#oof sorry for the long post

[magicomens]

Ah yes. Anthony Justdontgetstabbed Crowley.

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[banyanas]

hey wait listen to me. Consider Grime not knowing Sasha was an Actual Child until after she'd already earned her steel (and done so noticeably younger than your average toadlet did) and thus by toadish traditions was considered ready for adult combat and responsibilities

[pinkytoothlesso11]

Reasons why Jinx is alive– A fully comprehensive evidence analysis

Right. So I've seen a lot of people with conflicting views on if Jimx survived at the end of Arcane season 2, and I have been itching to do a meta post on the subject, so here it goes!

The first piece of evidence that I found particularly noteworthy was the explosion itself. By going frame by frame it was possible to see this:

It's a blink and you miss it kind of scene, but this is right after the explosion, and you can see the clear pink line going into one of the vents. Now why is this important? Well, it's simple, it's the shimmer effect that happens when Jinx is moving very fast! I know that Warwick was holding onto Jinx, but in a explosion its perfectly plausible for her to get out of that grip using the explosion of her monkey bomb.

Then we have the scene where Caitlyn is inspecting the plans for the Hexgates.

There is literally no reason for her to look at these plans. Not unless she thought there was something she missed...

There's no dialogue here, so it's really just based on what she does and how she reacts. Most notably what she's holding.

It's the head of one of Jinx's notorious monkey bombs. What's more, it's clearly damaged and singed. So likely this is the very same monkey bomb Jinx used in the Hexgates. This also suggests that Caitlyn might have been searching for evidence of Jinx's dead body... and clearly didn't find it for her to be holding Jinx's bomb head and then searching on the plans. Which brings me to the focus changing to this:

The vents we see the streak of pink shimmer light go inside correlate to the plans as shown above. The vents connect to the air ducts which connect to the outside. After this, the camera goes back to Caitlyn and we see her look at the monkey bomb head and then smile.

Then we get to the most telling piece of evidence that Jinx survived and left Zaun and Piltover behind, which is definitely a controversial choice on the writers part and does come across that they just want the option to bring in Jinx whenever they want in later stories taking place in Noxus, Ionia and Demacia. Which is very Marvel like lol. This is namely the air blimp at the end shot of the show.

What I find interesting is the fact it mirrors exactly the very first time we see Powder in episode 1 of Arcane season 1 when we see one of these air blimps.

The difference in these shots is that the one from season one is going TOWARDS Piltover, and the one from end of season 2 is going AWAY across the sea. The only difference in the ships themselves is the streak of blue you can just about see on the side of the hull. Maybe a further hint that Jinx is indeed on board that blimp.

Obviously it is what Powder says about the air blimp in season one that truly gives some solid evidence Jinx escaped on the air blimp heading for the sea:

Well, it seems Powder was right about that... the shots being so similar is clearly not a coincidence.

This is made all the more evident with the very last seconds of screen time of the show. It ends with Jinx's signature scribbles taking over the screen for three seconds with the words 'The end' written across.

Some people I've seen commenting on the fact the letter E on 'the' is reversed, but I think that's just a style choice in line with Jinx's graffiti so far. What is significant here is the fact it's so evidently Jinx's mark straight after the air blimp that resembeled the one in the first episode of Arcane season one.

Annnnd there's just one more thing now. I promise I'm almost done lol.

The lyrics to the song Wasteland that plays during episode 8, when Jinx is about to try and end her life are as follows:

This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

I used to have strength but I ran out of hope

I know it’s my fault that I'm here all alone

This world is a wasteland

Please let me go, go, go, go, go, go, go

But then the lyrics change in the last chorus, they go from Jinx preparing to end her life for good, to THIS:

This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

If it weren’t for you I’d be here all alone

I know in my heart this is where we belong

This world is a wasteland

Don’t let me go, go, go, go, go, go, go

Don't let me go

I feel it's likely that the line 'if it weren't for you I'd be here all alone' is referring to Ekko. Because it's Ekko who stopped Jinx from killing herself. And then of course the biggest change, from 'please let me go' to 'don't let me go' Jinx isn't ready to say goodbye. She wants to stay living. And I think it's this that plays in her 'sacrifice' scene with Warwick. It's not her giving up on life, it's her accepting that her life has changed and she needs to break the cycle by moving on. Not for anyone else, but for herself.

Let me know in the comments or reblogs your thoughts on this! And thank you for reading if you got this far lol.

[beaulesbian]

wano spoilers

feeling some kind of emotional about rayleigh and roger flashbacks in wano, with smol shanks and buggy. and later oden and toki and their kids :'(

rayleigh has so much patience for them lmao

just few of my favorite panels:

(their captain is an idiot; a shared sentiment by whoever's captain wears the strawhat, probably)

(this is so cute and sad especially knowing this playfulness and love from roger never reached ace ;-; sorry)

"reminds me of the old days." - i wonder if rayleigh means by this shanks or buggy (or both? im not that far yet, if we know more of their backstories, but they were already very young on the roger's ship, so it would make sense if they found one of them as a baby and basically were raising him together ;-; *cries again*)

no really, these flashbacks said rogerray with kids rights, and rayleigh was the only one with a parenting braincell

and this last thing reminds me how often it's one of the strawhats (cough. zoro) reading luffy the news, mostly about their new bounties

smth smth captain and his first mate

and then this angst.... with the goodbyes, and rayleigh possibly keeping roger's pirate hat after he left.

these flashbacks were so emotional! so good and informative how roger's pirates worked, how oden went with them and their journey to the places we've seen luffy and strawhats travel from beginning of one piece - skypiea and the poneglyph text that oden wrote there for roger. water 7 and meeting young franky!, fishman island and roger and oden hearing that voice but rayleigh not hearing it. that was all so interesting.

it was both so fun and joyful, but also sad and devastating, what it must have been to part in the end, for the rest of the crew (and rayleigh especially.)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I'm sorry, but why don't we talk about Witch Hunt more? Seriously, I think it might be my favorite DAO DLC. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the hell out of Awakening. Leliana's Song is good. The Golems of Amgarrak is... eh, bad. I didn't really like that one. The Warden's Keep, The Stone Prisoner, and Return to Ostagar are all amazing and I love them.

But Witch Hunt??? Y'all. I can't. I'm too emotional right now.

I have at least one dynamic from each game that I'm obsessed with. For DAO, it's the dynamic between romanced!Alistair, Tabris, and Morrigan. I've talked before about the dark ritual and stuff in this post, so let's just say that my Tabris, Rose, very much has unfinished business and a score to settle with Morrigan.

Tabris and Morrigan grew so close throughout the entire journey of DAO, y'know? Close enough that Morrigan claimed she thought of her as a sister, and Tabris felt the same way... and then in one single moment, it's just shattered.

There were signs that Tabris ignored, like the way Morrigan dismissed all the circle mages and claimed they should be left to their fates since they "allow themselves to be caged like cattle." Or how she disapproved every time Tabris wanted to help those down on their luck. Or, worst of all, when Morrigan disapproved when Tabris chose to kill the Tevinter slaver instead of making a deal with him to use the lives of the remaining elves to grant her more power... one of those caged elves being Tabris' father.

But she gave Morrigan the benefit of the doubt; she's sheltered and only had Flemeth as an influence and teacher, of course she's unempathetic and selfish, but there is good in Morrigan's heart. She can learn to be more empathetic and to care for others.

At least, Tabris believed that until Morrigan confessed that she's known about the ultimate sacrifice and the dark ritual from the beginning, that Flemeth sent her with the wardens with a purpose that Morrigan intends to follow through with. It's devastating and it broke Tabris' heart.

She just learned that a warden has to die to stop the blight, and that warden could be her or Alistair. Not only are they romantically involved, but they've been through all of this shit together, they're the only ones who fully understand what being a grey warden is like. They carry the burden on their shoulders, and they're probably going to lose each other to the archdemon.

And Morrigan waits until she's at her most vulnerable to ask that of her.

Again, I've gone into more detail about that before, but at this point Rose is done with people deceiving her. She's done with Morrigan... except she's not. It's the betrayal and knowing Morrigan got what she wanted that causes Rose to go searching for her.

To Morrigan's credit, she does give some answers. She claims she didn't thing the archdemon would show itself so soon, and she did what she had to because she didn't wish to see Tabris hurt or die. I believe her, and to an extent, Tabris believes her... but Morrigan still doesn't get WHY it's a betrayal.

Morrigan's right: She will never understand Tabris, and Tabris will never understand her. She can insist it's not a betrayal all she wants, but it absolutely is, and Tabris has never allowed anyone who crossed her to just walk away... except for Morrigan.

Until now.

Hearing that Morrigan manipulated her way into the trust of this Dalish clan so she could steal their book and run is just further evidence in Tabris' eye that she hasn't changed. Maybe it was always foolish to believe she could.

So... she stabbed Morrigan.

She didn't do it to kill her; Morrigan is the daughter of Flemeth and a powerful mage with healing magic, a mere stab isn't going to kill her.

No, it's about what the stab represents: "I am done with you."

And how the scene plays out? It's so dramatic and good, just the way everything slows down, the music, how they make eye contact as the stabbing happens just....

I know it sounds really bad, and this is the part where I remind everyone that I ADORE Morrigan, but the stabbing ending is so satisfying from a story-telling standpoint for my playthrough.

It's so tragic and it hurts and I hate it.... but I love it, y'know?

I love Witch Hunt, like I haven't even talked about Ariane and Finn, or how the circle just has all these books on Dalish artifacts and translations of elvhen, or how other eluvians can be found with a shard from the broken one in the dalish origin.... like you're telling me that Merrill had a piece of the puzzle? If she had the knowledge, she could've found a working eluvian to study?? I'm going to gnaw my own leg off--

Listen, I could gush about this all day.

But now that I've completely finished DAO, it's time to replay DA2.

[the-painted-siren]

In the PIXAL and Lloyd role swap AU, how would PIXAL handle all that responsibility and power? Will it lay as heavily on her shoulder's as it does Lloyd's? Will she have people to turn to? Will she be slaying as usual but in a green gi?

And how will Lloyd be in PIXAL's role? Will he eventually be Samurai X? How is his health?

The Pixal and Lloyd roleswap AU (or as I affectionately call it: The Grixal AU) starts out pretty similarly to an OverLloyd AU - the Overlord possesses Lloyd in s3, wreaks havoc, the whole nine yards.

S3 progresses as you would expect. Zane sacrifices himself to defeat the Overlord, both he and Lloyd “die,” and they get their funerals and their statues. Zane goes to the Digiverse and Lloyd goes… actually, I’m not sure yet. My original idea was to put him in the Digiverse with Zane but I’ve turned to other potential ideas:

A) Lloyd ends up in the Borg Ind. electrical system and communicates with flashing lights.

B) Lloyd ends up among nature and Pixal must resort to trying to talk to a very grumpy house plant.

Anyway, as it goes, Ronin comes to collect Zane at Chen’s request and a scuffle ensues. In this scuffle, Lloyd transfers a lot of power through Zane and into Pixal in an attempt to electrocute Ronin. It works—but lands them all in a predicament.

Pixal accidentally downloads Lloyd’s powers and Zane downloads Lloyd’s sentience/soul.

Hence the Role Swap - Pixal becomes the Green Ninja.

And Lloyd gets stuck in Zane’s head.

This weighs very heavily on Pixal. The green energy is a LOT and the whole thing slingshots her into an identity crisis and struggle for autonomy bc she feels as though she’s suddenly gone from all powerful being’s control (the Overlord) to another’s (destiny/the prophecy.)

She can always rely on Dr. Borg, of course. He is her creator and father and would always advocate for her choices.

The others don’t take it so well. Garmadon, especially, is both extremely hurt and yet understanding. He and Wu are under the impression that Lloyd has chosen Pixal to succeed him, for whatever reason. (Despite Pixal’s yelling that THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENED. Lloyd is out there somewhere, she can feel it.)

As for Zane, well…

Zane’s arc progresses into s4 but instead of having the calm, rational Pixal in his head, he has his gremlin baby brother.

Now, I interpret Zane has having few impulses and low impulse control and Lloyd as having powerful impulses and fantastic impulse control.

Tell me, friend, what do you think happens when you combine Lloyd’s strong impulses with Zane’s low control.

Is the answer “chaos?” Because that would be correct.

“Zane, you should kill that guy… WAIT I WAS KIDDING!!”

And thus, these two knuckleheads get left trying to navigate each other minds and Chen’s island—and perhaps come to an understanding about each other’s ideas in regards their purpose and powers.

(To answer your question, no I don’t think Lloyd will become Samurai X—or if he does, it’ll be very temporary. I really only want 1-2 seasons worth of content and for Pixal’s goal to culminate in asserting her choices. I think this au is more meant to serve as a deep character analysis on Zane, Pixal, and Lloyd than it does any actual changes to the series.)

[canto-one]

i know you get asked this often but how are you yourself without being scared

After a while you get really tired masking who you are. It was exhausting for me to pretend like I was just an average Asian girl with normal hobbies. At a young age I was into stuff like WoW and Champions Online and being a girl at the time along with wanting to seem normal I didn't talk about this stuff. I know it seems ridiculous but at the time I was in elementary school and girls were supposed to like the color pink and boys liked video games and sports.

That is to say I haven't always been confident. I also had a mean girl phase where I got into fights and no one liked me because I got tired of being a nice soft girl. I went the WRONG direction don't do this ^

Anyways in middle school I said fuck it and decided to cosplay Daniil Dankovsky from Pathologic and wear his ugly ass outfit to school. My beloved friend went "aw man now i need to be friends with that guy." The next day I was back to my more refined, quiet self (my OCD was so bad at the time that I wore gloves 24/7 and cringed at the thought of a Bad Interaction) BUT I MADE FRIENDS BECAUSE I WENT TO SCHOOL IN COSPLAY

AND WHEN you have maybe 3-4 good friends, appeasing everyone doesn't matter as much because you know that your friends like you no matter how weird or freakish you are. TL;DR do weird shit and someone will have to find you interesting enough to be your friend and once you have your Friends you wont feel the need to appease everyone.

[kedsandtubesocks]

Dragon!Gojo? Anyone ask for dragon!gojo? Just me? Okay that’s fair

.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．.・゜゜・　　・゜゜・．

He is considered to be one of the fiercest creatures that has ever roamed the earth or taken to the skies in over a century.

The snowy white dragon with the sharpest blue eyes as if the sky itself has been captured in them.

And those same eyes are watery pools staring into the window of your cabin.

You never would have believed dragons could whine until you met one that did.

He currently whines like an oversized puppy. Except the growls could be mistaken for something terrifying. The sad rumbling rattles the glass of the window and it gets even worse when his snout presses against it harder.

“You can’t come in, you know this.” You firmly tell him as you finish grinding up the last bit of herbs you need for his healing tea remedy.

The growling whine only comes stronger. The leaves of your poor plants sitting on your windowsill shake with his tantrum.

“Be patient.” You urge the creature that has overshadowed your life since that fateful morning you woke up and found this dragon outside your cabin.

Various slices and cuts had ravaged his body. He bled so heavily from all the wounds over his body that he looked like a soaked red rag. He could barely open his eyes. When you saw the great beast of the sky, heaving in pain like a wounded animal, instead of being terrified your body moved on its own to the dragon without even thinking.

That was months ago.

Now, here the great beast sits outside your cabin whining like a pouting child. The moment you open the door, step outside into the warm morning, he rushes to you.

“If you make me spill this I’m not making you another one!” You scold him but it’s too late. The dragon’s muzzle shoves against your face and he rubs against you.

Dragons, you have discovered, purr. Your white cloud beast purrs as he curls against you, pure scales covered power trying to soak in your attention truly like a cat.

“Alright, alright.” You laugh weakly patting the side of his face.

“Come on, tea time.” Tea time is what you called this time of day now.

In the mornings, you give the great beast his healing tea concoction while you sip your own. You and him also share splitting various fruits you pick up from the vendor in town. He always managed to steal from your plate that you’ve had to swat him away a few times.

After you had healed the extensive surface injuries, you thought that would be all the dragon needed. Until blood began to spill from his piercing blue eyes, turning them into crimson soaked rivers. That’s when you discovered the internal injuries your dragon had sustained were horrifying.

It’s why he stayed longer that what you expected. And truly it was because you found your quiet existence blooming more than ever before.

Once he was able to walk, your dragon stayed by your side constantly. When you did laundry by the stream, he would splash water at you with his tail. He often playfully bit at your blouses to make you trip or to keep you closer to him. Now that he was almost fully healed, your snowy dragon now would sit in front of your door to block you and he did so with a wide almost pleased toothy grin.

He annoyed you to no end. But you don’t want him to leave.

You know his internal wounds are practically healed. Any moment now he could fly away back to where he belonged. And this thought of him leaving makes a poisonous ache seep into your bones.

A deep rumble floats into the air. Before you can turn to look at him, the dragon slowly lowers his head onto your lap. His eyes are closed peacefully as he rest so quietly and content. Something sharpened in sadness pierces your heart.

You can’t even stop yourself. You body again moves on its own and you lower yourself down to rest ontop of the dragons horned head.

The horns, the sharp fangs, his dangerous talons, they all speak of the terrifying power this creature holds. But you wonder if now there is something so tender in the monstrous?

“You’re going to be all healed up soon. You probably can even head home.” You begin softly, quietly against the soft breeze of the early morning.

Your dragon remains silent, not that he could talk to begin with. But he does not respond with any of his typical playful noises or annoyed growls. Instead he simply burrows stronger against your midsection and you wonder if he realizes it too.

His must leave eventually. It’s why you stand up in silence and gather all the various bowls and cups to place them inside.

When you walk back outside - your dragon is gone.

The grassy lot in front of your cabin is empty. Gone without a goodbye, without a warning. Something inside of you quietly collapses on itself, a small decayed rumble that leaves your body hollow.

It’s still morning. Yet all you can do is return into your cabin, crawl on top of your bed’s quilt and close you’re eyes as tears silently leak out.

You wait to see if he returns the rest of the day. He doesn’t. When you wake up the next day, the ache inside of you feels worse.

You decide to head to town to see if leaving your little cabin, your little carved out world, will help ease your heartbreak. Because that is what this feels like, a form of heartache you can’t even describe.

You browse the fruit stand and think of maybe buying yourself a few items to brighten your day. However, you also think of tea time with your dragon. He favored sweeter fruits like melon slices. For some reason you unthinkingly reach for that fruit out of habit.

That’s when your hand brushes against another.

It jolts you out of your thoughts and you spiral into a slight embarrassment for not paying attention. You quickly turn to the side to apologize.

That’s when you find a man beside you.

He’s unbelievably handsome. He looks like something out of a dream or myth with striking white hair. A strange blindfold covers his eyes. Then he slowly raises the black fabric up to reveal one of his eyes.

A beautiful shimmering sky stares down at you.

“Oh?” The man speaks and his voice is smooth, but peaked with an enigmatic curiosity. “Are these your favorites too?”

He grins at you wide and for some reason -

You’re reminded of the same fang filled grin your snowy dragon gave you.

[grimbeak]

something about carlos and kevin in the desert otherworld and carlos seeing kevin for the first time and getting so excited and scared because he thinks its cecil, he thinks everything is going to be okay now and its. its not. beacuse its not cecil its some other man who smiles too much and whos hands are shaking for different reasons. and who will never say it to his face but is so, so in love with carlos from the very start. and they are so so different but carlos sees cecil in him in the way he talks, in the way he speaks about his past in the way when he finally sleeps he spends the whole night shaking silently. in the way he makes carlos smile sometimes and makes him laugh and makes him have the traitorous thought that maybe staying here wouldnt be so bad. and its so so hard to leave him behind because carlos remembers when he was finally able to contact cecil in the beginning and cecil was so scared and sad and fragile. and carlos looks at kevin who’s just now starting to break free of his past, who has real smiles sometimes and tries to make carlos feel better when hes sad, who goes out of his way to make carlos happy whether its by avoiding him or getting him that difficult item he needed. and carlos knows that kevin will be just as bad as cecil, maybe worse, when carlos leaves.

and he does leave. they all understand that he had to, even if kevin tries to hate him for it for a while and destroys his lab and smashes his computer and kills all the specimens carlos was working with. but kevin understands carlos had to leave because when carlos goes to the dog park again a few days after he gets back, his research papers have been cleaned of the blood the best they could be and neatly bundled up in a package waiting for him. and they go and sit at opposite ends of the portal sometimes, not knowing if the other is there but talking to them anyway. and carlos never sends anything through but kevin does, he sends new specimens or things carlos mentioned liking through. and the only thing resembling a personal note is when kevin sends a tape with the wedding message on it. and after that carlos doesnt sit at the dog park anymore but he walks by there often and picks up anything lying near it and sits at his desk and just stares at it. 

[thecodeveronica]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Steve Burnside/Claire Redfield Characters: Claire Redfield, Steve Burnside Additional Tags: Fluff and Humor, First Dates, Arcades, this got majorly out of hand as you can see from the word count Summary:

Claire and Steve fight off another zombie outbreak, but this time with much lower stakes. Along the way, they try their hand at other games while spending an evening out together.

[the-sparkling-diamond-satine]

.

[pynkhues]

"I honestly think both in terms of fic for the show itself and for RPF, it's about race"

Ah, I wasn't expecting this, which as a brown woman is incredibly naive of me.

There's currently discourse on X about Louis being the most "boring" character which is also, undoubtedly, driven by racism.

(x)

Oh, I'm really sorry, anon, and you shouldn't feel naive. I mean, for starters, I could be wrong, and I'm being pretty speculative, but even if I'm right, the onerous of that isn't, or at least shouldn't be, on you. I think there's a lot of really great progressive things that happen in fandom, but at the same time fandom is created by People Living in Societies, and unfortunately biases and discrimination, at least in my experience, can and do seep through in ways that are both toxic and just flat out negligent.

The idea of Louis being boring is absolutely an insane and racist rhetoric too. He is so wildly interesting as a character, with so many layers of storytelling and nuance and contradiction, which I adore in him, and it makes me wonder if the people who find him boring are the same ones who want to make him the audience insert (insane given Daniel is literally right there) or to project all this 'battered housewife' narrative onto him, which - - look.

I've tried to shrug this off, but I literally just spent the entire day at a symposium on how the Australian government child support system is weaponised by abusive men against women post-divorce, so I'm a bit of a raw nerve about this topic, but it's made me even more pissed off at the Louis-Housewife arguments than normal.

Not only is it diminishing and completely at odds with his character, but what a way to show you've never, ever engaged with real survivors of, or conversations with, patriarchal oppression.

[lieutenant-amuel]

My humble takes on Gabe’s development.

So, my friend and I talked about Gabe some time ago, namely his development, since it being subtle has always been one of the hottest takes in the fandom. She pushed me to share some of my thoughts, and I couldn’t resist, sure thing, so catch a little analysis that is actually not little.

***

I’d like to start with his relationship with Elena, since this is the aspect where his development is the most noticeable and I already brought it up in some of my previous posts, like my thoughts on Gabe’s relationship with Elena and Naomi and I also made a gifset displaying their growth. But this time I strictly focus on Gabe.

In early season 1, we can see Gabe acting like “a tough macho” but the thing I want to point out is that he acts like that around Elena only (we can see him being formal with Francisco and Esteban in the early episodes and strategizing how to stop the lava in All Heated Up) because he wants to impress her (I’ll elaborate it below). However, it comes to nothing almost completely after Olaball where he opens up about his insecurities to her.

The take I’m truly stuck with is that Gabe is deeply concerned about his origins. It doesn’t make him think he’s worthless or useless, though, but he still strives to impress people (especially Elena, because she’s the crown princess and he’s just a baker boy) around him and prove that he’s capable of doing everything that other guards can.

Once he lets Elena see his true self, he doesn’t need to impress her anymore. She sees him as her friend (which she directly tells him) and it allows him to see her as someone beyond a crown princess as well.

Their relationship is super dynamic, and it does affect Gabe as a person.

Early season 1 - he’s cocky, overconfident, and overprotective because he sees Elena and himself in the princess and her guard pattern. He’s a knight, she’s a princess, therefore, he has to protect her.

Mid-late season 1/early season 2 (aka post-Olaball/pre-Shapeshifters) - he’s Elena’s friend. It makes him more flexible and cooperative, although his protectiveness doesn’t leave him which means this is simply one of his personality traits that gets more or less intense depending on the situation. Another interesting thing is that his guard self around Elena gets nearly erased. He’s not bothered by being bold towards her in The Princess Knight, he joins her in the friendship activities like going to the beach (unsuccessfully), playing olaball, and even calls himself her best friend.

Season 2 - Gabe gets promoted to captain. He gains a higher rank and more responsibilities which affects the way he sees Elena. He’s back to his guard mode but from a different perspective this time. He’s not a knight in the shining armor who needs to protect and impress a princess anymore - he’s an officer who holds a huge responsibility. He becomes more overbearing even when he’s out of duty since we see how he basically gives orders to his friends and sees their search for Shuriki as a military mission (The Scepter of Night). I think he chills out a bit in the second half of season 2, but it’s hard to say anything about it, specifically about his relationship with Elena, since he goes on a mission and barely interacts with her. But it also speaks about how much his new position changes him, he embraces it and understands what he has on his shoulders now (although I wouldn’t mind seeing how he gets used to being a captain but it’s a topic for another essay).

Season 3 - their relationship is balanced out, as is Gabe. Season 3 really is the best at showing how much Gabe and Elena grew at understanding each other, and Captain Mateo is the display of it. Gabe does get hurt by the Grand Council’s decision but he still agrees on it after he has a conversation with Elena. He understands that her decision has nothing to do with how she views him as her friend (and at this point we can imagine a late season 1 Gabe being much more offended by her decision) - this is how the crown princess is supposed to act. They both get more professional and learn to see the border between friendship and duty without erasing one of these components. It’s balanced out. Gabe understands when he should let Elena take a lead and doesn’t stand on her way, while he’s able to see when she actually needs his help, too.

Elena forms Gabe as a person, as does the relation between them (a princess and a guard), and in my opinion, this is really one of the core aspects of his development. Gabe wouldn’t be the person we know without Elena.

***

Back to Gabe’s inner self and origins. As I already mentioned, the reason he could be considered “cocky” in early season 1 is his wish to impress people around him. We see these insecurities pop up in The Curse of El Guapo when he interacts with other guards in the barracks (“if I make captain, it’ll be because I earned it”; “I don’t need a fancy sword to win the competition”), and an interesting thing is that he steps back each time Rico talks about Gabe’s family which is why I think he does care about his origins a lot and it hurts him when it’s used in a derogatory manner.

But in this episode it’s shown from a bit different perspective than from what we see in Olaball (where he tries to make his father proud), because Gabe has no reason to doubt his worth as a guard here. He’s friends with a crown princess, his dad accepted his choice, he’s among the guards who are chosen as the next captain. But all his achievements get erased only because he was born in a humble family (and because of Rico’a envy, to be honest), and this time his problems basically get solved by the same solution again: he talks to Elena.

Gabe’s conflicts come from his desire to be respected, and it got developed because of his relationship with Roberto, aka his father, aka one of the most important people in his life. Gabe couldn’t gain his approval, and it made him strive for other people’s respect or even admiration so he could feel satisfied. And it overlaps with his insecurities about his origins plus his disability to talk about his feelings with other people (although we don’t know what caused it, perhaps it’s Roberto’s influence again).

I think this is a pretty neat detail, since this is not as obvious as his relationship with Elena, yet I still wouldn’t say it comes from nowhere. We get to see Gabe as a round character in Olaball, and this episode does explain why he acts the way he acts in the first episodes plus it gets a bit deeper in The Curse of El Guapo.

***

Gabe’s development in season 3 is one of the things I talked quite a lot in the past, when the show was still going, but I’d still like to highlight it a little here as well.

Season 1 is mostly about Gabe’s growth as a person. We meet him in his roughest and by the end of this season, we have a clearer and deeper picture of him. Season 2 is about his guard self. He gets promoted to captain, and we see him growing in this area. And season 3 is about his relationship with magic. This is how I would characterize his role in each season.

Magic has always been foreign to Gabe which can be easily explained by the atmosphere of his childhood/adolescence when magic was forbidden. He doesn’t trust it at first and then simply doesn’t take it seriously, occasionally teasing Mateo. But what’s the most important: he can’t confront it which erases his skills in magical battles. He’s the first one (and basically the only one) who gets defeated in The Scepter of Night, he can’t fight Fiero in Song of the Sirenas, he becomes a magical snow storm victim in Snow Place Like Home, he ruins his own plan in Naomi Knows Best, and finally, he lets Delgados and Esteban escape.

Gabe never realized any of his failures until Doña Paloma directly pointed it out. It brings us back to the previous points I made in this post: Gabe wants to be respected. It is important for him to be respected by other people. But in Captain Mateo this wish is crashed down, he’s neglected, and it explains his rage at the Grand Council’s decision.

In Crash Course, Gabe gets a chance to make up for his mistake and it happens through learning magic. We all know how “stick to the plan” Gabe is, but despite this feature of his, I do find the way he acts in this episode valid. We basically see him at his lowest here, since Gabe is not good at talking about his feelings and he had to keep everything he told Mateo about to himself since Captain Mateo which is quite a long period of time. He doubted his worth as a captain and had to prove he deserved it via something he was terrible at.

Gabe learns magic because he understand that this is his main weakness and it prevents him from being the one he wants to be. But in Coronation Day, we see him combining his swordsmanship skills, something that determines who he really is, and magic, something that he had to grow on to complement his strengths.

His relationship with magic is also connected with his relationship with Mateo. He doesn’t trust magic, therefore doesn’t trust Mateo, a wizard, and it explains why Gabe treats him like that in Spellbound. He becomes friends with Mateo which makes his attitude towards magic either more playful and teasing-like or even admired. Generally, the way Gabe sees magic is usually linked to his mood around Mateo at the moment. Mateo broke the rudder? Ewww, magic is bad. Mateo shielded him and Naomi from Shuriki’s attack? Ooo, nice spell!

To conclude this part, I just want to say that through learning how to cooperate with Mateo and understand his strengths, Gabe also learnt the necessity to know magic. And the other way around. Through learning magic, Gabe learnt to appreciate Mateo and be patient with the differences between them.

***

Why did I even write this post? Yes, my friend inspired me to, as I already mentioned. But also, as somebody who has been a silent observer of the fandom for a very long time, I really often saw the takes I disagreed with but never debated with. I never considered Gabe’s development subtle (although at this point I just don’t know what development even is, perhaps) because I can clearly see how different season 1 and season 3 Gabes are.

One of the reasons Gabe became my favourite character is how much he grew on me. I didn’t like him in season 1 at all, but something turned upside down inside of me in season 2 and now he’s possibly my favourite fictional character of all time. It wouldn’t happen if he didn’t change.

Anyway, it got a bit personal at the end, so I’ll finish here! Thanks everyone for reading and feel free to share your thoughts!

[transformers-earthspark]

So, there have been a few problems with my current tagging system for spoilers. The problem is that not everybody will tag #earthspark spoilers or #earthspark leaks when they reblog posts from here or other sources, and then people will still encounter spoilers when trying to avoid them.

(And I'm not blaming anyone! I totally understand not wanting to tag every post you reblog, or just forgetting to do so. If anything, it's mostly my fault for not putting the most recent leaked images under a readmore.)

I've been thinking about implementing a new system of avoiding spoilers. In addition to blocking tags, Tumblr can block certain keywords and key phrases. So what if there was a certain code for each group of episodes, so that those who haven't seen the episodes yet could block the code?

For example, a post about episodes 1-10 (aka S1A / Season 1 part A) would have a certain code with a bunch of numbers that Tumblr could block. So I would add that code to any posts of mine that contain spoilers for the first 10 episodes. And episodes 11-18 (S1B) would have a different code, and 18-26 (S1C) would have another different code.

I would still tag #earthspark spoilers and #earthspark leaks, but I think this method would be significantly more efficient for those who wish to avoid spoilers.

[cinnbar-bun]

So I saw you did some zines before and I was wondering, do you have any advice on how to get in as a writer 🥲🥲 I’ve been trying but it seems like I get rejected every time and it lowkey hurts.

Hi nonnie!! Sorry for not responding to this earlier but I wasn’t sure of the right thing to say. Yes, I have done a few pieces for some zines, and I’ll try to be as … honest as I can without being too harsh.

I’m just going to say it right off the bat, fanzines just aren’t the best for writers in general. You’ll notice a lot of times, that zines will open maybe 2-5 slots specifically for writers. Considering many might get over 50-60+ applications for those spots, it’s already a tough start. Don’t blame yourself for this, it’s not that you suck, but it’s just that there’s so much limited space. It is not your fault. Two people out of 50 applications is barely anything.

And you might think, well, what’s the reasoning for that?

And to be honest it goes down to the current culture of fanzines that made me leave it to begin with. Most of them are either for-profit/for donations. Which is cool! Buuuut that means you have to maximize profit and minimize costs. Who is most likely going to bring in the audience? Unfortunately, not writers. Who is taking up the most space (technically speaking) with their work… unfortunately, also writers.

Having writers is often seen as a loss of time and space that could be given to artists who most likely have more pull to an audience. I mean, you can even compare this in general from writing fanfics to simply looking at a piece of art. You don’t need to read art the way you do a fanfic. Art is eye catching and boom, you can continue to the next thing. Note: this is not me diminishing artists or writers, I’m explaining this from a business perspective that zine owners have shared with me that unfortunately constrains them.

Even if you follow the limits of like a 1-2k work, putting it in the zine with additional formatting, dialogue, borders, sizes, etc will take up around 6-8 pages maybe. To some owners, that’s 6-8 artists that could’ve taken that spot that would’ve had more pull than the one writer who wrote the fic.

Fanzines nowadays feel they have a standard to be almost close to “official” merch which… that’s not why zines were made to begin with. It was a celebration of fandom and fan creations. But everyone wants people with high follower counts now, so lesser known creators are often chucked to the side. Which, fair enough you’re tryna make profit for a cause- but it can be disheartening.

Trust me, despite me having participated in like 3 zines, it still hurt when I got rejected. And, you do have to take this to heart, the zine owners don’t think your writing is crappy or anything like that. They don’t. You can mourn being rejected but it’s not a reflection on your writing.

My advice? Go make your own zine. Or just continue writing fanfic for fun and posting. You’re not really gonna make money off them anyways even in a for-profit zine, but zines are meant to be by the fans for the fans. The current culture has sucked the fun out of it in exchange for profit, but you don’t have to wait around to get accepted. Even just yourself and a friend or two can make a zine on your own, and that’s really all you need. You make the rules and you get to make your funny zine. So go for it! Send your application to official ones, of course, it never hurts to try, but you don’t need some person to allow you to contribute. Fandom is for everyone, not just for profit or those only with master level talent or follower counts. Just make your own thing!

[beepsparks]

Fun fact I have never been actually acknowledged by an actor or voice actor for a character I like before, noticed MAYBE because Andy Poland mentioned he looks at the fanart channels in the official Jackbox server sometimes but a few of my friends have gotten direct acknowledgment from actors of characters in media we like before (and tbh its funny because usually its OUT OF NOWHERE and completely unexpected)

On that note istg if my “baby’s first acknowledgement from an actor/va of a character they like” moment is from Tom or Phil my brain will implode