#and that's only including main characters and i would like to try to do recurring characters afterwards

[heyclickadee]

The reasons why I don’t consider the end of the bad batch to be an out and out happy ending don’t just have to do with Tech. It’s also because, as far as endings go, TBB doesn’t really…have one. At least, not any more of one than The Empire Strikes Back.

TBB has so many plots, subplots, and character arcs, some of which were introduced within the runtime of the show and some of which were introduced back in that last season of the clone wars. The only main one of these that gets a real ending is Omega’s childhood arc / Omega coming into her own, and arc that really kicks off in “Cut and Run,” not “Aftermath.” And if we really want to cut this arc into its separate parts, then what you’ve got is Omega learning both how to handle herself and how to even be a kid on the one hand, and Hunter doing his best Cut Lawquane impersonation and trying to provide Omega with a childhood on the other.

And the thing is, despite being fairly under-discussed in the fandom, that Omega arc is pretty well done. (Yes, there’s a couple of questions about her still open—the show somewhat implicitly confirms her as force sensitive in Harbinger, but we don’t find out why we need to know that because that isn’t why Hemlock wants her—but she can show up later without being the main focus or the POV character, and I think she will). Omega going from this little kid who spends her whole life cooped up in a lab, created as an experiment to be exploited and used, waiting for some—her brothers, she hopes—to set her free to becoming this confident little adventure free to live the life she wants to live, to be a kid for the first time in her life, and who is capable of not only saving herself, but also saving other kids stuck in similar situations. It’s very well done and even very well paced. The epilogue is a bookend to that arc of Omega’s, and to Hunter’s relationship with her. She and he get a happy ending, or at least, Omega gets a happy ending, and Hunter achieves the goal he had that revolved around her. That arc is done.

Everything else, though? It’s open-ended. The only recurring characters besides Omega (and marginally Hunter) who get actual exits/resolutions are:

Hemlock, who is the main antagonist for Omega’s arc (we know project necromancer continues from other Star Wars though, and Tarkin may have pulled the funding as far as he knows but he doesn’t actually ever learn what project necromancer is, and neither do we in full, so I suspect that is still ongoing even if Hemlock’s part of it is not.

Emerie, who I’d love to learn more about because she’s interesting and the emotionally abusive implied father-daughter type relationship she has with Hemlock is fascinating, and I hope we see her in some capacity later, but she largely exists to be a dark foil to Omega/give Omega someone to bounce off of in Tantiss/give us a glimpse of what Omega would have been if she’d had someone like Hemlock as her parental figure, rather than Hunter. She’s the version of the little girl who never got out/who Omega likely was back in Nala Se’s lab being given a chance to get out. And it’s her, not any of our non-Omega leads, who gives a whole speech about what she learned on her journey and what her five year plan is. It’s a whole bow to the audience.

Rampart, who screws himself over in his dedication to being a jackass.

And Nala Se, who never really redeems herself, but who passes the Kaminoan torch to Omega in some ways and then gets to take out the man who slaughtered her people.

(I am not including Scorch, because he isn’t really a character as much as he is a cameo of a neat set of armor; or CX-2, because we actually don’t get any kind of resolution with him one way or the other, he’s left dangling (figuratively and literally), and come on you cannot kill a character twice in his first outing and then expect me to believe he’s actually dead the third time. Be real.)

Everyone and everything else, however, is left open. Wrecker, Echo, Crosshair*—listen, Crosshair’s redemption arc is magnificent, but what the finale showed us is that he’s still very much where he was at the very beginning of the season, and has only come so far as knowing the batch will always have a place for him but unable to believe he deserves it or anything besides being tortured to death—the other bit of Hunter’s character arc, Tech (he had, or has, an ongoing arc that wasn’t resolved), Phee, some stuff with Cid, a lot of the criminal network stuff we set up in this series, the rumblings of a clone uprising and the proto-rebellion stuff going on with Riyo and Avi Singh, Rex’s whole deal, the clone agency arc, clone force 99 as a family and not as a squad, and so on and so forth don’t really have endings. And I don’t mean that the resolutions are rushed or bad, I mean that they aren’t there at all and that the end of TBB isn’t even trying to get to them**.

*I think it’s worth noting that Wrecker and Crosshair not only get no lines after Tantiss, they aren’t even there for Hunter’s, “Whatever we want,” line. That line is really for Hunter and Omega, because we know what they want; Crosshair and Wrecker, who have yet to find their purpose outside being soldiers even though they’ve been given a safe haven in which to find it, are off talking to Echo about something we don’t get to hear. Biting.

**One of the current, though I hope not permanent, weaknesses of season three from my point of view is that the time it isn’t spending doubling down on Omega’s arc is spent setting up stuff that hasn’t actually happened yet. Which, given that that other stuff is what the fandom is generally more invested in because, to be fair, it’s really compelling…. It’s great setup. It’s just that I want the payoff. That I believe is coming. I’m just impatient.

So, basically, I guess what I’m saying is that the reason I don’t view the end of TBB as a happy ending isn’t just because Tech isn’t with everyone (though I still think it’s just that he’s not with them yet), it’s because I don’t really think it’s an ending. I’m sort of viewing everything from Clone Wars season seven onwards as sort of part of the same thing, and I’m not expecting a full and complete resolution for the Maul show either. I suspect there are arcs and plot lines that will carry from TBB into the Maul series, and that there are arcs and plot lines from the Maul series that will carry over into whatever’s next, and that what we’re kind of in for is this combination of Rebels style storytelling (heavily serialized storytelling with a focus on a limited cast of characters and an contiguous overarching set of plots and themes) and Clone Wars arcs (POV shifts that allow for far deeper focus on certain characters and seeing the overarching storyline from different angles).

At least, that’s what I’m hoping, and my sort of weird way of looking at it.

(And I do think carrying a story over multiple shows is a somewhat bonkers way to handle things if you want to do a whole plot over the course of many seasons but don’t want to be restricted by shorter streaming shows, buuuuut I also don’t hate the idea. In theory. Time will tell!)

[ackerlikesmen]

"They're brothers!!!"

Whenever I'm in Ninjago fandom spaces and ships are mentioned, people say Cole and Kai can't be a thing because they're like siblings. So it would be weird. This is primarily an argument against lavashipping because of its popularity. Of course, other reasons mentioned are that Kai is straight and has a girlfriend, and Cole doesn't need to be with anyone; it would "ruin" their characters and make things awkward. I try not to use this word often, but it fits here. There is homophobia in the Ninjago fandom. It's not just "oh but they're like brothers!"-- They truly believe two boys shouldn't date. I've had a few debates, and almost every time lava is mentioned, they say "They're brothers! That's weird!", "They're two guys! That's weird! Keep that stuff out of kids' TV.", and "Kailor's canon! Cope and seethe." It reminds me of EVA fandom, and that's really sad to see.

Before I address this silly argument, I'll start with this one. How would Kai being bisexual and Lava becoming canon ruin their character or story? Hell, Cole and Kai are close even as friends, so it wouldn't make a vast difference if they dated. They'll still pick on each other, banter, argue, and be their regular selves. Just kissing, flirting, and cuddling will be added. Yes, Kai has mostly shown attraction to girls. Guess what? Kai being in the closet and figuring things out can be plausible. It can also add a little more depth to his character. Kai knows he likes girls, but somewhere down the line, he likes Cole. Internally, it's a lot to process, but he eventually accepts himself and his feelings toward Cole. Do they have to be a thing? No, but I would love it! Kai can still be with Skylar, and Cole is just his bi-awakening. Cole has a crush on Kai but moves on to Geo. ...Orrrrr if you're like me, lava can be a thing but slow burn??? Kailor breaks up but ends up as friends. Geode, though I like them too, can be friends or exes and--- okay okay you get my point.

Anyway, this CAN WORK. You just have to try.

Alright, to the main argument.

"They're brothers, so they can't date. They only see each other as brothers."

I'm sick of hearing this. Let's get in to it.

First, the ninjas are NOT brothers. Never have, never were, never will be. They have their own parents.

Kai and Nya have parents whom we later meet.

Cole has parents. His father is still alive, and we met him.

Jay has parents we met in season one.

Zane has a father whom we also meet.

Lloyd has parents, one of whom is a recurring antagonist.

Master Wu did not adopt them. He never took custody of them and never claimed them to be his kids. They're his STUDENTS.

Yes, Master Wu wants the ninjas to treat each other as brothers, and the ninjas do that. 'Brothers sharpen iron." He's not being literal, and neither are the other ninjas. He wants them to be close like a 'close family'. Families do almost everything together, including fighting. Take Kai and Nya, for example. Before being ninjas, they do everything together and stuck by each other's side. When one is down, the other steps in. When one needs help, the other provides. That's what Wu wants for the others. To have a solid, reliable relationship like a family.

This term isn't new. The military uses this language all the time. You've heard of "brother in arms." I believe even sports teams do this. It's similar to the ninja. They're brothers-in-arms.

My point is that the ninjas aren't brothers. It's a figure of speech expressing their closeness. They treat each other like family but still consider each other friends.

But what I find annoying is that they say this with ninja pairings, but are silent with Jaya.

Now, I LOVE JAYA. I have nothing against them. This is not to shit or criticize them at all. You will see.

Nya has been a part of the team since season one. Yes, Nya wasn't a ninja, but she was still part of the team and contributed A LOT. If it wasn't for her, the ninjas would be toast. Lmao. As much as they say she's not, Nya was part of the team. The ninjas, except Jay, saw her as a sister and a friend. Should Jay and Nya break up? Because that 'brother-code' extends to her too. Of course, they said no.

I agree. That's ridiculous, and the same goes for lava. Kai and Cole can still date if the story wants them to (I'm praying it'll happen). It's not 'incestuous' or weird. They're not siblings and never were.

YOU see them that way, that's fine. It's okay that some people see lava or any ninja pairing as family. It's okay if you don't see the romantic appeal.

But it's not a fact, and people spreading that opinion need to stop treating it as one. Stop calling lavashippers "incestuous" and weird for shipping Lava. Leave us alone and let us ship in peace.

Alright. That's it. I have a few more topics I want to touch on, but this is long enough. See you later!

[transryanguzman]

tbh I wish people would remember that that's the case on any show. recurring characters should get less screentime than main characters. I want to see buck have a story on his own without people complaining about not seeing tommy. tommy is a love interest, and we didn't see taylor 24/7 either

prefacing all of this by saying i did include myself in that post in that there are so many characters id love to see more of (tell me where carla is, we need more karen, what do the buckley parents REALLY think about tommy and bucks sexuality, i miss may!!!! whatever happened to harry???? will josh EVER get a boyfriend???). but the tommy of it all -

(which of course i am biased so maybe my opinion here is skewed and for that i ask forgiveness)

this is funny bc i feel like i don’t see it that much with tommy, mostly it’s just people having a laugh. like most of us didn’t even think we’d see him in the premiere at all so that’s even why we were so excited and happy for what we did get w chris’ birthday party. (obviously i don’t follow everyone so just my perspective.) i think most tommy fans are pretty realistic about what we’ll get while also wanting more about him. i definitely, at the very least, didn’t see anyone complaining after the premiere.

but i also think we have to remember that tommy is a very large part of bucks story right now, and i would argue since he is a first responder, has the potential to be part of the procedural narrative in a way that, say, taylor wasn’t. (and i would also argue in season 5 she had a LOT of screen time.). he knows everyone and has a history with the 118 and gerrard that would be interesting to explore. it’s different from your normal love interest who really only has a connection to one person and then knows everyone else through that person. in fact, tommy knew literally every other main character besides maddie before he knew buck - he even befriended eddie before buck. i don’t think it’s strange to want to explore that.

that being said, no, i don’t expect him in every episode or story, but i do expect him to be a heavy part of bucks story as he goes through whatever he’s about to go through and gets more settled in himself. it just makes sense.

but i’m going to be honest, this feels like a bad faith ask and anon just wanted a chance to complain about tommy. i’m sorry if that isn’t the case. i know i don’t follow everyone in fandom, but outside of silly little headcanons and spec that is for fun, i haven’t seen anyone complain we don’t see enough tommy or that he has too much screen time.

and i’m also going to add that most of the over the top love for tommy/lou, especially on official 911 channels comes from a place of trying to drown out unnecessary hate - you have to remember here that lou has gotten death threats, that just him being in that bee puns video has waves of people commenting that he was a jumpscare who should be warned for. so if people love him a little extra to try and be louder than the people who are being gross and nasty about him, well.

i’ve gone back through this and think i have given it fair thought and a thoughtful reply but idk it’s super early in the morning.

[ninjagobythenumbers]

Ninjago Character Search Engine

I made a tool where you can search Ninjago characters by name, type, allignment, species, gender, season, or a combination of all those factors. If you want to play around with it here's the link. I compiled all of the data myself so there's likely a few errors. I've already corrected where I had accidentally labeled Zane's dad as a serpentine. Please let me know if there's any problems!

How to use it

Basically, you just input the criteria you're interested in seeing. For instance, if you wanted to see all of the nindroids in Ninjago, you would do a search as follows.

An important thing you may notice here is I not only input "Nindroid", but I also input "New." I did this because my index has a new entry for each character each season. If you choose not you choose not to put "New," the output will include 21 Zanes, which is great but may not be what you're looking for.

Another thing to note is that if you're not searching by name, you need to make sure the name box is completely blank or you will get 0 results like in the following search where I left a space bar in the Name box.

If you are searching by Name, make sure the name exactly matches the entries or nothing will show up.

You can either view the entry in the index on the next sheet, or you can just find the person by inputting the proper criteria.

I also left some comments on the sheet with some useful tips! Feel free to ask any questions!

Criteria

I think it's important I explain how I created and employed my criteria as it can be pretty subjective.

Type

Type is one of my more subjective criteria. The options are Main, Supporting, Recurring, Guest, or Ensemble and I agonized over some of these placements. For instance, did Mr. F fulfill a supporting or Recurring role during season 9? Very difficult to say. Still, generally, these were my definitions. Main: Ninja (usually) or someone who significantly contributed to the plot and had a large percentage of screentime (it takes a lot for me to demote a ninja from main, but I had to in DR) ex: Lloyd in season 4

Supporting: A character that has a significant degree of screentime, their own personality/backstory, and helps another character push the plot along ex: Garmadon in season 4

Recurring: Pretty much any character that speaks in more than a few episodes ex: Chope and Kapau in season 4

Guest: A character with personality who speaks or otherwise makes a mark in only one episode that season ex: Morro in season 4

Ensemble: A character that's only in the background and/or has no personality of their own and/or is just sort of filling out an army ex: Acidicus in season 4

Allignment

Allignment is also a very tricky category. I had to make a choice about whether neutral or good would be the default for characters I don't know much about. I went with good as I feel like it fits the tone of the show. Thus, I assume for instance that Mara from Nya's class is a good person even though she's done nothing to demonstrate that.

Good: Default. Also, if you help save the world, I usually let it overshadow previous bad behaviour. ex: Arin in Dragons Rising (S1)

Neutral: You have to be pretty morally ambiguous to get this designation. I generally assigned it to influencers, anti-heros, somewhat redeemed villains, and members of morally unclear societies. ex: Agent Rodrick Allen in Dragons Rising (S1)

Evil: I generally assigned this to all antagonists, even if they weren't actively trying to destroy the world. ex: Rapton in Dragons Rising (S1)

Species

Here's a list of each species I included in my index.

Human Nindroid Demigod Skeleton Dragon Serpentine Beast Oni Ghost Djinn Hunter Construct Formling Munce Geckle Islander Merlopian Devonian Tide Unknown Miscellanous

Most of this criteria is pretty objective, so I'll only clarify the less obvious ones.

Beast: Any animal, monster, or creature. ex: Krag from the Ice Chapter

Construct: I applied this to any character created by another whether it be through magic or engineering. I excluded Nindroids because they're a large enough sub-category. ex: Bonzle from Dragons Rising or MiniPix Seven from Crystalized

Unknown: This just applies to the Forbidden Five as we don't know much about them but they don't appear human. ex: Nox in Dragons Rising

Miscellaneous: I only applied this in rare categories where not only was their species a bit unclear, but they appeared to be the only member of that species on screen. ex: Benthomaar from Seabound

Gender

Oh no, it appears I accidentally created a gender cascade. Anyway, I based character's genders primarily off of the gender of their VA , but I also took into consideration the pronouns other characters used to refer to them. I didn't do a thorough transcript search though, so let me know if I've made any errors. I designated some characters as unknown, usually because they neither spoke nor were spoken about.

Season

Season, like species, is also pretty objective but I'll clarify some of my choices. I only used titles for Day of the Departed and the Islandbecause they don't really fit into the numbered seasons. I used numbers rather than season names for the most part because they're more concise. I designated Dragons Rising seasons 1 and 2 as 16 and 17, primarily because that's how I view them, but also for this conciseness factor. I split season 17 into two seasons (17 and 17.5) because they're two unqiue arcs that different casts of characters, some of which have changed their allignments/types between part 1 and 2. I may do the same for 11 and 16 in the future.

New/Old

I put a new entry for each character so it was necessary for me to designate whether this was the first entry of the character or a repeat entry. Having multiple entries allows you to view how characters changed over seasons rather than only being able to see their initial criteria. It also allows you to see the full cast breakdown for each season.

That's pretty much it! Here's the link again. Please do play around with the search and let me know if you find anything cool. The link also includes all of my previous spreadsheets so peruse that at your leisure if you're interested. Thanks as always for reading this far and let me know if you have any feedback, made the exact same thing previously (looking at you @agenericplaceholdername ), or have requests for new spreadsheets or charts. I have a lot of options now that I've created this tool and I've very excited to use it!

[danse-macabre-ballerina]

HIS GREATEST AWARD

18+ Explicit (5,153 words)

[Tobias invites the tour's choreographer to attend the Grammy Awards, only for things to take an unexpected turn between them in the heat of the moment.]

[Ok, I have the utmost respect for Tobias' wife and kids, and for him for being what appears to be a fantastic family man. But come on...a girl can dream, right? . This work is not part of a series, per se, but the main character is recurring across different timelines.]

The dimly lit after-party for the Grammys pulsed with the vibrant energy of music's elite, the air thick with the smell of champagne and sweat. The soft glow of twinkling string lights cast a sensual ambiance over the crowded room, where laughter and conversation flowed as freely as the booze. The heavy thump of bass from the DJ's set vibrated through the soles of stilettos and tailored oxfords alike, teasing the crowd with promises of a night that would be etched in memories forever as they writhed throughout the dancefloor. The clock struck midnight, but the night was young, and these affairs were infamous for going well into the morning, the revelers finally leaving as dawn was breaking with their hard-earned statues or sexual conquests...both if they were especially lucky.

Mira swayed to the rhythm of the music as she navigated the sea of strangers, her senses heightened as she absorbed the electric atmosphere. She was careful to stay close on Tobias' heels as he darted around the room, every so often looking back over his shoulder to make sure she was still with him, gently reaching for her hand to guide her through the crowds of needy fans that kept swarming around him. She reached for a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, desperate for something to quiet her racing mind. How could he be so calm at a time like this?, she wondered.

.

The hours leading up to the ceremony had passed in a frantic blur. After so many years of performing, Mira had been unfazed by the prospect of accepting Tobias' invitation. Not as his date, of course, but as the choreographer and his frequent collaborator, it was nice to be included. She was used to doing her own hair and makeup herself expertly, and what's one more cocktail dress and set of heels? But as the time drew closer to meet him at the event, she was starting to feel something in her stomach she hadn't felt in years. Hearing the overture to Giselle booming through the theater, waiting in the wings for her first entrance, crouched down with her head between her knees, desperately trying to slow down her breathing, wondering if it was too late to cancel the whole thing. She was fine once she got onstage, she always was, but the feeling beforehand was always the same. She felt that way again now.

When she arrived at the venue she immediately regretted going alone, feeling terribly out of place, social anxiety raging, panic rapidly setting in. Just when fight-or-flight finally overtook her, she saw Tobias on the red carpet and felt that familiar relief of making it onstage. Everything would be fine. He looked wonderful tonight, every bit the rockstar she knew he could be. The long year of touring had taken a toll on him, he expected so much from himself and everyone around him, and by the end they all looked a little...tired. But not tonight - He looked well-rested, hair freshly cut, beard shaved, his elegant Scandinavian features chiseled in the flashing lights of the cameras, and in his usual mix of high fashion and rebel punk rocker, he looked quite dashing.

When he found her on the outskirts of the crowd, he seemed to breathe sigh of relief, smiling at her with his eyes in that way only he could. I hope they got a picture of that, she thought. It's his best look.

After the photographers got what they wanted from him and wished him luck, Tobias ran quickly over to Mira, taking her small hands in his. They were shaking, but so were his. "You look absolutely stunning, Mira," he said, swirling his arm to make her spin. She giggled, cheeks flushing. "You look pretty nice yourself. You clean up okay after all," she teased, his presence soothing her to finally relax enough to breathe. He dropped into a dramatic bow before extending his arm to her. She gratefully linked her arm with his and he lead her through the crowd, neither of them sure who was leading who, and who needed the other more.

His role as the lead singer of Ghost had always been one of quiet confidence, but those who truly knew him understood that beneath the façade lay a complex web of emotions, waiting to be unraveled by the right person. She seemed to be one of the few people who understood that, understand him, and her presence was calming, making him feel more like himself. "Are you nervous?", she asked as he helped her find her seat, a few rows back from his own. "Well you know me," he said, trying to sound cockier than he felt. "But once it's time, I'm going to get really competitive and have to fight someone."

.

The ceremony was endless, celebrity after celebrity reading nonsense off of cue cards, musicians she had never heard of accepting award after award. When the commercial break came that seemed like it must be the last before what they'd been waiting for, she made her way forward to Tobias, rubbing him gently on the shoulder. He was tense, on edge. "Whatever happens," she said quietly, her lips barely touching his ear. "I think you deserve this more than anyone. I'm so proud of you." He was too nervous to respond for several moments, just placing his hand over hers before closing his eyes and whispering, "I couldn't have done this without you." She looked stunned, her part in the grand scheme of the tour being so small, and before she could respond they were all alerted to get back to their seats. She settled for one last squeeze of his shoulder and a small, chaste kiss pressed against his temple.

When they announced the nominees, she clasped her hands on her lap, trying to get them to stop shaking. When they slowly opened the envelope, she held her breath. She had told herself that if he won, she would stay at her seat, show her support but let him decide on his own who along his path he wanted to engage with on his way to the stage. But in the heat of the moment, when his name was called, all reason and planning went out the window. She ran to him with open arms, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing against his chest. He grabbed her face with both hands, his lips crashing against hers in a quick, passionate kiss. And just like that he was gone, climbing the stairs to the stage to accept his award. He seemed cool as a cucumber, his usual rockstar self, and she stood frozen in place, hands clasped over her mouth. Whatever he said in his speech, whoever he thanked, she didn't hear it. All she could hear was the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. When she could finally command her feet to move, she slinked awkwardly back to her seat, hoping to disappear completely.

.

"Are you okay, Mira?," he asked loudly, straining to be heard over the pumping music. "You should eat something, you're looking pale. And you need more in your stomach than champagne." She didn't get a chance to respond, he was already being whisked into a conversation with God knows who. He was right, she wasn't feeling herself. Maybe it was the champagne or lack of food, but she knew that wasn't the problem. Tobias noticed her starting to sway and excused himself abruptly, steadying her just before her knees were about to buckle underneath her. "I think we could both use some air."

He led her in silence to the first quiet place he could find, a dark hallway past the coat check where there was a water fountain. He pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket, wetting it and placing it on her forehead as she leaned against the wall, trying to ground herself. "Better?", he asked, his eyes full of their usual kindness.

She had had enough. She grabbed the cloth roughly from his hand, catching him off-guard. "What the fuck is wrong with you?", she hissed. "How can you kiss me like that and then act like nothing happened? What kind of fucking sociopath are you?"

He chuckled deeply, a full laugh that came from his belly and only made her anger smolder. "Well, I thought it might be inappropriate to hike up that pretty dress of yours and fuck you in the middle of a televised event," he said, leaning in, sliding a hand down her back and giving her backside a light slap. "Don't think I didn't consider it."

Mira's eyes widened in surprise, the handkerchief crumpled in her hand. Tobias' playful smirk only served to infuriate her further, but there was an underlying warmth in his eyes that made her heart flutter. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. "Tobias, I...," she started, her voice softer now before trailing off completely. She looked down, her cheeks flushing a soft pink. Tobias reached out, gently tucking a stray curl behind her ear. His voice was low and soothing, "Mira, that kiss...it was spontaneous, and I'm glad it happened. I've been wanting to do that for a long time." He paused, his thumb brushing against her cheek. "But I understand if you need some space. I don't want to make you uncomfortable." Mira looked up, her eyes meeting his. She could see the sincerity in his gaze, the genuine concern. She took a deep breath, her heart pounding in her chest. "No, I don't want space," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I want...I just want to know what it means." Tobias' smile was slow and sweet, his eyes never leaving hers. "Then let's start over," he said, leaning in to press a soft, lingering kiss to her lips.

Tobias' fingers traced the curve of Mira's jawline, his thumb gently caressing her cheek as he studied her reaction. He leaned in again, their lips meeting in a tender kiss that deepened as their bodies pressed closer. Mira's hands found their way to his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart under her touch. Tobias' hands slid around her back, pulling her even closer. Their kisses became more urgent, more passionate, as they lost themselves in the moment. Mira's breath hitched as Tobias' hands slipped down to her hips, his grip firm as he pulled her against him. She could feel the heat of his body, the growing hardness of his desire, and it sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine. She moaned softly, her hands moving to his shoulders, her nails digging lightly into his jacket. Tobias' hands moved up, cupping her face, his thumbs brushing against her lips before he pulled away slightly, his eyes dark with desire. "I don't want to stop this time," he whispered, his voice hoarse with need.

Mira's heart pounded in her chest as she looked into Tobias' eyes, seeing the raw hunger in their depths. She took a deep breath, her voice barely above a whisper. "Then don't," she replied, her hands moving to his waist, gripping his jacket and pulling him closer. Tobias' hands moved to her back, his fingers tracing the line of her spine before slipping under the fabric of her dress. His touch sent a wave of heat coursing through her body, and she felt herself growing bolder. She leaned in, her lips brushing against his ear as she whispered, "I want you too. I always have." Tobias' breath hitched, his hands moving to her hips, pulling her against him. She could feel his hard length pressing against her, and it sent excitement rippling between her legs. She moaned softly, her hands moving to his chest, her fingers tracing the line of his muscles. Tobias' hands moved up her back, his fingers tangling in her hair as he deepened the kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth.

His hands slid down to her breasts, cupping them gently before his thumbs brushed against her nipples through the fabric of her dress. Mira gasped, her back arching as Tobias' fingers found her nipples, rolling them gently between his thumb and forefinger. She could feel the heat building between her legs, her body aching for more. Tobias' lips left hers, trailing down her neck, his teeth gently nipping at her skin as he made his way to her breasts. He pulled down the top of her dress, exposing her breasts to the cool air of the hallway. His tongue flicked out, licking her nipples before his teeth gently bit down, sending shivers of pleasure through her body. Mira moaned, her hands moving to his hair, gripping it tightly as Tobias continued to tease her nipples with his tongue and teeth. His hands moved down to her hips, his fingers slipping under the fabric of her dress to cup her ass, pulling her even closer to him. She could feel his erection pressing against her, grinding against her, and it sent a wave of desire crashing over her. Tobias' fingers moved to her clit, rubbing it gently through the fabric of her panties before slipping inside, his fingers moving in a slow, steady rhythm. She could feel the heat building, her body already hovering on the brink of orgasm. "More," she breathed. "Please, Tobias. I'm so close."

He smiled to himself, amused by her body's neediness, and a little shocked at how effortlessly all this had escalated, their bodies crashing into each other as if it was inevitable. He slid one finger slowly inside her and she moaned as her muscles gripped around him hard. "Shhh, Mira," he whispered against her ear. "We have to be quiet." He added another finger into her tight wetness, stretching her, going slow to let her body adjust. Tobias' fingers moved with precision, his touch sending waves of pleasure coursing through Mira's body. She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders as she felt herself teetering on the edge of ecstasy. "Tobias," her voice barely audible, yet laced with desperation. "Please don't stop." He looked down at her, his eyes filled with a mix of hunger and tenderness. "Let go, Mira," he whispered, his voice a low rumble that made her whole body shudder. "Let go for me." His fingers moved faster, his thumb pressing against her clit with just the right amount of pressure. Mira's body tensed, her breath hitching as she felt the familiar sensation building within her. She closed her eyes, her head falling back against the wall as she gave in to the pleasure. "Oh fuck," she moaned, her body convulsing as the orgasm washed over her. Tobias held her close, his arm wrapped around her as she rode out the waves of pleasure, muscles clenching around his fingers, her body trembling with each aftershock.

Tobias' fingers slipped out of Mira, leaving her gasping for breath as she leaned against the wall, her body still trembling from the intense orgasm. He looked at her, his eyes filled with a mixture of satisfaction and concern. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice gentle. Mira nodded, a small smile playing on her lips. "That was...fantastic," she whispered, her voice still shaky. "I always knew you were good with your hands, but Jesus." Tobias chuckled, his fingers tracing circles on her back. "I'm glad you enjoyed it," he said, his voice low. "I want to make you come over and over again. We've got a lot of lost time to make up for." He leaned in to kiss her, gently at first, then deepening as their hands grasped at each other's bodies, neither of them remotely sated. Mira slid her small hand across the lean muscles of his chest, over the flat plane of his stomach, resting on his throbbing erection that strained painfully against the fabric of his pants, gripping him gently until he moaned into her mouth.

Tobias' fingers tightened around Mira's waist, his breath hot against her ear as he whispered, "I need you, Mira" She nodded, her eyes locked onto his, a silent agreement between them. Tobias pressed her against the cool wall, his hands sliding up to roughly cup her breasts. She gasped, her head falling back against the wall as his thumbs brushed against her nipples, sending a jolt of pleasure through her. "Please...stop teasing me. It's too much," she moaned, her hands moving to his belt, fumbling with the buckle. Tobias chuckled, his lips finding hers in a fierce kiss as he helped her unbuckle his belt, unzipping his pants and letting his now aching erection free. His hands moved to her dress, pulling it up over her hips to reveal a skimpy pair of lace panties. Tobias' eyes darkened with desire as he looked at her, his hands moving to her hips, pulling her against him. "You're so fucking beautiful," he growled, his lips trailing down her neck, his hands moving to her ass, lifting her up against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist, feeling the hard length of him pressing against her through the thin layer of lace. "Fuck me, Tobias," she whispered, her voice hoarse with need. He smiled, his hands moving to her panties, pulling them aside as he positioned himself at her entrance. His green eyes bore through hers as he slowly pushed into her, feeling moments of resistance as her muscles gradually relaxed, filling her completely. Mira moaned, her hands gripping his shoulders as she adjusted to the sensation of him inside her. Tobias' hips moved, his thrusts slow and deep, his eyes never leaving hers. "You feel so good," he groaned, his hands gripping her ass hard enough to bruise. Mira moaned, her head rolling as she met each of his thrusts, her body moving in sync with his. Tobias' mouth was frantic, lips on her jaw, teeth on her neck, his thrusts becoming harder, faster. The sound of their bodies slapping against the wall threatening their fragile privacy. Mira's breath hitched as she felt the burning starting in her stomach, her body tensing as she teetered on the edge. "Tobias," she whimpered, her voice barely audible. "Come with me."

His thrusts became erratic, his body tensing as he felt his own orgasm building. "Now, Mira," he groaned, his voice strained. "Come now." His fingers dug into her soft flesh, claiming her, marking her. Mira's body convulsed, her muscles clenching around him as she came, her body trembling with each aftershock. Tobias groaned, his body shuddering as he found his own release, his seed spilling into her. They stayed like that for a moment, their bodies clinging weakly to each other. "Fuck, Mira," Tobias whispered, his voice filled with awe. Mira smiled, her eyes filled with a mix of satisfaction and surprise. "I know," she whispered, her voice still shaky. "I've never felt anything like that before." Tobias pulled out of her, helping her down from the wall onto wobbly legs. "We should get back," he said, his voice gentle. "Before someone comes looking for us." Mira nodded, her cheeks flushing a soft pink as she straightened her dress. "Yeah, we should," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She looked up at him, her eyes filled with a mix of desire and uncertainty. "Tobias, what are we doing?" she asked, her voice soft. "I don't know," he admitted, his thumb brushing against her cheek. "But we'll figure it out." He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. "Together."

.

She woke earlier than she intended, her sleep unsatisfying, tainted by too much champagne and loud music. Her bra and panties were begining to chafe her skin, but she'd been too exhausted when they got back to the hotel just before dawn to bother getting anything from her own room, opting instead to tumble into Tobias' bed with him, both of them falling asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows, bodies entwined. Now she found herself with her head resting on his chest, an arm draped across his shoulders. He'd only managed to strip down to a t-shirt and boxers, a contast to the look he had been sporting the night before. He looked deliciously casual, like very few people ever had the chance to see him, and the soft fabric of his shirt rose and fell in steady breaths, so peaceful. But as blissful as the moment felt, she couldn't ignore her aching body any longer. A hot shower would do her good, she decided as she pulled herself away from him slowly, careful not to wake him.

The water was soothing on her back, the smells of soap and the monotonous sounds that echoed through the bathroom helping to ground her. As she ran her hands over her body, she couldn't help but let her mind wander back to where his hands had been, the way he'd touched her. The swell of her hips, already starting to bruise from his grip. Her nipples raw from his teeth. And only when her hand reached between her legs did she fully realize how sore she was. And yet, as memories of just hours earlier came flooding back, she couldn't resist the urge to lazily circle her clit with her fingers, a low heat already burning inside her.

Suddenly, the curtain slid open and Tobias stood before her, his naked body silhouetted by the lone vanity light reflecting off the fogged mirror, lean muscles tense, his erection already growing, a look of mischief in his eyes. Mira took a few steps back out in surprise, out of the safety of the stream of hot water. "Shit, Tobias. Y-you scared me," she stammered. "What are you doing?"

"No, what are YOU doing?", he asked as he stepped into the shower, closing the distance between them, one hand pressed against the wall over her head, pinning her against it. He wasn't a tall man, but in the moment he seemed to tower over her. "Were you touching yourself?", he whispered, brushing his lips against her ear." We're you thinking of me?" She didn't need to answer. His fingers were already parting her folds, feeling how hot and wet she was, and not from the shower. He slid his fingertips just barely inside her when she winced, grating her nails into his chest. "Baby, you're sore," he looked into her eyes with a mixture of concern and satisfaction. She nodded but her hips were already grinding against his hand, desperate for the pain to be replaced with pleasure. "Let me make you feel better."

He guided her to sit on the end of the large soaking tub, bringing her feet up to rest along the edge, spreading her thighs wide. He took a moment to take in the sight of her, back arching against the cold marble wall, body writhing in anticipation. "I'll be gentle. I promise." She nodded again, surrendering completely to him.

Tobias' fingers slowly parted Mira's folds, his touch gentle yet firm as he explored her sensitive skin. He could see the faint bruises from last night's passion, a testament to their intensity, and a shiver of desire ran through him. "I want to show you what you mean to me," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. Mira's breath hitched as he leaned in, his tongue flicking out to taste her. He started slow, his tongue tracing her entrance, teasing her clit with soft, gentle licks. Mira's body responded immediately, her hips arching against his mouth, a soft moan escaping her lips. Tobias' tongue slid deeper, thrusting in time with the movements of her hips, quickly gaining speed. He could feel her body tensing, her raw muscles clenching around nothing as he continued his relentless assault. "Tobias," she gasped, her voice filled with desperation, her hand gripping at his hair. "Please, more." He smiled, his tongue circling her clit, one slender finger sliding carefully into her, pressing deep and curling slightly, his other hand pressing lightly on her abdomen. Mira's body convulsed, her orgasm ripping through her like a storm, her cries of pleasure echoing through the bathroom. Tobias held her still with one hand on her pulsing stomach, his other hand and mouth still working her, drawing out her pleasure until she was left trembling and spent.

He let her relax for a moment, breath ragged, head slumped to the side, pressed against the cold wall. She looked both messy and stunning, and he needed more of her.

He took her small hands in his. "Can you stand, Mira?" She nodded weakly, still too overwhelmed to form words, her legs struggling to support her. He turned her to face the wall, holding her hands clasped above her head. He nuzzled his face into her wet hair, his whisper taking a serious tone, "we can stop now if you want. If you need to. I can wait."

She arched back against him, already feeling the heat of his cock against her entrance, her body aching for him. "No, please. I want to feel it, Tobias. I want you."

He moaned, freeing one hand to guide himself into her dripping tightness. "Relax, Mira," he purred when he felt resistance, heard her breath catch. "Breathe for me." He moaned, his hands finally releasing their grip on her wrists and moving to her waist, his fingers tracing the curve of her hips, sliding up to cup her breasts, his fingertips teasing her nipples. "You're so tight. You feel amazing. We'll go slow, okay." She nodded and he began to move, his thrusts slow and deliberate, each one sending waves of pleasure and slight pain through Mira's body. She could feel the heat building between her legs, her body aching for more. "Tobias," she moaned, her voice barely audible. "Please don't stop." He smiled, his fingers tightening on her hips as he picked up the pace, his thrusts becoming harder, faster. He ran one hand through her hair, turning her face to look at him, his eyes filled with a mix of hunger and tenderness. "I won't," he promised, his voice a low growl. "Not until you come for me." He reached out, the relentless rhythm of his hips never stopping, pulling down the shower head, adjusting the setting and pressing it into her trembling hand, guiding her use the stream to massage her already sensitive clit. Mira's body tensed at the intensity, her breath hitching as she felt the orgasm building within her at a dizzying speed. "Oh fuck," she moaned, her body convulsing as the pleasure washed over her. Tobias groaned, his body shuddering as he felt her inner muscles ripple in wave after wave sucking him in deeper. They stayed like that for a moment, her body wet and limp in his arms. "Fuck, Mira," Tobias whispered, his voice filled with awe. Mira could only whimper as she let the shower head fall from her shaking hand.

After turning off the water and wrapping soft towels around them both, Tobias led Mira back to bed, her legs barely able to support her. Lying next each other, he smoothed and stroked her hair, kissing her gently as her breathing returned to normal, content to just be with her. But gradually the kisses deepened, their hands exploring each other's bodies, the towels discarded across the bed, his erection still painfully needy. She was grinding against him, her folds wet and hot against the sensitive underside of his cock. It was more than he could stand and he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him to straddle him. She braced herself, arching back with her hands gripping his thighs, rolling her hips against him, flushed breasts bouncing in time. "You're so fucking hot," he growled and she lurched forward, teeth finding his neck, her wet hair wrapping across his face, her scorching pussy still grinding against him. She froze when his tip, dripping with precum lined up with her entrance and he felt her body go rigid. "It's okay. Go as slow as you need to."

Mira's eyes fluttered open, her dark brown eyes meeting Tobias' as she slowly rolled her hips against him, feeling the soft, steady rhythm of their bodies entwined. She braced her hands on his chest, feeling his muscles tense with restraint, easing him slowly inside her, stretching her inch by inch. "You feel so good," she moaned, her nails scraping against his skin as she began to move, her hips circling slow and steady. Tobias' hands moved to her back, his fingers tracing the line of her spine as he pulled her closer, their lips meeting in a soft, passionate kiss. He broke away, his hands moving to her hips, guiding her movements as he thrust up into her, their bodies moving in sync. The sound of their wet bodies slapping against each other filled the room, the scent of sex heavy in the air. Mira's breath hitched as she felt the burning starting in her stomach, her body tensing as she teetered on the edge of ecstasy. "Fuck, Mira. You're gripping me so hard," he growled. "I don't know how much longer I can hold back."

"Don't hold back," she whimpered, her voice desperate. "Come with me." He groaned, his body shuddering as he felt his own orgasm building. His fingers moved to her clit, rubbing it gently as he thrust into her one last time. Mira's body shuddered, her muscles gripping him harder than ever as she came, her body spasming out of her control. Tobias arched off the bed, his body rigid as he found his own climax, pumping into her in waves. She collapsed onto his chest, her body finally sated, clinging to him with trembling arms as if she might break into pieces if he let her go.

Tobias' fingers gently traced the curve of Mira's back, his touch soothing and tender. He slowly slid out of her, gasping from the overstimulation. She whimpered in slight protest, despite the burning soreness that was already setting in. He pulled her in close, his chin resting on top of her head as he breathed in the scent of her shampoo and skin. "You're amazing, Mira," he murmured, his voice filled with genuine affection. "The best thing that's happened to me all weekend." Mira's heart swelled with warmth at his words, pressing harder against his chest. She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his. "That's quite a compliment under the circumstances," she admitted with a teasing smile. "I can't believe...this happened. All of this." Tobias chuckled, his hand brushing against her cheek. "When it rains it pours it guess," he sighed, his green eyes twinkling. "But for now, let's just enjoy this moment." He leaned in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to her lips. "Just you and me."

[If you like this story, check out my others because I have quite a few now on AO3, always guaranteed to be smut-tastic. Comments and suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for reading!]

[loregoddess]

As promised, the theory heights of the Octo2 crew based on my best guess from the official arts. These are not canon heights (or headcanon heights), they're my best theory for the general heights the art team was using based on recurring heights in official arts.

I used several official arts, but this was the main art I used for ref:

This is (currently) the only official art where all the characters are standing more or less on the same plane, without being too far in front of or behind others. Also they're spaced out nicely, which made sketching mockups of their proportions much easier.

I also went ahead and threw my lineup onto an actual height chart (US system, sorry) to try and guess at their heights, and got...these:

Again, these are super not canon (or headcanon), and even for theory territory this falls more into the wild speculation side of things. But this was my best guess, since placing Osvald in the 6' range made Agnea and Hikari way too short. Ochette is a beastling, and as far as I can tell they have a different set of proportions as well as anatomy, so I'm assuming her smallness (which is very consistent in official arts) is intentional on the art team's part.

(I also didn't include Ochette's ears in her height estimate, but it should be noted that while I used the concept arts from the artbook bc they provided the most consistent "character is standing in an upright pose" artwork, Ochette's ears are actually a bit larger in all official non-concept artwork).

Anyhow, I also included my entire process for how I extrapolated under the cut. As a treat.

So I started with the main art I showed above and drew out quick mockups measuring each character from the top of their head to bottom of heel, not counting heels on shoes. For characters in dynamic poses, I sketched out a quick "puppet" using major anatomical points (head, torso, hips, knees, heel) as guidepoints, which I then "straightened out" separately to figure out the "height" (as seen with Ochette, Partitio, Hikari, and Throne; I forgot to save a copy of my Osvald sketchover but since his stance was so wide I knew he was going to loose a bit of height if I didn't sketch a puppet).

Agnea is mostly upright, but she's leaned forward a bit, and I wasn't going to be able to figure out how tall she was if she wasn't leaning forward with a puppet, so I gave her a bit of height in her mockup using my best guess as an artist for where the top of her head would be if she wasn't leaning forward. I took the same liberty with Hikari after straghtening out his sketch-puppet, since he's also leaning a bit forward. I couldn't actually see the bottom of either of Partitio's heels, so I went with my best "I'm an artist how would I have drawn this" educated guess.

Then I grabbed images of the concept artwork from the artbook scans (special thanks to @octopathartbooker for the scans) and adjusted each character to the mockup, and then put all the mockups so that the bottom "heel-line" was level for every character, getting this:

Note that Throne is in a wide stance for her concept art but that I still scaled her to the mockup for ease of visual reference (even though as I've scaled the art, it looks like she'd be taller if she were to stand upright, but I needed the visual more than I needed the pose accuracy). I also ignored the position of Agnea's foot in favor of having her heel on the heel-line, so she looks kind of awkward. These things happen, but considering how a few of the heights bounce around a tiny bit in official arts, I think this is the best I could do.

Because a few of the heights just...didn't look right (Partitio being that tall, and Ochette being that small) I also referenced a few other key official arts. First off, the "thank you" art:

This was useful for checking Throne's height against Osvald, since if I were to draw perspective lines then the top of Throne's head would be about level with Osvald's shoulders. This art also shows Ochette as being about half Throne's height, which is also consistent with my mockups.

I also checked the "nighttime" artwork for the soundtrack:

This art isn't actually as useful given how much perspective depth is used in the illustration (Agnea looking taller than Osvald bc she's in the midground and he's in the background being a good example of the depth I'm referring to), but it does show Ochette next to Hikari, and again, she is small. Also Partitio towering in the background supports the idea that he's actually just like, really tall.

The final official art I used to check heights was the endgame artwork, which is naturally a huge spoiler, so go ahead and skip this if you don't want to see it, bc aside from my notes on the artwork there isn't anything after it. (J is the hotkey that'll let you skip to the bottom of a post, though I dunno how this'll look if you're on mobile, sorry).

.

.

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.

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This art is...somewhat helpful. I can't see anyone's feet and Ochette appears to be floating (although again, she is tiny compared to everyone else), and there's still some depth of perspective at play, and some of the characters look like they're standing on a higher elevation than others. But! Here we can see that yeah, Partitio is about as tall as Osvald and that's with his head leaning forward (tall enough to use Osvald as an armrest, Parti buddy). Agnea also looks like she could be about two feet shorter than Osvald and this art does nothing to suggest that Hikari isn't short, but again it's hard to tell with some of the perspective choices. Mostly this the art that convinced me that, okay, yes, Partitio is that tall.

[velvet-vox]

The insane, untapped potential of Rebecca from Murder Drones.

Hello Murder Drones Tumblr. My name is Markiplier, and I'm the fastest man alive.

To the outside world, I'm a regular Reddit user hiding in their mother's basement, but secretly, I've done nothing except consume Rebecca content for the past 72 hours, with only one objective in mind: spread the truth about this one, singular character that I didn't give a single damn about to convince you that she could have been someone important in an alternate universe.

To do so, I had to consult the classics. Rewatch the entire series again, hogging the murder drones rebecca tag, checking out her Wikipedia page (which has to be rewritten by the way, cause it sucks), create a new Rebecca centered gallery on Pinterest, and stalk the channels of her main worshippers, all in the name of my research.

Once I had collected enough data and ideas, I was finally ready.

Today, I'm going to shed light on some unknown traits and misconceptions surrounding the character, all the while showcasing all the ideas that I've gathered that would have made Rebecca a more prominent part of Uzi's and maybe even N's development.

This was by far the hardest undertaking I've ever imposed upon myself in the history of this blog. Please, enjoy the following content at your own risk and expense.

Chapter 1: The Origins.

Some context for those of you who are uninitiated in the Becca cult, Rebecca is this girl:

She's a minor side character inside of episode 3 and 4, and a background character inside of episode 2; she's infamous in the community for being a "bully" and trying to steal N from Uzi while already dating and making out with other classmates.

Despite never committing genocide and being the only member of the cheerleader trio to not have been responsible for anybody's death, she's pretty hated by the fanbase at large or plainly forgotten/dismissed, at best people just don't care about her and see her as just too unimportant to be hated, at worst they kill her in the most gruesome of ways or accuse her of racism, homophobia, eccetera (before killing her, of course).

Although pretty unpopular, she still has her own niche of fans who gather up at the table to worship her; furthermore, there are a lot of fanarts from people who don't even like her where she survived the events of Cabin Fever but is now disabled and confined to a wheelchair.

The reason behind such treatment is due to the fact that Rebecca has committed five of the worst cardinal sins a fictional character can make: being an obstacle to the most popular ship in a fandom; being mean to a fan favourite such as the main character without any clear motivation; being annoying by proxy according to other characters reactions without doing anything to disprove it, thus reinforcing the idea in the audience that you are annoying; being unimportant to the overall story without having any obvious redeeming or interesting qualities while being perceived as graving in each and everyone of your few scenes; and, of course, being a woman.

But besides all that, whose mostly common knowledge, what else is there to say about Rebecca? What are some of her less noticeable traits and characteristics that make her worth it of an analysis and a rewrite to better include her inside the plot?

Well, unfortunately, the answers are not as uplifting and as satisfying as Rebecca's stans were hoping they would be. Even in an alternative universe, I doubt she would really be as important as some of the other characters, more so an important character for Uzi's development. Maybe even N's.

But don't let this statement fool you into safety: I genuinely believe canon Rebecca is simultaneously so much better and so much worse than the community believes her to be. Rebecca is as much of a freak as Uzi, but not in her obnoxious, extroverted way, nor in Doll's sociopathic, introverted way: she's their uncommon middle ground who somehow manages to be more messed up than the both of them in certain aspects.

Chapter 2: "The quirks"

Upon commencing my research, I've quickly realised that I might be even more unnerved by Rebecca than I was with Yeva, and it's all due to the fact Rebecca facial expressions and body gestures might be the single most obtuse and undecipherable details that Liam has decided to insert into the background of his story. You probably don't understand what I'm talking about because you haven't been losing sleep at night like I did, but let me show you the pictures:

Noticing anything wrong?

Everyone else upon seeing V is immediately frozen in terror or just surprised by the Disassembly Drone presence, but Rebecca instead just looks mildly.... annoyed? Intrigued? It's hard to tell by the image's shots alone but the only time where Rebecca's facial expressions change to the shocked looks of the Worker Drones on the right is when Lizzie says her infamous line and socially excluses her from the popular kids table.

There could be more to say about Rebecca's following lines "Fine, I forgive her! Settle." and how they don't really mean what you think they mean, because, just like we are going to see in a moment, Becca really doesn't give a damn about murder, in some ways, even more than the other Workers, but I haven't found a single more compelling meaning besides, you know, Rebecca's family, which we are soon going to be talking about.

Other weird facial expressions that she does are the weird look that she has when escaping Prom, her reactions to people dying in Cabin Fevers, and probably every single scene she's in when you think about it hard enough.

She also does this weird thing with her fingers. A sign of anxiety? She looks fairly inexpressive. Yet again, she might have learned to mask her emotions and the hand gesture could be a way to let it all out without putting too much attention upon herself. But why? Is the guy standing right beside her one of her parents? More of that in a minute.

Finally, and this is the biggest point of speculation, there's a high possibility that Rebecca might have sensory issues, a possibility that we are going to treat as fact, thus explaining why she's so afraid of falling out of the boat in this scene: aside from the fact that Worker Drones are probably not waterproof judging by the text in episode 1; Rebecca is literally experiencing sensorial discomfort from the erratic movements of the boat, and even if she was able to survive in water, she wouldn't be able to swim due to her disability. (Other possible evidence of this is the squirm she emits when the door of the abandoned cabin Uzi is in slams shut. Darren also reacts to it, but in a much more normal manner).

But now you might be asking: "If she really had sensory issues making these moments where she lacks balance scarier, why did she pick up cheerleading?" Which nicely segway's us into the next part:

(Side note, I've only specifically searched for sensorial discomfort in relation to sex, and based the rest on preemptive knowledge, thus I might have messed up some parts of this analysis; I'm sorry to anyone who experiences these issues and didn't find their inclusion in this essay accurate.)

Chapter 3: Becca the 13th

In the following segment, the line between canon and fanon, reasonable and made up blurs, but I beg you to stay patient and follow my thought process: the far fetched parts are based on the elements already present in the show to make Rebecca a more interesting characther while tying her to the themes of the show and to the preexisting dynamics.

In my research to answer the question "Why did Rebecca pick up cheerleading" I looked up a site explaining all the reasons why girls decide to get into cheerleading, and I've singled out these answers as the most likely possibilities for Rebecca's interest in the sport.

Passion for the Sport: Many women who become cheerleaders have a genuine passion for cheerleading and enjoy the physical and artistic aspects of the sport. They may see cheerleading as a way to express themselves creatively and be part of a team.

Opportunities for Performance: Cheerleading provides opportunities for women to perform in front of large audiences, which can be a rewarding experience for those who enjoy being in the spotlight and entertaining others.

Team Camaraderie: Cheerleading often involves working closely with a team of other cheerleaders, which can foster a strong sense of camaraderie and friendship. Many women value the sense of community and teamwork that comes with being a cheerleader.

Scholarship Opportunities: In some cases, cheerleading can provide opportunities for women to earn scholarships for college or other educational benefits. This can be a motivating factor for women who are looking to further their education.

Personal Development: Cheerleading can help women develop valuable skills such as teamwork, communication, leadership, and time management. These skills can be beneficial in both personal and professional settings.

Love for Dance and Performance: Cheerleading often involves elements of dance and performance, which can appeal to women who have a passion for these art forms. For some women, cheerleading offers a creative outlet to express themselves through movement and choreography.

Which one of them is the most likely?

If your answer is all/some of them, then you are probably right, as there could always be more than one reason driving an individual to commit the actions that they do.

If your answer is none of them, then you must be pretty bold to make such an assumption, but you can't be blamed as it's finally time to bring up the two big elephants in the room:

These two.

Rebecca's relationship with the other cheerleaders can't be anything but toxic, it just makes sense to me: Lizzie's not afraid to throw people under the bus if it means that she gets to stay on top of the social hierarchy, with Doll being the clear exception at this point of the story due to their closeness and intimacy, making Rebecca the most direct victim of Liz and Doll the main target of Becca's jealousy; she can't act too much on her jealousy though, cause Lizzy can just cut out her wings whenever she feels like, so most likely all of the bullying that she does on Doll is subtle and only at most convenient of times. Doll probably doesn't react to Rebecca's bullying seeing as she is Lizzy's second best friend and killing her would inconvenience the cheer's squad, but if her reaction to Rebecca's speech in The Promening is anything to go by then she has at least built up a certain resentment for her throughout their time spent together.

Rebecca is kind of like Heather Duke with the personality of Heather McNamara and Veronica's shaky presence inside of the trio. No, I'm not going to diagnose Doll and Lizzy as Heathers, do that yourself.

But we're going to bring back up the DLR trio back in a moment, as the time has come to fire up the Chekhov's gun:

Remember when I said that we were going to bring up Rebecca's family later on? It's finally time.

In the same boat scene that we talked about earlier, Rebecca asks N this question: "So, my friend wants to know if you've killed her family... and are single."

In case you didn't pick up on it, this is a common tactic used to taste the waters in a relationship, when someone uses the excuse of having another friend who has a crush on you to see if you are up for dating. Naturally, the underlying message of this tactic is "I'm the one friend who I was talking to you about, I'm interested in you. Are you interested in me?" but that's not where Rebecca's sentence stops, no, before doing that Rebecca specifically asked N if he might have killed her friend's family, with the implication that she's talking about her own family.

So... Rebecca is without parents, just like Doll and she was probably left with just her dad much like Uzi. Where the differences between Rebecca and the rest of the cast starts to shine is in her reaction to the death of her parents. Where Uzi's and Doll's mood worsened after the death of one or both of their parents, Rebecca seems to be happier for it.

We can take this a step even further and assume that the possibility that N might have killed her family could be the big reason as to why she's so attracted to him, even more than the other classmates (keyword "family". It means that she could have had a brother or sister too, though I doubt it): she hated her parents, is happy with their deaths, and views N as her saviour and white knight in the dark for killing them.

If we look back at the shot from episode 2, we can come up with a couple of theories: she's probably alone at the parents teachers conference, or, and this is the most interesting alternative, the guy who stands right beside her is her dad, the weird hand gesture that she's doing with her fingers could be genuine anxiety about her dad finding out that her teacher has some bad things to say about her school performance and punishing her for it, which could also further explain why she does anything that Lizzie says if the theory that Lizzie's father is the Teacher is true.

Due to her sensory issues, it's possible that Rebecca's hatred for her family stems from a streak of physical abuse received at home and exacerbated by her already frail physique. She probably has been living alone with her dad for a while, like the girl from the 2017 It movie; so for her to hate her mom too, unless she was still alive and didn't show up to the parents/teachers conference, there are a couple of possible explanations: A, her mother died when she was too young for her to give a s##t about her; B, her mother was also just as abusive as her dad; or C, the most compelling explanation, as it parallels Khan's and Uzi's relationship: Rebecca's father uses the death of her mother as an excuse to wallop into self pity and be abusive, similarly to Khan but ten times worse, thus leading Rebecca to hate her mom even if she never knew her just by virtue of constantly hearing her name being used as justification for her dad's awfulness.

Rebecca could have, in just a couple of minutes, grown attached to N in the same way Uzi's grown attached to him throughout the course of the series: by viewing him as a sort of comfort net for the horrible things that have happened to her and as the one who saved her from her awful home life (by killing her parents).

Her dad probably did the interview right after Khan and thus implying a small space of time where he left her alone for god knows whatever reason, died to Eldritch J right before Uzi and N came in to stop her and Khan finally arrived to the crime scene, thus leading Rebecca to assume that N killed him in episode 4 and, through a connection made up by her wild immagination, her mom aswell.

So, for Rebecca, unlike Uzi and Doll, the day her parents died must have been the best day of her life; knowing how Doll lost her parents and looked pretty happy on the outside, Rebecca took this as a positive that her life could only improve; leading to the time spent between the ending of episode 2 and her death in episode 4 to be happiest period of her life, especially after episode 3 where Doll was revealed as a serial killer and went into hiding, making Rebecca the only friend Lizzie had left and solidifying her place in the social hierarchy.

When you think about it, we never see Rebecca being "happy" before episode 3, and while it could just be because we don't see enough of her, it could also really be that she was unhappy with her home life; Lizzie and Doll clearly weren't helping as despite Doll being at the bottom of the abuse trio of Lizzie and Rebecca, it's pretty clear by the framing of the show that Rebecca was always the most replaceable member of the trio, Lizzie was the master manipulator holding all of the cards of the social hierarchy thanks in part to her dad's influence, and Doll was Lizzie's irreplaceable (until V) main enforcer who at any moment could have just snapped and physically threatened Lizzie with her powers; leading Rebecca to feel constantly anxious of her every move. Plus, it must have been fairly obvious to the entire school that Doll and Lizzie had an affair going on and Rebecca wasn't part of it, therefore other students could have definitely picked up on her anxiety and started a gossip behind her back, leading her to feel even worse about herself than she already was. Which also, in turn, parallels Uzi and her feelings of being socially ostracized, making them even more of a foil to each other, with the main difference being that Uzi tried to fit in by becoming a hero to the colony and failing, while Rebecca carved her own unstable niche into society that she has to constantly struggle to maintain (Doll being at the positive end of the spectrum in this case, by being popular without struggling and willingly giving up said popularity for her revenge fantasies).

Her fear of losing the social stability and bullying immunity provided by Lizzie and Doll eventually turned into paranoia, forcing her to make up lies about dating people, like the guy "Brad" who she supposedly went to Prom with despite that apparently never being the case. To maintain the lies as truthful, she eventually benefitted from the ripple effect that those lies had created for her thanks in part to her good looks: now having the reputation of a nymph, she could get people to have sex with her, probably using it as an excuse for never actually being in a relationship with anyone (Darren is one of those people, she wasn't dating him, she was just making out with him).

There's also much to be said about the way Rebecca views sex and relationships as a whole; I'm not too sure about this talking point due to the aforementioned sensory issues that she has, but she could view sex as a sort of escapism fantasy, which also carries over in her love fantasy of N, and her relationship with the other cheerleaders as a semi functional support system, yet again other similarities with Uzi who, at the start of the series latched onto her fantasy of becoming a hero as escapism from her unfortunate school and home life, and, with a little stretching, we could say that Lizzy and Doll were to Rebecca what N and V are to Uzi, though not quite as healthy.

To ensure that Rebecca's views and actions on sex don't jive with her possibly having sensory issues, I've looked up information regarding the way people with these types of problems engage in sexual activity, and luckily for me, none of what I've found seemed to contradict any of the points I've brought up.

Here I have isolated all of the results of my research that fit Rebecca the most. Note: all of these apply to "some" individuals, not "every" individual. You don't have to check out all of these to have sensory issues regarding sex and other similar activities. I'm not a medic, so don't take any of these as gospel.

Perhaps the most obvious way that disordered sensory processing can affect sexuality is through physical touch. Some individuals may dislike hugs and embraces. Others may seek out a lot of touch or intense touch experiences.

Bright lights may agitate individuals with disordered sensory processing during intimacy. Play around to find the best lighting for you and your partner. Try using candles, soft bedside lighting, or turn off the lights completely! Avoid engaging in intimacy directly in front of a window or another uncontrollable light source.

An environment with a surplus of visual stimulation can be overwhelming and distracting. A cluttered environment can limit your partner’s ability to engage in intimacy because they are using energy to process visual inputs. For this reason, seek out clean, neutral, and minimalist spaces! In turn, assure your partner that it is okay to close their eyes during intimacy. This can help to calm their senses and allow them to focus on you, rather than the environment.

Background noises such as music, television, or roommates speaking next door may be distracting to individuals with disordered sensory processing. Find a quiet, private place to engage in intimacy. Avoid integrating music into the environment unless your partner suggests it!

Some individuals with disordered sensory processing have difficulty understanding where their head is in space; they may become disoriented or sensitive to different head positions. On the other hand, they may seek out intense vestibular sensations by engaging in extreme movements and positions. While some individuals may feel more comfortable being stable and stationary, others crave motion.

Sex is also most likely viewed as a coping mechanism for Rebecca, even if the main reason why she probably does it is to remain upon the popular girls in the school.

All of this added context makes Rebecca's death in episode 4 far more tragic, yet less random than some of the other campers. It comes as a result of one, yet fatal flaw: Her need to stay at the top of the food chain.

At this point in the story, Rebecca was getting closer to N, she could have just simply kept nurturing this relationship until it would have developed into something more genuine and mutual. It could have come to the point where eventually, once N would have chosen Uzi over her (because of course he would), she could have come to accept it and move on with her life instead of keep chasing her escapism fantasies and fawning over her parents possible murderer, maybe she would have even befriended Uzi in the process. But no. Her ego was her downfall: once N went away and could no longer satisfy her current needs, she decided to keep improving her social position, an easier thing to do now that Doll was out of the hierarchy, and proceeded to reinforce her reputation by making out with Darren, which got her accidentally killed by Uzi.

Accidentally, just like the death of her parents probably was.

Her death is almost perfect, even better than some of the others in the show: while Doll's death was brutal and heart wrenching but not really satisfying, Tessa's death mostly happened in the background and the show spent very little time on it, Alice's, Beau's, Yeva's and her husband's death depend on how you view their characters and if you think it fits, and V's death is the closest to perfect but wonky in certain aspects of its execution (just like V's arc in general), Rebecca's death is the perfect conclusion to her character.

She dies segmented, broken in pieces, part of her still lives for a couple of minutes, while the other gets eaten by what is essentially the character's foil of the one girl she was jealous of, and whose disappearance greatly benefited Rebecca. While crawling to the other campers, she must have suffered the whole time, just like she suffered her whole life before episode 2, the split of her torso represents her inability to pick up just one road, and in a meta context represents the fact that she is the middle ground between various character's situations.

It also represents the split in her life's trajectory: she was unhappy with her parents and was happy when they died, then became happy with her life and is now unhappy as she's slowly dying of a pain comparable to the one provided by her dad. All of this because of her ego.

And then lastly, as the final nail in the coffin, once she finally reaches the other students, her insides spilling out (reference to Melissa-titanium Doll's death post), everybody immediately forgets about her, just like they did with Uzi. She spent so much time climbing the social ladder, afraid and paranoid that she might tumble down and her parents would punish her for it, only for her to be immediately forgotten about once her systems shut down, still considered meaningless, tying her death also to Doll's and possibly Uzi's one, as the middle ground exploration of the theme of failure: Uzi fails but manages to achieve everything she had ever wanted, Doll fails but manages to achieve nothing, Rebecca fails but manages to achieve half.

It also ties back to Tessa as an alternate version who got freed from her parents abuse and had a chance to live a better life but still died soon afterwards because of a mistake she made.

Chapter 4: The Results

As you can see, just by using all the stuff present in the show if you squirm hard enough for it, with some added details we get a lot of utility out of Rebecca as a character:

- She develops Uzi, develops N, and develops and challenges Nuzi even more than she does in canon, but in a much more meaningful way.

- She works simultaneously as a foil to Uzi and Doll due to her benefiting from the death of her parents, and as well as a foil to Uzi and Tessa, who both had pretty bad parents but never wanted them to die.

- Her relationship with her dad also serves as a foil to Uzi's and Khan's father/daughter relationship, possibly helping to strengthen Khan's arc by showcasing a worse version of himself to the audience, rendering the reconciliation between father and daughter all the more sweeter.

- She deepens Uzi's and Doll's relationship in a different way than the Nori/Yeva parallels, by showcasing us a middle ground between the two characters that is simultaneously so much better and so much worse than the both of them.

- She also deepens the parallels between Uzi and Tessa, by showing us what could have happened if Tessa had the same sadistic tendencies of Uzi and left her parents to die intentionally (side note: Rebecca leaving her parents to die intentionally is also what could have happened in this made up canon. I doubt Rebecca finds joy in other people's suffering, but I can't help but think that she might have finally felt relief when the source of abuse in her life was finally gone), basically doubling as the middle ground between Uzi and Tessa but without their engineering skills, yet again, being so much better and so much worse than both characters.

- She serves to make Uzi more interesting by virtue of being foils but not in the obvious, narrative way of Doll, rather, in a more subtle, social way: if played right, her death could have hunted Uzi in ways the deaths of her other classmates didn't, by finally making Uzi question if she was ever in the right or if she isn't as much of a monster as Doll is.

- Further explores the themes of abuse present in the show and better ties said themes to Lizzy and Doll, who are currently lacking.

- She could have been used as a "tease" for Cyn, something that I haven't talked about until now (Uzi's and Cyn's middle ground). From what we know about Cyn, it seems like she was coded with some sort of robo neuro divergence, similar to the one that Rebecca possibly possesses; the details of Bec's story could have been reworked to parallel some of Cyn's story details, giving Uzi (and the audience) a taste of what Cyn's story or personality is like before meeting the real deal.

- She also, canonically, served to develop me.

Before I started working on this project, I never gave too much of a care about Rebecca. I didn't hate her like many people did, I actually liked her even if that liked soon turned into contempt once the serious writing for this essay actually started, but now I can confidently say that I'm a Rebecca enjoyer, the ideas that I've come up with for her are just too interesting for me to view her in the same way ever again, and I hope that this lecture might have also slightly changed your opinion of Rebecca as well.

[tarathoughts13]

FIXING BIT CITY - PART 1

okay this is a very long post and i apologise - i didn't mean to have this many thoughts on bit city but i do so i would really appreciate if you read through this whole thing and hear me out completely:

so, i think we can all agree that the smosh main channel right now isn't doing so well, this time last year, most of their videos on main had a good 1 million+ views, especially after food battle. but nowadays, most of the bit city sketches get from 400k - 900k on average views, 2024 youtube sucks is the only bit city sketch to get above 1 million views.

i think a big reason for this drop in numbers is for 2 reasons, 1. the fact that smosh put hold on all their other sketches that they were doing on the main channel for bit city, and took a whole 2 month break for it, for the end result being, well, average. and the 2nd reason being is that, well, bit city as a whole isn't the best show and while it has it's strong points, it's not a good enough show on it's own that will make your average viewer want to tune in and it's also just, not, that good. now im a big smosh fan and i only want the best for the channel, which is why im gonna try and break down the reasons why bit city isn't really working and how to fix it, hopefully if we spread this around a little bit in the smosh fandom here on tumblr, we'll be able to spread some news (ill post this on reddit as well).

okay now the breakdown. let's start with the concept of bit city, from what i've gathered, bit city is basically trying to be the 'snl'/late night with jimmy show of smosh, the all in all sketch show that has a bit of everything (like a variety show). now i don't watch snl much but from what i know of it, snl episodes have a typical format that they fall into, they start with a cold open, followed by a monologue, then 2-3 sketches, then commercial break which is where a lot of commericial parodies happen, then a musical performance, then weekend update, and sometimes an addtional performance by a musical guest, and then credits. and you can see smosh borrowing some of those segments for bit city, now this as an idea is great. i think that smosh could pull it off if they wanted to, they have a whole multiverse (literally) of characters to choose from for sketches, they have multiple cast members who are great at hosting and who are able to carry segments on their own, and they have a good enough budget to pull different parts of these segments off.

however, where smosh breaks away from the snl format is the fact that they have structured their show more like a late night show would, having a host and a guest, now this is where smosh starts to lose me a little bit. not because i hate the idea, but because, late night humour is very different from sketch comedy, late night tv's comedy typically relies on topicality (meaning the current things going on in today's society like politics, pop culture, etc.), interviews with guests and recurring segments (think mean tweets on jimmy kimmel), yes they do have sketches, but the format of the sketches is very different. that being said, i think waht smosh was going for in the end, which was a 'late night' esque show where the 'guests' are characters or impressions by the cast, is a geneuienly great idea.

where bit city starts to fail or let me down is the execution, now they cast chanse and angela as the hosts, which i do actually really like since i think they both have a lot of personality, they both are entertaining to watch, and they have a good dynamic which viewers can watch and be entertained by. so i think it was a good choice to have them be the hosts. where i think bit city starts to really lose me is, well, the bits, the sketches.

so far, there have been 6 episodes of bit city, and so far, the bits and characters that have stayed in my head and that i think are truly memorable include the one direction reunion, the "straight eye" cast, the kardashians bit and the ianthony bit (although i personally was let down by that it was very popular in the fandom so im including it), that is it. every other bit has been either average or forgettable, in fact, the only episode of bit city which i think lands on every level is the straight vs gay episode.

why? let's break it down.

bit city as a show follows a general structure, the show opens with a 'cold open' of sort where angela says something like 'XX PERSON DID WHAT?' and chanse replies with something along the lines of 'yeah bitch' or some one liner response, after that they have a bit of bantering between chanse and angela which goes on either too long or too short, before cutting to their first set of commercials, after that they return with their first sketch or bit which is typically an interview or a reunion with the 'guest' being either an impression or character by the cast, in the middle of the interview they cut to the commericals again before returning to the bit again, after the bit hits it's "climax" of sorts, then they cut to a third set of commercials, before returning for either an improvised segment with members of the cast as themselves playing games ie. straight vs gay trivia. or the 'hot goss' section where they have tommy read off a teleprompter some jokes about modern day pop culture before interviewing another guest (sometimes they cut to commercials here as well but not always), before having the show come to an end with chanse jumping over a car.

now, let's go bit by bit (pun not intended) on every part of this show and break it down bit by bit (okay this time intended).

the cold opens - imo this is one of the weaker parts of the show, i get what they're going for with it, but it just feels so dry and bland, i get that they can't do a full opening monologue and they need something to open the show in that way, but eveyr joke in the cold open section has since fallen flat for me, so really, my only advice here is get better writers or write better jokes.

the banter/improvised section - this is one of the better parts of the show which i do like (althooguh i do think that it does in some cases go on for way too long) but it's mainl because chanse and angela are such likable people that it works, recently they've started adding in some bits to this section like the rib cam and the erewhon taste testing, so i think if i have any real advice for this section of the show, it would be to a. shorten it and not make it drag on as long or b. if you're not gonna shorten it, then at least add more improvised or bits like the rib cam to this part of the show, this would be also be part of the show to bring back segments like smoffice or let's do this on a smaller scale (although ill add more about let's do this later) to have somehting entertaining for this part of the show

commercials - the commercials are one of the most disappointing part of the show to me not because they're bad, but because they could be so much more. like the concept of parody commercials in a sketch show is SOO good, for one, it can help point out flaws in advertising and commercial industry in general, but they can also just be the perfect ground space for character building ro for expanding the smosh universe, but every bit city commercial, the the humour jsut feels so, generic? and it falls so flat every time. and this falls into one of my main critiques of the show, which is, so much of the show feels like such average level humour, like this is smosh, the channel which literally thrives off of characters and over the top bits, so why aren't they utilising that? i can't think of 1 commercial which has stayed in my head or which i would call memorable in this show so far, besides maybe the straight vs gay 'straight boyfriend os' commercial (but even that cuold have been better imo). my real advice for the commercials in the show is a. cut it down, don't have 3-4 commercials in every bit city episode (especially if they're gonna be so average), but b. if you're gonna have this many, use them to expand the smosh universe. have commercials like idk, Mr. Pervert's coffee shop, now hiring, or Fred Dart's new single just launched, anything that will actually add value to the smosh universe and not just be some one off. but if they want to do one off commercials, they could also return to their 'apple product commercial' esque skecthes, like the apple vision pro sketch they did? yeah, do that and split it up into 4 parts instead of all at once, and you have 4 commercials for a bit city episode.

interviews - the interview segments have been okay so far. i liked the one direction reunion, i liked the kardashians one, i somehwat enjoyed the old smosh reunion (but im not that much of an og smosh fan so i didn't enjoy it as much as others) and i really liked the 'straight eye' cast one. i think my main critique for the interview sections of bit city is the same for the commercials in that, it could jsut be SO MUCH more. i for one would love for them to maybe do stuff like a 'smosh the sitcom reunion' with all the characters like kevin, krungle, young sebastian, chosen, etc. or a 'chosen special' where chosen gives us a deep dive into being a chosen, waht it takes to be a chosen, who is or isn't chosen, etc. these sketches in my opinion would be a. more funny than just random pop culture references, and b. interesting deep dive into the pre-existing characters of smosh. and that's not me saying that i think they need to completely erase the pop culture elements of the show, im jsut saying, lean into more of the smosh specific character work of the cast instead of focusing more on the pop culture elements, you can still have reunions like the hsm or the teletubbies reunions (which btw i think were top tier smosh sketches) but just don't make that the focus of the show. also i do think at one point having actual guest features for this section of the show could be interesintg, but seeing how things are going right now, i don't think that will be happening in the near future.

improvised 'games'/recurring segments of the show: so far, what i think they're trying to do in the second half of bit city episodes is try to have one of those 'recurring segment' bits like they have on late night tv with the smosh cast, basically where the cast and host s play improvised games, now this isn't a bad idea but imo it is kinda pointless. liek i don't hate it as a segment, but i think it takes up a lot of run time which could instead be used for stuff like, idk, actual sketches? but if they are trying to do bits like this, i think what would be better is to bring back the 'google search history/watch history' sketches they used to do for this part of the show, since it actually fits quite perfectly. also, my advice for this segment of the show to elevate it a bti more is to really lean into the audience participation part of the show, i think they're trying to do that with the 'crew stories' part but so far they're kinda falling flat/hit or miss, so i think what would be better is to do stuff like have audiecne shots liek they do in real late night tv, play games which involve the audience, or if you wanna involve the crew stories,maybe do it in the format of like in the live show for under the mistletoe (or maybe it was UTI i dont remember) where they have one crew memeber or audience memebr on stage interacting with the cast in characters (like in UTI they had lisa's exes) or just have the crew member tell a story from their life and show them in the audience. that would be better imo.

hot goss - now for every episode where they don't do an improvised game or recurring segment, they do hot goss, which i think you can tell is trying to act as like the 'weekend update' of this show btu more leaning into pop culture elements, which, im sorry, i love you tommy, but this segment is very hit or miss. i don't hate tommy as a host, i think he has a lot of personaltiy which makes him likable and entertaing to watch at times, but this segment is just, very glass half full for me. i liked the stephen king's son episode i think that was well done, but i think my real advice for this segment is the same for the rest of bit city which truly is lean more into the character element of smosh, do stuff like 'deep dive into krungle's dating life' or 'GERALD CAKES TELLS ALL' stuff like that. or if you really want a segment to be about pop culture, then i think a better way to do that would be to maybe bring back the teleprompter bits that they used to do in smosh pit weekly back in like 2016 or so, OR, just get better writers (also cut it down - we do not need like 10 mins+ of amanda being chappell roan and sabrina carpenter's agent - which btw is SUCH a good idea for a character, but as all bit city bits, it fell flat).

--> ,however, i think a better way to do this type of 'weekend update' type show is bring back a smosh pit weekly esque segment - smosh weekly or bit city weekly - and THAT'S where you bring in the topical element of bit city, it's a much better way to do it imo. and you can still keep hot goss if you want to for as i previously siad the character gossip deep dives or the pop culture characters, but alos have this weekly show drive the 'topical' parts of bit city.

chanse jumping over a car - really have no commenrs on this one, i like it as a bit, i think it'll get old really quickly, but for what it is, i like it

@lilac-hecox @smoshkidtv @guessitrunsinthegenes @wazurenaide

[kaibutsushidousha]

To be honest, your discussion of Minase's positive and negative qualities piqued my interest. What do you think are the main recurring fgo writers' strong and weak points? Also where would you rank the lilim harlot event?

For the sake of brevity, I'll stick to one per writer. Picking apart everyone to the extent I did with Minase would take forever and would be better done after their respective Ordeal Calls.

I hesitate to call Higashide's comedy his strong point because his huge hits are about as frequent as his huge misses. I suppose I'll go with clarity for Higashide's main strong point. Even when I think he sucked at delivering his point, I can always tell what he's trying to say, which is not something I can say about Sakurai's most compressed scripts. His weak point is his lack of ambition. It's nice to have at least one person in FGO's team who will never try to escalate things, but I can't see it doesn't make his stories more forgettable in the long run.

Minase was already detailed in his own post.

Meteo’s best quality is a tone setter. Requiem, Salem, and all his events come with an atmosphere that feels very tangibly different from what FGO usually does. Often his events are bad, but never they lack a unique identity. Which segues into his weak point, being that many of his events are comedy events and the man is simply not funny. Bullying Erice is his only consistently good joke, and when he tries other things, the results are more miss than hit. See Las Vegas and Wandjina World Tour for major examples of comedy events that failed hard at the comedy side.

Nasu is a master recycler. I don't know how he does it but the man is constantly reusing the same structures, the same themes, or the same dynamics and somehow it never feels repetitive. There is always something that makes the whole recipe feel fresh and unique despite being so easy to recognize the same usual ingredients there. And what I dislike about Nasu in FGO is how he's still stuck at the concept of selling waifus from the girls with routes days. Everyone has their list of characters who get ship tease with Fujimaru but only in Nasu's case it feels like an overwhelming majority and that some of the choices create too large of a difference between the summoned character and the character in the main story. Was it really necessary to do this with, say, Morgan? Melusine? Tenochtitlan?

And Sakurai I saved for last because one major reason this post took this long is that I was struggling to sort out what is characteristically good and bad about her. Well, even now I don’t have a simple and satisfying answer. Things can’t be simple with Sakurai, unfortunately. One friend of mine described the experience of reading Sakurai scripts as “playing chess against an opponent that doesn’t tell that you are in a game of chess” and that’s honestly a fascinating way to phrase it.

Sakurai is an intriguing combination of inflexibly ambitious and inflexibly professional. She has grand ideas for her characters and she will include them in the script without fail. But she's also strictly adherent to script size limitations. While Nasu is making Camelot and Avalon le Fae with total disregard to every possible limit, Sakurai is cramming so much into Septem's and London's microscopic file space that it becomes utterly incomprehensible. Nasu wrote Last Encore's plot as a whole ass novel and hired Sakurai to convert that into anime scripts because Sakurai is his expert in fitting a lot of stuff into tiny spaces. Tunguska was tossed at Sakurai because probably no one else could fit into its raid event constraints. And because she doesn't compromise on what goes in, her alternative is not revealing the mysteries about her characters but laying out all the hints so the players can figure it out themselves, which is a really fun thing once you're used to it (read: aware that you're playing chess against her).

And the answer to "Where would I rank the Lilim Harlot event" is 1st place.

[thezanyarthropleura]

An essay about the new Mothra comic b/c I'm obsessed.

IDW’s Mothra: Queen of the Monsters is yet another kaiju release that brings me back to a recurring question of mine, “Do I actually only like genre fiction, or have I just accepted that the human stories I really want to see in media will always be secondary to something.”

Or, to put all that in other words: this first issue stretches itself to the limit to put its human story front and center, and I can’t stop praising it for doing exactly that.

When trying to define my love of the kaiju genre, the two main ideas I keep returning to can be summed up as “human interaction with the benevolent, often metaphor-laden supernatural” and “since the monsters themselves are the marketability factor, the character story has the opportunity to be something genuinely unique.” In exemplifying both of these ideas, Mothra: Queen of the Monsters joins the ranks of some of my favorite works in the genre (including the Rebirth of Mothra trilogy of movies, from which this comic series draws heavy inspiration).

To begin, our central human story is about a pair of sisters, separated in a traumatic incident and reuniting after fifteen years – and at this point, I am already sold on the series, regardless of if there are going to be any giant monsters in it or not. At the heart of the matter, I am a simple media enjoyer with simple needs, and I just want more stories about close bonds between women – I’m not even particularly picky about what form that bond takes, I just want it to be the most important human relationship in the story.

And if it has to be secondary to something, being secondary to the imminent resurrection of a giant magical moth will certainly do in a pinch, but boldly, this first issue actually devotes very little of its time to the monster action. There’s the brief and chaotic clash of titans at the beginning, a short human-scale skirmish involving a Meganulon, and a few panels of world-building, but the clear, front-and-center focus here is on getting to know our characters:

Mira is a hardened survivor, living alone in a beautifully-illustrated, nearly colorless world whose decay, it turns out, is as supernatural as the atmosphere readily implies. Her long-lost sister Emi, raised by Mothra’s tiny priestesses, seems to have immortalized a far kinder life and upbringing in her memories, though context suggests this speaks more to her enduring spirit (and perhaps a little help from her skill with magic). The clash of their two personalities is a sight to behold, and metatextually, is incredibly clever in terms of introducing a Mothra-centric story to the field of Godzilla comics.

In a sense, Emi is the character we would expect from a Mothra story. She’s all-in on the fantasy-style mythology, the aesthetics and traditional imagery, the upbeat tone and sense of whimsy, all the wilder aspects of the Mothra legacy represented unapologetically – but to contrast her we have Mira, who might clearly feel more at home in a Godzilla story, acclimated to the dour reality of a world of destruction and representing practicality, violence, and necessary resilience. I’m deep enough in this fandom already that I personally adore both, but I can see where the intent may be for readers to at least be able to latch onto one or the other, whether we frame their dynamic as “Mothra character vs. Godzilla character” or “faith vs. skepticism” or “positivity and vulnerability in the face of adversity vs. open acknowledgement of trauma” or “comfortable in traditional islander wear vs. being willing to die on the hill of continuing to wear actual pants.” I don’t think an outright hatred of Mothra was quite necessary for Mira’s character, at least in terms of this meta-analysis and the story so far, but it’s also something she seems to get over rather quickly, which may speak volumes in terms of her trust and affection for Emi.

Because, importantly, these characters do have a very good reason to try to see one another’s perspectives, mostly in terms of Mira being (sometimes begrudgingly) willing to open her eyes to the world Emi has dropped back into her life and introduced her to. There’s a sincerely put, heartwarming fantasy narrative to the idea of Mira living this traumatic, post-apocalyptic life, only for her missing sister to reappear and anoint her into a life of Mothra magic and lets-go-travel-in-time-to-see-dinosaurs. But the issue also has the room to show Mira being resistant to the idea at several points. While the suddenness of the event lends itself as a story and character moment, it doesn’t feel narratively rushed, and very importantly, there’s room for an emotional story to be told in addition to an expository one. Mira has a chance to express her frustration at her sister’s long absence, separate from the Mothra plot elements, as well as time for a moment of what appears to be fond reminiscence when Emi recalls their childhood as part of a promise to protect her. Over the course of three separate enthusiastic hugs from Emi, we see Mira become more receptive to her sister’s overbearing nature, only the last one drawing an exasperated, but genuine smile.

(Maybe I’m reading into things, but I definitely see Mira as someone who really just wants a quieter moment to process things with Emi, and is feeling a little alienated by Emi’s over-enthusiasm and seeming obliviousness to the dour state of things – which is, itself, likely just a very different way of coping)

I have a lot of really resonant feelings with how this first issue resolves – Mira laying down some obvious boundaries but nonetheless expressing a lot of trust and willingness in adopting *most* of her matching uniform and joining Emi in the ritual (seemingly abandoning the slingshot combat so soon in the story is surprising, but we also haven’t seen what Emi can truly do with her magic yet). It beyond any shadow of a doubt leaves me wanting to see more of where their story goes from here.

And we’re in a pretty good spot when the most obvious next story beat for our beloved characters is “they might run into some dinosaurs.” It’s already clear from just an aesthetic standpoint that next issue could be very different, completely contrasting the apocalyptic vibe of this one with something far more bright, colorful, and adventure-focused. Character-wise there’s at least one major looming conflict on the horizon, as we know from the very beginning that – at the (non-human) priestesses’ request – Emi is still keeping some things secret from Mira. There’s also the fact Mira seems to mostly agree to the task on the basis of saving their parents, and while I don’t get the impression Emi’s suggestion of such was an outright lie, narratively I suspect that won’t end up being possible – or if it does happen, it won’t be because they specifically tried to.

Personally, I’m hoping to see more moments of earnest communication that the clashing of personalities so far has left some room to happen later, in addition to whatever moments of reflection are brought on by Mira’s journey into Emi’s world and future events in the story. We also know from promotional materials that they’ll be raising a Mothra larva together – realizing this, of course, gave me some serious “this is a deeply engaging character story and then also they’ll have to deal with Godzilla at some point” energy, which in my opinion is the best energy to have in anything kaiju-related.

[hello-nichya-here]

I saw this Ted defender saying that Ted isn't a nice guy and if we have to call a character a "nice guy" it should be Barney and Ross Geller.

First off: What does Ross have to do with this?

Secondly: BARNEY!? How is he "nice guy"? I can kinda see where he's coming from with Ross but BARNEY!?

Can't expect much from a Ted stan. They're not interested in understanding why people got a problem with that guy, they just want to go "Well, THIS character is bad because X, Y, Z, therefore Ted is actually an angel."

Barney was constantly compared to Ted in the show, and some fans, much due to the narrative's encouragement, keep trying to shurg off every good thing Barney did because he's meant to be the "wrong" choice - and there are several episodes in which Ted's bad behavior is sweapt under the rug because he "only did it due to Barney's influence" like he's not a fully grown adult AND crossed lines Barney never did.

Makes sense that they just take any criticism towards Ted and blindly go "BARNEY is the one that fits the definition." No room for a conversation about genuine (intentional and accidental) flaws in Barney's character nor nuanced discussions about his arc, his ending, and the mixed messages it sometimes sent - nope, just straight to throwing it all in the trash despite Barney, at his worse, being better than Ted at his best in pretty much every way.

As Ross, it's simple - HIMYM took A LOT of inspiration from Friends, on top of already sharing the inevitably simmiliarities that pretty much all sitcoms have. Both Ted and Ross are the "dodged nice guy" that could be so good to the main girl if only she'd give him a chance, and both shows have plenty of moments that did not age well (though Friends gets more of a pass for being far less problematic than HIMYM despite being 11 years older). Some comparisson is definetly valid here.

The problem is that Friends was far, far, FAR more self-aware than HIMYM ever was, particularly when it came to the flaws in the main characters, especially Ross and Rachel, and how a lot of their misery is self-inflicted. And while Ross's shenanigans got crazier through the seasons, much like Ted's, the karmic punishments and the way the other characters would call him out for it also went up, while Ted was being held accountable less and less with each season - which is a big problem when even in season 1 he was getting away with shit that Ross would have been dragged through the mud for.

Rachel being just as in love and unhinged as Ross and them taking turns pursuing each other (in normal and in weird ways), while Ted's "affection" (obsession) with Robin was PAINFULLY one-sided (and devolved into full on stalker behavior), to the point that it was a recurring joke even while they were dating, and her making it clear that she'd NEVER go back to him if she had literally anyone else as an option, including guys she didn't even love, did not fucking help.

Comparing Ted to these two characters is THE worst way to try and defend him, because any genuine, unbiased analysis concludes that, despite their flaws, the audience couldn't help but root for Barney and/or Ross because the writers put in the work to makes us want them to "get the girl", while Ted was the classic case of the writers assuming that the fans and critics would put up with bad writting as long as it gave the main character the "happy" ending he had not fucking earned with a girl that we've known for years will just be miserable with him AND make him miserable too.

(Because don't forget: even when I force myself to be empathetic to Ted and want what's best for him, I still hate the finale because HOLY SHIT, the guy had finally grown a bit as a person, found his soulmate, had kids with her, and then reverted back to the disaster of a person he was 25 years before because his wife died and it fucked him up so bad that he thinks going back to the ex that never loved him and will 100% ditch him the second she's not as depressed anymore/is pursued by a more interesting guy is going to fix anything instead of just making his life worse)

[sshbpodcast]

Fantasy Casting: The Muppets

by Chris

So the idea of doing a Muppet recast has been bouncing around my head since guest Carl made Johnny Fiama his Vic Fontaine in his DS9 Recurring Characters fantasy cast. Since we did a last-minute swap to cover the new USS Callister episode of Black Mirror this week this left a gap that I decided to fill in. I'm on my own this time, so follow me through my thought process as we swap out the TOS cast for everyone's favorite felt actors...

Captain Kirk: Pepé the King Prawn

The trickiest part of this whole exercise was trying to decide how much to lean into Trek and how much to lean into The Muppets. We've talked often over the years about "Kirk Drift"; the idea that Kirk is this brash ladies' man who constantly breaks the rules. But looking at TOS he's much more by-the-book, and the constant falling for the ladies really only picks up in season 3, and is still nowhere near as common as people like to say.

But let's be honest, there's going to be at least some element of parody to a Muppet take, so let's go with the effortlessly cool and suave Pepé as our Kirk. Imagine a Kirk chop with that many arms!

And yes, I briefly considered Link Hogthrob but threw him out for two reasons:

he's more a take on 1950s sci-fi captains

That is a terrible surname, and I really only brought it up so I could remind you all that it is legitimately his full name, which is horrifying.

Mister Spock: Kermit the Frog

"Wait," I can hear you say, "shouldn't he be Kirk? He's the Muppets leader!" True. But he's also one of two obvious straight men in the cast, the other being Sam the Eagle. But while Sam is stern and humorless, Kermit himself can engage in the shenanigans, too, albeit often in a subtler way. This would translate well to Spock's human/Vulcan struggles, making him a natural fit for the role. Also, it ties into...

Nurse Chapel: Miss Piggy

Our original TOS recast didn't involve Nurse Chapel, but as soon as I hit on Kermit as Spock I had to include her just to do this. Christine's pining replaced by Miss Piggy's very active pursuit of her Kermie would lead to some excellent scenes. And you know she wouldn't take the Plomeek soup incident from "Amok Time" the same way...

Bones: DeForest Kelley

Look, there's always at least one major recurring human. And you know the one you want to see surrounded by Muppet madness is everyone's favorite irascible Starfleet physician. You cannot tell me you don't love imaging him and Kermit-Spock arguing about human nature.

Scotty: Gonzo (With Rizzo)

If, like me, you grew up on A Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island it's hard to separate these two. So borrowing a page from the Kelvin timeline's Scotty/Keenser combo we've got Gonzo as Mr. Scott, but with Rizzo serving as his always-present sidekick. I also imagine the rest of the engineers would be the various Muppet rats, like the diner staff from Muppets Take Manhattan and the bookkeepers in Christmas Carol.

Sulu: Fozzie Bear

Let's be real, you can't have a Muppet Project without Fozzie. Trek has Kirk, Spock, McCoy' Muppets has Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo. And while I cast them all differently than you might expect they all have to be here. And yes, the main reason I chose him for Sulu is because he's the primary driver in The Muppet Movie and Sulu's the navigator, so I figured that worked well enough.

Uhura: Janice

The Muppets unfortunately have a terrible lack of major, named female characters. But still, her role as a musician makes Janice feel like a natural fit for The Enterprise comms officer. Plus we know she can sing, like her human counterpart. And there's certainly an unflappable quality to her, even if the root of it feels a little different.

Chekov: Walter

Introduced in 2011's The Muppets, I promise I picked Walter without considering the fact that he shares a name with the original Chekov. It's his youthful enthusiasm that seemed a natural fit for what the producers had wanted with the character, who was meant to appeal to the young people. But once I realized the coincidence I knew I had hit upon perfection.

And that's that! I hope you enjoyed this last little thought exercise. I've personally no plans to try the Muppet game with any of the other casts, but never say never. Or maybe another member of our group will take up the challenge. Either way, for now this serves as the end of our recasting exercises. I hope you've enjoyed them! Feel free to share thoughts with us here, our Facebook, or our BlueSky.

If you found us some other way, we're a podcast that has been working its way through Star Trek since 2016. We're working on season 2 of Discovery right now, so why not check out our Soundcloud or YouTube channel and consider adding us on your favorite podcasting app?

[flower-boi16]

How I would fix Helluva Boss

I've been getting the passion to talk about (and criticize) this show lately, and I'm planning to make a giant post about season 2 covering each of the episodes (and my issues with each of them), so that post will come soon (though it might take awhile since I need to rewatch each episode). We all know that Helluva Boss has become kind of a mess, so how could we fix this show and make it good? With all the writing issues it has how could we fix it all?

It's actually quite simple, really. In my last post talking about this show I pointed out how it barely actually revolves around its main premise and how only 3-4 out of 15 episodes are related to it. So the way to fix Helluva Boss is to make it revolve more around its premise.

Since we're revolving the show more around its core premise, it's best to get rid of every single plotline that isn't tied to it (The stolitz stuff, Moxxie's abusive dad, Stolas' drama, Blitz trauma, his feuds with Verosika and Fizzarolli, etc), and only relove the show around the core premise. This would fix the problem of the show barely revolving around its actual premise and would also make it feel more focused since now there are fewer plotlines to focus on (one of the show's major problems is that it's waaaaay too unfocused).

Basically, just remove a majority of the show's plotlines to make it more focused on the I.M.Ps going to the human world to kill people for clients (like the actual premise). The exceptions here are the Cherub and Dhorks plotlines, since those are tied to the show's premise, they can stay, and maybe make both groups recurring antagonists that get in the way of our main characters doing their jobs.

Just make the show a fun episodic adult comedy show about a group of assassins going to the human world to kill people...ya know, like how it was advertised before Viv decided to make the show into a drama with fan fiction-level writing.

Other things would include developing some of the characters more (please for the love of god give Millie and Loona more than one or two character traits), and of course, with these changes, this would also mean that we would have to remove all the episodes that aren't tied to the show's premise...which is most of them. So we're just gonna delete every single episode EXCEPT for Murder Family, Cherub's, Truth Seekers, and Unhappy Campers. We would also need to change the ladder two episodes a bit by removing any connections they have to the plotlines we just removed, the first two can stay the same.

And...that's it really. Now we have a fun episodic dark comedy show that's more focused and wouldn't have a majority of the writing issues that the show we have right now does. In all honesty, Helluva Boss would have been better off as a semi-episodic show because I think it's clear that Viv does not know how to write a serialized show with an overarching story and character development, which is due to a combination of poor planning and incompetent writing.

Helluva Boss does not feel like it was planned at all, and if it was it was planned very poorly, and looking at the writing it clearly shows. Plotlines so far have gotten rushed and underwhelming or straight-up insulting resolutions and the show keeps throwing so many ideas at a wall it quickly becomes very unfocused. Like I said the show suffers from there being too many plotlines and the writers not knowing how to write them.

That's why I decided to gut all of the darker and more complex plotlines that weren't tied to the show's premise, because it's clear the writers don't know how to write a lot of these plotlines and again, the show has too many of them and removing them makes it far more focused. And I left the Cherubs and Dhorks plot lines because those ones actually tie into the main premise. And trying to fix every single plotline would be almost extremely hard to near impossible so it's best to just gut most of them.

Helluva Boss should have been what is initially promised to be; a fun episodic show featuring some assassins going to the human world to kill people for their clients, not this poorly written unfocused mess we have now.

TL;DR: Revolve the show more around its actual premise and gut a majority of the plotlines so it could feel more focused.

Soooo...ya, that's how I would fix Helluva Boss. See ya.

[angelinthefire]

As someone who's been around the fandom longer than i, what do you think of the claim that destiel shippers were the reason female characters got killed or kicked off the show? This seems to be a really common narrative in gen fandom spaces like r/supernatural but there's never any mention of wincest shippers and idk I find it kind of dubious. I mean obviously when it's applied to characters like bela or ruby it makes no sense but what about others? Like the claim usually goes oh they could never keep around a love interest for either of them because the hellers would throw a fit but did that happen? Usually it's brought up with Jo, Lisa, Meg, and Hannah. I know that is not actually why Meg left the show, but what about the others? I also know Alona and Cindy Sampson in particular are cited as receiving harassment for their roles but did this actually have anything to do with destiel seeing as it wasn't that popular of a ship back then? I only started watching in 2014 when destiel was the biggest ship and it never seemed to me like they were trying to set up romances that were shot down by the fans. I mean did anyone actually expect hannah to be an endgame love interest? And no one really makes this claim about Amara either. And it also wouldn't apply to characters like Charlie or Missouri either who both still got killed off. Idk I've just been seeing a lot of narrative recently about fans being primarily responsible for the killing off of female characters but I feel like it's shifting blame a bit, even more so to apply it solely to destiel fans (I mean did destiel get Sarah Blake killed??)

Yeah blaming destiel shippers is ridiculous. Destiel shippers didn't even reach preponderance in the fandom until s8. The worst of the misogyny of the fandom was solidly concentrated in the first half of the shows life. Attitudes changed as societal attitudes changed, and as the show itself finally broke down and developed more of an ensemble cast.

The wincesties/bronlies were always far more venomous when it came to characters who threatened to get between the bros. No matter the gender. As can be seen from the segment that tried to keep Misha from coming back. Were there destiel shippers who hated on Meg or Anna or others? Yes, but to a degree that is pretty typical across fandoms, especially in the 2000s. Not to the degree that they actually tried to launch a campaign to get any actors fired. Which, again, is what bronlies did to Misha.

In general I think it's incorrect to blame the fans for female characters being killed off. If the writers are committed to a character and a vision and it's working for them they can make it work for the audience too. The thing with Jo and Bela is that, to my understanding, their existence is the result of network notes to try to include more female characters, so Kripke was never super committed to them in the first place.

You point out why Hannah and Meg don't make sense as examples. Alona's role was in s2, and in s5 she was basically brought back in order to be killed off. Same thing with Sarah Blake, which is a useful counter example. She was also brought back to die. Since neither of them had a recurring role when they were killed off, it doesn’t make sense to blame shippers. Again, it's the writers deciding that the most useful thing a female character can do is die to further the main characters' motivation.

Few people liked Lisa at the time s6 aired, she was seen as boring and as detracting attention from the brothers.

I think there's a relationship between the sexism of the writers and the fans. When the writers don't care about characters and see them as fridging material, fans can pick up on it. And then fan hatred of the character is cited as an excuse to write them off. This is a simplification, I do think there are parts of spn fandom that are particularly toxic, but I also think it's true that fan opinion is never the only reason why writing choices are made.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

SONIA HEDGEHOG (SONIC UNDERGROUND)

1.) She’s basically the only recurring female character in the show, she’s stereotyped as vain and petty in un unflattering manner, basically every male character except her brothers keeps hitting on her, she’s victim to the classic sonic 'every female character has full outfit while the boys just have gloves and shoes’ she’s frequently drawn with more realistic body proportions than the other hedgehogs to make her appear 'sexy’ even though she is canonically a minor (17 years old.) Half of the conflicts in episodes focused around her (which are few and far between) are about how she wants something and and won’t listen to reason, so she puts herself or the other characters in peril to get it. Her main voice actor is Sonic’s VA doing a weird voice, she’s intentionally written to be naggy and annoying to her brothers, and always cares more about her appearance than anyone else, which frequently gets her into danger.

ELEKTRA NATCHIOS (MARVEL COMICS)

1.) Elektra was created by the misogynist himself, Frank Miller, who would write female characters like garbage including her. Throughout her entire existence within a majority of Daredevil comics, Elektra has been treated as a character made to be a trophy for Matt Murdock. Daredevil writers love making her life revolve around Matt in a way that its framed as romantic when the reality of their relationship should be framed as a tragedy due to their conflicting ideals (and in my honest opinion, I think she should start hating him).

Frank Miller’s Man Without Fear completely butchers Elektra’s character by changing her character to this “crazy woman with voices in her head who loves to kill anyone and anything” completely shitting on the original backstory of her being a sheltered rich girl who was very kind and sweet until her father’s death that shattered her hopes and dreams, leading her to become vengeful and turn into an assassin who believes that all she’s good at is killing and that she can’t ever live a happy normal life.

[…]

And of course thanks to the mcu, that influenced current Daredevil writer Chip Zdarsky, who ruins her character EVEN MORE by trying to follow up on the MWF backstory AND make it align with the mcu version as well to this spy that was sent by the Hand to purposely seduce Matt just like how mcu Stick did in the show. Zdarsky writes Elektra in a way that ruins her character completely and makes her infantalize/belittle Matt by calling him naive and foolish despite in previous incarnations where she UNDERSTANDS why Matt wouldn’t follow in her footsteps and wouldn’t kill and WOULD NEVER TRY TO CONVINCE HIM OTHERWISE (and Zdarsky made her fetishize Matt’s blindness in a way in which she would never do if she was in character). Zdarsky made her stop her ways JUST FOR MATT and then writes Matt to constantly disrespect her and call her a murderer despite in previous iterations where he WOULDN’T DO THAT AND ALSO UNDERSTANDS WHY SHE’S LIKE THIS WITHOUT CHANGING HER. (Zdarsky wrote everyone OOC in his run but the most who suffered from it is def Matt and Elektra). Then Zdarsky made Elektra become Daredevil which yeah, the suit is cool, but the implications of it sucks as Daredevil is not an identity that anyone can pick up on like Spider-Man. Daredevil is explicitly an identity that Matt took up bc of the injustice his father received after his murder along with the desire to protect the victims of the justice system. Elektra is a foil to Matt so her uprising as Elektra wouldn’t align with becoming Daredevil. How he framed it was essentially on par of a woman taking up the husband’s last name but so much worse. Elektra as Daredevil doesn’t work because it completely erases her identity as Elektra and further pushes the idea that she only exists to serve as Matt’s trophy, as his pain, as his wife, as his tragedy, etc etc.

Not a single male Daredevil writer should ever LOOK at Elektra ever again until they know how to write her because she has been done so dirty and receives misogyny on EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF HER EXISTENCE. There’s only been a few times where Elektra’s been done well and a lot of them had Matt be involved very little in it and it really makes you think.

2.) Both show and fandom perperativing the sexist and racist troupe of a dragon lady: overt sexual and physical aggression, untrustworthiness, and mysteriousness. The fandom is notorious for saying Elektra is toxic, instead of recognizes she’s an abuse victim working for her abuser. More often that not, all nuance is thrown out the window

(Comics and show) Killed for Matt’s(Daredevil’s) pain/fridged

3.) Constantly mischaracterized and used as a prop for Matt Murdock/Daredevil, especially in the case of his netflix series and his ongoing comics written by Chip Zdarksy (where she is so intensely out of character she’s almost unrecognizable, and in the case of the current Daredevil run parts of her origin story have even been heavily retconned to more closely resemble her Netflix counterpart which is. Oh my fucking god its infuriating.) But it’s an issue really like half the time she shows up in any given daredevil comic (im being generous)

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Jane Eyre by Currer BeCharlotte Brontë. It's, uh, interesting. Worth reading, for sure? I'm happy I read it, which I can't always say about the classics. Some of them try my patience, while Jane Eyre was a quick and fun read. Whether you think it is good obviously depends on how you assign aesthetic value, though. I mean I know a lot of people are less preoccupied with politics in art, and for them, go ahead, but I think only some of the political problems are separable from the basic content of the book?

Like ok the racism is almost entirely unnecessary, though obviously predictable given the time period. It really starts ramping up towards the end of the book, too? I say almost, because it's obviously connected with the recurring phrenological theme which in turn relates to the main couple of the story not being very physically attractive. Which, to be clear, is a very nice thing for a novel to include, though perhaps less so when it is related explicitly to phrenology. Whatever.

So the thing about phrenology, and racism too, of course, is that obviously Victorians overwhelmingly understood those to be significant material, biological phenomena, right. And they're super not any of those, except insofar as they have the ability to impose themselves onto the material world, and even then not very much. So when you examine reality, including historical reality, from an enlightened point of view, you can see all of that is nonsense. However, assuming we accept the construct of a fictional world, in the fictional world of Jane Eyre, racism and phrenology are super real and material biological features of persons, rather than a pile of nonsense supported by confirmation bias. It's like if you were reading a comic or watching a TV show and it turned out everyone's personalities were actually determined by their blood ty-

ANYWAY, it's funny how gay Jane Eyre looks from a modern perspective, and I'm not just projecting I swear. Like, half the time Jane meets a woman, she becomes instantly obsessed with her, forms a codependent or dependent attachment to her, starts talking about how insanely perfect and good and beautiful she is and how much her male love interest isn't good enough for her, also one time she's given a description of a pretty lady and she starts drawing the most beautiful woman she can think of to imagine what she looks like. She develops what is barely deniably a gay crush on at least three women over the course of the book. Which is two more women than men. But it's important to recognize that this was a different, substantially more homosocial time, and that the way friendship and romance are expressed has changed significantly since the differentiation of homosexuality as its own identity. Why, even quite recently people wouldn't bat an eye over this kind of female friendship. Like, it feels like every other time my mom sees another woman, she'll start talking about how beautiful and talented and great she is and how her husband isn't good enough for her, and my mom isn-

ANYWAY, one of the real strengths of the book is simply in portraying Jane Eyre thinking and responding emotionally to stuff? It feels like such a basic thing, but it turns out a lot of writing novels is about doing the basics really well. If you make your main character emotionally and intellectually comprehensible to the audience, that'll help establish the stakes and sell the narrative. You feel like you know Jane and you can see why she makes all the stupid decisions she makes, you get a sense of why such an independent and proud woman would nonetheless be instinctively submissive the way Jane is. And the narration of an adult looking back over their childhood experiences is really well done I think. Comparing to Dickens is a bit absurd, because Dickens was quite frankly a slop merchant so you have to apply a different standard, but it is crazy how bad Dickens is at pulling that narrative voice off considering it was his whole deal.

Uh, the main couple is fucked up or whatever. She's a teenager and he could be her father, and is also literally her employer. Comes with the territory, obviously, he's a werewolf or whatever, that's the point. The part where he has his wife locked up in the attic probably a bit more of a problem, though it is hilarious how everyone is worried about the whole bigamy thing, and not about the wife being locked in an attic thing. Also he's like a massive misogynist, crazy (read: normal for Victorians) levels of hating women. I'm pretty sure the reason he gets crippled and blinded in the end is so that it's remotely plausible that he doesn't start beating Jane like six months into the marriage. Given all of this, it's a wonder that Brontë genuinely manages to sell the relationship, even with the added difficulty of me shipping Jane with half the female characters in the book. A testament to her skill and my sentimentality.

Who should read this book? I dunno, I think most of you have probably read it already or something. If you want to know the classics, the literary canon, this is one that is good to read, you'll probably have fun. Be aware that there's Surprise Racism and that the main couple is Problematique. If you want to modernize it, just pretend every time they talk about phrenology they're actually talking about astrological signs.