#but this episode was bizarre enough that it made me start to have hope again

[paintednailsandsoftdetails]

911, a confession

Let me start by saying that I don't really know what I'm doing here, so bear with me. If I actually go through with posting this, and you find yourself tagged and wondering who I am and why, or even if you happen upon it in the tags, I hope you take a minute to read this.

You don't know me, but you've been my community for a while now. I've checked your blogs daily for years, I've read your posts and loved your art and sent you countless anonymous asks to pick your brains- never hate though, because I'm not a Freak.

What I am, however, is a lonely lesbian with depression and (newly diagnosed) OCD, who has always needed some hyperfixation media/fandom to find life bearable. For some ~fun context, I was Raised by the glee fandom, I will die on the hill that watching queer as folk when I was 14 and discovering its fans 10+ years after airing made me who I am, I've got the most bizarrely timed stint in the 1D fandom under my belt, and I find nothing in the world more interesting and also affirming than Queer Reading (verb) media- to the extent that I earned an English degree and wrote a thesis specifically about it.

I haven't posted on here in 1.5 years, since I fell out of my previous fandom (apologies to anyone from said fandom who still happens to follow me and is seeing this, feel free to move along.) But I've been on this app every day since, because of 911.

(starting the read more here to spare you- again especially if you are tagged, I know you're probably feeling miserable rn but I do hope the entirety of this love letter reaches you)

I started "watching" mid season 5- by which I mean I was in a deep depressive state after disconnecting with previous media hyperfixation and, when I happened upon 911 trending while in need of distraction, I quickly fell down a rabbit hole. Tale as old as time, tumblr dot com convinces you that you need to tune into *insert media here* bc its fun and there are gay people! I caught myself up through all the big blogs and by the time May Day was airing I felt like I had a decent grasp on all the lore, all the fandom drama, all the places the writers were "definitely, so brilliantly" going to be taking the show that we had to look forward to, all without ever having actually seen an episode of the show (before you boo me, yes I've watched it by now, even season 1)

But I think it is important, and also a little messed up, that I fell in love with 911 through YOU, through the fans. Obviously watching the show initially through the lens of fan reactions first and not whats actually happening on screen can have some... interesting results. We've heard it all before, with the people who started watching specifically for Buddie around season 4/5 because they saw The Will and by the time they caught themselves up and watched the end of season 6 they wanted their refunds.

Here is where I want to make a clarification- the reason I got so interested, why I started coming back every day to check in on tags and certain favorite blogs I didn't even follow bc I was denying the want to become fully Involved, was because I fell in love with Evan Buckley. I won't lie, it was Buddie that caught my attention first- of course, thats what everyone here was talking about- and as much as I quickly started discover the value of the show outside of them (Henren my absolute Beloveds!!!!! Captain Dad Bobby Nash you are so special to ME. Chimney man of all time i can keep going) none of it was enough initially to bite the bullet and catch up on 5 seasons worth of a show I also knew would have elements I WASNT interested in (Copaganda and Taylor Kelly I am looking at you.)

But then I started really getting into fan's readings of Buck *insert footage of me learning the Buck Begins of it all for the first time* as a character separate from Eddie (as much as people were capable of anyway, and I will say some of yall continue to be absolutely atrocious at it) and I knew I was done for. Buck, this character so full of goodness, and his need to be Found but to also Find his own family and purpose and sense of self, for whom the show's thesis statement concerns the act of working to Make the kind of Love you want to have in this world, even if you were raised without a blueprint for it- I'm sorry but what else were me and my gay ass queer reading inclined hyperfixated brain to do other than take Evan Buckley into the folds and never let him go?

I love Buck. I was convinced by the time the s5 finale was airing before I had actually watched the show that Buck had to be bi. Even if they never did a thing with it you couldn't convince me otherwise and I was also confident that Oliver was portraying him with a similar mindset. I never wavered in that interpretation, even when the utter disappointment of the s6 finale and the failure to do anything truly meaningful character development wise through the lightning strike-Natalia speed run hit, and certainly not as I got fully caught up actually watching the show outside of tumblr live reactions during episode airings. I'll admit I was pretty ready to Check Out after the end of season 6, to the point where I hardly checked in on fandom at all going into 7 until the rumblings of possible canon Bi Buck reached me and I doubled back like "hold on, for real this time?" But when I say Check Out, I mean I was ready to walk away from the hyperfixation with a joint lack of satisfaction with canon & firm conviction that Buck was queer.

Things with Eddie are a lil different- and I want to try and keep this bit brief bc this is ultimately a post about Buck and Bucktommy and I have no interest in unsettling those of you who may have a queer reading connection to Eddie as real as the one I feel for Buck, but unfortunately this conversation cannot exist separately from the Eddie/Buddie of it all- I personally don't think Eddie is queer. I don't really think I ever did, even when I was in the thick of it with falling for Buddie. I know me saying this would cause certain audience to pelt me with accusations of fetishizing Buck or treating Eddie as nothing more than a vehicle for Queer Buck via Buddie- false! I actually think Eddie is an incredibly fascinating character, a deeply compelling representation of grief and fatherhood and masculinity, and also a hilariously weird lil bitch guy. I just don't feel like- especially having removed fanon glasses while actually starting to watch the show, and taking the time to acknowledge that the things about Buddie that appealed to me on a romantic level (this is NOT about their friendship which i stand by being beautiful and important) all boiled down elements I was reading within and onto BUCK specifically, not Eddie. Perhaps an impossible concept for some, the idea that Bi Buck could feel so real and apparent to me primarily divorced from the idea that Eddie had to be queer as well, but I won't bore you with my explanations for it, though I suspect the people tagged and still reading by this point know exactly what I am talking about.

All of this potentially obnoxious prologue to say, I've spent the last however many months falling in love with canon Bi Buck *insert footage of me speed running back into my daily fandom involvement/blog check ins the moment I knew Buck kissed a man*, with Bucktommy, and with Bucktommy fans.

For a long while there I had resigned myself to an odd, though perhaps not as unique as I thought, reality of loving and fully believing in Queer Buck, not necessarily feeling the same about Eddie or Buddie, but also in full agreement with many that already 6 seasons in with literally nothing else having remotely worked, Buddie would be the only satisfying conclusion for Buck's love story. This is again not exactly how I felt about Eddie- but a big part of that for me is that I don't think Eddie's primarily story in 911 is a love story. He's the vessel for telling other important, beautiful stories about fatherhood and forgiveness and that is OKAY bc not every characters story is a love story!!! Evan Buckley's is though (Despite some very weird and confusing things mr stark has just said about his character that actively contradict what hes previously said and what audiences have been looking at and for this entire time, but I digress)

But then! By whatever happy accident we want to call it 911 had Tommy Kinard fall back into its lap as the solution to what felt like the impossible: They found the ONE way they could introduce a non Eddie Diaz love interest for Buck that COULD be satisfying for Bucks story. Someone with connections to the 118 and the shows history and potential for further development within main storylines as his job directly pertains to their plots. Someone with such compelling connections for interweaving these two characters that it got us- including the showrunner- talking about the Red String of Fate. That it got some of the beloved tumblr pals I had been watching for years, who NEVER would have believed they'd ever root for a Buck endgame that wasnt Buddie doing exactly that, and with joy, love, and conviction. Again I'll ask, what else were me and my Buck loving brain to do but take Bucktommy into the folds and never let go? (apparently I hadn't considered that there was apparently horrifying alternative- more on that next!)

As you all damn well know, falling in love with Bucktommy has not come without its trails. I have never seen things in fandom as vile as the things I've seen go down here. And as I mentioned before, I've been IN IT with yall for a while, even if you didnt know it. I was here, lurking, and I know this fandom has had its highlight reels of racism and misogyny and harassment (despite certain factions current batshit consensus that things were "never bad" before *gasp* a couple of people, some over the ancient age *double gasp* of 30 heard about bucktommy through tumblr the same damn way the 90% of you who havent been watching since season 1 heard about buddie and decided to invest)

What happened tonight made me cry, for about 40 minutes straight. And yeah, its been a devastating week for us all for a lot of reasons. On top of the ~national dread (I'm a lesbian in the US btw) today was my 7th out of 9 straight days of open to close shifts in a demanding retail/management position, and I have a head cold so maybe this was just a Breaking Point after a whole lotta shit.

But also, maybe, it was really fucking shitty to watch this play out. I've already seen countless people say it better than I could. Yeah, its a tv show. It's a fictional ship. But its also escapism, a spot of joy many of us were extra dependent on this week. It was something GOOD, queer representation and a love story on national tv days after a horrifying reality set in for queer people, and we are allowed to acknowledge how much losing that sucks just on a general level for a second...

Second over, now lets talk not on the general level. Lets talk about how I've watched real human beings get harassed, sent death threats, be told they are faking cancer and failing to properly grieve dead loved ones, I've watched deeply homphobic language be adopted and incorporated into everyday use despite constant correction and pleas from queer men to knock it the hell off, I've watched homophia as a whole run rampant and unchecked by big blogs, with some biphobia to boot, I've seen some images of horrific anti gay violence and historical trauma invoked as a way to make fun of others, I've seen lesbianism slandered and proffered as an excuse for such vile behavior in a disgusting erasure of the beautiful solidarity that has historically existed between gay men and lesbians in the face of homophobia, and yes, I've seen graphic descriptions of child rape via targeted fanfiction attacks.

Again, others have already said it better than I can: This isn't about Bucktommy. It's about the way that everyone who was Pulling for them as a couple, who DARED to *checks scribble on hand* enjoy a canon queer mlm couple featuring a character (or two) they've grown to care deeply for, has been subjected to all the above mentioned and more, and for...what. For. What.

In the name of a fanon couple that has not been legitimized by the writers in 7 years? of a fanon character interpretation of a canonically straight man (not just assumed straight, verbally assigned straight now on multiple occasions) that people cannot fathom perceiving this show, let alone liking these characters, without? For the version of this story that, if the writers REALLY wanted to happen could have happened so many fucking times by now- especially when the show was coming to what might have been its end in s6- and still hasn't? A version that has been dismissed multiple times by the writers cast crew and every other unfortunate individual who has been harassed repeatedly about it?

And I'm not here to say Buddie is inherently bad!!!! It brought me into this same as the rest of you. I don't even believe it would necessarily be a bad or wrong conclusion for either character or the show were it to eventually, finally happen!! But for the love of god, hear me when i say from the outsider pov of someone who has experience the show in the way I did first through fandom then stepping back to watch for real and now watching it with my mother who is a near Exact representation of the general audience of this show (experienced Procedural watcher, no idea about Buddie or fandom interpretation, had no sense of gay eddie to speak of, and is not shocked but pleasantly surprised by and endeared by Bi Buck) you are SEVERELY deluded if you think what happened tonight by breaking up Bucktommy "makes sense" to any audience outside of buddies who've been writing manifestos for years about how every single thing in this show is "carefully, intentionally, clearly" leading to Buddie canon. I swear to you the people at home do not fucking see it. The people at home saw Buck in a nice, developing relationship that finally seemed to be going somewhere real for him after discovering an important part of his identity late in life, and then they saw that relationship abruptly ended and Buck heartbroken, going to sit with his best, still straight, bud Eddie Diaz. The ONLY people this makes sense for are the people who I am afraid it seems may have legimately bullied this into happening.

And if that is the case? We are sooo far fucking past the point of no return here. There is no true satisfaction in a Buddie canon endgame here for anyone who's lived through the past half a year in this fandom unless you were a perpetrator of any of the horrific shit mentioned above. I mean that with my whole fucking chest. If, and i do think it is a Big Fucking Fat if, Buddie does happen, and you find yourself no qualms happy and satisfied with it as your well earned endgame, I hope you know how rotted you are. And while I'm at it, I hope some way some how you come to see that this was not the carefully crafted beautifully developed loved story of all time you were gods bravest soldier in waiting for. Its just what left after years of meandering storytelling and cyclical character "development" with a bow slapped on top at the last moment because the gift giver was afraid you might kill them if they presented less.

Anyway. I said a million words ago that this was a love letter, and I do mean that. As much as its also been an mental health exercise for me to write this all out. So,

@kinardbuckleys @bucksboobs @kirkaut @tevankinkley @userautumn @sunglassesmish @tommyscurls @ohithankyou @buckxtommy @princessfbi @bigfootsmom @firewasabeast

(And so many other people I'm surely forgetting, and the few artists and writters on other platforms I dared to venture to- maybe never opening twitter again after this xoxo)

Thank you. You don't know me, I never quite got over the anxiety of trying to re-enter a fandom space after a time away, or maybe some of the imposter syndrome or embarrassment I felt accidentally falling in love with this show and Buck by just watching you all talk about him before anything else. But for the last few months, some of you years, you've been my community, my escape. I've loved watching your brains and your hearts work to discuss and create, even amidst the absolute shittiest fandom behavior Ive ever seen. And I am as grateful for getting to experience it from a far as I am devastated at the thought of losing it, of not individually typing in all your blog names (I was too anxious to even FOLLOW you guys truly rip) to see what new content or spec or art or love you had to share about Buck / Bucktommy every day.

In another life- one where idk perhaps people were kinder or showrunners weren't bullied and actors weren't dropped last minute after months of torment and a satisfying canon queer love story for a character who genuinely needs it could just Be in peace- I would have loved to one day put on my big girl pants (aka saved Buck url) joined the fandom for real. To have directly talked to any of you in a way that wasnt... this.

I would have loved to love Bucktommy with you.

[chaifootsteps]

OK but like - Stolas seemed like he was gonna realize how bad he screwed up during the song

but then he STILL wants an apology for Blitz yelling at him the day before. he STILL spends the drunk convo after that being spiteful until Blitz caves and apologizes and it STILL isn't enough for him

and this is the second time he's done this. Blitz told him how Stolas made him feel at the end of full moon and in the next episode Stolas still retreated back into 'I can't think of a single thing wrong I've done' levels of denial - same with Ozzie's: his text says 'I'm sorry IF something I said or did offended you' not 'I'm sorry for doing something wrong'. Blitz told him straight up that Stolas treats him like a sex object and he either decided to give the most weaselly non-apology possible, or he doesn't think he did anything wrong. The third option is he's just being passive again and doesn't want to face up to the issue, but that fixes nothing. It's bizarre to hold the audience to the standard of thinking Stolas has been better this season when Blitz has seen precious little of it

Stolas even did this at the start of full moon - he thinks he's a monster if Blitz is just his prisoner (but I guess the inherently coercive arrangement is fine in Stolas' eyes if Blitz was secretly in love with him this whole time?), but when Blitz reacts the way you'd expect him to Stolas suddenly can't compute the idea that if he HAS done something that awful Blitz isn't going to just get over it because Stolas wants him to. Stolas legit had the emotional maturity level of "if I apologized (even if I have to say a lot of words just to avoid directly saying 'I'm sorry') then that makes everything OK and I'm going to behave like it balances the scales going forwards and you don't get to voice your actual feelings about anything without me shutting down, crying or getting mad at you"

that's why I'm fairly confident Stolas looking at the mirrors during his song is going to lead to him realizing diddly squat

he's done this song and dance (literally in this case) before. I know the stans will roast me for this but isn't "he's really going to change this time!!" the stereotypical statement of an abusive relationship? except in this case it's the audience desperately hanging on in the hopes things are going to get better when we should all know by now that they only ever get worse, and have been getting worse all season, with this show

Technically it's the third time he's done it! There was also Ozzie's, where Blitzo told him the exact same thing he told him in Full Moon but in a much gentler way, and he went straight upstairs and started singing about how it was all Blitzo's fault.

So yeah, I'd say diddly squat is a pretty fair approximation of what he's going to realize.

[ye4gerism]

Bachelorette season is starting up again! Y/N L/N is the new stunning face of the Bachelorette and so far the viewers feel that she’s favorable.

Of course, the honeymoon phase of the show will decrease episode by episode and someone is bound to crack really soon.

INTO THE LIVES OF THE BOYS: exclusive interviews with the eight remaining contestants

“What are you looking for in a partner?”

COLT GRICE: i’m honestly looking for someone who is willing to go through the ups and downs of life with me. i know that sounds basic but trust me, i know what it’s like to watch a marriage fall apart because one person wasn’t committed enough.

EREN YEAGER: you know, when i think of a partner, i think of someone i can jump out of a plane with. my partner and i should be able to feel the “breeze” of marriage and overcome everything together

“Do you have any past relationships?”

OYANKOPON: who hasn’t? i hope this isn’t some sort of trick question. there was a person i thought i’d marry but an unforeseen event helped me understand that they weren’t for me.

JEAN KIRSTEIN: oh yeah…too many. i was kind of a player in high school and i screwed around a lot in college but as i’ve gotten older, i realized that i want a family and a future.

“Eren you and Zeke look oddly alike. Why is that?”

EREN YEAGER: really? that blonde mop? i don’t really see it.

“What is your guilty pleasure?”

ARMIN ARLERT: i’m sort of into conspiracy theories. sometimes i feel bad because as bizarre as some are, they’re kind of believable.

PORCO GALLIARD: i won’t lie; i love ordering in. i eat healthy and everything yes but, boy, don’t i love sitting on my couch on a friday night and eating my favorite that just got delivered to me.

“How do you like to spend your free time?

CONNIE SPRINGER: i personally love spending time with my two younger siblings. i love living life through them.

REINER BRAUN: my niece is the funniest person i know. since the moment she was born, she’s brought a smile to my face. i love spending my free time with her!

A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME…: dirt on the cast

“Rumor has it one of the contestants has a wife.”

We wouldn’t be surprised. 10 handsome men enter the show and none of them are married? That’s a little suspicious don’t you think? Colt and Reiner are definitely hubby material.

“Eren is passed around like a football 😞”

With those green eyes, the ladies are probably all over him…and he’s probably all over them too. You didn’t hear it from us though.”

“Jean and Eren don‘t get along”

An insider told us the two were throwing looks at each other. It probably has something to do with Eren stealing Jean’s girlfriend in highschool.

“I heard that jean and eren went to high school tg and that eren stole jean’s long term gf”

What did we say?

“Zeke has a crush on Y/N”

we have a crush on y/n too!

“Zeke has daddy kink”

Oh!😀

“I heard y/n f*cked zeke to get on the show”

Are we talking about the right Zeke?

“yn is just gonna be playing all the guys, she's there for vibes”

We love a good feminist! Why be on a show for marriage when you can be a show to play men? We love it.

That’s all for now! Tune in next week for more juicy details!

i didn’t hit all questions but i will use them next week’s post! some of these answers made me laugh lmao😭 imagine zeke falling for you (UNLESS👁️). i’ll definitely incorporate some of these rumors into the story :). i also forgot to introduce hitch and pieck, so i’ll try and integrate them into the next few chapters!

if you would like to vote again, press here. you don’t have to answer the written answer questions if you have already! just let me know that you’ve already answered! i’ll probably close the poll tmrw so i can finish up the chapter :)

tysm again for reading the bachelorette!

taglist: @katestrophes @taylarxse @invisible-mori @tanakaslastbraincell @mrsharuchiyo @parkerluvsu @conniesbbymama @444ctrl @gabbadabbad00 @cvberidiot @maliagurl @greeniegreengreen @teanica @illgrrl @asymetricstar @llovesero @haitainiwhore3 @durag_tanaka

[nono-bunny]

Thoughts from watching the ATLA live action!

I initially wanted this to all be one post but. It got too long and also Tumblr accidentally posted it once instead of just drafting as I asked while I was writing it and I had to reconstruct the whole thing so I'm just going to make one post per episode I think.

So, episode 1!

Oh my god the show really opens on just showing the letters "Capital City", genuinely that's kind of hilarious?? I kinda always thought of it as Caldera City collectively because Capital City sounds dumb (very The Hunger Games of them, ngl) but like... I do recognize that it's only technically the rich district- even so I feel like maybe they should've reimagined that one in particular because honestly it's always been confusing for the capital to have two cities in it (Harbor City is the other one, basically the poor people district). Anyway not a big deal overall, just... Kind of funny to not change this

Truly a weird way to start the show with just some random Earth Kingdom revolutionaries, but based on the fact that I've heard they're not in it I'm just headcanoning it to be Haru and Tyro lmao otherwise it's just. A truly bizarre choice

Oh never mind they're??? Opening before the war??? They literally have Ozai in the first season, why wouldn't they just have a menacing Sozin in a war room, with like maybe some very subtle hints to him grieving someone who died disagreeing with him, and him going forward with it anyway? Idk it's genuinely very strange to open a show with such iconic and recognizable characters by focusing on some random mostly irrelevant people you're never gonna see again because the story takes place a hunder years in the future. I mean, it was a cool fight scene (when I could see it lmao, I wish it wasn't so dark- would've looked great in a cinema but this should have been made for people watching on home screens) but?? Why should I care about these people or what they're doing, either as a veteran who knows they don't matter or as someone new to the story who DOESN'T know that they're never going to see them again?

Oh shit wait, AGAIN??? They keep zagging on me lmao this is like. Exactly what I wanted!! I read they started things off with a lot of fighting and showing the war so I thoght this was what it was but no!! The random guy meets non other than Sozin... Who genuinely looks incredible and does a fantastic job at portraying exactly what I wanted!! I think there's something in the eyes specifically? Like, there's a certain sadness mixed with idealism there, which works really well with how determined, calculating and cold he otherwise is. He feels 100% like the sort of guy who'd reasonably be the ancestor to the mess that is the Royal Family we see during the rest of the show, and I'm genuinely really happy about it! Sozin feels like the sort of madman who believes in his own just and it's perfect, like, the exact vibe I got from him in the original!

Is Gyatso talking to Bryke rn or...?? Lmao fr Aang never learned any of the things he mentions which is why he was a bad Avatar, and why in the end I don't like canon OG Aang. Addressing it in the first episode is extremely bold of the LA tbh, but you know I love to see it! Also everyone was talking about how Aang wasn't silly enough, but literally in the OG he was too silly and never learned to take responsibility or work with others so?? This Aang that is already blending a whimsical air with what seems like a degree of emotional intelligence the original lacked is!! Such an improvement in my eyes, actually! I'm hoping they manage to properly resolve these things this time around, but already their direction with him just within minutes of meeting him feels a lot more palatable to me. Also they rewrote that scene in a way that makes Gyatso infinitely more likeable because now he actually GETS it, OG Gyatso was a kind man but in the end... He was wrong, he coddled Aang too much. Here, in a universe where the Air nomads want to help defend the rest of the world, he recognizes that while Aang is needed, he genuinely isn't capable of helping yet which!! Also feels like an improvement in terms of co-nation relations, it feels like there actually used to be a harmony of sorts before! It will help make the Air Nomads feel less out of place and "out of sight out of mind" in the bad way they were in the original. The Air Nomads already planning to get involved also feels like a way to rid Aang of his idealistic and childhish views of his own culture in a much more direct way than the more subtle approach just showing Gyatso surrounded by skeletons of people he likely killed. Also, again, saw people complain aboit the Air Nomads wanting to get involved being ooc and?? Okay, so? Have you maybe considered that them being so insular that their loss was barely felt in the original whenever they didn't need to make Aang have an emotional moment was a bad thing??? Like, I get that it isn't in line with their characterization, but personally? Them choosing not to get involved in an attempted genocide was always a bad look tbh, and as far as I'm concerned, this is a fix and a way to make them look much better than just like. Hermits unconcerned with the world- they care, they want to help! Honestly overall everyone in the Air Nomads looks so much better here, this feels like a net good in terms of like... Idk Air Nomad publicity lmao. Also, showing the different temples coming together to celebrate is!! Incredible, I wholeheartedly love that addition to the lore!

Ngl tbh so far this feels like a fanfic I'd read, in like. Literally the best possible way

Yo the "Gyatso and Roku were friends" theory looking realll possible rn with that "you will always be my friend" line 👀

Ah so I see what people meant about Aang's characterization in this episode being a bit tell-y rather than show-y, that's fair. That said, it was a really nice scene that established the bond between him and Appa quite well imo! Also now I'm genuinely curious as to whether they'll have him get a bit drunk with power like in the original considering the focus they're putting on how much he needs to NOT do that!

To everyone saying Aang running away was important and should not have been cut- no, it fucking wasn't, it was one of his biggest unresolved character flaws that got ignored when the destroyed his character arc in season 3 and I'm fucking glad it's gone. I do find it interesting that here Aang basically only just finds out about being the Avatar before getting frozen rather than having a bit more time to get used to the idea and see how it changes things for him- it makes it that in a way, this Aang has both a lot more and a lot less baggage! Essentially his entire journey of discovery of what it means to be pronounced the Avatar will happen alongside people who never knew him as anything but, it's an extremely finite and dramatic closing of the chapter of his life where he wasn't the Avatar- it kinda shows he has no room for confusion anymore, he must now become The Avatar because that's essentially his people's last request of him. It's a very different sort of vibe from "I wasn't willing", it's "I wasn't ready", and that is much more easily fixable in a shorter show! Also the og literally just "solved" the willingness issue by having him enjoy the benefits and refuse to do any of the work so. Not sad to see it go at all

Battlefield Sozin?! Firebending rockets?! Wilhelm scream?! Cool battle scene all around tbh, really heartbreakin and difficult to watch, which means they did a good job with it! I do still wish it was brighter though lmao

Uhh forgot to type anything for a while because I was crying but. Yeah I generally really liked the portrayal of life on Wolf Cove! There are definitely some very noticeable changes with our two leads here, and I actually don't think they're necessarily bad, they just feel very strange and might take a bit to get used to. Katara actually isn't passive, which is weird considering that's how a lot of people described her? She's just extremely cautious. All of her defining traits feel like they're still there, but some of them do feel like they're lying a bit under the surface due to her situation which! Makes sense as an alternative way of writing her! Sokka genuinely feels like such a big brother here, I like the emphasis on his sense of responsibility and how he doesn't quite know how to be a real leader yet- it goes very well with a Katara who desperately wants to be a fighter but can't and has to try and blend in. Both of them have very clear aspirations and the traits that will eventually allow them to get to where they want to be, but they're very far from reaching them at the start. A lot of the scenes do feels kinda awkward tbh, but idk, I think they do a fine enough job at what they attempt to.

Now, hearing that Katara wasn't the one to break Aang out in a fit of anger wasn't a deal breaker for me actually, but? Honestly the way he gets out is just needlessly confusing here, genuinely unclear if Katara did it or he just... Idk somehow reacted to another bender's presence or whatever. Idk, it felt extremely weird and I think just like? A bit of clarification here as to what happened could've saved this scene without it having to happen via anger if that's the way they wanna go with Katara, and specifically her relationship with Sokka (which, again, does really feel authentic and well done here imo!)

Aang saying that Katara is the only one who tried to fight for him is fucking wild, but I guess that's the impression he got given that Gyatso told him he had to go away and he didn't hear the meeting about him here. Still a wild thing for him to say, felt really weird right alongside Sokka being the bravest person he ever met. Idk that whole exchange was off and awkward and just... Strange

Iroh doing his best to help and teach Aang when he can is very sweet. Idk how to feel about how hard he's already going in on the whole "your daddy doesn't love you" thing with Zuko tbh, because it does make Zuko appear much less lost when he's got someone who's giving him the answers rather than leading him to them, it's kinda a book 2 vibe from them? It's strange. Also a straight talking Iroh feels so strange in general, literally his only "eccentric" quality so far is loving Jasmine tea and very clearly not being down with the war, it's... Certainly A Choice, but not one I'm really enjoying so far tbh

There's something really interesting about Katara immediately relaxing and allowing herself to be silly and mischievous around Sokka here, it's kind of a flip from their dynamic in the original but there's something really fun and sweet about seeing those hidden aspects of her come out around the one person she knows and trusts to accept and protect her just as fiercely as she would him. It's definitely different, but I'm genuinely really enjoying the unique spin they put on their relationship and how it correlates with their own individual personalities and how they perceive and present themselves.

Taking the burden of always being the only one who can bring Aang out of the Avatar State away from Katara feels like a big relief. Also in general I like the way they still kept Aang's attachment to Gyatso and his parallels with Katara, while also solidifying Sokka and Aang friendship which wasn't really... A thing in the original? Having Sokka protect and reach out to Aang feels much more personal here in a way than it did originally, I think maybe the weird scene where Aang praises them kinda worked to serve that? Idk I've read people saying they don't feel like a family but more like friends here but. They never did in the original in season 1 either tbh. If anything there's a sense of everyone being equal here which the original lacked in places, I like how both Sokka and Katara support and save Aang in equal measure here and how they look out for each other as well. Aang is kinda naturally a mess this whole episode but here's hoping he returns the favor for them for once in the future!

Edit: dammit Tumblr literally just did it again I didn't mean to post this yet, but I'm kind of at the end of the episode so fuck it, it stays I don't wanna reconstruct it in the drafts again. If I have anything to add it'll go after this.

[penroseparticle]

Penrose Song of the Day, Day 36: Lazy Bone by Greg Aram

Alright, let's get into the DJ set/Phish Jam/Lost Media/Media Preservation episode. It's not anything you haven't heard before but like. I hope this is a gentle, kind reminder to you to find ways to preserve the things you love. Or they will die.

Greg Aram made a relaxed, lo-fi, island time, chill jam, bad boyfriend anthem. When girls are like "BUT I LOVE HIM" I picture the guy singing this song, but like, in sweatpants, and he's still on NFTs even though annoying people are well into AI by now.

And like. I know that this song is trash ok. It is perfect confection but there is no substance. It's well produced for how small it is, it's got the big fuzzy synths in the back of the soundscape propping up the, frankly, bizarre duo of ukulele loop and trap drums. This song is absolutely 5 tracks in LMMS titled "Uke1.ogg", "TrapDrumLoop1", "Synthline", "Backvocal(1)(FINAL)", and "Mainvocal". Maybe an additional snare, and the synthline is split in two. Maximum.

But it's kinda slay? Somehow the song features every single cheat code to make me like something that is not actually that great. The sadsack boyfriend. The whistling as part of the song. The phone number gag. The "Kiss you through the phone" gag once again vindicating Soulja Boy (And don't even get me started on the yassification that Megan Thee Stallion gave Anime Swag. Soulja Boy vindicated big time, Megan Thee Stallion did THAT for the weebs, we stan).

This song was on heavy rotation in my spotify for a long, long time. It was just easy to listen to, easy to loop, easy to be the lazy bone and relax. And then about 4 years ago? Longer? It vanished. Gone from Spotify. The single was up on youtube, so I thought perhaps it was a license dispute? Smaller artists especially don't always keep their music on streaming because they're making peanuts. It's enough to get on spotify, get a bit of exposure, and do the rest off of local gigs, merch, etc. For every Still Woozy making music in his garage and getting enough exposure to play at Coachella, there's like 500 The Excellent Man From Minneapolis-es. Making music for like. 5000 people tops. Which is still huge! That's not a knock. But people don't make it to mega stardom and they pack it in.

But then the youtube song went down too? And I was left with this ghost of an idea of what this song was. I listened to it a LOT. It literally, no joke, helped shape my tastes (Spotify algorithm ignoring a song on your wrapped? Yeah right). And not only is it gone but I had no idea where to find it.

Greg Aram sold CDs!!! He was on bandcamp! I could have downloaded this song a billion times over, but it was just one song, and it was on Spotify, and I could find it anytime I wanted it. Until I couldn't.

He's still doing music, btw. Greg Aram is doing fine- arguably better than ever. He's in a group called Junior Varsity, which is doing less... shall we say polished, and definitely much more interesting things, with production. It's like he did his minimalist experiment of "How little do you need for a good pop song" and then immediately abandoned it for more fun projects. And good for him! His music is getting further than silly sunny Greg Aram's did, with a lot more critical attention. And the shiny slick single I love doesn't really fit the whole schtick they go for now, so I guess it was a purge for like, brand reasons? Sucks but I get that too. But what a bummer to have something I thought I had ripped away from me because I streamed it and didn't own it.

We have heard the physical media argument over and over and over. Unfortunately, it's still true, and we still have to eat our vegetables and get good rest and exercise. If you want to own something, own it. Buy it and make sure you're not renting it. The CD is not dead no matter what anyone says. Vinyl has survived decades at this point. And it's not quite as good, but absolutely buying your MP3 is much, much better than just streaming on Spotify, no matter how convenient it is.

The song that sparked this was Bip Ling's Bip Burger though. Arguably a better song, arguably a more interesting song, arguably a much, much stupider song. The song Bip Burger is quintessential "End of the night, let's get burgers before we uber home". It is messy, it's a little trashed, but it's that drunk girl in the mirror saying she loves you so much. It's Blingee if Blingee was a song.

It is also no longer on Spotify. Bipping is on Spotify though too, give that a listen "YOU HAVE A BLOG???" Classic.

The reason I don't include Bip Burger as today's song is simple- Bip Burger, by the very nature of the song, is more resilient to being lost forever. Because it's a DJ set song. It was created for and by people who handle songs more as ingredients, and are thus more likely to preserve them- It's literally made for remixing and bootlegging and soundclouding and hearing... drunk at the club. Just. Fucking look: https://soundcloud.com/search?q=bip%20ling

There are a BILLION versions of this song. You can find it if you want it. You can even still probably find the original.

This is something that always brings me back to a good friend of mine and his relationship with Phish. For those of you who aren't up on every bad, fear not, I know the barest, baseline version of Phish. Phish is a jam band! The play really long, meandering, ever changing sets where they jam out on stage and it's different every time. Like Jazz! Sometimes they cover other artists too. A lot of people will record Phish sets, especially back in the day, and would trade them around like rare pokemon cards. Make rerecordings of it to give to other Phish fans when they all met up and, idk, got high tailgating, presumably (No judgement that sounds fucking awesome actually)

Now Phish is not the only band that a. did this, or that b. has a thriving bootleg economy based on the fact that they did this, but it IS the one I'm most familiar with. What matters is that these guys. LOVE this band. They love this music. They love it to the point of preservation. Each Phish set is ephemera, right? It's a one time event that somehow can be preserved now. And so many people want to preserve those moments.

I kind of had a point meandering around in there. But I think what I want to leave you with is pretty simple.

You could be dead right now. Go listen to something that you love. And if you love it... maybe consider owning it? Just a thought.

[smylealong]

Finished Unchained Love and I gotta ask. WHAT THE FRICKETY FRACK WAS THAT ENDING??? I have so many questions. Spoilers below.

The questions off the top my head are- 1. Did Bu Yin Lou and Xiao Duo just run off into the sunset? No problems in their escape?

2. Did the emperor die? Or was he deposed? When he fell, I hope he had a heart attack.

4. What happened to the rest of the Zhaoding Bureau? Did they escape properly?

5. Was Yu Zun’s lie discovered? I mean, what are they gonna do if the Emperor demands to see the body?

6. Did He De take over the country? Or does Murong Gao Gong continue with his mad tyranny?

7. Was Empress Dowager released?

8. What was the point of Cao Chun Ang's fake death scene? So bizarre.

There were some good bits, though. 1. Peter Ho's high pitched voice in the last few episodes was so chilling. Excellent acting.

2. I loved the scene where Bu Yin Lou slaps Murong Gao Gong and tells him what's what.

3. The action scene where Xiao Duo fights the soldiers send by Bu Yu Lu. Beautiful!

4. The entire attempted coup. Fantastically done.

5. Solid start. I really loved the beginning of the story.

6. The scene where Murong Gao Gong makes Bu Yin Lou stab her cousin. It was visceral. (What was the point of him living through that, though? The guy was never mentioned again).

7. I loved that Eunuch Sun got his just desserts. He was such an enabler.

This series left me with such mixed feelings, though. When I saw the start, I was excited and hoped for a matured, forbidden love story in a cut-throat political world. This series had it ALL! Great set up, good actors, decent production quality, and a very strong start. The problems started with the way the leads fall in love. It just... happened.

And I get it. Sometimes, that's how it is. But not once did I feel like the foundation of their love was strong enough to go against practically the entire imperial power. Some of the choices the script writers made were actually lazy. Like Rong An's plot. She could have been a formidable villain, but she was cast aside for half the show. The issues with censorship didn't help the show either.

That said, credit where credit is due, the characters were done well. They are well rounded characters, each having shades. I also liked that the female lead was shown to be someone unabashed for being who she is. It's a refreshing change. The performances were solid too.

Overall, I will give this somewhere between 6.5-7 stars out of 10. I cannot in good faith give it a full 7.

[3xm-draconic]

JJBA: Rockabye Starboy (Jole's story, a tainted love sequel).

I made a fic about Jole, it's going to be about 5 maybe 10 episodes long (depends), I hope yall enjoy.

Also here is a pic of Jole.

Episode 1: My Last Resort, The Animal I have Become.

In the year 1984…

“JOLE!” my foster dad, Halen, screamed, he sounded drunk again.

I was in my room hiding under my bed, I kept quiet so he wouldn't find me and beat me for what I did again, “JOLE YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SHIT, YOU ATE MY SANDWICH!” he howled, “yhea I did eat it but that's only because you lock the fridge and you don’t bother to feed me” I silently shook.

My bedroom door burst off its hinges “QUIT LOCKING THIS FUCKING DOOR!” he bellowed “WHERE ARE YOU!?”, I watched him shuffle around drunkenly. He destroyed my room and eventually ripped my mattress off its frame and found me, “THERE YOU ARE YOU LITTLE SHIT!” he hissed.

I was beaten with a belt, the old leather accessory breaking after ten strikes, that made him even more mad “y-you… YOU LITTLE FUCK YOU BROKE MY FAVORITE BELT!” he snarled, he dragged me by my hair to the basement door and threw me down the steps “I’ll let you out when I get a new belt to finish your beating boy” he growled as he slammed and locked the door.

The basement was dark and the concrete floor was cold, I layed there in the fetal position, crying.

I eventually found enough strength to get to my feet, I saw in the darkness as if it were in dim light and I scoured the shelves for what I needed.

I found a bottle of vodka, a torn old blanket and my teddy that I kept hidden here, Kesha. I made some makeshift bandages and sterilized my wounds with the booze, I snuggled with Kesha for comfort, she was all I had left of my mom.

I took a few swigs of the vodka and slumped down beneath the basement window sobbing.

Eventually Halen returned and let me out, he made good on his promise to finish my punishment with a new belt, one with a thick sharp buckle.

That night as I lay in bed I came up with a plan to run away. I had always wanted to see the redwoods of California so I’d go there.

I packed my clothes and some other things in my backpack and snuck down into the kitchen. I saw Halen asleep at the table in a drunken stupor, I quietly creped past him and took a few cans of food, one of his swiss army knives, I got Kesha from the basement and the money he had stashed away in a coffee can in the pantry.

 Just as I was leaving, Halen woke up. I booked it out the door and he chased me down the street, he grabbed me by my hair and started to drag me back to the house…

That's when I snapped.

I don’t really remember what happened, one moment I was screaming for him to let me go and then the next…his head was..gone.

Nothing but a bloody stump remained.

I ran like hell…

I ran to a local park and hid in the public bathroom, I could hardly breathe “OH GOD, OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” I cried…

I could taste something on my tongue, something sweet and warm like hot fudge topping on a sundae, it stained my mouth, neck and shirt.

I looked in the mirror and I nearly threw up, the sweet taste…was blood.

I frantically washed it off of me in the sink, I washed it out of my hair too along with the dye and makeup Halen forced me to wear inorder to cover up my natural pink hair and bizarre eyeshadow-like markings on my eyelids.

For the first time in days I saw myself…the real me.

I saw the horns clipped short to hide them, the strange inhuman fangs…

I had always been a monster…hadn't I?

That’s why Halen hid me from the world…but now he’s dead…I killed him and now I’am…

I sighed and looked at myself in the mirror, really looked at myself.

I looked down at my birthmark, a big star on my shoulder and pondered “I have to go somewhere I won’t hurt anyone”.

I thought about it “the redwoods of California” . I had never been there but I had always wanted to go ever since I saw a picture of one in a book I once read.

I changed out of my old bloody clothes and into a new outfit, I buried the old ones under a big heavy rock and proceeded to walk.

After walking for a few miles I got tired, I set up my blanket under a bridge and cuddled with Kesha.

Even after all these years, she still smelled like her, like mom.

That night I dreamt of her again, of her soft smile and gentle eyes. I saw her again briefly and blurry, I wanted to ask her why she left, I wanted to know why she abandoned me but I never got to, those dreams were always bittersweet.

Joseph Jostar, a housing agent by day and a hammon warrior by night…that sounded like a bad joke but it was true.

Joseph had to keep up his training…and train the next generation.

Holly didn’t half to know he was teaching Jotaro how to fight vampires, who knows maybe it would prove useful in the future!

Joseph was enjoying his coffee break after training with little Joot when he got an urgent call from a Speedwagon Foundation agent.

“Hello yes, what's the matter?”, “Mr Jostar, I must inform you there has been a report of a bizarre murder in Walla Walla Washington, the crime scene is gruesome”, “and you are telling me this why?...”, “because eye witness accounts say it was some sort of harpy monster that did it and we analyzed feathers found at the crime screen”, “y-you…you don’t think?”.

“The dna is a match to Holly’s sir, we found him”.

[nihilasta]

I never thought I'd have to make this

My best friend is gone. I've said it in my head countless times these past few days, and it still doesn't feel real. I'm not sure it ever will. I'm not sure I want it to.

I hate this. I was in Leeds Station on Sunday and kept thinking I saw you, movie cliche as it is. All I wanted was someone I knew to emerge from the crowd so I could just break down on them.

You were one of a kind. It was always the three of us. You and me coming out with the most bizarre meme-filled nonsense, and Ellie eternally being done with our shit. All the dumb in-jokes no-one else would get. Your theatricality, your eccentricity, your wackiness, your own way to light up a room with that exuberance that was so uniquely you. The actual tiny violin you kept in your bag at Uni to mock people with. Never got old that one, somehow.

We hadn't seen each other since April. We kept meaning to catch up properly. And now I'll never get that chance. Ever again. There's so much left unsaid.

There's so much we never got to do

We never got to go to Japan. I still have the itinerary I made saved on the old laptop.

We never started that DND campaign we'd been planning since before the pandemic.

I never got you to change your mind and give One Piece a try (still maintain I would've worn you down eventually and got you to see how great it is. Guess you win that one).

All the movies and shows we were gonna binge. At least you got Ellie started on the new She-Ra (me and Carli got her to try again. She is still skeptical but I think we'll get her to embrace the campness of it all soon enough).

You never got that cane sword you wanted. Still not sure how that was gonna happen but you'd've found a way I'm sure.

All that whiskey and rum you'd collected you wanted me to try.

We never got to meet OSP. I dunno how we were going to but I know they'd've loved meeting you. You never got caught up on the podcast, there were so many great moments you had yet to discover man. Did you ever get to the episode with Indigo's Batman villain idea? It's wild. I still hope they animate that one, I just wanna see Red and Blue's facial reactions to it immortalised.

I never got you to come to a gig. Still think I coulda got you to a Nightwish show someday.

I never finished your story. I swear I will.

I finally saw Ellie again. I feel like I have to fix this, but I dont know how. We'll get through it together. No idea how. But we will. Oh and I know what that pic she sent in the group chat was. It was her face in darkness. Yeah I don't get it either mate.

This wasn't how it was meant to go. We were supposed to have the rest of our lives. Annoying the shit out of each other and everyone else till we were old and grey. With big dumb Gandalf beards n all. I'm not ready to do this without you man.

I told you next time I saw Ellie I'd bear hug her so hard it'd be like a black hole absorbing a star. And you too. Now I'll hug her hard enough for the two of you.

There's still so much to say. But if I don't stop now I don't think I ever will.

"He said one day you'll leave this world behind. So live a life you will remember."

You did Tom. You really fucking did.

My best friend. My partner in crime. My Nakama

[cygnoir]

2024 Week 36 Notes: Planners Gotta Plan

The new 2024-25 COVID vaccines are available, so FunkyPlaid and I got ours on Friday. Because we went to a pharmacy, my health insurance didn’t cover them, so I had to use funds from my HRA. (We could have waited until our medical provider had appointments, but that would have been late September or early October — and with travel coming up soon, I was unwilling to wait.)

It is bizarre and enraging to see how agencies supposedly dedicated to public health are flailing in this moment. I’m extremely fortunate to have a job that provides health insurance, an HRA, and sick leave, and I can afford KN95 masks and rapid antigen tests. What about people who are uninsured or underinsured?

I know it’s a bummer to read this, but it’s a bigger bummer to try to survive during yet another COVID surge. Let’s take care of our health, for ourselves and for our communities.

Concentrating on

This time of year is Planner Season, when the 2025 planners are released and people like me (and maybe you too) gobble them up and then spend the rest of this year hoping that next year we have lives exciting enough to plan.

Ever the optimist, my planner line-up for 2025 is:

For my personal planner, daily log, habit tracker, reading journal, and commonplace book, I’ll be trying the Sterling Ink Common Planner in their new N1 size, which fits inside a Traveler’s Notebook. I’m currently using a Hobonichi Weeks, which is 95mm x 186mm; the N1 size is 110mm x 210mm.

For my work planner, the Wonderland 222 A5 Weekly Planner has been working well for me this year, so I’ll try it again in 2025.

Cultivating

✍🏻 Drafting two stories, one for performance (I hope 🤞🏻) and one for a collection.

🧶 Still knitting that gift for someone.

🥘 Food I made that was yummy:

Peperonata with peppers from a coworker’s CSA box, plus peppers from our own CSA box. CSA boxes are great!

Gluten-free vegan apple crisp. I am not a huge fan of apples in their primary form; I prefer them as a cinnamon delivery device. So this recipe from Minimalist Baker, apples chopped up and baked with oats and sugar? That works.

Sliced heirloom tomatoes on toast spread thinly with mayonnaise. Truffle salt if you’re feeling fancy. (I was.)

🇮🇹 Learning Italian with Duolingo.

💼 The workweek was short because of the holiday on Monday, but also long because of everything. I’m still trying to create better boundaries around that.

Consuming

🖋️ One of my planner pals shared a sample of Bungukan Kobayashi’s Yagentoshiro Reflex Violet, a dusky blue with iridescent purple shimmer.

🎧 “girlfriend” by Hemlocke Springs is on repeat on my brain radio.

🎙 You don’t need to be a Rolling Stones fan to enjoy the “I Can’t Get No Legal Action” episode of the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

🎲 Still working my way through the crossword puzzle books I’ve hoarded and enjoying the daily Cross|word on Puzzmo. Also, Minute Cryptic is quite humbling.

📺 One last episode of “Fargo” to go, then we’ll start the latest season of “Slow Horses”.

📚 What I’m reading and quoting:

“The Mountain in the Sea” by Ray Nayler: “The great and terrible thing about humankind is simply this: we will always do what we are capable of.”

Some links

From “What would an adequate COVID response look like?” by Julia Doubleday:

Right now, state representatives are deliberately avoiding mention of COVID, while propagandizing the safety of infection and/or the end of the pandemic by refusing to mask. It is hard to imagine how successful a pandemic response might be if public officials were actually trying to end the pandemic. We quite literally have public health and political and media figures working to hide three pieces of critical information: public knowledge of the virus, public knowledge of mitigation measures that would reduce viral spread, and public knowledge of the severity of the virus (which would motivate desire to reduce viral spread).

Other links:

NaNoWriMo Shits The Bed On Artificial Intelligence (Chuck Wendig)

Why Goblin Mode Is the New Self-Care Routine (Cleveland Clinic)

2024 Winners of the 17th Annual iPhone Photography Awards

One more thing

Today I’m journaling about this quote from Seneca: “Life, if well lived, is long enough.”

[runjumptaco]

I'm back and I brought my MIND BOMBS!

Ok so I have about 1 fan for these silly little posts and I have decided that now is the time to start doing them again. I took a break because of college but also because I like procrastinating and didn't feel ready to push myself to write more silly little analyses. Enough about me though its cardboard time. Mind Bomb to me has very vivid imagery. It was created originally in 4th edition before magic started being wholly coherent. Magic was still finding its footing and the border is a testament to that. I ended up with this card as one of my first MTG cards; my dad had bought me a random 1000 card job lot off of ebay and in it was contained a bunch of cards from across a massive portion of magics history. Some Lorwyn, some Futuresight and many more but this one and many of the other classic cards had always struck me with their bizarreness.

The card itself works in quite an interesting way with it allowing any effected player to substitute its damage for discard instead. I view this is in a way where one word of its name is emphasised more than the other, mind and mental effects usually being associated with the loss of cards whilst the bomb being a clearly vicious and destructive physical force. Another thing of note is its cost, there is no real narrative behind this card at least not one I know of so seeing its cheap cost mixed with its art clearly depicting multiple dropping as our detonating one does implies that this weapon is commonplace in its plane. The art has many things of note to it to really sell the player on the impact of its effect. For one the splitting shell as it comes down with bolts of mental lighting zapping to the now loose casing. The bomb itself being in almost regal tones, the golds and reds giving it an air of power and decadence. Yet upon closer inspection this weapon may not be as impressive as thought. The metal is dented and worn with clear signs of aging and the insignia with its bold red colouring is not done to uniform or at least doesn't to be with its asymmetry and hints of dripping. The detonation we see central to our card may not even planned as we can see the straps that hold its shell together flailing in the wind, falling apart, as the two others in view descend cleanly. These are relics. Whatever war these were a part of, whatever nation they once served is gone. Wiped clean. Whatever once stood is no more and perhaps it was their own doing. We will likely never revisit this card or its plane of origin as whatever once there has been forgotten. Could these bombs have been their undoing. We could ask them, if they still know. I hope you enjoyed this slightly dumb rant about an irrelevant card these are fun to do and I actually have some lined up now which is good. No hints though. I have two final notes a slightly lighter one and a slightly less so. Lets start heavy. There is a TTRPG called normality, the premise is similar to my final little statement where in which the world is hit with psycho-nukes that make the entire planet stupid. This idea of a mental bomb that strikes and destroys civilisation is probably what crept into my mind at the end there; the game itself is batshit and almost impossible to play with the GM being encouraged to lie to the players to only make matters worse for them. It seems cool and I want some friends to torment with it. Might try it on my college group. Try it today! Lastly this card reminded me greatly of the thing that first got me into card games. In season 4 of Adventure Time there is an episode called "Card Wars" later in life I would learn this was a parody of magic made up for the show but at that young age I was completely drawn in by the cool monsters, little scenery and the way the players interacted. This card reminded me of cerebral bloodstorm, a card played by Jake that backfires and kills his own husker knights. That's all. I CAN REST AT LAST.

[jbk405]

You’re far enough along to get the overly-lengthy season three/four swing production context dump!

The series revamp for season three was a partial success.  Professional reviews got better, and the ratings stopped falling (...mostly.  There was still a dip, but nothing like the massive drop in numbers they had in season two).  Unfortunately they were already so low that “staying steady” wasn’t good enough, and cancellation was now an active threat.  So, the producers took a huge gamble: They tried to pre-emptively invoke the massive fan outrage that would come if it was cancelled at the end of season three by ending it on a deliberately bizarre cliffhanger that required resolution.

Fan campaigns are almost common now when a niche show is cancelled early, but Trek history in the area is actually somewhat humbling.  They were one of the first -- if not the first -- resurrection campaigns.  The letter writing campaign in 1966 got the original series renewed for a third season.  The letter writing campaign in 1976 got NASA to name their test space shuttle Enterprise.  They influenced real-world US government policy.  Based on the ratings the fans weren’t actually watching this show, but the anger of this fandom was still very much feared by executives.

So the producers ended season three with Nazi aliens and gave absolutely zero context or explanation.  Because they knew that if the show ended on that front, then all of the Trekkies, even the ones who weren’t watching the show (And I had long since stopped watching by this point myself), would have lost their minds.  The studio didn’t want to deal with that, so they caved and renewed for a fourth season.

Hoping to finally get the show on even footing, they did a complete relaunch of the series for season four.  Behind the scenes there was a new showrunner (Manny Coto, who sadly passed away just a few weeks ago) and new writers.  I won’t spoil the story, but they pivoted the “feel” once again in an effort to more deliberately evoke previous Star Trek series.  I think they realized that they were never going to convince the general audience that they weren’t like that Nerd Trek that was on TV before, so they finally decided to embrace it.

The result is that season four is almost universally regarded as the best season of this series.  For most people “best” is a purely relative term considering the scorn they heap on the earlier seasons, but it has its share of honest supporters as well.

Personally, I’m in the “We’re seeing the potential of what it could have grown into” camp.  I’ve got my usual litany of complaints and criticisms of how they handle Trek canon and continuity, and several episodes are not very good in and of themselves, but you can see the seeds starting to grow.  If they weren’t “there” yet, they were at least on the way.  Maybe if they had made it to season 5 the show would have really blossomed.

BTW: One thing I will say, not a spoiler but a bit of advice, view the second to last episode as the “series finale”.  The final episode has...issues....that I won’t go into, but trust me, it doesn’t fit as The Last Episode.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch it, but just mentally file it away as “This series is already over, and I am now watching something else”.

Enterprise Season 3 Ep 19-finale

Episode 19

All that damage and hull breaches on at least 3 levels... and only 5 people are dead.

I feel like a lot of my opinions of this show are formed by my experience on a Navy ship. Almost every door can be sealed in case there's a hull breach. Redundant systems and personnel. And if your ship goes down in the ocean at least you might float a while before drowning but in SPACE? You'd think they'd be a lot more conservative about safety against hull breaches.

Oooh... now the number is 14 with 3 unaccounted for. Out of what, 84?

They said beam lol

This is a pretty understandable and even believable descent to the other side for Archer. T'Pol having secret troubles staying calm is interesting, too.

Really? Making T'Pol turn herself into a drug addict so she can push Trip's buttons? Why does she keep ending up getting the worst kind of plotlines?

I don't know why it didn't occur to me- I thought the training exercises were just so Malcolm could have beef with the Major... but turns out it's so they could justify still sending SENIOR BRIDGE OFFICERS INTO DIRECT COMBAT IN SMALL TEAMS INSTEAD OF THE MARINES THEY HAVE ON BOARD FOR EXACTLY THAT SITUATION.

Episode 20

Now we're up to 18 lost. How does the number keep going up? "For the 18" has a bit of a better ring to it than "For the 14" I guess.

They found two bodies in a damaged section... but somehow they didn't get blown out the holes with the atmosphere.

Why hasn't T'Pol washed her face? 😂

Fun Fact: The only time that I "had" to eat MREs was after a hurricane while my ship was in drydock. We didn't have shore power and I was on duty so they had some hot dogs on a grill and MREs for anyone who wanted them. We ate in our office by flashlight so it'd feel like camping. 😂 That said, I was - at the time - on a prepper/libertarian kick with my colleagues and we had some 'just in case' and tried them at least once. Surprisingly expensive from places like the Army/Navy Surplus Store, but not terrible. Plus the tech behind heating them was novel.

Goddammit Trip... at least take the flightsuit off before you get in bed. Gross. This isn't a cartoon where it's too much to design a second outfit and animate you under the covers so you leave your boots on in bed. We know you have your standard-issue blue underwear.

It is a nice touch that they automatically use Celsius when referencing temperature. They say things like 'his suit temperature is 44 degrees' without saying Celsius, but you know it can't be Fahrenheit.

And wasting resources by just letting the panel cover float away instead of saving it so they can be like 'look they're in zero g!'

"As Jane's Commanding Officer"- That is not correct. Commanding Officer is a specific title given to the highest ranking person of the base or vessel. Archer is the Commanding Officer. Just because Trip was her boss does not make him her CO.

Episode 21

I have to admit... it's growing on me. I found myself last night almost deciding to keep watching even though I was no longer working.

Women only make up 1/3 of the crew? Why? In the illuminated future, we're still only 1/3??

Part of me thinks that they shouldn't know who they marry or have kids with but the other part of me remembers that I wish I could go back in time and tell myself I'm queer and shouldn't marry the guy I did. /shrug

Of course they'll probably erase this 'past-future' with whatever's about to happen anyway.

The convo between T'Pol acknowledges that it's not 'destiny' but a product of environment. That because the Enterprise wasn't sent back in time, the choices made can be different... but there's obviously going to be a bias for most people, reaching out to the people they know they had kids with before.

Episode 22

Ah American, sorry I mean HUMAN Exceptionalism at its finest. The existence of Earth changes the trajectory of history across the whole universe! Across dimensions, even!

ha disposable MAKO. why would he have climbed up to such a precarious position to fire anyway, though?

Episode 23

For one moment, just one moment I thought maybe the major taking a shot to the heart in transport would caus-- oh shit they did actually kill a crewmember who has been in multiple episodes. They might have actually turned this ship around.

To be clear, I don't condone deaths for shock value. However, thematic deaths are another thing. Plot important deaths. You can't have a war with dark themes and never kill anyone. It doesn't make sense.

Hayes says use McKenzie with his dying breath... and then he picks 3 volunteers that are not named that.

The moment where Reed asks for volunteers and all the MAKOs step forward was a nice touch, though, even if the actors couldn't figure out how to stand :joy:

Episode 24

I think it would be nice if just once the sliding scale of ally to enemy wasn't always just who looks most or least like you. That the arboreal and primate species are most human-like while the aquatic, lizard, and insects are not. I kinda hope that the humanoid lizard people are kept as the enemy and the manatee and insect like less human people stay allies. At least the lizards are recognizably human shaped.

Here we go! Finale time.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Great Man theory which Enterprise seems to consider correct. Great Man theory, as I understand it and use it here, basically says that some people are born to change things. That they are 'integral to history'- that the names we grow up learning like Newton or Washington or Einstein or even Hitler are Special in some way and that they are responsible for the leaps and bounds we take in discovery and such. That if you time traveled back and killed one of them, say Hitler, then it would change everything about the future. Stop the Holocaust and WW2.

They've repeatedly said that without Archer at the helm, the Federation would never exist. That the Guardians will succeed and wipe out everything. Whatever it is now to try to give him a safety belt when he's so damn set on throwing himself out the window of a moving starship.

I don't agree. I think that discovery is built on waves. That if Newton hadn't put pen to paper and 'discovered' the theory of gravity, someone else would have with negligible difference in time. _Especially_ when it comes to things like science because science is built on collaboration and you build off other people's work constantly.

Maybe Archer did do all these things, but had Archer not been selected for the NX-1, the other guy would've done it. And if not them, maybe the Vulcans. Sure the details might change, but this, I think, is what time travel media refers to as the resilience of the timeline. There might be disruptions, but it typically course corrects.

Gotta love Archer's dramatic... casual jog away from the explosions.

Hah. I kinda love the reveal of T'Pol's age. She's been so coy about it.

"Captain didn't make it." Yeah... I'm not gonna believe that until at least the middle of the next episode.

lmao time travel shenanigans. As soon as they said no word from the orbital stations, I assumed it wasn't a matter of where but when. Oh and look... Archer's alive. Surprise. But he was found by the Nazi's? Who have an alien officer? Sure. Turn their famous obsession with the occult towards aliens instead of supernatural.

[cookinguptales]

"But some of his reactions have felt… god, I don’t want to say out of character." I didn't want to see either but, yeah. it reminds me of posts that i'd sometimes see in the tags like "g deserves better than n! he should get over him him and get a nice bf" and i'd think lol how boring and oc, like THAT would happen, as if the whole point of g isn't that he chooses NOT to be normal. and now it's canon? and this isn't even about the ship, more about the reasons why i love the ship in the 1st place

The way I look at it is... well, his reactions to many things have felt very un-Guillermo-like and that worries me. I think some of the things I love most about his character (admittedly mostly the unhinged things) are much less apparent in this season and I don't always recognize his reactions.

That said, I also thought that Laszlo was acting very weirdly in the last season and there turned out to be a reason for it. So while I'm kind of wary of the way Guillermo's been written thus far, I'm trying to keep an open mind on things. I'm hoping we start to see more of the Guillermo that I've come to love over the past three seasons.

It just feels very weird, honestly, because if anything, Guillermo has gotten progressively more unhinged as the seasons have gone by. I mean, we're talking about the guy who was cuddling a corpse in the last season. His reaction to Gail was just so visceral. His reaction to Marwa seems kind of shocking in relation to that, especially considering we didn't actually get to see any of the things that caused him to change his mind. So it's very hard to adjust to the character.

One of my least favorite things in movies/tv shows is when a major character has a ton of character development offscreen and returns acting totally differently. (I'm looking at you, Star Wars original trilogy.) So I'm really, really hoping that these aren't long-lasting and intrinsic changes to Guillermo. I'm really kind of missing the gremlin from s3.

My hope here is that Guillermo will quickly devolve into the little weirdo he always has been as soon as he's around Nandor again and that he'll eventually realize he's been lying to himself about the possibility of ever being a normal person and having a normal relationship. I think his loneliness and trauma made him think about the life that he wishes he had but not necessarily the one that would actually suit him. (See: Guillermo wistfully talking about being a manager at Panera, like he would ever be happy doing such a safe, boring job.) And we all know how wishes are going so far this season. lmao

It's possible that they really did just decide to make Guillermo's motivations and personality change drastically between seasons, but like... being honest with you, that would feel like bad writing. So... I hope they don't do it. :(

[one-strugling-bean]

Random Thoughts on HTTYD RttE S2 (Ep1-7)

(This one is a lot bigger so gonna divide it by episodes)

Ep1 - why do the twins get so many pets

Snotlout's sadness over not being able to train his dad, that was funny

"What did he do?" "He's Snotlout's dad" "Enough said" - there is more than one way to interpret this and i think im gonna take the protective! Astrid one

Ep2&3- Okay, im gonna make a wild guess and start assuming this show is gonna be hurting Astrid a lot

How strong is Toothless?? He's just able to carry a Mostrous Nightmare like that

Hm, gotta say I'm disappointed Heather betrayed them already - like, with Dagur being her brother and all, one immediately expects a betrayal to happen eventually, but this was really fast and too sudden I'd say

Im gonna make another guess before i move on with the episode, and that is Heather is either double-crossing Dagur or she'll regret going on to his side and goes back to helping the Riders

Also, not sure how to feel about Ryker yet - he seems too competent and too much of a real threat for this show. Then again the show does seem to building itself up to a more serious plot

Ruffnut pickpocketed the guard omg yessssssssss

Ep4 - aww, it's nice to see the twins caring about eachother

Aaaand Ruffnut got really pissed at Snotlout for his stunt, wow

Fishlegs is such a cute nerd ahhh

Omg Snotlout's been bitten so much, Ruff has 0 chill

I swear this scene on the cliff with the twins is just, so weird. Its supposed to be kinda emotional but its so so silly and bizarre i can't pay total attention to the actual emotional part - guess that's just the twins for you

Snolout should've died like, 3 hours ago pretty sure

He caught a wolf in that state???

This episode was so so weird but so so enjoyable

Ep5 - Heyy it's Spitelout time - cant wait

First few lines of the two 'louts interacting and they're already giving me Draco&Lucius vibes

"Hope you're at least smart enough to figure that one out" - eh excuse me, le what. He just called his son stupid in front of all his friends and threatened him at the same time. Okay yeah, im starting to understand why no one likes this guy

God that axe is so getting destroyed

Fishlegs and Ruffnut got married, poor Fishlegs

Meatlug!! Ruff, don't throw the lady out!

Astrid is once again so so done with Snotlout - can't blame her honestly, the guy has butter fingers

Okay, that beach scene went a whole lot better than what many made me expect, but then again, it seems Hiccup, Astrid and Snotlout were expecting worse too

The scene was scary until Spitelout talked - the music, the dark of the night, the clear fear of Snotlout confronting his dad and the apprehension in both Hiccup and Astrid's faces

Not as afraid of the man anymore, but still not a fan - also he's voiced by David Tennant so he's gotta get a pass

"We're the model of a modern viking family" this made me laugh a lot, my humor might be broken i know

Ep6 - Hookster? That's a new one. Another extremely original nickname to add to the list of Hookfang's nicknames given by Snotlout, right next to Hooky and Fangster

"He's really become a tyrant, huh?" "Power'll do that to ya" Twins, don't ever change

Aw Barf&Belch are gratefuuuul, that's cute, i rarely see anything about them anywhere, this is nice to watch

"Ah, no Toothless, don't laugh! You're better than that!" Ha poor Hiccup

Nooo don't ditch the double-headed baby, he's gonna get caught by hunters!!

Hiccup is just giving me tired dad vibes this ep and I'm loving it

Ahhh Barf&Belch are sho cute, how come I've never noticed this??

"I guess we're gonna have to put you in some real danger" yeahhhhh don't ever ask that of the Thorston twins

The look of pure happiness and giddy excitement on Tuff's face as they saw the tree trunks roll down towards Hiccup is everything

What is "Bjorn Boars"

"I can only think of one man that souless" Of course it's fucking Snotlout, how did i knowww

"WHAT. IS. WRONG WITH YOU??"

Okay, what did the twins do to make Snotlout go along with this, i gotta know

"Unfortunately, we weren't expecting Thor's mighty hammer to meet Snotlout's paper jaw" I swear this kid delivers the best one liners

I love how the ending is just mass destruction of the ship

"Will someone tell this lunatic it's over?!" Hiccup deserves so many breaks

Ep7 - "Heather won't be a problem, okay?" Hmmmm i had wondered how Astrid had been able to escape so easily from Heather on ep3 without us seeing their fight - im guessing Heather revealed to Astrid that she's playing double spy

Aw cute Thorston sandwich, but damn does Snotlout look annoyed. Good for him

Yeahhhh i saw that alliance coming

"You can't just run off on your own. I rely on you, Astrid" Oof, that hurt

"Dagur was right, you don't look like much" Astrid was right, you look like a psycho" "Not exactly the compliment I would've led with" These lines are fun

Ha, sassy, taunting Hiccup is fun Hiccup

"I saw it! You did that on purpose!" Uhm, excuse me sir, how did you see that? Your back was turned!

So, Ryker is indeed smart. Like, he's intelligent and an actual threat. Me likey the high-ing of stakes

"Maybe if you didn't move and kept your mouth shut!" Fishlegs sassying the others brings me endless joy

"Feels like they're going left. No, right. Left. Which one's which??" Mood. That's me everytime someone asks where's left and right

"Heather's not evil? There goes that dream" What does that mean? Im confused

Aw, Fishlegs, you're nice

Yeah, i hope she knows what she's doing too Hiccup

This is getting too long, so gonna stop this here

Im really excited to see where this is going now, and apparently people like to read my dumb commentary so the 2nd part of season 2 should be coming soon

[mythicamagic]

Enemies to Lovers - Sesshoumaru is injured - "Lean on me" prompt

AN: Because there’s a lot of prompts to get through I probably should have/could have spent more time on this one due to the heavy subject matter buuut since in the anime Sesshoumaru only gets 11 episodes to recover from the loss of his arm, I don’t feel too guilty XD

Warning: body trauma

---

Inuyasha's wench had found him around an hour ago. Unlike Rin, she'd deliberated approaching for a few moments. Unsurprising. They were still foes after all. Crimson eyes remained burning, glaring listlessly at her face.

She'd seemed to silently decide something, determination steeling her expression. The yellow nekomata he vaguely recalled belonging to the slayer was her sole companion, who growled at him warningly not to try anything. As if he would.

The miko carried a large cumbersome bag, so he assumed she'd been headed somewhere before running into him within the forest.

Kagome cleaned his wound as best she could, before binding it to try and stop the excessive blood loss. She'd then approached with the beast, proceeding to kneel beside his bloody form. Sesshoumaru remained where he was, reclined against a tree and settled at its base.

Kagome winced, arm secured around his waist after having removed his armour.

"I can't just leave you like this. Lean on me. I'll take your weight enough to move you onto Kirara."

Sesshoumaru turned his head, gazing at nothing.

His lips moved, speaking too softly for her to hear.

"What?"

He repeated himself in a tight voice. "What is the point?"

Kagome stiffened against him. Her heart thudded quicker, fear brushing his senses.

Sesshoumaru allowed his hazy red eyes to dull into empty gold, staring right at the woman.

He could survive a missing arm. Had adjusted his fighting style enough to manage.

But the Killing Perfection could not survive the loss of a leg too. His body would save him from blood loss, but his spirit lay broken, irreparable.

Kagome swallowed loudly, resting a hand on his upper thigh. His leg ended below the knee.

"T-this… it's nothing for you," she mumbled quietly. "You're going to be okay. You'll find a way to walk again."

Sesshoumaru chuckled dryly, resting his head back against the trunk. "Why do you care, wench?" he flashed sharp teeth at her. "We are not allies. Leave me."

"I won't," Kagome moved closer, grabbing a handful of his hankimono. "Listen, I might not be your friend and you've tried to kill Inuyasha more than a few times, but…" her hand shook. "But you're the strongest person I've met. If you fall, then what hope do the rest of us have?" she questioned softly. "Despite myself, I admire people like you and Kikyo. Always so crazy strong."

Sesshoumaru scoffed, gripping her hard by the hair and forcing her head down to look at the stump of his right leg. "Do I look strong to you, miko?" he hissed in her ear.

Kagome braced her hands on his available leg, twisting in his grip to look at him.

Sesshoumaru stilled.

Unshed tears lay in her eyes.

"Yes," she muttered with conviction. "So long as you don't give up now."

Sesshoumaru stared. Inky black hair slowly fell limp around his fingers. He settled back against the tree.

Kagome straightened, winding an arm around his waist again. "At least come with me to find shelter. You can't stay like this out in the open."

Sesshoumaru remained dead weight. He did not see the point in trying.

He could not hope to recover from this.

Kagome tugged and heaved at his body, his mass much too big for her to hope to move.

She sighed with frustration, blowing air at her bangs. "I'll tell Inuyasha about this," she grumbled.

Sesshoumaru blinked, sliding his gaze back to her. "I would kill you before you managed to leave."

Kagome smiled a little, patting his shoulder. "That's better. You look a bit more like yourself when you're threatening someone."

He wanted to snap at her. To snarl and bite the soft looking skin of her neck, frighten her enough to leave.

He was tired. A part of him felt content to die after his pride lay in such shattered tiny pieces.

And yet…

And yet a part of him, instinctive, strong and indomitable, refused to lay down and perish. It appreciated her continued efforts.

The thought of him hobbling about so pathetically was almost too much to bear, but Sesshoumaru closed his eyes, realising very wretchedly that this meant he did not in fact wish to die.

"We can do this," Kagome was muttering, trying to angle him enough to lay on Kirara, who pressed in close, offering assistance.

Sesshoumaru stifled a sigh, making a silent choice. He begrudgingly leaned against her, shifting his remaining leg beneath him.

Kagome gasped, "that's it!" she encouraged, helping him into a crouching position before he fell forward onto the beast. Kagome adjusted his leg, ensuring he was steady, before nodding for Kirara to stand.

Sesshoumaru did not pay attention to their surroundings, the forest passing in a blur.

If he'd just been quicker, the bull demon who had humiliated him would have perished sooner. The beast had produced a second weapon out of thin air, axe cleaving through muscle and bone. All he could do was pull back- lest he lose his entire lower half.

He felt no pain. Surprisingly, everything remained numb. His flesh was cold and clammy, and he lay as if outside of his own body.

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes, lapsing into unconsciousness.

---

The scent of rain stirred his senses.

Sesshoumaru turned his head, finding himself laying down upon a strange futon that resembled a squashed cocoon. The nekomata lay behind him, keeping him warm.

Sesshoumaru blinked. The miko had found them shelter. He soon located her sitting at the mouth of the cave, looking out at the rain while a fire lay in the centre of the cool space.

When she noticed he’d regained consciousness, Kagome rose and offered some water from her strange water container.

She’d changed clothes, donning more unusual clothing Sesshoumaru was unfamiliar with. Her pants clung to her form distractingly.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, hovering close.

He tsked, passing back the water after taking a swig. “Like I have one leg and one arm. How do you think I am feeling, mortal?”

She winced, “shitty.”

“Indeed,” Sesshoumaru lay back down, staring at the cave ceiling soberly.

“Do you want something to eat?” a crunchy noise rustled from her pocket as the woman produced a rectangular bar of some kind.

He couldn’t keep the disgust out of his voice, eyeing a picture of the food on its strange packaging. “What is it?”

“A peanut butter and chocolate energy bar,” Kagome winced. “Look I don’t know how to hunt-” he scoffed, “-so this is the best I’ve got. Sorry, your Highness.”

Sesshoumaru sneered, “you may keep it. I do not eat human food. Least of all bizarre creations such as that.”

“Fine but it's your loss.”

His expression became blank, noticing her wince and start apologising for the wording. He wasn’t listening anymore though. The initial shock was beginning to wear off, and now he was more than painfully aware of the shooting pains running up and down the remainder of his leg, from stump to upper thigh. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, refusing to show his discomfort.

“...You’ve used a human arm before,” Kagome said carefully, sitting beside him and crossing her legs. “And what looked like a dragon one. By that logic, you could attach a demon leg to yours, right?”

Sesshoumaru slid his gaze to her, silently thankful for the distraction. The coming agony would be something he’d already dealt with due to the loss of his arm. Phantom limb pain was a real bitch.

“Yes,” he managed, before taking a steadying breath. He managed to arrange his features into something smirking and lofty. “Are you implying you will fetch me a new limb, little miko? How very generous.”

Kagome’s eyes turned flat. “I’m not about to go out and lop off some poor demon’s foot just to help you. But...if…” she said slowly, “if I’m attacked- which happens often because of the jewel shards- maybe I’d…”

Sesshoumaru dropped his smug expression, frowning softly.

The rain continued to pour, pelting the ground hard. It was a sobering reminder that if she’d left him to the mercy of the elements, he’d be in a much worse state.

He ran careful attention over her features. “Why?”

Kagome’s deep blue eyes held his probing stare, not a flicker of deceit in them. “I don’t know,” she admitted softly, “things can’t go back to normal for you right away- or at least, they shouldn’t. You should take the time to recover. I don’t know how the hell you managed to come after us so quickly after losing your arm. It likely wasn’t healthy for you.”

He arched a brow. Repressing every single fibre of the experience and any feelings about the fate that had befallen his left arm had worked wonders for his recovery. Granted it made sleep difficult at times, but none had ever had the audacity to lecture him about his decisions before.

“But- I also don’t want you to be vulnerable to attacks or starvation,” Kagome kept rambling. “Giving you a leg won’t solve everything but it’ll help- ah, are you burning up?” she noticed a bead of sweat roll down his temple, reaching out automatically.

Sesshoumaru snatched it mid-air, pushing up with a burst of speed and yanking Kagome down, simultaneously rolling atop her. Her back hit the ground, punctuated with a squeak from her startled lips.

Silver hair hung down, creating a curtain that blocked out the rest of the world. Those blue eyes widened, breath hitching. Their lower halves pressed intimately together, stomachs meeting as Sesshoumaru leaned closer, using his hand to brace his weight above her. A fire burned within the back of his throat, ancient, tattered pride stinging. He found that he resented her slightly. Resented her for seeing him so weak. It hadn’t mattered when Rin had found him wounded. A battered child had no relation to him. But this girl, Kagome- was an enemy. She should not have seen him thus.

“Do I seem so very vulnerable to you?” he asked in a hushed voice, mouth inches from hers. The fire crackled, rain pouring. Her breathing sounded a touch quicker, heartbeat loud in his ears. Drumming.

Against all logic, he felt her body relax beneath his. She even smiled a little, “no,” she muttered.

“Is something amusing?”

“I’m just glad you proved me wrong. I’d rather you kept acting like a jerk than look so...defeated like you did earlier,” Kagome gave a nervous giggle, gesturing between them, “uh...if you could let me up now though that would be great.”

She tried to rise, but he let more of his weight sink down upon her soft, warm body. “No, I do not think I will.”

Kagome gasped, drawing a knee up and inadvertently opening her legs, allowing him to fit snugly against her. If he hadn’t lost a limb several hours earlier that same day and wasn’t experiencing agonising, blinding pain, Sesshoumaru had to say, the feeling was enough to make him...consider something previously thought impossible between himself and humans.

As it was, he hissed a breath through grit teeth, the stump licking phantom flames of blazing fire around the wound.

“Sesshoumaru? Sesshoumaru!”

He shuddered, trying to prevent himself from crushing her beneath his weight, arm shaking.

It hurt. It suddenly hurt like hell- and nothing was working. No distraction could take him from the blistering, lonely, maddening sensation that holy fuck his leg was missing. He wanted to do something as meaningless as wriggle his toes and he could not-

Suddenly, her arms were around him. Pleasant fresh scents assaulted his fractured senses, citrusy and clean. Kagome pulled him down while rolling herself, flipping their positions.

“I don’t have anything for the pain,” her voice strained apologetically. She quickly moved off him, but Sesshoumaru wasn’t paying attention anymore. He panted, temples pounding. His body shook, pain shooting through the nerve endings in the remainder of his leg.

Something cold and wet lay over his marked forehead. Cracking the burning suns of pained golden eyes open, he watched Kagome adjust the cold compress, before checking his leg.

“You heal quick, but you need new bandages. M-maybe that’ll help until I can go home for painkillers,” she muttered, grabbing her bag and digging through it.

Sesshoumaru panted softly, seizing the fretting miko’s wrist.

“Your...scent,” he grunted.

“What?”

If he were sober he’d never request something so undignified, but Sesshoumaru kept talking, somewhat delirious now that all sense of shock had worn off. “Come here...again. I want your scent.”

Kagome’s shocked features were lost to him as the Daiyoukai hissed, squeezing his eyes shut.

The scent of citrus returned after a moment. Soft, curling locks of dark hair brushed his nose as Kagome gingerly embraced him.

Sesshoumaru wrapped an arm around her shoulders, burying his face into the black fall of citrus-scented strands. He lost himself to instinct, gripping onto the stable, pleasant sensations that took the form of Inuyasha’s wench. She let out a tense breath but soon relaxed against him, verbally assuring Kirara when the nekomata growled.

For the second time that day, Sesshoumaru unwillingly lost the battle for consciousness.

----

She was gone by the time he awoke in the morning, but the nekomata remained. She growled and hissed softly whenever he looked at the beast for longer than necessary. Kagome left a note, explaining that she’d be back soon.

Sesshoumaru had little to do except wait. The pain had become a continuous throb, which was easier to deal with but equally as irritating, exhausting him.

When Kagome returned several hours later, she produced wrapped pieces of cooked chicken from her bag, cheerfully explaining that she’d returned home. Sesshoumaru turned his nose up slightly at the food.

“I would have preferred the bird...raw.”

“Wait like freshly dead?”

“Alive, favourably.”

Kagome gaped, leaving the lunchbox with him. “That's terrible!”

Sesshoumaru stared at her flatly, opening his mouth and drawing out his tongue, transforming his features into something more monstrous and canine while placing the food into his mouth and eating it in one quick snap of his jaws. “Demon,” he muttered pointedly.

She rolled her eyes and let him finish his meal in peace.

---

They fell into an odd routine of planned visits for several days, talking about the strange things she brought back from home. He came to learn she was from the Future, of all places. They discussed its advanced technologies while she bandaged his leg.

He suspected the miko felt some sense of responsibility for him now. The thought set his teeth on edge, mildly humiliated.

When he brought up the subject of his vassal, ward and steed, Kagome shrugged and told him they’d been accepted into Inuyasha’s group for the time being. They worried about his continued absence and Inuyasha complained about having to share a space with Jaken, but bared with it. Not one person knew about his situation except Kagome, for which he was thankful.

By the end of five days though, Sesshoumaru needed to move. He began by pulling himself along the ground via his hand and knee, which proved awkward but not impossible. Next came standing, which- after many failed attempts- he finally managed to do, gripping onto the cave wall.

Walking was impossible, of course. And by the time Sesshoumaru realised the very sobering truth that he’d have to hop everywhere the rest of his life or walk with the use of a cane or crutch unless he could grab a demon leg- he wondered why he’d bothered moving at all.

“You’re standing!”

Dulled golden eyes slid to the miko, who stood at the mouth of the cave. In her arms was a large sack faintly marred with blood, and he could tell from the wrinkle of her nose exactly what it was. Surprise slammed into his gut.

“Miko-”

Kagome set the bundle down, hurrying over and steadying him when he tipped too much to one side. “Are you alright? You should be resting-”

“Give me the leg, miko.”

Kagome fell silent, eyeing his stump. He’d stopped needing bandages two days ago. She didn’t protest, merely looking at him carefully. “Are you sure?”

Sesshoumaru leaned against her, allowing her to help ease him down into a sitting position. He briefly touched her cheek, gliding a thumb there and watching it redden. His heart thudded with gladness. “I am sure.”

She nodded, soon bringing the bloodied sack over. She explained that he’d gotten lucky, as while the first two demons they’d faced in a group of three had been too large and bulky to fit his build, the third had been smaller. Inuyasha had been extremely disturbed and suspicious when she’d asked him to hack their leg off once all three were dead.

“It’s not been easy, avoiding his questions, you know. He’s tried to follow me here more than once. I managed to convince him that this leg was for my weird Grandpa.”

Sesshoumaru blinked, finding himself watching her instead of studying the leg as it was revealed to him. The miko had been astronomically helpful and considerate in all the ways one could to a demon lord. His chest felt strange. Warm, upon realising the extent of her actions for his sake.

“Well, do you like it?”

Sesshoumaru jolted, focusing on the red-scaled leg laying before him. From its scent, he knew it to be from a lizard demon. Not his first choice, but this was no time to be picky. Sesshoumaru grabbed it and pressed the severed end to his stump after aligning it. He didn’t so much as flinch as muscle and bone wove together, the process over in seconds. Kagome gaped with amazement.

When he moved to stand, she quickly assisted, pulling him to his feet. Sesshoumaru took a step and staggered, looking downwards.

Ah.

Kagome’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh. Oh no...it's too short isn’t it?”

The height was off by a few inches.

He made to reply- before stiffening, scenting salt. “Why are you crying about it, foolish woman?”

“I-I’m sorry,” she waved it off, some tears escaping down her cheeks before she roughly brushed them away. “I just wanted it to be perfect but now you’re kind of...tilted.”

Despite the situation, a smile tugged at his mouth. A noise bubbled up from the back of his throat, escaping as a quiet laugh.

Kagome froze, tears clinging to her lashes.

“It is fine, miko. More than...fine.”

Sesshoumaru held onto the wall for support, feeling the bite of putting weight onto the leg, his stump flaring. It would take time for his body to adjust. Despite this, his warrior heart filled with purpose again, powers working to heal him. Just having the ability to walk after having it stolen away renewed his spirits.

Kagome watched him with a smile, occasionally offering aid but largely keeping her hands off. He could sense various soft emotions rolling off her in waves. Admiration, relief and something else. Something he could not name. It remained untouched and unnamed long after he left the cave behind one afternoon.

He had no writing utensils to leave a note, instead carefully tearing out a segment of his sleeve, leaving the red and white flower symbol of his family crest for her to find.

---

Kagome panted hard, catching her breath and folding down into a crouch, gripping her bow tight.

“Are you alright, Kagome?” Rin asked, closely followed by Shippo as they approached from Ah-Un, having kept away from the random attack on the village. Thankfully the hoard of boar demons had finally been dealt with, but Kagome’s nerves were shot to hell after racing around so much, trying to protect villagers.

“I-I’m fine, guys, thanks,” she smiled, looking between them both. The orphans had bonded quickly, and she felt a surge of warmth, happy they had a companion their age to talk with. It had been two weeks since she’d last seen Sesshoumaru since his disappearance, and while she loved having Rin around, it did make her worry. Sesshoumaru always returned to his group. Where had he run off too?

Maybe he went to find a better leg, she thought, taking the children’s hands and walking towards Miroku- who was helping up an old man from where he’d fallen. Perhaps he needed time to get used to walking on what’s essentially a prosthetic.

For humans- such a thing took up to one year. Demons really are something else.

Kagome’s lips curved, picturing the burning, determined gaze of the Daiyoukai.

Or rather, Sesshoumaru is something else.

“Kagome, look out!” Miroku yelled.

Jerking, Kagome sensed a lone boar youkai barrelling towards her through the forest, knocking trees aside. It was quicker than anticipated- and despite Kagome grabbing the children and trying to run out of its way, it charged straight for her, grunting, throwing its head wildly.

People were screaming her name, but they were too far away. Kagome twisted her body, pushing the kids aside and in order for her to take the brunt of the hit-

Red light exploded to life, consuming the boar demon before it could reach them. Hide and blood were caught up in the attack, leaving Kagome mercifully free from the boar's flying carnage.

She panted, shaking a little and gazing at the steaming remains of the demon. A pale figure floated to the ground, landing elegantly.

“Lord Sesshoumaru!” Rin cried happily.

“Lord Sesshoumaru?!” Jaken’s distant yell could be heard.

Kagome straightened, heart doing a funny thing in her chest. She immediately looked at his leg- finding him clad in white hakama pants and black boots. The same as always.

Blue eyes widened. He appeared completely unchanged. Somehow, he must’ve found an inhuman demon and took their leg so that he could masquerade as his usual self.

His tiny group circled around him joyously, while Kagome’s friends gathered together a little ways away. Inuyasha’s ears pinned back to his head with displeasure.

Jaken hopped up and down. “Where have you BEEN, mi lord!”

“Nowhere."

“Tch, bastard,” grumbling, Inuyasha raised his voice a touch. “Hey- you could at least thank us for babysitting your damn group while you were probably out doing power-hungry shit.”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze slid over the Hanyou dismissively, stopping on Kagome. Her breathing hitched.

“I am not here to thank you, Inuyasha.”

Kagome remained frozen as a shadow fell over her face, his head of silver hair blocking out the sun. Golden eyes replaced the burning circle in the sky, blazing and intent. Slit pupils pinned her in place.

She was vaguely aware of her friends exclaiming in surprise and alarm, thinking he meant to harm her. The sound of Inuyasha drawing his sword was enough to make her mutter ‘sit boy’ absentmindedly, paying no attention to his subsequent impact with the ground.

Sesshoumaru raised a hand, resting pale knuckles against her cheek in a slow drag down to her jaw, skin cool, clashing against her warmth. White lashes lowered, becoming half-mast.

“You’re okay?” she breathed.

“Hn, I merely needed some time,” Sesshoumaru’s low rumble melted her insides.

She cleared her throat, cheeks tinging red because of his proximity, his dark youki brushing her senses, his touch- his everything. Reaching into her pocket, she produced the segment of his clothing, the pattern of his clan. “Did you want this back-?”

“Keep it,” he closed her fingers over it, catching her eye. “You have my loyalty for what you have done for this one, miko. Keep it,” he said softer.

Kagome nodded slowly, opening her mouth to ask more-

Firm lips slanted over her own. Stiffening, she became deaf to her friend’s even louder exclamations of surprise, Miroku quietly voicing his awe, impressed.

The miko inhaled sharply through her nose, feeling Sesshoumaru’s mouth move, brushing against her own in several lingering kisses. Blushing, it took a moment for Kagome to get over her stupefaction. But then she pressed a little closer, kissing him back perhaps a little nonsensically. But it felt right. Her toes curled at the feel of him.

A low groan rumbled in his throat and his lips softened against hers, mouth parting to brush his sinuous tongue against hers.

Kagome shivered and wondered if he could hear how her heart hammered in her chest. His palm felt steady upon her back, arm encircling her waist. When they finally pulled away, their lips lingered close.

“What...what was that?” she breathed, cheeks flushed.

Sesshoumaru’s lips quirked, “that was this Sesshoumaru conveying my deep sense of gratitude, miko.”

“Funny way of thanking someone, but I’ll take it,” Kagome’s eyes glittered. She could think about the consequences of such an action later. For now, she was content to hold his gaze and keep his secret safe- for however long the prideful Daiyoukai needed.

[shihalyfie]

Regarding Konaka’s influence on Tamers (or how much he actually didn’t have)

(Rest assured that if you’ve had a conversation with me recently about this issue, I’m not vaguing you; this conversation has come up a lot in the last few weeks, especially in my private chats, so this is just me deciding that I should write something about this for once since it’s been weighing on my head lately.)

I think, right now, with what happened regarding the DigiFes debacle, a lot of people are having complicated feelings about how to feel about Tamers, and this is completely understandable. I think there are also some things that may be inevitably unavoidable, such as starting to second-guess certain nuances in the series and what they might lead to. All of that is perfectly reasonable, and in the end, it’s going to be up to everyone to decide how they feel.

In light of this, a lot of people have been bringing up the fact that, while Konaka was the head writer, he was by no means the only person working on it. This is very much true, but I’d like to add something else to the equation: this is an issue that goes much deeper than the usual claiming death of the author for the sake of sanity. The full picture is that Konaka has always had much less influence on the series than the fanbase tends to attribute to him. Official statements have been very clear as to not attribute the entire series to him, and, among all the other controversial statements he’s made, Konaka himself has at least been very active about crediting the other staff members as far as their influence on the series! The idea that he was the only person who ever did anything substantial for Tamers is something I’ve been warning against since long before any of this happened (if you want proof, I have a post from April with this sentiment in it), and right now we just happen to be seeing what’s basically the worst possible outcome of the fanbase constantly worshipping him like the only real creative heart behind the series to borderline cult-like levels...when that’s never been true, and has resulted in unfairly taking credit away from people who deserved it.

I’ll go into detail below, and I hope this can help people understand the situation better and sort out how they feel about it.

Note that I make references to his infamous blog in this post, which I’m deliberately refraining from directly linking for obvious reasons, but all of the information is still there, so it should be verifiable if you decide to look for it yourself.

Personally, I’ve always found it really bizarre how there’s been this obsession with portraying Konaka as some kind of auteur whom the entirety of Tamers depended on. I’m not saying this out of spite towards him, because, again, even he himself was very insistent on disclaiming credit for things he wasn’t actually responsible for (he was quite humble in this respect, actually). Not to mention that I think it’s a mistake in general to constantly pin a single person in a multi-person production as the sole heart behind it, and the Digimon fanbase has historically had this strange double standard behind it when it comes to uplifting him as the only heart behind Tamers when nobody says that about any of the head writers for...anything else. (How many times has Nishizono’s name ever popped up when talking about Adventure? People are usually more obsessed with talking about Kakudou or Seki.) Konaka’s work is certainly distinctive, but Tamers had a lot more going on besides just that.

In fact, based on his own statements on the matter and all of the other official information we’ve gotten about Tamers production, while you can’t really quantify such things, it’s generally been estimated that Konaka was responsible for something like only a fourth of the series. Which is an incredibly low amount compared to what the fanbase would have told you before all of this happened, because of this fixation that he must be the genius mastermind behind the whole series. Not only that, this “brilliant auteur” image of him was so inflated that people were attributing way more of 02 to him than he deserved; 02 episode 13 was the only thing he contributed to the series and he was specifically brought on as a “guest writer”, and the overall plot of the episode was determined by the rest of the production staff and not him -- but ask the fanbase and they’ll tell you stories about how he invented some grand planned arc for 02 that got cancelled, or even that Tamers exists because of a “writer revolt” from him and other writers not being allowed to do what they wanted. (You know, as much as I understand 02′s a controversial series, it would be really nice if people didn’t make up completely baseless stories like this just to scapegoat it...)

I honestly cannot emphasize enough how much of the problem we’re in right now has been horribly enabled by the weird pedestal the fanbase has been putting him on. This is to the point where there’s even been a double standard where some of the more unpopular/criticized elements of Tamers must not have been the fault of a brilliant writer like him, and in fact was forced on him by the executives (this excuse had always been brought up anytime someone doesn’t like something about Tamers, just to make sure the image of him as a perfect writer was maintained). Turns out, as per his own admission on the infamous blog, while he wasn’t the one who initially had the idea of putting Ryou in, the part that rubbed the fanbase the wrong way -- that he came in as an accomplished senior who was better than everyone and played up by everyone in the cast -- was unabashedly his idea (he apparently was enamored with the idea of having someone like Tuttle from the movie Brazil). Again, this is a weird scenario where even Konaka himself has been more humble about this issue than the fanbase’s perception of him; he fully admitted whenever he had trouble writing certain parts. For instance, he doesn’t actually like writing about alternate worlds, felt they were out of his comfort zone, and only wrote in the Digital World because the franchise needs one; he’d stated that if he’d had his way, the Digital World arc wouldn’t have come in as early as it did, which might be a pretty shocking statement for a Digimon fan to hear.

If you want even more specifics, here are some extremely major parts of the series that Konaka was not actually the one behind:

The character backgrounds. Konaka stated on his blog that he wasn’t interested in going too much into character backstories because he felt it was too plot-limiting to say that a character is the way they are thanks to something in their past or background (basically, he cares more about plot than character for the most part), and that he’s also not into worldbuilding. Certain things like Ruki going to a girls’ school were supplied by Seki, who infamously loves worldbuilding, family backgrounds, and character settings.

Certain nuances of Ruki’s character, especially the part where she’s pigeonholed into uncomfortable places due to being a girl, were informed by Yoshimura Genki, writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02 (who eventually would go on to create an entire career out of feminist cinema).

According to the posts on his blog, Impmon’s character arc didn’t have much input from Konaka himself and was largely written in by Maekawa Atsushi (also a writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02).

The whole concept of Yamaki being redeemable in the first place was something Konaka didn’t originally plan for; he’d initially intended to make him a straightforward antagonist, but, of all things, his Christmas song, combined with the input of the other writers (especially Maekawa) humanizing him, led to the development where Yamaki eventually changed sides and became sympathetic. (This makes Konaka’s recent stunt revolving around Yamaki a bit painfully ironic.)

The director, Kaizawa Yukio, was deliberately picked because he didn’t have experience on the prior series, for the sake of changing things up, and he spent Tamers as a period of studying what Digimon should be like. Based on what he’s hinted, it seems Konaka's writing style and choices were able to have as much influence as they did because Kaizawa approved of them -- that is to say, Konaka’s detailed imagery and descriptions were extensive enough that Kaizawa could go “sure, let’s go with that.” But in the end, nothing Konaka did would have gone through unless Kaizawa and Seki (among many others) didn’t also approve of it or provide input. Moreover, Kakudou Hiroyuki (director of Adventure and 02) has also been stated many times to have been a valuable consultant on invoking Digimon so that the new staff could understand what to aim for and how to get the right feel (and also assisted with providing stuff for the mythos, such as the Devas). Nevertheless, Kaizawa also seems to have had his own strong opinions and input on the story; he especially seems to get passionate when it comes to the topic of making the story something the kids watching it could relate to and imagine. (He would eventually go on to direct Frontier and Hunters, along with several episodes of the Adventure: reboot.)

So in other words, looking at this, a lot of these things that people emotionally connected to and loved about Tamers are things that literally were not his personal creation, and were largely contributed by the other writers! Of course, Konaka’s “creator thumbprint” is very obvious -- he was the head writer, after all -- and all of this had to go through his own vetting to make sure he personally liked it as well -- but nevertheless, you can see that this very much was a collaborative effort from head to toe, with him being very open about this fact himself. Insisting on making sure that this fact is well-known isn’t just a coping mechanism to try and remove his presence in the series, but rather a desire to get people to seriously stop giving him credit that really should be going to others (especially since, again, even he himself was very diligent about assigning that credit).

In the end, I’ll leave you with another thing to keep in mind: Konaka doesn’t get paid anymore for Tamers work (unless they make something new like the DigiFes thing), so continuing to buy Tamers merch and supporting the series through fanart and such will probably end up going more towards the Digimon IP as a whole. Basically, if we’re just talking about Tamers specifically, what degree this is going to matter is only really relevant to the content in the original series, which is now twenty years old and remains unchanged. By Konaka’s own admission, he wasn’t into all of these conspiracy theories until 2010 at the earliest, so while it’s understandable to be a bit wary about the themes in Tamers having traces of the base sentiment, the original series itself does not seem to be an outlet for alt-right propaganda, and it’s probably forcing it a bit much to read into it that way. Konaka’s also repeatedly insisted that all of his attempts at a Tamers sequel have been rejected and that he’s been doing increasingly strange swerves to get around members of the original cast not entirely being available, and the Japanese audience has turned out to not be very fond of the contents of the 2018 drama CD and the stage reading for reasons entirely separate from the politics, so it’s also unlikely we’ll be getting a Tamers sequel from him or something in the near future.

So -- at least for the time being -- what’s done with him is done, and the remaining question is how all of us feel about Tamers. I think everyone will have differing feelings on it, and that’s perfectly understandable. Personally, given everything I just said above, I’m going to continue treating it as a series very important to me, and one that many people (including, as it seems, a very different Konaka from twenty years ago) worked on with a lot of effort and love, although you may see me getting a bit more willing to be critical about the series and its themes thanks to my concerns about some of the sentiments in it and what they imply. I also completely understand that there are probably people whose associations are going to be much more hurt and who will have a much harder time seeing the series the same way ever again, and I think that’s reasonable as well. But at the very least, going forward, I hope all of us can understand the depth of this situation, give credit where it’s due, and not force credit where it’s not due.

[korra-the-red-lion]

Legends of Tomorrow and the Zarlie Incident: Is it happening again?

As many fans of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow are aware, during season 4 and 5 of the series, the ship “Zarlie”, a pairing of Zari Tomaz and Charlie, became quite popular during this time, especially during season 4.

Zari was a fan favourite character who was introduced in season 3. Throughout the season, Zari kept mostly to herself until she began to warm up to the others on the Waverider. Due to Zari’s closed off nature, she never had a LI in season 3. There were jokes about it, of course. Zari was very attractive to one Mr. Jonah Hex, and honestly. who wasn’t from the Waverider, haha? We’re told them as viewers that Zari is attracted to men. Sounds good.

Then s4 rolls around and Charlie gets introduced to the crew. Charlie takes an instant liking to Zari, affectionately calling her ‘Z.’ Maisie previously played Amaya on the previous two seasons, who was quite close with Zari as a friend, so it only makes sense that there is some chemistry between the two actors since they’ve been friends for awhile now. I wasn’t surprised when people starting shipping the two of them, thus the ship ‘Zarlie’ was born. What I wasn’t expecting was the writers to play into it. They had some pretty close scenes, and by close I mean there wasn’t enough room for two hands between their faces. And Zari made a comment about Charlie picking Amaya’s form because she was hot, implying that she thought Amaya was attractive. Thus the infamous scene happened:

No denial from Zari, just her usual annoyed look she got whenever Charlie started picking at her. Thus, the Bi Zari headcannon was born and mostly accepted by everyone in the LoT fandom. Of course, with Avalance and I believe Constangreen at this time, many people doubted it would become canon. And unfortunately, shortly after, Nate and Zari began dating, which felt sudden to me personally, and Steelhacker was born.

However, Steelhacker canon did not stop Zarlie from continuing. If anything, the writers only added more fuel to the fire so fans could have discussions. This is where I started to get annoyed, because why continue to bait the pair if you have no intention of making it canon? It felt a little dirty to me, even as I enjoyed the banter and chemistry between the two of them. Oh well, I thought at the time, it’s just shipping for fun now.

Season 4 ends with Zari being replaced by Zari Tarazi, or Zari 2.0 if you will. People still shipped Zarlie, though it was mostly from Zari 1.0. Fans were a little put off when Charlie said she slept with Behrad, but it also called attention to the fact that Behrad technically replaced Zari from the original timeline, meaning that Charlie wanted sleep with Zari, yes? Very confusing, but in a weird way, it was almost like they canonized the ship further.

Maisie had been on record several times acknowledging the chemistry between the two, and how much she wished they could have explore that more. Then of course, the news of the filmed but deleted kiss broke out and everyone from the Zarlie fandom lost their mind. There was a kiss, so in some strange way, Zarlie is canon, but only behind the scenes. From a show that does have amazing queer characters and content came a strangely bizarre queerbait that is now semi-canon, but only because the news of the kiss came to light, otherwise it would be another ship lost at sea, dragging people down with it as it lured them with its content. That should be the end of it, right?

Wrong.

Season 6 came out this season with Astra, the villain being manipulated by the Fates in season 5, being elevated to main cast. Joining her was newcomer Esperanza “Spooner” Cruz. Some people were hesitant because Astra was a bit of a polarizing character in s5, with reason. And of course, with any new character coming in, people are worried on how they will fit into the show. However, Spooner easily became a character that people enjoyed, and she somehow grounded the show, due to her very emotional character arc.

Spooner and Astra didn’t interact much until the animated sequence, when Astra turned her into a fork, much to the fans delight. Spooner actually encouraged Astra and after that, the two slowly became friends. They could have some snarky yet fun back and forth conversations and remarks to another, and the two actors played off each other well. They also connected from their lost mothers, Spooner who thought her mother had been taken by aliens and Astra who lost her mother to hell. They had a sort of emotional vulnerability between them that only they could understand.

Then the bowling episode came out and I think this is when the ship really got rolling. There was the big hug at the end of the match were a much taller Astra scoops Spooner up off her feet into a massive bear hug, smiles between the two. I know this is when I became a solid Esperastra shipper.

The pair continued to partner up after this. They partnered up again during the Clue-esc murder mystery game. Something that is very interesting about this is the pairings themselves. Ava gets killed by Sara right away (lol) and Nate dies shortly after, with Sara following behind. When Sara dies, her and Ava are shot together in a typical lovers pose in death. Makes sense, as they are engaged. Zari 2.0 is paired with Behrad and John, her brother and her lover respectively. Everyone is paired with someone they love. So...Astra and Spooner are paired up. Okay, no comment. JUST KIDDING. They die together, and this is shot in such a romantic way:

I know it’s dark, my apologies. But Spooner is leaning on Astra, and Astra is falling on top of Spooner. I’ve watched and read a lot of stuff, and this is a typical lovers in death position as well. 

Then we get to the final two episodes which see Spooner and Astra pairing up again. Spooner leans on Astra for emotional support throughout these two episodes, because she knows that Astra understands what she’s going through. Astra was devested when she thought she lost both Spooner and John at the same time. Luckily, Spooner did come back and the two shared a very emotional hug.

Now, this is where it gets a little frustrating as a fan. The writers and showrunners have stated clearly that they are Just Friends(TM). It seems like, based on some decisions from this past season, the writers are pushing for Astra/Behrad, which is like, not terrible but a little strange. However, Tala Ashe (Zari), has been on record to say that she thinks the actors have great chemistry and she ships them. So there is clearly a small divide yet again. So, if season 7 leans into this any more, is Esperastra the new Zarlie?

Of course friends can love each other, hug one another, and use each other as emotional support. However in this case, there does seem to be some underlying tension between the two that I wonder if the writers are going to explore. Is Esperastra going to stay friends, or end up becoming yet another queerbaited sapphic couple from Legends of Tomorrow? I guess only time will give us an answer on this. However, I will say, the parallels between the two ships is slightly uncanny, and perhaps even intentional. Zarlie connected by being two people who felt lost without family, and Esperastra may be doing the same thing now that John is gone, who was functionally Astra’s only family left.

Let’s hope Legends of Tomorrow doesn’t do the same thing twice.