#pretty girls have a doomed narrative

[miguel-owhora]

eughhhhh reader who whisks Molly away for the night and shows her a good time by spoiling her for a day, giving her all of his attention, and then lovingly fucking her. eughfjfjd your cock comfortably stretching her gummy walls, your calloused hands sliding over her waist and smooth skin, playing with her nips..... ughfjddkd maybe even eating her out like you're a starved man. kissing her a good night once it's all done and leaving by the time she wakes up, leaving only a letter behind and what could've been hers.

[autism-disco]

bojack horseman has ruined me in the way that i see the griffith observatory in another context and still just start screaming

[kaleschmidt]

I need to be more insane abt Santana n miss b.......

[iamespecter]

Ah yes, the one guy I like vs the five other femme fatales

I did the thing that I saw one other mutual do!!! honestly, it was VERY hard to pick for most of these (save for Caine and Glamrock Chica) because I ADORE a LOT of characters. And doing this honestly makes me realize just how much I gravitate towards characters that are doomed by the narrative or their scriptwriters one way or another

My current favorite is Caine because it's pretty much self-explanatory, he is my current blorbo. My scrunkly. My precious lil scrunkler guy

Chica is my comfort character. She literally raised me alongside Freddy Fazbear when I was going through one of the toughest moments of my life, living with my abusive dad (and yes the chicken and the bear are so married to me and me only)

Master Tigress save me you were taken from me by the fourth film and I will NEVER live that down

Where do I even start with Six from Little Nightmares. By god, this poor yellow raincoat wearing child of mine. I both love and hate just how hopeless her story is. People say that the ending of the first game ends with her escaping via a boat, but I really don't think so. I think she's stuck at the Maw because I keep saying it, THE BOAT DROPPING THE GUESTS LEFT. THERE IS NO "OTHER BOAT". IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. (before this becomes a ramble, I'm gonna stop it right there.)

I'm VERY guilty of liking Lucy Wilde from Despicable me because I hate the franchise (the first film was good), but by god, IS SHE THE FUNNIEST SHIT. To me, she literally carries the films she's in, she inspired one of my main OCs' humor and even appearance. I don't care about Gru, or the villains, or the girls, just give me more Lucy.

GLAMROCK CHICA MY BELOVED I AM GOING DOWN ON MY KNEES RN PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MARRY ME I'M PUTTING ALL OF MY POINTS IN THE RIZZ STATS PLEASE JUST ONE CHANCE BABYGIRL OINE CHANCE GIVE ME ONE CHANCE (I am Glamrock Chica's #1 fan and I will always be angry at Scott for what he's doing to her and her variants)

sigh,,,, what I ever did to like such characters that I know will end up crushing my heart one way or another, I don't know but I do know that at the very least, I have the power to diverge from canon as an artist

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

#sansa tells the truth? lady still dies because cersei was obviously not concerned with the truth #robert steps in and decides the wolf shouldn't be killed? ok. lady dies later after bob and ned are off the picture #what if we go back in time and avoid the quarrel between joffrey and arya? lady still dies in the future because cers wasn't about to have #her hostage walking around the red keep in the company of a great northern beast #rip baby girl :( #literally a baby girl like she was just a puppy :(

no asoiaf character has ever been more doomed than Lady the direwolf. with most characters you can always rationalize their fate with "oh if they had done this instead of that then things might have been different they would still be alive the war wouldn't have happened etc etc". but with Lady there is just no plausible scenario in which she doesn't end up dead by the end of agot :(

[branwinged]

what's your take on rhaegar?

take as in, my opinion of his moral character? we don't have all the details for that, filling in the blanks involves a great deal of speculation. my read of him is based on what purpose he serves within the story.

i don't think much of him outside of what he means for dany. it's the way robb is not a character in his own right to me and exists only to serve catelyn and bran's arcs. which is why my opinion of rhaegar is mainly informed by that scene in agot, where dany dreams of him in his armour and lifts the visor to find that "the face within was her own", dany is clearly inheriting his narrative role (jon too in some capacity, but i'm not thinking of jon in relation to the targaryens before the reveal happens), it's for purely this reason i've never seen him as someone with no redeeming qualities. the memory of rhaegar shadows and informs everything she does (it is time to cross the trident) grrm writes her with shades of all her targaryen ancestors, because she's the last of them and embodies three hundred years of her house's glorious and terrible history. but rhaegar's particular echo is the strongest because that's the brother she would've married under slightly different circumstances, she imagines rhaegar as the ideal vision of the king in her mind whom she must emulate, he died and made her the prince that was promised. her entire character is constructed around him. he's not simply a strong influence in her life, she is him. they call her aegon the conquerer come again but she's been having visions of battling the others at the trident since agot, she's also rhaegar come again. she'll do everything he couldn't. it's just a bit inconceivable for a character like that to be revealed as a cold, unfeeling schemer. like, where's the heart in that? if everything rhaegar resembled was antithetical to dany's own beliefs and motives? aerys is already there to serve that exact role.

but what we learn about him from a number of contradictory sources is interesting. melancholy bard prince, born in grief, sang songs of doom and loss among the ruins of summerhall, presumably plagued by prophetic dragon dreams. he's framed as a character out of some song. all rebellion characters have that quality to them, there's a girl who dies trapped in a tower, another throws herself off a tower, the tourney at harrenhal episode is told to bran (and in turn, the readers) in the form of a song. they don't feel very real, or at least, they'll never get to be real the way our present day characters feel real because they're dead and their stories have been distorted and repurposed. robert's version is that of a king valiantly fighting for his abducted lady love, the version told to dany is that of tragic star crossed lovers torn apart by the realm. they're songs, and cannot be the whole truth. it's in the name. it was the year of the false spring and they all thought they were changing the world. rhaegar was going to call a great council and depose aerys, robert and ned where overthrowing a mad king to put an end to his atrocities. except rhaegar died having achieved nothing, robert ascended his throne on the corpses of children, then in fifteen years' time recreated the conditions for the start of another war. and lyanna simply traded one kind of gendered sentence for another. i'm not drawing a 1:1 equivalence between rhaegar and robert (and i do think it will be written as a romance with the truth somewhere between robert and dany's versions), but that she died either way is a pretty significant detail. she died in more ways than one! when they talk about her they recall a helpless maiden dead in some tower, not a girl capable of besting renowned knights.

like, it's very clear to me that the rebellion and its immediate consequences are meant to be read as a tragedy, caused not by the actions of a character(s) but as a result of the systemic failings of their world (which is why it's once again leading up to the burning of king's landing, where it all began, the city is symbolic of the very worst of westerosi feudalism). lyanna's death is less about robert and rhaegar and more about the way there was no escape possible for a girl like her—a theme that's carried over in sansa and arya's stories, except this time it will end with them getting to live the life lyanna wasn't allowed to, because this time they will change the world. dany's earnest dream of "to plant trees and watch them grow" is just that. it's the dream of spring.

[as-de-spadas]

Some things I adored from session 4:

-Final closure with Boat Boys

-Mumbo coming back to the Life series after Last Life after his own team betrayed him and seeing Etho making aha! jokes.

-Grian desperately burning his own creations to fit in with others.

-Scar being forced into the villain role. Seeing him having to kill all of Lizzie's cows and punching Skizz again his will was somehow terrifying.

-Gem throwing people into the End but not helping them. You go girl.

-first reds First reds First Reds FIRST REDS

-Multiple people saying horsegirl and barking. What the hell is wrong with them.

-People starting to prepare for when all hell breaks loose after they built pretty things all season (They didnt know they had to prepare back in 3rd Life)

-Grian sadly saying no to Etho when he offered to build him a bread bridge just like he said to Joel he didn't want to team up with Jimmy because he already did last time.

-Grian figuring Scar's task immediately. They knlw each other that well huh

-Jimmy being literally thrown into death by the Ender Dragon. He isn't beating the doomed by the narrative alegations.

I'm going bananas. Can anyone hear me.

[cityofmeliora]

notes / thoughts on the Papas' (lack of) involvement in the songwriting process and their connections to the concepts / themes of their albums

thanks for the kind words and thanks for the ask! these were great questions and really enjoyed writing this response. your questions really made me think! (and when i start thinking i always think too hard and take forever to answer– sorry this took so long!)

i'm putting these questions together because i feel they are closely related. this is a topic i've recently been thinking about a lot, actually.

A Ghoul Writer was first mentioned in that 2010 interview with Primo. the Ghoul Writer is Special Ghoul, the Nameless Ghoul character who gave interviews in Eras 2 and 3. in interviews with him, either he himself or the interviewers would usually mention he's the Writer. i'm not linking anything specific here because you can find this happening in pretty much any Era 2 / 3 interview. (though there's one Era 2 Nameless Ghoul interview that refers to the Writer as a separate character.)

the only Papa who wrote his own music was Nihil. the music video for The Future Is A Foreign Land shows that he and his Nameless Ghouls wrote the song together, and he's credited as a writer on Seven Inches Of Satanic Panic. (pic: back of the SIOSP record)

after Nihil, none of the Papas were involved in the songwriting process. everything after Nihil was written by A Ghoul Writer.

PITCHFORK: On the new album, the songs/lyrics are credited to "A Ghoul Writer." Are you this "Ghoul Writer"? If so, what inspired the words? PAPA EMERITUS: I am not the Ghoul Writer. Pitchfork (April 2013)

Does Papa contribute to the composing process? NAMELESS GHOUL: No, Papa doesn’t contribute to the song-writing. Metal Paths (August 2015)

so the later Papas were interpreters of the music, not writers.

as for the question of whether the Papas embody the sins of society or criticize the sins of society by parodying them, i think it's a bit of both– and i think it depends on which perspective we're looking from.

obviously from a real-world perspective, Ghost as a whole is meant to criticize and parody the issues the music is about, and the personality and characterization of each Papa is closely tied to the themes of his album.

from an in-universe lore perspective, as interpreters of the music, each Papa has his own relationship with the themes of his album. i think the Ghoul Writer writes each album for / about the Papa who's going to perform it. however, this is not necessarily a positive gesture.

here are my notes / thoughts on how each Papa relates to the themes of his album:

(trigger warning for mentions of misogynistic violence / rape / forced pregnancy)

Opus Eponymous and Primo: Primo refuses to comment on his interpretation of Opus Eponymous, but it's pretty clear what he thinks. Primo is a misanthrope who believes humans are “vermin” that have doomed themselves due to their “intellectual decline”. in his eyes, humanity is unworthy of life and will eventually be destroyed. Opus Eponymous has been described as an "orthodox devil-worshipping" album, and it is a very violent album, which is great for Primo because he's an orthodox devil worshiper and he loves violence and murder and wants everyone to die. 'Elizabeth' celebrates an alleged serial killer who is said to have killed hundreds of women / girls. 'Stand By Him' is about a woman being raped by a priest, who then accuses her of witchcraft and has her burned at the stake in order to cover up the assault. and the overall narrative of Opus Eponymous is about a woman being raped and forced to carry + birth the Antichrist, which will eventually kill her. this is something Primo thinks is good and anticipates happening because he believes in the cult very literally and agrees with its message / mission of human extinction. Primo is definitely a villain.

Infestissumam and Secondo: interestingly, there is actually an instance of Papa telling us about his interpretation of this album. in Secondo's own words, "the new album is about the presence of the Devil. The title, Infestissumam, means 'the biggest threat' and refers literally to the arrival of the Antichrist, but what it is also is about is what man has traditionally regarded as diabolical presence– namely female form and swagger." Infestissumam is about how humanity can connect to the presence of the Devil, both physically and spiritually. i think this theme really shows through Secondo. to him, all the things traditionally regarded as sin –especially sexuality– are good things. to him, Satan is the way to freedom and enlightenment. on the flipside, all the things promoted by christianity –holiness and virtue and repression– are stupid and stifling. Secondo is a jerk and he loves to have sex and party and he just doesn't care. Secondo, more than any other Papa, is dedicated to indulging in sin and saying "fuck you" to christianity.

Meliora and Terzo: it's complicated. i don't want to give a detailed explanation right now because i already have a separate post in my drafts about my analysis of Terzo's relationship with the themes of Meliora (it will be long). for now, this is what i'll say: Meliora is about the absence of god, and it's described as futuristic and "pre-apocalyptic." the title "Meliora" means "for the pursuit of better", but it's meant to be ironic. it's about the mistakes people make / the bad things people do in pursuit of better. so as your ask states, it criticizes ambition, greed, and abuse of power. i think Terzo wants to criticize those sins. but i think that he also embodies them, to a certain extent, and i think Meliora is also criticizing him.

Prequelle and Cardinal Copia: we don't really have any canon material that indicates Cardi's personal opinions on the album, but there is certainly a connection between the character and the concept / themes of the album. Prequelle is described as a "positive" album about the plague. it's an album about society falling apart during the apocalypse. it's also an album about celebration and survival in spite of being faced with the inevitability of death. i think Cardi certainly embodies this. Cardi is surrounded by death. Prequelle Era begins with Papas I, II, and III being murdered in order to promote Cardi's success, and it ends with Papa Nihil dying, which allows Cardi to ascend and become Papa IV. in a way, Cardi is both a plague rat and a survivor. it's not his fault they died. he didn't ask for them to be killed, and he was not their killer. but he is the herald and the carrier of the true killer, the actual driving force behind everything (Sister Imperator). through all this, Cardi is having a good time! he's dancing the night away! he's glad everyone standing in his way has dropped dead! he is a rising star and he feels invincible! and he is certain he will survive this.

IMPERA and Papa Emeritus IV: the main themes of IMPERA are "spiritual annihilation", reactionary sentiment, and regression. it's about how people who fear progress are afraid of losing their sense of meaning / purpose and their place in the world, so they turn to misogyny, violence, religious dogma, and fascism. they cling to the idea of having a cause to fight for. i think Cardi is certainly criticizing these issues. he doesn't agree with any of this at all. however, there's still a connection between the narrative of IMPERA and Cardi's character arc in this Era. narratively, IMPERA is a concentrated / condensed version of the apocalyptic narrative that plays out through the first 4 albums. it's about the cyclical nature of the rise and fall of empires. IMPERA Era begins with Cardi ascending to the title of Papa. but after the feeling of triumph wore off, Cardi became very aware of and very fearful of his own inevitable end. he knew that no matter how great his achievements were, he would be forced to step down so his successor could take his place, just like his predecessors had for him. Rite Here Rite Now is about Cardi struggling to make peace with this idea. as a side note: i really like the irony of the fact that Cardi was never actually the leader of his own empire– he was a puppet emperor who got his marching orders from his mother. it connects to IMPERA's theme of political manipulation.

[pansy-picnics]

can ask that you spill everything about your Splatoon OCs? 😺

ABSOLUTELY i did not expect anyone to ask to be honest….goodness where do i even begin. Let’s see. I’ll start with my main little doomed love triangle thing i suppose

Cecilia Paek, she/her, 24 yrs old, aka: cece, celia, eight, whore, freak, slut, etc. My agent 8. born in the domes under the name Paek Seo-Mi, but renamed herself to cece post-memory loss. A freak both in the not-safe-for-work sense and just. In general. She says the most unhinged shit in such a passive formal manner. Marina has to consistently tell her she’s not allowed to eat the jelletons. She bites. A lot.

aside from being a freak cece is curious and observant, but incredibly blunt and fierce. In the past Seo-Mi was a much quieter and more repressed person, but hearing the Inkantation awakened a flame within her, so to speak. Cece is incredibly vocal about her thoughts and feelings, and she does not like to be pushed around. although shes always been a very nostalgic person, shes been trying to look forward more often than not. (she was on team future!)

cece has a very mature, almost sisterly presence, and is especially close with neo 3 (ikra) and her pseudo sister agent 4 (yottsu). she also has a daughter of her own, yumi! ikra and yottsu are my friends ocs so i cant say too much about them but ikra is like, basically her and kyle’s adopted kid

Kyle Lastname, (Actual surname to be determined Eventually) he/him, 25 yrs, aka three, cap, kyle, ceces silly rabbit /j. he’s my captain 3. has a stupid ass name bc he’s a stupid ass guy. Basically started as a joke oc but i put him through the Horrors. he’s the malewife of all time.

Grew up the only hearing person in a deaf/hard of hearing household so he’s fluent in sign language. He joined squidbeak when he was like 16 mostly bc he was a MASSIVE FUCKING LOSER with a huge ego who wanted the attention. Now he has Trauma and hates his teen self more than anything. (The egotistical little white kid phase is like, a rite of passage in his family. His little sister is still in that phase.) Now that he’s mellowed out hes just a sopping wet cat. Dating cece and is obsessed with her + will do literally whatever she wants.

Hes a lot more talkative than canon 3, hes the kind of guy who copes with humor all the time. he tries to be cool and mysterious but hes really awkward and gets flustered or worked up super easily. He’s overall a pretty boring guy and thats his charm. She’s barbie and he’s just ken. etc etc.

Hes SO dad coded btw. He and cece have a daughter together, Yumi. Since he was young he spent a lot of time looking after his little sister and he’s basically adopted his protege, neo3 (ikra). he makes me think of RTGame for reasons i could not describe to you, it’s just the energy somehow. He’s my babygirl. My little meow meow if you will (Cece voice)

Victoria Mendoza, she/her, 25 yrs, aka Tori. SHE is the fucked up one. Literally doomed by the narrative. Eye love her.

She comes from a long line of elite soldiers and was a child prodigy, but also the Problem Child. Got expelled from multiple schools for beating up other kids. from a young age she’s been incredibly critical of the octarian society and she was basically your average teen rebel. into alt music/fashion, incredibly vocal about her distaste for the system, fairly closed off with a cold exterior. the only person she truly cared for was Seo-Mi (Cece).

Seo-Mi was quiet and sweet and generally pretty average academically, so she didn’t have nearly as much pressure on her to succeed compared to Tori. the two were childhood friends and teenage lovers. The only ones who truly matched each others freak if you will. When they were little girls they used to dream of escaping to the surface together. this changed when they were about sixteen years old.

the most important thing to know about tori is that she is a pessimist and at her core a Coward. She’s all bark and no bite. She’ll scream her hatred of authority from the rooftops but immediately crumble at the sight of her leader. and as she got older and officially entered her career, she lost hope. she determined the surface wouldn’t have anything more for her than the domes did. she became complacent, while Seo-Mi, who had previously been more neutral, had heard the inkantation and only become more determined to leave the domes.

The two desperately tried to change each other’s minds but they were far too stubborn. both of them were crushed by the supposed “betrayal” of their beloved. Inevitably Seo-Mi left for the surface, eventually being taken in to Kamabo Co. while tori stayed behind to rot.

Since Seo-Mi left, tori became more bitter than ever before. she turns her focus to her career, and her family, but she never truly moves on from the loss. Unfortunately, Cece did. Cece met someone else, she’s started a family, she has a completely new name. she’s essentially a new person. and Tori is still the same.

Canonically i don’t think they would ever meet again and actually recognize each other, but i like to play with the idea sometimes bc if they did they would Hate each other. Tori is completely incapable of accepting that her Seo-Mi has moved on. She is clinging on to a version of someone that doesn’t exist anymore. tori is a deeply self destructive person and will never move on in any sense of the word. Sad!

Also this is Yumi. Age varies but shes like. Very young toddler as of the current timeline. She’s cece and kyle’s favorite surprise (Accident). They’re both freaks and shes the consequences of their actions. She and smollusk have playdates together. She’s obsessed with off the hook but doesn’t realize that her weird lesbian aunts pearl and marina are the same people. She’s baby

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

⚔️⚔️ Sword gays showdown, grand finale ⚔️

*Camilla fanart by @friendamedes, used with permission

Propaganda:

For Camilla:

she prefers dual-wielding two short blades but can fight with pretty much anything. she's ambidextrous she's autistic she's even sex-repulsed ace. she sighs longingly when reunited with her weapons. she's from planet academia and dresses like an off-duty librarian. literally one of the most iconic moments of the entire series is when she gets challenged to a duel and absolutely wipes the floor with her opponent even though she doesn't even like rapiers that much. 'swords don't lie.' 

OK I’m sure you’re getting just about every character from The Locked Tomb but Cam is my favorite. She's a nerd AND a jock. She is in this deeply intense and loving and unhealthily codependent soulbond partnership with her best friend second cousin and prince. She is smart and deadpan snarky and fights like a grease fire and I have never been able to get that line out of my head.

For Gideon:

she's incredibly good w/ her two hander and less good with her rapier but she's still pretty good!! she is a horny lesbian who's taste in women seems to exclusively be "girls who have tried or are going to try to kill her". she's a redhead. i love her

Gideon’s a HUGE Butch lesbian and literally always wanted to use a broad sword. Specifically a broad sword. She said fuck rapiers. Uhhh literally dies to save the girl she cares for and the sword she uses then becomes like an altar for said girl. Gideon Nav Supremacy <3

oh she is the most badass swordswoman lesbian in media. she’s her gf’s cavalier, defends her in battle, she’s incredibly butch and buff

C'mon shes THE sword lesbian like... canonically 

Loves her broadsword more than anything on her home planet and practices whenever she can. Spoiler it’s possessed by her mom. Gave everything so her best enemy could eat her soul and become the new saint. The character of all time child of two separate threesomes, child of the god emperor, she’s dead, she’s butch, she’s a dork, she’s doomed by the narrative. She’s my favorite.

girlie is literally the swordswoman supreme. she’s the cavalier primary to her necromancer. she has a fuckoff huge longsword. she gets absorbed into another person SPECIFICALLY to swordfight for them. in a gay way too.

While everyone else was developing common sense, she studied the blade. This dyke's main weapon and true love is the long sword, but she's also passable with a rapier. The sword is, in her own estimation, pretty much all she's good for. That and her smoking hot bod and terribly charming sense of humor. 

"While we were developing common sense, she studied the blade." (Direct quote from the book). She's the most useless lesbian to ever exist, and she's obsessed with an absolute wet cat of a woman. Learned longsword mostly on her own and is such a genius with the sword she learned rapier in a few months (by personal experience, it's really really hard)

Most badass broadsword wielding lesbian easily slaying bone monsters and evil space wasps

The cavalier to her necromancer. very gay. in a complicated codependant lovehate relationship with the only other person her age she knew growing up.

For Xena:

It is HER! The OG woman with a blade! 

Her show was so iconic that any lesbian over the age of 30 knows her IMMEDIATELY because this show probably helped her have her awakening. Fandom foremothers and fathers rise up and get your gal a title.

An all around badass, bisexual woman, comfortable with many different bladed weapons. Her show was so much better than Hercules people forget his exists.

Xena is one of the OGs: once a baddie who turned good, she's a warrior who uses swords, daggers, and her trusty chakram to defeat evil and defend the innocent, while traveling with her kickass girlfriend Gabrielle. 

She has many skills

[ewingstan]

Discussion of disabilities in media ahead, this isn’t a thesis so much as some loose musings. Curious what people who’ve spent more time with these topics think. I’m on mobile so forgive the formatting change:

“I don’t want to be a pig,” Laurie whispered.

“A pig? What are you even talking about?” Miltona asked.

“I know we’re not supposed to use terms or labels for them, but… the boy in cubicle three and the girl in cubicle six. When we’re in the dormitories we talk and there’s obviously a set of procedures and protocols where a worker gets… demoted.”

….The Overseer collected a tissue from a stack of tissues on Donna’s undecorated desk. She wiped a dribble of moisture from the corner of Donna’s mouth. There was no reaction, no change in Donna. The older woman breathed at a set rate, blinked at a set rate, and even seemingly filled the catheter bag attached to her chair at a set rate.

So Teachers thing is gradually turning people from “guys indebted to me” to “literal non-autonomous tools.” The most obvious metaphor is turning men into machines, the metaphor Laurie uses is turning them into animals. The external manifestation is them being forced to work in a prison and the internal manifestation is the dignity-robbing lack of control over bodily functions. All of this is pretty effective at making Teacher out to be horrid. I do wonder if we get something unintentional from putting them all together.

An inglorious end tied to becoming unable to take care of bodily functions is a reoccurring trope for wildbow. Khepri covered in snot and tears she won’t wipe away, Lillian dooming the Fishmonger by giving him incontinence. Donna Sledge using a catheter and not having enough of herself left to wipe the drool from her mouth.

I’m kind of curious how people who have disabilities which make it hard to live independently feel about these. Is it frustrating to see a character’s use of a catheter be a narrative signal of their lack of personhood? If you’ve had the experience of losing a capacity, are books which portray the loss of such capacities as uniquely horrible something you’re frustrated by, or relate to? Do you feel seen by the way characters stop treating Donna like a person, feel like the struggles you face regarding how others treat you are on the page? Or are you frustrated that your condition is being compared to getting turned into a pig?

This isn’t really a complaint that wb is being uniquely ableist. I’m not even sure how you tell stories with “loss of some bodily/mental ability as horror” as a theme without running into similar concerns. I don’t necessarily think such concerns mean that we shouldn’t write those stories; I’m not going to come out against authors treating Alzheimer’s as tragic. And I do think this is effective writing, that it successfully makes Teacher out to be a horrible villain by robbing his victims of their dignity. It just reminds me that the standard of dignity being invoked is one that leaves a lot of people out. Not sure how I should weigh that.

[coraniaid]

buffy/faith for the ask game

(Reverse unpopular opinions)

Easily my favorite Buffy ship and one of my favorites in any work of fiction. I think the main reasons it works so well for me are:

The way it resonates so strongly with what's going on in the rest of the show the season Faith arrives. I mean, Buffy comes out to her mother (as a Slayer), which is treated by the show as ... well, as Buffy coming out ("it's because you didn't have a strong father figure, isn't it?" / "have you tried ... not being a Slayer?" / "I've tried to march in the Slayer Pride Parade...") and a handful of episodes later Buffy meets another girl who is also a Slayer and who she starts spending a lot of time with (because they have a connection -- "it's kind of a Slayer thing" -- which she doesn't have with her other, non-Slayer friends). And while they're busy patrolling cemeteries and looking for vampires every night, this other Slayer is keen to (1) talk to Buffy about sex and quiz her on her love life; (2) repeatedly tell her that "all men are beasts" and "losers" who can't be trusted; (3) suggest that Buffy should be more open to having sex with the people she spends her nights hunting vampires with (like ... who, Faith?); and (4) is delighted when Buffy breaks up with her boyfriend (and later furious when she gets back together with her previous ex) and immediately suggests that she could replace him ("You're still going to that dance, right? [...] Why don't we go together?"). If this was deliberately laying the ground work for an explicitly romantic arc, it would feel pretty heavy-handed. The fact that it apparently wasn't (at least not on the part of the showrunner or of most of the writers) almost makes it work better, in some ways.

The way that Faith is, from the very beginning, very deliberately written as a foil for Buffy, a person Buffy might have been if things went just a little differently in her life -- because she goes through things very much like things the audience has already seen Buffy go though (living alone in a small place in a strange town with no friends all season the way Buffy did in Anne, panicking and starting to pack to run away in Faith, Hope & Trick in the same way Buffy was accused of doing just the episode before, killing a person the way Buffy thought she had in Season 2's Ted, the way her fear of Kakistos mirrors Buffy's fear of the Master in When She Was Bad) and because she is so aware of the fact that she's always being compared to Buffy and coming up short, either by other people or herself ("you get the Mom, you get the Watcher ... what do I get?") it's very easy to tie Faith's arc across the show back to Buffy and to her feelings about Buffy. Faith wanting Buffy to accept her becomes Faith wanting this idealized version of herself to forgive her failings. And likewise Buffy recriprocating Faith's feelings and admitting to herself that she is attracted to Faith becomes Buffy accepting that Faith (and the things she represents) really are an integral part of Buffy herself; that Faith isn't entirely wrong when she says that Buffy enjoys being a Slayer and that being a Slayer is something she should be proud of (or, again, being "a Slayer").

Apparently this wasn't the original plan for the character (if there ever was anything like an 'original plan'), but the fact Faith's arc in Season 3 so clearly mirrors Angel's in Season 2 -- and the fact she is so very weird about Angel all season (and that Buffy is equally weird about how attracted to Faith she just keeps insisting Angel must be) just naturally suggests that Faith might have a similiar role to Angel in the narrative beyond just the circumstances of her betrayal of (and later not-quite-being-killed by) Buffy. And Angel is -- for the first three seasons of the show at least -- primarily cast in the role of Buffy's doomed tragic love interest who she has to (metaphorically) kill but will later be reunited with. Which makes Faith ... well, something.

Even if not all the writers were on board, the fact that Eliza Dushku was deliberately playing Faith as attracted to Buffy (and that SMG was playing Buffy as alternately frustrated by and protective of and tempted by Faith) gives their scenes together a chemistry that I don't think most of Buffy's (or Buffy's) canon relationships ever managed. Whether that's the Amends porch scene or Buffy kissing Faith in the hospital in Graduation Day or any and all of their various fights across the show. And those fight scenes are all great, which is another thing I love about the ship: is it really a proper enemies-to-lovers arc if one of the people in it hasn't tried to kill the other one and left them in a coma for months?

Faith's return to Buffy in the last five epsiodes of the show is one of the last season's saving graces, and it helps that by this point the writers definitely seemed to be playing up the ship deliberately ("Willow said you needed me: didn't give it a lot of thought" / "Defensiveness and weird mixed signals ... I've got Faith for that" / "Deep down you've always wanted Buffy to accept you. To love you." / "It feels like it's mine ... I guess that means it's yours"). Even without ever being canon and without wandering what happens post-Chosen, it feels like there's a real narrative arc to their relationship, from their initially rocky start through to "just good friends" to bitter enemies through to Faith seeking (and finding) some measure of redemption and Buffy cautiously letting her back into her life. Faith isn't in the show much (or even mentioned in the show in most episodes), but it feels like she has a genuinely meaningful connection to Buffy that most characters who appeaer in less than a season's worth of episodes can't manage.

The thing that made the ship work for me, rewatching the show after several years back in 2020, is the fact that Faith is -- even at her worst -- incredibly sympathetic precisely because she is such a loser and hates herself so much. She boasts about being a great actor despite the fact we see her awkwardly telling the sort of transparent lies that ... well, normally only Buffy manages (compare "There's this big party ..." in Amends to Buffy trying to tell her old crush Ford that "there was a cat ... and then there was another cat, and they were fighting"), she wants people to think she's cool so badly but only manages to fool Xander and Willow, she tries to act as though she's happy without friends but we only ever see her alone sitting watching old tv shows or lying listlessly on her bed, she insists she doesn't need a Watcher and "has a problem with authority figures" but she is so openly desperate for any sort of parental guidance in her life that she sides with first Mrs Post then the Mayor. She ties Buffy's mom up so she can have someone to listen to how sad she is that Buffy's moved on to a new guy in college and "dumped" her. The scene in the church in Who Are You? where Faith-as-Buffy furiously attacks Buffy-as-Faith while screaming through tears that she's "nothing ... disgusting ... murderous bitch" is, I think, a strong contendor for the best scene the show ever produced.

As Doug Petrie said, the reason Faith works as a character -- and the reason that Buffy/Faith works as a ship -- is that Faith is incredibly unhappy. If Faith was the cool loner she tries to pass herself off as -- and which some of the fandom seems to think she is -- the ship wouldn't be nearly as compelling to me. Faith isn't just the part of Buffy who loves Slaying and pushes back when other people give her orders, and she's not just another verison of Angelus. She's the part of Buffy from Becoming who lost everything and ran away from home, only unlike Buffy she never got to go home again. As Angel asked Buffy in that episode: "no friends, no hope ... take that away, what's left?". Well, Faith is what's left. Of course Buffy would see herself in Faith, right from the beginning. Of course Buffy would want to protect her. As Buffy (Sunnydale Class Protector 1999) tells Angel, Faith is in pain ... she's somebody who "some people ... protective-type people" are naturally drawn to. The show is very consistent about the fact that Buffy's type is friendless losers who look good in leather and can fight alongside her in battle (but not quite as well, so she can protect them and look after them when they're hurt). And what bigger loser in the show is there than Faith?

[red-elric]

i think what a lot of ppl miss about the nuance when it comes to the retcon is that the POINT of it is that its a bad ending. homestuck is designed to be a tragedy and it was never going to end well; its frankly ridiculous to try and shoehorn in a scenario where none of the current main characters are dead when the story is ABOUT death. its not narratively satisfying at all like this! but thats not what the kids wanted (and, more to the point, thats not what the FANS wanted. newer fans DEFINITELY miss the fact that homestuck was written as a conversation between hussie and the fans, a conversation that turned into an argument halfway through and led to a lot of things being taken in bad faith on both sides. but i digress; this is a watsonian post)

the retcon powers are very VERY explicitly described as the ability to change the alpha timeline. the 'whats supposed to happen' of it all, the premeditated narrative the story was written to fill. conversely, when aranea used the ring of life to come back and meddle, she is explicitly described as 'causing a doomed timeline.' and like, the thing about doomed timelines is that theyre meant to happen as much as theyre meant to be fixed. theyre how paradox space accounts for and incorporates time travel, and the existence of the doomed timeline is often NECESSARY for the alpha timeline to function. thats how you get davesprite, thats how the aradiabot that brought gamzee's honkHONK code back from his crazy murder timeline contributed to doc scratch's creation, thats why every dead dave helped the alpha timeline dave figure out what to do. if vriska was meant to have never died in the first place the timeline wouldve been doomed long before game over. the ring went to the wrong person, and thats the kind of simple fix sburb was expecting to solve with some time travel to get things back on track

the ring was supposed to go to someone else. probably vriska! from the alpha timelines perspective, it wasnt that long after her confrontation with john that she really changed and grew as a character. that she became someone who deserved a second chance. imagine: john uses his retcon as normal time travel, the way sburb comprehended it through the limitations of its code. he takes the ring before aranea can, goes to the dream bubbles, and has another conversation with vriska. maybe she doesnt even really want the ring anymore, and thats exactly the kind of thing that would convince john to give it to her. and she agrees, because he tells her terezi is waiting for her. they go back, they have the final fight, and people die. maybe they dont come back. but its the group of characters who earned the ending, who we watched grow up for three years

but thats not what happened, and it was never going to be what happened, because as narratively satisfying as it could have been? john and terezi wanted something different. john wanted everything to be OVER and terezi wanted the chance to make a different choice, even if it was wrong. theyre selfish; theyre kids. theyre tired of being characters in a story, of someone else pulling their strings. thats what typheus's choice was about, you know? and john made the wrong choice. some other version of john could have fixed things the "right" way, had our john decided to die instead. to accept the consequences of the doomed timeline and let pardox space fix it. hell, between roxys first instinct to just sit and let the void take her and terezis pointy horns offering a counterpoint we have some pretty blatant devil/angel on the shoulder imagery! and john making the same wrong choice he did when terezi first told him to fly to the seventh gate, except this time there was no davesprite on angel wings, no one left alive he cared about enough to listen to. because as much as john felt like he was SUPPOSED to fall for roxy, the girl version of his fathers lover, someone strongly associated with his half of karkat's shipping chart but without the complication of being a lesbian, someone HUMAN to repopulate the world with cut out of his apocalypse movie fantasies...... terezis way of thinking has always appealed to him more. because as much as he pretends its not true, john doesnt like to take things lying down, and he doesnt like when other people do either. he gets bored! hes attracted to the danger and morally grey self confidence terezi and vriska exude, so. he listened to terezi, and they brought vriska back.... without any of the character development she had gone through.

and its a bad ending, because of course it would be. and thats the point :) it was stupid to think two kids could meddle with the fate of the universe and it was stupid to think that these kids could have a happy ending so easily. but can you really blame them?

[absolutebl]

Wading back into the BL world after several months away, and I would like to politely request recommendations. I'm looking for completed BL shows that are as good as Bad Buddy, have a D/s element, are supernatural, and/or are about politics like Not Me. Any or all of these combined would be lovely. I prefer Thai, but any country is fine.

You're the best!

Hi sweetie! Welcome back.

Recently completed BL, as good as Bad Buddy (I rated that a 9/10) with D/s elements, supernatural (PNR), and/or politics.

Okay so I sorted the spreadsheet of doom by year (we are in October 2024) and then ranking, and here is what I got:

Century of Love

Thai Gaga

fated mates, PNR, historical element, grumpy/sunshine, D/s hinted at but not fully executed

This is a very pretty drama about a young man who fell in love with a nice girl 100 years ago, and when she died in his arms, he was cursed to live until he could meet her reborn self. Only this time around, she’s reborn into the body of a man. Or is she? I love it when Thailand gets all up in its own historical business and reincarnation and shizz. I like this pair (it’s not DaouOffroad’s fault I didn’t enjoy their first series.) Daou’s wushu is snazzy and we got a unique meet cute. (Erm… Remeet cute? Meet cute 2.0?)

Ultimately, this is I Feel You Linger in the Air + First Love Again, rather than (as one might expect) Until We Meet Again or The Director Who Buys Me Dinner. The leads turned in great performances, although Daou outclassed everybody else on that screen. It’s a good story and a great BL and I can’t find any major faults with it beyond a certain level of camp that is sadly endemic to lakorns. Also I’m going to give it credit as the kind of BL that one could safely recommend to lovers of melodrama and historical romance, without having to qualify it as “good for a BL.”

It was, to put it succinctly, a VERY ENJOYABLE show.

Cherry Magic (Thai remake)

Thai grey

paranormal, office romance, no D/s

A soft charming warm hug of a show about crushes and mind reading and self worth that really worked for me. With no-fuss execution from a consummate team (at GMMTV) and an OG lead pair (proving why they remain eternal and deserve to grow up). Look, here’s the thing,

Cherry Magic is a great Thai BL in its own right - not comparing it to any other iteration. But even when I do compare (and I've seen all the Cherries and read the manga) it stands strong. I, personally, like the Thai BL slightly better than the Japanese live action yaoi, but I think that’s because I just really enjoy Thai BL's style and I LOVE TayNew.

Also all the kissing was both present and better in this version. As it should be from Thailand.

Cosmetic Playlover

Japan Gaga

obsession, office, tsundere/sunshine , claiming, ownership D/s but nothing more than that

I loved this little show. It was a classic office BL about the older workaholic who loves his job and the younger upstart who unexpectedly loves his boss. It’s a hyung romance where everybody is extremely earnest and sweet and pretty about everything. Except our seme, who is slightly unhinged and a little obsessed in all the ways one likes best from Japan. Plus the kisses were good! I can’t ask for anything more, utterly charming unexpected gem of a show. What a great time!

Love For Love's Sake

Korea iQIYI

isekai, paranormal, high school setting, very soft, sunshine/tsundere, it's Korean so no D/s (the only one that might satisfy from them recently is bully romance Jazz for Two)

trigger suicide

Isekai-based KBL is about a man who must win a game by convincing a reserved teen outcast to fall in love with him. Of course, that teen represents himself and his own unhappiness. Like many queer narratives, this show is actually about self worth, trust, and found family, and it is VERY on the nose. But I don’t expect subtlety from my BL and I enjoyed it's truly lovely redemption arc and earnest performances.

I personally found the narrative a touch disjointed with overworked filming angles and poorer than average captions, but the consistency of tone, script, and immersion is beyond the norm for BL. You will drown in this show and like it that way. The leads have fantastic chemistry and it's ultimately highly rewatchable and utterly charming, which counts for a lot.

The Sign

Thai YouTube

paranormal, soulmates, sunshine/tsundere, high heat, police procedural, every other trope, there's even some elements of D/s in there because it has...... well, everything in it

This show is literally everything (except straight) all at once. It's BL, queer, band of brothers, romcom, erotica, PNR, fated mates, police procedural, fantasy, mystery, suspense, and slasher. It’s the king of genre mash-up chaos. Sure, it's madness but there is genius in it.

Was it a crazy unhinged mess +1 roll for damage? Yes. Yes it was.

Did it manage to hold all those tangled threads together? No it did not.

Was it also a charming, sexy, engaging, non-stop piece of entertainment? Sure thing.

I think this show is basically my KinnPorsche, and frankly I’ve been chasing that dragon naga since KP aired. Is it perfect? No. But it was balls to the wall FUN. Emphasis on balls.

I rated it a 9/10 in 2024 but doesn't contain any of your other requested criteria

Sugar Dog Life

The Rebound

Unknown

Wandee Goodday

We Are

Sorry the D/s has been very light on the ground this year. I mean there has been some kinky stuff, but nothing even approaching BB in terms of quality. I mean Deep Night was about sex work and had a poly romance but was it...... good? Not really.

I rated it an 8/10 but at least it has kink

My Stand-in

Meet You At the Blossom

Jazz for Two

Deep Night

[rey-jake-therapist]

Folks need to get over Celeborn already. Not even Tolkien cared enough to make him into a actual character, he’s just “Galadriel’s husband” because Arwen needed to exist. In some versions, Celeborn wasn’t even around when Celebrian was conceived and born! He and Galadriel spend centuries apart, and in the end she leaves for Valinor and he stays behind in Middle-earth! Literally, Galadriel could have spend centuries in love with Sauron that Celeborn would t even matter, since they were always apart doing their own thing.

Yep.

I don't understand this obsession with Celeborn and Celebrian. Like wanting Mirdania to be Celebrian while nothing, I say nothing, speaks in favor of that theory in the show except for the fact that Sauron compared her hair to Galadriel's.

Mirdania is framed since the beginning as a very secondary character, and probably doomed to die before the end of the season. If she was a "mystery daughter", she wouldn't be kept in the background, she would have been shown at least once in the trailer imho

She's down bad for Sauron since she met him at the gate (girl I GET IT), and Sauron is not an idiot, he perceived that. So now, he's using vile flattery to get her on his side, like, "wow, you totally look like Lady Galadriel in this light". It's not said in the show and it's probably a mistake, but Galadriel is considered a very, very pretty lady. Her hair in particular is FAMOUS. So comparing Mirdania to Galadriel is a huge compliment. Of course he got caught at his own game and found himself thinking of "the one that got away", but that's beyond the subject.

And frankly, I think we should hang on to our seat belts, because there might even be a kiss coming at some point. That won't mean a thing, (not to him anyway), but I don't trust him to play fair in this game LOL

Now, Celeborn. I think there's a reason why Galadriel dropped his name like a hot potato and never mentioned him again : right now, he's not important. It was the writers telling us "we know, he exists, but there's no room here for him now. Move on!" It doesn't mean he can't ever show up in the show at some point (he definitely will imho), but I don't see it happening before season 3, even season 4 !

And he's not a threat to the connection between Sauron and Galadriel anyway lol If Sauron had remained Halbrand, a man of the Southlands, that's a discussion that would be worth having, because Elves generally mate for life and fall in love only once. So if Galadriel fell in love with another man, worse, a mortal, it would raise questions regarding her true feelings for Celeborn. And it would be very boring too. We had enough mortal/Elves failed and successful romances, thank you very much.

But we can clown ourselves as much as we like : Sauron and Galadriel will never, EVER become a couple, and it's NOT because Galadriel has already fallen in love once, or because she's already married. She's the Light, Sauron's Darkness. She's GOOD, he's EVIL !

I don't know about you, but I think it's a more solid threat to a potential romance between the two than... Galadriel's marriage or Sauron flirting with a coworker lol

Sauron's never going to be a good guy, and Galadriel's never going to fall into darkness. They're literally doomed by the narrative. Sauron could have a wife of his own that it would add absolutely nothing.

[inbarfink]

Simon loved Betty dearly, but he was always kinda passively ignorantly selfish in their relationship. Allowing Betty to be needlessly self-sacrificial while not really giving her anything like that in return because… he was just not really noticing the pattern or how unhealthy obsessed Betty was with him.

Simon’s tunnel vision and incredible level of ignorance about Betty’s obsession and infatuation is so clear when you compare Simon’s original narrative of Betty leaving him with what actually happened.

Simon was so sure Betty left him because he just said or did something so horrible that no reasonable person could still love him like that. She probably just left him and spent the rest of her pre-War days peacefully alone or with someone else. But Betty instinctively knew she would never do that, the only person she would leave Simon for, is Simon 

But ever since the double-whammy of being Cursed and Betty ‘leaving’ him made his self-image tank - Simon taught himself to love others in the same unhealthy self-sacrificial and codependent way that Betty loved him. 

First there was Marcy. Simon himself nearly directly say, in his very first scene in ‘Fionna and Cake’, that he would be a wreck without Marceline being around - as something to give him a purpose. 

And that purpose was pretty heavily tied in with a sense of self-sacrifice.

It… was a difficult situation, to survive and take care of a little child in the middle of a Magical Nuclear War with a cursed artifact that would have consumed his mind sooner or later. But all evidence suggests that Simon was maybe a bit too eager to use the Crown to protect Marcy. 

Maybe partly a magically-induced compulsion to use the Crown more and more, but also I think… he found his purpose in the idea that he’s going to sacrifice himself for Marcy’s sake. Even as it pained Marcy to see him like - even as she, a little girl, was trying to stop him.

And eventually… it got to the point where the only way to actually keep her safe was to leave her. 

A heartbreaking traumatic experience with a vital role within the rich tapestry of traumatic experiences that is Marceline’s life. 

And… it’s hard to say what he should’ve done in the situation, there’s probably not a scenario where everything works out perfectly. We literally saw what happened if he hadn’t put the Crown at all and it was not a pretty sight. 

Simon was doomed from the moment he found that Crown. But at the very least, keeping himself together through nuclear Armageddon by focusing all of his energy into saving Marcy is what burned that streak of self-sacrificial selflessness into his psyche.

We see it most within the Fionna and Cake storyline, of course, and how eager he became to doom himself again for the sake of someone else who needed him, but…Even with Betty herself, despite not even being around, with how obsessed he became with his ‘Princess’. By the end, winning back Betty’s love was the only motivation he could find to regaining his own mind. 

And then when he finally regained his sanity briefly, for the price of a very, very limited time left to his life

he decided to dedicate it all to apologize to Betty. There’s clear, like, parallels done with the Bus Stop scene, I think

But Simon wasn’t trying to convince Betty to come with him, or stay with Past Simon or even find out more about what happened to her - it wasn't about what he wanted, for once. He was just trying to give her some peace of mind and closure. He was sacrificing all of his remaining time on earth for that.

But at this point, all that ended up doing was reinforce their original unequal relationship dynamic. 

And actually lay the ground for the problems within it to grow worse.