#and I need to decide what goes into the narrative and what I can just cut out

[polaritydisturbed]

Just for fun—and also because I'm bored—alright, feck it: here’s how I’d fix Wish World/Reality War.

The TARDIS doesn’t explode at the end of The Interstellar Song Contest episode. Instead, the doors open, they step outside—and wake up in Wish World. That exact moment becomes the opening of Wish World, so the story picks up from there seamlessly.

First things first: Make Conrad main antagonist. He was already set up with way more narrative weight than anyone else, so make him the central threat. Keep the Rani/Ms. Flood as the mysterious figure who frees him and hands over the baby to grant his wish—but beyond that, let her linger in the background.

Maybe don’t even reveal she’s the Rani. Keep 'em guessing

(I’ve got alternate versions where the Rani is the main villain front and center—but for this one, I’m keeping it close enough to the original so you can see how little needed to change for it to actually work.)

(And yes, we’re cutting Omega entirely. He added nothing. Absolutely nothing. Gone.)

The "Wish World" setup? Mostly the same at first. But here’s the deal: cut Poppy. Completely. Sure, there are theoretical ways to keep her without all the weird, forced motherhood implications for Belinda—but narratively? She doesn’t add enough. Clean break.

Halfway through the episode, Ruby makes another attempt to reach Belinda. This time, it’s after the brunch scene with Belinda, her mum, and her gran. Belinda’s doubts have been building; she’s finally open to listening. She’s not fully convinced—doesn’t want to believe Ruby—but she’s starting to crack.

And then—boom. The Doubt Police show up.

Because Belinda’s mum already reported her.

So Belinda and Ruby go on the run.

While hiding, they stumble across the "disabled camp"—and something’s clearly off. The authorities avoid it, almost like they don’t even notice it exists. That scene plays out similarly to the aired episode, but now Belinda is there, and what she sees starts to completely shatter her sense of reality.

Belinda decides to try to speak to her husband—John Smith/Doctor. They meet outside his workplace. But the John/Doctor—happy, peaceful, content—is deep in denial. Think Family of Blood levels of denial. He doesn’t call the Doubt Police, but he gently asks Belinda to leave. It’s heartbreaking.

Before she goes, she slips him a note. She tells him not to read it unless he starts to doubt. “If you’re sure this is real, throw it away. But if you doubt it—even just a little—open it.” Then she turns and walks away, leaving him standing there with the note in his hand.

He holds onto it for a while. At first, he tosses it in the trash bin under his desk, brushing it off. But the seed’s been planted. Doubt creeps in. Curiosity festers. Eventually, he pulls it back out—hesitates—and finally opens it.

Just four words: “Tables don’t do that.”

He doesn’t understand what it means—yet—but it lingers.

(Yes, I'm cutting the Rogue cameo. Let the characters in the actual story do the deducing. I'd keep it if it were some clever trick from the Rani, but having her break her own experiment just raises more questions than it answers in this version of events. And if we’re already regenerating Fifteen, let’s not salt the wound for Rogue unless we’re actually going to do something with him.)

Then the Reality War episode kicks off, we get a scene with the John/Doctor at work, obsessively doing the table mug thing, trying to convince his coworkers that something’s wrong. But instead of listening, they call the Doubt Police on him. This finally pushes him to seek out Belinda and the others.

That sets the stage for John/Doctor, Ruby, Belinda, and Shirley teaming up to infiltrate Conrad’s base of operations. No bone palace this time. Instead? A decadent, bloated, self-indulgent mansion—maybe even… a white one. (Listen, if the show wasn’t being subtle about who Conrad would be a fan of, why should I be?)

As they get close to confronting him, we get the reveal that Conrad—knowingly or not—was imagining Ruby specifically as unhappy. That she was unloved. That both of her mums had abandoned her. That she was miserable. He was trying to write her out of the fantasy. But because he kept envisioning her life as broken and painful, it ended up snapping her out of the illusion entirely. It didn’t trap her—it freed her. That’s why she could sense something was wrong when no one else could.

This leads to the emotional gut-punch moment: the Doctor realizes what ending this fantasy will cost him. To save everything, he has to stop being John Smith. He has to be the Doctor again—not the man with a house, a smile, and a quiet, ordinary life.

And, heart-wrenchingly, he chooses to be the Doctor anyway. (Ncuti would KILL a scene like this)

They stop Conrad—but something’s wrong. Reality is fractured. Without intervention, it’ll collapse.

And the Doctor made a promise: to get Belinda home.

So he does.

He doesn’t tell her what it will cost. He just gives her that soft, quiet look. Wishes her the happiest life. Says he’s glad she made it home.

Then he steps into the TARDIS and uses the regeneration energy and the time vortex to set things right.

From that moment on, everything plays out like it does in the original finale—but now, it lands. The Doctor’s sacrifice has meaning. Belinda’s agency is respected. Ruby’s story feels earned. Conrad gets the villain arc he deserved.

And the Rani?

She’s still out there.

Watching.

Waiting.

Smiling.

We catch a final glimpse of her, calmly going over notes from the experiment. An old TV playing moments with the Doctor in them, scribbling something. Filing it away. Ready for the next phase. (Maybe even reveal she's the Rani at this point.)

Is this version I’ve concocted perfect? Nah. But it’s at least coherent—and I wrote it on my lunch break.

PS: If it isn’t explicitly changed in the above, assume it’s still relatively the same with only minor tweaks to fit what is changed (i.e., like changing the topic of conversation between Belinda and her mum and gran to something not involving Poppy, or keeping Conrad reading from within the TARDIS—that still stays. The Rani still set that up.) I'm trying to keep it as close to what we got in the finale to show that they had all the elements of a decent story. (And yeah, sure—keep the cameo from 13 in there too. It’s fan service, but I don’t mind. It stays in as a little treat.)

[transmutationisms]

ok to elaborate i think the main problem bojack was always going to have (related to my television manifesto) is that its entire narrative engine was bojack being a shitty rich man, but the moral universe of the show never actually wanted to absorb the idea that he might be 'irredeemable' or incapable of change (understandable. i don't really agree with that sort of personality typing either) and so the writers were always conflicted between the desire to show bojack changing in some incremental way versus the desire to continue generating episode & season plots about what a shitty rich man he was. to some extent you see the same with diane & even mr peanutbutter, and notably also with todd (no reason for that one even! todd is a peripheral comic relief character, you can make him as calcified as you want without it implying much about the show's broader moral logic, why am i sitting through the most saccharine self improvement pilled therapy minded episodes about gettig your rock opera sabotaged by your Addict Friend lmfao). but it's worst with bojack because he gets so much screentime & because his moral transgressions are most disturbing -- the shit with his coworker was never handled well for example: the show sets up a genuine moral condemnation and then largely sidesteps it by ultimately calling bojack sick in the head and institutionalising him.

i also think the sarah lynn storyline gets a lot of credit it really shouldn't: it's actually possible to think about the sexual and general exploitation of child stars without completely flattening their perspectives but this is nigh impossible if the entire point of the show is nothing to do with sarah lynn herself and everything to do with how she makes bojack feel lol. i remember the penny storyline occasionally being somewhat more successful in this respect but mostly falling into the same trap. and i hateeeee when writers just randomly decide that a woman character desperately wants children and her entire narrative presence is now determined by that desire -- like i think there's a way to have a character want kids without doing "woman randomly changes her mind and HATES being so Career Minded and Independent and only desire in life is to hold a Little Rascal that she owns in her arms" but i'm not holding my breath for it. bojack's own relationship to parenthood is also annoying as hell because once again it's barely even about hollyhock (drugged against her will by a woman she thought liked her who in fact thinks she's fat and ugly -- we could spend more than 5 seconds gathering her thoughts on this i would say) and mostly about bojack interpreting everything in the world as a referendum on himself, which could be perfectly fine fodder for a television show if the writers didn't also agree with it 75% of the time.

to me this is a classic case of a show that would have been better if they'd planned it out from the start, cut at least 2–3 seasons, polished the jokes, and run it only until it became untenable to have a main character who basically doesn't change and always has the same fundamental flaws. you can do that as essentially an extended character study and it'll honestly get you a fair amount of content if you're smart lol but when you try to plot and pace it like a bunch of overlapping extended film screenplays you are just always going to run into the basic issue that either your characters need to progress in some way (which means altering the dynamics and flaws on which the show is premised) or they're going to start feeling stale. usually a more successful sitcom goes the latter route and just relies on making the plots more batshit (community) or so trivial it doesn't matter (seinfeld); i think the only comedy i can really think of that semi pulls off the first is search party & that's because it literally resets genres every 10 episodes. bojack was like trying to plot reset every 30 minutes while telling me its characters were complex people capable of growth and change or of being morally culpable for failing to grow & change. it's just hard to do that even before taking the writers' insane misogyny into account lol

I love your addiction tag it's so liberating a few months ago I finished Bojack Horseman and the way that show depicted addiction fucking bothered me all the way through but I couldn't put my finger on it so thank you

bojack is so funny its literally like what if a show was repeatedly bad for no reason like just sheer force of determination to make a bad show that sucks. it has like three good concepts and four good lines and the ending is on par with mr robot levels of dogshit. blackout drunk on someones dorm room floor in 2017 type of show

[snekdood]

ppl are eager to tell victims to shut up if they think they can get away with it.

[npdiyozane]

I don't like BSD I'm sorry if I'm putting myself through the little sister bullshit I'm doing it for a VN that does something interesting not for a basic shounen anime with a mafia aesthetic and some questionable literary references.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

I hate the viper as the black divine btw I hate it I hate it I hate it

And no, it's not because it's a bad idea.

It's because it's an EXCELLENT idea, and the idea that they intended it to be canon (or planned for it to be) is quite frankly an insult to such a complex idea. Especially in the game series that used to explore religion quite seriously and which has decided, in the game about Gods and potentially disproving faith, it no longer actually cares about faith (the MAIN THEME OF THE PREVIOUS GAME).

Like. Firstly narratively the Black Divine being Viper could have had such an impact because you could have built to it. You meet Viper, get to know him... simultaneously you're meeting various imperial chantry officials. Maybe these chantry officials are even aligned with Venatori. They keep alluding to the Black Divine but you never meet him until ACT 3 when it turns out...the black divine was the viper all along.

And one assumes the black divine would turn to a life like the Vipers because they don't think their office is doing any real good. That's!!! Really interesting!!! Someone decked in glory and power realises their own office is a sham that is doing no good not stopping slavery or Venatori and so works to do it from the shadows...that's interesting!!! And has something to say about systematic power structures and how changing a system from the inside can be damn near impossible.

Or maybe he does this because he DOESNT want to risk his seat as the black divine but feels immense guilt about how he's not actually helping the faithful poor in his city. He wants to cling to his power because he believes he can nudge history in the right direction if he does, but simultaneously knows that by not speaking out publiclly on slavery or poverty he's potentially dooming people to death and so needs to sooth his guilt by going vigilanty. Maybe there's an interesting question in there somewhere about living in two worlds and trying to maintain the status quo in one and destroy it in the other.

Also it DIRECTLY parrellels previous characters like Cassandra and Leliana and is a continuation of inquisitions themes surrounding what good can faith ACTUALLY accomplish for people (this even goes back to da2 and Anders)? When does faith break/why? What

Also because it's not explained, it's just kinda stupid. Does Bioware think that high ranking religious officials do nothing all day? They're not billionaires sat in a mansion popping into occasional meetings, they're public figures and political leaders of giant organisations who regularly have to be on show to the masses and to their own advisors. I won't believe that they not only a) have time to be batman AND b) they also have time to just...sit around in some room in the middle of nowhere to be a performative faction leader to the protagonist of a video game they don't know they're in.

Also. Are you telling me. The venatori were going to execute the FANTASY POPE??? And nobody cared??? They were going to publiclly execute the FANTASY POPE and the viper wasn't going to reveal himself and he wasn't going to be recognised and that wasn't going to cause problems? Are you kidding me?

Tblr; the idea that the viper is the black divine is such a good idea it makes me so angry they seemingly couldn't be bothered to actually put the time into it to make it interesting

[rivereverie]

Astarion and Learned Cruelty

Spoilers for all of Astarion’s story through all acts of BG3. As always, this is all just my interpretation of the character. Feel free to disagree. 

I love the writing choice to make Astarion genuinely immoral at first. They could have easily pulled the overdone trope of "I only pretend to be evil because I'm traumatized. I'm really just a sad little guy who wouldn’t hurt anyone". Now I do believe his behavior is a direct result of his trauma, but I'll get to that in a minute. The point is that he does genuinely relish in violence, although his actions will be swayed by whichever moral direction the player decides to go. But he does enjoy combat, spilling blood, and even some more cruel and unusual things. However, what makes this so compelling and narratively rich is that this is a learned mindset.

I think that a lot of people don't acknowledge that going into act 1, Astarion has just come out of a situation where he was quite literally forced to participate in horrific crimes, with severe consequences if he refused. That absolutely does not excuse the fact that he's okay with if not outright enthusiastic about murder, but we do see that he was not always this way (e.g., he tried at least once to let a target go because he couldn't bring himself to take them to Cazador). I just think it's worth acknowledging that that mindset was the product of centuries of torment and active overt and covert conditioning. He became who Cazador wanted him to be; who he had to be in order to survive. Astarion and Karlach are two sides of a coin in this regard, in that they represent opposite responses to trauma and loss of autonomy. Karlach was forced into martial servitude, which in my opinion explains why she's still kind of bloodthirsty even though she's such a good and kind person bent on protecting others. She's shaped by the role she was forced into, and it's the same with Astarion. Again, not to say he isn't morally dubious, but there's a big difference between someone evil and someone who was never allowed to be "good" suddenly being thrust back into freedom and forced to figure things out.

To a degree, I do also think that his over-the-top declarations of his love for violence are another piece of his mask. Just like with his feigned hedonism and sexual forwardness, he's trying to hold power over people by controlling their perception of him (as well as his own self-perception). He's holding a big sign that says "I'm selfish and evil, and you shouldn't like me unless you are too", when really he's not anywhere near as selfish and evil as he pretends to be. He does this in part to keep people at arm's length, but also to convince himself; to craft his own reality wherein he is the person he needs to be to get through this situation. His worldview has been warped to see domination and control as synonymous with strength, and so he's being strong in the way he knows how. As the story progresses with a good player on his side, he's beginning to learn how to be something better. And that's why it takes time: because he's unlearning 200 years of conditioning and survival instincts.

It's worth talking about that it's not unheard of for abusers to force victims to participate in the abuse of others. I think that representing that experience in this game is important and valuable. We should all walk the line between holding these kinds of survivors accountable for what is appropriate, and to offer them oceans of understanding and empathy for them over what they were forced into. Even if Astarion weren't magically forced to do Cazador's bidding, I hope that we all could still understand the power that abusers hold over their victims, empathize with him, and see that those actions were an extension of Cazador, not himself.

Official D&D definitions of "evil" aside, I don't think he's ever truly evil unless he goes down the evil route with the player and/or ascends (Ascended Astarion is a whole other can of worms I’m not going to get into in this post). By the end of the spawn storyline, Astarion does have a lot more concern and care for others, and most importantly, he takes responsibility. To me, that shows profound strength and goodness. He's never a saint, but in my opinion he's never really evil, either. He's still learning how to live in a world where he doesn't need to be cruel in order to survive. 

Concerning the early access backstory about him being a "corrupt magistrate", it's up to the individual how to headcanon that information. Personally, I think he was probably a little self-interested, but not evil by any means. I think he was probably just a pretty normal person before Cazador, not predisposed to cruelty.

In summary, I think it’s important to talk about what makes people “bad”, especially in the context of the cycle of abuse and victimization. In Astarion’s case, much of his taste for cruelty came from implicit conditioning over his years of being forced to hurt others. There are a number of lines from him during the dungeon/crypt sequence where he keeps insisting, defensively and desperately, that he didn’t have a choice in bringing victims back to Cazador. That it was all on his orders and he couldn’t say no. This might come across to some as him trying to shirk blame, but the thing is… he’s right. He didn't have a choice, other than death, but I think Cazador would deny him even that. He wanted to make his spawn into obedient tools, but also to break them. To make them an extension of his own monstrous cruelty. But in the end, Astarion takes responsibility as best he can, and begins to forgive himself for being a part of Cazador’s evil. This is part of what makes the line “I am so much more than what you made me” so powerful.

[zukosdualdao]

so, this post was originally born from a post i saw a couple of months ago that was deriding people for criticizing katara’s main role in lok being a healer when that was never all she wanted to do but liking the scene where she heals zuko in sozin's comet. at the time i thought about responding directly and decided against it, but i have since scanned through transcripts of every instance (i could find; it's possible i could be missing something) of katara healing someone in the show and how they respond. (you know, like a normal and well-adjusted individual. lmao.)

anyway, aside from katara explicitly stating that she doesn’t only want to be a healer, another aspect of why people don’t like that this is how her story goes in lok is because of the way healing is treated in the atla narrative.

Katara: Aang, you're burned! Let me help you. [Katara heals the burn on Aang's arm.] Aang: Wow, that's good water. Sokka: When did you learn that? Katara: I guess I always knew. Sokka: [Sarcastically.] Oh ... Well then thanks for all the first aid over the years. Like when I fell into the greaseberry bramble. [Angrily.] Or that time I had two fishhooks in my thumb!

this comes, of course, after aang accidentally burns katara and she learns she can heal through her waterbending by healing her own hands. then (after comforting aang despite being the one who got hurt, not that i'm bitter), she heals aang after he gets burned in his fight with zhao. and like... there's not so much as a cursory thanks in this scene.

to be clear, because i can already hear some responses in my head and i am making a preemptive strike: i'm not saying that when other characters don't thank katara for her healing, they're like, the worst people ever for not doing so or there aren't other ways at different times where they show their appreciation. what i am saying is that it feels like this sets up a long pattern of katara's healing specifically being taken for granted, and it makes me especially uncomfortable when i see her healing as a sort of metaphorical parallel to the emotional labor often expected of her in the show, especially because this and being The Avatar's Girlfriend/Wife is more or less what she's relegated to in post-canon.

also, i have to note sokka's line here. i don't want to come down on him too hard for this, because it's obviously being written humorously (and does genuinely make me laugh, for what it's worth, if just for the inherent ridiculous nature of two fishhooks), but his sarcastically saying thanks for all the help over the years when katara says she always knew (which is supposed to be her saying it just somehow instinctively came to her) does feel like another mark in this pattern. but i also really read this as sokka trying to lighten the mood after a Difficult (TM) day, so i cut both him and the writers some slack for it.

Meanwhile, back at the Outer Wall, Katara attempts to heal a member of the Terra Team. General Sung: What's wrong with him? He doesn't look injured. Katara: His chi is blocked. [Stops healing.] Who did this to you?

i find it interesting that katara has sort of naturally fallen into a token team healer role, to the degree that we don't even see them ask for her help or her agree to it; it's just automatically assumed that she will. and i mean, on the one hand, it's fairly standard to have an Assumed Healer in a fantasy action setting like this, where people will get hurt in combat and therefore the narrative needs someone whose job is to help them. the problem for me is that the show kicked up such a fuss about how women shouldn't just be allowed to be healers, and yet it's still the role no one but katara ever fills. aang is also a waterbender! why couldn't she have taught him healing, too? i genuinely think it would have added a lot to the story, but katara is The Girl (TM), so healing is what she (and only she) does, what's expected of her, and again, with very rare thanks for it.

Katara stares open-mouthed at Jet, her hands hovering near her mouth in shock. Snapping out of it, she withdraws water from her water skin, with which she covers her hands, and it begins to glow as she kneels down next to him. Cut to a shot from over her shoulder, with Jet glancing at her while she rubs her hands over his chest in an attempt to heal him. After rubbing his chest three times, the glow fades, the water stains Jet's clothing, and Katara looks back over her shoulder toward the rest of the group. Katara: This isn't good. Smellerbee: You guys go and find Appa. We'll take care of Jet. Katara: We're not going to leave you. Longshot: There's no time. Just go. We'll take care of him. He's our leader. They stare at Longshot in surprise. Jet: Don't worry, Katara. I'll be fine. [Smiles a little.]

Cut to a closer shot of Katara placing Aang's body on Appa. Katara opens the vial around her neck and uses water healing on Aang's wounded back. The rest of Team Avatar, Kuei, and Bosco all look sadly and in anticipation. The glowing from the spirit water stops, and Katara starts crying, assuming that it was not enough to save Aang. Aang's tattoos glow for a second and Aang groans. Katara, overcome with joy that Aang is alive, looks at him, who smiles a little, and she holds him closer.

writing about these together because i have less to say about them. i'm definitely not going to fault jet for not thanking katara when she tries to heal him as he literally lay dying, or aang for not having the mind to do so after she brings him back. but i am still going to fault the narrative for putting her in a position where healing is just inherently expected from her and yet very rarely allowing her to feel the emotional toll of that or to feel constricted by it. and when she does struggle against the weight of it (not necessarily of being a healer, but of being expected to be kind and good and uncomplicated with no room for other aspects of her identity, which are very tangled up in why she is The Healer) in episodes like the runaway or in the southern raiders, she just... does not receive a lot of support from the people she should be most able to rely on.

Katara: Maybe we should go upstairs. [Helping Aang up.] You need a healing session. Back in Aang's room on the ship. Katara bends some water onto the scar left by Azula's lightning attack. Katara: Tell me where the pain feels most intense. Aang: Mmm, a little higher. Uhhh! Aang briefly flashes back to the battle at Old Ba Sing Se where he rose into the Avatar State, then back to reality. Aang: Wow, you're definitely in the right area there.

not much to say here, it's just another instance where it would have been so easy to slip one thank you in, and the writers just... do not. the reason i think it bothers me so much with aang specifically is because katara is supposed to be both aang's physical healer and his emotional crutch in a way that she's not written as being for, say, toph or sokka. he's sometimes shown appreciation for her emotional support, but he still comes to rely on and expect it in ways that do not always feel healthy, and knowing that, it bothers me that he shows even less appreciation for her healing, because it's just what katara is there for.

A figure resembling the Painted Lady glides over the water on a carpet of fog and enters the village. She steps into a hut where several people are sleeping on the floor, and bends over each of them in turn, healing them with a blue glow. Her last patient is the mother of the little boy seen earlier, her son sleeping at her side. He wakes as the Painted Lady turns to go and silently follows her out the door. Little boy: Thank you, Painted Lady.

this is a genuinely sweet scene in which katara does receive appreciation and genuine thanks for her healing, but i think it's also worth noting that katara is not being recognized as herself here. still, i am genuinely very glad that it's included in the episode because (again, unless i am missing something) it is the first time katara gets thanked for her healing.

The scene cuts to show Appa landing on the edge of the battlefield. Sokka and Katara help Hakoda onto the ground, and Katara starts trying to heal him. Katara: How does that feel, Dad? Hakoda: Ah, a little, better. I need, to get back to the troops. [Attempts to stand but is too weak to.] Ahh! Katara: You're hurt, badly. You can't fight anymore. Hakoda: Everyone's counting on me to lead this mission Katara, I won't let them down. [Attempts to stand again but can't.] Ahh! Sokka: Can't you heal him any faster?

they're in a high intensity situation, and sokka is Stressed because hakoda is supposed to lead the mission, so i, like, Get It, but "can't you heal him any faster?" does strike me as another moment in which katara's healing is being taken for granted. i think it's something that would bother me a lot less if this was an isolated incident in the writing, but *gestures vaguely at whole post*.

Sokka: [Brightening.] Dad! [Rising and approaching the two.] You're on your feet again. Hakoda: [Sitting down; somewhat weakly.] Thanks to your sister.

that being said, in the next hakoda and katara scene, there is this very sweet moment, where hakoda might not be thanking katara directly but is showing a lot of appreciation and admiration for her skill in healing (and though she's not in the dialogue i included, she's around to hear it, which makes me happy.)

Katara: It's gonna take a while for your feet to get better. [Stops healing.] I wish I could have worked on them sooner. Toph: Yeah, me too.

once again, i'm not gonna fault toph for wishing katara could have healed her feet sooner, because she's been in pain all night, but the writers could have very easily (as they could have in any of these scenes!) chosen to include a perfunctory 'thanks' here, and they just didn't. i know this is getting repetitive, but i swear it's because it's largely more me being mad at the writers than the characters, lmao.

there are also a couple of scenes in which katara doesn't heal anyone, but her healing gets brought up by aang.

Aang: He doesn't look sick. You okay, buddy? [Appa groans and Aang pulls out Appa's purple tongue.] His tongue is purple! That can't be good. Katara, can you heal him?

to be fair, aang asks here, and it's not like aang gets defensive or angry when katara says appa needs medicine (and also to be fair, appa's not even actually sick, lmao, katara's being slightly trickstery), but it's another instance where katara is automatically positioned as the person who is and should be responsible for healing.

Aang: [Chuckles.] Well, not over over. I mean there's always Katara and a little Spirit Water action, [Turns to Katara.] am I right? Katara: Actually, I used it all up after Azula shot you. Aang: [Disappointed.] Oh.

i actually don't mind this so much as a writing moment, as i think it's a lot more intentional wrt aang not always conceptualizing the reality of the violence he’s facing. still, it’s another instance of katara’s ability to heal and care for him being taken for granted, and i find it especially notable it’s in of the last significant moments they share together (the other being an argument as katara urges him not to run away from the reality of their situation with ozai) before they spend the rest of the finale separate until they’re kissing without a word at the end.

and then there is the zutara healing scene, where katara heals zuko after he interferes and takes azula’s lightning to the chest when she’s aiming for katara.

Cut to Katara as she rolls Zuko on to his back and begins healing him. Zuko opens his eyes, feeling the pain lessen, and smiles weakly at Katara, who smiles back as she sheds a tear.

Zuko: Thank you, Katara.

Katara: I think I'm the one who should be thanking you.

it seems fair to me to say that one of the reasons the motifs of healing in the zutara are dynamic are so appreciated by their fans is because of how it contrasts to a lot of moments where the work katara does with her healing is under-appreciated. for one thing, it happens as part of a mutual exchange—katara heals zuko after he gets hurt saving her. (this also somewhat calls back to their scenes together in the crystal caves in the tcod, where she offers to heal his scar after they are trapped together and zuko extends her empathy.) it’s based in reciprocity. it’s also, as shown here, one of the few moments of explicit, heartfelt appreciation and thanks given for katara’s healing.

[voyaging-too]

It is part of the framing device of LOTR that Tolkien isn’t the author, that he’s merely translating an ancient manuscript into modern English. The real author of The Hobbit is Bilbo, the real author of LOTR is Frodo and to a lesser extent, Sam. However, Tolkien isn’t actually very interested in the literary conceit that the narrators of his third-person narratives are characters within those narratives. He’s using the appendix “on translation” as a pretext to explain his clever use of Old English and Norse in place names, he’s using an unreliable narrator exactly once, to explain the difference between two editions of the Hobbit, and he’s fascinated by the idea of characters comparing their lives to stories or trying to understand their lives as stories, but very little of that actually goes into the narration.

In a Doylist sense, I’m willing to say that the novels are not at all written from the subjective POV of the characters that have supposedly written them. I’ve recently read the Book of the New Sun and also Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, very different books that both engaged deeply with the narrator being present in the story, with the massive gap between the narrator writing in the “present day” and the past self that he narrates. LOTR doesn’t do that, this isn’t meant to be a criticism, just a statement: it is a books that books can sometimes do, and LOTR is not doing it, it cares about other things.

But in a Watsonian sense, a lot of interesting questions come up when you take the conceit seriously and accept these characters as the author of their own story. Bilbo might be the easiest: The Hobbit is a children’s story because he’s chosen to tell it as a children’s story, probably for young Frodo himself. The story he’s telling is mostly light-hearted, and he’s poking fun at himself all the time, and he’s also poking fun at the dwarves a lot. The Hobbit addresses the reader in a way later LOTR rarely does, saying “you can imagine how poor Bilbo felt when X happened” or “you can probably already see the flaw in Y plan.” Some of these might be responses to interjections, to questions and criticisms little Frodo voiced when first hearing the stories.

Frodo’s narrative voice is different, much more serious, since he’s writing for grown-ups from the beginning. I don’t mind that he’d described many events where he wasn’t personally present: I can imagine that he had long conversations with the other members of the fellowship, especially Merry and Pippin, and then turning his notes of their account into a narrative that’s filtered through his own sense of narrative, humour and aesthetics. Frodo basically just ghostwrote those chapters, based on lengthy interviews. The really weird thing comes in with the account of events that Frodo personally experienced. Fellowship starts with Bilbo, then shifts to a point-of-view focused fairly narrowly on Frodo, with some brief detours into the perspectives of the other hobbits. In Towers, we’re already firmly in Sam’s perspective, we see most of Frodo’s actions through Sam’s eyes, and we mostly stay in that perspective until the end of the trilogy. If Frodo wrote this book: why? Why not write of his own experiences, as he did in the previous chapters? (Of course there’s the Doylist answer, Tolkien decided that Sam’s POV was more compelling and that Frodo’s struggle with the ring was more interesting shown from an outside perspective and probably impossible to write from an inside one. But what’s the Watsonian answer?)

One possible answer is that Frodo chose to write it that way, write it focused on Sam and not himself, either because to focus on himself would have hurt too much, or because he wanted to highlight Sam’s importance, to show him as the real hero. (Note to self: Gertrude Stein wrote Alice B. Toklas’s autobiography, I probably need to check that out.) There’s also the possibility that Sam wrote those chapters. Frodo tells him it’s his job to finish the book, and the usual reading is that Sam merely wrote the end of the Grey Havens chapter, but we can argue that the book was quite unfinished, and Sam had a larger part in more of it. It’s possible that Sam read Frodo’s chapters on the ring quest and figured that he had to rewrite them from scratch. It’s possible that Frodo found it so painful to write about that it’s just dry, brief outlines. “Crossed the tunnel. Big spider got me. etc.”, the whole thing is like five pages. Maybe memories formed under the influence of the ring are no longer wholly accessible: having lost the ring, they are distant, spectral, like they happened to someone else. Or maybe the ring actually warped Frodo’s memories and thoughts of those events to the point that what he wrote is just fifteen chapters of Book of Revelations level hallucinatory horror, wholly incomprehensible to anyone else. And of course there’s the possibility that during those chapters, Frodo has acted in a way, or at least thought and felt in a way, that Sam doesn’t want to share with the world. Sam is covering up that the journey was even harder, and that Frodo was corrupted by the ring in worse and sadder ways, and so he’s rewriting Frodo’s chapters to protect his memory.

[bullseyelover]

i’ve been thinking about dex’s story in born again.

how, in universe, the world saw dex after the events of josies, and after his trial. how quick everyone was to believe he just snapped and went on a revenge fueled rampage at josies. and the sad thing is, that makes sense in the worst possible way. because the world is always going to be more comfortable writing someone like dex off as just another mentally ill guy who lost control. that’s the story people are used to. it’s easier, simpler, and it doesn’t require any deep thought or empathy. it doesn’t ask them to look at who failed him, who used him, who broke him down. it doesn’t ask them to understand the difference between someone being dangerous and someone being made into a weapon. and most people just don’t care enough to look closer.

and what gets me is how many people refuse to hold both truths about dex at the same time. that he’s a victim and a perpetrator. that he did horrific things and was still deeply, painfully used. i hate how often people online will reduce it to “oh you just like him because he’s hot” when you try to talk about him with nuance. like no. dex is complex. he’s the wound and the knife. he is someone who’s suffered, been manipulated, abandoned, used like a tool, but that doesn’t erase what he’s done. it doesn’t mean people weren’t hurt, or that his violence didn’t matter. you can see his pain and still hold him accountable. you can understand where it came from and still be horrified by the outcome. none of that is contradictory. it’s just real. he’s a character full of contradictions, and that’s part of what makes him so compelling. reducing him to one thing, victim, villain, psycho, it just flattens him into a version of himself that isn’t true.

and even in the show, it’s like no one really wants to see the whole truth of who dex is. it’s easier for them to believe “crazy guy goes violent” than to admit that someone vulnerable was groomed and turned into a weapon by someone with more power. for example in episode 8 where matt slams dex’s head into the table, and when the guard walks in, matt lies and says dex did it to himself. and the guard doesn’t even hesitate to believe it. he just immediately goes, “you crazy asshole.” he doesn’t even question it. because that’s already the version of dex they’ve decided is true. they don’t need proof, they don’t need context. they hear “he hurt himself” and go “of course he did.” and that’s what’s so brutal about it. even matt bought into that narrative at first. even though he knew dex had worked for fisk after the events of season three. and he listened to dex’s tapes. he believed that dex was a man who woke up one day on impulse and decided to kill foggy eight years after the events of season three. because he believed dex to be a violent and disturbed psychopath. because that’s the story society already believes. many people believe that mentally ill people are inherently dangerous. quiet violence is scarier than loud chaos. so people don’t ask questions. they just assume the worst. so dex being quiet and restrained in his rage in the trial scene just confirmed what they already thought about him. and that kind of widespread erasure makes dex’s story even more tragic. not just what happened to him, but how no one really sees it. not fully.

and that invisibility messes with him too. dex already struggles with identity. he barely knows who he is when no one’s giving him a script to follow. so when the whole world reduces him to nothing but a monster, a rampage shooter, it probably confirms the worst things he already fears about himself. even if he knows deep down it’s not the whole truth, it gets in his head. like maybe they’re right. maybe he really is just broken and dangerous and beyond saving. that he is an animal and nothing more. and that’s what hurts him. because he tried. he tried to be good. he tried to follow the rules. for so many years because he genuinely wanted to be a better version of himself. he tried to be useful, to matter, to be someone. and in the end, none of it mattered. no one remembers that he tried. they only see the end result. they only see the damage.

and that weight, the failure, the guilt, the grief of never being seen clearly, that’s something he has to carry alone. it’s what makes his story so heavy to sit with. and none of this is to say that dex isn’t still responsible for what he’s done. evidently he knew what he was doing. even if he was manipulated into it. he made choices, and those choices hurt people. he’s not innocent. he’s not good. he’s a villain. that’s who he is, that’s who he’s becoming, and he’s also someone with borderline personality disorder. someone who was manipulated, used, pushed to the edge, and weaponized. those things can all exist at once. he’s not either a tragic victim or an evil monster. he’s both. and when people act like empathizing with him or understanding where he came from is the same as excusing what he did, it’s just dishonest. like no one’s out here saying “my poor baby” and pretending he didn’t kill people. it’s just acknowledging that there’s more to him than what most are willing to see. that doesn’t absolve him. it just complicates him. and if that makes people uncomfortable, maybe they should ask why it’s so much easier to believe someone like dex is just a psycho killer than to accept that he’s human. flawed, dangerous, and human.

if people are saying that about comic bullseye, then yeah, it makes sense. that version of him is literally written to be an unstable psychopath who kills people for fun. he’s meant to be scary and empty and cruel, and that’s it. that’s what makes his character so fun to read. the needless violence, the grin on his face while he commits it. but dex isn’t only that. dex is bullseye, but he’s a version with so much more nuance and humanity. he is capable of everything that comic bullseye is capable of. but he has more contradictions, more depth. he’s not just evil for the sake of it. he’s broken and angry and used and spiraling, and all of that is still his responsibility, but it’s layered. he’s not just a killer. he’s a person. comic bullseye is the foundation, but dex was built on top of that. same character, same legacy, just finally given complexity. he has all the traits of his comic self, but there’s pain behind it now. there’s grief, there’s loneliness, there’s a desperate want to be seen and loved. he’s bullseye in every way, but now he’s also human and real.

[16wolke11]

Honesty - Oscar Piastri

A/N Anon wanted this prompt with Oscar: The reader tries to figure out if the news about her boyfriend are true. He brushes it off at first, thinking it's just more rumors, but then acts strange, saying the reader just has to trust him. She isn't having it, feeling cut off from his life, and leaves. Requests are OPEN with some prompts for June

WORDS: 1908 _____

Having a cosy night in with Oscar should be comforting, yet tonight the silence feels dreadful. It feels like it is going to suffocate me if I don’t do anything about it. We both scroll on our phones, speaking only occasionally, but when I come across that one specific post again, I freeze. I should probably talk to him about it, should have done so the first time I saw it, but I hesitated. Thought he would address it, but he didn’t, and with the picture practically staring at me, I can’t help myself from finally wanting to know the truth. 

“Is it true?” I ask Oscar, trying to sound casual, but my voice shakes just by asking one simple question.

“Is what true?” Oscar asks back, eyes glancing up from his phone to look at me. I huff, not believing him that he didn’t see anything about him dating that actor. The blurry pictures, which could be him and this actress hinting at things that just have to lead to Oscar. 

“Don’t play like you don’t know.” I speak up, voice rising in slight anger and Oscar furrows his brows like he still doesn’t know what I am talking about. “About you and…whatever this is.” I add, gesturing to the phone before handing it to Oscar. His eyes flicker over the pictures, the screenshots from different interviews and all those hints that drop Oscar might be taken. Well, he is, but not to that actor. 

“You really believe that?” Oscar asks me, eyes carefully watching my reaction and I snatch my phone back from his grip. 

“I don’t know what to believe; that is why I am asking you.” There is an ache in my chest. As much as I want to trust Oscar, laugh it off as some rumours with him, those coincidences are just a little bit too close to the truth for me to laugh. 

“I need you to trust me.” Oscar says and I lift one of my eyebrows.

“Trust goes both ways, and you haven’t exactly been transparent lately.” There is something flashing over Oscar’s face. Guilt, a hint of being hurt and my heart stumbles because it shows that behind every rumour is a bit of the truth. He doesn’t say anything, and I feel my body tense up, because I was still hoping that all of this was a misunderstanding. That those rumours would be something we laugh about, but now everything feels just so much more real. 

“Oscar, I can’t keep feeling like I am an outsider in your life. Like…I am just a side character and only matter when you decide I am relevant.” I stutter, not wanting to sound so dramatic, but during the last weeks it felt like it. Me being someone who just steps into Oscars live when the narrative of the storyline fits and it seems like my part has become less and less relevant. 

“It’s not like this.” Oscar promises and tries to reach for my hand, but I pull it back before rising to my feet. 

“I can’t do this right now.” I mutter, trying to leave the room, but Oscar's reflexes are quicker, and he manages to grab me by the wrist. It’s hard not to look at him, but I focus on the wall behind him, knowing that I would give in as soon as his eyes meet mine. He probably looks desperate and I can’t resist his pleading eyes. 

“Please don’t leave me.” His voice is soft, just above a whisper, but I can hear the fear in it. I gulp softly, take a deep breath before I look at him. There is so much in his eyes, regret, fear and determination I quite can’t explain. 

“I need time.” I try to say as softly as I can, not trying to hurt him, even though he is the one hurting me, but at the same time not wanting to do damage. Just letting him know that I will no longer accept him having secrets like this from me. 

“I give you as much as you need, but please let me know you are okay.” Oscar pleads and I let my tensed shoulders fall. This is something I can do, something I would ask from him if I were in this position and I grant him that. Promise him that I will be contacting him from time to time, but that I still want space. Not allowing him to visit me, hangs around at places he knows I will be at. That he has to give me time to think and even though I can see that it hurts him to give me that kind of space, he nods, letting me go without knowing if or when I would come back to him. 

The next week goes by in a blur, I manage to bury myself in work, only think about Oscar at night when there is nothing left to distract me and distance myself from social media. Then everything explodes. Emails and chats get leaked. Pictures of Oscar and that actress I only recognise as being fake, because I was on one of them originally and the email states that the work of merging their pictures together is finished. I consume every little bit of information and with every new post, my heart sinks more and more. This is probably what Oscar was hiding, what made him act distant and I don’t even know if I can be mad at him. 

Then Oscar says something about everything. Distancing himself from what McLaren had planned, leaving the shitstorm only to the Papaya team. My heart aches softly when he adds something subtle about me in his statement. That his “heart is taken by someone special already” and that he asks for some privacy because he only told the world about it now because of the leak. 

On this day, I make my way to Oscar’s apartment. Nerves and pulse spiking over and over again, not knowing how to approach him. If I should say sorry for jumping to conclusions, or if I should let him apologise profoundly because he should have told me as soon as the discussions about a fake girlfriend had come up. It doesn’t take long for Oscar to open the apartment door and when he looks at me, I almost sigh. His eyes look tired, dark circles prominent on his pale skin, he looks like I feel. Tired and stressed out. 

“Hi.” I mumble, trying to smile softly at him as a sign for him that everything is going to be fine, but it comes out rather crooked. 

“Hey.” Oscar greets me, stepping to the side to let me into his apartment and it feels like coming home. We go to the living room together, silence hanging deeply between us and I need a moment to sort my thoughts. In my mind, I had this conversation a hundred times, but now facing him, I don’t really know how to start, until I just blurt out. 

“I read the news.”

“Yeah, it was about time that I said something.” Oscar says, hand ruling over the back of his head and I need to stop myself from scoffing. If he hadn’t said anything about that situation, I wouldn’t be here, not willing to talk about anything that he isn’t defending himself from. Not waiting for a statement from McLaren but taking action himself. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about it? “ I ask Oscar, trying to sound soft, not wanting to hit on him with accusations when he didn’t even have the chance to explain himself.

“I wanted to protect you.” Oscar says, sighing tiredly and I frown. 

“From what?” I don’t know what exactly he tried to protect me from. This whole situation has hurt me s much and I am sure that if he just talked about that situation with me, it would have been fine, but then Oscar starts to explain.

“They wanted to give me a PR relationship if I am not opening up about being taken. I told them this is not what I want or be the truth. That was the reason I felt distant to you, because I was thinking about solutions that don’t affect you. Our privacy.” He shifts his body to face me completely, and I just can’t look away from his eyes. “I thought it was done after that conversation, but then things got leaked and I didn’t know how to handle it.” Oscar sighs, and I need a minute to understand what he just told me. That his team wanted to give him a PR relationship because we keep everything about us private, that they wanted to force him to either leak us or give him someone to show off. 

“I just wanted honesty from you.” I whisper, but reach out to grab Oscar's hand, before continuing to talk. “A relationship where I don’t have to guess if everything is okay.” The last weeks I wasn’t sure if Oscar is still happy with me, with us being together. Had to guess if he feels like that because of something I did or where we have gone wrong to be like that after everything seems to be okay, 

“I get that now, should have told you sooner.” Oscar says and I am glad that he at least admits that he was wrong. Then there is silence, we both hanging in our thoughts until Oscar speaks up again. 

“So, what now? You are done with me, or do I still have a chance with you?”

I don’t have to think about his question for too long, fingers gently brushing over the back of his hand. “We will talk, and we will stop shielding each other from potential danger, okay?” I give him my conditions, trying to work out a way in which we both are okay in the relationship “I want to be included and not cut out by you because you think you have to protect me.”

Oscar thinks for a moment before nodding his head “Okay, I can do that.” His fingers play with mine absently and a soft smile is drawn to my lips. 

“Good, because if you try to hide something such important from me again, I will leave, and this time not come back.” There is humour in my voice, but at the same time, a threat. This is the only time I will let this slide and definitely not a second time. If he hides something like this from me again, I will be out. 

“I promise to include you in my decisions.” Oscar promises wholewheat, before hesitantly asking. “And maybe soft launch you?”

I blink at him in surprise. We never discussed launching our relationship. At least not like we want to plan it. Just being okay with being private until I might just step into the paddock with him. “If this is what you want?”

Oscar waits for a moment, head tilting like he is thinking, then there is a tiny smirk on his lips. “It would give my statement some more base to it, but to be honest, I would just like to show you off.”

I laugh softly at his words before permitting him. „Okay.”

“Let’s do this together.” Oscar mutters, before pulling me in his arms, my head resting on his chest, finally back to where it belongs. 

[tainkirrahe]

okay humidity in my area is at 86% and I cannot sleep so: Belinda Chandra essay - spoilers for the entire season including Reality War as I rewatched all of S2 today for the finale so this is all still fresh in my head:

Belinda is introduced in Robot Revolution as a competent, hardworking nurse who loves her job and who, seventeen years previously, had the stones to tell a would-be controlling boyfriend to step off at an age where more vulnerable people may have become trapped in an unhealthy relationship. When the robots come for her she fights - verbally - all the way to Missbelindachandra and has a distinct "you cannot treat me like this" attitude with both the robots and the Doctor which forces the Doctor to change the way he acts towards her. In the dénouement of the episode she decides that she will sacrifice herself on the altar of marriage specifically to save an entire race of people - but then the moment she is given an out, the moment she sees Alan holding the certificate, she works out how to save herself and does so. She shows no pity for the guy who tried to force her into eternal marital servitude and the episode is clear that Alan is no great loss. She then tells the Doctor to knock his bullshit off and take her home - she is not interested in being anyone's property and just wants to go back to her normal life so she can carry on doing what she's passionate about. She's Queen Shit™.

In Lux she still has the clear goal of getting home but is willing to put aside her needs to help with the mystery of the missing people because she is as compassionate as she is strong. She sees someone suffering - the lady in the diner - and her instinct is to do whatever she needs to in order to resolve that person's pain. It's probably why she became a nurse. And in that episode she takes an active part in saving the Doctor, even if the action is taken from her by Mr. Pye to atone for what he'd done in allowing the people to stay trapped so he could be with his wife. Still Queen Shit! Still gets back on track the moment the situation is resolved! Get me home Doctor I got a job to go back to!

We then get The Well, in which she uses her skills as a nurse with Aliss to both fix up her arm but also put Aliss at ease. She shows that she's good at talking to patients, keeping them calm, and working methodically with medical tools even if she's unfamiliar with them. And when she spots the entity on two separate occasions she plays a balancing act of trying to keep her fear under control - aware that she's surrounded by soldiers with weapons - whilst also teasing information out of Aliss with her bedside manner. When the entity jumps to her she agrees with the decision to be shot to knock it off, rationally showing that she knows this is the only chance she has. Slightly less agency, but still strong character beats that shows she's in charge of herself.

Lucky Day doesn't give us much, and The Story & The Engine also doesn't have a role for her although the Doctor choosing to tell a story about her work as a nurse is a lovely moment - Fifteen acknowledging the importance of her job because he has seen how good at it she is. I still think Belinda feels like Belinda in these stories, and in Engine she is shown figuring out how to ask the TARDIS what is wrong and goes looking for the Doctor rather than staying put in the only spaceship that can take her home. She still has the initiative to nudge the narrative along. She's still Queen Shit! Just less of her.

And then we get Interstellar Song Contest which is a badly written episode in its own right, and the first episode where to me she stops feeling like Belinda and her writing becomes...jarring. She's horrified by the Doctor's violent side, it's her horror that gets him to stop...then she immediately hugs him and is like :) yay I am glad we are friends again :) you're so wonderful!! and we see that strong independent Belinda from just two episodes ago is...gone. This wasn't written by RTD but he did have final approval over scripts and could have given notes to fix her, but on the whole, okay, the episode is inconsequential to the broader story of the season barring Graham Norton saying the Earth exploded and The Rani bi-generating, both of which had nothing to do with the events of the episode proper.

Wish World starts off suitably jarring, showing a housewife with Belinda's face who acts nothing like Belinda for 90% of the episode. The only two scenes that feel like her are when she questions giving birth to Poppy, and the scene immediately after this where she runs into the woods because she is so horrified by this new reality that she screams in agony at the life she's been forced into all whilst being unaware as to why exactly she feels this way. The episode makes it very, very clear that Belinda is hurting. She's hurting at being left at home to play house; she's hurting that there's something up with her husband she can't place; she's hurting when the two most important women in her life (her mother and grandmother) tell her to her face that she will never be anything more than a wife and that this is the only thing she can wish for her daughter as well. This should have been the part where Belinda woke up, or started to. When she saw Fifteen doing the table trick with the mugs she definitely should have started to doubt, because that's what Belinda from episodes 1-6 would have done - the Belinda who saved herself from Alan, the Belinda who loved a good mystery, the Belinda who had no time for the Doctor's nonsense. But...she doesn't. She calls The Gay Police on her husband and spends the rest of the episode with a :( face yelling that she's married to the Doctor and has a kid and those are her only two concerns. She doesn't even seem to care that she has been arrested, her only concerns are for John Smith and Poppy. She's become a shell, and initially I thought she was written that way to show just how monstrous the wish world is but then...

...we hit Reality War, and Belinda is, quite frankly, brutally murdered on screen before our very eyes. The Belinda in Reality War never gets to be angry at what was done to her. She never gets to take part in any of the action. She never gets to have a single thought about herself or what is happening to her: the only thing she cares about from the first minute she's on screen is the toddler that an alt-right grifter stapled to her in his mummy fetish Daily Mail fantasy land. And even worse, the Doctor also now sees her as only being Poppy's mum. Not the brilliant woman that he has been trying to get home for seven episodes. Not a nurse. Not a companion. Not even a person at all. Not horrified that he was forced into a non-consensual relationship with someone whilst they were both brainwashed. To Fifteen Belinda is Poppy's incubator/babysitter and nothing else; he literally puts her in a soundproof box to remove her from being able to take any part in saving the day.

And then somehow it gets worse. Not only does Belinda have to suffer the indignity of having every single one of her character traits ripped away from her, not only does she spend her last episode we will ever see her in being trapped in a literal box with nothing to do, but she now also has her entire fucking identity and past overwritten on the whim of the Doctor. The guy who has gone around for an hour telling everyone he can't have kids, and the resolution for this is that Belinda must therefore have his child for him. And she must be happy about this. And we, as the audience, must also be happy about this: this is a good and happy ending, coming on the heels of an episode whose central premise is how horrifying it would be to wake up one day in a world where someone else tells you who you have to be, and having the Doctor's big scene be him rejecting masculine gender roles by changing his clothes and attitude, all whilst pummelling Belinda into a box and saying: you're a woman. This is what you want. Aren't you happy you now have your baby? And having Belinda smile through it all and act like having her independence deleted is the greatest thing in the world.

All set to inspiring music as Fifteen rides off into the sunset - because, you see, Fifteen can ride off into the sunset. He's had the kid he wants, he's shoved it into the arms of a woman to look after whilst he gets to go off and have fun adventures. He's technically a dad even if the baby is no longer his, yaaaay! Belinda even gets a moment to look wistful when talking about how she would have loved to see Neptune, but she now can't, because Fifteen wanted a kid and she's now stuck at home with the consequences of his choice.

Russell T Davies looked at the first black male Doctor and said "yeah, I'm gonna finish his season by having him not show up for the kid he wanted lmao" and in doing so also wrote a narrative in which a smart, driven, feisty, confident woman got squashed into a box and told she can't be anything more than her reproductive ability.

I hate this.

[ckret2]

Aku in an episode called "Aku's Fairy Tales" tried to brainwash children into liking him and hating the Samurai. I have to ask for your opinion why he never thought to shapeshift into the Samurai using makeup to hide his skin to make people resent the samurai or send a duplicate of the Smaurai to cause chaos . So what do you think on him trying to make people hate the Samurai not by sending an impersonator or becoming one himself to create destruction but using fairytales to try and brainwash kids?

i don't think aku cared about making the people hate the samurai.

his monologue at the start of the episode:

For eons I have terrorized this land. Every miserable creature trembled at the mere mention of my name. The pitiful people shrank before my awesome power. But now I am openly mocked by these measly urchins. Tales of the samurai's heroics have spread through the world like a virus! But I will cure the world of this plague of hope. I will unleash such evil that even the most innocent soul will be consumed by terror!

this is the problem as aku sees it: the people used to fear him; but now he's being mocked. his first plan? make them fear him again.

if people have already been infected with hope, what would slandering jack's name do? would destroying his reputation also repair aku's reputation?

or, when the children play their make-believe games, would they simply invent some other hero to beat up the child they've designated as an effigy of aku?

Their elders still fear and respect the almighty Aku. But this new generation... the seed of rebellion has been planted in them by these tales of heroism. Well, if they respond to stories, I have a tale or two that will turn Aku into the hero of their young hearts.

he doesn't say "that will turn the samurai into the villain of their nightmares." he doesn't care! they can think whatever the hell they want about jack!

but the people need to fear, respect, admire, and love HIM.

When Aku starts telling the children stories, he ONLY tells stories about himself. He doesn't even mention Jack until the children ask for a story about him. And so Aku made Jack sound horrible because he was grumpy the kids didn't like the stories about Aku.

Had they said nothing, he would've just kept telling stories about himself.

Given Aku's motives, he'd have no reason to impersonate the samurai

(and on top of the above answer, I have a totally separate rant that goes off on a long tangent about "why doesn't aku use makeup to impersonate people" so i'm putting it under a read more)

on a narrative level, I feel like "aku wears makeup to hide the fact that he can only do four colors" just... doesn't fit the rules of the world. the myth-like, fairy tale-like feel of the world. Jack is always good because He Represents Goodness, Aku is always evil because He Is Made Of Evil, Aku backstabs people helping him even when it undermines him because he must do evil, Jack's sword is capable of choosing who it can and cannot stab because it's an instrument of virtue, etc.

"Well can't the character logically just do this" doesn't fit the kind of story being told, here. if we're gonna start in on "why didn't aku make better disguises for himself" then we also have to ask questions like "why didn't Aku send Jack a couple billion years into the past where there wasn't yet enough oxygen for him to survive" or "why didn't Aku just get a ton of robots and force them to fight jack one at a time while the others waited so that after like a day of nonstop fighting he'd collapse in exhaustion" or "why didn't aku just wait until after jack was dead to tell the people helping him that he was gonna backstab them"

because the point is that the competence of the plans isn't the point. When Jack and Aku compete, the winner isn't decided by "which one of them has the better strategy," but by "which concept would win this fight: goodness, or evilness?"

so their plans can't be decided by "what's most sensible here" but by "what would Good do in this situation? what would Evil do in this situation?" "what fits the overall tale being told?"

and like... if it was "okay" for aku to disguise himself by putting on makeup, then he wouldn't have been limited to four colors in the first place. narratively there'd no longer be any reason for it.

His color scheme being constricted is a symbolic thing: no matter what form it takes, you can always recognize Evil if you know what traits to look for. makeup defeats the purpose.

... on the other hand the makeup's unnecessary because impersonating jack would've worked just as well if aku had been his usual colors. i mean—

jack's wanted posters aren't in color. most people who recognize jack's face still wouldn't know for sure that he isn't green.

[strangersteddierthings]

Platonic Stobin bodyswap AU idea I'll never write. This has been in my drafts for over a year (since July 2023 per the timestamp)

Post season 3; During the season 3 bathroom confession scene Robin came out to Steve, and Steve came out to her. She knows he's bi, and she's the only one who knows. Swap starts off slowly for Steve and Robin. Little moments of vertigo where the world doesn't look right for a few seconds, that progresses to black out periods of time spanning 5-15 minutes. It's them switching bodies but it's so traumatizing (they are FREAKING out) that they don't remember it. So, it's like they're just losing moments in time, which still freaks them out.

Then one day they wake up and they're... each other. And they just don't go back.

And Steve can't really pass as Robin to her parents but thankfully they just blame it on 'moody teenage angst' and "you can talk to us about anything babygirl we love you so much and we're here when you need us." Which. Yeah, Steve cries about. But it also comes with the side of GOD FUCKING DAMMIT I HAVE TO FINISH HIGH SCHOOL AGAIN??? I CAN'T PLAY THE TRUMPET ROBIN YOU HAVE TO DROP OUT OF BAND

And Robin also cannot pass as Steve at first, but she gets to see how that matters exactly 0% because the Harrington's don't even notice. They also aren't around near as much as Steve makes them out to be. But she does get to enjoy the freedom of a legal drivers license and no job currently. HOWEVER she has walked Steve's pretty face into several doors/poles/walls because cute girls keep looking at her with hunger in their eyes and she doesn't know how to handle this.

(It makes more girls interested in a suddenly shy, stumbling, nervous Steve because those girls think they're the reason Confident Sex God Steve turns into a mess but really it's just Robin not knowing how to exist in a world where woman want her and fish fear her (sorry bad joke))

Anyway, queue shenanigannary for a bit. Steve encourages Robin to go on dates because why not get some practice in while they wait to swap back again? (he's holding out hope)

Do they have the awkward discussion of 'what are the limits to what I'm allowed to do in your body????? I dunno yet.

Anyway, Robin goes on dates. ((Does she end up going on a date with Vickie? Canonically Vickie's got no problem dating older boys? How to solve this plot line for when(if?) they switch back bodies? IDK dudes, that's Future Jess's issue.))

At some point, the gang finds out. Probably Dustin realizing Steve isn't as Steve-like as usual. He'd sniff out something was wrong with his brother for sure.

But then season 4 starts. Robin taught Steve how to play the trumpet back in August/Sept and it's then they realize that they kind of share their knowledge? Like... Steve picks up how to play the trumpet EASY. At first they think it's just Robin's body using muscle memory but then Robin realizes she knows things only Steve should.

Anyway, Steve is in band with Vickie the night of the Championshipgame, chatting easily while also trying to hint that 'Hey, I think Steve Harrington is checking you out???" while trying to tell Robin with telepathy (that they don't have... yet? Decide if they end up with telepathy later) to try and subtly check out Vickie. But neither girl is subtle so they both just whip around to stare at each other and Steve is facepalming.

NO WAIT. DO I MAKE CHANGES TO THE NARRATIVE BECAUSE IF STEVE IS IN HIGH SCHOOL AGAIN, THERE IS NO WAY HE'D LET DUSTIN AND MIKE SKIP OUT ON THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME. Maybe??? Will decide on this point later. Until then, above points stay.

Anyway, Chrissy still dies (sorry) and Eddie's still on the run, but like this time in the boathouse, Robin invites Eddie to stay at 'his' big empty house 'cause the parents are gone and Robin has no hangups about Eddie like Steve did in canon (he is the first person we hear call Eddie The Freak).

The end point here is that Robin, Steve, and Eddie spend A LOT of time together at Steve's house and then the angst falls in because Steve starts to fall in love with Eddie.

So, he has a breakdown in a bathroom with Robin about it, all sad and crying like "I really fuckin' like him Robs, but I can't- there- we can't-"

"I need you to take a breath and tell me what the issue is," Robin says.

"I like him Robs, but this is your body. I can't take things from you. Like your first kiss. And I certainly can't- I won't put your body through... you know. I can't do that to you."

And it takes Robin a moment to process what he means. Romantic entanglements that Steve might want to have would have to happen with her body. And maybe Robin isn't sure what to say/do because the thought of a guy and his dick anywhere near her body immediately freaks her out but... she's not in her body. She's in Steves, and has been doing things with girls in it. It never occurred to her that Steve might want to get hot and heavy with a guy in her body and maybe she's got something to unpack there???

Anyway, no time to worry about that. Vecna's gonna kill Max so they gotta go. Also, Eddie does NOT know about the body swap.

She does tell Steve to kiss Eddie, though, in the end. When they're not sure they'll live. So, Eddie calls out to Steve. "Make him pay." So, to Eddie, it looks like Steve gives him a nod and it's Robin who marches up, grabs his face, and plants one on him. Robin(Steve) doesn't stick around long enough for Eddie to kiss back (Steve wants him to because he wants a proper kiss from Eddie, but he also doesn't want him to because Eddie thinks he's kissing Robin and if he kisses back it means he likes Robin, not Steve, so Steve doesn't lock lips long enough find out).

Something something they all survive and then Eddie, hopped up on pain meds in the hospital, demands to speak to Robin. So, Steve slinks in, afraid of what's going to happen, and Eddie's like 'Robin. I appreciate that you like me but you are unfortunately a girl and I am not into that.' And Steve is like!!! my time!! It's come!!! I HAVE to get back to my body.

And then at some point they switch back. Maybe El doing some mind fuckery? Idk.

And for fun, here's the beginning of the fic that idea written out:

"Whoa," Steve blinks rapidly as the world tilts and shifts. It's very sudden, and over just as quickly as it started, but it still leaves Steve unanchored for a moment. It was probably brought on by the concussion he's been nursing these last two days, since the whole Starcourt shit. He leans sideways to try and use the wall as an anchor until everything feel right again.

He should, probably, be more concerned about this because this has been like, the fourth time this has happened and when he told Robin about it, she confessed it was happening to her, too. That Owens guy had told them there could be unknown side effects to whatever the fuck they'd been injected with and this might just be part of that. It'll fade, Steve's sure, as the days go on. Never mind that it has been happening more lately. It's going to fade. It has to.

Except, it doesn't. The sensation of be unanchored gets worse, and now it comes accompanied with loss of time. Steve will feel the tilt and shift while standing in the doorway to his room and the next thing he knows he's got a hand on his front door, keys in his hand, and doesn't know where he was trying to go.

Ring Ring

Steve shakes his head, shakes away the feeling of wrongness and goes to answer the phone. "Harrington residence, Steve speaking."

"Steve! Steve, it's getting worse!" Robin's voice sobs at him from the other end of the phone. "I-I was in the kitchen and then I was, like, huddled in the bathroom and I don't remember going there."

"Fuck, me too. I just came to standing at my front door, about to leave but I don't remember getting there, or where I was planning to go," Steve confesses back. It's strange, how easily Robin has become a part of his life. He was expecting her to not want to be withing five miles of him ever again, after what he got her dragged into, but it seems Robin isn't scared away. Perhaps it's just that he's the only other person she knows who went through Russian torture. Even if that is the case, Steve'll take it. He likes Robin a lot.

"Should we... call Dr. Owens?" Robin sounds so small when she asks.

"I don't want to," Steve confesses but doesn't elaborate. Calling Dr. Owens means admitting that something is wrong wrong. Steve doesn't want anything to be that wrong. He wants to get back to his life. He's got to get back to job searching, too, and Dr. Owens might deny him that.

[evilminji]

Okay! Back with THIS Because it hasn't left me alone!

I can? So clearly see it?

The System, arbiter of what Is and Is Not narratively satisfying. Watching through the back of OCs eyes, as it has been, the entire fucking time. Rarely chiming in. Because they, The System (both plural and the Organization), have been running different scenarios with this particular Story. Different Transmigrators and set ups.

Because of the wildly unusual... success? Outlier? The freak Event™ with that Shen Qingqui stand in. (It was CRAZY, man.)

Whole thing got bumped over to R&D, which is here, for Professional Poking At™. And let me TELL ya! There has been some WILD reactions! Half these characters go "hmmm... I have decided to BURN THE WORLD DOWN" at the drop of a hat!

Fascinating~! ( o O-O)c/ *scribbles notes*

Which? Leads to That Moment™. The Moment Luo Binghe goes Too Far, narratively, to retain his Hero title. Even within the loose bounds of a Stalion Protagonist. All? WHILE THE SYSTEM IS WATCHING.

Because it's ONE thing? To return "a hundred fold" an ill done against you. Even if, in reality, that is WILDLY disproportionate. Horrifically so. It breaks hands for minor bruises. Burns homes, for insults payed by children. Creates ugliness in a world that desperately does not need more of it.

However? Oc? Narratively? Was off on her Peak. Nothing but KIND every time they crossed paths. A distant, coveted, elder sister like figure. Stopped bullies, healed wounds, hurt no one. By his own Narrative "rules"? She should be untouchable.

If he was acting like a Protagonist.

But a fall from grace? The tragedy of a good man, corrupted by the cycle of abuse and the legendary Heart Demon Sword Xin Mo? A VILLIAN made of "what could have been" and "our sins come back to haunt us"? Oh~ how the world was Never FAIR! Never KIND! Look how he lashes out!!

Better reassign him. How INTERESTING.

Good thing there's always a BACK UP. All they got to do? Is pop Gongyi Xiao into the Role! And there we go! Huh. Would you look at that. Whole thing got so much more stable. Bit more generic, yes, but he IS an everyman sort. And the supporting cast makes up for it! Look how much MORE can be supported! Fascinating~

Like? Suddenly Tianlang-jun is getting out from under that mountain. Because he's no longer blocked by the "we can't have someone Stronger then the Protagonist"! Cause there's LOTS of cultivators stronger then Gongyi! He's still learning! Growing! That's not the POINT of his journey.

And? Gongyi? Looks a hell of a lot like Binghe. Who? Looks damn near identical?? To his mom. It's one of the horrifying Truth's Gongyi will discover about his Sect and Sect Leader! The man's sick obsession with the honorable Miss Su Xiyan. Whom he resembles.

Imagine.

Being Tianlang-jun. And the boy who helps frees you? Not the sick dog that is your son. A living manifestation of everything that went wrong, there at the end. But... a boy. Proud and honorable. With his vicious little girlfriend. Like all the parts of Su Xiyan you fell in love with, before it all fell apart.

That vicious little thing, the daughter of the man who coveted your wife. So sickened by him, she proclaims she HAS no father. Ha ha... well, now. You know what? Can't have a wedding without someone to give such a vicious little princess away! Call me, father, brat. For I have no son. Just a nephew.

Cause? Little palace mistress? Spending this whole ass time? Learning to be Less Of A Bitch... An Asshole... uuuuh, mean. She's... working on it! Okay!? It's... it's a LOT to unlearn. Her first instinct is to hit people! Sneer and insult the "rabble". She... she KNOWS better. Intellectually. But it's... it's so ingrained.

Gongyi helps. A LOT. And maybe? She makes... friends? Like... not "oh you follow me because you fear me or want Fathers power/money" but like? Actually LIKE me as a person friends! It's wild! She learns to cook... a few things.... sorta...

They didn't burn.

Gongyi ate them! So it couldn't have been THAT bad! She Cooked!! Shut UP!!!!!

She even touched a snake! And DIDN'T kill it! Even though it was gross and scared her! Gongyi caught it. And held it very still. So she could touch it with just one finger. And? Not AS gross as she thought. Not slimy at all! In fact? Surprisingly sweet. She bravely put it back in the bushes. Because they are more scared of us then we are of them!

Turns out it was a Demon, though. Who is now her brother.

Who is FAR to soft. Honestly! How he survived without her to protect him? A miracle. Surely bullied every day. General, her ASS. Hmmph! *proceeds to lovingly bully her new family, much to the approval of demons everywhere*

And like? With the lose of Protagonist statue? Comes the lose of the aura that protected him. Binghe goes FULL Bingge. Xin Mo has a FEILD DAY. It's the God damn SHINING up in this palace. Wakin up to that man standing over OC with his FUCKIN CURSED SWORD and glowing eyes in the dark, despite the fact that she barred and sealed the door with like fifteen different arrays. Not even blinking. Just... a set of red, glowing, eyes and that fucking mark.

Sweet Merciful FUCK™

Could... could you NOT? This is horrifying, dude. She'd ask if you were GOOD but... like... you're clearly NOT. Please Cease at once.

Like? Mobei-jun is regretting everything. Barely holding his lands together under this mad man. Shang Qinghua is too busy using his actually relevant "how to keep yourself alive under an unstable Demon far stronger then you" expertise for the good of his King to... you know... escape. Not that any of them COULD.

Crazy pants over here would fucking FIND them.

Ha ha.... oh god, this is hell, isn't it?

But hey! At least Mobei-jun, who isn't an idiot, is like "waaaait a second. This advice is familiar... was... was I the unstable demon?" *customer service smile* "fuck™. No Wonder you keep trying to leave and betray me. This is awful. I was a paranoid little shit of a child, I will try to do better." "I accept bribes?" "I can do bribes." "Deal, my king."

All while? Cang Qiong Mountain Sect is LOSING THEIR SHIT. Their Talismans (etc) Peak Lord? Feral. Foaming at the mouth. Where??! Is his BABY!? His PRIZED Disciple!? His PRIDE AND JOY!? Off being MOLESTED by some DEMON SCUM! Kidnapped! Absconded with!! Look at his Head Disciple! They are IN TEARS!

Shen Jiu? Seething. Should have killed the little fucker when he HAD THE CHANCE. Did he KNOW he was a demon? No. But that irrelevant! He actually LIKED that Disciple! And the beast STOLE her to do gods only knows WHAT sort of depraved things to her! We should kill him. We should kill EVERYTHING.

(He is SO CALM.)

Old Palace Master probably dragging his feet. Making this about him. Other Sect quibbling. No doubt there's a ballad about the Noble Sacrifice of Maiden Oc to stop the Dread Demon Binghe (who tricked us all). She's gonna hate it. Never be able to escape it. Everyone and their brother is gonna ASSUME shit. Where the fuck is that virginity testing sword?! He was creepy AF and trapped me in his castle! He didn't-!

Don't worry! Says local Troll, Tianlang-jun. I will take responsibility for my son's terrible, terrible crimes! By killing him and marrying you! Thus making you an honest and honorable woman! >:3 *can legit tell nothing has happened, but lives for The Drama and has over a decade to make up for*

MOTHER FUCKER!

*everyone else is losing their minds, insisting that NO, it should be one of the present Honored Cultivators. Don't Worry Oc! It's gonna be okay!* (why the FUCK do ya'll even assume she...! *Sigh* you know what? Fine. Sure. I'll deal with this later...)

@mayfay @legitimatesatanspawn @babbling-babull @spidori @hdgnj @leftnotright

[rose-reveries]

I think it’s fine if you don’t like Akito for all the shit she did (I personally don’t like her), but if I see one more brain dead person online say she, “didn’t *deserve* her redemption arc,” personally, I will be crashing out.

The story of Fruits Basket is about change. The mangaka basically TELLS you that you don’t have to forgive Akito, showcased that Rin herself says she could never forgive her for what she’s done to her.

Genuinely I do think the people who say she’s evil and didn’t deserve redemption and deserved to rot in the cat’s cell,

1.) hate any type of mental illness/trauma response that isn’t uwu cutesy

2.) lack critical thinking skills, and also empathy

3.) would probably call you disgusting for being so depressed that you haven’t showered in 2 weeks

A person’s trauma is never an excuse for their behavior, so I don’t think you can excuse her abusive behavior at all. She defenestrated and also stabbed someone, plus the loads of abusive she put on everyone from a young age.

That doesn’t mean that she can’t decide to change for herself. She didn’t change for you to like her. Bad people are allowed to change for the better, and you don’t have to forgive them for their past if you so choose.

Besides the fact that saying she deserved to rot goes against everything Fruits Basket is about, I think it also really feeds into this stale way of thinking. That “once you’re bad you’re always bad”, and when you push that narrative it actually will cause bad people to just never change because society is telling them they can’t, so why would they even put in the effort?

Anyway, never thought I’d defend Akito. I just need people to like experience empathy, critical thinking, and media literacy for 5 minutes because y’all piss me off.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

The thing about Solas in DAtV is that because they were fundamentally unwilling to engage with the question of whether or not the Veil should actually come down (which is a symptom of them refusing to engage with anything remotely 'problematic' in the franchise to date: slavery, elven oppression, treatment of both city elves and Dalish etc.) he goes from a character who is supposed to be the embodiment of wisdom to a character who is kinda stupid. And further, it affects our questions surrounding his motives and relationships, his actions in inquisition and how compelling he is.

Like, there's a lot of people arguing ATM about whether or not a romanced Lavellans relationship with Solas was meaningful/if she knew him compared to how Rook knows him/if he loved her more than Mythal. And I think the answer is very tied up in this particular issue with the writing.

Because if Solas is a revolutionary who believes that the veil must come down, not just to fix a perceived wrong he did, but for the good of elvenkind...if we take a Solas who says 'people are always dying, it's what they do' and realise that he's saying that because PEOPLE DIDNT USED TO DIE and the way their lives are now so short is terrifying to him, if we take a Solas who says that the world today is full of those who seem tranquil to him and take that SERIOUSLY, if we get a Solas who is sickened by the way spirits are yearning for the world the way it was but are stuck in the fade without any contact and that's twisting them into demons and those willing to possess others to taste a glimpse of what was denied to them by HIS actions...

Then we get a Solas whose actions don't just make sense but we can see WHY they make sense. We get a Solas who is, yes, committing an act of horrendous violence by tearing down the veil but is doing so to literally save the world rather than just fix a regret or because he's bound up in Mythal somehow and what she would have wanted for the world.

THAT Solas who leaves Lavellan because of his revolution he must lead, who leaves Lavellan after seeing what this world does to those who are left of the people, that Solas...I think that we could then argue more than the relationships he formed in inquisition were real and he was tragically forced away from them by his own goals. That in some way he is doing this FOR Lavellan.

There should be a sort of semi-horror tint to this world for us through Solas's eyes because we can see a world of tranquil walking around like he does, a world where life is too short, a world of injustice and pain and reasons to go ahead with his plan

But Solas....kinda lacks agency in DAtV. I don't hate the Solas Mythal plot stuff I think it's quite interesting, but mix it with us never considering the merits of what Solas wants to do, of EVERYONE unilaterally deciding it's evil with no real debate or queries, with ZERO elves in the narrative siding with Solas or taking what he has to say seriously...THATS where adding the Solas and Mythal plot rubs me the wrong way. I don't want Solas to need to be released by Mythal before he can let go of his evil plan...I want a Solas who doesn't have an evil plan but instead a complex one. I want the conviction of Anders in Solas; that what he's doing is RIGHT and the ONLY WAY to fix a great injustice. I don't want to redeem Solas or even understand him I want him to CONVINCE me and me BELIEVE him. Otherwise the Solas we see in inquisition is more shallow and the Solas we see in Veilguard through Rook...maybe Rook does know him better than the inquisition did.