#don’t get me wrong the original does have rep

[300foxholecourtt]

I have so much respect for Nora that instead of retconning the original trilogy into being more inclusive/diverse she went ahead and wrote a second trilogy with even more explicit diversity and a cool cast

[oc-factoids]

Tag the OC that’s allo-ace

Tag the OC that’s aro-allo

[destinygoldenstar]

I Analyzed The Ninjago Movie Instead Of Sleeping

I have real mixed feelings on this movie. But not for the reasons you might think from a fan of the TV show.

The movie didn’t NEED to be connected to the show. And it clearly wasn’t trying to.

It was meant to be an AU in a way.

(If you look at the behind the scenes one of their original rewrites was a plot of them going back in time to save Lloyd’s dad from becoming the villainous figure he is in the present day.)

So I can forgive the inaccuracy so long as it could stand on its own as a proper story.

It doesn’t do that.

If you DON’T compare it to the show:

You got a movie with SOME good jokes, amazing animation, (SERIOUSLY THIS MOVIE LOOKS BEAUTIFUL AND VISUALS ALONE ARE A CHEFS KISS TO ME) but is so strangely paced that it feels like the movie starts at the middle of the story and never shows the beginning, and feels like a completely different movie halfway through, and is also very choppily edited.

(I even double checked a clip of the movie just to prove my point there: When Lloyd uses all his dragon mech weapons on Garmadon, they play the exact same sound effect and explosion, just with different angles, SIX TIMES. FSM WAS THAT EDITOR HUNG OVER WHEN DOING THEIR JOB THAT DAY?! And that’s just one example I’ve got. I think this was the first time EVER when I was in a movie theater and I distinctly remember asking “What is wrong with the editing here? Who thought this was good editing?? Who thought this was appropriate in any way???” So I thank this movie for giving me such a memory and making me value good editing.)

You also got a world that isn’t very well fleshed out, characters that the movie chooses to not focus on except the main character and the main villain. And you got a movie that tells its audience it’s okay to forgive your parents that neglected you and are active terrorists even if they earned or done absolutely no redemption whatsoever.

I mean Garmadon in this movie BETRAYS them and leaves them to rot so he could terrorize the city again at the end. Then gets eaten by the cat. Then Lloyd forgives him. Idk what more you want me to say.

I’m not gonna act like Crystalized did it any better though. Pick your poison.

But then you got fans of the show. The people who watched the show since kids (that includes me). Who are naturally bias towards the shows lore and characterization…

OOOOOOHHH boy…

I don’t hate EVERY portrayal of the ninja in the movie as much as other people. I actually think there’s some good ideas for an AU version of these characters here. Problem is the movie never does anything with them.

Well, I say I don’t hate every portrayal, the one I truly cannot stand is Zane’s.

There’s just so much wrong with how they portrayed Zane that it just does not work. Not as an adaptation of the character. Not in any way that makes sense for this universe and is actually kinda insulting.

There’s no other robots in this city. (Like there are in the show) Why is Zane the only one and why is he in high school? Why would Wu ever pick a robot to be a ninja?

In the show the reason is pretty simple: Wu didn’t know at the time.

But everyone knows in the movie. What’s movie Wu’s excuse?

There’s also in terms of personality.

Keep in mind later seasons of the show have the same issues, so I’m talking about what it was at the time of the movie.

Zane’s whole robot identity is crucial to his character. The show introduced him as ‘the strange one’. As he couldn’t understand social cues, took things very seriously, didn’t share the same sense of humor as the rest of the team, had a hard time displaying his emotions, and bonded with things the others didn’t and excelled at certain areas like cooking.

He’s a character that connected to a lot of neurodivergent people in the audience who could relate to him. No he’s not intentional autistic rep, but one that definitely mattered to the people that headcannoned him as such.

(Also helps that they introduce other robot characters later that clearly don’t have the same characteristics he does. So really it depends on what you see.)

So the reveal that he was a robot was such a huge deal to not just the plot but to him as he finally got a concrete definition of what he is and who he is. And the show NEVER decides to say “You know, it would be so much better if you were a human!”

“Why can’t you just be normal?!”

That’s part of why I personally can’t stand fics that make Zane human. It just doesn’t feel right to me and misses the point of the character.

While I absolutely did not expect the movie to cover his… really heavy backstory with his inventor/father and how he outlived him, then got his memory and sense of identity wiped by him moments before death, which was meant to be an act of sympathy but would actually harm Zane’s mentality for the entire show…

The movie didn’t need to adapt that. For all we know, movie Zane could have a very happy backstory. And that would be fine. All I wanted was for the identity-seeking aspect of Zane’s character to matter in some way.

It didn’t.

The jokes they use for Zane in this movie are that of “Haha, he’s a robot. Isn’t it so funny that he doesn’t understand humanity very well?”

You know, something that in one episode of the show was portrayed as a BAD THING for people to think that of him! And that those people needed to learn to respect him for who he is!

And that’s the ONLY thing they do with him. Just robot jokes. Very stereotypical robot jokes.

Again, later seasons of the show are guilty of this too. So I will not act like the show is perfect.

For the reasons I listed, these are actually far more offensive and harmful than you think. Especially fans of the show watching the movie. Him being the only robot in this movie world makes me think even more that this actually is autistic coding… and that makes it so much worse.

Zane being a robot being equal to autism is its own discussion. And has its own problems on paper alone. Whether or not this is your headcanon of him, and whether or not you think this is good representation either way is up to your feelings and experiences. (Personally I think it’s better than some live action shows attempting this)

The others don’t even seem to trust or want to be around him that much. The others seem annoyed by him half the time. Like they’re only tolerating him because he’s on their team. Yeah they don’t say that but simple looks and gestures are enough to get that impression. And not once does anyone ever express Zane’s value in their team. That’s the ONE thing that would’ve had me forgive this all.

But there’s my rant. The others?

Jay is mostly fine. I think this personality for the movie is a neat AU concept. Yes show Jay is openly terrified of things and awkward, but if there’s something he wasn’t was SHY.

Movie Jay is a shy and nervous wreck. And you know what? For a high school AU, I think it works. It doesn’t erase Jay’s essence entirely. They at the very least kept the detail of his character that he’s a fast learner.

I appreciate that.

Cole is actually a REALLY interesting concept to me with the AU idea they gave.

On the surface it’s just ‘He’s a DJ and willingly old school’

But if you see the show, this is actually an ODD approach. Because show Cole has a very complicated relationship with music.

In the show, Cole’s parents thrived in singing and dancing. His father specifically was a performer that won several awards with his band ‘The Royal Blacksmiths’. After Cole’s mother passed away, his father proceeded to push his ideals and his passions onto his kid and pressuring him to become another version of him. It got stressful enough that Cole ran away from home and resented music, something that used to be a bond of family for them, and that’s where Wu found him and made him a ninja.

Throughout the show, Cole would open up to music again more, but it’s pretty gradual and a very subtle bit of character development for him throughout the show. He doesn’t need to say “I hate making music” to get the point across. He only starts the music route again whenever it has something to do with making a family member, blood or not, happy.

So movie Cole is interesting to me for that reason. Because at the start, he basically IS a mini Lou. His whole thing is music and it’s heavily reflected on his personality.

To the point where his element in the movie isn’t even animated or portrayed as earth like it’s supposed to, instead it’s… sound waves?

Weird choice. Interesting one though cause maybe that’s just how movie Cole functions.

So it’s “Oh, what if Cole DID follow in his fathers footsteps and DID want to become a musician?”

Very interesting approach for a completely different approach of character development.

But the problem? Just like the others, not utilized.

But I do think this was an interesting AU idea. Is it accurate to the show version of the character? No. But that’s kind of the point I think.

Then there’s the RGB siblings. This is where it gets kinda weird for me.

Thanks to the movie, a lot of my friends mistook Kai and Nya for being twins.

They are not twins in the show. Kai is older.

I don’t think that dents their characters too much in the movie so long as the same points were across. They’re the blood related brother and sister who raised themselves when their parents abandoned them, and climbed out of the ashes to protect each other, and found a new expansion on their family that didn’t have to be blood related to count.

These two, in different ways, are the support of the team and especially Lloyd. They’re usually the lancer characters that Lloyd goes to when he can.

I still say that about Nya even though originally, she was NOT a ninja, but rather was a Samurai with a mech of her own invention that acted as a Tuxedo Mask for the ninja. She didn’t become the water ninja until Season 5.

Which… I know the movie takes heavy inspiration from the first two seasons, the beginning, so for those who haven’t seen the show watching the movie… yikes I feel bad about the lack of a spoiler warning. Same goes for Zane being a robot.

But I think that’s also a factor into Kai, at the former half of this show, (again I’m talking pre-movie with this). He was the first character we were introduced to and we’re following in the show before Lloyd ever showed up. So naturally he’d be the one with the most attention to supporting the Green Ninja. Something that was very vital character development for him individually as well.

He’s the old school one. He’s the cool one. He’s the one who looks out for you even if you don’t want them to. He’s the one that will jump to anything without thinking. He’s also the one with the most value in tradition out of the ninja, as a blacksmith instead of a techie and as a traditional sword fighter rather than a fancy complicated weapon. He doesn’t get involved in tech willingly till he learns Twitter is a thing.

And in the movie, I think they took this characterization and said “Eh, give it to the girl instead.”

So most of show Kai’s character traits are now movie Nya’s. She’s the cool one with the most passion for traditional stories, she’s the one with arguably the most talks with Lloyd to calm him, and she’s pretty loud and brash in personality.

Not saying show Nya is not those things, she is. But the difference in the show was that Nya was HUGE on independence and doing her own thing. Being the only woman and a younger sibling in the main cast is actually a big deal to her. Not wanting to have her destiny be decided by the world or her brother as a damsel in distress or a sacrifice, she took to tech to invent her own ways of helping. Her own character.

Until destiny told her “Actually no, you can’t be the person you want to be. You have to stick to tradition that your mother had and be the water ninja.”

That’s… honestly a very brutally honest message that not a lot of people I see give credit for. Cause yes, expressing yourself and being your own person and being able to make your own fate is amazing… but it’s not always possible.

Sometimes you can’t be the person you want. Sometimes the world just will not let you. That doesn’t mean your identity is worthless, though. If you go with the flow, you can actually find that fate has plans for you that might not suck after all.

Basically a ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ messaging there.

It’s part of why Nya’s whole thing throughout the show is her starting as a damsel trying to reinvent herself and her stereotype, and ending as a willing sacrifice and death of her whole identity that she doesn’t regret because she’s embraced the flow of life and purpose. Even if she forgets herself in the realm of spirituality, her loves one’s never will.

…Until Crystalized undid ALL of that. BUT LETS NOT.

Movie Nya just really isn’t any of that. She’s basically just her brother.

Which… I’m actually fine with. The show has some bumps in the road in execution of her story anyway. And they want the only female of this team to not be a background character cause that’s look bad. I totally understand that. And her being a sibling to Kai makes me forgive it a whole lot more cause it does make sense.

But again, we don’t know what their lives are like or if they have similar backstories to theirs in the show at all.

But where does that leave Kai?

Well his whole character in the movie seems to basically be “I’m the loud one and a complete klutz and meathead.”

Basically TD Tyler.

It’s a personality in the movie that bled in the show post movie. While I personally think it was not THAT bad in the show, Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitsu made me go “Okay. I understand now.”

As for movie Kai, that’s really about it.

It really was an early indicator of just giving Kai’s character traits to other characters. Before the show was visibly doing it.

Cause movie Lloyd is also basically just Kai but with a different backstory and context to situation. But honestly, I DO see what they were going for here.

As the ONLY ninja to get ANY focus, this version of Lloyd is well explained on what his life is.

In the show, he’s an abandoned child in an abusive boarding school who heavily idolizes his father, Lord Garmadon, and runs away to become a super villain. Only for Destiny to tell him not to, and we see his true colors and that he just wanted his family together and to love him. Something that was… hard. Considering who Garmadon is.

That is actually carried into the movie. Just cut out him running away. Here’s the difference.

Show Lloyd loves his dad and refuses to hurt him until he has to. While he is the Green Ninja, he didn’t resent himself being Garmadon’s son. What he resented was the destiny that took them apart.

Movie Lloyd HATES his dad for abandoning him, terrorizing the city, making said city cancel him for EXISTING, and he wants every excuse to shut this man out of his life forever.

That does make sense. And to the movie’s credit, the movie logic DOES work to make this version of Lloyd make sense.

It makes the movie pretty mean spirited and kinda unpleasant at times. But it works for the story.

I described Lloyd as ‘The Emo Child’. In the show. But that’s two words.

Emo. CHILD.

He’s still a kid. He’s still the youngest. He still has his own child-like wonder of the world and the aspirations that of a child would.

Yeah he’s a lot of angst. But he’s also a sweet kid who deserves hugs.

That’s not very apparent in movie Lloyd. Not that it needs to fit movie context.

But because we never see how the ninja in the movie got together, we have no idea why Lloyd even accepted being the Green Ninja in the first place. He even says in the movie that he’d give it up if it meant he didn’t have to be Garmadon’s son.

Movie Lloyd is the only ninja in this movie with an actual character arc. He resents his dad, tries to be rid of him, only to get consequences for it, goes on a quest to fix his mistake, bonds with his dad to learn he’s… sympathetic? I guess?? And in the end forgives his dad and chooses to let him in his life again.

Simple. Fine. It works on Lloyds end just fine. And I have to give credit for the movie making Lloyd resenting Garmadon more logical than Crystalized ever did.

It’s Garmadon’s end that just makes the whole thing a bad message in the end of ‘forgive your abusers.’

Yes he’s funny. That doesn’t undo his actions.

No it’s not undone in the show either, but at least you can buy the forgiveness there because every character knew that he had no choice.

In the show, Garmadon is the Oni Child of the FSM. Thus all it took was for another Oni creature, the Great Devourer, to trigger his blood and FORCE him into the evil role without his consent. It forced him to do nasty things to his loved ones and the land his dad created, and by the time he became his evil form, he was forcefully stripped away from all of his loved ones and a chance at normal life. So the only way he could ever get that back was to turn the world into his own image, thus having the world become him too. A monster.

The show made it abundantly clear that most of Garmadon’s evil deeds are either out of ambition for what he deems as helping the family, or not his fault at all due to snake venom influence.

I THINK the movie also has this because they do address him getting bit and becoming the creature he appears as in both versions.

Better than nothing I guess.

But then you get his ‘sympathetic backstory’ which is pretty much just a love story between him and Koko-

Yeah Lloyds moms name is actually different in both versions. And in role.

Misako abandoned her child to try and solve the destiny crisis, then returned to his life to help her kid out.

Koko remained a mother to her kid and supported him even when everyone hated him.

These are very different characters basically, and which one you prefer is up to you. Personally… I actually prefer the movie. I do think the mom was the one character that the movie actually improved upon. Especially with a very interesting story for her.

In the show, Misako is a researcher and just the fair maiden figure that Wu and Garmadon fell in love with. To which she chose Garmadon because of Wu’s letter that Garmadon forged his name on… it’s complicated.

In the movie, she was actually a fighter as well and took a part of the wars Garmadon was in. She enjoyed the thrill of the fight and fell in love with her opponent in a pretty cute montage.

But then they had a baby and her reality changed, realizing she could not raise her child on the battlefield. And when Garmadon refused to change his mind, she took Lloyd and left him behind. So she could be a mother.

Explains her actions in the movie all throughout very well and I never got lost when it came to her. She’s probably the one character in the movie I felt the most sorry for. She’s such a sweet parent and her interactions with Lloyd are probably the best parts of the movie. I wanna hug her.

But that’s all that’s shown of Garmadon. Apparently Garmadon was oppressed, but that’s told at the end and not shown or been significant at all.

They don’t hate you cause you look funky. They hate you cause YOU TERRORIZE THEIR CITY ON A DAILY BASIS AND SHOOT PEOPLE OUT OF A VOLCANO

Yeah show Garmadon did similar stuff, but again, WASNT HIS CHOICE.

Here, it’s absolutely his choice cause nothing indicated otherwise.

Garmadon doesn’t even PROCESS his kids existence or his own negligence three quarters of the time. And you expect me to buy a redemption from him?

You know, I’d be fine with it if he was just a one dimensional villain and the story of the movie was about Lloyd putting his energy away from a family that doesn’t care about him and more towards a surrogate one he has.

But no. You gotta have Lloyd forgive Garmadon and have Garmadon redeemed.

Cause that’s what the show did.

Even though this is supposed to be an AU not connected to the show so we can do whatever we want.

The most they do for Garmadon’s redemption is force him to be the mentor after Wu got yeeted off a bridge by a butterfly, have him go “Oh yeah, I DID shoot people out of a volcano!”, teach his son how to catch, and tell his son his backstory.

(Speaking if, Wu to me is basically the same. Just different voice actor delivery. I got nothing to say on him)

And then if that IS redemption, then he failed it. Because he offers Lloyd to be his general when they take over the city again, showing he’s learned nothing. Then when Lloyd says no, he steals their magic weapons and ditches them in a temple leaving them to DIE. Then he goes to terrorize the city again.

What redemption. /s

Again, this was all HIS choice. If it was not and if it was snake venom, they couldn’t at least give a visual cue or address it?

And now LLOYD has to apologize?

NO. LLOYD WAS RIGHT. THERES ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY HE SHOULD LET HIS DAD INTO HIS LIFE. THE DAD HIMSELF PROVED THAT.

It just paints an unintentional bad message of ‘you have to forgive your abusers’

I’m sorry but Lloyd doesn’t owe this Garmadon anything.

I do like Lloyd’s VA delivery though, and the speech about green being the color of life. I actually like the idea of Lloyds power being his heart. Yeah it’s not flashy powers like in the show, but for an AU, it’s a really cool idea and I wish they used it more.

I have mixed feelings on the celebrity casting. Did I expect the original voice actors? No. But this casting wasn’t awful.

Garmadon’s VA is amazing in this movie. Jackie Chan as Wu is very subjective I feel, love it or hate it. Nya and Jay’s were really good too. I think the only one that didn’t work for me was Kai’s VA. Just… why does this teenager sound like a 50 year old man??

But honestly, I think the thing that got to me the most about the movie was something I praised about the show not too long ago.

The bond between the ninja.

I talked about how the show is a master class at character dynamics. There is almost no point where the characters are just standing there in one big clunk. Someone is saying something, someone is making a comment, someone is doing something, and it’s usually there for others to see and react to. It’s a very small thing, but it keeps the scenes alive and fresh the whole time and helps the audience be sold on the characters bond.

They don’t wait for the scenes of “Okay it’s time for characters to interact”. They just do it all the time.

And guess what the movie did? They’re just there in one big chunk all the time. With “okay it’s time for characters to interact” bits.

It’s one thing to not explore the other ninja at all. It’s another to ignore their bond.

In the show, they’re a found family. They all had rough upbringings in life and find a new sense of purpose in each other.

That’s NEVER emphasized in the movie except for one speech at the end Lloyd makes. Mostly cause we don’t know the other ninjas lives, and we don’t know how they even got together. Cause as I said, the movie starts at the middle, and awkwardly cuts after Garmadon is forgiven to be the end. We don’t know what it is about THIS ninja team that we should care about. It’s not shown.

All were shown is them being a team by circumstance only. Then Lloyd pulls out the cat laser and the cat nearly kills them. Then they hate Lloyd for it and spend the rest of the movie making fun of Lloyd.

Which yeah they make fun of each other in the show too, but where it ended in the show was playful teasing in the middle of moments that showed they cared about each other. And when one bond between two or more of them was broken, you felt it.

Here? I don’t know that and there isn’t anything besides the high school montage to show they cared. Just some comments about “Oh it’s okay Lloyd, it’s just awkward that your dad is a terrorist”. And then they make fun of Lloyds expense.

It’s mean spirited. It makes me think they don’t like each other. And it’s not like they ever apologize for it. They’re just teammates because Wu said so. They’re just tolerating Lloyd cause Wu said so.

Honestly the bloopers for this movie show more personality and more of this bond than the entire movie does.

…OOF that took awhile. I don’t even know why I did this, I just didn’t feel like sleeping. Uh… you read this, congrats. Idk why you did.

[sahonithereadwolf]

Sokka winning over Willie Jack in the indigenous character poll thing is just kinda got me feeling a way. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolutely nothing issue. This really doesn’t matter. But it does have me thinking about this pattern I see a lot in pop culture where the, sometimes very racist expectations of the, often very white, dominant group and what they read as genuine and representative will often very much not align with the traits, ideas, characterization, and coding the in-group will identify with. I think a very good illustration of this is Overwatch, specifically the handling of Pharah. So, if you don’t know what happened. Parah, an Egyptian character, got skins called Thunderbird and Raindancer. (Yeah, you should already be groaning.) Not really the best. And there are plenty of articles on why they suck ass.

That was enough for a mostly white audience to start fanoning that she might be half-Indigenous. Which isn’t wrong in concept, as a biracial person I can indeed confirm that biracial people do indeed exist. But the why they were marking them was that it was meeting the concept of who and what a native is in their head. A cultural expectation of what it means to be indigenous that indigenous stories rarely get to exist outside of. (And we could turn this into a related discussion of the specter of medicine shows and the hollywood indian or the big three of shitty native reps which originated most of these expectations directly or indirectly, but that is for another time and another post.) Blizzard, being blizzard, tends to like to incorporate fanon into canon if it’s loud enough and doesn’t clash with their plans as a way of making them seem and fans feel engaged. So they made it canon because a mostly white fanbase saw a set of kinda shitty skins and said “indian”. This is despite push back kinda being pretty vocal and visible at the time. It felt hollow, disingenuous, and out of nowhere to a native audience who never read native off her and it never being meaningful before. And nothing meaningfully native was incorporated into her in the future. Nothing that a native audience would identify with or recognize could be seen in her. And it’s not like there wasn’t talk of indigenous coding in overwatch.. But Parah was never the person it was attached to. That was McCree. He has big shitty uncle energy (among other things).

But again. Because one met a mostly white fandoms expectations of native, and thus got more noise. One got the canon and the other got an ugly beach skin where they made him blonde. What we flagged as native and what white consumers flagged as native did not align.

Ain’t nothin’ wrong with Sokka. Sokka has a lot of features I wish more native characters got to have on tv. I know a lot of Alaskan Native folks that fuck with him. But if you tell me he’s more native than arguable the most native character to ever been on tv, from a tv show written, directed, and acted by Indigenous folk in a way tv hasn’t gotten the opportunity to be previously, I’m going to side eye you.

[gaysindistress]

I love u like I’ll get on my knees 😍😍😍😍 CAN U PLEASEEEE PLEASEEEE do TFAWS!Bucky x Latina reader?? maybe more specifically Brazilian?? we need some rep 🥺🥺 HAHA actually though like reader is good friends with Sam and Sam introduces them? Please, and thank u the dead love of my life

AHAHHAAHWH MY FIRST REQUEST!!!! thank you so much love!!

Okay okay so here’s a little Drabble for ya! I feel like this could be a full one shot?? Maybe after my follower celebration that starts on Friday! Also I wrote this on my phone so I apologize if there are any spelling/grammar errors.

Anjo -Portuguese for “angel”

mãe - Portuguese for “mom”

Warnings: cursing

Word count: 1.2k (this was only meant to be 500ish words…)

disclaimer: credits to original creator/poster of image/gif. found on google/Pinterest

“Please tell me that you didn’t text him,” My coworker asks with an edge of dread and disgust in her voice. For the last two hours of our shift, Lilly has been on me about the guy who left me his number yesterday.

It had been a slow day with only regulars really coming in so a decent looking young guy walking in felt like Christmas. Lils was on it and immediately put on her best flirt, fluttering her big eyes and matching lashes at him when he ordered. I wanted to laugh at the scene but that died when he flashed a smile my way and handed me his number. It was quickly followed by some passing comment about how he hates it when girls throw themselves at him. I had half a mind to throw his coffee on him but I knew my boss would have my head. I settled for plastering a fake smile on my face and saying “Vai pro caralho.” Of course the ignorant asshole thought I was being nice and winked at me. It took all of my strength to not shutter in disgust.

“You should know me better than that,” I throw back at her, “from that 2 minute interaction alone, I can already tell that he would talk about himself the entire date before saying something borderline foul like how Latinas girls are his favorite and he can’t stand white girls .”

Lils snorts as she takes a sip of her coffee, nearly choking and sending the hot liquid flying over the freshly cleaned counter. I arch a dark brow at her which makes her laugh even harder.

“What? Am I wrong? You can’t tell me that he wouldn’t have pulled out that high school Spanish to impress me.”

“No, no,” she stutters, wiping the coffee up, “it just caught me off guard is all. Wait, didn’t you say something to him in Spanish before he left? What did you say?”

I narrow my eyes at her, “Vai pro caralho? Babes you should know better.”

She looks at me in horror, “oh my god it was Portuguese, wasn’t it?”

I nod as she profusely apologizes, “I am so sorry, Y/N. Oh my god I’m not better than that asshat. Ugh, what does that mean though?”

The front door opens before I have the chance to speak and the little bells above alerts us to the one regular that never fails to put a smile on my face. Sam had been coming in since before I started working at Brewed Awakenings but after that first interaction, he came pretty much daily. He even got Sarah his sister to start coming in and within a matter of a few weeks, I was invited over for Sunday dinner.

“It means Go fuck yourself,” I tell Lils as I round the counter with a bright smile and wide arms. Sam matches me and wraps me into a tight hug.

“Good morn, Anjo. How are you?” He asks as he squeezes me into this chest.

I pull back and give him my best angry mãe look we I demand to know where he’s been for the last few weeks.

He holds his hands up in defense as he says, “put those eyes away, Anjo. Im sorry okay? I was on official business and I didn’t have time to swing by to let you know but I’m back.”

I don’t let up my expression at first and lecture him some more, “You better be. You were gone for like…”

I pause for dramatic effect to pretend to count the time while walking back around the counter, “6 weeks. I was about to send out a search and rescue team to find you. Ridiculous.”

Sam chuckles while shaking his head at me. He steps to the side to reveal a man that’s been standing behind him and one that I hadn’t noticed before.

A damn attractive man.

Albeit a bit judgmental given the looks he’s throwing at the both of us.

“I wasn’t gone that long,” Sam tries but stops when I shot him another mãe look. He quickly changes the subject, clapping his hand on his companion’s shoulder and introducing him, “well this is Bucky. He’s the reason I was gone so if you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at him.”

Bucky.

He looks familiar but I can’t quite figure out why. The massive resting bitch face forced me I stop the search before offering him a bright smile as I repeat his name.

This seems to…irritate him? I honestly can’t tell with the stone wall of moodiness and brooding that lives on his drop dead gorgeous face.

“Well welcome in Bucky, I’m Lilly but everyone calls me Lils and this is y/n,” Lils jumps in with an equally wide smile. His dark eyes flicker between us but hover half a second longer on me. He utters a low “thank you” and looks up to the menu.

Sam rolls his eyes at his short answer but his ever present smile never fades as he orders his usual, a large hot mocha with soy milk. I’ve tried to get him to switch to coconut or even hemp milk but he refuses. He always gives me the whole speech about how “soy is the closest to real milk and if I’m going to drink alternative milk, it has to be close to the real thing.”

“And for you?” I turn my attention to Bucky while Lils starts on Sam’s order. He looks me with slightly wide eyes, a little startled it seems that I’m still talking to and looking at him.

He freezes for a moment, “uh…um a large house coffee.”

“Of course,” Lils jumps in once again and slides a cup across the counter to him. The loud volume of her voice causes him to flinch and Sam instinctively steps in front of him. He takes the cup without another word and fills it while Sam pays and throws a shamelessly flirty smile to Lils. She mocks faintly in a fit of giggles and winks at him.

Sam turns his attention to him and subtlety jerks his chin towards the door, wordlessly asking me if I’ll walk them out. Lils caught it too and rolls her eyes before shooing us out the door.

“She means no harm. She’s just…cheery,” I tell Bucky when the door closes behind us and we step onto the side walk, “I can tell her to tone it back for when you come in next.”

Sam chuckles under his breath and tries to hide a smile behind his cup but fails miserably. Bucky shots him another one of those bored looks and rolls his beautiful eyes at him.

“You don’t have to do that,” he finally says to me and actually makes eye contact with me, “Y/N.”

I offer him another wide smile and stick my hand for him to shake. He glances down at my watch and rings before taking my hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Bucky. Don’t let Sam fill your head with too many tales and I hope to see you soon.”

The man in question basically squawks in protests as I hug him goodbye and disappear back into the coffee shop.

About an hour after I get home, I get a text from Sam saying something along the lines of “Robo cop liked you and asked for your number.”

Moments later a D.C. number sends me a text and I quickly save it under “Bucky (aka Robo Cop according to Sam)”

That’s when it clicks who he is; Bucky Barnes, the former Winter Solider and the most attractive man I’ve ever met.

[bigmack2go]

Ive never been more pissed than when i found out aki max and Audrey didn’t end up together. Not like usually tho. This isn’t me goinh *ugh but i ship them so much“ no. I couldn’t care less about whether i like their ship or not. Thsi is about polyamory representation. They build up two seasons like that, finally giving you hope of seeing a poly couple that doesn’t end bad. In the first season k might have been like „oh this is bait“ but then they actually got together and i was so happy. But no. You give me yet another polyamorous story that end in betrayal. You guve me one single poly couple and call it representation and then they end bad?

The fact that they actually were together doesnt make it better.

Every poly representation EVER ends up bad. In betrayal. (Thats exactly what poly ISNT about.) what picture do you think that paints us in?? And especially when you KNOW that its always like that, how dare you be apart of it??? This is like when the only gay character turns out to be the villain, the only female character being the love interest (?) the only black character doing a shooting the only muslim character being a therrorist: WRONG

I am NEVER one to compare minorities experiences to each other but i simplycant keep going know that EVERYONE pretends that poly people aren’t a minority. Sure you SAY that you know that but you don’t treat us as such. And by „treat us as a minority“ i do not mean under representation till the cows come home. Im not talking about conservatives treating me as a minority, in talking about progressive people. Im talking about putting up a fight to let us get our rights like everyone else.

because lets face it, they dont treat us the same way they treat other minorities. Maybe they put a little rep here and there (which is almost always BAD rep) but thats it.

(For the sake of authenticity i‘m gonna use gay as an example for these because thats a minority that im actually a part of and i dont wanna put myself in anyone else’s shoes)

„you dint have to include poly characters if youre not comfortable woth it“ BULLSHIT.

That is like saying „you dont have to include gay characters if youre not comfortable woth it“

If you heard that, would you go „oh that’s fine“ NO. You would not. Because even if you are a straight person who would feel uncomfortable having gay sex or a gay relationship, that does not make gay people less existent and therefore not representing them is not okay.

THIS IS THE SAME FUCKING THING. I dont CARE if you would have a threesome or not (EVEN I WOULDNT AND IM POLY). I exist! And just because you aren’t me, that doesn’t mean i don’t exist?! So get your damn shit together.

Sure polyamory isnt for everyone. NO SHIT. But neither is homosexuality and is it okay to leave that out? No. It fucking isnt.

If you dont wanna represent a certain type of relationship, you shouldn’t put any relationships at all

And to get back to wjat this all was originally about: BAD REPRESENTATION IS WORSE THAN NO REPRESENTATION BECAUSE IT PUTS US INTO A BAD LIGHT ESPECIALLY WHEN THE ONLY REPRESENTATION EVER EXISTING IS ALWAYS BAD ONE.

I think the only representation of polyamory that wasn’t bad is have ever seen in my entire life was half bad. And even that was left open (enough) at the end.

So no DONT TALK TO ME IM ON A RAMPAGE AND I AM NOT OVER REACTING. LET POLYAMORY EXIST FOR FUCKS SAKE

FUCK THIS FUCK EVERYONE. FUCK POLY PPL NOT BEING SEEN

Im so fucking done with this shit

The same tjing is for nonbinary people. I could go on a rampage about this too but i would literally only repeat myself for almost everything

Putting a lot of random tags cuz i want ppl to see this

[lizhly-writes]

i wish you would write a fic where chen liwei's backstory pre-transmigrating was explored.

Right, so, some context for this ask that mentions a character that I've never mentioned ever on this blog:

Chen Liwei is the result of me fucking around in my villain fiance universe.

First change: our transmigrator mc guy NOT getting reincarnated as Yang Haoran and instead ending up Chen Lihua’s role (hence: Chen Liwei).  The thing is, he’s really not as resilient as Chen Lihua, so he does not hold up nearly as well against her backstory.  By the time the plot starts, he’s hopeless and emotionally-dead, and he ends up accidentally turning the novel into abusive misery porn.

Second change: that misery porn is now the og novel.  The transmigrator is not Li Yichang but instead the original Yang Haoran.  Not that he was ever Yang Haoran, from his point of view.  No, he was Li Yirui, son of Li Shirong and Zhang Meilan, brother to Li Yizhen.  He would die in an earthquake at age 16 and be reborn in Chen Liwei’s body, and, after a happy childhood cut short, he’d grimly power through this life fueled by both incredible drive and incredible rage.

Ah, but we’re not talking about that last part yet.  We’re talking about his life pre transmigration.  

So.  Let’s talk about Li Yirui.

...

Your name is Li Yirui, or David Li.  You are fourteen years old, and you have a busy, busy life as the most overachieving teenager to ever exist, or so your sister tells you.

“Listen to me,” she says, hands on your shoulders as if she is about to shake you like a particularly large set of maracas.  “I want you to know that you’ve shoved every extracurricular onto your plate like a little baby grabbing every single thing they see at a buffet.”

“Are you trying to tell me something new?”

“I’m trying to say you’re going to choke and die,” she says. Behind her, her best friend snorts.  You make a face at him.  He salutes you with a ridiculous sparkly light-up pen that is bright enough to burn your eyes out.  You kind of hate him.

“You’re not allowed to tell me that,” you say.  You wave your hand at the stack of textbooks on the kitchen table, which consists of every AP and Honors textbook she was humanly capable of getting, because her courseload consists of every AP and Honors class she was humanly capable of getting.  Pot, kettle: you’re black.

“First of all, that’s perfectly doable,” she says.  For most people, this would be a false statement, but this is your sister, who has never seriously struggled with schoolwork once in her entire life, so, speaking for herself, she’s probably right.

This does not stop you from saying, “You’re going to choke and die.”

Your sister’s friend makes a noise that could be called a cough but would be more accurately described as incoherent glee.

She grabs your face, squeezes your cheeks together.  “Wrong!  Also? Rude.  Really rude!”

“You said it first,” you say.  It sounds wrong, because your face is no longer in its usual configuration.  You bat her hands away.

“You said it first,” she repeats in singsong.  “Fine, whatever.  If you want to take orchestra and language school and taekwondo–”

“Sanda.”

“--sanda, fine.  But like, there’s one thing I really want to know: why are you running for class rep.”

“What, do you have a problem with that?”

“Nonono, don’t give me that.  Really, seriously, why? You know if you’re class rep, you’re going to have to actually talk to people?  You hate people.”

“I don’t hate people.”

“You hate people,” says your sister’s friend.  You can’t believe this is the first thing he’s said to you all day.

Your sister smiles, triumphant.  “See?” she says, turning you around by the shoulders to face him.  “Two against one, I win.”

“Fuck off,” says you.

Your sister cackles.  Your sister’s friend smiles, just a bit.  It’s incredibly noticeable. You really hate him.

“Stop touching me,” you say, shaking her off.  She holds her hands up in mock-surrender.

“I bet you’re just doing this to prove somebody wrong,” she says.  “Did someone say you’d do bad at the class rep thing, Rui-Rui?  Aiya, your ego is really–”

“That’s got nothing to do with anything.” Whether or not it’s true isn’t any of her business.

“What’s with the face?  I’m not saying you’ll do a bad job! My baby brother is naturally, fantastically, an overachieving little shit!”

“Was that supposed to be a compliment.”

She spreads her arms.  “I just think it’s out of character!  I just think you’ll hate it!”

She’s probably right.  You probably are going to hate it.  

Naturally, you do not acknowledge this. Instead, you determinedly head over to your own stack of textbooks and schoolwork on the kitchen table.  As you sit down, your sister’s friend offers you a pen. It’s as sparkly and obnoxious and neon as the one he’s currently using.  You don’t need it.  You have your own pens that actually don’t hurt your eyes when you try writing with them.

You take the stupid pen anyway.  

He smiles at you.  It’s a nice smile.  You busy yourself with digging out your notebook so you don’t stare at him like an idiot.

You wish you actually hated him.

God, you’re lucky your sister is oblivious as a brick shithouse. You’re lucky that your sister’s best friend is oblivious as a brick shithouse.  You’re just lucky, in general.

[blade-that-was-broken]

HII !! I’m super fixated on ur half life au and was wondering if you had any more notes on viva ( and / or clay) you could share?? :3

Like dude, same. I’ve been focused on finishing the I’m Still Here book but Half Life is literally always at least in the back of my mind. I think it’s cause it is the closest I have to an original concept within my current writing. Like it wouldn’t be super hard to make it an original concept. But anyways…

Let me start with I’m always open to suggestions and ideas - this is an open ongoing concept in general. It’s not a specific story, but more snippets/slices of life. Beyond Breathe Again, it’s mostly just scenes and smaller bitty arcs.

I don’t know if I really have more - I’m open to questions but I can try to expand on the concepts I do have. And I tried to think about Viva a bit during work. I needed my horse kid rep and Clay needed some love. So here we are with some horse kids. I'll try to stick with a bit more Viva.

Peppy and his wife were divorced and had been for a long time. She spent most of the time with her mom, mostly due to the nature of his job. The reason for the divorce is unknown although they seem amicable, even close. Peppy and his wife did reconnect (which ended up with Poppy) but she died before they could get back together.

Viva's horse is named Milkshake (tentative)

At first, Viva rubs Clay the wrong way. They meet at his first drill team practice and she acts like he is new to this (which he is) but Clay wants to be taken seriously and he's competitive. They end up being partnered together because Viva's notoriously picky horse likes Clay's horse.

Viva looks a lot like her mom while Poppy will look a bit more like her dad.

Viva often feels forgotten by her father. With his work, the loss of his ex wife and taking care of a baby, she feels left out. And this is coming from a girl who didn't have a big relationship with him in the first place. And since she is olderish, she is left a bit more on her own.

The first time she really meets John, she apologizes to him for "almost getting him thrown in jail" and eventually it becomes an inside joke for them. Clay doesn't love it but John holds no hard feelings over it.

Eventually she does end up spending a lot of time over at Clay's house when they become more of actual friends. (uncertain of cliva crush or more sibling-like dynamic)

Shows curiosity when she's over for dinner and John and Spruce are cooking together. They do invite her to join at times.

Has been riding for most of her life.

She harbors a lot of internal fear - just not of horses.

Viva loves to sing and dance. When Floyd gets a bit older and starts making his own music, she helps him with other sounds and a female voice when he'd like.

Is convinced her horse and Rhonda would be best friends.

Clay is very wary of her father, knowing he has the power to ruin his, his brother's and JD's new life.

Loves candy necklaces, has more energy than what to do with, and has a thing about capes.

Soft spot for plaids.

Terrified of chickens

Here is just a couple of Clay things (around the horse-thing)

Clay initially learns western riding first but wants to learn English. And then he does. He takes this all very seriously. He does do speed/gymkhana but feels like it's more fun and games and sees English as more "serious". (I'm not saying that is how it is, it's just how he sees it)

Delta mostly teaches him to ride, since she rode horses in her youth as well. He takes on it quick

Black Beauty makes Clay cry and he will come to end up owning three copies at least.

Brandy mostly braids his hair for english shows.

Heard about drill team through the grapevine. Add in Delta's connections and boom - he wants in. He went in 100% not knowing what it really was.

Clay does struggle with feeling like he is the least favorite.

John takes Clay on his first trail ride, trying to show him that nothing everything has to be serious/a competition.

Okay that's all I got for now! I hope you like it though! I really should think more about Viva and Poppy's family; I just haven't gotten around to it much yet. And since Branch is a baby right now and will be for some time, I don't think about Poppy as much. At least for now lol

[exitpursuedbyasloth]

(So I originally wrote the following in a reply to the post screencaped above. I wanted to reblog this as the S3B is premiering in a couple days and I have major concerns over this potential plot direction. However OP blocked me for my reply and I can’t, however they’re my words so I will repost them as I see fit. Including the original post for context only, and I added some additional clarifying comments.)

…that would be pretty terrible, ngl.

Canon Radovid (in the games, he’s like 12 at the end of the books, although his future turn is hinted at) turns genocidal towards sorceresses and other non-humans both for political power, but also because of the festering resentment of the abuse, manipulations, and wrongs he sees him and father suffer at the hands of the sorceress Phillipa and Dijkstra, including his father’s assassination by an elf at the behest of Phillipa. Phillipa controls him throughout his teenage years. That hate festers in him for years until he grows up, and instead of simply getting revenge on those who personally harmed him and his family, he decides the only way to rule was with an iron fist, and turned that fist against all sorceresses, witches, magic-users and non-humans (both because he hates/fears them, but also for political gain, as these things tend to go). He encourages the non-human hate, uses humans superior numbers to overwhelm and destroy groups of non-humans and magic users. He’s relatively militarily adept too. He made sure of that, because he wanted revenge against Phillipa even as a boy. I don’t think the show would abandon everything that makes Radovid Radovid (but then again, Eskel...), I don’t think he’s just going to be Some Guy. So his sadistic bigotry towards and genocide against all non-humans and (most) human magic-users will come into play at some point. And if it does, his relationship with Jaskier will HAVE to factor in somehow, that’s unavoidable at this point. But should this theory OP mentions come to pass (and there is a good chance it might, I have been concerned about this since it the news leaked of who Jaskier would be paired up with), that would mean the show made a conscious choice to have adult Radovid turn villain…cause his boyfriend dumped him? His boyfriend of like a couple months chose his family of 20+ years over him, and that was enough to make him lose it and just start stabbing everything? Or cause he was angry that Jaskier was using him as a shield because Phillipa was threatening him? And Radovid, a grown ass man, cannot handle this? This would put a homosexual relationship at the core of a xenophobic campaign of witch-burning, be the catalyst of it. And they would put that on Jaskier’s shoulders? Because he dumped Radovid?

Why? What does this do but add cheap angst where it wasn’t needed? There is no need to A.) Start Radovid’s xenophobic hate campaign 15 years early (they have so many world-spanning plots they already can’t write well, why add more?), and B.) connect it directly to someone in the main core cast by having them be the inciting incident for Radovid. That’s unnecessary, that doesn’t offer any narrative improvement to the story at all (FFS, the world is bigger than Geralt, Yenn, Ciri, and Jaskier). And is this the reason Jaskier is now canonically bisexual? Was that the only reason they did that, just to make him the casus belli of a genocide? That really would not be the kind of queer rep anyone should praise, and by god, does it feels downright spiteful.

And to be clear, I don’t think every queer story has to be all sunshine and happiness or perfectly positive (something I’ve been accused of when criticizing questionable writing of gay/bi characters in the past). But there is a vast ocean of difference between “Sunshine and perfection” and “Hey! Let’s change this catalyst for this genocide from ‘Paranoid Fascist takes what should have been a beef between him and like 5 people, and turns it into a full scale witch-burning industry and non-human genocide, for both political gain and cause he’s a paranoid xenophobic fascist’ to 'gay prince super bummed his boyfriend dumped him’, and let’s make sure we wait to show the boyfriend as canonically bisexual until the last possible second, just so people wonder if that’s the only reason we even bothered ”. A vast fucking ocean.

I’m fine with adaptational changes that add to or improve the canon material, or are just different but stand strongly on their own. But this? Would be a terrible miserable hateful idea, and is just cheap writing for forced angst (and I honestly would not put it past the Witcher writers, which is the worst part).

How is this good? How would this an improvement? What does this add? How does this stand on it’s own? Why would they take a bloody campaign of witch-burning and genocide that had a believable catalyst already, and retcon it happening because of The Gays? Cause a dude dumped another dude? If they did this, the writers would have to consciously make the choice to change the catalyst of the genocide to ��a gay guy was like super bummed that his boyfriend left him for a Witcher’. Do y'all see what that looks like?

[sweetswesf]

I planned the dinner for my black engineering group’s squad and they loved it. I loved that the facilitator dropped the ball so I got to pick the place and get everyone to agree to a new time that we could be accommodated by the restaraunt at. I could have held a grudge against the facilitator who is probably one of the worst people I’ve ever met, or my squadmate who I went on a date with YEARS ago and interrupted our date to answer a call from his girlfriend (he didn’t tell me he was poly before the date), or an African member and his backhanded disrespect of my ancestors when he implied indirectly that I had a victim mentality when I said Black people have been systematically blocked from tech and the wealth generation from it despite it relying on Black users, talent, and engineers, or the whole squad who bailed on me and the reservation I made the day of a monthly squad meeting despite them saying they would come down to the South Bay for at least one of our monthly meeting since I was the only one in the South Bay while the rest of them were in SF or Oakland and I would travel for those. They loved it and faked hugs for me afterward. I faked the whole dinner, just like during my reunion. I know how to do it well. But in the end, I don’t care. Imma live in my fantasy for a while and forgive you, but deep down inside I can’t trust ya!!

They did a bad job with the event though and I left feedback via email with the rep I was chatting with and by God’s grace she gave me $150 gift card to give them another chance…but it was kinda so bad that I don’t wanna despite me originally loving it so much!

My black male colleague I used to have a huge crush on (I still have a crush just not as much these days) asked me to hit him when I was in LA. I forgot and it slipped out that I was in LA for my reunion without telling him and he still wanted to meet, so we’re planning to hang out the weekend of Thanksgiving. I don’t know what to expect…he has a girl. Serious. Calls her his partner. I’m up for friendship with males but ones in serious relationships who don’t bring nor introduce me to their significant others? Idk…stay tuned…

My mom wants me to spend the night when I come to LA, but wanted me to sleep in the closet while my brother gets my cousin’s old room. My cousin doesn’t want him to have that room. My mom called the police on my cousin a few months back when my cousin came to the house tripping, cutting off the house’s power, fighting her mom, and trying to flood the front yard. Why would I sleep at that house? My brother who asks o hasn’t spoken to me in years despite him admitting to my parents (but not to me) that I never did anything wrong to him and that he was actually the problem and made me the villan. My thing is, my family’s always stepping out of line and telling me I should call such and such relative who has never really played a prominent figure in my life, but when I’m sad or wronged by family members, they never require the same from them. If I disrespected my brother, they would be on my head, but he does the same and they come to me like why you tripping…so my mom assuming I’d be okay sleeping in a closet where my brother used to sleep while he sleeps in a bed on my visit is just, asinine. That weird living arrangement that is so obviously not working may be okay for you, but don’t force me into an environment you know I’ve been wronged in all for your Thanksgiving fantasy. If I was married, this would never fly, but because I haven’t changed drastically in their eyes since a child, they can treat me as such…I said I can’t and that we can hang in LA or Riverside, but I’m not going over to that house. I felt guilty at first but I had a reality check that no, I am doing what I should to protect myself because they obviously aren’t.

My mom agreed to come to LA. I asked if my mom wanted to see Gladiator 2. She agreed. I bought tickets for that and a cooking class before nearby the movies. She comes back days later asking to see Wicked again, and although I was going to look past Cynthia’s past disparaging comments on Black women and Ariana’s disrespect of half Black women’s relationships with Big Sean (Jhene & Niya) to see the movie for the costumes and effects, even though I feel the director is intentional with his casting (he did this with Akwafina in Crazy Rich Asians; seems like he picks people who he knows the Black community don’t eff wit lol idk maybe I’m in my head), I know about my mom’s disparaging comments and feelings towards many Black women in the past and present and quoted Cynthia as the reason I wouldn’t watch it. I can forgive Cynthia but I don’t have to give her my money. Why do Black women have to immediately forgive who wronged us?

My mom said she figured that Cynthia would be the case that I wouldn’t want to see Wicked and that we could still see Gladiator. My thing is, she figured and it still didn’t present a problem to her to propose. She didn’t even lead with that. It was completely fine to her. She is half Black, but has a daughter that is radically Black, and our not seeing eye to eye on this has been a problem in the past and this was an awesome opportunity for her to be all that she said she would but she wasn’t and it confirms my doubts I’ve had about her and her progress on this topic in particular and it sucks and hurts. I love her, but this stuff hurts dude…

Being a Black woman can be hard with all this disrespect and gaslighting in and out of your community.

Speaking of disrespect by members of my community, I ran into my old fling a few days ago on a Saturday in the day time. It’s rare to see him on a weekend and when the sun is still out. I knew he saw me. He tries to linger around hoping I come up to him, then he leaves when he realizes I don’t pay him any mind. But I felt I looked extra good that day and I would be SICK if we didn’t have an encounter, so after I walked right past him and he didn’t say anything to me and headed out, I panicked and I think he saw my reflection in the mirror. He sat outside the stretch room where I was for a while although I thought he had left the gym completely. When I realized he didn’t, I played with him and gave him crap that he didn’t put his mat back. He gave me the look of ���I hate you” and it never changed. This turned me off real bad and I walked away. I unblocked him and hit him later saying I was playing with him and wished him well. He wished me well also. I left his number unblocked hoping he would apologize but I blocked him again shortly after I realized that I didn’t care about his apology because I could never forget his disrespect and could never believe him ever again as much as he lied. I’d be lying though if I said that sometimes I don’t wish that he’s outside my door waiting for me to arrive, but this is just lust. Some guy at my college reunion whose had a crush on me since college asked who I’ve been with and I told him I’ve never been with anyone. I forgot even how the question came up. I’m not ashamed of it. I know God has something great in store. He always outdoes whatever I pray for, and I have BIG prayers around who I want to be with…

One other college girlfriend at the reunion also said to me while another college friend was nearby “it’s crazy you’ve never dated anyone…”

Yeah, I never expected to be 31 without ever having dated someone in a real committed relationship but…there’s a reason for it…

Love y’all. Thanksgiving commemorates a day of rape & pillage of the native Americans, and I wish we would get rid of the holiday.

[khalixvitae]

urngh... (i flop onto your doorstep like a dying fish) please.... do you want to brainstorm for that vil fic of yours with the gay people in your phone im so sane about vil...

Hi anon! Sure thing, I’m still trying to nail down a few major bits of the plot line but I’m willing to share what I have!

To begin with, I think I want to make the setting somewhere very innocuous. A book shop, a cafe, something completely mundane and away from NRC. The basic premise is that Vil is going to this off campus hole in the wall destination to read/annotate scripts for an upcoming role. The reader is an employee of whatever business he’s started to frequent! Kind of tropey, I know, but if it ain’t broke, yk? But I’m trying to get it. A little off the rails.

The idea is that the reader basically just. Ignores who he is. He’s a customer, after all. I’m leaning into the idea of them being a bookseller more than anything else- the idea that they could want to provide him with any additional literature related to whatever role he’s playing/essentially help him hone his craft feels important. This is another one of those situations where my own life events may seep through as well- the idea that maybe the bookseller doesn’t really know what they’re doing with their life. Maybe they’re trying to earn enough money for a graduate level degree program? Something along those lines, like they have aspirations but don’t know how to achieve them.

Vil intends on keeping their interactions minimal and very professional- he refuses anything that he could consider preferential treatment until he sees the reader offering other people similar services. Then he has a moment of oh, they’re just kind. The reader tends to go above and beyond for customers that need assistance, or even for those that they just think could benefit from more information. Then Vil is a little less hesitant. Still professional, but maybe he’ll accept their offer to keep the shop open a little longer when he’s in the middle of a reading, or he’ll agree to have a cup of tea since they’re already making some. Naturally they get to talking. And yea, that’s Kind of the broader premise! I’m trying to nail down the role he’s playing. The one idea I’ve got floating around is kind of a weird one, but I recently reread Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and I’m spitballing Vil participating in a retelling of the story. Not as Dr. Frankenstein, but as the monster. Hear me out: in the book, he’s described as being intentionally crafted with beautiful features- which is what makes him all the more haunting to look at. He basically triggers the uncanny valley effect. Something incredibly beautiful and human and yet distinctly wrong. And the original monster is really an emotional and intelligent creature that seeks to be loved - only after repeated abuses does it actually become “evil”. It’s a story where the protagonist (Dr. Frankenstein himself) is frankly far more sinister than its antagonist. He plays god, creating a creature solely because he wants to know if he can. Then once he does, he just abandons it because he’s horrified at his own creation. Neither the monster nor the doctor are without their faults, and it’s one of those things where the reader is meant to be conflicted on who to root for. Anyway, I think a retelling that’s more sympathetic towards the monster (I.e., that characterizes it was Shelley did in the source material) would catch Vil’s interest. Yeah he’d be an antagonist, but he’d be a heart wrenching figure meant to conflict the audience and their perceptions of both him and the character he’s playing. And it would be a challenge for Vil, something he doesn’t seem to get often. It’s fundamentally different from any other role he’s played that we know of, and to play a creature so beautiful that it drifts into the territory of abominable? WHEWWWWW. idk I think. He’d be intrigued when it’s pitched at him and he’d accept this get out of type casting free card before his reps could shoot down the offer. Anywho! I would love feedback or other ideas if you or anyone else have any to bounce around !!!

[destinygoldenstar]

Here’s my take:

It didn’t NEED to be connected to the show. And it clearly wasn’t trying to.

It was meant to be an AU in a way.

(If you look at the behind the scenes one of their original rewrites was a plot of them going back in time to save Lloyd’s dad from becoming the villainous figure he is in the present day.)

So I can forgive the inaccuracy so long as it could stand on its own as a proper story.

It doesn’t do that.

If you DON’T compare it to the show:

You got a movie with SOME good jokes, amazing animation, but is so strangely paced that it feels like the movie starts at the middle of the story and never shows the beginning, and feels like a completely different movie halfway through, and is also very choppily edited.

(I even double checked a clip of the movie just to prove my point there: When Lloyd uses all his dragon mech weapons on Garmadon, they play the exact same sound effect and explosion, just with different angles, SIX TIMES. FSM WAS THAT EDITOR HUNG OVER WHEN DOING THEIR JOB THAT DAY?! And that’s just one example I’ve got. I think this was the first time EVER when I was in a movie theater and I distinctly remember asking “What is wrong with the editing here? Who thought this was good editing?? Who thought this was appropriate in any way???” So I thank this movie for giving me such a memory and making me value good editing.)

You also got a world that isn’t very well fleshed out, characters that the movie chooses to not focus on except the main character and the main villain. And you got a movie that tells its audience it’s okay to forgive your parents that neglected you and are active terrorists even if they earned or done absolutely no redemption whatsoever.

I mean Garmadon in this movie BETRAYS them and leaves them to rot so he could terrorize the city again at the end. Then gets eaten by the cat. Then Lloyd forgives him. Idk what more you want me to say.

I’m not gonna act like Crystalized did it any better though. Pick your poison.

But then you got fans of the show. The people who watched the show since kids (that includes me). Who are naturally bias towards the shows lore and characterization…

OOOOOOHHH boy…

I don’t hate EVERY portrayal of the ninja in the movie as much as other people. I actually think there’s some good ideas for an AU version of these characters here. Problem is the movie never does anything with them.

Well, I say I don’t hate every portrayal, the one I truly cannot stand is Zane’s.

There’s just so much wrong with how they portrayed Zane that it just does not work. Not as an adaptation of the character. Not in any way that makes sense for this universe and is actually kinda insulting.

There’s no other robots in this city. (Like there are in the show) Why is Zane the only one and why is he in high school? Why would Wu ever pick a robot to be a ninja?

In the show the reason is pretty simple: Wu didn’t know at the time.

But everyone knows in the movie. What’s movie Wu’s excuse?

There’s also in terms of personality.

Keep in mind later seasons of the show have the same issues, so I’m talking about what it was at the time of the movie.

Zane’s whole robot identity is crucial to his character. The show introduced him as ‘the strange one’. As he couldn’t understand social cues, took things very seriously, didn’t share the same sense of humor as the rest of the team, had a hard time displaying his emotions, and bonded with things the others didn’t and excelled at certain areas like cooking.

He’s a character that connected to a lot of neurodivergent people in the audience who could relate to him. No he’s not intentional autistic rep, but one that definitely mattered to the people that headcannoned him as such.

(Also helps that they introduce other robot characters later that clearly don’t have the same characteristics he does. So really it depends on what you see.)

So the reveal that he was a robot was such a huge deal to not just the plot but to him as he finally got a concrete definition of what he is and who he is. And the show NEVER decides to say “You know, it would be so much better if you were a human!”

“Why can’t you just be normal?!”

That’s part of why I personally can’t stand fics that make Zane human. It just doesn’t feel right to me and misses the point of the character.

While I absolutely did not expect the movie to cover his… really heavy backstory with his inventor/father and how he outlived him, then got his memory and sense of identity wiped by him moments before death, which was meant to be an act of sympathy but would actually harm Zane’s mentality for the entire show…

The movie didn’t need to adapt that. For all we know, movie Zane could have a very happy backstory. And that would be fine. All I wanted was for the identity-seeking aspect of Zane’s character to matter in some way.

It didn’t.

The jokes they use for Zane in this movie are that of “Haha, he’s a robot. Isn’t it so funny that he doesn’t understand humanity very well?”

You know, something that in one episode of the show was portrayed as a BAD THING for people to think that of him! And that those people needed to learn to respect him for who he is!

And that’s the ONLY thing they do with him. Just robot jokes. Very stereotypical robot jokes.

Again, later seasons of the show are guilty of this too. So I will not act like the show is perfect.

For the reasons I listed, these are actually far more offensive and harmful than you think. Especially fans of the show watching the movie. Him being the only robot in this movie world makes me think even more that this actually is autistic coding… and that makes it so much worse.

Zane being a robot being equal to autism is its own discussion. And has its own problems on paper alone. Whether or not this is your headcanon of him, and whether or not you think this is good representation either way is up to your feelings and experiences. (Personally I think it’s better than some live action shows attempting this)

The others don’t even seem to trust or want to be around him that much. The others seem annoyed by him half the time. Like they’re only tolerating him because he’s on their team. Yeah they don’t say that but simple looks and gestures are enough to get that impression. And not once does anyone ever express Zane’s value in their team. That’s the ONE thing that would’ve had me forgive this all.

But there’s my rant. The others?

Jay is mostly fine. I think this personality for the movie is a neat AU concept. Yes show Jay is openly terrified of things and awkward, but if there’s something he wasn’t was SHY.

Movie Jay is a shy and nervous wreck. And you know what? For a high school AU, I think it works. It doesn’t erase Jay’s essence entirely. They at the very least kept the detail of his character that he’s a fast learner.

I appreciate that.

Cole is actually a REALLY interesting concept to me with the AU idea they gave.

On the surface it’s just ‘He’s a DJ and willingly old school’

But if you see the show, this is actually an ODD approach. Because show Cole has a very complicated relationship with music.

In the show, Cole’s parents thrived in singing and dancing. His father specifically was a performer that won several awards with his band ‘The Royal Blacksmiths’. After Cole’s mother passed away, his father proceeded to push his ideals and his passions onto his kid and pressuring him to become another version of him. It got stressful enough that Cole ran away from home and resented music, something that used to be a bond of family for them, and that’s where Wu found him and made him a ninja.

Throughout the show, Cole would open up to music again more, but it’s pretty gradual and a very subtle bit of character development for him throughout the show. He doesn’t need to say “I hate making music” to get the point across. He only starts the music route again whenever it has something to do with making a family member, blood or not, happy.

So movie Cole is interesting to me for that reason. Because at the start, he basically IS a mini Lou. His whole thing is music and it’s heavily reflected on his personality.

To the point where his element in the movie isn’t even animated or portrayed as earth like it’s supposed to, instead it’s… sound waves?

Weird choice. Interesting one though cause maybe that’s just how movie Cole functions.

So it’s “Oh, what if Cole DID follow in his fathers footsteps and DID want to become a musician?”

Very interesting approach for a completely different approach of character development.

But the problem? Just like the others, not utilized.

But I do think this was an interesting AU idea. Is it accurate to the show version of the character? No. But that’s kind of the point I think.

Then there’s the RGB siblings. This is where it gets kinda weird for me.

Thanks to the movie, a lot of my friends mistook Kai and Nya for being twins.

They are not twins in the show. Kai is older.

I don’t think that dents their characters too much in the movie so long as the same points were across. They’re the blood related brother and sister who raised themselves when their parents abandoned them, and climbed out of the ashes to protect each other, and found a new expansion on their family that didn’t have to be blood related to count.

These two, in different ways, are the support of the team and especially Lloyd. They’re usually the lancer characters that Lloyd goes to when he can.

I still say that about Nya even though originally, she was NOT a ninja, but rather was a Samurai with a mech of her own invention that acted as a Tuxedo Mask for the ninja. She didn’t become the water ninja until Season 5.

Which… I know the movie takes heavy inspiration from the first two seasons, the beginning, so for those who haven’t seen the show watching the movie… yikes I feel bad about the lack of a spoiler warning. Same goes for Zane being a robot.

But I think that’s also a factor into Kai, at the former half of this show, (again I’m talking pre-movie with this). He was the first character we were introduced to and we’re following in the show before Lloyd ever showed up. So naturally he’d be the one with the most attention to supporting the Green Ninja. Something that was very vital character development for him individually as well.

He’s the old school one. He’s the cool one. He’s the one who looks out for you even if you don’t want them to. He’s the one that will jump to anything without thinking. He’s also the one with the most value in tradition out of the ninja, as a blacksmith instead of a techie and as a traditional sword fighter rather than a fancy complicated weapon. He doesn’t get involved in tech willingly till he learns Twitter is a thing.

And in the movie, I think they took this characterization and said “Eh, give it to the girl instead.”

So most of show Kai’s character traits are now movie Nya’s. She’s the cool one with the most passion for traditional stories, she’s the one with arguably the most talks with Lloyd to calm him, and she’s pretty loud and brash in personality.

Not saying show Nya is not those things, she is. But the difference in the show was that Nya was HUGE on independence and doing her own thing. Being the only woman and a younger sibling in the main cast is actually a big deal to her. Not wanting to have her destiny be decided by the world or her brother as a damsel in distress or a sacrifice, she took to tech to invent her own ways of helping. Her own character.

Until destiny told her “Actually no, you can’t be the person you want to be. You have to stick to tradition that your mother had and be the water ninja.”

That’s… honestly a very brutally honest message that not a lot of people I see give credit for. Cause yes, expressing yourself and being your own person and being able to make your own fate is amazing… but it’s not always possible.

Sometimes you can’t be the person you want. Sometimes the world just will not let you. That doesn’t mean your identity is worthless, though. If you go with the flow, you can actually find that fate has plans for you that might not suck after all.

Basically a ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ messaging there.

It’s part of why Nya’s whole thing throughout the show is her starting as a damsel trying to reinvent herself and her stereotype, and ending as a willing sacrifice and death of her whole identity that she doesn’t regret because she’s embraced the flow of life and purpose. Even if she forgets herself in the realm of spirituality, her loves one’s never will.

…Until Crystalized undid ALL of that. BUT LETS NOT.

Movie Nya just really isn’t any of that. She’s basically just her brother.

Which… I’m actually fine with. The show has some bumps in the road in execution of her story anyway. And they want the only female of this team to not be a background character cause that’s look bad. I totally understand that. And her being a sibling to Kai makes me forgive it a whole lot more cause it does make sense.

But again, we don’t know what their lives are like or if they have similar backstories to theirs in the show at all.

But where does that leave Kai?

Well his whole character in the movie seems to basically be “I’m the loud one and a complete klutz and meathead.”

Basically TD Tyler.

It’s a personality in the movie that bled in the show post movie. While I personally think it was not THAT bad in the show, Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitsu made me go “Okay. I understand now.”

As for movie Kai, that’s really about it.

It really was an early indicator of just giving Kai’s character traits to other characters. Before the show was visibly doing it.

Cause movie Lloyd is also basically just Kai but with a different backstory and context to situation. But honestly, I DO see what they were going for here.

As the ONLY ninja to get ANY focus, this version of Lloyd is well explained on what his life is.

In the show, he’s an abandoned child in an abusive boarding school who heavily idolizes his father, Lord Garmadon, and runs away to become a super villain. Only for Destiny to tell him not to, and we see his true colors and that he just wanted his family together and to love him. Something that was… hard. Considering who Garmadon is.

That is actually carried into the movie. Just cut out him running away. Here’s the difference.

Show Lloyd loves his dad and refuses to hurt him until he has to. While he is the Green Ninja, he didn’t resent himself being Garmadon’s son. What he resented was the destiny that took them apart.

Movie Lloyd HATES his dad for abandoning him, terrorizing the city, making said city cancel him for EXISTING, and he wants every excuse to shut this man out of his life forever.

That does make sense. And to the movie’s credit, the movie logic DOES work to make this version of Lloyd make sense.

It makes the movie pretty mean spirited and kinda unpleasant at times. But it works for the story.

I described Lloyd as ‘The Emo Child’. In the show. But that’s two words.

Emo. CHILD.

He’s still a kid. He’s still the youngest. He still has his own child-like wonder of the world and the aspirations that of a child would.

Yeah he’s a lot of angst. But he’s also a sweet kid who deserves hugs.

That’s not very apparent in movie Lloyd. Not that it needs to fit movie context.

But because we never see how the ninja in the movie got together, we have no idea why Lloyd even accepted being the Green Ninja in the first place. He even says in the movie that he’d give it up if it meant he didn’t have to be Garmadon’s son.

Movie Lloyd is the only ninja in this movie with an actual character arc. He resents his dad, tries to be rid of him, only to get consequences for it, goes on a quest to fix his mistake, bonds with his dad to learn he’s… sympathetic? I guess?? And in the end forgives his dad and chooses to let him in his life again.

Simple. Fine. It works on Lloyds end just fine. And I have to give credit for the movie making Lloyd resenting Garmadon more logical than Crystalized ever did.

It’s Garmadon’s end that just makes the whole thing a bad message in the end of ‘forgive your abusers.’

Yes he’s funny. That doesn’t undo his actions.

No it’s not undone in the show either, but at least you can buy the forgiveness there because every character knew that he had no choice.

In the show, Garmadon is the Oni Child of the FSM. Thus all it took was for another Oni creature, the Great Devourer, to trigger his blood and FORCE him into the evil role without his consent. It forced him to do nasty things to his loved ones and the land his dad created, and by the time he became his evil form, he was forcefully stripped away from all of his loved ones and a chance at normal life. So the only way he could ever get that back was to turn the world into his own image, thus having the world become him too. A monster.

The show made it abundantly clear that most of Garmadon’s evil deeds are either out of ambition for what he deems as helping the family, or not his fault at all due to snake venom influence.

I THINK the movie also has this because they do address him getting bit and becoming the creature he appears as in both versions.

Better than nothing I guess.

But then you get his ‘sympathetic backstory’ which is pretty much just a love story between him and Koko-

Yeah Lloyds moms name is actually different in both versions. And in role.

Misako abandoned her child to try and solve the destiny crisis, then returned to his life to help her kid out.

Koko remained a mother to her kid and supported him even when everyone hated him.

These are very different characters basically, and which one you prefer is up to you. Personally… I actually prefer the movie. I do think the mom was the one character that the movie actually improved upon. Especially with a very interesting story for her.

In the show, Misako is a researcher and just the fair maiden figure that Wu and Garmadon fell in love with. To which she chose Garmadon because of Wu’s letter that Garmadon forged his name on… it’s complicated.

In the movie, she was actually a fighter as well and took a part of the wars Garmadon was in. She enjoyed the thrill of the fight and fell in love with her opponent in a pretty cute montage.

But then they had a baby and her reality changed, realizing she could not raise her child on the battlefield. And when Garmadon refused to change his mind, she took Lloyd and left him behind. So she could be a mother.

Explains her actions in the movie all throughout very well and I never got lost when it came to her. She’s probably the one character in the movie I felt the most sorry for. She’s such a sweet parent and her interactions with Lloyd are probably the best parts of the movie. I wanna hug her.

But that’s all that’s shown of Garmadon. Apparently Garmadon was oppressed, but that’s told at the end and not shown or been significant at all.

They don’t hate you cause you look funky. They hate you cause YOU TERRORIZE THEIR CITY ON A DAILY BASIS AND SHOOT PEOPLE OUT OF A VOLCANO

Yeah show Garmadon did similar stuff, but again, WASNT HIS CHOICE.

Here, it’s absolutely his choice cause nothing indicated otherwise.

Garmadon doesn’t even PROCESS his kids existence or his own negligence three quarters of the time. And you expect me to buy a redemption from him?

You know, I’d be fine with it if he was just a one dimensional villain and the story of the movie was about Lloyd putting his energy away from a family that doesn’t care about him and more towards a surrogate one he has.

But no. You gotta have Lloyd forgive Garmadon and have Garmadon redeemed.

Cause that’s what the show did.

Even though this is supposed to be an AU not connected to the show so we can do whatever we want.

The most they do for Garmadon’s redemption is force him to be the mentor after Wu got yeeted off a bridge by a butterfly, have him go “Oh yeah, I DID shoot people out of a volcano!”, teach his son how to catch, and tell his son his backstory.

(Speaking if, Wu to me is basically the same. Just different voice actor delivery. I got nothing to say on him)

And then if that IS redemption, then he failed it. Because he offers Lloyd to be his general when they take over the city again, showing he’s learned nothing. Then when Lloyd says no, he steals their magic weapons and ditches them in a temple leaving them to DIE. Then he goes to terrorize the city again.

What redemption. /s

Again, this was all HIS choice. If it was not and if it was snake venom, they couldn’t at least give a visual cue or address it?

And now LLOYD has to apologize?

NO. LLOYD WAS RIGHT. THERES ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY HE SHOULD LET HIS DAD INTO HIS LIFE. THE DAD HIMSELF PROVED THAT.

It just paints an unintentional bad message of ‘you have to forgive your abusers’

I’m sorry but Lloyd doesn’t owe this Garmadon anything.

I do like Lloyd’s VA delivery though, and the speech about green being the color of life. I actually like the idea of Lloyds power being his heart. Yeah it’s not flashy powers like in the show, but for an AU, it’s a really cool idea and I wish they used it more.

I have mixed feelings on the celebrity casting. Did I expect the original voice actors? No. But this casting wasn’t awful.

Garmadon’s VA is amazing in this movie. Jackie Chan as Wu is very subjective I feel, love it or hate it. Nya and Jay’s were really good too. I think the only one that didn’t work for me was Kai’s VA. Just… why does this teenager sound like a 50 year old man??

But honestly, I think the thing that got to me the most about the movie was something I praised about the show not too long ago.

The bond between the ninja.

I talked about how the show is a master class at character dynamics. There is almost no point where the characters are just standing there in one big clunk. Someone is saying something, someone is making a comment, someone is doing something, and it’s usually there for others to see and react to. It’s a very small thing, but it keeps the scenes alive and fresh the whole time and helps the audience be sold on the characters bond.

They don’t wait for the scenes of “Okay it’s time for characters to interact”. They just do it all the time.

And guess what the movie did? They’re just there in one big chunk all the time. With “okay it’s time for characters to interact” bits.

It’s one thing to not explore the other ninja at all. It’s another to ignore their bond.

In the show, they’re a found family. They all had rough upbringings in life and find a new sense of purpose in each other.

That’s NEVER emphasized in the movie except for one speech at the end Lloyd makes. Mostly cause we don’t know the other ninjas lives, and we don’t know how they even got together. Cause as I said, the movie starts at the middle, and awkwardly cuts after Garmadon is forgiven to be the end. We don’t know what it is about THIS ninja team that we should care about. It’s not shown.

All were shown is them being a team by circumstance only. Then Lloyd pulls out the cat laser and the cat nearly kills them. Then they hate Lloyd for it and spend the rest of the movie making fun of Lloyd.

Which yeah they make fun of each other in the show too, but where it ended in the show was playful teasing in the middle of moments that showed they cared about each other. And when one bond between two or more of them was broken, you felt it.

Here? I don’t know that and there isn’t anything besides the high school montage to show they cared. Just some comments about “Oh it’s okay Lloyd, it’s just awkward that your dad is a terrorist”. And then they make fun of Lloyds expense.

It’s mean spirited. It makes me think they don’t like each other. And it’s not like they ever apologize for it. They’re just teammates because Wu said so. They’re just tolerating Lloyd cause Wu said so.

Honestly the bloopers for this movie show more personality and more of this bond than the entire movie does.

…OOF that took awhile. I don’t even know why I did this, I just didn’t feel like sleeping. Uh… you read this, congrats. Idk why you did.

Is it safe now to admit that I really don't like the Ninjago movie? Just hear me out.

As a movie on its own, it's literally just retreading the same ground as The Lego Movie. And it does it way worse.

"Oh no look it's [BIG BAD WITH ROBOTS] who is going to use [SUPER WEAPON] to destroy everything and make it into what he wants it to be! Only [SOCIAL OUTCAST] and his ragtag group of weirdos can take him down, and maybe learn that [LIFE LESSON THAT TIES INTO PROTAGONIST MOTIVATION AND ANTAGONIST REASON FOR BEING EVIL] along the way."

Like, The Lego Movie was a genuinely fun original story, and you absolutely get the sense that this is a story they wanted to tell. The Lego Batman Movie is similarly that, and is a genuine love letter to Batman and such an interesting character deep-dive through the use of parody. The Lego Ninjago Movie is just TLM but again.

And then there's how it holds up as a Ninjago movie. They adapted an existing beloved TV series with a lot of lore and unique/interesting characters. And they made it a joke.

"Alright, I'm so excited to see this movie for my favorite show. Are we gonna get some cool Garmadon v Lloyd? Are we gonna get an interesting arc for Kai? Are we gonna expand upon the existing lore?"

"Nah we're gonna ignore all that."

"...what?"

"Yeah no we don't really wanna do all that. But hey, wouldn't it be hilarious if Garmadon pronounced Lloyd's name like 'L-loyd'? Cause it has two L's?"

"... ... ...do we at least get to see the Skulkin again?"

"Nah it's goons in fish costumes now."

And also it created the post-movie era and I one-hundred-percent blame them for the loss of red-haired Jay.

[prof-peach]

if fans wanted to include peach in stuff they write, would that be okay? and how would they write peach's personality? aside from "FIGHT ME" anyway, i think that much is a given lol. i only really write the anime characters 'cause that's what i know, but it sounds like it'd be kinda fun to try making a version of ash that fits into this blog's universe! nerf'd Obviously, but i think she'd probably appreciate how hands-on he gets when training his pokemon!

Ok, I get a lot of these messages, and I often hear folks wanting to throw peach into their stories and comics and writings, and I will always simply ask that if it’s published online publicly, to be linked to it so I can snoop and enjoy the content too. If someone asks about her in your work, let them know about the blog I guess? But literally I love that people take this stuff, these characters and stories, and make new stuff with it. No ones making money off my work here? So where’s the issue? Go for it buddy, knock yourself out, I’m all for it.

For you, and all the others out there who want to add peach, and other characters to your world building, I will give you a detailed rundown of the main lot, and how they behave, what they do, how they function. You can use that, use bits, or use none of it, I do not mind at all. If you’re creating something, you’re in control, not me.

So, peach doesn’t actually fight people as much as you’d think. She’s very aware most cannot and do not want to do that, and so she likes to keep to herself with regards to that aspect of her life, she doesn’t ask to spar with people, or even bring it up at all, but people ask her all the time, even if they clearly would lose or become hurt should she miscalculate during the fight. She looks at people like they usually create problems, and often has a somewhat reserved nature to other humans. You have to work quite hard to get anything more than formalities out of her. She will dead-pan handle people with blunt and very to-the-point statements, aid whenever possible, but very quickly get back to handling the Pokemon she so carefully tends. Her focus is clear, she’s all about hard work, her very small select family, and the Pokemon.

Her brutal, loud and brash personality only comes out with friends, family, difficult humans, OR any Pokemon. She will joke and laugh and play with Pokemon, but clam up around humans, maintaining tight body language and generally will be a little cold by regular standards. She does however have some weaknesses in this emotionless shield she puts up. When peach was young she was always angry, which swung so fast to sadness, back and forth. Her teenage years it just got worse and worse, it was crippling at points. She is to this day, full of fire and rage, even sadness, but now she has learnt to control it, to use it. When she sees that in others, it’s familiar, and she is pushed to drop the front, and be very real with the person. Underdogs I suppose, people who get bad reps, but deserve the same as everyone else. She can’t ignore it.

Once you start to pry open her personality, you’ll find she’s a lot more laid back and fun than originally appeared, you just have to work hard to find that side of her. She will meme reference, can’t dance to save her life, loves her coffee, and can be caught in quiet contemplation while gardening. This hobby is her calmest, and often is why she can stay so level headed when her quiet rage boils up again. Without time outside she will become grouchy, a little snippy, and lethargic. Will not go in the ocean for any reason other than life or death, is fine with ponds and rivers, or water at wading height. Likes the rain.

With regards to her training others, they usually have to tolerate her somewhat strict nature. She is a little....unforgiving, holds a grudge if you make a lot of mistakes, and has no tolerance for ignorance in the age of information that we all live in. In previous posts I’ve mentioned she’s only recently selected two students, after many years of testing kids who want to learn from her. Hundred tried out, only two have ever been approved. How she teaches is very fast paced, be prepared to get some scrapes and bruises, she will test your physical and emotional tolerances with intense tasks, carefully watching students like a hawk. Bad posture in your stance? She’ll be the first to tell you to sort it out. Not hearing your Pokemon partner? Right, now you spend the day without using words trying to communicate, let’s see how you like not being listened to.

This is a woman who has spent her life saying very little, and watching everything, she watches Pokemon and can see an issue from a mile off, and in battles, her observations are why she can react fast, and chose effective strategy to avoid damage and achieve results. Don’t let her body fool you, her strongest asset is analysing, watching, planning. Those skills have over the years transferred to people too. As a student, mistakes don’t go unnoticed with this professor.

Her methods are harsh but fair, and should you prove yourself, she will protect you with her life.

Because of her disinterest in kids and lots of noise, she does pass the training of students on to the other staff members whenever possible. Grey takes on the lions share of battle lessons, he is far calmer, more open and friendly, with patience for people, and an empathy that peach sometimes struggles to have. When you go through a lot of harsh training, and difficult events, it’s hard to change how you feel or think, with peach, well, she’s been through it. Most do not come out the other end in one piece, but she did, and it made her strong. You may think I mean strong like buff and big, and yeah sure she is, but I mean it mentally more than anything. Peach will not quit. She has learnt to destroy the boundaries that stop people getting hurt, gone is the fear that freezes you in your tracks, that feeling that you’ll pass out if you go one more step. She’s learnt to ignore it.

This means she’s a little forgetful at how it is to be normal, to be vulnerable and soft and squishy like students so usually are.

She has her issues, but for the most part, visitors get a laugh, a smile, a calm assertive confidence, and facts. She will indulge those who have genuine interest, or show a connection with nature, an understanding of the balance that needs to be struck for everyone to live well together.

Despite her many flaws, she’s fiercely protective, and will go above and beyond to defend the island, it’s staff, the Pokemon and the visitors. Injustice is her biggest gripe, along with littering, and she doesn’t stand by quietly if something happens that seems unfair.

You will not see her without Valka, her vulpix, close by. That Pokemon doesn’t like to be touched by strangers, at all, and will run the second someone comes at her with that intent. Peach will scold you for pushing yourself onto her, should you persistently try to get close to pet Val. They are in sync, if peach is sad, Val is sad, if Val is stressed, peach is stressed, and so on. They are inherently connected, it’s just been that long, the psychic bridge between them has been built, and reinforced over the years.

The only other Pokemon who follows her so endlessly is Booker, a teddiursa who’s pretty rough looking. He quietly trots behind, grouchy and stoic, they fight closely together a lot. He lost his mom a long time ago to poachers, and peach took him in, and changed her whole life for him. Not many people know, but Booker was the reason she left the rangers, changed career, and got so strong. Will tolerate people petting him but isn’t keen at all, grumbles a lot and tries to move away.

You may also need to know about the others, for the sake of writing, she here a few more bits that may be important to you, or others wanting to do this.

Grey is very tall, very burly, composed, tells bad dad jokes, is a bit of a goof if allowed to be. If he sees a pun, he’ll say it. Can’t help himself. Very nice guy to work with, good at keeping people calm and grounded. Pokemon are drawn to him like a moth to a flame, he gives off warm energy, and has inhuman amounts of patience. If you wrong his family however, he will snap back.

He grew up in the city, loves to swim and hike and cycle, can snowboard, is really sporty. A total brain box with held items, and boosting stats. He will explore many paths, to make sure visitors and students get the information they need, in a way that can be remembered and retained for later. Is a huge guy, but will get on the floor to play with a tiny Pokemon. Treats big “meaner” looking species like babies, very good with all pokemon.

His free time is spent either tinkering, swimming, or trimming his bonsai trees. This guy stares at screens a lot, so appreciates time away from them. Peach built him his own little greenhouse for his trees and tools, which he keeps clean and loves dearly.

His methods as a teacher are built around fun and games, he makes hard work easier to do by distracting trainers from the difficult bits, and focusing in on something more interesting or compelling.

His most commonly seen Pokemon would be a houndoom, Saxon, old battle veteran, retired now to herding and being a good boy. Very gentle, loves a pet.

Pari, now a fully fledged nurse, often oversees the labs front desk and pokecentre features, such as healing pokemon, and informing trainers who come to visit. Her skills with eggs and hatchlings is high, she’s great with younger Pokemon, and hands out good advice to trainers a lot. She’s not a fighter, never was, but can find any file, any study, any book, and any refrence you may need. A true bookworm, loves her romance novels, chat shows and upbeat celebrity gossip mags. Will cry at a lot of stuff, be it sad or happy.

She’s got a seriously upbeat personality, but if caught off guard or shocked, she gets a little flustered. Too much chaos will overwhelm her, but usually she’s on top of things. The years spent on the island have made her better at maintaining composure in emergencies. With lots of siblings, she’s very competent with others, and has a good ability to disarm cagey people with her jolly nature. Because of this, she can sometimes gain information from trainers that some of the more harsh professors may not have access to. Charming is a word for it.

Her partners are an eevee, and a happiny. They are quite sweet and well adjusted, the eevee gets a bit bouncy if you get it too excited.

[writingwithcolor]

Tragedy Exploitation and Characters of Colour

hi! i've browsed your blog for a while now and it's been really helpful to me, so first off, thank you. i was wondering about something tho, i recently saw your response to a person explaining their story idea that revolved around two lovers, where one was cursed to kill the other and the other was always resurrected only for it to repeat, and i believe the characters were POC. in your response you seemed quite upset that such a plot was happening to POC characters specifically and it confused me because it sort of read as if you were mad that a bad thing was happening to a POC character in a story, which i genuinely didn't understand (i really don't want to sound rude, i'm being sincere), because it came off as advocating for only good and happy and nice things to be reserved for POC characters and if an author dared write something bad or traumatic happening to a POC character it's immediately 'poor narrative', and i personally don't agree with that take, because i feel like that reduces a POC character to just being POC instead of a person, which I feel like hurts POC rep in fiction, because being upset someone wrote something bad happening to a POC character makes it all about just that character being POC instead of just a regular person something bad has happened to in the story that just happens to be a person of color at the same time. my god this has gotten long, i got very interested in hearing more about this because i personally didn't quite understand and it sounded wrong to me, your original response. if you do reply to this, thank you, i hope i didn't sound rude, i do genuinely want to learn, because even tho i typed all this out i still feel like i'm wrong about this & missed the point somewhere

Disclaimer: please do not pile onto the ask about a Black woman murdered by her lover, as the asker has realized the issues with the ask. We are presently addressing the attitude of “why can’t bad things happen to PoC?” in this comment, with the name retracted, because it’s an attitude that crops up every once and awhile.

-

You have missed our extensive backlog of posts about double standards re: PoC and white characters, wherein we describe, at length, how we are uncomfortable that PoC characters get extra bad stuff that’s treated as “organic” because our history is full of suffering, when white characters often don’t get that same thing.

like White Authors and Topics to Avoid/Tread Carefully

and Writing About PoC Trials and Tribulations

We ask that people question why they decide to automatically make someone suffering a violent constant-death-loop be a person of colour, especially multiply marginalized (Black, woman, LGBTQ+). Because there are already too many stories of characters of colour (especially multiply marginalized) suffering needlessly and oftentimes worse than the white characters for the sake of a plot.

You completely misread the heart of the reply, which was “why are you forcing Black women to suffer the worst fate imaginable (murder) in one of the most emotionally heartbreaking way imaginable (at the hands of your lover) multiple times in order to “earn her happy ending”? this is tragedy exploitation and is making a mockery of trauma”

PoC already have enough stories about us traumatized by circumstance. And while we can suffer, narratively, part of systemic racism is only telling stories of PoC when we are suffering as the sole marker of the plot. Especially when characters of colour are suffering disproportionately to lighter skinned characters.

You also missed the part where Marika said that even if it were white characters, they would be uncomfortable because constantly pulling out murder as a curse is lazy writing.

All we ask is: why did the asker decide that a woman of colour must suffer to the point of repeated murder before she can be happy? Why does she have to forgive the person who did it to her? Because that is a logic born of passive racism that tells people: women of colour, especially darker skinned/Black women, can “handle anything”. And that is a lie.

~Mod Lesya

Echoing Lesya, I’m puzzled as to how you came to the conclusion that “If an author dared to write something bad or traumatic happening to a POC character, it’s immediately a poor narrative” when I explicitly said I thought this was cheap theatrics and tragedy exploitation even if both characters were white, particularly as the ask had given me no conception of the author’s motivation in using the curse as a dramatic device. In Japanese, we jokingly use the word 中二病 (Chuunibyo) or “8th grade disease” to describe edgelord phases for teens. This is a 中二病 plot device. It’s perfectly fine for niche angst addicts on ao3, but not something I would be able to take seriously in a more substantive work aimed at a larger audience. I think it is also telling that even the original asker has commented that they independent of our answer concluded this was a poor plot choice.

Finally, with respect to your question of the usage of negative tropes like the ones mentioned in this ask (Misogynoir and Bury Your Gays), I am concerned that you do not understand the motive for this blog. Our purpose is to provide instruction to those who wish to use diversity in their writing in an inclusive manner in ways that resonate with marginalized populations. We are not proposing a ban on tropes. They are tools, but like all tools, they have appropriate forms of use. Do you honestly think that many BIPOC individuals would be happy to read a story with this kind of tragedy exploitation? And how would you, as an author, factor in their impressions when writing your own works?

No one can stop a writer from pursuing the narratives they wish to pursue, but the opinions a writer is primarily concerned with says a lot about who a writer believes their work is for. Let us say I were to write a story with a gratuitous depiction of sexual assault purely for the shock value, despite never having experienced sexual assault myself? How might survivors of sexual assault regard both me and my work? Now imagine BIPOC individuals whose main experience with representation in media is seeing characters look like them die from the kinds of violence that are common for them to experience, and it should become clear that an author who adopts these approaches, at a bare minimum, is being exceptionally tactless. A writer who finds no issue with tragedy exploitation involving BIPOC characters is likely not a writer who cares about what the BIPOC members of their audience think, or, even worse, does not even factor BIPOC perspectives into their writing.

- Marika

[genyasafinsmissingeye]

The Problem with Sexuality Headcanons and Forced Representation

(This could also include race and gender identity headcanons if you please, however I’m white and cis so I don’t have a voice on this topic in much detail)

There is nothing wrong with making headcanons (Meaning: assumptions about a fictional character with either no backup in the canon or some suggestion of it). I have quite a few myself, that I share on my page. However, sometimes it gets to the point where these headcanons overshadow the real representation in books in favour for something with no real merit.

An example of this, in my opinion, is present in the Six of Crows fandom. Some people in the fandom seem to be obsessed with saying that Inej is bisexual, or that Kaz is asexual, and proceed to ignore how revolutionary the real diversity was. High fantasy is a genre with an infamous lack of diversity, and SOC gave us a disabled, two bisexual, one gay, a plus size and two POC protagonists. While this should be celebrated and admired, it isn’t as appreciated as it should. Another example is the TV show Glee. Nearly every single character in the show has been headcanoned as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, but the revolutionary queer characters are rarely acknowledged on social media (Primarily TikTok) for their role in queer identity. I’ve seen videos praising  LGBTQ+ characters on screen that hadn’t included any canonical representation. I as a lesbian don’t feel repersented by the headcanon that Quinn Fabray is a lesbian- I felt represented by Santana’s coming out process and her relationship with Brittany that made me believe I could fall in love with a woman. Isn’t that what diversity is about, being represented? When there’s no actual worth to it, it becomes forced.

It could be argued in Glee’s situation that because the diversity itself isn’t the best (See: The biphobia and stereotypes. This can be acknowledged while still appreciating its worth) viewers have the right to make their own, and this leads to my next point: When does made up diversity become necessary? This is the case of one of my favourite fandoms, the All for the Game fandom, with most of its representation coming from the fans rather than the canon. In AFTG the only POC characters are villians or morally questionable, the rest of the loveable cast being white. However, almost all of the PSU foxes have been headcanoned as POC along with queer as the LGBTQ+ rep is subpar at most. In my opinion, this is a scenario where it’s acceptable to make up representation, because there was none to begin with. This is often seen in media with book to screen adaptations, such as in The Umbrella Academy, turning some of the original white, cis-het comic book characters into POC’s and queer. 

In conclusion, headcanons are fun and they should stay fun, but they shouldn’t be used to overshadow, minimize or replace real representations in media. If you have any thoughts, I’d like to hear them! 

[calzona-ga]

In her unauthorized book, Lynette Rice explores the stories behind some of the ABC drama's biggest moments, including — in this exclusive excerpt — the factors that led to McDreamy's shocking death.

In How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy, author Lynette Rice recounts the ABC medical drama’s eventful 16-year history, revealing new details behind some of the show’s biggest departures. Included in the unauthorized, 320-page oral history (St. Martin’s Press, Sept. 21, $29.99) is a chapter that offers new insight into leading man Patrick Dempsey’s shocking exit in season 11 of the Shonda Rhimes-created drama. In the chapter, Rice speaks with Dempsey’s co-stars and exec producers who were present during filming of his final days on Grey’s Anatomy, and reveals claims of “HR issues” that contributed to the death of his alter-ego, Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd.

“There were HR issues. It wasn’t sexual in any way. He sort of was terrorizing the set. Some cast members had all sorts of PTSD with him,” recalls exec producer James D. Parriott, who was brought back to the series to oversee Dempsey’s exit.

In more than 80 interviews with current and former cast- and crewmembers, Rice, an editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, also explores the show’s early days, recounts the thinking behind some of its more polarizing storylines and offers exclusive details about the show’s behind-the-scenes culture.

“After 17 seasons, fans still can’t get enough of Grey’s Anatomy,” Rice tells THR. But what went down behind the scenes was just as dramatic as what viewers saw every Thursday. I’m excited for fans to read what I learned about those early days, along with what it was like to work for Shonda Rhimes, and why the drama was so freakin’ headline-prone.”

Below, The Hollywood Reporter shares an excerpt — the full eighth chapter — from How to Save a Life, and tune in Friday to TV’s Top 5 for an interview with Rice about her book and the other big reveals she uncovered in her reporting for it.

(Reps for ABC, ABC Signature, Shondaland, and Dempsey declined comment on the reveals in Rice’s book.)

“He’s Very Dreamy, but He’s Not the Sun,” Or, How Grey’s Anatomy Loved — Then Learned to Live Without — Patrick Dempsey Ellen Pompeo may have played the titular role, but for many fans over many years, Patrick Dempsey was the real draw to Grey’s Anatomy. Some of it had to do with his celebrity: Dempsey was the most famous member of the original cast at the time of the pilot and brought with him quite a cult following from his 1987 movie Can’t Buy Me Love. But a lot of it was due to the way Rhimes wrote her McDreamy and how Dempsey depicted him. James D. Parriott I would say, “The guy would never say that,” and Shonda would say, “He’s McDreamy. He’s the perfect man. He would say that.” I’d say, “Okay. It’s your show.” Eric Buchman Shonda had a very clear idea of how important it was to keep Derek as this almost idealized love interest, not just for Meredith but for the audience. Naturally, the writers—especially writers who had been working on one-hour dramas for a while—were like, “Well, maybe have McDreamy make a big mistake in surgery and kill somebody. Or he develops an addiction of some kind. What is his deep, dark secret?” Shonda was very insistent: that’s not the character we do that with. Even when you find out he’s married, that was done in a very sympathetic way that kept him being a hero. He was wronged by his spouse and in spite of it all he was still gonna give his marriage a second chance. Stacy McKee Shonda was protective of McDreamy, but it was really with an eye toward being protective of Meredith. I don’t think the two were separate from one another. I don’t think she wanted to put something out there that maybe on the surface might seem a little frivolous. At its core, there was something really substantial that she wanted to say. She wanted to be very specific about the type of relationship values that she put out there. Tony Phelan I was in editing with Shonda once, and it was the scene where Meredith and Derek had broken up. He comes over and she’s like, “I can’t remember the last time we kissed.” And he says, “I remember. You were wearing this and you smelled of this …”

Joan Rater “Your shampoo smelled like flowers, you had that sweater on …” He described their last kiss. Tony Phelan Typically in editing you start on Derek, then you cut to Meredith for a reaction, and then you’ll go back to him. I noticed that we weren’t ever cutting back to Meredith. I asked why. Shonda said, “Because the woman in Iowa who’s watching this show wants to believe that Patrick is talking to her, and if you cut back to Meredith, it pushes them out of it.” In those special moments, we would just lock into Derek and let him do his thing. Joan Rater And he was a master at it. Patrick Dempsey He’s the ideal man, and that’s what Shonda constructed. There’s a projection [of him] onto me when you come in contact with fans, certainly with the younger and older fans. There is a certain amount of expectation. There is a responsibility to it. It made me grow, too. There were good qualities [of his] that you work on to obtain. Off camera, Dempsey was equally as charismatic to his fellow actors, crew members, and anyone who would come to visit the set. Lauren Stamile I was going in to meet him, and I remember I had this little cardigan sweater on and I took it off before I got into the room. Dempsey is one of those people—it’s almost like there’s a light shining around his body, and you feel like you’re the only person in the room. I got so hot and I remember saying, “Gosh, I would take off my sweater if I had one on because I’m so hot, but I took it off.” I was just babbling. He said, “You look nice,” and I said, “You look nicer.” I felt so awkward and he was so gracious and lovely. I was having a nervous breakdown. It’s like this “it” factor. I was like, God, whatever he has, I wish I had. I think it was very obvious how nervous I was, and he went out of his way to make sure he introduced me to everybody and made sure I felt comfortable, which he certainly didn’t have to do. But he did. Joan Rater He knew I had a giant crush on him, and he loved it. And when we’d go to table reads—I was an actress at one point in my life—they would always give me Meredith if Ellen wasn’t there. And I’d be getting my chicken tenders at craft services before the table read and he’d come up behind me and say, “Are you reading Meredith?” in my ear, like, so sexy. I’d be like, Oh my God. I mean, I could barely … I could not look at him. Tina Majorino I worked with Patrick a ton. I love him so much. We had a really great time working together. I think he’s such a great actor and he really made me laugh a lot. I feel like we had a good dynamic in scenes together, and it was always fun to play opposite him. Yes, he’s that charismatic in real life. Yes, his hair is that awesome. Yes, he is dreamy up close.

Chandra Wilson Patrick Dempsey will forever be known as Grey’s Anatomy’s McDreamy. Derek Shepherd is a permanent part of television history.

Norman Leavitt He is a big, personable guy.

Jeannine Renshaw We all love Patrick. Patrick is a sweetheart. If I saw him on the street, I’d give him a hug. I love the guy.

Mark Wilding I’ve always had a soft spot for Patrick. He really does try to do the right thing. Brooke Smith, who played Dr. Erica Hahn, remembers how Dempsey defended her when the decision was made to fire her from the show in 2008. Brooke Smith I remember calling him and saying, “Oh my God, they said they can’t write for me anymore, so I guess I’m leaving.” And he was like, “What are you talking about? You’re the only one they’re writing for.” Which at that time, it kind of did feel that way. But I guess someone didn’t like that. They gave me a statement [to release, about her departure] and I never said it. Patrick said that he actually took it out of his jacket on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and read the statement. He won’t let me forget it. He was like, “I defended you, see?” And it was true.

By season eleven, however, fans saw a disturbing break in MerDer’s once unbreakable bond. Six episodes had gone by without a peep from Derek, who was supposedly in Washington, D.C., where he had apparently made out with a research fellow. Fans began threatening to bolt if their hero didn’t return soon to Seattle. “I have never missed one episode,” wrote a fan on Dempsey’s Facebook page. “But I swear if [Rhimes] kills you off I’m done.” But there was a critical reason for Derek’s strange absence: behind the scenes, there was talk of Dempsey’s diva-like fits and tension between him and Pompeo. To help manage the explosive situation, executive producer James D. Parriott was brought back in to serve as a veritable Dempsey whisperer.

Patrick Dempsey [That] was the first year that I haven’t been in every episode. I [was] in every episode since the pilot— close to 250 episodes. That [was a] huge run. James D. Parriott Shonda needed an OG to come in as sort of a showrunner for fourteen episodes. There were HR issues. It wasn’t sexual in any way. He sort of was terrorizing the set. Some cast members had all sorts of PTSD with him. He had this hold on the set where he knew he could stop production and scare people. The network and studio came down and we had sessions with them. I think he was just done with the show. He didn’t like the inconvenience of coming in every day and working. He and Shonda were at each other’s throats.

Jeannine Renshaw There were times where Ellen was frustrated with Patrick and she would get angry that he wasn’t working as much. She was very big on having things be fair. She just didn’t like that Patrick would complain that “I’m here too late” or “I’ve been here too long” when she had twice as many scenes in the episode as he did. When I brought it up to Patrick, I would say, “Look around you. These people have been here since six thirty a.m.” He would go, “Oh, yeah.” He would get it. It’s just that actors tend to see things from their own perspective. He’s like a kid. He’s so high energy and would go, “What’s happening next?” He literally goes out of his skin, sitting and waiting. He wants to be out driving his race car or doing something fun. He’s the kid in class who wants to go to recess.

Patrick Dempsey It’s ten months, fifteen hours a day. You never know your schedule, so your kid asks you, “What are you doing on Monday?” And you go, “I don’t know,” because I don’t know my schedule. Doing that for eleven years is challenging. But you have to be grateful, because you’re well compensated, so you can’t really complain because you don’t really have a right. You don’t have control over your schedule. So, you have to just be flexible.

Longtime Crew Member Poor Patrick. I’m not defending his schtick. I like him, but he was the Lone Ranger. All of these actresses were getting all this power. All the rogue actresses would go running to Shonda and say, “Hey, Patrick’s doing this. Patrick’s late for work. He’s a nightmare.” He was just shut out in the cold. His behavior wasn’t the greatest, but he had nowhere to go. He was so miserable. He had no one to talk to. When Sandra left, I remember him telling me, “I should’ve left then, but I stayed on because they showed me all this money. They just were dumping money on me.”

Patrick Dempsey It [was] hard to say no to that kind of money. How do you say no to that? It’s remarkable to be a working actor, and then on top of that to be on a show that’s visible. And then on top of that to be on a phenomenal show that’s known around the world, and play a character who is beloved around the world. It’s very heady. It [was] a lot to process, and not wanting to let that go, because you never know whether you will work again and have success again.

Jeannine Renshaw A lot of the complaining … I think Shonda finally witnessed it herself, and that was the final straw. Shonda had to say to the network, “If he doesn’t go, I go.” Nobody wanted him to leave, because he was the show. Him and Ellen. Patrick is a sweetheart. It messes you up, this business.

James D. Parriott I vaguely recall something like that, but I can’t be sure. It would have happened right toward the end, because I know they were negotiating and negotiating, trying to figure out what to do. We had three different scenarios that we actually had to break because we didn’t know until I think about three days before he came back to set which one we were going to go with. We didn’t know if he was going to be able to negotiate his way out of it. We had a whole story line where we were going to keep him in Washington, D.C., so we could separate him from the rest of the show. He would not have to work with Ellen again. Then we had the one where he comes back, doesn’t die, and we figure out what Derek’s relationship with Meredith would be. Then there was the one we did. It was kind of crazy. We didn’t know if he was going to be able to negotiate his way out of it. It was ultimately decided that just bringing him back was going to be too hard on the other actors. The studio just said it was going to be more trouble than it was worth and decided to move on.

Stacy McKee I don’t think there was any way to exit him without him dying. He and Meredith were such an incredibly bonded couple at that point. It would be completely out of character if he left his kids. There was no exit that would honor that character other than if he were to die. Patrick Dempsey I don’t remember the date [I got the news]. It was not in the fall. Maybe February or March. It was just a natural progression. And the way everything was unfolding in a very organic way, it was like, “Okay! This is obviously the right time.” Things happened very quickly. We were like, “Oh, this is where it’s going to go.”

So that was that: McDreamy would die in episode twenty-one of season eleven, even though Dempsey was in year one of his recently signed two-year contract extension. Rhimes wrote a script that was befitting of her lead’s heroic persona: she began “How to Save a Life” by having Derek witness a car crash and helping the injured. Once it appeared everyone was out of harm’s way, Derek continues on his road trip but is suddenly broadsided by a truck.

Rob Hardy (Director) The paramedics leave. He’s there by himself. He’s having a moment. The nice music is playing, and all of a sudden, bang. It comes out of nowhere, which, you know, is how accidents happen. So as opposed to watching it as a viewer, we saw the accident happen through Derek’s perspective. Derek ends up at Dillard Medical Center, a hospital far from Grey Sloan and the talented doctors who work there. His eyes are open, but his brain is severely damaged. No one hears his plea for a CT scan; he can’t speak. To help keep the episode a secret, the scenes were shot in an abandoned hospital in Hawthorne, California, about twenty-two miles from the show’s home studio in Los Feliz.

Mimi Melgaard It was really hard on all of us because it was so secretive and we had so many different locations. We shot at this closed-down hospital that was absolutely creepy haunted. All the scenes there were so sad anyway, and in this yucky-feeling haunted hospital? It was really weird. His whole last episode was really tough. Patrick Dempsey It was like any other day. It was just another workday. There was still too much going on. You’re in the midst of it—you’re not really processing it. Rob Hardy Here’s a guy who’s immobile. Now you’re inside of his head. We were trying to make that feel scary from the perspective of a person who’s used to being in control, from a person who usually has the power of life and death in his own hands. But now he doesn’t have the ability to speak on his own behalf.

Samantha Sloyan When I went to audition, I didn’t recognize any of these doctors’ names. I assumed they were just dummy sides so people wouldn’t ruin the story line or anything like that. All we knew is that we were dealing with a man who’s been in a car accident. I had no idea that it was going to be Derek. I just figured I was going to be a guest doctor and that whoever this person was who was injured, was going to be just a character on the show. Once it became clear what we were working on, I was like, Oh, my gosh. I can’t believe this is the episode I’m on.

Mike McColl (Dr. Paul Castello) I signed an NDA before they would release the script to me. I was reading it in my house, and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I didn’t tell anyone, including my agents. I just said, “This is a really great booking. It’s a great role on Grey’s.” And they didn’t know anything until it aired.

Savannah Paige Rae (Winnie) The first scene I shot was actually the sentimental scene when I’m saying, “It’s a beautiful day to save lives, right?” I’m in the hospital room with Derek and talking to him. Even though I never watched the show, I recognized the value of the episode I was in and just really took it to heart. It was so special that I got to be a part of it.

Rob Hardy [Patrick] had a lot of emotions during the whole shoot, which evolved. I think when we first started, he was very calm and cool … the same Patrick that I remembered when I worked on the show a year or so before. With each passing day, he was a lot more emotional. A lot more was on his mind, and that would show itself in different ways. The finality of the episode and for his character was setting in. You’ve become a global icon on this show and then in five, four, three, two, a day … it’s over.

James D. Parriott Patrick was very cooperative and good.

Mike McColl When I met Patrick, he’s lying on a stretcher and we’re rushing him into the ER. I just introduced myself, shook his hand, and was like, “Man, I cannot tell you what an honor it is to be the guy to take you down.” He loved it. He could not have been nicer to me and was funny through the whole shoot. He was on the table in front of me there when I cut his chest open and all that stuff. He gave me a hug at the end. It was a real privilege to be a part of TV history in that way.

Samantha Sloyan I remember him being incredibly kind. They had his neck in a brace, and he’s strapped down to the board, so there wasn’t a ton of chatting. I remember him being really kind, but it was clearly intense for him.

Stacy McKee It was such a beautiful piece of storytelling. I knew this event was going to be a really sad, horrible event for Meredith, but I also knew it was going to be the beginning of such an incredible chapter for Meredith.

Dempsey completed his final hours of shooting on a rainy night. There was no goodbye party, no goodbye cake. Maybe that’s because some cast members were left out of the loop. James Pickens, Jr., told ABC News that the cast “didn’t know a whole lot. It was kind of on the fly. So whatever information we got, we pretty much got it kind of right before it happened.”

Caterina Scorsone (Dr. Amelia Shepherd) I didn’t get to say goodbye to Patrick when he left. I do think that helped, because I’ve been using the character of Derek in my internal landscape since Private Practice. Derek was the stability in Amelia’s life. He became a father figure after they watched robbers shoot their father. When he was suddenly gone from the show, we didn’t have that closure, so I got to play it out. She’s about to use drugs again before Owen confronts her in a way that she finally talks about her feelings about losing Derek. She doesn’t end up using.

James D. Parriott The day he left, that was my last day. There was a certain sadness to it, but I think he was relieved. I mean, I think it took a toll on him, too.

Rob Hardy I didn’t see other actors showing up and saying, “Hey, it’s the last day! Wanted to come and wish you well.” I didn’t get that. It was more the Patrick show. We were in the Patrick world, and then Ellen came, and there was definitely a lot of emotion that both of them had individually … not necessarily together. It was more so her being there on the day that he died. He had his own way of being with that, and the same thing with her. It was like two people who grew up together and … here we are. They had their own way of reflecting.

Patrick Dempsey I very quietly left. It was beautiful. It was raining, which was really touching. I got in my Panamera, got in rush-hour traffic, and two hours later I was home. Big news like this doesn’t stay quiet for long. Both Michael Ausiello—who left EW in 2010 to launch the news site TVLine—and Lesley Goldberg of The Hollywood Reporter learned two weeks prior to Dempsey’s final episode that he would be leaving the show. No reporter worth their salt wants to sit on a scoop—least of all one as huge as this—but Ausiello and Goldberg didn’t want to spoil the outcome for fans, so they agreed to hold the story until after the episode aired. I eventually found out, too, but in the nuttiest way imaginable: I was standing on the set of CSI: Cyber, watching Patricia Arquette talk about some droll techno-criminal. Unfortunately, the publicist also cc’d Dempsey’s manager and ABC publicist while trying to give me a major story, so I couldn’t immediately report the scoop. But I did use the information to successfully negotiate the one and only exit interview with Dempsey. Two weeks before his final episode, I met him and his publicist at Feed Body & Soul in Venice, California, for a story that would hit newsstands on April 24. He seemed a little shell-shocked and at one point choked up, but at the time he said nothing about how his on-set behavior may have contributed to his ouster. My editor, Henry Goldblatt, wanted to put him on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, but he couldn’t guarantee to ABC that no one would see it before the episode aired. Good thing we didn’t: some subscribers got the issue on the morning of Dempsey’s final episode— and one actually tweeted the story. Our PR department tried to get the tweets removed, but the cat was out of the bag: some fans found out early that McDreamy was about to be McHistory. Outlets like Variety reported how the story got out early, while our PR department released this statement: “We are surprised that an EW subscriber may have received their issue a day earlier than planned. We always try our best to bring readers exclusive news first. We would like to apologize to fans of the show that learned the news ahead of time.” Dempsey’s final episode was watched by 8.83 million viewers—the show’s largest audience since the premiere that season. Variety even pontificated whether the ratings boost was due to my exclusive with Dempsey.

Lesley Goldberg (The Hollywood Reporter) I’m used to working with networks to hold news as part of their efforts to guard against plot spoilers. But the way Patrick Dempsey’s exit was handled involved a layer of paranoia and secrecy that has been unlike anything I’ve seen in my reporting career. News that he was leaving, and his character being killed off, would have been a major story considering how big the show is domestically and internationally. However, it also would have meant spoiling the episode and, more important, damaging key relationships I’ve worked hard to build. At some point, publishing the news of Dempsey’s exit before the episode aired became an ethical question of what was more important—a big story and its subsequent traffic, which would have come no matter what, or the relationships and trust that it took years to craft. Ultimately, I still published early because EW subscribers received the issue with Lynette’s Dempsey interview before the episode aired.

Mike McColl The morning after Derek’s last episode aired, my daughter sent me a link that was on YouTube or Facebook or something. I actually pulled it up to look at it, and it was a Grey’s Anatomy showbiz cheat sheet. It asked the question “Who is the attending doctor who killed Derek ‘McDreamy’ Shepherd?” It included a photo that I posted from the set. I had on a bloody rubber glove and was in my scrubs and mask. I never obviously would have posted this before it aired. I posted it well after the episode aired, and I [captioned it] “McDeadly.” This writer said something like, “Kill McDeadly.” Maybe that’s why the producer didn’t choose a big-name actor to be the one who killed our beloved McDreamy! I want to be ultrasensitive to these hard-core fans because it means so much to them, and I certainly didn’t mean in that case to make light of it. It’s just, I’m an actor, and I recognize it for what it is. Is everybody clear on the fact that this is just pretend and Patrick knew he was going to be leaving the show? It was just like, “God. He’s okay. He really is okay.”

Peter Horton Derek was going to be there forever with Meredith because you went through a whole journey with them. That was incredibly fulfilling. So even if he’s not there, he’s there. I don’t think any of us really worried about that going away because by then you were so invested in it. The show can last as it has for years.

Patrick Dempsey Lots of people [miss him]. “It’s good to see you alive” is the comment I get. I’m like, “Yes, I’m very much alive in reruns.” People were really invested in that relationship. I knew it would be heavy. Very happy to have moved on with a different chapter in my life.

Samantha Sloyan The montage just killed me, when Meredith says, “It’s okay, you can go.” God, I’m getting choked up just thinking about it. The chemistry they have as a pair and the way they were able to build that and sustain it! So many of these relationships are, like, “Will they, won’t they,” and then it wears thin. They sustained it for the duration of their relationship on the show, and it’s just, I think, a testament to what those two created. It was just unbelievable.

Pompeo addressed Dempsey’s departure with a tweet that focused solely on his character, not on how she spent eleven years working side by side with him: “There are so many people out there who have suffered tremendous loss and tragedy. Husbands and wives of soldiers, victims of senseless violence, and parents who have lost children. People who get up every day and do what feels like is the impossible. So it is for these people and in the spirit of resilance [sic] I am honored and excited to tell the story of how Meredith goes on in the face of what feels like the impossible.” Meanwhile, fans futilely created a Change.org petition to reinstate McDempsey, while other, more desperate ones simply tweeted “We Hate You” to Rhimes.

Shonda Rhimes Derek Shepherd is and will always be an incredibly important character—for Meredith, for me, and for the fans. I absolutely never imagined saying goodbye to our McDreamy. Patrick Dempsey’s performance shaped Derek in a way that I know we both hope became a meaningful example— happy, sad, romantic, painful, and always true—of what young women should demand from modern love. His loss will be felt by all.

Talk about the mother (father?) of all postscripts: In November of 2020 Dempsey reprised his role as McDreamy in the season opener—but only in Meredith’s dreams. Stricken with COVID-19, an unconscious Meredith “imagined” reuniting with her husband on the beach. After talking exclusively to Deadline and saying how it was “really a very healing process, and really rewarding,” Dempsey would return for more beach-based episodes that would ultimately stand out as the best moments of season seventeen. “It was a second chance thing,” one ABC executive told me at the time. “Shonda likes a comeback. Also, they wanted him in their last season.”