#obviously talking about an adult audience for this sort of thing lol

[onewomancitadel]

Relatedly to the point I made about character-grounded erotica, I would rather read a story without a sex scene if it's not grounded in the story (and the author's intentions). I really hate the idea of the expected mark of 'ugh, I gotta write the sex scene or people will complain because that's what they're expecting'. I get that genre conventions exist for a reason, and clearly the matter of sex isn't totally irrelevant, but I'm not interested in story beats which stick out like a sore thumb because it's where the amusement park ride is supposed to go.

Equally if you don't want to write sex scenes, don't write them. I just think you need to navigate an expression of sexuality that works with the romance and the story you're trying to tell. Where people can feel like it's a 'tease' - let's say, foreshadowing - is when there's a lot of present, heated sexuality without any pay-off. Take out the moralising and this can just feel weird.

I want to refer to a major mainstream example here because I feel it may help, and because I recall a very early feeling of disappointment, which was the fade-to-black sex scenes of the Twilight Saga. Now say what you will about the books - that's neither here nor there - but a repeated and ongoing theme in the books is that Edward's saving himself for marriage and trying not to have sex with Bella suck Bella's blood, there is a constant sense of close-but-not-close-enough with the human/vampire situation and always stopping at kissing, there's a whole big deal about getting married and their honeymoon, listen if you've read the books - you just know. Then it's fade-to-black, cut right to Edward having a nervous breakdown about hurting Bella during sex (because he's vampire-strong). Now, I find it ridiculous, and I particularly find the implications surrounding some of the inevitabilities Meyer feels about heterosexual romance/sex are damning, but it's a complete dud. Breaking Dawn is, admittedly, an overall dud (it's been some time since I've read it, but I need not refer to it again), and we know why Meyer didn't want to write a sex scene - a tween demographic of readers probably stayed her hand, no matter how disappointing that was to me at the time, and in addition to that she's a Mormon (but she skirts on the edge of freakiness quite a bit) - but it certainly wasn't a technical consideration of what was appropriate to what she'd set up. Lol.

I wonder if for the Twilight Saga a more metaphorical scene would've worked (especially with the vampire metaphors - come on! - sucking her blood! This is what vampires are for), which is not quite euphemism. When I get annoyed with euphemism is the territory of the 'member' and 'manhood' and 'inner core' and many such nuclear-related accidents during sex, including the 'rod'.

So, no, you don't need to write sex scenes and I think expecting it of an author cuz them's the genre rules is not something I really like. I like to think that this potentially ameliorates the 'sex scenes are unnecessary' opinion, for the author and reader side. Really getting to the heart of why they can be necessary - and how you can justify their presence - goes beyond sexuality being a base part of the human experience and does ground itself in the narrative. I also think that it's a little weird we've relegated human sexuality to being depicted, and largely characterised through, only p*rnography (sorry censoring for Tumblr search), because I think it's a particularly narrow approach. Clearly there's more to sex than just its base depiction, and it's compelling for a reason which isn't just perverted. It's pretty bad that it's largely characterised that way (just think of any average person's opinion of smutty literature). I'm not asking for smutty literature to be 'normalised', I suppose - I think there's a reason one can keep this sort of thing private to oneself, especially when it is fun when it's a little naughty - but rather a more positive attitude towards sex, I guess.

[crispycrunchers]

The Book Of Bill

This is kind of random, but I want to go on a little rant about The Book Of Bill. Fist off, I love the book. I haven't finished it since I really want to take my time with it, but it's so funny and gives us a lot of insight on Bill and his life. Also, toxic old man yao-

But what I really want to talk about is the fact that a lot of Christians and parents are freaking out over it. I am not in fact a parent (thank God) but I am a Christian. One who loves and follows God, but is also a huge nerd so I'm really into things like Gravity Falls. I'm also a 'young' Christian, but have been following God for years and years of my life, so I feel like I know enough to talk about this.

Fist off, the fact that parents are getting mad over the more 'mature' themes in the book. Baby girl, the book and Alex Hirsch said it was for older audiences. I understand people associating Bill Cipher as a kids character, since Gravity Falls is deemed a 'kids show', but if there's a content warning given by the book, you should probably listen. It wasn't really a surprise, since it gave a content warning. And above all, you should have been paying closer attention to what type of media your kids consume. Yeah, you're probably busy, but I somehow highly doubt your kid has their own debit card to buy the book on amazon, and even more so doubt that they went to the store by themselves to buy the book with pocket cash. Anyways, the point is, it has a content warning saying that it is geared towards older audiences, so don't be mad at the book or Alex Hirsch.

Now when it comes to the 'Christian outlook' on all of this, a lot of Christian have been debating on whether it's okay for Christians to watch the show since it has themes of demons, summoning's, and things of that sort. For me personally, I think if you're worried about it negatively impacting your kid, wait until they're older to let them watch it. Realistically, Gravity Falls probably would have scared the crap out of younger me since I was a little weakling lol. But when I got older and had a firm grasp on my own beliefs and watched Gravity Falls, I didn't suddenly become a Satanist or get possessed. And if you're a Christian whos a teenager or even a young adult and wants to watch Gravity Falls without compromising your relationship with God, I want you to keep some things in mind as you make your own decision.

First off, one mistake wont ruin your relationship with God. This I can promise. I've watched a lot of shows that I probably shouldn't have, and they've affected me in a bad way, but never has God pulled away from me or made me start over. If you start watching a show and feel like it's wrong, just stop watching it and move on. God wont hold a grudge. Secondly, Bill Cipher isn't a 'real' demon. He's a fictional character who is a demon in the fictional show, but he's not based off of a real demon from what I've seen. The fourth wall breaking where he talks to the reader in the Book Of Bill is just a fun twist to the whole thing. Yeah, obviously you don't want to give your blood or mind to an evil triangle Dorito demon in real life (even if he is super dapper with his lil' hat and bow tie), but again, it's fictional. I apply this rule to basically everything, meaning I'm gonna watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice because he isn't based off a real demon, just a fictional one. Now, the last point is that ultimately it's your choice. Hate to break it to you and all those possibly controlling/judgmental family members, but your walk with God is- big shocker- between you and God. It's like how no one can really tell you have to have a relationship with your significant other. Whatever works for the two of you, works for the two of you, and might not work for others. I feel that it is okay for me to love Gravity Falls since I'm not doing anything bad, and I'm not letting it take the place of God if you know what I mean.

Anyways, if you made it this far, congrats. If you're wondering why I posted such a long message about Christianity on my blog about goofy video games/movies/shows/etc., then you're perfectly correct for wondering so. (More yapping ahead, please read this part).

Like I said before, I am a Christian. I've not always been a Christian despite being raised as one, because at some point in our lives we have to question all that we've been thought, and find our own footing. Now, one of the things I am extremely passionate about (besides good story telling and art) is correcting and calling out lies and faults in the church. 'But, Crisp! Isn't that going against church and therefore God!?' Uh, no. If someone was straight up lying about you, wouldn't you want your friend to correct them? And even more so, if you were being lied to, especially in a way that was harming you, wouldn't you want to be corrected?

I am by no means perfect, not even close, and I am nowhere near the level God is at. But I can say that I've spent many years of my life witnessing people who are supposed to be the carriers of love and hope, be the most hateful, fearful people on Earth. Like any group of people, there are good people, and bad people. I want those who want to try out Christianity to be able to see God for who he truly is, and those who are already following God to not be afraid as I was taught to be originally.

Now, worry not, my little buttercups, this isn't randomly going to change into a Christian blog where I'm beating you with the Bible since, quite honestly, that is the last thing I want to be doing. I just want to be super upfront with you all, and provide a place where Christians and none-Christians alike can just co-exist and talk about nerdy things. That being said, I don't care if you're not a Christian, I don't care if you don't agree with everything I say. Love is the most important thing to me, so I want everyone to be able to come together and nerd out about things like Gravity Falls and such. But every now and then I'll make a little (enormous, holy sweet pineapple baby I wrote so much) post like this.

That being said, my apologies for hitting you with such a big piece of text first thing in the morning, lol. But if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading my little (again, enormous) rant. I hope you don't see me as some brainwashed, Bible beating person disguised as a lore freak. I promise I'm not. lol. That being said, I will not tolerate any hate what-so-ever. I don't care from whom towards who, it's entirely wrong. If I find out you're hating on someone I will immediately try and figure out how to remove you (I'm new to Tumblr, spare me the glares).

Anyways, thanks for reading, folks. I hope to see you on a more 'light-hearted'/nerdy topic. I hope you understand everything I wrote here, lol, don't be afraid to ask me any questions, I love yapping as you can tell.

[chevelleneech]

Hi. What are your thoughts on all rameyon talk??

I’m genuinely curious why some of y’all send messages with multiple punctuation marks? Is there a different meaning behind them these days? I’m “old” so maybe there isn’t as much urgency implied anymore. Idk.

Anyway, my take on their use of ramyeon this time, is somewhere in the middle. I initially thought they were just talking about food, but upon watching the clip back later I heard JK sing “3D” the way he said Jimin sings it, and then Jimin sang it back to him. Before Jungkook sang it though, he immediately hit Jimin on the back with his towel.

So… contrary to what seems to be the common assumption about Jimin being flirty this time, I actually think he really was talking about food. It seems like JK’s mind was the one to instantly jump to sexy times, and him hitting Jimin was what triggered JM realizing what he said was understood as an innuendo.

Obviously Jimin knows the slang reference, but I think it was one of those moments where it simply wasn’t on his mind. He was hungry and wanted to eat, but JK’s mind went to the gutter, but I don’t think either of them were really asking for sex. I think they were just playing with the innuendo for a second, but ultimately were talking about whether or not they should eat.

ITS2, however, I think was likely a genuine example of them being intentionally suggestive. The way they laughed back then seemed way too on the nose.

As for my overall thoughts of them making this joke… 1) they’re adults. Grown people make sex jokes literally all the time. I know some fans don’t like to view the members as “immature”, but it just kind of is a thing. Sex talk is funny, even to people in their late twenties near thirties and older.

2) If there really is something going on between them, sex jokes are a natural part of being with someone. Particularly if the two of you are sexually active.

For example, I would bet money that had the pool not had a glass insert, we would not have seen the beginning of their antics in it. Based solely on the look on his face, and the look Jungkook had when he glanced at the cameras and told Jimin the wall was see through, Jimin planned to get handsy. Not handsy, but much more in JK’s space. Hands on his chest or something, not to speculate too far.

I mean, objectively Jimin got in the water and moved toward JK pretty quickly, and the look on Jungkook’s face was totally, “Oh shit, wait a second.” To be honest, the more I think about it, the more that moment in the pool was one of the more damning things they’ve done.

We know they put their mouths on each other. For a fact, we know that. JK did it in front of an audience, but I truly don’t think he realized how visible him sucking Jimin’s ear was. Then Jimin, unprovoked, admitted to biting on Jungkook’s neck in private. So my assumption is that had the pool wall been solid, and JM and JK actually started embracing or overtly flirting, the crew would have just turned the cameras off and turned their backs or walked away, because again, they get paid to see and hear nothing.

And I don’t want to turn this into some deep conspiracy thing or anything, but camera crews and managers and assistants and makeup teams and so on are the backbone of all entertainment industries, and they know everything. They’re just paid and are contractually obligated to pretend like all of it is fallacy. Aside from rolling on abusers and awful people, these people aren’t likely to ever spill any sort of truths. Not until their NDA expires, and even then, how often do we hear from them?

Don’t get me wrong, I know plenty spill the beans for a quick buck, but in comparison to how many exist? It’s not even a quarter. Especially when it comes to queer relationships and closeted celebrities. No one is trying to deal with the public shaming that comes with outing someone, unless they themselves are a horrible person.

So yeah. I got off track, lol, but I do think there was a smidge of flirtatiousness going on this time, but it wasn’t as serious as it was during ITS2. Nor do I think it was more risqué than the flirting Jimin planned to do in the pool, before he was interrupted by the reality of the glass wall.

[itsclydebitches]

Hi Clyde 👋🏻 So Ive been watching as your response posts come thru about RWBY and you obviously know alot about it. As someone who knows nothing at all about it, I was wondering if you could explain it to me. Supernatural I get. Jupiter Ascending I get. Even that Jar Jar Binks post floating around Tumblr (if you havent seen it yet, it’s probably a good thing) I get, but RWBY im still sort of having trouble getting up the interest to watch. Is it worth it?

Hello! I'm definitely answering asks in a timely fashion. Watch me go! 😅

Ah, is RWBY worth it. That there is the million dollar question. Not to give a copout answer, but I really think it depends on what you're looking to get out of the show. Our beloved JA and SPN are great comparisons because they're both extremes too. They're doing something really interesting that succeeds in captivating its audience... and then, arguably, faceplant when it comes to a lot of basic writing expectations. SPN far more-so than JA imo, just due to being a 15 season show vs. a 2 hour movie. Though not quite of the same caliber, RWBY has a lot of the same whimsy and creativity. A sort of, "Go with the flow not because it necessarily makes sense, but because it's fun." Or, as the RWBY fandom puts it, everything follows the "Rule of Cool." If you like JA's awkwardly delivered "I love dogs" you may also like the awkwardness of Ruby eating cookies by having them disappear when they approach her face. The self-awareness that RWBY had in the beginning — we're a low budget webseries created for the fun of it with lots of ridiculous gags and flashy action — feels, to me, similar to the self-awareness of JA: "We're a film that's going to take a 13yo girl's fantasies very seriously, right up through getting an angel-wolf-alien as a boyfriend." There's even a lot to be said for RWBY's similar motivations: a girl power story, a focus on the action (with Monty's fantastic choreography), meant to be progressive in particular ways, etc.

Personally, I really love the first three Volumes of RWBY. They're ridiculous, badly animated at times, and mishandle a racism allegory like whoa... but they've got a lot of heart. They're fun. They're enjoyable in that "Turn your brain off" manner. The basic premise is that a girl with silver eyes gets into a Huntsmen Academy two years early — a school that trains young adults to battle the monsters that populate their world. She's set up as the pure hearted hero with the mysterious power via her eye color. She gains a team of three other girls who must learn to work together as they navigate school and a coming war. Everyone has crazy outfits, crazier weapons, and at one point there's an epic food fight battle that I've watched on Youtube too many times. It's playful and has just enough worldbuilding to spark the imagination; just enough solid characterization to get you to fall in love with the cast. If it were the summer of 2016 I'd recommend RWBY wholeheartedly as the webseries equivalent of a beach read.

The problem is that things #happened at the end of Volume 3. No spoilers, but suffice to say things got intense during that finale, thrusting the show into a very different era. Suddenly, the show wanted to take itself seriously in a way it never had before... so many in the fandom, such as myself, started taking it more seriously too. We had higher expectations for the show since the show itself was egging those expectations on, tackling sensitive material and talking up the impact of their work. Yet, sadly, these expectations weren't met, with the problems becoming more pronounced with each new Volume. The retconning added up. Certain characters were done dirty. The allegories got really offensive. RWBY's idea of feminism became warped. We've got a ship that many consider queerbaiting at this point. Morals are all over the place and there's no longer a consistent message to the show... it's a lot. The sort of "It's a lot" that we might say about SPN too. Fans are right to point out the laundry list of bad writing choices and offensive content strewn across SPN's 15 seasons. Fans are also right to point out the many aspects that kept its audience hooked despite all that. Same with RWBY. Me? I think RWBY is a very badly written show now... but I enjoyed it enough, for long enough, that I'm still invested enough to see it through. Meanwhile, others don't see anything wrong with the writing at all. They've hailed the last two Volumes as the best to date, with even better work to come. There's a pretty intense split between those who critique the show and those who insist on its near perfection.

So I suppose I'd recommend it, just because I'm not confident in giving a definitive "Lol yeah this is trash" condemnation. Not just because there were things I did (and at times still do) love about RWBY, but because my interpretation, quite obviously, is subjective. I can't ignore that those of us who critique the show are the minority. So statistically, if RWBY ends up being your thing, you're probably more likely to enjoy all that the show has produced thus far — within reason — than you are to have a falling out with it. I think overall there's enough good in RWBY to give it a shot, especially when, depending on how you approach your shows, that good might still be there for you 8 Volumes later. Just go in knowing that, if you enjoy the first 3 Volumes, you might be severely disappointed down the line.

The other upside though? The initial episodes are very short! So you can try a couple out without giving RWBY too much of a time investment.

(Also, side note, but WHAT Jar Jar Binks post?? Oh god I'm scared lol)

[ahiddenpath]

Thanks for the Tri response, what do you think of Kizuna?

Well, I can only answer based on the novel. I bought the film, but I still haven't watched it! But I'll try to answer as best I can below the cut. Again, the novel had stuff I love and stuff I didn't, but I think my reaction to this one was a bit more true middle-of-the-road than Tri.

Spoilers for Kizuna.

I want to start by saying that I think my reception of the Kizuna plot was impacted by the state of the world when it was released, which is... continuing today, as I type this. I'm referring to the pandemic, of course. I pre-purchased my tickets for a March Kizuna screening in theaters; it was the first social event that fell through because of the pandemic for me. It's been a difficult period for everyone, and I was not- and still am not- really emotionally equipped to watch Taichi and Yamato lose their partners. I'd rather just leave it for now.

Kizuna is one of those stories where I didn't really enjoy the plot... But I find it inspiring in terms of what I would like to do with the ideas presented. It's amazing fic fodder, and you know I love that!

I do think that, coming off of Tri, where an adult Chosen who lost her partner ends up betraying the Chosen and involving them in her trauma stemming from that loss... Well, it was kind of like... Didn't we... Just... Do this? I have to mentally separate Kizuna from Tri to circumvent that tension, and that's not normally... how sequels work?

As you might know, I was also concerned about Kizuna sort of... demonizing adulthood by showing that the Chosen cannot have their partners as adults, because they've "lost their potential." In reality, adulthood is where your potential begins- you gain agency and go into the world to build your life.

On the surface, that demonization does seem to be what happened- but I don't think that's actually what went down. Taichi and Yamato fight so that the Chosen can experience adulthood and keep growing, instead of locking themselves in Menoa's world of endless childhood with the digimon. So, yay, our heroes think adulthood=good! But then, they lose their partners anyway; adulthood=bad??? But again, signs point to the epilogue still being applicable, so eventually, they will reunite with their partners. It's also directly stated at the end of the novel ("Wait for me! I promise to come for you!").

I think that the novelization didn't really explain the logic behind all of this. Did the kids actually lose their partners because adults cannot sustain a digimon partner? Or was Menoa mistaken? She clearly never figured out how to reverse the loss of her partner, so it's totally possible that she misunderstood the whole situation! And 02 makes the argument that digimon partners will come to everyone when they believe in themselves and follow their true path. We see some of the Chosen struggling with their paths during Kizuna, so maybe, when they find the courage to be true to their wants and dreams, their partners will return.

(For more on this, explained far better and with receipts, check out this wonderful post by Shihalyfie).

I love this interpretations of Kizuna ("be true to self=digimon partner")! But that... kind of... seems like an important thing to leave up to audience interpretation/nuance/reliance on the audience remembering those lines from a show that aired in 2002. Are we not going to talk about that stuff within Kizuna itself, if it's applicable? Obviously, I love Digimon Adventure and 02, but I don't do routine rewatches. It's easy to forget stuff. Or is the fact that "be true to self=digimon partner" isn't directly mentioned within the Kizuna novel enough evidence to suggest that it isn't applicable to the vanishing partner situation? I'm not saying that books have to explicitly explain everything to audiences, but... A little help, please? It's especially difficult to catch subtle nuances in translated works, so I think non-Japanese readers also have that hurdle to contend with.

I'm sure many folks felt upset, and maybe even betrayed, when Agumon and Gabumon vanished. And I get it, I do, even if we know they will return at some point. Like I said, it's something I frankly don't want to watch, but I'm fine with it intellectually (ie, in writing), mostly because it sets up a chance for fanfic writers to explore why they really vanished, and how the Chosen will reunite. Talk about an opportunity for character growth (gimme gimme gimme, lol!!!!).

And that's where I swing around to being happy again. Do you know what happens when canon content leaves stuff open to interpretation? YOU GUESSED IT, FANFIC FANFIC FANFIC! And you can still use canon setting without contradicting anything, awwwwwww yissssssssss. I'm planning a pre-and-post Kizuna fic that I think will really be amazing. I found some concepts of Kizuna really engaging/emotionally charged/exciting, even if I wasn't fully happy with/clear on the execution.

The novel also has this super wonderful scene with Koushiro telling Tentomon a story about candles that I really loved ;_; It was lovely. And seeing the 02 kids thriving and being so happy?! Wonderful. The overall characterization was solid, too, with lots of Chosen proactiveness (my fave!).

I think there was a lot to like in Kizuna, even if I'm not clear on a hugely important plot point (what exactly caused the partners to vanish).

Also, Yamato in glasses!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am dead. And also an impartial and level-headed reviewer of media, lol! Thanks for the ask! I hope this was a useful response, I feel like I blathered about nothing xD

Oh, as a final note, I did think it was annoying that Kizuna pushed the importance of growing and looking forward, not behind... And then Toei immediately rebooted Adventure. I understand that the reboot is likely meant to spread Adventure to the next generation, but... Hey, maybe you should take your own advice, Toei, and try something new???? No????? xD xD xD

[ladyartemesia]

How does one go about making friends?

That’s an interesting question, anon... I suppose it depends on whether you’re talking about on-line or in-person. I can share my experiences with both and hopefully that will provide insight...

(Though I am not really an expert, by any means, I suppose that having friends does make me at least marginally qualified to give advice about it.)

(Also - please assume that any in-person interaction I mention is carried out with ALL appropriate and applicable safety measures in place with regards to the pandemic.)

In-Person

I suppose this sort of friendship could come from school, or church, or on a team, or in a club, or at a party, or any thing where people habitually gather... I usually wait until I hear someone speak on something I know about and then chime in with thoughts and discussion. People like to be listened to. If you want to make friends, try and listen intently (I mean don’t be fake lol but if you are intent on forming a connection then effort is required obviously) and maybe ask questions that will keep them talking (if they seem interested in the topic).

There are often moments that can be shared, like a professor being too hard or some thing silly happening that can be used as conversation starters. Shared micro-experiences like this (and subsequent discussions of them) are excellent building blocks for friendship.

Honestly... being honest about trying to make connections is really good as well. You may feel uncomfortable with that and worry what people think but ... if someone were to say to you, “I would just like to make more friends,” would you look down on them? And if that person does look down on you for this type of honesty... is that really the type of person you want to be friends with anyways? We are social creatures, we should never be ashamed of our desire for connection.

It is important to recognize boundaries in a growing friendship. Adults have many demands on their time and therefore cannot always be available for each other. Respecting this is vital. Empathy in general is vital. This goes for in-person and on-line.

Inviting these individuals to shared experiences is important as well. Come over to play games, let’s go have dinner, let’s just take a walk... etc. It may feel in the beginning like you are initiating all of this, but that is OK seriously, you are the one trying to make the friend after all. My current best friend of 15 years who I would legit charge into a burning building for... she called me every day for weeks. She always asked me to hang out. I was kind of an aspiring hermit at that tender young age, but she was persistent and one day I realized I couldn’t imagine not having her there. Retrospectively I was not pulling my weight in the beginning of our friendship, but she wanted to be my friend so she put in the work. She was my maid of honor. When she struggled with unprecedented challenges after her first child, I took off days of work to be by her side. We have travelled to England and the Bahamas and a ton of states together. Her friendship is one of the most important relationships in my life. I have pulled her back from the edge and she has done the same for me and you don’t get that if someone isn’t willing to put in the work in the beginning. Not everyone is best friend material - it’s true. But some people are.

There is also, I have found, a pervasive habit among humans to seek out a “desirable” friend group. This means completely different things to every person. For some people, they want stereotypical popular friends, for others they want influential friends, for others they want friends who have idealized lifestyles, for others they want friends who have achieved things... Don’t look for anything like this. Look for commonalities instead. We both love BTS. We both love anime. We both love traveling. We both love... whatever. The desirable traits you may be hoping to collect in a friend group are illusions, constructs, and perceptions... They are nothing in the face of one beautiful connection.

On-Line

My closest friends online became my friends when no one read our work (except for Donna, but she is Donna and is therefore the exception to most rules) - as I was saying - we joined a few network and collab chats here and there and shared each other’s stories... We started to talk about our experiences... We bonded over BTS. We talked about fic writers and fics we loved. Eventually we formed our own little server on Discord.

I would definitely recommend joining network chats or joining general discord chats. There are a bunch of them floating around. Kinktae and Gukyi run one of the best ones out there called the BTSSmutHub and it’s fabulous. I have made many friends there. Everyone in there is always willing to talk. They even host game nights and I have so much fun... Truly a lovely group.

Honestly... with Donna ( @taetaewonderland ) - she messaged me and began to talk to me about my work and what she was working on and it grew from there. She was a much bigger blog, but she liked my edits and I liked her.

Ana ( @xjoonchildx ) and Lindy ( @ppersonna ) and I became friends because we were baby blogs with like 7 notes on each of our stories, but we loved each other’s work and we talked to each other about it. No one really reached out to me or wanted to be my friend back then - I had like 6 followers and I’m pretty sure 4 of them were bots... but the three of us would comment on each other’s stuff and share funny memes in our chat boxes and theorize about the drama big blogs that never spoke to us seemed to always post about. We talked about BTS and the content and how our lives were being affected by the pandemic. Donna became friends with Lindy and we merged our little group together.

Those three are special to me. Truly my friends. We have been through things now. Things I never expected, but they remain a constant. We talk every day. The other three are such social butterflies, they have other group chats that they have friends in as well, but I have always been someone who is a little more reserved in general. I love playing in the Smut Hub server now and then and I am close with a few other blogs who I have small chats or small group chats with and I value them so so much. Because... making friends really ISN’T easy. I mentioned those three ladies because they were my very first friends here and they are incredibly close to me still. (Again - to the other blogs I’m close to - I VALUE YOU SO MUCH I AM JUST TALKING ABOUT THESE THREE CAUSE THEY WERE FIRST AND I FEEL LESS SELF-CONSCIOUS ABOUT NAME DROPPING THEM 🙈🙈)

I would really just try and interact with blogs who like the things you like. Ana, Donna, Lindy and I bonded because we loved the same kind of stories... We sent in asks to each other and shared things on each other’s feed or tagged each other in games. We shared authors we liked and BTS moments we couldn’t get enough of...

Way more people know who Donna, and Lindy, and Ana are now... (though people did know Donna already lolz) They are so talented and it was only a matter of time before more people than myself realized that. I’m so proud of what they have achieved, and watching their blogs grow has been so rewarding to me. I’m so glad they put effort into being my friend. I couldn’t give them influence or share their work with a huge audience, but they never cared about that... I wish everyone in the world could find friends like mine. They are one in a billion.

Find someone who will hype you up. If you’re a creator, find someone who will be honest with you about your work, for better or for worse. If you’re just a blog looking to read and make connections then making lists and recs and reviews of great BTS content like gifs, fics, and whatever BTS puts out for us is a great way to start conversations. Don’t be afraid to interact. It is the universal signal that you want connection of some sort. Not everyone will interact back, but that is fine... I only needed one Ana - one Lindy - one Donna... they were more than enough. If someone is willing to interact with you, then they probably want connection too. I’m so glad that those three didn’t look at me and think “she isn’t really a very impressive blog” and just brush me off.

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 5: 3x02 The Enterprise Incident

After several weeks of being in like a TOS desert (Assignment: Earth; Spock’s Brain) finally we get to The Enterprise Incident, one of the best episodes, possibly of all time. Why was D.C. Fontana so good??? How??

McCoy narration! How unusual. I like how it contributes to the generally jarring opening, with Kirk acting so out of character and so on. All of the crew being fooled and the audience too.

I’d say this scene is the only one Kirk haters have ever seen--where he’s all arrogant and impatient and mean--but he’s not being slutty enough.

When you need intel, you go to Uhura.

This is an interesting ep because the Enterprise is being uncharacteristically sneaky. Usually, they’re obviously doing the right thing in the straightforwardly right way, but this really is an espionage mission, which includes, in addition to the garden variety lying, major stuff like uh treaty breaking.

Wow, a Romulan with a name. Unusual. Is he the first named Romulan?

They want the Enterprise. They want his lady!

Hmmm, you have a Vulcan on board, do you? Very interested in that. It’s pretty funny that the Commander calls up as soon as Tal mentions Spock,like she has a sixth sense that picked up on a potential hottie on the enemy ship.

Oh no, Kirk and Spock aren’t getting along. Trouble in paradise...

Spock looks very disapproving. And Kirk is acting downright despotic. Hot.

Imagine being the Romulan hostages lol. That’s awkward. “Go their ship and uh sit in their brig, nbd, we’ll bring you back.” (And then later one of them is unceremoniously stripped naked.) (And then later still they’re completely forgotten about!!!)

Scotty’s face when he sees the hostages is very funny. Like “oh I know what to do with YOU.”

I love the Female Romulan Commander already.

Wow Kirk is such a liar. Just say it loudly enough and it will SEEM true. Navigation error etc.

“It’s no myth that Vulcans can’t lie,” Spock lied.

“It’s not a lie to keep the truth to oneself.” Feel like I gotta outright steal that.

Oooh, the Commander has a temper.

Kirk is “a highly sensitive and emotional person.”

He’s living for the drama.

This must be all very confusing for the crew.

I love Captain Scotty. He’s so intense.

“You make a brave noise.” Burn.

Spock’s been an officer for 18 years. I’d do the math on that but I’m not sure when one becomes an officer specifically.

“Do you like Captain Kirk?” (I don’t even remember why I wrote this down, but uh, yeah.)

...Damn this whole scene is so good.

“I don’t make house calls.”

Except for Kirk.

It’s bizarre that the Romulans are in Klingon ships (that look like Federation ships on the inside) for pretty much no reason but I do like the design of them in general.

Funny how “Attend me” sounds an awful lot like “My wife, attend.”

Lol at the crocheted board shorts on the male Romulan officers. The Commander is MUCH more stylish.

“Are the guards invited on our date?”

“It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable.” What a F L I R T.

Very bold of her to basically declare “Spock, you’re Captain now.”

Kirk looks like the drunk friend, swaying in the background, gearing up to something.

“Vulcan death grip” lol. Sounds like made up Vulcan nonsense to me! (And it is.)

Even if it weren’t, Spock is an adult Vulcan and a trained Starfleet officer, he would never just accidentally death grip someone.

And now it all comes out. Because Chapel was nosy. Love that she just casually knows all this stuff about Vulcan abilities.

They told Bones pretty late about this whole plan. I feel like Scotty and Bones should have been in the original loop.

“You’re lucky they didn’t start an autopsy.”

Love that part of Kirk’s transformation into a Romulan was putting on eye shadow.

Also love Scotty’s face journey when he sees Romulan!Kirk.

Look at these decadent Commander’s quarters. Spock must love them.

Recruiting inducements lol--is that what the kids are calling it these days?

“Don’t beam me into a bulkhead.” Don’t even joke.

Spock hasn’t sent the coordinates because he’s DISTRACTED while on his DATE.

I love their little square drinking glasses.

“I do... appreciate it.”

“If you don’t tell me your name, I’ll have to make one up for you.”

TOS Spock apparently more smooth than AOS Kirk.

When she stood up, that mini-skirt basically became a shirt--barely.

His lady leaves the room and he immediately call his man--what a slut.

The Commander’s “casual” outfit is easily one of the best TOS costumes. So pretty! 10/10 would wear today.

“Stimulate...our discussion.” Sure. Your discussion.

He’s been moved emotionally.

Dammit Tal! Stop cockblocking the commander.

Love how obvious it was that she and Spock were hooking up--she's dressed up, he appears dramatically from behind the flowing white curtains in her frankly huge quarters.

The cloaking device looks suspiciously like Nomad again.

“How could you do this to me?” Girl, you’ve known him for an hour. Calm down the drama.

Also love the earrings.

That was a weak slap. She should have sent him sprawling with her Romulan strength. I guess her heart wasn’t in it.

Romulans are Vulcans but with unfiltered Drama.

I like her jellyfish chair.

Now Spock shall fillibuster his own death by reading a very long prepared statement.

She hears the phrase "historic tradition" and sighs like "this is gonna be the longest 20 minutes of my LIFE.”

Silly of Kirk to assume they wouldn't fire on the commander and/or that she wouldn't ORDER them to fire.

“Alien contraption.” Scotty enjoying himself.

Hmmm, the Commander was bragging to Spock off screen about the cloaking device--what else might she have said that we didn’t hear?

Mr. Spock will escort you to your quarters--more like Mr. Spock will escort you to HIS quarters amirite?

She would like his weaponry.

“Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.” Well that line didn’t have to go that hard.

“It was the only choice. You would not respect any other.” Where’s all the talk about loyalty and oaths now?

“They do not look aesthetically agreeable on humans.” Textual evidence for my theory that Vulcans, though humanoid, have some sort of indescribable Alien Aura quite apart from the eyebrows and ears.

That was such a good ending. Last major dialogue scene was a serious one between Spock and the Commander, but then there’s a little humorous coda, too--a good shot of Spock looking pensive, but also the peanut gallery having a little laugh.

I love that episode so much. I love how... difficult Spock is to read. On the one hand, I do think he was really attracted to the Romulan Commander. I also think he was hiding a lot of the truth about why he didn’t join the Romulans--I mean yes, that was never a real option and it would certainly be wildly out of character for him to do it. But he also talks exclusively about loyalty to Starfleet, his oath, his uniform, as if but for the happenstance of these things, if he were making a decision for himself instead of following his duty, he might prefer to be with her and the Romulans. But what about the obvious other factor--Kirk himself? What about “A starship runs on loyalty to one man, and no one can replace it--or him?” I feel like his connection to Kirk is like the unspoken undertone to all of this. Especially because, as Captain and XO, they were the only ones to know about this plan from the beginning, and probably came up with the details of it themselves. But we also know that Spock takes the mean things that Kirk says to heart, even if they’re only said as part of a mission or larger ploy. And we also know that he truly desires belonging, and that being part one thing and part another often makes him feel as if he belonged nowhere. But the Romulan Commander didn’t seem to care about his human heritage. She asked him what he was, and only mentioned the human part one other time, not in a negative way. I do see the temptation for him.

It’s also interesting that Kirk initially refers to the Commander as “he,” implying he didn’t know specifically who was in charge of the ship. That means that while he and Spock clearly planned for Spock to undermine and then “kill” Kirk, and almost certainly to play on Romulan/Vulcan cultural connections, they probably did not plan on Spock seducing anyone. He did that on his own.

This would reboot so well. Like, aside from the S/U aspects, it’s a perfect candidate: a spy narrative that has a little bit of the gray morality they’re so attached to; Kirk and Spock tension; Kirk being Dramatique; cool aliens--and it would have been very interesting to see this story play out in the context of the destruction of Vulcan. (More generally, I think completely forgetting about the Romulans after the first reboot film was a huge mistake but whatever.)

Mmmm, I just... I want to watch it again lol. D.C. Fontana was truly the queen of alien world building. That sense of alien-ness that I get in the Spock and Commander scenes is like what I’m going for in some of my own stuff.

[bearplush]

I completely agree with your tags on that age/tweet post! I've been watching in disbelief and confusion how this topic came back around and a whole wave of black-and-white polemic opinions suddenly popped up on my dash.. I get that gatekeeping is bad and overgeneralizations as well, but also acting like really young groups will be just as comfortable holding a 20y/o fan's hand at a fansign as a 35+ y/o is just unrealistic... kpop has all sorts of weird dynamics and the labels literally make money off of "selling" their idols as imaginary girlfriends and boyfriends, so seeing older stans step into that dynamic can be strange and should be reflected, but of course of course doesn't have to be inherently "evil"... but also, like, I myself as an early 20s person sometimes feel weird stanning people born after 2000, even if I never saw them as "crush material" anyway, so the point that gets me worried is when fans don't think about/reflect that at all (but that counts for young stans as well, especially such that stan significantly older groups)

exactly!!! maybe the twitter op worded it a bit harshly (although if the person i reblogged the post from is correct then it sounds like it may have been a knee-jerk emotional response, and a totally understandable one at that) but as someone who grew up online in fandom spaces and experienced lots of weird shit from adults firsthand, i really feel like now that i'm the adult i owe it to younger fans to prioritize their safety over my own feelings and imo that means recognizing that it can be uncomfortable for teenage/early 20s fans to see people my age and older being obsessed with teenage/early 20s idols, regardless of whether anything truly creepy is going on or not. also you make a really good point about the bf/gf thing, like take the younger members of wayv for example. even if that's not how i view them (putting aside for a moment the fact that im a lesbian lol), the fact remains that a lot of the content they put out is *designed* for me to view them as like fantasy bfs, so i can easily see how it could lead to a weird dynamic (tbh i usually just ignore it cause im clearly not the target audience lol but still). but yeah the internet can make it really easy to forget that the person on the other side of the screen might be significantly older or younger than you (whether we're talking about an idol or a fellow fan) and while im obviously not saying we can all only interact with people +/-3 years of our own age or whatever i think it's something we do need to keep in mind

ummmm anyway so much for me not wanting to talk about this lol but im glad you saw my point and i hope you're having a good day/night!

[safflowerseason]

You reblogging Gilmore Girls inspired me to go back and watch and now I'm back in my Jess/Rory feels. Ngl, the way they ended up kind of reminds me of how I felt about Dan and Amy's ending in Veep, and the lack of any real sort of closure or resolution to their storyline, even with the entire revival. I'm interested to know your thoughts on the way their story was handled/wrapped up. (Plus side -- my love for Emily Gilmore was revived again, what an icon).

Hi Anon - thanks so much for writing in. I love hearing from other Veep fans who enjoy the same shows I do ☺️ Your ask caused a mini-storm of Rory/Jess reblogs on my end too, lol. And yes, Emily Gilmore is a fucking icon. A tour de force performance. 

What’s interesting about Gilmore Girls for me is that while I do love it a lot and enjoy talking about it and occasionally get in my feels about it, it’s not a show of my heart for me the way Veep and The West Wing are. I probably would not donate money to a political cause in order to watch a GG reunion special, lol. So while I love Rory/Jess very much, I don’t feel psychically wounded by their storyline the way I feel about how Dan and Amy’s storyline was treated. 

For me, Rory and Jess’s final meeting in S6 works as both closure and a form of resolution. It’s a little ambiguous, but there’s pretty definite takeaways: Rory realizes she loves Logan (bleh), they acknowledge their connection anyway, and even though Jess is disappointed, he’s also a real adult about the whole thing. He’s obviously not going to cut Rory out of his life or anything drastic and immature like that.

The revival, in contrast, tosses a firm resolution out the window, but this seem to be ASP’s preferred modus operandi where Rory’s relationships are concerned. It makes clear that that in the last ten years they’ve developed a deep and enduring friendship and that he’s still carrying a torch for her. Is that closure? I think it’s closure in the sense that we’re given all (or nearly all) the facts about where they stand with one another and their relationship is treated very significantly by the show (in other words, there’s no Mandelian gaslighting). We don’t know what’s going to happen with Rory and Jess, but we know their relationship matters, and that they are a major part of one another’s lives. 

In some ways, I think that the “lack of closure” you’re referring to is really just ASP letting Rory and Jess’s profound connection endure in a very realistic way. Two people can have a soul-deep relationship, can even have confused and repressed romantic feelings about one another, and it doesn’t always mean they have to be a) romantically involved or b) fully cut out of one another’s lives. (Okay, this turned into a real essay, so below the cut are my angsty feelings about teenage Rory/Jess, haha).

I tend to get most in my feelings about teenage Rory and Jess, though, because that’s when their dysfunction is on display, and as y’all know, I love me a star-crossed dysfunctional couple who can’t quit each other. And also mostly because the show totally nails the adolescent yearning of their relationship, the almost-grown-up-but-not-quite desire that’s powering their connection. They just want each other so much. And I love the fated sense of doom hanging over their attraction in S2, as they edge around each other. It’s done really lightly and aching, and so pure and bittersweet, you just know this is all going to blow up in everyone’s faces somehow, that both Jess and Rory are going to self-sabotage. (Yes, of course, Jess is objectively more dysfunctional and the dissolution of their relationship is absolutely his fault—he’s barely staying in school, he’s a complete emotional wreck, he strings Rory along, he should not be anyone’s boyfriend. But Rory also has emotional issues that exacerbate things between them.)

I do have a lot of complicated feelings about how Jess is written in S2 and S3. I think Jess is a great character and they got better at writing him overtime, but at first he’s stuck in this kind of cartoonish over-the-top rebellious teen mode, talking like he’s a greaser member of a street gang in the 1950’s, and I think Milo Ventimiglia delivers a lot of those lines way too heavy-handed in the beginning. Whenever he baits Dean in S2, I always cringe a little, partly because everyone is acting so embarrassingly, and partly because, whatever ASP might be wishing, it’s not actually 1952 and no one talks like that. Ventimiglia shines a lot more in his quieter moments with Luke and Rory.

But I also feel that the way the breakdown of their relationship was handled was very…hamfisted. We barely get any Jess and Rory just being Jess and Rory before their relationship starts dissolving before our very eyes. There are some super cute moments sprinkled throughout S3, but they’re all overshadowed by Dean basically muscling in Rory and Jess’s first date or Jess ruining his meeting with Emily or Jess flaking on Rory…so the poignant bittersweet sense from S2 just becomes this impending sense of dread in S3 as we wait for Jess to do something so truly horrible he becomes unsympathetic to the audience. I actually don’t rewatch most of S3 for this reason, but at least it makes his redemption feel earned. I applaud the show for actually bringing Jess back in S4 when his life is still 90% a mess. He’s taken a few baby steps, but it’s realistic about how hard and messy it is to really change your life. Without those messy S4 appearances, his obvious growth in S6 wouldn’t feel nearly so powerful. 

Obviously Rory loses her virginity to Dean and has an affair with him blah blah, but I think her relationship with Jess really represents her loss of innocence as a child. He’s the first person she actively “loses” after her dad. Christopher’s absence is built into Rory—it’s a part of her identity. But Rory loves Jess and loses him even as the purity of their emotional connection is increasingly emphasized over the rest of the series. That loss is foundational for the rest of her relationships—it’s a huge part of why she relapses with Dean and why she finds Logan so appealing, and it’s a huge part of why Rory keeps Jess firmly in the friend box for the rest of the series, even as they connect and reconnect and as Jess grows enough to realize that no dramatic pronouncements of love are going to win Rory over. 

I don’t know. That scene when they’re kissing by the phone box and everything is new and perfect and tender and untouched between them and they’re both just like wow and you just know it can’t stay that way forever. It’s so perfect. It’s the perfect encapsulation of what it’s like to be seventeen and in your first real relationship (and then Rory runs off to apologize to Dean…ugh. Boundaries, Rory!) (also, I do not count Dean as her first real relationship. They're just playacting. Rory only dates Dean because he’s a magazine’s idea of a perfect high school boyfriend. She has nothing in common with him. They spend the entire time fighting about Harvard. Dean sucks.) 

[azaffranist]

To think that Frozen 2 could've been so DARK. You think that kids would be psychologically damaged if Elsa had actually died, having grown emotionally attached to her over the past six years?

First off, sorry about the delay anon! I researched some more information about the topic before tackling this ask.

I was hoping the documentary would maybe give a little insight into this to understand those endings better, but sadly (and unsurprisingly) they didn’t. I wouldn’t expect them to talk about Elsa’s death because that’s scandalous, but at least I expected them to talk about A Place of Our Own, a scene and a concept that got cut late into development. So late, it’s actually in the Frozen 2 artbook. I’m not gonna go full conspiracy theorist because that’s pointless, but we know for sure they decided not to talk about the most controversial topics like Arendelle’s destruction or Hard Nokks. Which is understandable, but I’m not entirely too happy with that, lol.

I actually got new information about F2′s original/early plots. So far, I haven’t been able to find the link to the source (will definitely update the post if I do): allegedly, a storyboard artist called Jeff Ranjo, who also worked in F1, said in an animation symposium around early 2019 that he found the original script of F2 to be so dark that he couldn’t take it anymore and therefore left the team. His name is in the ending credits because he had worked for a while on the movie before quitting.

Jeff Ranjo is not some random dude. Jeff Ranjo is the artist behind pieces such as this. I’m sure everyone recognizes this unique artstyle.

Nevertheless, I haven’t found the source. It’s not easy to, because I’m not sure what animation symposium it was. There’s tons of them, and it’s something that he happened to mention, as it wasn’t focused on Frozen 2. So we’ll take this for now with a grain of salt, and I hope to update in the future if this is confirmed real or not.

But - it is good to consider when we’re talking about this, and it ties in with what we’ve talked about. Frozen 2′s original plot most likely was, according to multiple sources not related to each other, dark. And we know why. 

As for your question (wow that took a long time!) I’m glad you asked it because it’s something that we haven’t discussed much. I think it would’ve simply been devastating. For a multitude of reasons. Something to note before going into detail, though, is to establish what we mean by “Elsa’s death” - some of the information we got points to her dying but in some versions, her presence would still be represented by the Unity Snowflake (with a chance to come back in a third movie). I don’t know what you guys think but that doesn’t scream “alive” to me. That’s... kind of dead with a touch of magic. So keep that in mind when I’m talking about dead Elsas.

Kids wouldn’t have taken it well. Most adults would’ve sort of... accepted it. But I know we as fans wouldn’t have taken it well, either. These characters are important to us. They’re role models. They represent the struggle many of us have gone through. And Elsa is one of the most relevant characters when it comes to that. Her powers in the first movie resonated with all sorts of people, because at the end of the day, they were a metaphor that we were free to interpret however we want. Mental illness, queerness, disability, being “different” - you name it. What’s vital is that because of this, all sorts of people connected with Elsa. And seeing her die would’ve hurt. A lot.

And well, it’s obvious that kids would’ve been deeply hurt by this. The younger audience already didn’t enjoy Elsa vs Nokk. They didn’t like at all when Elsa froze. And something interesting to note, the final version toned this all down a little bit. Elsa’s freezing and thawing was originally accompanied by a much, much sadder soundtrack. They removed Elsa’s last breath, maybe in an attempt to make her death feel less “final”. We know shots in the Dark Sea fight were cut and this is painfully apparent in the last movie. Here’s what I’m talking about.

So, if the movie was modified down to removing Elsa’s last breath as to not upset kids (kids were, unsurprisingly, still upset by it) just imagine what would’ve happened if Elsa didn’t come back. Sure, apparently there was gonna be a snowflake, but... that doesn’t scream alive to me, again.

The merch would’ve flopped. What kid would want the doll of a dead character for Christmas? And we’re sleeping on the fact that Olaf was not gonna come back as a consequence, either. In terms of popularity with kids, Elsa is obviously number one, especially among girls. Olaf is number two, and boys’ favorite.

So, yes. It would’ve been devastating. If Anna had died in F1, while it would’ve hurt lots, it wouldn’t have hurt as much, because it’s the first movie of a franchise that’s just starting out. But F2 is the sequel to a movie that was showered in love and that received 2 shorts thanks to its popularity. As you said, kids (and adults too!) got attached to these characters over the span of six years. And to see them die would’ve been soul crushing. I know plenty of kids would’ve grieved them as if they were a real person. In fact, I would have too.

Were they gonna die, like, absolutely, 100% permanently, and not come back ever? No, I don’t think so. In fact they were probably setting up F3. Yes, it’s true it wasn’t gonna happen right after F2 - but after F2′s huge monetary success, I’m not afraid to say that I would see it happening soon. 2 years from now, 3, 4 even. But definitely not six. The reason F2 took so long is because F1 was supposed to be standalone movie, but it was so well received it got a sequel. That’s how things work in this world. If it brings money, Disney will try to milk it.

But that doesn’t change the fact F2 seemed like it was gonna end with a not-very-alive Elsa and a definitely-dead Olaf. This would’ve led to people being furious, sad, but I don’t doubt some would sort of like it for being different. What I think, though, is that because this ending seemed to be planned with much more anticipation, the plot’s quality would’ve been better. That’s something you just sort of deduce by logic, honestly.

Elsa and Olaf dying would’ve hurt people. I really wish to know exactly how it went, because execution matters. Some things sound one way on paper but feel completely different onscreen because of the execution. And I hope we learn the truth one day.

[fairycosmos]

☕@anon r u seriously saying there's no difference between anime and western cartoons and kpop and western pop music other than their country of origin? u must be joking..... like do u know absolutely nothing about these genres or r u purposely trying to ignore the very prominent differences between them and western media to fit your cold ass take? Yes a fetishization problem exists in these communities but not every person who calls themselves a kpop/anime fan is inherently a fetishizer (1)

(2)example: The majority of western adult cartoons fall under the comedy&satire categories. Shows like south park &big mouth don't care for linear story lines or animation quality &visual presentation- on the contrary, the ugly-looking designs r even part of the gag. Meanwhile in anime there r shows from all genres, &the visual aspects r way more significant in that industry.. Acting as if ea have nothing to bring to the table other than being ea is what's racist, not calling urself an anime fan

lol im just going to post your response without too much commentary bc obviously you're not talking to me but yeah idk lol.....personally i got the impression they were just speaking as someone who isn't really involved with kpop or anime. i think it's not really a black n white thing, n that issues like fetishization are dependent on the individual and how they consume that sort of content - not the groups as a whole. n i can totally see how different art styles n forms of expression in asian media compared to western media attracts an international audience ! thank u for sharing ur prerogative 💖

[marchivists]

not the place to fall in love: chapter one

read on ao3! [i didn’t format anything below the “keep reading”, so it’ll probably be easier to read on ao3]

Iwaizumi was stuck, perhaps perpetually, on level fifteen of Candy Crush.

Once, as a child, he’d dedicated an entire afternoon to climbing an unclimbable tree in his backyard. He’d grown quite a bit since then and a lot had changed, but the addicting taste of chasing a difficult victory bubbled in his stomach now just as it had under that tall tree so many years ago. The stakes were higher than they probably seemed from the outside; Iwaizumi’s honor waited at the finish line and his pride danced around the colorful screen, following his finger as it swiped left and right, up and down.

He’d had an audience that afternoon by the tree and he had the same one now. Oikawa leaned against Iwaizumi’s side, head resting on his shoulder. He seemed to understand how much rode on Iwaizumi’s performance; he oohed and aahed over each move, offering words of encouragement and advice which Iwaizumi would rather have done without.

Though Iwaizumi didn’t realize it in any way that he could express with words, a bubble of sorts had formed around the pair, as it often did when they were together. Passerbys skirted around it without consciously deciding to do so, as if they too understood on some unspeakable level that Oikawa and Iwaizumi, or more accurately, OikawaandIwaizumi, lived slightly apart from everyone else. Outside the borders of the bubble, the airport waiting area produced airport noises. Hidden speakers made booming announcements, feet clicked and clacked towards unknown destinations, babies voiced their dislike for the whole business of airports, and adults coughed and sniffed as they waited for time to pass and flights to arrive. Oikawa and Iwaizumi had claimed a corner of the airport waiting area, opting to relax picnic-style on the floor instead of in two of the many empty chairs nearby.

Iwaizumi made one final swipe before slumping against the wall in despair. You failed! flashed across his phone in bright colors.

“Ah well,” Oikawa sighed, giving Iwaizumi two pats on the shoulder. He slunk down too, crossing his legs and resting folded hands on his lap. “I’m pretty sure only old people are good at that game anyway.”

Iwaizumi glared. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, no. Just an observation. I can try again though if consolation is what you’re looking for.”

“Go for it.”

“Gimme a minute,” Oikawa looked up at the ceiling as though his thoughts were stuck to the plaster. “Alright. I’m pretty sure old people are terrible at Candy Crush.”

“I think you’re missing the point.”

“On the contrary, I’ve found the point. See, I’ve always suspected my Iwa-chan was secretly a grumpy old man in disguise,” he sighed dismissively, as though the thought was almost too disheartening to address. “I just wish you would have told me beforehand. Your tickets would have been so much cheaper.”

“I think sitting here has made you stupider than usual.” Iwaizumi elbowed his setter, and, ignoring Oikawa’s protests at being treated so unfairly, moved to put his phone in his pocket. He hoped the turn of his shoulder was enough to hide his blush at being called “my Iwa-chan,” or that, at the very least, Oikawa had lost at least fifty percent of his perceptive abilities after being trapped in an airport with no stimulation for so long.

Iwaizumi had always loved airports. They were big, loud, and full of hope and potential: the kind of place that, as a kid, you’d long to sprint through at full speed without consequences.

Oikawa had always hated them. Iwaizumi could see that hatred now that neither of them were distracted. It bled from the way Oikawa scanned the crowd of unfamiliar faces around them, the way his rigid shoulders and stone-statue-posture screamed I am untouchable. It was obviously convincing, as anyone searching for spaces to camp out on the floor scurried elsewhere when their eyes reached Oikawa’s proud, rigid form. The fear and hatred made Iwaizumi want to grab Oikawa’s hand, but for the moment he wasn’t sure if the untouchable part applied to best friends or not.

He checked his watch. They had an hour or so before their flight would be ready to board. Despite his aversion to the place, Oikawa had insisted on arriving unnaturally early, and Iwaizumi had complied with minimal complaint.

Oikawa mirrored Iwaizumi and glanced at his own watch. “Do you think we’ll be late?”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “Only if it takes us an hour to walk ten meters.”

Oikawa huffed. Iwaizumi took out his phone again.

For the next fifteen minutes, their bubble was uncharacteristically quiet. Iwaizumi resisted the urge to perform a victory dance after reaching level sixteen. An incoming text momentarily stopped him from lining up five purple gummies.

From: you know who it is

         iwa-chan~~

Iwaizumi swiped the notification away and watched with satisfaction as the five gummies disappeared. Level seventeen.

From: you know who it is

    i can see ur phone from here :3 congrats on leveling up, old man iwa-chan

Iwaizumi flipped Oikawa off without taking his eyes from his screen, missing the strained smile he received in return. There was more silence. Level eighteen, then one more. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. He reached level thirty before receiving another text.

From: you know who it is

            you know, there’s an 86% chance we’ll both die if the plane crashes

That got his attention. He turned to look at Oikawa, who sat scrolling through his phone, expression casual and bored, as though he’d run out of things to like on Instagram and was most definitely not worrying about dying in a plane crash.

Iwaizumi had prepared for this moment. Oikawa’s anxiety was a vigilant companion; it never took a day off and spent most of its time searching for something new to latch onto which it could then suck the rationality and safety out of. In the past, it had made the setter afraid of coughing fits, books with an odd number of pages, eating out in public places, opened drawers, and rooms with too many people in them. Comparatively, flying was an easy thing to demonize. To ward off any excess fear, Iwaizumi had scoured over research and data on plane safety, committing them to memory in case they were needed. He’d tried to put himself in Oikawa’s shoes, tried to image how anxiety would twist the safety of air travel into something horrible. He had imagined dramatic explosions, smoke pouring out of engines and catching flame. He had armed himself with information contradicting these imaginings, just in case Oikawa needed it. He opened his mouth to say something about how their chances of dying were one in seven million when his phone, practically forgotten in his hands, dinged again.

From: you know who it is

      maybe we should go home. lol

Iwaizumi put his phone away. He scooted away from the wall until they sat close together, knees touching. He poked the setter’s leg. “Oikawa.”

Oikawa continued staring down at his phone.

Iwaizumi sighed. “Tell me the stats for getting into your school. For getting into the volleyball program there.”

Oikawa shrugged dismissively, like someone who hates bragging but can’t tell the truth without unwittingly doing so. The movement made Iwaizumi want to headbutt him.

“Only three percent of the applicants get in, remember? Three percent.”

“I know that.”

“Then tell me, why should we go home when our chances of dying are dozens of decimal points below that percentage?”

Oikawa looked up and his eyes were wide with questions he probably didn’t want answered.

Aren’t you scared, too? Yes, Iwaizumi wanted to respond, but not of the same things you are.

What if they just send me back? What’s the point?

Iwaizumi’s own eyes were impenetrable and knowing. He stared back, hoping he managed to get his own silent message across. You are amazing. You deserve this chance.

A few long seconds passed before Oikawa broke their staring contest, eyes jumping over stranger’s faces, presumably to see if anyone had noticed his sudden break in character. “I suppose I can endure the devastatingly long flight. Even though it will be practically unbearable sitting next to a brute like yourself.”

“Good.” Iwaizumi cleared his throat and moved back to his original spot. He looked Oikawa over, relaxing at the way his posture was no longer screaming as much as it was talking. The setter waved to a baby sitting with its mother a few feet away and earned tiny smiles from both parties in return, mother and child hopelessly charmed by his easy smile and fluid movements.

Iwaizumi was charmed, too, and had always been. He was amazed by Oikawa’s ability to quickly recover from anything, to go from scrambling to find purchase in reality to storming forward with quick, confident steps. For the second time that day Iwaizumi felt the urge to take his hand.

He stopped himself, running his hand through his hair to chase the feeling away. He’d sworn to himself, and to Hanamaki and Matsukawa, that he would not come back to Japan without confessing someway, somehow. A crowded airport didn’t seem like the proper place and right before a fifteen-hour flight didn’t seem like the right time.

He didn’t expect the feelings to be reciprocated. They’d been best friends for so long that it almost felt impossible to make the trek from platonic intimacy to the romantic kinds without falling off the edge somewhere in-between. Besides, Oikawa had received so many confessions from so many people, each much better than Iwaizumi in every respect. And he had rejected each one with a sad, polite smile and a few empathetic words of kindness. It’s the moments after that Iwaizumi feared the most, the switch from being someone Oikawa didn’t have to handle with intentional delicacy to someone on the receiving end of pity and a false smile. The gap the truth might create between them, the spacing out of OikawaandIwaizumi, made him want to run home and crawl between the sheets of his bed and never come out again. But, Iwaizumi Hajime hated cowards and liars more than most anything and he had felt like both for far too long. In a way, he imagined spilling his feelings would work like a sort of redemption. He could reclaim his dignity, live without fear, and push Oikawa Tooru away forever. He hoped to minimize the force and longevity of the last part with distance and time; perhaps, with thousands of miles between them, Iwaizumi could move on or Oikawa could learn to live and forget and things would return to normal. Maybe. Hopefully. Whatever the outcome, Iwaizumi would not let Oikawa go without telling him everything. As long as he didn’t have to sit next to his rejector for fifteen miserable hours, everything would be fine. Probably.

Minutes ticked by in comfortable silence and Iwaizumi reached level thirty-one. Oikawa stood, stretched, and announced his decision to mark the momentous occasion with a trip to the bathroom.

Iwaizumi slid a red jellybean to the right. “I’ll watch our stuff.”

“No, no,” Oikawa hummed, pulling Iwaizumi’s phone from his hands and putting it in the pocket of his jeans. “You have to come with me, Iwa-chan. It’s boring doing it alone.”

“Do you think you could sound more perverted if you tried?”

Oikawa stuck out his tongue. “So immature,” he held out a hand to pull Iwaizumi up and dragged him over to the woman with the baby. “Excuse me, do you mind watching our stuff for a moment?”

The woman assured them she could and the baby babbled pleasantly in agreement.

For reasons only his heart could explain, Iwaizumi allowed himself to be pulled across the airport into the bathroom. He only half listened to Oikawa’s chatter as they went, hearing bits and pieces about the memes Hanamaki kept sending him, and doesn’t that lady right there look ridiculous in those clown shoes? Iwaizumi focused most of his attention on the firm warmth of Oikawa’s hand in his own, the way stranger’s eyes glanced over them and flashed with assumptions Iwaizumi could only wish were true. And then, too suddenly for Iwaizumi to keep up with, Oikawa stopped moving.

Iwaizumi collided into him with a grunt. He moved to get a good look at Oikawa’s face, scold and insult primed on the tip of his tongue, just to balk at the painful grimace he found there. He followed Oikawa’s shell-shocked gaze to see Ushijima Wakatoshi standing in front of one of the urinals, doing what one does in a bathroom. His gaze was firmly settled downwards and their entranced hadn’t seemed to break his concentration. Iwaizumi blinked a few times to prove his eyes were really seeing what they said they were before turning to try to share a silent conversation with Oikawa, to ask what the hell? and set up a game plan.

Should they confront him, tease the shit out of him (no pun intended)? Should they walk out and go about their day, knowing that, at any moment, they could run into the second most repulsive person on the planet? Should they pull down his pants and leave him stranded, alone in the bright white airport bathroom? But Oikawa was staring at Ushijima and seemed too busy having a silent conversation with himself to worry about Iwaizumi.

The next few seconds moved like solidified grease making its way into the trash: very slowly, with moments of gag inducing repulsion and general disgust. Finally, Ushijima zipped up his pants. Oikawa tensed, squeezing Iwaizumi’s wrist. He was trying to communicate something, surely, but Iwaizumi wasn’t given enough time to decipher the message before Oikawa flew into action, turning around sharply. Iwaizumi stumbled over his feet, shoes squeaking as Oikawa practically pulled him out of the door. Oikawa flipped the light switch just as they hit the exit and the bathroom flooded with black.

“Holy shit,” Iwaizumi hissed as the door closed behind him, leaving Ushijima trapped in the dark.

Oikawa continued to pull him forward, heading in the direction of their belongings. His voice was hoarse with nerves and conspiracy. “What the fuck, Iwa-chan?”

There had existed an unspoken truth between them that the airport represented a doorway to another universe. When they’d bought their plane tickets and printed boarding passes, they’d solidified the plan to leave their old world behind in favor of something new and unknown. When they’d stepped foot in the airport, they’d left the past waiting at the doorway. And when they finally boarded the plane, the world they’d shared together for so long would disappear like leaves scattering in the wind. Despite the existence of this truth, a piece of their past seemed to have crossed the threshold with them. And it was not a piece either of them would have chosen to pack in their carry-ons.

They arrived back at their luggage in record time. Oikawa sat up their suitcases, forming a barrier between them and the rest of the airport. He squatted behind it, only the top of his head visible as he scanned the waiting area. Iwaizumi joined him just as Ushijima walked out of the bathroom.

“He’s hideous,” Oikawa whispered. Iwaizumi nodded in agreement. They watched with horror as Ushijima made his way towards them, closer and closer to the bubble they’d created.

“Holy shit,” Oikawa wheezed. The shocking boyish-ness of the sound pulled all the dramatic tension from the air. Oikawa’s eyes shone with delight and repulsion. “Iwa-chan, oh my god. Look, look! He’s wearing crocs.”

Iwaizumi looked and saw that it was so. The shoes, bright purple, looked out of place in the stainless-steel backdrop of the airport.

“Holy shit,” Iwaizumi breathed. Oikawa couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stop wheezing, and Iwaizumi felt compelled to cover the setter’s mouth with his hands as Ushijima sat in a seat only feet away from their hiding spot. Iwaizumi stared at Oikawa and Oikawa, trapped in place behind Iwaizumi’s hands, was forced to stare back.

“What do we do?” Iwaizumi whispered. Oikawa shrugged. “He’s right there.”

Oikawa made some muffled attempts at forming words behind Iwaizumi’s hand before Iwaizumi set him free. “We could go get some plastic knives from the cafeteria. There are plenty of places to hide a body in an airport. Probably.”

“You’re a really shitty guy, you know that right?,” Iwaizumi chastised, voice slipping from a whisper back to it’s normal volume. Oikawa, returning the favor from earlier, used both hands to cover Iwaizumi’s mouth with a loud shush! Iwaizumi licked them in retaliation. Oikawa screeched as he pulled his hands back to furiously wipe them on his pants.

The arrival of a third party popped the bubble. Ushijima’s form towered over them. “Oikawa.”

Iwaizumi and Oikawa shared a look. Yikes.

“Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa replied, voice cool and detached. Teenage, boyish, silly Oikawa had waved sayonara and disappeared in half a second, leaving confident, collected, not-a-genius Oikawa in his place. He did not dignify Ushijima’s arrival by getting up, but instead fell back on his hands and looked up, like a beachgoer relaxing in the sand and staring with distaste at the hot sky above. He waited in silence, inviting Ushijima to continue.

Ushijima looked between the pair for a moment before clearing his throat. “I would refrain from using the restroom. The lights do not work.”

“Or maybe you just really suck at going to the bathroom,” Oikawa sneered, voice laced with so much poison it almost seemed as though he was wielding a dagger instead of a flimsy, pitiful excuse of an insult.

Ushijima stared. “I don’t think that is the case.”

For another long, uncomfortable eternity, the three shared the same air in dumb silence. To Iwaizumi, it seemed like Oikawa was drawing Ushijima into a silent dueling match and was waiting for his opponent to make the next move. It also seemed like Ushijima had no clue he was a participant in any kind of match, nor that there was a need to host one in the first place. When enough time had passed for Iwaizumi’s legs to start cramping, Ushijima nodded a sudden goodbye and left.

The pair sat in stunned quiet for a moment before Iwaizumi looked Oikawa over and rolled his eyes. “Real smooth, captain.”

Oikawa sucked in a breath of fast, disapproving air. “I pity the person,” he started, standing up and offering Iwaizumi his hand. His posture screamed I am a weapon. Do not touch. “who has to sit next to that on a plane.”

Iwaizumi grabbed Oikawa’s hand without question. “And you thought you had it rough sitting next to me.”

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Ouroboros

Ouroboros is a fitting title for this episode.  Not because it has a snake-creature.  Not because of the symbolism of unity or the cycle of life and death.  No, in the sense that it's such a clear, contained example of how Dabbernatural is eating itself to death through the writers' absolute incompetence at telling a compelling, coherent story.  Or perhaps it’s in the sense of being a never-ending circle of making the same exact mistake over again: Supernatural is the Winchesters' story; making them incompetent fools to highlight your nonentity OCs is always going to read badly to a large portion of your audience.

It starts out okay.  The previously seems really overlong here and I do have to wonder if they think our memories of what’s previously happened are as shit as theirs.  The episode itself, however, begins well enough with a mysterious cold open involving a MotW who has really creepy new powers.  Okay, cool!  

Except instead of actually being hunted by Sam and Dean, literally everybody is along on this fucking hunt. Remember when Sam and Dean were allowed to be competent enough to track and kill a MotW themselves, because the writers knew they were meant to be clever, resourceful, and good at their job?  Best hunters in the world?  LOL. 

Now not only do they have to drag Castiel and Jack along, fucking Rowena has joined the Hunters R Us club.  Like, I love Rowena, but COME ON.  Which doesn't even address how later in the episode, Sam can't even do his own fucking research – they call it out to fucking Maggie!  Then Sam & Dean and Jack & Cas ALL get their asses absolutely handed to them … by some random one off MotW that we're not told any reason to expect has major fighting skills.  Unlike all the things they've beaten which literally did.  COME THE FUCK ON. 

What do the Winchesters actually get to accomplish in this episode of their own goddamn show other than exist onscreen to con us into watching the Dabbernatural Gary Stu drama hour? 

Blah blah blah, interlude of characters reminding us about Dean having Michael in his head interspersed with oh no, poor sad beige woobie still has magic consumption.  [Insert totes concerned hand-wringing here, or don't, because LOL, so over it.]  The most charitable thing I can say about it is that presumably Dean talks to Castiel about the box plan again here because Castiel will actually go through with it, unlike Sam. 

Also, I'm not a vet or any kind of medical professional, but when they needed to get some antivenom, my immediate thought was, “Wait, what kind?”  I figured maybe I was wrong because surely the writers would do the bare minimum of research, but apparently not, as Wikipedia does seem to corroborate that “the specific antivenom needed depends on the species involved”.  Pretty sure that their local vet's office doesn't have Gorgon antivenom.  Even if Rowena’s magic is involved, if she can just make it magically the right thing, why on Earth would they actually even need any kind of antivenom in the first place?  Or not at least talk about getting a specific kind so it doesn’t look like they’ve got no idea what they’re on about?  As such, I can’t see this as anything but the writers yet again not bothering to put in the basic minimum of care to explain how this thing that obviously shouldn't work will now work for reasons.

I did genuinely like Sam and Rowena's playacting in the vet office, that was great!  Even Jack getting turned into a dog to lift the non-magical magical cure-all antivenom was fun. As well as Rowena chiding Sam about how what they're doing with Jack is doing exactly what she would – as she was until recently a villain. (Although again, putting aside why, if Rowena is their fucking hunting buddy buddy now, why exactly they aren't telling her what's up with Jack.  Seriously, why?)  Unsurprising that what I think actually works briefly in this episode is the character interactions powered by the skill and charisma of the actors, not anything the writers are doing.

Which brings us back to what Dabb didn't learn from Wayward: making the Winchesters (and Cas) entirely incompetent and helpless to facilitate ludicrously endowed super!kids like Jack stealing the show is insulting enough when it happens with the Gorgon, but it is straight out infuriating as the end of the whole AU!Michael arc.  Seriously, I do not get this fetish of his.

Before getting more into that, as an aside, does it matter if Cas can breathe?  I don't mean that in a “Die, Cas, die!” way, either.  I mean, he's literally an angel in a human suit, even if he's paralyzed by the thing's venom (which I'll accept that the creature can't see him but its venom still works on him because the body is more or less human {sort of, considering it's been turned into a specially constructed vessel made to break all the angel rules for reasons [to not have a supposed good guy holding a human soul permanently hostage and that whole dumb special-vessels-lol-what Lucifer interlude]}) does it really matter? Especially in that moment?  Like, if he's angel enough that the monster can't see him, he should be angel enough that mundane damage to a vessel should be nothing more than an inconvenience.  Castiel is exactly as human or angels as the writers need in at any given second. 

Speaking of which - Jack freaking out over it is another instance where he's dumb as an infant or competent as a trained adult from second-to-fucking-second to facilitate what passes for a plot, because Dabb & Co. apparently got bored and decided they'd rather go back to another round of What's Wrong With Jack, You Should Totally Care! rather than actually write a coherent story around AU!Michael.  This infant/adult thing comes up again during the conversation with Cas about humans ultimately dying where Jack suddenly doesn't get death.  Even though we had that whole. long. thing. about Jack wanting to know about his mother and talking to that therapist and her parents about her and seeing her in heaven?  Yet now we're back to LOL what is death??  Maybe angels or part angels are literally incapable of learning anything.  It would explain a lot about both Jack and Cas in recent years. 

Also, I take back the points I mentally rewarded at the beginning of the episode for actually involving a new monster taken from mythology.  It was at this point when we see that Jack kept the snake that I recalled spoilers about what happens to it and I became suspicious that literally the only reason they went to the trouble was to give Jack a pet that wasn’t cuddly enough that the audience would turn on him if he does something to it.  I don’t mind planning ahead, but when the monster hunt was such a manufactured clusterfuck of stupid and the ultimate purpose of it seems this transparent?  Sigh.

Oh noes, what if Dean doesn't wake up!? Well, for one thing, he'd be spared continuing to exist in this shitty parody of the SPN universe, so, I'm kinda thinking that might actually be a win...

Speaking of the writers just railroading the characters in random directions to get wherever they want to go regardless?  Cas's ability to heal is useless again, because of course it is.  Somehow a physical head wound is complicated by archangel possession, because sure, why the fuck not? Remember when angel powers weren't a fucking joke, as useful as a knife without the blade?  Honestly, I might even accept that another angel was unable to do anything to a human who was playing vessel to a different angel if this wasn’t just one more in a string of so. fucking. many. instances of angel powers transparently and ludicrously existing or not exactly where the “plot” decrees they do.

Likewise, Rowena, the totally most powerful witch ever?  Shrug, she can do nothing.  Except, it turns out, get handed an idiot ball to make this railroading keep going on the same dumb track.  Welcome to the club, Rowena, enjoy being half as competent as ever you were (or less!) now that you're an ally.  Again, vessel rules?  What vessel rules?  Any old archangel can just pop into any old person they want to, don'tchaknow?  Not to mention how goddamn fucking stupid Rowena would have to be to let Michael in so he “doesn't harm anyone in the bunker”.  Are you fucking kidding me?  The only thing letting him possess her is going to do is give him immediate faster access inside the bunker without any chance to prepare for his attempting to kill all the people he definitely intends to kill.  Not to mention that they turned Rowena from completely self-involved to brainlessly selfless in this episode, suddenly, because because as if nothing exists in-between.  This literally happens because the show decided it was bored and uninterested in Michael after half-heartedly playing with the character for half a season so it chopped everyone's brains out, including their own, to make him go away.  I just cannot see any other explanation for Rowena both being that dead stupid and conveniently being able to house Michael. 

The only worthwhile thing in this episode is the good riddance to bad rubbish of all the AU!hunters in the bunker finally getting wiped out.  That the show actually expects me to be in any way upset by a bunch of people who don't even fucking have names and just keep milling around in the background taking up space biting it?  Aside, from, of course, another Dabbernatural-style cardboard sue like Maggie who went from not even knowing how to hold a weapon to being the goddamn leader in a handful of episodes?  Presumably because the Winchesters are?  Yeah, no.

Even though when he actually had his powers it wasn't a foregone conclusion that Jack could effectively take on Michael?  Now that Jack doesn't have his powers, suddenly he can burn up his soul and just completely overpower Michael with the total McGuffiness of his existence for reasons.  If doing that is so powerful, and we’re stuck with this retcon about divisible souls, why can’t any old angel just burn out their vessel’s soul to get super-powered magic?  If the powers that any individual or item has have no logical consistency, and every new idea that pops into what passes for the writer’s brains is introduced as TEH MOST POWERFUL EVAH?  No conflict over supernatural powers in this show can have any legitimate narrative weight.  If the audience can’t adequately gauge the threat, it all becomes a muddle of random events that happen rather than a coherent story we can actually invest in caring about.

Look, I’m not saying that no Supernatural plot before the current era was resolved by McGuffins or random powers.  The issue here is the general issue with their use in Dabb’s era.  Jack doesn't have to work for it.  He doesn't have to figure out some complicated way to boost his powers to make it work against the most powerful archangel.   There’s no buildup for us to invest in.   There’s no sense of the characters actually working at an obstacle and earning a victory.  He's just suddenly handed this level of power to make it happen right now, at this arbitrary moment, because the show decided it was done with this arc now and could not be fucking bothered.  It makes no sense with anything we’ve been shown about the characters' powers, it makes no sense for the story actually feeling like the characters are meaningfully accomplishing anything by their legitimate merits.  It sure as fuck makes no sense for the lore.  That whole thing with Billy's books they've been harping on and on about as TEH ONLY WAY?  Which Rowena even calls back to this episode?  Nah, nevermind, tossed out the fucking window without even a goddamn handwave.  

Seriously, the Michael arc is not resolved here because the Winchesters outsmarted destiny again, or that they found some way to cleverly subvert it.  It’s not even that they worked to find a solution and finally the work paid off by them coming across something suspiciously perfect.  It’s that they waffled around for several episodes being dramatic and making literally no progress until Dabb & Co. arbitrarily and literally handed the power to end the arc to their pet joke fake!Winchester “son” because they did not care.  And yet they expect us in the audience to continue to care, even though I can not think of any other development in any other professional media I have ever consumed that was as unsatisfying and honestly infuriating as this pile of haphazard bullshit.

[nadziejastar]

It's sort of amazing the difference between the fan interpretation of RAX and how they interact in canon. In Days they're super dysfunctional, border on being toxic, and their friendship was unsustainable from the start even if they didn't realize it. In fanon they're a picture perfect family who can never be torn apart. And the KH3 went with the fan interpretation instead of acknowledging any of their issues.

I totally agree. I think the reason is that the fandom tends to be very young. It’s a big reason why Akuroku became so popular, IMO. Young teens tend to misinterpret unhealthy obsession (like Axel’s) as romance and true love. And the Sea-Salt Trio’s dysfunction also was also overlooked in a similar manner.

I gotta be honest. I feel pretty uncomfortable with the general interpretation of the Sea-Salt Trio in this fandom. It’s just so bizarre to me how Roxas and Xion’s friendship with Axel was put on such a pedestal and how his relationship with Isa was pretty much ignored by almost everyone. It’s just…amazingly unrealistic if you think about it. I think it’s a testament to how young the fans are, in general.

Axel’s relationships truly aggravate me, because he was written a LOT differently than Sora or other simplistic characters. I know that the target demographic for Kingdom Hearts is pretty young. And in the end, I think Axel’s character was a victim of that. Nomura tried to write him very authentically at first.

But his characterization was dumbed down to fit in with a largely tween/teen audience and their preferences. I don’t say that to be disparaging to younger fans or anything. But, had KH3 not been a Disney property, and had it been targeted to a slightly older audience, I think Axel and his relationships would have been handled a LOT differently.

I definitely think the Sea-Salt Trio was VERY misunderstood by the fandom. Axel has known Saïx for at least 10 years. Probably more. Even before their backstory was explained, you could tell they have been through hell together in the organization, without anyone else to trust besides each other. Axel was willing to do all of his dirty work. 

Then Axel meets Roxas and Xion. Two kids who—let’s be honest—are about on the level of your average fifth grader. Not a bad thing. They’re just very naive and childlike and he obviously can’t be 100% himself around them. Do people really think Axel is gonna replace his best friend so easily with two kids he’s known for less than a year? Apparently, yes. Let’s look how absurd it is.

Day 75

Inseparable

The Genie we met in Agrabah said he and his friend Al are "inseparable." Axel told us best friends can be inseparable even if they're not always together, but it sounded like he wasn't too sure about it himself. I thought Axel knew everything. Oh well...

At this point, Axel spent quite a while at Castle Oblivion. He hasn’t even gotten to know Roxas that well, and he’s only known Xion for a few days. It’s totally realistic that he’d say he doesn’t have a best friend. He sounds like he knows what it’s like to have a best friend, though. He just doesn’t have one anymore.

Day 96

Roxas: I just…want these days to last forever. Hanging out, the ice cream, the sunsets…

Axel: Nothing lasts forever, man. Least of all for a bunch of Nobodies. But you know, we’ll still have each other…even if things change and we can’t do this anymore.

Roxas: Yeah?

Axel: As long as we remember each other, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?

Roxas: Ha ha, wow, Axel. That sounded ridiculous.

Axel: What? I thought it was pretty deep.

Not even two weeks later, he’s acting all touchy-feely about the time they spend hanging out together. Roxas and Xion make fun of him because even they know they’re not really that close, lol. They hardly know each other at this point. If you read between the lines, you could tell that he was thinking about Saïx here, too.

Friends

Author: Axel

I feel like I’ve been spending more time talking to Roxas and Xion lately than my old friend, Saïx. This has to have been what it was like, friendship.

But if that wasn’t obvious enough, the report clears up all doubt. He WAS thinking about Saïx. The message I got was: Lea and Isa had a very close relationship as humans. They were the ones who were really inseparable. 

Axel misses that and, the more he remembers it, is desperate to fill the void. Every time he mentions “best friends,” it relates back to this. But this concept went “whoosh” over 90% of the fandom’s head. It baffles me. I really just don’t get it. Again, I have to think it’s due to the fact that this series skews really young. 

Day 118

You Changed, Not Me

Author: Axel

Talking to Roxas and Xion always brings back memories of my human life, back when I was a kid. It’s a weird sensation. I ought to be able to share all this with Saïx, but I just don’t feel like it anymore. It’s strange, but I’m content with just missing what’s gone. I’m not the one who changed. You did.

Anyways. Three weeks later. Axel is very hung up on the past. He sounds like a heartbroken lover (because that’s exactly what he is, if you ask me). The reason Axel spends so much time with Roxas and Xion is because Isa changed.

Day 150

Too Precious to Lose

Axel and I talked for a while about the things we can’t bear to lose. Axel thinks that for Nobodies, it’s our pasts, because that’s all we have to remember the pain of losing something. I don’t remember my past, but the idea of losing the present–Axel or Xion–scares me.

A month later. Axel comes back from Castle Oblivion yet again, and he’s even more nostalgic for the past than last time. I bet Axel’s time at C.O was gonna be featured as a blank period in BBSV2. But whatever. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing his memories of the past.

The reason Axel treasured his memories so much was because it’s all he had left after losing something. OBVIOUSLY it’s because of his relationship with Isa. I mean, duh. It implies a pretty special connection between Axel/Lea and Saïx/Isa for him to feel that way, especially considering how mean Saïx is to him.

I’m not trying to trash Axel’s feelings for Roxas and Xion, either, or make them out to be unimportant. They were important to him, for sure. But they absolutely did not reach Isa’s level of importance to him. No fucking way. Not. Even. Close. Especially not on Day 150. By the end of the story, Axel couldn’t bear to lose Roxas and Xion because they were all he had to fill the void of Isa.

That’s not to say that he didn’t care about them as friends, or that he was just using them. It just means that I don’t think Axel really would want to be “inseparable” with Roxas and Xion once he was mentally and emotionally healthy. He’d want to be friends with them, of course, but not hang out every day like Hayner, Pence, and Olette. He’s not on the same level as Roxas and Xion. And that’s fine.

Terra: Protect the things that matter… Right. My friends matter to me, too. So, I still have things that I have to protect.

To use a comparison, Riku was very important to Terra. I LOVED the connection between them. Other than Lea and Isa, one of the things I was most excited to see in KH3 was Riku and Terra reuniting (yeah…). They had a very special bond. Riku helped comfort Terra when he was down. But. Riku was NOT as important to Terra as Aqua and Ven were. Even if Terra had spent a whole year with Riku, he still wouldn’t be as important to Terra as Aqua and Ven.

Roxas and Xion being portrayed as the most important people to Axel is as ridiculous to me as Riku being portrayed as the most important person to Terra. It would be weird if 99% of the fanart out there depicted Riku as Terra’s best friend and Terra’s reunion with Riku got more spotlight in KH3 than his reunion with Ven and Aqua.

That’s how I feel about the Sea-Salt Trio. I really liked it for what it was in Days. A complex, morally grey friendship between an emotionally damaged adult and two innocent kids. But I really don’t like the overly saccharine, cutesy, cuddly, one-dimensional fandom version of it, where Axel is treated like he’s on the same level as the two teens. It’s a testament to how young the fandom is that people really thought Lea would be “meh” about reuniting with his childhood best friend who’s been possessed for 10 years, and be waaaay more excited about getting to eat ice cream with two teens every day once again. 

Day 172

What’s Love?

On my mission at Beast’s Castle, Xaldin told me about "love” and the special power it has over people. I tried to ask Axel about it, but his explanation didn’t make any sense to me. Every time I ask him about this kind of thing, he tells me I need a heart to understand. It’s like he’s dodging the questions.

Axel tolerates severe emotional abuse from his possessed best friend because he loved him back when he was normal. He copes by with his extremely shitty life by living entirely in the past, through his memories. Hanging out with two kids helps him remember his old life, back when he was happy. God, he was such a fascinating character. Such wasted potential.

Day 193

Best Friends

Xion's awake now. The three of us were gonna go get some ice cream after our mission, but she passed out again, so we had to take her home. I talked with Axel in her room until she woke up. He said the three of us were best friends—inseparable. 

Axel said he had no best friend on Day 75. Now it’s Day 193. That’s only 119 days. That’s less than four months!! He gets in a fight with Saïx, who, once again, says he’s changed. A very sore topic for Axel. Then immediately afterwards, he says these two kids are his best friends.

If I was gonna compare it to real life: Let’s say Lea and Isa were two normal high school kids who were kidnapped and raised in a gang. Axel is a 25/26 year-old former gang member. He’s got blood on his hands. He’s a good person deep down, but he’s seen a lot of shit. Then he meets these two fifth graders. This adult gang member, with tear-drop tats and everything, suddenly starts calling these two fifth graders his best friends. He wants to spend all of his time eatig ice cream and playing Minecraft with them.

If this was real life, would anyone say how cute it is that they are best friends? Two kids who he had to teach the concept of “best friends” to? NO! No, they’d say that’s unhealthy and weird and that the guy needs therapy. Because it IS unhealthy and weird. Perhaps it easier to see that as an adult. Perhaps it’s easier to see it in a romanticized way when you’re young.

The Sea-Salt Trio was, in a way, Axel forcing the label of “best friends” on two kids in an attempt to cope with the heartbreak of his loss of innocence. It did have genuine cuteness and sweetness. Of course it did. Axel was not a predator or anything. Roxas and Xion loved him. Axel loved them. But…it wasn’t as cutesy and wholesome as people make it out to be. At least not from Axel’s end. It wasn’t JUST a cute wholesome trio. 

That’s what made it so good. It was complex and grey. Axel never went against the organization, even though he could have if he really wanted to. It got to the point where he nearly killed both Roxas and Xion, just because he couldn’t bring himself to go against the organization. And the reason he couldn’t go against the organization was because of Saïx. Yes. Axel came thiiiiis close to killing both Roxas and Xion for a sociopath who treated him like shit. Their friendship was very dysfunctional and had a lot of kinks to work out.

Again, I’m not trying to denigrate the bond Axel had with Roxas and Xion. It was still genuine and sweet, in a sad and messed up way. I can still appreciate the cuteness of it.

But I hated the Sea-Salt reunion in KH3. Because it only focused on the most one-dimensional, saccharine and cutesy portrayal of them possible. They didn’t have to talk about anything. It was just instant hugging and ice cream, now they’re best friends forever. Everything played up to the max to manipulate people’s emotions. None of their issues were worked out and they had no better understanding of each other than they did at the end of Days. Honestly, even though Roxas and Xion got the red carpet treatment compared to Isa, the resolution to their trio was just as pathetic as Isa/Lea’s duo. 

[elizabethrobertajones]

(part 1) this is random but something im curious about is do you think the next few years will see a radical shift in more lead lgbt couples in shows? i feel like when supernatural started it was all about subtext/queerbating between characters we would never see canon (maybe), the last few years have seen an update in more side lgbt characters/couples and while not a lot, more main lgbt characters then we had before. I don't know if tumblr/twitter fandom translates to general audience...

Yeah, I mean, the only way is up. I feel lucky that I managed to encounter a fair amount of queer content in my formative years, whether targeted programming on TV, or taking the route of not really differentiating the perceived cultural value of independent media like webcomics and webnovels etc from the mass media as I was young enough to naturally grow up on the internet as the internet itself was growing up and web 2.0 was pretty much taking off alongside my use of the internet. And that I had liberal parents who didn’t regulate our internet, and lived in a community where culturally I didn’t really fear being discovered casually accessing all this like in particularly this terrifying seeming evangelical christian community in America.

Which really makes me feel like A: everyone should feel that comfortable in themselves via the media as I did as a mass accessible thing or B: that the world at large should be soaked in as much representation and more that I encountered as a curious teen because at the very least it did me no harm and at best helped handhold me through an awful lot. 

And then brings us to the problem that the world isn’t actually like that and for a lot of people their media is restricted one way or another, from everything such as the era of social media weirdly making us much LESS broadly travelled on the internet as I was back in the day (SO many bookmarks - I had like 100 that I would check either daily or on their weekly update schedule, with enough habit that I had pretty much memorised it all without using an RSS feed or just following everyone’s twitter and waiting for update announcements, never mind the vast pit of things which I occasionally checked to see if their sporadic but very worth it updates had occurred somewhere in the last month/year) to the vastly overwhelming amount of media accessible to us. It seems almost to flood the market and creates this panic about watching the worthiest shows and campaigning for them and raising awareness and the FOMO and how things slip by and zomg you have to watch this that and the other, when even just making this list on Netflix now contains more hours of TV than a human lifetime and also one liable to disappear from the service at some point or another without warning. 

And then on top of that you have the absolute cultural monoliths that if you’re not going to have a cohesive culture - which now includes the entire population of the world because of our connectivity on the internet and mass-joining of services - based around smaller shows and stuff, then at the very least everyone is going to watch anything under the main Disney umbrella, other superhero flicks, animated things, and all the really big studio franchises and remakes, as well as a few TV monoliths which manage to get enough people talking to make it seem like “everyone” (again - these days it seems like that’s presumed to be the entire western world plus everywhere else these things air) are watching, like Game of Thrones or whatever… THESE properties are the inescapable ones and on that basis they’re the things we have to lean on the most for representation and then again barely get any, when it comes to gender and sexuality, due to them shooting for such worldwide markets that they can’t imply gay people exist to censors in places such as China. And it exposes the cultural awfulness inherent just in getting a white female character in the lead role of some things, or the absolute garbage fire lurking underneath that if you dare have a black stormtrooper or make one of your female ghostbusters black when you’re already ruining the childhoods of so many how dare… 

In those respects, having side characters who aren’t even major well-known superheroes or jedis or ghostbusters or whatever also be gay (because even well-known lesbian Kate McKinnon didn’t manage to get her ghostbuster to be canonically gay even if we All Knew) would be absolutely groundbreaking, even if it was, like, a role that could be snipped out for the Chinese market or something. And that’s probably exactly what would happen, and cue ensuing riot from whichever fandom, along with everyone rightly pointing out that even for us who got to watch it it was still a tiny side character… I mean Disney is still at the stage of what they did with Beauty and the Beast’s ~canonical gay character~ 

So yeah… that’s thrown back to TV and smaller movies to lead the way and because the generations showing most likely the real global percentages but actually just the young western world stats on queerness in any form (like… 25% instead of 1% or whatever and that’s STILL probably too low) are still teens to young adults. The previous gayest generation above them are still just arriving in power and settling in, and the excellent changes we already have from the generation before that is what we are seeing now... But given THEIR cultural context, even their best can still seem to younger eyes, moderate and not generally placing queer characters in lead roles except in niche or indie or otherwise “acceptable” places to take those risks. I think change is always coming and culturally each generation being more open and accepting that the last is really making changes and so on, hopefully things WILL change rapidly and what was the common state of affairs in the sort of indie media I consumed as a teen will be the mainstream soon because a lot of those creators 10 years later are kicking off… 

All that said, TV in the mainstream is still controlled by Mark Pedowitz types exercising their power over the Bobos who have their Wayward Sisters pitches with the clearly labelled main character for the main teen demographic being queer. The culture is very much that we’re now pretty open and can happily have queer characters, but the main characters are still largely held separate. A good example is Riverdale, which is on the CW, a newer show with writers such as Britta Lundin, who is young, queer, and wrote a novel blatantly based on being a Destiel shipper and fan interacting with the cast and crew in fandom spaces, and whose first solo episode of Riverdale featured a looooot of the gay stuff (yay). 

But while she’s a story editor and writer for the show and can use it as a platform for writing stories for its audience using a whole range of canonically queer characters, the show still keeps all 4 of its mains at a strict remove from this. Cheryl can come out as a lesbian in the second season after a lil ho yay in the first but no clearly marked storyline about her identity, but even though Betty and Veronica kissed in the first episode it was blatant fan service (for Cheryl in-story, lol) and mostly just set the tone that they are the sort of seemingly straight girls kissing for attention while having strong romantic or physical attraction to guys. In the second season the kiss comes up again in joking that Jughead and Archie are the only ones of the main 4 who haven’t kissed, Archie gets one planted on him by a dude as a “judas kiss” moment of betrayal in season 3 and he and Jug are teased that they were expected to get together because they were close but in the same sort of homophobic undercurrent tones as early Destiel snarking from side characters, seemingly less about their relationship and more to unsettle them with implications… I mean it was a complicated moment but in the long run it didn’t seem entirely pleasant to me, especially given the overall emotional state they were in and later plot etc etc. (My mum is 1000% invested in Riverdale now as a former Archie Comics reader as a kid so this is now my life too as I was in the room when my brother callously exposed her to it, hi :P) 

Anyway that’s just one case study but aside from SPN it’s probably the most mainstream teen demographic thing I watch… Other examples would be things like B99 which had Rosa come out as bi and that’s awesome, and made us all cry a lot, but Jake, the clear main character even in a very strong and well-treated ensemble, has a great deal of bi subtext, there’s no way given Andy Samberg’s apparent habit of ad-libbing MORE progressive jokes that he’d ever be intentionally harming people if that’s how his brain works (you know, like other people quick-fire offensive stuff from their mouth working faster than brain sense of humour :P). But at the same time for all Jake’s quipping about crushes and such and the fact the show clearly knows how to be sensitive to bisexuality with Stephanie Beatriz being a strong advocate, just because Jake’s the main character and adorably married to Amy. In NO WAY can that be threatened because they’re SO GOOD, so there’s STILL uncertainty that this will pay off in the same special episode “I love my wife but I am bi” kinda way that seems obvious that could just be said. We all carry on without it affecting anything because obviously Jake’s found his soulmate so we don’t mess with that but they should know it’s important to clarify it… Even with B99′s track record, I’m nervous solely because Jake’s the main character and main characters tend not to get self-exploratory arcs about latent queerness and ESPECIALLY not if they’re happily married. If ANY show was going to do it right and trailblaze in this exact era it would be them, but… gyah :P 

Anyway I guess the conclusion right now is that the more mainstream you are the more uncertain it feels, but we are right at that cliff edge, especially with shows putting in SOME of the work. If B99 doesn’t get us there (or the Good Place where they’ll happily confirm Eleanor is bi in interviews but I believe she hasn’t said it outright on the show despite clearly showing attraction to female characters, again, the denials we know so well in SPN fandom reflect a wider audience view of dismissing this stuff as jokes and not reflective of character feeling and identification without a Special Episode dedicated to confirming it >.>) then we’re very clearly on the cusp of SOME mainstream or massively well-known show doing it at least once in a meaningful way that has an Ellen-style cultural impact on TV writing. 

Let’s make it a goal for 2019 or 2020, and hope that a NEW show with a canonically queer main from the start is pitched and becomes a mainstream hit in the next 5… Still got a ways to go before Disney level mainstream but again there IS work going pushing the envelope, especially if we get a movie of a franchise such as idk Further Legends of Korra, or Steven Universe or something else that’s massively pushed the envelope with sexuality or gender for their main character on the small screen in the experimental petri dish they’ve had there for children’s TV. Something that would force Disney to blink about a lesbian princess or Star Wars to let Finn and Poe kiss or Marvel to let Steve and Bucky hold hands or something in order to remain relevant.

Once the Big Cultural Monoliths get in on it, I expect culture as a whole to first of all react quickly on the small screen, but honestly I’ve been waiting for them to snap pretty much my whole life since adolescence and they’re taking such wee tiny baby steps, and some factors are enormous geopolitical awfulness, that the story as a whole is unpredictable and we can only really hope that things don’t slow down. 

(Where this affects SPN is just impossible to say right now, given its almost unique position in this mess due to longevity vs fandom vs almost entirely new generation of writers’ room) 

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam Austin episode 3 reaction

My favorite comment this week on the Skam Austin Facebook page:

Why do you use the font that SPAM uses and say you are in Austin where SPAM is located when you are actually in Austin TX and have no affiliation with #HormelFoods

Hormel Foods, the manufacturer of Spam is located in Austin, Minnesota, for the record.

Episode 3

Clip 1 - Lying in the back of the truck

This scene was actually new. I think it’s supposed to stand it for the Eva/Jonas lying in bed when she kicks him out and her mom comes in, but most of the ideas and dialogue within the scene were original, not borrowed. They didn’t have Meg mention that Zoya said she should break up with Marlon, nothing about Marlon saying she couldn’t live without him though he was similarly dismissive. She does it in a text later, though, and he tells her she wouldn’t last a second without him.

This camerawork does feel like Julie a lot. Especially the overheard of both Meg and Marlon lying down, that’s some total Skam couple vibes. Except early on Meg and Marlon are not touching and aren’t even on the same level, because as a couple … they’re not on the same level, lol.

Well, I considered the dance team to be sports but Meg disagrees with me, I guess. If you’re funded by the athletics department, then I’d say you’re a sports team. (It might vary from school to school but my high school definitely counted the cheerleading and dance teams as part of athletics.)

Meg: Dancing is about art. Marlon: Nah I don’t think so. GODDAMN MARLON FUCK OFFFFFF

I know a high school dance team has a different purpose in mind than like, New York City Ballet, but dance is absolutely an art form. This isn’t controversial, dumbass.

Can you please just be supportive of your girlfriend, Marlon? She found something that might make her happy and she’s socializing with other girls.

Someone in the FB comments said Meg and Marlon are cute together in a way that Eva and Jonas weren’t and like, everyone has a right to their opinion but I’m going to make a PowerPoint detailing my opposing view, which is 100 slides of NOPE.

Clip 2 - Sloooooooow mooooooooo whiiiiiiiiite guyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Meg is actively lying to her mom about being on the dance team. At least she runs into some new friends when her mom says to tell Abby hi.

KELSEY’S EYEBROWS I’M YODELING

There are some parts where Kelsey seems a little too like a sitcom character. It has more to do with the writing/directing than the actress, who’s been doing a decent job and having fun with the role. The bit where she’s like “SOME people in the group” works perfectly fine as a joke on its own - we all recognize the absurdity of her trying to obscure the person’s identity when there are five girls in the group and everyone knows who Kelsey’s got beef with. You don’t need to add on “you know … Zoya” which is just overkill.

Zoya just got them 100 pounds of free cookie dough to raise money for the team. Or… y’all could eat it … not that this is what I would do or anything.

But good job Zoya! And now Kelsey has to reconsider her position on Zoya. Free cookie dough?

He’s called Penetrator Jo??????????????

“Why is he called Penetrator Jo?” “No one knows.” OK …. I actually find that kind of funny but also … really, Julie? That’s far more obvious inside the narrative than calling a character Marlon.

Now we have what is obviously the most important scene of the season according to certain parties: William/Daniel’s introduction.

I have a confession to make. Uhhhh … taken on its own, I sort of like this version of the slow motion montage over the original.

I was never wowed by William’s intro, and this one at least has some tongue-in-cheek choreography with the football players and has Childish Gambino over it (in my version).

But at the same time I’m like really?

I think if I just watched both scenes side by side with no further context, I would prefer this one, because it’s so OTT ridiculous I would assume the director was making a joke. However, knowing the full situation, with S2’s Noorhelm and William depiction, and Julie’s intense love of the character, it does spoil the effect, because Julie really does believe that stuff about William/Daniel being painted as a villain. Like there’s definitely a humorous component to the scene but it doesn’t work as well when the director buys into the character’s hype. Same with Grace’s unimpressed eye roll and her comment about him being a cliche: on its own it’s a welcome voice for the audience, and I’m sure it’s an entertaining comment for the shippers, but knowing that it’s going to be ironic later spoils the effect.

Thinking about it, I also feel the same about the Penetrator Jo comment, maybe. On its own with no context, I’d find it funny - there’s something ridiculous not just about that nickname but by the fact that “no one knows” how he got something that should seemingly be obvious, yeah? Knowing that show ends up being on #TeamPenetrator is not as fun.

And not gonna lie, part of me will just never get Julie’s love of the William character when she has created so many more well-rounded, interesting, unique characters, and William is a well-worn trope played straight.

On that note, I see the complaints that this is like a very typical American teen drama, and on the one hand I can’t argue with that, popular football player all the girls thirst over is a pretty common trope. But also, lol … the original was just like this, the William character and the Noora/William relationship were the most CW-ish parts of the show. No matter whether you liked them or not! 

Neither William nor Daniel are really my type so I’m not hung up on stuff like whether the actor is hot enough. He’s kind of just like … a generically attractive white boy. I saw four of those at Steak ’n Shake the other night. Not trying to be mean, I get why girls would like him, and I really don’t care about anyone’s appearance on this show. His bone structure does seem above average.

Girl Jo is so cute. “He has a lot of shirtless pics.” “She has places to be, that’s like, adult stuff.”

She is getting a little passive-aggressive with using Kelsey as her cosmetic guinea pig. Kelsey is kind of a pushover, isn’t she? There’s a dynamic to explore there, where the two of them are obviously BFFs but Kelsey is letting Jo commit atrocities on her face. I wonder if that will build to anything or it’ll be a running gag. Maybe Daniel, instead of telling Kelsey she’s not pretty or good enough, will just be like your brows are NOT on fleek.

Clip 3 - Marlon and his crew are the worst

Shay: “I don’t know why we’re arguing about this, you’re freaking rich...ly, killing it in that sweater.” Marlon is selling his Adderall, I’m calling it now. Shay doesn’t want to draw attention to the fact that Marlon has some spare change accumulating from somewhere. I guess Abby could be buying from him and that’s why she was all CALL ME?

That’s not a bad change at all from the source material. Because while smoking weed can get you in trouble, selling drugs can get you into even more trouble. It would also be thematically relevant to the theme of pressure, do everything to succeed, be a winner not a loser, etc.

The way they’re sitting is so (intentionally) awkward with Megan clearly on the outside of their little group dynamic and on a lower level.

They are eating the pizza and someone presumably paid for it already, so this is a strange conversation to have, but then again I have ordered takeout plenty of times with friends where one of us paid upfront and then the rest of us paid them back or covered them. I guess Marlon could have paid for it at the door? Still kind of a weird conversation when you consider they could have been like … looking at the menu and talking about what to order and arguing about who’s gonna pay.

Marlon is SUCH an asshole. DUMP HIM. He started to make fun of her about her dance team in front of his friends. Meg gives Marlon’s crappy music her attention, he can’t support her in her dance team?

This scene made it really clear that it’s not a situation similar to Eva, where yeah, Jonas and Isak did gang up on her and could be mean to her, but she was still a part of the trio. We saw them eat together, go to movies together, have little jokes together. Eva was friends with Isak. Megan is only here for Marlon. Tyler and Shay aren’t her friends.

Some of the joking here - like Tyler saying, “Wait, Megan, you actually became a stripper? You took my advice, bro” - in another context I could see that being fine, like if Tyler was saying that to Shay, it’s just friends taking the piss out of each other, but he and Megan aren’t good enough friends for that not to have any tension or awkwardness.

Marlon being like “I’ve tried to convince her that team sports brainwash people … guess they already got to her though” is so so insensitive. Jackass! This was something that made her happy and she had to give it up FOR YOU.

I am so so glad that she called him out though, and she’s right. He’s got a limited set of talking points.

But it sucks that Shay and Tyler got in on it and called her out. Her attitude about the Kittens was clearly motivated by hurt and resentment over what she’s lost and a person who has since made her feel like shit, not her overall attitude toward sports teams. I would think they would know that much since they have to be somewhat familiar with the Megan-Abby drama. Tyler especially takes it too far when this is not a comfortable situation for Megto be in, she’s not included in anything, she’s just the girlfriend who’s there. Like I do not blame Megan at all for having some interest in Jo, because even if he’s sleazy, he’s the one who’s paying her compliments.

Clip 4 - Party invite

Julie continues with her tradition of “shooting the protagonist from behind as they walk somewhere.”

Kelsey’s eyebrows aksdfalsjnd

“I’m only waxing my mom’s chin so” Jooooooo.

Zoya telling Kelsey to chill and Kelsey immediately trying to chill … I feel like she wants to impress and go along with Zoya more than Vilde did with Sana. Kelsey seems like more of a people pleaser.

See, I heard people complaining that Zoya is too mean (and IDK, there might be some stuff to unpack there) but I felt in this scene she made her intentions pretty clear, that she was trying to help Kelsey calm down and not embarrass herself in front of the football guys, whereas Sana’s motives were probably the same but weren’t laid out like that and Vilde got pissed off at her.

I was kinda hoping that Zoya would be like “You are a hot girl” to Kelsey specifically but it’s nice she referred to the whole group as the hot girls. The only part I found excessively mean was the bit about Kelsey’s eyebrows (and I mean … she’s not wrong, but tact).

Jo is in love with Zoya.

It was sort of random that we pulled back a little and just watched Jo and Kelsey talk about her eyebrows, I mean that kind of casual conversation is fine, it was just the physical distance that was odd when so much of this series relies on closeups. We didn’t even see Meg’s reaction, not even to show Megan and Grace being like well, we’re done with this conversation and walking away.

There was an IG pic of the girls with Kelsey covering her eyebrows, which is adorable, but I’m not sure when the pic was taken because Meg is shown walking up at the start of the clip and Meg and Grace walk away at the end, and it looks like they’re in the same location. I guess Meg ran back to take a group selfie.

Clip 5 - American teen party with red Solo cups

I was wondering how they’d do the slow motion walk since I mean… they’d probably have to drive to the party, lol. And they did have them in the car! With the girls having a good time and Grace in the backseat looking awkward.

Actually I’m really glad Julie didn’t full on recreate one of the most iconic scenes of the original show, I prefer that she gave it a different spin. I don’t think this version of the scene will stick in my mind as much as the OG, but this does feel, well, American and relevant to the culture.

All the girls look great. I’m really digging Zoya’s hoops.

If anyone cares to know what I hissed at Daniel when he was checking out Kelsey.

I like how Abby seemed like she’s holding court among the Kittens.

I hate Marlon/Meg so much that even Meg/”Don’t be a cocktease” Jo is preferable. Though neither is the best option.

Part of me is like SIIIIIIIIGH at them not going to address Kelsey’s religion at all. It’s not that every Christian has to be abstinent or anything, I know Christian girls who were big on partying and had premarital sex. It’s that this is a big opportunity to shake up the story and add another dimension to the situation, and I feel like it won’t be addressed. I’d love if they at least talked about it in the next episode, if Kelsey’s trying to lose her virginity to Daniel and acquire birth control.

“I touch my friend’s boobs all the time” LISTEN UP JULIE ANDEM. Please let Jo be not straight. Please let Jo and Shay interact and possibly date. Both of those characters have some of the most personality on the show, it’d be a hit. Skam France set the precedent and made the equivalent character bi, YOU CAN DO IT.

I am overjoyed that so many people seemed to share my opinion of the world peace guy, which is Daniel who? Penetrator what? Give us more of THIS rando.

Honestly in his limited screen time, he has some decent comedic timing? He might be funny as the Magnus character.

That whole conversation was the highlight of the clip, the episode, and the series so far.

This is super random but I’m glad Meg and Grace went to the bathroom together because like … yes, that is what you do when you’re girls who are awkwardly standing around at parties. Bathroom solidarity.  And actually that’s a good setup for Grace leaving Meg alone and Jo getting to her rather than Noora ditching Eva to take a phone call. 

Marlon’s last name is Frazier for anyone curious.

“There’s another bathroom upstairs I can show you.” Smooth.

Zoya adding some food coloring into her Abby attack was an upgrade, particularly when the target’s in a white shirt. 

Jo taking off her earrings once the fight starts - she is the beeeest.

The shot of the girls climbing into the car is really cute to me, IDK.

I thought this was a fun clip but admittedly that’s 90% because Jo is a gem.

General Comments:

Some of me wonders … what if Tyler has it bad for Marlon and Shay has it for Meg? Tyler being “clingy” in the gc according to Marlon (which is just Marlon’s opinion and may not be that serious, to be sure) and Shay is noticeably nicer to Meg than Tyler is. I think.

Actually that text about Meg being added to their group chat made me cringe. They really aren’t welcoming to her. Meg has been dating Marlon since at least February - I’m pretty sure it was more like Christmas - and he’s only now adding her to the chat. Okay.

When Isak contacted Eva on Skype in episode 1, it seemed like he just wanted to chat with her. I guess maybe he wanted to sniff out if Jonas was there but he didn’t ask about it first, and he and Eva laughed about the Pepsi Max girls, and when he saw Eva was sad, he tried to give her some advice about talking to Ingrid. It was definitely a friendly conversation. When Shay did the same call, she asked where Marlon was, and after Meg said she didn’t know, Shay quickly said she had to go. It wasn’t a friendly, just-to-talk conversation. Meg tried to extend the conversation a little longer by talking about the Kittens - this makes me sad because it felt like she really needed to talk to someone, and Shay’s response isn’t that supportive or like she knows the magnitude of the situation with Megan and Abby. It makes me wonder because Eva was close enough to Isak to confide in him, and Meg will probably do that with Shay, but I don’t feel their relationship is as tight on its own terms to merit that.

I do find all the viewer comments on Meg and Marlon’s IG pics that are like “He’s cheating on you!” and “Why are you lying to her?” to be very funny and endearing.

Some of the FB comments about Zoya’s character … have some implications, like I haven’t seen anything outright Islamophobic, but there is a sense of “she’s too aggressive/too mean” and some of it is hard to judge whether it’s a fair assessment of her character thus far and how much of it is code for “she’s a mouthy black Muslim.”

It also got me thinking because all of the Noora/William combos have been white across the remakes, and IDK, I think it’d be great if the big man on campus that all the girls found attractive was a MOC, but also - can you imagine if a William was black and how differently he would be judged on his behavior, provided it was the same as in the original? The black guy heartlessly using and throwing aside the sweet virginal white girl? Or the black guy relentlessly pursuing the white girl who said she wasn’t interested? Or the black guy smashing a bottle over a guy’s head? I feel like a black William would reveal some ... enlightening viewer reaction. To put it mildly.

Jo is the most popular character by a landslide according to a poll on the FB group and that does not surprise me in the slightest. I’d be a little interested to know who was the most popular character so far in the original Skam. My guess is that opinions would be more widely spread.

Her IG posts/stories with Kelsey’s makeover and eating with the girls are really cute, btw.

I don’t really know how to judge the ratings because Facebook Watch is largely untested as a streaming platform, but there seem to be at least 1,000-2,000 new users following the show per day, maybe more (though stuff like fake/spam accounts need to be taken into consideration) and the full episodes are getting far more hits than the individual clips.