildren. I wish we got that dynamic.

Moving on to my part, how I'd reconstruct her arc for the season:

Episode 1

1. We let her be the character carrying the emotional weight of losing Luke. They seemed close enough to make it work and were supposed to be married. She carries it past episode 1. She throws something into the fire as well, like a model ship of some kind, or what can be seen as a token she meant to give him when she returned.

Episode 2

2. We give her and Jace a scene. This is like a huge missed opportunity. Unlike Baela, they grew up alongside Luke. Have them discuss the grief and talk about what Jeyne Arryn demanded. That way, it's exercised as an expectation amount to the house that someone will have to go away. Let them talk about who they think is the best option. These are two kids, but they are also supposed to be two politically driven characters, give them that moment.

3. Then we have Rhaenys be the one to tell her that she will go. Rhaenyra seemed so heartless in that scene to me because it wasn't her scene. Rhaena was dismissed and pushed over to fulfil that role when they could have her grandmother tell her. They have the Laena connection. They have the care of her growing up too fast and them needing her to go away. They get to say goodbye in their own way because Rhaenys wouldn't be callous with her, she'd be comforting but tell her to be strong.

Episode 3

4. Baela Scene. Let this be the resentment scene, and allow them to confide in each other. Have baela remind her that unlike the shows chosen narrative, both their parents are dragon claimer who claimed their own dragons late in life. Have Rhaena bring up the fact that she failed last time and let them comfort each other. Hell, let them have a Daemon conversation.

5. Now we can have that scene with Rhaenyra. Let it be a combination of their two conversations where she gives Rhaena the eggs by herself. Tell her it's a great service and have Rhaena still lash out because she doesn't want to do it, because it's something being forced unto her. But have Rhaenyra give her the eggs personally, explain the story of the Conquerors and the dragon eggs of the any let her tell Rhaena she will carry that legacy. Because of all people, Rhaenyra knows what it's like to not be taken seriously and be underestimated in a position. It doesn't have to be courteous, but it also shouldn't be as angry due to Rhaenys.

Episode 4.

Let this be the episode she leaves.

6. She gets to say goodbye to everyone while the plot is unfolding, and Rhaenyra is nowhere to be found. Let Rhaenys, Jace, and Baela send them off to Jeyne Arryn and have their final goodbyes as the eggs go past her. She's scared but she knows what she has to do.

7. She is received in the Vale, not by Jeyne but by some of her banner men who are confused about the dragons. She's holding one of the boys and scolds them for questioning her. And they go off.

Episode 5.

8. Jeyne Arryn conflict. Jeyne expected more dragons, Rhaena asserts herself, and they have a brief heart to heart.

9. Set a scene later in the day to let Rhaena know that Rhaenys is dead and killed by Vhagar. Guilt fester yet again, and Jeyne gives her some advice about that relating it to Rhea because that's her cousin or something.

Episode 6.

I have no idea where the show will be but what I can say is how I'd write her arc from this point in my canon and adaptation

10. Rhaena takes up training Joffrey and Tyraxes, she's comforting him because he misses home but continues her work, she has to prove something to herself and Jeyne.

11. Have her question Jeyne about the men she promised to send, great time to introduce Corwyn. Show her trying to find her footing in the political conversation and win.

12. A scene later on with her and all the boys and Jessamyn Redfort makes an appearance. Tells Rhaena Jeyne is impressed by her audacity if nothing else and let her be a kinder alternative to her partner. (I will not erase lesbians)

Episode 7.

13. Small conflict in the Vale with raising banners because Jeyne actually has a lot of people who have issues with her. Rhaena sees how she uses her discerning to work it out while people attempt to undermine her, and we see Rhaena looking to her for leadership.

14. Rhaena picks up the eggs and starts to show that she is tending to them herself in the hot basket things, that she's made it her personal mission to get one to hatch. We also see her send the letter to the Prince of Pentos.

Episode 8.

15. Jeyne gets the Vale men to rise in a smaller number than promised but a large enough one to send. She checks with Rhaena, and we get our first Corwyn and Rhaena interaction with his two girls. Rhaena had grown a bit in confidence. She's taking her role as seriously as ever.

16. She sees back and gets a letter of acceptance from the prince and a warning from Rhaenyra. Basically, they have to hide the fact that the boys are princes and send them off by themselves.

Why? Vhagar has been seen in the Riverlands, and they have no idea where she's heading past Harrenhall. Whether they send the boys off or not can depend, but I think not yet. Let Rhaena take it into her own hands and plan accordingly. The way Jace does in the books.

And that's the way the season ends. The march to the battle from the perspective of Rhaena Targaryen. Happy tidings, and let's see how well (or not) they land with her character.

[bilbobagginsomebabez]

i finally watched battlestar galactica because it was VERY highly recommended by an old friend group and i should have known this shit was gonna be fucked up that friendgroup was toxic as hell and what the fuck is this ending. what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck. we have MULTIPLE SEASONS where the assumption of the characters and the narrative itself is that this HUMAN/CYLON HYBRID BABY is the SHAPE OF THE FUTURE. okay. total transcendence regarding the meaning of humanity, literally melding with the machines through romantic love, the children of which are the only hope for both races to survive (cylons sterile with each other, resurrection destroyed, human women infertile due to radiation poisoning)-- transhumanism as salvation! structurally really well done! everything built up SO WELL! it is narratively very difficult to move characters from literally genocidal hatred to looking at their nemesis people group like their only chance for survival. and to have their conflict carry them to that place! to have them literally destroy each other to the point that they will go extinct unless they not only give up their hatred but become one people. the lore of the show hinging itself on cycles of time and cycles of violence--"this has happened before and will happen again"--humans destroy cyclons so cylons destroy humans so humans destroy cylons. it started because humans enslaved cylons and refused to grant them freedom and autonomy, which is especially fascinating as an early post-9/11* work, only a few years after the towers fell. ran from 04-09 and that was the height of what can only be described as a national frenzy of xenophobic bloodlust, one that lead to 20 years of war, the destabilization of 3 governments, and 11 million dead. this story took that bloodlust and followed it to the near-annihilation of both groups, forcing them to rely on each other for survival or go utterly extinct. interesting stuff!!

and in the LAST EPISODE. okay. the last fucking episode. they find a second earth (because we already found Real Earth which was really a cylon colony) and this earth2 is NOT their species' homeworld. they find human populations on earth2 anyway and specifically comment on how totally crazy unlikely it is to have the same exact species evolve half a universe away. earth2 is also our planet, same continents. so yaaay! not all humans will go extinct AND these earth2 humans solve their fertility problem because they aren't radiation poisoned which removes the need for the cylons! hold up though! the indigenous earth2 human populations are PRE-LINGUAL. WELL BEFORE THEIR OWN FUCKING STONE AGE. our galactic colonizers react by saying "we can teach them all that" (yes! the visual was racist!) and then talk about how their space civilization wasn't actually destroyed by the injustice of slavery or meaningless hatred but instead Really by "too much science, too fast." so they decide to REGRESS TO BEFORE THE STONE AGE, disperse the last of their survivors into smaller groups across the planet not to merge with existing people groups but for "better chances of survival," and SHOOT THEIR TECHNOLOGY INTO THE SUN. just to put a point on it, they will never be able to reach or speak to each other again seeing as they shot their planet-traveling technology into the fucking sun. they are trapped on different continents with only pre-stone age technology. no one has a problem with this.

so back to before the last episode, we spent MULTIPLE EPISODES building a strong alliance with the rebel cylons based on the hybrid shape-of-the-future baby. because our special hybrid shape-of-the-future baby was stolen by pure-machine cylons and they had to get her back For The Shape Of The Future!! supposed to become one people remember! everything building up to it. well! the pure-machine cylons still hate humanity but have basically agreed to an opposite-sides-of-space nonaggression pact and won't go extinct because they got resurrection back in exchange for the girl. they are planning to discontinue the human-model cylons because the leader of that faction thinks machines trying to be like humans is an atrocity and resents his own existence for it. OUR rebel cylons who escaped that maniac and were planning to interbreed only get about three lines and are suddenly just totally okay with their type of human cylon going extinct. they want to "be as useful as possible" before they "expire" or some bullshit. the human-cylon hybrid baby is not addressed once. the multiple battle episodes about getting her back are just the reason the other cylons aren't trying to exterminate them anymore.

the writer was a fucking mormon and you can tell he wrote himself into a corner on the Legitimacy of God and could not let it go.

[greensaplinggrace]

do you have any darklina fic recs?

I certainly have a few! But first I want to clarify that I don’t really read fic when I’m writing it, and since I have so many fics in the works right now, I haven’t really been reading a lot of fanfiction. So this list probably won’t be as extensive as it could be.

Here are some other great fic recommendation posts, however:

DARKLINA FIC RECS by @vicioux

DARKLINA FIC RECS // part ii by @vicioux

Darklina Ruling the World Together Fic Recs by @clubofthestarlesssaint

Tumblr Ficlets

Aleksander’s First Memory by @kestrafagnor

Fivan Talk About Darklina by @jomiddlemarch

a little light in the great, big dark by @valkyrhys

Alina tells Mal she’s with Aleksander by @lorsanbitch

Darklina week day 5: intimacy & touch by @starlesscne

AO3 Fanfiction

if it ain’t me by larry_hystereks (Incomplete - 10/13 Chapters)

alina’s in her second year at Yale when she meets aleksander at one of his frat parties.

a hookup with the potential for more, only if alina wasn’t still struggling to piece herself together from last year’s breakup.

or: alina, zoya, their trust issues, and the men that fall for them

---

I’m only at about chapter 6 of this fic currently, but so far it’s one of my all time favorite Modern AUs. The characterization for Alina and Aleksander is incredibly well done, and the entire fic itself is so feminist and queer in such a refreshing way. Aleksander and Alina are bisexual as fuck, both with their own separate complex lives, and much of Alina’s own traumas and relationships are explored outside of Aleksander.

There’s some Zoyalina, with Nikolina friendship and endgame Zoyalai. There’s some mystery and some tension, but nothing too extreme, and a lot of the fic is merely an exploration in growth and overcoming one’s history and learning how to move on in healthy ways. I love it.

She Wears a Collar (With My Name) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

She is immortal, and whatever lingering hints of humanity she may have once had have long been bleached from her heart.

I will grant you one wish, boy, if it is in my power to do so. What does a Shadow Smith most want?

"You," he answers.

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 2: Role Reversal

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This piece is just exquisite. This author’s writing style is one that I particularly enjoy. Their stuff is always so uniquely composed and crafted, and this one especially is a work of art. The way Darklina as a relationship is portrayed in particular is fascinating to me because it’s a role reversal but it’s still so complex. Aleksander’s character is nailed.

the bright sun was extinguish’d by athousandwinds (Complete)

Somewhere, deep in the dark forests of Ravka, a boy grows up on stories of Sankta Alina of the Wastes, the Sun-Scorched Saint.

---

This fic is just straight up magnificent. It’s so engaging and I love love love the way a role reversed Aleksander who joins the army is portrayed. He reminds me so much of Demon in the Woods Aleksander, as if he’s exactly what a grown version of that young boy would be. When I say I adore his characterization in this I’m not lying.

If I wanted any completed fic I’ve read to have a second chapter, it would be this one.

Winter in the Little Palace by redisxwing (Complete)

Written for Yuletide 2020.

Baghra and Alina's wildly different perspectives on the Darkling, and how things could have gone if nobody listened to Baghra.

Warning: Baghra is written as a harsh and arguably abusive parent, and this is darkfic about that relationship, with a side of shipping. Everything is terrible (except the parts that are pretty much okay).

Canon divergence pretty much as soon as Alina gets lessons in summoning.

This fic is likely not compatible with King of Scars (or any subsequent work).

---

As is said in the summary, this one makes Baghra a bit more extreme. If you’re a fan of Baghra, this fic probably isn’t for you. But since I’m not a fan of Baghra, I had no problems with it.

My biggest praise for this fic is in regards to the character interactions and the POVs. There’s a brilliant grasp of unique perspective and how to convey it, and that talent is carried over into the way character interactions are brought to life in the text. Also, there’s a scene where Alina gets kind of protective of the Darkling, which is one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to Darklina.

Good Ideas by FelixRivers (Complete)

Alina Starkov had a very good idea. Aleksander Morozova would definitely agree. (or: Alina wants to go camping and Aleksander won't complain)

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This fic is just straight up adorable and hilarious. They’re such a cute couple and Alina’s POV is great. It’s just pure fluff and humor 💕

I’m not a bad girl, but I do bad things with you by SanktaJenya - @sankta-arya (Complete)

Winter had been hard on Old Baghra and Ana Kuya was worried about her, so she decided that Alina should make the trip to her cottage on the other side of the woods to bring her some food and kvas. On her way there, Alina meets a stranger...

Darklina Red Riding Hood/Company of Wolves AU

Darklina Week, Day 4, Fairytales

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This fic has a splendid grasp of tension and atmosphere. It’s very enchanting and dark and intriguing, and it nails those aspects with absolute precision. I love the style and the way the fairytale is incorporated into the narrative. It’s truly a masterpiece.

The Wretched by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“We are strangers, but I want to help.” He growls at her, mocking and mistrustful. “I understand,” she said. “You think I am one of them. I certainly look like one of them. But I want to help you. Will you let me?” Prompt: fairytale. Alina saves a dragon.

---

Okay so I’ve mentioned this one before as one of my Top 5 fics of all time and I still stand by that. I can’t even describe why I love this fic so much except that the pacing is amazing and the prose is stunning and the story is beautiful. Aleksander is a dragon and Alina is a witch, and their relationship is just so...interesting and fascinating and lovely. I would literally kill for this fic. There’s such a softness to it as well. Such a tenderness. Idk, I just really love it.

Show Me Who You Are (I Want To Know) by Ceris_Malfoy (Incomplete - 12/?)

Alina takes her future in her own hands and makes her own decisions.

---

This is a great “what if Alina had stuck around after the reveal” rewrite. It doesn’t have Mal bashing and in fact still writes them as close friends, which is something I’m fond of in Darklina fics. Aleksander is allowed to be soft and Alina is allowed to be powerful, and I really enjoyed the take on their dynamics as a power couple wherein Alina is given a lot of control.

There’s something to be said for the way Aleksander is written in the scenes where he must be honest and earnest with Alina. I really enjoy the way they both come to equal ground, and I’m even more fond of the way Alina is allowed to grow darker without losing her light. She also engages a lot with quite a few other characters, developing tons of friendships and alliances on her own that help strengthen her as an individual character.

on this bridge between starshine and clay by @rhea-imagined (Complete)

"His breath narrows for a moment, his fist clenched tight before he forces himself to loosen it. She is his only opportunity for salvation, but vulnerability is not a cape he wears easily. “In those days, there was less prejudice against Shadow Summoners. But everyone fears the dark, in one way or another.” He does not look at her as he waits for the penny to drop, half-hoping it stays suspended in the air."

In which Alexander comes clean to Alina and tells her about his true identity in hopes that this will help convince her to take down the Fold.

A rewrite of the fountain scene in episode four, with a good!Darkling that is trying to make amends.

---

This is my all-time favorite good!Aleksander AU. He’s kept in character despite the major changes made to his motivations, and Alina is given a lot more agency in her own story. It’s the first fic in what might become a series, but it can stand alone beautifully.

I love how Aleksander and Alina’s relationship is allowed to grow tense without breaking, and how it’s a clear sign of change but not abandonment. I love how both characters are able to think for themselves and become self-aware and are given the chance to think critically. I love the character interaction so much because it’s honest and fresh and engaging. Everything from the smallest action to the most off-hand thought is in character and meaningful and incorporated with an amazing style of writing. It’s a very refreshing piece, and the writing only makes it that much better.

Bunnies of a Feather Stitch Together by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Just as Alina called to the light, gathering and twisting it into a ball in her hands, the door swung open.

Kirigan blacked out the door frame. His appearance enough would have surprised Alina, but there was something clutched in his arm, something dark and floppy. It almost looked like the stuffed toys that had been passed around to the younger Orphans." - Alina and The Darkling bond over a love of soft things

---

Soft stuffed animal shenanigans. Bits of trans!Aleksander, which I’m very fond of, as well as just a lot of fluff with a bit of something bittersweet and sad in a good way.

Half Lie by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Baghra always talked of the demon that had stolen her daughter." Or, Alina learns the hard way that the Darkling isn't the only one who deals in half-truths

---

This one is trans!Aleksander, and it handles it in a very interesting way. It’s quite sad, and deals a lot with Baghra & Aleksander’s relationship through Alina’s POV. I want to give a warning for transphobia, because it does center around that a lot as the premise, but it really is worth the read if that isn’t a trigger for you. This is one of my favorite trans!Aleksander fics, and the way it handles emotion and grief and pain is quite extraordinary.

The CEO and Helioseismologist by mrthology (Complete)

Aleksander Morozova doesn't get sick. He's the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, one that he had built from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. He exercised daily (usually), maintained a healthy diet, and kept himself fit.

He wasn’t sick.

Too bad no one believed him. And too bad Genya decided to call Ivan to take him home before also calling Alina to take care of him.

Maybe, just maybe, being sick wasn't so bad. Especially not when he has such a wonderful girlfriend.

---

Both of the fics in this series are great, but I love this one in particular because I’m an absolute sucker for hurt/comfort. Anyone who’s been on my blog for a while knows that it’s my all time favorite trope to read, and this fic fits the hurt/comfort trope to a T in the best of ways. It’s very tender and in character, and Aleksander and Alina are so soft with each other. It’s adorable and really makes you feel for Aleksander, and the caretaking is done perfectly.

All the different layers of dark (thousand little suns) by Anuna (Complete)

One month after the Winter Fete, Aleksander returns to the Little Palace, and Alina has been missing him.

Or

Episode five canon divergence in which Alina had never left Os Alta.

---

This one is soft emotional hurt/comfort smut. They’re both so open and vulnerable with each other, and it’s so beautiful to read. I love the writing style and the emotion in this one. It makes my heart ache in the best way.

An Honourable Man by liviy695 (Complete)

A reimagining of the scene after the winter fete. Alina catches a glimpse of a caring Darkling after he returns from integrating the Conductor. Plus, no Baghra interference.

---

This one is what it says on the tin, in that Baghra doesn’t interfere and they’re allowed to talk after the Darkling interrogates the Conductor. But more than that, it’s a great imagining of how a scene where Aleksander reveals Marie’s death would have gone. There’s a sort of quiet to it that I appreciate, with grief and solemnity weighed against care and vulnerability.

I see the real you (even if you don’t, I do) by Anonymous (Incomplete - 8/?)

A series of questionable decisions lead Alina to meet the Black General a bit earlier. Butterfly effect ensues.

---

I’ve only read half so far (I hadn’t realized it had updated!! 👀👀) but I’m already in love with this fic. Alina’s dialogue and perspective is perfect, her relationship with Mal and the other cartographers is great, and I really enjoy how much personality she has. Aleksander is so smitten, but more than that, his characterization is soft but not weak. It feels almost as if he’s swept up by Alina, instead of the other way around, and I quite like that.

Of parenting by Anuna (Complete)

Alina finds out how her husband handled yet another parenting situation.

---

This is pure adorable Darklina parenting fluff and I live for it. Yet it doesn’t lack depth and in fact explored Alina and Aleksander’s relationship with parenting quite well.

i have a longing by LRCee - @ladylyannastark (Complete)

“So, Alina Starkov, risk-taker, how did you end up being editing’s newest wunderkind?”

Alina Starkov is rising in the publishing world. Singlehandedly responsible for editing (see: rewriting) the hottest book of the year, she lands a coveted spot at Morovoz Publishers. It's the position she's always wanted, at the biggest publishing house in the country. Life is perfect. That crush on her boss though, that's gotta go.

---

OKAY! I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH!! Let me tell you, as someone who is not too fond of Boss/Employee dynamics, I was very wary going into this fic. But boy did it deliver in a way that was perfect for me.

The relationship that develops between Aleksander and Alina is complex but healthy, and it never feels as if there’s too much of a power imbalance or anything that would make Alina feel forced or unhappy. The tension lies purely in how she fears others will perceive her, and not in how unhealthy her relationship with Aleksander is. For somebody who’s often attracted to unhealthy ships, I have to say that my favorite fics are usually ones that don’t have that type of dynamic between the characters. This fic delivers on that.

Also, Aleksander’s POV surrounding his struggle with his Russian heritage and his feelings for Alina is amazing, and has some of the best writing and characterization I’ve seen.

You receive: an evil demon; I receive: human souls by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

The next morning while she tried to tell herself it was a dream, that of course there wasn’t a fucking demon in her house, she found a note taped to her fridge.

“You might eat this shit,” it had written, “but I would like some fucking souls please.”

Darkling Week Prompt 7: free choice. Alina has a demon in her house.

This is absolute crack, and I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me.

---

May I just say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had when reading a fic. It’s interesting with a bit of mystery, and Aleksander as a little shit of a demon is hilarious. Alina in this fic is great too. It’s such a unique take on her POV, especially when you reread it after knowing the ending. 10000/10, this fic is brilliant in every way and I love it.

I had been lost to you, Sunlight by BrytteMystere (Complete)

A Girl became a Woman, became a Sankta, became a Goddess.

Or: An Immortal Alina calls upon merzost to reunite with the Prince of Shadows she lost long ago. She may have lost herself in the process.

But then again, maybe time and endless wars did that instead.

---

You really just have to read this one to get it. It is utterly haunting and fascinating in the best of ways. The writing style is strange and novel and fits so well with the story being told. The composition of the fic as a whole is genius.

I Look Inside Myself (And See My Heart Is Black) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"When is a monster not a monster? Why, when you love it, of course."

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 6: Favorite Quote • King & Queen • Monster

---

Once more, this author comes through with an absolutely breathtaking writing style and story. The imagery is elegant yet brutal, simultaneously horrifying and glorious. There’s a certain way these stories are written, like fairytales, where the beautiful becomes the macabre and becomes ever more stunning because of it. It’s very dark but in a good way - an almost bewitching way.

Afterlife by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“You are asking me to leave?”

“Not asking, shadow,” she said. “Telling. Time to get unlost, loser.”

Day 3 Darklina Week prompt: Modern AU (I mean, barely)

Alina expels ghosts from purgatory.

---

@aceofnowhere once again bringing the best of the paranormal to the Grishaverse. Literally everything you write is amazing idk why I’m even pointing out individual fics when I could just rec your whole page. But anyways!! This is fun and interesting and Alina is a badass. Aleksander is, of course, compelling and dark and kind of a little shit, and it’s all incorporated seamlessly into an existential paranormal narrative.

Once Upon a Shooting Star by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"But most of all, she was drawn to a vast darkness that reached out above all of them, a void so hungry for companionship that she knew she could fulfill."

---

Let. Alina. Be. Feral!! Anyways, I clearly have a type when it comes to storytelling, and it’s whatever the fuck this person has got going on. Feral!Star!Alina is literally the light of my life. Her interactions with not only other people but the world in general are so well done, but my favorite parts about this fic are the numerous ways her relationship with Aleksander is described and depicted.

I love the dark and light imagery, especially with how it’s portrayed as them filling in the gaps of each other’s lives and supporting each other instead of trying to block each other out. There’s such clear passion and joy and love and devotion between them. The central focus of this fic is on her and Aleksander’s relationship, the interplay between them and their powers and the way her light fills his loneliness, the passing of adoration and trust and reliance between them. It’s very beautiful and I love it.

A Blaze of Light by Keira_63 (Complete)

They discover the Sun Summoner in the burnt-out remains of the Shu laboratory in which she has spent the last seven years of her life.

Or, the Darkling finds himself with a Sun Summoner whose greatest wish is to burn Shu Han to the ground. He is happy to oblige her.

---

👀👀 Badass Alina and Badass Aleksander. The ultimate power couple, and Alina burning a path through Shu Han before they both burn a path through the world together. The darkness and rage in this one are handled very well, and the way that rage turns to coldness and then resolve is done so well. This fic is very cathartic and also very furious, and reading it is certainly a trip down emotion lane.

One more for the Road by Rist (Complete)

He returns to the war room shaken, and finds an Alina that cannot leave without at least having tried.

---

This one hurts so much but its soooo gooood!!! Very smutty but also very tender and very bittersweet. Sad and soft all at once. I just... love the way Alina and Aleksander are written so much, and Alina’s complicated feelings for him are explored in such detail and depth. This one is truly worth the read.

[jaimetheexplorer]

I keep thinking about Kim's potential endgame and coming up short of options.

I think it's highly likely that nothing will come out of her confession, even if she's prosecuted for it by the DA. It seems like the dialogue with Cheryl was preparing us for that eventuality (and there's also the possibility that, if caught, Gene/Jimmy will lie and take the blame for it to save her - he can only be hanged once after all - although not sure how that would fit with the whole "I save me" theme in her story). So jail-time for Kim seems unlikely.

If nothing comes out of that confession, I cannot see Kim going back to her empty, miserable Florida life. That was the shell she imprisoned "Kim" in as self-punishment. The phone call cracked that shell and the real Kim started dripping out. So even if her confession leads nowhere in legal terms, I don't think it she'd be able to patch the shell back up, shove Kim back inside, resume the lie of a life she's been leading. I think that identity is burned like Gene is for Jimmy.

So where does that leave her? I keep thinking of the obvious parallels with Jesse and his Alaska ending. Is something like that in the cards for Kim? Putting her Florida life behind and rebuild for the third time somewhere else? Somehow, that feels off too to me. It feels repetitive both for BCS canon (while Florida was miserable, it's the same sort of scenario) and BB canon (would they really just re-do Jesse?). It feels like a cop-out because it doesn't give us an answer, but lets us headcanon whatever we want. It feels like Gene getting a new identity and running again, thinking "this time it will be different". But you know what they say about madness and doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

And then I can't get over the fact that, unlike Jesse, who had love interests who were passing and fleeting (albeit intense), Kim's entire story has been interwoven with Jimmy's since before the show. That the latest episode made sure to emphasize that huge Jimmy-shaped void in every minute of her life. How painfully alone and empty she is now that she's surrounded by "friends", compared to when it was just her and Jimmy on their own little island. And I can't help but think that if she were to go off and rebuild, she would still carry that void with her. Maybe that's part of the bittersweetness of her redemption. A part of me can see them doing that because they don't shy away from painful realities. Jimmy is a part of her past that's never coming back and that's it. But would her have a Florida 2.0 where maybe her professional life gets more rewarding but her personal life remains hollow that much of a narrative change to end the series on?

One possibility I haven't seen considered is whether there might be another time-jump at the very end of the series. Or that we might skip through several years to show the aftermath or whatever goes down in the present timeline. Given that the entire series has been built upon timelines (the mailroom era, the BCS era, the BB era, the 2010 era), it isn't that far fetched to consider that there might be a final era. I have no idea what that might look like and I don't want to speculate too much so I don't get my hopes up*, but I wonder whether in that approach might lay the key to wrapping this story up in a satisfactory way.

ETA: A part of me can't help but wonder though if that version of Bob that's apparently coming on screen and looks nothing like we are used to might be future-timeline Jimmy.

[tgammsideblog]

Why does Molly McGee feels different from other happy friendly characters?

Something that has been commented since the first Tgamm episode aired is how Molly appears to be written different from other characters of her archetype (characters that are happy and positive and make friends)

But why does she leave that impression?

Well, i think there are some reasons why people come to that conclusion:

1) Molly comes from a friendless background

Despite being a very extroverted and kind girl, Molly has had to leave her friends behind because her family is always moving from one place to another as she explained to Scratch in "The Curse".

This trope (no having friends at the start) is more common for people that are introverted or timid in animation, not so much friendly extroverted characters. So, that's one thing that separates Molly from others of her type.

It also explains why Molly became so happy when she realized that Scratch has to follow her wherever she goes since she now has some who she can be her friend without having to leave him behind. 

It’s possible Molly suffers from some form of abandonment issues for having to leave many friends behind. The series has yet to explore her background in more depth, so i’m hoping for this aspect of her to being brought up later in future episodes.

2) Molly gets angry/irritated/annoyed by other characters

While Molly usually is kind and patient with other people, she has her limits as everyone else does. She gets irritated at Scratch when he is being rude (like when he said the Bandshell being destroyed was awesome) or when he gets on her nerves in difficult situations (like when he kept telling Molly how to pronunce Andrea's name in First Day Frights).

Molly also doesn't try to befriend Andrea after she outcasts her in "First Day Frights" and she asks Scratch to scare the filming team after Andrea took over Molly's movie. (Hooray for Mollywood!)

In case of the later, it's even rarer to see happy friendly characters getting back at someone. That's why it's quite unexpected to see Molly asking Scratch to use his powers to scare Andrea, showing that she has mischievous side.

3) She has clear character flaws that are brought up by the narrative/other characters

One common complain for the happy friendly characters is that they often feel too perfect or lack real flaws for the audience to relate to them.

In Molly's case it has already been established in the first episode that she can get too excited and be "too friendly" as shown when she meets Scratch for first time. This is something she is aware of and recognizes an issue she has.

In "Hooray for Mollywood!" She gets carried away when trying to make a good film and ignores how Darryl and Libby were getting pushed around by Andrea's filming staff. She also struggled with telling Andrea to stop taking over their film through the episode.

In "The Unnatural" she wasn't above cheating in the game as long as it made the team believe in themselves and people in Brighton got happy. In the same episode, her positive actitude gets tested a few times as well.

In "The Best of Nin-tentions" she tries fixing the problem that was between Grandma Nin and Sharon, for that she comes to the conclusion that Nin is mad because Sharon and Pete didn't had a proper wedding when in reality their issue was huge misunderstanding about Sharon giving up art. This shows that Molly sometimes may fixing something while not understanding what started the problem in first place.

In addition to that, it seems the upcoming episodes are going to explore her character flaws in further detail, which it would be good for character development.

To sum up: I think these are the main reasons why Molly feels like more rounded character to some people. She is positive but her positivity doesn’t completely come from lack of intelligence or being naive. She’s well intentioned but she isn’t without flaws. This could explain why people find her more interesting than other characters of her archetype.

[yunoteru4ever]

How Sakae Esuno developed the concepts behind Mirai Nikki/Future Diary, Yukiteru Amano, and Yuno Gasai

When you look through Sakae Esuno’s various interviews with numerous European outlets throughout the mid-2010s, there’s an obvious repeated pattern. Nearly every one asks him how he came up with the concept for Mirai Nikki. 

It’s a natural question, but what’s interesting is how his answers aren’t standardized. With different websites, he talks about different parts of the early development process. So when you add together the various web interviews in Spanish and Italian and Portuguese (and even a couple in Japanese), you can actually build a pretty detailed picture of how it came together.

This was the very first page of the very first chapter of Mirai Nikki in January 2006.

First, some backstory: Esuno started drawing manga artwork at 14-15 years old. He talks about how he was paritcularly inspired by Rumiko Takahashi’s works. During his time in university, while studying Fine Arts, he became an assistant to Leiji Matsumoto. Matsumoto taught him how to hone his craft, and after six years of working with Esuno, Matsumoto approached Kadokawa and introduced Esuno to them. That’s how Sakae Esuno got the chance to develop his first monthly series, which was Hanako and the Terror of Allegory. 

And when that series ended, the process of developing his follow-up began.

1)  Hanako and the Terror of Allegory wrapped up after just four collected volumes due to a lower-than-desired readership. Nevertheless, his editor at Kadokawa Ace magazine gave Esuno another chance to develop his own manga.

The editor offered the following suggestions:

Suspense seems like the best genre for you

Instead of an episodic work, how about something where a central protagonist repeatedly clashes against his opponent?

Maybe you could center it around a kidnapping?

From there, Esuno says he began to watch some suspense-based television and movies as a form of research. Watching stories that focused on kidnappings led him to decide that a kidnapping-focused plot wasn’t suitable for a monthly manga series, because that would mean the protagonist’s main opponent would obviously be the kidnapper. And that, in turn, would mean there’d be just one protagonist and one opponent repeatedly facing off, which he decided would rapidly get either boring or frustrating. 

Instead, Esuno figured it’d be more interesting and exciting if the protagonist had to clash with a variety of different opponents, each showdown lasting for a short cycle. 

I wonder if Sakae Esuno watched this movie during his studies... ? 

Esuno estimated that even if he had to end the manga within four volumes due to low interest as with Hanako, he could still have the protagonist confront as many as 10-12 opponents within that time if he kept each cycle of conflict tight. In some cases, he figured he could have the protagonist encounter multiple opponents simultaneously to create a chaotic multi-way battle that would also speed the narrative along. (He would later draft general outlines of the story for both this abbreviated narrative AND his hoped-for longer version where he could flesh the characters and scenarios out over the course of years.) But now he needed a scenario in which 10-12 people would be battling. What are they going to fight over? 

2) At this same time, there was a noticeable change happening in the culture around him. Esuno had been thinking a lot about how everywhere he went, he saw more and more people carrying and looking at their cell phone. They had expanded from use among businesspeople to young adults to college students and then to teenagers. Japanese society was starting to expect people to always be available for communication via the increasing rise of “smartphones.” (Keep in mind that it was 2005 at the time; the ubiquity of everyone using their phones to read the Internet, play games, or text one another was still a pretty new thing.)

Bask in some of the finest smartphone technology of 2005!

Esuno’s interest in this developing trend made him wonder if he could tap into it by centering the drama about cell phones. Could they all be trying to get a particularly amazing phone, or maybe using their phones against one another somehow? Maybe there would be a special feature to these phones that would make them extra-desirable and extra-powerful — something that they could leverage in their showdowns. But what would be the most useful feature to provide dramatic conflict? 

There’s a little bit of a gap in knowledge here: We don’t know exactly how Esuno came up with the notion of the cell phone offering future sight. That’s a step in the development that he hasn’t talked about. But obviously, he eventually settled on the idea that the “Diary”/“Notes” feature common to mid-2000s would contain future information. Those notes would now be something that the character possessing character would actually write later, allowing them to peer into their own future activities. Esuno says this particularly suited his interest in writing “clashes” that weren’t necessarily physical battles but instead were focused on the combatants having to outwit and outmaneuver each other. If everyone only has a limited perspective of the future, they can each try to use their own knowledge to their advantage while moving within the others’ blind spots.

4) Creating tension from this scenario meant he had to define the end goal and/or some stakes. Esuno say he was always interested in exploring controversial topics (even though he tends to feel personally uncomfortable when it comes time to draw them). All the same, he wanted to examine the darkest elements of human nature — our most self-centered and violent urges as well as what drives those things. It made sense to him, then, that the characters would have to be fighting for something that they’d be willing to do anything to achieve. And if the phones were going to tell the future, doesn’t that already imply something supernatural is happening? So he figured, why not make the competition center around a battle for those supernatural powers? 

If the competitors were going to win god-like abilities, they’d probably be willing to go to ANY length. And actually, if the being who bestows the future sight abilities is already so powerful, he figured it would make sense that said being would think little of the cost of human life. This is how he landed upon the idea of creating an actual god who was offering up his own throne. And all the competitors had to do to attain it was the absolute worst possible things to one another. Esuno liked how this let him also introduce elements of ancient religions and comment a bit on how our presumptions around religion can drive further violence.

5) Even while Esuno was working on the above details of the scenario for the series, he’d simultaneously been thinking about his central protagonist. That aspect came to him a lot more easily than the scenario did, actually. For years, he’d been playing with the idea of basing a protagonist on his own experiences as a teenager — that is, focusing the story on a young guy who was lonely and withdrawn. He wanted to see a protagonist who would be the opposite of a typical shōnen hero — still a teenager, sure, but someone who’d show very reasonable fear in the face of violence and be clearly traumatized about what they were being forced into. In other words, he wanted to make the most realistic teenage protagonist he’d seen in a shōnen publication. 

And to make this protag sympathetic to the audience, it followed that he needed to be the most morally grounded of the competitors. He would be the person LEAST interested in killing other people, of course. The power of being a god didn’t make our hero want to kill anyone OR want to risk his own life. Even though he’d always been something of a nobody, he still had pride that he wasn’t a murderer. But as the story went on, Esuno knew that his protagonist had to shift from being reactive to being proactive. Eventually, there was going to be no other choice left for him. 

The personality he envisioned for who would eventually become Yukiteru Amano naturally led to Esuno giving his protagonist’s future diary a defining quirk: Yuki observed everyone around him (usually without being directly involved with them), because whether he realized it or not, he was lonely. Therefore, it stood to reason that his future diary would tell him about everyone else around him, but it wouldn’t really speak about HIM. The logic being that since Yuki was hiding from his loneliness, he wasn’t prone to introspection. He preferred to distract himself from the things that brought him down, so he focuses his gaze outward. From this starting point, Esuno would eventually come up with the notion that all of the different competitors’ diaries could be different types or offer different focal areas of information.

6) Sakae Esuno wanted his protagonist to have someone to speak with and bounce dialogue off of, and it made sense to him that this deuteragonist might be a girl, because to Esuno, that introduced an inherent potential for romantic/sexual tension. He figured the most fun thing to do would be to make the secondary protagonist as much of an opposite to his primary protag as possible, because doing this would both generate interesting disagreements between them and also offer up potential for an “opposites attract” scenario. So if Yuki was quiet and isolated from his peers, she’d be assertive/outspoken and popular. If Yuki wanted to avoid the violent battles, she’d run headfirst into them, often being the aggressor. Yuki was usually going to be on defense, so his female partner would spend more time on offense.

So why would she even be involved in all this? Well, obviously, she’d have to be one of the competitors. Making the hero’s partner someone who has every reason to kill him increased the tension between them and the suspense. But then, why DOESN’T she just kill him?

It was while he was fleshing out the notion of the two leads being opposites that Esuno realized: If the boy’s diary was going to let him know everything about his surroundings and other people around him, but never himself… what if HER diary filled in the gap by giving her information only about Yuki’s future? Because these future diaries were giving the competitors a view into the future of the notes they ALREADY were taking, though, this idea would mean that even before the competition began, the female lead was regularly writing down notes in her phone about the male protagonist. In other words, having a diary focused on Yuki meant she had to be a stalker — which Sakae Esuno loved from the moment it came to him.

By making her have a fixation on the protagonist, Esuno believed he could generate even more conflict between them AND give Yuki an obvious downside to the team-up. Up until this point, the female lead was both popular and a skilled fighter. But now she also had a major flaw — one that made her simultaneously very useful to Yuki while also being potentially dangerous to him. 

Esuno sketching Yuno and Yuki at Lucca Comics in Italy, 2012.

Esuno would later expand on the notion of Yuki and Yuno as opposites when he got deeper into making his outline. He imagined Yukiteru’s parents to be absent from his life most of the time, further driving home his isolation. So in turn, he decided that Yuno’s parents were too involved in hers. Yuki’s parents barely knew what was going on with him, but they were at least nice to him, and they helped provide him with his strong moral compass. (This would be later narrowed down to be mostly thanks to his mother.) Therefore, in keeping with the notion of Yuno being the counterpoint to him, Yuno’s parents would be micro-managing her life and abusing her. 

.............and that’s about all we know at this point. It’s interesting to me that Sakae Esuno formed the killing game and future diaries before he ever defined the relationship between Yuki and Yuno, because that relationship is the thing that would ultimately become the central focus of the work. 

I wish we had some insight into how Esuno came up with Uryuu Minene or Aru Akise, too. But hey, maybe someday that’ll come up if he ever does more interviews on the record. Unfortunately, I can’t find any interviews with Sakae Esuno since the time when he was still actively making Big Order! He’s written and completed a whole other series since then, but he doesn’t seem to have done any press for it or for his current ongoing manga. Here’s hoping he gets a chance to talk more about his process one day.

Sources for the information in here: Deculture.es, Nanoda.com, Koi-nya.net, Lucca Comics, Koukyouzen.com, Ramenparados.com, Natalie.mu, Animanga.es, Sumikai.com ... and I think I lost another one too, but that’s most of it

[thedeadhandofseldon]

The Anti-Mercer Effect

On the Accessibility of D&D, Why Unprepared Casters is so Fun, and Why Haley Whipjack is possibly the greatest DM of our generation.

(Apologies to my mutuals who aren’t in this fandom for the length of this, but as you all know I have never in my life shut up about anything so… we’ll call it even for the number of posts about Destiel I see every day.

To fellow UC fans - I haven’t listened to arc 4 yet, I started drafting this in early August, and I promise I will write a nice post about how great Gus the Bard is once I get the chance to listen to more of his DMing).

Structure - Or, “This is not the finale, there will be more podding cast”

So, first of all, let’s just talk about how Unprepared Casters works. Because it’s kind of unusual! Most of the other big-name D&D podcasts favor this long, grand arcs; UC has about 10 hours of podcast per each arc. And that’s a major strength in a lot of ways: it makes it really accessible to new listeners, because you can just start with the current arc and understand what’s going on!

And by starting new arcs every six or seven episodes, they can explore lots of ways to play D&D! Classic dungeon delve arc! Heist arc! Epic heroes save the world arc! Sportsball arc! They can touch on all sorts of things!

And while I’m talking about that: Dragons in Dungeons, the first arc, makes it incredibly accessible as a show - because it lets the unfamiliar listener get a sense of what D&D actually is. (It’s about telling stories and making your friends feel heroic and laugh and cry, for the record). If I had to pick a way to introduce someone to the game without actually playing it with them, that arc would definitely be it.

And I’d be remise not to note one very important thing: Haley Whipjack and Gus the Bard are just very funny, very charismatic people. Look. Episode 0s tend to be about 50%(?) those two just talking to each other about their own podcast. It shouldn’t work. And yet it DOES, its one of my favorite parts, because Haley and Gus are just cool.

And a side note that doesn’t fit anywhere else: I throw my soul at him! I throw a scone at him - that’s it, that’s the vibe. The whole podcast alternates between laughing with your friends and brooding alone in a dark tavern corner - but the laughs never forced and the dark corner is never too dark for too long.

Whipjack the Great - Or, the DM is Also a Player!

I think Haley Whipjack is one of the greatest Dungeon Masters alive. The plots and characters! The mechanical shenanigans! The descriptions!

Actually, let’s start there: with the descriptions. (Both Haley and Gus do this really fucking well). As we know, Episode 0 of each arc sees the DM reading a description - of a small town, or the Up North, or the recent history of a great party. And Haley always strikes this tricky balance - one I think a lot of us who DM struggle with - between giving too much description and  worldbuilding, and not telling us anything at all. She describes people and events in just enough detail to imagine them, but never so much they seem static and unreal - just clear enough to envision, but with enough vagueness left to let your imagination begin to run wild.

While I’m thinking about arc 3’s party, let’s talk about a really bold move she made in that arc: letting the players have ongoing control of their history. Loser Lars! She didn’t try to spell out every detail of this high-level party’s history, or restrict their past to only what she decided to allow - she gave them the broad outlines, and let them embellish it. And that made for a much more alive story than any attempt to create it by herself would have - but I think it takes a lot of courage to let your players have that agency. Most Dungeon Masters (myself included) tend to struggle with being control freaks.

And the plots! Yeah, arc one is built of classic tropes - but she actually uses them, she doesn’t get caught up in subverting everything or laughing at the cliches. And it’s fun! In arc 3, there really isn’t a straight line for the players to follow, either - which makes the game much more interesting and much trickier to run. And her NPCs are fantastic and I will talk about them in the next section.

Above all, though, I think what is really impressive is how Haley balances mechanics, and rules as written, with the narrative and rule of cool - and puts both rules and story in the service of playing a fun game. And the secret to that? She’s the DM, but the DM is a player, and the DM is clearly having fun. Hope Lovejoy mechanically shouldn’t get that spellslot back, but she does, and it’s fun. The changeling merchant in Thymore doesn’t really make some Grand Artistic Narrative better, but wow is it fun. And she never tries to force it one way or the other - the story might be more dramatic if Annie didn’t manage to banish the demon from the vault, but it’s a lot cooler and a lot more fun for the players if Annie gets to be a badass instead - and the rules and the dice say that Annie managed it.

Settings feel like places, NPCs feel like people, and the narrative plot feels like a real villainous plot.

Anyway. I could go on about the various ways in which Whipjack is awesome for quite a while - she’s right, first place in D&D is when your friends laugh and super first place is when they cry - but I’m going to stop here and just. Make another post about it some other time. For now, for the record I hold her opinions about the game in higher esteem than I do several official sourcebooks; that is all.

Characters - Or, Bombyx Mori Is Not an Asshole, And That Matters

Okay, I said I would talk about characters! And I will!

Just a general place to start: the party! All of the first three parties are interesting to me, because they all care about each other. Not even necessarily in a Found Family Trope sort of way, though often that too. But they generally aren’t assholes to each other. The players create characters that actually work together, that are interesting; even when there’s internal divisions like SK-73 v. Sir Mr. Person, they aren’t just unpleasant and antagonistic all the time. Listening to the podcast, we’re “with” these people for a couple hours - and it isn’t unpleasant. That matters a lot. (To take a counter-example: I love Critical Role, but the episode when Vox Machina pranked Scanlan after he died and was resurrected wasn’t fun to listen to, it was just uncomfortable and angering and vaguely cruel).

All of the PCs are amazing, and the players in each arc did a great job. If you disagree with me about that, well, you have the right to be incorrect and I am sorry for your loss. Annie Wintersummer, for one example: tragic and sad and I want to give her a hug, but also Fuck Yeah Wintersummer, and also her familiar Charles the Owl is the cutest and funniest and I love him. And we understand what’s going on with Annie, she isn’t some infinite pool of hidden depths because this arc is 7 episodes and we don’t have time for that, but she also has enough complexity to be interesting. Same with Fey Moss: yeah, a lot of her is a silly pun about fame that carries into how she behaves, but a lot of how she behaves is also down to some good classic half-elven angst about parenthood and wanting to be known and seen and important. (Side note: if your half-elf character doesn’t have angst, well, that’s impressive and also I don’t think I believe you).

There are multiple lesbian cat-people in a 4-person party and they both have requited romantic interests who aren’t each other. This is the future liberals want and I am glad for it.

Sir Mister Person, the human fighter! Thavius, the edge lord! Even when a character is “simple,” they’re interesting, because of how they’re played as people and not action-figures. And that matters a lot.

In the same way: the NPCs. There really aren’t a lot of them! And some of them come from Patreon submissions, so uh good work gang, you’re part of the awesomeness and I’m proud of you! The point being, the NPCs work because enough of them are interesting to matter. It’s not just a servant who opens Count Michael’s door, it’s a character with a name (Oleandra!) and a personality and history. They’re interesting. Penny Lovejoy didn’t need to be interesting, the merchant outside the Laughing Mausoleum didn’t need to be interesting, but they ARE! And Haley and Gus EXCEL at making the NPCs matter, not just to the story but to us as viewers. I agree with Sir Mister Person, actually, I would die for the princesses of the kingdom. I actually care about Gem Lovejoy of all people - that wouldn’t happen in an ordinary campaign! That’s the thing that makes Unprepared Casters spectacular - and, frankly, it’s especially impressive because D&D does not tend to be good at making a lot of interesting compared to a lot of other sorts of stories.

And, just as an exemplar of all this: Bombyx Mori. Immortal, reincarnating(?), and described as the incarnation of the player’s ADHD. I expected to hate Bombyx, because as the mom friend both in and out of my friend-group’s campaigns, the chaos-causer is always exhausting to me. And yeah, Bombyx causes problems on purpose! But! She is not an asshole.

And that’s important. Bombyx goes and sits with the queen and comforts her. Bombyx gives Annie emotional support. Bombyx isn’t just a vehicle to jerk around the DM and other players; Bombyx really is a character we can care about. To compare with another case - in the first couple episodes of The Adventure Zone, the PCs are just dicks. Funny, but dicks. Bombyx holds out an arm “covered in larva” to shake with a count, and robs him of magical items, but she also cares about her friends and other people! She uses a powerful magical gem to save her fertilizer guy from death! Yeah, Bombyx is ridiculous, but she’s not just an asshole the party has to keep around for plot reasons; you can see why her party would keep her around. And one layer of meta up, she’s the perfect example of how to make a chaotic character like that while still being fun for everyone you’re playing with, which is often not the case. And I love her.

The Anti-Mercer Effect - Or, “I think we proved it can be fun, you can have a good time with your friends. And it doesn’t have to be scary, you can just work with what you know”

The Mercer Effect basically constitutes this: Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master of Critical Role, is incredible (as are all of his players). They’re all professional story-tellers in a way, remember, and so Critical Role treats D&D like a narrative art-form, and it’s inspiring. Seeing that on Critical Role sets impossible standards - and people go into their own home games imagining that their campaigns will be like Critical Role, and the burden of that expectation tends to fall disproportionately on the DM. And the end result, I think, of the Mercer Effect is that we get discouraged or intimidated, because our game isn’t “as good as” theirs. (And I should note - Matt certainly doesn’t want that to be our reaction).

So the Anti-Mercer Effect is two things: it’s D&D treated like a game, and it’s inspiring but not intimidating. And Unprepared Casters manages both of those really freaking well. Because they play it like a game! A UC arc looks just like a good campaign in anyone’s home game. They have the vibes of 20-somethings and college students playing D&D for fun because that’s who they are (as a 20-something college student who plays a lot of D&D, watching it felt like watching my friends play an especially good campaign). They’re trying to tell a good story, sure, and they always do. But first and foremost, they’re trying to have fun, and it shows, and I love the UC cast for it.

And that’s the other half of it: it’s inspiring! It’s approachable; you can see that Haley and Gus put plenty of work into preparing the game but it also doesn’t make you feel like you need hundreds of pages of worldbuilding to run a game. Sometimes a cleric makes Haley cry and she gives them back a spell-slot from their deity! That’s fantastic! It’s just inspiring - listening to this over the summer, when my last campaign had fallen apart under the strain of graduation, is why I decided to plan and run my new one!

That quote from Haley Whipjack that I used as the title for this section? That’s the whole core of this idea, and really, I think, the core of the podcast.

The Mercer Effect is when you go “that’s really cool, I could never do that.” But Unprepared Casters makes you look at D&D and go “wow, that looks really fun. I bet I can do that!” And I love the show for it.

And I bet a lot of you do too.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2021 anime overview: Quick Takes

Now for my Spring 2021 anime thoughts! I’ve decided from now on if a season’s like, 20- to-24 episodes I’m just going to wait ‘til it’s done to review it unless I feels super passionately, so though I watched To Your Eternity (it’s good!) and MHA (eh), I’ll comment on them next time. Also, for the record, I watched the first eight eps of Joran: Princess and Snow of Blood but I dropped it because it had clearly crossed the line from entertainingly dumb to boring dumb. 

I will probably give Supercub and some other stuff a shot later, this was a stacked season! May give updates on all that later, but this is what I have for now.

ODDTAXI

Quick Summary: A mild mannered middle-aged walrus taxi driver is drawn into a case involving a missing girl, yakuza, Youtube clout-chasers, manzai comedians and idols with big secrets.

It’s rare to walk away from media and be like “that is a singular experience I will definitely never see repeated again” but ODDTAXI is definitely one of those. A tense noir thriller murder mystery starring cartoon animals that spends an entire episode detailing the one (cat)man’s very fall into darkness triggered by addiction to gacha games and an online auction for a novelty eraser? Also there’s a porcupine Yakuza who speaks entirely in rap? Also there’s tons of meandering conversations about stuff like manzai comedy and the struggle to go viral on Twitter?

Admittedly, I had a hard time getting into the first episode, the dry meandering humor not being enough to hold my attention while I was sitting still, but once I watched this while I was working out at the end of the season, I found it an easy binge. A ton of characters with dark secrets or dangerous ambitions, each with their own part to play in a tableau of intersecting events- and it all actually comes together really well.(As for the female characters, it’s a pretty dude driven story, but they do get nuanced characterization and even some good heroic moments from one of them.)

 It’s a great example of a carefully planned narrative paying off, with all the twists appropriately seeded and foreshadowed to reward viewers who paid attention. Even when it ended on a perfect “OH SHIT” moment and denied me closure, I couldn’t help but respect it. If you that all sounds interesting to you, definitely check out the first couple episodes and see if you like it- you’re likely to have a memorable, satisfying experience!

Shadows House

Quick Summary: Emilyko is a ‘living doll’ who’s told she was created to act as the ‘face’ of her shadow master, Kate. The shadows and their ‘dolls’ all reside on the mansion and are required to pass a ‘debut’ to prove they’re a good pairing. If they don’t pass, they might be disposed of. And so the mystery of the Shadow mansion grows...

This slice of gothic intrigue was my favorite of the season, tied with ODDTAXI. With an interesting premise, slightly tense undertones and a strong focus on character building and relationships, it kept me hooked the whole way through. And for any squeamish fans put off by the hype about it, don’t worry, while there are some suspenseful elements, I wouldn’t qualify it as horror. I thought the relationship between Kate and Emilyko might end up being a completely sinister one, but it’s thankfully a lot more complex than that and it’s really interesting to follow how both their characters and relationship grow. The focus of the show is, unsurprisingly, on the “dolls” slowly discovering their autonomy and personhood as they struggle under the rigid system imposed on them by the mysterious elders of this weird Victorian mansion. Can they develop a more equitable relationship with their shadow “masters” (who are also shown to suffer under this system)? There’s a lot to dig into there, and the show has the characters develop through learning to understand and appreciate each other, which is pretty heartwarming. Our hero, Emilyko, is the typical plucky ball of sunshine (they even nickname her sunshine), but she’s also shown to be clever in her own off-the-wall way and she bounces off the far more subdued and cynical Kate well, not to mention the other ‘dolls’ she ends up befriending. 

What’s more, the show spends plenty of time to developing several other character pairings and combinations, and they all have their own interesting dynamic that makes you want to see more of them. Same-gender bonds are at the forefront of this show, and many of them are ripe for queer readings (I definitely appreciated the healthy helping of ladies carrying ladies), but even outside that it’s nice to see a show where a strong, complex bond between girls is at the forefront. My only real complaints about the show are the anime original ending is noticeably a bit rushed (though it’s not too bad, and leaves room for a season 2) and I wish the animation used the whole “shadow” theme more strikingly (like the opening and endings do)- instead the colors are a bit washed out which makes the shadows blend into the background sometimes. The “debut” arc also drags a bit in places, but it makes up for it by having a lot of good character integration.

I hope to check out the (full color)! manga soon and see more of this quirky, shadowy story. There’s some physical abuse depicted, sad things happening to characters and naturally the whole “oppressive familial system” thing, but otherwise not much I can think of to warn about. I give this one a big rec, especially If you’re a fan of gothic fairytales and stories of self discovery.  

Zombie Land Saga Revenge

Quickest summary: In this sequel season, everyone’s favorite zombie idol group must claw their way back into prominence after a disastrous show- the fate of the Saga prefecture LITERALLY depends on it!

This was a fun follow-up to the first season- if you liked the first zombie-girl romp, you’ll probably enjoy this one. In fact, there were a couple areas it improved on- namely, Kotaro failed, ate crow and embarrassed himself a lot more this season, which made him more likeable (as did the fact the girls gained a lot of independence from him). This season also shed more light on what the ‘goal’ of this zombie raising project is and what kind of shit Kotaro got involved with to make this happen, and it’s appropriately off-the-wall and ridiculous. We finally got some backstory for Yugiri too! I wish it had focused on more of her interiority, but she got to be a badass in it, and it was a treat to see this zombie idol show turn into a period piece for a couple episodes (also her song ruled).

 Tae also got a cute focus episode and there was a particular SMASHING performance early on! Also That revelation last season that had the potential to turn creepy hasn’t yet, and hopefully never will. The finale was heartwarming with big hints of more drama to come- I’m definitely down for more zombie hijinks!

Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song

Quickest Summary: A songstress AI named DIVA (nicknamed Vivy) is approached by another AI named Matsumoto, who says he’s from the future and they must work together to prevent AI exterminating all of humankind 100 years from now.

This show is absolutely gorgeous visually with some really nice action scenes, but when it comes to the story my feelings basically amount to a shrug. It’s fine! I guess! Vivy starts out as an interesting layered character- and I guess still is by the end- with her stoic but stubborn determination bouncing off her fast-talking bossy partner Matsumoto well. She never listens to him, which is delightful. The way the show took place over the course of 100 years was an interesting conceit as well. However, it bought up a lot of themes and then sort of... dropped them. For instance, Vivy interprets her mission (PRIME DIRECTIVE if you will) as protecting humans at all costs, no matter how destructive said humans are or what their fate is supposed to be, and is perfectly willing to murder her fellow androids to do this, showing she inherently thinks of androids (herself and her own people!) as less worthy. Which is a little alarming! There’s a very dramatic point in the show where they bring this up as a potential conflict for her character but then it’s sort of...dropped. Pretty much.

Actually, despite the premise, the show doesn’t dip into the “AI rights” as much as you think it would with the main theme being more about Vivy’s search to find her own creativity and discover what it means to ‘pour your heart into something’. Vivy herself doesn’t actually care if she has rights or anything. Which is in some ways fine, because ‘AI as an oppressed class’ has been done to death, but IT’S ALSO KIND OF IN THE PREMISE, so that means that the show just shrugs really hard at a lot of the questions it brings up  basically just going “humans and AI should work together probably” and that’s it. There’s a lot that feels underexplored. The antagonists in the show also either have motivations that don’t really make sense or have boring hackneyed motivations. In the finale in particular, it feels like a lot of things happen “just because” and it falls a little flat.

I also have to warn that one of the arcs focus on a robot ‘pairing’ where the dude-coded robots actions toward his partner are straight up awful and rob her of her autonomy, but it’s played like a tragic love story. I suppose you could read it differently too, but it definitely made me go ‘ew’ the story seemed to want me to sympathize with this robo dude,

Overall, I wouldn’t anti-recommend this show, it’s an all right little sci-fic romp (and definitely SUPER pretty). My favorite element was definitely the episodes where Vivy develops an entirely new (an loveable) personality, because it played with the idea of of an AI getting “rebooted” really well and interplay between her two “selves” was done really well. But there are a lot of other parts of the show that just feel...a little underexplored and empty, making me have an ‘eh’ feeling on the show overall. It’s definitely an ambitious project, and while it didn’t quite stick the landing, there’s something to be said for a show that shoots for the stars and falls short over a show that just languishes in mediocrity.

Fruits Basket The Final

Quick summary: The final season of that dramatic drama about that weird family with a zodiac curse and the girl who loves them.

It’s very weird that after not cutting a lot out, they kinda sped through some material for, you know, the finale. I guess they thought they couldn’t stretch this final arc to 26 episodes? Or weren’t cleared for another double cour? However, though there were a couple places that felt awkward, despite being a bit condensed it mostly held together pretty well for a D R A M A T I C and ultimately heartwarming conclusion. I was really disappointed they kept the part where Ritsu cut their hair for the ‘happy ending’, I thought  their intro episode not showing them in men’s clothes meant the anime had decided their presentation didn’t need to be “fixed” but WELL I GUESS NOT. That was the only big upset for me though, otherwise the adaptation went about how I expected, sticking to the source material. Furuba has a lot of bumps, from weird age gap stuff to ...gender, but it also has a lot of important feels and great character arcs. It was a gateway shoujo for many and has its important place in animanga history, so I’m glad it finally got a shiny, full adaptation.

[norahastuff]

the unrequited love thing just bothers me so much. No-one had any issues seeing Cas/Hannah as a valid ship in the show when Cas wasn't even really interested in her. We've had a decade worth of romantic signals from Dean, but somehow destiel is unrequited. such a goddamn tragedy that they couldn't find their way back to each other one last time when that is their whole ~dynamic~

Yes, all of this. Exactly. Honestly, it’s been so frustrating to keep hearing the word unrequited thrown around so much lately. What about this dynamic has ever seemed unrequited? I’ve done this before but I’ve been really annoyed about it lately so should we make a list?

What about Dean feeling so personally betrayed by Cas in The Man Who Would Be King? Or Sam and Bobby walking on eggshells around Dean and taking care to very delicately approach bringing up the possibility of Cas doing something shady because they knew how hard Dean was going to take it? They knew it would be different for him than it would be for both of them.

Or how about Dean keeping Cas’ trenchcoat, and not only keeping it - he could have stashed it at Bobby’s or left it in the trunk of the Impala - but no he kept it with him, moved it from car to car. And this isn’t a last-minute development that they decided to throw into 7x17 when Cas returned, we see glimpses of the coat in other episodes before this, a consistent reminder that Dean’s carrying it around with him. That losing Cas is weighing on him.

How about Dean wondering why he could usually get over things but for some reason with Cas he couldn’t and he just didn’t know why. 

For that matter...do you think there is anybody else that Dean would forgive for hurting Sam? For betraying him? Sure Dean is mad at Cas but more than anything he wanted to fix things. Despite everything, he needed Cas to be a part of his life. 

How about that time Dean spent a year in purgatory looking for Cas, praying to him every night? In Dean’s mind, Sam is out there alone doing God knows what trying to get him back. I mean Sam didn’t, he’d let Dean go, but Dean assumed he was still looking. And yet Dean didn’t go back to Sam even though he could. He stayed for a year looking for Cas. Because he needed to. He needed him. Purgatory was pure remember? Dean had clarity there. He understood his wants, needs, and emotions.

Or you know just that one little thing about how Dean changed his own memories of what happened when he got separated from Cas because the thought of failing Cas was less painful than the idea that Cas would choose to stay in purgatory instead of leaving with him.

“We need you. I need you.” You know all about this one, I don’t need to say more.

The angels knowing exactly what would hurt Dean, knowing how much he cared about Cas and using that against him: 

“The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in hell he was lost!” 

“I know you’re hoping Castiel will return to you. I only wish that he felt the same way.”

Miriam: Bieber in there he can do almost anything. Dean: Anything? (and for the first time since Cas died we see Dean experience a moment of hope...and then...) Miriam: Oh sweetie, almost anything. Castiel he’s dead, all the way dead, because of you.

Dean staring wistfully at Cas through a Gas n Sip window for god knows how long. Actually you know what, that whole episode. 

Cas being Dean’s Colette. That’s not subtext. You can argue with the execution, but the parallel was spelled out. And actually for that matter in Chuck’s drafts or alternate futures/ timelines or whatever that he was showing Sam, Dean was the one who was broken after losing Cas to the Mark of Cain, Dean was the one who had to bury him in Ma’lak box. Dean was the one who had to stop him. So I mean not only was Cas Dean’s Colette, but Dean was Cas’ Colette too.

Dean reacting very differently than Sam to Cas’ decision to say yes to Lucifer. Dean’s worry. Dean desperately calling out to Cas over and over again to try reach him and get him to eject Lucifer. Dean resisting Amara for Cas. Lucifer and Amara being very surprised by this. Amara using Cas to try to get to Dean. 

Dean’s very different reactions to all things Cas in s12. This one would need it’s own post, but let’s just say there was a lot of focus on Dean and Cas in s12 and most of it was on how intensely Dean felt for Cas. 

Dean made him a Led Zeppelin mixtape. And then proceeded to get mad at himself for letting Cas use it to come into his room and play him. Which isn’t exactly what happened (though it sort of is) but that’s exactly what went down from Dean’s perspective, and that kind of move would only work if Dean truly cared about Cas. Going into someone’s room and playing on their feelings for you by using a romantic gift they gave you, only works if that person has feelings for you that can be played with.

12x23. Sam having to pull Dean away from Cas at the rift because Dean was intent on chasing after Cas. Dean falling to his knees by Cas’ body unable and unwilling to think about anything else and leaving Sam to face the nephilim. Sam knowing better than to even try to move Dean.

Widower arc. I would elaborate but do I need to?

And finally all of their arc in s15. No part of that was one sided. 

I actually can’t believe we have to keep having this conversation. Before it seemed like we kept having to somehow “prove” there was a romantic element to Dean and Cas’ relationship. Now that they have explicitly stated in canon that there is, the conversation seems to have shifted to how it’s one sided. Look I’m as frustrated as anyone that Dean didn’t get to say anything, but we never considered their relationship one sided before. That’s certainly not what I saw in the show.  Dude pines after his totes str8 bro friend who’s not into him is not a story I would have had any interest in. Looking at that long list above does it seem like it was one sided?

Whatever Cas felt for Dean, Dean felt it too. This has never seemed like a one sided narrative. Like you said just because the last page of the story was ripped out/wasn’t written (ie whatever you think went down) it doesn’t invalidate years upon years of consistent relationship building and emotional growth. Their story is incomplete not erased.

(And in relation to the Cas and Hannah of it all, a while back I did get curious and look that up, and you’re right. People had no problem with thinking of Cas and Hannah as romantic - when she was played by Erica Carroll. When Hannah returned in a male vessel, both Misha and the new actor Lee Majdoub played their relationship exactly the same way, the same heart eyes, the same gentle touches and soft spoken appreciation, but no one seemed to want to discuss Cas and Hannah’s romantic connection anymore. For reasons. Whatever could they be? I’m putting this in brackets though because I don’t have the sources on that and I have no intention of trawling through reddit/entertainment review sites/wherever I checked last time to find them. I do not have that in me. So there’s a chance I could be mistaken and people did discuss it, in which case I’d love to be proven wrong. Anyway that’s why this point is just at the end in brackets)

[ramblingaboutglee]

Why Glee is the worst show to ship things for

I feel as though none of the ships were meant to be endgame. 

Which is no reflection of taste or ship quality, just what it feels like Glee the show was trying to be. So, when so much of the fandom became invested in relationships that the show seems to want to end, drama was inevitable. 

So let’s talk about why I think this, and what changed. 

Let’s start at the very beginning

It’s never not going to interest me how much Glee changed from 1A. Glee was originally about the relationship of Will Schuester and Emma Pillsbury, and the kids were a mere supporting cast whose lives ended up paralleling Will’s in some respects, leading to thematic fun and character development. Of course, we also have Will ending up with his high school sweetheart, just as any ships on the show would be. That, er, went well. 

Then the show ended up shifting gears, and bringing the students to the main roles, and thus their relationships became more prominent. After season 1, the show was renewed for two more seasons, bringing us to the end of S3 and graduation. 

Now, some of this is speculation, but it feels reasonable. Graduation would be the natural finale for the show. I can’t recall if everyone’s ages were confirmed in the first season at any stage, though with Glee timelines, it’s easy to imagine a universe where season 2 ended up being the graduation - instead, season two feels a lot like treading water, bringing us through to the season that follows up on Shelby and Beth, the season where the singing competition carries more narrative weight again, more focus on paralleling the lives of the adults and kids... Season 3 follows on from season 1, in the way you’d expect an ending to. And Ryan Murphy has said that he’s thought of final scenes well before writing seasons at other points, so it’s very easy to conclude that the ending of season 3 was planned almost as soon as Glee got renewed, and just shuffled forwards. 

And the S3 finale really does feel like an ending. But before we get to that, let’s talk Funny Girl. 

Funny Girl is obviously a big deal in-universe, to Rachel and to Murphy both. It’s the show Rachel dreams of, and that embodies her first big performance in the show. And, to spoil the musical, the final scene is the main character Fanny Brice ending a relationship, standing alone in the middle of the stage, and singing a hopeful solo re-establishing who she is. 

And then we come to season 3. Finn breaks up with Rachel, and Rachel closes out the season with a solo - yeah, the parallels feel deliberate. It’s an unmistakeable ending - one could ask if the episode would have gone like this if Glee hadn’t been renewed for season 4, and... honestly, I think so? I don’t see any world in which they wouldn’t go for that ‘Rachel solo’ ending because the parallels are so very clearly there. Some things are left unresolved, but they’re more left open than left dangling. It’s graduation. The future’s unknown, and it ends on bittersweet, on Rachel alone in a city to start the next chapter of her life. 

But let’s look at everything that happens. Kurt and Blaine are in different years, straining their relationship now Kurt’s graduating. Brittany’s held back, so she and Santana suffer the same. Quinn and Puck explicitly get a goodbye. And then the ‘main couple’ of the kids split up. 

The end. 

The First Time

Would all this have happened in the same way if it had been the end? It feels likely for Finnchel, and Quinn and Puck likely weren’t going to the same place. That leaves Brittana and Klaine, and depending on if the writers had chosen Blaine’s year, that’s arguable - certainly though, the show seems open to it. 

Because Glee’s about growing up, and part of that is acknowledging that the things you had in your youth won’t always be like that. Season 3 plays up this theme hard, talks about how they’ll lose contact as they grow up, so romantic relationships getting the same treatment makes perfect sense. 

So let’s talk about first times. Every teen drama does this, whether talking about first kisses, or first time having The Sex. So when Glee does it... it says that it’s bs. Kurt’s first kiss is with Karofsky, Beiste’s is with Will, Santana and Brittany’s is with who-knows, Quinn’s presumably would be Finn (and vice-versa). Finn’s first time having sex is with Santana, again Brittana’s are with who-knows, Quinn’s with Puck, Artie’s was with Brittany... In the episodes where the show intentionally plays up the significance of first times, they’re also the episodes that for some characters play up the fact that often your first time won’t be with who you’re with for the rest of your life. It’s temporary. It doesn’t necessarily matter. 

It feels reasonable to extend this to relationships - saying that these end doesn’t invalidate their significance, it just means that things have endings. If so many of the first times did ultimately end in a very temporary relationship, if that, why would we assume the show is conveying that the other dynamics are any more built to last?

Glee is about finding yourself. The aforementioned S3 finale is a spectacular example - Roots Before Branches is something I swear I keep referring to, because it feels like such a good encapsulation of the show, on top of a well thought-out scene. “You’ve got to have roots before branches, to know who you are before you know who you want to be.” 

Glee is predicated on the fact that none of us are who we were in high school. High school bullies become well-adjusted people, and couples become incompatible, whether by circumstance or personality. 

What changed?

Season 5, the 100th episode anniversary, Quinn ends up with Puck. 

But wait, let’s rewind. In Season 4, everyone broke up, even Finn and Rachel despite them already being broken up. Quinn wasn’t really a regular on the show anymore, but came back to, er, sleep with Santana and out-of-universe that could so easily have been her last appearance on the show. That doesn’t scream ‘Quinn/Puck was planned endgame.’ 

Then season 5 begins. Santana’s dating someone else, Kurt has a relationship slowly being teased, Dani and Elliott are sweet enough. The adult characters have their own love interests in bloom - Brittany is off the show, and Blaine is feeling a strain. 

Viewers vanish. The mid-season finale happens. The show drops the S4 newbies almost completely and gives them an abrupt send-off, and pivots. New love interests are kicked out, and for the 100th anniversary they take pains to show Quinn and Puck getting back together. 

So... why? Regardless of your opinion on the ship, whether you love it or hate it, seriously: why? These two characters are no longer on the show. What point does hooking them up serve? 

The answer is, well, easy, if disappointingly pragmatic. Viewers. This is the point where they acknowledge the show is dwindling and people watched for ships, so suddenly it’s all the classic ships. Quinn and Puck get a hook-up send-off, Brittany’s back, Kurt and Blaine get focus, even Sam and Mercedes who haven’t interacted in ages get a redo. Everything that had been set up was abruptly ditched to bring back what the fans like. Cue, ships that had been left by the wayside, suddenly back in focus. 

(For the record, the New York stretch of S5 is a stretch I love. I’m not really a huge fan of 5A through the 100th anniversary, but starting with Downtown I swear I just went from ‘ehhhh the final season’s half length I may as well finish’ to ‘okay next episode please.’ So this is in no way me talking down on it) 

But yeah, this doesn’t feel like the plan. This feels like a course correction. The whole anniversary was a nostalgia trip, and the show totally shifted focus and adjusted how it handled the themes to allow for something it feels like they never planned to do at any point in the four and a half seasons before this. 

The Compromise

To say that Glee completely changed what the show was about doesn’t feel entirely fair, of course. It feels like there’s more to it. 

So, to begin with, let’s acknowledge the original ending of the show. From what I’ve heard, if not for the real life tragedy, the ending of the show would have been similar to the arc that closed out season 5 - Rachel is a huge success on Broadway, a star, but feels like nothing is quite right. She’d go back to McKinley, see Finn at the piano, and say “I’m home.”

This doesn’t tell us about the original ending for a lot of ships, but it says something about Finnchel - or at least says, the ending of the show was going to be open to them. I don’t think this implies explicit romance, the scene feels like it would lose impact if they were already together/this wasn’t at least following up an argument, but it suggests that the show would have ended on an implication that the one couple that wasn’t together after S3, were together as an ending. 

So what did it take to get to this point? 

I think what the later seasons tried to establish is that the characters became who they would always be - they reached that rough level of stability, and turned out to still be compatible. Late-show Britt isn’t exactly the same as S1 Britt, ditto Santana, but they still complemented one another. S1 Rachel definitely isn’t the same as S6 Rachel. S6 Kurt is way more grounded and aware and confident than S1 Kurt, just as Blaine’s learned to come to terms with what he wants,and how they interact is fundamentally different to how they did in S2, but they still found enough ground for a relationship. 

And I don’t think it’s coincidence that the attempt to have the goodbye to Quinn’s character being to pair her with Puck necessitated regressing her to her early season characterisation; this is the Quinn who pairs better with Puck. 

And the break-ups feel vital to this - they allow the characters to develop by themselves, in order to end up in a position where they can see if they still click. But, notably, Glee isn’t one of those shows that pairs off everyone - Brittana and Klaine end up married because if they didn’t, it feels like the fandom would have rioted. But everyone else? Sam is dating unknown people, Mercedes has no known partner, Mike is unknown, Tina and Artie are implied to be considering something but it comes years after the rest of the series, there’s no focus on the supporting cast of S6... Sam and Rachel was the dynamic built up lightly in S5 and then explicitly in S6, but then that’s over with for someone Rachel had barely spent any time with on-screen and especially not recently... 

Glee seems like it wants to pair up the minimal number of people. It tries to justify the relationships happening when they’re adults, not when they’re at high school, and the break-up disconnects feel vital to this. 

But ultimately, Glee seemed more than content with ending on no relationships established as endgame or long-term. What we ended up getting, feels much more like a concession than the plan. 

Which, honestly, with how huge shipping is in Glee fandom, is it any wonder that there was so much unhappiness?

For the record, I disagree with the idea that shipping something means you want it to be canon. There are a lot of ships, which function in a lot of different ways, and that would be a huge tangent. But at the very least, most of the time you want a ship to feel like it matters more, like it’s not just a stepping stone. 

Instead, it feels like Glee intended to be more like one of those coming of age dramas - you likely know the sort, a lead dates half a dozen people over the story’s run and none of them are intended to be ‘true love,’ they’re just relationships that happen but don’t last. Look at the early seasons - Puck and Rachel got an episode in 1A dedicated to them, written well before fandom had gotten involved. They weren’t an endgame ship, they were “Teenagers happen to date sometimes.” That’s what Glee seems like it was originally meant to be. 

I might be completely wrong, of course, but that’s the vibe I get. So, yep, as the title says, Glee is a terrible show to watch and ship things for. 

[ambiguousdisorderken]

in your expert opinion what are some of the most destiel-heavy episodes of spn? i stopped watching around season 7 and have no interest in engaging w the plot of the show at all but i’m in the mood for some gay yearning ykwim

Hi anon! Thank you for reaching out to me about this, I’m, no-joke, very flattered. I’d seen a couple posts on this same question, very thorough and detailed lists on Destiel-centric episodes, but at the moment I cannot find any of them, that would’ve answered your request much faster. So, in advance, sorry, my reply is probably coming in extremely late, but I did write this from scratch, so yeah.

Even though storylines in SPN can be very shitty and hollow, I do feel that to get the full Destiel experience -that long-drawn yearning- one would have to watch the entirety of the show, even if Cas isn’t in the episode or if there’s no explicit mention of their relationship/bond because it gives you a better understanding of them as characters and of how their relationship affects the narrative.

Now, you mentioned you stopped around S7, which is completely understandable and justified given the Dick plot game was very weak and, in my opinion, annoying (so little Cas!). I’m going to start listing from S7 in case you want to refresh your SPN before jumping straight into unseen episodes. Also, since you mentioned no interest in the plot and are specifically craving those sweet crumbs of gay yearning, I’ll skip most one-sided / too subtle episodes and cut to the chase.

Lastly, I hate spoiling things, but you’ve probably seen it all on Tumblr. I tried to keep the episodes’ descriptions short, as it might come in useful. Stuck to key words, quotes and/or little comments.

 Season 7

7x01 – Meet the New Boss: Godstiel, sincere apology. Cas: “I'm gonna find some way to redeem myself to you.”

7x02 – Hello, Cruel World: Mourning. Trench coat melancholy. The heart-wrenching eulogy: “Dumb son of a bitch.”

7x17 – The Born-Again Identity: Emmanuel!Cas, reunion, longing, hurt.

7x21 – Reading is Fundamental: Honey!Cas, hug, hurt, reunion, that painful SORRY (board game) scene.

7x23 – Survival of the Fittest: Honey!Cas, forgiveness, adorable, wified Cas. Dean hits us with: “Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas!" but also “I'd rather have you, cursed or not.”

Season 8 (this season is so good and Destiel is the driving motor of it, I swear. If you can, watch it complete.)

8x01 – We Need to Talk About Kevin: Dean in Purgatory looking for the angel.  Cas is referred to as “your [Dean’s] angel.”

8x02 – What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?: HUG!!!, Purgatory reunion, face touch, very romantic. Monster: “ You'll find your angel there.” //  Dean: “Let me bottom-line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you.”

8x05 – Blood Brother: Cas vs. Benny cat fight lol. Dean: “Cas... we're gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

8x07 – A Little Slice of Kevin: Cas comes back from Purgatory, but before that Dean starts seeing him in places. Very tragic; hallucinating your dead significant other trope. Has That boner scene. Dean: “I did everything I could to get you out! EVERYTHING!” Cas helps Dean see what truly happened in Purgatory and not his self-altered memories. PACKED!

8x08 – Hunteri Heroici: Hilarious, romantic, intimate. Dean and Cas have an heart to heart. They actually communicate. Cas “I’ll watch over you.”

8x10 Torn and Frayed: They work a case together, and when I say heart eyes…

8x17 – Goodbye Stranger: THIS. EPISODE. Dean “I need you.”

8x19 – Taxi Driver: Separation. Naomi to Dean: "You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty; I only wish he felt the same way."

8x22 – Clip Show: Lack of trust, hurt, tense interactions. Romantic too (basically, Cas gets Dean an apology basket).

8x23 – Sacrifice: Meaningful conversation and a gay couple hit by Cupid parallel. Dean “So this is it? E.T goes home?"

 Season 9

9x01 – I think I’m Gonna Like it Here: Dean prays to Cas IN.A.CHAPEL. Worry, longing, separation. Dean “Please, man, I need you here.”

9x03 – I’m No Angel: Human!Cas and jealous!Dean.

9x06 – Heaven Can’t Wait: Human!Cas TEXT-BOOK LONGING. GAY AS FUCK. Gazing, touching, they even TALK (for real).

9x09 – Holy Terror: Adorable Cas, flirty vibes, happyish, funny. Cas: “Cas is back in town!”

9x10 – Road Trip: Cas comforts Dean, Cas and Crowley bitching at each other, overall protective!Cas.

9x18 – Metafiction. Cas finds out about the Mark of Cain.

9x21 – King of the Damned: Hug, strong boyfriends vibes.

9x22 – Stairway to Heaven: Cas gives up an entire army, for Dean. Metatron about Cas “He's in love………………………. with humanity.”

9x23  – Do You Believe in Miracles?: At this point, it’s canon stated that Cas will do anything and lose everything if that means saving Dean. Metatron to Cas “You draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right?”

 Season 10

10x01 – Black: Demon!Dean and sick/brokenhearted Cas in a slutty robe missing his man.

10x03 – Soul Survivor: ICONIC. Angel on Demon action! Cas turns down Hannah because he’s too gay and in love. Intimate Deancas talk.

10x05 – Fan Fiction: No Cas, but Destiel references. 

10x09 – The Things We Left Behind: That.Lunch.Date. Deancas introduction to co-parenting.

10x14 – The Executioner’s Song: We get Daddy Murder aka Cain. This is a Pivotal episode to understand Dean’s character development. Plus, it has Deancas interactions.

10x16 – Paint It Black: No Cas, but Dean opens up in confessionary; repressed BISEXUAL AS FUCK.

10x18 – Book of the Damned: Charlie meets Cas. Gay energies everywhere. Cute domestic little scene.

10x20 – Angel Heart: PARENTING! Essential to understand Cas from this point forward.

10x22 – The Prisoner: Just… just watch it. One of THEE Destiel episodes.

10x23 – Brother’s Keeper: No Deancas interactions but it’s the finale, and I recommend watching it because next season takes off literally right from here. No time jumps.

 Season 11

11x02 – Form and Void: Could skip to the very end which is when Cas comes back.

11x03 – The Bad Seed: Cursed!Cas. Dean takes care of him, even wraps him in a blanket. He also cradles his face. Extreme Hurt/Comfort. Jacting joices rejoice.

11x10 – The Devil in the Details: Could skip but has Casifer in it. Interesting to see his dynamic with Dean.

11x18 – Hell’s Angel: Casifer. Dean "It? It's not an it, Sam, it's Cas!"

11x23 – Alpha and Omega: Huggg! Cas willing to go on a guaranteed suicide mission with Dean. Very tender and sad.

 Season 12

12x02 – Keep Calm and Carry On: ANOTHER HUG! Dean presents his boyfriend to his mom<3 Soft and romantic.

12x09 – First Blood: Reunion hug<3, Cas pining… as in he counts his every minute without Dean.

12x10 – Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets: Direct parallel with canon couple. Crystal-clear mutual affection. One of the best. Angel Ishim to Cas about Dean “I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna cure you of your human weakness same way I cured my own… by cutting it out.”

12x12 – Stuck in the Middle with You: A dying Cas confesses his love. “I love you. I love all of you.”

12x19 – The Future: We find out Dean gave Cas a MIXTAPE!!! Very romantic and full of yearning, also worry and what could be seen as a betrayal (ish…).

12x23 – All Along the Watch Tower: Hands down, one of the most distressing Destiel episodes. Cas dies.

 Season 13

13x01 – Lost and Found: This is the worst because you have Dean trying to assimilate Cas’ death. Core of Dean’s widow’s arc. Jack introduction, that’s their new kid.

13x02 – The Rising Son: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?).

13x03 – Patience: Widow’s arc (you could skip it, but why would you?). Dean to Sam “He manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!”

13x04 – The Big Empty: Continuation of widow’s arc and Cas wakes up in the Empty. The Empty to Cas: "I know who you love. There's nothing for you back there." // Dean to Sam “I need you to keep the faith, for both of us. ‘Cause right now, I… Right now, I don’t believe in a damn thing.”

13x05 – Advanced Thanatology: Suicidal and hopeless Dean gets his win. Cas comes back. Gives me the chills.

13x06 – Tombstone: COWBOY BOYFRIENDS!

13x14 – Good Intentions: Happy and fun Destiel scene. So Very Married.

13x23 – Let The Good Times Roll: Season finale, Dean talks about retiring (plans include Cas of course) and just very nice to see them interact.

Season 14

14x03 – The Scar: Reunion.

14x08 – Byzantium: Deanand Cas dealing with their child’s death, then bringing him back by Cas making a deal with the Empty. IMPORTANT EPISODE.

14x09 – The Spear: Cas uses the royal We – married behavior.

14x10 – Nihilism: Dean is stuck in his own mind, and Cas and Sam try to bring him back. Cas “Please, you have to -- you have to try to remember, because the people in your life -- in your real life, out there -- we need you to come back.”

14x12 – Prophet and Loss: Dean gets his very own Dr. Sexy, aka Dr. Cas.

14x14 – Ouroboros: Basically another date (their kid tags along) and They TALK. Very intimate and established marriage vibes.

14x18 – Absence: Shits starts to go south. [ Dean: “Who cares what Jack said? We don't know what happened! But I swear, if he did something to her, if she is -- (points to Castiel) Then you're dead to me. (Castiel looks crushed after Dean says that).]

14x20 – Moriah: Tense and very upsetting. Relationship very damaged.

 Season 15 (I would advise watching the entire season because it relies heavily on Destiel. They’re the heart and the emotional motor leading the plot onwards.)

15x01 – Back and To The Future: Deancas’ in the aftermath of their kid’s death. Tension gets worse.

15x02 – Raising Hell: Tension rises, this is very intense. Cas “Dean. You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.”

15x03 – The Rupture: Breaking point ends in divorce.

15x06 – Golden Time: Painful phone call which speaks volumes about the current state of their relationship at the time. Also, good to see where they’re standing and how they’re coping.

15x08 – Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven: Strained relationship so obvious they’re offered couples’ therapy.

15x09 – The Trap: MASTERPIECE. Back to Purgatory. Can (and is) taken as Dean’s love confession (because it is). 

15x12 – Galaxy Brain: So married. Little domestic date, you can see LOVE written in their faces.

15x13 – Destiny’s Child: AU!Dean and Sam. Not a yearning episode per se, but AU!Dean? SO GAY.

15x17 – Unity: God reveals that the only act of free will in any universe he ever created has been Cas choosing Dean.

15x18 – Despair: Cas confesses his love to Dean.

[him-e]

what did you think of shadow and bone? have you read the books? i only read the duology

Thoughts on Shadow and Bone, now that you've probably seen it?

I think the show is alright? It lacks a real wow factor as far as I’m concerned, but it’s enjoyable. It’s especially enjoyable in those parts I didn’t anticipate to like / didn’t even know would be there. 

Whereas the main selling points leave a lot to be desired.

The good stuff: the visuals. The aesthetic. The overall concept. Production, casting and costumes are excellent, the setting is fascinating. The worldbuilding isn’t perfect and is sometimes confusing, which is probably due to the show jumping ahead of the books and introducing elements that happen much later in the book saga, but I’m loving the vague steampunk-y vibe of it mixed with more typical fantasy stuff and slavic-inspired lore, the fact that it’s set in dystopian Russia rather than your usual ye olde England.

I find it interesting that in this ‘verse the Grisha are simultaneously superstars, privileged elite, legendary creatures and despised outcasts, according to the context and the type of magic they wield. It’s A Lot, and so far it’s all a bit underdeveloped and messy, like a patchwork of different narratives and tropes sewn together without an organic worldbuilding structure. (there are hints to a past when they were hunted, but how did they go from that to being, essentially, an institutionalized asset to the government isn’t clear yet. There’s huge narrative potential in this, and I hope future seasons will delve into those aspects)

Many of the supporting characters are surprisingly solid. I appreciated that Genya and Zoya eventually sort of traded places, subverting the audience’s assumptions about them and their own character stereotypes, despite the little screentime they were given.

Breakout characters/ships for me were Nina/Matthias, and even more so the Crows, i.e. the stuff I didn’t see coming and knew nothing about (having only read the first book). (I thought the entire Crows subplot was handled in a somewhat convoluted way, at least in the first episodes; it was hard to keep track of who wanted Alina and why, but the Crows’ chemistry is so strong it carried the whole Plot B on its shoulders).

HELNIK. As an enemies to lovers dynamic, Helnik was SUPER on the nose, I’d say bordering on clichéd with the unapologetic, straight outta fanfiction use of classic tropes like “we need to team up to survive” and “there’s only one bed and we’ll freeze to death if we don’t take our conveniently damp clothes off and keep each other warm with the heat of our naked bodies” (not that I’m complaining, but i like to pine for my ships a bit before getting to the juicy tropetown part, tyvm). And then they’re suddenly on opposite sides again because of a tragic misunderstanding - does Bardugo hate high-conflict dynamics? It certainly seems so, because between Helnik and Darklina I’m starting to see a pattern where the slow burn and blossoming mutual trust is rushed and painted in broad, stereotypical strokes to get as fast as possible to the part where they *hate each other again* and that’s... huh. Something.

^That’s probably why I’m almost more interested in Kaz x Inej, because their relationship feels a bit more nuanced, a bit more mysterious, and a bit more unpredictable. (I didn’t bother spoiling myself about them, so I really don’t know where they’re going, but it’s refreshing to see a dynamic that the narrative isn’t scrambling to define in one direction or the other as quickly as possible)

-

Now, as for Darklina VS Malina... I found exactly what I expected. 

Both are ship dynamics I’m, on principle, very much into (light heroine/dark villain, pining friends to lovers) but both are also much less interesting than they claim to be, or could have been with different narrative choices. I’ll concede that the show characters are all more fleshed out and likable than their book counterparts, and the cringe parts I vaguely remembered from the books played out differently. And, well, Ben Barnes dominates the scene, he’s hot as HELL, literally every single second he’s on screen is a fuck you to Bardugo’s attempts to make his character lame and uninteresting and I’m LOVING it, lol.

But yeah, B Barnes aside, Darklina is intrinsically, deliberately made to be unshippable. 

It makes me mad, because it’s - archetypally speaking - made of shipping dynamite: yin/yang-sun and moon, opposites attract, COMPLEMENTARY POWERS AND SO ON. And what does Bardugo do with these ingredients? A FUCKING DELIBERATE DISASTER:

^ Placing the kiss so early on (season 1, episode five) effectively kills the romantic tension that was (correctly) building up until that point, and leaves the audience very little to still hope for, in terms of emotional evolution of the dynamic. 

Bardugo lays all the good stuff down as early and quickly as possible (the bonding, the conflicted attraction, the recognizing the other as one’s equal, etc) only to turn the tables and pull the rug so y’all sick creepyshippers won’t have anything to look forward to, because THEY’VE ALREADY HOOKED UP AND THAT BELONGS TO THE PAST, IT’S OVER, THEY’RE ENEMIES. This, combined to the fact that she falls for him *without* knowing who he really is, is the opposite of what I want from a heroine/villain ship (it’s basically lovers to enemies, and while that can be valid too, I wanted to see more pining and more prolonged, tormented symbolic attraction to the Shadow/Animus on Alina’s part). 

But here’s the trick: it’s not marketed as lovers to enemies - it has all the aesthetics and trappings of an enemies to lovers (the Darkling is, from the get go, villain-presenting, starting from his name), so it genuinely feels like a trollfic, or at the very least a cautionary tale *against* shipping the heroine with the tall dark brooding young villain, and I don’t think it’s cool at all. It makes the story WAY less interesting, because it humanizes the villain early on (when it’s not yet useful or poignant to the story, because it’s unearned) but it’s a red herring. The real plot twist is that the villain shouldn’t be sympathized with, just defeated: there’s a promise of nuanced storytelling, that is quickly denied and tossed aside. So is the idea of incorporating your Shadow (a notion that Bardugo must be familiar with, otherwise she wouldn’t have structured Alina and the Darkling as polar opposites who complement each other, but that she categorically refutes)

Then we have Malina. The good ship.

Look, I’m not that biased against it. I don’t want to be biased on principle against a friends to lovers dynamic that antagonizes a heroine/villain one, because every narrative is different, and for personal reasons I can deeply relate to the idea of being (unspeakably) in love with your best friend. So there are aspects of Malina that I can definitely be into, but it troubles me that in this specific context it’s framed as a regression. It’s Alina’s comfort zone, a fading dream of happiness from an idealized childhood, to sustain which the heroine systematically stunts her growth and literally repressed her own powers, something that in the books made her sickly and weak. But the narrative weirdly romanticizes this codependency, often making her tunnel vision re: going back to Mal her primary goal and centering on him her entire backstory/motivation, to the point that when she starts acting more serious re: her powers and alleged mission to destroy the Fold, it feels inorganic and unearned. 

Mal is intrinsically extraneous to Alina’s powers, he doesn’t share them, he doesn’t understand them, he has little to offer to help her with them, and so the feeling is that he’s also extraneous to her heroine’s journey, aside from being a sort of sidekick or safe harbor to eventually come back to. People have compared him to Raoul from Phantom of the Opera, and yeah, he has the same ~magic neutralizer~ vibe, tbh.

The narrative also polarizes Mal’s normalcy and relative “safety” against Aleksander’s sexy evil, framing Alina’s quasi-platonic fixation on the former as a better and purer form of love than her (much more visible and palpable) attraction to the latter. This is exacerbated by the show almost entirely relying on scenes of them as kids to convey their bond. I’m sure there are ways to depict innocent pining for your best friend that don’t involve obsessively focusing on flashbacks of two CHILDREN running in a meadow and looking exactly like brother and sister. LIKE. I get it, they’re like soulmates in every possible way, BUT DO THEY WANT TO KISS EACH OTHER?

Which brings me to a general complain: for a young adult saga centering on a young heroine and full of so many hot people, this story is weirdly unsexy? There are a lot of shippable dynamics, but they’re done in such a careless, ineffective way that makes ZERO EFFORT to work on stuff like slow burn, pining and romantic tension, and when it does it’s so heavy handed that the viewer doesn’t feel encouraged at all to fill the blanks with their imagination and start anticipating things (which is, imo, the ESSENCE of shipping). The one dynamic that got vaguely close to this is, again, Kaz and Inej, and coincidentally it’s also the one we didn’t get confirmed as romantic YET. Other than that, where’s the slow burn? What ship am I supposed to agonize over during the hiatus to season two? Has shipping become something to feel ashamed of, like an embarrassing relative you no longer want to invite in your home?

Anyway, back to Alina/Darkling/Mal, this is how the story reads to me:

girl suspects to be special, carefully pretends to be normal so she can stay with Good Boy

the girl’s powers eventually manifest; she’s forcibly separated from Good Boy

the girl’s powers attract Bad Boy who is her equal and opposite but is also a major asshole

girl initially falls for Bad Boy; has to learn a hard lesson that nobody that sexy will ever want her for who she is, he’s just trying to exploit her

also, no, there is no such thing as a Power Couple

girl is literally given a slave collar by Bad Boy through which he harnesses her power (a parody of the Twin Scars trope)

you know how the story initially suggested that the joint powers of Darkness and Light would defeat evil? LOL NO, Darkness is actually evil itself and the way you destroy evil is using Light to destroy Darkness, forget that whole Jungian bullshit of integrating your shadow, silly!

conclusion: girl realizes being special sucks. She was right all along! Hiding and suppressing her powers was the best choice! She goes back to the start, to the same Good Boy she was meekly pining for prior to the start of the story.

... there’s an uncomfortable overall subtext that reads a lot like a cautionary tale against - look, not just against darkships and villain/heroine pairings, but also *overpowered* heroines and, well... change? Growth?

Like, it’s certainly a Choice that Alina starts the story *already* in love with Mal. That she always knew it was him. The realization could have happened later (making the dynamic much more shippable, too), but no. 

[lovecolibri]

Kyle is getting the full-on pod squad love interest treatment now where he almost exclusively only interacts with Isobel and has to go off investigating stuff by himself for no reason whatsoever other than to further his own romance because none of these characters ever learn from past events and they certainly aren't allowed to drive the plot they're in. I am so confused by how badly they're handling Kybel despite the fact that it's an m/f ship. Neither Kyle's nor Isobel's feelings have manifested in a way that was particularly well done. One minute Kyle was glued to Steph's bedside and rejecting Isobel for her. The next he came back from his own coma fully in love with her. Now Isobel is going from wanting to share her deepest secrets with Anatsa and proclaiming her love to making eyes at Kyle in promo pics in a matter of days. And why is it only happening in a bubble where no one is allowed to notice these two might have feelings for each other? That's peak Malex right down to M*ria being the only one who knows how Kyle feels and being the worst friend possible anyway. Trevino and Lily are doing the absolute most but this still could have been so much more.

“Trevino and Lily are doing the absolute most but this still could have been so much more“ I feel like this is an issue the show is constantly having with nearly all their characters, but it’s especially glaring with Malex and now with Kybel. Kyle was still in love with Liz, until suddenly he wasn’t and there was Steph who was....SUCH a waste of time for an entire season, then she’s poof, gone, and we get nothing until Kyle wakes up from a coma and is supposedly so deeply in love with Isobel that m*ria is picking up on it with her “intuition”. Even though she apparently didn’t notice Michael was still in love with Alex in season 2 when she was going after him (though that shouldn’t have mattered when she already knew Alex was in love with Michael and feeling hopeful about the future 🙄). And we have her making meanspirited comments to both Michael and Kyle about the person she KNOWS they’re not with even though they want to be so like, what is that about? I thought she was a “saint”? 🙄🙄🙄🙄 

And now we have had both Michael and Isobel tell someone else they love them, only for that person to break up with them, leaving Alex and Kyle as their “second choice” because they got rejected by the person they loved. We KNOW Alex was always it for Michael but 99.9% of that is down to Tyler and Vlamis selling the FUCK out of those first handful of episodes and being able to carry that love through 🚗 undercutting the narrative for all of season 2, and Chris just...totally ignoring season 2 and any of the fallout for Malex to rush them back together. I’m sure Lily and Trevino will sell this as hard as they can, but it’s never going to be quite enough considering they have 6 episodes left with Kyle in them (unless they changed his contract for more episodes) to build up their soulmates story. That’s around 4.5 hours of total episode time which is...not a lot for Isobel who was just confessing how desperately in love with Anatsa she was to recover from that AND realize she likes Kyle AND that she’s ready for the epic soulmate connection like Michael and Max have, AND for Kyle to be ready to put it all out there AGAIN after being rejected so many times, and that’s just getting them together! That’s not even seeing them being adorable and in love and fighting for each other like Echo and Malex! 

No matter what we get it will be rushed, and they could have avoided ALL of that by just...setting up Kybel in season 2! They didn’t even have to get together yet! But had they cut all the nonsense with Steph and not kept Kyle from interacting with his best friend Alex, and the Pod Squad and being involved in the main plot (whatever TF that ended up being), then they would have had some groundwork laid with time for Isobel to address being against getting into anything serious after Noah and that leading to her exploring her attraction to women and having some flings and discovering herself and who she is without Noah. Season 3 should have set up Kybel a little more firmly and then we could have had them being a power couple in season 4. But that would require episode planning, good pacing, and NOT wasting time on pointless drama and we can’t have that now can we?

[lokislittlesigyn]

// loki spoilers

This is basically a huge infodump on my thoughts about the first episode, because I doubt y’all want to sift through my trauma-ridden ramblings. I’ll make another post for the rest. This is just everything not related to the IW stuff/my reaction to that. It’s general thoughts, theories, musings.

1. When Loki gets first taken into the TVA. Is that Peggy Carter in the background? Others have suggested it might be. What would that mean??? Will we see the TVA fix the mess the Russos made with Steve/Peggy (not likely) or is it just a lookalike? Who knows..

2. A skrull at the main intake desk! Idk not super relevant just interesting!

3. I’m kind of glad they changed the... uncomfortable scene... with the robot burning his clothes off. He gets more time to react to seeing the machine itself, and he seems more shocked (”Now.. H-hang on just a minute.”) than angry (”Now hang on just a minute!”) i still feel.. horrible for him, i’m glad nobody Saw him and that the machine didn’t grab the clothes off, but still. Ehhh.. uncomfortable.

He is beautiful though, don’t get me wrong - I’d just prefer a shirtless Loki scene where he wants to be shirtless? let him do what he wants with his body?? he’s probably felt so out of control of his body, from being jotun to falling through space that any invasion of privacy like that hits extra deep...

That being said, I recognize the utility of the scene for the narrative - his lack of control, his literally being stripped of what he was before.

4. WHO IS THE MAN WITH THE CAT. What is his name. I love that he has a mug with his cat on it. But I want to know more. Who is he?

4.1 WHY DIDNT YOU LET LOKI PET THE CAT Please,,, I am begging you,,, let loki pet the cat and have something react kindly to him and purr all happily at his scratching behind their ears plea s e

5. The info sheet. Now this is just a little nitpicky tidbit, but in a previous promo they listed Loki’s height as 6′4 ft and weight as 525 lbs. This is taken directly from the comics if I’m not mistaken. However, in the actual show he’s listed as  6′2 (Tom’s height and Loki’s presumed height) but I don’t remember if his weight is the same. Is Loki 6′2? 6′4? please let me know i want to know how smol i am in comparison

6. His little aggressive shaking of the ticket at the guard makes me giggle each time.

7. The fact the turnstile hits so low on him reminds me,, I am short compared to him. Those things hit my stomach/waist. That one hit his legs. I am once again asking Loki to pick me up.

8. The cartoon with Miss Minutes introducing the TVA is wonderful, I love the art style especially. But it raises questions about Variants... I guess Variants can just, pop out of nowhere? Any action could be the wrong one? And then once you commit the wrong action you either get returned or pruned? Yikes??? And THIS ties into another thing later!

9. The trial scene. I have a hunch - a feeling, a suspicion. That one of three things may be true.

A. The Time-Keepers never actually existed. They’re fabricated, and now whoever runs the TVA is actually using the excuse of “The Time-Keepers decree it so!!!” to carry out whatever They think is right. The fact we haven’t seen the Time-Keepers makes me.. suspicious...

B. The Time-Keepers existed, but they have since passed on, however that may have happened. Now someone is doing the same as above, using the excuse of the Time-Keepers apparent dictations to run things.

C. The Time-Keepers do exist, and do run the timeline/TVA, but maybe they’re not infallible? Maybe the TVA info video is lying or incomplete in some way? Idk I just feel like, something about the TVA and how they run things has to be wrong. It has to? Something is off. Again, this will tie into another thought later...

I have no idea if any of these are actually true! But Loki’s questions of “Who’s in charge here? What do they do? What do you do?” punctuated by laughter leads me to believe he’s suspecting something too, or perhaps just trying to figure this mess out.

10. Seiðr/Magic. We see in this scene, Loki’s magic (”powers”) don’t work in the TVA. (and a quick side note, did he have to Flex like that? do you have to make me see Loki’s bare arms Flex like that? be still my heart. anyway please get that collar off of him and let him rest for five minutes) This makes me wonder.. Why isn’t Loki in his Jotun form? His pale skin and blue eyes are decided by magic, are they not? I suppose this is 2012, so perhaps Odin’s magic is keeping Loki looking like that. But if magic doesn’t work in the TVA, why would his spell reach so far? Clearly Loki’s magic isn’t what’s doing it. How is Loki not appearing as a Jotun? Is his Jotun form repressed - is pale skin his default now, rather than something hidden by magic? I need answers!

11. he sounds so scared about being “reset” please dont hurt him,,

12. cALLING LOKI A PUSSYCAT? (lokitty confirmed) I think Mobius was goading him (Mobius strikes me.. As extremely clever. He’s trying to push Loki’s buttons to see who he’s dealing with. At least, I hope so. Because if he really meant that “You were born to cause pain and suffering and death... All so that others can achieve the best versions of themselves.” and that line about killing Frigga??? No no no he is not guilty. He had no way of knowing what would happen. It wasn’t right to send Algrim up to Asgard (i think algrim wouldve found the way up anyway) but there was no intent to hurt Frigga. I really hope you’re trying to goad him, Mobius, because if you believe that I trust you much less. anyway i digress) but wow is he pushing Loki’s buttons a lot. I can’t... Blame him entirely, I understand he’s trying to make sure Loki’s on his side, maybe I’m just too soft for Loki idk. But some of that was very cruel to say. /:

12.1 AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT MOBIUS. That scene with the girl in the church?? Did that little girl kill the men? Is that young Sylvie? Or is she using an illusion to make herself look young and innocent? What’s going on!!!!

13. LOKI SNATCHING THE LITTLE TIME-TWISTER DEVICE AND STOWING IT IN HIS POCKET.... POCKET....... sorry sometimes i get so caught up about loki that i just say random words in between little noises and squeals,,, i am a silly thing

14. CASEY. CASEY??? That whole exchange is funny. Poor Loki, just trying to intimidate this guy so he can escape but - Casey doesn’t know what a fish is. to be fair.... thor doesn’t seem to know what a raccoon is... right?

15. That bit with the infinity stones is kind of funny until you realize

A. Natasha died for a paperweight

B. Tony died from paperweights

C. Loki was tortured for paperweights

D. Oh, and Gamora died for a paperweight too. And Vision. Need I go on?

Then it becomes less of exclusively “haha funny” and now it’s a mix of funny and pain and gosh, is that a good way to sum up being a Marvel/Loki fan sometimes...

16. Loki gazing at the timeline all “Is this the most powerful thing in the universe?” or something, i’m sorry i don’t remember exactly... made me think of a meme and i shall make it presently.

17. I love that Loki got to see examples of how his family loves him but the fact he’s all “I can’t go back.” really just breaks me. It’s like he can finally see they love him after all of this mess, and now he doesn’t have the chance. Please, please let him be happy. Give him some relief. This is the Loki that just came off finding out about being Jotun, falling from the Bifrost, encountering Thanos, attacking Earth, facing defeat, and now he’s being thrashed around in this wild place and has just found out he inadvertently caused Frigga’s death (he did not kill her: his actions, by mistake, lead to her murder, let me be very clear) AND Odin will die AND all the rest... And he wants to be with them.

18. Loki’s reaction to Thor suggesting the hug makes me soft. Please I want to hug this little mischief man so so so bad-

19. Skipping over the iw parts! That’s for another post because this one will be grossly long anyway.

20. “I don’t enjoy hurting people.” and “It's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. A desperate play for control.” was all so, so validating. I’ve been trying to argue on Loki’s behalf for almost a solid decade. Seeing the show recognize that Loki’s not all just violence and hurting for “fun”, that he’s not unhinged and bloodthirsty.. Is so nice. It’s just so, so comforting. and it gives me hope for future episodes that they won’t go the route of “oh haha loki bullied and mistreated and stabbed thor for years!!! :)” loki cries during basically every fight with Thor and you want me to believe he stabs Thor for fun? absolutely not.

21. Theory.. Just another hunch.. So we know a fugitive variant, aka Loki, is running amok. Refer back to 8 and 9.C. What if the Time-Keepers never actually fixed the timeline into a single timeline? What if there are other timelines, and these different Loki variants have hopped over to the current one? Or, maybe the Time-Keepers did fix the timeline into a single one, and these Lokis are remnants from that huge time-war at the beginning? Time runs differently in relative spaces, they may have Just Left that war from their perspective!

I say Lokis and not Loki because we’re pretty sure there’s Female/Lady Loki, Old Man/King Loki, and possibly Young/Kid Loki. That’s at least three. From the peeks of Asgard and NYC we’ve seen from the trailers, I think we’re also getting an Asgardian King!Loki and Midgardian King/Vote!Loki. (unless our dearest variant is hopping into timelines and situating into them, but I doubt Mobius would let that happen..?) That’s five.

To further support this, keep in mind, I believe recently six (i think 6 regular and 6 rare...) different funko pops were announced for the series? I’m not sure if they’re in addition to the Loki and Mobius already released. If they are, there’s enough room for each Loki and maybe a TVA agent. One of the pops is supposed to have a buddy/companion I think? Maybe they’re making the cat guy into one, or maybe there’s something else (Throg, anyone?).

22. That is totally Lady Loki/Sylvie at the end by the way. Has to be. But why does she want the reset devices? Why did she snatch that TVA Hunter? Again, WHAT’S GOING ON

ANYWAY this was a very long post if you made it this far, I commend you.