#if more writers for vampire shows introduced this as one of the reasons why the vampire is a bit mopey and pathetic i wouldn't complain

[niamhthefae]

yaknow what i fucking love about vampires? they're unholy, they are repelled by crosses and holy water and any symbol of faith. they are something viewed as inherently demonic and ungodly.

The thing is, most of them would have been religious before they were turned. especially the older ones. the vampires mentioned historically and the ones born a while a go would have been born into a period where everyone was religious in some way or another. imagine that you go to church and wear a cross (if you can afford one) and read the bible and rest on sundays and have your life at least partially centred around god. you are a christian and haven't really thought about anything different. religion is just part of life and it has been forever. it is perhaps a comfort, or something that guides you.

and then you are bitten, and on top of changing and killing and having blood constantly soaked into your hands the one thing that has been a constant forever has turned it's back on you, you are an outlaw in the eyes of your god. you cannot worship, cannot pray, cannot even look at the sign of the cross. you lose your community, your hope and by extension your humanity. your god has turned his back on you and you have to reckon with that.

[avelera]

It makes me sad when I see posts by people who are enjoying the Interview with the Vampire show but say they've decided not to even try to read the books.

To be clear, it's fine to just not want to read the books, there's plenty of reasons the books might not be everyone's bag, and one reason is that people might just want to enjoy the show without spoilers or the source material muddling the experience.

But I just want to clarify a few points that people might be hung up on with regards to reading the books in case they've decided not to on false premises:

Anne Rice was not homophobic or otherwise anti-sex or against queer relationships for her characters - those are lies, lies, and damned lies. Anne Rice was a queer writer before being queer-- much less writing about it--was cool (to say the least). She more or less defined herself as nonbinary before there was terminology for it, her son is gay, and she left the Catholic Church the second time because they wouldn't accept him (even though the Catholic Church had basically become her life at that point after her husband died, which is a long complicated story). She also wrote tons of erotica, specifically bdsm erotica, which was also very queer. She would not be horrified by the queerness of the show.

Anne Rice was anti-fanfic - Yes, she was. Yes, she was one of the most aggressive authors against fanfic (though she softened later). But just to be clear, she had a legal reason for it. I was one of the people most heartbroken in the early '00s by her aggressive take down of fanfic over the years but even then, I always understood why she did it, she reasonably believed she had to be aggressive in order to defend her copyright. You can dislike her for it but she wasn't just hating on fanfic for the sake of it, the early internet was extremely muddy when it came to the legality around fanfic and copyright and as an early adopter of the internet, she was very concerned on that front specifically.

The books are not poorly written/not fun to read - Look, your mileage may obviously vary, and many have found flaws in her writing (IWTV in particular is probably the slowest read of the bunch) but Anne Rice wasn't a NYT Bestseller on basically every single one of her books for no reason. Her style is easy to read, fun, engaging, and often darkly beautiful and deeply empathetic. She basically defined the modern vampire genre and modern supernatural gothic romance for the last 50 years, I mean she dominated the genre. Don't take an out of context excerpt of the opening of The Vampire Lestat sounding like "My Immortal" as an indication of anything. (The whole point of that intro is that Lestat is supposed to sound like a self-obsessed drama queen in the opening pages, that's the conceit of the book and introduces him as a self-centered unreliable narrator, which she then plays with to great effect. It's actually rather deftly handled how she introduced Lestat as a POV character with that introduction. As a writer, I will defend that introduction as actually genius.)

Anne Rice wasn't perfect, to say the least. And the books might not be everyone's cup of tea, she was often dealing with transgressive topics and probably held many ideas or presented many concepts decades ago that would be side-eyed today.

But they're bestsellers for a reason and she's an era-defining author for a reason. The show is doing some interesting stuff with modernizing and deconstructing the books but the rich material they have to do it with comes from the books.

At the very least, I suggest trying out "The Vampire Lestat" and then "Queen of the Damned" which I think are two of her best and will go a long way to informing how audiences view the show and what's coming next.

[herefortheships]

Why would you say people ship Beetlejuice and Lydia? I’ve been a fan for so long I’m just like “huh…why do we ship it?”

Suddenly remembered I hadn’t answered this, and since I can’t sleep right now I’ll answer it! I meant to earlier and forgot.

I personally ship it because I love the concept of monster x human relationships, and especially when one character (usually the male part of the ship when it’s m/f) in this case this character is Betelgeuse, is dark, powerful, often immortal and even terrifying, (in Betelgeuse’s case also unhinged and absolutely crazy lol), and definitely the least you would expect to EVER fall in love, and yet he does fall in love with this other character who happens to be human, mortal, often quiet and also unlikely to fall in love. These two are the least likely to fall for each other, but they do! Then he starts to show a softer, completely unexpectedly romantic side to him that is reserved only for this woman he loves and no one else. She is both his strength and his weakness all at the same time. He is willing to do everything and anything for her.

Often these two characters are complete opposites and at odds with each other (or even enemies!) and yet they find each other in the middle. There is something they find in the other which cannot be replaced or found in anyone else in the world, and as unexpected and unusual and crazy at it is, before they even know it, their connection is forged in a way where they cannot and will not ever belong or fit in with anyone else. They’ve become a part of each other, even when the odds were against them or might be against them forever because they are intrinsically worlds apart. But love just finds them, and they meet in the middle.

I also love this kind of couple a lot when one of the two realizes their connection before the other, like Beetlejuice just knowing Lydia is *the one*, even if he can’t explain to her how he knows or why. This same scenario happens with Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At some point he realized she was the one, and she just got under his skin and became an inseparable part of his being.

Although not always, I believe this type of couple also follows the female gaze, since the male character (as I mentioned above it’s often the male character) shows an interest in the emotions of the female part. This is true in Beetlebabes. He isn’t interested only in her body, but also in honoring her emotions and desires (like Betelgeuse honoring Lydia’s wishes to have a more private wedding and respecting her boundaries by not forcing her to kiss him or something like that, plus making an effort at being romantic by serenading her and giving her an absolutely romantic wedding with a magical dance in the air). These interactions that are more romantic than sexual speak to the female gaze.

I think also that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had several “Universal fantasies” entwined in the Betelgeuse x Lydia relationship that are just irresistible for many romance lovers and when those are present, our minds just inevitably grab on to those fantasies and identity them whether we are aware of them or not. Our mind just goes yep this is a romance and oh boy what a romance this is and before you know it you are obsessed. If you haven’t read about Universal Fantasies in writing, these are basically just more specific tropes that really speak to audiences in a way that hooks them powerfully to a story, and more specifically to romantic stories. This concept is introduced by Theodora Taylor in her book 7 Figure Fiction (which I’m sure many writers know about since it’s pretty popular but I mention it just in case it’s new to someone reading this).

Another reason lots of people love this ship is just aesthetics as well which is also valid. For me this for sure became one of my top three Burton couples.

[hyperactivewhore]

I'm sorry but the only reason klaroline ever got so much popularity and their huge fan base was because the fans used Caroline as a self insert: she's the stereotype of a teenager girl, a gorgeous blonde vampire who's insecure and is always put second aka what every teen has been in one point of their lives.

That's why other Klaus’s ships, such as klayley, klamille, klaurora and especially klonnie, didn't get the hype and love klaroline did. These women were all adults or young adults when they were introduced (except Bonnie of course) and the people didn't like them at all at first. I mean, the hatred towards Camille, Hayley and Aurora when The Originals was streaming was crazy and this has reduced a little, but still remains.

I'm aware that even if klaroline hadn't happened, klonnie wouldn't have gotten half the support that Klaus and Caroline have. Of course it wouldn't, why would they care about a poc romance? Bonnie wasn't ignored only by the show itself, but by the fans and this shows. I mean, even klena (Klaus x Elena) gets more love than them and while I don't hate this pairing, it just proves that writers will never put their favorite white person with a black woman.

[coraniaid]

I don't think there should be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and I don't have any reason to believe there is going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and I would not watch a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.

But, that said, if there were to be a Buffy reboot I think a big (small) change that would improve the show a lot (especially in its first season) would be to have a much broader pool of recurring student characters from the very beginning.  Not just the Scooby Gang and Cordelia, but ideally almost all the students we see in the first season should appear in multiple episodes and, if they die, they should be talked about at least once afterwards.  As it is, Season 1 is full of ghosts: characters like Amy and Harmony who will go on to be somewhat recurring but aren't quite there yet, and characters like Jesse and Cordelia's boyfriend Kevin (remember him?) who only exist to die and are not mentioned before or after. Most of the show's recurring minor student characters will only be introduced in Season 2.

In particular, I think the characters most ill-served by this in canon are, in order of first (and often only) appearance:

Jesse

I actually think the concept of Jesse – as a sympathetic character who is killed in the opening episodes before we really get to know him – is a good one.  Beyond any possible shock value of his death, it's a useful way of establishing that people can and will die in this story, and of stating out loud the setting's rules for vampires ("you're not looking at your friend, you're looking at the thing that killed him").  On the other hand, the execution is pretty awful because it is immediately clear that Jesse is not the same status of character as Willow and Xander (he isn’t even in the opening credits), he is not actually sympathetic at all (he seems to exist to answer the question "what if Xander Harris but Worse?"), and large parts of the fandom (and later writers of the show itself) will decide to completely ignore what the show is telling them about how vampires as a concept on Buffy work and why Buffy is not only justified but morally obliged to Slay them.

But the most egregious thing about Jesse is, of course, that after his death in The Harvest he is never talked about again.  I honestly think that just a couple of lines of dialogue spread out over Season 1 (Buffy blaming herself for Jesse's death while worrying whether she’s making a positive difference as a Slayer, say, or Xander mentioning Jesse as a reason for disliking vampires, or Jesse being named as one of several mysteriously missing students by Principal Flutie) would go a really long way to fixing that.  

A brief cameo appearance in Nightmares wouldn't have hurt either.  (Just months ago Xander failed to save his best friend from vampires and was taunted by the demon wearing his corpse and had to watch him turn to dust in front of his eyes, so of course he’s terrified of … clowns.  OK.)

Amy

OK, for real, if I were in charge of creating a Buffy reboot I would be very tempted to just add Amy to the Gang after Witch.  She knows that magic is real!  She knows Buffy knows magic is real!  She seems to be on friendly terms with both Buffy and Willow when the episode ends! And yet she vanishes after her first appearance more quickly than Marcie Ross.  

But, failing that, having Amy show up more than once a year in the high school seasons would be a start (especially since the show implies so much is happening to her behind the scenes each year).  Let her be a friend of Buffy's who doesn't know anything about Buffy being the Slayer.  Have Willow at least think about asking her for help with Angel’s soul curse!  Pull the trick the writers used in The Wish (and never used again) of having Willow talk about her as if they're friends even in episodes she's not appearing in.  Show us Willow spending time with her rather than Buffy during Dead Man's Party!  Remember that this character exists even when she’s not on screen!

Lance (and his various bullies) from The Pack

Hapless victim Lance is basically a proto-Jonathan and, if I were remaking the show, I would just lean into that fully and simply replace him with Jonathan from the very beginning.  

It would be tempting to do the same thing with Kyle and Heidi and the others, too: rather than retroactively introduce multiple new characters who apparently used to bully Xander in Seasons 2 and 3 that we’ve never met before and never will again (how big is Sunnydale High meant to be?).  

The obvious problem with that is that the show tells us that the Pack remember eating Principal Flutie alive, which means rather than hanging out in school giving Xander and Willow a hard time when the plot requires it they should probably all be in therapy for years.  But you can fix that while fixing The Pack as an episode by just ... not having the fact Xander not only remembers assaulting Buffy but lies about it to her face presented to us as a punchline?  Have Xander forget what happened to him. Have them all forget what happened when they were possessed, and then Kyle and Heidi and the others can be conflated with Inca Mummy Girl's Rodney and School Hard's Sheila as and when required.

Owen

This requires slightly more work, but I think Owen and Scott work better if they're the same character too.  Rather than Owen promising to stay friends with Buffy and then never appearing or being mentioned again, or Willow telling Buffy she "wasn't ready" to date Scott before Season 3 as if he even existed then, just make Scott somebody that we've already met and who Buffy had previously briefly dated pre-Angel.

The challenge here is that Buffy breaks up with Owen because she doesn’t want to get him hurt and she’s still very focussed on keeping her identity as the Slayer secret and only letting a handful of people know.

But that fits into the wider theme of Season 3 perfectly.  By this point, Buffy’s let far more people know than just Willow and Xander.  Xander’s girlfriend Cordelia knows, and Willow’s boyfriend Oz knows, and Buffy’s own mother knows, and none of this has caused the world to end.  Why shouldn’t Buffy try dating a normal guy who knows she’s the Slayer?

(And I think everything about Scott works better if he’s somebody we’ve seen before – somebody we’ve seen Buffy be romantically interested in before – rather than suddenly appearing only to disappear almost as quickly. Scott is meant to represent Buffy trying to reassert her claim to a 'normal' life after everything that happened with Angel last year..  What better way to do that than to try to start things over with the one person we do see her trying to date on the show before Angel? How much harder would Scott's rejection of Buffy hit if we'd seen that the pre-Angelus version of Buffy really did get on well with him and would have expected to make things work?)

Kevin

The end of Season 1 features, back-to-back, two of its best episodes.  In Out of Mind Out of Sight, we focus on Cordelia Chase.  We're reintroduced to Cordelia's friend Harmony and we meet Cordelia's current boyfriend, Mitch.  (Who is attacked by Marice Ross, but survives.)  In Prophecy Girl Cordelia briefly bonds with Willow while talking about how much she likes her current boyfriend, Kevin, only for the two of them to discover him dead, killed by vampires on school grounds.

Wouldn't the death in the latter episode work much better if those two "current boyfriends" were the same person?  Wouldn't we care more about Kevin's death if he was somebody we'd actually met before? 

But let’s go further than that: at the start of Season 2, in Some Assembly Required, we meet Chris, whose brother used to date Cordelia but tragically died. Chris tries to bring him back, and his brother pursues Cordelia.  The show doesn’t mention – or doesn’t remember – that Cordelia already has a tragically dead ex-boyfriend, one who died only two episodes ago.  Why not fix that?  Why not identify Chris’s brother Darryl with Kevin as well?

Make Mitch/Kevin/Darryl a single character, and then we would achieve that rarest of sights on Buffy: a minor character who we meet an episode before they die and who is mentioned again in an episode after they died.

And wouldn’t that almost make a potential Buffy reboot palatable?

[co-mixed]

Why Boom Still Can’t Get Buffy Right

My love for the Buffyverse is concrete but it has its limits. Yesterday I had a very unpleasant experience finishing yet another unimpressive Buffy run, courtesy of Boom Comics. It’s always disappointing to me because Buffyverse has so much potential and untold stories. It’s a goldmine that is constantly held back and simply can’t find its footing in the comics medium. Why is that? 

Boom’s been rather relentless in trying to make Buffy work. Several years and runs later, there’s still no big WOW story that can attract readers and viewers alike. Not just that, but even seasoned buffy fans don’t seem very interested in continuous attempts at rebooting the Slayer tale. You can blame the word reboot (it does tend to scare people) but the real reason is still Boom’s inability to deliver a good captivating story.

Boom had tried reinventing Buffy, sending her back to school, developing alternate realities and futures. But in every iteration, Buffy and the Scooby Gang were plagued with the same mistakes over and over again. 

Hey, I’m not sure what I am, so bear with me here 

The characters from Buffy are some of the most well-developed characters out there. Each one has a point of origin, a story, and a final form. We love them because we know them. And we know them extremely well. 

Let’s take the fan-favorite, Spike. We’ve seen his whole afterlife and even bits of his life. We know how he became William the Bloody, then Spike, a neutered vampire, and finally, an ensouled champion. We know how, and more importantly, we know why. 

I’d hate to throw in one more why but there is a reason Spike exists in the show, and we know it. 

When you read Boom comics, it feels like writers stick him into every arc just because they like him. He brings nothing to the story, he has no soul or chip yet chooses to join the scoobies. That does not look like the Spike we know. That guy was in s2-s4, not s5-s7. That’s the guy from School Hard or the one who got the Gem of Amara and happily marched to kill Buffy. 

But there’s nothing stronger than the author’s desire to make things ‘right’. Hence this spike lookalike joining the team every time. 

The funny part is, I can very well imagine a soulless chipless Spike who’s not a monster. If Dru sires him and never sees him again, if she never introduces him to Angelus, if he keeps on writing his bloody awful poetry only forever. He probably would’ve turned out like that poor librarian guy whose glasses Dru broke or like Harmony who still tried to be decent. But it’s the writer’s job to explain it, to write it into the story, not just throw a character into a book and see whether they swim or go down. They will always go down. 

Spike is only one of the issues here. In the show, both Kendra and Faith exist to show us the perfect (according to the council) and the fallen slayer. Two possible realities for Buffy. They have their own arcs (well, Faith does) but the show is strong because supporting characters serve a purpose. Just like the people we meet in real life always serve a purpose for us. You might believe that one character pushing the development of another is cruel, but that’s still how good stories are made. That’s still why Buffy is popular 20 years after the show’s finale. 

Kendra and Faith did that for Buffy in the show. In the Boom comics they just exist. They show up for no reason and they just hang around. You can take them out of the story and nothing will change. At one point in the initial reboot there were three slayers at the same time, and that felt more like a fix-it fanfic than a quality comic book. Unfortunately, some slayers have to die and some have to turn evil. Besides, without her rebellious personality, Faith is meaningless.

I have one more bone to pick. I know that Buffy and Angel (still the OTP of the show!) are a complicated matter to many modern writers. And readers, and viewers. There’s no place to hide from the creep factor and even though I will defend this ship till the day everyone finally agrees with me, I can’t deny its presence. But that doesn’t mean you get to discard this ship and separate Buffy and Angel into different books. One doesn’t exist or grow without the other. There is no Buffy in love with a vampire without Angel. There is only Vampire. Slayer. Dead vampire. 

Without Buffy, Angel is not in LA helping the helpless. He’s in New York eating low rats. Before trying to launch two separate books, how about Boom launches one good one, that provides background, even if revised and adapted to the modern days? 

I always worried what would happen when that b*tch got some funding

All this chaotic mess with the characters determines the stories Boom puts out. They tend to have an interesting start but by the time issue 3 comes out, it’s either Camazotz flying around Sunnydale, a giant crab taking over the main street, or whatever the hell Silas was (a soul eater?) Didn’t care for him much. Not even when we were evil. 

More often than not Boom writers suffer from the same disease that plagued Dark Horse comics – scale. Just because you can do anything doesn’t mean you should. Comics allow you to draw literally any kind of baddie but you are playing within a specific world, and suspense of disbelief only goes so far. Besides, in the show, it all grows gradually. You go from the Master to the First evil. In the comics… seriously, what the hell was Silas? 

From what I’ve read so far, Boom knows how to ask interesting questions: 

What if Buffy went to school today?

What if Willow took over as the slayer? 

What if Buffy was older? 

Those are all good what ifs but Boom has a problem following through. They don’t know the answer to this question and it feels like they’re making it up as they go along. If I’m being honest, it even feels like they wrote random ideas on pieces of paper, through them in a hat, and started pulling each time they hit a wall. 

Characters show up for now reason (hi, Tara from the latest run), they don’t feel like themselves, and the saddest part – none of it feels like you are getting your favorite show back. 

These characters deserve better than that. 

And there’s not a one who can say this ended well

At this point, I don’t know if Boom wants Buffy comics to succeed. I don’t mean to be this dramatic but every time someone mentions comics, fans think Dark Horse. Not because they are still considered canon, but because they had a connection to the beloved show. Boom comics don’t give you that, so you can’t look the other way when writers don’t deliver. It’s just how it works. 

I keep thinking what Boom can do to get out of this vicious circle. And I do believe there If they want to successfully play in the Buffyverse, they have to seriously up their game. It’s not impossible either. I mean, Something is Killing the Children is being released by the same studio. And what is that if not a more gruesome version of Buffy? So it’s not exactly magic. It’s doable. 

Personally, I still hold out hope that someone would dare explore the terrifying bloody past of the Whirlwind. Wouldn’t that be fun and gory? I’d like to see deep well-thought-through stories of past slayers. I’d happily read a well-illustrated comic run based on In Every Generation. And if we have to go back to Buffy variants, why not reinvent her story? But before we get to that, we’d have to work through every step of every character. Get them to where we want them, and start with a story that we want to tell, from start to finish. From her first day as a slayer to her last one (she didn’t have to empower the potentials after all).

That, of course, requires a lot of work. And if Boom isn’t ready to put in that kinda effort, they could just move from season 5, introduce a new slayer, and watch how her adventures unravel.  

Buffyverse is a hell of a property and there are too many stories waiting to be written. I’m probably still gonna give it a shot whenever Boom comes up with something new. I just hope I won’t have to write yet another long read complaining about it. 

[grace--le--domas]

PJO- Some Show Recommendations for the showrunners if s2 is greenlit

Season 1 was kinda...boring? Honestly, that is the last thing I expected a PJO adaptation to be. The books aren't perfect, but they are fun! There is friendship, adventure, humour, all while still the characters grapple with some pretty serious stuff. The show (except for the first two episodes and the finale) feels stiff.

Show is too exposition-y, the pacing is off and it of course breaks the cardinal rule of show- don't -tell.

Thankfully, the concerns are easily remedied. Coming of age stories are a dime and dozen, and I think that the showrunners could actually learn from the TV shows and movies of past. So, I compiled some recommendations for them :) Read on if extensive analysis is your thing :)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer- Honestly, this is theee coming of age story. It follows Buffy (the chosen one), as she navigates high school, college and eventually adulthood, along with slaying vampires. And instead of a sullen main character, we as an audience are treated to a sassy, take-no-prisoners variant of the chosen one trope. There are so many similarities between Percy and Buffy- both are loyal to a fault, sarcastic and stubborn. They understand that they cannot escape their respective destinies, but they'll be damned if they don't see things through their own way. Both are brave to a fault, and adore their found families. The writers could take some inspiration from BTVS and Buffy's character arc (to an extent). Bonus- BTVS has great examples of melding humour in serious situations.

2. Mission Impossible Series- This one might be a bit controversial, but hear me out. I know most people consider the MI films popcorn flicks-and they are- but most the movies in the series are paced excellently. There is a sense of urgency in MI films- which was severely lacking in the PJO show. Have a deadline, let me feel anxious for these kids.

MI also has some excellent action scenes. And before you say, well PJO is not an action series, I would like to say that I agree- but the beauty of adaptating something is that you get to change things. Well paced action sequences, even if they are about a minute or so, are necessary break up the exposition dumps. It breaks the monotony. It makes you feel afraid for these kids, who are running from one dangerous situation/monster to another.

3. Dune (2023)- Thematically, Dune is vastly different from PJO. I am including it in this list for several reasons- editing, cinematography world building and sound editing.

To put it bluntly, I don't feel connected to the world of the PJO series at all- which is a shame because it is an incredible world! Greek mythological creatures co-existing with the modern world! Modern myths! Greek gods!. But it is all introduced in the most boring, exposition-y way possible.

The cinematography doesn't shine until the last episode. I want interesting shots, fluid camera movements- just anything that breaks the monotony of scenes. For example- I loved Poseidon's introduction, why wasn't this type of cinematography present in the rest of the series. Shoot the gods differently, make use of different camera compositions. Experiment a little for god's sake.

Coming to sound, yeah this one was the most disappointing of all. There are no memorable sound motifs, which is a shame because sound can convey so much more than words in certain scenes. I say Harry Potter music and you instantly think about the charcteristic symphony. This is missing sorely in the tv show.

Sidenote- I would have chosen Nathan Barr as the music composer (missed opportunity Disney). Look up his work, and you'll understand why I said this.

Coming to editing, yeah the editing is clunky at best. That is all I have to say about that for the moment.

Let me know if anyone wants a part 2 :)

[andreal831]

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve watched anything TVDU related, so I’ve probably forgotten all the lore, but if resurrection is so freaking easy in this universe, why didn’t Esther just resurrect Henrik?

(I know he’s basically TVD version of Uncle Ben, but still.)

Plot.

Same reason Kol came back like three times but Klaus, Hayley, and Elijah couldn't be brought back.

Resurrection is such a difficult plot devise to introduce to supernatural world because it lessens the stakes. If anyone can be brought back at anytime, there is no fear of dying.

TVDU attempted to circumvent these issues by changing the rules of resurrection as they went. It allowed them to "explain" why certain characters had to stay dead and then when they wanted to bring someone back, they would add another way.

TVDU introduced resurrections with the idea of the Other Side. Since Qetsiyah created the Other Side, it allowed witches to bring back any supernatural back from the Other Side but it takes an immense amount of power. We see this happen with Jeremy several times.

Esther's strength has always confused me because she is not a first in her generation. We know Dahlia is considerably stronger than her, but we never really got to see Esther's raw power. I would even argue that she probably shouldn't have had enough power to create vampires based on what we do see. But since she canonically did, she should have easily had enough power to bring back Henrik. She was already dealing with dark forces. Also, considering how desperately Ayana was to prevent the plague of vampires, you would think she would have been willing to help bring Henrik back to stop Esther. I think it's safe to say a Bennett witch would have that type of power.

So potentially we could say Esther just didn't know this type of magic existed, but that just feels unlikely. I've heard the argument that he couldn't be brought back since he was human, but again, Jeremy was human and brought back multiple times before he became a Hunter.

In order to create stakes once more, in Season 5, the writers "collapsed" the Other Side. But before they did, Esther was able to just bring herself back by possessing a witch, along with Kol, Finn, and Ansel. Again, we are assuming Henrik was not on the Other Side with them since he died "human." There are arguments that he would be as an untapped witch and could have been on the other side. I used to not really buy into that because an "untapped witch" is just a human, but then when Freya had Finn in the talisman, she was able to channel his magic. So maybe untapped witches really do exist in TVDU.

Freya was able to keep Finn's soul in a talisman and resurrect him that way. I don't remember and I won't even ask where she got his body from. And then again with Elijah. But of course, the talisman broke and Freya never even attempted to create a new one to save her brothers again. Davina was able to resurrect Esther even after the other side fell with a gift of power from the Ancestors and her ashes. Who knows where Esther's soul was at that time. Kol was in the Ancestral Plane when he died the second time (I guess we assume they consecrated him in New Orleans). I don't remember what she tapped into to resurrect him, but she did and brought Kol back.

In TO, New Orleans makes it fairly easy to bring back witches with the Ancestral Plane. Look at how easily Celeste brought back three witches. So they got rid of that when they wanted to kill Davina off for good. But then somehow Inadu still brought her back. But also why wouldn't they have brought back their powerful witches. Also why didn't they use that protection spell more often? You know the one the witches used when Klaus killed them in Season 1 so they all just didn't die? And since it was so easy to bring them back, why was the Harvest that scary? They were just on the Ancestral Plane.

Resurrection is just so messy and the show really needed to create bigger consequences of bringing people back from the dead. They started off so good with showing it literally cost Bonnie her life. This creates stakes to doing so. But then that was the only time that it drew so much power it killed the witch casting it.

But seriously, why was Alaric brought back multiple times, but like Enzo, Lexi, Jenna, Jackson, Henrik, etc. couldn't be? It also makes the characters seem problematic. You're telling me that Josh wouldn't have begged Davina to bring Aiden back? She wouldn't rest until Kol was brought back but never even mentioned trying to help Aiden. There are so many instances where characters fight like hell to bring back one person but just accepted the death of another.

It was just all for the plot and honestly whatever contracts the actors had. But it makes for poor writing and unrealistic stakes.

Thanks for the ask! As always, let me know if I got anything wrong <3

[caddeter]

Skimming through the RWDE tag after the Volume 9 final aired reminds me of how the FNDM will defend the show by saying ‘people make mistakes’ and ‘the writers are only human’ because now the show seems to be sending that message.  It also reminded me that I wrote over 1000 words explaining why I think that’s terrible.

‘People make mistakes’ is the absolute worst argument in defense of something that I have every heard. I find it even more insulting than the infamous ‘don’t like, don’t watch,’ because it implies that putting effort into your craft is optional.  What this argument says is that I am in the wrong for expecting anything more than garbage. You are legitimately saying, ‘It could have been better, but you’re wrong for saying so.’  Yes, I realize that nobody is perfect and that they are going to screw up every now and again.  That’s why I’m criticizing it.  I mean, when was the last time you heard people get criticized for doing something right.

This argument of ‘people make mistakes so you can’t complain’ also ignores the moment after, where they look back on what they did wrong and learn from it.  That’s why we make mistakes, so that we can grow as people.   Why should we try to improve ourselves if we’re already ‘good enough.’ ‘People make mistakes,’ is a fact of life, but that does not mean we should throw up our hands and give up all attempts to get better and it certainly doesn’t mean we should accepting bad stories.

But enough about my philosophy on mistakes, let’s talk about this one, specifically how situational it is:

Twilight is recognized across the globe as one of the worst books ever written.  Even ignoring the way it bastardizes the concept of Vampires, it’s a story that reads less like a romance and more like a drug addiction. The lead characters have all the chemistry of a brick and a dead rat.  The relationship it tries to push as beautiful and grand is downright abusive at points.  And this isn’t even getting into all the misogyny and racism and pedophilia in those books.  But people make mistakes, so I guess we shouldn’t hold it against Myers.

Sword Art Online is one of the most infamous anime there is.  Despite its large following, whenever someone looks over it with a critical lens, they come to the conclusion that it’s utter crap.  The plot and worldbuilding are inconsistent. The characters (Kirito especially) exist more to fill out roles in a fantasy than as actual people.  It’s all about making Kirito look good and ensuring he comes out better than when he came in, no matter what.  It goes out of its way to include some kind of sexual assault of the lead female character in a given arc with no respect for the subject matter, to the point where it’s hard to tell if Reki Kawahara thinks rape is the worst crime a man could commit or if he has a fetish for it.  But people make mistakes, so the critics are more in the wrong for making videos on it.

In spite of (Or rather, because of) its troubled production, Sonic 06 is one of the worst video games in existence.  It’s so glitchy, it borders on unplayable.  The story is bland at best, flat out terrible at worst.  The new characters it introduced were all unlikable for one reason or another.  Level design was horrendous and boring.  People have made numerous videos and blogposts explaining why it is one of Sonic’s worst games, if not one of the worst games period.  But people make mistakes, so we should stop complaining.

Post season 4, Spongebob Squarepants took a downward dive.  Characters became little more than one unlikable trait.  It crossed the line from mischief to malice, so good characters suffered while the bad ones triumphed.  It was extremely evident that they had already run out of ideas, because they kept rehashing the same episode plot over and over again and needed to pad out some episodes.  But people make mistakes, so they should never have tried to fix this.

Lucy is the most boring movie I ever sat through.  It’s just ‘This girl gains reality altering powers, be amazed at how easy everything is for her.’ There is never any point where she is in any sort of real danger or anything actually threatens her.  She loses all empathy for her fellow man and has no problem throwing them away like broken toys (In an Asian country when our main character is white, mind you), yet it expects you to see her as the good guy throughout. Instead of being terrified by her rampage, it expects you to be amazed.  And maybe that would have worked if it used said reality altering powers in more creative ways.  But people make mistakes, so I guess it’s a good movie.

I could go on for ages and never run out of examples for any given form of media.  And this is all ignoring examples that are actively malicious, like stories that are intentionally sexist, racist, or homophobic.

And then there’s that other group of people this argument conveniently doesn’t apply to:  The critics.  If people make mistakes and you think we should just ignore that, then you can’t challenge the critics on any ground, because they made a mistake by talking about the writer’s mistakes.  If we are not allowed to judge your writer, then why are you allowed to judge ours?

Not to mention how this logic is almost self-refuting. When you say this, what you are saying is that the only thing wrong with the criticism is that it is criticism.

Furthermore, this argument also somewhat undermines the effort other artists and writers will put into their craft in order to make something as best as they possibly could. If we should all just accept when someone fails to make something good, then why should we recognize how Fictional Games ensured that Amnesia The Dark Descent had an atmosphere which on its own could leave you terrified rather than relying on cheap jumpscares?  Why should we praise Tatsuya Endo’s writing for blending heartfelt, humorous, and action-packed when he wrote SpyXFamily? Why should we celebrate Avatar the Last Airbender not just for its amazing story of multiple cultures coming together and strengthening one another, but also for its fully realized and fantastical world?

By saying that we should accept mistakes and that it’s wrong to criticize bad writing, you wind up saying that all of their effort was pointless.  Why bother trying to make something as best you can when people will accept anything?  If we’re not going to pay attention to what a story or writer did wrong, why should we pay attention to what a story or writer did right?

‘People make mistakes,’ means just that, that people make mistakes.  So how about we treat those mistakes as mistakes and hold people accountable for them, rather than act like everyone and everything is perfect and infallible?

[kariachi]

Fell into a Mike spiral this morning as the fact we don’t know whether or not he’s a hybrid in canon smacked me upside the head again, with extra authority given the rareness of them after the Rooters arc, so guess who else is suffering.

Mike is introduced to us as Plumber Spawn, with every other new character introduced as Plumber Spawn being a half-human hybrid. You would think that would make this easy, why should he be the odd one out, but he already is by grace of being a villain. Plus, every other hybrid on the show we know what they’re a hybrid of.

Seriously. We know Kevin is half Osmosian because we’re told it, same with the Tennysons being part Anodite. We know Alan is half Pyronite because he can shift between the two shapes, we know Manny and Helen are Tetramand and Kineceleran respectively because look at them. Ester we’re told and look her. Pierce we’re shown his hybridization process and that it made him half whatever Argit is. We get nothing of the sort for Mike. The closest we get on the show is being able to draw parallels between his and Gwen’s powers, but if we assume he’s got Anodite in him then we also have to assume that he’s got something else in there too or is a mutant because of the teeth and the vampire allure and shit. But the thing is we don’t actually know, which, if we call him a hybrid, makes him the odd one out anyway.

So you would think, okay, we turn to the WoG that Plumber Spawn carry badges so fuckers know the hybrids are allowed to fucking be there. Mike has his father’s badge, he carries it with him, that should do it, right? No! Because Mike’s own words imply that his father is either retired or left the planet (in which case why does Mike have his shit and also, sir, where are you, your son is living in a guest house with minimal contact with what are apparently his primary guardians and also he’s eating people) or dead. If he’s retired or left then we can assume Mike is a hybrid, because a mutant wouldn’t need that shit and we see from Molly having Kevin’s badge that if you leave the Plumbers you don’t take your badge with you. If he’s dead on the other hand, then that opens up the door to Mike keeping his badge as a memento. That itself opens two doors depending on whether or not he was planning to encounter the Tennysons that night and planned accordingly.

Our options are- 1) Mike is a hybrid and carries the badge to prove he’s allowed on the planet. 2) Mike isn’t a hybrid and carries the badge as a memento of his late father. 3) Mike isn’t a hybrid and was wearing the badge as part of his Evil Plot to eat Gwen.

And we can’t be sure of which it is because this is Mike and between the lack of exploration by the writers and his own tendencies we can’t be sure of anything.

“But Achi” you ask “why the fuck does this matter?”

First off, because I am a fucking mess and my brain will do whatever it damn well wants thank you kindly.

Secondly off, because Mike is in my Top 3 Ben 10 villains so, guess what.

Thirdly off, and most importantly, if Mike is a hybrid then that makes him one of two non-Tennyson born hybrids in this show by the end of OV. The only born hybrids we get that we know for certain are hybrids are the Tennysons and Ester. That’s a pretty exclusive fucking club, and helps in kicking back the Tennyson exceptionalism a bit. Could do with a bit more, but still.

But yeah, Mike is never confirmed in the show as being a hybrid but there’s also reason to believe he might be, we will never have anything better than maybe WoG, and that annoys me both due to lack of information and also because if he is then that’s another bat to stand against this show’s Tennyson exceptionalism and damnit I need that.

[growling]

Okay

Bungou Stray Dogs. My beloved, my beloathed and my ex who keeps walking back into my life for a makeout session after I swore I was done with it for the 11th time.

It is- not a good story, structure wise at least. I get raising stakes but also we started s1 with "we're frenemies with our local gang and we occasionally homoeroticly fight eachother" to *gestures vaguely at s5*

And that doesn't bother me too much tbh because I love media that cares about its audience and keeping things silly but also *ducks nuke*

The mangaka keeps having to write reasons for Chuuya to not show up and murder everypony, that's silly

Fyodor has a funny accent and a silly goofy hat and a greasy hairstyle and I guess he sometimes is smart. I guess.

Justice for my boy Karma who showed up in one episode and then Fyodor killed him for some reason, RIP my boy

Idk man I have lots of thoughts

the stakes one is so real because like. they did get higher after season 1 with the whole moby dick crashing event, but like it made sense it was fine also i liked that season. and then we got introduced to demon fyodor who apparently was even worse both described at the s2 finale and in the dead apple movie, so like, dude got hyped up massively. and then he got s3 to himself but actually its not over yet, it was actually a setup for s4-s5 and. I am asking. since fukuchi is over. and they seem to be making fyodor out to be even more threatening (every single villain is more threatening than the last. you know.) than fukuchi, the goddamn man with time travel sword, reality-altering page, vampire goons, trying to (virtually. his motives as well as execution of them are.... Peculiar to me) achieve mind control world domination....... like how do they plan to go worse than that. the problem with trying to have every single villain be more powerful than the last is that one day you just gonna run out of ideas and just write a literal undefeatable god. which is fukuchi and also fyodor but i am legitimately terrified of what they're gonna do with him in the later chapters. i am all caught up and....... its looking very exhausting already

as well as how like, in the earlier seasons we got these episodes that are just purely character driven with way lower stakes that just exist there to establish the cast, and they just. slowly stopped doing that. right now, from like season 4 up to where we are currently there has been literally ZERO breathing room for the plot, every single scene is just stressful high tension main plot main plot main plot fighting the HD/DOA and it actually made me too tense as i was watching like jesus fuck slow down. which is why i cheer and clap so much whenever i see poe also being there sometimes. thank you for your service king. as well as all the other more minor characters that appeared and nikolai getting to jest with people, as well as the Bram & Aya Adventures, regardless on whether it is "important" to the plot . and also sigma's whole introduction in the manga that just established him as an actually really nice guy that the anime just cut out to make room For The Current Main Plot auurrrrhghgh. shut up about fukuchi show me kyouka. hey where the fuck was kyouka for most of this even

like. if they just released chuuya upon all their enemies it would be over. isnt he like, the actual incarnation of arahabaki you know the. literal god. just make them use corruption after you make sure dazai can stop them from eating shit and fucking dying, deploy her at the entire hunting dogs squad and its all over. like..... chuuya could just fix everything that is going on and the writers know it so they keep making up reasons (and sometimes they don't even do that, and just ignore it) as to why actually she's not available currently. you wrote this guy to be the single most powerful genderfuck in the universe please use him . chuuya i am so fucking sorry i could treat you so much better babygirl

fyodor sure is. A Character. that exists. and like, i like him, but also... i realized i'm only ever entertained by him whenever he's being silly, like with the whole mersault ball fyozai two man comedy show, or with his interactions with nikolai (who is one of the lights in the darkness of the current arc.... please keep being entertaining king). but like, i feel like the writer(s) drove themselves into a corner by making him so inhumanly intelligent, same with dazai. like. each of the serious interactions between him and dazai (the only nda member he's allowed to talk with apparently) just feel like two kids roleplaying "i slash u in the chest with my flaming sword and u are die!!!" "but before that I DODGED and hit u with my laser beam!!" "no but I moved out the way at last second and bring out the BOMBS and then i throw them at u and u explode and are dead for real!!!!" "no but then i miraculously survive steal ur flaming sword and set u on fire and u burn and die!!!" "but before i could die i put out the fire with my water bucket and then shoot u 100000 times and-" like. it was funny the first few times it happened but.... I get it. you have high IQ. I don't like this party I wanna leave chuuya can you please pick me up

karma got fucking massacred and for what. society if fyodor instead recruited him into the DOA and sigma got to have a single normal friend and they bonded over their mutual perpetual anguish. they really just introduced a really interesting guy just to kill him off in the same episode. but they. kept fukuchi i guess

[kiss-my-freckle]

While I wholeheartedly believe Delena’s romance is better than Stelena’s, I also wholeheartedly believe Stelena’s friendship is better than Delena’s. That’s why I support the Delena romance and the Stelena friendship. 

Whenever I watch a show, I find myself always having to watch it twice. It took my second watch for me to see how beautiful Steroline was. And I say this because a lot of my focus was on Elena in my first watch. I mean... the writers didn’t make it all that easy. From the moment we’re introduced to Elena, she’s placed at the center of it all. 

But Steroline is where I see just how beautiful Stefan can be. He’s more relaxed and himself. Able to laugh and have fun and can actually be comfortable with his vampirism. That’s all Caroline. What horrible qualities I saw of him with Elena in the first four seasons... they slowly disappear as he spends more time with Caroline, so for me...  season 5 to season 8 Stefan... he’s the best version of himself. 

One of Caroline’s rants hit in the right place because I feel she touched on one of the reasons Stelena failed. I think it’s when they’re hanging Christmas lights. Relationships take work. Not just friendships, but romantic relationships. Work that Damon and Elena were willing to put in for each other. 

[trainsinanime]

Okay, time to do this elaborating.

First, to understand where I'm coming from: There is a general narrative in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom about Chloé more broadly, and Zoé in general. It goes something like this:

"Chloé was bad. Then she started getting a redemption arc, and she became the bee hero and a slightly better person. But then the writers started hating her for some reason, and cancelled her redemption arc. That left them with a problem: They didn't have a bee hero. So they invented Zoé to be the bee hero, and replace Chloé."

I think that's wrong. Not only is it wrong, it doesn't make sense at all. Now, the problem with discussing this is the question: If that isn't Zoé's role, then what is it? And I have no idea. Frankly, as of this point in season 5, I don't think the writers know either. It's incredibly weird. But even if we don't know why Zoé is here, it's clearly not to be a replacement Bee miraculous holder, or a replacement Chloé.

Chloé's role in the story is the normal world antagonist. She makes life difficult for Marinette, while the akumas make life difficult for Ladybug. Teenage superhero media lives from the whole idea that "tomorrow there's the big dance, and the world is going to end, and both things are equally important" (I know I heard this from a comic book writer but I don't recall which one, sorry). In that light, it's important to have someone who makes the big dance difficult.

This is not an innovation of Miraculous Ladybug. Whether you look at Flash Thompson in Spiderman or Cordelia Chase in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Libby (I think?) in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, almost all western high school teen media has someone like that.

Zoé can't replace Chloé in that role because she's not a mean girl who causes problems for Marinette on purpose. Zoé's role is completely different. I hope one day we learn what it is!

Same thing with the hero. "Holder of the Bee Miraculous" isn't a role in and of itself. The team isn't a five-man band that has the classic archetype of "stun gun wielder". The bee miraculous is created for Chloé's story. It's designed for her colour scheme and its power of "impose my will on others" matches Chloé exactly. Queen Bee is relevant as a part of Chloé's story. And yes, that does seem like a redemption arc for a while there; again, not unusual for this character archetype (e.g. how Cordelia became friendly over time).

When Zoé becomes Vesperia, she doesn't fulfil the same role. Yes, she stuns someone, but it isn't about the stunning, it's about being the kind of person who Ladybug (or later Plagg) trusts with a Miraculous. Zoé gets that role for very different reasons than Chloé, and does very different things with it.

If you want to see a replacement for Chloé, look at Lila. She does the same thing Chloé does, just way more effectively. She essentially makes Chloé pointless, to the point where in the end, Chloé was essentially just a puppet for Lila.

This discussion is so difficult because we're still in the middle, and I'm honestly not sure the writers actually know what to do. Why did Chloé become the bee, and then loose it again? Is that part of an ongoing bigger Chloé story or did they just change their mind? Damned if I know! Why did they introduce Zoé, make a big deal out of how she can show Chloé a better way, but then not actually do anything with this? Beats me!

I don't know why Zoé is here, but the idea that she's a nicer replacement for Chloé just doesn't make sense. Unless we're talking about the list of potential Marinette love interests, of course.

Repeat after me: „Holder of the bee miraculous“ is not a narrative role. The bee miraculous does not matter. It exists to serve Chloé’s story, not the other way around. You know what is a narrative role? „High school bully who provides mundane challenges as a counter-point to the superhero ones, with or without redemption potential“.

There are interesting things to be said about Chloé, Zoé, their roles and trajectories, and what the show does and doesn’t handle well about them. But the people who are talking about them aren’t doing that, for the most part, they’re just comically misunderstanding how stories work. As a result the whole debate is just so incredibly boring. I’d write more but I’ve done so over and over again already and I’m tired.

Edit to add: I just saw that someone who follows me posted a comment just like the type I’m referring to while I was typing this. I just want to say, this is not intended as a personal attack! I do think you’re wrong though, and I can elaborate if you’re interested later when I’m back home.

[coraniaid]

Top five Buffy characters who only appeared in one episode? Or if you want just top five Buffy characters you'd want to have seen more of

I think any list of the top five Buffy characters I'd liked to have seen more of would be pretty predictable: Faith, Amy and Kendra for sure. Probably Jenny Calendar too (although this requires the Season 2 writers to actually care about her enough to make her an actual character with a personality and motives). Not sure who the fifth would be. Ethan, maybe? Drusilla? Mr Platt?

For best one episode characters though, I'm a bit more confident on my list.

Billy Fordham [from S2E07 Lie To Me]

Lie To Me is a great episode, setting the tone for the rest of the season to come, and while Ford isn't the only reason it works so well he is definitely one of the reasons it does. There's a trend in the first couple of seasons where the show will introduce a character we've never met before, claim they have some important connection to the cast, only for them to die that episode and never be mentioned ever again. Ford is definitely in that tradition -- and I think later seasons of the show would have given him the Scott Hope or Parker Abrams treatement, introducing him a couple of episodes earlier before the big betrayal -- but in his case suddenly appearing out of nowhere works in a way that Xander's various former bullies and Willow's constantly changing intellectual competition don't always manage to do. The impact of his actions on Buffy by the end of the episode doesn't seem unearned at all.

Ted [from S2E11 Ted]

Arguably one of the show's best single episode villains ever from a consistently under-rated episode. An episode which asks deep questions that the show will come back to again and again; questions like "what if the Slayer accidentally killed a person? can she justify that to herself?" and "how would Buffy's mother react if she told her she was the Slayer; would she think Buffy was crazy?" and "what if there was some kind of freaky robot? that'd be weird, right?". But for all the goofiness of the end of the episode, there's something genuinely unsettling about the way Ted veers between John Ritter's usual sitcom dad persona and the controlling, abusive figure that only Buffy ever sees. If anything, the reveal that Ted is an unkillable monster with a string of murders to his name makes him significantly less scary than he was before.

Gwendolyn Post [from S307 Revelations]

Mrs Gwendolyn Post has so much fun being evil and making everybody's lives a little worse that I'm willing to forgive her for the fact her actual plan is laughably short-sighted and was obviously never going to work for long. Of all the Watcher-affiliated characters we actually see on screen (so, not counting Faith's first Watcher or Kendra's Watcher, both of whom I wish we'd seen as well), she's the one I wish we'd seen a little more of in the show.

Fun fact: depending on where exactly you draw the line, Gwendolyn Post is arguably the adult human woman with the fourth most speaking time over the show's entire run (after Joyce Summers, Jenny Calendar and Maggie Walsh). And yet she's only in this one single episode. Bonus fun fact: that sucks, actually.

Sunday [from S4E01 The Freshman]

Bizarrely, Sunday is one of the last named vampires the show would introduce, despite her sole epsiode falling in the first half of the show's run. I think there are ... what, maybe half a dozen more after this episode? (I understand the various factors behind it, but I think it's a shame that there are fewer and fewer actual vampire villains in the show as it progresses beyond the high school seasons.) Sunday is really fun though; I like The Freshman a lot (as I've said in another post recently), and she's a big part of why. She should have been in more episodes, frankly.

Cassie Newton [from S7E04 Help]

I've talked before about how much I like Help (and the early episodes of Season 7 more generally). I like the human level focus. I like the idea of Dawn getting to go to a new school and make new friends. I like Buffy having the chance to metaphorically go back in time and try to save her younger self. I like all the callbacks to the high school seasons. I like how unsubtle the name 'Cassandra' is. I like Cassie. She was great.

(Yes, the actor returns later this season but the character herself doesn't, so she counts.)

[lady-griffin]

Evil Father-Daughter Pairs

One thing I really love about Silco and Jinx’s father and daughter relationship, is that it reminds me greatly of The Mayor and Faith Lehane’s relationship from BTVS.

Or I guess, I don’t love Silco and Jinx because they remind me of The Mayor and Faith, but because it’s the same relationship in both shows.

The evil, “wholesome”, but also twisted and yet, still genuinely loving father and daughter villain pair.

Which is greatly underused in my opinion. I’m trying to think of other examples, but I can’t, or at least nothing quite like these two (or four).

You have this evil man, who is presented as just being evil and then he out of blue gets this adopted daughter. You think he’s just manipulating her, using this damaged girl’s need for love and acceptance – but it turns out he in fact does love and care for her, as much as she does for him.

They both genuinely see each other as father and daughter.

I just love that.

The villain doesn’t suddenly become a good or kind person, but he becomes more complex to the audience, by the simple fact you can see he is capable of love, kindness and actually cares for someone else.

The villains are made to be as human as possible, they need connection and love as much as anyone else.

Both BTVS and Arcane first present their villain in a way where you can’t even imagine him caring for another, let alone a character that was introduced to us as one of our heroes.

I just remember watching BTVS S3 for the first time (and during my many rewatches) and loving when you see realize The Mayor, this demon who wants world domination and doesn’t care for other people, actually loved Faith. He wasn’t using her (or not JUST using her), but he actually saw her as his daughter.

The Mayor was greatly upset when Faith was injured. When Buffy taunted him in the finale, showing him the knife she used to stab Faith, the knife he gifted to Faith; he got angry enough to blindly chase Buffy into her trap for him.

Then later in the series, we see the Mayor appear in Faith’s story. He was someone who mattered to her, she really did see him as her father.

She wasn’t delusional about him being a good man, she knew who and what he was, but she still loved him and believed/knew he loved her.

It’s such an underrated and underused relationship and dynamic in my opinion. I just love these villain father and daughter pairs.

--

Also, there are a lot of similarities between Jinx and Faith (x)

Co-executive producer and writer Dogue Petrie said -

“She’s totally tragic. The whole key to Faith is that she’s in pain. If you took that away, she would be a monster. But she’s so lonely and so desperate, and all of her toughness comes out of trying to cover that. That’s what real monsters are made of. No one thinks they’re really a monster.”

So she's always looking for a family and always coming up short and making these horrible choices, and it drove her insane. Plus I think she was missing a couple of screws to begin with. 'If you don't love me, you will fear me,' is kind of her MO. She's not a stable girl, but a fun one.

She's the most faithless character we've got. She doesn't trust herself or anyone around her. We try to do that a lot with our monsters. It's much more fun if you look at it from their point of view.”

Writer Jane Espenson

Believed one of the reasons why Faith elicits sympathy from the audience is the father/daughter relationship between her and the Mayor, comparing their affection for one another to that between vampires Spike and Drusilla. The writers wanted to make [them] as human as possible by showing they need connection and love as much as the heroic characters. 

Eliza Dushku, the actress who played Faith

Asserts that Faith's bond with the Mayor stems from him being one of the few people in her life who does not put her down, which is something she has battled with her whole life; Dushku goes on to say Faith's misplaced trust in the Mayor "leads her into being more crazy".

[ruki--mukami]

Hello admin. I'm the same anon who asked about Ruki's redemption arc. I wanted to ask you how YOU would write Ruki's MB redemption arc. Or how you would conclude his MB route as I trust your writing more than Rejet's inconsistency.

🧩 To be honest with you, Anon, I’m flattered you trust my writing more than Rejet’s (I believe they change their writers with each game, which explains their inconsistencies) but I don’t have an answer as to how I’d redeem Ruki in the context of his MB route in particular. Not yet, at least. Maybe one day I’ll write my own version and post it. That’s something I’ve always wanted to do: take the original chapters of his route and expand upon them because omg are the originals short. 

If anything, I see the three routes (MB > DF > LE) as three parts to a larger story. I know they tried to redeem Ruki by making him seem like a character you can sympathize with, with the whole turning human by the end of DF cliffhanger and him learning the truth behind Karlheinz in LE. I believe they tried to turn him human again to use the common trope of making villains select right over wrong in hopes of redeeming the character (except Karl chose it for him and he just… agreed, of course, which doesn’t make it a redemption per se). And the whole aristocracy plot twist is supposed to make you feel sorry for him, which is ironically what he hates.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, after all the awful deeds Ruki has committed, at this point he is an immensely difficult character to redeem. And I am no skilled story writer by any means. I’m more so good at tapping into Ruki’s character and riding off of other people’s ideas, using him as a devil’s advocate or even antagonist to their stories more often than not. My redemption might look like a lot of torture and suffering inflicted by Ruki in the beginning, only for him to gradually help you with challenges that come your way. You soon learn that, despite him hurting you as much as he did, he’s adamant about being the only one who has the privilege of doing so.

For instance, perhaps they could’ve explored more of Ayato kidnapping Yui. It would’ve been interesting to see Ruki fight harder and formulate an elaborate plan to take her back after realizing the Sakamakis don’t love her like he does. Instead, canonically he just lets her go, and is shocked when she returns to him. But I know most people don’t like a story where the writers introduce a bigger villain to mitigate what the original villain did. Hence, why I’m not a very good storyteller, ahaha. I am working on my own Ruki route, though. 

I also think I’m probably the last person you should ask about redeeming Ruki. My love for the character really shows in my failed attempts to redeem him, because I often make the mistake of thinking people will grow soft on him because he shows one or two vulnerabilities amidst all the torture. He could step on me and I’d probably thank him, so there’s that. In a lot of the RP threads I have going, you may have noticed typically OC’s will develop a hatred for Ruki, and reasonably so. However, on a case by case basis I’m willing to allow him to compromise on some things. For example, in one ship I made him relinquish his master-livestock dynamic (although I really normally wouldn’t do this because the master complex is actually one of my favorite traits of his lol, so don’t expect that to recurring).

There are many ships I want to see thrive on this blog but even I don’t know how they’re going to get past the conflict. I try to have a mix of bloodsucking scenes and regular “bonding” scenes where they just share a normal conversation and find potential common ground, but whether or not you can call that redemption depends on the person’s tastes, which makes redemption for any character very, very difficult to write. And truth be told, I’d rather not diminish Ruki’s sadistic nature to make that happen, since I love the idea of this powerful, feral Vampire being obsessed with your blood only and the moment someone else tries to hurt you, he snaps. The “how dare you touch what belongs to me” possessiveness. Perhaps there should’ve been more scenes where you fall ill or sustain an injury outside of his punishments and then he shows genuine care over you, since even his possession is not allowed to hurt themselves and all that, but I’m just brainstorming now. These are just ideas on a whim that should be taken with a grain of salt, but when I write my fanmade route I will definitely take the time to flesh out these ideas into something workable.

TL;DR: I think my problem with redeeming Ruki is, I love him the way he is canonically, so to take away from his sadism in an attempt to redeem him never turns out well for me which is why I continue to make him sadistic, but just sprinkle bits of fluff here and there and then hope for the best. 🧩