#how did the basic understanding of a story arc get here

[awkwardsonicphotos]

I assume you're pretty bummed about the Lilo and Stitch remake being... how it is, then?

I've been a Sonic fan so long and have seen all the different takes on the world and characters. So I'm aware all writers have their own style and show certain aspects of Sonic's personality more than other traits, some write him more laid back and cool, others show his short temper or his quietness in the forefront, and others show his kindness and joking side. I've learned to not take that stuff seriously or let it ruin my enjoyment of some of that media. That's not to say the media itself doesn't deserve some criticism or that I think it's flawless. It's just the nature of having multiple hands on an IP as big as Sonic.

But I have never seen such blatant character and story assassination as this remake has done. spoiler rant incoming

IT WAS SO EASY DISNEY THIS WAS AN EASY WIN??? I know they already made so much money so they don't care. I was not looking forward to this remake at all. I at least thought it would be medicore I knew story changes would probably happen that it would not be a 1:1 movie. That's fine that's okay to have some story beat differences or scene changes as long as the heart and message of the film come through. But that ending is disgusting and insulting.

How does the freaking sonic movies do found family better than LILO AND STITCH?! The OG Lilo and Stitch probably was one of the first kids entertainment that brought the attention of found families and unconventional families to mainstream media. Why would you butcher Nani's character like that? Why is Jumba the villain? HE'S NOT EGGMAN HERE. That's NOT his character, Jumba actually cares and loves and takes pride in all his experiments they are basically his children. It's stupid to make him the villain or at least not be redeemed by learning from watching Stitch himself change.

Having Nani give up Lilo to CPS so she can go to college is just stupid and wrong. The original Nani wanted Lilo in her life so badly she did give up a ton of stuff for herself. Yeah I would have loved to see her finally pursue some things for herself but she was willing to temporarily put that aside because Lilo was more important and their relationship meant way more and as Nani told cobra bubbles in the movie, “I’m the only one who understands, if you take that away she won’t stand a chance.” She’s the only one who gets Lilo and what she’s going through. Lilo is also a troubled child and Nani is worried no one will understand that or give Lilo the patience and care she needs. she already lost her parents she wasn't ready to lose her sister too, she was willing to fight for Lilo, you don't feel that in the live action film. Lilo is already bullied by her peers. Before Stitch Nani was the only person on Lilo's side. I don't care Nani has a ring power/portal gun and can still see Lilo. That's not the same.

ALSO YOU ARE IN HAWAII you can learn marine biology right there!!! WHY ARE YOU GOING TO CALIFORNIA??? Nani really just needed a support system that's why the aliens moving in took pressure off Nani so she could work. Having the friendly neighbor is fine but it kinda already offers a solution in the beginning of the movie. The neighbor could babysit and offer support. It takes away the stakes of Lilo and Nani situation right away. You could have the community come together at the end to offer support to Lilo and Nani and still have Nani keep custody of Lilo without sacrificing Nani's dreams. I don't know there's just so many ways to fix that ending and still have the Ohana message.

Stitch's arc is also greatly lacking without the ugly duckling scene or having him be honest with Lilo that he is an alien.

Lilo and Stitch means a lot to me, I had just turned 9 when the original film came out, I remember the trailers and I had never wanted to see a movie so badly. I have never felt that way for any other movie since. I knew nothing about that film but knew I had to see it. It inspired my art style as well, I love all the rounded shapes and character designs, the water color backgrounds. I have a very close friend who I consider a sister even though we aren't related, I have that movie to thank for that. Lilo and stitch has spin off media as well like the anime, manga, comics, Stitch and Ai but they at least honor the source material better than Disney's own remake. But also please don't harass people who do happen to like the remake or at least aspects of it. It's just not for me but if others can find enjoyment out of it good for them.

[evercelle]

I've always been impressed by your ability to analyse media. Your understanding of characters, dynamics, themes have always blew me away, and it's even more impressive how you always find ways to communicate it so elegantly in your artworks. And being able to pick up on these complexities seems to have made engaging with media extra fulfilling for you.

I love seeing this kind of literary depth in fandoms, but I have the media literacy of a brick and have always had to rely on other people's analyses or takes to even begin understanding on that level. I was wondering if you know how you do it, or how anyone can learn to do it really.

btw thank you for always making such lovely art, hope you have a nice and fun year.

close reading is a skill, and like any skill it's something you can develop with effort!! the more you engage and think about a piece of work (and libraries of works) the more you'll get out of it

analysis at its core is inquiry and evaluation... when you're engaging the text ("text" here meaning the work itself whether it's literal text, artwork, movies, games, etc.) try breaking down ur thoughts:

what does the text want to say? -> what does the work want to accomplish? does it instill a narrative, a message, a feeling? teach a lesson? does it ask you a question? does it set up and fulfill or subvert expectations?

how does the text say it? -> what literary/visual techniques did the creator use to convey #1? what were you told versus what were you shown? what was implied vs explicated? does the work favor certain types of techniques or recurring motifs? are they aligned with specific characters or moments or themes?

how did you receive it? -> did the text succeed in conveying #1 via #2 to you? did it hit the mark, and to what degree? if it didn't: why not? if there's disparity between what the text seems to want to say and what you got from it--why and how?

there's so much more to analysis (e.g., for example, applying this framework to a text in context to history, or current events, or the genre; accounting for bias, on the part of the author or the reader; etc. etc.), but as a basic framework this might help to think about the text in large scale (the work as a whole) and then narrow it down (breakdown an arc in the story--a specific character's story--an individual moment in the story--etc).

i also think it's important to sit with a text and formulate ur own initial thoughts on it first before looking for other people's opinions! then you can read others' analysis too to see where it aligns or diverts from yours, what you agree or disagree with, what takeaways might change or enhance your own reading of the text. and then you can get RIGHTEOUSLY indignant when they dont understand ur blorbo the way you do

sorry for textwall HAHA but the more you practice close reading, the easier it gets to identify tropes and literary & artistic devices, and as your mental catalog expands, i think it'll become more fun to identify, compare and contrast what works/stories really resonate for you...! it's wonderful as a creator too, because you can reverse engineer that framework when you're telling your own stories ✨

[thewertsearch]

JASPERSPRITE: Whats a timeline? :3 […] AC: :33 < ok imagine a long tempting strand of yarn […] AC: :33 < now imagine instead of being made of wiggly enticing stuff, its made of what lets you exist AC: :33 < and you are right at the twitching tip of it, dont you s33? […]

I like Nepeta's perspective here, that a timeline is made of 'what lets you exist'. She's saying, I think, that timelines are made out of reality - out of the firmament that distinguishes the multiverse from the Furthest Ring.

Her imagery suggests that she understands at least the basics of her world's deeper mechanics, despite not actually using this knowledge during her time on-panel. I would have liked to learn more about her perspective, but we're almost out of time. From where we're sitting, Nepeta's already dead.

AC: :33 < […] look at the sky! JASPERSPRITE: Meow yes i see the sky and can tell that indeed something is going on. JASPERSPRITE: But aside from that i dont really understand what you said being a cat and all.

Even though he’s a Sprite, the poor guy just doesn’t have the brainpower to use this information he's getting - and that's if Sprites are even told about Scratching.

The world’s being ripped to pieces, and he’s just going to watch the pretty colors until there is no more Jaspersprite. Someone please get this cat a ticket to the Yellow Yard.

AC: :33 < im a bit nervous for you, especially since you remind me so much of someone i already lost AC: :33 < but maybe youll be ok? i dont know

It’s difficult to say. The troll sprites were implied to have died when their session ended, but this session isn’t really ending; it’s being rebooted. Sprites might be doomed in a normal game, but we’re pretty far outside of normal parameters, so there may still be hope.

...right, Sburb? I'm right, aren't I?

...Sburb?

AC: :33 < did you ever have someone nice back on earth who you loved? […] AC: :33 < […] i bet lots of girl cats would have loved to be with you, if only there had b33n some around to hear your lovely meows :33 JASPERSPRITE: Youre really nice to say so nepeta what about you though? […] AC: :33 < […] yes i have liked somebody for quite some time, but alas he doesnt know it

Nepeta’s tale is one of missed opportunities. She never got to wax poetic about her love of shipping, never got to confess her feelings to to Karkat, and - let's be entirely honest with ourselves - never really got to be a character at all.

Now, if you’re an optimist, you could take this as evidence that Nepeta’s story isn’t over – that we’ll be expanding on her character in the Dream Bubbles, perhaps.

I'm... let's say I'm a realist.

I think Nepeta is simply a victim of Homestuck's enormous character roster. Ever since Hivebent started, it's become increasingly obvious that there are some 'important' trolls, and some less important ones. This isn't a bad thing - it's just how fiction works, and it would be borderline impossible to juggle rich, satisfying, 8000-page arcs for sixteen primary characters, no matter how quickly you're putting up panels.

Nepeta simply isn't a protagonist. She's a total sweetheart, but in the end, she didn't make the cut.

JASPERSPRITE: Maybe you can win his affection by rubbing your cheek against him thats what i would do. AC: :33 < ohhh no no no, im too shy even for that! […] AC: :33 < its hard to explain, maybe cats think diffurntly, but trolls tend to be pretty cautious about expressing their f33lings when it comes to the flushed quadrant JASPERSPRITE: Whats a quadrant? […] AC: :33 < a quadrant is a thing in a group of things that consists of four similar things JASPERSPRITE: Like paws? AC: :33 < EXACTLY like paws!!! :DD

But damn, if she isn’t a sweetheart.

[julietcpulet]

Jinshi’s Importance to the Plot

Ironically people who want to say it’s misogyny that makes fans elevate Jinshi in Apothecary Diaries beyond female characters do much the same from a sexist point of view of devaluing his character as a male.

I’ve said this before but while Maomao is the main character, she wouldn’t be able to do much of what she does without Jinshi. A fact she is well aware of and doesn’t begrudge. He introduced her to Gyokuyou which is how she became integral to the rear palace, she used his status on multiple occasions to help her grant access where she wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise and she even tells Lishu to ask him about her problem as she knows she cannot help directly without his assistance. He even helped her get back to the rear palace after she basically got herself fired by bringing her in as a maid and paying off her debt at the Verdigris House. Jinshi is the shadow behind Maomao that helps move her character through the story. People love to comment “they grow / propel each other” which I’m aware of and agree but this is about people’s dislike and devaluing of Jinshi in the narrative specifically. If he weren’t there Maomao’s story would feel incomplete.

As for other women in the series, they too benefit from Jinshi which again shows his permanence to the narrative vs their transience and less integral nature to the story as whole. Shisui for example, while important to the Shi clan plot, was only able to have impact at the final part of her story because of Jinshi’s kindness. He could’ve killed her when he discovered the gun was a fake, as she said overpowering her would’ve easy. Instead he listens to her, watches her whole performance play out and takes on the knowledge of the Shi clan and guilt of the previous Emperor for her. He promises the children will be safe and her sister and is the only one who seems to understand the meaning behind her dramatic death. Without him there would’ve liked been more bloodshed and she wouldn’t have had what little redemption she did manage at the end.

Gyokuyou is also a prominent female character who relies on Jinshi. In the rear palace she trusts him to protect her from the schemes of the other women and to care for her child. Afterwards when she is Empress she has to hope he will not unseat her own son in a succession bid. She’s also the one who puts much stress on him by putting pressure on Maomao to return to her service and expecting him to continually deny having her as a wife because of the discomfort it will cause the Empire. Without his continual denial of his own wishes while still fulfilling his own duties for the Empire, Gyokuyou would’ve been put into many difficult positions a long time ago but he has tried as much as he can to respect and protect even her no matter the political issues between their stations.

There are more female examples than this but my point here is that while Apothecary Diaries certainly does not have one-dimensional female characters, it does not have flat male characters either. So saying that just because Apothecary Diaries simply has more female characters means that Jinshi must be less relevant is underestimating just why he has been the central male figure for all of the light novels, features as Maomao’s love interest and basically holds the place as secondary main character.

His plot may not always take center stage but the difficulties of him being Crown Prince have been an undercurrent since novel 1, from his identity to now what position he’ll take in the future. Expanding arcs that even Maomao is involved in at the periphery play into what will happen with the Empire and the succession which Jinshi has been at the center of since the beginning.

People can dislike it, they can want to ship whatever is not canon but as a character himself, Jinshi is important and irreplaceable to the Apothecary Diaries world. You can like Jinshi and still appreciate the female characters while knowing that many of the female characters simply do not take up the of narrative space he does. It is not misogynistic to say so. However, to deny his place in the story as a male and elevate the women’s just because they are female regardless of the actual contribution of the character is sexist. You can enjoy both without saying that the women have to be better because they’re female. Because they’re not even on the same level in the narrative. Where Shisui appears for 4 novels out of 14 so far and even Gyokuou may appear for a few chapters and be a background figure overall, among other women, Jinshi is only behind Maomao herself in being integral to the driving narrative.

It’s not wrong for people to like and appreciate a character who is literally helping make the plot what it is, that is actually what they’re meant to do. The problem here is people who are unwilling to recognize that just because a character is male does not mean they cannot contribute to a plotline as much as a female character, have as much depth and be featured more than other female characters in the plot without it being any kind of hidden misogyny or meaning other than they enjoy the characters how they’re written.

[atlasofoverthinking]

remember this?

chapte 220

remember how we we were robbed of spinner narrating the mva arc? bc i do and i'm still mad about it

for those who don't remember or haven't watch the anime: in the anime, izuku also narrate the mva even though it's spinner in the manga

i want to give the benefit of the doubt to those who worked on the anime. at first i didn't understand why spinner was the narrator either as he didn't seem like an important character

but now that mha is over, it's seems obvious that this narration was hinting at spinner's book, if not a part of the book itself

this entire arc is basically "yeah we're villains but we're also people and we care about each other, here's our story". so it doesn't make sense that izuku narrates it, but it does for spinner. his league was his reason to be, he let himself get mutilated/tortured/whatever you wanna call what afo did to him in the final arc for the league, and especially for shigaraki

so yeah, i wish we could have gotten narrator spinner

[markantonys]

3x08 thoughts! full book spoilers

my reaction when the credits started rolling was "oh.........that's it?" which is not the best feeling for a season finale to leave you on! it was a good episode with some great moments, but as i'd feared, they left themselves with WAY too much to wrap up, with the result that it all felt rushed and cramped and not particularly satisfying. in the first 2 seasons, i said that the 8-episode model was just the right amount of time to tell the story, and i stand by that. with this season, it wasn't enough, and it's not just the fault of the model but just as much the fault of the writers who should have been more realistic about the limits of 8 episodes and not tried to cram in so much. obviously the main 4 plots of the waste, the two rivers, tanchico, and the tower all had to make it in, but within that i think there was some bloat and dragged-out stuff that could've been trimmed back. (especially considering that they planned for an entire episode dedicated to rhuidean and an entire episode dedicated to the two rivers battle: good choices that let those events shine, but it means that the tanchico-based characters, for example, only even APPEAR in 6 out of 8 episodes and in most of those 6 they're relegated to the B or C or D plot, so no wonder their plotline felt so underbaked; if they were going to devote 2 episodes to single events, they needed to be more merciless about trimming out bloat in the other 6 episodes.)

now for the episode itself. i'll start with the white tower. personally i don't mind siuan's death, but i understand why people are upset. now i can retroactively say that @butterflydm was 100% right on the money in speculating that the reason they jumped the gun on cramming elayne & avi together so fast was not for any story reason, but rather for the out-of-world reason of wanting to establish that there will still be a big canon wlw ship even after one half of moiraine/siuan exited the stage.

as for how this might affect the story going forward, i originally had a whole theory here of "what if salidar is cut and there's no schism & rebel breakoff faction, just bubbling discontentment with elaida's rule, and egwene just gets kidnapped straight into the tower and becomes amyrlin from there?" but then i saw that rafe confirmed there is a cut scene of leane, verin, and ryma heading off with a group of other aes sedai to found salidar, so scratch that whole theory haha we are indeed still getting salidar and the rebels. but he said that the scene had them planning to gather "on the shores of the river where siuan was born", which means the rebel base will likely be moved to tear in the show.

if this cut scene was planned for s3, that seems to imply there is not going to be a tower battle and it was simply some sisters voluntarily leaving. we'll see how it plays out in s4, but min's viewing about a battle in the tower could very well be the future seanchan attack rather than the coup battle. i wouldn't mind that since a coup battle could feel repetitive with the 3x01 tower battle, but it does make me curious how gawyn's arc might play out since the coup battle was a pivotal moment for him in the books (though the show hasn't set up for that at all, so we're probably looking at a pretty new arc for him regardless, at least in the short-term).

off to tanchico. nynaeve's block breaking scene was wonderful, but outside of that, it feels like this poor crew was just off on a sidequest all season and didn't accomplish much. mat's doorway trip was fun but felt like a random sidenote in a packed episode, and now that the season is over i can firmly say that mat did not get a satisfying season-long arc and it felt like he was just There most of the time. his memories were his driving trigger for the season but they weren't brought up basically at all between 3x03 and him asking to get rid of them in the doorway, which makes them feel more like a plot device than something that was actively impacting him season-long. there was big setup for the mat-nynaeve dynamic in the early episodes, but it fizzled out in the back half and nothing meaningful came of it and nynaeve didn't get to do anything to help mat like she'd promised. it absolutely feels like mat just got plot-deviced out of the waste storyline because they wanted rand to feel isolated, rather than because leaving that storyline actually contributed anything to MAT'S story. they say they like to vary up the relationship dynamics season to season, but once again it's a whole season of mat-min with each of them only getting brief interactions with elayne and nynaeve. i need mat and min to get separated next season oh my god i loved their vibe in s2 but i am tired of it now! please don't do a third season of it! let them hang out with other people for once! YES i am VERY bitter over min being the one to take over the cauthor cpr lmao (and of course the second mat's cpr-giver is switched to a woman you have several people going "wait are they setting up a romance here?" when none of them said so when rand was the one doing it in the book version! though thankfully the show itself continues to remain firm in the platonic nature of mat & min even if heteronormative viewers are constantly desperate to read romance there. oh how i mourn a vision of cauthor cpr with show!mat being like "wow rand if you wanted to kiss me you could've just asked" because you know show!mat would 100% say that to rand as well haha)

we'll see what they do with liandrin, but i wish she'd been killed off this season. she was a great early-series villain, but has now overstayed her welcome for me and i wish she'd gotten cleared off the stage. i don't mind ending this plotline on a loss with the collar & bracelets winding up in the bad guys' hands (i'd been expecting it), but if we'd at least vanquished liandrin and left moggy as the new big bad, that would have helped this plotline feel like it got more resolution and like it accomplished something. nynaeve breaking her block, while a wonderful scene, wasn't enough to carry the full narrative climax of this entire season-long plotline (especially since there wasn't REALLY that much setup for her breaking her block, just the one line from the seafolk about how her problem is not being able to let go and go with the flow, though i do like that they used that metaphor to set up for her water-based block breaking scene). then again, there literally wasn't TIME for liandrin to get vanquished because they had too much to do this episode.

as i'd speculated a while back, elayne casually mentioned gaebril to thom and he was like "um who the fuck?" and so now elayne knows that a forsaken is holding power in caemlyn. nice! this was a great way to justify thom's return to the story: he contributes something important that only he could contribute, because his history with the trakand family helps point our gang towards the whereabouts of a forsaken.

caemlyn is now teed up to be a big focus in s4, so i would expect that resolution to come next season, unless something happens to significantly delay elayne, but as of now, she's primed to have helping her mom & country as Priority #1. she also has a balefire rod in her possession, which could lead to her being the one to balefire rahvin instead of rand. i definitely want elayne to take part in defeating rahvin, but i hope rand can still be involved in some capacity! and as much as i like the idea of elayne doing the balefiring, i would be soooooo sad if yet another iconic cauthor (& avirand) moment (rand being so distraught over their deaths that he reverses time to save them) was taken from me haha i will have to hope that elayne, rand, avi, and mat can all be involved and i can get some kind of avimatrandlayne rights out of it, however the specifics might turn out.

over to the waste. rand picking the squashes to meet his toh to alsera!!!! but i think i groaned out loud when it was egwene who came to see him in that moment instead of aviendha lmao i am SO disappointed that we didn't get any avirand interaction this episode! they were completely shafted in favor of randgwene & randfear during their own Main Storyline and i don't think i'll ever get over it, though i hope s4 can bring them some good stuff to semi make up for it (like, i wasn't expecting any out-and-out romance between them for s3 once it became clear that randgwene was lingering, but at least stronger relationship development and a deeper emotional connection by the end of the season than what we got). i'd hoped we would get a nice moment this episode to tie off their arc of rand proving himself to avi*, but instead all we get is avi telling egwene about what a terrible partner rand would make for anyone. okay. cool. We Who Know can interpret this as avi trying to dissuade herself from rand as much as trying to dissuade egwene, but to the show-only audience, it accomplishes nothing but throwing them even further off the scent of avirand (which they were never on to begin with because nothing in this season sets up for it unless you already know it's coming) and therefore making it so that they'll be even more bewildered when avirand starts becoming a thing.

(*we DID see avi willingly kneeling to him as car'a'carn, so we can conclude that she accepts him now, but i would've liked a more personal acceptance moment between them one-on-one too. maybe next season. also, her wonder when he made it rain was very sweet <3)

this season has really been hammering on how rand probably isn't in a place where he should date anyone thanks to his destiny etc, so idk how they're going to swerve into him joining a polycule (and a polycule with his messy-breakup-ex's BFF + a woman who knows all about the messy breakup and disparaged rand to egwene about it). so far, they're making it a lot harder for themselves than it needed to be, and my impression that avirandlayne development/seed-planting is getting sacrificed in favor of beating the randgwene dead horse and that it feels like the show cares a lot more about randgwene than about avirandlayne still remains strong after having seen the whole season.

but now time to link this wonderful josha interview! it contains full season spoilers and full book spoilers, because he is a spoiler-loving king who never makes any attempt to censor himself. one of the things he says here in response to whether rand has closed himself off from love after randfear and randgwene is along the lines of "i think he doesn't trust himself to love again, but i know he will do so anyway because it's just who he is" and then he talks about how in the books it's rand's capacity for love that ultimately helps him win. josha's answer is talking about love in general and not necessarily romantic love, but regardless, very very sweet answer that shows his deep understanding of the character and gives me hope for getting well-done avirandlayne in the future! my other two favorite parts of the interview were 1) the reveal that all the "what does the prophecy say?" dialogue in the alsera scene was not scripted and josha came up with it himself and 2) he says Definitely Mat as the ta'veren boy who's the best at talking to girls jdkfjgh extremely randcore to always think mat is The Best Ever and go "well of course mat is the best at talking to girls!" when mat has spent the entire show trying and failing to get laid. i'm going to take my crumb of a cauthor right wherever i can find it since i barely got any in the season!

okay, back to the episode. i loved all of rand's stuff! his confrontation with lanfear where he finally gets to push back on her narrative was A+, i loved his conversation with moiraine, and of course his alcair dal moments were wonderful and he looked very sexy in that sleeveless shirt with the tattoos out. his rain channeling was so beautiful!! again, i do feel like we might be hammering on the "soul of fire, heart of stone" stuff and whatnot a little too much too soon considering that rand still has to be in a good enough headspace to form two whole new romantic relationships, but we DO see a contrast with him very calm and in control of himself, despite egwene's worry, compared to the more unhinged moments he'd had earlier in the season, so hopefully going into s4 he'll be in a place where he's more emotionally stable yet also not so Cold And Hard yet that he's not open to new love. (though ending randgwene on such an ominous and mistrustful note is going to make it a haaaaard sell to the audience that elayne & avi can wind up dating rand and that won't be doing egwene wrong or anything. but if there's a timeskip, maybe we can pick up with rand & egwene getting along better and being friendly, even if there's still a distance between them. still, i wish they'd gotten to clear the air a LITTLE bit during the squash scene while they had a chance to talk one-on-one.)

egwene didn't really have anything in the finale. not mad about it since she had such a big time to shine in s2 and was naturally going to take a backseat in s3, but it does feel like her s3 story was exclusively rand-centric and like she could have gotten more For Herself if they'd just broken up in 3x01.

not much for avi either, very sad about that since i'd hoped the show would give me more on her TSR character arc than the books did, not less. but they are unfortunately hampered by TV's stricter (compared to books) Cast Tiers, i think; story-wise, i'd say avi should be the third most important character in the TSR waste story after rand and moiraine, or even arguably above moiraine for #2, but in the show, rand, moiraine, lan, and egwene are all a Character Tier above avi and so they have to have a bigger role than her even if the story of returning to her homeland and people naturally calls for her more than it calls for some of them.

lan got his conclusion with melindhra as expected, not much to say on that. i like that they made it so that melindhra genuinely IS loyal to him and malkier and feels bad enough about it to betray her dark oaths, rather than keeping it as a full betrayal.

and finally, the moiraine vs. lanfear fight, which got hyped up big time but then ended in a draw, so i did feel pretty edged! like liandrin, this is a place where i raise my eyebrow over characters seeming to overstay their narrative welcome. are they setting up for the doorway confrontation to happen next season, or are they planning to alter the story and keep moiraine and/or lanfear around longer than they were in the books? i don't care for either option as much as i would have for them simply doorway-ing each other or otherwise finishing each other off in this episode. because if it's option #1, then we spent a whole season building up a conflict that we're just going to have to repeat the buildup for again next season (though if lanfear is now fully at odds with our gang rather than precarious allies with both moiraine & lanfear, that might help it feel different enough). if it's option #2, moiraine is going to continue eating up screentime and narrative importance that needs to be going to rand and the other kids at this stage in the story. she was a great character to center the early story around, but i'm sorry, she has to go in order to create space for the kids to leave the nest and come into their own. although, i wouldn't be mad if she stayed on as rand's permanent advisor and cadsuane was cut (but that doesn't feel likely given all the cadsuane namedropping; but maybe cadsuane could appear but in a different role/storyline) since cadsuane basically does nothing but be a walmart knockoff moiraine, so i suppose we could just keep moiraine - but only if they let her step fully back into the role of a secondary character, which is unlikely since rosamund is the biggest name in the cast and they'd probably want to give her a primary role as long as she's in the show. so i don't know, i feel like we do need to fully exit moiraine at some point, but we shall see.

oh also, sammael died! i completely forgot lmao rip my dude! it feels kinda wasteful to introduce a whole forsaken only to kill him immediately when there's only 8 of them to go around in the first place (now down to 6), but moggy offing him IS a great way of showing just how divided the forsaken are, so if sammael's death can help bulk up the surviving forsaken into even bigger threats, then no harm no foul.

ann ogbomo never appeared, so either she had a scene that ended up getting cut, or wotseries was wrong on her being part of the show (which would be mildly surprising since i don't think they've ever wrongly said that an actor was part of the show before, but when it comes to leaks there's always risk of course). so much for the theory of a semirhage finale stinger scene! we'll have to keep waiting to see when she and the seanchan might enter the stage.

i do have solid hopes for a cauthor reunion in s4! i'd thought they could begin a seanchan invasion of tanchico and leave it open-ended if mat escapes or not and then make that decision in 4x01 according to whether they need to follow the long or short model for the show, but now mat is firmly on a ship with the others headed off to their next destination. there could always be time for the ship to get intercepted or mat otherwise separated from the group, but for now it feels safe to assume that mat is sticking with them, and i find it the most likely that they will meet up with rand's group in tear (to warn rand about the collar and/or to hunt moggy & liandrin who are hunting rand). caemlyn is also a Desired Destination for them of course, but i'd think elayne would want to lie low, gather information, and come up with a plan first, and tear would be a good place to do that since she has a trusted family friend there (per 3x01).

in addition, if the location of the rebel base is moved over to tear, then that puts another Character Group in that area and is all the more reason (out-of-world) for nynaeve & co to definitely be headed there (since whether they follow their book plot of linking up with the rebels or a show-only plot of linking up with rand & co, it's in the same general area and so they could probably hang out with both groups if desired).

this seems to leave us with 3 major locations for s4: tear (rand & co, nynaeve & co, rebels); caemlyn (morgase & rahvin, elayne eventually, maybe perrin & co for his trial plotline?); the white tower (elaida & co)

hopefully, if we get more condensation of Story Groups, then s4 won't feel stretched as thin as s3 did. 3 main groups would be more manageable than 4, even if it's still a lot of characters within each group.

random mat notes since he's apparently the character whose s4 story i'm most concerned with haha (and s4 should be his time to get his Focal Episode anyway!):

rafe confirmed on instagram that they have plans for the band of the red hand. couladin escaped alive (rather than being killed by rand at alcair dal as a couple people had speculated). hopefully, this will lead to mat rejoining rand's plotline, taking part in the battle against the shaido, and forming the band. this would be a wonderful choice of event to center a Focal Mat Episode around, if you ask me!

mat got his medallion for sure, and i missed it but eagle-eyed viewers pointed out that he got the ashandarei too and that's what he's hanging off of. however, he has not gotten his prophecies - will there be a second doorway trip in store for him, or will his prophecies simply not be in the show? i wouldn't mind either way. they did show a good number of doorways in the finn realm that i'm guessing each correspond to one in the real world, so they've given themselves freedom to stick another IRL doorway anywhere they want in addition to the tanchico & white tower ones we've already seen.

then there's the question of mat's memories. he starts with too many memories and ends up with not enough, which is the opposite of his book progression, so i'm puzzled for now, but will wait and see what they're planning to do with this. but i'd been so glad the show had avoided mat losing some of his own memories because that makes me too sad, so i'm heartbroken that that's now the case after all and even more heartbroken because i'm guessing the show might make him forget important things that will make me sad! vs. the books just telling us that mat has holes in his memory but he never actually seems to be missing anything important. at least he clearly remembers min and their relationship even if he forgets how he got where he is, so hopefully that means his memories of his friends and loved ones will be more or less intact and it'll just be little snippets missing here and there. if he forgets his sisters i swear-

update: i just saw a good theory that the finn interpreted mat's problem as having too many memories for one person and "fixed" him by taking away enough memories to leave him with a normal amount of memories, but said normal amount is just a mix between horn & his own memories, and the amount they took away was likewise an indiscriminate mix. i buy that! if so, that means we don't need to do any more Mat Memory Fuckery, just adjust to the fact that he's lost some memories from his own life in addition to some of the unwanted horn memories.

okay, that's all the initial thoughts off the top of my head. this episode was fine, but in my eyes, 2x08 was unquestionably a better season finale and a better hour of television and i'm baffled by all the readers who hated on 2x08 so hard and are now saying 3x08 is the best finale episode by far. what standards are you using to judge that? definitely not the same ones i'm using! heck, i'd even heretically say that 1x08 is in some ways a better season finale than 3x08 since every main character (well, bar mat and lan for real-world production issue reasons) got a moment to shine and a meaningful conclusion to their season-long character arc, everything had enough time to breathe, and no character or storyline felt like an afterthought. but, of course, it's just inherently easier to construct a Season Finale when all the characters are in one location participating in different aspects of one big event together, and maybe that's the very thing i'm subconsciously picking up on when i say that 3x08 didn't feel as cohesive or as well-paced as other finales.

the good news is that TSR is one if not THE densest book in the series, so hopefully future seasons will have an easier time managing to fit everything they want to include inside the 8-episode structure.

[eddiegettingshot]

this will sound weird-ish but I'd love to hear more about your current Eddie arc/911 thoughts (I actually check your blog daily for those) bc I feel like you're one of maybe like 20 people on here who actually get the characters and don't make them something they're not :)

i appreciate you!! i can’t tell if you mean like, my analysis of what’s happening in eddie’s head or my thoughts on the show LMAO. but ummmm it’s very jumbled rn.

as far as eddie’s arc goes…… well like i said i was really tolerant and willing to trust that, with a full season, they were going to do something good and important with it. and um. well at this point i think the ship has sailed on making eddie in texas worth it. basically i think that eddie this season has basically suffered the way buck did in s6: absolutely foregrounded, but with very little payoff, and paired with the fact that none of the other characters are really getting compelling emotional storylines that aren’t entirely self-contained or aren’t, to put it bluntly, particularly well-executed, there’s a lot of imbalance happening where nobody is satisfied. there are definitely parts of this arc that i have liked: i think it maybe gives more insight on eddie as a character in a tough situation, and of course the buddie stuff is good. but my issue with this is that it literally isn’t doing anything for him. you can see why his season 5 arc was important and it resulted in massive character growth. thus far, this has just been reiterating things we literally already knew about him and that eddie knew about HIMSELF. pre-canon! he already knew he needed to step up and be chris’s father, he already knew his parents wanted to raise chris, he already left texas for LA to avoid that, he already knew he was a good father, he already knew he would sacrifice everything for chris… and he went through this all over again for. what? because he didn’t tackle his feelings about shannon, we didn’t get much visible growth or change in his relationship with chris, we didn’t see him actually reckon with his issues with his parents, and it’s possible (POSSIBLE, maybe it’ll be different!) he won’t like, make the choice to return to LA because he wants to—this plot could have dealt with any of those things and probably should have. i think it’s suffering in part for the same reason the og vertigo plot suffered in that they seem to have been unable to actually commit to anything. the kim storyline felt excessively nonsensical because they were too concerned with preserving eddie’s integrity, because they had to make it about this weird role play scene, because it was all about a series of Non-Communications rather than anything legible. similarly they didn’t want to commit to chris being mad at eddie, they didn’t want to commit to the dead momwife aspect, they didn’t want to commit to the doppelganger aspect, they didn’t want to commit to disconnecting eddie from LA entirely, they didn’t even want to commit to having eddie take steps to build a permanent life in el paso beyond the house that he didn’t even need to buy (he doesn’t even have a job he needs to quit!). so because of that he’s just floating and the entire thing seems sort of pointless…while nobody else gets anything either.

of course they can “do stuff” with it that’s entertaining and enjoyable—this has been the case for a lot of it! i’m sure eddie’s return will be emotional and fun to watch—but as a wholesale storyline it’s full of hot air and it’s literally just tiring to watch because you don’t really understand why it’s happening at this point. and this is how it felt watching most of season 7 too: individual episodes were fun, well-acted or had good and interesting moments, but because of the approach to production and the constant, obvious hacking at the story, the season as a whole was inconsistent and choppy. 706 for example is an INCREDIBLE episode in isolation…but madney were shafted in the season as a whole when we can see there should have been more focus on their wedding and their story, etc. similarly 708 is like, a good episode in terms of watching if you like bobby, but nobody really knows why any of that had to happen in that way. i feel the same way about 813. season 8 is just a better watch overall so i really like it and i have enjoyed watching it! but admittedly i LOVED a significant part of 8a and feel like it’s been going downhill…of course in a way that coincides with a lot of the wacky bts stuff we’re seeing. i honestly feel like the unlimited budget is getting to tim’s head a little bit and i think probably there needs to be more focus on grounding these stories in. like. firefighting? the procedural framework? rather than flinging big disasters and melodrama at us at every turn. i’m not saying there should be NONE of that but the show has definitely balanced those things well in the past.

[slater-baby]

Texas Red Update!!

Okay guys let's FINALLY address the elephant in the room. First of all, I wanna get your most burning question out of the way: I HAVE BEEN WRITING IT THIS WHOLE TIME LMAO Like I said, I don't abandon works. I might let them sit for a while, but I have never thought of abandoning Texas Red, nor will I ever. That being said, however, I have some relatively important reasons for not having released the next chapter yet. Here they are so that you guys understand!!!

Okay so, in terms of story creation, we've gotten through the first arc. We're entering the second (which will have some important changes to the first). However, for those of you that aren't aware, I've written Texas red entirely without any planning. Everything you've read thus far? Made it up as I went along lmao. Usually, it can work out pretty well. However, we've reached a part of the story where there actually needs to be concrete plans and resolutions, and I hit a goddamn wall on that front.

I changed the ending of the book (and, yes, it's literally novel length already--my estimates place the final word count somewhere between 250-350K words in total). My original thoughts about what the ending were had to change given what was already written, so.....basically had to refigure how I'm gonna get us from point A to point B in the story. NOTHING ABOUT WHATS ALREADY WRITTEN HAS CHANGED!! It's only future events that I've had to reconsider.

Idk if any of you have picked up on the messaging I'm trying to convey through the characters just yet, but in the second act, the theme of the story is a BIG, BIG thing!! Like, it's both fun, exciting, adventurous, and complicated. On one hand, it's going to be a lot of action, but on the other, it requires creating caricatures I've never considered before--mostly in reference to moral concepts.

My real life is HELLA complicated. Writing isn't what I do for a living, and sometimes, finding the time to be online is pretty difficult. Basically, I'm busy as fuck, this year is crazy for me, and I've been dealing with helllaaaaaa writer's block.

So there you have it folks!! There is good news though. Why, you might ask yourself, did I wait so long to make this post? Why didn't I make this post like a month ago? Well, I have an answer for you.

Chapter 20 will be released VERY soon!

I've rewritten it several times over, still don't exactly like where it is right now, but this chapter has been a huge work in progress. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to things like this, and I'm not going to release a story/chapter to all of you people if I don't believe in it. Your passion and support guys are my biggest motivation for writing, and to do that enthusiasm justice, I won't lie to you if I think my own story craft isn't up to par.

So, in short, I'm sorry for making y'all wait this long, but!!!

We are back!!

[chaehwa-archives]

friendly rivalry deep dive part 18

Episode 8 is the climax of the first half of Friendly Rivalry, and it feels different from every episode that’s come before. The main characters have been established, and for the first time they’re all gathered in the same place. All the pieces are on the game board.

Our main girls, Jae-yi and Seul-gi, have gone through a whole arc together. After enduring betrayal and heartbreak, they’ve reached a tentative reconciliation. For a few magical hours, Seul-gi sets aside her doubts and reservations, and enjoys the romantic night of her dreams.

At least until she loses her dad’s phone and gets stabbed by a drug addict. Life at Chaehwa sure is a rollercoaster.

I’ve been struggling with how to approach this one. Episode 8 is one of the most iconic in the whole series, and it’s truly a masterpiece of efficiency. How can one episode have more fluff than all the previous episodes combined, and also have the most labyrinthine plot so far? How do they pack so much into thirty minutes? Did the writers sell their souls to Gay Satan?

Well, first, let’s talk about that. I briefly mentioned the queerbaiting debate in my discussion of the Episode 4 dream kiss, and now that we’ve arrived at one of the gayest episodes, I fear it’s time to put on the hazmat suit and wade into the discourse once again.

I’m sympathetic to viewers who go into Friendly Rivalry expecting a GL romance and end up feeling betrayed. It’s true that FR doesn't check every single box if that’s what you’re looking for. There’s no direct verbal confession, no kiss outside of Seul-gi's dream. If you need someone to say “I love you” to consider a relationship canon, you’re going to be disappointed.

But...media literacy y’all. It matters. Friendly Rivalry is a story about hidden motives and buried desires. The characters are emotionally damaged and repressed teenagers. And from the beginning, FR has used symbolism and subtext to express emotional states. This show is begging you to look past the surface and engage on a deeper level.

And yet...when it comes to Jae-yi and Seul-gi’s feelings for each other, Friendly Rivalry does not ask you to work so hard. It’s pretty damn direct! *Crucial plot information* is often conveyed with ten times more subtlety. The only way this episode could be any more romantically coded is, again, if there were a kiss or confession, but that wouldn’t make sense for Jae-yi or Seul-gi at this point.

It’s worth asking: If FR revolved around a het pairing, would there really be any doubt that these characters are in love?

I can still see how someone might view this as bait, though, if the story were about something else. If after this episode Jae-yi and Seul-gi’s relationship were sidelined and never mattered again, I would be upset. And that does threaten to happen for a while, so I can understand some frustration if you’re only here for the gay shit.

But the ending clarifies what FR is about—and the ending also isn’t very subtle about it imo. Friendly Rivalry is about Jae-yi and Seul-gi and their love for each other. Without that, there’s no story.

And that’s ignoring cultural context, because I’m not an expert on the K-drama industry, so I don’t know what restrictions the creators were working within. Personally, whether it’s due to cultural pressures or artistic choice, I kind of like that Jae-yi and Seul-gi don’t just say “I love you.” That would be waaay too basic for these freaks.

Final word on the subject: I know why people want “confirmation” and why they can get turned off by ambiguity in queer stories. They want to know that the creators are actually on their side and not just toying with them for money. But Friendly Rivalry does not scream “cynical cash grab” to me. The director spent years working on the script, it was filmed on a small budget without sponsorships, and at first it only aired on a minor streaming platform. I mean Hye-ri bought her own costumes with her own damn money! No one involved in this project thought it might end up on Netflix one day. Queerbaiting makes art worse because it’s lazy and safe. “Safe” isn’t a word I would ever use to describe Friendly Rivalry.

We don’t expect every straight romance to be a romcom. I don’t want to live in a world where every queer story has to conform to the same standard to be considered “real.” True love is weird. It’s personal. It can be complex and even ambiguous. It’s not always “I love you.” Sometimes it’s “I’ve been imagining your death a lot lately.”

Sorry for the rant. Let’s pick up where we left off.

After her rendezvous with Jae-yi on the rooftop, Seul-gi is sedated for an endoscopy and has a dream. This is the first dream sequence since the kiss in Episode 4. That dream established how Seul-gi was feeling about Jae-yi about the time: ...horny. She was just beginning to process her attraction, fantasizing about Jae-yi coming onto her in a context that was both safe and thrilling.

The tone of this dream is different. On the beach where she was abandoned, Seul-gi’s father is searching for her, passing out flyers. Seul-gi calls to him again and again, but he doesn’t hear her. No one does. The tide rises, and water soaks her feet. Even so, she’s unable to move.

Then Jae-yi appears and offers her hand. Together they walk away from the beach, through the woods, as the princess dress is carried off by the waves.

Not only is this Seul-gi’s first dream since Episode 4, that was also the last time we saw her as a child. In that episode, Seul-gi told the story of her abandonment, and Jae-yi pretended to sympathize. But her false sympathy couldn’t bring true healing.

Conversely, in Episode 2, we saw how Jae-yi’s outstretched hand was able to transcend time, space, and her own scheming. Without realizing it, her gesture extended all the way to that girl abandoned by her bullies on the roof and offered hope: You aren’t alone up here. I see you.

The second time Jae-yi offers her hand on a roof, in Episode 7, it has even greater weight. This time, her sympathy is real, and she doesn’t just feel bad, she does something about it. She gets down off the wall, lifts Seul-gi up, and confesses her feelings and intentions.

When she reaches out the second time, Jae-yi removes her armor first. This gesture says more than I can see you. It says I’m willing to sacrifice for you. I’m willing *to be seen.* And this gesture reaches all the way to the root of Seul-gi’s trauma, to the girl still crying for her father on the beach.

Letting go of trauma is never easy. It becomes a part of you. The princess dress has defined Seul-gi’s life since her abandonment. She’s always been the outcast, the unloved girl people ignore or despise. Without that wound, who is she? If she leaves the beach, where will she go?

The shirt Seul-gi wears in her dream is simple and white. She’s a blank slate. She glances back wistfully at the part of herself she’s leaving behind. But with Jae-yi there, holding her hand, the woods aren’t so scary. Wherever Jae-yi is going, she wants to go, too.

If the first dream was there to confirm Seul-gi’s physical attraction, this dream confirms that Seul-gi is horny for true love. Even in her most private and sensitive memories, Jae-yi is there—and Seul-gi would rather leave everything she knows behind than be separated from her.

Compared to the first half, the second half of Friendly Rivalry is a lot more plot-driven, and that trend starts with Episode 8. This episode has *so* much going on in it. I don’t want these posts to turn into long tedious summaries, so I might have to get more creative in how I approach writing them.

But here’s the speedrun: Jae-yi wakes up after the endoscopy and spies Ye-ri sneaking away to the lockers with Seul-gi’s locker key. Later that night, while everyone is gathered at the school for the big post-midterms festival, Jae-yi figures out with A-ra’s assistance that Ye-ri, working for Tae-joon, has stolen Woo Do-hyeok’s phone. Jae-yi locates the phone while it’s charging and unlocks it using the date of Seul-gi’s disappearance as the passcode. She finds threatening texts from her father, and a very upsetting video of her sister, Je-na, in a sexual situation with Seul-gi’s dad.

Then she bumps into Je-na herself in the flesh.

Meanwhile Beom-su is having the worst night ever. Being knocked out of the top twenty has done a number on her mental health, and she gets more disoriented after chugging a drug cocktail that A-ra sells her off the books. Ye-ri entices Beom-su into helping her find a charger for Do-hyeok’s phone, promising her a turn in the blind date booth in exchange, but when Beom-su actually does what she asks, Ye-ri (who has lost the phone she wanted to charge thanks to Jae-yi) lashes out in frustration. Beom-su’s resentment builds as her grip on reality weakens. Finally she takes out her rage on Seul-gi by stabbing her in the arm with a kitchen knife.

Gyeong is also here! First she’s trying to study like a big nerd, then she has a run-in with Tae-joon, who’s at the festival to work a food stall, then she goes on an awkward blind date with a drug dealer. The dealer, Byeong-jin, is here to uhhhh sell fentanyl to high schoolers? And harass Seul-gi I guess. (Bro get a life. You look 27 years old.) Gyeong tracks down Seul-gi to talk to her about Tae-joon, and maybe why an adult man passing out transdermal patches to teenagers is looking for her, but they both get sidetracked when Seul-gi realizes her dad’s phone is missing. Gyeong suspects that Jae-yi stole it.

Let’s pause to pay tribute once again to Oh Woo-ri’s phenomenal acting. Her awkward gestures, her facial expressions, the stiff way she walks...she truly embodies Gyeong down to the finest detail.

And of course Je-na is here, too, posing as a visiting student from Hoegyeong High School. This is the first time we’ve seen her outside of flashbacks and photographs. I’m not 100% sure I know what she’s doing at the school tbh—does she think the phone is here? It seems pretty clear now that she’s the one calling it. Or is there something else she might be after in the C-Med room?

I’m skipping lots of details, but those are the broad strokes.

Mostly I want to focus on Jae-yi and Seul-gi in this post, because they are my Roman Empire, but I also want to talk a little about Ye-ri. She’s always been a morally gray figure (okay, to be fair, everyone in this show except Tae-joon aka the devil incarnate is morally gray) but she has a sweet side—she would never be mean to Gyeong, not even for a bazillion won. In Episode 8 though we see her at her worst, being downright vicious to a girl who clearly needs help.

At first I thought it was a little out of character for her to be this cruel to Beom-su. Then I thought about the circumstances. It’s the school festival—everyone is here. Even if Ye-ri weren’t stressed about trying to extort a powerful and dangerous man for money, she would be on edge. Ye-ri depends on her image for security. In social situations, she’s in survival mode. If she were alone with Beom-su, in a different setting, her good heart might prevail, but here, where she could be seen by anyone? Maintaining her image is top priority. And Beom-su is poison to that image. To be caught hanging out with—or worse, being nice to—the paranoid druggie kid is social suicide.

Notice the way Ye-ri transforms around Gyeong. Gyeong is also an awkward loser—but because she has high social status in the class, Ye-ri doesn’t care at all! I mean, she’s also truly madly deeply in love with Gyeong, so she probably just thinks Gyeong’s dorkiness is cute. By the way, note the colors of the big heart behind Ye-ri on the blind dating booth...green, Gyeong’s color...and pink?? Shippers you have been vindicated.

Okay...it is time. My babies...oh my sweet babies.

On my old blog (rip) I started developing a Grand Unified Theory of Fluff—why sometimes I love it, and other times...I do not (*cough* theloyalpin *cough*). Episode 8 is my platonic ideal. It’s not just a textbook example—it is the Sistine Chapel, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Holy Grail of fluff. It is giving us exactly what we want, and it’s almost unbearably cute, but it is always serving the characters and story. Jae-yi and Seul-gi share about six minutes of screentime in this episode altogether, but those six minutes have more impact than the literal hours Pam and Dokrak spend feeding each other in Us. (Okay it’s probably not hours but…)

First of all, it’s just so cathartic. We’ve wanted this for Jae-yi and Seul-gi since the first episode, and you can tell they’ve wanted it for nearly as long. Finally they can relax around each other. Finally they can enjoy each other’s company. Finally they can act like the kids they were never allowed to be growing up.

If these scenes were just about the euphoria of having fun with your crush while recapturing your lost innocence together, that would be enough. I would eat that shit right up. But this wouldn’t be Friendly Rivalry without at least a dozen more layers of emotional complexity on top.

There’s a subtle tension in Jae-yi and Seul-gi’s interactions from the beginning. Look at Jae-yi’s face when she first finds Seul-gi at the festival. She’s not smiling. Her expression is somewhere between concern and determination. She’s worried but driven.

Jae-yi isn’t relaxed at all—she’s on high alert. She knows that Ye-ri is up to something, and that whatever she’s up to has something to do with Seul-gi. The concern in her eyes is for Seul-gi’s safety. But she’s determined to prove (to Seul-gi and to herself) that she wasn’t just messing with Seul-gi’s heart again when she promised to protect her. She wants her girl to have fun tonight. And she’s made it her mission to give this night to Seul-gi as a gift—even if it means keeping her ignorant.

For Seul-gi’s sake, Jae-yi plays another role. She pretends to be silly and carefree so that Seul-gi can be.

But somewhere along the way, the line between performance and reality starts to blur. Jae-yi gets swept up in her own act. She starts to have fun in spite of herself.

In the past we’ve seen how Jae-yi fools herself into thinking she’s in complete control, while in fact it’s Seul-gi pulling her along, making her do things she’d never do otherwise. Most recently we saw this pattern in the Episode 7 rooftop scene. Jae-yi thinks she’s “won” with her sneaky pee scheme—but it’s Seul-gi tugging on her heartstrings, and her love for Seul-gi, that pull her back from the brink of despair.

Now Jae-yi has cast herself in the role of Seul-gi’s protector. She thinks she’s taking control of the situation to ensure that Seul-gi has the time of her life. But little does she know it’s Seul-gi who’s making her forget all her fears, and allowing her, for maybe for the first time in her life, to feel free.

It is so sweet y’all. I’m sobbing rn.

These dynamics are maybe easiest to see in the scene at the food stand, when Tae-joon interrupts their date to mansplain about the health risks of I DONT FUCKING CARE YOU ASSHOLE GO AWAY, LET THEM ENJOY THEIR DATE GODDAMN IT, IF YOU TOUCH A HAIR ON SEUL-GI’S HEAD MOTHERFUCKER I SWEAR TO GOD—

Um. Sorry!

The moment Seul-gi mentions that she wants to eat, Jae-yi glances over at the stand where her father is working. She’s clearly worried and doesn’t want to go. But her woman is hungry. She has no choice. (Notice it’s Seul-gi taking the lead, and Jae-yi following.) Then, when Jae-yi is introducing Seul-gi to Gyeong’s mother, something really interesting happens. Jae-yi takes Seul-gi suddenly by the arm, grinning from ear to ear.

She knows Tae-joon is right there. She knows he’s watching her. He’s always watching her.

Is she deliberately provoking him? Is she telling him stay away, she’s mine? These are things Jae-yi has done before—neither would be out of character for her. But when she steals a glance back at her dad, her expression is strangely distant and reflective.

...I think she just forgot.

For a moment, she was too happy to worry about what her dad would think. She stopped calculating her every movement, and just...did what she wanted to do! Which was touch Seul-gi of couse. (When is that ever not what Jae-yi wants to do.)

It’s interesting that Jae-yi learned fear from her father, a man who is seemingly incapable of fear. Any assault on his power he responds to with a cocky little smirk (an expression we’ve seen Jae-yi wear many times now), as if no threat is worth taking seriously.

But this is a facade just like Jae-yi’s—one he’s spent his whole life perfecting. Behind that smug punchable mask, fear is probably the one emotion that he does feel.

And nothing—nothing in the entire world—makes Tae-joon more terrified than seeing his daughter happy and beyond his control.

This bitch can’t help himself. He has to reassert his dominance. He puts on his authoritative “health expert” persona and starts droning on about phosphates, trying to seize control the way he usually does, by pretending to care about his daughter’s wellbeing. He’s probably done this to Jae-yi a thousand times.

But Seul-gi does not give a fuck. She just ignores his ass! And when he keeps pushing, she pushes back. She says no, you can’t control this situation, or your daughter, or life itself—so fuck off. Your diet advice is not needed. And now that she strongly suspects him of being involved in her father’s death, she even taunts him about it.

Seul-gi, you are a treasure. Jae-yi, never let this girl go.

As Jae-yi opens up more and more, we’re watching her relationship with Seul-gi transform into something more and more reciprocal. Back in Episode 3, Seul-gi confessed to being envious of Jae-yi, who seemed to have everything in the world. But Jae-yi has as much reason or more to be envious of Seul-gi. Seul-gi grew up alone and forged her identity in isolation. She learned early not to care what other people think. Because of that, she has no pretensions. She isn’t trying to seem cool or earn anyone’s favor. Everything she does, she does for herself.

Jae-yi has never been able to live like that. She’s always been at the center of attention, performing for a crowd. And she’s had to define herself in opposition to the people around her—in opposition to her sister first, and then to anyone else who could be a threat. Jae-yi is all pretense. She’s been acting for so long, she’s forgotten how to just be.

In Seul-gi’s dream at the start of this episode, we saw Jae-yi give her the courage to start moving on from her past. Now their roles have reversed. Because Seul-gi is there, Jae-yi has the courage to ignore her father’s gaze, even when he’s standing right there in front of her. Seul-gi gives her the strength to act for herself, without worrying about what other people will think of her.

They are so perfect for each other. I know they’re still in high school but just let them get married already. Please.

I keep thinking to myself, “oh that’s just a cute lil fluff scene, I can’t have that much to say about it,” and then I end up having so much to say about it. Take the ball pit scene. At first, my reaction was simply no thoughts head empty just let them kisisskss already omg. But even this fluffiest of fluff scenes has hidden depths.

We’ve seen a few callbacks to Episode 4 already. The ball pit scene made me think not only of Seul-gi’s dream in Episode 4, but also of Jae-yi’s scuba diving trip story. Remember when Jae-yi tells Seul-gi she felt relaxed under the water, and Seul-gi says, “Like being in your mom’s belly before you were born?”

The ball pit is our symbolic body of water. You could replace it with a pool and this would just be the romantic gaze-into-each-other’s eyes pool scene from dozens of movies. But ball pits are also something we associate with childhood. Playing in a ball pit isn’t something you usually do as an adult, or as a teenager. If you’re self-conscious, it could even be a little embarrassing.

Jae-yi and Seul-gi were both forced to grow up too fast, and for both of them, the past represents comfort, a time before trauma altered their lives. If only Seul-gi could go back to when her parents were still alive, before she was abandoned...If only Jae-yi could go back to a time before she distanced herself from her sister, or even further, back to before she was cursed with consciousness.

The ball pit isn’t real water. It’s one of the most unreal-looking sets in FR—an ice-cream-colored soft pastel dream world. It’s the stage for a fantasy. Jae-yi and Seul-gi can’t really go back in time, but in this alternate reality, they can pretend for a little while.

In some ways this ball pit scene is like the bathtub fantasy come to life. Jae-yi is taking the lead, putting moves on Seul-gi, giving our poor girl a gay panic attack. (I love how you can just *see* her entire interior monologue in her eyes like oh shit oh god is this happening can this really be happening i think it’s happening oh fuck she’s so cute what the fuck i can’t breathe i think i’m dying help?) But the irl version is different from the dream. In her dream Seul-gi had Jae-yi play the role of the confident, dominant, mature one. That Jae-yi wasn’t vulnerable at all, because she wasn’t real.

When this Jae-yi takes the lead, she puts herself in the vulnerable position first. She jumps into the ball pit and beckons Seul-gi: Come on, let’s be stupid and act like little kids! Without Seul-gi’s influence, there’s no way Jae-yi could be this unselfconscious. It’s a two-way fantasy now, one they’re creating together. And for a moment the world fades away and it’s just the two of them. They can’t turn back the clock, but they can almost make time stand still.

Unfortunately they are in a very public place, in a very conservative country, and they are just now starting to feel comfortable enough around each other to start exploring these feelings. It’s not the right time or place for an actual kiss. But you know they both want it.

This scene is also important for GL scholars investigating the most urgent questions of our day, like: When Jae-yi and Seul-gi meet up again post-Episode 16, who’s going to make the first move? (I think Jae-yi will be the first to go in for the kiss, but she’ll panic and start second-guessing if Seul-gi wants it or not, and Seul-gi will have to lean in the rest of the way.)

Okay I swear to god I am almost finished. (This post got sooo much longer than I intended it to be.) The scene after the ball pit is another of my favorites, mostly because SEUL-GI HOW TF ARE YOU SO CUUTE, YOUR SMILE WILL BE THE END OF ME. But no, once again, there’s actually a lot going on here! Look at the way they sit side by side on the bench, Seul-gi sprawled out like she’s hammered out of her mind, missing one sock, while Jae-yi sits prim and proper. Jae-yi takes off her cat ears, too, because the cat ears were her costume, something she wore to help get into the spirit of the role.

She’s thinking, Mission accomplished, my work here is done. Seul-gi had fun! She did it!!

Jae-yi offers to buy Seul-gi new socks, because of course she does. She is slipping out of one role and back into a more familiar one, the Jae-yi who showers the object of her affection with gifts. (Seul-gi is still wearing that scarf btw. She’d probably have ended up wearing it for like a month straight if not for the whole getting stabbed thing.) But before she can go, Seul-gi reaches out and grabs her wrist...

And Jae-yi stops.

The last time this happened, in Episode 6, Jae-yi slipped out of Seul-gi’s grasp, wearing one of those Tae-joon-certified smirks. This time she doesn’t even try to wriggle away. She’s letting someone touch her—and look at her face. She’s stunned.

Is she stunned just because Seul-gi touched her?

Or is it because......she likes it?!

A realization has been dawning slowly on Jae-yi all night long. I don’t know if she’s quite figured it out yet, but that’ll come soon.

As for Seul-gi, she’s just had the greatest night of her entire life, and she wants to return the favor. But she has nothing to give—nothing that Jae-yi doesn’t already have—except honesty. If Jae-yi is finally being sincere, Seul-gi wants to pay her back with sincerity.

So she admits how she feels. She doesn’t trust Jae-yi—the damage can’t be undone in a single day—but despite that, Jae-yi is special to her. She wasn’t upset about tying for first place. She was also over the moon.

This...this isn’t a story about rivalry at all! And those gazes sure don’t seem very friendly!!

One last thing, about the gazes. Throughout the evening, we’ve seen Jae-yi sneak little glances at Seul-gi whenever Seul-gi isn’t looking. She’s monitoring her mission progress, making sure Operation Best Date Night Ever goes off without a hitch. At least, that’s probably what she tells herself she’s doing.

Then comes the fireworks scene, the last moment Jae-yi and Seul-gi share in this episode before being separated. The world is cruel. In a very short time, Jae-yi is going to discover a terrible secret about her sister, and Seul-gi is going to get shanked.

Jae-yi looks over at Seul-gi as she’s watching fireworks for the first time in her life. And something clicks. Not just “this girl is the most beautiful precious loveliest thing I have ever laid eyes on” although yes probably that too. But ever since midterms, when she first saw the test results, Jae-yi has been working toward a discovery.

Seul-gi makes her happy.

Not buzzed or electrified. This feeling is different from the chemical rush of competition. It has nothing to do with winning. Seul-gi could beat her, and she still wouldn’t care.

Jae-yi doesn’t need the game, doesn’t need victory, doesn’t need to be the best. These things might have made her forget her despair for a little while, but they only made her hate herself more in the end.

*This* is all she needs.

Through Seul-gi, Jae-yi is starting to realize that there is more to life than her father’s curse. There is more to life than his kill-or-be-killed nightmare. It’s possible to find joy in little things. It’s possible to find joy in someone else’s success. It’s possible to find joy in someone else’s joy.

Jae-yi has never been enchanted by anything more than by Seul-gi’s enchantment. And being a witness to Seul-gi’s happiest night is the happiest she’s ever been.

Love didn’t free Jae-yi from fear. But by actively choosing love, and letting love guide her, she’s starting to see the possibility of another way. Maybe, if she follows these instincts, she can find the key to her liberation.

[shanblackrx]

Ok, first of all, I have just rewatched the special episode and although I already knew how it'd end, the moment the credits went up I literally buried my face in my hands and SOBBED. It's not that hard to make me cry with media, but I usually just tear up and nothing more. The last time I remember sobbing like this was with the end of Chimera Ants arc of Hunter x Hunter manga, which is a completely different type of story and media whatsoever, back in 2012. And I didn't know the end. Spectacular manga btw go read it

That said, I'm freshly out of it so here's a few of my considerations, personal opinions and also my theory. I'm not diving into the analysis of the episode itself for now, as I like to make these for more specific things I find in the work so they deserve a separate post for each, though I will be analyzing the post-credits scene because we don't have answers so we need to speculate.

Looooong text with almost no pictures ahead, just my yapping:

I expected the special episode to be really just Jack and Joke's cute little established relationship, which we did get to see (they're so disgustingly sappy, oh my god. I love them) for a good chunk of the episode. But we all also expected the wedding which, technically, did happen, just not how we wanted.

I think a lot of us just wanted only the happy part of it, maybe just a small conflict that would resolve within the story, which is what special episodes usually offer, especially because the original series wraps up perfectly and doesn't really give that much room for a continuation. And I think that because a lot of people expected this, they were utterly disappointed with it, even mad (that and also killing off one of the leads, like. Yeah I get it lol).

And I understand. Jack & Joker is perfectly balanced, with a nice and perfect ending. If I could choose, I wouldn't want a continuation either - you know, the chances of ruining a perfectly good show increases if you extend it for more than it should, and J&J is already perfect the way it is.

But I was offered the special episode, and now I have to work with it.

The first time I watched it I thought it was a bit rushed and confusing, albeit very intense (in a positive way). In my much calmer (as one can be), much less stressed out and anxious mood of my rewatch, I could feel it better. And I think it's way more seamless than I thought at first. Curiously, I also had the same feeling with the og series; it got so, so much better once I've rewatched it, and it kept getting better with all the small details I caught in every new watch.

It still has all the essence of J&J. The absurd comedy, the action, the romance, the heavy angst, the visuals, the lack of canon tattooaran even if it's heavily hinted. So all in all it was still a complete J&J experience.

I really do like the fact Save is not a perfect boss - he's basically just a math kid. He's not prepared to take care of a whole neighborhood like he did with bank accounts. Variables - people - were not in the system of his little bank computer. Taking care of a whole community is no easy task, especially since he is no mafia, he doesn't have the kind of experience and intimidation to keep bad apples in check. And even so, he still worked his hardest; and even so, it's still not enough.

So having criminals that were under Alice's thumb but now scattered like cockroaches searching for another ditch make having control over these fires they set even harder. I think it's a nice and coherent touch, and stuff happening because of it makes sense.

Also, although the uwu language JackJoke used throughout the moments they were out and about making everyone unwilling witnesses of their disgusting love was extremely funny and cute, it was really nice to see their heartfelt conversation when they were alone in Jack's room. It felt much more like they were baring their hearts for the other to hold, a genuine moment of intimacy, especially since they were making their wedding invites individually and by hand. It bore such a huge significance to their relationship I really can't begin to tell you how much I loved this scene. (they're also wearing shirts of complementary colors 😭💚)

I wasn't really expecting Carbon to make a comeback. But his explanation on why makes sense, and once again it hints that money and power walk together. It also gives him a more definite end (dying, finally. bitch) to take him out the picture for good since he could just eventually walk out the prison and go after them once again.

The casino mission was SUCH a delightful surprise to me! It's such a heavy wave to the pilot episode and it was really thrilling. Joke playing and cheating on poker was one of the sexiest things he could've ever done in his life lmao also even when he's cheating he manages to be gay af with his little ace and jack cards.

Admittedly, I was a bit underwhelmed with the fighting scenes. A lot of them were subpar compared to the ones in the og show, it not only lacked intensity but it was also awkward to see people in the background waiting to join the fight instead of throwing themselves into it, much like Jack's rampaging into Boss' office, which is one of my absolute favorite scenes in the og show, that's what I was expecting of them. However it was super nice to see the other piggies fighting with what they had, showing they were better prepared. Aran here takes the cake for me.

After that it was downhill. Joke not letting other people decide his destiny is one of the most Joke things in the entire show. With all that was happening it was rather predictable, but then again J&J does its thing and takes the predictability for a twist. "กูรักมึงที่รัก" ???? Using tirak in this situation when every other situation it was used was extremely, sickeningly sweet? Devastating. These words in that tone will be branded on my brain forever.

The whole thing with Jack going through the stages of grief and the ghost wedding destroyed me, even more so in my rewatch. Once again I'm here EATING UP Yin's crying scenes (one of my most favorite scenes in any BL ever is Vee crying under the rain at the bridge). I know everyone talks about War's acting when it comes to crying and obviously he always nails it, but I still think Yin should have more recognition in these kind of scenes too, because he always manage to make it so heartbreaking, and it wasn't different here.

The swings scene with him hallucinating Joke to be able to accept his presumed death was one of the most beautiful, most heartbreaking 'endings' I've seen in a Thai BL.

HOWEVER. I absolutely refused to believe they'd actually end in that note. It could be as devastatingly beautiful as it gets but I genuinely thought if they ended it like that it'd be SUCH a huge stab in the back of fans. Jack and Joke barely managed to live a happy life to then be yanked from it. It really didn't feel fair, that they gave us such a perfect little ending in the og show to then just say 'how about no?'. I was honestly in shock and denial. I was really thinking like 'I really, genuinely don't think they'd do this. I will only believe it ends like this when the episode reaches the end and stops playing by itself.'

And I'm glad I thought like that because they really didn't let me down. Some Marvel level of post-credits scene this is. The relief to see Joke isn't actually dead. The enormous cliffhanger.

I still am of the opinion that J&J didn't need a continuation, but now that it's out there, I just hope it's as good as the og show. And that maybe we don't have to wait for another 2 years, although I will gladly do so if that means they will deliver another sublime experience.

But I also hope it ends with that and they manage to move on to other, new things, because they've already proven they can do anything they want and it will be good. I really, really want them to take over the Thai BL world as a power couple with their independent productions, because they showed everyone they can.

Now, to the post-credits scene. Here goes my theory:

Reading all theories and also frying my brain to come up with what will they do with that cliffhanger, I thought of something that might make sense. This, however, would only work (well) in a full 10-12 eps season rather than another special episode or movie.

First of all, I think it's a new character (and that's why I think this will only work with a full season, because introducing a new character just for a short episode will give no substance to it). It's no one we know and I tell you why I think that: Joke had someone specific in mind. I don't think he's talking about Carbon here. Especially because everyone in the conversation knows Carbon very personally, he could just say his name.

So having this in mind, he might've been referring to this new character. So the fact this person is the one... 'housing' Joke, and who tended to his wounds, and also for his shock, this person might be either an old cellmate or someone else that's been incarcerated and Joke knows about or personally. Maybe a rival thief. So he's talking about this person here.

Also, VERY important missing information in the subs: Joke says "someone like me" in the sense of 'has the same abilities/did/does the same things'. This is crucial information that is in several other subs but not in the English one. Because the English subs on this ep are dogshit, lbr.

So I think one option that could happen:

This person wants Joke to either work for or with them. After all, you can't just wipe an alias like "legendary thief" in a year. Whatever it is that they want him for, it might be convenient for them that Joke's deemed dead, or they actually needed Joke to "die" for it to work. They might be in cahoots with someone we already know, or they might be acting alone.

This can be a double-edged sword because the person can be good, neutral or evil and we might not know until the very last minute.

Now one thing that caught my attention: The black shirt in the background.

Absolutely nothing when it's about clothes is Just There in J&J. There's always a lot of subtle storytelling in their clothes, especially when it comes to black and white. And specifically a black shirt hanging in so openly there and no other piece of clothing while Joke is wearing white? This is deliberate.

Do you remember Jack's red ticket? When the joker turns black to white, etc? This might be the opposite of that. This might mean starting from square one, undoing everything up to that point, or it might also mean Joke's darkening arc. Joke's wearing white, so washing this away to taint it black. It might also mean someone who's opposite of him if the shirt is referring to this new character, but I'm not too sold on this idea since black is mainly Jack's motif, especially in relation to Joke. Also, maybe this is the 'enemies' Nang was talking about.

And maybe because Joke has no choice but to do what he's told, whether if it's under threat or because maybe Jack would be in danger if he doesn't because that's their thing, or both, probably both, he can't show up to Jack or any of the piggies, and that is the main conflict of the season.

This can tie with the whole 'moving on' thing about Jack that everyone is terrified of. I don't think that even if it might seem so to add to the tension, Jack will ever actually move on; not FROM Joke at least. He can move on from the pain, make peace with the idea he's not coming back, but not from what he feels for Joke. If Joke appeared in front of him be it tomorrow or in 10 years, he'd probably just resume their lives together (after coming back from the shock of seeing him alive which can take some time). He himself said Joke is the one he loves the most. And some people change you so viscerally and completely that they'll always mean the same to you, forever, which is definitely the case for both.

Maybe if we're going through this route because J&J's classic angst and pain, Joke's gonna watch him from afar going on with his life, then that lack of self-worth he has that I'm pretty sure doesn't just vanish in such a short time even if he's found love and some healing, might keep him from approaching Jack even if he wants to and can do so; he wouldn't want to ruin whatever Jack has built without him so far.

If that's the case, if this really happened, I'd want Jack to find out and tackle Joke on the ground when he's being watched just like their first encounter after the 5 years. It'd be one of the most poetic cinema cycle closing one could pull off with this possible new season. But that's just my wishful thinking.

It can also be something completely different and I'm all for it as long as it retains J&J vibe, quality and unpredictable turns.

And also many more YinWar kissies, there's never enough of those.

[skyfallscotland]

Things that got me a little frustrated with Onyx Storm in no particular order 💔

Please be nice, this is an addendum to my main Onyx Storm review post, and there is also a post about things I loved 🙏 I'm just a sensitive heart with superior pattern recognition (I'm mentally ill lol) and I struggle when I don't understand things—and I understood nothing.

I find it really hard to just go with the flow, I hate it when I don't understand things, and being confused just didn't make for a good reading experience for me. So here goes:

The magic system being entirely retconned.

“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. I’m marked by their magic as a rider now, as their rider.

It's consistently referred to as "their" magic or "Andarna's magic" or "Tairn's magic" in the first two books, but in this one, the continent has magic and outside it, they're powerless?

Oh, except Vi for...reasons?

The marked ones all having second signets? This felt like fan service or a retcon. Why haven't any of them gone crazy? Because statistically some of them should have (and it would have at least been interesting). And if Liam could wield ice and use farsight, and that wasn't initially an error, why not wield it when Deigh was literally being chewed to death?

Continuous mentions of Xaden hearing actual fucking thoughts for god's sake that just get dropped and never picked up again? Par for the course. Don't even talk to me about it, I'm done.

Sgaeyl not talking to Xaden all book? Does she realise she would have died too, they all would have died if he hadn't done what he did? Mum pls the silent treatment sucks (this might be a personal trauma so we can probably scratch it, actually)

Andarna leaving then coming back almost immediately? I get it, she wanted to meet her shitty family, but this would have had more impact if she'd stayed when they were on the island. It felt like I got teary at her exit for nothing, like it was a ploy. I think I have whiplash.

Violet saying quite literally her most pressing need is information and then deciding no actually it's to know what her baby dragon is dreaming about in her dreamless sleep? Is this a joke? 😭

Violet is suddenly Adrian Ivashkov 💀 And what’s that got to do with who they are at their core? I’m lost! 😭

Also, those not-dreams never being explained? Like we know it's Berwyn calling him, but seriously Xaden, click on pls!

Xaden's mother showing up for...no reason? Really? Nice emotional arc, I enjoyed it, it was one of my favourite sequences, but she wasn't important to the story at all and we just?? Left?????

(I also want to punch her in the face, how dare she)

Finding out Halden's been doing...something??? At the Isles this whole time?? For Reasons, I guess??? I don't know, someone else might need to explain that to me.

(How I felt ^) Oh! And him being a twin? Basic information we could have known before—and I still don't know what happened to Alic, really. Like I want the whole story? 🥺

Violet's hair, the temple, all of that someone's going to have to explain to me like I'm five too because it's not clicking, I'm sorry. Also the temples/priestesses have magic? Their own different type of magic? And they aren't venin either? What makes a venin, a venin? My head is still spinning.

Aetos being back defying all logic (the aide to exile to in charge of everything pipeline really is something) and then he disappears entirely and is irrelevant? 😭 Why bring him back at all? What was the reason?

This is like the continuity that says Degrensi kicked Varrish out for being too torture-y and then they put him in charge of torturing kids, and then Degrensi followed Varrish's orders (even though he's below him in the chain of command and he hates him) last year to keep Xaden away from Violet all the time, but wait, now Degrensi gives no fucks about following orders???? I'm?? I just spent so much time being like wait, what?

Xaden who can literally command shadows for some reason not being able to sneak into Violet's room? And that same Xaden having zero control so they can't have sex, but then suddenly when it was time for another evenly spaced out sex scene, him being totally fine????? Is it ✨a mindset✨ ??

Violet having her memories wiped? For? Reasons???? Seriously for what purpose could the literal wedding ceremony part not have been remembered, please, that’s just mean Rebecca.

Aaric just Not telling anyone about his signet even though it would have meant more people living??? Aaric's name being CAMLAEN?????

I get that that’s a literary device, but on top of everything else I still felt like I was chasing my tail 😩

Professor Riorson teaching everyone for months, incl that signets have perfect counters, like his shadows and Violet's lightning, then sending Violet off to face the lightning/storm wielding gal while he went to face a guy he's literally incapable of killing? HELLO, should you not realise and switch?! Don’t be a dumb dumb (also a literary choice but it annoyed me so it’s here, please never battle the elite four Xaden, you’d fail).

Also oh look there's no rune on Brennan's neck like the one on his hand—sorry WHAT? are we implying that's from Naolin mending him or what? Do you know about it? Fucking say so, you sure as fuck haven't told us Vi???? It really bothers me that Violet apparently knows things and we don't. I feel like that's what third-person-POV is for, if you want to do things like that.

I still don’t know why venin can channel within the wards at all? And the wardstone was so easily altered after all that drama in IF?

Why aren't we reading Lilith's journals? Vi, sweetheart, please, give me some joy here.

Where are the other foster kids??? I still can't see how they're safe and not leverage, especially now it's looking like it will be a full-on secession bid once more.

Tyrrendor mines talladium?!

SURPRISE GRANDMA??? PLEASE!!

As you can see, I have a lot of questions—more than I had at the end of the last book, because none of those were answered, so I just have...this bigger pile of questions.

If you can read along and not think about any of these things and just not be bothered by the not knowing of it all, then I'm jealous of you. I really, really wish I could, but that's just not how my brain works and as someone with a mental illness I get tired of having to defend that to other people, it makes me feel like shit, honestly. I don’t want to think about these things, I just do. Like yeah, I hate my brain too but I have to live with it.

There were plenty of things I liked about this book, but my overall experience was that it felt messy, chaotic, and overwhelming.

Even the end—I still don't understand what happened fully, and I know that's on purpose, but after not understanding anything the whole book and having my questions from the last book go unanswered, I don't exactly appreciate it as a literary technique, I just find it frustrating 😟

In any case, these are just my out-of-pocket, personal opinions typed up late at night with zero filter, please don't come for me (lol), you don't need to agree—in fact, I know people don't, I ran a poll—this is just...how I'm feeling right now. It's a sucky feeling, but it is what it is.

I hope I can do a re-read at some point and enjoy it more, and get a better grasp on things, but for now...🖤

[johanna-swann]

JLH wanting Maddies love interest to be Chim instead of Eddie was what started the whole mess we have right now with Eddie, I think. Tim never really pivoted and just attached Eddie to Buck but predictably, everytime one or both of them gets a LI that construct stops working. It got especially obvious with Tommy showing up. Bucks only "arc" since S7 is his coming out/relationship with Tommy (since they did nothing with the Gerrard storyline) and yet that was hardly explored. Instead the relationship functioned at times as a Eddie parking lot since his only storyline was Chris, who was not on screen. 8x5 was great but Eddie was involved too much here and it irks me that this is as much due to the fact that Tim has nothing else to do for him as it is blatant Buddie baiting. Like, find something to do for Eddie that does not involve Buck or get rid of the character if it is to hard? Eddie has issues with his son? Why is the only person he talks about that with Buck? Buck is the only person on the team without kids. Tim could have involved him more with Chim and Hen or Bobby, even Ryan says he´d like to have more scenes with Kenny. Yet, Tim doesn´t. It´s a shame really but after 7 seasons of failing to properly integrate a character he insists on keeping on the show, I´m over it. Eddie could leave and it would not change a thing in the show or the ratings. It would only disrupt the THAT fandom and maybe that is all Tim really cares about.

It’s only a theory of course that Eddie is disconnected like that because of the JLH love interest situation (and to be clear I don’t blame her for anything, Maddie and Chimney are cute together and Chim deserves this so much), but it does make sense.

Maddie was brought to LA and was going to have two close contacts, her brother and her new boyfriend while said brother and boyfriend also become besties. Sounds like a good way to give Buck social contacts outside of his other three colleagues and to give both new characters a slow burn romance (a.k.a. something to do). There could’ve been a lot of moments where two of them talk about the respective third: The siblings gossiping about Maddie’s crush, Eddie going to Buck for advice on how to “woo” Maddie, Maddie worrying about her little brother and Eddie reassuring her he’ll check in on him – stuff like that.

The trio might still have felt a little disconnected from the other characters, but they still would’ve formed their own trio which is basically half the main cast. I’m not sure what they would’ve done with Chimney in the long run, he and Bobby had a close friendship in season 1 though, he had Hen, the Albert story line still could’ve happened, etc.

The plans changed though and for most characters this didn’t make much of a difference. Maddie still had two main contacts, her brother and new boyfriend. Buck still got more of a social life, his sister and a best friend. Chimney was still an integral part of the firefam, he just also had a girlfriend on top of that. The only person who was really affected by this change of plans was Eddie because he was also supposed to have two close contacts in the firefam, but now he only had one: Buck.

Over time they could’ve changed this. Like okay, so Buck and Eddie got on like a house on fire after one shift together, but they still could’ve built up the other friendships over the seasons. They kept Eddie separate though, focused on his role as a father, his relationships to minor characters and I don’t really understand why.

Because now they have a huge problem. The only main character Eddie has a close enough connection to that it makes sense to regularly involve him in Eddie’s story lines is Buck and this is holding both of them back. Yes, their friendship is special. So is Hen’s and Chim’s, they still manage to have lives outside of that friendship. They have wives and kids and other friends. Eddie will never grow closer to the other characters if he always runs to Buck instead. Buck will never get the permanent love interest he so desperately wants as long as they need him to be Eddie’s partner. If Buck was happy and fulfilled and found his person tm then of course Eddie would still be his best friend, but that friendship would have to make room for Buck’s love interest. There’s only so much screen time in a season.

Previously they often had Eddie and Buck date or be single at the same time to solve this, but in season 8a they tried to both give Buck a happy relationship and involve single Eddie and it felt so strange. It’s cute that Tommy and Eddie were friends too, but I wish they didn’t try to mix both for every scene. Give us one scene of Tommy and Eddie hanging out and put the Bucktommy romance in a different scene. Having all three of them in scenes that should’ve focused on one or the other was distracting at best.

(Maybe this is connected to the “competition” thing, but tbh I don’t think the writers planned this far. They just had to keep Eddie busy with something after Christopher left and the side characters like Carla and Pepa were all but cut from the show.)

At least they have stopped baiting the Buddies? I know a lot of fans still scream “queer baiting” or are somehow convinced that the show is strongly hinting at “Buddie canon soon” (Like, which is it? Are they baiting you or is Buddie going canon? It can’t be both.), but uhm. Buck has said he is not in love with Eddie in a line so pointed the show might as well have directed it at the shippers directly. Eddie has confirmed he is straight. Several people have talked about how they don’t want to do this story where the queer guy hopelessly falls for the unavailable best friend, they’d rather portray a healthy friendship between a bisexual man and a straight man. Ryan Guzman has talked about toxic masculinity and how he wants Eddie to have a softer, more vulnerable side without it meaning he’s weak or feminine or gay. Aisha Hinds said the scene from her episode was them closing the door on Buddie, not opening it. At this point the shippers are baiting themselves.

To come back to the main point: Yes, this might very well have started with Eddie having only Buck as a fixed point in the show instead of also being Maddie’s love interest. But that was at the beginning of season 2, how have they not fixed any of this six and a half years later?

[morialoe17]

aloe Yap Corner: 괴담출근 Part 2 (209-213)

OKAAAY... There's a lot to unpack here...

[Spoilers ahead!]

Quick disclaimer, I read off of MTL so I may have misunderstood some details.

First off, subtle timeskip--courtesy of Kwak Jaekang mentioning it! Soleum has been so disoriented (edit: dissociated was the word I initially wanted to put here, I finally remembered 😭) since the events in the latter half of 208 that he didn't even realize that months had passed since then. Understandably so, with such a repetitive routine and no access outside, it's easy to mistake how time is passing. I'm really glad we are getting more of Kwak PoV, since he is arguably one of the most in the know about darkness/disasters. I've been on the belief that he, along with Baek Saheon, would be some sort of selfish helper to Kim Soleum, so I'm really happy for this development. Who knows, maybe that'll happen soon enough...

Next interesting note, Jang Heoeun comeback!! I really didn't expect him to reappear so soon(props to BDS for the amazing reveal of his comeback!! I got so startled I threw my phone LMAO). His appearance in the new orientation is quite mysterious though. First off, he had died in the resort and was fully contaminated in the process of his 'revival'. Not only that, he was left in the care of the Bureau, so how did he get back in Daydream as a new applicant? Not to mention his wish ticket that Go Yeongeun must've delivered to him in some way. My hypothesis is that after receiving the wish ticket, he was able to use it to fulfill whatever his wish was and sort of 'decontaminated' him in the process. And since months had actually already passed, maybe the Bureau caught on Daydream's new experiments and sent back Heoeun, who they have most likely already interrogated and cleared of any charges for certain reasons. But with the way Jaekang is emphasizing his name when pressing answers to 130666, it makes me feel like I'm missing some detail that makes my hypothesis incorrect.

Another new interesting detail we got about darkness is that, entities of darkness seem to have a warped perception of humans. For Soleum specifically, he can't see the faces of the people he encountered and their voices are quite distorted. It makes me wonder about how the darkness our main cast had encountered perceived them to be. It's very likely that Daydream knew about this and that's why they provided animal masks to their employees, for reasons I'm unsure about. Considering names and identity is a pretty important matter inside these darkness, it could be connected to that. One idea I have about this is that darkness have an identity as a ghost story, however humans do not. Basically, humans are a blank slate, a blank paper, and these darkness may act like an ink and write over them, causing contamination. But because of the masks and aliases they use, they make up a story for themselves, making it harder to "overwrite their identity". I'd really love to know more about this, and Ireum's possible involvement in this topic!!

There's a lot more to talk about in the new chapters, but I want to end this post with the new characters with Jang Heoeun in the orientation! Based on their names, I'd assume there were both a man and a woman? I actually want to see more of them...The person we got a PoV of in particular gave me BSH vibes (lmao). It would be interesting to see their journey as field exploration employees, as well as Jang Heoeun getting more of his background story that was teased during the resort arc be expanded...

These are all my thoughts for now! If you read this till the end, wow thank you for attending my yap session LMAO

See you all in the next chapter...

[dragonlands]

There's so much negativity around Izzy's death so I wanted to address some of the points I keep seeing thrown around.

"Izzy's death was pointless"

No, he just had his big speech about how basically they can kill him but they cannot kill the movement. That is a clear paraller to a lot of real life protestors of unjustice. He died protecting the community, he died so the community could go on.

"Izzy's death made his healing pointless"

No it didn't. Healing is always good, feeling happiness and belonging are ALWAYS worth it. We never know how long we've got, doesn't mean we gotta stop trying to be better or happier. His healing was still real. It still mattered.

"Izzy's character arc was left unfinished, it's bad writing"

Oh my god. If you open any writing guide about how to write impactful deaths, and the first thing that comes up is to leave some part of their arc unfinished. And his arc did go through quite a beautiful line, sure there could've been more but his story didn't end like, mid arc. As a writer, of course you want to make the audience sad when a character dies. It's good storytelling. Good stories are supposed to make us feel.

"Izzy died on the arms of his abuser"

Where the hell did this idea come from? Ed and Izzy have been in a toxic codependent relationship way before this show started. You could argue that Izzy was Ed's abuser, but that is not the argument I want to make here. Yes, we saw Ed driven to madness shoot Izzy on screen, but we know Izzy's the one that forced him to be Blackbeart when he didn't want it anymore. There's turmoil all around them. But the final moment is them finally meeting as people, not as components of Blackbeard.

"Izzy's death was unnecessarily awful"

His death was sad, yes, but it was quite beautiful as far as deaths go. He was surrounded by family who cared for him. He was loved, and accepted as he is. He knew his legacy will be carried on.

"They killed off the only character that showed us healing is never too late"

Did we watch the same show? That begins with then unhappy 40+ year old Stede deciding it's finally time to reach for his dreams? Where we see Blackbeard slowly gaining back his humanity? Where Black Pete starts off as toxically masculine dude but ends up in a soft gay marriage? Where most of the crew wanted to mutiny but then they realized being soft is good, actually. Jim's whole purpose in life being revenge but them learning to let that go and instead concentrate on love and fun and family. And so on. Izzy's arc is beautiful, but he's not the only person healing who thought it was too late already.

"Izzy's death was bury your gays trope"

No, what, no. In a pirate show where everyobody is queer some queer people will die. Bury your gays is about only having one or few queer characters and killing them off while the straights get their happily ever afters. This is so far from that.

Also, I want people to be aware of the phenomenon, where creators of diverse shows are subjected to more critism than those of non diverse shows. If this intrests you, Sarah Z on Youtube made a great video on it called Double standards and diverse media. Our flag means death has given us so much, queer love story with a happily ever after, finding community, nonbinary character. And the creators have always been so kind to fans, so let's show them tht kindness back. Because critizicing this one aspect can easily turn to seeming like the whole story is just unwanted. That stories like Ed and Stede's aren't worth telling. And I'm so aftraid that will happen, when just now for the first time in years we are finally getting queer stories.

Also, I understand people are sad. I am sad too - Izzy was an amazing character and his death was sad but that's just. Good writing. You can grieve, but trying to turn it into a moral or dramaturgy issue is just not a good look. And attacking the creators of this wonderful show is just horrible.

Remember - this fandom is a safe space ship 🏴‍☠️🏳️‍🌈

[arceespinkgun]

https://www.tumblr.com/arceespinkgun/780026220107759616/so-ik-youre-prolly-done-and-dusted-with-your?source=share

hi!!!! in your tags, you mentioned this

and im just wondering what you meant by it? im guessing you already did a post about elita in tfone, but i must have missed it, so im wondering how are elita and arachnid not taken seriously? i think the movie gives at least elita an arc, a pretty good one imo, good character writing... can't say the same about arachnid, but i suppose her role was just that, a creepy boogieman (for the lack of a better word). it is sad that we never explore her character fully, and i expected them to, but we just didn't, which is a shame but understandable since the movie is only this long

do you think they were treated unfairly in the movie?

I've talked about this a couple of times before (in my "transformers one" tag), so I'll just go over it quickly as bullet points:

The movie has two major women in it, the climactic fight for Elita-1 is against that other woman... and they don't say a single word to each other, not even some fight banter, Elita-1 is talking to Orion the whole time

Notably, that enemy, Airachnid, used to be Arcee's arch-enemy in other media

This is despite the fact that another guy, who nearly ruins Elita's life, could've been a far more logical fight in her story

Elita-1's design looks almost nothing like her usual design, lacking most unique features and looking super similar to Arcee from things like the Bumblebee movie and this one

Every other main character (as in, D-16, Orion Pax, and B-127) gets an initial name. Elita-1 does not (if it was copyright issues, they could have used Erial or something like when a toy of her came out)

Every other main character gets to have a built-in weapon, even somebody who isn't normally associated with one like Bumblebee, and Elita-1 does not and does not have any special power either

In Elita's first scene she's hit on by Orion and turns him down

When Elita-1 is strong-arming the future-Decepticons with violence it’s played as comedic but when D-16 does it it’s lingered on and shown to be scary and sign of his villain arc, a dark and serious turning point

She begins as very combative but it’s Orion and B-127 who gore random soldiers the most violently

Because the characterizations shift so fast, I end up being disappointed that her arc is all about how she should grow to support Orion (in a better movie this wouldn't be an issue)

Even Alpha Trion gets mentioned in the movie's theme song. She does not

I also want to note that Elita-1's characterization doesn't have a lot in common with her usual characterizations. That would normally be fine, but because of all the other things I listed here, it feels to me less like it's a cool new reinvention to fit a great story or something, and more like the people writing the movie didn't know much about her

Airachnid is in so little of the movie that there isn't as much to say about her specifically, but my feeling is that we basically don't get any exploration of her at all. She's an enforcer for Sentinel Prime and used as a tool by the main characters at the end. Why is she loyal to Sentinel? I think to me Airachnid's treatment stands out so much not only because she's the only other woman with a major role, and because of the Elita-1 and Airachnid battle, but because she's been absent from media for a while. I think of this: across her iterations, Airachnid has normally been characterized as a predatory villain with an independent streak. This trend of being independent was broken by this film.

I understand many people disagree, but to me, with all of this, I get the sense that these decisions were made "because we need a heroine and a woman for her to fight at the end." That Elita-1 isn't very based in a love for her character, but because "we need a girl one." At the very least, I don't think giving Elita-1 some special power or weapon and having her and Airachnid say a thing to each other or clash a little earlier in the movie or anything would've been that hard to accommodate. I liked some elements in the deleted scene storyboards where they were present (I liked Elita saying she always dreamed of being a soldier, and the brutal fight between Airachnid and Megatron).

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

any tips would be appreciated, thanks! :)

hi, i was wondering if u could help me with writing a specific type of character? i have a character who’s a man with insecurity issues and he ends up acting weird towards the women around him (basically, he’s internalized the idea of “getting the girl makes you more of a man” without really realizing it). i want him to realize what he’s doing during the story and go thru a kind of “redemption arc” but how do i:

1. make it believable that he doesn’t realize what he’s doing/the harm he’s causing bc he grew up learning that message of toxic masculinity

2. make the “redemption arc” realistic and feel earned?

Hey there, fellow writer! Thanks so much for reaching out with such a thoughtful and complex character question. It's fantastic that you're diving into the nuances of toxic masculinity and character growth. This is a challenging but incredibly important topic to explore in fiction. Let's break this down and dive deep into crafting this character arc.

Understanding Your Character's Background

Before we get into the specifics of your questions, it's crucial to fully understand your character's background. This man's insecurity and internalized toxic masculinity didn't develop overnight. Consider factors like:

Family dynamics: What messages did he receive from his parents or guardians about masculinity and relationships?

Peer influences: How did his friends and classmates reinforce or challenge these ideas?

Media consumption: What movies, TV shows, or books shaped his view of male-female relationships?

Cultural context: How does his broader cultural background influence his beliefs about masculinity?

The more you understand about where these beliefs came from, the more believable his initial lack of self-awareness will be.

Now, let's tackle your specific questions:

Making it believable that he doesn't realize what he's doing/the harm he's causing

The key here is to show how deeply ingrained these beliefs are. Here are some strategies:

a) Normalize it in his world: Show other characters, especially male friends or family members, exhibiting similar behaviors without consequence. This reinforces the idea that it's "normal" or even expected.

b) Internal justification: When he acts in problematic ways, give him internal monologue that justifies his actions. For example, if he makes an inappropriate comment, he might think, "She'll appreciate a confident guy who speaks his mind."

c) Misinterpretation of reactions: When women react negatively to his behavior, have him misinterpret their responses. He might see discomfort as shyness or rejection as playing hard to get.

d) Positive reinforcement: Occasionally, have his behavior "work" in superficial ways. Maybe he gets a phone number or a date, reinforcing the idea that his approach is effective.

e) Backstory reveals: Gradually reveal moments from his past where these beliefs were instilled or reinforced. This could be a father figure praising him for "manning up" or friends mocking him for not being "alpha" enough. (I hate that word.)

f) Contrast with "worse" behavior: Show other characters behaving even more egregiously, making his actions seem mild in comparison.

g) Good intentions: Highlight moments where he genuinely believes he's being helpful or chivalrous, even when his actions are problematic.

h) Cognitive dissonance: When confronted with the negative impacts of his behavior, show him struggling to reconcile this with his beliefs. He might dismiss criticism as overreaction or make excuses.

2. Making the "redemption arc" realistic and feel earned

This is where the real challenge lies. A believable redemption arc for this character needs to be gradual, challenging, and multifaceted. Here's how to approach it:

a) Incremental realization: Don't have him suddenly "see the light." Instead, show small moments of doubt or discomfort with his own behavior building up over time.

b) Consequences: Let him experience real, significant consequences for his actions. This could be losing a friendship, facing professional repercussions, or a moment of clear rejection that he can't misinterpret.

c) Mentor figure: Introduce a character (could be male or female) who challenges his views in a way he can't easily dismiss. This person should be someone he respects or admires.

d) Empathy building: Create situations where he's forced to see things from a woman's perspective. This could be through a role reversal, a close female friend sharing her experiences, or even him witnessing clear harassment of someone he cares about.

e) Internal conflict: Show him struggling with his changing views. He might backslide or have moments of defensiveness as he grapples with his ingrained beliefs.

f) Active learning: Have him actively seek out information and perspectives on toxic masculinity and healthy relationships. This could involve reading, attending workshops, or having difficult conversations.

g) Apologizing and making amends: Show him genuinely apologizing to people he's hurt and taking concrete actions to make amends. This shouldn't be easy or immediately accepted.

h) Ongoing process: Make it clear that this is an ongoing journey, not a destination. Even towards the end of the story, he should still be learning and growing.

i) Paying it forward: Have him start to challenge toxic behavior in others, showing that he's internalized the lessons he's learned.

j) Redefining masculinity: Show him developing a new, healthier concept of what it means to be a man. This might involve exploring traditionally "feminine" interests or expressing vulnerability.

k) Setbacks: Include moments where he falls back into old patterns, but now recognizes and corrects himself. This shows the ongoing nature of change.

Tips for Writing This Arc Effectively:

Show, don't tell: Rather than having your character explicitly state his growth, show it through changed behavior and reactions.

Avoid the "savior" trope: Be cautious about having a woman "fix" him. While female characters can play a role in his growth, the work should ultimately come from him.

Balance sympathy and accountability: While we want readers to sympathize with your character's journey, be careful not to excuse his harmful behavior.

Use multiple perspectives: If possible, show how other characters perceive his behavior and his changes. This can provide valuable context and contrast.

Intersectionality: Consider how other aspects of his identity (race, class, sexuality, etc.) might intersect with his views on masculinity.

Research, research, research: Dive into academic and personal accounts of toxic masculinity, its impacts, and paths to change. The more you understand, the more nuanced your portrayal will be.

Sensitivity readers: Consider using sensitivity readers to ensure you're handling this delicate topic respectfully and accurately.

Micro-changes: Focus on small, specific changes in behavior and thought patterns rather than broad, sweeping transformations.

Realistic timeline: Give this arc the time it needs. Real change doesn't happen overnight, so don't rush the process.

Internal and external changes: Show both how his thoughts and his actions evolve throughout the story.

Example Arc Outline:

Introduction: Establish character's problematic behavior and beliefs.

Inciting incident: An event that first makes him question his actions, even if he dismisses it.

Rising action: Accumulation of experiences that challenge his worldview.

Turning point: A major event that forces him to confront the harm he's causing.

Crisis: Internal struggle as he grapples with changing his deeply held beliefs.

Climax: A moment where he must choose between his old ways and his evolving understanding.

Falling action: Actively working to change and make amends.

Resolution: Showing his ongoing growth and new perspective, while acknowledging the journey isn't over.

Remember, writing a character like this is a delicate balance. You want to show the reality of toxic masculinity and its impacts while also offering a path to growth and change. It's challenging, but when done well, it can be incredibly powerful and thought-provoking.

Throughout this process, it's important to treat your character with empathy while not excusing his behavior. The goal is to show that change is possible, but it requires genuine effort, self-reflection, and a willingness to challenge deeply held beliefs.

Lastly, don't forget to take care of yourself while writing this arc. Exploring topics like toxic masculinity can be emotionally taxing. Take breaks when needed, engage in self-care, and remember that by thoughtfully addressing these issues in your writing, you're contributing to important conversations about gender, relationships, and personal growth.

Happy writing, 📝💖 - Rin T.

Before you go, why not join us at The Write Right Society? We're a supportive Tumblr community where writers lift each other up. Whether you're a newbie or a pro, we'd love to have you! Share your work, get feedback, and connect with fellow wordsmiths, writers and aspiring authors.