#I put on s5 cause while I don't like it I also think it's the best background noise I've ever had in my life

[camellcat]

amy pond u r my most cleverest bestest girl. winking to allow herself more time to stare at the angel. amazing

[scoobydoodean]

hot take ig but… dean wanting to contain jack was not cruel or even a bad idea…

first, it was not just dean’s idea. sam agreed, and cas had basically the same idea, just using the cage instead. but for some reason everybody ignores this!! second, containing dangerous people is what they always do. sam and cas have done so to dean. the s5 finale was all about locking up a dangerous powerful being. and there are other examples! third, jack was the most powerful being in the universe and had no soul meaning no ability to discern right from wrong. he was killing people! and they’ve always seen soulless people as dangerous. dean was willing to let sam die via the process of returning his soul bc he saw that soulless sam was not sam. and sam agreed!

like. yes dean was not handling the situation well, let alone gently, so i understand why sam and cas were frustrated. but his mother had just been killed (and ftr i do think cas was being kind of insensitive about it), and jack was still killing other people. dean’s allowed to be angry. he was being outwardly meaner, but sam was agreeing with him (he said a part of him wanted jack dead!) up until the point that dean actually agreed to kill jack for chuck.

idk i just feel like people really exaggerate dean’s actions in this situation especially in comparison to what sam and cas were saying and/or doing too. so i’m just wondering what you think of all of this? do you think dean was “right” or was he overreacting? or do you think the audience is too hard on dean (as always :/) about this? could this be another version of samdela effect? cause i feel like people misremember what the others were saying/doing in order to put more on dean…

also omg i just realized how long this became, so so sorry for the long rant!! if you can respond, thank you!

*opens my coat* would you care for some memes?

I will take your hot take and flambé it. When it comes to this subject, I don't feel inclined to be patient with fandom or carefully lay anything out piece by piece. I'm sick and tired of hearing about what a betrayal it was to put Jack in the box and how mean and evil and abusive it was blah blah blah cry me a river. I was there watching when that episode aired and saw how stupid everyone was about that episode in real time and it was annoying then and it continues to be annoying that almost no one seems to bother putting a single granule of thought into this episode or what Sam and Dean were thinking or what the stakes actually were. And yeah—it was not just Dean who did that despite the samdela effect hard at work causing people to insist Dean somehow forced Sam to go along with him when that categorically did not happen.

People act like Jack was just standing there shitting rainbows and unicorns out of his ass and Dean turned around and strangled him to death for it. What happened was Soulless Jack killed Sam and Dean's mom and then went off and turned someone into a pillar of salt for being an atheist and filled someone else's body with worms to punish them for not wanting to be turned into an angel. Then he showed up at the bunker trying to make nice in the most hauntingly emotionless way possible—calling killing Mary an accident and then in his next breath saying he snapped and killed her because she threatened to reveal that the manner in which he killed Nick was scary and disturbed. In other words—he made it very clear to Mary's sons that murdering her was not actually a fucking accident at all even while he was calling it one.

Jack: I know -- I know things have been bad. A-And, if it helps, I regret it. The accident. Sam: The -- The accident? Jack: What happened to Mary. She kept talking about my soul, t-that I didn't have a soul, and she kept pushing. Dean: Oh, so she made you do it. Jack: No, it -- it was me, but I didn't want this no-soul thing to become an issue between us. I guess I snapped. Before I knew it, it was all over. Dean: "It" being the accident.

So Sam and Dean tricked him (the most powerful being in all creation) into getting in a box and he sat in there for 10 minutes. Oh no. How horrible.

A lot of the stupid fandom response to this is rooted in the babyfication of Jack that ran rampant within fandom at the time and continues in many circles. I happen to like Jack, and when I say that, I mean that I actually like him, and not the fanon adultbabydestiellovechild the fandom invented who has the emotional and mental capacity of a two year old and can't understand the difference between right and wrong. The real Jack did understand, and the real Jack would be (and was when he returned) horrified by what soulless Jack did (and for more than just how it would impact him). Jack was always an emotional person who struggled to control great power, but he had a strong moral compass and he loved people. That Jack would never have subjected someone to the twisted biblical punishments soulless Jack did for the crime of not believing in god or in him???? That Jack would have thrown Dumah into a wall in a rage for the mere suggestion he kill people over their beliefs and said, "You're hurting people". That Jack also would have wanted Sam and Dean to lock him up to protect others.

Some of the fandom problem with this also has to do the soulless lore as a whole and the constant usage of Donatello as the "soulless people can manage" poster child. Which ignores not only soulless Jack's actual behavior and how deeply dangerous his powers make him, but... pretty much every other soulless person we ever saw in the series, from soulless Sam, to numerous victims of Amara who turned into raging murderers in season 11 after she ate their souls. Hell though—the same people who insist soulless Jack was some poor little baby who just needed gentle parenting probably also think there was nothing wrong with soulless Sam despite the fact that he watched his brother be assaulted multiple times and seemed to actively enjoy it. Just normal Sam things, right? Donatello is the exceptional soulless person—not the rule—and it's because it isn't in his best interest to make trouble.

The idea that soulless Jack could be molded was suggested by Cas, but he also (as you pointed out) ended up inquiring about putting Jack in The Cage, instead of the Ma'lak box (and after the Ma'lak box was destroyed, so it wasn't an option anymore).

Lbr—the misogyny also jumped out in this string of episodes. Countless posts one after the other about how stupid Mary was and how it was all her fault and Jack did nothing wrong. How dare she make Jack angry. God forbid. What a stupid, frail, illogical woman. She deserved to die long before that anyway because she was a terrible mother, right? I mean it was obvious this sort of nonsense would come from the fandom in advance, given how many people had meltdowns over Dean shooting Jack in the back (something that didn't hurt Jack in the least) to get him to stop strangling a black store clerk to death in 13.23. As always, the imagined frail little fee fees of the white adult baby that fans invented must supersede other people's lives. Jack should be allowed to throw whatever tantrums he wants and kill anyone he wants during them and in response, Dean should shush him and start singing lullabies and carry him to a rocking chair to nurse.

[the-8-of-spades]

She-Ra fics I consider canon

Hey gang! here's a list of (mostly post-canon) fics I've read over the years that are I feel are well written and in character enough that they could be canon to the show, and to an extent, each other! I put the list in order for anyone who wants to read it like a season 6 :D

Don't Go - extended version of scenes in S5E5 and S5E6. Written by ND Stevenson so is basically already canon. Angst and fluff

Daylight - picks up a day after the s5 finale. Catra & Adora begin to really understand that they're free to live a peaceful life. Tooth rotting fluff.

Pros & Cons (NSFW) - Bow and Glimmer seem joined to Adora at the hip 24/7, and Catra just wants to make out with her girlfriend. Has a couple lines that could be seen as contradictory or foreshadowing to Carry our Bodies. Mostly 3/4ths fluff, 1/4th smut.

Carry our Bodies Safe to Shore - Adora finds an old Horde incident report, and Catra has to tell Adora about the kiss that Shadow Weaver erased from her memory. Angst and fluff.

Keep on Walking, Come What Will - Adora & Catra accidentally get engaged. Pure fluff

Alternatively, Princess Prom 2.0 (One Year Later) - Adora & Catra get engaged on purpose. Pure fluff

^ honestly, I reconcile these two by head canon-ing that the "accidental engagement," happens at the impromptu princess prom and then they get too busy for a wedding and then the on purpose engagement happens at the real princess prom, because both are so well written and so in character.

Anachronism (and sequel) - Adora & Catra get traumatized again while rescuing Angella.

^ (Fic is pretty good, mostly on here because I haven't found any fit that does "rescuing Angella" better, lmk if you have any recs!). Angst and Fluff. I don't think there's any NSFW but it's a long fic and it's been a while since I read it.

If anyone has any other recommendations for this list please leave them in the replies! I would love to expand this list until I have a sixth season worth of content!! (also only one NSFW fic rn cause I mostly read fluff lol but if anyone has NSFW recs that feel canon send those as well!)

Addition 1: honorable mention for Breathing Room by ResFlower because it is almost IDENTICAL to a scene from one of the others where Catra has to break it to Adora that their fight in the Red Waste was actually Double Trouble.

[raayllum]

Sometimes I think about the gap between the thematic perception of a theme/character versus how they themselves perceive the same thing. There's not too many gaps routinely like this in TDP except for antagonists — Karim comes to mind most notably, in how he earnestly believes he's doing the right thing with no pretense while becoming increasingly hypocritical — nor are all these gaps negative, per se.

But I think about it in regards to Rayllum a lot.

For example, in their actual relationship, they're pretty healthy. Rayla in particular has struggled with open and honest communication, but they're getting there, and we see that Callum has given her an unconditional, rather than an ultimatum base, upon which for her and both of them to build upon. They can teach really good lessons about taking time for yourself so you don't yell at your partner, that you have to work on yourself and a relationship won't fix your problems, that approaching things together is good and that you should support one another, etc etc.

However, thematically — identity wise — they are codependent to a super intense degree, wrapped up and incredibly dependent on the other person's construction of their sense of self (Rayla struggling to be a good person when she's reeling in the S4 fallout, because what does she have to show for it? Callum trying in 4x07 to push them both into their worst roles if the worst comes for him). And this codependency as well as intense desire to protect one another can cause them to make dangerous or self destructive choices in the name of love (or both), like Rayla leaving to protect him and luring Sol Regem away, or Callum doing dark magic and jumping off the Pinnacle.

Thereby, playing with this push and pull, how they exist and perceive themselves vs how they exist in the narrative (and may be seen as other characters) is well, a lot of fun.

This is also true for the "Rayla as Callum's method of destruction and salvation" theme that's been running through every season of the show, with Rayla being the lynchpin to burn down his old life / understandings of self and trust, and usher in new ones.

Callum doesn't see his relationship with Rayla as anything negative, ultimately; she's loving and brave and she saves people, she saved him, and he saves her right back. He'd do anything not to lose her, because that's the Right Thing to do to him, even if it's not automatically 'the right thing' for the rest of the world's safety.

But we know, thanks to their pattern (1x03, 1x04, 2x07, 3x09, general S4, 4x07, general S5, 5x04, 5x08) that it's something that can and has routinely gotten him into trouble in the past, particularly in S2 and S5.

We also know that Rayla fundamentally doesn't see anything wrong with Callum, either. "It doesn't matter" that he did dark magic before (2x07) and it likely won't ultimately matter to her again. She has so much faith and trust in him and his ability to do the impossible that the idea of Aaravos possessing him again in an awful way is downright hard for her to fathom. To her / in her mind, Callum is sweet and nice (even on the rare instances he yells at her), caring and loving and compassionate. And he is all those things, but even when one another's worst traits come out, both have a tendency to forgive and accept.

Now, part of this is because they have a mutual basis, for lack of a better word, of lines the other would never cross that are all conveniently the lines the other could never forgive (Rayla putting Ez at risk on a whim, Callum killing Stella for dark magic ingredients) which just perpetuates this cycle of support, forgiveness, and unconditionality.

Because unconditional love is great — until it's not.

And I think this blend of "they are actively healthy and actively working on being healthier" mixed with the "oh God quarantine them and their codependent shit together elsewhere for the good of society" is why they 1) have the range that they do and 2) the subsequent appeal that they do.

[magnuspanoptes]

Came across your blog and fell in love with your takes on arguably the most important dynamic in tma (like it made me miss them and actually start a relisten after like never finding the energy to after the finale years back). Do you happen to write any fics or have any fic recs?

RAHHH thank you!! this is exactly what i'm hoping to achieve every time i post yet another one of my delusional comparatives 🙂‍↕️

and i don't write fics but i do have recs!

I'd suffer all if you'd tell me, by RavenXavier is definitive S4 silence of the lambs / red dragon prison visit fic. to me.

Death Be Not Proud, by Startless - is another prison visit fic, but it's an AU where jon chose to die in his coma and woke up as an avatar of the end.

Pinned in vain desire, by statuscrows is about jon slowly developing compulsion which causes problems for elias :) they probably write the most in-character elias. he's not nice, but he's fond of jon. i recommend, like, every single one of their je fics. nobody writes beholding powers quite like them, almost every fic is based around an aspect of the beholding. Skeptic is an AU where jon finds gertrude's tape on the first day of the job. statuscrows always writes jon with his early seasons abrasiveness and mean streak intact, which is really all i want from jon's characterisation. i don't want nice jon, take that awayyy; Ritual misery is set immediately after 160 and is doing more interesting things with the web than all of S5 put together; From his prospect high - jonathan sims learns to See; Quenched in darkness you shall see - this is noncon and dead dove. read the tags! reccing this because ritual voyeurism to please the beholding is a real and true concept.

Perchance to Dream, by parva_dae and once upon a dream, by indelibleangel - are dream fics, inspired by MAG 120. first one is a snippet of elias poking around in jon's head and worsening his fear and paranoia. he would do that ^_^ and in the second one they talk. and kiss.

and lilies, by kototyph - i read two chapters while it was still ongoing but it's finished now and i haven't gotten around to it yet, but from what i remember this had, like, revolutionary elias characterisation. he's a disaster. a very well put together, beautiful disaster.

also these two one shots they wrote for jonelias week which i liked very much :3

something different crosses the threshold, by aguntoaknifefight - amnesia. classic.

a heavenly madness, by roundthedecay - this is one of the very few, proper gothic fics with these two. there's a cursed oil painting. jon's having his life ruined by said cursed painting. and jonah/elias gets a proper gothic villain treatment.

Worn to Shadows, by Ash_Rabbit, which somewhat satisfies my bluebeard itch, but it's an AU with no institute.

everything Candentia has ever written, basically. they write entity horror really well, and i think almost every one of their je fics are squarely in the horror genre, which i appreciate very much. i'm here for the horror. and you have to check out Beholding's Own if only for the jonah chapters. it doesn't have that older mentor shaping the younger in their own image dynamic because this an AU in which they're childhood friends. but it's so good. it's so good!! the georgian jonah chapters are exquisite. the tone, voice, word choice, atmosphere, general everything. also, some serious wuthering heights stuff happening between these two. like, they get it. they get it! they've also written a bluebeard (and cupid & psyche) adjacent fic - darkly, which is a fairy tale au. and Where Hope and Reason Part is tagged dead dove for the detailed descriptions of eye gore. which is my thing. we need more of that.

Professional Distance - takes place during the birthday tape, has an excellent elias voice. he's evil. and enamoured by jon. and evil.

a glass essay, by fairbanks is jonpeter and only tangentially lonelyeyes and jonelias, but it's one of the most gorgeously written fics i've had the pleasure of reading. excellent isolation narrative and has symbolism which pays off in an unexpectedly perfect way. and as a guy who does not care about peter lukas or any ships involving him in the slightest. well. this got to me.

Scenes from an Epicenter, by NeverwinterThistle which is set during S3 and the first je fic i recall reading. the bit where elias takes jon home after distortion helen drops him in his office is canon to me <3

Dark Square Bishop, by Blissymbolics, exactly what it says on the tin. homoerotic chess match at the end of the world.

[momowoah]

Okay but I really think that the worst part is that this is season seven. Unless they're planning to turn 9-1-1 into the new Grey's Anatomy the chances of us being already in the final half of the show are huge. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any drama, but the characters should've started to go forward, and yet nearly all of them feel stuck in the same place they have been for several seasons. Or should I say 2-3 seasons?

tldr: all/most S7 storylines were either useless in the long run or recycles. The only characters who had storylines on the good side of the scale (as in, they helped the characters develop and move to a new place in their lives) were Maddie and Chimney (and maybe Buck but he's on thin ice). All the characters are back to the same place they were in s4/s5. It's probably TM's fault. This shouldn't be happening in a 7th season.

(really long post under the cut but worth it imo)

Bobby and Athena had a whole seven episodes for their storylines and yet it didn't significantly change anything about them or their relationship. The doubts of how they are when they're at peace that were brought up in ep1 ended up not being addressed at all. We started the season with what was supposed to be this huge thing in their relationship and it was just never brought up again! Instead they put bathena through distress again just for the sake of being dramatic. And while I'm extremely glad we got Amir and think there were several high points in his storyline, what difference did it make in the long run? Yes, it brought up interesting things to Bobby's storyline, such as more insight into his childhood and the chance for him to explore another side of the fire he caused, but is it going to change anything? No! Bobby will be reinstated in S8 bc that's just how these things go, and I doubt they'll put any effort to continue the survivors storyline. I'd bet it'll just be ignored in the next seasons.

Hen and Karen have been trying for YEARS AND YEARS to adopt a child and they just can't let them! As a wlw, do you know how awful that is to watch? Seeing them fail time and time again and have their family broken up once again just because??? It was one thing with Nia, she got a happy ending, but that wasn't the case with Mara. The best thing for everyone involved would be for her to stay with Hen and Karen, but they blew it up. I know she's with Madney, but it's not the fucking same. Why do they have to go through this again? Why can't they finally get the family they've spent years fighting for? Why can't the drama be about anything else, why does it have to be about failed adoptions? I've seen this enough times before. Why not let them be able to adopt???? Why? I'm genuinely upset abt this btw, probably more than about anything else that went down.

Buck got to finally come out and it was great but instead of taking it as an opportunity to let him grow into himself they just threw him right back into the hamster wheel of dating people who are either not fully into him or who he's not fully into. (if you like bt probably skip the rest of this paragraph but I'd also be upset about how they're handling them if I liked the ship bc I liked the previous bt and they did something similar to them lol) Tommy's behavior could be explained away at first, but I feel like time and time again the show goes the extra mile to make him uninterested in Buck or just straight up an asshole to him? Instead of taking the small opportunities of portraying them as a healthy happy couple they just consistently screw up their relationship? They're not the couple I support but even then I wanted them to be good together bc I want Buck to be happy, and yet all we get is this?

I don't even have words about Eddie, especially considering what rg has said about him destroying his life and possibly reverting back to military no emotions mode next season. WHY CAN'T HE BE HAPPY? We already saw him break down, WE'VE ALREADY HAD A STORYLINE ABOUT HIM REBUILDING HIS LIFE, but happiness is boring so now he has to ruin his relationship with his son too right? It just pisses me off how they go about his character sometimes. I liked that they were bringing back the Shannon storyline because he was supposed to be able to finally move on, but this wasn't about that. No, it was about retraumatizing Eddie and Chris and splitting them up at a time when they should be leaning on each other and healing, because Chris has also been suffering with the Shannon stuff. We saw it in fucking ep 1. Don't even get me started on the Marisol stuff because idek why she was there at all. Literally don't get it. We had an off-screen breakup anyways. She wasn't relevant at all to anything that happened. Why was she even there? I'm genuinely asking. The only Eddie arc that has some positive potential for next season is him dealing with his relationship with religion (especially if they tie it to the military and the way he lives his life for others' expectations), but tbh I don't trust them not to fuck it up.

Finally, I don't have complaints about madney, except for why tf was Maddie so absent this season? The wedding episode was all about Chimney (who was also maybe kinda missing tbh), and although I love him and his backstory and the opportunity to see Kevin again, I really wanted it to be about their relationship, since it was their wedding, yk. Dispatch was also severely under utilized. We did get the 7x07 Maddie plotline and it might've been bc it was a shortened season but yeah, I'm still not that satisfied.

So, we have all the characters stuck in places they've been before. More specifically, in the place they were in season 4/5. Bathena relationship problems followed by a life threatening situation? Check. Henren struggling with adoption? Check. Buck getting into what was supposed to be a good relationship only for it to end up going really bad? Check. Eddie struggling with relationships and his mental health going to hell? Check. Madney in a good place with a new child and about to have an awful fucking time? Hopefully just check for the first part. And you know which question this makes me ask? It's whether Tim Minear is just reverting everyone to their s4 state out of spite for the seasons he was away. And even if it is a genuine attempt at getting the show back on the track he wanted out of good intentions, it still sucks, because it doesn't change the fact that it is just a repeat of old storylines. I actually complained at this before the show even aired, but (iirc) I ended up deleting my post because I thought that I was just overreacting. Guess what? I fucking wasn't, bc that's EXACTLY what they did.

Now, going back to the start of this post, the reason why all these storylines suck so much is not that they are bad. It's not even that they aren't original. No, it's the fact that we're doing storylines that belong in the fourth or fifth season of a show in its seventh season. Even the Gerrard plotline, which is new to 9-1-1, feels like it came too late, because the split up crew/villain captain storyline tends to happen much sooner in procedurals, and for a reason. Besides the fact that this was never really a big bad type of show and I don't get why they are making it one all of a sudden, and ignoring the fact that Gerrard being brought back as captain, especially to the 118 of all places, makes no fucking sense, that kind of plotline is one that it's obviously always temporary. No one believes he'll still be the captain by the end of 8A, much less by the end of the season. He'll hardly survive the first 3-5 episodes. That's ultimately a filler storyline. It helps the show go on for longer, it might even help in the development of a couple characters, but at the end of the day it doesn't change anything, which appears to be a recurring theme when it comes to 9-1-1 storylines.

The reason I have a problem with this is that we don't need a filler storyline, because no one knows whether the show has the luxury of taking its sweet time. Yeah, it has a huge audience and it is doing good numbers, but it is still a fucking money pit that was already cancelled once and it's unsustainable on the long run. It might not end that soon, but is it honestly going to reach season 14? Does anyone truly think that we've only seen half of it (or less) so far? Because I don't. Not many shows make it that far, and there's a reason for that. We have three huge names who are extremely important to the show. What happens if they get tired? What happens if someone gets a better offer? What happens if we're still revisiting old storylines when that happens? Do we get an incomplete story or a rushed one?

The show should be moving forward, even if there are no plans for it to end soon. We have the drama of the huge disasters 9-1-1 loves. We have the drama of the cases. We have a myriad of new possible dramatic storylines for the characters that show development without being too final. Athena could have so many different job related storylines (from moving up in her career to abandoning it), and her and Bobby's storyline from the beginning of the season about being boring together can be played in a good and dramatic line. Henren and Madney have a whole world of parenting issues that they could go through. Buck and Eddie both still need either an endgame love interest (whether it's each other or not) or to get to the point where they are fine not having one, and we have all of the relationship trouble that comes with that. This show can give us new things, storylines that are good for the characters, without losing the dramatic factor (which, if I'm being honest, would not be a deal breaker for me). Yet, it refuses to, and probably not for a good reason, because it comes down to either Tim wanting to rewrite history or just trying to drag this show for as long as possible (which apparently he only knows how to do by refusing to make the characters happy). And you know what? I'm fucking mad about it, and I think you should be too.

Btw, this is not to say the whole season sucked. We got Madney and Henren together multiple times which was great. We finally got Bi Buck. There were several amazing acting moments for both the main and recurring actors. As a standalone season, it was good. It just doesn't work when you look at the bigger picture.

[mysticarts]

S5 Kailani design! (+ relationships with others)

Ik that according to the official Gunntech au fic, that there's 5 seasons together, and season 5 is when everyone can go back into living their lives

soo let me explain Kailani's changes

Number one, Kailani is no longer hiding her other eye! She isn't as shy anymore thanks to charater development, also showing her freckled arms too proves it.

SHORT HAIR KAILANI!! a odd approach, but the main reason Kailani grew out her hair so long Is because gunntech forced her too sk her tentacle hair could work. So the first thing Kailani did was cut her hair short and felt everything off her shoulders

(There's also a concept I made that trying to escape Gunntech from brainwashing she cuts her hair, but not only is it painful but she still fails-)

Now, onto the relationships to others!

I think Kailani would be pretty good friends with Amaya, I feel like they met each other while taking ballet classes before they even meet each other at Gunntech. I feel like they're gal pals, going on self care days, stuff like that!

(Give me a episode of Amaya and her other girl friends getting into random shenanigans at a sleepover)

Now with Conner, I'm not sure if he'd like Kailani. I think Kailani's shy demeanor would annoy Conner. For two reasons, one is because in the fear she could get hurt, or he just dosent like Kailani. Kailani would be rather intimidated by Conner but hold great respect for him

Now, with Greg, we know how Kailani feels about him. Kailani has the hugest crush known to man on this man. But here's the thing, I don't know if Greg would feel the same. Like to me there's two ways. Make Greg like Kailani back and they're silly, or Greg breaks it down to Kailani gently yet they're still very close to each other.

With Romeo, I like to think as much as Kailani is terrified of him, she still feels like she can trust him. I imagine Romeo loved testing on Kailani considering his mother did the same back then with Isabella. I like to think they talked during those tests, and they bonded

Lastly, Mr. Gunn. I belive Mr. Gunn would appreciate how smart Kailani is, knowing she's emotional and taking advantage of it. I like to think Gunn put Kailani through the hardest and most painful tests cause he knew Kailani would figure out a way to pass it, or shut the thing down.

(Note, Gunntech au belongs to @elmushterri )

Feel free to ask questions!

[bugsbenefit]

It’s because some of us can’t stand fanon mike he’s not will or el at the end of the day it’s not our fault the duffers already messed up his character arc long ago. some of us aren’t really interested in mike like that and to be frank I hate how much trauma people are putting on him as if he isn’t a privileged middle class *maybe cis maybe not* kid with insecurities cause he can’t play hero anymore like he used to. Fanon mike is retaliation to whatever we got the last two season from the character and I get it, but why are we keep acting like he’s important to vecna or the plot like that he’s just els boyfriend and wills crush at this point.

You don’t agree with this most likely but idc I’m just here to let this out for those who sympathize with mike. He’s genuinely not a interesting character and if Will wasn’t in love with him I wouldn’t look his way.

Hello? Will solo stan that doesn't get the show in My asks? more likely than you think

i'm sorry but you clearly sent this knowing i wouldn't agree with you and you don't sound like you want a conversation so... why did you send this? was it just to tell me there's people that don't care about Mike? because shockingly, i know that already, the influx in open Mike hate was why everyone doubled down on his character being important and purposeful last week in the first place

i'm genuinely confused on how you're watching the show, though. i mean, at least you're admitting you're only in it for Will so i guess you're aware of your bias and shortcomings?

also lmao sorry but *maybe cis maybe not*?? are you trying to say being queer in the midwest 80s in a small town with a conservative environment wasn't that bad or damaging or worth elaborating on because he's "probably cis" and the family is middle class? hello? newsflash just in, the queers need to stop complaining about how scared they are of coming out and potential consequences of it, if you're cis you're basically getting cishet privileges anyway. i'm really not sure what you meant to say here, you okay? also, aren't All the characters cis??

the vendetta you have against "fanon Mike" is fascinating tbh. what exactly is "fanon Mike" to you, bc the ask suggests it's just Mike with any motivations and 3dimensional writing orrrr? also thank you for telling me that Mike El and Will are separate characters! i almost forgot! i really needed the reminder that these extremely different characters aren't actually the same person or re-skins. thanks for your service, you really showed the evil Mike-sympathizers today o7

but you know what, sure, i'll indulge this a bit, i like talking about the show after all, you don't have to read this ofc, i feel like we're both aware we won't find common ground here

saying that Mike isn't important to the plot is batshit crazy sorry not sorry. not even talking about s5, it's just plain wrong in general and i'm assuming you haven't seen the show in ages

even right from the beginning Mike is established as the first MC and then proceeds to be the main pov for the entirety of s1. in universe Mike is the parties dm unofficial leader and according to Will "heart of the party", out of universe Mike is the only character that has established relationships and evolving conflicts with every single party member and even most adults like Hopper and Joyce. i don't know how you're watching the show to take away that Mike is unimportant and a support character

ST is an ensemble show and Mike is one of the characters, alongside El, Joyce and Will that consistently fills an MC role. (while also being one of the only ones to outright get referred to as one of the mains by actors and writers) where you got the idea from that Mike is a useless character people are stupid to care about is beyond me

if you're genuinely going into s5 hoping for Mike to be as unimportant and off-your-screen as possible i feel like you're setting yourself up for the disappointment of the century. i feel stupid just listing the reasons for why Mike is clearly going to be an important player in s5 because of how obvious they are but oh well

Mike is the first protagonist ever introduced and the final season that wants to go "full circle" Has to finish his arc satisfyingly for it to work

Mike is Will's love interest, a character that's already confirmed to be more of a main on screen again, so focusing on both parties of the ship is necessary to get them together

also Mike is still in a relationship? if he's supposed to go from dating El to suddenly dating a guy that's also his childhood bff you need to elaborate on his feelings. otherwise Will's romance is also going to fall flat and i'm sure you don't want that anon

Mike is part of the people that only came back to town after everything in s4 went down already and part of the group that seems to be the main focus in s5 (see the hill shot)

also just regarding the hill shot, Mike is center stage here (and also between his two "love interests"), totally accidental i'm sure

also the only character Will told about Vecna being alive in s4 and already swore to kill him with Will, also totally not a s5 set up don't worry

and before i go on here, aside from the writers themselves mentioning Mike as a main in multiple interviews David talked about the s5 mains a few days ago and Obviously Mike is up there along with El, Will and Joyce, exactly the people you'd expect

i don't understand how people are trying so hard to claim that there's nothing interesting about Mike to get into, as if even just s4 itself doesn't go out of it's way to set up an excess of potential conflict for s5

obvious relationship drama with El left hanging after an "i love you" monologue which we didn't see a response to yet

feelings for his best friend while he's still dating his gf

the unresolved painting lie

also the sexuality issue that comes with being queer/gay, that's been going back to s1. also made more severe by the show going out of it's way to repeatedly hammer home that the Wheelers are conservative and don't have close relationships with their kids

"you're the heart", speech about leading the party and bringing everyone together. he can't just face into the bg after Will gave him that talk, there needs to be payoff

the whole hellfire thing that's set up with the members names and faces being broadcast as "satanists" and the potential reason for everything that's been going on ON TV, sure that won't have any consequences am i right?

the Vecna plot itself, s4 makes it a point to have Will tell Mike and only Mike about Vecna being alive and the two of them agree to kill him right before the season ends

and that's just the obvious set ups s4 leaves us with, not even touching on the fact that Mike's pov has been withheld for essentially 2 seasons. which is something you can do and ignore, but only if the characters don't have anything going on during that time. Mike meanwhile changes drastically in these two seasons and we never get to learn what actually happened, why he's suddenly so set on growing up and getting gfs in s3, why he's suddenly such an uninterested bf in s4, why he suddenly feels weird about kissing El in the s3 finale after already having made out with her. there's a lot happening and we only see the fall out of it, we don't get Mike's pov. you call it "bad writing" but that's a picture book writing 101 set up, if you don't see that i don't know what to tell you

but i feel like you said everything already, i'm just rambling because i like talking. we probably won't find any common ground here. you only tolerate Mike because you like Will and that's that. not everyone has to care about every aspect of a show, however, i don't get why you're going to other blogs to tell them about your personal preference and about how you don't like one of the MCs. this is an ensemble show, it's not the El-show, and it's not the Will-show either, both of these takes are equally wrong

i don't know what the ideal s5 would look like to you, but if it turned out Will was the only important thing and the only character we focused on it would be absolute ass and horrible writing

Lucas just lost Max and left him with a shit ton of trauma, also Erica's gone through so much too. Max is still lost in a coma. El is distraught over not being able to save Max and now not find her anymore. Dustin just lost Eddie right in front of him too. there's a military presence in Hawkins now, the hellfire club fallout still hasn't happened, and so on and on. (also things like the "Nancy love triangle" still need time to be resolved too)

there's a lot s5 has to focus on to be a good wrap up for all these arcs. and yes, handling Mike's arc well is also part of that, shockingly

also ending this with a: you know people are allowed to like and care about character even if you don't give a shit about that character, right? claiming a central character with a ton of conflict set up isn't interesting is well withing your right and i won't change your mind on that, i'm aware, but going after people for actually caring about the conflicts the show is setting up isn't the move either. not everyone is obligated to share your views, especially when they're this far out there. and i feel like you knew that going in here

[theerurishipper]

I think two of my favorite double standards of how a certain group of Marinette stans reacts to the Paris special are:

1. Getting angry at Claw Noir for treating her badly (although he was ironically still the more empathetic one??) while simultaneously completely ignoring that Shadybug was treating him shitty too (cause, yknow, they don't take issue with Marinette treating people badly. She's always justified, can do no actual wrong and the world just needs to learn to cater to her every whim or else she's not treated "right").

All because it's heavily implied that Alt Marinette's crush was Claw (because he fits the criteria of thinking she's lame) but now suddenly the show's lesson that Adrichat's crush on Ladybug isn't in any way her problem somehow doesn't apply in reverse for her stans. Because of COURSE it doesn't, it's Maribug. Now suddenly Altrien is awful for not treating his rival well (who isn't treating him well either but tahts fine of course) and being immediately in love with Shadybug and being a gentleman, since here Alt Marinette wanted it and needed someone to take care of her.

Somehow Adrien/ Claw is the irrational asshole in all that bc Altinette had a secret crush on him and that means it's his responsibility by default, in some of her stans eyes, to take whatever treatment she puts him through without complaining but also be perfect towards her like Adrichat in s5 who had to cuddle her into her important trauma development and basically do all the emotional work in the love square.

2. Not only saying that Altinette had it "so much worse" than Altrien when they literally went through the same miraculous horror, Adrien as per usual gets barely any sympathy for his backstory from her fans even though his main problem (His father and dead mother) is actually depicted on screen in the special to explore it a bit further, while almost all of Marinette's backstory is off screen

but saying "Chloé bullied me" without Chloé ever even being SHOWN ONCE somehow is supposed to trump everything again. I legit saw people say that Alt Marinelle was JUSTIFIED in her actions and she deserved to take revenge. It's wasn't even said ironically or in a way that still acknowledged taht what she did was morally wrong, it was said in sympathetic support towards her bc Chloé was mean

(Sabine having been different in a negative way isn't even a factor for these people. Funnily, Chloé is apparently one of the most important characters in all of Miraculous for the extreme Marinette stans. But how DARE Adrien stans talk about Gabriel's horrible abuse of Adrien, since we've all long learned that Chloé is and has always been WORSE than Gabriel/ Monarch)

I honestly have nothing more to add, because you said it!

Thank you for your ask!

[andvys]

i have a few points that i'd like to add, if i may on stancy. i may get some hate, but i really don't care, lol.

for me, i like jancy better than stancy because jonathan doesn't put up with her shit, lol. steve did and gave in a lot to her.

buckle up, andy and her beautiful humans. we got a lot to cover, lol.

she tried to manipulate him into telling the feds (aside from hop) about the lab and the upside. she was wanting to risk EVERYONE'S LIVES and expose something they hardly knew about. (s2e2)

she tried to gaslight(?) steve the night after she drunkenly broke up with him by trying to justify the fact that she was drunk. baby, no. a drunk persons words are a sober person's thoughts. (s2e2)

"it wasn't like that!" then what was it like? because to stevie boy, it looked like you were hooking up with the eldest byers kid. (s1e6)

she kept steve in the dark instead of trying to explain what was going on when all he wanted to do was help. (s1e4-7?)

also, they weren't together at this point in season 3, but when steve was asking about the Mind Flayer, she got aggravated because he was just trying to understand what the heck was going on 'cause he and robin were drugged while dealing with the russians with dustin and erica. (s3e8)

again, they weren't together in s4vol2, BUT steve didn't want to go back into the upside down 'cause, ya'know, he almost died and she saw that.. again, wanting to risk lives. i get her reasoning for wanting to, though, but she has that act now, think later type of thinking when it comes to shit like that. (s4vol2, e8)

also, that whole "you've always been there" i think was complete bs. he's probably had that dream since he was a kid, but said that he always pictured nancy there because she was sitting right there next to him. he may have pictured her in his dream when they were together and that's where that came from, but i kind of don't buy it.. sorry, lol. (s4vol2, e9)

i honestly could sit here and explain all the reasons why i don't like stancy (or nancy in certain episodes), but then we'll be here all freaking day, lol.

i feel like if the stancy fans get their wishes, it'll be a generic happy ending we see a lot of the end of tv shows. (or we'll see his dream come to light, but i think i saw somewhere that steve's story won't be over after s5 ends.)

welcome to my tedtalk. -jess <33

AAAAAAAHHHH

PREACH!!!!! THANK YOU!!!! HOPE THIS REACHES THE RIGHT PEOPLE…

I absolutely agree with everything you said, I could add so much too but yeah, we’d be here all day

If stancy fans get their wishes, and we get the classic stupid happy ending then I’ll just be disappointed af. I’m sick of those cliche happy endings, they’re so boring and old, and it doesn’t match the vibes of the show at all.

Steve still being in love with someone who only ever hurt him and then his whole confession speech and his sudden obsession with her again is the dumbest thing ever, and it makes no sense at all, especially after season 3!

[lunabug2004]

You said that according to you there is a way to make Mileven stay together and have all the characters have a good arc at the end of the show. Could you develop that? cause in my opinion if Mike's arc is about falling in love , changing his personality after meeting a girl and at the end being the protective paladin to "fix" his bad behaviour then it's really bad writing (coming from a straight person)

I'm going to be completely honest here, which I hope is what you want lol, I do think I say this (sans the "good arcs" part bc I don't think I've ever said that there's a way to make Mileven happen where all the characters have good arcs) to more-or-less make myself feel better bc I have so much Byler doubt (& Mike love) so yeah, take this as you will, this is just what my brain has come up with as an arc(?) I could mostly cope with. I mean, there's a reason I put "(mostly) happy" but yes, I'll try to expand.

I love Mike and I have a feeling I will continue to love Mike whether Mileven or Byler is endgame. This is purely because I do not believe Mike is a bad person or bad character just bc he's made some bad decisions/said some things he (canonically) regrets. I don't think Mike would be a protective paladin to simply "fix" his "bad behavior". While I do agree that this wouldn't be the best writing choice, I think, in-context, he would be trying his best to keep everyone he loves alive. He is an extremely traumatized teenage boy whose biggest fear is losing those he loves. He has been smack-dab in the middle of the action until s4. Finn Wolfhard himself has said Mike is depressed and pushing everyone away bc of it.

Anyways, all of this to say that I don't think it'd be too farfetched to say all of his "bad behavior" is simply untreated trauma symptoms. And yes, you could say something about other characters being traumatized and them not acting like Mike, but trauma, and this is a fact, effects everyone differently. One person may lean into their life before going through said trauma, like Will in s3, while another may block it out, like it's shown with El in s4, and another may completely change themselves while being stuck in a loop of wanting those he loves close to him but also wanting to keep them at a distance bc he is so terrified of losing them. Dr. Owens even says in s2 that a sign of PTSD is change in personality and lashing out, which we see both in Mike. Plus all the parallels bt him and Max in s4, it's safe to say this boy is struggling mentally.

I do think it would make sense, when we finally get Mike's POV in s5, for a lot of his controversial moments to be fueled by his mental health struggle. Now, do I think this is an excuse? Not necessarily, but it does make sense, and as far as I know, anytime Mike's actively made anyone upset he's apologetic (like I said earlier, lashing out). I believe that if the show solely focuses on Mike's mental health issues, then Mileven wouldn't be out of the question.

I do want to add that this is not how I want the story to go, I would much rather his story go the Byler route, but I've said before that his character is not solely dependent on either Byler or Mileven, and I still stand by that. He should not simply be seen as a 'romantic interest' character bc he is more than that and he has his own problems (that we aren't necessarily shown) that have nothing to do with who he's in a romantic relationship with.

Now, again, this is probably mostly just something I've convinced myself I'd be alright with, but I am aware that this in and of itself would be boring and not very good writing. I also do not know, in this case, what would happen on the Byler side of things, this why I say "(mostly)". I am fully a Byler shipper and would prefer Byler endgame to anything really, but I'm a Mike-stan first and foremost.

Sorry if this wasn't too clear, I feel like I just rambled and repeated myself a lot. Thanks for the ask, though! And pls if you or anyone else has questions about anything I said, pls ask me! Trust me, I know this isn't foolproof and I'm probably just dumb 😂

TLDR: I think it's possible they could go more towards untreated PTSD and trauma/mental health related route for Mike in a way that would make Mileven possible. Doesn't mean I'd think it's necessarily good writing, but I could see it going that way.

[wannabemasterofwindintraining]

You can't just leave me like that😭 I need to know razor's lore PLEASE

Ugh fiiiine since you're asking i GUESS i will talk about the oc lore 🙄🙄🙄 (silly)

So we all know the hit show lego nexo knights if you don't honestly skill issue have you been living under a rock or something lololol imagine

Well in nexo knights there's a knights school shocker i know a school of knights?? What a novel idea

It the start of the extensive oc plot that me n a few friends have been making up as we go razor n their friends are in the knights academy

However plot twist razor is a actually a MONSTER!!! can you believe that a monster in the killing monsters 101 place that's crazy

Since razor is a basilisk they can disguise themself so no one can tell they're a monster well no one but the besties

Their friendgroup are @/merloksdigitaltoes ocs cherry🐍 sage🐦 n trace🐐 and @/stellarwaffles oc talya☀️ + a surprise addition that will join later🦈 wink wink we call them the chimera pride :)

Anyways academy arc doesn't really have much plot it's just the characters getting introduced to each other n hanging out

Sage adopted trace as his friend while cherry adopted razor meanwhile cherry n trace were beefing but dw they make up all 4 of them are friends now yippee 👍talya joins the academy later in the years n joins the friendgroup cause gaydar for monsters

Apocalypse arc is based on the sadly cancelled s5 where the gang are basically trying to not die

Talya gets infected big L just don't get infected loser trace dies but then comes back then dies again skill issue n the other three are just going thru it™️

At the end of the arc razor graduates but not the rest of the friendgroup cause um have you considered being older?? Idiots 🙄

Fish arc is the MAIN main arc we think about that lore needs like 10 pages on it's own

This takes place like a year or 2 after the last arc when the group all graduated a lot of ppl are going missing in the peaceful seaside town of forgetavile n as their first group mission the gang are tasked w figuring out what's going on n fix the issue

Turns out fish ppl have been kidnapping the ppl of forgetavile 😱😱 the knights try to do something but thise fishes are smart dealing with them is no easy and oh no this glowy mean fish lady put a curse on cherry wtf

So they're all staying at forgetavile trying to stop more ppl from going missing until they deal with the fish pp also they find this weird fish twink washed up on shore? He's talking a lot of nonsense about a place called totallynotatlantis and this loser named agniss? Idk he looks gay

Maybe some day I'll post all the fish arc drawings i never posted it'll take days to post all of them lol

Last arc in the timeline is cayne/mimic arc this one involves another grouo of ocs

So remember how razor is a basilisk? Ok hear me out what if there was another basilisk n HEAR ME OUT!! What if he was EVIL

This evil basilisk is named cayne explaining the name of the arc n he was actually annoying the other oc group before the gang got intangled with the plot

The other group minus one are still in the academy so when they found this loser trying to commit identity fraud they asked the older moe experienced group to help (they will later regret this decision)

We don't have a clear story w this one it's just cayne going around committing identity fraud all over the room also sage n that fish twink are missing from that arc i bet they're kissing i hate those homosexuals

I gotta stop talking now the ops are onto me i got too mentally ill

[lotusarchon]

how do you think li jing would be if nezha had a mortal s/o? and what are your thoughts on him/gen (i remember you made a rant about him on your old acc but i'd like to hear your thoughts and analysis on him/lh)

Another opportunity for me to ramble? Don't mind if I do 🤭

Be mindful, this is all based on my opinion and observation of Li Jing's character in LMK. You aren't meant to take my word to heart, nor do I disapprove of anyone else's ideas or opinions. Relax.

Regarding a mortal s/o: since we don't know much about Li Jing pre-s5 events, I would think he'd find flaw in anything Nezha did, including his choice in partners. In the grand scheme of things, it really wouldn't matter if Nezha's s/o was a mortal. Immortal, demon, mortal, etc, if they were Nezha's partner, Li Jing would always have a complaint.

Now post s5, I would think he'd be more lenient. I think he'd probably be concerned, actually, because if Nezha's s/o is a mortal of all things, things might only end badly, because well. Nezha's an immortal who will never die, and his partner is mortal and prone to die at many moment. At best, he might advise Nezha not to get too attached for his own sake.

If you're asking about my thoughts on Li Jing, then oh boy buckle up because there's a lot.

Also, be mindful; I'm aware creative liberty exists. When you're taking inspiration from myths and legends, you are allowed to do as you wish. Furthermore, I'm aware that Lego Monkie Kid is catered to an audience that are children, despite the active adult audience, hence why it is the way it is. Don't come to argue with me bringing these up as facts, because I'm stating my opinion while being mindful of these reasons.

1) I think he would've worked better as a villain. When the trailer was first released, I really thought he'd be interesting as a villain. From what I've read of FSSY Li Jing, he gives me the idea of a greedy, ambitious man who would go to lengths for power, aka where he had no remorse when Nezha killed himself. Working with Xiangliu wouldn't seem to far off for him, and I could've seen in the end where he's double-crossed and realizes Xiangliu's true intentions.

2) I don't think he acted as an antagonist in the show. When he first showed up, yeah you'd think he was evil, but aside from placing the circlet on Wukong and attempting to imprison them until things had changed, he didn't seem like a bad guy to me. An asshole yeah, but not a bad guy. MK only sees Li Jing as a bad guy because of the circlet, and Mei saw him as a villain because of his attitude and persistence. Aside from that, I don't think he was a villain, which the fans seems keen on thinking for some reason.

Understand this; Wukong in LMK is most notorious through the celestial realm for causing problems. Unlike in JTTW, he does NOT accept the title of a Buddha, which means we have no idea what he could be up to with no rules to stop him. Yes, we the audience know he's mellowed out, but in world, not many do. Wukong also has a habit of acting impulsively and wrecking things, like we see with his confrontation with Nezha in s3. It's not his fault sometimes yeah, but he does act recklessly, and Li Jing does what he thinks is necessary for the world. That doesn't make him a bad guy, and his attitude is him just doing his job.

3) His (and Nezha's) lack of screentime was disappointing. Even though the show revolves around MK and others, I personally think a scene with Li Jing and Nezha alone, maybe in the celestial realm, would've helped give more insight to his character. He appears to stop the group and then fight later on, and that's it, so all we know about him is a guy doing his duty and was an ass to his son and then suddenly changed.

4) I don't like how he's written in regards to his relationship with Nezha. The sudden switch up in the ending was off-putting, and like I said, the lack of screentime made it harder to decipher their relationship. I know that the writers couldn't potray Li Jing to his FSSY counterpart, and I do understand that Li Jing had his own responsibilities, but Jesus I hated that switch up. It didn't have much impact at all, and it didn't really sell the part of a strict but loving father.

I dunno, I felt like it could've had more impact if Nezha and his dad got enough screentime together for the audience to understand what the relationship was. We don't know how they were before season 5, and we have no idea what LMK might've tried to change with Nezha's origin story, so aside from their interactions, we don't know what to think. Do we still apply FSSY to their story, implying that Li Jing was an abusive father to Nezha in his childhood? Or do we assume this version of Li Jing was simply a father who didn't know how to show affection and was always strict?

5) Li Jing should not have been added. I'm dead serious about this; his entire role feels pointless because aside from doing his duty, why the fuck was he here? I dunno about other fans, but reading JTTW and FSSY, Li Jing placing that circlet on Wukong was not very interesting to me. Also, why the hell was he chosen to handle the Jade Emperor's power, and not someone with close relations to that old geezer, like...you know...ERLANG SHEN!? WHY WAS LI JING HERE HE FELT SO USELESS.

There could've been so many other characters who could've fit into the role Li Jing played. I really don't think he had much of an impact because again, the lack of screentime makes it hard to really understand what his motives lied.

I like Li Jing as a character, but idk. I don't think I'm fond of how Li Jing was portrayed in the series.

Just my opinion though. You guys can think as you'd like of him.

[raayllum]

Do you truly believe that Callum is the only best thing that's happened to Rayla?

I don't think Callum is the only good thing in Rayla's life, but I do absolutely agree with her sentiment that he's the best thing she's ever had / that's ever happened to her. This is for a few reasons (mostly only talking about arc 1 as that's the time she's referring to, but I'm also gonna be touching on S4/S5):

In Bloodmoon Huntress, the long time headcanon of post-s1-s3 fans that Rayla was a relatively friendless / lonely child was confirmed. This makes Callum and Ezran her first real friends, and while she's more likely to lean on Ezran for support (in arc 1 at least) initially than Callum is, Callum is still more so her peer (due to being similar ages) and is her first and main Best Friend. For that alone, I'd buy her statement.

Then there's the other ways Callum has changed her life. He is:

The person who inspired her to actively work towards breaking the cycle past the point of 1) believing it was right for Zym to return home and 2) to make up for her parents' perceived/failures mistakes, as seen most prominently in 2x07. This is something she is willing to die for, and while Rayla is (unfortunately) willing to die for many things, this is the cause she believes in and feels centred in: "Every fibre in my body is telling me that [leaving her] is wrong [...] It doesn't just feel like the right thing to do, it feels like the right thing for me to do. It's where I'm meant to be." ("Look at yourself, Rayla. Who are you? What do you stand for? Once you know that, you'll end up where you were always meant to be.") Someone giving you a much more positive worldview that aligns with your values and sense of rightness is certainly a big deal (and a positive one, particularly for someone who's struggled with hesitating over what feels right for so much of her life.

Callum is the first person in Rayla's life to love her wholly unconditionally. While Rayla is deeply loved by all four of her parents, and I've gone on record saying that Tiadrin and Lain didn't do anything wrong, arc 1 sees Rayla brush up against the lingering cultural hangups and choices that make her family's love for her feel if not outright be somewhat conditional. She is shunned by her village (condition 1), while Ethari says goodbye to her and embraces her he still turned his back on her (condition 2), Runaan was heavily disappointed in her betrayal of him/the mission and left her (condition 3), and her parents put their duty over her / being her parents (condition 4). Callum says fuck all that shit. He refuses to leave even when she's pushing him away. He loves and admires her for the exact things she's been punished or shamed for ("You have true courage and a big heart" -> "Even when her own people might misunderstand and turn against her"). He says she doesn't deserve to be Ghosted, she doesn't deserve to be unjustly turned away for a mistake she didn't even make, he says and shows that it's okay for her to be scared and that she can (and should) rely on him.

This is even more intrinsically tethered given Chasing Shadows and the canon fact that Callum and his love for her 1) kept her from throwing what little remained of her life away entirely and 2) literally kept her from forsaking her name/identity/everything else that makes her Rayla and 3) gave her the courage to try and come home to somewhere she'd be safe and loved, even if she knew/felt she didn't deserve to. There's an underlying belief in Chasing Shadows we see carry through into S4 where Rayla truly believes Callum can do and overcome just about anything, and if he can do the impossible, then maybe so can she:

She backed away, close to the pit’s edge. The crowd shouted and screamed at her ears, their spittle landing on her neck. It rattled her. The human kicked dirt at her, and Rayla scraped at her eyes, angry—infuriated, even. Humans were frustrating. Humans were clever. Humans could do anything, they could be anything, they could take their own fates and change them—

It is for all these reasons that Rayla clearly considers him to be her family and the love of her life. She gives him the pendant (from Ethari to Runaan, then Ethari to her, and then her to Callum) as a symbol of both familial and romantic love. He seems to be the first person she's had serious feelings for and certainly the first person she's fallen in love with.

She was originally going to confess first (2x09) back when she clearly didn't have any thought or inclination he'd ever love her back, either. Then he did, and it elevated an already very steady and safe relationship to one that was good natured, even more incredibly supportive, and wholly unconditional.

And given how he supports and loves her in S4 and S5, I am even more inclined to think she's Right <3

[moistvonlipwig]

can i do the same thing to you i did to sssammich and upend all the -corps on your desk or is that too greedy 🥴

looping in @yourlocalegotisticalqueerishere since it's easier to do these all in one post ! alphabetical order for funsies under the cut:

agentcorp - no...idk what to say really except the vibes are off for me. sorry chyler </3 i know you wanted to kiss katie so bad. i think alex and lena have similarities & differences (just like every character does with every other character lol) but i personally feel like their specific similarities & differences would cause them to either enable each other's worst aspects or to butt heads constantly. just my onion i know many people disagree and that's fine. also the triple hit of alex trying to nuke lena and justifying it by twisting all her previous good deeds to make them sound bad, lying about it to her face while asking for her help, and then not advocating for her to get her memories back and even encouraging kara to deceive her once again all in quick succession in s5 -- all of which got swept under the rug in s6 -- really soured me on the friendship s4 had built up between them. so i'm not even really a fan of their friendship. tragique :(

braincorp - they are my brotp <333 i don't ship them romantically at all but actually their relationship is probably my favorite relationship on the show period. it helps that they are my 2 fave characters lol but also they are so smart and so bitchy together and i love them <333 brainy is so ride or die for lena even when she gives him literally the worst advice anyone has ever given anyone else in the history of the world and lena feels safe with brainy to express how she really feels and they are kindred spirits. also the parallel to the comics dynamic between brainiac & lex luthor [which should've made it to the show!!! where was the original brainiac???] is poetic. braincorp 4 life !!!

dreamcorp - again i don't ship them at all but it's so bonkers that developing this relationship wasn't more of a priority for the writers. little sisters with asshole siblings who blame themselves for their mother's deaths (and also have magic powers i guess thanks s6 🥴)...the scenes write themselves! or so you would think. i liked that they had some rapport in s6 but also ngl it cracked me up in 6x07 when nia called lena "family" i was like girl this is your first onscreen conversation ever 😭 you are colleagues at best...oh well. i like the idea of them becoming found family though. i don't see the superfriends as a found family (they are actually this cool thing called 'friends' instead) but nia & lena specifically i think could come to lean on each other in a sisterly way.

guardiancorp - so as i've mentioned part of what really piqued my interest in guardiancorp was the reveal that james had 16 scars from lex yet he was able to look past that to see lena for who she was not just as lex's little sister. james as clark's best friend and lena as lex's sister are kind of inherently tied together by the superman/lex drama and i'm interested in how they can work through that to love each other anyway. one thing i find interesting about them is that they are deeply different in ways that could set them at odds -- lena is a luthor, james is team super; lena is a white woman, james is a black man; lena is morally flexible, james is much more morally steadfast/rigid -- yet they are able to find solidarity and common ground with each other despite those things and have each other's backs. a lot of people like to point to the scene where lena & james are completely out of sync at game night as evidence that they were never really right for each other, but the thing i always remember is that lena wanted to practice with him afterwards. she wanted to put in the work. that's actually very romantic to me. another thing i like is how protective they are of each other; morgan edge might call james lena's bodyguard and james might take a bullet for her and dangle morgan edge off a building for her but lena is also HIS bodyguard who would make deals with the DA for him and poison her mother for him. they're each other's guardians. also they are capable of being so powerful and bitchy together like when they went to confront morgan edge in 3x09 that was sooo funny and iconic. i do wish the show built them up better and let us see their friendship properly develop in 3a instead of having them flirt in a couple scenes and then not interact for 4 episodes and then have kara & sam hamfistedly tell us they have chemistry. if i were writing season 3 i would give them a slower build and probably not have them kiss until the balcony scene in 3x17. but oh well. if wishes were horses i would have lots of horses. i wouldn't even know what to do with all those horses. so it's a good thing wishes aren't horses, if you think about it.

kellycorp / goldencorp (that's the name i just came up with now that i am advocating for) - i quite like this idea because it's a kelly ship i can actually get invested in. hooray <3 i think kelly would be good for lena and, crucially, i think lena would be good for kelly. they both are more 'outsiders' to the superfriends than the other members are, as evinced by the two of them being the last to know supergirl's identity, and i think they could bond over that. i could see kelly feeling comfortable being displeased/angry with lena in a way she maybe doesn't with the other superfriends, while also holding space for lena's emotions in a way Certain Other People Who Shall Remain Nameless aren't always very good at. and i could also see lena really enjoying spoiling kelly with her wealth and kelly being kind of into it. also the fact that the showrunners seemed weirdly allergic to putting azie and katie into scenes together, meanwhile azie and katie were supposedly constantly flirting on set and working overtime to try and sneak goldencorp crumbs into the background, suggests to me that their chemistry was so palpable and powerful that TPTB were scared of letting them loose lest the fandom descend even further into ship wars. ...ok that last part is just a silly little conspiracy theory that i made up so please don't repeat it as fact or even as plausible speculation but also why Did the showrunners keep them apart so much 🤔 makes you think !

mirrorcorp [mirrorverse iris/lena aka a ship i invented] - so if you've never seen the flash you are probably thinking: who is mirrorverse iris??? i'm so glad you asked. mirrorverse iris is a clone of iris from the mirror realm which is NOT an 'evil universe' a la star trek, it is instead a world literally inside mirrors. mirrorverse iris was essentially created by mirror monarch (don't ask) for the purpose of infiltrating the normal world. she spends an arc impersonating the real iris and is similar in some ways but is also angrier, more ruthless, and more impulsive. in her last episode she figures out that she wants to be her own person and live life on her own terms not mirror monarch's and she defies mirror monarch during a fight with barry and then she dies. don't like that she died i wish she'd stuck around she was an epic character. but anyway this arc takes place in season 6b of the flash which you guessed it coincides with season 5b of supergirl. so my pitch is that instead of teaming up with lex to continue project nonsense lena goes on a sojourn to central city and meets mirrorverse iris who is impersonating real iris and undergoing an existential crisis/crisis of conscience. and the two bond and become friends. and then mirrorverse iris doesn't die and she and lena have to figure out who they want to be for themselves not just for the people who created them or tried to mold them in their image. and then they kiss about it idk just saying it could be good!

nationalcitydistrictattorneycorp - i mean. you've seen the scene. possibly the most sexually charged scene in the entire show. unclear to me why both actresses decided to play it that way but ok queens !

peggycorp - not my thing but i respect the warriors 👍

reigncorp - sam is imo the best & healthiest friend lena could ask for -- actually the best & healthiest friend anyone on this show could ask for -- but i don't really think their relationship is improved or made more interesting by them dating. i do think they have hooked up in the past and they decided they were better off as friends.

rojascorp - i'm not a rojascorp shipper actually but i believe in their beliefs...andrea and lena definitely dated, i see them as exes who still have affection for each other & sexual tension, i'm just not interested in the idea of them getting back together. if anything i actually worry that andrea might be too deferential to lena? i think she sees herself as deeply indebted to lena and -- whether you're looking at the pre-crisis more interesting timeline where she directly has blood on her hands or the post-crisis less interesting timeline where she tried to kill supergirl & accidentally put william in the line of fire -- i think she has a lot of guilt and she views lena as a moral authority in contrast to her morally 'tarnished' view of herself. which is interesting & juicy because most characters don't view lena that way. but i don't know that it's a great dynamic for a romance.

spheercorp - jack is sweet and rahul kohli is pretty. here endeth my thoughts on spheercorp. ...ok i guess i can say a little more which is that like rojascorp i prefer them as exes/bffs to them getting back together. i also will say that, while i think jack's death contributed to a disturbing trend on the show of killing off south asian characters, i do actually rather like it as a character beat for lena. i enjoy seeing him pop up in fics but in the show itself i think him dying is kind of a better story. sorry jacky :(

supercorp - i mean i think the premise alone is kind of epic and awesome. a super and a luthor but they're in love. like that's just plain cool. plus think of the awkward family dinners! i am always here for ships that will generate awkward family dinners. i also think they have a lot of great comedy scenes together which is always a plus to me shipping-wise, i like ships with a comedic bent. but there's also a lot of juicy drama/tragedy/gay divorce with them too which is also good of course. as a big fan of dramatic irony i like the secret/reveal as a storytelling device i just wish they handled it better post-5x01 (i think 4x22 and 5x01 actually kind of nailed it ngl). i like that they both used each other's kryptonite on the other person and yet they were able to forgive that and love the other person anyway. i mean the actual in-show process of forgiveness was wack but the idea is spicy. and i like that, as kara herself (clunkily) put it in the finale, they really do challenge each other and push each other to be better. as i've mentioned before theirs is a relationship where actions have consequences and where every scene they have matters and affects later scenes, which is unlike.....well, most relationships on the show, frankly. i also tend to think their scenes are just generally better-written and have more subtext (and i'm not just talking about the gay kind) and interesting things going on in them than most of the rest of the show's scenes. for all my many gripes about how s5 & s6 handled their fallout and then kind of just papered over it with platitudes, i still think their relationship is one of the best parts of the show and it's still the major thing that keeps me on the hook.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi! I love your meta and how beautifully you write about GSR, I would like to know what you think about this, do you think Grissom and Sara would have been good parents? Why do you think the show didn’t allowed them to have a geek baby?

hi, anon!

thank you for your kind words!

i have got a big, ol' meta that covers my thoughts on potential gsr parenthood here, if you're interested.

i also have another big, ol' meta that specifically covers my thoughts on how they would have reacted to experiencing an unplanned pregnancy during their "secret dating" phase in s5-s6 here, if you're interested in that one, as well.

the tl;dr version is that while i think grissom and sara would be kickass parents were that particular life choice one they ever decided to make together, i also don't think they would necessarily ever be likely to make that particular life choice together, just given their respective characters and backgrounds.

grissom is—prior to his retirement—highly career-driven, meaning he might not want to put his focus on parenthood rather than work. he likewise has some pretty sizeable hang-ups regarding his own capacity to nurture and be unselfish, his age, his social deficits, etc., all of which might cause him to question his potential fitness as a father.

there's a line from another show i love from a character facing down the prospect of first-time fatherhood that i can absolutely see grissom saying (in so many words): "if, for nine months, you're hearing how this is gonna change your life, and ‘you've never loved anything like this’ and ‘my god, the love!’ and ‘nothing is gonna be important anymore’—it just never felt to me like i was someone who had the capacity for those feelings. plus, you know, i-i like what's important to me. i want it to stay important. i wanna be able to do it well."

meanwhile, sara has her own considerable hang-ups regarding how she was raised, her family and personal history of mental illness, her social deficits, etc. that might cause her to feel similarly unequipped for motherhood. she is also in her twenties and thirties—i.e., prime childbearing years—very career-minded, like grissom, so she might not be inclined to step away (even temporarily) to have a kid.

maybe if grissom and sara were to experience an unplanned pregnancy at some point, they would (under very specific circumstances) consider the possibility of having a child. ditto for maybe a one-in-a-million type scenario where they encountered a kid in the system who needed fostering or adopting.

however, i think nine times out of ten, they'd opt not to have a kid—and especially not if "nature never came to bear" or if one was never put directly into their paths.

that said, since i personally find the idea of them as parents very intriguing—the issue is one that pushes a lot of fun character buttons for both of them, butting up against their hopes and fears and senses of self in some very complicated and interesting ways—i have written a big, ol' geek!baby fic, where they find themselves dealing with an unplanned pregnancy in an au version of s8.

i call it the happy accidentsverse, and if you're interested, you can read that fic series here.

as for the issue of why the show never pursued a "grissom and sara have a kid" storyline in canon, i think there are probably multiple reasons why they didn't.

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

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to my mind, probably the biggest reason why we never saw a "grissom and sara have a kid" storyline in canon is that, particularly in the earlier seasons of the show, the showrunners tried not to focus too much on the characters' home lives.

though they would show the occasional "off the clock" scene here or there or every once in a while toss in some kind of love interest- or family-centric story beat, anthony zuiker and co. wanted the majority of the show's focus to be on the job—on the cases the csis investigated, the goings-on at the lab and in the field, the team's interactions with each other as colleagues, the team's interactions with other law enforcement professionals and people they met in connection to their cases, in the politics of the department, etc.

they were much stricter about this policy even than other procedurals of the time.

that's why we saw so little of grissom and sara's romantic relationship actually play out on screen—because tptb never intended to offer us anything more than just a small window into their personal lives outside of their careers.

and while of course grissom and sara having a kid (whether through sara getting pregnant or them deciding to foster and/or adopt) would definitely affect their working lives and could allow for some interesting storylines centered around the lab and in the field—for example, how might sara deal with the physical and emotional requirements of her incredibly demanding job while pregnant?, how might grissom and sara have to change their workaholic habits if they were to try to become foster or adoptive parents?, how might having a kid in the mix affect both grissom and sara's willingness to face the dangers inherent in their profession?, would becoming parents change the way they responded to certain cases?, etc.—that kind of storyline, just by its nature, would also probably require the show to spend more time at home with grissom and sara than the showrunners and writers ever really intended to.

narratively speaking, catherine having a school-aged kid to start out the show is one thing, while grissom and sara having a newborn or a brand new foster kid and becoming first-time parents would be something else entirely.

in catherine's case, her being a mom to an older kid from the get-go is a much more lowkey deal, not only because a kid at that age can mostly exist in an off-screen capacity except for in episodes where her presence is plot-relevant but also because it's an already-established fact.

catherine is a mother—and an experienced mother, at that—from the very first time we meet her; it's part of both her personal and professional identities from day #1. the baseline is there. there are no questions about it. no big blanks to fill in. she's already made the life-changing decisions. she's already entrenched in that role.

the same would not be true if grissom and sara were to have a kid.

because they were "first timers" (and especially because they had seemingly never aspired to parenthood previously), the show would have to answer questions with them—depict grissom and sara making the huge, life-altering decisions; reckoning with big emotions; figuring stuff out; working through their fears and hang-ups; adjusting to a monumental change in their lives; drawing together in new ways; changing and developing as characters and as a couple; establishing new patterns; etc.

the groundwork would need to be laid where the audience could see it being laid in real time, you know?

and laying that groundwork would require showing lots of private conversations between grissom and sara, trips to the ob's office or talks with the social worker, painting the nursery or putting up a swing set, making childcare arrangements, changing their lifestyle, etc.

my sense is that tptb never really wanted to go there.

that much focus on grissom and sara's home life would have been too distracting—too much of a serialized personal storyline that required attention in every episode, regardless of the "case of the day"—for their tastes.

now.

in theory, the "keep the focus on the job, not the home" rule is one tptb could have considered breaking, had they really wanted to.

after all, it was just a production choice, not actually any kind of hard and fast rule, so if they'd decided they wanted to go the "grissom and sara have a kid" route, they could have done so.

there's always the old flannery o'connor maxim: "it's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. you can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much."

however, another reason why i think they never chose to go the geek!baby route, beyond the "it goes against our sense of what our show is actually about" thing, is that, frankly, within the universe of the show itself, the timing for grissom and sara was never right.

grissom and sara don't even get together as a committed couple until s5/s6, so, barring a major deviation from what is now canon, they likely could not have had a child at any point prior to 2005/2006, just to start out with.

then their relationship remains a secret until the end of s7/beginning of s8, meaning that between 2006-2007, they're definitely not looking to have a kid and probably would be pretty averse to having one even were they to experience an unplanned pregnancy, just given the potential fallout where their jobs are concerned.

they would have to "come out" as a couple, and one or both of them might end up getting fired over it.

fast forward, and between s8 and s9, sara experiences a mental health crisis that eventually culminates with her moving away from vegas for the better part of two years from 2008 to 2009 while grissom remains behind—and by the time she's stable and moves back to vegas circa 2009/2010, grissom is then living abroad, and they're only seeing each other once a month via transatlantic commute.

back in the day, when sara first turned up in s10, i know there was some internet scuttlebutt that maybe at some point it would be revealed that in-between the events of episode 09x10 "one to go" (when last we'd seen them) and episode 10x01 "family affair" (when sara returns to vegas to "temp"), grissom and sara had had a "secret honeymoon baby."

however, such a revelation was never made—timeline-wise, it would have been a tight fit anyhow, as, within the universe of the show, episode 09x10 "one to go" takes place in january '09 and episode 10x01 "family affair" takes place in september '09—and neither did grissom and sara ever have a kid at any subsequent point.

with sara living in the states and grissom not, the likelihood that they would ever decide to expand their family steadily diminished as s10, s11, and s12 rolled on, both because they were getting older and because their marriage eventually ended up on the rocks.

cue the whole divorce debacle of s13, a few solid years of misery and loneliness in the interim, and by the time grissom and sara get back together/remarried in 2015, sara is forty-four years old and probably peri- or even full-on menopausal, and she and grissom are living a nomadic seafaring lifestyle, so the likelihood of them either having a biological child or fostering/adopting is incredibly low.

again, there was some speculation among fans—based on previous comments from showrunner anthony zuiker regarding his ideas for grissom and sara's post-"immortality" life at sea—that when the reboot rolled around, we would eventually get a "in the six years since we last saw them, grissom and sara have had a kid" reveal.

no dice, though.

s1 of csi: vegas ran its course with no secret boat babies anywhere.

all of the above being the case, there just weren't even that many points during the show's run when it would have made logistical sense for grissom and sara to have children together.

they were always either in a state of having to keep their relationship a secret for the sake of their careers or else of living apart from each other, and by the time they finally got all their shit together and were living in the same place on a full-time basis, sara was nearing the end of her prime childbearing years and they were living the kind of lifestyle where fostering/adoption would be next to impossible.

narratively-speaking, parenthood just was never in the cards for them.

of course, it's worth stating, the writers could have maybe swung a geek!baby storyline in the later seasons had they wanted to if they had just made the choice to move grissom back to vegas along with sara between s10 and s15. he wouldn't even have had to appear on-screen. sara would have just needed to reference him occasionally in dialogue and be shown to take phone calls from him at times, a "i'm meeting grissom for our first ultrasound appointment" here, a "he's been at home painting the nursery all morning. he put little ladybugs up the walls" there. they could have done a whole pregnancy storyline that way, and it would have given sara something to do during seasons when she is otherwise criminally underutilized. then maybe if they were lucky, they could have gotten billy to come back for a guest spot when it came time for the baby to be born. but, alas, such a storyline would have required them to imply depth, which is something they had no idea how to do.

—which brings us to the last big reason why i think the showrunners never had grissom and sara have children:

because, ultimately, they just never felt it was right for the characters.

as stated above, both grissom and sara have plenty of reasons, both individually and as a couple, based on their backgrounds and predilections and development, why they might never choose to pursue parenthood.

while there are certain very particular scenarios were i can imagine they might set those reasons aside, overcome their hang-ups and fears, and decide to "go for it" re: having kids, i also think it would take a lot of narrative work to get them there—that thread would be something the writers would have had to really develop, requiring more than a few "acts of god" and major plot interventions to make the idea seem feasible.

they could have done it if they really wanted to.

but in the end, i think they didn't feel any compelling need.

grissom and sara have been an unconventional couple from the get-go, and their development has been circuitous and unstraightforward. there have been many setbacks for them along the way and strange turns. they've definitely not done everything "by the book."

for them to have a somewhat "untraditional" happy ending—at least by primetime, network early 00s flagship couple tv standards—makes a good amount of sense.

they're not the "white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog" norman rockwell family, and i think tptb are very okay with that outcome.

they like the image of this middle-aged couple that found immense fulfillment in each other and in their shared work (whether as csis or conservationists) and never felt the need to look outside of those things in order to be happy.

that's not to say they might not have written things differently had some of the production realities of the show been different along the way—like, say jorja fox had never left the show during s8 and grissom and sara had been able to get married in vegas as planned while both still working at the lab or that billy had come back to the show with jorja between s10 and s15; maybe in those cases, they might have eventually decided to go for the geek!baby storyline after all—however, all things as they were, i think they were generally pretty comfortable with how things ended up in regards to grissom and sara remaining childless.

they had explored the notion of "csis as parents" as much as they cared to with catherine, warrick, and russell.

they didn't want to go there with grissom and sara.

and who knows? maybe there were other outside factors that influenced their decision to that end, like actor preferences or the difficulty of including infant actors in a complicated production such as theirs, etc.

suffice it to say, i think the showrunners' decision to keep grissom and sara childless was probably a multifaceted one.

the good news is, regardless of how things turned out in canon, we as fans can always play around with the geek!baby concept as much as we want to and in as many different permutations as we like.

i certainly have a lot of fun in my accidentsverse, imagining grissom and sara facing both the challenges and rewards of parenthood, and i know a lot of other fan authors who have their own takes on that idea, as well.

anyway.

rambling now.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.