#am i gonna do this for every character?

[frogsndogs]

When I was a kid, I loved Velma. She was smart and cool and sassy, and I thought she was the best. But now? I’m honestly a little annoyed. And at the end of the day it all comes down to the way that writers are characterizing her. So I suggest: STOP MAKING VELMA “THE SMART ONE”.

Now, I know a lot of people think this is the main facet of her personality but just hear me out here. I don’t like her being “the smart one” for two main reasons. A) it often comes at the expense of her team. In MI, most prominently, where the writers try to show Velma carrying the team, it makes the others look really dumb. But they’re not. They’re all on the team, they’re all looking for clues, they’re all putting the puzzle together, they’re all solving the mystery. When writers make Velma the smart one and make her carry the team, it makes people wonder why she doesn’t just go off on her own, especially when they try to show the rest of the team holding her back. (Again, MI comes to mind). And then B) It can make her strongly against magic and the supernatural existing. I haven’t watched The Thirteenth Ghost but I’ve heard about it and Velma’s characterization, and how she denies her friends' experiences and says that what they saw, the whole big life-altering, near-death adventure didn't happen. Also in MI (again) Velma was very in denial about the supernatural when there was a talking dog right there! I mean it just boggles my mind when you’ve got Velma not believing in magic, right beside a talking, anthropomorphic dog. And when real supernatural occurrences have been such a large part of the Scooby Doo franchise, it starts to ruin the Scooby Doo vibe and make me feel like she doesn’t belong in the genre. Also, way back in WAY, the episode with the Phantom on Haunted Island, her “logical explanation” was that it was a ghost.

So what do I think should happen to Velma? Well, first let’s look at the rest of the gang. Start by making Fred good with physics and math and show it. Traps are complicated and there’s a lot of complex math going on there. Then make Shaggy or Daphne (or both) good at chemistry. Shaggy because cooking involves a lot of chemistry, Daphne because she just gives me chemistry vibes. (Or if you have Marcie, make her good at chemistry. She invented super-helium for goodness sakes). Maybe leave bio to Velma but I think they would all have a good idea of biology medically and criminally speaking. So what does that leave for Velma then? She can keep the physics and the chemistry, but maybe not because she likes them. Make her a previous “gifted kid” who learned them for a grade, who was praised for being so much smarter than her peers, but reading at the grade 12 level isn’t a talent anymore and she never really learned how to interact with others. That’s why she’s sarcastic and doesn’t always understand when not to be. But then what is her role in the team? Here me out. Make her a history nerd. 

Make Velma know ancient history and weird facts and even weirder historical people. (Not even famous people. Just there was evidence of this random guy living in a cave and this is what he did and oh you're dressing up as his ghost. Well actually, he was only 4ft 8 and you're like 6ft so...) . Make her know where the legends of different monsters originated from and make her know all about the supernatural. Let someone mention a random monster and she can give you the full history off the top of her head (kinda like in Be Cool, but way more intense). Make her know the history of landmark criminal cases and the development of laws, and how they worked in different civilizations. Make her know mythology and study long-dead languages (can spot a forgery in 0.000001 seconds) and how different people protected against monsters (Well actually, this monster's weakness is X and it didn't affect you so maybe you should have done some more research). Make her love ghost stories with all her heart and know random facts about civilizations. (Actually according to this ancient map this rock with what looks like a face carved in it, is supposed to be over there and it's too big to have moved to the other side of the river without equipment and this is a protected area, hmm...) Make her freak out when she meets Scooby because all her theories about the supernatural really existing are right and she feels so goddamn vindicated. Make her dedicate herself to proving that the supernatural was real and not just stories. And when local people warn them about monsters she listens because these people live here, they know what’s going on and they approach the situation using their advice.(Something that bugs me abt the Scooby series is how when people (a lot of the time people of colour) warn them off they brush them off like they don’t know better.) Make her know old theories and quote whatever random (but super cool) old book that she’s reading. And let her find weird niche topics to research for an episode (Kinda like Daphne, in Be Cool). Like if they’ve got a mystery on a plane, let her research how people once believed the world was flat, but there were actually a lot who knew it was round. If they’ve got a mystery on a boat, let her research mermaids and sea monsters and was the Kraken real? Don’t worry she’s got a four hour slideshow prepared on that exact topic.

So, in conclusion, stop making Velma the “smart one” and make her a history nerd. 

I rest my case. 

[giantkillerjack]

Me: hm, I want something to put on the TV as background noise... Huh. Looks like YouTube is recommending something called The Last Unicorn. That's perfect, it's probably some old shitty animation that has aged poorly! I can watch it ironically!

Me, 2 hours later as the credits roll: *crying, cheering, buying the book, composing the songs*

Me, 2 weeks later: So I have compiled all of the quotes from the book that I think could make good tattoos, and also, HOW HAVE I NEVER LEARNED ABOUT HOW THE LAST UNICORN FUCKING SLAPS??? This gay-ass little fairytale fed my soul! Watered my crops! Transed my gender! Can't believe I heard of this story from youtube recommendations, of all places!!

[ineffably-human]

So here's my problem.

And it's not about Nandermo, not exactly anyway. Because I didn't expect Nandermo to become textual until the very end, if at all. The show kept making it clear that they liked their ambiguity to keep the relationship on the razor's edge, and Paul Simms made it clearer and clearer that for some reason (put a pin in this) he just couldn't see their connection as a sexual one.

But I frankly don't care about that, because if anything is canon in this show it's that the vampires will eventually fuck everything, and Nandor canonically fucks his other friends. More importantly, their connection was always the emotional core of both characters. And Paul always did say he saw their relationship as a romance, if a strange and non-sexual one.

So I figured we'd maybe get Nandor confessing that Guillermo meant a lot to him (and immediately walking it back a little), or Guillermo confessing how lost he feels without his vampire dream and Nandor offering him a place. Maybe an ambiguous, could-just-be-queerplatonic-partners 'I love you'. Maybe just the hug they kept teasing for three or four seasons and never got. We got like...half of two of those, in episode 10, so I guess that's a wobbly semi-fulfilled thing by my definition of it.

But it's not the Nandermo of it all. It's the Guillermo of it all. And how this final episode seemed to almost mock Guillermo's place at the emotional core of the show.

And the Guillermo of it all is why we never got the Nandermo of it all.

Shadows has vampires doing absurd-ass things, but every character also has things they want and feel, and there are various amounts of emotional ink spilled about it. The show has found space, sometimes very poignant space, to take that seriously in between the piss and sex jokes. The vampires change very slowly and in spirals, they repeat a lot of their old issues that stem back even to their mortal lives. But they always try.

And things do change in the vampire house; that is not the same household from the first season. Every single character, right down to the Baron and the Guide and Derek, are in different and better places than they were before the show began. They've made progress in their individual desires, and a lot of that is due to the improved connections they have with each other, connections we've watched them foster. A lot of the time it's because they're talked about as a found family, something Guillermo started and Guillermo believed before any of the rest of them did.

---

So where is Guillermo this season? Our human point of view, our dynamic character, the character who has a dream and wants something more than any of the others? Whose dream drives the storyline of the entire show?

Guillermo has chosen to be human, and he thinks he can't be part of the household if he's not a vampire. We watch Guillermo try to throw himself back into the human world trying to make up for lost time - to the point that he forgets the person he called his best friend, the people he called his family, in a way I think we never fully resolve. He thinks he's thriving, and he doesn't even seem upset about leaving the others behind.

We watch him revert (and that's fine, people revert sometimes) to the same waiting lapdog he was when we started the series. We watch him realize that and he says no. Nandor stands up for him, and feels better and more fulfilled in doing so, and that's a great capstone for Nandor and Nandor's own tendency for selfishness. And that's excellent. Episode 10 was a great start for all the ground they had to cover.

Nandor offers for Guillermo to be his partner in crime. His sidekick, but Guillermo expressed that desire back in season one so it's not an insult inherently. But here's the problem. Here's the part of Guillermo that has frankly always been a problem, because I thought it's something the show was eventually going to cover respectfully, and instead it was always part of the joke.

---

Guillermo is someone who made a decision sixteen years ago as part of a very young man's desire, to be respected and have cool powers, to live forever, to see the world. (He somehow thought being a vampire, and only a vampire, could get him those things but that's a rant for another time.)

That young man has grown up. He's in his mid-thirties, he has a body count. We've watched him at various times be empathetic, clever, cunning, and brave. Also extremely sexy in bodyguard gear. (And for some reason, the show keeps wanting us to forget that for a season he was extremely competent and badass and sexy pretty much all the time, and he seemed thrilled to be in that role, and he didn't even care about being a vampire if he could protect Nandor in that way and be regarded as 'part of the team'.)

Then Nandor dresses him in a stupid cowboy costume, and gives him a sidekick name ending in 'Kid', which he seems less than thrilled about. They all still talk about him the entire episode as if he's a disobedient child. The vampires speculate if Guillermo is having a fling with the crew, but no - Guillermo's had one boyfriend, who we saw him hug once and nothing more. Despite living in a house for fifteen years that is openly raunchy and shameless, he seems like a character designed to be both desexed and humiliated, and they never expand on the reason why.

(And if Guillermo were ace it'd be amazing, hell it's my headcanon at this point, but I don't think that's what they're going for. I think the show just desexualizes Guilermo. As a matter of praxis. For some reason.)

And the show has done this more and more to Guillermo in the later seasons. Nandor says he could steal original!Freddie easily from Guillermo if he wanted to. The vampires laugh at the thought of him being a vampire - "a little bat pooping everywhere," and Guillermo's time as a vampire has him basically feeling no different in his sexuality or, after a very brief moment, his confidence. Even Nandor's big climactic moment in Episode 10 has him saying that just because Guillermo isn't as cool or hot or interesting or strong as Jordan (or Nandor) doesn't mean Guillermo deserves to be treated poorly.

Look, I don't know if it's because Harvey Guillen is babyfaced, or because he's fat, or because he carries a different energy to his masculinity. Or because it's great to talk about gay sex and being horny, but writing a gay relationship is just too hard. Or some fun combination of all those things.

But I keep thinking about everyone freaking out when Nandor swooped into the collapsed floorboards to save Guillermo in season 4, and everyone freaked out and swooned. And Paul Simms expressed that as "[Nandor] has to save his little buddy."

Guillermo is a grown-ass man, with a desire to feel powerful and special and accepted, who Nandor sees as his little buddy. (Who everyone in the house sees as their little buddy, and it's nice he's part of the family, but...) After every emotional beat that makes them seem like equals with a special connection, he reverts to the less-cool sidekick who makes Nandor feel special and important. And Guillermo's prior devotion to Nandor - not to vampirism, not to a job or promotion, to Nandor - changes to other things, but Nandor never figures out why that hurts him so much. And for some reason the deepest bond of the series just isn't sexual, the showrunner just can't see it that way, in a house where everyone's fucking but not you Guillermo.

We're at the end of the story, and that's our punchline.

---

And we don't end on one of the points where Guillermo is asserting himself as someone who deserves to be taken seriously, and given the things he wants - and the show has had plenty of those moments, all of which seem to be building and evolving his relationships over the years.

We end on Guillermo being told that suddenly, the documentary is packing up without any fanfare or clarity on what they were looking for in the first place. We get Guillermo stumbling for clarity on what it all meant, what the point was for him and what his life is going to be now. We're told over and over again the documentary (and Guillermo, and the viewers) needs a satisfying capstone, needs emotional closure.

And the vampires tell him to shut up. And they tell him this has all happened before, and none of it is special to them. ("No human is special," Nandor said several episodes ago, and never went back on it.) And they tell him to do a little dance for their amusement, and Colin recites some pithy lines. And every attempt to take a moment to care about Guillermo's journey, or the core of his character and what he needs, is turned into a joke for him and for us.

Guillermo's looking for a point to it all, for some kind of fulfillment, and there wasn't one. And everyone is satisfied in that but him. And even if there were times Guillermo got the chance to be respected, to have cool powers (which he kept, but the vampires keep forgetting them), to live forever (he will die and leave Nandor someday!), to see the world - none of these things are going to come to him now.

It would make absolute, complete, and devastating sense for Guillermo to feel he's outgrown them and to leave. Nandor doesn't even seem upset enough to try and stop him. We never really get a clear reason about why he decides to stay.

I mean, it's for friendship or something, with a line about how they can still be close but he needs 'his own thing'. But in six seasons, over and over and over, we've been driven back to the idea that the most emotional part of this story is Guillermo's desire to become accepted in this family, and the effect he has on Nandor. That Guillermo needs this home and he consistently makes Nandor softer, kinder, less selfish and more fulfilled when they're together.

But those parts of their relationship, the love story parts, don't matter. Guillermo is going to find 'his own thing' when it's been clear how entrenched in this world he is (right down to his DNA), but Nandor will drag him back into shenanigans anyway, probably keeping Guillermo from whatever 'his own thing' is.

And Guillermo will always be Nandor's sidekick, his little buddy, never to be taken seriously. And one day, Guillermo will die, and he'll be someone they all forget. And for some reason, he'll be just fine with that, because he belongs with them but will never really be in a better position.

And he'll be satisfied with that. For some reason. But I won't.

[xbomboi]

5 times Apple hugged Raven…

————————

…and the one time Raven hugged back.

(see my previous eah comic here)

[joshuamj]

Linktober Day 1: Mirror

Prompt list I'll be trying a few days from!

[monocycle-of-fresh-cut-grass]

I know i am not the first one to say this, but i have to highlight the fact that Travis is a fantastic player

While everyone was stumbling for any possibility of FCG to not die or not be sundered beyond a chance at resurrection, Travis was so encouraging of Sam's choice

Even calling out the other players when they just, didn't let the scene continue, just great, we all need a Travis at our tables

[anonymouscheeses]

I'm gonna be shitting and screaming and starting fights if Sera becomes a villain. I can't take sibling angst, Sera loves Emily I swear guys believe meeee.

[gyuville]

no bc i really don't trust people who genuinely think saiki hates his friends. like i get it, saiki does wanna be alone most times. but did they miss the eps where saiki kept an eye on his friends even when they weren't together and helped them?? i mean i could name numerous cases where he puts his friends above all else. i thought we all knew saiki is an unreliable narrator?? 😭 plus his mother did Not raise him like that

[ender1821]

shut up im coping

[youbutstupid]

Twitter Criminal Minds fans villainising Luke and Morgan for a misogynistic comment that they made once whilst actively ignoring all of the times they (especially Morgan) have been used by the team for their skin colour is an example of white feminism btw.

You can criticise their actions but actively villainising them whilst ignoring all of the bad things your favourite white characters have done is not the move and it’s not a good look. This is about two posts I saw where one person laughed and said no one on the team cared about Luke and only Emily and then another person called Morgan the worst character (in a show full of serial killers is insane btw).

[simptasia]

LOST: Season One

[shaadowmilkcookie]

I love ur oc

OIJSNFKDL;ALKFJNG'DKNJLHG????????????????????????????????????????? OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY GOD OH MY GOD HELLOOOOO PRETTTY LITTLE BLUE PRINCE HWO I HATE. SO DEARLY. SO MUHC. right in my inbox... oh my gawd.. oHHH MY GAWD u draw him so nice it makes me MAD bc he does not DESERVE this. 5 billion nukes to his location!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wispurring-moss]

*trips gracelessly onto my face & This flies out of my pocket like a shot*

welp, finally flew too close to the VCU sun & found myself plummeted straight down into hell, who'da thunk it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ so have a spider boi doodle for now i guess, he's so shape-y lol i'm vibing with it~

[kaiserouo]

preparation

[daphnalia]

is it meme redraw season yet

[akuma-tenshi]

this is my truth