#all I know is the core four aren’t the mains because they are. kind of boring to me?

[shellyseashell]

@panthera-tigris-venenata and @tiredflowercrown asked for this so here’s an explanation of my demon hunter au!

the basic idea is, when beast brought together all the fairytale worlds, it didn’t just bring villains back from the dead. it brought back demons that had been previously killed or locked away (many of whom were villains anyway, but the point here is they’re stronger). having so many powerful demons/sorcerers/whatever (chernabog, the horned king, zhan tiri, chatana, and maybe maleficent i haven’t decided which version of her i want to use are the biggest threats, but then there’s the other villains, many of whom are still magic) throws all magic into wack, meaning it’s stronger, wilder, and there’s practically no barrier between the natural world and the otherworlds.

this leads to the creation of the king’s guard, a special order meant to take down the demon lords. initially, many of the more magical kingdoms (avalor, camelot, kumandra, corona, etc.) that are threatened by them ally with beast to trap/kill them. they end up trapping them on the isle, built off neverland. it was meant just for demon lords and their allies, the biggest threats, not the villains that yeah, are magic, or dangerous, but they’re not near gods in power (like, the evil queen is a threat, but still human, so she doesn’t necessarily need to be on the isle, for example, charmington can deal with her just fine). but to make the isle, beast had to trap and kill plenty of innocent people, many of whom were magic, which is a thing i like to call foreshadowing.

after the demon lords are locked up, beast turns on all magic users and creatures. in his mind, all magic is dangerous, and has the potential to be just like the demons they just locked up. and well, locking up the demons didn’t really calm magic or make demons vanish, so really, he’s just finishing the job, right?

all the magic kingdoms that had previously allied with beast split, formed their own alliance known as just the rebellion or the guild. leaders include elena, phoebus, jasmine, ariel, repunzel, raya, and arthur. if their kingdom is highly magical, chances are at least some of their people joined.

they fight, and slowly, beast slowly forces the rebellion to surrender. most of his success comes from having some very fanatical people on his side, mainly: frollo. i wasn’t going to make it a religious persecution type story, but the idea of frollo working for beast but so does phoebus and the dynamics that brings basically wrote itself so here we are.

anyway, most of the rebel kingdoms are forced to surrender with heavy consequences to them, one constant being sending most of their magic users to the isle (many of whom are characters we consider villains anyway for consistency of why they’re there). the only ones that are allowed to stay are those who either hide and escape the hunts, or who join the kings guard, now the only organization allowed to use magic.

when the rebellion is successfully defeated, frollo is sent to the isle to ensure it remains so. many on the isle helped build it, they know best how to take it down. i’m not sure if those on the isle will maintain any contact with those off the isle, but either way there’s still very much so a war happening on the isle.

which is the situation the villains kids are born into. there are three alliances they can be born to: the king’s guard (many human villains like gaston ally with frollo. they were thrown on the isle because if magic users are criminals, what’s to say criminals aren’t magic users?), the demon lords, or the rebellion. many drift to the rebellion eventually.

no matter where the kids are born, they’re brought up for war. the king’s guard trains within themselves, usually parents teaching kids. a few are sent to auradon to train, but never kids of major prisoners, always kids of guards that were stationed there. they send kids into war at 16 at the youngest, legally, but on the isle some kids are sent in even younger (either because they’re prodigies, or because they’re hated, like gil, and their families are hoping they’ll die in action). they hoard any supplies sent to the isle, and they kill indiscriminately. to them, their job won’t be done, and the world won’t be stable again, until everyone the isle is dead. not many kids end up leaving.

most kids born to demon lords are raised to bring an era of darkness to the world, to amass as much power as they can. many of the magical villains who weren’t rebels are allied with them (evil queen, Jafar, etc). they’re isolated, usually, but not always. this how many, like jay, are able to leave (in jay’s case, he wandered into rebel territory and ran into the 40 thieves, who adopted him on the spot). it’s brutal, and most don’t have a choice in what they do. they’re the ones most often killed by their parents. they’re usually some of the most powerful magic uses on the isle, too. many kids from this group escape eventually, and join the rebels.

the rebels are a majority of the isle. not many of them actually fight, but plenty of magic users were sent to the isle unfairly and are under their protection. like the kids in the other groups, they’re raised for war, but it’s much more a community effort than and isolated thing. the schools, dragon hall, serpent prep, and the witch academy are run by their gangs and are very military focused. they send kids into the field at 15, but that’s a recent rule and many of the older kids have been fighting much longer by necessity. the rebels is the alliance many of the canon gangs fall into. those who ran from the other alliances often fight, but only after they’ve proven their allegiance.

there are villains who don’t really fall into any group, like hook, and other never land pirates, who were just vibing before everything happened, or the de vils who just wanted to run a crime empire why are they in the middle of a war now.

in auradon, things are only slightly better. they’re not necessarily in a total war, but the isle if anything made the demon issue worse. the prep is a school meant to train king’s guard knights, and the former rebel kingdoms are forced to send their royal kids there to keep an eye on them and keep the kingdom in line. kids who aren’t royal are allowed to attend, but even they have king’s guards in their family. they start training officially (but many have trained longer at home) at 14 and ends at 18-20. (the reason 16 is the legal fighting age for frollo’s men is because at 16 trainees — squires, as they’re called — begin going on hunts with senior students) the reason they can afford sending people into the field when they’re older is because they have more people, and can afford the wait for more soldiers. the isle doesn’t have that luxury.

magic users are hunted and executed regularly. some are still sent to the isle, but beast finds just killing them is quicker. they focus more on killing witches than demons, or figuring out and ending the source of the issue, believing if they just kill all witches then the world will right itself. therefore, many illegal hunting groups formed, who hunt demons (and often still witches) instead of the organization meant to do that.

so what’s the plot? ben still gets kids off the isle. how? well, his argument is that they’re sent into the field before they’re legally old enough (by auradon standards) and therefore the rebels are committing war crimes and the kids shouldn’t be there. it’s flimsy, and the kids who he chooses to come over are all rebels, but it’s on purpose.

growing up, ben is mentored by phoebus, captain of the kings guard in order to protect the romani (in paris at least) for as long as he can. beast intended it to be a “see what happens when you rebel” type thing, but instead phoebus adopted another son and made sure he knew exactly how horrible his father is.

so ben brings kids over, knowing and hoping they’ll bring their rebellion with them. and also, because of the fighting on the isle, the barrier has been slowly eroding, and many of the remaining rebels in auradon are starting to think that’s the issue.

[essycogany]

Small Things Can Make Big Differences 🩷

Hi, Fans Of Amy Rose!

This is my opinion and we don’t know what could happen between now and Sonic Movie 3. Anyone can disagree. I’m 100% fine with that and this isn’t going to tarnish my enjoyment of the film at all, but I’ve got to get this off my chest. I’d love to see Amy Rose in Sonic Movie 3 and would be disappointed if she wasn’t in it. Yeah, she’d probably not have a HUGE role or time to develop as much. I get it, but at the same time, I personally don’t think we should shy away from characters having small arcs.

Tails had one in Sonic Movie 2 and I wouldn’t say the movie would’ve been better without him. I don’t think we should have to justify a main character like Amy who’s existed before KNUCKLES (and debatably Tails) being in a movie about her own franchise. We shouldn’t have to wait a whole year for it either. Stuff takes time sure, but other movies with Pokémon, the Avengers, Mario, My Little Pony G4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and many others did it and did it well for the most part. Most of these have tons of characters that they wasn’t afraid to show in one movie. Characters with smaller roles still impacted the movies and in a memorable way too. We shouldn’t be so timid in bringing Sonic characters in Sonic movies. They’re just as marketable as these other franchises. The successes of the Sonic trilogies proved that.

Without Amy or other characters it doesn’t feel as full as it could be. Not saying we should’ve got all of them from the get go but a little more would be nice.

I’m saying this respectfully but that doesn’t make sense especially if we have enough time to flesh out the human core characters/side characters who aren’t even part of the main franchise and not the ones most audiences came to see in the first place. I’m neutral and understand both critiques and defenses so you can decide where to go to on that.

Back to before, you don’t need long drawn out character development in order to be written well. Tails turned out fine despite his small role. Heck, Amy’s roles in the GAMES were usually small but not less impactful because of it. Amy practically helped save the entire world with her “small roles” and one for an emotional and impactful moment with Shadow. Even small things can make big differences and that’s one lesson you can learn from Amy.

Amy’s interactions with Gamma in SA1 impacted the robot to the point of him sacrificing himself to free a Bird he needed to stay alive.

Amy believed in Sonic when the whole world (or Silver) was against him in Sonic 06.

Amy showed kindness to Sonic as the Werehog and gave her closest friend encouragement. She still loved him regardless of how he looked.

There’s more examples, but these are the most well known. Do you notice how most of them were small actions or small moments of development in small roles. And still managed to make Amy a wonderful character while impacting the stories?

I’ll also just show this too.

Also, don’t worry about her stealing time from Shadow. The film’s called Sonic Movie 3 not Shadow The Hedgehog. He can share the spotlight. Knuckles did in SM2. There’s no excuse in my opinion.

The movie doesn’t have to have Amy and wouldn’t be worse without her, but I think we shouldn’t overlook her importance to the franchise even if what she does is small. Or feel bad for being more aware of what little we get in these movies. It’s okay to admit certain flaws. Nothing’s perfect and not above criticism as long as we’re respectful about it. And for the kiddies who would like to see a cartoony animal girl character for the first time in these films, Amy would be a fantastic way to start.

Amy debuting in Sonic 3 and interacting with the boys would be a lovely way of establishing that close connection between the core four of the franchise. They’d literally have the definition of love at their sides. Again, small changes can make big differences. That’s all I have to say. Now I’m going to continue to be excited for the 3rd Sonic movie.

[when-wax-wings-melt]

Keeper of the Lost Cities: A Love-Hate-Love Relationship, And What It Can Do To Your Psyche 

This is the essay you guys wanted to see after this presentation dropped; to be clear, this is the final draft. The presentation was made from the rough draft, so it's rather different.

Also, the essay prompt was to make it personal. So the italicized bits are where I was trying to do that, and they are both separate and a part of the essay. They break up the flow, but are also a response to the normal bits of the essay. You get it. Here we go.

In total, the Keeper of The Lost Cities (KOTLC) series by Shannon Messenger has over 7000 pages, split between nine and a half books (Book 8.5 was, uselessly, a novella) with a planned tenth coming in late 2024. It’s the kind of series that hooks you the same way a fisherman hooks a fish: with a promise of a treat that goes very, very unfulfilled. This is to say: KOTLC is a good series, at least at first. It’s certainly been my core obsession for a good (or bad) five years. It’s a hook because you can’t escape once you’ve begun. It’s my own personal brand of heroine, as Edward Cullen might say if Bella were a too-long book series that doesn’t resolve any plotlines or character arcs and instead piles more information on top of worldbuilding until contradictions are more plentiful than the packed main cast.

KOTLC is a good series, but the idea of recommending it feels like I’d be violating several articles of the Geneva Convention. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, and yet the thought of it ending is an impossibility on the scale of the apocalypse and I hope (I’d rather) the world ends before this series does. KOTLC is a minefield of sloppy worldbuilding, deeply compelling characters, and---where am i without it?---bits of myself woven into the many, many words, sinking under my skin and revealing what I think I have to offer. 

Sophie Foster is the protagonist of the series, trudging the long, never-ending path to what hopefully will be a happy ending. Like the author, Sophie has blonde hair and brown eyes, making her unique among her fellow elves, who all have blue eyes, including the rare-among-the-main-cast people of color.

There are so many things that make Sophie weird, strange, unique, attractive to every boy who sees her, and otherwise out of the ordinary: for example, she has five special abilities that allow her to teleport, read minds, inflict pain, speak any language, and enhance the abilities of others---i cannot do what she can, but she breathes and i do too---There are certain things she has very much in common with her fellow elves, such as her slender build and flawless skin, but much more makes her, as her childhood bullies would say, “A Special Sophie-Flake.”

Sophie was raised by humans, which not only means that the steadily growing pile of unique traits is now tottering dangerously above my head, but also that she’s clumsy and wildly insecure. This insecurity has a purpose and a source, making it one of the most annoyingly (and terrifyingly) accurate depictions of teenage anxiety in middle-grade media (if I were a vampire pulled from normal vampire lore rather than Twilight and I looked at her, I’d be invisible)---so do you get it? do i? 

which one of us is me---Sophie has intense imposter syndrome, never believing she’s worthy of the overwhelming support, approval, and desire heaped upon her throughout her years in the Lost Cities. In Book One, four teenage boys were no less than obsessed with her, possibly because she, presumably, talked to them sometimes. Valin, a “drooly boy” (named due to his constant drooling, as one might expect), is forced to ballroom dance with Sophie in detention, and later gives her a card and a bracelet professing his admiration. Dex Dizznee manages to sustain his crush until he finally makes his move in Book Six, and is rejected in humiliation after she kisses him to make him realize his feelings aren’t actually real---when I know that he was lying to himself, is lying to himself. truth is a phase and it ends once you hit age eight---After Book Six, only two remain: Fitz and Keefe, each of whom has made their crushes very, desperately, embarrassingly clear to someone who very clearly returns both sets of feelings.

“Sooner or later you're going to have to solve the triangle. Or should we get real and call it a square?” (Messenger Neverseen), notes Keefe, with his usual subtle confession of his feelings---only leaving me with questions: did he want her to know at all? is he chasing the person or the change? the girl or the excitement? the wanting or the wanted?---The love polygon of however many vertices is both acknowledged and not by Sophie— she’s aware of her feelings for Fitz from chapter two of Book One, becomes aware of her feelings for Keefe in Book Nine, and mentally friend-zones Dex every other sentence, even when it’s not really relevant to the rest of her inner monologue. Her inability to believe with confidence that she might be worthy of a crush (or any sort of positive acknowledgment) is layered beneath every thought where she considers the possibility of being liked, and then promptly dismisses it.

---she knows that admitting it means being wrong. i will be wrong, unless i guess right and am big-headed, full of myself. who am i---

Sophie’s oblivious nature stems from her human upbringing, directly resulting from the trauma of developing the ability to read minds at age five. She hears her parents wishing she were normal or better at making friends and fitting in, her sister complaining about her presence, and her classmates at school judging everything she does.

She sticks out like a sore thumb in the human world, only to come to the elven world and be called a freak, malfunctioning, a genetic experiment, and a failure, just when she thought she might fit in---when i am a puzzle piece, a corner without the connection---Her alienation in the human world (referred to as the Forbidden Cities in the series) comes from her level of success, skipping five grades due to her elven intelligence and photographic memory, and getting into Harvard at age twelve.

While she hates the combination of jealousy and admiration she’s constantly showered with there---who hates it and loves it at the same time? isolation and contradiction---in the elven world, she’s hated for other reasons: accidentally breaking laws, making mistakes, or simply being a blip on the seemingly perfect streak the elven world has for peace and security. Is there any mystery as to why she would never believe that people actually, genuinely care for her? She’s formed her protective coating of denial that lasts her through every time Fitz gives her a gift and she convinces herself it means nothing, or every time Dex shows his jealousy, or every time Keefe goes to her before anyone else.

Even when she kisses Dex, after he tells her in anything but words that he likes her, she doubts herself—are two sides of the same coin, where heads is insecurity and tails is egotism. question: who is she?---She doesn’t think he actually likes her, appreciates her, admires her. This doubt works its way into everything she does, every relationship she has, platonic, romantic, or otherwise. Yet again, she shows her status as a reflection---answer: she’s a mirror. i know who i am because she exists---reading into everything and still not believing or trusting that it truly exists outside of her imagination.

Any time Sophie sees a girl she perceives as prettier, more elegant, or smarter than she is, she instantly develops a jealousy complex—relating either to how Fitz acts around them, or how they project the confidence and normalcy she wishes she can achieve---to tell me whether or not i am alone---She surrounds herself with people who are described as incredibly stunning even in a world where every elf naturally matches the ideal Western beauty standard.

Yet she refuses to believe that she, too, might be beautiful, and instead considers herself dull and boring next to Biana, Linh, Marella, and Maruca---(and ten books later, i still do not have an answer)---Even Stina, who has committed the number one crime (it’s a federal offense) of having “a mass of frizzy curls” (KOTLC 164), is considered beautiful when her hair is “tamed” and slicked back. This framing of beauty applies to the boys, too, but none of Sophie’s descriptions are quite as detailed, quite as admiring, or quite as wistful as when she’s describing Biana Vacker’s heart-shaped, perfectly glossed lips---so, yes, i look at her and see myself. is that what i’m trying to say? is that what i am?---

But the queer-coding doesn’t stop (or begin, really) with Sophie’s dedicated denial of both her worth as a human being and her desire to kiss her pretty girl friends. A connection called a “Cognate Bond” is often referred to in the text as the closest two elves can become, emotionally and mentally.

Cognates exist when two Telepaths (such as Sophie) have such a deep and unbreakable trust bond that they become more skilled together than they were apart. In creating and maintaining this bond, they have to complete trust exercises and not hold back secrets keeping them from total confidentiality---she thrives on secrets---Sophie’s cognate is her friend (and love interest, and, debatably, ex-boyfriend) Fitz, whose romantic relationship was in a large part focused on their cognate one. Their trust exercises involve staring into each other’s eyes, holding hands, having matching rings, and Fitz telling Sophie that she’s the only person he can truly trust.

Fitz also asks his father at one point if cognates are allowed to date each other— his father affirms the statement. Notably, Alden has the authority to do so since he himself was a cognate, only undergoing a nasty breakup— sorry, only losing the bond, after his cognate, Quinlin, kept too many secrets. It’s implied that two other characters were once almost Cognates, only to grow too far apart when one of them, Prentice, had his sanity forcibly shattered and was locked in prison, leaving his (gay lover) best friend, Tiergan, to raise his son---while cognatedom thrives on truth, and also regret, and also the denial of both---The choice to parallel Fitz/Sophie, Alden/Quinlin, and Tiergan/Prentice was possibly not a conscious one but it still resonates with hundreds of queer teen readers who look at the portrayal of utter devotion and trust between two men and think, Wow. This is what I see in myself---but without the denial, without the regret, what are we left with? what do we see?

we see the truth.

We see ourselves.

There are so, so many other issues that I could easily delve into in this series (such as the strangely Western portrayal of gender roles, the racism concerning the Song family, irresponsible adults and the ethics of genetic experimentation, the girlboss and cardboardification of quite literally every woman, etc) and just as many things that make Keeper of the Lost Cities worth it (Fitz’s anger, the development of villains, Sophie’s trans-coding, Keefe’s trauma, physical ramifications of guilt, Marella and Fintans’ pyrokinesis/queer-coding, whatever Dimitar has going on, etc).

The series tends to skew to the “not good” side, although on occasion it will topple abruptly into the “incredible work of art and exploration of wildly interesting character dynamics” before rising like an angel back to heaven into its original position as “questionable in terms of taste.” Mostly, what defines KOTLC is how it’s interpreted rather than the content itself. Someone far different (and with far worse taste) than I might see Fitz’s quest for vengeance and call him a red flag in elven form, while I call it a ridiculously interesting exploration of what grief, near idol worship, toxic standards, and guilt can do to a teenage boy past his limit.

But I am not the voice of the fandom (even though I definitely should be). I look at Sophie Foster and see myself, but that does not make her me. These characters always feel so painfully real, desperately relatable, as if Messenger cobbled together a main cast from bits of my life, but they are not. In the end, they are just characters. In the end, it’s just a series made for middle schoolers, in the same way the sun is just the sun, and the stars are just there to twinkle merrily and not to be explored.

(where am i without it? I cannot do what she can, but she breathes and I do too so do you get it? do i?  which one of us is me when I know that he was lying to himself, is lying to himself. truth is a phase and it ends once you hit age eight only leaving me with questions: did he want her to know at all? is he chasing the person or the change? the girl or the excitement? the wanting or the wanted? she knows that admitting it means being wrong. i will be wrong, unless i guess right and am big-headed, full of myself. who am i when i am a puzzle piece, a corner without the connection who hates it and loves it at the same time? isolation and contradiction aretwo sides of the same coin, where heads is insecurity and tails is egotism. question: who is she? answer: she’s a mirror. i know who i am because she exists to tell me whether or not i am alone (and ten books later, i still do not have an answer) so, yes, i look at her and see myself. is that what i’m trying to say? is that what i am? she thrives on secrets while cognatedom thrives on truth, and also regret, and also the denial of both but without the denial, without the regret, what are we left with? what do we see? we see the truth. We see ourselves.

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

Why “Put It Down” is my favorite SP episode.

Ok, I know what we’re all thinking. “Ofc it is it’s a Creek episode.” But that’s not really why.

The main reason Put It Down is my #1 is because of the character development of one Craig Tucker.

Season 21 is iconic in my eyes for a few reasons: PC Principal & Strong Woman, President Garrison, the cultural and pop culture references throughout, but in PID, what stands out to me most is how WELL the A plot and B plot mesh together. The A plot, of course, is Tweek’s struggle with feeling overwhelmed with all that’s going on in the world and feeling like he has no control over his life, and the B plot is Cartman’s vying for attention by threatening suicide.

I could go into detail about the differences in the opening scene vs the end, but I’ll keep it brief bc ik no one cares abt what my ass has to say lmao. Just the sheer difference in CONTROL and confidence Tweek exhibits in the end vs the beginning with his performance is something in and of itself. The change he goes through over the course of the story, finding a healthy outlet for his emotions w the help of his boyfriend, while ultimately being the one to save himself, is one of my favorite messages to come out of sp to date.

So Craig Tucker. My favorite SP kid besides the core four, and the guy whose development I really want to talk about.

Craig really isn’t someone who easily empathizes with others, doesn’t show emotion easily, and can come across as uncaring, even though he’s definitely not. Throughout the episode, he WANTS to help Tweek, but goes about it in the wrong way. He offers solutions, distractions, logic, and doesn’t understand when Tweek tells him that’s not what he needs.

Craig is a lot more logic oriented than most of the other sp kids, and is very much a problem—> solution kind of person. He, understandably, grows frustrated with Tweek for what he sees as overreacting, until the A and B plots cross over, and, through Heidi’s words to Cartman, realizes that not everything has to HAVE a solution, and that’s okay.

He realizes that the best way to help his boyfriend with his anxiety is not by distracting him, throwing facts at him, or any of that. It’s by allowing him the space to feel what he needs to feel, and go from there.

Like I said, that’s one of my favorite messages to come from a SP episode. A lot of the time, answers aren’t going to help, but feeling listened to will. That’s what Craig learns, and THAT, fellow SP enjoyers, is why Put It Down is at the top of my list (also the song, I mean c’mon)

[cookinguptales]

wwdits tarot: temperance

Slowly but surely this has just become a way for me to ramble about every character in this show.

Next up is XIV. Temperance.

So to make sense of Temperance, I think first I have to talk about the Four Cardinal Virtues. People sometimes put these against the Seven Deadly Sins, but the virtues are actually quite a bit older. Originally a topic of some discussion in ancient Greek philosophy, the Four Cardinal Virtues were comprised of four traits that are, well, virtuous to have. These virtues were later adopted by Christian theologians and eventually moseyed their way into occult stuff.

The four virtues are Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, and Prudence, and all four correlate to tarot cards in the deck. (Strength, Justice, Temperance, and The Hermit respectively. I know, that last one is a bit of a stretch.) I haven’t talked about them much because, well, virtues are kind of dull. But Temperance is kind of a dull card.

All of the other virtues drifted a bit in meaning when they made it to tarot, but Temperance still correlates strongly with its traditional meaning. The idea here is to be not too much of anything. Not too happy and not too sad. Not too fierce and not too meek. It seeks to find the middle way in all things and not feel any one thing too strongly.

It is a very calm, stable card.

Being real with you, there aren’t really any stable characters in WWDITS, but it was still fairly easy for me to choose who I wanted for this one. I wanted just a really chill, laid-back character who doesn’t really seem to fit into any of the core groups. He’s not too good. He’s not too bad. He’s not too concerned with most of the goings-on of the vampiric world.

He just wants to make minimum wage and go home to his sad storage-facility coffin.

That’s right. It’s Derek.

Temperance calls for moderation in all things, and Derek seems to have that covered pretty well, actually. He was kind of a mediocre human, and he’s become a mediocre vampire as well. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way; I think that in some ways, Derek has his life together a lot more than some of the vampires we’ve seen. He doesn’t hit the highs that a lot of vampires do, but he doesn’t often hit the lows, either.

One of the main symbols of Temperance, both in tarot and long before that, is a person pouring liquid from one container to another. Traditionally speaking, this is supposed to be a person mixing water into their wine to make it weaker. (This was common in the ancient world so people weren’t just drunk all the time.) The idea is to weaken the wine so it isn’t too strong. Moderation, temperance, etc.

That said, the meaning of that image has drifted a little bit in tarot to be more concerned with the concept of blending. Temperance here is calling for you to listen to multiple points of view, attend to several different groups, and mix all those things together into something that suits you specifically. It calls for you to take in diverse viewpoints and not cling to any one of them too tightly.

I think Derek manages that, actually, though perhaps not out of any desire of his own. Because he doesn’t really fit into any existing vampiric groups, he seems to take a little bit from the human and a little bit from the disparate vampiric groups he encounters and mixes them together into something all his own. This can sometimes have disastrous results, like when he got in trouble for wearing too much Hot Topic, but for the most part? Kind of seems to work for him.

He’s not dead yet, at least. That kind of seems like a win in the vampiric world.

I think that Derek also serves this purpose in the narrative, too. He serves as a blend of human and vampire that the writers use to really rattle Guillermo. Derek is a constant reminder of the human world that Guillermo is desperately trying to leave behind, not to mention the sins he’s committed in it, and the writers often seem to bring him up when Guillermo needs to be a bit uncomfortable. When he has to confront what his actions have done to other humans at the Mosquito Collectors. When Guillermo is going nuts trying to attend to Nandor’s wedding. When Guillermo finally decides to try and shake up his own position in life by asking Derek to turn him.

He’s a useful sort of character to have around, I think; a bridge between the human and vampiric world that Guillermo has never quite managed to build himself.

Derek also serves as a kind of weird happy medium between human and vampiric morality. As a human, he wanted to hunt vampires. (For… somewhat murky reasons, if we’re being honest.) As a vampire, he still refuses to engage in the kind of wanton violence and debauchery that the rest of them do. While he’ll freely admit that he "just does fucked-up shit now” he also seems to have a moral code that’s a lot stronger than Guillermo’s. He doesn’t like to lie or cheat or screw people over. He won’t steal from his human victims. He works for his living.

So I think we have a mixture now of the super fucked-up shit that the vampires do on the daily, often to each other, and his mission to make the world a better place as a human. He’s not quite so noble as a vampire slayer now, but he’s not killing for kicks, either. Temperance, I suppose.

Finally — honestly, he’s just a pretty chill dude, if a bit needy. Even when his life was on the line at the Vampiric Council, he seemed to have a very “I guess this is my life now” philosophy about things. He certainly seems to have the calm aspect of Temperance down pat.

I’m interested to see where Derek ends up in season 5. Whether Guillermo will pull him more into the fucked-up vampiric world, or if his own set of human scruples will prevent Guillermo from attaining the vampiric status he’s always dreamt of.

Will Derek stay Temperance?? I guess only time will tell.

(And damn, will someone just have a chill bull sesh with this guy? He’s so lonely. He makes me depressed. Guillermo, I love you, but you are a genuinely terrible friend. lmao)

Anyway, onto the imagery.

Like I mentioned, the main thing with Temperance is this pouring liquid between two cups image. We also see this angelic figure with one foot in the water and one on land (balancing between two worlds) and having an indeterminate gender (occultists in this period were pretty into dimorphic gender roles, so an androgynous figure like this would be yet another symbol of blending two "opposites.")

With Derek — I mean, obviously we have to turn the liquid into blood, right? We just gotta do that. It’s a given.

As for the rest of the card, I like the idea of setting it in the cramped back room of that gas station, but a pool of blood on the ground spilling from his two chalices. One foot is in that pool of blood, but the other still on safe ground.

(He would spill the blood. Sorry, Derek, but you’re not exactly the most capable of vampires here.)

Temperance is usually an angelic figure, but we can’t exactly have those around our vampires, can we? Still, I think it’d be nice if the fluorescent lighting forms a sort of halo behind his head.

We get our angels where we can get them in this show. lmao

wwdits tarot masterpost

[maroonghoul]

Horror Movies I Just Watched: Mar 2023

Another short list this month:

Planet Terror: If these aren’t the grossest zombies I have ever seen, they’re the grossest I’ve seen in a long while. 

Once again, the fictional end of the world is caused by the US military dabbling in something without any proper precaution. Didn’t really care for the running gag with the mad scientist being castration obsessed. Not sure if that’s bro-humor or homophobia. Bruce Willis’s cameo as technically the main villain was kinda funny. if only for how they enjoyed making it obvious how detached he was from the rest of the cast. And of course, Tarantino shows up just to die, but not before deserving every nasty bit of it. Really surreal they’re part of a stolen plot point from 28 Days Later of all things. If you’ve seen it, you probably know the one.

 The rest of the cast work well enough. Marley Shelton’s doctor remains likable even as she goes off the deep end and her eye shadow runs (wait, did I say even? I meant especially), while Josh Brolin seems to channel his Thanos performance ten years earlier and even creepier. And what happens to their kid; child death in horror movies can be a stand out moment whenever it shows up if not handled recklessly. This isn’t reckless, but it certainly seals the deal on what kind of movie this is with it’s dose of dark comedy.

I know Rose McGowan’s gun leg is THE image of the movie, but I’ve been used to seeing it even before watching the movie, I was more affected by everything else. 

I should’ve know just how bloody all this was really going to get the second Tom Savini showed up. Then again, with him here and Rodriguez directing, calling this movie From Dusk Til Dawn’s grimier dumber brother seems appropriate. That reminds me, I need to rewatch that in the near future.

Scream VI: *SPOILERS!*

I felt like the previous one took a few more risks than this one, but I actually enjoyed this one more.

A part of me DID watch to relish the New York setting here, but Ghostface was always the type to be in costume when he’s in your house rather then around any sort of landmark. He would’ve been caught almost immediately.

Yes, the opening is a great first for the franchise. In hindsight, paired with the reveal of our actual killers, it felt like a callback to Mrs. Loomis betraying Mickey back in Scream II. Personal revenge taking priority over insipid fame-seeking meta commentary. 

Speaking of our actual main killers, Is this the first one since III where the motives are actually personal? And the first since II it’s someone taking revenge for family? It helps that there being THREE of them and they’re family kinda gives it a Texas Chainsaw vibe for me. And pretty cool that the climax is a literal blood feud between two families. (Though I’m confused, are the Villains the Bailey’s or the Kirsh’s?) 

Although that ends up being part of what I mean about there being less risks. With three killers, that means even less victims that aren’t just essentially extras which was about half the deaths this time (The bodega people plus Gale’s new companion), so the only new person who was expendable ‘til then was Anika. As for the core four, they’re actually less expendable now then the previous four have been (Randy died in only his second appearance and Dewey...) . Chad couldn’t really die no matter how many stabs because he’s new final boy Himbo. It wouldn’t been way too mean to kill Mindy, the black queer member, especially right after killing her girlfriend right in front of her. We literally just got Kirby back. The internet might’ve explode if it was definitive this time. Sam’s the new main character, who also makes a more compelling case of sticking around this time, (and hoping Scream vii doesn’t spin it’s wheels on her). Tara might be the strongest case, especially with how Jenna Ortega’s fame is skyrocketing so she could get too busy for more of these. But yeah, combining that with her sub plot of pseudo self destruction might not have paired well. I almost felt Gale was saved in reshoots, people repeating she was in a coma. I get it, but man, she would’ve went out strong. 

I guess, pay disputes with Neve Campbell aside, maybe it is time for some legacy characters to step back for now. Just do something to have less characters with plot armor.

Okay, Let me end this section on a positive note. One of my favorite bits was actually in the opening. Tony Revolori’s character becoming a killer AND getting killed because he doesn’t understand Giallo films was rather amusing to me, but I guess only because I know enough about horror movies to at least know what a Giallo is. Up to that, can we just say that was the actual big intentional gag of this whole franchise, am I right? All the characters talk about scary movies and most of the villains are trying to create a real life scary movie. Though the movies they’re referencing and trying to copy are Slashers films, the plots of the Scream movies always felt like they had more in common with Giallos, like the ones made by Bava and Argento decades before slashers. Slashers don’t have human, vulnerable schemers all that often, but Giallo do. The invincible killer that gets away with everything until the next killing spree were around in 70s horror movies (Michael, Billy, Leatherface, etc.), but they didn’t start being considered cool until Jason showed up a movie late in 1981. The eighties. A decade where psychopathic straight men seem to run everything. But we’re not in the eighties anymore, and as much as we can learn from it, we also need to leave it behind. Even though too many people prove to not get the memo, the joke is still on them at the end. Six times now in this case.

It’s crazy how the first and second time Ghostface was actually cheer worthy are in this movie, at the very beginning and the very end (Unless III had some moments, it’s been a while). While the end is gratifying with Sam weaponizing her own horrific family legacy against those who’s chickens have come home to roost, a slight evolution on Richie’s fate from the previous movie. I’ll still remember this entitled, pretentious asswipe getting done in by someone actually trained and experienced in killing (either the cop father of one of the kids he’s trained) beating him at his own game before he even got started, with a pre mortem one liner that would seem contradictory, but fits in how when you’re on the receiving end of the knife “Who give a f--- about movies?!”

Inferno (1980)��Speaking of NYC-set horror films and Argento. This is a loose sequel to the original Suspiria. While it’s been a long time since I saw that one, I think I liked it more then this one. Suzy came into the plot because of a personal pursuit then got curious about the weird and horrific events around her. Mark in this movie, cared the least about who the Mother of Shadows is, yet he’s the sole survivor. Was that commentary about leaving well enough alone on such things? Usually you don’t punish any characters for trying to be smart in a horror movie unless movie is made before 1960. 

At least the kills were up to snuff. Failed decapitation by window and getting chewed on by rats before getting stabbed by a possessed(?) food cart vendor were highlights. Really hated how the guy drowns some cats before doing it. What was even the point of that? Not like Tenebrarum had any pet cats.

Skeleton costume at the end was cute though. Not even going to bother with the third trilogy in this sorta Trilogy. I heard it was even worse.

I’m likely going to have a longer list of movies to talk about next month. Until then...

[stardustizuku]

Why Miraculous LadyBug Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Magical Girl Genre in All It’s History.

Here’s the thing: I’m a huge fan of Magical Girl animes. I love them and treasure them, so when this craze of westernization of the genre came, I was more than glad to welcome it.

And to this day I’m happy about most shows that came out of this hybrid. I love SVTFOE despite its flaws, Steven Universe holds a deep place in my heart and She-Ra is��She-Ra is the best to come out of it.

However, among all of these, there’s a rotten apple. One that breaks my heart to see become nothing more than…an insult to everything that came before it.

Listen, when I started watching Miraculous ladybug I was hopeful. Really hopeful. Excited and mesmerized.

The original PV was 2D animated and it had this vague Princess Tutu vibe that I couldn’t resist. It was clear as day that it borrowed a lot of its inspiration from magical girls. The animation was beautiful, and the scene of Chat looking at Ladybug starry eyed under the Paris Moonlight was one that I will never forget.

I love Magical Girl Anime. That’s why, I think that I let some shows get away with more than others would. What I ask from a western show that borrows from it, is very little in fact. I still like Star vs, and I Can sit through hundreds of episodes for just one cute scene.

And when it first aired, I tried to be positive, to like even when it had all these massive red flags.

I’ve never been a big fan of 3D animation, and specially not how it’s used in Magical Girl animes. (We all know the disaster of Sailor Moon Crystal). But I swallowed it down. The characters were different from the original PV but I swallowed it down. The background scenery was bland and generic and hardly felt unique, but I swallowed it down.

I was here since day 1. I was here when Stormy Weather premiered. I was here before many of you were, and I swallowed it all down. All for one simple reason:

The Love Square.

People who aren’t as interested in Magical Girls as I am, specifically Magical Girl Anime’s with Romance, may not understand why the Love Square was such a big deal. Why it was the core; the life of the series.

Four before that, we need to cover:

The Alter Ego and It’s Relationship To The Protagonist

An alter ego is the “alternative version”. The Superman to Clark Kent, the Spider-Man to Peter Parker, the Batman to Bruce Wayne. They represent the hero version, the other self, the better version if you will, of the character or protagonist were supposed to root for.

In magical girls, these better versions are key to understanding our Main Chatacter. While many magical girl anime’s like Sugar Sugar Rune or Sakura Card Captor don’t place so much emphasis on the Alter Ego, there’s many who do.

That’s it, because the Alter Ego is better. Brighter, happier, a sense of justice and able to confront the world. While our Main Character often times doesn’t have these characteristics. The alter ego represent everything they wish to be, while the real them hides underneath.

Which, when you add romance has a very interesting dynamic.

Our main character falls in love with another, often times a prince or an idol, who everyone looks up to. And who does this Prince fall for? Our main character? Well… No. he falls for our Main Character’s Alter Ego!

The reason why I find this fascinating is because in these situations, the Prince character isn’t supposed to be the Male Lead. That honor instead goes to the Rebel character. You know who I’m talking about. The Ikuto, the Kishu, the Fakir or even Mamoru of the story.

These are all fan favorite characters that fall under the “Bad Boy” or “Rebel Character” those who aren’t in love with alter ego, but instead feel attraction to the MC or the “real one”

Shanespear has a great video where she details the reason why a lot of teenage girls feel attracted to this kind of character. A compulsion to be “good” and “perfect” brought for by society, and the only way for them to explore these darker and more dangerous fantasies of rebellion is through a “bad boy” who pushes them out of their comfort zone.

May I mix then these two layer together? You have the MC in love with a perfect boy, a Prince if you will, who in turn is in love with the Perfect Girl version of the MC. And a Bad Boy who is in love with the Real Version of the MC, flaws and all. And it’s only through understanding both the real and idolized version on the MC that a man can “win” the love of our protagonist.

It’s an interesting dynamic. With many different answers depending on how each show tackles it’s themes. Tokyo Mew Mew offers the idea that the Prince is the correct option, while Princess Tutu says it’s not. Then there’s those with open endings such a Shugo Chara.

The interesting thing in Miraculous Ladybug was that it boiled down this interesting dynamic into the Love Square. The perfect and the real, the idolized and the true.

Ladybug represents the perfect version of Marinette. Adrienne represents the perfect version, while the real one is chat. Chat was both the “Bad Boy” and the “Prince” all in one. All in love with the “Perfect” or Idolized version of each other

This was something never before seen. Finally, a story that would explore relationships and dynamics, of the different ways people act and who we are with people we trust and love-

No.

Sorry, we. We didn’t get that.

What we got was padded episode, new love interest that refused to deal with this complexity, and a stagnant rship that refuses to explore any of the flaws of their characters - why they’re not perfect, or even a reason why they stay in love

This is why the Love Square fails. This, is the core of why and how it works. People can expand upon this in million different ways, but you inevitably come back to this.

The real and the idolized. The want vs the duty. The expectations and the responsibilities.

And one thing that the show refused to explore up until late into season 3 and start of season 4 was this specific parts of the Ladybug’s character

Marinette’s Alterego

Quick question, what does ladybug (the superhero) represent?

I’ve seen people do this with superheroes, but I don’t know nearly enough abt western superheroes to make an analogy so-

Princess tutu is the representation of Ahiru’s love for Mytho. Her purpose is to collect his heart shards to save him and make him happy. She desperately wants to make him whole again, out of pure devotion she has for him.

Sailor Moon is the representation of Usagi’s past as Princess Serenity. Her bonds that transcend space, it’s her duty to protect the earth like she couldn’t protect the Moon Kingdom. By the end of the series, it’s her deep connections and love for the rest of the sailor scouts what drives her to bear the weight of saving the world.

Amulet Heart is the representation of Amu’s “I want to be” self. Her desire to be sporty and happy, easy to mix with people. She has many others And through them all she aims to find herself. Who she really is, and where she fits in a school that idolizes a fake version of herself.

Pink Pearl Voice is representation of Lucia’s duty as a princess. She has seen her people be in distress and knows the weight her actions have on her nation. Her purpose is to fight those who want to hurt her kingdom. To return peace to the seven seas.

This is actually exemplified perfectly in Madoka, where all the girls make a wish. That wish is what fuels their heart, and if they lose sight of it - that’s when their soul gems cracks.

Magical Girls are a wish. While they become magical girls to save the planet, there’s something behind it that they guard deeply and wish to protect even more.

What exactly is ladybug’s purpose? What does she represent? Why did Marinette decide to become Ladybug?

Because of her sense of responsibility, you may say. But according to what we’ve seen, where would that sense of responsibility come from? To protect her friends? Her country? Her school? Her family? Is it pressure from her parents? Or is it herself? Why pressure herself, and to this extend?

What exactly would have been her wish when she became Ladybug? Why would she have accepted a deal where her self is in jeorpardy, and continue to accept it as more and more burdens pile up on her ? Why when she has no real sense of duty?

In the case of chat Noir is easy to find. He wants to be free, wants to be able to escape his home that feels like a prison, but still craves a place that will welcome him as he is: a mischievous trickster who messes up sometimes.

He wants a place where to belong. And Ladybug offers that, while Chat Noir lends him the means to show that true self he can’t allow to others. He would never give up his miraculous because it would mean loosing all that.

But Marinette doesn’t have that. What’s stopping (in season 1-3) from ditching everything and asking Master Fu to find a new ladybug? Realistically.

This is why headcanons and fanfic do a better job than the series. There’s no clear answer. According to previous actions, we can speculate why. But we don’t have a real reason.

We don’t know what Ladybug represents. And if we don’t know who Marinette’s ideal self is, how can we know Marinette?

The closes thing we get to a “motive” is the fact that as Ladybug she gets to be the leader and confident girl she always wanted to be, because she’s clumsy…But I have to say, that doesn’t really make sense. And that’s because

Marinette’s True Self?

Right now, Marinette is an amalgamation of many different MC tropes all stitched together with the world’s flimsiest needle. It’s a poke away from entirely crumbling.

We have:

* I have a crush on my idol classmate

* I am clumsy and ditzy hehe sorry

* You cant bully people! That’s wrong and you’re a meanie!

* Standing up to bullies

* But also I’m kind hearted and will offer a helping to hand to those ostracized by society

* Except if they’re the villain or the villain’s minions, they’re bad

* I am a natural born leader and inspire others

* But also I have no self steem and constantly doubt myself

* I am soo shyyy

* But also I will be weird abt my crush

I liked Marinette from the PV. She reminded me a lot of Ahiru. A kind and cheery girl, with a golden heart, who secretly crushes on her idol prince. Probably someone who would be kind to a fault, trying to brefriending even the ultimate boss.

But Marinette right now wouldnt. Or at least I think she wouldn’t. I mean, she hates cloe and Lila, and would never offer to help them. Never has opened to them, and has an antagonistic rship with them.

But she did help Ivan that first time. And we see her forgive people who aren’t explicitly villains.

But she WAS really nasty towards Kagami when they didn’t even know all that much about her.

“It makes her a complex character-!”

It makes her confusing. You can’t know how she’ll act, so you can’t understand her and her actions. It alienates her

Unfortunately, at this point we only have one defining characteristic of her. The one thing you’re sure won’t change, the one thing you can trust her to be no matter the circumstances. Her defining characteristic:

Adrien

Her feelings for Adrien are the only true constant.

We can’t trust her to be kind, bcs maybe the girl is crushing on Adrien and we’ve seen how she treat those girls. We can’t trust her to put art before anything, bcs we rarely see her design. We can’t trust her to be smart, clumsy, a good leader, a crybaby or happy.

The only thing we can trust about her, is Adrien

At the beginning of the series , Marinette was portrayed as a clumsy girl, that gets nervous around her crush easily but ultimately meant well. But that characterization didn’t last long. Soon, with the Episode where they run for class president, Marinette is introduced as a natural born leader who easily takes charge in an emergency situation, when Adrien and her crush isn’t involved.

And as we get to know more about her, it’s more obvious that - Marinette isn’t clumsy. Not at all. She never messes up when it comes to her art. Or at schools projects. Doesnt forget stuff, or accidentally ruins smth bcs of her clumsiness. She only truly becomes a mess of mistakes whenever Adrien is around.

Which could work. Many other magical girls base their character around their love interest. It’s not an automatic recipe for disaster. An MC with heavy focus on romance can work.

Ichigo Monomiya, for example, is someone whose crush is a big part of her character and motivation. She doesn’t want Aoyama finding out about her, and her comedy and tragedy comes from how much she wants to spend time with him - but is unable to. But the reason why she can’t confess, isn’t because she gets nervous or can’t seem to talk to him. It’s because she’s scared that when Aoyama finds out she’s half-cat, he’ll be grossed out and won’t want to date her.

And Ahiru’s entire wish is for Mytho to be happy at the cost of her own. For a while the only motivation she seemed to have was Mytho and we knew little abt her aside from that.

Marinette basing her entire identity around Adrien may not be a bad thing (writin wise) if the writers acknowledged that’s what they’re doing. If they allowed conflict to build upon it.

Maybe a explore who she is without Adrien, and how he affects the perception Marinette has on herself. Who does she become without him and more importantly

Why can’t she get together with him?

Real, why can’t Marinette get Adrien?

Well, the show has told us many times why. Awful consequences, the end of the world, etc etc.

But what I’m asking is why Marinette can’t get closer to Adrien?

what was stopping her from confessing? Being ladybug? Her own nervousness?

The first plot point doesn’t get explored ever.

It only ever gets explored until season 4 and with /Luka/. That she’ll always be distant or unable to connect with someone because of how much she has to keep from him. And it’s also kinda weird, when you juxtapose Luka and Aoyama.

Aoyama is the main love interest in the anime Tokyo Mew Mew. He was often sad and disappointed that Ichigo couldn’t put priority on him.

In one particular episode, he asked her out to go to the movies and was waiting for Ichigo, but a fight broke out and she was unable to go meet him. Mid-fight she does try to contact him but a jealous alien breaks her phone, making her unable to tell him she’s going to be late.

The iconic scene where she comes late to her date, and Aoyama is still waiting in the rain, will always be ingrained in my mind. The music, the writing, it all builds up to this point. You can see how much they long to be together, but there’s this impossible barrier for them. Cause entirely by circumstance. If Ichigo were normal, if she weren’t a hero, if she were just like other girls, she would be with the man she loves.

But she can’t. So she has to hide. Hide parts of herself, and her life. Even as she confesses that she loves him, she’s hiding her tail and ears. Worried that he’ll hate her but still trying to reach out.

And Aoyama forgives her. He says “I love you too”

It truly showed how they can’t be 100% together. That there’s a gap they can never truly fill.

And Aoyama /tries/. He doesn’t break up with her, doesn’t get angry, he hears how truly sorry she is and sees how anxious she’s getting - and accepts it. He forgives her. Because there’s things they still don’t know about each other, and neither are ready to share.

That’s why Luka’s reaction Is weird. Wanting the whole truth from your gf is strange. And yes, Marinette is an asshole for still crushing on Adrien - but Luka knew !! And he still accepted her. But he draws the line at Marinette having a secret he won’t tell her 2 month boyfriend and not even her closest friends KNOW??

So a fundamental part of Marinette’s struggles were shoved into a padded 30 min episode. Where the blame is placed entirely on her.

And this still doesn’t impact her rship with Adrien or Chat

Their relationship stays static. Never changing. Marinette is still a mess whenever he is on screen with him, and is helplessly in love with him.

Which bring us to point two: her nervousness.

This worked on the first few episodes and even seasons. But by this point, her nervousness is just not realistic, and it falls to the point of annoyance and even blatant fetishization by Thomas’ part.

Lets take it back to Princess Tutu. Also a shy clumsy girl who gets even worse when her crush is involved.

However, Ahiru gets competent the more time she spends with Mytho. By the end of it, even if she’s scared or nervous, she jumps head first into danger to protect him. She’s able to have conversations with him, and even gets close to his friends. She breaks out of her crush so much, that she’s willing to accept that Mytho is not meant for her.

But even so, she fights. Not to save Mytho, but to fight against a destiny she believes is unfair. She defies the destiny assigned to her, and fights even at the expense of her own dreams.

But Marinette stays the same. In recent episodes we’ve seen her battle with the expectations of being responsible of, well, everything. But it all stays the same.

The love square that was the foundation of the story, never progresses. It never changes. They stay static. They don’t talk about their feelings or are pushed to acknowledge that one is more or less important that the previously thought.

The reason for this I can only expect late. I believe, while I can’t be 100% certain, that the creators of the show didn’t want to continue developing the Love Square because they thought either one of two things:

• developing this dynamic would mean changing dynamics, ending the status quo morphing the story into something they didn’t want yet

•The dynamic can only change when the show is about to end, because that’s when they’re gonna get together. And that’s the endgame

Which just proves to me a flawed writing and lack of direction from part of the creator. That resonates especially true when *furious* Thomas *furious* created various Cloe centric episodes, even though he never intended to give her a redemption arc for her.

Which is plain bad writing. Changing stuff doesn’t necessarily mean an endgame is near. It just means things are changing.

Okay, maybe you’re having a hard time understanding what I mean. Imma be real mean to this series and compare it to the Magnus Opus of Magical Girls: Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon got together with Tuxedo mask in the first season, yet the writers were able to up the steaks of their relationship through its 5 season run- through memory loss, distance, anxieties of hurting one another, or simply developing their relationship.

In the very last season, Usagi is in a long distance rship with Mamoru. We see through bits and pieces that she misses him, and she’s dealing with the turmoil of him not answering her messages. She’s lonely, and sad.

We see her reminiscent of her time with him. We see her break down and cry because he hasn’t called her. We see her thinking of him when she’s with Seiya. We see her be in love with him and we see how much it affected

And by the last few episodes, we get a payoff. We find out Mamoru is dead, and that he died confident that Usagi would be strong enough to protect the earth in his stead. That he believed in her, and he thought of her until the moment he died.

And when Sailor Moon defeats Sailor Galaxia, we get the payoff.

It’s a very simple but powerful story, packaged in 45 episodes. With enough room to breathe, digest it, but not drawn out enough for it to be annoying.

All this, when the relationship was already stablished. We could have had something like this, if the writers WERENT drawing out the reveal and get together until the very last second

Because, apparently, thinking of love post-reveal is too much. Instead we watch them run and run in circles. Which just cheapens what was an iconic dynamic.

And everything because the writers don’t actually know what they want to do with the love square. So they add new rivals, new teams, new accessories, side plots - all to avoid touching the actual core of what made the series great.

It strongly reminds me of Star vs. in that scenario the creators also weren’t sure where to take the show. It wasn’t until season 2 where they started the subplot of Star realizing Mewni colonized Monsters that it started having a sense of self. And it showed in the romantic subplot, which was all over the place. They didn’t know what they wanted, so The romance in that show was a mess. Lack of direction and intention, aside from the knowledge that Star and Marco were the end game

I personally don’t hate Star vs. I don’t like how it handled romance but I will give it much leeway because the actual plot of Intergenerational conflict and coming to terms with the harm your ancestors have done to others - is quite compelling and not something I see tackled often.

But Miraculous does not get that. It’s plot is simple and refuses to get into the murky waters of its own premise. Because, once again, the creators think that getting into them means the endgame is nearby.

So what did they do to artificially give the viewers a sense of progression?

The team.

All the emphasis on the story right now, is put instead on the new Miraculous Team. Which, is probably the worst thing to ever happen to the show, and the actual reason why I dropped the series.

Before we continue, quick question

What genre is ladybug borrowing from?Super hero? Magical Girl? Sentai?

Knowing the genre is knowing the story. And knowing the story, you have expectations and themes that the writers are expected to tackle. I mean, you expect science fiction to talk about computers and if their impact on society is good or bad. Same with these genres. That’s why it’s important to know

What genre are they trying to emulate??

Yeah I don’t know either. It seems like a mix of all three, but these three genres are widely different. It’s like trying to combine Fantasy, science fiction and Isekai, just because they’re all fiction. Yeah they’re a bit similar, but each has a theme and dynamic that fans are expecting to see.

But if what you know it’s a superficial level understanding of those genres, you may come out with something that everyone hates.

And that’s what happened with ML. The initial focus on two superheroes is, again, complete magical girl territory. The monster of the week format that gets repetitive to a point, also is. So I didn’t mind that. I was fine with little to no progression in certain episodes because I knew it came with the magical girl territory.

But things started to get weird, at episode 45 with the introduction of…Sighs, Rena Rouge.

I knew the moment Rena came that this was gonna get bad. I felt it in my bones that THIS was the sign of something insidious and awful boiling in the back of the show. This character marks the beginning of everything downhill in the show - it’s a glaring reminder of how awful the writing in this show is.

Don’t get me wrong I love Alya. I love the character design of Rena and I don’t think that - on a vacuum - her existing is bad. But her appearance signified that something even more rotten had happened behind the scenes.

They were trying to add more heroes. Heroes we didn’t need, and breaking the delicate balance of Chat & Ladybug’s dynamic. Because they were never planned to be there. High chance it was just a cheap way to add filler and sell toys no one will buy.

The team is bad. They ditched the “Magical Girl” formula and decided to go for a bit of a setain feeling. But they did this, so into the show that we ALREADY had a sense of their character as side character - bringing them to the spotlight was uncomfortable. Like suddenly making Molly a sailor scout, or giving Tomoyo clow cards in the middle of the second season.

That’s not their purpose in the story.

And they’re introduced so haphazardly that there’s hardly any time for them to hang out with each other

Since they don’t GET to keep the kwamis, they don’t get to participate on every chapter. Which means there’s no sense of a “team”. Which makes you wonder why they’re even considered a “team”

This is such a horrible decision it genuinely makes me wonder if these people KNOW how to create ANY story !!!

I feel like I keep comparing MLB to many decent and genuinely good magical girls animes. Which feels unfair, EVEN THO IT ISNT, because these are iconic anime’s that have left a print in media

So fine, let’s get this show to a level you all can understand how bad it is

DC superhero girls

The point of the show is a slice of life, and it’s GOOD, check it out if you can. It’s something to turn on and enjoy, with little overarching plot.

But get this, the entire focus is to watch the team girls Interact. A lot of the comedy comes from watching these girls having fun and watching them come to terms with their own super powers. Watching them get in trouble as they hide their identity, and how they bounce from one another. Who helps who, who are besties, who kinda hate each other, who brings them together and who keeps them strong.

But because they all have to hide in miraculous ladybug, you don’t see this. Which, btw, THIS is the foundation of both Magical girl GROUPS and Seitan. And I would argue you would get more leeway abt secret identities to one another in MG that Seitan. Seitan’s bread and butter IS team dynamics. The fact that we don’t know how two superheroes that aren’t ladybug and chat would behave around each other is an INSULT to the genre.

And the fact that Marinette is allowed to CHOOSE who is part of the team probably even a worst decision.

Most teams DONT get to chose who their partners are, and that’s what makes it amazing.

Because it’s a bunch of people who are forced to be together, slowly learning to open up and depend on one another. Which creates amazing and profound bonds that one originally wasn’t expecting.

Take for example Usagi. She didn’t CHOOSE her team. Instead, she found it. They found her. While Ami and Makoto are kind to her, she’s always butting heads with Rei, and playfully competing with Minako. They don’t all coddle her, or think she’s amaZing. They see her as a friend. A crybaby, clumsy but with a good heart who will help them out.

Tokyo Mew Mew has the same. Ichigo isn’t in perfect terms with Mint and they butt heads. Zakuro is a loner that isn’t integrated fully even in later episodes. But they’re a team. They work together.

The fact that Marinette gets to pick, creates issues like…Queen Bee. Who she kicked out (mostly) because she’s not someone Marinette trusts. Even though time and time again Chloe showed she is very willing to help. In a GOOD series, this is a way of proving the MC that not everyone who is annoying or a missy, or has a different attitude than Hers, is a bad person. That are people who are willing to do good, if given the chance to do good.

But this it not a good series.

Thomas claimed in various tweets that “bullies can never be heroes” and that’s….insulting.

Never mind that Chloe is an neglected teen, this is show inspired by magical girls. Name ONE magical girl anime where the girl who’s kinda mean to the MC but WANTS to do better - is shown to actually be cruel.

None. Princess Tutu has Rue. Shugo Chara has Utau. Sakura Card Captor has Mei. Sailor Moon has - well not girl but Fisheye -. Mermaid Melody has Sara. Mermaid Melody PURE has Michelle. Madoka has Homura. Lyrical Nanoha has Fate. Pretear has Mayune and Mawata. Tokyo Mew Mew has Mint AND Zakuro-

THIS IS THE THEME.

Magical girls are about forgiveness. They’re about kindness and the power of perceived feminity. It’s about offering a helping hand, when the world is cruel to you. A magical girl doesn’t raise her sword first. She talks. She asks. She feels. And only after all has been exhausted, she fights.

If a girl wants to be better, it doesn’t matter what she did before. She is allowed a second chance.

Even Madoka, the “darkest” magical girl - she saves every girl who wanted to do better. She stopped them from becoming witches, because they didn’t want to. But they were forced to. Forced to become horrible monsters, until someone killed them. But Madoka saved them.

The fact that Thomas spat on the very core of THE Magical Girl Genre. Shows what he is. An old dude, who THINKS he knows what little girls want. Who thinks a woman who was mean, is an evil creature that knows no remorse, and deserves to be hated forever. Not forgiven, or handed a second chance. But despised.

He is the type man that pollutes the genre. Who thinks he knows, but really no one wants him here.

ML is bad. For a number of reasons. But it fails to be what it promised to me. It failed me on the first day. And I still stuck with it. Because a lot of western series failed me on their initial take of a Magical Girl.

Star Vs wasn’t best. Steven Universe didn’t borrow enough. She-Ra’s transformation left much to be desired.

But they all gave me something. And what’s most important, it held its core belief.

“Women can help one another. And kindness isn’t weakness”

Miraculous isn’t that. It disappointed and hurt me, because it believe the exact opposite. Marinette only cares about Adrien, and cares little for other women. She is antagonistic for any girl who shows interest in him.

In her eyes, kindness isn’t a priority. Her friends and teammates, are all people she chose, not those who she had to learn to love and fight along side with.

If She-Ra’s last season is the culmination of everything a Magical Girl should be in the west. Miraculous is the exact opposite.

It doesn’t only fail as a show. It doesn’t only fail as a Magical Girl show. It borrowed every last thing it had from the genre.

And once it was popular, it spat on it

Miraculous ladybug hates magical girls. And honestly,

I hate it too.

[luminnara]

Goddamn, Shit-Sucking Vampires | lost boys x oc 18+ ONLY | Ch 3

Summary: Vera is an unusually vicious bloodsucker who's never stuck in one place for very long...until a mysterious feeling pulls her right to the murder capital of the world: Santa Carla, California. Now, she needs to figure out why exactly she's there, where she fits in amongst the boardwalk's nighttime denizens, and how to cope with her own personal vampire-related problems.

Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

Taglist: @ilikechocolatemilkh​

Warnings: smutty smut, language, blood

“Hello, darling.”

He had been quick to take her lips with his, kissing her hungrily as she moved to straddle his lap. Before they could get too comfortable, he stood, carrying her in the direction the others had gone but stopping in a room along the way. It had been a hotel room once, a bed covered in silks like the ones from the main cavern still sitting in the middle. 

He tossed her down onto it, watching as she stretched out on her back languidly. She was so inviting. A low rumble rose in his chest as he took his coat off, leaving it on the floor with his boots and gloves. All he could pay attention to was her bare midriff and those exposed thighs, her crop top and short shorts barely leaving anything to his imagination. She sat up and shrugged her vest off, throwing it to the floor as she held eye contact with him. She was smiling the way someone did when they were keeping a juicy secret, a glint of something in her eyes as she leaned forward. 

“David,” she purred, beckoning for him with her fingers. “Come and take care of me.”

He happily crossed the space between them, crawling over her until he could kiss her again. Her hands slid up his forearms, feeling his cool skin and the muscles underneath it. He pushed her back down and she complied, biting sharply at her bottom lip.

“I want you, Vera,” he growled, sending warmth spreading through her core. 

She moaned, hands moving to his waist, slipping under his shirt. “Then take me.”

He couldn’t help himself. His hips met hers, his arousal grinding against her. He wanted her to feel what she did to him, to have some tiny inkling of what it was like to see and smell and feel her. 

“You do horrible things to me,” he breathed.

Her nails were sharp against his skin as she lightly scratched down his sides. “You can handle it.”

Chills ran down his spine and he laughed, the little grumble returning to his chest as he pinned her against the bed with his weight. “You’re mine.”

Vera watched as his face vamped out, eyes blazing yellow-orange as he snarled above her. She shivered in delight, a smile on her lips as his claws tore through her shirt and raked down her belly, ugly red marks fading almost as quickly as they appeared.

“You like it rough?” She teased, moving her knees to either side of his hips. 

With a playful snarl, he bit at her collarbone, earning a squeal. “I like it however I want.”

Vera gave a little growl and reached for his pants, tugging them open and slipping her hand in to feel him. His breathing grew heavier as he pressed his hips against her touch, desperately searching for more contact. 

“A little eager, aren’t we?” She teased, giving him a squeeze. 

“I can smell how wet you are,” his voice was husky, hand trailing down to reach her shorts. “Do you want something?”

She whined as he ripped her clothing, but she couldn’t be angry with him on top of her, nor could she be angry when he was pushing a finger inside of her. She let out the most delicious noise David had ever heard, her back arching as he pressed up into her. It had been long, far too long since she had had this.

“What was that?” He asked, twisting his hand.

She did it again, but louder, and he decided it was his favorite thing in the entire world. 

“You’re awful,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around his waist in an attempt to pull him closer. 

He smirked as he explored her, feeling wherever he pleased, playing with her as she moaned and squealed on top of the sheets. He learned what spots made her make which noises, and he watched as she snarled and sneered and taunted him. She was feisty, clawing at him as she urged him to get on with it, reaching up to kiss him whenever she had the ability to do so. 

It wasn’t until he made her orgasm that she vamped out, but when she did, she really did. She hissed and growled at him, becoming a wildcat that he was more than happy to subdue. He was losing control of himself as it was, chest heaving as he looked down at the most beautiful sight he had ever had the privilege of seeing. The swell of her breasts, the welts that formed and quickly disappeared whenever he bit at her boobs, the creamy, soft, gorgeous skin that he wanted to kiss and suck and maul all at the same time...it was perfect, and so was her muscular stomach, toned by so many years of being an apex predator, and so was her thick ass, and her thighs, and…

All of her. 

When he kicked his pants off and finally got to hear her cry his name, he thought he was going to lose it then and there. She felt perfect, clinging to him with her nails in his back and her fangs in his shoulder as she sobbed and snarled against his skin. She writhed beneath him, twisting and constantly trying to flip them so that she could top him. Whenever he felt her tense up as if she was about to, he would thrust into her harder, making her forget that she ever wanted to be anywhere but underneath her new mate. 

Until he finally relented and let her twist her hips, and then he realized he was absolutely fine with letting her call the shots.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” She crooned, leaning down to kiss him. Her voice was raspy when she was fully vamped out, a monstrous, snarly, beautifully sweet kind of voice that mesmerized David and left him in a haze. 

He only grunted in response, hands gripping her hips as she rode him. His eyes were glued to her as he took in the way she looked, her black hair a mess, her generous, perfect breasts bouncing slightly. He slid his hands up to cup them, squeezing and kneading and grinning when she bit her lip.

Blood ran down her chin, dripping down onto David’s chest. When he pulled her down to kiss her and get a taste, he bit her sharply, grinning when she squealed. She was funny, and delightful, and beautiful, and he had never felt that way about any girl he had fucked. There were beautiful ones, yes, but none like her. No one that he wanted to keep around. 

He knew it was all because of his hormones, ancient vampire instincts that were urging him to make Vera his and impress her enough that she stayed. He didn’t know why he was so concerned with what she thought, especially because she seemed pretty content, based on her whines and moans, but he had the need to do everything in his power to show that he was worthy of her time. 

They rolled again, David still sucking at Vera’s lip. She resisted a tiny bit, stubbornly locking her hips and thighs in an attempt to brace herself against him, but as he rolled his hips forward, she relaxed into a puddle of happy moans. When he felt her nails digging into his back, he knew she was close, and he was more than happy to suck at her neck while she said his name over and over and over. 

He buried himself deep into her when he finally came, grunting and whispering “Fuck, Vera…” in her ear until he finished and pulled back, panting as he looked down at her. She was a mess, black hair splayed across the bed, blood running from her lip and throat. 

With a smirk, David hooked his hand under her knee and brought it up for him to kiss, leaning his head against it as he watched her. “You’re beautiful.”

She opened her eyes, smiling and showing her bloody teeth. “Come here, big guy.” 

David happily complied, releasing her leg and flopping down next to her. He didn’t bother looking for either of their clothes and just wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her up against him. He would have preferred to go roost with the others, but she was already dozing off in his arms, and who was he to try to make her move? 

“Vera?” He asked, deep voice rumbling as she tucked her head in his chest.

“Hm?” She grunted sleepily.

He could tell she was barely awake, and his own eyelids were drooping as he pressed a kiss against the top of her head. “Stay. Forever.”

“Mhm,” she mumbled, snuggling as close to him as she could get. 

David made a pleased sound, not unlike a purr, and busied himself by playing with her hair until he passed out, surrounded by her scent, happier than he had been in a long time. 

-0-

Paul woke up slightly warmer than usual, which was odd, considering how generally cool the sunken hotel was. His mind was heavy and fuzzy, but it felt warm, too, and when he finally forced his eyes open, he figured out why.

“Marko,” he slurred. “The hell you doin’?”

The smaller vampire only grunted and snuggled closer. 

Paul sighed, but he really didn’t mind. It wasn’t the first time he had woken up to find Marko cuddling up to him. Sometimes, if he was a little drunk or high, Paul would even initiate it. David would rarely tolerate any kind of physical closeness, but if he was in a good mood, he allowed them to roost right up next to him. Dwayne was similar, rarely starting anything, but unlike their leader, he tended to growl and complain a lot less if Marko wanted some snuggle time. 

With a yawn, Paul shook himself lightly, sleepily looking around the cave. Marko had tucked himself right up under Paul’s chin, already fast asleep again, and Dwayne was hanging nearby, arms crossed over his chest as he snored softly. David was absent, and Paul cracked a smile when he remembered why. 

He searched for David’s mind and found him still fast asleep, but...happy. He could pick up the faintest scent of sex lingering in the air and it made his mouth water, hunger pains suddenly shooting through him. His turn with Vera would be soon, but he didn’t know if he could bear the wait. 

A little growl rose in his throat. He wanted her. He hated that David got to have her first, when he deserved her more. Paul was usually a pretty relaxed guy, preferring to get high and fool around than do anything serious, but when it came to this...he was feeling oddly savage about it. He would probably never openly defy David, who always looked out for all of the boys and proved himself to be a good leader over and over, but Vera was making him anxious. The more he woke up, the more restless he grew, until he finally gave Marko a little shove and disentangled himself from his clingy brother. 

Marko whined in protest as Paul dropped to the ground, dropping down after him just seconds later. “What’s the big deal?”

“I wanna go check on our new girl, bro,” Paul said, grinning as he dusted his sleeves off. “David’s had her all to himself long enough.”

Marko followed him out into the corridor, drooling slightly as the scents of Vera and sex grew stronger and stronger. “Smells like they had fun.”

“Too much fun,” Paul growled as they stopped in the doorway. 

The bed was a mess, sheets and silks torn to shreds. The pillows had somehow survived, and the old bed frame was still holding up, and both Paul and Marko made notes to themselves to change those when they got the chance. In the midst of it all, though, was a sight that made them hum happily; Vera was curled up on her side, perfectly happy and perfectly naked, tucked safely up against David. 

“Fuck off,” he growled sleepily when he noticed them standing there.

They only inched forward, Paul daring to venture further into the room while Marko hung back behind him. “You look a little exposed there, David. Why not take a break from guarding our little chickadee to go find some pants?”

The loud snarl that tore through David’s throat was enough to wake Vera, and she squirmed and whined in protest. Paul immediately turned his attention to her, bravely crossing the room and going so far as to lean over the foot of the bed, but David’s warning grumbles were enough to keep him from touching the female. 

Vera was finally opening her eyes to take in the scene around her when David pulled her up against him. She gave a little growl and pushed him away, struggling to prop herself up on her elbow so that she could reach out to Paul. David was being selfish, and she was already getting the feeling that all four of them were going to be almost impossible to handle. 

“C’mere,” she said tiredly, smiling and cupping Paul’s cheek when he rushed forward and leaned over her. 

David huffed.

“You shush,” Vera snapped at him. 

Marko snickered as he came up behind Paul, hoping to get some of the sugar that Vera was dishing out. David let out a dramatic sigh, sitting up and pulling Vera up against his chest while she cooed and taunted Paul, talking to him as if he were a dog while he just beamed at her adoringly. 

“What a good boy you are,” she laughed as she pinched his cheeks. “Not at all snarly like that mean old David…”

Paul growled happily. If he had a tail, it would be wagging, and David rolled his eyes at the display. Instead of saying anything snarky, though, he just nipped at the back of Vera’s neck, hands sliding around her sides to rest on her belly. He was feeling mellower now that he could wrap himself around her, and when he caught Marko creeping up around Paul, he didn’t even growl. 

“And of course, poor Marko, so ignored,” Vera giggled as she pulled him forward to kiss his nose. He and Paul were practically melting over her, happy hums and purrs filling the room. 

“Good evening,” Marko said slyly as he nuzzled his cheek against Vera’s. 

“Good evening, my little cherub,” Vera cooed, kissing his nose again and smiling when he scrunched it up. He was a mischievous little thing, but she was getting the feeling that he had to have a nasty streak, too; that sweet face and excited grin were both too innocent for him not to be hiding an ugly side. 

“I’m starving,” David mumbled, leaning his chin on top of Vera’s head. Vera had almost worn him out, since she had woken up sometime in the middle of the day and demanded more from him. He had happily obliged, of course, but now he was hungry, and whenever David was hungry, David was irritated. 

“You go get food, and I’ll stay here with—“

“You’re coming too, Paul.”

“But it’s my—“

“I would love a night on the boardwalk,” Vera interrupted, detangling herself from what was becoming a puddle of happy vampires. Marko let out a little whine as she slipped past him and began searching for her clothes, but Paul managed to grab her around the waist and scoop her up, one hand on her ass, the other on her back as he held her.

“Who says you need clothes?” He growled playfully, nipping at her cheek. 

She gave a little squeak as she struggled against him. “I do!”

“I disagree,” Marko said slyly, slipping up behind her and kissing the back of her neck. 

She swatted him away, wiggling out of Paul’s grip to search the floor and find whatever clothes she could still salvage. David had ripped a fair amount of them, but he had also been kind enough to bring her small backpack in sometime during the day, so she was at least left with one outfit. 

Paul and Marko watched as she got dressed, Marko biting his thumb in an attempt to keep himself under control. She made him hungry, in a way he wasn’t used to. It wasn’t the same as bloodlust or even normal human cravings; it was something else entirely, but it still made him ache and whine and wish that he could make it go away already. 

Vera pulled on a thong and a ratty pair of denim shorts, turning her back to the boys as she grabbed a bra and a tank top. They all had a good view of the tattoos on her back, snakes winding around skulls and portraits of women that were brightly colored and beautiful. Marko wanted to trace them, with either his fingers or his tongue, he wasn’t picky. Not very many girls around Santa Carla were marked up the way she was, and all he could think of when he looked at her was how she was such a work of art.

“Finished staring?” She asked, glancing over her shoulder. 

Paul slid up next to her, an arm around her waist. “Never, dollface.”

Vera huffed but settled in against his side. “I need more clothes. You guys got any cash?”

“Now that,” Paul spun them to face David, who was pulling his coat on, “is a question for papa bear over here.”

David gave a little growl, but reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash as he strode towards them. “Anything for the lady.”

Vera reached for it but he snatched it away, shoving it back in his pocket. She gave a little growl but followed at his heels as he left the room, Marko and Paul running along behind. They collected Dwayne as he was leaving their roost, and Vera was surprised when she caught his nostrils flaring and a quiet rumble rising in his chest. David smirked at his brother, lighting a cigarette as Laddie and Star met them in the main room. 

Vera looped her arm through David’s when she saw Star, trying to remain civil. The Halfling put her off somehow, and it wasn’t just because she was so ungrateful for the offer of immortality she kept stubbornly avoiding. There was something else that was just pissing Vera off, something about the way Star moped and so clearly hated the people that gave her a safe place to sleep and protection from the rest of the world. She almost seemed dangerous, as silly as that thought was; she wasn’t physically strong enough to do anything on her own, but the fact that she was so vocal about her displeasure made Vera suspicious that she might just be capable of betrayal.

Or maybe she was just being paranoid. 

“Chin up, girl,” Paul mocked. 

Star only scowled, following them out to the bikes. She climbed on behind David when Vera strutted past her to accept Paul’s outstretched hand, grimacing but remaining silent after Vera shot her a little snarl. 

Paul and Marko hooted with laughter as Vera climbed on and sat haughtily behind the former, unable to shake the unsettling feeling that Star was giving her. There was no logical reason for it; Star was only a Halfling, hardly anything to worry about. She had a fraction of Vera’s strength and none of her survival instincts, and should they ever face off, it would be a quick fight. All of that only made Vera more uneasy, but try as she might, she couldn’t figure out why. 

“Cheer up!” Paul shouted as his bike roared to life. 

“I’ll cheer up when I’m dead,” Vera teased, leaning up to kiss the side of his neck. 

A little jolt of electricity shot through him and he whooped, the bike tearing off in the direction of the boardwalk, Marko close behind. 

-0-

“Marko, be a dear and get me a lemonade?” Vera purred, leaning forward and brushing her fingers along his jaw. 

Marko shivered but grinned, catching her hand to kiss her palm before bouncing off in the direction of the lemonade stand. 

Vera smiled and sat back, hands clasped in her lap as she watched the crowd. There really were all types in Santa Carla, and she was surprised to find that she felt like she was beginning to fit in. 

Paul threw an arm around her waist as he leaned back against the rail she sat on, a joint in his other hand. The boardwalk had little in the way of law enforcement, thanks to the Lost Boys themselves taking officers out whenever they irritated them, so Paul was left to smoke his weed in peace for the most part. “So whaddya think, babe? Enjoying the nightlife?”

“I can get used to it.” She took a deep inhale and her smile widened at all of the scents the boardwalk was offering her. “I’m starving.”

David raised an eyebrow from where he was leaning on his bike. “Already?”

“Yes,” she shot back defensively.

“We just snacked,” Paul laughed. 

“And? I only had one boy.”

“You’re insatiable.” David said with the hint of a chuckle. Honestly, he was sort of glad that she was so much hungrier than he was. He was used to feeling annoyed at himself about it, but now he could just direct all of those thoughts towards teasing her.

Vera snorted angrily. “So? Don’t you know it’s rude to comment on a lady’s eating habits?”

“Just find it strange, considering how old you are.”

She growled. “It’s also rude to comment on a lady’s age, dickweed.”

He smirked in reply and she narrowed her eyes. She could care less about the age comment, because he was right; she wasn’t a newborn, by any means. She shouldn’t have such an unquenchable thirst for blood at this point. The boys all seemed content with one good meal a night, but she had already dragged one Surf Nazi into an alley and was on the lookout for another. 

It sure wasn’t normal, and she knew it. 

Dwayne was on her other side, leaning on the railing with his arms folded over his chest. He cast a glance towards her when he heard her huff and found that he couldn’t look away, and suddenly, he was busy memorizing every single detail about her face. 

She was beautiful, and he understood why the others liked her so much. Her lips were full and her complexion seemed like it was olive at some point before she became a creature of the night. Arched eyebrows furrowed when she narrowed those hazel eyes, a classical nose scrunching with displeasure. She had tied her hair up on top of her head, leaving her throat exposed in what could have been some sort of a dare, and Dwayne had to stop himself from leaning in and taking a bite. 

Maybe being patient was going to be harder than he thought. 

“One lemonade, for the lady,” Marko snickered as he shoved his way back through the crowd, lemonade in hand. He had heard their little discussion, and as he brought Vera her drink, he made a point of kissing her cheek. You know, like a gentleman would. 

“You little kiss ass,” Paul grumbled as Vera took the lemonade with a smile. 

Marko just winked and settled himself between Vera’s legs, a hand on each thigh as he grinned up at her. 

“Thank you, Marko,” she drawled, tangling her free hand in his curls affectionately. 

Paul only rolled his eyes and looked the other direction.

David watched them with amusement. They had been there for half an hour, just looking at the crowds while Star was off somewhere with Laddie. He could feel Max nudging at his mind, as he had been for the past hour, and finally, he gave a little snarl and let him in.

What? He snapped. 

I want to meet her, David. His sire answered. Bring her to me.

He couldn’t help but growl. After.

After what, exactly?

After everyone has had their chance. 

David felt him let out an irritated sigh, but he was going to stand his ground. Vera was making him cautious, and he wasn’t going to introduce her to the most powerful vampire he knew until they figured out just who all exactly she was destined to belong with. It was hard enough wrangling his pack without having to worry about Max butting in. 

Paul and Marko were fooling around and Vera was leaning against Dwayne when she was finally fed up enough to hop down from the railing. David raised an eyebrow at her when she put her hands on her hips and flared her nostrils in a not so subtle attempt to track down some food. 

“I’m hungry,” she declared, cocking her hip to one side as she glared at David.

“Why am I the subject of your wrath?” He quipped, waving her away dismissively. “Go find a snack if you’re so starved.”

Vera growled at his tone, but she was too hungry to try to challenge him. She wasn’t even sure where she was falling on their totem pole, and she had better things to do with her time than stand there and try to figure it out. 

“We’ll keep an eye on things.” David said with a glint in his eyes that revealed how much he enjoyed riling her up. 

Vera’s nasty snarl turned into a grin as she reached up to let her hair down, hips swaying as she disappeared into the crowd to find a boy stupid enough to go after her. 

“Is it a good idea to let her run off like that?” Marko asked, watching her go. 

“Max won’t bother her.” David straightened up. “And besides, she needs some enrichment.”

“You talk like she’s a zoo animal,” Dwayne snorted. “She doesn’t need time to play.”

“You’re right.” David smirked as he started off in the direction Vera had gone. “She needs to hunt.”

[pftones3482]

I'm really struggling with all the people being like, "oh Nino can't be trusted he revealed himself to Adrien!"

I mean yeah, after.....almost two seasons of being Carapace?

Like let's be clear here, he didn't run and tell Adrien the second he became Carapace. Hell, he didn't even tell ALYA.

Y'all seem to be forgetting that: HE DIDN'T EVEN TELL ALYA. Alya figured it out, sure, but NINO DIDN'T TELL HER. He's never told ANYONE he's Carapace.

He told Adrien his secret identity in a space where no one could hear them talk. Adrien, his best friend, who he knows he can trust.

Was telling Alya's secret shitty of him? Yeah, ofc. That wasn't up to him.

But he told someone he could trust, while thinking he'd lost the love of his life, after probably like the worst night of his life, after keeping it a secret from him for nearly two full seasons.

Nino and Alya always leaned on each other after they were revealed to each other - Nino, in Rocketear, fears he is losing that support that he's grown used to (and he kind of is - Alya might have come clean to him about Rena, but she's still hiding stuff from him). If Alya can't support him, his obvious next choice is Adrien.

Idk it's not just as easy as saying "Nino can't keep a secret" because he CAN. That's already been proven. What he CAN'T do is feel isolated and alone, and he's doing what the other three aren't doing: reaching out for support.

Adrien is isolating himself. Marinette is keeping Chat Blanc from everyone, including Chat Noir himself. Alya is now lying to both her best friend and her boyfriend.

Nino is the only person actively searching for support, and I think in the end, that (and the fact that he's the only one in the main four who can't be akumatized again) is going to be their friendship's saving grace.

Marinette gave him the Turtle Miraculous for a reason. At it's most basic form, it represents protection. But at its core, it's about support.

[tlbodine]

The Horror Genius of Five Nights At Freddy’s

I’ve been playing FNAF: Help Wanted VR on my Oculus Quest lately (a birthday present to myself -- I know I’m late to that party!) and it’s reignited in me my old love of this series. I know Scott Cawthon’s politics aren’t great, but I don’t think there’s any malice in his heart beyond usual Christian conservative nonsense -- and I think he stepped down as graciously and magnanimously as possible when confronted about it. Time will judge Scott Cawthon’s politics, and that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I want to talk about what makes these games so damn special, from a horror, design, and marketing perspective. I think there’s really SO MUCH to be learned from studying these games and the wider influence they’ve had as intellectual property. 

What Is FNAF? 

In case you’ve somehow been living under a rock for the last seven years, Five Nights At Freddy’s (hereafter, FNAF) is a horror franchise spanning 17 games (10 main games + some spinoffs and troll games, we’ll get to that), 27 books, a movie deal, and a couple live-action attractions. 

But before it exploded into that kind of tremendous IP, it started out as a single indie pont-and-click game created entirely by one dude, Scott Cawthon. Cawthon had developed other games in the past without much fame or success, including some Christian children’s entertainment. He was working as a cashier at Dollar General and making games in his spare time -- and most of those games got panned. 

So he tried making something different. 

After being criticized that the characters in one of his children’s games looked like soulless, creepy animatronics, Cawthon had his lightbulb moment and created a horror game centered on....creepy animatronics! 

The rest, as they say, is history. 

The Genius of FNAF’s Horror Elements

In the first FNAF game, you play as a night security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a sort of ersatz Chuck-E-Cheese establishment. The animatronics are on free-roaming mode at night, but you don’t want to let them find you in your security room so you have to watch them move through the building on security camera monitors. If they get too close, you can slam your security room doors closed. But be careful, because this restaurant operates on a shoestring budget, and the power will go off if you keep the doors closed too long or flicker the lights too often. And once the lights go out, you’re helpless against the animatronics in the dark. 

Guiding you through your gameplay is a fellow employee, Phone Guy, who calls you each night with some helpful advice. Phone Guy is voiced by Cawthon himself, and listening to his tapes gives you some hints of the game’s underlying story as well as telling you how to play. A few newspaper clippings and other bits of scrap material help to fill in more details of the story. 

Over the next set of games, the story would be further developed, with each new game introducing new mechanics and variations on the theme -- in one, you don a mask to slip past the notice of animatronics; in another, you have to play sound cues to lure an animatronic away from you. By the fourth game, the setup was changed completely, now featuring a child with a flashlight hiding from the monsters outside his door -- nightmarish versions of the beloved child-friendly mascots. The mechanics change just enough between variations to keep things fresh while maintaining a consistent brand. 

There are so many things these games do well from a storytelling and horror perspective: 

Jump Scares: It’s easy to shrug these games off for relying heavily on jump scares, and they absolutely do have a lot of them. But they’re used strategically. In most games, the jump scares are a punishment (a controlled shock, if you will) -- if you play the game perfectly, you’ll never be jump-scared. This is an important design choice that a lot of other horror games don’t follow. 

Atmospheric Dread: These games absolutely deliver horror and tension through every element of design -- some more than others, admittedly. But a combination of sound cues, the overall texture and aesthetic of the world, the “things move when you’re not looking at them” mechanic, all of it works together to create a feeling of unease and paranoia. 

Paranoia: As in most survival horror games, you’re at a disadvantage. You can’t move or defend yourself, really -- all you can do is watch. And so watch you do. Except it’s a false sense of security, because flicking lights and checking cameras uses up precious resources, putting you at greater risk. So you have to balance your compulsive need to check, double-check, and make sure...with methodical resource conservation. The best way to survive these games is to remain calm and focused. It’s a brilliant design choice. 

Visceral Horror: The monster design of the animatronics is absolutely delightful, and there’s a whole range of them to choose from. The sheer size and weight of the creatures, the way they move and position themselves, their grunginess, the deadness of their eyes, the quantity and prominence of their teeth. They are simultaneously adorable and horrifying. 

Implicit Horror: One of the greatest strengths to FNAF as a franchise is that it never wears its story on its sleeve. Instead of outright telling you what’s going on, the story is delivered in bits and pieces that you have to put together yourself -- creating a puzzle for an engaged player to think about and theorize over and consider long after the game is done. But more than that, the nature of the horror itself is such that it becomes increasingly upsetting the more you think on it. The implications of what’s going on in the game world -- that there are decaying bodies tucked away inside mascots that continue to perform for children, that a man dressed in a costume is luring kids away into a private room to kill them, and so forth -- are the epitome of fridge horror. 

The FNAF lore does admittedly start to become fairly ridiculous and convoluted as the franchise wears on. But even ret-conned material manages to be pretty interesting in its own right (and there is nothing in the world keeping you from playing the first four games, or even the first six, and pretending none of the rest exist). 

Another thing I really appreciate about the FNAF franchise is that it’s quite funny, in a way that complements and underscores the horror rather than detracting from it. It’s something a lot of other properties utterly fail to do. 

The Genius of Scott Cawthon’s Marketing 

OK, so FNAF utilizes a multi-prong attack for creating horror and implements it well -- big deal. Why did it explode into a massive IP sensation when other indie horror games that are just as well-made barely made a blip on the radar? 

Well! That’s where the real genius comes in. This game was built and marketed in a way to maximize its franchisability. 

First, the story utilizes instantly identifiable, simple but effective character designs, and then generates more and more instantly identifiable unique characters with each iteration. Having a wealth of characters and clever, unique designs basically paves the way for merchandise and fan-works. (That they’re anthropomorphic animal designs also probably helped -- because that taps into the furry fandom as well without completely alienating non-furries). 

Speaking of fan-work, Scott Cawthon has always been very supportive of fandom, only taking action when people would try to profit off knock-off games and that sort of thing -- basically bad-faith copies. But as far as I know he’s always been super chill with fan-created content, even going so far as to engage directly with the fandom. Which brings me to....

These games were practically designed for streaming, and he took care to deliver them into the hands of influential streamers. Because the games are heavy on jump-scares and scale in difficulty (even including extra-challenging modes after the core game is beaten) they are extremely fun to watch people play. They’re short enough to be easily finished over the duration of a long stream, and they’re episodic -- lending themselves perfectly to a YouTube Lets Play format. One Night = One Video, and now the streamer has weeks of content from your game (but viewers can jump in at any time without really missing much). 

The games are kid-friendly but also genuinely frightening. Because the most disturbing parts of the game’s lore are hinted at rather than made explicit, younger players can easily engage with the game on a more basic surface level, and others can go as deep into the lore as they feel comfortable. There is no blood and gore and violence or even any explicitly stated death in the main game; all of the murder and death is portrayed obliquely by way of 8-bit mini games and tangential references. Making this game terrifying but accessible to youngsters, and then marketing it directly to younger viewers through popular streamers (and later, merchandising deals) is genius -- because it creates a very broad potential audience, and kids tend to spend 100% of their money (birthdays, allowances, etc.) and are most likely to tell their friends about this super scary game, etc. etc.

By creating a puzzle box of lore, and then interacting directly with the fandom -- dropping hints, trolling, essentially creating an ARG of his own lore through his website, in-game easter eggs, and tie-in materials -- Cawthon created a mystery for fandom to solve. And fans LOVE endlessly speculating over convoluted theories. 

Cawthon released these games FAST. He dropped FNAF 2 within months of the first game’s release, and kept up a pace of 1-2 games a year ever since. This steady output ensured the games never dropped out of public consciousness -- and introducing new puzzle pieces for the lore-hungry fans to pore over helped keep the discussion going. 

I think MatPat and The Game Theorists owe a tremendous amount of their own huge success to this game. I think Markiplier does, too, and other big streamers and YouTubers. It’s been fascinating watching the symbiotic relationship between these games and the people who make content about these games. Obviously that’s true for a lot of fandom -- but FNAF feels so special because it really did start so small. It’s a true rags-to-riches sleeper hit and luck absolutely played a role in its growth, but skill is a big part too. 

Take-Aways For Creatives 

I want to be very clear here: I do not think that every piece of media needs to be “IP,” franchisable, an extended universe, or a multimedia sensation. I think there is plenty to be said for creating art of all types, and sometimes that means a standalone story with a small audience. 

But if you do want a chance at real break-out, run-away success and forging a media empire of your own, I think there are some take-aways to be learned from the success of FNAF: 

Persistence. Scott Cawthon studied animation and game-design in the 1990s and released his first game in 2002. He released a bunch of stuff afterward. None of it stuck. It took 12 years to hit on the winning formula, and then another several years of incredibly hard work to push out more titles and stoke the fires before it really became a sensation. Wherever you’re at on your creative journey, don’t give up. You never know when your next thing will be The Thing that breaks you out. 

If you want to sell a lot of something, you have to make it widely appealing to a bunch of people. This means keeping your concept simple to understand (”security guard wards off creepy killer animatronics at a pizza parlor”) and appealing to as wide a segment of the market as you can (ie, a horror story that appeals to both kids and adults). The more hyper-specific your audience, the harder it’s gonna be to find them and the fewer copies of your thing you’ll be selling. 

Know your shit and put your best work out there. I think there’s an impulse to feel like “well, nobody reads this anyway, so why does it matter if it’s no good” (I certainly have fallen into that on multiple occasions) but that’s the wrong way to think about it. You never know when and where your break will come. Put your best work out there and keep on polishing your craft with better and better stuff because eventually one of those things you chuck out there is going to be The Thing. 

Figure out where your target audience hangs out, and who influences them, and then get your thing in the hands of those influencers. Streaming and YouTube were the secret to FNAF’s success. Maybe yours will be BookTube, or Instagram, or a secret cabal of free librarians. I don’t know. But you should try your best to figure out who would like the thing that you’re making, and then figure out how to reach those people, and put all of your energy into that instead of shotgun-blasting your marketing all willy nilly. 

You don’t have to put the whole story on the page. Audiences love puzzles. Fans love mysteries. You can actually leave a lot more unanswered than you think. There’s some value in keeping secrets and leaving things for others to fill in. Remember -- your art is only partly yours. The sandbox belongs to others to play in, too, and you have to let them do that. 

If in doubt, appealing to furries never hurts. 

Do I take all of this advice myself? Not by a long shot. But it’s definitely a lot to think about. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go beat The Curse of Dreadbear. 

[brawltogethernow]

So, I don't think I've ever asked you this... what IS the whole point of the Spider-Sense? It really seems like something that only exists for writers to ignore or work around when they want to inject Legit Tension into a story.

I’ve thought about this power so much, but never with an eye to defend its right to exist, so I needed to think about this. The results could be more concise.

Ironically, given the question, I have to say its main purpose is to ramp up tension. But it’s also a highly variable multitool that a skilled creative team can use for...pretty much anything. It does everything the writer wants it to, while for its wielder always falls just short of doing enough.

I went looking through my photos for a really generic, classic-looking example to use as an image to head this topic, but then I ran into the time Peter absolutely did not reimburse this man for his stolen McDonald’s, so have that instead.

A Scare Chord, But You Can Draw It

That one post that says the spider-sense is just super-anxiety isn’t, like, wrong. It’s a very anxious, dramatic storytelling tool originally designed for a very anxious, dramatic protagonist. I find it speaks to the overall tone of the franchise that some characters are functionally psychics, but with a psychic ability that only points out problems.

Spidey sense pinging? There’s danger, be stressed! Broken? Now the lead won’t even KNOW when there’s a problem, scary! Single character is immune to it? That’s an invisible knife in the dark oh my god what the fuck what the fU--

Like its counterpart in garden variety anxiety, the only time the spider-sense reduces tension is in the middle of a crisis. But in the wish fulfillmenty way that you want in an adventure story to justify exaggerated action sequences, the same way enhanced strength or durability does. Also like those, it would theoretically make someone much safer to have it, but it exists in the story to let your character navigate into and weather more dangerous situations.

For its basic role in a story, a danger sense is a snappy way to rile up both the reader and the protagonist that doesn’t offer much information beyond that it’s time to sit smart because shit is about to go down.

Spidey comic canon is all over the board in quality and genre, and it started needing to subvert its formulas before the creators got a handle on what those formulas even were, and basically no one has read anything approaching most of it at this point, so for consistent examples of a really bare bones use of this power in storytelling, I’d point to the property that’s done the best job yet of boiling down the mechanics of Spider-Man to their absolute most basic essentials for adaptation to a compelling monster of the week TV series.

Or as you probably know it, Danny Phantom. DON’T BOO, I’M RIGHT.

DP is Spider-Man with about 2/3 of the serial numbers filed off and no death (ironically), and Danny’s ghost sense is the most proof in the formula example of what the spidey sense is for: It’s a big sign held up for the viewer that says, “Something is wrong! Pay attention!” Effectively a visual scare chord. It’s about That Drama. And it works, which won it a consistent place in the show’s formula. We’re talking several times an episode here.

So why does it work?

It’s a little counterintuitive, but it’s strong storytelling to tell your audience that something bad is going to happen before it does. A vague, punchy spoiler transforms the ignorant calm before a conflict into a tense moment of anticipation. ...And it makes sure people don’t fail to absorb the beginning of said conflict because they weren’t prepared to shift gears when the scene did. Shock is a valuable tool, too, but treating it like a staple is how you burn out your audience instead of keeping them engaged. Not to go after an easy target, but you need to know how to manage your audience’s alarm if you don’t want to end up like Game of Thrones.

The limits of the spider-sense also keep you on your toes when handled by a smart writer. It tells Peter (everyone’s is a little different, so I’m going to cite the og) about threats to his person, but it doesn’t elaborate with any details when it’s not already obvious why, what kind, and from what. And it doesn’t warn him about anything else-- Which is a pretty critical gap when you zoom out and look at his hero career’s successes and failures and conclude that it’s definitely why he’s lived as long as he has acting the way he does, but was useless as he failed to save a string of people he’d have much rather had live on than him.

(Any long-running superhero mythos has these incidents, but with Peter they’re important to the core themes.)

And since this power is by plot for plot (or because it’s roughly agreed it only really blares about threats that check at least two boxes of being major, immediate, or physical), it always kicks in enough to register when the danger is bearing down...when it’s too late to actually do anything about it if “anything” is a more complex action than “dodge”.

Really? Not until the elevator doors started to open?

That Distinctive, Crunchy Spider Flavor

The spider-sense and its little pen squiggles go hand in hand with wallcrawling (and its unique and instantly identifiable associated body language) to make the Spider-Person powerset enduringly iconic and elevate characters with it from being generic mid-level super-bricks. Visually, but also in how it shapes the story.

I said it can share a narrative role with super strength. But when you end a fight and go home, super strength continues to make your character feel powerful, probably safer than they’d be otherwise, maybe dangerous.

The spider-sense just keeps blaring, “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! God, why aren’t you doing something about this!?”

Pretty morose thing to live with, for a safety net! Kind of a double edged sword you have there! Could be constantly being hyperattuned to problems would prime you for a negative outlook on life. Kind of seems like a power that would make it impossible for a moral person to take a day off, leading them into a beleaguered and resentful yet dutiful attitude about the whole superhero gig! Might build up to some of the core traits of this mythos, maybe! Might lead to a lot of fifteen minute retirement stories, or something. Might even be a built in ‘great responsibility’ alarm that gets you a main character who as a rule is not going to stop fighting until he physically cannot fight anymore.

Certainly not apropos of anything, just throwing this short lived barely-a-joke tagline up for fun.

One of my personal favorite things about stories with superpowers is keeping in mind how they cause the people who have them to act in unusual ways outside of fights, so when you tell me that these people have an entire extra sense that tells them when the gas in their house is leaking through a barely useful hot/cold warning system that never turns off, I’m like, eyes emojis, popcorn out, notebook open, listening intently, spectacles on, the whole deal.

It also contributes to Peter Parker’s personality in a way I really enjoy: It allows him to act like an irrational maniac. When you know exactly when a situation becomes dangerous and how much, normal levels of caution go out the window and absolutely nothing you do makes sense from an exterior standpoint anymore. That’s the good shit. I would like to see more exploration of how the non-Parker characters experiencing the world in this incredibly altered way bounce in response.

It’s also one of many tools in this franchise hauling the reader into relating more closely with the main character. The backbone of classic Spidey is probably being in on secrets only Peter and the reader know which completely reframe how one views the situation on the page. It’s just a big irony mine for the whole first decade. A convenient way to inform the reader and the lead that something is bad news that’s not perceivable to any other characters is youth-with-a-big-exciting-secret catnip.

Another point for tension, there, in that being aware of danger is not synonymous with being able to act on it. If there’s no visible reason for you to be acting strange, well...you’re just going to have to sit tight and sweat, aren’t you? Some gratuitous head wiggles never hurt when setting up that type of conflict.

Have I mentioned that they look cool? Simultaneously punchy and distinctive, with a respectable amount of leeway for artists to get creative with and still coming up with something easily recognizable? And pretty easy to intuit the meaning of even without the long-winded explanations common in the days when people wrote comics with the intent that someone could come in cold on any random issue and follow along okay, I think, although the mechanic has been deeply ingrained in popular culture for so long that I can’t really say for sure.

It was also useful back in the day when no artists drew the eyes on the Spider-Man mask as emoting and were conveying the lead’s expressions entirely through body language and panel composition. If you wiggle enough squiggles, you don’t need eyebrows.

Take This Handwave and Never Ask Me a Logistical Question Again

This ability patches plot holes faster than people can pick them open AND it can act as an excuse to get any plot rolling you can think of if paired with one meddling protagonist who doesn’t know how to mind their own business. Buy it now for only $19.99 (in four installments; that’s four installments of $19.99).

Why can a teenager win a six on one fight against other superhumans? Well, the spider-sense is the ultimate edge in combat, duh.

Why can Peter websling? Why doesn’t everyone websling? Well, the spider-sense is keeping him from eating flagpole when he violently flings himself across New York in a way neither man nor spider was ever meant to move.

How are we supposed to get him involved with the plot this week???? Well, that crate FELT dangerous, so he’s going to investigate it. Oh, dip, it was full of guns and radioactive snakes! Probably shouldn’t have opened that!

Yeah, okay, but why isn’t it fixing everything, then? Isn’t it supposed to be why Peter has never accidentally unmasked in front of somebody? ('Nother entry for this section, take a shot.) That’s crazy sensitive! How does he still have any problems!? Is everything bad that’s ever happened to characters with this powerset bad writing!? --Listen, I think as people with uncanny senses that can tell us whether we are in danger with accuracy that varies from incredible to approximate (I am talking about the five senses that most people have), we should all know better than to underestimate our ability to tune them out or interpret them wrong and fuck ourselves up anyway. I honestly find this part completely realistic.

*SLAPS ROOF OF SPIDER-SENSE* YOU CAN FIT SO MANY STORIES IN THIS THING

The spider-sense is a clean branch into...whatever. There is the exact right balance of structure and wishy-washiness to build off of. A sample selection of whatevers that have been built:

It’s sci-fi and spy gadgets when Peter builds technology that can interface with it.

It’s quasi-mystical when Kaine and Annie-May get stronger versions of it that give them literal psychic visions, or when you want to get mythological and start talking about all the spider-characters being part of a grand web of fate.

Kaine loses his and it becomes symbolic of a future newly unbound by constraints, entangled thematically with the improved physical health he picked up at the same time -- a loss presented as a gain.

Peter loses his and almost dies 782 times in one afternoon because that didn’t make the people he provoked when he had it stop trying to kill him, and also because he isn’t about to start ��””taking the subway’’””’ “‘’“”to work”””’’” like some kind of loser who doesn’t get a heads up when he’s about to hit a pigeon at 50mph.

Peter’s starts tuning into his wife’s anxiety and it’s a tool in a relationship study.

It starts pinging whenever Peter’s near his boss who’s secretly been replaced by a shapeshifter and he IGNORES IT because his boss is enough of an asshole that that doesn’t strike him as weird; now it’s a comedy/irony tool.

Into the Spider-Verse made it this beautiful poetic thing connecting all the spider-heroes in the multiverse and stacked up a story on it about instant connection, loss, and incredibly unlikely strangers becoming a found family. It was also aesthetic as FUCK. Remember the scene where Miles just hears barely intelligible whispering that’s all lines people say later in the film and then his own voice very clearly says “look out” and then the room explodes?? Fuck!!!!

Venom becomes immune to it after hitchhiking to Earth in Peter’s bone juice and it makes him a unique threat while telling a more-homoerotic-than-I-assume-was-originally-intended story about violation and how close relationships can be dangerous when they go sour.

It doesn’t work on people you trust for maximum soap opera energy. Love the innate tragedy of this feature coming up.

IN CONCLUSION I don’t have much patience for writers who don’t take advantage of it, never mind feel they need to write around it.

[heyiwrotesomethings]

Soulmate

ShinoMitsu Week 2021 Day Three: (Fake/Secret Dating, Soulmate, Hobbies)

A/N: Here we are, the last time I’ll need to give this warning! This is the last part of the main storyline, everything else after this will be snippets from this AU safe for anyone to read. Enjoy! Word Count: 4,104

Mitsuri waited outside the gates of Sekirei Girls’ Academy, humming and rocking on her feet. It was obscenely early, but it was a price she was willing to pay if it meant being the first person to greet Shinobu on school grounds each morning.

Mitsuri was very happy. Ever since the surprise thunderstorm, she and Shinobu had grown much closer. Whenever Shinobu would spot her, she’d shoot Mitsuri the cutest little smile that made the older girl’s heart feel like it was going to explode! They talked more and even hung out outside of school on occasion, it was all Mitsuri had ever hoped for in pursuing a relationship with the cool, smart and beautiful Kochou Shinobu.

There was one thing that bothered her though, and that would be Shinobu’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the strange bond between them. It hadn’t just been a product of the storm, they had experienced the visions a few more times since then. Usually, a specific touch or smell, even a sound could trigger an event and they’ve only gotten clearer since that rainy day.

From what Mitsuri gathered, she and Shinobu had been part of some kind of war if the uniforms and katanas were anything to go by. She didn’t really have many specific details beyond that. Many of the visions that came to her seemed to reflect whatever triggered them in the first place. Mitsuri had been researching the phenomenon in her spare time, but wasn’t making much progress on her own. She was sure if she could get Shinobu’s help on the matter they could actually find something, but as previously said, Shinobu wanted nothing to do with it. That didn’t mean Mitsuri was going to give up though.

“Good morning, Shinobu-chan!”  Mitsuri grinned and waved excitedly as Shinobu appeared in the distance.

“Good morning,” Shinobu answered once she was close enough to do so without yelling. Her lips were curled into that small smile that Mitsuri loved to see.

“What are you going to be practicing today, Shinobu?” Mitsuri asked, following her Kouhai to the track. Now that she had her foot in the door of Shinobu’s life, she was working on wiggling herself further in by spending all the time she could with her.

“My events next week are going to be the triple jump, high jump, one hundred meter dash, one hundred meter hurdles and the four hundred meter relay.” Shinobu recalled. “After I warm up I think I’ll start practicing my jumps and finish off with the sprints. I wanted to try pole vaulting, but Tomioka says I have to focus on my strengths now that the season is almost over. He’s such a killjoy.”

Mitsuri giggled. That was another part of Shinobu’s practices that she loved to watch. The shorter girl often sassed the coach or countered his teachings. It had worried Mitsuri at first, but quickly learned that it was simply their dynamic.

“There’s always next year, Shinobu! It’s sad I’m graduating this year, watching you practice is so fun. It’s too bad we didn’t become friends sooner, then you could have watched me during dance and volleyball season.” Mitsuri said wistfully.

“I’ve seen you do both many times.” Shinobu mumbled, a faint flush coloring her cheeks. “My sister was in both of those clubs as you may recall.”

“Yes! That’s true!” Mitsuri clapped before she thought about it a moment more and her face dropped. “But that means you’ve only seen me at my worst! I was only a first year back then and I wasn’t really good.”

“I remember, you fell a lot.” Shinobu snorted. Mitsuri covered her face and whined pitifully.

“But I didn’t stop going to meets and events even after Kanae graduated. You really improved over time.” Shinobu added shyly, keeping her eyes staring firmly ahead at the track where some other girls were already warming up.

“Aw, Shinobu!” Mitsuri cooed. She couldn’t stop herself from latching on to the shorter girl, pressing tightly into her side while Shinobu tried halfheartedly to shove her off.

The pair slowed their stride significantly as another vision past behind their eyes. A similar hug, but again with the strange uniforms and taking place in a grand garden that was growing steadily more familiar.

"Come on, I know you saw that." Mitsuri said once the feeling past and they began walking again.

"Saw what?" Shinobu feigned ignorance.

“Shinobu, when are you going to admit there is something supernatural going on here?”

“Never. It’s just absurd. I don’t believe in that kind of stuff.” Shinobu said, setting her bag on the bleachers.

“What do you mean? You love ghost stories and supernatural phenomena.” Mitsuri countered, sitting beside Shinobu’s belongings.

“I love telling scary stories precisely because I don’t believe in any of that junk. It’s funny to see how others react.”

“If you would help me with my research for just one night, I just know we could find something.”

“I’m sorry, Mitsuri. That just sounds like a waste of time,” Shinobu said, stretching her arms over her head before placing her hands back over her hips, “I’ve got to go warm up now.”

“No!” Mitsuri pouted.

“What?”

Mitsuri snatched Shinobu, catching her off guard and making her fall into Mitsuri’s lap.

“Mitsuri,” Shinobu scolded quietly, “let go!”

“Not until you promise to help me research what’s going on between us! Just one day, please!” Mitsuri exclaimed, pressing her cheek snuggly between Shinobu’s shoulder blades as her strong arms held her firmly in place.

“Fine, fine! Just cut it out!” Shinobu snapped.

“Yes!” Mitsuri cheered. She gave Shinobu one last tight squeeze before letting her go. The Kouhai stood and shot a glare at the giddy girl before darting of onto the track. Her skin already flushed before her workout even began.

Mitsuri used the rest of her time organizing the research she already had so she could really optimize her time with Shinobu. It was a little difficult to stay on task however, when she could be watching Shinobu twist over the high jump pole or sprint and leap over hurdles like they weren’t even an obstacle. Needless to say, Mitsuri didn’t get as much work done as she could have.

***

They had set the research session for Saturday. Shinobu thought she could have gotten away with a couple of hours Friday night, but Mitsuri had shot down that idea quickly. She had finally coerced Shinobu into helping her and she wasn’t going to settle for a couple of hours, she wanted a whole day.

They decided to do their research at Shinobu’s since it was a more quiet and controlled space than Mitsuri’s house with all her rambunctious siblings running about.

Mitsuri arrived bright and early Saturday morning, beaming brighter than the sun. Shinobu answered the door with messy hair and squinty eyes. Clearly she hadn’t been expecting Mitsuri to already be here. It was only seven in the morning after all.

“What time did you wake up this morning? You live on the other side of town.” Shinobu asked. She sounded grumpy, but it was mostly because she herself had only woken up fifteen minutes ago.

“I couldn’t sleep at all Shinobu. I couldn’t stop thinking about how excited I was to spend the day with you!” Mitsuri said, giving off a glow that should not have been humanly possible for someone who hadn’t slept at all the night before.

“You’re insane.” Shinobu deadpanned whilst making room for Mitsuri to enter her home.

While Shinobu finished getting ready for the day, Mitsuri made herself at home in Shinobu’s room and set up her own workspace. With Kanae at her job and Kanao heading out later to stay over at a friend’s house, it would just be the two of them for a majority of the day. Mitsuri wasn’t sure why, but the thought made her heart beat faster.

“Alright,” Shinobu sighed, dropping onto her futon beside Mitsuri, “what do you have so far?”

Mitsuri turned to face Shinobu and smiled. Gone was the cute, tousled bed hair, now tucked neatly into place, but the giant hoodie and athletic shorts she had been wearing when she had answered the door remained unchanged.

“You really like wearing giant sweatshirts, don’t you Shinobu?” Mitsuri had said instead with a light giggle.

“I get cold.” She stated simply.

“But you’re wearing shorts. Wouldn’t it help if you wore something longer?” The older girl pointed out.

“Watch this,” Shinobu sat up further back on the futon, “I’m about to blow your mind.”

Shinobu lifted the hem of her hoodie and before Mitsuri could register and appreciate the newly exposed skin it was quickly gone again as Shinobu’s knees pressed against her chest and the large hoodie was thrown back into place, encompassing all of Shinobu’s legs, making her look like a lumpy egg with a human head.

Mitsuri blanked for a moment, taking in Shinobu’s form for a few moments before laughing heartily. Shinobu laughed too, although more subdued. She had gotten just the reaction she was hoping for.

“What a problem solver, Shinobu-chan,” Mitsuri wiped a tear from her eye, “when you get a boyfriend you’re going to steal all of his hoodies, aren’t you?”

Shinobu winced a bit at the insinuation, instead of giving Mitsuri a real answer she hummed noncommittally, making Mitsuri tilt her head curiously.

Then a thought crossed Mitsuri’s mind that chilled her to the core, did Shinobu already have a boyfriend? She was so beautiful and amazing, had someone already claimed her heart? She lurched forward, startling Shinobu by balancing her weight over Shinobu’s knees, still hidden beneath the blanket like sweatshirt.

“Do you have a boyfriend, Shinobu?” She squeaked, her face mere centimeters away from the other’s.

“What? No!” Shinobu denied, blush crawling its way up her neck from their proximity.

“You promise? You don’t have to hide from me Shinobu, I’ll be your number one supporter!”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, Mitsuri. I never will so just drop it, okay?” Shinobu said, attempting to push Mitsuri out of her personal space.

“What do you mean, never?” Mitsuri was flabbergasted. Did Shinobu think that as pretty and charming as she was, she couldn’t get any boy she wanted? Now instead of relieved that Shinobu didn’t have a boyfriend, she was upset that Shinobu thought she would never have one. “You are beautiful Shinobu, and so smart and dedicated! Don’t give up, you’ll find the right boy for you and if they don’t treat you right they don’t deserve you! Just like you told me, right?”

“Mitsuri, stop.” Shinobu warned, running a hand through her hair.

“But it’s true! You could have any boy you want Shinobu.”

“I don’t want a boy!” Shinobu finally yelled, exasperated. “I don’t want a boy.” She said again this time in a more even tone, jerking her head away from Mitsuri.

“Don’t want a... oh!” Mitsuri clapped her hands together, “Do you want a girlfriend to share your hoodies with then?”

Though her head was turned, Mitsuri watched in amazement as Shinobu’s ears turned red before her very eyes. After a moment of silence, it was clear Shinobu was tongue tied.

“You do!” Mitsuri yelled, wiggling excitedly, “This is great, we can talk about what girls we think are cute together sometime. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“...What?” Shinobu peaked over her shoulder at Mitsuri.

“Well you know me, Shinobu. I like a lot of different people. It’ll be fun to see where we might overlap.” Mitsuri said as if it was obvious, no big deal. Unfortunately for her, her own idea didn’t make her feel much better. For some reason the idea of Shinobu sharing what other girls she found attractive made her feel anxious.

“No, I didn’t know that. I’ve only ever heard you talk about boys.” Shinobu said, distracting Mitsuri.

“Oh, well, now you know I guess.” Mitsuri shrugged with a smile, her face still hovering painfully close to Shinobu.

Shinobu could just about die.

A knock on the door saves her, and she calls Kanao in. The younger girl has her backpack on and a sleeping bag roll hugged against her chest.

“Nezuko and her mom are here to pick me up.” She said, staring between the two older girls and wondering why her sister appeared so flustered.

“Okay, do you have everything?” Shinobu got up from her futon, happy for an excuse to step away from Mitsuri and her honey sweet scent.

“Yes.” Kanao answered with a nod.

“And how are you getting home tomorrow?” Shinobu asked.

“Aoi said her dad would drop me off.”

“Alright, call or text if you need anything. If you want to come home early Kanae will pick you up at anytime, okay?” Shinobu reminded. Since their parents were often away, Shinobu and Kanae had basically been Kanao’s primary caretakers ever since she was adopted. It was a little hard at times for Shinobu to remember that Kanao wasn’t so little anymore.

“I remember, see you tomorrow, Nee-san.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Kanao turned, rounded the corner and with a quiet closing and locking of a door, she was gone.

Shinobu cleared her throat and turned back to Mitsuri, who had watched the interaction with hearts in her eyes.

“So, are we ever going to get into your, ‘research’ or are we just going to sit here and do nothing all day?” Shinobu crossed her arms, her eyes not quite meeting Mitsuri’s as she was still embarrassed from earlier.

That seemed to jolt Mitsuri out of her musings and the older girl quickly finished setting up and filled Shinobu in on what she had so far.

“So basically,” Shinobu leaned her back against the wall, “you have nothing.”

“That’s not true!” Mitsuri pouted, leaning closer to Shinobu to shove her laptop in the younger girl’s face, “Did you read this article about telepathic dream links and dimensional rifts?”

“Just hearing you say that aloud makes my brain want to melt.” Shinobu snorted.

“Take this seriously Shinobu. You promised you’d try today.” Mitsuri pleaded.

“You’re right,” Shinobu sighed, taking the laptop from Mitsuri’s hands to place it on her own lap, “sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. Now, how can we find out what’s going on with us?”

“Well, let’s type... connected vision experiences, and see if we find something similar and go from there.” Shinobu tapped the enter key and the relevant links popped up on the search engine.

Articles, websites and message boards yielded very little the first hour or so. Then they got really serious. Shinobu got out her own laptop so they could broaden their search. Occasionally they would share an interesting or just down right insane tidbit of information but largely nothing came up that sounded like what they were experiencing.

After awhile, Mitsuri noticed that Shinobu had gone quiet and seemed to be reading something rather intently. Excited, Mitsuri knocked shoulders with her.

“Did you find something good, Shinobu?” She asked.

“Ah, no. Sorry.” Shinobu quickly rebuffed. “I was reading an article about a new species of butterfly.”

“Aw, Shinobu! Stay on task here, come on!” Mitsuri scolded as best she could, but she was just too sweet for her words to have much bite.

“A break wouldn’t hurt, would it? Aren’t you hungry? I’ll order a delivery for whatever you want.” Shinobu enticed.

Now how could Mitsuri say no to that? Especially since her stomach had just then decided to speak for her with a low rumble.

“Food sounds great!” Mitsuri said, easily giving in.

“What do you want?” Shinobu asked, getting up.

“Mochi!” Mitsuri cheered.

“And?” Shinobu laughed.

“Tempura and miso! No wait, oden! No wait, ramen? Yakitori?” Mitsuri rubbed her temples, a bead of sweat rolled down her cheek. This was an important decision!

“Pick a couple of things we can get at the same restaurant and anything you wanted that we didn’t get, we can make for dinner, okay?” Shinobu suggested after watching Mitsuri struggle for a minute.

“Really Shinobu? You’re the best!” Mitsuri praised.

They came up with a list and Shinobu ordered from the restaurant before going to the kitchen to make sure they had the ingredients they needed for dinner, leaving Mitsuri to continue their research.

Mitsuri was thinking of a new phrase to put in her search bar when Shinobu’s laptop caught her eye, still open and waiting for its owner to return. With a light hum, she set her own laptop aside, replacing it with Shinobu’s. Shinobu was right, a little break would be fine and she really wanted to see what this new butterfly looked like.

Mitsuri scrolled back to the top of the page, letting out a disappointed huff as there were no pictures. She scoured for the name of the butterfly to look it up herself, but the words she scanned gave her more questions than answers.

Words and phrases of past lives and tragedy, rebirth and second chances. An uncommon phenomenon. Mitsuri decided to reread from the beginning with complete focus.

A few minutes later, Shinobu reentered the room, looking down at her phone as she finished typing out a grocery list.

“Hey, we’re short on a few things. I’m just going to pop by the convenience store down the street. Do you want to come?”

“Why did you lie?” Mitsuri frowned at Shinobu instead, causing the other to whip her head up from her phone.

“Wha—“ Shinobu cut herself off as soon as she saw her laptop in Mitsuri’s grasp. “Oh Mitsuri, I just— it’s one article. It doesn’t mean anything...“

“Doesn’t mean anything... Shinobu, this is us to a T!” Mitsuri shot her arms up above her head, “We’re soulmates!”

“Mitsuri,” Shinobu tried to de-escalate, “you can’t believe everything you read, I didn’t find anything else about the subject. It’s just one story and—“

“It’s so detailed. The visions Koyuki and Hakuji shared, they aren’t so different from how our own come to us,” Mitsuri laid back against the futon with a light groan, covering her eyes. “To think we experienced some tragic end in our past lives, and the visions were so we could find each other and try falling in love again. It’s a lot to take in.”

Mitsuri let out a big breath of air and then remembered that she was still hurt that Shinobu had lied to her and sat back up.

“So why did you lie, Shinobu? Do you,” her voice got quieter, “do you not like me?”

“I do like you, don’t be ridiculous. I was just, I don’t know...” Shinobu huffed, walking over to her fish tank to watch the little colorful fish swim about. An excuse to not have to look at Mitsuri’s sad face.

“Is it because of my hair or maybe, because I eat a lot? Because I’m too clingy?” Mitsuri thought aloud, making Shinobu immediately turn back and stalk over to her.

Mitsuri yelped as Shinobu pushed her back against the futon and hovered over her, eyes dark with great sincerity as she poked Mitsuri squarely in the chest.

“You stop that right now.” Shinobu warned quietly. “There is not one part of you that I don’t like,” She changed her position to sit beside Mitsuri and looked down at the floor,

“...I was just, nervous I guess. I didn’t know how you would react. If you would think I was trying to take advantage of you or you would want to be with me just because of what one story had to say. If we did become a, a couple, I would hope it would because we are genuinely happy with each other and not because we may have known each other in another life.”

Mitsuri sat back up again and nodded vigorously, wrapping up Shinobu in a side hug with her head resting on her shoulder.

“I’ve liked you for a long time. Ever since I saw you running at the sports festival last year, I thought you were really cool and pretty. You made my heart leap back then before I even knew your name. Even without our shared visions or the possibility of the existence of soulmates, I would still want to be with you.” Mitsuri spoke, her words heartfelt, and Shinobu knew it.

“Until now, I didn’t let myself really think about asking you to be my girlfriend because, well, you know what I’ve told you of my track record with dating. They would always end up leaving. I didn’t want you to leave too.”

“I wouldn’t.” Shinobu said sternly, crossing her arms beneath Mitsuri’s side hug, making the older girl giggle and bury her head further into Shinobu’s neck. “Those guys were all assholes.”

“This is why I was so worried you might have already been dating someone, you’re just so expressive and— ahh! I just like you a lot!” Mitsuri nuzzled.

“I like you too.” Shinobu mumbled but she was full of sincerity. She freed one of her arms so she could pat Mitsuri affectionately on her back before clearing her throat.

“So do you, would you, like to go on a date sometime? Not because we might be soulmates or whatever, but because you would genuinely like to regardless?” She asked.

Mitsuri squealed and shook Shinobu in her arms, “Yes! Yes, I’d really like to do that. Do you mean it? Do you want to?”

“Yeah, I do. —Hey!”

Mitsuri pulled Shinobu back down on the futon with her, still hugging her close. Wisteria clung to her nose the longer she stayed close and she didn’t want to leave. Mitsuri grinned into Shinobu’s shoulder as she felt arms finally wrap around her.

“What a weird, amazing day, hm?” Mitsuri breathed through a relaxed sigh.

“Tell me about it.” Shinobu sighed in return though she sounded more spent than relaxed. She wasn’t accustomed to sharing such gooey emotions like this. Honestly, she felt lucky Mitsuri had the patience to bear with her.

“Aren’t you glad I made you do this research with me now?”

“Mm, probably would have just been a lot less work for you to just as me out instead while you had me trapped.” Shinobu responded cheekily, earning a light slap on the arm.

“Now, as much as I’d love to lay here, the food should be here in less than twenty minutes and I’d really like to grab those groceries before the delivery person gets here. Are you coming?”

“Are you kidding? I’ll never leave your side again!” Mitsuri said, shifting her body upwards a bit so she could show Shinobu her very serious, yet extremely cute and hardly intimidating, expression.

“Oh dear, what have I done.” Shinobu couldn’t help but smile. Hesitantly she caressed Mitsuri’s cheek and she melted instantly under her touch.

Before they could leave, Shinobu said she had to change her sweatshirt first and Mitsuri lightly poked fun at her, but in all honesty it would have been like Shinobu was wearing a Snuggie out in public with how big that hoodie was.

Shoes on, they walked down the street to their destination. Surprisingly, their conversation on the way felt normal as if nothing had really changed and that felt good. Mitsuri nervously brushed knuckles with Shinobu a few times and the younger girl easily took her hand in her own. They both quieted for a moment and smiled to themselves, enjoying the small, but not insignificant, act of intimacy.

They got the ingredients they needed with added snacks and managed to just barely beat the delivery person home with a couple minutes to spare. They put away the groceries and set up lunch in the living room because Mitsuri insisted on eating under the kotatsu even though the chills of winter had long since past. Shinobu was happy to indulge her anyway and offered to put a movie on to watch while they ate. They picked one and sat together, steadily migrating closer until they were leaning on each other.

Before long, Shinobu heard Mitsuri’s breathing change and realized that the other girl had gone quiet.

“Missed sleep finally caught up to you, did it?” Shinobu whispered fondly.

She pulled Mitsuri further into herself and she snuggled in. Shinobu paused the movie, having a feeling that Mitsuri would want to finish it later, and turned on a show she would usually watch herself while playing idly with Mitsuri’s hair.

She’d never admit it, but maybe, just maybe, there was something to all that soulmate business because it felt like she had waited a lifetime to hold her like this without another care in the world.

[downwiththemutantnjnjaturtles]

Enjoying your stuff a lot! Was wondering what’s something each turtle is excited about having or trying out or just merely experiencing it when they get into a relationship for the first time? (Obviously aside from sex) like relationship firsts they’ve always dreamt about and now get to experience with their s/o

What were the Turtle's dreams about dating? Favorite things about it?

sfw, 2012-2016

Leo didn't exactly think a lot about relationships before meeting you because he was always under the impression that was off the table, so he actually was going in pretty much blind. He was, however, pleasantly surprised what being taken care of by someone else feels like when it's not coming from his own father. Being the leader and oldest, it's usually him doing the coordinating, checking in with everyone, shouldering the burden of responsibility, etc., but once he got past feeling weird about suddenly being able to truly unwind with someone, it quickly became one of his favorite parts of the whole deal. Leo can be a bit stuck in his ways so after a while of experimenting, he was better able to learn how to be more cooperative/compromising with his brothers due to the nature of shared duty in a relationship. (He still has his slip ups, though.)

Donnie was most excited going into the relationship about being able to share his interests and passions with someone without being teased or otherwise unengaged. Aside from playful teasing, his brothers don't try to make him feel bad about his hobbies, but they aren't very interested in the things he's into, so he was very excited to feel more heard. He loves to pass on knowledge as well and doing that with someone who is actually receptive, aka his partner*, is a big plus for him. (*This is going under the assumption that he would not want to date anyone who doesn't enjoy his interests anyway.) He also wasn't expecting this, but as the thinnest of his brothers, it makes him feel really good about himself and his body being able to defend his partner the way he can. Despite being the most lanky out of the four, it fills him with pride to be considered so strong by his s/o. He's still a really big guy, compared to most humans!

Raph was secretly really into the idea that someone could trust him so much, which gives him more faith in himself, and from there his self esteem shot up. Before, deep down, he was actually quite insecure. He found that through his relationship, his fear of unworthiness was for the most part dissolved. Though just like anyone, he has his moments of relapse. Being in a relationship kind of forced him to embrace his feelings more than he ever had before, which was deeply uncomfortable for him at first (still is to some degree), but after some time he opened up a little, and is now able to accept his heart more than he had before. And call him big headed, but he really likes to feel admired (he doesn't say that outright), so having an s/o makes him feel great about his looks and personality. Lastly, Raph is just the protector type—he has a low-key love-hate relationship with being depended on for protection at times, as he doesn't want to be the reason for his s/o being a target, but for smaller incidents it gives him a sense of pride to be the one to save them.

Mikey was most excited to have someone as a figurative partner in crime. Like Donnie he loves to share the things he loves, too. It's a must for him. Physical touch is his main thing; he came to know just how much he needs it especially once in a relationship. Being chosen by his s/o makes him feel special in a different way than from being a mutant turtle. He feels like he's seen for the person he is as a whole rather than just the fact that he's a mutant ninja turtle. Don't get me wrong, though—he actually felt way cooler after getting with his partner for the fact that he isn't a human guy. It took some time to get over a small hurdle of insecurity regarding that, but Mikey has a way of sorting himself out. He also wasn't expecting the sense of utter security he felt, and similarly is extremely appreciative of being taken care of and treated with such warmth. All of the boys love that, of course, but it affects him to the core.

note: I feel like I strayed from your original ask a little bit but I was really vibing with this-

[shihalyfie]

02′s influence on Adventure

You’re probably reading the title and going “...what? Isn’t 02 the sequel to Adventure? How would a series be influenced by its own future sequel?”

The thing is, assuming that Adventure was written in a vacuum and everything in 02 a retrofit runs very contrary to how both series were produced, and how this kind of anime is produced in general -- Adventure and 02 share almost identical staff members, and were separated only by a real-life single week in airing time. 02′s existence was not a sudden last-minute decision that was tacked on at the end! In fact, Adventure being extended to a second series was decided seven months into its production, right around the end of the Tokyo arc (sometime around the third cour). Despite it being a rather tonally different series, 02 is really just Adventure’s staff...writing more.

This means that by the time production had moved to Adventure’s final arc, the staff was very aware that they would be on for another year writing a sequel to this anime -- which thus likely became the fuel behind many of its creative decisions, made specifically to pave the way for 02.

The ending

Yeah, so, this ending. You know this really famous ending? The one that’s had such an impact on franchise history that a lot of later things have even tried to imitate it in some form? The one that everyone cites as one of Adventure’s most famous scenes (for good reason)? This ending only exists because of 02. You know what actually would have been Adventure’s ending if 02 hadn’t existed?

The 02 epilogue.

The ending that we now know as the “02 epilogue” was actually decided on before recording for Adventure had even started. (They weren’t even sure about finalizing the character personalities yet!) All of the most substantial details about that epilogue -- the series actually being the adult Takeru’s novel, everyone in the world having a Digimon partner, and, as it seems, even Yamato and Sora getting married -- were decided on before 02 was even in the picture.  Most likely, the only material difference would have been that the four characters introduced in 02 (Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken) and their partners wouldn’t have been involved, but everything else would have roughly been the same as the “epilogue” we know now. (This especially makes sense when you consider that one of Adventure’s major influences was the movie Stand By Me, which is extremely culturally influential in Japan as a “childhood summer adventure story”, and involves a similar timeskip epilogue with one character growing up to chronicle the story as a writer.) All of this was basically intended to tie into Adventure as a narrative of “a story of humanity’s evolution”, so this ending was envisioned as the “natural conclusion” of the story of Adventure as a whole. If anything from the original Adventure ending would have been retained in this hypothetical scenario of only Adventure existing, perhaps the sentiment of “parting” at the end -- but then it would still be followed by a timeskip epilogue 28 years later and everyone in the world having a partner.

But then it was decided that a second series would be made, and at some point they decided it would be a series set three years after the first, resulting in: this.

What this means is that Adventure’s ending was only ever intended as an ending for a single chapter in the overall Adventure series narrative. A lot of people like to pose 02′s existence or epilogue as something that “undid” Adventure’s ending, as if it was supposed to be some “ambiguous bittersweet” ending about whether they ever met their partners again, but...that ignores the real-life context of Adventure and 02′s production, where Our War Game! (which depicted an easy reunion with their partners, went out of its way to cameo Miyako in advance, and, for all intents and purposes, practically spoiled Adventure’s ending by depicting them as separated at all) screened before Adventure’s last episode aired, and there’s also the Adventure mini dramas that depicted more incidental meetings (and despite the constant fourth wall breaking and absurd crack content in them, yes, they’re intended to be taken as canon).

Again: in real life, the first episode of 02 aired one week after the last episode of Adventure. Even the real-life audience was likely well aware that this wasn’t going to be the end (and if they weren’t, they certainly would be when the promotional trailers for 02 started airing right after Adventure’s last -- and that’s assuming you missed all of the promotion appearing in real life beforehand, including at the end of Our War Game!’s screenings). The production staff all knew, because they’d already been working on 02 for months now -- they postponed their originally intended ending just to make this new one, after all!

So yeah, this line isn’t supposed to be just a vague “oh, maybe they’ll meet again” in an abstract poetic sense -- it’s completely literal, because it’s hinting at said gate opening again one real-life week later.

From both a story perspective and a real-life audience perspective, this ending was never meant to be seen as ambiguous.

Takeru and Hikari’s character arcs

02 often gets an accusation of being lacking in the character development department (one that I seriously disagree with and have been working very hard to counter), but this accusation especially gets levied often at Takeru and Hikari, who are often said to be “flat” or “kind of just there” in 02 (which, again, I object to; more on this below). This is often rationalized as a theory that the writers didn’t know what to do with them because they’d already been in Adventure, but...this, again, assumes too much that Adventure was written in a self-contained vacuum and anything in 02 was just an addition done after the fact.

There’s actually quite a bit of evidence that the last cour (or at least a significant amount of it) was written with the idea that Takeru and Hikari were going to be starring in the next series in mind.

This is especially pretty apparent when you get to the last episode, where Takeru and Hikari are conspicuously the ones to leave off on the most confident “we’ll meet again” notes, compared to the other six. Of course, they do it in their own respective ways (Takeru and Patamon resolve to make it happen, while Hikari cryptically acts like it’s already bound to happen, borderline prophetically), and maybe you could chalk it up to the fact that they’re the youngest and therefore most naive of this group...but, again, remember: 02′s first episode aired one week after this one, where we would immediately be treated to Takeru and Hikari following up on this. Given that, you can basically see this as a wink and a nod: “yeah, these two have a story that’s not over yet.”

And as much as I may sound like a heathen to the fanbase by claiming this, I would actually say that it’s the opposite of the above claim: Takeru and Hikari both have pretty unresolved arcs by the end of Adventure compared to the rest of the other kids, and in fact are fleshed out more in 02. It’s honestly kind of a stretch to say that they “already got development” in Adventure -- Takeru still has a ton of unresolved issues with his family and trauma and emotional behavior that aren’t properly addressed to nearly the same degree as how the older kids have their core issues brought to the forefront, while Hikari really was only around for less than half the series, and not only is her main problem of emotional suppression told purely from Taichi’s mouth and not her own, we also get no real follow-up on how she intends to work past that.

Those are some pretty huge things to leave unresolved at the end of a series that’s known for its focus on individual character development, and considering that the premise of 02 involving an older Takeru and Hikari was likely finalized around the middle of the last arc of Adventure, it’s easy to believe that they decided to deliberately hold off on resolving Takeru and Hikari’s issues in full so that their story could be told in the next series. And, indeed, while their characters being built on “being difficult to read” makes their development not quite as visible as some of the more eccentric personalities in the 02 cast, their respective Jogress partners (Iori and Miyako) more openly discuss and get to the bottom of their issues that had been lightly displayed or hinted in Adventure but never truly been addressed.

A lot of things that were not in Adventure

Adventure was admittedly kind of written as they went along (they didn’t even originally plan to have Hikari as the eighth child at first), so it’s hard to tell exactly what was planned and what was a later addition (and at what point things were added), but considering that the 02 epilogue was one of the first things planned in the entire series, as part of “a story of humanity’s evolution” and tying into a really long theory about partners doubling every year, it’s probably at least safe to say that a lot of the worldbuilding and lore was determined very early.

02 added a lot of lore dumps about Digital World mechanics and things related to the overall state of Chosen Children, which have been said by many to be retrofits to justify a buildup to the 02 epilogue, but, again -- the 02 epilogue was supposed to be for Adventure, so it’s very likely that these lore aspects were intended for Adventure as well! This is especially because it’s been outright confirmed that there were at least certain things originally intended for Adventure that ended up in 02, or at least were in 02 because they felt Adventure didn’t sufficiently cover it:

The kids’ home lives. As famous as the Tokyo arc of Adventure is, it only covered about a quarter of it -- the rest of it was the kids stranded in another world, separated from home! It’s specifically 02 that went into all of the things like school life, family life, daily life in Odaiba, and everything closer to the real world -- basically, everything related to family backgrounds that was very likely to have been in the planning documents for Adventure but never made it.

The (in)famous 02 episode 13 (or, at least, something like it) was intended for Adventure. As much as there’s common speculation that this episode was intended to be some giant subplot that got canned, from what we’ve heard from the staff, the truth actually seems to be a lot more mundane -- Adventure was a series very big on “oddities about the Digital World that have no real explanation” (see: phone booths), and when you reframe it in Adventure’s context, it’s likely that Dagomon and the Dark Ocean were intended to be yet another of those as part of its wider lore about the multiverse, to make you think “the heck was that?” but never get any real answer to. (And while it’s unclear whether the original theoretical Adventure version of this episode would have still involved Takeru and Hikari, if you want to put a tinfoil hat on and entertain that theory, it lends even further credence to the idea that their respective character arcs were deliberately held off for 02...)

Given that, and thinking about the 02 epilogue as the eventual goal for the series, you can also easily imagine a lot of 02-introduced things leading up to it as probably also having been baked into Adventure’s lore:

You know how 02 had a subplot about Chosen Children proliferating all over the world, as a lead-up to everyone in the world eventually having a partner? This was part of a “doubling every year” formula that’s been referred to a few times in background staff testimony. If you inspect this formula, this means that there were eight other Chosen Children besides Taichi and his friends, chosen between 1995 and 1999. Now, remember how Adventure episode 52 briefly touched on the bombshell of Chosen Children existing before Taichi and co., before never addressing it again? Considering all of the above facts, it’s very likely that’s intended to tie into that formula -- and, perhaps, had 02 had not existed to continue the subplot about “more Chosen Children”, Adventure would have taken more initiative about explaining the concept of Taichi and his friends not being the only humans with partners, and led it into their originally intended epilogue.

02 episode 33 involves Miyako visiting Kyoto and learning that there may be certain similarities between Digimon and Japanese youkai, to the point where they might be related somehow, despite predating digital technology. (The concept is revisited in Mimi’s track in Two-and-a-Half Year Break and the Adventure BD drama CD, both of them having been written after 02.) The thing is, the idea that Digimon and other similar entities actually existed prior to digital technology, and that said technology only allowed it to manifest physically in the real world, also is heavily tied to the original concept of Digimon partners being a manifestation of a part of the human’s soul, and therefore having a partner being a part of human evolution -- which is, again, heavily tied to the original intent behind the epilogue. So it’s very likely that this, at the very least, was one of the original lore points behind Adventure -- and if 02 had not existed, it’s possible that Adventure might have tried to cover it as part of a lead-up to that epilogue, rather than ultimately deferring it to 02.

This is, of course, speculation -- I’m not a member of staff, so I can’t speak for them -- but I do think it’s important to consider that while 02 was a tonally different series, it wasn’t just a sequel tacked on at the last minute, and rather just (mostly) the same staff learning three-quarters of the way through that they would have more time to continue this narrative, and reorganizing things to figure out what they wanted to do now and what they wanted to touch on if they had more time. Really, this whole narrative of “02 being a bunch of random additions they came up with and retrofit” seems to almost be the opposite of what actually happened -- while some of the ideas behind 02 were certainly created later, it’s less that Adventure was some ideal perfectly crafted story and 02 an addendum, and more that they had so many things they wanted to do in Adventure that couldn’t fit and used 02 to vent more of those out:

One of the concepts behind the prior series was for us to pack in as many interesting things that we’d seen, heard about, or read about as we could into it, so for 02, we thought, what else could we put in beyond even that?, and so we looked over what we needed to have, and put in all the things we could so that they wouldn’t be left out, and the story became a multi-layered one, overlapping and accelerating. It was to the point that, after we’d gone through 02‘s story, the scriptwriters told me that they’d worn everything they had out to the ground. In any case, we put everything we had into it back then.

Which means that understanding 02 is actually very retroactively important to understanding Adventure -- Adventure’s own writing was influenced by the knowledge that 02 would be part of its story, and 02 itself carries a lot of vital facts and story points from Adventure’s narrative that didn’t fit in the first 54 episodes, and, in real life, they were both written continuously as one story over the course of over two years. It’s also because of this that I seriously warn against seeing either series in a vacuum too much -- because both series are very deeply tied to each other, perhaps more so than a lot of people want to admit.

[arthursaus]

So! Some stuff about my interpretation of the UTMV!

Yes, it’s finally that time, since I’ve fallen back into the rabbit hole and wanna share some of my HCs that have been piling up for at least four or five years now at this point!

So. My interpretation is not a F!God!Error interpretation, my Error chooses to destroy of his own will. Though yes, he does kinda get verbally harassed by the voices (anons) if he goes too long without destroying, and the balance is in danger.

Speaking of! Yes, the balance IS a thing, and is Ink aware of it? I HAVE NO IDEA!! Thing is, I have several different ‘scenarios’ in my interpretation. For instance, I have one for Ink being, at his core, a manipulative entity that only ‘protects’ the AUs because they stimulate his mind, and others for Ink not being such a cold hearted bastard.

So, it kinda depends? In my scenario with all the ship kids and fusions, Ink definitely knows, because I’ll give him that much to be able to navigate all this with, but my other interpretation scenarios aren’t set in stone as to Ink’s knowledge of the balance.

Each interpretation is kind of a separate timeline almost, within my overall interpretation. So there’s a ‘timeline’ with all of most of the ship kids and fusions that I know, and others without them.

My interpretations can vary from rather canon in terms of characterization (ie Ink, Nightmare, etc.) to more personal, fanon ranges. For instance, yes, I acknowledge in my HCs that Nightmare’s a cold hearted bastard and is technically kind of a parasite or something that took on the memories, knowledge, and everything really of Passive Nightmare. However I personally prefer the kind of Nightmare we see in Nightmare Castle, for instance. So you’ll see more of that and softer Nightmare than canon Nightmare.

As with in that one Bad Guys x reader harem fic I love, AUs naturally decay over time, after their storyline is through or they’ve fulfilled their purpose. Error can’t destroy EVERYTHING, after all.

And yes, I’m a simp, so you will be seeing a lot of fanon stuff in terms of monster culture and stuff, especially when it comes to HorrorTale, as HorrorTale’s culture has lots of room to explore and I love what I’ve seen for it within the fandom already.

Each of the characters has at least one nickname! The nicknames tend to shift depending on what name I feel like using at any given time. That’s all I can think of rn! Feel free to ask questions about any character you’d like! I will say that I’m not very well versed in newer AUs, and same goes for DreamTale AUs. For DT AUs, I’m best with the original, DreamSwap, and maybe a few other characters from different AUs.

Let me know if you’d like to see UTMV content on my main blog too! Requests are open, as always!

[sanstropfremir]

kingdom episode 5 review!!! lets fucking go!!!!!

 look. was i insanely hyped for this episode? yes. was my hype justified? also yes. holy FUCKING SHIT. you’ll have to forgive me for going off the rails at some points because ateez and btob directly tapped into something primal in my brain and i am obsessed. i'm obsessed. there’s no other word for it I’m obsessed. 

 ok ok ok i'll focus. i'm focused. i'll do the stage breakdown first and then do my personal ranking at the end. i might do a quick runup comparison of the self and expert rankings for funsies but i'll see how i feel when i get there. instead of going in airing order i’m gonna reverse it, since that was the order i actually watched them in and also i will run out of brains if i talk about rhythm ta first.

skz

i feel for skz. i don't think this show is going to be as much of learning curve as it needs to be for them because the fan voting skews the rankings so much. I’ve said it so many times before, but letting something flop or getting a bad ranking is actually good, because it shows you that you need to improve. because skz keeps getting validated by the fan rankings and placing first in the last two stages, they aren't actually taking the time to evaluate what about their stages is or isn't working. and besides, we’ve now seen two very similar concepts in a row from them, just one is on a grander scale than the other. what they should be doing is what both ateez and btob did for this round, which was scale up production value, but scale down concept. i know this sounds weird but i'll explain. skz has done two very abstract and ‘grand’ concepts. first round we had ghosts/good self vs evil self, and this stage they just went straight for the throat with a deal with the devil type stage. now when you combine these very abstract concepts with an unclear narrative arc, you lose clarity of intent in the performance because there are no specifics that you’re playing off of. there’s a lot more places left up to personal interpretation and this is where people can get lost. btob and ateez both narrowed down their concepts to hyperspecific scenarios where they very clearly showing the audience the arc the stage is taking. audiences can be smart but also if you can lead them by the hand they like not thinking about highly conceptual ideas, and especially not so much in a pop song competition show.

 costume

this is so rare because generally stylists are pretty careful about this, but i genuinely think they got outshone by the backup dancers, especially in the ‘heaven’ sequence. those sash and skirt combos with the strapped white tops that look like straitjackets? the fucking angel wings?! these are some thematically fun costume designs and because they’re white they stand out so much more when skz are wearing black. i also think i've seen these tops on backup dancers before? i thought it was on the last stage but i might be going insane.

i am a sucker for beaded embroidery and the combined dyework on some of their sashes is beautiful. but again, thematically irrelevant? at least you can see the greco-roman inspiration in the backup dancers’ costumes. all this is telling me is that whoever the stitchers are at jype, they are fucking incredible, but they don’t actually have a good designer because the main costumes for all their stages have been both aesthetically similar and thematically irrelevant.

again, i applaud skz for trying more experimental makeup, but boys you have to go bigger, it has no impact right now.

set

well, i did ask for them to commit to the western art bit and they sort of delivered? the first space is not planned very well and combined with the wide wide camera shots instead of making the space seem grand and sweeping it just seems bare. the ‘heaven’ side was excellent though, there was much better control of the camera and the columns and altar scaled the space down so it was more believable. also the breakable columns were fun and corny and i love it when stuff gets destroyed onstage.

the child statue transformation into actual child was a neat trick that i think landed really well. i wish they had given that concept a little more grounding other than the flashback bit but it was still very readable.

i know using rodin's gates of hell is the easiest way to shortcut saying that like, “you are now entering hell,” but them being used SO literally feels a bit blunt when the last time we saw them used in kpop was by original blasphemous catholic lee taemin, who used them with such nuance and intelligence that i'm a bit put off by skz’s literalism.

on that note, i find it very interesting the conflation that happens between greco-roman/”classical” aesthetics and catholicism, because ideologically the two are opposed (see: the bible) and historically, they didn't exist at the same time. now i'm not going to go off on a tangent about neoclassicism because you are not here for an art history lecture but i thought i would make the observation about how catholics continued appropriation of greco-roman aesthetics without complete understanding or context of those aesthetics is as pervasive as it ever has been in the last several hundred years. 

lighting

generally the lighting is pretty good, but there’s an over-reliance on projections that cheapens the look of the stage but also devalues the intentions as well. at the core of it there’s a profound statement being made about trading away your innocence, but when you underscore that with like, clock graphics and a WoW looking demon, it loses that simplicity of message.

the thing about using this particular type of projection, which are actually screens and not typical projectors, is that screens always throw light. and due to where they are situated, this basically means that if you're using the screens at full capacity with a cool colour range, we are going to be able to see everything. this is another contributing factor to why the stage looks so empty; they’re lighting up everything and it exposes where the gaps are.

now i fully acknowledge that this possibly could have been a deliberate choice, since they do actually use some spot lighting at the beginning and end. however, if it was it did not land for me. 

i loved the intro of demon felix done in blue, that was a nice switchup from what we would usually see, but i wish there was more of a coherent colour arc. like the narrative it stutters around a bit.

sound

the arrangement was a miss for me. i found it a bit dissonant again, like their last stage, since the original i'll be your man has obvious lyrics about a good christian boy being sad about a girl. this gets a bit wonky conceptually as soon as you add a child self into it. i don’t know if they changed any of the lyrics in the singing to match this a little more because i don't speak korean, so i'll have to wait for episode subs for verification. 

i really applaud them for trying, and overall they didn't actually do that bad, but skz is not a vocal group. the most i'm going to say about it is that these boys don’t have the breath support. this is likely because they're trying to do choreographically complex movements, but also it's a training thing. you can hear the difference even just between eunkwang’s ‘vocal warmup’ at the beginning of back door, he’s not projecting full voice but he still has the breath support for his voice to sound full, whereas all skz boys sound thin in comparison, even when at full volume, because they’re trying to project from the throat and not the chest. that's all i'm gonna say about that. i don't think the cracked note was bad, i didn’t really clock it on first listen.

staging

thematically they could have had something really interesting here if they stuck to a more simple narrative arc. the genesis (i’m very funny) of the idea here is good, the whole mephistopheles deal with a devil + regret/loss of innocence is clear, but the arc isn't really an arc, and the colour story doesn't help. it kind of goes earth (green/blue) -> the gates of hell are opening (red) -> oh it's heaven now (blue) -> oh just kidding it's hell/lets destroy heaven (red) -> back to earth (blue). not necessarily a bad arc, just a bit complex for four minutes.

the choreo was a lot better this time, there was a lot more intention and relevance to theme and i didn’t feel like they were flailing for the sake of flailing as much as i have in their other stages. there was also a clarity in the overall blocking and movement patterns that was missing from their other stages. this stage has a really great handoff of each member playing the ‘main’ character, especially in the beginning. i especially liked the cut from falling off the stairs to laying centre stage. 

i think I’m right in assuming that it was a choice that the members were all playing the same character and demon felix was that character possessed rather than the actual devil, but personally i think it would have been a lot more fun if they had straight up just made him be the actual devil. there’s a bit of dissonance when you have a performer with such a specialized skillset that gets used in very specific instances, but then he shows up in the regular group choreo like any ol’ guy. they always put such emphasis on felix (as they should, he’s their most charismatic performer), but they never go the distance. i would have loved it if they had committed to the bit like TOO did in their magnolia stage from rtk, where they had a member just be blinded justice. that was literally the only thing he did and it worked so well. could have done the same here with felix and it would have been fun. that being said the felix parts were SO good. love love love him getting dragging in chains.

 btob

this hit every little one of the buttons in my tiny backstage crew brain. i'm in love with this stage. there’s so many true to life little details here that on repeat viewings you're still finding new things. i know i rag on and on about narrative every week but here is a good example of what i've been trying to get at this whole time: the stage needs a shape. an a to b. you don't need a whole pirates spiel or a game of thrones theme extended universe; all you need is a clear setting and a point a to point b. this stage has both those things perfectly. we have a hyperspecific setting, (american rockstars) and a basic arc (getting ready to perform -> performing). even though back door is outside of btob’s wheelhouse, they spun it in a way that played to their strengths and did a bit braggadocio, which is rightfully earned. i'm gonna be saying it every time but the experience shows!!!

 costume

good contemporary costume is SO difficult, i want to impress that here. because it's the the time period that we are currently living and seeing every day it's so easy for the audience to spot mistakes. although yes it's easier to source/shop for, to get it good enough that it doesn't pull people out of the immersion is surprisingly more difficult than you think. their stylists did an excellent job here. the backup dancers and btob are all in monochrome plus one and it adds a very clean unity to everything without visual clutter.

each of btob’s costumes have enough to give indication of character, along with the member’s acting, which i'll get more into in the staging section. regardless, never underestimate the power of a good fitting shirt and statement belt. oh and minhyuk in the stirrup motorcycle boots with the skinny jeans and the supreme boxers and the red satin robe? good bye.

i love love love a dyed buzz this was such a good aesthetic choice for peniel, 10/10 i have no complaints about the costumes.

set

oh my god i’m gonna french kiss this set designer. this is such a simple set but it’s executed so well. there’s the ‘backstage’ area, the corridor with four dressing rooms, and then the ‘stage’ that’s pretty much just velvet ropes. so simple, but all the detail is in the set decoration and props. the road cases, the monitor, the subtle flex of the posters of them on the walls, the clothing racks, all the booze. although this is not the actual layout of any theatre (they're normally much weirder than this), there’s so many little details here that really make the experience.

there’s a very straightforward path here and it works so well. i think this might be the best use of the gates so far? it appropriately suited the drama of the moment and they didn't have to do anything to them because they're already in a theatre. bada bing bada boom.

lighting

love the setup and continuation through the amber ‘BRRRMM.’ like with sf9 it gives a smooth transition into the stage. also loved no blackout. it's a general rule in current theatrical practice that you only use blackouts when they are absolutely necessary, because they can stop the pacing of a play dead in the water. so the lack of one here at the start of the stage was a really smart choice and makes the transition feel less jarring.

i will say that actual backstage areas are very rarely lit with amber because it travels far and it's bright. it's much more common to see running lights (the lights on during a performance) to be deep red or blue.

those blasting wash lights as the gates open? the DRAMA. such a seemingly innocuous choice that really cements the atmosphere of ‘we are about to perform.’

really smart use of the projections to accentuate the already existing stage facilities. it's pretty much unnoticable because it's very well done but i appreciate it.

sound

this ARRANGEMENT!!!! it's so good!!! back door has this premise essentially built into the song so it was so smart of them to put this gimmicky spin on it. loved the literal interpretation of the knocks into the structure of the stage, it makes the blend between the sound design and the staging that much more effective.

more rock versions of everything please and thank you. 

btob is just stunting at this point and i love it. i'll have to wait for subs but judging by the hands in front of the camera bit and the ‘your super high note’ i’m pretty confident the added rap lyrics are full of shots at the other groups and honestly? valid.

staging

there's some really sharp camera control here with the one take first half. It’s up very close and personal because there’s a lack of space but it really works for the ‘intimacy’ of seeing backstage at a venue. also this is such a simple movement track but it’s so effective. it backs over a couple spots but it doesn't feel repetitive because there’s a sense of urgency and drive.

there are so many good little details in here that are true to life and unnecessary to include but sell the performance as a whole. peniel flinging water onstage, minhyuk stripping down twice and flinging his clothes around, minhyuk closing the door on the standby’s face, the backup dancer as a dresser with the laundry basket, peniel stealing the hat off her but then not going on stage with it these are all things that I’ve either had directly happen to me or something very similar has happened. but the best one and the one that sets off the tone amazingly for the whole stage is eunkwang’s intro. that ‘vocal warmup’ with the quiet okay at the end? with the little jump? i see that moment of vulnerability before the transition between person and actor every time i watch someone go onstage for the first time and there’s no way to describe it other than magic. 

the luxury of only having four members, there was actually time in this stage to establish character. it also speaks to the performing strength of btob that they can establish clear character in this short amount of time. obviously it’s pretty one dimensional; there’s serious eunkwang, typical rocker minhyuk, fuckboy peniel (how many licks does it take to make your tootsie pop, anyone?), and comedian changsub. i’ve seen and met and worked with these exact dudes many, many times. ugh i love this stage

 ateez

the utter euphoria i felt at the proof that last round’s stage wasn't a fluke. this stage is so good. it's so good. i'm obsessed with how good this stage. as an unreformed pop punk teen who played a LOT of latin jazz i am LIVING. if you’ve only seen the episode cut and not the full version here i'll make it easy and link it for you because oh my GOD mnet destroyed the pacing by cutting in a full minute and a half of reaction shots. actually mnet fucked up the pacing for all of these stages but this one was the worst. and look. i know this is the closest these boys are going to get to being real punks and this is a carefully curated and artificial facade for narrative purposes only but oh the pandering tastes so sweet. regardless of that, i am IN AWE of the level of storytelling happening here. the narrative is so clear on just the first viewing even though there is so much going on and they use every possible element they can to further enhance that narrative. repeat viewings just add more and more little details. i’ll probably miss some things because there's so much but i'll try my best.

 costume

look, hanya and i were joking that my notes for this stage were just gonna be ‘san dog collar’ for a thousand words and i was so tempted to just leave it at that because.....woof. so here is a short list of things i am the most obsessed with:

san dog collar

san smeared lipstick

wooyoung cruella deville ponytail

hongjoong terrible blond crewcut

san crushed velvet cargo pants?!

seonghwa cropped fur jacket

yunho arm sleeve

hongjoong sockless in red derbys

but in all seriousness the costumes are so good. none of these are truly authentic punk looks but they capture the spirit right and that's what matters. all the right trappings are there; safety pins, patches, plaid, leather, and a lot of diy type looks. i love the painted masks, especially as a callback to the comedy/tragedy theatre masks. it was a thematic choice to have the backup dancers in black and the tac vests are a super simple contextual device.

also hongjoong’s quickchange hat/jacket combo is super fun and i hope that’s intentionally a preview of the next stage.

set

if you weren't convinced before that whoever is designing the ateez stages is a stage designer, i don't know what to tell you. it's hard to tell because there is so much environmental storytelling happening, but there is NO large scale set here. like with their last stage, kq smartly put money into two highlight pieces; the anarchist blimp and the van/wall, and the rest of the stage atmosphere is established solely through propwork and lighting. just think about that for a bit. every other group has some kind of large scale room or wall build. ateez has a bunch of tables, flyers, and a podium. i don’t know if i can accurately communicate just how difficult this kind of coordination is to pull off but holy fucking shit this is so hard to pull off. these are theatre people i see you and i see your work and i love you!!!

they fully used the gilt mnet stage as their pseudo government building and it works. everything about this (lack of) set is so smart i wish i could be more articulate about it but there’s so only so many ways i can say the same thing over and over again. 

lighting

the laser scopes. the LASER SCOPES!!! god this lighting designer is so good. whoever you are, i'm acknowledging your effort because you deserve it. there’s some really wonderful contrast and directional lighting: the van light, the pinlights/lasers/smoke as searchlights. a lot of atmospheric red lighting but it makes sense for the theme (alarm lights) and they offset it well (unlike in the other two predominantly red stages we’ve seen) by fill lighting the faces with blue or amber; this is what actually makes us able to see what’s happening on stage

the projections are used to augment the stage action in without being overpowering, they're at relatively low tonal value so they aren't lighting up the stage at full brightness like in the skz stage. 

the big brother eye on the tv screens (it's just a projection, not actual screens) combined with the government ban notice and the broadcast has to be the record for fastest visual explanation of fascist totalitarian state. 

sound

i love it. they really successfully made rhythm ta into an ateez song and it’s cool as fuck. i love that it isn't sonically very loud. a lot of the chorus is actually quite level tone and quiet, which is a bold choice and they pull it off. this is very comfortably in their range (excluding jongho) and they went more for style than range and that's exactly what every group should be doing. singing high does not equal singing good. yes i am looking at you jongho you should have stopped at that penultimate note, it was fine!!

using rhythm ta as a pseudo protest song against a fascist government that’s banned all music and art? galaxy brain. that intro of hongjoong whispering “hey hey hey hey, this is just a song so get on the rhythm” after gunning down military police/guards? king fucking shit.

staging

i will eat all five pairs of my fluevog boots if kq hasn't hired a bunch of theatre professionals to direct and design these stages because now it's been proven that last stage wasn't a fluke. the level of execution at work here is absolutely incredible. oh the gesamtkunstwerk of it all!!!  there is SO much happening so quickly in this four minute stage and it still manages to convey exactly the correct amount of information that it needs to on the first go round, and it only gets better on repeat viewings.

they use a really classic theatre perspective trick with san climbing the rope, and they absolutely didn’t have to do that. san probably could have actually climbed that himself, but here they made a choice for aesthetic artistry over tricking/other feats of skills we’ve seen the 4th gen groups do. instead of going with the more technically difficult and ‘impressive’ option, they chose the simple way that allows for more character to shine through. there’s actually very little tricking in this stage as whole, they're putting trust in the design of the stage and the raw performance abilities of the members to carry the stage and they stick the landing again. san has some breakdancing and so do the backup dancers, but it’s window dressing in the same way that the flyers are window dressing.

there’s a lot of really good little moments of acting that really sell the performance and dedication of the group as a whole to giving their all. hongjoong overall in his cocky aspirational leader role, seonghwa’s first verse and malfunctioning earpiece bit, san’s falsetto hostage interrogation bit. also i'm obsessed with how far yunho just hucks that mask. he gets like fifteen feet of air with that thing. also props to hongjoong barehanding that glass break.

the paper props are impeccable. the first notice sets up the situation right away, and then we get some further exposition with the newspaper wooyoung is holding (which says ‘the central government has defined the black pirates as a terrorist’ but honestly you don't really need to know what it says to get the point), and then we have raining anarchist flyers from the anarchist blimp. great atmospheric touches.

the blackout crash-to-mask transition is just so good. this is an example of a good use of a blackout. nothing else to add i just thought i would point it out because it's dope.

like with btob there's some really tight camera control here, that along with the lighting and the way they've laid out the space make it easy to follow the trajectory of where they're going and also make the space seem smaller than it is. this is a really big stage and if you don't control how you want it to be seen you end up like with what happened to the first part of skz’s stage. i wish they had tracked some of the one takes a bit better, but the end of that take where the camera followed the group movement laterally and then the formation swung around to face front? sexy. surprisingly the editing is pretty ok.

there’s probably still so much i could talk about but this is already so long so if i missed something just let me know.

ok finally lets do some rankings

personal ranking

this round wasn't as tough to rank because there were two clear top tier stages for me. i actually went back and looked at my ranking from last round and this is identical except the top two spots are switched, which i find extremely funny. however in contrast to last round, these stages were all leagues better than their predecessors. all the groups are improving, just some at greater speed than others.

ateez - i'm not even gonna explain this one.

btob - i won't explain this one either since i just did that.

sf9 - this would have been first if ateez and btob hadnt blow everyone out of the water.i still think they made all the right choices and played to their strengths.

ikon - this stage is so fun to watch but the others offer me more. that’s it.

skz - i like the idea behind it and i loved felix; i'm always down for some good catholic fuckery but like last round it just wasn't played out far enough.

tbz - double ding on the moulin rouge and the continued game of thrones references for me. there were a lot of strong elements here but when compared to every other stage it just doesn't have the same gravitas.

the self rankings i thought were fairly accurate, but again, what the fuck is up with these expert rankings? who are these experts? what stages are they watching?? i won't go more into it than that because then you'll be here even longer but i don't trust these experts who consistently rank btob at the bottom, do you have eyes??? ears????

 ok i'm done for real now im so sorry this 4.6k words......if you make it this far do something nice for yourself like eat a cookie or something. this is way too long you deserve a reward for making it through my nonsense. as always if you’ve got questions or want to share your opinions feel free to send me an ask!