#but suspension of disbelief only goes so far
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does nobody in king's landing know this rightful heir that's getting denied her seat is the reason there's no food in the city orrrr 😭
#yeah yeah it's mysaria using sylvie and dyanna to manipulate i know. but this entire writing decision is just so fucking stupid#why doesn't anybody know this blockade is rhaenyra's doing??? like ????? my suspension of disbelief only goes so far#hotd lb
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half of my mind absolutely adores fem!harry designs and artwork that skilled and dedicated artists of this fandom have put into the world. the other half, unfortunately, knows that disco elysium's plot would not exist/work if harry or kim were women
#this isn't a jab at lesbians lol i just wanted to get this thought out of my mind. like de relies so heavily on harry being the#person he happens to be yknow. just being a woman would change so many fundamental aspects of him in so many ways#and im not opposed to seeing it!!! in fact - i want to...#suspension of disbelief only goes so far when it appears to be a 1 for 1 recreation of the plot yk...#kim would not have made it out of being a juvie officer. harry/dora/dolores dei metaphor would fall apart. harry would not be a cop#etc. who's to say she would have even been a gym teacher? it'd be Wildly different. might as well be another character entirely#discoposting
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ok having rewatched the last scene in youtube i have to say: i love alwake 2, i Do Not love all the dark place time shenanigans, they kind of annoy me a little bit not gonna lie, but i love the story enough to be like Sure. Yeah. Whatever. Fine
#tani's personal shit#like the alan misplacement in time? fun!#(/spoilers)#the whole dark presence being a thing bc of the bullet of light? not so much!#(and i Assume we're talking abt the dark presence cloud only bc thats as far as my suspension of disbelief goes)
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KinnPorsche: [has an episode where a guy recovers from a gunshot wound in what seems like a week] Me: Okay, that’s silly but fine. Also KinnPorsche: [has an episode where they fuck in a rooftop hot tub] Me: Okay, no, this is where I draw the line, there is not enough lube in the WORLD, sorry babes, I can accept that every man in the mafia is gay but I cannot accept this, the chafing, ye gods
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I would love to know how Garcia is so sure only teenagers can access her website. It is notoriously impossible to actually verify people's ages online.
A teenagers only social media platform just feels very OOC for Garcia to create. An online place where kids feel safe is a massive target for creeps and she would know that better than anyone.
#criminal minds#criminal minds evolution#cme#idk my suspension of disbelief only goes so far#there's just a lot of ''...really?'' going on here for me#the fact they didnt even try to explain it tells me that they know and dont care#the magical ''garcia can do anything'' handwaving is out in full force#also if the reveal is that the criminals are piggybacking her system for their network#which feels likely#its going to destroy garcia and im going to be so mad at the writers#not only is it lazy Penelope deserves so much better
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why does crash course in romance keep trying to hammer home this idea that haeng seon ‘looks too young to be a mother’ when jeon do yeon is almost 50 and looks her age???? like. she looks like a woman in her 40s - not that there is anything wrong with that at ALL - but. i can’t tell if those comments are meant to be jokes or not bc they’re not played for laughs but they sound so dumb when she very much looks old enough to have a teenage kid
#vic.txt#the timeline makes no sense bc when she becomes hae yi's guardian she's definitely late teens/early twenties#and the person who played her best friend in the flashback looks way older than the current timeline#to the point i thought they were different people until she brought up being on the team too#but ten years at MOST have passed and now she looks comfortably in her 40s and i'm like ?????#suspension of disbelief only goes so far my guys
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RWaRB was advertised as a queer slow burn enemies to lovers and that shit was not a slow burn at all. I liked the exploration of bisexuilty but felt it could have been done better. I felt like the plot dragged out a lot and there was a lot of technical jargon that had me skiiping through chapters.
If anyone wants a queer rec- wolfsong by tj klune its beautiful
am i the only one who just doesnt finish books that i dont like.
#my main gripe is being expected to believe it was even slightly realistic.#also why the fuck would i want to ever read about a presidents son and an ENGLISH PRINCE HOOKING UP! i hope both of those demographics die#suspension of disbelief only goes so far its ridiculous and contrived and boring#please stop sending asks about rwarb i cannot keep talking about it i need to live laugh love more#there was plot?#strawb.asks
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A Girl (Not Mine) || 1
Ghost is a little obsessed with Soap and a lot obsessed with Soap's girlfriend--you.
About this: ghoap/fem!reader, suspension of disbelief regarding anything military related is actually necessary for enjoyment, canon-typical trauma for Simon, intrusive thoughts, slut shaming, voyeurism, fingering, accidentally seeing nudes not meant for you, poor writing unless you squint, try squinting. 4k
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“I’m so glad I got a girl to think of,
Even though she isn’t mine.”
-
The first time Johnny mentions you, the 141 is fresh from a month-long leave.
Ghost has a love-hate relationship with time spent off duty. He’d like to enjoy it—to do fuck all, to hike through Clayton Vale twice in a day if it suits him, to drink tea for every meal. But all leave does is remind him of the glaring emptiness in his life, the one he usually fills with violence. So he spent the month climbing up the walls and crawling out of his skin, waiting to be called back like a dog brought to heel.
Here was his comeuppance for craving something to fucking do instead of relaxing the way Price had told him to do. Now they were on their way to San Lorenzo in Ecuador dealing with Ghost’s least favorite flavor of criminal: drug cartels.
It’s too close to Mexico. Too close to that which he would forget gladly if it didn’t come with the loss of so many valuable skill sets. He’s crawling out of his skin for a whole new reason, watching the water fly by beneath them, deep in memories.
Ghost takes all those feelings, fears, remembrances and swallows them whole. Lets them sink to a sour, dark place in his belly. He sits tense on the helo, still except for the rise and fall of his chest, his rifle a familiar weight across his knees. Sometimes he has to shut his eyes, swallowing against the rising nausea.
He only has half an ear on Garrick and Johnny’s conversation beside him, but it is all he needs to follow along.
“—lass of my own now,” Johnny is saying around a laugh, his accent thick enough to chafe at Ghost’s skin in a way he doesn’t want to examine, one that leaves him feeling raw but not necessarily hurt. “So no more picking up the barflies back in Hereford.”
“She making an honest man out of you, Tav?”
“Aye, you could say that.” Johnny sounds proud of the fact. It all is so far from anything Simon has experienced in his life that he feels no distant stirring of empathy, not even a muted sense of familiarity in the words. Honest men do not exist.
Not to mention, Simon’s never had a woman (willingly) and he never will.
“You love her?” Garrick asks, earnestly interested to hear the answer. Ghost couldn’t care less.
“Aye. There’s something special about her.”
“What, she’s cool with anal?”
Johnny crows with laughter, and now Ghost does feel something: annoyance, cloying, creeping up his spine like a spider in a web headed for the wiggling maggot of his brain.
“Will you two ever shut up?” he snaps. “Not a moment’s fucking peace since we boarded.”
“Sorry LT,” Johnny says, sounding genuinely apologetic. Ghost cuts his eyes toward the other man, assessing for honesty. Johnny’s face is too expressive: brows lifted, eyes wide and earnest, mouth tipped into a tiny grimace, like the thought of irritating Ghost gives him real pain. Between the two of them, Ghost can’t help but think that it’s Johnny who needs a mask if he wants to survive in the world.
Ghost doesn’t have the energy for this. He goes back to watching the scenery pass by. They are over trees now: thick lush jungle, the scent of which he associates with pain—plenty of which was his own. Plenty of which he caused to others.
“What about you, LT?” Johnny asks, calling out over the sound of the helicopter blades. “Do you have a woman back home?”
Ghost lets his head turn, slow and dangerous. Johnny’s audacity never fails to surprise him. “What do you think, Johnny?”
“Honestly?”
“Go on, then.”
“You look like if yeh’ve got a woman, she’s probably locked in yer basement.”
(right where she’d belong.)
Garrick slaps Johnny’s thigh, his face mottled with panic. He hisses under his breath, something like, There are faster ways to die, Tav! Less painful ways, too, Ghost thinks. He fixes Johnny with a dead stare. The silence stretches, growing long and thin and dangerous, like the blade of a knife, until Johnny looks away.
“Think less about my private life, Sergeant,” he warns him.
“Not often you tell me to think less, LT.”
Ghost just grunts, finished with the conversation, returning his unseeing eyes to the trees and slipping back into his own memories.
-
That should be—well, not the end of it. He expects Johnny to become insufferable about it; that’s just the other man’s way. Still, Ghost had never expected to see you.
He’s doing paperwork in the rec room, too stifled by the tiny, enclosed space of his office to remain there. Paperwork and debriefing are always his least favorite parts of an op. Give him a gun with which to kill and he will gladly kill; give him a pen with which to write and he spends half the time thinking about burying it in his own eye. Garrick and Johnny are there nearby fucking around on their phones having finished with their easy portion of the work ages ago.
A phone is what Johnny thrusts beneath Ghost’s nose. It takes all of his mental fortitude not to flinch away from the unexpected action (or, more likely, not to rip Johnny’s arm off and beat him half to death with it). His eyes flicker down to the screen on instinct and—there you are.
You have one eye squinted shut, your hand up to create a visor against the overbearing sun. The picture shows you from the bust upwards, and Simon sees it for approximately one full second before he grips Johnny’s wrist in a brutal hold and forces the hand and the phone away.
It’s already too late. He’s committed you to memory. The way your hair sits, its color in the blistering sun. The curve of your lips (fuckable, he thinks against his will) as you give Johnny behind the camera an exasperated smile. The arch of your nose (images now—fingers pinching noses shut, forcing mouths further down his cock just to watch them choke and struggle)—
“Get that out of my face,” he grits out through his teeth. His thoughts won’t stop, not now that the floodgates have been opened, and it makes him feel like a dog backed into a corner, frightened-violence rising up in the back of his throat like bile.
—the smooth line of your throat (and his hands around it, choking the light from your eyes just to fuck you when you’re soft and pliable and he doesn’t have to listen to you crying and begging)—shut UP!—
“It’s just my girl, sir,” Johnny laughs, his own eyes flickering back down to your image on the phone, like they are drawn to you. Like it is hard to look away. Ghost doesn’t have that problem—he has some discipline left. “And it’s not as if she’s naked.”
Ghost grips the pen in his hand so tightly that the plastic shell cracks. He’s barely keeping it together, sick and afraid and horrified and angry that Johnny has done this to him—has done this to his own girl—
His voice is rough when he croaks out: “What makes you think I care to see her, Sergeant?”
“‘S it wrong to share the most important person in my life with the other most important people in my life?” Johnny says, eyes too guileless to be taken seriously.
“Share less,” he snaps.
“Been saying that to me an awful lot lately, sir.”
“A good Sergeant would take my words to heart.”
“A good lieutenant would know a futile lesson when it’s biting him in the arse.”
Ghost’s eyes narrow. “Careful, Johnny. As much as I hate paperwork, I’d write you up—gladly.”
Johnny gapes. “What for?”
Ghost grins without mirth, mask stretching around his features. Even grinning cruelly like this, his face feels unused to any expression that is adjacent to happiness. He swears darkly: “I’ll find a reason.”
It would send anyone else running. Even Garrick looks fearful, though fascinated: the same look a man wears when he’s watching a car crash in progress. But if sense were dynamite, Johnny wouldn’t have enough to blow his nose. Instead, he just flops down on the couch close enough to flutter the pages in Ghost’s lap. Close enough for their knees to brush.
“Jesus, you’re a tadger today,” Johnny says quietly, boot knocking against Ghost’s, a touch he feels all the way up his leg. “Shove off some of that paperwork on us. What’s the use of being a lieutenant if you can’t lord it over your sergeants?”
“I’m sorry, us?” Garrick asks.
“I don’t shirk my responsibilities, Johnny,” Ghost says coldly, gathering his papers. His elbow brushes against Johnny’s ribs, the firm, burning warmth of the other man’s body. He jerks away. He’ll take the stifling seclusion of his office, that makeshift coffin, before he subjects himself to any more of this. “You’d do well to follow my example.”
-
Ghost resolutely does not think of you. Not during quiet lazy moments on base, not during the frustration of training recruits, especially not during the eerie calm of missions. You do not cross his mind.
His dreams are another thing altogether.
There are the dreams where he hurts and the dreams where he is hurting, and he doesn’t know which are worse. He only knows that they are made worse by your strange presence: your body bent and being broken in by others; you, bent and being broken in by him. He wakes in cold sweats, jaw aching from gritting his teeth in his sleep.
He hates himself for this last place where he cannot execute control: his subconscious.
-
“Mail?” Johnny asks cheerfully at the sight of Garrick seated on the bench outside the DFAC, a stack of papers and letters laying on his lap.
Johnny is sweaty, gray t-shirt clinging to his toned body as he (for once) keeps a companionable silence at Ghost’s side. They have been training recruits all day—work which Ghost considers far beneath his pay grade, but which he can’t refuse when ops are so slow to arrive and when he is so eager (desperate) to keep busy. Ghost lets himself sit heavily on the bench a safe distance away from Garrick, sweat cooling on his own body.
He’s not ready to be alone yet.
He’s allowed to do that. To want company. Of all the people on base, Garrick and Johnny (and Price) might be the most tolerable of the lot of them. During the rare moments when the pitiful piece of humanity left inside him craves companionship, this is the least painful method to mainline it.
He ignores the lack of letters for him. There is no mail for Ghost—there never is.
Garrick passes Johnny no less than four envelopes. Johnny’s soft smile as he flips through them speaks volumes. Ghost can guess who they’re from: his mother likely, who writes as often as she can. One of his various sisters, surely. Take your pick. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Johnny flip through the letters and settle on one in particular, thicker than the others, tearing it open and tugging the letter out.
The pictures slip from the folded piece of paper and fall to the ground.
Johnny dives to grab them, but all it does is bring Garrick’s attention to them more. Even Ghost’s interest is piqued, his dark eyes giving up pretending to watch the recruits limp back to their barracks to shower before dinner and following Johnny’s hasty movements instead, watching the hot flush that crawls up the back of his Sergeant’s neck.
“What are those?” Garrick asks.
“No’ a thing.”
Garrick lights up. He practically tosses his letter to the side. “She sent you pictures?”
“Possibly,” Johnny says smuggly, the images—old fashioned Polaroids, a nice touch—pressed to his chest. His eyes narrow at the expression on Garrick’s face. “Don’t even think about it, Gaz—!”
Garrick pounces. The two begin grappling, both of their faces split into wide grins. Johnny can only defend himself with one arm, his other protectively clutching the photographs to his bosom. They take each other to the ground and Ghost watches, half interested and half irritated, wondering who will win.
The pictures go flying—and fate’s invisible bitch of a hand causes them to land at Ghost’s feet. Garrick and Johnny freeze.
He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t, the same way he knows that he’s going to. Ignoring their renewed struggles on the ground as they fight to untangle themselves and stand, he leans down and reaches for the photographs.
The white of the Polaroid’s edges contrast nicely with his dark gloves as he gathers the pictures together like a deck of scattered cards.
“LT—“
They’re relatively tame. Perhaps you knew the high risk of sending them. In one you are kneeling on a bed amongst a sea of mussed, white sheets, wearing nothing but a t-shirt that you have tugged down between your parted thighs to offer yourself some modesty. It is painful to flip to the next one, but pain calls to Ghost, lures him in. In another you’re wearing some strappy lingerie but still covered artfully by the sheets, both hands covering your eyes, a grin on your face like you are mid laugh. Did Johnny take these photos of you himself? Did a stranger? A friend? Another shows your side profile, back arched, topless, every inch of you curved and poised.
You’re (a filthy little slut) so fucking pretty.
“Give ‘em back, LT, please,” Johnny asks gently, like he expects Ghost to tear them to shreds. Or confiscate them.
Ghost drops the photographs to the bench, wishing he could scrub the images of you from his mind. He shouldn’t have picked them up in the first place. It’s adding fuel to the fire of his broken brain, and he knows that he will pay for it dearly.
Johnny is talking. “—shy, she’d just die to know you saw.”
“She’ll only know if you tell her, Johnny,” Ghost reminds him. His mouth feels numb, his brain the quiet granted by white noise, a conglomerate of screams.
Johnny frowns. “Suppose so. You alright?”
“Since Ghost saw—“
“No, Gaz.”
Ghost watches the two of them enter the building.
His hand burns, where he has palmed the picture of you topless. He stands and slips the Polaroid into his back pocket. It’s on the tip of his tongue to call out for Johnny and give him the picture back—he could find some excuse, and Johnny would believe him, he knows it—but he doesn’t. He makes for his room, feeling sick with himself. He isn’t hungry. Not for food.
-
Ghost is compromised.
The thought replays in his mind over and over again as he drives to Price’s house in Solihull. You and Johnny have crawled beneath his skin and infected him, dug your way into his DNA and are affecting everything from his decision making capabilities to his dreams. He knows that going anywhere where you both will be is a mistake, but it’s one he can’t seem to help hurdling himself toward at high speed.
Nothing will happen, he tells himself, knuckles white against the steering wheel. He only does what he allows himself to do—no more. The others will be there at least, Garrick and Price and Johnny himself. Physical barriers between him and you. Human meat shields, if necessary. Ghost wouldn’t dare to lay a finger on you. (But who would stop him if he tried? Who could?) You are safe, he tells himself.
He is the last to arrive, dragging his feet up the concrete steps to the two story brick historical home that Price owns. He lets himself in the way that Price told him to and can tell by the eerie silence of the house that everyone is already outside enjoying the well-landscaped yard. Already he sees the evidence of you: a purse (go through it) laid neatly on the dining room table. He sets his keys beside it but does not touch it.
Ghost doesn’t bother trying to delay the inevitable. Every part of him wants to run, but that’s all he’s ever wanted his whole life. He’s used to it by now, used to being forced to walk toward the thing which terrified him. He squares his shoulders and slides open the patio door, slipping back out into the muggy heat of the afternoon, face mask in place, hood up.
The landscaping is one of the best features of Price’s house. The privacy fence is tall and appealing to Ghost’s seclusive nature, the lawn neatly clipped. There is a hedgerow running along the southern edge of the fence that is meticulously maintained. Flower beds lined with bricks rest along the house full of geraniums and phlox. The patio is smooth stone with an inlaid fire pit that would be crackling if the weather were any milder. An iron-wrought table sits nearby surrounded by chairs, and seated there are Garrick, Johnny, and Price.
You are over by the flowers, kneeling in the soft grass, picking phlox just a few shades darker than the sundress you’re wearing, the one that skims your soft thighs. Ghost’s eyes roam over you and away all before your head even turns at the sound of the door opening.
“LT,” Johnny calls, lighting up. “You made it!”
“Didn’t think you’d show, Lieutenant,” Garrick says with a smile.
“As if he’s got something better to be doing than spending time with us,” Johnny crows.
“Jesus, will you two leave the man alone? Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already regretting coming,” Price says. Ghost inclines his head, grateful for the backup.
He hears your approach, the soft sound of your flats against the patio stone. You are small (weak) compared to him, craning your head up to look in his eyes. He hates the dark part of his brain that calls you easy prey as he watches you twist the phlox stems between anxious fingers.
“You must be Simon—” Johnny shakes his head a little, subtle, visible only out of the corner of Ghost’s eye. “—ah—Ghost? I mean—”
“I don’t care what you call me,” he admits.
“Ghost,” you settle where it is nice and safe. “It’s nice to meet you. John talks about you all the time.”
“Likewise,” Ghost says flatly, hoping you will not mistake it for a compliment.
Garrick snorts. “Never shuts up about you is more likely.”
There aren’t enough chairs for everyone, so you sit on Johnny’s lap, legs crossed demurely, skirt riding up around your upper thighs. He wonders about the softness of your skin, wonders if his calloused touch would hurt you or if you’re used to Johnny’s by now. He could make it hurt. The thought doesn’t come with any zing of pleasure, just the cold apathy of fact. Has Johnny ever tried that? Has he ever—
Ghost’s gloved hand clenches into a fist, curling around the iron armrest of the chair. He takes a measured breath and holds it until his lungs ache. Those thoughts aren’t his own. They come from the dark part that Roba seeded inside him, that part with creeping vines too deep to root out. That part with thorns.
He could hurt you, the same way he could hurt anyone, he tells himself. But he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to.
He does only what he allows himself to do. No more. No less.
You and Johnny stand, heading into the house to retrieve a round of drinks for everyone. Ghost watches Johnny’s hand dip low on your back to the curve of your ass as he guides you through the open door, shutting it behind you.
“Are you alright, Simon?” Price asks around a cigar. “I know meeting new people isn’t exactly in your repertoire.”
“Don’t mother me.”
“Don’t have to be your mother to care about you.”
“Garrick—get lost,” Ghost barks.
The iron chair legs screech against the stone of the patio as Garrick stands hastily. “Had the same thought, sir. Hedges look lovely this time of year.”
When Garrick is properly out of earshot, pretending to find amusement in the neat hedgerows along the fence line, Ghost says: “I shouldn’t have come. I’m… I— can’t be left alone with her.”
“With—? Soap’s gal?”
Ghost grits his teeth in shame and nods.
“Do you know her?”
Ghost shakes his head in the negative, but it’s not necessarily true. He knows a thousand women just like her, soft and unexpecting. The betrayal always cuts deeper than his cock could reach (estoy preso, somos lo mismo, por favor).
He stands, chair legs dragging against the stone. “This was a mistake. I need to leave.”
“If you say so,” says Price, knowing better than to argue. “Go around the side. You won’t even have to see them.”
“My keys are inside. I’ll be quick.”
“Take care of yourself, Simon,” says Price, his eyes dark and lips downturned as he watches Ghost stalk to the patio door and slip inside.
-
He braces himself to see you and Johnny in the kitchen, but when the door slides open near-silent, neither of you are anywhere to be seen. Like a fool, he considers himself lucky. Quiet as his namesake, Ghost goes to the table and picks up his keys, palming them.
That’s when he hears it. The unmistakable muted slap of flesh on flesh.
(Go look.)
He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t, but that is his modus operandi these days: failing himself, doing what he isn’t meant to, seeing what is not for his eyes. His feet carry him silently to the door, which is cracked open just wide enough for him to see through into the room. It is a guest bedroom judging by the bland decor, the queen sized bed. Johnny has you sprawled on it, your sundress hitched up around your waist, his fingers buried to the final knuckle inside your cunt. Ghost can hear the way it squelches from all the way outside the door, knows that you must be dripping down Johnny’s wrist.
“Keep quiet, love,” Johnny pants, one hand over your mouth (he’s not doing it right) to muffle the whines and groans trying to slip past your lips. “Needy little thing, aren’t yeh? Squirming in my lap, making my cock hard right there in front of my Captain, in front of my Lieutenant—“
You whine something back, but it is lost into his palm.
“Don’t have time to get my cock in you,” Johnny sighs, twisting his fingers inside you, hooking them to press against that tender spot past your pubic bone that has your knees knocking together. He shifts his palm down to grip your neck, your panting breaths filling the room. “But you can bet this dress is coming off as soon as we’re home, do y’hear me?”
“Yessir,” you whisper, and it has Ghost’s cock throbbing.
This is not for him. He thinks about Johnny’s words from months ago: that you are shy. There’s no chance you would ever want to be seen like this by him. Reaching out, he grips the doorknob and quietly tugs the door closed, til the sound of Johnny’s palm slapping against your clit is muffled behind the wood.
He takes his keys and is gone before you ever know he was there.
-
Johnny texts him later that night:
Why’d you leave early, you numpty? We wanted more time with you.
Ghost doesn’t respond. He’s too busy spiraling in his own flat, losing control every few minutes and slipping back into that place of pain and blood and dirt.
An hour later, Johnny ends up adding, My girl wants me to say she was glad she got to meet you. Only Jesus knows why! Ghost definitely doesn’t respond to that. But he doesn’t delete the messages either.
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There is definitely something to this, whether by conscious choice or not, but Jensen plays Dean as more of a dork in the later years and maybe that’s just him being more comfortable as an actor, but there are quite a few instances where women turn him down (which sorry, spn writers, that is HILARIOUS OF YOU) Since I have been watching the later seasons recently I’ve noticed it a lot. For example, in one episode he sees a “hot” chick and turns and leers at her in an outlandish way and she snaps, “get a life, loser” and Dean’s just like smiling at her like, okay, sure, with a huge dorky grin on his face. Early season Dean would not have been a goof about it. It’s an interesting difference.
just thinking about how in early seasons dean knew he was good looking and bragged about it but in later seasons he probably wouldn't believe it if someone told him he was handsome and how that may be because it's post hell and he didn't see beauty in himself anymore
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I'm going to say it George screwed up by doing the Dance between Rhaenyra and Aegon. There is no logical way for Rae Rae to get all that support, she was a woman usurping her legitimate brother (yes, usurping because succession favors Aegon, no matter how the TB tries to spin it) and trying to put her bastards in the throne and in the ancestral seat of her husband's family. The Lords would be terrified of the precedent she would set.
It should have been Rhaenyra vs Daemon, like Anarchy was between cousins, Empress Matilda and Stephen de Bois.
yeah this has always been a critique leveled at grrm and the dance for as long as i can remember. there is really no sensible scenario where any lord would support an older sister with known bastards as heirs inheriting over her trueborn brothers, no matter how contrived george wrote the situation to be. the dance should have been between rhaenys and viserys or rhaenyra and daemon. but between rhaenyra and aegon? yeah no sorry but my suspension of disbelief only goes so far 🤕
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Yeah I just finished the show and I feel the same way. The ending made me so upset especially when they hinted that Bong-hwan still had feelings for Cheoljong in the present day even after his soul was untangled with Soyong’s with the scene of him reminiscing at the paintings. I feel like the number one rule of an isekai (this drama was 100% an isekai) is that the person transported never leaves the world they’re in after they get used to it. Unless it’s deliberately a tragic/sad ending like Scarlet Heart, the show shouldn’t have ended with Bong-hwan returning to present day Korea.
So, I just finished Mr. Queen and I have some problems with the ending, as i’ve noticed many are as well.
Unfortunately, I can’t bring myself to be satisfied with it. I’m already aware of how consistent media is about censoring queer themes in TV, so this didn’t come as a surprise. It just left me disappointed. Although, admittedly, I was a bit shocked at how far they were willing to go amongst other things throughout the show’s entirety. But I could also tell they were holding back with how they were to approach the gay undertones between Bong-Hwan and Cheoljong.
I feel like for a someone that was such a large aspect of the story, Bong-Hwan was disgustingly disregarded as a character during the finale and it felt painfully empty without him. The story just didn’t seem resolved without him being there. He lost everything; his friends, his love… It should’ve been presented as something much more sad but the narrative widely overlooked that. So-yong filling his place and reclaiming her body so early into the conclusion gave very little homage to his memory as her. Even Cheoljong felt like he lost something but will never find closure in that because So-yong neglected to reveal of Bong-Hwan’s presence.
But, above all else, my biggest peeve about the ending is how adamant people are to defend it despite how poorly they handled Cheoljong’s relationship with Bong-Hwan. Many are eager to deny that they had any feelings for each other. The argument being that “The feelings he feels is So-yong reclaiming her body” and I disagree with that. You know how I know thats bullshit? The fact that the show literally shows us otherwise. Even when Bong-Hwan was gone, he still influenced her personality. She still has his rotten mouth and his mannerisms. So I believe that her feelings for Cheoljong intermingled with his and he was influenced by her too. Therefore, he grew to love the king as well. Even if in the beginning, So-yong’s heart for Cheoljong definitely interfered with Bong-Hwan’s, that doesn’t mean they both didn’t grow from that point. And in the end, we’re shown that they’ll never truly be the same, and being apart of one another proved to change them.
As for Cheoljong, I believe he fell in love with Bong-hwan too (As they say, you fall for the personality more than the looks). Irregardless of whether or not he grew some feelings for So-Yong post learning that she was a member of the Kim family, doesn’t mean he didn’t fall in love with the version of her that was possessed by Bong-Hwan. We see he was already interested in him without So-Yong’s influence there.
With that all said, its disappointing that we never got to see an ending for the two when there was obviously a BL in there.
#plus it kind of doesn’t make sense for bong-hwan to still exist in the present day since his influence as soyong changed korean history#like canonically he influenced the introduction of the constitutional monarchy#but what are the implications of this?#does the monarchy still exist in present day like britain like in goong/princess hours & the last empress?#did Korea ever split into north and south?#was korea ever colonized by japan?#if not then does bonghwan realize he could have laid the foundation against japanese colonialization#my suspension of disbelief only goes so far#also my neurodivergent ass likes to overthink & analyze every piece of media I’m interested in#so i naturally ask questions like this even though ik the writers probably never put much thought into it#part of me wants to write a fanfic that could be canon ending compliant but adds explanation#but a bigger part would rather read a fix it where bong hwan never returns to present day
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So I wrote a bit about the film making of The Sign already but I wanted to dive a bit more into the VFX aspects b/c the show is - justifiably imo - getting a lot of praise for their work.
So I'm going to quote this video by VFX artists that I think sums up why, overall, the CGI works in The Sign:
"It's very interesting with a smaller budget Jurassic Park was crunched into choosing their VFX shots very very wisely and they didn't hold shots for longer than they needed to."
youtube
(I recommend watching the entire video, there's a lot of great discussion and education on how VFX is done in film. They're not simply "reacting" but talking about the techniques used in the film making itself.)
This is partly what The Sign is doing really well, they're not lingering on any shots, they're using their budget well by picking the most impactful moments to include more expensive and complicated CG effects.
What I love about smaller or mid-budget films is you can tell when the crew had to get truly inventive, creative, and purposeful when choosing how to portray a specific effect or action in a scene. Jaws is one of my favorite examples of this; Jaws cost 9 million (about 51 million adjusted to inflation) in 1975, and the shark animatronics (there were 3 pieces) was difficult to work with. This led to Spielberg and the crew switching things up and going for that shark POV that's now really famous.
It wasn't an accident, but it wasn't 100% planned or originally intentional, there was an issue, and the crew reworked things within their budget so they could still accomplish their creative goals.
The iconic first scene of the t-rex in Jurassic Park is a combination of an animatronic and CGI. In the video above they talk specifically about how this was filmed, and how setting the scene at night, with a singular main light source, and covered in water, really helped make the t-rex look "real". And why that scene holds up really well even today.
The Sign has used moments of CGI very sparingly which works within the story yes by building up tension within the narrative mystery, but also in the film making. They're not overwhelming the audience with it, whilst also using real sets and props to blend in with those scenes AND using a lot of the CGI in specific spaces.
The scene in ep01 where Phaya meets the Naga for the first time is a good example; the water is dark, there's only a singular light source (above) and there's a general lack of background. With only one light source, the VFX artists don't have to worry about shading every inch of the Naga to photorealistic standards, the image doesn't have to be insanely sharp b/c the water adds a layer of blur to everything, and since it's already a mystical creature the audience already has a higher suspension of disbelief anyway making us more forgiving to the fact this is not a "real" creature.
Compare this mythical creature with the dragons from Game of Thrones:
I want to first say I do think the special effects of GOT were really good, the VFX team's work is to be appreciated. But see how there's more light sources required for these dragons? They're just not just within a limited area, they're outdoors in the open which requires more math (literally) on where the light will bounce and reflect, plus all the disparities in texture on the dragons themselves. See how parts of their wings are more noticeably red then others?
Game of Thrones was a show with millions upon millions in it's budget, so they can indulge, The Sign doesn't, so they have to be smart. And they are!
Another standout scene so far in the series as far as filmmaking goes for me is from episode05.
If you look closely you can see the edges around Phaya are a bit blurred out and rewatching the scene you can see an image of him is almost transposed over the actor as well. It gives it a pseudo 3D effect, which helps blend the actor into the fake background which makes it less obvious it's, well, fake.
Then there's the Big Moment, the reveal of our Garuda:
I'm partially not convinced this was 100% CGI I'm wondering if they used a bit of claymation or maybe a miniature or something (maybe a puppet?). The weight of the movement and body feel like something more close to the use of a puppet or animatronic than straight CGI. (If you want to read more about miniatures in film I recommend this article on Godzilla 1954!)
But what I find smart about this shot is that the focus of the camera is on the Garuda, Phaya is much smaller and lower in the frame. I say this is smart because being distance from Phaya allows for the Garuda and the background to take up more space in the frame and contrast less with the real elements, ie Phaya's real human body. It also makes the Garuda more imposing, dominating the frame at a higher angle, and gives a sense of largeness in comparison to Phaya's smaller human self.
Since the Garuda is against an already fake background there is no need for a "light source". Notice how the Garuda has no shadows or light reflections, unlike the Naga from before (or the t-rex)? This makes less work for the VFX team b/c now they don't have to math out where all the bits of shadow, light, and color textures would come from, everything is flat and singular.
Keeping the Garuda at a distance as well, means we're not looking at or for the details of their feathers, or body. We see there is texture to them, but it doesn't need to look photorealistic b/c of that distance in the frame.
Contrast it with Simba from Lion King 2019, or Detective Pikachu:
Again, I think both look very good, but they need to because the audience is so close to the characters in frame. If Pikachu or Simba didn't have this level of care and detail put in when the audience is literally right in their faces everyone would notice how fake they look and complain (I mean I still complained about Lion King but b/c it was a bad and visually boring film but the VFX team did a great job).
We know this because Ant Man Quantumania didn't put the same care and effect in and it looked horrible. Everyone clowned Modak, and fair, but it wasn't just him that looked bad. Entire set pieces look clearly fake, like why is Ant Man suddenly in Zanarkand??
In the second image, look at Scott and Cassie's clothes, you can see the light on their clothes (especially Cassie's) isn't the same as what's happening in their surrounding environment (which is a lot jfc). It's also just poor film making because the frame of both shots is cluttered to the god damn BRIM with STUFF our eyes aren't sure what to focus on. There's a lack of perspective and weight given to the scenes (compare these wide shots to Jurassic Park when our protagonists see the dinosaurs in an open field for the first time, there's a sense of WONDER). So our human characters get completely lost in the frame and feel overwhelmed entirely. They also stick out because the CGI isn't fully well rendered.
Possibly my biggest chaotic take to date, I prefer the CGI in The Sign to Ant Man 3 there I fucking said it. Ugliest MCU movie to date I said what I said.
There is at least care going into The Sign, there's thought, there's creativity, there's a sense of passion. I can forgive that the Garuda isn't photorealistic because it doesn't need to be, it needs to be visibly believable within the world it's set in and it does. The show has been very smart about when to employ it's special effects, and how to film them. It's taken care. It has more in common with films like Godzilla Minus One which had a budget of 15 million and looks phenomenal, way better than Godzilla vs Kong or what we've seen from Godzilla x Kong (which I am looking forward to b/c I'm godzilla trash).
anyway watch the sign it's gucci
#the sign#the sign the series#chaos pikachu speaks#lord have fucking mercy this was long#chaos pikachu metas#Youtube#pikachu's bl film series
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The thing that bugs me about Dragons: The Nine Realms, (ya know, besides literally everything else) is that it completely kills the last message/theme of the original movies and even the original books.
Whether you love Hidden World or hate it you have to admit that the last scene is very close to the last scene in the books as far as tone goes.
The books end with telling us that the Dragons were real and now they're gone. But that someday the Dragons will return and the world will need a Hero and the Hero could be you.
Hidden World ends by telling us that the Dragons are hidden and gone. But the secret is kept and someday the Dragons will return when humanity is ready for them.
Both end with a bittersweet hopefullness. An admittance that the Dragons aren't real anymore, they're hidden and gone and never to be found. But. But someday they'll return. Someday Dragons will be real again. Someday the world will be full of adventures and heros once again. And maybe, just maybe, it could start with you.
And both end with a subtle nudge to do better. Humanity should get better so that someday Dragons can live in peace with us again. You should get better so that someday you can be the hero the world needs.
And nine realms takes the bittersweet hopefullness and that subtle nudge to do better and spits on both and the audiences face as well.
Nine realms says that the Dragons came back, and whoops! You aren't the hero! These random brats are! Nine Realms says the Dragons came back and, Whoops! The world's still not ready for them!
Both books and movies ended in the perfect way. They ended with a promise to the audience. A promise for the audience. The ending made it feel real. Like this could have happened in our world. Like this could happen to us. Like maybe the next time you're in the woods you might find a dragon!
The ending added a sense of realism that made the fantasy more believable. It took a fictional story and made it feel more like a piece of forgotten history. It aided the suspension of disbelief.
Nine Realms rips that apart and reminds you in the worse and harshest terms that this is all fake. It gives a lousy, poorly designed story, with weak characters and cheap animation, and offers nothing narratively.
And the worse thing is... They have no excuse. Other spinoffs could have worked! Other sequels could have worked!
There's a kiddie spinoff show called Rescue Riders and it doesn't insult the source like this. (In fact they had the kids able to speak the Dragons language, so if anything it honors the original books that way)
The Christmas special managed to dodge hurting the narrative by having the dragons barely interact with the people and only coming back for one Viking equivalent Christmas.
A great idea for a Dragons show would be a book adaptation that focuses on Hiccup 1 and Hiccup 2! I would love to see that!
They could do a reboot of the whole thing and stick closer to the books this time.
They could do a show placed inbetween the second and third movie, covering Hiccups first year as chief!
There are so many things they could have done with this franchise. But nope! They chose the WORSE possible option.
And that's why I hate big media.
Anyways, read the original books. They're so good.
#bookdragonideas#Another rant#httyd books#httyd#how to train your dragon books#how to train your dragon
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My Yandere Neighbor (Manga)
Created by: 杏蜜
Genre: Comedy/Slice of Life
So this is a translation that we picked up, and while we have five chapters of raws currently, only one of them has been translated and typeset, so we'll be going off of that. The story so far has some yandere action between Kishi and Okada but is overall pretty light, with Okada mostly just being confused and slightly offput by Kishi as of now.
The story starts out with Okada working with Kishi and her being offput by him as he seems to be following and noticing very minute details about how many inches of hair she's cut off of her bangs and that she's sighing more than usual. We learn that Okada has recently been promoted to Art Director and is currently very busy. Kishi can be helpful towards Okada which she appreciates but is still a bit weirded out by her reaction. We get a backstory about how the two meet with Kishi grumbling outside and Okada concerned and bringing him in so they can talk. We find out that Kishi has been mistreated by his boss, as he's made a mistake which caused his boss to severely berate him and forcing him to apologize to everyone. Okada feels sympathetic towards Kishi and his situation and decides to help by talking to her boss about it to get the situation resolved. This leads to Kishi being transferred to her department, allowing him to get a better job and to be closer to Okada, which leads to him just becoming a stalker. We get to Kishi hanging out with coworkers after hours, with them eventually rooting for Okada to look after him after hearing his story. Kishi then goes on an entire thing where he talks about how much he worships her and even ends up following her to the bathroom just to tell her that they were all going to sing karaoke. When it's Okada's turn to sing, Kishi brings an entire boom mic just to record her, though Okada promptly shuts it down. After singing and drinking, Kishi brings her home and he's pretty drunk and she's shocked to find that the two are now neighbors as he's moved in next door.
So already starting out, we can kind of see how the comedy of Kishi and Okada has unfolded, though it doesn't seem like it'll be a very drastic in terms of yandere actions are more of a light comedy type of thing, at least so far considering Okada's attitude. She doesn't seem really scared of Kishi only weirded out by the things that he does and Kishi is at least kind enough respond to Okada when she tells him not to do something like go into the girl's bathroom as well as try to actually help her during her job. This seems like a quirky love that might bloom between them then, along with a lot more comedic moments, though it's hard to judge from the first chapter alone.
Kishi himself seems to be the worshipping type as noted by his own words (and his own imaginations of him), which makes a lot of sense considering Okada basically was able to fish him out of an abusive boss and eventually land him a much better and healthier job. Most of his actions are strange, but relatively harmless, from trying to record Okada's voice while singing karaoke, to knowing what kind of tea she likes, to I guess following her to the bathroom. I imagine as the series continues, these actions will just get more and more bizarre but ultimately harmless and only really affecting Okada's suspension of disbelief. If they wanted to go a more serious route, they could also probably run in the direction of Kishi slowly realizing that Okada isn't as much of a goddess as he thinks she is, treating her more as person as the story goes on, or maybe just continuing the hijinks as they are.
Anyways, I'm curious to see where this series will go after all of this time. Since we're translating it, I would be very happy if you all read it so I can see your reactions.
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I find it strange that a lot of people are coming forward and saying that the staged finale was a bad play for one reason or another but it really isn’t and I don’t understand where the hate is coming from.
yeah i've seen some of this the last few days--staged finale has always been somewhat "controversial" in the lorehead scene, so a measure of disagreement/discourse about it makes sense. especially bc it was honestly a very big change to what people thought was the story and required people to go back and reevaluate a lot, which. people are naturally resistant at doing
but while obviously i think that some healthy discussion about these things is good, and i feel like i have seen a level of...misunderstanding? about it?? which has gone into the ways that people disagree
staged finale refers to the decision to stage the finale. that's it. staged finale just asserts that based on preexisting foreshadowing and based on the sheer level of suspension of disbelief in order for genuine finale to be real, it made more sense for the finale to be staged than for it to have been genuine. how the finale was planned, when the finale was planned, and to what ends it was planned are all things that you can disagree on w/ other staged finale believers/supporters while still being a staged finale believer/supporter, ykwim? if you believe that c!punz faked his betrayal to c!dream, then congrats! you believe in staged finale. oftentimes i see people say things like "i don't believe in staged finale, i think that c!dream faked the betrayal and all and always had c!punz on his side but i think that the reason behind why he did it is [X]" and it's like. staging the finale is one (1) event, not a comprehensive explanation for everything c!Dream does. that would be more in line with something like the "strategist dream interpretation," which in itself does have different readings as well.
people have listed all of the inconsistencies in the staged finale before, but just to summarize--the guy literally could've dipped when everyone came to "defeat" him, c!tommy leveraging his own life is basically no leverage at all when the mans has the revive book, skeppy cage is a joke, c!dream revealing all of his plans when they were maybe 10% carried out (the entire damn attachment vault was empty of items besides stuff that was literally faked, his own damn stuff, and stuff that he stole recently from c!tommy such as the Axe of Peace and the discs) is ridiculously stupid, why the hell does he have blackmail against c!punz included in a bunker that c!punz clearly had access to???? the list goes on.
(as someone who took awhile to be fully convinced in staged finale, what really tripped me up was the stream punz did the day before: here's a post breaking it down that definitely helped me to see it in a different light.)
as far as foreshadowing goes, just off the top of my head: the original prisoner is a constant question from the day of the prison's creation, being something that's even highlighted on the day of the staged finale itself. c!Dream saying he has "the biggest house on the server" and how it's full of redstone. the entire conversation he has with c!punz, obviously. his holding back on the favor with c!techno, the connection between the revive book and the prison that he establishes the day they begin prison construction.
from a logical perspective, the plan as c!Dream establishes it doesn't make any damn sense. c!dream had opportunities to escape that he didn't take for illogical reasons (if the only reason why he allowed himself to stay in a fucking possible kill chamber was to keep c!tommy from committing suicide, then? what about the revive book? what about the fact that he literally kills c!tommy just a few months later????) -- a level of plot contrivance is expected in the medium, but for a lot of people this was just. Going way too far. Unless he literally lost his whole mind (which, to be fair, was the persona being played) there's just. really no other way to make sense of what was going on there, if it was all genuine.
the other argument is a narrative one--people claim that the story established by a genuine finale is cleaner than the story of the staged one, and honestly. it's like. like that's...a feature, not a flaw? the reason why the genuine finale worked isn't because it was logically believable. dream is Dream Manhunt. he's famously hard to nail down, famously good at escaping sticky situations, famously a man that can outsmart his way out of crazy disadvantageous situations--like. just in terms of minecraft skill, i'd wager that most people would think that dream would've technically been able to pull off an escape even when facing down the collection of enemies that were there. like he had 2 stacks of pearls.
narratively, though, the staged finale has a story that's quite appealing on the surface. the "story" of the events from the spirit speech onwards is one that revolved around the idea of "attachment." c!Dream rejects attachment in favor of control in the spirit speech when he says he refuses to let his love for his dead pet control him anymore, and he focuses on the ability to use the discs to control c!Tommy. the fact that c!Dream's relationships deteriorate at this time seems to support this point, and c!Tommy's strength in his relationships being what saves him and damns c!Dream ties everything off into a neat bow. c!Tommy wins because he has friends and c!Dream loses because he doesn't, moral of the story established, hip-hip-hooray. And so it goes.
but when we look at this more in specifics...? it does start falling apart a bit, doesn't it?
although c!Dream supposedly begins his rampage over his existing emotional connections with the spirit speech, his reputation had been in shambles long before that point. c!Dream-as-villain is first established as part of the greater story in the lmanburg revolution, and that's a title that he never really sheds (this point being emphasized in inconsolable differences and the book c!Wilbur has c!Dream write.) Dethronement happens within a day of Spirit Speech, iirc, and on that day c!Quackity specifically points out that c!Dream has no one on his side but c!Punz. the moments where he is more specifically isolated go back to events such as november 16th, where his alliance with c!Wilbur involved blowing up L'manburg, his deal for the revive book, which involved his publicly betraying Pogtopia, or his opposing Manberg to the literal Manberg cabinet. etc. all of these events in the Manberg/Pogtopia era had c!Dream's loyalties erode to end up as just c!Wilbur and later c!Schlatt for the book, two dead men. (and i say eroded loyalties as if pogtopia really believed dream was on their side, like, ever? like he was never trusted in their ranks, even by c!Tommy, who was definitely the person he worked the closest with outside of c!Wilbur.)
if we look at Dethronement itself, it doesn't actually fit the pattern of "c!Dream cuts off his attachment to people in order to make himself uncontrollable" -- in fact, what it does fit the pattern of is. Staged finale? Faking an end in a relationship with people that he does consider important to him, making a public appearance of betrayal + anger to mask an existing connection, drawing attention to their being enemies to hide the fact that they're actually friends--that's not c!Dream cutting anyone off. That's just the exact same ploy that he uses to make people think that c!Punz betrays him (only c!Sapnap and c!George ended up deciding that Nah We're Gonna Kill You Now. Fuck You It's Coup Time. so that's how that ended up.)
Otherwise there's...the Badlands, who were perfectly happy to agree to joining the coup on the day of dethronement if it got them more power and land. c!Techno, who c!Dream wasn't an ally of until later on with the favor established and then doomsday, and who was someone c!Dream was quite openly wary of + afraid of due to his combat skill. c!Dream was alone literally before exile even happened, his remaining "attachments" of c!George and c!Sapnap turning against him like the day he goes on a whole spiel about ohhoho from today onwards i DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT MY ATTACHMENTS !!! I ONLY CARE ABOUT THE DISCS !!! like congrats you don't even have a chance to cut off any attachment at all dingus they all hate you and want you dead already.
further, with c!punz, he literally says that they're more than just employer/employee in the infamous conversation they have about planning a betrayal. if the whole point of the story is "attachment good," then why is it that what takes down c!dream is...his one remaining attachment? if his fatal flaw is that he didn't trust people enough, why is it that he loses because he trusted someone too much? it's not like c!tommy had any attachment to c!punz--c!punz explicitly "has a reason" to betray c!dream because of money. he helps c!tommy because dream "should have paid [him] more." none of that reflects that spirit of "attachment" that people claim was c!dream's downfall.
(not to mention how the people present in the staged finale to take c!dream down included people who literally hated c!tommy's guts. like. what brought them together wasn't the power of friendship, it was the power of we hate this green bastard.)
this isn't to say that c!Dream didn't have some relationships that go up in flames because he starts acting particularly cackling evil villain (with the green festival being the specific moment where he really goes full in with that persona, going from someone that was framing himself as having a Reasonable Complaint to literally the joker as soon as he gets the disc from c!Tubbo. It's purposefully played as a "mask off" moment that is meant to make him look like a crazy fucking villain in front of a large audience--whether or not you think that was a choice that he made in character or not, the way his personality changes as soon as he receives the disc is jarring.) In particular, his relationships with c!Puffy and c!Sam come to mind--c!Puffy burns the house she made him when she decides that he's too evil (but, uh, c!dream really wasn't even there for that and didn't ever have a particularly close relationship with her) and c!Sam is among those whose opinions of c!Dream become drastically more negative around the period of time that spans green festival->doomsday->staged finale. but it's important to note that c!Dream's relationships on the server aren't...great, at the time of spirit speech. They're uh, really fucking bad, actually. dethronement only makes them even worse, and all of this happens pre-exile. c!Dream had significant reason to be paranoid and afraid for his life long before exile happens, which is Quite Significant, Actually, when you consider that that paranoia is literally what goes into his decisions to carry out the staged finale + put himself in the prison (which isn't the case for genuine finale, where he's more motivated by a desire to control the server without being controlled himself.) staged finale does solidify c!dream-as-villain for a lot of people, but it never would've worked if people didn't already see him as a villain in the first place. c!Dream doesn't make people hate him with the staged finale; he uses hatred that he already knows exists to put himself in what he sees as a safer position.
and look we could go into a whole discussion about manberg/pogtopia c!Dream (which i do think is way overdue to be fair considering that that's where the paranoia + isolation that motivates him post-november 16th comes from in the first place) but this post is long enough already and i still have to figure out a better way to articulate my thoughts on the matter. anyway. carrying on:
people still have different feelings on why he carries out staged finale in the first place, but what we do know for sure is that it was meant to protect punz and protect the revive book. by firmly establishing that c!punz and him were on opposite sides, he keeps the revive book safe and both of their lives safe by extension: as long as no one would kill both of them at the same time, they had a means of reviving the other if need be and obviously had the information on how to raise people from the dead secure. which was important to them. and otherwise...c!Dream is paranoid. c!Dream is very, very paranoid, and this paranoia goes back at the very least to when he learns about the revive book. the prison, for all the dependence that it required of him, was tailor made (and the construction process controlled by dream every damn step of the way) to make sure that whoever was in the main cell would be safe from external threats. the security of the prison and the prisoner was the POINT. i've seen some assertions that staged finale implies that he predicted everything that happened after he was put in prison and...no? i'd say that c!dream's behavior indicates him being thrown off by c!sam as early as bad's prison visit, c!sapnap's prison visit for sure. c!Ranboo being banned from visitation pretty damn obviously fucks him up, tbh. he has c!punz explicitly out there to keep an eye out on the server while he's in the prison, where he was meant to remain for a period of time that was supposed to be much shorter than how long he ends up being there. likely because, you know, he was supposed to have a consistent and reliable source of information with the outside world in the form of c!Ranboo, and c!sam wasn't supposed to fall off the fucking rails as soon as the prison started. people have also talked about how having the staged finale be true means that c!dream doesn't lose, which...i mean. gestures at the prison arc? that whole thing is a loss so catastrophic it literally destroys him. he's never the same after the prison happens. the false betrayal of c!punz is deliberately like ironically described to c!sam, who was the REAL betrayal that fucking. ruins him. he loses SO MUCH over the course of the prison, which was something he literally designed to keep himself safe from external threat. as far as losses go, i definitely find that a lot more compelling and a lot less contrived than watching c!dream go "whoop de doo guess i have to die now" when he's like 3 pearls away from making a clean escape in the disc vault, tbh.
at the end of the day, i think having some conversation about staged finale is fun! and it's always good to reexamine what you believe to make sure that it still holds water. but i've really not seen much staged finale crit that makes the genuine finale feel favorable as an explanation: logically, it makes a lot less sense. narratively, it relies on a story that the audience wants to be true and acts as a "clean" explanation for everything while not actually taking into account a lot of what was ACTUALLY going on for c!dream (cutting off attachments for the sake of control versus watching people turn against you and becoming increasingly paranoid, for example). and believe them or not, the content creators involved have always asserted that staged finale was the plan from the beginning, not any form of retcon. (and we do know that people have been dodgy about stuff like the "original prisoner" literally since the week that c!dream was imprisoned, so take that as you will.) (okay to be fair theyve been dodgy about the original prisoner since the day that the prison began to be constructed, but the QnA from that first week of imprisonment sticks out to me in particular because cc!Sam had the biggest fucking smile on his face and staged finale would've been planned out and then carried out in entirety by the ccs and the c!s by that point.)
this is a longass post but uh hopefully it makes sense, lmao. tried to touch on most of what i've seen recently 😅
#my asks !!#long post#c!dreamisms#also like. im making this post from the perspective of someone who always saw staged finale as really cool#but really wasn't 100% convinced until like ehhh halfway through the prison arc roughly?#like im not claiming any credit as a believer from the beginning it took me awhile#so like. i get it.#i think for me a lot of it was also just a lack of faith in the ccs' planning and writing and feeling that narrative contrivance#could be explained through the ccs being less experienced writers + the sheer level of what they were carrying out#but you know. staged finale canon now and im not gonna sit here and pretend that im the smartest person in the room#when these guys definitely overachieved in terms of what i was expecting them to pull off#by making a plot twist that was THIS BIG and conning the whole damn fandom and server in one#like nah they deserve their W actually lmao
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Give me a Julian Bashir who's forced to go undercover as a Vulcan for some reason.
A Julian who can let his enhancements off the leash without so much as a raised eyebrow or funny look. But who also has to completely reign in his emotions - his sense of humour, his righteous anger, his grief - for far longer than is healthy for him.
I think he'd think he'd be fine with it; after all, he spent most of his life hiding his enhancements, how different could hiding his emotions be? Only to discover that while his enhanced abilities have defined his life, his emotions are what define him.
[At first I was thinking in a 'he disguises himself through the Academy until his discovery' way and how that would change him.]
[And then was like 'what if his parents did it at Adigeon Prime and then pretended they'd adopted a Vulcan (and maybe gaslit him into thinking he was Vulcan along the way?)']
[But both of those require quite a high level of suspension of disbelief]
[But also what if it was Terok-Nor-AU where Julian's discovered during the Academy and goes on the run and disguises himself as a Vulcan until the Federation turn up on Deep Space Nine]
[And then the more obvious idea turned up of it being an undercover mission]
[Either on Sisko's orders (although I can't really imagine why apart from somehow infiltrating the Vulcan baseball team which actually is just funny]
[Or a Section 31 mission, because while I can imagine there could be a few select Vulcans who would find S31 'logical', I feel like it would be pretty high-risk to try and recruit a Vulcan to actually be an agent, so the next best choice if you needed a Vulcan for some reason would be Julian I guess.]
[But like imagine Sloan showing up as Julian's handler halfway through the mission to check in and he's not even met with so much as a scowl bc Julian's in too deep...]
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