#I look at ships through dynamics more than how much screentime they have

[lunart-06]

Just curious. What are your thoughts on Naehara and (whatever the ship for Hajime and Shuichi is)?

EJFJEJF do you believe me when I say that I usedto ship the three of them as a poly ship back then? Ahh good ol' times. I think they're very neat! Naegi is just shippable to anyone at this point by how much of a walking green flag this guy is, his energy and Saihara's gloomy is literally the definition of sun and moon dynamic.

As for Hinahara (pretty sure it was called) Hajime is the definition of an overly insecure guy with a strong stand. I can imagine him smacking the back of Shuichi's head for being all sad and keep his head up through hard times (same like Makoto as well, aside from the smack on the head part-)

Imagine them as poly. Yeah that. Overall I think they're very sweet. But today? I'm very neutral about it

[lilflowerpot]

Heyyy I hope your doing well and I hope your resting and not wasting all your free time answering these! Don't forget to drink alot of water and sleep at least 6 hours night. I just wanted to know your thoughts on how Lotor would react to being at the garrison. Meeting his last bullies, classmates, least favourite teachers and so on. How would he respond to both them and Keith. Would he show him off more or something like that? Again rest plenty and only answer when you feel like it.

@stinkyexhaust: So if Lotor were to find out about how much of a prick James was to Keith, how do you think he would react? I mean I don't hate James in fact I think he honestly could have had way more screentime to showcase more of his personality and backstory, especially in regards to Keith.

-

Honey if I only got six hours a night I would be the living dead, but this is very sweet of you nonetheless ♡

I've been asked something of a similar vein once before, as well as the Garrison's reaction to Keith's relationship with Lotor, and I'll repeat now what I said then: it's an important thread of the keitor dynamic (to me at least) that Keith & Lotor strengthen one another by allowing for personal growth beyond simply fighting on their partner’s behalf. So while Lotor mightn't be fond of certain figures from Keith's past—particularly given the little he learnt in chapter 24 about Iverson's handling of the Kerberos fallout—he knows and respects that Keith is more than capable of fighting his own battles, and wouldn't want to interfere with that (something something, galra sense of honour, you get it).

...All that being said, would our favourite prince be practically chomping at the bit to let it be known that he is the man who gets to stand beside Keith Kogane, Blade of Marmora, Paladin of Voltron, and Love of his Life? Yes. yes he would.

With regard to James specifically, it is my personal reading of his relationship with Keith that it was a very poorly handled mutual crush, and yet it was this very antagonism between them that pinged the galra part of Keith's brain in all the right ways. The altercation canon showed us in s7ep01 (which, despite LB being canon-divergent post s4, does in fact remain canon within my narrative bc I actually thought every insight we were given into James & Keith's past was impeccable) wherein James insulted Keith's parents, was a classic case of projection on his part; James strikes me as a privileged kid whose family expected nothing less than perfection—for him to be the best of the best at everything at all times—so I think that effortlessly-exceptional Keith getting the group into trouble simply because he was bored led to an exceedingly cruel comment,,, but I don't believe James actually knew Keith was an orphan when he said what he said.

Naturally, Keith (and we as the viewers with full knowledge of his backstory) assumes James intended to end that taunt with "before they died / abandoned you" but I'm not convinced. James could have just as easily been about to say "before they shipped you off to the military / halfway across the state / out of sight and mind" which I think is exactly what happened to him, leaving him understandably hurt, bitter, and desperate to prove himself. So yes, James—as a volatile teenager with abandonment issues, and oh look, who does that remind you of—fucked up, and payed the price of Keith's fist in his face; ultimately though, I think of Keith as having long since moved past it, and if he doesn't hold a grudge against Griffin, then why would Lotor? Particularly when, by galra standards, that specific instance was been resolved through rite of combat, and the rest of their relationship was, to an Imperial eye, just normal teenage brawling ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[khruschevshoe]

OFMD Critique: Jim & Olu, Screentime Quality & Quantity Issues, and Fandom Engagement

It is kind of insane to me that post-Season-1 of OFMD, the tags for Jim Jimenez and Oluwande Boodhari were almost as strong as the ones for Stede and Ed. Like, scrolling back on tumblr, I'm hit by the sheer amount of content posted for them. The fanart. The gifs. The meta. The sheer anticipation of what might come next for them.

(Now, this might just be because I first started looking at the fandom a year in, but I did my best to look at time stamps and how far things were spread out over time for them.)

Now, only a month and a half out from the finale...that flood has dried up to a trickle, if that. There is very little Jim/Olu content, or (more interesting in my own opinion, at least), very little content of them individually. There was plenty when the season was airing, but now? Not so much.

This is not to say that there is no content at all- I am an absolute fan of the fanfic writers, artists, meta-makers, and gifmakers who still contribute to the tag. The QUALITY is still great! It's the QUANTITY that fascinates me.

Because I think it comes back to both the lack of payoff for the rich character writing for these two post-Season 1 AND the butchering of what they did get.

If you read my past metas for these two characters, you'll find my critique of the fact that late-season Jim doesn't feel like Jim at all, and that Olu throughout ALL OF SEASON TWO doesn't feel like Olu, but rather like the writers dumbed him down into the "himbo" role on the show just to have the badass woman x himbo dynamic with him and Zheng Yi Sao (and I am an admitted lover of said dynamic, but not when you strip one of the few emotionally intelligent, clever, logical characters on the show of his intellect and jam him into the role rather than, idk, choosing one of the actual himbos on the show and putting him into that role...wait a second. The writers already HAD the himbo x badass dynamic with Spanish Jackie and the Stede. Is that literally the only way they could figure out how to write a F/M dynamic this season?).

Also, if you pull out all of the Jim/Olu pre-reunion build up (I see you, deleted scene in the Republic of Pirates where Pete and Olu get to pine after Lucius & Jim and talk about how desperate they are to get back to them), have their reunion be rather anticlimatic, and then don't let them have any real kissing/hugging/even emotional intimacy for the rest of the season...I can see why the tag has gotten to the point it has.

A cursory glance at the Blackbonnet/Gentlebeard tags shows that at least half of the tag is just writing fix-it fics for the season, but they are at least ENGAGING with canon because they were given a lot of material (some might argue too much material, as their screentime was often VERY overbalanced as opposed to the rest, and contrary to what some believe, Season 1 WAS an ensemble show, not just the Stede/Ed show) to work with and sort through. Jim and Olu were not given that in Season 2, and thus the amount of material that those in the tag got to pick through and use was either miniscule or felt OOC in nature. So the investment in the characters and ship has rather gone down, which is sad, because post Season 1 these two had my FAVORITE dynamic on the show.

What is the point of this meta? Idk, it's just a thing I've noticed and that has fascinated me. Watching this fandom from both inside and outside has led to noticing some rather interesting patterns/responses to writing that I thought someone else might be interested in.

[crispy-crust]

top 10 yuris

usually i would answer these asks in a jokinG manner but you've asked me about a topic i am extremely passionate about so prepare for a massive text post

addinG a cut here because this post is larGeee and i don't want it cloGGinG up any dashes

NUMBER 10: hatbow!

at number 10 due to the extreme lack of canon interaction but the fact it's here at all despite how little of it exists is a testament to how much these two have rotted in my brain. Go play a hat in time it's so cute and so fun i wish there was more content of these two

NUMBER 9: kimona!

ah kimona. how i wish there was more actual canon content of these two. this shit made volume 5 for me it's the reason volume 5 is the only volume i own of the hardcovers (for now). there is undeniable tension between these two i refuse to believe bryan lee o'malley wrote this without the intention of makinG it seem romantic. and as a friend once said "they two bad bitches n they kissin each other 🔥🔥🔥🔥"

NUMBER 8: ROSEMARY

iconic in every sense of the word these two are special to me. i have to include them here purely due to how influential they were it's awesome not much else to add here as this isn't one of the ships i'm severely brainrotted about i just think they're neat!

NUMBER 7: lumity!

i used to be biG into these two they're wonderful and it was Great seeinG somethinG like this on modern television. shoutout dressinG up and travelinG toGether (iykyk)

NUMBER 6: weblena

now we're GettinG into brainrot territory. the showrunners said somethinG alonG the lines of "webby won't Get a romantic interest because the show isn't about romance" and i Go "what the fuck are you talkinG about we already had a romantic subplot with her and lena that was clearly the point of all of that" there is a scene in season 1 where webby calls lena a "beautiful idiot" and then looks at her like this

TELL ME THAT ISN'T gAY! YOU CAN'T BECAUSE IT'S gAY AS SHIT THESE TWO ARE SO FRUITY TOgETHER DUCKTALES 2017 I LOVE YOU FOR EVERYTHINg BUT I WISH YOU ALLOWED THESE TWO TO HAPPEN

number 5: sashanne!

much can be said about this ship and the anGst behind it and all that. i'm huGe on sashannarcy as a whole and i considered addinG that ship to this list but i thouGht talkinG about the dynamics of the pairs would be more interestinG sashanne is a stronG case of missed potential to me, a lot could have been done to make their dynamic a lot more compellinG even more-so than it already is and a lot could have been chanGed about the way they handled sasha's "redemption arc" in season 3. season 3 as a whole is a mess that i have many opinions on but that's for another day. despite all the flaws and missed potential this ship still aches me in the best way possible. they were 13 years old at the time of amphibia and they had to deal with ALL OF THAT. at aGe 13 sasha elizabeth waybriGht attempted actual honest to God suicide due to a fiGht she had with anne while lean on me was playinG in the backGround and the world was forever chanGed. amphibia was so held back by so much and the amount of missed potential in it (especially in season 3) kills me but despite all of that this relationship shined throuGh as one of if not the best part of the show for many people. Good shit!

NUMBER 4: lapidot!

NOW WE'RE gETTINg TO THE gOOD SHIT how come even in media that has explicit queerness everywhere i always tend to Gravitate towards the dubiously canon clearly more than friends who were done dirty by their lack of screentime toGether? lapidot is a lot for so many reasons and i'm very much not alone in beinG abnormal about these two. IN FACT REBECCA SUgAR HERSELF DREW HUMANSTUCK ART OF THEM! AND THE OFFICIAL CARTOON NETWORK SOCIALS HAVE RECOgNIZED THIS SHIP MULTIPLE TIMES!! the way these two Grow to be comfortable around each other and learn to live in this new stranGe place toGether is so charminG and so Gut wrenchinG when you're rewatchinG the show and know what's cominG. in the episode where peridot learns to bubble stuff for the first time she sends the bubble off and when she asks steven where it'll Go he says "home" AND THEN IT CUTS TO LAPISSSSSS. SHE THINKS OF LAPIS AS HER HOMEEEEEEE DON'T EVEN FUCKINg gET ME STARTED ON DISTANT SHORE I ACTUALLY SOBBED SO FUCKINg HARD WHILE WATCHINg THAT SCENE IT'S UNREAL they were done so dirty with their reunion as well what do you mean all we Got was a "hey" I NEED TO SEE TEARS AS THEY MAKE OUT DAMN IT!! these two are imperfect and they stumble throuGh this whole life thinG a lot and there are many ups and downs to their relationship but that's what makes it compellinG that's what makes it so Good and damn it at the end they made it back to each other... if we ever Get more official su content and these two aren't canonized in it i will end up on the news

NUMBER 3: stephcass!

yea what did you expect of course this was Gonna be here these two are everythinG to me and every day that passes by where they aren't canon is a day i am in physical pain their dynamic throuGhout batGirl 2000 Gives me life and the anGst that comes from it is delicious the obvious queerbait in batGirls doesn't help this at all. they knew what they were doinG and you can't convince me otherwise these Girls and their relationship persevered despite all the editorial nonsense that tried to split them up and each time they came back stronGer than ever they have such undeniable chemistry and they're universally loved as a pairinG come on dc you would be actually stupid not to put them toGether come on everyone already clocked them like 2 decades aGo

NUMBER 2: junerezi!

dear lord this pairinG has had an affect on me. you really do Go into the epiloGues expectinG roxyGen and then end up on the other side screaminG and clawinG at the walls in the name of junerezi i was hooked on them before i even read meat! the little crumbs in candy were so dense and so impactful to me their dynamic is so incredibly fun to read and their scenes in meat are so painful and so powerful they are the reason i own the epiloGues physically i need beyond canon to be done already so i can see the end of this plotline throuGh i need them back toGether you don't understand june's death in meat while in terezi's arms actually made me feel numb irl for like a week i wish people would Give the epiloGues a chance because they're actually really damn Good and the junerezi is sooooo delicious i cry so hard i usidgfbuiydboguiszdghbfuijdsbvgfyihsdfobuijgbf[9usapigbvfuidjbsfuijdb

NUMBER 1: MARCANNE

spoiler warninG for amphibia

i don't talk about these two often on here, not as much as i'd like at least. but marcy wu as a character and this ship specifically literally chanGed me as a person. there is a reason i still call marcy my favorite character in fiction despite havinG read stories i consider to be much better than amphibia since. and this may sound stupid but i Genuinely do not know if i would be alive today were it not for marcy i started amphibia at a very rouGh time in my life and the character of marcy and the lenGths she went to for anne hit me so incredibly hard due to that imaGine with me for a second that you are 13 years old. a child Genius! everyone around you recoGnizes you as someone who will be incredibly successful later in life you have 2 people who are incredibly important to you. they mean everythinG to you you would Give the world for them and yet those two people cannot be bothered enouGh to enGaGe with you about your favorite movie or your interests in General

marcy Gave up her entire life back on earth just to be able to exist around anne and sasha. she had everythinG GoinG for her earth was her home she Got Good Grades her future looked briGht she was studyinG for the SAT from aGe 13 and earth was where all of her interests were. everythinG she knew. and she Gave that up for anne and sasha. do you know how deeply you have to care about someone to be willinG to do that? do you know how stronG your love for them has to be? cut to true colors. this episode ruined me i won't even Get into the confession scene. i have that scene memorized by heart and i start to tear up whenever i think of it i Genuinely don't think i can handle talkinG about it the stabbinG scene however.

once aGain i remind you this is a 13 year old. imaGine beinG 13 and usinG what you think may be your very last words ever to apoloGize to someone. someone you so deeply care about. you are dyinG in front of them and all you can think to say in that moment is sorry. because you believe they hate your Guts at that moment. could you imaGine GoinG throuGh that?

could you imaGine then wakinG up realizinG you're alive only to be Greeted by niGhtmarish hallucinations of your worst fear. and what's your worst fear in that moment? your friends hatinG you. them leavinG you behind after all that you went throuGh to stay close to them

the first thinG she said when she woke up was "sashy...? anne..??" SHE WAS DREAMINg OF THEMMMM

AND THEN WHEN SHE'S TAKEN OVER BY THE CORE HER FANTASY IS gETTINg TO EXPLORE NEW FANTASTICAL WORLDS ALONgSIDE ANNE AND SASHA!!! ALL SHE WANTS TO DO IS SPEND TIME WITH THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO HER this is quickly turninG into an essay about just marcy so let me try and Get into some of the more liGhthearted aspects every sinGle scene we see of marcy and anne throuGhout their time toGether in season 2 is the Gayest shit i've seen in my whole life. them sobbinG and huGGinG each other after beinG reunited... anne boopinG marcy and tappinG her on the head later in the episode.. anne tryinG to impress marcy by actinG smart... marcy STANDINg STILL IN ONE SPOT UNTIL THE SUN WENT DOWN IN A DAY AT THE AQUARIUM AFTER ANNE LEFT TO gO WITH THE PLANTARS. ANNE BLUSHINg AT MARCY'S INFODUMP IN NEW WARTWOOD. THEIR ANTICS IN THE SLEEPOVER EPISODE. THE PROCESS OF ANNE gETTINg HER NEW ARMOR AT THE END OF SEASON 2 AND THE WAY MARCY LOOKS AT HER AFTER SHE DECIDESSSS

as previously stated this ship is extremely influential to me and i would not be the same person today without it. i don't even know if i would be here today without it. so i would like to close this post off by sayinG thank you amphibia. thank you matt braly. and most of all thank you marcy wu <3 you are a treasure that i will cherish for the rest of my life nothinG will ever compare to you

[raayllum]

How Terry and Claudia Compare / Contrast Rayllum in S4

So Terry/Claudia and Rayla/Callum parallel each other as couples. Let’s talk about it.

Intro

The first is their set up, after all:

Rayla and Claudia have been foils ever since the first season. Both failing their fathers in 1x03, with Claudia letting the egg slip through her fingers and Rayla taking a hard stance against Runaan. Them being pushed into their fathers’ death seeking paths of dark mage and assassin, and being pushed further into those roles in S4, somewhat or downright reluctantly. Wandering Xadia for two years on a quest regarding Viren — one to save him, one to kill him. 

Then you have Terry and Callum’s parallels. Both are concerned with their names in 4x01, agency in 4x07, and feelings, well, throughout. In some ways their differences are more pronounced in S4 because of what Callum has been through and their differing trauma; for Callum, he chose to shut down. For Terry, he decided that he would be “strong enough to do whatever [he] needs to do and still have feelings — to feel all the feelings” (4x07). But I’d wager if we put Arc 1 Callum next to S4 Terry, their goofier, sweeter natures would stand out even more — even with their “trees to meet you” notwithstanding. 

Not that this is how the parallels always go. Callum and Claudia are both mages and Aaravos’ pawns with Rayla and Terry along for the ride. Rayla and Terry also have parallels (“I think too much, get confused about the right thing to do” —1x08 / “Claudia says I think too much about everything, and that it makes me weird, and wonderful, so” —4x07). 

However, we’ll return more specifically to the Claudia-Rayla, Terry-Callum parallels later in regards to S5 speculation, so put a pin in that. For now, let’s just look at episode set up and contrast, beginning sparingly in 

4x01 — Partnership VS Isolation 

On Callum’s birthday, and Viren’s re-birthday, the final two scenes of the episode both feature couples, introducing where each currently are in ways the episode hadn’t previously prioritized establishing. 

In Claudia’s final scene in 4x01, we meet Terry and learn that they began dating during the timeskip. In Callum’s final scene in 4x01, we learn that Rayla’s been gone for at least a year if not longer, and that Callum’s worried sick / still madly in love with her. The contrast is immediate and apparent, amplified by Janai and Amaya’s engagement earlier on in the episode; two couples are happy together — hell, even Claudia is happy and with an elf no less, but Callum’s previously rock solid partnership has broken apart. He’s alone. [If you’re interested in a more thorough breakdown of this aspect and indeed 4x01 in general, please check out this meta regarding 4x01 and this one about 4x02.]

Where one couple came together during the timeskip, another fell apart, both featuring a human mage with abandonment issues and an elf with too good a heart and one too many thoughts (but again, more on that later).

We of course have the parallels already demonstrated above of Callum and Terry meeting their girlfriend’s father, respectively. Terry, by virtue of having a season sharing screentime with Viren, gets to develop a much more fleshed out relationship with him than Callum does with Ethari. What’s interesting, however, is that Terry is concerned (somewhat) with Viren’s approval, and he doesn’t comment often on Claudia and Viren’s actual dynamic, even if he does nudge at it:

This is a direct contrast to Callum, who does vehemently challenge the assigned role and treatment Rayla receives upon her homecoming and reunion with Ethari:

Claudia has also suffered greatly to bring her father back to the dead, Terry seemingly witnessing most of that, a tantamount of trauma being the reason Terry probably does step back and let her steer the ship (even more so than Viren does in S4, but getting off topic again). I think it speaks to Rayllum vs Clauderry’s roots - one was formed on the basis of a shared goal (returning Zym) vs supporting a singular goal primarily driven by one of them (resurrecting Claudia’s father), and then tag teaming their way through. 

However, Ethari does take to Callum quickly when all is said and done, however brief, whereas the first time Viren seems to really consider Terry is in 4x04, but we’ll get there when we get there. For now, let’s talk about the episode that probably has some of the biggest and most overt parallels between these two couples in the season, which is

4x03 - Mornings and Murder

We cut from Rayllum at nighttime, despondent and salvaging something of a reunion that didn’t go the way either of them actually want, to Claudia and Terry, flirting and talking happily even and bathed in the rising sunlight even if they’re about to attempt something dangerous. 

Then we get an exchange from Claudia and Terry that should feel eerily familiar, in both dialogue and in action:

Rayla: Just one more thing. I go into the portal alone. Callum: Rayla—

Rayla: No. You said it was dangerous. I’m not going to risk both of us. Callum: Fine. But the second it seems like you’re in danger, I’m jumping in after you. 

Terry: But since you’re going in alone, you need to promise me you’ll signal if you need help. 

A bag is handed over, a deal is made, and we see Rayla and Claudia offer more of their independent streaks (“It’s down to me, isn’t it? Of course it is” —Rayla, 1x05 / “It’s up to me again, she thought. It’s always up to me” —Claudia, Lost Child short story) in the face of boyfriends who would really prefer they don’t risk themselves like this. Now for Terry, this does make more sense — his plant powers are useful when he has the element of surprise, but he doesn’t seem like a particularly combative elf or that he has much of a background in fighting — whereas Callum is perfectly capable of both of those things as a mage. However, Terry is still the one to bail Claudia out, much like how Callum ends up saving Rayla and helping them both escape in Through the Moon, and we see Rayla’s duality — Callum is allowed to risk his life for the things he believes in, and she’ll even encourage and offer to fight by his side, when those things aren’t her.

Rayllum do get a sweet morning scene in 4x03, though, with Terry tending to Claudia’s hair, and Rayla taking care of well, her prince’s less than dignified drool, but the softness remains largely the same (even if, like Claudia, she departs at the end of the scene).

The bulk and perhaps most immediate parallel, though, is how much Rayla and Callum are tied to Claudia and Terry through Ezran’s speech. While it is about many things and a reiteration of the show’s overall themes of breaking the cycle of violence and vengeance, it is also applying more literally to both Claudia’s ongoing fight with Ibis in the first half of his speech, and Callum’s feelings about Rayla throughout the season in the second half of his speech.

Ezran: It hurts! I feel pain about this and I am angry! We all want peace and we all want love. But violence tests us. In a twisted way, it converts us to its cause. Because pain and loss feel so terrible inside, you want to hate. You want to hurt someone else. So what do we do? How can we stop this cycle? Violence, loss, pain. Violence, loss, pain. More violence. Stop! Stop. I just want to yell stop. But that’s not enough. It won’t work. 

Ezran: But… It’s not that easy or simple. Because people are still hurting and they are still angry. We can’t ignore that, or pretend it will go away. Somehow, we have to hold it all in our hearts at the same time. We have to acknowledge the weight of the pain and loss, but open up our eyes and allow ourselves to hope and maybe forgive and love again.

Callum: You’re right, though. It feels silly with everything that’s going on, but... I don’t know how to feel about Rayla either.  Ezran: She’s been trying hard to get things back like they were. Callum: But things aren’t like they were. And she messed them up! And when she came back, I was so happy but so mad at the same time. I wish I could just forgive her, but it—it—it’s so hard. 

The most worrisome thing, however, even if we don’t know which side of Rayllum (or possibly both) it may parallel in the future is what Terry infamously does for Claudia. 

Now, there’s the obvious takeaways here: the parallels between this scene and Soren stabbing Viren in 3x09; the fact that Claudia’s path will continue to perpetuate the cycle and hurt the people she loves by proxy; the way the Dragon Prince rarely portrays murder in a less than devastating note; to further Terry’s character and his unique role to play; to offer up parallels to Viren that are explored next episode and even Callum later on in the season; and last but not least to harken back to Runaan’s words that Claudia definitely hasn’t lived by—“Life is valuable. Life is precious. We take it, but we do not take it lightly.” 

But Ibis’ murder and Terry’s subsequent breakdown over taking a life does raise certain questions about Callum and Rayla going forward in two key ways, respectively. Rayla’s is the most straight forward so I’ll start there.

One of the ways that Terry and Rayla are most bound, currently, is their relationship to killing. For the first three seasons, Rayla is primarily an assassin who has never taken a life, something that is a source of shame, transformation, and occasional pride for her (although not often). It is in fact her level of doubt / belief in her own inevitability of failure that pressures into her concluding that Viren is secretly, somehow alive, propelling her to leave in Through the Moon. Then 4x03 gives us Terry, a similarly good hearted elf, who flat out breaks down sobbing after taking an innocent life - and admittedly one that was about to take Claudia’s. Then you have Callum later on in the season, for a variety of complicated reasons and muddled emotionally processing on all ends, asking Rayla to do the same thing. To take his life before he can hurt someone else - the people he cares about, as the camera pans right to showing her in the shot. Ouch. 

It’s pretty clear that Rayla will not successfully and/or permanently murder Callum, if she’s even willing to attempt it at all, even in self defense. However, through Terry, the show explores the heaviness of doing something terrible largely against your will, under the burden of desperation or threat of coercion, something that both Callum and Rayla are going to have to wrestle with. For Callum, he’s already grappling with it (“I’m afraid he’ll force me to do awful things”), and for Rayla, she’ll be forced to wrestle with it at the same time as him if Aaravos does take him over again. 

This is also where Callum’s parallels to Terry gets particularly interesting as well. The Dragon Prince repeatedly frames murder in the face of self defense (specifically in defense of someone else) as something that removes agency: 

This is exactly what Callum is worried about - having no choice because of Aaravos’ ability to possess him - even if there could be other forms of coercion and manipulation at play. Viren did plenty of terrible things to protect his family and says as much outright in 4x04; Soren did something awful to protect Ezran in 3x09; and Viren was prepared to do something awful but “necessary” in murdering a baby, even if he didn’t go through with it, pulled in by the allure of power. 

Which is to say: Rayla’s test of love will probably be refusing to kill Callum, and working to save him from possession. Thus, that begs the question of what Callum’s test will be, specifically: What will he do to protect his loved ones, perhaps Rayla in particular?

Only time can tell, but I think S5 is setting up to see the lengths Callum and Terry will be willing to go to, and what their respective girlfriends are willing, or not willing, to ask of them, in order to save their girlfriends’ parents, and/or to free/stop Aaravos in the first place. 

But that’s all speculative. For now I want to talk about one of the smaller but still sweet parallels in the season, as well as one of the more interesting tradeoffs. 

4x04 - Watching Your Lover Sleep / The Middle of the Night

There are four scenes this season where Character A watches Character B, with whom they have/had a romantic entanglement, sleep, which isn’t a ton but is still funny that it happened four times. I’ve already talked about one of them in 4x03 with Rayla watching Callum sleep. 4x04 boasts the second one (and the only one that doesn’t involve Callum at all) with Terry watching Claudia sleep, and is also one of my favourite scenes for their dynamic.

Then Callum and Rayla have another one, in 4x06 (which is also one of my favourite pining Rayla looks, ever). 

Last but not least we have Claudia also overlooking a sleeping Callum in 4x09, but with a decidedly different reaction compared to the previous three scenes.

Then of course, you have the parallels in 4x04 of Terry and Rayla both sobbing in the middle of the night, accidentally waking Viren and Callum respectively. Again, their similarities and differences between all four are highlighted in a quite clear contrast. Terry is apologetic but opens up without hesitation, while Viren mostly silently listens, sympathizes somewhat, and then offers his “Get a grip” and goes back to sleep. Meanwhile upon being caught, Rayla attempts to shut Callum out four times (“Get away from me” + pushing him away, running away, pushing him away again + “Please leave me alone, I don’t want you to see me like this,” and walking away when he attempts to put a hand on her shoulder). Callum, however, persists, and says all the right things, leading to a much better resolution, even if the weight of Rayla’s failure and exile hasn’t entirely left her.

Now for the last episode specific focus, which is:

4x09 - Hand over Heart 

The season finale brings both couples, somewhat, to a crossroads of sorts. Rayla, for her part, sees Viren again, and has her own two cakes moment: can she chase what she feels she has to do, her self-proclaimed duty, without risking the loss of Callum - whether as a person to death, or as a partner? And Callum, for a variety of complex reasons, says “Yes,” she can. 

Rayla’s drive causes her to clash directly with Claudia, as she takes Terry hostage and Claudia turns the tables on her, flaunting the coins. But where Callum gives a complicated ‘approval’ and show of unconditional love, Terry rightfully pulls Claudia back to herself through his disapproval. 

T: But what you just did, the way you tricked that Moonshadow elf? It was just... cruel. 

On a surface level, we can read Callum’s “I know” as him finally believing in Rayla’s reason (even if I don’t think that’s quite right), but I do think it’s interesting, then, that Claudia giving back the coins is what allowed each girl to ‘come back’ in a way. For Rayla, it was a literal return (as who knows if she would’ve left the cave, or not gone after the mage fam further, without the need/desire to protect the coins) and for Claudia, an emotional/metaphorical one. 

With some final, heartbreaking 4x09 specific parallels to boot:

Honourary Mentions

Other fun parallels that didn’t fit an episode focus:

Callum and Terry’s first scenes in episode 4x01, in some ways largely opening and closing their respective plot lines (A plot in Katolis, B plot in the cave) are focused on their names. Callum stumbles through his different titles while Terry emphasizes his own name, amid trying to figure out which title, if any, he should use for Viren.

This is then impressed upon further with the emphasis on agency in 4x07.

The fact that Terry and Callum are both recipients of canonical panic attacks.

Worry over their girls not being back yet, although for Terry it is of course a much, much briefer separation. (Terry, interestingly enough, also waltzes in and saves Claudia from Soren’s impromptu ‘kidnapping’ / restraining, for lack of a better word.)

Last but not least, I want to talk a little bit more about the Rayla-Claudia parallels this season. It’s a little tricky, as most of their big parallels have to do more with Viren-Callum and Claudia-Rayla, respectively, with the bulk of the Clauderry-Rayllum ones listed up above. However, there are still some worth mentioning.

Rayla and Claudia are both defined by the parents who chose to leave (and to not come back, for forever if not years). They are both acting more and more like their fathers (Rayla with Runaan, and Claudia with Viren) as they also work to one day free/save them in S5. Rayla is far more jaded than she used to be, and Claudia is likewise increasingly unstable, even if both girl fronts decently well at being ‘fine’ most of the time. I am deeply curious to see where they will go as individuals and where their relationships with Terry and Callum will go, as well - whether each one will get better, worse, or something in between. Luckily, just a little over one more month to find out!

In Conclusion

Rayla and Callum have always been the pairing in the show the most prone to having parallels with the show’s other main couples. From a kiss-embrace-forehead touch like the Queens of Duren, holding hands while vowing to protect Azymondias like Lain and Tiadrin, sadly watching your loved one disappear onto the horizon to save someone like Harrow and Sarai, or a bittersweet goodbye kiss initiated by an elf who’s too self sacrificial for their own good like Runaan and Ethari, it seems Rayllum’s parallels to Claudia/Terry are no exception.

It makes me wonder if beyond S5, and if Claudia and Terry to have a physical-ideological split, if Callum and Rayla will also factor into what helps Claudia and Terry repair their dynamic. Forgiveness and being able to move forward, together, are tenets that Callum and Rayla still very much have to learn  - but maybe they could pass it onto someone else, someday, too. 

[ridl]

Gen question what made u ship ganqing so much?

Great question! Prepare for an essay tho hhhh

I played Genshin at launch but got bored quickly and stopped before I even met Keqing or Ganyu. I learned abt their existence thru fanfics, while looking for some wlw fiction to read. “Cornerstone” in particular is a fantastic fic that was being updated at the time. The author put a lot of care and effort into treating those characters seriously, and fleshing them and their dynamic out, which the game generally fails at.

Their dynamic just instantly captivated me. The way they went from being at odds, with their clashing beliefs, to reaching a mutual understanding. To caring abt each other. And it was never just pure hate, but something much more complicated and nuanced.

Back then it was just voicelines abt each other, and both characters had barely any screentime in general, but it was interesting enough of a basis. I started playing again, missed Ganyu's og banner but was lucky to win my 50/50 on Keqing's once-in-a-lifetime limited banner lmao. And the more I learned about them, the more I liked them.

I not only love ganqing, but I also love both characters individually, their personality, story, design, gameplay, they somehow just have everything that’s interesting and appeals to me.

Keqing is the Yuheng of the Qixing, meaning one of the leaders of the country, approved by Rex Lapis. She’s very pro humanity and believes that humans should fare for themselves, rather than rely on the archon. Not many ppl dare to think this, much less say it to Morax's dragon-adeptus face during the rite of descension. So she’s seen as controversial and disrespectful, and Ganyu as a devoted follower who worked closely with Rex Lapis for thousands of years just doesn’t understand Keqing. Rex Lapis absolutely approves of Keqing’s belief, and Ganyu cannot comprehend it no matter how much she respects and trusts him. It’s a very interesting conflict, that eventually gets resolved, giving us the basis of their potential romantic relationship.

Keqing and Ganyu are both very devoted to Liyue, so they’re both similar but also different. They complement each other. Keqing with her modern approach, quick and efficient, straightforward and bold. Ganyu with her old approach, with her opinions and strength hidden, not very straightforward. A confident human who knows what she’s about, and half-qilin that feels lost between the two worlds. But after Morax’s passing, they manage to find understanding, they go thru character development now just in terms of their relationship, but also them individually, and in relation to Morax. They can change each other too. They can learn so much together, from each other. Keqing how to be more patient and deal with uncertainities, while Ganyu how to be bolder, voice her opinions more and just live more for herself.

Ganyu is no longer bound by her contract, but she remains with the humans. She’s working alongside Keqing, in this new human era of Liyue. And while their limited screentime is locked behind time-limited events, it really shows that change, it shows how they care about each other. It shows Keqing’s relations with the adepti and how interesting it is considering her beliefs, and especially with Ganyu’s mother figure.

You could technically just sum them up in popular tropes like “enemies to friends to lovers”, "mortal x immortal" or “opposites attract”, but I think it’s so much deeper than that. I find ganqing's relationship very interesting and unique bc of their personalities, relations with each other and other ppl as well as their country, the setting, their stories, their identities, the conflict and character development they go through.

The game only gives us crumbs, but it also gives so much space and potential for this pairing. It’s never fully explained how it all changed between Ganyu’s voiceline how she started understanding Keqing a little, and their interactions in moonchase/lantern rites, where they’re clearly on very good terms. But I think that’s fine. It gives us freedom to truly flesh them out. Genshin’s storytelling is pretty crappy in the first place lol, so I think it’s cool to just take the interesting ideas, and make something much greater out of it.

And if you’re interested, ganqing related links:

Some fic recs (limited to canon setting): - (Chuminder has written 4 fics that are technically seperate, but they work very well as a series so i recommend this order) Blue the Color of a Goodnight, Cornerstone, Taproot, Passage - Heartbeat of the world - In the wake of - She, with the scent of flowers and lightning - A Better, Brighter Light

My chaotic compilation of bigger and smaller crumbs, including some stuff abt those characters individually:

It’s just things I find interesting, or that could be used in describing their dynamic and relationship, or just official images. They’re underrated characters, both by the fandom and the game itself imo.

Also an excellent thread, with similar idea and better screenshots (lol) i saw on twitter: https://twitter.com/gqlovebot/status/1672183539973111808

[olderthannetfic]

Completely putting aside the queer rep thing, I'm curious: Do people who are not book fans generally like the Good Omens TV show? In the book fandom we've been hoping for a live adaptation for decades but myself and a lot of other book fandom olds were very disappointed by the show. I was hopeful and optimistic about it until the trailer with the wall-slamming scene came out, which was the first clue that the characters were going to have a different dynamic in the show. (Book! Azi and Crowley would never. No, I mean it.) And then as soon as I got to the dove scene - which the show messed up completely - I had a really bad feeling that they weren't taking the book's themes very seriously.

(In the book, Aziraphale suffocates the dove through negligence and immediately forgets about it because he's too busy fretting about the Apocalypse and the hellhound not showing up; Crowley notices it and takes the time to resurrect the dove. The seeming role reversal there of the angel carelessly killing an innocent creature and the demon taking the time to care about the sanctity of life even while scared out of his mind that the Apocalypse is coming (which would mean all humans and doves everywhere were going to die) is a wonderful little early symbolism of the characters being more than their official Evil/Good labels, of their flaws and virtues, and of the overarching theme of the book. But in the show, Aziraphale kills the dove and is then the one to revive it, which makes the point of the scene ?????)

There's a lot of little things like that where I wonder if the creators missed the point of those scenes or just didn't care, and the end result is that the characters become a little flatter, a little less like the stereotype subversions they're supposed to be. (I've long been irritated with the show fandom because it felt like many of them just projected their longstanding bad boy/puttering intellectual favorite ship dynamic onto the two and didn't look too closely.) In addition, the angel and demon are very nearly B-list cast in the book. They're scene-stealers but in terms of plot they actually achieve very little, their arcs are about how they accept that they've grown as people, not about how they contribute to the Apocalypse. Because that's the point. The whole point of the book is that humans don't need angels and demons to be good or evil. Humans stop the Apocalypse and arguably start it. When the show puts human characters in the background and both elevates Azi and Crowley and spends additional screentime on new characters like Gabriel, the overall message is retained but makes for far weaker tea.

So like... it is very hard for me to like the show as an adaptation (some manage to enjoy both book and show as separate things, and I'm happy for them). At the same time it feels silly saying that it's a bad adaptation, because things like Eragon and Artemis Fowl and basically most book-to-screen things are out there. But I can't help but look at Neil Gaiman's background and the things he usually writes about and feel like TV GO has been made too much into his work, rather than his and Pterry's, and is ultimately weaker for it.

So for me it's really hard to judge its actual technical value as a standalone thing, but I'm curious what other people think of it. If the above elements of "huh, that scene seemed kinda random, why was it even here?" and general diluted sense of theme was something people picked up on.

--

I tried to read the book a few times in the 90s because it was ubiquitous. I loathed it and never finished.

I thought the show was well acted and had delightful chemistry between the leads. The cinematography and editing were nice. The costume design was excellent.

It isn't a particularly deep show or all that memorable to me, but it looks pretty, and Michael Sheen is hot.

Honestly, I'm not really the audience for the original themes. They've been done a million times by now (and even by the 90s), and they just remind me how much people think I should care about a Christian world view and how much I profoundly don't. It's like when people want me to care about Watchmen because something something deconstruction of 80s comics I didn't read.

The biggest change between the 90s and now is probably that this particular flavor of Cold War spies who are buddies when their bosses aren't watching has faded into obscurity instead of being absolutely everywhere.

Oh, and Queen is cool again.

[my-mt-heart]

I think I mentioned before that the love triangle is my least favorite trope. It just feels very YA to me, less mature, which definitely doesn’t fit a relationship like Daryl’s and Carol’s, nor their individual characters who are so careful with their hearts. Creating foils for them on the other hand has been very illuminating in some instances. 

Even though I don’t like Carol and Ezekiel together at all, I do like seeing Daryl’s jealous side. It’s not a typical jealousy because nothing about Daryl’s character is typical, but it causes him to turn inward and weigh his worth against Ezekiel’s. He knows he’s no king, he isn’t charming, he isn’t a leader, so in his mind, he can’t possibly be good enough for Carol. 

But we as an audience learn through the different interactions between all three characters that he could not be more wrong. Daryl understands Carol in ways Ezekiel never could, always putting her needs before his own, respecting her boundaries and her independence. He’s the one who has Carol’s heart, the one who immediately makes her smile when he gives her a gift, the one she’ll say “I love you” to. 

The “triangle” if you can really call it that, only takes a wrong turn for me in S11. Carol and Ezekiel do not need to get closure from each other ten times over. They don’t need a long shared arc with far more screentime than the relationship we’re actually invested in, and we don’t need the question of will they/won’t they [get back together] hanging over our heads so close to wrapping the series. Knowing how to use foils also means knowing when they’ve stopped being useful all together. 

The same can be said about Carol’s foils. On one hand, Daryl’s and Connie’s dynamic shows us how much Carol is struggling to love herself for who she is. She thinks she’s a bad person, unworthy of Daryl’s love, despite loving him so much she’s ready to sacrifice her own chance of happiness so he can be happy with someone she perceives as “good.” 

The romance she keeps pushing for never actually happens though, which in itself reminds us Daryl isn’t an alpha male. He can’t pursue every woman who happens to interact with him. He can’t test the waters with someone he likes or respects. He needs to fall in love first, he needs time, he needs depth, he needs Carol. And that’s all really sweet, but the longer the “Connie” arc drags out, the more superficial it becomes, accomplishing nothing for any of the characters and leaving every viewer unhappy. 

Speaking of which, adding Leah to that mix is probably one of TWD’s most controversial writing decisions that everyone (rightfully) resents. It didn’t have to end on such a bitter note though. Unlike killing off Glenn and Carl, which there is absolutely no walking back from, risking Daryl’s character integrity for a random relationship could have at least been the catalyst for Daryl and Carol to finally go canon. The set up is there. We get the parallels between Carol and Leah to tell us who Daryl really chooses and why, but it ultimately goes nowhere. Carol and Leah don’t even get to interact. [Insert long, angry rant about that here]. 

I’m not looking for a do-over on any of these arcs or for any new ship to take their place (for the love of god, stop with the ship baiting). The more love interests Daryl and Carol garner, the less they feel like themselves and we’re already teetering on the brink of unrecognizable with this ridiculous France premise. But, if there’s more to come for Caryl, some acknowledgement would be good. It only takes a few lines of dialogue to explain to the characters and to the audience why Carol didn’t return Zeke’s feelings, why it wasn’t like that with Connie, why Daryl really got together with Leah. And if handled with care, it could be very impactful 

[reavenedges-lies]

Character asks: the only bsd name I know without looking is Chuuya so 5,10,15,20,25

5) What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

So technically the first song was "I Love You Like An Alcoholic" by The Taxpayers but thats more a Soukoku song than Chuuya so by that logic the first Chuuya song is "Super Massive Black Hole" by Muse. However, Chuuya's seiyuu is literally a singer/songwriter and lead vocalist of GranRodeo and did do vocals for his actual character song "Darkness My Sorrow" and that deserves and honorable mention

10) Could you be best friends with this character?

I love Chuuya but i'm like 99% sure he would hate me. Granted that means next to nothing with how much he says he hates Dazai but i don't think it would work well in most aspects. The upside is I could be wrong because Chuuya is not one of the many characters i look at and go "oh, this mirror fucking sucks"

15) What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

SOUKOKU, DOUBLE BLACK, TWIN DARK. Buckle Your Seatbelts guys because this is gonna be long. So I love Soukoku (双黒) not just on their individual characters but because of their trust in eachother. The whole Partner(相棒-Aibou 😭😭) nonsense kills me for outside of BSD reasons but they actually care about each other regardless of how much they say they dont (Chuuya in season two telling Dazai to go die then being immediately concerned when he get injured/ Dead Apple Chuuya punching Dazai to cure him of his poisoning/ Dead Apple Dazai Holding Chuuya gently during the fog scene after Chuuya saves him, ect) but like more than that right. If you get into it and actually look at the different spellings of soukoku you can get the Rival spelling (相克) but most of the time its spelled with the 'Always a Pair/Partner' spelling(双黒) with 双(sou/sō) having many uses in terms of soulmates. On the line of soulmates when you get farther into the series Chuuya struggles with his humanity and not truly knowing whether or not he is human and Dazai never has a doubt that Chuuya is more human than most, Stormbringer finally puts that to an end with Chuuya believing regardless of what he is told that he is human because he believes in humanity. Past that you get to Beast. In which we learn that there are infinite universes in BSD and in all of the ones we've seen Chuuya is Dazai's right hand man. They are Soukoku, They Are Double Black, they are together in every universe we see and they trust implicitly. They are soulmates, destined to be together in every universe for one reason or another, destined to bring out the humanity in each other and to not let themselves get caught in their own grief. Chuuya and Dazai's partnership is weird but looking at it from what i know now is interesting. Soukoku isn't just the ship its their dynamic, but maybe not their full one just yet because of the changes Dazai is and has gone through. Dazai doesn't have 'friends' because of how he was raised and what happened with Odasaku and Ango, but i think he is learning how to. His fondness of Chuuya and vice versa is showing more and more as the main series goes on.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

I feel bad cause @podcasts-8-my-heart immediately said Oda just to be shot down cause the Flags exist. The Flags (旗会) or Young Bloods as we heard they were called once we're a support group of friends within the PM. Piano Man, Lippman, Ice Man, Albatross, Doc and Chuuya. I wont get into specifics of it because it is Stormbringer content but their deaths nearly broke Chuuya. He still visits and maintains their graves outside of the city on the mountainside. Other than the Flags, some of his actual closest friends in the PM, but other than them? I'm at a loss. I think he would probably get along with Kunikida the best out of the ADA but with little to no screen time with them both i'm unsure at best.

25) What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

To quote WTNV: "A new man came in to town today. Who is he? What does he want from us? Why his perfect and beautiful haircut? Why his perfect and beautiful coat?" ... "He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly." As for now? I love him, he goes through so much shit and the man deserves a hug, glass of wine and a week of undisturbed vacation. I will say, I wish we saw more of him outside of being a main source of plot armour built into the show, I want to see Stormbringer (Kinda, Im Not Ready For The Cry Fest) but more so I want to see more of him without PM orders.

Anyways I Love Him

[tharizdun-03]

#22: "The Sky I Can't Reach"

Mia's song sounds very stereo-typically pop lol. Like, something you'd hear through the speakers when you're at the mall or something. All in english is a nice change tho.

i really like lanzhu's outfit here.

Okay, so. Maybe you're noticing that I'm not posting as enthusiastically about Nijigasaki as I was with Sunshine. Well, that's because I'm not feeling Nijigasaki as much. I've already talked about how it's too serious, too subdued, and not goofy enough for me.

But then there's also the lack of character development. Even with Lanzhu and Mia having struggles that should work, it often just makes me go "i guess that makes sense" rather than actually make me feel something.

Maybe Lanzhu's whole deal of pushing people away would've hit if we actually got more than barely a few actually significant conversations between her and the cast, and some interesting dynamics. Maybe we should've gotten more from Shirioko than just her one episode.

"Well, what about the gay? It's the gayest Love Live series so far, right?"

Eh? Like, sure, it definitely has the gayest MOMENTS, but because of the lack of character work, we don't actually have as gay RELATIONSHIPS compared to Sunshine.

Think about someone like Rina. Who do we ship her with? Ai? We barely get screentime with the two and they don't have much of a dynamic at all. And now Rina is holding hands with Mia and everything? We don't have clearly defined ships.

Why don't we have clearly defined ships? Is that all I'm looking for in this show? No, bit it points to the larger issue. It's because the character work is too vague, too fluid. To the point that we don't actually have strong enough bonds between the characters.

Listen, it's still a cute episode. Generally, I still enjoy Nijigasaki and the valleys aren't too deep when the general presentation is on point, but it feels like the most commercialized Love Live in a way. I'm holding on hope for Superstar. I think that'll do the trick.

[its-the-cat-queen]

*flutters down on iridescent wings*

It is me! The Infodump Fairy! I have come to cast a spell upon you that will cause you to ramble for way too long about Trolls! Please, o’ talented one, tell me why this series has captivated you so!

(Ok but seriously I’ve seen your stuff for it (which fucking SLAPS btw) and this is a series I’ve never really been very interested in, so I’m very curious about what draws you to it! Only if you want to share, of course! As you can see, I am not a real fairy and my spells are fake lol)

Oh dear Infodump Fairy! Your spell is taking its effects!

Asfdhgd seriously though, believe me, I have no problem rambling about Trolls all day jvjfjhf. This is not gonna be very coherent, so sorry in advance. 😅 (Also, thank you, I'm so glad you like my work! <3)

Okay so. I've actually been here since the trailer for the first movie came out (I wasn't very active in the fandom back then, though). I was already invested from that moment on, specifically in the two main characters, Poppy and Branch, and their dynamic, who I took one look at and said, "yeah, I ship that" hfjhf. I think what mostly got to me was the characters, the designs, the fact that it's such a fun and colorful world, and of course, the music. The songs are so good! Like, all of them. Yes, they are mostly just covers of already popular songs with some word changes here and there, but my GOD, are they good covers! But anyway, love me a musical with fun characters! Personally, I think all of the characters have deeper issues about them than what you can see on the surface and what you would expect from a children's movie franchise. Like, Branch has so much trauma it really just feels like in every movie they are just trying to give him more and more problems hdkhdjd. Which of course, makes him a pretty compelling character altogether. Do other characters have as deep issues as him? Some of them. But like, they don't really have that much screentime, sadly. While Poppy and Branch are equally important characters in the first movie (and well, in all of the movies, imo), the second movie is what I would dub as "Poppy's Character Development - The Movie" jgkjfjfj. While the first movie operates with the whole "happiness is inside of all of us, we just need someone to help us find it" kinda message (which doesn't fully stick the landing but oh well), the second goes for stuff like differences, equality (of sorts), and tbh some kind of colonialism metaphor?? It also widens the world of trolls as we've known it, as we learn of other tribes of trolls, who are all connected through different kinds of music. So the whole worldbuilding here just makes things even more interesting.

Now the third movie. In the words of youtuber Mann of 1000 Thoughts, it "gives no fucks in all the right ways". Tbh the Trolls timeline has already been questionable, as is, with the Netflix tv shows that came out after the first and second movies, but this just throws another ranch in the system, and says fuck you to the timeline altogether jckbfh. Like, I managed to make it work once I dedicated a good half hour figuring out how Branch's secret long lost brothers who he was in a band with when he was a baby fit into the picture, but it's not perfect even then. There would definitely still be plotholes gkfhfgf. But at this point you just gotta turn your suspension of disbelief on and just go along with it, cuz it is SUCH a fun experience besides all that. (This goes for all the movies btw. Turn your brain off, you're gonna have a great time jfkhf.) Ngl this is the movie that really got me to jump right back into the fandom with full force, and now I'm back to thinking about all of the previous movies as well and appreciating all of the characters. Tbh when I watched the trailer for the third movie, I thought that the whole long lost brothers storyline was the worst idea they have ever come up with, and then I watched the movie and I was like, "fuck this is the best thing ever" gjfgdhd. Idk, we learn enough about Branch's brothers for them to be compelling characters of their own, while we also have a 20 year old gap in which we can pretty much imagine anything into, cuz we don't actually know all the details about how they got to where they are today after the band broke up. Idk, it's like a sandbox you can play in. And that is so much fun. Also, yeah. The music in the third movie also SLAPS! I listened to the soundtrack on loop for a week after watching it jfkhfh.

The humor is also great in all of the movies, in my opinion. I think my humor operates on Trolls standards at this point, which everyone can decide for themselves if it is good or not hkfjfj. I'm having fun so that's all that matters to me.

But yeah, it's just. Idk. It's difficult to pinpoint something very specific that lured me in. Although, I did mention quite some stuff altogether jfkjjf. It's all about the experience for me. The movies are just filled with so much energy, which I love, and they are, in my opinion, the perfect combination of that energy and emotional impact. Are they perfect movies? Absolutely not. But I'm enjoying myself immensely while watching them, and that's l that matters. Soooo yeah. That's about it for now, I've already been talking too long hkfhfjf

Hope some of this made sense, at least jkfjfj. Thank you for the ask <3 You sadly had no idea about the beast you would unleash fjdgdhd.

[aquaaquila]

Thank you for tagging me, honestly didn't expect that but I'm not complaining. Now @stanlunter beat me in the chase with plenty of valid points but I shall also add some more.

I do have to agree that it looks more like looking for problems than having actual problems but oh well. Here comes a long one

I have to admit that Stanlunter brought valid points to this one not even I thought of at first. I will add that much like Hunter, Luz also needed a moment to calm down and collect herself because HM was rough for her too. The ending with her looking completely broken and hopeless is a fantastic send-off to such a dark episode and the follow-up with her confessing what she saw after some time is great too. I do have to admit that Luz certainly herself was not in the right place to try to console Hunter (so I also approve of the LR episode giving some more screentime to develop Gus and Hunter's bond as they have precious bromance alright) or look after him anyway, however, I do have gripes with how the entire Owl family just let him run away this easily. If it was more emphasized how Luz is just too stunned and shaken to follow him (like devoting 3 seconds to Luz's shaken state at Hunter rather than just quickly bolting after him only to stop and then look at Flapjack as if he would take care of it), or if Hunter bolted so fast he already was lost in the woods, or created some sort of smokescreen to not be followed, I'd understand. I would also love it if following the episode there was a confirmation in which the owl family tried to locate Hunter only to lose track of him or Luz even looking worried or feeling bad over the mention of GG by Salty, because as it stands it really feels like Luz didn't care much about what happened to Hunter as she only left rushed and incomprehensible message to Amity and call it a day, along with her not even looking much relieved to see him again even though they haven't seen each other for a week after he almost got killed (and with Luz's mental state I can see her blaming herself for it too). But to be fair, this is a general criticism for the writing of the show not wanting to focus more on Luz and Hunter probably out of fear of providing too much shipping fuel to a ship that would never happen (ironic considering how hellbent the fan base is on making them siblings, though even from that perspective the show did them dirty because what kind of sister just casually lets her brother run away while he's in mortal danger and not worry at all? The bigger irony is how many people just don't talk about it either, which shows me how much people truly care about their so-called "sibling dynamic").

Hunter never threatened to tell Luz's secret. He genuinely asked if Luz shared her own secret. If she said that yes she did (and did share her secret with her friends), perhaps Hunter would even follow her example and genuinely consider it. However, Luz didn't tell her secret as she was not ready and too afraid to share it which helped her understand Hunter's case on why he wanted to keep being Grimwalker a secret, as she originally didn't understand.

In a vacuum out of context sure one could assume that if Hunter wasn't there, Luz would also keep secrets from him, but the thing is that Hunter can see right through Luz's BS as it was established right from HP. He clearly sees right through threats and even points out something about her that Luz didn't even realise herself. Lying to Hunter just would fail and I'm sure Luz is aware of this. Heck, her own shtick was that she always wanted to be understood, even if at that point in the story it was more of a subconscious desire that she herself didn't realise yet, but it still was there and what do you know, Hunter understood Luz perfectly very early on. So I can see why would Luz feel more comfortable with sharing more of her thoughts and secrets with him because he understands her, something Luz appreciates on a subconscious level. Luz knows she can't and doesn't need to lie or hide around him and that he would perfectly understand how she feels.

I assume this point exists as a criticism of the point that "Luz and Hunter trust each other more than their girlfriends" hence bringing up an example of Hunter not trusting Luz, but mind you, usually when people talk about them trusting each other, it speaks about their dynamic after COTH once they were established as friends. Of course, it would be harder to trust a frenemy at the time, especially if you saw each other only three times (and funnily enough, it also took Luz and Amity three times before they could call each other friends too). However as StanLunter pointed out, it was less about Hunter not trusting Luz and more about him not wanting to believe that Belos is evil as it would be too much world-shattering for him to believe. King himself pointed this out in the episode perfectly "No one wants to think they followed the wrong person". I would also add that Luz then did in fact know that Belos was rather shady and evil, but didn't know just HOW evil he truly was. Luz knew Belos was full of BS but she didn't know what's the truth behind his lies and she tried to find it in HM, and boy did she find it...

Those two are nerds with similar experiences in life that also aren't their issues and traumas. I'm sure they would find plenty of things to bond over, especially with how nicely their personalities complement one another along with how comfortable they are with each other. I'm with StanLunter that just because you run out of one topic to talk about, you shouldn't suddenly end the entire friendship, especially with how close those two became by the time of season 3. And heck, Luz and Amity in the show only have one thing in common which is their interest in Azura, but I would even argue that they have probably more interests to bond over and we didn't really see them because it is still a show about fictional characters and having to come up with 100 different topics would be a bit excessive and Azura not only is the first thing they bonded over thus making it quite sentimental, but the fans would be pleased enough with just that. Lunter having more to talk about without even trying is just a happy accident.

In Luz's defense, Hunter was dying, she was panicking and she genuinely didn't know Grimwalker's biology (Luz would subscribe to plenty of dumb takes and theories the fan base made on Grimwalkers as if Hunter is not just a clone with witch's physiology) so she would ask if doctors could potentially save his life when he's not exactly human. Was it bad, sure, but it wasn't on purpose, it was a concern.

Hunter in that episode also snapped at Gus and Willow and palismen. I'm pretty sure Hunter would snap at everyone trying to approach him because he's not in the right place at the moment after losing Flapjack. Him "not caring" about Luz isn't anything different because I'm sure he genuinely cares and is worried for her, but right now he's more focused on getting revenge. For the Future didn't do either Hunter or Willow's justice in spite of giving us a moment with them. I think the episode tried to teach Hunter a lesson to not fall into the same rabbit hole Philip did when his trauma of loss made him focus on revenge that started to destroy him and the relationships with people he loved. I'd argue it was a bit too early as Hunter didn't even have time to grief Flapjack properly so this lesson while good, is too rushed and out of place. Like let Hunter grieve even in an ugly way for a moment, don't make him feel bad about how he feels. Hexsquad in general was quite insensitive towards Hunter's potential grief, but with how much there's going on in everyone's head at the moment I can see why everything here is a mess. All of them are certainly not in the right mind state to give a proper fuck about pretty much anything at this point, because pretty much everything is falling apart and they're still supposed to save the world, one heck of a crazy trip, we really needed more time.

I also think that Willow's outburst, while was good, it was made for the wrong reasons. Like honestly, what Willow should've really been upset about was not missing her dads (as no shit everyone did and everyone knew and everyone was comfortable with it) but rather because she may have also blamed herself for Hunter's near death and Flapjack's death. After all, her whole thing is that she wants to protect everyone she cares about, but she failed, and Hunter being hurt is a painful reminder of that. I also think it would serve Huntlow more justice if Willow was upset because of that. Heck even Boscha confronting her while she too also lost her friends would work nicely. But no, it's just "I miss my dads 😭😭", it's as if Bubblegum was truly upset about just losing a hat back when she was breaking down underground with Marceline there, not that Bonnie feels upset about pushing everyone, especially Marcy away and apologizing for that.

That's it from me. While the show itself had some writing hiccups here and there, I do think that anon in fact didn't genuinely care about them and was looking more for reasons to dislike Lunter.

I'm a multishipper and I love Huntceda's potential but there are still unresolved critical problems.

1.When they get out of Belos's mind, Hunter runs away due to overwhelming trauma but Luz doesn't go after him. She just stops right at the door.

2.When they meet again, Luz tells Hunter to open up with Willow and Gus since they get along well with him, but he just refuses. He mentions Luz's secret of her helping Belos, so she won't tell anyone about him being a Grimwalker. It's like blackmailing her. “Tell my secret, and I'll tell yours.”

3.Also, Luz has a bad tendency of lying to not only Amity but also her mother, Eda and her supportive friends. There's no doubt that she can also keep secrets from Hunter. He only knows she accidentally helps Belos because he was also in Belos's mind. I don't know how their relationship is gonna progress, with Luz constantly keeping secrets and Hunter discouraging her not to open up. Amity tells Luz not to be afraid of opening up, while Hunter tells Luz the opposite.

4.They don't seem to really trust each other, from what I've seen. In Hollow Mind, he doesn't trust Luz about Belos being evil even after seeing things he did to other witches. He only leaves Belos when his life is threatened, not because he trusts Luz.

In TTT, whenever Hunter says he sees Belos, Luz's first reaction is doubt, like “Really?” and “Are you sure?”. It feels like Luz is dismissing his fear and feelings.

Hunter himself even says that she doesn't believe him. He has to tell Flapjack to steal Amity's map then faces Belos alone. He doesn't trust her enough to face Belos together.

5.They bond by trauma and guilt, but when they finally heal, what else can they connect to each other?

6.Hunter doesn't want anyone to know his secret, but Luz still tells that to everyone. Maybe it was an accident but it still doesn't sit right with me.

7.While everyone is worried about Luz being stuck in the In-Between Realm and what may happen to her, he doesn't ask anything or at least look worried. Instead, he just gets mad at trivial things like her not saying Belos’s name. Luz means well, she doesn't want to mention Belos directly since it may trigger Hunter's trauma earlier, given how he was literally possessed and almost dead. Meanwhile, Willow straight up gives Hunter a picture of Flapjack, directly triggering his trauma again. But he doesn't even get mad at Willow. He even has to ignore his grief to chase after her. What she does is even worse than Luz, yet he is angrier at Luz than with Willow.

personally as another multishipper, i've gotten so used to every part of media i like being criticized, so i've learned to be okay with my ships having their issues.

i don't have the spoons to discuss any of your list of points, in fact i'm actually not really sure what i think of some of them yet or how much i (dis)agree, so i hope it's okay for me to just leave this open and allow anyone else to interact with the post if they want to.

[ichinoue]

Hello! Do you think in the future there's possibility of Kubo makes a story focused on Ichigo and Orihime's love relationship? Like the concept he did with WDKALY. Idk but I have that impression that Kubo was not really into Ichihime? I mean.. He made their chemistry very implicitly, only people who read it thoroughly would understand their development (as we can see there are so many readers who failed to see it) . Let's stick with his clarification about how Bleach is a shounen story that wasn't focused on romance, but he could executed the romantic atmosphere for RenRuki, even from the earlier arc when Renji showed us so many times about how important Rukia for him. We could see that Rukia and Renji always stick to each other in almost every arcs, it's not difficult for us to see their lovely dynamic. But it's kinda 'dry' for IchiHime, to the level of me who ship them from 2008 found it's make sense that those IR said that IH is lack of moments. Kubo prolly understands clearly that many people would hate it if he writes a story a focused on IH, since we know Orihime has a handful of haters everywhere. I could understand it. He even let it to our imagination on how Ichigo and Orihime went through their relationship. Did you ever think that way too? (Sorry for my awful grammar, I'd love to see your response)

Nah, I don't think he would make a story based on their relationship. I think we would still see them featured as a couple, of course, in any future works involving Ichigo and Orihime like we saw in the special Hell verse chapter, but their relationship wouldn't be the main focus of the story. Bleach is a shounen after all, so a spin-off about a romantic couple doesn't seem very fitting to me. If you mean a novel rather than a spin-off, WDKALY already addressed how their relationship came to be, and even WDKALY was not solely based on the RR love relationship; rather, it was used as a means to catch up with the characters and events happening in SS and Karakura following the war, culminating with Renji and Rukia's wedding and Ichigo's confession to Orihime.

I don't agree that IH was too implicit to notice or understand. I think the reason many readers failed to see that it was being written with the intention of becoming a romantic couple in the end was because they had already pinned their hopes on the more popular main male/female pairing from the very beginning, which generated an extreme dislike for IH as a result for being the direct competition, and so they weren't looking at the pairings objectively, which created a lot of denial and confirmation bias. Even in IH's most obvious moments, they still closed their eyes and shook their heads in denial.

And I love RR, but I don't think RR received more focus than IH? In the SS arc, sure, but IH received a lot more focus in all of the rest of the arcs. Starting from the arrancar arc, no other pairing received as much screentime or content as IH did. You say that Kubo executed a romantic atmosphere for RR via Renji's feelings for Rukia, which is true. But I think you're forgetting that Kubo did the exact same thing with IH via Orihime's feelings for Ichigo--and I would argue that IH and Orihime's feelings were even more explicit and "shoujo-esque" as it included Orihime's very explicit love confession, a hand-hold, and an almost kiss in "goodbye, halcyon days."

I think it's laughable for IR shippers to claim that IH had little screentime or moments. I compiled a list of IH manga moments here, and it's very extensive, spanning the entire manga. As I said before, IH received more screentime and content than any other pairing. Meanwhile, IR's screentime greatly plateaued after the SS arc.

So, I disagree. I don't think Kubo was uninterested in IH at all. I think if that were the case, he wouldn't have written so much content for IH. And I think if he were uninterested in it, he definitely wouldn't have made some of the most pinnacle moments of bleach so IH-centric (the arrancar/HM arcs, the Grimmjow/Nnoitra/Ulquiorra battles, the lust arc, and most importantly, the "final boss" battle against Yhwach).

I don't think Kubo cared about the hate for Orihime or IH. It clearly didn't deter him from writing a lot of IH/Orihime content, and he said himself on twitter that he would write more screentime for Orihime out of spite when people would complain or send him hate about her. Someone even compiled a graph showing that Orihime had the second most panel time in Bleach, with Ichigo being the obvious first. He wasn't concerned with catering to the haters, or holding back out of fear that it wouldn't be well received.

Basically, I think Kubo did a great job executing the romantic relationship between Ichigo and Orihime. He gave them plenty of content and development. To me, it doesn't make sense for people to complain that we didn't see their relationship confirmed until the final chapter, because that is basic shounen formula: to hold off pairing up the main characters until the very end, with a marriage and kids reveal.

As Kubo said, romance is only supplementary, after all. But even so, he still gave us more than that by confirming in WDKALY that Ichigo had been harbouring romantic feelings for Orihime for quite some time, and he created through words and a beautiful drawing the moment that Ichigo approaches Orihime to confess/ask her out.

And I think that's more than enough for a shounen.

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

tell us about the rosemary/jadave parallels plsplspls

Okay here we go:

I know rosemary and davekat are usually paired up as being 'the same' because they're gay endgame troll-strilonde ships, but in all honesty.... they don't really share anything in common that much? Sure, you've got the initial hostility in the beginning, but that slathers nearly every troll\human ship, so it's nothing unique to them.

However,

there IS a ship rosemary shares a lot of beats with - and it's something half the fandom probably wouldn't even think of making connections with. And that is davejade.

NOW HEAR ME OUT before you unfollow me for comparing rosemary to a het ship (neither of them are even straight either, it's bi4bi), let me explain:

First off, let's start with Jade and Kanaya's view on Dave and Rose respectively. Jade, obviously, initially sees Dave as someone extremely cool and level-headed

This directly parallels with Kanaya's initial conclusion of Rose being exceedingly smart and snooty because of her gameFAQ. But of course, as time goes by, this eventually begins to collapse; the rosemary one more visible on screen, while the davejade isn't that much explored because Jade didn't even get that much screentime in general. Honestly, I'd REALLY like to see people make more content about Jade slowly deconstructing that cool kid facade like Kanaya did with Rose's smart and mysterious kid facade. It doesn't have to be limited to JUST Karkat, and imo, I feel like it'd be very effective if it was someone Dave knew since he was a very young kid.

Dave and Rose are also much more softer to Jade and Kanaya than they are to others.

For Rose, Kanaya unearths this facet of Rose that neither herself or her friends really knew about, and I feel like in a lot of Rose and Kanaya's conservations, especially the ones leading up to the grimdark arc, Rose is strangely a lot vulnerable to Kanaya than she is with Jade, or John, or even *Dave*. And I think this has to do with the fact Rose is actually at match with someone that understands her snark and her high Rick & Morty IQ. She doesn't really have to pretend to be someone calm and collected like with her friends to assure them, and Kanaya doesn't have to pretend to be like this with Rose too.

For Dave, it's really just because he cares a lot about Jade, and outrightly admits he considers his relationship with Jade to be special

he doesn't even call his dynamic with John special, and everyone and their dog knew Dave obviously had a huge crush on him. So this is actually a pretty fucking huge deal.

But then, there's the relationship issues Rose and Kanaya/Dave and Jade both go through, and wow would you look at that, it parallels like two congruent lines.

Jade and Kanaya obviously love Dave and Rose. It's evident, it's clear, it's hard to miss. But Dave and Rose are mentally ill blonde bitches, and they're stubborn as fuck, and that kind of twinges at Jade and Kanaya's extreme care for them.

Let's examine Jade and Davesprite's relationship compared to pre-retcon Rose and Kanaya: even though Jade and Davesprite never got that much screentime, their breakup was enough to draw lines to Kanaya and Rose's liquor issue. Davesprite refused to open up about his baggage, and heavily believed Jade deserved the *real* Dave. And that's where I think a lot of people make misconceptions that davejade can't work because of Davesprite breaking up with her, when in actuality, they only broke up bc Davesprite had self esteem issues and didn't want to hold Jade back from having a happier relationship with the "real" Dave.

Even though Rose doesn't state it bluntly like Davesprite does, Rose obviously believes Kanaya deserves better than having a drunkie for a gf

Rose and Davesprite (which to an extent Dave) both have regrets about how they treated their respective green space players, who obviously mean the entire world to them.

"DAVE: ok if he broke up with you or whatever that was because of his dumb bird issues not my issues DAVE: theres no way i would have done that to you" - Dave when Grimbark Jade told him he broke her heart.

And Jade and Kanaya get exceedingly fed up with it, understandably. Rose and Dave are definitely hard to handle, cuz of Dirk's terrible genes, and especially when they get in the hold of people like Jade and Kanaya who are practically Mitski songs if they were characters, it's just messy; but that's what makes them really great. They're not white bread and milk, and canon hs romance is never smooth sailing, so it shouldn't be a surprise if rosemary and davejade aren't all sappy-no-conflict-what-so-ever. Kanaya is one of a kind to Rose, and Dave is a messy as fuck guy to deal with romantically, you're gonna argue with him a few times because hs characters are complex and I'm tired of people boiling them until they're nothing but perfect and ideal characters.

The scene where Kanaya is just so fucking fed up with Rose's drunk bullshit and starts kicking WV's can buildings, unintentionally connects to grimbark Jade causing havoc on Dave's planet (which also involved WV, my poor man, leave him out of your romance issues). The Grimbark Jade arc and Kanaya's outburst are literally the same.

Dave and Rose's relationships with Jade and Kanaya mimic each other so fucking much, even if this was unintentional on Hussie's part. Davejade and rosemary are both complicated at the surface, but deep down in its core, their devotion is impeccable. Dave also supports Jade in whatever crazy bullshit she does, as a malewife does, funnily enough just like Kanaya does with Rose's dangerous plans.

"TG: youre about to do what youre about to do TG: and im not going to tell you not to TG: i wont do the bullshit troll thing and tell you what youre going to do and then just dare you not to TG: while knowing damn well you will anyway TG: so ill just say TG: whats next is up to you TG: and if later you want to talk about it TG: im here"

I feel like Dave's relationship to Jade also demonstrates his role as a knight to serve really well.

In conclusion of my strawberrykiwi-rosemary essay, Dave and Rose cherish Jade and Kanaya immensely, despite chunks of fandom opposing otherwise. Jade and Kanaya are but weaklings to the strilonde charm of fucked up blondes they think they can fix, and despite their relationship issues, they can't help but gravitate to them. Because they wuv each other and that makes me so

[the-nysh]

Hola! Soy nueva nueva en la plataforma y aún me estoy acostumbrando a su interfaz en general, además que también soy nueva seguidora por lo que pido disculpas si mi pregunta no va al caso. No estoy muy segura, pero me parece que usted también apoya de algún modo el shipp de Batarou, quisiera saber cuáles son sus razones tras esto? Si en realidad tiene algunos argumentos sólidos que compartir al respecto o es más afición por los mismos personajes que otra cosa?. Cuando a mi me preguntan esto tengo tantas cosas pasando por mi cabeza que me cuesta responder coherentemente. ¡Gracias por leer y me encantaría saber su respuesta! ^^

(disculpe el español, es que es mi primer idioma, espero se me halla entendido. La respuesta puede ser en inglés, no tengo ningún problema con eso, pero temo que mi escritura en inglés es un poco... Desastrosa)

Oh! Well hello, welcome! (I'm going to need google translate for this)

Hello! I'm new to the platform and I'm still getting used to its interface in general, plus I'm also a new follower so I apologize if my question is irrelevant. I'm not sure, but it seems to me that you also support Batarou's shipp in some way, I would like to know what are your reasons behind this? Does he actually have some solid arguments to share about it or is he more fond of the same characters than anything else? When I am asked this, I have so many things going through my head that it is difficult for me to answer coherently. Thanks for reading and I would love to hear your response! ^^

(excuse the Spanish, it is my first language, I hope you have understood me. The answer can be in English, I have no problem with that, but I am afraid that my writing in English is a bit... Disastrous)

Ahhh...so this is about how I feel about batarou?? Cause one of my recent asks was about being open to their future interactions as a budding friendship? Which is totally fine and cool with me, even though I don’t personally ship them myself.

Where I said: “to me their dynamic is fun like two volatile/high-testosterone bash bros.” Cause that’s fun entertainment for the silly/comedic platonic shenanigans, and I’ve nothing really against the ship itself either but...putting essentially two same-polarized magnets together (in vibe) just doesn’t personally appeal to me in a romantic context. :’D (It doesn’t satisfy the emotional foundations I’m looking for, or offer the kind of story for me to invest in or look forward to - especially for Garou’s sake, that would typically pique my interest or put me on board.) Where they can clash and naturally repel each other, or amplify their strengths once they finally learn to cooperate, but that’s basically the extent of what Garou achieved (leveled up) on steroids with Saitama anyway. So under better circumstances, Garou could’ve been best bros/buddies with Metal Bat and Saitama for much of the same exact reasons. :’) (And lord knows, Garou could use more actual friends his age - beyond Tareo, to build a proper emotional support network, especially post-arc.)

Metal Bat could also use some fairer screentime + character development on his side, to elevate his own narrative importance. Since Garou’s already a main, fully established character in his own right, with his own independent goals to focus on, while Mb is...still considerably more of a side character. :’D So boosting his char’s story significance, to bring him that much closer into Garou’s actual league, would also be a start. Since I do like Mb and he’s a great lad, but regarding/liking both characters on more equal levels, to be invested in their story’s potential growth into better people together, is another ship criteria they haven’t yet met for me. (So that’s honestly up to ONE to develop or change my opinion.)

Anyway, back in 2018 I wrote my opinions about them......and since then, my opinions haven’t really changed: I still see Garou’s character as a complete package already, so I don’t ship him with anyone. :O (No character in this story has been able to change that reading of him or sway me.) But that doesn’t mean I’m not open to seeing him interact with more people and gain more friendships in the future! 

(And lastly, I’ll say the one thing I don’t like: it’s when fans barge in already claiming it’s ‘canon,’ totally against my established reading of Garou, or boasting how it’s more popular than saigenos even lmao what the, or when they directly portray or compare their dynamic in vibe to bnha’s kiri/baku...which has been a huge landmine, permanently blacklisted Notp for me ever since the toxic drama wars of 2017/18. So when I see young batarou fans either reminding me or repeating the exact same familiar ‘techniques’ as the history in that fandom, it makes me physically recoil in distaste and unfortunately turns me off their ship by association. ^^;; So if I even want to be genuinely open to them as a friendship, I would prefer not to see any of that spoiling the fun.)

[miraculouscontent]

Y’know, sometimes people ask me why I bother shipping Lukanette at all when it’s not endgame. They wonder why I would bother putting myself through the "pain” of supporting something that won’t be final outside of fanon.

Now, excluding any issues I have with the show itself, I don’t let the canon of anything dictate what I can or cannot ship, nor do I let it tell me what is or isn’t healthy. I look at the dynamics myself and decide from there without listening to what the narrative wants me to think.

That said, it’s about more than that for Miraculous, and “Truth” is the perfect example of it. It’s a culmination of so many issues I have with the love square, not even as a relationship, but as a tool used to push the show in whatever direction it wants.

Look at the episode and watch how much it reminds its audience that Adrien is a character who exists. His pictures are plastered all over Marinette’s wall, Alya brings him up in response to a reaction that Marinette is having (which, for the record, was not Adrien-based at all), and characters insist that Marinette’s “secret” is that she loves Adrien despite the fact that it is anything but a secret.

Cutting out Adrien from the plot changes nothing. He has mere seconds of screentime in the episode as his civilian self, yet the show is so terrified that its audience will forget about him that he gets name-dropped constantly.

What this means for Marinette is that Adrien takes over, even if he isn’t on-screen. Not only that, but every instance of him being mentioned is either for a cruel joke, humiliating/mocking Marinette, or “because love square.” The plot grinds to a halt when Adrien is brought up, dragging dialog out and serving little to no purpose.

Marinette is doomed to fail with Adrien until the show allows her to succeed. No matter what she does, she’ll be stuck in love square limbo and forced to humiliate herself because the writers think it’s funny. Most mistakes she makes revolve around her crush on Adrien (and keep in mind that her worst, irreversible ones are also because of it, meaning her life is made worse by the ship she’s meant to end the show as a part of) even though she has other flaws that could take the focus instead.

Alya suggesting that Marinette’s reaction is due to Adrien when it wasn’t (while not-at-all-subtly mocking her) says exactly what I’m already saying here. When Adrien is mentioned, everything becomes about him. The biracial girl gets sidelined and overshadowed by a white boy who isn’t even on-screen at the time. Her interests, hobbies, and talents suddenly don’t matter because everything turns to Adrien, and even in instances where it tries to incorporate a talent of hers - such as making gifts - it makes sure to add in either it not being signed, him not receiving it properly, him giving it away to someone else, or her being forced to remove evidence that the gift is hers because apparently the world will literally end if she doesn’t.

The love square represents everything I hate about the way Marinette is treated. Its mere existence demands that Marinette be little more than Adrien’s fangirl while other characters mock her for it. She’s not allowed to move on and the writers will force her to backpedal for the sake of keeping her as their metaphorical punching bag.

I cannot, will not, nor will I ever support a ship that does that. Even if Adrien was the most perfect being ever created in fiction, I would stand by the fact that it still wouldn’t be worth it. It wouldn’t be worth watching Marinette suffering so much over a boy, and I can’t want anything out of the love square than for Marinette to be free of it.

Then, as a contrast, look at Lukanette, specifically the scene where they go to the movies together and Adrien isn’t even brought up once.

In the span of one minute, multiple aspects of Marinette’s character are shown in a wholly positive light. She gets to have fun bonding with Luka over Jagged Stone’s music, she gives him a gift that she crafted herself and went so far as to have it signed for him, and - yes - she embarrasses herself by shouting but did not receive a single weird look from Luka; only acceptance that this is who she is and that’s okay.

So, when people ask me why I ship Lukanette despite it not being endgame (outside of all the reasons), this is why. When the show focuses on Lukanette, it’s about Marinette and her bond (whether friendly or romantic) with a boy who understands her and loves her just the way she is.

When the show focuses on the love square, it’s all about Adrien and demonizing Marinette for being the way she is.