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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 2 years ago

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Character opinion bingo ask: Kyouka and Akutagawa?

~ Note

Hi Note! :D

Omg... Kyouka and Akutagawa my beloveds...

Kyouka:

They are sooooo cool looking: Kyouka's outfits are excellent and she looks great in everything. Ok so maybe it's more pretty/cute but still. I think it counts.

Wasted potential: Sigh... ok so this might be an unpopular opinion, but while I think she's fine in the main series I felt her role in Beast should've been more significant. While it made sense that her and Atsushi would end up unhealthily over-reliant on each other in an environment where they're the only ones they have... I think it would've been more intriguing to have Kyouka take a bigger role there, since she was so important to the sskk dynamic in the main universe. Also I was under the impression that the whole reason she bonded so strongly to Atsushi was because of his helping and inspiring her... so idk. I wish she had've left the Mafia in Beast and stayed out but didn't get found right away. Maybe Akutagawa is forced to reassess his role as an older sibling based off their interactions (early indications that his and Gin's relationship won't be magically repaired once he finds her). Maybe Kyouka is constantly conflicted between her desire to get out from the Mafia and her desire to not see Atsushi get hurt. Maybe Akutagawa is faced with someone who can't decide whether or not she is helping or hindering him, someone he doesn't know well enough to reach but knows just well enough to feel uncomfortable with the notion of cutting her down. I just think more could've been done than using Kyouka as a means of forcing Atsushi's hand. Plus it would've meant Atsushi and Kyouka angst as she tries to reach him and he tries to reach her and they both, due to acting out of their own trauma and fear, fundamentally miss what the other really needs. Anyways. Sorry for the rant. To clarify, I don't hate what was done (Beast is really good!) I just. Yeah, wasted potential.

They're deeper than they seem: I mean that was the whole point of my "Kyouka's impact on sskk" post. But more than that, she actually has a lot of depth to her. She's clever and competent, as well as childish and snarky. She's easily taken with simple joys and also capable of unshakeable focus. She has issues trusting people and real, honest, believable reactions to her own pain and seeing others go through it. Slowly but surely, she comes alive. She's a whole person!!! And her development is still one of my favourites in the series.

They work better as part of a dynamic: I would love some solo Kyouka focus but it's funny because much as Kyouka isn't intending it, for some reason her mere presence means that someone around her is getting some realization or character development. Seriously. She kickstarts sskk, her choices are at the crux of Kouyou's story and development. Her conflict with Higuchi affirms Higuchi's loyalty even in the face of severe injury, and Mushitarou starts taking advice from Yokomizo when her and Atsushi go to save him. Even Dazai has a moment of genuineness when he's talking to her about people changing for the better - he's thinking about Oda and I'm pretty sure Asagiri confirmed those were his honest thoughts. So, yeah, I love Kyouka as a character individually but also whenever she shows up it means we're getting some good conflict and scenes with other characters too. Which is awesome and compelling.

They've never done anything wrong in their life: yeah :)

Akutagawa:

They are sooooo cool looking/Why do they look like that: I. I want to roast him for what he's wearing and his hair but sometimes he really does look legitimately cool, especially in the manga. I don't think I will ever get that one panel from the Fukuchi fight out of my head - the one where he creates essentially Rashoumon spider limbs out of his shirt - I have no idea why he dresses like a goth victorian edgelord but props to him for somehow pulling it off. (This panel btw. Gosh he's so cool.)

If they were real, I'd be afraid of them: I mean, I think this is a valid thing to feel.

Didn't get enough screen time: Ok so I know that sounds weird but for his importance he actually doesn't get that many scenes... surprisingly? Like, he shows up at key scenes and then basically dips lol. For a deuteragonist and foil of the main character, idk I guess I was just surprised when I started reading at how little he actually appeared. Especially since the doa arc started. Where is my boy Asagiri??? Can he maybe... not be a vampire anymore? K thanks.

They work better as part of a dynamic: Well, clearly the sskk dynamic is top tier. And I love his relationship with Gin and would like to see it expanded on, plus the complicated mess that is his dynamic with Kyouka. His dynamic with Dazai, uncomfortable though it is to see, is very intriguing as a reader and I desperately want to know more. However... tying back in with what I said about the screen time, I really want to see more of just Akutagawa. The Hawthorne/Mitchell fight is so good to me because he's the only character we really know in advance at that point, and a lot of the fight is him thinking over Atsushi's words. I would like to see more of Akutagawa on his own tbh, and I'm hoping that's what the whole vampire thing builds up to.

#thanks for the ask!#hehehe these kinds of things are fun #storyrambles #bsd #bsd kyouka #bsd akutagawa

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diamondcitydarlin · 3 years ago

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all personal feeling/preference aside, I really feel like one of the bigger cruxes of the shipping debates is caused by the confusing tonal switch the show takes around the end of episode 3 (I know this has been talked about to death but this is just my stream of consciousness rn ok). The Loki series starts off establishing the dynamic between Loki and Mobius; apart from Mobius and Ravonna's 'friendship', some interactions with B-15, and some expository moments with other TVA folks (like Casey), there aren't really any other focal characters or dynamics and it stays this way for the first two, rather lengthy episodes. The audience is essentially being told 'these are the two main characters of this story and it will begin and end with them and their dynamic', so this is doubly unfair to people who 1) may not have liked the dynamic bc idk why you'd think after watching the first 2 eps that the show would be about anything else other than this and a character journey for Loki (and time travel), 2) people who did like the dynamic because after the 2nd episode, guess what, it's not really a thing after that. You'd have no way of knowing that from the FIRST TWO EPISODES of a 6-part series.

It's not that Sylvie is inherently a problem- at least not to me, I love the idea of everything she could have been and that's generally how I think of her- it's that the show takes an abrupt turn from not only focusing the heart of the story around a particular dynamic, but it also begins to prioritize Sylvie's pain and struggle at the expense of literally every other character, including the two the show led us to believe were going to be the most important to the narrative. The set up in episodes one and two for this series to be an opportunity for Loki to take a hard look at himself and grow as a character as a result of his new circumstances is just about completely forgotten because it seems enough to the writers that he fall in love with a female version of himself that he met 12 hours prior- character development speedrun!! Once Sylvie shows up, everything in the show seems to readjust to orbit solely around her and the pain only she is justified to have. Which, honestly, would be FINE if they had just established from the first episode that this would be the direction of the show (soidknowtostopwatchinginthefirstfiveseconds). Maybe call it 'Sylvie' instead or make her more clearly the MCU version of Enchantress and give her her own series like Agatha.

anyway it creates endless roundabout arguments of who goes best with whom because...there isn't really a good answer to that in terms of what the show gave us (see: trash). The Loki that later falls head over heels in love with Sylvie and forgets his previous 500 personalities entirely isn't really the same Loki that had scenes with Mobius prior, because Loki was rendered to caricature playdoh that molded around whoever his scene partner happened to be and whatever goals Michael had in mind at the time. There isn't anything very consistent about him in his own namesake show, there is no real arc or linear growth we can track just, 'now he's this' and 'oh but now he's this' when it's not really clear how the character got from point a to point b.

That's not to say I didn't want to know about Sylvie and her pain- of course I did. I would so much rather have heard about and seen flashbacks of Sylvie's time in the palace, what her Thor was like, how deeply she grieves Frigga and how it drives her anger etc etc, I just wanted to see it depicted with the same approach as Loki's was, in that she isn't immune from being criticized by other characters or allowing the audience room to interpret her behavior for themselves rather than manipulating the narrative to frame her as justified in everything. If B-15, Mobius aNd Loki are made to look critically at themselves, so should she so as to be a fully three dimensional part of the ensemble.

This is also why I will maintain for the rest of time the Loki / Sylvie dynamic would have been better served as something platonic / more frenemy sibling-like at least at first...because for as much as the show REALLY WANTS Loki to hate himself, for as many chances as the show takes to make him cringe at his own behavior and that of his variants, they really did nothing in the way of explaining why Sylvie is not only an exception to the Lokis-hate-Lokis rule, she fucking makes one fall in love with her in matter of hours. How? I mean, they had fun banter and there was a suggestion of them eventually getting along better but nothing that would convince me true love happened right there on apocalypse planet, that now suddenly every motive that Loki has is purely, selflessly in favor of Sylvie, a presumed Loki variant that he has already expressed intimidation towards for being more elusive than him. (What happened to him feeling threatened by her...? He just kinda forgot I guess?) The only explanation is that she enchanted him and we'll find that out in season 2, but I'm not holding my breath. It'd be a dope twist tho tbh and would explain so much.

so idk, Loki (tv show) sucked, and that's mostly because it had every opportunity to be something new, refreshing, a show for more marginalized members of the Marvel viewer base, hell maybe even profound, and it took none of them 🙃

#antisylki #lokius #-continues to rattle into the void about why this show sucked-#-even tho it deserves none of my breath or time-#this is what happens when shows with so much potential fall flat #there is nothing worse!!#im tyra banks #I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU HOW DARE YOU

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ot3 · 4 years ago

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i watched red vs blue: zero with my dear friends today and i was asked to “post” my “thoughts” on the subject. Please do not click this readmore unless, for some reason, you want to read three thousand words on the subject of red vs blue: zero critical analysis. i highly doubt that’s the reason anyone is following me, but hey.

anyway. here you have it.

Here are my opinions on RVB0 as someone who has quite literally no nostalgia for any older RVB content. I’ve seen seasons 1-13 once and bits and pieces of it more than once here and there, but I only saw it for the first time within the past couple of months. I’ve literally never seen any other RT/AH content. I can name a few people who worked on OG Red vs. Blue but other than Mounty Oum I have NO idea who is responsible for what, really, or what anything else they’ve ever worked on is, or whether or not they’re awful people. I know even less about the people making RVB0 - All I know is that the main writer is named Torrian but I honestly don’t even know if that’s a first name, a last name, or a moniker. All this to say; nothing about my criticism is rooted in any perceived slight against the franchise or branding by the new staff members, because I don’t know or care about any of it. In fact, I’m going to try and avoid any direct comparison between RVB0 and earlier seasons of RVB as a means of critique until the very end, where I’ll look at that relationship specifically.

So here is my opinion of RVB0 as it stands right now:

1. The Writing

Everything about RVB0 feels as if it was written by a first-time writer who hasn’t learned to kill his darlings. The narrative is both simultaneously far too full, leaving very little breathing room for character interaction, and oddly sparse, with a story that lacks any meaningful takeaway, interesting ideas, or genuine emotional connection. It also feels like it’s for a very much younger audience - I don’t mean this as a negative at all. I love tv for kids. I watch more TV for kids than I do for adults, mostly, but I think it’s important to address this because a lot of the time ‘this is for kids’ is used to act like you’re not allowed to critique a narrative thoroughly. It definitely changes the way you critique it, but the critique can still be in good faith. I watched the entirety of RVB0 only after it was finished, in one sitting, and I was giving it my full attention, essentially like it was a movie. I’m going to assume it was much better to watch in chunks, because as it stood, there was literally no time built into the narrative to process the events that had just transpired, or try and predict what events might be coming in the future. When there’s no time to think about the narrative as you’re watching it, the narrative ends up as being something that happens to the audience, not something they engage with. It’s like the difference between taking notes during a lecture or just sitting and listening. If you’re making no attempt to actively process what’s happening, it doesn’t stick in your mind well. I found myself struggling to recall the events and explanations that had immediately transpired because as soon as one thing had happened, another thing was already happening, and it was like a mental juggling act to try and figure out which information was important enough to dwell on in the time we were given to dwell on it.

Which brings me to another point - pacing. Every event in the show, whether a character moment, a plot moment, or a fight scene, felt like it was supposed to land with almost the exact same amount of emotional weight. It all felt like The Most Important Thing that had Yet Happened. And I understand that this is done as an attempt to squeeze as much as possible out of a rather short runtime, but it fundamentally fails. When everything is the most important thing happening, it all fades into static. That’s what most of 0’s narrative was to me: static. It’s only been a few hours since I watched it but I had to go step by step and type out all of the story beats I could remember and run it by my friends who are much more enthusiastic RVB fans than I am to make sure I hadn’t missed or forgotten anything. I hadn’t, apparently, but the fact that my takeaway from the show was pretty accurate and also disappointingly lackluster says a lot. Strangely enough, the most interesting thing the show alluded to - a holo echo, or whatever the term they used was - was one of the things least extrapolated upon in the show’s incredibly bulky exposition. Benefit of the doubt says that’s something they’ll explore in future seasons (are they getting more? Is that planned? I just realized I don’t actually know.)

And bulky it was! I have quite honestly never seen such flagrant disregard for the rule of “show, don’t tell.” There was not a single ounce of subtlety or implication involved in the storytelling of RVB0. Something was either told to you explicitly, or almost entirely absent from the narrative. Essentially zilch in between. We are told the dynamic the characters have with each other, and their personality pros and cons are listed for us conveniently by Carolina. The plot develops in exposition dumps. This is partially due to the series’ short runtime, but is also very much a result of how that runtime was then used by the writers. They sacrificed a massive chunk of their show for the sake of cramming in a ton of fight scenes, and if they wanted to keep all of those fight scenes, it would have been necessary to pare down their story and characters proportionally in comparison, but they didn’t do that either. They wanted to have it both ways and there simply wasn’t enough time for it.

The story itself is… uninteresting. It plays out more like the flimsy premise of a video game quest rather than a piece of media to be meaningfully engaged with. RVB0 is I think something I would be pitched by a guy who thinks the MCU and BNHA are the best storytelling to come out of the past decade. It is nothing but tropes. And I hate having to use this as an insult! I love tropes. The worst thing about RVB0 is that nothing it does is wholly unforgivable in its own right. Hunter x Hunter, a phenomenal shonen, is notoriously filled with pages upon pages of detailed exposition and explanations of things, and I absolutely love it. Leverage, my favorite TV show of all time, is literally nothing but a five man band who has to learn to work as a team while seemingly systematically hitting a checklist of every relevant trope in the book. Pacific Rim is an incredibly straightforward good guys vs giant monsters blockbuster to show off some cool fight scenes such as a big robot cutting an alien in half with a giant sword, and it’s some of the most fun I ever have watching a movie. Something being derivative, clunky, poorly executed in some specific areas, narratively weak, or any single one of these flaws, is perfectly fine assuming it’s done with the intention and care that’s necessary to make the good parts shine more. I’ll forgive literally any crime a piece of media commits as long as it’s interesting and/or enjoyable to consume. RVB0 is not that. I’m not sure what the main point of RVB0 was supposed to be, because it seemingly succeeds at nothing. It has absolutely nothing new or innovative to justify its lack of concern for traditional storytelling conventions. Based solely on the amount of screentime things were given, I’d be inclined to say the narrative existed mostly to give flimsy pretense for the fight scenes, but that’s an entire other can of worms.

2. The Visuals + Fights

I have no qualms with things that are all style and no substance. Sometimes you just want to see pretty colors moving on the screen for a while or watch some cool bad guys and monsters or whatever get punched. RVB0 was not this either. The show fundamentally lacked a coherent aesthetic vision. Much of the show had a rather generic sci-fi feel to it with the biggest standouts to this being the very noir looking cityscape, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like something from a batman game, or the temple, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like a world of warcraft raid. They were obviously attempting to get variety in their environment design, which I appreciate, but they did this without having a coherent enough visual language to feel like it was all part of the same world. In general, there was also just a lack of visual clarity or strong shots. The value range in any given scene was poor, the compositions and framing were functional at best, and the character animation was unpleasantly exaggerated. It just doesn’t really look that good beyond fancy rendering techniques.

The fight scenes are their entire own beast. Since ‘FIGHT SCENE’ is the largest single category of scenes in the show, they definitely feel worth looking at with a genuine critical eye. Or, at least, I’d like to, but honestly half the time I found myself almost unable to look at them. The camera is rarely still long enough to really enjoy what you’re watching - tracking the motion of the character AND the camera at such constant breakneck high speeds left little time to appreciate any nuances that might have been present in the choreography or character animation. I tried, believe me, I really did, but the fight scenes leave one with the same sort of dizzy convoluted spectacle as a Michael Bay transformers movie. They also really lacked the impact fight scenes are supposed to have.

It’s hard to have a good, memorable fight scene without it doing one of three things: 1. Showing off innovative or creative fighting styles and choreography 2. Making use of the fight’s setting or environment in an engaging and visually interesting way or 3. Further exploring a character’s personality or actions by the way they fight. It’s also hard to do one of these things on its own without at least touching a bit on the other two. For the most part, I find RVB0’s fight scenes fail to do this. Other than rather surface level insubstantial factors, there was little to visually distinguish any of RVB0’s fight scenes from each other. Not only did I find a lot of them difficult to watch and unappealing, I found them all difficult to watch and unappealing in an almost identical way. They felt incredibly interchangeable and very generic. If you could take a fight scene and change the location it was set and also change which characters were participating and have very little change, it’s probably not a good fight scene.

I think “generic” is really just the defining word of RVB0 and I think that’s also why it falls short in the humor department as well.

3. The Comedy

Funny shit is hard to write and humor is also incredibly subjective but I definitely got almost no laughs out of RVB0. I think a total of three. By far the best joke was Carolina having a cast on top of her armor, which, I must stress, is an incredibly funny gag and I love it. But overall I think the humor fell short because it felt like it was tacked on more than a natural and intentional part of this world and these characters. A lot of the jokes felt like they were just thrown in wherever they’d fit, without any build up to punchlines and with little regard for what sort of joke each character would make. Like, there was some, obviously Raymond’s sense of humor had the most character to it, but the character-oriented humor still felt very weak. When focusing on character-driven humor, there’s a LOT you can establish about characters based on what sort of jokes they choose to make, who they’re picking as the punchlines of these jokes, and who their in-universe audience for the jokes is. In RVB0, the jokes all felt very immersion-breaking and self aware, directed wholly towards the audience rather than occurring as a natural result of interplay between the characters. This is partially due to how lackluster the character writing was overall, and the previously stated tight timing, but also definitely due to a lack of a real understanding about what makes a joke land.

A rule of thumb I personally hold for comedy is that, when push comes to shove, more specific is always going to be more funny. The example I gave when trying to explain this was this:

saying two characters had awkward sex in a movie theater: funny

saying two characters had an awkward handjob in a cinemark: even funnier

saying two characters spent 54 minutes of 11:14's 1:26 runtime trying out some uncomfortably-angled hand stuff in the back of a dilapidated cinemark that lost funding halfway through retrofitting into a dinner theater: the funniest

The more specific a joke is, the more it relies on an in-depth understanding of the characters and world you’re dealing with and the more ‘realistic’ it feels within the context of your media. Especially with this kind of humor. When you’re joking with your friends, you don’t go for stock-humor that could be pulled out of a joke book, you go for the specific. You aim for the weak spots. If a set of jokes could be blindly transplanted into another world, onto another cast of characters, then it’s far too generic to be truly funny or memorable. I don’t think there’s a single joke in RVB0 where the humor of it hinged upon the characters or the setting.

Then there’s the issue of situational comedy and physical comedy. This is really where the humor being ‘tacked on’ shows the most. Once again, part of what makes actually solid comedy land properly is it feeling like a natural result of the world you have established. Real life is absurd and comical situations can be found even in the midst of some pretty grim context, and that’s why black comedy is successful, and why comedy shows are allowed to dip into heavier subject matter from time to time, or why dramas often search for levity in humor. It’s a natural part of being human to find humor in almost any situation. The key thing, though, once again, is finding it in the situation. Many of RVB0’s attempts at humor, once again, feel like they would be the exact same jokes when stripped from their context, and that’s almost never good. A pretty fundamental concept in both storytelling in general but particularly comedy writing is ‘setup and payoff’. No joke in RVB0 is a reward for a seemingly innocuous event in an earlier scene or for an overlooked piece of environmental design. The jokes pop in when there’s time for them in between all the exposition and fighting, and are gone as soon as they’re done. There’s no long term, underlying comedic throughline to give any sense of coherence or intent to the sense of humor the show is trying to establish. Every joke is an isolated one-off quip or one-liner, and it fails to engage the audience in a meaningful way.

All together, each individual component of RVB0 feels like it was conjured up independently, without any concern to how it interacted with the larger product they were creating. And I think this is really where it all falls apart. RVB0 feels criminally generic in a way reminiscent of mass-market media which at least has the luxury of attributing these flaws, this complete and total watering down of anything unique, to heavy oversight and large teams with competing visions. But I don’t think that’s the case for RVB0. I don’t know much about what the pipeline is like for this show, but I feel like the fundamental problem it suffers from is a lack of heart.

In comparison to Red vs. Blue

Let's face it. This is a terrible successor to Red vs. Blue. I wouldn’t care if NONE of the old characters were in it - that’s not my problem. I haven’t seen past season 13 because from what I heard the show already jumped the shark a bit and then some. That’s not what makes it a poor follow up. What makes it a bad successor is that it fundamentally lacks any of the aspects of the OG RVB that made it unique or appealing at all. I find myself wondering what Torrian is trying to say with RVB0 and quite literally the only answer I find myself falling back onto is that he isn’t trying to say anything at all. Regardless of what you feel about the original RVB, it undeniably had things to say. The opening “why are we here” speech does an excellent job at establishing that this is a show intended to poke fun at the misery of bureaucracy and subservience to nonsensical systems, not just in the context of military life, but in a very broad-strokes way almost any middle-class worker can relate to. At the end of the day, fiction is at its best when it resonates with some aspect of its audience’s life. I know instantly which parts of the original Red vs Blue I’m supposed to relate to. I can’t say anything even close to that about 0.

RVB is an absurdist parody that heavily satirizes aspects of the military and life as a low-on-the-food-chain worker in general that almost it’s entire target audience will be familiar with. The most significant draw of the show to me was how the dialogue felt like listening to my friends bicker with each other in our group chats. It required no effort for me to connect with and although the narrative never outright looked to the camera and explained ‘we are critiquing the military’s stupid red tape and self-fullfilling eternal conflict’ they didn’t need to, because the writing trusted itself and its audience enough to believe this could be conveyed. It is, in a way, the complete antithesis to the badass superhero macho military man protagonist that we all know so well. RVB was saying something, and it was saying it in a rather novel format.

Nothing about RVB0 is novel. Nothing about RVB0 says anything. Nothing about it compels me to relate to any of these characters or their situations. RVB0 doesn’t feel like absurdism, or satire. RVB0 feels like it is, completely uncritically, the exact media that RVB itself was riffing off of. Both RVB0 and RVB when you watch them give you the feeling that what you’re seeing here is kids on a playground larping with toy soldiers. It’s all ridiculous and over the top cliche stupid garbage where each side is trying to one-up the other. The critical difference is, in RVB, we’re supposed to look at this and laugh at how ridiculous this is. In RVB0 we’re supposed to unironically think this is all pretty badass.

The PFL arc of the original RVB existed to show us that setting up an elite team of supersoldiers with special powers was something done in bad faith, with poor outcomes, that left everyone involved either cruel, damaged, or dead. It was a bad thing. And what we’re seeing in RVB0 is the same premise, except, this time it’s good. We’re supposed to root for this format. RVB0 feels much more like a demo reel, cutscenes from a video game that doesn’t exist, or a shonen anime fanboy’s journal scribbling than it feels like a piece of media with any objective value in any area. In every area that RVB was anti-establishment, RVB0 is pure undiluted establishment through and through.

#long post #really long post guys. look out !#rvb

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elvendorx · 2 years ago

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i just dug up your posts about J&S and their dynamic on their own and within the Marauders four and I am simple enamored with everything you say, i would read a whole essay if you had one <333

also can i get 5 and 44 for the ask game?

Ahh thank you so much, I decided a while ago to post what I enjoy so it's nice that it resonates! I have lot of drafts and also some asks that are long overdue responses (my mind's a mess so they take a while to structure coherently but if you’ve ever sent me an ask, I'm not ignoring it I'm just incredibly slow!) so maybe those will do instead of essays?? (although I can’t control my word counts so maybe they’ll feel like essays💀)

Also I just realised you wrote Benefits which I loved! <33

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something?

This is lowkey tough. I don’t have too many pet peeves so much as things I don’t agree with but that I can skim over. Things that I flat-out won't read (mainly ships, and cis mpreg) are things I filter out anyway, I’m good at knowing what won’t work for me by now. It always comes down to characterisation for me, as soon as I stop believing in or recognising the character, I’m out. I do feel like I’m super picky with small things so I try to breeze past things that don’t hugely matter.

Like I often cringe at the way people write house-elves that aren’t in the series, especially house elf names? This is petty of me but “Tippy” and “Tiffy” make my skin crawl. Again, am I just being a mean pedant, but the names of house-elves in the series have harsher consonants - Hokey, Kreacher, Winky, Dobby. I also don’t really like reading about the Potters as having a house-elf because as much as they were rich and pureblood, they were clearly not part of the pureblood elite and I think they’d deviate from the more antiquated, traditional aspects of old wizarding families. In my head Fleamont and Euphemia are old rich hippies but it’s not really a make-or-break.

Dialogue can make or break a fic for me, and dialogue that is just there for the plot and doesn’t take on any traits of the person speaking it is something I struggle to stick with - again that’s characterisation, I struggle with OOC stuff but I also struggle when the characters are like, fine, but essentially blank slates who I wouldn’t recognise if I didn’t know who they were supposed to be.

44. Rant about something writing related.

God, my main writing rants are at myself. Like when I find something I wrote years ago (because I didn't write basically anything between 2017-2021) and I'm like "ooh this is good!" and I've left it halfway through a crucial sentence and because it's been years I can't remember where it was going and I have to abandon it because I don't have the mental room for another WIP right now. But also sometimes these pieces are helpful and fit into other things I’m working on, so swings and roundabouts.

And also just the way I write which is random scenes as they come to me, which I think isn’t an uncommon way to write but I would like it if I made it easier for myself and had a brain that could write chronologically. And I also wish I didn't forget the scenes/sentences I think of on public transport or when I'm in bed about to fall asleep.

More generally, I think the attitude towards writing in fandom needs recalibrating. Writing is a skill, editing is an important part of writing. Within fandom I think you should write for yourself, put what you want to see out there, but at the same time if you rush it and immediately publish it and then get upset that you haven’t had as much engagement as you’d like then maybe just take more time with your work, spend time with it, edit even if it’s just one word or letter at a time. Knowing where you’re headed also immediately makes your work more cohesive because I feel like it’s very clear when a writer has absolutely no idea and just wants to get the first chapter out there for the validation of it, or when a work jumps from one point to the other with no real character journey to get there and like yeah, the release at the end is great but the pay-off is better with the build-up. If it’s for fun and you don’t care, go for it, but I think there’s a lot of entitlement in writing these days that is unsustainable.

#ask #i try so hard to not be salty and mean anymore that i can't tell if this is mean or mild #i think it;s fine

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thejustmaiden · 4 years ago

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Jaken = Rin's Dad?

Okay, is this how a daughter treats their so-called father?

Most definitely not.

Rin and Jaken's relationship clearly screams of your typical sibling rivalry punctuated with cute and silly moments of playful bickering.

Yes, Jaken may technically be her main provider, but that doesn't necessarily equate to him being more of a father than Sesshomaru. If anything, he demonstrates more of a brotherly love towards her. As we all know, parents (which Sesshomaru embodies more based on real life patterns and parallels) will leave their older more capable children in charge of looking after their younger brothers and sisters. In this case, that would mean making Jaken responsible for watching over Rin and protecting her if need be. Ah-Un offers protection, too. Think of it as Jaken as the big brother and Ah-Un as the family dog who are babysitting while Sesshomaru as the parent of the household is away at work or taking care of business. I mean, they literally fit that description to a tee and I'm dying at the accuracy of it all! 🤣👌

[Quick! Someone write up a modern au where Sesshomaru finally gets out to have a nice date night but everything goes wrong in the most spectacular way. Like maybe Rin and Jaken catch a ride on Ah-Un to go spy!]

I recently revisited some episodes from The Final Act, and I couldn't believe how many moments like this there were where Rin got after Jaken or when she would "put him in his place" so to speak. Obviously, all of it is mostly harmless. I was only surprised by how often it occurred, not to mention how Jaken would just stand there and take it. Towards a supposed father figure, Rin's behavior is downright unacceptable. There's a certain level of respect a child is expected to show their parents/guardians, and that's just not what I'm witnessing here between them. Like at all.

Rather their dynamic has the nature of some sibling relationships like I mentioned above. So I really wish fans would stop pretending otherwise, because based on what we know of father-daughter relationships- healthy ones at least- they don't appear anything like what Jaken and Rin have. If you could please provide me other examples of where we've seen similar portrayals in fiction or in real life, then perhaps I can get on board.

Look, that doesn't have to mean that because Jaken isn't her father then Sesshomaru must be. They can both be her caretakers without necessarily filling that traditional father role. I'm just saying that if we're going to start assigning titles to characters, let's make sure we are accurate and truthful in our assessments. If you're going to label anyone Rin's dad, then it needs to be Sesshomaru. Jaken doesn't have precedence over him in terms of fatherly attributes, that just wouldn't make sense.

After all, this isn't about what you want to see, this is about what Rin very likely sees. It's safe to assume that she views Sesshomaru more like a father than she does Jaken. She knows she's safe with him (broadly speaking lol) and that he'll come for her no matter what. That sense of security and comfort is what a child seeks and what they should always feel in a parent's presence. She trusts and even idolizes him, just as a young and innocent child tends to do with their parents. At that age, parents are perfect and could do no wrong in their child's eyes. Idk about you, but this describes perfectly how Rin is around Sesshomaru.

Rin adores him and will follow him anywhere- yes, even into danger! That's what the innocence and unconditional love of a child will bring them to do if necessary. Fortunately, at the end of The Final Act we learn Sesshomaru takes Kaede's advice when he realizes that leaving Rin with her in the village is in her best interests. That way she'd be able to lead a more normal and safer life alongside other humans. Remember, Sessrin shippers, that doesn't mean he wasn't still a part of her life and didn't witness her become a young woman over the years right before his very eyes. Therefore, if they eventually do become romantically involved, then most if not all of those gifts had intimate and seductive intentions and it essentially constitutes as child grooming.

I understand from a Sessrin shipper's point of view why it'd be so much easier to claim Jaken as the father. In doing so, they diminish Sesshomaru's role in her upbringing. By refusing to acknowledge the real role he had in helping raise Rin (short periods can be crucial and impressionable too esp. in a child's early years so yes they did assist in raising her not only Kaede), these shippers are better able to justify how their filial-like relationship evolved into a romantic one. So yeah, I get it, if I were a Sessrin shipper I'd probably do the same. It's one of the more plausible arguments available to them, after all. "Let's pin Jaken as the father to fend off antis!" is the best chance they've got, but even so, it's still not good enough. But if you insist Jaken is indeed like a father to Rin, then Sesshomaru is most certainly one too. Who says she can't have two fathers anyway?

The thing is however much you want to deny or downplay what Sesshomaru truly means to Rin and vice versa, nothing will ever change or hide the truth of the matter. Please, stop acting like they're only traveling companions and nothing more. Some of y'all even go so far as to say that they're like strangers. Knowing potentially little about a person is not equal to a lack of love and affection. Making big assumptions such as this to defend your ship is actually doing you more harm than good. Let me elaborate.

According to your reasoning, if that's all Rin ever was to him was a companion and Sesshomaru had no real attachment to her, then what precisely is the basis of your ship? Recall that Adult!Rin doesn't exist yet, thus we have no real idea what she will be like or if she's even alive. So how can you make comments like that but then go on later to say "they have such a unique and unbreakable bond" or "only Rin can be the mother because she's the only human he ever cared for" if all that time spent traveling together didn't amount to much in the first place like you claimed to believe beforehand? Do you see how your rationalizing is confusing?

Contrary to what some of you may think, I'm not just saying all this because I'm an anti and I'm obligated to disagree with you, or whatever other excuse you want to tell yourself. Believe it or not, I'm attempting to give as unbiased and objective of an analysis I can based on widely accepted interpretations of family dynamics, development, and any history we know of.

Of course I respect that at times fans will perceive things differently since that's bound to happen. What's hard for me to wrap my head around however is the unwillingness of some fans- not exclusively Sessrin shippers- to apply basic common sense and sound judgment to their observations and deductions.

Looking at all our facts, then taking the small handful of scenes Sesshomaru and Rin do share together into account, one can logically conclude that their dynamic is akin to one found in a typical parent-child relationship. If you still fail to recognize Sesshomaru as a parent to Rin, then that's fine too. In the end, that won't really change the fact that he'd still take on a role resembling an adult figure overseeing a young child's care and protection. Be it as a vassal, guardian, what have you. Plus, nobody is saying here that Sesshomaru doesn't make mistakes regarding Rin's general well-being, but so do all parents. Overall, I think the majority of us agree that Rin is in good hands. Whether it's in his direct company or in his occasional supervision from his frequent visits to the village.

In other words, it doesn't really matter what exact title you assign him in relation to Rin, as the distribution of power is all inherently the same with any and all adult-child relationships. That bond never changes once you've established it either, seeing as it's a special kind of connection one can only form with a child and a child alone.

I was a teacher for a few years, and speaking from personal experience, you don't need to be a parent, per se, to take on a role of authority in a child's life. I know without a doubt that I could never and will never view any of those kids I taught in a sexual/romantic light later down the road; yes, not even once they become grown-ups who are independent and more than capable of making their own decisions. Those of you who disagree are usually missing the whole point though, because we're not trying to dictate what Adult!Rin can and cannot do like many tend to accuse of us doing. This isn't a question of taking away from her autonomy nor does it fall under "purity culture," which is why people shouldn't continue jumping to these outrageous conclusions and really listen for a change. You're deflecting from the real issue here when you choose to misinterpret what we're saying by ignoring the problem we're actually referring to. You cannot present a valid counter-argument if you persist in twisting our words.

Bottom line: once these kids become old enough to pursue a sexual/romantic relationship, of course they have that right if they're ready. All we're trying to say is you guys ought to stop pushing forward this it's-completely-normal-to-want-to-bang-your-adoptive-dad-since-you're-an-adult-and-can-do-as-you-please agenda and not expect backlash. Ship it if you want, but please stop acting like their romance would be the epitome of a pure and healthy relationship.

Sesshomaru may not wear his heart on his sleeve, but it's foolish to presume he didn't actually care about Rin during their whole time together just because he didn't openly express his feelings until the very end. Surely everybody can comprehend that people handle and process their emotions differently. The way Sesshomaru chooses to is completely valid for the most part, so let's cut him some slack regarding this already.

What I'm trying to get at is that any child whose life you played an influential role in will always be a kid in a lot ways to you even when they're old and wrinkly. Just as they will always picture you as the loved one who guided and protected them when they were most vulnerable and couldn't always fend for themselves. Can't we relate this to children we know personally and apply it accordingly?

Finally, I want to end on this note. Could you kindly take a look at these two images below for a second?

The reason I ask is because of something I recently read that's relevant to the topic. There was this pro-sessrin tweet I saw that stated Rin trying to take care of Sesshomaru when they first met is what a mom would do for a child, which in their opinion, translates to Rin being more like a mother than a daughter if anything.

First off: are you freaking kidding me????

Seriously, so now children aren't allowed to tend to their sick or injured parents?! Parents are apparently superhuman and shouldn't be offered a helping hand from a child, even if they mean well and want to help their parent who's in pain?? Now this Twitter user was mostly being a smartass, but at the same time, it was evident they genuinely thought they offered a valid enough point that warranted no further explanation or clarification.

Secondly, by saying this Sessrin fans don't seem to realize that in actuality they're contradicting themselves and proving the point we've been trying to make all along. Glancing at the first picture and moving down to the second, the role of the one being cared for and the caretaker is reversed. So then by their own logic, Sesshomaru IS in fact like a father to Rin.

What it comes down to is the names you give to the roles these characters play aren't as crucial as the dynamic they share. The specific characteristics of that dynamic are what define the importance of said role, not so much the name in the role itself. So real father or not, Sesshomaru and Rin clearly mean a lot to each other. Close relationships are defined and solidified by the devotion and belonging they have to one another, not solely by the duration of time spent together and their proximity.

Well, that's a wrap! I hope you guys got something outta this blog, and that you enjoyed or found some portions of it interesting. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject from this fandom, but only engage in conversation if you plan to be respectful. Thank you!

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #sesshomaru #rin #jaken #anti sessrin #child grooming #family dynamics #parent child relationship

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phantomato · 3 years ago

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No hate to anyone who likes it, but after some careful thinking and realization, I realized that I don't necessarily like Tomarry, I just like stories about Tom and him being loved😭 I would love to see your take on it though— I'm most interested to see how you would subvert the tropes and all👀

For you and my other Tomarry anon, an ill-advised reflection on why I have difficulties with the ship.

There’s this wonderful meta essay on AO3 (requires an account to read) that talks about special protagonists—defined as a protagonist that is chosen for a destiny, that comes from a privileged background (whether or not they know it), and that has extraordinary powers.

The reason this author dislikes special protagonists comes down to the essential idea that compounding these distinguishing factors into a main character results in a story where we are told the lead is awesome, but don’t see them develop into their awesomeness.

This is a simplification, of course. It would be incorrect for me to claim that Harry Potter is never shown developing as a character, or that fic featuring him doesn’t try to do better than the original series. I would never expect y’all to follow me down that path.

But. It also isn’t an off-base characterization of Harry in either canon or fic. He may be more complicated than this short essay describes, but he is also precisely the special protagonist. And, in Tomarry, this is often taken to the extreme.

Why does Tom like Harry? Harry is special. He’s Tom’s fated match, he’s the Chosen One, they were prophesied to orbit around each other. Harry is the only person that could be Tom’s equal. He is the only person to match Tom’s power, to catch Tom’s attention. Only Harry can balance him. The pull between protagonist and antagonist is the draw, here, and enough to carry the narrative.

Which is… tricky, if you’re not moved by the “enemies to lovers” trope. Much like the special protagonist essay points out when it comes to the protag’s feats of strength, the EtL fated romance trope leaves the heavy lifting of buying into the romance to the premise of the story, not the actions on the page. You’ve got to already believe in Tom and Harry (or their archetypes) as a potential romantic unit, a good ship worth reading, to get into a lot of Tomarry stories.

And as much as Harry is not my chosen romantic lead in any story, I like Tom enough that I’d consider powering through if I was getting great Tom content. But, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Tom is rarely a full character in his shipfic. He’s the sexy reward for the real main character (in this case, Harry), who is unfailingly focused on his romantic partner, or who has all of his dreams of power thrown awry by the killing-curse green eyes of the man who haunts his every thought. Tom’s personhood is reduced to background details and what he can do for our real MC; he usually doesn’t even get a POV chapter.

That’s fine if you like reading about Harry! I don’t. Harry does nothing for me as a romantic lead.

I can’t construct a vision of my Tom/Voldemort that finds anything about Harry romantically or sexually attractive. I was able to build a loving parent-child relationship for them with considerable work, but that is a different dynamic. Harry’s kindness, his witty humor, his impertinence, his positive nature—yeah, sure, I think a Tom who has raised him can learn to love those traits in his son. But look at the characters I’ve shipped Tom with: they’re universally smart, with strong academic interests. They’re largely more even-tempered than Tom (hard not to be), and not people who reach the level of energy and exuberance that Harry does at his emotional highs or the level of anger and darkness that Harry does at his emotional lows. They’re largely people who need no convincing to forgive Tom’s darker deeds, that don’t think forgiveness and redemption are necessary at all. They’re, well, more like him. I’m not writing ‘opposites attract,’ remember? No enemies to lovers here.

So if you force me to sit down and think about a Tomarry I could convincingly write, it’s bleak. Harry might earnestly come to love Tom—his capacity for affection and forgiveness is quite large, after all, and Tom is the type of man to inspire devotion. Tom isn’t interested in Harry, but he eventually realizes Harry’s interest is useful. This is all well-trodden territory in Tomarry. Where the depths of my spite come into play is that I can’t bring myself to contemplate Harry’s perspective, so we’re entirely in Tom’s head, there is no scrap of affection for or attraction to Harry, only pure, calculated distaste until we end on Harry’s terrible death and Tom is free to do whatever the fuck he originally wanted. But, really, why write this when @metalomagnetic’s Either Must Die already exists? It would just be an exercise in venting for me, and something to see how many Tomarry tropes I can throw shade at along the way.

When I wrote my Tomiones, I did so having earnestly enjoyed the ship. We got one lovely Tomione out of that, and one that was… complicated, but at least allowed Hermione to be a strong character in her own right. I can’t do justice to Harry as a character, and any Tomarry I attempted would be a miserable read for anyone who actually likes Harry.

I’m not so short-sighted as to claim I’ll never want to explore that side of Tom’s character, or that I’ll never decide it would be a fun idea to throw that brick through that particular window. I know myself, and no matter how bad a fit this seems, I might still decide to try it on. But I could not do it with any true care for the ship.

#ask #tomarry #navel gazing

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randomidiocyncrazies · 4 years ago

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i know you like them both so yunichika and oda/aoki for the ship ask

thank you for giving me a chance to gush about these kids!!! they’re precious.... this got pretty long so imma put it under a cut

YuniChika, the main boys of 2.43:

• when or if I started shipping it:

tbh i didn’t really ship them when i read the first book... they’re the kind of pairing that i can see people shipping and i think it’s cute, but i’m not super invested in them as a romantic pairing. I think i was more sold about them as a ship in the second book, but i can’t quite remember if there was a specific moment that made me change my mind, or if it was a gradual process

• my thoughts:

i think the anime definitely played up the tension between them (allll the blushes lol), but i’m glad people are enjoying the YuniChika content XD they’re pretty cute!

also, i think they balance each other well and spur each other to become better—Yuni and Chika are both self-centered(?) in very different ways: Yuni lacks drive because he mostly wanted to please people so they’ll like him, while Chika has the opposite problem in that he acts like he doesn’t care what people think of him.

but now Yuni is able to take a stand for his interest in volleyball and for Chika, and while Chika doesn’t really soften and still has a problem with not realizing how harsh he could be, he’s more willing to communicate his thoughts.

• what makes me happy about them:

boys reuniting! relearning how to have a relationship with one another! learning from past mistakes and trying to be better people together! HELL YEAH

• what makes me sad about them:

boys, please use your words to communicate with each other...

also, from Yuni’s perspective, it’s kinda sad when someone you used to know really well comes back into your life, but they’ve changed so much that they are essentially a different person... but of course they have a new opportunity to become closer now 😉 so i’m not that sad about it

• things done in art/fic that annoys me:

... there are fanworks for them?????????

(on a more serious note, erasing their flaws to make them more likable... please don’t make Chika ‘secretly nice’ or whatever, the kid is blunt as hell, and not realizing how his words affect others is his biggest flaw. on the other hand, Yuni can still be a little spineless at times, and sometimes his priorities are. questionable.)

• things I look for in art/fic:

hm, i’d like a future fic about them as professional players! i think their inclination is to stick together (they’re a package deal!) but it’d be super interesting to read something where they’re on rival teams years down the line

EDIT: haha Chika actually transferred to Keisei High School after their first Spring Tournament, so he and Yuni have faced each other as rivals since then (2.43 next 4years). they’re go to the same university and are on the same team now though!

• who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

uh i don’t really have specific people for this, but Chika would probably have to be with someone who understands his love of volleyball (like Oda, but if Oda wasn’t their team captain and thus too much of a dad friend to qualify as a romantic interest), and someone who can inspire Yuni would be good for him

also, i know who i’d NOT be comfy about: the first book (and anime i guess) had this weird tension between Itoko and Yuni, COUSINS who BASICALLY GREW UP TOGETHER. i think(?) their weird whatever was mostly dropped in the 2nd book and wasn’t really made explicit, but like. what the hell. (i have no idea what happens beyond the 2nd book.)

• my happily ever after for them:

the YuniChika in college arc is being serialized rn, so in a way that’s already fulfilled? (i have NO idea what’s going on tho)

in general i just hope they can play volleyball together until one or both decide not to, for whatever reason, and that they stay in each other’s lives and support each other even after they’ve retired from competitive volleyball. i think with Yuni’s personality he could be a good coach after getting more experience, and Chika... he’s really valuable as a strategist, but I think he’d always be a little brusque, so he’s respected but hard to bond with if he does take on coaching?

• what is their favorite non-sexual activity?

bold of you to assume Chika even cares about sex

anyway, they don’t go to movies for a romantic date night, they go watch volleyball matches. sometimes this backfires when Chika gets too frustrated at bad plays tho

and of course i will never pass up an opportunity to talk about Oda/Aoki, the main guys of my heart (my OTP for this series tbh):

• when or if I started shipping it:

they pinged on my radar when they were bickering in Ibara’s chapter, but i wasn’t super duper invested... and then I got to The Dog’s Perspective and the Giraffe’s Perspective (specifically The Kick™) and oh god i’ve never fallen so fast

• my thoughts:

GOD WOW Aoki really loves Oda... even though objectively Oda’s height prevents him from being a super ace, he is the coolest, strongest super ace to Aoki. i think it’s beautiful that someone can see you as your best self even when you’re feeling shitty about yourself. Aoki knows that objectively Oda faces a lot of obstacles, and wants to support him as best as he can—not out of pity (pity would’ve burned out long ago), but because he really respects Oda’s passion and drive.

also, these two have unaddressed issues that they should talk about! Oda, i know you feel inferior but you are so much better than you think you are. please accept that Aoki really does respect you, and that you are worthy of it (or like, you don’t have to be ‘’’worthy’’’’ or ‘’’’’’deserving’’’’’’’’’’ of it, because it is Aoki’s choice to support you and play volleyball with you!!! it’s not something you gotta earn, it’s something freely and happily given to you)

(ahhhhhh i die when i think of them)

• what makes me happy about them:

gosh i love their dynamic SO MUCH! Oda is exactly my type of character (passionate, determined, knowing that he can never be the best at what he’s passionate about due to factors he cannot control, trying to be kind and gracious but struggling with feelings of inferiority and jealousy, thinks of himself as a selfish person, a supporting character...) and Aoki’s devotion is really touching.

again: even when you feel like crap about yourself, there’s someone out there who thinks you’re the best thing that happened to them.

there’s also the fact that Oda thinks the world of Aoki as well (to the point of feeling inferior, which is like... c’mon Oda :/ you are better than you think you are!) he trusts Aoki a lot, despite knowing his willingness to engage in, uh, underhanded methods

• what makes me sad about them:

it’s their last year together, and they’d be approaching a new phase of their lives in different places... although Aoki offered to lower his rankings so they’d go to the same university, realistically they’ll go to different colleges, and most likely end up in different prefectures. (like, not only do i think it’s a Terrible Idea to give up your dream school so that you could stay with someone else, there is no way Oda would accept the offer without being crushed by guilt. something like that would actually ruin their relationship, which i think Aoki knows as well.)

there’s also a lot left unsaid between them at this point and i just want them to lay everything out between them and move forward together

• things done in art/fic that annoys me:

the fact that there’s NONE >:[ what does a gal have to do to get some content for them???????

• things I look for in art/fic:

at this point anything is fine.... it’s a desert out there and i’m dying

more specifically i’m Extremely Down for a get together fic; i personally only see them getting together after high school, at least several months (or even longer) studying in different prefectures and no longer able to see each other every day. (i mean... absence makes the heart grow fonder right?)

i’d also love to see Oda using Aoki’s first name, considering Aoki calls him “Shin” and all. Oda managing to surprise/fluster Aoki would be nice too.

EDIT: they’re both in the Kansai region (2.43 next 4years prologue). Oda’s revealed to be studying in Osaka, and assuming Aoki got into KyoDai, they should be around 2 hours away from each other by train? so visiting each other over short breaks would be cute! also, apparently Oda took a gap year before going to Osaka (2.43 next 4years Ch 1.2), so something set during that time would also be awesome :V

• who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

hm... if i had to imagine people well-suited to them, i’d say Aoki’s type is people who are straightforwardly passionate about their interests (Oda hooked him with his unbridled love of volleyball way back in their first year of high school after all), and I think Oda probably needs someone who is willing to indulge him a little (like Chika he can be pretty dang determined about what he wants, though without the single-minded intensity at the expense of everything else)

... this is just a roundabout way of saying i think they’re ideal for each other, especially if they resolve the problem of hiding things from the other

• my happily ever after for them:

they get careers/hobbies they enjoy, and get a place together as boyfriends/husbands. no i will not hear any criticism of this idea

i can see Aoki working in the private sector (this guy is fine with ‘joking’ about blackmail after all!) after getting his law degree. this is super self-indulgent, but given his penchant of rooting for passionate but objectively disadvantaged entities, i think it’d be pretty awesome if he works for a smaller company that truly believes in their work, instead of working at a big firm pulling in big bucks.

while I’m not sure what Oda is canonically studying, I can see him going into sports education or sports therapy—i think he’d be really good at nurturing the talents of other athletes, and he’s good at rallying the team (Aoki pretty much says he’s the heart of the team in the epilogue of the first book, though Aoki’s kiiinda biased lol). i think it’d be really cute if Oda coaches a grade school team!

neither plays volleyball competitively after high school, but sometimes they watch matches for fun (esp if their ex-teammates are playing). Oda also makes Aoki come to his students’ matches if he doesn’t have work

EDIT: apparently Oda continues competing as a wing spiker in college, playing in Kaisai’s 2nd Collegiate Division (2.43 next 4years Ch 1.2)—Aoki probably watches his matches, even when he’s busy (and Oda probably chides him for neglecting his work, but they both know Aoki can manage his workload).

• what is their favorite non-sexual activity?

hm... idk, i think they’re the kind of couple who are cool with just chilling with each other doing their own work. like, Oda planning strategies for the kids he’s coaching while Aoki reads next to him, occasionally glancing over to make comments, stuff like that

also since Oda says they mostly talked about volleyball during high school, I can kinda see them finding something new they both enjoy after they get together? Maybe shounen manga, for something fun

#2.43 #2.43 anime #2.43 seiin high school boys volleyball team #2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley bu #yunichika #odaoki #replies

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libraryofmegharoni · 4 years ago

Text

The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom | #2) [Danielle L. Jensen]

started: May 08, 2021 finished: May 08, 2021 rating: 4.5/5

review:

so we got the utter heart break of Aren finding out about Lara's betrayal in the first book and we get the impact of it here.

i'll start from the beginning, which is where i partially have issue with. the book begins with Lara having fled Ithicana and Aren captured by Lara's father and in his compound in Maridrina. we get a brief kind of recount of what happened in the world between The Bridge Kingdom and The Traitor Queen, but just like how i was still kinda confused about how the world was set up in the first book, i was still a little confused about all the events that happened between the books. to be fair Jensen does a solid job of making me forget that i was confused in the first place. the couple time characters either reflected on the 'past' or were informed about the events that happened after Lara left Ithicana (or Maridrina at very beginning) it wasn’t the clearest explanations?? not the best way to phrase it but idk how else. like the writing was fine and understandable but i didn’t feel like there was enough explanation of the events between books to make me fully understand what happened. that's not to say there was nothing to fill in what happened, maybe im just (which is highly likely) because i just wanted more. ahh ok so i think the best way i can describe it is that there was a surface level explanation of the events that supposedly occurred between the first and second book but not anything more in depth in detail. which considering im a very detail person, i want to know everything there can be known, i want everyone's full history and actions and rationales and intentions and everything else about all the main characters. and i don’t think that it’s actually a fault of Jensen in this or the first book but it’s just what i ideally want out of a perfect book.

anyway other than me being a picky bitch and just wanting more when i like a book, broooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo it’s so good.

i mcfucking loved the tension between Lara and Aren after she organizes his rescue. but before that --

THE REST OF THE SISTERS.

one of the first things i said to my roommate when i was reading the first book was "i cannot wait until all the sisters come back and completely fuck up their father" anD GUESS WHAT??!?!?!?!

THEY FUCKING DELIVERED SO GODDAMN HARD

it was perfect that there was one sister who was super against what Lara did and came to Ithicana to murder the King and Queen (but ultimately failed and was killed by our Queen Lara). the rest of them living in small groups but never too far apart from each other - perfection, just perfection. them being 100% down to infiltrate their father's compound - beautiful. them willing to rescue the man they were all trained to hate and want to kill because Lara loved him??????? THE LOVE BETWEEN THE SISTERS - THE SHARED PAIN - THE RIDE OR DIE MOTHERFUCKERS THAT THEY ALL (minus the one Lara kills lol) FUCKING ARE -- I LOVED IT SO MUCH AND I WAS SO HAPPY IT PLAYED OUT PRETTY MUCH EXACTLY HOW I WANTED IT TO

i loved Lara sailing to Ithicana's island of Eranahl to talk to Ahnna about freeing Aren and her actually sailing there all by herself proved how dedicated she was to saving him. i just loved how the first book drives home just how terrified Lara is of the open sea and how it is the only thing that scares her and the only time she sails be herself in the second book (bc we know she fled from Ithicana by island jumping) is to save Aren.... and Ithicana but mostly Aren. its shown time and time again how much Lara came to love Aren and how much she was willing to risk or give up just to save him. TEH FUCKING ANGST I LOVE IT !!!!!!!

so yeah i just really love the dynamic between Lara and Aren in this book. they both know that they cannot continue to be together after Ithicana is free but they desperately want to. they've grown to love each other and despite Lara's betrayal, they both trust each other. but like for his country, Aren cannot recognize Lara as the Queen of Ithicana or his wife anymore. bro that scene broke me. it came right after Lara tried to leave Aren and he was essentially like "no it’s not safe here for you to go now, im keeping you with me". so yeah Aren having to admit that he doesn't recognize Lara as anything anymore HURT. and i loved how Lara was also hurt by that. they love each other so much but their situation and the world want to rip them apart :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

the final battle was confusing and seemed a bit fast but ultimately so satisfying. i guess it kinda started with the battle on Gamire Island when Lara got injured saving the life of Taryn, Aren's cousin she has befriended in the first book when she was Queen. also Lara saving her was just big proof to the rest of the Ithicana that she was there to fight to right her wrong and get their freedom back.

anyway so Lara gets injured and it was so sad to see how she knew she was seriously wounded but didn't believe that she was allowed to ask for help from the people whose lives she helped destroy and ended up going off on her own. it was so heartbreaking when Aren went to go patch up Lara and end up caving into sleeping with each other. he promised her that they were leaving in the morning and that she could rest then he went back to camp and realized that he could never leave her if he didnt in that moment and told them to get ready to leave - i started crying so much. bc when Lara woke up to everyone gone she thought that that was the plan the whole time and that Aren lied to her to leave her and then she was hit with the fact that it was Eranahl that was being attacked, and put away all her heartbreak and was determined to sail there to help against the Maridrina navy.

how she realized that it was her father on one of the ships and dueled him - so god damn hot. her swimming through the shark infested water to get to Aren????? ughhhhhh im crying. her up against the portcullis telling Aren to leave so he would live??? im crying even more. Aren desperately trying to save her bc he knows he cant live without her???????????? im bawling. her waking up in the bed she's familiar with?? im hopeful. Aren telling her about the trial by sea (and sharks) method used in Ithicana and how she passed so the sea has determined Lara is innocent and loyal to Ithicana????? IM BAWLING AGAIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i mcfucking knew that it had to end with Lara and Aren ending up together but i didnt know how it was going to happen. and while i wish the trial by shark thing was mentioned in the first book -- like the game they play at snake island with the running through the snakes and climbing up to the bridge and how that was called back to in the second book where Lara had to do the challenge to help free Ithicana. like that little game was a significant scene in the first book with Lara kind revealing her abilities with a bow and arrow and a little bit of Aren's recklessness, want to show off to Lara and how he was as a child. point it is served a purpose and it was a great scene and situation to call back to in the second book, but with more at stake this time. so i would have liked to see someone in Ithicana just mention the trial by sea idea in the first book. i mean when it was revealed i still teared up bc like yeah but i think it could have been a cool thing that was not quite foreshadowed but referenced at an earlier point.

tl;dr - the love between the sisters? perfection. the love between Lara & Aren? heartbreakingly beautiful and such a satisfying arc <3

#megharoni book log #megharoni 2021 reads #the traitor queen #the bridge kingdom #danielle l jensen

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ultrahpfan5blog · 4 years ago

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Rewatching the Bourne series

Just recently rewatched this series. In my opinion, one of the best action-thriller franchises around. I caught onto the Bourne movies fairly late. In fact I think Ultimatum was the first movie I saw in theaters. But I caught up with Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy before watching Ultimatum. The initial trilogy in particular is pretty superb trilogy of movies. While I know there are people who don’t like The Bourne Legacy and Jason Bourne, I still find them enjoyable to varying degrees.

The Bourne Identity is my second favorite film in the franchise behind Ultimatum. In context of the series, you can tell this one is made by a different director since the action scenes look different. The film is a bit more of a mystery because we are basically finding out about what is going on as Bourne does, which can be tricky because, if not executed correctly, without knowing who the character is, you can find it hard to feel attached to the character. That’s where I think Liman did a great job in making Bourne seem like an underdog but still making him a complete badass. The relationship with Marie is key here. Unlike in many spy films where romance seems extraneous to the story, here it works to ground Bourne to some sort of normalcy which he craves and which is why he doesn’t want to continue being a killer. The CIA stuff is also compelling because actors like Cooper and Cox are able to deliver exposition in a compelling way. The pacing is key, which is key to the entire franchise. All 4 movies with Damon clock in under two hours and not a minute of the movie is wasted. The action is excellent but the highlight action piece is definitely the car chase, which is superbly coordinated. Also surprisingly affecting in a very short role is Clive Owen. His death scene is exceptionally well executed and his performance in that scene is really well done. What he says in that scenes comes back later in Ultimatum. Matt Damon was all fresh faced around the time this movie came out and it really was a casting against what he had done prior to this and that works big time. He has a casual, unassuming presence but he just turns on the badass in an epic way. The role suits him perfectly and he’s excellent in it. Franka Potente is also great as Marie. A 8.5/10

The Bourne Supremacy is my third favorite film of the series, just a smidge behind Identity. Its still excellent. Its the shortest film of the series and it does feel it at times. It just hurtles along. I was initially a little annoyed at how they killed off Marie to give Bourne a motivation, but I also understand that practically, its impossible for Marie to keep up with Bourne as he shuttles all the way across the world. The scope of this movie is significantly increased. Whereas the first movie was set in interconnected Europe, largely in Paris, this film goes from India, to Naples, to Berlin, to Moscow. The film also gradually expands Bourne’s past as we gradually start learning about the things he’s done. The film acts as part revenge thriller and part mystery as Bourne tries to figure out his memories. There is a bit of narrative convenience here, that Bourne is remembering details of that assassination just as the CIA is digging into the Neski files. But the film flows so well that you can forgive minor narrative conveniences like that. The film introduces Pam Landy and the CIA side of things is given a bit more of a stronger narrative. Whereas in Identity, the CIA guys were the clear antagonists to Bourne, here Pam Landy is also posed as a figure who is trying to do the right thing. Cox and Stiles are back as Abbott and Pasrons respectively. Julia Stiles didn’t have much to do in Identity other than follow orders but you start to see her role get expanded. Cox takes the role of the primary CIA antagonist. Karl Urban as the Russian assassin was a welcome presence, but in the end the film is carried by Damon. He’s a bit angrier and bit more emotional and he’s excellent throughout. The film introduces Greengrass’ now infamous shaky cam action. For me, while I normally don’t like it, Greengrass is one of the few directors who knows how to do it well. Admittedly, the fight scene between Bourne and Jarda is not the best filmed one, so his technique was still a work in progress, but the rest of the action is top class. Again, the car chase sequence in the finale is top notch and thrilling. Also, it has probably the coolest ending of the series. A 8/10

The Bourne Ultimatum was the first Bourne film I watched in theaters and its my favorite. I think the film is near perfect across the board. I think this film makes the best use of all the cast and Greengrass gives us some terrific action sequences throughout the movie. And because this Bourne tracing back his origin, its perhaps the most compelling mystery of the series as he tries to find out how he became who he is. Firstly, the action is the best it is in the series. The Bourne vs Desh fight is the highwater mark when it comes to individual fight scenes in the series. Its compelling, brutal, and you feel every punch. All the chase sequences, be it foot chases or car chases are incredibly intense. I think the CIA part of the movie is the most compelling it has ever been with David Strathairn is excellent as Vosen, who plays the new CIA antagonist, and Joan Allen continues to be terrific as Pam Landy. Them playing counterparts to each other makes it fascinating to watch even the non Bourne scenes. Then Julia Stiles get an even more expanded role as Nicky Parsons. The Bourne and Nicky dynamic is interestingly played with a touch history and one sided romantic tension which is never directly addressed. But it does make it compelling. Albert Finney shows up as the Dr. Frankenstein of the Treadstone/Blackbriar operation and he’s enigmatic as hell. The climax between Bourne and Hirsch is terrifically acted by both parties. We also see a mirror of the scene from Identity where Bourne repeats the same dialogue to Edgar Ramirez’s assassin that Owen’s character had said to him. Damon is superb as always. Completely natural in the action and perfectly balancing stoicism with vulnerability when required. The film ends on a note that would have been perfect if they had chosen to end the series here. A 9/10.

The Bourne Legacy is kind of the step child of this series. The only movie which doesn’t have Damon/Bourne in the series. Intended to start a spinoff series but didn’t quite have the commercial success to do so. I admit that when I first saw the film in theaters, I didn’t like it. Over time, I have grown to appreciate it more although its still well below the original trilogy of films for me. Firstly, what’s good. Jeremy Renner is an excellent protagonist. Being compared to Damon is a thankless job but he managed to forge a different character in Aaron Cross. Rachel Weisz also does a strong job as Dr. Shearing and Renner and Wesiz have decent chemistry. The film doesn’t try and ape the previous Bourne films and it goes for a different angle. Its more a survival film for the protagonists than a mystery. The characters aren’t trying to bring down the program, not trying to find out something, just trying to escape the clutches of the Defense Department. The action scenes are good. However, the film is the longest of the series and it feels like it. The film also royally wastes an actor of the caliber of Edward Norton. He does fine with what he has but he’s literally just there barking orders in front of monitors. He shares one short flashback scene with Renner, but otherwise is disconnected from the other two leads, Whereas in the previous Bourne films and even in Jason Bourne, there were always at least two main characters who had interactions with each in the rooms of the CIA, allowing for some interplay, this time Norton is all on his own which makes the search for Cross and Marta a lot less interesting. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the idea of chems, but I have grown to accept it. The film also doesn’t have any major hand to hand fighting sequences. They hype up the Larx assassin but he ends up dying because Marta pushes hum while he was riding a bike. Pretty underwhelming after all the build up. What I especially didn’t like is how the film tries to undo Ultimatum’s ending. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea but it pissed me off. In the end, its a decently entertaining movie but its disappointing within the context of the franchise. A 5.5-6/10

Jason Bourne is a bit of a polarizing movie. Everyone was really excited when this movie was coming out and a bunch of them were disappointed. While I do think this is not as good as the initial trilogy of movies, I still do enjoy it. My issue with the movie lies on two fronts. The film is essentially divided into 3 sections. The main part is Jason Bourne continuing to track into his past as he finds out that there might be more to his recruitments than he thought. That part works perfectly and its very compelling. There is the CIA backroom drama between Dewey and Lee and the Asset, which is also solid. What doesn’t work is the third angle about the new blackops program connected with Deep Dream. It feels like the writers and the director stretching to try and be very timely and addressing issues of privacy without making it fit very organically to the story. I mean, Bourne isn’t even really connected to that part of the story and whenever that portion of the movie takes focus, its less interesting. In addition, the film doesn’t make it clear exactly how Dewey is connected to Bourne’s past. The film indicates that Bourne knows Dewey but the how isn’t explained. But everything directly connected to Bourne works well and I did like that the Asset is given a more direct personal connection to Bourne, which makes their individual fight be more personal. I think Matt Damon is excellent in this movie. He plays Bourne more broken and on the edge than he’s ever been in this movie. There are several scenes, such as his climactic scene with TLJ, where you feel him teetering. Julia Stiles shows back up as Nicky who starts Bourne on her journey. Like with Marie, I was disappointed she was killed off but I also get that Bourne needs to be alone in order to be able to move as fast he does from one place to another. TLJ is an old pro at roles like these and it shows. He does it with ease. Alicia Vikander is good as Heather Lee but I feel as the role needed someone a little bit older to be believable as someone as high up as her in the agency. But I suppose her being a young ambitious upstart is part of the point. When it comes to the action, I think its all top notch. I know not everyone likes shaky cam but Greengrass uses it well. The Greece sequence, the car chase in the climax, and the hand to hand fight sequence in the end, is all well done. I am also glad thiat it does seem to indicate that not everything that Bourne exposed in Ultimatum was covered up and Blackbriar was exposed, unlike what Legacy indicated. The film doesn’t address Legacy at all apart from listing Outcome and Larx in the list of Blackops programs. Overall still a good movie. A 7/10 for me.

I do think the series should be ended. There is a feeling of the films becoming formulaic setting in at this point and Bourne has taken down everyone who had to do with him becoming who he was and has no figured how he became who he was. So I don’t think there is anything more to explore. I don’t see The Cross series continuing since it underperformed at the BO and its been a long time since that movie came out now.

#the bourne identity #the bourne supremacy #the bourne ultimatum #the bourne series #the bourne legacy #jason bourne #matt damon

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calliecat93 · 3 years ago

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ST: TNG S4 Watchthrough Episodes 6-9

Legacy: We have ended up on the home planet of Tasha Yar… and wow it’s not a nice place. We also find out that she has a sister, welp. So… it was alright. Ishara is very similar to Tasha in demeanor, but also very different. I tilt my head at the crew being so willing to trust and accept Ishara into their midst when they know nothing about this woman. I could see the ‘she’s using them’ plot a mile away. But to be fair, the episode addresses it. They wanted to see Tasha. They wanted to see the brave, loyal, strong-willed Security Chief that they lost so callously in her sister… and in the end, that took over. While I can see why Ishara acted as she did, she didn’t know these people and hasn’t seen Tasha in years so she’s under no obligation to care about them, it really has to hurt that she used them and almost committed mass murder and make them take the lame. Her world is a hellhole so her actions make sense, but that doens’t change the betrayal. Especially for Data. Riker sums it up well, with trust comes betrayal… but without trust, there is no friendship. That’s just the cruel truth. Anyways, it was a fine episode. I like that we have a pot-mortem for Tasha even if late… but it just makes me wish that tasha herself didn’t get killed sos he could have had her own plot and feeligns focused on. It still pisse sme off and is just a reminder of so much wasted potential. But ah well, for what they had to work with, they did it welll. 3/5.

Reunion: K’Ehleyr is back… and with a child. Worf’s child, to be exact. Huh. have been waiting very patiently for a follow-up to Sins of the Father and this was an excellent one! Back in K’Ehleyr’s first episode, she was unwilling to take the Oath and Worf wanted to so much and follow the Klingon traditions. Here? K’Ehleyr is ready and doens’t care that he was discommendated… but now Worf can’t. he’s been dishonored and even if it means nothing to K’Ehleyr, it means a great deal to him. He can’t let her or his son bear that shame. It’s so hard to watch him here. How anguished he feels, the way the other Klingons treat him despite it being their damn fault that he accepted it, to begin with, just knowing that he did nothing wrong… but for the greater good, he has to bear it. He doesn’t even want Alexander to be known as his son not because he’s unwilling to accept parental responsibility but to spare him of the dishonor. Just… freakin’ ouch. I was so happy to see K’Ehleyr back and her character is just so freakin’ good and her wanting to allow Alexander to find his life path? Excellent parenting. So… needless to say, her being killed off pisses me off. They at least allowed her character to shine, but… it feels like they only did it to make Worf suffer more. It was well-executed, I was about ready to tear up and Worf being driven to kill Duras for all the suffering that he put him through and now killing the woman he loved (which btw the romantic chemistry was MUCH better here than last time)? I can’t blame him at all. I get why he got reprimanded since Duras was a political figure and this can cause a whole host of problems and clearly Picard was sympathetic… but I just felt so bad for Worf. At least he admitted that he was Aexander’s father and hopefully the poor kid will have a good life with Worf’s parents, bu… yeah. K’Ehleyr’s death stops me form giving this a perfect score, very least I wish we had gotten to see her fight instead of goign to commerical and them walking in on her bloody corpse… but at least they got the tone down. I just hope that one day, Worf and his brother can truly expose the conspiracy because Worf deserves a Hell of a lot better. 4.5/5.

Future Imperfect: Let’s perform a thought experiment, shall we? Imagine going on assignment on your birthday, business as usual… then some kind of mishap happens. You wake up… and discover that you have lost sixteen years' worth of your memory. You can’t remember significant life changes, special moments for yourself and your loved ones, or even your spouse and child. Then just as you begin getting used to things and accepting this new life… you find out that it was all a lie and you were in an illusion all along. You were captured and tricked… and then you find out that was also a lie and it was all due to a lonely alien child left on a barren planet/within a highly advanced Holodeck system that can give him anything that he wants, everyone he knew had died and he did all of this just to have a friend. Congratulations folks, you have now experienced what Riker went through this episode! Yeah, this episode was crazy. I feel bad for the poor kid, while he shouldn’t have done what he did we’re talking about a lonely child essentially forced to live in a Holodeck and just wanted to interact with someone real. Also, I loved how Riker got clued in on how the future word was fake, excellent call-back to Season One! Not much else to say, but good episode! It was wild, that’s for sure~ 3.5/5.

Final Mission: Well folks, this is the curtain call for Wesley Crusher. I know that he pops back up once or twice, but this will be his final episode as a main character as he finally enters the Academy. We’ll get to my final thoughts on Wesley here in a bit, but l focus on the episode itself first. And… it was fine. We have Picard, Wesley, and some third guy crash land on a desert planet, the Enterprise unaware of if they’re alive or not. Thus the three struggle to survive which not only is the third guy essentially a paranoid asshole… but a cave-in seriosuly injures Picard. Thus Wesley is more or less on his own and has to keep Picard alive. Thankfully we avoid killing him off, and thus they make sure to give Wesley a proper send-off. They let him showcase his strengths with his intellegence, fast thinking, and compared to in the beginning he’s much more mature and capable of handling an Away Mission. This convinced me that yes, Wesley is ready for the Academy and that he will be a great Starfleet Officer someday. Meanwhile the Enterprise are dealing with their own issues because of course they are. Nothing can ever just go easy for these people. can it? It’s fine. The Enterprise plot didn’t have me invested aside form worrying about Dr. Crusher. The poor woman just burris herself in her work to deal with her worry about Wesley and evades Troi when she tries to assure her Otherwise the plot is there sot hat it can be a solo Picard and Wesley adventure without hem interfering. Which while I havn’t been the biggest fan of their dynamic, it’s clear how much Welsey admires Picard such as recounting their Samaritan Snare adventure, and Picard admititng that he brought him along because he was going to miss the kid. It’s a nice moment between the characters and allows Wesley to truly open up… though I wish it focused more on him and his mother since that’s been seriously lacking, but ah well. It was still a good send-off episode for Wesley and that’s how you want to treat your characters, whether they stay ont he show or not. 3/5.

As for Wesley himself… it’s been a bumpy road. Do I agree with the consensus that Wesley is an annoying child character that even his actor agrees with (albeit I think jokingly but still)? No. Wesley isn't a bad character. He’s a smart young kid, tries his best, makes mistakes but tries to do his best, and he grew. He’s a perfectly likable kid and this episode especially shows the best of him. Do I agree that the character's role and execution were annoying and contributed to his reputation? Yes. That is ultimately what it boils down to decent character, poor execution. In S1 Wesley was elevated far more than he needed to be. He was given privileges that no other character his age would have been granted no matter the competency level that borders on blatant favoritism. Whenever he made a serious error, he got praise for fixing it, never scolded for his actions with The Naked Now being the worst example. He still had good episodes like Coming of Age, but alas. I think having a kid character who aspires to be in Starfleet, has a parent who is a prominent crew member, and being able to use his skills to help was a perfectly fine idea… but there were just issues with how they did it. S2 and 3 were. While I disliked him at the end of The Dauphin and he still got showed some blatant favoritism, it was better balanced. I didn't feel he earned to be an Ensign until this episode… y’know, the one that shipped him off to The Academy. Crusher being written out in S2 and then brought back in S3 also really killed any and all potential that their dynamic could have truly brought which also hurt. It really feels like by S3 they just didn’t know what to do with the character anymore, limiting him to mainly Helmsman duty. He wasn't being elevated anymore… but he wasn't adding anything anymore either. Maybe promoting him was to help give him something… but Wil Wheaton decided to go, and that ended that. I can’t say I’m sad to see Wesley go because his potential just got squandered to the point that keeping him just felt pointless, and having him go to the Academy feels like the best natural end-point for him, so might as well be now. Nevertheless, Wesley was still part of the crew and for all that I criticized, he certainly didn’t deserve the hate that he got. If people like or even relate to the character, that’s great! He just didn’t work for me unfortunateley. Wil Wheaton obviously moved on to bigger, better things and is well-liked in the fandom, so that’s good cause he certainly did the best that he could. He just wasn’t given a lot of good material. Hopefully Welsey’s later guest appearances will give him somethingg ood and heck maybe they’ll convince Wheaton to come back in Picard one day, but for now… farewell Wesley. Can’t say I’ll miss you, but it wasn’t the worst ride either.

#st watchthrough

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bobbyshaddoe80 · 3 years ago

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Liberated Audio Reviews

Blake's 7 - The Liberator Chronicles Vol. 6

RELEASED OCTOBER 2013

Recorded on: 2, 10 and 30 October and 13 December 2012

Recorded at: Moat Studios

Review By Robert L. Torres

Incentive by Peter Anghelides

'The Liberator crew are recovering from a Galactic War and searching for their lost members Blake and Jenna. But it’s a search that leads them into terrible danger…'

Because this story marks the return of Steven Pacey to the role of Del Tarrant, I think it is best that I get my views on the character out of my system before getting to the rest of the review.

Honestly.... Out of the main characters that have come and gone on the show during its four season run, there are two that I do not count as my favorites.

The first is Soolin, largely due to how bland and one note the character was compared to the character she was brought on to replace in Series D... Cally.

The other character is Del Tarrant, and I shall endeavor to explain why I dislike him despite Steven Pacey's fine performance.

From the first moment he appeared on the show, there was something about him that just rubbed me the wrong way. For years I knew it was the character himself that seemed like the problem... But I could never work out why.

This story finally brought to light why I disliked Tarrant's character. He was a young, cocky, hot shot with loyalties only to himself... Basically a less charming and less endearing version of Star Lord. He was impatient, brash, and only seemed to be throwing in his lot with the resistance for no other reason than for fame and glory.

In addition, Tarrant seemed to go out of his way to get under everyone's skin (or rather just Avon's), and always bristled under Avon's command.

I understand that with Gareth Thomas having left the series, they needed to create a new character to go up against Avon on the decision making, much in the same way Avon used to butt heads with Blake. Except the dynamic between Avon and Tarrant, from what I remember, was different and far more antagonistic than it was between Blake and Avon. Avon was an Alpha dog, but Tarrant was also an Alpha dog. This is probably why most of their disagreements, from what I remember, tended to come across like dick wagging contests.

It has been a while since I saw the series proper, but there are only two things of any significance regarding Tarrant that I remember. The first was the Series C episode 'Death Watch', which I think involved his twin brother Deeta. The other was the episode 'Sand' from Series D, which involved him and Servalan being trapped on a planet together... Having conjugal relations.

While the character of Del Tarrant isn't my favorite, Anghelides does a pretty good job of at least attempting to shed a bit of light on his character. This is accomplished by focusing on his desperate desire to stand out from the crowd and make a name for himself on par with the legendary Blake and Jenna.

The story begins not long after Tarrant and Dayna have officially joined the crew. During their latest attempt to locate Blake and Jenna, Tarrant and Avon are captured and interrogated while strapped to an electro-shock lie detector. This dual focused narrative split is in itself a pretty interesting dig at unreliable narratives, especially given that both Tarrant and Avon receive electro shocks whenever they aren't being completely truthful in their recollections.

By the way, kudos to Adrian Lukis for his exquisite portrayal of Interrogator Bracheeni. The scenes that featured him interacting with Tarrant and Avon were actually some of the best parts of the story. The revelation of who and what Bracheeni is added a great deal to the narrative, especially in providing an explanation as to why the Liberator crew had to abandon the search for Blake and Jenna.

All things considered, it is nice to get an actual in-universe explanation as opposed to what actually happened: the plot thread being dropped without explanation, forcing viewers to accept the fact that Blake and Jenna weren't coming back... Ever.

While there are some interesting ideas and set ups featured in the story, the narrated recollections are not really that engaging. In addition, my problem with this story is the same problem I had with Volume Three's 'Armageddon Storm'. Its a narrated story that should have been done as a full cast audio.

Final Score: 6 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

As it stands, this story does its job of filling an hour and retroactively provides answers to lingering questions, thus making it essential. However, this is marred by being an uneven story that is only half engaging.

Jenna's Story by Steve Lyons

'Jenna's story is finally told - from her escape from the Liberator during the Galactic War, to her determination to continue the fight against the Federation alone… with the odds stacked against her.'

When Big Finish Productions obtained the rights to produce new stories set within Series A through C of Blake's 7, this not only opened up story avenues to provide greater focus stories for many of its characters, but also an opportunity to fill in a couple of gaps in the narrative.

While 'Incentive' was an uneven story, it still managed to do what the show itself was unable or unwilling to do at the time: explain why the Liberator crew abandoned their search for Blake and Jenna.

Answering lingering questions seems to be this boxset's central theme as the next two stories are focused on what happened to the characters that literally jumped ship at the end of Series B, Jenna and Blake.

According to dialogue spoken by Cally in early Series C, it was always assumed that Jenna was with Blake when they abandoned ship during the Galactic War. It was also naturally assumed that Jenna had been with Blake the whole time during Series C and D.

Turns out that wasn't the case at all... Which actually works to the benefit of this story and the next.

Here, Jenna recounts how she spent her time surviving and fighting during the events of Series C and leading into Series D. It provides Sally Knyvette with great material and also serves as a reminder of what made me, personally, fall out of love with the series during Series D... Particularly with the way the series ended.

Let me be clear, as much I personally didn't like not having Blake and Jenna around on the show anymore, Steve Lyons managed to craft an exceptional Jenna-centric story that absolutely had to be told. This story, as well as the next one, managed to do a much better job implementing the central themes of what was meant to be on display during Series C and particularly during Series D: how the crusade that Blake started with hope and optimism slowly but surely devolved into cynicism, suspicion, self-interest and ultimately self-destruction.

This is highlighted well during Jenna's dealings with Correll, played by John Banks, and his disrespectfully dismissive attitude towards people with 'noble causes', his derogatory disbelief in 'heroes', as well as his overriding, self-serving self-interest.

Kudos to Banks for portraying someone that's basically an unlikeable, selfish jerk without becoming despicable.

The crux and climax of the story is based on a line of dialogue Blake tells Tarrant during the series finale regarding Jenna's ultimate fate. While the moment itself is thrilling and well executed, I had hoped that it was a lie as part of Blake's test or something. Still, what was crafted here is suitably tragic as it showcases the depths of Jenna's devotion, and even her love, for Blake.

The ultimate tragedy being that, in the end, she never did get to tell Blake how she felt about him... and how much he meant to her.

Final Score: 10 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

A superbly satisfying sendoff and sublime swansong for Sally's Stannis!

Blake's Story by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott

'Blake's story is finally told - from his escape from the Liberator during the Galactic War, to his new life as a troubled, scarred man on a distant rebel world…'

Before getting into the review, I have to state that while I understand the reasons why Gareth Thomas and Sally Knyvette left the show at the end of Series B, it is my opinion that the show lost quite a bit of its inherent identity once Blake and Jenna were gone.

While many contend that promoting the late Paul Darrow to lead actor was the creative booster shot the show needed, there is a reason the show was still called Blake's 7 and not Avon's 7.

No matter who is given the spotlight and focus, Blake's presence is still very embedded within the show's DNA. Despite his absence, Blake's influence is still keenly felt by those that inhabit this fictional universe... Both directly and indirectly.

While the storytelling avenues may have opened up for the rest of the cast, the audience would still inevitably wonder, 'Where the hell is Blake? When is he coming back?' Largely because the audience was still interested in seeing Blake's story continue.

Both Gareth Thomas and Chris Boucher no doubt understood this to be absolutely true. As long as the Roj Blake character remained alive, but missing from a show that bared his character's name, then Gareth Thomas would not have been able to truly move forward in his career.

Which is why its no surprise that the most memorable moment in the entire series came about at Thomas' insistence.

But this isn't about how Blake's story ends... Its about the circumstances Blake experienced during Series C and D that led to his ultimate fate on Gauda Prime. And I am pleased to say that Wright and Scott do an excellent job filling in the blanks of Blake's journey.

From landing on the planet Epheron in his escape pod, to attempting to reunite with the Liberator (which includes Blake visiting the planet Shorlan post-Armageddon Storm), to being captured, tortured and accused of treachery by the Resistance (thus explaining the scar over his eye he displayed in the series finale), its all presented here brilliantly. I also appreciate how engaging these moments are, and aren't treated as plot points to check off.

The late Gareth Thomas really did a great job with this material, displaying the same charisma and intensity he had shown throughout his tenure on the show, which is doubly unfortunate that he had opted out after Series B.

The framing device utilized for Blake recounting events is brilliant, and the twist reveal is actually rather clever... If a little unsurprising. However, it serves the narrative well as it goes to the heart of the tragic and ironic inevitability that lies ahead for Blake, particularly in his connection to Avon.

Despite their disagreements and opposing ideals... And no matter how often Avon secretly wished to be rid of Blake... They still needed each other.

It often reminds me of why the Doctor chooses to travel with companions, the companions keep the Doctor grounded and keep the Doctor from going too far for the sake of selfish self interest and so on.

While neither one would ever admit it, Blake and Avon had the ability to keep each other in check. And even though Blake said at the end of 'Star One' and even near the end of this story that he always trusted Avon... Its only with the benefit of hindsight do we question whether or not that trust was warranted.

Final Score: 10 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

A truly satisfying sendoff for the original star of the show.

Final score for Volume 6 of the Liberator Chronicles, in its entirety, is 8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts.

This is an essential set of stories for longtime fans. Even though there are six more boxsets of stories left in the range, if the Liberator Chronicles audio range ended here, it would have ended on a major high note.

As an aside, while the next six boxsets have produced some outstanding stories, I personally feel that both 'Jenna's Story' and 'Blake's Story' should have been the stories utilized as the finale for the Liberator Chronicles range overall.

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#big finish productions #blake's 7 #audiobook #reviews #audio dramas

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sierraraeck · 4 years ago

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In Anticipation

Spencer x OC Aundreya

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Summary: Partially inspired by 8x10 The Lesson. Spencer is stressing about meeting ‘Phone Booth Girl’ and Aundreya breaks down and gives him a pep talk. Story twelve.

Category: Some angst, some fluff.

Warnings: Cussing. Some self doubt I guess.

Word Count: 3.9k

A/N: I love Alex Blake. I do. I want her, and all of the characters, in my fics but I think a 13 person BAU team is a bit excessive. She just doesn’t exactly fit with my series so unfortunately I’ve made the executive decision to leave her out. Sorry. I still love her though. =D

Four weeks and three days.

That’s how long it’d been since essentially cutting all ties with Reid.

Not only had myself and my beliefs reverted back to old ways, but so had Reid and I’s relationship. We were avoiding each other, only speaking when we had to for the case. Neither of us were too proud to allow our problems to get in the way of our job, which was probably the only reason that Hotch didn’t interrogate us or scold us for whatever was going on.

They were all profilers, so of course they had their theories, but I don’t think any one of them understood the magnitude of what was really going on. What had gone on. Not like Reid and I were particularly easy people to read anyway.

During this last case, something was up. Reid was acting strange and the rest of them seemed to be in on it, but I had no idea what was going on. I assumed it had to do with his mystery woman. There was a small chance they could have been talking about the new/old dynamic between Reid and I, but I doubted it.

I wanted to ask to be let in on whatever was going on, but thought better of it, remembering that I was no longer someone he confided in, and whatever it was he was doing was no longer any of my business or concern. But just because I wasn't going to ask them for answers to their faces, didn’t mean I wasn’t going to scope them out behind their backs.

Whenever I approached any door that I knew they were whispering behind, I would just casually stand there for an extra few seconds, seeing if there was anything I could pick up on. I would walk by the same door multiple times if I had to, slowing down each time, all in an effort to pick up just a couple of keywords. The majority of the time, all I got was a ‘Spencer’ here, a ‘she’ there. Super specific stuff. But I hit the jackpot when everyone had been out in the field while Reid and JJ stayed behind to work on the geographical profile.

“... Phone booth girl?” JJ asked. That quickly got my attention.

“She wants to meet,” Reid answered.

“Wait, you guys have never met? Aren’t you curious what she looks like?”

“It doesn’t matter what she looks like. I mean, she’s already the most beautiful girl in the world to me,” he replied. I knew it was a bunch of shit when he tried to tell me that he was just making phone calls to her about his headaches. “It’s just … What if she doesn’t like me?”

There was a moment of silence before I heard JJ sit down and ask in a caring but stern way, “Why wouldn’t she like you?”

“Because I’m weird,” Reid answered with no hesitation. “I slouch, my hair’s too long, my tie’s perpetually crooked.”

“Your hair’s fine,” JJ said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

Reid's voice was quiet, almost shy when responding, “Really? Thanks. My mom thinks it’s too long. So does my aunt Ethel.”

“Well, you’re not dating them,” JJ pointed out.

“I just - I - I just wouldn’t want to ruin something so special over something so trivial as looks.”

“I think you’re excited but afraid. Seeing her will only make the relationship better. Trust me,” JJ said with confidence. I agreed with her in spite of myself, even though I still felt bitter about the whole thing. “When does she want to meet?”

“Right when we get back.”

“Do it,” JJ encouraged. “Don’t psych yourself out.”

“We’ll see,” Reid responded with his classic hesitation, especially when it came to ‘Phone Booth Girl’ as JJ was now referring to her as.

I leaned against the door frame to announce myself, not wanting to risk being caught lurking outside the door. As expected, they both immediately stopped talking and looked up at me, like I was a parent that just caught her kids stealing cookies out of the cookie jar.

“Hey, how’s it coming?” I asked.

“Fine, fine,” JJ answered. She revealed the fakest smile, but with knowing eyes, followed by, “I’ll be right back, I’m going to use the ladies’ room.”

I just leaned back out of the room and pretended to go in the direction of the main conference room we’d initially set up in, but quickly turned to follow JJ into the bathroom.

I was so eager to know what she was going to say that the moment the door shut, I immediately asked, “Yeah, what’s up?”

“What do you know?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I know it’s been killing you not knowing what’s going on, and I’m not sure if anyone else has noticed or put it together, but I’m sure you’ve been eavesdropping or doing something to figure out what’s going on,” she didn’t even wait for my reaction before continuing, “He’s going to meet that girl he’s been talking to on the payphones.”

“I know,” I said, confirming her theory. I didn’t know what else to say, but I could tell there was something more to this conversation. “What is it?”

“He’s stressed,” she simply put.

“Right…” I said. I was confused as to where this was going.

“Look. All of us-”

“Who’s ‘all of us?’” I asked before she could proceed.

“Me, Derek, and Emily. And Penelope of course.” I nodded for her to continue. “We’ve been thinking about how things have been rocky with the two of you lately, and we don’t exactly know what happened, but we do know that Reid has some new woman in his life now and he needs our support.” Her words rushed out, as if she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to get all of the necessary information out before I … what? Stormed off?

“Okay…” I prompted. I still couldn’t figure out what she was getting at. I hadn’t made any snarky remarks or discouraged him from talking to her or seeing her. Hell! If it was up to him, I wouldn’t know jack shit.

“We noticed that, despite how much we all pressed for information or assured him that things would work out, he still seems on edge.” I leaned slightly forward. She was doing a real good job dragging this explanation out. She let out a heavy sigh of defeat, like if I couldn’t read her mind, it wasn’t worth it. “I just think we all need to support him.”

“Are you saying I don’t support him?”

“No that’s not what I’m saying, I’m just merely-”

“No. That is what you’re saying,” I said, somehow keeping my voice normal and neutral, but cocking my head to one side. “But I do support him. I haven’t made any efforts otherwise. Plus, he doesn’t really seem like he wants me in his business and I respect those boundaries.”

“Okay,” she said a little harshly, eyes wide and arms crossed.

I could tell she wasn’t convinced so I followed with, “Seriously, JJ. I don’t have a problem with his personal choices. I don’t care what he decides to do, or who he decides to talk to in his free time.”

“Exactly. You don’t care,” she huffed. What the hell?

“And you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” this caught her off guard and I could tell her face switched to one of concentration, profiling concentration, so I finished with, “I’m fine with his choices, he’s fine with his choices, everything’s fine. There’s nothing to worry about, he has my support or respect or whatever it is you came in here looking for.”

“Great,” she said, obviously still incredulous and exited the bathroom.

I followed right after, following her into the conference room to catch up on the case.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

I had a tough time focusing because I was paying more attention to Reid and mulling over JJ’s words, trying to find hidden meanings behind them. But before I could further my silent investigations, the vital question to all of this jumped into my head.

Do I support him in this?

I couldn’t tell. I felt like my mixed emotions balanced each other out so that I was just feeling … nothing. Thinking about him with another girl didn’t trigger any reactions, and neither did thinking about him sitting at home alone.

On one hand, I was still hurt and pissed at him for what he did. He was literally calling a girlfriend before and after sleeping with me while helping me over a major obstacle. He made me believe he cared about me, then had sex with me, then basically left. He’d broken my trust, which was very hard to earn, and impossible to regain.

On the other hand, I figured at least one of us should come out of the whole mess happy. Why not have it be him considering I don’t deserve it and am probably destined to continue my path of pain and loneliness? Or I’d wreck whatever good situation lies ahead of me. Either way, he deserves happiness, and I’m fairly certain he is not going to find it with me, so he might as well find it with her. Whoever ‘her’ is.

So I didn’t know. Did I support him? Did I not support him? Was I just a neutral third party that couldn’t make up her mind whose opinion was also irrelevant to the matter? Who knows.

For someone who doesn’t like to dig too deep into her psyche, I’d sure been spending a lot of time holding a shovel as of late. The two sides of my brain played tug-of-war while I was trying to concentrate on saving lives, but luckily, each side got tired and gave up allowing me to focus on the case, but leaving me no where closer to an answer than I was hours ago.

I continued to go about my work as usual, not going out of my way to avoid him, and not going out of my way to see him. We finally wrapped up our case and boarded the jet, leaving everyone drained due to the late nights the past few days.

I, however, refused to sleep on the jet. I never got any good sleep, and then I couldn’t sleep later, and I didn’t like the idea of the plane crashing down and me not being fully awake and ready to deal with that. Plus, as an ex-hunted criminal, I didn’t like the idea of being vulnerable with a bunch of FBI agents around, even if they were a part of my team.

Clearly Reid didn’t like the idea of sleeping on the jetride back this time either, because he was sitting in a corner by himself with a cup of coffee and a book. I could tell he wasn’t as relaxed or as focused as he usually was, because it took him longer than usually to flip through the pages. After spending nearly a year doing a book swap, I got pretty used to the rhythm of his page turning.

It’s because he’s stressed, I reminded myself. He is still worried about meeting that girl, and according to JJ and company, he ‘needs our support’ and you haven’t been too sharing on that front. Maybe you should talk to him.

At the same time, though, I don’t owe him anything. He hasn’t approached me about it, hasn’t shared any information with me whatsoever, so why should I cross that line? And what good would it do anyway? It’s not like anything I say is going to make a difference.

But what if it does? What if, even though I’m trying to push him out, not give a single damn what he thinks of me anymore, he still does? Could he still care what I think, what I have to say about... all this? I was basically his ‘best friend’ for a while there, and maybe after everything got complicated, he feels … bad? Well, obviously Aundreya, but like bad in the sense that he feels like he can’t move on without me telling him it’s okay or something? He’ll probably continue to beat himself up over it and then he’ll never be able to enjoy himself and will just stress himself out and wallow in guilt.

Not ‘probably’. You know him better than that. That’s exactly what’s happening, and that’s got to be what JJ was getting at.

But what if he doesn’t want to talk to me? What if I just make him feel worse? And why should I care if he’s worried or not?

Come on, Chambers. You’re trying to be better and you know it would mean a lot if you just talked to him.

I’d made up my mind.

I was sitting with my own book and cup of warm tea and wanted to laugh at how, even though we weren’t doing it together, we were literally still doing the same thing we always did. I got up and made a fresh cup of tea, careful not to spill any or cross contaminate, then I set it down next to mine on the small table right beside the couch.

I took a deep breath, and with my book still open and in my hand, walked over to where Reid was sitting before I could talk myself out of it. Without a word or tearing my eyes from my own book, I casually picked up Reid’s coffee mug, then turned around and walked back to the couch. I sat down and put his mug next to the other two. I refused to turn around and look at his reaction. Instead, I just waited for his presence to appear across the couch.

It came soon enough, which I knew it would because he’s kinda a caffeine addict. He reached for his coffee but I slid it across the table toward me so he couldn’t get it. I quickly slid the fresh cup of tea I’d made across the table, practically pushing it into his hand, the whole time continuing to look at my book. I stifled a laugh when he picked up the tea, examined it, then made a pouty face. I took a sip of my own, then set it, and the book, down on the table.

I sat with my back leaning against the arm of the couch, my legs criss crossed in front of me, facing Spencer head on who was sitting in nearly the same position. Finally looking up at him I whispered, “It’s going to be okay, you know.”

He slowly looked up at me but didn’t say anything, so I continued with, “It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it. And it’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it with me. I just wanted to tell you that she’s gonna love you. She probably already does.”

We sat there in silence for a while, and I was about to pick my book back up again, thinking that he wouldn’t say anything, but then he said, “I just don’t know if I can do this.”

“Why wouldn’t you be able to?” I inquired.

“Because of …” he trailed off but I followed his train of thought.

“Don’t worry about me. It happened. It’s over. I don’t want you guilt tripping yourself out of happiness. I am not worth that,” I whispered, careful to keep my voice low enough the others wouldn’t wake. This wasn’t exactly a conversation I wanted anyone else to be a part of.

“You are worth that-”

“I’m not.”

“-and I do feel guilty-”

“I know. And I appreciate that but there is nothing either of us can do now except move on. So do that. Move on. This girl, whoever she is-”

“Her name is Maeve,” he blurted. It stopped me right in my tracks. I think I was the first person he gave her name to.

I quickly recovered, “Maeve. She seems right for you. She’s obviously smart, she’s helping the FBI solve cases and she’s keeping up with you, and you, you seem … you seem … you’re happy. You get that goofy smile on your face when you talk about her. When you think about her. When other people talk about her. I know it’s in your nature to worry, but seriously, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“What else?” I asked. There was more but I knew he felt awkward opening up to me about it because … well.

“Huh?”

“What else is going through your mind? I know you need to get something off of your chest and remember, we used to tell each other everything before things got complicated. That wouldn’t be a bad place to return to…” I offered, hopeful he’d be okay with that.

He gave me a small smile and said, “I’d like that.”

It was odd but I was relieved. I don’t know why there would have been any pressure on me to begin with, but I did feel relieved. More and more of the bitterness I felt was dissipating every day, and was continually replaced with the feeling of missing the one person I’d opened up to the most. I wanted that back. I needed that back. “Great. So what else?”

“It’s just - we’ve never met and she wants to meet.”

“Okay, that’s exciting, right?” I asked, testing the waters.

“I mean, yes.”

“But…”

“But I’m nervous. I want her to like me and I’m afraid she won’t once she meets me,” he expressed.

“Spencer,” I started, leaning over the one cushion in between us, “you are an amazing guy. She already likes your personality, and considering how long you’ve been talking to each other, you’re already past all of the small talk too. You’ve already completed all of the hard stuff, and now you just get to enjoy the easy little things, like her hair, her eyes, her smile. As for her, she gets to enjoy your hair,” I ruffled it up a bit, “your eyes, and your smile.” He fixed his hair and flashed me that very same goofy grin I was talking about, golden eyes twinkling. It was honestly a shame he didn’t smile more. “There you go. Flash her one of those and she’s done for,” I chuckled, “Plus, you are a phenomenal judge of character. If you believe that she is worth taking a bullet for, I’d trust that gut feeling. And like I told you when we were first starting to get to know each other: I’ve met a lot of people, like a lot of people, and you are by far one of the coolest. If she doesn’t see that, it is ultimately her loss and her problem,” I concluded. It still hurt knowing that I was encouraging him to continue on with the relationship that almost ended ours, but I could tell it was what he wanted, and who was I to get in the way of that? I had no reason to feel spiteful toward Maeve, she hadn’t done anything to me, and besides, she seemed like she would be exponentially better for him than I could ever be. I was going to have to start coming to terms with that and getting over it. Getting over him. But at least I knew we could start rebuilding our friendship and that would have to suffice.

“You don’t know how much it means to hear you say that,” he looked down at his fiddling thumbs. “I’ve just been sick this whole time that in doing this I would really lose you forever and I didn’t want that.”

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You should do what makes you happy.”

He nodded and I could visibly see the weight being lifted off of his shoulders. I was glad I could be the one to do that.

He took a sip of his tea and scrunched his nose up. This time I had to laugh.

“Oh come on. It is not that bad,” I rolled my eyes.

“It’s just not coffee,” he complained.

“You don’t drink coffee. You drink caffeinated sugar water with a dash of coffee,” I accused. He just shook his head and set his tea down about to reach for his other mug again.

“Nuh-uh,” I scolded. The last thing he needed was to be over-hyper and jacked up before meeting this girl. Maeve. “Tell you what,” I got up from my seat and grabbed the sugar and honey, “Usually I only put a little bit of one of these in my drink, but because you have the taste buds of a five-year-old child, I will break down.”

He smiled at me and quickly poured a kidney-failing amount of each into his tea. I put my palm on my forehead as he swirled it around and took a sip.

“See. That is much better,” he commented happily. “You should invest in adding more to yours.”

“Oh no. I am quite alright, thank you.”

“You know you want to.”

“Actually, there’s this really cool thing called blood sugar levels, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of them,” I teased, “but I’m all good leaving mine where they’re at. I wouldn’t want to induce a heart attack.”

He laughed, and I laughed, and it felt good to be laughing together again.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

“Are you sure?” Spencer asked.

“We’re sure! You go and have fun. The rest of us will finish up for you,” Emily said, and Derek, JJ, and I all nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay. Thank you,” he said, turning toward the parking lot.

“He’s in a much better mood about this than he was before,” Derek acknowledged.

“Yeah that’s true,” Emily agreed, “I wonder what changed his mind.”

It was more like a statement than a question, all three of their heads turning to look at me. I shrugged and feigned confusion, “I have no idea. Maybe the stars are aligning,” I said sarcastically, raising my eyebrows.

Derek rolled his eyes and said, “At least we can always count on you.”

“To what?”

“To be an irritatingly helpful smartass.”

“Wow,” I put a hand to my chest in appreciation, my voice becoming velvety as I wiped away a non-existent tear, “I don’t think I’ve ever been so accurately described.”

We chuckled and entered the office, ready to file some closing paperwork.

Penelope met us at the doors, hugging us all and offering us special drinks she’d been practicing making while we were gone.

“Wait where’s Spen - wait! Is he with Phone Booth Girl!” she cheered, not even waiting for a response. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” She giggled then turned to Derek, “How come you don’t take me out anymore?”

“Oh, baby girl, we have so much more fun staying in,” he returned, smug.

She stepped closer to him and turned her tone from pouty to sexy, “How could I forget? It could have been because I was near blacking ou-”

“Woah!” I interjected. “Some of us would actually like to sleep tonight without the graphic details.”

“That’s the problem. I’m not one for sleeping,” Garcia purred.

“Dammit. I asked for that one,” I shook my head.

Both Penelope and Derek placed a hand on one of my shoulders, and I’m not shitting you, said at the same time, “Yeah, you did.”

They walked away as I knit my brows together and turned toward JJ and Emily. I put one hand out, gesturing at their backs and mouthed ‘what?’ JJ shrugged and Emily just shook her head in amused disbelief.

As the night was coming to a close and we were all about to leave, a sudden crashing came from the stairs and elevator. We were halted by a stampede of police officers, weapons drawn, barging into the bullpen.

“Everyone put your hands up.”

We quickly complied, looking around at each other for silent answers. There were only the seven of us in the office, but it was the eighth they were looking for.

A woman, probably 5’8” with short brown hair demanded, “Where is Doctor Spencer Reid?”

Taglist (open)

@justanothetfangirl

@kris-stuff

@blameitonthenight21

#criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid fanfic #aundreya chambers #spencer x oc #spencer reid #criminal minds #cm #criminal minds fandom #criminal minds fanfiction #bau #dr spencer reid #reid #hotch #morgan #garcia #jareau #prentiss #rossi #behavioral analysis unit

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ordinaryschmuck · 4 years ago

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Top 20 BEST Animated Series of the 2010s-8th Place

It’s funny. Four years ago, there was no doubt in my mind that this show would easily make the top five best-animated series in the last decade. But the more it went on, the more...controversial it got. However, despite all the hate this next series has been getting recently, I still believe that there’s something to be desired within it.

#8-Steven Universe/Steven Universe: Future (2013-2020)

The Plot: For years, immortal warriors known as the Crystal Gems have been defending the Earth from anything that seeks to do it harm. Until one day when Rose Quartz, the Gems leader, had fallen in love with a human named Greg Universe. From that love, Rose gave up her physical form to bring her son, Steven, into the world she was sworn to protect. Taking guidance from the other Crystal Gems-Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl-Steven will try his best to grow up into the same warrior that his mom was. But as he learns more about the Gems and his mother, Steven will soon realize that he’ll have to grow up far faster than he thought.

Right out the gate, I should mention there's a 60%-40% chance that you’re either going to love this show or think that it’s pure garbage. And honestly, I believe it all depends on perspective. Like the quality of most shows, the enjoyment depends on the viewpoints you chose to take with it. Some people will look at specific decisions as well done, where others will see it all as a mess of storytelling. For instance, one person can make a two-hour-long video about how Steven Universe is garbage, and another person can make a video arguing about how it isn’t. Everyone has different reasons why they like or hate something. If you genuinely hate Steven Universe or think you might not like it, that's perfectly fine. I just hope you’ll give me the chance to explain why I personally enjoy it, and why I think it deserves all the adulation it has.

For instance, the main thing I really enjoy about Steven Universe is its style. From the designs, to the animation, to even the music. Everything about how Steven Universe both looks and sounds leave me awestruck. First is the show’s designs of both the backgrounds and characters. Nearly every part of the world in the series looks absolutely amazing, fitting seeing how the Crystal Gems fought for Earth due to its beauty. There are also times when lore and backstory can be seen through the backgrounds, giving some fantastic utilization of visual storytelling. Such as when the Crystal Gems visit war zones and temples that they’ve spent years fighting in, showing hidden secrets that can make much more sense by later episodes. As for the character designs, they all look pretty good. Each character has a dynamic and unique style, making them all fun to look at. It’s even better when the character’s personalities are shown throughout their entire designs. I especially love how the artists managed to get creative with how real life crystals (lapices, bismuths, and jaspers) will look like people when designing the Crystal Gems and their enemies. However, I should first mention that Steven Universe is another show where the art style depends on who’s storyboarding the scene. While not as bad as OK KO: Let’s Be Heroes, it can be pretty distracting given how character sizes and proportions are inconsistent. Regardless, I still like how good the designs look for a majority of the characters. And at a practical standpoint, I think it’s great that the artists kept the figures as simple as possible as it makes animating the characters a lot easier.

Speaking of which, I really like how Steven Universe is animated. It’s not entirely groundbreaking like The Amazing World of Gumball’s or as fluid as Wander Over Yonder’s, but the animation in Steven Universe is still pretty dang good. The characters' movements look believable, and the expressions each one makes is downright amazing to see. It gets more aspiring for the show’s fight scenes. You can almost feel each punch, jab, and slash that the characters trade with each other, and the fights themselves are pretty fun to watch. As for the action itself, Steven Universe might just have the most creative action set pieces I’ve seen from any animated series. Case in point, there is an entire fight scene that’s also a fantastic song at the same time.

On the topic of songs, let the record show that showrunner Rebecca Sugar really understands music. I say this because Steven Universe has some really great music in it. From background music to full-on musical numbers, this show proves how important melodies are in a series. Look at the background music, as it not only does a suitable job at making audiences feel the right emotions but also sounds really good when isolated. As for the character motifs, each note perfectly encapsulates the character's personality that it’s meant for. Like Pearl, who has a piano melody to show off her classy and orderly personality, and Peridot, who has a more 8-bit tune to her leitmotif as a way to show off her tech side. And since we branched into talking about 8-bit, there are times when this show’s soundtrack sounds like it belongs in a really cool video game (Google Lion’s and Obsidian's themes if you don’t believe me). As for the actual songs in the show, Steven Universe has a pretty good selection. As they can be beautiful and downright awesome to listen to. And even though the show uses songs to develop the characters and story, these musical numbers can still be pretty fun to listen to on their own, with no context (most of the time).

But while a show's style is essential, it’s the substance that truly matters. And here is where we go back to the discussion of perspective. To some viewers, you might think that the substance in Steven Universe is handled well, where others...Well, I think it’s pretty obvious how they might feel.

Let’s look at the story because Steven Universe actually has an intriguing and compelling story...Or at least it does when it tries to eventually tell that story. Whether you’re a person who either loves or hates the series, everyone can agree that the slice of life episodes are easily the show’s weakest. Personally, I don’t mind them, and that’s because I view these episodes as giving me a choice between eating a chocolate cake or a carrot. The story-driven episodes are a chocolate cake. Their sweet, delicious, and I’m always craving more after just having one piece. As for the slice of life episodes, they’re like carrots. I can eat a carrot. I can digest a carrot. I might even enjoy a carrot. Hell, there are times when I’m willing to ask for another carrot. But if you’re going to give me the decision of a carrot over a chocolate cake, then I’m always going to pick the chocolate cake. Even if I enjoy episodes like “Laser Light Cannon," “Too Short to Ride," and “Alone Together," they can never hold a candle to “Jail Break," “Reunited," and “Change Your Mind." This is because the slice of life episodes give off a sense of distraction from the main story. After all, they rarely add anything new (read: meaningful) to the tale. And going back to the carrot and chocolate cake analogy, there’s one aspect that doesn’t do the slice of life episodes any favors. You see, where most shows feel like you have to eat the carrots before having the chocolate cake, half the time Steven Universe feels like you can skip most of the carrots and go straight for the chocolate cake instead. And Steven Universe isn’t the only show to try this. In fact, tomorrow I’ll be talking about a show that perfected this idea. But tomorrow's series manages to make both the story and slice of life episode the chocolate cake instead of the carrot. And it has everything to do with the fact that the characters care about the situation they’re in. There are actual moments in the show where Crystal Gems refuse to participate in everyday antics because they simply don’t think those antics are worth their time. Which is something you never want to do. Because if the characters don’t care, then why should the audience? Speaking of the characters--

I want it to be known that I like the majority of the characters in Steven Universe. Greg, Connie, Peridot, Amethyst, and Garnet are all enjoyable to watch in their own way. Not only is their development on point, but their personalities are all likable, and their issues are also relatable. It’s three other characters that things get a little iffy. Those characters being Steven, Pearl, Bismuth and Lapis. If you ask me, I like these characters, and I think it’s fun to study/analyze their personalities. However, these characters make decisions that audiences are either going to hate or love. It’s sort of like that optical illusion of the old lady/young lady (Google it). Some people can see the ugly old hag, where others will see the beautiful young woman. You’re most likely going to see one or the other, and it isn’t until someone else points out what you couldn’t notice that you are capable of seeing both. It’s something very similar to Steven, Pearl, Bismuth and Lapis. One response is that you’re either going to see characters who are selfless heroes that are victims of circumstance. The other is seeing toxic idiots who cause more harm than good to the people they love.

And then there are the people of Beach City. These are mostly hated by both fans and critics of the show. Personally, I don’t hate most of them. Don’t get me wrong, characters like Lars and Ronaldo deserve every ounce of hate they are given (Although Lars does get better). As for the rest of the Beach Citizens, I don’t think they are that bad of characters. In fact, I think they’re good characters placed in the wrong show. Some of them have issues that most people deal with (Sadie, in most of her episodes), where others seem to be slightly layered and almost intriguing (Mr. Smiley and Onion in “Future Boy Zoltron” and “Onion Gang”). In fact, if these characters were a part of a different series, I’m sure people will be more willing to watch their struggles. It's just compared to the Crystal Gems and company, the people of Beach City are not as interesting to watch or dissect. And because of this, the show drags down to a screeching halt whenever it focuses on these characters.

And the most controversial element of these characters is (semi-spoilers ahead) when the show tries to pull off redemption arcs. Steven Universe seems to work off the logic that nobody is evil, just misunderstood. There’s both a right way and a wrong way of illustrating that logic, and Steven Universe, unfortunately, does it the wrong way. And the best way for me to describe how to do this idea is to use the game Undertale as an example (I’d warn you about spoilers, but odds are you already know everything about that game). In Undertale, you play a character who fell into an underground prison full of monsters, and you have to find your way back to the surface. The monsters you run into give the impression that they’re dangerous and want to destroy you (or at least most of them do). However, the game allows the player to interact with the world and characters around them, soon discovering that the monsters are more complex than one might think. In fact, the game allows you to actually interact with monsters who tried to kill you, showing the logic and reasoning as to why. By the end of Undertale, you learn that every character you encounter is not the villains in the story, but rather victims of a war that forced them away from the surface. Steven Universe has a similar idea but fails to do it properly. All it reveals is that the villains have done bad things, realize that they’ve done wrong, and decide to have an out of nowhere change of heart by the end. The problem is that except for one character, the turnarounds don’t feel earned. Instead, they feel forced than anything else.

These elements are what make Steven Universe slightly controversial to enjoy.

(And also the ridiculous amount of hiatuses. But that’s not really an issue I have with the show, but the network running it.)

But if there is one thing I hope we all can agree on, both the pessimistic and forgiving, I think it’s safe to say that the best thing about Steven Universe is how important it is for the LGBTQ+ community. There may have been kids' shows in the past that hinted at same-sex relationships and they deserve some respect as well. But I'd say it’s Steven Universe that popularized the idea with the characters Ruby and Saphire. Not only are these two downright adorable together, but they also manage to be enjoyable characters on their own (Even though it isn’t often you see them apart, but their personalities still shine through). And I’m willing to make the argument that it’s because of these two why children’s animation is less afraid, but still cautious, of being explicit with having same-sex couples. Like I said, most shows decide to hint at these relationships, so they don't get in trouble for doing so. Nowadays? Most of Cartoon Network’s series seem to have more gay relationships than most children’s networks in recent memory. Nickelodeon allowed The Loud House to have gay parents in a children's cartoon, and one of the main characters being canonically bisexual. Hell, even Disney is currently taking steps in the right direction with their smash hit called The Owl House. Now, more than ever, kids can learn at an early age that gay relationships are more than just acceptable, but they’re also completely normal and should be accepted as such. And I’m more than willing to give Steven Universe credit for giving this trend the push that it needed, like other creators for these shows usually point fingers at it as well.

Is Steven Universe a perfect show? No. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s garbage. There are some legitimate faults that this series has, some of which I’m inclined to agree with. But with all the good it does and how much fun people have while watching it, I can’t really say I hate this series. If you think you’ll hate this show, you have every right to. I can’t change how you feel, but I can ask you to keep an open mind. Because who knows? You might be someone who will find the diamond in the rough of this series.

(Now that’s a pun you’ll be willing to appreciate by the time you reach season 5).

#top 20 of the 2010s #steven universe #steven universe future #what i thought about

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dillydedalus · 4 years ago

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january reading

why does january always feel like it’s 3 months long. anyway here’s what i read in january, feat. poison experts with ocd, ants in your brain, old bolsheviks getting purged, and mountweazels.

city of lies, sam hawke (poison wars #1) this is a perfectly nice fantasy novel about jovan, who serves as essentially a secret guard against poisoning for his city state’s heir and is forced to step up when his uncle (also a secret poison guard) and the ruler are both killed by an unknown poison AND also the city is suddenly under a very creepy siege (are these events related? who knows!) this is all very fine & entertaining & there are some fun ideas, but also... the main character has ocd and SAME HAT SAME HAT. also like the idea of having a very important, secret and potentially fatal job that requires you to painstakingly test everything the ruler/heir is consuming WHILE HAVING OCD is like... such a deliciously sadistic concept. amazing. 3/5

my heart hemmed in, marie ndiaye (translated from french by jordan stump) a strange horror-ish tale in which two married teachers, bastions of upper-middle-class respectability and taste, suddenly find themselves utterly despised by everyone around them, escalating until the husband is seriously injured. through several very unexpected twists, it becomes clear that the couple’s own contempt for anyone not fitting into their world and especially nadia’s hostility and shame about her (implied to be northern african) ancestry is the reason for their pariah status. disturbing, surprising, FUCKED UP IF TRUE (looking back, i no longer really know what i mean by that). 4/5

xenogenesis trilogy (dawn/adulthood rites/imago), octavia e. butler octavia butler is incapable of writing anything uninteresting and while i don’t always completely vibe with her stuff, it’s always fascinating & thought-provoking. this series combines some of her favourite topics (genetic manipulation, alien/human reproduction, what is humanity) into a tale of an alien species, the oankali, saving some human survivors from the apocalypse and beginning a gene-trading project with them, integrating them into their reproductive system and creating mixed/’construct’ generations with traits from both species. and like, to me, this was uncomfortably into the biology = destiny thing & didn’t really question the oankali assertion that humans were genetically doomed to hierarchical behaviour & aggression (& also weirdly straight for a book about an alien species with 3 genders that engages in 5-partner-reproduction with humans), so that angle fell flat for me for the most part, altho i suppose i do agree that embracing change, even change that comes at a cost, is better than clinging to an unsustainable (& potentially destructive) purity. where i think the series is most interesting is in its exploration of consent and in how far consent is possible in extremely one-sided power dynamics (curiously, while the oankali condemn and seem to lack the human drive for hierarchy, they find it very easy to abuse their position of power & violate boundaries & never question the morality of this. in this, the first book, focusing on a human survivor first encountering the oankali and learning of their project, is the most interesting, as lilith as a human most explicitly struggles with her position - would her consent be meaningful? can she even consent when there is a kind of biochemical dependence between humans and their alien mates? the other two books, told from the perspectives of lilith’s constructed/mixed children, continue discussing themes of consent, autonomy and power dynamics, but i found them less interesting the further they moved from human perspectives. on the whole: 2.5/5

love & other thought experiments, sophie ward man, we love a pierre menard reference. anyway. this is a novel in stories, each based (loosely) on a thought experiment, about (loosely) a lesbian couple and their son arthur, illness and grief, parenthood, love, consciousness and perception, alternative universes, and having an ant in your brain. it is thoroughly delightful & clever, but goes for warmth and humanity (or ant-ity) over intellectual games (surprising given that it is all about thought experiments - but while they are a nice structuring device i don’t think they add all that much). i haven’t entirely worked out my feelings about the ending and it’s hard to discuss anyway given the twists and turns this takes, but it's a whole lot of fun. 4/5

a general theory of oblivion, josé eduardo agualusa (tr. from portuguese by daniel hahn) interesting little novel(la) set in angola during and after the struggle for independence, in which a portuguese woman, ludo, with extreme agoraphobia walls herself into her apartment to avoid the violence and chaos (but also just... bc she has agoraphobia) with a involving a bunch of much more active characters and how they are connected to her to various degrees. i didn’t like the sideplot quite as much as ludo’s isolation in her walled-in flat with her dog, catching pigeons on the balcony and writing on the walls. 3/5

cassandra at the wedding, dorothy baker phd student cassandra returns home attend (sabotage) her twin sister judith’s wedding to a young doctor whose name she refuses to remember, believing that her sister secretly wants out. cass is a mess, and as a shift to judith’s perspective reveals, definitely wrong about what judith wants and maybe a little delusional, but also a ridiculously compelling narrator, the brilliant but troubled contrast to judith’s safer conventionality. on the whole, cassandra’s narrative voice is the strongest feature of a book i otherwise found a bit slow & a bit heavy on the quirky family. fav line is when cass, post-character-development, plans to “take a quick look at [her] dumb thesis and see if it might lead to something less smooth and more revolting, or at least satisfying more than the requirements of the University”. 3/5

the office of historical corrections, danielle evans a very solid collection of realist short stories (+ the titular novella), mainly dealing with racism, (black) womanhood, relationships between women, and anticolonial/antiracist historiography. while i thought all the stories were well-done and none stood out as weak or an unnecessary inclusion, there also weren’t any that really stood out to me. 3/5

sonnenfinsternis, arthur koestler (english title: darkness at noon) (audio) you know what’s cool about this book? when i added it to my goodreads tbr in 2012, i would have had to read it in translation as the german original was lost during koestler’s escape from the nazis, but since then, the original has been rediscovered and republished. yet another proof that leaving books on your tbr for ages is a good thing actually. anyway. this is a story about the stalinist purges, told thru old bolshevik rubashov, who, after serving the Party loyally for years & doing his fair share of selling people out for the Party, is arrested for ~oppositional activities. in jail and during his interrogations, rubashov reflects on the course the Party has taken and his own part (and guilt) in that, and the way totalitarianism has eaten up and poisoned even the most commendable ideals the Party once held (and still holds?), the course of history and at what point the end no longer justifies the means. it’s brilliant, rubashov is brilliant and despicable, i’m very happy it was rediscovered. 5/5

heads of the colored people, nafissa thompson-spires another really solid short story collection, also focused on the experiences of black people in america (particularly the black upper-middle class), black womanhood and black relationships, altho with a somewhat more satirical tone than danielle evans’s collection. standouts for me were the story in letters between the mothers of the only black girls at a private school, a story about a family of fruitarians, and a story about a girl who fetishises her disabled boyfriend(s). 3.5/5

pedro páramo, juan rulfo (gernan transl. by dagmar ploetz) mexican classic about a rich and abusive landowner (the titular pedro paramo) and the ghost town he leaves behind - quite literally, as, when his son tries to find his father, the town is full of people, quite ready to talk shit about pedro, but they are all dead. it’s an interesting setting with occasionally vivid writing, but the skips in time and character were kind of confusing and i lost my place a lot. i’d be interested in reading rulfo’s other major work, el llano en llamas. 2.5/5

verse für zeitgenossen, mascha kaléko short collection of the poems kaléko, a jewish german poet, wrote while in exile in the united states in the 30-40s, as well as some poems written after the end of ww2. kaléko’s voice is witty, but at turns also melancholy or satirical. as expected i preferred the pieces that directly addressed the experience of exile (”sozusagen ein mailied” is one of my favourite exillyrik pieces). 3/5

the harpy, megan hunter yeah this was boooooooring. the cover is really cool & the premise sounded intriguing (women gets cheated on, makes deal with husband that she is allowed to hurt him three times in revenge, women is also obsessed with harpies: female revenge & female monsters is my jam) but it’s literally so dull & trying so hard to be deep. 1.5/5

the liar’s dictionary, eley williams this is such a delightful book, from the design (those marbled endpapers? yes) to the preface (all about what a dictionary is/could be), to the chapter headings (A-Z words, mostly relating to lies, dishonesty, etc in some way or another, containing at least one fictitious entry), to the dual plots (intern at new edition of a dictionary in contemporary england checking the incomplete old dictionary for mountweazels vs 1899 london with the guy putting the mountweazels in), to williams’s clear joy about words and playing with them. there were so many lines that made me think about how to translate them, which is always a fun exercise. 3.5/5

catherine the great & the small, olja knežević (tr. from montenegrin by ellen elias-bursać, paula gordon) coming-of-age-ish novel about katarina from montenegro, who grows up in titograd/podgorica and belgrad in the 70s/80s, eventually moving to london as an adult. to be honest while there are some interesting aspects in how this portrays yugoslavia and conflicts between the different parts of yugoslavia, i mostly found this a pretty sloggy slog of misery without much to emotionally connect to, which is sad bc i was p excited for it :(. 2/5

the decameron project: 29 new stories from the pandemic, anthology a collection of short stories written during covid lockdown (and mostly about covid/lockdown in some way). they got a bunch of cool authors, including margaret atwood, edwidge danticat, rachel kushner ... it’s an interesting project and the stories are mostly pretty good, but there wasn’t one that really stood out to me as amazing. i also kinda wish more of the stories had diverged more from covid/lockdown thematically bc it got a lil repetitive tbh. 2/5

#the books i read #long post #sonnenfinsternis is so good the audiobook nearly made me cry in the supermarket

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