#and don't know the characters/situations from those stories well enough to really portray them

[dire-kumori]

2 ways i'd continue with the whole time is breaking lots of evil robots Idea. (This is not me saying you should end the AU!! I just like sharing my ideas-)

Normal idea: The Afton siblings work together and kill the reaper along with scrap trap and scrap baby. I don't know why but I imagine that Elizabeth and Evan fire a bunch of fireworks directly into the reaper's chest and then they explode and he explodes- The reaper is killed and like everything goes back to normal basically- Michael wakes up and begins his life with no reaper... Maybe everything goes the way it's supposed to maybe it doesn't... Maybe things will be better this time...?

Crackpot idea: Okay so I'm gonna sound insane but... What if instead of teaming up with scrap trap... scrap baby actively tries to help her pass self and the other Afton siblings? Like roll reversal (Mike's the rampaging murderer and Elizabeth is The one trying her best to make up for past mistakes) Anyway team up happens, Mike get one-on-one withh the reaper. the reaper goes on this long monolog about how: "You honestly think that killing me will stop all of this? No matter what you do our dad's always gonna be a b******, we're always going to be a terrible son and everything we care about will always fall to pieces..." Somehow The reaper, Mike and scrap trap are all kind of in a room together... scarp trap attacks past Mike in his anger and nearly kills him. Reaper realizes how terrible he's been watching his father nearly kill his past self (he's turned into the thing he's hated most) Saves past Michael. Kind of breaks the cycle and time sort of fixes itself... Everything from the future is mostly sent back. (A couple things are still in the past-) Including adult Michael and scrap baby. They basically warn their past selves not to trust their dad and then just leave. Planning on finding something better... Theaften siblings are left confused mentally scarred and miraculously alive. All of them agree that no matter what they're not turning into those things.. This one is more of just a branch off idea- Again very crackpot..

Normal idea:

We bring in the new year with fireworks. Marking the end of the time loop with fireworks feels only too appropriate!

Normally the Reaper can track Mike wherever he goes, but with the appearance of countless time traveling animatronics, not to mention multiple iterations of Michael Afton, the Reaper's memories are becoming disjointed and confused. He's lost his biggest weapon, and the Afton siblings are finally able to gain the upper hand. Springtrap and Scrap Baby and the Reaper all close in on the house, hunting each other and hunting young Mike. There's a big argument, but eventually Mike convinces them that he should be the bait to lure the monsters into a trap. While Michael leads them into the basement, Evan and Elizabeth prep the fireworks outside.

I'm gonna gloss over the long, arduous battle, the Scraps brawling with Reaper and the Reaper brutalizing young Mike, young Mike barely escaping by the skin of his teeth, drenched in his own and the Reaper's blood as he crawls out of the house. Long story short, monsters are trapped inside, tearing one another apart in a gory display while the Afton children put an end to this nightmare in a show of sparks and flame. They sit and watch their childhood home burn, and feel a sense of peace as time crumbles around them.

When they next wake up, it's at the side of a small pond in a black and red world.

Crackpot idea:

This makes for a pretty interesting idea! Okay, I'm gonna say that Scrap Baby still starts out following Scraptrap, still determined to earn her father/creator's love. But as her pursuit of the Reaper leads her to the Afton kids, she comes across that girl. The one from her memories/nightmares. The one whose voice she can sometimes still hear, screaming. Baby freezes. Long enough for Elizabeth and her brothers to get away from Scrap Baby. When he finds out that she let them escape, Scraptrap is furious with Scrap Baby. He makes sure to let her know what a disappointment she is before he resumes his own hunt.

The shock of seeing her past self has caused Elizabeth's soul to awaken inside of Scrap Baby. She begins to remember. And slowly, she begins to break free of Circus Baby's murderous programming. Suddenly the Afton kids gain a powerful new ally in the fight against the Reaper.

And she's not the only one. I didn't touch much on it earlier, but the other animatronics, even as they're going berserk, won't harm children. Kids all over town are being ripped away from their parents, adults left in bloody heaps in the streets as the animatronics sequester the children somewhere 'safe.' Of the animatronics, only a select few seem to have any sense of reason. The Puppet watches the carnage and weeps, searching for the cause of it. She knows on an instinctive level, that William and the Aftons are involved. And as she chases down Scraptrap, she discovers the newly awakened Scrap Baby, and soon the Afton children, sticking together and trying to survive in this hellscape.

Fast forwarding again, sadly, this ends with everyone being forced to say goodbye. Once time resets, nothing that shouldn't physically exist in 1981 (that's when I'm saying this takes place now, even though I never specified before) remains. Only thoughts and memories. To the Afton kids, this whole event will become one long, particularly vivid nightmare. To Scrap Baby, the Reaper, the Puppet and all the others, it's the end of the world. The future in which they come to be is erased, despite time resetting, as although nothing physically remains out of time, the event still leaves psychic scars on the Afton kids. For Mike in particular, this event lingers as a particularly vivid dream he never fully forgets, though it does fade in time. Michael, Elizabeth, and Evan aren't the same kids they were before the Reaper entered their lives, and they don't make the same choices or mistakes that they might have without his intervention.

[ot3]

Just curious, what’s your opinions on Kristoph and Phoenix? I see you reblog ship posts about them sometimes and I’m really curious about your opinions on their dynamic both inside and outside of ship stuff, because I didn’t really know how to interpret Kristoph in particular. I think he’s one of the worse villains in AA tbh, it’s been a while so I may be misremembering, but I just didn’t… get that much substance from him?

kristoph is certainly a really hard character for me to fully develop an opinion on in isolation. i think the only area where i'm capable of saying anything about him i can back up with significant references to the text is in regard to his relationship with phoenix, because that's where the meat of his character interactions are. and more broadly because as a #phoenixhead my primary means of looking at the entire franchise is how things relate to phoenix. if you'd like to read about my interpretation of phoenix and kristoph's relationship more specifically i've got a post on that subject here. i think it's a character dynamic that has a TON going for it relative to the screentime if you're able to disregard fanon and look directly at what's in the text.

but more on kristoph individually

kristoph suffers from the same thing that all of aa4's major characters and plotlines do: not getting another game. there was clearly more to the gavin brothers' story we didn't get and will never get, and knowing that there's Something there we have absolutely no means of predicting or unraveling makes it hard to theorize. he kind of exists in a quantum state for me where i can see a ton of alternate perspectives on his character's complexities and just buy whichever one i'm feeling at a given moment. i personally wouldn't say he lacks substance because every interaction he has with any other character is, imo, very compelling and gives me a lot to chew on. but he's a character that's all questions and no real conclusions for sure.

i don't think he's a cackling machiavellian serial abuser. i think hes easily the kind of person who has the capacity to be emotionally abusive and manipulative to the people closest to him without being Pure Evil. because we have so little on him it's very easy to portray kristoph as the kind of sinister that provides whatever OP's favorite flavor of angst is. and i'm certainly no exception to that; i just happen to be a person who is into maybe some subtler flavors.

he's both one of ace attorney's most calculated villains, with poisoning vera's nailpolish being an incredibly cold maneuver that suggests a lot of foresight, and one of ace attorney's most brutal murderers, capable of getting aggressive enough in a moment to bludgeon a man to death with a bottle. i think kristoph can be understood as a character whose primary motivation is control, both over himself and others. there's that critical line in turnabout succession where he tells klavier he's out of control, and klavier says "whos control? mine, or yours?" his reputation is built on his ability to stay calm under pressure, and his ability to stay calm under pressure is built on his tendencies to preemptively engineer situations in his favor. the stuff with phoenix and the gramarye case represents what we can presume to be the biggest failure of his career.

i think this puts him very much in line with AA1's main villains. people like to compare him to dahlia a lot for obvious reasons and there's some fun to be had there but i think it lets people overlook how well he ties into AA1. redd white controlled the press and controlled the judges to get away with his blackmail ring. von karma controlled the witnesses to engineer his perfect cases. damon gant controlled the police and the evidence, and then controlled lana to control the prosecution. although those were all one-case villains i think kristoph justifies his larger scope in aa4 by the significant and longstanding personal connections he has to the rest of the main cast. kristoph represents the mirror image of those AA1 villains; aa1 shows the way the deck is stacked against the defense. kristoph shows what it looks like when someone tries to stack it in the other direction

i think kristoph plays an important part in the larger franchise by showing what corruption looks like from the defense's bench, and how this corruption takes a different cadence when it lacks the systemic power that the villains like gant had. i think his cold, calculated approach to defense works well as a foil to the type of defending we saw from phoenix who is all heart and charges in head first. i think apollo works well representing a sort of compromise between the two, being a little bit shrewder than phoenix but no less earnest. i think klavier, then, as a prosecutor who is much less aggressive than the previous 3 both personally and professional serves to further invert the expectations set by the trilogy in a way that's really satisfying.

is kristoph missing some pretty critical backstory that i would love to see? yeah. absolutely. but i think when you look at him as a story device rather than an underdeveloped character he adds a tonnnnn to the series. that said, i will die wondering.

[alexandraisyes]

What would happen if you were a writer for TSAMS?

I mean we'll never know unless we try, however-

God the temptation to make jokes about shipping ajfsdkg;ljfasd;l

In all seriousness I'm good at finding and fixing plot holes and writing consistent storylines. I've been writing solo for years, and recently I've been co-writing fics for this fandom. And stars I'll say it now, obviously I wouldn't drag fan ships into the canon lore, that would be stupid considering most of them just wouldn't work with canon.

If I had the chance to write for TSAMS I would definitely try to influence the way certain things (specifically things like mental disorders) are portrayed, because I understand being part of the audience and the frustration of only seeing part of the story and missing an entire important perspective. I personally find so much enjoyment in that because I get to tear everything apart, dissect it, and put it back together so the fandom can understand what the story is portraying, but the fact that someone is required to tear it apart to get what should have been an obvious message most of the time is an issue, in my opinion.

A consistent problem I've noticed with TSAMS is that it's overly omnipotent on some things while being too closed about others. This is a narrative problem that stems from not having enough time to figure out the best approach for new situations they want to incorporate. This is because the writers/VAs are so bogged down by personal projects, stream schedules, their servers, life, etc that they just don't have time to figure these things out. Especially when the company is pushing for more content/lore episodes and they're just a team of four. Four very very busy individuals that have to write AND voice act the entire cast of characters. I feel like having someone who is just a writer would help with a lot of the inconsistency and unresolved plot holes.

There's a lot of strong potential for things that would stem back as far as two years that would be so interesting to see incorporated, but they just don't have the time to work through those and it's easier to keep jumping on new boats and abandoning the ones they have to sink because of unresolved tears in the plot letting more inconsistencies trickle in like so much water. So I would absolutely work to correct those and clean up the holes and resolve unanswered questions.

I'd also push for more consistent characterization, or rather better worded, deeper characterization. Not that they don't have good characterization now, overall I think they do a decent job, but there are just some things that I wish they'd touch on more. Likes, dislikes, disorders, complications, relationships, etc. What really makes up these characters; I'd probably end up with a complicated character web for the main cast at the very least to help with consistent storytelling. I do this with my own AUs to keep characters consistent, including quirks (For example Solar Flare always refers to people by their full name in my writing). It would also be interesting to dig deeper into what makes the characters them. Their personalities, beliefs, interests, morality/standards (for those without morals), and what they did and didn't find traumatic (as well as what level of trauma).

God even just the thought of how I could potentially fix the dumpster fire (/affectionate /positive) of TSAMS and co is a little exciting because there's just so much potential lying around untampered with that I would happily dig my grubby little claws into.

[olderthannetfic]

A common anti talking point is that "problematic" content is fine as long as it's portrayed in a bad light, and I know this is mostly a way for them to say "porn bad", but, like... if we exclude stupidity, is this even a common issue at all?

I try to think of what they could otherwise mean, because I read a lot of things they'd hate, but even the cutesy stuff has dark undertones, or is clearly done with the reader meant to understand that at least one character involved is a freak. Even with porn, I'm not sure I've seen many that didn't lean into how taboo it is. The closest trend I can think of is age gap romances where the protagonist is 16 and going for someone in their 30s, but even those make sure you're extremely aware of the age difference the entire time since that's the appeal. Or an anime where the siblings are REALLY close and no one comments, but as a viewer I can still clearly pick up that these are codependent freaks.

Is this a me thing? Do I just not see these swarms of insidious positive portrayals and they're actually everywhere? I don't doubt there are bad writers that fumble their stories, and I'm less likely to read those long enough to find out, so is that what they're referring to? Or is it really always just porn is evil?

--

No, people being dumb as a box of rocks and not grasping that weird internet porn is not a how-to manual is not that common a problem.

However, being traumatized and having zero useful mental health support is.

A lot of anti talking points are coming from a place of toxic coping. mechanisms where someone thinks that if they can just control everything around them The Bad Thing can't happen again, to them or to anyone else.

Blaming the influence of bad fiction is a very common step for people who haven't had enough time or safety to accept that, no, actually, the person they trusted hurt them on purpose because they felt like it, not because Media Made Them Do It.

Or that maybe their dumb teen self handled some situations badly, but it's because teens often do that and/or because no decent adult was around to ask them why they seemed upset, not because it was fiction's job to teach them boundaries. It's a lot easier to blame the concrete experience of reading something that modeled bad behavior than the highly amorphous negative space where good offline role models who paid attention and gave a fuck should have been.

--

Some people are self-medicating with a rage high. A few are nasty ringleaders trying to power trip. Lots are just scared dumbasses who haven't grasped that it's okay to have dark fantasies.

A lot of it is just people with the hubris to say "Well, I have decent reading comprehension and can spot subtext, but what if all these other people can't?"

[ikamigami]

I'M LEAVING SAMS FANDOM

And I won't continue watching any of these shows..

I decided that I can't enjoy Sun and Moon Show anymore when Davis and EC decided to mock me (and many fans with mental issues) instead of just post something on social media that would clarify everything.

Regardless of their true intentions people were hurt and it doesn't seem like they plan to apologize for this.

They want us fans to feel sorry for the fact that they decided themselves to post these episodes daily and because they're a small team they don't have a time to make their story more clear.

Many people who were self-projecting onto Sun and who made headcanons or just saw him as suicidal did that as a way to cope with their own mental issues and trauma. None of us were forcing anything on Davis and EC.. I definitely wasn't doing that - I don't know them.. I don't even know where they live.. I don't know who they're friends with.. I don't even follow (in a sense that I'm checking their social media) their social media - I only ocassionally see some posts on X from Davis because I followed him but like I said I don't spend my time to see what Davis and EC are doing.. I have my own life, my own struggles to care about and I thought that Sun and Moon Show can be a fun escape for me which turned out to be the opposite..

It hurts a lot because thanks to this show and thanks to Sun's character I finally reflected on myself and my own experiences.. and I was finally able to put together the broken pieces of myself..

They say that we're assuming something about Davis and EC but they're doing exactly the same thing when they portray us as creepy and disturbing fans.

Many people felt disgusted by that episode. And yet they didn't even care to make any clarifications because they don't give a damn.

I'm sorry that I didn't believe those people (who used to be fans of these shows) that Davis and EC don't treat mental issues with respect and that they mock people who have these mental issues.

I'm saying all of this as someone who really tried to defend Davis and EC's decisions many times. Trying to defend the way they portray mental issues. Trying to support them.

And what it left me with? The awful mockery.

I'm sure that they assumed some horrible things about me because of some well known fans in this fandom who were trying to paint me in awful light - that I'm disturbing for relating to Sun in more dark way (I saw Sun's behaviour and thought to myself that he act like me in many situations and the things he went through reminded me of my own experiences hence why I thought that he might struggle with similar mental issues to mine which also include being suicidal - I was passively suicidal for quite some time). These bigger names were laughing at my theories just because they didn't turn out to be true but they didn't care that the topic of suicide is something serious to me. They were bullying me. They also lied that I dragged anyone into discussions about this topic when it never happened. I'm talking mainly about a person behind Twinanimatronics blog. They told this lie when they assumed that I posted something on Tsams Confessions blog - where in fact someone just tried to defend me. And they did all of that behind my back - because they blocked me.

I was spiraling into despair and my mental state worsened when I've seen these awful accusations about me..

This fandom is toxic. Davis and EC can't act like adults but decide to mock fans.. even though the way they portrayed their characters drawed fans who has mental issues because they saw themselves in these characters.. and what they got is awful mockery..

My advice is to avoid Sun and Moon Show and any of these shows especially if you suffer from mental issues and especially if you struggle with suicidal thoughts.

I'm grateful that I met in this fandom some amazing people who showed me tons of support ^^

I can't thank enough to any of them for their support and kindness and lots of care they showed me 💗 Thank you ^^

I'll still keep in touch with my friends who I met through this fandom ^^

[blackknight-100]

I'm absolutely obsessed with how mythology portrays parent-child relationships, especially when at least one divine party is involved. I've talked about Karna and Arjuna's relationship with their fathers, and how it might tie up to their characters and situations, and the Mahabharata as a whole, but they're not the only ones! Speaking exclusively about father-son dynamics in this post, and we have a lot of them!

You have Yudhisthira, whose father Yama/Dharma shows up in his son's mortal life twice (iirc), gives him a 20 min quiz each time and then tells him that no son, we don't allow dogs in heaven (which, how dare, but we all have that one parent). This is so in line with Yudhisthira's arc, poor man that he is, having to spend his whole life finding answers to questions about righteousness and honour, losing his friends, brothers, wife and children in the process.

Rama-Dasharatha and Ganesha-Shiva are pretty straightforward - there's plenty of mutual love and respect despite the horrors ™️ , but then there is Rama and Luv-Kush. If you're counting the Uttar Kand, then these boys literally saw their mother die because there father could not stop questioning her honour. That has to mess with your head. There's no way it's a happily ever after story.

Another man who interests me greatly is Yayati. Like sir... what were you doing. Who grows old and thinks, "You know what would be great? Me borrowing my son's youth" and then curses them when they refuse? What were you thinking. What were your kids thinking. I need to take your heads apart with a scalpel, this is so incredibly insane. A father should give to his children - the only thing this man "gave" was to spare Puru from his curse.

You have Bhishma and Shantanu, another wild story. I understand that Bhishma chose to give up his birthright to make Shantanu happy, but can you actually tell me Shantanu wasn't at least somewhat interested in the plan? Shantanu is Bhishma's father, it's his job to stop him from doing things like this. I feel like pulling my hair out everytime I think of this. You can tell that Bhishma was afraid for his father's well-being when he made this decision, and that so... unfair.

On the other end of the spectrum are Krishna and Vasudeva, who are wholesome to the point of despair. Vasudeva giving up his everything just to get his boy out of prison?? Waiting years and years for him, but never lamenting or cursing Krishna for not coming fast enough??? That's peak fatherhood (Shantanu take lessons). And Krishna honours that sacrifice!! He comes from idyllic Vrindavan, slays the tormentor of his parents and rips the bars of their prison!!! And that old married couple trapped within those dank, dreary walls, with no one except the other for company, watches their godly son turn up to free them and show them the sky for the first time in more than a decade - the thought of it brings me to tears. Possibly the only part I like about the change from baby!Krishna to adult!Krishna is his reunion with Vasudeva and Devaki!

Oh, and last but not least, our favourite problematic pair: Jamadagni and sons. I'm slightly terrified by how Jamadagni was like "kill your mother for me she's sinful >:(" and when four sons refused, he actually killed them. HIS OWN SONS! Admittedly, in some versions he asks Parashuram to do the killing but like... those are his brothers. Who probably swaddled him and rocked him and fed him and played with him. And all this is presumably happening right in front of Renuka. And then Parashuram has to kill his mother as well, unless he wants to be a heap of ashes.

(In some versions, including the one I've always heard as a child, Parashuram is said to be "aware of" his father's immense power, which just seems to me a really polite way to say that Parashuram knew disobeying his father had consequences ™️ that weren't always right or rational)

Worse, after the killing is done, Jamadagni is so pleased he offers Parashuram a boon, presumably with the remains of the rest of his family still nearby, and when Parashuram asks for his mother and brother to be revived, Jamadagni is all like "ooh actually I got really angry, I think I'm going to renounce rage forever. Dw btw your brothers and mother forgot you killed them you're welcome <3"

Sir??? This is what you got out of the whole issue???? No wonder Parashuram killed a whole bunch of kings, this couldn't have been healthy.

[wilcze-kudly]

I mean, Suyin also decided to not come forward about the nature of the rift to her own children. Even when they had grown up and it was relevant to the situation. She also didn't take into consideration Lin's worries about the Red Lotus, not to the magnitude that Lin was urging on.

Moreover, Lin didn't want to be in Zaofu. She explicitly tried to stay away. Was it mature? Definitely not. But it was her choice, and it was one that would have prevented any more fighting or family drama from happening in the middle of a mission to keep the frigging avatar safe.

You say that the show only portrayed Lin's POV (which is true), however the development of the episode only show it to us, not any of the characters present.

Let's say we don't see those flashbacks, then what would have we seen? Suyin's version that (what a surprise) leaves out her whole part in the conflict beyond the "we were both neglected by our mom" part.

No, she didn't try to make good to her during the episode. Not when the very root of the issue circles to the secrecy Toph forced to keep Suyin's record clean. No, she didn't placate Lin's suspicions when at the first chance she goes over Lin to aid a bunch of teenagers follow the sadistic criminal group Lin was trying to protect them from.

And finally, no, you don't get to play woe-is-me when you force someone to a situation they don't want to be in. It's really ugly, on either side of it, but I seriously feel you're leaving out the part where it was Suyin's territory, family and influence the scenario of it. She had a support network, Lin was paranoic- could anyone have expected any different?

Ok. Several misconceptions to clear up. (Because there always are whenever I post anything vaguely critical of Lin).

When I said that Su tried to make good with Lin multiple times, I was speaking predominantly about how it was said (very hard to spot when you're mainly focused on seeing Su as the devil, I know😊) that Suyin has tried to contact Lin on peaceful terms multiple times.

One thing I rarely see brought up by people when discussing Lin's rift is that Lin... might just not want to discuss her scarring with just anyone? Like for some reason people act like the decent thing of Suyin to do is to.... not respect Lin's autonomy and privacy? And if Lin blew Su off as it was impied that she did, I doubt Lin's level of comfort around talking about the scar was discussed.

The red lotus issue, and here's a controversial opinion, wouldn't seem like a big issue to most people at the time.

You must remember that while yes, the Red Lotus were incredibly hyped up by Zuko and Tonraq, but to the public they were just 4 randos who were stupid enough to try and kidnap the most well guarded 4 year old in the world. People didn't even know the organisations name, and none of the 4 ever explained why they were after Korra.

Especially that Suyin was introduced to the concept like this:

Korra: She's just a little worried because there's a bunch of crazy criminals after me.

Not exactly screaming " hey shit is hitting the fan". Which isn't helped by the fact that Lin would rather blow her brains out than have a conversation with Su where she isn't allowed to substitute the important things with backhanded insults.

Suyin did assure Lin plenty of times that Zaofu is an incredibly safe city, which it was. The only reason the Red Lotus got in is because they had a man on the inside and they still left empty hamded and with their tails between their legs. Suyin could never account for Aiwei's betrayal.

Honestly, dear, your inclusion of criticism on my posts about the episodes' storylines is weird. I was purely speaking on how the story was presented to us, the viewers.

Lin is a veey shut off character who would rather commit mass homocide than have a moment of vulnerability. Huh, I wounder why Su didn't go around spilling someone else's tragic backstory to randos. "Hey, Korra, you've proven to be just GREAT as handling sensitive issues like this, how about I give you more ammo to pull out on Lin? I'm sure that will go over amazing."

I will say that Suyin letting the Krew follow Aiwei is a dick move and a stupid thing to do. I don't think Sugin was thinking clearly, due to the immense betrayal she was feeling due to Aiwei's actions.

I will say, I think that Suyin perfering to lie to Lin rather than disagree with her outrigt is very indicative if their relationship. But since most people who talk about this pair seem to perfer the "ooga booga Su bad, Lin good" school of thought, I guess we'll never have a mature conversation about this fascinating pattern of behaviour.

I will also concede that Suyin had the "advantage" of having her support system. Being on her turf would probably be comforting, but let's not forget that Lin actively insulted/drove to tears Suyin's kids, complete innocents in this situation.

Lin: Five kids. What a nightmare. Suyin: No, no. My children are a blessing. Lin: Yeah, mom used to say that too, but she never meant it.

Can I just say how much I hate this exchange? Like giving Lin the absolute benefit of the doubt she's being a jerk and then traumadumping at the worst possible moment. Giving a little less benefit of the doubt she's implying to her niblings' faces that their mother is lting about loving them.

Lin's obsession with painting Su as a villai is a symptom of her mommy issues, but you guys just like. Took it at face value you chumps.

Like yeah Su has the advantage of having her family close but that just kinda opens up the doors for Lin to make even more teenagers feel like absolute garbage. And after all that's her super special talent.

But you know what? I would have expected different from a 50+ woman who is in charge of people's lives. Like, call me insane and a dick and insensitive, but girlie should've gotten her shit together. But Lin doesn't value herself enough to do so and that is her skill issue. She self handicaps, she stagnates, she ignores her own well-being and it bites her in the ass.

It is, once again, a fascinating set of behaviours to discuss have but Lin is this fandoms sopping wet kitten, so we don't get to talk about Lin Beifong's arrested development.

Lin isn't an angsty teen or forlorn young adult. She's a grown ass woman with a career. She can get it together. I believe in her.

[ladyknight33]

Thoughts on Percy Jackson Show. Mainly about the portral of Ares

In all honesty I am beyond and am bored with coming of age stories for little boys. But I gave it a shot because I enjoy Greek Mythology and seeing interpretations of the Greek gods.

Not yet read the books, not sure I will, but the story fits the hero's journey outline perfectly so there is no real surprise when anything happens, if you've studied literature. It is a good story for those who haven't, particularly the children reading it/watching it as the intended audience.

The Greek gods in Percy Jackson are superficially related to the gods of myth. Viewed exclusively from a limited perspective with very little backstory for them. Forcing myself to view these gods through the lense of a 12 year old boy is annoying because I know too much, but it helped accept how the gods are portrayed.

Hermes felt the closest to the mythology in his temperament and mischievous nature. But also in his caring attitude for his family.

Poseidon is shown as the best distant father because that's how Percy wants to see him, so that's how we see him. Not exactly how the myths describe him, I really wanted to se Poseidon ready for war. Maybe soon we will get to see an angry Poseidon.

Zeus was a fine representation. Cool, distant, rigid, quick to anger. Thought that it was well done for the single scene we got. They also showed his ability to rationalize and plan.

Dionysus was superficially correct. Makes me wonder what happened that he got stuck overseeing the Camp and being forbidden to drink alcohol. The angry old man routine didn't feel accurate to his mythology, but situations can create that.

Ares is exactly what mainstream media wants him to be. Without reading the books, I don't know if there is more depth the show is missing. Aggressive, angry, poor emotional control, those fit the mythology fine. Even being an unexpected ally as Ares doesn't usually pick sides in a fight, helping both. Being a Twitter troll, well maybe, we just know he likes to pick fights, we don't know what side he takes in that little exchange, so yeah that works. Even the reflective nature when Grover talks about the lesser known wars Ares participated in felt like an old soldier reliving glory days.

Dismissing his own children as he did when talking to Percy didn't feel right when compared to the myths. In mythology, Ares is hyper protective towards his children, to the point of angering Zeus and Poseidon with his actions. Clarisse's reaction to the breaking of her gift from Ares is the type of reaction described in myth when Ares looses his mortal children. I don't know if Ares's dismissal of his children is to streamline conversation or to hide his attatchment.

But what stood out was how Ares spoke as if he liked Zeus, not just the coming war. Zeus hates Ares in mythology and Ares will never be good enough for Zeus. Part of me thinks that Ares hates that Percy gets the loving attention from Poseidon because Ares doesn't get that from Zeus.

Also, the final showdown on the beach told a great deal about Ares's character. Yes, he's eager for a fight, knows his abilities far outshine Percy's. Ares is rightfully angry about the revelation of who instigated the war. But in myth Ares doesn't start wars, he is just the violence and carnage during the war. I don't remember the show actually explaining the path the master bolt took to get into the backpack Ares gives Percy, but doesn't fit with Ares personality to plan any of that. Ares just doesn't like being called out or being used.

What I did think was accurate was how when Percy claimed single combat and first blood rules, that Ares abided by them. He is a warrior and honors the code of single combat. But I also don't think Ares really wanted to win. Ares is a god of unknown age and significant power going up against a boy with little experience and untrained power, on a beach were Poseidon can interfere. Ares is not a complete idiot, but he remains on the beach to honor the single combat.

Ares should have been able to crush Percy in the first few moments, and then just stands there for the wave to crush him. Ares knows there is no glory in hurting Percy. Ares doen't bully Percy physically, not like is shown when Clarisse bullies Percy.

The whole fight felt like Ares didn't want to be there, but had to because of some order from someone more powerful than him. So Ares does what is expected of him. Fights and looses. Honors the agreement and delivers the Helm of Darkness. And disappears. Like he was forced to be the villian.

Either this is very simplistic story telling for the sake of younger readers, or there is something else going on. Or I might need to read the books..... but I don't want to read a coming of age story.

[lilac-melody]

Hiii can I ask you something?

haha it's fine not to answer (don't wanna impose)

But I've been following you for a while and first, I wanna say you're amazing, you really helped me going through my last semester bc I got really obsesed with lipxlip, and most of the fics were written by you and I kinda read between 2 to 4 per day to lift my spirts which really helped me to just go and go (I just saw you everywhere and I loved it to the point of just going to your profile and started reading since the oldest fics to try to not lose any)

And I sometimes read in your profile that you're also strugling (sorry if I get some English words wrong, but I wanna be the most sincere with my words by not going to the translator now) and mann I got to really hate some of the clients at your place, people suck, but you're doing your best and that's something that should be acknologed (be noticed, be understanded, be recognized as a person and not as a simple servant to serve their needs, a person with interests and fears and you know... just going through the day just like they are, like god... it's free to be empathetic to others)

I saw one of your posts where you talk about someone requesting fics or something (sorry not remeber the exact situation) but I wanna say that it's beautyful your own ideas and alternative universes and wathever was written (or could have, I still think that even those words that didn't get to be written are beautiful bc you thought of them and I hope they made you happy and made have you have fun just as it makes me happy and excited to read whatever you share with us -> your readers)

I don't want you to feel obligated to write just bc someone requested that of you, it's an activity that makes you have fun (and I think it makes you feel a lot of other things but I'm not a writer, and I respect you for that, bc feeling what the characters feel and understanding is not an easy task to acomplish, especially bc I think you portray them really well)

And bc I don't want a misunderstanding, you're amazing for who you are (whoever you are) not just bc you made the days of a stranger in the internet by writing fabulous stories, but bc you're a great person and don't ever let anyone tell you the oposite.

And haha man (I use man as a in a neutral gender), I don't think I have enough words to express myself (in English or in my native tongue) but I hope some of it gets to you, even if it's only a little.

Andd... haha sorry if I exctended too much, bc I feel like my question is too short for all this words and I sure will feel aukward later (not good with feelings and expresing myself) but can I ask how did you get started/found with lipxlip? And also yuumori?

Again, sorry if this is a weird ask, not really sure how it works but I think they're usually shorter 😅? I guess I just needed an excuse to say you all this. Again I don't wanna impose, you don't have to answer, I just hope you're fine and healthy and continue to be

Saludos. 😄

Pss: Last stage was incredible, and your last fanfic of them was also great (you've made me take notice of the little things that I didn't pay attention to, like that they really had bruises at that first concert of the MV and gave me an answer at why they were crying at their special place and that I didn't even notice at first that was their special place at first, and made me realize by your fanfics how important and big of a deal it's to share your safe place, which later develops in the safe place of yours and also that person you shared it with)

OKAY . WOW . SO

Anon I just want to preface this by saying not a whole lot makes me teary- gut wrenching fics, shows, movies, etc...many of them don't do anything for me aside from get a laugh out of me, but this comment I had to reread twice to make sure I was reading it correctly. I was just gonna fuck around on the writing part of Tumblr for the lols and I was super caught off guard. So congrats to that, you definitely made me tear up from this. It's definitely one of the sweetest things someone's ever said to me. 🥹💜

Also, thank you so much for reading my fics! Some are just silly little ideas I jotted down for the lols, and other ideas rotted my brain. I'm definitely more proud of some rather than others, but I'm glad you enjoyed them all(?) nonetheless!

For me, writing is both a form of escapism and a fun hobby that I've had since I was a little kid~ you know, in elementary we had like 20 vocab words per week and we had to either write them down + their definitions and use them in a sentence, write them all down 5 times, or write a short story including 10 of those words. You can probably see which one I went with~ but anyway, yeah, writing is really fun for me.

If it ever gets too stressful or I end up hating it, I end up abandoning the work, yet usually I can't find it in me to delete it. Sometimes I end up hating the work (multichaps, usually) only after its done but then it grows in popularity so I just kinda go "well, fuck it and fuck me, I guess?" and keep it. Other times, I go "well, this ending could have been better..." and then think of other ways I could have written it...

As for how I got into lipxlip??? I saw the thumbnail for Yume Fanfare, clicked, and it altered the course of my life. I started learning Japanese solely because of lxl, my dude. After that, though, I watched their other videos and kinda floated around a bit, and then the movie got announced and bam. I was sucked into the world of Honeyworks and they still keep an iron clad grip on me to this day...

Yuumori is an uninspiring story, really...sometimes I get trailers for anime on yt and I just so happen to get a yuumori trailer. I waited until it began airing, watched it, waited for part 2, watched it, then left it...and recently, I was vibin with a friend online and we were exchanging anime ops, and I remembered yuumori's first op and I was like. Damn this shit slaps!!! And I rewatched the show...and then they had an iron clad grip on me. So...saw trailer, watched it as it aired, forgot about it, then came back to it solely because of the opening lmaooooo.

Anyway, I hope this answered everything..??? Again, though, thank you so much for your kind words~ it meant a lot !

[musicalrecs]

Today's shameless promotion is for one of my favorite musicals that I can't believe isn't more people's favorite: Bring It On: the musical.

tl;dr: This is going to be a long post, so allow me to sum up: if you like Newsies but wish it had a cast of about 2/3 girls and don't really care about the plot so long as there's idealistic teenagers singing and dancing like they've consumed a dozen energy drinks each, building up to a happy ending with more singing and dancing, then you'll love Bring It On. You may now press "j" to skip to the next tumblr post.

Still here? Then please, allow me to reminisce. When I first saw Bring It On, it was on tour before debuting on Broadway, and they were still getting the kinks out. This means I got to see, for example, the original staging of Killer Instinct, and while I get why they changed it for Campbell's character development, I do prefer the original narratively.

It also meant there was no cast album available, and no internet hype that I was aware of. I was there strictly because I saw most shows at this theater if I didn't actively dislike them, and was all "Cheerleading in a musical? Even if the plot is bad it should be a lot of fun!" When I sat down and perused my program I recall turning to my date and excitedly saying "Oh wow, Lin-Manuel Miranda worked on this! You don't know who he is, but he did In The Heights and Sesame Street, this might actually be good!" I also had no idea Ariana DeBose was anyone of import. I should dig out that program and see if I got her to sign it...

I had only the first movie to go on for the plot, which I vaguely remembered the end of. This meant a) I rolled my eyes at conveniently putting Campbell on the "right" team early on and b) I was quite surprised by the ending.

Whatever I was expecting, it was BETTER. Bring It On grabs you with the beat from the get go and and then starts throwing cheerleaders in the air as rapaciously as Jim Henson ever tossed penguins. I hadn't been so captivated by a show's live energy since I first saw Rent.

And the plot? Reader, it was my very favorite kind of plot: girl is in unfamiliar situation, does her best, makes surprising new friends, screws up, learns something, demonstrates leadership, ends with stronger friendships and supportive love interest to boot. (See also: Legally Blonde) You know, the kind of plot guys have had catering to them for millennia so much that the second I hear "coming of age story" I peace out. But it turns out I am not immune to gender-targeted storytelling, particularly when it also has dancing.

It's been an age since I read the reviews, but I recall complaints that Jackson high school was much too "nice," "diverse," "unrealistic" and, had those reviews been written today, they would have almost certainly included "woke." I, on the other hand, was thrilled to see high school portrayed not as a battleground but as groups of friends supporting each other while still enjoying "krunking in the parking lot." (I have never been cool enough to do any equivalent to "krunking" but I admire kids with the confidence to do so, and I did overall enjoy my high school years.)

I am the kind of person who unironically appreciates songs about how it doesn't matter if you're fat or trans or otherwise not society's ideal so long as you love yourself, and songs about how winning doesn't matter as long as you know who you are and have friends. So I loved "It Ain't No Thing" and "Cross the Line."

Plus, a supportive, non-threatening soft boy singing about how high school isn't forever so you might as well "Enjoy the Trip"? Keep your "cringe"; I'll take a dozen more musicals just like this one, please. (No, really. Please let me know if they make any.)

So I mentioned Lin-Manuel Miranda up there, but this wasn't just his show. To quote Wikipedia, "Bring It On: The Musical is a musical with music by Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, lyrics by Amanda Green and Miranda, and book by Jeff Whitty."

Tom Kitt has a pretty eclectic resume, ranging from Jagged Little Pill to Next to Normal to Spongebob. Lin-Manuel Miranda, of course, is best known for trying to sell real estate to Big Bird.

Sidenote: Tom Kitt and LMM had another collab that you may have heard of: the 2013 Tonys opening number, "Bigger!"

Although I couldn't get my hands on the album for over a year after I fell in love with the show, since one didn't exist, nowadays you can of course listen to the whole thing on Youtube, Spotify, or wherever. You can even buy the CD; it comes with a nice booklet with all the lyrics!

But as for seeing the show, I don't recommend trying to watch it online. A quick search doesn't turn up any proshots, and local productions just aren't going to be the same. Half the cast was made up of pro cheerleaders, and their intense choreography is part of the thrill. If a tour ever comes near your town, I highly recommend you get yourself tickets. Even if the moving screens aren't as cool and innovative now as they were in 2011, it's still a wonderful spectacle.

So that's Bring It On: the musical. I suppose I could have actually described the plot (head cheerleader Campbell gets redistricted to another school which - gasp! - has no cheerleading team), but really, does it matter? You're there for the characters expressing themselves through song and dance (and cheerleading), not how easy it is to fool gullible teens by editing Wikipedia (actual plot point). I hope you get a chance yourself to fall in love with its unabashed enthusiasm for friendship and being tossed really high on stage.

[bnhaobservation]

Do you think Enji's mentally ill?

Hum...

I hope it's okay if I take this as a request to dig into Enji's mental state instead than an attempt at giving him a diagnosis and, as usual, these are my two cents, I'm not Horikoshi and I don't know The Truth about his characters.

So let's start with a realistic approach first.

When I was studying psychology my teacher told us: "Don't get your hopes up, no one is psychologically healthy. No one is completely free from psychological problems. The real point is if one can live with his own problems in a way that doesn't make him or the people he has around himself or society miserable."

Is Enji okay with himself?

Not really, when he was younger he was plagued with frustration, envy and ugliness of his heart, feelings he can't overcome and that push him to think one of his children could help him overcome.

He's eaten alive by his inferiority complex, self-hate...

...and anger...

...which he believes is what is keeping him alive.

Enji is many things but clearly not okay with himself.

What about the people who has around himself?

Regarding the ones close to him... he ended up destroying his own family, causing his wife to fear him and 3 of his child to loathe him, which includes also the one who looked up at him the most.

Regarding society... he's a very good Hero but he's not really leaving a positive impression since he's also Number 1 in the Heroes who look like Villains and, despite all his solved case, he's 4th among the Heroes liked by the public.

He manages to get himself rejected by Yoarashi and when he becomes Number One people isn't really satisfied. He has the highest case solving rate, even higher than All Might and yet they don't consider him reliable.

So, yeah, he's not psychologically healthy and he could benefit of some help.

I've said I won't attempt to give a diagnosys because we've nowhere near enough elements to make one even if we were professionals... and the canon is contraddicting due to retcon... but even if there weren't retcons very likely we could never have enough elements because... Enji is a fictional character, one whom his creator didn't build planning to give him a mental illness, but merely created him around negative character traits, which, if he were to be a real person, he would have for a psychological reasons, but since he's fictional, he only has them for story purposes.

Many writers write characters who're not psychologically well or who has abnormal quirks but do not bother at all giving them a mental illness. Sometimes they don't even bother giving them something akin to a reason for why they're not psychologically well, or it's a rushed, tossed in one, or it's just a trope.

That's because what they want to discuss more often than not isn't a mental illness but a situation due to certain character traits.

Where will X's character traits lead him?

Or which of X's character's traits caused such situation?

Those are often topics they want to discuss, not character X has mental illness Y so he does this, this and that.

Character traits are general enough readers can identify with them, mental illness is more specific and, what's more, to be portraied correctly, it requires quite a lot of research and can end up being 'constricting' ruling what a character can or can't do, so that the writer can't have him do certain things that instead the writer is interested in having said character doing.

It's mostly us, readers who love to fill in the blanks, analyzing/overanalyzing the characters' behaviours and find out what in his psyche pushed him to act in such a way... because that's a rather interesting thing to do.

So where does this leave us?

I honestly doubt Horikoshi dug deeply into Enji's psychological state and problems to the point he named it, studied it and realistically depicted it because BNHA isn't, after all, this kind of story... and because, as said before, the Todoroki family history received too many retcons.

The really important things Horikoshi wanted to depicts were Enji is not psychologically well due to certain character traits and experiences he had, that due to this he destroyed his family, that his psychological problems were the reason why he hurt his family but weren't a good excuse to do what he did to his family and that he can overcome them and become a better person... and this is fair.

It's fitting of an action story in which characters shouldn't be characterized in a way that's too strict because their purpose is also to let readers identify in them, a story that focuses more on themes than on realism so that heartfelt speechs from teenagers can move scared/angry mobs and cause them to pause and revise their behaviour... which is generally... not something that's going to happen... but fits with the themes the story carry on so that you might even find okay to suspend your disbelief. Or not.

This sort of things are often pretty personal.

Long story short, Enji undoubtedly has psychological problems but I doubt Horikoshi had in mind a mental disorder for him as he clearly doesn't fit in those who're the most common and he didn't really focus that much on giving him a traumatic past (yes, he witnessed his father's death and yes, he might have frozen that time too and since this is 'his origin', it likely caused him to grow up the way he did.. but the whole thing is more a rushed, last minute thing than a real exploration of what made him the way he is, almost as if it were a throwaway line tossed in just to fill the blanks, nothing in common with the care Shouto and Touya's pasts were explored).

This ends up meaning whatever reader can interpret him as they see fit since canon leaves us with plenty of freedom.

So to sum it up, if you ask me, Enji has psychological problems and could benefit from therapy, through it might also as easly for Horikoshi to get him quickly cured by the magical power of 'the plot wills it' because that's also what stories are made for.

At least, that's what I think. Sorry if it's not exactly the answer you were looking for and thank you for your ask!

[leighlew3]

Leigh, I'm so sorry to burden you with this, but I've followed you for a few years and witnessed how supportive you've been with SuperCorp fans and the shared disappointment with how the show ended, so I feel safe writing to you.

All the WLW shows getting cancelled fucking sucks. And it hurts. Not because I've necessarily been a big fan of them all, but simply because my voice and story, as a consumer and queer woman, doesn't feel valued.

When I heard Netflix cancelled Warrior Nun, I got angry, and I've been so ever since. It somehow hit different this time, and the cancellation doesn't make sense to me. I've loved the show since its first day on Netflix in 2020. I fell in love with the characters and the actors who portrayed them. I fell in love with the story they were telling and how it was told. Something about Warrior Nun just felt different to me.

Now it's almost 7 in the morning where I live, and I haven't been able to sleep. I was reading a Warrior Nun fic - as one does - and then all the feelings suddenly hit me. Angry turned into sad, and I feel sort of silly for admitting this, but I actually cried. I read somewhere that the brain can't differentiate real people from fictional ones, and I think I'm kind of mourning the loss of the characters 🤷🏻‍♀️ I've never felt this way before and I honestly don't know what to do about it. The whole situation just sucks.

Do you have any advice on how the consumers can be heard by big companies like Netflix and how we can get them to actually value their WLW shows?

Again, I'm sorry to lay this on you, but I don't really have anyone to talk to about this, and I'm just sick and tired of the situation and needed to rant.

(I appreciate you and wish you and your loved ones a happy new year)

It's not a burden at all, I'm glad you feel this is a safe space. 💜

Everything you're saying is relatable and valid as heck. When a show means the world to you, especially if you're part of a marginalized group and taking hit after hit after hit no less... it can be exhausting, infuriating, demoralizing, and so many other complicated emotions when you lose that art that struck you so deeply, that you related to, and that you looked forward to more of to get you through life.

To be honest, I feel like for the most part, fans are doing as best they can as far as efforts to keep shows around. There really are no more tangible specific solutions for fans aside from what's being done, and that's what's frustrating. The endless rewatches, fans doing street team style spreading the word on their own (even spending a lot of money) to make up for lack of official marketing, getting influencers and press behind them, etc. It's actually a sad state of affairs that in recent years, LGBTQ fans have WORK, and FIGHT and PUSH and even PAY constantly to keep a wlw show on the air or to try to get someone to make a ship canon after queerbaiting, or to get more screen time or respectful exploration for a wlw pairing, or to make TPTB see how bad the bury your gays trope is (time and again and again), etc -- rather than just sit back and watch and enjoy.

Fans shouldn't have to work so hard for entertainment, and yet queer fans so often do. And even when people successfully give a show solid numbers, sometimes it's still not enough, and like WN, a well-reviewed, heavily watched series gets the axe anyway.

So it's not on the fans. It's on those at the top, at the end of the day.

Alas, if I had to make some kind of a suggestion... all I can think to say is on the macro, bigger picture level. And this will take some self reflection and increased empathy for some people (sadly a thing some may not be capable of). But... collectively, some people in fandom spaces (small portions, but loud ones) for wlw shows have got to try to stop the silly fanon vs canon wars, and gatekeeping, and jealousies, and creating unnecessary drama and toxicity. There really should be no rival fandoms in wlw spaces at all, unless a show has a fully wlw love triangle or something and people are Team Ship 1 vs Team Ship 2, lol, but even still -- it should be a 'fun' battle, not a toxic war that hurts real people, drives away viewership, etc.

If most people in queer fandoms stuck together, and respected each other's ships even if they don't ship it or watch the show, and generally were supportive of each other as fellow queer fans in their battles against cancellations, in demanding queerbait to be made canon, fighting the BYG trope, etc -- LGBTQ fandoms would have such a collective, expanded power behind these positive efforts. And either way, even if all efforts fail to save a show, etc, at the very least, it would help create a safer, healthier space for queer fans online.

And I know, asking toxic people to not be toxic seems futile, but some people simply need to be reminded that we're all in this together and working together is always going to be ideal when facing off against the real opposition: corporate bias / phobia in the media / industry space.

Ultimately, it's 100% on TPTB at the shows and networks/streamers/studios to do better -- at times creatively, and other times as far as marketing efforts. Sometimes both.

But in the meantime, as far as fandom spaces, some LGBTQ fans gotta try to learn to stick together as much as possible. While there will ALWAYS be toxicity in every fandom from all backgrounds, and fans cannot control each other, I am noticing that as time goes on, and as more wlw fandoms get hurt by networks and streamers, the more angry people are understandably getting, the more reactive and protective of their shows and ships people are getting, and the more then they lash out and try to gatekeep and attack their fellow queer fans and allies, which is... just not it. It's counter productive.

Point is... fans are doing all they can IMO as far as tangible efforts to save (or fix) certain shows. And the rest is on the creatives, the networks and streamers, etc. But in the meantime, at the very least, people shouldn't attack true allies who have proven their support, nor especially attack fellow queer fans who just want to see what a show or ship is about or make positive parallels to their other faves, etc as it could be extra viewers for the show that they're running off.

TLDR: Stay focused on the real problem: corporate media's bias / phobia. Fight them collectively, not each other.

[shipcestuous]

You know, just today I started wondering... are there any Hades&Persephone AUs for Daemyra? I assume I'd probably find some if I looked, but I don't really remember seeing any fic or edit like that in the wild, so to say. Which kinda weirds me out, because on the one hand I lowkey ship Reylo and those AUs used to be pretty much everywhere for that ship, and on the other hand... come on, Daemyra seems like it would be SUCH an obvious choice for that kind of mythological reference!

Hades is Persephone's uncle no matter which version of the myth you go with, as he and Demeter, Zeus, and Poseidon are all siblings. And while he's not meant to be understood as an evil or even particularly violent figure in context, pop culture has moved from portraying him as a sort of Satanic character due to his position as ruler of the Underworld to portraying him as a sexy, scandalous, alluringly dangerous, and often dominating character in romance stories, while also emphasizing his willingness to raise Persephone to a position of power by marrying her, thus making her his queen rather than just some kind of concubine after the kidnapping, and by offering her godly honors equal to his own. There's plenty to work with, then, if one wanted to play with Daemon-Hades parallels. With a bit of imagination, you could even play off Daemon sneaking Rhaenyra out of the Red Keep through the secret passage and taking her to the lower parts of the city and into a brothel, then attempting to seduce her, as a kind of descent into an underworld itself... especially when reading the myth as a symbolic "death" of a maiden who is then reborn as an adult woman through her marriage and all it implies, including an assumption of awakening sexuality.

Rhaenyra would also work well as a Persephone, I think. We see her at the start of a story as a teenager being thrust into a variety of situations, including difficult ones, by the people around her, who are often older than her and should know better... like the Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, who is not privy to Zeus' decision to accept Hades' proposal to marry her to him, doesn't even get to say anything about Demeter unleashing winter on the world until Zeus agrees to rescind his own deal with Hades, and may or may not get tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds. But Persephone isn't just a helpless maiden, she's also the "dread queen" who Odysseus offers sacrifices to so that he may access the knowledge of the dead and eventually return to Ithaca, who convinces Hades to let Orpheus try and bring Eurydice back to the world of the living, and who could be invoked to inflict curses on those who had wronged her supplicants. And Rhaenyra, too, grows into her role as the heir of the Targaryen dynasty until, in the finale, she's a woman ready to go to war to avenge herself and her child.

So, yeah. I think that kind of AU would honestly work a lot better for them than for other ships that often just borrow the general bad boy/good girl vibe inspired by Hades&Persephone comparisons, lol.

I also cannot recall seeing much if any Hades/Persephone comparisons and content for Rhaenyra and Daemon and I am also very surprised given how popular both things are. The two of them being uncle/niece is almost enough to go on alone, but as you pointed out, there's a lot of other things that fit too. You did such a wonderful job of describing the comparison It's lovely.

[vohalika]

God. I once basically threw fucking hands in an actually published article when someone calling himself The Tywin Defender tried to defend this change. Yeah, sure, Charles Dance and Maisie Williams have amazing chemistry. Anything less and people might have fucking noticed how this story line made no sense and made them both be really fucking stupid.

Like. To recap. Tywin Lannister figures out that Arya is a girl. High born. Literate. And From The North. He still lets this literate high born girl from the north in on his war meetings. His meetings. About the war. AGAINST THE NORTH. He lets her, whomst he knows can read, handle his sensitive war correspondence, about his war against the north, where she is a high born lady from who can read, all of which he knows, EVEN AFTER MAIL GOES MISSING.

It. It boggles the mind.

Like. Even if he doesn't figure out that's Arya Stark, highborn girl from the north is already a potentially valuable hostage and too much of a liability to grant this much access to. Lock her in a tower and torture her identity out of her. That'd be the Tywin move.

And it is really dumb he doesn't immediately deduce it's Arya, anyway.

Even assuming stone masons travel the realm enough to get their daughters tangled up in messes near the crownlands, noble houses sure don't. At least not without it being widely known. And since Sansa and Arya got the early installment weirdness of having no high born female companions from the north coming with them, and since Jeyne Poole has been deleted from existence, there is literally only one literate high born girl around the age of 9 unaccounted for at the time.

And look at that, she was disguised as a boy on a trip to the wall, which left from King's Landing, place where Arya Stark was last seen, and is going North, place where Arya Stark is most likely to go. FUNNY THAT.

So Tywin's dumb. Yay. But this hurts Arya as a character as well.

The reason no one puts her identity together in the book is because Arya plays the peasant more convincingly for a while - look at that theme up there, what a fun 8th grade book report by OP - AND is never handled by people who have all the information or cause to bother putting things together about her.

That distance while being confronted with the more immediate horrors of her situation are ALSO the reason she uses her three kills on globally less important threats than Tywin that were still more immediate to her. It is way more believable that those would be her priorities in the books, but on the show, she. She literally spends her days. Listening to Tywin planning how to defeat her family in war. And the best she can think of is mail fraud and covering up mail fraud?

(Gendry brings this up at the beginning of season 3. Her reason is because shut up. Pretty much verbatim.)

And the things we missed out on! No prison break, no weasel soup, no set up for Roose switching sides, and for what? Getting a metaphorical pat on the head from daddy Tywin, actively trying to kill the rest of her family, and bonding over how most girls are stupid except for maybe his daughter.

Which... Sets up the weird identification thing Arya has going with Cersei. It is a thing, it comes back when she bonds with Cersei's actress in season 6 instead of maybe the person portraying her actual sister. You know, whomst she is implied to play in the Mercy chapter. Naaah, that would make sense or something. Gaaaaah.

love that arya serving as roose's cupbearer served to open her eyes to the way in which class and status literally erases the smallfolk from the perceived realities of their lords (a lesson further reinforced in her travels with sandor where simply wearing ratty clothes is enough for knights to just not notice the most recognizably marred face and most wanted man in all of westeros) and then in the show serving as tywin's cupbearer was just "we wish charles dance was our dad :( he would be so stern but also loving to us :(( we would impress him with our gumption i mean sorry arya would impr-"

[stillness138]

finally got the time to yap about hotd

so people are upset and disappointed with how chood and bleese were done. i will admit to having only read an extensive summary of the book, but i didn't mind it. i'll get back to it but first some general thoughts tm

but reading different reactions and comparing them to mine kinda made me think about how this show adapts the source material in general. i really, really like the show, despite it having specific points i definitely disliked or was also disappointed with (especially in episode 9). because i think it is overall a great adaptation. and not necessarily of the text of Fire&Blood - a text that is harder to adapt to begin with because, as people seem to keep forgetting, it is told exclusively by in-world characters with their individual biases - but rather of the themes, topics and messages this story (and really asoiaf as a whole) is trying to convey.

and people seem to have lost sight of those a little bit too. this thing is about an oppresive, unsustainable patriarchal system that harms just about everyone in and around it. the most drastic change - Alicent being Rhaenyra's childhood best friend - is an excellent piece of adaptation because it allows them to say so much about the topic at hand, more than George did. [a side point, but this fandom, just like the witcher one, should also take a step back from treating grrm as someone who can never err and whose word is holy. the man has a morbid interest in writing child torture porn to illustrate a point he already made 3 books ago. he aint special, and he sure isn't the best thing since sliced bread.] [but actually, on this topic, the choices of where to have nudity, sex, sexual abuse, violence and gore are also made with thought in this show and my god is that so refreshing to see, ESPECIALLY in this universe.]

i would've done the first episode of season 2 differently, would've only set b&ch up at the end and built tension through the whole of the next episode, but i obviously haven't seen the rest of the season. no one has save for unenthused journalists but throwing hands in the air about the lack of this or that is kinda silly. it's literally just the first episode. i'm ready to do the stanczyk and eat my words if i'm wrong, but stuff like pact of ice&fire, how alicole came to be, even more reactions to Luke's death, why the castle was completely devoid of guards,.. may yet be subjects in conversations later on.

the ep manages to have a unifying theme, that being parents' relationships to their (deceased) children, and it gets that across well enough. yes there should have been more of Aegon and Helaena's time with their kids but also, this would've never reached the level of setup the red wedding had. they're not really comparable.

another opinion i've seen and disagree with is that b&ch is portrayed as an oopsie. what do you think Daemon answered to "and if we don't find Aemond?" and why do you think "does she look like a son to you" is said? they knew what they were doing. if anything, their surprise is to how easy it was to get to Helaena. and that is set up too. if Aegon took her seriously, like, ever (this is something he exhibits all the way back in the Driftmark episode), maybe there would be at least some guards. she foresaw the danger and he could've attempted doing something about it or at the very least ease his sister/wife's worries, but he was too busy using Jaehaerys to humiliate Tyland Lannister. [truly the dad to end all dads in this series.] i want to see Aegon wracked with guilt over it, because he definitely directly underestimated the situation.

he is also left with either his wild card brother or his daughter to name the new heir. where have we seen that before. and the not so secret third option is to put Helaena through another pregnancy to hopefully get a son out of it. that's what Maelor would be forced to live with. knowing that he only exists because of a terrible tragedy and the system's requirements for a suitable heir.

i do agree that the show leans towards Rhaenyra's team quite a bit, but i don't think they're being too sanitized. again i'm ready to be the fool, but Daemon has 9 more episodes to openly admit to ordering Jaehaerys's murder.

if the bag was fumbled on anything, it was delivery, but not adaptation itself. this isn't the show of women screaming in horror as men threaten to assault their six year old children. it is a show about a system that manifests as an abuse cycle and ends in tragedy one way or another, and that can be conveyed in a number of ways.

[cerastes]

Whats wrong with Near Light?

It is completely clueless as to what its own point is.

"Maria Nearl" made an excellent job of portraying the capitalist bloodsport known as "the Kazimierz Major" as a soulless venture meant to sell dreams and deliver bloodshed, propaganda, and ad revenue instead. It is impeccable in its themes, to the point that Blemishine is in fact told that she is expecting far too much, by EVERYONE else, when she says she'll compete in the Major for the sake of House Nearl having a Knight Primus. Her closest associates end up supporting her not because they truly believe she's right, they support her because they literally don't want her to end up dead. Zofia, Vogelweide, Kowal and Marcin know there's no actual stopping Maria once she sets up her mind on something, so they choose to train her not so she can win, but so she can survive at all in something she's woefully unqualified for. There's absolutely no glory to be made. This is a vie for survival first and foremost.

Near Light then completely disregards all of this and makes Margaret Nearl, a character I really like, into a generic fantasy hero that Must Fight To Achieve Things. It takes the very grounded "meaningless fight for something" from the first event, which is completely in line with old knightly literature, and turns it into a shonen, which I found pretty, well, insulting. Victory equals successful ideals now, because she's Margaret "Kirito SAO" Nearl, so if she does it, it's Fine now. It spins everything into seemingly being honorable knightly duels (but we're the good ones), while giving a horribly passive centrist narrative to what was purely a criticism of late stage capitalism in the prior event. Margaret wants to change things systematically from within.. Which is just a load of hog-fucking-wash when we already established from moment one that the system is in itself flawed, corrupt, and a cesspit of maggots trying to eat each other. It makes you wonder if it was the same writer that wrote both events, because it sure as shit doesn't seem so, and if it was, did they get into NFTs in the meantime or subscribe to Infowars or Andrew Tate or whatever equivalent there is mainland China or something? It went from a clearly muddied look at a system that is inherently flawed into "Actually, if we win enough fights... We can begin the Change Everything castbar, it's pretty simple, actually".

And I bring up those particular shitstains because Margaret Nearl, VERY uncharacteristically, pulls off a "no handouts, let them pull themselves up by their bootstrings" in the event: She refuses to go rescue Pinus Sylvestris because "they can't be saved by those who already have true conviction, they must do it themselves"... Actually what the fuck? You see in Chapter 0, 1 and 7 of the main story that Nearl will go out of her way, risk her very own flesh, to rescue those who are hopeless because that's what she believes in, that's why she's admired, because she'll fucking pull through in these situations... And then she says this shit in Near Light? AND THEN, as if that wasn't enough, smashing a fucking broken thermometer over a salted wound, it is then stated in god damn Operators Files that she did rescue Pinus Sylvestris off-screen anyways, because whoever was responsible for "writing" this, and I'm being fucking magnanimously generous with that word, couldn't just have their cake, but also had to devour it wholesale in one single bite? Get the fuck out.

On screen: Yeah, they gotta earn their lives. [Some fakedeep shit about needing to be devoted enough to their own cause and beliefs] Off screen: Oh I saved them anyways lol, I need to Look Cool.

It's not good writing, g, I'll tell you that fucking much, and it makes me upset because it's a character I like in a setting I love.

Of course I'm not going to like if they Kiritofy a character they had consistently written real damn well prior to an event meant to star her.

It makes me mad because the ultimate resolution of it all is a very cowardly "I Will Now Improve Things From Within" yeah okay and Suzaku was right in Code Geass too, right? Jesus fucking christ, man.

Bottom line, it all feels like they set up something incredible in Maria Nearl, right up until the very end, when Fan Favorite comes out of fucking nowhere to save the day, and then her event contradicts the key tenets of her character thus far to boot.

So you'll have to forgive me but my opinion on Near Light is not particularly positive because it became a "Wow look at how COOL this character is!" kinda shonen shitshow when we had a very "The system is inherently wrong, the solution is not at all simple" sort of seinen narrative going on. It should be telling when Mlynar embodies a more scathingly apt take on the sides Maria herself did not cover in her event towards the narrative than whatever the hell they decided to tarnish Margaret with. It's like the Twilight of Wolumonde writer handled Maria Nearl until the end and then they put the Sword Art Online writer on for Near Light.

It's not because I dislike Margaret Nearl that I feel this way. It's because I like her and they did her dirty. But sure, wau cool horse dom wife mommy or whatever.