#happening without undoing all their development and their dynamics with each other

[tired-shadow142]

Quick warning ⚠️: There are major spoilers for the ending of Tokyo Revengers in the tags, so don't hit "see all" if you don't want the ending spoiled.

I have been thinking about my Tokyo Revengers phase from a few years back, honestly its probably because JJK is coming to an end soon, and people are hoping that its ending is better than what Tokyo Revengers got.

I remember reading the chapters as they came out and worrying about what character might die next and hoping that it's not yet another one of my favorite characters. It was a really fun time, and I loved the series and the characters. However, the ending was, um, certainly something. Honestly, the less said about it, the better.

I'm probably gonna rewatch what I have seen of the anime, then watch season 3 because I remember that the me from 2021 really wanted to see the Tenjiku arc animated, and it's been out for a while now.

[firefaerie81]

(liveblog tag in chronological order)

*deep breath*

Soooo, yeah. The other shoe has dropped.

The moment I've been simultaneously dreading because it's such a gut punch and looking forward to because I have a LOT to say. Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

I played dumb on this instead of analyzing in context and hinting at what was to come because I have biases, and I wanted y'all to understand those biases so you might understand where I'm coming from in how I read this.

That's not to say I lied. I believe the things I've said about her over the course of my liveblog, but there's more to it that we have to get into now.

Now, I won't say there's NO merit to this twist. I see the intended setup and payoff, it raises the stakes for what was supposed to be the next season, and the drama can go places.

But I think it's a misstep because I don't think it's worth as much as what we lost in the process.

I REALLY liked this character and her relationship with Lion-O, and that colors how I respond to this twist and how I want it to go forward. Like I said, I'm biased. So, let's talk about those biases, and how I read Pumyra.

But first, one brief aside:

Mumm-Ra being able to track them was supposed to have been a clue about Pumyra, but like. He was doing that long before they even FOUND Pumyra, so what the hell?

Anyway, I've explained why I like Pumyra. Ever since I got to her introduction in this liveblog I have not shut up about how much I like her. Her spitfire attitude, her strong will, and her unique perspective made her a phenomenal addition to the cast that spiced things up without being a rehash of Lion-O and Tygra's clashes.

She filled a niche that improved the team composition, and she had a really solid arc that showed her as a complex person with multiple sides, able to grow and change. If this twist hadn’t happened, Pumyra would be one of the most well developed characters in the show.

Because this twist completely recontextualizes her and basically undoes all of her development. She's reset right back to where she started, but even more angry and vengeful. But I would prefer to think that her real personality is still more or less what we saw. Like her backstory, we got the gist with the darkest parts hidden.

Her anger at the mistreatment of the cats, helping a baby bird back into its nest, etc. There were these bits of heart to her that don’t scan as just an act to me. And honestly, I don't want to think that this character I liked has suddenly become a blank slate, because she was an AMAZING character.

I think this twist is a misstep because it’s so much LESS interesting than the character development we’ve been watching her go through, which is now being tossed out the window. We already saw her overcome this same general idea, and now you’re saying all that was fake and doesn't count? Thanks, I hate it!

I also haven’t been subtle about how much I like Lion-O and Pumyra’s relationship before this point. I think they had an amazing dynamic of rounding each other out, and they had some great moments together. But, well, this throws all of that out of whack.

We’re meant to assume that she coldly seduced Lion-O, but I don’t find that interesting. And to be frank, that plus the way he accused Cheetara of toying with him and never retracted it onscreen is not a great look for the show.

With Cheetara, it was more interesting for her to not end up with Lion-O because the potential relationship there was superficial and one-sided. But with Pumyra, that potential relationship really felt like a two way street that improved them both, and it felt like they had a real connection.

I don't think it's worth it to just throw all of that away. Again, we’re taking all of this lovingly built character and relationship development and throwing it out the window. And that’s frustrating, so I don’t want that to be how this goes.

Instead, I posit to you the classic mole dilemma: “I was sent to betray these people, but oops, getting to know them made me actually care, and now I have to carry out my mission even though I maybe have doubts.”

Mumm-Ra says he owns her soul now. Depending on how seriously we take that verbage, it implies a level of control that if Pumyra maybe isn't fully on board with something he wants her to do, it doesn’t really matter. And, y'know, it's Mumm-Ra; he doesn't give his underlings a choice. So that gives me some wiggle room to interpret. Please indulge me while I interpret.

She is obviously angry. That anger is real and her reasons are understandable even if it's treading ground we already covered. She's been waiting for this particular catharsis and she's happy to go for it now that she has the chance. But if she DID grow to care for Lion-O, at least on SOME level, that's more interesting to me than it all being a lie

Like I said way back in her first episodes, she met the man she'd assigned all her rage to, and he listened to her, he took responsibility for his negligence, and he was endlessly kind even when she was hostile. You can easily have that genuinely affect her.

Not necessarily “In Love With The Mark”, but not as cut and dried as it looks in this moment, either. Maybe she doesn't even realize it until after this is all said and done. Just a seed of doubt and dissatisfaction. She's angry, but she's also being used.

I also think it’d be really interesting to view it as like a devil’s bargain kind of thing. Yeah, she gets to live and have some revenge on the people she died angry at, but at the cost of helping the monster actually responsible for her death ruin more innocent lives. Is that worth it?

If we assume that the side we saw of her that cares about injustice and the plight of the helpless was real, which I think still fits, then that’s another reason for her to maybe not be okay with where she’s ended up now that she’s here. Careful what you wish for, and all.

If it were up to me, going forward Pumyra would grow torn between anger and conscience, struggling internally, and Lion-O would catch on and save her against all reason yet again. We'd essentially follow through on the arc they already had, but for real and on a grander scale.

Like, remember, what we're finding out now is basically the same as what Pumyra was initially presented with, just moreso. So I think that same trajectory they seemed to be on can still work, as long as you scale it up to match.

And Lion-O CAN help her. He himself went through an all-consuming rage and desire for revenge in Ramlak Rising, which is the exact time Pumyra died. You could tie back to that, how his rage begot her rage, and how he can actually understand her better than she thinks. They both fell into the same trap, but now he can offer her a hand out of it.

I’d also give Pumyra her own character arc reevaluating herself and eventually choosing to join the Thundercats for real. She'd struggle with a complicated tangle of love and hate, and through a personal journey eventually choose love. I think that fits the themes of the show.

Lion-O showed kindness to a lizard, and was repaid with an escape that enabled him to go on this entire journey. He helps those in need wherever he goes, and they in turn help him. Tygra broke the curse on the tiger clan by accepting his bio dad. This is a show about love and compassion and kindness being powerful.

Mumm-Ra's idea in planting Pumyra as a mole was “your emotions will be your undoing” or some such, so I’d find it thematically right to turn that back on him with the power of love winning after all. Like, it would take WORK, but I think it’d be worth it.

And I know none of that was the intent, but this liveblog is about my personal feelings and that’s how I feel. I’m not usually one to advocate for Enemies to Lovers when it’s not actually in the text, but godDAMN, they put in the work.

I don't want to give up on Lion-O/Pumyra or on Pumyra as the character I grew to love, so that’s the biased lens I view this twist through. But hey, one benefit of the show never being finished is that I'm free to write my own storyline and no one can stop me. Which is why that's exactly what I do in my art and my writing.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

The more I catch up on the comics, the more I feel like Marvel's scrambling attempts to re-retcon the great Maximoff retcon, the more they write themselves in a corner and that it would be way easier to either find a plot reason why the twins are Magneto's biological kids again OR go full Word of God that the first retcon is to be ignored (or just...say nothing and pretend it never happened) OR...just go on as is and accept that fans will ignore the retcon anyway.

Because the way things are going now, they really limit the ways the characters can act and feel about each other to do the heavy lifting. Back when the connection between Magneto and the twins was biological, that fact was unchangeable but all the characters involved were free to deal with this fact in ways that made sense and that would show and develop their characters (always depending, of course, on the writers who handled it). The characters could feel and act in ways that made sense and that told us where they were currently at with each other.

But the current plan is...what? There is NEITHER a biological connection NOR did the twins grow up with Magneto NOR did they really build that kind of family dynamic when they finally met. But since Marvel wants to retcon the retcon without committing fully to erasing that storyline, they have to have the characters want to be family. They are no longer free to act how they please - because otherwise, it doesn't work. So Wanda has to want to see Magneto as a father figure again and you also get this -

-implying that Pietro, too, would be willing to play along with this (because that's Marvel's plan now, bc they know how unpopular and nonsensical the retcon was) but why? What changed? How does any of this undo the history between the two of them? And what did I miss, why would they suddenly reconcile now? Because of Trial of Magneto and because Mags didn't actually kill Wanda?

This is just way too convoluted and forced and inauthentic and it's all for some stupid petty copyright war and not to be lofty, but this wouldn't have happened if big corporations weren't messing with creative works for maximum output

[dangerously-human]

Here's the thing that bugs me about S4: it undoes all the work we've done to get to know these characters, and tries to wipe the slate clean of any consequences, emotional or logical. The viewers no longer really understand where anyone stands in their relationship to Peter, because it doesn't exist. Heck, Walter spent three seasons trying to make amends for what he's done, to Peter and Olivia and the other cortexiphan children, but how much of that even happened in the amber timeline? The sins or the recompense? There's no bite to Fauxlivia's deception when she only, what, posed as her doppelganger for a couple weeks - who did she really hurt? Why are the two sides even at odds when Walternate didn't try to destroy the blueverse? This makes it easier for red and blue to forgive each other, but what are they even really forgiving?

What do you really get out of the timeline reset? An obstacle in Peter and Olivia's relationship, space for blue!Lincoln, distance from Walter and everyone else, erasing Henry, bringing Broyles back, giving Olivia a warmer relationship with Nina, nerfing Olivia's cortexiphan abilities for half a season... I don't think the Nina thing was really necessary, but if we needed something like it, I'm sure there were other options to build that alliance. Making it so our Olivia didn't go through the full cortexiphan trials makes NO sense to me in the first place, let's nix that sans qualm. And I'm firmly against erasing Henry, for a lot of reasons - so much lost potential, not just for selfishly shippy reasons or even happiness for Altlivia, but also for character work for Peter, conflict (and resolution) for Peter and Olivia...

(And, okay, I was going to make this a separate post, but I guess it fits here: the plotline resolution with Henry even at the end of S3 makes no dang sense; if half of Peter's genes was sufficient to operate The Machine, couldn't Walternate have munged something together from his DNA and Elizabeth's? At the very least, he should have had to kidnap the baby and keep him physically in The Machine.)

It would make so much more sense for everyone to have forgotten Peter as the price to build the bridge, no timeline reset. Maybe not everyone remembers him magically once Olivia does; if you want to keep some altered dynamics, fine. Enter Lincoln, on our side, and all the conflict there, including Olivia's choice once she remembers Peter (much more powerful as actively choosing the man she loved over the man she was starting to fall for, rather than simply forgetting her budding relationship with the latter). You still get all the angst with Peter deciding whether it's right to intervene when Olivia's life seems happier and less complicated without him, leading up to the cute stuff with Olivia remembering Peter. Maybe red!Liv temporarily believes her own cover story about a one-night stand, and then has to really reconcile who she believes she is with her son's origins, and there's some powerful "how far is too far" stuff for her to process (and make some big "who do we believe and what do we do about it" decisions about) with Lincoln and Charlie and heck, maybe Astrid too - and Broyles, who, okay, I haven't come up with a different way to bring back but he didn't strictly have to be the sacrifice for the great Olivia swap in S3, did he? Then there's the element of cross-universe custody and co-parenting, which maybe I'm the only one deeply invested in, but dang do I want to see it. (Enough to be the one to write it? Maybe. I've got a lot of ideas, but what I'd want to write in fix-it fic is not exactly identical to what I wish we'd gotten in canon.) Our Olivia processing that there's one more first she doesn't get to have with Peter, blended family stuff, Henry and Etta as siblings, maybe... And it adds even more weight to the decision whether to close the bridge! All without sacrificing all the character development, backstory, and motivations the show spent three seasons building.

It's frustrating because I feel like they were so close to a cohesive and satisfying storyline, had they just taken it two steps to the left. So much of what they did with S4, and I guess the latter part of S3 as well, was really good! But it doesn't make sense once you squint at it a little harder.

[the-music-maniac]

You ever notice how similar Xie Wang and Han Ying’s stories and character arcs are?

A warning here that this contains spoilers for all of Word of Honor/Shan He Ling. Stop reading now, I reference a ton of shit.

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I was actually discussing a couple fic ideas with a friend a few weeks ago, and I got to wondering after thinking about those parallels I could see -

Does Han Ying x Xie Wang exist as a ship?? Is that a thing?? That exists?? Can it please exist??

It has so much potential. There's so many narrative parallels with these two characters.

They're two people who deserved better than their respective endings, who never got what they wanted, because of the manipulation of men who wanted power and would stop at nothing to get it (Jin Wang and Zhao Jing). The manipulation of those who saw them as less then what they were.

They also have similarities in their relationships with their "mentor figures" - Han Ying and Zhou Zishu, and Xie Wang and Zhao Jing. They have quite a lot of differences too, enough that their lives parallel each other instead of mirror, and I just think that their personal experiences could make for a very compelling storyline if these two were to interact. It would be an interesting road to a development of a potential relationship, and moreover an opportunity for both of them to learn from the other and heal.

And real talk? I just want the both of them to be happy tbh (and of course that obviously doesn't need to involve a romantic relationship - I just have no self control. I'd be just as ecstatic about a really good friendship though).

I also know they never interact in the drama - but then again these two are also literally dead in the drama. Reality is what you make it 🤣🤣. And considering how close the Scorpion was working with Tian Chuang - honestly I'm pretty sure you can't really say they haven't met either.

So anyways, I guess reasons why I think this would be a good ship dynamic:

First of all, their relations with their mentors and how it's similar to each other and also not. The resulting potential for mutual support:

Han Ying's dearest wish is to be a disciple of Zhou Zishu's, as he says plainly in that one episode.

The thing is, there could be quite a lot of subtext taken from that - I've read interpretations that he's in love with Zhou Zishu, or at least has romantic feelings for him - a strong crush possibly - which I can plausibly see (I can also see it just being platonic, which I will talk about later). But yeah, a romantic interpretation just because of how strong his devotion towards Zhou Zishu is. The wistful looks?????

In that kind of situation, IF the romantic feelings are two-sided instead of one-sided - which I would like to go on the record and say that with Han Ying and Zhou Zishu, I don't believe it is - and as a result actually becomes something, that type of relationship would not be the most healthy, because there's a very strong imbalance of power. Even if the mentor figure genuinely cares and actively minds the mentee's feelings - the mentee still undeniably has that level of hero worship - it won't ever be equal. We can see that already in Han Ying's case, Zhou Zishu repeatedly tells him to stop treating him with so much formality because he's not the leader anymore and yet Han Ying still remains deferential.

In that interpretation, if that were the case of it being two sided - Han Ying would have quite a lot of similarity of experience to Xie Wang's relation to Zhao Jing -

And here I can talk about how Xie Wang and Zhao Jing's relationship is uh. Kinda sus tbh. Like. That doesn't look like a healthy or platonic father-son relationship and it gives me the creeps. In Xie Wang and Zhao Jing's relationship, I'm more inclined to believe there's some semi-incestous yifu fucking going on than anything platonic, there's just so many sus moments - and if I'm not mistaken they dubbed over a line in the show where it was basically stated plainly that it's not a platonic relationship. Or at least - Xie Wang doesn't view Zhao Jing platonically (and I don't believe Zhao Jing discourages it at all, if anything he actively encourages and guides it to make Xie Wang dependent on him). So we got another setup where it's potentially one sided romantic feelings/hero worship. Or maybe two sided for them, who knows.

But the thing is, while I talked about unhealthy romantic relationships in my section about Han Ying, a fundamental difference between Xie Wang and Han Ying's relationships with their mentors is that Zhou Zishu's relationship with Han Ying would be a lot healthier. A LOT healthier. So much fucking healthier, I cannot emphasis that enough. And that's mostly because their relationship is not two-sided, and because he sees Han Ying as a person.

He cares about Han Ying a lot but not as anything beyond platonic - he views him as a student and a subordinate and protects him as such. Han Ying on the other hand could have romantic feelings for Zhou Zishu. Not in love per se, it feels to me like it could be a mix of a really strong crush with really strong hero worship. I don't think Han Ying truly knows Zhou Zishu's other aspects of personality (yet?? I guess because if we're gonna hypothetically bring both Han Ying and Xie Wang back to life he probably will eventually get to know Zhou Zishu properly), because I doubt he ever showed anything beyond his stern assassin leader type of persona to his subordinates. He was likely caring yes, but in a way that keeps people at a distance. So, a mentor-mentee type of relationship where Han Ying could be crushing quite hard on Zhou Zishu. But still a healthy one, as Zhou Zishu, one - doesn't intend to pursue a romantic relationship with Han Ying - and moreover, although might know about his feelings, or his devotion at least(tbh you'd have to be blind not to), he treats them, and him, with respect. He doesn't try and manipulate Han Ying, or use his emotions for his own purposes. He sees Han Ying as his own person. His affection and regards towards Han Ying remains unconditional, even if Han Ying messes up or doesn't follow instructions. Instructions that, btw, repeatedly try to keep Han Ying out of the line of fire, and makes it clear that Han Ying is to put himself first.

Everything Zhao Jing does however is solely to cripple Xie Wang and make him wholly dependent on him. He's been grooming Xie Wang from such a young age, and his positive regard and care is ALWAYS conditional. As soon as Xie Wang messes up, he takes it away as punishment, and because of how Zhao Jing's made himself the center of Xie Wang's world, that action is devastating to him. He subtly encourages and toys with Xie Wang's regard for him for his own purposes, he tries to make Xie Wang jealous so he works twice as hard to earn back Zhao Jing's attention. And as we see with his intention to eventually discard Xie Wang as soon as he is no longer useful - he doesn't view Xie Wang as a person. He's merely another tool in his arsenal.

The reason why I wrote such a long ass analysis about the similarities and differences between Xie Wang and Han Ying's relationships is because as I mentioned before, one reason I think this would be a pretty interesting ship and dynamic is how these two could help each other. At first, it might be more Han Ying helping Xie Wang.

Xie Wang hasn't ever experienced what a proper and healthy guardian type relationship is like, or even what it means for someone to choose him first. He's a victim of abuse, and should he manage to survive the avalanche at the end of the show, there is potential for him to start to undo all the damage that Zhao Jing has inflicted on him all those years, especially if the man is truly no longer around. And I think Han Ying would be in a very good position to offer him support in that journey. Moreover, if Han Ying has had an experience similar to that, it could be the reason he would want to offer support to Xie Wang. He's experienced a lot of what Xie Wang has experienced, but he's also seen what it is for someone to genuinely care about him, and as a result likely has a more healthy view on that type of relationship. They're similar enough for Xie Wang to potentially not want to push Han Ying away if he ever offers his help, but also dissimilar enough that Han Ying could offer new avenues of thought.

At the same time, if you just read Han Ying and Zhou Zishu's relationship as a really strong type of hero worship, this dynamic could make sense too. Han Ying clearly looks up to Zhou Zishu quite a lot, and on top of that, Zhou Zishu in a way represents everything Han Ying has wanted and couldn't have - aka a family and a mentor figure and a home to call his own. Regardless of if it's purely platonic or not, it's still an infinitely healthier relationship, a parallel to Xie Wang's experience, so the potential of the offer of support remains the same.

Second of all, similarity in origin and life experiences, which is a small thing tbh but still an important thing:

Han Ying is someone I don't know a lot of background on tbh - I presume he doesn't have a family anymore, and somehow ended up in the Window of Heaven. I've read fics where Zhou Zishu was the one to save him at some point and offer him a position in the assassin group, and I'm inclined to take that as a plausible head canon (unless it's actually canon, idk I haven't read tyk yet).

So, in bare bones, he's an orphan who is taken in by a mentor figure, and becomes a high ranking member of an assassin group.

Xie Wang is also someone who no longer has a family - we don't know that much about his background either, but I presume he was happened upon by Zhao Jing in some way - I'm not sure at what age tbh, is it assumed that he was raised by him?? Or maybe in teenage years??

Whatever it happens to be, Xie Wang was taken in, maybe even "saved" by (although if you ask me, he'd be better off without) Zhao Jing.

So in essence it is the same thing as Han Ying's experiences, an orphan who is taken in by a mentor figure, and becomes a high ranking (or the leader of) an assassin group.

And not only that, as I mentioned from the beginning, these two both realize and know, eventually, that they’re being used by men who are desperate for power (Jin Wang, Zhao Jing).

I mention this actually as just an extension of my first point, because while I mentioned that Han Ying very obviously can support Xie Wang in that particular “past grooming and abuse” aspect, there are probably still many hidden traumas and scars for these two from the lives they’ve both lead. Their similar experiences lead to similar choices which helped shape who they are, and as a result, I think these two could truly understand each other and where they’re coming from.

Their personalities would fit pretty well with each other. I think:

I don’t know if my interpretation on how these two are is accurate tbh, so feel free to let me know if you think it’s out of character.

To me, Han Ying seems like someone who would be pretty calm around the people he cares about; responsible, smart, eager to learn, with a steady sort of presence. He seems like someone who would wear their heart on their sleeve around people he trusts too, but not in any overtly obvious way. I think the reason why I get that impression is that, upon rewatch, I could plainly see his worry about Zhou Zishu in episode one, but when I first started the show, I somehow missed it entirely. Han Ying also didn’t show any qualms about admitting to Chengling that he wants to be Zhou Zishu’s disciple - which can be a very personal piece of info. The way he was around Zhou Zishu, and Wen Kexing also gave off an air of innocent eagerness to do well in his accomplishments and for approval. I’m not saying he’s always like this, because I’m rather certain he has a darker side too - as we see with all the characters, no one is without their traumas and no one is without artifice or without complexity. They’re all grey moral in a very human way, and Han Ying is no different. We’ve seen before too that once he’s got his game face on, the man is pretty competent and also ruthless (his conversation with Gao Chong for example) - I don’t think he could be any less if he’s that high up in the Tianchuang hierarchy. But at the same time I can also see him being a bit of a very subtle disaster (almost?? Slightly dorky??) in certain situations, and we can see that kind of peek through when Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing hijacked his kidnapping attempt and he was kind of like uhh. Okay so, I’m in a choke hold, I think that might be my former commander, so like. Let them go. It’s actually really funny cause while Wen Kexing was telling Gao Chong and Chengling to hurry up and leave, I swear you could see Han Ying contemplating his entire life.

The face of a man confuzzled.

Xie Wang on the other hand, is someone that’s more impulsive, liable to push or be mischievous, less of a steady personality and more like - for lack of better word - an absolute gremlin. A pretty murderous one. It’s a bit hard to tell all aspects of how Xie Wang is tbh, since he has many different mannerisms while talking to different people. With Zhao Jing he has a very subservient, almost dutiful, childlike and innocent air about him, and a sort of. Sa jiao (撒娇) type of demeanor. He craves approval from Zhao Jing, and is just generally very baby around him, and I’m really not sure how much of that is how he actually is and how much of that is him learning that this is the best way to get Zhao Jing’s attention. And tbh I don’t think all of that is grooming, I think Xie Wang probably does have the potential to be as soft or as innocently childlike and happy with others he cares about (just hopefully in a lot healthier way). I think we see his soft side a little with Qianqiao when he gives her the cure. Despite that though, we can still see other aspects of him surface. He makes suggestions and pushes when he thinks Zhao Jing’s refusals are unreasonable, he just goes and does his own thing sometimes (um usually murderous things. Like when he killed Song Huai Ren and told Zhao Jing he’s a traitor). He’s mischievous about some of his actions (after literally stabbing a man, ‘what? he said I should kill him if I have the ability’). He’s a lot more obviously gritty and aggressive and morally grey than Han Ying appears, which I think adds dimension to his character when added in with everything else. He’s also very smart, competent, ruthless - obviously since he runs the Scorpion, but he’s surprisingly fair and almost? Honourable? In certain aspects? And like Han Ying, he does somewhat wear his heart on his sleeve, retains that eagerness to do well and is somehow not as jaded as he could be, as he still finds the capacity to eventually care for a stranger (Liu Qianqiao). 

I may be oversimplifying how these two could be, but with their personality types I think they have a lot of potential both in a romantic relationship or as close friends. And in a way that at first glance would probably be puzzling - how in the hell did these two become friends/get together (lmao you’ll see Han Ying in his rather sensible disciple robes and then Xie Wang is just there in his braids, dramatic black outfits, winged eyeliner, etc. 🤣🤣😅😅) but on closer thought, makes sense. Han Ying could be a more steadying presence for Xie Wang, and Xie Wang in turn could help him loosen up a bit more. (That’s kind of oversimplifying it but it’s 5 am where I am rn and I’m too tired to elaborate) I also believe Xie Wang might push Han Ying to be more ambitious, be able to do things for himself more - because Xie Wang went through a process of, everything I do is for someone else, until I realized they were using me, and now I’m going to do it for myself. In that way they could potentially push each other to higher heights in what they do, and they are pretty similar in ideology and morals and previous actions. They both have blood on their hands, and they’re not afraid to be ruthless or do what’s necessary to get the job done. They have their traumas, their complexities and an understanding of what it’s like to put on masks for different people.

The potential for found family. All the found family. Gimme:

This one I feel like is more obvious and changes some things about canon, but the timeline I imagine for if Xie Wang x Han Ying would be a plausible ship is one where Han Ying survives the stealing of the fake glazed armour incident and becomes one of the disciples of Siji (second disciple of the sixth generation????). Everything else would likely proceed in a very similar way (although in this au in my mind Gu Xiang and Cao Weining are alive). And then during the avalanche incident, with WenZhou trapped in the armoury, Xie Wang ends up surviving and they end up finding him somehow.

Whether or not it’d be out of character for WenZhou to save him I think could be explored, but the bottom line is that eventually they would probably take him back to Siji. There, whether him meeting Han Ying goes smoothly or not is up to interpretation - I very much doubt it would be an amiable meeting tbh - in fact I fully imagine it to be antagonistic af at first, considering what opposing groups they used to be a part of and the knowledge of how deadly the other can be - trust would be hard to come by, which makes a slow development all the more interesting. And moreover them becoming friends or dating would likely help Xie Wang into the dynamic at Siji because now there’s a more tangible connection between him and the place, and I can see while he’s getting to know all the people of Siji, eventually thinking of them as family as well.  And Han Ying in turn gets another person who cares about him, and for him to care about.

I’ll be honest here and say that I don’t particularly care at this point how realistic or in character it all would be -  I need found family in my life I have no self control. Xie Wang and Han Ying my beloveds needs all the good things.

Another possible meeting is just Han Ying being sent to negotiate with the Scorpions instead of Duan Pengju (is that how it went? I’ll admit I’m a little fuzzy on plot points here) and meeting each other that way. There could be moments of understanding while working together, an inevitable kinda separation, and eventually seeing each other again at Siji, after all the shitshow is over. The development could continue from there.

The closer age gap:

I’d like to preface this part with a disclaimer that I’m not trying to bash any other ships that are out there, this is actually just entirely my personal preference.

I don’t really like big age gaps in my ships unless their both established adults - for example in their 30's 40's, even 50's. Even if one of them remains young in body, it’s just not a dynamic I generally like. The most popular ship that comes to mind here is Ye Baiyi x Xie Wang - and all the more power to you if you do ship it tbh, I can see it being really adorable and healing for the both of them, especially since Ye Baiyi never really gets a happy ending either (and he absolutely deserves one 😤😤😤) - but that as a ship dynamic is personally not for me, especially after Xie Wang’s kinda hinted relationship with another man that’s also older than him. Ye Baiyi obviously is ten million times the man Zhao Jing could ever be, and it would be an infinitely healthier relationship anyway, but yeah the age gap thing is just my personal bias.

So I don’t know, I appreciate that Han Ying and Xie Wang are both closer in age to each other. I know there aren’t confirmed ages (I think?) but if I had to take a guess, I’d say I think both of them are probably in their early to mid twenties.

Anyways, it’s literally 5:43 am now where I am, so I think I’m gonna end this way too long post and pass out. Honestly, I’m not even sure if this thing is coherent anymore, I’m half delirious with exhaustion while writing this. I might possibly write a fic or do something about this Xie Wang x Han Ying ship, I might not, but I just wanted to get it out there. It’s a cute idea.

Oh god my eyeballs are burning. Cheers, goodnight.

[autumnrory]

this is random but I wanted to tell you I enjoy how unapologetically anti steggy/endgame you are. i’ve never bought into that whole love story, because it‘s literally just a couple of interactions with no greater depth to it. when I point out they barely got to know each other people will say ´well in the old days people who barely knew each other got married all the time!’ but that’s just an excuse for poor writing, cause i hear this same excuse in other fandoms to defend every boring het ship that barely talks to each other....we’re a modern audience and we deserve better than that kind of lazy writing. a relationship without genuine development is not going to connect and will only fall flat when there are clearly better options.....(anyways sorry for coming into your inbox to rant, i‘m just a casual fan who sometimes has opinions)

thank you haha i know i repeat myself a lot but it's just bc i'm so mad!!! and every once in a while i will be like AND ANOTHER THING that shows why it's all bad and illogical for the characters

yeah and it's such a silly argument because......sure things were like that back then, where if he'd not crashed into the ice, they might've gotten married real fast, but that's not how things happened? and sure, steve grew up in that world, but by endgame he'd lived a long time in a world where that's just not the norm. and as i've said, even if you DO believe steve and peggy had known each other enough to have fallen in love, he had moved past that relationship. like basically the entire point of catws is showing him moving forward and making a life in this century, even if he is (naturally) struggling with it. i think part of the reason buy into it is because 1. endgame hit them over the head with the peggy references to be like see! he loves her so much! when they just did that to convince the audience it was believable, because looking at previous movies, the endgame ending is decidedly NOT believable. and 2. because age of ultron basically ignores catws entirely so people see all the discussion of family and a normal life and steve's nightmare scenario but instead they don't recognize it as a nightmare scenario and don't recognize that he's not the same person he was in the forties. like. i don't think joss whedon was TRYING to prove anything because avengers 2012 really shows he just doesn't understand steve's character at all and just views him as an old man even though he's like 26, BUT i think ppl just misinterpret things from aou to be like "this is the life he's always wanted actually! he finally gets to have it!" when it's all just unhealthy and not at all true of steve's character

not to be all "you're not a real fan if" but i just think it's not that ppl who liked the endgame ending don't really like steve, i just think they don't really GET steve

in fairness i think a lot of marvel fans pretty clearly don't care that much if the relationships don't have a lot of depth, because let's face it, a lot of the canon romantic relationships don't AND a lot of the supposed friendships don't - for example, people think civil war was this tragedy with this fight between steve and tony, but let's face it, they were never close friends, they didn't get along from the start, if not for joss whedon i imagine avengers 2 would've shown a better dynamic between the whole team, but we get the nice party scene at the beginning and then it's back to their regular arguing (which hey creating ultron WAS tony's fault so like. it should've been called out lmao!). but yeah, like. i get that marvel is supposed to be fun and not that deep or whatever, BUT they have their emotional instances and near-criticisms of government (i mean........the whole point of catws is that they cannot be trusted! and people think steve should've signed the accords! yeah right!) and then they just don't follow through and especially recently, and ESPECIALLY with endgame, they chose not to follow through on anything they'd built up to that point (look how it ignored catws, aou, civil war, infinity war, ragnarok, it contradicts all those movies), they chose to go for the exact kind of garbage superhero movies are accused of being, instead of telling a cohesive story. it's embarrassing.

but yeah like you really have to think that steve probably knew old peggy better than he knew peggy during in the forties.....so how do they think it's acceptable or logical for him to know about the life she had, to know she wanted him to have his own life and to go back, ignoring all that. not even getting into what it does to his friends, what it means to have all this knowledge of the future and whether or not he would mold the timeline into something else. it all just specifically makes steve's character look bad in pretty much all regards and he would just......never do a single thing he did in endgame. he would not have sat around and not tried to do something to undo the snap or at least help out his remaining teammates for FIVE YEARS he just wouldn't. that's why for me i have to ignore the whole movie, not just the ending.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Okay so maybe making a big long post just as a lead up to this was too dramatic and I’ve hyped myself up for nothing, but here we go...

I think the Hollows are actually a natural reincarnation process that the Shinigami disrupt by slaying Hollows.

That has a lot of implications that I’m trying hard not to try(and fail) to wrestle all at once....  But at the broadest level of context: Kubo pretty frequently references Buddhist myth and cosmology, in particular some of the Naraka, which are a little more specific than generically deity figures like Enma or Guanyin, showing that he is specifically familiar with the Buddhist penance cycle of reincarnation where bad karma is basically worked off by living and dying lifetimes in different rings of afterlife, being reborn more pure each time, until becoming human again.

Note that it’s the souls of evil humans, even after they’ve become Hollows, that specifically go to hell.  That’s why Zanpakutou only “purify” Hollows, and not actually kill them, because the Hollow’s aren’t actually innately bad people.  And we do briefly touch back on this with Zommari’s dying rant.

And of the characters that we can infer are/were introduced as Vastlord, they do all share a kind of innocence: Ulquiorra is clearly the model of the silhouette of the Vastlord in exposition when explaining the 3 Menos Grande levels, and his overall character arc shows him as being the most sympathetic of the Espada.  We see Wonderweiss’ creation and his humanoid size and shape as a Hollow, we see his distinctly childlike (if eerily so) demeanor, and Tousen calls him “Pure.”  Nel appears as distinctly childlike, with unusual status outside the ranks of Aizen’s army, and is foreshadowed to be much more powerful that she appears (and the twist we do get for that wasn’t remotely satisfying, but I’ll get to that later...).

I think as the Menos Grande change forms as they eat more human souls and other Hollows, they become not just more humanoid in shape, but more human-like in moral quality as well.  The Vastlord have never threatened Soul Society or even the human world before, despite their immense power level, because they have no intention to; and they are difficult to find because they are actively avoiding conflict and hiding because they don’t want to fight.  This particular attitude is reflected in Nelliel, Ulquiorra, and Starrk, where they all have a kind of default position of non-violence, and even when they do fight they do so with minimal investment or enjoyment.

And Zommari’s dying protests about the Shingami, and his praise of Aizen in relation to it, as well as Aissingler’s dying words about Hollows being born from fear and drawn to Aizen for his defiance of the fear of death further lend to the idea that Hollows, as ghosts of the dead consumed by the negative emotions surrounding their own deaths, ultimately just want to be alive again.

Under these terms, Nel, Ulquiorra, and Wonderweiss I think were all meant to be Vastolords when they were introduced —the intent behind Starrk is harder to place because of how early yet little he appeared before any real information was given to us— and all share the trait of being essentially “good,” albeit dangerously powerful, people.

I think the original plan with Nel (if there even was real “plan” at all) wasn’t actually for her to be a “former Espada” I think Kubo was going to reveal her as one of the coveted Vastlords and make her one of his new Espada, alongside the likes of Wonderweiss.  I think Kubo salvaged part of that plot to put into the awkward round 2-of-3 of the Nnoitra fight, and that what we got was just what a hastily truncated version of that whole dynamic looked like.  (The entire delay on bringing up the two of them makes the eventual confrontation seem like an afterthought.  The reveal itself seems like nonsense and requires way too much exposition just to justify.  The transformation itself isn’t actually explained.  The fight doesn’t even go anywhere or forward the plot.  And the transformation back isn’t explained either.)

So, on this basis, Nnoitra being been sent to track down Vastlords and senselessly slaughtering hollows in the process was something i think Kubo wanted from an early point, but that was also back when looking for the Vastolord was still an actual plot hook. (Consider that by the time the Nel fight was happening, it hadn’t been mentioned in forever and never would again either.  So, if it wasn’t wrapping up the Vastlord plot, and wasn’t developing it toward anything, why bring it up?  Because it wasn’t written with the future plot in mind, it was written with the past plot in mind.)

But in his mix of arrogance and insecurity Nnoitra wouldn’t bring any Vastolord back to Aizen, he’d strike them down so they couldn’t be made into Arrancar that would be more powerful than him. And you can see how this idea and what we actually got share all that same basic shapes of character dynamic and even plot beats(as crudely outlined in the assortment of Nnoitra’s dying memories), even within the context of different narratives.

But Aizen’s plans also clearly meant to make use of Orihime’s Rejection powers, though we never really learned how. One hinted at option was that his method of forcing the Hougyoku out of hibernation was damaging it, and that he intended to have Orihime undo that damage. Or alternatively to have her just undo the sealing process that forced the Hougyoku into hibernation in the first place.  Either way, putting the full power Hougyoku in his hands before the projected deadline of “Winter” that Soul Society was planning for.

But another consideration in that he could have had her Reject the imperfect Arrancar process of Mock-Arrancar like I assume Nel was meant to be, like Starrk was (I assume unintentionally) shown to be, and like Ulquiorra was kind of established as out of core continuity, so that he could remake them more completely with the Hougyoku.

I think this is where Nel’s adult form was actually going to come from, (rather than randomly turning into a woman and then given an even less explained transformation into a child in the first place) and also why Kubo had a second Resurreccion for Ulquiorra fully prepared as a design (remember he only used his first resurreccion for like 2 chapters before busting out Segunda Etapa) and yet never bothered with an in-world explanation for what or why it even was.

Speaking of Ulquiorra, I don’t feel like I have a lot to add about his particular character development.  It didn’t quite have what I’d call a “satisfying” conclusion, but it seems like we got most of what Kubo was aiming for from him: that he’s kind of the ideal model of an Arrancar, an empty vessel —A creature without a heart given human awareness— slowly being filled up with emotional understanding as he watches Orihime never give up on her friends.  Even without a more dramatic turning point for it, plot wise, he did basically complete his process, at the very last minute, of being won over.

Going back to the Nel part of this rewrite: If Aizen had Orihime revert her to a Vastlord so he could make her into a more powerful Arrancar himself, while the plot development would inevitably have a menacing tone to it, there’d be the fun exploitable loophole where, because Orihime’s powers are abstract and not time based, reverting Nel from a Mock-Arrancar to a Hollow wouldn’t actually erase any of her memories or experiences, so she’d still be fundamentally good and herself and loyal to Ichigo.

So to bring this back around to pt.1 of this big rant, if the Winter War scenario had been able to play out under these circumstances, it would stand to reason that when Aizen arrives with the Perfect Espada, taking the Gotei 13 by surprise and overpowering them completely the first “twist” of the climactic battle would’ve been the Visored —with complete training Ichigo— would arrive to fight Aizen, and subsequently reveal that they aren’t actually allies with Soul Society just because they’re also fighting Aizen, they steal the Hougyoku for themselves, Orihime tries to spring her Rejection plan into action before it’s too late, and the new shuffle leaves Ichigo and Orihime and their personal circle of innately good Arrancar, against (at least some of...) the Visored.

And I honestly I kind of figure that Tousen’s whole science-experiment hybrid form was something that Shinji probably would’ve wound up with instead, with about the same heel-face-turn tone as Ginjou stealing Ichigo’s Fullbring.  Which would’ve just ended with Aizen taking the Hougyoku back, probably gloating about his experiments, and then just roll right into his god form ascension, not actually all that dissimilar to what we wound up with anyway.

I don’t really know that there was a coherent conclusion to this.  it started with wanting to get the Vastlord and Arrancars as good guys thing, and collecting the surrounding evidence and logic for that, but talking about kinda necessitated outlining its function in the broader plot and themes, which meant my headcanon... so here we are.... but I dunno what else to get into about this whole thing without just derailing into a whole other offshoot of rants... so I guess we’re done here.  for now...

[bigskydreaming]

Small response ask to that anon who brought up Chris Priest and your response of DC should focus less on Bruce being abusive to his kids. Not sure if you noticed the up and down of the Batman comics but it seems the arc that have him being a caring dad has less asshole dad and abusive dad in them and yet the arc that have Bruce hitting the boys or kicking them out of the house has Bruce not acknowledging the boys as his sons and even the writers say Dick is more of a brother of partner than son.

Oh for sure, its absolutely true that a huge part of the problem with the Batman comics is the sheer inconsistency in writer visions of the characters - which is why IMO its up to DC’s editorial staff to maintain internal consistency for how the characters officially relate to each other at the very least. 

Like I’ve said before, you can’t roll back the clock on them being his kids once you’ve established they’re his kids. People haven’t forgotten that Tim was adopted by Bruce in the old continuity just because they decided to have his parents alive in the New 52 - and ‘teenage kinda sorta ally’ is an inherently weaker emotional tether compared to ‘actual adopted son’ so when presented with two options, most people aren’t going to give a shit about their attempt to ‘unbond’ a character from their actual parent and will stick with viewing them as father and son, whether DC likes it or not.

So its just plain foolishness IMO for DC to attempt to apply any sort of ambiguity to Bruce and his kids. Along with his biological son Damian, Dick, Jason, Tim and Cass at least have all been officially adopted by Bruce (or in Cass’ case, they were stated to be starting adoption proceedings last we saw before the Reboot). Like....those are just hard facts, no matter how much people try and ‘undo’ that if they don’t personally like the idea of Bruce as a father of five....fans are not going to cooperate and its just sheer stubbornness to pretend otherwise. People before the current writers and editors made a creative choice to have Bruce adopt these kids. Readers liked it. Readers know what they like and once given the option of having Bruce the father of five, you can protest all you want as the ‘official’ overseers of Batman, but you can’t erase what was already written, and you can’t ask readers to forget they liked something better than how you’re currently trying to push it.

But that’s just me being like hey DC what if you weren’t a flock of fucking dumbasses, just to try something different for a change.

And related to your ask, there’s absolutely a direct correlation in my mind between the DC writers who intensely dislike the idea of Bruce as a father and writing him as being callous, insensitive, aloof and outright abusive with various of his kids. Because it all goes hand in hand with them - they dislike the idea of Bruce as a dad because they’re all about him being the brooding lone wolf whose entire life is just an endless pursuit of justice for the sake of others because he’s convinced himself that he can never be happy and shouldn’t try. YAWN. But this view of Bruce is outright threatened by the warm, caring father Bruce rendition, so they try and erode the latter as much as possible in pursuit of the former....

Only to later have writers revert to the latter and erode the former.

And around and around and around we go. And they all keep trying to reset things that fundamentally CAN NOT BE RESET because this is the problem when you staff a creative industry top to bottom with fanboys who can’t and won’t separate their personal desires from their professional shepherding of these IPs. And so each new crop of writers tries to write Batman and related characters the way they like them, most often the way they remembered reading them as kids through the lens filter of nostalgia, and thus Bruce’s kids’ status flip flops either officially or unofficially every five to ten years, Hal Jordan is replaced by Kyle Rayner is replaced by Hal Jordan and a wave of new diverse characters are created in the span of a couple years and ten years later no one’s heard of any of them except for Jaime Reyes.

And its the reason IMO that superhero comics have never grown beyond a niche industry despite the VAST appeal of superheroes that superhero movies have proven still exists....and its why superhero movies will end up in the exact same stagnated niche if they don’t learn from the former’s mistake and let their characters grow and age and be replaced by new ones rather than just rebooted versions of the old one, because there’s only so many times you can go round and round on the merry go round before people just flat out stop caring because you’re not doing or saying anything new.

Change is good, except for when people refuse to let it happen because they’ve settled for what they know as being the optimal plateau, never to truly be reached past because the unknown and untested is scary and might bite.

Anyway. All of that is to say yes, I agree, and as a PS I just have to froth at the mouth a little on a personal note because god do I hate the interpretation that Bruce and Dick are more like brothers than father and son, lololol, and can’t refrain from mentioning that any time its brought up even in passing. 

(This is totally not directed at you btw, just the concept itself, lololol, sorry). 

People can talk about the smaller age gap between them all they want, but the fact of the matter is, Dick isn’t Damian, and the relationship between Dick and Bruce has NEVER been nearly as ambiguous or as open to interpretation as the one between Dick and Damian.

Because the contrast between the two is Bruce had something that nobody who is just an older sibling has over a younger....absolute uncontested parental authority, total responsibility for his education, living arrangements, emotional development, etc....with no other comparable figure in the younger’s life occupying a same or even similar role. Dick occupied that role for Damian for about a year of his life, but Bruce has occupied that role for Dick every single year since his first parents died. It might have taken awhile for them to individually and together VIEW their dynamic as parent and child, but from the moment Dick stepped foot into Wayne Manor, Bruce started out day one as someone who stepped into the role of sole guardian and caretaker with no prior emotional attachment.....and that just is NOT a sibling. That’s a legal guardian or parent.

(And yes, Alfred was there of course, but despite being viewed as a father figure to Bruce himself, Alfred never ever ever once has been shown to occupy an equal position to Bruce in Dick’s life....he’s very firmly slotted into the grandfather role himself, and has never stepped forward to definitively intercede between the two of them or usurp or even truly challenge Bruce’s parental authority of Dick).

If people want to say that at times Dick and Bruce’s dynamic has been more relaxed and they’ve related to each other as more like siblings than parent and child due to the relatively small age gap between them (still well over a decade, like yeah Bruce would have had to have been fourteen or so to have Dick himself, but the point is he DIDN’T, and he was already completely done with education and globe-trotting and was firmly established in his life and life’s purpose by the time he became Dick’s guardian, so the small age gap is not quite as influential as I think some people try to make it out to be - the reality is the Bruce that Dick met as a child couldn’t be any more decisively in the ‘adult/equivalent of a parent’ category in Dick’s eyes if he were five years older....it wouldn’t have changed a single thing about their actual situation or the positioning of their dynamic.)

But anyway, my point just being that yeah, due to the relatively small age gap between them, I can see people making a case for them at times enjoying a more relaxed camaraderie more akin to brothers than father and son, but the part that’s a pet peeve is when people try and outright replace the idea of them having a father/son dynamic with one where they’re brothers and partners and equals because.....no. Bruce always had full authority and guardianship of Dick from the day he met him, and he’s never been anyone BUT the figure who occupies that role in Dick’s mind, no matter whether the name for that changed over time. And that’s not a sibling, because even siblings who end up raising their younger siblings after the death of their parents, say....except for extreme cases like Dick and Damian, they usually still already have prior connection and perceptions of each other....like the younger, if already Dick’s age when raised by someone Bruce’s age....like, if they were siblings and Bruce ended up raising Dick himself, Dick would still have an image in his mind of a time before their mutual parents died, before he shifted into that parent role....and thus there’d be some ambiguity. 

But like I said, Bruce always (and without exception or alternative) from day one existed as the one responsible for Dick’s care, the one responsible for raising him, the one who got the ultimate say in every aspect of his life from education to what he ate to whether he could go hang out with his friends...and call that whatever you want, but that’s a parent. Not an older brother.

And more importantly, that dynamic between parent and child, rather than between older and younger sibling, is never going to fully shift into true equals. There’s a degree to which our parents will always be our parents and exist on a different footing than us in our mutual perspectives. There’s no getting around that. And Dick will never ever be positioned to be Bruce’s brother-figure rather than his son. Never someone who can challenge Bruce on ACTUAL equal footing rather than always with the vestiges of ‘this is the man who raised me’ and ‘I raised this man’ hanging over them. 

Anyway, like I said, pet peeve, and I always get a little grrr about people suggesting they’re more brother and brother than father and son because its disingenuous in my mind....there’s never been any kind of reality to it. And more importantly, its one of those things that only really seems to serve one purpose - and that’s to lessen Bruce’s responsibility to Dick, because if they’re just brothers, then the times when Bruce has done less than stellar as his parent, let’s say - like, those aren’t as big a deal or big a failing or an injustice to Dick if Bruce is JUST his brother and not actually his father and thus not actually responsible for filling that role.

Its the exact flip side of why I argue that its shitty to heap the kind of expectations on Dick that fandom usually does....because he’s NOT Damian’s father or any of his siblings.....but the key point I always bring up there is that this is more than just a matter of labels, but rather due to the fact that someone with significantly more and undeniable parental authority than Dick exists for all of his siblings....Bruce himself.

And that’s why Dick will never truly be Bruce’s equal within the family rather than his son - he doesn’t carry equivalent power even if equivalent expectations or responsibilities are heaped on him. And that’s why Bruce will never truly be Dick’s equal rather than his parent - because from day one, he DID carry sole parental power and responsibility for Dick. And there’s no getting around that and no changing that.....unless you CLAIM that Bruce is ‘just’ Dick’s brother DESPITE all the evidence of him being the only parent Dick’s had since he was eight years old.

And the other thing that bugs about the Bruce is more Dick’s brother than parent thing....even if Alfred has never officially been designated Bruce’s father, there’s never been any doubt that they are far more a parent/child dynamic than an older brother/younger brother. And all of Dick’s siblings have unequivocally been interpreted as Bruce’s children.

So.....

According to the Bruce is more Dick’s brother than parent argument, Dick is the one and only member of the Batfamily who just....doesn’t get to have a parent figure after he loses his parents at age eight? He never needs or wants one after that point? Bruce is more kinda just his brother and partner and Dick wants it this way, because he loved his parents, and so the eight years he got with them was all the parental love and guidance he needed, he was all set, no need or desire for any more after that point, because that’s how it works, apparently, if you love your parents and they die while you’re still a kid, sorry but you can’t have new ones? You can have a guardian but not another parent, you already filled the ‘I had parents who loved me’ quota so whether you only got eight years with them or eighteen, that’s all folks, but its okay because its not like you’d even want parents again if you had even just eight years with ones already?

LOLOL.

Yeah. 

DISLIKE.

[ks-caster]

It’s Like Watching Fanfiction – An (Un)Necessarily Long Critique of The 100 Seasons 6 and 7

Ah, the familiar cry of the content-starved fan, particularly as our favorite shows descend into the depths of mischaracterization, unexpected ships, hiatus, abrupt cancellation and shock-value death endings. I’ve said it myself about so many of my shows, while wanting to spend some time watching the characters but not wanting to re-hash episodes I’ve nearly memorized: “I wish I could just watch fanfiction!”

But the further into seasons 6 and 7 I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to realize that my dream of having new and exciting possibilities for the characters come miraculously to a screen near me wouldn’t be the pleasant experience I’d imagined.

Now, depending on the type of ending you like – hopeful but with a lot of lose ends left to your imagination, or bittersweet but more definite, you could consider either seasons 1-4 or 1-5 their own complete stories.

Both seasons 4 and 5 ended in a way that suggested an unknown but likely positive future. They could have been considered conclusions for the main characters’ developmental arcs, and while season 5 went a little off the rails in terms of offscreen character development and sudden new characters, they both stayed fairly close to the original concept: survivors living in the ruins of the apocalypse. All four (or five) seasons emphasized the importance of the found family dynamic (although those dynamics shifted radically in season 5 due to the time-skip, they remained an important source of character motivation).

But seasons 6 and 7? Those feel like I’m watching fanfiction. And I don’t love it.

A story told on a whole new planet with a new environment, culture and cast of original characters was always going to feel like an AU – it sort of is, no matter how you swing it. If that was all that had changed, then I think the story would still feel cohesive.

If it weren’t for the timey whimey bullshit.

Now, fun fact: when reading fanfiction, I love time travel stories. I haven’t posted any myself but I’ve sought out and read them voraciously, for every fandom I’m in. I love the idea of characters meeting themselves or their friends at radically different ages, plot points and levels of experience and the way that changes things for both groups. (Yes, I’m also a Whovian if that wasn’t blatantly obvious). I also love a good amnesia arc. And I DID think that the Josephine/Clarke body possession thing was pretty cool.

So why did season 6 and most* of season 7 fall as flat for me as they did?

The simple fact is that some things – and characters’ emotional dynamics are one of those things – are so much easier to get across in writing than on screen. A good actor can make us feel the character’s emotions, but unless the film goes full-on Clarke’s mind space, we can’t really know what they’re thinking in individual moments. For the most part film as a genre has ways around this, but if it’s mishandled, then the emotional beats come off all wrong. (See for reference Tony Stark’s funeral where half the actors didn’t know what was going on due to Disney’s spoiler fears.)

If you’re going to include time skips in which things have happened and character dynamics have changed, you cannot handle it wrong.

Which brings us back to seasons 6 and (so far) 7 of The 100. So far to date we’ve had all of this occur either offscreen or asynchronously enough to be confusing to an audience watching the episodes in real time:

Jordan’s entire life prior to meeting Napkru in the waking world

Octavia’s character development while living on Skyring with the Diyozas

Hope’s first 22 years of life, on Skyring and (I presume) Bardo

Echo, Hope and Gabriel living on Skyring for 5 years with Orlando

Going back a little further, we also have the season 5 timeskip, which brought us Spacekru as found family, Clarke adopting tiny!heda, and Octavia building Wonkru. Now season 5 took care to show us Wonkru flashbacks and dedicate time to show Spacekru and the Griffin family loving on each other, making inside jokes etc. But it was still incredibly jarring for the audience in a lot of ways, because at the end of the day, we’ve spent four years with the character dynamics and development doing one thing, and no amount of telling us that they’ve had 6 years to do another thing while our time with them only lasted about one year in comparison is ever going to undo the importance of “show don’t tell.”

Let’s take Bellarkers’ beef with Becho for example. (Disclaimer: Since I don’t really have a strong opinion either way on the popular Bellamy ships, I hope that I’m representing what I’ve read from other people accurately.)

I understand cognitively that Bellamy and Clarke knew each other for one year (during which they were in a lot of intense situations that really didn’t leave them the emotional space to figure out how they felt about each other outside of “I don’t want to lose this person”) and Bellamy and Echo knew each other for seven years (six of which they had plenty of low-stress time to get to know each other, grow and mature side-by-side, etc.).

But that doesn’t compute on an emotional level when I as a watcher went straight from watching Bellamy and Raven tearfully eulogizing Clarke on the ring, to him turning up with a coffee mug and a plucky attitude to rescue her the second he finds out she’s alive and in trouble. I don’t think that could compute emotionally for me without having spent the last few years watching the dynamics shift and Becho happen. And that was with the writers giving me as a watcher an episode at the end of season 4 where Bellamy stops Echo from killing herself and connects with her on an emotional level, and then one at the beginning of season 5 where we got to see the spacekru dynamics, including them being together.

So we’re watching this show, many of us for the found family character relationships (god knows it’s not for all the positive happy feeling I get from watching *checks notes* ah, yes, characters having to constantly choose who to kill off in a string of increasingly huge and horrible genocides. *Side-eyes my life choices for getting into this fandom in the first place.*) Okay, we’re watching this show for the characters, and between seasons 4 and 5, many of those dynamics radically shift offscreen. Becho is the easiest and probably most talked-about example (well, and the Blake siblings, but the radical change shown in Octavia’s character between 4 and 5 makes that at least a little easier to choke down) but there are plenty of others, take your pick.

Although it makes perfect sense for a lot to change between separated groups of people in a half dozen years, it makes a lot less sense to an audience watching week to week, particularly when the show’s limited amount of screen time was too focused on plot to really delve into those changes and let us see and understand them. That was what made me think that the show was headed into jump the shark territory in season 5, but I really wanted to know what happened to my faves (Octavia, Raven and Memori, to be specific) so I kept watching.

Our fandom’s excellent writers spent the hiatus crafting mid-time-skip vignettes and missing character moments, and I spent the hiatus reading them. And I remember thinking that it would have been great if even a quarter of this content could have been put into the show to ease the audience into the dynamic shifts – but of course they’d never have the screen time to do all of that.

Especially, coming back to the main point, since written fiction allows the audience to see inside the characters’ heads, while television (usually) does not. It’s much easier to write a scene in which, say, two characters who have known each other for 7 years show that they’ve gotten into a relationship some time before the scene, and convince the audience that their relationship is good and healthy and genuine, than it would be to produce one for TV.  

And then we come to seasons 6 and 7 – the 2-part AU longfic, stuffed full of OCs, loosely connected to the “science” of the original show, and heavily reliant on memory-bending time travel as a plot device.

As season 6 airs, the audience hasn’t really had a chance to process all the radical changes from season 5, and already we have a Marper child running around furthering the plot, and Octavia walks into the Green Flash from Pirates of the Caribbean and walks back out with a personality transplant.

Meanwhile, Clarke gets an actual personality transplant, and it takes even the people closest to her a concerningly long time to notice. Now, if I’d read that in a fic, the writer might’ve taken care to remind me as a reader – particularly after a long hiatus between seasons – that with the exception of Madi none of Clarke’s friends have seen her for more than a couple of weeks in 6 years, so them not noticing for a while that she’s behaving strangely isn’t really all that strange. But on TV, I don’t get to see Gaia’s thoughts when Clarke lets Madi go to school despite the danger – Tati Gabrielle’s facial expressions can only do so much to make up the difference. Because the time spent apart was not (and really could not be, based on the structure of the show) properly acknowledged on screen, scenes like that one leave audiences floundering and pointing out bad writing.

Having watched 7x02 The Garden, I think if I went back and watched season 6 after Octavia returns from the Anomaly, her conduct – especially around Bellamy – would make a lot more sense. (That was the plan for this weekend actually – but my damn Wi-Fi conked out…) However at the time it just seemed weird and unnatural. Had it been the only example of off-screen or asynchronous character development, it would have been a lot easier to swallow. However, season 5 happened, meaning both that I was still getting used to all of the new dynamics and that I had a higher standard for Octavia’s off-screen development, because we got enough bunker flashbacks that I felt like I at least understood Blodreina.

What would have made the whole thing make a lot more sense a year ago would have been if the hair and makeup department had made an effort to make her look older, so that we could see time had passed for her. Now, Marie is 33 in real life, and so was the Octavia who figured out that up is down and got Davy Jones Locker to send her back ran out of the Anomaly, so yes, that is what an actual 33-year-old looks like, and the media has distorted my perception of age. But from an audience perspective, I saw an actress playing a 23-year-old go in, and the same actress playing the same 23-year-old come out.

Gabriel pointed out that her hair was longer, but that only accounted for a few months of time. Since she went in looking dirty, wounded and exhausted, and came out clean, healthy and energetic, she could have passed for younger before I would have thought she was older. (In fact, I want to say there was a theory circulating at that time that the Octavia who came out of the Anomaly was actually a younger version of herself, and she was missing memories because she’d never formed them. I don’t remember whose theory this was though. If you know or if it’s your content I’m referencing please feel free to let me know and I’ll edit!)

In addition, the shifting loyalties in Wonkru near the end of season 5 complicated the character situation – in season 6, the majority of Wonkru peeps (lookin’ at you, Miller and Indra) switched over to the commander’s side. While Indra didn’t really have enough screen time to express an opinion about Octavia, Miller was very clear in season 6 that she was anathema now – which although that was probably a semi-reasonable step for his character, it just felt like someone took his Bellamy-and-or-Clarke-following season 1-4 character and popped it into his season 6 costume without taking the time to address the road he took to get there.

Post-lockerAnomaly Octavia had to face and slay her demons. (Grumbles and links the interested reader to this POST from @osleyakomwonkru regarding that horseshit.) Afterwards, she shows a major shift in personality, particularly towards her brother. Because we as the audience wouldn’t see her time on skyring for about year in real time (or learn that she was ten years older and therefore a lot more mature, the chemical changes of which would account for at least some of the difference even if she couldn’t remember anything else) we had no choice but to associate her change with the slaying of Blodreina, which seemed like a ham-fisted way of forcing her a quick and slick redemption arc and prepping The Blake Siblings to go back to being ride-or-die for each other in season 7.

Raven’s season 6 personality was also radically different from her 1-5 development – while I understand her having a remaining beef with Clarke and being emotional due to Shaw’s death (RIP!) the fact that the writing in season 6 reduced her to the nagging shrew trope until they needed her to do a coding deus ex machina just added to the feeling that I was watching someone take the characters around, change them to their own preferences (even if that preference was to push some into the background and make them tools for the B-plot) and toss them into an AU story. Which I could have enjoyed more if I had been reading it and therefore seeing inside the characters’ heads – and if I hadn’t paid for the privilege with ad revenue instead of voluntary clicks of the kudos/like/reblog/comment buttons.

Another issue with time skip relationship is exposition for the lesser known characters’ backstories. Both seasons 6 and 7 have so far had dramatic character mother death reveals that were conveniently not told to their most important people specifically because the appropriate time to tell those stories would have been during the offscreen time skips. I will (grudgingly) accept Echo, an adult making a conscious (and familiar) decision to change up her personality to fit into and survive within her environment, choosing not to tell a traumatic story that reminds her of her past. (She’s my next meta – stay tuned!)

I will not in a million years, however, believe that the Clarke Griffin who I watched for four seasons be set up as the blatantly obvious “compassionate mom-friend protagonist” adopted a traumatized 6-year-old, moved into said child’s village, burned or buried the bodies of everyone who lived there, and never ever brought up the child’s dead birth parents.

No way. The ONLY reason that could have possibly been scripted in that way was because that conversation needed to be there for plot reasons and the appropriate time for it to have been had was during the 6 years they spent off screen. Similarly, while (again) I’ll buy that Echo chose not to talk about her mom’s death with Bellamy before he decided to be a dick about it, I fully believe that the timing of that conversation was only there because if it had occurred on the ring where it would have been more appropriate, the audience would have missed it.

Now, picture this: if the scene with Madi had been in a written fanfic, Clarke could have said “you didn’t lose me,” Madi could have said “I didn’t mean you,” and Clarke could have remembered Madi telling her the story of her birth mom dying in her arms. Then Clarke could have mentally made the decision that she didn’t want Madi to relive that in an attempt to empathize with her, and she makes an effort to convince her that she’s fine. In just 2 or 3 paragraphs a written story could have effectively conveyed both the exposition and the emotional beats of the scene, concluding with Clarke making a (maybe misguided but still sweet) attempt to be a good mom by not dredging that up for Madi (or something – I’m not defending the crappy and inconsistent writing of Clarke’s parenting we’ve on screen so far).

Moving right along, we had a lovely flashback montage of Hope and Dev, which was sufficient to make me (and several of the tumblrs I follow) care about Dev at least enough to be saddened by his death. However, what we didn’t get was a damn crumb of flashback showing Orlando and Anomalykru developing any kind of familial relationship between him agreeing to train them, and whatever dynamic we were supposed to pick up on at the end of that episode. I got a little protective big sister vibe from Echo and Hope but that’s it. They apparently expended their allotment of emotion-inducing flashbacks on the dead guy, and failed entirely to make me give a shit about (as it turned out) the next dead guy.

Now we’re going into an episode with Octavia on (presumably) Bardo in the promo, so I’m guessing we get to see her skyring-self link up with her return-to-Gabriel-with-clean-hair self. As least with Octavia’s jumping storyline it seems like the writers have consistently made some kind of effort to fill in the blanks.

But we’re also looking at the rest of the season where Echo, Gabriel, Hope, oh hi Jordan I forgot about you again, Diyoza, Octavia, and probably Bellamy and Hoth!Kru (AKA team let’s follow Raven onto a strange planet without putting on suits or having an exit strategy, yay!) have all experienced asynchronous development over periods of multiple years. Given the show’s track record from seasons 5 and 6, I strongly suspect that this won’t be handled any better, meaning that the final season of this show is going to try not only to resolve all the plot points, but to toss in a bunch MORE offscreen character development and hope we catch on.

Beyond character development jumps, we also have Raven and Murphy losing their seasons 1-5 development in season 6 only to have to re-learn and re-change back to who they already were in seasons 4 and 5. Murphy learned to value his spacekru family and stop putting himself first 100% of the time, and yet his arc in season 6 happened. Raven has always been involved in the big life-or-death decisions, and had her being-the-bad-guy moment in season 4 with the rationing, but as we saw in 7x03 the writers really wanted to… redo all of that for her? The girl blew up a bridge full of guys and flash-fried a 300-person army when she was 18; blood on her hands may not be fun but what’s with seasons 6 and 7 acting like it’s something new?

While I’m aware that Jason said his seasons are individual movies (don’t admit that you’re bad at continuity buddy ‘cause that’s what it sounds like) seasons 1-5 and 6&7 are clearly telling separate stories (or 1-4, 5, 6-7 if you prefer). The trouble with 6&7 is that unlike seasons 1-4 (and sort-of 5) we no longer know the characters. Every time someone sits still too long, character-development wise, plot comes along and hits the reset button, tosses them into a wormhole for a couple of years and they come back with the same face but no continuity. It was difficult enough to deal with in season 5 – between 6 and 7 I just can’t keep up. (Even writing this meta, I have to keep going back because I remembered another character who fell into this trap.)

Now if a fanfic writer had done the exact same thing – same plot, same time skips, same organization – it would have played out completely different to the readers. We could have gotten to see inside the character’s minds when they arrived back on screen, seeing things with new, older eyes. We could have had minimally invasive flashbacks to show important exposition (like the disaster that was the conversation about Madi’s mom) and verbal descriptions to point out differences like Octavia’s ten-years-older body. Additionally, the plots of seasons 6 and 7 are so different yet full of overdone callbacks to the earlier seasons – if a fan was writing their own AU story but still wanted some of the trappings of the original plot I’d get it, but on a TV show written by the same people it just feels like they ran out of ideas.

Watching seasons 6 and 7 is exactly like watching fanfiction would be – but without the written and fan-made advantages of fanfiction, they fall flat.

*I do like season 7 better than season 6 because the content of the individual episodes containing Murphy/Emori/Raven and Octavia/Diyoza/bbyHope was still enjoyable content, so 2 out of 4 I have liked so far, despite this very very long rant I’ve just written explaining why as a whole I rather hate the season overall.

[darthlorddiamond]

Between the Silence

This is the sixth episode of the Black Diamond story, if you want to read the previous episode or follow the next ones you can check my Masterlist.

Summary: After a year of training with Egil, Diamond decides that it is time to confront him for his behavior with her, while at the same time, one of the members of the Scyre clan is kidnapped by the Claw Clan.

Words: 2,433

Reading Time: 10 min

Category: Bio, Smut

Warnings: Kidnapping, Smut (Oral sex receive, fingering, vaginal penetration)

__________________

Between the Silence

Training with Egil began the day after our encounter with Balder. It had been a long time since I did any type of exercise so we had to start with the basics: physical conditioning, series of exercises to generate strength in my muscles, and a few times a week we practiced personal combat.

During these cycles, I met other boys from the clan, Porr and Torben were two boys older than me, Gosta, a girl my age and Siv, who was a girl about 5 years younger than me, the four of them already had time training with Egil. Within a few months of starting my training, Carr and Keldo joined, so we began to be a very close group of young people. Occasionally Phasma join our trainings, especially those of physical combat and short-range weapon handling.

Life in Parnassos is somewhat complicated, without a doubt, preparing ourselves as warriors would make a difference for the clan, since going out to get food can carry us sometimes in the territories of other clans and nobody wanted that something similar to what happened in the dunes would repeat itself. Curiously, from that same night, Phasma stopped talking to me and I noted that she avoided me as much as possible while we were in the same places, meanwhile, Egil had radically changed his behavior towards me, the most of the nights he locked himself in his room, so I chose to try to spend as little time as possible in our cabin, after all, that was his home and what I least wanted was to make him uncomfortable.

Over time, our group was already a basic defense force with knowledge of body combat, weapon handling, and tracking. Our bodies were molded and our muscles had become more toned and adapted to the conditions of life that Parnassos had for us. Egil had chosen us to form 2 groups, so we could start to take care of the basic tasks of the clan, such as finding food and monitoring our territory. In the first group were Carr, Torben, and Phasma; while the second were Keldo, Porr, Gosta, and I. Siv, being the youngest, was only in charge of carrying Egil's messages among all of us.

Before long, the roles of each of us began to be noticed more. Phasma started to develop great skills as the leader of his squad, while Keldo placed himself as the mastermind of all our missions. Carr, Torben, and Porr became the brute force of our teams, while Gosta was our best tracker and I focused more on everything related to the use of weapons. Ylva was right, in the Clan, we´re few, but together we were quite strong.

With my early morning departures from the cabin and the nights with Egil locked in his room, I started spending more time with the boys in our crew and it wasn't long before Keldo started to put me a lot of attention. At first, I didn't pay much care to the order of events, a few glances exchanged during our night watch shifts went on to become a hand on my waist as we spoke a few kisses to my front occasionally, there was no doubt that Phasma was not very delighted by this, so she set a clear line with me and the gap between us became more noticeable.

After a year of the night we faced Balder, I decided that it was time to confront Egil, the reason was that we simply couldn't continue with that awkward dynamic of avoiding each other as much as possible outside the training camp, so, one afternoon, I waited in the cabin for him to arrive with all the intention of speak with him.

The door of our cabin opened, letting in some of the warm afternoon air and the figure of Egil crossed the threshold, I sat in front the door in the main room, so there was no way Egil couldn´t see me "What are you doing at home so early?" without a doubt, he didn´t expect to find me there but he still didn't pay much attention to me, an act that made me quite uncomfortable "Waiting for you. We have to talk" Egil just snapped his mouth while he started walking to the kitchen, I turned my body to follow him with my eyes "I have nothing to talk about" I roll my eyes as he passed through the arch of the door "Of course we have to talk! You've been avoiding me for a whole year!" I got up from my chair and walked to the kitchen, obstructing the only entrance with my body.

Egil made no sound, just stood with his back to me while holding the sink with both hands. Suddenly, he turned around and with a firm step walked towards me, took me by the hip, and got me up from the floor to me sit at the kitchen table. He took me completely by surprise and for an instant I didn't know what to do, while he stood between my legs holding his hands to the edge of the table tightly at the sides of my hip, his head sunk between his shoulders "We have nothing to talk about Diamond, please don't make this more difficult for me" I was completely stiff, I didn't know what to do and my heart was pounding in my chest "I just want to know why you are avoiding me..." I whispered "I don't think I've done anything soo bad so you don´t speak to me in a whole year" tense atmosphere invaded me completely "Please... Don´t make this more difficult..." Egil's words were almost inaudible "I don´t understand Egil, make you difficult what..." and suddenly his hands gripped my waist and his lips fell on mine voraciously and desperately.

I took one of my hands to the nape of his neck, where I began to stroke his hair, while Egil's hands run over, in an unbridled way, on the garments of my upper part, unzipping it and discarding it to the floor. Once with my chest wast bare, Egil took a step back admiring me and also removing part of his clothing. As he took off his shirt, I could see his scars and the muscles in his chest and arms tighten, once he was over, he threw it to the floor with my clothes, and bent over me. His lips connect with one of my breasts and his mouth began to lick and suck my nipple, while one of his hands held strong my lower back and with the other try to undo the buckle of my pants.

I couldn't help but watch as my nipples were devoured by him and at the same time, feeling how my pussy got wetter and wetter, his mouth felt so hot on my breast and it was filling me with an indescribable pleasure "Egil!" I moan, throwing my head back when his teeth caught my nipples, the hand that was on my pants was already sliding over my pussy, rubbing it strongly over my panties "I asked you to leave..." he groan "I asked you to not make this more difficult for me...” he murmured over my breast, and slowly, he began to lower his lips over my abdomen, licking it and filling it with kisses, his hand left my pussy, leaving me with the need to feel more pressure.

I grab his hair by the nape of his neck and slightly force him to look at me, while his hands grab the hem of my pants and pull it down. "You were avoiding me, why?" a mischievous smile painted on my lips "You should be with someone of your age..." his eyes fixed on my breasts, my pants were already on the floor, ashamed, I saw him with a blush in my face "I've never done anything like this..." Egil just looked at me with his eyelids semi-closed, as one of his hands began to rub my slit over my panties "With more reason you should get away from me" only small moans came out of my mouth as he continued to press me "Egil!" I moaned louder when his fingers put aside my panties and began to rub my folds, opening them in scissors "I want you, and you are my teacher..." a louder moan came from my lips when his fingertips pressed my clit "...so teach me..." and without anything else to say, I release his hair and immediately he buried his head between my legs.

Egil began to lick my slit gently while his fingers continued to trace my folds, between moans the only thing I could do was see him between my legs, with his face shone with my juices, while he returned my gaze still eating my pussy "Sweet..." he whispered at my entrance, filling my body with vibration "Your little pussy is so sweet, I could do this every night" I bring my hand to his hair holding it tightly, by this point I was panting already "Don't stop!" and with those words he sank his tongue into my entrance while one of his thumb was pressing my clit. The kitchen began to flood in my moans, I threw my head back, while my hands held tightly to Egil's hair, pushing his head towards my pussy, I wanted more, I needed more "Take it slowly sweetheart..." Egil licked all over my pussy again as he gently pressed his fingers into my entrance "I have to prepare your sweet cunt well before doing anything else..." and removing his tongue from my needy folds he began to suck my clit as one of his fingers slid slowly inside me.

When I looked down, I had a vulgar print, Egil's face was covered in me, I could see how, with each one of his licks, threads of my juices mixed with his saliva drained from his tongue, his eyelids were half-open, and, suddenly, he inserted another of his fingers into my cunt and began to fuck it with a faster rhythm "No!" a growl came from my throat "I want you now!" the feel of his fingers inside me was wonderful, yet I wanted to feel more of him, so he removed his mouth from my slit and positioned himself between my legs. Even in the dim light of the kitchen, I could see his hard cock pressed in his pants "Are you sure?" he looked at me while caressing himself with one of his hands, my pussy was starting to get wetter by just seeing how Egil rubbed his cock so insistently, so I just nodded.

With a quick movement, Egil put down his pants and underwear letting his cock bounce-free, it was thick and so hard with veins very marked, head red in need and it was draining with pre-cum. With one of his hands, he guides the head of his cock to my entrance “I'll go slow, okay?" he pushed his cock just enough to stick the tip into my cunt "If you feel bad at any time I need you to told me” I nodded again, I had no words, I was desperate for him to fuck me, my whole body was on the edge of the emotion to feel his cock inside me. Bringing one of his hands to my hip, he started to sink his cock deeper into my pussy, I let out a small moan and closed my eyes, he just caressed my hip with his thumbs, inch by inch, I could feel how his cock opened the walls of my pussy for the first time and in return, how my pussy tightly squeezed his cock, Egil only drowned his growls in his throat, once completely inside me, he didn’t move, we wait a couple of minutes for my pussy to get used to him while he was stroking my clit and gradually began to move.

It was a new sensation for me, painful but pleasant, Egil's cock expanded all my pussy and rubbed all the indicated places. With one of his hands, he lay my body flat on the table and hold me by the waist, his movements becoming stronger. Neither of us said anything, just the sound of his hip colliding with mine, and our moans were hearing "More, please... Fuck me harder!" I broke the silence, his hands went down to my hips holding it tighter and his thrusts became faster, making my breasts bounce to the rhythm of his assault "You have a very hungry cunt..." the sweat of his forehead ran down his face "So tight..." a long moan came out from his mouth when my pussy began to contract on his cock, imprisoning him more "So tasty..." Egil increased the speed of his thrusts "So wet..." I could feel how a heat wave fill my pussy and a knot starting to made in my belly, I could feel his cock contracting inside me and his movements became more irregular, we both were almost near of reaching our peak when suddenly a piercing scream ripped in the distance.

Egil immediately took his cock out of me and I could feel how my pussy contracted in his absence, and, in seconds, he put his cock in his pants again together with all his clothes, and he quickly left while I got up from the table to put on my robes. Certainly, I was extremely frustrated at having disrupted our intimacy in that way, but it was obvious that something bad had happened in the clan, so I pulled my frustration out of my head as much as I could and left the cabin. 

When I reached the point of origin of the screams the entire clan had already gathered, in the center Gosta and Egil were holding Ylva, who was in a hysterical state, her cry was inconsolable and her screams tore through the night, her screams filled my heart with indescribable terror "What happened?" I asked Keldo holding his arm, who, without taking his eyes off the despair scene that was happening in front of us, responded to me with fury in all his words "The Claw Clan kidnapped Frey".

I was completely silent, watching how Gosta and Egil tried to contain Ylva in her madness, I couldn't believe what was happening, but at the same time a feeling of emotion awoke in my chest. It’s half of 22 ABY, and it seems that the rest of the year will be quite interesting.

Note: I would like to especially thank @kyloren-theprince​, @thetorturerwrites​​ & @kylorengarbagedump​ who took time to read this first part of my saga and sent me observations with all the patience in the world.

[bellamygateoldblog]

best and worst relationships?

There’s a lot of varables to consider here, and I’m feeling sick and bored out of my mind, so i’m going the long way round. This is a nightmare to read on mobile, im so sorry.

‘Best’ and ‘Worst’ labels depend on a number of things:

— Story of the pairing

— General intrigue and how enjoyable their dynamic is to watch

— Chemistry of the two (or more) characters

— Presence (or lack of) valuable relationship qualities (is this relationship healthy according to the world it exists in?)

and the importance of each of those differs from person-to-person.

Note: Sticking to popular relationships. I’ve blocked names, but I’m also throwing it under a Read More because it’s long and negative. It’s largely anticlarke because she’s a terrifying character and her mere existence derails most of her dynamics. Ship and like whatever you like, I hate fandom gatekeeping. But you asked so let’s go.

There’s also no order to this. Welcome to chaos land.

Best ‘Best’ List: objectively good relationships

— Linctavia

— Marper 

— Spacekru

— David and Nate Miller

— Raven and Sinclair

Unconditional love, mutual respect and support, found family, would die (and live) for the other. I can’t find fault in them.

Memori

I had a bit more to say about this one because there’s something so highly romantic in two people abandoned by their clan, cast out, finding each other in a literal desert wasteland. Like they’re each other’s oasis. In meeting Emori, Murphy finally found acceptance after spending far too long alone, and being told he was worthless by people who’s approval meant something. And Emori having someone prepared to do whatever it takes to protect her and make her happy is everything I could’ve wanted for her. They’re so deeply in love.

Best List

Becho (pre-season six)

Your local enemies-to-lovers. partnership over co-dependency. Compromise. Affection and emotional support from both sides. Willing to throw themselves right into line-of-fire for the other. A cut ‘i love her’ scene which i’ve personally decided wasn’t cut. I LOVE THEM.

Arguments against:

- ‘killed’ Gina (moreso she aided her death) while acting on orders from her superiors

- ‘killed’ Octavia while acting on orders from her superiors

- killed Ilian/ attempted to help Roan win conclave over Octavia

- almost killed Clarke (season five)

- happened offscreen

Arguments to discredit previous arguments because I’m sick and tired of seeing them in the pro tags:

- Echo was Bellamy’s enemy through those first three listed events. Bellamy had no reason to expect loyalty or respect, or anything else from her. She was always looking out for her people just as Bellamy was his own. That was quite clear.

- In fact she actually tried to help Gina because she was important to Bellamy, apologised that she couldn’t and did save Bellamy’s life despite their enemy status.

- ‘killing’ Octavia was not in cold blood. It was actually an accident.

- This one is nonsense. She wanted to kill Clarke during season five “even though she’s important to Bellamy”…after she just left him to brutally die and held Echo and her family at gunpoint and threatened to kill them. Context matters.

- not a fan of the time jump either, but if you’re able to accept the Madi-Clarke relationship which also developed offscreen, you can deal with this one.

Hard to talk about this one without defending it. Echo deserves better than season six Bellamy, who would abandon her in order to chase a woman he knew for 6-ish months 6 years ago. I say it’s his loss.

Jonty

It was a beautiful relationship and then a beautiful breakdown of one. I really enjoyed their dynamic. About to get controversial and suggest Monty could’ve taken a different approach with Jasper. I’ve never committed genocide and had to learn to live with it while watching my best friend suffer from the decision, but I do have clinical depression and somewhat relate to Jasper. There was this scene, where in the background you see Jasper go to hug Monty goodbye and he avoids it. It was such a small but sad detail. I felt Monty wanted Jasper to deal with his grief in a certain way and got frustrated when he didn’t. Sometimes he could be insensitive and blaming, and i think had there been more communication their friendship could’ve been very healing for the both of them. I think we learn at one point Jasper actually thought Monty was “fine” and didn’t even realise or understand that Monty hurt too. Jasper had this tendancy to only consider his own feelings, and this put a rift between them. Tough love doesn’t work for everyone, and I think Monty’s sometimes cold approach held that rift in place. The simple fact that both sides are so easy to understand and empathise with, and that this gradual undoing of what was once an incredibly strong bond was inevitable, made watching it all wonderfully bittersweet.

Zaven

This was good, but it was so rushed it made me bitter towards them. While it was Raven being thrown with yet another random guy, this did strike me as much more meaningful than her fling with Wick and I think it would’ve been a lovely relationship had it been able to continue. I think this was that love Raven deserved. It’s a damn shame it was used as just another level of torture for her. I think if they had let it develop more naturally and not been so full-on so soon, and of course if the actor hadn’t opted to leave the show, this would’ve been up on my best ‘best’ list.

Dropping this here: being intelligent isn’t actually important when pairing Raven up. Fandom acts like she needs someone “on her level” or “at her speed” (shudders), someone to challenge her, which has always come across as very demeaning of characters with less intellectual capacity, as if they’re less than Raven because of this when they are absolutely not. This mentality also denies Raven of partners that can value her and treat her well just because they aren’t Stephan Hawking. A romance isn’t a competition or a class project. Shaw was good for her, not because of what his brain could do, but because of who he was.

Bellamy and Octavia

This bitch toxic, YEET. I adore it. I really do. It’s such an intriuging and complex dynamic. The poisonous nature of their relationship is neither of their own faults, they’re both a victim of their own circumstances and, in Octavia’s case, a lack of socialisation and, by extension, non-understanding of grey area is also intrinsicaly linked to it. They truely love one another, but aren’t learned in how to show this in healthy ways. Makes that back-and-forth an entertaining watch.

Main grievance:

Beating your brother bloody while he’s chained down and unable to defend himself against you is disturbing and inexcusable in any context, and whether or not you’re grieving is irrelevant.

Neutral List

C//exa

Placing this one here just because i don’t care about this relationship, but did like bits and pieces. I think this one ended before it even started. For me most of it’s appeal is in the gradual moulding of the dynamic and the many phases it went through. I did find intrigue in that journey. However the fact the show reminds me at least a few times a season that Lexa was the one has me digging my heels in. I hate being told what to think.

I don’t really remember it all that well so I don’t necessarily have strong opinions. I know some people do. At this point in the show I was growing more and more annoyed with Clarke, and eventually i went from liking Lexa to being indifferent to her, so a dynamic consisting of them both was the least interesting thing in the world to me by the time it started heating up.

I will say this is probably one of the only significant relationships Clarke has where she doesn’t ultimately have more power than the other half. There isn’t a mechanism there that allows one to use to do harm to the other to advantage themselves; Lexa is the commander, but Clarke is constantly pushing back and Lexa respects and listens to what she has to say. There is literally a shot of Clarke backing the most powerful person on the ground into a table. I think Clarke was a positive influence on Lexa, but during this time Clarke was slipping into worse and worse versions of herself.

Some thoughts:

I found it was innappropriate for Clarke, as a leader of her people who’s primary concern is supposed to be what’s best for them, to have become romantically involved with the commander of the people they hadn’t a stable relationship with, and who ultimately has the power to strip them of all freedoms. It’s so easy for those romantically and sexually charged feelings to cloud and confuse what are extremely important considerations to be made about the people back home. It wasn’t a very responsible relationship.

On the flipside of that, from this relationship Lexa was convinced to grow into peace. Which is quite obviously a positive affect. Though I found it was odd that Clarke, just a random teenage girl from space, would be (successfully) telling the commander how to manage her people when she herself was not at home overseeing the climate of her own. It just has some very weird implications.

Lexa’s betrayal at mount weather, actually a very silly and counter-productive decision, was what forced Clarke to lose her humanity in what was the most traumatic event of her entire life. The fact it was forgiven so easily was hard for me to get over.

M//rphamy

Season five was good for them. It seemed as if they’d grown, were much closer, more respectful, and more affectionate. Then season six happened, and Bellamy was back to treating Murphy like he was beneath everyone. He started again to talk about how therapeutic it would be to hurt him, as he has, physically, many times in the past. Just tearing open old wounds at this point. In season five he reminded Murphy he wasn’t worthless, that he did belong with the group, but in season six he went back on all that, and put Clarke ahead of him at every turn, and prioritied her feelings over his very real pain. They’ve had a complicated history of violence, usually coming from Bellamy’s more hot-headed side.

I put this here because it’s an immensely compelling dynamic. These characters work well together, there’s heaps of chemistry and allure in each of their interactions. It’s just an entertaining time whenever they share scenes. But despite that, I don’t know where I stand with them and I don’t know where they stand with each other as of season six.

Worst List

Be//arke

There is a mess of negative thoughts inspired by this relationship about proportionate to the amount it’s shoved in my face. Clarke is just no good for Bellamy. Is the concise way of putting it.

Here’s a list of some of them which I usually like to bury deep inside my head for sanity purposes:

Ignoring whether or not actions were for the people/the only option and focusing solely on how the relationship is affected by them regardless

- Clarke has a tendancy to view the most important person (pre-season five) in Bellamy’s life as necessary collateral damage. She has brought/almost brought harm to Octavia on multiple occasions, the two most notable being TonDC and the conclave. Both while being on the same side as Bellamy from a political standpoint, and both while his friend who he had reason to expect affirmation, consideration, and loyalty from. Clarke betrays those key values. This happens again in season five when Clarke’s Plan-A solution is to “take her out.”

( this is also what sets her apart from Echo, who was never in the position to make her own choices. Clarke has that agency and control that Echo’s superiors had, but never Echo. )

- and saying that, I think it’s incredibly hard for Clarke to maintain any meaningful relationships being in the position she’s in. How do you have friends when you have to always put them second?

- speaking of the conclave, Clarke held Bellamy at gunpoint in order to prevent him saving his sister’s life. She said she “didn’t pull the trigger” and that was that. All is forgiven. However she did pull the trigger in what was an attempt to scare him into submission so I really don’t even know what to say here. The writers kinda forgot?

- they aren’t equal. They haven’t been co-leaders since season one. He was demoted almost immediately to second-in-command beneath Clarke. Clarke is the leader, the literal head. She makes the choices while Bellamy gets her out of the trouble she usually gets herself into, risking himself and others in the process. It’s a racist trope. It’s the ‘white princess and her brown knight.’ She has agency and power and he’s her loyal soldier, subordinate. Inequality isn’t inherently a bad thing but this power imbalance between them is utilised in harmful ways.

- speaking of “the good knight by his queen’s side,” this comes across as codependency. Clarke relies on Bellamy’s support, validation and loyalty, while ‘the heart needs the head to tell it to beat.’ That’s paraphrased from season six, that’s an actual line in the show. Bellamy needs her to guide him, to “keep [him] centred,” that’s another line from the show. That’s still not enough? He literally tells us in season six that he needs her, and has needed her in the past if his psychosis episode is anything to go by. He has impeccably low self esteem and views himself less than. I mean if you need further convincing of they’re inequality, just look to their places on the ark which are quickly reinstated once it reaches the ground. Clarke is upper class, she’s later the daughter of the chancellor, she comes from a loving family, from one of (if not, the) more well-off stations, she’s educated and she has passions, but Bellamy? From the poorest ark station, raised by an emotionally abusive mother, a janitor, his whole motivation his entire life has been to love and protect Octavia. I think a lot of this devotion he has for her comes from a place of idolisation, of seeing something in her he wants for himself.

- now this ugly trope could also come from an absense of Octavia. The moment they get to the ground Octavia is on a journey of self-discovery. And eventually, she becomes her own protector, and she finds a home in Lincoln. So naturally Bellamy looks for the closest relationship he can find that resembles that old one. It’s Bellamy and Clarke. Now, instead of Octavia, he’s driven by and found purpose in protecting Clarke. In fact, the Clarke-Bellamy dynamic has so many similarities to the Octavia-Bellamy one I can absolutely see the sibling like quality to Be//arke.

- Clarke abandons Bellamy after mount weather. She leaves because she can’t bare the reminder of “what [she] did to get them here.” So she leaves and instead Bellamy is the one forced to see the faces of the 48 every day, reminding him of what he did to get them there. Clarke comes across as completely oblivious in this entire situation. Bellamy and Monty are both written using the word “we” to refer to the mount weather genocide, but Clarke? It’s “I” and “me” every time. It’s as if she truely believes she’s the only one suffering from it, she’s bearing it so they don’t have to, except that isn’t true at all and that fact is so painfully clear. Later she tells him she knew she could leave because the people had him, but who did Bellamy have? He dealt with that weight and that grief alone because the only other person who could possibly understand, the one who pulled the lever with him, ran away. After she had convinced him not to in season one. She then comes back informing him she’d been acting on behalf of her people in Polis, without the people’s own knowledge or consent, but i digress, and he’d just ruined everything. So much for co-leaders. And he blows up at her, and we see how badly this action hurt him.

- In season five she leaves him to die out of spite and took her daughter to the people he saved her from at the beginning of the season. It could’ve been avoided, but she decided to punish him. That’s all it was. Don’t give me none of that “I had to!!!” she screams in season six to mindspace!Octavia. Bellamy was forced into role of father at just 6 years old and has proved time and time again he was prepared to risk it all in order to protect his child, there was nobody more equipped to handle Madi than him and her yelling in his face that he couldn’t understand was perhaps the biggest betrayal of them all.

- In season five she tortured and almost murdered his entire family. After switching sides again at the end of the season, all this pain inflicted was meaningless. You can talk all you want at me about Clarke’s *reasons* but all she did was take the path of most destruction towards the same end-point. It was just unnecessary violence caused because she had this desperation to take the wheel.

- all of this works because the writing is always in Clarke’s favour. The show is framed in a way that makes Clarke sympathetic, emphasises how much causing others pain hurts her, and that means that she’s never held to any of these actions, she might get a stern talking to but she’s forgiven insanely easily and allowed to go on with no actual change.

Pr//ncess M//chanic

Unfortunately, from what i’ve gathered, there’s a lot of racism in this one just as there is in Be//arke. I mean the entire nature of the relationship relies on the elevation of Clarke and the narrative power to demote Raven to ‘second best’ and prop over and over again. Raven, a girl who works her ass off to make most of the victories in the show possible, actually spoke the words “she saved us again” after launching a pod from an exploding planet into space and fixing the ark while space walking. It’s mindblowing. Raven’s (and others’) successes are handed to Clarke on a silver platter and we’re just meant to eat that up and blindly accept that Clarke is our one true saviour. I’m not going into this because it makes me feel sick and Raven deserved better.

Unrelated thoughts:

I don’t see their relationship as friendly at all post-season two. I got the impression Raven actually didn’t like Clarke, but it was all very complicated.

I also think it’s terribly convinient Raven never found out the true nature of Clarke’s relationship with Lexa because I don’t believe she would’ve ever been okay about Clarke again if she had (if the writers were going for realistic).

Madi/Clarke/Abby

Clarke strapped a torture device around her daughter’s neck for means of control and activated it under the guise of protection and that isn’t okay in any world or any context. Madi is a little girl who is dependant on Clarke and Clarke betrayed that trust. Those shock collars were used on her early in the season, she experienced the torture herself and still used it on her child. A lot of Clarke’s more unfavourable and/or unhealthy behaviours and characteristic are also present in Abby, which leads me to believe those are a product of her upbringing. Like mother like daughter, Abby also electrocuted Raven. Abby and Clarke have this strange rival-like relationship and I find it particularly cold, maybe because they’re so similar.

Abby and Raven

Abby has physically harmed Raven more than once. Out of anger and spite, or out of desperation. People hurting each other on this show is pretty standard and while this isn’t as overwhelming a mistreatment compared to others, her hitting Raven while she was acting chancellor was a pretty gross abuse of power. Its a visual display, with Abby’s imposing figure looming over a sitting and emotionally vulnerable Raven. We’re supposed to view this, i think, as mother-daughter. Abby says very early season one that Raven reminds her of Clarke, but she’s never shown treating Clarke in the way she does Raven. I liked the relationship during season one. From then and with Abby’s slow descent into villainy, not so much.

Ontari and Murphy

*She raped him. Next.

Cl//phy

Clarke is a cause/reason, whether direct or indirect, of a huge chunk of Murphy’s suffering, all of which she’s never been held accountable for due to Murphy’s position as undesirable. I, along with Murphy, had to be told she cares about him in season six because her otherwise complete disregard for his life has been pretty apparent.

Notable mention:

Chaining up him and Emori like dogs and promising to sacrifice the woman he loves, against her will, for the greater good after he saved her life. He has to beg her, plead with her and her almighty god complex, and it’s all quite uncomfortable and eery. (She later draws a picture of this event in her sketchbook which is…kinda weird.) And, in true Clarke fashion, she refuses to accept responsibility for this action and hides behind the same old trend of gaslighting and screaming “i had to!!!” I can’t root for a friendship between these two no matter how fun their back-and-forth can be. Especially since I can’t recall a single time they’ve shared a nice moment. Oh, and here’s a post about why Clarke and Murphy will never bond over isolation and survival.

*The clashing of Ontari and Murphy’s personalities was hilarious and I enjoyed watching them on screen together.

[bombshellsandbluebells]

clarke and blarke ☕️☕️☕️

Hooooooo boy get ready for me to be the saltiest I’ve ever been on this blog about Clarke/Blarke. I mostly try to keep it to a minimum, both because I know I have followers who like Clarke and Bellarke and because I try overall not to be TOO salty (though this season is trying my patience.)

I always say this, but I did used to really love Clarke in s2. Like REALLY loved her. She was one of my favorites. And I kind of lowkey shipped Bellarke - I was never really that invested and I never really read fic for them at all, but I was generally a fan of the idea of the ship, I guess, and I sort of assumed that’s the direction the show was going in.

At this point I can’t stand either.

Clarke used to be an interesting character. The show still always worked best as an ensemble show focusing on many different characters and how they react to the choices they have to make, but she was an interesting character in her own right in earlier seasons. But the writing has consistently trapped her in the same cycle of making mistakes that make people mad, giving a weak meaningless apology, crying a bit about it being her only choice, and NEVER LEARNING OR CHANGING. They want to keep her stuck between being a terrible person who makes bad choices AND being The Hero who always saves the day and not only does that make her a terribly uninteresting and flat character to me, but it’s also ruined any potential her character once had.

I think the writing has just completely destroyed Clarke as a character. I had hoped maybe last season they were at least COMMITTING with an arc that made her more of a bad guy than a hero and for a while, that was actually pretty interesting, but they ONCE AGAIN solved it by letting Clarke be the Hero and save the day in the end again, despite not fully having earned that. AND THIS SEASON they had the opportunity to actually force Clarke to grow and change and learn AND THEY WASTED IT.

I’m so completely frustrated with the fact that we are going through the exact same cycle with her. Once again she has made choices that hurt other people and made them angry with her and she is giving her weak apologies in response. A bit of crying, the words “i’m sorry” and a justification for your actions is not a real apology - and I wish Clarke had listened to Raven when she told her that.

I don’t want to hate Clarke, frankly. I want the show to make me care about her - she’s the main character. But it’s moved beyond the point of just finding her bland and uninteresting and moved into me actively disliking her character. 

I know the writers aren’t intentionally trying to write Clarke as a selfish, arrogant person, but they are. She makes choices for others because she believes that she is the only one capable of making the Right Choice - despite it being made clear by this point that the other characters would rather she not make choices with their lives. She doesn’t actually regret when those choices hurt or anger people either. Don’t get me wrong, I think she feels BAD about it, but not enough to regret her choice, which she makes clear when she gives reasons and justifications and claims “it was her only choice.” There is a REASON that other characters are constantly angry with Clarke - and it’s because Clarke doesn’t change her actions. She saves the day at the end and then turns around and makes new choices that bother people.

Season 4 said it best - Clarke has a God Complex and unfortunately even in an episode ENTIRELY ABOUT CLARKE HAVING A GOD COMPLEX AND NEEDING TO CHANGE Clarke ultimately didn’t learn her lesson or change. The next episode took her right back to the same place.

Obviously Clarke is a fictional character and she is created by the writing. And I don’t think the way I read her is what the writers intend. I think she is meant to ultimately be a good person who looks out for others and makes the hero sacrifice. But I think the writers keep telling me that without showing me, because what they keep writing for her makes her selfish and arrogant enough that she only believes she can make the right choice and only her choices are right. 

And the thing that’s pissing me off so much this season is that Clarke hasn’t actually been forced to make up for anything she did to the others. And I absolutely do think the others have a right to distrust her and be angry with her, even if I also understand that Clarke was acting out of a desire to save Madi (though it worries me that we’ve never touched again on Clarke literally electrocuting her daughter in order to control her. There wasn’t nearly as much consequence for that as there should have been.) 

Clarke has to earn her way onto that family - not just because her actions hurt Spacekru last season, but because frankly I need to see development in order to buy that Spacekru cares dearly about her. I bought last season easily that over the six years Spacekru came to care about each other like a family. I can’t buy that 3 days after Clarke was practically their enemy - and someone they didn’t really KNOW anymore - she’s suddenly so important to them they’re distraught about her life.

AND I’m really frustrated by the fact that everyone’s storyline seems to revolve around Clarke this season, as if they aren’t interesting characters in their own right with more interesting stories we could tell instead of repeating the same old tired cycle with Clarke. (This tea is all over the place. I’m just ranting.)

So yeah. In my opinion, the writers have ruined Clarke. If you look at it from a writing point of view, by refusing to commit to her flaws and by trying to both sell that there are no good guys AND Clarke is The Hero, they’ve created a flat, boring character who doesn’t grow or change, hasn’t really developed much since s2/3, and is inherently contradictory. If you look at it from a character, in-world point of view, Clarke always believes that Clarke is right, and what she thinks is right is more important than how anyone else feels or what they think, and she is controlling and selfish.

And I hate Bellarke. I actively hate it now. Like I said, I didn’t used to mind it, and I still understand if people want to keep shipping them and writing fanfiction based on their earlier dynamic - but frankly, I despise the idea of a relationship between them now. Last season I would have argued that I actually didn’t think the writers were planning to ever make them canon, and now this season they seem to be pushing their relationship without any development towards it.

Bellarke isn’t healthy anymore. They mistreat each other and argue with each other more than they side with each other and the show won’t take the time to actually rebuild their friendship. Instead they just give us moments that are meant to convince us they’re both still really important to each other, even if it makes no sense and isn’t supported by what we actually see on screen. They AREN’T that important to each other anymore. As of like a week ago they hadn’t seen each other in SIX YEARS. Even if they been best friends before that - debatable, honestly, since the show hasn’t let them spend much time together since s2 - IT WOULD STILL TAKE TIME TO REBUILD THAT RELATIONSHIP. I’m not saying it COULDN’T happen, but it DIDN’T. And the little moments they get here and there - Bellamy crying and mourning over her, etc. - tries to loudly tell me that they have rebuilt that relationship despite the fact that it didn’t actually happen.

Their relationship is all Telling right now, not Showing. It’s all about throwing a few tidbits here are there to convince me they care rather than consistently showing me a close friendship.

And I think it’s ruining Bellamy’s character. Because his entire story now revolves around Clarke - a woman who hasn’t really proved that she is willing to protect him or his family if it puts her and Madi in danger - and it’s weakening him as a character. To try and push Bellarke back to where they were in s2 despite seasons of development pushing them away from that dynamic, they’ve had to undo SO MUCH of Bellamy’s growth and development.

I get that people got attached to the ship and still think of it in terms of what it once was - and I think the dynamic in the first few seasons makes sense - but if the show actually plans to make them a canon couple, they have massively messed up how they wrote their relationship. It doesn’t work anymore and they haven’t put in any of the work to MAKE IT WORK - they’re just coasting on development from 4 seasons ago. It’s lazy. And it’s out of character. And it massively contradicts everything we saw last season.

Anyways. Yeah. I can’t stand Clarke this season, which is a shame because she used to be far better character and they COULD have still done some interesting things with her if they were willing to actually let her recognize her flaws and grow and change. And I absolutely can’t stand Bellarke and I’m not kidding when I say if it goes canon, I’ll probably be done with the show. 

That was a whole disorganized mess of thoughts. 

[thirdmagic]

anyway now that i'm finally back on browser and can write long posts, full spoilery thoughts on rise of skywalker

i had a lot of time to think about it and honestly the more i did the more i went from 'i liked and was ok with most of it until the ending' and now the more i actually thought about it the more it progressed to 'actually, i kind of hate it, and there are individual moments that are very good that i love and then the ending ruins that too and now it rings horribly hollow and now i'm just sad and disappointed and also baffled at this whole movie'

first of all, the good part is: REYLO REYLO REYLO REYLO REYLO REYLO REYLO R E Y L O

i admit i had a very embarrassing reaction of pure unfiltered joy when they kissed because it was such a perfect moment, but also, in general? all the bits involving these two were easily the strongest and the most compelling. a lot of other very stupid bad moments tangled in between, but on the whole, when it was just them, their dynamic, their force bond, it was really intense and spicy and so resonant and beautiful all at one. i love them so so so much. their dynamic is SO juicy and good, their fights were amazing and gorgeous and also spicy and intense, and then the bits of palpatine fight where they interact without any words and just look at each other and you can just tell exactly what's going on without them even needing to say anything, the way they smile at each other and the love in their eyes, the tenderness in every motion, the encouragement when they see each other through the force bond in the middle of the ritual and rey just knows.... these moments are some of the best filmmaking in this whole movie.

unfortunately that was also when we got the bizzare exposition dump on her dumb backstory retcon that's very very delicately done so as to still be consistent with tlj and and this brings me to rey palpatine, which, on the one hand, is kind of the only rey heritage theory i'd ever accept and (ironically) the lesser of several evils that the heritage theories are, but also the undoing of what was really, really compelling in tlj about rey nobody and the horrible waste of potential that came from rey being a Nobody McNothing, her search for identity and ultimately accepting that it doesn't actually make her lesser as a human being, the potential that this movie is when she'll face her insecurities and emptiness and accept herself and find and forge her own path.... and also honestly it's dumb. it's really really dumb. if it had been built up to in any way in any of these movies, that would be one thing, and i actually find a lot of rey's struggles really interesting in concept but just awful and messy and forced in execution, and the idea of rey struggling with being good against an evil legacy and her own darkness is really compelling too, but rey doesn't need to be a palpatine or to want revenge on her actually good parents when being abandoned and alone her whole life is a very very good reason for her to have anger and hatred and darkness to struggle with. it also implies that she's evil because her great grandpa who she never met is evil and because genetics as opposed to like....... again, being abandoned and sold by two asshole jerk parents and having to repress the awful trauma of that her whole life and being unable to come to terms with it, which was interesting, and powerful, and very very real, and then it just throws away a really compelling set up for something really boring and bad. and then an ending for her that has no impact or emotional resonance and makes no sense and isn't in the least bit satisfying.

i will say though that i love love LOVE the dark rey fight, it was a vision but in the exact right Symbolic way, i loved rey struggling with her darkness in theory and it was the one and only part that was executed well, it was truly something that felt like it belonged here, it was eerie and intense and good. and unfortunately not properly followed on in any interesting way.

there were a few jokes that i liked and found funny! the way c3po says 'irony, sir' when poe asks him 'why can you not talk when we NEED you to' has me losing my shit, that was great, and also poe lighting the flashlight when rey uses her lightsaber as one was also hilarious. in general there were definitely a few actually purposefully funny moments that i liked.

ben's whole storyline up til the end was the only thing that really felt consistent and on track imo, a few missteps but mostly stayed solid, and I was very happy to get my bendemption. i can't describe how emotional i got at the scene with han and him throwing away his evil red saber and him calling han 'dad', and the force awakens callback-- i don't know why han is back as a ghost or if that's just a symbolic illusion or whatever, i don't care. adam driver is magnificent, and seeing him as ben again, seeing him comfortable with himself, and happy, on the light side, being playful while fighting and messing with the knights of ren because he’s so powerful and confident in his power, was worth everything. if there's one thing this movie really did right is that it made me suddenly realize that i actually love kylo-ben and also made me realize that i was so much more invested in his happiness than i thought, and unfortunately it made me realize this right as the story gave him maybe a few minutes or seconds of real joy and a beautiful sincere happy smile and then killed him off, and that's when i felt my soul being crushed.

look, i don't have tragic endings, okay, i don't hate even bittersweet endings, the purpose of an ending is to be satisfying and wrap up and tie together all the story strands in a way that makes sense for the story. that's not what this was. i would be willing to forgive the fact that the rest of the movie was a big stupid mess if it had just given the whole saga a proper ending, if it had been like umineko episode 8 which is also a big mess but with a perfect, beautiful, satisfying ending for the entire vn. but instead this just ruined everything, and made me feel miserable, hollow, and sad. this specific story, and trilogy, and nine part saga, did not need that kind of ending. we had a tragic and bittersweet ending for the first two, a happy ending to redeem all the misery of the skywalkers would have felt sincere instead of saccharine because you feel that they fought for it. and it would be a good complement to the rest of the movies and the message. instead we have two people who have both been lonely and emotionally isolated their entire lives finding solace and happiness and comfort in each other, finally finding a true connection and someone who understands them, but only getting to be together for all five minutes before the story rips them apart. and for what? what is this trying to say? what is the point? what is the point of doing that to either of them? how does this serve the story? what is the purpose of this? the tragedy and the depressing ending of the prequels is purposeful and intended and is done to make a point, because it's the story of a fall from the very start, by design, by its very premise. the tragedy of umineko is purposeful and done to make a point because it is about how these tragedies happen, and why, and the human behaviors that lead to them. how is it a good ending and how does it serve and complement anything in the rest of the saga to have one tragedy and one happy story with a bittersweet ending be concluded with a hollow pretension of a happy ending where one main character is miserable his entire life and dies when he’s still young after only a taste of the happiness that’s been denied to him, and the other loses her soulmate and is alone and surrounded by people who she herself said don't really know and understand her? taking on the name of a more famous family as if that's the only way she can forge and identity and meaning for herself?

ben's death actually had me so down and so sad i can't even be angry, honestly. the rest of the movie was full of dumb shit, it's like 80% mcguffin chasing with barley any actual character development or any substance and meat to it, rey-finn-poe have no chemistry because they were never supposed to have because they were never meant to be the trio of the movies until oscar isaac convinced jj to let poe live and that messed everything up because the thematic trio of these movies is finn-rey-ben, rose being sidelined because we need to please the racists who are threatened by her existence i guess and her relationship to finn ignored, the absolute waste of all the new characters and the incredibly stupid hux reveal that's also for naught right afterwards, rey's force lightning, the chewie death fakeout, the entire final battle being a big mess, finn not doing anything interesting or meaningful, the general weird bizarre baffling writing and dialogue choices and how it reads and plays out like something completely disconnected from not just the rest of the trilogy but the entire 9 movies and feels like a messy rough draft that a completed screenplay, and the all over the place pacing and everything... i would have accepted this is a weird, entertaining, fun movie if it weren't for the horribly depressing ending that makes what the creators apparently thinks is a happy ending ring terribly hollow and make me unable to find any joy in it. it's just so depressing i don't have the energy to even be fired up about hating it and i sincerely cannot for the life of me understand why it went this way. how is 'if you're miserable your entire life and make bad choices because of it your only way to redeem yourself is to sacrifice your life and have your one chance at happiness taken away from you because you don't deserve to live past your attempts to fix your mistakes and don't get to have a better life for your efforts'? how is that supposed to mesh with the rest of the story? how is that hopeful or uplifting or anything this saga is supposed to be? what even is this movie about other than the old and tried and redone ten million times 'believe in yourself and the friends you made along the way' message that means nothing at this point?

so yeah. thing bad. and i don’t even have the energy to be salty or angry. i’m just sad and disappointed and depressed about it all. and you know, coming from me, i’m very lenient and can find the good in nearly anything and can appreciate a lot of flawed and otherwise messy media for what it tries to do and for the good it does have. i love all the movies in the saga and i’m still a prequel fan. and the fact that i found this to be so disappointing and unsalvageable and tried to be positive about it and failed should tell you something. 

anyway i'm going to go get a warm blanket, some ice cream or other comfort food while i go watch tlj again to cleanse myself and remember what good movies made by people who understand what's important are like, and maybe go watch marriage story and whatever other stuff adam driver is in, and find a way to watch knives out again, and then binge on the most self indulgent reylo fanfic i can find and a lot of fix-its to heal my soul. i'm not going to stop liking or caring about star wars, or this trilogy, which had one very pleasant solid movie and one excellent and fantastic one, and plenty of other good content out there, just because the last movie dropped the ball so hard, but i am going to stew in my sadness and angst about it for a good long while.

[mimeparadox]

Why Lauren Reed Failed (and Cassandra Ovechkin Succeeded)

(A link to my previous Lauren post, of which this is a spiritual sequel to.)

When Cassandra Ovechkin debuted in season 2 of Nikita, all signs indicated that the series, which paralleled Alias in many ways, had a Lauren of its own in the making.  While she wasn’t presented as an obstacle from the word go as Lauren was, the potential was clearly there, what with her being a lovely woman from Michael’s past who returns to his life with some heaving capital-b Baggage. Then, as subsequent appearances revealed that she was not only a spy, but an agent for the antagonistic private intelligence agency Gogol, the similarities with Lauren became all the starker (*1). Only one thing: unlike Lauren, her story is actually effectively told, and a lot of the reason why that’s the case has to do with empathy.  

Empathy is a key component in writing; without the ability to put oneself in a characters’ shoes, it can become very difficult, if not impossible, to truly understand them, or write them in a consistent or natural-seeming manner. Furthermore, it is quite hard to convince audiences to care about a character if the writers themselves don’t.

Lauren, in particular, really needed viewers to care about her.   Arguably the true protagonist of the show’s third season, she required at least as much viewer investment as Sydney herself. Instead, the writers allowed their perception of the character to be colored by Sydney’s (*2) and they mostly treated her like she did—as an intruder and rival, instead of as someone who, at least initially, had done nothing wrong and was in a situation equally as awkward as Sydney’s.  Soon after their first workplace clash, Sydney declares “I hate her,” and it’s not clear the writers disagree. For the first half of her story, the show paints Lauren as an altogether inferior substitute for Sydney—not as fun, not as admirable, not as smart, not as worthy of respect.  While the rosiest interpretation of the Vaughn-married-someone-else narrative (*3) suggests that Lauren has many admirable and attractive qualities, the best the series can do to show that is treat her with reluctant admiration, or as a well-meaning fool.  Even after the double revelation of her allegiance and family dynamics hits the viewer on the head with a “SYDNEY PARALLELS!” hammer, the writers still can’t spare a moment to investigate how and why she became that way, or what the similarities actually say about either woman.  While the increased focus in the second half of the season gives tantalizing hints about the Lauren that could have been, the series never commits, ultimately using the revelation as a license to celebrate casual misogyny. 

Cassandra, in contrast, is treated first and foremost as a person, and this allows the writers to navigate her story much more gracefully. While Nikita’s impression of Cassandra, much like Sydney’s impression of Lauren, is often neutral to negative—first because of her relationship with Michael, and later because of her lying—Nikita doesn’t allow this to diminish either the character or the series’ empathy for her. When she is revealed to be a double agent, the series allows her to explain her decision and place it in a wider context; yes, she has lied and has worked for bad people; so have Nikita and Michael.  So has Sydney, for that matter: when Cassandra speaks about joining Gogol, she mentions that she did so because she was broke and bored, and being a spy seemed exciting, which are, according to Sydney, exactly the same reasons why she joined SD-6.  Are they also Lauren’s reasons for joining the Covenant? Impossible to say: Alias doesn’t care.

It’s hard to craft a motivation or a consistent inner life for a character if one can’t see them as a person worthy of consideration. It’s particularly hard when a narrative’s unofficial official stance is that characters only deserve empathy if they’re on the heroine’s side.  This had been a consistent issue with Alias: note how both spy parents’ morality is determined not by what they actually do, but by whether or not they’re acting in Sydney’s interests when they do it. Note how Sydney never had to wrestle with the harm she caused while with SD-6, or with people (rightfully) mistrusting her because of her past allegiance.  With Lauren, this myopia comes to the fore, with fatal results.  Nikita, meanwhile, is all about empathy: it’s a story about a woman whose journey towards the light began with the thought “this girl is like me.”

It’s worth mentioning how each series’ reveal affects each character, in part because of how similar they are, but also because how they alter, or don’t alter, the way each character is perceived. “They’ve been working for the bad guys all along” is a plot twist that forces viewers to look backwards: viewers must look back into what’s gone on before, and consider how much it all did or didn’t matter.

Cassandra’s role during her debut, in addition to that of—in Person of Interest parlance—a number, was that of  a secret-keeper: not only was she keeping the truth about Valeri Ovechkin for Michael and Division, she was keeping the secret of Max from the world, and the secret of Max’s parentage from everyone.  While she is nominally in a position of power, as both first lady and someone who (she believes) is owed a favor by the U.S. government, her secrets and lies have served to isolate her and keep her trapped (*4).  Every successive revelation serves to reinforce that narrative: in increasing the number of factions she must keep mollified and the number of lies she must tell in order to remain safe, they make Cassandra seem more like herself.  

One of the worst things about the Lauren reveal, meanwhile, is just how thoroughly it undoes what scant development she’d obtained during the first half of the season.  It is perhaps the best indication that the reveal hadn’t been planned from the start: surely if it had been, the transition from well-intentioned naïf Lauren to cold-blooded killer Lauren wouldn’t have been as abrupt. And yet, there’s no attempt to reconcile the two sides of the character, or to clarify just how much of the character we saw in the season’s first half was an act. The reveal essentially wipes the slate clean, which is not exactly a great thing to happen to a character who already had much of the audience against her.

This is not to say, however, that the way to fix Lauren’s story is legitimately making her the good guy she pretended to be during the first half of her story, or to make her more like Cassandra. It might have made it easier for her to retain what little empathy the writers had for her, but it would have also robbed her of much of what made her ultimately interesting. A Lauren who remained a good guy would have ultimately had no place in Alias’ story. At best, she would have been another Dixon: someone who sticks around, but whose story has no greater resonance (*5). We eventually got our “what if Lauren, but good?” character in the form of Nadia, who was much better at it.  No, Lauren needed to be a villain, and there was no reason why her story couldn’t have worked. All that needed to happen is for the writers to care.

----

Footnotes:

(*1) There’s also the weird thing where both characters have roots in Britain, despite neither being born there. 

(*2) And eventually, the fandom’s. Lauren’s eventual fate is hard to explain as anything other than an attempt to mollify the worst of the fandom.  

(*3) The one that posits that Vaughn fell for her for reasons beyond availability and looking like Melissa George.

(*4) She is, in essence, what Sydney feared she’d become in season 1—Alias’ themes taken to their logical dark extremes.   

(*5) This, I feel, would be true whether or not she remained with Vaughn. In fact, a love triangle resolution where Vaughn remains with her would have likely rendered his character pointless as well. 

Credit where credit is due: My original Alias pictures were obtained from the Alias: A Free Agent fansite, which is somehow—and thankfully—still mostly accessible after all these years. Hat tip to @derevkosark for pointing me in its direction. The current pics are my own. 

[meditationadvise]

How To Breathe Like A Yogi

There's an old adage usually utilized by yoga instructors: without the breath, it's not yoga.

This is oh-so-true. The biggest distinction in between yoga and other types of workout is its focus on the breath. There's a whole element of yoga exercise that's developed after the breath. It's called pranayama-- as well as it's what takes yoga from a workout to a type of meditation. Faucet in to this crucial yogic exercise with this beginner's guide to pranayama.

Why yogis practice pranayama

Yogis are about increasing their prana: the dynamic, energetic pressure within. Prana is what stimulates the body. It's a refined, intangible pressure that gives energy and the power of action. Good wellness is a sign that prana is abundant.

Prana's physical counterpart is the breath. They're not precisely the same point, however we obtain prana through the breath, and prana could be increased by controling the breath. This is the goal of pranayama.

Yogis usage breathing workouts to increase, increase, and stabilize this dynamic internal energy.

Pranayama also cleanses the body's refined channels to make sure that prana doesn't obtain stuck anywhere in your body and also could free flow throughout it. This is likewise essential for yoga's greater goals of self-realization.

Although this application of pranayama might seem a little esoteric, it does have concrete physical benefits as well.

Pranayama enhances the lungs as well as improves their functioning. It eases stress and anxiety, reduces blood stress as well as heart rate, enhances digestion, and stabilizes the nerves. It likewise trains the mind to concentrate much better in reflection (another extremely important element of yoga).

In order to enjoy every one of these gorgeous advantages, it's essential to start with the essentials:

First comes belly breathing

So lots of people are breathing all wrong. You listened to right-- regardless of breathing being free, it's totally possible to breath incorrectly. It's a physical feature that lots of could and also frequently do misshape, specifically when they're stressed or anxious.

If you've ever viewed a child breathe, you have actually observed appropriate breathing. Their wonderful little bellies climb with each inhalation and also carefully drop with each exhalation, practically as if there's a balloon broadening and contracting inside.

Babies take full abdominal breaths, as well as this coincides technique that we need to proceed with as adults.

Take a moment to notice how

you're breathing today. Don't manage your breath whatsoever-- just observe.

What's your stubborn belly doing? Is it broadening and contracting?

Or is it your breast that's moving the most?

Are you taking a breath via your mouth or through your nose?

Are you gripping your tummy?

Ideally, your tummy is broadening as well as getting. You're taking a breath via your nose and also there's no stress in your belly.

If this isn't the case, it's time to relearn the art of breathing. This is necessary both for the practice of pranayama as well as for your overall health.

If you breathe shallowly right into the breast, you don't make complete use of the lungs and you burglarize your interior organs of their full supply of oxygen. And also, the diaphragm doesn't make its complete downward movement. The organs miss out on out on the mini-massage that would normally happen with this downward force.

Breathing via the mouth also presents its troubles. The nose is developed to filter, moisten, as well as warm the air we inhale. Mouth breathing denies the breathing system of these vital processes.

Yet another issue with improper breathing is that it triggers anxiety as well as stress and anxiety. The breath and also mind are significantly associated. There's an all-natural tendency to grip the stomach as well as take a breath shallowly right into the upper body because of stress or anxiety.

The very same thing can happen backwards. If you hold your stubborn belly as well as take a breath shallowly into your breast, you could cause feelings of stress and also anxiousness. You essentially subject on your own to completely unnecessary negativity!

Moral of the story: appropriate breathing is unbelievably crucial. It's also the primary step in finding out pranayama, because without this solid structure, any manipulation of the breath will be dangerous instead of helpful.

Pranayama Practice # 1: Stomach Breathing

If you've created incorrect breathing habits, follow these steps to reset your breath. You could practice this technique for a few minutes each day and sign in periodically throughout the day to observe your breath.

If you're breathing shallowly or with your mouth, correct yourself. You'll ultimately undo bad habits.

1. Lie down on your back. Spread your feet broad and let them tumble open. Take 3 natural breaths via your nose.

2. Purposely relax your stomach muscles.

3. Place your best hand on your stubborn belly and also your left hand on your chest. Take a slow, deep inhalation that fills your stomach. Your ideal hand ought to increase as you inhale.

4. Exhale slowly. Your right hand need to fall as you exhale.

5. Proceed this method for a number of minutes. Focus on your breath. If your mind wanders, bring it back to the breath. As soon as you're comfy doing this relaxing, try tummy breathing while being in a chair or on the floor with your legs crossed.

Your breast will certainly likewise fluctuate during this practice. This is completely normal and absolutely alright as long as your stubborn belly is climbing as well as falling in addition to it. With each inhalation, the first area to broaden is the stubborn belly. Next comes the breast, and finally the throat.

This process takes place in reverse with each exhalation.

Pranayama Practice # 2: Alternative Nostril Breathing

Also referred to as anuloma viloma or nadi shodhana, alternating nostril breathing is a practice that provides instantaneous results. It's unbelievably soothing, making it the excellent remedy to stress, anxiety, and also nervousness.

And it isn't reserved for the mat just. Alternating nostril breathing can be practiced basically anytime, anywhere.

Alternate nostril breathing is precisely as its name implies: the breath is inhaled as well as exhaled with one nostril each time. The goal is to balance the breath in between both nostrils due to the fact that we actually don't normally take a breath via both at when. We take a breath mostly through just one, rotating between the 2 around every 90 minutes.

You could evaluate this fact by putting your finger below your nose. You'll observe that the air is moving primarily via one nostril only.

If the air occurs to really feel even with both, you might have caught the junction that occurs every 90 minutes. Throughout this junction, we experience an inner sense of tranquility. This is precisely the sensation that yogis purpose to resemble through alternate nostril breathing.

According to yoga and Eastern medicine, each nostril associates with the contrary side of the brain.

Predominantly breathing via the right nostril symbolizes that the left brain is energetic. The left brain has even more to do with rational mind like regular and also planning.

Predominantly breathing via the left nostril, on the other hand, represents that the best mind is active. The appropriate brain has more to do with imaginative thought processes as well as intuition.

When the breath is balanced between both, the entire brain is active. Other refined forces are likewise balanced, such as the manly and feminine, as well as the lunar and solar. This all brings a relaxed state that's particularly favorable to meditation.

Alternate nostril breathing is the ideal method to do before sitting for a reflection session, before sleeping, or anytime you're feeling stressed out or nervous:

1. Sit in a comfortable position either with your legs went across, folded up beneath you, or being in a chair with your feet level on the ground. Sit great and also tall with your shoulders kicked back. Rest your hands in your lap with your palms encountering down. Shut your eyes.

2. Tuck your best index as well as center fingers right into your hand to form the vishnu mudra. Your thumb, ring and pinky fingers will certainly be extended.

3. Take an easy breath in. Carefully shut your right nostril with your thumb. Take a very easy breath out via your left nostril.

4. Take an easy breath in with your left nostril. Shut your left nostril with your third finger, release your thumb from your right nostril, and take an easy breath out through your right nostril.

5. Now take a very easy breath in via the right, shut the right, as well as take an easy breath out with the left. Now in with the left, close the left, as well as very easy breath out via the right.

6. Continue this pattern for five minutes. Make sure you do not tighten your right shoulder.

Concentrate on your breath. If your mind wanders, bring it back to the breath.

When you're completed, launch your hand as well as rest on your back for a minute or 2, taking a breath naturally, observing the tranquil sensation that's washed over the body.

Pranayama Practice # 3: Ujjayi Breathing

If you regular vinaysa classes, you're most likely currently accustomed to ujjayi pranayama, also called Darth Vader breathing, victorious breath, or ocean breathing. This psychic breath has a tranquilizing result as it mimics deep sleep. It helps the mind to focus throughout a yoga method, which is why its utilized in tandem with vinyasa flows.

Ujjayi likewise has a comforting impact on the nerves. This makes it a natural antidote to stress and irritation:

1. Sit in a comfortable position either with your legs went across, folded below you, or being in a chair with your feet level on the ground. Sit great and also tall with your shoulders loosened up. Rest your hands in your lap with your palms encountering down. Shut your eyes.

2. Take three natural breaths.

3. Inhale. Open your mouth as well as breathe out as if you're fogging a mirror. You'll need to acquire your glottis-the slim flap of cartilage at the back of your throat. This action will make a Darth Vader-like sound. Currently do the very same thing as you breathe in, but close your lips. You'll be breathing like Darth Vader on both the inhalations and exhalations.

4. Proceed this breath momentarily or two. Breathe slowly and deeply, bearing in mind to fill your stomach with each inhalation. Concentrate on your breath. If your mind wanders, bring it back to the breath. With method you can gradual increase to 5 minutes.

When it pertains to pranayama, take your time.

Before all else, take as much time as you should find out stomach breathing. Just when you have this stomach breath mastered should you start to check out alternating nostril breathing, ujjayi, and other pranayama techniques. There's absolutely no thrill when it concerns discovering pranayama. It's a component of yoga exercise that's suggested to be found out during years.

Never stress during pranayama. Always experiment a feeling of rhythmic effortlessness. If you really feel like you're short of breath or lightheaded, stop and relax in remains present (savasana).

Our old yogic forefathers alerted other yogis of the ominous consequences of inappropriate pranayama. Consequently, pranayama is likewise suggested to be found out straight from a teacher.

Not all breathing workouts appropriate for all trainees. An instructor will certainly assist lead you toward pranayama that's proper for your own constitution as well as present state of health.

When you do discover to practice pranayama correctly, nonetheless, you can take your yoga exercise practice to an entire brand-new level.

By connecting the body with the mind, pranayama changes yoga exercise from exercise to a relocating meditation.

P. S. Intend to build a home yoga exercise method however are not able to stick to it?

Start your free 7-day yoga obstacle today!

[saltnhalo]

saltnhalo’s 2018 writing

I made one of these roundups last year, so I figured I’d do the same this year. Between travelling and being in the hospital for a while, I didn’t get quite as much done, but I’m still damn proud of all my words.

Fics on A03

Roll With It (January)

8,086 words this year, 72k total (Explicit)

For two years, Dean’s been slaving away beneath his boss – many label him a secretary, but he fucking hates that and feels like it only applies to someone wearing a pencil skirt, so he insists on his title of Executive Assistant. And for what? In the vain hope that one day he’ll manage to become an editor for Sandover Publishing, and that he’ll see the manuscript that he’s slaved over since college finally realized in print.

That’s the dream, anyway.

Right now, he’s fucking late.

Dean wants to be an editor. Castiel just wants to stay in the country. ‘The Proposal’ – as you’ve never seen it before.

(Editor!Cas, Assistant!Dean)

I Don’t Know Why (January-February)

10,710 words this year, 16.5k total

Dean gets home from a long job to find a note on his front step. He knows exactly who it’s from and what it means; it promises fun and danger and a fucking good time, and there’s no way he can turn down this invitation.

He can never say no to the Angel.

(Assassin!Cas, Spy!Dean)

Flowers (February)

1,004 words, 3.4k total, co-written with destimushi and cryptomoon (Teen)

Three times Dean gave Cas flowers. Well. Kinda.

(Canon compliant, Valentine’s Day)

The Galaxy’s Most Wanted (March)

10,155 words (Explicit)

Dean had been the one always up to mischief, running around with his father’s broken laser pistol and constantly getting into places he shouldn’t have been. Sam, in comparison, always seemed to be the smart, studious one – until he reprogrammed the AI in their neighbours’ house to play ‘Happy Birthday’ at the loudest possible volume while keeping all the doors and windows firmly locked. It had taken two experts seven hours to undo the coding that Sam had managed to integrate into the house’s programming.

So, yes. They had been exceptional even from the beginning. And when John Winchester crossed one too many people, his sons inherited his beloved ship, and took to the cosmos doing what they knew best: stealing.

And they were damn good at it too. Almost unrivalled, across their own galaxy and even those neighbouring.

Almost.

(Space pirates, enemies to lovers)

Ensnared (April)

1,543 this year, 10k total (Mature)

As the current pulls him a little closer to the island, the singing grows stronger. It’s deep and lyrical and the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard and he’s suddenly overcome by the desperate, searing need to be closer, to hear it in all its intended glory.

And as he passes a single spur of rock that juts out a little further into the ocean than the others, Dean sees him.

(Siren!Cas, shipwrecked!Dean)

A Lesson In Obedience (April)

6,396 words (Explicit)

Castiel helps Dean to relax after a long and stressful day at work.

(Sub!Dean, Dom!Cas)

Little Blue Dragon (April)

23,820 words (Explicit)

Dean Winchester may have a reputation for being a skilled craftsman and blacksmith, but his life is just like anyone else’s. He’s over-worked and under-slept, and it’s all because of the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that tells him he’s… forgetting something. Still, he can’t let his weird dreams or errant thoughts get in the way of his work and his love for his craft. The strange feeling goes ignored.

That is, until he meets a man with jewel-blue eyes and an aura of intrigue. Castiel slots into his life in a way that Dean had never thought possible, and Dean grows accustomed to the mysterious man’s visits and brilliant smiles and tales of far-away places.

He’d never known he was missing a piece of himself until he met Castiel, and he thinks that Cas might feel the same way.

Until Castiel disappears from Dean’s life completely.

(Blacksmith!Dean, dragon!Cas)

Worst Impressions (May)

15,061 words, co-written with thepopeisdope (Explicit)

It should be a simple story: they meet, they click (or don’t), and they move forward with their lives from there. It happens every day.

Except in reality, for them, it’s not nearly that simple. It’s more like: they meet, they hate each other with a passion, and then suddenly a firefighter is on a date with a librarian, and somehow that isn’t the most unexpected development of their relationship.

From the instant Dean saw that the drop-dead-gorgeous firefighter had horns and a tail, he knew he was fucked.

(Angel!Dean, demon!Cas)

Trouble In The Best Way (July)

2,173 words (Teen)

When Dean is called in to see Emma's principal about his daughter's behaviour, he's not expecting to encounter one of the most attractive guys he's ever met in Castiel Novak, the father of Emma's partner-in-crime.

(Single parents, strangers to lovers)

Through The Fire (June-September)

30,444 words, WIP (Explicit)

When John Winchester strikes a deal with the Alpha of another pack, Dean is the one forced to take the hit for his family. He suddenly finds himself betrothed to the infamous mafioso Castiel Krushnic—an alpha with a terrifying reputation, who commands respect from all those who meet him. Once mated, Dean and Castiel must find a balance in the dynamics of their relationship, or risk bringing the whole of the Krushnic empire to its knees.

The challenges thrown their way have to be handled together, for better or for worse.

(Mafia AU, A/B/O)

Kiss Me, Kill Me (September)

4668 words (Mature)

Seasoned hitman Castiel Novak is just looking to take out his target and get paid, but should've accounted for the fact that he may not be the only assassin at tonight's party...

Cue the mysterious, green-eyed man who is more of a match for Castiel than anyone he's ever met.

(Assassin AU, A/B/O)

What The Rain Brings (October)

6,043 words (Explicit)

In which Castiel's new roommate—supposed to be an alpha, under the guidelines of the college dorms—turns out to be a) late, and b) a beautiful, sarcastic, drenched omega.

(College AU, A/B/O)

Such Familiar Magic (December)

6,333 words (Teen)

When solitary witch Castiel finds an injured dog unconscious in his garden, he takes it in. He's expecting to heal it, look after it for a few days, then perhaps return it to its owners.

He's not expecting it to be one of the strongest familiars he's ever met.

(Witch!Cas, familiar!Dean)

Fics on Tumblr

Blowjob (353, NSFW)

College stress (1,055)

Bondage (264, NSFW)

Rimming (540, NSFW)

Exhibitionism (1,354, NSFW)

Edging (497, NSFW)

Movie night (579)

Sexting (1,025, NSFW)

Riding (342, NSFW)

Cas in suspenders (164)

Café meet-cute (721)

Micestiel (502)

Witch Cas/Familiar Dean (822)

Captured spy Dean (1,705)

T-shirt (494)

Stitches (500)

High school love (847) Ending 1 | Ending 2

Art thief Dean (1,421)

Fallen Cas (419)

High school reunion (711)

Fake dating (854)

Yoga (857, based on these gifs)

Baking (509)

Sleeping hunters (435, inspired by this beautiful art)

Nude model (703)

Angel Dean/Demon Cas (785)

Suspension (720, NSFW-ish)

Stargazing (461)

Bar pining (604)

Moving house (466)

Beach vacation (926)

Nesting (708)

Noctuary (1,885)

Quidditch (839)

Love confession (2,172, NSFW-ish)

Sam gets a dog (480)

Actors AU (2,636, NSFW-ish)

Reverse!verse (284)

Art student Cas (980)

Motel (494)

Prom invite (1,197)

Dancing (1,176)

Mistletoe (509)

Deaf Dean (816)

Find all my tumblr fics collated on AO3 here

Words posted to AO3: 126,436 Words posted to tumblr: 35,811 Words posted in total: 162,247

Thank you so much to every single person who has read, kudosed, liked, reblogged or commented this year. Your support means the absolute world to me, as without people to read and enjoy what I put out onto the internet, I probably wouldn’t still be writing today. You guys are all so special to me, and I can’t wait to see what 2019 brings for us all.