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ultfreakme · 4 months

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I've read the WarWorld saga and I love the twins. However, like Chris, they are also sidelined and underdeveloped. Otho is the only one with agency, while Osul feels like another version of Chris. All three characters needed more time and development beyond Clark rescuing them.

Regarding Zod and Ursa's abuse, I understand this may not be what you meant, so this isn't an attack on you, but rather a statement. No child abuse ever makes sense. There is no justification for a parent to hurt their child. Ever. Unfortunately, there are people who want kids and still end up abusing them. Abuse never makes sense—some people are just awful. Zod and Ursa are simply terrible people. A wanted child doesn't always equate to a loved child, which is a sad reality. Zod and Ursa are just bad parents—monsters without any real motive, just inherently cruel. Just like all real-life abusive parents. There's no point in trying to rationalize their abusive behavior because there is no reason parents should ever abuse their child.

Anon, again oh god I hope this does not come off as me condescending to you. I have no personal anything for Chris. I'm mostly indifferent to what he is to people in fandom, all of ym gripes lie with writing decisions. I personally disagree about Otho, Osul and Chris being similarly dismisses, and I think I have textual proof Otho & Osul got more investment as characters independently, and as children to Clark more than Chris ever was, and with more intention behind WHY they act the way they do. This will not be about Chris or Osul or Otho as characters, but about how Geoff Johns wrote Chris & PKJ wrote super twins. I'm doing this to dissect storytelling and characters. I genuinely wish you all the happiness and fun for liking Chris. I am personally simply not compelled by him and I think the text doesn't provide me nearly enough of him in comparison to his counterparts and alternatives. That's all, this is just me showing why.

Right off the bat, introduction scene; this is pivotal, this is where your character makes an impact & shows us what they're about. How they talk, what they do on the regular. This is the establishing moment.

PKJ with Otho & Osul's very first scene:

I don't need to speculate or think too hard to know that Otho's the hardass who doesn't give a crap- she's resourceful, motivated entirely by survival and being warzoon. Osul's the more empathetic one, he tries to be the same kind of tough his sister is with the way he sneers and talks, but he tells her to go easy and is clearly the more open and kind one.

Sibling dynamic establish. Individual character and action established(along with individulistic design).

What was Chris's introduction scene? I'm dismissing the very first page we get of him in the pod because he isn't really a character there, but going to the scene where he does something character-wise

K, nice dramatic shot. What does this tell us about Chris Kent? He's smiling as he says "I'm hungry" and lifting up a TV set. What does this tell us? What does this mean? Why is he doing this?

In-text, this entire issue, I don't get an answer for this. We can speculate, but it's not factual. I can make up that he's lifting the cabinet to draw attention because he comes from an abusive home but I can also just as easily defy this by saying Zod & Ursa would never allow this level insubordination and disobedience by randomly lifting objects. I can say whatever I want to explain this behaviour of smiling, lifting an object and saying hes hungry but in-text, in canon, we are given no explanation for why he does this as a character.

This scene is actually in service of the audience. This is just to show us the reader, a kryptonian feat, which is simply visually repeating a thing Clark's already verbally confirmed.

But I do have a answer for why Otho & Osul said every single thing they did in their introduction scene, down to their expressions. Otho's cool with Clark being dead because dead people have resources on them she can steal to better defend herself. She's sneering because she doesn't give a crap if he's 'Superman'. Osul is looking unimpressed up there because Clark is looking rough & he is in disbelief that this is apparently the famed "Superman" who they held admiration for. His expression softens because yeah Superman is weak, but he still admired him at some point & he's trying to calm Otho. I don't need to dig or search because the writer is telling us "hey this is their deal". Otho's the more aggressive one and we spend more time with her because she's taken on the role of being the tough one, protecting Osul.

Chris? We never learn why Chris acts the way he does. In fact, we see a page immediately after the cabinet scene that puzzles me as to why Chris was lifting it in the first place. He doesn't KNOW he has these superpowers, he tries to fly like Clark and almost falls. So why is he smiling? Is he happy he's strong now? I'm purely guessing because the writing and art don't convey anything congruent. He says he doesn't have a name. He is entirely unfazed. And we never get an actual, canon explanation for why. We need it though, because these things are character defining and this behaviour especially is highly odd for a kid who just landed in a planet he doesn't know, away from the only world he understands, among complete strangers crowding around him to observe. The entire time, he smiles serenely and for some reason, trusts Clark after an extremely brief conversation. It can't be just because he's kryptonian because Zod & Ursa are also kryptonian.

Otho & Osul's reason for trusting Clark? Established immediately in the next two chapters. Otho & Osul are the most precious things to each other > Mongul says they must kill each other > But Clark says absolutely not > Twins like Clark better than Mongul because they figure out if they must become the people Mongul wants, they must destroy one another which is NOT on the table > Clark's the better bet. This is why Otho chooses to somewhat warm up to Clark and Osul goes from "hesitant" to "yeah I trust him entirely". Their trust in Clark develops slowly, we know why they're hesitant, and we know why they open up.

Chris? Why does Chris trust Clark? Is he the first kind person he encountered? What did he mean when he say "you don't belong here either, do you?" Again I can personally hc a bunch of things but it is not clearly intended by the text. GJ doesn't ever allow Chris to talk. And when Chris does, it's singular words and are rarely insightful into Chris's psyche, even in Kryptonian. Like why does Chris want to be adopted by Lois & Clark, specifically Lois, when he himself says "Lois doesn't like m" and Lois does nothing on-page to subvert this? If kindness is what made Chris attach to Clark, shouldn't he be averse to Lois the entire time?

Chris is entirely well-adjusted with Clois. We see no evidence of abuse, the stories never discuss Zod & Ursa, or what Chris specifically thinks about them. There's nothing reflected in his behaviour or character other than "he's nice". Which is fine, but again, why?

Even Jon, who experienced extreme abuse for years is now very nice. But there's an in-text reason for this. Jon refused to bend to Ultraman and kept fighting, and this meant holding onto hope. He refuses to be unkind because then he'd become like Ultraman(which was Ultraman's point). He also shows the after effects of this time through his insecurities with his powers and abilities as a hero.

Chris? Where? I read the action comic arc and the Tim stuff, there's little to nothing. He's got your typical kryptonian struggles but every Kryptonian's got em and after that it's up to the chraracter to react how they do. Otho was frustrated and immediately getting into fights, Osul was trying but still not getting the hang of it and both of them exhibited their inability to adjust through a penchant for violence because of Mongul. Chris just, he just says "this is difficult" without any unique expression as to why. He just says it's hard and reports generic symptoms.

Otho and Osul each got a separate arc btw. Otho got the final PKJ arc with the Blue Earth Movement with Ra's Al Ghul's alternate dimension granddaughter trying to force her further into being a ruthless warrior. Osul got the opening arc on Earth where he had an entire go inside him and Mongul's lackeys were hunting after him.

Chris got.....afaik, individual arc only after his spontaneous age-up. I'm not counting it because atp he's not Clois's kid anymore.

Onto the next point.

Abuse itself is senseless, but we are not dealing with real people here. These are characters, and characters have motives, that's their entire deal. Zod isn't just generically evil, he's like that because he wants Kryptonian supremacy dictated by violence and might. Same goes for Ursa. You cannot just say "these characters are simply evil" because then I can replace Zod and Ursa with two robots if all we need is "generic evil person".

Characters, be they good or bad, stand for something. They have to, otherwise it's just bad writing.

These character motives define actions. So when I say the abuse doesn't make any sense, I'm talking about it in terms of character, and what the writers and creatives intended to tell the audience through these choices. Zod and Ursa arent just inherently cruel, there's a reason for why they're like that. Their families value military might and strategic importance, they consider kryptonians to be superior to humans and shun any intermingling with "lower species". If you paint Zod & Ursa as just "simple evil", then you dismiss the message CLARK is trying to convey by defeating them.

When Clark defeats Zod, it's not just "good guy defeats evil". It's showing that this kind of exceptionalism and what's basically an analogy for racism and colonization, THAT is what is bad. If Ursa and Zod are just evil, it's not about child abuse as a story arc. It's just "child suffers under villain".

If the message was "abuse bad", it was lackluster and stating the obvious. We all KNOW parental abuse is bad. Now what does that mean for Chris Kent? How is he impacted? You can't say Ursa and Zod abused Chris and then not explore such a severe topic. The entire Chris arc in Action Comics fully ignored this aspect until the final 2 issues, and even then it didn't show Chris's turmoil. He had all of 10 lines across the issues dealing with his abuse. There is no exploration, no insight, no genuine engagement by Geoff Johns with the topic of child abuse.

I am saying all this not because I think Ursa and Zod can in any way be justified. I want to reiterate that, nothing will justify what Ursa and Zod did. With that in mind, an explanation for their abuse is NOT a justification.

Abuse and its cruelty makes no sense. But every abuser has an explanation for why the do it (again this is not a justification, this is still bad, explanations don't make a single thing better). The point of a story is to give a believable explanation for the things that happen and Geoff Johns didn't even TRY to explain.

I feel like I grew less and less coherent as the post continued but I hope I got my point across. You are not going to make me enjoy Chris as a character. And in turn I am not going to make you hatete Chris as a character. That's not what I want, I don't care about asserting which character is better. My current favorite is an anime character who showed up for 4 episodes in a 40 episode anime who people say I need to move tf on from. I am doing this not to bash Chris, but to bash Geoff Johns, who failed to deliver a compelling story.

This is again, a criticism of writing. You can love Chris all you want, I just don't think the Chris arc is a well-crafted story, and there aren't enough well-crafted stories of him for me to try to like him.

#riki asks #chris kent #otho ra #osul ra #super twins #superfam

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jyotishgher · 2 years

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Precious Thing of 12 Lagna Signs, According to Astrology

1.Aries

The most precious thing in the life of Aries is courage. Because you are an optimistic and positive sign, always relying on persistent courage to overcome difficulties and step out of adversity. Once you lose your courage, Aries will become a melancholy, weak person.

2.Taurus

Taurus is a zodiac sign that believes money can do anything. So money is the most precious thing in their life. They are often in the mood to save money, to have money in their body, otherwise they will be very miserable.

https://www.jyotishgher.in/

3.Gemini

Gemini is a sign that loves freedom, is fun, and hates being tied down. If someone is watching them 24/7, they will first make a fuss, be depressed, negative... Therefore, the most precious thing in Gemini's life is the free sky.

4.Cancer

For Cancer, the most precious thing in life is family. As a kind and empathetic constellation, Cancer is very concerned with others, but at the same time, they also have a dependent mentality and fear of loneliness. What Cancer needs most is the warmth of family.

5.Leo

Leo is a proud sign, emphasizing competitiveness and self-esteem. They do not allow others to underestimate them. Therefore, the most valuable thing in a Leo's life is self-esteem.

6.Virgo

Virgo is a sign that likes to talk about all the stories present in life. They want someone to listen to their varied stories. Therefore, for Virgo, the most precious thing in this life is the "audience" - those who know how to listen, understand and share their thoughts.

7.Libra

The most important factor in Libra's life are friends, because they are a sign that is afraid of being alone and wants to be accompanied. Libra loves to always have a group of friends by their side. If a friend is hurt or turned away, Libra will easily fall into a state of sadness and depression.

8.Scorpion

For Scorpio, what they always protect is reason. This is a constellation that tends to let reason control their every action. If you take off the rational shell and show the emotional side, Scorpio needs time to put things back on track.

9.Sagittarius

Sagittarius is a constellation that likes constant updates, most afraid of immutability. What they expect is that life can transform, turn around and make them express their emotions very strongly. So, in the life of a Sagittarius, the most precious thing is change.

10.Capricorn

Capricorn is a zodiac sign that prefers orderliness and order. If something causes them to lose their initial trust, they will quickly lose their trust. Therefore, the most important thing in Capricorn's life is trust.

11.Aquarius

For Aquarius, what makes their life meaningful is inspiration. This is a constellation capable of quick reflexes and flexible thinking, many things they think of on inspiration. Therefore, if they lose inspiration, they easily become passive, somewhat boring.

12.Pisces

Pisces is a constellation that loves fantasy, or dreams. They always need a spiritual support and this is what makes Pisces have more motivation and joy in life. Therefore, Pisces always puts the spiritual side first and protects to the end.

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scandalsavagefanfic · 3 years

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Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer

I’ve talked a little bit about why Batman: Urban Legends is a bad story already, but I just saw a post talking about this panel and how well Bruce has been written in this story. And while the post didn’t really say anything about Jason, OP’s comments in the notes talked about how this seemed to be a direct response to people trashing Bruce for beating on the poor and disenfranchised, talking about how he’s finally “in character”, how he has a lighter touch and tends to think things through and how the story is teaching Jason a lesson about his “tendency” to brute his way through things without thinking about them, and how Jason wasn’t OOC.

My first post about UL touches on why that last bit is nonsense, but the stuff about Bruce reminded me of something else in UL that really, really bothered me.

It’s the above panel and these, not just in the context that this story rewrites Jason as ALWAYS having been prone to violence and willing to wail on the weak, but also in the sense that Bruce, of all people, is the one chosen to teach this lesson to Jason.

[that sentence ends in the next panel with “...stealing the Batmobile’s tires?”]

It’s just one more way DC keeps chipping away at what makes Jason (the Robin raised in poverty, the one who grew up with a first-hand insight into the way Gotham’s systemic corruption and crimes do the most harm to the poorest and least powerful people, and the only one to be personally affected by addiction) special and interesting. It’s just the most recent way they’ve bastardized his roots to villainize him (the poor homeless kid who was brutally murdered) so that Bruce (the billionaire) looks better, so that Bruce is absolved of all his responsibility in how Jason came to be the Red Hood.

Because in actuality, Jason taught Bruce that criminals can change.

Bruce didn’t listen. He stalked Penguin and when he found him, Bruce had to eat his words.

Penguin had actually tried to change. Bruce realized his mistake and tried to defend him after he was arrested, but the damage was done.

By the way, this is from when Penguin was just a jewel thief. Let that sink in for a sec. Go back up to the panel from Urban Legends with Batman and Robin in the alley and reread it.

And this, this story with the Penguin, is how it should be. Not that crap from UL.

I don’t know why people have to keep saying this but Jason isn’t stupid. He’s incredibly smart and his actions, even his violence, are rooted in empathy and indignation on behalf of the innocent who are harmed, not rage. The above panels in UL are basically like saying that Cassandra Cain has suddenly changed her mind that everyone can be saved and decided to join Jason in killing super villains. This is the core of the character we’re talking about. It’s not the dumb little details like whether he likes coffee or eats cereal or whatever. It’s the heart of the character. It’d be like taking the circus out of Dick’s story, or the love of Robin from Tim’s, or making someone other than Talia Damian’s mother.

Jason is very aware that petty crime is often motivated by desperation. He literally lived that life. That’s why he’s never targeted people like that the way this book shows him to.

Even when he returned, he was never an indiscriminate killer and he was never violent for the sake of it. He didn’t beat the shit out of addicts because he was an impatient little bitch. He was methodical and calculative and he only killed people who preyed on the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless.

Like the mob’s drug lieutenants who dealt to kids:

Like these bastards, who were deep in denial and broke Jason’s golden rule, no dealing to children.

Because drug dealers purposefully target kids, relying on addiction to make them repeat customers for life.

Rapists and the scum who prey on people at their most vulnerable:

And nazis.

The fact is, Jason certainly has his faults, but he would never, ever, do this to an addict:

Writing him like he would is out of character. Drastically.

Jason doesn’t go off half-cocked. He doesn’t jump in blind. These aren’t lessons he needs to learn in anything except this story which specifically wrote him as idiotic and mean as possible to squeeze him into the box the writer needed him to fit into.

Jason has never been written quite this bad before, but even if you take the few random instances over the last 15 years, where he’s been written as meaner and dumber than usual as his core character, how can you stand there and say that Bruce’s style is a calmer, more rational approach and say how he’s been written for the last 30 years is ooc????

For the kind of story Batman: Urban Legends seems to be telling, Bruce is literally the last character this message should be funneled through. Bruce is a billionaire (or... multi-millionaire, for now in the main continuity but who knows what’s canon for this). It’s so fucking tone-deaf to keep writing this kind of interaction between Bruce and Jason.

Do I agree that Bruce should be written as more understanding and empathetic and less vicious than he sometimes is since the 80′s, by the way, this isn’t new? Absolutely.

Do I think this was a good example of that or a reasonable template going forward? Absolutely not.

DC needs to stop sacrificing what makes Jason Todd interesting, what makes the character an excellent tool to tell meaningful, topical stories, for today’s audiences, just to prop up Bruce.

For starters, Bruce doesn’t need that?

Their roles in this story don’t have to be swapped. There are ways to write this kind of stuff that doesn’t fuck up a character. See the above example with Penguin. And that’s from the fucking 80′s. How are Reagan-era comics telling stories about poverty, addiction, and reformed criminals with more nuance and tact and consideration than something in 2021????

I just think it’s fucking sad.

And extremely frustrating.

#Jason Todd #bruce wayne #red hood #batman urban legends #DC comics #meta #comics #batman #please for the love of god reblog this

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rachelbethhines · 3 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Plus Est En Vous Part 1

Finally, at long last we are here. The end of the show. It’s not the worse thing ever, but that’s only cause Once A Handmaiden exists. Let’s dig in shall we?

Summary: Some time has past since Cassandra destroyed Corona. Now the populist is displace and misses their homes. Rapunzel encourages everyone to fight back and Varian comes up with a plan to defeat Zhan Tiri using a portal device invented by Demanitus. Meanwhile, Eugene comes to suspect that Quirin might be a sleeper agent for Cassandra.

Remember When This Show Was Suppose To Be About Eugene and Rapunzel Getting Engaged?

So this opening narration; along with the ending narration in the third part; is suppose to be a bookend to the opening narration of Before Ever After. Which in kind is suppose to mirror the Eugene and Rapunzel narrating the original movie. However, the story no longer has anything to do with Rapunzel and Eugene’s relationship. They’re actual engagement is nothing more than a hastily tacked on footnote in the narrative.

In fact the series barely has anything to do with either Eugene or Rapunzel as individual characters anymore. The series has become the Cass show; and Rapunzel only matters because she’s there to prop up Cassandra’s story.

I’m fairly certain that this is not what the executives signed up for when they green lit this show. I don’t care how much Moonsandra was a part of the original concept; there’s no way in hell Chris actually sold this show as “Rapunzel fights with her best friend; who is actually her long lost sister; who is secretly in love with her and is also her magical soulmate counterpart... oh and Eugene is just there... being Eugene, I guess.’ Like no way that was the original plan. It certainly wasn't advertised as that to the audience, but it sure as heck is what we got.

No one was asking for this. No one wanted this, save for Chris. If I’m tuning into watch something called Tangled the Series; then I expect to get an actual continuation of Tangled; not a bad OC insert fanfic.

And lets get one thing straight here, Cassandra being a main character and having story importance isn’t the problem here. It’s the fact that the story solely focuses her now at the expense of other important characters, while also failing to give a legitimate reason for the audience to care about her over everyone else.

It’s Not Complicated Show

As I stated in the last episode; if you have to tell your audience that something is ‘complicated’ than it’s probably not as complex as you think it is.

Tangled the Series is convoluted. It’s core conflict doesn’t need to exist and it’s two leads are literally fighting over nothing at this point. The only reason why the story has been dragged out this far is because the writers have to fill out the run time somehow.

Why Am I Suppose To Sympathize With This?

59 episodes worth of footage, plus a pilot movie, and this is the scene you choose to go with to showcase your main character’s ‘struggles’? Her being bitchy that a bunch of little kids, that she doesn’t even actually care about, happen to like being around her best friend more than her?

What!?

Why should any sane, genuinely empathetic person give a shit about Cassandra after this?

This isn’t sad. It’s not relatable. It’s not pitiable. It’s fucking sociopathic.

Is this really the best you could do TTS crew? Really?

You had no other ideas whatsoever by this point, didn’t you?

Stop Trying To Make Gothel A Thing Show

Gothel being Cassandra’s mom literally has nothing to with anything. The writers have completely failed to ingrate this plot point into the story appropriately; to the point that not even Cassandra herself gives a damn about it anymore.

That’s Still Not A Reason For Anything

Even if I bought this last minute bullshit ‘motivation’, it still doesn’t explain Cassandra’s actions.

Grudge or no grudge, mom or no mom, petty selfish jealousy or no, there was never any logical reason for Cassandra to steal the moonstone, and even less reason for her too kidnap, torture, assault, brainwash, vandalize, and attempt to murder other people in this scenario.

If Cassandra’s beef was always with Rapunzel then her conflict should have actually stayed focused on Rapunzel.

Cass stans love to whip out the ‘well Varian did it too’ excuse, but Varian had actual reasons for what he did. For him it was never solely about his relationship with Rapunzel. It was always about survival and he’s grievances extended towards an entire kingdom that was out to fucking kill him.

I’m sorry, but you’d have to be a pretty fucked up person to ignore that crucial difference.

The Lore Is Still Shit

Its the final episode and we still don’t know jackshit about the series’ main plot McGuffins that everyone is fighting over.

Where do they come from? How do they work? What are the magical rules regarding them? What is the history surrounding them and how does that relate back to the current story? Why does Zhan Tiri want them? Why do they belong together? Why does the two powers seek each other out? Why have they stopped seeking each other after season one? What would happen if they were never reunited? What is the actual stakes here?

Don’t expect any answers to those questions folks, because Tangled the Series is lazy.

Why?

If there’s one thing TTS fails at harder than its lore, it’s its lack of characterization.

I’ve seen the entire show twice now and I still have no earthly idea what the fuck this ‘destiny’ Cass is so obsessed over is actually suppose to be.

Like sure, it’s probably just a bunch of BS Zhan Tiri whispered in her ear, but the audience still needs to know that information. We need to know what the main character’s goal and motivation is. We need to understand why the characters’ do what they do even if they are wrong. That’s basic writing 101.

Also, no one was ‘underestimating’ her. The only person giving her grief was Adira and that was because Cassandra was an asshole to her first.

Even this opening recap is a major fail because it doesn’t explain shit. Any newcomer or casual viewer would be lost after watching this, and that’s the only purpose of a recap; to summarize for those that haven’t been keeping up.

Can We Please Stop Blaming Zhan Tiri For The Two Leads Being Awful People?

Zhan Tiri has nothing to do with Rapunzel being a self-centered twat who hurts those closest to her and constantly lets down those that depend upon her. It’s not Zhan Tiri’s fault that Cass chose to ignore everyone who ever loved her in order to throw her life away for a dumb rock and pitch a violent hissy fit. I mean, she could have just stopped at any point. There were no consequences for her for kicking ZT to curb.

All of Zhan Tiri’s ‘manipulation’ is just ranting like a loon while the mains inexplicably does whatever she wants because the writers refused to let its two female leads have a brain.

Rapunzel ‘Never Giving Up’ Isn’t The Positive That You Think It Is Show

There’s plenty of reasons give up on something. ‘Giving up’ is not necessarily a bad thing. And if what you’re clinging on to is something that is harming yourself and others, then giving up is the morally correct thing to do.

Rapunzel still holding out hope for Cass is one thing... placing her relationship with Cassandra over the safety of both herself and her people is entirely another.

Rapunzel is not a ‘role model’ in this show. Yet the series desperately tries to prop her up as one, and it’s toxic.

This Is A Waste Of Both Arianna And Willow

So this was the entire reason for The Way of the Willow?

This?

A stupid story that adds nothing to the plot, fails to actually strengthen any of the characters and their relationships, and is nothing more than a poorly thought out parallel.

Willow doesn’t even make a fucking appearance again. She’s that worthless of a character, and I say that as someone who actually likes Willow.

Meanwhile Cass is no where to be found; neither here nor in Willow’s only episode. Yet here is the series is trying to cram her into this family drama that she has no connection to.

Rapunzel and Cassandra are not actually sisters. Cass has no relation to either Arianna or Willow. Arianna has no reason to equate Cass and Raps to herself and her sister.

Heck, I don’t think Arianna has ever shared a single word with Cassandra on screen. To her she’s just a former servant who turned traitor and very recently just destroyed her kingdom. I mean why on earth would this woman try to offer understanding to such a person when she couldn’t even be arsed to care about the poor persecuted 14 year old orphan!!???

Meanwhile, Rapunzel has barely shared any screen time with her own birth mother for three seasons. They’ve haven’t had a real bonding moment since the B plot from Fitzherbert P.I. This is their first real conversation in over 55 episodes and it’s about the creator’s precious OC and not their actual relationship!!

If any person ever tries to suggest that this show isn't sexist then just bring up this one scene, because it is insult to every female character involved.

Also I shouldn’t have point out that there is a big fucking difference between building a wall and committing murder!!!

I See; So Shitty Parenting Just Runs In The Family Then?

Okay, One; Why didn’t the parents do anything? Why was it up to Arianna to ‘get through to her sister’ and not, you know the parents job to step in and figure out what was up? Because if your daughter is building a brick wall in the middle of her room then there is clearly deeper issues here than just a sisterly spat.

Two; If the person who is mad at you, is building literal walls to keep you out and ignoring you... then maybe the problem is with you and you ignoring their boundaries. If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, then tough shit, they don’t want to talk to you. You pushing back against that isn’t going to actually solve anything. And indeed, Willow is hardly ever around now and barely keeps in touch with her sister... so great job Arianna and your shitty, shitty parents!

Gosh, now I know why Arianna puts up with Fredric’s bullshit. She’s every bit as toxic as he is. I genuinely don’t believe that Rapunzel actually would have had a better life had Gothel not kidnapped her. Everyone in this family shit, and she still would have been traumatized, just in a possibly different way.

Why On Earth Does This Show Keep Trying Frame Toxic Behavior As Something Good?

This story is so oddly specific that I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the writers was pulling from real life here. Now I don’t know that for sure, but it’s chilling to think about. Because this is horrifying.

Tangled the Series should be called Fridged Horror the Show. It constantly tries to present these so-called ‘wholesome’ moments and morals, that are really just cover ups to some truly messed up and at times outright dark shit; that you may not even notice until after the fact, unless you’re paying very close attention.

And if this series had a hint of irony to it or a smidge of self awareness, that might actually be clever. But no, It’s completely sincere in it’s awfulness and most of it’s darker elements are completely accidental because the writers just did not think things through.

What About Cassandra's Dad, Arianna?

You know, the man who actually raised her and is more ‘family’ to Cassandra than Rapunzel ever will be? The man, who’s approval, was Cassandra’s motivating goal in the first season? The one person in this series who actually could counteract all the Gothel bullshit because he’s a better parent than all of ya’ll.

Remember him show? Gee, I wonder where he went?

Don’t make ‘parentage’ the core theme of your conflict and then not have the parents be involved in the resolution. That’s just stupid.

Furthermore, as previously stated, it’s not Rapunzel’s job to ‘get through to Cass’. At this point it’s no one’s responsibility because Cassandra is a grown ass woman who knows what she is doing!!!

Ninety percent of this show’s and the fandom’s arguments for defending Cassandra just amounts to infantizing women and mentally ill people, and it’s disgusting. And bullshit like the above is part of that.

Way To Ruin The Tone Show

This is suppose to the series the finale. This should be the point of the story where the stakes are at it’s highest. The main heroine has literally lost everything.... only not, cause clearly she’s fine here.

Everyone is fine, apparently, and nothing is actually at stake, because the main character has plenty of time to go on a joy ride with her mom. Complete with jaunty music that tells the viewers that everything is just dandy. And this lasts for like a full minute by the way.

I have no clue as to why this scene exists other then to waste the audience's time.

So How Long Has It Been Since Once A Handmaiden?

Well, almost no clue. I do have one guess as to why this scene is here and it’s more timeline bullshit.

Usually a big montage scene of a bunch scenery is typically meant to establish the setting. Now since this is a season finale, we should already be familiar with the setting; so running through it again would be more of an indicator that time has pass and we’re seeing the new norm now that Cassandra has taken over the kingdom.

Only it doesn’t actually show anything different!

There’s no physical changing of the season because there never is a clear change of season in the show. Unless you want to count that one pink tree as a indicator that its spring now.

Old Corona and the Snuggly Duckling look the same as always as well; failing to indicate how having new residents would change these locations over a period of time. Heck we don’t even get a shot of the castle; the one element that has actually changed. So what was the point?

I have no idea if it’s been three days or six months since Once a Handmaiden. And that is very much a problem because the show now suddenly has a ticking clock with the eclipse coming. Only the audience has no clear idea of when this eclipse is actually suppose to occur or even what it’s suppose to do; thereby invalidating the point of even having a ticking clock to begin with and sucking all the tension out of the story.

I personally headcanon that we’re six months from Once a Handmaiden and that it’s near Rapunzel’s 22nd birthday because that’s thematically appropriate; you can think whatever you want though. It’s impossible to decipher this shit.

(Though I will argue with you if you try to tout Ricky’s BS comments on twitter as ‘canon’; but more on that later folks)

So Why Is Everyone Hanging Out Here Rather Than Just Moving To Old Corona?

We literally rode through Old Corona just a minute ago. It seemed fine.

Unless it’s only been three hours since Once a Handmaiden, or unless Rapunzel just called everyone over here for a meeting and is late to said meeting, (neither of which have been established) then there’s no reason for everyone to still be hanging out at the Snuggly Duckling.

There’s room in Old Corona (which was just rebuilt earlier this season), there’s also the Mountain Retreat and the convent, heck Vardaros is only a week away, and there are two whole other fishing villages on Corona’s coast according to the maps. There’s also plenty of land to build upon. Everyone should either have been relocated already or in the middle of relocating. That would be priority number one.

Heck, Varian and Quirin are from Old Corona and own a castle. Sure it’s not as big as the one in Corona itself, but they still have more room than a bleeding tavern! Also for that matter, why are they here and not tending to their own village?

Why not?

Why not just give up Eugene?

Everyone is who managed to escape last episode is currently fine. (and anyone who didn’t escape is already dead, not like it matters to these people) Ya’ll aren’t actually homeless as Frederic is still the king and owns all the surrounding land. And neither Cassandra nor Zhan Tiri has expressed any interest in coming after you nor attacking anyplace besides the island capitol. If they did have any plans to do otherwise then they would have already done so.

There’s no threat here.

You Two Were The Ones Begging Him To Retreat, Assholes!

I know that everyone, especially the writers, find Eugene being miserable hilarious, but that doesn’t mean it’s funny every time. Certainly not when it’s his family being jerks to him while all he’s trying to do is help. Eugene being taken down a peg or two because he’s being a cocky jackass is one thing, metaphorically kicking the guy in the balls while he is down is another.

However, I know that there are certain fans who would like for me to point out that, yes, Eugene did fail in his duty.

Oh, not because he retreated, but because he didn’t put any preventive measures in place to deal with the mind trap nor even inform anyone of it’s threat, despite knowing about it.

Sure, he’s better than either Rapunzel or Frederic, but that’s a really low bar to clear. Which is a failing that’s made even worse by him being the captain now. A stupid creative decision that adds nothing to the narrative, but one we have to take into account anyways.

As captain Eugene’s main job is security and he needed do to more than just commission Varian to make an amber gun. Had you kept him as just the prince consort who’s responsibilities are more over reaching and less specified, as should have been his arc to begin with, well, he still would have screwed up, but it would be slightly more understandable if there was either someone under him also fucking it up, or if Cap had left and they had no replacement yet, leaving the kingdom even more vulnerable.

Also, regardless of role, there was missed opportunity to have Eugene come into conflict with Rapunzel over the Goodwill Festival last episode; but that review is long enough as is.

Oh Shut Up Chris!

This isn’t the characters talking, it’s Chris talking through the characters.

Greatest threat my ass! Who is he trying to fool?

Secret of the Sundrop kicked off with a giant robot attack in the first five minutes and only built up tension from there; this finale started off with a lovely jaunt on horseback and everyone sitting on their ass inside a cozy inn drinking ‘milk'.

I have zero respect for so called ‘professional’ writers who pull off bullshit like this. People aren’t going to magically like your lame OC more or think your writing is any less shit, just because you make some petty jab at the fans of another character.

You’re not funny. You’re not clever. No one watching agrees with you, and I’m infuriated that a talentless jackoff like yourself got this job instead someone more deserving.

This Song Shouldn’t Be Here

I mean is sounds nice, as always, but it’s sorely misplaced.

This isn’t earned. Nothing has happened on screen to warrant a ‘keep up the morale’ song. No one’s actually suffered anything in the episode yet, so this is hollow.

In a way it sums up everything wrong with the show. Pretty to look at, but also empty, unsatisfying, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth after consuming it. Like wax fruit.

This Is A Waste of Both James Monroe Iglehart And Jeremy Jordan’s Talents

This song is also representative of the series in the fact that it completely wastes the talent that it has.

I understand that they wanted to give all the characters a send off during the finale and have everyone sing a line.... but it should have been more than this and the lines should have actually related back to the characters who were singing. Give all of the mains full verses about who they are and how far they’ve come instead of having Rapunzel hog all the screen time.

As is, Varian, Lance, and Eugene only get one line to sing each and said lines are completely interchangeable. There’s nothing there for the characters to do. Don’t hire famous Broadway singers and actors if you not going to let them actually sing!

I Miss ‘Ready As I’ll Ever Be’ Already

This finale constantly tries to recreate the magic that was season one by throwing in these shameful callbacks and parallels; but honestly all it does is make me want to rewatch the first season and forget that this mess even exists.

That said, if you want to hear a good rendition of this song check out some of the instrumental covers on youtube.

youtube

The fans have always treated this series better than the creators and that’s a fact.

And the real kicker is, this song would have been perfectly fine had it been pushed further back to a later point in the finale and retooled a bit.

Why Are You Acting Surprised By This?

Eugene, you and Lance were right there when Adira told Rapunzel and Cassandra that Quirin was in the brotherhood way back in The Great Tree. Are you telling me that the two of you just didn’t overhear that part? I mean you were only three feet away!

Ironically everyone but Varian, should know Quirin’s backstory by now. And it’s quite possible Varian also knows by now. I just don’t know if he does or not know because the series isn’t clear on that particular revelation... even though it should be.

Also Why Are You Leaving Rapunzel Out Of This Conflict?

Rapunzel definitely knows though. She was told point blank. Her not informing Varian of the mind trap and placing her obsession for Cass over his safety and the wellbeing of his family is just a rehash of season one’s conflict. Proving that she hasn’t learned anything... but the series oh so conveniently sidelines her out of this subplot in the hopes you won’t notice her being irresponsible yet again.

Well guess what, I noticed, and so did a whole bunch of other people. Because it’s bad writing.

It’s also bad writing for Eugene specifically to hide his concerns from Rapunzel given that they are both in charge of this whole ‘let’s save the kingdom’ thing. If you’re the one handling security and you think someone could be a threat then you might want to inform the person making the battle plans!

Remember This Dumb Subplot For Later, Folks

This stupid setup doesn’t go anywhere remotely good nor interesting, and is only here for a lame joke later on. It’s a complete time waster, just like 50% of the rest of this show actually.

Let Me Get Up On My Soapbox Here

I been wanting to talk about this for awhile now and it’s less to do with the show and more to do with an annoying and, frankly disturbing, trend in fandom. And not just with Tangled, but a growing trend across the board; especially with media geared towards young people. Which is...

Fans repeating and perpetuating Republican/conservative propaganda, and not even realizing that they are doing it.

See when this scene dropped the fandom went ballistic. Jokes were made. Excuses were made. (It’s really milk, my eye) Trying to shame the writers for including ‘underage drinking’ was attempted, from people who love to conveniently ignore that said same teenager was always misused by the writers in far worse ways.

But most disappointing of all was seeing the supposed adults of the fandom, the people who ran forums and discords ect, trying to shut down any and all conversations regarding the topic. Stating that it wasn’t ‘PG’ (even though plenty of PG & G media shows drinking including Disney shows) or appropriate for children. Which the exact wrong approach to take when dealing with mature subject matter.

So saddle up kiddos; it’s time to learn about alcohol and prohibition in the US!

Varian is anywhere from 16 to 18 in this scene, depending upon where you stand on the timeline debate and where you headcanon his birthday to be in relation to Rapunzel’s.

Do you know what the legal drinking age is in the majority of the world?

16 to 18. With 18 being the average.

The United States is only 1 out of 5 countries in the entire world that has a 21 federal drinking age. Do you know why that is?

Racism!!!

The 21 drinking age was pushed by MADD (mothers against drunk driving) during the late 70s and early 80s. Along with the ‘War on Drugs’ and the ‘Pro-Life’ movement, it was part of a larger campaign spearheaded by the Republican party after the Equal Rights movement of the 60s.

See, in the following decades is became very uncool to outright admit that you were a racist piece of shit, but plenty of people were of course still racist pieces of shit. However, they were no longer the majority and so racists had to trick normal people into voting for them.... and maybe even convert them to their toxic beliefs.

So they did what all cults do; they pulled the ‘Think of the children!’ card.

Yes, anything not approved by our ‘dear leaders’ was now deemed a threat to young minds and society as a whole.

Which oh so conveniently allowed Republicans to curtail a sudden new growing block of voters, by creating a school to prison pipeline that removed those recently gained rights.

The age limit on alcohol and the past three decades of ‘anti-drinking’ propaganda in the media that followed is directly connected to the current fascist movement in the US and we don’t talk about it enough.

In 1984, during the Regan administration, the legal drinking age was raised from 18 to 21. This was in direct retaliation towards the 26th amendment that had reduced the voting age from 21 to 18 the previous decade. Its harder to exercise your new found right to vote if you can’t drive to the polls and provide needed ID, cause your license was taken away due to a DUI that you have to work off a hefty fine for. And in some states there’s even laws preventing you to vote if you have an outstanding fine.

Now only two generations later and the far right has normalized their laws and bigotry to the point where people don’t even question them. They treat something so controlling and infantilizing as a fact of life, as if it has always existed, and never even stop to consider that their ‘morals’ are not universally accepted and why that might be.

Meanwhile, the GOP is still using their same old tricks and applying this exact same law to other drugs like marijuana and cigarettes for the same reason; to persecute poor people while lining their own pockets.

I say this as some who has children of their own in their teens; you are not helping kids when you blindly repeat ‘truisms’. You not helping kids when you bully, censor, and try to control others in an effort to make yourself feel like a ‘good person’. You are not helping kids by infantizing teenagers and young adults. And you are most certainly not helping kids by trying to justify your personal preferences in fictional stories by pretending like you're ‘holier than thou!’

You’re certainly not helping my kids and I would kindly thank you to STOP.

Let Varian have his damn beer. It quite literally won’t hurt you nor any other real person in this world.

This Is Lazy, And Also Pointless

I’ll buy that Demanitus entrapped Zhan Tiri using portal tech as that lines up with what we already know. However this bit about his ‘tomb’ comes right the fuck out of nowhere and hasn’t even been so much as hinted at in the entirety of the show.

Meanwhile, having Rapunzel, and only Rapunzel, know the top secret location of this previously never before mentioned magical chamber for no established reason is the very definition of lazy.

Especially when you have Varian right there, and he’s been studding and translating Demanitus’ work all series long. If anyone should know it’s location it should be him.

But no, we have to forgo sensible set up in order to shove Rapunzel into the limelight yet again.

Oh how I wish writers would learn that leading characters aren’t the center of the fucking universe!

Why Can’t We Ever Get Varian’s Opinion On Things

My continual frustration with this series is that it would rather tell lame jokes or make lazy callbacks then explore the interesting dynamics that it has set up.

Varian’s entire life was stolen from him during a snowstorm. Now here he is facing a similar environment just to help those that previously harmed him. He’s having to expose himself to a potential triggering situation because they had failed to do their jobs yet again.

Which is infinitely more interesting than seeing Eugene complain about something minor for the umpteenth time.

This Scene Doesn’t Mean Anything

This scene is trying desperately to recreate the depth of feeling and pathos that we saw in Queen for a Day when Quirin was rummaging through his old trunk as he was preparing to flee his home for a second time due to the black rocks. Only for this to fail miserably because Cassandra’s story lacks that level of complexity.

There’s no context here. By Cassandra’s own admission this just ‘stuff’ that she’s collected over the years and not sentimental valuables from her past life.

Cassandra doesn’t care about Andrew. Her even keeping that dumb rose in the first place was already a stretch. He’s still probably down there rotting in jail.

Cassandra doesn’t give a damn about Varian. She barely pays him a single thought unless she can make use of him. His necklace is nothing more than a discarded token of a ‘friendship’ that she’s since long abandoned.

I notice that Eugene’s face is back on the sparing dummy. Meaning all of No Time Like the Past was undone off screen... or more likely, Rapunzel repainted it on there for her because she cares more about winning her ex-best friend back then the feelings of her fiancé. Either way, the only connection to Eugene Cassandra has is one of animosity.

Cassandra no longer has any desire to be a guard. She achieved that dream in season one and then threw it away in season two. Don’t tell me she suddenly regents doing so when she hasn’t spared it a single thought in over a season. Her looking forlornly at her old helmet does nothing to changed that.

Meanwhile we completely skip over the medal her dad gave her for stopping the Saporians. The one thing that might actually hold meaning to her is not shown because the writers want to ignore her relationship with her father; as that inconveniently moves the barely non-existent conflict away from Rapunzel.

And of course the only real emotion Cassandra shows in this scene is anger when coming across a reminder of her ‘not-sister’. She throws another petty temper tantum upon seeing a painting of her and Rapunzel together and upon spotting her handmaiden hat. Even though there’s zero reason for her to still be angry at Rapunzel!!!!

We already resolved the dumb ‘mommy loved you more’ BS last episode. You can’t now pivot back to the, ‘Rapunzel doesn’t listen to me/respect me’ plot from season two and expect it to work. Any validity that might have had flew out the window after Cass’s actions in Cassandra’s Revenge.

Theoretically, the story should have shifted to a whole new conflict by now if they wanted to keep Cassandra as the antagonist; but at this point the writing team were completely out of ideas. Watch as they quickly rehash everything from the past two seasons before giving up entirely.

‘Comedy’ Does Not Fix Lazy Plot Holes

Need I say more?

Unless your series is an absurdist comedy to begin with; like with Gallivant or SpongeBob, then jokes like this do not work.

You can’t just spackle over poor writing decisions like this and expect me to still take your grand adventure story seriously.

Why should I give a damn about Cass and Rapunzel’s petty bitch fight and Zhan Tiri’s grand plans for domination when I know the writers aren’t above resolving a conflict with lazy humor.

Why Does This Conflict Involve Eugene And Not Rapunzel?

We’ve already touched upon this somewhat. The real reason is because the writers didn’t want to hold Rapunzel accountable for the shitty way she treats people, nor do they want Varian to distract from the Rapz vs Cass fight because his conflict is inherently more interesting. However, they also don’t want Eugene distracting from the Rapunzel and Cassandra stuff either.

Eugene should be the co-lead. He’s the second main character of the film. Yet he gets shoved aside in favor of Cassandra same as Varian. Only he can’t be completely ignored like Varian because Disney would eat Chris’s ass if he tried.

Chris’s solution is to therefore shove Varian and Eugene together into a separate yet shared conflict. And on the surface it makes sense; after all they both have connections to the Dark Kingdom and the Brotherhood. Unfortunately, the series doesn’t actually take advantage of this connection.

Eugene and Varian are technically cousins, but because the series is desperate to retroactively diminish the Brotherhood’s importance and minimize their internal conflicts, Eugene and Varian being related is never brought up. The Brotherhood’s connections with each other is never brought up and their dynamics never explored. So what could have been a compelling story about generational trauma is reduced to Chris’s “fathers can never be criticized’ wish fulfillment fantasy instead. (more on that when we get there)

So What Exactly Does Varian Know And Not Know?

Is this Varian’s first time hearing about his dad being a member of the Brotherhood or are we to assume that Quirin told him off screen? If that’s the case, then why is he only now considering this possibility? You’re telling me overprotective and plan for everything Varian wouldn’t be working 24/7 to break the mind trap spell if he thought his dad was in danger?

Also if this is the first time he’s hearing about it then why isn’t he getting angry at everyone for hiding it from him? Why didn’t he demand answers from his dad earlier? Where’s the pay off for that whole Quirin is keeping secrets subplot from season one? Why isn’t he calling Eugene and Rapunzel out for screwing him over, again!?

Also he barely reacts to Adira and Hector being mind controlled. Does even know who they are? Does he know that he’s related to them? Does he know of his relation to Eugene? Eugene sure doesn’t... but why not!? We saw Quirin and Edmund sitting together just a few scenes ago. Their first on screen meeting in over twenty five years and no one commits on it! The show never acknowledges their relationship one way or the other.

It’s utterly astounding how the show dehumanizes it’s main characters, reducing them to puppets for the nonsensical plot, while constantly trying to get an emotional reaction out of it’s now very confused audience.

This Scene Is Still Gorgeous, Though

Every actor and animator on this show deserves Emmys for how much effort they put into this bullshit plot.

If this scene works at all, if any scene works at all, it’s 100% down to the voice acting and brilliant animation.

And it ticks me off!

Do you know what I would give? What I would pay? To have the money and the branding to give one my stories this level of care and talent and marketing? Do you have any idea how many people are out there who would kill for a chance to bring their story to life with this amount of support? Including the very animators that did work on this?

And yet Disney decides to blindly piss it all away on Chris Sonnenburg’s vanity project/ego trip.

The world is indeed cruel and unjust.

At least the crew has moved on to bigger and better things, like The Owl House and Monsters At Work, just to name a few.

Behold! The Only Useful Thing Lance Gets To Do This Entire Finale!!!

This is the only thing he’s gotten to contribute to the plot since Be Very Afraid. He’s only useful two times out of 21 fucking episodes! Despite making appearances in 13 of them!

And’s not even a thing that specific to his character! Anyone could figure it out!

Only For Rapunzel To Steal Lance’s Thunder Away

In fact it’s such a non-specific thing that they give the credit to Rapunzel anyways.

Someone explain to me why Disney is too fucking paranoid to not have their main character not be the center of attention? And it’s only Rapunzel that gets such treatment; other Disney properties don’t do this.

Winnie the Pooh isn’t made suddenly smarter than the rest of his friends. Not every episode of The Little Mermaid/Aladdin/Hercules tv show revolves around them; and those characters are allowed to screw up. Even more recent fair, like Big Hero Six still understands that it has a cast of characters to accommodate no matter how central Baymax & Hiro are to the story. And poor Simba has never even been the star of the two Loin King spin off shows.

I don’t get it. What power does Rapunzel have that cause the entire multiverse to kiss her ass all the time?

Just Leave Her Inconsiderate Ass Already, Eugene

HE LITTRALY JUST TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL HIM THAT!!!

He also told you earlier that he did not want a nickname and shared with you his very personal reasons as for why.

Guys if you ever have girlfriend who does to you... dump her. Hard!

This is isn’t ‘cute’. This isn’t playful teasing. This is being disrespectful of your significant other’s personal boundaries. And this is coming hot off the heels of a season long worth of similar abuses.

Everyone loves to praise this stupid show for not having any ‘relationship drama’ and having the main couple stay together, but at what cost I ask you? Because by the end of it all I genuinely wish they weren’t together because frankly Eugene deserves better than this shit. Everyone does.

Also that’s what we wasted this subplot on? An unfunny joke without a punchline? Cause it never comes back up or resolves itself in any way. It just hangs there uncomfortability.

There’s No Way Those Monkeys Could Be Alive

Monkeys have to live off more than just bananas. There also needs to be water and sunlight for those plants to grow, but I couldn’t tell you where it’s coming from. They also would all be inbred by now and have a bunch of painful hereditary diseases.

None of this really bothers me, because well, there’s a lot more dumb shit to focus on and I can mentality write it off as magic portal bullshit... but it annoys some people and for good reason.

This is yet another instance of the magic system and world building being lazily tacked on to the plot; and given how pointless this subplot is to the overall story it can be especially aggravating to some.

Lord Demanitus Being A Monkey Still Doesn’t Make Any Sense

What annoys me more, is Demanitus willing turning himself into a monkey for absolutely no reason.

He said it was to ‘hide from Zhan Tiri’ but the bitch has no powers and was trapped in hell for a thousand years? What did you need to hide from? Not like she came looking for you after being freed.

Worse, he didn’t just become a monkey; his soul was trapped along side the monkey’s own brain with the monkey taking control 90% of the time. That’s like a fate worst than death and he did it to himself!? For no real stated reason!

Also this device doesn’t explain how Vigor was able to remain alive for a 1,000 years, human brain or no. Are we suppose to assume that Demanitus isn’t human but an immoral? Or did he make all the monkeys here, including Vigor immortal and then added his brain to one using magic/science. And if so, then why didn’t he just give himself immortality instead?

And this is of course ignoring how the device here retcons Demanitus’ earlier statement that it was a spell that merged his mind with Vigor’s. The difference being that a spell can’t ever be fully controlled and can easily go wrong or come with a price; an invention however can be tweaked and worked on until you get the desired result, and as we see here is a process that can be reversed. He could have changed himself back at anytime.

Out Of All Of The Characters In Tangled, Lance Probably Gets Screwed Over The Most By The Writers

Look, I complain a lot about the other four mains getting dicked over by the writing; and they most certainly do, make no mistake, but at least they are given some respect and a modicum of effort put into their arcs. (Even if in Varian’s/Eugene’s case Chris was forced by higher ups to do so) They didn’t even try with Lance.

He got his introduction episode and a single scene during the Season Two finale and that was it. After that they gave up entirely on the character and have been slowly draining away his common sense and maturity for the sake of forced comedy ever since.

You can still have a character be funny and make them competent show. The goofy one in the group doesn’t have to be too dumb to breathe! And it’s especially an unfortunate creative choice when said character is the only main black man in your show.

We Waste Three And Half Minutes On This Monkey Shit

I actually timed it. This scene is roughly 3 mins and 25 seconds from start to finish. That’s three and half minutes they could have spent doing literally anything else but instead they waste it on a boring, over long joke that, once again, fails to have a punchline.

That’s time we could have had put towards character development, needed plot exposition, worldbuilding, strengthening the character dynamics, expanding upon the various dangling subplots, or even actually fixing the lore.

We could have fit in another song!

But no, we get monkey's instead.

Not even cool threating monkeys... like zombie monkeys or super intelligent ninja monkeys. We could have had Demantius’ soulless corpse guarding the place, or more booby traps complete with even tougher robots than before. We could have tied everything together and reveal that Demantius wasn’t a good guy either here.

Or have them face Zhan Tiri; and show that she isn’t pathetic and that she manipulated them here. Give us foreshadowing of her powers, or have her rely on the brainwashed Brotherhood. Maybe even bring the disciples back and now the gang has to face off against all three at one time. Wrapping up that dangling plot arc.

But no.... it fucking monkeys.

The Portal Plot Doesn’t Go Anywhere

Worse of all, this entire subplot is pointless. The portal is never actually used to accomplish anything of worth. We spend so much time setting it up as a plot point, but there’s never any real pay off for it.

That’s The Best Plan You Can Come Up With Rapunzel?

Charging in point blank, when you have the weaker forces, is an incredibly stupid idea. One that winds up backfiring horribly later on, but don’t expect to see Rapunzel face any consequences for her terrible leadership.

No, Seriously, Where Is The Demanitus Device Chamber In Relation To Everything Else?

Is this not the same mountain range that the tomb was in? Wouldn’t the device chamber have been connected to the tomb by the tunnels? Especially since the tunnels run through the entire kingdom? Why not have heroes start looking here for the tomb instead of lazily giving Rapunzel foreknowledge of everything?

Also I will never be over the fact that Rapunzel apparently hiked for miles underground and reached the mainland to stop the storm instead of just using the tunnels to evacuate everyone off the island.

This Still Doesn’t Add Anything To The Story

1. This doesn’t inform the audience of anything new. It’s just a rehash of the last three times we watched Zhan Tiri pointlessly brag to a non-existent Demantius. With even less plot exposition this time.

2. Zhan Tiri still isn’t very threating. Having her only goal be focused on destroying one tiny island, that’s no longer inhibited anyways, diminishes her credibility as a villain even further.

3. This fails to inform the audience of Zhan Tiri’s motivations. Like yes, she wants to get back at Demantius, but why? What did he do? Why did they have a falling out? And why on earth does she think this pointless act of revenge will matter given that he’s not present to witness it and would be unable to comprehend or care what was going on if he was. He’s a monkey!

4. This scene does however confirm my suspicions about Zhan Tiri just straight up stealing Varian’s potions. Gah, she’s so lame. Worst daemon ever.

Any Chance At This Scene Being Heartwarming Is Undermined By The Mindtrap Subplot.

As I pointed out last episode, its unclear how the sleeper agent thing works. I’m not entirely sure how much agency Edmund or Quirin has right now. It would make sense that they were acting upon their own free will until Cass commanded otherwise, which would also make things more tragic. Especially since manipulative chess master isn’t Cassandra’s style.

(Then again have sleeper agents isn’t her style either. Heck, her using the mind trap at all feels really out of character and goes against her whole ‘wanting agency’ arc and makes her look even more like a hypocrite, but whatever.)

However, on the flip side of things Edmund and Quirin don’t interact or show any real emotion towards one another. That could be a hint towards them trying to hide their connections to the Brotherhood and this scene of Edmund being lucid could be foreshadowing that he’s being controlled

Only Quirin feels like a robot in season three and Edmund has never been consistent. The writing is lazy and refuses to acknowledge anyone’s relationship other then Rapunzel’s and Cassandra 90% of the time.

In short, I have no clue what this exchange is trying to convey. I can’t tell if it’s suppose to be tragic irony, ominous foreboding, or a piss poor take at trying to get me to like Edmund.

Well, either way, it fails at all three.

(Also, for the record, old people telling me what a good wife I’d make someday is fucking creepy and annoying and not a compliment, ever.)

Oh Don’t Suddenly Pretend Like You Care About New Dream’s Relationship Now Show

The writers have spent an entire season trying to destroy this ship. Not less than five minutes ago I had to sit there and watch Rapunzel insult Eugene and dismiss his boundaries. Meanwhile, Eugene keeps getting shoved out of the limelight in favor of Cassandra to the point where she’s literally stealing New Dreams scenes from the movie at the end.

This entire scene is empty pandering and not any form of real development, because it’s constantly contradicted and undermined by the narrative.

What A Waste

This is too little too late.

We should have had this earlier in the season, after Quirin was freed. We should have seen their reconciliation. We should have heard Quirin’s secrets. What was Varian not ready to know? We should have been able to watch him learn about the Brotherhood. We should have seen them growing closer and mending their relationship, and both working towards being better people. We should have witness Quirin overcoming his depression and trauma to help his son... and... God!

The two most interesting characters in the entire show, with the most interesting dynamic and the most interesting conflicts, and they’re reduced to... to.. this!

Bland robot dad pronouncing generic words that are suppose to call back to something meaningful but make no sense in context, while his poor kid is secretly planning on murdering him for the ‘greater good’ because this shows morals are so fucked up!!

AND IT MAY NOT EVEN BE A SINCERE MOMENT ON QUIRIN’S PART BECAUSE OF THE STUPID MIND TRAP!

How Is Rapunzel Any Different Than Frederic At This Point?

She’s pointless sending people off to their possible deaths just so that she can get her bestie back.

There’s no reason for any of these people to fight a damn demon over a stupid island. They all could just literally move away to somewhere else and tell Rapunzel to fuck off. There’s especially even less reason to run blindly into danger using her dumbass plan. Not when she could have used .. literally any other plan, like stealth, or a distraction, or lured Cass and Zhan Tiri into a trap... or anything!

This just the same awful set up from Secret of the Sundrop transposed here.

The series literally turned the main protagonist into their horrible, abusive, selfish dictator of a father and called it ‘positive character growth’.

The Tone Is Still Off

Everyone is running towards their deaths, but we still got time for a joke.

Oh and I guess Ruddiger isn’t traumatized from being transformed into a monster by Varian in season one now. Okay.

This Is Such A Stupid Plan

Why not sneak in? Why did you run inside and what did you expect to happen? Cassandra has magic rocks and you got a guy with a baguette! You weren’t able to fight her off last time so what makes you think that this time will be any different?

Also none of you thought it remotely suspicious that ya’ll didn’t meet any resistance at all when storming the castle? This just screams trap, but everyone just shrugs their shoulders and carries on anyways.

Also the castle is huge. There’s still no grantee that Zhan Tiri would be dumb enough to walk into the throne room where you’ve built the portal at. If your plan was to lure her there, then why didn’t you just lure her outside where you had the advantage of the terrain?

Zhan Tiri Is Still Lame

Just kick her ass Rapunzel. It’s not like she could stop you.

Also Zhan Tiri’s grand plan is just... waiting in a corner in the hopes that Rapunzel would just show up at exactly the right time?

Wha the fu--?

Wait, How Long Has She Been Trapped Again?

Woah, woah, woah! Demanitus said it was a millennia. A... as in only one. And even then, it still didn’t make any sense there when he said it.

Are we now implying that Demanitus and Zhan Tiri have been having their little lovers spat while she’s been trapped in the netherworld? Are we implying that Demanitus gained his disciples and they betrayed him for Zhan Tiri after he had thrown her sorry ass into a portal? How does that even work? She can only appear to certain people under specific conditions, and has no real powers outside of the dream realm.

Are we also implying that Demanitus was always immortal and if so why the fuck was he looking for the sundrop to begin with? It was also said that the sundrop was never found until Gothel got to it, but that still begs the question of how he and Zhan Tiri knew about it. I’m also still wondering who wrote all the incantations.

What the fuck is the lore here?

Also why are you wasting time posturing Raps? Just kick her ass already!

THIS DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE!

Why does the eclipse weaken Rapunzel’s powers? It’s not like she can’t fight at night or anything.

Why and how are you able to steal her powers when she’s been weakened in such a way? They’re suppose to be a part of her internally. The power literally run through her veins. Are planning to cut her open and drink her blood? On a Disney show for toddlers?

Also why did you need Rapunzel inside the palace for this? Why did you need to over throw the kingdom for this? How did you know that she would make it back here on time instead of just leaving or waiting till later to attack? Wouldn’t it have been smarter for Zhan Tiri to hold off on attacking the capitol until this point in order to catch Rapunzel off guard, instead of pointless bragging about it for several episodes?

Why was Cassandra needed for any of this? Couldn’t you have just stolen the moonstone from her long before now and carried out this plan by yourself Zhan Tiri? It’s not like you needed the eclipse to do that? Nor did you need the mind trap for that matter as well.

Why did Rapunzel come back here when Zhan Tiri had already warned her of the eclipse back in Race to the Spire? Why was her dumb plan to storm the castle instead of waiting till after the eclipse was over, build the portal outside, and then lure Zhan Tiri and Cass out? It’s not like she was under a time crunch or anything!

It’s so dumb you guys... it’s so, so, so incredibly stupid... it hurts, it’s so pointless.

I Fucking Hate This!!!

Everything about this scene is just so fucking wrong.

If had to list off the worst three moments of the show it would be “Am I the Bad Guy’, Rapunzel's failed apology to Varian in the cell, and this scene here.

Rapunzel gets to pointless risk everyone’s life just so she can ‘win back’ her toxic best friend who has abused and assaulted countless people by now for purely selfish reasons, and this is treated as the noble and morally correct thing to do by the series.

While the poor abused teenager has to sacrifice his own father’s life, actually had to out right kill his dad, the person who had risked everything to save, in order to rescue they very people who put him through that abuse all because the main character wants to selfishly win the toxic best friend that placed his dad under mind control to begin with!!!

And this is deemed the heartwarming end to Varian’s redemption arc!!!

WHAT THE FUCK!!!?????

NO! No! no, no, no, no, no, Nooooo!

And don’t give me any bullshit about his dad not really being dead. It’s fucking electricity! I don’t care how smart Varian is, there’s no physical way he could have known that is wouldn’t kill nor permanently disable his dad. I currently work as a appliance repairman and when your out in the field you treat 5 volts or 2500 volts the same way... with the idea that either could kill you, because it can.

Tasers are considered only ‘less lethal’ not ‘non-lethal’ for a reason. They’re less likely to kill you than a bullet, but they can still kill you. And that’s what Varian had to use on his dad. He had to taser his own father... In. The. Head. The Head.... You know the location where the brain is stored!!!???

I can barely formulate words to explain how angry I am right now.

This is what we were leading up to all long? This is what we’re trying to teach children? ‘Hey it’s okay kids if the system bullies you, subjugates you, and tries to kill you in order to benefit the rich. Those selfish rich assholes are actually ‘nice’ people who are simply misunderstood and they just need a hug, and you should gladly sacrifice all that you hold dear to keep them happy!’

Ha.. ha.. ha... Fuck This Show!!!

Oh but it’s okay he has ‘friends’ now.... the very same ‘friends’ that persecuted him, attacked him, and threw him in a dungeon to rot instead of helping him. While giving Daddy Dictator King Frederic a free pass.

This is sick.

This is garbage.

This is classist conservative propaganda, and it’s not even trying to hide it anymore.

How The Fuck Is This Suppose To Work?

Ok, so Tumblr has a limit on images I can put in a single post, and I really didn’t want to break up this review into even more parts than it already is, so I’m not sure how clear this scene is due to lack of screen caps. However, the gist of the scene is that Rapunzel scares Zhan Tiri off by willing her hair to glow so bright it creates a big concussive blast of light... to be followed by said light attaching itself to the broach on her dress....

Yeah, it’s as confusing as it sounds.

For starters Rapunzel’s powers have never been adequately explained, and the inclusion of the incantations subplot, that promptly gets dropped as soon as it’s introduced into the narrative, undermines this impressive display. Now add on the fact that Zhan Tiri is a super lame villain and not a threat at all, this scene is just very underwhelming and holds neither tension nor gratification.

Also, it doesn’t make a lick of scene for all of Rapunzel’s internal powers to congeal inside her external piece of jewelry. How the fuck is that suppose to work? What would have happened if had she chosen wear a different outfit that day of the gopher grab? What if she had barrowed more practical clothes from Varian for this specific fight? Would all of Zhan Tirir’s plans been foiled had Rapunzel decided not wear a needless pin?

Oh, This Is Just Dumb

So Varian nearly murdering his father was a complete waste of a plot point because the dumb bird sends them all to the netherworld anyways!!!!

Is there anything in this stupid finale that isn’t pointless!!?

Conclusion

So there’s part one done. Only two more episodes to go, plus the shorts, and the recap. So stay tuned and Happy New Year.

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #anti-cassandra #Varian #eugene #lance #zhan tiri #quirin

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phoukanamedpookie · 3 years

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"This place is depressing" - another sign of Azula's hidden depths

Azula has cultivated a persona that's so formidable and so air-tight that not even those closest to her can see through it. Yet, there are brief blink-and-you-miss-it moments when the person underneath the mask peeks through. Most of the heavy lifting happens in "The Beach" and during the mirror scene in "Sozin's Comet, Part 3: Into the Inferno." Here, I want to draw attention to a scene that doesn't get talked about a lot: when Azula comes to retrieve Zuko from their family's old beach house on Ember Island.

"Come down to the beach with me. Come on. This place is depressing."

This scene in "The Beach" is framed in such a Zuko-centered way that it's easy to forget that Azula was also present during this time in Zuko's life. She also has memories and feelings about her family and childhood. Just because she doesn't brood about it doesn't mean that those memories and feelings aren't there.

She's like Sokka in that way. His mother's death clearly has a profound effect on him, but he doesn't talk about it as openly as Katara does, so it's easy to forget he lost a mother too. The fact that Sokka's not as demonstrative with his grief as Katara is leads to her insinuating that Sokka doesn't love their mother as much as she does.

(While I'm on "The Southern Raiders," as much flak as Azula gets for teasing Zuko, Katara goes for the jugular way worse than she does. Making fun of Toph's blindness in "The Chase" was so mean-spirited. Telling Sokka, "You didn't love her [their mother] the way that I did," was cruel in a way that nothing Azula said ever was. Katara gets a lot of shit from fandom for some nonsense reasons—Oh, she's "too bossy"? Fuck off—but it's weird how this part of her character gets overlooked or glossed over.)

"I thought I'd find you here."

The Azula who comes to the old family beach house to retrieve Zuko is completely unlike the Azula the audience has been primed to expect. There are many interesting words people use to describe Azula, but "gentle," "comforting," "soft," or "empathetic" are generally not among them.

One would expect, from the way Azula has behaved thus far, for her to make a cutting remark telling him to lighten up and stop being pathetic. But that's not what she does here. Here, she demonstrates the thing so many in fandom assumes she's incapable of: empathy.

How can she do this? Because she also has memories of this place she'd rather forget. She also carries deep sadness about her childhood. The royal family vacation house triggers the same feelings in her that it does in him. She just hides it better. (Much like the ways she's been abused, but we're not going there right now.)

#azula #azula meta #ember island #the beach #fire nation siblings #this place is depressing #sadness

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lastthing-shesaid · 2 years

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posting it on this dead acc bc why not.

yeah this korean series is definitely one for the books, honest to god. the ending was just so full of flaws that i cannot wrap my head around the obviously unstable reason why theyd have to breakup. i knew it from the very start that it is steering towards a sad ending as everyone calls it, since the show was based on a song that mourns the loss of a first love. it was clear as daylight, yet viewers were in denial and making up reasons that they will end up together, leading them to get hurt in the end bc it hits them hard. i came to terms with it weeks before when i was reading the lyrics, and ended up being very curious of the ending's outcome and how their breakup would be executed. im not lying if i said i was hoping for a nice ending to soothe the tragedy of it ( maybe present hee do meeting present yi jin and having a meaningful conversation about the past to finally gain full closure ), but it wasnt really given to us openly, only showing hee do's trip to nostalgia lane and what she could have really said to baek yi jin so many years before.

i truly and deeply understand hee do and her lonely sentiments about bearing with an absentee lover just like what her mom put her through all her life and i wholly sympathize with yi jin's empathetic soul destroying his mental state through the course of his job, that he didnt want to pull hee do into his terrible demise and depression going on ( i was legit screaming "gO get therapy babe" to my screen the first 30 mins of the finale ). i openly sympathize with them. miscommunication obviously stems and results in this bc they have different goals that involve each other. hee do envisions a future with him where he's present at most times and shares everything with her and yi jin wants to shield and protect hee do from hurtful situations bc she reminds him of innocence ( he dreamt of hee do in the beach. summer and her whole existence is his idea of fragrant youth is what i interpreted from it– his light at the end of the tunnel– and now it was slipping out of his hands as hee do is now properly growing up ). their arguments didnt mesh well, adding it up with their secretive nature of keeping their feelings among themselves when they first sensed their relationship was already going downhill.

i just... i just couldnt understand why they cannot be together in the very end. surely if they gave themselves time and tried together again as better people after what? 2 years? maybe? that's more realistic. they belong to each other and they recognize their homes as each other. now they are wandering around for the rest of their lives, forever drunk in the hazy dream of their nostalgic youth and crystal blue waves that form a picture of their younger selves. the fact that it pierces through hee do's soul is hurtful enough, also with yi jin who considered hee do as his first love despite being in highschool relationships before. the ending just doesnt make sense for these two people who obviously deserved to be with each other. but... i guess it's for the best. hee do grew up and succeeded to aim for her success and yi jin finally found direction and purpose in his life through his job. they were nobodies the first time they met, and through the support, love, and care they gave each other helped both of them become their own person.

final verdict: the premise of the ending didn't justify the created narrative of the show. if kwon do eun was aiming to capture the perfect realistic ending that sends a love letter to lost youth, she should've executed it in a way where the audience wasnt left wondering in the end, mouthing "that's it?" ( the biggest flaw was the timeline too. if they spent more time at their 21 and 25 ages, it might have explained a fuller narration about their breaking point and sculpted a stronger reason for their falling out, unlike how we just witnessed it in half and a full episode. a very rushed ending that really ruined the show ). full closure to all the characters could have been at least given as we became attached to them for a whole two months and 16 episodes.

nevertheless, the first 13 episodes ( i'll add 15 bc i liked their lovey dovey moments ) was a pretty distraction from this mundane life. as a 17 year old, i found myself loving all the characters wholeheartedly and learned lots from all the lessons they shared with the audience. 25 21! for the very last time, summer belongs to us! you will be dearly missed <3

#twenty five twenty one #kim tae ri and nam joo hyuk made it bearable with their acting... they gave all their 100 percent til the very end #id be lying if i said i dont want them to be paired again bc they match and compliment each other so well #brb time to write a better ending #taeyang squad... i wonder about what they are doing in present time now. disappointed in what the writer had in store for my girl seungwan #all of the cast were spectacular too #i hope new doors would be opened for them

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sincerelylaurel · 2 years

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how to write a character with depression

writingwithacutlass on instagram <3

source: https://optimistminds.com/how-to-write-a-depressed-character/

hello and welcome back to my page! this post has been requested several times recently so here it is. mental health issues are often misrepresented in media so it’s important for us writers to portray it accurately and hopefully help our audience understand it more :) i hope these tips help you do that!

understand depression

if you want to write a character with depression, you must first familiarize yourself with the disorder (and its treatments). do your research! there are lots of resources out there for you to use, and talking to someone with depression can also be helpful, although please remember to be sensitive and empathetic towards them and respect their boundaries.

don’t worry about the character becoming “unlikeable”

do you start to dislike your family or friends when they feel sad/anxious or are depressed? no! just because you’re struggling with something doesn’t make you unlikeable. characters are actually more compelling when they face difficulties and obstacles. conflict propels a story forward.

do not romanticize mental illnesses

pain isn’t pretty. suffering is not dramatic or attractive. depression isn’t dramatically flinging yourself onto a sofa and sighing, it’s not a poetical aesthetic. it’s crying for hours and keeping quiet so your family doesn’t hear you, then coming out pretending to be fine. it’s listening to your head telling you horrible things that you know aren’t true but you’re so exhausted you start believing them. depression is a living hell.

be accurate

don’t use the term lightly. depression is not to be confused with sadness, which is more a feeling whereas depression is a constant deep grief that can linger for days, weeks, months, or even years. depression can change lives.

be precise

your character probably won’t show all the symptoms of depression. there’s a lot of contradictory ones such as lack of appetite and increased appetite, so that could create some problems in your story. pick a few (keep in mind what your character is like) and stick with them.

be realistic

people don’t just awAkEn from their depression because they were given a pep talk. it’s just not how it works. it may cause them to recognise the problem and seek assistance, which is a good thing. on the other hand, it might make a person feel as though they aren’t being understood or even mocked, causing them to withdraw even more.

romance does not cure depression

for some reason this happens a lot in the media. having another character swoop in and “save the depressed character from committing su!c!de” is pretty problematic for several reasons. it’s dangerous to put your emotional well-being entirely in the hands of one individual. that kind of relationship is unhealthy and toxic, please don’t romanticize it. depression can’t be cured by romance, it relies on a lot of other things to get better.

try not to portray this character in a negative light

portraying the “depressed side character” as comedic relief because they’re pessimistic is not okay. true, people who are depressed may struggle to see the bright side of things, but that doesn’t mean you can use depression as a tool in your story for comedic value. remember these things are largely determined by the character’s personality and not by their mental disorders.

depression isn’t always visible

many people hide their depression behind smiles and cheery attitudes. often the most cheerful-appearing people suffer from mental illnesses such as depression. your character will likely appear all full of sunshine and smiles to the other character if they take great care to hide their depression. however, depression can take on various forms, and characters could also be easily irritated, enraged, or exhausted. depression frequently occurs combined with other mental illnesses (especially anxiety) which means symptoms can overlap.

depressed doesn’t mean su!c!dal

although people who are depressed are more prone to su!c!dal thoughts, this is not always the case. everyone experiences depression differently, and there is no one way to write it. some people have very mild symptoms, while some may experience them to the point of su!c!de. depression can also come and go with the seasons (seasonal depression / SAD).

#writing #writeblr #writing inspiration #writers on tumblr #writing advice #writer #writing techniques #my writing #writersofinstagram #writerscommunity #tw depressing stuff #deppresion

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chamerionwrites · 3 years

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Cheers to all the people reblogging that tragedy post for being extremely civil and reasonable by comparison to the usual Tumblr experience of going lowkey viral. You're all excellent human beings.

Since I'm currently moonlighting as a tragic fiction defense blog, however, I do want to indulge in some mostly good-natured grumbling based on major themes in the notes:

1. This is not actually why I hate tragedy - Listen man, I did explicitly say "one reason" people dislike tragic fiction, not "The Reason."

2. But poorly written tragedy is awful - So are poorly written happy/triumphalist endings! They can even (speaking as someone with trauma-adjacent flinch responses to certain things that Tumblr often describes as "soft" or "wholesome") be extremely painful to read, at times. Bad fiction is allowed to exist and you are allowed to criticize it accordingly without that badness being treated as a reflection on the entire genre to which it belongs.

3. Tragedy is not my cup of tea because real life is hard enough/stories that make me feel doom and helplessness are unhealthy for my depression/I'm too empathetic to handle characters suffering/etc - (a) You're super valid and I super support you but also (b) your experiences are not universal. To their great credit nobody in the notes has said this, but I have encountered FAR too many people on this website confidently claiming that only someone who has never faced hardship, and/or someone thick-skinned and unfeeling toward others' pain, could possibly enjoy tragedy. As a person who has in fact faced hardship and who cannot even squash spiders because it makes me feel too guilty, I personally resent this.

(When I was depressed tragic stories reminded me that flawed people who failed were still worthy of compassion, so y'know. People process their experiences differently and that's okay.)

4. Some authors use tragedy to punish the reader for caring about the characters and 5. Griping about ASOIAF/GOT, which I am choosing to address together because they are so frequently mentioned in the same breath - Okay. Rant incoming but while I have many complaints about ASOIAF (in fact I quit reading midway through) and even more about GOT (which I quit watching even earlier), I'm extremely tired of hearing people accuse GRRM of being a cynical edgelord merely because a lot of his characters die. Maybe it's just conflation of the TV show's poor execution with the writing itself, but I constantly encounter people framing the series' numerous deaths as a kind of Gotcha punishment (why are people so hung up on tragedy-as-punishment?!) for the audience for being naive enough to get attached and/or have hope - an admonishment that life is unfair and you should get used to it and if you're sad it's your own fault for caring too much.

#1, Martin has many flaws as a writer but failure to get inside characters' heads and make you care about them is not one (he gave a strikingly sympathetic POV to the dude who threw a 7yo out a window, ffs); #2, "Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths" is literally right there in the text. So if your takeaway as a reader is "these characters die, therefore their stories were meaningless and I wasn't supposed to care about them"...sorry mate but you may have brought the cynical edgelord-ism with you.

Just. As a general rule. No author on the planet wants you NOT to care about their characters, and if you feel like you're being punished for doing so then with limited exceptions you might be projecting your own feelings onto the author's motives in a very uncharitable way (that is also pretty bad literary analysis).

6. Tragedies are badly written if the reader can see another way out and 7. General discussion of tragic flaws/hamartia as punitive - I don't entirely agree but I don't actually want to grumble about this, I want to make a separate post because I think both points are useful and illuminating ones wrt the nuance of what I'm trying to say about tragedy as a story structure.

#DON/T RE/BLOG PLEASE #tiny bit personal and also I'm well aware that I'm doing a bit of indulgent ax-grinding #as I said 1000% valid for tragedy not to be your personal thing!#but I am extremely tired of tumblr moralizing nonsensically about it #my posts #on writing #tragedy stan blogging

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matt-the-radar-techncian · 2 years

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when I think about this, i feel like when Rose is being compared to other characters who made some questionable decisions, arguably a lot more questionable than hers, people are a little bit more harder on Rose?

Like for an example when Anakin Skywalker is talked about, it seems people are a little bit more easy on him? Sure, people also acknowledge that this is the guy who slaughtered defenseless younglings who looked up to him and did and involved of a lot of fucked up shit as Darth Vader but I don't see the same level of aggression with him like people do with Rose/Pink. Maybe I'm a bit wrong but I assume it may have something to do with the fact that Palpatine was manipulating Anakin, the Jedi Council being part of the reason why he fell to the dark side and being paranoid about Padme's fate thanks to those visions of her suffering as she was giving birth to Luke and Leia and he couldn't explicitly say that to the council or even Obi-Wan (who i believe would have his back and been supportive) because of that fear he had of being expelled from the Jedi Order and likely thought that his reputation wouldn't matter when considering what happened to Ahsoka (who was like loyal to the Jedi Order until that framing thing happen and most of the council turned against her) and the fact that attachments and love are forbidden among the Jedi Order and those reasons are why people are seemingly more sympathetic, empathetic and more understanding to Anakin then Rose?

It's kinda weird to say but yeah. Also related to this, do you think Anakin and Rose has some things in common other than the fact that both was burying the the past of the people they once were (Anakin to Vader and Pink to Rose respectfully) and are more or less opposites of each other?

Ooh this is a good one. It probably has to do with how each character is presented and how much time the viewer spends with them

In the case of Rose we're originally shown only glimpses of a character that is idolized. Then we get a few flashbacks showing what she was like towards the end of her life. And then you start to learn more and more about what she did earlier, and some of it is pretty morally gray. People got the sense that the show wanted them to think she was a terrible person because it only seemed interested in focusing on her mistakes

Compare this to Anakin/Darth Vader. In the Original Trilogy he's pretty one-dimensionally evil, and you only see a few cracks in that persona when he shows some level of care for Luke. Even so, he does do the right thing at the end, and his death is shown as very poignant and even sad. This makes the audience think "he was a bad guy, but he did the right thing when it counted," although I doubt very many people would say he's a "good person" after finishing just the OT.

Then you have the Prequels and especially The Clone Wars where Anakin is a main character. Now you have a character who hasn't done all those bad things yet so you feel better rooting for him, and it's a lot easier to look past all of his terrible actions (most of which he hasn't even done yet in the first place)

Basically it's because Rose is initially presented as good and perfect, but eventually the cracks start to show and in past she was much less perfect than you originally thought. Meanwhile with Vader it's the opposite, you're initially shown this monstrous more-machine-than-man, who is later shown to have had a much more sympathetic backstory. It doesn't matter if what Anakin did was pretty clearly morally worse than anything Pink Diamond did, or that Pink made some mistakes in her youth and tried to change them while Anakin started off good and then descended into darkness, what matters is the final impression that the audience is left with. All that matters is that Rose is a lot worse than you thought, and that Anakin is a lot better than you thought, and that change in perspective is more impactful than the actual magnitude of their actions, at least for some viewers

There's also the fact that Anakin just appears in way more content than Rose does. Rose only appears in a few flashback-centric episodes per season, meanwhile Anakin is the main character of 3 movies and over a hundred episodes of TCW before he's put into the Vader suit, so it's simply a lot easier to get attached to him, especially in TCW where he's much more likable. Can you imagine if the only content we got of Anakin was a few flashbacks scattered throughout the Original Trilogy, and if the PT and TCW didn't exist? You wouldn't have anyone saying that he's sympathetic at all, you might even get people criticizing the movie for "trying to get you to feel sorry for an evil murderer." I suspect if there were more episodes featuring Rose/Pink as the main character (or even a movie or other spinoff) whether set during her rebellion or any other time period, people would be a lot more forgiving of her, simply because they've had more time to get to know her

It's also just that the SU fandom has a unique aversion to liking characters who have done "bad things." Back when the show was first airing, you had people getting very defensive about liking "toxic" characters, saying that you're not allowed to be a fan of Jasper, Lapis, and even Pearl at one point because of their past actions. (See also: people saying that the ending of Change Your Mind is actually fascist propaganda because Steven doesn't somehow shatter all the diamonds.) This mindset definitely doesn't play well with the nuanced nature of Rose's character or presentation

It's a level of purity-chasing that I've never seen before or since in another fandom. It's not like people who like Anakin as a character think he "did nothing wrong," they just appreciate a character who starts off good and then is corrupted by evil, only to break out of it at the very end. For some reason lots of SU fans just couldn't latch onto Rose's story about growing up in a controlling family and breaking out of it in order to try and do good, even though all the pieces are right there in the show. All they care about is "she did bad things and that means I hate her"

Interestingly, I never saw this level of hate towards Peridot, so it's not like the fandom can't accept that characters can change for the better after doing bad things, so I think it comes down to the audience not looking beyond what is directly shown and thinking about what characters' overall arcs and motivations are. The exploration of Rose's character was very nonlinear, Lapis is absent for long stretches of the show, and even some of Pearl's actions don't make perfect sense until you look at them in hindsight after the show is over. The average Rose hater only sees the actions happening onscreen in the moment and doesn't look at the bigger picture of the character

Compare this to another character like Eren Jaeger who, again, has done things far worse than any dictator in history. He also started off as a young and good-hearted kid, but we watch him get more and more extreme until he almost doesn't feel like the same character at the end. People who like Eren don’t think he's morally correct, they just want to see a plucky protagonist turn into a ruthless anti-hero. (In fact, the biggest criticism people have of Attack on Titan is at the very end where the manga tries to make Eren seem more sympathetic. Sometimes people just want to watch a guy go crazy and try to destroy the world)

#steven universe #su #rose quartz #pink diamond #star wars #anakin skywalker #darth vader #attack on titan #aot #eren jaeger

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i-watch-too-many-movies · 3 years

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5 Favorite First Viewings of July 2021

Quick note: Hi everyone, I'm back, things have honestly been getting better for me, and I'm glad to be on this site full of cinephiles, people that are too horny, and cinephiles that are too horny. I'll be more active on here. But anyway, let's talk about some movies.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) (dir. Russ Meyer)

CW: Abortion mention

What a picture. What a gorgeous, sexy, horrifying slice of what Hollywood and star life can do to a bunch of bright-eyed young people looking for success. Also is a critique of how macho nature can ruin friendships and romantic relationships with total ease. I was obsessed with the scene transitions, like Pet pouring pancake mix onto a plate after the abortion scene, or Kelly singing after someone screams before their murder in the opening scene.

Great, campy flick with exceptional music too.

Deep Cover (1992) (dir. Bill Duke)

Laurence Fishburne plays Russell Stevens, a Cincinnati police officer who hopes to do well by the community, to make a difference. He’s traumatized by the death of his substance-abusing father, and wants to make sure that he can help the people of his own town. He goes undercover on assignment as a drug dealer, where his boss orders him to take down the kingpin. Stevens realizes the police’s own failings while on assignment. The racist abuse he takes from Agent Carver, and the realization that the police department is protecting drug kingpins like Gallegos and Barbossa. Giving drugs to Black kids and Latinx kids so there will be less of them. The cops are no different than the drug kingpins looking to make filthy amounts of money.

Fishburne’s performance is excellent, as Stevens feels he has to maintain a stone face so he doesn’t get caught by Jason or Barbossa or any of his cronies, but also he maintains a stone face to try and hide his emotion, his trauma. But when he gets pissed, Fishburne acts it beautifully, as is when he has to deliver a funny quip to counter Jason’s douchebaggery. And the production design, holy fuck, the sets and the lighting.

A perfect neo-noir for the HW Bush years, arguably one of the most timeless commentaries on the era, as well as the police as a whole.

Fast Five (2011) (dir. Justin Lin)

I was torn between including this or Furious 7, but I ultimately went with Fast Five because it felt like an important turning point in the series, it's a great heist film, and it reached the same chaotic highs and genuinely excellent filmmaking that I had been waiting for since 2 Fast and Tokyo Drift.

Fast Five opens where Fast & 4ious left off. Dom is hauled away to prison on a bus. Mia and Brian drive in their high-tech cars and knock the bus over, helping Dom escape. The title drops. Fast Five. It’s such an intense yet short action scene, and dropping the title immediately after it lets the viewer know that this movie is not fucking around. It’s arguably gonna be more intense and insane than the previous one.

And it is. The filmmakers made the decision to use a lot more practical stunt work for the film, and as a result, it leads to, so far, the best action in the entire series, since 2 Fast and Tokyo Drift. It’s not just how it’s shot or edited, it’s the geography of the locations, the rooftop chase echoes the rooftop chase of Jackie Chan’s masterwork Police Story, particularly the way each character bounces from top to top.

And of course, there’s the silliest moment in the movie, the one that matches the intensity and kineticism of a film like 2 Fast, which is driving the Reyes’ bank vault throughout the street, getting chased by corrupt cops.

I know we make fun of Vin Diesel for saying “family” all the time in these films, but there’s a reason we remember him saying all of these impassioned monologues. Because he’s unbelievably sincere, and has so much love in his heart for every single person in the room. Anytime he delivers a speech to any of them, it’s genuinely heartwarming.

This is the film that finally shows La Familia in their best environment, which is working together, in a movie genre that allows them to work together, which is a heist film. And a great one at that.

Last Days (2005) (dir. Gus Van Sant)

CW: Mention of suicide

Several films have been made about legendary rock artist Kurt Cobain, and for good reason. He is one of the most tragic figures in rock and roll. A tortured genius who has written and performed classic song after classic song with his band Nirvana. He was called the voice of a generation, and helped change the face of mainstream alternative rock music as we know it. But with that fame, and all of those expectations came a worsening depression and further drug abuse, and his eventual death. But most of the films about Kurt Cobain ask one question which gets under my skin way too much:

“Who REEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLY killed Kurt Cobain?”

It was him. He did. And it’s okay, I’m sad too. Thinking that Kurt Cobain was murdered is completely ignoring the depression that he faced. And despite Last Days being more inspired by the death of Cobain rather than actually about it, it feels much more honest than the conspiracy documentaries on his death, wanting to leech off of his dead body.

This is the last installment of Gus Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy”, the previous two installments being Gerry (2001), and Elephant (2003). While I have not seen Gerry, I have seen Elephant though, and love that film for its minimalist, raw nature, and its boldness for not romanticizing the school shooter or the lives they had taken. Last Days falls into that trap once, as I don’t agree with the shot of Blake’s soul climbing up a ladder, that always struck me as cheesy in a film that is anything but.

Last Days is similar to Elephant in terms of the way it is filmed. Its usage of long takes, and still shots of characters doing various things, such as Blake playing his guitar behind a drum set. The way these moments are shot is similar to a Chantal Akerman film, particularly Jeanne Dielman. Where the acts of the mundane are the stars of the film. Blake wanders around an empty house, and the viewer can feel the pain, not just through Michael Pitt’s acting, but from the house itself. Its decay, its paint peeling from the walls, from the soft glow of the lamp that lights his face.

I say this is the most honest film about Kurt Cobain, because, despite the characters technically being fictional (the main character who looks, walks, and acts like Cobain is named Blake), this film focuses on the mental state of a person before they eventually take their own life. They’re still working, still making music, still trying to talk to friends and bandmates, but the depression lingers on. Not once does this film try to make you believe that someone else killed him, because you can see the signs of his own suicide taking place just through the film’s excellent cinematography by Harris Savides, showing his mental state only growing worse through the production design.

And it’s empathetic with him. There’s no judgement for leaving rehab, there’s no finger-wagging at him or the people he was with, there’s just a silent prayer at the end of the film, hoping that he is in a better place than he was.

Sometimes you don’t need to show every event that led you to where you are, all you can show is the moment, which also makes this better than most biopics as well, as it never feels messy or muddled, just showing one moment of Blake/Kurt’s life.

I really loved this film, and I’ll be writing about it in full soon.

The Village (2004) (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

The Cracked.com/Channel Awesome audience stuck in 2012 will tell you that this was the beginning of the end for Shyamalan. That this was when people stopped taking him seriously, that this was when he became more of a punchline because of his twist endings.

But why?

The Village was released in 2004, deep in the Bush administration, during the early stages of the Iraq War. The leaders of the time were talking about imaginary boogeymen, terrorists that would attack the civilians if they could. Because of 9/11, politicians could get away with these false ideas with the majority of Americans fully believing them. The boogeymen in The Village are “The People We Don’t Speak Of”, monsters attracted by the color red. Yet we find out that they are all costumes made by the Elders of the land, designed to prevent people from going outside the land. They rule by fear disguised as love. They’ve gone through their own traumas through the deaths of their family members, but they’ve decided to completely abandon the lives that they’ve had and have their children living lies.

9/11 impacted American life by teaching citizens to live primarily by fear, to not trust anyone but their own people. And yet, post-9/11, all that increased was not “coming together”, but hate crimes against South Asian people. The rage white Americans had felt led to conservative politicians pushing fear-mongering agendas, and said white Americans blindly accepted. The outside world was progressing, but too many people were fine with living with further conservative politics only regressing American life further and further back, all for the illusion of safety. Meanwhile, the only threats to them were not the brown citizens outside of America they were so afraid of, but the white elders, the white politicians.

The Village explores these fears so eloquently, all while having a terrifying atmosphere, an enchanting score, and brilliant sound design. I enjoyed this movie very much.

Other viewings I enjoyed:

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) (dir. Mike Judge) (re-watch)

Blow Out (1981) (dir. Brian de Palma) (re-watch)

Clueless (1995) (dir. Amy Heckerling) (re-watch)

Furious 7 (2015) (dir. James Wan)

The Long Goodbye (1973) (dir. Robert Altman)

Lupin III: The First (2019) (dir. Takashi Yamazaki)

Unbreakable (2000) (dir. M. Night Shyamalan) (re-watch)

Velvet Goldmine (1998) (dir. Todd Haynes)

The Visit (2015) (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

#favorite first watches #these movies are (chef's kiss)#beyond the valley of the dolls #russ meyer #deep cover #bill duke #fast five #justin lin #last days #gus van sant #the village #m night shyamalan

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erithel · 3 years

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Well... keith also does start some of the fights. “The size of your brain can fit in a paper airplane” anyone? and the way he copt some attitude at Lance for just going to the same pool. Not to mention in the later seasons him being a dick to Lance telling him he didnt want to be stuck with him, how he didnt have time for him after Lance wanted to hug him. And he had a bad attitude towards Pidge, Allura and Hunk too (someone reminded me recently that Keith called Hunk a coward???). I’ve seen people just gloss over this but he’s not that much better but because of a tragic backstory his attitude can be explained away I guess..?

So a bit unfair to lump it all on Lance when the two of them are both equally abrasive characters.

They’re also teenage boys and the immaturity is a given on both their parts but as far as canon Lance have been, he at least improved a lot in sincerity and genuine warmth towards others. Yet in the meanwhile I dunno what the writers did with Canon Keith half the time cause his disposition and behavior is all over the place. Cause one minute he’s soft for his friends but in other scenes he’s back to being this hardass. I wouldn’t change canon Lance for anything save giving him more episodes to show us his growth, but the character the writing team have been non consistent with is /Keith/.

And this is probably from pent up frustration but it’s kind of sad people are ignoring the good parts of canon Lance lately to paint him as this unforgivable character? When he’s canonly a very empathetic character when given the screentime.

He compliments Keith a lot and show admiration for his abilities and is usually the first to want to spring to his rescue, he protects Hunk and Pidge all the time, and he is a good advisor to Allura when they removed the romance from it, and he treats their allies and even strangers with deep trust and respect (laika and kolivan?).

And i never read that fic the other person is talki by about and I’m not likely to because you can really sense the major stan biases in some of these angst fics, but Pidge being the one to give a lecture on immaturity and hurting others is a bit rich since she canonly exhibits the same behavior when she picks on Lance for his lack of intelligence compared to her and have no qualms about inflicting physical harm on him for a joke (cause yeah electrocuting someone is soooo funny).

Which given her age and again they’re all teenagers, is a given behavior trait.

Anonymous also adds:

"I just sent the other ask and just wanted to add on: we get to see a explanation behind Keith’s abrasive attitude and the audience learned to either relate or at least sympathize with his behavior or actions. And it’s largely forgivable because the show is friendly in giving reasons for the flaws Keith has. Even if they continue to write him inconsistently.

But they never grant the same privilege to Lance and they made it so it is up to the audience to infer through context clues why he is behaving that way. And when you leave it up to people to make their own conclusion things fester. So while we can infer it is because of external pressure and stress (and Keith starting the rivalry when his “i dont care” lazy flying and deliberately crashing into Lance’s ship in the flashback), it’s not given the same proper outlet and writing attention as Keith’s abandonment issues and his general lack of close friendship with people his age to socialize. There’s more to it then we know but we don’t get to see any of it in the writing."

Ok. So. I was a little worried this would happen, as most people relate to Lance, and it can be hurtful when someone talks badly about someone you relate to on a personal level. This is why I always try to see the good and bad in each character because, personally, I don't like when people dismiss or bash someone or something as if their opinion is the ultimate truth. Not saying that is happening, here. Just saying. As I said in the previous ask, it's been a while since I watched the show, so obviously my memory is a bit foggy on specific details or instances. What I will say is that I am not touching the "space mad" scene (Keith calling Hunk a coward) because I could actually write a whole breakdown of that episode and what was good about it (yes, good lol). I think what it boils down to for any character is that we need context for why they act the way they do, as this person pointed out. We are given a bit more backstory on Keith, but it's still not much. This is where the audience comes in and supplies what they feel applies to the situation. They create their own backstories for the characters, and give them reasons why they act the way they do. This is why some things are taken as "bad traits" by one person, and justified by another - and this is how certain fics come into play, as writers use them as an outlet to vent their feelings toward a certain character or event. Of course it is not fair to lump all the bad onto one character, because yes, both of them had moments of being dicks to each other in the beginning. The thing that would have fixed this was a character arc between the two of them – which was set up beautifully in the first season. Watching them start out lashing out at one another, then gradually realizing how well they worked together and learning to trust each other? Building a solid friendship between them to the point where they could look back at they way they used to act and laugh about it because it was so ridiculous? That's character development and growth. That leaves no room for interpretation on who was more of a dick to the other. Anonymous makes a good point here, because we do get a tiny bit more justification for Keith's behavior, whereas we are just meant to accept that Lance is the way he is just because. The perfect example of this is the little blogs they did, where Keith talked about his abandonment and anger issues, and Lance talked about...Allura. Both of them started out as immature teenagers (Pidge and Hunk as well) because they were immature teenagers. But none of them were given the proper time and stories to grow out of that and become the people they were meant to be. I use this as an example a lot (because it is the example) but if you watch Avatar The Last Airbender all the way through and then go back and rewatch episode one, you can see that Aang is an entirely different person. This is what you want for your characters, and this is why there is still discourse in the VLD fandom because we were not given that in any way.

#series critique #keith kogane #lance mcclain #vld #asks #I could seriously do a ted talk on this show

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spnasylum · 4 years

Text

My notes while listening to Misha’s comments on the podcast: (grab a snack!)

In light of the most recent fandom drama I decided to listen to *that* podcast and take notes as I went along about what was actually said and then give my take on it as objectively as possible. This is basically an essay so strap in!

He complains about not getting a trailer on set that’s the same as Jared and Jensen’s. Even though he has one that can accommodate 3 people. This was the first point of discussion inspired by opening up the interview with a brief chat about Misha currently being in his camper van and how he’s sleeping in it even though he’s still home in Bellingham. The whole hour and 26 minutes has an undertone of complaining and ego stroking by all involved.

Says he’s sad he didn’t get to be there for the final days of filming.

Seems a little nervous about if friendships made during the shows run will last now it’s over.

Admits he has no plan in place or anything coming up career wise and he’s unsure of his future. This is where he brings up Walker and The Boys and says if he had shows like that to go to he wouldn’t feel SPN ending was so monumental. It is said with a slight tone of bitterness.

Side note: the hosts Alaina and Malik seem to be fine with running with the narrative that Misha was part of the show it’s entire 15 year run. Misha clears this up eventually by saying he joined in season 4.

Misha says that he realized about six years ago that SPN could run as “we” wanted it to, implying he has any say in keeping the show going or not. He asserts that he would have been on the show up until the very end in any case. But he didn’t feel that way the first few years he was on the show. So that makes me think something or someone involved gave him the feeling he could be confident in being in the cast for however long SPN aired. Maybe this was after Sera left? Maybe this was when he agreed to a significant pay cut and demotion? Either way it seems he felt SPN = job security.

Misha doubts he’ll have the feeling of job security again.

Says from around age 11 he wanted to be a politician.

Says he saw “successful, untalented” actors and decided “I can do that”. He realized that was naive and it’s actually not easy to be that successful and by the time he got his career going he was basically just in it for the fame it’s not anything he took seriously.

We find out his wife did a doctorate in gender history... for some reason.

That Marilyn Monroe was some sort of baseline for him about creating a public persona (🤷🏽‍♀️) except for getting cosmetic surgery he points out.

Talk about how he got started. Acting classes, improve groups. Moving between Chicago, DC and LA.

Discussion about the differences and similarities between Hollywood and Washington.

States he got a consultant to help him cultivate a fan base and image to connect with an audience after getting on SPN. Admits that was a double edged sword because an anonymous public start thinking that they really know you and things start getting weird.

Mentions trying to find a balancing act of being authentic and having a private life but still keeping your fans.

He admits that the fan base he grew for himself by seeming accessible has caused him to attract people who don’t have any boundaries. This is when he claims the “dialing it back” in regard to how much he shares and mentions his kids specifically as something he doesn’t feel comfortable with putting out there. Uses the word “unhinged” to describe them.

Malik mentions “crazy fans” who seem to know too much about you and finding out where you are etc. Using the example of fans turning up at an airport wanting autographs and you wondering how they even knew you’d be there and what flight you taking. He asks Misha to share experiences about his own crazy fans.

This is when Misha uses the example about having fans who think that when he tweets something out he’s communicating with them personally.

Alaina then says that in the Supernatural fandom people fight each other to protect Jared, Jensen and Misha and it’s “very bizarre”. She volunteered that people think Misha secretly hates Jared and that it’s not true. Not sure why she decided to direct the conversation to a place that would cause drama and give Misha a chance to play victim.

And then...

That’s when he claims that he was public enemy number one with super fans of the show because he’s taking attention away from Jared and Jensen.

That’s when he brings up the alleged organized attack to take down his Facebook account. He says they reported him for... *pauses... claims to not know what. But that whatever it was “Facebook bought it and took it down”. Facebook deleted/deactivated his account but he eventually got it back.

Side note: Facebook (like all social media) have always been bias when it comes to people with leftist views and let them have free reign on the platform. So he must have done something that they would decide to suspend him. I don’t think J2 fans can be blamed for the content he posts and if it violated any ToS. As we know he can post some inappropriate things on social media.

He then brings up the allegations of him taking money out of his organization. Stating it’s “categorically untrue” is all he brings forward as evidence to the contrary.

Side note: I don’t know why then that there’s no receipts or transparency. Why is his mother a beneficiary, why do people who mention he owns Stands get blocked, why set everything up in Delaware and have your for profit and so called non profit interests so entangled etc etc) I guess fans are just supposed to have faith and take his word for it.

He says that ALL of them (Jared, Jensen and himself) have people who hate them in the fandom. But overall the fandom is lovely and supportive of the cast and each other. Makes an attempt at stating there’s no kind of competition or animosity between he and Jared. I think this is like the 3rd or 4th time in the interview either he or Alaina bring up Jared but keep the focus on how Misha is the one facing “character assassination.”

Finally says that all of them have nasty things done to them and they all have had to consult security because of threats to their families etc, doesn’t specify which faction of the fandom that’s coming from. Mentions people filing police reports in the fandom but doesn’t say regarding who or what. Alaina reacts like it’s the first time hearing of this happening. Misha just goes “yeah!” Then they move on to talking about living situations.

Apparently Alaina and Misha were neighbors in LA but didn’t take advantage of that. She doesn’t live in LA anyone, wants a new adventure.

Misha mentions Bellingham is another thing about his future he’s unsure about and how his kids flourished there.

Brings up not being present with his kids even when he’s home because of work and side projects and that the one thing he’s enjoying right now it spending time with them. That he used to operate from a place of guilt because his kids felt like they only have one parent. He and Malik briefly spoke on how their careers have negatively affected their love lives.

Misha says he’s not really involved with Random Acts or running it anymore. (Ummm... what)

He and Alaina discuss Haiti and Nicaragua for a while.

Says he may try to get into directing. Says he likes having creative control. Mentions he likes doing his art installations.

Admits that getting a bit of success made him very entitled and wanting of special treatment. But claims he’s trying to keep that in check (where?) and he’s just like everyone else (well duh!). But he “trades on his celebrity” to get stuff and it makes him feel dirty (I think everyone with any kind of following does that though so nbd)

Talk of how TV/film is more diverse in telling minority stories these days.

Was asked by Malik if he has any kind of chip on his shoulder career wise and Misha says the chip on his shoulder is being bored. But says he needs to work on being more engaged.

He then abruptly wants to end the interview. Saying he has to pick up his kids. Malik wants another question. He asks how Misha has been hurt or healed by his career.

Misha then brings up the movie Karla. Again admitting to becoming more like Paul psychologically irl. But says knowing he has that type of evil in him somewhere (and says that we all have that in us) made him more empathetic to the human condition.

They then say their goodbyes. End of interview.

——

My takeaway. The worst thing he can think to say the people who don’t like him in the fandom did was trolling to get his Facebook deactivated? Also that people can see the suspicious nature of his businesses? It would be really easy to settle that with actually being transparent about the finances, which they aren’t and not having close family as benefactors though. Also, I can only speak for myself. But I never hated him. I actually loved Castiel (before his character was there just to be there in recent seasons and Cass wasn’t Cass anymore. I think Misha’s need to pander to shippers/stay on the show was a great disservice to Castiel and his arc) I was a huge Misha fan, and participated in RA and Gish a lot. I absolutely adored Misha, I led myself to believe he was the most amazing person in the world, obviously that’s the reaction he wanted to cultivate from us. Unfortunately I learned too much, experienced first hand and heard too much to be able to keep cheerleading for him. I feel bad for the people still under the spell of feeling like it’s their job to keep being defensive and unreasonably loyal to someone who you can’t and don’t really know and only have a superficial “relationship” with. Seeing the ever more unhealthy and toxic lengths people feel they need to go to to prop up his ego etc. The constant investment emotionally and financially that goes into it and the “sunk cost” if you let reality in makes it hard to let go I guess. Even he knows that what he’s done to gain and maintain relevance has attracted what he called multiple times an unhinged fan base he has to try and balance without losing his influence. I think he maybe had or has good intentions but his fame hungry drive and narcissistic personality traits win out in the end. The Heller’s seem to have, as always, taken what was said and blown it out of proportion, twisted things and created their own narrative. I do see them using key words from the interview a lot suddenly though to bully for him. So, I guess the dog whistle to the sycophants worked out. I hope that a time comes where they can have a more healthy relationship with the media and public figures they choose to gravitate towards. We can all get over zealous with things but there’s lines that shouldn’t be crossed. For some that seems sadly unlikely. I hope that Misha does indeed one day get himself in check as he calls it and I can feel comfortable to support him again. But so long as he’s being enabled and not held accountable again that seems sadly unlikely. Even though I do occasionally find myself being drawn in by the facade again a little and quickly retreating because the issues remain the same. There is a problematic dynamic in the Supernatural fandom for sure. That’s why for a long time I opted out and just watched the show separately from fandom. It’s why when I found out it was ending I had this odd sense of relief I wasn’t expecting to feel and it made me sad. I hope that now the show has aired its finale we can all reflect on things, hopefully be more self aware and objective and most importantly honest about what really has gone down and why. When things started turning sour there have been plenty of times it could have been nipped in the bud yet wasn’t. People who used this silly yet special show in selfish ways, times when walking away would have been better than sticking around trying to make things and people into something never intended to be, giving into tribalism while claiming we’re a family... for that I think we all hold a little piece of responsibility.

You can listen to it yourself on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0m07her5JUf0JGGtDVohtJ?si=c-RdyZzFQmSzffgNzZhkQg

#anti misha #anti misha collins #misha collins #supernatural #fandom #anti destihellers #strap in its a long one again #opinion #trying to be objective #alaina huffman #malik yoba #anti minions #misha #collins

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elpercotreviews · 3 years

Text

Reviewing My Anime 10/10's *Relatively* Spoiler-Free

Note: What I rank a 10/10 is very specific and obviously very subjective to my own. Something can only be a 10/10 if I already consider it a 9/10 AND I must have rewatched it. I am someone who typically does not rewatch/reread anything, unless it's something I truly absolutely enjoy. With that being said, because of the requirements, I only have 4 animes that I rank 10/10, and tbh only one of those animes would get that ranking from the general anime audience. The rest are SO SO SO specific to my particular tastes that I would be absolutely stunned if someone also had the same four as me, because the requirement is so specific. Imma make another post eventually for my 9/10's because I think that list makes a lot more sense for a general anime audience lmaooo.

Soooo, in order of least personal to most personal (although obviously they're all personal to me lol) we have:

1. Psycho-Pass

Recommended for people who: are really into that dark dystopian future society vibes, are fans of Ghost in the Shell, like detective/crime stories

Okay, for a few people, this one actually probably makes some sense. At the moment, it has an 8.37 on myanimelist which means this anime is super well liked. I've watched this anime twice, first the original and then the second time I watched the director's cut (yes that exists lol). Overall, I'm a huge fan of the entire Psycho-Pass anime series as a whole. I've watched all three seasons, as well as two of the movies. I didn't watch any of the Sinners of the System ones cuz tbh I literally couldn't find an english sub of that anywhere, it just doesn't exist lol. I think it's okay cuz the ratings for the Sinners of the System trio of movies seems meh. I've actually watched Psycho-Pass the Movie like three/four times LMAO but that's simply cuz a movie is obviously much quicker to watch than an entire anime season. Like just objectively, the Psycho Pass series as a whole is very inconsistent in quality due to the fact that it's all original, so they do technically just make up everything as they go lol. Season two is all right (I think it gets more hate than it should), three is good but season one by far is the absolute best in the entire series. I'd argue the movie is technically my absolute favorite out of the whole IP, but I actually give the movie an 8/10. The movie, because of being obviously way shorter, simply does not have the deep controversial and philosophical lines of thought that season one has. It lacks that extra depth that would make me put it anything higher than an 8. The two main characters have good chemistry as a crime-fighting duo and the main villain's rivalry/relationship with the male lead is super compelling. The female lead is meant to be relatively naive/more on the innocent side which works with the plot as it allows the show to naturally explain and give more exposition as to the actual world and rules of Psycho-Pass without having it seem so ham-fisted or just throwing info to the audience.

2. Violet Evergarden

Recommended for people who: cry to sad movies, like gorgeous animation, are very empathetic, like vignette-esque storytelling

All right if you even remotely consider yourself an avid anime fan, then this anime is probably also somewhere on your 10/10 list or at least an anime you consider to be "very good." That is, unless you are that very vocal minority who simply really just REALLY do not like this anime for some god forsaken reason. However, in my honest opinion, I think an anime like this just really doesn't sit well with ... how do I put this blunty ... people who do not give a fuck about other people or anyone else's feelings but their own. Basically, IF YOU ARE SELFISH, A NARCISSIST, EGOTISTICAL, OR ANY SORT OF COMBO OF THOSE THREE, YOU WILL NOT LIKE THIS ANIME. And if you do, you probably don't think you're any of those things. Because of the anime's very premise, I find it very difficult to see a very self-centered/heartless person particularly enjoying this anime. The whole premise of this anime is that the main character who, because of her upbringing, doesn't understand feelings/emotions, especially the concept of love, grows as a human and slowly begins to learn what love is. The show does this by showing multiple sets of characters meant to represent different types of love (romantic, familial, platonic, etc). The vocal minority of people I've seen give Violet Evergarden bad ratings all typically argue that although beautiful, the anime doesn't have any substance/doesn't really mean anything. If that's honestly all you got after watching the entire show, then you deadass just don't get it, and you probably will never ever get it. If you've seen or heard of Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song, than just know that these two animes are VERY very similar in vibe despite being technically different genres. However, I personally found the themes and concepts in Vivy are done much more masterfully in Violet Evergarden which I think is due to Vivy's heavier focus on a story-driven overarching plot/action as opposed to Violet Evergarden's focus more on emotional impact/an episodic format. I've watched the entire series and I've rewatched the main show twice. TBH you can probably skip the gaiden movie AKA the one set at the girl's academy it was highkey pointless. Compared to the opera episode they added as a "special", the gaiden movie was still good but I wish resources were dedicated to something that actually added to the story. ALSO YES I KNOW ITS A GAIDEN AKA A SIDE STORY AKA FILLER SO YES NO DUH IT DIDNT ADD ANYTHING, BUT STILL. As for the main show, I think I cried for three episodes (the one about the playwright/author I forgot lol, the mother and daughter, and the soldier). On my rewatch, I didn't cry but I still deeply cared for and related to the characters. Violet Evergarden is a beautiful anime with a beautiful story.

3. ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu Ka

Recommended for people who: like bread and bakeries, don't mind a very chill and slow-paced story, like stories about political intrigue and hidden agendas

Based on a relatively short manga, ACCA: 13 follows the main character Jean Otus as he performs his job of auditing the 13 districts of his country Dowa, while rumors and politics brew in the background that threaten to entangle Jean into a complicated plot. To be honest, I think properly reviewing this anime is impossible for me, because I just can't really explain the vibes of this anime besides "chill" and "intriguing." I think trying to explain anything more than the basic premise I just wrote would spoil a lot of what ACCA is, because it's plot is actually relatively quite simple and straightforward. Compared to Psycho-Pass which has a relatively good cult following, and Violet Evergarden which is universally praised, ACCA is an anime that I've yet to personally meet anyone who has ever even heard of it LMAOO. And almost everyone I know watches anime, so that's saying something oof. ACCA is made by Madhouse, which if you don't know, is a super well known anime studio, producing big hits such as Death Note, Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man, etc. That's why I'm surprised that ACCA has flown just SO under the radar, but that may be due to the overalls nature of the anime itself. ACCA is an anime where all the characters hold their card close and no one seems to really share their real thoughts. One main criticism the anime has is the lack of deeper connections to characters and that for a main character, Jean Otus is very bland. To be honest, I think that's a very fair criticism and I can understand why this would prevent people from rating this anime higher than an 8 or 7. Due to the very nature of the anime and its plot, I do agree that there is a huge cast of colorful characters that we unfortunately don't really get to know more about. To be honest though, I don't mind this because I feel that's honestly quite realistic, especially factoring in Jean's job. All these places he's going and all these people he's meeting, it's literally just his job. He's not on vacation, these people aren't his friends, so the anime has no real reason to dwell much longer on places past its specific episode. Just like in real life, you encounter so many people and go past so many places that you probably won't ever see again. So for me personally, I didn't mind that the anime didn't explicitly show much about the backstories or lives of the cast, save for the very main characters (as their backstories were plot relevant). I think as viewers of not simply an anime, but a whole other world, I think it should be satisfactory to inherently understand that these are whole "people" who have entire lives that we are not exactly privy to. So although admittedly our understanding of many of the characters was all around quite shallow, I think that works for the scope of the anime, which was relatively simple and focused on just Jean living his life and the political plot stirring in the background until it was brought forward in the second half of the anime. Also I love Jean Otus. I actually completely absolutely adore him. He is literally my profile pic for myanimelist LMAO. I think calling him "bland" is fair from other people's perspectives, especially as the supposed main character of an ANIME, but I feel that if ACCA was in a different format like a novel, I think his personality would have been less criticized. Like I said, I love him soo much. I don't find him bland at all, but actually very interesting and highkey attractive LOL (if only he'd quit smoking but it's part of his charm 😞). Yes for an anime "protagonist," he is quite underwhelming especially compared to others, but I think that makes him very charming!!! Like all he wants to do is just chill, vibe, and do his job lmaooo. I think as a person, he’s very charismatic, and in the world of ACCA the rest of the characters see that as well. Because like, if he really were such a bland person, why would so many people like him and actually trust him lol? As for why it’s technically my favorite anime of all time (my ultimate one is a movie), I can’t give super detailed reasons why to be honest. I just really like the overall vibes of the anime itself, and I think the anime is just super unique and original. I’ve watched a ton of anime over the years, but I’ve genuinely seen nothing like ACCA in the slightest. I mean, just look at the recommended animes on the myanimelist. The recommended animes are all stuff I’ve also personally really liked (like fugou keiji unlimited and the great pretender) but yeah there’s just truly nothing that’s close to what ACCA is, and because of that, it reminds my absolute favorite anime show. I’ve seen the dub and the sub, even though I am a vehement dub hater lmaooo (except for very few circumstances, and this also applies to all non-English media, not just anime). There was only one thing in the entire show that slightly confused me/ seemed slightly unbelievable and I won’t spoil but it had something to do with the overall timeline of some events, but it doesn’t detract from the story at all. Oh and the art style! I really love the art style of the anime. It stays pretty true to the manga, but is also just an overall kind of art style I really like. I really enjoy the more like 2d/flat/drawn art style versus really clean and really detailed stuff, and I’m typically not a big fan of very obvious use of CGI (unless done tastefully like in Demon Slayer). All the backgrounds in ACCA have this painted/drawn style and the anime itself has this like muted(?) filter over it that makes the anime seem like someone’s drawings just put up on display in a way that’s really refreshing and nice. I highly recommend this story for anyone who wants a breath of fresh air and to get away from the typical action-packed high energy of big name anime.

4. From Up on Poppy Hill

Imma make a whole separate post JUST for this movie so I can explain why I love this movie so so much. And honestly, Imma need a whole separate post in the first place to address the elephant in the room when it comes to this movie (if you’ve seen it, then you know what I’m talking about). And if you’ve haven’t seen the movie, maybe you’ve heard about one of its controversial themes. I’m not gonna say what it is, cuz I KNOW it’ll be super off-putting for a lot of people, but please omg just hear me out. I just love this movie so so much. I’ve seen it like 7 times and counting. I have it downloaded on my computer and on a flash drive. I’ve watched the sub AND the dub however I’ve stopped watching the dub because it makes me sad every time I hear Shun’s voice actor ;-; This movie is legit an honest-to-god comfort movie for me that I could watch over and over and I’ll fall in love with it again each and every time. And once again IMMA MAKE A WHOLE SEPARATE POST BECAUSE I SWEAR PEOPLE ARE GONNA BE LIKE “Yo ain’t this the movie with the -----” and it’s like PLEASE LET ME EXPLAIN. The vibes of this movie, the themes it addresses (yes even THAT theme), the music, the art, the characters, is perfectly presented in a way that I will never stop watching this movie. The only other film that has come close to the amount of times I’ve watched From Up on Poppy Hill would be Legally Blonde lmaooooo.

#anime #anime movie #from up on poppy hill #psycho pass #acca: 13-ku kansatsu ka #violet evergarden #anime review #myanimelist

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marshmallow-phd · 4 years

Text

Nine Little Letters

Genre: College AU, Fake Dating AU, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before AU

Inspired By: This graphic made by @rcse-tvler

Pairing: EXO x Reader

Summary: Just when you thought life was done shoving you down, it got much, much worse. After finding out that your latest crush was already in a relationship, you did what you always did when emotions ran high: you wrote a letter. Signed and sealed, you put it away with the eight other letters you’d written to past one-sided loves, never to be seen again. That is, until a mix up accidentally sends those letters out to their respective recipients and you find yourself in the middle of one confusing web of love. With fake relationships, insecurities, and revelations swirling around, things are bound to get a little messy.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11

You were walking on eggshells. Every time you turned around, you were sure you would be confronted by another past crush. The muscles in your neck were aching from constantly looking over your shoulder. The corner of your eye was haunted by cute boys ready to confront you on your deepest thoughts. For a whole day, you were able to avoid any of them. It was a nice Thursday. Then Friday came.

If you were to list the boys in an order of most to least wanting to evade, Junmyeon would be at the very top. Hence, you avoided the math building. Easy enough, you thought, since you only had one class there about twice a week. You made sure to get to Thursday’s class with only a minute or two to spare so you would have the excuse that you needed to hurry, then you hightailed it out of there to your next class. But your focus had been a little too honed in. While you were taking extra precautions to avoid your former tutor, you forgot to make good escape plans for the others.

“Hey, (y/n).”

You squeezed your eyes tight as you heard the seat across from you at the library table scrape across the thin, frayed carpet.

“I guess you know why I’m here then,” Jongdae said empathetically.

Slowly, you opened your eyes. Jongdae’s hands were folded on the table’s surface and the slightest crooked smile sat in the corner of his mouth. His hair was wet, either from a recent swim or a shower. The black strands were curled against his forehead. Smiling, he ran a hand through his hair, tiny little droplets splattering against the blonde wooden table top.

“I’m really sorry,” you mumbled, unable to hold eye contact for long.

Jongdae laughed. But it wasn’t an “at-you” kind of laugh. That was nice, at least. “I don’t know why you would be sorry. It was flattering. It's nice to be looked at as a hero, even though I didn’t really do anything.”

“High school brain tends to over exaggerate things.”

“I get that. I actually just wanted to say thank you and that it was sweet.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that.” Your go-to response these days. Like when the doctor hit your knee, it was reflex. “I left a pile of private letters out and my mom mailed them on accident. It’s like having your diary read into a microphone in front of an audience.”

Jongdae nodded. “I had a feeling. After the first few sentences, I figured I shouldn’t have gotten it, but I couldn’t stop reading. It’s been a while since someone confessed to me. Few years, actually.”

Your jaw dropped. “What? No. I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true, unfortunately.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get another confession in the future.”

“Hopefully.” He looked around aimlessly before coming back to you. “Well, I’ll see you around. It was good to see you. Again.”

“You, too.”

You breathed deeply as soon as he was gone. Okay. That one went well. Three out of four were good odds. You were hoping to get out of this with at least a “B”. If Yixing ever wrote back you could simply… not open the letter. And if you avoided the others, you’d be in the clear. Yeah, this wasn’t so bad. You were still alive, at least, and with your true identity intact.

You felt a little lighter as you went home. Funny how it could feel like the world was falling apart but the sun still shined and the breeze still blew. As you dropped your bag on your bed, you got a text.

Get online.

Oh crap. You’d forgotten about Sehun. He knew you didn’t like talking on the phone, but you could talk to him over the headset. Don’t ask what the difference was, not even your irrational mind could come up with a reason. Sitting down in your chair, you turned on your console and connected to the internet.

“There you are.”

“I’m not in the mood to play today.”

“That's fine. You don’t have to play.” He killed your character as it stood around aimlessly as if to make a point.

You rolled your eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “You are such a jerk.”

“That’s not what you said in the letter.”

“And there it is!” You couldn’t hold back the whimper echoing through the headset microphone. “I should have never done that. Writing love letters like I’m an Edwardian heroine… Because I’m not, obviously. But I don’t even know what I am instead.”

“Sad, lonely, pathetic?” There was a pause. “Yes, I said that out loud.”

You sat there, completely abashed. “Okay, I take back everything I said in that letter. You are such a jerk. I must have been hallucinating back then.”

“Don’t get so touchy,” Sehun said. “I thought about it once, too. That’s why I’d let you win every once in a while.”

“Really?” Well, that was a first. None of the others had mentioned possibly liking you back.

“Yeah, but then I thought about it some more. I like being your friend and didn’t want to experiment with that.”

And then you deflated like a bouncy castle. “I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted.”

“How about neither and I just send you the letter back?”

Okay. A compromise you could live with. And having that letter back would give you a small piece of mind. “I think I like that better.” The doorbell rang like a savior. “I got to go. But thanks for not making this a big deal.”

“Not a problem.”

You logged off and headed downstairs. Your mother, who you hadn’t realized was home, answered the door. You stayed on the staircase, out of sight but within earshot.

“Um, hi. Is (y/n) home?”

Your eyes widened and you nearly choked on the air in your throat. Chanyeol?

“I think so. (y/n)!”

Nope, nope, nope. You ran. Quietly. Like a mouse scurrying away before it could be seen by the resident cat. You went through the kitchen to the sliding glass door, opening it slowly so it didn’t make too much noise. Once through, you closed it behind you, barely hearing your mother call out for you again.

“Funny. I thought I heard her come home.”

Now what?

Your brain looked to the fence that separated your yard from your neighbor’s. That was your option. Keeping an eye on the back door, you climbed over the wooden fence, dropping down on the grass. You sat there figuring five minutes or so would be enough time for him to leave. Eyes closed, you leaned your head back against the wooden barrier. Apparently, you weren’t as brave as you thought you were. Even with the easy confrontations, you still ran like a coward the first chance you got.

“What are you doing?”

Your eyes snapped open. Crap. You’d momentarily forgotten who your neighbor was. “Sorry!”

Kyungsoo huffed from the porch. He leaned on the railing, forearms exposed from his rolled up sleeves. He was frowning at you again, but this time it didn’t seem to be from a place of annoyance as much as confusion. “You say that a lot.”

“I know,” you agreed. “I’m sorry.” You flinched. Nice one.

A few seconds went by before he came down the porch steps. He crouched down in front of you. “If this is about the letter….”

“It's not! Well, not about your letter.”

“You sent out more than one?” You nodded. He smirked. “Well, that makes me feel a little better.”

It made him feel better? Like your letter had made him… upset? He didn’t seem to be worried about you at all when he gave it back. “I’m just waiting for him to leave,” you explained. “I’ll get out of your hair soon.”

The expected response was that he would simply shrug and leave you alone. But instead he sat down across you, knees up with his elbows resting on them. It was odd. Even before he and Yeonhee broke up, he didn’t have one on one conversations with you like this. “Why did you write the letter?”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Why did you bother writing it if I was dating Yeonhee?”

“I….” You threw your hands up as if you could suddenly catch the answer. “It’s how I work out my feelings. When I found out the two of you were dating, I was… confused, scrambled. Some people journal to figure things out, I… write a letter. A letter that was never meant to go out in the first place. All it was supposed to do was help me work through my thoughts, help me understand my feelings when they’re too strong for me to grasp.”

“If you felt that way about me, why didn't you say anything before Yeonhee?”

“I think it goes without saying that I'm not good at verbally expressing my feelings,” you stated flatly. “Besides, I thought I had time. You know, to figure out what it was I was actually feeling. I didn’t realize why I enjoyed seeing you until it was too late. I never suspected that the two of you liked each other.”

“Really?”

“I'm kind of oblivious to things like that.”

A short laugh. “That’s true.”

You heard a car door shut and then an engine roar to life before fading away. Part of you didn’t want to leave, but being here, alone with Kyungsoo and talking to him like this, was dangerous. “I think the coast is clear.” You stood up and Kyungsoo followed through. “Thanks for, um, letting me hide out here.”

“Sure.”

You turned to the fence, examining how you could get back over.

“(y/n)?”

"Yeah?”

“You could just go this way." Kyungsoo opened the gate that led to the front yard.

“Right. Probably the better idea.” Once out of the backyard, you looked at Kyungsoo. Your heart was beating hard in your chest. “Have a goodnight.”

“You, too.”

Back inside, you didn’t bother to be quiet or sneaky. Your mother was sitting at the table, papers spread out all over the surface in an order that only she could understand.

“Hi, sweetie!” she greeted. “A classmate stopped by for you. Chanyeol, I think?”

“Oh, okay. I’ll give him a call.” An absolute lie, but… whatever. You headed up the stairs and grabbed your bag. You needed to get away for a few hours.

The ice rink was your mindful place. Well, your second mindful place, that is. The first was the library. Whenever you needed to not think for a while, you went there to find a new book to lose yourself in. Whenever you did need to work through your less extreme thoughts, you came here, to the rink. The cold made you hyper aware of your surrenders and of yourself. Your feet did all the work while your mind was free to problem solve. Given the time of day, there weren’t too many people here. Good. That meant the ice wouldn’t be too crowded. Only a few divots and scratches decorated the white surface. You zipped up your jacket and started lacing up your boot.

“I wouldn’t really have suspected you to come to a place like this.”

Your head snapped up.

Leaning up against the railing that separated the bleachers from the walkway around the rink, Kim Minseok smiled up at you.

Captain of the soccer team, he was a bit of a hero around the university. A handful of last-minute wins were taken because of him. How many championships had he led the team to? You wouldn’t necessarily say that people at school fawned over him as he walked the halls. It was too large a campus for that. Not to mention, he wasn’t extremely tall and there were certainly others that could be considered more handsome. There were, however, several large posters around the stadium and halls that featured the team, Minseok front and center. An image that didn’t fit what you saw. He mostly wore clothes that said he could have just left the gym or be on his way there. His laid back attitude on his elevated status was part of what led him to being letter number seven.

The thing about that letter was the fact that there was no one incident that led to your need to write it. He was always simply… nice to you. He knew your name from a shared history class your first year of college. In passing, if he saw you, he’d wave before going back to whatever conversation he’d been having before. You weren’t quite invisible to him, but you certainly rotated on the very outskirts of his vision.

“Why do you say that?” you asked as you straightened up.

He shrugged, hands still hanging lazily over the rail. “You never seemed like the athletic type.”

“I didn’t realize that people had to look a certain type to ice skate.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Climbing over the rail with a smoothness that was inhuman, he ran up the steps and took a seat next to you. You stared at him with confusion. “Don’t be like that. We both know why I’m here.”

“How did you even know I was here?”

“Your mom told me.”

Traitor. “I’m getting real sick and tired of being confronted by this. I never should have left those stupid letters out.” You never should have written them in the first place. You wished you could go back to your younger self and warn her. Hopefully, she would take your advice.

“I’m not surprised that I’m not the only one who came to talk to you. Although, I’ll admit, when your mom mentioned the fact that I was the second guy to show up at your house today, my ego took a little hit.”

You gave him an unimpressed side-eye. “I think you’ll survive.”

“So, which one do you actually like?” he asked suddenly.

You blinked at him. “What?”

“Jongdae explained everything to me. He said you mentioned a pile of letters so I figured it was more than just me and him.”

“Jongdae told you everything?” Why would he do that?

“Yeah. He’s my best friend so we don’t really keep secrets. Although, I didn’t tell him that I was a little jealous that he got a letter for pulling you out of a pool. Much more romantic than mine was.”

Groaning in frustration, you dropped your face into your hands in a pathetic attempt to hide. It was either that or wack this boy who was showing a new side of himself to you with the rubber cover of your skate. You figured the latter option would be a bad example for the small kids running around.

Minseok patted your back. “Hey, it's okay. Don’t be so embarrassed. I am still curious, though. Of all the people you sent letters out to, who do you actually like?”

“No one.” You weren’t going to spill your guts to Kim Minseok. You had Baekhyun for that. Soccer star had no business knowing your heartache over your neighbor.

“No one? Interesting.”

You lifted your head to look at him with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean interesting?”

“Well, that was kind of the answer I was hoping for. Sort of.”

This was not how you pictured this conversation going. You figured it would be like the rest. A simple “thank you but no thank you” had been the typical response. None of the others cared if you liked the other recipients. “Why is that?”

“I have a proposal.”

“Oh-kay….”

Minseok turned towards you. “Hear me out. So, I was seeing this girl, Libby. But we broke up. Well, I broke up with her.. And now she’s seeing someone else.”

“So, you suddenly want her again?” Typical. Why did couples always try to make the other one jealous? It sounded like a teen drama you wanted to steer clear from.

“No. The opposite. She’s only dating this guy to try and make me jealous. She’s always flaunting him in front of me, as if that would actually work.”

Okay…. Now you were even more confused. “I don’t see how I come into play.”

Minseok cringed. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

Oh, no. “I make no promises.”

“She knows that you had a crush on me.”

“WHAT!” Oh, you were dead. So dead. Cause: humiliation. Perhaps you could walk around the campus with a disguise on? Surely the security guards wouldn’t mind. There was always the witness protection option. Now it seemed even more appropriate. “She knows about the letters?”

“No, not about the letters,” he reassured you with a hand on your thigh. You quickly shoved it away. “Sorry. No, she just overheard Jongdae and I talking about the liking me part. Still made her mad because she thought I might like you back. So I started thinking, if she thinks that I’ve moved on, eventually she’ll leave me alone.” He looked at you like all of that should have made sense.

“I still don’t get it.”

He sighed. “I’m asking you to be my fake girlfriend.”

The snort could not be contained. “What are we? In high school? Tell her to back off! Or avoid her. You don’t have to make up a relationship to be a grownup about this.”

“I have. It hasn’t worked. Please? It would only be for a short time.”

You mulled the offer over in your head. It didn’t sound too bad. On paper, that is. Putting on a show that you were someone’s girlfriend shouldn’t be hard. And, maybe it would help you forget about your troubles. But… you didn’t want your first relationship to be fake.

“No,” you answered. “I’m not interested. Sorry.”

That was not the answer he was expecting. “Come on. If word gets out that we’re dating, then the other guys you wrote letters to might back off.”

“I’ve already talked to most of them,” you said. “It’s not that big of a deal.” Lie. But he didn’t need to know that. “Good luck with your ex.”

You went to stand on your skates, reaching out in front to hold on to the railing. Your mind, however, was in a hundred different places, which set your balance off. You wobbled and nearly fell back onto the bench. Minseok caught you before that could happen, saving your butt a world of hurt. He chuckled as he helped you regain your balance.

“If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He sent you a wink and left you leaning against the railing. You scoffed to yourself as you watched him walk towards the exit.

Staying where you were, you tried to wrap your head around Minseok’s proposal. How he could have even come to that kind of solution to his own problem was beyond you. What sense did that make? You shook your head and carefully stepped onto the floor. You needed this time now more than ever. Men were so confusing.

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