#caris would have done NUMBERS if it was a different fandom

[merwgue]

I'm pissed off at the lack of crack shipping in this fandom so

HERE ME THE FUCK OUT AND DONT SHOOT.

Eris and cassian, aka caris

WAIT:

It would begin in a setting charged with tension. Perhaps a formal meeting between courts—a high-stakes negotiation where Cassian, representing the Night Court, would once again meet Eris Vanserra, the calculating and haughty heir of the Autumn Court. The air would be thick with barely concealed disdain. Cassian, his broad shoulders stiff with the need to fight, would scowl as Eris approached, every inch the aristocrat in his pristine armor, hair as red as autumn leaves shimmering in the firelight.

Cassian’s hands would flex, instinctively wanting to curl into fists, but Rhysand’s warning echoed in his mind: This is diplomacy, not a battlefield.

Eris’s eyes would flicker over Cassian, amusement dancing in them. "You’re looking particularly brutish today, General," he’d say, his voice a slow, taunting drawl.

"Careful, Eris," Cassian would growl, "I bite."

But in those heated exchanges, something subtle would shift. Cassian would notice the flicker of something behind Eris’s sharp words—a vulnerability hidden beneath layers of cruelty. Eris, for all his manipulation and cunning, wasn’t as impervious as he seemed. The idea would gnaw at Cassian, whether he liked it or not.

The next step toward something deeper would come not from a shared desire, but necessity. Both courts, forced into an alliance against a common enemy, would demand that Cassian and Eris work together. Rhysand and Feyre would push for it, and though Cassian would hate the idea, he would have no choice. The battlefield would demand cooperation.

At first, their partnership would be a disaster. Their egos would clash—Cassian's brute force against Eris’s strategic mind. But slowly, as they fought side by side, something unexpected would emerge: respect. Cassian would begrudgingly admire how Eris maneuvered the battlefield with precision, directing their forces like a chess master. Eris would begin to see beyond Cassian's brute strength, recognizing the fierce loyalty and protectiveness that drove him.

After one particularly brutal fight, where they narrowly escaped death, Eris would look at Cassian with something akin to curiosity. He’d mutter, half to himself, "You’re not as idiotic as you look, you know."

Cassian, breathless from battle, would chuckle, wiping blood from his face. "You’re not as much of a prick as I thought."

That would be the first moment where the heat between them wasn’t just anger—it was something more complex. A shared understanding, a respect for each other's skills, and maybe even the first glimmer of attraction.

But their walls would only come down slowly, piece by piece. The real turning point would happen one night when they were forced to take shelter in a cave, the flames of their campfire casting shadows on the walls. The air would be tense, the quiet between them thick with unspoken words.

Cassian, ever the direct one, would break the silence first. "Why do you do it, Eris? Play their games? Your father’s? Beron’s? You’re better than him."

Eris’s eyes would flash, his cold mask slipping for just a second. "You think I have a choice, Cassian? You think I enjoy being trapped under my father’s rule?"

The vulnerability in Eris’s voice would catch Cassian off guard. He’d expected the usual snide remarks, but instead, there was rawness. For once, Eris wasn’t playing a game. Cassian would be quiet for a moment before he said, "I don’t know your life, but I know what it’s like to feel trapped."

Eris would scoff, the mask slipping back into place. "Please, you were raised by the Night Court’s High Lord, free to be your brutish self."

"I was raised in a war camp," Cassian would snap, the words coming out harsher than he meant. "I wasn’t even part of the Night Court until Rhys made me one of his own. And for a long time, I felt like I didn’t deserve it. Like I didn’t belong."

Eris would go still, staring at Cassian as if seeing him for the first time. He wouldn’t say anything, but there would be an understanding between them, a shared pain that neither of them had spoken aloud before.

Over time, that understanding would deepen. The sarcastic jabs between them would soften into something more playful, and the tension that once had them at each other’s throats would turn into a different kind of tension altogether. It would happen slowly, almost without them realizing it.

The first kiss would come after a particularly heated argument. Eris, tired of pretending, would shove Cassian against a wall in frustration, his hands shaking with fury. Cassian, breathing hard, would grab Eris’s wrists, the heat between them crackling like a fire. And then, without thinking, they’d both lean in—anger turning into something much more explosive.

Afterward, they wouldn’t talk about it. Not at first. The confusion and denial would eat away at both of them. They would fall back into old patterns, bickering and fighting, but now there would be an undercurrent of desire in every word, every glance.

Eventually, though, they wouldn’t be able to ignore it anymore. One night, after another battle, Cassian would find Eris standing alone by a river, staring out at the water. Cassian would approach, silent for once, and stand beside him.

Eris wouldn’t look at him, but after a long pause, he’d say, "It’s easier to hate you, you know."

Cassian would nod, understanding exactly what he meant. "Yeah. Same."

They’d stand there for a long time, the silence between them comfortable now, filled with the weight of everything they’d been through. And then, softly, Eris would admit, "I don’t hate you anymore."

Cassian’s heart would twist at the words. He’d look at Eris, and for the first time, he’d see past the sharp exterior to the man beneath—the one who’d been fighting his own demons for far longer than Cassian had ever known. And he’d realize, with a start, that he didn’t hate Eris either. Not even close.

They wouldn’t need to say the words. Their love would be unspoken, a fire burning quietly between them. But it would be real, undeniable, and powerful.

And it would remain theirs, hidden from the rest of the world. Not until the doors were truly closed.

[spongeguyandlelouchvibridankia]

SpongeGuy Reviews Every Disney Cartoon Ever!: DuckTales (2017) (3.6): “Astro B.O.Y.D!”

Now wait: What’s this, you ask? You’re supposed to do the first episode!

Well, a quick explanation: So this marathon goes faster and becomes easier to keep up with, I’m reviewing episodes when they come out as well (for things like DuckTales, Elena of Avalor, Owl House, ETC.). So that way, we can just get this done faster.

So, without further ado, DUCKTALES! WOO WOO!

DuckTales is the 2017 reboot of the original Ducktales from 1987, one in which our beloved disney ducks get deeper stories and funnier jokes. Yeah, I prefer this to the original (tho I saw only a teensie bit of the original, so that comparision will have to wait) but yeah, I like this show about DUCKS, get used to it!

And this episode is a real gem, so let’s get to it!

SUMMERY:  Huey befriends B.O.Y.D. (Noah Baird) while on a camping trip, but the latter malfunctions. When Huey takes him to the lab, Gyro recognizes B.O.Y.D. and insists that he's dangerous. Due to B.O.Y.D.'s malfunctions however, he begrudgingly takes them to Tokyolk to fix him before he becomes a threat; with Fenton providing protection. After being accosted by Inspector Tezuka (Tamlyn Tomita) and getting separated from Gizmoduck while foiling a robbery, Huey and B.O.Y.D. bond further. However, Gyro's former mentor, Dr. Akita (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), learns of the android's return and takes control of him to get revenge. While fighting Akita, Gyro remembers caring for B.O.Y.D. like a real boy, and discovers that Akita overwrote his programming and forced B.O.Y.D. to become a weapon. With Lil Bulb's help, Gyro beats Akita and reconciles with B.O.Y.D. Now in control of his programming, B.O.Y.D. starts living life for himself, while Gyro promotes Fenton.

COMEDY: 2 Out of 5

Ok, I know this seems bad: I just said this episode was a gem, yet the comedy is only a 2? Well, here’s the thing: It’s not that the comedy is bad. After all, the 2017 Ducktales is famous for having some REALLY awesome jokes (including one of my all time favorites), and in general every episode has a collection of great gags.

But it’s not that the comedy here is bad, it’s that it barely exists. Perhaps I didn’t notice a few jokes, perhaps I’m remembering wrong, but most of the episode if not all is dedicated to the story beats and action sequences, befitting for what is, in essence, a pretty heavy episode. There isn’t much time for humor, and the little there is (Gyro and Dr. Akita’s “epic” fight, Fenton constantly crashing into things, Tezuka being crazy violent, B.O.Y.D insisting on his acronym) are fine jokes, Jokes that aren’t bad in any way, jokes that are pretty good!

But they can only result in a 2 due to the utter lack of them. And this feels wrong, because the rest of the episode is totally perfect, but at least now I can get to praising it. Just remember: The episode wasn’t not funny, it just didn’t try to be. And that’s ok.

CHARACTERS: 5 Out of 5

There are 4 characters here getting a focus episode: Fenton (who was already a fave), Huey, B.O.Y.D, and Gyro. I wanna dedicated a paragraph to each to talk about how Ducktales treats ALL it’s characters with the respect and development they deserve, be it only a little or a whole lot.

Let’s start with Fenton, the focus character with the least to do and change but still with a lot to show. Fenton has four roles in this episode: To tell B.O.Y.D what he should be so that we can understand that’s not ok; to serve as a contrast to B.O.Y.D as the “good” robot; to serve as a reflection of what Gyro was, and what Gyro perhaps should encourage again, and also as a reminder to Gyro of who he was, explaining to us his treatment of Fenton; and finally, as an extra step in Fenton’s journey. In previous focus episodes Fenton wasn’t TOO keen on being Gizmoduck. It started off as an accident, turned into his destiny in “I Am GizmoDuck”, but was still a problem in the Gandra Dee episode. But now in “Astro B.O.Y.D”, Gizmoduck isn’t just a job, or an annoying side habit, it’s a privilige. Seeing Fenton so happy to go superheroing, so enthusiastic to teach someone else the job, in general just so optimistic ater recent episodes had him down on his luck shows how one of the smallest arcs in the show has been staggeringly amazing!

And that’s just Fenton, the smallest of the 4 arcs here! Let’s talk about Huey. This is Huey’s focus season, the one where he will face a challenge that may break him. So far, he hasn’t had TOO many focus episode, as we’re up to 7 and there will be about 25 episodes, but no need to fear, we’ve been slowly getting that arc. Huey has been competitive and driven so far this season, constantly needing to question things around him and constantly being asked about trust. Trust is a key theme here, and Huey falls on the trusting side, something I think he would normally do since it’s Louie’s job to be the skeptic. And it’s no surprise Huey is trusting of B.O.Y.D when they are so familar. Now, there is a reason why I like Huey’s arc in this, but I must say: I am not on the autism spectrum (at least to my knowledge), so I can’t say if this is good representation, if it even is representation. I really can’t. I have seen MANY people say that this was one hell of an autism representation, and if that’s the case, that’s great! But be it autism or not, Huey’s role in the episode as the one person who trusts B.O.Y.D is one any of the triplets would have taken, only thanks to good writing it could ONLY be Huey, since Huey gets what it’s like to be different, which he always was. He was the most mature, the “nerd”, the one who is less likely to cause shenanigans, the one whose always thinking. But what I love about him is that unlike most of these kinds of characters, he can feel too, and it’s not a joke. His compassion and trust for B.O.Y.D are lovely and I wouldn’t be shocked if this episode is instrumental in his arc.

Next we have B.O.Y.D himself (or I guess just Boyd now)! Boyd is the protagonist of sorts, and I really enjoy his role here! Before this episode Boyd was just sort of a cute character we all enjoyed in that one episode with Louie and Goldie. The fandom went wild for him, and soon enough he had his own episode here, and BOY(d) did they deliver! Boyd is a Pinocchio of sorts, wishing only to be a real boy, and to have a friend. He gets one from Huey of course, but his real boy status is the true quest. The great thing about the episode is the way it portrays how we look for validation from others, and how even the people with good intentions in our lives can have bad influences. Fenton tries to help Boyd by making him a superhero, but that’s not who he is. Tezuka wants to stop Boyd because he is dangerous, as does Gyro at first, and Akita wants him to be dangerous, but Boyd doesn’t want any of those things. As Huey points out, only when Boyd was allowed to be himself, a real boy, then nothing went wrong. So often in life people try to pull us in different directions, thinking they know what’s best for us. And while guidence and validation aren’t wrong (after all It’s Gyro’s loving words that save Boyd), it’s Boyd’s decision to be himself that makes him finally happy in the end.

But of course, we can’t speak of this episode without speaking of Gyro Gearloose. Like many who had experienced at least a little DuckTales, I had enough duck knowledge to know that Gyro was a happy go lucky and optimistic inventor, more Fenton than whatever this Gyro was. I wasn’t TOO much of a duck fan to be bothered by this, and I did like some of the jokes it brought, but it DID feel a little weird to see him become a... Well, jerk. But of course, when DuckTales does something there is a reason. Just like Gandra became an actual character and just like Daisy became an actual person, so did Gyro. In fact, this episode deals with the fact that Gyro was once like Fenton: Bright eyes, optimistic, wanting nothing more than to make people happy with his work. Boyd was supposed to be a good boy, Gyro never wanted him to be a weapon. And it’s this little revelation that sheds light on his entire character: Gyro takes shit from no one because when he did he lost everything. Gyro says his inventions are wildly misunderstood because Boyd was. Gyro’s inventions keep going evil exactly because of that: Thinking that he made Boyd evil when it was Akita who changed the robot explains why they keep going wrong now. Gyro’s anger at Fenton is anger at himself, since he fears another mistake (no wonder he didn’t want Fenton to be Gizmoduck). In other words, it ALL makes sense now. And who can blame him? But, like the Gepetto he truly is, Gyro ends up caring for Boyd after all, and seemingly deciding to be less cynical about life. So, in a way, Boyd isn’t the only one that got life.

STORY AND HEART: 5 Out of 5

What I said above is probably good for this as well, so I’m not sure what to say here. I mean, I already talked about how beautiful the story is, how lovely the ideas are. THAT HUG Gyro and Boyd share is wonderful, the setting is fun, the action beats add a lot. I mean, it’s a near perfect DuckTales episode. Not much to say!

I don’t usually do this, but @suspendersofdisbelief​ thank you for gracing us with this masterpiece. I hope I did it justice.

FINAL SCORE: 12 Out of 15

If it wasn’t for the fact that I love Amphibia THAT much, and the fact that I know Ducktales gets EVEN better, this would be number 1! Anyway, next time we finally tackle the new adventures of Winnie the Pooh!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/194d3gsPrhlOsFPYsXU-lJirY4sWncrBl/edit#heading=h.dfyq7ib3oe7s

[toongrrl-blog]

Pink Power Rankings (Pt. 1)

Hi I am here to look at famous pink outfits in film and TV history and figure out: is pink a power color for this character? I choose to leave out obvious ones like Pink Power Ranger because, duh it’s in her name and this is gonna be a long list. Also avoiding real-life figures and onscreen depictions of real life figures because keeping it short (and I don’t have the time)

Pictured above are the bridesmaids at First Daughter Luci Baines Johnson’s wedding in the 1960s. 

Mimi Tachikawa

She is the most obvious pick from Digimon and the girl most decked out in pink. To paraphrase this video from The Take: there was once a show about a strange world beyond our own, somehow a group of preteens were pulled into this world not of their accord, including a young 10 year old girl. Along with her friends they were exposed to the elements and fought monsters out to harm them, she was sexually harassed by two clearly adult digimon, uncomfortable with the elements, often had to put up with toxic masculine BS, and was often snarked at by the story and even some of her own friends for being so girly and into pink. Of course some audiences and the story were overcome with sympathy with this girl pulled away from a familiar world...

Just kidding! They weren’t and some audiences even gave her a lot of shit and this has only been recently examined. For a while Mimi Tachikawa had a problem that seemed to be well known by a lot of female characters, like Carmella Soprano, Betty and Megan Draper, Margaret Sterling, and yes Skyler White. Put a flawed, complicated woman character alongside more charismatic (and male) characters and she will be disliked (despite the audience being more likely to be she than the menfolk held up as icons). 

This is sad because looking back, Mimi was truly a badass all along: she sticks up for herself, speaks up for herself, she is unapologetic about her love of pink and girly things, she is quick to tell guys when they are getting in her space, she’s honest, she lets Tanemon go on and fight with only a sincere question if she really is going to while the others hold their Digimon down, she stands up against the Numemon who were harassing her and her friends, and she was funny as hell. Sadly it took a long while for fans to grow up but many of us, especially girls, reclaimed her as our own. It also helped that Mimi came before girly icons like Elle Woods, Leslie Knope, and Joan Holloway and also before the boom in Gen X and Millennial women contributing to comedy and starting their own stand-up specials and movies and TV.

Power Ranking: 10, all because she held her own, no matter the haters and was glad to see us no matter how odd. 

Karen Wheeler

Another complicated lady, this time older and from the 1980s. This is Karen Wheeler of Hawkins, Indiana whose children are off on their own adventure. She is trying to tap into her sexual power here. It’s dicey because the man in question is a young man and she is a unhappily married affluent housewife in the suburbs; she agrees to meet him at the motel for “private swimming lessons” and does herself up in a way inappropriate for swimming lessons (in Scarlet Letter Red to boot!), only to be stopped by the sight of her lazy husband sleeping on the Laz-E-Boy with their youngest child Holly on his chest. This season sees Karen open up to her two older children over the patriarchy and saying goodbye to a best friend and girlfriend after confessing his love for her.

Power Ranking: 6, because her sexual power was on shaky ground and only based on her looks and attention from a man but she shows some character development that season. 

Nancy Wheeler

This look was a game changer, but Nancy is no stranger to pink and preppiness. Here she is wearing an outfit that recalls the postwar “Boyfriend Shirt” from Brooks Brothers for the female collegiate set and it’s updated with long loose but pinned hair and designer (or mock) jeans. In this outfit she goes monster hunting with her younger brother Mike’s best friend’s older brother and Nancy’s classmate, Jonathon Byers and squares off with slut-shaming police officers and a mother who chastises her for lying about her whereabouts and losing her virginity while Nancy’s best friend Barb Holland is missing and she also tells off boyfriend Steve for trying to cover his ass by not participating in the police investigation. This is the look (which can easily double as office wear) when you want to go straight from school where you have an impeccable GPA to monster hunting in your neck of the woods to find the whereabouts of your best friend and for fighting the patriarchy. 

Power Ranking: 8, this is a girl on the move as we can see with her rolled up sleeves. 

Eleven

The Iconic Look, the look where she made a boy wet his pants, found two missing kids, broke a bully’s arm. The Polly Flinders dress would alter the way we see girls in dainty pastel pink dresses. 

Power Ranking: 10, can you do all that without touching someone?

Barb Holland

The most tragic look for this was the sweater that Barbara Holland (1967-1983) wore when she was taken by the Demogorgan and killed. This was the look where she was the recipient of a wet willie from a boy who looked down on her and her best friend who was dating his popular friend, the look where she accompanied her best friend reluctantly to the popular boy’s party, and where her friend turned her back on her concerns. This is the look of a passive and traditional (to her detriment) femininity. She did gain a huge following who cried foul over her fate. 

Power Ranking: 4, points up for the fandom and devotion but she wasn’t empowered. 

Erica Sinclair

That was depressing, let’s go to the girl who embodies America: Hawkins resident wise-ass, the girl who kept her observations and words as tight as her corn rows, and her planning as precise as her perfectly well done baby hairs (Black readers, feel free to correct me as I document her fabulousness), My Little Pony nerd and Economics wonk, and American Heroine. Erica sassed her way into Stranger Things with a raised eyebrow and a lusciously girly girl wardrobe that stands out and fits in with her Midwestern environment. She’s no stranger to pink and she commands attention and the best service at Scoops Ahoy and manages to get several ice cream dishes for free (the most elaborate ones) before getting in on finding the secret Soviet military base. Girlfriend manages to deal with teenage shenanigans, assassins, creatures from another world, near-death experiences, almost being captured by foreign enemies and the most awkward sing-a-long ever. She doesn’t seem to have lost her child-appropriate enthusiasm for games even when telling off old balding men for getting her age right.

Power Ranking: 10, you can’t spell America without Erica

Joan Holloway

Pink is an appropriate color for the resident femme intellectual of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, it shows that Joan is willing to defy “the rules” of fashion for redheads (she also wears red) and it ties into her 1950s persona of the bombshell who is trying to get married to a man who’d move her out to the upper-middle class suburbs and she wouldn’t have to work. That was Joan at the beginning: over time she started to own her natural independent streak and her willingness to buck expectations of her based on her gender and looks but also deals with the same men who ogle her, disrespecting her intellect, her hard work ethic, and even her body (fuck you Greg Harris). In this fuchsia number (still in the pink family), she sets up a luncheon with a colleague (Peggy Olson) where she pitches the idea of them setting up a production company with their names, while Peggy didn’t take, Joan starts her own “Holloway & Harris” with her babysitter and mother. Sealing her end as a strong, productive, independent woman who learned to own herself as she was. 

Power Ranking: 10, men may like scarves but women like not being tethered to men. 

Betty Draper Francis

Meet Elizabeth Hofstadt Francis and her ex-husband Don Draper (actually Dick Whitman), for about 10 years of marriage, they have enjoyed a union where they looked like a couple right out of a magazine, he being a square jawed handsome self-made man with an athletic build who often is compared to old-school movie stars like Tyrone Power or Clark Gable or Cary Grant and she, a beautiful model from a wealthy family in the Main Line area of Philadelphia who studied anthropology at Bryn Mawr and speaks fluent Italian and is often compared to Grace Kelly (and other Hitchcock Blondes). But the interior of their perfect colonial in the suburbs hid an ugly reality where she suffered from ennui and was a brat to her kids while he gaslighted and cheated on her with other women, more modern women, like she wasn’t enough. Eventually she found out his true identity and floored that she had been living a lie and gave up her last name for an imposter, she divorced him and married a man she met at her husband’s work function. 

About three years later, Don is happily married with a younger and much more modern woman (Megan Draper) while Betty is married to a man who loves and accepts her even at her worst but to her chagrin has put on a lot of weight (a blow to a former model who grew up being raised that weight gain or being fat was the worst thing a woman could be) and she hasn’t dealt with her unhappiness in a productive manner. 

For a while well into 1968, she accepted the extra pounds (although looking like she lost some) and coming middle-age and even dyed her hair black, until her new husband tells her he plans to run for office and as he was excitedly recounting what is to be done, says “Everyone will see you” not knowing that his young, vain wife would read this scenario differently and after assessing her new look to an old evening gown of her’s, she sped up her weight loss and returned to her slim and blonde look that turned heads. Soon she takes a drive to her son’s summer camp and runs into her ex-husband and they feel the old spark and sleep together; it is there she tells him that he as a lover is different than him as a husband and admits about the young wife she looked down on, “That Poor Girl, she doesn’t know that loving you is the worst thing to get to you”. Next morning she has breakfast with her new husband, who is none the wiser, while Don heads back to the city. But is Betty really happy?

Power Ranking: 7, not satisfied but has received some closure about her relationship with her ex-husband. 

Sally Draper

This is Sally in her birthday party dress. On that day her father built her a pastel colored playhouse, Mother prepared treats for the adults and kids for her birthday party, she and her friends played out their parents’ (admittedly shitty) marriages at the playhouse, her father goes out to get her birthday cake from the bakery and returns only with a golden retriever named Polly, while her unhappy mother fumes about her husband doing something shitty and humiliating and not being allowed to ream him out because he brought a dog and that makes him the good guy. 

Power Ranking: 5, she gets a dog but is still young and dependent on her messy parents. 

Rachel Menken

Meet Rachel Menken Katz, running into her ex Don Draper while he is out with his latest mistress and she with her husband Tilden Katz. She would end this series as dying from cancer after having two young children and running her father’s department store and instead of flowers, requesting that donations be made for a Jewish hospital in the Jell-O Belt. In 1960 she fell in love with an ad man who proved to have been miserable and having lost his mother during his birth, as she did, she also competed in what was called “a man’s world” at a time when women were relegated to assistant roles at best and she split from him when he wants to run away with her, mostly because he wants to run away from his issues and not because of his feelings for her. As her sister Barbara said, “she had everything”.

Power Ranking: 8, she ends up dying young but she manages to “have it all”. 

Megan Draper

Meet Megan Calvet, later to become Megan Draper. How does she become the next Mrs. Draper? At this timeline, Don Draper is dealing with life after divorcing Betty Draper (now Francis) and is trying (and failing) to quit alcohol and trying to date the intelligent, warm, no-nonsense, and close-to-his-age Dr. Faye Miller. But that night Megan, who noticed she caught her boss’s eye, decides to make the moves and in a uncharacteristically demure (many fans thought she looked frumpy here) but at worst basic outfit, she sleeps with him. This is the outfit for a quickie that later won his heart and has him pop the question and she becomes part of Creative at their work. But is this really for the best?

Power Ranking: 7, she married Don Draper but then again she married Don Draper. 

Peggy Olson

Meet Peggy Olson, who officially walked away from the things holding her back from feeling at ease with herself and her choices. After a whole season where the priest impressed by her skills has learned that Peggy had a child out of wedlock and put him up for adoption and starts pressuring her to admit her “sin” while Peggy would rather move on with her life, she tells him they don’t see eye to eye and walks away from the Catholic Church and while the Cuban Missile Crisis is going on, she lays down in her bed with the pink comforter and pillows with her pink floral nightgown, she lays herself down to sleep and prays with a contented look on her face.

Power Ranking: 9, she’s not fully absolved of the issues plaguing her but refusing to wear a hairshirt and beat herself up? Awesome. 

Dawn Chambers

Meet Dawn Chambers, from 1966-1968, she was the only black person (let alone black secretary) at the uber-white Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (pun intended for the decor) and like many minorities in positions occupied by less marginalized people, Dawn had to keep her head low and not stand out (despite some co-workers considering her as remarkable as a sore thumb). But then in 1968, she made the mistake of punching in for a co-worker and they get caught by Joan Holloway (and it’s so horrid, thank God Don Draper intervened on Dawn’s behalf and Pete reminds them of how the ad agencies are being looked at for their minority quotas). This was also the season where Dawn took to wearing blazers over her blouses and skirts or dresses and here Dawn is wearing a conservative grey blazer over a pink shirt with ruffles down the front and a red plaid skirt when her work life alters for the...better? It is there that Joan sternly gives her the promotion of keeper of the keys, title not pay, and Dawn tells her that she decided she doesn’t care whether other people in the office hate her but she doesn’t want to disappoint Joan, who withholds any warmth or approval. The next season we see Dawn stand up to a entitled and mediocre white man (Lou Avery) and first she is moved to reception and then she takes over Joan’s post as Office Manager (With her own office! And the salary!) while Joan goes upstairs to her own office in Accounts. 

Power Ranking: 10, this is a big fucking deal for a Black Woman in a mostly-White corporate setting during the 1960s. 

Trudy Campbell

1970, Trudy Vogel Campbell has remarried her estranged husband Pete and they are moving out to Wichita, Kansas with their young daughter Tammy where he will work a plush job for Lear Jet (and they are being flown out by them!). 

For the past ten years, Trudy and Pete have had a difficult marriage where he was dissatisfied with the choices he made and that he really didn’t want to marry her, and Trudy had to deal with being a woman with fertility issues at a time when motherhood was seen as a primary goal for women and women who didn’t have kids or chose not to were seen as weird at best. They had to deal with pressure from her father to adopt, his parents snotty issues, she had to deal with her husband’s attitude, his envy of others, and his cheating. But Trudy laid her boundaries and was able to stand up to her husband, without losing her gracious manner and her zest for society. She tried to be a supportive wife and she found some common ground with him, when it comes to common decency and politics, and they make an amazing pair on the dance floor. 

Then came the end after their divorce: they behave more amicably, he’s more involved with their young daughter, he fights for Trudy, and he gives an amazing pitch for her to come back. She takes him back but lets him know that she isn’t the same girl he married a decade before and she looks at things for how they are. 

Plus she is gonna rule Wichita!

Power Ranking: 8, she accepts there will be compromises but states her boundaries and has them met and will be a society wife. 

Elle Woods

Who shows up in court in LA hot sandals, a pink tote bag for her canine companion Bruiser, long glossy hair, and a curve-hugging but professional power dress in shocking pink? Elle Woods. After trying hard to be taken seriously by her fuckboi ex Warner and her snotty, neutral toned Harvard classmates and learning that her Professor got her in an internship for a important lawcase (where they defend her fellow Sorority Sister) just for her looks, she leans into both her natural intelligence, expertise, and love of pink and all things girly to defend her friend and solve the case. 

Also can we talk about how both Legally Blonde and Bridget Jones’s Diary are both movies where the attractive blonde protagonist is humiliated by showing up for a costume party in a Playboy Bunny costume under false pretenses and she deals with sexual harassment and being underestimated regarding her intellect? But LB ages better because it kinda pokes fun at the beauty myth more and is more inter-sectional and Elle finds supportive women to add to her posse of supportive sisters and she supports other women in turn.

Power Ranking: 10, Sisterhood and owning your personality quirks and interests and boldly defending others is always a win. Case Dismissed. 

Lorelei Lee

The ultimate Pink Power icon and the one who set the path for all femme-y and cute loving blonde protagonists with wit and ambition. This is the song for a woman who sings about how transactional heteronormative relationships in the mid-century were and how the performative actions of men in heterosexual relationships don’t do much to improve women’s lives, like paying the rent and that they would use women for their own uses and could be shallow enough to dump women if they lost their beauty and/or got older, so for insurance make sure you get money or rather things that can be hocked and worn with pride, like diamonds. Tom & Lorenzo covered this in their One Iconic Look series and this sequenced has been spoofed several times in Hey Arnold!, Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, Birds of Prey, and most famously by Madonna, and it is the look for women who not only feel good about their curves but also want to show them off.  As T&Lo said about the ditzy Lorelai and her savvier friend Dorothy Malone (Jane Russell):

These women were all about power, control, and looking out for each other. Men were side stories or play things.

And in the repressive Fifties it was outrageously pink and smelt of female sexual power (pink pussies). 

Power Ranking: 11, hawwwwwwww that’s what you get for having an iconic and referenced look!

Marge Simpson

The most nostalgically remembered outfit in cartoons and the most written about in think pieces and articles by Millennial women who grew up watching The Simpsons and the rest of what the Animation Renaissance had to offer. In “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield”, the family goes out to the outlet mall in Ogdenville where Marge and Lisa happen upon a beautiful pink Chanel suit that even left my cartoon-apathetic mother enthusiastic and Marge is soon seen by a old high school friend who mistakes her for being wealthy and Marge goes along with the ruse and is invited to Country Club activities with the ladies where she shows up in several talented alterations of her suit (until getting destroyed by Santa’s Little Helper, RIP Iconic suit), she also gives her family a hard time about how they don’t fit into that Country Club Scene and then when forced to see how she hurt them (and even Baby Maggie), turns around and tells them she loves Homer’s sense of humor, Lisa’s compassion and outspoken human rights politics, and just loves Bart (even if she can’t figure what she likes about him). 

This also happens to be another instance where Marge sacrifices a social life (she’s not seen with a lot of friends who have her back, aside from a brief time with Ruth Powers), chances for social mobility, and her own self-improvement for her family. While we love a mother who prioritizes her family’s autonomy, we still kind of hope that she didn’t have to sacrifice her own identity for her family. 

Power Ranking: 8, points for the iconic suit and it’s layered meanings. 

Bridget Jones

A rare move of power for a normally powerless and insecure woman and in a shocking pink blouse and black slacks that show off her hourglass curves and go with her coloring. 

Pink is not a color Bridget isn’t familiar with, especially with this deleted scene that shows her in Pink Passivity (and it looks delicate on a blonde with blue eyes and pale skin but could risk her fading but I as a brunette would look popping!). But here after entering a relationship with Daniel Cleaver (who is a walking red flag) and finding out he was keeping her as his side-ho to his skinny, bitchy American girlfriend and colleague and I have my problems with Bridget Jones as a series (which would take several parts) and I can talk about how Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway were a lot better written versions of her (klutziness and awkwardness but succeeding!). But this is a huge power move where Bridget wears a simple outfit that owns her looks (even being affirmed by a older and previously antagonistic co-worker that she’s actually thinner than the average woman and she can’t back down, like ever) and is able to quit her job for a better and more glamorous job and tell off her ex-boyfriend for how poorly he has treated her. And all her co-workers smile off as she walks off in triumph after telling Daniel she’d rather wipe Saddam Hussein’s ass. I kinda wish I could go Joan Rivers on Daniel here. 

Also points on that bolder shade of pink. 

Power Ranking: 10, no one gets to burn a cheating, manipulative bridge like that (and yes she is conventionally prettier than I but that’s not the point). 

Alice Macray

I know, I should shut my mouth and wear beige but my personal color analysis says I’m a winter person.

It’s an interesting power move, albeit within the confines of patriarchal society and even the only defiance that wouldn’t get her tsked at because she is serving the Male Gaze. And yet it’s a natural part of her characterization in this part of the series: the traditional housewife stubbornly keeping her pedestal and fighting to stall progress for other women pursuing other paths (part of wearing beige and shutting up as Mother of the Groom is to allow the Bride to take center stage) but it’s also a path she had to take what with being a dyslexic in a less informed and intolerant era and growing up in a sheltered, conservative Catholic family. This is also the outfit she wears when she spots a younger wife being forcibly yanked by her husband, alluding that the patriarchy isn’t benevolent. 

This isn’t her first time in pink, or even a pink and blue combination: she wears pink when she goes and gives out bread to defeat the feminists at the Illinois Legislature, she wears pink and blue when Bella Abzug calls on her and her peers’ hypocrisy, she drinks a Pink Lady when she is given a “Christian Pill” and it matches her lavender dress. It’s also ironic: pink, white, and blue are the colors of the Transgender pride flag and she is defending White Heternormative Cisnormative Christian Values TM and it’s also a color combo that shows up in the beauty parlor she frequents where she and her friends wring their hands over working women gaining more ground and feeling that their comfortable privilege is being taken away by women who sully their hands working outside the home while they stay home with their children in their coordinated pastels and have maids of color keep their worlds nice and orderly. 

But she is wearing a pink maxi dress with a high neckline and a very prominent hat that provides very ladylike shade for her fair skin, just like our first Pink Power Girl Mimi Tachikawa, and like Mimi, Alice will take a life-altering short trip to Wonderland. And like Pink Power Girl Eleven, she finds her true hidden power and starts wearing more saturated colors as time goes on. 

Power Ranking: 5, she is on her way to breaking out of her little safe world and doing more than subverting a wedding tradition. 

[aetherschreiber]

The Cycle of Fandom

I am an early Millennial.  As a 1982 baby, I literally came of age in the year 2000.  A lot of hay has been made about how my generation does things differently from our parents.  And by now, plenty of it has been made about why, as well.  I won’t rehash the talking points, but it comes down to how much things changed in our formative years.  Our parents went from vinyl to 8-tracks.  We went from cassette tapes to CDs to MP3 players to streaming over our phones.  That’s a lot to have to adapt to and as a result adapting is just what we do.

But when it comes to fandom, the human condition really hasn’t changed that much.  People like things and when they like things they obsess, collect, analyze, and sadly they eventually eventually gate-keep.

Now, let me preface all of this by saying that I don’t really have any citations for any of this.  But, as someone who was thoroughly raised in fandom, I also have a tendency to get hooked on things a lot of my generation would scoff at for being old.  I love the original Lost in Space and Man from UNCLE, the very first Mobile Suit Gundam is my favorite, I’m fascinated by the puppetry in Thunderbirds, and I’m a complete sucker for just about anything with Cary Grant.  I will binge-watch classic Doctor Who as much as I will the new stuff and love every moment of each for what it is.

For most Millennials, this isn’t the case, for whatever reason.  It’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing.  It just is.  Most folks in my generation have heavy nostalgia for the 80s at the oldest and just don’t really concern themselves with very much from before that.  It’s not that they don’t have an appreciation, but they don’t have the resulting fangirl crush I have on David McCallum that I will commiserate with my mother about (Illya Kuryakin is an adorable badass and I will die on that hill).

I like to think that this has given me a bit of a unique view on fandom, in general.  I participate in some older fandoms, where things move a bit more slowly and where the average age is usually at least one generation removed from me and therefore a bit wiser in a lot of ways.  They’ve just sort of... already covered this ground, so to speak.

The difference is the pace at which they did it.  But the cycle is the same.

It’s never anything that starts maliciously.  No fan I know of has ever set out to point-blank keep someone else from liking the thing.  Rather it starts with a sense of seniority.  “You like this thing, now, too?  Great!  I was there for the beginning and let me tell you, back then...”  It’s always like a fandom big sibling who wants to show their younger counterpart the ropes; get them proper caught-up and versed in the lore so that they can better participate.

I love fandom when it’s at this stage and it’s the type of fan I strive to be at all times.  I don’t like setting conditions for fandom.  I think it’s partly because I am such a late-comer to so many.  The idea of being a fan of something that was made 30 years or more before you were born is a hell of a thing, but I’ve never let that stop me.  And for the most part, these fandoms that are much older than I am have reached the point where they are welcoming and just sort of stuck in the big sibling stage.  Sure, you have the occasional troll, the guy that scoffs that I can’t understand because I wasn’t there at the very beginning.  But they’re usually slapped to the ground pretty quickly by everyone else.

There is the occasional exception, of course.  But one of the things those such fandoms have in common is that there is still new content being made for it.  Doctor Who is a prime example, as is Star Trek, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings (yes, I do count the upcoming Amazon series and other non-book content as new content, deal with it).  There’s something about new content being made for a fandom that causes an odd anxiety that thing that the fandom loves is going to be somehow ruined.

I’m going to use Doctor Who as an example for a lot of this.  The show turned 56 years old this last November.  56 years!  And the fact that it had a couple of decade-long breaks in there, which were themselves only separated by a single two-hour movie, only serve to highlight the changes it went through.

My second-oldest memory is of Doctor Who.  I remember the regeneration from Tom Baker to Peter Davison.  Now, Whovian historians, before you freak out because that change-over happened in 1981, before I was even born, remember that back then the US got episodes around two and three years later than the BBC, in syndication on public television channels.  So for me, that change happened when I was two.  I remember there being some Big Thing (tm) that my dad was anticipating.  I remember the burgundy and red outfit that Tom Baker was wearing while laying stricken on the ground, surrounded by his companions.  And I remember him suddenly turning into a blond and sitting up, wide-eyed and mystified.  I didn’t understand any of it at the time, of course.  And so I also remember turning to my dad, who was watching with excitement, while the credits were rolling and asking why the man turned into another man.  Oddly, that’s where the memory ends.  I don’t remember the response.  In fact, it’s only having since seen that episode as an adult that I have been able to identify it for what it was.

After that, I don’t have much in the way of Doctor Who related memories until the Paul McGann movie in 1996.  I was 14 and not well-steeped in Whovian lore at the time and I thought it was great.  My dad was more luke-warm to it because it just wasn’t the same as what he grew up with.  It was a sentiment shared by many, unfortunately, which meant that Paul McGann’s wonderful take on the Doctor was relegated purely to audio adventures until the 50th anniversary in 2013.  Sadly, in the early days of the internet, those of us who liked it weren’t quite able to find each other yet.  In the days of Usenet and mailing lists, it was still only the most hardcore fans of a thing who got together to geek out.  Meaning that most of the conversation was “oh, that’s all wrong.”  Lurking in those conversations, I saw pretty much every tremulous young person who dared to say that they liked it get slapped to the ground and told they weren’t a fan of “the real thing.”

Gate-keeping.  It’s nothing new.  And in 1996 Doctor Who fandom ran smack into its pad-locked closed barrier.  Around that same time other old but still active fandoms were starting to manifest the same thing on the internet.  It was when Trekkies suddenly separated into Trekkies (who had seen the original as it aired) and Trekkers (who came long later), for reasons I have never understood.

No, that’s not true.  I understand it.  Us humans tend to get possessive about our stories.  We have a sort of emotional ownership to them, even if not a legal one.  And when you feel an ownership of something, there is an instinct to protect it, keep it pure.  And to do that, it’s natural to try to set oneself up as an authority on the subject.

It took another decade for Doctor Who to come off the shelf again, in 2005.  I was 24 by then, the age that marketers tend to target.  A friend got his hands on a digi-copy of Christopher Eccleston’s first episode, “Rose,” that had been leaked to the internet in its entirety about a week before it actually aired.  We watched it before our D&D group met and I was instantly hooked.  And the friend that was responsible for the new addiction was only too happy to have new fandom friends.

The pendulum had swung.  Gate-keeping was out and welcoming people to the fandom was the MO.  Of course, there were and still are to this day old school Whovians who deny that anything past Sylvester McCoy exists, calling the 1996 movie and the current series a different show entirely.  There will always be those people.  But for the most part, Whovians welcomed new fans with open arms throughout all of Eccleston’s and David Tennant’s runs.

Now, that one cycle, from welcoming to gate-keeping, and back to welcoming, took 42 years.  Most things don’t last anywhere close to that long.  A show might be on for five years or a movie and its sequels be around for ten and after that, for the most part, it’s done.  And in the pre-internet age of fandom, the pendulum swung slowly enough never to hit a repeat in the cycle.

The internet has sped up everything about fandom.  The airing of just about any show in any country might as well be a world-wide premiere these days because it all just travels that quickly.  It has to if it wants to maintain any sort of surprise in its story lines, otherwise internet chatter will spoil it.  These days, things move so fast that even the few hours between an episode of Doctor Who airing in the UK and in the US is enough that one can be subjected to spoilers.  And the swing of the fandom pendulum has sped up accordingly.

For Doctor Who, it started swinging back again when David Tennant left the show and Matt Smith took over.  Tennant’s Doctor had a lot of fans who desperately didn’t want “their Doctor” to leave, many of whom took to the internet, swearing off the show.  They said it would never be as good because David Tennant was just the best Doctor ever.  By then, there were a number of us Millennial Whovians who had dug into the lore and were comfortable with the concept of regeneration as a part of it.  After all, it had already happened nine times.  And there was a bit of a tendency to call those people who swore off Matt Smith’s episodes as being fans not of Doctor Who but of David Tennant.  Meanwhile, of course, old school Whovians were patting us all on the head going “aren’t you cute.  Now you understand why Tom Baker leaving was such a thing.”

And so, the pendulum started to swing back.  You started having people call other people “not really fans of Doctor Who.”  That only got worse when Peter Capaldi took over and there was a significant portion of the fandom upset that the Doctor was now an older guy instead of the 30-something Doctors we had grown accustomed to.

Gate-keeping reared its ugly head for most of Capaldi’s run and, sadly, I think that kept a lot of people from the fandom and from really appreciating the 12th Doctor.  That cycle has started to swing back with Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, but the gate-keeping is in a stage where it is desperate to hold on to what Doctor Who was when they became fans and therefore is very toxic right now.  It’s not pretty.  But those asshats are starting to be slapped to the ground on social media thanks to a new influx of fans who are now once again more comfortable with the idea of regeneration and its possibilities.

Similar swings are happening with many other fandoms.  The Star Wars fandom is a really ugly place right now, quite frankly.  Star Trek seems to be on the welcoming end.  There are always the exceptions to every generalization, of course.  There will always be “that guy” in fandom.

This swing has always existed.  Millennials are just the first generation for whom it has swung multiple times in the life of the show.  The internet is probably the biggest contributing factor to that.  What that means is that we’re the first generation to really have the chance to see the pattern for what it is.  A few of us have even been able to extrapolate back and understand that, no, this is how it always has been, just slower.

The hopeful part of that is this; by virtue of being the first to recognize the pattern, we are the first ones with the opportunity to learn from that history.  And now we’re starting to see fandoms that actively abhor gate-keeping and just want more people to come in and play.  But those tend to be very young fandoms.

The one that comes to mind for me is Critical Role.  This is a fandom that was wholly born on the internet, as the series is streamed live on Twitch.  It’s really unlike anything that has ever had a fandom this size before.  It’s only been around for four years or so.  But the cast is on its second D&D campaign which means it’s already had the opportunity to have the elitism gate that could be closed.  But something different seems to have happened.  The very moment that people started saying “I’m a real fan because I watched the Vox Machina campaign, not just the Mighty Nein,” they were told to shut the hell up and let people like things.  A foot was stuck into the gate and wrenched it back open before it could close.  And you know what?  The fandom has absolutely exploded in the last two years.  And I have yet to run into a single instance of someone gate-keeping for it that didn’t get an overwhelming and harsh rebuttal from the folks who welcome people to the fandom.

Sadly, the Critical Role fandom is distinct from the Dungeons & Dragons fandom on this point.  But therein lies the difference.  D&D is over 45 years old, ten times and more the age of Critical Role.  And the “satanic panic” over it in the 80s made a lot of D&D players very protective of the hobby, only amplifying that.  The age of your average Critter is only mid-to-late 20s or so.  At 37, I’m a little bit of an outlier, I have found.  The Critter fandom is big on TikTok which I... don’t grock, frankly, because I’m turning into an old fart.  But I’ve never, ever, been made to feel unwelcome because of that difference.  It’s been a refreshing experience, frankly.

In contrast, I really feel like I’m only now starting to be considered a “true Whovian” by the old school Whovians.  It took me 15 years and required me getting hooked on the classic stuff (which I was all too happy to do).  People who have never seen any of the classic stuff and don’t care to are often still looked down upon.  That needs to change.

The Critical Role fandom is still young and all of this may prove to be overly-optimistic in the end.  But I think it has the opportunity to be the first big fandom not to go through the gate-keeping cycle.  I sincerely hope we can hold on to that.  The cast and crew are a big part of that, with how they always hammer on the idea of inclusivity and engage so directly with the fandom.  “Don’t forget to love each other” is Matt Mercer’s sign-off at the end of every episode and serves as a constant reminder.  And if more casts and crews of more fandoms do that sort of engaging in the future, it will help break the cycle of fandom gate-keeping all the more thoroughly.  This is a fact that production companies are starting to awaken to as Millennials, comfortable with social media, age into positions of authority.

So, welcome people in, gate-keep, almost cause the whole thing to collapse, repeat.  That’s the cycle that fandom has engaged in for three generations and more.  But I think we’re on the cusp of breaking that cycle, for the most part.  The idea that you can be a fan of something without knowing absolutely everything about it has been gaining very visible traction in the last five years or so and it is wonderful to see.

Now, please, people.  Don’t prove me wrong.

[my-moon-taeil]

NCT 127 members: thoughts, aura & vibes

Before starting I might explain what this consists of (obviously!) so everything is clearer. I was thinking about the members in NCT 127 and was wondering, simply, whom I’d truly get along with if I were to exist in the same spacious-temporal dimension; in other words, if I were to be friends with them (we may all have done that at some point, come on.). Anyhow, I wanted to share it here.

So you might understand why I say some things and why I’m feeling this or that way about each member, I might talk a bit about myself. I’m an INFJ, female, “feeling 22″ (sorry, I just cannot get this song out of my head). I’m perceptive, creative and quite confident in my skills. I am the mom friend™️, I like teaching others, helping, and showing the way. I am very sensible, empathetic, though I can be impatient when it comes to certain things. I’m a perfectionist and an idealist, too, which can be troublesome at times. I think INFJ really describes my personality so you might want to read more into that here, because describing oneself is actually something quite hard to do.

I am a new Nctzen, fell in too deep at the end of June 2019, so these feelings and the vibes I am getting from each member might also change or bloom with time. I might get all of this wrong, but in a way, there’s no real ‘wrong way’ to do this, as it is completely personal. It’s also totally self-indulgent, not gonna lie.

I talked about each member in alphabetical order, so it’s totally unrelated to the way I feel about each of them. Let’s get started, if you’re still interested! And as my friends would say (Karo, Holly, I see you)... tea time 🍵! p.s. you might want to do this yourself afterwards, it’s actually quite interesting to really consider it and go in deep!

🌹Doyoung: I feel like Doyoung and I would get along so well, in that casual but intimate way; we know we care for each other and there’s no doubt lingering, even in other’s people mind. And it’s exactly why we can be so casual about it - those who do not see it probably do not pay enough attention, because through the bickering it’s still very clear. We’d probably be the kind that’s together all the time and when we’re not people question it but we tend to shrug it off, even though we’ve been texting and snap-chatting stupid stuff to each other all day long. To me, he’s definitely someone I’d be close to, I know Doyoung is caring and passionate, and that is why we’d also be able to connect well; he’s someone who’d nag me a lot, and whom I’d like to tease back. Catch me brushing the hair out of his eyes and him whining about it. More often than not, though, he would not push my hand away.

🌹Haechan: I have no doubt in mind that he’d be the annoying little brother to me, the one always nudging, making me sigh and roll my eyes an alarming number of times in a single day. I feel like he’s the kind of person I’d be tired of being with for too long, but can’t help caring for anyway... He’s someone I think I’d look after even when I’m tired (of him, or in general haha), or annoyed, or want to be alone. Though, he is the youngest and acts like so, that is why our relation would not be that deep; the gap in both our personalities and maturity being too big. But, I can see he is growing up a lot, at a very fast pace, and he is becoming more responsible, and more aware of others, which I highly appreciate. It also means he is less and less in need to be babied.

🌹Jaehyun: Actually, Jaehyun was my first “bias” in NCT (if I can even call it like that), and the one to actually push me over the edge and make me fall into this fandom; but as weird as it may sound, I actually don’t know how my relation with him would go, were I to be around him. He’s definitely someone attractive, and seems chill and easy to get along with... I think we’d get along well, but I don’t see our relationship being anything special, nor deep at all - good friends who can joke around and enjoy time together, but mainly in a group. For instance, I do not see Jaehyun and I hanging out alone, though we surely would enjoy each other’s company, share good laughs, and consider each other friends. Then again, chemistry between people sometimes cannot be explained or predicted, so who truly knows!

🌹Johnny: Ah, Johnny. I get the biggest ‘big brother’ kind of vibe coming from him. I usually am the one wanting to protect and take care of everyone, and I would definitely like to care for Johnny, but I feel like he wouldn’t let me? And somehow, I actually do not see myself taking care of him the way I do with most of my friends, though I obviously would be a shoulder for him to cry on if he needs me to be. In a way, I have a feeling it would be mainly going one way. He’d be looking after me, but still would tease me to no end, a bit like he does to Mark. He’d be a ‘best friend big bro’, who would joke around but would become seriously overprotective at the slightest sign of discomfort or sadness coming from you. The type who’s like ‘who the hell made you cry I’ll show them some’, even though there’s no one to blame but yourself for your tears. A sweetheart.

🌹Jungwoo: I feel like Jungwoo is a bit the same as Jaehyun, when it comes to that ‘I’m not truly sure how it’d go’ feeling I have. He’s someone very soft and naive, very puppy-like, though sometimes extroverted and pretty awkward. I have known a few people like that in life, and got along with them, but only moderately. Being with them is renewing, because they seem to marvel at the simplest things in life, but my relation with them is never deeper than friendship or acquaintance; most of the time, it’s about hanging out with them in a group of friends, or them being a friend of a friend of a friend. Though, even if the relationship is not deep, I often find myself looking after them and truly caring for them. I definitely won’t be able to stop worrying for this clumsy baby and he’d probably be able to make me smile even when I’m tired and can get closed-off.

🌹Mark: There is something about Mark that makes me adore him, in a protective and prideful kind of way. To me, he has that ‘little brother’ vibe (it might be because he somehow makes me think of my own little brother, who’s 5 years younger?). Though I know it’d obviously be different; and really, no one makes me laugh like Mark. He has that aura that’s just.... young, and free, and each time I hear him rap or each time he just achieves something in general I’m feeling like a proud sister/mom. I love watching him grow and mature, and just cannot stop adoring him; though, as for Johnny, these strong feelings are not romantic, and I do not think they ever could be. Thinking about it now, I have never found myself actually caring in such a family-like way for someone I have never truly met, yet I truly feel like so towards the two of them.

🌹Taeil: Taeil... I do not know why, or how, but to me everything about him screams home and safety. It’s warm and cozy, and it brings me peace. I am pretty introverted and need time to myself, to recharge and just... be on my own, but even when tired and wanting to be alone, I feel like being around a person like him would feel as if I were alone (not in a bad way at all). By that I mean that being in his company is something that never draws energy, that never tires - it’s quiet and warm. I’d surely find myself gravitating towards him, in search of a comfort probably no one else could provide. I am pretty aware of how my eyes always find him first in a crowd, even without meaning to. If I’m honest, I likely would be romantically attracted to Taeil. In any case, he’s someone I’d always truly, fondly care for, protect and side with.

🌹Taeyong: I recognize myself in Taeyong, very much, very often, very deeply. He’s also someone I’d find myself gravitating towards, and no matter the nature of the relationship in the end, I think it truly has potential to become very true and deep. He’s someone with whom I really believe I could form a special connection. I think we’d find ourselves complementing each other and helping each other grow, because no matter how alike we are on some (most) matters, there are things we can learn from the other. I’d be a shoulder to cry on, and a place for him to stay after a long day and for him to be 100% himself. I want to be a shield, a shelter, and if needed, a sword. And I hope he would be that for me, too. On simplest things though, he’d teach me choreography, I’d teach him languages, we’d bake and cook together... all kind of things, really, and especially the things we share a passion for.

🌹Yuta: I think there’s something about Yuta I do not understand, something I cannot grasp, it’s very... fleeting. I am usually good when it comes to understand people, read them. But there’s something controversial about him, I don’t seem to make up my mind about him. I believe he’s someone who would make my mischievous side rise up and I think that together we’d come up with the craziest stuff and end up crying with laughter, or have really deep conversations and reinvent the world, fight for the ones in need with our two little hands; either one or the other, probably no in between. Most of the time though, we might not talk much with each other, or even interact at all? Unless there is something that would trigger the moments when we seem to... click. Maybe he is more like myself than I’d like to believe and that is why I can’t understand him completely, because he has that paradoxical side of him that makes him both one extreme and the other.

🌹Winwin: There is an undeniable sensibility about Sicheng, something that draws in the people around him. I very likely would not be able to resist it either. I am fascinated by the way he moves, and definitely would love to have him teach me his art (dance). He is someone very transparent (to me, at least), even though the language barrier has often made him look mysterious or simple. Our relation might be a mix of casual and caring, a silent connection based on understanding each other easily, mainly thanks to the sensibility we likely have in common. I think I would, even without meaning to, be aware of him and his state of mind. In the moments he gets too much unrequited attention, no words would be needed for me to understand; I’d take his side in hope to bring him some space and let him breathe.

[lazuliblade]

You are such a magical gem to the fandom! I read your breakdown about the typical season, do you mind explaining how an Olympic year/ Olympic qualifiers can change things?

(ﾉ^♡ ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧Thank you!For the sake of not rewriting everything that’s already been written, I’m going to plug Soyouwanttowatchfs which has some good guides to a lot of basic figure skating info and tackles more detailed questions as they come up. I recommend this post for some info on competitions, but I’ll add my own tiny gems of information here too.

In an Olympic year, not too much changes schedule-wise. The GPSeries caries on like normal, Nationals are the usual times, Euros/4CC, Worlds are the same time, and the Olympics fits snugly in mid-February. But there are some little quirks to the season:

Inflation of scores

Re-using old programs

Olympic qualifiers

Four Continents is pretty empty

Worlds is pretty empty

First off, the Olympic season starts to get in motion at the end of the prior season. The number of skaters that a country will be allowed for that discipline (i.e. Men’s Singles) at the coming Olympics (and Worlds) is determined by how skaters place at the prior Worlds. So skaters go into Worlds not only carrying their own ambitions, but also carrying the fate of their country on their shoulders. If they bomb at Worlds, a country that could have had 3 spots might find themselves with 2 or even just 1 spot for that discipline at the Olympics. To be somewhat melodramatic: “You just crushed the hopes&dreams of your fellow skaters who’ve wanted to go to the Olympics since they were kids.”

Inflation of scores

You’ll usually see the judges give scores that are a tad higher than you would see in other years. They’ll be a little more generous in GOE or in PCS scoring.

This could be nice, because worthy programs will get the perfect PCS 10s that are usually never given out, but on the other hand you’ll get programs that really shouldn’t have scored as high as they did with mistakes.

Re-using old programs - a strategy to use your strong points

A lot of skaters will use the non-Olympic years to explore different themes and styles, and then for the Olympics they’ll choose something that they had an affinity for, and further polish it.

The reason for continuing a program for a second year is usually because they (the skater&coach) believe that the program didn’t reach its full potential and there’s more that it can give.

Olympic qualifiers - There are a lot of regulations to enter the Olympics(check out page28 Rule 400). What we’re concerned with is Men’s Singles, so to simplify it: 30 skaters can compete and 24 of those entries are split up among countries based on how their skaters did at Worlds (the max a country can earn is 3 spots). The other 6 entries are open only for countries that didn’t have a spot given to them (so if Russia had earned 2 entries, they couldn’t try getting a 3rd one this way). Skaters in these hopeful countries would go to whichever competition is designated as the Qualifier that year and the top 6 would earn their country one entry. Of course, any participating skater at the Olympics would need to have achieved or passed the Minimum Total Elements Score at an ISU competition that season or the season prior. This threshold score changes every season and would be published in a Communication that you could find on the ISU website. By October 30th we would know which countries are permitted to send skaters, and how many skaters they are each allowed to send.

For the elite skaters (in YOI that would be just about every skater we met), they’re likely strong enough to earn a spot for their country just by competing at Worlds. Which means the majority of them don’t need to worry about this other Qualifier and can instead focus on the season as normal.

Like with Euros/Four Continents/Worlds, each country has it’s own committee to decide whom they’ll send to the Olympics. There’s not an exact formula and I don’t believe you’ll find it clearly written down in handbooks ( “A skater must achieve 1st in Nationals blah blah score of at least 180 with jumps that earn +2 GOE etc.” ). Generally speaking, how a skater does in the GPSeries, how they do in Nationals, and their previous skating record will determine if they will be sent (more on this below).

Four Continents Championships is pretty empty

This is also around mid-February, so the top skaters that usually go here probably won’t bother since they’re competing in the Olympics right around that time. The 4CC isn’t nearly as important as THE Olympics.

Worlds is pretty empty

Not because of scheduling, but simply because skaters are bone-tired at this point. Many of them are done with the season after the Olympics. They’ve given it all they had at the Olympics already, and Worlds is just that little bit too much.

Yuzuru once described it as “your body is like a rubber band stretched and about to snap”

You also have a lot of skaters retiring or deciding to take a year off after the Olympics, so you either won’t see them at Worlds (Patrick Chan), or they’ll show up to do one last amazing program if they were unsatisfied with their Olympics performance (Mao Asada).

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A few examples of skaters being sent thanks to multiple factors:

In countries with multiple spots for the Olympics and many talented skaters to fill those spots, or in countries that have less-decorated skaters and just one spot to fill, this is where placement in Nationals and the GPSeries becomes super important. At the same time, you’ll have cases where a skater would normally be picked (they became National Champion that year), yet is put to the side in favor of another skater that shows more consistency, looks promising, or contributed significantly to the country in past years.

Evgeni Plushenko was sent to Sochi despite not competing regularly in competitions for the few years prior, and despite placing 2nd at Russian Nationals. That’s because he’s Plushenko – a Living Legend and Russia’s Hero – and even being on the older side of the competitive skaters (with titanium bolts and a synthetic disk in his back from past surgeries) he has such a presence on the ice and was still able to do quads. Plus he’s the 10-time Russian National Champion, an Olympic Champion(2006), and Olympic Silver medalist (2010).

Daisuke Takahashi had a rough patch the year leading up to Sochi, but he was National Champion for a number of years, has done so much for Japanese figure skating, and he is so well-beloved (he was called “The King of Figure Skating” for some time there), that he was trusted to represent Japan. Even though he had a knee injury and withdrew from the GPF, and had placed 5th at Nationals, it would have felt like betrayal to the Japanese figure skating community if the committee didn’t send him as one of the three entries. Plus he’s the 2010 Olympic Bronze Medalist.

Tatsuki Machida did not have a stellar track record in the years leading up to Sochi. Japan had a deep field to pick from, and there were other skaters who had many good years to back them up – like Nobunari Oda who had won Bronze at the GPF that year. However, Machida did consistently well in the GPSeries that year (gold in both events and 4th at the GPF) and was 2nd at Nationals behind Yuzuru Hanyu. Many believed he was finally peaking in his career and there would be good things to come, so he was sent to the Olympics.

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Olympics years are special. It seems like you can’t watch any competition without hearing commentators considering “who you need to watch at the Olympics.” So even if the structure of the year doesn’t change itself, there’s this super-charged atmosphere that makes everything feel a little more exciting.