#in fact it makes them even more compelling because of the history attached to it and the likelihood of

[blackknight-100]

Again, I think we fundamentally misunderstand each other. This is not about what Valmiki or Tulsidas wrote, or which is the most original version and which is an interpolation. These are certainly important discussions to be had in a context of true sources vs those modified to suit history, but when talking about the subject of OP's post, one cannot divorce literature from its socio-cultural impact and/or source on the basis of when it was written and whether it is the true text.

You may have noticed I kept mentioning versions in my previous reblog, and because of this very reason: yes, the older versions did not have many things the newer ones do. But that again is something you see in most literature from that period, because these were largely passed down by word of mouth, at least among the common people who did not usually have extensive access to education or books. Today you and I can read up anything on the internet, but books were hardly so widespread previously.

The point is, someone, at some period in history, felt comfortable with characterizing a cultural hero in such a manner, and enough people were willing to accept and propagate the story of the torment of an innocent woman at the hands of a righteous king. The point is that enough people accepted and propagated the idea of an abducted woman undergoing "purification", whether she was assaulted or not, in order to rejoin her husband's household. Which is not so strange when the text was written - we expect older generations to be less open-minded (ironically that isn't always true) - but is definitely strange as a phenomenon today. Enough people today think that the purification was justified, and enough people repeat the 'shadow Sita' story as a misguided attempt at preserving Sita's chastity. A frankly bewildering number of people appear to consider the fact that Sita was too pure for Ravana to touch as her crowning glory. You can do that, of course, but there is a very fine line between that and insinuating that Sita would have deserved everything that came her way if Ravana lay with her, and these people use it as a jumping rope. Enough people believe she would have burned herself to protect herself from Ravana, which is amazingly powerful characterization, but a lot of these people also believe she should burn herself if Ravana tried to touch her. This is similar to how a lot of people treat historical self-immolation by queens: she was powerful and brave to do it, yes. But that she would have been wrong not to burn herself? A painful number of people believe so. It's like that one line in the AS Ramayana show: if a woman is to be molested, she should jump into the ocean. It is an expectation instead of a choice, and that itself is very telling.

And lastly what you said: yes, exactly, that is the whole point. Someone in the society believed that Narayana and Lakshmi would bow down, however temporarily, to the cruel and unjust rules of society instead of fighting against it for each other and the good of the people, and that too is a big part of the problem.

On your tags: regional stories are religious beliefs. It is not the text only that makes Ramayana a religious scripture, a lot of people can write long stories, but it is people's faith that makes them religious. And the fact is, most local beliefs don't give a whit about the Valmiki Ramayana. My mother, my grandmother, and my father are all very religious people, and the ones to introduce me to these stories. They told me the local versions, and it was not until I was old enough to get internet access that I found out others exist. And as much as I love the Valmiki or Tulsi Ramayana, my father's stories will always remain the "real" Ramayana to me and my people, because this is a part of my culture. My culture worships Lakshmi and Saraswati as Durga's daughters, which is not something all mainstream texts agree with, but again, it is my culture and I continue to value it above the texts because it is a part of my history. So when you are talking to someone about the Ramayana irl, it is most likely that they are speaking of the Ramayana in they grew up with, and you are the one talking about the Valmiki Ramayana.

I hate how patriarchy has even ruined Hindu mythology so specifically to benefit the men.The casual jokes on family WhatsApp groups about how Mahabharat and Ramayan, the worst wars of all time, were fought because of a woman and how women bring ruin everywhere they go,as if they are the root cause of all suffering. Where in fact the women were LITERALLY the victims, one was publicly humiliated, the other kidnapped.The men have misinterpreted the stories so badly that it physically pains me, god went to war not because of women, they went to war FOR them.Because what happened to the women was WRONG,they weren’t to blame, the ones who wronged them were.

I also see a major polarisation in how a huge section of Hindus treat Sita and Draupadi, and it reminds me of the quote “a woman has to do everything right for her to be a victim and a man has to do everything wrong for him to be a culprit.”It breaks my heart at the number of times I’ve heard men say “well Draupadi shouldn’t have disrespected him,aise toh hona hi tha na fir”,first and foremost,that’s an inaccurate narrative promoted by wrong retellings who need to constantly find a reason to blame the victim,she did no such thing and you can find pretty much evidence for it everywhere.But even if she had, it does NOT make it okay for them to publicly disrobe her.This is one more example of the victim blaming culture that I see deep ingrained in the minds of so many of these dumbfuck Hindus who have absolutely no respect for their culture.So next time don’t go to ram mandirs and krishna mandirs if you can’t even truly understand and respect the relevance behind their existence.

[kalakilo]

ranking nightmare time episodes

under the cut because this is gonna be a long post and it is only for me and no one else<3

i recently finished all the nmt episodes and now that i have no more new hatchetfield content to consume i need to dish out feelings and opinions and i like ranking things i like. this is based on vibes mostly. and my attachment to these characters. i love all of these episodes and the entire cast and nick & matt lang for giving me so much lore to chew on. here is the brutal order of ranking my children

13. daddy

somebody had to be last......first of all i just wanna say jaime lyn beatty is a literal god for performing the double role of sherman and sheila young here, she IS versatility in human form. however young at heart just isn't one of my favourite songs and sherman & frank really aren't as compelling characters to me as some other ones in the hatchetverse and i feel like it doesn't offer that much more lore to me.

i do find that there is a lot to be said about the way sheila holds frank & toy zone hostage with her money and it's yet another case of characters using their money for power and glory in hatchetfield and how those characters eventually become victims of the lords in black and characters that abuse their power. i still had so much to say about this even though it's last on this list and that also speaks to how GOOD this series is okay

12. perky's buds

this one is just absurd????? i truly think perky's buds, jane's a car and hey melissa are the holy trinity of batshit nmt episodes.

this is essentially the most we ever learn about the hatchetmen and their descendants (the metzgers) which makes me a little sad, that lore i am still a bit lost on and honestly the amount of lore (and this being grace chasity's first appearance in canon) is mostly the only reason i prefer this one over daddy. also the fact that joey richter plays a monotone talking bird + emma finally gets her pot farm (even if it all burns down in the end</3). this one is just a little silly to me and the song isn't my favourite either, it's a taste of characters (like the metzgers and ziggs) and lore about the history of hatchetfield and i just wish we knew more

11. forever and always

this is my official apology to paulkins nation for having this ep so low lmao sorry guys

if i'm being honest my favourite part about this episode is how it weaves together with time bastard. idk if i'm allowed to say this out loud because i fear i'll get crucified by starkid / hatchetverse people but honestly i'm not *that* invested in paulkins as a ship.......i love that in this iteration they are just so fucked up and weird, i remember in the hotel scene thinking there is NO way paul wouldn't kill emdroid here. she is an EVIL ANDROID!!!! and then the reveal that he's actually paul 23 made so much sense. anyway i like this one and i REALLY like the song!! it's so fun having such a heartfelt sounding song at the top of the episode and then it actually being so fucked up by the end.

10. hey, melissa!

tbh i wanted this one to be higher because it was SO absurd in a way perky's buds could never even fucking dream of, i truly want to know what possessed nick & matt lang to think that the side character who has maybe four lines in tgwdlm likes dehumanizing men and turning them into her pets???

all this being said i think hey melissa gets a bit of a bad rep in the fandom. i actually think it's a very interesting episode, i will never ever stop thinking about WHY paul makes the decision at the end as he does? i think there is so much to dissect there and in general about paul as a character in this episode. we really don't learn a lot about paul in tgwdlm and in contrast, in the timeline of hey melissa we hear an entire story from his childhood that clearly impacted him a lot? and it's something he thinks about to this day!

i also really wonder the question of if he hadn't told that story, would melissa still have him held captive?? obviously melissa is not a very reliable character in the early part of the story, but paul's memory clearly affects her a lot? does she actually lose faith in him in that moment? and that's why she decides to keep him as her dog (of course he doesn't end up being one lmao) ? i just think there's a lot to be said about this episode! still, i am def forever haunted by this and can't never hear it the same when humans say bark or meow. also what do you MEAN you'd have to NEUTER him to let him OUTSIDE

9. the hatchetfield ape-man

this one has such a special place in my heart for whatever reason<33 full disclosure angela as lucy stockworth is also maybe 80% of why this is higher than the others so far, it's just so fun seeing her play a character who seemingly is just so innocent and sweet and has such a big heart but then who's also very aware of what she's doing and schemes a bit herself. i can't believe this is the only iteration of lucy stockworth what is she doing in the other timelines. i want to know.

also idk why but the reveal that ted was just playing konk fucked me UP!!! like that was insane. also as the first episode that has the cast and nick & matt still figuring everything out it's just very sweet and heartwarming which you cant say about a lot of hatchetfield content<33 honestly no real explanations for this one i just love angela giarratana and also jamie lyn beatty for singing HERE'S A LITTLE STORY BOUT THE HATCHETFIELD APE-MAN

8. watcher world

the scenes with the sniggles???? genuinely horrifying. the idea in itself that someone is always watching is so creepy, i think blinky is maybe actually the most terrifying lord in black. at least he manages to have the most terrifying nmt episode. the fact that he somehow makes a father and daughter almost kill each other and wants to watch for his own enjoyment like........this one actually haunts me sm!!!! wtf is that scene with alice and the blinky mascot!!!!!!

it's also one of the only hatchetfield stories with a genuinely happy ending with basically no catch. and after bill and alice's tragic fate in tgwdlm i'm so glad they also get a good ending<33 it's also just so lovely to see them actually bond in this story and we learn a lot about alice !

this one also has so many songs and i am of the opinion that snoozle town is genuinely heartbreaking and the way angela can just do that while singing the most insane shit like "and we'll have two snoozles that can snozzle / our own bayou where the boogle boggles flow with goo" is beautiful

7. jane's a car

GOT MY FOOT ON THE GAS ok im SORRY im sorry its just. funny

tbh i am a little sad this gets reduced to the car sex episode, i think it does have a lot to say about navigating grief when you feel like you've finally been able to move on and live life again and suddenly the person you lost is back in your life. and they're also a car.

not to mention the ending???? is fucking terrifying????? poor becky quite literally dies and the "mommy's home" paired with the way the script narrates the moment as "becky sits down and jane smiles". like that's. cunt

anyway just to conclude i really wish more people understood the more compelling parts of this episode and not just tom fucks a car!!!! dont overstimulate the cupholders!!!!!

6. honey queen

i was GAGGED seeing the editing quality step up from nmt 1. this is truly the cuntiest nmt episode because we pit two beautiful queens each other and BOTH just fucking perish lmao (that editing step up also contributed so much to the final scene being so terrifying. it's an incredible introduction to nibbly and the scene being followed by the nibbly ditty is just SO gooooooooooooooood)

something i did already mention when talking about daddy is the continued sort of "motif" that rich people either still always lose to the lords in black or (something that i didn't bring up last time) they themselves are corrupt and have essentially sold their souls to the lords in black. like gerald & linda lie, cheat, steal and kill their way to win this pageant and yet. they still both die.

also also!!!!! i love that we learn how linda ended up so incredibly cold and uncaring. like it's not just from being rich as fuck, it's also trauma from being mocked, ridiculed and ignored throughout your entire childhood. i think roman murray might genuinely be the most evil character in hatchetfield and i loooove how jon matteson plays him. king shit

i also just love. gerald and linda. they are so fucked up and so perfect for each other. the way gerald helps her so much to sabotage the pageant and is her BIGGEST cheerleader, knows that deep down linda does not like her father and is afraid of him and literally gets himself killed essentially in support of her.............i love them.

5. time bastard

i'm gonna be honest i wasn't ted's biggest fan after tgwdlm so i didn't reaaaally understand the love i saw for him in the fandom, but after time bastard i really got it. time bastard actually fleshes out ted as a character and even though by the end he kind of is still a dumbass we do still learn a lot about him!! tinky and his little box are both objectively terrifying and being stuck in his box honestly sounds like a worse fate than hell. i feel bad for ted ngl

the reveal that homeless guy is ted spankoffski is also so insane. like the fact that these two exist in the same timeline a lot of the time is so interesting and also brings up the question of did the homeless guy ever try to go into ccrp and try to take his job back??? or did he just resign to his fate. we dont know. speaking of ccrp also learning more lore about what a fucked company it actually is super interesting, especially knowing they too tried to harness tinky's power.

my one and only gripe with time bastard is that it gets a little too complicated for me at some points but that's more a me problem, it just feels slightly hard to wrap my head around it while also connecting it to the events of forever and always. i do love complicated lore but this one fucks w my head sometimes

4. abstinence camp

as a grace chasity girl it is illegal for me to have this episode any lower than in the top 5. these top 4 episodes truly expose my favourite hatchetfield characters so bad lmao

god abstinence camp is SO funny!! the writing here is hilarious, just grace's first appearance is so silly and angela does such a stellar job. i love her in this role so much. along w her i'm so glad this story introduced us to boy jerry and girl jeri who i am begging to see again in another timeline like i need to see their backstory!! how did they find each other the first time and how did they end up abandoning their faith to have a child!!!! jon matteson and kim whalen are so good in these roles

we also cant talk about abstinence camp without mentioning that virginity rocks is objectively the BEST nmt song. jon and kim are serving absolute vocals it is such a banger and the fact that they paired it with axe man is so fucking sick

3. killer track

killer track is the only nmt episode so far that's made me actually cry. god. he was watching the fireworks.

to be completely honest i. don't even know what to comment on for this episode i'm just stuck in never ending holloweane brainrot. god he's so in love with her. AND SO AM I!!! miss holloway is such a compelling character and this nmt episode especially teases a lot about how she ended up the way she is. we also learn about her past and just like everything about her is so interesting to me, i love her protective nature but also that she's so calculated in her every move. and somehow always knows exactly what to do. also i love duke keane i can't leave him out of this

the concept of this episode is also just so viscerally horrifying, it's essentially something i used to have nightmares about like something scary that's ringing so loudly in your ears that nothing can block it out so this genuinely hit like a sort of irrational fear that i pretty much used to have as a kid. it's not so bad that i can't watch but still hit me in a sort of way that reminded me of my own fears. maybe that's also why i love miss holloway she would save me if i ever ended up in that situation

2. the witch in the web

i feel like witch in the web is very underrated?? i don't see a lot of people talking about it compared to some other episodes which i think is such a shame because it's so incredible

the scene where hannah thinks she's seeing lex and then it turns out to be the witch was SO spooky watching it the first time, seeing angela play out this sort of over-excited version of lex and it slooowly becoming more and more sinister is so insane especially with her pulling out the dolls of the lords in black. it's such a great scene!!

also the lore we learn about the witchwood forest and what originally happened to willabella muckwab and how the black book came to be is so integral to the entire lore, and i love the way it's told with hannah & miss holloway sort of walking in this old dreamlike world. plus the confrontation with wilbur cross in the starlight GOD this episode has so many cool moments and it can do so much because they're in nightmare time and not in actual hatchetfield most of the time. i do, however, despise the idea that lex foster is serving what FOUR years in prison in this timeline. dont do that to my girl

1. yellow jacket

the scene where hannah & ethan come home and lex is waiting for them, so disappointed in herself not only for forgetting hannah's birthday but also for failing the test, angry at ethan for not reminding her about hannah's birthday.....that scene is probably my favourite moment in the entire hatchetverse? angela just fucking blew me away she plays it so well and not to mention joey richter ethan just. kills

yellow jacket just had to be first here, i'm so invested in these relationships and their past and how it led them to where they are here, the way this episode portrays how hard it is for lex and ethan because they're just trying to survive on what little resources they have while lex is also taking care of hannah: she cares for her so much that she's wanted to move them out of their mom's trailer. of course hannah would feel responsible and maybe guilty because lex has so much to worry about, of course hannah wants to take the first opportunity she gets to make them copious amounts of money, of course she's willing to put herself in terrible danger, all to help lex.

i love seeing this perspective on hannah, especially since in black friday we mostly see lex (and ethan) protecting and saving hannah when she's in trouble (although she definitely can fend for herself a little!). in yellow jacket we really see how responsible hannah must feel. when her and ethan see the ipad as a possible prize, her first thought isn't all the fun things you could use the ipad for, it's how much money they could get selling it. she doesn't understand the sheer danger of fighting pokey, which makes sense since she doesn't know that that is quite literally an eldritch god, she just wants to support lex.

this episode is just incredible in its every element: the portrayal of the characters, the story and the way it talks about the influence that money has on people's lives. not to mention watching literal children fight each other for entertainment. it's brutal but the core relationships are what eventually survive despite the circumstances

well. this was long

[envihellbender]

What’s the Irish Magnus Institute equivalent like?

Fun fact Montpelier Hill is also known as the Hellfire Club…

An Cumann Taighde Asarlaíochta (or the CTA) in County Dublin was known to most as simply a group of ghost-hunting and heretical lunatics who were at best mocked and at worst demonised by the Church to a point that baffled anyone who wasn’t a strict Catholic. There were no churches within a 1.26 Square mile of the place, this was managed by it being at the top of Montpelier Hill. It was a lovely hike, and a lot of supernatural and ghost tours would take you there, officially it was a branch of Trinity College Dublin. Some argued that only because back when Ireland was still under British Colonialism Queen Victoria like most Victorians was fascinated by occultism. Supposedly she publicly wanted the CTA to prove that the Pagan religion was dangerous and satanic, and secretly she believed in the work of the founder of the CTA - Herbert Brennan. Famous friends, researchers, and those who have funded the CTA through out the years include Arthur Conan Doyle, James Wright, Oscar Wilde, Elias Bouchard, W.B. Yeats, Peter Lukas, William Butler, and the like.

It functions in a similar way to the Magnus Archives, which makes sense as some of the researchers would tell you it was originally built with Jonah Magnus intentions in mind. Whether this is true or not has been lost to history but it was hardly a secret that Magnus was a tyrannical colonialist who wished to have as much control over the world as physically possible. The main difference is that the CTA whilst once founded by an avatar for the Eye - Brennan’s alliance and probably romantic attachments to Jonah Magnus was well known, in the first decade of the twentieth century it was shortly in the possession of the Slaughter - an English woman named Helena Asquith, she was killed by Constance Lynch a devotee of the Hunt, who held it for decades until 1999 when it fell into those most called the Unseelie court but those in the know knew to be the Stranger. This very avatar is currently sitting in the head office and is known as Diarmuid Quan.

The building itself is fairly unremarkable, whilst it’s surrounded by beautiful countryside, the most interesting and unique forms of fungi that people come from miles around to see, the building itself looks just like an old Victorian education institute. Some say it used to be where suspected Changelings were taken, records back this claim up as many children were taken there and whilst they were never seen again it does seem that a lot of later researchers appeared as if from no where. If spoken to they would have had perfectly explainable childhoods, maybe they’d even seem charming, if somewhat thin and sickly. The jobs of the researchers is similar to that of the Magnus Archive, to collect statements - but where as the institute collect them on tapes and file them away the CTA likes to dig their claws into the people themselves. People who give statements to the CTA talk about how affable and warm they are, and it takes them along time to realise that every single one of them will soon became more and more distant to their families and friends until a local circus comes to town and for some bizarre reason they are compelled to join them. Of course no one would connect a circus from mainland Europe with the CTA, what a bizarre connection to make.

The people (or Avatars, if you wish to be pedantic) who work with those who submit statements to the CTA are split between those who want answers or power. They are:

The previously introduced Diarmuid Quan, a spindly man who was half Chinese half Irish. His father’s family were wealthy back in Shanghai as the owners of the country’s biggest theatres. They have a contract which every acrobat in China has to sign to be able to perform in order to perform at an officially licensed theatre, one that is terrifyingly binding. He sits in an enormous lavish office. It seems just like it was originally crafted and designed by a friend of the then British Queen. The main input in the decor is the amount of toys, dolls, and wooden figures he has dotted about the place. He’s a small, unassuming man, until that is you realise his smile never cracks, and that the puppets he keeps seem to always be in a different place every time you look.

Domhnall Stoker is officially the head researcher and Quan’s closest confidant. his relation to Timothy Stoker of the Magnus Institute is unknown to himself - but he is a second cousin on his father’s side. Some might think the link to the Stranger is hereditary but that is simply not the case. Domhnall is much more aware of Quan’s actions and works very closely with him. The rumours say that they are in a relationship, but the nature of it is unclear.

Niamh Mohan, a researcher and a Mincéir (usually known as an Irish Traveller but she would never describe herself that way) who lost her family in an arson attack on their homes. Or that was the official story, and it made sense she thought since hate attacks against her community were common. That wasn’t how she remembered it though, but when she told the police about a strange cult who worshipped the Light who moved in nearby they wouldn’t hear a word of it.

Otylia Soltys, a research who as a child she was runaway who was taken in by the Circus of the Other, not that she knew what it was then. She was trained as an acrobat and they took advantage of her hypermobile joints to train her into being a unique and beautiful performer. Of course, the circus’s grip was tight and painful, any attempt to run away resulted in her being dragged back. Even when she ran to Ireland she found herself unable to escape the grip of the CTA.

Ravi Nayar was taken from their family at the age of six, their strict Hindu parents definitely did not think they were a changeling but enough of their neighbours did that they were taken from their home in the middle of the night. What exactly happened between then and the present day Ravi has no idea, their earliest memory is waking up in a warm, comfortable bed at the CTA and being told they’ve always worked there. They have always been loved and cared for by the Stranger, this has always been their home.

[tsukuyomiland]

Someone:

-Abuse my affection by making me an emotional slave that had to be ready to talk to them at the time they said or otherwise get guilt-tripped ("I feel so alone" "you said you would be here").

-I had to be ready to comfort them at any time, with situations like me having my baby niece crying in my arms and they DEMANDING my total attention even knowing it, or demanding drawings to make them feel better.

-Lies to me. Blatantly.

-Makes me feel miserable filling my life with constant negativity. I wasn't allowed to express any kind of personal happiness publicly because it "hurt their feelings". Me drawing better than them also hurt them, I felt compelled to pretend I was less skilled.

-Contacts IRL friends of mine and tell them my now husband is "manipulating me". (He was in fact saving me of their toxic influence).

-Steals my art. Lies to me when I demand my art to be removed. Sends me a broken link to a blog. Later I find out they only changed the username and I find my art again used without my permission.

-Steals concepts and characters I created. Lies blatantly about their creation to erase my contribution and real origin.

-Erases my name from collabs.

-Writes a journal on Deviant Art full of blatant lies. When I call out, they say my screenshots are fake.

-Copies drawings from me (and other artists). They get comments like "nice pose", they only say thank you without mention it was referenced-copied.

-I demand those drawings to be deleted or at least, get credited. I'm ignored. The drawings are still there.

-Impersonates me, takes my username and posts stuff with the intention of discredit me. Some allude to things like "how to make fake screenshots" showing that they were aware of their activity and were ready to use that argument against me even knowing it would be false, showing their bad faith.

-Sends me repeated insults, some as tasteless as calling my newborn son "broken condom". Allusions to the fascist dictatorship my country suffered. Calling me lazy for not drawing my comic... The day after I gave birth. And much more. I have screenshots of all of them, so I have proof.

-Accusations of plagiarism. I only took the characters I made and put them in a completely different context. Telling my story is a copy of theirs is like saying Gone with the Wind is a copy of Jurassic Park.

-Accused me of being friends with a person with who I exchanged barely a couple conversations and with which I have no connection at all.

Me:

-Decided to cut a friendship after months of emotional suffering that was affecting my relationship with my husband, my mood, my skills, after I found a "secret blog" full of stuff I feel unable to support, after they told me a thing that was the final red flag I was able to put up after a history of ignoring red flags.

-I decided to choose my own happiness.

-I decided to choose mental health.

-I never insulted.

-I never lied.

-I felt manipulated, with the feeling my only value to them was my drawing skills to be used for their project and my relative popularity in a fandom to help them to get noticed themselves. I had the feeling the only reason they clinged to my friendship was that they would lose the use of my skills. The episode of the stolen drawings confirmed it to me.

-I only asked my stuff to get removed, ready to move on and hoping my characters and concepts won't be used never again. After they lied to me, I decided I earned my right to recover and use what was mine. I even surrendered one of those characters completely as a gesture of good will because they had an attachment to said character.

-I've shown repeatedly actions of good will and hopes of stable terms.

-I deleted my Deviant Art account, that they helped to boost in watchers, in order to not be accused of 'taking advantage' of their action. I haven't had an account on dA ever since.

-I've sent private emails to manage our problems directly. Ignored by them.

-There is no one left on their side who was a witness of our friendship, relationship and exchanges at the time, because I was the only friend they had then -another lie: they said once that I wanted to isolate them so I could be their only friend, totally false because I always encouraged they could search new friends in their area and even helped them actively to set the accomodations for an Erasmus trip. In the opposite, they are who made actions to get me afar from my irl friends and husband so I could focus only on them. They can say whatever they want to the people surrounding them now and be believed because they don't know me at all, never worried about knowing my side, and I don't expect it. My image is at their mercy, and they don't hesitate in using lies. There is nothing I can do against it that doesn't require legal action.

But I guess I'm the baddie, huh.

[abhishek9906]

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Quality and Variety: Lab-grown diamonds offer excellent quality and come in a wide range of sizes, colors, and cuts. They are available in the same styles as natural diamonds, making them perfect for any jewelry piece, including earrings, rings, necklaces, and bracelets.

Why Choose Lab-Grown Diamond Earrings?

Earrings are a timeless accessory that can elevate any outfit, from casual to formal. When you choose lab-grown diamond earrings, you're not only making a stylish statement but also making a conscious decision to support ethical and sustainable practices.

Versatility: Lab-grown diamond earrings come in a variety of designs, from classic studs to elegant drop earrings. They can be worn daily or saved for special occasions, offering versatility that suits any wardrobe.

Affordability: As mentioned earlier, the cost savings associated with lab-grown diamonds mean you can afford larger or more intricate designs without breaking the bank.

Ethical Choice: By choosing lab-grown diamonds, you're supporting a more ethical and environmentally friendly industry. This is a choice you can feel good about every time you wear your earrings.

Making the Switch

If you're considering adding lab-grown diamond earrings to your collection, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, make sure to purchase from a reputable jeweler who can provide certification and information about the origin of the diamonds. This ensures you're getting a high-quality product that meets industry standards.

Secondly, take some time to explore different styles and settings to find the perfect pair that matches your personal taste. Whether you prefer the timeless elegance of diamond studs or the dramatic flair of chandelier earrings, there's a lab-grown option for you.

In conclusion, lab-grown diamond earrings offer a beautiful, ethical, and affordable alternative to traditional diamonds. By choosing lab-grown, you're not only enhancing your style but also making a positive impact on the world. So why not make the switch today and shine with a clear conscience?

[animehouse-moe]

Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut Volume 5 - Hunting Dogs

Finally, a volume back with Lev and Irina. I don't think it could have come at a better time in the story either. The material, the extension of Bart and Kaye's story, the isolation and internal struggle that face a pair that have seen the world and outer space as they're confined once more to their country. And the fact that we now begin to deviate from history. Impeccable decisions from a story perspective, with plenty to love, and maybe a few jabs to make.

Allow me to start with my more critical remarks. The biggest struggle with a story is time. Trimming down as much as you can to provide a streamlined and effective experience for readers. Makino does a great job overall, but I feel slightly misses the mark with Roza and Mikhail. Being limited to Lev's perspective we're not given enough time with either individual to be as attached to them as possible through their stories in this volume. There's a lot of greatly compelling aspects between the pair of them, and I would have loved to have seen them further explored. Of course, as I said earlier, being limited to Lev's perspective means we're also limited with what we can do with supporting characters, so I really hope Makino aspires to be more bold with future volumes and branch out in terms of perspective and narrative.

Aside from that though, I don't really have any major criticisms for the volume. A piece here and there, how things are shown to the reader for one scene, or the thoughts of a specific character; nothing major.

In terms of praise though, it really starts from the get go. This volume effortlessly converts on the issues raised by Bart and Kaye's tenure in the story, producing natural development from Irina's treatment as a test subject, to Kaye's treatment alongside Dhampirs as people, to now examining how the USZR views and treats its cosmonauts as a whole. It arrives at the conclusion of Lev and Irina's divorce from outer space, and uses that yearning as fuel for the fire that is lit beneath our characters in this volume.

The whole series has done an incredible job of marrying passion and oppression to create a swirling vortex of desire and hatred, and has slowly but surely increased the scales until the tipping point of this volume has been reached. Protest isn't possible, once in a lifetime speeches aren't happening, so Lev and Irina borrow from the ideas of both to produce their seeds of hope for the future in a very grounded and passionate manner.

Enough of that though, allow me to talk specifics to this volume (sort of). We're 5 volumes in, countless spaceflight have occurred up until this point, and we've not been faced with a single death. We knew it would happen, and we had ideas as to who it may be. In spite of that though, and the fake outs and one-two punches, the drama and emotion of the moment remain strong. Why? Because it was well written from the beginning. Resigned to fate, allowing the course of their life to be dictated by the shallow politics of a man clinging to a delusion of success, our hero of this volume is the exact cause for Lev and Irina's actions. The foundation for their push for a better future, the straw that broke the camel's back. Makino saves a character death for the moment that needs it the most, where space development stalls and hope is lost, and finds the best way to use it to propel our story into its newly fictional future.

I mean, we've already had vampires, so isn't it already fictional? Yes, but sorta no. Up until this volume, history has been loosely followed. However, this volume shakes things up in very important ways, and provides Makino with full freedom in his story of fictional spaceflight. It proves that the sky's the limit, and beyond exist an even more infinite boundary. I'm incredibly curious to see how things go now that we'll be into new territory, and I'm very interested to see how the themes of oppression, inequality, and prejudice remain as we shed concrete past and drift towards a more cloudy future.

[beyondspaceandstars]

While You Sleep

Chapter 12

Relationship: Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: kidnapping, violence Summary: Soulmate!AU - Throughout life, you’re given glimpses of your soulmate through dreams. As you sleep, memories flash in your mind showing you the life your soulmate has lived. Everyone around you raves about how their soulmate reads great books or volunteers in their spare time. But you can’t relate as your dreams end up being more like nightmares. Through initial images of death and violence, you come to learn your soulmate is the Winter Soldier.

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

“They couldn’t take that from me. They could never take you.”

“I never want to bring you pain or worry, okay? That shouldn’t be what… we do.”

Bucky’s words rang in your head as you sat in the lonesome cell, fighting for release any way you thought to try. But naturally, these attempts of wrangling yourself out of this had fallen flat and you weren’t trying anymore, that’s for certain. It only made the restraints dig into your wrists more. Not to mention you were beyond tired hitting a point of exhaustion that you didn't know was possible. You weren’t given a chance to relax as you sat on edge, waiting. Waiting for what - or really who - you didn’t quite know. 

Sure, you had an Avenger for a soulmate (at least, that was what you considered Bucky, despite his humbleness) but you weren’t exactly up to date on their enemies. From your understanding, between the looks of the facility and your soulmate’s history, this was seeming like the work of Hydra. But they had been abolished...right? Apparently, you didn’t know anymore and doubts rang in your head as you feared you weren’t some random victim.

The first signs of daylight were just beginning to peek into your cell from a very tiny, thin window located near the top of the wall beside you.

Suddenly, a grumbling voice called from outside the cell. “She’s up.” You whipped your head towards the sound, just barely able to make out a figure illuminated by the early morning glow. There was probably some comment to make to whoever this was about how you hadn’t really slept but you couldn’t find your voice at the moment.

“Excellent.” A deeper, possibly older, voice called from down the hall. The man sounded way too excited for your liking. Your stomach threatened to empty its contents as heavy footsteps began making their way towards your cell.

When the steps stopped, you tried squinting through the minimal light but still couldn’t make out much of either man. If you had to guess, they looked like some doctors of sorts in long lab coats with notebooks in hand. One thing you definitely could tell was that they didn’t hesitate to stare back. You could feel their eyes taking you in over and over again making your heart pound in a weirdly familiar way.

“Does she speak?” The first man asked with a humorless scoff. You twisted in your wrist restraints wishing for some courage to get up and maybe put space between you. 

Mustering a scrap of energy, you turned away from the men, hoping maybe your matted hair falling in your face could block them out forever. Because really, couldn’t this be forever? How would anyone know what happened? Your best bet was your coworker noticing your absence but then you thought of Bucky… He was away for now and by the time he caught wind who knows what would be of you. Tears began welling in your eyes at the thought of this being it for you -- whatever this was. You still weren’t sure what about you compelled these men to kidnap you in the middle of the night.

“Hey,” the same voice called out to you this time, pulling you from your troubling thoughts. Slowly, you turned back to him, taking in more of the doctor (fake, you guessed) persona now. “I asked if you speak.”

“No,” you grumbled. You didn’t know where this smart response came from but it made you feel a bit better like you were coming back to yourself. Really, though, you were in no position to start getting smart with anyone.

He let out a joyous laugh that sent far more fear through you. “The Soldier’s soulmate has an attitude, huh?”

Soldier? Bucky. Your heart panged at another thought of him. If that’s who they were referring to, this was to be about Bucky, you realized. These men knew him and whatever connection was festered there, it hadn't fizzled and you were caught in the crossfire. This actually couldn’t be them… But it looked like it.

Suddenly, the cell door opened with a loud screech, and the two men walked into the full glory of the morning sunrise. There, on their white coats, you saw an emblem of what appeared to be some tentacle-bearing creature. Your suspicions were regrettably confirmed. 

They walked towards you, their eyes looking over you as if you were an experiment and they were memorizing you. With fear racing through you, you slowly began scooting backward trying to get as far away as you could. Your back eventually hit a wall and they just kept coming. 

“Quite the squeamish one for being chained to The Soldier,” the second man observed, writing something down in his notebook. You could see now that he was much older, having that wiser look in his older years. You guessed he was a leader of sorts (at least, that was how you were going to file him in your head) and the other man, the one who was so kind to comment on your attitude, was some kind of assistant. You couldn’t take your eyes off the logo on their coats as it was practically screaming in your face. It all felt impossible and yet here you were, in the belly of the beast.

“W-What am I doing here?” You asked, your voice scratchy and nervous. Honestly, you were just glad you had the guts to make any noise. The assistant looked a bit humored at your question.

“Wow, she speaks full sentences,” he commented with an unsettling smirk. 

The “leader” of the pair shot him a look before turning back to speak to you. “We have some observing to do, my dear,” he briefly explained.

The vagueness of it all was certainly not helping you - like anything realistically could in this moment. Still, you pursued it. “Observing?”

He hummed in response, turning back for a moment to write a few more lines in the notebook. Truthfully, you wanted to just kick it out of his fucking hand. Your eyes flicked quickly to the assistant but he wasn’t handing out any hints, just looking at you like you were something to be conquered. Oh, how you wanted to vomit on their shiny dress shoes.

“I will explain our intentions to ease your mind,” he snapped his notebook shut, “but first, you are to be moved.”

And just like, as if his words were keys, a hoard of men entered the cell and hoisted you to your feet. You tried kicking and screaming but they were strong. Maybe too strong. A strength you possibly could only recall in two other men you knew. But you didn’t have time to dwell on it as they corralled you easily and forced you down the hall. 

Everything was dark again. There was no light from the windows in the hall, just some musty glows of lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. You didn’t know where to look so you just stared downward, taking in the metal flooring that made you chilled.

After turning a few corners, you were brought to a much larger cell. This one at least had a chair, but you didn’t think it was exactly a nice grand gesture as your eyes landed on the restraints attached to it. The second thing you noticed was some sort of computer-like machine and rolling tables which lined the side. If you hadn’t known better, you would’ve thought this was just another medical office. 

You yelped as one of the large men threw you on the chair, not giving you a second to even adjust before your hands were unbound only to be rebound by the chair’s restraints.  You tugged a bit at them out of reflex, finding them as sturdy as expected. Your legs were free, though, maybe offering some tactic but exhaustion and fear overtook you.

Once they deemed you settled in, the army of men left, walking in line as commandingly as they had entered. The leader and his assistant stayed, waiting for you three to finally be alone once more. The door shut with a disturbing bang, really sealing your fate. The assistant stayed off to the side, leaning against a wall adjacent to the chair. The leader walked over to you, taking a seat on some rolling stool. Wow, these guys really thought they were serious professionals or something.

“I hope the trip here was okay,” the leader said with a chuckle. “Comfortable?” He motioned towards your lounging state. You blinked. “I see we are losing that attitude. What a shame, really. I’m sure your soulmate loves a firecracker.” Your body visibly tensed at the mention of Bucky. The elderly man didn’t miss it. In fact, it seemed like you unintentionally gave him the perfect segue into his whole evil spiel.

“Ah, yes, your soulmate.” The leader nodded as if he had just forgotten all about it. “Well, you see, the fact he even has one was news to us,” he shrugged and glanced at his assistant who nodded in confirmation. “We were sure when we wiped him we were wiping everything, so imagine our surprise when we find out he’s out and about dancing - with you on his arm.” 

Your throat tightened as the memories of you and Bucky at the dance hall flooded your mind. It had been so busy that night you never would’ve thought you’d have to worry about someone… It sounded so ludicrous to you. You almost wish he hadn’t said it as the thoughts of that night were suddenly a bit darker. The carelessness you two had held seemed foolish now. 

The leader watched you carefully. When you didn’t say anything in response, just blinked away more tears, he continued, “At first, we were quite angry we had missed something so big. We could’ve sworn we broke every attachment time after time but, as I said, you just swept The Soldier right off his feet. So, naturally, our sights were set on eliminating you.” He let out a ridiculous hearty laugh. “But then my assistant here,” the man in the corner waved in response, “realized that that would be a waste. There could be potential here for you. For you and your soulmate. Potential rooted in a team. Two unbreakable soldiers, both in bond and skills. What more could Hydra want?” 

You gasped, your eyes growing wide, at the explanation. You didn’t know what to do now, your body had a mind of its own as it began shaking your head furiously as your wrists tugged and tugged at the restraints. This wasn’t realistic. They were absolutely mad. What kind of foolishness was this? They couldn’t possibly -

“Now, now,” the leader chuckled and turned to his notebook. He began checking referencing stuff from the monitor to the paper. “Don’t get too excited. We’re still brainstorming the whole concept and while it’s not near execution, it is on the promising side. There is, though, a vital component we seem to be lacking: your soulmate.”

Bucky… Your heart felt like it was going to rip itself out of your chest. Was he walking into a trap? Assuming he was walking in at all? Who was to say he had any idea of what was going on with you? How long could this all be for… You let out a surprising sob.

The leader responded to your outburst with an annoyed scoff. “There’s no reason to cry, dear. He’s sure to be here soon thanks to that little bond you have. If he hasn’t already recognized your distress by now, well, he’s not as smart as we thought.” He shrugged and began typing away on the monitor’s keyboard. “The whole attachment may all work out in our favor after all. Eventually, you two will be reunited, and won’t that be just lovely?”

Truthfully, you didn’t know anymore. You had no doubt in Bucky’s fighting abilities but these guys were… Well, they were pretty much responsible for him and everything you had seen him be put through. Who knows what they could do if (and when) he walked through those doors. You were lucky you hadn’t passed out yet from this anxiety alone.

“Besides, as I said, it’s all later down the line anyway,” the leader said. It had suddenly occurred to you at that moment that you were very glad he hadn’t given out his name. You couldn’t imagine humanizing these monsters. “For now, though, we are interested in learning more about you. I’ll be honest, on paper you are quite boring. Barely finished high school, left college for a coffee shop job… The pairing is almost comical. We just can’t figure out what you offer him and while, really, who are we to question Fate? But I still think in time we can figure out...well, whatever it is about you.”

You shook your head slowly, your eyes barely even able to focus on him anymore. Everything in you felt so heavy. “I’m not special.” 

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” the leader chuckled. “He makes you special.”

As if on cue, a chorus of screams erupted from the hallway. You all jumped and turned towards the door. There was a little window on it but all you three could see were the bodies of the army of men from earlier flying about. 

“Sooner than we expected,” the leader mumbled and began furiously typing something into the computer.

You didn’t know what to do besides sit there and wait for whatever was coming. Deep in you, you knew it was Bucky, you could feel it. You could feel him. But there was also a part of you that could also sense… rage. A very familiar, unsettling rage burned within him. It made you wonder if you actually wanted to see him in such a state. Some sick piece of you wished they had just knocked you out. 

There wasn’t much more time to consider what you were going to do as the door to the cell was ripped off. Literally, fully, ripped away at the hinges to reveal a very determined, very angry, Bucky. He had an expression you didn’t recall seeing before, even in the nightmares. He looked ready to murder everything in its path but there was no calculated strategy to the madness. It seemed to be just him and his pure desire to eliminate anything and everything. His eyes were locked deadly on the older man, seemingly opting to ignore you. The assistant had begun shifting further away into the corner of the space.

“So nice of you to join us,” the leader said with an unsettling laugh. “I’ll admit, we weren’t expecting you so soon. I barely got a chance to get to know your little darling here.” He motioned towards you. 

“I’m only going to ask this once,” Bucky finally spoke, his voice strained, “let her go.”

The leader smiled, “I’m not sure you’ll be asking for anything in a moment, anyways.” He motioned towards the computer. You and Bucky followed his motion with matching bewildered expressions. “In fact, I think you’ll be the one doing what I ask.”

Bucky’s eyes widened. “No-,” 

But it was already set in motion. With a simple press of a button, the room filled with an electronic voice repeating a series of words in a foreign language. You looked around, unsure of where this could even be coming from and what the hell was being said, Your eyes eventually settled on Bucky who looked completely… lost. You gripped the sides of the chair, begging for this to just be over, as you watched that was so familiar. You could feel the memories rising from the depths of your brain. Hidden away, nearly suppressed... You gasped. The nightmares. That’s what all this was. They had pulled the trigger. 

As much as you loved and trusted Bucky, you couldn’t say the same for the other guy. If in that state, could he even recognize you? Like, fully understand your role? You didn’t want to find out, truly. The panic that was settling in now was unlike anything you had experienced that day. Not even the idea of Hydra goons kidnapping you had sparked this much within. 

You were preparing yourself for the worst as you watched Bucky try to shake it off. The leader wore a proud expression while the assistant kept his lonely distance, watching everything unfold. Suddenly, Bucky began mumbling to himself as his hands made hard fists. You thought the blow was finally coming and he was going to be gone. Just like that.

But then Bucky lunged. In one swift move, he pounced on the leader, taking everyone in the room off-guard, especially the target of the aggression. The older man hadn’t even had a chance to put his arms up before your soulmate was punching him relentlessly. Bucky’s yelling in the process was of pure, expressive anger, completely drowning out the screams of pain from the leader. You didn’t know what to do. You wanted to look away so badly but you were also hypnotized. Bucky was so determined and unwavering in whatever goal was planted in his head. A bit thankful someone would go to such lengths for you, you had had enough of such danger in your sleep - you didn’t want it in your reality. 

Bucky switched suddenly to strangling the man and that seemed to be the final straw for the leader’s life. The older man was soon just a lifeless, limp body on the floor. Bucky was still knelt above him, watching the soul drain from his victim. Your jaw went slack. You couldn’t turn this off.

The assistant didn’t help it as he made some foolish break for the exit but Bucky was just as fast. In a couple of determined strides, Bucky yanked the younger man back by the neck and threw him into the wall creating an artistic indentation. The assistant fell to the floor with a chilling thud. 

There was no one left for his sights to land on except for you. Slowly, Bucky turned around. A shiver ran up your spine when your eyes finally met. You didn’t know who was standing before you. Whatever or whoever this was quickly began stomping their way towards you. You shut your eyes and flinched away, waiting for a painful, finishing blow from the Soldier. 

But it never came. 

Instead, all Bucky did was lean over to turn off the speakers and then began untying your wrists. Hesitantly, you turned to look at him but found he wouldn’t look at you, just was intensely concentrated on the restraints. 

“B-Bucky?” Your voice was scratchy as you fumbled over his name. 

“It’s me, doll,” Bucky responded with an exhausted sigh. He sounded normal to you, his demeanor not even looking close to what you remembered from the nightmares. He… He was okay. Bucky still wasn’t looking at you as he finished one restraint then went on the next.

“You’re not…”

Bucky shook his head. “Everything’s okay,” he mumbled. “We’re getting you out of here.”

“We?”

“The team is outside handling the other men.”

“You all came for me?”

Bucky finally looked up at you. For the first time, you could see just how tired he looked. A man nearly on the brink of defeat and enduring the fight. Your heart ached as all you wanted to do was crawl into his arms and take the longest naps of your lives. 

“Of course, sweetheart,” Bucky nodded. Gently, after the last restraint was undone, he picked you up bridal style. You threw your arms around his neck and buried your face in his shoulder, letting yourself relax and the tears flow. 

“Thank you,” you mumbled but Bucky didn’t respond as he carried you out of the facility

***

You must’ve fallen asleep because a few hours later you awoke at some sort of compound. You were lying in what appeared to be a hospital bed but nothing about this place looked like a typical hospital. The technology was too advanced and everything just seemed too quiet. You looked around, letting your eyes adjust to the bright light of the sun shining in from the large room windows. In the corner, you were greeted by the sight of Bucky sleeping awkwardly in a chair.

You twisted in the bed, trying to get more comfortable under the blanket. The super-soldier hearing must’ve kicked in because one ruffle of the blanket made Bucky’s eyes shoot open. He looked at you, panic shifting to relief when he saw you were awake. Quickly, in a few steps, he was out of the chair and at your bedside. 

“How are you feeling?” He asked softly. His hand went to touch your cheek but he must've thought better of it and instead lowered it. Your heart broke a bit wondering what self-deprecating thoughts were running through his brain after everything he had to do. 

“I’m okay. Just a bit sore,” you shrugged but boy was it the hard truth. You hadn't been in a comfortable position in hours and endured being thrown around like some rag doll. 

“Do you need any medicine?” Bucky asked, his voice suddenly having an air of panic to it. “I can call for help if you need it. Are you hungry? Do you need water? Or -  Or just anything to drink? I can get you-,”

“Bucky…” You placed your hand on his to calm down. He flinched at your touch. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

He shook his head. “Nothing is fine, sweetheart. You were taken from me-,” Bucky cut himself off as his eyes began welling with tears. He looked wrecked as he stared down at you, taking in your current state. You felt the pain, wanting nothing more than to make all these torturing thoughts vanish. “You… You saw things that I just… I never wanted you to deal with-,”

“It’s over.” You took a deep breath. “I’m here, I’m safe, and you’re with me.”

Bucky closed his eyes as if preparing for something. “After what happened back there, do you even want me around anymore?”

Your jaw went slack at his question. Sure, there was absolutely no denying that the events of today scared you, most likely more than you realized. You had only seen Bucky that determined and violent in your nightmares so to see it just steps away was jarring. But you also knew nothing changed within him. He wasn’t a robot or anything. He wasn’t someone just taking commands. He had remorse. You certainly couldn’t say the same for who greeted you in your sleep. It may take you some time to adjust, sure, but you weren’t turning away. At least, you were going to try not to. Healing was just beginning.

“Of course, I do,” you said, raising your other hand to Bucky’s cheek. At first, he flinched but slowly he leaned into the touch, sighing like he was letting go of something. “Bucky, what happened back there… You had no choice. I don’t have to tell you that those were some very, very bad people. They had it coming and the fact you went to those lengths to save me is unbelievable.”

“I’d go to the ends of the Earth for my girl,” Bucky admitted. 

You let out a weak giggle. “Thank you.” A pause. “May I ask how you figured out I was in trouble?”

Bucky smirked. “I had a nightmare.”

You raised your brows in surprise. “A nightmare?”

He nodded, “I started to feel weird after leaving for the mission like there was something I was missing. A little later on, I was taking a nap and you of course appeared but it was unlike any other dream I had ever had about you. It was… You were scared, deathly afraid of something, and then I saw what was going on. I practically watched it all play out from your apartment and on. It didn’t take too long to put everything together.”

You hmm’d. “Thank God for nightmares.”

Bucky chuckled and placed a light kiss on your forehead. “Thank God for nightmares,” he repeated in agreement.

[filmmakerdreamst]

Gabrielle, Xena, and their wlw legacy 25 years later

“Before I met you, no one saw me for who I was. I felt invisible. You saw all the things that I could be. You saved me, Xena.” – Gabrielle, “The Ides of March”

The story of Xena is remembered as many different things. A heroic saga, a tale of redemption, a campy romp. It’s a series that truly had it all, and that’s why it remains iconic a quarter of a century later. Yet it is perhaps best remembered for the series-long slow burn subtextual love affair between Xena and her “traveling companion” Gabrielle.

While Xena and Gabrielle never became a canonical couple throughout the show’s run, producer Liz Friedman was (and is) an out lesbian and she, along with many of the writers, are on record as having worked to push queer themes throughout the series. Though studio executives refused to allow an openly queer relationship to flourish in late 1990s all-ages programming, looking back, they got away with a lot. While the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle remains the most talked about element of the show with good reason, something that stands out during a rewatch is that Gabrielle’s story is a queer narrative from the very start.

In the pilot episode, Gabrielle and her fellow villagers are taken hostage by henchmen of the villainous Draco. Despite being “only a bard,” Gabrielle is a brave young woman, and tries to stand up for the others, but to no avail. She is, after all, a storyteller, not a warrior. At that fortuitous moment, Xena arrives and defeats the warlords effortlessly, and it changes Gabrielle’s life forever. Not only is her life spared, she has found a new purpose – Xena.

Gabrielle is immediately smitten and attempts to follow Xena out of town when the other villagers, knowing her reputation as a ruthless killer, demand that she move on. Xena is jaded and prefers to travel alone, but Gabrielle trails her. She is committed to proving to Xena that they need each other. She even saves Xena’s life by thinking on her feet and keeping her cool under pressure so that Xena finally, grudgingly feels compelled to hear her out. When Xena threatens to send her back home, Gabrielle immediately replies, “I won’t stay there,” and makes an impassioned plea to Xena to allow her to accompany her on adventures.

“Gabrielle doesn’t elaborate on the details of her alienation, but any queer viewer would be able to relate.”

Even from the very first episode, Gabrielle knows she does not belong in her hometown. She knows she does not fit in, and the heteronormative plan that has been laid out for her by the people in her life seems akin to torture. She doesn’t elaborate on the details of her alienation, but any queer viewer would be able to relate. Xena is moved by this, and she finally agrees to accept Gabrielle into her life. For both of them, this proves to be the most important decision either of them would ever make.

This is all within the very first of the one hundred thirty-four episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, and it truly set the standard for what we would see going forward. Gabrielle would have some romantic interests outside of Xena over the course of the series, but there is no questioning that her life revolved around the Warrior Princess from the moment she met her. Xena struggles with myriad romantic attachments throughout the show, conflicted over her past loves like Marcus, and the god of war, Ares, who sees the bond between her and Gabrielle as a threat and consistently attempts to break them up. For Gabrielle, she is briefly married, but her husband is little more than a plot device who is then almost immediately killed. She is trailed after by Joxer, but has no interest in him. In contrast, she is dedicated to Xena, and rarely questions the strength of their connection. Though it isn’t always explicit, by the end of the series, it’s difficult to view their relationship as anything but a love story.

Looking back, what was mandated a platonic relationship by censorship comes across more like a highly successful polyamorous relationship, in which the two grant each other space and understanding while remaining fully committed to one another. By the end of the story, they appear to be in a more monogamous arrangement, with Xena ultimately choosing Gabrielle as her one true partner, but it’s important that they allowed each other to express outside interests without anger as they grew together.

Indeed, though Xena’s affairs are many, Gabrielle’s strongest outside interest is with the Amazons. This, of course, is not without its own subtext. In the episode “Hooves & Harlots”, Xena focuses on trying to solve a murder mystery while Gabrielle trains and bonds with the Amazons. The Amazons emphasize sisterhood and they give Gabrielle a greater understanding of who she is as an entity separate from Xena. In “The Quest,” we learn that if Xena were to perish, Gabrielle would go to live with the Amazons rather than rejoining her old village or even pursuing her career as a bard. Though the Amazons are also never confirmed as queer despite the obvious queer elements of their story, Gabrielle’s emphasis on surrounding herself with a community of other queer people is important. In the Amazon episodes, the Gabrielle-specific subtext is as strong as it ever gets. In “To Helicon and Back,” Gabrielle politely notes that Xena will have to leave because a pending ceremony is Amazon-only, and Xena graciously agrees with only a trace of apprehension, quipping, “Don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.” Xena supports Gabrielle and encourages her to form close bonds with other women, but they always come back to each other.

In “The Ides of March,” the villainous Callisto teams up with Xena’s cruel ex Caesar to usurp rulership of Rome from its tenuous democracy. Xena has seen a prophecy warning her to never set foot within Rome lest she risk her own death, but when Gabrielle is captured, she feels she has no choice. They nearly escape, but she is paralyzed by Callisto in the middle of a fight to free Caesar’s prisoners. Gabrielle spent much of the last season on a quest for peace, but when she sees Xena fall, she does not hesitate to unleash her full rage on the Roman guards. She fights valiantly while Xena begs her not to, fearing the cost to Gabrielle’s spirit. After they are both captured, they are imprisoned together and sentenced to death. When Xena weakly apologizes to Gabrielle, asking her forgiveness for making her break her vow of non-violence, Gabrielle insists that it’s meaningless, as nothing has ever mattered to her besides her life with Xena. The two of them are crucified together, and they die gazing into each other’s eyes. Though they return to life in the next season, we see that even in death, their souls were just as intertwined as their lives had become.

Gabrielle’s struggle with violence and the inner peace she ultimately achieves in concern to it is generally what people focus on when talking about the importance of her story, but that all happens alongside her journey to acceptance of herself as a queer person. She and Xena are not an immediate item but rather a slow burn love story in which they both must prove their love and devotion while struggling with their own inner demons. Yet still, at any time throughout the series when the two become separated, Gabrielle is not well until she is reunited with her partner. Xena, for her part, grows to depend on Gabrielle in a way that is, at first, completely alien to her. Though Xena has had many loves, none of them went to the lengths that Gabrielle went to in order to be with her. Leading up to her catastrophic death in the final episodes, her commitment to Gabrielle is agonizingly apparent. Even in death, the two of them will never be separated.

Without Gabrielle’s queer subplot, textual or not, Xena would not have been the show it was. Xena’s story involves a lot of conflicting feelings and ends with her making amends for who she was before ultimately letting go of it all and finding her own peace. Gabrielle’s story is about holding on to her faith and her kindness regardless of what she goes through. Together, these stories combined to be one of the greatest love stories in television history. Though the comics would later portray their relationship as openly queer, the fact that it didn’t need to be canonical within the show to be as important as it is to queer audiences only further proves the impact of the series, the vitality of Gabrielle’s story, and the poetic beauty of her complicated, but all-encompassing, love for Xena.

- Gabrielle, Xena, and their wlw legacy 25 years later by Sara Century

[lesbiansforboromir]

HC - Prince Adrahil’s Effect on the Steward Family

SO! Let me tell you all about Finduilas’ dad. Adrahil is a rather complex man. On paper he was a wise ruler, a dedicated father and a loving husband, the very picture of his line’s ethereal and lofty mythology.  And these things might all be true! However, he was also controlling, self-aggrandising and overly ambitious. Adrahil wanted all things in his life, land and family to be just so, and it made him an incredibly difficult father for all his children, albeit in different ways. 

If you were to ask Boromir why he does not get along with his grandfather, he would tell you that Adrahil blamed Denethor for Finduilas’ death and was the cause of the rumours surrounding it. ‘Finduilas died because she was too long away from Dol Amroth’ and ‘the Lord Steward kept her too jealously’ were whispered about Minas Tirith and even further afield, and it made an already painful time even harder to bear for Finduilas’ husband and sons. 

However this explanation is really only a brief overview of a far more complex issue, partly because of Boromir’s reticence, but also because he is unaware of the longer history.

Adrahil had actually been using similar rumours to try and control Finduilas long before her death. She was never quite the daughter he wished her to be and the constant push/pull of Finduilas trying to define herself, whilst Adrahil tried to reign her back in, was the most prominent aspect of their relationship. You would think that one’s daughter marrying the heir to the Stewardship would make any father proud, but Adrahil found the autonomy and independence Finduilas had away from him as a married woman infuriating. He was sure she would be worse off for being out of his control. Finduilas meanwhile was very happy, sharing her life with someone whom she understood and who understood her to a degree she had not encountered before. 

And the only way Adrahil was able to exert anymore control over Finduilas was by attacking that relationship. Hence the rumours of her being stifled in Minas Tirith and being kept away from her ancestral home, taking advantage of the myths surrounding elves and the sea to enforce the point and make the gossip compelling. Adrahil had always felt that Denethor had stolen away his daughter and turned her into someone she was not, and any blame he laid at Denethor’s door after her death was just a continuation of that attitude. 

Which brings us to what Boromir is being reticent about. Because there had been a period of semi-calm before Finduilas died. With his grandsons growing up and Adrahil wanting to know them, and the parents not wanting to deny their children a relationship with their grandparents, there was incentive for peace and restraint between all parties. So Boromir knew Adrahil, felt the safe attachment of a child to a kind and indulgent family member and loved him because he knew that that was what Adrahil needed from him. And Adrahil took advantage of that. 

In Adrahil’s mind, if he couldn’t ‘save’ Finduilas from Denethor’s influence, he could at least keep a hold of his grandsons (and so still have control over a part of her.) And he both overestimated how much influence he had over Boromir, whilst underestimating how close he was to his father. This lead to Adrahil trying to convince Boromir of the rumours as well. 

This did not go well for him, but it wasn’t a smoothly dealt with scenario either. Boromir was old enough to internally understand that something was wrong with this situation, with what his grandfather was telling him and the way he was behaving, that he was being manipulated. But he had no ability to concisely explain those feelings. And Adrahil was an adult, easily able to divert and skew conversations to his favour without really even trying. So in a time when Boromir was already grieving his mother and struggling with expressing that grief, a man he wanted to trust and rely on was actively trying to convince him that the father he loved had killed his mother.

This was the start of a period in Boromir’s childhood where he struggled to control his anger and, particularly, his frustration. Adrahil’s attempts to manipulate him ended quite abruptly when ten year old Boromir (finding nothing else worked) lashed out at him violently and left his grandfather with an ugly bruise over his cheek and nose. (Boromir having always been inexplicably strong since he was a child, something that had never been more than an amusing family curiosity until now.) But Boromir struggled with the aftermath of it for some years later, having to come up with coping mechanisms and strategies to keep himself from breaking things in fits. He asked not to see his grandfather again, a request Denethor was only too happy to oblige. 

Faramir was old enough to understand that something was happening within his family, but still too young to full internalise it and was also very taken up with his own difficult grief. Hence, he maintained a fond relationship with his grandfather for the rest of his life. Adrahil was more subtle in his approach to Faramir and also truly held genuine love for him and his influence can still be seen decades later within Faramir’s attitude towards both Denethor and Boromir. The impression that Boromir is ‘un-intellectual’ and this kind of ‘only thinks with his fists’ idea either comes directly from Adrahil, or was at least heartily encouraged by him. In fact Faramir sometimes humorously reminds his brother of ‘that time you hit our grandfather’ as teasing proof of these concepts, unaware of the deeper meaning behind the incedent. 

Meanwhile it wasn’t until Boromir was an adult that he re-established contact with Adrahil. It was an awkward and stiff affair, but it smoothed out as the years went by, mostly thanks to Boromir’s now fully grown and iron-clade self control. However Boromir still minimised the time he had to spend in Adrahil’s company simply because he was one of the only people that truly threatened that self control. Whilst Boromir has always been good at letting grievances go, he found his anger at his grandfather’s actions only grew as the years passed and he understood more and more how cruel and exploitative they had been.

Boromir might have never truly gone through an ‘’adolescent phase’’ as we would know it, but Adrahil was a presence that brought out that self serving and destructive yearning in him. By 18 he had decided and planned for his sexuality to never be discovered by any of his family and was absolutely married to being a master of concealment. And indeed! It was vital he did so, not only for his own position, but the Stewardship and Gondor as a whole! 

And yet everytime he met his grandfather Boromir could not drown out the voice in his head that tempted; ‘You want to tell him you like dick so bad, you want to see how much more you can ruin this relationship, you want to cause family catastrophes on a massive scale. It will be horrible and you want it to be.’

And, in that moment, he really truly does, which is a disconcerting fact that Boromir tries his best to avoid and minimise as much as possible. 

[raylangivins]

hey I like going through your justified tags and seeing your random thoughts so,,, you wanna give a ranking of each season for me? it's really interesting seeing which ones are people's favorites since justified is one of the few 2010s shows that follows a complete hero-villain story arc in a season. each has a quantifiable Vibe and Message unique to that season. go!

first of all that is very sweet thank you ❤️

i love this question and thought about it a lot on my last rewatch so thank you for asking.

1. my personal favourite is season 4 because i LOVE the drew thompson mystery so much and how it weaves these ideas of like urban legend and folk tale into how harlan came to be and raylan and boyd's personal histories with harlan. the fact that bo and arlo started their criminal enterprise with money from drew thompson and then both went to their deaths hiding his secrets only for raylan and boyd to end up competing to unearth them!!! and all because they're both trying to be different to their fathers and build their own futures on the success of finding drew!!!! that raylan and boyd are forced to question what they knew of their fathers and what they know of themselves!!! that it ends with boyd alone in the house he wanted to build his clean future in and with raylan's darkest, most morally grey act of the whole series -- the exact opposite of what either of them wanted!!! i also love the boyd/ava stuff going on that season, and just ava's individual storyline with ellen may. it's nice to see who ava becomes when her stakes in the crime business are slightly more personal than being attached to boyd. and i'm sure i've said in many a post that decoy is my favourite justified episode because it is!!!! it's so good!!!!!! whole season makes me buckwild.

2. while 4 is my favourite obviously season 2 is objectively the best season of justified. all the bennett stuff is so fucking good. like, mags is by far the best season big bad in the entire show's run (excluding boyd bc he's a main), and absolutely everything that season does with history, with cycles of violence, with family, with the kind of loyalty you're expected to owe to your home and your people....delicious! i already sorta talked about the loretta/raylan(/helen) parallels but it's just such a lovely and heartbreaking little journey for raylan's character that season. boyd and ava's growing relationship is so compelling, and i like that boyd's a little displaced at the beginning. boyd takes a lot of shapes throughout the show, so it's interesting to see him just like...unmoored for a while. and how even just that puts raylan on edge. also i need to give a special shoutout to dickie bennett because...i LOVE dickie bennett. i love that he has raylan and boyd's problem of still clinging to some terrible harlan violence that happened to him as a teenager but unlike raylan and boyd he's in it by himself. raylan does not give a shit, and that makes it so much worse. like i constantly think about that scene where dickie has raylan hanging from a tree and after hearing about the baseball incident from everyone but dickie we finally hear just how angry dickie's been about it his entire life. dickie knew the number of steps a person takes every day off the top of his head!!! raylan crippled him and raylan truly does not fucking care at all. it's like that thing where someone's your best friend but you know someone else is their best friend, except raylan's dickie's worst enemy but dickie's not raylan's because boyd already took up the mantle. hilarious and tragic. DICKIE!!!

3. number three, season 3! i liked quarles as a villain in season 3. i like that he got progressively more unhinged the more he had to deal with raylan and boyd's shit. i like all the limehouse stuff and wish we'd gotten more of it, (obviously my preference tends to lean towards seasons where there's harlan "world-building" and backstory so to speak, and the internal politics of noble's holler was so interesting to me. and that in relation to the women of harlan especially frances givens would've been cool to explore, although i get why they didn't.) i also love the stuff going on with raylan/arlo/boyd because like....what the fuck lmao. i wish we'd gotten to see more of how boyd felt about arlo and raylan's whole deal. i get boyd being dismissive to raylan about it tbh because boyd has is own daddy issues and he's angry about it in completely different ways to raylan but i'd love to see how he reconciles all that in his head. if it's something he even needs to reconcile or if he truly just doesn't care. and also how raylan feels about it because the most we really get is a kind of general annoyance with boyd and arlo that mixes in with the crime stuff, and then his detached hurt when he tells winona why arlo shot tom bergen.

4. season 1 babey. it's the most procedural and i think the show is better when it's more of a serial story, but like, understandable, the show was still finding it's feet. obviously it kicks into gear when boyd comes back, but even before that it's fun. raylan's a real idiot in this one and it is very enjoyable to me -- a person who enjoys seeing raylan be an idiot. he kills 10 people this season!!!! insane man!! the entire scene with boyd/ava/raylan trapped in the cabin in bulletville is probably one of my all time favourites because it's so fucking silly.

5. i do like season 6 but to be perfectly honest i really don't care about markham or katherine hale and i wish less time was spent on them. i don't think the season needed a big bad other than boyd although i guess they needed boyd to be doing something for raylan to be chasing after him. there's stuff about that whole storyline which i do like--katherine fucking with ava was very nerve-wracking and good television--but idk. i think the most affecting moments of the season were with the characters we already knew--boyd murdering dewey, loretta trying to fill mags shoes, raylan kissing ava in her kitchen, raylan seeing arlo's "ghost" in the shed, all the scenes with raylan and anyone else on the marshal team just being tim/art/rachel: are u gonna be chill about catching boyd?? raylan: nope :^). i think the latter half where the build up for raylan and boyd's confrontation finally starts to crescendo is better than the first half, although i do like how viciously petty boyd and raylan spend the first half of the season being. the raylan/boyd/ava stuff is so, so good too, it's what carries the whole season for me.

6. for the record i do not think there is a bad season of justified, but 5 was like...the least fun? it's kind of a bummer season, i get why people tend not to like it as much. i do actually quite enjoy the crowe stuff. i think the dynamics going on between wendy, darryl and kendal are all so fucked up and painful, and i thought watching them tear each other apart, while not very satisfying (because it's a bummer), was told really well. there's also interesting stuff with raylan trying to insert himself into it, because he essentially offers kendal the same thing he offered loretta in season 2, but kendal doesn't really take him up on it, and then raylan's caught between his desire to wreck darryl's shit vs trying to protect this young boy who's caught up in it just because he was born into it. and then all of that's twisted up in raylan's obvious issues with fatherhood and the fact that he spends the entire season avoiding his daughter. love the stuff going on with poor dewey. ava's prison storyline is infuriating, again, because it's a massive fucking bummer, but i do like the journey ava goes on. the tension between raylan and art is also something that realistically had to happen eventually, and i thought it was good, but tied up a bit too neatly? i think the main issue with the season is just how split all the storylines feel. raylan, boyd and ava are all kinda doing their own thing for most of the season and i think they're at their best when their paths are clashing and converging on each other. like season 6, i think season 5 is a season with more individual good moments than good cohesive story/character moments.

[firelxdykatara]

Reader anon here with a thought!

Do you like love triangles? I personally don't, there is something about them that is incredibly frustrating lol. Same thing for harems, though there are some that do it tastefully 😌 so I can't be too upset by them.

It honestly depends on the love triangle and the way the author writes all three relationships (and, for any genuine love triangle, there should be three relationships--they don't all need to be romantic, but there needs to be an existing and strong relationship between all three points on the triangle, otherwise I'm almost certain not to be at all invested), how they are presented, and what the narrative purpose of the love triangle is.

Ironically, one of the best examples of a love triangle done well (at least... to a certain point in the story, which I'll explain in a bit) happened in a television show that is fairly notorious for turning to utter shit in the latter four seasons and alienating pretty much the entire fanbase, to the point where most of us dipped well before the end and everyone celebrated news of the show's cancellation.

I'm talking about The Vampire Diaries.

(under a cut because i went on a LOOOONG ramble about tvd and why that love triangle worked initially and then why it failed, and then i talked a bit about another love triangle that was pretty weak and failed almost from the outset in OUAT but was ultimately axed in favor of the stronger relationship and character being given focus, and what all of this means for how i feel about love triangles in general)

While this is still very much a case where I only shipped one side of the triangle, hated the other, and couldn't wait for it to be resolved so that I wouldn't have to deal with the side I disliked any longer (the writing was on the wall as far back as season 1, no matter how in denial a certain portion of the fandom remained right up until the series finale) the development of the triangle itself and how it affected all three characters and their relationships with one another was done very well for most of the first four seasons. Damon and Stefan were brothers, with a bloody and complicated history and relationship, and they both fell in love with this human girl--Stefan almost instantly, because she looked just like Katherine and he found himself... (and here I'm going to be as fair as I possibly can to him, but if you want my full anti stelena rant I have many of them prepped and ready to go) following her, at first to make sure she wasn't Katherine, and then inserting himself into her life to protect her. Damon, on the other hand, took much longer, because he was still in love with (and trying to rescue) Katherine, and so when he did fall in love with Elena, it was because of who she was, not because of some idealized 'Not Katherine' pedestal he placed her on the instant he met her.

(I swear, I swear I'm trying to be fair to Stefan, it's just very hard.)

The thing is, Elena was in love with Stefan almost from the jump. (And one of the reasons I never really shipped stelena is because that kind of insta-love with very little conflict that isn't manufactured by the plot just isn't compelling for me, and I fully jumped ship about halfway through s1 when Damon and Elena took a road trip together. It's a long story, but that remains one of my favorite episodes in the entire show and it marks the beginning of their actual journey together.) Stefan showed up at a time when she desperately needed someone, and to his credit he did help her through her early depressive spiral--in large part because Elena's recent trauma (survivor's guilt due to her parents dying in a car crash from which she was the only survivor) meant that finding out Stefan was immortal and could not die and would not leave her resulted in her getting fiercely attached.

He was safe, he was stable, she could rely on him. But she could not grow with him, because for him, she was essentially a morality pet/the anchor to his humanity, and that meant that he could not accept when she began to grow out of her need for him. The fact that this coincided with her becoming a vampire only made things worse--because she settled into being a vampire much more easily with far less strife than he'd ever managed, and an Elena who enjoyed being a vampire in ways Stefan simply couldn't could no longer function as the idealized reminder of humanity he was desperate to cling to.

Damon, on the other hand, was the one who fell in love with Elena--not Not Katherine. He never put her on a pedestal, he never asked more of her than she could give him--when he realized how deep his feelings for her ran, he made her forget his confession because he knew he did not deserve her and he didn't want her burdened with his feelings when she was still in love with his brother and was always going to be. Elena's growing feelings for Damon coincided with her growth from a depressed and suicidal teenage girl into a young woman who began to realize that it was ok to want things for herself--to be a little selfish, to take what she wanted, to admit what she wanted. And, again, the fact that this coincided with her transformation into a vampire (although her growth within her relationship with Damon began well before that), meant that Damon's reaction to Elena-as-a-vampire was thrown into sharp relief against Stefan's--because he accepted her where his brother couldn't.

Ultimately, this led to Elena fully outgrowing her feelings for Stefan, and accepting, nurturing, and reveling in her feelings for Damon. The triangle was resolved, all three characters had growth separately and in their different relationships, and they could then move on from there along their different paths. Stefan could have had some truly excellent character growth involving moving on and finally living for himself rather than trying so hard to be this perfect brooding tortured vampire because he was the Good Brother, since there was no longer any need for that Good Brother/Bad Brother dichotomy. They'd both grown past it, as characters individually and as brothers together.

Unfortunately, where TVD ultimately failed (and this coincided with the way the show utterly lost the plot in terms of storylines, character arcs and cohesiveness and became an unsalvageable mess) is in refusing to let the love triangle die.

What should have happened is that once the love triangle was resolved--Elena growing as a character and moving on from her immature first love and fully embracing her feelings, as an adult, for her much more adult relationship with Damon--they abandoned the love triangle premise and let all three characters continue to grow outside of it. Damon and Elena should have been allowed to grow together and explore their relationship, Stefan to figure out where he still fit in their lives--as Damon’s brother, and one of Elena’s closest friends who she still loved dearly even though she was no longer in love with him--and then explore relationships of his own outside their family unit as he finally began to fully move on and grow out of his own overly idealized feelings for Elena.

Instead, what wound up happening is that the stelena side of the love triangle kept being teased--probably to keep the avid stelena shipping contingent invested in the story, hoping for ‘another brother swap’ as was lampshaded in one of Nina’s final episodes before she left the show (and, indeed, many of them remained utterly convinced that stelena would be endgame, right up until the series finale)--and rather than growing together, delena fans were constantly hit over the head with how ‘toxic’ Damon and Elena were for each other (even though this ran contrary to everything we’d seen in the show to that point, including having Damon regress repeatedly for, presumably, no reason other than to never let fans forget he was the Bad Brother and always would be, and Elena just couldn’t help but love him anyway), and all three characters and their relationships wound up suffering horribly for it.

That is an example of a love triangle that had a very promising foundation and development, right up through what should have been a resolution, and the reason it is generally looked on so unfavorably in fandom circles is because the show refused to move on from the triangle organically when the story needed it to, because it had already served its purpose.

For an example of a love triangle that, in my mind, simply didn’t work from the very beginning, I’d say my go-to example is from Once Upon a Time--the short-lived love triangle between Emma, Killian, and Neal. I think the first stumbling block there was that there weren’t really three relationships that mattered. Technically, Killian did have a connection to Neal--because they’d met in Neverland, prior to Neal remaining in the Land Without magic--but it functioned more as a backdrop to explain why Killian knew him when they got to Neverland again in the story, and why Neal didn’t trust him. It wasn’t actually developed as anything outside of that brief flashback, and they didn’t have any connection in the present outside of one episode where they essentially fought over Emma and she (rightly) got angry at them for it. There was no real exploration of who they were to each other outside of the fact that both of them had feelings for Emma, so it really was just one woman torn between her feelings for two different men, and with no real stakes attached to her choice.

The other problem with this particular triangle is that one side of it was... conspicuously weak. While Emma’d had a full season and a half worth of interactions and development with Killian--where they went from enemies, to grudging allies, to Killian openly acknowledging that he hadn’t ever believed he would be able to love again until he met Emma--she had... very little to support her potential relationship with Neal outside of their history. History which consisted of then-young-adult Neal knocking up underage Emma (she was 17 at the oldest because she was still in Juvie when Henry was born, and he was already ten years old the day she turned 28; so she was either 16 or very newly 17 when she got pregnant) and ensuring that she got sent to prison for his own crime, at which point he didn’t see her again until she was nearly 30. When he did see her again, he treated her incredibly poorly, up to and including getting angry at her about the fact that she didn’t tell him that Henry was his son--even though he had no right to that information, because Emma was in prison because of him at the time she found out, and she had no clue that he was in any way connected to the Fairy Tale world until she was helping Mr. Gold track down his son and it turned out to be Neal.

A big point is made, throughout the early seasons especially, about Emma’s walls and how much difficulty she has trusting people--and a great deal of that stemmed from Neal’s betrayal. This could have been the foundation for a story of healing and growth and two people coming back together--however, with the way Neal treats Emma in the present and how little closure she actually gets for what he did to her in the past, it comes across more as ‘well, she never did get over her feelings for him, so maybe he still has a shot even though she has no real reason to want to be with him now’.

Killian, on the other hand, never doubted Emma’s abilities and always had the utmost trust in and respect for her (after they became allies), and it was obvious that this is something Emma experienced very little of in her life. It’s notable that the first episode where they really interacted is the one in which Emma’s history with Neal is revealed, and it very deliberately paralleled and contrasted with her interactions with Killian. This already presented him with a leg up on the love triangle once Neal did show up, because Neal was the reason for a lot of the walls Emma had built around her heart, and it wasn’t until meeting Killian that she finally began to let some of them down.

I think that the show recognized this, and it pulled something that is actually a very frustrating pet peeve of mine--rather than write out the story that makes sense and have the main point of the love triangle make a choice and stick to it, the third point of the triad was simply written out. In this case, Neal essentially killed himself via his own stupidity, allowing Emma to angst about losing him without actually having to tell him she wasn’t in love with him and wasn’t going to choose him. (Veronica Mars pulled something very similar with the Logan/Veronica/Duncian triangle in season 2--rather than admit within the narrative that her relationship with Duncan was built on flimsy feelings of infatuation bc of their history, and a ‘stability’ that didn’t really work for who Veronica was at her core, he simply got written out of the story, running away for Plot Reasons and never forcing Veronica to confront the fact that she wasn’t actually in love with him and hadn’t been for quite some time.)

I think that in OUaT, the love triangle could have worked if a relationship between Killian and Neal was not only established in the past but developed in the present--Killian was in love with Neal’s mother centuries earlier, and something I’m actually really upset we never got is the two of them talking about Milah and maybe Neal getting some closure for his mother’s abandonment and someone apologizing to him for what they put Baelfire through as a child--giving stakes to Emma’s choice beyond ‘one of them will be all uwu sad that he wasn’t picked’. It also would have worked much better if we were given any reason for Emma to still have feelings for Neal in the present beyond the history they shared, which caused Emma nothing but pain for the last decade and change. If Neal had treated her more fairly--if he’d treated her like someone he actually cared about and even still loved, rather than blaming her for things that were his own fault and undermining her belief in her own abilities, among other things--then their relationship might have been strong enough to stand on its own opposite Emma’s relationship with Killian. I don’t think it ever would’ve been a relationship that appealed to me, personally, but then I could have at least enjoyed watching the three of them grow together and seeing all of their relationships grow and change.

So, ultimately, TL;DR: I do like love triangles, conceptually, but there are a few requirements they must meet for me to feel anything other than irritated at the inclusion. One: there must be at least three equally important relationships between the three characters. If it’s just one character torn between her (or his, but it’s usually a woman) feelings for two unrelated people, that can be compelling for a short time but ultimately I’m going to be left feeling frustrated by her refusal to just make a damn choice and put me out of my misery. Two: there should be some sort of development in each relationship which makes the presence of the triangle narratively significant. Why is it important for one character to have conflicting romantic feelings for these two other people at the same time? What purpose does it serve either their character arcs or the story as a whole? While I am both a Bangel and a Spuffy shipper, I’ve never considered Angel/Buffy/Spike to be a love triangle--they are very different relationships that she had at very different points in her life, and while her feelings for Angel never really went away (and do cause some angst for Spike near the end of btvs) they are never really competing for her affections in any meaningful sense. If that competition does exist, there needs to be a compelling reason why. And, as a further addendum to this point, I need to at least understand why the main point of the triangle is invested in each relationship, even if I don’t ship it and actively dislike or even outright hate one side of the triangle. (I loathe stelena, but I’ve always understood why Elena was in love with him in the beginning of the show, for example. And before s5/s6, I was really pleased with how the show handled her feelings for him and finally allowed her to grow and move on from them.)

And finally, three: the triangle needs to be resolved at some point--and, when it is, it needs to stay that way. Where TVD ultimately lost me (aside from the ridiculous plot contrivances and rampant character assassination) was the refusal to let the love triangle die a natural death when it is what the story called for, and all three of their characters, their relationships, and the show as a whole suffered massively for it. So, when the primary point of the triangle makes a choice--particularly if she had made one choice in the beginning of the story, but it was clear that she was ultimately moving towards choosing the other side as she grew and her feelings and relationships grew and changed with her--let that be the end of it. Move on to exploring what that choice means for the main pair and the party not chosen, sure--maybe explore their feelings about not being chosen and how that affects their relationships with both of the others afterwards--but don’t constantly tease the possibility of the ‘losing side’ getting back together just to keep shippers invested. It’s only going to hurt your show and make everyone look callous and stupid.

Alternately, a final possibility: make it an ot3 instead. But again, if the other three conditions aren’t met (particularly number two, and its addendum; if I don’t understand why the main point of the triangle is in love with both other points, an ot3 is unlikely to resolve that issue and I’m only going to wind up resenting it), then this won’t work, because it’s just going to wind up a lopsided and stilted mess of a relationship that leaves me wishing the offending point of the triangle had been killed off just so I wouldn’t have to keep hearing about them.

[itsclydebitches]

I get where you’re coming from, but I also don’t understand why you keep bringing up the “let the characters suck!” thing when it’s clearly not what RT intends. RWBY+=always right, everyone else=always wrong. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. Like, for fuck sakes they make the characters who are supposed to liked hated and who are, at very least, wrong liked. Did Clover ever piss you off? He didn’t me, even when he was making the “mistake” of not immediately trusting a teenaged girl he just met.

Throwing these three anons together!

First, it’s more about having a theory than being misinformed - “I theorize that...” is how that previous anon phrased the asks. Whether they knew about the supplementary material discussing Yang’s arm isn’t the point. The point is that, despite being told “This was planned,” we’re faced with all these discrepancies in how that plan was executed and one way to explain that is to go, “Maybe it wasn’t planned.” To be clear, I don’t mean that as an accusation, that RT is straight up lying to their audience (even though, as a company, there is something to be said for the tendency to spin everything into the best light possible). Rather, there are lots of different ways to interpret “It was planned” or even “It was planned from the start.” Using Yang’s arm as the example, what was planned? That she would lose her arm at some point during the series? That she would lose it specifically during the Fall of Beacon? That she would lose it to Adam? That is would start a multi-volume PTSD arc? I’ve mentioned elsewhere in regards to Ironwood that “It was planned” doesn’t tell us how detailed that plan was, when it would be implemented, or even when the plan was formed. They planned to have Maria and Penny arrive in the story earlier, but that obviously didn’t happen, so how many other plans have been heavily modified? And in long running series written by multiple authors over the years, it can be easy to frame an idea as a plan. Were they really writing Ironwood to eventually become a bomber back in Volume 2, or did they just have the idea that he might become a bad guy, with no solid understanding of when that would happen and how? Were they really writing Yang with the knowledge that she was heading towards this specific trauma and recovery, or was it a broader idea that might have come about in any number of ways? “It was planned” is a pretty nebulous statement on its own, even more-so in a series with a lost creator and a revolving crew of writers. For every “Pyrrha’s VA was told that she’d die” with the implication “They know what they’re doing” attached, there’s a “Ironwood’s VA had no idea his character had a semblance and had to find out through a fan” with the implication, “They don’t.” Penny is another example of this where yes, some fans think it was planned because of the Pinocchio inspiration, but that falls apart in the face of the number of characters who don’t follow their original character arcs, the fact that we already had a Blue Fairy stand-in confirm Penny’s realness (Fria), and that this flies in the face of seven seasons worth of thematic messages. So it comes down to execution. Either RWBY isn’t planned like RT says and they’re not able to write a compelling, consistent story on the fly, or it is and they’re still not able to accurately present the what they’re after on screen. 

So the critique isn’t so much about whether RT is planning or not (though that’s still a legitimate question: Do you know what you’re doing with the Relics? With Salem? How this story will end?), but the fact that their execution is severely lacking. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether Yang’s arm was planned or not because we’re still left with this issue of why what she’s learned as a result of that tragedy has been tossed out the window. None of us will ever be able to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what exactly was planned and to what extent, but focusing on that becomes an easy way to shut down the discussion. The underlying purpose behind the previous anon’s thoughts wasn’t so much to prove that Yang losing her arm wasn’t planned, it was to try and find a way to explain these writing problems: Why has she regressed? Why wasn’t Adam’s history explored? Why was the recovery arc so shaky in places? Questioning whether this was actually intentional is one way of explaining why these problems exist despite a supposed plan. Maybe the plan doesn’t exist, despite claims otherwise. Or maybe our understanding of a plan is very different from RT’s. But going, “it was planned” carries with it the implication that, because there was planning in place (taking that at face value), there’s no longer a problem. It dismisses the critique at the heart of the theory. Another fan wrote on the same post, “Yeah no this is wrong. She was supposed to lose her arm from the start” and... that’s it. That’s the conversation. Rather than engaging with these problems, “it was planned” is used as a catch-all explanation for why the writing supposedly isn’t bad. Yang’s arm was planned. Pyrrha’s death was planned. The bees are planned. The Fall was planned. Ozpin’s history was planned. This fight was planned... and because it was all planned, you have no right to criticize how that plan was executed, let alone challenge whether it was actually planned in the manner RT implies it was. 

Never mind that, if all of this was planned to a T, that just makes things worse. The assumption of planning throws all these contradictions, mistakes, backtracks, and confusing choices into a far harsher light. Considering that RWBY is perhaps not planned in the way RT would like us to believe it is results in the understanding of, “Oh, well then no wonder things are a bit of a mess. They’re figuring it out as they go, dropping, erasing, and rushing into ideas along the way.” Meanwhile, pushing the idea of a perfectly planned story results in, “Oh, so... you've known this would happen for years and still didn’t manage to lead up to it well, keep the facts straight, or follow up on the event in a satisfactory manner?” Given how many problems RWBY has atm, RT shouldn’t want the audience to think this was all planned because that invites a far more critical look at their writing choices than an author who goes, “Yeah, we didn’t know we were going with this until the season it was written, so it’s a bit rushed in places. Sorry, we’re working on that.” 

As for why I care about letting the characters suck at times, that’s because allowing for such basic characterization would go a long way towards resolving the execution issue. This insistence on making Ruby’s group morally perfect - that intention - is likewise making the authors blind to all the problems this creates. Clover is a great example. In order to make the heroes out to be perfect, Clover becomes the bad guy... despite not having done any work in the previous volume to show that. The authors apparently can’t see that discrepancy, or they simply don’t care about it. Allowing all the characters to make mistakes and grow from them would free up the other characters to be more consistent. If Ruby was allowed to be flawed then there’d be no need to make Clover one of her many (supposed) contrasts and no contrast means no retconning of his personality. These problems in the writing are interconnected. The insistence on “Team RWBY is perfect no matter what” encourages the authors to ignore when their execution is lacking - such as, say, suddenly having Yang no longer frustrated with Ruby’s leadership - and that lack of execution in turn makes it impossible to believe the “Team RWBY is perfect no matter what” claim - the story has shown me how flawed they are, so... why aren’t we acknowledging that? The fandom’s focus on, “It was planned from the beginning! They have Monty’s notes!” ignores that whether it was planned or not, there are serious problems in how these ideas are implemented, hindered by a black and white morality in a show that simultaneously wants to be gray. Part of why the execution is so lacking is because what’s been introduced in the past is inevitably tossed aside for the “Ruby is right” ending and that past writing includes what may or may not have been planned. 

[spectrumed]

1. piano

The brain is a musical instrument. How it sounds all depends on who is playing it. The keys, the strings, the tubes, the circuits, none of them make noise on their own. Some may argue (some very aggressively) that every instrument has one exact way that it should be played. That there is one correct way to play the piano, and then there’s several incorrect (deviant!) ways to play the piano. But a classically trained pianist will not play the piano in quite the same way as a self-taught jazz pianist will play the piano. Sure, the latter does employ some stylings unique to them. They have an idiosyncratic way of playing that makes their sound highly notable, possibly even sought after. While the former, the classically trained musician, they’ve been taught to minimise many of those quirky individual traits that could, potentially, distract from the classical compositions that they will be playing. In jazz, music is carried by unique characters and a strong sense of individualism. In classical, music is carried by tradition, norm, and history.

It should not be understood that the classically trained musician plays without soul or passion. While we, in the western world, have become more and more infatuated with the idea of the self-made artist, the amateur who makes their way to success and stardom solely through will, and quite often a manic compulsion to create, there is no wrong way to play an instrument. However you make it work, whatever sounds you are able to produce, you are playing that instrument. You are channeling your inner essence into the music you are performing, no matter what genre you belong to. No-one plays their instrument the exact same way, for certain, but everyone is playing with what they’ve got.

How do you think? You’re used to being asked “what do you think?” But how do you think? Do you see pictures in your head? Do you experience an inner monologue? Are you riddled with anxiety? Have you ever hallucinated? Do you think that you think good, or do you think that you think bad? If we return to our metaphor of the brain as a musical instrument, what sort of music do you think you’d play? Sure, there’s the classical world, and the jazz world, but of course, that’s hardly the music most people will listen to nowadays. Do you think in pop songs? Or do you think in big heavy metal epics? Or maybe what you are is a maniac for dance music. You may find like-minded friends who like the same kind of music as you do. I think that there is a correlation between what music we like and how we perceive the world. Does listening to a certain song send you back? Does a certain tune evoke memories that you may have thought were long since gone? I know that there are some folks out there who say that they do not care much for music, and while I don’t doubt that they absolutely do feel that way, I can personally not imagine where I’d be without my trusty set of headphones and my phone loaded up with a wide library of music I like. It seems to me that music is primal. Almost as if only by understanding music, can one come to understand consciousness. To nab a song title from Jethro Tull (the band, not the agriculturalist,) life is a long song.

But I do admit that I come from a biased perspective. Music means much to me. I’m no musician, but I think that partly stems from a desire to not see “how the sausage is made.” I’d like to be able to listen to a composition without feeling compelled to analyse it, or to study it. I’d rather eat the sausage without having to wonder what bits of the animals this meat came from. Is that the taste of a spleen or a testicle? There are plenty of other things in life to dissect and tear apart just to examine. Perhaps what I wish is to maintain an arcane approach to music. Perhaps I am too enamoured by the idea of the musician as a mystic able to tap into an elevated state of being, some spiritual realm divorced from our own. That look on the guitarist’s face when they successfully manages to convey just the right emotional tone perfectly with that solo. The frisson you feel when the song reaches its climax. That thing we call the sublime. To explain it, well, it simply feels like you are making something splendid mundane. It seems to rob it of its power. Or… Well, maybe that’s not it all. Maybe all I want is just a moment or two when I can relax and avoid thinking about things. For a moment, I’d just like to forget that I’m a person.

The world is so loud. Really, I can guarantee you that if you didn’t have those natural mental filters that we all have, you’d go insane. Every little sound. Every little bit of stimuli. It would all overwhelm you. It would burrow deep into your consciousness, and it would refuse to leave. Ever tried to fall asleep while hearing the dripping water from a leaky tap? Drip, drip, drip. Know how impossible that feels? Well, imagine if you had that feeling always, imagine if all noise felt that visceral and in-your-face. Lucky you’ve got those filters. Turns out, not everyone has them. I don’t. It fucking sucks.

Music is lovely, because music is organised. It has structure. You can listen to a song, remember it, and then follow along as you’re listening to it a second time. Music follows a pattern. There is a logic to patterns. But the everyday noises that surround us do not follow a pattern. Let me tell you, birds are infuriating animals. Sure, their individual little songs can be nice to listen to, but when all the birds of the forest come together, they don’t perform as an orchestra. No, they’re all just doing their own solo piece, completely oblivious to the sounds going on around them. I’m thinking that nature could have done well with a conductor. Someone competent to create order. To make it all just that bit more peaceful. I don’t have those filters others take for granted. I can’t ignore sounds. And that makes the world feel so loud.

It is neat to imagine the human brain as a musical instrument. You can imagine that seasoned player, that old session stalwart who’s played on all the most famous pop hits throughout the decades, and you want to imagine them playing with grace and finesse and showcasing all the amazing sounds that the instrument can produce. But the brain isn’t really some marvel of biological engineering. It’s not intelligently designed. It’s actually just a piece of meat hiding underneath layers of bone, skin, and hair. It’s a complex bit of meat, admittedly. It’s hard to understand exactly how the brain does work. But if you were to open up a person’s cranium, rather than feeling awe, you’d most likely feel grossed out. This thing that we’re supposed to think of as a miraculous product of millennia of evolutionary progress, it looks… Well, it looks awfully pinkish, and wrinkly, and frankly unpleasant.

We’re all mortal beings, made from squishy flesh and blood, scraped together from all that was available at the time. Sure, we may dream and fantasise about one day achieving those heights we aspire towards, to become that perfect superman, whose cognitive abilities put them on par with the mythological titans of the past. But really, we’re all just trying to do our best with what we’ve got. You may not be able to play the finest of Mozart’s many symphonies, the instrument that you’ve been given just simply isn’t up to snuff. Even if all you can play is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, that shouldn’t weigh on your value as a human being. And besides, that’s still Mozart you’re playing.

I will undoubtedly get back to discussing music in later instalments of this blog. It is truly a major part of my world, and without the joys I associate with it, I would be in a far worse place. But I think that, ultimately, what I wish to arrive at, is the fact that our sensory perceptions have a significant impact on how we piece together our sense of self. While it may be an unnerving thought to consider, what would happen to our understanding of ourselves if we one day were to lose one of our major senses? I am sure that many people could go without their sense of smell. Humans have long since abandoned smell as a dominant sense. To a dog, on the other hand, to lose its sense of smell would be devastating. It would lose part of what it means to be a dog. For humans, we enjoy the scent of freshly baked bread, the whiff of somebody’s perfume, or the bouquet of some pricey bottle of wine. But that’s nothing to what dogs get out of their sense of smell. To a dog, its sense of smell is its world. Is a dog even a dog if it can’t sniff around? Do you think dogs ever take their sense of smell for granted?

I do not think that humans are what we eat, but I suspect that we may be what we perceive. Our consciousness does not exist independently of the world that surrounds it, but rather, it is formed by the outside stimuli it receives on a constant basis. The fury of noises, lights, smells, all kinds of impressions, it shapes you. It is what our memories are built on. I am not at all certain that there exists anything more to the mind beyond that. I doubt that we’ve got some immutable soul hidden underneath it all. Humans are the collection of thoughts and ideas that we’ve attached ourselves to throughout our lives, and naturally, if you’re neurodivergent, that process is going to happen differently to most. At times those differences will be large enough that it can create real conflicts with those others around you. Effectively, to be neurodivergent is to suffer constantly from culture shocks. To me, it is natural to loathe the cacophony of birds in the summer. Their screams feel like piercing needles embedding themselves into my skin. But I try telling that to others, and I’ve yet to find anybody who agrees with me.

So, am I just wrong? Am I mistaken? Am I a freak? Why can’t I just be like everybody else? Why must I be such a buzzkill? I can’t even enjoy birdsong, I really must be a pain to be around. How did it come about that I just can’t be normal? Normal. I want to be normal. It is and it will likely always be grossly underrated to just be normal. Normal people don’t know how good they have it. They’re just too normal to be able to perceive it. When you’ve never been without it, you don’t know what it is to miss it. Normalcy. Having a normal brain. Having others see you as a normal person. Only if you didn’t have it, would you know how great it is. Do you sometimes wonder if dogs know how much they’d miss their sense of smell if they ever were to lose it?

Then again, there is no such thing as normal, is there? If you were to take the world’s most average person, then that person would be abnormal. To be a person is to be unique. We’re all special snowflakes. Aren’t we?

You may not play your instrument in a conventional manner, but who’s to say what manner counts as conventional? It’s all just so arbitrary. Who’s to say you can’t play an acoustic guitar as a drum? Who’s to say you can’t treat your piano as a percussion instrument? Smack your cello with a flute, if you’d like. Isn’t it just delightful when you see a unique performer who is able to play their instrument in a way you could never before have conceived it being played? The novelty of it all. The absolute joy of being exposed to something different. Of seeing something that can barely be believed. You love things that are unusual, and you think people who are different should delight in being different. Surely, it is better than being normal and boring?

But is it all that bad to be boring? And you may love what’s different, but when it comes down to it, despite your positive inclination, you still perceive it as being the other. It is not you. It is not mainstream, it is underground. Secluded. Deviant. Those who truly do struggle to fit in with society, to be just like everybody else, they are constantly faced with these little reminders that they just don’t belong. They are humans (at least they think they are humans,) but they’re not like other humans they know. For as much as they get told that they should embrace their quirky nature as simply being who they are, it is hard to know what it is like to be not normal, when all you’ve ever been is normal. Sure, for a performance or two, it’s fun. It’s fun to get the attention, to be seen as having something others don’t have. But then, at the end of the day, all you want is to be able to fall asleep, without the birdsong outside your window keeping you awake.

[bubonickitten]

Relistening to TMA yet again (new hyperfixation, what can I say), and I can’t emphasize enough how much these early episodes kill me.

Because for a long time, Jon doesn’t realize what he’s becoming. And yeah, that’s obvious -- but it’s even more heartbreaking on a relisten, because he senses that something is off, but from his perspective the changes are so incremental that he doesn’t realize how much he’s changing until he’s in too deep. 

He finds himself getting attached to this tape recorder (even when he initially hated it), but tries not to think too hard about that. He’s becoming obsessed with recording everything, and tells himself that he’s doing it for posterity’s sake. Jon is adept at using outward denial to hide his inner, nonstop, overthinking doubt. (Eventually it escalates to full-blown paranoid information gathering, which I think is where the Eye’s influence really starts to show, but more on that later.)

At first, it’s a safe half-lie (or at least not full-truth) to tell himself. He’s an academic, a researcher. He no doubt has a deep appreciation for the preservation of history, for the documentation of human experience -- that part is probably true. It’s how he makes sense of the world (and that started when he was a child, when the main way he interacted with the world was through books). And let’s be honest, the man is a nerd, and (I say this lovingly and with a tendency to infodump myself) he was probably prone to infodumping long before he became the Archivist. (Giving a Wikipedia summary of emulsifiers at a coworker’s birthday party, anyone?)

But beneath all that, Jon is just... scared. And Jonathan Sims comes to fear a lot of things, but one of his first fears was being forgotten. So it’s no wonder he takes so well to the compulsion to record, document, archive. 

Makes sense; he was, by his own admission, emotionally neglected as a child. And sometimes harassed. He chalked it up to being “a deeply annoying child,” which -- oof, no wonder he acts like an ass sometimes. Even if he was adept at social interaction (which he’s not), keeping people at arm’s length can feel a lot safer than letting them close and risking rejection when they decide you’re too much to handle. 

Point is, being ignored or ostracized was already painful, but it became his normal. Being forgotten, though, would be a existentially terrifying step beyond that. 

All of this is put into even starker relief after “A Guest For Mr. Spider.” At 8 years old he witnessed someone get snatched from the world without a trace – someone ten years his senior, who died because he made the choice to torment Jon and just did so at the exact wrong moment (or perhaps right? Maybe the Web decided that early that Jon was more useful alive). But despite the fact that it was his bully, Jon has survivor’s guilt over it. He feels responsible. He admits that it’s illogical for him to think he could have done anything  differently—he was eight—but he still comes out of that experience with the fundamental belief that being forgotten would be a unique kind of punishment that he believes even his bully didn’t deserve.

It’s such a raw, vulnerable moment when he finally admits it out loud: “Because I’m scared, Martin!” All that denial was external, and so fragile that it took one panicked moment for him to drop the veneer. But internally? Jokes about his obliviousness aside -- and, yes, in a lot of ways, Jon is that smart dumbass -- he’s got some self-awareness. He’s put two and two together, realized that the “real” statements don’t record digitally. He’s seen the artifact storage. He’s had a Leitner-based trauma, like so many statement givers. He’s just scared and he Does. Not. Want. To. Talk. About. It. 

He tries to hide it early on behind a cold, stoic academic demeanor, but that… doesn’t last long, and once that veneer drops, he absolutely spirals into open paranoia and fear. And going forward, he really doesn’t hide his terror much. When he’s threatened, we hear him beg for his life. Even when he thinks the world might be better off without him, he still doesn’t want to die. He’s afraid of death, and after S1, he doesn’t try to pretend otherwise. (I really appreciate a horror protagonist who shows fear even when they’re trying to be brave.) 

So, by the end of S1, we get to see him start to admit that his new obsessive behavior is not just a detached academic interest, or his workaholic urge to do his job well. It’s because he’s scared. But beyond that, through S2 and into S3, he starts to admit that beneath that, there’s something else going on. His rapidly escalating paranoia spiral is due to trauma, as well as the realization that Gertrude was murdered, as well as the general sense of uneasiness and distrusts that permeates the Institute (the Eye loves that shit), but also, honestly?? I think this is where the Eye starts to really get a grip on him. The Ceaseless Watcher, the fear of, in Gerry’s words, “needing to know, even if your discoveries might destroy you. The feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch.”

Beyond the tape recorder obsession, Jon doesn’t seem to notice early on that when he reads statements, it’s almost like he’s in a trance. (I think one of the first episodes where he starts to notice this is actually in MAG 32, when he’s reading Jane Prentiss’ statement. His introduction to the statement is shaky, stilted, like he’s dreading it; when he’s reading Jane Prentiss’ words, it’s like he’s channeling her tone and delivery in a far more extreme way than he has before; and when he’s done, he’s clearly unsettled by the experience.) 

(Another thing that stands out to me on a relisten is his tone shift when talking to Elias in MAG 40 -- he has an almost dreamy, trancelike delivery of the line: “Tens of thousands of... things without mouths screaming as one.” Like he’s reliving a flashback, yes, but there’s something else in his delivery of that line that continues to show up in his later spooky-Archivist-powers moments. And Elias pauses, and I can only imagine him thinking in that moment, all smug and conniving, Good. Jon is starting to become The Archivist.)

And, of course, Jon also doesn’t notice when he starts being able to compel statements--which is kind of funny, because my first thought when listening to early statements was, “How are all these statements so detailed and coherent? Did all these statement givers take creative writing classes or something?” But Jon doesn’t really seem to question that at first. It becomes more clear when the archive assistants try to take statements -- the statement givers can’t stay on topic, can’t remember details, can’t relive the moment in the same way they can if they’re forced to through compulsion. Adelard Dekker mentions that in one of his letters to Gertrude, too. It’s also sad, though, because he kept getting accused of forcing people to answer questions when he didn’t realize he was doing it (e.g. his interviews with Basira, Daisy, and Jude). 

It’s just... such a gradual downward spiral. And yeah, there’s something tragic about that--and it isn’t going to end well; this is a horror-tragedy story after all--but one of the things I like about Jon is that he works so, so hard to change and become a better person in spite of what the Beholding is trying to turn him into. 

I’m getting way off-topic. Basically, Jonny Sims is... very good at character development, and it’s fun to relisten and start to pick out the moments when things start to go wrong, the little details that maybe didn’t stand out so much on my first listen. Admittedly I, much like Jon Sims, have my own little conspiracy corkboard flavor of overthinking, so some of this might just be me reading too far into it. But still, I like all the layers going on here. 

[zuzuslastbraincell]

IMO, if you’re going to criticise the way zukka’s booming popularity ties into the racialised fetishisation of mlm (great article on this as a phenomenon here), you should make that the core focus of your critique? I’ve seen some takes recently that try to critique it from additional angles but I feel these arguments are 1. borne out frustration 2. flawed 3. miss the point.

For example, I’ve seen some posts criticising zukka that are frustrated with people not for giving the canon wlw representation in the avatar universe the same kind of popularity and attention. I’m sympathetic to this frustration (I share it), but I think framing it in this way fails to recognise that neither of these ships are in ATLA itself. One is from a different show, that has far more inconsistent and arguably poorer writing, whose world-building has been critiqued from anti-imperialist perspectives and anti-capitalist perspectives multiple times, and critically, the canon wlw ship, while groundbreaking in children’s animation for its time, was poorly developed and foreshadowed. While you could attribute this to disputes with the executives at nicklelodeon, it doesn’t change the fact that as a viewer it’s not as compelling as it could have been. I personally love korrasami but I think there are good reasons to be disappointed or underwhelmed by its portrayal, there are good reasons why fans might not care much for Legend of Korra; indeed there are ATLA fans who haven’t even watched LoK. The other pairing is from a spin-off novel series about an important minor character, which hasn’t received anywhere near the publicity as ATLA or LoK. Again, I adore Rangi/Kyoshi, but we should be realistic about how much we expect casual viewers to read a spin-off novel series and how much attention it should garner without its own TV series. To some extent we need to be realistic – why should we expect people who are fans of ATLA, and only ATLA, to give as much attention to ships that are not part of ATLA?

I’ve also seen some posts that question why people don’t find the canonical m/f relationships appealing, and urge people to reconsider them, often stating gay =/= better, or more politically correct. While it’s true that liking ships absolutely should not be a measurement of how progressive you are, I find this perspective fails to recognise that there are actual genuine critiques that you could level at kataang, sukka, and maiko respectively? In each case you could make an argument for lack of development, that these relationships tend to centre the male character and their feelings? There are genuine reasons why viewers might be put off by these dynamics (in fact, there is no obligation for them to care, there never is), and I think we shouldn’t overcorrect and ignore the flaws in the dynamics’ canonical depiction that people might take issue with. I am also skeptical of the implication offered by this line of critique, where these canonical m/f relationships are all more politically correct – even if that’s true, I really don’t think that a lone is a good reason why people should be more invested in them (especially if the viewer finds their dynamic otherwise uncompelling flat etc.). We shouldn’t confuse shipping children’s TV characters with activism; taking an anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and feminist approach to media is more to do with accountability than activism and about ensuring fandom cultures do not only only cater to white cishet men. 

The last argument I’ve seen recently has been to do with the fact that mailee shouldn’t be compared too closely with zukka – agreed, in that they’re very different dynamics, and again, I can understand the frustration there. But mailee is not “more canonical” than zukka simply because the former were childhood friends. Firstly, neither of these relationships are canonical (may I remind you that Mai ends up with Zuko). Furthermore, there also no firm, rock solid, near indisputable evidence that Mai and Ty lee always cared for each other more deeply or fully than Azula; there is no firm, rock solid, near indisputable evidence that Mai and Ty lee always knew they were going to betray Azula and were leading her on the whole damn time. This is an interpretation of the text based on some circumstantial evidence and body language. It is a potentially an interesting, compelling interpretation of the text that has some limited evidence suggesting it could be true - but it ultimately relies on conjecture and extrapolation. It is not canon. There is also space for an interpretation of the text where Mai and Ty Lee never particularly liked each other or understood each other, and largely tried to get along for Azula’s sake. We should be careful to ensure that we don’t treat our headcanons as if they are ironclad canonical fact. There is space for a variety of interpretations of Mai and Ty Lee’s dynamic and to call it “more canonical” presents an interpretation of mailee as fact in a way I think not only is just kidding ourselves / exaggerating what we saw on screen, but also I think doesn’t allow for alternate interpretations that more broadly, impacts fandom negatively.

Like, ultimately I feel that all of these arguments are flawed, but also I think they miss the point! None of these things have much to do with zukka’s sudden popularity or why a lot of interpretations of zukka delve into racist fetishisation and mlm fetishisation. If you want to criticise zukka and its sudden rise in popularity, talk about the key factors at play. Talk about how migratory shippers latch on to new fandoms without much care for the context and detail of the source text, treating characters like blank slates they can attach tropes to without regard to their actual characterisation, either latching onto white characters no matter how minor their role is, or, as in the case of atla, either erasing & “whitening” the cultural background of the characters or just perpetuating racist perspectives.

We could also talk about how there is not much space or resources in fandom in general for wlw ships and discussions and spaces. We could talk about how women are more willing to work with and interpret male characters than vice versa, in part due to the lack of interiority and complexity often given to female characters in children’s animation historically but also due to misogyny and the male audience’s unwillingness to treat women like people even when presented with complex and layered female characters. We could also talk about the history of whiteness in fandom and how the source text was written by white american men and is a limited western interpretation of asian cultures and how that impacts the fandom and the reception and treatment of said cultures.

Like. I think there are more important factors at play and we shouldn’t make these flawed arguments simply out of frustration that what we care about and what we’re passionate about isn’t getting the reception we think it deserves. Because I get most of this, most of these arguments are borne out of frustration, but we shouldn’t exaggerate, mistate the case, or leave no room for critique.

[lexa-kom-skaikru]

You said Hope, Josie and Lizzie are your favourite chatacters in the tvdverse. Could you tell us what are the things you love about each of them?

They really are. 

One of the main things that makes these 3 standout from every other TVDverse character, is the fact that we have known them since they were babies. We even know more than that. We know what it took just for them to be born. We know what Jo, Caroline and Alaric did so the twins could be born. We know how much the entire Mikaelson family fought, not only for Hope to be born, but for her to be safe and how Klaus and Hayley sacrificed themselves so that she could live. We knew, even before they were born, of their power. All of these 3 characters showed immense power when they were just in their mothers womb.

Us, knowing these characters since before birth only heightens how protective we feel of them.

We even know of what they did before Legacies. Hope more so than the twins, because we saw her journey in the originals, but even the twins too, since we know they helped Klaus sacrifice himself for Hope. 

What makes these characters stand out from any other is the fact we have SO much knowledge about their background that when Legacies started, we were already attached.

Now, what I love about each of them... Hope was my absolute favorite character until Legacies decided to make all her story about Landon. Hope is easily the most complex character in the TVDverse, if only Legacies actually went there with her like the Originals did. I love how Hope is strong and powerful, but she can also be reckless and ruthless, while also being kind hearted and vulnerable.

I have never seen a show (The Originals) write a child of two already existing characters so well because they absolutely nailed it in making Hope a legitimate merge of Klaus and Hayley. I look at Hope and I feel the Klaus and the Hayley in her which is also a testament to the amazing casting of Danielle Rose Russel.

With Josie, I love how they wrote her to be this sweet character with a dark repressed side to her. One doesn’t deny the other, same as Hope. You have this good person at her core, so good in fact, to the point of flaw. She just wants to make others around her happy, specially her sister but to the cost of her own happiness. 

She puts others ahead of herself but unlike many portrayals of this type of personality on tv, we actually see the realistic side to it which is the fact that this kind of self sacrifice actually makes negative feelings build up inside you, and make you act out but try to hide it so that it doesn’t disturb other people or even their perception of you.

And now we are getting to see Josie explore a new side to her that doesn’t try to be so codependent, and actually tries to go for the things that she wants and that make her happy.

With Lizzie, I just think she has the best development out of any Legacies character by a long mile. She comes off as superficial and selfish at first glance but she is one of the most sweet and inspirational characters. She is always actively trying to better herself. She knows her flaws but she doesn’t let them define her. She tries to overcome them and be better. She is ALWAYS actively trying to be better. She can be clueless, but as soon as she is made aware of what is happening, she doesn’t hesitate to help and be there for the person that needs a shoulder to cry on. She is just a character I admire a lot.

And the thing I love most about these three, is the relationships they have with each other. No matter what combination you put them in, you are bound to have the best interactions of the entire episode. Their relationships to each other are not only entertaining to watch, but they capture your heart and hold it in a tight grip without letting go. They can range from light hearted banter, to gut wrenching emotion. These three have so much history together, that makes it even more compelling to watch because there are always layers building within them and I love that about them.