#call me crazy but i feel like if you try to commit genocide you might be too far gone

[bladeofmarseille]

i cant say this on twitter bc i would get drawn and quartered but i think giving wesker any sort of "redemption" arc is cringe

[the-rainbow-lesbian]

I'm not Jewish so I don't really have much of a personal stake in the situation but I must admit there is something about all this stuff that just feels...wrong...

I support Palestinian independence and I think what Israel is doing is objectively wrong. It does sorta seem they're trying to wipe the Palestinians out so they don't have to worry about them anymore, seeing as how they've been bombing places that were supposedly safe. Killing children will not bring the hostages back.

That being said, something about the way people are so quick to act as if Israel is the single most evil country in the world (as if others haven't also committed human rights violations) is so strange to me. And the way people are outright calling for the extermination of Israel, not even in a subtle way. Like it or not, there are people who live there and they won't have anywhere to go. Why is extermination of a group of people only okay if it happens to the right group of people? And all these things about how Israel is controlling the media, the claims that the 10/7 massacre was fake just because 40 babies weren't actually beheaded (and acting like it's sooooo out there and crazy to believe that that would actually happen), saying that Jewish people don't have a right to complain about feeling unsafe on campus because Palestinians have it worse... It's scary and the fact that NOBODY is being like "hey guys being pro-Palestine isn't an excuse to be antisemitic" when I'm sure they would have just 10 years ago is CRAZY. It's so easy to do and yet they don't do it. I don't think any criticism of Israel automatically equates to antisemitism, but it's clear to me that the situation is being leveraged to justify antisemitism and I just wish we could bring this up without people being like, "So you think murdering children is okay?" Like, no? You can't say a damn thing about it. Why did people get so extreme so quickly? What happened?

All this is to say I feel very conflicted about all this and although I'm sure you have people trying to paint you as a genocide enabler, I think your heart is in the right place. I appreciate that you're one of the few non-conservatives that look at things from a different angle. I feel like I'm going crazy.

exactly, you're not jewish, and many people don't have any stakes in this game either but they are suddenly very invested in this war when it's not even the most deadly conflict going on in the world, people only supposedly care about palestinians when israel is waging a war against hamas but don't really care about palestinians who live in syria and lebanon who live in actual refugee camps and have little to no rights, and generally, people don't care about arabs and middle eastern people, did anyone take to the streets and camp on their campuses to protest the syrian civil war? or to protest the horrendous atrocities the IRGC commits against the iranian people?

there is a difference between "children die in wars and that's very tragic" and "israel a jewish majority country is actively targeting children" and there are propaganda machines that are very much invested in having you believe that israel is some sort of genocidal evil state hellbent on killing children for fun, even though if genocide was israel's goal they would've already nuked gaza and not sent soldiers on the ground and risk their lives, and not continue to allow aid in and open one more entry point in shalom karem crossing that they had to close later because hamas shot rockets and killed two soldiers, hamas has been preventing civilians from accessing aid since this war started and now prevented more aid from entering to gaza through that crossing.

you might be getting there in noticing a pattern but it's all connected, you say israel is "objectively wrong" but if you were kidnapped by a terrorist organization would you want your government to do absolutely nothing to rescue you? unfortunately casualties are a reality of war and I think every decent person wishes that wars would all collectively stop but we live in reality and when a terrorist organization invades your border and massacres your civilians you have the right to defend yourself, and israel has warned civilians in advance to evacuate before they begin striking an area, this is the most recent example of them trying to urge a family to leave rafah asap and the response is both horrifying and eye opening x

people here in the west don't understand the middle east and your naivety is being taken advantage of, I know I sound like a conspiracy theorist but the terrorist organizations who want to eradicate israel know they can't defeat the idf so they are trying to win the information war by investing in this propaganda that israel is committing a genocide and targeting women and children and that israel is also the worst country in the world and they are using good old blood libels so that people turn against jews like they did when the nazis took over, do you think they started with rounding up jewish civilians to the gas chambers or with propaganda that dehumanized and demonized jewish people to allow this to happen? unfortunately stupidity is in abundance and people in the west are such useful idiots.

[infamyoverinnocence]

im a sweetness rather than a feeling (wrong words are purely situational.)

last night i cried you werent here. you think about what causes girls to go crazy and rip the stuffing out their teddy bear hearts and i think it might be you. lately my dreams have all been us and the tears that drain my eyes and keep me sleeping. "us" but so much not a thing. i left you parting gifts on my way out. funny enough i would answer every unknown call until i hear your voice on the other side, because how else would i know your thoughts and how your head works. revolving thoughts that go off like bombs and sparks that suffocate. growing up will tell you young hearts dont know enough but mine pumps blood faster than an old one. young lips know enough to speak and enough to regret not kissing you when i had the chance. something about disaster keeps pulling me back. cotton candy tears on ice cream wheels, im a sweet breakdown waiting to happen. crushed candy hearts mean nothing but sweetness because what would life be without a good taste? misery loves company but im a kid in a toy store. champagne sick on new years and chain reactions played by the light in your eyes and the star-crossed look in mine. my head is a battlefield and my thoughts are a genocide. im you and were going out of style. still on my balcony lit by hopes and dreams. sour faces take sips of drinks spiked by kerosene before the inevitable forest fire. hearts burn on pavement and youre third degree. its funny you get that far under my skin. not in a bad way because my pheromones are love and yours are stuck on a crystal vision. wouldnt lives make sense when you bring down the skyline for a view while im dying. hospital visits are my constant. "i cant commit to a thing, be it heart or hospital." sometimes my thoughts keep going before i draw a blank and fizzle out. they only come up right when i think of you. i cant stand by my word because every night i try to forget you and those fountain blue eyes (not blue by color, but blue by crying) my mind gives up on my thoughts when i look back at your sweater. i cried when i broke your bracelet and wondered if you ever wore mine. juvenile. i told you to be happy while mine said shine. that letter youll never get is stuck in the mail. passed but never received. you wont remember my face because faded photographs with no words are written to be forgotten. something like a simple fog. how else would love kick life if it didnt beat you down as well? thank you for our night that was taken away when i left in the morning. i sing the words on the ground and beg for differences. the moment i saw you i wish i wasnt so eager for your attention. goodnight to glass skies and interstellar eyes. this is for forever and the little spots in your memories you laugh about. someone finally understood but like a temporary feeling of course one had to leave. ill be sick until your birthday. until then, ill be waiting for you to call me.

"here in this life we seem so lost on this side of brightness we dont know where to go"

/ theonlyexception. ୭ ˚.

[alirhi]

Loki ranting

Okay. I had this thought in my head of like just compiling links of all the Loki shit I've posted/reblogged so far so that when I get into a conversation about the show and how it fucking disgusted me, I can just be like "here. here's this masterlist post, go read all this shit. This is my entire argument, and not only mine, but a lot of stuff posted by people far more intelligent and level-headed and eloquent than I am, whom I happen to agree with." Because the alternative is constantly getting fired up all over again, and that is exhausting.

BUT! I'm stupid and don't know how tumblr works. Apparently I can't just be like "give me all the Loki-tagged shit I've got" I can only search all the Loki-tagged shit on all of tumblr. And I'm not scrolling back through all of my posts. I talk too fucking much for that shit 😂

So, I'll try to remember all of my grievances with how the MCU has treated Loki, and all of the excellent posts made by other, equally upset fans, and put it all together here under this nice, neat little cut for everyone else's sanity and scrolling convenience...

For people who actually read my shit fairly regularly - bless you, you crazy, patient people. I love you! - this is going to be a lot of repetition of shit you've already read. Probably at least twice. I'm passionate and I have a terrible memory lol. Sorry.

Anyway, first, for those who don't know me and haven't been following my explosions of rage for the past couple of months, some quick background: I do not read comic books, so Loki's Marvel comic canon means nothing to me. I know almost nothing about it. The reason I'm so in love with the character in the MCU is because I am an eclectic witch and the deity I've actively loved and worshiped the longest in my life (literally for as long as I can remember) is Loki. So when he was mentioned in The Mask, I squeed. When they named Matt Damon's character after him in Dogma, I cheered.

When Thor came out in 2011, I just about died from happiness. I was hungry for any representation of this underappreciated god, no matter what it was. I didn't even bitch about how underpowered he was, because at least he was there. But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.

I can hear anyone reading this going "Why Loki? Isn't he, like, evil? Like basically the Norse version of The Devil?" Because I heard all this shit irl all the fucking time. And no. So let me give you a quick rundown of who Loki actually is.

Loki is a Trickster God. He's often referred to as the God of Mischief. He is not and never was evil, simply chaotic and hedonistic. Loki Laufeyjarson was the son of Laufey (that's mama; they changed her to a man for some reason in the movie) and Fárbauti. Right from the start, from his name, we get a sign of how Loki goes against traditional norms of the time, because in Norse culture, families were patrilineal, and surnames were "son/daughter of father" (which would have made him Loki Fárbautitason), not the mother. But Loki's surname is matrilineal. Feminist icon woo! lol

Though he's a Jotunn, Loki is counted among the Gods (Aesir) in Norse tradition. Depending on his mood, he is alternately helpful or disruptive to the other Gods. I'm not gonna sit and teach a whole text class on him lol but I'll use my favorite example of Misunderstood Loki - the conception of Sleipnir!

So, get this shit. This is also part of why I DO NOT follow Odin and never fucking will (a very small part, but still part of the reason). So, the other Norse Gods are petty motherfuckers, and they wanted some shit built but didn't want to pay the dude doing the building. So they were like "okay, if you can get it done in X amount of time, we'll pay you, but if you can't manage it NO MATTER WHAT, this whole thing is free." And they made sure he had NO help, nothing but him, his materials, and his Very Good Horsey. And this guy and his horse were fucking BAMFs. So it was looking like he was definitely gonna get it done in time, and Odin was like "nah, fuck that shit. I'm cheap." and so he sent Loki to distract the work horse. Loki transformed into a mare and lured the horse away, got fucked, got pregnant, gave birth to the 8-legged (for some reason) horse Sleipnir. Odin rides Loki's son into battle. Um. Kay.

So Loki helped Odin be a petty mf, and Odin got himself a new pet out of the deal.

Oh, also, because he's smart af and a shapeshifter and a master magician and genderfluid, Loki "fails" to fit the super fucking toxic and narrow Norse/Aesir view of "a real man". He prefers intelligence and manipulation to solve problems rather than violence, he's not afraid to behave like a clown if it gets shit done, and that grosses the Aesir out, so they constantly ridicule him for being "less than a man".

Loki is the God of the outcast and the misunderstood. The marginalized people from all walks of life. He is the God of the LGBT community. In modern terms, he's pansexual, polyamorous (married to Sigyn and they are deeply in love, but boy gets around and I've never seen any indication that Sigyn gives a shit) and genderfluid.

Okay. Focus, Ali. This is part of why I usually post multiple rants instead of one big long one XD The longer I ramble, the more I get sidetracked and forget the original point.

So. Loki's awesome, and being a Trickster, is powerful as all fucking hell. There's not much he can't do.

And now we come to Thor (the movie, not the deity). Loki's there! 24-year-old Ali is spazzing! All is right with the world!

Oh lord, they've actually done him justice?! Amazing! He's complex and nuanced and emotional, just like the real Loki! I loved this movie. Loved. It. The climactic thing with trying to blow up Jotunheim never really made much sense to me until someone made an excellent point the other day about Loki being raised in a racist society that was racist against his own race, he just didn't know it yet, poor child. Baby Thor was never corrected when he pledged to commit mass genocide, so Baby Loki probably absorbed the lesson then that Jotunns=evil and killing them all will win his father's love. Anyway, 2011 Loki was a beautiful, heartbreaking portrayal of the God I've loved all my life and spent 24 years longing to see depicted on the big screen.

Then The Avengers happened. And I saw another Loki very close to Norse mythology - mainly, how he's treated. In the beginning of the movie, he's sick, exhausted, and in pain. He can hardly stand, he stumbles and needs help when he walks. He was very obviously tortured, and the sickly blue light of the scepter's control is in his eyes. That gets less and less pronounced as the movie goes on, showing Loki working his way free of it, but in the beginning, he's a mess. Because he was tortured and used by Thanos. Marvel directly confirmed this, and that he was under the scepter's/Mind Stone's control. Loki's actions are not his own in The Avengers. He's under both threat and Thanos' direct control. The movie actually shows The Other directly threatening him to keep him on task, because this is not Loki's plan. It is not what he wants. He's being used and villainized... Just like in real life. It hurt to see this done to him, but the accuracy was too beautiful to ignore.

Thor: The Dark World comes out. I've heard people complain that this movie is the weak link in the Thor trilogy. I disagree. I think that's Ragnarok, for a bunch of reasons, but we'll get there. (And for the record, I loved Ragnarok, too. It was a funny movie. Infinity War and the Disney+ series are the only portrayals of Loki in the MCU that I truly fucking hated.) Anyway, good, fun movie. Had its faults, as all movies do, but it still followed Loki's real-life arc in a way. How? By having Loki dragged back to Asgard in chains and imprisoned underground. Again, not super happy that this happened to my love, and having to see it on screen was painful, but at least in the MCU he's not chained to a rock with venom dripping on his face for eternity, so there's that. (poor Sigyn. how tired do her arms get, holding up that bowl? best wife ever, amirite?)

In TDW, we're shown Loki's love for Frigga, who favored him and taught him magic as a child. We see his bravado; his attempts to mask his true feelings, especially grief. We see him slowly coming back to himself after the events of The Avengers, and slowly mending his relationship with his brother. He accepts that Odin will likely never love him, but Thor just might, because they were close when they were young. "I didn't do it for him." No, no my sweet, you did it for your brother, and a little out of guilt for what happened to your mother.

At the end, Loki fakes his death and escapes, taking the throne, and I have mixed feelings about this. Not the writer's choices here; I love that completely! A natural progression in Loki's story. But my joy is tainted by how closely they're following the Eddas now. Because Loki's escape from his prison heralds the beginning of Ragnarok. And Loki will die in Ragnarok. I don't want to see that play out in front of my face. I won't be able to handle the grief (spoiler alert! IW broke me. I almost walked out of the theater. Loki's death was legitimately fucking traumatic for me. I don't even care how pathetic that is. That grief was real, it was intense, and I still shake and cry when I think about it.)

Marvel announces that Thor 3 will be called Ragnarok. The internet treats this as a shocking revelation. I roll my eyes and mumble "duh" to myself and move on XD

Then they say Ragnarok will be a buddy comedy. I throw up a little in my mouth and no longer want to live on this planet. If they're going to make something called Ragnarok, could they at least treat it with even a fraction of the respect they've shown these characters thusfar? Jfc. I mean, I'll see it anyway, because I'm a whore for Tom Hiddleston lol. But come on, people!

I hated that they made Hel the long-lost older sister and Fenrir her fucking pet/attack dog. Those are my favorites of Loki's children! Hel is such an incredible badass that the early Christians named their dimension of eternal torture after her! They were terrified of her, to the point of naming the place that terrified them most after her. That's awesome! And Fenrir's just the best. I love wolves. Those two details, and Odin's retcon of "we're not Gods! ...lol, except your sister. she's totally a Goddess. and def gonna kill literally everything, so... good luck! byyyeeeee" pissed me off royally.

The rest was great. I genuinely liked this movie. Still do. And they finally used The Immigrant Song! That was pretty cool. If they'd thrown in Bring the Hammer Down and Thunderstruck, I might've called this movie perfect. XD

I wasn't totally in love with their portrayal of Loki in Ragnarok. Yes, the falling for 30 minutes line was funny, as was "I have to get off this planet" and "YES! That's how it feels!" And "Get Help" was funny as hell. But also, like... There is no way Loki would have been the dumb one in that first encounter with Hela. Also, he can teleport and project copies of himself and shit, so... He would not have been that desperate to go straight back to Asgard and bring her right along with them. Loki's not stupid. But whatever. Movie's gotta movie.

What I did love was seeing the slow mending of his relationship with Thor continuing, and the badass fighting on the bridge. I also loved that, like Real Loki, Movie Loki helped when help was needed, was quick and clever, and while he was carrying out the main plan, he was also planning ahead and grabbing the Tesseract. Yes, that drew Thanos right to them, but that's a whole other thing. Loki never would have left that thing on Asgard to be destroyed or lost.

And now Infinity War. Hooooly fucking shit. You know what? No. I'm not going into this. He was killed, years of character growth were erased forever, my heart fucking shattered. The end.

Endgame. IW hurt me so bad I didn't see Endgame until this year. I actually watched Civil War first (for context: I had actively avoided all Cap movies until this year because I fucking hate Steve Rogers. I find him insufferable. Did not realize what I was denying myself until I watched CW and finally saw the charms of Bucky. When he appeared in IW, I was so lost. XD I was like "...who dis? Murder Jesus?" also I just... didn't care. I was numb by then from crying through most of the movie over Loki)

So, anyway. Endgame. Loki picks up the Tesseract in alternate 2012, escapes, fans go "yay! he didn't actually die!" I go "yes he fucking did. Five years of his life, gone. Five years of growth and change, erased. Loki is dead. This will not be the same."

I was more right than I could have predicted. Now we come to the point of this rant. Sorry it took so long, but you were warned lol.

The Loki series makes me so angry I actually get sick to my stomach. It was fucking TRASH. When I praised Marvel for following Norse mythology so faithfully earlier? Yeah. I DID NOT MEAN TREAT HIM THE WAY THE OTHER GODS DID. I did not mean paint him as a pitiful clown, a joke, a caricature of who he truly was, with his pain and suffering played for LAUGHS.

This is supposed to be 2012 Loki, newly freed from Thanos' control. The Loki we saw in the beginning of TDW - snarky, exhausted, nihilistic. The Loki who rolled his eyes and said "get on with it" expecting to be killed.

The bumbling clown flipping on a dime from posturing to calling himself weak is not 2012 Loki. That is not ANY Loki. That is Tom Hiddleston in a black wig doing what he's told by a shitty writer who had no fucking idea what he was doing and was salty about his (bad) original script (for something totally fucking unrelated) getting killed.

In Episode 1, Loki is mocked, imprisoned, stripped against his will, tormented, belittled, and given a flippant summary of all the trauma Actual MCU Loki suffered that this one skipped out on, with no context, no acknowledgement of the trauma he's already lived quite fucking recently, and with the narrative twisted to not only erase all the abuse he's suffered, but to make it all his fault. And this is supposed to make him want to help these people?

And worse, IT FUCKING WORKS. WHAT?! I CAN'T- FUCKING WHAT?! Remember when I said LOKI IS NOT FUCKING STUPID?! So why is he STUPID?

Episode 2, he's a child. Mentally, this Loki is a fucking child. Now we've erased all the growth and development of his entire adult life. He's dopey, impatient, impulsive, desperate for a pat on the back and actually shows it. Yes, abused and neglected children crave the positive attention we never received, and we often grow up to be a bit emotionally stunted. But not all of us, and not Loki. Not as we've seen him EVER in the rest of the MCU. Playful and a bit callous at times? Absolutely! But not a big dumb fucking puppy.

Episode 3, a ray of hope, despite Sylvie! (I hate Sylvie) Loki casually admits he's pan/bi; labels never come up, but he admits to being with both men and women! He sings! Not really relevant to whether I approve of his portrayal or not lol but Tom has a beautiful voice, Norwegian ("Asgardian" lol) is a gorgeous, entrancing language, and I could watch that one bit on loop for eternity and never get bored. And then, finally, we see a glimpse - a glimpse - of Loki's power! He stops a falling building and pushes it right back up! Are we finally getting to see what he can really do? Will the next episode bring us Loki in all his glory?

Nope. 4 and 5 we see him mocked and pushed around and utterly irrelevant. Again. We see tiny reflections of what he could maybe theoretically do in other random Loki variants, but the "main" (lawl. main. it was the Sylvie and Mobius show. Loki was never the main anything.) Loki? Nothing. He wears his heart on his sleeve for no reason, bonds with the man who imprisoned, taunted, and gaslit him, is killed, and continues to be a moron and a joke. Always the clown. Always the dumb one. The one with the bad ideas. The inferior Loki.

Don't even get me started on that finale. I can't. This already took so much out of me. Fuck Marvel. Fuck this fucking show. I just... I'm done.

[violetlunette]

Just re-read Shaman king and I have a thing or two to say. Starting with something I need to get off my chest right away, my pure unadulterated hatered of Hao Asakura. Obviously, this is Anti-Hao and is very much a crazy rant. I will not be saying anything nice except he looks pretty. So if you feel sorry for poor “Princess” Hao and think he’s a misunderstood soul—please move on. Far, far on. This is not the post for you. At all.

This post is very biased against Hao and will feature-- “strong” language. Basically, this is me screaming and ranting, not an in-depth look or anything of the sort. I admit it as I have done in the past.

Again, if you like Hao or feel bad for him, then skip this.

You have been warned.

Now even in my rantiest posts, I do try to be discreet and fair, as well as properly explain why I feel the way I do.

Not here. FUCK HAO ASAKURA!

Yeah, I hate him. People think I hate Bakugou? Ha, hahahahahaha—no. No. No, I do not hate Bakugou. I find him and how the story frames his character annoying, but I do not hate him. See, there are actually very, very few characters I actually hate in media.

Most of the internet believes that either you love a character, or hate them. That is not the case with me. I have characters I love, ones I like, others I’m neutral, ones I don’t think about, those I dislike, those that irk me, and those I positively loathe. What’s the difference between those last three one person—we’ll call ‘em Bob—may be asking? Quite simple;

A character I dislike is one that I find annoying but am willing to put up with. One that irks me is one I won’t put up with and will try to avoid in the story. But even if a character irks me, I can still see their good points and sympathize with them—to a point. A character I hate will not get the benefit of my sympathy or empathy. I will not waste my time with understanding or the like for these people. Even when other's cry "that's not fair," or "that's petty," I will not bend. Rather, I will fully admit to these things and embrace them! I fully acknowledge I am these things when I hate someone--I just don't care. Will I deny their good points? Nope, I just don't care.

Now it is very, very, very hard for a character to earn my hate and it’s usually a joint effort of the character and how the story frames them.

Shaman King managed this. It creates a character that I despise so much just seeing them makes me want to see red—the red of the last drop of blood dripping from his mangled corpse after being stabbed with a yeevil like the piece of shit he is.

Why do I hate Hao? What did he do to earn my intense ire?

Well, first off I have a big thing against people who want to commit mass genocide, whatever the reason. “Humanity is evil, so I’m going to destroy it” blah, blah. Get over it, you fucking hypocrite.

That’s right; he’s a fucking hypocrite! Every reason he hates humanity? He’s exactly those things! Serious projection going on there! Hao embodies the absolute worse of mankind! He just hides it behind a pretty face and a narrative that says, “Oh, feel bad for the poor princess!” FUCK THAT.

He goes on and on, and on, and on, AND ON about how humanity is wicked and cocks this holier than you attitude while committing one heinous crime after another! All of which are or result in murder!! (Done in horrific ways, I might add!) If humanity is just “evil” then Hao, you are the most HUMAN character by Shaman King standards, you cacafuego!

Oh, you know what his motive is for all this slaughter? His mother was murdered. Like? Okay, that super sucks, and I agree he should go after the murderers, but killing other people? Nuh-huh. And yes, I know when he learned to read minds, Hao could hear every dark thought, and blah, blah, I know all about “tragic past,” and I DON’T CARE!! Yeah, I said it. Call me a horrible person but I don’t care about this fucking hypocrite. Nothing in his past justifies his crimes. NOTHING. (Hey, I warned ya this is a biased rant. Thought I was kidding? Nuh-uh.)

And the absolute worst part of the entire story? HE WINS. He wins the tournament and gets the Great spirit, effectively becoming “god” in the Shaman King world. No, I’m not kidding. He WINS and keeps his victory.

Hao gets what he wants and, despite everything he’s done, he gets “redeemed” by a train of souls (not kidding). The only reason Hao doesn’t kill humanity in the end is that his “mother” slaps him. (Again, not kidding.) He doesn’t apologize or see the error of his ways, or face the consequences of his actions, or anything! Rather, he’s rewarded for every horrific thing he did!

Oh, and do you think the story condemns him? Far from it! It treats him as a poor lost soul who just needs to be shown the light and blah, blah—NO!!

He is NOT that! Hao is not a poor lost soul, he is not a woobie that deserved to win. He was a genocidal maniac who hated humanity while embodying the worse and got away with nearly every crime in the book, both in the story and out. He hasn’t even given up on his plan to destroy humanity! He’s just decided to “watch humanity for now.” So, one bad day and mankind is fucked!

Fuck you, Hao! And burn, freeze, or whatever in all 9 hells! I cannot describe how much I hate you!

You are vile, wicked, cruel, hypocritical, entitled, and you hide your sins and crimes behind a veil of victim mentality! Fuck you!

Eh-hem! Anyway, thank you for your time and for indulging in my rant. Please have a nice day!

[hubblebubblehub]

yona 197 thoughts

Firstly, behold. I am alive. This chapter honestly made my brain malfunction for a good minute or so, I legit had something akin to a stroke. I honestly believe this chapter encapsulates what has gone wrong with Yona’s storytelling. I understand this is a ‘memoir’, but even backstories whose existence is to deliver exposition require decent consistent characterisation, and a balanced mixture of ‘show don’t tell’ mixed with foreshadowing to result in something... bearable. This chapter was legitimately almost unbearable to read because I think Kusa herself has lost the plot.

To organise my thoughts Imma just put some lil subheadings.

Yon-hi

You know what? Ever since chapter 190 I realised that Yon-hi didn’t have much of a character other than that of an exposition clown. So this lame wrap up on her character was bearable to read, because it’s not as if she had the potential to be anything more than a ye old exposition dump. It’s still frustrating to read her ‘acknowledge’ her own faults, which also make no sense since we haven’t seen a proper build up in a change of thoughts. Yes, she acknowledged her husband was a brute to a certain extent, but apart from this chapter I don’t see her recognising the IMPORTANCE of her position and how her passiveness is stopping her from wielding more influence to prevent tragedy that so clearly hurts her. Sure, she notices that as a country bumpkin amongst nobles she stands out, but even 10 years after the genocide of the priests she never once confronted her husband about it. Or anyone really. Why the change of heart now? The excuse that her husband and Kashi (whom she wasn’t really friends with in the first place?? Honestly I think she was just attached to her out of guilt for what happened) are dead doesn’t explain why she would suddenly have the urge to take some sort of action since the past decade proves she thrives in complacency.

Additionally her relo with her son... I don’t even understand it anymore. She claims she loves Soo-Won but then she writes a letter to her brother-in-law basically asking him to ‘watch out for him’ like MA’AM HE IS YOUR SON. What happened to the role she devoted herself to, as a MOTHER?? I honestly give up trying to understand it.

Il

Oh boi. I thought Yon-hi and Yu-hon had an awful characterisation but Il really takes the cake. I thought I could accept Il’s cowardice since it his duality has been hinted at throughout the whole manga, but honestly it makes close to no sense here. I’m surprised no-one decided to assassinate him the first few years into his reign. I would’ve done it tbh.

This chapter just brings more questions into his passive nature. Why the HELL did he just sit and wait around for something to happen after hearing about the future? Yes, as a religious devotee, he probably accepted the future as fact, but why didn’t he do ANYTHING about it? It seems like he banned weapons out of guilt of his murder, not to actually stop Soo-Won (since he ‘accepted’ that destiny of dying by his nephew’s hands). 

If he knew that Yona would not only face hardship from her position as a reincarnation, but her own freaking family, why didn’t he take counter measures? I don’t understand why he wouldn’t try to empower her so that when he would eventually leave her, she would be able to take care of herself. His attitude to Soo-Won also makes no sense too. If he already accepted he would die by his hand, why didn’t he ban/prevent him from visiting the castle? And if he already accepted his fate, why didn’t he just let the marriage go through anyway? He could clearly see that Soo-Won didn’t detest Yona and would care for her, Yona would be happy with him (provided the murder wouldn’t happen lmfao).

Oh and also, if he knew all these shitty events were going to happen? What was his excuse for not taking care of the country, leaving more than hundreds to starve, live in poverty and die? ‘I’m a placeholder and my brother must not become King. Also I leave everything to the gods’ divine will because I’m a really great religious follower uwu’. Not ‘I’ll properly communicate with my brother, nephew and court to make this country a better place while I’m here to prevent the mistakes of the past.’ He acknowledges he’s not a great King. Why doesn’t he acknowledge and humble himself asking for advice from his advisors. Like whAT

Il & Kashi

Poor Kashi lmfao. Kusa in this chapter really trying to convince us they had a loving relationship and Il was simply just trying to avenge his wife. Sure, let’s say Il did love Kashi. He did a really awful way of expressing it, to the point Kashi genuinely believed he only married her to make the designer baby that is Yona. And I don’t see proof of otherwise tbh. I guess you could argue that Il  & Kashi had some chemistry during the garden scene with Ik-Soo... but also Kashi was a ‘kid’ apparently so call the FBI lmfao. There are honestly no scenes or buildup that convince me that Il loved Kashi without the involvement of the divine. Kashi, maybe. I think she admired him but I see none of that from Il. Even when he flat out murders his brother, his defense isn’t ‘YO THAT WAS MY WIFE YOU JUST MURDEREDDD’ It was ‘THAT WAS THE MOTHER OF THE RED DRAGON’. I think these are self explanatory.

Also to that anti-Soo-Won translator who was saying how this line by Il basically disproves everyone who thought he didn’t love Kashi- it really doesn’t. If anything it just shows how terrible the writing has been for this arc because it’s nowhere near believable enough to accept as truth. Show me scenes where Il is actually.... showing affection and being in a loving and equal relationship with his wife smh

Romance

Il’s reliance on ‘love’ also makes no sense as well, and also highlights how problematic romance is in this series. Considering how ‘girl power’ this series is with Kouren, Lili & her bodyguards, Yona and even Kashi to a certain extent, it makes no sense that Il would choose to leave everything to a man who simply ‘loves Yona and will never betray her’. Like,,, did the events that transpired TEACH HIM NOTHING?? 

Sure only men can become Kings but it seems Queens have a significant position as well. And since Yona is the red dragon... wouldn’t like,, everyone know and respect and hold her on a higher level regardless lmfao like WHAT IS IL THINKING?? He knows that Yona ended up as a superficial spoilt princess as she grew older, but what did he do to rectify that?? n o t h i n g, except attempt to throw another man (Hak) to help solve the (future) problem.

A great grey point this manga has made since the beginning of the series is ‘Prioritising one individual will cause an entire Kingdom to fall to ruin’. So this is why I don’t understand Il’s actions. Yu-hon committed genocide for his wife, whom he loved (also a really poorly built up romance but this chapter ain’t about them), and APPARENTLY murdered Kashi too (dang it... such a weak and predictable outcome, I’m disappointed in you Kusa). Il killing Yu-hon caused Soo-Won & all the Yuhon stans to seek vengeance (although he also did kinda murder him for the sake of Kouka, but nonetheless her adored his father). SO WHY ON EARTH DOES IL THINK LOVE FROM ANOTHER PERSON IS GONNA SAVE HIS DAUGHTER. MAYBE FOR SOMEBODY ELSE BUT CERTAINLY NOT THE ROYAL DAMN FAMILY.

Also just because Hak clearly was devoted to and had affection for Yona, did not mean that Yona would feel the same way, which is arguably is ANOTHER IMPORTANT FACTOR IN A RELATIONSHIP. It seems like Il doesn’t give a damn about his freaking daughter honestly. But maybe who knows, Il has 500 IQ and decided to be passive so Yona would develop feelings for Hak. It was all part of his master plan, while he left most of his kingdom to suffer, no biggie.

Writing

This was such a painful arc to read. I swear Kusa tried to engage her fanbase by constantly making plot twists every chapter. Yu-hon is a good guy. SIKE he’s not. SIKE Il is kind of worse. SIKE Yu-hon bad and should never be one the throne. Il is an okay guy. SIKE he’s borderline religiously fanatic. SIKE Yuhon the crazy one. SIKE Il weird af because he marries Kashi to have baby dragon Yona. SIKE he actually loved Kashi he just DiDn’t MAkE HiS FeElings KnoWn.

Honestly that doesn’t even cover how inconsistent other characters like Yon-hi are either. Bleugh

Predictions for 198?

Maybe Yona will take it upon herself to rectify the wrongs done and pull herself together. Perhaps also do something more substantial than have a deus ex machina bunch of books deliver to information right into her hands. Also maybe show what Soo-Won thinks of this memoir? Surely he’s read it... if he hasn’t then like bye. This series is honestly breaking my heart with every monthly update I swear.

///might rant more later

[themangledsans0508]

Is this Okay?

Read on Ao3

Summary: Marceline learned a lesson from her mother, the Vampire King, and Simon. Everything Stays. No matter what you try to do to change it.

Words: 1713, Oneshot

Warnings: None

Characters: Marceline Abadeer, Bonnibel Bubblegum, Peppermint Butler

Ships: Bubbline

Additional Tags: fluff, mild hurt/comfort

It had been two weeks since vampires returned to Ooo and Marceline had slain them all again, in the process getting turned again. She thought non-stop about the Vampire King’s words, how their cycle would continue forever if she didn’t try to change their outcomes.

But she did try, and nothing changed. She was still a vampire.

In all honesty, she didn’t care anymore. She forgot how nice it was to be mortal, but how horrible it was at the same time. The cons outweighed the pros, and she was resigned to accept it. She’d live forever, watch all the people she loved die, except for two.

Simon and Bonnibel.

Simon, she had mixed feelings about, because while he was immortal, he wasn’t himself. One day, she’d save him. Saving him might make him mortal, and then she’d lose him.

Against her better judgement, she reached for her phone. She tapped before she could change her mind and let the fish circle her ear. It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey Bonnie,” Marceline said quietly.

“Marcy, what are you doing still up? It’s almost one in the afternoon,” Bonnie asked. Marceline felt under the spotlight, but there was no backing down now. She had called and now she had to ask.

“I haven’t slept. In a few days really. Do you remember a few weeks ago when you said that if I wanted, I could move into the castle?”

“Yeah?” Bonnie’s voice sounded hopeful, and Marceline felt guilty.

“I’m sorry, this is misleading. I wanted to ask if I could drop by sometimes. I like having my own space, but like I also want to be,” she hesitated and cautiously continued “I want to be living with my girlfriend. Sometimes, but just keep my house. In case or whatever.” Marceline heard the clicking of something being put down and the shifting of clothes and she figured she had called while Bonnie was doing an experiment.

“That’s okay. I don’t mind. Honestly, I miss you. Miss how we used to be. Like, domestically. Not everything else. That was bad. You’re welcome over whenever you want, I don’t know if you want your own room or-”

“Bon, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to share your room,” Marceline requested. She braced herself for dismissal or decline but she was met with silence.

“Colour stays in my clothes,” Bonnie ordered. Marceline’s ears perked up and she practically jumped off her bed. “No going in the lab while I’m experimenting, something could go wrong and someone could get hurt. It’s a safety issue, not because I don’t want you there. Unless you’re careful, then you can hang out there.”

“Those are some pretty easy rules to follow,” Marceline stated.

“They’re supposed to be, I’m not going to strap you down and tell you that you can’t do this or that.”

“Are you doing anything important right now?”

“Besides cleaning the last remaining remnants of the King of Ooo ruining my lab? No.”

“So I could come over right now?”

“Yes, except it's daylight.”

“I have an umbrella.” She heard Bonnie laugh on the other end.

“You are so stubborn. Be careful, okay? I don’t need a crisp staining my hallways.”

“Pff, it’ll be fine. See you in a bit, Peebles.”

Marceline may have been too hasty, and in her rush accidentally stuck her arm out of the shade and got burned, but that was fine because of her healing powers. She flashed Finn and Jake a wave when she came across them to raised eyebrows in the Candy Kingdom. She slipped into the castle without the Banana Guards noticing due to their own lack of attention and closed her umbrella, leaning against it.

An angry mint stalked towards her and pointed a gloved hand at her.

“If you are here to be turned mortal again, you’ll have to wait! The Princess has not even begun rebuilding the machine, and I hope you have prepared properly for the potential consequences of your actions after you were poisoned and almost perished! May I also request you refrain from placing the Princess in harm’s way?”

“Move over, candy man.” Marceline nudged him out of the way with the tip of her umbrella. “I’m a vampire for good. If I catch you trying to stake me I’ll drain all the red from your body. Where’s Bonnie?” Peppermint Butler huffed and adjusted his suit.

“She’s organising her lab. If you do her any harm I will make sure your fate is worse than death.” Marceline rolled her eyes.

“Heard that before, Minty.” She walked across the floor, her heels clicking against the solid candy floor. She could hear Peppermint Butler mumbling things under his breath but she elected to leave well enough alone. She navigated by memory to the lower halls, pausing at the lab doors. She hesitated before knocking.

“Come in!” Marceline stepped through the doorway and quickly reacted when she saw a glass beaker falling. She dived down and caught it, rubbing her neck sheepishly when she handed it back.

“You gotta be careful Bonnie, that could’ve shattered.” Bonnie carefully put the contents of her arms into the sink and dusted her hands together, leaning against the counter.

“I have plenty more, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world,” Bonnie said calmly. Her body language was a different story, her hands fidgeted and her eyes looked everywhere but Marceline’s. She tapped the toe of her shoe against the floor. “How long do you think you’ll be staying?”

“Want me gone already?” Marceline joked. Bonnie frowned.

“No, I’d love to have you here full-time, I was just curious how much time I’ll have with you before you go back to your house.”

“I don’t know, I just want to be here with you for a while. Even if Mints wants me gone.”

“Peps just doesn’t trust you, he’s skeptical of everyone,” Bonnie explained.

“I’ve literally been around you longer than he’s been alive, if I was going to do anything I would’ve done it seven centuries ago,” Marceline deadpanned. Bonnie pushed herself away from the counter.

“I know you would’ve and I trust you completely.” She placed a tender hand on Marceline’s cheek. “I’d trust you with my life.”

“Same. And I have multiple times. But if the little dude comes for me I will shatter him into a million pieces and throw him out the window.”

“Please do be careful with him, it’s such a pain to have to put him back together piece by piece,” Marceline grumbled something under her breath and reluctantly nodded in agreement.

~

She was fidgeting.

That in and of itself wasn’t usual, Marceline was typically always moving in one way or another. This time, however, she was nervous.

Not because she was sleeping next to Bonnibel, on the contrary sleeping beside her was actually comforting. It was the fact that she had a question to ask that she wasn’t sure she had her own answer to.

“Bonnie?” she spoke quietly in case her partner was asleep. She felt shifting beside her and didn’t have to turn to know Bonnie was looking at her.

“Yeah?” She took a few deep breaths and felt a warm hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Bonnie, are you okay with me being a vampire?” The words hung in the air for a time, and Marceline could tell Bonnie was choosing her words carefully before saying them. The fingers on her shoulder tightened its grip.

“Marcy, look at me.” She did, her eyes meeting Bonnibel’s. Her face was unreadable, which was normal but did little to put Marceline at ease. She took Marceline’s hand and held it in between them. “When I first met you, you were a vampire. It didn’t bother me back then, why would it bother me now?”

“I don’t know, I just,” she sighed, leaning back slightly, “I’m a freak. I have to drink the colour red, I can’t go outside during the day, I can’t eat garlic, your butler was so worried I could go crazy he’s been getting things to stake me with! My heart doesn’t beat unless I make it, I’m basically permanently cold, I don’t need to breathe ever. I committed genocide on my entire species except for one other vampire!” She broke eye contact before whispering, “I’m a freak. You’re a princess. At least when I was human, I was able to be normal. Like we could be a normal couple.”

“Marceline, I’ve always loved you for you. I don’t care if my sleep schedule gets thrown off, I don’t care if my entire kingdom goes pale. We haven’t used garlic here in centuries I can barely remember what it tastes like. And us being a normal couple?” she laughed and smiled, “I’m a sentient piece of gum that rules a kingdom she made from scratch that is also a lesbian. You’re a half-demon half-vampire who’s a rockstar and a queen and also bisexual. The word ‘normal’ and ‘us’ go together like two electrons.” Her smile faltered.

“If I’m honest, I didn’t want you to turn human again. For entirely selfish reasons. I didn’t want to lose you one day. But that was unfair to you, and it’s your life. I hate to say it but I was happy when you got turned back. It saved me a lot of work. I was going to try and find some way to prevent ageing, just because of my own fears.”

“That kind of defeats the point of being mortal,” Marceline pointed out.

“I know. That’s why I said it was selfish. For my own reasons I never wanted you to die. Either way, you would be ageless either naturally or by my doing, so in the end, I didn’t mind. Vampire or human, you’re still Marceline. That’s all I care about.” Marceline smiled at her.

“Bonnibel Bubblegum showing emotions?” She leaned forward and pecked her lips.

“Don’t make me regret it.” She started to turn away before pausing, looking back at Marceline with a sly grin. “Actually, there’s one thing that being a vampire has over being a human?”

“What?”

“It’s kind of hot.” Even dead, some hue came to Marceline’s cheeks as she playfully shoved Bonnibel off the bed.

[gayregis]

Hi good morning can we talk about twn ciri for a sec? There is something about the way she’s portrayed by the actress that just drives me CRAZY and I don’t know quite how to put my finger on it. I think she’s just so reserved and serious and haughty, whereas in the books she’s really playful and lively and exaggerated and just?? Has emotions?? And also I was spoiled by Peter Kenny’s fantastic accent for ciri and can’t think of her any other way. ANYWAY WHAT R UR THOUGHTS CUZ IM SURE THEY’RE GOOD

ohohoh yes. just as a prefacee and for context, freya allan (ciri’s actress) is 18 years old, and i am 19 years old, so to say i didn’t like her acting in twn isn’t me bullying or being harsh on a minor. in addition, i also don’t think her acting was bad. i think her acting was great, but it was just out of character for ciri, at least the ciri we know from the books... i do not think the directors treated ciri with enough weight as she needed to have in the narrative. like with yennefer, they gave her way more screen time and much less significance in the overall story, because the moments that they gave them to be on screen were just pure filler with no effect on the character development, relationship development, setting, themes... the audience never learned anything useful when they were on screen, besides lore about aretuza and cintra that would immediately escape their minds after the episode was done.

i know for a fact that this “out of character” acting for ciri (her being “so reserved and serious and haughty”) was a result of the directors and people running the show, and NOT freya herself as an actress. like with joey batey and anya chalotra i think, they got the short stick in this deal. they’re actors, so their profession is to act, but they don’t always get to decide HOW they’re supposed to act and portray these beloved characters. that’s what the director is for, right? to direct how scenes play out, to make sure the characters are in-character. and the writers are the ones that write the actors’ lines and the scenes they exist in, so “then it’s just like any other place,” or “who’s yennefer,” and other ridiculous garbage throwaway lines were the writers’ fault and not the actors. i just think it’s important to establish that even though yes, freya is an older teenager/young adult, she’s not responsible for a lot of decisions involving ciri and the character. plus since she is 18 and just got done being 17, i feel like this is the first time she’s actually been able to legally make her own decisions. 

plus in this topic, because i’ve never mentioned it anywhere before, i’d like to bring light to how it’s super shady of netflix to decide to hire an actress for ciri who is BARELY an adult actor, because child actors (as opposed to adult ones) are restricted by many different laws concerning how many hours they can work, etc. the fact that freya is 18 means that they can give her more work and disregard any regulations that may have applied to a child actor, and i think i literally read this from lauren hissrich in an interview, that “older actors are easier to work with than child actors” or something like this, that it’s difficult to shoot with child actors due to the immense restrictions. so although they phrased the casting choice for freya allan more in the sense of “well, we were GOING to cast someone younger, but freya was just so fantastic in auditions that we NEEDED her in this production” is suspicious to me, i think they did it so they wouldn’t have to deal with the headache of laws surrounding child actors (note that i do NOT doubt that freya is a great actress, i liked her acting, i mean look at the scenes she is in! she is actually acting, unlike henry cavill).

speaking of henry cavill, anyone want to mention his 19 year old girlfriend or his “opinions” on the #MeToo movement? no? my more conspiratorial theory is that they might have just wanted to get a barely legal actress for ciri because if cavill were to “do anything”... ahem... it would be less complicated for all of the legality than if he “did anything” to a child. i’m not calling cavill a r*pist but he has made his views on women explicitly clear, and a LOT falls under the umbrella of sexual assault and harassment. innappropriate comments, etc... i don’t trust him to respect women just as much as i don’t trust him to act.

that was a big preface that pretty much went nowhere, apologies... but i think it’s significant to look at the context around the actor or actress when they’re likely being a tad exploited on set. but yes, ciri does come off as super out of character to me in the majority of scenes she is in. it’s because her character was set up to be a white feminist fantasy of being declared innocent from the sins of her family because she feels bad about it, with her “being so privileged and then she finds out her grandmamma committed mass genocide and she has to realize that her royal ways!” instead of anything related to what we see in the books, of a vulnerable child losing that childhood and trying to cling to some sense of normalcy and family. they set her up as “a princess” and not “a child.” 

in the books, she’s just a child, and then geralt learns she’s a princess and teases her that she doesn’t look much like one, being lost in a forest with a snotty nose... she’s not introduced in a royal court surrounded by noble guests. i doubt that books ciri spent all of her time in court, either... according to the lore, she wouldn’t even be able to sit down and she would have to stand in calanthe’s presence (season of storms, the princes must stand in the royal court alongside their father while coral gets to sit because she is a sorceress... of course, this is cidaris and not cintra, but it still stands). she is a princess, but she has difficulty acting like one... it’s something i’d rather erase from my mind because it’s one of those “problematic points of canon that only exist because they live in a medieval society,” but it’s made clear that calanthe gave ciri the belt for misbehaving, multiple times. ciri is obviously interested in more childlike pursuits and acts outside of her station a lot. after all, she is the reason that their entourage got pulled into brokilon in the sword of destiny, because ciri fucking ran away since she didn’t want to be brought to and married off to prince kirsten of verden.

again on ciri’s age, she was 8 or 9 when we first meet her in the books, and 14 when we meet her in the netflix series. that’s a vast amount of difference in age, not only by years, but by development and experience. an 8 year old is a 3rd grader, a 14 year old is a high school freshman. i think that makes a lot of difference in not only how much agency a character is treated with, but how an audience views them. i mean, 14 is a good age for a YA novel protagonist - think harry potter or percy jackson. ciri in the netflix adaptation was set up more as someone relatable (to those younger watching) as she’s like the hero of her own story! she escapes from her evil evil evil pursuers and has this great power she doesn’t yet understand! whereas books ciri is meant more for an audience to feel like geralt toward - protective, parental, you find a child in the middle of the woods, and you’re thinking, “what’s with this... sassy lost child?”

sapkowski is also the master of a good character reveal. i think ciri, cahir, regis, even characters like vilgefortz, have these GREAT reveals as to who they were all along! surprise, surprise, there is no black knight of cintra, it’s just a young man paralyzed with fear and pain! surprise, surprise, the guy that knew a lot about vampires and lived near a cemetery and dresses in all black is a vampire (ok, this reveal is weaker... but you’ve got to admit, the actual reveal scene... alright). 

ciri had a GREAT character reveal in the books. since we see everything from geralt’s perspective, she’s just some child, she’s just some brat geralt finds in the wilderness, he doesn’t have ANY reason to feel any sort of way to her, and he practically adopts her and she feels safe with him. he recognizes her vulnerability as a child and does anything to protect her and guide her. this is what is meant by “something more,” their relationship from the beginning was something more than strictly destiny. destiny may have led them together, but it did not make them become family, they did that themselves. and later when geralt learns that ciri is the princess of cintra, the child surprise promised to him, does he even consider destiny as part of the equation. and this is actually what drives them apart, because geralt believes that he will and refuses to ruin her life by introducing her to the blade, and thus, death. because it’s not incredibly special that ciri is a child surprise, i wouldn’t say it’s horribly common, but it’s not like she’s the only one. and she’s definitely not the only child to be taken/taken in and raised by witchers. and geralt knows what being raised as a witcher is like, and he refuses to do that to her, because he actually loves this child as his daughter. and this is where the conflict stems from, because geralt spit in destiny’s face and said, fuck you, i’m not going to hurt this child. and destiny said, i’m going to hurt her anyways.

in the netflix series? the first time we see ciri... is in cintra! the surprise is RUINED!! child surprise, more like child already-revealed. the audience has no reason to watch anymore, because we already know who she is and what happens to her. they literally kill calanthe and eist off in the first episode, and then expect the audience to CARE about them during episode 4 when they adapted a question of price. in the books, dandelion telling geralt the accounts of the massacre of cintra was a heavy scene, it was a tragic scene, and you knew somehow that it was geralt’s fault because of how he had refuted destiny, you had the lore on your side if you had been reading the stories beforehand, you understood why this was happening and what has happened to ciri.

also side note, i sincerely think the massacre of cintra is better coming from geralt’s best friend, someone he’s known for years and trusts immensely, also a poet so his account is horrifyingly immaculate and it really hits that mark of chilling, rather than geralt just... idk being there? i didn’t watch this far but he showed up to cintra and calanthe threw him in jail? this makes no sense, why would she... anyways. but yes, dandelion is a character that serves to be there for geralt, so it makes sense for him to tell geralt about cintra because then geralt can respond and thus demonstrate to the readers/audience all of the emotions about it that he is feeling.

but yeah so to summarize, my thoughts are that ciri really comes off as a weaker character in the netflix series than in the books because:

they treated her as older and introduced her as the lion cub of cintra and not as just some child found in the woods, taking BOTH the “child” and “surprise” out of “child surprise”

they removed geralt’s paternal relationship to her and why exactly he is significant in her story, and hyped up the “destiny” thing instead, which came off as completely meaningless, not to mention annoying to hear repeated when there has been no significance developed behind the word. i mean, they cut out both brokilon and something more (i will NOT accept that scene as the ending scene of something more. that wasn’t a hug fit to pick your kid up from afterschool, much less a hug that you run towards your kid with when you thought they perished and you were responsible for it, when you risked your life just to maybe be able to see them again. there was also no dialogue, no “geralt, you’ve found me! after all this time! i knew it! i’m your destiny! say it, i’m your destiny? am i your destiny?” “you’re much more than that, ciri. much more.” so that sucked).

they chose an older actress for ciri, likely to evade having to respect their actors by working within the confines of child labor laws, but not only this, they treated her older in the narrative and made the viewer empathize with her instead of with geralt, the parent... ciri only is supposed to become a “relatable” character when she reaches 13 or 14, in blood of elves and in time of contempt.

they reduced the significance of how deep her trauma was from the massacre of cintra (she makes one offhand comment about how cahir had a bird on his head... that’s not gonna cut it for me. she’s so far experienced a total of zero nightmares about the black knight of cintra).

they gave her a bunch of filler scenes that had absolutely no impact on the broad story or her character development or relationships with other characters (doppler plot). they also made her arc surround unlearning being a princess and finding what epic powers she might have, and nothing comes from both of these points. she doesn’t develop any character because of these points, they’re just there for more filler.

a tad unrelated but: they made yennefer’s wanting a child more of an obsession than a goal the character just happens to have, and have sexualized her character immensely, moreso than in the books... plus the fact that they made her super appealing to the audience and to every other character including geralt from the start (she’s not someone who is icy at first, then warms up), makes me feel like we are never going to get ciri and yennefer at ellander. ever. i just can’t imagine it with this ciri and this yennefer from the netflix series.

[sueboohscorner]

#SupermanandLois Season 1 Episode 10 "O Mother, Where Art Thou?" Episode Recap and Review

The episode begins with Morgan Edge explaining himself to Superman. He is technically Kal El’s half-brother, since they have the same mother. Morgan Edge’s real name is Tal-Ro and his father’s name is Zeta-Ro. He was also sent to Earth because Krypton was dying, but he was sent to Earth to colonize it and he was not greeted warmly. He and his father decided to take a page out of the Zod book and resurrect Krypton, using something that Lara Lor-Van, Kal-El’s mother, invented. Tal-Ro wants Superman to stand with him against the humans, but Clark says no. He doesn’t take this well and they fight.

Kyle is staring into space for obvious reasons and Lana and Sarah fight. Sarah thinks that her mom is simply covering for her dad, again, and Lana both doesn’t have any credulity with her daughter and wouldn’t know how to explain what was happening if she tried. Sarah storms out. Lana goes to talk to Kyle while ignoring Lois’s many, many phone calls.

Lois is rightly worried about her and has her father send someone over to check on her.

Clark comes back and tell Lois and the boys everything that Edge said to him. Lois tells him to do more research before she believes a word that Edge says, which he does.

He goes to the Fortress of Solitude and talks to Jor-El. Jor-El tells him that it’s possible, but that Lara would never have used her invention to destroy life as Morgan Edge is doing now. She created it as a way to preserve life in the way that Jor-El’s has been, so that their civilization would not be lost forever. Unfortunately, he doesn’t understand it enough to be any sort of help on the subject.

Jordan and Jonathan talk. Jonathan is afraid because of the footage he saw in John Henry Iron’s murder RV. He wonders if that’s how the Morgan Edge of that world got the Superman of that world to turn on humanity. Lois, who has been eavesdropping, says that’s not possible because Clark has a family in them and they come first, before anything.

Kyle and Lana talk, or at least begin to. Kyle isn’t able to get very far into his story before Lois shows up. When that happens, Kyle ceases to be Kyle and tries to choke both Lois and Lana. Lois subdues him with kryptonite and then General Lane and the D.O.D. take him away in cuffs.

Lana, Lois, and Clark share information. They need to find the machine that Morgan Edge has been using to put Kryptonian consciousnesses into humans. They call it the Eradicator. Lana pinpoints a doctor that took part in all of the physical exams for everyone in the executive program named Dabney Donovan. He’s the one that they need to find.

General Lane tries to get information out of not Kyle. When he isn’t cooperative, General Lane reveals that the cage they put him in is lined with kryptonite and reminds me of a cage that Lex Luthor built in Smallville.

Jonathan and Jordan tell Sarah the truth about her dad, or at least a version of it.

Lois and Clark talk. The only reason that Edge would give Superman time to consider his offer is if he needed that time too.

The D.O.D. found Donovan, and the Eradicator. He, unfortunately, doesn’t have much of a clue how it works. For that, they’ll need the person who invented it.

Lois and Lana enter the military zone to figure this out and Lana completely fangirls over Superman, which is adorable. Superman and General Lane that they can’t get to Superman’s mother without planting her consciousness into a willing volunteer. Lana volunteers, which is far more awkward than she realizes. Seriously, how would you feel if your ex-girlfriend volunteered to host the consciousness of your dead mother?

Lois tries to explain to Lana that this isn’t her responsibility or fault. Lana disagrees. At every turn, she has allowed someone to get hurt by Edge, including her own husband. She’s going to help fix this.

Sarah, Jordan, and Jonathan try to get in to see not Kyle. They’re unsuccessful until Jonathan goes off on General Lane again, and he lets them in. Sarah soon realizes that the man in the cage is not her father. While making a creepy villain speech, not Kyle makes it clear that he is specifically gunning for Jonathan.

Superman thanks Lana and tries to talk her out of doing what she’s about to do. It doesn’t work and she does it anyway.

And ya, it’s just as weird as you’d imagine. She explains that she was genetically matched with Zeta-Ro, but she fell in love with Jor-El and ended that relationship. Essentially, Kryptonians were heavy on genetic engineering and didn’t reproduce in the way that we would consider normal. Edge would have been created in the Kryptonian manner, simply using the parent’s genetic material, whereas Clark was birthed in the way we would consider traditional. Anyway, Clark tells Lara about Martha Kent, because she was afraid that he would grow up without a mother.

Jonathan refuses to apologize for telling Sarah the truth and sends Jordan over to comfort her.

Edge and his crony assistant realize that the Eradicator is gone and decide to enact their plan now.

Lara explains that the Eradicator works like a computer, uploading the consciousness of the Kryptonian to its host. It was never intended to subjugate a race. In order to reverse the process, everyone would have to go through the process again. They need a quicker way to do this, but they don’t have a big enough energy source. That will have to wait though, as Clark hears Edge and has to go.

Edge explains that he was not welcomed when he came to Earth. He was hunted, and hidden, and experimented on. He believes that humans are inferior and need to be eliminated. The person that would really be useful right now is Kara, but there isn’t any mention of her at all. I get that because I want this show kept as far away from that show as possible, but she also knows what it’s like to lose a world, so she might be able to get through to him. John Henry Irons will probably be the one to work in this capacity, because he tried to save the world after his was destroyed, not commit genocide.

Jordan apologizes to Sarah for missing her performance. She forgives him because she believes that she was dealing with all the craziness going on outside. That’s kind of true and so he doesn’t correct her.

Then their waiter flies out of the diner, and so do a lot of other people. This is Edge’s army and it’s coming for Clark. He flies away and they follow. He tells General Lane that he’s going to use himself as an energy resource, releasing the equivalent of a solar flare. General Lane doesn’t like it, as he’ll be out for days, but they don’t have any better ideas.

General Lane evacuates everyone. Jordan and Jonathan can’t find Sarah, who is with not Kyle, but Lois gets them out of there anyway.

It works, and it’s phenomenal. There is the little question of what happened to the people suspended in the air, but they all appear to be fine. The only people that aren’t accounted for are Edge and Clark.

Clark crawls his way to the Fortress of Solitude.

Edge reconvenes with his minion, whose consciousness has been there far too long to give up now. He still has a plan.

So wow. Wow wow wow. This show is honestly incredible, and I look forward to the next episode. What’s the rest of Edge’s plan? 8.5/10

[normal-thoughts-official]

Ok so some of your content implies immortal Alec and I was wondering how you thought it would happen? I've read a few things where Clary creates a rune/uses the alliance rune to make him immortal (but I don't think you're a real big fan of her) so I wanna hear your thoughts and also maybe Magnus's reaction

hoooooo boy i am GLAD YOU ASKED because i have a whole ass au that i have like. basically all the plot down but my stupid brain can’t turn into a fic so i guess im gonna shove it here and GOODBYE FOREVER 

(also, about the clary thing: it’s complicated diaushduaih because i kind of really hate her in canon but i also accepted fanon clary into my life? mostly because i unfortunately can’t help but ship clizzy, but anyway, i kinda disassociate clary from canon. so i’m not really against the idea that she makes a rune or something, but i do think this idea is more interesting. or maybe it isn’t but then i guess that’s your personal problem because well, you did ask lol im jk btw)

okay so i have one word for you: seelies. hot diggity damn do i fucking love seelies or what

so you know how seelies are the offspring of demons and angels? and there��s this whole thing about demon blood and angel blood not mixing well at all? well, i was thinking, how the fuck does that work. and i came to the conclusion that whatever stronger parent they had’s blood would like, tame the other or whatever, you know? but then what if they had equally strong - or equally weak - parents? like a child of an archangel and a prince of hell, what the fuck happens then? or alternatively the child of some angel janitor and a minor demon, would they even have enough magic?

so i figured if that happens it’s like as if a seelie has an autoimmune disease - their body is fighting itself constantly. for those who have very strong parents, this means that they are decaying quickly, and usually won’t be able to like, survive for long if they don’t do something. for those who have weaker parents, it usually means they’re weak

so these seelies are actually born mortal, and for the ones with stronger parents, pretty much with a lifespan of like, a few days before they end up dying due to the autoimmunity. so what happens for those is, they have this Cool Ritual that makes them immortal and solves all their problems

basically what happens is: seelies are one with nature, correct? but they’re also, like, individuals. so they have their own magic, their own energy, their own life source. right? so what happens to these seelies is, they tie this life/magic source of theirs to that of the universe. they basically become one with the universe fully, instead of just guarding it and being connected to it, they are literally tied to it, so much so that their magic and the world’s magic is one and the same. basically their life is fed by the same source that feeds all life, even mortal ones, and that source is endless, so they become immortal. it’s not a cure per se, since it doesn’t really stop their blood from fighting itself, but it does solve the problem because it has endless energy to keep doing it. and after going through this magical ritual, they become basically the strongest seelies around, because they have access to very strong demonic and angelic magic and the like, natural source of the world. so that’s pretty cool

and this whole thing is like. absolutely top secret, no one but the seelies knows how it works or even that it exists. especially because the seelies used to be basically closed off to outside influences, besides the very few representants they had going to the realms (like meliorn)

meliorn is one of those super powerful seelies, a child of an archangel and a prince of hell, who has gone through this ritual. which is one of the many reasons they’re, you know, a super powerful and respected Seelie Knight, sent to deal directly with shadowhunters and the highest threats they have to deal with, all by themself. no one would be crazy to go against them, because they are extremely powerful. it’s also why they had, to seelie standarts, been given a slap to the wrist for taking clary to twi - i mean, they didn’t even lose their position in a super trusted and highly important job, really? like yes they were tortured and don’t get me wrong, that was fucking awful dude, but i feel like the seelie queen could have been a lot more cruel, could have taken away their job (it would make sense to since they basically committed treason by seelie law) or exiled them, or maybe even killed them. but they got “just” a physical punishment. that’s. weird to say the least

so that’s why, because meliorn actually has a lot of leverage and importance. they have a rare condition, a lot of power that most seelies can’t dream of, and they are extremely smart and have knowledge of the culture of our realm, which most seelies don’t since their realm is closed to outsiders. the seelies can’t afford to lose them. and they know that, too, which is why they went so hard to help clary and take her to twi in the first place - they knew that they would be punished, but that it wouldn’t actually risk their position, or their influence

anyway! with the previous seelie queen gone, i like to think that meliorn becomes the new seelie queen (random hc that no one asked for: since i refuse to believe that seelies have any concept of gender, i think the position is called “seelie queen” because outsiders took a look at the first seelie queen, who’s very cis female-presenting, and were like “ah, is that your queen?” and to seelies that basically translates to just “monarch” in whatever their language is, so they were just like yeah sure. and so the position is called that and they don’t even know that it’s supposed to be gendered and that to outsiders meliorn would probably be called seelie king, they are just like “i am the new seelie queen” and no one of course is going to fucking question why they didn’t gender the position, especially considering how fragile relations with the seelie realm are) or at least is given like, an important position or something. like tbh i don’t stan monarchy so :/ but anyway the point is, meliorn is super powerful, they are super smart, they have knowledge of the mundane, shadowhunter and etc cultures - and after the whole previous fiasco with the jonathan thing and the seelies having been basically kept from the other realms, despite the fact that as parts of nature, seelies should be able to wander between them as they please, i think they would want to start a radically new external policy, and who better than meliorn to help them do it? so yeah i think they would choose meliorn to be their queen. besides, they love the seelies more than anything. they might have disobeyed seelie law, but that was to like, save a whole ass realm lmao, but they’ve always had the seelies best interests at heart, hell, they were willing to be tortured twice for them. so i think they would be well liked, and want this new position, and treasure it not as a display of power, but as an opportunity to lead the people they love into better times

DISCLAIMER: i’m not saying that seelies bad or whatever, okay. tbh i do understand perfectly why they would want to close off their realm with the very real threat that shadowhunters presented, and i wouldn’t be dying to integrate with shadowhunter society either, especially considering that their idea of integration was just genocide and assimilation and the destruction of their culture. okay? but in the process, the seelie law and realm became cruel, first and foremost, towards seelies themselves, and the banishment of them from other realms is. very bad. and after the whole jonathan and valentine thing, the shadow society as a whole is being reconstructed, so what better time to try and create new alliances that won’t implicate into attempts of assimilation, etnocide and so on. it’s a new bet, basically, one that is only possible because shadowhunter society is also in shambles after the near destruction of the world, and this means that seelies have more leverage to try and build something new without yielding to them. and it’s a SLOW process, one that takes years and always has the seelies best interest’s, not the shadowhunter’s or anyone else’s, at heart, okay? and it implicates in shadowhunters giving them many concessions, and the strongest alliances between them are and will always be with the other downworlders - this is also something they are working on, making the different downworlder cultures closer and stronger politically, aiding each other mutually and helping each other reach their political goals. together, the downworlder societies are unbeatable, and the shadowhunters basically have no choice but to accept their demands, especially after so much destruction. plus, at least some of them are slightly more willing to. but it’s mostly a vicious political battle that takes all of them years, not to say decades, to settle

but the fact that the seelies are willing to do it and getting stronger relationships with warlocks and vampires and werewolves (and hoo here i come with my “maia and raphael start a vampires/werewolves alliance” hc because look that rivalry thing is STUPID and i want to see downworlder societies coming closer together and healing after being very obviously pitted against each other due to shadowhunter supremacy) is also what, well, allows the whole thing to happen. they are powerful, and the shadowhunters have no way of taking them on a war, much less now that their forces are well, fragile to say the least

in short! they have leverage now. and that makes it possible for them to try a new external policy that wasn’t in the table before, and their main interest in doing that is helping themselves, because seelies are tired of living in constant fear in a basically military state where they’re confined to the same realm despite them being supposed to be guardians of all of them. like that’s gotta affect their mental health, if they’re one with nature, wouldn’t being kept away from it be like being isolated from your loved ones? isn’t that deprivation? so like. this is about them, not the shadowhunters and how great their society is and how much they want to be a part of them, okay

anyway! so the seelies have designed a plan (because under meliorn’s rule everyone participates in political decisions because hmmm *checks notes* i said so) to make stronger alliances with the other downworlders. the first thing they offer them all is a little token of alliance. to vampires, they offer the possibility of becoming a dayligher - something they can easily do with their angel magic, not to mention, you know, blood -; to werewolves, magical amulets that help them keep their wolf under control, not turning without meaning to and being able to live a relatively normal life if they so choose; and to warlocks, knowledge of seelie magic

and of course magnus in particular eats that shit right UP because he’s a naturally curious person and a genius and a physichist and holy shit i love him so fucking much. seelies have so much more knowledge of physics and magic and their natural workings, so much so that it makes him dizzy because hell, the possibilities, and all the shit he can learn, okay. all this knowledge that was currently being kept away, and the warlocks get to learn about it (or well, part of it. obviously the seelies aren’t going to go around spilling EVERYTHING to them all at once before they even know if their token is accepted and whatnot. but they do teach those who are interested a lot of stuff, maybe create some sort of seelie-warlock magical school/course/programme/look you GET IT to strengthen their relationships as a whole?? boy i eat that shit UP). he’s just losing his mind here

super cute to think about alec coming home to find a very disheveled magnus surrounded by books and notes, hair and clothes rumpled and just a whole mess as he excitedly reads and writes and runs around to get a different book and draw parallels, okay. and alec smiles and has to be like “have you eaten?” and magnus looks up from his books all suddenly like “hm? oh hello alexander, i didn’t see you there”, “have you eaten?” “i don’t remember” “okay, i’ll make you something, you can keep reading” and magnus smiling all like “thank you” and diving right back into the notes in Super Hyperfocus + Hyperfixation Mode as he figures out, like, a thousand new spells (obviously warlocks can’t use seelie magic because they come from different sources they don’t have access to, but like, the knowledge is enough for them to create so much new stuff okay), btw. but anyway, ANYWAY

and to shadowhunters the seelies offer, i dont know, a soggy cheeto or something faiojdsajdasj look it’s not like the seelies owe them so they basically offer a truce and maybe authorization to explore certain parts of the seelie realm in small guarded groups? i dont know, in exchange for them and all other downworlders having a power and a vote in the new shadowhunter laws, and the whole proccess of reconstruction of their society. and the shadowhunters agree, after vicious infighting of course 

so anyway years pass and things are blossoming, downworlder societies are stronger than ever and phucking florishing dude, shadowhunters suck less, seelies finally get to wander around like they’ve been wanting to for centuries, there’s been some neato cultural exchange, magnus is still figuring out spells and shit at an alarming rate to anyone who doesn’t know what a goddamn genius he is. and shadowhunter society is- well, changing, but there’s a kind of cultural war going on, you know, with such a strong shift in paradigm so sudden. the changes in schooling and shit that were brought on by the new accords kind of ensure that the newest generations are getting a very different view and education, but there’s still a lot of infighting from shadowhunters who want to undo all that hard work, which is of course still fragile because it’s only starting

and alec of course takes a primary role in that fight, being the greatest representative of the progressive shadowhunters’ (?) and their downworlder allies’ interests, inside shadowhunter society. like don’t get me wrong it’s not like he’s leading the downworlders, the downworlders are doing all that hard work so they can get their own destiny back into their own hands and not be led by shadowhunters anymore, but within shadowhunter society, alec is a leader and their greatest ally slash eye in the inside, defending the policies that downworlders create and letting them know what is going on inside of the clave. basically preparing a cultural war. you get it

so naturally alec is a threat to conservative shadowhunters and they’re trying to strip him off his runes all the time, and there’s even been a few (quickly failed) assassination attempts, you know, the whole. drama. and he plays an important role for this whole game, and magnus has been studying the whole immortality ritual thing, and yeah, the seelies offer to put him through the ritual

it’s a matter of political leverage (and okay maybe a personal favor to meliorn’s dear friend magnus, but like, mostly political leverage). first of all, making alec immortal gives him a lot of power within shadowhunter society, not unlike meliorn and being the child of super powerful parents. second of all, no need to worry about assassination attempts, they can’t fucking kill him! third of all, clear message - alec has powerful allies, way more powerful than the shadowhunters can dream of, and if shadowhunter society is willing to create real, lasting equality with downworlders, they have a lot to gain. if not, they have a lot to lose, because the seelies have literal power over life and death. also, alec better watch his step, too, because, you know. he owes them that one. they are not stupid, they know alec has been looking for a way of becoming immortal for years now, know how much he desires this. it’s also about keeping his loyalty, and making sure he doesn’t forget, he’s supposed to be their ally too

and there are a lot of like, security things in place. alec will not be able to see or hear anything, he will not be taught how the ritual works (not even warlocks know that yet), he will not be taught about its forces, it will happen in the seelie realm and he will go alone, and no other shadowhunter will be granted that unless the seelies themselves offer at a later time, you know, etc etc. they list off things and precautions he has to agree to for like, half an hour, and honestly they could have added “alec will have to eat a piece of the moon” and alec would be like “okay fine great let’s do this”

magnus is fucking terrified

first, because well, they have never attempted to do that on someone who isn’t a seelie, and while they have figured out a pretty damn good understanding of how it works and are pretty sure it should go smoothly, there’s no way to actually tell. it might not work. alec might regret it. does he really want this? to become immortal? he doesn’t have to say yes, and magnus will not be upset, because he would never, ever demand such a huge sacrifice from him-

and alec’s like “nope i want this let’s go” which only terrifies magnus more because it feels like he’s being impulsive, you know? and he doesn’t know if there’s any turning back from this. but alec is like “magnus, when have i ever been impulsive? i’m not impulsive, i’m just sure of what i want, and there’s no reason to dwell on it because that’s already done.” alec is an expert at dwelling on things, and when he makes a decision, it’s because that part has already been thoroughly done, with every single possible argument being exhausted and taken apart minuciously and careful. there’s no room for doubt anymore, because if there had even a spectre of it, alec would still be ruminating. he doesn’t make a decision until he’s sure, but by god, once he makes it, he is sure, and nothing will stop him

so he reassures magnus of that (��hey, look at me. i’m not doing this on a whim. i have been looking for something like this for years. i’ve given it a lot of thought. besides, the seelies reasoning is good, too; i do want to have the time to dedicate myself to these changes, to building a new society, and with that, i can do it. there’s so much i want to live and see and do, magnus. and i want to do it by your side, yes, always, forever, but it’s not just about that. this is my decision. i’m not doing it for you. you won’t owe me anything because of it. you won’t have to make it up for it. because i’m doing it for myself. okay?”) and magnus kind of chokes up and hugs him and cries because he’s so overwhelmed by everything, the fear and the adoration and the relief of knowing that alec isn’t doing this just because of him, because if he had, magnus would forever feel like he was ruining his life, like he was indebted, like he would have to make up for it. but alec wants this. truly. and he doesn’t have to- worry anymore, this constant weight in his head, that tells him this has an expiration date, you’re gonna lose him. look at how much time you’re wasting with all of this, he’ll be gone before you even notice. there’ll be no turning back, and you’ll regret it forever. and fuck it’s just- so much, okay

so alec hugs him and they repeat to each other, i love you, i love you, i love you, and the next day, alec accepts the seelies’ offer. 

and magnus is- fuck, terrified, because he can’t even go with him, can’t even watch. there’s nothing he can do but wait

but everything goes relatively smoothly and alec emerges from the seelie realm exactly as before, no change to be noted, not even when magnus scanned him with his magic - it’s all still there. still a shadowhunter, still the same runes, the same face, the same hazel eyes, the same smile and voice, and when he hugs and kisses magnus, it feels like just the same

and then i suppose alec can now, like, talk to trees or something, since he’s connected to the whole force of nature and whatnot. i don’t think he would be able to use magic, because like i said, he’s still the same and a shadowhunter so it’s more that his angelic magic is stronger? but he’s fucking immortal dude, and he can like talk to trees, which is at the very least funny as hell (cracky images of alec discussing with some shadowhunter asshole and he’s like, even your SUCCULENT is tired of you!! but i digress)

anyway the point is, it works both in the sense of immortal alec, baby! and the whole political leverage thing, and they basically revolutionize all of shadowhunter society and alec lives to see the results of that besides magnus, and meliorn is the greatest seelie queen ever, and the downworlder societies are all happy and blossoming and getting their best life, and everyone is happy, and the bigoted shadowhunters die and are hated by their own plants. the end

[aurorawest]

ten faves

Rules: name ten favorite characters from ten different things (tv, movies, books, etc.).

Thank you for the tag @thegirlwholied!

Loki (Thor, The Avengers, general MCU)

I mean...obviously, right? He’s got it all. A sympathetic villain with a tragic backstory, a snarky, sarcastic sense of humor, The Smart One, but also, complete and utter trash fire, emotional wreck; just wants to be loved. His redemption arc hits me right in the feels and I’m here for the disaster of a relationship that he has with his big brother. His angst and dramatics make him an utter joy to watch and write about. V pretty, too; makes me wonder if I am in fact just a little bisexual. 

King Candy (Wreck-It Ralph)

YMMV but another villain with a sympathetic backstory. The way he turns on a dime from goofy and fun to kind of straight-up murderous is great. Another one where there’s a rich trove of angst and pain to explore in fic. Alan Tudyk’s spot-on Ed Wynn imitation made me fall in love with this guy before three words had left his mouth the first time I saw Wreck-It Ralph.

Stephen Strange (Doctor Strange, general MCU, yes I’m cheating because this is 2 MCU characters)

Okay, so my soft spot for Strange admittedly came about because I ship him with Loki, but I’ve come to love him in his own right. He’s a smartass and a jerk—plus magic! How can I not like a guy who has all the terrible qualities I love in a character, but who dies over and over and over again to save humanity? And in a weird twist, I vastly prefer Benedict Cumberbatch’s American accent to his actual English accent.

George Weasley (Harry Potter)

Though I came to be a huge Snape fan later, my first loves in Harry Potter were the Weasley twins. And George is the one I keep coming back to. Who doesn’t love the Weasley twins, right? But I appreciate kinder, gentler George, and imagining his life after Fred’s death has resulted in thousands and thousands of words of fanfiction.

Weyoun (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

We stan one Vorta clone who presided over a genocide, got his neck snapped by Worf, eats pizza with chopsticks, and had to put up with both Dukat and Damar. Another villain for the list here. Weyoun (and the Vorta in general) are fascinating and it’s a crime that we never got to learn that much about them. The DS9 writers seemed to think we all wanted to know more about the Jem’Hadar, but I just wanted more of these weird, purple-eyed gremlins. Weyoun trying to appreciate art despite his lack of aesthetics? A+ moment from a guest star in a series that was full of them (both A+ moments and guest stars).

Megavolt (Darkwing Duck)

Ah Megavolt, the character that I’ve loved since 1991. He’s crazy! He’s definitely committed murder (he’s been sent to the electric chair multiple times)! And yet there’s something kind of sad about Megavolt; high school bullies turned into who he is, his memory problems are...a hindrance. He’s not all bad either—he has a friend group and sometimes he even works with Darkwing Duck.

Vinny Santorini (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

(with bonus Audrey Ramirez, because I’m not going to lie to you, it was hard to choose between the two of them)

Vinny is the snarkiest on this team of looters and he blows stuff up, so how can I not love him? Atlantis does its best to give us character development for its ensemble cast but it can only give us the broad strokes (its runtime is only 96 minutes. 96 minutes!), but it’s hard not to see Vinny as someone who uses sarcasm and humor to cover up a pretty big heart. In a way, a character with a minor redemptive arc, since the team betrays Milo.

Benjamin Linus (Lost)

The first thing you need to know about Ben is that he spent the majority of Lost looking beat up, which is a really attractive quality in a character. Ben is another one of those villains with a sympathetic past and a redemption arc—though unlike many of the villains I love, he actually survived! So he’s an exception to redemption=death. I loved Ben, I think, from the moment he hypothetically detailed how, if he were an evil Other, he would have tricked Sayid, Ana Lucia, and Charlie and lured them to their deaths, and then looked up at Locke and asked with that dead-eyed stare over his cereal, “Got any milk?” He was the one character who continued to get interesting on Lost as the rest of the show was falling apart.

Telemain (The Enchanted Forest Chronicles)

So I couldn’t find a photo of the back cover of Calling on Dragons, which actually features an illustration of Telemain, so you’ll all have to trust me that he’s My Type. His description from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles wiki: 

Blue eyes, dark hair, and neatly trimmed beard and mustache

Plus he wears knee-high black boots and a giant, useless belt with a bunch of stuff hanging off it? Might I point you to another wizard on my favorite characters list. Telemain is a know-it-all wizard who doesn’t understand how to talk to others like a normal person. He’s very smart, fiercely solitary, and very snarky. Hm.

Éowyn (The Lord of the Rings)

How can you not love her? The absolute shit this woman has been through. Her parents are dead. Her brother is banished. Her cousin is killed. And her uncle looks like a ghoul and is going crazier by the day, all while she’s got freaking Grima Wormtongue undressing her with his eyes at every opportunity. I love Éowyn because she’s basically in the process of having a constant meltdown but dammit, she’s going to keep it together because what else can she do? And I mean, obviously, “I am no man.”

I’ll tag...ummm @iamanartichoke, @mareebird​, and @thelightofthingshopedfor​ but no pressure! And anyone else who wants to do this definitely should! Consider yourself tagged, I’m always interested to know what characters other people like!

[takerfoxx]

Right, okay, let’s talk about Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.

Oh boy, do I have a lot to unpack here. And, uh, content warning for discussion of rape and genocide.

Right, let’s start with my thoughts on the first one. Overall, I liked it a whole lot, but mostly I’m astounded that it got the go-ahead in the first place. I mean, a bizarre subversive take on Sleeping Beauty of all things that recasts Disney’s most iconic villain as a sort of anti-hero with a heavy feminist slant that had a blatantly unsubtle rape metaphor as its centerpiece? It should have been a trainwreck! Hell, it almost was a trainwreck, one that threatened to jump the tracks the entire runtime! It shouldn’t have worked, it almost didn’t work...but it still did.

Part of that was just how committed everyone involved was to its own mad premise. Say what you want about the idea, but it was ballsy as hell, and it totally went all in with...everything. I mean, you kind of have to just to make something like this work, as any kind of drawback or halfass would’ve caused the whole thing to come crashing down, so the only chance you’ve got is to point the whole endeavor straight at that brick wall and slam your foot down on the ignition. And it went in deep, recontextualizing King Steffen as a paranoid, manipulative, power-hungry madman; the three fairies as total dolts; Prince Philip, someone who might seem dull in comparison to later princes like Aladdin, Eric, or the Beast, but was still the most proactive prince Disney had at that point, as kind of a duffer whom Maleficent had to literally drag along on his own quest and who was understandably squeamish about kissing an unconscious girl against her will; Daival as a dashing sidekick; and completely flips the Maleficent/Aurora relationship on its head. That’s the sort of thing you see in those What If? fanfics that you tend to obsess over in highschool, and it comes packing all of the raw emotion of one of those fics, and because of that it pulls its own crazy premise off. Yes, it was flawed. Yes, there were things that didn’t work. But they almost don’t matter in light of just how impressive it was that they managed to pull something this audacious off.

And as for the rape metaphor...actually, scratch that. Let’s call a spade a spade, okay? It wasn’t a metaphor, that was straight up a rape. Maybe it wasn’t sexual, but what a lot of people forget is that rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. It’s about dominating another person to take their power away so that the aggressor can feel powerful, and that’s how it was played, and they committed to showing it in all of its ugliness. I mean, holy shit that takes balls.

But the bulk of the reason why it worked was because of Angelina Jolie.

I mean, what an absolutely mesmerizing performance! The OG Maleficent was so memorable in part because everyone else in that movie kind of...wasn’t, but also because she was super cool and super badass and totally in love with being THAT BITCH! And Angelina Jolie absolutely owns that role.

I mean, she is Maleficent. She just took a DNA test, and I don’t need to tell you what the results are. She embodied all of that iconic character’s regal majesty, menace, cruelty, confidence, and knowing that she was the badass bitch to ever vamp about in a long black gown with a bitching pimp staff just ready to show up uninvited and wreak some unholy vengeance, and then some. There is no longer any need to wonder where your god is, because she is right there, and she is all out of mercy.

But then she goes and gives actual depth to a really awesome but still kind of one note character, from the young innocence before she was betrayed to genuinely bonding with young Aurora to her desperate heartbreak over being unable to break her own curse to actual fear when it seems that the mad king has finally got her to...well, the agony of betrayal when she wakes up and fully realizes what Steffen has done to her. That’s a wide range of emotions to have to portray in a character only known for being smirkingly evil or ragingly evil, but she goes in hard, and basically holds the whole haphazard production together through the sheer gravitational pull of her performance.

So when they announced a sequel, I was intrigued. In fact, I was hoping for another totally insane, probably a bad idea production that just goes HAM on whatever crazy topical stuff it wants to talk about with Angelina Jolie just owning everything she touches.

But what it turned out to be...

Sigh.

Okay.

Let’s do this.

All right, I won’t go into specific plot details until I reach the spoiler cut, because they’re not really important. What I want to get across is the first third of this movie, it really had me. It was good! It had everything I liked about the first one. Different situation, sure, but we had Maleficent being Maleficent and bouncing off other characters, both old and new, and it was good.

Then the second third rolled around, and things started to come apart. I mean, it didn’t totally lose me or anything, there was a lot of good stuff, we learn a lot of cool lore, there’s a kickass Zootopia-type place we visit with a whole bunch of biomes, and I was generally okay with how things were, assuming that they could stick the landing. But the big problem here was that there was a whole lot less of Maleficent. Oh, she was there, sure, but she wasn’t really...doing much, mostly just walking around while some other character explained exposition to her, to which she barely even reacts, so we’re left with Aurora and Philip and Michelle Pfieffer as the new evil queen to do all the heavy lifting. And they do an admirable job of it I suppose (though the lack of romantic chemistry between Aurora and Philip was really noticeable here), but this part was seriously missing Angelina Jolie’s overwhelming presence that the first movie had, so the seams started to show.

And then we get to the third act, and that’s where it all fell apart for me. So, I guess it’s spoiler time.

Long story short, the main plot is that Prince Philip’s mom is evil and is trying to arrange for the total genocide of all of Maleficent’s fairy subjects in the Moors so that the humans can take over. And she does this by first poisoning the king with the same curse Aurora was originally under and blaming it on Maleficent (okay, that works), have Maleficent sniped when she tries to flee with an iron bullet (makes sense), come up with a special iron/magic flower compound that is fatal to fairies (good so far), and luring the Moors inhabitants in with the promise of being wedding guests, locking them in the cathedral, and dousing them with this fairy killing dust. And just in case, she also has the entire castle barricaded and guarded with a whole bunch of fairy killing dust weapons and traps.

You know what? For an evil plot, she really worked out most of the contingencies, and it nearly succeeds, though the question must be asked of why the Moors inhabitants just stroll right in after their guardian just straight up disappears after doing the same thing. But anyway, she gets as far as actually locking up all the fairies and pelting them with the killer dust.

But then the castle is attacked. See, all through the second act, Maleficent is rescued by the rest of her people, the Dark Fae, and it turns out that they’ve slowly been forced by humans to retreat to a single sanctuary, but they’re ready to reclaim their homelands by force, and after seeing her people’s sacred burial grounds defiled and the Dark Fae that saved her assassinated by humans, Maleficent is feeling pretty okay with that. In fact, the warmonger Dark Fae that’s all for violence and who leads the attacks makes a point that Maleficent has powers that not even they possess and could be their secret weapon. I mean, just have her show up and be all Mistress of Evil. Makes sense, right?

Buuuuuuut, then they attack the humans and...just sort of leave her behind? Like, she just stays with the dying dude who sacrificed himself to save her and was the one espousing a peaceful solution, and no one bothers to try to get her to come along despite her having every reason to kick all sorts of ass? Like, they have the forest magic going for them, sure, but she’s packing that green fire of I WIN, YOU LOSE, and they just...don’t take her with them?

Huh?

And as predicted, the humans unleash all their killer dust bombs and killer dust missiles and just massacre the Dark Fae. We see several of them just get slaughtered on screen, and meanwhile we also watch the Moor fairies also getting massacred in what amounts to a fucking GAS CHAMBER, complete with several of them straight up dying on screen, including one of the three fairies! No, I’m being serious, they straight up kill the Blue Fairy!

But then Maleficent shows up fashionably late, green fires all the humans into submission, has her big faceoff with the queen, there’s a bunch of stuff with Aurora and Philip trying to get everyone to stop fighting, there’s a big fakeout GOTCHA with Maleficent dying to save Aurora but coming back because I guess she’s the Phoenix or something, then the queen gets captured and turned into a goat and everyone’s friends now so they all get together and let Aurora and Philip have their wedding because the power of love wins in the end!

...

wat.

Okay, so there is something to be said for the letting peace and understanding win out and refusing to continue the cycle of violence, but, um, wasn’t there, you know, A FUCKING GENOCIDE HAPPENING NOT TOO LONG AGO? And by not too long ago, I mean literally five minutes? We see Dark Fae and Moor fairies dying en mass! And they don’t come back! I mean, there’s a sly hint that the Blue Fairy lives on as a flower or something, but that’s not really elaborated on, and we literally see a whole bunch of people get massacred! But now we’re just going to have a wedding right over everyone’s conveniently bloodless corpses and everyone’s just fine with it? And the evil queen that arranged this whole slaughter gets humorously turned into a goat and everyone laughs at in, including the recovered king (because apparently to break the curse for good all you needed was to destroy the original spindle, so I guess so much for that touching retelling of True Love’s Kiss from the first movie! Totally unnecessary now!) who just says something like, “I’m sure Maleficent will turn her back...assuming we want her to.” And then he just makes a face as if the queen was just a nagging harpy that was hard to put up with and not a literally murderous despot who tried to assassinate you and bring your kingdom to total war by eradicating the neighbors you were trying so hard to work out a peace with!

No. Fuck that, no! That is bullshit! Choose a path and fucking commit! That’s what the first movie did! It decided it was going to sneak a fucking rape scene into a Disney movie that was to be seen by a lot of little girls, and it went all in, up to and including never blaming Maleficent for wanting to take vengeance and putting all of the blame on Steffen, so it worked! If you’re going to stick in a fucking genocide, then you better show the horrific aftereffects of that genocide, not a weaksauce power of love, everyone’s friends now ending! And make the despising of the queen actually mean something, not just a humorous slapstick humiliation!

Fucking hell, what were they thinking?

[svynakee]

Promare thoughts/impressions

Watched Promare. Overall, enjoyed it very much and it was everything I expected it to be (extremely TRIGGER, basically). A visual feast that definitely satisfied my shonen action hunger. In summary though, I really wish it’d been a 12 ep anime.

Spoilers ahead.

LIKES

Visuals: Loved the stylisation. The vivid, pastel flames and the polygonal ice made a nice contrast and it looks so different not only from other anime films but also from other animations by the same studio? Brilliant.

TRIGGER being themselves: Illogical story with a grand scope, bombastic action hero, easily distinguishable character designs.

Hiroyuki Sawano: His music is just what you’d expect from someone of his calibre. Absolutely floored; also, quite a range in the soundtrack! I remember especially when Galo starts talking about the Japanese firefighters the music shifts to something more traditional.

Galo not being racist: Well, not being prejudiced. While its pretty par for the course to have a protagonist learn to overcome his prejudices in this sort of story, the fact that a person in the rescue ops doesn’t, you know, hate the victims who cause the disasters he’s meant to respond to is very logical.

Kiss follow-up: The no-homo fake out. Not gonna lie, they had me in the first half when Galo recoiled and seemed disgusted. But it would’ve made no sense because like he said, it was a medical procedure he’s been trained to do. Putting his mouth on anyone, regardless of gender, should not have grossed him out. And it didn’t! Being unhappy that he ‘started a fire’ makes more sense because his entire job (passion) is about stopping Burnish. There’s a real lack of hetero-signalling here actually. Promare’s not afraid to let its viewers decide how Galo swings.

Female gaze: Yeah sure there’s that shot where Aina’s butt is on display but the camera sure seems magnetised towards Lio’s crotch.

Lio’s refreshing morosexuality: Once they start working together in earnest, Lio is quick to just indulge in Galo’s quirks. He trusts the guy easily but not to the point that he stops calling him out for stupidity. Very movies end with me knowing that characters from opposing sides have a strong friendship ahead of them. Promare is one. I might talk more about Lio’s match with Galo more elsewhere, but for now, I do like how he isn’t shutting Galo down/constantly arguing which is what you usually see when a serious character has to work with a boisterous one.

DISLIKES

So most of my dislikes come from the fact that it’s a movie. There’s no way they could’ve done otherwise in a 1:51 timeframe, but knowing what the studio’s capable of, I can’t help but wish I saw their full potential.

Character development: Nobody really grew. Not every story needs it and not every character needs to change, but the lack of flaws addressed hurt Galo and Lio’s memorability I think. I kept expecting Galo’s impulsiveness to bite him in the ass. Didn’t see it much except for his confrontation with Kray. I even thought the ‘don’t pose and focus’ thing might come back, notably during the Lio de Galon fight when Kray keeps justifying his robot’s weaponry as terraforming equipment. Galo and Lio are just the type to shut him up and point out ‘If it’s being used to hurt people, it’s a weapon! If you hurt others, you’re a villain! Nothing can justify that!’ since it fits thematically into that fight as well.

Streamlined plot: TRIGGER has been shown to have a good grasp of story pacing. It can feed you one bit of ridiculousness at a time until they bring out something awesome but extremely stupid, knowing that they’ve tempered you enough it’ll just be epic. In this timeframe, that just didn’t happen. Not enough foreshadowing, too many crazy concepts introduced too late, and there was more than one Deus Ex Machina if you know what I mean. Instead of a proper build up that ended on a strong final note, it felt like a brief but sudden blaze that flickers out to leave darkness.

Less dynamic camera: Made it hard to follow the action sometimes. In a way it’s like the plot; too much momentum and not enough time to process it. A good spectacle is worth nothing if there’s no chance to digest it.

Flat supporting cast: Again, this is because TRIGGER’s animes have been strong in this aspect. The movie timeframe means limited screen time, but Mad Max Fury Road had only ten more minutes and managed to set up its supporting cast well. In Promare, they’re mostly reduced to archetypes. What are their relationships? Motivations? They feel more like talking props, like the NPCs you have milling about the map shouting flavour text. There might be more in the supplementary material but for the movie itself, I didn’t like most of the characters not named Lio or Galo. In fact-

Don’t like Galo: Or rather, don’t find him compelling. Unlike Ryuko or Simon, I don’t think he could carry a series. He lacks depth and drive beyond ‘I am a firefighter’. Sure, he’s stupid and loud, but those are personality traits, not a personality. Being nice, determined, having a love of pizza…these all feel so generic and TRIGGER is capable of so much more. Galo feels like an alright lead in a movie where a lot is happening, so he doesn’t have to carry anything in terms of emotion or drive, but he’d be boring in a full-length series. Or even a movie trilogy.

Don’t like Lio?: While I don’t agree that every conflict has two equal sides, I dislike how squeaky-clean Lio is. He feels more like the shonen protagonist than Galo sometimes. He’s caring, skilled, honourable, intelligent, determined. His flaws? If you shoot him then try to commit genocide he’ll knock on your door and ask to fight you. It’s unclear if there’s any casualties during his rampage, which makes sense because we know his flames can be harmless (by his choice) and he was specifically threatening to destroy Kray’s city unless Kray listened. On the other side you have Vulcan and Kray. He could’ve afforded a bit more ruthlessness and still come out clearly heroic. It would have given him more intensity to better contrast Galo.

WHAT I WANTED

In summary? Promare as an anime instead of a film. I’d give up smooth fights and shiny CGI any day for stronger writing and characters with impact.

Longer timeframe in-universe: The plot essentially takes place over a week, which limits how much development characters and relationships can undergo. Lio feels too ready to trust Galo. Galo can’t process Kray’s betrayal. The sisters’ story is just kind of shoved on you like unwanted vegetables spooned out by a health-conscious mother. Dr. Exposition suddenly comes in and starts tying up loose ends so abruptly I had to check my phone to see if the movie was almost over. The short timeframe means Promare feels like a marathon-length sprint.

More moral ambiguity: The Mad Burnish are still righteous and try to minimise damage. However, their plans don’t always work. They leave escape routes but fail to account for impaired mobility. Young Burnish lose control while they’re on the run, endangering ordinary humans. Lio is forced to make tough choices. He becomes more jaded, which leads up to the betrayal where he can truly break and begin rampaging. I’m not saying he needed a full Satsuki Kiryuuin thing, but damn do I miss her sheer badass aura. Lio lacks that dangerous feeling. You know he’s apologising inside if he steps on you.  

Galo’s popularity: Galo is shown to have great PR and love playing the crowd. Kray has good PR. The Burnish have bad PR. Instead of Prometh looping a vid with his hacking powers, Galo could’ve convinced the city of Kray’s evil the traditional way: a big speech about humanity and believing in yourself (and not Kray because Kray is evil).

Promare: Lio tells us the fire is alive. Interesting. Prometh says the fire is actually aliens from a parallel dimension whose prime directive is to burn also they feel pain if the Burnish are hurt. My reaction is like Galo’s: I sleep. The entire concept of the promare…I just don’t like it. Maybe I don’t like how they al disappear at the end and fix the Burnish.

In my ideal Promare, the things I love TRIGGER for would all be present. Strong supporting cast. Multifaceted characters. Build up that just gets more ridiculous and epic at a steady pace. Good fights but also quieter breather moments. More jokes.

More Promare, basically.

[weirdoldmanhoho]

Hey, happy fma day! Could you please do a prompt or like headcanons ideas of what would have happened if Ed and Al and the homonculi were siblings/cousins? (whichever inspires you more) it would be wonderful and funny, sure as hell

Happy FMA day! OMG yes this is my favorite ridiculous, silly au. Prepare for some ridiculousness.

Okay, so Father shows up randomly at the Elric (Hohenheim?) house a couple years into Hoho living there and is just like “hello, my dearest, oldest friend, so good to see you.” (Hoho is like, yeah, I’ve been rethinking our relationship ever since you literally committed genocide in front of me.)

Father tells Hoho he’s turned over a new leaf. No really, he says, no more murder. He’s content to live out the rest of his life with the one Philosopher Stone he already made and definitely has no plans whatsoever to make another one – what? How could his dearest, oldest friend – who he NAMED and cared for before anyone and helped gain him his freedom – doubt him? What is he talking about that the map of Amestris looks suspicious? Does he really think he could control how an entire country was built? His oldest, dearest friend (“seriously, stop calling me that”) has too high of expectations for him.

Anyways, Father says he showed up because he ended up with 7 kids somehow (“totally an accident. Just happened.” “…uh-huh.”) and he has absolutely no idea how to handle them and they’re all driving him absolutely crazy, and he heard that Hoho has two boys of his own (congrats, by the way, didn’t know you had it in you, your wife is lovely, good job) and maybe he’s managed to figure out this whole fatherhood thing better than he has, so can he bring the family and stay for a while? Just a bit?

And because Hoho is ultimately a sympathetic sap, he says yes. (Trisha literally might kill him. She won’t talk to him for two days. She threatens to take Ed and Al and run away. “This might be good for him, Trisha. He might actually learn to be better and care for people if he lives around humans for a while.” “If any one of his ‘children’ touch our children, I WILL find out how to kill an immortal and after I’m finished with them, I’m coming after you.” “I love you so much.”)

So the family moves in. Ed and Al meet their “cousins”. The homunculi meet the Elrics under strict orders not to hurt them. It goes about as well as you can expect.

Envy really likes screwing with Ed and Al. Their favorite hobby is transforming into one of them and trying to get in as much trouble as possible (pulling Winry’s hair, throwing things at Den, hitting the other real Elric brother, etc.) Jokes on them, though, because Trisha has gotten REALLY good at figuring out when it’s Envy in disguise and just happens to “accidentally” hit them with things. Like, she “accidentally” trips when Envy is in the kitchen as Ed and drops a metal pot on their head. (“Oh no! Edward, honey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there!” She definitely did. She definitely aimed for the head on purpose.)

(In secret, all the Elric/Hohenheims have come up with tells to let each other know they’re not Envy. They might be putting up with them living here, but damn it all if Trisha is just going to passively let them torment her family.

Greed and Envy hate each other, so Greed teams up with the Elrics to help harass his sibling, and ends up actually becoming a big brother figure to them. And somehow, damn it all, he’ll deny it until his dying breath, he’s actually grown a little fond of the tikes. He lets Ed try on his ugly fur vest once. He puts on the invincible shield and lets them hit him with things (look just because he actually tries to play with the kids doesn’t mean he knows anything about appropriate games for human children. Envy and Lust and him hit each other all the time – and usually with a lot more blood and death involved – surely that’s fun for his little “cousins” right?)

Trisha walks outside once and sees her sons just beating on Greed with any weapon they can find and just…walks away. She doesn’t even care anymore. As long as it’s her sons beating one of the homunculi and not the other way around, she’s not going to stop it. She considers that this might be teaching her children bad lessons for the future – such as its okay to just beat people with sticks – but considering it’s also teaching them it’s okay to beat up homunculi, she thinks the pros outweigh the cons.

Lust tries to act like she’s above everything, but she usually gets dragged into arguments. She just kind of randomly flip-flops between helping Envy screw with the kids and teaming up with Greed to defend them like a guard dog, with no apparent rhyme or reason to which she’s going to do on any given day. Ed and Al are both terrified and slightly in awe of her. It’s pretty much exactly how Envy and Greed feel too.

One of their “cousins” looks suspiciously a lot like the former Furher of Amestris (who randomly disappeared a couple months ago, stating “family emergency” before vanishing). Wrath wears a whole bunch of ridiculous disguises every time he takes the boys into town. I’m talking like fake moustache over his real moustache and sunglasses. Really ridiculous hats. Hawaiian shirts. A fake nose once. (“This is just sad,” Envy tells him. “I’ve seen humans disguise themselves better than this.” “I’m not taking advice from someone who willingly walks around looking like that.” Envy has to be held back from trying to maul Wrath by Lust, because Envy has already lost FIVE LIVES since living here – one of them might have been from Trisha, but she won’t confirm or deny anything and only cackles quietly to herself when she looks at Envy sometimes – and if they keep it up they’re going to actually die FOR REAL by next year. “DO YOU THINK PHILOSOPHER’S STONES GROW ON TREES?” Father booms, then goes immediately to Hoho and is like, “That was the right phrase, right? I also tried grounding like you suggested.” “You’ll get this fatherhood thing in no time. Also, you can’t end the grounding no matter how sad they look. That’s what Trisha says.”)

Side note: Mrs. Bradley definitely moves in with them too and now she knows exactly what her husband and son are and still loves them just as much. Pride is confused and slightly mortified, but also touched – he’ll never admit it. Wrath just really loves this human woman he chose. He and Hoho trade stories about their adventures wooing strong-willed, slightly scary mortal women. They get drunk together once and cry into the night about how wonderful their wives are and the fact that their children are growing up before their eyes – “I don’t grow, Wrath, what are you talking about?” “My son sounds so grown up!” Both men sob harder.

Trisha and Mrs. Bradley become fast friends. They run a So-You-Married-an-Immortal support group. Currently they’re the only members. Meetings basically consist of them exchanging stories of the weirdest things they’ve ever seen their husbands do.

Pride becomes weirdly protective of the baby Elrics. Mostly because he believes Father wants to keep them safe and he’s the most loyal devoted son who will do anything Father wants, so he takes great pride (ha) in protecting the baby Elrics from every harm he can think of. He also looks the most similar in age to them, so he lets Father enroll him in the local school and watches over them while in class. The rest of the class and the teacher are absolutely terrified of him, because he mostly just sits behind Ed and glares at everyone who moves too close.

Ed and Al grow up with a really weird understanding of shadows – ie, convinced that they can definitely move independently and are physical things you can touch, because that one time Al tripped, a bunch of shadows definitely grabbed him before he hit the ground, placed him back on his feet, and patted his shoulder reassuringly for good measure.

Sloth does nothing, of course. He’s just happy he doesn’t have to dig that tunnel anymore. He mostly sleeps and Ed and Al try to figure out how much they can stack on him before he wakes up. Or how many times they can poke him. Or how loudly they can shout. Etc.

Somehow it turns out mostly okay though. Ed and Al make it into their teenage years without dying or any serious maiming. (Only Greed and Envy have been maimed, but their injuries heal so it’s fine.) They have at least two homunculi that are fiercely protective of them, one that usually at least has more fun fighting their enemies than them, one who acts like a weird uncle and showers them with gifts and random melons, and two that are pretty indifferent as long as they’re left alone. And Envy, who definitely still wants to make their lives as miserable as possible, but is at least usually outvoted by the other homunculi.

The Elric/Hohenheim family is very weird, but most of them (and Resembool) have accepted that. Trisha definitely would still kill any of them if they hurt her sons though.

Thanks for the prompt!

[mafiabosstsuna]

Since it's Halloween, could you do a scenario where Mukuro finds out his s/o is a zombie?

COMPLETE

“You’re always so cold.. almost like you’re dead..” Mukuro said absently, his hand gently caressing your arm. The both of you were snuggling together in front of the fireplace with blankets. 

Mukuro did his best to hide it, but you knew that your cold temperature freaked him out a little and he always worried that you were going to get hypothermia. He would wrap you up in jackets and scarves even if it got a little cold and you’d always have a cup of hot coffee on your hand when you woke up or came back from work. 

He might be one of the most dangerous men in the Mafia but it was really cute out how he was worried about your health. 

“Mukuro,” you flinched at his words and shifted away from him, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

Mukuro immediately tensed and took a defensive stance. He started glaring at you. “You’re not leaving me. That’s not a choice. Even if you would rather die than be with me, guess what? I will drag you out of the Underworld if I have to-”

“You idiot,” you sighed, “I’m not leaving you. Don’t be such a drama queen for a second. I need you to be serious.”

“Are you sick? The cold.. I knew it.” Mukuro immediately paled, his mind jumping from one nightmare to another. “I don’t care how incurable the disease is-”

“Mukuro, I’m a zombie!” you snapped at your paranoid boyfriend. It was like he was always waiting for the world to collapse underneath him. His ‘I don’t deserve to be happy’ bullshit always got on your nerves. Didn’t he see how perfect he was? “Zombie, as in the undead. That’s why I’m always so freaking cold. The dead don’t generate body heat.”

Mukuro froze for a few seconds. You were expecting him to laugh and call you crazy but his eyes darkened. You inched away from him slightly but he grabbed your wrist and pulled you closer. His fingers were tight around your veins and he was trying to feel your heartbeat. Funny how he never noticed that your heart didn’t beat.

“Who did this to you?” Mukuro demanded. His voice grew louder with each syllable and he looked ready to commit a genocide all over again. “Who the fuck was experimenting reanimation on you?”

“Honey,” you tried to pull away your wrist but he tightened his hold, “it doesn’t matter-”

“Who. did. this. to. you?” Mukuro grabbed you by the sleeves and your face was inches away from his. “People are going to die, (Name). Now, you get to decide if I take out my anger on innocent civilians or the monsters who did this to you. Choose.”

You had never seen him look so livid and you did not know if he was bluffing. The man you loved was no longer the kind of monster who’d kill civilians but he had a hair-trigger response when it came to the ones he loved. He wasn’t above going on a murder spree if someone so much as hurt a hair on your head.

“I don’t remember the exact details,” you said nervously, “I was walking down this street. It was late and I just finished my shift. Someone kidnapped me and there were these experiments. They started small. They’d check how long I can stay underwater without drowning but then one day they just electrocuted me.. I’m sorry I can’t.”

It was like you were nineteen again and you could practically taste the blood in your mouth and their methodical procedures-

Mukuro’s warm hands pulled you into a hug. “Shhh. It’s alright. You don’t have to remember anything you don’t want to. I can even erase your memories if you want me to. No more nightmares. Just tell me who did this to you and I will slaughter them all. I promise you their deaths will be a thousand times worse-”

“You already killed them,” you said. “Remember the night you raided the Retro Famiglia for human experimentation? I was one of their test subjects. I escaped. We met because well.. I kept stalking my savior.”

Mukuro frowned. “I need to see if I can bring back the dead to kill them again-”

“Mukuro!”

“Let’s just go to bed. You seem too stressed. I’m glad you stalked me around but I’m no savior. You’re my savior,” Mukuro kissed your forehead and hugged you tightly.

[bublp0pr]

Roletale Sans & Paps

Now the struggle of who to swap first…. the pressure is crazy. Hmmmm. HMMMMmMmmm. Let’s start with the obvious characters you think of in UnderSwap: Sans and Papyrus.

(I don’t know how I’m formatting these or whatever so don’t expect structure that makes complete sense haha. Also i got too lazy to capitalise their names or spell out Papyrus’s full name all the time so i’ll just call him paps)

Main differences to UnderSwap

Normal US

In normal underswap, papyrus becomes the chill laid back one and sans becomes the obsessive one that wants to be a member of the royal guard. Sans chases down papyrus a lot for slacking off but it’s papyrus who’s actually more observant and ends up looking after him. Paps drinks mustard where sans drank ketchup. And for some reason they made sans like tacos. I’m guessing it’s the AU equivalent of pasta for pap? Sans is considered one of the most adorable versions of himself within the multiverse: hyperactive and demonstrating beliefs and understanding similar to a child in some cases, though has been shown to be capable of being more serious in other instances like Errortale.

(askError!Sans, my one true love… will your hiatus ever end??? Error’s ORIGINAL universe-destroying emotionally complex character (not that fan art inkxerror fluff and smut) has imprinted on me for life ;_; Atleast i have Fatal!Error plot to sustain me)

From what I understand of the webcomics, papyrus becomes the one to watch out for in a genocide run, having their own megalovania sequence in the judgement hall. Papyrus is also considered to be the one with a science background. Whether or not he is aware of the timelines isn’t something the webcomics I’ve seen dwell into. Judgement hall would usually imply that he is the character with some awareness of the implications of determination. On the other hand though, it’s swap sans that ends up in multiverse shenanigans more frequently than paps.

Because of how these characters were swapped, it’s like inserting a papyrus straight into sans body and a sans straight into papyrus. Which is pretty impressive. But not the goal of my AU. I want sans to still be sans an paps to still be paps in their own way.

RT

Take puns as a simple example, sans will still love puns and paps will still hate them… you know what? Sentence form of this will take ages. How about I just make this a list of things I’m keeping from UT?

Sans:

likes puns

likes science (this is canon to undertale. Papyrus says so in one of his calls)

cares for his brother deeply

has an awareness of at least the scientific implications and likeliness of resets

won’t fight you unless you give them no other choice because they realise the futility of trying

one day stopped being a scientist probably due to either losing WD or learning about resets

knows an old lady from the other side of a door who shares puns

Paps:

likes making spaghetti

hates puns

will always respond to your calls

fights you in Snowdin

will believe in you when no one else will. Has a a lot of faith in people and trusts that you can do better. To a fault… = )

is capable of being a royal guard but doesn’t have the value set for it (because of previous point)

How, you may ask, can I make this a swap universe when so many things are the not swapped? Well that’s the fun part.

Backstories etc.

Sans

It wouldn’t be swap if sans didn’t aspire to be in the royal guard… and be slightly pathetic at it despite all of his highly motivated efforts. But i have a solution.

What if before the CORE, sans was a scientist who loved puns but didn’t really have any friends and was always focussed on his work? (Remember papyrus didn’t have friends before in UT either so it’s reasonable to impose this scenario on him. Puns aren’t always popular with crowds afterall) He worked with Gaster and then after the… incident, sans had vague recollections of WD and studied determination in an effort to figure out why he can’t remember him properly. With a certain someone playing around with time, this study leads to the reports that show timelines starting and stopping until suddenly, everything just ends.

This comes as a huge blow to him. But not in the way it does in UT, where he finds it harder and harder to care about things because of how powerless he is. Quite the opposite, he starts to realise that if his life doesn’t matter he wants to spend it doing what he wants to do rather than what he’s good at, because there’s no point anyway. He wants friends. He knows paps used to be a royal guard and he’s popular so sans makes it his lifelong dream to become a member of the royal guard and receive a little love and recognition, to bathe in a shower of kisses every morning etc. etc.

Kinda tragic really considering how good he was at science and how terrible he is at his duties. I mean, he only has 1 HP and 1 AT. This is the main reason they haven’t let him in the guard yet, because if he entered a fight he’d just die.

With motivations like that, you can sorta see how a normal sans might show papyrus behaviour, right? No need to just swap the personality entirely.

I will concede to say that in this universe sans has passion for making the puzzles (a normally papyrus trait that i really shouldn’t be adding but it just simplifies things). He tends to make them overly complicated and convoluted in reference to his science background but he always misses the obvious point in their design.

Papyrus

Did you notice I said pap used to be royal guard? Yep. This is one of those I’m-tweaking-with-the-plot-in-a-big-way things. So papyrus in US has a bit more of a level head than UT. Which is sorta hard to bring out in our normal loveable skeleton. 

Let’s say that in this universe he somehow became a royal guard without the struggle he faces in UT. In fact, let’s say that he became a royal guard a long time ago. His vigour and commitment made him a good candidate and they hired him a thought. So, without having to be desperate about getting people’s approval like in UT, he found he didn’t need to try so hard to make friends which actually made him more popular and likeable. 

He was a capable royal guard really. I mean, Undyne admits in UT itself that he’s actually pretty strong. But what stops him from fulfilling his duties is exactly what Undyne notices in him with UT, he’s too morally good for the job.

*queue the weird screen wobble of a backstory*

I’m not sure on the details but in my head, papyrus learns his fault in a serious way. Maybe facing one of the past humans or another monster (I might use this loose end to tie up some other plot point later..). 

Anyway, at some point in the past he confronts an assailant one on one. He knows what he must do: kill them. He’s been in FIGHTs before of course, dealt damage and captured badguys, but he’s never actually turned a living thing into dust. Facing his enemy, he faces a moral conflict at the core of his being. Papyrus can’t kill. Because despite everything, no matter how heinous the crime or horrible the person, he can’t help himself from believing in the potential of others. From hoping that people can do a little better. And as long as he thinks like this he knows he will never be able to rob someone from an opportunity to improve themselves. To give them that chance at change. There, facing this villain just waiting for him to strike, he realises that he will never be able to be a true royal guard.

They stand for what feels like hours but may as well be just moments of real time in a standstill waiting for papyrus to FIGHT, or atleast even ACT. Finally, papyrus relents and shows mercy, giving into his true nature. It’s at this point that Alphys arrives and intervenes, fighting and capturing the assailant. But papyrus has already learnt a lesson about himself that cannot be forgotten.

Despondent, realising what this means for his job, papyrus begins to care less and less about his work. A stigma grows around him. The guard who won’t FIGHT. The laziest member of the force. It’s around this time he starts frequenting Grillby’s. He eventually quits the guard entirely and embraces what people assume he is. Laziness becomes his escape from the blame he places on himself for all the things he HAD done as a guard and the one thing he couldn’t that fateful day.

Years pass and his time in the guard is all but forgotten. Paps is popular, easy-going and doesn’t care to do much of anything. That is until the one thing he does care about intervenes.

Sans and papyrus always had a strong relationship while younger. Paps is one of the only ones who stuck by sans through his awkward scientist days. Before, sans hadn’t cared much for gossip or other people in general and didn’t really bother to learn about why pap left the guard. What he did know was that somehow being on the guard had left him popular all this time later (which motivated his need to be in the royal guard like I said). Because he was concerned about how lazy paps was getting, he encouraged paps to join him as a sentry. 

It’s an offer papyrus couldn’t refuse, knowing how vulnerable sans truly was. Someone needed to keep an eye on him. And really, the dynamic works both ways with sans being there to stop paps from giving up on life entirely some days just by being his perky self.

Dynamic

There’s still that adorable by-play between the bros.

Sans gets frustrated at papyrus for being lazy.

Papyrus silently cringes at the puns sans makes (but he doesn’t react to it like he does in UT)

Despite being the laziest monster in the underground sans still considers him ‘the coolest’

Papyrus somehow always manages to have access to spaghetti 24/7 which drives sans crazy. Sans refuses to eat the spaghetti because of how ridiculous it is. This is supposed to replace the pun thing in UT. I keep thinking of a twist on something in the game: “Papyrus! You need to stop making spaghetti all the time! It’s getting out of hand!” “come on bro, your stomach is grumbling just looking at it.” “I know and i hate it!” 

Instead of a hotdog stand, papyrus has a full-on spaghetti kitchen concealed in his sentry station.

Sans is the one that has all the extra sentry jobs around the underground though that he impossibly manages. Most people don’t question it because he’s always putting 110% into everything he does (but how can he possibly be in so many places at once i wonder... *audible wink* )

Papyrus will give Frisk their phone number and answer their calls whenever for each room but I’ll explain how and why that works in another post (I’ve let this one drag long enough)

To be continued i guess?

Ok... That’s not EVERYTHING. But that’s the basics. I still want to go into how frisk encountering the skelebros would work (like i mentioned with the phone calls), the whole lady behind the door thing (but i’ll probably cover that in the Asgore/Toriel swap), who you fight in the blizzard exiting snowdin, who you date in a true pacifist route and how the whole genocide drama would run down. Not to mention i still need to elaborate on the separate friendships they have with alphys, undyne, hapstablook etc. but i’ll them bring up with their own swaps rather than this one because the skeletons are too integrated with everything and everyone to explain it all here.