#because a LOT of my readings of this whole arc and the eternals family relationships and the beach scene

[gffa]

Hiiii :D I was just wondering, do you have any good Marvel fic reccomendations? Your massive list of star wars fics is like the no.1 thing I go to when im in a star wars mood, and all of them have been amazing, so thanks so much for that!! I'm just curious if you have any good Marvel fic recs?? If not that's fine lol, thank you for your service 🙏

Hi! Lol, I had to sit with this post for a few days because "Marvel fic" is such a wide range of possibilities, like are we talking the comics or the live action shows? The Avengers movies? The X-Men movies? Which section of those fandoms? Avengers as a team? Captain America? Thor? Iron Man? Daredevil? X-Men: First Class? Just... anything? I don't actually have a lot of comics fic recommendations (mostly because it's too hard to wade through all the movie stuff because so many people cross-tag into the comics tags despite it not being comic fic that those tags are now useless), but my go-to for Marvel comics are always: ✦ Betrayal + Paradox Law + The Game of Empires by Valerie J It's hard to describe this series, other than that about ~15 years ago, it was an ambitious attempt at taking various elements of the X-Men comics and weaving them into a coherent whole, focusing on giving Remy an epic backstory to explain his origins and his powers. It probably wouldn't really fit with more recent comics, but if you're a fan of late '90s/early '00s X-Men comics, this was a hell of a ride with cool powers, surprising family twists, time travel, fun relationships, and incredible ramp ups to tense situations that explode in the best way. ✦ The Gestalt Arc by Lori McDonald Another old school fic centered around the Remy/Rogue relationship and taking them on an epic journey, in an alternate version of what happened after their kiss in X-Men #41. The ups and downs of how they work out their issues, the lives they try to lead with each other, finding their path forward together, it's still one of my favorites for the era. ✦ Anything by Traincat for the Young Avengers My favorite is grab a blanket, brother, but they're an author that I'd write a blanket rec for, if any of the summaries sound relevant to your interests! They also write Peter Parker/Johnny Storm, which isn't my area of comics, but I'd trust them with it! But primarily I'd route you to them for their super fun Young Avengers stories, the Teddy/Billy and Eli/Kate ones especially. ✦ Anything by silverspidertm2, X-parrot, takadainmate, or Mythtaken Identity for Journey into Mystery and Loki: Agent of Asgard-era fic. This is when I was in my prime era of reading Thor comic-centric fic, around Journey into Mystery and Loki: Agent of Asgard, when he was Kid Loki and then Teen Loki. There was a lot really fun worldbuilding or road trips or just feelings explosions fic from this era. Beyond that, my bookmarks are a bit of a mess, but you can scroll through them to see what you're looking for. My primary fandoms were: ✦ Daredevil TV, where I went in hard on Matt/Foggy (and some Matt/Foggy/Karen and Frank/Karen and a little Matt/Elektra), where I read voraciously for about a year before MCU burnout hit. Some faves are Double Blind by smilebackwards and Something Dumb to Do by poisonivory and jump, check parachute augustbird.

✦ Thor (MCU), which is actually the heart of who I was as an MCU fan, I spent a long time there reading a lot of fic and this will take you to my bookmarks with the pairings filtered out. I was a big fan of Thor & Loki's relationship so that's most of what's in there, and I always suggest starting with these three fics: ✦ Bargaining by proantagonist, thor & loki & odin & frigga & cast, time travel, 108.9k Faced with an eternity without his brother, Loki strikes a bargain to change the past. Post TDW. ✦ No Such Liberty by Xparrot, thor & loki & cast, 147.3k The first thing Loki said, after he had swiped his tongue over his lips to wet them, was, "You shouldn't trust me." ~ Following the attack on New York, Thor takes Loki back to Asgard in chains; but this does not mean that the god of mischief's schemes are ended, or that Thor has or ever will give up on his brother. But when Thanos threatens the realm to claim his lost prizes, on which side will Loki fall? [post-Avengers fix it] ✦ The Lullaby Singer by TheOtherOdinson, thor & loki & odin & frigga, 85k wip Odin hasn't left Asgard in over a thousand years. When he finds out Loki is still alive and preparing to launch an attack on Midgard, he could send Thor to stop him. Or Odin could go himself. As a bonus, I have a few more Thor genfic recs here.

✦ Captain America (MCU), where sure I liked some gen fic but lbr I was there for the Stucky. I mostly read during the height of the post-TWS fervor and then tapered off a lot after that (given how hard they swerved away from their relationship) and I haven't read almost anything in the fandom since Endgame, but if you want some fun TWS-era fic, I put together this list recently. (To be fair, I also liked a lot of Steve &/ Natasha, Bucky &/ Natasha and Sam/Natasha, so you can find that in there, too.)

✦ Iron Man (MCU), where I liked a mix of some fun gen pieces and some Tony/Pepper which put me in the minority, but I don't care because there were some banger authors for both. If you're interested in them, I always liked pretty much anything I read by roboticonography. icarus_chained wrote a wider variety of stuff, but I've always liked anything I've read from them as well.

✦ Avengers (MCU), where I read a lot of fic, but it's kind of all mixed in together, even some sprinkled in Black Panther fic, some Spideypool that was super fun for a hot minute, some Guardians of the Galaxy characters showing up, etc. Step carefully if you're not interested in pairings (I read a fair amount of Tony/Loki and Steve/Loki in amongst the other stuff), but honestly by the end I was probably reading more gen than anything.

✦ X-Men: First Class-verse, which is my exception to not reading much for the live action versions of the X-Men, because I am a long time Pietro Maximoff fan and while Peter wasn't my Pietro, I did love him and there was some absolute banger fic for the Dadneto trope, which was where my heart was at. Come Together by blarfkey is absolutely the first place to start!

Hopefully this is what you were looking for, but if you have further refinements on what you're interested in, let me know and I'll try to give some pointers! I've been out of reading Marvel for awhile, but I have a huge backlog from when I was in it, at least. 😂

[raayllum]

i'm literally sitting here trying to figure out what EVEN i can SAY about aspec rayllum here? i think about them and i want to combust into heart emojis. i watched the first season when it first came out and then only happened to catch up last year with my qpp, and in between i was like. so infuriated when i found out they'd made rayla and callum a thing bc i - naturally - latched onto the green and purple character as an aroace icon at 18 years old, and my partner was like "no no no no TRUST me you've got to watch it, you'll love it"

they weren't wrong and after bingeing the whole show i'm stuck thinking about rayllum a LOT. they're written so much like my own ideal relationship that i kind of want to explode from it sometimes. anyway, my absolute favorite thing about them is how much emphasis there is about their friendship - to the point that when i watched season four, I can't remember which episode specifically it was number wise but when rayla suggested splitting up and offered to go with callum and he turns her down, my first immediate heartbroken thought was "she misses her best friend..." i just love how they're in love but they're in love cos they're best friends....11/10 no notes i need more relationships like that in media

ANYWAY long rambley ask about my loves aside, my question is what are some of your favorite moments where rayllum are so clearly best friends/goofballs in love?

No like honest to god though — me and the Rayla to my Callum are also in a QPR + dash of romance relationship and like... arc 1 and arc 2 Rayllum are just so goddamn sweet??

I don't agree generally that arc 2 Rayllum is more Mature™ than arc 1 rayllum — Callum is more patient and Rayla is more open, so they've matured as individuals — but merely just that they're different flavours of aspec-ness. Like arc 1 is the craziness and rollercoaster of meeting a stranger and realizing they're Your Person, and arc 2 is the deepness after the fact of "I know you, and I know that we can get through everyone so long as we have each other" mostly cause I think the main reason people label arc 1 Rayllum as more immature is because s3 Rayllum gushes over each other, but that's bc people have a hard time conceptualizing having deep admiration for your partner(s) that isn't infatuation... even though like? It's totally normal and welcome, like any long term relationship is "my partner is the most amazing person ever and i'm also very aware of all their flaws simultaneously" and like, arc 1 Rayllum hits that balance perfectly imo

I just love all of their stages and sides to them so so much

But yeah! Some of my fave moments Rayllum wise for the Best Friends quality has to be when they help each other up in 3x05 (Callum after the soulfang chase and Rayla on the ambler) because things are Weird but they're still always going to help each other? The "I missed my best friend" quality in s4 with no one laughing at Callum's jokes / talking about magic with him (vs their first scene in 5x01 being him telling her all about the magic stuff he's reading) and Rayla keeping her disappointment at bay always hits hard and I loove 4x06 when she's beating herself up and he takes care of her because a Good Relationship isn't about how you treat each other when everything's fine, it's 100% about how treat each other when life is hard/stressful and/or you're upset with each other

But I love all the gentle teasing in early S5 and the fist bump lives in my head eternally rent free. The 2x03 hug also means a lot to me cause that was the turning point she went from being a friend to being family and I think in a lot of ways, that's their relationship's most important turning point alongside maybe 1x06 (trusting her anyway!) 4x09 (forgiveness) and 5x04 (her opening up).

5x02 post-inn and stargazing scene are also faves just because of how happy they are talking about Nothing and everything, and like — that's just so fucking real, y'know? When someone makes everything automatically better just by being there

As Callum says, "We've been through a lot, and a lot has changed. Well, some things have changed, but not everything," and this never will

[sersi]

Your gifs are always so beautiful! And the quality is top notch as usual. I still don't understand if Sersi knew Ikaris was saying goodbye to her in that moment and that he was going to kill himself, or if he was just leaving her again? Her reaction seems so calm, she still loves him apparently yet she doesn't try to say something to stop him. He sure did horrible things, but Eternals were ready to forgive Sprite or, at least, they were sympathetic to her. Chloe was talking how no one is truly bad there and that she is partly team Ikaris... I don't know, but I don't get this scene. Only Sprite seemed upset, the rest didn't really care. I guess I just wanted more family feelings from them, even to Ikaris, they were together for so long after all.

Hi anon! My take on that scene (and to an extent the entirety of Ikaris and Sersi's interactions in the modern day) is actually quite specific and (I think) quite different than your own. To me, that scene is the final resolution of a century long break-up and, for Sersi, the moment she finally gets closure.

The lack of closure produced by Ikaris leaving Sersi without explanation or warning is a recurring force in the movie. The first real introduction to their relationship--Sersi’s conversation with Dane after the Deviant attack--gives the audience the basics: how long they were together, the fact that Ikaris left her, and, crucially, Sersi's declaration that "I moved on."

In a lot of ways, Sersi has moved on--she has made a life for herself, is in a new relationship, and seems open to the notion of being in love with Dane. Yet, she is clearly still haunted by this unanswered question of why Ikaris left. These emotions are likely brought even closer to the forefront by her first one on one interaction with Ikaris in the present (the scene in her apartment post-Deviant attack), where Ikaris apologizes for (but does not explain) that abandonment.

In the forest--after they've spent one, if not two (they had to get from London to South Dakota somehow and given that they are driving a car to Ajak's house, I suspect that Ikaris may not be capable of carrying two people and flying at the same time 😅) flights together and have gotten comfortable with each other again--Sersi directly asks Ikaris why he left. And once again, Sersi doesn't get her answer. (Before getting snatched up by that Deviant, Ikaris seemed potentially ready to give her more of an answer, but I don't think he was ready to fully tell her the truth).

And then, after the attack and Gilgamesh’s death, their focus is largely consumed by finding the remaining Eternals and (for Sersi) finding a way to stop or delay the emergence. Their next one on one scene is consumed by this: Ikaris tells Sersi that he’s in love with her (present tense!!!) but also, for the first time, makes the sheer depth of the ideological gulf between them clear. And then obviously the emergence starts, Ikaris reveals that he knew all along, and declares that he is willing to kill every single one of them in order to protect it.

That heel turn on the Domo gives Sersi most of the answers she’s been waiting a century for: Ikaris reveals that he has known since they left Babylon, that he never wanted her to know the truth of their mission, and, in his most emotionally revealing dialogue, the pain that knowledge of the emergence and his decision to keep it a secret from her caused him. (“I wanted you to leave this world in peace.”, “Ajak told me everything when we left Babylon.”, “Do you think it was easy to live with the truth? To know that one day all this would end? To keep on lying to you?”). Yet, in this same moment, Ikaris gives Sersi new reasons to doubt the truths of their past relationship: in addition to his declaration (backed up by his attack on Makkari) that he is willing to kill his fellow Eternals to protect the emergence, he also admits to killing to Ajak and largely brushes aside Sersi’s repeated statements about Ajak’s love for him.

Afterwards, Sersi is nearly paralyzed by grief, betrayal, and doubt. While she overcomes this and, over the course of the beach battle, finally settles into who she has become, rather than who she once was, she is still carrying the emotional wounds of believing (due to both words and actions) that the man she spent thousands of years with is willing to kill her in defense of a system she finds archaic and violent.

It is only when Ikaris confronts Sersi on the emerging Tiamut--a moment in which Sersi clearly assumes she will die--and he cannot bring himself to kill her that all the puzzle pieces really settle into place. Ikaris and Sersi have known each other for seven thousand years (that they can remember) and, with everything that has transpired and been revealed over the past few days, I think, for the first time in thousands of years, they both fully understand who the other is. When Ikaris says “I’m sorry” and Sersi responds “I know”, it, to me, is, much more than Chloé slipping in a Star Wars callback. To me, it’s all that really needed to be or could be said in that moment. 

Sersi isn’t sorry. She did what she thought was right and it’s far too soon for the mixed emotions that come into play in her exchange with Kingo at the end. Ikaris is sorry, but I don’t really think it’s just for killing Ajak or lying to Sersi or Gil’s death or trying to kill Druig or trying to kill Sersi. I think he’s also sorry for his inability to stop Sersi. Ikaris spent thousands of years loving her and their mission to serve Arishem, and while his love for Sersi ultimately won out, I don’t think that’s something he’s at peace with at all.

In this moment, Ikaris and Sersi are in dramatically different emotional places--Ikaris is in turmoil and Sersi, for the first time in a very long time, is at peace. And with the benefit of thousands of years together and a week in which every Eternal was forced to recognize the ways in which they had changed, I think Sersi knows that, in that moment, there is nothing she can do to fix or change or stop Ikaris. She can’t absolve him of what he did (and I wouldn’t assume that she would want to do that either). She can’t undo what she just did. And while there is love there, I think they both understand that they can never be exactly what they once were. So, Sersi simply watches Ikaris leave her, for a second time, because there is no action she can take that will change anything. And after having already lost, grieved, and moved on from Ikaris once before without any understanding of why, whatever she feels in that moment is, I think, less visceral because of it.

Now, as for everyone else, I think their reactions to Ikaris’ trip into the sun are shaped by two main factors: one, their pre-existing relationships with/feelings about Ikaris and two, Ikaris’ actions over the past week. Except for Sprite and Sersi, most of the Eternals on that beach have a at least marginally antagonistic relationship with Ikaris before any of the events of the third act. Druig’s interactions with Ikaris, both in the Aztec flashback scene and in the commune in the modern day, are openly hostile. Phastos, as evidenced by Ikaris’ saying Phastos has called him worse during the Superman exchange and Phasto’s entire speech/exchange with Ikaris on the beach, has some pre-existing and likely longstanding issues with him as well. We don’t get any flashbacks that really let us pinpoint when this all started, but between “I’ve been wanting to clip your wings for a long time” and “You always did underestimate her”, I lean towards thinking these issues were bubbling under the surface well before the Eternals all split up. Thena is harder to pin down, but her 🤔 expression during the Ikersi wedding reaction shot has always made me feel like she was at least a tiny bit mixed on Ikaris by that time. (Also the fact that Gil does not let Ikaris breathe for a SECOND in their modern-day interactions and, regardless of whether you read them as romantic or just besties, that is Thena’s partner). So, of the Eternals on that beach, the only one I don’t think had issues with Ikaris beforehand is Makkari.

And Makkari is definitely the biggest testament to the second thing shaping reactions to Ikaris’ death: all the shit he pulled over the last week. He admitted to killing Ajak, something that even Druig, who had plenty of issues with Ajak, is shown to be upset over. He was indirectly responsible for Gilgamesh’s death, something that Thena, while having reached her own moment of peace in the aftermath of killing Kro, would not have forgotten. And he attempted to kill Druig, which Makkari did not appreciate and tried to kill Ikaris over.

So, while I don’t think the Eternals were necessarily happy about what Ikaris did at the end, I do think that their emotions regarding his death were deeply complicated and that, with everything else that has happened, it was not really the predominate emotional force in that moment. They’ve just stopped the birth of a Celestial and saved the world, something they never thought they would or could do. They’ve lost, in the past week, multiple members of their team/family when no one had died in the previous seven thousand years. And they joined together, mentally, with each other and with Tiamut. There’s just so much to process and settle in that whatever they feel about Ikaris is, for the moment, not able to fully break through or take center stage. It would certainly have to at some point--this is someone they’ve known for thousands of years and someone that they’ve all had a range of experiences with--but I think it might take hours, if not days, for that to really happen. (And while I would love a full multi-week-long cut of Eternals, I get why that sort of “many hours later on the beach” or “everyone on the repaired Domo while we fly to North Dakota” moment is not going to make it into the script).

The Eternals shown to have the closest/most positive relationships with Ikaris are Sersi, Sprite, and Kingo. I’ve already talked about Sersi, but I would add that, alongside whatever grief she feels over Ikaris, there is also “I killed a Celestial”, so she too has a ton going on emotionally. Kingo, who was tremendously loyal to Ikaris and at least agreed with him on the subject of the emergence, isn’t there at all and when we next see him, it is weeks later, so probably past whatever initial grief he felt.

By the end, Sprite is the Eternal with the least complicated emotions regarding Ikaris. She loves him, she agreed with him about the emergence (albeit for reasons more tied to her frustration and dissatisfaction with her life on Earth than any sort of fundamental faith in Arishem and the Celestials), and, while not knowing of Ikaris and Sersi’s final exchange, likely shares the regret he expressed in that moment. So, while probably the least emotionally settled Eternal in that beach scene, her grief over Ikaris is, I think, much less complicated than everyone else’s and thus much more immediate and visible.

Families can be really complicated, and, in my opinion, the issue of forgiveness and the treatment of Sprite vs. Ikaris is wrapped up in that. Sprite was not necessarily beloved by all of her fellow Eternals, but, unlike Ikaris, it may be easier for the Eternals to have sympathy for her because of the increasingly obvious cruelty of how Arishem made her and because the scope of what she did was much smaller. She tried to kill Sersi, but one, didn’t succeed, and two, it was made clear that Sersi forgave her pretty much immediately after she appeared on that beach. (Obviously, Ikaris never showed up on that beach, so it can’t really be said how different the Eternals reaction would have been to him. I don’t really think it would have been positive simply because of the scope and recency of everything that’s he done. But I also think that you would have seen a much wider and more visible range of reactions from the Eternals had he returned).

So, I guess after far more words than you probably ever expected anon, I recognize your desire for more of an obvious or straightforward sense of family in the immediately post-emergence/beach scene parts of the movie and understand how, given Chloé’s comments on Ikaris, the reaction to Ikaris’ death could be unsatisfying. However, as I’ve tried to explain above, it works for me because the relationships and factors at play in those final parts of the movie leave the surviving Eternals with very complicated emotions regarding Ikaris. This is an experience that I think a lot of Eternals fans can relate to, but one where I think there is a crucial difference between us and the Eternals as characters. As viewers, we are purview to a lot of information the surviving Eternals don’t have. We get to see Ikaris after he kills Ajak. We get to rewatch the movie and start to notice all those moments where Ikaris is clearly tormented by what he has done and what he has committed to do. We get to see Ikaris realize that he simply cannot bring himself to kill Sersi. And, most crucially, for us, this is fiction--the emergence is a thought experiment, albeit a somewhat emotional one for anyone attached to MCU characters who live on Earth. So, while I get why Chloé finds her allegiances shifting day to day and why she hopes that viewers will find it to be a similarly complex situation, I don’t think that the Eternals, as characters, can be expected to share that same complexity of thought, especially in the immediate aftermath.

[superhero--imagines]

Part 1 Here! / Part 2 Here! / Part 3 Here! / Part 4 Here! / Part 5 Here! / Part 6 Here!

A/N: If I had to give this part a title, I would title it “(Y/N) and their human friends” Also I lied. This part was too long so it might be another part (or two) before we get to the Bella Arc.

* “You know you would be pretty good looking without the glasses.” Lauren says twirling a strand of hair and ignoring the algebra worksheet in front of her.

* Yeah that’s kind of the whole point

* “Contacts kind of freak me out.”

* You’re expecting a snarky response but instead she nods.

* “It’s the whole sticking your finger in your eye thing right, I totally get that.” She’s watching you with such inquisitive eyes, it almost you uncomfortable.

* It’s been a few months since you started school, you’re almost at thanksgiving break. So far you feel like you’ve assimilated well, and you have a good balance between school and caring for your animals, but it’s situations like this that totally throw you off.

* “Hey (Y/N/N), what did you get for number 5?” Jessica asks, you’re thankful for the distraction.

* “I got X = 8” Jessica confirms she got that too, and moves onto the next one

* You three are in the worlds most unlikely group. You didn’t even know Lauren was in this class you usually just pair up with Jessica.

* “Hey, me and a some people from the volleyball team are going to Port Angeles, you should come with, we could give you a makeover.”

*You wonder what the other angle here is

* It didn’t take long for you to realise that somehow, even with the ugly-duckling routine, the Cullen’s were at the top of the social hierarchy.

* Part of their popularity was probably because they didn’t really seem to interact with anyone outside of their own social circle. Which just made them all the more desirable.

* “I don’t know Lauren, I would have to ask Esme if it’s okay.” Though you can already bet Rosalie isn’t going to like this.

* “Oh cool, just let me know!” Lauren smiles, it turns out the act of considering her invitation was enough to placate her.

* For once you’re actually glad Edward’s waiting for you outside of your class when the bell rings.

* “Edward read that girls mind.”

* “It’s always straight to business isn’t it. No, ‘hi Edward how’s it going?’ Or ‘How was your class, how has your morning been treating you?’ It wouldn’t hurt you to make some small talk” You give him a look, and he returns it with an expectant expression. You sigh.

* “Hi, Edward how was your class?” You plaster on a smile, and he returns with a smile of his own.

* “It was fine. A little repetitive, we’re reading “to kill a mocking bird” in English.” You nod, offering a consoling pat on the shoulder

* “That sounds super boring,” the books great and all, but you’re guessing he’s already read it like 30 times by now. “Hey Edward,”

* “Yes (Y/N),” He nods, hiding his grin behind his hand.

* “Would you mind doing me a favor?”

* “Of course, anything for you.” He grins openly now.

* “Would you mind telling me what that girl Lauren Mallory is thinking so I can know why she invited me,” and not Jessica her good friend. “to hang out?”

* Edward loses his smile.

* “The varsity members on the volleyball team suggested it, they think it’s a shame they couldn’t have got you on the team since you just moved here.”

* Unexpected but not the worst. You’ve really been half assing it in PE so you’re surprised they even want you.

* “Lauren-she thinks you could be-“ a lopsided smirk twitches onto his face. “in her words- ‘two super good looking best friends’ “

*oh. So she just wants a pretty b*tch squad?

* “Maybe I’ll go with them then” you were scared they were going to force you to show them the Cullen’s house and introduce you to everyone, or leave you stranded in port A as some kind of prank or something.

* Edward stops you

*“you can’t be serious” he has his eyebrows scrunched together

* “Why not?” Nothing more natural to fitting in then hanging out with your classmates. Unless- “if you’re worried about any accidents don’t, I know they all look healthy but they eat a lot of carbs. Way too starchy for my palette.”

* “It’s not that-“ he gets that brooding-existence is suffering look. “You shouldn’t trust humans too much, they’ll let you down.”

* Well what’s that supposed to mean, but before you can ask he’s already walking to his class.

* Well whatever, at least Emmett will tell you a good joke to take your mind off of Mr. Eternal Damnations ominous words.

* Too bad when you get inside he’s not here, instead Mike Newton perks up when you walk into the room.

* “Hey Eleazar, how’s it going?” You still have a hard time adjusting to use Eleazar’s name as your own. Apparently they came from a time when last names were only for nobles, so he offered you his first name instead.

* “Hey Newton, any plans for this weekend?” You take Edward’s advice and start with small talk. Mike Newton smiles, you guess he’s kinda cute, all soft cheeks and baby blue eyes

* “No I’m completely free!” Weird how he’s so enthusiastic about being alone, he must be one of those “relish time alone” types. Good for him.

* “Everyone needs some time alone sometimes.” He deflates, oh man you guess that’s the wrong thing to say.

* He looks like he wants to say something to you, but then Emmett sits beside you.

* “Can I have a swig from your water bottle?” You hand it over

* “Making out with Rosalie make you thirsty?” Emmett cracks a grin

* “It’s that whole bookworm-soccer mom get up, it gets to me yknow?” That’s actually pretty funny

* “So what she’s the Velma to your Freddy?” When the reference doesn’t sink in you rephrase “the nerd to your jock.” He grins again.

* “I think I might join the swim team just so I can see her wear my letterman” that’s actually pretty cute

* “You should do that, I’ll cheer you on at your swim meets” Emmett grins.

*”I’ll hold you to that”

* School life goes on like it always has.

* Weeks pass, marked by tests, homework assignments and projects.

* You actually kind of become friends with Angela, Lauren, Jessica, Connor and Mike.

* “So like, are you and Cullen close?” Mike asks. You and the group are over at Tyler’s house using his fire pit to roast marshmallows. The others are invested in another conversation but you can tell by Lauren’s subtle head tilt that she’s eavesdropping.

* “Which one?” Mike gets flustered at that

* “The one in our grade.”

* “Hmm, well I’d say Alice and I are kinda close, but-“

* “N-no not her,” he clears his throat. “The other one-Edward”

* “Oh, Edward’s my best friend.” The answer slips out automatically.

* “I-Is that why you’re staying with the Cullen’s?” Jessica asks. Everyone’s blatantly listening now, the only one who seems uncomfortable is Angela.

* You sigh. You know everyone at school is probably wondering about the weird relationship. Jessica’s just the only one brave enough to ask you.

* “I mean, it might be.” You’re sure, Edward’s friendship with you is the reason everyone was so quick to accept the living arrangement. “But I actually met Car-I mean Dr. Cullen before I met the others.”

* “How does that work?” It’s Connor who pipes in this time.

* “Well-“ you sigh you really don’t want to do this but at least your sob story will make you seem less suspicious. “So Eleazer and Carmen, they’re my parents, but they’re not my birth parents.”

* You tell them how your parents passed away in an accident many years ago, and how Carlisle had been your Doctor at the time while you recovered. He worked with you for a long time, and you’re pretty sure he wanted to adopt you, but the agency liked Carmen and Eleazer better, probably because Carlisle already had so many adopted kids.

* “Still, Carlisle stayed in my life as my doctor and a family friend. Then I met Edward and the rest of the Cullen’s and... the rest is history...I guess.” You’ve found it’s best to mix a little bit of truth into the lie, though really all of that was mostly what happened.

* Everyone looks testy eyed, Angela is holding back tears, and Lauren hastily wipes her away so no one can see. You wonder if maybe your powers leaked out a bit while you were telling your story.

* “Dude... you’re so strong.” Tyler claps a hand on your shoulder and pulls you into a hug.

* “Ah, it all happened a long time ago, I’m mostly over it now” You tell them all about your Coven in Denali, and how you have two families now, how you don’t regret anything. Well, the only thing you regret, is not staying human, but you can’t mention that so you fake a smile instead.

* Connor breaks out a bottle of vodka he stole from his mom, and pours a shot for everyone

* “To (Y/N)” everyone raises their glass, and not for the first time you feel the urge to cry but no tears escape you.

* You’re a lot closer to everyone after that. You even start sitting at their lunch table every so often.

* In fact the others follow your lead and assimilate with their classmates with ease. Rosalie joins the school book club, and very loudly debates Jane Austen’s to whoever will listen.

* Emmett follows through and joins the swim team. Jasper starts hanging out with some wood shop kids, you’ve caught him arguing about the superior wood in between classes with his new friends. Even Alice joins the art club.

* You try out for the dance/cheer team, it’s the only thing you don’t have to hold back in. Also you’re a great base, you could hold everyone on the team up single handedly during stunts. But you won’t know if you made it until summer vacation

* Everyone seems to be assimilating well, everyone except for Edward

* “You can’t expect me to trust these people (Y/N), not when I know everything they’re really thinking.” You roll your eyes

* “I’m not saying you have to be their best friend Eddie, I’m just saying it looks super suspicious that all the Cullen’s only hang out with each other and refuse to get to know anyone else.” You shove a text book into his chest, and he scoffs

* “It wouldn’t hurt to make some small talk.”

* And so Edward joins your group of human friends, much to the joy of your female companions and dismay of your male ones.

* Life is still strange. But it’s good.

* When you’re surrounded by your new friends, it makes you feel - almost like you’re human again

* And then everything falls apart.

* It’s almost summer vacation. You’re excited, maybe you can go to the beach again soon, and you wonder if it will be alright to take a trip to Denali to see your Coven. You’re pretty confident you made the spirit squad so you’ll have to pencil in camp somewhere. You held back, but just enough by your own parameters to make the bottom end of Varsity.

* You’re at your locker, when Rosalie, and Edward show up. Quickly followed by Emmett, Jasper and Alice.

* “Oh hey guys, you wanna go on a hike tomorrow it’s supposed-“

* “You have to leave.” You’re surprised when it’s Emmett that says this. Kind, jovial Emmett holds a grave expression.

* “What, why-“ for a second you wonder if the Volturi has finally come to get you. It’s been at least seven years since your transformation, it’s about time they started thinking about you.

* But then you notice everyone staring, the quiet buzz of phones vibrating only detected by your super hearing. People are always staring, especially when you’re all together. but this time you notice they’re not staring at the six super models gathered in front of the lockers.

* They’re staring at you.

* “There’s a video of you going around,” Jasper says, and Rosalie placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. “I think it’s better if you see for yourself.”

* He hands you his blackberry, and the grainy image of you come into focus.

* It’s a YouTube video

* You’re in the locker room, your (Your Color Skin) in full view under the fluorescent lights. You’re wearing your underwear, and your abs are on full display. You’re Grey PE uniform shirt is limp in your hands, you remember this, you got extra laps as a penalty and as a result, you were running late for class, you were alone in the locker room

*well you thought you were alone.

* Your body is literally perfect, the way you’ve always dreamed, but you feel white hot shame rise in your throat like acid.

* Your hands shake as you scroll down to see the comments

* ‘Damn who knew they had a body like that under those dorky sweaters’

* ‘(Y/N) Eleazar: Best body Forks HS 10/10 would f*ck’

* ‘Hot body, if only they ditched the glasses, and started wearing some tighter shirts’

* And the comments go on, there’s at least a hundred. You hold your cardigan a little closer to your body. You don’t have the courage to turn around. You can already imagine them staring at you, picturing what they saw in the video transposed onto your body

* “I’m sorry, I didn’t see this coming until it was already happening-“ Alice touches your shoulder and continues her apology but you don’t hear anything.

* You want to cry, you want to be angry. But all you feel is shame. And the worst part is, you didn’t even do anything wrong. So why do you feel so ashamed?

* “Hey, look at me.” Edward grabs your face in his hands, your amber eyes meet his.

*”Snap out of it.”

* Oh, your powers are leaking through.

*Your gaze turns to your foster family, all of whom sport equally uncomfortable expressions.

* You take a deep breath, and imagine reeling in your emotions, imagining them receding back into a locked box, just like Eleazer taught you.

* You need a calm mind right now.

* “Are you fine now?” Edward asks, his hands still on your face. You nod, resting your hand on top of his

* “I’m good.”

* “Good, because we have to get you out of here.” He’s moved his hand to your arm, about to tug you back home when you pull back and shake your head.

* “We can’t do that.”

* “What do you mean?” Rosalie hisses, her hand curls around your wrist “we have to leave NOW.”

* “No think about it, they’re right.” Jasper says, his eyes meeting yours. At least someone’s on the same oage

* “Think about it Rose, if I leave now with all of you it’s going to look weird.” Normal 15-17 year olds wouldn’t think to handle the situation on their own, especially not entitled rich kids like the Cullen’s.

*She seems to have gotten it because her hand retreats to her side.

* “Well what should we do then, I’m not letting you walk around here with everyone-“ she cuts herself off, a deep frown creasing onto her face as her teeth dig into her bottoms lip.

* “We need to call Carlisle or Esme, they’ll pretend they saw the video from someone else and file a complaint with the school.” You take a deep breath, and imagine the locked box in your mind. Your emotions held carefully within.

* “Until then we all need to pretend like it’s not a big deal.”

* “No way in hell am I doing that!” Emmett growls. “I’m going to rip that fucking peeping Tom piece by piece.”

* “Not all of us need to pretend,” Alice says, her gaze somewhere far away, flicking between futures. “Only Edward, Rosalie and I do.” Her gaze lands on you.

* “You need to go to your class like normal,” a hint of a smile curls onto her mouth. “Everything’s going to work out fine.” Edward’s focusing on Alice, reliving her vision.

* “Do you think you can manage being alone?” Edward asks, you don’t have the next class with any of the Cullen’s. You’ll be on your own.

* You catch Jasper and Alice whispering to each other, but pay it no mind. Flirting even in the middle of your entire world crumbling down.

* You take a deep breath, picturing the locked box over and over, making it a visual mantra.

* “I can get through a period.” Everyone disperses, and Jasper walks you to your next class. Edward wanted to, but Jasper insisted.

*”You’re always hogging them, give someone else a few minutes Edward.”

* You’re almost near your class when Jasper talks to you.

* “Hey, I don’t know if I should tell you this”

*You wonder if he’s going to offer to beat up the person who took the video, or if he’s going to offer you a comforting word.

* “Alice told me you’re going to raise some hell on a misogynist in there” he gives you a wicked grin, his incisors sparkling.

* How is it that every vampire seems to say what you least expect to hear and yet, it’s exactly what you need in the moment.

* He holds out his fist, and you bump it with your own. A grin curling onto your face.

* “Hell yeah I am.”

* You take your usual seat in Spanish like normal. You sit in the front row in this class, diagonally from Jessica. Mike and Angela sit somewhere in the back.

* You just need to focus and keep your emotions in check for 45 minutes. You visualize the box, calming yourself separating the mind and body.

* How did the saying go... a calm soul resides in a calm body?

* “-Zar, Miss. Eleazar!” Your eyes pop up to the teacher, the locked box falling out of grasp.

* “Yes, sorry?” The teacher sighs, you look to the white board to see you’re going over the answers to the worksheet. You’re about to provide the answer for the number you’re on when the teacher cuts you off.

* “I know you might be focused on body building, but in my class you need to focus on the material.” There’s a scattered laugh that fills the room, but your blood runs cold

* “Excuse me?”

* And that’s when your teacher knew he fucked up. He stutters over himself, the sentences overlapping

* “-really you should take it as a compliment-“

* “Oh you think I should take it as a compliment that someone recorded me without my consent while I was changing?”

* The rooms pin drop silent. Your teacher is sweating.

* “Hold on now- I think you’re being a little dramatic don’t you think” A smirk curls onto his lips. “You were in your underwear, it was really no different than wearing a swimsuit” he’s got this smug smile, like he’s right.

*Honestly you were ready to put everything behind you and move on if he just apologized. It’s gross that a teacher is watching videos of a student changing, but what would you have done in his situation if a co-worker showed you.

* “It’s all about perspective, a positive per-“

* But not anymore, you’re not in a forgiving mood, especially not for an idiot like this.

* “No it’s all about consent.” All the anger and despair you’ve been holding back comes flooding out. “When someone wears a swimsuit they’re consenting to show skin and be seen, but I wasn’t contesting to being seen when I was changing in the privacy of the locker room.” You don’t stop for air, your voice trembling

* “And another thing, I wonder how the school administration will feel knowing the same faculty that’s supposed to make students feel safe and enrich their lives is watching creepy videos-“ you stop when you meet your teachers eyes, tears streaming down his face.

* Oh f*ck

* You look to your right, finding your classmates in a similar state, holding back tears.

*So this is what happens to humans when they come in contact with your power.

* You try to visualize the box, but it’s too far now. And all the crying people around you don’t help.

*You need to get out of here.

* “Pathetic, not even an apology for your gas lighting.” She shake your head as confidently as you can, grabbing your bag with trembling hands.

* You walk quickly, maybe there’s a mountain you can climb and wait it out on. You’ll text Carlisle and let him now what happened. It shouldn’t be too-

*” Hey wait!”

* You’re already in the hallway when someone call out to you. You turn, expecting it to be Angela or Mike. Never in a million years would you expect her to be standing there in the middle of the hall, her hand hastily wiping away a stray tear.

* “Mr. Peterson’s a f*cking jerk.” Jessica sniffles, walking quickly to catch up with you. You don’t miss the fact that her bags not slung across her back.

* She must have left a minute after you did. You haven’t thought about her as a friend. Not a real one at least. She’s kind of like hot sauce, it’s fun when it’s around, but if it’s not then that’s not a big deal.

* So to see her here, the first to follow you out, rambling about wether you want to get frozen yogurt or pizza, it warms your unbeating heart.

* “Hey Jessica?” She stops mid-sentence, her eyes swinging up to you.

* You haven’t been fair to her. But you’re going to change that.

* “Thanks for being my friend.” And she smiles at you, her arms wrapped around her tight. It’s not the fake ones you see often the ones she throws to Lauren when she’s asking for Jessica’s opinion on an outfit, or when Connor tries to copy her homework’s. it’s a genuine smile.

* Before she can open her mouth, you hear two more shouts from the hallway.

*Angela and Mike are jogging down the hallway to catch up with you. The latter carrying a bright pink backpack in his hand.

* “Geez Jess, the least you could do is take your bag before you go bolting out of there” Mike’s panting as he holds out her bag. You don’t miss the blush ghosting her face.

*Looks like she still has a crush on him.

* “Hey, are you okay?” Angela asks, and you wish you could cry as you nod.

* “Is it weird that I’m kind of happy right now?” And the three of them smile, before wrapping you into a group hug.

*They all smell terrible. Jessica smells like boiled broccoli, Mike is like the overwhelming stench of fat mixed with sugar, and Angela.. Angela’s probably the worst. She’s sickeningly sweet mixed with a healthy dose of starch.

*it’s disgusting. You have a hard time believing any of the Cullen’s would lose their minds when they’re this close to any of them.

*still, even with the repulsive stench, it’s nice. You haven’t felt the body gets of another human in a long time, or heard the quiet thump of their beating heart. Even the odor is nice, it reminds you that they’re human.

*And for a second it’s easier to pretend you’re human too, just like them.

* “Dude why are you so cold?” Jessica groans, breaking the moment. She taps your arm but doesn’t pull away.

* “While we’re asking questions, Mike how much axe do you use?” Angela’s eyes are watering as you both laugh.

* “Like you’re one to talk, I can smell your strawberry shampoo two hallways over!”

* You watch the three of them untangle and start walking to the back exit from the gym.

* “So where do we go now? We can’t stay here.” Angela says

* “I was thinking maybe a coffee shop, if we take out books we might pass for having a free period” Jessica pipes in

* “Oh, how about the Arcade? A buddy of mine works there since he’s already on break from college, I don’t think he’ll minds us hanging out there.”

* So this is what Alice meant when she said everything was going to be okay.

*Your Human Friends were going to save you

*You haven’t forgotten Edward’s warning, someone did break your trust and let you down.

* But that’s what it means to build friendships, you open yourself to being hurt, and so do they.

* “Hey (Y/N/N), what do you think?” Mike asks, and they all turn around to notice you’re not walking with them.

*You try not to smile to wide. You don’t want to scare them off now.

* “I think there’s something fun about an arcade during the day, no lines.” You say, walking a little bit faster to catch up with your friends.

Tag list: @moonlights27 @thebluetint @the100thtwilight @awesomebooklover17 @oneofthepotterheads @smileygirl08 @imdoingathingmom @iconicgguk @yrawn @alyciaswhore @little-horror-show

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2021 anime overview: Quick Takes

Now for my Spring 2021 anime thoughts! I’ve decided from now on if a season’s like, 20- to-24 episodes I’m just going to wait ‘til it’s done to review it unless I feels super passionately, so though I watched To Your Eternity (it’s good!) and MHA (eh), I’ll comment on them next time. Also, for the record, I watched the first eight eps of Joran: Princess and Snow of Blood but I dropped it because it had clearly crossed the line from entertainingly dumb to boring dumb. 

I will probably give Supercub and some other stuff a shot later, this was a stacked season! May give updates on all that later, but this is what I have for now.

ODDTAXI

Quick Summary: A mild mannered middle-aged walrus taxi driver is drawn into a case involving a missing girl, yakuza, Youtube clout-chasers, manzai comedians and idols with big secrets.

It’s rare to walk away from media and be like “that is a singular experience I will definitely never see repeated again” but ODDTAXI is definitely one of those. A tense noir thriller murder mystery starring cartoon animals that spends an entire episode detailing the one (cat)man’s very fall into darkness triggered by addiction to gacha games and an online auction for a novelty eraser? Also there’s a porcupine Yakuza who speaks entirely in rap? Also there’s tons of meandering conversations about stuff like manzai comedy and the struggle to go viral on Twitter?

Admittedly, I had a hard time getting into the first episode, the dry meandering humor not being enough to hold my attention while I was sitting still, but once I watched this while I was working out at the end of the season, I found it an easy binge. A ton of characters with dark secrets or dangerous ambitions, each with their own part to play in a tableau of intersecting events- and it all actually comes together really well.(As for the female characters, it’s a pretty dude driven story, but they do get nuanced characterization and even some good heroic moments from one of them.)

 It’s a great example of a carefully planned narrative paying off, with all the twists appropriately seeded and foreshadowed to reward viewers who paid attention. Even when it ended on a perfect “OH SHIT” moment and denied me closure, I couldn’t help but respect it. If you that all sounds interesting to you, definitely check out the first couple episodes and see if you like it- you’re likely to have a memorable, satisfying experience!

Shadows House

Quick Summary: Emilyko is a ‘living doll’ who’s told she was created to act as the ‘face’ of her shadow master, Kate. The shadows and their ‘dolls’ all reside on the mansion and are required to pass a ‘debut’ to prove they’re a good pairing. If they don’t pass, they might be disposed of. And so the mystery of the Shadow mansion grows...

This slice of gothic intrigue was my favorite of the season, tied with ODDTAXI. With an interesting premise, slightly tense undertones and a strong focus on character building and relationships, it kept me hooked the whole way through. And for any squeamish fans put off by the hype about it, don’t worry, while there are some suspenseful elements, I wouldn’t qualify it as horror. I thought the relationship between Kate and Emilyko might end up being a completely sinister one, but it’s thankfully a lot more complex than that and it’s really interesting to follow how both their characters and relationship grow. The focus of the show is, unsurprisingly, on the “dolls” slowly discovering their autonomy and personhood as they struggle under the rigid system imposed on them by the mysterious elders of this weird Victorian mansion. Can they develop a more equitable relationship with their shadow “masters” (who are also shown to suffer under this system)? There’s a lot to dig into there, and the show has the characters develop through learning to understand and appreciate each other, which is pretty heartwarming. Our hero, Emilyko, is the typical plucky ball of sunshine (they even nickname her sunshine), but she’s also shown to be clever in her own off-the-wall way and she bounces off the far more subdued and cynical Kate well, not to mention the other ‘dolls’ she ends up befriending. 

What’s more, the show spends plenty of time to developing several other character pairings and combinations, and they all have their own interesting dynamic that makes you want to see more of them. Same-gender bonds are at the forefront of this show, and many of them are ripe for queer readings (I definitely appreciated the healthy helping of ladies carrying ladies), but even outside that it’s nice to see a show where a strong, complex bond between girls is at the forefront. My only real complaints about the show are the anime original ending is noticeably a bit rushed (though it’s not too bad, and leaves room for a season 2) and I wish the animation used the whole “shadow” theme more strikingly (like the opening and endings do)- instead the colors are a bit washed out which makes the shadows blend into the background sometimes. The “debut” arc also drags a bit in places, but it makes up for it by having a lot of good character integration.

I hope to check out the (full color)! manga soon and see more of this quirky, shadowy story. There’s some physical abuse depicted, sad things happening to characters and naturally the whole “oppressive familial system” thing, but otherwise not much I can think of to warn about. I give this one a big rec, especially If you’re a fan of gothic fairytales and stories of self discovery.  

Zombie Land Saga Revenge

Quickest summary: In this sequel season, everyone’s favorite zombie idol group must claw their way back into prominence after a disastrous show- the fate of the Saga prefecture LITERALLY depends on it!

This was a fun follow-up to the first season- if you liked the first zombie-girl romp, you’ll probably enjoy this one. In fact, there were a couple areas it improved on- namely, Kotaro failed, ate crow and embarrassed himself a lot more this season, which made him more likeable (as did the fact the girls gained a lot of independence from him). This season also shed more light on what the ‘goal’ of this zombie raising project is and what kind of shit Kotaro got involved with to make this happen, and it’s appropriately off-the-wall and ridiculous. We finally got some backstory for Yugiri too! I wish it had focused on more of her interiority, but she got to be a badass in it, and it was a treat to see this zombie idol show turn into a period piece for a couple episodes (also her song ruled).

 Tae also got a cute focus episode and there was a particular SMASHING performance early on! Also That revelation last season that had the potential to turn creepy hasn’t yet, and hopefully never will. The finale was heartwarming with big hints of more drama to come- I’m definitely down for more zombie hijinks!

Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song

Quickest Summary: A songstress AI named DIVA (nicknamed Vivy) is approached by another AI named Matsumoto, who says he’s from the future and they must work together to prevent AI exterminating all of humankind 100 years from now.

This show is absolutely gorgeous visually with some really nice action scenes, but when it comes to the story my feelings basically amount to a shrug. It’s fine! I guess! Vivy starts out as an interesting layered character- and I guess still is by the end- with her stoic but stubborn determination bouncing off her fast-talking bossy partner Matsumoto well. She never listens to him, which is delightful. The way the show took place over the course of 100 years was an interesting conceit as well. However, it bought up a lot of themes and then sort of... dropped them. For instance, Vivy interprets her mission (PRIME DIRECTIVE if you will) as protecting humans at all costs, no matter how destructive said humans are or what their fate is supposed to be, and is perfectly willing to murder her fellow androids to do this, showing she inherently thinks of androids (herself and her own people!) as less worthy. Which is a little alarming! There’s a very dramatic point in the show where they bring this up as a potential conflict for her character but then it’s sort of...dropped. Pretty much.

Actually, despite the premise, the show doesn’t dip into the “AI rights” as much as you think it would with the main theme being more about Vivy’s search to find her own creativity and discover what it means to ‘pour your heart into something’. Vivy herself doesn’t actually care if she has rights or anything. Which is in some ways fine, because ‘AI as an oppressed class’ has been done to death, but IT’S ALSO KIND OF IN THE PREMISE, so that means that the show just shrugs really hard at a lot of the questions it brings up  basically just going “humans and AI should work together probably” and that’s it. There’s a lot that feels underexplored. The antagonists in the show also either have motivations that don’t really make sense or have boring hackneyed motivations. In the finale in particular, it feels like a lot of things happen “just because” and it falls a little flat.

I also have to warn that one of the arcs focus on a robot ‘pairing’ where the dude-coded robots actions toward his partner are straight up awful and rob her of her autonomy, but it’s played like a tragic love story. I suppose you could read it differently too, but it definitely made me go ‘ew’ the story seemed to want me to sympathize with this robo dude,

Overall, I wouldn’t anti-recommend this show, it’s an all right little sci-fic romp (and definitely SUPER pretty). My favorite element was definitely the episodes where Vivy develops an entirely new (an loveable) personality, because it played with the idea of of an AI getting “rebooted” really well and interplay between her two “selves” was done really well. But there are a lot of other parts of the show that just feel...a little underexplored and empty, making me have an ‘eh’ feeling on the show overall. It’s definitely an ambitious project, and while it didn’t quite stick the landing, there’s something to be said for a show that shoots for the stars and falls short over a show that just languishes in mediocrity.

Fruits Basket The Final

Quick summary: The final season of that dramatic drama about that weird family with a zodiac curse and the girl who loves them.

It’s very weird that after not cutting a lot out, they kinda sped through some material for, you know, the finale. I guess they thought they couldn’t stretch this final arc to 26 episodes? Or weren’t cleared for another double cour? However, though there were a couple places that felt awkward, despite being a bit condensed it mostly held together pretty well for a D R A M A T I C and ultimately heartwarming conclusion. I was really disappointed they kept the part where Ritsu cut their hair for the ‘happy ending’, I thought  their intro episode not showing them in men’s clothes meant the anime had decided their presentation didn’t need to be “fixed” but WELL I GUESS NOT. That was the only big upset for me though, otherwise the adaptation went about how I expected, sticking to the source material. Furuba has a lot of bumps, from weird age gap stuff to ...gender, but it also has a lot of important feels and great character arcs. It was a gateway shoujo for many and has its important place in animanga history, so I’m glad it finally got a shiny, full adaptation.

[alirhi]

Loki ranting

Okay. I had this thought in my head of like just compiling links of all the Loki shit I've posted/reblogged so far so that when I get into a conversation about the show and how it fucking disgusted me, I can just be like "here. here's this masterlist post, go read all this shit. This is my entire argument, and not only mine, but a lot of stuff posted by people far more intelligent and level-headed and eloquent than I am, whom I happen to agree with." Because the alternative is constantly getting fired up all over again, and that is exhausting.

BUT! I'm stupid and don't know how tumblr works. Apparently I can't just be like "give me all the Loki-tagged shit I've got" I can only search all the Loki-tagged shit on all of tumblr. And I'm not scrolling back through all of my posts. I talk too fucking much for that shit 😂

So, I'll try to remember all of my grievances with how the MCU has treated Loki, and all of the excellent posts made by other, equally upset fans, and put it all together here under this nice, neat little cut for everyone else's sanity and scrolling convenience...

For people who actually read my shit fairly regularly - bless you, you crazy, patient people. I love you! - this is going to be a lot of repetition of shit you've already read. Probably at least twice. I'm passionate and I have a terrible memory lol. Sorry.

Anyway, first, for those who don't know me and haven't been following my explosions of rage for the past couple of months, some quick background: I do not read comic books, so Loki's Marvel comic canon means nothing to me. I know almost nothing about it. The reason I'm so in love with the character in the MCU is because I am an eclectic witch and the deity I've actively loved and worshiped the longest in my life (literally for as long as I can remember) is Loki. So when he was mentioned in The Mask, I squeed. When they named Matt Damon's character after him in Dogma, I cheered.

When Thor came out in 2011, I just about died from happiness. I was hungry for any representation of this underappreciated god, no matter what it was. I didn't even bitch about how underpowered he was, because at least he was there. But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.

I can hear anyone reading this going "Why Loki? Isn't he, like, evil? Like basically the Norse version of The Devil?" Because I heard all this shit irl all the fucking time. And no. So let me give you a quick rundown of who Loki actually is.

Loki is a Trickster God. He's often referred to as the God of Mischief. He is not and never was evil, simply chaotic and hedonistic. Loki Laufeyjarson was the son of Laufey (that's mama; they changed her to a man for some reason in the movie) and Fárbauti. Right from the start, from his name, we get a sign of how Loki goes against traditional norms of the time, because in Norse culture, families were patrilineal, and surnames were "son/daughter of father" (which would have made him Loki Fárbautitason), not the mother. But Loki's surname is matrilineal. Feminist icon woo! lol

Though he's a Jotunn, Loki is counted among the Gods (Aesir) in Norse tradition. Depending on his mood, he is alternately helpful or disruptive to the other Gods. I'm not gonna sit and teach a whole text class on him lol but I'll use my favorite example of Misunderstood Loki - the conception of Sleipnir!

So, get this shit. This is also part of why I DO NOT follow Odin and never fucking will (a very small part, but still part of the reason). So, the other Norse Gods are petty motherfuckers, and they wanted some shit built but didn't want to pay the dude doing the building. So they were like "okay, if you can get it done in X amount of time, we'll pay you, but if you can't manage it NO MATTER WHAT, this whole thing is free." And they made sure he had NO help, nothing but him, his materials, and his Very Good Horsey. And this guy and his horse were fucking BAMFs. So it was looking like he was definitely gonna get it done in time, and Odin was like "nah, fuck that shit. I'm cheap." and so he sent Loki to distract the work horse. Loki transformed into a mare and lured the horse away, got fucked, got pregnant, gave birth to the 8-legged (for some reason) horse Sleipnir. Odin rides Loki's son into battle. Um. Kay.

So Loki helped Odin be a petty mf, and Odin got himself a new pet out of the deal.

Oh, also, because he's smart af and a shapeshifter and a master magician and genderfluid, Loki "fails" to fit the super fucking toxic and narrow Norse/Aesir view of "a real man". He prefers intelligence and manipulation to solve problems rather than violence, he's not afraid to behave like a clown if it gets shit done, and that grosses the Aesir out, so they constantly ridicule him for being "less than a man".

Loki is the God of the outcast and the misunderstood. The marginalized people from all walks of life. He is the God of the LGBT community. In modern terms, he's pansexual, polyamorous (married to Sigyn and they are deeply in love, but boy gets around and I've never seen any indication that Sigyn gives a shit) and genderfluid.

Okay. Focus, Ali. This is part of why I usually post multiple rants instead of one big long one XD The longer I ramble, the more I get sidetracked and forget the original point.

So. Loki's awesome, and being a Trickster, is powerful as all fucking hell. There's not much he can't do.

And now we come to Thor (the movie, not the deity). Loki's there! 24-year-old Ali is spazzing! All is right with the world!

Oh lord, they've actually done him justice?! Amazing! He's complex and nuanced and emotional, just like the real Loki! I loved this movie. Loved. It. The climactic thing with trying to blow up Jotunheim never really made much sense to me until someone made an excellent point the other day about Loki being raised in a racist society that was racist against his own race, he just didn't know it yet, poor child. Baby Thor was never corrected when he pledged to commit mass genocide, so Baby Loki probably absorbed the lesson then that Jotunns=evil and killing them all will win his father's love. Anyway, 2011 Loki was a beautiful, heartbreaking portrayal of the God I've loved all my life and spent 24 years longing to see depicted on the big screen.

Then The Avengers happened. And I saw another Loki very close to Norse mythology - mainly, how he's treated. In the beginning of the movie, he's sick, exhausted, and in pain. He can hardly stand, he stumbles and needs help when he walks. He was very obviously tortured, and the sickly blue light of the scepter's control is in his eyes. That gets less and less pronounced as the movie goes on, showing Loki working his way free of it, but in the beginning, he's a mess. Because he was tortured and used by Thanos. Marvel directly confirmed this, and that he was under the scepter's/Mind Stone's control. Loki's actions are not his own in The Avengers. He's under both threat and Thanos' direct control. The movie actually shows The Other directly threatening him to keep him on task, because this is not Loki's plan. It is not what he wants. He's being used and villainized... Just like in real life. It hurt to see this done to him, but the accuracy was too beautiful to ignore.

Thor: The Dark World comes out. I've heard people complain that this movie is the weak link in the Thor trilogy. I disagree. I think that's Ragnarok, for a bunch of reasons, but we'll get there. (And for the record, I loved Ragnarok, too. It was a funny movie. Infinity War and the Disney+ series are the only portrayals of Loki in the MCU that I truly fucking hated.) Anyway, good, fun movie. Had its faults, as all movies do, but it still followed Loki's real-life arc in a way. How? By having Loki dragged back to Asgard in chains and imprisoned underground. Again, not super happy that this happened to my love, and having to see it on screen was painful, but at least in the MCU he's not chained to a rock with venom dripping on his face for eternity, so there's that. (poor Sigyn. how tired do her arms get, holding up that bowl? best wife ever, amirite?)

In TDW, we're shown Loki's love for Frigga, who favored him and taught him magic as a child. We see his bravado; his attempts to mask his true feelings, especially grief. We see him slowly coming back to himself after the events of The Avengers, and slowly mending his relationship with his brother. He accepts that Odin will likely never love him, but Thor just might, because they were close when they were young. "I didn't do it for him." No, no my sweet, you did it for your brother, and a little out of guilt for what happened to your mother.

At the end, Loki fakes his death and escapes, taking the throne, and I have mixed feelings about this. Not the writer's choices here; I love that completely! A natural progression in Loki's story. But my joy is tainted by how closely they're following the Eddas now. Because Loki's escape from his prison heralds the beginning of Ragnarok. And Loki will die in Ragnarok. I don't want to see that play out in front of my face. I won't be able to handle the grief (spoiler alert! IW broke me. I almost walked out of the theater. Loki's death was legitimately fucking traumatic for me. I don't even care how pathetic that is. That grief was real, it was intense, and I still shake and cry when I think about it.)

Marvel announces that Thor 3 will be called Ragnarok. The internet treats this as a shocking revelation. I roll my eyes and mumble "duh" to myself and move on XD

Then they say Ragnarok will be a buddy comedy. I throw up a little in my mouth and no longer want to live on this planet. If they're going to make something called Ragnarok, could they at least treat it with even a fraction of the respect they've shown these characters thusfar? Jfc. I mean, I'll see it anyway, because I'm a whore for Tom Hiddleston lol. But come on, people!

I hated that they made Hel the long-lost older sister and Fenrir her fucking pet/attack dog. Those are my favorites of Loki's children! Hel is such an incredible badass that the early Christians named their dimension of eternal torture after her! They were terrified of her, to the point of naming the place that terrified them most after her. That's awesome! And Fenrir's just the best. I love wolves. Those two details, and Odin's retcon of "we're not Gods! ...lol, except your sister. she's totally a Goddess. and def gonna kill literally everything, so... good luck! byyyeeeee" pissed me off royally.

The rest was great. I genuinely liked this movie. Still do. And they finally used The Immigrant Song! That was pretty cool. If they'd thrown in Bring the Hammer Down and Thunderstruck, I might've called this movie perfect. XD

I wasn't totally in love with their portrayal of Loki in Ragnarok. Yes, the falling for 30 minutes line was funny, as was "I have to get off this planet" and "YES! That's how it feels!" And "Get Help" was funny as hell. But also, like... There is no way Loki would have been the dumb one in that first encounter with Hela. Also, he can teleport and project copies of himself and shit, so... He would not have been that desperate to go straight back to Asgard and bring her right along with them. Loki's not stupid. But whatever. Movie's gotta movie.

What I did love was seeing the slow mending of his relationship with Thor continuing, and the badass fighting on the bridge. I also loved that, like Real Loki, Movie Loki helped when help was needed, was quick and clever, and while he was carrying out the main plan, he was also planning ahead and grabbing the Tesseract. Yes, that drew Thanos right to them, but that's a whole other thing. Loki never would have left that thing on Asgard to be destroyed or lost.

And now Infinity War. Hooooly fucking shit. You know what? No. I'm not going into this. He was killed, years of character growth were erased forever, my heart fucking shattered. The end.

Endgame. IW hurt me so bad I didn't see Endgame until this year. I actually watched Civil War first (for context: I had actively avoided all Cap movies until this year because I fucking hate Steve Rogers. I find him insufferable. Did not realize what I was denying myself until I watched CW and finally saw the charms of Bucky. When he appeared in IW, I was so lost. XD I was like "...who dis? Murder Jesus?" also I just... didn't care. I was numb by then from crying through most of the movie over Loki)

So, anyway. Endgame. Loki picks up the Tesseract in alternate 2012, escapes, fans go "yay! he didn't actually die!" I go "yes he fucking did. Five years of his life, gone. Five years of growth and change, erased. Loki is dead. This will not be the same."

I was more right than I could have predicted. Now we come to the point of this rant. Sorry it took so long, but you were warned lol.

The Loki series makes me so angry I actually get sick to my stomach. It was fucking TRASH. When I praised Marvel for following Norse mythology so faithfully earlier? Yeah. I DID NOT MEAN TREAT HIM THE WAY THE OTHER GODS DID. I did not mean paint him as a pitiful clown, a joke, a caricature of who he truly was, with his pain and suffering played for LAUGHS.

This is supposed to be 2012 Loki, newly freed from Thanos' control. The Loki we saw in the beginning of TDW - snarky, exhausted, nihilistic. The Loki who rolled his eyes and said "get on with it" expecting to be killed.

The bumbling clown flipping on a dime from posturing to calling himself weak is not 2012 Loki. That is not ANY Loki. That is Tom Hiddleston in a black wig doing what he's told by a shitty writer who had no fucking idea what he was doing and was salty about his (bad) original script (for something totally fucking unrelated) getting killed.

In Episode 1, Loki is mocked, imprisoned, stripped against his will, tormented, belittled, and given a flippant summary of all the trauma Actual MCU Loki suffered that this one skipped out on, with no context, no acknowledgement of the trauma he's already lived quite fucking recently, and with the narrative twisted to not only erase all the abuse he's suffered, but to make it all his fault. And this is supposed to make him want to help these people?

And worse, IT FUCKING WORKS. WHAT?! I CAN'T- FUCKING WHAT?! Remember when I said LOKI IS NOT FUCKING STUPID?! So why is he STUPID?

Episode 2, he's a child. Mentally, this Loki is a fucking child. Now we've erased all the growth and development of his entire adult life. He's dopey, impatient, impulsive, desperate for a pat on the back and actually shows it. Yes, abused and neglected children crave the positive attention we never received, and we often grow up to be a bit emotionally stunted. But not all of us, and not Loki. Not as we've seen him EVER in the rest of the MCU. Playful and a bit callous at times? Absolutely! But not a big dumb fucking puppy.

Episode 3, a ray of hope, despite Sylvie! (I hate Sylvie) Loki casually admits he's pan/bi; labels never come up, but he admits to being with both men and women! He sings! Not really relevant to whether I approve of his portrayal or not lol but Tom has a beautiful voice, Norwegian ("Asgardian" lol) is a gorgeous, entrancing language, and I could watch that one bit on loop for eternity and never get bored. And then, finally, we see a glimpse - a glimpse - of Loki's power! He stops a falling building and pushes it right back up! Are we finally getting to see what he can really do? Will the next episode bring us Loki in all his glory?

Nope. 4 and 5 we see him mocked and pushed around and utterly irrelevant. Again. We see tiny reflections of what he could maybe theoretically do in other random Loki variants, but the "main" (lawl. main. it was the Sylvie and Mobius show. Loki was never the main anything.) Loki? Nothing. He wears his heart on his sleeve for no reason, bonds with the man who imprisoned, taunted, and gaslit him, is killed, and continues to be a moron and a joke. Always the clown. Always the dumb one. The one with the bad ideas. The inferior Loki.

Don't even get me started on that finale. I can't. This already took so much out of me. Fuck Marvel. Fuck this fucking show. I just... I'm done.

[arcadialedger]

How Catra and Zuko have been saving me lately: A (sort of) meta

A very long, personal post under the cut. This is really important to me, and I could really use some support, so if you could take the time to read and reblog that would be greatly appreciated. I just want to reach out.

Once again, please PLEASE read. I really need help.

Recently, I’ve found myself desperately latching onto the characters of Zuko and Catra, as many have in the past. To put it simply, I’m in one of the most difficult times of my life right now.

I’m transferring colleges because I was doxed by an online hate mob (long story) , and in general because I just didn’t belong at my old school. I went to three different high schools, moved around a whole bunch, and I don’t really belong anywhere. All of my friends are far away, my parents are busy working and I’m alone.

I just feel like I’m wandering aimlessly in darkness, unloved and unsure where to go. I’m faced with making a huge decision about my future with this transfer, and I’m terrified. Terrified I won’t make the right choice, and terrified it won’t be the newfound happiness I so desperately need it to be. But most of all, I’m terrified of being unwanted and alone again, wherever I go.

I’m used to not being wanted. I’m 4’10, not thin, and have been tossed aside because of my appearance my entire life. I’m 20 years old and haven’t been kissed (how pathetic is that). I moved schools and stayed in my room depressed because I never got to lay down roots and establish a foundation. Hell, I never even got to live as a teenager. I’m just behind and broken.

I was hoping Tumblr would be my place, where I could write and analyze and showcase my talents. Be wanted for once. For a while, it looked like it might be. Then a friend blocked me and made a callout post, due to me having a different opinion on a sensitive matter, and a domino effect began. I lost more friends and half of the fandom we’re both in blocked me seemingly at their word. I had featured this friend on an episode of my podcast at, had many fond memories chatting with them, and even bought a zine to support them. The loss hurt, and I was cut off from one of the few things I had. It was all taken away from me. My growth halted as I dealt with months of online abuse: including death threats, suicide baiting (these people knowing I’ve struggled with being suicidal), aphobic slurs (knowing I’m ace), mocking and editing images of my face. My Twitter was hacked, I lost podcast deals with creatives who my friends who blocked me and started all of this went on to interview because of said hacking, and I was threatened to be doxed. I suffered blow after blow while the people who hurt me grew and were rewarded, allowed a place here, and this continues to this day. The damage remains. I have to self reblog a whole bunch to get my content remotely seen in the algorithm.

Because my entire life, it feels I’ve never been allowed a win. I’ve never been allowed to have and keep anything good. I’m short and ugly, talentless with nothing to give to the world, my family has no money so I haven’t gotten to travel or experience a lot of things. I’ve spent my entire life envious of the “hot skinny girls” who’ve been wanted and dating since high school, who live in McMansions and get to go on vacations.

When I work to make good content on Tumblr and build a following talking about what I’m passionate about? It’s taken from me. When I work hard to get into my old college’s honors program and earn a trip to Greece which I could otherwise never afford, a global pandemic comes along and makes sure I don’t get that kind of positive experience in life.

I’m used to it all, being worn down and unwanted and losing. I’ve gone my entire life behind, lesser, and not enough.

And that’s why I’m so scared. I have a big decision to make, I’m at my own crossroads, and I desperately need all of this to come together for me this year. I’ve gone so long without happiness and love. I need this to be the light at the end of the tunnel, newfound happiness. I need to find newfound happiness. All I want is to escape the darkness, find peace of mind and function day to day doing the things I love without being stressed.

So when I see Zuko— so angry at the world for being given the short stick, abused, and never making things easy, and Catra— driven mad by comparison and feeling as though the world takes away everything from her? Gosh, I feel it so hard.

Because that’s just what I do. I get angry at the world for making things so hard for me. I compare. I feel like the world just takes and takes and never gives me a win. And so I’m never happy. I feel their pain and loneliness so deeply, and I’m terrified that I’m the villain because of it. I cry at the anguish and self loathing in their eyes because I have been there. I AM there. 

Like Zuko comparing to Azula, I feel lesser because the world has constantly told me I am so. I feel cheated and given the short end of the stick, as though life has it out for me. I get angry and lash out from my pain.I’m desperate for validation from people who can never give it to me. I’m so scarred from my past, I can’t believe I have a future. 

Like Catra, I’m always left behind. I’m lonely and driven mad by the unfairness of the world. It takes and takes until I’ve lost it all, but it never gives. I’m so afraid of losing anyone and anything else, I refuse to let anyone in. Because why would I deserve love? There’s nobody who wants me, no purpose for me on this world. I’m nothing, just constantly chasing an impossible goal of perfection to justify my existence. 

“You drive them away, wildcat”

Yeah, I know their hurt. I know what it all feels like. To be that broken, that insecure, that left behind and unwanted. The punching bag of fate. These characters suffering is so much of my own.

And that’s why they’re the only thing to give me hope.

Seeing them be where I am now, and where they end up, I allow myself to believe that maybe, just maybe, that can be my future. That I’ll get a happy ending. It gives me the courage to believe that what I’m so desperately striving for can happen. 

Zuko standing up to his father and forging his own path in life, which leads him to a better place as he finds his destiny and happiness after so many years of torment. We both have scars-- if he can overcome his, why can’t I?

Catra, after so many years of struggle, taking agency over her life back from those to abused her, and finally learning to accept the love of those around her. Opening up to pain and rejection and ultimately being forgiven. Catra felt so lonely, unable to see the love around her-- maybe I’ve been doing the same thing. Maybe I’ll find the strength to take my life into my own hands and find my own love.

It’s so empowering, a flicker of light in what feels like eternal darkness. I am so worn out and broken. I’ve never had love, or learned to love myself. In the real world, it is find to find hope.

It is only in these characters, who have felt my pain and found their way to a better place, that I find comfort.

I am one of so many who have been touched by these characters arcs, and they are one of the purest examples of why stories are important. Why the emotions narrative can evoke are important. It is not only escapism, it opens up a door to critical self introspection that can make a real difference in our lives. It holds up a black mirror of our lives, providing an outside view of our deepest, darkest emotions and struggles which can be so hard to understand when they’re inside. 

These characters, and their stories: insecurity, abuse, doubt, comparison, chasing validation, just wanting to find your purpose in life and happiness-- they are the stories of life, stripped down to it’s rawest emotions. 

There is power in redemption. There is power in rising from the bottom. 

As I said in my last post about Catra and Zuko:

“Their stories: being angry at the world, driven mad by comparison and a need for validation, making wrong choices, processing trauma, needing help but being too scared to open up and accept it, feeling as though they don’t deserve love or forgiveness, fighting to restore and maintain valued relationships, convincing themselves they’ve lost it all, feeling conflicted or confused, realizing what they thought they wanted isn’t fulfilling and hasn’t brought happiness, escaping years of mental conditioning which told them they were worthless, not seeing the love they have right before them, constantly fighting uphill for a life which seems to throw everything it can at them… Well, isn’t that just the most human story of all? And so their redemptions give us hope.”

I have been so lost and lonely for so long, and now I’m at a crossroads. I’m so scared to believe that this change, this new path, can lead to a better place, but these characters? They give me strength to. They give me faith.

This has been a rambling post of feelings, and I am thankful to anyone who has read this far. I’m just so tired of feeling this way, and needed to reach out and share this. If you are also feeling this way, know you are not alone. You are so very far from alone.

I just really don’t want to feel unwanted and unloved, like I don’t belong, anymore. I want to have a place here. I probably sound desperate because I feel that way. I don’t know how else to cry out for help other than sharing this.

 If anyone wants to message or send asks about this, please feel free to do so. I want, and very much need, to talk. 

[piningeddie]

Why I think Gay!Eddie makes sense (aka why I'm a Gay Eddie Diaz truther)

While I've been in this fandom for a very short period of time, I've been paying attention to the discourse and the metas for a while now and, while I am a buddie shipper, I'll make it clear from the start that my gay!Eddie headcanon (and my deep wish to see it become canon) is not about buddie and doesn't even necessarily involve Buck at all. I'd love to see it regardless of whether buddie ever becomes canon, so let me explain why it makes sense for me!

(ALSO, DISCLAIMER: This does not mean I think this is the only possible interpretation of his character arc and history!!!! I'm just explaining why Gay!Eddie is a possible read that fits within the canon we currently have for the character! If you don't interpret it that way, that's fine!)

---

My reasons (aka let me project my queer experiences on Eddie for a little while)

So, to better explain this, I'll work with some points and how it works for me within the narrative!

Eddie & Shannon: While I believe sexuality can be a fluid thing and that it's possible for a person who is gay to have a """straight""" relationship, so to speak, there are reasons within canon that make me think that Shannon & Eddie's marriage may never have really been an in-love kind of situation. At least not on Eddie's part. So let's recap their relationship for a second! Eddie is a young latino in a town in Texas, not exactly a very pro gay situation, especially not 20/15/10 years ago. Take it from me, a latina from a very conservative town: it's not fun! Repression of sexuality in that situation, even to the point of engaging into "het" romantic and sexual situations, isn't exactly uncommon today, and definitely wasn't in the past. So for Eddie, even as a gay man, to have a girlfriend then and getting her pregnant? Not unheard of. Far from it. I'd say that at that point, even if he didn't feel as others said they felt, even if there was this underlying sense of wrongness to it all, he probably hadn't even realized WHY. But then she does get pregnant, they get married in a hurry and that sense of wrongness os exacerbated. It's overwhelming and Eddie... Flees. He fucks off to what I can only assume is hell on Earth (which we won't get into here bc I don't like the US and it's army) to avoid the inevitability of his eternal unhappiness. Because he seemingly has it all, right? Only it doesn't feel that way at all.

And eventually it reaches a breaking point bc when he comes back that unhappiness has new layers, it has a whole lot of war caused PTSD added to it, and the guilt of not being a good husband, a good father, all of it. And it's rough. And now he's there and Shannon is there but neither of them is any happier than they were when they were apart, so now what?

So now Shannon leaves.

And we fast forward to when she comes back. She comes back and he doesn't want her to see Chris at first, doesn't want them to be that immediate family again, doesn't want Chris to know. And also, he doesn't want to talk to her about any of it, either, because actually talking will mean he'll have to look back and think critically about what broke them in the first place, and you know when you're a kid you just KNOW there's a monster under the bed but as long as you don't look, as long as you stay very quiet and under your blanket, it will be fine? It won't hurt you if you don't look, right? So Eddie won't look at the why because he knows it, deep down, but as long as he can avoid facing it, it can't hurt him. He can run from it forever as long as he doesn't look directly at it (oh, but that never works, Eddie. Trust me. I tried.). So Eddie avoids the talking, the real issues, by doing what is easy, what doesn't really need him to really want it in order to feel good, what feels safe, what is comfortable territory. He avoids confronting their shared past by having sex. And as long as that's all he has to do, he's fine. He can do THAT. But that's not enough and Shannon says so. She wants more than that, better than that. But can Eddie give her that?

Eventually, he decides to put Chris first, which is something we know he will then again with Ana. But it's not enough. Because to make something, to build a marriage that is solid and loving, you need to have something more than just the needs of your kid as a foundation. So Shannon decides for them. And then, she dies. And Eddie mourns because of course he does. Not only for Chris but for himself. Whether or not he was IN love with Shannon, he did love her. She was a big part of his life.

Fast forward again to Ana. Ana who was perfectly lovely! Ana who was the ideal wife. Ana who was just SO NICE! And isn't it the worst that Eddie's heart just doesn't beat faster for her? That no matter how lovely or how kind she is, no matter how nice things are between them, that's really all it ever was? It was nice. But is nice enough?

Eddie wants to have a family for Chris. He wants Chris to have all that a kid could want. Including a perfect little family unit, even if the actual reality of it makes Eddie panic. Even if the idea of being cornered yet again into a promise of forever with someone so nicely and perfectly and kindly WRONG for him makes his heart bleed in protest. This time, the reality of his feelings just can't be ignored as they could when he was younger, and it was a rushed marriage in his texan town, under the watchful eyes of his parents. Now, he can almost taste freedom, even if he still represses it. Now, his brain and his heart will not have it. So they rebel. They rebel and he panics and panics until he just has to end it. He has to. Even if it might make Chris sad. Even if it ruins the fantasy of being able to have what he grew up believing he should want. Because he didn't panic when he almost died in war. He didn't panic when multiple members of his lil makeshift 118 family almost died. He didn't panic when his kid was threatened by a convicted murderer. He didn't panic when his own life was threatened by said murderer so quickly after being shot and almost dying! Because those are all real things and as much as he represses EVERYTHING, there's only this one thing he won't even admit to being affected by, only this one thing he won't even ACKNOWLEDGE as real. Because if you don't look directly at the monster under your bed, it can't hurt you, right? Because if you don't look at it you can pretend it isn't there because hey, monster aren't real, right?

[jazillia007]

Thoughts on GG 4x3 Fall Guy

Things I did not enjoy:

Phoebe...

I’m sorry but we really said goodbye to Turner for... Phoebe? I know some would root for her to turn on her shitty FBI co-worker but that wouldn’t make her interesting. It would look desperate. xD I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind her being on track when it comes to Beth. But the reasons why she suspects Beth fall flat to me.

But now things might turn and I’m also weirdly looking forward to what’s gonna happen since she found that letter Beth left. *sigh* Why didn’t Beth think of that?

Beth’s new bed

The only good thing it. got character but dang it it’s so ugly and I will never not notice. LMAO

Fitzpatrick Part 1

Being the creepy dude he is. Like... ewww... The fact he is like “oh but WHY do you not want to go with me to the Fijis?”. I mean it’s not like Beth’s husband is in prison right now and she got 4 kids to take care of but whatever. And she said “NO”. But hey... creepers gonna be creepy.

So but then, Beth tells him exactly that... and... continue in the what I liked section here...

Thing I would’ve enjoyed if done differently:

Did I need those flashbacks with Dean to understand why Beth is staying with him?

No, I don’t think I needed it to know why she is staying with Dean because Beth herself verbally said why she stays with him in many episodes. But I also think we need to remember the majority of the viewers are casual viewers who don’t watch the episodes like fandoms do and casual viewers sometimes need everything to get spelled out for them. But I also think casual viewers aren’t dumb and sometimes writers should just trust them to know and understand things and circumstances.

I also think I would’ve liked it more if the flashbacks had included Beth’s relationship with her father or the non-existence of the very same. I think the reason why women tend to stay with men who are not good for them is because: they have a dysfunctional family (problematic mother, problematic father or both combined), they’re dependent on men, those men resemble the father or the women want to fix something that was broken in their own family (e.g. not having a father but wanting a family and a father for their own children).

But we didn’t get that. And I think it’s a shame the writers focus a great deal on showing Dean was the only good guy Beth knew at that time hence why she chose him when it would’ve been more interesting to explore the reason WHY Beth thought Dean was the only seemingly decent person.

Also, just because Dean was a nice guy back then doesn’t make his cheating and lying okay. And it doesn’t mean Beth needs to stay with him. If anything it worries me that the writers apparently think “look because he was nice back and he basically “saved” Beth and gave her stability, she needs to stay with him forever”. That’s not the case. As I said before if the writers adore Matthew Lillard so much, they can keep him, even as the ex-husband. Just a thought.

However, I think the flashbacks were filmed nicely as some already mentioned. And I liked the casting.

Things I enjoyed:

Kenny

I know some people missed it but Kenny is away for a tournament which explains why it seems Beth and Dean only got 3 children. The show explained it right away, so thankfully Kenny won’t disappear like Buddy did. xD

Dean not buying Beth’s “I love you”

You know I don’t like Dean but I kind of enjoy he isn’t buying Beth’s “I love you” anymore. I mean he is the last person to call her out because he cheated on her and told her he loves her after she found out to manipulate her as well but I just like we see Dean not buying it. Because WHO is actually still buying it when Beth is telling Dean “I love you”.

Ruby and Annie having priorities

I love how they’re like “Hey, you got 4 kids!” like even to them Dean isn’t a father who deserves to be out of prison.

On a sidenote: Ruby aka Retta is looking extra gorgeous this season. Oh MY!

Whatever is going on with Stan

Look I always wanted for Stan and Rio to team up. So please let it happen. But also whatever happens in the club, “the little bitch” and the “big bitch” this could have potential.

But I hope he doesn’t develope a drinking problem and I don’t need the tension between him and Ruby. But also kind of enjoy he got now secrets of his own.

Found the whole mom situation in the flashbacks more interesting than Dean

I think you deleted the post @medievalraven but I think there might be something going on with Beth’s and Annie’s mom which is more related to (TRIGGER WARNING) depression and suicidal thoughts. Which is actually a whole lot more interesting to explore than what a nice guy Dean was back then.

And it would play into what I said earlier. That whatever is going on in Beth’s family made her the person she is now and would explain why she acts in certain ways and why she is unable to leave Dean (except the writers apparently don’t WANT her to leave Dean as of now).

And whatever has been going on at home explains why Annie turned out the way she was back then and still is - especially when it comes to Dean.

Annie and Ben

As you know, I barely relate with Annie but I always enjoyed the most her relationship with her son and if the writers are doing anything right it’s writing this arc properly. It’s normal for Ben to want to stay with his father but at the same time it breaks my heart for Annie.

Fitzpatrick Part 2

Beth going off was everything I needed right now. Thank you, Beth, for telling him where your limits are!

And what a douchebag is Fitzpatrick to be like “oh but I thought you wanted more from your life”. We love guilt-tripping men - NOT. Just look at Dean. I mean... c’mon! Also for him to be like “but you hired me”... Yeah, she did hire you but not sending the message “I also want sex with you.” What is this guy!?

However, I would buy Beth’s speech a little more if she would pair it up with actions. Like divorcing Dean and you know the drill. It would be so much more consistent than having her say one thing but not living up to it. I mean on the other hand now she is somewhat tied to him because Dean plead guilty but still... We’re going in circles a little bit.

Rio/Brio

You know I know the pool table scene is splitting the fandom as always. And I’m just grateful I can watch the scene and enjoy it as a shipper but also enjoy it as a viewer.

I liked the whole “negotiation” between Beth and Rio. Rio did a really low blow when he told Beth if Dean is released from prison 3 years later he might be in better shape and even wanting to “hit it again”. I think we all know why Dean and Beth aren’t working out anymore on a sexual basis and so does Rio, so while Rio might be correct it was a low blow.

But I also enjoy how Rio doesn’t care one bit about Dean. He never did - since season 1. And Dean being a shitty husband and a even shittier businessman is playing a huge part in it. And I like Rio doesn’t even pretend to care.

But he still gives into her pleading. I know some people think he is already over Beth shooting him and maybe that’s the case but in Rio’s case that doesn’t mean he can’t be petty by pulling away the stick. It’s like him saying “I gave you the gun once and I won’t do it again and this is me retaining control. You play this game and we see where it goes with the money.” He is challenging Beth and he knows she would take the challenge.

At the same time, and some of my mutuals noticed it as well, I got 2x9 bedroom vibes which is weird. Especially since there are many mutuals who didn’t feel it or read the scene differently or didn’t like it at all.

The way he looked at her after pulling away the stick. There is a lack of music which I don’t think was a conscious choice unlike it was in the bedroom scene in 2x9 but it still heightened the tension of the scene. And then there suddenly is music and it’s melancholic almost.

Then of course Rio “teaching” Beth how to play pool, handson. And this is where it gets interesting for me. I know a lot of people read this scene differently or it left a different impression.

For me: I always thought that both Beth and Rio are having very mixed feelings right now for eachother. Mostly confused anger. Anger for obvious reasons and confusion because that despite the anger they can’t stop whatever their relationship is and whatever their feelings might be.

And I think in season 3, Rio never really touched Beth. Except for when he showed up alive and did the hair thing and then when he put his hand over hers when she wanted a drink and he thought she was pregnant.

I think this... Rio leaning over Beth and then smelling her. A smell he knows too well and once probably loved. This is the first time he is this close to her again. And same for her, I think that little headshake was mostly her being a little startled but also becoming very aware of his closeness.

And it’s so interesting to see how Rio steps back and does this shoulder roll. It’s like he was suddenly aware of what he was doing and somewhat wanted to shake it off.

And just a little note: the ball had the number 8 on it which can be read as “forever” or “eternity”. Me reading too much into it. :P

Then the moment is over but I just love the moment of joy after Beth winning the challenge and for Rio as well. And then it quickly goes back to business. I think if they’re doing anything well it’s that Brio right now is very much split into two halfs. And for me of course I know the hitman plan is still going which is baffling to me. So of course this dampens any excitement I might have during Brio scenes.

Even though, we can safely say they won’t go through with the hitman plan, and especially now when Beth has hurt Fitzpatrick’s ego. He was pretty calm but I feel like he will mess up on purpose. I don’t think FItzpatrick takes rejection well. Just my thoughts on that. He was way too calm for someone who would hurt a person over raw salmon.

[arkannis]

Hello,

I just recently got into the Old Republic Fandom, and the Eternal Empire is my favorite arc. I do wish there was more story content to give more development to the characters, particularly in Arcann's case. While I love his romance scenes, I wish there were more scenes about his redemption and relationship with the Outlander or a dark side ending where the Outlander or Arcann takes the throne with the other as a consort. I found your blog while trying to find content further developing his character. Thank you so much for posting all your headcanons and musings!

With that being said, what are your headcanons for Zakuul culture? And could you post a masterpost compilation of your Arcann headcanons? I am trying to find the post where the romance novels headcanon originated in the tags and not having much luck.

Hope you have a nice day!

Hi anon!! Sorry for a late reply. First I’ll answer the second part of your message. The romance holonovels headcanon originated from the this post ; the post doesn’t outright say it, but some people in the tags (when they reblogged it) mentioned that Arcann probably seemed like the type to read romance in his free time. As of what I can remember the tags were from this reblog and this other reblog and both say that Arcann reads romance holonovels. The continuation of this headcanon were in replies or tags, so it’s hard to track them all down! Secondly, my Arcann tag is a mess, and I probably threw in multiple headcanons in reblogs or tags so it would be hard to find them all... I’ll think about making a masterpost, but I don’t think I have time for something like that right now. Ok, now that’s over with... I 100% agree with you, anon! I HAVE so many things to say about the possibility about that dark side ending. I don’t think devs were planning to make Arcann a possible romance option in the beginning, so it wouldn’t have been possible to be his LI and rule as emperor/empress. I also agree with the development of the characters... however, Arcann’s redemption and relationship with the Outlander was definitely rushed, because the plans to make a third expansion was apparently cancelled due to the backlash from fans who wanted pub vs. imp back. I made a whole post complaining about that... Otherwise, I definitely think they would have had more time to flesh out his characters and the other Zakuulan characters as well (Vaylin, Senya, Koth, etc.). I’m like pretty much sure content was cut out from KOTFE/KOTET to make them shorter. Due to such lost content, I have to create my headcanons from extrapolation based on the Sacrifice trailer, available codex entries, existing dialogue, and implications of existing issues. As well as other people’s hcs and commentary!! WARNING: SUPER LONG BULLET POINTS for Zakuulan culture headcanons.

The reason why I don’t have that many Zakuulan culture headcanons is because.... I feel like it’s so weirdly explored in the expansions.

I think the arts is a big thing in Zakuul! The Dragon’s Maw chapter gave me that kind of vibe. I also discussed this mildly (not) with Arcann. Most specifically THEATRE, PERFORMANCE AND SINGING. 

Evidence: Senya sings and composes and there’s the famous Zakuulan holoperformer, Malita Tal. No, I don’t have evidence for theatre, but honestly? Zakuulans are so goddamn dramatic, they most definitely have reality TV series or drama series... 

arcann be like oh you listen to malita tal? name all of her albums in alphabetical order or you get exiled

Zakuulan culture most definitely has idol culture, based on Malita Tal (and reportedly her performances were watched by millions). And those fans apparently also protested against Arcann’s rule. personally i think if they had twitter the u.s. gov*rnment would be wiped out.

I just think singing is a big thing in Zakuulan culture. I mean, even Valkorion sings (if you decide to kill Senya, his force ghost appears. They both have an exchange and it’s actually sweet for like 0.1 second). 

I also think there would be typical Zakuulan fairytales embedded in the culture. Hear me out. Most specifically those type of royal fairytales with the princes and princesses. This can be heavily contributed to the fact that a royal family is essentially in power. 

You cannot expect me to believe not a single person in Zakuul has written a Prince Arcann x reader holofic. You just can’t. Or Prince Thexan. Actually, I think Thexan would be more common, I think he was perceived to be more compassionate and kind compared to Arcann by the common folk? Since I know there’s that NPC dialogue where one of them goes how different it would be if Thexan took the throne instead. 

The fairytales would probably involve a lot of references to the Old Gods. I kinda imagine that the enemy would be some sort of serpent, that is, Zildrog, because apparently he’s just a bedtime story to scare children away. 

I think these Zakuulan fairy tales would contribute to the theatre and performance, acting culture that Zakuul has. 

Furthermore, I just think the Tirall kids probably read these fairytales as well. francis dont talk about arcann reading again

I want to talk about the Old Gods and that religion, which is one of my favorite things ever... probably because the Gods are machines. Superweapon machines... ok ill shut up

Even if Valkorion basically got rid of the religion, it’s clear that the religion is still incorporated into heavy talk in Zakuulan culture (e.g. eyes of Esne, heart of Scyva). 

My headcanon is that there are sanctuaries or small secret churches (?) for those who want to worship the Old Gods. Obviously the Herald of Zildrogs who believe in the Old Way are a cult, so I think people would look for an alternative. 

I think there would be great effort to hide these places, as it can get you exiled. Thus these would probably be located in the Old World, rather than in a more obvious position like the Spire. 

The beliefs of the Old Ways isn’t exactly clear, they aren’t exactly touched upon, which is a shame. I think people would ask for help from each of these gods depending on what they want.

Those who ask for Izax’ guidance want to seek success, accomplishments, power, and glory.

Those who ask for Scyva’s guidance ask for her to guide souls peacefully to death (she is described as someone who weeps beside Zakuulans as they march towards Izax - basically death) , or ask for help/compassion from her. Maybe maternity as well? Or parental love?

Those who ask for Aivela (goddess of passion) want her to guide them with her passion (Aivela accompanies Tyth, who is kind of a god of war/warrior). I think there would also be romance related stuff as well. If someone asked for help regarding their love related issues, it would probably be from Aivela!

I’m not sure about Esne - but maybe in a similar sense, if someone is suffering with jealousy - in any situation, they would ask guidance from her. I don’t know where I read this but I think the “eyes of Esne” expression meant like having eyes of jealousy.

Nahut? I don’t think he was worshipped.  “Nahut was considered to be gray, formless and cold, and was denied worship by all except his mother Scyva.” But regardless, I think he still had a role to play. 

After the Outlander takes the throne, and Zakuul renounces their membership from the Eternal Alliance, I think people would be allowed to openly express their religious beliefs, that is, the Old Ways. Oh, personally I headcanon that they would build beautiful places of worship in the Spire with similar geometrical pyramid designs...!! 

Yeah...I think that’s all I got! I’ll need to see how I can somehow make this post easily found, lol. This is quite a long list, and I have to emphasize that these are my headcanons! They are based on what I see and I just kind of fill in the gaps to fit my own stories. This took a while to write because I KNEW I had these headcanons, but they just didn’t appear at the time I saw this anon ask. Anyways, I’ll probably create more headcanons in the future. Also:

a dark side ending where the Outlander or Arcann takes the throne with the other as a consort

I have so many things to say about this. I know the game won’t permit it, because if you think about it, both the light side choice (Eternal Alliance) and the dark side choice (Eternal Empire) are happy endings for your characters anyways. They can continue as the “hero” or the “protagonist”, so I don’t think this route could ever be implemented. However, I think it would be absolutely interesting if throughout the gameplay, players are given a choice to flirt with Arcann. The Outlander and Arcann agree to get rid of Valkorion, but thats if the Outlander decides to betray the Alliance and joins Arcann instead. And should they join him, they have the choice to romance him... and I guess it’s a happy ending for you both :P Obviously this won’t happen, but maybe it will. I wouldn’t mind being the prince consort of Arcann lol idk! me and vaylin are gonna be besties and we’ll paint each others nails or something Oh and have a nice day too anon...!!

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 13 of 26

Title: The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle #2) (1972)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult, Third-Person, Female Protagonist

Rating: 10/10

Date Began: 5/14/2021

Date Finished: 6/3/2021

Arha lives in an isolated community called The Place, the last bastion of worship for the ancient gods known as The Nameless Ones. She was taken from her family at a young age, and forced to abandon her true name, Tenar. Now she lives as The One Priestess, a title passed from one woman to another throughout the ages, believed to be an eternal reincarnation. Day in and day out, she performs complex rituals which have lost their meaning, and spends her free time navigating The Place’s vast underground Labyrinth. 

Everything changes for Arha when she traps a mysterious, artifact-seeking sorcerer in the maze. She’s been taught to mistrust the strange magicians of the west for her entire life. Yet she’s fascinated by this man and his kindness. Arha soon finds herself questioning her purpose in life and her isolated, lonely existence-- but escaping it is not as easy as it seems.  

Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. 

Content warnings and minor spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Animal death, child abuse, slavery, and death. Torture of prisoners. Mention of genocide. Some implied mind control. 

Usually when I really like a book, I can narrow down my reasons without too much trouble. Maybe the setting was cool, or the characters fascinating, or the writing style popped. Maybe all of the above! But my affection for The Tombs of Atuan is harder to articulate. I enjoyed the book, relished it even, but I’m hard pressed to say what in particular made me love it so much. For me it was one of those books that was much greater than the sum of its parts. 

The Tombs of Atuan is a stark contrast to A Wizard of Earthsea. While the previous book detailed a world-spanning adventure, this novel takes place almost entirely in a small and isolated setting. In fact, the first half seems like it’s from another series entirely. The tone is much darker. The novel is deliberate and slow-paced, which is something I usually don’t like. But Le Guin has such a way with words and character development that I was totally enraptured. There’s a heavy focus on Arha/Tenar’s upbringing and daily life in service to The Nameless Ones. This doesn’t change until Ged enters the story and (literally) brings the outside world with him -- and some much-needed context. 

Even beyond all that, the setting feels claustrophobic. There’s the bleak rituals and sacrifices Arha/Tenar must perform. There’s her terse, strained relationships with the other residents of The Place. There’s the inherent desolation of a small hamlet in the middle of the desert. Most of all, there’s Arha/Tenar’s exploration of the subterranean Labyrinth, and the sense of dark forces lurking in its depths. It’s noteworthy that The Nameless Ones never show themselves physically, yet they feel real and foreboding in how they affect and manipulate the characters. This adds a palpable layer of anxiety to the whole novel. 

When I read I usually can’t “feel” myself in the setting, but this book was an exception. In particular, there’s a scene near the end where Ged and Arha/Tenar are lying down in a boat, staring at the stars, and speaking to each other... and I vividly felt myself there in that moment. I have to credit Le Guin’s skill as a writer for making me feel that way; something many authors across hundreds of books have rarely accomplished. 

Another big strength of this book is the character development. One of my main criticisms of A Wizard of Earthsea was the dearth of interesting female characters. Arha/Tenar is exactly what was missing from that book. As The One Priestess, she holds a place of reverence among everyone else in her life. But this leaves her isolated, lonely, and trapped. She tries throughout the novel to fulfill her role as the cold, calculating woman she’s supposed to be. She’s prone to sudden outbursts of anger or cruelty because of her upbringing (and potentially the influence of The Nameless Ones; this is kept vague). Yet her kindness peeks through as she struggles with this aspect of herself, and ultimately breaks free with Ged’s help. 

I also like that Le Guin wrote this from Arha/Tenar’s point of view. The Tombs of Atuan could easily be just another Ged adventure story; he has a clear goal that’s in line with his character in the previous book. But Arha/Tenar’s perspective feels much more intimate. We see all her personal struggles and relationships, and her inherent familiarity with the setting adds a lot of nuance we’d miss through Ged’s eyes. It’s also interesting to see Ged from another character’s perspective, especially someone prone to mistrust him. 

And Ged himself is a great character; I can see why people like him so much. In particular, I love that he’s this this important and powerful wizard, yet his defining traits in this story are his patience and gentleness (things he incidentally struggled with in A Wizard of Earthsea). Even when Arha/Tenar captures and imprisons him, he treats her with kindness and respect. And it’s not a ploy to manipulate her; it’s because he genuinely sees her potential as a person and how they can help each other. I’m just a huge sucker for that kind of thing.

Finally, there’s lots of interesting thematic stuff that I won’t explore in detail, but might be interesting to analyze on a reread. Imprisonment is a big one; Arha/Tenar literally imprisons Ged, but is likewise imprisoned in her role as The One Priestess (something Ged clearly picks up on). Consider the literal role of a labyrinth; to trap someone and bewilder them-- and how Arha/Tenar spends so much time memorizing the one in this story. The power of names continues to be relevant; the protagonist is Arha for most of the story, but she eventually rediscovers her true name Tenar and uses that instead, in parallel with her character arc (this definitely wasn’t intended to be a trans allegory, but damn if it didn’t hit that way). There’s also the symbolism inherent in the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, the artifact Ged came to find. When Arha/Tenar joins Ged’s half to the one they find in the Labyrinth... right as the two resolve to work together and escape... Le Guin, you turned the MacGuffin into a symbol of trust! I’m going to scream! 

The Tombs of Atuan just slapped, what can I say? On the surface level it’s a fantasy novel, but it often transcends the label and provides a deeply human tale. It’s a beautiful piece of writing, and I found myself reading it slowly to savor every chapter. I’m curious how the remaining four books compare. 

[aros001]

First time read through light novel vol. 4. Random thoughts.

So this is where mayonnaise came into the story. I still remember my sheer utter confusion over the mayo bath in the Memory Snow OVA, having no memory of the anime ever bringing up any of Subaru's love for the condiment. As a positive for him at least, it's cool that Emilia apparently really likes it too and that he's the one who figured out how to makes the stuff in this new world.

“The lad’s eyes interested me ever so slightly. They said he has crossed the boundary of death. Many come close to the line, stop, and draw back, but...” Wilhelm lowered his lids in thought as his words trailed off. “Those are the eyes of one who has crossed once, no...several times, and returned. I know of no such being. You might say I was compelled by curiosity.”

How would he know what the eyes of someone like that look like if he's never met anyone like that before Subaru?

“Listen and be amazed, look and be astounded! Behold, the ultimate combat technique—RoSciPer!!”

“What is that...thing?! You did not inform me such a hand was possible!”

“Shut up! I didn’t mention it, but it’s your fault you didn’t ask! That part is rock, this here’s scissors, and over there is paper! In other words, my hand’s beaten your rock!”

That is so freaking petty. But on the other hand, maybe Priscilla would respect him for it anyway? I could see her having no problem with winning however you can, even if it's by being unfair and tricking your opponent, as long as you keep your own pride.

“—But I wonder what Master Roswaal is thinking?”

She inclined her head slightly as she voiced her doubts about the instructions her master had left that morning.

“He said, ‘Do not stand in Subaru’s way no matter what Lady Emilia may say to you.’”

It was as if he’d anticipated Subaru’s actions and had instructed her accordingly. She also wondered why he was valuing Subaru’s opinion above Emilia’s.

Hmm...now that's curious.

“That’s right, bro. It’s been eighteen years since I got summoned here. I lost my arm around the same time... Right around the age you are right now.”

Just like that, Al confessed to Subaru that he’d experienced the same situation.

...Wait...WHAT?! If this was in the anime then I completely forgot about it because holy sh*t, Al is from another world too?! And according to him he arrived 18 years ago and was about the same age as Subaru is (and Subaru is roughly 17, isn't he?). No idea if he can Return By Death and if he can he might have the same penalty for trying to talk about it as Subaru does, so he obviously couldn't talk about it, but this is a huge deal. It's a great bit to add to Subaru's story, showing off what could have happened to him and what he could still eventually become. It probably deepened his obsession with Emilia a little bit too, since she's the main difference between him and Al.

“Unfortunately, Lady Emilia, this is not the time or place for you to argue. If all the facts become clear, Subaru will be staying here...for a very, veeery long time.”

Okay, Roswaal f**king knows and is planning something.

They talk about a Dragon Tablet handed down by Holy Dragon Volcanica, which has given predictions and warnings about great disasters that did actually occur. Naturally, my first thoughts are that this Holy Dragon (or whoever wrote the tablet) might have had abilities like Subaru's RBD and that he'll have his own role to play.

Felt might be a long lost princess of the royal family that was wiped out in a strangely specific plague and Subaru met both her and Emilia first in this world because she stole for her the thing that proved she was a worthy candidate for being a Dragon Maiden. It kind of feels like the Witch of Envy is like the Force from Star Wars with how well she made the destinies and chance encounters line up.

I never really liked Ferris that much, and not because he's a cat-boy trap. It's more the way he talks. I like things that are cute but I can't stand things that are cutesy.

While Crusch's idea for the future of the kingdom is nothing that should be rushed, and most certainly should be done with care as not to piss off the dragon, I get where she's coming from, that they are too reliant on the dragon's blessings and not doing enough for themselves. It's a classic argument I've seen plenty in superhero stories. There's no denying the heroes have done a lot of good but when the people become too dependent on them and if/when the heroes can't help anymore, what's going to happen then? It's one of my favorite plot points in My Hero Academia, where common citizens thinking "It's fine, a hero will show up and take care of it." and not helping where they should have eventually gave rise to one of their world's most dangerous and infamous supervillains.

“A-and now you make threats. These words and this show of force convey, ‘Do as I say or you shall be an icicle.’ If this is not blackmail, what is...?!”

Then, Emilia wholeheartedly affirmed his suspicions.

“—Yes, I am threatening you.” She continued, “I shall make my case to the esteemed members of the Council of Elders once more. My name is Emilia. I spent a long time in the Great Forest of Elioor, the World of Eternal Frost, and am served by Puck, the Great Spirit that governs fire mana. I am a silver-haired half-elf. The people of the nearby villages called me...”

Emilia paused, surveying the faces of the Council of Elders on the dais.

“...the Freezing Witch, born in the Frozen Forest.”

Holy sh*t, I am way more into Emilia's character here than I was in the anime! That was awesome! Her whole speech after too and her finally being given some respect. It's not like she didn't have any personality or agency in the anime. It's not like she could have just been replaced by a sexy lamp and nothing would be different like you could with the heroines of other series. But she definitely feels like she has more here, like there's more fire to her. Like hot damn, even I want to see her become queen now!

...And then Subaru opens his mouth again...and promptly inserts his foot.

Yeah, I suppose Subaru white knighting for Emilia in front of all the actual white knights is probably one of the more infamous scenes of the series, huh? It's one of those weird things where you feel you know what Subaru should have done but at the same time, if he hadn't snuck into the castle, we wouldn't have gained his relationships with Priscilla and Al or have seen as much of the meeting as we did. It's good for the story and eventually it's good for character development but it's hard not to wince a little at everything Subaru does in this part, especially because he himself reflects and feels guilty at a few points about how badly he could have messed everything up for Emilia and Roswaal.

I've thought a lot more about Subaru's white knighting ever since I watched the anime, mostly because of characters like Motoyasu from Rising of the Shield Hero and Mitsurugi from Konosuba; two LN series I read before this one. Chivalry isn't a bad thing. Trying to stand up and fight for someone you care about isn't a bad thing. But like Emilia points out, she never asked Subaru to do any of that for her. She didn't want him to do any of that for her. In fact, he deliberately went against what she did ask of him to go and do all of that. With these three characters, the problem with their white knighting is that they're doing it with no regard to what the person they're white knighting for actually wants. In many cases, like Emilia also points out, Subaru wasn't really doing it for her. He was doing it for himself. To make himself feel better. To place himself closer to her. And she's not exactly wrong that their relationship seems to be entirely just two people repaying their debts to each other, even though she has no idea what debt Subaru feels he owes her.

The ironic thing is, if Subaru wanted to get closer to Emilia and have value to her, he already found a way to do that in one of his previous lives. On his second or third loop in the mansion arc, Puck told him that Emilia doesn't have a lot of experience with friends and really wants some. During that loop, Subaru and Emilia are just hanging out, enjoying each other's company, laughing. It's made clear she does genuinely like having him around. Just being her friend was enough for her and there's still plenty of ways her friend could have helped her through such a trying time, without embarrassing her in front of everyone in the castle or making her think it's her fault he keeps getting hurt.

I think Subaru's big problem, and what he needs to grow out of, isn't that he's an idiot (though he can certainly do dumb things) but rather that he's immature. Not immature like he's a child (though sometimes...) but immature in that he hasn't developed enough to properly react to certain situations. He was a shut-in who constantly skipped school. He doesn't have a lot of experience with other real people and doesn't know how to properly interact with them, defaulting too often to what he's seen in fantasy stories. I think that's a problem both he and Rem share to an extent. They don't know what it means to be in love. That's not to say that Subaru's love for Emilia isn't real or that Rem's love for Subaru isn't real. Rather that they don't know what to do with it. They don't know how they should act towards the person they're in love with or how to show their love, so too often they default to either obsession or devotion or both. And so if they want to have a healthy, happy relationship with the person they love, they have to acknowledge and address their own immaturity and basically grow up a bit.

Nice little detail that Julius beat on Subaru to keep any other knights from going after and possibly killing him...and because he was at least a little annoyed by Subaru's words. He's a good guy...but still human.

And again with Roswaal working things behind the scenes. He gave orders for Subaru (or at least a servant bearing his family crest like Subaru would be) to be allowed to pass into the castle. I imagine he did have a back-up plan for if Subaru never showed up but the man definitely knows or suspects something about Subaru and/or what's going on with him. I mean, benefit of the doubt, if he doesn't know about RBD, from the outside it does look like Subaru has some kind of prophetic abilities, as twice now he's known about future events that would have destroyed everything Roswaal's been working towards and used that knowledge to prevent them. Making things easier for Subaru to act just in case he had another "vision" would have been in Roswaal's best interest. He might be thinking Subaru is like the Holy Dragon, thus Roswaal has his own personal Dragon Tablet. But I can't help but feel things go deeper than that. At the very least I'm glad Subaru's outburst and Roswaal trying to smite him with fire was apparently part of the plan. 1, Roswaal is just a really fun character and I don't want to lose that, but 2, he definitely seems like a guy you don't want to have against you.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Re_Zero/comments/gontd5/novels_first_time_read_through_light_novel_vol_4/

[dotthings]

I recommend reading @occamshipper‘s post here [x] that does a whole lot to further unpack some spn fandom dynamics, beyond what I touched on myself earlier today, but more, discusses the evolving nature of SPN itself. Which got me thinking further (as you do).

With 6 episodes left of SPN left on the clock, it seems like a good time to talk more about my love for this series as a whole, and my perspective on the earliest seasons of SPN vs later seasons. 

I’ve tried to articulate this on various platforms at different times, but it’s sometimes hard to explain, because it’s a dichotomy but not mutually exclusive.

People will make all kinds of assumptions just because I’m expanded cast friendly, because I’m a Cas fan, because I’m ride or die Team Free Will, because I ship Destiel. Some will think but of course I couldn’t possibly have loved S1-2 with a bone deep love, couldn’t possibly have internalized Sam and Dean and relate to them and see my own weaknesses and strengths reflected there, didn’t have 15 years of emotional roller coaster with SPN. Not just 15 seasons, 15 years. I did have to step away a few times and took breaks from it but not years-long, so I have witnessed every stage of fandom and every stage of canon as it unfolded.

Min brought up in her post how earliest SPN started with archetypes. While the characters were also layered characters, they mostly stayed in their archetypal boxes. Not just how they mirrored archetypes of other media SPN has always been a response to (Dean is Han, Sam is Luke and so on) but how they fell into archetypes established of themselves. Early SPN had a start on overturning those self-created archetypes and expectations, a beginning. Dean in particular very quickly turned out to be not what even the show’s creator expected and they ran with it. Kripke created a show he envisioned as being about monster hunts, like Kolchak, like X-Files, and it was Bob Singer who said no brah it’s about the emotional bonds, it’s about the emotional story, that’s our unique hand to play, and whatever issues I have with EP Bob Singer later on, I respect how right he was about that. 

The irony of Dabb era constantly being ripped down and attacked for...being that, simply because it’s not only the brother bond any more. 

One popular negative meme in spn fandom involves complaining SPN isn’t scary any more. True, the style of its horror changed, it changed visually, and I do appreciate the early visual style, but the flip side of that statement is that SPN started out relying on jump scares and mere style for its frights, when even in the earliest seasons it was clear the most horrifying or wrenching moments were going to be emotional. As I said on twitter, over time SPN became an increasingly complex study of its main characters, with escalating moral quandaries, and increasingly a rumination on emotional horror, conquering of inner demons, and most of all the importance of love of all kinds. 

See, the thing is, I really really REALLY loved S1 and 2. No you really can’t even know how much I loved SPN in those seasons. It had a gestalt that cannot be recaptured, and I dove in head-first. The dusty back roads, the intense familial emotional storylines, the haunted houses, the monsters, the dilapidated or forgotten places, the cursed apple orchards, the abandoned buildings, the brothers, the tears. Yes, it’s gorgeous. Let’s light a candle and remember it fondly.

When I rewatch it holds up well enough...it also feels claustrophobic. Limited. Small. So small. Yes still beautiful. But much as I loved the Winchesters and their story and their family already then, a lot of that love is also bleedback because of learning so much more about them. So much more. After that. 

When I rewatch anything before Carver era it feels like that, too small, and I miss the full breadth of what the characters became. I do have some issues with Carver, but he did a lot of great things too. 

By S3 the magic was dwindling for me a little. S3 is when I started to think I was going to just get tired of the show and that was bewildering tbh, because S1-2 were just SO DAMN AMAZING to me. But that’s how it goes sometimes. 

S4 banged the doors open and blew my mind. It wasn’t just Cas’s arrival, but Cas was a herald of it. Cas the most of any member of Sam and Dean’s extended family got the closest to them, could carry stories of his own, and most embodied some of SPN’s biggest themes. But it wasn’t about Cas’s arrival alone.

I thought I knew all SPN was capable of and S4 showed me otherwise and I was a giddy, proud SPN fan about S4. LOOK AT WHAT OUR LITTLE SHOW DID. The canvas got bigger, the character stories got even stronger, more powerful, and more painful. Let’s pedal to the metal and see what she can do.

Season after season and showrunner after showrunner. Even my least favorite showrunner had something more to show me about these characters, something more to learn. (There are a few arcs with every showrunner where I did feel like SPN was spinning its wheels, I’m talking in aggregate, by era, although I don’t love every era the same). 

When I rewatch earliest SPN I miss the Sam and Dean I’ve gotten to know because of course they aren’t there yet, they are just beginning. I have a mirror to that with Cas. When I rewatch S4-6, even parts of Carver era. S4/5 Cas is still exciting. Those are his beginnings, like S1-2 are Sam and Dean’s. But I miss all Cas became. I miss how far he grew. Watching Sam, Dean, Cas on screen while also missing Sam, Dean, Cas. They also don’t feel complete to me without their earliest seasons in my mind to build forward from.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me about the goodness of modern SPN, but they could at least admit that the SPN they loved left the building long ago, eons ago, instead of staying around season after season just to tear down, to hate, to attack. Everything from character development existing as a concept to the basic easy to grok idea that people can love more than one person to *insert repetitive wanking here on how Dabb ruined SPN by utilizing themes SPN has always always had there since the start and took them farther* to just being mad that S15 isn’t S1.  Modern SPN gets torn to shreds for being SPN only stronger with more complexity, more character pov, more emotional unpacking, more and more about family and how family is constructed, and with a rich visual language and use of symbolism that can hold its own with earlier seasons, and it’s just plain fact, this vitriol was  aimed at Carver as well as at Dabb, FYI, and I have my own issues with both of them. 

Is it really REALLY necessary to hate on a show that has always been billed at being about family for being...about family. Really? Do people even go here?? What is UP with that. Season after season of hard core stans preaching “SPN is about family” and now they’re pissed that...SPN is about family. Upteen repetitions of whining about “too soap opera.” As others have pointed out, if you didn’t already figure out that SPN was and is a family soap opera with monsters, there isn’t much help to be had for you. Upteen repetitions of whining that SPN grants redemptive arcs. What show have folks even been watching all these years????? Upteen rages because on a 15 season show characters grow, things change, and S1 and S15 are not the same.

SPN has always been about the characters most of all, it’s always been about the emotions most of all, it’s always been about relationships most of all. 

SPN is not eternally 2 boys in a car shooting monsters in the face on a back road dilapidated barn while those 2 boys repeat their first look archetypal roles, undisturbed in an endless loop. I can recognize how beautiful S1-2 were without discarding all that came after, and I’m realizing more and more how Dabb era is making me reflect over the whole series run, and giving me a new perspective on the long journey of the characters. 

Speaking as a fan who has loved this show since September 2005, but is also intrigued by current storylines, that melding of old and new, of new light shed over the past, while bringing the story forward, moving the characters forward, is also beautiful to me.

[livlepretre]

I started watching TVD while season 5 was airing, and I loved it. I was so excited when I caught up, but quickly started losing interest. As a person who despises pregnancy plot lines that should be impossible and make no logical sense in canon, The Originals was always a lost cause for me. I also hated the oocness of the characters. I begrudgingly made my way through season 6 of TVD and honestly couldn’t make it through the first few episodes of season 7. At that point in time, I didn’t like the conflicts, how the show kept breaking its on mythology rules, and how most characters were acting out of character. I think it’s a total shame because I absolutely adore this universe and the characters attached to it. Canon divergent fics like yours allow me to enjoy what could have been. So, did you watch TVD all the way through? Did you watch The Originals? If not, what was the straw that broke the camel’s back and what plot lines and character arcs would you have liked to see on the show/shows? How would you have preferred the show to end? Finally, what kind of thoughts do you have when you hear crazy stuff that happened (ex. Caroline having Ric’s kids and him being in unrequited love with her or Legacies having their characters fight gargoyles, dragons, etc.. throughout Mystic Falls while Damon and Elena’s kids are still in town raising their own kids) Cuz sometimes I read things and I’m like WTF? Who thought this made sense?

Okay, wow, I love that you asked me these questions, because as it turns out I have been bugging my RL friends with my tormented TVD takes for years now. I’m going to put everything under a cut though because this answer promises to be very long. 

Edit: This got sort of stupid long. Read at your own risk haha. 

So, I think to answer this, I have to address the things I love so much about TVD and why I’m still thinking about it/writing fic for it years and years after it lost me. I’m going to take this chronologically because there’s a lot to unpack. 

What I loved

My introduction to TVD was over the summer before season 2 aired; I remember seeing the promotional materials on the CW before I left for college the fall before, and writing it off (which: fair of me, those season 1 promotions were abysmal). But luckily my sister, God bless her, understood me better than I understood myself and made me sit down and marathon the first season with her. I made fun of it pretty hard until the episode where Vicki got turned, and then an episode later got staked, which shut me up and got me paying attention. At some point over the course of the season that show went from haha laugh at it to holding my throat and there are sooo many good reasons for this. I remained hyperfixated throughout seasons 2-4, which I would religiously watch just as soon as I could pirate them. 

The thing about TVD was that it was, for several years, a master class in narrative structure. What I mean by this is that it did two things very very very well: 

1) one thing always led organically to the next -- the thing that actual kicks off the plot in TVD is Damon coming to town to open the tomb. From that point on, he opens the tomb, which leads to the tomb vamps escaping, which leads to Katherine taking notice, so she comes to Mystic Falls, which leads to others discovering Elena, which leads to Elijah, which leads to Klaus, and the other Originals. Very neatly done, and a wonderful, fast way of constantly shifting the action in believable and organic ways 

2) they had this thing where they would announce something cataclysmic, like opening the tomb or sacrificing the main character, or even dropping the veil in season 4/again (?) in season 5, and in most shows, the whole point would be to avert those things-- but TVD has this way of announcing the doom and then forcing us through it. 

There were other things-- stakes were high (ha! pun!) -- Vicki could get staked midway through season 1, Jenna could get killed in the sacrifice, and they could sweep the rug out from under you by having the whole premise of what you THOUGHT you understood about the show turn out to be untrue-- the first big instant of this was the certainty that Katherine was actually in the tomb and if the tomb was opened that Damon would save her-- finding out she was never in there at all was mind-boggling. Another really excellent moment I recall was 2x09-- so, the thing is, one of the biggest mysteries in the show up until that point was “Why does Elena look exactly like Katherine?” We knew/suspected she was a descendent, and the term doppelganger was bandied about, but it felt really shocking to have it LITERALLY be used in the mythology (to see your doppelganger is a sign of certain death, which it IS how CREEPY!) and then in 2x09, everything gets turned on its head AGAIN when we discover “it’s not that Elena looks like Katherine, it’s that Elena and Katherine look like someone else”-- the idea that KATHERINE is a doppelganger was earth shattering. This show. 

Also the way that the show played with audience expectations? Like, in 1x04, the audience expectation would be for Elena to be angry at Stefan and not trust him after Damon (or was it Caroline? It’s been years since I’ve watched) says some stuff intended to set her against Stefan. But instead she figures it out fast and comes back to slap Damon and apologize to Stefan. It was an early sign that the show would jump over the expected hurdles. One of the brilliant things it does too is play with the horror genre. The characters (in the early seasons) were some of the smartest on tv because they were genre savvy, and they thought like a real person would and not like a character so often-- I remember being amazed by how often they jumped over the obvious pitfalls and came to sound conclusions. 2x12 The Descent sticks out to me-- Elena versus the mad dying vampire. Also the entire daggering sequence in 2x16 is God tier, as well as Elena’s bargain with Elijah in 2x11. Hmm and also the way the show would even play with expectations based on the fact that it’s a show? The fact that Katherine and Mason were working together is still one of the greatest plot twists of all time in my opinion, not because of how left field it is or wild or anything, but because it should have been totally obvious but our expectations of season premiers made it totally camouflaged! Like, yes, Mason and Katherine DO show up at the exact same time... in 2x01, which is a season premier, so we as an audience know and expect that new characters will be introduced in that episode. The fact that the show knew that and played us for fools will always go down as a favorite moment for me. 

Well. Needless to say there are countless other amazing things. The darkness of the show and its commitment to exploring vampirism as a curse, and oddly a very human one, was mesmerizing. Damon breaking Jeremy’s neck. “I miss being human. I miss it more than anything in the world.” Elena slow moral decay. The shock and horror when Caroline is turned. The relationships between the brothers. The way that the gang can’t ever sit easy with each other-- that Bonnie sees how Damon and Stefan are a poison, how everyone lies to Tyler and it hurts him so he hurts them-- Katherine’s doomed history? Tragic. Beautiful. Amazing. 

I remember the fandom was a very different space in those early seasons too. The show was just so dreamy and frightening and dark. It was like a very bad dream you couldn’t wake up from and maybe also didn’t want to. The fics were kind of gloomy and frightening and people were much more willing to explore the monstrous side of the show. 

So. The issues that I had. 

The very first thing I remember feeling a twinge of unease about was when they put Katherine in the tomb in 2x07 only to take her out again in 2x09. I remember her getting sealed up in that tomb in 2x07 was HORRIFYING but also??? Brilliant? Justice? Amazing? It was taking out a villain when and how they said they were going to do it and I loved it. I didn’t quite like how she kept being an active role in the story, no matter how much I adore Katherine as a character, because it destroyed the impact of her in that tomb at all. If it were me, I would have put her in that tomb and saved her as a character, only to take her out like seasons down the road when the audience may have mostly forgotten about her and she could have been a secret ace. 

There were other ultimately minor things in season 2-- the sun and moon curse being a fake, for example-- which at the time ruffled me a bit but I was willing to just brush it off because, well, season 2 of The Vampire Diaries is unspeakably good. 

I went into season 3 with the same level of hyperfixation as I had in season 2 (read: immense). And those first 6 episodes were pretty damn near perfect, with 3x05 being like the horrible culmination of everything I, already a klaulena shipper, could ever want. 

My first sign that things were going in a weird direction was 3x07, Ghost World. I remember that episode feeling... weaker. Like, what was the point of Lexi having Elena torture Stefan? That didn’t seem to do anything at all. The Other Side stuff is something I pretty much disliked at the time but at this point I’m so used to it that I accept it as a kind of limbo space mostly for vampires (and also witches? but hopefully more pleasant and less of a wasteland of eternal wandering for witches than it is for vampires). 

3x08 Ordinary People was an abomination and I still hate it and everything built on it. So, at the end of season 2, Elijah says his family comes from Eastern Europe. A nice, normal answer that makes sense. It also dovetailed really well with Slavic vampire folklore, so there was a great tie in that felt right with the meta-awareness of the show (it was for a while very much so a vampire show about vampire shows, and the diaries were part of that meta level writing). The idea that they were VIKINGS in VIRGINIA in this random WEREWOLF SETTLEMENT gives me such a migraine that I don’t think I can go into it here. I hate it with an unflinching fury. I think I used the “Mikaelson” name once or twice in FE and I hate myself for that more than anything else I’ve ever done in my writing. It makes no sense and betrays the writers as not even having a very vague idea of history and it is like fingers on a chalkboard for me. My fingers, feeling all of that horrible chalky friction. ELIJAH THERE WERE NO WILD HORSES IN AMERICA A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. WHY ARE YOUR NAMES HALF VIKING AND HALF HEBREW EXCEPT FOR THE RANDOM GERMAN NAMES. WHY WHY WHY. 

Deep breath. 

The other thing I really hated in that episode was Rebekah’s “it’s a protection spell of course.” 

Honestly I think that was the actual sword plunging into TVD’s heart and the show just slowly bled out from there and I was so shocked and betrayed by that that it just took me years of trying to stop the hemorrhaging before I finally accepted that it was a mortal wound. 

You have to understand that I continued to watch seasons 3 and 4 the way an abandoned dog will wait for its owner to return. I just couldn’t help myself. It had been my favorite favorite show (and sort of still is?)

Well. Why did I hate this protection spell thing so much. TVD had made it very clear in the early seasons of the show that becoming a vampire was BAD. It was a fate worse than death. The whole angst of season 1 relies on us feeling the TRAGEDY when Giuseppe murders his sons and they become vampires. Because vampires in TVD aren’t inhuman, per se; they’re still the same person, they still have their souls, their consciences, their moralities... they’re just also saddled with this insatiable burning thirst for human blood that drives them to commit the very worst deeds, that drives them down these dark paths of horror and soul-scouring guilt as they repeatedly succumb, over and over and over and over again, to their worst impulses, until they finally stop caring and become monsters in truth. Until they forget about the simple warmth of a human connection, of good things like love and friendship and family. TVD made it clear that to be a vampire was to be in hell. It’s why Damon promises Stefan an eternity of misery. It’s why the group responds with HORROR when Caroline is turned in 2x02. It’s why Damon’s confession in 2x12 rips at our hearts, and why the stakes are so high when we wonder whether Elena will be a vampire at the end of season 2. The show is very clear that it’s not actually becoming a vampire that makes us monsters, but the actions we take once we become vampires that make us monsters... but that those actions are also nearly inevitable and precipitous once the transition occurs. It’s really tragic. 

I remember the summer before season 3 aired the fan spaces were all abuzz with speculation about “what could Klaus have done that was so bad that not only was the vampire curse inflicted on him, but also on his entire family?” (that was the prevailing theory for how he could be the “first” Original vampire-- he was the one who had actually done whatever the thing was that had precipitated what was OBVIOUSLY a vengeance curse.)

Ordinary People was like LOL! NOPE! Joke’s on you for thinking we were going to actually discuss self-destructive behavior and the human psyche through the metaphorical lens of vampirism ;) 

There were definitely other things in season 3 that bugged-- the serial killer thing was hard to follow (and I tend to criticize anything that’s hard to follow for any viewer watching week to week, while also paying close attention... because that means it’s probably not well enough explained), the white oak stake bridge was LOL fine, it did lead to some epic stakings by our boy Matt tag-teaming with Elena and Stefan, and I did enjoy the idea that the whole bloodline dies... anyway, I digress. 

The flashbacks started being a problem in season 3. In season 1 & season 2, the flashbacks basically all told a continuous B storyline. In season 1, of course, we have 1864, in that gorgeous blue cast. We get a little additional information of that in season 2, and it’s amazing. But then in season 2, the B story is 1492, in that golden cast, also amazing. 

After that the flashbacks that start in season 3 are pretty random. We don’t have stories being told in the past throughout the season, but instead, random one-offs in random colors telling random stories. Not bad, per se, but definitely less affecting and much less cohesive and meaningful. 

Here’s the big big big issue with season 3: Klaus. 

The whole point of the season was to kill Klaus. It was explicitly stated. 

Every other season, once the motivation was stated, the show went through with it: open the tomb, stake the tomb vamps, take down Katherine, find a way to save Elena during the sacrifice, etc. 

Now, as everyone knows, I love and adore Klaus. But I also sort of hate him because I think the writers loved him too much and they wrecked the show a bit with him. They wanted to create drama with a “kill Klaus!” arc but there was never that much tension in it because I was certain from 3x12 onward that they never would. (well, I was stunned when he got staked at the end of season 3 and I just sort of whispered, “good” to my empty dorm room at the time-- but that was short-lived). It really really really took the wind out of the show’s sails when they didn’t stake him by season’s end, so the MOST major thing I would have done would have been to kill him off somehow at the end of season 3. 

If they didn’t kill him off, they should have devised a way to make peace/have Team Mystic Falls need him and him need them much earlier and much more concretely than they ever did. With the way things played out in actuality, our protagonists failed to do the one thing protagonists MUST do: take defining action. All of their actions in season 3 are completely for nothing, and that makes the whole thing fall apart. 

This also brings me around to something that will surprise absolutely no one: I have a lot of problems with the way that klaus x caroline was handled. I think it COULD have been done convincingly, but the writers were lazy/were very clearly just trying to get Klaus a ship because the actor is hot, and so they gave us the horse drawing, and the prom dress, and the ball gown, and frankly, a list of villain decay moments that I just... don’t know what to do with. And the ship pretty much ruined Caroline’s character because the whole point of her was that she was so much deeper and kinder than anyone gave her credit for, even than she gave herself credit for, but the ship was like LOL! NOPE! (I have a lot more on this written elsewhere in my blog) Also my boy Tyler got cut out of a HUGE amount of this show to make room for this ship, which was lousy. 

My last thought about season 3 is that this is when the characters-- especially Damon-- started to really decay. Rewatching early seasons of the show is WILD because Damon is WEIRD. He is so other and off-putting-- beautiful, but very very strange-- it’s in the way smolderholder held himself, the way he spoke, all the little things that sent little alarm bells ringing. He was delightfully inhuman. 

I vividly remember the stupid chipmunk argument in... 3x16? somewhere around there-- with Stefan in some back alley in Mystic Falls and I was just??? That was the moment I realized that all of those things about Damon’s acting that had appealed to me had vanished. I think the writers were trying to make him more likable/humanize him so he could be the main love interest, but it was very frustrating to me. 

Moving on to season 4. I was actually into the sire bond because it was difficult and problematic and felt to me like a chance to explore more complex issues through the “vampire” metaphor the way the show had done in earlier seasons. (I know this storyline is pretty much hated, but my stance is: if you don’t want dark, problematic, uncomfortable, and toxic storylines, don’t watch vampire genre tv shows. That simple!) 

I don’t mind the idea of the “cure” and I don’t even mind the Hunter thing/that Jeremy could be a Hunter (although I found the coincidence dumb). 

ACTUALLY what I would have liked VERY MUCH would be for Elena to go through most of her season 4 storyline-- becoming a vampire, having Jeremy die and her turning off her emotions, then going on her evil vampire rampage and actually killing and hurting innocents, only THEN for her to have the cure forced on her after like a year of being a vampire. The defining arc of Elena’s character in the early seasons is her moral decay-- Katherine is the warning of what Elena will inevitably become if she continues down the path she’s on-- so it would be fascinating to see her go DOWN that path, very far, and then to have her become human again-- and have her actually have to deal with the horrors she committed. (I have a bit of a theory that vampires have one foot over the veil into the realm of death, and maybe this, if anything, makes it easier for them to forget their humanity/become truly monstrous, but that becoming human again would slam all of that into the front and center again)-- it would be a way for Elena to actually have to confront her story arc-- what path is she going to go down? Is she going to continue her slide into callousness and monstrosity? Or can she turn it around? Must she give up the Salvatores to do that? 

I don’t really mind the season 4 Silas content. Will say that once again the inclusion of any of the Originals in season 4 is pretty useless which is frustrating to me, and their place in the TVD narrative in general is an annoying dead-end. 

However, I do think that Silas introduces a big shift in TVD: their need for a yearly big bad. As I mentioned above, TVD was always “one thing leading to another” -- starting with Silas, they started introducing yearly Big Bads (Silas, the Travelers, Kai) that were arbitrary and frustrating and were the thing that most broke me out of my suspension of in-universe belief. The idea that the show would need a big bad was a fundamental misunderstanding of the narrative structure of the first 3 seasons by the writers in those later seasons. 

You asked what the straw that broke the camel’s back was and I can tell you, it was this: 

I laughed myself sick and that was the last time that TVD was appointment television for me. I call this the Party City Greek costume. 

I did eventually marathon season 5 well after it was over, and even though a lot all of the ways the show retconned itself drove me insane, it was overall fun just to watch for the drama and the pace. 

My biggest problems with season 5... 

This was around the time that Bonnie was dead then alive then dead then alive... I can’t actually keep track any more at this point what’s up with our girl 

Stelena pretty much disappeared. 

I actually think one of the bigger problems in the show was that the show was stronger when it was mostly about Damon, Stefan, and Elena, and at some point they gave more equal screen time to other characters which ended up meaning that I spent a lot of screen time with characters I just didn’t care about (ENZO) 

UGH THE DOPPELGANGER STUFF

So, if you’ve read my fics, you know I spend a huge amount of time parsing the mechanics of the doppelganger, how the magic around it might work, what the implications are, etc. 

I CAN’T STAND what happened to the doppelganger stuff in season 5! UGH. HOW DOES TOM WHAT’S HIS FACE EXIST? DID STEFAN HAVE A BABY WHEN HE WAS 15?!? Seriously!!! HOW!!!! Because it’s real clear in canon that only DIRECT line descendants create doppelgangers! 

ALSO. The Amara thing. Just stop it. 

This actually leads to a pretty major issue: TVD had a bad habit of establishing really exquisite doomed histories and then wrecking them with too much information later. 

The story of Tatia Petrova is a masterpiece in doomed, tragic, romantic mythology. Teenage girl falls in love with two brothers and so their parents decide to use her as the blood sacrifice for their creepy curse “protection spell” and so they murder her-- you get the image of how terrified she must have been, dragged out of her home in the middle of the night, trapped, maybe dying slowly, how she dies for loving too much, for being just a little too wild, a little too trusting-- and how that curse echoes down the ages. The idea that that act of savagery somehow created the doppelganger line. The Amara thing (as well as the Originals revelation that Elijah killed Tatia) gut the impact of that TVD myth-- which was a strong one in the imaginations of the viewers. 

And the idea that vampire doppelganger blood is useful for anything??? I can’t. The WHOLE POINT of season 2 is that Katherine turns herself into a vampire to avoid the sacrifice! We are explicitly told-- you can’t be two things at once, if you become a vampire, you negate your identity as a witch or a doppelganger or whatever-- literally the WHOLE PLOT of season 2 centers on how useless Elena’s blood would be if she were turned! And now Stefan is in on this? NOPE. I’m out. 

Anyway, another myth that got wrecked in season 5 was the Katerina Petrova myth. Part of her tragedy is that she never even gets to hold her baby. Is the idea that her baby grows up and has a normal life and Katerina never even gets to find out anything about her. That she completely loses this one thing that might have humanized her. And then of course the great tragedy in England that ultimately destroys her. I really hated meeting Katherine’s daughter, because it reversed the pathos of Katherine’s past and rendered it emotionally inert. And also Nadia sucked. 

The Travelers were fun enough but also they made no sense (DOPPELGANGER VAMPIRE BLOOD) but most especially I hated the idea that Katherine was a Traveler just WHY 

I got... partway through season 6, although, I couldn’t tell you where exactly I stopped watching for no particular reason. 

I remember really enjoying Tyler x Liv and the way that they made Tyler human again, and brought Alaric back, etc at the end of season 5-- it felt like such a fresh reboot to everything and it’s one of the things that TVD does really well. 

That Thanksgiving episode sticks out to me as a train wreck though because I realized that the central conflict had absolutely nothing to do with any of the characters I actually cared about, and was instead about the twins... whom I liked, but not really any more than I liked the Martins in season 2, you know? 

Also vampire blood being unable to cure cancer sounds arbitrary to me. 

As for how I would have preferred the show to end? 

Hmm. Well. I think it should have ended sooner-- this “the show is really about these two brothers” is just incorrect. The show was about the two brothers and Elena. It was about that triangulated relationship. I think that even if Elena ended up with one or the other at any given point in the show, the other third point in that triangle should have stuck around-- I’ve always disliked Stefan slinking off in season 5 because it tears apart the foundation of the show. 

I have no idea how it should have ended. I guess? the ending? was okay? I’ve never actually seen it. 

On to the Originals... so, the magical pregnancy didn’t really bug me because there are plenty of fandoms where vampires can procreate/I guess if Klaus is part werewolf, he has a foot closer back to the mortal coil, and vampire bodies in TVD have heartbeats, are warm, digest food, etc, so it was like, fine, sure. 

I would say I watched... some of season 1? and I watched most of season 2? I watched whatever I needed to watch for fic research basically, and have a very confused sense of what happened on that show. I’m always skeptical of anything set in New Orleans though because no one ever seems to leave the French Quarter which is so preposterous because the Quarter is probably smaller than Mystic Falls. But anyway. The tribrid thing has never made sense, but I just sort of rolled with what I’ve heard about the Originals? I really love Marcel and think he was actually the protagonist of the show, whereas Klaus was definitely the antagonist. (I just can’t bring myself to side with Klaus on pretty much anything...) 

Okay I think this ties up all of your questions/most of my thoughts except for maybe... what I find absurd. 

To answer that: every time I learn something new I am stunned and my jaw drops in a literal guffaw. For example, today reading your ask was the first time that I found out that Ric was unrequited in love with Caroline (although, former student carrying her former teacher’s children also makes me uncomfortable). As far as I know from seasons 7-8, Damon sleeps with someone named Crystal, Caroline somehow magically carries Alaric’s children with their dead witch mom (and apparently Alaric is in love with Caroline while that happens?), Matt might be a cop, Damon and Stefan fight the literal devil and Katherine is their queen, Bonnie and Enzo??, Caroline and Stefan get married, what’s a Jeremy Gilbert, maybe Damon sets Elena’s fake coffin on fire?, Damon kills Tyler (WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE), there are witches who are vampires called Heretics, and also there are Sirens and maybe Mama Salvatore is one. The end. Every time I learn something new it’s the most amazing thing I have ever heard and I can’t imagine how it could be so, but I accept it. 

Am I missing anything? 

Legacies is so beyond my comprehension that I just have to roll with everything I hear. God Bless Matt Davis for leading that cast. 

[cyanoscarlet]

2020 writing review

Thanks for the tag, @gladiowrites​! (I know it’s not a tag, but this is fun to do lol)

I.. honestly wrote a lot this 2020. No kidding. Quarantine productivity was real, but so is residency languishing by the wayside while everyone was busy surviving and adjusting. I highly doubt 2021 will be the same, but I’ll always cherish 2020 just because of the writing and nothing else.

This is gonna be long.

FIRST CREATION + MOST RECENT CREATION OF 2020

8:15 am  - Final Fantasy XV. Lunafreya. February 2020. - First piece ever written for the year. - Intended to be a Luna-centric AU, in which the Nox Fleurets were deposed and she’s now a regular teacher. Never managed to write anything beyond that, though, because residency. (Back then, I didn’t know it was gonna be the beginning of the end, so I had hopes. Oh well.)

irresistible!, or the summer ramblings of nene yashiro and everything that followed - Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun. Nene, Hanako. March 2020. - First one published on AO3 for 2020 (yes, there’s a distinction). - If you think the title sounds familiar, you’re right.

versus

first yuletide - Final Fantasy XV. Nyx. December 2020. - Written for the FFXV Secret Santa event on Twitter. - Before y’all object and say what unwinding is, that’s an old fic uploaded late.

ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CREATIONS FROM 2020

Do I seriously have to choose? Omg.

take heart - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Gods/Humans AU. - Discovered so much about myself writing this. Also (hopefully) I managed to get into Dazai’s headspace correctly. He’s an extremely difficult character to write, so finishing this brought so much gratification.

you don’t raise heroes, you raise sons - Final Fantasy VIII. Laguna, Squall. Post-canon. - Probably my most heartfelt work of the year- scratch that, ever. Also happy with how I just let myself go writing this and didn’t need to think twice.

A CREATION YOU’RE REALLY PROUD OF

oneiric moments (or, five nights with you) - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. - Written for the SKK Fic Exchange for Summer 2020. - Five interconnected fics. 18,985 words. - Might not be a big deal for others, but this was taxing because I don’t usually write long, multichaptered stuff. I got carried away, though. It ain’t as well-polished as my more recent stuff, but I’m proud of myself for pulling this off.

A NEW STYLE YOU TRIED THIS YEAR & A FIC THAT USES IT

I... don’t think I have tried anything of the sort. My repertoire is sorely limited compared to others, I’m afraid. I’d probably have an answer for “explored new themes,” but again, I’ve a limited arsenal, too, in that regard.

A CREATION THAT TOOK YOU FOREVER

all in a day’s work - Bungou Stray Dogs. Atsushi, Akutagawa. Cells at Work AU. - It’s still being written, with a lot of side stories planned but never drafted. - I fell out of love with BSD, recovered from that, then got busy with residency.

YOUR CREATION FROM 2020 THAT RECEIVED THE MOST NOTES KUDOS

Also take heart. While I am proud of it, I guess it hit the right spot for mainstream shippers, too, somewhat? My feelings about mainstream things have changed a lot because of things, but I am still happy.

A CREATION YOU THINK DESERVED MORE NOTES KUDOS

amīcitia - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Chuuya. Final Fantasy XV AU. - Petty indignancy for my self-indulgent baby aside, I’m also proud of how I wrote Dazai in this one, similar to take heart.  the fun they had - Bungou Stray Dogs. Kajii, Port Mafia Ensemble. - ... Guys. Please notice genfics.

A NEW FANDOM YOU JOINED AND A CREATION YOU MADE FOR IT

Everything I wrote for Bungou Stray Dogs. (I kid you not.)

If you want a single answer anyway:

on the flaming mountains - act-age. Chiyoko, Kei. Princess Iron Fan Arc. - arc words: “what shall i do with this ire?” - I wouldn’t really say I “left” the fandom, more like it fizzled out after Matsuki-sensei got arrested.

A CREATION YOU MADE THAT BREAKS YOUR HEART

a cycle of; - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Medico-legal AU. - Written out of much anger and frustration over things. Also because this in itself was frustrating to write.

Also  you don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. Because no matter how much I hate my family at so many points in my life, I know I can’t truly hate them from the bottom of my heart. This fic is a reminder of that.

A SIMPLE CREATION THAT YOU REALLY LOVE

express delivery for love - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai/Chuuya. Real World Quarantine AU. - It’s funny. It’s orthodox. It’s sweet. I don’t think it can get any better than that.

A CREATION THAT WAS INSPIRED BY ANOTHER ONE

rather be - Bungou Stray Dogs. Yosano. Pre-canon. - Inspired by yesterday is another world by @wctercress​ - The whole of primum non nocere, actually, but specifically this one, and the rest followed. - This is also my first BSD fic. Ever.

A FAVORITE CREATION CREATED BY SOMEONE ELSE

... You sure? There’s a lot, and this is just on the surface. (unleashes the proverbial waterfall)

The aforementioned yesterday is another world by @wctercress​

silencer and snow white days by EKmisao - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Chuuya. Dead Apple canon-divergent. - The aftermath of Dead Apple, in which one of two goes wrong. - They’re unrelated, I know. But they’re both sisters! Just trust me on this. - The proper entry for this would be silencer, but I can’t very well mention one without the other, so have both anyway. I read both only this year, after all. Waiting for Godot by @eternal-aegis​ - Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai, Fyodor, Chuuya. Canon-divergent. - Amazing theme, amazing philosophy, amazing writing. It makes you think. It makes you analyze and explore. This writer definitely knows her stuff, and it shows. Catharsis by @gladiowrites​ - Final Fantasy VIII. Rinoa, Gen. Caraway. Post-canon. - The denouement to the Caraway family drama we all deserve. I love how Rinoa is presented in this fic. She’s a normal person who makes mistakes and learns her lessons. So is Fury. Burned bridges don’t always have to stay down, and this fic illustrates that wonderfully.

Culmination by @gladiowrites​ - Final Fantasy VIII. Squall, Rinoa. Post-canon. - We can’t all have happy endings. This fic also illustrates that very well. While I, a Squinoa fan, personally ascribe to the happy ending Squall and Rinoa must have had after the events of FF8, this fic is so compelling and grounded and reflective and I totally buy this. 

Here Without You by @muselover1901​ - Akagami no Shirayuki-hime. Zen/Shirayuki. Real world quarantine AU. - One of the sweetest stories I’ve ever read this year. I can definitely relate to a lot of things in this fic. I’ve been rereading all of Muse’s ANS stuff whenever I feel down, and they all hit the spot.

Savor The Moment by @joeys-piano​ - Bungou Stray Dogs. Oda. Pre-canon. - Yes, yes, YES. One of the best stories I’ve ever read this year, ever. (And I mean stories, not fanfics.) Great character study about a man named Oda and a day in his life and a page (or three) out of his book of relationships. The love poured into this is simply overflowing and precious. I’ve been following Joey since this fic was being written, and I’m so proud of him.

False Equivalences by @slowquotesquill - Dai Gyakuten Saiban. Asougi, Ryuunosuke. Fullmetal Alchemist AU. - This fic also! Oh, My Heart. The cynicism of a state alchemist and the optimism of a foreign doctor. It perfectly hits the spot for everything FMA, and we all know that SQQ’s Asouryuu fics are always to die for. It’s the ultimate combo.

The whole Promptober Leo/Will/Despair series by @eternal-aegis - Kekkai Sensen. Various themes, many of which are dark/mature. - I’ve said this with Waiting for Godot, and I’ll say it again: Aegis knows her stuff. This is her exploring further in that direction, and you can feel the improvement with every fic in the series. I really love how adventurous these stories are, and how much depth you can go with every one. Her characterization is layered and exquisite, and the underlying lore is well-thought-out. - tl;dr: B3 Goddess.

Predestined by Galkimasera - Final Fantasy VIII. Rinoa, Squall. Reverse/Fateswap AU. - A very well-written reverse AU! The circumstances of Squall and Rinoa in this ‘verse fit so well and are so well thought out. I love this AU so much, you don’t even know. It also fills my nostalgic shipper’s heart with much joy at seeing quality content in this Year of our Lord 2020.

For auld lang syne, my dear by @by-nina - Fullmetal Alchemist. Roy, Riza. Canon-compliant + post-canon. - Holiday feels, snapshots through time, and all over showing Roy and Riza’s budding relationship over the years. And it does remind me of a lot of the SKK fics I’ve written (thematic-wise). This was such a treat to read and to follow. All her FMA fics are. She does Royai so much justice. Am not yet finished reading smoke without fire, but I’ll get to that, too!

SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE CONTENT CREATORS FROM THIS YEAR

Everyone in the answer above. There’s honestly a whole boatload of more, but this is getting too long already lololol

(might edit this when I feel like it, tho!)

[mysterious-prophetess]

Some BnHA Thoughts I’ve had recently

Warning: this gets long and rambly and is a personal opinion.

I know I’m probably not the only person who’s thought this but the whole Hero System of BnHA/MHA is just kind of...weird. 

The origins are explained in the spin-off, I think. IDK I don’t read Illegals. 

Nothing against Illegals I just don’t want to read it. What I’ve seen is ok, but anyway, back to my point.

Heroes working legit and for money is just very.....weird for someone like me who has grown up with the older Western comic hero canon where superheroes were, and still are, vigilantes who don’t get paid and don’t get to really enjoy any sort of public accolades, unless you’re particular heroes in the DC or Marvel universes. 

Even then, someone like my favorite hero of all time—Superman—doesn’t get to really be Superman 24/7. He still has to be Clark Kent and live Clark Kent’s life. Honestly, it’s what makes an alien with OP godlike powers relatable. That is if writers actually take the time to write his relationships with his family/friends and not jettison off the other characters in stupid OOC ways that previous characterizations of Clark wouldn’t have tolerated.

Sure, Clark can do all that super-powered stuff but it doesn’t get his articles in on time or his bills paid. He has to still participate in society and keep his lives relatively separate. 

My second favorite hero of all time—and my love for Superman is pretty unshakable so this second place has a decent gap—is Spider-Man. Specifically Peter Parker the original. The others are ok too but Peter is the one I grew up with, so he’s the one to which I’m most attached.

Peter Parker’s life—in a proper adaptation—always is full of struggle between being Spider-Man and being Peter Parker. 

Even after he comes out as Spider-Man during the proper Civil War story arc (nope, still not over what the MCU did to it especially when they gave my favorite Cap quote to a glorified extra and made it so IRON-MAN WAS IN THE RIGHT, ARE YOU KIDDING ME) Peter’s life is still a struggle, it’s just now a public one like the Fantastic Four who, probably, are the only group close to a sort of BnHA/MHA style of heroics for their whole existence (even Tony had a secret identity for a while in early Iron-Man. Look it up). And their lives were a struggle. Plus, I’m also pretty sure they didn’t get paid for their heroics? I’d have to do research to verify that because I’m not actually a Fantastic Four fan.

My point is, I’m just much more used to heroes who have to do heroics as a side job(more like a calling) but still have a day job (unless you’re Bruce Wayne but he’s got other stuff to balance that out). 

The Illegals, though I don’t read their manga, are a bit more like traditional superheroes, but they also sort of don’t remind me of them because they live in a society where there are legit vs illegal heroes. Unlike all of the western canon superheroes who are, by legal definition, committing a crime by stopping crimes. It’s an aspect that Marvel for a long time had better than DC because the cops were treating some of the heroes like Spider-Man like the vigilantes they actually were. 

I think that Horikoshi will explore stuff about this system later but I can’t help but feel that the system he created within his universe is ripe for exploitation by the wrong sort of people.

Look at the reviled purple one. His superpower is actually excellent. His spheres can easily contain a criminal until they need to be processed and if he’s paired up with someone like Sero, their combo as a capture team is amplified. Stick some of the spheres onto a strip of Sero’s tape and it’s an instant sticky bola. 

If his life had progressed without being an ancillary background character who keeps being shoved into shit to keep him in the story artificially by authorial bias, Mineta would have graduated and become a hero and would have been doing it for all the wrong reasons and (if he kept his nose clean of scandals) been able to live a decent life while also using his position to be a total piece of garbage.

See Captain Celebrity from Illegals for the adult version of this motivation taken to its extreme.

People rag on Endeavor for being a hero for the wrong reasons, but actually, he still does do a lot of good even if he’s a flaming jerk and he’s still popular enough to be the eternal number 2 prior to All Might’s retirement. 

Then there’s Mount Lady who swooped in and sniped Kamui Woods’s villain for the attention. And snake lady, Uwabumi, who seems more into being an idol of sorts than being a hero. The point is, the heroes of the BnHA/MHA universe aren’t actually incentivized to be heroes for justice or the general good. I personally blame the popularity aspect for a lot of the exploitation I see potentially within this system.

With that popularity aspect, the hero system has become tainted by people who are just in it to be idols and make money off of side hustles/brand deals/commercials/toys. There are enough in the system like Izuku—who genuinely wants to save people— that keep it from being overrun by people who are just in it for themselves, but as it is, the BnHA/MHA system is just so weird and ripe for twisting (which I as a fic writer & reader appreciate for the fertile ground it provides).

We flip back to the Western Canon and we have maybe a handful of characters at best I can point to that fit this “hero for popularity reasons” mould, with DC character Booster Gold the time-traveling con-man being the only one I can name off the top of my head. 

This is because Western Canon heroes are, usually, in heroics/vigilantism for personal reasons that tend to be motivated by justice, vengeance, or some mix of the two. 

Or, as quoted to death in most every adaptation of Spider-Man, Uncle Ben’s immortal words,

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

Plus, popularity and merchandizing is next-to-impossible for the Western canon hero because they actually have secret identities and don’t compete in highly publicized school festivals as minors that are said to be more popular than the Olympics where their real names are on display (sorry, the more you look at the UA Sports Festival, the less it makes any damn sense from a security standpoint). 

So, a character could go into heroics within the western canon wanting to be popular but unless they want to be a public hero (which is technically illegal) they can never profit from said-heroics directly. Again, we have Booster Gold who tried it and the other superheroes of the DC universe despised him.

He’s had a moment where he realized being in it for fame and glory is not a good thing and has turned over a new leaf, I think, so again heroes in it for themselves are generally not a major thing in the Western canon universes. 

Horikoshi has been using the system and its flaws for some great story moments and will likely continue to do so. 

It still doesn’t stop me from looking at it like the beautiful piece of weirdness that it is. I may never stop thinking it’s weird but that’s ok. 

Note 1: I know The Incredibles showed heroes being heroes without it being vigilantism but they were also employed/protected by the government and still had to maintain secret identities and when told to stop by the government, did. That, in and of itself, was explored by the movie to being a bit of an issue somewhat. 2 did an ok job of also exploring it but neither played the angle as well as they could have.

Note 2: Sky High’s heroes might have a hero school but they still have secret identities and day jobs.