#me about a character who was in ONE episode: im adopting you

[lunarriviera]

What are your thoughts on the last ep of under the skin...that cant be shen yi right...im seeing a lot of twin theories but thats a weird plot twist honestly 😅

to answer this question i guess i have to get up off the floor first, where i have been lying facedown and motionless since uts2 ended over a week ago. two weeks ago? yesterday? today? i don't know anymore i've lost all track of time, who are you? where are we?

oh right—the s2 ending. you must mean this scene, right? what a great way to end things! du cheng, happy, walking to meet a group of friends at his birthday party! truly wrapped up the whole drama, and left us in such a heartwarming place with our favorite characters!

...oh you didn't mean that ending? you mean there's another one?

[mindless screaming behind the cut AS WELL AS SPOILERS]

[and this winds up being about all of s2 as well as the final tag, OOPS]

so okay listen before i can even address this without the mindless screaming, i have to level with y'all here: s2 was rough on me. there are only like three du cheng stans in all of anglophone cdrama fandom and i'm probably two of them ( @wannings-wontons is the other one, thank god for her). i've written eleventyleven fics from his pov so i am ferally protective of my big stupid hot cop son. this season put him through the goddamn wringer and for my taste there were just a few too many scenes of du cheng looking like he was about to burst into tears while shen yi was smiling winsomely, for all the world as if he were not the one personally causing his captain to experience devastating mortal agony. allow me to demonstrate.

in the driver's seat: unspeakable anguish. literally can't talk.

in the passenger seat: hey nice air conditioner! guess what i have a new friend! i spent the night at his place, talking about infinity and human potential! in a few more episodes he'll be a murder suspect!

(i'm getting to the cliffhanger, believe me i'm getting there, no really i am, we just have to spend a minute dealing with the divorce arc first)

because, while i absolutely adore angst bambi (as @whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst has immortalized him), and thanks to @elenothar have firmly adopted him as a most beloved emotional support twink (not least because i suspect tan jianci is himself kind of a genius; no triple threat should be this good of an actor), i also honestly not infrequently this season wanted to drag shen yi into the men's room by his pretty hair and flush his pretty little head down the [redacted] until he came to his pretty little senses. because while later in the arc he clearly is, you know, attempting that deep-cover thing, and has to reject du cheng to his face, right in front of Evil Eugenicist Art Critic Weasel Man, in order to gain Weasel Moriarty's trust, etc.—

there are also a bunch of times when du cheng is visibly upset and miserable and in genuine pain, and shen yi just laughs. literally laughs at him. like tan jianci what are you doing, do you want the audience to dislike you? how are you trying to play this?? are we supposed to think, wow shen yi sure knows what he's doing? are we supposed to think he suddenly has the world's worst taste in men? because long before Weasel Man smashes a vase and snaps at his lab assistant and possibly kills someone and has assorted tantrums which start to tip off shen yi that maybe his new bestie is kind of a bag of dicks—long before that starts happening? shen yi just likes that guy. he LIKES him. enough to quote whitman to him (fang kaiyi you take his queer name out your mouth); enough to stay up all night painting the stars with him and we don't know what all else. enough to hang out in his lab for days on end, listening to junk science and pretending to understand the human genome and just what. shen yi. WHAT. he's literally a Bond villain styled like an asymmetric reptile—all this, just because he's tall? and he's gone to the symphony a few times? what, because he negged your painting, and that turned you on? i shouldn't have said any of that, but i did; and now i refuse to take it back. because inside me are two wolves, and they sound like this:

one wolf has been extremely online for many years, and thinks she's very hip and chill and jaded. this wolf talks in memes and laughs at herself, and she's like: “haha fun drama! Solving Crimes Through Art! lol i can't believe this turgid love song playing over a romantic montage, wow it's so stupid.” and also: “lmao divorce arc so hilarious, WELCOME HOME CHEATER lol get it, good joke right?” and: “oh my god why is there another pointless cliffhanger, they will NEVER GET a s3 what are they thinking. this scene is therefore not canon and can be safely ignored, just like the s1 tag turned out to be a ~~~dream."

but the other wolf is lying motionless in her barrow in the darkness flat on her stomach in mouldering leaves and mud head resting on crossed paws staring into the night with her old yellow eyes and she says they stabbed my son and left him alone in his blood and the last thing he saw was a cruel face worn by the boy he has come to love a boy standing at the end of the alley looking down at his phone who then moves past him and keeps on walking

and then, you know. then i lie on the floor for a week! which is fine, i'm an extremely psychologically healthy person who has certainly not at all outsourced her entire emotional well-being to an imaginary public safety bureau criminal investigator on the coast of southeast china.

so what do i think about the cliffhanger? here is what i think about it; and again, sorry for the hatchet job on shen yi but it was relevant:

1. i do think it's a dream, yes. they've already played that game with us—we waited two years to find out who was carving up shen yi's creepy murder-red self-portrait and whomst should it be but…nobody! just shen yi having nightmares about his future fling, apparently. (notice, too, how fang kaiyi GRABBED that craft knife, which shen yi had deliberately left on the easel, and didn't even ask why it was there. he might be tall and elegant and have good taste but he's nowhere near as smart as you are, shen yi. do better.)

2. whose nightmare is it, though: shen yi's, or du cheng's? remember that the first time du cheng meets fang kaiyi, he tells shen yi, "he reminds me of someone: the old you." (and shen yi laughs merrily, even though nothing about that is funny, either the observation or du cheng's immediate mistrust and jealousy. TAN JIANCI WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING). then, later, on the precinct rooftop, after the case is all over, shen yi confesses yet again that there's something in him that's not altogether good, that he has quote "demons," and that if he hadn't met du cheng, he might have gone down some vague unspecified dark path. not quite sure how a portrait artist was gonna become a mass murderer or whatever, but okay i guess. there was something off about shen yi 1.0, and du cheng could see it even a decade ago and he didn't like it then any more than he does now.

given all that, then, the nightmare is probably shen yi's. he's prone to them anyway, and he knows now how badly he's hurt du cheng, and that he came dangerously close to, well, getting into bed with the enemy. i don't think it's even until fang kaiyi is so limpidly nonchalant about zhou shanshan's death that shen yi's inner moral compass comes shrieking back into play (and then it really does; shen yi who never raises his voice out there just shouting that man down).

there's one argument to be made for the case that it's du cheng's nightmare, though, which is the way that he looks up at the camera at the very end of the shot, and laughs. shen yi 1.0 is standing too far away for that to be his point-of-view. so who's standing over du cheng? and who would he laugh at, in recognition, like that? shen yi 2.0, presumably (or 3.5? not sure what version we're on anymore).

either way here's my final observation, and then i swear to god i'll shut up, before the shen yi stans come for me like maenads. i was chatting with @wannings-wontons and she said something that absolutely blindsided me, which is that the cliffhanger literalizes the arc of the series: shen yi did, in fact, metaphorically stab du cheng in s2. why else would either of them dream that? du cheng being badly, even fatally wounded by arrogant young artist shen yi is precisely what happened during the divorce arc. and their reconciliation was so heavily censored as to be, to some of us anyway, unpersuasive. (two cops, talking on a rooftop all night! five feet apart cause they're not gay!) as @wannings-wontons said: "the last scene just reflects how badly hurt he was. and we're left to decide whether he'll recover."

so which is worse, dreaming that your lover stabs you? or dreaming that something twisted inside you stabs the man you love?

tldr, shen yi doesn't need a soap opera evil twin: he's his own evil twin, and he knows this. and what is more, du cheng knows it now too. if there's ever a third season, which seems completely impossible to me, the writers have to know that they have NOT fixed this.

fortunately, we have something censored production companies don't have, and it's called fanfiction. so bring on the episode codas, my friends. bring on the long painful conversations and the shouted arguments (du cheng never even got to yell, except once in a parking lot because he was frantic). bring on the tender reconciliations that can only come after those blowout knock-down-drag-out fights, and are therefore real and grounded, not stilted, wooden, woefully inadequate mockeries of reunion. let people throw furniture and cry and try to explain and plead and confess and even, sure, why not, grab the other person and kiss him breathless, and say I don't want to do this without you, say don't put me through that ever again, say but this isn't enough and I need something different, say okay then let's figure that out together, say i'm sorry i hurt you, you're the most important person to me and that's the last thing i ever want to do.

it's up to us, not to leave them there in the alley like that. but the good news is if it's work, it's only work. and it's our work to do.

[anonymouscheeses]

more obvious shit I wanted to point out but it's more than last time uhhh pt.2 (spoilers for dad beat dad and maybe welcome to heaven. Maybe?)

I love that Charlie just randomly goes into demon form sometimes like here ehhehehe. Also can I just say I love Charlie so much?? She is my favorite and I love her especially in this episode because it feels like the same optimistic Charlie but she was just put in a bad situation. I relate to her a bit TOO much, almost down to every detail like wow. You'll understand later once I get there. But just wow...

LOOK AT THIS FUNNY LITTLE MAN. SPOODER DUST <3 also. Live [image] reaction. Someone make that into a reaction image 🙏🙏

HONEY!!! NEW MEME TEMPLATE JUST DROPPED. (Aka the one guy going crazy trying to explain the stuff on the board iykyk)

OMG... THAT CANT BE CHARLIE... NOT CHARLIE'S EMO PHASE PLEASE BAHAHAHHAHAHA (also love that Lucifer has kept it all these years, if Charlie knew I think she'd be extremely embarrassed. Vaggie would love it probably xd)

HE IS SO GOOFY I CANT- I LOVE HIM SO MUCH ALREADY!!! NEED.

Broskie got character development and is NICE?!? I LOVE THAT SMMM YALL.... LOOK AT HIM!! I am very delusional yes, but I will take this over ass development(cough. Vaggie's "story" in ep 3. Cough).

Imagine this. *holds your hand carefully to help you calm down while talking to your father you haven't really wanted to talk to.* lesbian type stuff ngl 🤯 (relatable)

Angel looking at the gays while being a gay too. HE'S BEING SO KIND TO CHARLIE UGGHH I CANTTT!!(POS) NODDING HIS HEAD, SMILING TO HER, ALSO TRYING TO HELP CALM HER DOWN. I MAY BE ASS AT SOCIAL CUES BUT I NOTICED THIS ONE!! YAA

*SHE IS STILL HOLDING HER HAND. CHARLIE'S ALSO SWINGING IT AROUND NERVOUSLY. I can never get tired of them and will make art soon just you wait.*

COMMANDER VAGGIE! I love that she acts like this is a camp full of tiny kids and honestly? That's not too far off. Sir pentious is at the ready! (glad he's here more often in the episode, thought he would just get sidelined after his first episode but gladly no!) Angel is just surprised. Husk spilled his drink, ON WHITE FUR NO LESS! Niffty of course is on the floor face first. Charlie is just happy to be there yippee!

What is this?? I have no idea what the hell it is at all. Bro is just peepin- it doesn't look like Alastor, even in demon form. And... I can't think of anyone else who could be this. Anyone have ideas or maybe it's foreshadowing? Maybe it was revealed in the 6th episode I don't know I haven't watched it yet. (I am a freak. I don't binge I give myself a day to watch a single episode. Most of the time uhhh.)

WE LOVE A SHORT KING. I LOVE THAT. I LOVE HIM. THE EVERYTHING. HE IS EVERYTHING. LET ME STRANGLE HIM PLEASE. (Lillith and Lucifer's dynamic is 100% Gomez and Morticia but a little more silly short man)

"OH WOW! AN OLDER MAN WHO GIVES ME FATHERLY CARE!" *STARTS TO FUCKING CRY*

I FEEL YOU CHARLIE WAAAGHHH

Oh and there goes the silly guy again! Atp I'm thinking it may be the gal some people been talking about that they've been hinting since the pilot. I forgot her name but she's said to be the big bad of season 1 or probably 2. Not sure if that's what it's trying to imply but here's my little no-thought idea

Lucifer, no...

LUCIFER NO!! THIS IS SUCH AN ADORABLE RESPONSE TO CHARLIE DATING A WOMAN. (ADOPT ME)

AND THEN THE HUG! I GET IM LOOKING TOO MUCH INTO THIS ONE SILLY SCENE BUT I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH AND WANT THIS SO BAD IN MY LIFE.

Niffty really said, "Yes, I do the cleaning."

Get yourself a taller king who is a short king but compared to you is a tall king

Say what you will, but I genuinely want more dad Alastor, someone make an au before I do plsss and @ me 🙏🙏

alright.. now this is where it starts to be relatable and hurt my heart... yayy.... needing any sort of parent figure that actually cares about you than the actual parent who is rarely there? WOWZA! SAME CHARLIE <3 <3 (SO FAR VERY ACCURATE FROM SOMEONE THAT IS IN THE SAME SITUATION)

Alastor is letting her off kindly, atleast in his way. He may be pissed off she brought a shark gang to the hotel and put it on fire, but they were still close friends. With anyone else he would absolutely either murder them or have severely traumatized the person. She's the exception, although I don't think he'd let it off the hook so easily if there were a next time.

A father-daughter embrace! :,)

(This is gonna be messy asf) He wants to know who she is as a person. He always has, and that's definitely obvious, but from a person inside this, they may not know themselves what the other is thinking. To Charlie it was like he never cared and just wanted an excuse to not see her again, acting like he was truly busy as in the start where he made the rubber duck that breathed fire. Sure. But Charlie saw it as him finding ways to not interact with her again. The only times they talk was when it was related to business stuff or other things of the sort. Let me just say this song... is by far my favorite, including the episode. Sure, it's got problems it's own, but this extremely accurate portrayal of what my own situation with one of my parents just stole my entire soul. Yeah I got a bit of tears about to come out, BUT NOPE! NOT TODAY! I don't ever cry during shows or movies so if I ever get teary-eyed, YOU DID SOMETHING. THAT SOMETHING BEING GOOD. This episode was emotional and connected with me on a deep level that I dont think any film has ever done to me, which is weird because I've been actively trying to find one, any one that does. Then to find it in an indie company from a creator who has achieved the dreams that I myself want to one day? That's fucking amazing.

FORESHADOWING! FROESHADOWING! FORESHADOWING! VAGGIE EX-ANGEL THEORY MUST BE CANON AND IF ITS NOT I WILL TEAR MYSELF LIMB FROM LIMB WITH A CROWBAR. LETS GO TO HEAVENNN!!! TOMORROW! BECAUSE THE DAY I PUBLISH THIS WILL BE TOMORROW(FOR YOU TODAY) BUT TOMORROW FOR YOU ILL POST THE NEXT WHAT I CAUGHT SHENANIGANS AGAIN! SEE YA!

[bubblesxo]

i dont know if you will see this but i am a big fan of your g!bruce meets the batfam!!!! I literally have tumblr just for this series (and now that I’ve tried it im beginning to love it ngl) . Annyywaayy ive just read the new chapter and it’s so good!?? Like i am really excited for the next chapter!!!

Oh and I haven’t watched gotham ( im planning too ) but i sometimes mix the twins????? Like your explanations are good dont get me wrong but yk when your reading and you need to check which ones which? Yeah … and like i want to fix that idk how .do i just like memorize the twins personalitys??

also in this au is theres 2 jokers??????? I saw you once mention Jerome(?) being revived or something

ps .im that great at English sorry .

oh wow wow wow thank you so so much!! i'm really glad that you're enjoying my story so much! it really means a lot to me. <33 i think your english is good! but if you need/want me to clarify anything i say here, just let me know and i'll try to rephrase it for you!

okay, so in the Gotham tv show (this has spoilers for all 5 seasons, so read on if you're okay with that) the way that they approached writing the joker was actually really up in the air in the beginning. this is because they didn't have the rights to use the name "joker," and so fox (the company that made the show) planned on making a bunch of smaller characters in the show as a kind of easter egg as people who could be the joker or who resemble him in some way.

this changed when cameron monaghan (the actor for both jerome and jeremiah) guest starred in s1e16 "the blind fortune teller." in it, the character of jerome is introduced as a 17/18 year old boy who travels with the circus with his mother, who is a snake dancer. he is meant to be one of the aforementioned joker-like characters in the show and wasn't actually supposed to be included again after that episode, if i am not mistaken.

however, the viewers LOVED his performance and jerome came back in season two as a member of the maniax, a group of arkham inmates who were broken out of the asylum. i won't go too into detail about the actual plot, but in seasons two, three, and four, jerome shows up in at least a few different episodes with very memorable storylines each time.

it isn't until season four of the show that jeremiah is even revealed at all! jeremiah and jerome are identical twin brothers, however, jeremiah has been in hiding for years under the fake name "xander wilde" in an attempt to escape jerome, who wants to get revenge on him for lying to their mother about what he (jerome) did when they were children. basically, jeremiah lied to their mother (lila, who jerome is revealed to have killed in 1x16) that jerome tried to kill him, causing jeremiah to be sent away and be adopted by rich people and get to go to a well-funded private school where he could live out his best life as a child prodigy (which was jeremiah's end goal to this), whereas jerome was left behind in the circus that they lived at (haly's circus, the same one that dick grayson later was raised in before being adopted by bruce). during this time, jerome was horrifically abused by his mother, his uncle, and his mother's many romantic partners. this eventually caused him to crack, which creates the character we see in the show.

here's an easy way to remember the difference in their personalities:

in the standard american deck of cards, there are two jokers: one that is black and white and one that is in color. in this analogy, jeremiah is the black and white joker and jerome is the one in color.

this is jerome:

he's got a *very* boisterous personality. he's outgoing and charismatic and, of course, severely messed up in the head. he *enjoys* the pain he causes people and does it with little to no reservations. he thinks things through less thoroughly than jeremiah but jerome always has a plan and is actually quite smart. i couldn't do him the disservice of calling him the dumb twin, despite some points about jeremiah that i'll get back to later.

anyway, jerome has a grand plan for all of gotham: he believes that, fundamentally, everyone in the world is like him and is also at least a bit crazy inside. he wants everyone to tap into their inner selves and let themselves run free / go crazy. he successfully ensnares huge hoards of gothamites with his persuasive way of speaking and interesting flare to his words. he amasses a large cult following, all of whom are very similar to him in the sense that they all demonstrate similar signs of instability.

here's some more gifs of him.

jerome kind of invented the iconic "HAHAHA" signature joker laugh in the gotham universe, even though he isn't the one who goes on to become "mr. j" (gotham's version of the joker) in the end (that's jeremiah, though i have a lot to say about that).

jerome's always smiling, a genuinely creepy smile that throws people off at first but can be really scary once you know what you're looking at. he single handedly turns gotham into a madhouse on multiple occasions and is the one who basically spread the "crazy" to the general population (for short: genpop).

he's a classic cult leader in the sense that he can mesmerize a whole room with his magnetic presence but also will ruthlessly cut down any of his followers if they so much as upset him (or even if they're just being annoying or could have a greater purpose, like when he stabbed a follower in the gut to take their blood to draw a frowney-face on bruce).

that reminds me, another important thing to know about jerome is that he has an iconic stapled-on face! this is because he died once (in season two, though he came back to life for season three onwards) and one of his followers tried to revive him using some insider medical knowledge from doctor hugo strange (who is just... a whole thing. ew.). he thinks that he failed at doing this and steals jerome's face so that he can wear it on television in an attempt to control jerome's followers (spoiler: this doesn't work).

however, it turns out that jerome *was* revived from this, and he's pretty upset that some dude stole his face! so he uses a staple gun to re-attach it after he gets it back (and kills the guy who did it). his face is later punched off by jim gordon but reattached more properly during his time at arkham afterward (the carnival scene happened in season 3 and jerome came back with a kind-of healed face in season 4).

here's some gifs with jerome's messed up face!

jerome is the colorful joker because he's very much expressive. he lets out every single emotion he feels---unless he's trying to deceive someone, at which point he is a phenomenal liar. (in season 1 when we are first introduced to him, he almost successfully gets away with the murder of his own mother.)

jerome is funny and laughs a lot and is *loud.* he's also absolutely insane and incredibly cruel, as well as impulsive, but he's able to curb his instincts if he feels like he can pull off a big plan.

jerome is a showman by nature. he's a product of the circus and it *shows.* everything he does is like an act, something that is acknowledged by many people in the show.

he's a funky lil dude. totally crazy, but kind of adorable at times.

he's also SEVERELY traumatized from his horrible past and has huge trust issues.

so, yeah. jerome is colors! remember that.

unfortunately, pookie died in season 4 and doesn't seem to have been revived this time </3

now, onto his twin brother jeremiah!

jeremiah is, at least at first, presented to be the complete opposite of jerome. he's calm, collected, and seemingly sane---at least at first. bruce trusts him at first and he even befriends him for a period of time before jeremiah betrays him.

jeremiah is a genius engineer, and, when looking into his past, we can assume that he was a child prodigy. he worked with thomas wayne before he died and designed the wayne plaza building under the aforementioned alias "xander wilde." he also locked himself in an underground maze for ~6 years (i believe?) and never went outside, instead sending his proxy (ecco) out to act in his place during business transactions.

as seen here, jeremiah seems to be the complete opposite of showboat jerome:

when we first meet jeremiah, we are told that he is totally sane, but we can later see that this is not the complete truth.

i'll use jeremiah's project as a metaphor for this. jeremiah was building a set of generators which could make energy harvesting and usage much less expensive and much more bio-friendly (if i remember correctly). bruce promised to fund his project and jeremiah accepts his offer quickly.

after jerome dies in season 4 after kidnapping bruce and jeremiah, he left behind a concoction of chemicals that seemingly make jeremiah go insane. this is a play on joker toxin / joker venom from the greater dc universe.

however, after jeremiah reveals his new self

he says that the spray did not actually change who he actually is, but just gave him an altered appearance. there are a lot of fan theories about this, but the general consensus is that the spray likely lowered his inhibitions, which gave him the kick needed to reveal his true self.

even his complexion resembles the joker he corresponds with: black and white. he is the black and white joker because he isn't as expressive, is way more calculated, and is more cruel and less happy. even his skin is paper white.

here's some gifs of what he looks like after those "slight cosmetic changes" :

that looks a lot more like the joker we know and love today, right? bleach-pale skin, red painted lips, green hair. he's instantly recognizable as the stereotypical joker now.

remember when i mentioned the generators? let's go back to them. the entire time that the generators have been around, they've also been perfectly functional as powerful bombs. their ability to be used as bombs does not undermine the fact that they can also be used as generators, and both of these things were true at the same time *for the entire time they have existed.*

it is in this way that jeremiah's paradoxical nature has always existed. jeremiah is crafty, cunning, and absolutely vicious. he has no care or concern for human life in general and will sacrifice most people in his life if it means that he will get what he wants in the end.

this is shown both before and after the joker toxin in how he lied about jerome when they were children (which caused jerome to be heavily abused) and in how jeremiah willingly killed one of his most devoted and beloved followers, who was being ransomed, just because someone put him on hold and it was personally easier for him to just kill him than sit on hold on the phone for a while. (he also has a vicious streak, though, because he immediately moved the demolition of the bombs up to immediately once he was out of the blast zone because those people inconvenienced him.)

something that's important to realize about jeremiah is that he has an issue with being called crazy. jerome does, too, but he eventually comes to accept the term, almost like he's reclaiming it, but jeremiah is *violently* against it. that's one of the things that set him off in the previously mentioned interaction.

both jeremiah and jerome are obsessed with bruce, though in different ways. jeremiah sees bruce first as his best friend and later as the "brother [he] could never have, that jerome could never be." jerome just sees bruce as a particularly entertaining and interesting kid who he enjoyed tormenting who he would eventually kill.

anyway, despite jeremiah being crazy (or, depending on who you ask, just less inhibited) he is still crazy smart and calculating. he thinks through everything before he does it and his master plans seem like they go on forever with 10000 parts to them and backups and contingencies galore.

the only time that jeremiah ever really seems to break out of this is when he's fighting with bruce. while he still does have a greater point to make or something he's trying to accomplish, he thinks through things less with him and shows his impulsive and rash side a bit more, which is interesting because jerome showed his thoughtful and contemplative side when faced with the obstacle that is bruce thomas wayne. i love parallels and contrasts, especially in these two characters! i just love writing about twins, they're always so interesting.

some important things about their relationship to one another:

even though jerome kidnapped jeremiah and seemingly strapped a bomb to his neck (after breaking into his house and telling him that he would kill him), jerome doesn't seem to actually want jeremiah to die. instead, as we later find out, he wants jeremiah to unleash his true self and carry on his legacy of chaos and cruelty in gotham for him after his death. this is why he left behind the laughing gas for him.

(the fact that jerome thought to do all of that shows that he really was a smart character and that he truly did understand the world around him well. he knew exactly what would happen in the event of his death, i.e. bruce offering to fund jeremiah's work and jeremiah accepting, as is shown when jerome has the joker venom in a present box which claims to be sent from wayne enterprises.)

jeremiah *hates* to be compared to jerome in any way, as he thinks of himself as "the face of true sanity." he actually has an entire notebook full of jerome's ideas, which he says he will outdo and perfect, thus defeating his brother in the end, which i don't know if i agree with, but whatever.

i think that it's because of the reputation that jerome got at the circus. jeremiah wanted people to think of him as better than jerome and as the perfect child, which he succeeded at. to him, jerome is synonymous with crazy, which i've already mentioned that he hates to be called.

okay, just one more part to talk about. the infamous, much anticipated Mr. J!!!

in the series finale, it is revealed that jeremiah, after falling into a vat of acid, is horribly disfigured and pretends to be in a vegetative state for the whole ten years that bruce is on his quest to improve himself before becoming batman. he does this as a way of waiting for bruce to come back to gotham so he can continue to be obsessed with him.

however, though this is jeremiah, it seems that he has actually gone through immense mental trauma sometime during this time (perhaps during his fall into a vat of chemicals), which has caused him to sort of lose his sense of self. he once says that there was "another me" [another him] once, which is, of course, referring to jerome. this implies that jeremiah sees jerome as an extension of himself, almost, and almost makes it seem as if mr. j is a whole different entity of his own.

hopefully this clears everything up a bit for you!! let me know if you have any questions or want to know anything specific about the characters and i will be glad to oblige!

thank you once again for being so kind as to leave this ask!! it really made my day. thank you for enjoying my fic, i hope it continues to live up to expectations. i have a lot of fun things planned (and i am very happy that you decided to look into these characters more, because they are actually extremely important to the plot as we get more into the actual story!). <33

[doctordiscocalling]

New Helluva Boss episode thoughts from a Certified Stolitz Hater!!!

SPOILERS BELOW !!!!

Yeah it was pretty good.

Ill probably watch some review and realize i have more problems with this episode than i noticed or realized, but for now i think it was just. Good. Not mid, but not excellent either.

Vassago (thats his name, right?? Idk how to spell it, oh well) is probably now OFFICIALLY my fav minor character. His design is bright and pleasant to look at, his VC was killing it, and i believe hes meant to be Brazilian? Which.. dude. I LOVE the representation of languages and implied races of characters like Valentino in the show, and it never feels forced. Props to the Helluva team for that one.

Now. Ignoring all of what Stolas has done to Blitzø already - eliminating the context of their relationship thus far… Stolas sacrificing himself is actually very sweet. He gives up his status, power, and protection to save the one he loves. Im not exactly thrilled that hes given up his daughter in favor of Blitzø AGAIN however. Give my girl a break, dude.

And how she was FULLY READY TO RUN OUT THE DOOR TO GO HELP HIM OR SEE HIM if it wasnt for Stella manipulating her - that just makes me even more mad. Stolas might SAY he cares about people like Octavia and Blitzø, but his actions just about never convey the same thing.

Now… WITH the context of Stolas’ continued mistakes, manipulation, selfishness, and pushy creepiness in his relationship with Blitzø throughout the series… fuck off, man. Actually leave me alone forever.

I felt like Stolas sacrificing himself for Blitzø is now erasing every awful thing hes done to him throughout the series. Its a trope i think ive observed before - “you treated me like shit before, and we had all kinda of hard problems that i shouldve moved on from, and become a better person without you around, but you saved my life!! Lets get married and pretend none of that ever happened because of a new toxic ‘romantic’ concept - a life debt!!!”

And dont get me wrong - life debts can be done VERY well. But you need a skilled enough writer who can easily enough cut through tropes to do it right. No offense, as the writing in this show is amazing, but the Helluva writers. Well. They cant exactly subvert expectations, especially when it comes to tropes.

However, im not going to judge and throw around Stolas for being depressed at the end of the episode. Hes lost the only life hes ever known, and cant see his daughter for Lucifer knows how long. Hes allowed to soak in the bathtub for a while.

BUT!! Seeing how gentle Blitzø was with Stolas at the end of the episode - helping him bathe off the rotten food, kissing his cheek when he falls asleep, just generally being so romantic and physically affectionate with him - it made my stomach churn. This ship can’t work UNLESS you ignore everything that’s happened before in the series, which is exactly where i think the Helluva writers are taking it, unfortunately.

Call me pessimistic, but i just really stopped liking the show as much when the OG concept was put on the back burner in favor of some genuinely toxic 2015 top and bottom stereotype ship. Like. If i showed you the first two episodes of this show, and then i told you the shit-fetish cheating owl bird and the shithead lovable scamp IMP boss very genuinely and seriously got together, you would be concerned at least.

Anyway, fuck Stolas, Blitzø should illegally adopt Octavia so her and Loona can be honorary sisters, and they blow the owl up and frolic through the daisies and get their happy ending and Millie and Moxxie get double married and everyone except most of the Goectia (idk how to spell that shit) get shot by Striker.

Have a lovely day, and thank you for reading this far :]

[variousqueerthings]

hi hello the exorcist show for the ask game please!!! (hope you are well!)

AHHH HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO

awwyeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (also known as: the show of all fucking time that nobody watched before it was too late, including my good self but lbr they were never giving it a third season but does it matter???? we got two seasons of some of the most beautiful narrative you can imagine. chill im chill you know im chill gosh im so happy you watched this show still!)

my favorite female character ooh, this is interesting, because I never had a Fave fave out of all of them, but i think a toss-up between Angela Rance (duh, perhaps, my beloved Geena Davis), Mother Bernadette (i miss u babe), and Rose Cooper (head solidly on her shoulders as she navigates the utterly bizarre, adopts all the kids 😭😭😭)

my favorite male character YOU KNOW! HOW DIFFICULT! THIS IS! YOU KNOW I HAVE TO GO MARCUS BUT THEN TOMAS WOULD ALSO SAY MARCUS (but then Marcus would say Tomas, so forwards and backwards we go) - my midlands orphan who was groomed and abused by the Church to become an object/weapon, who has somehow maintained an inherent belief in People, in Goodness, and above all who will never ever let another child suffer on his watch!!!! who sees abused children and wants to save them!!!!!!!!! who is queer and deeply repressed (canonically this time, we say this about many a character, but Canonically!!!!) and working through it!!!! played by the beauteous and yet rugged Ben Daniels!!!! This character Did Things to my psyche forever and always, he is nestled softly in there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my favorite book/season/etc Mmmmmmm there's only two to go for... I think........ argh. hm. ok. no. i can't do it. coward's way out. soz babe

my favorite episode (if its a tv show) me like, damn it's so episodic, what happened wheeen but ok in terms of Moments in the story: s1: when we properly discover who Angela is. the rug pull is so so good for me and pulls everything into focus as a Story! s2: toss up between "Marcus makes out with a sexy fisherman (called Peter!!) while Tomas embarks on The Horrors alone," and the finale............. gosh that s2 finale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my favorite cast member I've seen Ben Daniels onstage and it absolutely rocked my whole world, but I cannot go without shouting out Alfonso Herrera (yes, he of Sense8 fame to anyone reading this trying to connect the dots!) Geena Davis, and John Cho!!!! like!!!! this cast is fucking Stacked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my favorite ship Tomas/Marcus. whatever they are, they are everything to one another! which is the whole core of the show

a character I’d die defending Father Devon Bennett!!!!! I don't know if he needs defending from fandom, but holy cow the way we leave him is so so bleak it hurts my soul!!!!! can someone come save my baby boy 😭😭😭

a character I just can’t sympathize with Idk man. the demons? OH NO WAIT I KNOW FUCKN! MARIA WALTERS!!!! Truly a "ok sob story, still evil" kinda thing (which is the point, this woman!!! this fucking woman!!!!!!!) -- i do like how absolutely pathetic she was in a particular way I usually see in these powerhungry guys! girlboss! cancer killed the demon inside of her (lol)

a character I grew to love I'd say Mouse. I think the thing about Mouse is simply that we didn't get to the next part of her story, so she's In Potentia permanently. I also think it was a slight misstep to ground her in a past will-they-won't-they with Marcus, because it puts her into that fatal position of "oh so she's just a love interest after all" vs giving her her own journey, BUT! HOWEVER! She does have her own journey! very much so in fact! it's just that that wig Ben Daniels had in the flashbacks was fucking atrocious and you were maybe more interested in the current-day stuff on first watch but then on second watch she really came into her own for me, especially everything she was doing with Bennett! I wish we'd had more of them doing Stuff together! I wish we could have seen her and Tomas properly bonding!!!!!!!!!

my anti otp um. dunno really. Marcus and the wig. I wasn't necessarily compelled by Marcus and Mouse romantically either, I will say, but her hero-worshipping him and misreading it a certain way (she was a young nun, he was a mysterious exorcist), that I can get behind, especially since present-day Mouse is so Capable and Jaded, we like that journey for her

Anyway... that fucking show. forever in my mind. forever hurting my soul. forever waiting for a third season. forever recommending it because even without a full ending it's so so satisfying!

sry needed to add gifs of marcus touching tomas like he's precious

[afanofmanyth1ngs]

Yellowjackets/IWTV Fanfic

So, about a week ago I put out a poll about doing a weird IWTV fanfic that's basically set in the Yellowjackets verse... And now I'm doing it... YAY!! but I do just want to come on here to basically throw around some things I'm going to do :P So this is going to be where I update people and just basically talk about how I'm going to do this, what my schedule is going to look like, things I need opinions on. This is more so a motivation thing so IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, please please please comment and follow along. I lose motivation quickly, but this is something I'm pretty dedicated to. but either way THIS IS HAPPENING.

______________________________________________________________

First things first. YES I have started working on it. Im not even close to finished with the first chapter because each chapter is going to be LONG. This is not going to be everything that happens in Yellowjackets happens in here, and not even close. Even as I started it... I will sometimes use direct quotes, but thats only if im stuck and cant figure out what im doing.

NEXT as I said this is not going to be yellowjackets word for word, but I will be using each episode as a starting point. scenes might mirror each other, and I will cut between scenes as they do in the show.

Some things that are automatically going to be different from Yellowjackets:

They will not be on a Sports team of any sorts. The one thing each character has in common, is that they all are passionate about one or more forms of art (ex: Louis: Photography - Lestat: Acting - Madeleine - Sewing and dress making and altering (not the right words sorry lol)) SO im having them go to an art school :P little bit of a long shot but not only is it just convinent for me because of all the art forms they like, but also I think it would be kind of cool for just normal (LMAO) IWTV kids who have never touched a sport in their lives to now have to like hunt and stuff... kind of Lord of the Flies with half of the kids being CHOIR KIDS core.

Theyre all gonna be in High school. i was like well im not aging them up cause what fun would that be, so lets just age them down and keep a whole bunch of that trauma and see what happens... and im not super far into the writing process but its working rn!!

Theyre crashing in the Alps. I have zero knowlege of the Alps whatso ever BUT i know i went over them when i flew to Italy so Im having them go to the Uffizi Galleries!!! and then BAM Alps. so get ready for some major inaccuratcies about that cause im gonna make them how they are in Yellowjackets... just in like Italy. Maybe I'll reasearch a bit more... dw about it its ok :D

As I said before each chapter is going to be LONG. so rn I have around 4ish scenes (ones not finished yet) and by the time I'm finished with those and edit it's going to be close to around 4,000 words I'm estimating... that's 4,000 words for not even a quarter of THE KIDS STORY LINE. on that topic, because each chapter is going to be so incredibly long, I've decided to split each chapter in about half. I was originally planning to do one chapter = one episode of yellowjackets but again it's going to be WAY too long, so kids' storyline, adult story line. I like that a lot too because a big pet peeve of mine is in stories where it keeps switching through times and then i get so lost and have to reread like 10 times to understand... LIKE PLEASE JUST SPLIT IT INTO A FEW CHAPTERS SO IM NOT CONFUSED

Last thing! Most of each character's backstory IS WORKED IN... so for example (A HUGE example) is for at least the first few chapters Armand will be called and referred to as Amadeo. Marius is his adoptive father who rescued him from some sex trafficking scandal or something and renamed him, before he eventually changes his name to Armand while out in the mountains. So, like obviously he's not going to get the name Armand from Santino, but you know... working in what I can :P

OK ACTUALLY LAST LAST THING: I don't know when this will come out... I have a deadline for myself and I'm certain I will get to it, HOWEVER I do not have access to the other Yellowjackets episodes, which is pretty crucial if I want to get into a schedule of posting each week regularly. As of right now I am hoping to get the first chapter out on October 3rd... Yellowjackets will be accessible to me AND then I'll be able to post a chapter on Halloween... YAY!! if that does not work out because the following chapters are taking too long and I release before I can make sure the Schedule is set, it will most likely be one of the Thursdays in October because I REALLY want to get one out on Halloween!!

OK!! hope you guys liked my little rant!! I'll keep everyone who's interested updated on here so if you want to be in the loop follow me (or don't! if you don't you can just check my page!) and again comments motivate me, so if you have any questions or just think it's a cool idea let me know!

[artist-heart83]

Trying to do a family tree for Shoormy

Alternative title: I have a problem for trying to theorizing the family of a character from the blue mario show which canon can be used or be forgotten in various occasions.

Since late april I have been watching SMG4 to keep on date with the previous arcs and stuff like that.

During my Genesis Arc (and YouTube Arc too) watch the videos previous the main ones from the arc being: Youtube Arc - Some characters first appearances; and Genesis Arc - The “filler” episodes.

And of course, of all the characters that grab my attention was the silly boy scout mushroom, who grab my attention by just his character, like hello?? He not only a silly guy but was a demon hunter and that he is the original, I LOVE CHARACTER THAT HAVE TWO DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES HEHEHEHE

OKAY SO!

When I watch “Mario Babies” and “Mario and the village” and I read Shroomy wiki page I was… confused to say the least about the family.

The worst part of all of this? IM TRYING TO FIGURE OUT SHROOMY FAMILY! This is the blue mario nonsense show! Is like a saturday show! Like lets be real, one of the father of two characters is literally octodad body with cthulhu head.

Unfortunately, I’m just a girl who like to overthink stuff and likes to do stuff with my favorite characters, so you’re trapped with me in this, so you’re gonna read about the conclusion that I get, this being my headcanon and the thought that come out of nowhere.

Let’s start with this!

SO WE HAVE THIS AS A REFERENCE:

The first information we have about a member of Shroomy family is the Doomguy being his uncle, later on we know Lady Dimitrescu is her aunt (being the wife of Doomguy) and yeah Wheeler is there too but it’s important.

In Mario and the village we can see that Shroomy was raised by Doomguy and Dimitrescu, so this raise a question. Where are Shroomy parents?

And by the idea of Shroomy being raised by his uncle… uhhhh… Im pretty sure his parents are death but this doesn’t stop to figure out the family tree.

With Wheeler we know that, in fact, there is a mushroom in the family, also sorta explain Anti-Shroomy tendencies and personality; and with Doomguy this raises the possibility of a human in the family.

But you might asking at this point: “what the hell are you going with all these?”

Well, I’m trying to figure out why Doomguy would be his uncle, trying to find a blood related reason and not just doing the easiest route of: “the show doesn’t make sense” or “maybe Shroomy was just adopted” which is valid buuuut I’m not satisfied with that answer.

Then I was thinking:

Okay so there must be a human in that family that could explain Doomguy, so maybe one of Shroomy parents was human and the other the mushroom. But who…

…

Holy shit Calhoun, someone like Sergeant Calhoun would be Shroomy mother, considering she is from a shooting game and I’m pretty sure Doom is one too, HAHA IM GENIUS

So the family would look like something like this:

YEAH I WAS LAZY. I COULD DRAW HOW SHROOMY PARENTS WOULD LOOK LIKE BUT HAVE JUST THE VISUAL REPRESENTATION TO GET MY IDEA.

Basically, the idea is Shroomy dad would be purple to resemble Anti-Shroomy and Shroomy mom would like something like Sergeant Calhoun because that how I picture it.

If you personally ask me about Shroomy parents, well.

Both parents were hunters, they fall in love, they marry and have a beautiful son. Like I speculate before they’re probably death but I didn’t think about how.

Pretty sure that would be all, I don’t think I missing anything, but hey this is just me doing this stuff for fun.

This is my contribution to all the Shroomy enjoyers and fans over there, hope you like my yapping 👍

[wildglitch]

Spider-man x Batfam Prompt's

Ok so lately I have seen a lot of "Spidy goes to gotham and gets adopted fics" probably cause of Dark Matter by mysterycyclone cause like, duh, that fic is a goddamn masterpiece. But I feel like a lot of them are sort of the same thing with diffrent fonts ans it feels a bit saturated. Not all of them...but most of them.

Am I saying that there needs to be less of these fics? Hell no! Keep writing them please. I just feel like there could be more variety is all.

I suggest maybe try one of these ideas out

1: Peter going straight to the Batfam or other heros (dosent always have to be Batfam) and they try to work together on how to get him home, while slowly realizing "omg, your life is terrible! We want to help you, we do, but maybe we shouldnt and try to give you a better life here. Then its just a moral delema on what to do as they get to know the spider child.

2: maybe another Spider-man is the one that goes to Hotham like Andrew or Toby. Insted of being sent home at the end of NWH, they where accidentally sent to the DCU. Or maybe one of the Spider verse characters or a cartoon version of the character. Dosent always need to be Toms Spider-man.

3: on that same note. Please give more love to What If...Zombies Peter. You guys have no Idea the amount of angst and "haha, my world ended and im fine" potental there is. And you can have the other surviving member also be there as they look for eachother (characters that "survived* (no one survived that episode) are Peter, King T'challa, Scott Lang+cape, and Ig Bruce Baner/Hulk, and Bucky Barnes since we never saw them get turned or eaten) just think about Spidey and the Batfam investigating a lab or sometbing and all of a sudden they find floating head Scott in a crate. Everyone if scared shitless while Peter is crying tires of joy as he moves to hug the floating head. Think about that and tell me Im not on to something here.

4: Have the fic start our like halfway through. Maybe skip him getting to Gotham and have him be there for a few months already or something. This will help with adding more crack fics.

5: Maybe have the fic be that Peter is there for a while, he knows everyone, they know him, they might or might not know the identitys but they trust eachother. And Peter has been looking for a way home and he finally finds it! But... he accidentally brings some of the Batfam with him. So now its the Batfams turn to learn to live in the MCU with help of Spidy and they finally understand so much about him, how he lived, and vigilanties he knows (team red!) As they learn the history and pubilc opinion or Spider-man and the world.

6: Just a react to fic. Yk, those fics where they're stuffed in a room and forced to watch something? Yeah. Have the Dark Matter cast stuffed in a room and watch some MCU clips. It dosent even have to be some magic forth wall bull shit if you dont like that. In chapter 44, Peter and co. are said to be going back to the cave, and Peter still have is suit. Canonically, Karen records everything. Maybe Peter ends up so tired he dosent even want to try to explain everything. So he just hooks up Karen to the computer and and has her show them everything from the suits recordings to security cameras and news reports, to the memes and videos spiderman fans have made.

7: have the Justice League get involed cause "Hes to bright to be one of yours Bruce!" And have him be a honorary member of the league of have them put him on Young Justice. Peter gets adopted by Batfam? Yes. Peter becomeing Bffs with the Young Justice kids and actually forming normal relationships with kids his age? Also yes.

Do I have more? Probably but Im too lazy for it rn

If you for some reason use one of my ideas, pls tag me and maybe credit me for the original idea (but I mostly want to be able to find the fic if you do make it ( o_o) )

Who knows, I might just write some of these myself if I ever get the motivation lol

[sadvid]

camp camp makes me insane ramble. do not click more unless you are so so very insane

camp camp is gonna make me go fucking insane i can't fucking do this anymore there is NOTHING!!!!!! NOTHING!!!! ALL THEY DID WAS GIVE US TINY PISS DRRROPLETS WITH ONE EPISODE FINALE SAYING MAXS PARENTS DONT CARE AND DAVID SAYING YOU DONT DESERVE THAT AND NOW IVE BEEN IN THE TRENCHES FOR YEAAAARSSS. i have read fics with over 100k words i have drawn so many things and imagined so many scenarios with angst and hurt/comfort and stupid stupid thoughts that would never ever happen in the show in a million years HIS ASS IS NOT GETTING ADOPTED DADVID IS NOT REAL GWENVID IS A SICK JOKE i love them so much you don't understand. i forgot to take my meds. oh my goddddd. THERE ARE LIKE THREE CAMP CAMP FANS LEFT BECAUSE THE REST WERE NORMAL PEOPLE WHO JUST WATCH THE SILLY CAMP CARTOON THAT SAYS FUCK. they dont wonder about the possibilities of a sad ten year old rejecting happiness but slowly allowing himself to be vulnerable and loved by a counselor who is surrounded by hate and despondency but stays positive despite despite despite because nobody else will and he wants to be the source of happiness that he wish someone was for him. NO! they say HAHA the ten year old said fuck! oh my god the non swearing counselor said fuck too that's so profound! oh no the ten year olds parents bad :( HAHA NOW HES BALD!!!! and after a month of the show being gone they LEAVE because they're NORNAL!!!!! but i. I AM IN THE TRENCHESSSSS. you have no idea you have no idea. listen maybe i'm just a little insane because i am a max who needs a david JUST MAYBE! and i think this is just a lot of me projecting my desperate need for love and my simultaneous rejection and fear of it onto max. And my need for someone to keep persistently and loudly loving me no matter how much i reject it. PROBABLY!!!!! i don't care i don't care how fucking insane i sound I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY I COULD talk about this show for hours i wish i didn't have job or school or life so i could write and anímate camp camp season 6 7 8 9 10 infinity and kill the warner brothers and write 500k word ao3 fics. IM INSANE. i am picking up crumbs and calling it a wedding cake do you understand. god i'm i i i i i i i i it's 2024 it's been too long too many years of this.... too many got damned years. every time i pick up a pencil i draw max camp camp. i have drawn david's stupid fucking face so many times its probably become the shape of my brain wrinkles. i go feral thinking about gwen's hair looks like down or what the fuck these characters last names are. Can you fucking believe i hyper fixated on a character whose last name i dont even know. hey who's that small angry fucker you're always doodling. uhh max. max who. max... camp camp. WHO?!!! DAVID?!!? DAVID ATTENBOROUGH?!?! MAX CAULFIELD?! i'm going to set myself on fire. i really truly am. i love them i live for nothing but a ghost child on an island and a silly friend trio. when will it end. when. i love them if you couldn't tell

[eddiegettingshot]

okay. mourning s1-s4 tim minear anon here. just finished my season 3 rewatch and ohhhhh boy oh boy. honestly I could write so much about that finale alone because s6 and s7 have made me forget what a good finale can be (athough I will say that the s3 finale has me thinking a wholeeee bunch of insane things about the s7 finale like buddie things and how the writing choices are were insane (complementary) that I will not elaborate on here because Im already rambling too much about how good s3 is). but genuinely all the character arcs were SO GOOD this season its insane. athena (hate the copaganda here but the general emotional journey with athena and athena/may): establishing what being a cop means to her -> showing that not even the murder of her fiance could sway her from policing and finally arresting the man that did it -> experiencing something traumatic first hand that makes her question her ability to do the job again. and then may: hating what her mom does, going as far as to write her college essay about it, then insisting on taking the pictures with her mom for prom despite her injuries from policing/not being ashamed of her. and also appreciating it to the point of also wanting to help people but as an acab truther pursuing a different way of doing it (911 operator. also imagine they made may a cop thank god that didnt happen lmao). michaels feeling of loneliness and isolation leading up to his diagnosis, then ending the season by meeting his endgame and knowing he gets to live. buck starting the season being insecure about losing his place with the 118 and being the person left behind again and ending the season confronting the last person who left him + feeling secure in his relationships with the 118. bobby's refusal to let buck do anything at the beginning of the season due to his injury + general recklessness vs doing buck's suggested rescue to save both victims. both the henren IVF/fostering arc AND the hen arc were great and thank god because the henren of it all was seriously lacking before this season. but hitting the girl with the ambulance -> reconnecting with her first rescue -> introducing her issues with Drs and their ability to listen and help patients to their full ability -> pursuing med school SO GOOD. and remember when madney used to get character arcs UGHH soooo good. developing chim + his mom/albert/his dad more. having maddie actually confront what happened with doug via therapy (btw maddie stalker plot good example of how to do an insane storyline well!!). this leading into the love confession and also the conclusion/start to the pregnancy arc they set up in !!! episode 1 !!! them not just dropping the josh arc completely after the heist trauma he suffered and seeing it through to a satisfying conclusion. and like I do have one nitpick in hindsight like the eddie arc was so good up until he got caught in the fighting ring and he cried about the divorce and then it was just never brought up again in favour of doing the mini chris stories in 3x10/3x12/3x15. like you literally had a chance to address and conclude eddie's mourning shannon arc in eddie begins or the episodes surrounding that and just didnt LMAO idk maybe they had plans and it got scrapped for the buck/red/abby arc because connie agreed to come back because really it was the only thing that did not feel concluded relative to literally every other character arc this season. anyways where is this tim. TIM WAKE UP!!! come back and give your characters arcs!!! one thing that is super obvious from rewatching the early seasons is there is still SO MUCH interesting stuff to explore with these characters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am begging please give eddie a story with a satisfactory conclusion please give maddie and chim stories please stop torturing hen and karen via fostering/adoption please conclude a buck plot in satisfactory fashion please have bobby and athena explore his past properly please make ravi a main

ohhhh my god THIS MADE ME MOURN S3 TOO 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 what the fuck COME BACK TIM 😭😭😭😭😭 i want him BACK 😭😭😭😭😭

[liquidstar]

Okay so like I know little about ReZero (would love to watch it one day but, the content warnings) BUT I love people talking about things they like so. Assuming this isnt already a plot point, who in your opinion would be the FUNNIEST character to also be aware of/remember the time loops (Subaru in this case does NOT know they are in on it lol). If this is already a plot point please tell me about a neat bird or something you saw recently instead, thank you :)

THATS SO SWEEET THANK YOU <3 I ENJOY IT TOO SO IF YOU EVER WANNA INFODUMP ABT STUFF MY INBOX IS OPEN ^_^

ANYWAY. UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS A PLOTPOINT AND ITS NOT FUNNY </3

in the 4th arc subaru meets this witch lady, echdina, who kinda exists in a dreamworld, hard to explain, but shes aware of his timeloops. she implies that shes aware but tries to get him to say it himself. which he does so veeerrry hesitantly because he cant tell anyone Or Else. but after he realizes he can say it here, he has like, a total breakdown and keeps repeating his confession over and over again because he can finally tell someone about all this pain and suffering. and its an incredibly cathartic scene buuuuut she is very much manipulating him.

another character is vaguely aware of the loops but doesnt experience them/cant see them. that character is roswaal who is actually his boss. and the guy who has literally been PERSONALLY causing every single fucking issue hes had so far because some book told him to. and when things start going wrong he starts to, like, kick the shit out of subaru to try and get him to restart. yeah bosses are like that sometimes idk. everyone takes turns punching him at the end of this arc so its fine.

personally though if i had to pick a character whod be aware of the loops... id actually go with otto despite Everything. because i think hes the most likely to come out of the experience of watching his friend die horribly and come up with a plan, while also genuinely having subaru's best interest at heart. he doesnt care about anyone elses best interest tho, he was willing to let an entire country die for this guy. hes willing to kill the child he just adopted. so i think otto being aware would cause some fucking situations, especially if theyre not working together for a solution. i also think itd be funny if hes like "if we get gay in the timeloop no one has to know. ill just play dumb."

SO YEAH hes my pick for funniest one. all that being said im pretty sure i wrote up an episode by episode trigger guide if youre ever interested, i might have to touch it up tho. BUT if youre not interested theres never any pressure, this ask is already so sweet tysm again <3

[tiredemzz]

S4! FIONA C. AT SOME CHILDRENS BDAY BE LIKE <3

a/n: so how’s yall doing?.. I’m tired af cus I’m not a morning person lmao.

disclaimer: this is basically a rewrite of that tua s4 episode with the children birthday party with lila and diego but my oc is in this season! there will be oc x cannon involved since im shipping five x flame- not five x lila b/c it doesn’t exist on my acc. if you don’t like oc x cannon, then this acc isn’t for you sadly. also i will be adding the deleted scene with five and klaus b/c idk why they didn’t add that scene.. like why? also five & fiora r in there 20s cus its s4 & five isn’t apart of the cia b/c my boi needs a break. also dave is alive b/c klaus needs his bf <3

warnings: fiora breaking the 4th wall, gets a little spicy between five & fiora but they get c0ckblocked by klaus & dave lmao, fluff (ofc), fiora hanging with kids (she can’t stand them sadly but doesn’t mind them.), cussing (ofc), mentioning of fish head (aj aka her adopted father)

a/n: this is my first time writing for these characters, so my bad if they seem ooc. Especially five lmao. (my boy was written worse- fuck you steve.)

We see Fiona herself, smoking a cigarette outside of the birthday party place. She sighed softly in relief, taking a few puffs after a long day of singing in clubs, bars for men/women alike because the girl herself thinks that everybody deserves love in there time.

Except bad people, she really hated bad people and her adopted father, who basically forced her to do evil things and run errands for him but since he’s dead.. Fiona felt relieved and a bit of guilt flowing in her body due to her and adopted father’s relationship with each other but she chose to ignore it, putting out her cigarette and heading back inside to see Grace running towards her with her arms out, hugging Fiona’s waist, making her a bit shook but she looks down at Grace and saids “hey sweetheart, how is my favorite niece doing?” Grace looks up at Fiona and saids “I’m good Auntie Flame! Have you talked with Uncle Five yet?” Grace asks while Fiona blushed a bit by Grace mentioning Five towards her, it’s been a while since those two have talked really- Fiona heard that Five is taking a break to himself but she shrugged and said “I have not sadly. Been busy with my singing and doing alot of painting- so I haven’t really talked with anyone in a while.” Grace pouted a bit and asked “why Auntie?” Fiona sighed softly and said “ever since everything has gone back for normal, I been going to therapy to talk about the past and who I really am inside. Except I still have my powers because I want to have them forever, I don’t want them to go away. I enjoy having them. Been taking time for myself to focus on my mental health and yeah.” Fiona smiled softly at Grace while Grace understood Fiona and smiled back at her.

“Now your Auntie Flame is gonna have fun, okay?” Fiona said, going down on one knee and kissed Grace on the forehead, making Grace giggle and said “ok but make sure you join me in the ball pit later, ok?” Grace asks her while Fiona laughed a bit and saids “alright alright, I promise I will but right now.. let me go have fun. Bye bubbles.” Grace giggles, waving at Fiona and going to have fun. Leaving a smiling Fiona on one knee and slowly getting up, standing on her feet.

Fiona began to walk around the place, seeing parents having fun with there children and slowly not smiling anymore since she never found her real parents but she decided not to give two fucks about it.

She noticed the bubbles, making her smile and popping one. While she popped one bubble, she felt someone watching her from afar and she noticed that a smiling Five was watching her while holding beer in his hand, making Fiona walk slowly towards him while smiling a bit and said “Five Hargreeves, my long time frenemy and the man who killed the fish head aka my adopted father. How are you old man?” Five deep chuckled a bit and said “Fiona aka the demon gal who hated me cus I killed her horrible adopted father and had to do it for my family. I’m doing well Flame, how about you?” Five said with a bit of a sarcastic tone in his voice and taking a few sips of his beer.

“Well, I been doing great. You mind giving me beer?” Fiona said with a bit of a soft tone in her voice, Five hummed a bit, giving her a beer bottle as well.

“Thanks Romeo, appreciate it.” Fiona said while smiling softly, opening the beer bottle, taking a few sips of it and just smiling softly at the children running around the place while Five smiled softly, just staring at her and asked “you thinking about something?” Fiona sighed a bit, looking at Five and answered this “yeah, just watching the children run around the place like they own it- reminds me of myself as a child. Good times good times really.” Five hummed softly at her answer and decided to hold out his hand, he asked “you uh wanna hold my hand love?” Fiona nodded yes and began to hold his hand while taking that hand back and deciding to grab on his tie with a bit of a smirk and asked “so you uh got any plans pretty boy? I’m loving the new look of the new you. Suits your pretty self.” Five smiled a bit, looking down at Flame and said “no, I don’t have any plans really.. didn’t expect you to be confident. Why’s that?” Fiona let go of his tie, answered with “I been using my charm- I call it the demon flirt charm. It’s uh something but eh. I don’t really like to be confident in myself.”

Five sighed softly, wrapping an arm around Flame’s shoulders and said “Listen to me sweetheart, you always feel confident in yourself. Be proud of that, be proud in your heart that you can still do the things that you love. You still kick ass Flame, still do and you can’t forgot that on how many times you managed to beat me at arm wrestling.. and sometimes Smash Bros when we were back in season two.” Flame started to laugh softly, feeling happy and said “yeah, those were good times- I mostly blame my author sometimes for stupid shit.” Five chuckled a bit at the last part on what Flame said. Suddenly Klaus, alongside his boyfriend Dave started to walk towards Five and Fiona.. Klaus said “Fiona! Five!” Fiona started to run towards Klaus, giving him a hug while smiling softly, still holding her beer while looking up at him and said “Klaus! I missed you buddy. How are ya? Also who’s the boy next to you?” Klaus chuckled softly, messing with Fiona’s hair a little bit and said “Fiona, homie- this is my boyfriend Dave. Dave, this is my homie Fiona.” Fiona waved softly at Dave while Dave waved back at her and said “It’s nice to meet you Fiona, heard so much stuff about you. Coming from Klaus ofc.” Fiona laughed a bit and started to stand next to Five while smiling softly.

Five started to ask “So, how long have you been sober Klaus?” Klaus responded with “Oh, uh, coming up on three years on January 15th, but who’s counting right?” Five said “that’s amazing” while Fiona gave Klaus a thumbs up, she was proud of her bestie becoming sober for three years and Fiona said “Really, good for you buddy. Proud of ya.” Klaus smiled softly at the two and said “thanks guys, really appreciate it.” Dave started to have an arm around Klaus while feeling proud of his boyfriend while Klaus, Five and Fiona did a toast with there beer bottles.

Feeling proud of themselfs for surviving.

Flame started to check her watch, sighing softly and said “I was supposed to join Grace at the ball pit- fuck. Gonna need somebody to go with me.” Five decided to go with her while the two waved goodbye at Klaus and Dave.

While the two were walking, Five said “I don’t really have a choice on joining, do I?” Flame said “nope, you don’t. You’re her uncle ofc.” As soon as they got to the ball pit, Five pushed Flame into it, laughing a bit at Flame while Flame got a little annoyed at him but soon she saw Grace, Grace was giggling and laughing at the duo while Flame rolled her eyes playfully. Soon enough, Five got in as well- he didn’t like it but eh. You win some, you lose some.

•

•

•

a/n: well- how’s that yall? good? good. hope yall enjoyed this little oneshot/drabble of s4 flame and everybody else. Yes- I added Dave b/c he and Klaus were fucking cute! Anyway, hope I wrote Five better then *cough* Steve *cough* did. I do appreciate freedback- so if you got any freedback on this.. let me know!

anyway, have a great rest of your weekend, day, night or wherever you live. Stay safe and take care of yourself ^v^

-author anon !

disclaimer, you are not allowed to copy and paste my work on to wattpad, a03 or deviantart or tumblr. that’s stealing and plagiarizing. And I will not allow that. >:(

[mamadarama]

I was going through some posts I missed and came across the “tatsumi is mature but still does 19 year old things” and I just wanna say I’ve never been able to put it into words when my friends ask but like. That’s exactly what I love about this game.

We’ve got scandals and drama and weird crypto currencies and convoluted backstories of implied murder or identity theft or military shit or relations to underground gang activity or so SO much more and yet the writers still succeed in reminding you that this is a game full of high schoolers.

Natume was one of the five oddballs and suffered through so much during the war where it affects him to this day, but he also refers to his tech savvy and love of the occult as magic and loves the junior he “adopted” to death. Despite Aira struggling against every odd to become a real idol he still buys merch and looks on the internet to look for content of the ones he likes. Rinne was destined to become the monarch of his homeland but ran away in an attempt to find happiness and acceptance and is an amazing strategist who uses it to take down corruption, but his sense of humor is entirely made up of sex jokes and romantic teasing like Aira being “hiiro’s little girlfriend”. The amount of characters that assign themselves the mom friend role just because. Trickstar. I don’t think I need to explain Trickstar-

Like this game has made me cry so many times and it has its ridiculous moments but it also has its genuine ones while also being the most teenage shit I’ve seen in my life and I feel like so few media can balance those and still have a decent story like that. Sorry for the long ass post I just have so many feelings about this kind of stuff 😭

YEAH this is exactly what i was talking about in a previous ask when i said i have nothing meaningful to add to the enstars cast that isnt a headcanon . its all very well thought out and the interpersonal relationships are nuanced enough to feel realistic but outlandish enough to be interesting .

worldbuilding and character design is one of my special interests and i say this any chance i can get: the most important part of building a character (and a story in general) is realizing the importance of comedic irony and comedy as a whole regardless of genre or tone. it makes characters feel more 3 dimensional and relatable because people arent stagnant and theres multiple facets to any individuals personality (this is also why some of the most popular animes of all time have filler episodes or funny bits that show the characters personalities, every event hits with 3x emotional impact the more you know about the characters as people but that's a different discussion) enstars does a really good job of this . like for example if wataru were to have had a realistic reaction to eichi starting the war it wouldnt be nearly as good of a story. the fact that eichis ridiculous ass backwards plan to get wataru to fall in love with him actually worked is a perfect example of comedy used to make a story more interesting. another thing similar to this is how sometimes its better to not detail something and let characters do things for a mundane reason or even no reason at all . for example subaru hating chiaki just because he annoys him, or shinobu being on the broadcasting team despite his character not being associated with technology otherwise and therefore having no real backstory on why he likes radio stuff. its all really well planned worldbuilding with an insane amount of subtle details , which is why enstars is one of my favorite stories to analyze . the only thing i could possibly want more out of it is hardcore tragedy but thats entirely a personal preference rather than a critique because im a slut for catharsis and i love sad endings , especially ones where characters die . (don't worry im in therapy)

[girlcaelius]

Hey, what was inaccurate about Domina? I want to watch it but I’m unsure on the characterizations

(oh this got quite long, sorry in advance-)

it's not that it's *super* inaccurate, it's just that (in my opinion) some of the choices made were a little, well. they could have been more interesting. guy who only ever thinks about agrippa all the time voice i am going to talk about agrippa first. i do love how they did agrippa but i also feel like his character was sort of flattened? like we see him for the most part as either a violent warmonger or then flip it entirely to this (i'm going to be mean here, but i don't care) pretty pathetic man who just kind of rolls over and does whatever gaius and livia want, and there's not really much nuance - no mention of the whole quote unquote 'exile' situation in 23, or negotiations with herod or parthia or anything like that.

(this is very much a personal thing, but the [spoilers] sort-of-but-not-really romance plot with him and livia definitely irked me. i think they did it well for what it was, but - they did come close, but when are they going to make a show where him and octavian are as insane about one another as they were historically? the emphasis on his relationship with livia over octavian lessens the effect of his death - and the whole death thing really did piss me off. they show his death, they show his funeral, they focus on how sad LIVIA is in that funeral shot (and not his, you know, childhood best friend other half of my soul etc etc) and then immediately cut to a sex scene with livia and gaius. yay. i haven't seen beyond this episode, so correct me if im wrong, but it kind of feels like people just... forget about him immediately? even gaius. there's not really a mourning or grief sort of thing. it's weird.)

the show also often skips out on events that, in my opinion, could have been more interesting than inserting some kind of weird little random subplot in instead. like - without too many spoilers, they give livia this ex best friend who's now a vestal virgin who was also in love with her as a kid which could have been really interesting! and done really well! but it's. not. it glossed over characters who's stories i think are really intriguing - like octavia adopting and raising antony's children (cleopatra selene isn't in the show at all, which i think is pretty sad) could have been interesting to focus on, but instead after a point in season 1 they just kind of reduce her to her grief over marcellus.

i think the show has a little bit of a problem with girlbossifying livia, but to the point where it sort of comes full circle and goes right back to portraying her how people like tacitus might have portrayed her. despite all the reasoning and motivation the show gives her, it still comes across like she's picking off and poisoning octavian's possible heirs one by one (because, well, she literally is) to protect her and her family's power. i think the whole 'restoring the republic' thing COULD have been really interesting! but they don't really explore *how* they'd do that or anything, they just kind of... bring it up every time there needs to be some kind of dramatic secret scene and never expand on it. i understand the show is the livia show but i think the focus on her sometimes makes the other characters (eg gaius) seem stupid or idiotic when we KNOW they weren't historically.

i am not very knowledgeable about the historical julio-claudian 'kids' (for want of a better word), so i can't really speak on a lot of their portrayals, but the whole 'bad tiberius' thing irritated me. unsure of how grounded in history this is but they give him some slightly odd butchered form of doctor-jekyll-esque did where he has an evil fucked up version who comes out and kills people sometimes. i really really love the portrayal of tiberius for the most part in the show, but this bit... eh. he also wants to kill his mum and have sex with his mum, so that's a thing.

side note but it does feel a little weird that two of the main slave characters (antigone and tycho) are both Black, especially in a setting where slavery wasn't influenced by race.

not sure if this is coherent or what you were asking at all, but here are some slightly disconnected thoughts! but despite all of this i do genuinely enjoy the show, if nothing else i think it's very fun. thanks for the ask :]

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

praxeus. episode of all time. yaz episode of all time. radiating self-assurance, showing off all the things shes learnt, wanting the doctor to see how good she is at this. at playing doctor and loving it. relishing having the keys to all places, having Secret Knowledge of Alien Things that she is in no way about to share with either jake or gabriela because where would be the rush of power in that?

jake, the (ex-)copper on a sabbatical. "except i dont go telling people im police!" give it a year or two love and youre using this (ex-)title on each of your self-found companions. which youre practicing now for with gabriela, pretty girl to forcefully introduce to her very first alien planet. well, almost.

both the girl best friends who've known each other for 5 years and one of which dies exploding, and the uncommunicative married/separated husbands who are punishing each other or themselves, one of which, again, almost dies exploding, looking like thasmin from every angle. (looking like thoschei, too, further back. because thats whats behind every picture of thasmin whichever way you cut it)

watching the identities slip and slide changing hands between all these parallels. Adam, sick astronaut, experimented on by aliens, clear doctor figure. or is he? jake, on the beach, sits where the doctor sits, saying he doesnt do emotions, admitting to being purposefully unreliable, unable to commit, disliking travelling! jake who can be summoned with a "help me". jake, who doesnt believe adam could really love him. who are we to apply this sentiment to, then? obviously, both. obviously, all.

"we didnt teleport into an active volcano!" yaz exclaims, too surprised at her own success to really be reassuring, as she holds onto her new friend's wrist, not hand, steering, directing, controlling. "im supposed to be the one saying that to you," the doctor responds, a year or three (or six, for yaz) later, when the destination is an active volcano, when in all these years theyve learnt to fly a spaceship together ("adam lang, your job is so easy!") but still havent figured out how to say the things that need saying, when one of them is dying, and the last time yaz was still pretending to be on sabbatical she knew for sure how old she was. two girls roaming.

the doctor wants so badly to figure this out, needs this win, after the identity shock of ruth, all the unanswered questions. even after the betrayal, after all the bad thats been done. "look at us, suki! two brilliant scientists, we can fix this!" whatever you did, whatever youve done, in desperation, wasnt right, but it's not the end. you can fuck it all up, and then you can help to try and unfuck as much as you can. just think. do not get carried away by fear. thats what scientist means, in the thirteenth doctor's mouth. someone who realises problems have solutions. that can be found. if you delay your frightened desperate furious reaction and just think for a second. she wishes she and suki could have worked together. she wishes they could have saved her planet as well as earth. she wishes she could have sent suki home, safe and sound, with solutions for whoever is left there, waiting for her, desperate and afraid. they will never know what happened. they will die sick and in ignorance.

adam offers himself up. hes dying anyway. they need a clinical trial and he is a suitable body to test on. makes you wonder. the master did not tell us everything, and what he didnt we'll never know, but as graham put it "i aint the fantasist round here" (detective morse, by the way, is not a reference i knew, but from wikipedia this character doesnt seem much to match jake's vibes, the master (and/or doctor) however...) what sense of duty might the child have felt? what sense of duty might the child have been talked into? or is that too patronising a way to frame it? what loyalty to her adoptive mother, a scientist and explorer, an example that still loudly resonates in 13, first-time woman, and what loyalty to her adoptive planet, people? what was life like on prehistoric gallifrey? "sparsely populated" is all we get. nothing about the possible reasons. disease doesnt seem out of the question. why did tecteun leave? "dangerous, unsophisticated space travel". why do something so dangerous? just the quest for knowledge? or was there desperation? was there fear?

"maybe," the doctor says, "i'll never know". and tecteun replies with a phrase the doctor herself has tried to leverage against yaz: the journey of a lifetime. "what do you do, 'Doctor'? pick people up, take them with you? you adopt them, use them, for reassurance, for company. theyre your experiments just as you were mine."

could she have been something else? who knows. but adam offered. and before that adam trained. and adam stepped into a rocket. and adam let himself be shot into space. scientist and explorer. and we're all full of plastic, whether we know it or not. and the doctor's a romantic. which is to say an idealist, here for the lost causes, a virus to kill the disease of our own making. infectious, and aware of it.

[moonlitlex]

ok. final thoughts on doctor who season 14 (2024) (because maybe if i say all of this i will finally stop thinking about how much i hate this season)

short version: i'm this season's biggest hater. if this season has a million haters im one of them. if this season has 1000 haters i'm still one of them. if this season has one hater it's me. if this season has no haters it means i have left this world. if the world is against this season i am with the world

long & nuanced version (under the cut)

i'm just really, really, really disappointed. i've always said that good writing can redeem any project, and it kind of feels like they just took it in the exact opposite direction this time. there's so much that went wrong and like 99% of it is down to the writing. i did a rant on my youtube channel (which i'm not gonna link here because i want to keep these accounts separate) and it was like an hour long so i'm not gonna go into detail but i'll just go over my main issues with this season

fifteen lacks depth. i think he's a very generic doctor lacking his own eccentricities. after the first season the doctor usually has quite a distinct personality, but i don't think we got that with fifteen. just compare the kind of characterization fifteen has at this point to like... eleven in his first season. he was a lot more fleshed out. we got to see multiple facets of his personality. it seems like they tried this with fifteen but everything we got to see ended up being really surface level. the susan thing just kind of happens. the rogue thing just kind of happens. he faces racism and he's just kind of incredulous and then the episode ends. it's not explored. the show just moves on to the next thing and we don't get to see how he deals with it.

ruby lacks depth. similarly, i think ruby is a very generic companion. she's a young woman from present day london which isn't in and of itself a bad thing but it's not backed up by much. like, what do we actually know about ruby? she's adopted? she was left on a church doorstep by her biomom? she loves her mom but is still disappointed she can't find her bio parents? these are all plot relevant things. what do we know about her outside of the stuff that is necessary for the plot? job? friends? life before the doctor? there are a few tiny glimpses, but not enough to make her a developed character.

fifteen and ruby's relationship is boring. they never fight. they never disagree. they never argue. they're never angry with each other. they never challenge each other on anything. they're shown to have this amazing best-friend rapport but it's never developed or fleshed out. it just kind of happens. one second they're meeting and the next second they're bffs who never disagree about anything and are always on the same page. it's just not an interesting dynamic.

i found ten and donna to be a very compelling dynamic but that's because they actually have a real friendship and have to deal with conflict and challenges and disagreements. times when the doctor and companion challenge each other are interesting. this is a feature of some really beloved doctor who stories for a reason. dalek wouldn't be so well loved if rose just agreed with nine the entire time. the conflict makes the story more compelling. meanwhile ruby can't even muster an ounce of discontentment with fifteen for the entire season.

season finale payoffs were not compelling and are in my opinion a result of prioritizing shock and surprise and social media buzz at time of release over telling an interesting story.

sutekh is not automatically a compelling villain and the way that arc is written is so... bland. he appears and kills everyone and the next episode they just hit the reset button. fine, doctor who has done this before, but there was interesting character writing back then to distract you from the baffling story decisions.

the season 3 finale had flying jesus ten but it also had interesting character dynamics. this one had sutekh defeated in the most confusing way possible (if he got his power from the time vortex why is it killing him now....) but there's barely anything going on in the character department. it's rtd so i expected hamfisted deus ex machinas, but i didn't expect the lack of care on the character front.

the susan thing was just... it came out of nowhere, didn't really make much sense, and then it immediately disappeared. the doctor thinking it's his susan was just confusing for me and it didn't land. like why would susan.... do that? why would she be basically following him around the universe by weaving herself into the scenery everywhere he landed? this is never even addressed. they just get the tardis anagram and he immediately jumps to it being his susan and you're not really sure why he's so convinced and it's never really explained.

ruby's mom being a normal woman literally just doesn't make any sense. it's never explained. "we thought she was really important" doesn't just do all the inexplicable things. why and how is ruby able to make it snow if her mom is just a normal person? why does the song in his soul scare maestro so much? why is sutekh of all people unable to figure out who her mother is? the reveal is played as a criticism of the audience for building up ruby's mom to be this huge mystery, but it wasn't the audience doing this - it was the writers. these are the clues they laid out and they're never explained. "doctor who is more fantastical now" also doesn't make any sense. fantasy has rules too. you can't just do whatever you want. the world still has to be internally consistent. the reveal by itself is a nice moment but it's just disappointing that they decided to laugh at the audience for taking their show seriously.

i've seen a lot of people compare ruby's mom thing with clara's impossible girl thing. i would like to point out 2 differences that make clara's impossible girl arc superior. first - clara's impossible girl arc never tries to weasel its way out of the mystery. the point is that who clara is is more important than the mystery surrounding her. ruby's mom mystery tries to erase the mystery entirely. second - clara's impossible girl arc is resolved the way it is because of clara. clara is a person who takes an action because of who she is. it shows courage and selflessness and care for her friend. ruby's mom mystery is solved by ruby and the doctor finding a database where they can match ruby's dna to her mom's. it doesn't say anything about her character. her character is irrelevant to the resolution.

i've also seen it compared to the hybrid thing from season 9, but with the hybrid there was never anything unexplainable happening in the first place so "it was just the characters obsessing about it all along" makes sense because it literally is just the characters bringing up the hybrid all the time.

the individual episodes are not... good. here are my opinions on each of them

church on ruby road - ok introduction, weird pacing, the goblin song was just tonally off compared to the rest of the episode

space babies - genuinely makes the doctor seem like a sadistic asshole at times like he keeps laughing at the literal babies for being scared of the monster and this is played for laughs (???), boogeyman reveal thing literally came out of nowhere there was no setup and it made no sense and was never really explained, a lot of tonal whiplash in this episode, poor exposition choices at the start

devils chord - maestro was a fun performance but nothing else about this episode is interesting, there are no beatles, the 4th wall breaks are tonally inconsistent with the rest of the season

boom - ruby gets sidelined but making ncuti act without being able to move any of his body slaps as a concept and while it was too on the nose, the thematic messaging aspects of this episode are coherent and don't talk down to the audience, some side characters get to be relevant to the story and moderately developed (mundy, splice, the dad), splice's actor was far too old to be delivering those lines and it didn't land well, the dad ai defeating the ambulance ai was a bit too much but was in line with the power of love and faith theme so i'm conflicted on how i feel about that

73 yards - did nothing right. there are a few minutes of good welsh folk horror at the start before that aspect of the story is undermined by those people in the pub. ruby gets no character development. the horror atmosphere is abandoned at the start and the horror concept is abandoned entirely partway through the story in favour of the political stuff with roger ap gwilliam, which is kind of resolved in a really anticlimactic scene which doesn't matter anyway because everything just gets undone at the end of the episode. there are no answers.

it's not a good horror story because 90% of it isn't horror. it's not a good political drama because nothing happens. it's not a good character study because we don't get to know anything about ruby's character. i genuinely think rtd has forgotten the kind of stuff he's written because he called this the best thing he's ever written and it's literally not even in the top 10 doctor who episodes he's ever written. like midnight is right there. the waters of mars is RIGHT THERE. this episode is all setup and no payoff.

also - i might just be autistic, but the "can i pay with my phone" joke doesn't land because not everyone can actually accept digital payments yet! it's like... an extremely normal question to ask. i literally ask all the time unless i see an "apple pay accepted" sign because sometimes the answer is "no, we only take cash or card". i know it was supposed to be something about how ruby thinks she's in the past or welsh people getting wrongly stereotyped for being backward but maybe rtd should've come up with a line that would actually be offensive and not just a completely normal thing to ask in 2024.

dot and bubble - this is probably my most controversial take. i hate this episode. i think it's a poorly written bad episode. and furthermore i think only people who are disconnected from all discussion around racism think it's got genuinely good commentary. for MOST of this episode, it's a "kids be on they damn phones" thing. like, genuinely. lindy can't even WALK without her phone. there's nothing in the episode to tip us as the audience off to the idea that the dots hate them because they're racist. everything in the episode is pointing at "the dots hate them because they're stupid as fuck because they're always on that damn phone".

lindy at first seems like a flawed but sympathetic character, and this could genuinely have worked with the racism commentary. if it's about them being racist cause they're sooooooo fucking stupid, maybe don't have lindy be an irredeemable extremely racist character who kills someone. maybe she's repeating all the rhetoric she's heard her entire life without ever thinking about it. maybe trying to convince her racist friends to give the doctor a chance gets her socially isolated. maybe it's about echo chambers and social bubbles. maybe lindy as an individual has no malicious intent either way but she still behaves in a racist way and still ends up siding with the racists because they're her friends and she wants to fit in and be part of the in group and trying to not be racist because the doctor seemed kinda nice got her socially ostracized so she perpetuates racism regardless. but none of this is what happens. this is a reading you can get out of it if you're really dedicated to reading into a story written by a guy who doesn't give a shit about racism.

lindy and all her friends are stupid and bad and racist and the doctor is still desperate to save them for some fucking reason and he doesn't even get to SAY anything to them, he just laughs incredulously and that's his entire reaction. the commentary in this episode is baby's first lesson on racism. it's a message of "racism is bad and stupid" tacked onto an episode with a message of "being on your phone is bad and stupid".

it's shallow. it has nothing to say. it's very clearly a story about racism written by a white man who has never had to even think about racism. the entire writer's room for this season was white as well. rtd didn't even think he should maybe consider giving the racism episode to a black writer. he just wrote a full episode where the message is "racism is bad you guys" and patted himself on the back for his social commentary. i think it's embarrassing that people praise this episode for opening their eyes to racism in the real world and helping them understand it better. literally all that tells me is they've been closing their eyes and covering their ears every time a person of colour talks about racism. like black fans have literally been talking about racism in doctor who for decades and clearly none of you listened to any of them because you're here watching an episode with an "omg racism is bad guys" message going "wow, i never though about it like that!" that's because you're an asshole.

"wow i didn't even notice that everyone in this episode is white!" that's because that's not out of the ordinary for doctor who. or for television in general. this isn't revolutionary commentary. it's an indictment of the season 14 writer's room that they thought they could write this episode without even taking a look around their own writer's room and thinking "huh, everyone here is white too. maybe we should try to change that." this show has been predominantly white for MOST of its history. i'm a huge critic of the chibnall era but at least that guy hired poc to write for the show. at least the bad racism commentary in rosa (which was, to remind you, "the future racist is wrong. racism is bad. also the entire civil rights movement was basically a happy accident") was written by a black woman. at least the weird british empire glorifying shit in the partition episode was written by an indian man (to be clear, stuff written by poc also deserves to be criticized. my point is just that at least chibnall had the basic common sense to hire people who knew more than him to write these stories). rtd didn't even consider this. not even a cowriter.

it's just embarrassing to watch white fans falling over themselves analyzing how this episode is soooo deep when it's simply not. racism isn't silly goofy stupid. it's dangerous. it gets people killed every day. it's even more ridiculous that the racism is addressed in the future episode but not anywhere else! fifteen goes to 60s england and... nothing. he goes to 1800s england and nothing. sure, future people are racist. whatever. are we seriously sanitizing the real, actual, real life racist past of britain? and then patting ourselves on the back for it? and ricky september being considered not racist? like, reading a book doesn't suddenly make you not racist. racist people aren't necessarily idiots. plenty of highly educated people are racist. making ricky explicitly racist while also a clearly smart character would have added nuance to this episode, but rtd didn't do that. watching a black man beg and plead with rich racist white kids to please let him save their lives is just... ridiculous.

there are countless (and i do mean countless) works by actual people of colour that discuss racism in a far more nuanced way. that go beyond "racism is bad and racist people are stupid". there are specifically black british shows you can watch that actually address racism and have real commentary on it outside of what you would expect a toddler who has just learnt about prejudice to say. shows that aren't about coddling while people. watch shows made by and for people who aren't white. read books written by and for people who aren't white. and don't just watch and read this stuff to "educate yourself" on other people's experiences. watch it because it's art. because it's entertaining or funny or interesting or dramatic, just like stories that are about white people are allowed to be. and stop praising an episode with a racism is bad message for being good racism commentary. seriously. we already know racism is bad. this is embarrassing for you.

dot and bubble was a "kids be on they damn phones episode" with "racism is so bad guys" tacked onto it and white fans fell over themselves explaining how it opened their eyes and it was so deep and meaningful and powerful and it was none of those things. it was bland and shallow and honestly really boring they spend WAY too long hitting us over the head with how the kids are so stupid cause they're on their damn phones. you should be embarrassed. if this episode was the first thing that made me realize racism exists and is bad you couldn't waterboard that out of me. grow up.

rogue - rogue was an underdeveloped jack harkness ripoff, there's no development of the relationship between him and the doctor, ruby got nothing to do, the proposal came out of nowhere, the chuldurs were an interesting concept but they literally didn't even do any of the larping they were there for apart from the one who was lady emily. murder is not a prominent part of bridgerton or similar regency era romances that they were supposedly there to cosplay

legend of ruby sunday - this episode is literally 99% exposition. like i'm not joking. there's exposition and exposition and exposition for the whole episode and at the end sutekh appears and kills everyone. also "i will kill everyone" is like. not a compelling motivation. doctor who is full of guys who want to kill everyone. there's nothing making sutekh particularly scary or compelling apart from the fact that he thanos snapped the whole universe and that's also not particularly scary or compelling because he spares the main characters AND because you know they're gonna hit the comic book reset button next episode. sutekh being attached to the tardis since pyramids of mars is unconvincing personally (it would've made more sense if it was since wild blue yonder)

empire of death - ??????? ruby's mom is just a normal woman. they leash sutekh like a dog and drag him through the time vortex which kills him for some reason and also hits reset on his kill switch for the whole universe and that just fixes everything. ruby calls her biomom her real mom instead of carla which just really rubbed me the wrong way. she exits the tardis to stay with her family and it's... fine. you never see why ruby and the doctor were attached to each other so them saying goodbye doesn't hit home. nothing happens and then suddenly everything happens. the fact that the reveal is unconvincing makes the whole thing worse.

conclusion: i think rtd ran out of ideas for doctor who. i think he shouldn't have come back. i think the 60th specials were season 4 fanfiction. i think they should've given the showrunner position to a different writer entirely. i think 8 episodes is far too short for a doctor who season (flux being an exception because it was one ongoing story). i think the bigger budget and better production value can't save a show with poor writing. i think gatwa and gibson are acting their hearts out and i wish they had better material because i really like both of them in these roles. i'm also kind of sick of murray gold's music at this point. he won't let emotional moments just sit and it's really annoying how every time anything happens there's a swell of music. i think rtd should give up on racism commentary and just hire someone else who can do it justice if he really wants it to be in his show. i think rtd should shift focus back to the characters and their interpersonal relationships because that's what he's good at and his plot resolutions have always been underwhelming deus ex machinas. i think they should give this show more episodes. i think they should change the broadcasting times to be a better slot in the uk and the episode should go up on streaming at the same time or after it airs. this season has little glimpses of potential (some of boom, first few minutes of 73 yards, episode concepts in general are quite interesting, more fantasy in doctor who is a fun concept) but squanders all of it with flat characters. i started dreading watching the next episode after a while because i kept hoping it would be good and then i would hate it.

but i still care too much about doctor who to not watch the show so i guess i'll be here this time next year picking season 15 apart. woo.