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averseunhinged · 1 year ago

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klaroline fic rec friday #1, i guess? meant to start this up for months, but i'm verbose, and time management is hard.

fine china and dull silver by @yespumpkindoodlesthings

in my dotage, i've been less into the constant hardcore angst consumption of my youth and have pivoted slightly toward fluff. but i'm super picky and it can't be fluff for fluff's sake. like my favorite characters are usually some level of The Worst, and if they're going to gently bake a cake, it has to be a murder cake. if you know what i mean.

this is one of my favorite secret good blorbo fics in this fandom, as well as being a secret good season six. pumpkin doodles is great at a lot of things, but they're especially good at maintaining a certain level of assholery even while fluffing up the place. klaus and caroline are very sweet together in this, but they're still klaus (a complete dick, but he's trying) and caroline (anxious and overcompensating, but she's learning). they're filled with a lot of love, even as they power through some of the major plot points of s6.

it jumps off from friendsgiving, which was the point where i too was like oh fuck this show. it just felt like such a regression to s2 for caroline after her s5 character arc. she came so far and learned so much and suddenly we're back to the menfolk discussing whether she deserves to be loved despite her sin of, like, having some level of expectations for the people in her life.

as for klaus, his TO storylines are cleaned up pretty tidily at the beginning in a way that feels relatively natural without putting anyone through all of that. you understand his problems aren't gone, but having caroline around, someone whose moral compass he actually trusts, goes a long way with him.

and the rest of the ensemble is great, too. everyone still has their foibles (elijah is stiff, damon is irreverent, hayley doesn't care about anyone who isn't designated as pack/family, stefan lacks self awareness, etc.), but it's easy to swallow. everyone is still awful in their own ways, but it feels pleasant to read.

it also touches on the idea that caroline could be devastated that stefan would abandon her without having romantic feelings for him. he's her best friend. he saved her from all the people she should have been able to trust, but who wanted to kill her for something that wasn't her fault. he had faith in her and she put her faith in him. and the previous two times he disappeared off the face of the planet, it was because he was actively being harmed and came back all the worse off for it. it would be soul crushing to find out he gave up on her while she worried about him constantly. that's a much more interesting story,imo, than the watered down side romance it became.

small spoilers under the jump

my favorite part is when caroline figures out that she can't follow through on the impulse to turn her humanity off, because there's someone in her life who very much needs her to be present, who loves her and is notorious for holding onto the people he cares about so hard it can crush them.

“I can tell when you’re actually terrified,” she said. “You want me to stay because if I go off the rails, you go off the rails?”

“Something like that,” he said, noncommittally. He wasn’t going to tell her that he thought it would be uniquely dangerous if both of them abandoned Caroline’s moral code.

“Which makes me responsible for your behavior,” Caroline said.

“Someone has to be responsible for me,” he said. “Elijah’s really given up--and you’re so much more talented and energetic than he is, really.” She started to laugh and then her laughter turned to rough sobbing. He pulled the car over and wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m your tower of strength, huh?” Caroline said, through tears.

“Yes,” Klaus said quietly. “I need you.”

“I didn’t think anybody really needed me,” Caroline said.

he won't abandon her and he needs her to not abandon him, even when it would be easier, maybe even kinder in a way to let her turn it off.

#klaroline fic rec friday #there's verbose and then there's this #oops #fic recs

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usermischief · 1 year ago

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I like those “Stiles gets kicked out of the pack” fics, but I also find the premise a bit amusing because Stiles seems to be an essential part of the pack and occasionally functions as second-in-command (doesn’t even matter which alpha were talking about. He comes up with the plan to rescue Erica and Boyd, Derek trusted him with his Betas’ lives and believed Stiles could pull this off within hours; when things go down in the McCall pack, people go to Scott or they go to Stiles. Liam’s immediate response to learning his alpha was in danger in 5x01 was to rush off to get Stiles, the human of the pack, and he had enough faith in Stiles’ instincts to follow a guy for several hours in the woods and to speak to Stiles about his fears concerning Mason’s reaction to the werewolf thing). A giant running subplot in the Nogitsune arc is Noshiko saying Stiles was already dead and couldn’t be saved, and the pack going “all due respect, but fuck you. You can take your pessimism regarding his survival and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.” Even Allison, who wanted Derek and his pack dead less than a year prior and who is a hunter, responded to the revelation that Stiles was possessed and had put her sort of boyfriend in the hospital with “well, how do we get this evil spirit the hell out of Stiles” and actively sabotaged her father’s attempt to shoot Stiles, before she even knew for sure Chris would aim his gun at Stiles. If anyone in the pack suggested kicking Stiles out, the rest would be aghast at the idea and would shut that down immediately

Stiles getting kicked out of the pack is indeed a very wonderful trope. I adore it, especially if Stiles ends up becoming a badass and gets his (wo)man. Absolute perfection.

If anyone in the pack suggested kicking Stiles out, the rest would be aghast at the idea and would shut that down immediately

This part is actually pretty interesting because when Stiles is kicked out of the pack in canon, nobody is around to stop it.

(the rest is pretty ramble-y so I put it under the cut)

It seems impossible for Stiles to be kicked out of the pack because everyone has strong ties to him, it's interesting that Scott makes that decision alone during a crisis. Hayden is dying. Liam is beside himself with fear, and yet Scott dismisses Stiles without even listening to his side of the story... the person you wouldn't technically expect it from since we're supposed to believe their friendship is indestructible (which is honestly a whole other can of worms).

What's even more interesting to observe is that the second Scott kicks Stiles out of the pack, everything falls apart. Theo slips seemingly seamlessly into Stiles' now "open position" and pushes Scott to bite Hayden like Stiles would have done. Liam latches onto that, instantly turning against Scott — and attempting to kill him not too long after. (Kira has been gone for a while. Lydia will end up in Eichen House) Malia abandons the pack as well. She helps looking for Noah (the chimera) because it's helping Stiles and his dad. Other than that, the pack is only back together after Stiles drew the pack symbol into the dirt. Stiles even is the one actively pushing Scott to get the pack back together (as seen with Liam in ep.13 (?)).

Something similar, even if to a lesser extent, can be seen in 6a. Stiles has vanished, and Liam is off doing his own thing with his friends for a lot of the season (as far as I remember, I might be wrong since I only watched bits and pieces of s6). Liam even keeps Theo around even though Scott and Hayden told him not to simply because Theo remembers Stiles. Liam doesn't even remember Stiles, but he knows Stiles is important, so he decides to keep the guy around who killed his alpha, tore his pack apart, and was willing to kill Mason to get the power of the beast.

To be completely honest, looking at it from this perspective, Liam's relationship with Stiles is fascinating. Liam latches onto Stiles rather quickly despite Stiles being pretty rude to him in the beginning. But Stiles also jumps in-between him and Brett without a second thought, and Stiles gets his IED (even though his comment is quite crude). Liam talks to Scott about his werewolf-y issues, but he talks to Stiles about his personal stuff (like you mentioned, his friendship with Mason). While everyone doubts Stiles when it comes to Theo, Liam puts his trust in him and is even willing to fight Theo in the woods.

Teen Wolf didn't do much with the concept of pack bonds, but they tried to do so in s2/3 as well. Funnily enough, Derek's betas, especially Erica as well as Isaac to a certain degree, connect with Stiles as well. Stiles and Derek are a whole other story, but either way, it seems like most of the werewolf end up trusting Stiles with their lives and are willing to protect him even if their attacker wears Stiles' face.

#*answered.#teen wolf #stiles stilinski #liam dunbar

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mandy4ever69420 · 4 months ago

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in seasons 1-10 the only times mickey shows interest in topping (incomplete language - referring also to having sex with women) it's been an expression of psychological distress or being unsafe. this pattern emerged by coincidence mostly but fits pretty well also into mickey's casual tone leading people to not take him entirely seriously.

see: "my dad will kill me" - it sounds like hyperbole, because people say things like this as hyperbole, so ian assumes he must be at least slightly overreacting

especially when he refers to incarceration his casual tone laughs off "being somebody's bitch" and people don't tend to take prison, even child prison, as seriously as i think they should. mickey generally builds a pretty impressive defense mechanism against facing how scary things are by saying them straight up so people don't follow up. a lot of his plot involves the story asking you to take something seriously that he says as though it's a joke. this also has to do with the complicated maneuvers he has to do around the closet. when mandy says he only asks for "girl-on-girl porn" it did immediately occur to me that he'd found a non-gay way to ask for gay porn.

mickey's sleeping with women is another topic where he can mostly find it easy to look away from the hard parts of how it feels. technically speaking, none of the women he slept with did anything wrong. though it does feel relevant to note: we are introduced to the fact that mickey covers for himself by actually having sex with women (rather than implying it, or just bearding like ian and mandy) a literal single scene after he confronts a manipulative pedophile. in a similar piece of framing, we don't learn mickey is gay until after we've learned that his dad is a nazi

his deal with byron is kind of an outlier as the least outright sad occurrence of this, because he's not actively having THAT much of a meltdown. he is, however, making a very direct point, basically to ian's face. both ian and the viewer are made excruciatingly aware that this guy is not somebody mickey would ever seriously pursue. he does it to hammer home the point that he's never going to seriously want to pursue anybody BUT ian. mickey is immediately cognizant of the exact kind of self worth meltdown ian is having (because he's seen it before) and this time he's figured out the retrospectively obvious fact that the best way to get ian out of his own way is to just piss him off. when he tried making his devotion more obvious to reassure ian in s6 it just fed into ian's guilt complex about making mickey act like he loved him. byron is given the unfortunate hand of being picked out as a sort of a parody of everything mickey doesn't want in life. sorry dude.

i've said it before but to reiterate: the fact that mickey is making a strategic choice here doesn't negate that he's feeling vulnerable and hurt. he's just not one to linger on that sort of thing and prefers to move forward with gritted teeth. pragmatism in the most ridiculous dramatic way

i think there was a pretty good opportunity to tie all of this up^ with like a nice bow in 11.03 by either working with a "maybe the discomfort gained from a lifetime of being pressured into something i wasn't that into doesn't have to have power over me anymore even just once to prove my point with someone i do trust" angle OR by taking this from an potentially miss-able subtext into something more overt - if mickey's worrying about being the "man" is it an indication that something else is going on in his head that we need to worry about?

so it's just. infuriating to me that instead this episode is written like an intro to gay relationships. because we couldve been making points here people. nevermind that it barely sidestepped the slightly interesting "bottoming isn't womanly, and womanly isn't bad" there was much more potential there! well let's simply hope that framing mickey as making some sort of concession by regularly bottoming, whoever decided to write that isn't fucking anyone. because jesus christ

#completely different part of my opinion than what i had expected to come out. i am at the mercies of the train of thought #but at least i get to make a random dig at an unknown shameless writer and imply they are bad in bed. cue airhorns #txt #mickey

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lgcmanager · 2 years ago

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TRAINEE MISSION 011

SCHEDULE TYPE: TRIMESTER ( PART 1 OUT OF 1 ) SCHEDULE RESTRICTIONS: Cannot be paired with another trimester schedule, unless stated otherwise. for reference as to whether your muse is eligible for this event, please click over HERE.

back in 2022, the trainees had the (dis)pleasure of meeting LEE HYEMI, and seeing her walk through the doors today cannot mean anything good.

"i'm sure none of you hoped to see me again and the feeling is mutual. 2022 was the first year in a while since LGC ENTERTAINMENT had to deal with a dating scandal. coupling that with the... issues we ran into with some trainees earlier last year, my team has been putting overtime to vet all our artists and trainees. some might have noticed that following their dating news, DBSD'S SHIN and actress LEE HANBYUL have been laying low. even they have to weather the storm that such news creates. fortunately for them, SHIN is several years into his career and has more than enough shown that he's trustworthy and HANBYUL, while newer, has been in the industry for almost 3 years now and is a beloved rising star; she'll quickly get back on her feet and we'll be there to support her. which is something none of you can boast of. even the most popular trainee present today is far from rivaling HANBYUL’s popularity and public notoriety." she takes a pause. "we thought my intervention last year and what happened with SHIN and HANBYUL would make you all realize that this isn’t a game. but we were wrong. during our investigations we were baffled to learn about female trainees visiting male dorms, various clubbing antics and what seemed to be public dating. it's one thing hanging out with a friend here and there, it's another seeing same said friend many times over a short period of time. we've thought it through and realized that, perhaps, some of you just shouldn't be here... why even put the effort of tightening a leash if you do not take this seriously?" her cold gaze sweeps over the trainees present. "this is why BANG YOHAN, LI HALEY, SON HAEUN and YOO KIHA are now on probation. we do not wish to have any of you tarnish our reputation. therefore, you are barred from ANY public appearances, auditions and opportunities this trimester. and yes, this includes the CAFE PERFORMANCES. you will have the trimester to prove that you truly DESERVE to be here, and only then can we try to rebuild the trust we have lost in you."

after addressing the 4 trainees, she turns to specific people: "HALEY, this has cost you a place in FUTURE DREAMS, hopefully this knowledge is punishment enough for you." next she turns to YOHAN, clearly displeased with him. "YOHAN, you would've been pulled from the showcase, but we didn't want the other boys to suffer for your actions. however, it was embarrassing for us to have you stand in front of investors and industry professionals. while you are free to ruin your own debut chances, as well as other trainees', please don't drag your DEBUTED SUNBAE into your spiral of chaos. there's enough space in this building for you to meet HER somewhere that won't get HER in trouble. thank you.” another staff member arrives at the opportune time and after telling HYEMI some important news, she excuses herself and lets the staff member proceed by explaining the upcoming events for all of the trainees on her behalf.

due to the current circumstances, all of the trainees NOT participating in FUTURE DREAMS S6 will be doing the following for each month:

JANUARY: all of the trainees will be attending several additional workshops related to image maintenance. possible topics that they would cover during this time are: studying and discussing past scandals, what to do and not to do in various situations, participate in exercises to help decide what is deemed acceptable for sns posts, and how to act around their sunbaes and hoobaes ( along with knowing WHO their sunbaes are ). at the end of the month, the trainees will be given two written exams; the first is knowing what is acceptable to do under different situations and the second is knowing legacy’s senior artists, their major accomplishments, and the songs and projects they’ve participated in ( by legacy senior artists, we mean the groups that are currently active [ type zero, v&a, crystallis, fabula, lgc girls, lgc boys ] AND the npc artists [ blazing, dbsd, haru ] ).

FEBRUARY: all of the MALE trainees will be cleaning the interiors of the legacy building after their training is done. during SATURDAYS ( FEBRUARY 4, FEBRUARY 11 ), the MALE trainees will then help with legacy’s kitchen and prepare the ingredients needed to make the meals for the café. then on the remaining SATURDAYS of the month ( FEBRUARY 18, FEBRUARY 25 ) they will be helping carry coal briquettes to the low-income families in a village nearby. as for the FEMALE trainees, after training, all of them will be cleaning the snow on the curb. during SATURDAYS ( FEBRUARY 4, FEBRUARY 11 ) they will be carrying groceries and delivering them to the elderly and people with reduced mobility in the areas near legacy. then on the remaining SATURDAYS of the month ( FEBRUARY 18, FEBRUARY 25 ) they will be spending their time inside the legacy kitchen and organize all of the ingredients and products that they receive that day to their respective locations.

MARCH: all of the trainees will be focusing on working on their weakest skills ( singing, dancing, rapping [ if the muse has points in it ], acting, modeling, korean, and english ) throughout this month. rather than having FREE TRAINING like the trainees normally would, they will be replaced with workshops and practices on the trainee’s WEAKEST skill. at the end of the month, each trainee will be evaluated on their weakest skill by one of the coaches to see if they have improved within the past month. for SINGING, DANCING, RAPPING, and ACTING, each of the trainees will be asked to have a performance ready for it. with MODELING, the trainee will be given a random product ( ex. shampoo, water bottle, notepad, bucket, etc. ) in which they will have to advertise and convince the coaches to ‘buy’ the product. while for KOREAN and ENGLISH, they will be asked to make a presentation about one of their favorite skills/hobbies in the language that they are working on.

and just like before, all of the trainees will be required to write journal entries pertaining to their experiences and hand the journal to their coaches at the end of every week for them to read and review through.

REQUIREMENTS

TRAINING SESSIONS: write a 4 replies (minimum 8 lines) with another trainee of the same gender about anything related to the image maintenance workshops ( january ) OR the weakest skills workshops ( march ). completing this will earn you +10 POINTS TO THE WEAKEST SKILL CHOSEN ( SINGING, DANCING, RAPPING, ACTING, MODELING, KOREAN, ENGLISH ) ! ** can be done up to two times, as long as it is with different partners **

VOLUNTEERING: write a 300+ word solo or a 4 replies (minimum 8 lines) with another trainee of the same gender about the volunteering experience. completing this will earn you +6 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE !

JOURNAL ENTRY: write a 300+ word journal entry solo ( this will have to be from the character’s point of view ) talking about anything related to the above. this can include their volunteer experience, struggling with the workshops, etc. do note that whatever is written in the journal entry WILL BE seen by the coaches. completing this will earn you +5 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE !

make sure to use the hashtag lgc:traineemission for all of the tasks. you have until MARCH 18, 2023 at 11:59PM EDT to complete the requirements and validate your points. please submit the following form ONCE on the points blog.

MUSE NAME ∙ TRAINEE MISSION 011

- TRAINING SESSIONS: +10 ( singing, dancing, rapping, acting, modeling, korean, OR english ) [ LINK ] ** can be done twice ** - VOLUNTEERING: +6 ( skill points distribution ) [ LINK ] - JOURNAL ENTRY: +5 ( skill points distribution ) [ LINK ]

#lgc:event #lgc:q12023 #lgc:traineemission

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strapinandstraponyourstrapons · 2 years ago

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really really appreciate this post bc discussing these characters in detail is what a lot of us come here for and you spoke to some thoughts shared by me! there is absolutely something so much more significant about the way theo betrayed the pack that makes their feelings against him make sense. not only that he tore them apart but in my opinion showing them some of the worst parts of themselves in the process. he opened wounds that may never close.

he abused liam's emotional disorder, forcing liam to confront the fact that he might be closer to killing someone he cares about than he had ever previously worried. he even broke trust between scott and stiles, the two inseparable best friends who have trauma bonded through hell and back. to find the insecurities in stiles of not being good enough and the suspicion in scott fucking mccall of all people for his best friend, and wrench those two things to the surface... theo done fucked them up. real bad.

the last straw with season five theo, at least for me, is what he does to lydia with so absolutely little regard for her humanity. it's beyond fucked up and it's supposed to be, because the veil has completely been lifted and we're left reeling in horror at this person that scott pretty much let into the pack.

that's where my opinion sorta diverges. because while the pack's attitudes towards theo, who is literally their abuser (love him, but he was) after everything are justified in my eyes, the skinwalker prison thing is a little intense. of course, it's teen wolf and it's probably stupid to think so deeply about it because they were improvising more than half this shit season by season, because that's tv babyyyy. to be honest, my issue with the treatment of theo's character in retrospect has to do with the way he is dehumanised in the eyes of the text, which is a complex thing to begin to get into because he's SUPPOSED to be dehumanised... until he's not.

let me backtrack.

cody christian in his interviews around season five era would always talk about making theo into a character who pushed everybody's buttons and made everybody fucking enraged at him. and that's apparent in the show itself as well. it seems that s5 theo, for the most part, is really a totally evil villain when you get down to it, just that he masquerades as not being one first. and that depiction of him only changes in season six when the audience is let behind the veil to see him suffer and to see him make attempts to change.

it's different with argent or deucalion. they don't necessarily get redemption arcs, they just stop trying to kill scott and work with him instead, and that's enough. with theo, there is a need to compensate for how heartlessly he was depicted in the previous season before the audience can feel sorry for him. s5 theo is NEVER presented sympathetically when we learn anything real about him. whether it's tara's death or the knowledge that he's been with the dread doctors this whole time, we're not really offered the reading that he has suffered. he's described as the kid who would kill his sister at nine years old. we're basically led to believe that this kid was so inherently evil as a literal child that he couldn't possibly have suffered any worse than he deserved with the dreads because it seems like it SUITED him. and this is the reading offered because we are NOT supposed to feel sorry for s5 theo. he is a pretty one dimensional character when you peel back his layers. he is supposed to push our buttons and make us enraged and make us want somebody to do something about it already. he's the guy in old timey plays you would boo and throw your food scraps at when he appears on stage.

where this reading comes into conflict is with its audience, who happen to be professionals at practising empathy for "monsters" and know a broken boy when they see one. theo's return in s6, in my opinion, caters to a fan response demanding more moral ambiguity than any villain arc jeff davis can cook up on the fly. and this is where sending him to hell starts to look (to me, at least) not only excessively cruel, but just kind of a stupid plot device in hindsight. to be honest, my thinking when kira said the iconic line and smashed her sword into the ground, went something like:

"oh fuck yeah kira is being a badass and doing something to hurt this asshole, and he sucks and deserves it, woohoo, finally, yeeeeahhh haha... wait... what is... oh... did she just kill him?? what did she... it kinda looks like she just killed him. or worse? can she do that? oh... so we're not gonna establish what she just did to him, just gonna move right on from kira possibly executing a fellow teenager? scott have anything to say? no? just me? .....................yeah it's probably fine"

like you have to admit for the pack that doesn't kill anyone, kira running off to the skinwalkers (who can only be described as fae-like in alignment because you don't know what they're thinking or intending, basically ever, but you just know you get a sinister vibe more or less than half the time) and returning with a weapon of karmic justice or some shit that determines theo worthy of eternal damnation in a metaphysical prison of his own remorse, it's um.... an interesting twist, for sure.

(also just want to note that the way "karmic" is used in that sentence by me is based on the western appropriation of the concept of karma which is very much different to its original meaning, and apologies for that, but it seemed like the best term to express my meaning and also thematically correct to use given the sheer amount of blatant cultural appropriation by the shows creators in writing both kira and the skinwalkers)

like damn. the most they've done to anyone else in the past is like, physically disable them, which is already fucked up.

other than being kind of deeply unhinged when you think about it for more than a few seconds (like were they really gonna leave him in there for... ever??? did kira even know what exactly she did??? seems like they were content not to think about it (except for a certain beta who might need very much, after recent destabilisation in his sense of personal goodness, to believe that even monsters can be saved but that's another conversation)) it clearly serves an anticipated need in the audience to witness a satisfying demise of the character they, hopefully by that point, hate so much. and in my opinion they were very right to anticipate that, just chose to do it sooooo extremely weirdly. but eh. teen wolf.

where it runs into conflict is with our s6 reading of theo. when most of us start feeling squishy feelings for theo (other than practising enough empathy to feel a little bit sorry for how sad we imagine his past is, or how desperately we see him struggling for a pack even though he does it in an evil way and is literally a character designed for us to hate) it's in those moments we see him suffering. we see his remorse about his sister's death in his hell loop and we see him trying to live in his car, feeling so lonely that he doesn't mind a spider crawling on him, dealing with it all by himself when that spider c r a w l s under his skin (fucking ew), and still hesitating to call scott for help. what we're really seeing is him finally being humanised by the text. the reality is that he was suffering the whole time. he was having moments of weakness. he was terrified out of his mind. he was trying to escape his abusers and doing whatever he had to do to anyone else to get himself out of there. we just weren't shown, because we weren't meant to look at those parts of him.

s5 theo, if you extrapolate my logic, is treated by the writing the same way he's treated by the dread doctors. he is a monster, specifically designed to be evil and do bad things until he meets his end and probably fucking dies with nobody feeling sorry for him except people who have the hots for cody christian. it's his narrative purpose. this is what's complex about villains in fiction because villainy is subjective, and we are supposed to see things entirely from the pack's perspective where theo is an absolutely malicious, unfeeling, "less than human" being... until we're not. and then after that, it begins to feel more malicious in hindsight that he was ever presented so one-dimensionally. why was his humanity, his fear and suffering and struggle with what he did, not something he was allowed to express before? why were we only able to see him when he was playing the role of the monster?

it's not that deep because it's a bunch of probably burnt out creatives under a lot of time pressure to make a show interesting enough to be watched by a lot of people... except it kinda is. because empathy is my favourite human trait, and the way people exercise it in response to things like this is the fucking best!!! everything given to you by the text in season five plays on your empathy for the people theo hurts and pits you against him, and STILL most people at least spare a thought for what might have led theo to this point. season six feels like a reward for casting that empathy blindly at a nebulous unknown that may or may not deserve it, because we finally get our feelings vindicated by seeing the person hurting behind the caricature of evil. the amount of fics out there that explore this without minimising the abuse theo inflicted upon the different pack members and how it affected them is one of my favourite things about being in this fandom.

anyway.

...sorry? no idea what this post turned into. thank you for unknowingly prompting me to rant about my special interest for a bit. and for offering your perspective. it's always the best thing to see the different ways people interact with the same piece of media! hope you're having a great day🔥🖤🔥

Unpopular opinion:

What Theo did to the pack was worse than whatever Peter or any other villain did

Hear me out...

A lot of people talk about how Theo didn't deserve going to hell and that the pack forgave Peter and Deucalion (both of them tried to kill them more than once) but never truly forgave Theo and how it is not fair but I think they are forgetting that Theo didn't only try to kill them.

He planned the whole thing. He found every member's weakness and used it. He ripped the pack apart from the inside. He turned them all against each other and tried to take Scott's place as the Alpha. We don't really know what it did to the pack bonds.

Until Theo and even after him the pack could rely on each other. When Peter tried to kill them they had someone watching their backs. When Deucalion came along they could fight him off because they were together.

With Theo pulling the strings...

Theo killed his sister when he was nine years old and then spent a decade with the Dread Doctors, working for them, killing for them, bringing kids to them so they can turn them to chimeras. I think he was looking for the way out and he did so the only way he knew.

In the scene when Theo kills Scott you can see how much he hates the True Alpha. He is everything Theo never got a chance to be. He is a cheap knock-off of the supernatural creature, not even his heart is his own. He is a creature made from hate and rage and with his skills the pack couldn't just let him go. No one knows just how many packs he ruined before coming to Beacon Hills.

Don't get me wrong, I know the hell changed him. When Liam brought him back, it became clear that all he wanted to do was survive.

Scott couldn't save Theo because Theo would never let him. He resent him. In his eyes Scott was a do-gooder that didn't know anything about suffering.

Liam was the one who showed and taught him different ways. The beta with angry issues was one of the few people from the pack that knew how it feels to have the beast crawling at your skin and still chose to be good. So, Theo learnt.

I think that the pack forgave Theo eventually. Maybe it took years after the war or maybe he was forgiven even before Monroe fled Beacon Hills but I don't think they ever truly trusted him again. In their eyes he will always be a wild card. They don't know anything about his time with the Doctors and I think they don't even want to ask. Theo might become a pack ally, maybe even part of the pack, but he will never be truly trusted because what he was capable of doing and probably still is capable of doing and just chooses not to, makes him unreliable.

I hope this makes sense...

#teen wolf #theo raeken #thiam #teen wolf headcanons

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kyescurls · 2 years ago

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4, 11, and 14!

Ah, okay so here it goes:

4. What character has your opinion on changed the most?

Hm, that's a bit tricky, considering all of them have grown so much in the series-- even some of the more minor characters! But i'd have to say Butters or Kyle.

My reasoning for Butters comes from his overall presentation of his character. Towards the very beginning of SP, it was quite obvious that Butters was more of the naive type, and he was more easy-going and trusting of others. Alot of people will say that he's "stupid", but I personally don't think so because while he doesn't always understand half the shit that is being implied, he's got these really ingenious ideas and is super creative, which makes me believe it's more of an overly-sheltered naivety than it is him actually being dumb. It's also possibly that naivety comes from a place of abuse as he didn't (doesn't) understand boundaries and when people are mistreating him vs. protecting him. His parents are abusive with how they parent weather intentionally or now, and it's common/likely for kids who experience this type of parenting (trauma) from an early age to either be incredibly oppositional to authority figures/peers/etc. or be overly-dependant on others. In both cases, there is a lack of boundaries and an inability to see/understand when others mean harm vs. help, which I think is why he's not particularly dumb. This also goes along with why I believe he's changed. Around S6 is when he started to become more aware of others intentions and began to be more oppositional towards others. He created an alter-ego for himself -Professor Chaos- in my opinion not as a way to actually "cause mayhem" in a seeking of revenge, but actually as a way to seperate himself from the "bad guy" aka oppositional behaviors he has that he'd know would get him into trouble with his parents (who again, intentionally or not are abusive) vs. his co-dependant self and behaviors that are less likely to get him in trouble. TFBW put a stop to the alter-ego in general: not only because Butters most likely realized that it wasn't a proper separation attempt after his dad grounded him, but also because TFBW release ended the superhero/supervillian arcs as it was the final conclusion to the kids games (plus Matt and Trey probably wanted to work on new projects for SP). In more recent seasons (s19-current), while he still can be somewhat naive he's also become more increasingly aware of others bad intentions and when someone wants to harm vs. help you. In the episodes "Weiner's Out" and "Going Native" he is actively more cognizant of others intentions and motives (and his own), as well as goes from being more naive/co-dependant to more oppositional in character and does switch-offs between the two. He's actually pretty complex, which is interesting as he's not a main character and seems to have only start off as a side/comic relief character. And with the "Post-Covid Special", seeing the intelligent and creative but morally/mentally/emotionally conflicted Victor Chaos proves these points, but also shows he has a lot more growth to do as a character in show-- which I find super exciting.

My reasoning for Kyle comes from more recent seasons. While yes, Kyle's character has been steadily developing since the very beginning of the show, mainly due to him being a main character, in the more recent seasons (s19-current) that growth/change has skyrocketed. While Kyle has always had good morals/values, he's sometimes struggled with understanding the grey-areas or good v. bad when it comes to situations these morals/values come into play since the very beginning of the show (which is typical for a young child, hence the "I learned something today" bit he'd say towards the end of episodes). He also was always quick to rile-up where Cartman was concerned, but it was never unreasonable and was very specific to the situation and was an understandable reaction to Cartman's being an ah. Something I've noticed though is that since s19 he's been struggling in almost every episode with being unable to see grey-areas of situatuions, and he tends to put everything into a very black-and-white viewpoint. His judgement of situations seems to be lacking more often then not-- especially morally, going against his own values sometimes with his actions/behaviors. He then goes and tries to convince others (and himself) that he's making the right choices but logic doesn't always make sense or his reasoning isn't normal for the situation. He's also more easily agitated/anxious and is increasingly emotionally volatile not just towards Cartman, but even towards Stan and Kenny. I actual have a rant-ish post from yesterday that anyone can check out, that has a bit of why I think what I'm going to say next, as well as I can definitely give more explanation and reasoning if asked, but I genuinely think Kyle's struggling with untreated mental illness or (more likely) is showing early warning signs of it as he's still (technically) a child. Specifically, I think possibly BPD/Bipolar 2 or something along those lines (as well as OCD, for other reasons I'm not listing here) but it's concerning the rapid change in character and just how conflicted he is. Clearly in the show, it's bothering him that he's not making cognizant choices as he constantly is seeking approval from others (specifically Stan) and is uneasy when people point out the flaws in that logic trying to figure out why it doesn't make sense to them when it makes perfect sense in the moment to him. It's the same with the emotional dysregulation as it's a direct correlation to his lack of moral judgement/reasoning. Of course, I could be reading may too much into this and this is just him growing up and having more difficulties because he's entering prepubensce in the show just like all the main characters (also, I might be projecting w/o realizing it), but because South Park is on a weird, outstretched timeline (which makes the kids more mature than if they where irl people letting them go through/create more adult situations as well as because they're cartoons anything can fucking happen -within context- so it makes it super plausible that a 10 y.o. cartoon character could develop/be diagnosed with mental illness-- also because the kids have been seen all grown up in Post-Covid Special it gives the fandom flexibility to age up or play with future context for characters but that's a completely different unrelated conversation) I wouldn't count it out because of that. But again, I briefly explain my reasoning about why I think this in another post you cn look at or you can ask for more detail.

11. What ship was your first favorite? How do you feel about it now?

My first favourite ship was Bunny (ButtersxKenny). I obviously still have my user for this blog as a comemeration to it, as it was the ship that got me interested in SP (again) in the first place. I wasn't really a big fan of South Park growing up -only watched it every once in a while- but I did have a favourite character (two, actually) and it happened to be Butters (and Kenny). Back in 2018 a friend of mine was re-watching some South Park episodes after I finished up with the dance club (I was a junior in hs and had just taken over for my friend b/c she couldn't run it anymore-- school clubs where runned/hosted by students since it wasn't a traditional hs) and he asked if I wanted to watch with him and I agreed because I like it and was bored. Well, the episode he was watching happened to be "Going Native" and I pretty much just... attached myself to it. Instantly started watching SP everyday, figuring out what i'd missed, and Bunny became my favourite because there was an actual ship for my two favourite characters and "Going Native" was essentially a Bunny episode-- they weren't "together" but mfer it seemed like it and I'm sticking to that.

Anyways, as I started re-watching things from the beginning and then newer seasons I 2019, I started shifting my favourite ship to Style because:

Kyle is my favourite character now and thus every ship involving Kyle (besides Kyman-- nothing against it personally, if you love it that's great and more power to you, but I was deeply traumatized as a child and also had a shit-experiance with a boy I liked who was similar in personality to Cartman which lead to a physical assult by him and his friends when I was 11 and his main justification was I was a "stupid, filthy jew" who "needed to learn his place and shut his mouth" so that makes it hard for me to appreciate the ship on any level. Again, if you ship it more power to you, I don't have ill-will towards you or the ship as it's a valid ship and your like towards it is valid, I just personally have hesitation with shipping something like that.

Stan and Kyle just have this dynamic that makes it so, so easy to blur the lines between friend/lover. It makes it always seem like they love each other-- like their more to their relationship and the fact that I can prove these things with facts/reasons/events/situations between them and not just theories/headcanons makes me so much more invested.

I'm a sucker for the bestfriends-to-lovers trope. Maybe it's cause i'm homoromatic demisexual and can't/won't be intimate unless said dude is deeply connected to me emotionally which usually only happens when they're on the staus of close/best friend and can't see it working any other way, or the fact i'm a bit romantic in the sense that I want the love to always last forever and have a idealic sense that if i'm with someone I consider my best friend it'll last forever. Whatever the case, Style/Stanky fits this box and thus has become my absolute favourite SP ship.

Obviously, Bunny is still on my top 3 list but it's not my "favourite" anymore.

14. You get to pick one minor character to have a spinoff devoted to them. Who is it?

Okay, so while Butters is technically not a main character he's not a minor character either as he's prominent in the show so he's out (but i'd pick him if it was an option). I would say probably Leslie or Heidi.

I would pick Leslie because I need to know how she became an AI, how she got to South Park, what the fuck happened to original Leslie, and why tf she pick Kyle to prey on? LIke I know that she also was trying to use Jimmy, but she eventually just went with Kyle and I need to know what was it about him (and Jimmy too)? Some of this is kinda explained briefly at the end of the episode but it's not-- it's not enough for me. I need to have a more definitive explanation and a mini-spinoff would do that.

I would also be cool with a mini-spinoff for Heidi because she wasn't okay. Not just when she was dating Cartman but before that. He chose Heidi because she was vunerable-- that's what abusers (weather they know they are abusing others or not) do. They choose people who are vulnerable emotionally, mentally or physically as a way of controlling someone-- it's easier to do if that person is more vulnerable in some aspect of their life. So I need to know why or what made her so vulnerable, made her attracted to him, etc. as well as why tf her friends threw her under the bus so fast-- like, even if she went with Cartman and wasn't listening to them telling her it was a shit idea I can't imagine the girls just abandoning her like that so quickly. It's odd af. For the boys it's more understandable as they weren't close and are used to Cartman being abusive so it doesn't seem like a big deal (except Kyle who fucking saw it or what it was-- I have theories about why and NONE of them are about him liking Heidi), but the girls? It's off and I know it's fast plot since it was only a season dedicated to it but it just wasn't fully explained from Heidi's standpoint and i'd like to know more more in depth than what was told in s20-21. I also want to know how Heidi is doing now and what's going on with her friendships since they completely disappeared her character after that. She's my favorite SP girl so I'd just like some more updates/info on her and who she is/was before and after. It'd give me closure tbh.

Oh god I made this long af i'm so sorry 😬😭

#south park asks #south park #meme reply #sp ask meme #i almost never get asks when I repost these lmao #and your the op too which makes me feel special #op noticed me #i've been noticed #😂😂😂#but in all seriousness this was fun #thanks for asking!

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ajoblotofjunk · 4 years ago

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Sorry for the unsolicited ask, but I remember seeing you said that Ned Stark was Lawful Neutral. What DnD alignments do you see for the rest of the characters at the beginning of their journeys and where they are now in the books? Also, what should have the TV adapted from the book and what should the book series take from the TV’s changes and pitfalls?

Hi! I love unsolicited asks, no apologies necessary. :)

I’m going to pick a handful of some of the more interesting-to-me POV characters since it’s been a minute since I did a book re-read and also there are a ton of characters in this story. So. If there’s someone in particular you were hoping for, you can ask!

Ned Stark - Lawful-neutral from start to finish, ALTHOUGH. I think Ned’s great tragedy is that at the very end he bent and it didn’t do shit for him anyway. He still was killed, because he’d gone too far and he was too unwilling to bend when he had more power. Also my first D&D character ever was a LN gnome fighter and I just have a lot of feelings about LN fighters.

Catelyn Stark - Here’s a hot take: I think Cat is True Neutral at the beginning, and then when things start to happen to her family she slips a bit into Neutral-Evil, with the selfishness focused around her pain and her family’s well-being. (There’s an argument to be made that she’s chaotic-good/chaotic-neutral but I think Cat feels more strongly about authority than that suggests.)

Arya Stark (yes, my secret is out: I am a Stark fan) - Arya is very chaotic-good at the beginning of the story and where we’ve left her, I think she’s chaotic-neutral and poised on a tipping point where she could slip to chaotic-evil but I think she’s gonna go back to CG. Maybe True Neutral, but I don’t see her becoming the true Faceless Man archetype that requires in the books (in the show I think she did become TN).

Cersei Lannister - I think Cersei is Lawful-Evil, because Tywin is Lawful-Evil and she thinks she’s female Tywin. In reality she’s probably Neutral Evil, especially where we’re at in the books, though she still lets herself be bound by authority in a way that suggests she might still be LE.

Tyrion Lannister - Okay here’s the thing. I don’t like Tyrion. Which, if you’ve read my fics, is probably not a surprise to discover. I liked him in the early books! But as he’s gone on I’ve liked him less and less and now he just annoys the crap out of me in ASOIAF. I think Tyrion was probably True Neutral at the beginning; honestly there’s an argument that he might’ve been Neutral-Good, but he’s definitely Neutral-Evil now, MAYBE Chaotic-Neutral if I were being generous with him. Which I am not.

Jaime Lannister - Jaime has had I think the biggest alignment shift out of anyone in the entire series. I think he started life as Lawful-Good, and then when the authority he trusted betrayed him, he shifted to an outward Chaotic Neutral/inward Chaotic Good that’s struggling to reassert itself. I think where he’s at now in the series is transitioned into that Chaotic Goodness more outwardly, and I think by the end of the series he’ll be fully CG, POSSIBLY Neutral Good but I’m not sure I see him making that shift completely.

Brienne of Tarth - Brienne is maybe my all-time favorite character of anything ever, so I have a lot of Opinions about her and this one I hold dear: I think a lot of fandom thinks she’s Lawful-Good, but I think she’s Neutral-Good. She is extremely driven by keeping her promises, but not, IMO, because of the weight of authority but because of the weight of her own moral beliefs in making a promise. She wants to do good because it’s the right thing to do, not because any oaths she takes tell her to. It’s why she was willing to hear Jaime out about what he did to Aerys when others (like Ned) wouldn’t - because she recognizes that good is the choice, not the oath. BECAUSE HERE’S THE DEAL. If Brienne were Lawful-Good, she would have stayed and married someone on Tarth. But she’s not. So she didn’t. I think she will retain her Neutral-Goodness through the series. I could see her slipping to maybe Chaotic-Good, but honestly I think she’ll stay NG/return to NG by the end.

I am very curious if people disagree on any of these (even Brienne!) so discussion encouraged. :)

Whew, that was pretty long. And I still have more of this question to answer! So the rest I’m putting under a Keep Reading cut.

What should have the TV adapted from the book and what should the book series take from the TV’s changes and pitfalls?

This is a really complicated question, and I really like it, but I’m not sure I feel confident answering it.

I think the TV show suffered from trying to refine an unfinished story to its core themes without knowing where George was going to end (except I guess with Bran as King?). I used to think that the choices they made about what they left out where telling - all of the Targaryen nonsense limited just to Dany and not any of the other stuff, for instance - but given the finale, I think D & D both hyperfocused only on keeping the main points they needed for what they saw as the end while also only paying off the bones of what they’d adapted from the first three books and didn’t have room for the ways GRRM expanded the story after the third book nor for the ways his end will probably be more complicated than the one they were limited to by it being a TV finale.

All of which is to say: I would have loved them to adapt the Lady Stoneheart arc, particularly for Brienne, but that D&D had no idea how to make that work within the confines of what their limitations both of what they’d chosen to focus on previously and TV, and so I understand why they didn’t. I would have loved, as well, to have more depth and see more of the Dorne arc with Arianne and Myrcella and Tristan, but that adds a whole season’s worth of episodes that the show just could not absorb. The show was forced to choose early to focus on the Starks and the Lannisters, with Dany as a third party, and they never were able to sway from that.

If I were starting over from scratch, I would have to have a long talk with GRRM and figure out what his point is, and work backward from there. I don’t get the sense D & D worked backward from anything but the Red Wedding.

(To be honest, if I were writing the show, I’d do everything the same up to season 6, at which point I’d separate Jaime and Cersei, and make it all about setting up the War of the Five Queens in s6, then we deal with the threat of the White Walkers as a serious, full-season arc for season 7, and then spend season 8 paying off the Queens War and ending with whatever thematic ending it is GRRM is going toward (humans are the ultimate monsters! Women make it work! Women fuck it up just as badly as the men did! Democracy for everyone! Peace is tentative and must be fought for in a tense standoff that all of these older, weary women now understand! Which is what I would have chosen. heh.)

As for the other way, what do I think GRRM should learn from the show. I mean I love the tent scene and would love to see something like that adapted somehow to the books (when Jaime comes to Winterfell to fight, would be my personal suggested placement; imagine the drama and romance!). I think GRRM could also stand to learn from streamlining to key characters and plots, which is what I hope he’s doing in TWOW. But where we’re at in the story in the books is so different from where the show went that I think it’s hard to make any specific suggestions. Mostly I just really want him to look at the story he’s telling and understand it, and recognize that it may have changed certain endings he may have considered previously before his story unfolded itself and he realizes that Jaime and Brienne living on Tarth can be the sweet part of the bittersweet. Ahem.

#asoiaf #game of thrones #meta #jaime x brienne #sort of #this got long whew #long post #asks answered #anonymous

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sketch--booked · 4 years ago

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i think you’ve seen s6 right? could i get a rant (or just ur thoughts) abt the misfortune’s keep crew? they don’t get much love but i wanted to know what you thought of them

My guy,, I’ve made a whole AU where these guys are a main focus, you think I don’t love the Misfortunes Keep crew??

(And yes, I’ve seen every season at least twice now haha,, I’ve probably watched season 6 now like--three timesghjgh)

The misfortunes keep crew, MKC because I’m lazy, were wooonderful. I love each of them and their personalities and how they bounce off of each other.

(First, I wanna say that I loved how they all, mostly, came to rise against Nadakhan after he didn’t need them anymore, and how they all chose to fight for what’s right.... THIS GOT ERASED THANKS TO J A Y,,, My children had such lovely arcs and that just whoop gone,,,)

Now onto my opinions on the actual crew.

Clancee is just an absolute baby and I think he has some confidence issues of self-confidence problems. He’s jittery but generally nice. He really only joined the MKC because he felt like he didn’t belong to the serpentine, which is something that really hits to home. I’m sure a lot of people have felt that way in their lives at least once and it was really nice to see that, although his position wasn’t the best, he still felt needed on the crew. He enjoyed being there even if he was just the around cleanin’ the place. It’s what made him happy.

He was also the nicest (most of the time) to Jay when he was captured, because they were actually vary similar. And he was also one of the first to see that maaayybe Nadakhan aint so great after all.

Doubloon was fun because we hadn’t really had many enemies that knew spinjitzu at the time S6 came out, and it was nice to think about how he came to learn it. I also like how it shows another side to Nadakhan kinda. Since yes, Doubloon was trying to steal from him, but Nadakhan was still impressed by his ability and took him on board.

Which either makes me think that Nadakhan did genuinely have a soft spot for em and his crew, or he was truly using them all as a means to an end, even before they were known pirates. He’s the mute, freakin cool, badass mo fo of the crew and I like em.

Dogshank is wonderful all across the board. I found it so funny that she’s freakin huge and could easily whip yo ass faster the the weekend---Her interactions with Nya always made me laugh because I feel like, under different circumstances, Dogshank would easily be able to fit in the “girls club” with like--Skylor, Pixal. She always wanted to be the best at whatever she did, and stand out in a crowd.

So Nadakhan took that literally of course and she got turned into the ninjago kulk. I do like though, how she embraced it and straight up enjoys throwing people across roomsjghgj. She’s a true role model ✊😔

Monkey Wretch I often forget about, but I love how sassy he iskhjgkjh. the knowledge he wasn’t always a monkey though makes me kinda sad. He’s a genius, and a primate,, But he’s damn good at what he does. There isn’t much I can say on em, Since he doesn’t speak and he’s pretty much the animal sidekick of the crew, but I don’t doubt that he probably wishes he could be human again, and holds some resentment against Nadakhan. But considering he made the Misfortunes Keep, he stays.

(fun fact, at this point, i accidentally closed the tab and nearly lost literally all of thisjjjgj)

And last, but not least (the OG crew, considering), good ol’ Flinty, or Flintlocke. God I can’t express how much I love Flinty. He went from being Nadakhan’s trusted second in command, to being thrown off the backseat and betraying him. How you could slowly see him beginning to believe Jay, and that spark of hope you have when you think he’s going to help Jay escape. Then when he looses his ability to shoot, it all comes crashing down.

He was defined, in the MKC, as the long-shot-shooter with impeccable aim. But when that’s gone, what is he? Is he really useful to Nadakhan now? What if Jay was right, and Nadakhan doesn’t need him anymore?

Flinty had made himself into his own weapon, and lost his confidence because of a seed of doubt. So the moment he gains that confidence back, not from Nadakhan, but from the people he thought were his enemies, he has a new reason to trust again and helps them. I just feel bad though, because although he hit Nadakhan with the poison, he also hit Nya. And because of that, all his development was wiped away.

I like the MKC, they were entertaining, they were scary when they needed to be, and the were ruthless. But what I find the saddest thing, is that after they had all been brought together again, they had all expected to go back to the old days. Sailing as one big family with Nadakhan leading them through storms, and stealing whatever they wanted. They all had reasons to put trust into each other and when Nadakhan was imprisoned in the teapot, and they were all lost from each other. They just lost their family.

Which is why I lead onto Nadakhan. He always wanted more and had no restraint when it came to having the biggest loot pile, but he had his crew. And he had Delara. Nadakhan likely did reciprocate that familial feeling and Delara’s affections, and probably did tricked them in the beginning, but they were generally happy anyways. Which makes his betrayal so painful. They joined him because of what he promised them, they got all that they wanted because of Nadakhan.

He left his home and his father for adventure and love, so when he returned only to see it crumbling. That was his breaking point. He had gained so much in Ninjago but lost his home and everything he held dear. And that’s when he decided to rebuild his home and he would do anything to achieve that. Nadakhan didn’t see that all that he wanted was not what he needed. He lost something equally as great as infinite wishes. He lost the people that put their trust in him.

But through grief, not only over his realm, but of his love, couldn’t see that. Which resulted in his downfall.

Like a lot of the villains in Ninjago, sometimes it’s circumstance, luck, or bad timing. The Serpentine, the Nindroids, Morro, Harumi, even Zane falls under this category now (ouch).

He’s a good villain because under the manipulation, under the lack of fear or consequence, he’s just angry. That is not saying, that it isn’t his fault. A lot of the things he did before were bad and his whole crew knew this, but because of bad timing and luck, it all came crashing down.

So in short, the MKC are pretty neat 👌👌

(If you can’t tell, I like making people see the sad parts of the villains--)

#ninjago #ninjago season 6 #ninjago s6 #ninjago nadakhan #ninjago flintlocke #ninjago doubloon #ninjago dogshank #ninjago clancee #uhhhhh is that everyone?#ninjago monkey wretch #i told you i forget about the monkey

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thefandomlesbian · 4 years ago

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okay I DEFINITELY want to see you rank your favorite BAU characters

oh boy oh boy oh boy i’m TOAST--

1.) Emily Prentiss: This woman was my gay awakening and I’m still madly in love with her. All of my original works when I was in middle school featured a character who was basically Emily Prentiss under a different name, and she still is easily in my second favorite fictional character of all time.

2.) Spencer Reid: Spencer was the first character I ever saw on screen who loved learning as much as I did and made me realize there’s no shame in being intelligent or in craving knowledge. I’ve been compared to Spencer since my family first started watching the show when I was a kid, and we share a name, so that’s that.

3.) Aaron Hotchner: I projected all of my insecurities onto Hotch when I was a kid. When I watched his relationship with Haley fall apart on screen, I felt that in my very bones. I cried with him upon her death and raised Jack with him and even though I was long out of the fandom when TG was fired, I was still devastated to hear that he was being forced to leave. His ship with Reid was the first gay ship I ever connected to, and together, they were the first characters to ever teach me that people are gay and it’s okay. The one thing I do dislike about Hotch is how he’s implied to be wickedly intelligent, but it never gets, like, followed through with? The implication that he graduated law school at nineteen or twenty asserts that this man graduated high school when he was sixteen or younger, that he sped through undergrad and was able to get accepted into one of the most prestigious law schools in the country and graduated early and was an incredibly successful lawyer and prosecutor. He worked personal security, SWAT, he did a stent in Seattle, before he became leader of the BAU at twenty-seven years old. Hotch is, in all likelihood, a child prodigy of his own right, and it never gets mentioned because Spencer’s academic accomplishments are more impressive (and I could take this space to do a whole character study on why I think Hotch stopped his pursuit of academia, but I won’t waste my own time, lol).

4.) Elle Greenaway/Alex Blake: I love both of these ladies so I had to include them. Elle was done dirty by the canon and I adored her work in season one and the unique sensitivity she brought to the field when the BAU was still, as one unsub described it, “a boy’s club.” Alex took a little longer to grow on me (mostly because I was super bitter about Emily being gone that I didn’t want to like her), but the relationship she nurtured with Spencer was like no other, and her submitting her resignation to him instead of her direct superior gets me in the feels every time I watch it.

5.) Erin Strauss: Strauss is another character done wrong by the canon, and I’m so furious and bitter for her still. I loved watching her grow from a stern politician into someone who genuinely cared about the BAU as part of her family and would do anything to protect them. It was true character development that she went from trying to come for Hotch’s job in season two to deliberately fabricating paperwork to try to catch the Replicator in season eight, the latter which she did without informing anyone because she knew it could put them in danger. Watching her grow close to the team, watching Alex forgive her for her transgressions and become bonded with Rossi and Hotch, I really thought we were going to have an awesome thing going in later seasons, and I was devastated when I saw that it was all poorly written build up just so the writers could snatch the rug out from under us when they killed her off. She gave her life to protect the BAU and I’m going to work to redeem her character in my pieces. (This is an Erin Strauss AND Haley Hotchner defense blog, leave my ladies alone.)

6.) Dave Rossi: I sometimes take issue with Rossi’s character because he can be so damn arrogant and in early seasons seems to think he’s God’s gift to profiling, but I’m so fond of him for his nurturing relationship with the other characters. He doesn’t believe himself to have any family (of course we find out later he has a daughter, but besides that) so he takes it upon himself to make himself the father of the team. We see this dynamic with Emily and Spencer the most, with Morgan to some degree, with Ashley Seaver a lot (one of the only things I loved about Seaver’s presence in S6), and even with Jack’s little league team. Rossi who will do anything and everything for his team because those are his kids, dammit.

7.) Penelope Garcia: Penelope is my little ray of sunshine! I love sweet and special headcanons about her and how she keeps up with the team and brings joy to their lives. We share a love for cats, and her origin story always makes me chuckle, especially the opening scene where she says, “I am a psychopath,” and Hotch says, “No, you’re not.” Her relationship with Morgan brings me joy, though I’m still frustrated with the canon for not following through on that and making it “just talk.” I also disliked how canon handled her relationship with Kevin. I love Penelope as a character, but there were some moments that I thought were not written very well for her which is why she isn’t higher up on the list.

8.) Jason Gideon: I know it’s popular to drag Gideon in this fandom, but I like him a lot, and I think his downfall played into the team very well in the end when it led to Rossi’s joining the team. He had some of my favorite moments, especially when he chose to save the school children rather than apprehend Frank (I like to imagine what the other characters would have done in his shoes if Frank had fixated on them instead) and when he saved Billie Copeland while everyone else was prepared to throw in the towel. I like his dynamic with the team and how they (other than Spencer) lose faith in him from the pilot and then gain it back slowly. I enjoy how he interacts with Spencer and teaches him things on screen. I do take issue with his allowing Spencer to view him as a father figure when he knows that that is what Spencer desperately needs and I think Gideon, as compassionate as he is, can be unintentionally manipulative and quite harmful. Still, I think he’s a very intriguing character and I regret we didn’t get more of him.

9.) JJ: It’s not that I dislike JJ actively (though if you had asked me ten years ago, I probably would’ve said I did). I find JJ’s character incredibly difficult to relate to because, much like I mentioned with Penelope above, she is a victim of bad writing. Unlike Penelope, JJ’s bad writing is damn near ubiquitous from the time Henry is born until the end of the show. She can’t be in a scene with a victim or a family member without bringing up her family, and every time she shows her actual personality, it gets followed up with, “I’m also a mom!” I don’t relate to women whose entire lives revolve around their children, so finding any common ground with me and JJ is extraordinarily difficult. More than that, I abhor her relationship with Will and how Will was allowed to treat her so incredibly poorly and not only does the fandom worship him and never call him out--the writers acted like JJ was in the wrong. It drives me absolutely insane that Will and Haley treated their partners in the exact same way, their character arcs line up almost perfectly, but Will winds up happily married to JJ with two kids and Haley gets to bleed out on the floor of her own home while her husband clutches her dead body and weeps. This storyline is just part of the misogyny in the Criminal Minds canon, and though I like JJ, I have a hard time seeing past all of it to form a good bond with her. Fanon JJ > Canon JJ.

10.) Derek Morgan: Derek is a character who I think had a lot of wasted potential. He’s the expert on obsessional crimes--never mentioned again. He’s the expert on explosives--mentioned two or three times. Chicago PD? We never get any information as to how he went from PD to FBI. Derek is such a wildly intelligent man, we know that, but much like Hotch, his intelligent gets forgotten in exchange for Spencer to exposit at random, except his is even more pronounced than Hotch’s. After the first few seasons, the writers just treated him like the brawn of the BAU with no other expertise or presence, and I hate that for him--it was such a criminal injustice against his character. Unlike JJ, I do love Derek (my feelings for JJ are generally neutral leaning toward positive--I adore Derek Morgan) but the writers did him so dirty. I don’t like his relationship with Savannah at all. As a CSA survivor, his whole CSA storyline generally bugs the hell out of me because it only gets mentioned when the writers want to go boohoo Derek has trust issues or have an excuse to say “hurrdurr buff guy hates pedophiles” and he’s never shown having any meaningful struggle with his trauma (can be said of most of the trauma in the show) or having any character development (he’s often criticized for not trusting the team as much as he should but he never grows from it). Derek is a character I’m very protective of, but as much as I love his relationships with Spencer, Penelope, and Emily, I just can’t defend the ways the writers let him down so grievously.

#emily prentiss #aaron hotchner #spencer reid #derek morgan #dave rossi #penelope garcia #jennifer jareau #alex blake #erin strauss #elle greenaway #jason gideon #criminal Minds

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goblinconceivable · 4 years ago

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All The Feels

Random bulletpoints of Annie/Jeff analysis because I am overcome with shippiness. :D Also more like bullet-lengthy-paragraphs. You tried, self, you tried.

Pascal’s Triangle (PT) is not a love triangle.

Sure, look at the top two rows and you’ve got a binary split, ie, choice between two women. But PT is row based, your current row based on the one above. It’s complex. Look below the binary surface of choice to row 3, where it actually becomes PT, where the complexity begins (and Community is about complexity.) 1, 2, 1, a total of 4. The 2 is the merging of the two 1s from row two - Ie, two women who get lumped together. And beyond them is a 1 that springs out of nowhere - Annie. Surprise!

Kiss at the end of S1

Jeff’s major deal is being afraid of expressing caring/vulnerability, while desperately craving/needing it. Britta and Slater were both saying they loved him, and he does want to take that, but runs scared because they are challenging him to admit his feelings in public, which no one who really knows and cares about him would do. His scene with Annie is private. And she isn’t asking him FOR anything, she’s just asking what’s up, because she cares about the answer. He feels safe, he opens up, it’s intimacy, which is both giving and taking. Notably he admits he’s glad she’s staying after his share, this is him saying he cares about her too.

His explanation of the situation is a perceived choice between being the New Year’s guy (who he wants to be) and the Three Weeks Later guy (who he is.) But the thing about New Year’s is the initial momentum always fades, and you have to put in the work, which Slater doesn’t help him with. And he WON’T be able to sustain it on is own. The guy he IS isn’t who he wants to be, it’s just giving up, rather than striving, even if imperfectly, to reach those goals. Annie falls into the sweet spot: she understands what his default is, but shows him that he CAN be the man he wants to be, shows him what those steps ARE, encourages him to take the steps to be that person, and rewards him when he succeeds. Which he does, with her behind him.

And she kisses him first. Which is an offering similar to Britta and Slater’s public announcements, but through action, not words. Jeff uses words as shield and weapon, as did the other two. Bypassing this essentially shortcircuits his brain. His brain will warp and analyze and question, but she kisses him gently, an invitation not a demand. He’s already put aside his sword and shield during their talk, and doesn’t feel the need to pick them up because he feels safe and cared for and is okay accepting and reciprocating that.

Play

Jeff is all adult and aloof and beyond such petty childish pursuits such as play, which is the scoffed at domain of Annie/Troy/Abed. But he actually really wants it. It likely stems in part from his loss of a proper childhood, but it’s also just who he is. Imagination isn’t just for the young, the loss of the ability to play is an oft-bemoaned feature of adulthood, one the learned remind us we ought recapture. (And a joy of parenthood is getting to do that through your children.) But look, he literally was playacting being a lawyer. It’s how he engages with the world. He just justified that as a means to an end and did it for power and profit, rather than for enjoyment.

We see this, I argue, when responding to Annie’s playacting they were married. Annie anticipates a bad reaction, but he doesn’t give one. No judgment. He then establishes it’s not a deeper issue (”do I have to worry about this” ie, is this real/insanity). When he says “I can tell you one thing your fantasy got wrong...” he’s not challenging her, or even taking offense, and while he’s not entering into her fantasy world (which is over anyway), he’s offering fodder. He’s involving himself in the narrative process for her benefit. And in the couched language of daydream he’s reassuring her -if- it was true, he would be devoted. IF is a super important word in play, because you don’t have to believe, for example, you ARE a pirate. You just need to act as IF you were a pirate.

Also cute, I take as justified fanon the deleted scene where he orders her appletini. He was whining to her about it but it was relaxed because they both know he’d do it anyway. And when the bartender turns out to be a believer in Annie’s created fantasy world, Jeff stops himself from correcting him and destroying the world. Instead, he lets it persist just far enough to let himself glance at Annie as if it was true, and in that moment he sees her through the eyes of fantasy, and sees a beautiful woman, rather than all the complexity of their relationship.

Then there’s basically all the giant Greendale instances of play. Which one way or the other, he gets roped into and ends up jumping into with abandon. (Paintball, lava etc.) And they’re often paired, because he enjoys playing with her, and the “if this” acts as license for them to explore their compatibility. And their capers, when they pair up in the “real world”, is really just a sophisticated form of play. As brought up pointedly when they were searching for the ASB, there’s a dual nature here. They aren’t just buddies, like Troy and Abed, who are also very fantasy oriented (cardboard submarine!). There’s a level of daydream beneath the fantasy world where they can set aside the complexities of their relationship, and say “if we’re solving this crime, then we can live in this bubble and just be together.”

I also really love the whole Professor Professorson episode because of course the layers are just so intricate and delightful when they unfold. He tackles her which was total overreaction, he’s in a heightened world and committed to it. They plot out this crazy intricate play to teach the Dean a lesson together, where they involve real emotions. Many of which are Annie’s, but that means they’re creating a world in which it is safe to amplify her feelings which they are both aware of but are usually repressed, especially by Jeff. And he praises her for that later (she went off book and deceived like a master) rather than being uncomfortable. They exit play safely because they trust each other while playing and can leave that permissive world as an if. And it ends with the blanket fort collapsing and cocooning them. It is a play space literally being broken, begging the question of how much impact our play can have on our real selves.

Season 6

So basically I think I missed fandom the first time around and just binged on meta and there’s (fanon?) that Jeff spent the season looking for her attention, but Annie had pulled back? I zipped through a bunch of scenes they were in together, and heartily agree. Also I think I went a little nutty but What I see:

Annie doesn’t ignore him or anything, but where she might have previously inserted herself in his life, she starts to let him fend for himself while she diverts her attention to other relationships, and treats him more like she does the others. I don’t think she really does anything like taking his class so she can evaluate his teaching and bludgeon him into being better? But when they’re in a situation, like City College’s ad, she stands up to him as normal, challenging him to be better and do the right thing, as she always has. Rewards him with approval when he does, and his whispered “thank you” is the cutest thing ever because it’s an intimate choice in a rather boisterous exchange.

Meanwhile Jeff does seem to spend a lot of time and energy trying to get back to a place where he’s first in her eyes. There are a lot of shots in S6 a the Table and group scenes that involve him looking at her disproportionately, first, last, or only when speaking, esp when they’re all at the table. When I went back and tried to do the same to S5 those scenes are set up a bit differently and I saw less of it but I think there’s just fewer group scenes in general though?. In S6, he often ends a comment directed at the group (non table) by looking at Annie, indicating he wants her response, and thus her attention and engagement. And often, she is the next person to speak. Which is her personality as a leader, which supports the idea that while he’s seeking her out, she isn’t necessarily responding to that but just being her.

Finale

I’ve sort of run myself dry thinking through other things. And great analysis is plentiful and most recent. So not even bullet points just ramble But:

Oh3, so when Garrett proposed and Abed noted Jeff had a funny look, he’s been daydreaming marrying Annie for that lone plus longer? That took me a long time to put together as an actual literal thing.

Oh2, it’s all canon that he has issues with prolonged eye contact because he doesn’t want people to see him broken and he doesn’t break eye contact through any of this. He knows she knows he’s broken already and is quietly fine with her seeing everything and this is a moment for *sobs*

Oh wait hey, so callback to that bit where she’s like “your words don’t mean anything” and he’s like “That’s what conversation is, people saying things to get stuff.” Because he’s 100% not trying to get anything by telling her he’s let her go. And he means a lot by saying it. And if he said “I love you” there’s an implied sense of obligation to say it back and since he means romantically he can’t do that. So this is just him letting her know, no pressure, no expectation, that he loves her and has loved her but it’s okay because she’s free and he wants her to be free because he loves her. And he means it so hard when she says “kiss me goodbye” he’s all “you don’t owe me anything.”

But she does love him too, except she knows she’s in a different place emotionally and professionally. And it’s sweet and a gift because she doesn’t make this about her but about him and his feelings. So she preempts his regrets because she knows he WON’T kiss her goodbye unless she invites him to. There’s something I’m reaching for and can’t find here. She doesn’t admit to anything because there’s no point? It would just hurt him either way? Sharing her feelings through action rather than words?

And so much squee thinking how far everyone’s come for this scene to be a thing which could happen.

Callback to Annie’s marriage fantasy when Jeff has his own. Hers was external, by her personality (esp at the time of her maturation) and thus public and psychologically working out a reasonable feeling of abandonment as she gave their fictional selves marital difficulties. His is very internal, and occurs after Abed, always so reliable as a gateway to fantasy, turns the tables on him. He’s experiencing reasonable feelings of abandonment, and while he runs, it’s to a safe space of “what if,” a coping mechanism he has learned, and which allows for working out of psychological issues.

It’s dual: in that the larger issue is his need for a sense of stability. Though he’s staring at the table the scene doesn’t involve Greendale at all, he already had that fantasy. This is about wanting a life outside of the safe zone of the college. And while he suggests a dog as an option he imagined a kid because having one represents stability for him - it was his father who left, and he won’t leave. If there’s a kid, this is a life, Annie can’t leave. But he offers her imaginary self complete editing powers, because all he really wants is to be able to love and be loved. It’s indulgence, a desperate grasp at balm because while he let her go, he can’t let her -go.- He was okay with being close friends, they do love each other as friends. See his pitch. But faced with losing that, he’s stripped bare. He indulges in his supressed hearts desire and is faced with the reality of what he already knows: it’s not in the cards.

And he’s stripped down to insecurities that aren’t limited to Annie. It’s cute how they jive over Marvel, though it’s weird to me and takes up more time and weird dramatic looking around that doesn’t feel playful enough to be justified. The tone of their voices is too serious, it’s a mismatch. I like how he admits the huge thing that he let her go as far as he has control, and suddenly a time pressure is on their alone time. Everything is immediate right now, everything happening fast. I wonder what Annie would have said if not for the text. But that’s the thing, it’s the wrong time for them and this is a goodbye. It’s too late but just under the wire all at once.

In this chapter at least. In the safety of the group Annie brings up a season 7, which we all know could happen years down the line. Would have been more fitting if she said movie though. Still, he takes that as the comfort in which it was intended.

WTF with his all coed season 7? Yes, we cut to it so it totally isn’t happening, but has he put his issues to rest and is just fantasizing crap or what? It makes no sense to me.

I love that he not only puts her first after she invites him to kiss her goodbye by asking “what about you,” but is -asking for consent.- He doesn’t even move towards her until he gets it, he’s literally just standing back. What’s up with the penis thing? Meta reference to shortcut arguments that it’s not true love but lust? Is it Jeff acknowledging his own cynicism and how he’s dropped it? Since he’s so clearly not in a lust mode here. Is he adding a tiny bit of his usual pointed add ins to his speeches?

I guess it’s like... this is one of his speeches, but it feels out of place because of his delivery? Which is beautifully subdued and resigned and honest and just defeated, but defeated in the sense that he defeated all the barriers he still keeps around himself.

and goodbye hug and kiss at the airport.

#community #jeff x annie #meta

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butterfly-winx · 4 years ago

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Next bae in the minor character series: Lady Diaspro Iend-do Drogo, of the Duchy of Isis.

What a mouthful of a title 😅 More on her in my AU below!

Diaspro is largely the same entitled person she was in canon, who paid dearly for her callous hunger for status and security.

Like most royals and nobility on Manubra 47, Diaspro grew up in almost complete isolation because of the Bello Sicarii ragin on amongst them (referenced here). Though the same societal constraints shackled her and Sky, their lives couldn’t have been any more different. Not being nearly as important as the crown-prince, Diaspro’s life was never in as much danger until her affiliation with Sky got publicly known. She is just a daughter of a Duke, of the magic society of Eraklyon to top it off, there is no gain to befall anyone by harming her. She has literally nothing in her hand.

The bane of Diaspro’s existence in sexism, that has put ugly limitations on her life and poisoned her mind. See, despite being nobility, Diaspro knew from the day on that she fully realised she was a girl, what that meant, how society saw her and, what her prospects were. Her elder brother was the heir of the Duchy, once he married Diaspro would lose all comforts of her life and be left with nothing in a society that both hated women and distrusted magic users. The engagement to Sky was like a lifeline that she shaped her personality on. Without ever having met him, the idea of Sky, then Sky himself became the only possession in life Diaspro could have. She became so obsessed with the idea of becoming Queen Mother that any attack on the feeble engagement and Sky felt like an attack on her self. Absolutely furious, she sought to get Bloom out of her way, who in her eyes shared nothing of her trouble and was undeserving of the social benefit being with Sky granted. When people found out Bloom was the heir to the Dominian throne, her convictions solidified.

Absolutely jealous and shortsighted, she let herself be talked into subterfuge by the charismatic stranger who revealed himself to be Valtor later. He ended up using her status and privileges on the planet to get wherever he wanted to and weaken the country and the planet politically. When he possessed Sky, Diaspro briefly saw the light and tried to back out of the deal, only to be blackmailed and terrorised to follow the witcher’s plans. There would be no way back for her only forwards, and Diaspro had no other choice but to believe him.

After Valtor’s downfall at the hand of the Winx, his hold on Eraklyon lifted and Diaspro was sentenced to prison, then lifetime indebtedness to the crown along with other accomplices tried with her. Her family turned from her and she spent a year at a juvenile prison (age of maturity on Eraklyon is 20 and Diaspro was only 18), trying to appeal the sentence. On the account that her magical education was unfinished, she was released to attend the Eraklyon institute as part of her rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Since she was young, it was believed she could change and work as a functioning member of society. For her diploma, she had to repeat a year of the four year course she had been previously on, before moving onto her final year in the S6 timeline of the AU.

She is at the Institute when the Trix and Selena come to Eraklyon demanding justice for the exterminated witch communities there. Always slinky and a survivalist at heart, she takes the Trix’s offer to be welcomed at their side as witches with a few other students. She is intrigued by the prospect of hearing about what history has been lying about, as after her incarceration, her trust in the system is shaken. She gets rescued by the Winx and has a heart-to-heart with a pretty banged up Bloom in which they decide to let bygones be bygones. They will never be good friends, but they are a far cry form being teen enemies too. Diaspro is ready to move on from Sky and deeply regrets falling for the promise of power, now that it ruined her life. Bloom in turn assures her that Valtor used Diaspro, she shouldn’t feel guilt for the things he did.

Other than this, Diaspro also mends her relationship with Sky, who is a lot more reluctant to forgive her not being as familiar with Valtor’s manipulation tactics. He kind of assumed Diaspro snapped out of the blue, and blinded by his privilege he never realised what position society had forced her into that lead to it. After his amnesia he had to re-learn a lot of things about himself and his life and after the S6 events that included occasionally writing letters with Diaspro. Diaspro herself used it to gain closure in the sense of “wow, he really never was worth it, I never would have wanted to stay married to him”. It plays out fine, they grow into pleasant acquaintances.

Diaspro’s biggest character flaw, that she was absolutely unchecked because she neither had friends her age, nor adults that cared for her that she trusted eventually gets mended by the connections she makes in prison and at her new school. Though she will never be able to repeal her punishment and spends the rest of her life working for the government, she is able to build a fulfilling life and do the right thing when needed.

Diaspro comes from a long heritage of fairies, her parents belonging to the fairy court of Eraklyon, so choosing her stream was a no brainer. For her early education she was homeschooled, both for empirical studies and for magic. Unlike the Winx, Diaspro uses the Eraklyon power scaling of transformations (or just generally known as the Regular Tree, the one that is not the Alfea Tree). Her fairy transformation is her forever form - its appearance will change as she matures, but that will not make it a new form as it still uses her internal magic core. Diaspro’s power over gemstones and semi-precious minerals doesn’t lend itself to combative magic, so she never had any need for Enchantix. She didn’t really consider a career in magic either, so she specialised with a practical application in mind. Briefly switching to witchcraft showed her that magi-geology is actually much more suited for that stream, but after metabolising the curse and going back to fey magic, she never considers it again.

Her aspect as Fairy of Gemstones allow Diaspro to manipulate extracted stones to her liking like a jeweller would, but also trace mineral deposits under the earth and either transport raw gems to the surface without altering much, or terraform the hell out of a mine. It’s up to her how invasive she wants to be with the extraction. She is even able to detect mineral dust in food, cosmetic preparations and poisons. Decorative dusting with real gems like the Pyrite Dusting on Solaria are actually her worst nightmare, as like Flora can sense plants around her, Diaspro can sense every shard and a room full of glittered up people gives her migraines for days.

#winx club #winx diaspro #winx redesign #locally sourced art #those trousers are inspired by twice kpop stage outfits are the best inspo

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skamamoroma · 5 years ago

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The disappointment for me is simple when it comes to this introduction to Eliott’s part of s6...

Obviously I’d have preferred an Eliott POV season or chunk of time. We aren’t going to get that so it is a trade off to seeing his experiences through someone else’s eyes. I’d have preferred to see him through the eyes of someone we know better but, again, we can’t have that.

So it leaves it to a character we don’t know well to see his experiences through and that’s... it’s difficult to get into for me because these things are so personal. Mental illness (which I know they’ve said they will cover) and Eliott’s issues around lying etc are personal and it isn’t ideal to see that through someone else’s eyes with little depth.

But, for me, lying as a topic is something I don’t need to see with Eliott. I feel I understand him well as a character and I entirely understand his lone wolf ways, his healthy need for freedom and expression and time to pursue stuff alone and I understand his ingrained insecurities about rocking the boat rolling a relationship.

But this is the third season where the topic Eliott is given is lying. Season 3 is characterised by Eliott’s lies, his story in Season 4 is entirely focused on his lies and now in Season 6 we have his main story around lies.

Characters have ingrained issues. Some things are very difficult to get over or to sort out in your head. For Eliott as a parallel of Even and in his own right, was so understandable in s3 and we understood why he lied. Even for s4, this was their first test as a couple and Eliott’s lying wasn’t really necessary by show runners (it didn’t follow Even’s story) but the point was that it was supposed to be showing him and Lucas reaching an understanding about talking more and being better at communication, managing their expectations about honesty and openness. That would have been great if it was handled better but the conclusion was a good one.

Now in s6, we’re seeing the same topic again. We were told in s5 that Lucas is concerned that they need to be more open about stuff because he’s worried a little about Eliott leaving him. It’s disappointing because there doesn’t seem to be growth. We’re not a few months past s3, we’re way past that and if they are unable to communicate and Eliott is still lying - what are the writers intending with that narrative?

We ended s3 with them both learning huge lessons about honesty and openness and their own worth. Are we to believe that a year later after already going through issues about lying that those issues haven’t been improved at all? Is that healthy? We don’t see their experiences and certainly don’t get any focus on Eliott’s internal workings so we must theorise that he doesn’t trust Lucas to handle the truth of his life. That’s really sad to me. That’s not what Isak and Even opitomised and so we must set Eliott and Lucas aside even further and consider that they perhaps have so much good in their relationship but so many fundamentals about trust are just not functioning correctly. They’re humans and flawed and I want flawed but this is just repetitive and it feels entirely inorganic to me.

For this to be resolved, it needs to be recognised as a long term trait for Eliott and he needs to understand his mistakes himself. We need to be given his viewpoint and some focus because otherwise we are left as an outsider viewing these things without any understanding of how HE is experiencing life. Maybe if we saw more of what his day to day is like we’d understand his actions a little more. It’s one thing to need your space and hobbies and that’s an important thing and it’s another to lie continuously to your partner about a fundamental part of your life while telling other people you barely know.

Also, the problem with seeing Eliott through Lola’s eyes is that we don’t see any of Eliott’s life. I want to see him outside of Lucas! I want to know what he does at Uni, what work is like and if he has made new friends. I want to see Urbex and does he have any buddies he does it with. What is his family like? What other kind of art does he do? Is he still into film making? Does he go to therapy? How does his art impact his mental health? All of this is interesting and you could pick so many topics to cover for Eliott even if we only have him for a while. But we can’t. We must see him through Lola’s eyes and she’s a sixteen year old girl... so Eliott, a 20 year old man is framed through the eyes of a 16 year old girl. Which is fine if that all we can have but if you want to go for the big brother thing, the mentor in mental health and well being, someone she can look up to in terms of his expression and art... awesome, but don’t introduce topics though Eliott’s POV that fundamentally need his POV to work. Without it, we get a 20 year old dude opening up about lying in his relationship to a 16 year old stranger and it... it just doesn’t work for me. It feels odd and forced as a means to and end. Not to mention that you have Lucas entirely oblivious. And I’m not even considering what I imagine will be the worsening of this as we go on aka that spoiler.

So that’s my issue with it. I got 5 asks about today’s clip and I already made a post a few days ago but I don’t really want to continuously talk about it... I guess I have my issues with it, it’s a disappointing approach for me and when I wanted to see Eliott, I guess I genuinely would rather not have his POV if this is how we have to have it. I hope they do afford him his own moment of POV and that it makes sense and honours him as a character because Skam France writers aren’t kind to their characters and I cannot watch them treat his character like rubbish. I hope they don’t rely on the fandom’s love for him for us to just overlook uneven writing. He deserves more than that.

#skam france #eliott demaury #thoughts etc

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wistfulcynic · 4 years ago

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What was your favorite part of Moonlight and what were you thinking when you wrote this, my favorite part?

Henry Jones wasn’t quite the same person as Henry Mills or even Henry Swan. Henry Mills was a wide-eyed boy, clinging to hope and belief as his only weapons against the dark curse that surrounded him, Henry Swan was a normal New Yorker. Henry Jones, though, he was a pirate’s son, raised to the cusp of adulthood by a clever and dangerous man, taught by him the knack of survival and perseverance when all the power and all the odds were arrayed against him. Henry Jones was a risk taker with no patience for bullshit who would do whatever was necessary to save the people he loved, just like his dad. Henry Jones could infiltrate this school and this town and gather the intel they needed to break the curse. He grinned to himself. Henry Jones looked forward to the challenge.

Oh, this is a fantastic question and also very difficult because I love so much about Their Way By Moonlight. It was a labour of love from beginning to end.

One of my favourite elements of it is Killian in the Land Without Magic. I just love the idea of him learning to adapt to it and finding some things he completely loves and others he finds ridiculous. I definitely am one of those who believes that he would catch on pretty quickly to most things--he’s smart and adaptable and he would read the instruction manuals. But I also think there are some things he would have no use for or see the point of.

I also loved writing canon CS in a functional, committed relationship that didn’t include any of the elements of S5 or S6. In Moonlight they love each other deeply and support each other completely but they also argue and butt heads because they have different outlooks and strategies. I loved writing Emma insisting on going charging into Storybrooke when they discover the new curse, and Killian telling her she’s being rash and hasty but knowing he can’t stop her. So instead he just insists that she be as prepared as possible before she goes, and gives her the key that ends up breaking the memory curse on her. Then after that she actually starts listening to him and following his strategies, because she’s learned that he is usually right about some things and her gut instincts aren’t always the best guides for action. While he continues with his absolute faith in her and her abilities that gives her the confidence she needs. They are genuine partners who learn from each other and work together and trust the other absolutely and I just love that so much.

The final thing I love is the backstory with Killian and Oisín and Neverland. I love their complicated relationship and how it balances respect and genuine affection with an almost complete lack of trust and a 100% necessary betrayal that hurts them both but that they can ultimately move past. I love how Oisín is honourable in his own way but also kind of a dick, and I love the idea of Neverland being a more complex and interesting place than what we saw in the show, because I honestly cannot get behind the idea that Killian spent 300 years sailing in circles around the same small island, occasionally coming ashore to stomp angstily through jungle and lose crewmen in the Echo Caves. So I gave him other things to do, and other potential allies besides Pan.

As for the bit you quoted, it comes from something I’ve believed since I read it first in Anne of Green Gables--that names are incredibly important. Anne insisted on having her name spelled with an -e because she couldn’t make herself feel like an “Ann”. As someone with a common name, I related to that *hard*-- so much that I changed the spelling of my name when I was 16. It used to be Sarah, but Saira was who I discovered that I preferred to be, and she’s a very different person to who Sarah was. So when I was writing Henry and thinking about his various surnames it just seemed right that he would have a different image of himself with each one. And also I wanted to show the influence Killian had on him, how he had really become a true father figure to Henry--because the Captain Cobra was of course a huge element of this fic, and to properly do it justice it couldn’t be just from Killian’s side. Killian and Henry were left alone with only each other when they barely had a relationship but they forged one together, and grew to love each other because they chose to. The main reason for that was because Killian saw Henry as a person and not just as a kid, and treated him with respect while also setting the boundaries that kids need--not because he had any clue what kids need but because that’s how he ran his ship and handled his crew. He treated Henry as a crewmate without presuming anything about what their stepfather/stepson relationship should be, and as a result Henry came to respect him to the point where he wanted to emulate him and really took to heart the things Killian had to teach him. And that’s what we see demonstrated in his ideas about himself and his identity with Killian’s surname.

SORRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT. If you don't want WALLS OF TEXT don't ask me about Moonlight!!

(though if for some reason you enjoy WALLS OF TEXT then by all means, bring on the Moonlight questions!!)

fanfic writer Friday, chaps! Come and ask me anything!

#fanfic friday #asked and answered #kmomof4 #profdanglaisstuff

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multimetaverse · 4 years ago

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Jamie Johnson 5x10 Review

Tonight was a surprisingly busy ep that did a good job balancing angst and levity. Let’s dig in!

Dillon finally went home tonight after what was probably a couple of weeks. The show continues to do great work with Dillon’s sexuality. Graham begins to make amends by coming of his own accord to the Walker-Cotton house and apologizing to Dillon but he hasn’t magically become a good person. He wants Dillon to keep his sexuality a secret which Dillon pushes back against but as loathsome as Graham can be he does have a point that being openly gay could very well derail Dillon’s football career; after all it’s the same conclusion that all the gay professional players in Britain have reached. This whole story line has been surprisingly nuanced especially for a kids show. Shaun Duggan mentioned that Graham would have a journey of his own and I would assume we see more of it in the final eps

One thing I do think the show has failed to do is include Dillon’s mom. Presumably they don’t have the actress this season but we really needed to see her support Dillon on screen when his dad and brother are homophobes. Hopefully they bring her back in S6 (and bring back Elliot)

It’s a minor detail but I really liked that when Alba comes into the living room to share her news that through the window we can see Graham walking towards the front door; it shows a real attention to detail on the part of the production team. Also the ‘’We Are Family’’ poster with the rainbow on the kitchen wall while Dillon and Graham talked was an inspired touch

The small moment when Dillon asked Becky and Dawn what he should do was really cool; seeing adult lgbtq people give advice to kids dealing with their sexualities is rare on tv in general, on kids tv it’s virtually unheard of; Cami and her gf trying to help Bobby on Doafp being the only example that comes to mind. The show did a great job normalizing lgbtq parents and families and there was an excellent implicit contrast drawn between the loving and supportive ‘non-traditional’ Walker-Cotton family and the cold and strained ‘traditional nuclear’ Simmonds family

I’m so glad that Ruby and Alba have finally been adopted and the photo album Becky and Dawn made was very sweet. I wonder if they stick with Osborne as their surnames or start using Walker-Cotton

Dillon being second in the credits? We love to see it folks

Zoe gets a recruitment montage for a heist soccer game so her and Kat can have one last chance to impress Geri Seddon who apparently doesn’t work very hard at her scouting job if she’s missed all these players. In the first good deed Jamie has done in weeks he calls up Jack and she gets Archfield to play against Zoe’s ragtag team. To the show’s credit Archfield pretty easily wins the day at Goodfield as they realistically should. Zoe and Kat get into Hawkstone though and Alba gets flagged as a future talent so all’s well that ends well

Zoe vaguely apologized for being an ass to Jack and she finally did the right thing with Kat and returned the pendant which which Kat promptly lost again. Zoe treating other girls as the enemy has been a core part of her story since she joined the show back in S3 and it looks like that’s behind now as her and Kat are real friends

I think Mike calling for girl power was the funniest line of the night

This Eric/Aisha/Freddie love triangle is a right mess but I’m finding myself invested regardless. Freddie and Aisha have good chemistry and their commentating was cute. Freddie not knowing Kat’s last name was funny as was Aisha’s observation about Mike’s yelling. Aisha was also right about peanut butter and honey being a delicious combo

We got a refresher on Eric’s sad backstory, brutal that he hasn’t seen his mom in 2 years. Well I’m sure that Eric’s issues with abandonment won’t come into play as Aisha and Freddie grow closer! Imagine tuning into a livestream for a football match only to hear two 13 year olds get into a pissing contest over a girl they both fancy

Also nice to see the kids be kids and go to the cinema

This show has really done a good job with diversity especially since the series isn’t set in or around London (S1 was filmed in Nottingham and recent seasons have been filmed in Wales). In particular, JJ has avoided having their two black male characters, Eric and Freddie, fall into stereotypes. As much as I can’t fathom why the show needs this love triangle, it is refreshing to see two black kids shown as the closest thing this show has to romantic leads. American kids shows have done a great job with female black characters but when it comes to black male characters things are much worse. Zay on GMW largely fell into the sassy black friend stereotype. As for Walker on Andi Mack, the less said the better about how he was romantically involved with two girls of colour only to lose out to two white boys before being written off as a shoe gifting player in a way that played into harmful stereotypes about black men being promiscuous

Another ep where Jamie basically just makes a cameo but because the show has such a wide bench it doesn’t hurt the ep at all. Boggy is basically Jamie’s housewife at this point and it’s sad as hell to watch

I think this is the first time Jack has been back where she hasn’t had a scene with Jamie. The official insta account reposted someone asking the show to make Jamie and Jack a couple, we’ll one day learn if that was straight baiting

Interesting to think about how different the show would be if Jack was still a main, would Dillon’s story be getting nearly so much focus?

Looking Ahead:

Liam thinks Aisha is Eric’s soulmate? I wouldn’t have pegged him for a romantic at heart. I love that he keeps bouncing around the friend trio trying his chances with a new member every week, at the beach he tried with Freddie and now he’s trying with Eric

It seems likely that Eric is denying that he likes Aisha because of his abandonment issues and it looks like he skirmishes with Freddie on the field. I wonder if he’ll be honest with anyone about his feelings

Boggy’s breakdown is upcoming, I really don’t think he’s Jetpac11. Looks like 5x12 is the video game tournament with the Jetpac11 reveal, I still think it’s Archie Royle, but Jethro Stevenson would be a great twist

I lean more and more towards Dillon signing with the Northport Rovers as a way to forge his own path and because he trusts our problematic fave Duncan Jones to stand firm against homophobia. It would also bring Duncan’s S5 story full circle, he was so focused on trying to bamboozle Jamie into signing for Northport that he overlooked the other very talented player he had right in front of him. It seems like Dillon’s story line is trending towards him wrestling with coming out publicly as a professional player in S6 and proving to himself, his father, and the world that an out gay man can be a professional footballer

Until next week Jamie Johnsoners

#Jamie Johnson #Dillon Simmonds #Alba Osborne #Zoe Moore #Jack Marshall #Ruby Osborne #Graham Simmonds #Eric Atlee #Freddie Seo #Jamie Johnson Reviews

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