#and there’s just no way that the majority of the straight audience is ever gonna buy into it

[seddair]

Oof

[teambyler]

(Spoiler) Noah Schnapp is CLEARLY trying to avoid spoiling something MAJOR about Mike and Will here! (Breakdown with TIMESTAMPS)

Okay Tom Holland, Noah Schnapp lol.

I'm usually a very careful person, and so I mean it when I say that this video of Noah at a recent con is the biggest confirmation of Byler endgame we've ever gotten.

0:04: Noah's NERVOUSNESS combined with TRYING TO SUPPRESS GIDDY EXCITEMENT in the first 5 seconds. His literal first reaction to a question about how Mike and Will's relationship has evolved was "You guys can't get me in trouble! I don't wanna say anything! Spoiler..."

0:16: Mike and Will's relationship "had its ups and downs in the beginning..." In the beginning? It was never down in the beginning mah dude, not until Season 3. By "the beginning" he's contrasting everything before to NOW (Season 5)! Now, when things are FINE, and as Mike said they're "a team..."

0:24 "Mike was always super protective of Will and Will always leaned on him, and you could never really tell if it was something romantic or just a really special friendship" !!!!!!

0:33 "And as it goes on you kinda realize that Will does have... Am I allowed to say this?" Noah should know he can say Will likes Mike: Noah told the press 2 years ago that Will loves Mike. Either his mind is GLITCHING because he's afraid he'll spoil something, or he thinks that JUST TALKING about Mike and Will's history is a spoiler for some reason! =)

0:41 Cara: "Ummm.... I don't know!" She knows that "yes" would encourage him to say more and "no" would sound like they're hiding something. Noah: "I don't wanna talk about this!"

0:47 Throughout Cara's entire talk Noah is GRINNING and he's trying his best to hide it. Clearly just THINKING about Mike and Will makes this gay boy wanna giggle. It literally feels like HE is Will and someone's there talking about his relationship with his boyfriend who he can't stop thinking about.

0:58 Cara saves Noah but then beats around the bush and talks about friends growing together and apart. She says they diverge and "Mike goes on his journey" while Will remains "stuck." Then she says "...So I think in Season 5..." and Noah gives her a LOOK knowing that they have to be careful here. Then Cara talks about SOMETHING ELSE entirely, pretending she never started the sentence! She says it's "a friendship evolving" and that friends can grow apart and together, "and we'll see what happens"(!) What ELSE could this all mean but that they grow closer together after growing apart in season 3? And that Mike's "journey" was one of self-discovery? (From all the glimpses of s5 we're getting, Mike's clearly not "journeying" far from Will's side!)

1:39 Even though Noah should know better (lol), he chimes in AGAIN to say something about Mike and Will and dig another hole for Cara to dig them out of! Then he thinks better of it: "Actually I"m not gonna say anything."

In another clip from this talk, Noah says that in nearly every scene he's done on the show Finn/Mike has been there. The way he talks about it, it's clear he's reminiscing about his entire experience with the show including Season 5, where they're sharing all their scenes again. Mike and Will's relationship is important to Noah, who of course is gay.

In that same clip, Cara says it'll be easier to answer these questions when the show is over. Noah: "It's just so hard to talk about it. It's so secretive and we don't wanna get in trouble."

It's extremely clear that Noah and Cara do not want to give a MAJOR SPOILER ABOUT MIKE AND WILL.

In s5, Mike HAS to find out Will loves him because of the Painting Lie. If what results is that Mike rejects Will because he's straight, which the vast majority of the audience already assumes, would they be this secretive about it?

Of course not.

Plus, they're so careful to NOT DENY THE POSSIBILITY of Byler endgame either, which they can do EASILY. ("Will loves his straight best friend..." or "Mike's only interested in El...") That would've been a NON-STORY. They're going OUT OF THEIR WAY not to rule out Byler. AND they fully know that teasing the audience with it only for it NOT to happen would be queerbaiting.

Byler doubt? Never knew ya.

-teambyler

[physalian]

On Punishing your Characters with SA

***Trigger warning for discussion of SA in fiction***

Because I am still recovering from the bizarre alternate reality I fell into where “SA is hot and if you were a survivor you’d think so too” is at all an acceptable and defensible stance to take, I want to talk about punishing your characters, and the means through which we go about it.

This post is NOT condemning stories that go “we know this is awful, you’re here because it’s awful, we’re all gonna have a good time with it anyway”. Or, your usual Dead Dove.

This is instead critiquing stories (and their authors) who either think:

SA is kinky

SA is just a run of the mill thing that happens in adult fiction, especially fantasy, it’s par for the course

If you’re a fan of either or both and plan to attempt to justify them, you have been warned, turn back now. My tolerance for harassment about this is at an all-time low.

Disclaimer:

I am not hating on BDSM or a character whose kink is feeling helpless and controlled. BDSM is, after all, consensual, and there’s mutual respect involved. Nor am I hating on a character who is attempting to self-medicate in a harmful way and they and the narrative know it.

Keywords being: Consent, mutual respect, and self-awareness

Which is completely lost in stories that either romanticize SA or toss it in there for shits and giggles and cheap drama.

—

In fantasy in particular, rampant SA is kind of ridiculous and getting worse. It may be for “mature audiences” but often the stuff written for kids and families has more “mature storytelling” in that it can show you horrible things without being gratuitously r*pey. Characters suffer other hardships and get the same point across.

And SA is one on the list of many things in fiction that usually isn’t written with the grim reality of a realistic aftermath. Things like broken bones that heal with supernatural speed, head injuries with cherry-picked symptoms, and grief and mourning.

We don’t want to derail the whole narrative to focus on the nitty gritty recovery period of a one-time event that moves characters from A to B. That’s just how fiction works. They absolutely deserve to be written better with proper awareness and understanding, they’re just not what this post is about.

But SA is different, because it’s often treated like this horrible threat, this scandalous thing…while then not being written with the respect and tact it deserves, written like a character merely got tortured, interchangeable with any other kind of suffering but with ~titillating undertones~.

Because, odds are, the average person won’t ever know what it’s like to be tortured, or suffer debilitating injuries from an accident, or have to live with the long-term disabilities of a major head trauma or coma. But far too many of us do know SA intimately, and the flippant way it’s tossed around in fiction will never sit right with me, especially when it’s romanticized and glorified.

So in short, I’d like authors who toss it on like a garnish to pause and think: Are you prepared to write the consequences of the situations you throw your characters into? If not, then write something else.

There is of course many levels to including SA in fiction, and its importance in the story should be proportional to the effect it has on a character’s arc and how much time is spent discussing with it and dealing with it, as with any element of backstory.

Having it be a distant memory in a side character’s backstory as just A Thing that happened to them years ago should demand, bare minimum, a cracking of that character’s worldview. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

If it’s just another incident and this character grew up with or is surrounded by those who take advantage of them (first of all, writer beware, that is a daunting story to tackle) the trauma of this individual event might be insignificant to them in the grand scheme of things, but it should still matter to them and how they see themselves and how they interact with those around them. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

And if you’re setting up a character’s first encounter with SA, however horrific it is, or it’s this encounter with this character that makes it unique, and it’s going to be a big moment for them and the story, it had better fucking matter to them once it’s over. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

It's a whole different world if this is a Stockholm syndrome story, where it is very, very clear that this relationship is fucked-up, but the character has no idea and they themselves romanticize and glorify their abuser—in those stories, it is understood that they’re an unreliable narrator and that their thoughts on what’s happening do not align with the author’s. (Most of the time. People unironically and uncritically love and want to have relationships like Harley Quinn and the Joker, without having any experience on what it’s actually like, but most of the time the comic writer tries to make it clear that she’s a victim. Most of the time).

—

I have two characters in two different WIPs who suffer this, more than once. A handles it a lot better than B. More time has passed and the perpetrator for A was a clear cut villain, while B's was someone they trusted. Neither spends every waking moment defining themselves by their abuser, but the impact of what happened to them shows up in multifaceted ways.

A is self-conscious about their body, as it still bears marks from that encounter. Some intimate things they used to enjoy or would have enjoyed are now off-limits. Certain conversation topics are triggering. And because everybody knows, they have a permanent reputation they can never escape, hanging over them even when nobody mentions it. They have mostly healed emotionally and have healthy romantic relationships, but it’s not something they’re ever going to forget.

B blames themselves and any chance at physical intimacy is now lost to them, though they were already asexual to begin with. They’ve told no one and anyone who would guess or might know, they’ve lied to, to protect their abuser. The SA happened among other hellish circumstances, when they have nightmares, it’s all tangled up together. But they’re also quiet and kind and thoughtful and you’d never know unless you knew.

Did I have to give SA as a backstory to both characters? No. I didn’t have to, I chose to, understanding the responsibility involved, and for these two characters and how it impacts them, SA can’t be exchanged for any other violence. It’s SA, specifically, that hurt them so badly.

People react to and adapt from and heal from SA in different ways and not everyone all the time suffers daily reminders of it—those two characters don’t—but even something as simple as having that survivor always keeping their door locked, or always having their back to the wall of a room so no one can sneak up behind them, or wearing more layers than necessary, or if they are a little bit shy or skittish or skeptical, at least shows that you, as the author, tried?

You didn’t just write it in a vacuum? You acknowledged that SA is its own kind of horror?

And lastly: If you’re using SA as a way to punish your characters’ choices, whether it’s the narrative punishing them for being painfully naïve and stubborn, the villain who “deserves it”, or a symbolic death of innocence, just please be prepared for pushback from your audience if your message is: There are situations where SA is the victim’s fault and deserved.

You don’t have to spend pages and pages distracting from the plot, but if you’re going to have your character assaulted, you owe it to them to let them hurt and heal.

Otherwise, why is it here?

[raedshadowlegends]

Why Lore Olympus and Miraculous Ladybug are the Same Thing but in Different Fonts

Good evening, good day, hello and howdy. I am INCREDIBLY bored and I'm here to go on a nonsensical tangent about two pieces of media that I hate and have dedicated a vast amount of my free time to. This is all in good fun and all of my rudeness is intended to be satirical and/or comical unless indicated otherwise.

Now just to preface, if you know me then you know how much I dislike Miraculous Ladybug. Folks in my circle got to watch as I descended into madness writing a 64k word review on season 5. So I've spent an uncomfortable amount of time dissecting this show.

I have also spent an uncomfortable amount of time engaging with the shitshow that is Lore Olympus. And now my ass is gonna try and compare the two because there's a lot of shit going on here.

None of this is going to matter and it's all in good fun. Like I said, I am bored. And sometimes it's fun to compare stuff you hate.

Now let the insanity ensue. FP spoilers and MLB s5 spoilers below the cut btw.

To get a major difference out of the way, Miraculous Ladybug is a tv show. Lore Olympus is a webcomic.

But mediums aside, these two things still have a lot in common. So for the first comparison, I'd like to talk about the insecurity in both properties.

Insecurity

What I define as insecurity in this context is a piece of media that is too afraid to commit or adhere to a certain tone, story, style, etc. In short-- they don't know what they want to be.

Insecurity in Lore Olympus is a bit more obvious than with Miraculous so I'm gonna rant about that first.

Lore Olympus just straight up does not have a story to tell.

There are too many random ass plots being added and discarded on a whim for it to be a coherent story. A good way to explain it is kinda like this-- In this episode of LO, something cool new and interesting is set up and you have to keep reading to see what happens! And then nothing ever happens. Or it happens because the audience won't let the author forget so there's a half-assed attempt to wrap up that plot point.

LO is so insecure about what it is, it feels the need to add more and more to make it actually something. But what it is is a hollow story that lacks substance. So all of these new random plot points are kinda like bandaid solutions if that makes sense.

There are so many unfinished/under-utilized plot points that if you were to count out each and every one, you'd probably keel over dead before you finished. There's that many.

It's too insecure to commit to any one of them in the grand scheme of things.

I don't know how coherent all of that was so here's a shitty tl;dr

LO doesn't know what it wants to say anymore so it's just adding more shit to keep the reader "invested."

Yeah ok I think that makes more sense. As for Miraculous...

God. I fucking hate Miraculous.

It's insecure as hell and you can smell that shit from ten miles away. It's insecure with it's premise, I think.

If it just kept to the simple "monster-of-the-week" formula, I do not think I would have written so many words on it's fifth season.

Miraculous (apparently) had a grander story to tell beyond the "monster-of-the-week revert back to the status quo each episode."

But we don't see any of that in full swing till season 3, really. Which is a long ass time to get the ball rolling imo.

It's a little jarring to see the show go from the stupid kid status quo adventures to a heavy and emotional story??? And I say heavy and emotional with the most sarcastic tone possible because the only emotion I feel watching this shit is rage.

Despite wanting to make that shift to a serialized type of show, Miraculous was too scared to stray from the successful status quo format.

To explain a bit more I wanna talk about my review of the season.

While it is mostly filled with rude jokes and incomprehensible jargon, I bring up a lot of points in it regarding the state of things.

One of those things being the show's hesitancy to move the story along.

The fifth season was supposed to be a grand final battle and a conclusion to this story arc. But it was too scared to commit to that so there's way more episodes that are nothing but shipping fodder.

There are many episodes that season that just... feel the same. Just with different coats of paint. "Marinette is trying to date Adrien but she's awkward and clumsy and oh no! shenanigans ensue!" We've been doing this for 8 years.

If they want to tell a serialized story then they need to grow some balls and cut the shit we've seen a million times before.

Their insistence to stick to the status quo makes the writing exceptionally weak downright painful to sift through. It was too scared, too insecure, to stray from its formula.

That's a part of the reason why I think the season is paced so bad. There's so little time spent on the interesting parts of the story because they had to cram in as much shipping shit as possible. So by proxy, there was less time to tell a good story.

Both of these stupid ass properties don't know what they want to be. There are too many things being added and not enough balls to commit to any of them.

Now with both LO and MLB, we can all agree that the writing is pretty shit. Nothing new there. But shitty writing often bleeds into the characters and making them shitty by exposure. Almost like a spill of toxic waste, infecting anything near it and turning into a rotten pile of sludge and chemicals.

So yeah, the characters are ass as well. But I only wanna complain about the female leads for both of these things.

But just to mention Adrien and Hades, they are pretty similar. I won't go into detail but the short of it is, "Character with deep seated issues that could have been interesting, has a lot of potential, but is just kinda garbage in the end."

At least Adrien Agreste isn't monetizing death and has a bunch of shades in his basement doing his work.

Persephone and Marinette

So I always say that I don't like using the term 'Mary Sue' to describe a character. But as it turns out, I use that term a lot. So I'm not gonna lie about that anymore.

These two characters are Mary Sues.

Persephone first

Oh my god I hate Persephone a lot. She just ticks every box on my list of 'THINGS I HATE IN A CHARACTER.'

Which is funny because her character had a lot of promise and heart in the beginning.

I related to her a LOT when I picked up this comic before my frontal cortex developed. I related with her character and her struggles. Especially after the Apollo incident. That really stuck out to me. It was so powerful.

But all of those tiny things I liked about her character were stripped away. Her ambition to study in school? Poof, gone. Her charm? Not charming anymore. That kindness everyone in the story gushes about? I don't even think it was there in the first place.

Truth be told, I do need to reread this comic because the beginning is fuzzy as fuck in my walnut-sized brain. But I can tell you for certain that the way she was in the beginning is not who she is now.

And this isn't the case of a character going through an arc and developing and changing. She's just getting worse and the narrative treats it as a GOOD THING.

"Oh yeah, Persephone trashed Leuce's apartment instead of talking to her husband like an adult. She threatened to kill this nymph but you're supposed to find that endearing." Like, what??? I will not have a story try and get me to believe this is a good thing.

If this were a good story, Persephone's actions in that episode WOULDN'T BE REWARDED. But she's rewarded with sex for being a fucking psychopath towards a random nymph. Wow.

And that leads into my next point-- she can never be in the wrong ever.

AOW? Retconned, not her fault. It wasn't her fault she killed all those people. It's actually Eris' fault because she gave her wrath.

Trashing Leuce's apartment? She was in the right for that, apparently.

Killing people in a famine during the 10 year banishment? That's never explored, we just know she killed people, burned a library or something, and probably shot the president too. But it's fine, she's the good guy.

And most recently (and potentially the most frustrating);

Persephone causes winter.

Not her mother, Demeter, no fuck the myths. Persephone is the one who caused winter actually. AND SHE DID IT ON ACCIDENT SO TECHNICALLY IT IS NOT HER FAULT CAUSE SHE DIDNT MEAN TOOOO UWU She also probably killed a million flower nymphs in that snap freeze but its ok it doesn't matter.

WHAT?

WHAT THE FUCK? CMON NOW.

She's not going to receive any consequences for anything because she is just too perfect.

She's smarter than Athena, prettier than Aphrodite, better than her mother in every way, all the boys want her, she has a perfect body, she's pink, her eyes go red when she's angy, she has the most power of everyone in the world, she's a super rare fertility goddess, she has all the gifts, all the blessings, and none of the development.

It almost feels like a wattpad fanfic.

"My mom doesn't like me so she sold me to one direction and then I became queen of the underworld."

Yeah, I don't like her.

And the same can be applied to Marinette!

A character who is so blatantly perfect, the narrative fucking BENDS TO HER WILL.

She's a creepy ass stalker and has done some weird ass things to get close to this random famous white boy and it's all excused.

It's literally excused.

There is a rule about character backstories. They are supposed to provide an explanation for a character's behavior, not an excuse for it.

In season 5, episode 14 - Derision, we see a bit of Marinette backstory. Some stupid bullshit happens and Marinette essentially says she isn't going to say 'I love you' to anyone unless she knows literally everything about them.

She says a lot in that stupid ass scene but it's basically just saying that all of her stalking and creepy behavior is justified. Which it is not.

Marinette can do no wrong. The narrative won't allow it.

She's perfect in every way. And even when SHE is in the wrong, characters somehow find a way to apologize to her. Either that or she turns a situation about someone else into one about her self.

She's just the perfect character who ends up saving the world.

Fuck having Chat Noir face against his dad in the finale, Marinette has to girlboss all over the place and save the day but then actually lose because the "plot" demands it.

Oh yeah and she's probably never going to tell Adrien that his abusive dad was the villain they had been fighting for months. Do you think that's a good choice? I'll give you a hint; it is not.

It makes Marinette look like a HORRIBLE character but it's painted in a way that makes the viewer believe this is the right decision.

I don't think I need to get into specifics as to why that is wrong and disgusting.

If I had to make a prediction for this show going forward, she isn't going to tell him. It's going to be forgotten and she's going to be painted as the hero.

No flaws, no accountability, nothing.

Garbage character. Fucking hate it.

Both of these characters will never see consequences for their actions. Their bad actions are either excused or retconned out of existence. And that's not how you write a character btw. If you want them to be real, give them consequences. The world should not revolve around them. They should have flaws and issues that should be explored. But apparently that's too much work.

It's funny how both of these properties claim to be about feminism and somehow completely miss what feminism is

Miraculous thinks that feminism means "Girl power! Girls are better than guys in every way!" And Lore Olympus makes no attempt to be feminist at all. Women hate other women, and they don't get a lot of opportunities to explore and express themselves.

I could get into the whole purity culture shtick but that's a shitty rant for another day.

I've been ranting about this for a while and I got the big ones out of the way, methinks. I do want to get into the creators of both of these things but that is also a rant for another day.

Cause if I got into that now, we'd be here a while.

So let me just make a final comparison and wrap things up here. I don't think any of this makes a lot of sense but I hate both things and I'm passionate about it so I'm gonna keep rambling.

Miraculous Ladybug and Lore Olympus never attempt to grow as stories. They are both scared to try new things and to stick with it. Most of the time this results in rushed writing and horribly done characters.

It's so clear that both of these things are desperate to be something great but they just can't put in the work to get there.

Honestly, they both feel like the product of a team of yes-men. Bad decisions and errors slip by WAY too often and it's kind of embarrassing.

These are popular pieces of media and they have the resources to be great but they just aren't.

They're both too insecure to make something of themselves.

It's honestly really sad and I don't want this for either of these things. I want LO to be stunning and retell the myth of Persephone with the respect it deserves. I want MLB to be a serialized show with focus on the lore. Sure it can start as episodic but it can ease us into a deeper story and intrigue the viewer. But I want it to flesh out the world and be an entertaining experience.

It's sad but it's the way it is.

Who knows, maybe MLB season 6 will be good. And maybe LO will have a 4th season and it'll fix all the problems it has.

I dunno.

Thanks for reading this incoherent nonsense.

[yawnderu]

About the COD fandom. I just came across a fic that was labelled 16+ yet it was explicitly porn! The blog was something like "Coquette" or whatever with no age in their bio. And I swear you can't explain to these kids WHY you have to label shit appropriately because they just don't get it. One has to state it's 18+ because if you brazenly let minors view explicit content, YOU (in general) can get into major shit.

There are too many minors in the fandom. Too many blogs writing and liking fics with no age in their bios. I remember when teens were told to shut the fuck up in fandoms, at least when they tried to encroach on the 18+ side of it. Yes I am old and yelling at the clouds lol

Oh and I've seen "AKCHULLY Price would date an 18-year-old! He would so nah nah! He's not real so I can write what I want!" Write what you want but it's still gross. Especially because they really make a point of bringing up an age gap. there are alarming pedophilic themes in said fics of price fucking/dating 18-year-olds.

"Controversial young reader!" has 11k notes. "DBF Price/Simon/Konig" and the fics are revolting in nature because the reader is heavily implied to be young and very inexperienced and not in an "I have no interest in this shit" kind of way.

TLDR it's like fics are being written by minors, for minors. Just seems that way...

There's a meme w this same format that goes ''I wish all minors a very get off my blog'' but I can't find it bfehbjefbjhfe

YES!! istg it's always the coquette lana del rey stan girlies who are into weirdly pedophilic things. It's even worse when they're actual adults purposely targeting minors with NSFW content, such as saying Price would date a barely legal girl or wait until she turns 18 to date her like... are you insane? fejnfejhbh This man would definitely want someone around his own age OR with at least a fully developed brain. Sure, everyone can write whatever they want, but people can also talk about it when you're making these men straight up predators.

HEAVY on the too many minors in the fandom, TikTok viralized the masked men and now you have minors commenting sexual things on the media of cosplayers or people who simply like tactical gear. Not to mention they RARELY respect a ''MDNI'', saying things like ''oh but I turn 18 in 2 years'' hbfehjbef PLEASE. And I get it, I've been on many different fandoms ever since I was like 11, I understand wanting to interact with creators and their content— but at the very least respect what they ask if they don't want to interact with minors.

That goes to the other point of kids developing parasocial relationships with the VAs. God, the comment section of the VAs is pure nightmare fuel full of kids saying they're gonna marry them one day or straight up commenting weird sexual things to people who are in their 30s. It's WEIRD, especially because it's so painfully obvious the parasocial relationship they develop is fully one-sided 😭 like why are you commenting how much you want to fuck this married 40-year-old man with kids on a post with his WIFE? Not to mention the hate people close to them get, such as Alain's girlfriend.

I have a small series of DBF!Keegan, but I imagine the reader to be at least in her mid-20s rather than an 18-year-old (or even younger, I've seen some DBF stuff making the reader a minor). It's honestly a bit bizarre to see ADULTS making pedophilic/predatory content targeting a young audience bfehbjfewl

[bulkyphrase]

Hey! I know you have a post containing Winter!Steve works, do you have any more to share with us?

I sure do! Below are few more stories that feature Steve as the Winter Soldier instead of (or in addition to) Bucky.

And if you haven't already, check out one of my earlier lists, Villain(ish) Steve, which features stories with brainwashed/reluctant villain Steve Rogers.

Thanks so much for the ask!

Sleeping With Ghosts by @rohkeutta, art by @cobaltmoony, @esaael (Stucky | Mature | 33,918 words)

Summary: The first two years after Bucky gets out of the ice are-- surprisingly easy. Serve his country, learn to use his charmed robot hand, make friends, don’t think about the spark of magic in him that’s gone out, see the world, try to live with the grief (try to live with the grief, try to--) Maybe they’re not that easy, in the end, but he’s settling - until he gets reluctantly pulled out of the Army and has Steve’s shield (Steve’s shield, its magic wary and curious and half-dormant) thrust onto him again, even though he’s already turned it down once before. The world has changed and so has he, but as he tries to immerse himself into a new life, he meets a ghost he could never leave behind.

Ghosts by Shaish (@shaishwrites) (Stucky | Explicit | 70,380 words | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence)

Summary: What if Steve and Bucky both fell in 1944?

More below the cut!

who he might be by Mici (noharlembeat) (@eggsac) (Stucky | Mature | 39,938 words | Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death)

Summary: There are ways worlds overlap, and this is one of them, the tiny divergences that make us who we are, that run events the way they are. Bucky Barnes looks out at the world and he knows that he had always prepared for a world without Steve, but really, he didn't think it would look like this, like toxic lights and shining streets, like how every pulp book he ever read had shown the future. It's so brilliant. Bucky wants to just say, hey, Stevie, look. But Steve isn't there. Until he is.

The One Where Steve is Tony's Weakness by @jinxquickfoot (Gen | Teen And Up Audiences | 7,156 words)

Summary: Tony had come straight back the moment he’d received Natasha’s call. Three words—“HYDRA has Steve”. -------------------------------------- After surrendering himself to HYDRA, Steve Rogers reappears in Tony's life, forcing Tony to choose between his teammate's life and his own.

Folie a Deux by cloud_wolfbane (@cloudwolfbane) (Stucky | Explicit | 55,156 words | Graphic Depictions Of Violence)

Summary: When Bucky falls off the train in the Alps, Steve follows, and Russia gains two of the greatest assassins that ever lived.

every love story is a ghost story by lazyfish (@bobbiamorse) (Romanogers | Teen And Up Audiences | 10,451 words)

Summary: When Natasha is a child, she falls in love with the ghost story that is the Winter Soldier. When Natasha is an adult, she falls in love with the man that is Steve Rogers.

These last two are WIPs that haven't been updated in years, but I think they're well worth reading even in their incomplete state

Will the Real Captain America Please Stand Up? by @theoestofocs (Stucky | Teen And Up Audiences | 45,304 words | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings)

Summary: On that fateful train raid in 1945, the angle of the HYDRA agent's gun knocked Steve back towards the ruptured wall of the train car. Bucky couldn't reach him in time. Steve fell. Bucky copes by crashing a plane. Seventy years later, Bucky wakes up, and finds himself in a world that's happy to let him take over as the new Captain America. He kind of hates it, but what's he gonna do? The real Cap, Steve Rogers, is long dead. (Right?)

Switched by @danveresque (Stucky, Bucky/Loki | Explicit | 40,649 words)

Summary: Bucky Barnes wakes up seventy years in the future, and everything is a few degrees off from where it should be.

[wetcatspellcaster]

Do you have any advice on writing characters in fanfic? I want to make one but I worry I'm gonna write the characters out of character. Which is like my worst fear.

Do you have any advice or Tips?

ooooh, that's a good question!!! I'm not sure if any of my advice is going to be helpful or obvious (that's always how writing advice feels to me!) but I'll give it a go.

I find that getting the voice down means that a lot of other stuff gets forgiven. "he wouldn't say that" or "he wouldn't do that" is a lot harder if you've thought through a character's internal/external voice, and can make them sound like they're in the situation. So try and make it sound like them first, and then people are more willing to suspend disbelief for you! OOC is only OOC if people aren't willing to believe a character is capable of being in that situation - voice is one of the key ways that you can get there.]

I also think that when you learn a character's voice, the next challenge is making it sound natural. For a character like Astarion for instance, don't have every sentence that comes out of his mouth be outlandish! Only like, every 4 in 5 :') just try not to overuse tics, is what I mean!

don't be afraid to acknowledge their flaws, even if that means they make mistakes. i think a large part of writing OOC comes from idealising a character. hopefully, the blorbo you enjoy you like despite their flaws, or maybe because of them. if you think they'd fuck something up, let it happen - and then see how they fix it after.

I have characters I can write easily for, but if I ever need to refresh I watch clips, I replay, etc. The good thing about BG3/dragon age is that a lot of their content is online - rewatch cut scenes, remind yourself of motivations but also just... what words they use. How they phrase things. What rhythm their sentences have. If you're ever worried about things being OOC, I find that the age old "revisit the source material" is genuinely helpful. I don't like fanon versions of characters if I can help it, so I go back to the canon and I dip my toe in to litmus test my own work!

People want characters in unusual situations, and they want them in romantic ones. For instance, when I write Astarion, I often worry it's OOC if I get him to do something soft/romantic... obviously, this is what a lot of people are IN fanfic for. So if you're worried that the OOC parts are too soft, or too nice, or w/e... don't worry. This is what a lot of people want from fanfic, so they'll suspend their disbelief for you.

Brief acknowledgements of the obstacles to an audience's full buy in can sometimes help. So for instance, in an Astarion smut fic, a brief nod to "he feels weird about sex, or used to" can immediately make anything "OOC" feel more forgivable bc you've lampshaded "yes, this does take a stretch of the canon, but I've flagged to the reader which bits I'm imaginatively changing" and then you can dive straight in.

Otherwise... it is... unfortunately... practice! ! ! Even a few chapters back in honest lie and pieces, I felt like I couldn't write for a majority of the ensemble cast. Now that I've practiced, I don't feel as daunted about managing multiple voices. I hate it here, but writing improves the more you do it. So don't let the fear of being OOC deter you, even if you start out in a more OOC place you'll get there through writing more :)

[withacapitalp]

How come "books are books, shows are shows, do whatever you want w characters" doesn't apply to B*lly? Not trying to start drama, just genuinely want to understand. Is it because he's a bad guy I can't reshape him into something I'd like and ignore what's "canon?"

Oh boy Nonnie okay I'll try to be really clear but it probably won't come out super legible. I'm putting it under a read more because I don't wanna clog up my dash w a long explanation (which knowing me it's going to end up being) I also want to say that all of this is MY opinion. I'm no one's ultimate judge, I'm just a guy on the internet who writes stories.

All that to say, this is why I think that fundamentally the idea that Eddie's sexuality and Billy's racism can be manipulated in fandom on the same level is really flawed.

Overall I think that the point of fan fiction is personal enjoyment. Ultimately you're creating something with yourself as the audience in mind. If not, then I don't really get it. So, for you, maybe it can mean that. Do I personally agree? No, but I can't stop anyone from creating something and putting it online. That's the whole point of ao3, no bars, no barriers. When you start putting that kind of wall in place, a slippery slope starts to form, so even if I would never personally partake in some forms of fanfic, I get why it's important to have a place where any kind of fic can exist. Back button exists for a reason, block button exists for a reason, curate your own online experience.

I'm not gonna be the person who says like if you like Billy you're a garbage person, because like that just isn't true? The two aren't automatically associated. Do I think that people who want to erase that part of Billy should maybe examine that urge? Yeah, but I think we all need to look inside and see where systematic racism might make us think things are more acceptable than they should be. I also can't understand people who want to give Vecna a redemption arc, or the people who think Sn*pe was just misunderstood. Regardless, we're all works in progress, and 90% of people to me are capable of learning more and growing and seeing where they might be working with a bias. I know I definitely have my own too.

I personally just will not give him redemption of any form or reshape him, because to do so seems to be disrespectful from my point of view to real life people. I'm not a person of color, Billy's racism is at the forefront of his character, so for me to reshape that and erase it in a fanfic feels like I would be ignoring a serious thing and pretending like that never happened, when it exists in our society in a major way. There isn't a point where Billy's racism ever gets resolved. In fact, the whole thing gets dropped completely in s3 which seems like a really terrible oversight by the Duffers. It's used as a plot point when it was convenient, which is messy and wrong.

But All of that is just background to your real question here which I believe is this-

Why is it okay to change a character's sexuality, but not their bigotry?

For me, I don't really like to equate the two? I think that the idea that someone's sexuality is a 'flaw' that needs to be reshaped is kinda problematic, and we also don't actually know Eddie's sexuality. Everyone can say what they think till the cows come home, but at no point did we get 'Eddie is confirmed gay, straight, bi, etc. etc.' EVERY single interpretation of Eddie's sexuality is someone shaping canon as they see fit right now.

With Billy he is confirmed racist. He is 100% undoubtedly a racist. Not even someone who used to be racist who learned and repented. He was always racist and tried to commit a hate crime against Lucas (I would argue that he did, because holding a twelve year old up against a wall and threatening to kill them because they're black and they dared to want to get to know your sister feels like a hate crime to me) The only reason he didn't seriously hurt Lucas was the fact that Steve stepped in. That's it. He was going to assault a child for his race.

To compare ignoring that to playing with a character's sexuality feels....mm I just strongly don't agree. I don't exactly have words to explain, but I really don't.

I think there are things you can change about characters easily. You can change their sexualities, their ages, their genders, their backstories, but to fundamentally erase something like that just doesn't line up for me.

No call out here Nonnie, I appreciate that you wanted to ask and be open, but this is my question for people who want to change Billy that way- What is it about Billy that is so compelling that it feels necessary to change that part of him? Why is Billy the character you *need* to write for?

Jonathan is a fantastic big brother who has a ton of issues and was abused by his father. If you're having the hankering to try and examine a flawed big brother, he's right there.

Eddie is an outcast (and strongly implied that he comes from an abusive home) and if you're looking to try and write about that, he's right there.

Steve is the character that has actually GONE through the redemption people always try to give Billy. He said slurs and did bad things, and almost immediately went to make amends for them when he was able to acknowledge he did the wrong thing.

Billy never even apologized. He hadn't changed by the time he died, and no I don't think sacrificing himself was some major change. I think that a villain can be tragic without needing to retroactively make them a better person. Billy is a flawed and broken person. Yes that probably relates mostly to the way he was raised and the fact that his family was violent, but that doesn't excuse it. The Byers have an abusive home, and at no point does Jonathan act the way Billy does. I think they're really good foils to each other on what can happen with a big brother.

Anyways this was a really really long answer nonnie, but I hope I got it across why I really disagree with that stance. If anyone was offended or upset, know that wasn't my intenion, and feel free to let me know.

[besttropeveershowdown]

The Most Annoying Trope Showdown: Round 2, Poll 5

All Just a Dream

The reveal that a certain plotline was all a dream.

Propaganda:

It immediately kills all stakes, breaks audience immersion, and basically makes the case 'you should never have been invested in that plotline'. An incredibly unsatisfying ending.

It's just so lazy and makes everything pointless! What changed? Everyone is exactly the same as before the story. Not to mention that's not how dreams work, unless you immediately write it down you're gonna forget the vast majority of the dream really quick, if you even remember it at all. And dreams are messy and don't make sense, they jump from location to location and don't follow a coherent plot. If a character is dreaming, it should be very obvious because they're so different from reality.

Babies Ever After

Ending trope in which to show a couple is happy, it timeskips to them with children

Propaganda:

Trope voted most likely to be approved by the leader of the Mormon church. The most banal seeping of patriarchal standards into otherwise benign media. No matter what the characters have achieved, no matter what their lives have been like, getting married and reproducing must mean they're happy and their lives are fulfilled, right? Please don't ask about their friends or careers. Extra points for when the characters in question have never expressed a fondness for children or a desire for a family, which is often.

To be fair, my main ire is when it happens to like ALl of the cast but also like. Can we not equate having babies with something you need to be happy. That's already a mindset pushed way too damn much on women irl and I don't fucking want it in my fiction. Let me at least imagine some of my faves also woudl be happy without kids.

It's twee. It's aggressively heteronormative. And it invites terrible sequels about the next generation learning the exact same lessons their parents did but less interesting.

not always the worst but it can be annoying esp on a grand scale that everyone's happy ending is only the happiest with some babies

It's cowardice. It's getting scared of your own story and running back to the safe and easy option of nuclear families. Plus as someone who always knew I didn't want to be pregnant, seeing so many stories end this way just never sat right with me, also because I'm gay and these are almost always done by pairing off characters in neat straight relationships. I'm also going to acknowledge that a lot of my favourite media is fantasy/supernatural stuff, so it feels more ridiculous when it's set in a different world

[lover-of-mine]

Hey Anna,

I have a honest question for you I’ve been thinking about for a while and I think you’re the best one to answer it.

When Tommy came over to Bucks loft in 7x4 I genuinely thought they were going to have Tommy say something about how he didn’t mean to make Buck jealous and he’s not trying to steal (his) Bucks boyfriend from him. That would’ve been an effective way to have Buck question his sexuality and introduce buddie. I am really curious why they didn’t just do that?

What are your thoughts? Love your blog babe 😘

Hi love 🩷

Okay, so, they wanted to make episode 100 about a main character being queer. To effectively do that, they would have to make Buck kiss a guy. They couldn't make him kiss Eddie because it would've been out of nowhere and while I desperately want buddie canon, I don't want them to just smash them together because they can. Like, if they just wanted buddie to kiss on some capacity without an actual lead up, they would've made that happen in s6, I know fox was against Buck being bi but they could've implied something with the "ending" if they just wanted to say the got buddie together in the end. They did not, and since buddie is the one thing that was handled with care in the season, I'm tempted to believe they want to do them justice. Tommy is a device for Buck's bisexuality not buddie, those are separate things. I absolutely HATE the idea of Tommy, or any external person really, just coming up to Buck and saying "oh you have a thing for Eddie" that's explicitly. Buck's whole arc is about finding the answers himself, and in my opinion, making someone in that situation tell Buck this assumption to trigger buddie would be lazy. The goal of 704 was making it known that Buck is bisexual and they couldn't do that through Eddie with the episode they wrote, and the GA would only accept the bisexuality if Buck kissed a guy. There's also the way that I think that buddie is never gonna be unrequited, even if we get some canon pining from either side, I think it will only be after the audience is made aware at least that both parties are queer. To make 704 about buddie in the way you are saying, we would have to see Eddie acting like he has feelings for Buck enough for Tommy to make that assumption along with Buck being jealous in the way we see him. That's not something you can do in one episode imo. With the way things were you would have Buck being a cliche guy in love with his straight best friend because Eddie was dating Marisol, and I don't think they'll ever want to give the impression that buddie is impossible if that's where we're going. This is also why I believe the audience needs to be made aware of Eddie's feelings for Buck first, because 704 mimics the structure of 201, so the idea of Buck having a crush on Eddie at some point of their friendship already exists, so the next step imo is to make Eddie's feelings known for audience and kickstart the getting together arc.

You're thinking about the situation as someone who already believes Buck and Eddie are queer. You and me and all buddie shippers, we don't need convincing about them being queer. If s8 opened with them making out, we would not question it, but since we are talking about two characters who were not introduced as queer, you need to give the GA something to make this feel plausible, that wouldn't be the case of Tommy just saying "I'm not trying to steal your boyfriend" because the audience knew Eddie was dating Marisol, the audience also knew Buck had only dated women, the audience also knew that while Buck and Eddie are weird about each other, they are not explicitly put as romantic. It would be too much of a shock.

I also believe that Buck's bisexuality was a trial run of some sorts, walking Buck out of the bi thing if it had been poorly received by the majority of viewers is a lot easier than walking Buck out of being in love with Eddie, so if for some reason people didn't react well to him being bi, they could just introduce another pretty girl and call it a day without major consequences. Buck's bisexuality also stands on its own because Buck is incredibly popular and there aren't a lot of mainstream bi male characters, he creates conversation on his own, so again, if something went wrong, they could lean on that angle without having to worry about the ship. I think the goal was to make Buck's bisexuality exist outside of another person and that's why it wasn't about Eddie.

[lurksunderthebed]

Hi, I saw that you had a discussion about the queerness of our beloved characters. I really hope you’re not tired of that topic, because I wanted to add another point.

First of all I don’t really care. I really like the dynamic between most of the characters, especially Ghost and Soap, but I don’t care if it’s interpreted as besties or lovers. I think both is fun.

I just wanted to add that maybe all of the MW story feels so fucking gay, because we lack cool women? We have Farah and Laswell, but let’s be real Farah is basically married to Alex (I thought they were a couple at first) and Laswell is married to a woman. Now people go great lengths to ship the male characters with female villains, who only appear in a small fraction of the story and have no real chemistry. I mean they can do whatever floats their boat, but I don’t really see the point here.

Which leaves us with a bunch of man ‘flirting’ with each other vor comedic value. I think given this and the points you already said on your account, I think it’s even a bit intended that most of our characters might not be the straightest.

Sure, a bunch of straight men can exist without women and still be straight and the military still might not be the most women friendly institution, but I think having more girlpower would have been an easy way to make everyone appear more straight and the devs didn’t go that route sooooo… (I still would love to have more cool women, but that’s another topic)

Anyways, I hope you have a good day and I wanted to add that I really enjoyed your character analysis posts <3

Ahh thanks for enjoying my analysis posts. 💞🥹 Honestly, I'm still surprised people are reading them lol. (And asking me about it haha)

But yes, I don't think I'll ever be tired of the ol' queerness discussion. It's a fun topic to debate especially with these characters in this particular game.

Controversial take, but I actually don't think adding any extra female characters would've been helpful in making the 'gay' go away.

(gonna be a long discussion here, settle in if you want to read it haha 😅)

What we have to put in mind, is that this game wasn't made for the female audience. The vast majority of the people buying and playing it are going to be male. That's the facts. It's going to cater to men.

A game made for men is going to have a majority of those characters be male. Adding new female characters in a REBOOT series is a delicate task when a good chunk of the population playing have played the OG and want to see legacy characters back (which are all male—the OG was all men).

That means that when we look at why certain things are framed and why there aren't many female characters, and especially why there isn't much of any confirmed (het) canon romantic ships between any characters, it's because the game itself isn't focused on it.

That same vast majority of men don't actually care about ships in general and with people trying to be more progressive, any female characters introduced are painstakingly written to omit any overt possibility of romance. In one sense, it's a welcome change from the action movie style plot line where man + woman = relationship with the women being just side characters/window dressing to the MC.

Women here are shown to be tough, that they don't need a man at all. They have their own agency. It's pretty nice actually that they did that. None of the female characters are infantilised nor is there a sense of them being there to "check boxes" in the minority bag. They make sense in the framing the game has placed them in.

But we do have this interesting dynamic whereby removing the romance factor, but having female characters in a setting that most are conditioned to read as man + woman = relationship, it de-emphasizes heteronormality and actually emphasises the relationships between the core characters.

And with a game full of men, that means the relationships between men are going to be the focal point.

Adding extra female characters, wouldn't have changed any of this, because the writers have gone out of their way to not make romance a plot of any sort. (There's a whole other discussion on the flaws of trying to give women agency/proving strength of character, but by doing so, taking away their sexualities by removing any sort of romance, but that's beside the point)

I think there's also an argument to be had that meaningful relationships with others don't have to necessarily imply romance between characters. It's totally fair to be sick of always having romance injected in to these sorts of relationships. That's an extremely valid take.

But there most definitely is a double standard that everyone is operating on. And we see that when we compare Alex/Farah's relationship with Ghost/Soap's.

Alex's most meaningful relationship is with Farah. He sacrifices himself for her cause and loses a leg for it. He comes back and stays by her side. Most people assume to take it as Alex is in love with Farah. We never see any type of flirting between the two. In fact it's mostly Farah testing Alex and looking at their dialogue you can tell there's respect between the two, but anything more is undefined/up for interpretation.

Yet it's just assumed by virtue of Alex and Farah being man + woman, that they must be together because of how much Alex had sacrificed. Completely ignoring the possibility of Alex doing so because he believes in Farah's cause and was sick of being jerked around with no choice by higher ups who largely didn't care about the suffering of Farah's people. Suffering that the man had personally witnessed. But no, he must be in love with her. (If Farah was a man, their whole relationship would be read as platonic with Alex's beliefs as a focus, not him being potentially in love)

Ghost's most meaningful relationship is with Soap. Soap has changed Ghost's whole MO as a lone wolf, and has challenged his very notion of trust. Ghost tests Soap and is proven wrong when Soap survives despite the odds. We even see them have plausible deniability flirting/snark. They are framed as a unit and on the off times (off of missions in cutscenes), they are always physically together. There's definitely respect between the two, but anything more is undefined/up for interpretation.

By itself, their relationship seems innocuous, but looking at the context we see a very different picture. Context matters heavily in seeing how this relationship has changed Ghost/the importance of it to him. It's assumed that Soap is the first person in god knows how long, that Ghost is emotionally attached to. What constitutes a normal, albeit flirty and snarky, friendly relationship for most, is amplified for Ghost in the glaring fact that he really doesn't do this for anyone else ever. As far as we can tell for a man that appears to live his job, Soap is Ghost's most important person.

We can even arguably say that Ghost and Soap had a flirtier, friendlier, more emotional relationship than Alex and Farah ever had, yet it's assumed (by the male audience) to be completely platonic by virtue of them both being men.

For all those people who argue to stop shipping characters, those same people turn around and are completely implicit in the notion of Alex and Farah being a thing.

It's a really annoying take, because you and I know that it's not the romance they're bothered by. It's the idea of having a character that exemplifies the silent male loner badass archetype as anything but the pinnacle of masculinity. IE, totally and utterly straight.

I feel I could go on about all the ways Ghost surprisingly subverts his archetype, but I'll leave it there. This is prob already too long 😅

But yes, having new cool female characters is always good, but it still wouldn't settle any sexuality debate since they would most likely be written without any hint of romance between the core 141 group and that potential new character. Just like how Farah and Laswell, as you said, have been both removed completely from the romance/sexuality debate, any new female character would also be put under similar framework.

I suppose it would just make them appear more straight (and get rid of all the speculation) if they had a new female character added into 141, but I don't see the point of adding a new character for that sole purpose. And tbh, it would come across as insulting to women if they did for that one reason.

Given how little character development we had in the latest game, I heavily doubt they would introduce new characters at all when they barely showed anything of the current ones we have already. We need more development of the characters we have, adding someone new would arguably take away from building proper relationships/dynamics between the characters we do have currently.

But yeah, heh. I'll stop for real now. If you got this far in my latest Ted Talk™, kudos to you good sir 🫡, you have all my love ☺️

Hope you have a great day too nonny, and I hope this helps with the discussion. Feels like I went off on too many side tangents. 🤔🤔🤔

[cacaitos]

tbh i probably wouldn't have finished fire candy if i hadn't deduced early on the author was a woman (the plans to cover lesser known women writing typical type seinen/shonen is going. as terrible as you would expect) and in another post i did mention the mixed shoujo/seinen visuals but i guess i focused on like more flowery aesthetics bishonen and stuff. algo guess i ignored to mention that it is pretty much the statement of the author to produce series (or erotica, at any point anyway) that's appealing to both demographics, intentionally.

not that im gonna expound lots on details either though.. (it's stilla bible tho)

i ignored to mention (just forgot sorry) in the short review that in yellow hearts, SA is a verry recurrent thing/part/context of the sex scenes (that i have to define are with the erotic intent). now even then, i don't think [SA, 'age gaps', guys w freudian-esque issues, etc] in this case at least, represent a kind of deterrent for a female audience in intent (regardless of how i feel about it). first bc those are still Very Frecuent Things in erotica more clearly demographically divided aimed and written at women anyway, and second because topics aside the author, as mentioned above, uses the language and form of shoujosei to indicate in an transparent way to emphasize so.

the female characters even in the, yk, Situations... seem to preserve a preocupation with prettiness and the impression of pleasure in their designs/expressions. in net numbers, yes, they are usually/majority of the visual focus of the sexual scenes anyway since it's a seinen (audience implicit), but it's not like i can give you a definitive distinction between what about it is [meant to be in intent] the Object of interest or what has an Self-insert quality.

***the abovementioned preocupations w pretiness etc seem to very pointedly to work under the aesthetic proclivities of shoujosei. at a point it isn't so much about what men/women want but that These XYZ elements straight up don't customarily exist in shonen/seinen and those void bridged by the shoujosei proper also customary structures of the portrayal of intimacy are what evidence the interest of being of a pleasurable quality to read to a female audience, intentionally.

the paneling at points shifts completely to that of an shojosei romance's manga, the use of halftones, textures, neg and pos space, composition; of a tenderness (eh...) and an emotional interest of the parties that for as much shitty horny seinen ive read i dont find ever being as present, like at all (not that im precisely complimenting YH either...). of couse that's speaking of the ones that arent SA; theyre all pretty equally explict and intense regardless, in an customary-shoujosei unlikely fashion, though.

in the men's department.. well, on pretty literal terms the story is about idk yakuza gang conflict or smth, there will be rock bands and whores in between that i guess. from the very beginning there will be a balance to mantain between the main male characters being a more traditional dark but youthful type of masculinity for an seinen story while also obviously being yk. bishonen (most of the main ones at least). pretty easy to discern intent with those elements i think. it also extends to the sex scenes: vaguely speaking the author has a leniency to make them more, expressive? sentitive? something like that; make them have slightly/noticeably more presence in frames, that makes the thing a speck less onesided (well, it's less frequent the older/less bishie/more traditionally masculine the character is, not that that's surprising).

lastly.. hmm.. despite the author being kind of apparently of a bl writer on the side (tho YH is completely straight), male homoeroticism is mostly kept on the side (one char mentions it) or it's expressed thru more conventional male-on-male bloodlust and violence, though limited to the individual than in pro of indicating any particular relationship between the parts. however, i think that keeping the motions of homoerotic violence w no textual outlet for it makes some of the male characters' sexuality interesting so far it's just as confused as the mixed language of shoujosei and seinen of above.

for one, it makes violence, for the seinen audience, sexual but in a slightly more unusual and/or uncomfortable way, for the genre at least. both because of a female audience in mind and how [the male characters] can serve to them in a shoujo fashion but also taking into acc BL fashions, ends up making them as much of the

[a-trick-or-two-with-lepers]

Hair Song Ranking - by Production!

I'm back again with a somewhat coherent tumblr post! Can you believe it? Anyway, I know I've already done a Hair song ranking, but this time, I'll be talking about multiple productions: the Original cast recording (1968), the 1979 movie soundtrack, and the Broadway revival cast recording (2009). I know, same formula as my Godspell post.

I am aware that the film version omitted a TON of songs, but I'll be keeping those songs in the ranking anyway. I tried to match the songs up as much as possible, so I left out some that only appeared in one version. Also, massive spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the movie- it departs from the original script in several major ways, and I think this impacts the message of the story both negatively and positively. (My asks and DMs are always open if you want to have a conversation about it 👀).

And now: my unsolicited opinions!

Aquarius- Winner: 1979 Movie. I mean. Can you blame me? This is, like, the most ethereal opening to a movie ever. The arrangement in this version is my favorite of any recording I've heard of this song. The extended intro leaves plenty of time for the audience to get excited- the bass and brass hit every time- and by the time the vocals come in, you'd better be ready to be astonished. The soloist is amazing. 'Aquarius' is by far the most popular track from the musical, and Renn Woods, who was just 19 at the time, sings it with such power. I'm a big fan of Sasha Allen, who sings this song (as well as many others) in the revival cast, and Ronnie Dyson's original take is iconic, but Woods only got one song in the show, and I think she deserves all the recognition for it. I highly suggest taking a look at this article if you'd like to know more about her experiences.

Donna- Winner: 1979 Movie. I was 🤏 this close to giving this one to the revival cast; Will Swenson is one of my favorite portrayals of George Berger. But not even he could hit the notes Treat Williams (rest in peace 😔) managed in this song. I also enjoy the instrumentation and backup vocals of this one the most. It's gonna be really hard to compare Treat to anyone else- he's top tier, for me.

Hashish- Winner: 2009 Cast. I almost gave this to the movie again, 'cause I do think it did the best job at what it set out to do, which is, I assume, make the audience feel like they're in the blunt rotation. Only thing with that is, this song is on the same track as 'Donna' in the movie soundtrack, and it pisses me off, because whenever I wanna listen to the former, I have to either sit through the latter (which I'm not too fond of) or use one of my precious Spotify skips! So, I'm gonna go ahead and say I like the revival recording best. Like I said, this track isn't my favorite, but I like that this recording in particular gets straight to the point and doesn't drag it out.

Sodomy- Winner: 1979 Movie. Ok. I know I'm riding high on the movie soundtrack right now. I'm aware of my bias. But it's not my fault they put a fucking church choir in this song. It sounds SO GOOD, and for what?? Also, love Donnie Dacus. He's so damn cute in the movie, and I really like his voice. It's just strong enough not to sound breathy, but not so strong it overwhelms the track. Woof, my beloved 🥰

Colored Spade- Winner: 1979 Movie. Or as I know it: ".....😶..... and president of the United States of Love!" Also, yes, another movie win. I can't defend myself anymore. The recordings are just so clean. Whoever played bass for this one really went at it. Not to mention, Dorsey Wright put his whole Hudussy into his performance. I will say, there's a weird noise at the end of the recording- I can't even explain it, but it's funny as hell. Go listen to it.

Manchester England- Tie: 1979 Movie/2009 Cast. Yeah, I couldn't choose with this one. I'd say the movie has a slight edge over the revival cast- mostly because it's gay as hell and has both Treat Williams and John Savage singing. I do love the revival version as well, though, because I think it's more what the original composition had in mind. The fake British accent-shtick is missing entirely from the film. Actually, this is one of those songs where the meaning in the stage version is completely different from the film version. This makes it really hard to compare them. So, you get a tie. (Side note: I need to watch this clip from the movie at least once a day to stay healthy. Doctor's orders).

I'm Black/Ain't Got No- Winner: 1979 Movie. Shit, man. You can't put Kurt Yaghjian in a song and expect me not to go crazy about it. (Peep the profile pic). Once again, the arrangement of this version rocks my shit to an absurd degree. Every soloist SLAYS it, the instrumentation is crisp as hell, and this version actually combines songs that are usually broken up in most stage productions. I'm not saying it's necessarily better because of that, but it certainly makes it easier to listen to cohesively. Also, I don't know. The choreography for the scene just matches so well with the tune. And yes, I know I shouldn't judge a movie based on its cinematography when comparing it to stage productions, but it's really hard to ignore with this one. Even without that, this is one of my favorite songs from the movie. It's genuinely perfect. I wouldn't change a thing about it. Also, John Savage is just really adorable when he sings "I'm invisible." Sue me. At least I'm honest!

Sheila Franklin/ I Believe in Love- Winner: 2009 Cast. This one isn't in the movie soundtrack, so you're safe from its reign for now. Woo! Anyway, Caissie Levy slays. The original cast may have gotten this one if it included the little intro where everyone sings their bit about Sheila- I love that part. But I think the revival cast deserves this win.

Air- Winner: 1979 Movie. "But tumblr user a-trick-or-two-with-lepers, this one wasn't even in the movie!" Ok, and? It's on the soundtrack, and it's the best one. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. It's a damn shame this didn't make the cut, 'cause Annie Golden did a great job with it! She sounds absolutely adorable. The other two versions are almost hard to listen to for me. It's not like I think the singers did a bad job- they're both very talented and I don't hate their versions- but the song is written to be somewhat annoying, I think. The voice Kacie Sheik puts on for Jeannie can be a bit grating at times. Maybe that just means I'm more of a vocalist-enjoyer than an actor-enjoyer, but in terms of listening value, this one goes to the tragically unused movie version.

10. Initials- Winner: 1968 Cast. An original cast recording win! Yay! I don't even have a problem with the other two versions, I just think it's really funny that this particular recording came out while LBJ was president. Dissing a current president in your broadway production has to be one of the boldest moves I've seen in musical theater history- though, this show broke a lot of musical barriers, so I'm not surprised.

11. I Got Life- Winner: 1979 Movie. I don't know why I spent so long thinking about which version was my favorite for this one. The movie version is like, one of my top tracks on Spotify. The whole scene is fucking perfect. I know this is supposed to be a Claude song, but Treat Williams as Berger owns it. It ranked number two in my 1979 Hair song ranking, and I stand by that placement. It has become one of my favorite movie scenes. The absolute joy that emanates from his performance is really inspiring. I will say, I like how they kept the 1948/1968 bit at the beginning of the OG cast recording, and Gavin Creel sings this song really well in the revival, but I'd be hard pressed to give this win to anyone but the one and only Treat Williams.

12. Going Down- Winner: 2009 Cast. This is another one that wasn't in the movie soundtrack, and I am PISSED that we never got to hear Treat sing this. Regardless, Will Swenson has the charisma cranked up to 1000 here. I adore how he growls out "Lucifer." This has become one of my favorite tracks from the 2009 recording. It is NOT believable that this man, or anyone playing Berger in these versions, is a teenager, but I've never cared about stuff like that. Well, except for the travesty that is the Dear Evan Hansen movie. Yeesh... Anyway!

13. Hair- Winner: 1979 Movie. The title track! I can back this one up, I swear. First of all: this is usually a Claude/Berger song, and while I really wish John Savage sang more in the movie, a second Woof solo is always appreciated. They keep more of the harmony in the intro, which I appreciate. This particular version of "Let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees" lives in my head rent-free at all times. I wish they'd used Hud's solo in the soundtrack, but I'm not too mad about it. Treat is, once again, hitting those high notes, and my ears thank him for it. Also, this is the only version that doesn't drag out the "why don't my mother love me" line, and I don't know why, but I kind of like it better that way?

14. My Conviction- Winner: 2009 Cast. This song is so cute. I love that someone of an older generation shows support in this show! And she's(?) trans?? Or a crossdresser. Never was sure which it was. Either way, I think all the performances of this one were really great, but Andrew Kober did it best in my opinion. Still, I'd love to see the unnecessarily horrified reactions to this in the 60s.

15. Easy to Be Hard- Winner: 1979 Movie. Yeah, I knew this was gonna win before I even started making the list. I'm sorry, I truly do love both other versions, and whenever I sing this song I use the original key, but the movie version is simply just. 😚🤌. That plucky thing they do with the guitar is so beautiful. The meaning of the song is amplified by how different the scene is from the stage versions. And the singer. THE. SINGER. FUCKING INSANE. Her name is Cheryl Barnes, and she owns my entire heart. This role isn't in any other version as far as I'm aware, and she doesn't even have a name. She just pops up and is like "hey lemme just blow you all away real quick." Fuck you Hud for being mean to her and her little baby. Still mad that he didn't get more flack for that on-screen. Point is- this performance is the best. I don't even like Jennifer Hudson's version more than this one, which is saying a LOT, 'cause I love that woman.

16. Don't Put It Down- Winner: 2009 Cast. This used to be a 'skip' song for me. But after listening to the revival recording more, I can safely call it one of my favorites. The harmonies are really clear in this version, and I find the satire of it really amusing. Crazy for the blue, red, and white! What a shame that they made it instrumental in the movie.

17. Frank Mills- Winner: 1968 Cast. I just found out this was sung by Martha Plimpton's mother??? I love her! This version is absolutely adorable. I really like her voice, and I think it captures Crissy's character really well. No shade to Allison Case, though; her version is just as, if not more, beautiful. The original just happens to be my favorite in this case. Also, I noticed how few wins they were getting and I felt bad.

18. Hare Krishna/ Be-In- Winner: 2009 Cast. This is one of those where I'd honestly be fine adding any of the versions to my playlist. The original seems like the perfect thing to get high to, and the movie version is accompanied by a literal drug trip scene, but this version is the clearest and most listenable to me. The harmonies are really present. I really like when they all sing, "Burn it, Berger, burn it!" Also, Dionne and everyone singing "Aquarius," is really beautiful and haunting. They're hyping Claude up, and then he doesn't burn it, and hhhhhggngnnnnngggghhh it's just really good.

19. Where Do I Go?- Winner: 1979 Movie. Is anyone really surprised anymore? This is hand-down my favorite song from the movie. Let me tell you why. The instrumentation at the beginning is like an auditory orgasm. The cinematography- I know, I know!- is really thought-provoking. The way every single person walking through New York just turns around, in sync, and stops, like they've suddenly realized how meaningless their lives are... And let me tell you. I fucking a-d-o-r-e John Savage's voice. I know most people won't- it's kind of whiny- but for some reason, I just can't get enough of it. It's so tragic that he didn't get more solos in this movie. Anyway, I have a whole ass analysis of this song on my blog, so check that out if you're interested. I also wrote an almost 40k word ao3 story using it as title fodder. Yeah, I'm shamelessly plugging my fanfiction. If I'm aware that I'm cringe does that make me less cringe?

20. Electric Blues- Winner: 2009 Cast. I almost gave this to the movie, because that really is my favorite version... for the most part. I think it goes on too long- I know that's because it fades into Claude's drug trip, but it gets tiring to listen to (for my short attention span, that is). That doesn't mean I don't really like the revival recording, though. Everyone has great energy, and this recording actually made me appreciate the song a lot more. Also, the end is really funny ("What the fuck! I was singing!")

21. Oh Great God of Power/ Manchester England (Reprise)- Winner: 2009 Cast. As far as I'm aware, this is the only one that actually has this song on the soundtrack. The original just has the Manchester England reprise. Anyway, I love this version to death. The first half is so gorgeous. I love how obsessed everyone is with Claude because, same. Also, I really like how they all sing "I believe in God!"

22. Black Boys- Winner: 2009 Cast. It took me a long time to warm up to this song. What made me finally like it was this recording. The scene in the movie was... strange, to say the least. But the women in the revival cast do such a good job with it. It's a bop!

23. White Boys- Winner: 2009 Cast. I know we're on a revival streak, but it felt wrong to split up the two boys songs. Besides, this is probably the best version of the three. Sasha Allen is fantastic as always. As much as I love Nell Carter's voice, the military recruiter guys singing in the track is too goofy for me to take it seriously.

24. Walking in Space- Tie: All. I knew this was gonna be a hard one to rank. I love all the versions so much. So, I'm just gonna take the easy route and talk about all three of them. The original is such a cohesive tune. It plays so smoothly, and I really enjoy everyone's vocal performance. It doesn't feel overdone at any point. The movie version is a bit long for my taste, but it's so good that it honestly has a right to be long. This part of the film drags a bit, but maybe I just don't like watching people suffer through war training. It's definitely impactful in that sense, though. I really like the first soloist; she has this lilting soprano vibrato that's very pleasant to listen to. I also like how militaristic the men chanting the colors sound in this version. Sasha Allen is the first soloist in the revival recording, and of course, she's perfect. She belts the whole thing, unlike the other versions' soloists. Her voice gives me massive chills, especially when she puts a bit of growl into it.

25. Four Score/ Abie Baby- Winner: 1968 Cast. All the love to Nell Carter and Sasha Allen, but this version is my fav. It's the least serious, which I think is what is was written to be. The soloist is doing this sing-talking thing, which I love, and she's funny as hell, especially at the end. ("Bang?! Ahahah, bang? Shiiiiit, I ain't dying for no white man").

26. Three-Five-Zero-Zero- Tie: All. Again, I'm not sure how to choose which of these is my favorite. It's just a really good anti-war song. Each one of the versions does it justice. I really like when a song makes me learn something, and I learned a lot from this song. For example: I learned what Viet Cong means, and I also learned that this song references a really interesting anti-war poem from the 60s titled 'Witchita Vortex Sutra.'

27. What A Piece of Work is Man- Winner: 2009 Cast. It was really hard to pick my favorite of the three. I didn't wanna hit you all with another tie, so I went with the revival cast. I think it has the smoothest transition into the Walking in Space reprise. The vocals are very clean as well. I wish they had kept this song in the movie; it's so pretty!

28. Good Morning Starshine- Tie: All. Dammit! I lied. I need to add another tie. They're all so good! The harmonies in the original are really, really nice. The movie version just puts me in such a good mood, and Beverly D'Angelo's voice is amazing! What a shame she didn't get more vocal parts in the movie. I really like how the harmonies start layering as everyone in the car gets into the song. This was one of the only moments I actually liked how they characterized Sheila in the film. But it was the revival recording that made me actually like this song- enough to want it in my playlists. Caissie Levy just has such a good voice. I also just love this song because it represents the last moment of hope and happiness in every version. It almost makes me want to cry, but I'll have to save my tears for this next song...

29. The Flesh Failures/ Let the Sunshine In- Tie: All. Welp. There goes my good mood. Fuck. This song... it doesn't matter who sings it. I will cry. Every time. It's so perfectly composed. In the original, when Claude sings his last few lines, he gets drowned out by the chorus, which symbolizes his meaningless death. Of course, the differences between the stage versions and the movie are stark, considering Berger dies instead of Claude, but the power of the message remains the same. The cinematography of this scene in the movie is so genius, it actually hurts to watch. The young men- the teenagers, the children- marching into the gaping maw of the warplane, Berger among them, singing a reprise of Claude's song. He knows now that he isn't seen as an individual by these people. He's a weapon. Disposable. He could be Claude for all they care. Fuck. It hurts just to think about it. The revival recording, though, might be the hardest to listen to. When paired with Aquarius Goodnights/ Ain't Got No/ Yip up the Sun, it never fails to make me sob. And I mean sob. The way Claude sings "Ain't got no" followed by gunshots, the way Berger screams for Claude, the brokenhearted singing of Sheila when she realizes Claude has died... I can't. I literally have to stop at Good Morning Sunshine when I'm listening to any of these albums if I want to continue having a good day, or else I'll be thinking about it all day. I truly believe this is the most intelligent and heart-wrenchingly stunning song ever written. Let the motherfucking sunshine in.

Well Gee Willikers. That was a ride. I love Hair like I love life itself, but BOY does that last song get me. Thank you SO SO SO much if you've read this far. I love you and I am kissing you tenderly on the forehead as we speak. I'm definitely in a bit of a Hair fixation right now- some may even call it hyper- and I had to have a somewhat productive outlet for it, so here you go! Hope you enjoyed ❤️

[raspberry-gloaming]

Anyone want to hear about my episode ideas for my fan companion (and secret zygon), Erin? No? Well your getting them! :D

Episode 1: Bats in the Belfry aka, "That is not a fucking bat"

We are introduced to Erin as she drives up to a property. This property is in the north east of England, and is a kinda crumbling, old country house/estate. It has recently been bought by a new family, and they want to do it up (as much as they can since something like this is probably listed lol) or even like perhaps it's a new property that has come into the hands of the NHS. Either way, the owners are having a bat survey done. Enter Erin, a 29 year old Ecologist.

There are hints or even scenes, building up tensions as the audience but not the characters can see that these possible bats... that ain't a bat. Erin decides, as per surveying thingy I need to research more, to come back at night/dusk when the bats are more active as there is stuff that suggests bat activity, but haven't been able to see anything since it's daytime and bats are nocturnal.

On return, hyjinks! Or rather more scary than simply hyjinks, but the adventure begins. Enter, Doctor. Why is he here? Plot reasons, that's what. Perhaps he's been tracking these things - that to absolutely no doctor who fan's surprise, are not bats, but actually aliens.

Plot. Ending. She's gonna travel and be a companion, tada! I know that didn't sound that interesting, but I've got a lot of thoughts I can't really express on mini scenes and visuals and relationships between how the characters interact that I can't put in writing, frustratingly. Just know that there's a vibe.

Episode xyz: The one where a bird gets stuck in the TARDIS

I'm surprised this hasn't happened before - or perhaps it has, and we just haven't seen it. This episode takes place for the majority, just inside the TARDIS. Unless I'm wrong, we haven't had a tardis as the setting episode since... Series 7? It's time to bring that back, with a low stakes episode.

Most people know the frustration of trying to get some animal, be it bird, insect or even something else, out of your house. And that animal like, never, wants to go out the way it came, it's like it wants to bang into the wall or window instead of the wide open door. Now imagine your house is an infinite complex of tunnels and rooms, stretching on for ever and ever and ever and ever... and ever... and ever....

Yup, that's the tardis, and there's a frightened animal, earth or otherwise, that we need to get out. Perhaps add possible tension by it damaging wiring or getting into places it really shouldn't, or the TARDIS ain't happy about all that jazz. Watch Erin and the Doctor bond as they hyjinks inside the TARDIS, and we get to see some rooms, and mechanics, and dimension-breaking stuff that we haven't seen before.

I've also got ideas for a two parter - somewhere in the second half of the series, possibly even like last two episodes. Not really anything about the big bad or whatever arc the series has, but about The Reveal.

And also the flashback and montage cold open at the start of the second episode of said two parter - Mwah! Chefs kiss! What I've got in my head I adore, each little scene and interaction, character building, little threads and stuff. The big bad ain't important, nooo it's this stuff it's delicious and I ship my own characters so damn much, but like... not in a straight up romantic way? It's complicated. They're alien. They're simultaneously Tudors, Millenials and Gen Alpha all at the same time. They're in love. But is it romantic love like humans have? Do zygons have a concept of romance? Idk but Rahul and Erin are soooo cute and I love them even though I made both of them up in my head.

[wolfstrong]

season 6 thoughts and reflections lets go baby

I'd just like to start out by saying this last like 2 months I've been watching season 6 have been like the craziest of my life, like I graduated college and I'm now living on a farm on the opposite side of the country, so like my recollection of this season isn't the best. AND ALSO this season was sooooo all over the place so its fitting I guess.

Okay, I'm not gonna be the first person to say this but season 6 was uhhhhh kinda weird guys! But I can proudly say I didn't hate it. there were PARTS of it I hated very very deeply. but overall I think there was some real good in it. This season did not have so much of an overarching plot, it had like SEVERAL plots going on. I think this maybe could have been done well but it wasn't. PLOT NUMBER ONE: buffy comes back wrong which makes her have sex with spike. I honestly HATED this. every Spuffy conversation was the exact same thing in this season and it all went NOWHERE. i swear every episode they would have the most word salad nonsensical conversation that always went pretty much like Buffy saying that despite having sex with him she hates spike and then spike responding like "whhhatttt no that cant be true". Ugh I was seriously so sick of it. When we learn that Buffy went to heaven after she died and actually DIDN'T want to come back that was like a really interesting direction to take things. but then they like kinda did nothing with that other then like Buffy being depressed all the time. Which is fine but like don't you think this leaves great potential for Buffy to relearn why the world is awesome? shouldn't this have created great great drama between her and Willow, the person who brought there back? they like slightly tried to work with these things but also didn't. and instead focused soooo much time on spuffy. like okay. PLOT NUMBER TWO: Xander and Anya divorce arc. I actually liked this plot point honestly. It was a very interesting exploration of both their characters and I feel like it made them both feel real. I liked Xanders nervousness leading up to the wedding and Anyas sort of ignorance in thinking they were gonna live happily ever after even tho we as the audience know that things will not end well. And I liked when Anya slept with Spike, it was just the kinda good drama you can really get into. PLOT NUMBER THREE: Willows magic addiction. I don't know this really could have been something. like it was so close to not being incredibly stupid but then it was. The issue is they decided half way through to treat her drug addiction like it was 1 to 1 a drug addiction which literally made like. no sense. Willow does not seem like the type to ever get into like heroin or something. I feel like the reason a lot of people to drugs is for the escape, but Willow was actually in a somewhat stable and happy place in her life? what makes much much more sense and what they almost did was have her addicted to the POWER that comes with magic. like this is good and real and not stupid. and they kinda did this but they also kind of had it be a drug thing? also this arc kinda culminated in Tara dying and therefore I hate it by default. PLOT NUMBER FOUR: whatever the fuck was going on with the trio. I thought this was funny and good honestly. I like the trio and villains because its like. not every evil is a supernatural demon. sometimes the most evil forced in the world are stupid virgin loser nerd guys. and like brother that is so true. in real life incel men ARE some of the most deeply evil and horrible people you will ever meet. So I'm glad they went there and also the trio just was genuinely funny in a sit com big bang theory type of way.

Also i just have to say, Giles leaving was REALLLYYYY a major hit to the show and a driving factor of why it wasn't as good. I really felt his absence, sure since season 3 he hasn't had so much to do, but the group NEEDS him. he's like the straight man/ responsible adult and person who puts a end to the lame bullshit. idk he's just the anchor of the whole show i think, he keeps the thing grounded. and without him we were just floating about nonsensically. And while I'm being a hater, I think the dialogue in this season was just awful. I have a lot of thoughts on "buffy speak" and how it can actually be really great if done correctly. in this season, it was done badly. it was way too much and all of the time and just plain stupid. oh and also, THIS IS THE SEASON WHERE AMY GETS UNRATTED. which is awesome if you are me specifically, so shout out to that plot point. I'm trying to think of something else positive to say about this season but uh, I really can't. Okay I suppose what I can say is that it had potential. Like it could have been really interesting, and I can imagine a version of it in my head, with a few tweaks, that would actually be great. I won't even say it was almost there, it was far from there, but that's almost better I think. If something is really close to being great and they fumble it, that's usually like, way worse. but If its bad enough, then its like kinda camp. And by the end of it, this season truly was camp. I hate dark willow, I think it's stupid as hell, but when Dark Willow and Giles started to have a Super Saiyan anime type battle of magic, that was lowkey iconic. like fuck it, remember the nerdy girl and old man librarian from season 1? well they are both shooting at each other with beams of light now and destroying the whole damn building. That's camp bitch, they truly didn't give a fuck anymore. Oh, and of course, as a Willow and Xander best friend forever applicator I love the resolution of the finale. Like literally love and friendship saved the whole entire world, bitch. OKAY

EPISODES I LIKE:

All The Way: I just love Dawnie so a Dawn centric episode yessssssss and I just love to see her be such a angsty teenager while also being a huge dork cuz all 15 year olds are just like that. This episode had such early season energy and I love that

Once more with feeling: duhhhhh okay duh. DUHHH.

Tabula Rasa: oh boy this episode. its sooooooo its SOOOOO. like i busted a gut laughing and then it just ended SO TERRIBLY. but whatever I can still appreciate the hijinx of everyone losing their memory

Double Meat Palace: literally iconic and genuinely good I don't care what anyone says. GREAT atmospheric episode that genuinely gave me chills are points. THIS EPISODE WAS GREAT AND NOT EVEN THAT STUPID YALL JUST DONT GET IT. its literally about the horror of mediocrity and excepting that you'll never be anything more then a cog in the machine

Hell's Bells: SOOOO much in this episode. SOOO MUCH. like some truly funny bits and some things that are just gut-wrenching. It's like such a train wreck but like if a train full of clowns is what got wrecked.

Entropy: iconic freak media. And I love Anya okay.

Worst episodes:

Wrecked: the downfall of the season, the moment I realized that all my hopes and dreams for the plots they were setting up were going absolutely no where. and Spike and Buffy fucking so hard they break down an entire house is DUMBBBBBB

Gone: wtf even was this episode. BUFFY ACTS SOOOO FUCKING OOC HERE IT"S INSANE. i hated watching this actually it was bad

As You Were: to be honest with you, this one is SOOOOO bad that it's almost iconic. Like this has to actually be the worst episode of BTVS I have ever seen. I didn't even feel like I was watching btvs in this moment, it felt like some other horrible show. but like its Riley man. it's literally the episode where Riley comes back and I expect none the less.

Characters:

No one new to talk about other then the trio, who I said I really liked. I'm glad to hear Andrew will be in season 7 cuz I think he's great. It's funny that the show is like. he's very obviously supposed to be closeted but we aren't gonna say anything about it cuz if we did then we can't be homophobic to him. Also everyone is sleeping on the trio toxic yaoi which is literally canon. its so canon and no one cares. literally that scene where Andrew is crying after Warren ditched him and hes like "I though he loved... hanging out with me!" (obviously about to say "I thought he loved me") like Andrew being Warrens little minion cuz he was in closeted gay love with him when his boy Johnathan was there for him all along,,, who he was really meant to be with... guys the angest the hurt comfort the. I'm not insane listen to me get back here.

ANYWAY. season 6! yayyyy!

[normiedoctorwho]

Venting about the 12th Doctor and nuwho experience so far

So I’ve been working my way through nuwho for about a year and a half now, and since it hit 12 it’s been extremely slowly. The reason it’s been so slow is while there are episodes I like, I cannot for the life of me get invested in these characters, the major exception after the s9 premiere being Missy.

I love her.

Dearly.

I’m just gonna pull off the bandaid now, I liked Clara more with 11. I know heaven sent is gonna be amazing and gives a great tragic goodbye for her, the fact is as of now, I wish she would’ve left either after kill the moon, or after the s8 finale.

And I’ll stress that I am extremely biased towards more classic who feels for episodes. That’s where I got into the series and if you know me, you’ll know I DESPISE new who’s constant raising of the stakes. As in then Modern day earth/the whole universe has to be on the line.

I’ve reached a boiling point with the 12th doctor because Moffatt’s inability to commit to his dramatic plot points.

I’m not expecting Missy to actually be dead. It was obvious she survived. And she was the best part of the s9 premiere, but like… more of a buffer guys.

Speaking of a buffer, once again we have a perfectly fine companion break up that’s undone by the Christmas special because god forbid new who has a good companion exit/commits to it outside of Martha’s.

(Opinion context: Rose’s first exit worked, then Journey’s end happened. Jack’s was straight up bad, just forgot about him for two seasons, Martha is good as stated, Donna’s was horribly contrived and fucking stupid actually happy that’s getting a do over, Amy and Rory had their good exit at the end of s6, which got ruined by the Christmas special, and now Clara with the same shit.)

Magician’s apprentice in particular annoyed me because it felt like it was spinning it’s wheels while also yet again making the stakes impossibly big when they did not need to be. At least at the start. “The Doctor is dying. Airplanes are frozen in mid air! The master is back! What do we doooo?” When the initial conceit of the Doctor being torn between helping a kiddo Davros or letting him die was way more interesting. And I won’t lie, not all of this criticism is fair. I’d heard this was the premise of the episode for months if not years in advance, and got excited and built my own picture of what it could’ve been. And when the episodes themselves seemed to be actively avoiding the interesting thing in favor of Davros and 12 sitting in a room reading their character analysis’ of each other while Missy and Clara run around a radiation filled planet with no side effects, I got bored fast.

Like Moffatt, I know you got the idea for this episode from 4’s speech in genesis. You don’t have to literally play the clip from the speech. It’s not necessary and just eats up time. Just role with the dramatic irony and have fans notice the reference.

I will say I liked that 12 didn’t fall for Davros’ obvious lies and that 12 had a real plan to kill all of the daleks on the rebuilt skaro. 10 seemingly backtracking to pre remembrance character development never sat right with me. And 11 never truly contemplating the gravity of the consequences of choosing to save the earth over destroying the daleks in victory of the daleks was also annoying. So to give 12 this chance to get rid of it all and have him actually go through with it was nice.

I fully expect Davros to return at some point, but at the very least, it won’t be because the Doctor showed him pity. They are well and truly past that now.

But then he almost falls for Missy’s bit to trick him into killing Clara? Ugh. More importantly though, this episode relies wayyyyy too much on the audience’s classic who knowledge of thecharacter dynamic and what happened to Skaro. As far as I can remember, nuwho does not ever explain the Doctor destroyed it.

Listen I like it when classic who comes up in nuwho, but nuwho needs to stand on its own. And if it’s gonna take cues from classic who, then for the love of god stop having 3 save modern day earth plots per season and let the timelords be actual forces in the narrative. Vs some tragic backstory you lean on b/c you’re convinced the doctor’s mysticism is why we like him so much.

I swear nuwho downplaying that the doctor is a renegade timelord b/c Galifrey is no longer a factor in the plot outside of “waaa I destroyed my home planet in the time war,” is just so annoying. The writers focus on the stole the tardis aspect and not “my people had time and space travel but they sat on their asses vs using it to explore and help people.

I’ll clarify that I do not hate all of new who. I like it overall. And I like older doctors too. Plz I don’t hate capaldi as an actor I think he does a good job with what he’s given. But god does where I’m at feel like the show is just running on fumes while also having it’s head up it’s own ass.

I bet Clara’s clear trauma at 12 nearly killing her and being unable to explain who she is will totally get addressed in the next story.

/s