#and there’s been no real discourse

[bereft-of-frogs]

I’m at the point with that one snarky post where every time I get a notification on it I want to read the Severance apology speech

[watchingwisteria]

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded mfer happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.

[vigilskept]

this whole idea in both the fandom and the games themselves that being a people attached to their past & a lost civilization is a failing whereas a celebration of the present is something to strive for wrt elven & dwarven culture is something that reads as fundamentally western & liberal to me.

[xoalsox]

the sky background in the poet | artist mv is an actual 8mx18m painting made specially to match the mood of the song (x)

[crimeronan]

i do dearly love that 2025 tumblr fandom is wholly united in our devastation about losing "hey tiger." canon gansey's interactions with adam are so charged that they have to retcon his dialogue. i think if you accidentally make your straight boy bisexual then you should simply just own it and leave in the bisexualisms, personally. but more importantly this post would've gotten me shot in 2018. seven years later straight gansey is dead and the fandom killed him. god bless. all hail hey tiger 💕✨‼️

[burningcheese-merchant]

okay enough with the ship discourse! let's lighten the mood with some season 10 discussions! I'm really really excited to see the latter half of the story, and I'm super curious how this will going into next months update too! chocolate bark, and whatever second cookie that'll come in july, I cannot wait to see how things play out, the dragons have some of the most interesting lore in all of CR history (second only to the Novas hehehe my awesome space super sentai family 😄)

Absolutely, my friend! No more dumb discourse, only good and silly vibes

I actually meant to make a separate post talking about my thoughts on Season 10 of Ovenbreak, but I was always too busy to do so. Your ask gives me an excuse lol

I have LOVED this update so far. It's so great. The story is so great. Longan Dragon being 1000000000000 kilometers long and looking like an eldritch horror? Basically being Jörmungandr from Norse myth? Peak. Longan Dragon trapping everyone in some kind of mind prison and forcing them to endure constant pyschological assault? Peak. More dragon family lore? Peak. Chocolate Bark? Peak, I love him, he's so handsome and perfect, if only he was in Kingdom too

I think what I've enjoyed most so far is:

Dark Choco and Chocolate Bark backstory. I really enjoy their little mentor/student bond. CB is such a fun dude. He's tough but he's lighthearted and has a sense of humor. The way he speaks to DC is so charming, he's like a older brother or uncle almost

I think Dark Choco really needed someone like this in his life, you know? It's a big shame he left, even if it was for an important mission. It makes me wonder how differently things would've turned out if he'd stayed.

Also...

"My father" this, "my father" that. #SayHisName, Devsis lol

It's cool to get official confirmation that the Dark Cacao Kingdom exists (existed?) in Ovenbreak as well. And by extension, Dark Cacao himself exists (existed?) there too. And... he's not the most affectionate dad still lol. It's ok, he's still my favorite Ancient and Kingdom character. I am begging and pleading Devsis for more lore on this, hell give us a whole update focusing on Dark Choco PLEASE, he's been so neglected in OB and it's been a huge shame because he gets more attention in Kingdom. I love Dark Choco, I love how tragic he is, I love his redemption arc. (It's admittedly... less compelling here than it is in CRK, but that can be fixed with a Dark Choco-focused update imo)

I just really, really adore seeing the dragons interact with each other. I love their dynamic SO much, they're my favorite group in this whole series. I'm nutso about them individually and as a family/clan. It's been awesome learning more about Lychee and Longan especially; I love Lychee's unwilling attachment to Rambutan and her apparent longing for proper attention from/bonding with Longan, I love the way the Pitaya-Ananas-Lotus trio bicker and banter, THE LONGAN CHARACTER STUDY‼️‼️‼️ Pitaya may be my favorite dragon but Longan is the most complex and interesting one by far. The warped affection he feels for his family. The need to protect and govern them. The way he perceives time and the world at large. His sociopathic desire for absolute control and revenge for perceived injustices. The way he tries to manipulate the others into agreeing with him and going along with his plans (those scenes in the Dark Realm are fucking crazy. The way he warps and weaponizes their emotions and memories is actual textbook abuser/cult brainwashing shit)

What the actual fuck dude. Ok, Charles Manson lol. And I thought Shadow Milk was bad. (No lie I find Longan Dragon 10x more intimidating than Shadow Milk. He exudes an aura that SM simply does not. THIS is power. THIS is boundless knowledge sharpened into a blade and held against your throat. Shadow Milk may be a god but Longan Dragon is above even godhood. I'm way more scared of Longan than any of the Beasts)

Biggest scene for me though?

WHAT??? LAST SURVIVOR OF THE FLOWER DRAGONS??? WHAT???????????

In hindsight... yeah it was kind of obvious something was up with Lotus Dragon lol. The one flower in a group of fruits. Pretty on the nose. But it's still crazy to think about, you know? What happened to the other Flower Dragons? Why is Lotus the only one left? How did the other Fruit Dragons feel about taking her in? How did SHE feel about that, essentially being adopted by a rival clan? What if they had something to do with the Flower Dragons' demise? They better address this in the next half of the story istg. I will lose it. I WILL write a sternly worded email to Devsisters. I WILL cry

What this says about Longan's character is also quite interesting. It appears that his respect and affection for dragons actually does extend beyond his own immediate family. Enough to take in an orphan. This capacity for compassion and generosity is so unlike how Longan normally behaves. It makes for a really fascinating pivot from his usual modus operandi and adds a lot of depth to his thinking and character

(honestly, this makes me want and hope for Longan Dragon's surrender even more. I've always thought that Longan willingly standing down and ceding victory to the other dragons would be more impactful than him simply being beaten the normal way, aka through the Power of Friendship and Punching Stuff. I want Longan's love for his family to win in the end. I want him to come to realize that he really would have no choice but to eradicate his family in order to achieve his goals, and then forfeit because he could never bring himself to do it. They're the reason why he's doing any of this in the first place. I don't want him to change his mind about mortals or anything, he can stay a genocidal race supremacist lol. I just think it would be more interesting if he willingly stopped what he was doing just because he can't let go of his kin. Perhaps he truly is only clinging to an idyllic past long dead. It would hurt. Hurt his pride, his ego. But their preservation would require the destruction of his clan and he cannot stand for that. THEY are his mission. THEY are his dream. Yes, Longan will forever mourn this loss as he shall forever mourn the past itself. But at least he'll still have those four afterwards. Even if they hate him.)

The dragons make me so ill. I need to pelt them with rocks. Gonna call the Stone Dragons Pitaya was beefing with in prehistoric times and ask them for a favor

[soliadiaz]

can i just vent about eddie's arc this season cause i have so many thoughts about how it was done and it's not really positive

eddie's arc this season was all over the place and the ending wasn't built satisfactory enough.

let's start with the kim situation that everybody and their mama hated. atp it's common knowledge that it was all because chris' actor gavin couldn't be present much for filming so they had to justify chris not being there. okay, understandable motivation, not understandable execution. won't be talking much about it other than it felt a bit out of character for eddie who we were supposed to assume wasn't in the dark place because of shannon anymore for a long time now. but they had to fuck it up a bit to fit the narrative <- keeping that in mind for now.

so the s8a comes and chris is still in texas for who knows how long and eddie's parents are keeping eddie in the dark about things and just being shitty, and eddie just lets it all happen. which is questionable but okay, we can justify that with the immense level of eddie's guilt and again gavin's availability.

we also get an eddie and hot priest talk about drinking water and denying himself of joy (juice). and then eddie starts choosing joy and dances half naked at home and then greets his best male friend still half naked, sweaty and happy. yay right? not for long.

so the s8b comes and eddie's buying a house while being broke and moving to el paso without talking about it with chris once before commiting. (this moving should've been just a (long) visit). and we get a scene of him trying to apply for a firefighter position in el paso and we get a captain telling him he can't offer the position cause he already got someone bail on him because of a wife in a different city. not foreshadowing at all we thought :) well, yeah, turned out it was not, and was just nothing 👍

so eddie is an uber driver now! and he had to sell his truck that was one of the things he let himself indulge in, yeah whatever.

and he keeps talking and facetiming 24/7 with his male best friend that's now living in his house cause he's just a good friend like that! and eddie tells him that he wants to come back but he wouldn't kick him out of the house, he wouldn't! yeah, we're keeping that in mind :)

and the best friend is helping him navigate the problems in eddie's relationships with his son and they're getting better, and eddie tells his mother off, and eddie's being a little petty bitch to his father, everything finally starts to feel good :)

then we get no eddie for 2 episodes in a row cause he's suddenly not relevant to the story. the story where his ex captain and a good friend fucking dies. and eddie's not even there.

and then eddie's back in LA for the funeral, and we don't get a scene where he finds out about bobby's death cause that was off screen! and we don't get the airport meet up with the best friend who felt his missing like a hole in his chest. we don't even get a hug. cause that was off screen! okay, whatever.

and then eddie stays in LA longer than he thought, and he says he's missed being home (in LA, not el paso) and those words are coming out of his own mouth. he called LA home.

and then he goes home (a home he shares with his male best friend) and they have a fight about grief. oh look at that, we finally got the scene of eddie getting a call about bobby, small wins, am i right :) see, eddie wasn't there when bobby died and that killed him a bit too. and he was once again kept in the dark of what was happening, so he's drowning in that guilt of not being there for his (chosen) family. so you would think that would make him want to stay in LA for good, well, hold that thought!

eddie leaves a note that he's going to the airport (hello shannon parallel), so he's leaving after all? sike! eddie brings his son (the one he moved to el paso for) to LA to apologize and cheer up his male best friend with whom he was raising that kid for years now. where was the conversation with chris about it? hell if we know, it was off screen :)

we also get a scene of eddie's aunt (previously known for setting eddie up on dates) being happy to see eddie's male best friend finally cooking in his kitchen and talking about "our eddie" and change with him. wonder what that could mean :) apparently nothing.

have i mentioned that the episode was called "don't drink the water" and there was a hot priest in it even! everyone screamed "eddie choose the joy!!" eddie wasn't even the one talking with the priest :) okay, whatever, he still brought chris back to LA, he chose joy right?

wrong. eddie and chris are moving back to el paso. for whatever fucking reason. no one talked about it cause no one is talking about big issues here properly. yeah, he's moving but then he sees his (chosen) family needs help and he runs to help them risking missing his flight to el paso. and then he revels in the feeling of being back together with his team, of helping people, of being a firefighter. and you would think that he would take this as a sign to finally stay here cause that's obviously what his heart wants. (just like it was in s5) wrong. he's still looking for flights to el paso. but then all it takes for him to stop wanting moving to el paso is chimney taking his phone and talking some speech. and that's it. that's how eddie stays.

no real internal conflict, no talking with anyone about his decisions, no real "choosing joy" for himself. we're just being shown him following through those decisions without really understanding his motivation. he's just being thrown around from LA to el paso and back for drama, for the narrative needs. fuck if it contradicts his own character growth (remember the kim situation), his words before of calling LA home, of wanting to come back and be a firefighter at 118 even.

like what was the point of him wanting to come back to el paso in the finale? what is there in el paso really?? there's nothing, chris is already here with him. and chris talked with eddie a bit about how all of these things for chris there were all for his grandparents and not for him really. just one fucking genuine talk with chris about the whole el paso situation and they would come back to LA even before 8x14. but no, the show wanted drama, the show wanted fake high stakes, the show wanted big moments happening off screen for whatever fucking reason.

and i get that this is a procedural drama, i get it. but i also know that this show used to be about characters too, used to really care about them and their storyline, and growth. where is it now? i didn't see that with eddie this season.

where is eddie as a character since season 7? he got chris back yeah, but if you remove this whole storyline, what is eddie's growth here? he just fixed his mistake but did he really change during the process? he could've learned to choose joy, that was a good point but they fumbled it by not explicitly showing eddie making the choice in the end.

and yeah let's talk about how it could've been such a good built up to buddie, and it would be a change for the characters. the change was a theme in 8x17 after all. and 8x18 was called seismic shifts. there was so much potential, there were good points all along, i'll give them that, and we were so close to something really meaningful. but they wasted it all for some cheap drama. and that i will be disappointed about.

and we didn't even get the scene of eddie turning down el paso captain for the family in LA as a callback to that scene (showing eddie making a choice).

and eddie's male best friend with whom he raises his son and to whom he told he wouldn't kick him out of the house, is looking for a new apartment now. they weren't even roommates properly.

and on top of all of fucking that eddie didn't even get to drink the juice.

[aerithisms]

zuko's redemption arc is very good, it is beloved for a reason, but it's also poisoned discussion on redemptions in fandom in such an annoying and exhausting way. people always talk about the idea of "deserving" when it comes to redemption and at least some of this feels like it stems from atla depicting zuko as having originally been a kindhearted child who got corrupted into bad behaviour by abuse. therefore he "deserved" to get redeemed because he was always a good person deep down.

there is obviously nothing wrong with this being the way zuko's character is written but because it's the most beloved redemption arc in all of fandom now everyone thinks every character with a redemption arc has to have secretly been a good person all along. as though arcs about characters seeking redemption aren't actually about exploring people changing, they're just about confirming their inherently good nature. i think this is a very shallow way to think about human beings and a very boring way to write fictional characters!!!

the question of whether it's a good idea to give a character a redemption arc shouldn't be about whether they "deserve" it. the whole point of redemption is that the character starts out a bad person at the beginning of the arc, and we explore what it takes for them to change. it's bizarre that so many people in fandom have taken the stance that people don't really change, they're either bad or they're not, and redemption arcs are only for exposing the goodness that was already inside people.

the question of whether it's a good idea to give a character a redemption arc should be about whether it's the most compelling direction for that character and whether it aligns with the themes of the story. that's all. it's not a question of morality as if the characters are real people, it's a question of what the story is about and is trying to communicate. sometimes this means it would be mean spirited and ill fitting with the themes not to give a character a redemption arc. sometimes it means a character who has yet to show any modicum of remorse or kindheartedness will receive a redemption arc, because the story is interested in how that person could possibly change. and sometimes it means a character who does show signs of goodness may never get to realise that, and will never change their ways. it depends what the story is trying to say and what makes for the most interesting and fitting character journey for that story. because the character is not real and is first and foremost a tool to communicate that story.

[ingravinoveritas]

Bonus clip of Michael on the WTAWTAW podcast talking about his experiences with gender expression as a teenager in Port Talbot and mentioning his crush on John Taylor again. Transcript of notable highlights below:

Michael: "So when I was 12, 13--early '80s, the time that Allie is talking about--and I saw girls with lip gloss and wearing rah-rah skirts and leg warmers and stuff, [whispers] and I was a little bit jealous. Course, never said that, never said that. In Port Talbot if I'd mentioned that, my life would've been hell. But I do remember being quite...attracted by the trappings. A lot of trappings for girls. We didn't have stuff like that for boys. There were rituals for girls, doing your makeup, doing your hair." Michael: "I mean, my first crush--I said this on a thing I did called The Assembly recently--my first crush was a man called--ah, John Taylor from Duran Duran. Ohh, he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. The way I processed it was, like, I'm gonna try and look like John Taylor, try and make my hair like John Taylor." Michael: "And they always used to have a bit of lip gloss going on, didn't they? Those New Romantics. But like I say, I couldn't really try that out in Port Talbot."

This goes directly back to things I have written about on my blog previously, about Michael having these feelings and not being able to express them because of where he grew up and the hateful climate that Section 28 fostered. This is why it is so difficult for someone of Michael's generation to label themselves, because none of that is lightly shaken off.

Even hearing the way Michael talks about it in the podcast, you can tell that this is not a joke, but a longing for something that he still remembers so vividly, because it meant so much to him at the time, and still does. Also, Michael has now mentioned his crush on John Taylor twice in the span of two months after not saying anything about it for years, and if that doesn't tell you where his heart and mind are right now, I'm not sure what does. Neither he nor David need a formal announcement to make it clear who they are, because they've already been telling us...

[blakbonnet]

this year has not been fergalicious

[ominous-horse-noises]

main takeaway from certain fan reactions to the finale is this:

the final scene with ankarna was so meaningful to the bad kids' arcs and how they made peace with being wronged by people they loved, and if all you can focus on is that the rat grinders didn't get much screentime, then you don't love dimension20 and you don't love this world: you want to be playing your own hs themed dnd campaign and you're mad the oc versions of the rat grinders you made up in your head acted ooc. these are not your characters and this is not their story.

[bogkeep]

it fascinates me how often a choice of first or - gasp - second person storytelling can create so much derision and discourse. having preferences is fine obviously, and as a writing choice it Does matter, because all writing choices matter. i don't really... notice?? anymore??? or like, i DO notice, but more in a "what information will the narrative give me access to" kind of way.

i know second person especially can be jarring if you're not used to it, because it's "he would not fucking say that" but for yourself. but it's also like... so many song lyrics have "you" and "i" and to me they're just. a story that exists separate from me. (to the degree lyrics exist to me at all as something other than Sounds that are part of a music piece, but that's the audio processing disorder/'did not grow up with english as a first language and never bothered to decode lyrics' of it all speaking)

i suspect a lot of derision towards first person narratives comes from a derision towards the genres in which it is a staple, rather than that it's somehow uniquely bad. there's really not much difference between a first person perspective and limited third person perspective??

[kerosene-in-a-blender]

Others have talked, very rightly, about Bells Hells having an extremely Us vs. Them style of morality and one thing I find interesting about all that is many of their most virulent (read: actively nasty towards other fans) defenders are also taking this stance. The party line has become that the segments of the fandom that are disappointed with how this campaign shook out have never been happy with anything Bells Hells did from the beginning and have been actively hating on people who do like it for just as long. Us, the beleaguered Campaign 3 lovers versus Them, the mean c3 haters (who are often characterized as being hung up on the Mighty Nein and simply mad Bells Hells aren't the Nein again).

What's been quite funny for me personally is that I have seen vague posts clearly targeted at myself giving me the above detailed characterization of the c3 hater when I: have never seen Campaign 2 (though I did watch Campaign 1 back in 2019), started watching live with the first EXU, got into the fandom (as a lurker) at the start of Campaign 3, didn't make any of my own posts about it until late 2022 and didn't start really posting in earnest until mid 2023. Practically none of the characteristics applied to the archetypal c3 hater certain fans have created actually apply to me, other than of course thinking Campaign 3 actually isn't very good. So it's been interesting to watch people draw lines in the sand and create an Us vs. Them narrative that I know isn't true based on existing as myself.

[acid-waste]

I'm so mad actually I can't believe some people took this scene in chapter 3 and turned it into a who's right about their grief when the scene in chapter 4 literally has ivypool saying I don't mean to make it all about me- haven't thought much about how dovewing is handling her own grief- people read chapter 3 and to me it seems as if chapter 4 doesn't even exist and the rest of what ivypool says in chapter three after saying this doesn't as well

“Dovewing, I’m truly sorry that Rowankit died. But losing a sickly kit—a kit you’ll be reunited with in StarClan one day—is different from losing a full-grown cat who was just coming into her own as a warrior. A cat who doesn’t exist anywhere—who is just gone.”

ignored this and what was said and called it a day

[astralleywright]

i really do believe the CR cast loves Bells Hells, and recent decisions come from the fact that they love all their parties and see this as the end of an era for them and are also very, very busy. but man it does not fucking feel like it sometimes lmao

[radioroxx]

shipping discourse in general is pretty funny to me as someone who doesnt really get involved with that sort of stuff, but im especially intrigued / frightened by deltarune shipping discourse. i think sometimes you guys forget those are Literally just teens. those are children. it is not so serious i promise