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piracytheorist · 11 months ago

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Ranking SxF season 2 episodes!

So, some time ago I made a ranking of the season 1 episodes of Spy x Family, from my least favourite to my top favourite. I felt inspired a couple days ago and I thought I'd make a similar ranking of the season 2 episodes.

Mentioning again that: This is all my personal judgment heavily based on stuff I liked. You most certainly will disagree with me and that’s fine! Just don’t argue with me because that’s just personal opinions, I’m not trying to change anyone’s minds or prove anything!

And also: I chose to rank each episode by five criteria, the things I love the most about the show: 1) Humor (intentional or not), 2) Character (defining or cool moments and such) 3) Cute 4) Plot (how much development there is and how well the action is delivered) 5) Feels (of any kind).

#12, Least favourite of the season: 29. The Pastry of Knowledge/ The Informant's Great Romance Plan II

Humor: 6/10 Character: 6/10 Cute: 7/10 Plot: 6/10 Feels: 5/10

I think this is the only episode that got points removed for something I didn't like. I made some very passionate posts about it when it first aired, particularly due to how after watching it I realized I'd been treated very unfairly by some fellow fans, and thus I'm almost incapable of rewatching the first half. Yes this is about Damian bullying Anya, no I won't shut up about it.

Anyway. This is still quite a high ranking (it's higher than the three lowest from my s1 ranking), cause the humor and the cats of the second part were quite entertaining on their own. It got a few points for plot because it introduced the stakes of Anya getting low grades, and also because of the discussion between Franky and Twilight about Garden.

#11: 36. Berlint in Love / Nightfall's Daily Life

Humor: 9/10 Character: 6/10 Cute: 6/10 Plot: 5/10 Feels: 7/10

A very high humor score because I honestly doubt a single minute passed without me laughing my ass off in this one. It was so ridiculous and they loved making it so. Though having two wholly different parts, they were both fun in how they were around two characters blinded by their affection for Loid to the point they have no idea how hopeless their goals are. I just love how exaggerated it all is.

Some feels points were added for Yor talking about remembering what Loid had told her during the bench scene, and also because we get Loid being a stupid simp for his strong wife.

#10: 31. The Fearsome Luxury Cruise Ship

Humor: 7/10 Character: 8/10 Cute: 6/10 Plot: 8/10 Feels: 6/10

Reminder that this is still a high ranking. I'm just being strict in the ratings because the entire season is so good, the bar is really high!

Anyway, though I like this episode, it feels more like a passing point from the previous one to the next, compared to those specific episodes, so that's probably why it's this low. I love how the assassins plot is kicked off and we get to see some action, and character points were added for McMahon's ruthless killing of the stalker assassin.

#9: 28. Mission and Family / The Elegant Bondman / Extras

Humor: 6,5/10 Character: 9/10 Cute: 6/10 Plot: 9/10 Feels: 7/10

This is the first time I felt the need to use decimals, lol. I just feel that this episode is one of the darkest and most serious of the season, but also... Bondman's part was ridiculous (affectionate) and the omakes were great by themselves, so I felt that a mere six wouldn't do.

I'm honestly entranced by the first part. The plot and exploration of Yuri's and Perkin's characters were near damn perfect, I only wish there was a bit more beyond that episode, haha. I understand the focus needed to be in the Cruise Arc, so I feel a nine will do for this one. The feels were honestly added because I was a bit touched by Perkin's motives, and how those touched Yuri too.

#8: 30. Plan to Cross the Border

Humor: 8/10 Character: 9/10 Cute: 7/10 Plot: 7/10 Feels: 7/10

The Shopkeeper's introduction was amazing, albeit terrifying. Olka's was a little more subdued, but it was more touching. I felt both also reflected on something about Yor, so it was overall very satisfying. Due to so many introductions, plot was light (not that I minded), but Anya's scheming put up points in humor and cute. Feels points were added for Olka wanting to escape the crime underworld, and how that affected Yor.

#7: 32. Who Is This Mission For?

Humor: 8/10 Character: 8/10 Cute: 8/10 Plot: 6/10 Feels: 8/10

I'd spent the entire week before this episode aired wondering how Yor would manage fighting Barnaby, and even though I should be used to the story's wackiness by now, it still managed to surprise me and make me laugh. Also Loid will never outlive his ridiculous tourist getup. Anya was an adorable little gremlin who couldn't stop having fun, so cute points went up, and Loid managed to spend one (1) episode without going "For the mission!" once, so character and feels points went up as well.

#6: 26. Follow Papa and Mama

Humor: 9/10 Character: 7/10 Cute: 8/10 Plot: 6/10 Feels: 8/10

To be honest, I think I'm a bit strict with this one. I don't know how this story manages to make miscommunication so funny for me, but it was legitimately hilarious. The thing is, this was the only episode of the season whose manga chapter I'd already read, long ago too, and maybe my expectations for its adaptation were unrealistically high - probably also due to it being the season premiere and I'd spent ten months without my show, so I'm probably biased. Mind you, I still loved it, but this further cements my will to stay anime only.

Anyway! Character points went a bit down because I didn't feel we saw anything new, but the cute and feels persisted because of Anya's machinations and because of Yor admitting how good she felt with Loid dedicating time for her that day.

#5: 34. The Hand That Connects to the Future

Humor: 8/10 Character: 7/10 Cute: 8/10 Plot: 8/10 Feels: 8/10

A lovely, hopeful closure for Olka and the rest, Yor getting the acknowledgement she deserves, a spectacular ending of the assassins fight, high stakes with the bomb threats, and an emotional ending scene with Twilight carrying Anya to bed and then the family getting ready to meet in the resort island. Not much else to be said <3

#4: 35. Enjoy the Resort to the Fullest / Bragging About Vacation

Humor: 9/10 Character: 7/10 Cute: 9/10 Plot: 6/10 Feels: 9/10

No, I'm definitely not biased because this episode shows us the first glimpse of Twilight yearning for Yor what are you talking about.

Who am I kidding, I definitely added feels points just for that look he gave her while she watched Anya play with the sheep. The whole episode felt so relaxing and fulfilling after the intense assassins plot, especially the scene of the Forgers having tea upon returning home, that I don't mind that the second part at school feels a little exaggerated. The ending scene with Anya being surrounded by liars though is top notch.

#3: 27. Bond's Strategy to Stay Alive / Damian's Field Research Trip

Humor: 9/10 Character: 8/10 Cute: 8/10 Plot: 7/10 Feels: 9/10

Endo used Dog Cuteness! It's super effective!

Yeah, the whole adventure and the way it was presented were appropriately hilarious and we saw some more of the dynamics between Bond and the rest and I really liked that. Plot wasn't heavy but I was all wide eyes at the introduction of a truth serum, and at the second part when Mr. Green talked about people defecting to the West. Feels went up thanks to, among others, Twilight thinking he was helping Bond get his "revenge". Also, though the second part didn't do much for me, it actually felt nice to see Damian laugh innocently like the kid he really is.

#2: 37. Part of the Family

Humor: 8/10 Character: 8/10 Cute: 9/10 Plot: 8/10 Feels: 9/10

Despite the mopping wet of a dog we got here, I kinda felt this was less... humorous, or at least not focusing so much on the humor aspect. I felt it was more cute and emotional that Bond was just trying to help left and right but was only misunderstood by Twilight. The action takes the place of a plot here, and I loved it all. Some development too through Twilight realizing he can relax a bit with Bond, even though he's still in denialTM about how much he appreciates his company.

#1: 33. The Symphony Upon the Ship / Sis's Herb Tea

Humor: 8/10 Character: 10/10 Cute: 7/10 Plot: 9/10 Feels: 10/10

Yeah OH MY GOD are we surprised. Top tier shit. Excellent balance of pretty much everything in this one. The humor even in the way Yor took out some of the assassins. Her flashbacks with Yuri. The ACTION and the ANIMATION of it all. HER REALIZATION AND DETERMINATION POWERING HER THROUGH. HER LOVE FOR HER FAMILY.

Yeah wow it's really so good any eloquence evades me. Perfect. Mwah. Thank you Endo-sensei.

And here is the overall ranking of the episodes, from both seasons, based on the ratings I gave:

1. Operation Strix

2. Secure A Wife

33. The Symphony Upon The Ship / Sis's Herb Tea

24. The Role Of A Mother And Wife / Shopping With Friends

38. Part Of The Family

16. Yor's Kitchen / The Informant's Great Romance Plan

27. Bond's Strategy To Stay Alive / Damian's Field Research Trip

14. Disarm The Time Bomb

12. Penguin Park

11. Stella

21. Nightfall / First Fit Of Jealousy

35. Enjoy The Resort To The Fullest / Bragging About Vacation

15. A New Family Member

9. Show Off How In Love You Are

5. Will They Pass Or Fail?

34. The Hand That Connects To The Future

3. Prepare For The Interview

26. Follow Papa And Mama

32. Who Is This Mission For?

13. Project Apple

4. The Prestigious School's Interview

30. Plan To Cross The Border

28. Mission And Family / The Elegant Bondman / Extras

8. The Counter-Secret Police Cover Operation

6. The Friendship Scheme

31. The Fearsome Luxury Cruise Ship

25. First Contact

23. The Unwavering Path

18. Uncle The Private Tutor / Daybreak

6. The Target's Second Son

36. Berlint In Love / Nightfall's Daily Life

20. Investigate The General Hospital / Decipher The Perplexing Code

19. A Revenge Plot Against Desmond / Mama Becomes The Wind

29. The Pastry Of Knowledge / The Informant's Great Romance Plan Ii

17. Carry Out The Griffin Plan / Fullmetal Lady / Omelet Rice ♡

22. The Underground Tennis Tournament: The Campbelldon

10. The Great Dodgeball Plan

#sxf

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lutawolf · 1 year ago

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Hello Luta,

I have a very important question. How do you identify a good Dom in common social situations?

I am from a very conservative society where these types of things are never spoken aloud or even discussed in private most of the time. Where most of the marriages are arranged by family so there is a limited communication. I know there is no way to tell definitely like that but there must be some common characteristics or signs that I can use to identify a person as a Dom Or at least having Dominant tendencies.

Could you please reply privately🥺?

Hey lovie,

I can't reply privately to an anon! I'm so sorry. I debated even replying, but I felt this was important. How to spot a Dom through body language and how to tell if they are likely nice?

Most of you likely recognize a Dom subconsciously. Human beings are sensitive to social hierarchies. They want to know their status in their group; whether it be friends, school, work, and ect. We subconsciously look for non-verbal cues to let us know if someone else is above or beneath us. Many try to remove this thought processes because they view it as prejudice, but in doing so they lose a protective layer. This is the instinct layer that tells us when we noticed something was off, and we ignored it because we were taught that judging on first impressions is bad. I'm here to tell you that's stupid, hone your ability to read people through non-verbal cues, and then trust your gut. Don't apologize for it, either. We are the only idiots who get in an elevator along with a potential predator to avoid a socially awkward situation of hurting someone's feelings. That goes against our own survival instinct! So what if that one person isn't going to stab us, why are we chancing it? Trust your first gut instinct and don't apologize to no one, least of all yourself, for doing so.

Okay, so some things you'll notice from a Dom. First is the need to have control/lead. We want and need it. Second, we make sure to make ourselves appear big, noticeable. We need for submissives to recognize we are here and who they should give their control to. We are no different from peacocks, shaking our pretty feathers. Thirdly, we're typically very open in our stance. We have a very protective instinct, so we aren't closed in trying to protect ourselves, we're open and confident. A chin in the air is a very protective Dom.

Now, what's important to look at within that. Eye contact, if they aren't making eye contact with you at all, then they view you as beneath them. Are they standing in front of those who are vulnerable, or are they turning their back towards them? A tilted head indicates that they are listening and paying attention.

Using their hands to talk is common, it makes us appear bigger and brings notice to us. However, what we do with our hands when not talking says a lot more. Hands in pocket with no expression or head movement is someone who views you as beneath them. Flat palms is a patient Dom, one who is used to calming others and is comfortable with it. Pointed fingers are Doms who needs strict control.

Spread legs may seem like showing off, but it's actually an indication of our willingness to protect. If we put our arms near you and spread wide, we're indicating that you are ours. If we mirror what you are doing, then we are paying close attention to you and value you in some way. Doms are not afraid to stake claim and invade personal space in order to do it. Think My Personal Weatherman and how quickly Segasaki was willing to invade Yoh's space. It's an agressive move, but it tells us pretty quick where we stand with you when you don't quickly move back. We also touch when we invade space. The Dom who doesn't touch or only softly touches when first meeting, respects you.

Someone who naturally slows their speech when talking to you isn't saying that you're stupid. It's actually asserting dominance and our want for you to hear our command. Same, if we slow our movements, it's a really good indicator that we value you. Think about how in My Personal Weatherman, Segasaki slowed his movement and pace to match with Yoh. He knew this meant Yoh was anxious, and so he matched him to put him at ease.

Pay attention to the Dom that keeps standing while you sit or sits when you sit. Trust your gut. When we stand while a submissive is sitting, we're really exerting our Dominance. There are a lot of layers to that, so trust your gut. He could be sitting because he doesn't feel the need to assert dominance because he just isn't that into you, but at the same time standing could be a sign of too much aggression.

Okay, hope this was helpful. Good luck! 💜💜💜

#luta talks kink #luta question and answer

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raayllum · 2 years ago

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Isn't too extreme trying to cut so many TOH players? Like, I doubt it'd fix the problems. Besides, how would you fix the so called race issue on Owl House?

Very simple really

TOH's main problem (once again disclaimer: in my opinion) is that it has too many characters and not enough screentime for any of them (even in S1 and S2). This also disproportionately affects characters of colour (mainly Gus and Willow) as there are less characters of colour outside of Luz in the main cast (Amity, Emira, Edric, Alador, Odalia, Eda, Eda's entire family including Lilith, Belos, Hunter). This is shown most clearly in having episodes dedicated entirely to Amity's family dynamics, Hunter's family dynamics, Eda's family dynamics, yet Gus and Willow are never given the same treatment.

If you have less characters by merging certain ones that already had overlapping themes and roles together, you have more time to focus on them as singular characters. If you have more time to focus on the smaller cast that you have, you cull TOH's main race issue of sidelining every character of colour that isn't Luz. Like I love Gus, he's one of my favourites. He contributes virtually nothing to the plot the same way that Amity's siblings contribute virtually nothing to plot, and all three of them are illusionists.

It's kinda like how Flapjack died, gave Hunter magic, and then Hunter used that magic once (and not even in the final battle). Like great, he has magic! Why, though? What was the point in killing off his best friend to give him magical powers that he uses one (1) time? That'd be like killing off Bait just so Ezran can make a bright light when Callum or Rayla are sad. There's no Plot Point or Significance surrounding it; it's just There.

You could also solve some of my own personal issues with the show (i.e. that many characters are completely removed from the main stakes of the plot and are only entangled because they're friends with Luz, with no goals that bring them into the plot outside of that beyond general "we don't want our world to be destroyed" in later episodes).

If you're open to having a critical discussion on TOH's flaws and virtues, then this conversation (and my meta and TOH critical tag) might be for you. But given that you dismiss it as so-called, it doesn't seem like it - and that's okay. We don't always want to see critique, or participate in critique, of something we love, nor do we have to 'perform' to Prove we're 'thinking critically' about something in an online space. I just don't think TOH is a Great show, the same way I'm sure some people don't think TDP is a Great show. It's not personal. You don't need to act like it is.

#toh critical #i know some ppl who love toh just followed me so feel free to ignore this lmao #i do not know Why i'm randomly getting asks about my toh opinions & this'll probably be the last one i respond to #thanks for asking #non tdp #anonymous

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onewingedxngel · 7 days ago

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How I’d Improve CC

NOTE: I wrote this two years ago or so, it’s been rotting in my drafts ever since. Might as well release it. Warning: it’s long. I have not edited it, so it’s got that authentic two-years-ago me feel.

My disdain for Crisis Core is something I’m pretty vocal about. I mention some of my reasoning in this ask. A while back, I was actually talking to my friend about how I think it could’ve been improved to become something that I wouldn’t have so much of an issue with.

THE RETCONS

First thing’s first, no Genesis at Nibelheim. Just no. The scene was already wonderful as it is, his addition to it only removes Sephiroth’s agency and destroys any subtlety there may have been before. However dramatic it sounds, his appearance actively ruined the moment for me. The ‘you are a monster!’ interaction can happen before the trip to Nibelheim; though Sephiroth may not believe it at first. But I think it’s best that it doesn’t happen at all.

Secondly, I dislike that Sephiroth was said to have had a friendship with Genesis and Angeal, when in the original it’s implied Zack was his one friend (I think it’s more thematically relevant for him to be largely alone, in spite of all his admirers). Maybe if it had been executed better I wouldn’t mind, but frankly, the chemistry is lacking and we’re only told they’re friends, not shown. I think it would be better if a) Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal’s friendship is actually shown, where we see more than just a small playfight and Genesis’s jealousy, but them sharing a scene or two with actual chemistry and depth and we see how they click, or b) Sephiroth is not friends with them at all, but rather, befriends Zack, or c) Sephiroth is on good terms with them, but recognises that they’re much closer with each other, and largely grew to know/like him because of his ‘hero’ status– this could also be a source of emotional conflict for him. I think c could actually make for something very interesting.

LOVELESS

Nope.

If it has to exist, at least make it a decent poem. And for God’s sake do NOT try to tie it into the plot.

STORY/THEMES

The main things I would change would be the Genesis rebellion plot, the presentation of Shinra, the discussion of man and monster, and Angeal’s presentation of honour.

Genesis Rebellion

‘Some aspects of the plot were weak to me too; like with the whole 'Genesis causes a rebellion' thing, but... how? We're never shown how he convinced masses of soldiers to join him, why they'd join him, they just do because 'plot', and frankly that's just uncompelling storytelling to me.’– Me.

So you know how I’d change this?

There are no Genesis copies... but there is a rebellion.

Hear me out. Genesis joins Shinra, full of hope and pride, wanting to be just like Sephiroth, a hero for everyone to look up to, basking in glory. With his friend Angeal he rises the ranks to a first-class SOLDIER. He hears of honour, dreams, blah blah blah, but the more he learns of Shinra...

... the more he understands that this is all just an illusion. Angeal may buy into the idea of ‘soldier honour’, but Genesis sees right through it. He slowly comes to understand what this company really is, that there is no real honour in working for a megalomaniacal company that harms the planet and controls the people, destroying any who dare stand up to it... and the last straw is the realisation that he was the product of Project G, doomed to degrade.

With this realisation, and understanding that he has nothing to lose, Genesis rallies his fellow SOLDIERS to escape Shinra and bring it down. They’ve wronged him, they’ve wronged his comrades, and now, it is time for them to face consequences. I think this makes more sense, because why on earth would these soldiers just be okay with turning into Genesis copies with nothing to gain??? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to have their own personal stakes in the rebellion, with Genesis showing them that Shinra has manipulated them all into their personal pawns, and they each fight for the sake of their freedom, as well as that of their friends? I think this would also help make Genesis a more interesting character, with how we’d see him go from someone who completely trusts Shinra and buys into their propaganda, to someone who realises the horrifying truth, and decides to do something about it. He’d be an antagonist, but a damn sympathetic and understandable one. Perhaps you’d even want to root for him.

Another part of his development would be the understanding that Sephiroth is not a hero, quite the opposite in fact. He’d feel conflicted because he’d know Sephiroth is a nice guy, but he’s been raised to be the pawn of the company Genesis fights against. This would further add interesting conflict to their relationship, in which Genesis tries to slowly open Sephiroth’s eyes to the truth, and Sephiroth is left to wonder if, perhaps, the red soldier truly is in the right– and his life has truly been a lie the whole time.

Presentation of Shinra

Shinra is more directly criticised within the narrative, and it’s far more clear that you, as the protagonist, act on behalf of a greedy, villainous force. None of that ‘soldier honour’ bull getting played straight.

Man and Monster

This won’t be as black and white as portrayed in CC, where it’s essentially ‘monster bad, no honour, no dream... hooman good. Honour. Dream.’

No. None of that here. Instead, the question is turned towards human morality. After all, they create the violent monsters we see, right? From the mutated creatures roaming the lands, to the soldiers bathed in mako, to Sephiroth himself, they are simply products of humanity’s own ignorance, greed, and malevolance. The lack of honour is found in those who exploit and pillage and destroy, not the victims who suffer the consequences. We embrace the non-human here, people! Don’t be surprised, I’m a misanthropist. And yes, I think there’s an argument for the soldiers being human, including Genesis and Angeal... but not Sephiroth. His non-humanness is, in my frank opinion, integral to his character. I’ve said this many times, but ‘human Sephiroth’ simply would not be Sephiroth.

Of course, it won’t be as in-your-face in its presentation as I made it out. The question would be left largely ambiguous, up to the player to reach their own conclusions, as they see the sides and opinions of the different characters reacting to the situation.

I’m also quite biased as I know when people say ‘Sephiroth is human’, the word ‘human’ carries positive connotations. But for me, it actually carries very negative ones. That’s very much a ‘me’ thing, and it’s going to bleed through into my ideas for this story.

Angeal’s Presentation of Honour

No ambiguity here. Angeal is misled, the ‘SOLDIER dreams and honour’ will not be played straight as it is in the game. Where the hell can you find any of that in a power-hungry company like Shinra, that kills so many innocents and harms so many?

CHARACTERS

Genesis

I really dislike what was done with him in CC... but I do think his character has potential if it was in better hands. I think the changes I described with the rebellion would actually be enough to mould him into a character I’d really love. He can keep his Loveless obsession, but it would be reduced to a character quirk, and not something with plot relevance.

Sephiroth

Some of Sephiroth’s big conflicts would be losing loyalty to the Shinra company as he questions it more and more, and the conflict between him and Genesis. He’d understand at a certain point that Genesis was interested in being his friend largely due to his hero status, and because of this, questions its validity, as well as the honesty of Genesis telling him that he’s but a pawn (thinking this may be spoken out of jealousy). This would add a realistic complexity to their relationship, and a conflict I personally would find very compelling. It would serve to contrast with Zack’s friendship with Sephiroth, as the devs have mentioned Zack was the one person to treat him as a person rather than some untouchable hero.

Angeal

His talk of honour and dreams will be subverted, as he’s little more than a pawn for a company forced to do the dirty work. A victim of propaganda; a good person twisted into doing bad things. Maybe he can realise the truth at some point as he joins Genesis in his rebellion, but by then it’s too late. Or maybe he never does, and this strikes a rift between him and Zack. Either way, he needs ACTUAL MOTIVATIONS- something that he literally COMPLETELY LACKS in CC.

Zack

I honestly really like Zack with his energy and idealism, but as with everyone else, the concept of heroism should be subverted because of the nature of their role in the company. I also like the idea of him becoming Cloud’s hero at the end, but there should be some ambiguity as he realises the infantrymen he’s fighting are just like the both of them: manipulated by propaganda and genuinely convinced they are doing the right thing. But by this point, it’s kill or be killed– and Zack understands he has no choice. I think he should be a bit more on the morally grey side, just a smidge, as I think it could make for something very interesting– or maybe he comes to realise he’s not as good a person as he believed he was, and works to become better as he lets go of Shinra.

#essay #mun #analysis #go dear draft.... be free... spread your wings (one wing hehe)

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americangirlstar · 4 years ago

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Now that both Courtney books are out and I’ve read and processed them both, I do want to say that I think they’re the least well-written of any of the AG books, but not through any fault of their own- let me explain.

(Note that for this discussion I’m ignoring the Doylist criticisms- Courtney and 3/4 of her friend group being white again, the lack of gay discussion in-text in regards to the HIV crisis, etc. These are valid complaints and concerns, but not what we’re talking about right now.)

The Problem with the Current Book Length

I think the main problem with Courtney stems from the fact her books are so short. American Girl has literally been doing the stupidest things in regards to their books lately, almost as if they’re trying to sabotage them on purpose. First they remove illustrations in 2015- when their target audience is about nine years old. I don’t know about you, but when I was six and getting into American Girl, the illustrations were the highlight for me. Not because I had no attention span and loved pretty pictures, but because it showed me firstly what the girl’s life was like, whether it be 1760s wilderness or 2001 Chicago. It was like stepping into their world, really helping you get into their heads, which was basically what the dolls were supposed to do, to let you know that girls like you exist throughout time and space.

As well as that, the illustrations were free advertisement. I can’t tell you how excited me and my sisters were as children to go to the American Girl place and look at the doll displays, shouting that that’s the dress Felicity wears to the ball! or look, Josefina’s goat looks exactly like the book! AG cut that from 2015 to 2020, as if they were trying to appeal to an older audience- while at the same time changing all the doll outfits, accessories and marketing to appeal to a younger demographic.

Now, this isn’t about the illustrations, as Courtney got those- it’s about what they did to the historical characters after the Illustration Outrage™ happened. See, they’d condensed the historical six-book format into two books- not necessarily a bad idea, parents would be more likely to buy two books for their kid than consider buying six. However, they then claimed that if they put illustrations back, they would have to abridge the books- literally my nightmare.

First of all, American Girl, we know for a fact you can fit all six books plus illustrations into ONE VOLUME, let alone two. You’re just being cowards here and trying to nerf your own stories for... some reason.

So that meant a lot of important things got cut- Rebecca’s Chanukah story, Melody’s cousin’s house search, Maryellen’s Christmas adventure... all things important to the girls’ histories and character.

The Problem with Courtney’s Writing

Now, Courtney was the first doll to be released after the abridging began, meaning her books were released, in their entirety, just as short as the abridged stories. So it basically means she gets four books while the others get six- and unlike the others, Courtney doesn’t even have mysteries or short stories to pad out. (And honestly, looking at her book’s amount of content, I’d even argue that she basically got two while everyone else got six, but I digress.)

The problem with her books isn’t that they have an author writing them poorly (I really feel like her author was doing the best with what limited time she had), but in how cramped American Girl made them. Because, well, Courtney has to deal with a lot in such a short amount of words.

Let’s compare her to Julie, for instance- Julie pretty much has a new 70s thing every book. In order: feminism, rising divorce rates, San Francisco’s Chinese culture, environmentalism, the country’s bicentennial, anti-bullying and deaf acceptance. And adding to this, we also have her own personal journies through her parents’ divorce and move, her basketball team, her friendship with Ivy (and later Joy), overcoming her fear of horses, student council, detention... It’s a lot, and yet her books don’t feel rushed or forced at all. It’s just a year in the life of a girl going through a lot of new and sudden events, and how she grows and changes throughout them. She may not be as deep a character as Addy or Kirsten, but not every girl goes through the trials and tribulations they do, and it’s a good series overall.

Courtney, meanwhile, does feel rushed and forced, because of the short timespan. Instead of fitting everything into a six-book format- or even at two-book format that is the same length and content as the six-book- everything has to be fit into two short books. Everything Courtney has to cover includes the topics of divorce and stepfamilies, feminist and technological advancement, the Challenger explosion, the HIV crisis, Hands Across America, and the founding of Pleasant Company. And in Courtney’s own journey, she has to cover her learning to stand up for herself, her relationship with her stepsister and Tina’s own character development, her mother running for mayor and how that affects her, how much she misses her Dad after he moves, her friendship with Sarah (note on that later), her basically getting hate-crimed after standing up for her friend... that’s a LOT of stuff, and I didn’t even include the non-AG 80s product placement they shove into her collection.

But without the longer format, everything is pushed together to its detriment. Tina’s development and Maureen’s mayoral candidacy are two plotlines that are literally dropped and almost completely ignored in the second book. The Challenger and HIV issues were handled decently, but the Challenger only lasted a few short chapters, and the HIV topic was not as informative as it could be, leaving out several things like Reagan’s refusal to treat it for so long, and its effect on the gay community. Honestly, the HIV scare was more shifted to focus on the mob mentality of a new and scary disease- which, while needed right now, also ignores many of the bigotry-related reasons it became an epidemic. Pleasant Company’s inclusion feels forced in, and I think was the only resolution she had to her Dad plotline?

And don’t get me started on the Sarah plotline- every Girl of the Year since Kanani- sans Isabelle and Luci- has had the story of “oh no I’ve been ignoring my friend and now they’re mad at me :(” and it’s SO old. Seriously, I counted the contemporary dolls that have had that storyline, and it’s thirteen*. Thirteen times we’ve covered this issue- almost all of it in quick succession- and now we have to deal with it in a historical character book while much more important things are going on! Yes, it sucks when a friend ditches you while you’re being attacked and bullied for something you’re standing up for, but once again, with how much is happening in such a short book, it just feels like a forced-in plotline that we’ve seen a billion times, and with their falling-out happening mainly due to the attention Courtney was given Isaac, it serves to make Sarah seem closed-minded at best and bigoted at worst- it’s clarified that she’s not, she’s just scared and upset with Courtney, but when you put those events so close together, it leads the reader to lump them together and get the impression that, you know, Sarah is a worse person than she is.

*Full count: Nicki (book 2), Chrissa (book 2), Kanani (2), McKenna (1 iirc?), Saige (both books), Grace (2), Lea (3), Gabriela (1 and 3), Tenney (2), Z (1), Blaire (1), Joss (1) and Kira (1).

It’s a bit weird, too, that Courtney’s... what’s the word? Vibe? with her how her story is written and marketed Is closer to the Contemporaries than the Historicals. Am I the only one feeling this? My best explanation for it is that the author, Kellen Hertz, had only written contemporary books for American Girl before- the third Lea Clark book and all four Tenney Grant books, both of which contained the Friendship Issues™ plot. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad author- I honestly love the way the Tenney books are written- and I’m not saying she couldn’t write a historical book, but it’s clear American Girl didn’t ask her to change up her style or content from what she’d done for them before, as well as giving her way too much to cover in such short books.

Conclusion

Honestly, this conclusion should be obvious- American Girl needs to expand their books again. Whether they simply allow the books to be unabridged, or go back to the six-book format, Courtney's books are too cramped to tell an effective story, let alone the poor abridged girls.

The other girls were given six-book length, so if they went back to that length or format, Courtney would have to be rewritten, at least a little- and that’s okay! There’s a lot of things that could use expansion or connection, such as her Summer trip with her Dad that was given basically one sentence in the text. Her growth with her stepfamily could be acknowledged- and honestly? I think that if these books were expanded, her mother’s mayoral arc should either continue through the books, or Maureen should become mayor before the book 2 arc. I’ve mentioned this before, but having Maureen as mayor (or even still a candidate) would put a lot of pressure on Courtney to be perfect so that nobody can say “look at how awful this woman is for doing politics instead of raising her family right”- which means that when the Isaac stuff happens, it has even more stakes for Courtney and her family. Does her Mom still support her with her own reputation on the line, and what does that say about Maureen’s character, how does it affect Courtney and the D’Amicos... that’s all fascinating stuff that was completely missed out on.

And if she was turned into a six-book format- honestly, here’s how I’d do it, just off the top of my head. It would involve a bit of event shuffling, but honestly I think it would work!

Meet Courtney - pretty much the setup for everything happening, her starting to get her Crystal Starshooter plans and her mom’s campaign beginning.

Courtney Learns a Lesson - her relationship to Tina, culminating in the Challenger incident.

Courtney’s Surprise - we move the founding of Pleasant Company over here, since Molly’s basically her Christmas Present. We’ll probably need an additional plotline- maybe similar to Julie, she can have a story on spending the holidays in different places.

Happy Birthday Courtney - end of summer, aka meeting Isaac and her trip with her Dad.

Courtney Saves the Day - Beginning of the HIV arc, ending at her presentation to her class.

Changes for Courtney - Continuation of the HIV arc as things get worse for her and Isaac, ending where Friendship Superhero ends.

Is that a perfect sorting? Probably not, I came up with it in ten minutes. But would it give Courtney space to breathe and more time to explore everything happening to her? Probably!

The tl;dr of this is honestly that American Girl are absolute cowards right now, and need to expand their books back. Their abridging is only harming their stories- which, as Courtney herself points out, are the reason girls got into their company in the first place.

#courtney moore #american girl #american girl dolls #american girls #1986 #negativity #mine #americangirlstar

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wallwriterstuff · 4 years ago

Note

Hi, I love your writing.

Can I request a sleep headcanon for Volturi guards (We can ignore Smeyer canon!)

P.S. Sorry for my bad english

We can always ignore SMeyer’s nonsensical canon, fanfic is what brings order to what was once chaos. I actually quite enjoyed this one, I’ve never considered it before so it was fun to imagine something entirely new! Don’t worry about your English either chickadee, it’s better than mine and English is my first language hahaha!

Sleepy Guards:

Alec:

· Okay but lets get one thing straight – the twins have been sleeping beside each other since the day they were born

· They shared a womb, a cradle, a straw mat and blanket

· You really think they don’t still reach for each other in their sleep?

· They have always had separate beds since they joined the Volturi, but separate rooms? It took literal decades for them to get so bored of each other’s differing routines they decided to not sleep in the same room.

· Alec sleeps on his right side, Jane sleeps on her left, and they always, regardless of whether or not they have mates, reach at least one hand out to search subconsciously for the missing twin

· Alec doesn’t get as riled up throughout the day as his sister, he’s pretty laidback and kind of numb to life really so going to sleep for him? Quite easy, has no troubles falling asleep

· Staying asleep however

· It’s very common for Alec to wake up throughout the night, his PTSD is severe and this boy is an insomniac. You’d think centuries of falling asleep in his own bed, in a castle, down the hall from one of the strongest men on earth, would be enough to make you feel safe enough to sleep, right?

· Not when you wake up unable to move because something is pinning you down

· And you have vivid memories of rope pinning you in place to a stake while you burn alive

· Yeah, sleep paralysis and Alec go way back, and he’s not a fan

· He can’t take any medication for it because the venom dissolves it, and go to a therapist? What’s he supposed to tell them? + Oh hi doc, yeah so I’m centuries old and when I was a human still – yeah I’m a vampire now write that down – people thought I was a witch so burned me and my twin at the stake lol but I swear I’m fine!

· He suffers in silence (poor baby) but he has found one thing that helps a little. Lavender

· A little lavender spray on his pillow and it grants him another hour’s rest or so. Why or how it works he doesn’t know but he’s grateful for it and uses it nightly. Mostly, he wakes early and simply stays awake

· Please just give him hugs and stroke his hair if you sleep beside him till he wakes from his paralysis episodes, someone beside him reassuring him he’s okay really helps

Demetri:

· Some days he just collapses on his bed – his gift requires a lot of mental energy to be expended and it’s hard okay?

· Most days he has an entire routine he goes through before he goes to sleep

· Always has to fluff his pillow before he settles on it

· A sucker for washing his face before bed, even if it doesn’t need washing. He simply finds it soothing, a way of cleansing himself of the day if you will

· Has a single pair of silk pyjamas Felix got him with his initials on – he has never once worn them for fear of wrinkling them + Most people think he sleeps naked but actually Demetri prefers an oversized t-shirt and some simple shorts, it’s cosy

· Prefers to collect bedsheets over pyjamas. He wants every type under the sun and will not rest until this happens. The guard knows of this obsession of his and tries to buy him something fresh once a year to go towards his collection + His favourite bed sheets are the Egyptian cotton ones, so soft and smooth against his skin, it’s like a hug from clouds

· Demetri cuddles his pillow (secretly waiting for the day his mate sleeps beside him so he can cuddle them instead)

· Is the type to enjoy a fancy throw blanket at the end of his bed

· Tucks the duvet under his chin when he sleeps so he’s bundled up like a baby

· Despite what people think, he doesn’t let many people actually sleep with him. His bed is a safe space for him. Lovers can come and go but if you get to sleep in the same bed as him and wake up beside him, that is a huge sign Demetri trusts you

· Bought himself a king size bed – only sleeps on the left side

Felix:

· The type to never make his bed. However the sheets land when he gets up in the morning is how they stay till he crawls back into bed

· His bed sheets are always so plain, despite Demetri’s best efforts to buy him some fancy ones

· Sleeps shirtless (because why would you hide those rock solid abs) but has a collection of comfy sweat pants he wears on bottom + Sweat pants are to him what bed sheets are to Demetri – an obsession

· Has the magical ability to just fall asleep whenever he likes. LITERALLY whenever and wherever he likes

· Needs a solid eight hours or he is a major bitch. You don’t know what sarcasm is if you haven’t met a sleepy Felix + “Why can we never get missions just next door? In Milan, say.” “Why can’t we ever get a mission where we get to leave your whiny ass behind?”

· Can sleep in any position but always somehow ends up on his tummy by the end of the night. He just…splays everywhere. Star-fished face down with his arms tucked under his pillow and face smushed into the fabric

· Such a deep sleeper that you genuinely will need to shake him awake if you need him in the night, however this is not recommended because startling Felix awake has approximately led to three missing arms, two crunched up noses and one spinal displacement

· Isn’t too much of a cuddler so when sleeping beside someone else, more often than not he only has one arm around them. If his mate wants cuddles, they’ll literally just have to sleep on top of him

· Doesn’t tuck his duvet underneath the mattress because he’s so damn tall, his feet have to hang out the duvet, otherwise he can’t stretch out in bed + Besides, what monster under the bed is more terrifying than the one on it? You think the Boogeyman is gonna mss with Felix’s feet? No sir, he gives him a pedicure and moves the fuck on

Jane:

· Everything we discussed with Alec still stands, she is always reaching out for her twin in the night, but her PTSD manifests quite differently

· Jane has trouble falling asleep and doesn’t end up going to bed until the early hours of the morning. It’s part insomnia, part a genuine fear of falling asleep

· She never knows when the night terrors will strike

· Alec is usually the one who will run to comfort her, it took centuries for her to even consider letting anyone else so much as ask if she’s okay

· One time a lower guard mentioned the screaming from her room one night, she fried him with her gift so bad he shattered into a thousand pieces – they still haven’t found the piece of skin that goes beneath his eye

· Has a very meticulous routine she follows starting with removing the days make up and ending with fluffing up her pillows before she goes to bed. This routine is more for her own sanity than anything else, because then she can say she’s done all she can to try get a good night’s sleep if it fails

· There have been nights that neither twin manages to sleep at all and they simply venture to one another’s room to watch some TV or read together

· Jane has absolutely no need for face creams (she is never going to age or get blemishes after all) but a bit of skincare at night is her new favourite habit. It makes her feel a little more normal

· Demetri converted her to throw blankets, Jane has a selection she cycles between now

· Sometimes she will wrap herself in her blanket and then get under the duvet because she likes being cosy

· Is the type of person who just…doesn’t move? All night? Like seriously this girl doesn’t know the meaning of the word wriggle. The only time she moves is when night terrors make her thrash, and thankfully they’re further apart now than they were before

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #headcanons #volturi #demetri volturi #felix volturi #jane volturi #alec volturi #guard headcanons #request #sleepy guards #imagine you get to see their lil sleepy faces every morning #your #welcome

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dinosaurtsukki · 4 years ago

Text

❀ hypothermia | “you never did love me, did you?” feat. sakusa kiyoomi

⇢ day 6 of angstcember

⇢ synopsis: sakusa knows how difficult he is to love but for you, he’ll reluctantly let down his walls

⇢ a/n: the roles for this fic were supposed to be switched at first but i got really >:( about the sakusa hate night thing and realized that we don’t deserve this beautiful man

⇢ pairing: sakusa kiyoomi x gn!reader

⇢ word count: 2.2k words

ANGSTCEMBER MASTERLIST (feat. haikyuu!! and bungou stray dogs)

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going on a date wasn’t sakusa’s idea, rather, it was a whole conspiracy created by atsumu, hinata, and bokuto, who all had the ‘good intentions’ to get sakusa to get out and mingle with more people. in other words, go on an actual date. his hair was uncomfortably slicked back, his shoes pinched too tightly, and despite how un-crowded the cafe he waited in was, sakusa could feel the discomfort of having to breathe in other people’s air.

‘if this person isn’t going to show up in ten minutes, i’m leaving,’ he ultimately decided. except, that’s exactly when you decided to show up. sakusa’s eyes automatically glanced up when you walked in, searching the cafe, before spotting him at one of the tables.

“i’m so sorry about that, traffic was terrible,” you sat down with a huff. “you must be sakusa-san, right?”

“...right,” he nodded slowly, studying you intently as you quickly checked your reflection in your compact mirror.

“atsumu-san told me about you,” you smiled, lacing your fingers together on top of the table. sakusa observed that your nails were cut short and filed down neatly, something that he approved of. he honestly didn’t understand why people purposely glued long, plastic nails on their real nails.

“yeah? what did he say?” he asked.

“some stuff but...” you shrugged. “does it matter what he thinks? i’m the one you’re dating, after all.”

sakusa raised an eyebrow, slightly impressed at your quick judgement. with that, he tugged his mask down, folded it, and placed it neatly on the table. “you’re right about that. shall we order then?”

first impressions meant a lot to sakusa. he knew people wouldn’t normally use first dates as ‘testing grounds’ but that’s exactly how he saw it. and why shouldn’t he? people dated for a reason and if it didn’t work out, sakusa wouldn’t feel too bothered by it.

part of him did want the date to be unsuccessful because that meant he’d be back in the safe territory he knew so well. second dates, third dates, and everything after were uncharted territory for him. sakusa knew he’d only get more uncomfortable, except for the fact that your first date did go well.

despite the fact that you were late, you made up for it by offering to buy him a coffee. you didn’t shirk away at sakusa’s bluntness, in fact, you seemed to take it in stride as just a part of him. you didn’t comment on or make fun of how he’d wipe his utensils with a clean napkin before eating with them, instead listening intently to what sakusa said about bacteria and utensil storage.

he went into the date with the expectation that he wouldn’t enjoy it as much, a prediction that he thought was fair enough for him to make. but when you asked if you could hold hands as he walked you home and sakusa looked uncomfortably at your hands, you smiled and held your hands out to him. sakusa stared at them for a moment before pulling out his pocket sanitizer and spraying your hands. he searched for any signs of slight annoyance on your face but there were none as you waved your hands to dry them.

“if you’re not too comfortable about holding my hand we can do this,” you offered, raising your pinky at him.

“isn’t this what children do?” sakusa quirked a brow.

“it can be something that we can do,” you smiled, your eyes an invitation to the uncharted waters that had started drawing sakusa in.

it was a risk. but sakusa knew if he was careful, it could be a calculated one. so, he looped his pinky around yours and resumed walking.

as far as first dates go, this wasn’t so bad.

...

“another text omi-omi?” atsumu teased. sakusa scowled, ignoring his annoying teammate as he continued to type on his phone. the annoying part was that his annoying teammate was right and sakusa wondered if he looked too eager to check his phone right after practice

[from: y/n]

5:30 pm: hey sakusa! you’re probably still at practice but just wanted to wish you a good day. let me know if you still want to get dinner :)

it was just a short message but sakusa could still feel that uncomfortable stir in his stomach. the first time he felt that, back when you held pinkies on your first date, sakusa grew paranoid and looked up ‘strange stomach feelings’ on webMD the first chance he got. but it wasn’t anything physical, rather, it came from something else.

“shut up, atsumu,” sakusa drawled, trying to look disinterested as he typed up a quick response to your message, saying that he would be htere.

“what did i tell you guys?” atsumu chided their fellow teammates. “i just knew y/n would be the one to capture our omi-omi’s heart.”

“awww, they must be real special! when can we meet them!” bokuto begged, popping up beside sakusa.

“they didn’t capture anything and even if they did, i think they have better things to do,” sakusa gritted his teeth.

although, he knew that eventually he would probably ask if you’d like to meet his teammates, probably after he’d invite you to watch one of his games. sakusa knew he wasn’t going too fast for his own liking and as he watched you enter the restaurant, once again late and slightly out of breath, he felt that slowly letting you into his life wasn’t such a bad thing.

“sorry i’m late, again,” you sighed, smoothing down your windblown hair with a sheepish smile.

“it’s alright,” sakusa said, removing his mask. “i took the liberty of ordering for you, if that’s alright.”

“is that so?” your bright eyes locked onto his. “well, let’s see if you’ve read my mind.”

“i could just ask the waiter to change your order,” sakusa offered.

“no, no! it could be like a game!” you shook your head. “don’t you want to play?” sakusa didn’t quite understand you, nor your game, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly apprehensive as he waited for your order to come. you took one look at the food on your plate before flashing him a smile.

“well, what do you know? it’s exactly what i wanted.”

sakusa didn’t why hearing that made him particularly happy. “this wasn’t much of a game, to be honest,” he murmured.

“is it because there aren’t really stakes?” you asked.

“precisely.”

there was something playful in the way you looked at him. “if you really like someone, there are always stakes.”

...

sakusa knew just what you meant, he was in uncharted waters after all. but that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn how to sail in such places. he also came to realize that it wasn’t just him letting you into his life, but you letting him into yours. sakusa expected that you were a bit of an extrovert with how openly you talked to him, only to find that you did have a secretive side. the most you’d talk about were your co-workers who got on your nerves or how you wished there were more hours in a day. sakusa noticed that you often dodged around questions, focusing on him instead. knowing how much he valued his own privacy, sakusa let you have your own.

which was why he knew that the two of you had gone through a certain ‘dating milestone’ after you introduced him to your friends. sakusa didn’t really like how everyone focused on him being a germophobe and how the conversation seemed to revolve around just that, which was why he appreciated you being there to steer the discussion topic away. but sakusa made an effort not to be his usual self because he knew how important it was for you to bring him into your world.

“i bet you’re glad that’s over,” you chuckled after the two of you left the cafe. once again, sakusa offered to walk you home.

“it wasn’t that bad,” he murmured.

“that’s a compliment from you,” you giggled, linking your pinky with his as you walked. sakusa would rather die than let anyone on the MSBY Jackals team see him like this, but for you he’d take that risk.

“hey,” sakusa suddenly stopped, tugging you to look at him. curiously, you obliged. “i... know i’m not really the gentle boyfriend type but... you can ask and expect for things, you know? people tend to side-step around me knowing the kind of person i am, well except for my teammates but, you don’t have to all the time.”

you blinked in mild surprise before asking. “so, can i be selfish then?” your eyes gave away your intentions and sakusa loved how he was able to read you and already pulled down his mask from his face.

sakusa had always been creeped out by the thought of kissing people but as he kissed you, it didn’t feel like he was missing out. rather, it was as if it was happening at the right moment.

“can i be selfish again?” you whispered after you and sakusa parted.

“i already have half a guess as to what you’re going to ask,” sakusa smirked.

“can i stay over at your place?”

...

sakusa knew that things would be a little different after you spent your first night together, but he didn’t think they’d be like this. for one, your messages to him dwindled into one-line sentences or phrases, before disappearing completely. sakusa wondered if he had done something wrong. no, he was absolutely sure that he had done something wrong and had no idea how to fix things.

he wasn’t much of a social media user and sakusa didn’t want to be the type of person who’d get angry at someone for tweeting while waiting on a message from them. he thought it would be low of him to call you out in a semi-public space so he’d end up liking your tweets in the hope of getting your attention to no avail.

what had happened?

“hey, sakusa...”

“atsumu, i don’t need this right now,” sakusa grumbled, scrolling through his unanswered messages again before realizing that atsumu didn’t use his usual nickname. he looked up from his phone to find a look of regret on his teammate’s face.

“listen, i... i’ve only heard about y/n from a friend of a friend so i really didn’t know about this...”

“know about what?” sakusa asked, despite the feeling in his gut that he wouldn’t like what he was going to hear.

“i... don’t know if it’s better for me to show it to you--”

“do it,” sakusa clenched his jaw and nodded resolutely. “i want to see.”

atsumu took his phone out of his bag and opened what appeared to be instagram. sakusa didn’t have one and he quickly realized that it was to your advantage.

if he had known about the things you’d post on your stories, sakusa would have broken up with you a long time ago.

...

the club where you were in was miles different from the cozy, little cafe where sakusa first met you. it felt like some sick parallel twist and this only fueled sakusa’s anger and motivation to squeeze past the moving bodies until he finally made his way to where you were.

now all his questions and suspicions had been answered and sakusa was practically beating himself up for not realizing things sooner. when he reached the bar counter where you were seated, engaged in more than just a deep conversation with another man, sakusa didn’t even hold back.

“you’re a bitch, you know that?”

“ah, sakusa,” you regarded him calmly. “what are you doing here? this doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”

“yeah, and you knew that, didn’t you? you took advantage of it,” sakusa practically spat, hoping that his words would deal a blow but your face remained expressionless.

“i’m sorry but it was just all too easy,” you chuckled, crossing your legs over each other.

as angry as he was, sakusa couldn’t help but feel the cold reality of despair. he didn’t want to be right about his suspicions. he wanted to be optimistic after your first few dates went so well. he desperately searched your face for the person he had linked pinkies with and exchanged messages with and had his first time with.

they weren’t even real in the first place.

“you never did love me, did you?” sakusa asked aloud. your laugh was the only response he needed.

“if it’s any comfort, you were one of my favorites,” you cocked your head at him. “oh, and maybe try not to be so guarded around the next person you’ll date. it’s a bit of a turn-off, really.”

sakusa narrowed his eyes as he looked down at you. “the next one won’t be like you.”

“how can you be so sure?”

sakusa scoffed and turned around. the pain was overwhelming, but the spite even more so. you were the kind of person who thrived off toying with other people and giving in to rage would only satisfy you further. sakusa wasn’t inclined to grant you that.

“because...” he stuffed his hands back in his pockets and turned around. “lowlifes like you surely are one of a kind.”

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event taglist: @himikadafangirl @swoona-rintarou @l-dokisaki-l @laure-chan @aonenthusiast @ah-kaashi @just-a-gay-bean @linyu-sees-you @alto-march-of-death @newfriendjen @shrimpypenis @tenyafacesquish @mkkhaikyuu

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neednothavehappenedtobetrue · 3 years ago

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hello! it has not been a completely terrible eating day and I have occasional moments of focus and cheer! last night I got to sleep... while it was still dark outside at least, and this morning I woke up almost on time. the bar is really low, but I have surmounted it!

yesterday I listened to a whole podcast with my human ears and did not zone out totally. I also did some writing! My novel is not working, as it very often does not work when my brains are total garbage, but I get more depressed when I do not write at all.

the solution here is to write total nonsense garbage about whatever pops into my head. this explains every fanfiction I've ever written and also all of the posts on here where I write about my characters playing tabletop games, for which I faithfully roll actual dice and adapt the plot to the real numbers.

currently the total nonsense garbage I am writing is 50% high-stakes political drama, the sort of thing I often write, and 50% lesbian romance, more explicit than I usually write by a good bit. I write very little romance, so this is unusual for me.

I took Isabelle, one of my major characters who some of you know, and reverted her partially to a very old version of the story (without the very stupid parts) so I could play with a different timeline and such. It's much nearer future, no spaceships unfortunately. Robert was the president when he was murdered, which causes much larger problems for the government and Isabelle has to flee the country, etc. The narrator and eventual love interest is a Russian former diplomat salvaged from elsewhere. The story is told in second person, because I didn't have a name for her initially and it seemed like a good way to avoid using one, given that I can barely read first-person smut, let alone write it out of my brain.

Why is Isabelle in a lesbian relationship? (a actually, her canonical sexual orientation is "please do not try to talk to me about this, I do not want to discuss my personal life with anybody, particularly after my husband's death. if you want to go ahead and assume I am straight because I was married to a man, that is not a problem for me." and also (b what, like I'm going to write heterosexual romantic nonsense? please.

(if you're curious, Robert's canonical sexual orientation was "definitely bi, the important people know this but now that I am a Senator and also married to a woman it comes up very infrequently in conversation. sometimes I want to correct people on the rare occasions they say wrong things to me, but usually it would be complicated to be like "actually," so people just think I'm an ally with no time for their shit. Theo's is "if I decide I love you, I will spend a lot of time arranging your life for your maximum benefit and a bit of time murdering your enemies, as needed. you can have whatever gender you want as long as you do not attempt to do gender at me.")

anyway! the political high-drama/romantic nonsense is in progress. if anyone particularly wants to read a version of it with the smutty scenes removed when possible or very heavily abridged when too plot-relevant to be entirely removed, let me know and I will send something to you when it's finished. I will leave the sappy parts, though.

an unabridged version is not available, as you must be a level 9 friend to unlock any information about my personal preferences and I'm not going to try to pretend to you that the content choices in this story I am writing for 99.9% my personal entertainment are completely unaffiliated with my own opinions. you would not believe me if I tried.

#the ghost and the machine #peripherally #you look like a photograph of yourself #before you came into my life i missed you so bad

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pokelolmc · 4 years ago

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10 Danny Phantom Episodes with Good Concepts that Sorely Disappointed Me: “The Ultimate Enemy” (Part 2)

Alright, here I am, everyone—part two of my critical analysis on “The Ultimate Enemy”, and how its faulty writing let down a good episode idea. For those stumbling across this for the first time, I am in the process of composing an analytical list of ten Danny Phantom episodes whose concepts I liked, but didn’t like the execution of. “The Ultimate Enemy” is the first on this list. Due to the size of my complaints with the episode, I’ve split my arguments into multiple categories across multiple posts; I highly suggest you start from the beginning with part 1 here before moving onto this post. It covered the main introduction, and Category A of my problems with the episode: the plot points that were primarily irrelevant to Dan’s character.

For those of you continuing from the first part, I apologise for this part being overdue. I proposed I would edit and upload part two roughly a day after part one, but those days dragged on due to constant re-editing and problems with my mental health. Parts three and four shall probably take longer than a few days to edit and upload as well, as I discovered arguments in the essay that needed massive overhauls before posting. I can guarantee they’re coming eventually (the whole thing essay is fully written, point-wise); I need to rework and trim the fat off some paragraphs.

Without further ado, this post will take a look at everything I’ve chucked into Category B—my issues with Dan’s characterisation, and how what the episode showed us about who deserved responsibility for Dan contradicted what it told us about how Dan was created.

(Also, because of my saltiness seeping in when I was writing, my captions for the images got a little too snarky for an analytical essay, but I am too tired of re-editing this section to remove them. Hopefully, they’ll serve as humour; if not, I apologise.)

1. The episode incorrectly portrayed Danny as the only one responsible for Dan’s existence, and for the wrong reasons (the wrong events in the timeline). Upon scrutiny of the actual sequence of events that led to Dan’s creation, the direct responsibility for Dan’s birth was either an even split between Danny and Vlad, or slightly more Vlad’s fault (depending upon the interpretation of the event that did actually cause Dan).

(Spoiler alert: No. No, it was not.)

The episode initially chose to establish Danny cheating on the CAT as the cause for Dan’s existence. While this was partially, indirectly true (since it set up the chain of events that led to Dan’s creation), it was not the event that directly caused Dan—yet, the episode treated it as a highly important tipping point, close to the point of no return that led to Dan. Looking at Dan’s backstory from the information Future Vlad gave (as dubious as it was), and working backwards, it was clear that Danny cheating on the test was not the vital “point of no return” by any means. Neither was the explosion at the Nasty Burger, for that matter (which the episode treated as the point of no return after Dan cheated on the CAT in Danny’s place, which required the episode to postpone the narrative stakes of preventing Dan’s creation to the Nasty Burger fight).

(Well...not exactly--it didn’t ruin Dan’s future, but it did ruin Danny’s. There’s a distinction.)

Kick-starting the entire chain of events that set up the eventual moment of Dan’s birth was not synonymous with directly creating Dan, and blaming the causality for Dan’s existence on Danny cheating (the leap of logic that “Danny became evil in the future because he cheated on a test”) or even his loved ones dying at the Nasty Burger was incorrect.

To demonstrate the argument, I’ll shift to an in-universe hypothetical:

Imagine yourself in Clockwork’s shoes: an “evil future version of Danny” has been created, and you have to prevent Dan’s existence by searching through the events that led his creation to find as many openings between key events as possible, in order to change one and subsequently avert all the events (including Dan’s creation) that followed.

To lay it out in full, the chain (separating the events based on intervention windows) was as follows: (1) Danny cheated on the CAT -> (2) Mr. Lancer met with Danny’s parents at the Nasty Burger to discuss it -> (3) they (including Sam, Tucker and Jazz) died in the Nasty Burger explosion -> (4) a grief-stricken Danny went to Vlad in Wisconsin -> (5) Danny requested that Vlad numb his emotional pain -> (6) Vlad split Danny’s ghost half from his human half—only for the ghost half to immediately pull out Vlad’s own and fuse with it into Dan.

Dan’s existence being the result of (what was essentially) a disastrous line of falling dominoes made his origin more sinister, but also highly easy to prevent (at least, without taking into account the mess caused by the story’s poorly thought out use of time travel, which I’ll explain later in section C). After all, the more complex a system (the more elements necessary for a system to successfully operate and achieve a desired result), the more weak spots it has—as meddling with one part can affect all the other parts and lead the entire operation to fail.

Utilising any of the intervention room between the events in “The Ultimate Enemy’s” alternate timeline would prevent Dan’s entire existence. The only event, therefore, that could be labelled the direct cause of Dan’s existence was the event that immediately resulted in Dan’s birth, and the most dire pivotal point—which rendered Dan inevitable—was the event directly before that. The event of Dan’s creation itself (or the cause of Dan) was event number six—the removal of both Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves using the Ghost Gauntlets, and their subsequent fusion with each other. The event which led to this—event number five, which was Danny’s request for Vlad to remove his emotional pain—was the direct catalyst for the procedure, and therefore the important “point of no return” leading to Dan that the episode tried to make Danny cheating on the CAT (and once that was over, the act of losing his loved ones) out to be. (Technically speaking, it was one of possibly two options for the event upon which Dan’s existence truly hinged—number four was also a likely candidate).

Danny cheating on the CAT was not the cause of Dan (even if it set the eventual stage), because there were numerous ways to interfere after the incident of Danny cheating the CATs and still prevent Dan from existing. Clockwork could’ve interfered between events one and two, by changing Mr. Lancer’s parent-teacher meeting location to anywhere safer than the Nasty Burger, so no one died (he could’ve utilised Jazz to sway Mr. Lancer, perhaps—it’s safe to assume Clockwork was aware of her knowledge on Danny’s secret, and she was the one Mr. Lancer approached about Danny cheating). He could’ve interfered between events three and four—had Danny’s loved ones still die at the Nasty Burger but convinced Danny himself not to go to Vlad. He could’ve popped in between events four and five and convinced Danny, right after moving in with Vlad, to not ask for a way to numb his emotional pain. However, Vlad proved to be a dubious source in the flashback of Dan’s origin story, and was typically too much of a wild card, so preventing Danny from moving in with Vlad at all is likely the safest option.

Ergo, either event four or five should’ve been treated as the important point that led to Dan’s existence. On top of that, Vlad’s role in event six proved he was partially responsible for Dan’s creation, but the rest of the episode outside of the flashback neglected this fact in favour of pushing the “Dan was all Danny’s fault” message.

(Begin Vlad’s unreliable narratorhood in 3...2...1...)

However, Future Vlad behaved like an unreliable narrator of the “Dan’s creation” flashback, so his explanation of events shouldn’t be taken at face value. Assuming the basic outline of events was trustworthy, however, the episode indicated to us that Vlad was roughly equally as responsible for Dan’s creation as Danny. He conceded to Danny’s desire to escape his emotions and responded with the halfa-splitting operation that caused Dan’s fusion.

He stretched the reality of the event to Present Danny when he exaggerated the delivery of some (if not most) of his narration lines in the flashback. It was most blatantly clear in the line where he inflated his importance to Danny after the tragedy, “With nowhere else to go, you came to me—the only person left on the planet who could possibly hope to understand your situation.” He verbally emphasised the words ‘me’ and ‘possibly’, and the phrases “the only person left on the planet” and “could possibly understand” were hyperbole in their own right. Another was the line, “No more painful human emotions to drag you down,” where he spoke the italicised words with overt disdain for Danny’s emotions. It could be interpreted simply as Vlad’s typical habit of speaking in a dramatised manner, rather than trying to make himself look good to Danny by stretching the truth. However, even if choosing to interpret Vlad’s delivery as the latter, he still skewed his recount through vagueness and omission in the literal content of his narration (when linked to the visuals that ran alongside his lines).

According to Future Vlad, Danny asked for his emotional pain to be taken away; and Vlad removed his ghost half to “[honour] [his] wishes,” while the shot changed from Vlad’s sympathetic face at the grieving Danny to the procedure with the Ghost Gauntlets. Future Vlad never explicitly stated whether it was Danny or him that decided removing Danny’s ghost half was the course of action to take, Vlad only explained that Danny “wanted to make the hurt go away”, and then the shot cut to Vlad removing Danny’s ghost half with the only explanation that he was acting in accordance with that wish.

On top of not explicitly saying whose idea it was, (though, with Vlad’s knowledge and experience with halfa research far exceeding Danny’s, it was almost certainly his) the episode did not explain how his logic leapt from “remove Danny’s emotional pain” to “remove Danny’s ghost half”, which was an insensible method to solve Danny’s problems.

The “no more human emotions” line indicated that his intention behind the procedure was to remove Danny’s human emotions, yet he knew that the procedure entailed removing Danny’s ghost half.

It made no sense, in universe, for Vlad to competently assume that removing Danny’s ghost half from him would work to remove an emotionality rooted in his human half (the episode overall, by the way Dan referred to human emotions and sentimentalities as a “humanity” he gave up, implied that it intended to frame the emotional attachment to Danny’s loved ones as part of his human half). If it could be chalked up to an external fault, like the lack of clear research into the procedure’s outcome, and not Vlad’s failure to realise the logical inconsistency, the episode needed to give evidence of this. Without that information, the only feasible assumptions were either that he wasn’t making any sense in-universe, he was supposed to be sensible but the episode’s writing didn’t make sense, or he had an ulterior motive for convincing Danny into going through with the operation. Either way, it was yet another part of Dan’s creation that Vlad was responsible for, not Danny, and the episode’s message was illogical to contradict this.

Through potentially exaggerating his sympathy for the alternate Danny in his verbal intonation, and blatantly failing to mention the details of why he chose removing Danny’s ghost half to fix a “human” problem, Vlad told his version of Dan’s birth in a way that would minimise his moral fault in the incident to Present Danny. His only logically feasible motivation for this was to hide further moral accountability for Dan’s creation than what we already saw in the face-value version of the flashback.

To summarise this entire sub-category of arguments, the episode was wrong to pin Dan’s existence on Danny cheating on the CAT (and even on losing his family, as the second half of the episode changed gears to), rather than his desire to remove/escape his emotions (even if the deaths resulted in the pain that he wanted to remove in the first place, which I shall explain later in Section D). It was also mistaken to portray Danny as the primary cause of Dan, rather than acknowledge that Vlad was equally (if not more), responsible than him.

Additionally, the fact that Vlad, as an in-universe character, tried to minimise his moral role/accountability in the physical causality of Dan’s creation by skirting around the truth in his retelling was something that the episode itself should’ve acknowledged or called out, through more reliable information from a third-person or other characters’ perspectives such as Danny, Dan’s or Clockwork’s—but it didn’t.

2. On top of physical responsibility for Dan, the episode was wrong to pin Danny with the moral blame and identity of Dan. It treated the two of them as essentially the same person, and portrayed Dan as just a Danny from the future who turned evil because of a combination of Danny’s potential evilness (potential to do “selfish/evil” things) and tragic circumstances. Considering Dan’s backstory, it made no sense for Danny to be the sole owner of either Dan’s immorality or identity/personhood.

Dan’s backstory told us that physically Danny wasn’t solely responsible for his creation, but the rest of the narrative still deeply connected Dan to Danny alone by treating Dan as what would happen if Danny let his pre-existing moral flaws take over him—that Dan’s villainy (or evil nature) came from Danny.

Clockwork referred to Danny Phantom as “grow[ing] up into the most evil ghost on the planet” in the cold open (which, given that Dan was a product of a fusion, was blatantly false.)

“The Ultimate Enemy” attempted to build up the idea that Danny had the potential for evil, and that Dan was him realising his own evil, in the scene where the trio entered Clockwork’s lair. As they watched Dan’s carnage through the observation window, Danny excitedly admired Dan’s Ghostly Wail, completely oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, and Sam called him out for not reading the room.

(Though, Sam’s condemnation of Dan’s villainy was extremely underwhelming—calling a world-destroyer and (presumable) mass murderer just “kind of a jerk” in a snarky tone did not do the severity of Dan’s actions any justice.)

When they confronted Clockwork, Danny scoffed at him to find just “one” evil thing he’d done. The shot then immediately focussed onto “examples” of Danny’s “evil” in the time window—first, Jazz finding out Danny was going to cheat the CATs (which, as established in point one, was not as morally significant as the episode tried to portray it—that shall be further elaborated later in Section D). After Tucker sassed at Clockwork, “[I] bet you can’t find two!”, the time window changed to Dan standing atop his destruction in the alternate future, and Clockwork replied, “How about two thousand?”—implying that Clockwork was referring to what Dan did in the future as at least part of the (supposedly numerous) evil things Danny did (or would do). This made no sense unless the episode was implying that Dan’s immorality was Danny’s own. However, this implication was incorrect, leaving Clockwork to state that he had seen countless instances of Danny Fenton/Phantom being evil with no valid examples to show for it whatsoever.

Dan’s atrocities had no weight as examples of Danny’s morality flaws due to the fact that Dan’s evil was not primarily Danny’s to begin with, creating a feedback loop of invalidation; evidence for the argument was invalid because its own validity was dependent on the validity of the very argument it was supposed to be supporting.

(Danny, despite the episode’s reluctance to be fair to him with its accusations of his “potential villainy”, was actually justified in asking this of Clockwork. You know there’s something wrong with your story when your self-centred, short-sighted teenage protagonist is righter than your supposedly all-knowing Master of Time in this situation.)

(Cheating on a test is not evil, Clockwork, try again.)

(Nope, sorry, Dan’s evil is not Danny’s “evil”; your argument is invalid.)

(I typically put the “improvements/fixes” part at the end of each point, but for the sake of its direct relevance to the aforementioned example, I’ll put it here to avoid structural confusion in the essay:

“The Ultimate Enemy”, for some reason decided that its reason/foreshadowing of Danny’s potential for evil had to be self-contained; ironically, almost all (sans a small few) of the episode’s examples of Danny’s moral flaws weren’t “evil” at all, and they would’ve been far better off using actual events of Danny showing potentially villainous traits from previous episodes. Danny may have been justified in asking Clockwork to name one evil thing he’d done, because that accusation had no basis at that point, but Clockwork’s response should’ve been to show previous instances in the series where Danny took advantage of others with his powers.

For example, imagine if in the episode, when Danny demanded, “Name one evil thing I’ve done!”, Clockwork’s time window had switched to moments like the end of “Maternal Instincts”, where he manipulated Vlad into lowering his guard, or his acts of overshadowing Dash for petty revenge in “Splitting Images” or “Reign Storm”? Not only were they more legitimate examples of morally corrupt characteristics—tricking people for his own gain/victory and abusing his powers to the detriment of others—it would’ve given such a significant episode in the series more continuity with the previous ones. In fact, the examples in two of those previous episodes resulted in Vlad pointing out that Danny was becoming more like him, as a way to use Vlad’s relationship as Danny’s nemesis/character foil for the sake of tension. “The Ultimate Enemy” could’ve used those examples in its own narrative to turn Dan into a proper payoff of this long-term build-up of Vlad’s whole “We’re not so different, you and I” thing going on with Danny.

Also, it would add to the thematic irony of Dan being a fusion of Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves, if that aspect of his backstory was not altered in a rewrite of TUE.)

Vlad owned Dan’s evil nature equally as much as (if not more than) Danny because Dan was also half-Vlad. However, the episode neglected to acknowledge this outside of a few seconds on Dan’s birth in the flashback. While explaining the scene of the two ghost halves fusing into Dan, Future Vlad’s most honest lines of narration (because they straightforwardly confessed he was morally accountable for Dan to Danny, and thus had no motivation to be a lie) explained that, “My [ghost half’s] evil side overwhelmed you”. This implied that the reason Dan turned out evil in the first place was that Vlad’s evil took over Danny’s mind during the fusion.

Given that we trust Vlad’s line, Vlad (or Plasmius, as Vlad’s ghost half) deserved most of the accountability for Dan’s lust for destruction and lack of a moral compass, not Danny. So, calling Dan “Danny’s evil future self” was only accurate in the literal sense of “this is what remained of Danny’s mind/existence in the future—his ghost half—even though it’s only a part of a larger fusion with another ghost, and this fusion is evil”. Dan was not a warning that “Danny was going to turn evil”, because Danny was not the primary source of Dan’s villainy.

In regards to overall personal identity, rather than just morality, Dan was also not “Danny’s evil future self” on account of the fact that he was not “Danny’s future self”, period. He shouldn’t have been an “older Danny” (or essentially the same person as Danny but older and evil), according to his backstory’s statement that he was half-Phantom, half-Plasmius. Yet, for some asinine reason, Dan only identified himself personally as “Danny” for the duration of the episode (without mention of Vlad).

After travelling to the past under Danny’s guise, Dan referred to Danny’s bedroom and face in the mirror as his own.

(Whoops--another image where I goofed the subtitles, this time in formatting...and MS Paint’s lack of layers makes redoing it an unnecessary pain. Sorry about that.)

When he met Sam and Tucker in the future, he explained his cold response to seeing them again as a result of “[surrendering his] human half a long time ago”. His singular human half. Not plural…because even Dan himself wanted to pretend that he wasn’t half Vlad, for some reason.

Perhaps it could be chalked up to people behaving differently in different social contexts; in that case, it was understandable that—even if he was part-Vlad—his Danny-side and memories influenced him the most in front of Danny’s friends…but that alone didn’t justify him stating that he only had one human half as a fact. The only other option that made in-universe sense was that it was a deceit/falsehood on Dan’s part, and therefore knowingly untrue. Perhaps Dan didn’t want to admit that he had more than one human half to Sam and Tucker—because he was not obliged to divulge that information to them—or that he preferred to mentally distance himself from Vlad’s human half because the latter was still alive, and separate from Dan. However, it was still untrue to link Dan and Danny together as people, but not Vlad, with the idea of only owning Danny’s human half.

The assumption that Dan was a future, evil Danny in person (and not also part-Vlad in person, or a new person from either of them entirely) implied that the fusion resulted in Plasmius’s mind giving his evil to Danny’s and then disappearing into the aether. It implied that a fusion of two people resulted in a powered-up being that was solely one of them psychologically, in order to purport that Danny (or, at least Phantom as his ghost half) was still Danny in sense of self for the last ten years in the alternate future. This contradicted the more logically valid implication that Plasmius’s mind or identity still existed as a component inside Dan, and Dan was at least both Danny and Vlad mentally.

Vlad explained in the flashback, “[Vlad’s] evil ghost half mixed with [Danny’s].” The general interpretation of “mixing” implied that the two ghost halves merged together into a new being and their traits and minds blended together. His identity should, theoretically, be either a half-and-half joining of the two halfas, or a whole new person with Vlad and Danny’s ghost halves as mere fusion ingredients. Ten years of existence and experience after the initial fusion would also, theoretically, give Dan enough time to develop this new mixed mind into his own individual sense of self beyond who/what either of Danny or Vlad were as people (prior to the ghost half fusion). In that case, Dan was not Danny’s “future self” in identity, and had little reason to identify Danny’s face, room and family as “his old [life]” (or, at least his only one).

The next most obvious theory (about Dan’s psychological makeup as a fusion) is that one half was more dominant than the other during the fusion, leading to Dan to become primarily just one of them in identity. That dominant one had to have been Danny, based on how Dan identified himself in the episode, but that wouldn’t make sense. Phantom taking full control of the fusion and assimilating Plasmius into himself required that a grief-stricken fourteen year old was somehow capable of winning against a more experienced forty-something in a battle of minds, thoroughly enough to the point of absorbing the latter. Considering that Phantom was mentally weak enough to be the one “overwhelmed” by Plasmius’s evil (a single facet of Plasmius’s larger mind) almost immediately, that hypothesis seems unlikely. The notion of Phantom overwhelming Plasmius in the fusion to gain dominance, and Plasmius being the one to overwhelm him to turn him evil, contradict each other. Ergo, Dan being a mix of both Phantom and Plasmius was the most likely (and sensible) outcome of the fusion.

In that case, the episode was thoughtless and inaccurate to treat Dan as “Danny’s future self who became a villain”. Dan was not inherently linked to Danny in either the majority of his morality or his identity, due to the part Vlad played in Dan’s creation, and his mental component in Dan’s fusion.

2.5.A notable counterpoint, for the sake of not one-sidedly flipping all of the fault for Dan onto Vlad:

To be fair—as the idea of solely blaming Vlad would also be inaccurate to what Dan’s origin story showed—I should acknowledge a piece of evidence explicitly indicating that Danny still contributed some of his own darkness to Dan’s villainy, albeit less than Vlad. Once separated from his human half, Phantom ripped out and fused with Vlad’s ghost half of his own volition, all with a malicious grin on his face.

However, there was no clear motivation or reason for the separated Phantom to fuse with Plasmius (the physical cause of Dan that Danny/Phantom could be blamed for) —in fact, it made no sense for there to be any premeditated intention for Phantom to fuse with him, since he couldn’t have known that fusion with another halfa’s isolated ghost half was even possible at that point; it was an untried, never-seen-before method, hardly likely to mentally occur to Danny in the first place. Phantom resorted to attacking Vlad, stealing the Ghost Gauntlets and pulling out Plasmius for some unknown reason, but ghost-half fusion could not have sensibly been it. The Gauntlet attack simply demonstrated that Phantom took ill-willed pleasure from the act of hurting or depowering Vlad. After removing Vlad’s ghost half, fusing with it was the second step. Danny could be held responsible for his ghost half explicitly harbouring malice/potential evil in the attack (and his ghost half’s response to being removed was part of Danny’s responsibility in Dan’s creation), but that wouldn’t explain the crucial next step of the fusion itself.

This is where my ideas for potential improvements for the story of “The Ultimate Enemy” come in, as the exact extent of Danny’s contribution to Dan (in physical responsibility and mentality) wasn’t entirely clear—outside of this explicit evidence of Phantom’s facial expression. This uncertainty leaves the room for a do-over of the narrative to ask a lot of questions about how physically and morally accountable for Dan’s birth and evilness Danny actually was.

We could assume implicit evidence that Danny had some sort of inner darkness which contributed to Dan, even if only the minority, from the possibility that his grief at the loss of his loved ones (as well at helplessness at not being able to do anything to save them, and low evaluation of his own worth as a person) led to buried malice, anger and a desire for power to compensate.

Based on how splitting halfas apart worked in “Identity Crisis”, it made sense that Phantom had a sense of hostility and motivation to hurt Vlad once separated from Danny in “The Ultimate Enemy”. When Danny was split in half the first time, the halves took on the mental characteristics of the whole Danny’s momentary intents and desires. When Danny wanted his ghost half to do all the hero work so his human half could have the time to have fun, his ghost half took on an exaggerated hero personality and his human half an irresponsible teenager personality. Assuming this logic consistently determines the split halves’ personalities each time, and the fact that Danny’s desires in the alternate future revolved around escaping his emotional pain, it was logical that one of the split halves inherited a condensed majority of Danny’s pain (in this case, the ghost half), while the other half (the human one) was innocently blind to most of Danny’s grief and self-hatred—and that the suffering half acted out aggressively or malevolently as a result.

However, since we could logically assume that fusing with Plasmius was not the initial reason Phantom removed him from Vlad (and we assume the fusion was a spur-of-the-moment decision that occurred to him afterwards), why did he remove Plasmius in the first place? Was he intending to spite Vlad after all the grief he caused Danny in their rivalry? Was it a sense of inferiority telling him to tear Vlad down from his superior position? Was it to avoid letting Vlad stay a possible physical threat to Danny? There is such a large gap here, one could brainstorm countless possible motivations.

Furthermore, if that only covered his motivation to remove Plasmius, then what made him decide to fuse with him? Was he attempting to possess Plasmius as one ghost half trying to possess another for some reason? Was it internal panic? Was it a hunger for power pushing him to seize the opportunity that opened up? Why didn’t/couldn’t Plasmius fight Phantom off in the fusion scene?

These questions could be explored if the story of “The Ultimate Enemy” was redone. Present Danny, the Danny whose point of view we saw the episode from (rather than the Alternate Danny) hadn’t experienced the Dan future himself, so he didn’t know what was going through his alternate self’s head (human or ghost) during Dan’s creation. How much of it was his fault? How much of it wasn’t? How did he fill in the holes in the story Future Vlad told to him based on his own insecurities, and what did he blame himself for?

For that matter, why not get present Vlad wrapped up in it too? Have him take responsibility for what is HIS. If not, the episode should’ve at least acknowledged that Dan was not entirely “Danny’s evil”, and made it clear that he was cleaning up both his and Vlad’s collective mess by himself. If the message of the evil future self being Danny corrupted to the side of evil was so necessary for the episode, then simply remove the fusion plot entirely from Dan’s origin and have Danny become a villain by his own moral corruption. It weakened the impact of the future-self villain being a warning of “what the hero should avoid becoming” by having the main character only become evil by fusing with an already malevolent character.

3. The Observants’ conclusion that they had to kill Danny to save the world from Dan didn’t make sense, due to Vlad being primarily responsible for Dan’s evilness—but the episode, instead of acknowledging this inanity, actually reinforced the opposite.

Having now established that Vlad was half (if not more) at fault for Dan’s evil than Danny, the plot to kill Danny in the episode lost any of the ground it had to stand on.

(Nope...no, he didn’t have to.)

It was illogical for the Observants to assume killing Danny was the best way to stop Dan from existing when killing Vlad would equally achieve this (not to mention that either of these options were overkill, in the presence of the intervention methods mentioned in Section A). Without Vlad, Dan could not exist either. Eliminating Vlad would stop his continuous crimes against both worlds, and let Danny live to continue doing the good he’d done. After the events of “Reign Storm”, a large part of the Ghost Zone knew that Danny had saving Amity Park, and the entire Ghost Zone, under his belt—if an entire wasteland civilisation like the Far Frozen came to worship Danny for his victory against Pariah Dark (as shown in season three’s “Infinite Realms”).

(For that matter, where were the Observants hounding Clockwork to get on Vlad’s troublesome ass when he tried to steal the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage in “Reign Storm”, if Pariah Dark was so dangerous?)

If they were being somewhat rational, it was possible that they chose Danny as Vlad’s less powerful counterpart, and an easier target—even though they delegated the task off to Clockwork because intervention wasn’t their job, and they clearly acknowledged Clockwork’s power and competence to some degree. The Observants openly referred to Clockwork as the master of time while shirking their responsibility for fixing the future onto him, so whether or not killing Vlad would be too difficult for themselves would be irrelevant, since they made it Clockwork’s problem and became backseat commentators. Though, Clockwork would’ve probably foreseen Vlad’s importance in Danny’s emotional growth as his nemesis and also kept him alive anyway—but from a purely logical standpoint, it made little sense to execute Danny over Vlad, if they ever needed to kill anyone at all.

To be honest, the episode could’ve used the invalidity of the Observants’ plan to paint their incompetence more, expanding on Clockwork’s disdain for them and how he told the audience they “just observe”. However, to do that, the episode itself would’ve had to actually portray the Observants’ plan (not just the Observants themselves, but their actual plan to kill Danny itself) as nonsensical. The episode never did, however, as it had Clockwork—the character portrayed as bolder and wiser than the Observants—reinforce their proposition as worth trying and go along with their request for Danny’s demise. He sent two ghosts to attack Danny (although the fight with Boxed Lunch was more of a moral test about giving Danny the CAT answers, rather than an attempt on his life, Danny “failed” that moral test before Clockwork sent Skulktech after him—so, the latter at least counted as a potential hit on Danny) to the extent of attempting to kill Danny himself on the last attempt. That Clockwork went along with the Observants’ plan showed that the episode saw the plan as reasonable, despite its illogicality.

(While there is a possible argument for Clockwork’s knowledge of how the episode would end—insinuating that he knew Danny would never actually end up dying—justifying why he went along with the plan in the first place, the next section of the essay shall tackle that. Since Clockwork is the Master of Time, and the issues with his character were heavily intertwined with the effects the time travel lore had on the plot, that shall be addressed in Category C, the section covering the mess created by the time-travel in the episode.)

...actually, that just gave me an idea. You know what would be interesting, if a little too much to content to stuff into the narrative? Having an Observant character distinguished as their own individual, who doubts the other Observants’ unreasonable decisions and becomes a rogue element to the rest of the council, directly intervening in the timeline themselves. The rogue Observant could abandon the council of Observants to side with Clockwork, and characterise Clockwork by having him change his globalised impression of the Observants to understand this new, non-conformist one as an ally. Or, perhaps the Observant plays a more compassionate foil to Clockwork, choosing to himself save Danny’s life from the ghost attacks Clockwork sent after him?)

#danny phantom #danny phantom analysis #danny phantom essay #the ultimate enemy #danny fenton #vlad masters #dan phantom #the observants #danny phantom clockwor #time to get into one of the longest sections of this essay hoo boy #I apologise for the verbosity

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spookybreadstick · 4 years ago

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Hello, bby!!! How are you? Hope you’re well ❤️❤️💙

I was wondering if you could write a little bit about the jobs Slenderman tells proxies to do? - dancing parrot🐦🎶

Hello!! I’m doing the best I can at the moment, we’re getting better bit by bit!

I already sort of answered this here, but it’s not on my masterlist for some reason? Odd because I remembered writing it and I was pretty sure I had it on there, but it’s not. I’ll have to fix that when I update my masterlist in a few days.

Anyway, I can give you a little more insight into what jobs Slenderman has them do!

⚠️ TW for some (mildly) graphic content at the end.... ⚠️

There are five types of jobs that the proxies do....

Cleaning/basic chores

This involves basic run-of-the-mill tasks that Slender doesn’t want to do, to be honest. He usually lets the boys off pretty easily, saving the hard cleaning and other household chores for any punishments that may need to be doled out (ex: really scrubbing the floors/baseboards/hallways/walls, ironing clothes, cleaning out the gutter, landscaping the enormous yard, and other various difficult chores). The everyday/more common chores would include...

Doing the dishes

Doing the laundry (some members do their own, but some prefer to use the communal laundry service)

Vacuuming (they are often crumbs everywhere)

Dusting

Meal planning/prepping (when you live with so many people these are the kind of things you need to think about)

Cooking (this only applies to Hoodie and sometimes Masky, and it’s only when Slender is too busy to cook)

Babysitting Sally sometimes (only applies to Hoodie and Masky)

Polishing Silverware (yes, he likes the silverware to be neatly polished)

Picking up after the other (messy) members of the mansion

Errands

Slender may be able to do many things, but he is unable to go to the grocery store himself. This isn’t a problem for him, as eirfindur don’t eat actual food, but the other members of the mansion do require actual food and you can’t get Pringles or Pop-Tarts out in the woods. So, the proxies serve to access things in town that Slender can’t, including...

Grocery stores

Department stores (BEN might want a new game, LJ may have broken a lamp again, etc)

Meeting with human clients (see the “missions” section for more detail)

On rare occasions, they may need to visit a clothing store if there is something specific in mind, otherwise they just consult Trender. Running errands as a whole is considered a treat for the proxies, and they often make a little day out of it.

Patrol

This is one of the main reasons why Slender has proxies in the first place: for protection. This is what the proxies spend the majority of their days doing, and its really their most important job in Slender’s mind. While “on patrol,” they..

Scout around the forest for anything that looks out of the ordinary, and be sure to report to Slender if something looks very wrong

Keep their eyes out for any humans that wander through and make mental notes of anyone who looks a little too suspicious

Cause distractions, redirect, or try to scare humans off the path if they get uncomfortably close to something they shouldn’t

Clean up various trash and litter as needed

Follow anyone who is overly suspicious home and investigate their intentions.

Missions

This is the other big reason why Slender has proxies. There are also four kinds of missions: Scheduled Missions, Contracted Missions, Scouting Missions, and Emergency Missions.

Scheduled Missions - These are the missions that Slender has to take his time to research and plan out. They often require advance planning and strategy. Luckily these missions don’t occur too often, but it’s often enough. The purpose of these missions is to kill the person that Slender has decided poses too much of a risk to the safety of the woods.

Contracted Missions - These missions are the results of deals that Slender has agreed to. He operates under the name “Richard Harrison” and is something of a modern day mob boss. The proxies meet up with his human clients while Slender deals with other entities/creatures personally. The proxies are the ones who have to kill whoever they have been hired to take out.

Scouting Missions - The missions that occur most often, alongside contracted missions. These are missions that prepare for a scheduled or contracted mission. These involve stalking, stake-outs, and pre-planning a murder. It doesn’t always end like this however. If Slender decides that the person is harmless (if they were a safety concern) or if for some reason Slender has to back out of the deal (if they were a potential contracted killing), then that’s simply the end of it. It’s all about checking the scene out and seeing what they’re dealing with first before any actual action is taken.

Emergency Missions - These are rare, but sometimes it has to happen. When a human is posing too much of a threat, they need to be dealt with. It’s up to the proxies to decide when enough is enough, and they’ll have to take it up with Slender after the fact. It’s a tough balancing act, because if they don’t act and the person gets away with doing too much damage/knowing too much information then they have to face the consequences, but if they do act when it’s not necessary then they have to face those consequences.

“Mopping the Basement”

This is the absolute worst part of the job, and every proxy hates it equally. Nobody likes to do this, but the fact of the matter is that it needs to get done. (TW!!!) This phrase actually refers to the aftermath of a proxy kill. To avoid saying anything really unpleasant (especially with Sally running around), they use this phrase and everyone just knows what it means. The aftermath of a kill usually involves...

Bringing the body to a different location according to Slender’s wishes (sometimes they leave it, sometimes they bury it elsewhere, but they often have to bring it to the basement of the mansion)

If it’s in the mansion then that means it needs to be dismantled and disposed of, through various means.

Usually the kidneys are removed and stored for EJ.

If Slender gives permission to do so, they might store an entire body away in a cooler for EJ (although this is often not the case, since the body is most likely tainted from a bullet or something)

Getting rid of any incriminating evidence (gloves, disposable tools, personal belongings of the victim)

Debriefing with Slender (discussing what happened, what protocol was followed, any issues, is there any security threats, was everything properly handled and disposed of, etc)

So there you have it! The jobs of the proxies (not including training, which is sort of separate from the rest of the workload). Hopefully this answered your question and is useful for future reference on my blog :)

#🐦🎶#dancing parrot #dancing parrot 🦜#dancing parrot anon #creepypasta #proxies #🌲Slenderman🌲#🎭Masky/Tim Wright🎭#❓Hoodie/Brian Thomas❓#🪓 toby rogers 🪓#creepypasta writing #spookybreadstick

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prose-for-hire · 4 years ago

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Three’s a crowd

Pairing: Spike x reader

Request: Hello I love your writing. If you're still doing requests, can you please do one up about Buffy getting in between the reader and Spike? Thank you!!!

Requested by: @ellahale0727

Warning: Reader and Buffy don’t get on. Buffy is petty and jealous and perhaps slightly ooc. Swearing.

A/N: I like Buffy I swear, but reader doesn’t. I love writing lots of different types of readers if you have any specific traits/ideas send them in !! 💖

You and Spike had met one evening while he was hunting, three years ago in Sunnydale. He had been in a foul mood, finding out about Angelus and Drusilla having been together in the old days.

He was out for blood, but for some reason he had stopped to talk to you before he killed you. You spent the night talking with him, he found himself liking you a lot. You had lifted his mood and so in a very rare moment of mercy, he allowed you to leave. But he told you, if you ever crossed paths again you wouldn’t be so lucky. However, the next time he came across you alone was when he came back to visit when Drusilla had cheated on him, he had been in a proper state. Drusilla had told him he smelt of you and he didn’t understand what that could have meant, he told you, as he leaned against you sobbing into your shoulder.

Now, a year and a half later, you and Spike were together. It had been great getting to know him. You loved being together. You felt safe with him and you had a lot of fun. There was only one drawback of dating him and it wasn’t even his fault: Buffy. You had noticed the way he caught Buffy’s eye and how strangely possessive she had become over someone that had never shown an interest in her.

At first, Spike insisted you were making it up, that the Slayer didn’t want anything to do with him. he genuinely didn’t see it. Spike was besotted with you. He literally only had eyes for you. Too cold? He was taking his duster off immediately. Too warm? He was happy to take you somewhere private and remove as many clothes as was necessary (in the name of helping you of course). The vampire was obsessed with you, completely tuned into you and your needs.

And this got on Buffy’s nerves. Big time. So much so that she started to become more obvious with the attention she was giving Spike. She wanted Spike to look at her the way he looked at you. She wanted Spike to hold her through the night the way he held you. The pair of you were so in love it sickened her. So much so, that the worst big bad yet (the green eyed monster) had staked its claim on the Hellmouth and most importantly in her heart. She was literally everywhere you and Spike went, you were starting to think she had roped Willow into casting a locator spell so she always knew where you were.

This was when Spike started to notice you might have called it from the beginning. Her presence was starting to irritate him - more than usual. She appeared everywhere he looked and she never had a good word to say about you (or to you, for that matter).

You and Spike were drinking in the Bronze and there she was, sexy dancing against one of her friends trying to vie for your vampire’s attention. He glanced once and maybe side glanced a second time (if you had called him up on it he would have insisted it was a predator thing). But you didn’t ask because you trusted him.

If anything, it was slightly amusing to him. He had never seen the Slayer like it, he was half expecting it to be that other slayer taking over her body again. Buffy kept looking over, checking that Spike was watching and got a shock when she saw you sat on Spike’s lap attached to his lips.

His strong hand on the small of your back, the other on the base of your skull and pulling you further into him. Neither of you caring for the company you were in. You both could have been anywhere, it wouldn’t have mattered. You would have both been kissing with the same fervour. You sat sideways on Spike’s lap a position you loved as much as he did. He often patted his lap with a smirk waiting for you to slide onto him. He liked having you close, especially in public when there were wondering eyes on both of you. It was about showing you were together. Showing you had claimed the other as your own.

Neither of you had realised that Buffy had stormed out, the last straw being when she saw you shift positions to straddle Spike in the middle of the Bronze, his hand now digging into your hip as he held you in place.

It had been a few weeks since the Bronze and less time since you found out that Buffy had been whispering in your man’s ear telling him she had seen you all over Xander when you were out by yourself last. Her ‘revenge’ for kissing your own boyfriend in front of her, apparently. You wouldn’t mind but this wasn’t even remotely true, Xander had helped you up when you stumbled down the steps and Buffy knew it.

Spike had been in a horrible mood with you, not explaining why until an hour ago. You started to get mad at him for believing Buffy, but tried your best to calm your anger. You and Spike decided to patrol for the evening, deciding to talk whilst taking your frustrations out on demons and not each other.

You walked, occasionally raising your voices at a heated part in the discussion while you found something to fight. However, as you were starting to make up, you rounded a corner and there she was on the other side of Sunnydale from where she said she’d be and now directly in your way.

She looked satisfied, having overheard your heated exchnage, the over-friendly façade slipping - she had suspected your relationship wasn’t as perfect as it looked. Or at least, she had hoped. She was really getting on your last nerve and as soon as you saw her smug face, you scowled. You had tried your best to give her the benefit of the doubt, to try and give her the friendship she clearly didn’t deserve. Spike had been attempting to be cordial with Buffy because it made everyone’s lives easier but you

“Some relationships just aren’t made to last” She shrugged, spinning the stake around casually as she moved past you knocking your shoulder ‘accidentally’ as she left. You rolled your eyes as Spike scowled at the back of Buffy’s head, muttering “vindictive bitch” but he was too interested in making sure you were okay (you had originally been friends with Buffy after all and now appeared to have lost this particular relationship).

You and Spike had now fully made up after you insisted that Spike came with you to Xander’s where both Anya and Xander confirmed that your story was true and not Buffy’s. Spike heard Anya insist she saw it was an accident which convinced him, as he knew the ex-vengeance demon was as jealous as he was with partners. You were now curled up watching soaps happily when she barged in. Yet again, Buffy decided to join you in the crypt. She brought alcohol for Spike and nothing for you.

She looked at you expectantly as if to tell you to go away. You rolled your eyes, kissing Spike on the forehead and whispering that you were going to bed in the lower level of the crypt. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

Spike took the alcohol, trying to get the slayer to leave without earning himself a hole in his chest. He kept glancing back to the doorway you had left through until eventually she got the hint, snatched the half-drunk bottle from his hand and stormed out. Spike was tired of her. She was always in the way, he had almost enjoyed a strange truce-friendship with her at first but her little crush was starting to be a big pain in the neck (and not the good kind). Anytime he was settling into quality time with you there she was turning up like a bad penny.

The next evening was almost the exact same scenario and you both decided that enough was enough. She stormed in with some made up sounding story about a nest of vamps on the far side of town and apparently Spike was the only person she knew with a ride.

“Will you bloody-” Spike started, but you spoke over him, rising from your place beside him and stepping toe-to-toe with the Slayer herself.

“Buffy, why are you always in the middle of my relationship?”

“He deserves better than you” Buffy said casually making you squint at her in confusion. What gave her the right? You understood envy and being lonely, but this was bordering on obsessive.

“And that’s you?” You question. She pursed her lips, re-crossing her arms for emphasis. You couldn’t help the eyeroll at this. She didn’t intimidate you anymore. She just really pissed you off. You continue, “Look, me and Spike are together. You’re sad and lonely after you broke up with captain cardboard. Not our problem” you state firmly.

“But he’s- you’re not-” Buffy’s hands now curled into a fist and you rolled your eyes. She wasn’t going to give up on this weird fantasy.

“Maybe I’m not being clear: Fuck off” You say firmly, moving past her and opening the door for her to leave. Buffy looks back over at Spike who was still comfortably sitting on the sofa watching the exchange. He smirked at your words, not taking his eyes off you. He liked it when you got a little feisty.

This meant Buffy huffed, his eyes barely on her. She stormed out of the door and casting a death-glare your way before she left across the graveyard and straight to Willow’s house so she could no doubt complain about how horrible you were.

You shrugged, returning to Spike’s arms. He was beyond impressed at the way you had handled it. He was about to tell her to bugger off himself, but you had done it for the both of you. Taken the insults straight from his mouth. He smirked, not able to hold back the kisses he pressed to your neck, over your pulse point and along your jaw.

“Couldn’t have put it better myself, love” he mumbled against your neck, his hand gliding up your back as he helped balance your position on his lap with the other hand. Back where you belonged.

#spike x reader #spike btvs #spike x you #spike imagine #btvs x reader #btvs imagine #btvs x you #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffy the vampire slayer imagines #gender neutral reader #gender neutral #jealousy #swearing tw #x reader #buffyverse #Anya Jenkins #Xander Harris #Willow Rosenberg

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rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Happiness Is

This is possibly my favorite episode of season two. Yet, it is also the point the where the series starts to fall off a cliff. Only that’s not something that you would realize upon a first watch; just in hindsight and only with some basic knowledge of the behind the scenes drama that led to this and the fall out with the fandom that followed afterwards.

Summary: Rapunzel begins to feel homesick for Corona when she finds an old letter written by her father in one of the many lanterns sent from her previous birthdays. In attempts to uplift her spirits, Rapunzel explores the island and comes across a magical idol that brings instant happiness to whomever possesses it. Rapunzel begins to hallucinate her family and friends back in Corona and soon shares the idol with the rest of the group. However, everyone starts to become obsessive over the idol, desperately wanting it for themselves. Rapunzel tricks everyone into giving her the idol, but when the Lorbs try to help Rapunzel, they fall under the idol's control and soon begin to terrorize the village.

Let’s Start with the First Elephant in the Room; Frederic

So throughout the episode Rapunzel is struggling with being homesick. Which is fair enough, that’s an understable reaction to being on the road for months by now. However, to showcase this Rapunzel keeps seeing hallucinations of her father. There are some other characters too, but her dad is the first person she sees and the only one in Corona with speaking lines. He’s the one to tempt her with the idol.

Did we just forget that Frederic is her abuser?

Look, even if you accept his apology in Secret of the Sundrop and believe he has learned his lesson, that doesn’t just erase the pain he caused her. Her thoughts about her father should be more realistically complex then this. Now add in how she makes a such a clean break from her other abuser, Gothel, but still holds him on a pedestal shows a disturbing bias on the part of the writers.

Also where’s this love for Arianna? You know the only real mother on the show? The show that’s aimed at little girls? The one parent who hasn’t flat out abused the main character yet?

Seriously, Chris, what the fuck?

This is a Missed Opportunity

So part of the reason why I like this episode is that we get insights into each of the characters and their desires. As such this is one of the few episodes where the group actual feels like a group friends. However, Cass’s vision is wasted here.

So at first glance this seems to aline with what we know of the character thus far. She loves her dad and wishes to impress him. That’s only if you take season one into account, though. Later episodes will contradict this goal. If you wanted to set up praise and validation in general as Cassandra’s motives, then here is where that should have happened.

Show her getting a medal, have cheering crowds surround her, have her be a hero, or something. You can’t claim her relationship with her parents as the driving force of behind her later actions if you don’t actually involve one of those parents as part of the resolution to her arc.

Either she lacking attention from her dad or she’s jealous of Rapunzel. You can’t have it be both because those two things don’t intersect. Rapunzel is not and never was a threat to her relationship with her father.

So Umm...I Don’t Think This Plot Point Has the Impact That the Writers Think It Does

So this hilarious, and it is intended to be funny, but it’s not for the reasons that the show gives.

The idea is that this is some shocking revelation. That Rapunzel would never do this under normal circumstances and it’s a hint that the idol is corrupting her.

Only the rest of the series doesn’t aline with that at all. This is just the real Rapunzel behaving as the she normally would but without the usual veneer of excuses.

It’s funny because it’s the show calling out Rapunzel hypocrisy for what it is plainly, not because it’s out of character.

But funny only gets you so far. The show is perfectly happy to play up Rapunzel’s awfulness for laughs, but then conventily ignore it when it comes time for the characters themselves to call her out on it so that she can grow and learn.

The show runs under the sitcom idea that comedy excuses all sins; which then backfires horribly when it tries to be serious and mature.

You can’t joke that the king threw a random person in a stockade for little reason and then expect us to still like him when he persecutes a child. Same applies here.

The sitcom set up only works when there is minimal at stake and all parties involved are equally awful in their own ways.

Then Why Not Just Go Home?

Once again, there’s nothing at stake in season two. Rapunzel has no real reason to be on this trip. Nothing is stopping her from just going home if that’s what she wants. The idol only makes her happy because it shows her want she wants, but she could actually have what she wants as soon as the next ship arrives. So what’s the issue here?

This is why you need external conflict in order to make internal conflicts work. There’s has to be something preventing the main character from achieving her goal or otherwise she just comes across as a dumbass.

And Now Here Comes the Second Elephant; Varian

I have several things to talk about here, and none of them actually concern the scene itself but the creator’s treatment of the character and the show’s fan base.

For you see, Chris did a very, very stupid thing.

He wrote the character driving the plot out of the show. The character who also happens to be the most popular person in the series. Only to then use said character’s VA and this one cameo as promotion for this whole season.

Needless to say, fans were disappointed.

However, the Tangled fandom is exceedingly polite; more so than most. The lack of Varian was met mostly with confusion, and maybe a few off handed jokes, rather than anger. When opportunity arose people naturally had questions concerning the character.

And that’s when Chris put his foot in mouth.

This Tumblr post details how Chris got kicked off the Tangled The Series Discord by bullying a bunch of Varian fans while on there.

https://starxapple.tumblr.com/post/617852117763391488/zhantiri-uuugh-fine-since-people-are-getting

I shan’t get into it fully, but for those who discovered the show after season two had aired, this caused a massive backlash from the fandom.

A good chunk of the fandom just walked away, and rightly so. The few that stuck around despite these remarks found themselves harassed by certain sections of the fandom who saw Chris’s bullying as permission to pursue the same behavior. However, most importantly, the ratings plummeted.

Season one hovered around the the 1 million mark, give or take a five point difference. The first part of season two dropped to half of that, and after this episode and the hiatus it sunk even lower, down to the mid-thirties. That’s over 20,000 people who just jumped ship over this. That’s not a normal decline.

No matter what your personal feelings are of the character of Varian or how he was handled in the show, that’s still a massive PR fassico that cost the series big time.

To add to this mountain of bullshit, there was also a massive walk out of crew members after season one had finished production. Most of them women. They even desperately threw out ‘we’re hiring’ calls to cover this. Which given that’s it’s Disney and that nepotism is usually how one gains employment in the entertainment industry, something unusual must have happened behind the scenes. Especially if most of the people who left were women.

We’ll probably never know what really happened. People don't usually talk about behind the scenes stuff like that due to contracts and the aforementioned nepotism. However, all clues point to Varian.

Something changed at the last minute concerning his story. Chris himself had confirmed as much when discussing the note and the Brotherhood. We also gotten other hints that content was edited out at the last minute. Plus the writing becomes more shoddy as the series goes along, showing how slapped dashed everything is together.

Then there’s the rumors.

I must stress to you that this is only a rumor. As pointed out earlier, most animators aren’t in a position to talk freely about what goes on behind the scenes. Do NOT harass them over it or make things awkward by asking them to clarify this. However it’s been suggested that the female crew warned Chris that removing Varian from season two and re-writing his story, along with making Cass the villain, would be a bad idea before they left and Chris didn’t listen. Much to his folly.

Chris is no longer a Disney employee and has yet to move on to any other projects. He says he left, but I more suspect that Disney just didn't renew his contract and no one has picked him up since. I take no joy in the idea that someone may have lost their job, but if true, then Chris has little to blame but himself.

So What Did Change?

We don't know anything for sure. We know from discussions about the note that there was a proposed Brotherhood plot that involved Varian that was then cut. There was also talks about a Cass and Varian team up in season three.

This was then changed to the Saporian take over, which is foreshadowed in this scene. However even that got edited down and under the flimsiest of excuses.

One of the writers, Ricky, suggested that they thought cutting back to Corona would be too confusing for the audience; which is a load of bull. I mean how poorly do you think of your audience’s comprehension skills that they wouldn’t understand a change of scene or a flashback? Yet you fully expect them to pick up on your lazy foreshadowing involving the mirror? So much so that you sent them on a quest to find it between seasons two and three.

Then there’s this gem from Chris.

Ok ignoring the fact that you so totally could have featured both Gothel and Varian, seeing as they serve two different functions in the story and mean different things to Rapunzel.... What guilt?!!!

Rapunzel doesn’t ever act guilty over anything involving her treatment of Varian.

That’s when you realize Chris isn’t talking about her feeling guilty about Varian’s predicament. He’s saying that Rapunzel feels guilty of leaving her father behind with this ‘dangerous’ criminal. Which is a big fuck you to everyone.

That’s why Frederic is the center focus of Rapunzel’s hallucinations. Why she’s more concerned for his safety over Varian’s trauma. Chris really be out here trying to use the abused 14/15 year old orphan as a scapegoat for the grown ass dictator who ruined countless lives. Because he thinks a grown woman should feel guilty for leaving her abusive father behind and pursuing her life’s dream.

Dude, I try not to assume the worst of people just cause they write fictional characters that I dislike, but Chris really makes things hard not to when he treats his self insert this way.

Oh but we’re not done yet.

When Varian Fans Complain About the Lack of Varian; We’re Complaining About the Lack of a Coherent Plot.

Certain sections of the fandom, bolstered by Chris’s BS, try to act like simply being a Varian fan is grounds for dismissal of any criticism of the show and it’s writing. As if having personal preference for something makes you automatically ‘entitled’ or some such bull. Yet doing so ignores the fundamental complaint that they are making.

We’re not whining about our favorite character not getting enough screen time. No one would have complained about his lack of presence in season two if they had properly resolved his story in season three and had Chris not been a dick to the fans. But it becomes evidently clear as the series goes along that removing Varian left a major hole in the plot. One that makes the entire story and the rest of characters suffer as well.

Think season two is boring? That’s cause they cut out their main villain at the last minute and failed to replace him with anything.

Upset that Hookfoot was brought along for zero reason? He’s the replacement character for Varian who no doubt was going to appear in season two originally.

Wish there was more on the Brotherhood and the Dark Kingdom? Their story impact was greatly reduced when Varian was written out.

Are you a Eugene fan and mad about how the Dark Prince plot went nowhere? That’s cause the original Brotherhood/Dark Kingdom plot was dropped when Varian was.

Dislike how Cassandra’s character was ruined with her villain arc? She was originally meant to be possessed but was changed last minute to be a Varian rip-off in the hopes that she would gain some of his popularity.

Wish Zhan Tiri, Demantius, and the Disciples actually went somewhere and that ZT had coherent plan? That plot were changed last minute to make Zhan Tiri a scapegoat for Cassandra now that her story was changed to replace Varian.

And of course let’s not ignore the character who suffers the most from lack of Varian.... Rapunzel.

Chris’s defense for leaving Varian out of S2 is that it’s “Rapunzel’s Story” and that Varian was only ever a plot device meant to push her along on her quest. Which means that Rapunzel no longer has anyone pushing her along on her quest!!!

All characters are plot devices. If they aren’t there to serve a story function then they need to be cut. Even Rapunzel herself serves a plot function. She’s meant to be the protagonist of a coming of age story. Which means she needs both an external conflict to face and an emotional arc where she grows as a person. Varian is the plot device that serves both of those functions but he’s now been removed and is no longer allowed to serve his original purpose.

Chris reached into the machine while it was running and pulled out one of the main gears and acted like he always meant to do that. He legit sat there and pretended that everything was running smoothly even as smoke poured out and warring alarms blared. He then tried to shove bubble gum in its place hoping no one would notice as everything fell apart around him.

Cause he’s the thing; no idea is without merit. It’s all about presentation. Removing Varian from season three still could have worked, but it required A.) replacing him with another foe and B.) making sure his arc still got a proper conclusion.

I’ll talk more about Varian’s half-arsed redemption when we get to it; but for now let's focus on the more immediate problem. No one thought to give season two an actual overarching conflict in light of Varian’s absence.

That’s a fundamental oversight that pretty much signals that season two was re-written at the last minute. You have an overarching plot in an action adventure show but no main adversary? I refuse to believe that everyone involved was too stupid to do that on purpose; but if they were rushed and lacked a crew because they walked out due to last minute story changes....yeah that’d I buy.

Because there’s more than enough options to go around; Lady Caine, The Baron and Styalan, Hector and/or Adria, Zhan Tiri’s Disciples ect. were all options. So was keeping the rocks a threat, or have Cass start her villian arc earlier; with proper motivation this time. They could have even come up with someone entirely new.

You had over four years to plan this shit out; why is it not more well put together?!

How Come Rapunzel Can Easily Admit Fault to Pascal But Not Anyone Else?

Pascal should have sat perched on Varian’s and Eugene’s shoulders giving Rapunzel ‘I’m done with this’ looks all throughout season three. It’s apparently the only thing that she responds to.

Why is the untalkative camelanion the only one allowed to call out the main character’s BS without going villain?

Conclusion

That’s all there really is to talk about in this story. The actual episode itself is good. It’s the behind the scenes crap that bubbles underneath its surface that needed to be discussed. That way when going forward with the marathon you’ll better see what I’m talking about when I explain how future episode suffered from the lack of planning and foresight.

#Varian #tangled #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #cassandra #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tts #rta #king frederic

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lumilasi · 4 years ago

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I'm just curious what your thoughts on Shigaraki are. Im praying he gets control back. I would be so sad if the body take over is dragged out. It looks like they are going the save Tomura route which is great but my thought is that means we won't get him back till the end.. I swear if they have Eri rewind him 😤 I hope it's OK to ask you this, if not please ignore and accept my apologies and have a good day. ☀️🌞

Ha ha it’s alright! I don’t mind talking about my favorite character, and musing out my thoughts about what might happen. Of course, keep in mind this is just my thoughts/viewpoint, and I would never say anything I muse out about this is a fact; I’m not the writer after all. I’m just going over the story bits we already know and considering what could possibly be the story-direction we’re going towards!

(Also warning, this is probs gonna get a little long-winded because I have a lot of thoughts about this, and Tomura and Izuku’s stories are pretty tightly tied to the larger one at hand about the world they live in.)

To give you a short summary: I think Tomura might indeed stay possessed for a while, and perhaps Izuku could team up with his friends to help save him from this possession. I also don’t think Eri should be using her powers a whole lot right now in the story, given her trauma and age. She needs to heal herself first to avoid unintentionally causing more damage to her mental state. Trauma recovery takes time, often more than what we’ve seen so far in the manga.

And now for the long-winded explanation (under the cut so this post isn’t ridiculously long:)

So, considering the overall narration and themes Horikoshi has used in the manga, it feels reasonable to say that one of the end goals in all likeness is to “save” those the current society would not bother saving, including Tomura, and especially Tomura, considering his character and story kind of symbolizes the overall failures and problems of this society. His BG touches on so many bad things and problems wrong with the way their world runs currently.

(Apathy from people being over-reliant on heroes, lack of proper help for mental health, hero idol worship that makes people neglect their families over their duty as a hero, abusive parental figures, dehumanization, etc.)

Izuku’s main goal, the goal of his story after all, is to become the greatest hero as the beginning narration expressed. The most reasonable way to do that given the things we’ve been shown about this world, is to do something none of the current heroes would; save those deemed “unfit” to be saved. It’s not only something personally fitting to Izuku’s character, but holds larger symbolic meaning for the overall narrative. I actually saw somebody discuss this particular topic in a post a while back, that put it better than I ever could.

(click the link if you’re curious to read it, it’s a pretty interesting one)

Now, what that saving means in practice is likely going to be more complicated, since the people in question have done bad things that deserve consequences, and I won’t deny that.

However, one of the biggest issues is, that the way this society functions seems to kind of be the very source of these villains doing bad things. If only somebody would’ve bothered to pick up this scared kid walking on the street before AFO got to him, none of what is happening now would have happened. (or at least, it would’ve been someone else in worst case scenario)

So, to go back on what you actually asked about; I do think that in order to reach the goal Izuku was set, he does need to free Tomura from that possession, that’s probably the least he can and should do.

In that sense, it would honestly make sense it would happen close to the end of the story as the best way to symbolize Izuku becoming the greatest hero - saving even the person who everybody else likely deemed unworthy of saving.

Not to mention, I recall Horikoshi mentioning that he planned the ending to be something where heroes and villains have to team up to reach an end goal of sorts. Izuku teaming up with Tomura’s friends to save Tomura could fit into this concept.

As for Eri...her rewind powers are bit of a...yeah. I also have lot of thoughts about that so bear with me.

They’re pretty difficult from narrative perspective, because they come off very “deus ex machina” or “magical fix all” that removes any stakes, and I’ve seen from the fandom people wishing Eri to just magically fix everything each time somebody is horribly injured, which...that’s a tad disturbing to me? Asking this little traumatized girl who’s seen lot of horrid injuries and gore to view MORE of it potentially, to heal your favorites? Even if she’d want to do it willingly (which she probably would out of gratitude) she’s, what, six?

(yes I know this is fiction and I might be taking this a bit too seriously, but I am also looking at this from the narration point of view, and her doing these magic fixes would also actually be bad for the story narration IMO, I’ll explain below)

She’s just a child, she probably can’t really grasp yet what she can and can’t handle, when it comes to her trauma, and what is and isn’t good for her. Eri “magically fixing everything” is an absolute no from me, both for her own sake and from narration perspective.

Like I get it, anybody would be sad when their fave gets hurt, I am too, but Eri’s a traumatized child, and tbh having her magically fix everything at her current state would in my eyes go against the point the narrative is trying to make, about the need for change and doing things better from the previous generation. Her rewinding these “changes” in the story, as a traumatized kid, is basically holding up the status quo that is harmful. Using somebody’s remarkable power out of duty to do good while potentially ignoring the impact it can have on the individuals own well-being, which basically will hindrance their ability to do said good in the future.

I can let fixing Mirio’s quirk pass, because he wasn’t horrifically injured in a manner that could potentially trigger Eri’s traumas. It was still a tad risky in my eyes to make this kid do it, because even if she did train for it, what if things went horribly wrong and she made Mirio disappear? That would’ve just caused her unnecessary mental anguish. They basically got lucky there that Hori was kind enough to make it work.

I would not mind so much, if the person having this power wasn’t a traumatized kid basically, in a story that is about a flawed system and the harmful effects it has on the individuals living in it with the way it currently runs.

So personally, I don’t want to see Eri use her powers at this point in that manner. She’s still recovering herself and probably not mentally ready to handle these things. Once she’s in a mentally better place, older and more capable of understanding what is or isn’t good for her, then she can go ahead and rewind people’s lost limbs left and right and use her quirk as the next generation superhero healer. But not right now, not when she’s still just a kid with horrible trauma.

Plus, I feel her point in the story was less about her power, and more about her parallels with Tomura; she could’ve become like him if she hadn’t been saved, and in turn, Tenko could’ve been like her if he had been saved.

So, from narrative point of view, It feels likely (though I could be wrong of course) that Tomura will remain possessed for a while, and Izuku’s end goal (or one of them) is to save him from the possession, and perhaps they’ll work together to defeat AFO. This last part I’m not that sure about though, given we still don’t have all the puzzle pieces. There’s probably a lot more to be learned about AFO himself, that will have an impact on how the story goes. We’ll see.

So yeah. Sorry this is kind of long, but sometimes you need lot of text to properly convey your thoughts xD Plus I’m just kinda used to writing long pieces of text.

#my musings #answered ask #bnha tomura #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #bnha izuku #mha izuku #manga spoilers

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