#it's like a lot to scroll past

[deoidesign]

vampire and werewolf sitting in a tree

time trav e l i n g

first comes. trying to kill eachother then comes... learning you're his dead ex-lover then comes marriage!

(you can buy the book this scene is from for $15 it's really good. it's the fan favorite of the series!)

[thisisadonaldduckblognow]

all the rise boys get done dirty on characterization by fandom in different ways i think. (not ALL the time every fanwork etc etc these are just like, trends i tend to notice?) every fandom suffers from losing character nuance.

- leo i’ve talked about plenty on this blog, how some of his canon traits (genuine belief in his skill and cockiness, capacity for joy, his manipulativeness whether for good or ill) seem to get watered down or wiped off the board and supplemented with generic sad boy. his struggles with purpose and identity and not wanting to fail somehow morph into “he hates and completely holds no value for himself”

- donnie’s canon personality gets blurred out and largely replaced with whatever list of Neurodivergent Traits. and i think there’s such a fine line to walk between exploring a character that’s been word of god confirmed as on the spectrum and overwriting what’s canonically there. it’s a hard needle to thread. it also feels like a lot of his canon emotiveness gets left off the table for some reason. bc he does have his moments of flat/deadpan delivery, but a lot of the time he’s honestly very emotive. he has the passion of a theatre kid and the vindictiveness of... also a theatre kid. and the mind of a scientist.

- raph loses so much of his rowdy teen boy energy it’s kind of wild? like interpretations sand off that he’s also impulsive and can be reckless and dumb and LOVES fighting and roughhousing and isn’t the most eloquent person. suddenly there’s this pitch perfect soft boy big bro who would never hurt a fly and always says the exact right supportive thing and singlehandedly raised his 3 brothers (which simultaneously sands off all the nuance of splinter’s issues emotionally connecting with his sons and how that affected all of them). and like i LOVE raph, he’s so full of love and care and anxiety, he clearly has learned to put a lot of work into being aware of his strength and size. but there’s a difference you know?

- mikey is like. where raph gets overparentified by fanon, mikey gets over “family therapist”-ed IMO. the impulsiveness, the goofiness, the powerful emotions including a VERY powerful temper, the flat-out dumb teen boy choices... they get ignored. suddenly there’s this only very sweet and earnest boy who has read a hundred psychology books and runs group family therapy weekly or something. he is crying in his room bc leo and raph are arguing about something. which is so. he IS very sweet and can be very earnest and is full of love! he HAS come in with his opinions and unsolicited advice a couple of times and life coached for the greater good. but there’s a difference between what he does in canon and the role he gets in fanon.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

PLEASE MORE BUTTERFLY HOWDY CONTENT HES SO FUCKING SILLY

OKAY HERE'S A COMIC SHENANIGANS THING

[burstingsunrise]

[lost-in-fandoms]

¹⁷⁾ a carabiner heavy with keys❤️

hello friend, I want you to know that this prompt stumped me for quite a while, I just didn't know how to spin it? I started thinking about keys -> doors -> many doors, and I had a zookeeper AU in my brain, but also a college student x security guard AU kind of thing, but in the end I went for this. I did take some liberties on the carabiner part.

Max is being guided towards the last row of cells when they bring him in.

He's being held up by two guards, one more behind them carrying an extra torch, head hanging low like he's not fully aware, curls drooping in front of his face in a disheveled mess.

"Ah, yes," the warden says with a smirk, stepping over to open one of the closed doors, "our little thief!"

The cell is dark and damp, with a hole in the middle of the floor and a wooden slab against the wall as a bed, and even from where he's standing in the corridor, Max can feel how oppressive the small space is, air heavy and stale.

The guards throw the man in without much care, ignoring the way he slumps on the floor, unmoving, but the warden chuckles, coming closer to poke him with the tip of his boot.

"Not so smug now, are you?" he taunts.

Max forces himself not to react as he pokes the thief again, trying to keep his face as impassible as the other guards, watching as the guy tries to twist away, moaning pathetically.

"Who is he?" he asks, voice flat and uninterested. His fingers are tightly closed around the ring of keys the warden had passed him earlier, a copy of the one hanging from his belt.

"Just a rat, sneaking around the castle's treasury for far too long." The warden crouches down, grabbing the man's hair and pulling it back, revealing his bruised face. "The guys had a bit of fun, it seems."

The thief opens one swollen eye to look up at him, and for a second Max thinks his face is twisting in pain, but then realises he's smiling, all blood-stained teeth.

"Touching is 5 gold pieces, sweetheart," he rasps out, before spitting at the warden.

Max can't help but flinch when the guy's head hits the floor, but he steels himself for the kick he sees coming, forcing himself to not look away, even as the poor man coughs and gasps on the floor.

"Vermin," the warden grunts, hitting him again for good measure, before finally stepping away. "Hope you've had your taste of fresh air, because this is the last you're going to get."

The thief doesn't answer, curling up more tightly on the floor, his gasps the last thing Max hears before the door closes with a heavy thud.

--

Max walks down the corridor, trying to remind himself that he has every right to be here, and it would be more suspicious if he sneaked around, The keys jingle at his waist, and the sound itself is enough to make him feel vaguely nauseous, especially as he hears the sounds from inside the cells die down as he walks by, replaced by terrified silence.

Despite his intentions, his steps grow quieter as he walks deeper into the prison, approaching the last rows, and by the time he's in front of the thief's cell his breathing is almost inaudible too, the clinking of his keys the only sound announcing his presence.

He takes a breath before opening the door, checking the end of the corridor just in case someone decided to take a stroll down this way before the actual guards change. It's not illegal what he's doing, not yet at least, but technically he's not supposed to open this door, the meager food they've been throwing being passed through the hatch at the bottom.

The first click of the lock sounds too loud in the quiet corridor, but Max ignores the nerves twisting his stomach and keeps turning the key, pulling the door open as quietly as possible.

The first thing that hits him is the smell. The stale, damp air, now smells even worse, after days of a human being living in it, and he almost has to take a step back, feeling it like a punch in his chest. After that, he sees the thief, a shadow tucked away in one corner.

The sight is enough to make him forget about the smell as he rushes forward, tucking his keys in his pocket to make them less noisy, crouching down in front of him, relieved by the movement of his shoulders.

"Daniel," he whispers, reaching out to touch but worried he'll accidentally scare him, or worse, hurt him. "Daniel, come on, look at me."

"You're late."

Max feels like a weight has been lifted from his chest hearing Daniel's voice, even if dry and raspy, and he almost laughs with it, finally leaning all the way in to touch his shoulders, helping him sit up.

"I'm sorry," he says, even if he had no real way of getting their work done more quickly. "I have water for you, and a piggyback ride out."

Max is glad he prepared himself before walking in, because it takes all his self-control to not gasp when Daniel finally looks up. The bruises he had seen a few days earlier are now purple and green, the dried blood still caking his cheekbone now a flaky brown, his cheeks sunken and pale.

"Don't look at me like that, I haven't had my beauty sleep," Daniel jokes, voice cracking into a cough by the end of the sentence.

"I hate you," Max says, because saying I love you so much it felt like I was dying when I was watching them throw you in here feels a bit too much at the moment. What he does instead is take out the small flask of water from his pocket, helping Daniel drink, fingers almost tingling where he's touching his skin.

"You got them right?" Daniel asks as soon as he's done, looking slightly better than before.

Max nods, patting the pocket on his chest, under his cloak, where he had hidden the documents he had retrieved from where Daniel had stashed them away. Daniel getting beat up hadn't been in the plans though, and Max is eager to get him out of there as soon as possible.

"Come on, it's not long until the watch changes."

He helps Daniel stand up, then climb on his back, leaving his hands free, just in case.

"I'm going to give you so much food," he tells him, feeling how much lighter Daniel has become in just a few days.

"You better."

Max closes the door of the cell behind them, taking a moment to wrap the keys up in an handkerchief before putting them back in his pocket. He knows that there's no way to make it seem like he's not smuggling Daniel out, so he's not taking any chances of the damned keys betraying them when he's trying to be quiet. Then he takes a deep breath, makes sure Daniel is secure on his back, and starts making his way to safety.

[simandy]

I am drawing miku

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizon forbidden west | aloy 120/?

[old-skyguy]

People who engage in queer discourse seriously need to be reminded of what being queer actually *is*.

It's not fitting into heteronormative standards.

It's not fitting into amatonormative standards.

It's not fitting into gender norms and doing stuff that makes YOU happy. It's taking control of your own body and doing what feels right instead of something that you felt forced/were forced into. This INCLUDES intersex people.

Just because you don't understand someone's identity does not mean you can't be supportive and it does NOT mean you get to tell people whether they do or don't belong in the queer community. They don't owe you thing about a DAMN thing in terms of an explanation in order to justify their queerness. If they say they're queer, they're queer. If not, they're not.

And again. This INCLUDES aro/ace/aroace spec people. It INCLUDES cishet aro/ace/aroace spec people.

It INCLUDES straight trans people. Anyone gnc who identifies with being straight or cis in any way. He/him lesbians, she/her gay dudes, agender people, pangender, it/its, who actually gives a fuck??

This INCLUDES intersex people.

This INCLUDES people who use neo pronouns/identities. It INCLUDES micro labels, even the most obscure ones you haven't heard of because you know what? They use it because it makes them feel good.

It INCLUDES the "cringe" people you think are too weird to be associated with. You can't make up someone's mind about whether they belong especially when they're disabled and have already been excluded from a lot of shit for most of their life, not to mention it's really insulting. Even if they're just "weird" or some shit and not disabled at all, still!! Don't be an asshole! I can't believe I have to say this to a group of people whose entire thing is acceptance and unconditional love for differences, but if you don't accept people in your own group who are different from you, you are the problem!!

Queer just means you don't fit into society's view of what "love" or your sense of self means and I PROMISE you that all these people and all others included in the LGBTQ *Plus* know themselves better than you do. You can ask, politely, if you're curious, but no one owes you an explanation and if they feel like they belong, just leave them be and ignore them if you're really so stuck-up you can't handle queer people who are "weird" or "different" to your idea of queer. Because if YOU are deciding who does and does not get to be included - in YOUR narrow idea of queerness - YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

Flag discourse and pronoun discourse and identity discourse other whiny little assholes complaining about this and that. None. Of. It. MATTERS. Go to a gay event irl or whatever and *no one is going to give a FUCK.* And if they do, they're not worth your time. I promise ipromiseipromise people irl are open to having actual intellectual conversations about identity and shit and the rhetoric of other queer people just telling you to KYS for using some label or some shit is only because the online world of pointless arguments is bleak and sad and devoid of the connection that actual complex people with feelings and unique experiences exist behind the screen. If you're one of these ignorant people, get better, and if you've ever been on the receiving end of this mind rot, it gets better.

The only way we will ever make a change towards a problem that actually matters, we have to forget the whole "UNITE AGAINST THE CRINGE ONES" narrative and open our eyes and stand together against the real oppressors.

Ridiculing people you hate because they're different will not help and will only hurt yourself in the long run.

[oceanwithouthermoon]

ive been unhealthily fixated on kubosai for the past few weeks, i just have no idea how to put it into words. kuboyasu aren and saiki kusuo are in love btw

[deoidesign]

My store!

prints, books, patches, pins, stickers, and more!

My patreon

I have a monthly merch club!

My ko-fi

My webcomic, Time and Time Again

It's about gay time traveling vampires! It's free to read!

Time and Time Again books!

My commissions are currently: closed sorry

My asks are always open, I love to talk about art and comics!

[hiddenbeks]

tagged by @southernreaches thank you fray!!! 🫶

rules: put your music library on shuffle, then list the first five songs that come up in a poll to let people vote for their favorite!

tagging (if you wanna do this, no pressure!!)

@yahgrondu @yharnams @pawnguild @volkihar @nokstella

@gurathins @alexheart @pinkfey @gortash @merdruid

@qingyii @ehlnofaey @tarasahl @katsigian @vilnan

[martyryo]

man that joins your breast cancer club and then asks you to check if he has any testicular tumors.

[sonknuxadow]

if the only footage youve seen of the game doesnt actually give you a good idea of what the game/story is like (like its from a parody video or is otherwise heavily edited for example) then it doesnt count as having watched the game and you should pick little to no actual exposure to the game. only interacting with the games content through fanart/fanfic/etc also counts as little to no actual exposure to the game

[undiscoverable-words]

High thoughts time

So in my current brand new baby headcanon where each primary couple gets say in what songs go in their season (like imagining Luke and Nicola had say on what songs or what music genre vibes would be in their season)

Jealous was a collaborative pick for them

Snow on the Beach was Nicola, she’s said she thinks Penelope would be a Taylor Swift fan!!!

abcdefu could have been all Nicola or maybe a collaborative idea like I could totally see her wanting this song in there and maybe talking Luke up to the idea to where he can totally see her vision and then he’s like okay, yeah, that song totally

And honestly I think for Give Me Everything it was kind of like Nic and Luke were spitballing how the carriage scene feels like it’s very high school dance (like this is such a 2010s high school dance song or even a club song I guess and she was like that’s totally the vibe, yes) like I really think putting things in that perspective is something she finds funny so then she’s like you don’t understand we have to do that it’s so funny and Luke laughs, we all laugh, bc she’s right it is very funny, and so the production team went and found a VERY like 2010s dance bop

[masezace]

little off topic for my blog, but i started watching a new show since a friend mentioned it was good and i'd heard positive things about it, so i just wanted to talk about it a little bit (probably never again after this since this isn't a fandom blog, but it's the only one i have rn so idc it's going here)

the show is Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, and just going on looks alone, despite my love for dinosaurs and the Jurassic Park franchise i never would have considered it. it appears to be very much for kids, and as i'm in my late twenties now i'm not particularly interested in especially kiddy media. however a friend my age enjoyed it and mentioned it has a canon lgbtq+ couple in it among the main characters, so of course i just had to watch it. i had already been hearing that despite its initial appearance and premise, it was surprisingly good for a kids' show, so i had already been curious, but i was even more keen after knowing there were queer characters, and not even the adults, the kids themselves (in a kid's show?!! what a time to be alive), so i finally sat down and watched it.

[spoiler warning, both minor and major, for the rest of this post btw, so continue reading at your own risk if you haven't seen it yet/are still watching]

the show overall

okay so firstly, i am coming at all of this from the perspective of a writer, so my observations are from a technical standpoint more so than just as a fan of the show. and honestly, it really is a well-written show as a whole. is it geared towards kids? definitely. there are plenty of jokes/gags in it that just don't appeal to me as an adult, but beyond that, there was plenty to appreciate as an adult.

the writing is actually phenomenal? there were several points in the series where i just sat back and mulled over the way a scene went, what the thought process behind writing it was like, how well it was executed, and how important it was to the characters and overall plot.

the suspense is spot on, nothing gets dragged out too long, and i will admit there have been a few scenes throughout that actually got me; i jumped! it's actually scarier than i expected a kid show to be, but i'm so glad they went where they did because it really elevated the experience.

the pacing overall is very good, adequately engaging for kids' short attention spans (and us adhd adults 🥲) but not too short either to a point where things felt abrupt or unfinished. plot arcs are well developed and tied up nicely. also, as a bit of a dinosaur nerd, the array of dinosaurs in the show is super broad and satisfying! very fun stuff.

character element

imo the real gem of this show is the character development. honestly it's just *chefs kiss*

the characters grow and change so much and so realistically over the course of the show, it's honestly so much better and more satisfying than the character growth in most adult fiction/media recently.

the growth in ben (who btw was def my favorite character by the end of s1) and kenji in particular were my favorites and, in my personal opinion, the most interesting. the way ben started out anxious, cowardly, and rule abiding to a fault, then grew into a brave, confident, adventurous little pyromaniac gremlin, then had that stint later in the series where he regressed a bit-questioning himself-until eventually ultimately striking a great balance and really coming into himself was just... peak character writing.

kenji started out overconfident, lazy, and overly concerned with money/status. but that arrogant overconfidence and laziness slowly turned into responsibility, and a desire to protect his found family, and the realization that it's the people in your life that really matter most.

honestly what i mentioned only scratches the surface in terms of those two characters, there's certainly more that can be said about them (as well as all the others) but i'm not really in the mood for a deep dive character analysis atm. just trust me tho when i say these characters are so well done and each one of them have arcs that are super satisfying to watch play out.

queer representation

and as for the queer couple? yasmina and sammy are PERFECT. it was so beautiful watching their relationship grow from one-sided to mutual friendship, to loyal devotion, then to love. they were set up incredibly well and incredibly naturally. i have like, no complaints when it comes to them. i don't even know if there's anything i can say that would add to things, they were just a really awesome couple to watch become canon, they're the beautiful and painfully needed representation we all beg for in tv and movies.

shipping, chemistry, and intent

but oh goodness... probably my only real complaint about the entire show would be how benji (ben x kenji) and kenji x brooklyn (kenlyn? brookji? idk and idrc) were handled. because for all that this show did SO much beautifully right, they really screwed the pooch here, sadly.

i'm gonna start by saying that the writing in this show, as with most, is deliberate. what i mean by this is that despite having no clue who it would be because my friend thankfully did not even spoil me as far as the genders of the queer couple, i clocked yas and sammy as the would-be queer couple as early as season one (actually it was between them and benji, but more on that later). i could already see the chemistry, because it was deliberately written in.

shipping is subjective. anyone can ship any character, and in most cases it's pretty easy to see how there could be (romantic) chemistry between fan pairings based on their personalities, their arcs, etc. and that's okay! ships don't even have to have any canon support to be valid, because shipping is for the fandom, and it's for fun (i have a few rarepairs and crack ships across different media that i just love).

but onscreen/written romantic chemistry is a lot less subjective (to clarify, it is subjective whether or not the chemistry is good, but it's not subjective about whether or not it exists). there are literally scenes written with the sole purpose of building the romantic tension and/or chemistry between planned couples (some of which even have absolutely zero plot relevance, which usually is not advised tbh, and most of which are the cliches/tropes you see in literally any romance ever written, some are just disguised a little better than others. but make no mistake, it's all the same set of cliches. there is nothing new under the sun), as well as intentional, key moments within scenes that have other purposes. they are essential to establish romantic pairings.

and typically, the foundations for these couples are laid VERY early on. always within the first or second season (well, at least they are when the writer actually knows what they're doing and has at least a rough plan/outline for the entire series & characters. this is usually a large part of what separates the good chemistry from the poor chemistry. an author who knows who the couples are going to be and has a plan from the beginning to build them up is going to be more successful in creating a believable relationship with good chemistry. one who does not plan, or makes last minute plans will almost certainly fail, and the couple is just going to suck). when the set of characters you're working with are going to stay the same for most or all of the story, you start immediately.

i don't mean to toot my own horn, because i think it's because i'm a writer so i just pick up on narrative patterns very easily, and pretty much always clock the planned couples within the first few episodes of any series, and by the end i am right like 9 times out of 10.

that being said, do you know whose deliberately written chemistry i also clocked in jwcc? ben and kenji's.

kenji and... brooklyn?

no offense to people who like/enjoy kenji and brooklyn, you are free to love them, but the way their romance was written is... quite possibly the weakest point of the show. it felt like they were just trying to appease the upsetto heteros in charge, because there was definitely another het pairing that had a lot more potential than kenji and brooklyn (hello darius x brooklyn aka darilyn, you would have actually made sense because your relationship had amazing buildup and multiple standout scenes from s1 on. dgmw, i love that we got a m/f strong, supportive, purely platonic friendship out of them, i live for those and we really need more of them. but we could have had that with kenji and brooklyn, or darius and sammy, or ben and yas, literally any other pair instead).

kenji and brooklyn as a couple came out of absolutely nowhere. i honestly think they decided to shove them together last minute, and had no actual plan for them until they were working on s4. because their development barely started at the VERY end of s3 (the abruptness of him caring about her being held hostage so much more than literally anyone else in their group despite them having like zero buildup to that point gave me whiplash), but honestly didn't really even become "meaningful" development until s4, over halfway through the series. the two spend the first 3 seasons basically not particularly gaf about each other individually, only as part of the whole group and on an equal level with everyone else. they otherwise have no deliberate narrative foundation. it just starts in s4 with no prior hinting. which makes their development rocky and difficult to believe. the funny thing is their characters literally have dialogue (in s4) trying to draw comparisons/parallels between them to say that they especially have a lot in common and like??? no? they really don't? not any more so than any other two kids in the group. their relationship just, really falls flat.

it was disappointing to see it take such a massive spotlight in the series for almost all of seasons 4 and 5, overshadowing the friendships that have been the focus of the show and should have remained so, to the point where at times it just felt like i was watching some stereotypical het highschool romance. genuinely, it made s4 & 5 more of a drag to get through. yasammy and ben and yas' growing bond (which by the way was so sweet, it had the strongest queer solidarity vibes good lord, i sure wonder why yas chose ben out of everyone to come out to first, hmmm) were some of the few things that kept me invested, otherwise i would have dropped it if it had leaned much farther into becoming the kenlyn show than it already was. especially when it was that pair so much of the focus was given to, even though we had so readily and perfectly available, the pair that could have, should have been: benji. which finally brings me to:

ben and kenji

benji's foundation was laid in s1. their interactions, the situations they found themselves in, were deliberate (on the writers' part). i'm even gonna go out on a limb here and say the pairings were fully established in s1e3, even with parallels between yasammy and benji (sammy clinging to yas and ben clinging to kenji throughout the episode), and darilyn gets the beginning of their development too.

even though they bicker a lot in the beginning, they clearly care about each other? kenji protects/helps ben multiple times, and there are definitely some looks ben gives kenji at times. at the end of s1, the one who seems the most deeply effected over ben's "death," other than darius (understandably since he's the one who failed to save him), was kenji! immediately after it happens, we get two close up shots, darius and brooklyn then yasmina and sammy. after which, we go back to the whole group with kenji in center frame, the focus is intentionally on him. it is only kenji who drops to his knees at the loss, and then we get a close up of just kenji. he was saved for last, and he was alone in frame (tbf bumpy was in frame too, but i'm talking humans here), which implies his feelings are especially important in this moment. that is the reason for solo close ups.

after ben's "death," kenji takes to always wearing ben's fanny pack, and up until bumpy--who ben cares VERY much about--got separated from them, kenji was the one who (however briefly) took over her care, ensuring she got off the monorail with them, and he's extremely distraught, more than pretty much all of them, when they can't find her, and he's last to leave when they decide to accept that ben's gone. even when they do leave, he's distant and distracted and his mind is clearly still on ben.

other than darius, kenji is the only one (if i'm remembering correctly) to mention ben/say his name after they lost him, upset because he was actually trying not to think about him. he has clearly thought about ben, probably a lot, because it's hard not to be reminded constantly when you wear something that belonged to a deceased loved one. and frankly, he appears to be the only one who dwells on him that much.

when ben reappears alive (which btw he found the group again because of kenji's butter knife, hello), the frames literally purposely focus on kenji's reaction. he's the one in the foreground every time they show him and brooklyn in that scene. he is the first one to say ben's name, the first one to go to him and hug him, and the scene takes special care to highlight kenji's strong emotions at ben's reappearance, lingering on his teary face as the focus for a bit even after brooklyn enters the frame to hug ben (because she is not at all an important element in the scene at that moment). just like when ben "died," the way this scene is written and shot HEAVILY suggests that ben holds significant importance to kenji, specifically. because again, the focus here is on kenji and ben almost exclusively, with brooklyn as only an afterthought lol. and quite frankly literally everyone else's reaction to him being alive was pretty lackluster compared to the special attention they gave to kenji on this.

and then in s3 we have the infamous hat scene, where darius and ben are in the limo and ben sees and mentions kenji's sailor hat, looking sad and sounding like... longing?? then directly after we switch to kenji realizing he forgot his hat?? the scene has no real significance tbh other than to draw a connection between ben and kenji. like, it acts as a transition to switch to the pov of the group on the boat, but it was entirely unnecessary? why not just have darius say something about the others and then show them on the boat? if there were no special relationship between ben and kenji, it would have made far more sense if they really wanted it to be ben to say something, that he sees the hat, and sadly says something along the lines of "i hope the others are okay/doing better than we are right now/etc" which implies that the hat made him think of everyone, their whole group. rather than what we got... which very much implies that he was mostly just thinking about kenji 💀 and then kenji thinking about the hat at the same time ben's looking at it and thinking of kenji. like, this is.... a very blatant connection being made by the writing/directing here.

all of that. so many deliberate connections made between ben and kenji, they had a very solid foundation laid for a romance to develop, and by all intents and purposes one already WAS developing according to the show's own subtext. which was why up until s4 obliterated the idea, i was positive the queer couple in the show was either going to be yasammy or benji. it was extremely obvious imo. but as soon we started getting the typical, loud, cliche "we are going to pair off these characters" scenes for kenji and brooklyn, i knew we were getting yasammy and not benji (to be clear, i'm not at all upset about yasammy, they're beautiful and i love how their relationship was done, i wouldn't have had it end any other way for them. but i do personally prefer benji, i just like their personalities and dynamic more. and i feel they had so much potential that got wasted to make way for a far less interesting pairing between kenji and brooklyn. why can't we have 2 queer couples, huh? and if we really needed a minimum of one hetero pairing to appease whoever needed appeasing, darilyn was right there).

but then??? their like entire bond just gets dropped (honestly ben himself gets pretty heavily sidelined for almost all of the last two seasons, which is criminal imo). mostly so that a rushed kenji x brooklyn can be established. like there are still a few small moments here and there in early s4, and one episode in s5 (ep 10), but from early s4 till pretty much the end of the series we hardly see them have any meaningful conversations or interactions, meanwhile literally every other combo in the group does.

it's so weird? why build up benji so deliberately over the course of multiple seasons just to like, fully discard it for a pairing with far less chemistry, even after the chemistry-building scenes they shared, some of which literally had no other purpose than to affirm their connection? even though they were very sparse, the moments benji had were just so blatant (kenji leaps into the rock crevice right onto the back of a saber tooth to save ben?!!?? like he literally was just willing to exchange his life for him like that?? he basically says that he wasn't really thinking, he just did it. so he moved out of what, emotional instinct, that's what we're meant to intuit from that series of events? implying that he specifically has strong emotion and doesn't think things through when it comes to ben? because he doesn't do that kinda stuff for any of the others in the group! even better, this parallels when sammy jumped on the nothosaurus to save yasmina. and then the way benji look at each other after it's over??? hello??? and then how kenji pulls both brooklyn and ben in for that hug a couple minutes later... side eyeing the writers for that choice. they knew what they were doing there and they were evil for it). i just can't see any reason to have dropped them like they were, after all the development they shared for 3 seasons. confounding. biggest disappointment of the series.

i know this probably reads to some as just "wahh, my ship didn't become canon" nonsense. but that's not why i'm bugged. this wasn't just a ship i liked and wanted canon despite no actual narrative support, as most ships tend to be. this ship did have narrative support. there was intent behind many of their scenes together, lingering looks and little things that matter narratively and are always used to signify a stronger/special connection. and it led nowhere, for no good reason. that bothers me. writing that implies and promises something, but never delivers on it. like a person who never finishes their sentences (think Dr McPhee from Night at the Museum). ultimately it's not a HUGE deal or anything, at the end of the day it's just a ship and just a kids' show. but as a writer, it's just irritating to see something like that be done. what can i say 🤷

conclusion

even despite the wasted potential between certain pairings, and even though i do think the first three seasons were superior to the last two, overall i really enjoyed the show, and for what it was, it was really well-made. the overarching focus was of course on found family and friendship before anything else, which i absolutely love, and it was masterfully done. out of 6 kids, all of them had at least one or two meaningful bonding moments one-on-one with another in the group, so every possible combination had their moment to build strong, believable friendships with each other. i'm just so surprised by how good it was as a whole honestly, good enough to binge over the course of a week. i will happily recommend jwcc to anyone willing to give it a watch regardless of age, because i definitely think there's no age limit for a good story, no matter the medium it's told in. :)

[hythlodaes]

sorry to that post but who cares what you call your oc lmao any term of endearment is fun to me 🤷‍♀️