#i am now just realizing why they split the season into 2 lol

[me1-atonin]

shera season 2: haha bow and glimmer have trouble with kidnapping catra! the alliance plays dnd! drunk adora! shadow weaver and micah backstory! we meet bow’s dads!

shera season 3: adora speed runs an identity crisis, catra is sent to die but lives and betrays literally everyone, the world collapses in on itself, angella dies, horde prime finds their location

[endearing-dalliance]

Arcane Team's Bias Bastardized Piltover and Zaun

I am not an LoL player, but I read up on the lore because I was that fucking disappointed in season 2. Some key points of original Piltover and Zaun lore, which the team kept parts of. Emphasis on parts.

Geography and Symbiotic Economy:

Zaun was established first. A geographic disaster literally split the earth and sunk part of the city, splitting it into what we know today. Many of the wealthier citizens and those involved in the profitable sea trade ended up on a cliffside and industrial parts of Zaun were now across a river and below. They then became separate city-states in a symbiotic relationship.

"Zaun thrives, its people vibrant and its culture rich."

Zaun has multiple levels of "good" areas like the college and Bridgewaltz market where both citizens shopped for music, food, technology in addition to progressively more polluted and dangerous lower levels.

Piltover’s wealth has allowed Zaun to develop in tandem

Zaun's issues like the Gray were attributed to their own factories and labs that benefitted their own people

Culture and Relationship:

Zaunities collectively take great pride in themselves and their thriving city. Many choose to live there, especially scientists and inventors who find Piltover too restricted, because "their right to do as they please is what makes Zaun the freest city-state on Runeterra"

"A citizen of Piltover is typically self-reliant, does not expect handouts, and always aspires to do better."

Piltover has an elected "very empathic and progressive" government and is "one of the least militarized city-states"

Zaun's technological progress and academic institutions are described as being Piltover's only technological and academic rival. 

Both cities' citizens augment their bodies. Piltover's are more flamboyant and display their wealth, even if they are originally necessary; Zaun's are more practical and "necessity is the mother of invention" very much applies.

So this was what they had to work with. I can understand why many people would prefer to live in Piltover, but Zaun is treated as an equal place to be, with its own distinct and proud culture, complex structure, and thriving economy.

Moving on to Arcane (finally lol) and the now infamous original Arcane pitch. Either Christian posted that while every sane person was asleep, or none of them realized how profoundly terrible it makes them look. 

There's a lot in here that's problematic. Piltover is a gleaming wonder, a pure and magical place while conveniently leaving out why its this flourishing utopia. The next bit frames the entire conflict as Piltover's decision. It screams "Mommy and Daddy need to punish the naughty kids or they'll wreck the house." Except the starving kids are locked in the moldy basement and trying to break the door down to escape.

Now about Zaun...here its called the underground district. This becomes more important later, when you realize how many different and contradictory labels they give Zaun. Its an undercity, sister city, part of Piltover, wannabe Nation of Zaun. It establishes again the underlying superiority of Piltover. And of course it is, because Zaun's people are boiled down to dangerous, manipulative criminals (bonus points for an antisemetic reference!) with no morality.

I firmly believe this team has a fundamental deliberate misinterpretation of what LoL Piltover and Zaun are, and it is due to their own biases and privileges of a team that is primarily white, middle/upper class, able-bodied, and mostly male. It is abundantly clear that they see as Zaun is objectively lesser and that its their own fault. They're just a foil for Piltover and source of enemies. Three quotes from Arnaud-Lois Baudry:

"My role as a Production Designer was to make sure we don't negatively impact other teams at Riot Games and contribute to adding value and enriching the worldbuilding of those cities."

"Once we figured out the shape language of the wealthy city of Piltover, Zaun needed to be its dark mirror. We started by combining Victorian architectural pieces and some old industrial elements and added some asymmetrical flourish ornaments made from handcrafted upcycled pieces."

"Canonically Zaun is supposed to be super-dark, oily, and dirty with green smoke everywhere." Dude it is literally called The Gray. Zaun's marketplace, college, and an example of their architectural style from the LoL website:

Zaun is literally an afterthought. And I think its very telling that once again, Piltover was the priority. Magical, pure Piltover with its moral code...and Zaun was literally just designed to be its opposite. They claim that the show was designed to show the good and bad parts of both, but they failed to include any direct evidence that the problems in Zaun are entirely due to Piltover's treatment of them. They literally just took LoL Zaun, scooped the top (more prosperous) levels off, and buried it under Piltover. Piltover was enriched, and even benefited by inspiration from Eastern European culture like Nikola Tesla and Czech artist Alphonse Mucha. And then gave Viktor the only "foreign" accent in the show to further emphasize his disadvantaged upbringing and displacement in Piltover society. As someone with an Eastern European/Slavic background, I cannot emphasize this enough: fuck. every. last. one. of. you.

*sigh* Moving on to the "value and enrichment" given to Zaun:

cities described as "dissonant halves of the a greater whole" rather than symbiotic

Piltover came first, and the undercity later develops into Zaun. No mention of historical or present-day Zaun having anything to do with Piltover's success. Literally nothing is explicitly connected, though we do get Cait committing war crimes using tech her Mom installed to help the Zaunites from suffering the effects of pollution.

Speaking of pollution, AoA explictly states neither city has "big industry, there are no factories". Uhh then where is the pollution coming from?

It is portrayed unflatteringly with two notable exceptions (the Last Drop and Firelight tree), specifically in the ways that are in real life associated with racism, classism, body shaming, and cultural shaming. Its subtle at times, but a constant theme in their book, interviews, and the show itself.

In AoA, the Piltie extras are "understudies" and the Zaunites are "a motely crew".

Piltover has “normal” food like tea and sandwiches, while Zaun has what appears to be slugs in a muddy sauce from an unsanitary food stall that also displays drooling animal heads and tentacles.

All the Pilties are thin; the only overweight people (who are also usually morbidly obese) are from Zaun.

In Art of Arcane (AoA) they talk about how they specifically chose to design the Chem-Barons "more cartoony than grotesque" and that they made sure to have "a few landmarks, like the bridge, so it doesn't feel too cartoony" when designing Piltover.

Only the Zaunites use augmentation. Its a defining characteristic and objectively "bad". AoA explicitly correlates Viktor fixing his leg and spine with losing parts of his humanity. Lord know what they think of the multitude of augmented-out-of-necessity Zaunites. Coincidentally, the other character most associated with augments is Smeech, the cartoony drowned-rat-looking antagonistic Yordle, whose fight serves as a humorous scene endearing Jinx to the viewers.

They created the Piltover Council and then decided to make the Chem-Barons their direct counterparts, because DUALITY! Seriously, is anyone in Zaun NOT somehow just a "worse" version of a Piltie?

[bomberqueen17]

lurkey lurkey

so i had in my mind been like "when the farm season is over i'm gonna get so much done" and also in my mind been like "bitch be real i am going to be decompressing uncontrollably and will achieve nothing" and just as one might have predicted, i have split the difference, spinning wheels wildly and also achieving little.

i did do a final definitive trial of ADHD meds, long put-off because the season was too hectic, and decided that yes, my impression of July was correct, I suck at being medicated LOL

I did start publishing the 150k of incoherent fanfic I started writing in August while insane, and I might keep going on that; there's a small audience but a lovely one

and I really really did take the characters from that fanfic and shove them into a new story and I have written several tens of thousands of words of notes but in the last couple of days I actually think I have begun to write a draft. So.

If anyone is interested in possibly doing some beta-reading, even just cheer-reading, of a draft of an original novel about bisexual tall ship sailors in a solarpunk setting, I should mention that the stay-at-home wife is turning out to be the B-plot heroine (it might actually be the A plot) and the Admiral's sassy gay socialite husband is doing some heavy lifting I hadn't expected, but on the other hand, the children are less onscreen than I'd expected. And I'm not sure where the sex is going to fit in, if at all. But there is still an OT3.

So let me know about that. I'm not quite ready with a shareable draft but I'm two chapters in and cautiously optimistic that this is actually a story. Maybe?

But I'm about to head back to the farm for the turkey processing ordeal, which is a solid week of extremely hard work with a major holiday in the middle with family obligations and then more work immediately afterward, so I don't expect to have time to work on it for a bit. But it's ruminating in there, I promise.

I have a snippet, which is a first-- everything I've written so far I've hated upon rereading, so that's why I think I'm making progress. I've renamed everyone but kept the first names mostly, where I didn't swap genders. This is the opening of chapter 2, so we've already had Technology Backstory With Smart Wifey, and Action Sequence At Sea With Explosions, and now it's time for Character Backstories:

Someone shouted his name from down the street, and Tom laughed aloud, handed his datapad to the mildly alarmed merchant captain walking beside him, and turned, holding his arms out and bracing himself to receive the sudden arrival of thirteen stone or so of Yardley at full velocity. James always jumped and Tom always caught him, that was how it had worked since they were about thirteen, and he spun around to absorb some of the excess velocity and then kissed James soundly on the mouth before setting him down.  “Atkins, you fucker,” Yardley said. He’d knocked both their hats off. He was tan, straight off a run from around the Storms, and had been long-scheduled to meet them here. Constellation’s limping had slowed them down so much they were eight days overdue, so he’d likely been hanging around a while now. “I hear you have a good excuse for being late.” “I don’t know that it’s good,” Tom said, retrieving their hats and putting Yardley’s back on him. Then he realized it was the wrong hat, so he switched them. “But it couldn’t exactly have been avoided.”  James grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him again, and it could read as just friendly to a casual observer but Tom knew it was not, and smiled, curling his tongue wickedly but briefly behind James’s teeth before pulling back. James kept hold of his face and frowned. “You look like shit,” he said. “Thanks,” Tom said. “You look like you’ve been lying around Barka drinking and fu--” He rerouted the sentence, remembering they weren’t alone. “Making friends.” “Well,” James said modestly, preening, “naturally.”

[skyfallslayer]

The Daughter of The (Dare)Devil || Hiatus Recap

Please read my apology here if you haven't. It explain why I've been gone so long. And since it has been several months, I've decided to write a little recap. Feel free to read it before you move on to the new story, or not.

|| SEASON 1 ||

Set pre-canon by a several months, is story 1: 'Welcome Home The Blood and Bruises'. This story shows how Matt ends up screwing his "foolproof" plan of never-ever telling his daughter that he's a vigilante. The beginning scene shows Matt a little banged up while his daughter, Kaila (age 14), takes care of him. This causes a flashback to a year earlier where his plan falls apart. Matt arrives home in a bad state, causing him to faint and for his daughter to find her, thus revealing his secret. Eventually, realizing that's there's no way to stop this man, Kaila just accepts it and agrees to help patch him up.

Story 2: 'I'd Burn The World For You'. For some reason this is still one of my favorites that I've written despite the angst that I throw here and there. In this one, the story's set after DD Episode one, where Matt and his best friend, Foggy had just hired an assistant that so happen to be their first client, Karen. Now, remember, Kai's a bit skeptic in the beginning and Foggy's just hungry (lol). Meanwhile, being the curious person she was, Karen starts asking Matt about his past, like 'We're you married?' or 'Did you have a girlfriend?'. Which Matt encourages, and replies with the story of how his daughter came into his custody. Flashback to fourteen years ago, the best friends have graduated college and have passed their Bar exam. Matt's in his new apartment and telling Foggy about how his fling, Aka: Kai's Mother, who's name is Mary (Remember that people), is trying to contact him via phone call but he's ignoring. Foggy eventually slips out to get them lunch, and before you know it, Mary drops baby Kai off in front of the door. Matt manages to call and get Foggy to come back, dumbfounding his best friend which soon insist 'It's just a prank, bro'. Nerves are shooting through the roof as they get to the hospital to get a DNA test to find out of Matt's really this baby's father. Well... surprise, surprise, he is. Foggy, being the best damn friend is his, is discussing some options with the nurses since Matt's in his own head, and is soon pulled out of it when one of the nurses hands over baby Kai to him. Matt immediately becomes a girl dad, falling in love and swearing to the beyond that he'll love and protect this child for as long as he lives. Foggy's secretly happy when he hears Matt wants to keep her, and the flashback ends when him giving her the name: Kaila Jackie Murdock (Got to give his old man some love, am I right?). The story finishes with Karen almost in tears, but Matt reassures her that everything's okay. Especially now that he has the family he secretly always wanted.

Story 3: 'Crossing The Line'. Another personal fav of mine. So this is set in episode seven "Stick". A man named Wilson Fisk has entered the ring, and Matt has earned the nickname 'The Devil of Hell's Kitchen' - Foggy insist that this vigilante is up to no good, while Karen is the opposite - The story splits between Matt and his Mentor, Karen getting herself into trouble, and some Uncle/Niece bonding time.

1. Foggy owes Kaila another showing for the Hunger Games as they both ditch their plans to go find Karen. - They end of finding her, and she takes them to the person she was meeting up with. - Karen reveals that she's been working with Ben Urich to uncover the Union Allied Scandal. 2. Matt soon finds himself meeting Stick again, his asshole mentor who up and left him 20+ years ago. - They end up back in his apartment, where Stick is slowly figuring out that Matt's got someone living with him before asking for his help. The Blind lawyer agrees, which he regrets later on. - A Time skip later, Stick figures out about Kai and insults Matt which causes a massive fight. Matt ends up winning and threatens Stick to never come near his daughter, which ends in laughter and Matt being frustrated that his tainted past is starting to touch his kid.

Story 4: 'I've Got The Devil Inside Me'. Let's add more angst to the plate. The next morning Matt discovers that his partners are investigating Union Allied, much to his dismay, but he agree to help as long as they're "cautious" (Yeah, some big talk from a blind man who fights crime at night). This eventually leads to Matt and his daughter talking after she arrives to the apartment being destroyed, and encourages him to talk to her if something's up. The next day at school, Kaila witnesses Fisk's big speech on TV on how he's declared war on 'The Masked Man'. - This leads to Ben, and the gang trying to figure out what they can dig up to bring Fisk down (And it's certainly not a pretty road) - This also leads to the reveal that Fisk is doing business with a slumlord that's raising a client of theirs rent (Aka: Ms. Cardenas). Out of options, Matt decides to try to get inside the head of the woman Fisk loves the most, Vanessa. Kaila tags along as they try feeling her out at the art gallery she works out. However, Luck's not on their side when the Man of the hour himself arrives, planting himself inside the Murdocks' heads. When Kaila arrives home the next day from school, she finds her father staring at his suit, then engulfs her into a much needed hug. She encourages him to open up again, and he reveals that Ms. Cardenas was killed, and he was filling up with rage to the point he wants to kill the Kingpin. Eventually, she pulls him from those thoughts, and they parted ways as he heads out for the night. This story ends with Matt coming home in the worst state she's possibly seen him in, and just before she can figure out what to do, her Uncle arrives and discovers the family's dirty secret.

Story 5: 'The One Where The Uncle Finds Out'. One of my favorite, but most painful episode to watch. It opens up with Foggy's POV as he stumbles in all buzzed, and demanding they make Fisk pay for what he's done to their client. He gets more than what he bargain for, and it's a race through time for him and his Niece to get Matt stable. They eventually contact Claire who cleans him up. As soon as Matt's up, Foggy can't hold back and demands for answers. The argument starts, and in between that, Foggy makes a decision to lie to Karen that Matt's sick and he can handle it alone. Foggy also learns during their heated moment that his best friend can hear heartbeats, which shatters all the trust he has, and even questions if their friendship was even real. Eventually, while Kai tries to do her homework in the living room, they exploded at each other again. Foggy finally has the guts to ask Matt why he started all this, and his hesitant to spill while his daughter's in the room. Foggy pushes back, saying she has more rights than him to know what's going on, so... she stays as he spills the truth (Which it's more detailed than he initially told Kai). Foggy stares in disbelief when Matt reveals he doesn't want to stop crime fighting, no matter how hard it gets. Foggy tries to pull the "friendship card", which has no affect since this city "needs" the mask vigilante. This results in Foggy telling him to do whatever he wants, and if he gets killed in the process, he'll take Kaila under his wing -- but to remember that he's not her father, and that he'll feel guilty pretending to be. Foggy storms out of the apartment while saying "He would have told Matt he had a crime fighting life". The next few days were interesting - Karen came to visit him after his "car accident" - Claire ended any romance between them - Father Lantom told him that Devil inside him was an angel once, and applies towards him - It was all enough for him to realize he needs to stay alive for the ones he love. He wasn't expecting when he got home for his daughter to still be pissed at him, and leave to spend the night at Karen's for some space. The story ends with the young girl getting taken by Wesley.

Story 6: 'No Good Deed...' Goes unpunished they say. This story shows how much Kaila is like her Dad in a lot of ways. It opens up with Matt calling Karen, wondering if she made to her place since she hadn't texted him. Wesley is revealed to the one to kidnap her, and that she wasn't the originally target, but he was going to make do. He reveals that he's bitter that Karen is like a dog with a bone, and won't let what happen at Union Allied stop her from uncovering the truth. Amused, Kaila taunts, which is cut off quickly when he lays his gun onto the table. He rants on about Karen finding Fisk's mother, which is evidence she can use to bring him down on trial. Kaila then asks why he just doesn't kill her already, which he reveals would be troublesome if he did since she's a daughter of a well respect lawyer, and has ties to a police officer not under Fisk's thumb (Brett). He instead tells her she's offering her a job, a job where she'll convince everyone she knows that Fisk is not the "bad guy". Kaila bites back saying she would never, which Wesley threatens her that he'll kill her family before finishing her. But... something snaps inside her, and as Wesley went to answer his phone, she grabs a hold of the gun, aiming it at him. His poker face is incredible, and tries to play it off that it's unloaded, but she threatens him to stay away and let her leave. She doesn't get far before he tackles her, and proceeds to strangle her. They wrestle around, and fight for the gun which eventually goes off. To her horror she realizes she shot him point blank in the heart. His phone starts ringing again, and Kaila's on the verge of a nervous breakdown as she grabs her belongings and runs away. Kaila shocks Karen when she arrives at her apartment, and spews out what Wesley knew and wanted before revealing that she had killed him by accident. Karen, who seems way too calm for this, tells her she'll take care of it - she disposes the gun in the Hudson and calls Matt that everything's "okay". Karen patches the young girl up, and reveals her trouble past to the girl. They promise each other to keep this a secret from anyone, and Karen promises Kai that she'll be by her side whenever she needs it. The story ends with a guilt filled Kaila meeting a strange boy at a coffee shop, and Foggy rushing in that they found a way to stop Fisk once and for all.

Short Story 1: 'The New Suit'. Season One wraps up with Ben's Funeral, and the troublesome trio allowing Kaila to dip her toes into the dangerous waters that'll bring down Fisk. Eventually, the masked man gets a confession from Detective Hoffman that manages to get the Kingpin behind bars... or so they thought. Their celebration was cut short when Fisk escapes custody, and Matt rushes out to stop him. The story finishes with the lawyer coming home with a victory under his belt... and a new suit (One that Kaila approves). Matt promises he'll be a better father, and Kaila promises she'll open up more. *Foreshadowing Indeed On Both Counts*

|| SEASON 2 ||

I swear with each season there's always more and more angst.

Story 7: 'The Point of No Return (Murdock v Murdock)', Part one of the mini series. - Opens up with months passing after the Lawyers' victory of putting Fisk away. Kai has a job now, a new friend name Jayden, but is unfortunately showing signs of PTSD from the whole killing Wesley situation. Meanwhile, Nelson & Murdock is booming! But the euphoria they all feel ends soon when they're stuck with a strange client, Grotto, who soon gets attacked by the soon be dubbed 'Punisher'. Flash the next morning, Foggy's on his way to the hospital to meet Karen and Grotto, only to run into his niece who's looking for her dad. They soon put two-and-two together, and race across the rooftops to find Matt. They eventually find him disoriented from the gun shot he took to the head. - Later, he wakes up to Foggy scolding him and warning him not to orphan his kid before heading off. Short time after that, Matt goes temporarily deaf, scaring Kai but not really fazing him since he's still in "shape" to be DD tonight. Karen comes by telling them about Grotto and him being "bait" to lure out a big mob boss for the DA. Kaila and her eventually talk, the teenager's guilt about Wesley coming through while her father slips out to fix his suit. - Faking an emergency, Kai gets Matt to come home and this leads to an argument. Heated words are exchanged, and Matt ends up telling her that he wouldn't have to worry about his injures 'if she wasn't here'. Instant regret happens, but nothing more can be said except Kai's FU that ends the story.

Story 8: 'The Darkest Time With Our Thoughts (Murdock v The World)'; Part two of the mini series. Starts off with the house divided, Kai's angry and Matt's depressed (As they both should be). Nelson & Murdock (& Page) are about to head off with DA to watch their client be bait to a mob boss, but due to Matt's mind being elsewhere, Foggy urges him to go home and try to make it up with his kid (Spoiler: He puts the damn costume on instead). - Meanwhile. Kai wants to be left alone, yet life throws her a curveball when a clearly unwell man shows up at her door, asking for her father and Foggy. She soon finds herself fighting for her life, almost getting the upper hand before being taken away (Foggy ends up getting that dreadful call from Brett). Matt suddenly wakes up chained to the rooftop, face-to-face with the Punisher. Matt tries playing detective while Frank basically tells him to STFU. There's a brief heated exchange between them, then Frank gets ready to finish his mission, and was even nice enough to let Matt listen to the voicemails he has before he decides to finish him off. Matt tries to drown them out by moving the chains around to hid his secret ID, but that all changes when the last frantic message from Foggy reveals that someone took his daughter and he needs to get to the police station. The Murdock begs Frank to let him go, and he does. - The story ends with Matt falling apart.

Story 9: 'I'm Trembling, But I'll Protect You (Love v Death)'; Last part of the mini series. The story opens with Kaila having a very interesting dream (I highly suggest you guys at least read that part again, there's a lot of foreshadowing for future stories). She wakes up and is met with her capturer who tells her that he's the brother of Nelson & Murdock's first client, who they apparently failed (Remember this later, also). Meanwhile, the trio is racing through all the paperwork they have to find out who this client is. They three of them have a nice heartfelt talk that ends up striking an idea in Matt. Matt ends up figuring out their first 'official' client was 'John Healy', the man hired by Fisk to kill. Before anything could be done, Matt gets a call from Frank telling him to meet up; He does, surprised to find out that Frank knows where Kai is. This also leads to an early ID reveal with Karen. Matt has a standoff with the kidnapper, negotiating back and forth to by Frank some time to take the shot. Kai is rescued, and the Murdocks shared heartfelt speeches and hugs while Frank disappears into the mist. - Kai's taken to the hospital by Brett (Who unknowingly knows DD's ID) and treated for her leg injury. The story ends with Kai accepting why her father does this job and is happy to be home.

Story 10: 'A Glimmer Amongst The Sinners'. The story opens up with a flashback to 15 years ago, where a young Matt is trying to figure out how to be a father to a baby he can't see (while also trying to find her mother, Mary, for answers). He feels like he's falling off the deep end, but lucky Foggy is there by his side, helping him along the way, which he's forever grateful for. Flash forward to Matt listening to his daughter sleep, happy that she's home. Now, at lot of things happen - Kaila eggs her dad to ask Karen out; Karen digs around about Frank's Past; Frank gets abducted and Matt must find him; Foggy, Kai & Karen head to the Castle house for clues; Then Frank & Matt escape and have a heartfelt moment, leading up to Frank being arrested by Brett who gets a promotion by bringing him in. Oh... the story should end right here, right? Nope! More plot lines! We finally get a Karedevil kiss, which makes Matt get on cloud 9 until his old flame shows up in his apartment. Elektra tries to get Matt to be her lawyer to get her father's money back, which he strongly declines. She then tries pushing back before accidently meeting Kaila. Elektra acts all hurt and broken up when Matt throws her out. The next day goes smoothly in the office, Matt & Karen go on a date, while Foggy tries helping his niece with her friend Jayden who seems to be avoiding her since the kidnapping. Matt has a brief interaction with Elektra again on the phone during his date, he tells her to F off, and him and Karen head back to her place for some romance. The story finishes with Kai coming home to find Jayden ready to talk.

And that wraps this up! I'm finishing the next story as we speak. I'm aiming to release it either by the end of next week or the following. So sorry again this took so long, and thanks for sticking around! ❤️

-Taglist is open if anyone wants to join-

@stinkywhore @invinciblerikkai @glass-ghost

@your-not-invisible-to-me @ohtacosindrome

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[daylander1000]

I swear this fandom is becoming more and more insufferable every day which is scary not to mention it's at least one more year of wait until season 2. I don't want even to imagine what it's going to be like when it actually airs. I've been in other fandoms, including the GoT one, but this level of toxicity, aggression, tribalism and hypocrisy is unreachable. What is with this show that encourages such behaviour? I really don't understand. I used to be team green (I still am kind of) during the show, especially the second half and after the show ended because I hated the way many black stans were acting towards anyone who didn't share their opinions and the way they talked about green characters (and even the actors) in general. Also, the framing of the show with it's good vs bad guys concept was annoying af so it wasn't hard to choose TG, at least to me. However, now I'm not even sure I care enough. It's so difficult to discuss anything show related normally and nust because all this toxicity soured the whole hotd experience to me now I'm more than anything team anti hotd fandom. That's why your fic is literally the last hotd related thing I'm looking forward to so atm so thank you for actually giving something good to this wretched fandom 😩. Seriously, Aemond and Rhaena should follow my example and just be done with everyone and everything lol. Anyway, I'm (not so😁) patiently waiting for the next update. I don't know anymore if I'll watch season 2, but I'll definitely read swhhw.

I get you. At large, it's not a fun fandom to be in. I remember when there was a petition to stop Matt Smith from being Dr Who on the grounds of him being too ugly, so in a sense it's a little amusing to see how he's inspired this whole "Choke me daddy" rabid fanbase... But other than that, it's really not much fun. People take everything as fighting words. They're attacking real people to defend fictional characters written by a man who hasn't even finished his series as yet after a decade long hiatus...

I don't even get the joy of reading other fics really, because I try to reduce the odds on me 'stealing' someone else's fic idea. Like, I know fair is fair and it's all fanworks, but I'll literally read something, go to sleep, incept myself, and wake up like "you know what would be really cool???" and it's only when I'm reading it all over that I'll realize that I've split off on a whole different unrelated tangent and have to course correct. I'm trying to write better and faster and cut down on how distracted I get. For example, writing while commuting feels productive but it really isn't, not how I do it. I get so distracted... I'll be editing and realize, "No, you can't write that. That's a line from a Hozier song."

HotD doesn't deserve the time or the energy. Like, I look at the word count of swhhw and question all my life decisions. But the rhaemond fandom is so nice and so small, you can't help it. It's like an oasis in a radioactive wasteland.

I'm also kinda doing it for Team Dyslexia and Team Dysgraphia in a sort of "We can do it!" way?

I really want to finish this before S2 starts.

[thegayestminotaur]

What’s your All or Nothing AU about? I’m pretty curious about it, IK it focuses on Dr. Venture (had hair LOL) and Dr. Orpheus. Srsly I am interested about it and its lore. 👀

I'm really gonna try hard to be brief here.

The basic gist is that after Season 2 Ep. 10 "I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills", Byron and Rusty start dating. Their relationship is rocky at first for various reason, like the fact that Rusty is kind of a terrible person and has a lot of internalized homophobia and Byron's unresolved trauma following his divorce along with his rather lawful personality clashing with Rusty's chaotic nature. They do fall in love, of course. I'm not in the business of writing a slowburn with this one. Dr. Henry Killinger showing up during Season 3 Ep. 2 "The Doctor Is Sin" is a major turning point for Rusty in the fic. Upon the revelation that Rusty is in love with Byron, Killinger switches from setting Rusty up as a supervillain to setting him up for superscience success. Ya know. Because Byron wouldn't like dating a villain. It's hard work, but by following Killinger's 'Action Plan', Rusty's able to go from literal joke to a superscience powerhouse. The fic is split into two parts. The first part is a pretty straightforward romance that goes over Rusty and Byron's relationship up to and a little ways after them getting married during the events of All This and Gargantua-2. The second part is more of an action-thriller that goes over Rusty's fight against... well... everybody. First it's just Guild, but after Rusty gets shot in the head during a protest in NYC, he declares war on the NYPD. Not like, actual gunfire and bullets war, but when you're a billionaire living in the USA, you can do a lot of shit that makes life difficult for people and Rusty is nothing if not petty. By sheer unbridled spite, he starts threatening to tip the balance of power that the OSI has carefully maintained so Hunter declares him too dangerous to live. Turns out, though, that it's incredibly hard to kill Rusty now since he has been training to not be hit and also is married to a dude who can bring people back from the dead. But while Hunter is concerned with Rusty taking over the world because he's too petty to stop and think, Rusty's concerned with something way beyond the scope of governments and Secret Governments. Aliens. Okay, okay, hang on, now - Aliens are canon to Venture Bros. In Season 2 Ep. 5 "20 Years To Midnight" we actually see two different aliens. One of them happens to be one I quote all the time with the wonderful line "IGNORE ME!" But like... if Jonas Sr was communicating with aliens to the point where 20 Years To Midnight happens and he maybe felt like the construction of Gargantua-1 was necessary (this is just me speculating) then why don't we see them again? (Probably because the series was cancelled i'm fiiineeee :'''3) but I think with both Rusty and Byron advancing their respective talents in leaps and bounds to the point where OSI considers them too dangerous to be left alone, then a threat from outside Earth makes perfect sense.

Plus, this way I can also write "Hyper-Competent 21, The Monarch, and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch Threesome" because The Monarch always steps up his game to match Rusty's EMA (Equally Matched Aggression Rating) and I love that also sooo But why does Rusty have hair? During the events of the fic, Rusty takes a look at the DNA sequences his dad left behind and realizes that his genome is fucked up. (This is canonically confirmed in Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, but is something that you can glean through other episodes/seasons.) In fic, he goes in and uses gene therapy to patch things up a bit which causes some minor physical changes.

Don't get me wrong, I also love canon Rusty. He's a pathetic lil meow meow, a totally wet lil bastard, and I love him. I have nothing wrong with his bald headed-ness, but this way you/I can see the progression of him in fic from Pathetic Bastard to Hyper-competent Alien Fighter depending on how much hair and which facial scars he has. Same thing with Byron and his scars and how pointy I draw his ears and teeth.

[the-paris-of-people]

8,12, and 17 for the nhie ask game 💕

8. What is your most unpopular opinion?

Oh boy, I have a lot.

Honestly my most unpopular opinion right now is that I don't think it would make sense for Manish and Kamala to get married at the end of nhie s4, and also I would be 100% fine with them splitting. I love Manish and Kamala individually a lot, but I'm not particuarly attached to them as a couple, and maybe it's just me projecting onto the characters, but Kamala's hesitancy to get married anytime soon/valuing her independence and agency is a journey I love and have taken and would love if the show focused more on that in the last leg rather than her and Manish's relationship, and I don't care if that occurs with or without him. I wouldn't mind if she and Manish ended up together though, as long as it was conducive to Kamala's journey.

My second unpopular opinion is that I'm a liiiiiiiiiiittle excited to see Ben and Margot date? Don't get me wrong, I 100% would prefer if Ben and Devi dated the entire season 4 (I stg if they don't have them interact until the last couple episodes I will scream) but I would like Ben to have a Des type experience where he gains confidence and realizes he's not this dick he makes himself out to be. Also I'm toxic and I want jealous Devi. Okay?? Selfishly, I just want her pining. But only for 3-4 episodes then they need to get it together.

12. What season has been your favorite so far?

UGH DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE!!! This was so hard because s1 had the most airtight plot and the experience of watching Devi as a protagonist was so special to to me, s2 was when I first started seeing the FULL POTENTIAL of Benvi and gave me some cxgf vibes, and s3 was when all the characters had the most amazing arcs, Nalini and Devi became closer, and we got that epic romcom finale so I'll have to choose s3. That was so hard though!

17. Anything you want to rant about? (Aka more unpopular opinions)

This is more fandom related, but I wish more people wrote adult Benvi! There are so many fics of them from when they were teens and younger and while I like that I would love more fics of them grown-up and happy! Also very few people can write Ben and Devi well, I feel like sometimes they're just general fics with their names in there and I wish there were more highly character specific fics.

Another unpopular opinion but I think Ben's episode in s3 was my least favorite s3 episode. I absolutely loved his s1 episode about his home life and I really liked the message of the s3 episode and his interactions with Devi and Paxton but I find Ben's internal monologue about pressure not as fun or interesting to watch as Devi's shenanigans. Honestly, now that I am writing it, I think it's bc the episode was about school that's why I didn't care as much LOL. I also am not the biggest fan of the redemption arc for his dad- like it annoys me that Ben needed that external validation to have the stress lifted off his shoulders when Howard has been a shitty parent. Not that it's not realistic but it was annoying.

I personally don't believe that Ben was in love with Devi or vice versa before that moment in the principal's office that piqued his interest in episode 2, just because I think love is a very deep emotion and I like the idea of them falling in love as they got to know each other than I like the idea of them being in love (whatever that means to you as a kid) and realizing it suddenly.

Not unpopular, but we need to have a discussion about how Devi has heart eyes tm jealousy tm love tm for Ben, and how the rest of the love interests serve to strengthen their relationship which I honestly kind of love. Essentially, there's not enough Devi loves Ben discussion on here so I need to see it. Going into my next point, Devi NEEDS to tell Ben how she feels. I need her to tell Ben when they're both finally single that she wants to be with him the last couple months they have of college, I need her to make a big dramatic love confession, I need her to explain her feelings and why she dated other people instead of him and how she wanted to date him. Like I need her leading the charge on all of this (and I'm 99% sure she will)

[miraculouscontent]

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

:|

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a  guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

[raineyraven]

Songs by the Oh Hellos i assosciate with dream smp characters/settings/scenarios

I've been listening to the oh hellos nonstop for the past few months and i think their vibe really fits the dsmp, so im gonna talk about a few of their songs i associate with certain things on the smp

*note: a lot of the meanings of the songs i mention are just what i interperet the songs to mean. also, a lot of these involve tommy because i am biased lol

Second Child, Restless Child - tommy, especially season 1 tommy. its about a reckless, inexperienced kid who wants to experience the world around them, and it has a feeling of boundless energy to it. i especially think the line "and they saw trouble in my eyes, they were quick to recognize the devil in me" fits how the other characters saw him.

Trees - lmanburg. "safe inside the walls we built we found ourselves a home" i heard this and just. immediately thought of lmanburg. the song's about taking risks because even if it fails, the knowledge that you tried and whatever positives you got out of it is enough. lmaburg failed in the end, its ideals abandoned, it wasnt meant to last. but they still have the memories of it, even if it was long ago. "but heartache pales in comparison to love"

Wishing Well - wilbur. i'll be honest, part of why i associate this song with him is cus it fits a lot of my headcanons for his backstory. nevertheless, like the protagonist of the song, wilbur did not find what he was seeking, in this case a place to uphold his ideals and be safe from tyranny, and he ended up falling to his own mistakes.

Theseus - new lmanburg. hah, you thought i was going to say tommy and techno, didnt u? nah, the song uses theseus' ship as a metaphor for change, being the same thing and yet being repaired so much its nothing like what it once was, and i think its really fitting of new lmanburg. lmanburg is no single use ark to discard in an instant, "like Theseus' ship, we'll fix the busted bits". also the lines "til its both nothing like and everything its always been / its a wonder we expect a thing to stay the same at all" and "we keep fixing what we know is only bound to break."

Exeunt - exile. ive mentioned this before, but i correlate Exeunt with tommy running away from logstedshire and dream. the song is about gaining the courage and will to leave a manipulative abuser, but the traces of their manipulation are still there. "lo, the rose is gone from my eyes, so decieving", tommy realizing dream was manipulating him, 'just watching him'. the line "even when you hunt me with ire, relentless / batter down my door when you find me defenseless" heavily reminds me of dream seeking out tommy in the arctic. i just think its very fitting :')

I Was Wrong - eret. i dont think i really need to explain this one. its a song about regret and guilt, realizing the desicion you were so confident in was so, so wrong. they knew some of their old friends might never forgive them, but they are still oh so sorry.

Dear Wormwood - tommy again. it reminds me of two moments with tommy: him standing up to dream at the nether portal with techno and at the community house when him and techno split off. the line "i know who you are now / and i name you my enemy" reflects tommy realizing dream was never his friend and breaking out of his manipulation. also "steadily becoming what i hate" is very akin to his realization at the community house. the entire song for me is a good representation of tommy's journey throughout season 2.

The Valley - i think this fits the dream smp as a whole, but especially the children of the smp, as its about how the mistakes of older generations affect the younger. it has a really wild feel to it, and i think it captures the air of what the smp feels like, at least to me.

This is also my oh hellos propaganda post to tell everyone who found the songs Theseus and Passerine cause of the dsmp to check out some of their other songs, every single one is a banger

[garrothromeave]

the hell is mystreet season 6??

(warning, long post ahead)

ok so before i start this

1) ive never posted shiiiit on tumblr before so watch me suffer, im just here to talk about stuff that my friends who dont know anything about aphmau have to listen to me rant about for hours on end

2) i havent seen mystreet in like years (except season 3, i watch that frequently since im laurance and shadow knight deprived) so please bear with me because i might be completely wrong on this lol. it’s just like, pointing out things i remember

3) im sure someones already talked about this but who cares

4) im gonna do this stupid thing where i just explain myself a bit at first, if you dont want to read that just skip to the part where you see “the actual thingy:” in bold and italics 

5) mild disclaimer; i am completely aware that jessica is not a professional writer. i know that she did her best to appeal to her fans, and honestly, respect for that. while this post will come off as aggressive and probably look like hate, that’s not my intention in the slightest. it’s just... intense criticism. im sure y’all probably already know that, but yeah, just stating that anyways. i do believe that jess is doing her best, and in no way do i want to dismiss any hard work she’s done. that being said; prepare for a very strongly opinionated post.

haha watch there be 10000+ typos in this making me look like a complete dumbass

ok here we go 

one of the main reasons i stopped watching aphmau back in 2017 was the mess that was season 4. like, in the first few episodes of the emerald secret, i thought “woah!! this is kinda cool, im a sucker for mystery!” because of course i was, it was something new and something exciting. the only problem i had with it at the time was kim, but that’s just because i always found her annoying and out of place. i just didn’t understand why garroth dragged her along and honestly i still don’t to this day BUT, moving on.

anyways, as the season progressed, 13 year old me was of course just “:0!!” the entire time--that is, up until the reveal of the main villain. i remember watching the episode, seeing the reveal of ein, and then stopping. like, just for a quick break, but i was still just overwhelmingly disappointed. like, and this was the time when pdh was airing and ein just got made alpha (i think?) and i had really really liked eins character in pdh. either way, that really sucked and actually opened my eyes to a lot of things.

one of the main things bein’ the fact that this was supposed to be a slice of life kinda series that decided to take a turn to a more edgy kinda approach. which, i guess i regularly wouldnt mind? but seeing as mcd was kinda bein neglected at the time it just didnt sit right with me. BUT WHATEVER, point is i stopped watching mystreet all together at the end of season 4.

like, a whole year later my brother tells me that shit’s getting intense in season 5 + 6 of mystreet, and my brilliant self decided to give it a shot--but i refused to watch all of season 5, so i only stepped in when ein made an appearance. so whenever that was, that’s where i picked up because i didnt care enough to see 

and y’know--i honestly didn’t hate it at first. in fact, i found it oddly cool. it wasn’t enough to get me into aphmau again, but it was enough to where i was intrigued. i dont know why, but i never watched the finale, so i didnt see the ending until just a few weeks ago--but back then, i thought it was neat. looking back on it however... im just so confused. 

side note: only got back into aphmau this time around because of mcd. mainly because like, i adore the first season and the first half of the second season. and being nearly 18 now, im a lot more appreciative of plot and well-written characters n junk. 

the actual thingy:

ok back on track. imma stop spilling out my story of how i got back into aphmau, and lets just skip to what rewatching mcd made me realize of season 6′s plot and shit:

-emmalyn. how the fuck does ghost even remotely exist? if she’s emmalyn as claimed, then why have we already seen emmalyn in the mystreet universe alive? look i get that creators can do whatever they want with their stories but at the same time please provide some sort of explanation good god. and maybe they did and i just havent seen it, so if there is one--let me know. but until that day imma just sit here confused as fuck

-ok so imma just be real, the whole ‘ultima’ thing is just... not great. in my opinion, anyways. like... i saw someone mention this in another post, but if this ultima stuff was like, a really big deal, why isnt it mentioned in mcd? though i suppose since its a curse of sorts, it could be later on past the time period in which mcd takes place--but even then, how did it manage to make its way into aaron’s family bloodline? 

-WHY IS EVERYONE AT STARLIGHT ITS JUST SO CONVINIENT like what happened to this place being the most expensive shit on the planet or whatever, and how the gang happens to run into like, the werewolf trio and blaze and kai and guy and nate all of these people like god damn life doesnt WORK LIKE THAT 

-im sorry but turning people into relics? thats... thats the best you could come up with? plus, like, how does that even work? in mcd it’s established that relics are separate entitles that choose their wielder, based on a ‘personal’ connection (being a descendent of a previous wielder) or if they’re a good match personality and (i think?) moral wise. so the whole turning-people-into-relics doesnt make much sense to be honest. 

-irene really over here using her god powers to only keep her friends alive like god damn not a great god if you ask me 

-can i talk about how incredibly predictable aphmaus death was? like i just kinda sat there waiting for it to happen and when it did i literally went “haha! wonder when she’ll be revived” because god forbid we actually kill off characters 

-when aphmau + demon warlock fought in the irene dimension there was no passage of time whatsoever in the real world whiiiiiiiiich really bothers me because they fought in there for at least a few minutes

-speaking of aphmau and the demon warlocks fight does it bother anyone else that it had to be aaron who took over the fight?? like we get it hes the big protector blah blah blah but god damn it wouldve been cooler if aphmau had fought this battle as her. aaron fighting this battle was so underwhelming

-...love. like, thats the only thing thats needed to break out of a forever potion? love? LIKE YEAH, GOOD GUYS GOTTA WIN SOMEHOW, but its just so cliche and overdoneeee

-oh yeah and also when travis went bonkers and became the demon warlock or whatever, why’d he only take over katelyn and garroth?? like, zane had been influenced by the potions in the past as well? DONT GET ME WRONG--i do love some good brother edge, but uh, the demon warlock was just bein kinda a dumbass by not possessing zane too just sayin’

-can aaron please go to fucking jail for mass murder now like holy shit, he just got sent home on a fuckin boat. also why did blaze forgive him for killing him thats not even remotely realistic. then again, nothing in mystreet has ever been realistic when it comes to characters and motives and personalities, (cough katelyn being actually abusive and travis being an actual pervert) but yknow whatever

-katelyn and kawaii chan literally added nothing to the plot whatsoever. like lets be real, katelyn lost her personality the moment season 5 started and kawaii chan just kinda sits there :I

-ok im sorry this was bound to come up but cmon guys imagine laurances potential if he was in season 6 like god damn this is beyond maddening. AND YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A REALLY REALLY COOL PARRALLEL?? IF IT WAS LAURANCE WHO SNAPPED GARROTH OUT OF HIS MIND CONTROL THING, because it would mimic laurance’s speech to get garroth to snap out of his rage in season 1, episode 100 of minecraft diaries. like how fuckin rad would that have been? missed opportunity 

-also?? why does kim/ghost know magicks?? like, if i remember correctly, emmalyn is a scholar--not someone who knew magicks. i mean, i guess research? study?? but its been established that knowing how magicks works =/= being able to use magicks. i dunno, just doesnt seem right i guess. maybe its explained, i wouldnt know (yes i know that makes me look like a dick leave me alone)

-melissa should have stayed dead. LIKE, NO, ITS NOT AS SIMPLE AS “haha it takes more than a few bullets to kill me”??? look ive got nothing wrong with melissa (cough lie cough) but yknow it would have just been cool a character... stay dead? for once? its just too fuckin cliche that shes alive god damn

-can i also just say the only good thing that came out of season 6 was travis’ dads sacrifice like damn that made me actually sad

-howww was lucinda turned into a relic. or yknow, anyone else? like im sure they explain it better in the actual show i just dont remember, but its just that easy? turning anyone into a relic? granted, a normal person wouldnt be able to produce a good relic, but idk man. IM JUST SAYING; that the only really powerful relics that aphmau should have been able to wield is the one that aaron + zane produced because shad relic and esmund relic moment. lucinda isnt even like, connected to a divine warrior. ALSO, another point, if its seriously that powerful of a relic getting one from just a magic user like lucinda, why go through the trouble? i mean i guess ofc youd want the “all powerful” one that the ultima produces but i mean damn whats the point

-ok this is just going to bother me but in one of the episodes (i think might have been in season 5 actually) where that like, guardian dude was chasing aphmau and zane and at one point they split up and the dude just chuckles at zane diverting paths and goes under his breath “youre not the important one here”, suggesting that aphmau somehow is? first of all, id argue that any ro’meave is significantly more important than aphmau was, especially not knowing much about her other than that shes with aaron. i might be missing some bits an pieces, but if i was that dude id forget about aphmau and go after zane 

-killing off derek for shock factor sucked, and i know the moment was supposed to be really sad because like “oh :( aarons dad is sacrificing himself for his son” but lets be real dereks still was a shitty father and i dont think his reasons for doing what he did was very good at all

-less about plot or more like: why the absolute fuck did the gang bring kim along instead of, oh i dont know, a life-long friend? like, laurance or dante maybe?? im sure its explained, i never saw aphmaus year or most of season 5, but god DAMN id hate to be apart of this friend group AND GOD LIKE, imagine reconnecting with an old friend who ends up getting closer to your best friends and taking priority in their lives over you (cough laurance) like god damn lol

-im just going to preface this one with: i dont remember everything that’s happened, so if im wrong i apologize in advance--but (you actually can correct me if im wrong and please do) didnt like, irene reincarnate her friends in order to give them better lives? I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE, ITS JUST WHAT I REMEMBER--however, if im correct, then:

a. why the hell would she bring back someone like zane, or gene, or ivy, etc.

b. why the hell do they all have the same exact names? first and last? again, im aware that the whole mystreet+mcd tie wasn’t originally supposed to be there, but i dont think that means such a coincidence can be excused? its just a bit much if you ask me.

c. why the hell is the fact that (as much as i literally hate this) aaron is a decedent of shad being ignored? like, you’d think that something like this would be something thats actually important, or something the demon warlock couldve taken advantage of. or are we completely erasing every other connections to divine warriors besides aphmau + irene? because even if irene did reincarnate them or do whatever it is she did, does she even have the power to sever the connections between them and their ancestors? my guess is, no.

d. speaking of irene why on earth was aphmau able to talk to/see irene, they’re literally the same person are they not? did she like, fuckin reincarnate herself without actually doing it?? BUT--i will give it to them, the demon warlock did refer to aphmau as something along the lines of being “one of the 3 parts of her broken soul” or something like that. however, my point still remains. also what are the other two did i miss that or is it never explained

now; if irene in fact did not ‘reincarnate’ her friends then please ignore that little bit right there :)

but yes, those are a few of the problems i have with season 6 off the top of my head. i would go into like, season 4 and 5 more as well, but i honestly didnt feel like it. at some point i might go into other things, like how important laurance could have been to the plot of these later seasons, or HELL, even dante. i might also go into what could have made season 4, 5, and 6 actually good--maybe... a rewrite? perhaps? but im getting too far ahead of myself, so i just leave you with this for now.

and i know that as soon as i post this 15 more things are just going to pop into my head BUT im going to try and not edit this post because why stress myself with that even more

anyways thank you for coming to my tedtalk 

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom, season 3 episodes 3-6 thoughts!

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-johnny was actually pretty civil with danny and left when he asked! thats nice. also, SKULKER?? HAD A FRAMED PICTURE OF EMBER?? oooo fuck wait had they established they were a Thing Before?? I dont think so. thats weird. its like that country boy/goth girl meme lmfao. I think i am going to choose to ignore this new info and pretend I didnt hear it. 100% unrelated to the jazz/ember fanart I already drew and posted....😳

-LADIES NIGHT EPISODE THIS IS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. wish it didnt really center around the guys or them being pissed at them, but. willing to bet this was written by men lol

-THEY ERASED ALL THE MEN??? meanwhile, jack and danny are fishing at. silent hill or something. im glad jack is trying to read a parenting book and making an Attempt. (theyre at lake erie, but, they made it actually eerie...thats fun)

-the girls alt outfits...cute. EMBER MADE A NEW SONG TOO!!! kinda. jazz being one of the backup singers and being AWFUL. NOOOO

-'how are we going to get kitty to blow a kiss?' 'she'll have to think there are still some males in town!' ...i dont know how to break it to you, but I dont know that a 100% het girl would wish for all men to Begone. I think. I mean im not a het or a girl so I dont really know for sure. she Is probably Bi tho. esp having the other ladies in town chanting NO MEN!!! excitedly............(then again, the kiss is to get Rid of men, so, she probably would have blown it at the ladies only if they were actively trying to attack/stop them, so...I MEAN. THE DRESSING LIKE DANNY BIT WAS SO EXTRA)

-I feel like an all female cast ep couldve been way way way way cooler than that was. like. why was it still somehow all about Men. ...anyway. (where was valerie...)

-next ep opens with the observants, and, way way more of them than I expected...existed? I mean I guess them being a council/jury of some kind is what I expected from their first appearance (bc at that time they were basically TELLING clockwork to kill danny, not asking,, so I figured they had SOME kind of authority) but. there were so many. anyway, here goes vlad! letting his own hubris go brrrr. releasing a weather ghost for political gain! #justvladthings

-okay say what you will about him (he IS an asshole) but having an umbrella with his own face on it and more prepared to share is SUPER FUNNY. and him being fanned by huge wads of money by his bodyguards. SO ineffective but so Dramatic. He UNDERSTANDS that if youre rich you need to be. you know. obnoxious and kinda eccentric about it! fuckign hate when rich people are boring about it. I would trust vlad with nothing except to not be a boring rich asshole who wears...fucking khaki or some shit. man knows his Presentation Skills. and that 'V' chair in his mayoral office. is that fucking embroidered?

-maddie get your MAN PLEEEEASSSE. IM SO EMBARRASSED FOR HER. the way jack stays simping for this man. in FRONT OF HIS WIFE!!!! ...my god its like a love triangle. jack clearly loves vlad, who loves maddie, who loves jack. jack fenton is at the very least bi, right................. this is an OBSESSION . 'THE V MAN COMETH'???? i...my god. (also, on a serious note, to have a friend THIS SUPPORTIVE...and still be SUCH A DICK TO HIM (TRYING TO KILL HIM AND STEAL HIS WIFE??) NOT COOL VLAD. JACK IS YOUR 1 AND /ONLY/ HYPE MAN. if someone loved and supported me THIS HARD...LIKE. CMON DUDE.

-STOMP the fucking GAS, JACK

-this would make a great shirt design, looks like a metal band design! we love The Maelstrom

-oh, so vlad did in fact get a mansion in amity park. and its purple! good color choice! not as flashy as a CASTLE or MURDER CABIN, but still pretty eccentric, which I appreciate.

-...vlad knows the difference between picasso and da vinci? in the ep last post where we were watching him fail at conquering every historical time ever he didnt seem to know history well enough to like. be effective...was vlad taking art history at college?? (was he an art MAJOR??? we never DID KNOW WHAT HE WENT TO SCHOOL FOR. I kinda assumed business because in the masters of time ep he was still rich without ghost powers so he had to have..known something about business or something, right...but also, art and or theater FITS HIS PERSONALITY. possibly also something science-y, I guess, but I always felt like he got roped into that, esp how pessimistic he was about the ghost portal in the flashbacks to college, like, i felt like he was just there for maddie and was uninterested/un-invested at the time...)

-THIS GHOST JUST ELECTROCUTED MADDIE (THE CAT) BITCH!! THATS MY FAVORITE MADDIE!!! vlad going after vortex and being ~shocked~ .....WHEN. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN. THAT YOUR ACTIONS. HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!

-the way this random man with a camera sees the mayor laying in an alley covered in TRASH AND DECIDES TO TAKE A PICTURE HAHAH

*snap* this ones going in my cringe compilation!

-vlad 'if we're going to defeat vortex, we're going to have to do it together!' *immediately dips after dropping danny off in front of vortex* JKASDFHKJHJKN

-DANNY CAN DUPLICATE!!! ...he couldnt even attack with it, but he DID IT!!! INTO (4) OF HIMSELF!!! SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!!

-'THE ROLLER COASTER EMOTIONS OF A TEENAGER THREATEN MY PLANS!' ...0 self awareness of his own dramatic moodiness. incredible, how dumb this man is. its very close to circling around to endearing, if he was less of an asshole. at least its very very funny to see danny shooting him with tiny lightning bolts anytime he's even slightly irritated! vlad you should be nice to danny anyway. this is what you GET

-...making sandwiches and ice cream and playing video games with your nephew is a totally normal thing. WHY is vlad acting like this is the end of the world. if you were a GOOD UNCLE YOU WOULD ALREADY BE DOING THESE THINGS!!! bitch I make my nephew food all the time and dont forget what he does and doesnt like. if u didnt know danny didnt want tomatoes, thats on u. if u, a grown adult, are gonna piss of the 14 yr old by not letting him win, u deserve to have to pay for the arcade machines he ruins because he now has uncontrollable storm powers because YOU THREW HIM INTO A FIGHT WITH THE STORM GHOST. fuck u vlad. paypal me $400,000 while ur at it tho. (also, gamer vlad confirmed)

-VLAD CAN COOK THOUGH???! I assumed he had...people working for him that did that. I mean. billionaires usually dont do that. then again, we've only seen those vultures working for him (and I guess the dairy king was AT his old mansion, but it was never really clarified if he worked there...I think he probably just Hung Out and they Enjoyed Cheeses Together. thats what I think, I dont think a KING would be working for anyone and also the dairy king was nice <3) but then again he would be a private person and we cant have anyone accidentally finding Ghostly Things, so...still, that's hilarious. pour one out for that really cute banana split that got ruined 2 seconds later

-vlad just fucking picking danny up and THROWING HIM AT VORTEX TWICE WITHIN LIKE A MINUTE. JUST ABSOLUTELY LAUNCHING HIM. BITCH THATS MY SON BE CAREFUL!!! HES GOT ORGANS AND THINGS!!!!

-danny seeing those animal commercials and feeling sad is the biggest 2000s throwback so far. i legitimately had to change the channel or walk out of the room when those came on bc id CRY AND BE SAD ABOUT THEM FOR DAYS AFTER. fuck those commercials and fuck that IN THE ARMMMS OF AN ANGELLLL song 😭

-'vlads ego almost got the town destroyed!' yes danny thats the entire episode. the entire series anytime vlad shows up honestly. this episode was just him being really embarrassing the entire time, and, me laughing about it. 10/10 would laugh at him again

-NEXT EP WE HAVE A SHAPESHIFTING GHOST?? I've said it before but shapeshifting is the power I would want when asked those 'what superpower do you want' questions...its the Best power! this guy looks like a homestuck character. ive never read homestuck but thats the vibe

-I love every time we see tuckers family, they are by far the most functional family. and dash has a lil chihuahua!!! named pookie!!! i am crying (I've had 3 chihuahuas, so I am very biased, but...) AND HE WATCHES THE ROMANCE CHANNEL WITH POOKIE. POOKIE I WILL DIE FOR YOU YOU SWEET LITTLE BABY.

-danny can lift a bus! I shouldn't be surprised, but i am proud of my son. hes got lil kid fans. i am going to cry about this

-JAZZ KEEPS A SCRAPBOOK WITH DANNY'S LIL HEROICS AND NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS!!! we've actually seen it on her floor before, but I didnt realize it was a scrapbook!! thats sooo cute.

-...and danny has to stand there listening to his parents saying danny phantom sucks and is a 'filthy ghost' and calling him egotistical...i am once again stealing their kids!

-THIS GHOST RIPPING JAZZ'S SCRAPBOOK!!! ILL KILL YOU. SHE WORKED HARD ON THAT!!! BITCH

-yes, maddie, the one with red eyes is For Sure Actually Your Son. ignore the, red eyes... (CLEARLY she hasnt watched the other 2 eps where danny has been evil, she doesnt know red eyes= evil!!!)

-'billy fenton'.......................

-danny being stuck as phantom in his own house, no way out is a fucking NIGHTMARE. his parents pointing giant weapons against him and SHOOTING AT HIM. THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE.

-NINE INCH NAILS POSTER.

-this is the most screenshot of all time

-amorpho turning into mr. lancer because hes 'someone no one will want to be around' BUT HES WRONG, I WOULD BEFRIEND AND HANG OUT WITH MR LANCER SO FAST.

-tucker dressing as danny, now I have the full Tucker set of him being sam and also being danny. also saying 'the ghost...uh...RIPPED MY FACE OFF.' and then running. SMOOTH. NOT AT ALL CONCERNING TO ANY PARENTS.

-sam accepts the toast from jack. and then 2 seconds later is like 'why am i eating this.' THIS SHOWS HUMOR IS SO UNEXPECTED SOMETIMES ITS REALLY GOOD. and then the scene after, mr lancer running into his ghost doppelganger and being like 'YOURE GORGOUS' THEN FAINTING. I AM CRYING. AND DASH FAINTING TOO.

-sam disguising herself as danny again to help tucker run from the fentons. but leaving him shirtless in the streets. incredible. 'plEASE DOnt NOTice MY FACELessNESS I MUST LIVE IN EXILE' this episode is destroying me the humor in this show is exactly my brand of corny and cheesy

-the impromtu story made up by danny and amorpho to explain stuff to the fentons. my god they are both such bad liars. but amorpho is a good egg. wish danny wouldnt have said he didnt wanna see him in town again!! I want him to be reoccurring. not that thats gonna matter since I'm almost done with the series, but the idea of this being the Only Time We See him is :(

-NEXT EP SAYS STARRING MARK HAMILL??????!!! hello ! mr . joker....mr. star wars.... I feel like I should be. idk. taking off a hat im not wearing in respect. I shouldnt be surprised tho bc hes in a lot of cartoons as a very good voice actor, and dp has already had a lot of talented ones so I've been looking out for ones I might know, but....mr. hamill....

-sam has her own greenhouse, names all the plants, and says thank you to them (in the languages from where the plants are from) whenever she harvests from them. thats SO cute. and her lil gothy lunch box...

-and danny's lil red fuzzy lined jacket!!! ive said it before but every time the characters get alt outfits im like :D

-danny has ice powers now!!! THATS WHAT FROSTBITE MEANT. HE KNEW SOMEHOW WAY BACK THEN

-THIS SHOW NEVER LETS YOU FORGET VLAD IS A BILLIONAIRE, HUH.

-danny's lil 'holy hibiscus!' first off the 50s batman swearing is hilarious. 2nd. my username is from the flower sanchoyo hibiscus, so, shoutout to ME this ep. hi :)

-EURGH UNDERGROWTH MAKING EVERYONE PLANT ZOMBIES. HIVEMIND PLOTS SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME. and this dude made the city SO overtaken so quickly like how long was danny asleep?? oh god

-evil fucked up sam! now the whole trio has gone evil at some point! the voice actress did a really, really good job with making her sound like a zombie...

-frostbite's paws are so so so big compared to danny. oh my god. i want to hug the snow dog...

-the far frozen has an advanced medical stuff!!! very cool. very smart snow dogs

-im so glad danny has a friendly ghost snow dad to explain this new power and teach him!!! this is so sweet. DANNY'S GHOST SENSE WAS A PART OF HIS ICE POWER?? OOOH. COOL. we love a training montage!!!

-danny saying if he cant defeat overgrowth, that he'd want to stay with frostbite...oh my god...do you think this is the first real supportive adult figure in his life (I am NOT counting his parents because they threaten him on the daily even if they dont realize it.) I mean mr lancer is a Teacher, but he was also nice but this is different, but this is a GHOST WHO IS WILLING TO HELP HIM with his powers and also will help him when hes injured and is so so nice and comparatively so much more mature than 90% of the adults in this show!!!! god. dad frostbite is my everything.

-the framing and lighting this episode, and all the angles...they went all OUT and it looks really really good. this is my nightmare scenario, tho. like, FUCK zombies and dead city zones and hivemind shit. and using the humans as 'nutrients for the children' i am going to THROW UP.

-MALEFICENT VIBES WITH THE HORNS AND GREEN EYES! this costume kicks so much ass. sam is now mark hamills daughter, I guess.

-danny's ice powers making his eyes blue!!! thats neat. and him going for the roots underground was SO SMART. i will not stand for danny ever thinking hes stupid, hes SO smart.

almost done with the show... :"( thats a sad thought!!!

[rosartemis]

Your Phenomenal Dramaturgy DSMP Animatic

Was gonna post a YouTube comment, but then I realized I didn’t want to get eviscerated by the dsmp fandom for having a different opinion, so submitting my interpretation of the lyrics/animatic in regards to c!Dream here instead :P

“But I don’t know a thing, love or losing, see?” I believe references how before Wilbur and L'manburg these kinds of conflicts/wars were never a thing on the server and Dream had no idea how he should deal with it. “So I threw to the side any human in me.” Implies Dream believed he had to make harsh choices to end the conflict, he couldn’t be soft, “No mercy” right? “If I live a lie of shallow words and empty replies, then what am I?” implying Dream keeps his word, but the people of L'Manburg don’t. It’s framed as a response from Dream to Wilbur during the declaration of independence, and makes sense if you consider the fact that Wilbur was scamming everyone out of their own potions supplies and made L'Manburg in part as an excuse to get away with it when the other members of the server got mad (Dream was uninvolved at this point, but he likely heard about it from Sapnap, who was one of the people that had confronted Wilbur and Tommy about their theft). “Then it stuck in my head, gotta run away” Dream and Sapnap getting carried away with burning down the forest surrounding L'manburg. “Playing out like a scene, posing every lead Near the end of the show, waiting in the wing, see?” Not sure about the first line, aside from referencing how everything’s a play and Dream’s the lead actor, but the second line refers to Eret’s role as the hidden traitor “Waiting in the wings”. “Run to front stage, you’re all actors anyway, no one to watch, You’re all part of the play” Dream having to make tough decisions as the de facto leader of the Greater Dream SMP faction during war. He’s planning out strategies with George and Sapnap, but the map turns into a chess game and he hates how he has to consider using them like pawns in the game to win this war. “There’s no one inside me There’s no one that’s hiding Always been me, empty, a body but nobody here to see” Montage of Dream prepping for the battle, there’s a scene in which he’s stepping into an argument between George and Sapnap. He’s steeling himself for the battle ahead. From a meta standpoint, these are all the scenes we as viewers never got to see, but they still happened, and it was still Dream who had done all this for his faction. “And knowing that those eyes are watching…” From the animatic implies that Dream seems to think things aren’t quite over yet, so he’s keeping an eye on things. “Til before we could see, we were monsters in skin ” Dream and his relationship with being called a monster/tyrant/villain continuously by the other members of the server, in particular those that are a part of L'Manburg. Could also be how he hadn’t noticed himself slipping into that role until far too late. “But even if I had tried to move on, why can’t I leave my past?” Same as above, but this time with the bonus of Pogtopia Wilbur manipulating him and convincing him he’ll be nothing more than a tyrant, a villain despite his clear attempts to amend that opinion of him and change by siding with Tommy (and Wilbur), who he thought were the “good guys”. ““Considering it’s you, better give up soon” “Cuz no matter what you do, you will always lose”” Dream talking in reference to Tommy and Wilbur (?). “And then I was alone way before I knew Blocking every little thought that I couldn’t sit through” George leaving the conflict (and Dream) alone to build his own thing. Dream realizing he’s alone/his friends don’t seem to care about him as much as he does them, and trying not to think about it. “All they want now is safety from what’s around Waiting for help but never learning how” Dream constantly covering for George and Sapnap during conflicts they got themselves into without asking for anything in return, and George and Sapnap never learning how to stop causing conflicts/resolve them by themselves. (taking advantage of Dream’s help) “I don’t wanna think now” Doesn’t want to remember the good times he’s had with everyone/his friends. Him swiping away the pieces like he wants to stop this stupid game of chess. “I’ll play dumb anyhow” Reference to Dream losing his godly powers because of the exorcism and being split into 2 (as explained by creator of the animatic) and pretending everything was fine afterwards. “Always been me, empty, a body but nobody here to see” Realization he’s lost his powers and can’t rely on XD to help resolve the Manberg/Pogtopia conflict. Here his mask goes from covering the top of half of his face to covering his entire face, a “loss of humanity”/“empty” (from a circle to being fully molded onto his face covering), and is also when the strings motif starts. Trading chessboards for puppet strings. Very obviously, you can see him slipping and his mental state deteriorating. “So standing at the front line and maybe this time I’ll be there with a flag high” Reference to the Manburg shield hinting at his allegiance and how he’s leading the Manburg “army” during the battle. “Outmatched but easygoing "Never gonna need a script with me”“ Dream surrendering and playing along with their expectations (Pogtopia winning against Manberg). "Oh you too yes yes so take a deep breath "Swear that you’ll see me again” One chance is all I have now And so I better make it count Climatic ending, come see The final act, I’m shaken to my knees" Speaking to Tommy about meeting him for the final confrontation, Tommy realizing this is his chance to take down Dream for good, “climatic ending” the finale Dream’s planned out for them. Dream is determined to see things through to the bitter end. “Yet crying and lonely” But what has he lost to get to this point? (also the juxtaposition of Doomsday Dream with his armor and cloak staring at the sunset atop his obsidian grid, framed by destruction being swapped out for an image of the old Dream, still with strings tied to his hands, but staring up at the softer night sky being framed by trees, is just, so good) “The world that I locked out is nowhere to find The people who mocked me are gone from my sight Emotions and feelings are useless to keep The tears that had fallen were not mine to weep” Hardening his heart against George/the rest of his friends (who later in turn abandoned him/left him), beating down those who had wronged him in the past, letting go of Spirit and the attachment associated with them so they’ll never be used against him again (representing him cutting off the rest of his attachments to do the same thing) despite it being very obviously painful and hurting to do so. (choosing to let go, but finding that doing so hurts anyways. Crying for something you think you shouldn’t cry for.) “The kindness and warmth, I can’t feel them at all The hands that are offered, I’m scared that I’ll fall The hole dug inside me can’t hold any love Instead, you can see me break down from above” Unable or unwilling to form healthy emotional attachments/connections with other people. He’s scared that if he does he’ll just be hurt again, and so he pushes them away, even those who’d offer him their help. He’s lost so much that he’s grown emotionally repressed (his past as Cornelius and how he lost his entire family in a week) and has trouble feeling things like “love”, and starts collapsing under the lose. (his mental health spiraling hard) “Hey, remember when you saw that they were nearing their end? And you looked like you were laughing at the pain they were in But what did you see? Oh really what could it be Well, take a breath ‘cuz you’ll need it, so c’mon saying” Something more happening with Dream behind the front of “big bad villain” that he puts on for the rest of the server, what was he really feeling? What was he really planning? We don’t know. “We’re pulling at the boundary, unseen A curtain dyed in black soon came to be And knowing that those eyes are watching…” The end of a season/the “show”, Dream’s put in prison and the curtains appear to be closing, but there’s still some loose ends that haven’t been tied with the other characters, and Dream’s presence can still be felt all around the server despite him being locked up in a literal torture box with no real power (power that could get him out of said torture box). (also, just loved how you incorporated the chorus! I’ve known about Dramaturgy for a long time but hadn’t realized how well the lyrics just fit with the DSMP plotline XD)

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Wow, thanks for such a detailed response to my animatic :D I’m really glad you enjoyed it enough to type so much out!

I really like your interpretation, you basically got most of the things I was going for. While I yearn to type out something longer, I don’t really want to tell people how to interpret something lol

Thanks again <3

[my-sherlock221b]

Supernatural Rewatch Ramblings: Dead in the Water

This episode is the first one to be directed by Kim Manners. It was written by Raelle Tucker and Sera Gamble. It is still the MoTW format and once again the ‘monster’ is something that was created by human action. Ordinary seeming stories—of bullying, lies, cover up—with deadly consequences.

Read below the cut for more and also watch out for the add-ons by my partner in crime @soulmates-for-real​ who does the most amazing gifsets and image galleries 😎

It reminded me of this quote:

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

It is a chilling experience—both the actual monster when we do finally see it and the backstory of what really happened. These monsters are all created by the flawed human beings. Here is another quote from the same source which could well be the underlying bedrock of the two very different approaches we see Sam and Dean take in later episodes to the whole saving people hunting things.

“Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.” .

Philosophical overtones aside, we are also getting more glimpses into the heads and hearts of the two leads.

It is already obvious that Dean has put the whole ‘Dad- is- missing- and- hasn’t- been-home-in -a -few-days stuff’ on the back burner till …ummm  forever ? cos he has Sammy in front of his eyes who is sitting shotgun and being completely brotherly and sniping and bitching while also being boyfriend- level possessive.

As I said in the earlier review- I was just so swept away by the swashbuckling swagger of Dean that so obviously was an armour for his vulnerability that I almost didn’t notice Sam much. This is the episode where he became something more for me. Someone who was also finding out what Dean was all about at the same time as we were.

Someone who could pull him down to earth with a sharp: ‘People don’t just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them.’

But also reach out to him and remind him that they ‘can’t save everyone’.

In an early scene in the episode Sam scolds Dean for even starting to flirt with the waitress. 

He smirks when Andrea shoots Dean down. He mocks Dean’s pick- up line about kids are the best. He seems pleased in a very petty way that Dean’s attempt has failed and that he has no choice now but to hang out with Sam and to give him his full attention.

The episode does have plot holes –that house Lucas draws and the history of the friendship of the two men and the missing boy surely must be well known to everyone in that small town, including Lucas’s mother and how come no one joins the dots etc. etc.

But small quibbles aside, we get to see that the past casts long shadows—whether sins of the past or just events of the past. ( again a parallel to the lives of the Winchesters themselves. And in later seasons we find out just how far back into the past those shadows reach!)

We see that Dean connects with the mute boy, Lucas, but then we learn that he can do this because he had also shut down after he saw his mother die and he knows how scary the world can seem and how he needed to make himself brave to carry on.

Sam watches from the sidelines and we can see him have an ‘oh ok’ moment as he stores away this information because it has clearly never been discussed in the family earlier. Kudos to Jared for being amazing with the ‘active listening’ that Sheila O’Malley references so often.

So despite Sam challenging him to name 3 kids he even knows, we see that Dean actually focusses on the kid throughout. The shared sense of loss aside, maybe Dean also sees himself as the protector of all little kids especially after the Shtriga incident. (which we don’t know anything about yet) (and we do see him bond with kids in every episode that involves kids. It is adorable !!)

In this episode Dean is almost drowning in his dad’s leather jacket and the way the silver ring looks on his hand is just ridiculously sexy…sigh….and that amulet right where it belongs…..deeper sigh. Then the cocky grin, the unsubtle flirting, all macho/manly/me- so- hetero/me- see- me- conquer on the outside but the soft squidgy child- whispering caramel centre, the trauma of being a motherless kid—having become motherless in a brutal way, a missing and probably almost cruel dad, a brother he raised as his own who walked out on him to go seek his own dreams….all these layers are being put together slowly for us.

Dean is not what he seemed to be and that brash swashbuckling exterior hides a very complex and interesting person. The script and direction were excellent of course but Jensen brought to it just the perfect balance of bad-boy + I wuv hugs.

Sam is still finding his way into the story and we are still watching things from Dean’s perspective as narrator which is fascinating to realize during the re-watch. As I have mentioned earlier, I was so swept away by Dean that it took me a very long time to focus on Sam as a separate person.

Ok, now, all together shout--- --WHY do people DO the following things??!!!

Put hands elbow deep into a sink, give lifts to obvious deranged malevolent spirits in human form, ‘let’s split up so we can cover more ground’, go into a shower/bath in a scary scene—can’t they HEAR the dun-dun-dun music score in the background?!! Sheesh.

Anyway.     *eyeroll*

In a not- at- all- very- surprising turn of events Sam and Dean’s fake identity is called out and they are asked to leave town, which they do. But ….of course Dean does a very dramatic turn on the highway and takes them back to make sure the kid is ok!

Then Sam rescues the mother from the lethal bath- tub while Dean makes sure the kid is safe. Then they start to connect even more dots and eventually we see an incredible heroic rescue scene in the scary lake with Dean and the boy.

Jensen had described this shot in some interview as the most terrifying scene he had ever done apparently because he was responsible not only for doing the scene right but also for the young boy’s safety underwater.

What a fabulous visual we do get finally, with the boy in his embrace as they shoot out of the water!

That lake with its dark water is one super creepy place. That very first scene where we see the girl swimming from an underwater perspective had me yelling at the screen for her to GET OUT NOW.

So, finally, all is sorted and revenge has been had and bad folks die, good folks live and as they leave the town of course Lucas chats with Dean and they high five and just like the sister in the Wendigo episode, the young mother in this one also gives Dean a kiss on his cheek. Dean of course blushes and goes all gruff and drives off with Sam smirking in the shotgun seat.

The pattern is beginning to be established.

I am loving it!😍

.

The gag reel of this episode shows Jensen leaping into Jared’s arms.

This is the third episode only. So they have known each other only for a couple of months at this point?! Hmm…my J2 tinhat is also shining. And also wow. I mean Jensen is NOT a tiny guy.

  Here are some other possibly more erudite and informed reviews if you would like to go down that rabbit hole like I did.

This one is cool https://the-orbit.net/entequilaesverdad/2016/05/10/supernatural-s1-e3-dead-water-summary/ and gives a fun and interesting score at the end which goes like this

Episode 3 counts:

Woman in the Fridge: 1

For Sophie Carlton being the first to get murdered by the vengeful spirit. It’s obviously meant to hook us harder: I mean, nobody would care as much about obnoxious brother Will, right?

Revenge from Beyond the Grave: 4

Sophie Carlton, Will Carlton, Bill Carlton, and Jake Devins.

Brotherly Love: 2

I had to give one to Sam for cock-blocking his brother right at the start. Another point goes to Dean’s sick-of-your-attitude lecture to his little brother, throwing Sam’s decision to go to college while Dean stayed behind with their dad in his face.

Toxic Masculinity: 1

For Dean downplaying his grief when Sam draws him out about the aftermath of their mother’s death.

Swimming in Sexism: 2

For Will Carlton’s comment to his sister that “guys don’t like buff girls.” I added a point for all the times they had Dean hitting on any available woman. They do want us to be extra-very sure he’s hetero, don’t they?

Cumulative Counts: Dean’s Man Tears: 3

One point awarded for all Dean’s choking up about Mom. We’re now three for three, folks.

.

This review totally calls out Dean LOL. I love the reviews that were written as first watch because they are without the benefit of hindsight we have on a re-watch.

.

http://markwatches.net/reviews/2013/11/mark-watches-supernatural-s01e03-dead-in-the-water/

“It was fascinating to me, then, that through this, Sam was able to learn about Dean’s own emotional reasoning behind his hunting. Of course, Dean, being the most stereotypical dude of all dudes who ever duded, has to immediately act like feelings aren’t cool because BLEH. Okay, that is one aspect of Dean that I’m not terribly interested in, especially since he expresses feelings like every five seconds. The whole “I am a straight man and I’m very straight and look at that butt straight I’m straight” thing is already exhausting because I get it. You don’t need to tell me this every five seconds.” 

The comments to this review are also super entertaining with gems like this:

“So, if you knew that someone had drowned in the lake recently and their body was never found, WHY WOULD YOU STILL GO SWIMMING IN THE LAKE? Especially if two people had. It wouldn't make you think, "Hey, maybe there's something dangerous in that lake?" This show has some of the least genre savvy people EVER. Like, for example, once this mysterious death thing shows up in a sink, why would anyone want to take a bath or really ever fill any basin with water again? Seriously, is this the Bad Decision Olympics?”

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Here is an awesome review from Fangasm also

https://fangasmthebook.com/2021/01/13/looking-back-on-dead-in-the-water-classic-supernatural/

[sotorubio]

The escape room clip is a perfect example of your point about this team not taking the show as serious as David, but the show being better bc of that. There’s zero plot in that clip bc the plot happens in the last one with Bilal not being able to pay. The whole point of the escape room outing is to show him struggling to hide that from his friends, so once that’s done you don’t NEED to see La Mif solve puzzles for 2 minutes, but I’m glad we do. One, it’s necessary lightness in a thematically dark season. Two, you see how much these characters like each other, which means any fallout they have later will hit harder and give you a reason to care. Three, you see their dynamics, personalities, how they work together and how they don’t, so characterization without the shadow of drama. And finally, the editing choices (dramatic music when Tiff plays the piano, the screen splitting into boxes when they’re almost of time) are just fun. It’s not Cinema™️ but it doesn’t need to be. I thought even Tiff was bearable here lol.

YES OH MY GOD YESSS!!!!

i loved that clip soooo much + it rly WAS a great way to bring some lighthearted fun into the eps since the events have been rly depressing so far, ur right!! n the fact that zak was included just makes it so sweet 🥺

this is why i rly like that they're giving us frequent short clips instead of longer clips every now n then bc while it can sometimes get a bit overwhelming & sometimes it'd be smarter to make longer clips this style allows them to make a few "useless" clips. n obviously they're not actually useless since, like u said, they showcase the characters' relationships & the group dynamic but like. they're clips that could easily be dropped n it'd have 0 negative effects on the plot but they still choose to keep these little moments in! like zak & bilal eating in the school cafeteria also didn't rly tell us anything that we didn't already know but it deepened the brothers' bond even more!! this is EXACTLY what skamfr has always needed they've gone plot first into everything despite the fact that skam is a character! driven! concept! n that's been my #1 complaint throughout my whole entire experience w skamfr but NOW they're finally getting it... like this clip rly made me finally think Ah yeah this is a skam. for the first time since like, season 5 probably.

(ALSO YEAH UR BRAIN.. i didn't even realize how they're building this very loving & supportive foundation now so it'll just be crushing when they're driven into conflict GOD i was just blissfully enjoying the nostalgic lamifex dynamic but ur so right it's just the calm before the storm 😃👌)

"fun" is truly the best word to describe this clip bc it was literally soo entertaining like yes!! the editing!! the quick dialogue n jokes!! the seconds running at the end of the time stamp!! genuinely such a good time. also agreed abt tiff! i mean i won't be able to enjoy her presence ever bc she had absolutely no redemption plotline but what is great is that she's just a side character now & bilal has other meaningful connections w la mif so her existence doesn't ruin it smfjdkkd at least not in this clip + lucie is such a great actress her yelling every time they got an answer right was so funny

also i am aware that this does happen w every skamfr season like the first 2-3 eps r very strong n good n then it rapidly goes down hill like even the horrendous seasons that were s5&6 did have promising starts BUT it's never been this fun & promising before so i'm reallyyyy hoping they keep it up 🤞 like cmon if u gave me a hourregue season where the main character starts to secretly live under his high school w his little brother bc some adults were fine w kicking out two underage kids who r already living alone i would already be laughing by now bc of the extreme drama but w this team it's actually working bc they actually put effort into the skam-aspect & the characters so the audience actually cares. let me eat my words in a few weeks when they probably just go off the fucking rails w the drama again but for now i'm gonna cautiously enjoy all these new experimental clips they're giving us

[hyunllx]

Flopbb’s REAL All-Star Sim: Premiere Week

Disclaimer: The actions and words of the houseguests in this sim do not reflect who they are as players and real people, nor do they reflect my opinion of said players. Im just trying to make sense of a random event simulator lol.

“Good evening everyone, I’m Julie Chen Moonves and THIS is Big Brother All-Stars. It’s been 20 years since the premiere of BB1, with countless twists, hundreds of houseguests, and dozens of games played across the globe. The past two decades have led up to this moment, as 16 of the world’s greatest players are about to enter the yet again to compete as all-stars. Your votes helped us pick the elite of the elite players of Big Brother from around the world. Welcome, everyone, to Big Brother All-Stars!”

One by one Julie calls the houseguests in. Excitement fills the house like a flood as old friends, allies, and enemies recognize each other:

“I am ecstatic when I see Da’Vonne walk through the door. She’s a close friend of me and Swaggy outside the house. She was there for us after BB20 and I am so happy to play alongside her this time around!”

“I can’t believe I’m in this house for the FOURTH time. On top of that, I’m with Kaysar and Britney again, my two closest friends in the game. I’m already feeling like I’m in a great position this season despite being the most veteran player.”

“The first thig I notice when I walk in the house is how many old school players there are. Janelle and Kaysar in particular, who’ve I’ve played against before. I was entirely prepared to fight a cast of newbies but I may have to rethink my strategy already.”

“I walk into the house excited to play with people I had so much fun getting to know through interviews outside the house... until I see her. Of course Neda is here, and by the look on her face she’s just as delighted to see me. I can’t get away from this girl.”

Reunions and new introductions are cut short, however, as Julie instructs the houseguests to head to the backyard. Surely pros of the game didn’t need to sit around drinking champagne. The first HOH will begin immediately.

“I didn’t necessarily want to drop out this early, but I also didn’t want to win, so I’m fine with it. It may also help the newbies underestimate me. I was never a big player or a comp threat; I got through under the radar.”

“Janelle and I have played this competition before. This was the first HOH on our original season, BB6. I felt like I could stay up there for awhile but I also didn’t want all eyes to be on me for the first week. I’ll let someone else take that fall.”

“I fall and I’m devastated. I wanted to at least outlast the other players from Canada but I’m the first of them to fall. Neda’s still up there and I know if she wins or makes a deal I’m in serious trouble.”

“Did I plan on winning this HOH? No. But I know being a four-time player is a big target and I would be on the block if I didn’t. I really need at least one week where I can build alliances that’ll help me survive a few more weeks in this house until that target starts to shrink.”

“History repeats itself and Janelle wins the first HOH of another All-Stars season. The last time this happened, she put me on the block, so I’m feeling very uneasy about things this first week. I need to talk to her to make sure she knows this time I’m her ally.”

After the competition the houseguests return to their introductions, hanging around the kitchen while Da’vonne leads several others in cooking for the house. 

Ika is the first one to break from the group, not unnoticed as she pulls Neda into a side room. Ika appeals to Neda, asking if they can forget their former rivalry as they are severely outnumbered by the American returnees. Neda listens and assures her she isn’t holding a grudge and agrees to join an International Alliance if Ika can pull Anthony and Angela in.

“Ika is out of her mind if she thinks I’m just going to forget about her betraying me and getting me evicted on BBCan5. I don’t trust her at all. She’s a snake and I’m not falling for her fake loyalty again. She needs to go.”

Later in the night, Danielle R approaches Janelle in her HOH room, congratulating her on another HOH win under her belt, while also reminding her about her nominations the first week of BB7. Janelle reassures her that she will not be targeting old school players and that they should work together this time instead. Along with Kaysar, they establish an alliance.

In the middle of the night Neda approaches Janelle and Kaysar. She tells them in secret about Ika’s plan to form an alliance, though she exaggerates the tale and claims Ika is forming a majority alliance. She reveals her distrust for Ika and warns them of her ability to backstab if she tries to appeal to them for an alliance. 

“I decided to form an alliance with Kaysar and Danielle because I’ve seen how these newer players react to old school gameplay on BB14. They’re intimidated by playing with famous players but they underestimate our abilities to keep up with them. When they are hit with the realization that we’re just as good as they are, or better, they come after us immediately and relentlessly. I think it’ll be good to have a safety-net of these like-players to fall back on if the new school players decide to turn that target on me.

As for the information Neda gave me... I don’t necessarily trust her but I have no reason to doubt this is happening. It makes sense that an international player would want to feel secure in a large alliance. I don’t like how easily Neda turned on people trying to work with her, but I’ll keep her for now if she wants to be on my side.”

Meanwhile, downstairs Bayleigh and Da’Vonne find a quiet spot to talk privately. Their friendship outside the house is strong, and they naturally fall into the role of allies in the house, promising to support each other to the final 2.

“I love Bayleigh. She’s a good friend outside of this house and I trust her entirely. She’s smart and we think alike in the game. This alliance really just built itself without conscious thought. I will do everything in my power to ensure one of us gets to the end.”

The next day everyone is exhausted from the previous day competition. The realization that they are truly back to playing Big Brother settles in and tension starts while the house gathers for Janelle’s nominations.

“I have nominated Ika and Vanessa for eviction. As it’s the first week I have so little to go on. Ika, It’s come to my attention that you may be rallying an alliance already in the house. Hopefully you trust these people enough to help save you this week.

Vanessa, we’ve talked very little so far and I know not to trust that. Your gameplay likes to lurk in the shadows, so here’s a spotlight.”

“It’s day two and 75% of the house hasn’t talked game to you. Why pick me over them? I wanted to lay low this time but it seems I have to get to work faster than expected. I think Ika is her target but I certainly don’t want to be a first boot pawn.”

“The only person I’ve spoken to about starting an alliance so far has been Neda. Clearly she still holds a grudge and I can’t trust her. Having the HOH on her side is very, very scary. I have to work my butt off to win this Veto.”

After nominations, Janelle, Kaysar, and Danielle R split up to individually pull in the other veteran players to their alliance. Janelle convinces Britney very quickly to join being great friends outside of the house. She attempts to pull in Keesha who seems apprehensive of the idea, but tentatively agrees. Kaysar pulls Rachel into one of the side rooms to propose the same deal. Rachel is hesitant, unafraid to remind Kaysar of her rivalry with Janelle and Britney. Kaysar explains that their rivalry can wait until later in the season when the vets have secured their safety in the game. Rachel agrees to help the alliance half-heartedly.

“I’m not really sure how to feel about this alliance. On one hand being safe with the HOH this week is reassuring. However, she’s only HOH for this week and if it’s found out I’m part of this old school super-alliance then I could be in big trouble. I also don’t trust Janelle and Britney to continue working with me in the long run. We’ll have to see how this week plays out.”

Meanwhile, Danielle R attempts to pull Jun into a quiet bedroom but is intercepted by Vanessa. Vanessa appeals to both about her situation being on the block and asks if either would consider using the veto if they won, promising to return the favor and to keep them safe if she were to win HOH. After much convincing, Jun and Danielle R agree to the deal.

“I honestly don’t really care about this deal with Vanessa. I doubt I’m going to win veto even if I am picked, but I’ll take the safety if she wins. I’m more concerned about this old school alliance Danielle tried to pull me in to. Fortunately I didn’t have a chance to agree to or reject the alliance. It’ll give me a little more time to mull it over and decide if I trust the other older players or not.”

Saturday morning, the houseguests are woken up to the announcement that it’s time to pick players for the veto competition. 

“I’m actually feeling pretty good going into this veto comp. The two people I got to agree to use the veto on me are playing, plus myself. Hopefully they’ll either throw it to me or keep their word.”

“Of course I get picked. I have to throw this comp. I can not be picking sides on Day 3 of this game. I’m sorry Janelle, but I have a feeling you don’t need my help on this one.”

“Just like last All-Stars I’ve won both the first HOH and POV. I’m used to being seen as a comp beast in this game so it doesn’t bother me that much. If anything it’ll help my allies feel sure that I can keep my word to keep them safe.”

After the veto competition, the houseguests scatter back inside the house to privately discuss their options, automatically assuming Janelle will keep her nominations the same. Bayleigh and Da’Vonne head up to the HOH room to congratulate Janelle on her win and pick her brain for a target. Janelle asks Day about her experience previously playing with Vanessa and listens carefully to Day’s personal perspective of Vanessa’s game. They speak for awhile, eventually being joined by Kaysar, weighing both options carefully. After a couple hours, they agree to an alliance, having grown comfortable strategizing together.

“I really like Janelle and Kaysar. I think there’s a real friendship forming there. They are great strategic minds but they can also win comps left and right and lord knows Bayleigh and I need allies like that in this game. She’s always going to be my number 1 but I wouldn’t mind going to final 4 with Jaysar.”

“I do trust Bayleigh and Da’Vonne and I’m very happy to be in an alliance with them. I think they will be easier allies to publicly support compared to the old school alliance. They can slip under the radar easier.

After talking to Da’Vonne I am feeling better about  my decision to put Vanessa on the block. I think her being up week 1 has hindered her ability to puppet master from the shadows so I don’t think she’s much of a threat for now.

I haven’t heard anything more about Ika’s majority alliance and that’s not necessarily a good thing in my mind. Either I’ve been lied to about it or they’re working against me which is dangerous. In either case, I have to get my allies to figure out who is in this alliance, if there’s anyone at all.”

After a quiet Sunday of little gameplay, the houseguests gather Monday afternoon for the veto ceremony. It goes quickly as expected.

“I didn’t expect Janelle to use the veto at all let alone on me but it still sucks being on the block week 1. People throw random votes on the first eviction and some of those could come my way if nothing major happens.”

“As expected I’m still on the block. I tried to lay low to show Janelle that I really don’t have an alliance and I’m not making big moves against her but clearly that didn’t work. Now I have to work my ass off to start forming this alliance people think I have.”

“Ika is a final nominee and I couldn’t be happier. I feel like I’ll be be able to play the game without constantly feeling like I need to watch my back. All I need to do now is continue planting seeds in people’s heads that she’s working against them.”

Wednesday evening, the night before the live eviction, Bayleigh and Da’Vonne are approached by Ika and pulled into the back bedroom to hear her campaign to stay.

“Day and I decide to give Ika a chance to talk to us. Janelle is looking for any information she can get on this supposed majority alliance, but if she wants to promise us safety or a shield for the net few weeks, we’re all ears to that.”

Ika begins her campaign by admiring BayDay’s perception and strategic ability, playing into those in hope they will believe her. Da’Vonne is the first to address the alliance rumours , and Ika tells her the truth of her conversation with Neda. As she begins to explain, Britney walks in to join the conversation, having heard them talking in the room next door.

“I saw Ika take Bayleigh and Day into the back bedroom and I had to follow to listen. Janelle told me she wanted to work with them and if they were in this secret majority alliance all along, I was not going to let them plot behind her back alone.”

After a few awkward moments of Britney pushing into the conversation, Ika continues to confirm that she was trying to extend an olive branch to Neda and only  suggested an alliance with the international players as a way to leave their rivalry in BBCAN behind. After listening to the rest of Ika’s pitch, Britney takes this information to Janelle and Kaysar in the HOH room, who promptly call Neda up to talk about it.

Neda is steadfast in her lie when confronted about it, insisting she told Janelle everything Ika proposed to her. Britney reveals that Ika told her about the international players alliance and it was only proposed to put their rivalry aside. Neda denies this but becomes visibly upset. 

To put an end to the rumour once and for all, Britney calls the rest of the houseguests up into the HOH room. While everyone squeezes into the space, Ika and Neda bicker about the situation immediately. Ika reveals the truth to the house and Neda’s arguments become shaky, most people in the room skeptical to her lies. Eventually Janelle quiets the argument to ask Neda one more time about the alliance. Defeated, Neda admits to lying to get Ika put on the block.

“Hopefully this meeting shows people that I am true to my word and I haven’t been secretly making alliances behind their backs. I’m not going to stop campaigning and I think this might help keep me here this week. Sorry Vanessa.”

“I do feel bad for Ika in this situation but I don’t regret putting her up. This is big brother and someone has to be the first one out. Right now I don’t have a preference for either nominee so I’m just going to let the house decide for themselves.”

“I’m starting to feel uneasy in the house. I don’t like that the international players were brought up in all that drama. I had no intentions of working with them specifically and if people doubt my loyalties because of that it could be bad for me.”

“I do feel bad for Ika. No one wants to be on the block because someone held a grudge and manipulated the HOH. That being said, I know how good of a competitor she is and what she’s capable of. It might be good for Janelle and I if we get her out now while we have the chance.”

The following evening came in a flash, and nervously the house gathered in the living room for the first eviction of the game. Tension filled the room as they waited for Julie to appear on the usually-blank television screen. As usual, the host made idle chatter and jokes with a handful of houseguests to relieve some of the stress before calling for the speeches of each nominee.

“As everyone knows I have been lied on and you’ve been manipulated all this week. I have done nothing but tell the truth to the house about my plans and attempts to put a grudge behind me, and I think everyone knows who my target is. Janelle, I do not blame you for putting me up here, I’m not coming after you at all. Neda, I do blame you. You are a snake and I will not rest in this game until you are out of this house.”

“So I think I speak for everyone when I say this week has been kind of wild for a week one. There’s already been a ton of drama and plans have already been exposed to the house. I haven’t really gotten a chance to play yet but I know some of you have. Given how this week went, it seems like drama could pull any one of us in next, so I ask you if you think it would be a good idea to keep a non-threat, or someone willing to expose your secrets to the house.”

One by one the house guests are called to the diary room to vote.

It’s official; with 7 votes to evict, Ika will be leaving the big brother house tonight. Let’s see how the other votes fall.

[divine-draws]

okay i had a whole google doc that i wrote a buncha shit but imma try to CONDENSE it and make my ideas more clear bc there was some wishy washy in there. BUT dabihawks ice skating au bc im gay for that shit. all of it under the cut bc this shit is gunna get LONG. buckle in fuckers. ALSO FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ABOUT this i will be happy to answer shit :3c

SO fair warning before we begin. i know shit about ice sports. im like 1) not THAT educated nor have i legit participated though ive always wanted to and 2) this is just self indulgent so like if i dont get shit right or whatever dont come at me bro. im here to have FUN and live a bit vicariously. also as for location of all this shit i dont know and dont care and am american so my perspective on things are skewed. anyway cw: abuse mention

so dabi (touya) is a previous figure skater

he’s a figure skating prodigy 

enji was a pro hockey player (id say figure skating but this man was BUILT like a brick shithouse idk man) has a lot of championships under his belt but doesnt even begin to touch the legacy of his one sided rival yagi toshinori

him and rei meet and marry at a young age. she like.. actually liked him then?? shit was kinda okay but things kinda.... got bad quick. the abuse etc was ... yeah. she ends up having dabi and fuyumi (they’re twins babeyy) at a young age too and kinda doesnt feel like she can get out of her horrible marriage 

we wont dwell too much on the bad part of all of this though. anyway rei was a figure skater

p well known and known for her fucking GRACE god she moved so well on the ice.

she was so beautiful and spoke through her movements and enji loved that... and so as a hockey player and with a (now previous) figure skater wife he was like aight my kids WILL take up an ice sport and be the FUCKING BEST

dabi isnt made for hockey. enji tries to get him into it but it’s... nah... fuyumi isnt the best with figure skating. she’s good!! and her and dabi do some pair skating when they’re younger but it’s.. hm. dabi is the one with the clear talent here. (fuyumi is a beast on the ice when it comes to hockey though. will dominate. but she kinda... didnt really continue with it)

enji isnt PLEASED that his son isnt gunna be a hockey player but he still values figure skating and will fucking make sure he’s the BEST at it. and so the brutal training starts. he gets some good coaches and also takes up the coaching mantle 

the thing is.. rei was amazing as a skater but her body just... wasnt really made for all of that??? and dabi unfortunately kinda inherited that. his body hates the impacts and such. he’s amazing at figure skating. he has a grace similar to his mothers but there’s something more fierce to him. 

and honestly !!! he gets far!!

also natsuo comes around. he’s a bit too clumsy for either sport and resents the fact that him and fuyumi are neglected by their father. he also loves touya and gets so pissed seeing his brother so hurt

and shouto is born and this kid was made to be on the ice. he’s skating from the moment he can fucking stand on his own.

obvs enji’s attention is split but it’s mainly on touya who is winning championships and GOING places but it’s still not good enough

anyway idk how far he goes?? but it’s the biggest competition yet and on ice mid routine he lands wrong

one thing leads to the next and he’s pretty much medically retired from a young age. he can skate. he can still kinda preform but he cant do what he used to at ALL and he cant keep up with the brutal pace enji sets. there’s a lot of trying to push him still and it’s just.. not happening

for all it’s worth dabi is kinda glad he isnt doing it anymore. but he fears for his babies brother. shouto is a natural and while yes being a professional athlete of any sort is brutal on your body, his body is a lot more capable

but like touya before, shouto is pushed to his absolute limits. bleeding and injuries and puking his guts out from being pushed too far

there’s a lotta resentment but he still pushes through w skating. 

(side note but there DEF is some todomido/tododeku w hockey player izuku who ends up being coached by THE yagi toshinori and who helps shouto out w making shit his own)

anyway so in the end dabi ends up working at a rink tho lol

it’s p much owned by shigarai and run by the lov (who in this au end up making their own little ragtag unofficial local hockey team p much and play games against other teams like them)

despite his father’s whole career, dabi does enjoy playing hockey with these dipshits

but yeah he enjoys his time working at the rink, fucking around and sleeping in random places and sometimes running the zamboni

he’s also best frenemies with shigaraki. they get along and both deal with a shitty upbringing and despite some slight animosity they both would kill if someone fucked w the other 

(also at some point dabi DEF teaches some little kid classes lol)

also dabi does sometimes skate his own routines from time to time. only when he’s alone really. though fuyumi has a pass to be there though he will gripe still

SO HAWKS AM I RIGHT??

now there is a couple ways to go with this and somewhere in me there is an au with hockey player hawks who takes skating lessons from figure skater dabi BUT

i think for this au we’ll just say he was a figure skater from the get go

i think he WANTED to do hockey as a kid. like shouto he’s also a fucking natural and was skating as soon as he could fucking stand and walk. and he looked up to enji and kinda wanted to take up hockey but 

listen,,, trans hawks. who wanted to be like todoroki enji and be a pro hockey player. shit just.. didnt work like that though and besides he’s a tiny dude and god he’d be fucking obliterated 

he kinda is self taught and the ice is his escape from his shitty home life

idk how this works but listen gotta tie in the commission somehow???

he’s scouted or whatever for figure skating at a very young age and his mom is happy to take the heavy scholarships and happy to sign him over to skate for these ppl and have them push him to be The Best

and this kid is FAST. he’s fast and is insane with his jumps and stg it almost looks like he’s FLYING (which gets him the nickname hawks)

the coaches are brutal and shit sucks and a lot of the time it kinda sucks the life out of the sport but he still enjoys it

he has a love for outfits that legit have flare to them (also im thinking of johnny weir’s one outfit w the feathers but yknow instead of white they are RED) and while he does do routines to boring ass music he mainly likes doing shit different (also dabi was p much forced the whole time to do shit to that boring ass music but on his own he’d use his own music taste to skate to)

and he’s good!! he GOES places. he’s like makes it to the olympics at a young age and is one of THE youngest gold medalists for figure skating

im sure somewhere along the line him and dabi DID meet. it was at some competition and hawks was VIBRATING bc there’s ENJI and he wants and autograph and oH GOD IS THAT HIS SON??? he’s HOT. (and at this time dabi still had his red hair and like no piercings and what little ones he had they were out but this dumbass will not recognize him later on)

but god he needs to chill TF out or he will fuck up in the competition 

he hears about dabi’s whole accident and like feels for him but again it’s not like they were friends. there was more of a slight rivalry and they barely spoke if they did

but so idk like.. between seasons hawks finds himself going like nearly every day to this rink.. aka shigaraki’s rink (also sidenote but lbr it’s really run by shirakumo who kinda has to fucking herd the cats w this group)

as frenemies dabi and shigaraki share their distaste for some of these pro athletes (tho some get a pass) and kinda complain about hawks a bit tho like..... shigaraki cant complain TOO much bc of the money from hawks renting out the rink for a few hours almost every day

dabi is too gay for this shit when he actually sees hawks in action. rip him 

tbh they dont really interact tho (besides dabi telling him to gtfo the rink or he’ll run him over with the zamboni) until one day that hawks catches dabi skating

he was done and should have been gone but he forgot something on the bleachers and then he sees dabi and.. oh boy he’s GAY AF

and also dabi is RLLY GOOD???

and so hawks makes a FOOL of himself and startles the poor guy and p much presses all the wrong buttons w asking why he doesnt compete or something

and i mean im sure they had some SLIGHT progress w talking before. nothing significant but god the walls go RIGHT THE FUCK UP and dabi is pissed

tbh dabi was gunna get to the point where he LEGIT talked to him and maybe lowkey asked him out (he says this but shigaraki calls his bluff) and now there is no way. he storms off and tries to avoid him so hard

and hawks tries to corner him a bit but after some time he does manage to corner him and be like pls just let me take you out to dinner to make up for that shit????

aaand dabi accepts bc listen okay he cant say no to free food ??? like he’s kinda pissy w this guy but also.. listen he has EYES 

anywayyy p much this just leads to them dating

hawks DEF looks him up and watches all the vids of him and like the idiot he is realizes that he met him before ( “oh my GOD i know you” “uh… we’re dating i hope u know me?????”  “nO I MEAN WE MET AT (insert comp)”)

but before that dabi did like tell him some shit. mainly about like how he used to skate blah blah and the whole thing that ended all of that

he doesnt really delve too deep into like his shitty childhood until well later

idk what leads to it but the convo finally comes up and it’s so draining for dabi and hawks is horrified and ready to fight his dad (“listen i just sharpened my skates i’ll just-”)

anyway some side things bc this is long and i will answer questions on this tho

rumi is a women’s pro hockey player and fuyumi who actually follows hockey and shit has the BIGGEST crush on her (they end up together)

also natsuo comes to see one of the leagues games (he hasnt really seen them play tbh?? he hears about it from dabi but he lives like at least a few hours away on campus and is going for med school so rip him) and like he meets shigaraki and anyway dabi is losing his FUCKING MIND bc his best frenemy/boss and his younger brother are FLIRTING. RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM???

dabi and hawks are really gay together and have skated together by this point and made out on ice a few times and shigaraki was miserable and is like “NOW U KNOW!!” and dabi is pissed bc “yEAH BUT THAT”S MY LITTLE BROTHER??? IT”S NOt thE SAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”