#i just started rewatching and it's about to become everyone's problem sorry

[vroomvroomcircuit]

Drive all Night

(A/N): This is inspired by the song "Call your mom" by Noah Kahan.

Summary: Max is worried about the sudden shift in his best friends behavior. But he is willing to drive all night to get to the root of the problem.

Pairing: Max Verstappen x fem!reader (little childhood friends to lovers on the side with angst/hurt to comfort)

Warnings: Association to Max's shitty childhood, reader has depression/a depressive episode, implicit mentions of suicide, listen to the song and you get the vibe

Wordcount: 2.4k

��Masterlist🏎 ________________________

Max Verstappen is not a big worrier. Actually, he is no worrier at all.

When there is something to worry about, he just changes it. If he can’t change it, it’s out of his area of responsibility, so he doesn’t have to worry about it.

Thinking like that helped him focus through great challenges. But his mindset wasn’t the only motivator. Through all his highest highs and lowest lows, his best friend has been right next to him, either cheering him on or being the shoulder to cry on he just needed.

(Y/N) and him befriended each other in kindergarten, having felt this unexplainable pull to each other. Ever since playing with Legos together for the first time they had been inseparable if they could help it.

Of course, as they got older and Max’s career in karting took off and (Y/N) had to focus more on school, they started to shift to calling and texting more than relying on in person talking. But that didn’t stop them staying best friends. One might even argue that through their 24/7 updates to each other, they grew even closer.

Meeting in person in their adulthood had become increasingly easier. Sometime (Y/N) travels with Max to several races back to back, being blessed with a remote working job.

The young man starts to suspect something isn’t going smoothly during one of their daily face time calls with her being in her dark bedroom and him in a hotel room halfway across the world. “But enough of how annoying these marketing things are. What did you do today? Except for work of course.” Max just finished another yapping season about the last challenge the social media teams had him participate in.

(Y/N) just shrugs her shoulders while focusing on a loose thread in her shirt. “Nothing much. I reread pride and prejudice.” Max halts a bit in his rummaging through his suitcase, being on the look out for his charger. “I thought you had plans for lunch with a friend? And didn’t you read through that book last week already? You do know that no matter how often you read it, the ending will stay the same.” He jokes a bit.

While still not shifting her gaze towards the phone screen, (Y/N) answers in mumbles. “I canceled on her. I really felt icky today, but we will try to set up another meet up some time next week or so.”

At first Max doesn’t think of it as much. Everyone feels not like socializing every one in a while. But then something else changes. The frequency of their calls and texts.

“...here we can do- Max? Are you even listening to me?” Max gets caught off guard by that question. GP was going over some points with him before starting FP2. “Oh, uhm, sorry GP. Gimme three seconds, I just want to reply to (Y/N). It seems like she didn’t have a great day and I just want to make sure she’ll be alright until I’m out of the car.”

This makes his race engineer raise his eyebrows. “Oh, what happened?” “I don’t know. But she is rewatching one of her comfort shows for the third time in two weeks.” He blinks at the Dutchman. “And in what way is that concerning?”

Okay, voicing his worrisome thoughts out loud like that makes Max realize that the signs are not too obvious for outsiders. But he is talking about his best friend. The person that always makes sure that he won’t go without his needed amount of sleep. The same person he had been having phone calls that resulted in four out of the last seven nights with him getting not more than 5 hours of sleep, if that at all.

For an outsider it doesn’t seem bad for (Y/N) to reread the same books and rewatch the same shows over and over again. Or having her best friend, the person she became emotionally most dependent on, talk with her through her nights.

But for Max, it raises red flags. It hits his alarm bells, ringing out loud that something is majorly wrong. He can’t put his finger on it, not just yet. He is still looking for a way to get her to tell him what is bothering her.

There is a certain uneasiness to Max during that entire race weekend. He is just itching to seat his ass on a plane on his way back to his (Y/N), a friend that he might harbor more than just platonic feelings for. A person that had his back all the time.

To the person he loves the most, that is also struggling the most right now.

He wants to be able to pay her back for all the times she stuck through his darkest times.

But something in him is scared that he isn’t able to get to her in time. “Didn’t you want to go out with a colleague of yours for drinks last night?” Max asks into the phone while speed walking through the airport. Ever since leaving his hotel room on this fine Monday morning, he has been on a phone call with (Y/N).

A sigh greets his ears. “I wanted to, but I didn’t feel like dressing up or sharing a space with a bunch of strangers. I just ordered some food in and watched your race.”

There is another red flag. (Y/N) maybe was never a big socializer to begin with, but she liked going out every now and then. But for a couple of weeks now the only thing Max gets to hear about plans is that she canceled them.

Listening to her just cutting contact with the outside world like that, it doesn’t only worry him. It’s not even scary. It terrifies him.

The two of them continue talking the whole plane ride until (Y/N) falls asleep. Even then Max doesn’t hang up. He still lets the call continue, not wanting her to wake up and feel alone. She doesn’t deserve to feel alone.

No one does. But especially not her.

When he was in karting, some kids gave him grief for winning most of the time. It was difficult for little Max to understand. So do people not want him to win?

It became more confusing to him since some people around him wanted him to win desperately. It hurt him, not understanding the difference of who wanted his best and who wanted to see him fail.

He felt isolated from his peers, especially those who should understand under what pressure he was, because they must feel the same. Right?

During these days, where he rather stopped driving in circles in a very fast manner and just continued playing football, (Y/N) was his only footing. She talked him out of ending his career in motorsport. She painted a picture of his future in the prettiest colors with her words. She gave him something to look forward during these trying times.

And when it got harder before it got easier, she held his hand and reminded him that she will always stay by his side.

Now it’s Max’s turn to show her that he will always stay by her side.

He opens the door to her apartment slowly, trying to make the least noise possible.

Every room is shrouded in what must feel to her like a never ending darkness. The blinds are drawn in front of every window, hindering the tiniest bit of sunlight to filter through. Even to Max it feels like the despair that is in the air will never stop. It is all consuming.

He tiptoes towards her bedroom. There she lays, illuminated by the low light of his phone screen. Curled up tight under a bunch of blankets and between a mountain of pillows and stuffed animals.

The MV lion, the first one that has ever been produced, the original prototype before giving the go for mass production, is held tightly and close to her chest. It pulls on his heartstrings, seeing the comfort it must have brought her while he was absent.

Max kneels down at the head of the bed, gently shaking her awake. “Schatje, come on. Wake up. We got a day of new adventures just in front of us outside the door.”

It’s something they started to say in elementary school. They once read a book in class with the premise that every day is the start to a new adventure. You just have to welcome it in. Back then, when inviting something unknown in your life was considered exciting, not scary or life changing.

“The adventures can wait a day longer.” She mumbles and turns around, trying to shake his hand on her shoulder off. But Max is having none of it.

“The darkness is fooling you. Every light that has been turned off can be turned on.” He gets up and opens the blinds. Sunlight floods the room, and even at the messiest state the young man has seen his best friend, she still is the most beautiful woman on earth to him

(Y/N) lets out a noise of unpleasantness. “Please Max, I can’t deal with it today.”  “No, you will. We are going to deal with it, whatever this it is, together.” He marches over to her dresser and produces a clean set of clothes out of thin air. That is what it looks like to her in this mess at least.

“You are going to shower. After that we will take a drive with no destination.” His words are final and in a tone that makes the young woman drag her limbs and body out of the bed and trudge towards the bathroom, even when the unwillingness is evident by her groaning.

Hearing the shower is Max’s cue to sit down and take a deep breath. He doesn’t know what he expected, but seeing the light of life missing in (Y/N)’s eyes isn’t on that list. It feels like a punch to his gut, witnessing her wither away without knowing from what.

It doesn’t take long and they both sit in the car. A drive without destination is exactly what it says. Just Max driving with (Y/N) sitting in the passenger seat. Usually they used these trips to catch up, to talk about everything and nothing. To voice big philosophical thoughts and dumb brain farts. They started this tradition, that usually includes some sort of fast food, when Max got his drivers license.

But sitting in complete silence for five minutes straight. That is something new.

“You know,” Max breaks it after another seven minutes. “Not talking about it won’t make the problem go away. It also doesn’t hinder it in its existence. Instead it will just get heavier and heavier until you break under the weight.” His dry tone isn’t something she anticipated.

(Y/N) looks out the window, seeing the colorful sunset for the first time in weeks. It’s easy to forget the beauty of the world when your inside thoughts feel like a graveyard. “I don’t want to worry you.”

That admission nearly has the Dutchman emergency breaking in the middle of a street through the fields. “So you play cat and mouse with your feelings because you don’t want to worry me?” (Y/N) nods.

Max lets out a laugh. “So what exactly makes you think that me witnessing you just becoming a shell of who you once were won’t worry me?”

She shrugs. (Y/N) didn’t expect him to catch that something feels wrong in her.

“Schatje. I will always worry about you, You are too important to me to not worry about you. Seeing you wither away in yourself, it made me scared going out on these tracks, sitting down in the car, and wondering if you still breathe while I’m driving another mile. Not knowing what you feel, that worries me more than the truth. Because then we can work on getting you better together. But when you don’t let me in, I can’t help and feel like by just standing and witnessing without intervening that I’m at fault for anything that happens to you. It hurts more seeing you hurting than knowing what you hurt from.”

She turns towards Max, mustering his side profile. She hasn’t thought about how her actions are perceived by her surroundings. (Y/N) just fell into that hole of darkness unexpectedly. While sitting at the bottom of that somber pit, she thought that trying to reach out for help would mean another person gets pulled into it.

If there was one person she doesn’t want sitting next to her in that dark hole, then it is Max. She harbors too much love and affection for him to want him to suffer the same fate as her. So not talking about her darkest thoughts seemed like the best way of keeping him far away from the hole.

But it just drew him in closer.

(Y/N) finally sees what he saw the whole time.

“You know, it’s hard to explain what happened. It takes time to really understand what goes on in me right now.” Max puts a reassuring hand on her leg. “We have all night to talk about it. Help me help you. Let us find a strategy to get you better. May it be medication, meditation, punching me or falling in love with someone. I need you to find a reason to stay with me, physically and mentally.”

She puts a hand over hers and looks Max in the eye for the first time since he arrived. “I already fell in love.”

He doesn’t need to hear more.

Max keeps his promise. He drives through the night, holding (Y/N) to the best of his ability while she cries, curses and explains.

By that not everything is picture perfect again. But it’s the first step. The first one to a future they both want to share with each other. For now and ever, that is enough motivation for (Y/N) to keep going, to continue turning every light on that was off.

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

The Decay of Complex Characters and Character Development in Helluva Boss (Stolas and Octavia’s Relationship: Part 2 of 2)

Part 1 here

I felt I had to make separate part just for “Seeing Stars” because my other post was getting way too long, and I wanted to really focus on the treatment of Stolas and Octavia’s by the writers.

Please know that this is JUST my opinion and not a personal attack on HB’s writers or creators. I’m talking and venting a bit about my personal frustrations with the series regarding what I perceive as being MAJOR plot holes and inconsistencies in the show’s writing.

As of right now—and I do want to acknowledge this could change, but as of right now—it largely seems like any character development Stolas may have gone through after “Loo Loo Land” has been completely tossed out the window.

I personally believe that the writers of Helluva Boss think that they are writing Stolas to be more complex, but he has yet to have to actually be held accountable for his actions, and for breaking his promises to Octavia.

And the way the writers present him has really come to bother me. So I wanted to talk more about it, and about how Stolas cannot become a well-written, complex, and engaging character until the writers let him actually be imperfect and complex.

To talk about this more in depth, I gotta go over the second episode that features Octavia, Season 2, Episode 2 of Helluva Boss—“Seeing Stars”

(TLDR at the end)

To start, “Seeing Stars” is narratively very similar to “Loo Loo Land”. By “very similar” I mean that it’s almost the exact same plot, but frustratingly more clunky. Here is an extremely short summary:

The main crux of the conflict in “Seeing Stars” is that Stolas forgot about a promise he made to Octavia to go see a meteor shower, and ends up neglecting her.

Specifically, he forgets because he is too busy yelling at Stella over the phone due to their contentious divorce. Octavia feels let down by her father again, and runs away to the human realm to see the meteor shower on her own.

Stolas and I.M.P. panic and go after her. Eventually Loona finds her and gives her a speech that essentially boils down to: “everyone’s got hardships and problems but Dads ESPECIALLY have problems. Your Dad is trying really hard right now. So that should count for something right?”

And that comforts Octavia in the moment. Octavia and Stolas reunite, he asks her why she ran away, and she tells him she was trying to see the meteor shower he promised to take her to. Stolas is horrified that he’d forgotten, starts to apologize, but Octavia cuts him off and tells him “it’s okay”, forgiving him.

I rewatched “Seeing Stars” before making this post to make sure I hadn’t misremembered any crucial plot points.

I thought I remembered that, at the very end of the episode, Stolas apologized to Octavia for breaking his promise and then she told him it was okay.

It turns out I had misremembered things, because the writers literally kept Stolas from saying sorry.

This leads to the main criticism I have of Stolas as a character, especially from a writing standpoint. The narrative does not allow for Stolas to ever truly be in the wrong, or for anyone, including Stolas, to fully acknowledge that he is in the wrong.

And I know that it’s easy to go “BUT LOOK! Octavia says “I know, Dad”! She KNOWS that Stolas is sorry.

That’s fair, but for me personally, I think an EARNEST and verbal apology is needed here to show that Stolas has grown.

I’m very lucky in that I have a good relationship with my parents, but that doesn’t mean we never fought or they never said or did things that hurt me.

I distinctly remember a time when my Mom was apologizing to me for something she did, I said “it’s okay” and she immediately replied “No, it’s not okay. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry, and I hope you can forgive me”.

That really changed my perspective on conflict. I think a lot of people, including myself until then, consider “it’s okay” to be a form of saying “I forgive you”. And I’m not trying to police like…basic language and substitute words. But I DO strongly believe in taking responsibility for when you hurt someone.

In all honesty, I think this scene actually could have worked for Stolas’ character development if he had actually acknowledged that, “No, it’s not. It’s not okay that I broke my promise to you. I’m sorry, and I hope you can forgive me, but if you can’t right now, I understand.”

THAT, to me, shows character development. That would’ve shown that Stolas is, at the very least, trying to make an actual effort to change for the sake of Octavia.

Instead, though, SHE apologizes Stolas for running away to try and see the meteor shower that HE promised to take her to. And the writers refuse to even let Stolas say he’s sorry.

Let Stolas say he’s sorry, writers! Let Stolas be in the wrong!!! I promise it won’t make people hate his character!

I mean, jfc, just look at the fandom around Hazbin’s Valentino. That guy could not be more evil if he tried and a lot of fans can’t seem to get enough of him.

My other issue with the treatment of Octavia in this episode, SPECIFICALLY the speech that Loona gives Octavia near the end.

Because. Oof. There’s a lot to unpack. Firstly:

Maybe it’s just me, but I find the way the writers have Loona frame this situation as being really really weird. To be clear, I don’t think it starts off too badly. Everyone DOES have issues, and that can affect the way they act and treat others and make mistakes.

That said, dads are not inherently more messed up or dealing with more difficulties than anyone else.

Dads have issues the same as any other person, but they don’t get special privileges or passes because they’re dads. They’re responsible for themselves like every other person with issues and difficulties, and they’re still responsible for themselves and their mistakes.

It’s especially frustrating because the writers are using Stolas’ “issues” as a crutch to excuse their bad behavior. This happens a lot with writers trying to excuse or justify their character’s actions. The “issues” can be anything from a difficult childhood, relationship troubles or divorce, a traumatic experience, etc. but these things should never be used as a way to excuse a character’s every mistake and flaw.

Effective writing will use a character’s history to explain the reasons a character acts or behaves a certain way, not excuse that behavior. This leads to characters that the audience can become more invested in, and can form different opinions or interpretations about.

A really great example of this is Bojack Horseman, whose terrible upbringing and abuse definitely garner audience sympathy, but the writers never use this to as a justification for the Bojack’s behaviors. Bojack continually makes really terrible choices that hurt the people he cares about the most, and while we as the audience still sympathize with him to an extent, we still get frustrated with Bojack, and be disappointed by him.

The audience finally gets some catharsis from this frustration when Bojack is called out by his best friend Todd for this, after he finally breaks any remaining trust in their friendship with the following quote:

“You can’t keep doing this! You can’t keep doing shitty things, and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay! You need to be better! [Bojack apologizes and then continues to make excuses] …BoJack, stop. You are all the things that are wrong with you. It's not the alcohol, or the drugs, or any of the shitty things that happened in your career, or when you were a kid—It's you. Alright? It's you. Fuck, man. What else is there to say?”

In my opinion, Helluva Boss’ writers seem to be determined to write the exact opposite of this sentiment.

The writers frame Loona’s speech to Octavia as a heartwarming moment—a moment where Loona helps Octavia realize that Stolas cares about her and is trying his best, so Octavia should cut him some slack.

This is, quite frankly, a BAFFLING scene because Loona’s behavior for the ENTIRE EPISODE is her assaulting and yelling at her dad. Like, she has given Blitzø absolutely NO slack before this moment, and then doesn’t give him any in the scene DIRECTLY after this, where she assaults him again while he’s in the middle of apologizing to her.

Not only is it odd to have Loona tell Octavia all of this and then not act on it herself, but the whole scene really reads as the writers trying to sweep Octavia’s very valid and real feelings of hurt over her father’s neglect under the rug.

And look. Trying to be better can be important. Trying to change and be better IS worthy of being acknowledged. But at a certain point, as Todd points out to Bojack, you have to actually be better.

In part 1, I talked about how the end of “Looloo Land” had set things up for Stolas to start being more conscientious of Octavia’s feelings and needs. He took the first step of making amends with her, of listening to her and her concerns and fears.

“Seeing Stars” was an episode that could have shown him being better. But instead. Well.

In her speech to Octavia Loona says this:

And to be fair, Loona didn’t know what hijinks Stolas and Blitzø were getting up to in the city. She probably did think Stolas was looking for her.

…Except…he kind of wasn’t…

During the search for Octavia, Blitzø gets mistaken for a famous Hollywood actor, and he and Stolas are essentially kidnapped to be in a sitcom. When this first happens, Stolas is anxious, clearly upset that there search has been further impeded:

He’s scared that Octavia could be in danger, or hurt. Stolas seemingly wants to find her as soon as possible.

Well. Once they get to the Hollywood sitcom shoot, the following scenes happen:

STOLAS WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING???? YOU JUST SAID THAT YOU DIDNT HAVE TIME FOR THIS ??? BLITZØ DIDNT EVEN WANT TO PERFORM, AND YOU MADE HIM! WHY?!?! YOU DONT OWE THESE PEOPLE ANYTHING? THE TV PRODUCER EVEN LEFT THE ROOM BEFORE THE SHOW STARTED, NO ONE WAS KEEPING YOU THERE!!!

WHY ARE YOU INVESTED IN THIS AND WORRIED ABOUT THE AUDIENCE NOT LAUGHING?!?! STOLAS YOU LITERALLY JUST SAID YOUR DAUGHTER COULD BE IN DANGER IN THE VAN, WHY ARE YOU SUDDENLY SO CONCERNED WITH MAKING BLITZØ ACT IN THIS SITCOM???? STOLAS YOU DONT KNOW WHERE YOUR FUCKING DAUGHTER IS?!?!?

I just…I’m sorry, I just think this episode is so so clunky and so poorly written. I think it may be one of the episodes with the least consistent character writing.

The scene continues, Stolas gets distracted by how attractive he finds Blitzø, and Blitzø acts in the sitcom for so long that even Stolas looks bored and out of it.

At this point in the story, he doesn’t know where his daughter is, if she’s hurt, or in danger, or even why she ran away in the first place. But instead of that taking the absolute top priority for him, he takes time to watch Blitzø make bad jokes in a wig for the whole afternoon.

Stolas isn’t even the one to get them out of the Hollywood studio, Blitzø is. Blitzø has a panic attack about the thought of Loona being taken from him during the sitcom shoot, and that’s what sparks them escaping.

The two escape the studio and meet up with Octavia and Loona, and the episode ends with Octavia apologizing for running away, and Stolas not having to apologize to her for his mistakes because Octavia already knows he’s sorry.

In Part 1, I talked about how at the end of “Loo Loo Land”, the writers set up the building blocks for Stolas’s character development in regards to his relationship with Octavia. S1 E2 of Helluva Boss ends with Stolas listening to his daughter, realizing his actions hurt her, and acting like he’s going to start putting her first.

“Seeing Stars” undoes all of that development. Which wasn’t even that much character development in the first place. Just the kicking off point for Stolas’ growth as a character.

Reviewing this episode made me realize that Stolas’ character development may have actually regressed. He doesn’t keep his promise to Octavia, he starts flirting with Blitzø when he should be looking for her, and wastes valuable time fucking around with Blitzø on a sitcom set.

And listen, I KNOW that Blitzø got Loona to look for Octavia right after he and Stolas got kidnapped by the tv producers. But after they get out of the Van, WHY does Stolas just continue to go along with it? He was so concerned and scared for Via before, wouldn’t he want to get back to looking for her as soon as possible?? And have as many people as possible working on finding her???

Blitzø doesn’t even want to go on the sitcom and for some reason Stolas makes him! The tv producer had left the room at that point too, and Stolas is a DEMON PRINCE, no one was keeping them there!

Stolas gives the reason for Blitzø needing to perform to be “so they can get back to looking for Via” but they can just do that without having to be in the sitcom?

I think the writers might have written dramatic irony into the story without meaning to? Loona tells Octavia that “[Stolas is] down there. Looking for you”, but we as the audience know that’s not true. Stolas wasn’t looking for his daughter. He was watching Blitzø star in a bad sitcom for 5 hours.

This becomes extra frustrating and gut-wrenching for me when I think about Octavia right before Loona’s speech about how “dads are special and have it extra extra bad and try extra extra hard and that’s super important, even if they fuck up and hurt you”

This scene is absolutely heartbreaking to me. This is a 17 year old girl who has been repeatedly let down by one of the people she looked up to and relied upon the most, who rightfully feels abandoned and like she no longer has a home.

Specifically the line “Why does he hate [my mum] more than he loves me?” hits extra hard.

I don’t know what it’s like to have divorced parents, but I can imagine that anyone who has may have had this exact thought. Octavia needs support more now than ever, and keeps getting let down by the adults around her, and it just breaks my heart to see this young vulnerable girl not really have anyone who acknowledges that what Stolas did was hurtful. That it wasn’t okay, and that she’s allowed to be upset about it.

The reason she exists in the story isn’t to be her own person and to have character development of her own. She exists just to be Stolas’ daughter, and to forgive him for his wrongdoings and make him seem like a “good” person because even though he has issues, he still loves her! That makes him a good dad!

And I don’t know how Octavia is broadly accepted in the HB fandom, but I’ve heard that she may not be liked very well, and I don’t understand how anyone could see this scene and think she’s annoying or terrible.

Honestly, I would NOT be as frustrated and disappointed by the writing in this episode, if the writers and the fandom at large didn’t treat this episode like it had a heartwarming and satisfying resolution. If the writers treated Stolas as a complex person who is able to make mistakes, and who still really needs to own up to his actions and take responsibility for his broken promises, I would probably like him a lot more as a complex and nuanced character.

But the way the writers frame Stolas as being in the right, or being the victim, or being fully justified in all his actions isn’t just bad writing. It’s boring. Stolas is a boring character because the writers do not allow him to be in the wrong, to be morally ambiguous or dark, or to be called out or held accountable for his mistakes.

The writers MAY somehow undo the damage they already did in “Seeing Stars”, but given the way that the writers, show creators, and fandom go out of their way to excuse any morally grey, questionable, or harmful decisions Stolas makes, I’m not going to hold my breath.

TLDR:

-Despite Octavia being hurt by Stolas again, the writers refuse to put him in any situation where he’s held accountable for his mistakes

-The writers use Stolas’ “issues” to excuse away his bad behavior. And specify that Octavia should cut Stolas some slack because he’s a dad and being a dad is extra hard I guess?

-the framing of the episode acts like Stolas did everything in his power to look for Octavia when he clearly didn’t (he was goofing off with Blitzø)

-Stolas is ultimately uninteresting and not engaging as a character because the writers go out of their way to excuse his behavior and mistakes even when he’s in the wrong.

-Stolas cannot be a complex character if he is always absolved of the consequences of his actions and is not allowed by the writers to be better (in my opinion)

Also sidebar—WHY DID HE NOT CALL OCTAVIA ON HER PHONE!?!

In the VERY first episode of HB Stolas is LITERALLY INTRODUCED TO US by calling Blitzø on his phone and watching Blitzø in the human world from hell, without the use of his Grimoire!! HE HAS THE POWER TO DO THAT!!!

I was like, maybe Octavia didn’t have her phone for a SECOND before remembering that LOONA FINDS OCTAVIA BY LOOKING AT THE PICTURES SHES POSTING TO SOCIAL MEDIA WITH HER PHONE.

Like Stolas do you not know ur own daughters phone number. AND YOURE GIVING BLITZØ A HARD TIME ABOUT NOT KNOWING MOXXIE’S?? Also when Blitzø is in danger you can pinpoint his exact location, travel to the human world without the grimoire terrify and reveal your existence to MULTIPLE humans with absolute disregard for being discovered, but when your OWN DAUGHTER is missing and you have NO idea why or if she’s in danger, suddenly you have time to run around LA for a day getting into shenanigans???? She’s your DAUGHTER. No wonder she doesn’t think you care about her because I sure as hell don’t after that episode. Lord.

[the-words-we-sung]

Season 3 ending

So... It's been almost a week since the last episode, almost a week trying to wrap my head around the end of the show, trying to manage my feelings about it all.

It's hard to end up feeling the complete opposite of nearly everyone on my dash but I've come to terms with the fact that I didn't love the ending. I didn't love this last episode. (I shouldn't feel ashamed or weird for saying so but you guys loved it so much that I feel a bit like an outsider right now 😓)

I haven't been a fan of the show for as long as most of you, but it means so much to me. These characters carved a place in my heart and in my head, and they've made me happy for months now. They helped me get through some stuff, made me discover some amazing artists, meet even more amazing people through this fandom. And I loved the story. Even in its darkest, saddest parts, I loved it. I was invested.

I love Wilhelm and Simon, together and separately. They mean so much to me. And I loved season 1 and 2. It made me happy, and sad, and frustrated, and exalted. But overall, I trusted the show and I was not disappointed.

Season 3 was a lot. I liked the first 5 episodes. I can't say that I loved everything about them: I was not expecting things to get so hard for Simon, with no reprieve in sight. I was not worried about Wilmon being endgame (I know it was a big stress for the fandom but honestly I never doubted that they were endgame), but I was wondering how the show would go about tying all the knots it made (I should even say all the knots it added during this last season).

(Under a read more because it's a bit long and I don't want to bother those who don't wanna read more of my frustrated thoughts ^^')

And unfortunately the last episode was a huge let down for me. Yes, it's partly because nothing I was hoping for actually happened, but mostly, it's because the choices they made did not feel very satisfying to me: ⁕ Simon was barely there. We went from him being bullied online/offline non stop for 5 episodes to almost nothing. It makes 0 sense to me. ⁕ Kristina suddenly feeling better: she was having break down upon break down for an entire season, could barely look at her son or even just talk normally and all of a sudden she's back, smiling and agreeing to everything Wilhelm says? I'm sorry but I don't buy it? Where did this Kristina hid during the entire show? ⁕ Wilhelm deciding to not be king, talking for 3min to his parents about it, them agreeing and him running into the sunset with Simon. I'm sorry, what?? I love that they end up together of course, but it makes very little sense to me? It won't change any of the issues they had this season? They're still gonna be famous? And bullied online/offline? (Probably even more so now?). I'm not obviously saying that Wilhelm staying in line to become king was the only or the best solution, but I wanted more from this storyline. I wanted to believe it. And right now, what we got? It feels a bit cheap (and I feel bad for saying that because the ending was cute and romantic and all, but it felt too disconnected from the rest of the show for me ><)

And apart from these few points, the big issue I had with this episode was: The Angst. So that might be a me-problem, but it was too much for my poor little heart (I haven't rewatched the episode yet, and I'm not sure I'll be able to anytime soon ><). I spent like 40min of the episode with a huge knot in the stomach because the heartbreak between Simon and Wilhelm was too much to handle for me. I can see how it was beautifully made, that having lots of throwbacks to the previous seasons, the Wille song, all of that was great cinematography. But it was just too much for me. I got in the season spoiler-free but for this episode? During the lake scene I had to take a break and check online if they were actually endgame because it was starting to actually give me a stomachache. So yeah, this part might be me being too sensitive but I did not like that they made me see them fight for each other for 2 seasons and 5 episodes, but then just giving up for 40min before finally running back to each other during the last 10min. It was just too much sadness for me ><

So yeah, maybe my expectations were too high? But I feel sad, and kinda cheated. Too many things are left wide opened. Too many things make zero sense to me. And of course I'm happy we got our Wilmon endgame, but I'm less happy about how it happened.

It's a bit hard being on Tumblr right now and seeing everyone who thought it was the perfect episode >< And I don't want to "yuck anyone's yum" (as the saying goes), but I still wanna be able to share my thoughts! I probably won't write super angry/unhappy/complaining posts about the season/the finale, but I still wanna be able to chat about it. I did see some posts on my dash from people not being entirely satisfied with this ending so it's a bit comforting. And I hope we can share some nice headcanons, or just discussions about different plot points.

But yeah, I guess that's why I haven't really been active this week! Trying to get over the double heartbreak of the end of the show + being disappointed with the ending! I'm gonna come back though! I miss hanging out here, I just need to strengthen my heart a little bit more :p Gonna get back to writing about my thoughts episode by episode for this season (I can't promise I can rewatch the last one though 😖 It might take me a bit of time to get there). And I want to continue my song analysis of the show!! I'm not even done with season 2 yet, I have some work to do there ^^

So see you back here very soon 😘

[moonlight-sonata99]

Walk the line

No.2

Carmy x reader

Summary: getting used to takes some time, nonetheless you try your best.

A/n: I'm still getting used to making realistic convos, literally rewatching S1 just to get the characters right lmao also when I say slow burn. I mean that☠️

One

'It's way to damn early for this..' you think sighing on the way to work

'who am I kidding it's always early when i go to work dumbass'  you think again seeing the beef coming into the view,

Making your way inside your greeted by the empty kitchen, it was your first time in here since mikeys..Shaking the thoughts out of your head a sudden nervousness came in your chest, 

'What if this carmy some fancy dude who thinks he's hot shit?'

'Or what if he judges you fo-'

"Morning chef" a voice interrupts your thoughts as a man walks into you vision, he seems to be preparing for the day it seems..?

"Oh uh- morning" you say walking to the locker and putting away your things looking at the guy taking out the meat and beginning to put it in the oven, he was...not what you were expecting. He was shorter (not that's its a problem) , blue eyes, and light hair with curls in them.

'Damn.'

"Carmy right?" You say closing your locker and walking over to him.

"Yeah" he nods replyingshortly, closing the oven and meeting your gaze as you walk to him. 

"Nice to finally meet you," you say, extending your arm and he shakes it and you tell him your name, "mikey told me about you, uh..looking forward to working with a professional" you say letting your hand rest on the side of your lap. 

"Right, I uh do baking with Marcus. But I can do more to" you say, explaining your position in the kitchen as he listens

After explaining that to him he begins to tell you of how he will be running things.

"Understand?" He ask as he looks at you with his blue eyes your nod.

"Yes chef." You nod. He follows suit.

"I'll go ahead and prepare then" 

Was it a mistake coming back?

Was it??

Okay maybe not cause, these Fuckers lied to you about carmy not being your type.

Cause goddamn,that man was definitely your type. His arms alone could make your eyes wander from whatever task your doing and just gaze at them for however minutes. Also whatever protocol he had you guys on was chaotic as hell. Well not really, not to you at least. But to the others it seemed they needed a bit more time warming up to carmy...

"I don't know" Tina mumbled to you as she kept her eyes on her pan "he knows all of these fancy shit.." she says frying as you cut up vegetables next to her 

"They are kinda..complicated. " you reply throwing the vegetables into the pan to fry and she nodded 

"I'm sure we'll get used to it, right?" You say again looking at her as She only sighs and nods again.

"I fuckin hope so."

Getting used to this was... hard but you didn't give yourself a hard time since you were still new to this new setup.  way different from how mikey operated. Continuing to cut more vegetables you looked up from the board to look at Carmy to see him running across the kitchen fixing whatever the crew fucked up on now.

You shook your head lightly feeling bad for him. Everyone was already giving him shit, and if this is day one god….you only wondered what time would bring.

Time passed indeed and carmy's screams become a constant in your day. you tried your best to keep up with his instructions and his screams numbed into the background as you would only focus on your work .

Topping a sandwich ritchie was running your ear and tinas as he spoke about some thing you didnt really care about, but it was starting to get to you.

"Ritchie if you don't shut the fuck up-" you sighed out as you get the stove on and rubbed your temple, as Ritchie went on about some dude who….

What did he do again? 

"Okay, Okay fine!" he said raising both of his palms up and Stepping away,

"I'm sorry, I love you, but sometimes you talk to damn much, " you explained as you walked and he followed you. 

"Look, I'm sorry but that's just how I am!"

"I know dumbass but I wanna be alone right now,Please?" 

He sighed for a moment, his eyes darting away from you "Alright, i gotcha" he said patting your back as you went I to the walk in

Shutting the door you sigh to yourself the hum of the room your only companion, "What was I even looking for?" you think looking over the ingredients in here as you sighed.

"What the fuck is wrong with me today.." you mumbled into the silence of the walk in.

It was all building up maybe it was so different ?? you knew Carmy wasn't mikey. He wasn't. Hell they didn't even look alike. 

Maybe i just miss him.

The thought echoes as you stood there just staring until the door opens,

"hey, you okay?" feeling a hand on your shoulder you turned back to see those same blue eyes, now out of your trance you nod your hand slowly

"y-yeah good. Sorry i uh…" you traill off looking back at the ingredients i need a break " you say quickly before walking out and  sitting on the concrete, After a few minutes, the door opened and closed and you felt a presence next to you.

"You alright?"Carmy voice which was calm  asked as you looked down at the concrete.

"Yea it just- still getting used to this… waving your hand up to the building. "Which no hate to you, its good. ... not a chef or a cook." you admit fiddling with your pants "Mikey had me helping marcus-so i guess it's all new to me."

"yea-yea no i get it." he responded looking at you. "you don't need to apologize though, " he says, taking out a cigarette and lighting it up. "you'll get it better the more you do it"

"you knew him?" he asked again as you met his gaze.

"I did, he helped me in a rough time. "You explained leaving it at that. 

"Good dude but hella loud." you say chuckling and hearing a small scoff from him.

Leaning your head back on the wall as you looked at him. 

"Ritchie said you went to Culinary schools? " you asked and he nodded 

"i did"

"How were they?"

he only gave you a look that seemed kinda surprised, 

"What no one asked you this yet?" you asked Putting your elbows to your Knees 

"No one from here no,not yet" he replies letting the cigarette dangle from his two fingers.

Letting out a small 'hmm…' your gaze wandered off him and looked at the door,

"I know, they're assholes now but once yknow them, their… less assholes. " you say with a grin and he only chuckles looking down, 

"Yea, I knew them sorta before coming here" he admits setting his gaze to the floor.

"But y'know Ritchie- he's still an asshole. " you add before standing up, as he chuckles finishes up his cigarette and follows suit.

"Yea, Ritchie's an asshole." He repeats shaking his head with a small smile.

Heading to the door, Carmy looks back at you as if to ask something but turns away before even mentioning something, and you head on the inside without noticing.

Hey,

Me again. How are you? I know we have text messaging but 1. I lost your number somewhere,somehow. 2. Sending letters is cool and makes me feel ancient. So, Compared to last time I

Im… doing kinda good. still working in that restaurant, but i kinda like it ? now with  here it feels "professional " if that's what you can call it . ?? Hes making all these changes and everyone fucking hates him. Me? Maybe. Well at first yeah. now I know why Mikey would talk about him the way he did. Carmy's … different.in a way. I like it.

I like him.

A/N: making the reader simp over carmy cause...like who wouldnt? but it's just a attraction not love yet unfortunately :> alps o debated having reader being hired after carmy takes charge. But I really liked the idea of mikey having known the reader and not really mentioning her. Makes more...mysterious:]

[sporesgalaxy]

Do you have tips for writing a character correctly? Or simly not making them out of character?

Agh sorry if this sounds really basic but I'm not sure where to start so I'll just explain my reasoning from the ground up

The thing I always do is study their choices, and try to imagine what their internal reasoning for a choice was. What did they feel when they made the choice, and why did they feel that way? What past experiences might have influenced their choice? How do you think they felt about the choice afterwards? If two choices seem inconsistent, why might that be? Does the character ever choose to lie? Why or why not?

After studying a character's actions like this for a while (usually by rewatching/rereading/etc.), I can eventually develop some general perameters for their sense of internal logic and ideals.

Most characters have some situation/conditions they can't stand and want to avoid more than anything in the world, and some situation/conditions they aspire to and want to achieve more than anything in the world. Some characters feel strongly in this way about multiple things and must grapple with that.

Some characters may not personally recognize the things positively or negatively driving them, but there is usually something there deep down-- a fear of pain or abandonment or burdening those around oneself, an aspiration to survive or find happiness or rest.

Whether the positive or the negative drive is influencing a character's choices more can vary situationally. Did they recently see something that reminded them of their fear, or their hope? Perhaps they feel morenpowerless than usual, or more determined.

Once you figure out what a character loves and rejects most and how they tend to express those feelings of love and rejection, imagining how they might reason their way through any situation should become pretty clear. So-and-so would kill the pile of strangers in the trolley problem, because they so greatly fear loss of loved ones. Such-and-such would attack the trolley head on and die trying to save everyone, because they are driven first and foremost by their aspiration to heroism. Someone else stands frozen in teeeor and ultimately does nothing, because they so greatly fear being responsible for making the "wromg decision," because they were raised in a judgemental environment. And so on

Hope this helps??

[redhatmeg]

Okay, so this is my little analysis of dreams in Restless.

Before I start I need to mention that I know that in some places it's the forshadowing of the events in the future season (little sister's coming, yada yadda) and it will be shorter than usual because I don't feel like rewatching parts of the episode to analize it scene by scene.

Anyways...

Willow's dream about going to the drama class/workshop and immediately having to perform in a play seems to indicate that she still has problems finding herself. The play is Death of a Salesman about a last day of a man who thinks he's lost in a game of life... but all the people in the play wear silly constumes and it seems like Willow's normal clothes also are a costume. Willow feels both like she's not taken seriously and like her persona is also a character she plays before everybody. Once Buffy removes her "costume", Willow looks like a sweet, shy schoolgirl she was back in S1. I think that her interrupted presentation on Narnia represents her trying to talk about things she likes and cares about (like her homosexuality and interests) but nobody listening to her.

Xander's dream is largely about being stuck, while everybody else moves on (in his dream, even Spike who becomes the Watcher under Giles's tutoring). He didn't go to college with the girls and had to work in part-time, lower-class jobs, while many people looked down on him as a loser. More importantly, there are remnents of childhood here and there - Buffy, Giles and Spike on the playground, the ice-cream truck being full of toys - and I think it simbolizes that Xander feels like he hasn't grown up yet. There is also a theme of military - both the Initiative and Apocalypse Now - and since joining a military base seemed like a viable option to Xander at some point, maybe he still considers it.

Giles's dream is about his responsiblities as a Watcher and what other Scoobies expct from him. It starts with him, Olivia and Buffy going on a fair in the middle of the cementary, but Olivia is driving a stroller and Buffy is a child - she wears children's clothes and acts like a child. This can mean both that Giles sees her as his daughter but also that she's sometimes irresponsible and treats her mission very lightly. Then we have Spike who chose a new path for himself and tells Giles to figure something out (there is also crying Olivia in the background who Giles dismisses because of his duties... twice). Finally in the Bronze he meets already attacked Willow and Xander, who expect him to figure out what's going on. They are also distracted by Anya doing a stand up comedy and when Giles is going to tell them where to look at, he's asked to sing, so he literally sings to them the solution. Everybody expects him to have answers and generally during his exposition everyone's eyes are on him. But there's more to him than that.

Finally Buffy's dream is partly about being alone, partly about things to come, and partly about the first Slayer. The most striking detail, in my opinion, is that scene where Riley is in the Initiative with unmodified Adam and tells Buffy that he just got promoted and they talked about world domination. Probably Buffy feels like he - as former Initiative's soldier - can still become a villain, since he was part of this government program for so long. But it can also mean that when she was in the Initiative she was patronized by those government people.

Sorry if it's so short. These are all the things that came to my mind.

[nex-kyit]

II2 EP 17 SPOILERS

A list to sort out my thoughts after episode 17. I did one for the finale of III so I want to do one for ep17, even though I'm desperately hoping that this isn't the finale.

What I liked:

The sheer emotional impact of the ending. The emptiness and defeat when everything was erased, Mephone4 just in the center of where the hotel used to be, alone. Cobs, there to take him home. And after years of running, Mephone goes back to his abuser, having lost everything else he loved. Chills, last time I felt like this was with HFJone's ending. I even had a moment when I looked at the time and was like "oh god the episodes almost over they are not going to get a happy ending"

Honestly I felt like this episode was a big step up from the last two. Maybe its just me, but the last two episodes just weren't that great. Ep15 just felt like a cheap way to solve some character conflicts (then again I really hate the whole "characters are forced to tell the truth" trope) and Ep 16 was more of a set up for Ep 17. Big step up from III ending's too

What I didn't like:

Okay so it's been a while since watching III, but one of the major themes of III was not hiding from your problems and healing, right? A lot of III was repairing past relationships and most notably, that Mephone can't hide from his problems forever. Infact, III seems to be really pushing Mephone to HEAL from his trauma. And II2 major theme was that the contestants should become their own people and how the competition controls the person you are. Alright the exact wording might be off bc. re. I haven't rewatched III or II2 in a while nor do I have the time to, but I hope I'm getting the idea across. Basically, both seasons are building up for an ending where Mephone finally breaks free from Cobs and that the contestants get to learn to be themselves. Instead, Mephone is back with his abuser and the contestants are ERASED from existance? Thematically, the ending just doesn't make sense. For hfjONE, I still don't agree with its ending but at least it makes sense for the story, because the situation was from the start hopeless (a reminder for myself to rewatch hfjONE and do a write up as well). Meanwhile, the entirety of II, up until this episode, seemed to be about healing and growing. This ending throws ALLLLL that growth away. Like damn I'm all for bittersweet endings but this is straight up tragedy.

I also hate how MePad and the contestants abandon Mephone. I get it, most of them are upset, but you're telling me not one of them has any sympathy or understanding for him? Not even a, "yeah what you did sucked but we should deal with that later and not now when you're our only possible hope are reviving the dead contestants." Like damn MePad you could've at least brought Mephone with you, you think Mephone will get better in Cobs care? Ughh I get that MePad probably didn't expect Cobs to get Mephone and he is just angry and Mephone, but it really feels as though we never get the end of MePads character arc, if this really is the ending. How does he react about the contestants being erased? About Mephone returning to Cobs? Much like we don't get any closure on the few contestants that were still alive and how they felt about being erased or the whole thing with Bow's tail, or even what the Shimmer's were thinking when they arrived. They seemed pretty eager to get the remaining egg, are we just going to forget that they returned to Earth or?

Re. the contestants abandon Mephone, for some contestants it honestly seems kinda unlike them to do so? Like Microphone was just talking about forgiveness and saying sorry with Taco, this wasn't the first time Cabby and Candle saw Mephone in a similar situation. Well at least Fan and Paintbrush didn't seem mad, but it sucks that MePhone wasn't there to see it.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really see how unplugging the wire=everyone dies! IIRC Cobs said by adding the wire to Mephone allowed him to hack into Melife and delete the contestants, but why does unplugging this completely seperate wire = everyone dies? Unplugging this wire shouldn't disconnect the contestants to Melife, otherwise Mephone should've always had a wire hanging out from him. Why are their bodies erased completely? In other words, the wire being there makes no sense, why tf is there a wire, it only seems there and works that way bc "I said so," and seems to contradict that Mephone is made out of the egg itself?

This one is very minor but there were no Floory crumbs :(. I had a little hope because Floory was a cohost and other III contestants made an appearance. Ahhh, there goes another character with missed potential.

Ok once again I think I focused a bit too much on the negatives. I think its an ending I can live with. The ending itself was pretty powerful, I just don't think it suits the story it was for.

[funshinebf]

9 people you'd like to know better

tagged by @pso2 !! ty for the tag ^_^

a) three ships:

1) rn def vashwood. theyve given me diseases and disorders aplenty. genuinely thinking about them 24/7. its becoming a problem.

2) komahina. when i first watched a sdr2 playthrough in middle school i was like "wow i like these guys. kinda gay!" and ever since then i get like yearly Waves of thinking about them for a few weeks straight. and then they go back into the depths of my brain for another few months and the cycle starts again. shits insane

3) spideypool. bites them bites them bites them. nobody gets them except for me and my friends and a select few artists/writers

a1: bonus ships:

serirei... save me serirei. its about the two men. running a business. its just business

millymeryl of course. i would kill for them. milly thompson character of all time and oghhh meryl stryfe my beloved

b) first ever ship:

um... okay so. first ship i called a ship and like looked up content for online? john/dave from homestuck. also there is a very clear path from me discovering the ship of them leading to me discovering my transgenderness. thank you johndave for transing my gender sort of 👍

c) last song:

Your Love Is It Real? by doubleVee. grouhghh

d) last movie:

trigun badlands rumble. ive watched it like three times and will probably do so again at some point. and thats even less times than ive rewatched the two trigun serieses

e) currently reading:

idk about books ill be honest i dont read enough books... im sorry everyone ive failed you. BUT ive been rereading the trigun fic "come and see" by avoidingavoidance on ao3. very good fic, long as fuck and STILL GOING. would die for this fic

f) currently watching:

trigun. its always gonna be trigun for the next like year at least. i just sit around rewatching the two trigun serieses all the time. its been like this for like over 6 months straight now. lol

g) currently consuming:

i dontt know 😭 like eating? im not eating anything rn.. i had a slice of pie at my grandma's house earlier though and that shit was good

h) currently craving:

sushi... save me sushi.... save me....

9 people to tag: oh fuck this is the hard part. mods help help hep help. uhhhh @herrscher-of-yuri @kazumahashimoto @sungsuho @transpool @co27 @fecto @gigantomachylesbian @orcelito and anyone else who would want to do this?? (also no one feel pressured 2 do this, hope it was okay i tagged u!! ^_^)

i made an easily copy/paste-able version of this too btw im putting that under a cut lol

9 people you'd like to know better

tagged by:

a) three ships:

a1: bonus ships:

b) first ever ship:

c) last song:

d) last movie:

e) currently reading:

f) currently watching:

g) currently consuming:

h) currently craving:

9 people to tag:

okie bye ily 🫶

[seeasweetsmile]

To my miraculous fans followers

I'm sorry but more the serie continues, more I’m turning myself into the dark side (aka the ml salt).

Maybe you saw that I didn’t reblog gifs from episodes since S4 (just a few) like I did for S1-S3 and to be honest, the wait between seasons/episodes and the way I’m slowly detached myself from the show to discover others cartoons or animes didn’t help either.

For S4 and mostly S5, the traitement of the characters, the Ladynoir/Adrinette chaotic relationship, the way Lukanette and Adrigami were killed at the first two episodes of S4, Marinette’s hypocrisy, Gabriel’s madness and his growth grudge towards Marinette, Chloé’s caricatural treatment, Lila being mastermind, no adult has a brain anymore, even if there’s globaly good ideas and so much potential, the fact they were awkwardly or badly executed were a pain to watch.

And you know what is the most painful? I loved that show.

Because is that : I loved that show.

It’s been 7 YEARS (almost 8 years in september if I remember correctly) since the serie debut, and like so many fans, I grew attached to the worldbuilding, the characters, the bond between all of them, the humor or the banters, the lore about the miraculous, the design of the superheros and the supervilains, their powers and how complex/funny/interesting they were... and if you have the inevitable urge to read/write fanfics, look/create the fanarts, or even read analysis/meta post about the episodes, you grow even more attached to the characters and the show!

But when you watch from a objective point of view, you realize there’s so much problems consistency issues (I don’t list them, others fans on tumblr and salty hashtags do it better).

Like I said in a previous reblog, if the writers didn’t want to make episodes just for shocked the viewers (remember when they said each episodes of S4 were equivalent of Chat Blanc??) because all the excessive drama around ladynoir or adrinette, if they didn’t push these things to the extra way, if they didn’t get anyone involved (Alya, classmates, adults) to tell Adrien and Marinette what to think or what to do, it could have been so much better. I firmly believe that friendship is a fondamental piliar to any relation. Adrinette started with a good way (cf origines), but they shaped Marinette into another girl who idolazed Adrien without sincerly knowing him (and when they start to give Marinette some retrospective of her behaviour, what we got? we got Alya to tell her she kNoW AdRiEn instead of listening genuinely her best friend and step back), and Adrien, even though he sincerely liked Marinette and held her in high esteem, he ends up becoming the perfect boy madly in love with her who forgets everything as soon as she is in his field of vision or as soon she breathes. If the others characters had LISTENED to Marinette when she questioned herself and preferred to remain friends with Adrien because she realized she didn’t fully know him, and if the others characters had LISTENED to Adrien when he told them he wasn’t agree with their crazy plans (they didn’t listen and the MCs sighed, abandonned their spine column when the classmates insisted a little bit too much), I repeat myself ; it. could. have. been. so. much. better.

To leave Marinette and Adrien figuring out how to do the things at their own rythm. Instead of a healthy, good and solid friendship that transform into romance, we get a forced ship. Because “ThEy MaDe FoR eAcH oThEr” like everyone said in millions times (I was temped to rewatch since the beggining to counts exactly how much the characters say this stupid sentence but I’m not strong enough). And they say this as if we were dumb and we didn’t know Adrinette was the endgame since day one.

Also, another thing that bug me : since S4 to S5 –and I don’t know if anyone felt that– but I have this distrubing impression that Marinette and Adrien mostly  were just puppets in the theater/playhouse and they didn’t have a soul. Sometimes it push me out of the show when I watch the episodes.

Anyways, if you made it until here, thank you for reading my rant post. Two more episodes to left for S5 that will air early july (I read the script of the finale and boy...) and I still don’t know if I will watch the S6. With Gabe and Chloe out of the picture, Lila stepping as main vilain (still wait for her background) and Emilie being here, maybe they’ll do something correct ? But as I said in a previous post, if I watch the first few episodes and if it irrated me, I’ll stop.

I’m tired to hurting myself.

[kitkatt0430]

Hi there! I hope you're having a decent week! So, I have some questions idk if you'd thought of this topic before.

So, I've been rewatching The Flash s3 + s4 (even tho, I have mixed feelings [sorta negative] for those seasons), and it's very apparent. . . Wally's speed and Cisco's powers make Barry. . . obsolete, lol. And in the s4e2, they knocked Wally out during the meta confrontation. It seems clear it was like that bc having two speedsters awake would solve the sitch too easy, haha.

But yeah. . . what ways you'd make Barry still 'relevent' even tho, there are members in Team Flash with powers that outmatch his?

Sorry if this is a lot, I'm just curious. Especially since the show has nerfed Wally and Cisco's powers often as if to ensure Barry wouldn't be useless. 😂🤔

My week's been fairly good. Admittedly, my insomnia has come back, but... the wasp invasion my home has been suffering has shown signs that the wave of wasps coming down from the attic is coming to an end earlier than expected. So, comparatively, I'm doing pretty good this week. Thanks. ^_^

Oh, yeah, having two speedsters around was very much not well handled by the show runners. Especially having two speedsters + Vibe. Knocking Wally out in s04e02 was definitely a way avoid having to figure out what to do with that. And then Wally got sent over to the Legends in the ultimate avoidance move. Though I'm not clear on the sequence of events that lead to Keiynan deciding to leave the franchise, I know that the decisions made about Wally going into S4 played into that choice.

So S4 should have shown more of Wally as the lead speedster of the team. Either it should have taken longer to get Barry out of the speed force, spent longer on the idea that Barry was unwell and unable to be the Flash, or both. That first half of the season entirely should have been Wally as the Flash because S3 should have ended with Barry passing the torch, telling Wally 'you're the Flash now' before heading into the speed force prison. And Wally should have been struggling with his confidence, feeling like he's in Barry's shadow and worried he's letting everyone - especially Barry - down.

It would have been a great chance for Iris and Wally to really center and cement their sibling relationship. As well as having Wally officially graduate from Kid Flash the sidekick to Flash the hero. And I think it should have been Cisco more obviously as the team lead with Iris taking more time at the comms because Cisco has also started hero-ing more often, even though he too worries he's not a good fit.

When Barry does get back, there's no sudden snapping back and he's 100% okay again either. He's faster than Wally after marinating in the Speed Force, but he's mentally unwell and needs time to heal from that and regain his confidence in his ability to do his jobs - CSI and Flash - as he does. Honestly, the season's theme would have been about struggling to find one's place and sense of confidence amongst all these big upheavals. Which Ralph's arc would have fit into pretty well too, given that he struggles to find himself as a hero and become a better person than the detective he used to be when Barry and Joe knew him last.

I'd move the DeVoes to Keystone. So as the season progresses, Wally is spending more and more time there. Even transferring his college courses over there to give him an excuse to be at the campus where they work. The investigation into the Devoe family then becomes a shared venture between Iris and Wally, but also offers a look into the true scale of the accelerator's fallout from the start of S1 - Keystone's metas may have taken a bit longer to start showing powers, but there's a growing meta threat across the river from Central City that can be laid at Eobard's feet. And because of this there's a slowly growing problem of Team Flash being pulled in two directions - a threat showing up in Central at the same time there's a problem that needs the Flash in Keystone too. And that way Barry still gets to be the big damn hero when he's finally ready to assume the mantle of the Flash again, but it doesn't take away from Wally being able to stand on his own and continue to be the Flash in his own right too.

I'd say Barry's still never 100% recover from what happened to him, but with the show's track record with disability... having a disabled hero instead of yet another disabled villain would have gone a long way towards making up for that casual ableism that permeated the early seasons and never truly went away. So Barry has good days and bad days and part of his arc once he does retake his place as the Flash is learning how to recognize, and accept, his limits. When he needs someone else to take the lead and it's hard for him to do because accepting how disability has changed him is a process. Yes, he can still be the Flash, but no it isn't going to be the same as it used to be because he isn't the same.

The final result of this version of S4 would be that Wally becomes the Flash of Keystone. He likes it there and it's as the Flash of Keystone that he's truly come out of Barry's shadow as a speedster and hero. This would allow for an S5 that has both speedsters, sometimes working together and sometimes with one of them in the background doing their own thing while the main thrust of the episode focuses on the other. It'd allow for telling bigger stories too for the overarching plot - maybe having seeded the idea in S4 that there are suddenly more speedsters in the background thanks to the speed force storm at the end of S3, and that makes identifying and training the speedsters a focus in S5. S5 being another non-speedster villain season but seeding in the background that August Hart feels resentful of being a slower, less powerful speedster and his origins in becoming Godspeed in S6. It would have also been a great time to explore other speedster characters - like Meena Dhawan, without turning her into Eobard's love interest in the process - and show how much Barry really loves teaching his fellow speedsters, maybe even more than he likes being a hero himself.

Putting Barry in charge of teaching a new batch of speedsters in S5 also would have given Cisco a good chance to step up and shine as the lead hero more - bailing the baby speedsters out of trouble with Cicada and handling threats entirely on his own, no longer having the distraction of his off-world relationship with Cynthia that kept him out of the way sometimes in S4. It would have also given Barry a chance to really bond with Harry more, as Harry struggles to accept his new limitations from the loss of his genius and his worry over having a place on the team... things Barry understands well having gone through something pretty similar in S4. He got through in part because he had Harry's support and he wants to return that support in kind. If Harry will let him.

My fic Untethered is actually intended to be the start of a series exploring this sort of AU, actually - not this exact series of events because I also wanted Eddie alive in there - but a version of S4 where Barry comes back and isn't magically better. Where Wally has to continue being the Flash, even once Barry is well enough to start being the Flash again down the line.

[oxalisvulcanicola]

I think the conspiracy has officially died down by now, but I see how the fandom in many ways deflated from confusion and shame because of it after season 4 ended. I feel sorry for what the showrunners went through as well. I think it would be great with a clean start, because as of now the tendency is for people to retroactively rip on the show for being bad while they give very poor arguments as for why it is so.

Coming in as a new fan as of last year, what strikes me is how the show was analyzed. Moffat and Gatiss were clear with how they worked. It's a playful interpretation of the mostly forgotten or unknown details of the source material with a lot of noir and spy fiction influences. I see two writers having fun and really indulging themselves. They definitely had not anticipated it would become this popular because such narrow projects rarely hit home with a large audience. The audience showed up, but large numbers of them kinda didn't see what they had done, even when they told them about it. I can see how this probably made them feel quite uneasy even before the threats started coming.

I see two main problems with the readings:

Firstly, the show was interpreted as a closed universe. Links to other media were generally not explored, not even the canon a lot of the time. I have seen meta interpretations of material that was actually just taken directly out of ACD unaltered.

Think about this quote for example. “Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.”

There is no need to look for hidden meanings here since it is just a quote from the source material written by Doyle, and he in turn is pretty obviously referencing the Bible (you didn't need to point this out back then because everyone would have known).

"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own" (Corinthians 6:19)

I appreciate how it's been subverted from being a warning with religious connotations to a warning not to hurt your loved ones in BBC Sherlock. It fits modern times and sensibilities without altering the actual wording.

Secondly, there were very unrealistic expectations on the writing. Moffat and Gatiss are humans and the time they had to work on the writing was limited. There was just no way they could have left all those cryptic hints for the audience to read into by painstakingly watching and rewatching every episode.

‘Sherlock’ Out Of Fandom. Essay №1

For several years I’ve been writing about ‘Sherlock’ and its actors, Sherlock Holmes and his various adaptations, and a couple of weeks ago I’ve decided: why not to write about it in English on Tumblr? As some of you pointed out, it is not that easy to find any analysis of this show, which is not johnlock-related (at least on the English-speaking websites). So I’ve decided to express my thinking in writing, hoping that it could be useful not just for me, but for somebody else. I have no idea how many essays I’m going to write, but I want to unite them under the title “‘Sherlock’ Out Of Fandom”. And by that I mean that I’m not going to give any attention to the theories and speculations which were based on the incorrect interpretation of the original source (which in this case is the ‘Sherlock’ TV-series itself). So I’m not going to talk about the so called “Johnlock Conspiracy”, or about “season 4 is not real” theories, or about any other fantasies this fandom is so full of. Furthermore – I’m not going to be involved in the discussions which are concerning such theories, so I warn you in advance: if you want to talk about ‘Sherlock’, please be kind enough to talk about the actual show. The show that was actually released on television and not on AO3 in some fics you like so much. That would be a different topic and I’m not interested in discussing it.

Since we established this simple but important rule, I think we can move to the first essay in this series, which is titled

Three things that make ‘Sherlock’ special

The viewers may like ‘Sherlock’ or hate it, but whatever their personal opinions on this show are, they can’t deny that it is indeed very special. And not just because of the unique place it occupies in the ‘multiverse’ of interpretations of the original stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And even not because it helped to speed up the revolution that changed the whole TV industry and our perception of it. What makes ‘Sherlock’ really special is its authors’ innovative attitude towards the old narrative. It was a radical break from traditions, which, surprisingly, is still unnoticed – maybe because other subjects interest people more, but maybe because, however radical this break was, it looked so natural that people simply didn’t realize its significance.

This innovation is visible through the entire series, but there are three milestones, which are the fundament for the whole narrative and story-telling of ‘Sherlock’, so let’s have a look at each of them.

The analytical approach to the original material

The fans of Conan Doyle’s stories know that there are basically two ways of bringing them to the screen. The first one is the good old ‘filmization’ – or, to put it simpler, the film adaptation, when the creators take the original story and adapt it to the screen. That was the path taken by the famous ‘Granada’ TV-series, the Wilmer-Cushing series from the 1960s and the Soviet version from the 1980s. The second way is the good old ‘based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’, when the creators write a new story and add here and there some ‘easter-eggs’ and references to the original source. The best examples here are Rathbone-Bruce movies from the 1940s, the Guy Ritchie’s movies, and all these young sherlock holmeses, extremely old sherlock holmeses, enola holmeses etc. Which way have Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat chosen? Some may say – both, but the more correct answer would be – none. What they did is what every true scientist is doing when he or she needs to analyze their sources: they’ve read them all, they’ve singled out the essentials and they’ve drawn the balance – which at the end became the carcass of their story. So therefore each episode of their show is not just an adaptation of the original story, and not something new that they invented – it is a profound analysis of the Conan Doyle’s stories which is put under the lens of their own perception. And that makes ‘Sherlock’ not just an adaptation, but a philosophical research both of Sherlock Holmes as a cultural phenomenon and of the world Gatiss and Moffat – and their audience – are living in.

Which brings us to the second point.

2. ‘Sherlock’ tells the story of its own time

Again, the fans of Conan Doyle’s Holmes certainly read many books and articles about the famous writer and his attitude towards his creation, about the origins of his ideas, and about many other things, but what sometimes is overlooked is the fact that all the stories about Holmes written by Conan Doyle are a huge source of historical material. His stories present a chronic of his own time – yes, it has its flaws and it is far from complete, but nonetheless, if the reader wants to know something about the late Victorian and Edwardian era, Conan Doyle’s books are a rich source of knowledge on the subject. And ‘Sherlock’ is the first interpretation of it which is also a chronic of its time. Yes, there were other movies before that which were set in the contemporary era, but how much can a viewer find out about the 1940s from the Rathbone-Bruce movies? Yes, there was a war, and people wore certain clothes and travelled by trains, but who were these people? What a world they were living in? The information on this subject is scarce and hides behind the human drama and detective plots. ‘Sherlock’, on the other hand, is rooted in the time it speaks about – just like the original material it is based on. That’s why Conan Doyle’s stories were so popular, and that’s why ‘Sherlock’ is so popular too. People see in it the world that surrounds them, they know it and understand it, and understanding brings interest and a sense of belonging – the key to any TV-show’s success.

3. As its title says, ‘Sherlock’ has only one main character

The third milestone of ‘Sherlock’ narrative seems at first sight to be more concrete, but it is closely tied to the other two. A long history of bringing to the screen the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle accustomed the viewer to a certain paradigm. Sherlock Holmes is always accompanied by Dr. Watson, and sometimes (though in fact very rarely) they are joined by other characters, such as DI Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson (more often) and Mary Morsten or Mycroft Holmes (more rare). And here ‘Sherlock’ broke the tradition again: not only did Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat give the supporting characters important roles, but at the same time they also made Sherlock Holmes a little bit lonelier than he already was by putting his personality at the center of their attention. In the end, it’s all about Sherlock and the circumstances which made him a man he is. Yes, his interactions with other characters are part and parcel of the story, but the fact that Dr. Watson doesn’t have the “exclusive access” to him anymore enriches the narrative and enables the writers to show all sorts of Sherlock’s personality. Suddenly he takes a whole number of roles nobody before thought him capable of taken: he is a son, he is a Godfather, he is the best man at the wedding, he is a close friend of Mary Morsten, a defender of Mrs. Hudson, a sarcastic, but caring younger brother and a tender forgiving older brother. And the main subject of the show is the moral and internal evolution of this extraordinary man. Sherlock Holmes written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat and played by Benedict Cumberbatch is not a legend and not a monument: he is a man of flesh and blood, and it is his extraordinary inner world and not his deduction skills that makes him so unique – and special.  

These are the three major things that in my opinion make ‘Sherlock’ a special adaptation of the original Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. It presents an analytical take of the original source, it perfectly depicts its own time (and its main problems), and it brings Sherlock Holmes at the center of the narrative, making him not just a hero of his time, but a man who has a story all of us can understand, and some – even relate to. In the end, ‘Sherlock’ is not just another adaptation – ‘Sherlock’ is an original story everyone can take to heart without even knowing about its source.

@rey-jake-therapist - tagging you in case you find it interesting

[sunkcost]

yeah kind of obsessed with the irony of chuck telling jimmy there are no shortcuts in the same scene that he has this line about false principles. i guess it would make sense that he can’t believe jimmy takes being a lawyer seriously or that he’s willing work hard if he’s coming from the assumption that there’s a level playing field where hard work yields equal levels of success, that your success is always indicative of the work you put in. it’s made clear pretty early on that jimmy does, in fact, work very hard at his job and does take it very seriously, even while barely getting paid, but that doesn’t erase the fact that he’s broke and going into debt. it’s easy for chuck to say money’s beside the point when he’s not the one facing that reality (he doesn’t have to because jimmy is willing to try to resolve it for him, for better or worse). jimmy’s “shortcut” with the kettlemens came as a result of his desperation in response to this situation, not from his not being unwilling to work hard. 

it’s just so perfect to have them show jimmy trying to resolve both of their financial situations while chuck insists that the money isn’t an important factor in his cashing out of hhm, and then telling jimmy there are no shortcuts and money is beside the point in regards to him establishing his own law practice, and therefore tying up both situations in this idea of false principles. so many of chuck’s shortcomings are based in his inflexible adherence to his principles and his failure to recognize that some of those principles are more ideals than realities. sure, in a perfect world jimmy could just keep his nose to the grindstone until he gets clients, but there are actualities to contend with in the meantime. it’s just more complicated than chuck’s principles give room for, and so his criticisms of jimmy are never really on the mark. they’re always oversimplifications because his worldview won’t leave room for nuance. “your argument is built on quicksand, therefore it collapses.” and as long as we’re talking about fallacies, i think that the false equivocation of shortcuts and laziness kind of factors in here too. whatever you want to say about jimmy’s schemes, they clearly take an absurd amount of time, effort, and planning. they never come from him being too lazy to do things the ‘right’ way, but rather his frustration over the dead ends that come from doing things the ‘right’ way on a fundamentally uneven playing field, where hard work often doesn’t yield equal results. there's also kind of an incredible double irony in the fact that chuck quotes that as a reflection of his principles and the value he places in the purity of the law, when the rigidity of those same principles have created his blind spot, a fallacy in his own argument. it’s such a succinct display of his unwitting hypocrisy.   

[jujumin-translates]

Event | Literary Impasse | Chapter 9

*Contains spoilers for Act 12 - eternal moment*

Chikage: …So, this work is based on your experience of falling into a slump, huh?

Tsuzuru: Something like that.

Citron: How do you read this?

Sakuya: Literary Impas-say? (1)

Tsuzuru: “Im-pass”. Y’know, like a narrow path or a difficult problem.

Tsuzuru: I made a lot of changes to the script this time, but I decided I wanted to perform it as a story so I won’t forget what I actually felt as a writer now.

Tsuzuru: I know this is something really self indulgent… Especially when I’m the lead of this, so I’m sorry.

Tsuzuru: And for “Clockwork” and “RATF” and…

Itaru: And as I’ve said before, I think it’s an extra OP stat for a writer to be able to take what happens in their life and turn it into some kind of creative work.

Sakuya: Yeah, I love “RATF”!

Itaru: Yeah, I getcha. I really like the relationship between Kubota and Miyagi. (2)

Citron: And I love “The Luminous Circus”!

Itaru: I love “IMMORTAL CROW” too. Def got a fave from that one.

Chikage: “The Clockwork Heartbeat” is mine. It was the first Spring Troupe play I saw.

Chikage: Regardless of its orgin, it left a genuine impression on me. I’ve rewatched it on DVD since then.

Sakuya: What about you, Masumi-kun?

Masumi: None in particular.

Masumi: …But if I had to pick then, “Sympathy for the Angel”, I guess. No reason why.

Itaru: Huh, that’s surprising.

Citron: I know why! It must be because it’s a love story.

Chikage: That’s a good thought. I do like how Winter Troupe is a little sad overall.

Sakuya: I always cry at that one. And I really sobbed over “Yin Yang Midnight”!

Director: Yeah, yeah, I get that!

Citron: And “+3Ghosts!” was really touching!

Tsuzuru: …You guys, that’s too much.

Itaru: Obviously. We’re all huge Mr. Tsuzuru Minagi geeks.

Tsuzuru: You’re embarrassing me, but thank you.

Chikage: That reminds me, your complexion isn’t deathly pale this time. You usually look like a zombie after you finish a script.

Tsuzuru: Actually, it’s an extension of writing the script for Otomiya-san. Masumi’s been the designated time keeper for the all-nighter ban…

Masumi: The Director told me to watch your health so you wouldn’t get sick.

Director: Sorry. It’s just, ever since RomiJuli started on a time crunch, it’s become your style to push yourself too hard, Tsuzuru-kun…

Tsuzuru: Well, I used to find it too hard to concentrate unless I was completely cornered with a fire under my ass.

Tsuzuru: But Otomiya-san told me that if I want to be a professional for a long time, I’d need to make some changes to that.

Tsuzuru: I’ll be getting older in the future too, after all!

Itaru: Tsuzuru’s becoming an adult…

Chikage: That’s the most growth I’ve seen from him in a while…

Citron: Growing up in the name of old age…

Tsuzuru: Don’t put it like that!

Tsuzuru: Anyway, I’m also being more conscious of my health in the future so I don’t have to worry everyone else about it.

Director: It sounds like you’re already ready to live as a professional writer.

Tsuzuru: Yeah.

Director: Well, alright then, since Tsuzuru-kun’s script is ready to go, we’ll start practicing hard tomorrow until the show!

Sakuya: Yeah!

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Tsuzuru: Phew…

Tsuzuru: (I’m glad that the script finished smoothly and that everyone from Spring Troupe loved it.)

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Itaru: “And as I’ve said before, I think it’s an extra OP stat for a writer to be able to take what happens in their life and turn it into some kind of creative work.”

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Tsuzuru: (I should probably tell Tooru something like that too.)

Tsuzuru: …

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Luke: “Thank you for writing that ending for both you, and me back then.”

Luke: “Because you’re such a kind person, I’m sure that the stories you write will be just as kind as you.”

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Tsuzuru: (…Yeah. I’m sure they will be, Luke. I want to write kind stories for someone else’s sake.)

Tsuzuru: …

Tsuzuru: (I’m sure that kind of daydreaming ability is necessary for me to become a writer.)

Tsuzuru: …Zzz, zzz.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Itaru: Japanese clothes certainly take some getting used to.

Tsuzuru: At first it felt like it was overkill… But once Azami did such a good job with the hair and makeup, it seems much better.

Citron: At first it felt like 864! (3)

Masumi: 753.

Chikage: The numbers are off by one.

Sakuya: I really like the glasses Yuki-kun and Azami-kun decided on.

Chikage: The overall atmosphere is much different this time around.

Sakuya: Everyone looks super cool!

Tsuzuru: …Hey, Sakuya.

Sakuya: What’s up?

Tsuzuru: During rehearsal this time, and even before then… From the very beginning actually now that I think about it, thank you for always being the first to praise my scripts.

Sakuya: You don’t have to thank me! I just really love your stories, so I’m always impressed with your scripts…!

Tsuzuru: Still, writers are always anxious. I feel so relieved when I hear honest affirmations about my work coming from someone like you, Sakuya.

Tsuzuru: Besides, you’ve always been giving me hints since RomiJuli. Same goes for CROW, and this time with Tooru.

Tsuzuru: And above all that, it’s just plain fun to write with you in mind. This time, Tomohisa was just as fun to write for because his lines came out so naturally.

Tsuzuru: It’s a role that’s unlike anything you’ve had before, but that’s why I think you’ll rise to the challenge and give it your all.

Sakuya: Yeah. I really felt your trust in me and I’m really happy as an actor that you wrote Tomohisa as my role.

Tsuzuru: Of course I trust you. I want you to support me as co-lead. As long as you’re with me, I’ll probably be fine.

Sakuya: …Yeah!

Masumi: It’s almost showtime.

Citron: Even now Masumi is being a gatekeeper!

Tsuzuru: I’m glad. But it’s “timekeeper.”

Itaru: How about a few words from our lead.

Tsuzuru: Umm, I almost ruined myself as a writer during the slump that led me to this play, but…

Tsuzuru: The other day, when everyone was complimenting me on all my works--.

Tsuzuru: I was once again proud of the works I’ve written and the characters I’ve created, and I don’t want to ever forget that.

Tsuzuru: I know this might sound like self-flattery, or like I’m a doting parent, but I really love each and every one of the characters and stories I’ve created.

Tsuzuru: It’s not just because I wrote them, but also because everyone played their roles and breathed life into them.

Tsuzuru: I really like each of the characters in this show this time.

Tsuzuru: I think everyone standing right here in front of me in their costumes is so amazing…

Tsuzuru: I’m so happy to have all the actors I admire playing these roles. Once again, thank you, guys.

Tsuzuru: Let’s make this show another successful one and make it one of the stories we all remember and cherish.

Sakuya: Yeah!

Citron: Of course!

[ ⇠ Previous Part ] • [ Next Part ⇢ ]

• • •

T/N:

(1) Sakuya misread “隘路” (pronounced “airo”) as “meiro”. He’s not flubbing the word in the same way Citron would, so I changed “impasse” to be spelt out as “impas-say” to show phonetically like he’s mispronouncing the word by putting too much emphasis on the “e”. Tsuzuru then corrects him with “im-pass” spelt out phonetically.

(2) Tsuzuru and Tasuku’s characters from “Run around the field.”

(3) Had no clue how to put this into English smoothly, but 753 (Shichi-go-san) is a Japanese festival that celebrates the growth of kids ages 7, 5, and 3. Typically the children are dressed up in kimonos, dresses, or suits, hence why Citron tried to say it.

[ardentpoop]

truly no worries abt the long post it is what I do here every day :) I also very much understand your need to elaborate as I can see sam is just as important a character to you as he is to me <3

you have lots of valid points esp what you mentioned in your tags about getting fed up with the dean favoritism across both the writer’s room and the audience - bc these respective biases kept feeding on each other as the show went on and we have that to thank for sam becoming so heartbreakingly small by the end of the show. which on the one hand, makes for an excellent abuse narrative. on the other hand I do very much completely understand how difficult it becomes for sam stans to sit through; there are many stretches of the show that feel physically agonizing to watch in chronological order and that I can only enjoy in retrospect or when I’m skipping around in subsequent rewatches without the full weight of the narrative (or its garish time-wasting tangents) pressing down on me. like tbh I was only able to mostly let go of my years-old dean haterism after I’d gotten out of the s4-s10 stretch of my rewatch because Jesus Christ. it’s harrowing.

also very sorry that I constantly have comebacks (💀💀💀) BUT I do want to challenge your perspective on dean a little based on the examples you raised, as someone who has always been passionate abt the brothers’ relationship and feels that only a very small percentage of the audience truly grasps how it works. like I genuinely do think dean is very compelling and effective as an abusive character - possibly the worst (complimentary) I’ve ever encountered given the shockingly biased narrative and the audience around it enabling all of his worst behavior in a way that I truly don’t think could ever happen quite like this again.

with that said:

most viewers who have issues with dean start to notice red flags somewhere btwn s4-s6, however I like to point out to people that dean very much did take on john’s role immediately after he died at the start of s2. tbh you can see the bones of who he will become as early on as s1 even, but the dean who ends conversations by hitting sam; who storms out and leaves sam to deal with his own grief alone because dean’s is the all-consuming priority; whose over-reliance on “violence and alcoholism” scares sam; who decides whether sam lives or sam dies because that is part of his job? that guy very much starts to emerge in s2. and I think it is fascinating to observe him transform into the man he is by the end of s4.

speaking of s4: this is one of those points in the series that the vast majority does not recognize for the absolute bloodbath that it is, because of the narrative framing. sure heaven is telling dean he’s supposed to stop sam, but dean doesn’t trust heaven. sure john told dean he might have to kill sam if he can’t “save” him, but dean was openly resisting that idea in s2, and furthermore john is dead and can no longer dictate dean’s actions. dean demonstrates by the end of the season (and later in s5) that his problem with s4 sam was never even the demon blood really; it was that sam was doing things on “his own terms” with ruby, without dean’s say-so. it was, like it always is, about control. dean outright stated in “when the levee breaks” that he would rather let sam die in the panic room than risk a permanent loss of control over him. “[if he dies,] then at least he dies human!” I recommend that everyone who doesn’t remember s4 being that bad rewatches it while paying close attention to the developments in samndean’s relationship and how they’re framed, because s4-s5 is by far one of the most appalling periods of the show in terms of the abuse that sam suffers that goes completely unrecognized (instead it is justified and made out to be what was Right for him!) by everyone around him. and of course it is all made worse by the audience swallowing the romanticized narrative framing uncritically.

re: jack - of course dean replicated his treatment of s4 sam with jack, and of course sam let him do it. dean doesn’t think he did anything wrong in s4! for the reasons you outlined above including others, he believes he was doing what was best to keep sam “safe,” and sam himself rewrites what dean/bobby/cas did to him in s4-s5 to be able to deal with the psychological strain, especially post-cage. In 13.03 “patience” sam implores dean “you saved me! so help me save [jack].” dean’s response? “you deserved to be saved; he doesn’t!” early s13 is a frankly stunning period of the show and I mean that in a good way! regardless of how intentional it is, it truly shines a harsh light on the cracks that the events of the previous seasons have left in each of the brothers’ psyches, and on the stunted mindsets that were always going to result from their dynamic only “working” at sam’s expense and with dean as the all-powerful infallible patriarch. It’s absolutely incredible to me and a uniquely awful (again, complimentary) portrait of the cycle of domestic violence.

I’ll stop here because I could go on about samndean forever which is why I’m stuck here again 10 years later lol BUT all this is simply to say that we wouldn’t have gotten an abuse victim as densely layered as sam if Not for the narrative’s and the audience’s myriad problems and for that I am thankful. It’s horrible. I could write twenty more essays about it.

@lawgirljess sorry for the dean bias accusation abwhsbbsbdbdbd the phrasing of that made me laugh

I tend to assume even sam enjoyers (as opposed to self-declared dean stans who also do this) who express a preference for early-seasons sam can’t connect with mid-to-late seasons sam because of the issues with the narrative… also makes me sad when people don’t tough it out for late-seasons sam because there is so much to uncover about him as a character if you hold on tight </3

ALSO while I’m talking about this it bugs me when people draw a line between early-seasons dean and late-seasons dean as if they are two totally different guys; the former likable and the latter not; as if the roots of dean’s behavior in the later seasons weren’t laid out in the early seasons if you know what to look for. there is a lot more nuance to dean than this fandom gives him credit for on any side - ironically enough given he (more accurately, the fandom’s patchwork version of him) is supposedly the favorite.

sorry I had some pent-up energy from looking at unrelated posts a little bit ago 💀

[sturchling]

First off I love your Miraculous Ladybug fics. Also I don't know if you are a Black Butler fan or not. But if you are could you please do a fic where Lila causes a that destroys Marinette's home/bakery, which kills Marinette's parents and severely injures Marinette. While in the hospital recovering Roland finds out what Lila did and talks with Gina, both recently have been diagnosed with cancer and want to make sure Marinette is taken care of when they die. Gina or Roland remember a story told to them by a descendant of the Phantomhive servants (In this fic it follows season 2 with Sebastian being able to get Ciel's memories back before Claude tried to brainwash him and was able to eat Ciel's soul) (either from when Gina was in traveling in England or someone who Roland's father knew during WWII) about a demon who acted like a caretaker for a child in the late 1800's. They both decide to sacrifice themselves so Marinette can be cared for. One summons Sebastian the other summons Claude. The terms of the contract are simple, in exchange for eating the soul of the person who summoned their specific demon the summoned demon would care for Marinette, act as her guardian, help her achieve her dreams, and care for her, her husband and their children until Marinette passes away from old age. The contract is accepted with both demons. While caring for Marinette it becomes sort of a contest between the two demons of them trying to out do each other in different ways (if Claude gets her multiple roles of different color spider silk fabric, Sebastian "accidentally" gets Marinette introduced to several high ranking nobles ["Hello, my ancestor worked for your ancestor's peer. What a small world. Might I introduce you to my ward?"] that become her clients. Due to the two demons' shenanigans Lila gets exposed, the Butterfly and Peacock are recovered, Adrien's mother is awakened, Marinette gets some real friends (Will, Ronald, Grell, and the Undertaker got reincarnated and regain their memories after a while) and falls in love with her future husband (either Will, Ronald, or the Undertaker. The only reason I don't do this fic myself is I can't write Black Butler characters even though it's one of my favorite animes.

Sorry this took so long, I wanted to try my best to make the characters accurate, so I had to rewatch some of the show. I hope I did good, but I am pretty rusty, writing these characters. But I tried my best! Hope you like it!

Lila was getting more and more dangerous. She didn't just want to ruin Marinette's social life anymore. Now she wanted to ruin her entire life, or even end it. One night, when everyone was asleep, Lila broke into the bakery and started a fire. She made sure that it would spread to the upper floors and then she raced from the building before she was spotted.

The fire spread quickly and soon the entire building, bakery and the apartment were completely engulfed. Marinette woke up to the smell of smoke and Tikki yelling in her ear. Despite the kwami screaming at her to leave the apartment, Marinette raced down to her parents room, to see if they had gotten out, but the door was blocked by debris falling from the ceiling. The thick black smoke was choking Marinette as she tried in vain to get to her parents. By the time Tikki managed to convince Marinette that they had to leave, Marinette was severely burned on her arms, legs, and back. As she blindly felt her way to the exit, a now exposed wooden beam in the ceiling, came crashing down, landing on Marinette's legs. With her legs pinned and unable to move, Marinette passed out. Thankfully firefighters had already been called and pulled Marinette from the flames before it was too late. On lookers from the neighborhood watched in horror as the bakery went up in flames. Once the fire was put out and Marinette was sent to the closest hospital, the firefighters went into the apartment and found Tom and Sabine. They had died in their room, unable to get out because of the debris blocking their door.

The next morning, the whole city seemed to be grieving. Tom and Sabine were well loved people in the city and everyone was distraught over the loss. But no one was more distraught than Marinette and her grandparents. Roland and Gina heard about the fire early that morning and were horrified to learn that Tom and Sabine were gone. But their one piece of solace was that Marinette had survived. They both raced to the hospital and comforted their granddaughter. But they had a bigger problem. Both Gina and Roland were getting older, now both in their late 80's. Both of them also had several severe health conditions and likely wouldn't be around for much longer as it is. And then who would take care of Marinette? That is when Gina remembered a story she had heard when she was in England. A story of two boys in the Victorian era who had made deals with demons, and those demons took care of the boys. Soon after, both boys' souls were eaten by their respective demons. As much as Gina and Roland didn't want to leave Marinette, they thought that this was the best thing for her. The only way to know that she would truly be cared for.

That night, after they left the hospital, they summoned the demons the same way as in the story Gina heard. The room became dark with shadow and two voices spoke from the darkness, asking the two elderly people why they had been summoned. "We summoned you to make a deal. Our granddaughter has recently lost her parents and we likely will not be around much longer as it is. We heard stories about how you two cared for two boys in the Victorian era in exchange for their respective souls. In exchange for our souls, we want you to take care of our Marinette. To help her achieve her goals, protect her, and care for her until she dies. Both demons agreed to the deal. After all, they had already cared for children before, so they had the skills to do it, and the souls of these two people who would willingly do this for their granddaughter would be nice to have. With the contract sealed, Gina and Roland wrote in their wills that Marinette was to be cared for by Sebastian and Claude, claiming they were old family friends. They also took the two demons to meet Marinette, so that Marinette would at least meet the two before they began caring for her. Once the legalities were taken care of and Marinette had met the two, Sebastian and Claude took their payment and Gina and Roland died.

Marinette was overcome with the grief of not just losing her parents, but now her grandparents as well. Sebastian and Claude, who her grandparents had recently introduced her to, were declared her guardians and began watching over her. Roland had left Marinette his house, so she had somewhere to live. While Marinette began to settle into the new normal of her life, Sebastian and Claude got to work on the first order of business. They were going to get justice for Marinette's parents. They knew that the fire was not an accident and that someone had set it on purpose. The evidence was obvious, but the police were stuck. They didn't know who did it. But Sebastian and Claude quickly learned that it was a girl named Lila who had been tormenting their charge for years now. All they had to do was phone in an anonymous tip to the police about the girl, and the police searched Lila's apartment. Mrs. Rossi kept sayin this was a mistake and her daughter couldn't have done this, but the police soon found evidence of her involvement, including the accelerant used at the bakery. Lila was confused, sure that she had gotten rid of it all. But Lila was arrested quickly, as a crowd had now grown outside of her apartment building. Several members of Mrs. Bustier's class were there and saw Lila being dragged out in cuffs. As Paris looked on in horror at the arsonist that had killed the Dupain-Chengs, no one noticed the shadow like figures standing to the side, smiling coldly at the scene.

They also quickly figured out that Marinette was Ladybug and even figured out that Adrien was Chat Noir when he came over to check on Marinette. They learned this by sensing the souls of the kwami. Since the kwami's souls are obviously not human, and Marinette kept disappearing during the akuma attacks, it didn't take long for the demons to be sure of their suspicion that Marinette was Ladybug. After confirming this, they felt that defeating Hawkmoth fell under their duty of caring for Marinette so they set out to find out who Hawkmoth was. They were able to sense the souls of other kwami in the city. They sensed two other kwami in Adrien's house. With only two kwami present in the house, they were certain that this was the location of Hawkmoth. To confirm this, Claude used a smaller version of his demon form to enter the manor and watch the residents of the house. Claude soon saw Gabriel and Natalie transform with the missing miraculous. Now that they had confirmation, it was time to end Hawkmoth.

The two demons began to plague Gabriel and Natalie with nightmares and torment them constantly. In each nightmare, they made it abundantly clear that this was because of their actions as Hawkmoth and Mayura. Soon, Gabriel and Natalie could hardly sleep and were almost driven completely mad. They surrendered to Ladybug and the miraculous were recovered. Gabriel and Natalie were sent to prison for their crimes. When Marinette learned why Gabriel had done everything and what happened to Emilie, she used everything she had learned about magic to help revive her. Sebastian and Claude lent some of their power to this endeavor as well, not wanting their charge to exhaust herself in the attempt. Adrien had his mom back, and the two moved to England to get away from all the trouble Gabriel had caused as Hawkmoth.

With all the major problems in Marinette's life taken care of, Marinette could relax a bit and focus on her fashion. While she thought it was odd that her grandparents had left her in Sebastian and Claude's care, she did think they were doing a wonderful job. They helped to support all her dreams, any way they could. Claude once brought her several different rolls of fabric made from spider silk. This of course, renewed the rivalry between the two demons. Sebastian brought Marinette to England, making the excuse that it was to see her friend. While there, Sebastian made sure to 'run into' the descendants of some old friends. Several nobles and aristocrats found a charming man and young girl in front of them at many parties. The man seemed familiar to them all, especially the older guests at these parties. They were sure they had encountered this man before. When asked if they knew him, the Sebastian always responded with "My ancestor worked as a butler for one of your ancestor's peers. He worked in the Phantomhive manor as the butler to Ciel Phantomhive. It truly is a small world for us to meet. May I introduce my charge, Ms. Marinette Dupain-Cheng." Sebastian spent the whole night talking up Marinette's fashion business and Marinette would leave these parties with several more clients than when she arrived.

Claude and Sebastian kept trying to out do each other in their attempts to care for Marinette. Helping her with her designs, getting her fancy fabrics and equipment, even convincing several major fashion magazines to feature her work. As odd as the arrangement was, it did work. Marinette met several new friends, thanks to Sebastian and Claude's interference. She even met the man that she would marry. A man who looked suspiciously like Will, from all those decades ago. As the years went by, even after Marinette was an adult and didn't need caretakers anymore, Sebastian and Claude continued to watch over and protect her, as per their contract. And they would watch over her, for the rest of her life.

[tiffanylamps]

Heya! Because i am awestruck by your outworldish writing so much, i really wanna know some secrets if you dont mind 👀

What inspires you to go and write out a fic? Like specifically, also these q's meant for jwds only. And how do you build the structure, think of the environment, and research?

Sorry if q's seem too vague

AHHHH! Hey!!

Thank you for your message- it's so nice to talk to you

Secrets, you say?? Hmm, I can share some secrets 👀

What inspires you to go and write out a fic?

When a piece of media consumes me (in the way Beyond Evil has), my mind becomes inundated with possibilities. I'm naturally an overthinker in all areas of my life, and that extends to things I am passionate about. I feel this visceral need to explore the text provided, but also, the subtext. So, the media itself is a massive inspo. I am not the kind of person that can just write whenever I want. For me, writing is an arduous and tiring endeavour that takes me a long time to get through. I cannot write unless I have the bug for it- which makes finishing projects very... interesting. (I'm terrible at finishing books, I'm terrible at finishing fics... it's a problem) I do not tend to plan fics in advance. There are only 3 that I can say were minorly "planned" (Indoctrination, By Desire, and one that isn't written/published yet). But that's because they're all interconnected. Most of the time, the words just present themselves and I have to type them down otherwise I'll forget them forever.

I'll give an example of a few recent inspirations:

Blessed Hands was inspired by some real-life sad shit that I guess my mind needed to process

Your Love's Whore was written because a few weeks ago, there was a scorchingly hot day and I wanted to imagine what a jwds hot girl summer might look like

An unwritten fic I thought of last night was inspired by a scene from One Spring Night (I have an outline and gave it the creative title of "hallway". But I have no intention of actually writing it thus far)

Indoctrination was directly inspired by a cafedecanela post that I can't find nor have the time rn to find (but I will look later and link it)

Another huge inspiration/aid is music!!! I'm like everyone else and absolutely live for music. So, I use it to help direct what I want from a story (the emotions, atmosphere, the "vibe"). A few examples are:

Indoctrination was written whilst I listened to sappy, sad Korean rock on repeat for about 3 weeks straight

Your Love's Whore was heavily inspired by five songs in particular: . Posing in Bondage - Japanese Breakfast . Bedroom Hymns - Florence and the Machine . New Ways - Daughter . Your Clothes - Can't Swim . Your Love's Whore - Wolf Alice . and I listened to the album Brasilian Skies - Masayoshi Takanaka on repeat whilst actually writing as I struggled to write if I can hear English words, my brain gets distracted (I hope that makes sense)

I have a whole long-ass jwds playlist on Spotify (which I made as soon as I finished watching the show back in Feb). I love it so very much because there are some absolute bangers in there that are 100% jwds.

And I'm going to keep adding to it until I grow tired.

And how do you build the structure, think of the environment, and research?

Ooookay, now I'm actually going to have to give this a think. The wonderful thing about fanfiction is that a lot of the worldbuilding and aesthetic has been done for you. (Thank you to the cast and crew of Beyond Evil). So, it's quite easy to impose your own impression onto a piece and explore what's already been established. For the fics I have released, I did do research in the sense that I didn't start my fics first. By that, I mean, when I finished watching BE for the first time, I started writing an essay (which required a lot of research, rewatching the show, dissecting scenes, researching film theory, using my useless art degree lol) exploring the show's queer coding. I wrote about 15K words (mostly were just ramblings) until I realised that I needed to explore these characters in a more artistic way. This really stems from the fact that I feel so connected to Joo Won; he and I share a few unhealthy coping mechanisms... (it's the yikes times). I've always liked Joo Won; I didn't have to adjust to him, I always saw his pov and understood where he was going from. I just felt like I got him (which doesn't mean to say, I didn't also openly laugh at him), so I think I wanted to write to work through some identity stuff I have going on. I've trying to learn Hangul in my spare time, I love Korean cuisines so I've been naturally researching that in my personal life, I also love me some snooping- so I use google maps a lot to just look at South Korea (and anywhere in the world really) and gain an impression of what different areas are like. I look up historical events, I research pop culture, etc... and I basically just try to dive in and ingest as much information as I can to make the characters and their world feel as real as possible. When it comes to writing Joo Won, I also use my own experiences (as an English person) to influence his use of language and mindset. When I first wrote Indoctrination, my partner read some of it and told me to change some of my language choices because I used English slang that isn't very universal. I listened to some of the suggestions but not all because Joo Won would totally call people a "pasty dipshit wanker"; or use words like "chuffed", "gutted", "plastered", "dodgy" (and so on) and use the c-word like it's going out of style (as does almost every English person his age).

In terms of structure, I don't write chronologically. I just write whatever comes to mind and then piece it together and edit like crazy. However, I DO LOVE MAKING NOTES AND WRITING OVERLY DETAILED OUTLINES. So... I guess it depends on the story. My three surprise/procrastination fics that I didn't plan at all (Drone Bomb Me, take my name, and your blessed hands) are some of my favourites. (I wrote DBM in a day- which I don't think I have ever done before lol) We can contrast that against a fic I can't even begin to write because the words refuse to come to me, is living as an 8,000+ word outline.

So..... There's not a lot of method to my madness, just spiteful determination.

(oooooooohhh some cheeky screenshots... now we're getting personal)

Yeah... I'm not sure what else to say. It's all just luck and stress to be honest with you. I haven't written fanfiction in years(!!!). Previously, I was writing an original piece that is currently taking a nap.

I think I have mentioned this to you previously but I'm so very grateful for your kind support and words of encouragement. They mean so, so much to me. I am just a wee insecure baby that is the poster child of dyslexia. I know very little about the proper use (grammar, etc) of my mother tongue because of an unconventional schooling experience, soooo to have you say such lovely things about my work, is just *chef's kiss and tears* perfection. Thank you thank you thank you thank you I hope this answers your questions. I'm not sure I have haha!!

(also, please, get some sleep and make you're eating your favourite foods)

Bye for now!