#but i think it's a tragedy heightened if he's only just getting that chance at 34

[pynkhues]

Do you think it’s possible Lestat was married or had children as a human, to fill in the extra fourteen years between his book transformation at 21 and his television transformation at 35? I hope not, but I’ve seen others entertain the possibility

Mm, I think I'd say that I think it's possible, but unlikely? I talked about it a bit in this post, but Sam discussed in his interview with Autumn about where that extra time gets put, and how he thinks it makes the most sense to keep Lestat in the Auvergne under his father's thumb for longer, and I'm inclined to agree. Would that involve a wife and children? It could, but I don't know if it would?

Lestat's the youngest son of a broke, aristocratic family, so while there is some value in his father marrying him off to a woman with money to bring wealth into the household, the appeal likely wouldn't be there on the other side. The eldest inherits the title, wealth (whatever's left of it), properties, land and estate, and generally with younger children, it would be whatever leftover wealth / the allowance from their eldest brother (or dowries for girls) that would make them appealing matches. Therefore, it would be Lestat's eldest brother who would probably be able to marry a wealthy woman in exchange for her becoming a marchioness, any woman who married Lestat or his other brother would really be staring down the barrel of an objectively bad match.

Given what the Marquis' like in the book too - and his reasons for pulling Lestat out of the clergy - I imagine he wouldn't want Lestat to marry so far beneath him as to embarrss the family, or create further strain on the limited wealth left with other dependents, or run the risk of Lestat leaving with a new wife, given he's the only one capable of earning any money through his hunting - which I think likely would take any other potential marriage off the table.

I also think it's really important on a narrative level that Lestat's never had a real family before ending up in New Orleans. The fact that he never got to live a mortal life before Magnus killed him feels pretty vital to Lestat's character, and is one of the reasons Marius sends him to America. That sort of naivety and arrested development I think really contributes to the dysfunction of the Rue Royale household, and I don't know if it would have the same impact if he'd been married or had children before.

Also just in terms of managing narrative logistics in the adaptation, I think adding another romantic plotline for Lestat, however brief, will be untenable given the show's already got to fit in Louis, Nicki, Armand, Akasha, and his mother in what will likely be 8 episodes.

[butterflydm]

wot rewatch 1x8: the eye of the world

I made it before the new season started! <3

spoilers for the first season of WoT and for most of the s2 teasers that we've gotten. For the books... um... honestly mostly stuff from Eye of the World that didn't end up in the show, lol. Oh, and for New Spring, I guess.

@apocalypticavolition mentioned that Perrin's original plot was probably helping Lan track Moiraine - that makes a lot of sense! It would have given Perrin a chance to flex his heightened senses and it might have even given Lan a chance to name-drop Elyas.

Okay, wow, yay! Our Completely Old Tongue scene from Age of Legends. When this first opened and they were just... talking in the Old Tongue... I was so blown away. I was not expecting it. I think they've hinted that we might get more Old Tongue scenes in s2 as well, which would be fantastic.

I'm glad that I read The Strike on Shayol Ghul short story -- they really did pull a lot of the info from that story for this scene, so that was very cool to see.

There is definitely a lot more focus on "Dragon as father" here than in the books (and I wonder if the tragedy of him murdering his family is going to focus more on killing his kids and not solely about killing his wife, once we get into that)

And the reveal at the end that '3000 years ago' was actually futuristic and we're living in a post-apocalyptic landscape, which is a great reframing for anyone who didn't already know.

Love all our Moiraine & Rand ~bonding time~ here (for various values of bonding time, lol). Definitely curious about where that relationship is going to go over the course of s2.

Egwene and Perrin checking in with each other is a sweet moment. Yeah, things Got Weird last episode due to stress and Nynaeve accidentally telling a secret that wasn't hers, but it hasn't wrecked their friendship.

And if Perrin is the one helping Lan here (supernaturally), then Lan and Nynaeve's scene would have just been the romantic goodbye.

Ishamael notes here that he didn't think that Rand was the Dragon Reborn. It sounds like he was expecting Rand to look more like LTT did. I really do love him calling Rand "Lews Therin", poor Rand. The identity issues are only going to get worse, bb. Love that Rand starts their conversation with an arrow to the face.

"Ever since the day I channeled, I hear nothing [from the wind]" is our first allusion to Nynaeve's block, I believe.

Moiraine tapdancing around the truth as hard as possible so that she doesn't have to admit that she physically can't teach Rand channeling. She's even willing to share one of her traumas with Rand in order to avoid admitting it! Also, I do think that Elaida's willingness to turn to violence is going to stand out a lot more in a world where teaching isn't always accompanied by brutality, as it is in the books.

haha, I totally forgot about this scene with Min and the others. Maybe because it doesn't really tell us anything we aren't going to learn immediately even without her (a nod to how pointless Min's viewings mostly are in the books? lol) but it does prompt Min to get out of the city on the wagons, I'm guessing.

Apologies to all the people who worked hard on the battle scenes but I don't ever have much to say about things like that.

Rand already getting memories (and Moiraine seeing him remember) plus Rand trying to protect people from getting hurt because they're standing next to him. (and Rand trying to give an order that Moiraine immediately ignores lol)

yeah if Lan had a companion (like Perrin) then his scenes here would have actually had some dialogue - they may have even given Rand the line about Malkier because they wanted to get the info out but it was originally supposed to come out in dialogue between Lan and Perrin.

Aww, family moment between the Agelmars. It's sweet. I honestly barely remember the Agelmars from the books, so this was an improvement. "Buy enough time to stand a chance" is going to be a big theme, too.

We also kinda get confirmation here that Darkfriends have been more effective in the show-verse than they were in the books-verse (it seems like more knowledge has been destroyed).

18. So, given what we've seen in the teasers of Ishy getting Lanfear from a seal, it seems like this specific spot is where LTT sealed Ishamael in particular (half-sealed?) and he released Ishamael fully when he cracked the seal. Before this, we only see Ishy working in people's dreams and then, in s2, he gets to actually exist in the waking world.

19. While I do see the effects of the covid shutdown and new rules in the battle scenes (and am looking forward to seeing them pop off without those setbacks in s2!); the scenes with Rand in the dream and Rand against Ishamael are perfect and I will hear no arguments against them. Rand is, ultimately, a philosophical hero and not a battle hero. He gets that wrong a lot in the books! But things tend to backfire on him when he tries to force himself into the battle hero position.

20. And we have ~the temptation~ here, with Egwene and little Joiya (and the mention of Mat, which was fascinating at the time and remains utterly fascinating; that fake!Egwene makes a point of mentioning Mat in Rand's temptation dreamworld).

21. The imagery for what Ishamael does to Moiraine is pretty much exactly like the shielding on Logain and not anything like when Logain was severed later in the episode, so I will (one last time before the new season lol) put my bet in that she was shielded. Ishamael is just able to do a lot faster than the Aes Sedai. Also when Moiraine is right behind Rand like this, you can really see how similar their shirts really are in color.

22. Min is jetting out of Fal Dara as fast as she can -- show!Min actually seems aware that she's not a fighter. #goodforher

23. But they did use needing to have Perrin in Fal Dara to give him a nice little scene with Loial that fed into the violence vs peace conflict.

24. Ishy really put in the work here (I'm assuming that it must have all been drawn from Rand's memories which, again, makes Egwene mentioning that Mat is saying he's going to make Joiya a lantern just incredibly fascinating). Ishamael waits until Rand falls for the trap to reveal to Rand what's going on (sorta). And both Ishy and Rand are working the angles here -- Ishy pretends that he wants Rand to pick the dream world and... you know, that would be useful but... he still wins if Rand fights him because that surge of Power will break his seal. And Rand pretends that he's falling for the temptation but actually is looking for Ishy to give him some clues on how to access the Power on purpose.

25. Ah, s2 setup is happening: Perrin learns that the Dragon needs the Horn at the Last Battle; and Fain was given the password to get into the fortress, which means there's a Darkfriend who knows the passwords.

26. I 100% approve of the show making joining a circle dangerous. In the books, circles are so completely underused and it feels silly because they are very low risk. People should be in circles all the time; especially when things get dangerous.

27. Lots of emphasis on fatherhood this season -- Rand's struggle about Tam being his father; Rand's desire to be a father (expressed both in ep1 and here with Joiya). We also had Siuan's relationship with her father being a key element of her character.

28. Rand loves Egwene enough to know that their paths have diverged and it would be wrong to try to force her onto the same path as him just because he loves her.

29. Very cute that Rand thinks he just defeated the Dark One. I want to give him a pet on his fluffy (currently sweaty lol) head).

30. Perrin gets the infodump from Fain instead of it being Mat. It's a good infodump, from someone who definitely, obviously has an agenda.

31. Rand thinks he's succeeded, so he leaves on his own so that he won't hurt the ones he loved. Baby. Off he goes, into the big world of Making Bad Life Choices, bless him.

32. And the poor little girl who, at least, probably died quickly? The show did such a good job with the Seanchan. Both here and in what we've seen so far in the teasers for s2. They are gonna be extremely creepy and heartbreaking and scary. You can definitely see tear-tracks on the face of one of the damane here.

[mixreality]

"Rumble" theories, headcanons, and musings

My personal opinion on the events in the movie and the events before and after it. Correct me if something is wrong!

Perhaps I've gone too far, but I think - it's closer to the reality of the world we were shown in the movie.

Theory on the disappearance of Rayburn and Jimbo. At the beginning of the movie we are told that they disappeared (died) somewhere at the sea. After we are shown Stoker's new monster - Tentacular, which all his appearance indicates he's marine-type monster. Based on these two facts we conclude that Tentacular is involved in the disappearance of Rayburn and Jimbo. Brilliant deduction, I know.

Headcanons!

Tentacular got a scar on his face from Rayburn's claws when he tried to drown him.

T and Rayburn are about the same age and knew each other long before the events of the movie. Their paths parted after Ray's decision to become a wrestler and the birth of Steve (Rayburn Jr.). Hence, the envy of success and the desire to be better than his former friend.

Back to the theory. Tentacular comes in Stoker sometime after the tragedy, under the guise of "I hear you're looking for a new champion". Since the town had big problems and came in grief after the "disappearance" of their favorites, they gladly accept T, and Siggy becomes his trainer.

Headcanons!

Siggy probably knows that Tentacular is involved in the deaths of Jimbo and Rayburn, but doesn't show it until he's sure it's true. OR he took part in it too.

The loss of his leg is unrelated to the incident in the sea, as in the movie in Vinnie's flashbacks, Sig was already wearing a prosthetic leg.

After the death of his father, Steve may have lived with his mother away from the city for some time. There is no mention of her in the movie, but I assume she just lives somewhere far far away from civilization. The second option - Steve leave town and just wandered around the region/state for a few years until he got into underground monster fights because he needed money to keep living.

Another interesting moment. Siggy tells Winnie to stop the fight, because if Tentacular senses blood, the situation will get out of hand. What did he mean by that? Sharks have a phenomenon called "food fever." It's when there's a lot of blood in a place and the amount of blood makes sharks go crazy and eat everything. T is a shark, and a pretty big one; perhaps his senses are more heightened than normal sharks too. If Steve got a nosebleed during a fight, for example, T would probably go berserk and destroy not only the arena, but also the stadium and even the entire city. Of course, not without casualties, and here the irreversible process of total 4uckup. We wouldn't see it in the movie, so we will stop only at the destruction of the stadium (take into: all the people have time to evacuate).

Other.

Not all monsters in the movie universe are wrestlers. Example: Mac is a monster who works as a commentator (albeit on the subject of wrestling). Monsters, due to their incredible strength, can be useful in professions where that strength is especially valuable. Such as construction and demolition on a large scale, heavy lifting, working at heights/depths, mining, etc. Those who are not satisfied with either of those things go into the creative arts. I'd really like to see a monster DJ!!!

"Tentacular" is a stage name. Personally, I think the name "Nigel" would suit him perfectly. Name meaning: champion, perseverance, independence, zeal; also: cruelty, egoism, envy, hatred. The colors are blue and purple, the element is water. 100% hit. It's compatible with his looks, too.

Steve and his father can tolerate extra high temperatures.

In the second part of the movie (if it ever comes out) Steve will bring his "dancing style" to the end and it will be more like wrestling. However, lazy as he was, he will remain lazy.

There is a very small chance that Rayburn and Jimbo survived, but decided to lay low after the "mysterious disappearance".

Ray and T are about 20-23 years old at the time of their friendship (before the movie), 35-45 years old during the movie. Steve is 3-5 years older than Winnie. I can get very confused about the timing of what's going on in the movie, so consider this as headcanon. I'm having trouble with "time feeling"…

Winnie is a foot-fetishist.

[mediaevalmusereads]

Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. By Derf Backderf. Abrams Comicarts, 2020.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: graphic novel

Part of a series? No

Summary: On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. In a deadly barrage of 67 shots, 4 students were killed and 9 shot and wounded. It was the day America turned guns on its own children—a shocking event burned into our national memory. A few days prior, 10-year-old Derf Backderf saw those same Guardsmen patrolling his nearby hometown, sent in by the governor to crush a trucker strike. Using the journalism skills he employed on My Friend Dahmer and Trashed, Backderf has conducted extensive interviews and research to explore the lives of these four young people and the events of those four days in May, when the country seemed on the brink of tearing apart. Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, which will be published in time for the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, is a moving and troubling story about the bitter price of dissent—as relevant today as it was in 1970.

***Full review below.***

Content Warnings: violence, blood, casual racism/misogyny

Overview: I can't quite articulate why I decided to pick up this book. I find Backderf's work to be definitely intriguing, but I've never been a close follower. I guess I was in the mood for something like a memoir, though this certainly isn't one (Backderf himself wasn't at Kent State). It's not quite historical fiction either, and Backderf himself likens it to a reenactment. Whatever genre we call it, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio is a masterfully crafted graphic novel that evokes a lot of strong emotions. I could feel myself seething at the injustice of it all as I was reading, so for that, this book gets 4.5 stars.

Writing/Art: I've never been a huge fan of Backderf's art style, but I think it works better (for me, at least) in this book than in My Friend Dahmer. His use of exaggerated proportions and bold inks combined with the details he puts into his scenery seem to produce a sense of heightened emotion or tension that I think works with this story; the cartoonish anatomy mirrored the almost cartoonish incompetence of the military, and the facial expressions clearly set the tone for any given scene. Panel layout was also very clear and easy to follow, so there's no real chance of getting lost or reading panels out of order.

My only major criticism is that, with Backderf's style, it can be hard to tell some characters apart. Without the aid of color or distinctive clothing, it can be hard to make sure your reader knows who is who. But I also think Backderf did the best that he could, so maybe it's just an error in how I read.

Plot: The plot of this book covers the days leading up to the shooting at Kent State in May 1970. It covers the growing political tension between the government and college campuses as well as the anti-war protests during the Nixon administration. The book ends with a retelling of the fatal standoff between Kent State students and the Ohio National Guard. It doesn't delve too much into the aftermath of said standoff save for 2 pages of prose at the end, which describe what happened to the victims' families and the involved military personnel, but it does feel "complete," so to speak.

TL;DR: Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio is an incredibly moving and impactful rendition of the events at Kent State from May 1 to May 4, 1970. Backderf masterfully builds tension and dread while also not losing sight of the fact that the victims were people, and I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in graphic memoirs or anti-war movements of the 1960s-1970s.

This book was incredibly moving. While I had some knowledge of Kent State going into this book, I felt like I could more easily emotionally connect with that knowledge because Backderf takes the historical facts and makes them feel more personal. Not only does Backderf hit you in the face with bold art that sticks in your memory, but he also masterfully builds tension over the course of the narrative, giving the reader a greater and greater sense of unease and dread as the events unfold. By showing the escalation of conflict in the days leading up to the shooting and also inserting helpful blurbs about what's taking place on the national stage, I felt like Backderf connected larger, national concerns to local events, making them feel more real and less like abstractions. The result was that I could feel myself becoming more and more angry at how unjustly the National Guard treated the students; this was probably the point because the message of this book is definitely that Kent State was a tragedy, but not one without clear perpetrators. No matter what one might think about the violent, militant arm of the anti-war protesters, what happened at Kent State was not justice, nor was it law and order; it was an attack on innocent young people, motivated by increasing paranoia about opposition to the Vietnam War and the threat of communist sympathy. Given that I'm reading this book in 2023, a lot of the themes resonate with our current political landscape.

Characters: I feel a bit strange analyzing the characters of this book as if they were authorial creations because most (if not all) of them are/were real people. I can't speak to how well Backderf represents the actual victims, but I did appreciate the effort to make them feel like people with hopes and dreams. All of them had complex inner lives that were at times separate from Kent State but at times defined by the politics of the day. Some of them were politically active and some weren't, and seeing them simply try to do their best was both inspiring and heartbreaking.

When it came to the actual shooting and depictions of violence, I think Backderf handled the graphic nature well. Though I can't speak to what the victims' families might think, as a reader, I found Backderf's drawings to be emotionally impactful, especially his drawing of Bill. Because Backderf spent most of the book portraying each victim as a real human, the violence didn't feel necessarily gratuitous. Of course, the violence is meant to come as a shock, but it's not the kind of shock that's meant to be entertaining. It's insread meant to make us feel angry on behalf of the victims and to turn our ire against injustice, especially injustice at the hands of the government.

[corellianhounds]

For the ask game, I’m curious… 3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Oof, this one’s tough because I like the different stories for different reasons. I’ll stick to the ones that have already been posted because I think that’s only fair

Stranded In the Desert is one I like because it feels like a scene that slots in naturally to the show’s canon in voice, tone, and idea, addresses themes and established material I don’t think the show has done a good job handling, and feels interesting visually. There’s a little bit I would change in the ending convo he has with the kid, but I haven’t quite figured it out, and it otherwise feels like it fits in the world of Star Wars without breaking any rules of the setting or characters.

But then Amidala the Resilient feels like a solid gut punch of raw, messy, tragic events and emotions that gives the end of the prequel trilogy more of the severity I think it deserved, and it gives Amidala a lot more action and agency as a character moving in and driving part of the story. I think if the idea is that Anakin has become somebody entirely different in the end, then his actions force the other main characters to do things that, up until that point, were also contrary to their nature (Amidala going on the offense instead of trying for peaceful negotiation, Obi-Wan feeling a loss of control in both their escape and in being the one forced to help Padme with the twins). One of my biggest complaints with the prequels as movies is the lack of people doing anything (as opposed to the sheer amount of scenes that are just people talking calmly while sitting, standing, or walking), and this was a way to get things moving and making it more interesting (and giving Padme a better reason for why she dies the way she does). It’s a war trilogy, but it never felt like one. It’s supposed to be a tragedy, but it never felt like one. Given the circumstances, these characters should be having more heightened responses to the things that happen.

One I’m more satisfied with the full writing of than others (and that I also feel is a bit underrated) is Disparity which is the first part of a few loosely connected one-shots comparing and contrasting Jyn and Leia. That one was born of the frustration I have at seeing too many writers (professionally published or otherwise) not knowing how to write from children’s perspectives, and I thought it was an interesting scenario I hadn’t seen anyone else do before.

Jyn and Leia are also characters I don’t have to worry about screwing up the depiction of, so there’s a freedom in writing what I think they would say or do when in conflict (where I don’t have to worry about contributing to harmful stereotypes or misrepresentation). I can write them mean and scowling and spiteful. They can have candid, blunt conversations about heavier topics because those characters have those experiences to pull from. I think Jyn would be tempted to yank Leia’s hair if she had the chance. Thats what angry little girls do. I think Jyn would be mad at seeing Leia have the life she misses and would direct that anger towards her. That’s what envious, hurting little girls do. Seeing how that will translate to a scenario where they’re both still alive and working for the Rebellion is already shaping up to be interesting.

Ask Game

[murfpersonalblog]

I think RELATABILITY has been a huge factor in how AMC!Louis has been received, and yes, a lot of it boils down to the race of the audiences; but there's also the expectations the audience had going in. I have way more respect for the book fans who gave the show a chance, rather than boycotting it straight out, or just hate watching it & complaining that their favorite slaveowner wasn't biting some black prostitute's tongue out of her mouth while moping about how hard being a rich white man in America is. 🙄 The recent post about race in Gothic Literature and some of the deeply disturbing responses (by non-black people) just highlighted how deeply rooted people's biases are when it comes to vampire media.

Naturally, what AMC did with LDPDL was gonna rub some ppl the wrong way, and I love it, we need MORE of this, consciously writing black characters AS black people with black experiences, for ALL audiences. Cuz they ARE essentially the same character, op, yes. In ESSENCE, black/white LDPDL have the same narrative DNA. It's the CONTEXT that's different, not the CORE character. And it's that context that I think has people freaking out--if AMC had gone the Netflix/Bridgerton way & just inserted a black man into 1800s slavery-time NOLA & said turn your brain off & suspend your disbelief!, a lot of ppl might've had less issues! Look at these poll results--ppl have more complaints about Ep5's DV & SV than ANY other changes thus far. Context matters--and IMO it heightens the HORROR, when the power imbalances b/t Loustat are racialized, and Jim Crow NOLA & interracial relationships & black queerness is taken seriously by the writers--forcing people out of their comfort zones of watching the typical Bill Comptons & Edward Cullens & Louis de Pointe du Lacs--to think more critically about the world outside the all-white microcosm that Hollywood always pushes.

I've said 100 times how I've hated book!Louis since day one. I never liked him, or enjoyed IWTV as a book. (I only read the book cuz I love the movie (and my aunt was a diehard AR fan and told me to read the books), but it took me ages to actually finish it, same with TVL. I didn't actually start really liking VC till QotD, TVA, etc). I love Lestat & Claudia & Armand, but Louis' always been a hard pass for me.

IMO book!Louis had no personality or motivation. Other than Paul there wasn't really much to his backstory (and the movie eliminated ALL of that, even!). Yes, Louis was the textbook definition of DEPRESSED, but while that's interesting and dynamic to see on screen, it just wasn't fun for me to read about for a whole book; him going on about how miserable his life was, even when he was still ALIVE 🤦‍♀️, when he had been given EVERY advantage to make things BETTER for himself. It's classic Greek tragedy: the doomed protagonist w/ a fatal character flaw. But juxtaposed w/ powerhouses like Patroclus/Lestat & Cassandra/Claudia & Hector/Armand & Marius/Odysseus, Achilles/Louis came off like a whiny spoiled baby.

NGL, I deeply empathized with book!Lestat's frustration: Louis' a gorgeous young rich affluent educated white man living Down South, and now he has supernatural powers! What on earth are you complaining about? Vampirism really does give him the keys to the city! It's white privilege x1000, totally WASTED. It's just like seeing news articles about spoiled rich kids doing crime or OD'ing cuz they hate their life, like.... SPARE ME. 🙄😒 Go to school, get a job, join a book club, do some arts and crafts, start a charity, go on a pilgrimage, or SOMETHING--stop wallowing in misery in your million dollar mansion and touch some frikkin grass, Louis.

Like, ok, I get that Gothic/Romanticism (in the Byronic sense, not romance) is all about having some rich powerful man be eternally morose & tortured & self-absorbed, wandering the heaths yearning for times long since past, and doing eff all to actually change & only making everything worse. There's a bit of schadenfreude, seeing Dorian Grey get his comeuppance. But I made the instantaneous decision to never watch or read Twilight once I heard that some 100+ year old dude was still in high school, like omfg WHAT? 🤨🤢 But on the flip side, I relish the ironic comedy of WWDITS, w/ vamps self aware that they've been stuck in cycles of perpetual self destruction; even deliberately leaning into those toxic tropes; never sincerely committing to doing anything that changes/improves their situation. Cuz they're VAMPIRES--(unlike Laszlo/Lestat & Nadja/Gabrielle & Colin/Marius, Nandor/Louis/Armand got the rude awakening that even the Wellness Center was a deathtrap). No matter what, in the end they keep coming back to that house--it's clean & remodeled one season & then in utter shambles the next season, over & over, the carousel comes back around again.

WWDITS directly nods to IWTV through Guillermo's obsession with Armand/Antonio Banderas in the movie. I empathized with Armand in TVA so much, cuz he was a kid literally ripped from his life; a stranger in a strange new world starting from scratch without ever really knowing who or what he was. 😔 As fundamentally flawed as Armand was, a lot of his problems weren't entirely his fault. The Children of Satan mentally broke him to the point that he'd convinced himself that he didn't DESERVE to be part of the outside world or take advantage of his vampiric privilege. Marius was all mad like oh, Armand wasn't actually chained up, he was free to leave at anytime and get help and get better~! And I was like MORON: he had to be indoctrinated for 200+ YEARS before they trusted him enough to let him take over the cult! That's how lost in the sauce he was! He was so low that he actually thought LOUIS' depressed AF arse was a step UP, like HUH? 😅

But even with all the horrors Armand had suffered (or perhaps because of them), he still hungered for growth (stunted as he was as an eternal teen), so he built Night City, Trinity Gate, etc. But Louis wanted none of it, like WTF--I was relieved when Armand dumped/divorced him! (The movie flips it--as if! Louis wouldn't leave a house on frikkin fire w/out someone there to pull him out. 🙄) The older & more vampiric Louis became, the more miserable he was, and then Merrick happened, and everything hit the fan.

A large part of the VC's allure for me was AR herself, and how she wove her personal life into her stories--she was Louis, Lestat was her IRL husband, Claudia was her IRL daughter, etc. So I sympathized with Louis WAY more after he lost Claudia; his sadness as a grieving parent made way more sense. But the rest? 😒 AMC made Louis so much RICHER on the show. He's still a depressed submissive passive empty husk, but he's more CONTEXTUALIZED. We get to see his full devolution--from the much fuller human backstory, to an actual romantic courtship, to his series of tragedies & losses, and having the true horror of Lestat finally be revealed. I can FINALLY understand why Louis was so depressed/stuck/trapped--America's racist homophobic classist "primitive society's picked him clean," his human family is still alive & he wanted to be closeby, Claudia ran away and he's empty nesting, his husband lovebombs then cheats at the turn of a dime, and then he's too in love / emotionally stuck when it's time to step up & leave. SAME! But different. And IMO: better.

Okay, but do tell me and explain to me from the grass root about the sudden hate of the man one and only Louis de Pointe Du Lac from the book Interview with the Vampire??? Like doesn't the show and it's fandom constantly told us that the show is the same to the books and the characters are the exact copy of their book counterpart. So how come many/some show fans who get to read the books hate him if they're the exact same characters? How you gonna love one and hate the other if the continuous preaching of similarity and faithfulness is true like whatttty? How did anyone come up to that I'm genuinely and seriously confused.

[konkonvt]

Sometimes it's 2 in the morning and I think about how truly magical ttrpg stories are. How amazing it is when chance plays a part in a story so perfectly.

I think about a bird man being the only member of the party to escape the collapse of their whole city, about how he had two children and a wife waiting for him. About how he promised he'd come home to them, and got to keep it.

I think about a hob goblin general tragically choosing to put his duty to his court before the first and only time he's ever felt seen. I think about all the little tragedies that held him away from love, and the moment of sweet release when he finally chose himself over the goblin court.

I think about a scared kid learning he's not just valuable for his ability to help, but because he's alive, and has friends for whom him being that is enough. I think about him losing the fight against his inner demon only to have them be the reason he doesn't wholly lose himself.

I think about all the stories we'll never get to see or hear about. I think about all the times a moment of randomness has heightened a moment of my own sessions.

I think ttrpgs are amazing.

[liannelara-dracula]

GIRL I JUST GOT AND IDEA . HC . What if the triplets werent Cordelia's son, I mean they found out that for Karlheinz plans , their mother ( who was gentle and loved them) was locked up in a tower because she was useless for him and then he gave them to Cordelia and now on . Would they save her? How would they behave with her treating them with love? Im really curious about how these three sadistic fuckers would react to a real good parental figure( knowing how broken they are and it would take centuries to , at least, turn then "normal")

Hi Love,

omg what a wonderful idea, sorry I took so long to answer. I made these hcs more general regarding the three of them. I hope you like it tho. Let me know if you have more questions. These are the asks I love the most tbh. You really blew my mind with this question love. Anyways let me show you what I have here.

-Liannelara

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Prompt

Requests are open

Rules

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Omg girl that is a cool idea actually. Very interesting tbh.

Okay, I picture that when they found this out they were hella shocked.

But honestly angry too and also generally curious tbh.

Like if they if hated their father a little, now they really hate him.

I think Ayato was mostly shocked and angry, as was Laito but I see him being curious at the same time.

Kanato on the other hand is probably only curious since he doesn’t exactly have any sanity left tbh.

So they’d probably want to figure out what was going on and how this all happened.

They probably asked for their brothers to pitch in with their knowledge too bc why not.

Plus I could also see that they would help even if they act like they don’t care.

I think they would want to save her, especially if they found out she was a good person.

I could also see them wondering if its really worth it too.

But I really see that with some thinking they bothered to look for her.

She is probably in the demon world so they spent months looking for tbh because her whereabouts were unknown to everyone.

I wouldn’t be surprised if their mother was from a noble vampire family but she didn’t have any useful power so that’s why Karlheinz locked her up.

Or really had her be banned to see her children, all for his social experiment.

And the names they have are not their real names obviously but even their actual names that are probably Romanian, wouldn’t be their birth names that she gave them.

I see that Karlheinz changed everything just for there not to be suspicion.

But somehow they still managed to find out bc of some loop he forgot to tie.

So apart from meeting her and confronting her they wouldn’t know how to deal with her love.

For instance, I see that this would all move them in different ways.

Like Kanato, it could pull at his heartstrings and possibly make him tear up but then the next minute he thinks she’s just manipulating him; causing him to lash out.

This would only hurt her seeing one of her children is no longer sane and that his very own father lead him up to this.

As for Ayato, he feels moved by what she says but he’s mostly shocked and may get angry sometimes from how she speaks lovely to him.

He does want to get to know her but he isn’t going to just let her in bc again everyone (who has been through stuff) builds a wall when they get older.

Especially once we’ve gone cold with emotion, we don’t accept everyone so easily.

So he is willing to listen but when his arrogant strike runs through she might point it out.

Kinda like, “Is this what he taught you? My child, arrogance isn’t something to be proud of even if you are of royal blood. You must be humble and kind to appeal to the hearts of many.”

Overall like any normal mother, she lectures out of the goodness of her heart because she hates to see him this way.

Laito on the other hand is really stubborn, as much as he loves the fact that Cordelia isn’t his mother and she was just some random woman that abused him and it wasn’t his own blood that did it, he still isn’t going to let things go.

He feels a little relieved and deep down carries a sense of hope that she may be in fact a good person.

Although, because he is so hurt he wouldn’t admit that and he would be stubborn to change.

He probably wouldn’t take in what she has to say for the longest time bc he hates all women and doesn’t think any of them are good or sincere.

So it would take him forever to believe his mother and see that not all women are monsters.

I can see that his mother was abused and that she was able to level with him bc I think in time when they visited her she began to understand where all her sons were coming from.

And think she put two and two together and found out a bit of Laito’s past a reached out to him.

This is something she probably said that made him change: “I was young too once and I understand what you feel from the tragedy you hold close to you till this day. What was done to you and I, my son, was unjust. I was never given the choice to raise you or any of your brothers, so therefore I couldn’t save you, nor give you my undying love as a mother should. I don’t expect you to forgive me but I hope you understand.”

He’d be the hardest to reach out to and accept his mother’s love.

Like Ayato and Kanato would be convinced quite quickly and they would grow to love their mom.

Meanwhile, Laito would still have mixed feelings and if he should trust/except her.

I think through enough break through tho he would realize what love is through seeing how his mother cares for him even if she doesn’t know him. And plus she is willing to get to know him and love him.

Like she isn’t like everyone else and she is probably the only woman that could restore them back to their senses.

Of course this would take years but they would grow to be fond of her in due time.

Though I do see that she’d have be persistent and fight tooth and nail to prove to them her loyalty and love for them.

Will take maybe a century or almost a century for Laito to be convinced.

Ayato and Kanato would take maybe decades too because vampires have stronger feelings, because heightened senses so I do believe that they may not trust as fast.

So in general if she is persistent enough they will grow to love their mother.

If she gives up on them then there chance of hope to restore them is never.

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˗ˏˋ 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑦 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝐼 𝑑𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 ˎˊ˗

©𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟔~Present

[steelycunt]

I think one of the most heartbreaking things to me about canon (and why I don’t think about it as often) is that it never gives r/s the time to become better versions of themselves. at least not permanently. they go through ups and downs but I truly believe that if they’d had more time, things would have been better or healthier (as healthy as those two can be). like, all these tragic things that happen to them kinda stun their character development sometimes instead of developing it further. like sirius getting killed off as soon as he is offered a new chance at a happy-ish life and undoing all the progress that could’ve taken place after he got out of azkaban. or like the war looming over them as soon as they really start growing up and figuring out how to work together to the best of their abilities, forcing them into more than a decade of constant unhappiness. and of course this develops their characters (as in adds to their story and alters their personalities) but does not necessarily help them grow as people, yk?. they grow up too fast and sacrifice huge pieces of themselves in the process. it’s probably why I gravitate towards putting them in scenarios where they are free to explore their relationship and who they want to become, as individuals and as partners, without that ticking clock looming over them. and of course when you remove the war and/or death aspects some parts of their personalities change that would not have had the chance to shine through in canon, but I also think that’s worth exploring (i think that more canon-compliant things are also very interesting and worth exploring btw. I’m referring to all the frustrating bs j*r did to their characters without any forethought. but it all makes me so desperately sad i often don’t want to do it myself) their story is just so depressing that I feel like they deserve a chance at growing without being smacked in the face right after they show an attempt at changing their more destructive behaviors. I just want sirius’ constant attempts to Be Good to have fruitful results :-(( and I want remus to loathe himself less and be happy and stable (ish). like. god I love them.

this is also why I love all of the things we discuss here and your consistently correct opinions. I feel like I’m constantly figuring out who I want r/s to be and hearing what others think really helps point out some things I hadn’t considered. like, I had never really given a lot of thought to the different ways in which remus reacts to sirius and peter, but now that someone pointed it out it is sooo important!!! like, thanks anon. also, I agree with everyone else: it’s easier to loathe himself for loving sirius than to stop doing it — sentence of all time. my favorite pastime is to go through the r and s tags on your blog and just read and analyze everything like I’m in an english class or perhaps a very small book club

hi bab! totally agree. i mean even if you're looking at their canon characters (i.e. disregarding r/s) neither of them are really given the chance to grow at all because jkr was never interested in fleshing out her side characters or really giving them meaningful resolutions--they were just props used to further harry's story and heighten its tragedy. that is the only reason i can think of for killing sirius when she did lol i cannot imagine any arc for him in which it would make sense for him to die at that point. it served no deeper purpose and honestly it was kind of lazy...same goes for remus honestly. it was apparently meant to provide an example of war creating orphans or something?? which idk. idk you had two other guys who already did that and one of them was like...the main guy. but whatever. and as you say canon events like the first war are interesting (personally way more interesting to me than the second war but maybe i just hate all the characters who are still alive by then) but also they provide a jumping off point to explore the characters after that which just. doesn't happen in the book. they deserve better i agree :-(

and thank you!! having these conversations with you lot is so fun and you all have the most interesting takes :-) we are a little club we're drinking tea and taking it in turns to speak and sitting on comfy chairs and everything xx MWAH!! <3

[stilesxeveryone]

The Rewatch

Okay, so my opinions are a little unnecessary and all over the place and silly, but I thought it’d be fun to just write down my thoughts as I go through the episodes of Teen Wolf. I figured that I’d do about half a season in each post rather than a post for each episode, just to keep it all a little more short and put together. And I’ll put a cut before episode 2 to make it look a little nicer as well.

Season 1, episode 1

Oh god, here we go again

Why in the world was Stiles on Scott’s roof, how the fuck did he hang facing Scott (like what are his legs doing??), and how did he jump down so smoothly

AU where Scott also gets caught in the woods while searching for the body, so he doesn’t get bitten? What if Sheriff Stilinski got bit instead, imagine how different the story would be

Apparently wolves were in fact removed from California in the early 1900s, and packs have only very recently been spotted moving into the area in the last few years, so Stiles is right

Scott being a werewolf for all of one minute (and not even knowing it yet) but immediately being able to zero in on every conversation Allison has 

Lydia’s outfits are so cute 🥺🥺🥺

Derek looks so scruffy first episode! Compared to how I remember him, he looks so much younger here, especially with his oversized jacket

Again, Scott is weirdly good with his powers in the first episode, like he doesn’t even know he’s a werewolf or anything but somehow he knows how to calm down the scared dog?

Derek is literally so horrible at reassuring a new werewolf oh my god. “The bite is a gift.” “We’re brothers now.” Yes thank you for this information, but what about the important stuff? And Scott clearly says that he thinks Derek bit him, and Derek says nothing of it

Season 1, episode 2

Derek being terrible continues. Listen, I understand that he’s never done this before, but please, threatening to kill someone is not the way you teach them to control their anger

I need so much more Allison and Stiles being best friends/siblings content tbh

I feel like it’s pretty unlikely that Stiles “listens to every police call, follows every case” Stilinski would go out and dig up the body, because that’s definitely the kind of tampering with evidence that wouldn’t be helpful in court

Please the green screen is so bad

Oh god no it’s Scott stalking Allison time

Scott’s priorities are just a little messed up,, like it’s very concerning that he decided being good at lacrosse and impressing Allison was more important than not killing someone or getting himself killed, and like it’s clearly not arrogance that he’ll be fine since he was anxious about something going wrong

Season 1, episode 3

Stiles wanting to know if Danny and gay guys in general could be attracted to him is indeed my favourite thing

Oh jeez, I forgot about Lydia’s whole ‘pretending to be dumb’ thing, I’m so proud of her for developing past that, I really need to write her more often

I genuinely missed being able to see Chris Argent every episode, but also oh boy I can’t wait to see him in later seasons just bc he looks so much better later on tbh

I will never get over how much I hate the werewolf designs, like how they look when they shift,, they’re just- there’s nothing good about them at all

Season 1, episode 4

So Scott is aware of two werewolves in town, Derek and the alpha, but when he hears Kate say that she shot one of two werewolves and that he has 48 hours, he isn’t at all worried that “oh shit Derek might be dying?”

They talk so loudly in public areas about everything that happens and it is so incredibly concerning. There’s no way other kids in school aren’t hearing them 

“Why should I help you?” maybe because he’ll die if you don’t, Scott? What kind of question is that?? I know we’re all irked by that moment a lot but god we deserve to be irked by it

Fun little detail, the Argent gun business is called “Argent Arms International”

Kate constantly mentioning Scott being “adorable” or his “adorable brown eyes” any chance she can get is literally so gross and concerning (spoilers, but especially considering her history with Derek)

And of course we all know how we feel about Scott suggesting that the Argents could have had a reason for mass murdering Derek’s family

Season 1, episode 5

Does Jackson only watch sports videos? Like first he watches lacrosse games and now he wants to watch a basketball movie (also I just wanna mention that Jackson’s actor, Colton Haynes, is literally so pretty, his freckles 🥺)

I love the dynamic of Stiles and his dad’s relationship so muchhh, I’m really glad we do get to explore their relationship and what happened with Stiles’ mum in later episodes

Whole lotta trauma gets brought up in this episode, from Jackson, Lydia and Derek and I feel so bad for them tbh

I really like how the parent teacher conference goes, like it’s very much exposition about how Jackson is adopted, Lydia’s parents are divorced, Stiles’ mum is no longer in the picture, Scott’s parents are divorced and his dad isn’t around anymore either. But I think it’s a good way to use exposition and make it in character and show what the kids are dealing with

I know the CGI isn’t always that great in this show but that dying mountain lion literally looks like an old, stuffed, toy cat that someone animated with photoshop warp tools and it’s a tragedy

Season 1, episode 6

I honestly wish they had more of Scott struggling with being a werewolf? Obviously they show his troubles with aggression and handling full moons, but not much about anything else

Like it would have been really cool to see him struggle more with sensory overload since everything would be heightened, or seeing him struggle more with new instincts? 

Also very much could use less of Scott/Allison make out sessions, I don’t need fifty shots of Scott’s abs okay

I love that Stiles just goes “I’m gonna teach you how to be a werewolf before Derek fails to”

“She makes me weak” shut the fuck up, in what universe does loving someone (or at least in this case crushing) make you weak??? The person I love has only ever made me better, and I think I make him better too

Scott’s (Tyler Posey’s) acting… there’s a lot to work on and that gets more obvious the longer I watch this 

Doesn’t it later turn out that Deaton was literally the emissary of the Hale pack? So like really close to them (at least the alpha) and meant to help them out? But in this episode he straight up gives Derek nothing and Derek suspects him to be the big bad alpha? I mean obviously it’s just writing inconsistency, although I know fanon often translates it as Deaton being the most secretive and unhelpful bitch in the west. But also what if Deaton just straight up lied about being their emissary? I think that would be an interesting take

[bettsfic]

Hi Betts, hoping for your guidance if you have the time. No pressure really. But my course will be focusing quite a bit on Shakespeare for the rest of this year. Do you have any advice for someone who isn’t really a writer on how to understand Shakespeare better? Have you read much of it? How did you tackle understanding the language? Is it just reading a lot more of it and looking up words? I struggle getting through one play, but is it just pushing through it? Resources you found helpful?

i feel like i’ve been waiting my whole life for this question. 

i’m feral for shakespeare. i have a hamlet tattoo. i have an unfortunate number of monologues memorized on the off-chance someone at some point goes “hey does anyone know any good monologues?” and i can be all “TO BE OR FUCKING NOT TO BE, BITCHES” or “ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH DEAR FRIENDS, ONCE FUCKING MORE.” i have an actual literal lecture on how richard ii is a greedy glamazon bitch, and an outline for an article on how lady macbeth can teach us everything we need to know about sympathy in fiction.

like many people, high school made me despise shakespeare. i can’t tell if it was the simple coercion of being forced to read things, period, or that we were made to treat everything so seriously, and expected to understand the use of language as if it were like anything else we were reading. 

then when i was 23ish, i got obsessed with doctor who, which led me to david tennant’s filmography, and david tennant happens to have done really a lot of shakespeare. when i geared up to watch his hamlet, however, i thought, i want to read this first, so i can see how different it is from my perception of it.

cue me surreptitiously scrolling through the wikisource version of hamlet while pretending to listen to conference calls at work. i think that helped, making it something i wasn’t allowed to do. it made reading feel like an indulgence. 

free of the constraints of “i’m going to have to write a five-paragraph essay about this when i’m done,” i began to read very casually, only trying to understand what was going on and not trying to find any profound meaning in it. 

in doing that, i realized i was actually doing it correctly. these are plays, meant to be performed on a stage, to entertain, immerse, and evoke feeling. you’re supposed to be sad at the end of tragedies and happy at the end of comedies. however, reading the plays is a far different experience than watching them, and in many ways more of a challenge.

you can’t read a play, especially a shakespeare play, like a book. prose and poetry both lend themselves to crafting intentional images. the entire thing exists to be and only be read. but plays and scripts are just one piece of a much larger puzzle, involving directors and actors and costume designers and set designers. bringing a play to life is a team effort. when you’re reading, you’re only seeing the skeleton of the story. it’s like reading a guidebook for a vacation destination. you can get the gist of it but only truly know a place by going there.

you can’t read shakespeare as a reader. you have to read as a director. you have to envision each actor, and after every line, decide where they are standing on stage, how they deliver their line, and what happens between each line. shakespeare gives almost no stage direction, so you have a lot of creative license in interpretation.

another thing to remember is that shakespeare is first and foremost a rhetorician. he wanted his words to be memorable and beautiful, to persuade and delight. if he wanted to be understood simply, he would have written simply. but instead, he uses 17 lines where 1 would have sufficed. it’s helpful, after every line, to consciously ask yourself, “what has just been said?” and very often the answer is simple. a yes or a no, i agree or disagree, or even sometimes banal statements.

consider hamlet’s “to be or not to be.” he goes on and on and on, but he’s really just being the “guess i’ll just die” meme. in the comedies, shakespeare often uses this effect as a joke. one character will go on and on, and another character gives a simple and curt and blunt reply, and depending on the delivery, it’s hilarious. 

you’re not supposed to love hamlet, or richard ii, or macbeth, or any other character. the tragedies are train wrecks that make you go “i get why you’re doing this but you need to Stop.” the comedies are similar, in that the characters sometimes make you go “you are being so fucking stupid.” it’s the sense of irony, the “i know what’s right in this situation but you don’t” that creates a huge amount of engagement. we’re always bracing ourselves for what comes next.

so here’s how i recommend reading shakespeare:

pick a play, and pick a version or two to watch afterward. here’s a really great list of productions. personally, i’d stick to ones where you’re familiar with the actors, which heightens the engagement. 

before you start reading, consciously cast each character, using actors you really like. or, instead of actors, you can cast your favorite characters as if they were in an AU version of your current fandom. reading shakespeare as fanfic is a speedy way of ensuring your emotional investment.

pull up the wikipedia plot summary of the play to have on hand while you read. every few pages or so, line your reading up with the summary to make sure you’ve caught onto what’s been happening.

as you read, direct the actors you’ve chosen. how do they deliver the line? sometimes this takes a few tries. you can’t let your eyes move left to right across the page and just expect to miraculously understand it as if it were prose. you have to puzzle it out.

if you’re really stuck on something, pull up the spark notes version. there’s no shame in that. if you compare with spark notes enough, you begin to get a sense of the language and begin to need it less and less.

when you’re done, order a pizza, pour a glass of wine, and watch your chosen production version. delight in already understanding what’s happening, figure out where you might have been wrong or confused, and revel in the places you were right. 

watch another production and see how your version, the last version, and this version all differ. 

if you get all the way to this point and you’re not utterly in love, i don’t know what to tell you. i think i watched wyndham theater’s much ado over a hundred times. rsc’s hamlet probably just as much. i have yet to watch or read a single play i didn’t at least appreciate. i’m one of the few people who even enjoys titus andronicus. 

shakespeare takes a lot of energy, but it’s worth it. once you get a feel for the strings he pulls and how he pulls them, it’s like opening a door to a whole other world. you see clips of phrases from this play or that, understand subtle references, and see how his influence exists in nearly everything. you can use his characters and plots and dynamics in all your own work. you can reach backward to see his own influences in greek plays, and forward to see his influences throughout all of literature. it’s amazing, not just who he was, but how his plays are still both so beautiful and so human. 

i’ve skipped over rhetoric, craft, the sonnets, and a few other things that i really enjoy about shakespeare, but those are probably topics for another time. if you’re looking for somewhere to start, i highly recommend much ado about nothing, particularly the wyndham 2009 production with david tennant and catherine tate which is genuinely one of the funniest things i’ve ever watched. it’s fun to compare it to the 1994 kenneth branaugh film and then rage against whedon’s 2013 travesty. 

best of luck in your shakespearean pursuit!

[inaure-forhalla]

because at this rate i will simply never have proper full written out bios for my muses, below the cut find some more detailed information about my muses that give you more info than just the vibey little blurbs i shat out at some ungodly hour of the day:

akllasqa mamani:

aklla is the daughter of a scientist that had all her titles stripped of her, and prohibited from working in the field after unethical experiments came to light. this doesn’t stop her from laying low and forming a personal lab, although under a watchful eye. she proceeds to learn and absorb all she can about genetic editing, and with the use of the CRISPR method and friends manning labs, she produces her own genetically edited egg. this is where aklla comes from, she’s planted in her mother’s womb and grows to be a girl who continues her life under a microscope. her mother is constantly poking and prodding at her, in a desperate attempt to note every deviation from regular behaviour from a girl who was tailored. aklla is diagnosed with anti social personality disorder in the future, and as a child is known to have conduct disorder. she’s been called a sociopath more times than she can count and is prone to sudden, and violent outbursts. all in all, a difficult teenager trying to maneuver through a society that works against anyone with any mental diagnosis.

jolene walsh:

honestly jolene’s the only one i have a full bio for, so because i’m lazy catch that here. 

vivian han:

vivian grows up in a house that values tradition, and in particular the image of a good family. her parents are not overtly religious, but they’re devout christian’s. they got married young, and without much thought and this leads to strife in their household. they start to fall out of love right in front of her eyes, but old time tradition and religious beliefs compel them to stay together despite divorce being the healthiest option for them both. being the oldest daughter in the house, vivian often has to play peacekeeper between her parents fights. she grows weary of it, but knows her options are limited. the older she gets, the more time she spends outside of the house. parties where the music is so loud she can’t hear her thoughts, she drinks away whatever she’ll have to face when she gets home. vivian is the fun girl, and the smart girl, and the party girl, and she does whatever she can to keep up every front she has. straight a student, but beloved by her peers. and only because she tries so hard. sometimes that comes with a small mean streak to be accepted by her peers, but she grows out of that quickly. guilt wears on her conscience heavily. an unhealthy relationship is all she knows as she grows up and so it leads her into her own. she dates a boy who becomes her ruin, but she tolerates it because that’s all she knows. she tolerates it even when he pushes her against a wall and she’s worried she has a concussion. he never hits her, and that’s his excuse. she files a restraining order after much thought and push from her friends. but it only makes her wild nights even worse, she has more pain to drink away now.

gabriel and ronan:

two boys that were once part of the same band, now leading two completely different lives. gabriel has always had his head in the clouds, always dreamt of life as a musician. his parents could do little to stop what his heart wanted. as a kid he’d play in shows any chance he got at school, and even kick started his own garage band with his friends. he never wanted to be the star of the show, gabriel was more than happy in the background. and that’s how he becomes the bass player of Golden Ours. he grew up in a bustling house that knew nothing about love, and it’s what he puts out into the world. his energy comes from genuine joy, and the desire to spread kindness. he’s a humble star from humble beginnings, and does his best to not let fame get to his head. naturally, there are slip ups, ones he does his best to hide. but all in all, he makes for pleasant company. not much tragedy in this one, rather typical if you ask me. 

ronan on the other hand grows up in completely different circumstances. the accident child of an alcoholic and a junkie, he never really knows stability in his life. his parents never have a good means to finances, and he picks up odd jobs as a kid to support himself if not his parents. he holds his father’s anger and defends himself after each bark and bite from his parents. he doesn’t grow up in a good house, and he doesn’t know if he likes them more when they’re sober or completely out of their minds. he swings a fist at this father at eighteen and is met with his ass on the curb. with little to nothing to his name, he sofa surfs as long as he can, gets himself jobs here and there, nothing that lasts too long. he comes across gabriel before the band hits the charts and it begins as roommates soon turned bandmates. he joins as lead guitarist. ronan’s one to butt heads with the band often, but at the end of the day, they’re family and family was meant to fight. but the disputes only heighten when ronan pushes them to take deals that come their way. change their look, change their sound, change change change for the mainstream media. they won’t take it, and so ronan does. leaves the band behind and embraces life as someone he doesn’t recognize in the mirror. he goes from alt indie rock to more mainstream pop rock. his manager decides what he wears, what he sings, what he signs up for. the money’s good, but he hates himself. but the money’s good.

mira deol:

mira lives a quiet life for the most part. second oldest daughter of five, their family is never without festivities. she’s a good student, not the top of her class, but trying. she sits in the middle of everything, never too loud, never too quiet. mira seems to breeze by life in the background and a part of her itches to be at the front of the show. she knows she’s not built for it, so instead she’ll smile and nod through it all. her life flips upside down, she becomes part of headlines when her family is killed at sixteen. in the middle of the night, the confront what they think to be a robber. her father and his broken english yelling downstairs, threatening to call the cops when a gun’s pulled out on them. mira, silent, watches from the top of the stairs while her entire family is sat down on the rug. one by one, they’re lined up and taken out with a single shot to the head. execution style. she scampers into a closet, and her hands search the dark floors for the gun she knows her dad has. and she sits there, as quiet as ever, hands shaking as she holds the gun in front of her. she thinks he’s left until she hears the creaks up the stairs and the closet door swings open. she closes her eyes and empties the bullets into her assailant without a second thought. mira’s found with blood, both her own and his, on her body. she hasn’t left the closet when they find her, a neighbour calls when they hear the last round of gunshots. her face takes the newspapers by storm and she’s a charity case. without any other family overseas, she moves in with her next door neighbours. a girl she knows from school. she suffers from traumatic mutism for a year. rehab and therapy get her to open up, and she cries anytime she speaks for another year. her life is spent in and out of therapy, and when she finally moves out and manages to get into university, she lives alone. everything about her life screams at her to live with company, but fear of what happens to company around her forces her into living alone. currently, mira is still healing. it’s been five years since her family’s death and she’s pushing herself back into society slowly. her emotions are hard to handle, and she’s incredibly clingy when she gets attached. 

buster jones:

buster lives a comfortable life. his parents work good jobs and they don’t expect much from him. as the youngest of a trio of boys, he’s the family’s baby for most of his life and he milks it for all it’s worth. he spends most of his time gaming, eating, or hanging out with friends. never the best student, but he manages to pull through with the tutors his parents throw at him a countless number of times. he doesn’t tell them that he’s paid kids to do his homework and essays, they don’t need to know that. but when both brothers leave the house, grow old enough to make it out on their own, the attention turns back to buster. buster who does nothing for the family but eat half the contents of their fridge, which can no longer be excuse as the appetite of a growing boy. so his parents make him take up a job, any job, they tell him, and so he goes to work at a mcdonald’s. he reckons it’ll be the least amount of effort he’ll have to put in, and impossible to get fired from. plus, free fries anytime he so pleased. he’s working through his last year of highschool, projected to have to take a fifth year if summer courses fail him. when he makes it to college he takes up criminal justice. not with the dreams of being a lawyer like his mother so hopes, but with the dream of getting into the fbi. only because it looks cool on television and he swears they know everything about area 51, and the gps’ that babies are injected with. an avid reader of conspiracies that he spouts like his life depends on it, what he doesn’t have in book smart, he also doesn’t have much in street smart. how buster makes it through the day, everyone wonders. but somehow he does.

elena castillo:

she grows up doted on. an only child, given the world at her every whim. her father loves her, her mother loves her, but doesn’t have to love as much since her father takes care of that part. her father dies when she’s eight, and her mother doesn’t take it well. elena had shown various talents at a young age, and the one her mother hones in on is her ability to skate. never having taken professional figure skating, her mother says it’s time for her to try. she doesn’t protest much, knows just how pushy her mother can be. she’s a good child for the most part, prone to temper tantrums, but mother knows best. elena’s mother focuses all her energy on her daughter, and it becomes obsessive. like a pageant mom, she signs her up for every competition under the stars. elena is bound to win most of them, and that’s because her mother doesn’t let her rest until she gets her routine down pat. elena’s perfectionism is taught and forced down her throat, it doesn’t come naturally. it doesn’t take long for the girl to embrace that figure skating has become her life. pulled out of classes on a whim just to participate in competitions, she learns how to catch up with classwork quickly without disappointing her mother. she never admits it, but she seeks validation from the one parent she still has. thinks maybe she’ll gain the same love she got from her father if she does it right. elena is quick to snap as she grows older. becomes her biggest critique, and with it comes a sharp attitude that she’s quick to lash out onto others. she projects her own insecurities, and drags people down to bring herself up. she’s now a professional figure skater, one of the best of her age at twenty. but it didn’t come easy, and she’s not willing to give it up easy. in front of the cameras and the crews she waves and smiles. once the lights drop, so does the facade and she doesn’t bother to lift a finger for anyone she deems not worth her time. she becomes more like mother, and over the years, they become more like partners than mother and daughter. their relationship is never healthy.

luciana pereira: prev lucarus

has the sexiest bio it deserves a read here

imogen, willa, devna mini bios coming soon !

[reachexceedinggrasp]

So the majority of the shows I’ve seen lately can be charitably described as ‘light entertainment’, including the ones with dark elements or more weighty, ponderous plots. They might be entertaining or interesting, they just... don’t stand up to scrutiny. Turn your brain off because this isn’t that carefully or skilfully made and you’ll only be annoyed if you start thinking about it as a whole. Including the last couple 'tragic’ historical dramas I’ve watched, which were not effective tragedy for that very reason. If you’re going to kill off the main cast, you have to earn it, and overwhelmingly writers don’t. Anyway, I’ve been getting despondent about whether stories which actually hang together and form a coherent narrative unit with consistent themes are the exception rather than the rule.

(And I feel like that should be a pretty low standard to meet, it’s sort of Step 1 of ‘being a story’: be about something! Communicate something, no matter how basic it is. Dead simple stories with rock basic messages can be revelatory! Just do it well!)

I’ve seen very little genuinely focussed or meaningful storytelling in my ventures for what feels like a long time. Basically, I can kind of count on one hand the number of films or dramas or whathaveyou I’ve seen from the last few years where it felt like the filmmakers were in complete control of their story and everything in it was purposeful and intentional. Most things have felt slapdash or shallow or fleeting. Story elements and character choices come out of nowhere just to derail already concluded arcs and fill screen time with empty repetitious drama, not to serve a meaningful narrative purpose. I would be watching with zero confidence anything in particular was going anywhere or that the writers knew where that should be. It’s just throwing shit at the wall, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type writing all the time and it fucking shows.

But then I watched Money Flower.

Money Flower is different. Money Flower is towering head and shoulders above every modern drama I’ve ever seen. Titanically good writing which rises above its genre and makes conventions seem radically new and fresh not by reinventing them or deconstructing them, but by playing them straight, taking them seriously, and committing 1000%. This is all your familiar rich family tropes but with masterpiece execution, infused with consequence and meaning because they’re all driven by the psychology of complex three-dimensional characters. So many moving pieces and none of them are random or unmotivated. Just... GOOD WRITING. And I want to make the point that it is this wherein art lives. The difference between a rank Lifetime movie and Romeo and Juliet is not novelty or tropes or plot twists- it’s execution.

This show is such a perfect example that it is not ‘mere events’ (aka plot) or novelty or shock value or cool ideas which separates something brilliant and timeless from forgettable schlock; it is solely and entirely execution. It’s writing itself, if you know what I mean. You can describe many of Shakespeare’s tragedies and history plays as soap opera plots. What makes Macbeth a deathless masterwork and Death Wish Hollywood wank isn’t a fundamental difference in subject or genre. It’s Shakespeare’s characterisation and purposeful storytelling. It’s the poetry of the dialogue. It’s the craft of writing. Most of Shakespeare’s plots are based on existing stories or on historical events and that has never mattered because novelty is not an inherent good or of any inherent artistic value.

Like, this is the problem with storytelling right now blah blah GOT, shitty endings everywhere etc. because power over the audience (can’t let anyone guess the plot, looking ‘clever’ with meaningless callbacks) and novelty are valued over narrative structure or things making sense or emotional verisimilitude. We have so many writers thinking being ‘shocking’ is all it takes to be a genius. It’s easy to be shocking if your story makes no goddamn sense because things that don’t make sense are literally unpredictable. Not in a good way, though. A great twist or sudden swerve needs to be unexpected but inevitable in hindsight or it does not work. I should be able to rewatch your thing and think ‘oh, of course! you can see it was [x] all along!’

We have so many popular writers now who are so shallow they don’t think anything needs to make sense on a character or emotional level. They don’t think their story has to be about anything. Substance is irrelevant as long as the surface is flashy enough. That has no staying power, you can only watch it once and you will forget about it quickly.

However, if you have ever wanted to experience the constant heightened stakes and High Drama of a soap opera without being annoyed at how ridiculous it all is and while actually giving a shit about the characters because they feel like real human beings, if you’ve wanted to feel repercussions when characters make choices, and get the emotional payoff that is the entire point of drama- now you can. Watch Money Flower. And let me tell you, it is fucking riveting. This show is mostly made up of people sitting in rooms talking and yet it is heart-pounding excitement nearly every episode. It is profoundly traditional and by the book while being totally fresh. It’s the most engrossing and satisfying artistic experience I’ve had in a long time.

Like, THE TENSION, THE DRAMA, THE REVEALS!!! You can, in fact, spend most of 24+ hours on the edge of your seat about family problems and business mergers. It seems unlikely, but that is the power of this series, it creates insanely high stakes and mesmerising suspense out of the most commonplace ingredients. Familiar plot elements become brand new and surprising under the deftness and tightness of this narrative. The plot itself is certainly 100% melodrama but it never feels like a soap opera and is never ever soapy in in a pejorative sense because it handles its classic tropes with such maturity and nuance that it's like you've never seen them before. The writing is incredible.

It is on an entirely different level than the vast majority of dramas, with a total self-assurance that keeps the pacing relentless yet unhurried- taking its time to let the impact of events be felt, the narrative always knowing exactly where it’s going and how to get there. The characters are all multi-faceted and unpredictable without ever being incoherent, their motives and goals always being gradually uncovered in more detail that only makes the storytelling and characterisation even tighter, even richer. The twists and cliffhangers are always mind-blowing but always earned, never cheap or nonsensical, and I can't remember ever thinking that about another show. (There’s literally one exception towards the very end where something a bit random happens for reasons of pure symbolism- it’s a misstep imo but it’s minor in the scheme of things)

Every time I started to doubt the writing, started to think ‘oh no, they’re going off the rails’, they showed me I was wrong and they were in total control. The only 'problem' with the show is that the drama is also profoundly painful to watch unfold, particularly in the beginning, because it's a story where everyone makes terrible life choices and moral corruption is everywhere. It's hypnotic though, like a car crash. If you can handle something dark, insidious, cerebral, and character-driven there is nothing I've seen in the same vein that can approach its brilliance. It’s like The Magnificent Ambersons as a slick modern revenge drama. There is also (PRECIOUSLY!!) a core of stunning romanticism around which all the horrors revolve and that saves it from becoming hideous or cynical. There is a chance for redemption and a new beginning after all, in spite of all appearances.

The ending has apparently been controversial, and it is definitely not quite as climatic as you would have expected given how powerfully climatic almost every regular episode is, but it's a good ending. There isn't full closure, they don't provide final resolution in a bow, but to me it's an ending about hope. It suggests optimism for our characters and I was satisfied with that. It's extremely rare for a 'revenge story’ to allow this kind of room for healing and it can do that because, imo, we discover in the end that it wasn't ultimately vengeance in Pil Joo’s heart. He has not become a tragic hero who will be consumed by the cannibalistic darkness of revenge, his quest was for justice. He teeters on the edge of the abyss but he avoided falling in; he didn't sell his soul, at least not irrevocably.

He is nonetheless a very tragic figure and an anti-hero, but despite having dedicated his life to bringing down the Jang cabal, it’s not that he’ll stop at nothing. He will make any personal sacrifice no matter how desolate, he lives as a mere husk of a man, and he facilitates enormous emotional harm to others in service of his goals, but he has ethical hard lines he never considers crossing. His sense of decency and compassion is never extinguished; he does care about the collateral damage he is causing even when making justifications for it. It’s important to him to give people as much agency as possible in their choices, to mitigate the damage done by his schemes as much as he can. To try to prevent harm coming to undeserving bystanders. Not that this makes it okay that he uses people, which he does, but the point is he never completely surrenders his moral compass to avarice. He’s never okay with burning down the world or ruining innocent lives just to get to his target.

Pil Joo is less a vigilante and more an avenging angel, he wants justice more than retribution. He wants fairness and a better, safer world where what has happened to his family won’t happen again. The reason this story never becomes Sweeney Todd (aka: a full on tragedy where we see the inevitable outcome of lust for revenge) and the reason he can survive twenty years spent pursuing someone’s downfall is exactly that principle. Searching for retribution would have destroyed him, he would have become the very thing he hated, but instead he goes as far as necessary to publicly expose the Jangs for what they are and then willingly submits to penance for his complicity in their crimes and tries to atone with the people he hurt along the way. Purged, he’s symbolically reborn and takes back his real name to maybe finally have a chance at the life he should have had. He moves on, content, a positive force. He’s capable of healing from the ordeal because he realises he doesn’t need retaliation, just seeing them stopped and facing consequences for their actions is enough.

The love story is a superbly poignant part of this. Their love is the ‘victim’ of his revenge and it will forever be impacted by it, but it’s not something that can be killed, so there’s still hope. Mo Hyeon’s bookending rescues of Pil Joo from death mean first that he has a purpose he must fulfil and then the second time that he has freedom to finally live as himself, for himself. There’s a future. And maybe they can be together there. I’m emo about it.

Anyway, if there was the slightest doubt about me becoming a long-term Jang Hyuk fangirl, it’s been put to rest. This performance is easily one of the best I’ve ever seen, period. No contest it’s the best I’ve seen in a tv drama. It’s also the most subtle and masterful turn he's delivered in his whole career. He's so restrained, but he is giving absolutely everything; he has total control over every microexpression, every gesture, every molecule in his body. There is so much simmering under his surface, so much going on in his eyes; the layers and depths are endless. The intensity and sharp intellectual focus he brings to the character is breathtaking. Everyone else is doing amazing work too, but he is almost constantly on screen and has this spectacular command of such a sprawling story, such a complex character, and he makes it look effortless. All artifice has melted away. The fact that being so tightly contained is in stark contrast to the bombastic element in many of his other roles renders its delicate precision even more startlingly impressive. I thought he was a great actor before, but I didn’t fully appreciate what he was capable of until Pil Joo.

[silver-wield]

Cloti Resolution Analysis

So I was sent an ask about analysing the promise scene between Cloud and Tifa, and I completely went to another plane of existence and did the Resolution instead. Oh well, enjoy the breakdown and I’ll get to bby Tifa and Cloud another time.

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven't played (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it's gonna be a VERY long one so prepare to scroll.

Also, this is one person's interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that's cool and we'll agree to disagree.

You're also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I'm grabbing them from Youtube and it's frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Other analyses if anyone's interested.

Shinra HQ vision scene (Cloti/plot analysis) 

Chapter 3 (Cloti reblog) 

Tifa character analysis 

Aerith Resolution (plot analysis) 

Train graveyard (not really an analysis, but I got some sweet screenshots of Cloti) 

Clotiscrew tunnel analysis 

Now, strap in and enjoy the ride.

Ok, recapping for anyone who hasn't seen this yet.

We begin with Cloud waking, having heard someone leaving the house. He checks, it's not Barret, so he goes out to investigate and spies Tifa staring at the night sky.

Now from this there's actually an unmentioned possibility Cloud decides Tifa doesn't want company and leaves. This obviously doesn't happen because he's developed his character to the point where he'd put himself out for someone else and find out what's wrong. The point I’m making is that Cloud is that guy who’d say “Not interested” and leave, but because he cares about Tifa, he stays. 

Right away we get hints of concern on his face. Obviously, with everything they just went through and all the people they lost he's expecting something along those lines when he asks if she can't sleep. The head tilt that goes with this has echoes of chapter 3 when he invites Tifa to share her worries, only this time she's got her back to him so can't see it.

Tifa, for her part, isn't very forthcoming. She's quite closed off, almost unwilling to open up and talk. She's probably come out because – as she said – she can't sleep and didn't actually intend for Cloud to follow. She apologises for waking him. There was no intent on her part to force a confidence between them. We can't even see her eyes until she replies, which is intentional on the framing to further express her being closed off. Remember, eye contact matters and a lack of eye contact with the audience means she's hiding from us too.

Damn it, she's so clearly cut up but trying to hold it together here it breaks my heart! I'm trying to figure out if her eyes are already swollen from repressing the urge to cry or if it's my imagination. Either way, she's distracted. She's not focused on Cloud or the conversation that much. A distant, polite answer from her is likely meant to hint she's not up for a chat, which is why I love that Cloud doesn't leave. She needs comforting and he's aware of that.

Demoralised tone of voice. Keeps her back to him. Head bowed. She's totally in her own head at this point and having woken Cloud up is just another black mark. She wanted to be alone and wallow, but she can't even do that right. So, when Cloud brushes it off and even goes so far as to make a light-hearted joke – yes him saying it's a SOLDIER thing isn't about him drawing attention to the fact he's succeeded with that part of their promise, he's capable enough to protect her – he's saying it to lower her guard, and that's why she laughs. It's the opening he needs to encourage her to talk so he can find out what's wrong.

Ah, the moment people think this scene is all about Aerith. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

Now, remember, in the previous glimpse of her we saw she had her head bowed. She's not looking at the stars anymore like she would when recalling her and Cloud's promise. She's looking down at the flowers. The same type of flower that Cloud gave her and she put on the counter in Seventh Heaven. This is why she brings up Aerith because she's the flower seller.

We're shown her feet at this point because she's turning. Cloud's little joke has opened her up enough that she believes she can face him. She can confide in him. She asks about the flower not because she's all about Aerith, but because the flower was in Seventh Heaven: her home. And what is the reason she's out there in the first place? Why can't she sleep? Because she just saw everything she holds dear crushed, literally. She watched Biggs and Jessie die – ok we know better but she doesn't. She let Aerith get kidnapped by Shinra and almost got Marlene killed too – yes, she's definitely the type to blame herself for this too. She's lost friends – who knows how many? There's death and fire and it's all because of Shinra, again.

Ah the other moment people believe makes this all about Aerith. That isn't a “I got caught with another woman” look of guilt. That's an “I lied to you,” guilty look because, if you remember, back when Cloud gave Tifa the flower she said, “What's up with you, buying flowers?” and he said, “A guy can change,” making her believe he'd purposely sought out Aerith to buy a flower for Tifa. Obviously, he doesn't want to contradict himself while she's in a heightened state, so he's all “uhhh.” That's an “I don't know what to say so this doesn't hurt her,” look.

Tifa awkwardly laughs it off. Poor thing, her misconception about Cloud's thoughtfulness is shattered without him having to say a word. Putting a brave face on it, but she's disappointed. And that's not because she thinks she's “lost” to Aerith, but she thought something of Cloud that wasn't right. She thought their relationship had moved on more at that point, which further supports the subsequent intimate moments between them. Now, she's wondering if anything she knew is right.

And that is clear disappointment that he didn't actually do it on his own initiative. Regret hits hard when it comes, right, Cloud?

It goes on with Tifa explaining she looked up the meaning of the flower – now we don't know when, but it's safe to assume it's around the time of the reactor 5 mission when Cloud goes missing. She likely got back to Seventh Heaven, spotted the flower, linked its importance to Cloud and then looked up the meaning. When she saw it symbolised reunion, she did everything she could to keep it alive as a symbol of hope they'd meet again. They'd be reunited. It isn't symbolising anything to do with Aerith. The reason she even brings it up is because of where they are. It's the location that prompts the association.

Now, remember, Tifa has lived through a massive tragedy once before. She literally lost everyone in Nibelheim. It's stated in other media that Shinra rounded up survivors and gave them to Hojo – they became numbered experiments or died. Tifa is the only survivor and she only made it out because her teacher, Zangan, found her. It's also implied that anyone else from Nibelheim was tracked down and killed to silence them after Shinra remade the town – so on the off chance that Tifa went to Midgar to find people she knew, she wouldn't find any in the town and when she asked after Cloud at Shinra she was told he went missing, which explains why she says she's so glad to have Cloud back.

When she says the flower is dead and buried, she's relating it not to her relationship with Cloud – I mean he is literally ten feet in front of her listening to her and offering a shoulder to cry on. No, she's relating the flower to the location. She's talking about her home. Where before she linked it to reuniting with Cloud, once she learned about the danger to sector 7 she linked the flower to reuniting with the people most dear to her there. These are people she's known for five years. She's not a callous, unfeeling bitch, who only focuses on herself and some dude she's just got back in touch with. It's clear from NPC dialogue while you're running around that Tifa is very much loved and respected – and crushed on – in the slum. The people love her and she loves them. She wanted them to be safe more than anything. Her entire arc getting back to the sector is filled with panic. Her focus is her home and the hope she finds it and the people safe.

So, now she's saying that hope she clung to, like the flower, is dead.

And there it is, the brave smile that falters. She's trying so hard to not burden anyone because – as Marle says later on – crying is pointless. Remember, Marle is the one who looked after Tifa, which means Marle's mindset is the one Tifa's been exposed to from 15 to 20. Remember, Tifa is only 20 years old. She's not some grizzled warrior, she's a young girl who had to watch her father die, her town get burned to the ground and be left alone. The only survivor. Until Cloud. Marle has taught her it's pointless to cry; Avalanche and everyone in it has told her she needs to be tough and hard and unfeeling if they want to succeed. But, Tifa doesn't want anyone to die. Not her friends or her enemies. She's not got that hard core, no matter how much she acts cool and detached.

And this is the point that Cloud is likely hearing about his home for the first time. We know he was there, but it's one of those memories he's shut out. The reminder is one of the few times he doesn't get a flash of pain, either. That soft exhale of surprise, the eyes widening just a touch. Cloud hadn't thought to relate his past to this event, and likely hadn't related it to Tifa, either. He's shut it out, so expected her to, as well. This is a musing expression. He's thinking about what she just said. It hits him this is where her emotions are focused. She's in the past, and that gives him the chance to think about the past. This is what opens him up to needing comfort just as much as she does, because he's not processed his grief either. They're both stuck in that place where they weren't allowed to mourn the people they loved and all they've lost.

Then we're treated to a reminder of the physical distance between them in this scene – which has been a theme between them since the start. There's physical distance, that closes at times, then widens again, highlighting how they're struggling to find their way back to each other for various reasons. Cloud because he can't fully relate to his feelings for her and Tifa because she's too afraid of losing him to truly open up.

And then Tifa takes those few steps – that seemed to take forever – to meet him. She's looking for comfort from the Cloud she knew. The real Cloud. His expression here is surprise because, well, Tifa's just not like that, remember? She's reserved and self-contained. He wasn't expecting her to do this. He's once again confronted with a woman being forward. Only, it's different this time because it's Tifa and he knows and trusts her and has all these complicated feelings he can't define. He knows part of him – the 14 year old who wants his crush to notice him – is ok with this. It's what he wants. That's why he doesn't move. He wants to offer her comfort, be the strong capable SOLDIER he thought she wanted.

Oh, but look, the dawning realisation he's just as upset as she is. His hard expression wavers, just for a moment, and he looks cut up. He doesn't know if he can be the strong SOLDIER right now because, just as she's processing grief, he is too.

Hearing her sob, really sob, is hard for Cloud to take. Just like in the pillar when Jessie said, “Tifa's crying,” and Cloud lost his cool for a moment and felt like a failure. He couldn't prevent any of it. He let her down. Listening to her cry tugs at the latent feelings he has for her, but he's still so wrapped up in that fake persona of what he thinks he should be that he doesn't know what to offer her in comfort. You can hear a couple of attempts at speech, but ultimately he doesn't say anything.

I wasn't gonna screen this bit, but what the hell.

You can see the hesitation in his movements. He doesn't know if he should hug her. Tifa's hand isn't quite touching Cloud as it moves from his side to his shoulder, but then when he pulls her in close there's full contact between them with no space. I mean, he's holding her tight.

After the pan away to the stream – which is likely a nod to the lifestream scene in the OG – we're back with them and Tifa's calmed down somewhat.

Cloud's distracted. We can only guess what he's thinking about, but considering the conversation they just had it's probably a blank with vague unsettled grief about his past that he can't grab hold of. He knows he can relate with Tifa at that moment. He's hugging her so tight he hurts her. He's hugging so tight because he needs comfort from her just as she does from him. He lost people too. He's so in his own head that he doesn't quite hear her say his name at first, and then I speculate he expected to hear something else besides, “you're hurting me,” if that very soft “hmm?” is anything to go by. His head was in a place where the outcome of their moment was different. Hurt/comfort is a thing after all.

And then there's the “oh shit, I can't even comfort her properly” moment. He's dismayed he hurt her when he was supposed to be helping. That boy with a crush is mortified and the grown ass man isn't much better. He's ruined the intimacy and lack of emotional distance by failing. Again.

But that doesn't mean he won't linger until the last possible second before stepping back again. The downturned mouth, frown and concern are clear. He doesn't think he did very much at all for her. Does he feel guilty about hurting her, not being the man she deserves? Possibly. He definitely looks regretful. Likely thinking what he could've done better. He wasn't much help at all to her.

“It's stupid. I know that crying's a waste of time.”

Ah, here's what he can do for her. His physical comfort missed the mark, but this is something he can do. He can reassure her. Get back some of that emotional closeness between them. And it succeeds. Tifa's gratitude is clear in her tearful smile and heartfelt thank you.

Conclusion.

How romantic is this scene? I hear no one asking cause you all made up your minds well before I even started. Well, from my pov, I'd say it's definitely up there, although it's very heavily rooted in hurt/comfort and relying on their childhood closeness to further their intimacy. But, that's ok because plenty of great couples begin like this and there's usually a moment like this within Final Fantasy narratives.

Rinoa/Squall's Ragnarok scene? There was no kissing in that either, but the emotional intimacy was clear. And Squall is just as big a butthead as Cloud tbf.

Tidus/Yuna laughing scene? Hahaha, I bet you thought I'd mention the lake instead? Well, no because that is clearly intimacy on a different level to this. We're at the developing intimacy stage, and that stage in 10 was them confiding in each other and laughing together.

This is Cloud/Tifa sharing their grief and comforting each other. The scenes parallel. Whether or not this means it's canon is up to you to decide, but combined with all the compilation evidence – yeah, I've heard the latest argument that compilation doesn't count anymore and until it's confirmed by Square I'm not listening – it does heavily suggest that Tifa and Cloud's relationship will continue along this route to the endgame where they confirm their feelings for each other under the Highwind.

[roguetatertot]

Waiting for That Pie

Based off the prompt “The Great Pot Pie Tragedy of ‘95. And the Fallout After” from @twocatstailoring​. Just in time for Pi Day!! Happy 3.14! (Finally my silly Cloud drawing from 2012 has a purpose)

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core Rating: General Audiences. Warnings: Mild language. Very mild.

Pairing: Cloud Strife and Zack Fair Special Thanks: @darknae​ for looking it over and editing! Summary:  Cloud and Zack share an inside joke about pie together. But for Cloud, it means more than just silly banter between them. Knowing no other way to convey his feelings, Cloud sets out to bake Zack a pie, and to deliver it in a very special way.

Read on AO3 | Read on Fanfiction.net

If there was one word Cloud would use to describe Zack Fair, it wouldn’t be heroic. It wouldn’t be puppy. The word ass was often used in Cloud’s vernacular, and he had been known to utter kronidiot in his native Nibelwegian tongue from time to time. There was a revolving use of nerd, dork, and dummy—all used with affection of course.

But the one word Cloud would reserve for Zack, and Zack alone, was clown.

From the moment he met Zack in Modeoheim, during their evolving bond, and through the comforts and safety of a relationship, Cloud would dub Zack this moniker whenever the chance presented itself. With Zack and his antics, that chance happened often.

“You clown,” Cloud would say with amused sentiment.

“If I’m such a clown, why aren’t you throwing a pie in my face?” Zack would say, his tone equal to Cloud’s jest, but with its own challenge as if daring him to do just that.

It was confusing to Cloud at first, as the only type of pie with which he was familiar was the savory and hearty chicken pot pie of the Nibelwegian culture. To be struck in the face with such a thing was baffling, but Cloud chalked it up to perhaps cultural differences, or an idiom which was lost in translation.

Whenever Cloud was having a rough day—which was more often than he liked to admit—Zack’s penchant for oafish behavior would come alive. He was quick to get Cloud to laugh, or share a small smile with the customary, “You clown” at the very least. Zack would nudge and pester Cloud with a variety of responses, such as: “I’m still waiting for that pie!” or “Where’s the pie in my face, huh?”, or even, “The day you throw a pie in my face will be the day I truly become a clown!”

Despite the peculiar notion, this exchange became like a bit that they would perform, a tradition which was as meaningful as any hug, kiss, or I love you. It was their own inside joke, something which brought familiarity and warmth during good times and bad—much like the chicken pot pie itself.

It was something Cloud appreciated so much so that he felt unable to convey how important this ritual was to him. Often he found himself at a loss when thinking of a gesture that would come close to letting Zack know how much his love and levity meant. The only thing he could think to do was to indulge Zack’s request of being smacked in the face with a pie.

Cloud wasn’t much of a cook. He wasn’t much of a baker. He wasn’t much of anything beyond using a can opener and pressing buttons on the microwave. But for this, he wanted to truly apply himself. This meant scouring the internet for recipes, watching videos on how to properly use a rolling pin, how to flute the edges of the crust, using fresh peas and carrots instead of frozen. He practiced boiling and shredding the chicken (which was overboiled to essentially rubber on his first try), and after trying three recipes for different crusts, he decided to go with the one calling for butter and shortening instead of lard.

All this had to be done in secrecy during the times when Zack was away on assignment. Aside from being very adept at getting Cloud to laugh, Zack was also very good at getting Cloud to spill his secrets; it was hard to resist Zack’s charm, and Cloud was determined to keep this as a surprise until he produced the best pie he could.

After several somewhat successful attempts (as one time he had forgotten to slit vents in the top crust, causing it to practically explode; and another was so burnt it looked like he had cast Firaga on it), he had a pie he felt was worthy of clownery. 

As eager as he was to heighten their tradition to a whole new level, Cloud had the better judgment to wait until the pie wasn’t a molten disaster waiting to happen. It took a lot of planning, but he timed the baking and the cooling of the pie with Zack’s return from a long mission with expert precision. By the time Zack texted Cloud that he was leaving the mission debriefing, the pie was at a comfortable temperature—somewhere between a suggestive kiss and a warm hug from Zack. It was a strange metric with which to measure one’s pie, but an apt one given the circumstance.

Now Cloud was standing behind the front door, ear pressed to the wall to listen for footsteps approaching. There they were—step after step—but Cloud was too anxious to notice they were heavy with unusual strain for someone like Zack the Clown. He rushed to the kitchen, scooping up the pie too quickly that it swayed in his palms. He veered with it in a balancing frenzy, pivoting on his heels right as the door opened. 

With as much grace as one could have while throwing a heavy, hot pie filled with chicken and vegetables, Cloud let the symbol for his love fly from his hand, and straight into the weary face of Zack as he entered.

Tender and flaky crust crumbled from Zack’s eyes as he blinked. A rich and substantial filling dribbled in ribbons from his chin. Fresh, perfectly diced carrots and peas globbed onto his chest. And the juiciest chicken one could ever imagine was now the welcome mat on which Zack stood.

“Hah! There’s your pie!” Cloud shouted triumphantly between his laughter and the sounds of the food splatting onto Zack’s boots. 

“WHAT THE HELL!” Zack bellowed, his hands tearing away bits of shredded chicken from his eyes as though he had walked into a thicket of dusty cobwebs.

Cloud’s laughter died in an instant.

“Who throws a chicken pot pie in someone’s face?!”

It was an eternity before Cloud spoke. He stood unmoving, save his eyes to watch the last few peas roll down Zack’s nose and drop onto the floor. “Y-You said pie,” he finally murmured. “I-I’ve only ever had chicken before. Wha … What kind did you mean …?”

Zack stammered at first, amazed and dumbfounded—he was clearly not in his usual jovial mood. “Banana cream!” he shouted, looking down at the savory mess in his hands. “Custard! Chocolate silk! Y’know, a DESSERT pie that you hit clowns with!”

It was Cloud’s turn to stammer. Squeaks and sounds escaped his agape mouth, all he hoped would convey his immense regret, but none came close.

Zack suddenly broke out into a smile. Whatever fatigue he had carried in from his mission was now sloughing away like the last bits of chicken pot pie on his face. He began laughing, pausing only to lick his lips of the filling and tasting the love which flavored it.

Cloud tittered nervously, watching Zack with hesitation as he approached. Cloud could now feel the warmth between them, that metric which defined the tenderness and the heartiness of their bond. He returned the smile Zack was giving him.

Zack reached up, holding a hunk of the pie at Cloud’s eye level. He chuckled, turning the contents of his hand to view it from all sides with adoration. “You clown,” he said before smashing the pie in Cloud’s face.

End

[davidmann95]

How did you end up feeling about Batman: Last Knight on Earth when all was said and done? What does it imply as the culmination of Snyder and Capullo's solo Batman megastory?

Batman: Last Knight on Earth is weird as hell, and not just in the way a lot of Snyder/Capullo gigs are weird as hell. It’s out of left field on several different levels, and crucial aspects feel frustratingly undercooked, yet on a pure conceptual level it’s hard not to argue it isn’t a perfect conclusion to their vision of Batman and his world. Complaints upfront:

* The cover for #1 is so atmospheric and perfect, and #2 and #3 don’t even try to live up to it.

* Joker’s face turn is absurd even in this heightened context.

* Scarecrow and Bane are a fascinating pair - the ultimate counterparts to Batman in terms of the image he seeks to evoke and him as a man, respectively, and Snyder did no work with either of them in his main run - and this story uses them purely as muscle, when Bane was just the co-lead villain of the entire Tom King Batman epic, and he just made clear on Twitter he’s got a perfect angle on Scarecrow. What a waste.

* Half the finale and its buildup with the Batfamily, Wonder Woman, and a final obstacle of Martian Manhunter of all people feels entirely perfunctory. And then Batman kills the villain without comment? I guess a unique circumstance of sorts with said villain, but still.

* I cannot figure out for the life of me how to read the last few pages as not being about Snyder moving on from Batman to Superman as his new principal character, when he’s made very clear Wonder Woman/JSA are his next big project.

* I suspect part of the reason Morrison and Burnham’s Arkham Asylum 2 didn’t happen was because Snyder and Morrison apparently frequently chat (note: this returns to Snyder/Capullo joints being Morrison covers, as this mixes Final Crisis and a sort of inversion of Return of Bruce Wayne with a couple R.I.P. touches, and as an aside the Speed Force Storm is basically the Chronovore), and maybe Morrison didn’t want to crowd the market on dystopian future Batman stories. Which would be a real friendly move on his part, but also the hell with that, I’d trade this for a years-after-the-fact true ultimate finale to the best longform superhero run of all time in a hummingbird’s heartbeat.

...okay, so how wild is it that Scott Snyder’s take on the final adventure of Batman is as a fanfic alternate take on his own Justice League run? And that his conclusion is that if it were to play out as a Batman story instead, Batman would fail? It exists at such an odd place relative to his other work too, since while it’s the ‘end’ to his take on Batman on the opposite pole from Zero Year that he came up with at the same time, he told an entire other ‘final’ Batman tale in Endgame that’s much closer to how you’d traditionally expect that sort of story to go,* leading to another resurrection in Superheavy. Then Metal with how it clashes his Batman mythology against the DCU in a far different manner than here, and The Batman Who Laughs presenting another take on an evil Dark Knight contemporaneously with this.

The most crucial comparison though is actually I think the first arc of All-Star Batman. I will never, ever forget the experience of reading issue four the literal day after the 2016 election, which ends with Batman expressing faith in the inherent decency of his fellow man, only to gaze at the horizon towards an armed band of frothing maniacs made up of ordinary people driven to murder by simple greed and fear and hate. It’s the same energy that goes into the pivotal scenes here explaining what became of this world, and it’s with this comic that I finally understood Scott Snyder, the friendliest bro in comics, constantly writing horror and tales of heroes truly afraid that they could give into their worst impulses: there is an anger in that guy at what human beings are capable of, and it’s what lends his work a conviction as expressed through his 80s action movie superhero punch-opera sensibilities that marks him as apart and above so many others in his field with similarly populist inclinations.** Matched, of course, by the vibe of Capullo and Glapion and Plascencia’s craggly, rock stadium, neon-splattered hellscapes for their already long-since classic Batman to wander, the Zero Year sensibility as applied to an entire biosphere and giving us an entire world as vicious and out of control as its populace.

Which is why Last Knight turning out to be a tale of the fall of the original Batman makes sense. Throughout Snyder’s work with the character the ultimate threat is always him being forced to admit that he’s wrong, that he’s always been wrong - that he can’t understand Gotham, that he can’t care for anything other than the mission, that he can’t live up to or survive his legend, that he isn’t strong enough to fight the part of himself that would rather give in - and it is always a legitimate one that he struggles with on a personal level. And so it makes sense Snyder finally theorizes a Batman that can give in is one that one day will in the face of the world as it is, just as it makes sense that even in the face of humanity utterly succumbing morally and the greatest of them going down with the ship, Snyder’s Batman persists past the person himself and his failings in the most literal possible sense. Mortality was the other big arc of the teams’ solo Batman work - Court of Owls his realization of his limits in the face of a greater power and history, Death of the Family questioning if he wishes he could turn back the clock, Zero Year showing him when he was young and thought he was invincible, Endgame and Superheavy giving him a mere brush with death and thereby having him reckon with the notions of immortality and a chance at a new life altogether - so of course the end is age and death and what endures beyond. In one final twist on a Morrison notion, Snyder and Capullo’s Batman will never die, and as with Morrison that’s both a tragedy and a triumph; no matter how twisted the world becomes, no matter that a given take on Bruce Wayne can be savaged beyond recognition and finally break, there will always be a new Batman for each new age, adapting as needed but still born of the same pain and carrying the same ideals anew, in his world as in ours, in the hopes that someday, finally, he and his friends might get through to us.

* Plus they open the book with a THIRD ending where Bruce has to live through the dumb meme ‘uuhhhh duhhhh but what if he’s CRAZY and he’s really a patient in ARKHAM, and all the villains are orderlies and Penguins’ just a guy he sees out the window with an umbrella WOAH’ idea of the end of Batman we’ve all seen, and then he DEFEATS it, which rules.

** Not to downplay the role of his abilities as a pure nuts-and-bolts enjoyable storyteller. I listed my complaints above but for as wild as its goes Last Knight feels like Snyder’s most disciplined, controlled work on a panel-by-panel basis in years, and there are moments of poetic narration in issue two especially that I would go so far as to call Moore-esque in the casual, haunting beauty at a shattered world of miracles it evokes.