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reblogthiscrapkay · 4 years ago

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Persephone in Disney’s “Hercules”

After doing my write-up on “Jasper in Deadland”, which doesn’t actually have the myth of Persephone in it but does have her and Hades as characters, I found myself thinking, ‘why don’t I do more write-ups about media that has Persephone in it even if her myth isn’t directly addressed?’ And once I had that thought, I decided I should talk about Disney’s “Hercules,” which is probably just as famous for its portrayal of Hades as it is for literally anything else about it.

I think anyone’s automatic thought when I say Persephone in Disney’s “Hercules” is that she’s not actually in the movie at all and that’s not actually correct.

I’m not crazy about her design but it’s not the worst thing. Why is she so blonde when most of the other gods seem to be more monochromatic (and as I’ve said before I’m not into blonde Persephone)? In fact, her lack of monochrome makes me wonder if they might have intended other things for her since the gods who aren’t mostly one color in general have more importance in the narrative. Also her earrings are probably supposed to be leaves but they look more like feathers to me.

Persephone is only in the background of the pantheon scenes with her standing next to her mother in the opening scene and being one of the gods to crowd around Hercules at the end. So what is there to talk about? That. The fact that she is there and the fact that she is only in the background. This is important. In some stories this would be a minor detail that just shows that someone did their homework, but in this story where Hades is the main villain and easily the most memorable character, there’s a discussion to be had.

Before I get into depth about the villain aspect, I want to point out the fact that villains of the Disney Renaissance era are some of the most often cited when someone wants to have a discussion about queer coding in media and Hades’ name comes up basically every time. To me, he reads more like a sleazy used car salesman than a queer-coded villain (I think Radcliffe from “Pocahontas” or Ursula from “Little Mermaid” are more straight forward examples to point out for a straight audience) but there are definitely moments in the film where you can see this; his gay best friend-esque dialogues with Meg are pretty notable. That being said, this Hades being into ladies would not feel incorrect to me, a queer. Isn’t every Hades at least a touch bisexual (and everyone in Greek mythology for that matter)? Happy Pride!

So moving past the queer-coding discussion, we get to the villain issue. Giving a villain someone to love is going to change the dynamic of the villain and the story and is a really complicated choice for most writers. There’s a reason why every live action movie with the Joker in it has either had no Harley Quinn or Harley was the main character and the Joker was secondary. And they happen to be a couple with a bad relationship where you could easily have one of them throw the other under a bus if needed! Including Persephone in this story as Hades’ wife would mean that it would be really hard to make Hades the villain. In almost every medium where Hades has a Persephone, he isn’t presented as a villain but instead strictly lawful neutral, and you could still have a funny Hades who’s lawful neutral (look at “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” or “Jasper In Deadland” for example).

Sure, there’s the option of making Persephone a villain too, but while there’s no real precedence to make Hades a villain outside of a lot of conflating him with the devil through incorrect translations and confusion, there is absolutely no precedence to make Persephone a villain. Hades’ villainy already only works in this story because they have set it up that Zeus single-handedly won the Titanomachy and assigned the Underworld to Hades, leaving him bitter about it. In some versions of the myth of Persephone, Hades’ bitterness at his lot in the Underworld is actually the driving force behind him wanting a wife in the first place. Persephone would likely be a placating force for Hades, causing the more straightforward hero-villain narrative to not work and Disney’s shtick at this time was very much about straightforward hero-villain narratives.

There’s also the general problem that Persephone’s presence would make Hades WAY too powerful as this amazing Tumblr post discusses.

So Persephone as a villain is bizarre and she would likely be a positive thing for Hades. What if they had a relationship that was bad i.e. Joker/Harley? It would be a complete Greek God couple inversion since this movie shows Zeus and Hera as a happy couple (again, the goal was to simplify; this is also why Hercules is their child isn’t of Zeus and Alcmene). Well, then you basically have the horrible “Lightning Thief” movie (which I should maybe write about some time) and honestly, I think it would read really badly. If you don’t get why, go watch that film (but don’t, it’s terrible). Hades is unique is the Disney villain pantheon because he’s so likable and while he does bad things, his motives make a bit more sense than a lot of Disney villains. I think giving him a wife who he’s mean to would not only decrease his likability substantially but I think it would also be kind of controversial. Hades certainly wouldn’t be the iconic character that he is. It would also likely distract from the amount of time he spends interacting with Meg, who is not just a love interest to Hercules but a hugely important factor in the plot. Even if Persephone is equally mean to him, I think you’d still end up in this problem of having to address how two people who hate each other ended up married and then you’re into having to pose Hades as a kidnapper who regrets his choices. Also, I think in 1997 the married-couple-who-hate-each-other trope was mercifully on its way out.

So what if Hades and Persephone are married and it’s a decent marriage but Persephone just doesn’t know about any of his evil plans? That’s workable. Hades’ original plan to kill Hercules is pretty quietly done, and his all out war plan could have involved her being cooped up in Elysium and oblivious. Heck, you could even have the movie play out entirely as is until the scene where he’s enslaving the gods and then suddenly they see each other and he’s like, “Good news, honey! Soon everywhere will be my domain and you won’t have to be cooped up underground half the year!” and she’s like, “Is this what you were planning in your office every night?! You complete idiot!” That would kind of even give Hades more motive without having to mess with Persephone’s character.

I haven’t really touched on what might actually be the most obvious answer of why Persephone is in this movie but not as Hades’ wife: that just hasn’t happened yet. I’m sure this is the argument anyone who worked on the film would make. Okay, sure, there are no winter scenes in the film, but that whole thing is implied to happen long before any of the famous demigods are born. Perhaps this is just the answer. Although I think he’d have a much harder time winning her over now after he, you know, tried to take over the world.

The life of Disney’s “Hercules” Hades didn’t actually end with the film by the way. In the television show, which would have been the perfect place to tell the myth of Persephone, Hades actually has a crush on Aphrodite instead. While it’s kind of cute to give him a crush in general, why did they give up on this prime myth real estate to make this up out of nowhere? And it did in fact make him more sympathetic, but he’s also just far less villainous in the show. Disney just can’t stop with this Hades redemption and romance arc thing either. In the third “Descendants” movie, Hades is there as Mal’s father meaning that he canonically had sex with Maleficent from “Sleeping Beauty.” I had to lie down after that one. But it’s worth noting that while he’s a totally absent father until the point that this film happens, he has his reasons, his characterization in that movie is 100% sympathetic, and he’s not a villain at all.

Gosh, Disney. Just give the man his wife already!

(And in case you were wondering, there is some really cute fan art out there of these two if you have a burning need.)

#disney #the persephone project #persephone #hades #hercules

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hamliet · 5 years ago

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Messy, Perfect Redemption: Dazai

My least favorite trope in fiction is probably redemption via death. It just seldom works for the best possible story and more often than not comes across as an author wanting to take the easy way out with having now made the audience like the character, but not having to deal with the repercussions with their relationships with other characters and actual work of changing. Which honestly is also fair. Writing is hard.

But one of the things I love about Bungou Stray Dogs is how the entire story is basically Dazai’s redemption arc in all its disastrous messy glory. Redemption is hard, becoming a better person is exhausting and it doesn’t happen overnight. Despite an often cavalier attitude towards everyone around him, Dazai never loses sight of Odasaku’s last words to him.

"Listen. You told me that you might find a reason to live if you lived in a world of violence and bloodshed. You won't find it. You must know that already. Whether you're on the side who kills people or the side who saves people, nothing beyond what you would expect will appear. Nothing in this world can fill that lonely hole you have. You will wander the darkness for eternity. (...) Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same, become a good man. Save the weak, and protect the orphans. Neither good nor evil means much to you, I know... but that'd make you at least a little bit better. (...) Of course I know. I know better than anyone. Because... I am your friend."

Leaving the mafia and deciding to save people from now on is a good step, but it’s a process, as we see. It’s choosing every day to save orphans, to protect the weak, and even after making the overall choice to become a better man, there are still plenty of struggles along the way. It’s what makes Dazai such a compelling, powerful and ultimately hopeful character for me.

I know Atsushi is often seen as representing Dazai’s second chance after Akutagawa, his redemption in a sense, and that’s not wrong at all. Atsushi is definitely a major, even the main, part of it, but in my opinion it’s not the whole of it. Dazai’s mentoring of Atsushi is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it absolutely is a part of his redemption. He’s genuinely trying to do his best with Atsushi, and I do think he cares for him--clearly, he cares enough to let himself be captured by the mafia, even.

On the other hand, ignoring a kid you hurt for a kid you didn't is not redemption in and of itself when you could still do something about it. It’s not like Akutagawa has given up on Dazai in any way; he’s pretty desperate for Dazai’s acknowledgement even now.

If saving one requires you to abandon the other, are you really a better person for it ? Like, if you wanna save orphans, you kinda have to include the one who's literally begging you to save him and who is only in this bad place because of you.

If joining the agency would have redeemed Dazai, we wouldn’t have a story, though again I’m not minimizing the importance of this or the resonance of Dazai’s mentoring of Atsushi. But in joining the agency, Dazai left someone behind--more than one someones, actually. Dazai’s redemption is a process that will require him to face the harm he caused in the mafia and as much as possible, fix it. And he can’t fully redeem himself until he integrates with his shadow. Unlike Atsushi whose shadow is directly personified in Akutagawa, though, Dazai’s is in several other people (we could also consider Odasaku and Atsushi part of the anima), including Akutagawa, Chuuya, Dostoyevsky, and Mori.

Even the next time Dazai saves an orphan (Kyouka), we find out that a lot of the cruel ways Akutagawa trained her came from how Dazai trained him.

It’s a consequence coming back to Dazai that his mentee decides to save a child trapped in the mafia whom everyone wants to give up on, a child whose been through the same training he forced Akutagawa into (which I should remind you includes a canonical mock execution). The difficulties of saving Kyouka are probably exactly why Dazai took so long to make baby steps towards Akutagawa. But to his credit, while he’s not exactly compassionate with Kyouka while she’s imprisoned, Dazai does save her. If mentoring a kid on the verge of turning into a criminal is the first step to reconciling with his mafia self, then Dazai’s helping save Kyouka is the next one.

However, he doesn’t fully understand the cruelties of he did to Akutagawa, as shown in how he mocks him after his capture by repeating Akutagawa’s worst fears to him:

I know Dazai’s playing a long game with setting up Atsushi and Akutagawa’s partnership in shin soukoku, but the ends don’t always justify the means and that’s a lesson often shown to us in BSD (it’s in part the reason Dazai left the mafia; he couldn’t buy that Oda’s death was justifiable because it got rid of Mimic and got the Port Mafia their black ticket). This type of triggering really isn’t okay. Like I said here, Dazai is in part the cause of Atsushi and Akutagawa’s struggles to get along, and he should be part of reconciling that schism as well.

I know while some people are annoyed that fans call a person two years older than someone else their father figure, but the manga itself draws this comparison and codes Dazai/Atsushi and Dazai/Akutaqawa as a mentor/mentee relationship which is 99% of the time coded as parental in literature (and it definitely is here). Akutagawa literally draws the comparison himself between his relationship with Dazai and Atsushi’s with his abusive orphanage headmaster. Yes, Akutagawa’s making some logical jumps here (refusing to acknowledge that Dazai is just as much Atsushi’s mentor as his), but the manga wants us to make this comparison.

As Atsushi wasn’t able to reconcile his frustration and hurt towards the orphanage headmaster, he’ll probably do so through Akutagawa and through Dazai, because Atsushi’s view of Dazai is basically that he’s already redeemed and fantastic and justified in his choices--again, I know Atsushi complains about his irresponsibility sometimes, but it’s mostly played as a joke and isn’t a serious critique of just how he treated Akutagawa, despite Atsushi hating Akutagawa for how he treated Kyouka (take that train of thought a little further, Atsushi).

But onto Dazai’s other relationships. It’s telling that Dazai is at his most unrestrained and violent in the mafia when he partners with Chuuya, who despite being very restrained thanks to him being capable of uninhibited destruction that would lead to his own death without said restraint, knows who Dazai is and what he’s capable of from the very beginning (he’s so much as seen Dazai murder the orphans who comprise the Sheep even after promising Chuuya he wouldn't). Kunikida is Chuuya’s foil in that he works most closely with Dazai in the agency and is perpetually ready to strangle him, but Kunikida is also incredibly principled and restrained--yet he is significantly the only member of the agency who, prior to the Guild Arc, did not know Dazai used to be in the mafia.

Kunikida’s ideals including saving everyone if possible. Both Chuuya and Kunikida represent these two extremes of what Dazai is capable of--and yet notably both of them care about saving children and are in many ways more compassionate people than Dazai.

The one time we see Chuuya talk about killing a kid is with Q, who notably is introduced to us as another child with the soukoku partnership team-up.

Q, a child with half-dark hair and half-white hair (gee I wonder what that symbolizes) is a child made to curse the world and hate ever being born. Chuuya and Dazai team up to save him but contemplate killing him.

Dazai’s choice not to kill Q is stated to be to save himself, which is probably is, but it’s also symbolic of how Dazai’s saving other people is saving himself (and also ties back to another quote Odasaku liked to repeat from Natsume: “everyone exists to save themselves”).

But Chuuya’s motivation, as I wrote before, is because he’s grieved over the loss of his comrades. Chuuya really cares about people, including Dazai, and the fact that Dazai is actually going to far as to model Atsushi and Akutagawa’s team-up on his team-up with Chuuya pretty strongly implies Dazai doesn’t hate Chuuya as much as he says he does. To be able to truly leave the mafia, he has to make peace with those relationships there. It’s part of being honest with himself: like Atsushi, acknowledging the darker shadows, and like Akutagawa, acknowledging the better parts of him too.

At present, Dostoyevsky proves a perfect foil for Dazai, as @linkspooky has written here. They’re the same in a lot of ways, but Dostoyevsky has allowed nihilism and a god complex to completely consume him and is not trying to be human, whereas Dazai still tries to save people and was devastated by Oda’s death. Dostoyevsky’s ability, whatever it was, works by touching someone like Dazai’s, but since Dazai’s No Longer Human negates another’s abilities, Dazai is the only person on which Fyodor’s ability will not work, making them the perfect counters for each other. Dostoyevsky is what Dazai could be if his feelings of alienation from human society (a prominent theme in the real life Dostoyevsky’s works) were taken to their utmost extreme, and so it’d be fitting for him to ultimately defeat Fyodor through the relationships he does have (including Atsushi and Akutagawa).

To return to Odasaku, Odasaku is also kind of a warning to Dazai as much as he is a man Dazai wants to become like. When Odasaku lost the orphans under his care, he fell into complete despair and knowingly embarked on a suicide mission to do what Mori wanted him to. Still, Dazai tried to save him. He wasn’t able to save his life, but Odasaku’s death saved Dazai. Yet it’s potentially concerning that Mori used Odasaku’s human connections to engineer his downfall, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mori uses Dazai’s to try to engineer his downfall later on (like, way, way on).

The difference is that Dazai is a good foil to Mori, too, in understanding what makes people tick and always thinking several moves ahead. Mori groomed Dazai from the age of like fourteen (or younger) to be his successor in the mafia, manipulating his suicidal tendencies and hopelessness to get what Mori wanted from him. It’s telling that the earliest we have of Dazai is him with Mori, in that Mori instead of caring for a suicidal patient decided to take him along to murder the mafia’s boss and induct him into the mafia thereby. The thing about Jungian stories is that there are often some Oedipal tendencies to them--like, for example, a character needs to overcome/break away from completely/kill their father. I can see Dazai at some point having to overcome Mori and his influence to cement his arc, but that’s highly speculative (yet fits with Mori’s build up as a villain), so we’ll see.

#bsd meta #bungou stray dogs #soukoku #dazai osamu #shin soukoku #akutagawa ryunosuke #nakajima atsushi #oda sakunosuke #mori ougai #fyodor dostoyevsky #izumi kyouka #nakahara chuuya #bsd theory

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colorfulstudentllama-thethird · 5 years ago

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Comparing "problems only girls will understand" and "problems only guys will understand" posts/videos/lists is honestly so fucking wild.

Things Only Girls Understand

Nearly debilitating period cramps

Bleeding from your vagina and all of the discomfort with it

Fashion and makeup companies specifically targeting our insecurities until we have panic attacks

The clothing marketed towards us not being fully functioning (WHERE ARE THE FUCKING POCKETS?!?!?) and often uncomfortable/revealing/low quality unless you're willing to spend a lot of money or scour thrift stores

Literally being terrified of men on a daily basis because we may be attacked

Am I having a heart attack or is that just my boob hurting? Am I having a cramp or did my appendix burst? Hell if I know!

When I leave the house today, do I need pepper spray and sharp keys in case I'm attacked in some way?

Letting all of my friends and family know the name, age, and appearance of my date, the place we're supposed to go, the place I'm being picked up, the licence plate number and car color, and anything other info that may be needed in case I'm kidnapped and left for dead

When I walk down the street am I going to be whistled at or otherwise objectified in my daily life?

Years of having all of our self worth being tied to whether or not we're deemed "desirable"

Do I have breast cancer or do they just look like that?

Wow, to be a super model *casually develops serious self esteem issues*

Literally bleeding through our clothing

All of this being presented in a mostly humorous manner as a coping mechanism and as solidarity, we're all in this shit hole of a world together

Things Only Guys Will Understand

Getting boners at random times

Getting boners at uncomfortable times

Getting boners for no reason

Boners hurting

An inability to pee straight

The fear that women will randomly accuse them of being evil, misogynistic douchebags or something along those lines

Morning boners

The sudden inability to get a boner when wanted

Penises shrinking in the pool???

Having to stand several urinals away lest you be mistaken for gay. 8 urinals and 4 are taken? Wait your turn. (Wtf, do you guys not have fucking STALLS????)

Being hairy????? (Guys, I'm sorry, but that's a choice right there)

"oh no my girlfriend/wife wants me to go sHoPpiNG😭😭😭R.I.P, bored af"

I'll be honest, I really don't get most of these, and the ones I do...I don't see the big deal

Peeing with a boner?

Toxic masculinity! (Completely valid guy problem! It's terrible! You guys deserve to have feelings! But that has, for the most part, been pushed for and carried on...by other guys. Over centuries. That's mostly on you guys to fix, sorry)

Women are crazy! Or taken! Or won't date me!!!

In that same vein, "nice guys finish last"

Women are so mean and evil

Their balls stick to their legs???

Often delivered either as jokes or as the most awful burdensome terrible experience ever endured by a human being

Now, it probably seems like I'm making fun here, right? Like I'm intentionally making it look like guys are just lazy, entitled, douchebags with no problems.

But here's the thing.

That's all stuff that guys, men, people of the male species WROTE. Those are their own, self described, terrible problems that women just can't fathom.

Guys, if any of you read this, please understand a few things. Women are not evil, but there are evil women. There ARE woman who will look for reasons to be offended, there ARE woman who will lie about you for attention, there ARE women who will treat you like shit, there ARE women are evil, nasty, violent, spiteful, vindictive, abusive, just truly AWFUL people.

But those women, why do not make up the majority, are not representative of ALL women. So if you choose to judge an entire group of people based off of the actions of a select few weeks have hurt you or others, you are narrow minded at least. At worst? Either just as awful as those women (depending on the offense of course), kinda sexist, or EXTREMELY judgmental.

Take for instance this, I have had TONS of guys treat me like shit, be abusive, belittle me, etc. "Friends", family members, significant others, people I rejected, so on. Most women would understand if I just flat out said that I hated men and renounced them as a collective, sticking them all into a box labeled as "abusers". But I don't do that. I may be wary of men, and I might still have trust issues in regards to them, but I generally try not to shut myself in a box of my own, so I understand the fact that the men that have hurt me do not and cannot represent an entire group of people as a whole

And before you come in with, "well women do the same things to men!" Our fear is based on actual statistical probability that men are the most likely group to hurt us, and the fact that culturally, we are often quite literally raised to fear men because of those statistics. Y'all's fear is based off of various "nice guys finish last" tropes as far as I know. So while, yes, there are truly awful women who hurt men, and belittle them, and dismiss them, and generalize about them. The abusers are not a majority. And the generalizers have like, an actual reason to generalize even if it's not entirely fair to you specifically.

Also like, fucking check yourselves. I'm giving a lot of "not all men" here but like, I know there'll be someone who can read all of this, have it all apply to him, and still think, "oh well I'm clearly not one of the assholes she's talking about, I'm a NICE GUY!" You sure about that? Really? Really really? Check. Multiple times. Evaluate yourself. Self reflect. Adjust yourself. My excuses do not apply to you.

Another thing, toxic masculinity was created BY MEN. Men are the ones who perpetuate the stereotype of the "True Man's Man" and force eachother to conform to being tough, emotionless, bricks ruled by anger, pride, and/or other equally dangerous things. It may not be your personal fault, but it is something that you personally can affect. You can choose to be who you want to be, and raise your sons differently. And if other guys try to ridicule you for that then I have to ask, are those really the people you WANT to have around? Or be like? People who'll bully you until you meet their absurd standards? Toxic masculinity is awful and you guys shouldn't EVER have to deal with it, but at the end of the day, it is something that, the majority of the time (I will fully acknowledge that there are women who help enforce it, those women are typically shit though, so do you really want them in your life either?), is enforced by men. That being the case, it's something that you all have to make an effort to fix yourselves. Women can help! They should! Women should be understanding of men's issues in society even if they seem like "less" by comparison to some women(they aren't). Because men's and women's issues are often interwoven and are best solved when tackled together. Women should make an effort to not encourage toxic masculinity in their friends, acquaintances, and family members. But again, it is something that men have to do a lot of the work for, because it's a men's issue that is mostly caused kept up by men.

Long story short

Men: please understand that women are not out to get you and that sometimes you need to look at the other side of things and that you shouldn't blame issues created by yourselves on others. Your problems are valid but like, please understand the difference between certain issues, and please understand that not everything is actually a problem (*cough* "girls don't like NiceGuys™ like me!!!!!!" *cough* you're actually not that great you narcissistic prick *cough*). And like, stop blaming women as a whole for the fact that you're single or unhappy, like, stop. It's pathetic. Also, y'all have like, actual problems but you all choose to talk about how inconvenient your genitalia is until someone brings up feminism and THEN y'all start to bring up, "but men have problems too!" You do, don't use them to shut down different conversations though wtf

Women: yes, being wary of men is valid. Generally distrusting or disliking them based off of your experiences is valid. But they're not born evil, if we can help things improve then we should where we can (but it's not our job to fix them, let me make that very clear! You do not have to fix a guy! Not your problem girlie, if he treats you like crap, please run away). And honestly, not all men (uck, I know) are dicks.

So yeah. Me rambling around midnight xvlxlffA

#rambles #feminism #sexism #men #women #things only women will understand #things only men with understand #gender #abuse tw #women problems #idk how to tag this tbh #and like i know there's more men's issue than just toxic masculinity #but like #i never see them on these lists #or generally talked about #like we all either need make both lists just fun or we talk need to discuss all of our problems

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ansonmount · 5 years ago

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Rank all the seasons of AHS from best to worst (also love ur blog!)

Thanks! ❤️ It's a shit show, just like me.

For clarification, I'm still working my way through Freak Show and Roanoke. Those two seasons are my real struggle ones tbh. I'm just not at all interested in their plots.

So from best to worst:

1. 1984 - honestly it's so fucking camp, and over the top. I find it really enjoyable and it doesn't take itself seriously and I love the plot twists. The only thing I dislike about this season is how many episodes got spent in the fucking dark jsjskdkdjsjsjshsjdjskd. I hope Zach gets to be in the next season and he plays a less divisive role so more people can appreciate his art and his talent. As much as he is killing the role as Richard, there are people who just struggle to deal with it. And I don't blame them.

2. Cult - probably an unpopular choice. Politics is a hard subject to disgest for some. I loved cult because the real horror stories we face on a daily basis are the ones that are also real. Cults are real. Political division is real. People turning on each other politically is real. The racism and bigotry is real. It was raw and it showed how evil we all can be. Like Sister Jude said, "all monsters are human".

3. Apocalypse - generally pretty good. I love Michael so much. I think he got really fucked by AHS's general attitude towards "evil is born" - which I absolutely disagree with. Mallory deserved to be an angel and the actual opposite to Michael. It really lost the plot towards the end and there was too many flashbacks, which really painted Michael as a sympathetic character, or maybe I'm just too much of an empath, and then they killed him because "he was always going to be evil". I just hate that trope so much, and I hate the real life applications of it especially regarding like serial killers etc.

4. Coven - bitch.

5. Asylum - I found it really slow until about the 5th/6th episode. I don't particularly care for Lana, but Sister Jude breaks my heart. The aliens plot was fucking ridiculous. I loved the polyamorous relationship.

6. Hotel - again a really slow season. I didn't care for John. Could have used more Liz and The Countess and the other vampires causing chaos. The whole children aspect wasn't a part I enjoyed.

7. Murder House - Connie was the best thing about that season. I have a love hate relationship with Constance. Ben was an absolute fucking dick. I really don't care for Tate which is surprising because I normally love fucked up characters (#relateable). I absolutely hate how they explained his fucked upness as having left with Michael and now he was this wholesome pure uwu boy in Apoc.

Unrated: Freak Show and Roanoke

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welcometojoelsvoid · 6 years ago

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My ocs explained: Voidverse

A friend of mine asked me to tell about my ocs, and since there a lot of them and this will be long and tumblr messages won't let me send the whole thing, so I decided to make a post dedicated to it.

This post won't have pictures of my ocs because I'm lazy, but if you're interested there's a tab on my blog called "My characters", which has their pictures and their tags.

So, to get the more complicated things cleared out, I have this group of characters I call the "alts", basically, they're alternate versions of myself. One is always based on an aspect of my personality, which I then turn into said alt. A new one is usually born whenever I make one for a new fandom or universe.

Ps. This isn't all of them, there are a few minor characters and wips that I left out because this would become waaayyyy longer than needed. These characters belong in a group I call the "Voidverse", which are the characters that I consider to be the main characters of this storyline (some of my ocs live in different realms and realities, etc). I might make another oc megapost about the other verses if you guys want.

~~~~~~~

Classic the Demon (he/him), 24

My "main" alt, who is also my persona on the internet is called Classic the Demon (they all have nicknames since most of them usually share my name). Classic is kinda the leader of the alts, he's the one who usually gets to join a new verse if I haven't made a new alt specifically for that verse.

Classic's powers include telekinesis, teleportation, offensive spells and the summoning of a weapon (in this case; a sword) and a pair of wings. Classic has this so-called "pocket dimension" that he accesses via his magic. This dimension is where he stores a bunch of random stuff from clothing to food to sketchbooks. Also, because he's so extra, whenever he summons his sword he kinda swipes his right hand from left to right once while his sword materializes from dark energy, just for dramatic flair.

Like most demons, Classic is also capable of collecting souls through contracts, though Classic had "retired" from doing said contracts.

Classic was born in a Renaissance-era like time period in a small hidden village of demons. The village was very small with only a few houses and a post office. Classic's family consisted of Classic himself, his mother and father. Although his father had left when Classic was an infant for an unknown reason. Therefore Classic was solely raised by his mother.

Classic's only friends in the village was another boy his age named Eemeli and a person called "the Guard". The Guard lived at the edge of the small town, whose job was to protect it from the dangers of the grand forest right next to them. Classic looked up to the Guard, for she was one of the strongest people he knew. His favourite memory of her was when she fought a bear with her bare hands.

Eemeli, on the other hand, was an adventures child much like Classic, though not as reckless. He had a family of two (2) parents and four (4) siblings.

(But of course, because this is a character made by yours truly, there is a lot of edge and angst)

At the age of 13, Classic's village was attacked by a troupe of human soldiers. They burned the houses and slaughtered the people. With the help of his mother, he had survived. Classic had passed out during the attack and once he woke up he couldn't believe his eyes. Everything was destroyed and burnt to the ground, including the people he held so near and dear to his heart. Classic didn't know what to do, so he wandered aimlessly until he reached a town of humans. Traumatised and blinded by hate, he killed everyone and anyone he saw and when he reached the castle he stabbed the king to death with a dagger that had appeared in his hands, which would later on, as he got older, form into the dark sword that it is today.

Classic was "rescued" by a group of angels and was brought into their home in the sky. No, not heaven, but a floating island. He hadn't told them exactly what happened, not that he was all that able to because of the shock of it all. Though the angels did not press on the subject, clearly aware of his discomfort.

The family he was living with had one (1) child, Ale, a pink haired angel with greenish eyes. The two of them instantly became close friends and through that friendship considered each other siblings. Growing up in a community of angels as a demon was tough, but most of them were very accepting of Classic.

Though, with time he became restless. He wanted to go somewhere, do something. But he didn't know where nor what.

At the age of 19, Classic and Ale packed their bags and went to see the world. And through this adventure, they became face to face with Death, literally. On their adventure, Ale had been hurt severally and Classic in desperation tried with all his might to help them. He turned to soul stealing harvesting and contract work to earn currency, souls paid well with witches and faeries. Unfortunately, he couldn't earn enough in time or get any help. Ale had died of sickness and Classic ever since blamed himself.

His journey alone took him to many places, but he was always alone. Until he met a certain someone, but more about that later.

Classic himself is a cocky yet charming personality, not really in love with himself but absolutely adores praise and loves being in the spotlight (when he wants to, otherwise attention from a lot of people make him anxious). He's the one I made the most like myself, so ultimately he has the same issues; depression, anxiety, ADD and sociopathic tendencies. Of course, pretty much every alt have more or less these traits, some show them more, some don't.

He's a loyal friend and cares for his loved ones, good with a sword and has good problem-solving skills and critical thinking, but he lacks the sense of responsibility sometimes and gets very paranoid about not being good enough. He's very forgetful and has a hard time understanding complex things like math, geology and physics but has a talent for arts, language and philosophy. He's not in touch with his owns feelings but can tell when someone else is upset, anxious or lying. He's very unused to affection and compliments, often deeming himself not worthy of them but tries his best to stay positive.

Jojo (he/they), 23

Jojo is an easily excitable and reckless half-dead demon living in a post-apocalyptic setting. Jojo doesn't have magical abilities, though, they lost them alongside his horns and tail after committing suicide before he was brought back to life.

He likes brights colours, stuffed animals, motorcycles and most importantly; explosives.

Jojo had lost a part of their hearing and vision to a malfunctioning bomb, had been lucky that in a tight spot the last of his magical ability had protected all but a small portion of the side of his head, face and neck.

His left leg was lost in a fight. Jojo had seen a young girl being kidnapped, followed the kidnappers and fought them, rescuing the kidnapped children and losing his leg to an axe. This had happened before the war.

Even in crude conditions, Jojo believes that positivity can get you through anything. His blatant naïtivity can often cause him to trust the wrong people but make no mistake, Jojo is no fool and can quickly regain his composure and build up his walls. Jojo is a very social person and can easily get along with anyone, although can sometimes get a tad too excited and accidentally say and do something rather awkward. They always try to make up for hurt feeling, tough. Jojo is also big on taking risks and can often put themselves in dangerous situations.

As mentioned previously Jojo is a bomb fanatic and loves explosives and explosions. He taught himself to make his own bombs and frag launcher, many of which malfunctioned in various ways.

He doesn't remember much about his childhood, his memory fading alongside the scars on his body. He just remembers having a good family and he's fine with that. Jojo is also one of the only alts who drinks and smokes (they smoke pot, don't like cigarettes much). He's overall a pretty chill dude when he's not jumping from place to place and blowing stuff up.

He's also the one who shows the most clearly symptoms of ADHD.

He's a smart boy who's a bit clumsy sometimes.

A wholesome boy. A very sweet boy.

Invite him to every party because he's never been to one but really wants to. Good with kids, animals and knows how to make broccoli taste good. (Not good with elders and other fragile things that break easily)

10/10

282-J aka J/Jay (they/them), 22

282-J, the one that is actually not even a demon.

J's power is "teleportation" via light. They can turn themselves into light particles and move a few meters to the direction of their choosing. So J cannot use this power in places without some kind of light source, though the illumination of a phone or TV, etc, is not enough. J also cannot move through solid matter, like walls and doors.

J was born into "captivity" in a science lab (Oh, yes, it's "science labs are evil" trope time!). This science lab was fixated on mutants and mutation, so I relate J to the Marvel universe (because X-Men).

From birth J had lived in that facility, being experimented on every single day. Some weren't bad, like seeing how long of a distance J can teleport for example, but some are excruciating, as when J would go days without being fed or being locked in a dark and tight room for weeks, even months! It all took its toll on J's fragile body.

Once the lab crew injected an adrenaline type drug into J's bloodstream and locked him in a small room for three (3) days straight, when a staff member was sent to retrieve J's seemingly passed out body, they had bitten into the man's arm and in response got an elbow to the chest. J coughed up blood and couldn't breathe, actually passing out this time. When J woke up they were in their own room; padded, white walls and the one-way glass in front. J felt their own breath on their face and when J reached to touch their own face, they felt what seemed like a gas mask of sorts and tried to fumble with it to take it off. The voice from the speakers told that the gas mask had two (2) benefits; it restrained J from biting the staff again and it kept J, themselves, alive. Apparently one of J's lungs had received a lot of damage from the incident and the lab crew could not entirely fix it, so a special gas mask would have to do.

J is very timid and does not speak often nor raise their voice. They're very awkward in social situations and get overwhelmed by large groups of people and loud noises. Though J can be brave and courageous when they want to and they're also a quick thinker and rather clever.

Cappy the Capricorn (she/her), 300+

Ah, yes, Cappy the Capricorn- or Cappy the Zodiac demon. The one person you wouldn't invite to your family gatherings.

She is a Zodiac demon and her powers focus mostly on controlling the water element. Another skill of her's is knowing how to cut her own hair using seashells and other sharp objects found on the seafloor. She's a very calm person with a professional-seeming personality, but she can be a bit "inappropriate", so to say.

She's a siren-like creature and when underwater her legs turn into a fishtail. She very much enjoys tricking unsuspecting men into their tombs and seducing women into sleeping with her, though to the fair lass she shall do no harm (In other words; she's a lesbian). Her magic is very powerful, but she isn't a fighter- she doesn't want to waste her time on petty brawling. Although if not left alone when asked, she won't hesitate to use violence as her saviour.

Unfortunately, there isn't much to tell about her background, for it does not exist because I am a lazy sonovabitch who doesn't think through their characters' backstories.

But Cappy is not really that much of a "macho sex object with no personality" (I hope), for in actuality she's a real softy. She's all smooth and clever in seduction and all that sexy stuff, but when a cute girl compliments her, she blushes like crazy and gets all flustered. If she ever would develop a crush on some poor soul, that poor soul would have to deal with a very nervous and stuttering mountain sea goat.

From 1 to 10 I'd rate Cappy a 5/10 on the friendship scale. Not that she's an evil person or whatever, she just doesn't know how to properly act around people (living at the bottom of the sea for hundreds of years will do that to ya, I suppose...). She, however, is very supportive and helpful whenever the people she considers her friends are having a hard time (especially about their own appearance, she ain't having none of it).

The Voidkeeper (she/they), ???

The Voidkeeper, the eldest one- mostly because their age cannot be comprehended for it simultaneously does and does not exist.

The Voidkeeper is half-blind, half-death and selectively mute. She is also a sociopath and does not feel empathy nor sympathy (or feelings, at all).

And most important, they are dead. I mean no heartbeat, rotten insides, dried out blood kind of dead.

She was banished to what is called the Void when she committed suicide. See, demons cannot be killed, only trapped in artefacts or returned to the Underworld, but a demon has the ability to take their own life, but it is not without punishment. When a demon commits suicide they are banished and assigned to a task which they will carry out for the rest of eternity. This one was assigned to look after the Void, a fruitless task for it is empty and barren. The only thing that happens is that every millennia a new book appears in the Void to give some sort of entertainment to the Voidkeeper.

On very rare occasion a poor soul might accidentally either wander or be sent to the Void and it is the Voidkeeper's duty then forward to guide the wanderer where they were supposed to go. Every time something, or someone, appears in the Void the Voidkeeper is alerted by the soul stone they carry. This stone, as prompted by the name, is in a way the Voidkeeper's soul, which they cannot ever regain. It is their life source and their source of power. The Voidkeeper is not allowed to ever be violent, so the soul stone only grants them defensive powers. In this case the ability to heal and create protective forcefields.

The Voidkeeper cannot physically ever enter the realm of the living, but with the aide of someone very powerful, they are granted to walk amongst the living as a ghost of sorts. They, however, cannot be touched by the living.

The Voidkeeper is very silent and intelligent. They know more than you'd expect, but will never tell you what you want to know. Only what you need to know, which in itself is not much. She prefers to observe others as they go about their life whenever she isn't reading, other than that there isn't much to her.

Inquisitor Lotus Draqon (he/him), 23.5

The alt for the da:i fandom and my most recent alt.

He's very peculiar in the sense that he was born from the merged souls of Classic and a dragon called Jupiter. No one is sure how this happened but one-day Classic had disappeared. It took a long time to find where he was and the answer was very surprising.

Now with his soul living in as in another person's body, Classic was trapped in a frozen state in another pocket dimension with Jupiter. This meant that as long as Lotus was intact or alive, Classic would not himself be present and neither would Jupiter.

Classic's soul gave Lotus many of the abilities that he himself has, telekinesis, illusion magic, weapon and wing summoning, etc. And Lotus as a person is fairly similar to Classic, some of the differences being Lotus' dragon attributes; his scales, tail, the sword is rather different, bigger horns and bigger wings (and a bigger appetite).

Lotus is also more innocent leaning and shyer. And unlike Classic, isn't such a good swordsman (he gets better with time tho).

Similarly to Classic, Lotus isn't very independent and often depends a lot on the people around him for help and advice. They both also have a giant sweet tooth and love animals. And they both stutter, have trouble pronouncing some words and have motor and verbal ticks (whenever Lotus yawns, burps, gets excited, happy or is frightened he goes "woof!", Classic just makes weird demon noises. Their motor ticks are pretty much the same, twitchy hands, neck and whole damn body).

Though Lotus is more prone to seek out simulation, tapping his claws against a table, playing with his hair and tail and pressing his toe beans. Classic mostly plays with his hair and his shirt sometimes. Also because of dyslexia, they both often have jumbled words when speaking, though with Lotus it's stronger and for him, reading is harder. Lotus is more willing to take risks and go out on an adventure, he has very strong legs and wings that can carry him for hours. And in general Lotus' health is better than Classic's, he's learned to cope with his problems better and cares for himself more.

Also, laser pointers totally work on him.

~~~~~~~

Now, let's get to the other characters in my verse.

Katy Huerta (she/her), 38-41

A retired Special Task Force agent called back on the field after suspicious and unknown signals had started appearing out of nowhere. They were most likely of a supernatural origin and agent Huerta was assigned on the job. Katy is a skilled and headstrong woman with experience with supernatural forces. As a young child, her body is shared by her and a power fire spirit. She can control fire and use it as a weapon, as well as turn into fire herself.

Turns out that classic had been causing waves of magic which turned to signals as he made his way to this world and travelled around it. At the time he was 19 years old. Katy wasn't sure how to approach him as she found him walking around abandoned buildings but she knew she couldn't kill or arrest him, he hadn't done anything wrong. So she took him in. Taught him, mentored him, took care of him. Katy doesn't have much knowledge about magic but she taught him how to use his sword, how to use his mind and how to use his heart. Classic would follow her around like a puppy, mostly because HQ didn't fully trust a demon to walk around by himself. They respected Katy a great deal, but we're very unsure of this decision. Katy didn't care, though, she was sure. Katy's heart is as big as her muscles and just as strong, she never gave up on that boy and she's glad she didn't. She found a lifelong friend and a trusted partner. She was like a mother to him.

Katy is what I like to call the "bridger", she's usually the bridge between the different universes and dimensions. I gave her full knowledge of the different alts, what they are and what they mean. Whenever there's a new alt, she informs the others and looks over the new one, deciding whether or not they should be cautious and stay away or if they can be invited to the "inner circle".

The day when Classic had his soul transferred and himself trapped was something Katy wasn't sure how to take action, she had no idea who "Lotus" was and what kind of alt they were (you can never know, even the nice sounding ones can be mean and the world they live in might not be able to handle Katy's presence). She took a risk and bridged into the world of Thedas to handle the situation.

Coraline Daniel (she/her), 65.5

The pretty typical vampire oc, I'd say.

Coraline is a carefree soul who enjoys being a mysterious shadow in the back of people's minds. One day she's here, another day she's gone. She doesn't burn in the sunlight but her powers weaken a lot, which includes mind control, teleportation and flight.

A true lady and a primadonna; never settles for second best, Coraline is a beauty and rarity and uses it to her advantage. Many people are slow to notice she's already sucking the blood out of their veins, her victims helplessly falling into her traps and under her spell.

All except one.

Agent Katy Huerta; the STF's favourite puppet; a saviour; a righteous knight; a woman of high regard and the only one to catch Coraline's eye. She had been assigned to search for the reason behind recent murders (Coraline's doing, of course) and had successfully tracked the culprit down. Coraline was surprised that her normal tactics hadn't worked and this piqued her interest. Ever since their first meeting, they seemed to bump into each other quite often. It was a classic game of cat and mouse, with a lot more flirting though. And they both seemed to enjoy it.

Coraline could never trap her and she could never catch Coraline in return. Neither of them wanted to. Or did, but the meaning behind it had changed.

Katy would track the vampire to her next destination, catch her red-handed, they'd fight, steal kisses in between and Katy would watch her disappear into the night. It became routine, tradition. Routine was broken when Katy asked her for a date before she could run off again, caught by surprise but regaining composure Coraline accepted. Katy brought her a silver ring as a gift to their date, it was a simple gesture that meant something more to them both.

Akachi (they/them), 12

Akachi was found in Western-Africa, alone and unconscious in a cryochamber at an old hospital. The child was in a deep coma and appeared to have lizard-like attributes. Files showed that they were there because of an illness that threatened to take their life, but nothing else could be recovered.

The STF team took them back to America to take care of them, but no one was sure what should be done. Should they be given up for adoption? Surely that couldn't be safe for the child. Luckily STF's golden girl Katy Huerta stepped up to take care of the child, adopting them. The child's name is Akachi, was what she was told, they were found abandoned and appear to be intersex. And so the child was given in to her care. Once home, Classic had been very curious about the child. They decided to take care of Akachi together.

Back then Akachi had been just 4 years old and they didn't appear to have any memories before the hospital, so adapting wasn't the most difficult thing. Akachi is a gentle soul and a very curious child, very imaginative. Akachi was placed in a special program when starting school, normal school being a distant thought but they got there eventually.

Akachi is very excited about new things, very excited to learn and experience things. Although Katy tries to keep them away from tough adventures, sometimes by accident a certain demon cannot resist the puppy-eyes. Akachi is all too happy to meet new people, they always dream of having a big family and they do consider the alts to be family.

Elizabeth Hart aka Wolfy Heart (she/her), 27

Quite literally my oldest oc, I'm fairly sure that Wolfy was the first oc that I ever made and she's come such a long way since then.

Wolfy is the daughter of a rich German family, not that it matters but I'm just laying down random facts at this point, she grew up fairly similarly to everyone else though, she wasn't spoiled and her parents were very good at parenting and were decent people.

Wolfy is a very motherly person and takes care of her friends a lot, she loves socialising and cooking and is very good at playing the harp. She's very curious and blushes easily, she's very modest. She likes spending time with animals and children and is very creative and fashionable. She's compassionate and wants what's best for everyone, she's a little naïve in that sense.

Wolfy had been good friends with Katy (through a mutual friend) even before Classic came around. And Wolfy was more than happy to welcome him with open arms and warm cupcakes! Wolfy's also like an aunt to Akachi who she also welcomed with open arms and warm cupcakes.

Idk dudes I love Wolfy, she's been there for me through many years and seen some shit, she's amazing, she sometimes makes her own clothes and really likes turtles.

Quality werewolf, would bark again

Katja Storm aka Kstorm (mostly she/they but he is also fine), 30

Kstorm is also a very old character of mine (like Wolfy and Katy), she's been through many changes and I'm finally happy with where she is!

Kstorm is the oldest of (3) three children, she's half Spanish half Korean and she's a DJ and quite enjoys making music. I imagine her style is similar to Porter Robinson but maybe a bit more bass heavy (I just love Porter Robinson y'all)

She's dating a girl named Kayna (Kstorm calls her Kaykay uwu), who's best friends with Wolfy and by correlation, she got invited to the Cool Kids club B)

Kstorm herself is a witch and when Classic came around she got pretty excited (but like low-key, cuz she's cool like that), tbh Kstorm was a big help with assisting Classic to handle and control his magic. While Katy is very agitated about spreading the knowledge about bridging and the alts, but she trusts this group of people.

Kstorm doesn't go on adventures or jump through dimensions much, too busy working but she asks to get herbs and cool artefacts and talismans whenever the others do go.

Kstorm is a cool and collected person, she doesn't like drama and doesn't want to make a big deal out of things, especially if it isn't. She went to medical school to become a nurse before turning into a fulltime DJ and she often puts together charity events at the club she performs at. She's generally loved by her community, though there has been drama and people trying to ruin her name. She lost some of her fans after coming out as genderfluid and pansexual but regained a large following of very supportive followers and fans.

Taika (they/them), ???

Taika is a tall, cat-like forest spirit who came from a very monochrome and old realm, they came to the human realm to experience colour, loudness and life for what it could be.

They don't have a mouth (or nose) so they can't speak and when they were born their limbs were deformed so now they have prosthetic arms and legs (luckily the forest spirits are pretty handy).

Taika is a very innocent and optimistic creature, very curious about humans and other beings.

Taika especially loves a lot of what humans have created and relishes in their culture with loud music, dyed hair, ripped jeans and technology.

Now, Taika doesn't really belong in the Voidverse, but I love them so much that I had to mention them cuz they're literally so precious.

#classic the demon ((joel))#jojo ((joel))#282 ((joel))#cappy the capricorn ((joel))#the voidkeeper ((joel))#lotus dragon ((joel))#everyone's mom ((katy))#your sexy problematic fave ((coraline))#reptile child ((akachi))#she's a pony ((kstorm))#sweet cinnamon child ((taika))#oc #ocs #my characters #voidverse #jojowritesthings

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fuckimtryin-blog · 7 years ago

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you know that trope where the Chosen One has to go find their mentor, but their mentor is actually an old drunk (who is super traumatised but the narrative isn’t going to go into that much except for a lil bit of Manpain) and is all gruff and cynical and refuses to help

only the mentor is convinced by the pureness of the Chosen One’s heart into helping

well that

but

the prospective mentor (who is a lady because fuck the patriarchy women get to be unlikable bitter alcoholic old soldiers too) takes one look at the Chosen One

and goes Fuck No

and of course the Chosen One and his entourage goes 'oh she’s just bitter and disillusioned we’ll bring her round with the power of hope', because that’s how Chosen Ones work. only after the Chosen One makes his impassioned speech on how great the Good Old Days with the Wise and Benevolent Order of Knights keeping the kingdom Peaceful and Prosperous before they were purged by the Evil King

this bitter, lewd old alcoholic woman goes 'kid, sit the fuck down'

'i actually fought for those guys. i was one of their best soldiers/their original Chosen One. and do you know how old i was when they shoved me on a battlefield and forced me to fight and kill?'

’12. 12 years old'

and it turns out that the bitterness is, yeah, directed at the Evil King who killed all those people, but it’s mostly directed at the Wise and Benevolent Order. at the powerful and venerated adults who saw this kid bubbling over with magic, full of potential, and essentially turned her into a child soldier

and yeah, the evil must be defeated, she fucking gets that, but why the fuck should she do it?? has she not fought enough? has she not suffered enough? the amount of terrible things she’s seen and done, how often she looks back over the teachings of her masters and goes, yeah, that was some grooming, there was some creepy ass manipulative shit going on there, you do not say these things to A FUCKING CHILD (bc her training would have started in earnest at 7 FUCKING YEARS OF AGE) for any good reason

no, not even if lives are at stake. no, not even if she could save and help people

and it’s taken her so long to realise, actually no, that was so fucked up

and she doesn’t really have anyone to turn to because the people who won’t get her executed for being a Wise and Benevolent Knight are the people who would never, ever believe that the Wise and Benevolent Order could ever do something so wrong. or worse, would justify it to her and say the same goddamn shit she’s been trying to fight against for so

fucking

long

and so on one level she DOES NOT FUCKIGN APPRECIATE this snot nosed naive brat trying to explain to her how actually the group of people who ruined her life - and, lbr, basically handed the kingdom to the Evil King thanks to their own hubris and flawed thinking - are actually Noble and she must Fight In Their Name and Remember Who She Really Is

but on another

well

this is a kid

(gonna put the new chosen one at 16)

and she looks at this child, who has been so sheltered, filled to the brim with propaganda and righteous fury and sent into the fire by adults who should know so much better, sent to fight an enemy he cannot hope to defeat, sent into war and bloodshed and pain to give his life and his childhood for the cause, and she thinks

oh gods

not again

please dont make me see this again

(lets say that while he’s 16 at this point, the chosen one has been trained (read groomed) since he was very young. possibly he was Born Into A Bloodline or something which gave the order of Wise and Benevolent Knights In Hiding access to him at birth)

and she cant help but see him and see herself, so young and so sure and so very very manipulated, 13 years old and calling a storm down onto the battlefield and watching it tear people to shreds, blood streaming from her nose and screams ringing in her ears

and now she has to make a choice

because the Evil King is genuinely fucking evil and people are suffering and dying. and this boy could help. could stop it all. he’s strong, and capable, and powerful, and he’s been training all his life, and he is after all the Chosen One

but is it worth it? could it ever be right to buy back a kingdom with a child's soul? can she do it? can she see it done? and if she cant then what can she do?

and why

why

is it up to her?

~~~

basically this, if it ever is a thing, is gonna be a smush of various high fantasy things, with quite a lot of star wars thrown in, because i have been reading some excellent meta/aus of the pt and yes i am bitter

it’s gonna take all the tropes about Destiny and Wise and Benevolent Orders and Chosen Ones

and rip them the fuck apart

and it’s gonna talk about child soldiers and spiritual abuse and why you dont romanticise the good old days

and trauma and healing and not being able to heal because fuck it, you’re still so fucking angry and you have no one left to take it out on because everyone who hurt you is dead

'yeah, but, Wise Mentor, the Evil King isn’t!!'

not the point. the Evil King wasn’t the one who did this to her. the Evil King is evil, maybe, but fuck it at least he swishes around in big flowy robes and has a sinister castle and tortures people and shit, and everyone knows he’s an evil fuck

whereas no one ever seems to understand that the people who did this to her were defenders of justice, and protectors of the weak, and, here’s the kicker, genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. like the though 'we are grooming a child solider' just….didn’t occur. they were good, respected, venerated, and they turned her into a weapon and let her loose and she still wakes up to the smell of charred skin

a part of me kind of wants her to just be like, fuck it. you know what okay lets kill the Evil King

because having been raised to be a weapon her ability to ignore her conscience and just push the fuck through is, kind of terrifying. and while she hates what she’s doing, she can totally still do it. and she hates it and she hates herself and so she closes off the terrible pain and she continues the cycle and

and

the kid doesn’t die. the kid wins and assumes the throne to rule over the kingdom and restore it to peace and prosperity (and, of course, to reinstate the Wise and Benevolent Order)

to all intents and purposes he’s Victorious and Triumphant and ready to rebuild the kingdom, but she sees behind his eyes. she knows him because she was him, and she knows that she sold his soul to destiny to save a kingdom.

and that she hasn’t actually saved shit because she’s just done the same goddamn thing that was done to her, how could anything have really changed? and she can see it, as the fragments of the W&BO come out of hiding to rebuild the organisation in exactly the same fucking way, and the new king makes mistake after mistake because he’s spent his whole life being told The Old World Was Perfect And Shining And Everything Was Great. and of course no one stops him because Chosen One and because, hell, he’s young and he’s fucking everything up but at least there’s no more torture! total step up!

(as could probably be expected, a traumatised child king who doesn’t even know he’s traumatised is not the best or most stable of supreme rulers)

and eventually the mentor has to run away and drink herself to death, and hope that one day someone will be smarter and kinder and less fucked up that her can actually make things better. and really, why the hell was it her responsibility? why should she have to save a fucking kingdom, she can’t even save herself

and she certainly couldn’t save him

~~~

we could have her go

you know what? fuck this. fuck it. fuck destiny. fuck the prophecy. fuck everyone who has ever told you that you have no purpose but to fight for a cause, you were a fucking kid, you were never given a choice, this is Evil.

so were gonna take down the fucking king, but you are not gonna do it

and yes, i know you’re a big boy and you’ve been training all your life and you’re super fucking capable, that’s not the fucking point.

the point is u never should have been capable of this

so she gets a band together and starts sending out feelers to all the secret resistance groups, completely ignoring the council of W&BO survivors who thought child soldiers were totally the way to go on this, oh and by the way imma steal your Chosen One

because I need a figurehead behind which organises a full scale fucking rebellion

bc fuck The Chosen One Will Save Us, the people will fucking save themselves. and they will cast down the Evil President King and they will make their world a better place, and oh yeah, so a lot of people think that if the king/W&BO hadn’t done This This and This and maybe we’d had some goddamn democracy, the Evil King wouldn’t have won?

and obviously the kid hates her for stealing away his destiny and side-lining him from his own story, bt she just takes him aside and says, one day, you will understand. one day, you will thank me.

and then she oversees the building of a government and the foundation of a new democracy and the creation of a fairer and better state, and she makes a deposition before this new government and finally lays out exactly what happened to their little chosen one all those years ago. and some people are horrified and other people realise, oh god, this is horrifying, why did we never grok that this is horrifying, what the fucking fuck, Wise and Benevolent Order???

and then she leaves the kingdom, because she’s sensible enough to know that while she can fight a war with the best of them, she will never be near stable enough to make the sort of government that this land needs. besides, organisations of lots of people who think they’re doing the right thing make her twitchy and why the fuck do you think that is??

and so she goes and finds a nice cottage on the outskirts of a nice city and raises borzois and gets a shit ton of therapy

after about 5 years, the former Chosen One shows up, and she’s like, hang on fucko, you’re meant to be helping with the creation of a new state. and he goes, yeah, tried that, did all I could, now i…..sort of don’t know what to do?? and you’re the only person who might understand?? help?????

he doesn’t quite realise why he’s there, but a part of him recognises a kindred spirit and, well

he always imagined that after he won and defeated the evil king he would be, well. the Chosen One/ the hero. the saviour

but no, he was persuaded to be like a figurehead to organise the rebellion, and of course he now gets that that was pretty noble and shit only. he feels like he didn’t actually fulfil his destiny and now people are expecting him to do things he was never trained to do and now he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with the rest of his life which he still somehow has

(because, if he’s being totally honest, he fully expected to perform a Heroic Sacrifice and die honourably in battle, possibly while slaying the Evil King)

and the mentor puts him up in the barn and goes to see her therapist and does some talking and then looks around her little home and thinks. because before this there was the rebellion and before that there was a hovel in some dark and awful city and before that there was the war and before that there was the temple and before that she has no idea but it was Bad. and she thinks, what did I miss? and then she thinks, what can I still get out of the life I have left?

so they give the borzois to one of her neighbours (apart from one semi-puppy who Bonded with the Chosen One and who she couldn’t’ get rid of if she tried (she isn’t even trying)), then they fuck off, and have adventures, and meet people and do crazy stupid things and save lives and learn things about themselves and each other

and the mentor learns to reclaim her powers for herself, to change her body and her abilities into something that isn’t a weapon and isn’t a liability and isn’t a reminder of all that was done to her but is, instead, hers

and along the way the chosen one has a bit of a think, and maybe a bit of therapy too, and realises

wait

that was

a bit fucked up wasn’t it

the mentor puts her head on the table and sighs in exasperation and relief, and then laughs her fucking head off in sheer giddy pleasure that yes, most of her life was destroyed or wasted and she never got a chance to be who she wanted to be, but

but she’s saved a kingdom, on her own terms, and she has, unbelievably, managed to save this boy. and she is not watching her own life again. she is watching what should have happened to her

and yes it fucking Hurts sometimes that he gets to heal and everything and she can’t, because she is still a bit of a bitter old fuck, but still

still

that’s something, isn’t it

#fantasy #maybe scifi???#concept #writing #writeblr #my shit #i am bitter and angry and i will destroy all your tropes

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cattythoughts-blog · 7 years ago

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Game of Thrones: The Alternate Ending

Intro of Dissatisfaction

Okay, so I’ve never been much of a revisionist when it comes to story-telling. Whatever ending I got, I could have mixed feelings about with no sway one way or the other to impact my overall enjoyment of a story. When stories go completely off the rails from what they once were (first 3 seasons of Supernatural vs everything after, Penny Dreadful season 3, Hannibal) I can still enjoy the show and, in the end, hold whatever first few good seasons I did have close to my heart.

And, I think the reason for this is that all all those shows had an “ending” before their true season ending. That ending paid off everything and was consistent with theme and tone first presented. Which brings up the question: What do you do when you have a story as big as Game of Thrones, a grand-scale epic by design? There can’t be a satisfying conclusion mid-way through the Game of Thrones show, where everything comes together because there’s too much going on. Too many loose strings. Too many factions. Stannis Baratheon’s death after burning his daughter could have been that great end-point of the show (the Baratheons known for gaining power by drawing the blood of their relatives finally take infighting to the deepest, darkest conclusion and are left with ashes) if we’d only been following Stannis, the Battle of the Bastards for the stark plot (to resolve the imbalance of rule of the north. The show starting with Ned and his family losing power and this culminating in the ultimate regain of that power through virtuous means but also new compromise and understanding of the “Great Game” on Sansa’s part), go all the way back to the Red Wedding and that could be that satisfying cut-off point if we only cared about the Starks.

Instead, there’s a show pushing a bolder of its own plot threats up a mountain, slowly dwindling in stakes and tension as the plot armor becomes too strong to kill of anyone important. That’s kind of a problem. The show has lost what made it, and the books, so great in the first place. Understand that I’m mostly talking about the show Game of Thrones, not the book series—but, this is actually a problem I have with both if George RR Martin and the writers are shooting in the same direction. If the TV show was without a doubt Full Metal Alchemisting these final seasons, I would probably not feel the need to write this. I’d just wait for the books and get my sweet, sweet, Brotherhood fix with George’s conclusion—but what if George’s conclusion is the show’s conclusion? If the end-goals set up in the show are the ones I’m to expect in the books then all I can say is—George…my man…my buddy…my better Santa…dafq?

The Core of Game of Thrones:

Here’s what I mean:

The main selling point of George RR Martin’s books is not realism—stop that, please. When people say “realism”, they’re talking about the feeling of stakes and motivation that copy realism. In realism, a lot more people would have died from drinking the bacteria in foreign fresh water and syphilis by now. George RR Martin doesn’t kill people without purpose. They have a thematic or plot-related edge to them that makes every death make sense in the grand scheme of things.

The main selling point of Georg RR Martin’s books is the subversion of expectation, actively taking tropes and turning them on their heads, and the consequences of actions. Every character is out to get something and if you don’t know what they want or how to make them think you can get it for them, you’ve lost. Here’s the problem of the show since season 5, more prominent in 6, and overt in 7, there are no consequences. All that cold-calculated conversation where you were trying to figure out what someone really wanted in the end-game is gone. All those terrible decisions made by Danny don’t backfire and have an overall consequence on how she’s viewed as a leader. Cersei—well the Margery-taking-over-thing was pretty good and the religion backfiring—but no consequence for blowing up the church when (especially in the books) it is explicitly stated that any ruler who ever did that was turned on by the people? The Iron Born suddenly decide to go and team up with Danny and give up their old ways in a snap because we need clear dividing lines on who is good and who is evil to wrap up this thing. Arya gets away with “tricking” the many faced men—the ultimate deception crew? No!

But, here’s the thing that frustrates me the most about all of this, up until Season 7, I could live with it. Fine. The overall story still had some promise to it. We have the “prince that was promised” thread, Tyrion “using” Danny to get revenge on his family or just see what happens (though in the show they kind of just make him love her and have no motive). Jon essentially usurping Sansa’s birthright to be lady of Winterfell and keeping Little Finger around while also having not told him about the vale, and then the whole Arya killing spree she was finally going to go on, Cersie dealing with a city/country that had to hate her after blowing up the church, the white walkers still had potential to be twisted as some kind of “no yeah, we’re sapient, and it’s cold and we just wanna go south, shut up” type-thing. Pieces were in place to be played with and set in order that was unexpected—an order with consequence.

Why Season 7 Fails:

What did I get in season 7?

In a nutshell: sister’s fighting over nothing from 5+ years ago—Danny and Jon, the 5$ love story. Cersei sitting in her chair with a fresh set of crazy pants and Jamie being angry, but not enough to do anything about it. And last—OH NO—That one! That dragon! I’m not sure which one but oh no…oh no…that one’s dead. Bummer. Wall down. Scene.

So…what was the consequences of this season? What were the biggest changes? The wall came down because the walkers had a dragon. Everything else was putzing around until that point. I’m not even joking. Little Finger’s death means nothing because he’s an inactive player in the story at that point. Danny’s getting evil—except—she’s always been evil (well, like, shes no more ruthless than she had been before). She crucified an entire city, so burning two guys alive is not out of character for her and changes nothing about the propoganda. Jon being declared the prince that was promised means nothing because that prophecy is vague. Bran’s omnipotent and missed the part where his aunt whispered the baby’s legal name because…reasons. Oh, oh, and the sand snakes finally died. Cheers to that.

Petty Child Explaining the Petty Rant

Now, here’s why I’m so mad. Because they have set up for—maybe not a great ending—but a good one that stays true to the tone of the books. Yes, this is the part where I say I can do better—and I really REALLY wish I couldn’t. The fact that I want every action to have a consequence, should not be something I have to insert to a story.

The following is “fixing” Season 7 of Game of Thrones, working with the plot threads set up at the beginning. I’m not going all the way back to 6 or 5 because that’s too much work, and I’m honestly just doing this for my own piece of mind. You can tell me this version of season 7 sucks. Hey, you’ve got the real TV version written by people with more talent and success than I’ll ever see. I’m some idiot with a keyboard and some ranting issues. Also, I’m more editing things that already exist like “working off the same budget” not adding new things, just going with what they gave me.

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So, the best way to fix this is to go narrative thread by thread, so let’s start with the 2nd worst one first. Danny. Oh…Danny, Danny, Danny. So much set up. No payoff. Loved you this season, girl. In the original Season 7, nothing changes with her character besides her becoming the ultimate Mary Sue with everyone falling in love with her left and right and her never dying on her dragons. Nothing she does or says or what people do or say to her this season have consequence unless it leads to getting into her nephew, Jon’s, pants (is anyone else not creeped out that there are literally no degrees of separation there. Her brother was his father. He’s sleeping with is aunt…no? And she’s totally going to get pregnant with an incest baby next season because they made a really huge point of saying she couldn’t have kids (and that’s mostly a man’s fault if you can’t have kids—like biologically speaking). Okay, it was a thing when the Lannisters were doing it but sure).

DANNY CHANGE:

To explain how to fix Danny is to explain her overall relevance to the plot—the plot of Game of Thrones. Her mechanical purpose was two main things. 1. Bring dragons to the army that dies of getting burned so that they can be defeated by getting burned, but also so that they have a dragon to break down the wall and make plot happen. 2. Be the inspirational invader that provides pressure for the native forces to band together and fight on two fronts (north and south) while bringing in these foreign fighters.

Danny is not meant to sit on the iron throne. Mechanically, she has been foreshadowed to be a great conqueror and a terrible, terrible ruler. In the books, it is better portrayed that she’s a little girl who can draw in inspiration, but has no clue what she’s doing when we get down to brass tax. In the show, she’s like mid-20s, so it doesn’t come off the same way. But, that’s the core of her. A girl who does not want to become the monster of her past, but believes that her lineage—not her actions—makes her deserving—not earning—of the Iron Throne. She wants to rule over this country because it exists and someone told her it was hers. Danny is a villain so letting the invasion play out is fine, but the two major threads need to be addressed. 1. Dragons are in Westeros (check), but now they need to go north. 2. Danny is leading inspiration and causing terror (check if you do the first 3 episodes of her plot the same).

There’s two main themes for Danny this season that culminate into nothing. She’ll ask for advice and listen to no one after they’ve given that advice “Be a dragon.” That should make Tyrion more frustrated with her and put a strain on their relationship because Westeros is Tyrion’s home, and he’s trying to put a ruler on it that he can’t mold to his views so easily. She’s an impulsive child. That’s what you should get out of all those close calls where she takes her dragon and nearly gets killed. The other theme is succession. After Danny is gone, what will happen? Danny doesn’t want to think about that, but she’s this inspirational ruler that brought armies across the sea for her. What do they have to fight for if Danny is dead? This isn’t their home. They won’t care after she’s gone. That’s why the children thing kept being brought up, and it’s never acted upon. So, here’s Danny’s conclusion for Season 7.

That stupid plot with the guys going across the wall to kidnap a walker happens, they’re on that lakebed… sure. Tweak it. As Danny swoops in to save them she is yet again not listening to advice and endangering herself. Danny drops with Drogo to go pick up the SQUAD and it’s too hot. She gets on a dragon, commands one to pick up the boys while she goes straight for the white walker kings (as the boys could have pointed out to her that you kill the boss, the adds die). And then, that Olympic-gold-winning javelin throw goes straight into Drogo (the only dragon you can actually tell apart) with Danny riding on his back. They both plummet to the ground behind a mountain or something (not in the lake because where’d the wights get chains?) out of sight and the SQUAD has to take the walker and run because one of the least favorite children dragons takes them away already. Jon can even have his stupid staying behind moment if he was trying to get Danny if they really needed that scene (he’d have a reason to stay in the middle of the army of wights fighting one or two because he’s just as impulsive and brash). I’d prefer everyone just left on least-favorite-dragon #1 or #2 and they flew back over the wall.

Then, by the end of the season, the white walkers now have the ice dragon they wanted. Not just any dragon. The only dragon the audience could name/care about: Drogo. (maybe Danny’s in there too as a wight, or a wight king if we wanna apply the rule of cool—like this would be kind of dumb but I’d want to see it. It’s probably more poetic for her to fall off the dragon and one of her least favorite children to pull her corpse out of the snow and fly her home).

What does this change/do?

Danny’s arc is a woman who doesn’t want to be an evil ruler but is not willing to learn or be flexible. Her inflexibility and inability to understand her limits because of years of have the ultimate advantage of dragons is what causes her death, ending that thread. Two, now what are Danny’s forces doing in Esos? Tyrion still has this army to deal with and they have no leader, no inspiration. That burning fire that has been carrying them is snuffed out and an entire group of people who’d hoped to find a great ruler (Tyrion’s hope) is dead. As for Danny, she did not want to become a mad king like her father, she did not want to kill hundreds of thousands, but due to her inflexibility, her ultimate drive for power, her defiance of death shown many times throughout the series—she has failed to reach her ultimate potential (and if we go with the white walker thing, she defies death for the final time becoming the ultimate conqueror of death and the destined ultimate conqueror of the nation she set out to rule, but not how she would have wanted. (but this one I’m ehh on because I got a better plan)) She’s fallen to tragedy because of her lack of familiarity with the country she was going to reign over. (also something else pays off from this in like 10 paragraphs, I’m sorry).

____________

Chopping block goes to Cersei next…also not that long. Mostly because it’s not hard to make it interesting.

CERSEI FIXING WHAT’S BROKE

Cersei’s character is fine. It’s not great, it’s not the best with the magic plot lack of logic, but it’s fine. Have her do the thing with the iron bank and take Highgarden…Highgarden—the wealthiest country—being overthrown because…rich people don’t have the biggest armies to protect their loot? Oh my god, Highgarden. The way the show presented it, I could run in there with a toothpick and win.

Anyway, sure. But, the people hate her because she blew up their religion. (I know the show plays it off that the people think it’s an accident but…come on). Consequences is that she now has lack of support from the people while this foreign invader tears up her home. She needs aid. So…she’ll call upon the north, upon Winterfell because there’s a new Boss up there who may be wiling to work with her. She hears they’re in need of military aid. Why wouldn’t she band together as many men as she could from all corners of her country to kill Danny?

When she summons Jon, he’s already south yucking it up with Danny so Sansa has to deal with that.

What does this change?

Things remain basically the same, but Cersei has to be willing to drag in new allies like she did with the Iron Born. The Lannisters have always been a flexible group. With the North having a new power player, why wouldn’t she reach out to them? Also, she should be shown protecting the people to keep them happy. It has never been a more crucial time to get rid of the problem that is Danny. Danny is making the people unhappy as Cersei’s reign is starting with the terror of invasion. People already hate Cersei. The longer Danny’s around, the more they’ll hate her. Now, she has motivation beside territory claims to hate Danny. Motivation is clear, it’s present, and it relies on public opinion—something the Lannisters are slaves to. The lions do consider the opinions of the sheep.

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That Meeting at the End Tho:

Okay, that last episode was everyone bitching until nothing got accomplished or changed. Here’s how you change/fix it. Danny wasn’t invited. Cersei organized the meet-up, inviting Jon along with other lords she’s going to try to win over. Jon happens to be doing exactly what he’d been doing throughout the entire season with the walker expedition (there’s honestly just no good way to fix this, unless they break the wall early or if they just have Danny fly up, swoop down to grab a white and fly back. I get it. Mechanically, walkers need to be shown as real and dragon needs to die. Mostly, dragon needs to die) So the show can do whatever needed to happen to get Jon to meet Danny and be like…you’re a hot aunt. That…happened. Then the usual sich happens with Jon coming back with the walker. Sure. Whatever.

But, we changed what happened with Danny. Danny’s now dead. Tyrion is the one in charge. So…what does he do when the Queen’s dead? Tell everyone pack up and go home? NO! He’s got a steak grilling on this army. He wants his family out of power and this is the only way he’s ever going to get anywhere. He’ll show up, uninvited, as the ambassador for the queen, a messenger protected by the knight’s law (or a dragon). He will take a seat at the council saying that Danny wants to negotiate peace in order to fight the wight walkers. Spin the excuse so that he says it was Danny’s plan all along to invade Westeros just to kill the things in the north and she has every intention of leaving afterwards (some kind of clever bs lie that gets his foot in the door and makes Cersei consider it).

We’ll come back to this in a second, but the point is, this meeting had a reason to happen. Here, there’d be tension because…why couldn’t Danny come herself? Cersei has a reason afterwards to doubt the power of Danny. Tyrion is left a leader, unofficially an equal with his sister.

_______________

Next important plot line is Sansa, but it won’t be touched on that much. Because, basically, for what they were going for, they did okay. Like…yeah…if you took Sansa, put her in her own Sansa box in this season and edited some things in your mind, it’s cool.

SANSA, LADY OF WINTERHELL:

Okay, so first off, Jon has to scream at Sansa for not letting anyone know that she had a cavalry that would be a larger army. That knowledge alone would have prevented many deaths in the battle of the bastards. (or at least have it that Sansa told him and then they go like “Oh, I guess the vale didn’t show…shit we have to fight these guys on our own” and then it just turns out the vale was late. Jimmy stubbed his toe—anyway). Sansa and Jon have a power dynamic that is inherently interesting—until it’s presented to you.

A bunch of old white guys chose a bastard over a queen and Sansa’s birthright was taken from her. Now, the reason this is cool is because, though the Starks are the closest family, they haven’t seen each other in years and Sansa has grown up in places of manipulation and deceit. Living with her Aunt should have broken trust she had in family ties. Jon, has usurped her and she’ll see it like that, but know that he’s too stupid to have done it on purpose.

In public, she has to put on a bold face because if they go against Jon, they go against the Starks. She and Jon are a packaged deal in the eyes of the northerners right now, so she has to be quiet and kind in public, while in private, they can have those confrontations. (If Sansa learned anything from the series, it should have been to keep her mouth shut and pretend to be one unbreakable unit—but she doesn’t in the show. Pretend she did in this version and went against Jon only in private). Sansa would be caught between two things: The love and trust she has left in her family, and survival through playing the great game. She can love Jon, but think he is a terrible leader in Winterfell, think/ know she can do better, be great where Jon is failing.

When that letter comes from Danny inviting the king of the north, it should be Sansa pushing Jon to let her stay in charge if he does go—because she knows he will go. Make it her decision. The consequences of her conversations with him are carefully crafted for Jon to instill confidence in her and leave Winterfell to her as if it was his idea. Sansa wants power because she thinks she can be better. So, Jon shoves off, and she’s lady of Winterfell, to many people’s chagrin.

Then, she uses the tactics she learned in the south, throwing sly comments here and there that make people twist on themselves and acknowledge her as ruler and stabilizes her power. She’s not trying to take the throne back from Jon as much as she’s trying to secure it (instead of little finger doing all of this for her). The entire Season 7 could have been her dance between loving her family and desiring power because she can’t trust anyone else with it. Little Finger would be the devil on one shoulder, whispering encouragement to be tricky. She could employ him to sway the Vale her way, making their change in allegiance and sudden trust in Sansa not LIttle Finger make sense. Arya would be the voice family on the other shoulder.

Little Finger would still die in the end. Sansa, the most Tully of the Starks, ultimately choosing family over the poison she’s seen in the slimy pursuit of power—but she will want to remain lady of Winterfell because she’s doing such a good job at it and Jon (who she hasn’t seen in years, has deserted the night’s watch, come back, and never even waved at her as he passed their home some 2 odd times on his travel past the wall and back) isn’t capable, and she uses her manipulation to strengthen the FAMILY not herself.

What does Sansa change?

This basically gives Sansa more agency and culminates in payoff for her arc. That whole thing where Arya was accusing Sansa of wanting power comes off as flat in the show because you know Sansa already chose family and hasn’t been manipulative, it’s only been Little Finger. So…give those actions weight. If Sansa really is torn, show why, because she has more than enough reason to be.

She’s a new ruler of people in uncertain times whose alliances are in a shifting period. Power is hers and Jon’s but unstable and she should be able to see it. She does in the show. The fickleness of the people around her is a danger and honest tactics, which rely on knowing another’s character, is impossible for someone like Sansa or Jon who haven’t been present. Have men whispering of usurping the absent Starks, saying things were better before this dumb war. Have them saying two children of Ned, their failure, will get them all killed. Have Sansa deal with that. She’s learned from her travels how to be clever, how to make people follow her, how to gain power, but only ever power for herself. Here, with her family, she’ll take the cruelty she learned and grow as a character to expand her definition of rule and make the Starks, as a house, as a name, strong as a pack.

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So, let’s go to the next major plot thread that made me gnash my teeth: Sibling rivalry. I think the worst part about this is that the fight between Sansa and Arya never needed to happen. It has no consequence. It had no reaosn to exist because niether sister changed status. Before, they were annoyed with one another but willing to work together. After, it’s the same thing. The presentation of this plot is also terrible. The writers leave you in the dark with Sansa and Arya because they want a cheap “shock factor” when Sansa puts Little Finger on trial. But for an entire season, Arya is bringing up bs from 5 years ago (as sisters tend to do) and threatening to murder her own sister over it! But, twist! Sansa and Arya actually weren’t fighting—but they were-and it was all a ploy to get Little Finger exposed…only we were only ever shown Arya saying she is super jiving to kill Sansa in a room with no one else around. Why would a single private conversation between them ever end with Arya threatening to kill her sister if they’re fine with each other by the end? It certainly wasn’t for Little Finger’s benifit, he clearly wasn’t around. It was to manipulate the audience, and it’s dumb. Simple as that. Dumb. Soap Opera levels of lacking in consequence. (In my head, Bran was the one to end it. Like the fight between the girls got so bad it literally created a future that would tear down Winterfell, so he had to grunt and wheel himself into a room with them. Then he used his omnipotent power and told both his sisters to stop being idiots off screen).

Arya…oh god. She has plot armor just because she’s the favorite and it hurts. Nothing hurts more than seeing a 14 year-old rave about how they could have done everything better and you suck for bending to the world. And, unfortunately, she hasn’t had to compromise for a long time. Everyone she interacts with lets her get away with things that would kill other characters. (many faced men plot). Somehow, she’s still one of my favorite characters in principle, but execution is….er… The girl needs a thematic slap on the wrist.

ARYA AND THE MANY-FACED CONTRIVANCES

Let’s look at the core of Arya’s character again. She’s the reluctant princess. The girl who was wild and always wanted to be wild, and there were consequences for that for a very long time. She was never able to be a proper lady, and judged for that so she turned to being tough. That was great with the hound and the red wedding for a long time. Her learning the hardships and cruelties of the world and the need for compromise through a man like the hound was great.

Then, she goes to the many-faced men and…tricks them. The cult that makes a living understanding people and taking on the personas as their own indoctrinated a faker because 12-16 year old Arya was the first kid to try to trick them? By being good at the hazing ritual of being blind that everyone probably had to go through? It’s dumb, but roll with it because the books is doing it cleverly so I’ll live.

Let’s say we keep that, but that the many-faced man let her go because he knew she’d only be more trouble if she stayed. (GLaD0s motivation pretty much. Want her gone because killing her has proven to be more trouble than its worth). Arya can have her Frey thing and the poisoning scene, but then she goes home to Winterfell. She was on a murder spree until she heard Jon was alive. When she gets there and there’s no Jon, she should want to go right back to murder. She’ll want to leave. But Sansa, seeing Arya is trying to travel alone to the most dangerous place in the country, will want to keep her around. As far as Sansa’s concerned, Arya is a child. To Sansa, if she goes out on her own again, she may very well die. Sansa has to keep Arya in Winterfell, lock her in for her own good, not wanting to split up a family. Arya can even tell Sansa she has people on her list to kill and Sansa isn’t going to believe her sister became a magical face-murderer. She’ll say “Okay, that’s nice. Wash up for dinner, don’t stab anyone, please stop creeping everyone out by staring at them like they all killed Nymeria.”

So, Arya has a reason to bring up distrust and events of Sansa’s past. The sister fight now has a purpose grounded in the characters and their actions. The fight still shouldn’t last long. At best, two episodes. The consequences of a conversation/fight matter more than the actual fight/conversation.

Set the scene so that Arya confronts and threatens to kill Sansa in that lying game. Sansa says something like this, “I’m keeping you here because I love you and I love my family. I don’t want you to die, and I don’t believe that you can waltz into king’s landing and kill the Lannister’s. You’re a child. You’re going to get yourself killed so excuse me for trying to keep what little of our family is left together. You belong home to be a lady of the house and help when winter is coming!” Only, you know, written well.

Arya is told for the first time since bravos that she’s not “the shit.” (because who was listening to the waif or the many-faced guy. No one she’s taken seriously has talked her off of her high horse in a while and it shows). So the fight happens and though it ended with Sansa confessing her choice of choosing family over power, Arya takes it to heart that someone thinks she can’t take care of herself. She hates the the idea that she may still be that powerless little girl watching her father get executed from season one. All that’s been keeping her going since that point is that list. If she can’t check off the names, and can’t be a proper lady, what’s left of her? She’s stuck in the past, stuck in a fantasy that will be a revisionist history and keep her from achieving closure.

Thinking this, Arya runs away from Winterfell and fast-travels to King’s Landing. There, she steals the face of another servant girl and tries to kill Cersei, but the mountain (or something) catches her and her face is removed. Cersei (who’d is about to have a council meeting with the king in the north) will now have leverage. She’ll use Arya as a pawn to win the Stark loyalty, showing her craft and desperate need for allies.

Arya gets traded for Jon’s declaration of loyalty. He’ll choose family over Danny (who he’s been dicking around with for a while the same way as in the show, sure). Now we got a happy little brigade that’s going to fight the white walkers together.

What does this change?

Now, there’s a reason for Arya to stay in Winterfell and for her to have a conflict with Sansa. It also fleshes out Sansa’s family vs cunning theme we were going for. Now, Arya can bring up her sister’s past mistakes because Sansa is actually trying to overthrow Jon, so there’s grounds for suspicion. NOW this fight has a consequence. It leads to Arya, who’d been a character shown to be consumed by revenge, relentlessly pursuing that path instead of truly coping.

When Arya fails to kill Cersie, it makes an impact on her character. She goes to thinking she’s just as powerless as she was when she was little, and it crushes her, frustrates her, boils in her. She can’t stand that thought. She’s trapped in the past and now her purpose is shown to be infeasible. She’s the weak princess she didn’t want to be. (of course, she’s not actually, but that’s what she would think of herself as she’s taken down a peg and she’ll understand her sister’s need to play the game.)

What else does this change? Something that I really hate. (coming up next).

THE PRINCE THAT WAS PROMISED

I wonder who—it’s Jon. It’s always Jon. Sure. But NO! NO! NO! NO!

Here’s why I say NO! Because prophecies in this show have been used as kind of like a cryptic underline to events that happen. Whatever is said is not always whatever is meant. Now, remember when everyone was theorizing who could be the prince that was promised and this is basically Game of Thrones Jesus? For the story to be in keeping with it’s original tone, Game of Thrones Jesus should not exist! Jon should not be him. He’s the most obvious choice and the show has built that up since day one. Sure. It was a three-way tie between Jon, Danny and Tyrion for a long time. But…how about this:

Keep it the obvious choice everyone discounted. Keep it Danny.

“But…you killed Danny in this narrative before anyone got to smash,” you say.

“I did!” I say to you. “Because we’re going to make this prophecy better.”

Arya has been set up as the girl who can steal faces, someone designed to slip into personas that aren’t hers and nothing of use has been done with that. (I mean in the overall plot. There’s this story telling tool that says you introduce a mechanic early on in a book and reuse that mechanic for another purpose later that wouldn’t be initially thought of. Face stealing is a mechanic with boundless potential).

What if, at this meeting with Cersei, Arya is thrown in the center with the face of the servant she tried to use. Arya’s called a witch. Tyrion takes notice (because we put him at that meeting already). When Arya is traded back, and Jon has her, Tyrion takes Arya aside and asks her if she can slip into any face. (This is why we need Danny’s corpse back—Oh shit, Danny could be that white walker they present to Cersei. Like, they got what they wanted…you know what? They should have literally just brought someone [like a prisoner marked for death or something] over the wall, killed them, tied up the corpse, waited for the corpse to reanimate, walk back…ANYWAY). Tyrion and Arya have a conversation about the face-stealing-thing and a plan forms in his mind.

He looks to Arya and asks, “How would you like another chance at ending the Lannister reign? I can help you kill all the people on your list.” (With better written dialogue). Arya’s super down for this plan. Why wouldn’t she be?

They got the Danny-dead-body-face and Arya slips it on. Now, she’s impersonating queen Danny. In comes the Princess that was promised. Arya will be exactly who she wanted to be, Nymeria, the conquering queen, who has to juggle the duality of the game in her deception, with the gore and violent vengeance promised to her. Now, the legacy of Danny will truly be one of a merciless mad-queen driven only to kill the enemy. Burn them all, Arya. Burn them all.

WHY?

Because I don’t doubt that Jon Snow’s birth would be a great twist, but it makes the prophecy too obvious now. It fits too well. I hate the prince that was promised prophecy because of how much it adheres to modern convention. I just think George has set up a world that can easily subvert the obvious. If it turned out that someone was wearing the face of the person who was supposed to be this prophesied messiah, that’s so much better in my opinion. (It also has to be someone the audience has as much attachment to as Danny. Someone from season 1, who won’t be a “lesser” replacement. You still want to keep people interested after killing off a major character so another major character has to take her place). Arya’s technically Danny from that point on, making her the prince that was promised. The “savior” is now Arya, the girl consumed by revenge and blood, the girl shaped in this world, taken all around it, and culminated into this leader for people she doesn’t care about. Her own goals are short-sighted, leaving her a pawn for Tyrion (a great ruler the people would never follow) to shape the world as he sees fit. You can even add Cersie’s prophecy that a younger queen will usurp her–Arya in Danny’s skin.

You remember that phrase “The dragon has three heads?” One for Danny (the OG ruler), one for Arya/impersonator, one for Tyrion (the man who will rule in her name). I know it’s supposed to refer to the riders, but let me dream.

______________

Oh my god, we’re finally near the end! There’s other plot points that aren’t great, but they either ultimately don’t impact the story that much, are implied with the changes, are fine as they are, or I don’t care. This is long enough as it is. A few closing thoughts: you can’t have a long-running series and kill off all the main characters while still keeping investment intact, I get it. Danny’s a favorite, so is Jon, so is Arya, so is Peter Dinklage. That’s why they have super thick plot armor. But, the show has grown toothless. The overall story is not the story of these characters. It’s the country’s story. How this one continent ends up scarred by the damage of people who ends up ruling it. Whoever sits on the Iron Throne says something about the world, not the people in it.

The main conflict of the show is that there’s this terrible force coming in from the north. While it’s approaching, power has to be a loose structure and chaos has to run rampant through all of Westeros. If you watch everything before season 6 and say “Hey, looks like this country’s plot line is finally going to be in order and we may have a stable and just power structure”—No. That’s why you had the Red Wedding, that’s why you had the Lord of Light and demon baby, that’s why you have a line of dead Lannister kings. It’s a world-wide story. That’s why there’s no mini-cut off point with perfect plot resolution.

Also, I know there’s a lot of cool stuff in the books I’m not mentioning. That’s because the books and show are separate entities with just the main stretch goals as their common ground at this point (I guess). So, most of this is show-based.

I feel like I said this before, but I don’t hate this series. I love it. I’ve had a lot of fun with it. There’s a metric ton of talent going into the show and the books and I am glad they exist. I’m still dying waiting for the next book, and the show will have my groaning support every Sunday when it next airs. Until then, for my own piece of mind, I’ll just scream at this wall.

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jesterlady · 8 years ago

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Absolutely feel free to skip this one because it’s very long and very spoiler-y.

How can I explain Farscape? No, I'm not going to do the Mean Girls thing, it wouldn't do it justice. I think what makes Farscape so special was that it wholly embraced its scifi-ness and yet somehow managed to invert most of the tropes therein, in such a way that still managed to make it seem ground breaking and yet completely scifi. One of the ways it does this is the fact there's only one human on this show. John Crichton is our guide to the universe and the eyes through which everything is filtered (totally making him like the companion on DW, lol) but the show is a big melting pot of alien. Even the aliens that are humanoid or look human have very specific cultures, physiology, mannerisms, and values that make them completely alien. It's a bit shocking to get used to. Before I watched Farscape the only thing I knew about it was that it was extremely popular and made with Muppets in Australia. In fact during the first episode I got all confused because all along I'm been assuming John Sheppard from Stargate Atlantis was Crichton, whoops. The first episode itself didn't immediately make me fall in love but it didn't take much more than the first half of a season to make me completely involved, in a good way or a bad way. Like I said, this show doesn't play by humanity's rules. Crichton may be the lead of the show and he may influence them all in huge ways, but these are incredibly different creatures with extremely different morals. One of the very first episodes deals with three of the characters cutting off the arm of the Pilot in order to secure maps to their home worlds. I was so pissed off and I kept on being pissed off through the whole episode and you know what...they don't apologize or realize it was wrong and they weren't influenced by the alien bad guy like I thought at first, in fact, in the end scene D'Argo even says he'd do it again. He was attempting in his own way to make it up to Pilot, but he wasn't backing down. I fretted and fumed about it for a while and then started writing fic in my head to fix it, but the episode brings home an important fact. This isn't Star Trek, these aren't people, this show does things differently, and the main characters might not always be likeable. John and Aeryn both bring up the incident later when they're being accused of something to remind everyone that that they were the ones who were a. psychotic about reaching home and b. not exactly careful about treating Pilot well, but that's all you get on that front. So, yeah, it's an interesting show to get used to. The cute little Muppet is a dirty, greedy, rotten old man who betrays them countless times and constantly deserves to get spaced. When Chiana joins the crew later she's like a little alien street rat who uses her body and whatever else she can to get by, but even though the only thing alien looking about her is makeup, her physicality is so incredible. The actress just makes her move and stand and be alien, it's amazing, she's like a living puppet on strings. It's not the greatest budget on the planet and the special effects weren't amazing, but using the prosthetics and the puppets, actually made it really cool. I love shows set in Australia, they just don't care if they reuse actors a bunch or if everyone speaks with an Aussie accent, they just focus on making their show and trust it to deliver what the budget can't. It's very inspiring. And like I said, it turns things on their head. Our lead John Crichton is so very Southern and he's all action hero and all, but he's also a scientist, an astronaut, incredibly smart, peculiarly fitted to understand space and learn to live with aliens. His plans are insane and they always work even though they require a lot of improvisation along the way. He's a pop culture machine, always spitting out references, which we get, but the aliens don't. It's always a joy to wonder what he'll say next and what new nickname he'll give someone. Now, he's got a reason to act crazy. Literally just being shot to the other end of the universe and living among aliens would do that, but then he is hunted by Crais, Mr. Head Peacekeeper, and then gets the most wanted tech in the universe, wormhole knowledge, encoded in his brain. So literally everyone wants to capture him and when he does get captured, he's tortured and then turned into Mr. Nosferatu Scorpius's pet science project, up to the point of having a chip in his head and then neural clones. Imagine living with your worst enemy in your head. I mean, it's no wonder Crichton is insane. To be honest, I love Insane!Crichton, he's hilarious. But...it's torture to watch at the same time. At the end of S2, when they're desperately trying to get the chip out and each time it doesn't work out, I was audibly begging the invisible showmakers to please let him get the chip out. Of course the torture didn't end with the chip, why would it? What is most torturous and most wondrous about the show is John and Aeryn's relationship. I mean, talk about a romance for the ages. They're never fully together it seems, they're never actually apart, but it doesn't feel like a 'will they, won't they' type of deal. They are bound by astonishingly amazing chemistry and it just builds and builds until their UST is enough to make you explode. But even that's all backwards because they have sex like first thing in the first season, and then it's never a thing really. But they talk and talk and talk and work well together and protect each other and look at each other and sometimes even cuddle in Pilot's den. Now Aeryn is stiff and bred for war and was taught love was a weakness. She is an outcast from her people and adrift amongst the very people she was born to kill and hate. It's difficult, oh yeah. All through S2 she's just fighting it like crazy. There's this whole 3 parter where John actually gets married to and has a baby with some Princess but he'll never live long enough to see his child and Aeryn is off freaking out while he's being held hostage in this situation. At the end...do we get a beautiful reunion? Nope, we get them both knowing that they're compatible and smiling. Finally, finally when she does admit she loves him, he's being taken over by the evil clone in his head and he ends up killing her. Oh, and then when she's brought back to life by Zhaan (so sad Zhaan died like that. I mean, it was beautiful, but I hated that she was gone) Aeryn admits to John she loves him but she won't be with him because Zhaan gave her life for Aeryn and Aeryn won't risk feelings because it would get people hurt. Trope annoyance alert! I hate the whole 'I love you but I won't be with you because I would lose focus and it would hurt more if one of us died' bits. You're gonna be worried about him anyway, honey, you might as well enjoy the fun part of love. Anyway...S3 was all sorts of fun and angst. Because they twin John so now there's a copy and an original. As soon as they didn't resolve that by the end of that episode I knew there was going to be angst about it, I spent like 10 episodes analyzing everything they each did and trying to figure out who was the copy and who I should root for to live and be with Aeryn. By the way, they never reveal who the copy is. So I will never know if John Crichton actually died in the Uncharted Territories. This show, this show. But what they did was actually really clever and interesting. They split the crew up for most of the season on two ships. One Crichton on each. So they got to develop some interesting storylines that way. Of course, as soon as Aeryn ended up with one of the Crichtons on Talyn, you kind of felt he was doomed. Red shirt alert! Another trope not inverted but held for maximum angst. Because of course she and that John got together and it was beautiful and perfect and wonderful. Then in a dramatic two parter, that John finally unlocks the wormhole tech in his brain and gets rid of the Scorpius clone living in his head while with Aeryn in beautiful, tangible love so...naturally he dies of radiation poisoning. It wrecks Aeryn, she finally opened up and then she had to grieve so she clams right the hell back up. I mean, I knew it would happen, but I was so sad for the other Crichton because he's been on Moya missing her like hell and the saddest moment in all of Farscape (apart from Zhaan and D'Argo's deaths) is when he runs up to the transport pod with the cutest love struck look on his face, so anxious to see her again, and she just cuts him. Oh, it breaks my heart to think about it. Of course, then they have to work together and it's obvious they both still care. I get it with her, but I'm just like 'girl, you have the best opportunity in the world, to watch the one you die and still be able to have exactly him.' They've both had to watch each other die at this point. At the end of the season she leaves and he tries to stop her but she can't deal and he lets her go because they freaking toss a coin to see who wins that argument. Wow. Of course, magically (this whole bit is kind of silly) he finds out she's pregnant after she goes! (Neranti is just weird but again, a delightfully non human element of the show that they just stick in.) So next season when they get reunited and she's finally figured things out a bit, but she still can't tell him the whole truth or if the baby is even his (weird alien gestation alert) and so he decides he can't trust his heart to her. Ack! Then she's working on building his trust back up and he's taking drugs to dull his feelings for her. I am usually with Crichton on their relationship stuff cause she's so bad at (unused to) it but this time I was about ready to smack that boy. I was clutching a pillow and yelling at the screen for him to say no to drugs for so much of that season. Turns out it was all a ploy to protect her and the baby from Scorpius (which is also silly) but then as soon as she called him on it they started a secret relationship and it's going to be fine but she gets kidnapped and tortured and he breaks all hell and makes a deal with the devil to save her and they accidentally start an interstellar war and the Scarrans are going to attack Earth and Crichton collapses the wormhole that would let him go home again and then the baby is his and he proposes and they kiss and are happy and happy and happy and then they get shot and turned into crystals and the series ends... Yeah, this show ends every season on a cliffhanger and they got canceled. I actually only found that out at the start of S4 when I started to question if it would be okay. I freaked out and googled it and found out they had a miniseries to wrap things up. Heart quieted at that point, maybe it was knowing that the story would continue on, but actually the ending wasn't so bad if it had ended there. I could have happily pretended the last two bits didn't exist and that it ended with them getting engaged and having a baby and defeating the Scarrans. I don't know. What I do know is that there was a miniseries that wrapped things up really well, completing the arcs and wrapping up the wormholes and the Peacekeeper/Scarran war and resolving John and Aeryn perfectly, giving them the happy ending they deserved with marriage and baby. Not to say that everything ended happily because D'Argo died and I don't like that at all. He kind of asked for it, resolving things with Chiana and Jothee like that. Now, bits of the show that were weird and involve all of that. D'Argo and Chiana get together in S2. It was a bit weird and out of the blue if you ask me. Not that they couldn't be together, but I feel like it was fairly obvious that D'Argo and Zhaan were really heading somewhere and then it just...stopped. D'Argo and Chiana were not an obvious couple and she's all innocence and sensuality and little girl (D'Argo always felt a bit like her dad to me). D'Argo is all honor and loyalty and commitment. Now...D'Argo has been searching for his son Jothee for the last two seasons and they finally reunite at the end of S2 and it's so beautiful and gorgeous, but all hell breaks loose and they have to fight a war and all that and in the chaos Chiana and Jothee sleep together. WHAT? Chiana's been freaking out about D'Argo preparing to ask her to marry him, but geez. It's another example of how the show is not afraid to make its characters do things that aren't likeable and aren't human, but still, that one threw me. I feel like there were so many other ways they could have gone with that. I would have really liked to have had Jothee join the show and have him and D'Argo really struggle with getting to know each other again and, if they weren't meant to be, Chiana and D'Argo could have plenty of relationship issues without that huge betrayal. Maybe Jothee and Chiana could even end up together but only after proper development. But instead, they did that. Jothee leaves and we don't see him again until the miniseries. D'Argo forgives Chiana but they don't get back together until the end of S4 and then things get all good between them in the miniseries and then, naturally, D'Argo dies. John and Aeryn name their baby after him! Sob! But like I said, the show wrapped everything up pretty well and they were extremely good about pacing, really, about telling a deliberate story with plenty of room for natural development along the way and making sure every character and relationship and story arc got fulfilled. The only thing I felt like got dangled and forgotten was from S3. Stark, I have a special place in my heart for Stark, not sure why. Boy is legit crazy and sane at the same time. Him and Zhaan could have been nice. But they do this whole thing with him being on Talyn while the crew is split up where he finds out what Crais and Talyn are up to and there's this whole menacing threat to Crais and then when he leaves, he encodes a message for Crichton on his mask and when John starts to listen to it, it gets interrupted and we never hear what Stark wanted to say. Even when Stark comes back, it's never referred to ever again. It might have become a moot point because Crais and Talyn sacrifice themselves for everyone at the end of that season, but I still feel like it was a pretty big thing to just leave hanging like that. So...I can't describe Farscape and what it means to me. The show completely wrapped itself in my insides and won't let go. I just want to watch it over and over again and I wish there was more and yet I'm so glad it ended the way it did. This show lived and breathed naturally and it wasn't afraid to make bold choices, assuming its audience's intelligence, and yet it entertained. The episodes Crackers Don't Matter and John Quixote are so hilarious. Every bit where John interacts with Harvey in his brain is so amazing and funny. The acting is flawless, the writing brilliant, the creativity boundless. This show is submersive, you can't help but be drawn in and caught up in the plight of the living ship Moya and her crew. Found family is one of my favorite things and this absolutely encapsulates that. I remember reflecting in S1 that I didn't think they could ever all be a cohesive whole because everyone was so different. That never changed but even the unlikable characters (Jool started out so so annoying but I actually really grew to like her) and the people who did things that made you angry, somehow they're still a vital and amazing part of a family and they fight for each other, they're trying to survive. They're caught up in a galaxy's machinations and politics and wars, and mostly what they want to do is go home and protect each other. They have to do horrible things along the way. They don't always win. There's a truly awful episode where they go back in time and end up causing the slaughter of a bunch of nuns! I mean, wow. But in the end, you root for them and you will die rooting for them. All the different interactions are important. Obviously John and Aeryn are the heart and soul, but Aeryn's relationship with Pilot is so touching and tender. Crichton and Chiana have this slightly sexual but yet not, brother and sister relationship that could be weird yet never is. John and D'Argo's epic, bickering bromance is a thing for the ages. It's just beautiful. It's like Crichton, a plague that has ruined my life.

I watched 4 seasons and 1 mini series in 14 days. It was perfect because I was on vacation for the first 10 days and I actually really took my time, feeling like I had the time. I started it casually, but it quickly consumed everything. I lived and breathed Farscape for those days even when I was doing other things and I made sure I did other things. My hands were shaking, my heart was racing, I clutched pillows and yelled at the screen, and I did happy squee flailing and monkey dancing around my living room on more than one occasion. This show is not casual, it is a lifestyle. I am so glad I was not watching it while it was on air because having to wait even a microt for between seasons would have been horrible and too much. It is such a blessing though, the perfect sci fi show. It's not a perfect show like Leverage is literally perfect and I would never change a thing about it and it's not fluff and happiness and comedy like Parks and Rec is perfect, but it is everything a scifi show should be and it has all the ingredients necessary to make it absolutely one of the best shows I have ever seen. 10 out of 10 recommend. Make sure you have some time because binge watching is so necessary with this one but do it, do it, do it.

#farscape #text post #spoilers

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