#senseless love stories that make no sense and assassinates the characters

[superanimepirate]

Oh

Its not GOT season 8 all over again

It's Voltron season 8 all over again

[aduncanrant]

Nightwing Movie

Soo, I see how troubled this topic is so here is my take.

First, let's see what I wouldn't make: For the love of god please don't make Dick incompetent. It's like this man has been fighting crime since he was twelve in the most conservative runs in comics or since he is eight/nine in my favorites. Do you really think that man would be like "I don't know how to be without Batman"? Like really? In some runs, he stops crime by himself just about the time he starts working as Robin (not an expert but I can think of Robin: First Year and how he fights that school of assassins when he is fired as Robin, IN HIS FIRST YEAR) and he has lead the Teen Titans since he is twelve/thirteen.

And I get it there's this trope in movies of making a character relatable for the audience. But we have so many movies with the same thing: A normal dude overcomes his self-worth problems and becomes actually someone for in the next movie to be a normal dude again. I HATE that trope. And I get it this is actually the story of Robin in comics, he exists to be a reflection of the readers, but that doesn't make him average. Actually the opposite: he is extraordinary. But that doesn't mean I don't want to make him flawed. But I want something different than fighting and detective incompetence.

Second: I wouldn't make yet another Robin grow to be Nightwing. Yeah! I know! This is like THE movie most people want, but I think that to make it work it has to be attached to the whole Titans run and a deeper intervention of Batman that I would like to evade. I'm thinking about a movie to introduce the public to the concept of Nightwing, not a full flesh cinematic universe attached (in that case I would have first a long timeline of Robin, Teen Titans, Nightwing, Titans, Batman, etc).

But I want to preserve the full world of superheroes living in a relationship with him (Am I making sense?) but the center being Nightwing himself, not the other heroes. They exist, and we have enough references to make the fans have fun searching all of them. But we don't have Batman or the Titans entering the story and intervening more than Nightwing himself.

So let's introduce the things I would do: I think the perfect point to get into Nightwing lore is with the introduction of Blüdhaven but not as a Robin gets into Blüdhaven and surfaces as Nightwing but as a Nightwing finally finding what that mantle actually means. A way that is different from Gotham and Batman.

My first scene would be deep in the night, everything in high contrast cyan and the darkest black you could find. He would jump towards some buildings gaining height till he reaches a big skyscraper (close shot to the mouth smiling) and the emblem in his chest to move through the night like a bird soaring in the sky as he descents from so high above that anyone would call it a certain death. It would be a good start, like to see how he is different and add that thing of he liking the adrenaline. He throws a line toward a much smaller building and reaches a street.

A group of criminals can be seen in the alley and behind only Nightwing eyes can be seen. Long story short this is where we have to show his fighting abilities (WITHOUT him needing to be saved by anyone) I would like to give a spin to the classical punch and go with heavy grounds in Aikido, like I don't want him to fall in his back like ever, his fighting style has to look like a dance. And obviously, he will have the jumps and turns of an acrobat. The shot is intersected but mostly red shots of Robin fighting alongside Batman.

I'd like the shots to form a continuous scene between the two timelines to show that no matter the change of colors he is still the same child he was back then. The nail in the coffin is when he reports to Batman through the coms. Showing that even now he is still in the shadow of the bat (without the senseless bickering that the authors usually have them do).

The next scene starts with him entering a room from the window. Here the colors normalize and we have a room with a lot of oranges and browns. I wanna keep the naturally disorganized nature of Dick, which also conveys the fact that he has not his personal life in order too. There can be a feast for fans to look out for easter eggs, like photos and items, that stuff.

Oracle's voice comes from the comes as he undresses himself for the night. She tells him that the intel says those men come from a mob in Blüdhaven, and he agrees to investigate the town the next day. Roll the introduction credits (side note I'd love it to be a dripping cyan stain that moves around the screen revealing characters in one gradient color, a little like the Teen Titans cartoon intro?).

Part 2

[expended-sleeper]

The Honorable Companions vs. The Murderous Dark Brotherhood: How they Differ, and Why it Matters

One essential aspect I often see ignored in stories dealing with the Companions is that they are NOT just cold-blooded mercenaries for hire. There are specific lines they won't cross, and these lines are important to distinguish because they're the same lines that tell us the difference between the Companions and the Dark Brotherhood. We can identify these crucial aspects of distinction by examining the dialogue and actions of quite a few in-game characters.

So, you have two guilds that both accept gold in exchange for hurting and/or killing people. What sets them apart from each other? Their acceptable targets, and their methods. You can't hire the Companions to kill your neighbor. To beat him up, sure. But not to kill him. We know this because you fail the "Hired Muscle" quest if you kill a target you were just meant to intimidate. When you steal items from shops or generally cause trouble, generic Hired Thugs show up to kill you, not Companions. The bottom line here is that the Companions are not assassins, or even mercenaries that will accept any paying job—just as they have standards for recruitment, they also have standards for which jobs they'll accept.

Methods: this is why Arnbjorn was exiled from the Companions, and why he joined the Dark Brotherhood instead. His methods were too violent for the Circle to accept. If the Companions considered extreme violence acceptable, he'd still be around.

His dialogue:

You are moon-born. You are wolf. So you're a Companion, then? I can't imagine you got your gift anywhere else. I hope you have better luck with them than I did. Oh yes, I was once brother to the Companions. Let's just say they found my methods "unsettling." The Dark Brotherhood, obviously, feels differently."

It's heavily implied here that Arnbjorn's tendency towards excessive violence made him a poor fit for the Circle. He had to seek out a guild of assassins in order to find appreciation for his brutal talents. The lesson we can take from this is that skill at killing alone is not enough to merit the Companions keeping you around: you also have to demonstrate a respect for the company's honorable ideals.

We also have evidence that the Circle keeps an eye out for these violent tendencies in their prospective recruits. The mercenary Uthgerd is barred from joining because she accidentally kills someone during training. Even in this violent world, the Circle isn't willing to tolerate such senseless killing.

Her dialogue:

You must really love to fight. "The heat of battle is the fire that forges the strongest blades. It's an old Nord proverb. That, and a true Nord never misses a chance to test her worth."

Sounds like you've got a grudge. "You been talking to those Companions? "Too hot-headed," they cried. Weak, pathetic cowards, the lot of them!"

Why'd the Companions reject you? "It wasn't my fault! I told them over and over that it was an accident! They wanted me to prove my worth, so they threw me up against a young whelp of a lad, hardly old enough to grow his first chin-hairs. I guess they thought a woman wasn't strong enough to hurt him. I didn't mean for him to die! Why would I want that? I just... lost control."

Judging from this interaction, the Companions are actually less hotheaded than your average Nords. They don't want mad berserkers in their company--they want disciplined warriors that don't let their emotions control their actions. This makes a whole lot of sense when you consider that anyone who joins might eventually become a werewolf. The Circle is aware that maintaining their code of honor is very difficult in the beast form, so they only accept warriors that already have a significant amount of self-control.

When you encounter the Companions, they're in the middle of a schism over this very issue. Aela and Skjor represent the side that says might makes right. They believe their Daedra-granted powers grant them leave to pursue bloody slaughter and revenge. This is a corruption of the company. It's not the way all Nords behave. In fact, the Harbinger is specifically trying to cultivate an atmosphere of cool resolve in the current batch of whelps:

Under Kodlak's watch, losing control of yourself as a Companion is seen as a sign of failure. It got Arnbjorn kicked out, and kept Uthgerd from joining. Perhaps most importantly, it's a sign that you will never be worthy of the beast blood.

Kodlak: "How are the young ones coming along?"

Farkas: "Some are too happy to fight. Blood runs hot."

Kodlak: "I remember when you were the same way. The more they train, the more they'll cool down."

Farkas: "I hope so."

Kodlak: "Just have them focus on the calm in the battle. Control the rage, don't let it control you."

Kodlak and the twins represent the classic ideals of the Companions: honor, integrity, and loyalty. So far they have maintained a tense balance between this code of honor and the violent temptations of the blood.

Dialogue on Kodlak's view of revenge:

Again and again during the questline, members of the Circle are punished for blindly pursuing violent solutions. However, it's also important to remember that their two great acts of violence towards the Silver Hand are both reactions to attacks on members of the Circle, and both attacks are on fortified encampments: Aela and Vilkas are basically attacking bandit forts, not villages of well-meaning werewolf hunters. The first time we encounter the Silver Hand is when they ambush Farkas at Dustman's Cairn. He defends himself and kills them.

Farkas: "Kodlak did not care for vengeance."

Vilkas: "No, Farkas, he didn't. And that's not what this is about. We should be honoring Kodlak, no matter our own thoughts on the blood."

Skjor and Aela alone are the ones who point you towards the Silver Hand fort and commence the slaughter. Given that Kodlak and the twins aren't involved at all, it's probably safe to assume they wouldn't approve of these bloodthirsty activities.

In fact, Kodlak is intensely worried that Skjor's reckless nature will get him killed:

Skjor dies because he rushes ahead and tries to wipe out a fort of Silver Hand on his own. When you tell Kodlak that you and Aela have been attacking the Silver Hand out of vengeance, this is his response:

Kodlak: "You're a strong warrior, Skjor. Your heart is fiery and that serves you well in battle."

Skjor: "Thank you, Harbinger."

Kodlak: "But even the bravest of men consider their actions. I want you to survive long enough to take the mantle."

Skjor: "Don't worry about me."

Aela and I work to avenge Skjor's death."Your hearts are full of grief, and my own weeps at the loss of Skjor. But his death was avenged long ago. You have taken more lives than honor demanded. The cycle of retaliation may continue for some time."

Kodlak dies because you and Aela provoke the Silver Hand into a bold strike on Jorrvaskr itself. You avenge Skjor by killing Krev the Skinner, but then you and Aela go past honor into something far uglier. Vilkas refuses to follow you in order to purify Kodlak's soul, because he feels his honor has been tainted by his own need for vengeance.

Vilkas' words:

"Kodlak was right. I let vengeance rule my heart. I regret nothing of what we did at Driftshade. But I can't go any further with my mind fogged and my heart grieved."

For the Companions, vengeance leads to senseless death and grieving hearts.

The DB questline is about the fantasy of being a morally destitute assassin. The Companions questline is about restoring honor to the Circle, and it treats revenge and violence very differently. These two factions are not the same merely because they're in the same game. The difference between them defines their driving themes and purpose in the larger TES world.

Compare this to the revenge you enact in the Dark Brotherhood questline. You can just slaughter Commander Maro in broad daylight on the Solitude docks, as vengeance for wiping out the Falkreath Sanctuary.

His extreme fear when you show up out of nowhere to kill him is treated as a joke—and this is GOOD, because that's what the Brotherhood is thematically about! Performing ridiculous assassinations on the innocent and guilty alike, and going home at the end of the day to your torture chamber. No punishment, no repercussions, no guilt felt by anyone in the Brotherhood. At no point are you asked to question the morality of your actions, because the story assumes that if you choose not to kill Astrid in the abandoned shack, then your character is fully on board with cold-blooded murder and assassination.

The behavior of characters in a certain setting cannot be reduced to the lowest common denominator of the most ruthless villains. These characters do have moral codes, and that can't be waved away by pointing to the darkest acts of the setting. Sinding is a werewolf that commits horrible crimes under the influence of his curse, and that makes him a very interesting fallen character--however, the Circle would never dare go near him, because he represents the ultimate failure that likely even Aela and Skjor fear: a total loss of control leading to the killing of innocents.

This is WHY the Companions are so potentially interesting to write about. They're in a constant state of conflict between their honorable ideals that place value on restraint and discipline, and the reality of their Daedric corruption that tempts them towards slaughter. Even when they surrender to this pull, however, we have to remember that it is only werewolf hunters that they kill. None of the Circle ever fall even close to the level of Sinding. If they did, they would no longer be fit to be Companions, and they would likely follow a similar path to Arnbjorn.

This isn't me applying real-world morality to Skyrim: this is me comparing the morality of the Companions at their best to the Companions at their worst. The story very clearly indicates which path is the honorable one, and which path gets Skjor and Kodlak killed. There are many shades of gray here, yes. But suggesting that every warrior in Skyrim is acting under the same set of morals does a disservice to the complexity of these themes, and the clear evidence that there are grave consequences for the Circle when they cross such lines and surrender to bloody temptation.

[raggaraddy]

The Basement: part one

Anon request: Hi can I request an assassin!yoongi one shot where yoongi gets jealous over reader somehow even though I know he isolates her so she depends on him but maybe she somehow stumbles into a colleague of his in his living room or a friend and the friend is 👀 looking not so respectfully

A/N: Enjoy lovely. 💜💜💜 Part two

Summary: For the first time ever there is someone else in the house with you and Yoongi. How could Yoongi expect you to resist speaking with him.

Trigger warnings: Violence, intimidation, kidnapping, imprisonment, yandere themes.

Yoongi

Yandere! Yoongi

Assassin! Yoongi

It may only be a few hundred square meters, but this house is your entire world. You know every creak, every floorboard that squeaked, how each door closes, everything. So in the middle of the night when you are woken by an almighty thump, at once you could recognize how out of place it was.

Cautiously sneaking downstairs and peering around every bend, you are just in time to see Yoongi slamming the basement door shut behind him.

Putting your ear to the entrance, you could hear the sounds of banging, of the chains, of low spoken voices. Over and over in your head, you told yourself to ignore it. To go back to bed and let it be. But the signs that there was another person down there with Yoongi were clear, and the temptation of that was too much to bear.

Your lesser instinct winning out, you open the door, instantly coming face to face with an ascending Yoongi. And behind him, in the place where you had been chained up many times before was a hooded man. Seated on the floor in a slumped position. His hands fixed against the wall keeping them high.

"Out," Yoongi demands, shoving your shoulder lightly to push you back through the doorway.

"Who-" is all you can gape, disbelief printed on your face.

"Not your concern." He refuses, closing the door. Continuing to push you back into the kitchen. "You do not go down there. Am I clear?" A finality to his expression not allowing any room for discussion or expansion.

Nodding, with a small pout you look at the basement one last time before faking a smile and returning to bed.

You were awestricken. Not once in nearly 8 months have you seen or heard another person in this house. Also not during the 6 months stretch before that. No one had visited. Not a single person had come past the house or had even driven up the driveway by accident. Your curiosity was burning you from the inside out. Your longing to see, to speak to another human aching your very soul.

Yoongi had gone into town, leaving you alone with the unlocked basement door. You'd always been chained up if he kept you down there, so it had never needed to be locked before. And the very idea of taking a quick peek was so tantalizing. However, on the more sensible side of this debate, you knew that Yoongi's word was final and you had never disobeyed him before.

You would like to say you were smart enough for this to at least be a difficult decision. But you swiftly threw common sense to the wind and went downstairs the second you heard the car pull out of the garage. Your body buzzing as you approached the new man.

With a heavy breath and timorous movements, you pull the hood back from the man's head. Black, straight, short hair. Dark, full brows, a perfect heart-shaped face, and ears that stuck out just a little too far. From head to toe, he's largely built. Taller and wider than Yoongi, making you astounded to think about how dangerous he really was.

For a few seconds, the both of you look equally surprised to see the other. Your pulse coursing through your ears, mouth slightly agape, looking at another human for the first time in forever.

"Hi," you squeak, nothing else coming to mind.

"Who are you?" He snarls.

It's spoken with so much hostility, but that question is one that brings you so much relief. You break down, pouring out your entire story in a rampant monologue. Telling him in detail everything you could about you, Yoongi, this place and your abductions. Fully spilling all that you had been so desperate to tell.

He, however, gives you nothing in return. For nearly 10 minutes you ask him question after question and he declines them all. Not even his name slips loose. He explains once that he can't know if your working with Yoongi, or that lunatic as he called him, and he is not going to tell you a single thing. Every question afterwards is only met with a solemn stare or a shake of refusal.

"If you won't tell me anything," you mope a little, "well, you look like a James Bond character, so I'm going to call you Mr Spy. The Spy? 007. Spy-man? I'll work on it." You mutter completely senseless and giddy from this rare moment. Continuing to overshare and divulge.

"Okay, Y/N. With everything you've told me, we're on the same page. So, if you help me get out of these," he rattles his hands, "Then I can get you out of this place."

The thought is alluring. But also more than you signed up for when you came down here. Firstly, Yoongi always keeps the keys for these chains on him. But secondly and most importantly, if you attempted to escape, if you tried to leave again Yoongi would never forgive you. You can't get away from him. You know you can't. And if you tried he would lock you up and throw away the key. You couldn't- You can't.

"I'm sorry, but no. I can't." You sadly brush his offer aside. Feeling awful denying him help like that. "I have to go back up before Yoongi comes home," you mumble.

Leaning over him you bring the hood up. You need to return him to how he was. He doesn't fight or argue, seeming to somberly accept his fate, but his eyes do dart to the top of the stairs at the last second.

Reacting to his troubled expression, you spin around seeing Yoongi already home, standing at the entrance.

At once your body tightens becoming flushed with sweat. Scrambling back from the man you stand in the middle of the room, trying to keep your breathing slow and deep to hide your fright.

"I thought," He starts to lower down the stairs, punctuating each point in his sentence with an additional step. "I said. You could not. Come in here."

"I'm sorry," you hush as Yoongi snatches the hood from your hand. Your head lowering in surrender.

"You want to save her?" He turns his attention and building anger towards his new prisoner. His fists are tight, knuckles cracking as he clenches and twists them. "You want to get her out of this place?" The challenge, the hash way he spits the words spoken about you is making the hairs on the back of your neck stand. Goosebumps flittering down your skin.

Lurching forward Yoongi's knee bashes into The Spy's head. And again. His foot following down booting him in the chest. And again.

"You think she wants to go with you?!" He growls, beating his fist into his head, over and over. The skin breaking, blood erupting all across his face. The Spy's restrained position not allowing him to protect himself in any way, only able to groan and splutter through the abuse. "You're too weak to even get yourself free. You think you can take her!" Yoongi steps back and lifts his leg, stomping the heel of his boot into the curled up fist of The Spy. Making him explode in a pained howl as you hear the bones crunch.

Not wanting to show any reaction, you stay coiled and fixed. Praying for this to end quickly. You had seen this level of violence and sadism from Yoongi before in the outside world. He doesn't acknowledge or accept any interference and he will only finish on his own terms.

You can't help but think if this is this how cruel and viciously he treats everyone else?

Stomping down again, this time he lines up The Spy's ankle. Throwing all his weight, all his force into the joint. The man's screams turning into cries as he wails in agony.

"No. You're not taking her anywhere." Yoongi straightens up, blowing out a heavy breath. Running his fingers back through his black hair over and over pulling it out of his face. "You're gonna tell me everything I wanna know. And then I'll finally let you die." He swallows hard, rearranging his clothes and loosening his muscles. His fiery explosion now quenched.

You can't lift your eyes as he drags you to the top floor. The basement door sealing, muffling the tears of the man below.

"Yoongi. I told him- I told him I couldn't-" You're starting and stopping, trying to sufficiently explain or plead your case. He's never shown anything near that level of violence towards you, but you were still sure he was about to lock you away endlessly for disobeying him.

He steps into you, silencing and making you jump back, smacking into the wall. Trapped between it and your hovering captor.

"I heard you." He speaks deeply and softly. In complete opposition to how he was moments ago. "Well done." His coarse pronunciation is abandoned as he speaks these words very clearly. Making sure you hear his sincerity.

His hand runs softly over your hair, stroking and cupping your head. Making you fight not to melt. Making you look up at him with big eyes. Any sort of affection from Yoongi instantly impacting you greatly, making you emotional and needy for more. Your bottom lip quivering, you whimper lowly as you lose the internal struggle and lean into his hand. Your eyes scrunching tight, hating yourself for how much his gentle touch affects your heart.

"Come with me," he holds your hand having you trail him upstairs. Taking you into his bedroom where he extends the affection and intimacy. Being with you so tenderly and kindly as your mind and heart tears back and forth between the softness you can feel now, and the horrors you saw him do before.

Despite the risks, your head fills with how and when you could see The Spy again. He was hurt, and he needed your help. And you were too eager to see him again. But when you wake the next day, you find a hefty padlock keeping the basement door sealed.

Yoongi at once reading your reaction. "You should thank me for locking that door Y/N. You don't know how dangerous some people can be."

Part two

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel’s Return Part 1

We’ve finally made to season three and the entire reason why I made this review series. This season features some of the worst writing I have ever witnessed in a television program. And this season kicks off with the third worst episode of the whole series. Rapunzel’s Return is the iceberg that sinks this show and manages to assassinate everyone’s character.

 Everyone’s.  

Summary: Inside the House of Yesterday's Tomorrow (as seen off screen in "Rapunzeltopia"), Cassandra is greeted by the Enchanted Girl, a spirit who reveals that Cassandra is the biological daughter of the late Mother Gothel, who abandoned her on the night she kidnapped infant Rapunzel. Enraged that Rapunzel has been (unknowingly) overshadowing her for the entirety of her life, and that she will always be unfairly overlooked, Cassandra snatches the Moonstone Opal, absorbs it, and declared Rapunzel's destiny as her own. She manages to escape from the group and cuts all ties with them, with Rapunzel unable to wrap her head around the entire situation. The group returns to Corona and find that it has been taken over by Varian, who has aligned himself with Andrew and the Separatists of Saporia to erase the King and Queen's memories and enslave Corona's citizens.

Plot Hole Number One: Why Would Cassandra Just Blindly Follow A Ghost While Trapped Inside a Haunted House? 

Outside of that one snarky remark, Cassandra never stops to question the literal ghost who is bossing her around. The ghost she met in a creepy haunted house. A haunted house that she was already suspicious of before ever going in and that has tried to kill her and her friends many times now. 

Cassandra, the most distrusting and cautious of of individuals in the show thus far, just suddenly decides to leave her brain behind from this point forward for no given reason whatsoever. 

If you have to dumb down your main character and have them behave OOC in order to get your plot rolling along, then you haven’t a good plot. 

Plot Hole Number Two: Cassandra Sees for Herself How Awful Gothel Was to Her Here, So Why Would She Obsess Over the Woman? 

Forgetting for a moment that Cass very well knows that Gothel treated her best friend like shit and tried to murder her other friend, Eugene, as evidenced by Quest for Varian; Cassandra can see for herself right here that Gothel is a crap person who never treated her right. 

I mean there’s denial, and then there’s flat out stupidity. Cass being hurt by the this reveal is one thing. Cass believing that Gothel really loved her and blaming everyone else for her death is totally another and not based in any kind of sensible logic.     

Plot Hole Number Three: Why Would Gothel Even Have a Child to Begin With? 

Look, I’ll accept that the flower can deage Gothel enough for her to get laid and bare a kid, but that only brings up the question of why she would keep said kid? 

She kept Rapunzel cause she needed her powers in order to stay alive, but Cass? What reason would she want to have Cassandra around? A baby can’t do chores for you and it's a hell of a lot of work to raise one. Plus the show repeatedly tells us over and over again that Gothel doesn’t really love her or even likes having her daugther around so... yeah, what is the point of this? Why didn’t she just drop Cass off at an orphanage to begin with?  

You can’t make this type of reveal and have it go against the what we fundamentally know about the characters without explaining why they would partake in such actions.  

This is Manipulative Writing 

But of course the real reason why this flashback and “twist” exists is just to manipulate the audience into feeling sorry for Cass. It’s not here to actually enhance the story, further the characters, nor answer any mysteries in any real way. That’s why it’s such a poor plot point. 

It’s setting up the viewers to have a bias so that they’ll more readily forgive Cassandra for her irreprehensible actions later. In short, it’s the same bullshit that the writers pulled for Frederic back in season one. Only it makes even less narrative sense here because this ‘tragic backstory’ is so divorced from later events in the story. 

It’s also flat out lazy because all it’s doing it slapping Rapunzel’s backstory onto Cass instead of letting Cassandra be her own character with her own battles and character development to have. 

And before you say, “well that’s the point”, then let me tell you it’s a stupid point. One that makes zero sense for the character and is insulting to the audience’s intelligence.    

Plot Hole Number Four: Why Didn’t Gothel Just Stay Hidden Till the Soldiers Left? 

Hell, why did Gothel even come back here? We already established that she doesn’t really care about Cass and it’s a plot point that’ll only be further reiterated as the season goes on, so why? Why would Gothel behave like this? How does this help her in her goal? Gothel’s suppose to be smart remember? 

Plot Hole Number Five: How Does Any of This Logically Help Zhan Tiri? 

So Zhan Tiri is the blue ghost girl and while the series tries to keep it a secret reveal for later, it’s pretty obvious from the get go, so I’ll just be calling the character by her name. 

Anyways, Zhan Tiri’s plan is to show Cassandra her past, in order to make Cass angry enough to steal the moonstone and fight Rapunzel, so that the two powers fighting each other will then release her from her interdimensional prison. 

Now ignoring how literally none of that was set up nor previously established, and ignoring that Zhan Tiri’s disciples were trying previously to stop the sundrop and her friends from getting to the moonstone, thereby undermining their master’s plan; just how exactly is any of this suppose to work? 

Why would showing Cassandra how her mother was a shitty person somehow make Cass angry at Rapunzel, angry enough to try and kill her even, and somehow keep her angry for months on end, in order to fulfill this clearly illogical action that holds no personal benefit to herself?    

I don’t mind Cassandra becoming a villain; I just want it to make sense. 

This does not make sense. 

Not only does it require incredible leaps of logic and Cassandra acting out of character to work, it also depends far to much upon conquincidence and things playing out just in exactly the right way to benefit Zhan Tiri and her poorly laid out plan. 

Would it not have made more sense for this “evil master manipulating worlock” to just, you know, lie? 

Like shouldn’t she be trying to make Gothel look good? Shouldn’t she be trying to make it all seem like Frederic’s fault  (which it mostly is anyways)? If you want Cass to attack Corona and turn against Rapunzel, then why not lie about their involvement or tell some half truth?

Or better yet why not make Gothel and actual complex figure for real? 

Ugh... I got to move on from this point, but believe me, we will be back to this dumbfuckery in later episodes. 

Plot Hole Number Six: You Can’t Just Ignore that Cap Exists and Is the One Who Raised Cassandra for Most of Her Life 

Like I’m sure finding out that you mom was a piece of crap who abandon you hurts, but that doesn’t automatically erase the fact that Cass’s dad was there for her, raised her, and loved her for the majority of her life. I’m not saying that Cap is perfect, but he at least tried to do right by her (and is consequently the best parent in the show) and Cassandra is old enough to recognize that fact. Pretending otherwise is a disservice to everyone. It’s a disservice to the Captain, to Cassandra, to Rapunzel, to Gothel, and to the viewers watching along with this BS. 

Trauma Doesn’t Make You Suddenly Stupid 

Look, I’m not downplaying Cass’s trauma here. She is allowed to feel upset and yes trauma is painful and effects us all in different ways. Also yes, past trauma can carry on through into adulthood and still harm you. 

However that’s not an excuse for hurting others. Cass’s trauma isn’t any less traumatic than any of the other characters’, but neither is it somehow more important than any of theirs. She doesn’t get a free past to step on people just because she was sad once. 

Cassandra is, once again, old enough to know this and more importantly smart enough to realize that what happened in the past, if even true, has nothing to do with what she is currently dealing with right now. 

Like why is she believing any of this? Why is she still listening to the suspicious ghost that she met in a magical house that’s tricked her and her friends numerous times before? Why would finding out her mom was shit make her turn that anger against her best friend? What does any of this have to do with her current struggles with trying to build up her career or staying friends with Raps? 

Remembering past trauma does not make your brain shut off. Even having a mental breakdown or panic attack still does not render you completely senseless and anything done under extreme pressure like that is temporary. You don’t wind up acting bananas constantly for over a year. 

As a woman who suffers from complex-PTSD and is an abuse survivor myself, Cassandra’s story is deeply offensive to me. Not the least of which because it actively dumps her down. 

This Is the Point Where Cassandra’s Character Gets Assassinated 

Like I said in the opening, everyone’s character gets assassinated in this story. Cassandra just happens to be the first to die and it’s right here with this line. 

Not only is this line incredibly cringy and poorly worded, and I have to just feel sorry for the VA here cause there’s no way to make this much stupid sound good, but it’s also completely divorced from what’s going on. 

Cassandra is suppose to be explaining to her friends why she’s stealing the moonstone and her answer is “I’m this dead bitch’s daughter”? Like oookaaay, and that has what to do with it exactly?

Did Gothel have any connection to the moonstone? Does stealing the moonstone somehow bring her back or fulfil her revenge? What does grabbing the moonstone actually gain Cass and what does that have to do with her dead abusive mom? 

The reason why Cass doesn’t work as a villain because she has no goal nor reason for doing what she does. She just lurches from plot point to plot point with no idea of what she is doing nor why she is doing it. 

But watch as the show keeps digging in its heels and keeps insisting that Cassandra’s connection to Gothel is totally a sympathetic motive even as it makes less and less sense every damn time it's brought up. 

What Does Destiny Even Fucking Mean Any More???

What Destiny?!

There is no damn destiny. There is no prophecy to fulfil, no world to save, no consequence for just having everyone sitting on their asses for two whole seasons. And even if there was a destiny to even steal; why would Cass even want it? What does actually she gain from any of this? And how does any of it connect back to Gothel? 

This Should Have Been the Point of Resolution Not the Inciting Incident for Their Break Up

Look no idea is without merit. You can make the stupidest sounding idea engaging if you present it right. 

This was not presented right. 

If Cassandra being Gothel’s daughter was to hold any meaning to the story, then it needed to be what brought her and Raps back together again, not what broke them apart. 

Rapunzel says it right here. Logically this should be common ground for the two of them. There’s no real reason for Cass to direct her anger at Rapunzel over this. 

But this show doesn’t care about logic, reason, or treating it’s audience with intelligence. It’s just flashy bullshit “drama” that pretends to be deep but is really a shallow puddle once you stop to think about it for two seconds.   

Let’s Talk About “Sisters” 

Cass’s face just says it all doesn’t it? 

The creator, Chris, wanted to make a story about two “sisters”, because he has two daughters and he thought that would be inspiring and speak to little girls everywhere. 

It’s a nice sentiment. Shame he’s so utterly incompetent at it. 

There was no build up to them being sisters. Instead all we got was a bunch of meaningless parallels and a very toxic friendship. Even with the Gothel reveal the connection to them being siblings is tenuous at best because there’s no biological relation and more importantly, they weren’t raised together.   

Chris is basically trying to rip off the likes of Frozen or Guardians of the Galaxy here with Raps and Cass’s relationship but it doesn’t work when the two siblings in question didn’t actually grow up together. There’s no reason for Cassandra to project her anger at their abusive parent on to Raps because that parent wasn’t the one to actually raise her. And on top of that, said abuser is dead, and both her and Raps have separate guardians in their lives, so the jealousy angle doesn’t work either.  

And to make it all the more confusing, Chris failed to inform his crew of this brilliant plot twist, so we now have two seasons of gay baiting put in by the storyboard artists hitting that Cass is in love with her “sister”, And because the hardcore Cazzpunzel stans are the only fanbase that hasn’t given Chris the boot, there’s still even more gay baiting to come. 

Why are We Victim Blaming a Baby? 

Seriously, Cass? You are twenty four and have a brain. Why are you blaming someone for being kidnapped as a baby? What kind of sense does this make? 

Worse, there’s plenty of real shit Cass could get angry at Rapunzel over and this is what you go with show? 

If anything Rapunzel should be the one who is pissed here. Cass got to escape and lead a normal life with a loving father all because she got kidnapped as baby. And now said bitch is trying to gaslight her while stealing the very thing she’s been risking her life to grab for a year now. 

No You Haven’t Cass

Once again, you got to live a normal life with a loving Dad. You had plenty of chances to build relationships and further your career for 18 years while Rapunzel was trapped in a dang tower, and Rapunzel returning from said tower didn’t cut you off from anything. In fact Rapunzel being rescued from the tower actually presented more opportunities for you and you spent all of season one climbing up the ranks. 

There’s Nothing In the Show to Back Up This Statement 

Nothing is at stake. There’s no threat here other than Cassandra herself. Cassandra is dranger to the world here not the moonstone. If you wanted it to be the other way around then you should have kept the rocks active during season two. 

So Why Didn’t We Go With the Original Set Up From Season Two? 

As said before, there are real reasons that were set up during season two that could have motivated Cass. 

Rapunzel is irresponsible and can’t be trusted to save the world 

Rapunzel is a shit friend and Cass is better off going her own way and leaving everyone high and dry. 

Cass’s hand was injured by Raps and the moonstone might be able to heal it 

Cass sees the injustice in the class system and wants to fight back against the royals in order to help everyone, not just herself. 

Cass might believe she’s stopping Zhan Tiri and not realize she’s being manipulated by her instead

Or is playing along with Zhan Tiri under the idea that she can stall for time figure out how to stop her. 

Cass wants to play her and use the power of the rocks to save people only for it to go wrong later. 

Possession (which was the original idea in the concept stage) 

Like I said, there were plenty of ways to make this work. In fact some are so dang obvious that you’ll hear Cass fans try to claim that a few of those are what her real motivation was despite the the show clearly going against them later. The “fighting against the class system” is a real popular one despite the fact that Cass herself attacks a bunch of poor people repeatedly and doesn’t seem concerned about anyone but herself.  

But I digress. 

The real reason why we have this bullshit is cause Chris doesn’t want to hold his favs accountable. Rapunzel’s flaws can’t be called out in any meaningful way and Cass gets a convenient scapegoat in Zhan Tiri. 

In short both Cassandra and Rapunzel have their agency stolen away from them by the narrative, while still trying to pretend that they’re “strong independent women”. Even though those two things aren’t compatible at all.  

What Exactly Have You Been Denied Cass? 

Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? 

Lance, Eugene, and Lady Caine were all denied physiological and safety needs while growing up in an orphanage and then later on the streets as a thieves. 

Rapunzel was denied psychological needs while being raised by her abuser. 

Varian was denied everything on that dang list. 

Cassandra tho? 

Trauma or no trauma, Cass was still raised in a safe and loving environment for the majority of her life. She, at best, has been denied “self-fulfillment” needs and even then that’s a stretch cause throughout season one we see her time and time again gaining what it was she wanted. 

Cassandra isn’t anything special. She’s not suffered any more than anybody else in the show and in fact has lived a pretty cushy life when all is said and done, especially when compared to other characters in the show. 

The worst that she has to complain about is working a crappy job for a little while and having a shit mom that she can barely remember. Boo Fucking Hoo. 

Note How Easy It Is For Cass to Control the Rocks Here

The show can’t even keep Cassandra’s powers consistent. Like everything else about the character, Cass’s powers come and go as is convenient for the narrative with little explanation as to why. 

This Song Doesn’t Work Because It was Cut In Half Due to Time 

I’ve talked about the problems with this song before in my songs from TTS ranking list. It’s choppy and consistent. Yet it only feels that way because it was cut down. It’s missing a full other verse, second chorus, and a bridge.  

Which is inexcusable because there’s so much dang filler in this show! 

We could have had time for the full song if they had just cut one of the non-essential episodes and made all of this a full episode on it’s own. Just save the Corona and Varian stuff for later if need be. 

The management of this show is just atrocious.  

Why Wasn’t This the Cliffhanger for Season Two? 

Speaking of making all of the Cassandra stuff it’s own episode... Everything we just seen should have been in season two. 

It’s more connected to what happened last season, it flows better, it would have had more time to breathe, and it would have given us more time in the Dark Kingdom. Given as that this is what season two was building up too, it would have been more satisfying there.  

And if the writers still wanted a cliffhanger to end the season in order to draw crowds then this right here was it. 

So We We Spent A Whole Season Getting Here and We’re Just Going to Leave Now? 

The Dark Kingdom is Wasted!!!!

And because the Dark Kingdom is a bust, the entirety of season two now feels even more pointless. 

Chris said he cut the Dark Kingdom stuff because it didn’t interest him. 

Chris is a fucking fool. 

Ignoring that different people will gravitate towards different things and you need to keep that in mind when writing for mass audiences; you don’t spend valuable time setting things up just to drop them later. 

If you didn’t like that particular plot thread then you needed to just not bring it up to begin with. Once you’ve put it in there you need to commit to it. 

Behold the Only Thing Useful Shorty Does This Whole Season 

There is less Shorty overall this season which is ultimately a good thing, but it does highlight what a stupid decision it was to bring him along to begin with. 

I mean did we really drag him around for a whole season just for this? Couldn’t some other Pub Thung or townsperson have found them? One that could talk. 

Adria Gets Put on a Bus 

Adria doesn’t get assassinated like some of the other characters, but she does get unceremoniously shoved off without any real closure. The character will return later in the season, but brainwashed and without any lines. Which is doubly insulting to the VA who voices her. 

And Here Is Where Lance Gets Assassinated 

Lance is drastically dumbed down in season three. Even more so than in past seasons. You could call it flanderization specifically, more so than assassination, but the effect is the same. Lance’s character is effectively dead from this point onwards. 

Also this should have ended the Lance & Adria ship in the show for good. She flat out rejects him here, but nope. 

Eugene is the Only Person Acting Like a Real Human Being This Episode Thus Far

Edmund spent his whole life protecting the moonstone. He lost everything to it. He was convinced that letting Rapunzel take it would be best only for her to lose it right afterwards. And what does he do?  Immediately become the “comedicly bad dad” in show oversaturated with both comedic foils and poor father figures. 

Meanwhile Eugene is the only one properly responding to what is going on. Don't expect that to last. 

I Thought You Left Cass?

Remember that foreshadowing with Quirin way back in the pilot? 

This is just that, but dumber. 

There’s no reason for Cass to hang around out of sight only to stare menacingly at Rapunzel and company as they leave. It’s just a lazy hook to get viewers to believe that there might be more going on with Cass then what we’ve been told. There’s not.  

So This Map Proves That the Dark Kingdom Is North East of Corona 

Continuity and worldbuilding in this show is utterly garbage, so I’ll latch on to any little scrape of info that we get. 

According to the map shown here, the balloon is heading Southwest back to Corona. That means the Dark Kingdom is Northeast. 

So if Corona is somewhere in Northern mainland Europe that means the Dark Kingdom is either in a Nordic country (Norway,Sweden,Finland, ect) or Russia.   

Meta Jokes About Being a Bad Writer Doesn’t Excuse Bad Writing 

Get use to this. Season three is full of meansprited meta jokes that try to defend against the quite frankly valid criticism that the show has received. Or more specifically the criticism Chris had received. 

Most of season three was written during the hiatus of season two back when Chris was seeing backlash from the fans due to his PR fiasco and that’s not even taking into account the crew walkout after season one. 

Not only is that too late to be writing your final season, but it’s also reflective of how Chris can’t handle critique with grace nor listen to other ideas as jokes like this are in poor taste. 

Everyone Acts Shocked Here but Honestly this Fits King Frederic’s MMO

This is the same guy who prosecuted poor people for eighteen years with his crack down on crime, and thrented the life an orphaned teen. Is anybody really surprised by this? 

I Thought Your Real Name was Hubert? 

I guess he just prefers the name Andrew. I don’t know. But what do know is that “the devil is in the details” is a thing my animation teacher in college use to say repeatedly, and no one working on this show seems capable of remembering or keeping up with details. 

Why Are There Only Five Saporains? 

Saporia was set up as an entire race of people who’d been displaced from their homeland for generations. They’ve been living as nomads for centuries according to season two.  Why are there only five of them in this episode? 

How did they overthrow a kingdom with only five people? How do they maintain hold of it with only five? How do they expect to further their bloodline and culture with only only five of them?  

Why did we waste money on a bunch of one off villians that we sent packing in season two and not built more Saporian models instead? 

Like you could have had the core five here, as like leaders, and then imply that there are more of them with background citizens and guards ect. 

NO!!!

WE DO NOT IMPLY THAT A 15 YEAR OLD BOY WAS LOCKED IN A JAIL CELL WITH A GROWN MAN FOR NEARLY A YEAR!!!!!

I.... What?!

Who the fuck thought this was a good idea to put in a children’s show?

Did no one behind the scenes stop to think, “Hun, maybe we shouldn’t suggest that a teenager was trapped inside a small enclosed space with no way out twenty for hours a day with an adult who attempted to murder his girlfriend when lying to her stopped working. Perhaps someone might get the wrong impression.”? 

Like I hate censors as much as the next person, but editors work in the business for a reason, and that reason is to pull the artists aside sometimes and go “Hey, that shit don't fly with normal folk.” 

What’s worse is I don’t think the writers were even trying to be shocking and edgy here. I just think they were careless. They needed a quick exposition dumb to explain how Varian and Andrew know each other, and didn’t think through the implications of that line nor considered how Varian’s age changes the context of his situation. 

Which is beyond inexcusable because it’s so damn lazy! 

You wouldn’t need rushed exposition had you actually took the time to set up this plot point back in season two. Heck, you wouldn’t have needed to even set this plot point up had you not cut Varian’s original story out at the last minute. Finally, you should care enough about your characters to at least take their age into consideration when writing their development. 

There’s also the fact that it makes most of the ‘heroes’ look like assholes. 

We’ve seen these dungeons several times throughout the show. We know of their poor conditions. There’s little light, the food is slop, there’s no way to stay clean or use the restroom, prisons are never let out for exercise, ect. Like these are medieval style dungeons that are considered inhumane my modern audiences.  

Just because the show tries to play off the horribleness of it for laughs doesn’t mean the audience is going to find it funny that they traumatized a fifthteen year old with it.... again! 

Moreover Frederic had promised last time we saw him that he would give Varian help. He idea of ‘helping” Varian is supposedly to throw him into a nasty jail cell with a violent criminal? WTF? And there’s no indication that he tried anything to save Quirin either.

Not to mention that none of the mains act surprised by this revelation, nor comment about how awful Varian’s treatment is. As usual for them. 

It’s just sicking and most of the atempts to explain away this line by the fans have been super pathetic. 

“Frederic was giving him therapy while in jail” - there’s nothing to indicate therapy exists in this world and even if this were true it would be undermined by stupidly throwing him in a cell with Andrew. 

“It’s not literal, Varian was in a separate cell” - once again there’s nothing to back this up and even if that were the case it’s not that much better because it’s still a dungeon cell with zero privacy and Varian would still be close enough to Andrew to talk to him thus invading his personal space to some degree or other. 

“Well he tried to help but Varian wasn’t cooperative” -  still not an excuse and there’s nothing on screen to back up this headcanon. 

“It’s someone else’s fault.” - Who’s? Frederic is in charge of everything. The buck stops with him. If a guard did this without his knowledge then that means Frederic neglected his duties and his promise anyways. 

“Well maybe it’s true, but Varian did a bad thing and teens who do really bad things get sent to prison in the real world too” - Not an argument. Teens aren’t typically jailed with adults and the conditions for modern jails are at least somewhat better than those in Corona. Plus kids being sent to jail in any form is major topic of controversy in today's time. I’ve already covered why trying teens as adults is a vile abuse of power in the real world; I shouldn’t have to mention that the current government throwing children in cages is a bad thing as well! 

“Well that’s just part of the time period” - Doesn’t make it right, and sadly it’s not something in the distant past either. It’s currently happening right now in the US. It was happening when this episode and season was being written. The writers unthinkingly threw in a very real thing that affects hundreds of thousands of children and didn’t bother to follow up on it or comment about how wrong it is. 

There’s just no excuse for the way Frederic and Rapunzel treat Varian in this show. There’s just not, and some of y’all really need to stop trying to do so cause it means you’re inadvertently condoning real life abuses of power. 

You can like a character and except that they’ve done wrong. That’s a thing that you can do, you know. 

Let’s Talk about Character Design 

For the most part the art direction in the show is top notch. It really is the best looking animated show on tv today, and the character design is usually of this same quality. But they really dropped the ball with Varian’s design here. 

The structural bones of it isn’t bad. Taken on it’s own it would be fine, but good character design is supposed to give context and enhance the story and this doesn’t do that. 

We’ve haven’t seen Varian in a year, but instead of visually showcasing the passage of time by having him physically age we just get season one’s design but in bargain bin hot topic clothes and a drawn on barcode. 

Even the color palette is wrong. 

Varian’s is suppose to feature blues and earthy browns to go with his eyes and hair but instead we get bright reds, neon chimballs, and sharp contrasts with blacks and whites that just clashes with his base colors. 

And what does any of this tell the audience? How does it add to the story? What can we glean from his new design about what transpired in the last year?  

Nothing. 

At best it just reinforces that villian Varian is a try hard edge lord, but we already knew that. We would have known it even without the villain arc cause he’s a teenager. Not that he looks it. The boy is supposed to be either 16 or soon to be 16 and he still looks fucking 12.

What’s more they spent money on this. They made not one, but two new models with two new outfits, but they couldn’t be arsed just to make him a little taller? And no, he’s not actually any taller in season three. He was always Rapunzel’s height regardless of animation errors and squash and stretch techniques.  

It’s a waste. Just like nearly everything in season three. 

This Is Such a Cop-out

Speaking of things being a waste. Wiping Frederic’s and Arianna’s memories is taking the cowards way out. It’s them escaping any sort of meaningful consequence for their past actions and robs them of the chance to grow and develop as characters. All cause Chris didn’t want to deal with people pointing out the bullshit his self insert caused. 

Well guess what, I’m still pointing out Frederic’s BS, only now I’m extra angry cause I was robbed of a genuine character arc, so fuck you! 

Was Varian Actually Needed for This Plot?

No really. What does Varian even do here? The wand of oblivium is Saporian magic and they could and apparently did wipe the king’s and queen’s memories without Varian’s mindwipe concoction. That alone apparently gives them the power to run the kingdom.  

All Varian does is give them some alchemy based weapons and a bomb he accidentally invents. Both are things that the Saporians could have made themselves given how they know apothecary according to Rapunzel Day One.   

I’m currently in the middle of writing an AU fanfiction where Varian winds up in another world before the events of this episode, and let me tell you it is incredibly easy to write him out of the majority of season three without changing the plot much. 

Given how Varian is meant to be a main character this season, that’s not a good thing. 

So How Come None Of the “Heroes” Give a Shit?

Like I said above, none of the protagonists show the least bit of concern for what Varian is going through. Even though ignoring his needs is precisely what lead to this mess in the first place. It not only makes them look heartless, but it also makes them look plain stupid as well. 

Why is it so hard to just even pretend to care about the fact he’s been orphaned? Half of them are orphans themselves for fucks sake!  

Varian’s Not the One in Charge Here Rapunzel 

I know Varian is the bigger threat and has more of a personal connection to Raps, but it’s pretty clear that Andrew is the mastermind behind this coup. What good does shouting at Varian do? What makes Rapunzel think that any of the Saporians would listen to him even if he did change his mind? What makes her think ordering Varian around after she helped ruin his life would get him to change his mind. Like, my gosh is Rapunzel dumb! 

Why Are We Victim Blaming a Child Soldier?

That’s what he is at this point. He’s a weapons specialist for a rival kingdom fighting for control of the government. A government that has abused its own people leading to such an uprising. 

A teenager may not be as blameless as a baby but it's still beyond callous and cruel to blame kids and young teens who join extremist groups in war torn lands out of desperation.  

Is This Suppose to Be the Inciting Incident for Varian’s Redemption, Cause If So, That Makes No Sense  

This look of regret is the only indication that Varian is questioning where he stands before his redemption in part two. Except there he points out that he’s been thinking about it for while now, even before Raps showed up. Only there’s nothing to suggest why Varian would suddenly change his view point and motives. So the audience is still in the dark about his thought process even with this “hint” and I use that word loosely. 

Conclusion 

So that’s the end of part one. I hope to have part two up before the week is out. 

[hellstenglow]

Fiveya Meta: they need to talk

Endure me, I am on a fiveya-train and my thoughts don’t shut up.

After watching the most recent behind the scene videos of TUA season 2 we can conclude that they did make senseless choices in the plot because in some cases they had to. For example in the case of the snow storm created by Harlan in the final episode, that was added to the script because suddenly there have been a snow storm on the outside set the days before the scheduled filming and they couldn’t clean the place enough, in time for the recording. The snow was added.

I also think they could have written some of the characters better and given them real development (*cough* Luther, Ben *cough*). I wasn’t even a fan of the whole “Vanya lost her memory” thing, but I’ve read that Steve Blackman (the showrunner) doesn’t want to diverge from the original content too much (which is a bit silly to say since they did make major changes since season 1, but okay). I guess that’s why Vanya’s amnesia was still there, although they treated it differently. In the comics it was Mom-Grace who helped Vanya to find herself again and her own value, in the show it was Sissy who did it. I thought it was kind of a hint to the comics the fact Sissy resembled Show-Grace a bit (blond, kind and a mom). Did I think it was unnecessary to have a love interest for Vanya right after season 1? I did, but I justified the choice by thinking that the show wanted to give Vanya a taste of what real love (not like Leonard’s manipulative and abusive love) is supposed to be. I also thought it was a way to show how Vanya needs to stop clinging to the first person who gives her affection, attention and treats her with kindness. I hope she’d realize that and work on herself and family in season 3, first and foremost.

Even with the evident flaws I enjoyed season 2, especially because I decided to treat it as a passing by (detour/digression) chapter in a longer story. All Hargreeves siblings in the ‘60s tried hard to make a new life and ignored their actual life (Allison, Luther, Klaus) or had a convenient amnesia (Vanya) or focused on something too much to lose track of what matters (Diego). Everyone except Ben (who was not treated once again as a full character despite the apparent level up the PR promoted) and Five (who once again was running around in panic mode to stop an apocalypse). Remember Vanya saying, “New timeline, new me.” And Five replying “That’s NOT how it works.”? I may give the writers more credits than it is due, but I hope those two lines were some kind of meta messages for the more attentive viewers. Those two lines can explain perfectly season 2 to be honest.

Nobody can know how long a tv show would run, a fact that expose us to uncertainty. It’s always a gamble trusting writers and showrunners to deliver a good story, but all it’s fair game and one has only to accept it. I do not trust any of them, but I cannot help myself and still hope that they will not ruin everything. With all this said, let’s talk about something I think the show has to tackle in next seasons: Five and Vanya are two points of a theme that needs to be addressed and solved. They need to interact, talk and close their open theme together.

This is not a cohesive meta and I probably will lose myself in too many details, but I hope the message I am trying to convey will arrive. This is only my reading of the show and theories, so you can disagree. I just hope you’d find something interesting and maybe help someone to have a different perspective on what’s going on and where (I pray) the show will go. Here the points I will talk about, if you are in for a very verbose essay, please click on the “keep reading” button. Meanwhile I’ll wear my tinfoil crown and sip some margarita.

Five and Vanya are a theme

It was mean to be Ben

Why the Fiveya’s tension in S2 EP 7’s iconic scene is a symptom of something

I dare to hope in fiveya (at least until proven wrong)  

1. We have a theme: Five wants to stop the apocalypse and Vanya is the apocalypse

It’s a twisted joke of the universe that the very thing Five is obsessed about in season 1 (the apocalypse) was caused by the person he trusted the most (“I’ve decided you’re the only one I can trust” - Five in S1EP1). The red thread that linked Five and Vanya can’t be more evident, that’s one of the reasons why I started shipping them. The family’s dynamic, the siblings’ relationships and bonds are equally important, they add layers and motivations to the story, but if we strip everything else and look at the core, we all know Five and Vanya are at the centre of it.

It’s not a simple coincidence that Five said “I’m the four horsemen”. At first, it’s just a funny line, because Five is drunk and he described himself as those fearsome figures (because he is the best assassin of the whole world and time. Death incarnated in his humble opinion). You don’t take him seriously when he said that line, you don’t pay attention to it.  

However, later it gains a certain degree of truth. Subtly the show tells you that indeed Five is linked deeply to the “apocalypse” (Vanya), as much as the four horsemen (they are the prelude and the bringers of the end) are linked to the apocalypse (in the biblical sense). He lived it. He was trapped there for 45 years. He is obsessed with it. The Apocalypse is his business.

Timid little Vanya is the first person he looked for in the middle of the doomsday’s ruins and arguably his closest friend. On the first day of his return Five only have meaningful talks with Vanya. Five sought her to confide the horror of his memories and share the burden of the truth. He trusted her above everyone else. Then the universe made a laughingstock of him when it was revealed that Vanya caused the Apocalypse. Five didn’t know he was running towards her, despite wanting to go back to his family (her) all his life. 

In the first two episodes of season 1 they made clear that Vanya and Five had an intimate bond in their childhood and still cared for each other after so many years, then the show proceeded to separate them until the finale. They tried so hard to keep them far away from each other during season 1 and we all know everything would have been different if they had time to properly talk, process their situation and find a solution together. Of course, the show didn’t give them that chance, otherwise the show would have ended in episode 3 and goodbye drama!

They did not confront each other in the end of season 1, they let Allison take that role because the show built up their connection as sisters and I didn’t dislike the choice. Did it work thematically? No, Allison has no connection with the apocalypse. That’s Five’s business. He didn’t confront Vanya, he let others take the lead in the most crucial moment and with no surprise the apocalypse still happened.

The other apocalypse in season 2 was still connected to Vanya and again Five ignored the cosmic signals and focused on dead ends. Despite knowing perfectly that the butterfly effect can come from any source, he didn’t even think about Vanya’s being the cause of the apocalypse again. Five should have listened Klaus when he suggested that Vanya might have been the cause. Funny how Klaus told him in S1 that he has an addiction and Five aggressively denied it. Funny how saving his family and stopping the apocalypse are always his top priorities, but Five still deny himself (for a reason or another) the time to confront Vanya (the apocalypse).

We have a theme waiting to be resolved: Five wants to stop the apocalypse and Vanya is the cause of the apocalypse. If Five does not confront Vanya the theme will never have a closure. It’s still open right now. It is still there, waiting to be picked up again. There is no resolution.

2. Vanya and Ben’s goodbye

The scene between Vanya and Ben was one of my favourites from season 2 and after pondering for a while I concluded that it couldn’t have been anyone else but Ben the one who helped Vanya in that moment. My theory is that the show will walk backwards the breaking points of Vanya’s life: Ben’s death, Five’s leaving and Reginald’s abuse.

Vanya is not fixed. How could she when she was barely Vanya in this season? “New timeline, new me” she said, but that was just a convenient escapism mechanism. Years and years of mentally and emotionally abuse don’t disappear in one week. The Hargreeves have still a lot to process and resolve, individually and as family. That’s why I hope the show will progress the story in the right direction and actually work on them in season 3. Especially Vanya, who needs to confront her trauma. That’s why the scene with Ben in episode 9 was necessary.

From Vanya’s book:

[…] Our everyday existence was full of evidence that Dad had [...]-pped into treating us like experiments. Not as children, but like animals. And what happened to Ben was the last straw that finally shattered the illusion for the others …

Ben died long time ago and his death was the last straw that shattered the illusion (for the others) that their father cared about them (even in his own messed up way). Everything changed from that moment and each sibling drifted away from one another after that. Ben’s death was the moment Vanya and the rest of her siblings stopped being a family. The definitive step of Vanya’s alienation from her siblings.

There was no place in the group for her. With Five’s absence and Ben gone (he is a caring brother, with Klaus is like that and I can imagine him being kind to Vanya in their childhood too. Although, Ben is not Five and we have seen him being harsh to her in the flashbacks in S1EP10), Vanya was truly lost.

The tearful and important moment between Ben and Vanya was a reverse moment in my opinion. Vanya needed that from Ben, his death heavily influenced the course of her life (everyone’s life) and it was only fitting that Ben should have been the one helping her to start again. It’s symbolic in a sense, but also very factual.

“Sorry that I left without saying goodbye” – Five, S1 EP2

“At least this time I can say goodbye.” – Ben, S2 EP9

I’m using my fiveya-goggles, but we all thought that what Five said in S1EP2 (when Vanya tried to find him at Hargreeves’ mansion) wasn’t just about him leaving her apartment. It’s a very specific line that works on double levels: text and subtext. The subtext of course refers to the day he run out the house and time jumped. I highlighted these two lines from Five and Ben because I think they share the same theme: leaving her without saying goodbye.

Vanya wasn’t on mission with the team when Ben died, and I doubt she even saw his body (or whatever remains were left) when the Umbrella Academy returned. She didn’t even see his manifestation during the Icarus’ fight, too focused in her own power. The scene between them in Vanya’s mind gave both the opportunity to make amend of untold words and missed moments.

Ben is dead, he is the one he cannot return. His departure is permanent, there is nothing they can do about that. However, they can have a closure. Ben needed to be the one first patching to mend Vanya’s relationship with her family, to remind her that she does belong. This sort of second death (finally move on into the Light) has more meaning than the first one, this time Ben completed the mission. He saved someone he loved (he couldn’t stop Klaus from destroying his life with drugs and alcohol) and could trust his siblings to take care of the rest.

I still think Ben didn’t need to die-die, but in a sense it was time for him to move on into the light. He was afraid to go on, but if he could move on so his siblings. It is time for Vanya to move on her own trauma.

(Yeah, I know. I still have problem with the scene because they erased canon in a way and Ben could do a lot more as character. They erased the fact drugs stop their powers like in Klaus’ addiction and Vanya’s pills, so how Vanya was able to use them under LSD? I tried to explain that to myself by the fact “they needed to bs that canon fact in season 1 and ignored it”.

We can also argue that Ben could have prevented the apocalypse in 2019 by doing the same thing, but in their defence S1-Ben didn’t know he could possess a body. Yeah, how did he do that without Klaus’ power help? No idea, that doesn’t make sense to me either. Ahah. I just swam with the flow at that point and accepted it as it is. Call it the power of superpowered siblings’ love. I’ve seen worse plot holes in my life. I can live with this).

3. Pass me the knife, there is some tension here!

From Vanya’s book:

Though prone to arrogance and outbursts, even more than the average preteen, Five was my sole confidante in the years before he disappeared. It almost seemed fitting […] the siblings to leave us, it would be him who [I fully?] […] who fully trusted me.

I said that Vanya’s walking backwards her life’s breaking points. So, after Ben’s death, she needs to address Five’s leaving. Five was her only confidante in the years before he disappeared, as she wrote in her book. Five was very important to young Vanya (and old Vanya needs to remember that) and I bet when he left, that was a scar never healed.

Vanya missed him and hoped for his return, for a while she kept the lights on in the house every night and prepared for him his favourite sandwich. When Five did come back Vanya couldn’t process that fact properly in season 1, all she could think of was that she didn’t want to lose him again. Five on the other hand decided that he would save everyone on his own and for that choice he made a bunch of tragic rookie mistakes.

Miscommunication is their kryptonite and right now Vanya and Five aren’t able to fully communicate at the same level. Reggie did such a good work at parenting that they’re so unfit to deal with their emotions and relationships, that will always be the root of their mistakes.

Same story in season 2, meanwhile Vanya is on the verge to provoke another apocalypse (although indirectly), as usual Five was too obsessed with his own plans and was not even aware of the situation. He knows nobody is insignificant when it’s about altering the timeline, but he always ends to focus on the wrong lead. The show again did incredible summersaults to avoid the two to interact properly and when they interacted things still didn’t work for a reason or another. She didn’t remember her past, he was not entirely sincere with her. She wanted to start anew (having a family with Sissy, easy-peasy), he is trapped again in a run against time to save his family. They are still not at the same page and for the show that is convenient. They still can play with their open theme (my point number 1 in this meta).

I don’t blame Five in S1 for thinking that if the worse happens, they would need to kill her. I think he was in a very delicate state of mind in that moment, he didn’t have time to process the fact Vanya (his favourite sibling and we all know she is his favourite) caused the end of the world. It was disappointing and cynical, but time was ticking fast, and he had been in his “maniacal-panic” mode for almost eight days. I also think he wouldn’t really kill her; he was the one who convinced the others that they needed to take her with them in the time jump. They need to “fix her” (aka help her to never feel alone in the universe and prove her we do love her) or they’re going to make the same mistakes again and again.

Just to be clear I think if Five wasn’t one day from the end of the world and in a rush to stop Vanya, he would had had the same reaction as Old Man Five in S2. His 14-days younger version take it very well “Fair enough” he said and then proceeded to tell Luther how to save Vanya, no mention about killing her whatsoever. Old Man Five had time (10 days more than our current Five) and a direct clue on how to stop the apocalypse (thanks Luther). Nobody was going to kill Vanya.

“Vanya will always be the cause of the apocalypse, unless we fix her.” - Five S1EP10 

“Vanya is the bomb. She will always be the bomb.” - Diego S2EP8

Vanya is the bomb and she will always be the bomb unless she heals. A fact that can be added to my number 1 point in this meta, there is an open theme and they need to tackle it. Five and Vanya need to confront each other and resolve it.

This takes me to S2 EP7: the iconic stare-power stand between Five and Vanya. THE TENSION was real, and you could cut it with a butter knife. The first time I screamed at my screen, I felt like Gordon Ramsay in one of those episodes of “Kitchen Nightmare US” when someone finally serves him good food.

Of course, the immediate reading of the scene is that Five needed Vanya to come along and Vanya didn’t want to go because at that point these Hargreeves are still strangers to her (amnesia is so convenient), Sissy and Harlan are the ones she knows and loves in that right moment.

They were still able to cut each other with sharp words and hostile glares though. Five let her have what she wanted, not because he feared her, but because as usual he cares more about her feelings than what he would ever admit. It’s the second time in S2 he let her go, his soft spot and favouritism for Vanya was showing once again! *fakes surprise*

I think the tension shown in this scene is a symptom that Vanya and Five are on the verge of something they will (they have to) confront soon or later. This is the subtext reading I came out with.

Even if you don’t look at it with shipper goggle, you feel there is something going on. They let the viewers feel there is a sensitive something whenever these two have an alone scene together. All their alone scenes have a specific grade of intimacy, they made it clear since the scene in front of Five’s portrait. They care for each other, they love each other (sibling love, platonic love, we-could-have-been-something love etc…) and it’s there. However, Five left and Vanya never truly recovered from that. They didn’t process that fact and I truly believe they can’t move on until they heal that scar.

Basically, S2 EP7 Fiveya’s scene = We have to talk, but this is not the moment because the show is only on its second season! THIS TENSION IS HERE FOR A REASON.

4. Hope is the last thing to die

I shouldn’t trust a show, I’ve been disappointed so many times in the past years and showrunners of popular shows tend to be unoriginal and cowards. However, I am an optimist at heart and until season 3 I dare to hope anyway. If proven wrong, there are always fanfictions who can do better job than canon.

If all was lost they could have eliminated Alluther too from the universe because of certain fans screaming “harcest is incest you weirdos”, but Allison and Luther’s situation still exist and still work on the parameter “will they or not”? I imagine for their shippers it was annoying to have such a regression in season 2, but they didn’t destroy it and they still gave them scenes.

Fiveya had even a more subtle situation than Alluther but they’ve been granted the same level of intimate interaction whenever they have an alone scene together. Until Five (the character) will gain an older body (which he can) the whole thing is suspended. However, I think they wouldn’t have been open about the possibility of Five changing back to an older body and spoke about in season 1 if they didn’t have an idea for that.

I brushed off the line Five said to Old Man Five about being forever trapped in his 13-years-old body. It’s canon that there is a way to gain an adult body for Five, the Commission has the technology and even if it’s not the Commission they can mambo-jambo the thing in a way or another. That would never work. The actor is a growing up teenager and from season 1 to season 2 he has already changed. I imagined he will change even more before season 3 will ever start recording (maybe very late due the COVID-19 situation).

Aidan is a fan favourite and I am one of those who can’t see anyone else playing Five, with this said there are still ways for the show to give us fiveya. Young fiveya flashbacks will be always an option to explore the idea of “they had a crush on each other when they were young” and make other viewers understand that it wasn’t all “sibling” love between them. Endgame in a distant season can always have an epilogue with an adult Five (another actor I mean) having a very non-platonic (let adult Fivey kiss please) moment with Vanya, meanwhile building up the longest slow-burn (kinda, deep down I believe those feelings for each other are there) of the century.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe my tinfoil crow is too tight, and my brain doesn’t breathe. Maybe the show will succumb to easy paths and angry bullies. I don’t know, but until proven wrong I dare to hope.

PS: This is a monster of a meta and it probably doesn’t make sense? I hope someone will get what I’ve tried to say. I hope you survive, brave readers. Here a glass of margarita for you. I’d love to hear what you think

[lazywriter7]

Marvel Ace/Aro Rec List

Happy Pride everyone! It’s 30 June where I’m at, and although I didn’t get to actually write something ace-coloured for Pride, I thought I could atleast show some love - mostly towards the numerous fics I’ve read in this fandom that mainly feature characters on the ace/aro spectrum.  Characters and pairings may vary, and please make sure to read all tags and take care of yourself before diving in, as some of these feature internalised phobia (but always a happy ending <3 ). So go forth and show these authors some love!

grey and other colours by theappleppielifestyle  (steve/tony, demisexual, demiromantic Tony)

Distantly, Tony hears Clint say something like, “No, I definitely heard he was an equal opportunist. Like, equal-equal, no preference. Hey Tones, who are you attracted to more, dudes or chicks?”

He calls the last part out to Tony, who runs the words over in his mind and unthinkingly says, “I’ve actually never been attracted to anyone, it’s really worrying.”

~ this one’s a staple in the ace stevetony fandom, and the first I ever read. Sweet, poignant and beautifully written, capturing Tony’s changing feelings with lovely nuance.

Variations in Modern Dance by  Pookaseraph (steve/tony, asexual Steve)

There's only one thing in the world that Steve has decided the 21st century isn't alright with: not wanting to have sex. Sadly that seems to be the one thing the Serum couldn't fix, and it's playing hell with his ability to deal with his feelings for Tony. Thankfully Tony is a brilliant engineer, and he might be able to find a solution, or maybe he'll realize there's nothing there to fix.

~ I think this fic serves as great companion reading to the one above. Some of the conversations had by the characters are (deliberately) not always delicately phrased, but there’s a lovely sense of openness, self-discovery as well as self-acceptance that’s complimented by solid, solid writing.

Chance by SallyExactly (asexual Nat, Clint & Nat brotp)

Clint Barton's snap decision to re-interpret his mission orders means a new life for Natalia Romanova. She's only got the one shot at it, though, and "how to live and remake yourself in three easy steps" was never included in her assassin training.

~ anyone who knows me knows that I never miss an opportunity to rec this fic. This is one of the best fics I’ve ever read, one of the best spy stories I’ve ever read, and it just happens to feature an asexual, female protagonist. The asexuality is honestly not the main point of the story, just one of the several things Natasha discovers and reclaims about herself, along with a lifelong friendship - and all of those things make this fic absolutely excellent.

A Practical Glossary for the Twenty-first Century by shadowen (sam/bucky, asexual Bucky)

Some words are easier than others.

~ There’s a line from this fic that goes: What he’s having trouble with is matching new words to old feelings and figuring out which words are right for all the things he feels right now. And if that’s the sort of poignant character journey you want to read for Bucky, man is this the fic for you. Lovely writing, compulsory amoeba joke, a really soft Sam... this has something for everyone :P

No Such Thing as Normal by nightwalker (steve/tony, asexual Steve)

“I understand if you want to break up,” Steve said, the words spilling out of his mouth like they were hot on his tongue. He hadn’t meant to say it quite like that and not so early in the conversation, but it’s out there now, loud and heavy between them and he can’t pretend he didn’t say it.

~ this fic is essentially a well-written, honest conversation between two characters navigating unfamiliar waters, and I like that a lot. It’s also great about representing a different facet or kind of asexuality than we sometimes read in fandom, which is all sorts of excellent because being in a spectrum do be like that :D 

Walking like a man, hitting like a hammer by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel (aromantic, asexual maria hill) "Darcy was convinced it was going to become part of SHIELD’s oral history forever, like that time everyone on this one op was doused with sex pollen and the only one who didn’t screw someone senseless was then not-yet-deputy director Agent Hill, and Robards said it was because she was a frigid lesbian and Hill told him that the term was asexual and if he was going to be a bigoted asshole about it he could at least get her orientation right. And then Coulson made him go through the hardcore diversity and sexual harassment training as punishment, because everyone knew Hill and Coulson were bros."

Maria Hill is honestly pretty happy with her life.

~ You know when you’re kinda done with the emotion-heavy angst of being an LGBTQIA+ person, and you just kinda wanna consume content that deals with unquestioned acceptance and awesomeness? This is that fic. Maria Hill is that woman. And I love. After the Applause by  tartanfics (peggy/angie, demisexual Angie)

Angie doesn't have anyone waiting for her out in the audience. She didn't get to tell Peggy she finally got a part in a show; Peggy wasn't there to tell. She ran lines with Sarah from 4A. There's been not a word from Peggy, nothing, after Angie went to all the trouble of calling up her family and finding Peggy a way out of the city.

~ not to be tooo controversial, but do I wish that Peggy Carter’s story ended something like the above fic? Yes, yes I do <3 Set post season 1 of Agent Carter, this fic is everything you’d want a get-together to be, plus bonus demisexual Angie! Win-win all around.

And now for some self-recs: to love and to hold (aroace bruce banner, asexual natasha, queerplatonic brucenat) His expression was a little too brittle. “Lucky for you I’m a bit too much of a coward for sex, then.”

But Natasha’s lips only flattened, gaze implacable. “Have you thought not wanting to do something might not be the same as being a coward?”

untitled aro Rhodey ficlet (aro rhodey, tony & rhodey brotp)

Because here’s the thing: there are no butterflies in the world that Rhodey resides. No whirlwind rush of emotions, no dusky blush rising to his skin when someone flashes a cute smile his way, no impassioned, well-meant love notes he was smuggling into people’s lockers at recess.

All his friends come to him for love-related advice; but he feels like a scientist, observing phenomena he can analyse but not understand, proselytising about another species from afar.

And that’s it folks! Please feel free to add your own recs on, this is really by no means an exhaustive list and we deserve nice things this year - happy Pride again!

[sweetsmellosuccess]

Sundance 2020: Day 2

Number of Films: 5 Best Film of the Day: Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Zola: Back in 2015, a Twitter user named @zola began a long, outrageous thread concerning a wild road trip she had been on with a woman she had just met at the restaurant where she worked. The plan was for the two of them to go down to Florida for a long weekend to dance at strip clubs and make a bundle. What followed was an absolutely insane odyssey of horror, involving pimps, guns, gang bangers, and someone jumping off a balcony. Directed by Janicza Bravo, with plenty of snap, crackle and pop, the film stars Taylour Page as our long suffering narrator and Riley Keough as the brazen, hopeless Stefani, who leads her newfound friend into the depths of hell. At its root, it’s a funny, if not sporadically chilling sort of chaotic joy-ride, with Zola’s commentary peppering the proceedings, along with a bevy of social media pings and whooshes (as another critic pointed out, the tweet whistle is half the soundtrack). Bravo pulls out a creative bag of tricks and gags  —  including a propensity for Scorsese-like screen freezes, while she describes one character or other  —  all of which gives the film a zany, madcap quality that imbibes the film with plenty of zing. Riley, a trashy southern drawl in her back pocket (just hearing her call Zola “beech” endearingly never ceases to be amusing), takes to the character like James Franco took to his role in Spring Breakers (a film with which Zola shares a certain Florida-crazed DNA), and Page makes an adroit straight person, taking in the insanity all around her, but despite these amusements, it’s really only skin-deep. There’s no deeper sense of anything, which, while in league with its source material, also puts something of a cap on just what the film can achieve.

La Llorona: if the source of all horror, cinematic and otherwise, is, essentially those elements that make up the human condition, than guilt is one of the more powerful evocations from which to draw. Jayro Bustamante‘s horror film is a timely political allegory set in Guatemala, as an aged and deposed former dictator general (Julio Diaz) is being tried for genocidal war crimes, his family, wife (Margarita Kenefic), daughter (Sabrina De La Hoz), and young granddaughter (Ayla-Elea Hurtado) are all forced to huddle up in the general’s mansion, as throngs of outraged citizens hold a neverending seething protest outside. What’s more, the General, now a slightly shriveled old man, seems to be coming unglued, hearing someone sobbing in the house whom he is convinced is a Guerilla assassin. When his mainly indigenous staff catches wind of this  —  the crying female spirit  —  they quit en masse, leaving the mansion badly understaffed, until a young, new woman (Maria Mercedes Coroy) arrives, leaving the General further discombobulated, as the nightmares and visions he and his wife endure begin to coalesce into an unnerving climax. Apart from everything else, Bustamante’s film is about the searing power of empathy  —  the General’s wife starts the film as a racist, uncaring mouthpiece, but gradually gets her layers of denial stripped away from her  —  and the powerful idea that one’s actions, even if unpunished in the material world, still have dire consequences.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always: Eliza Hittman has made a trilogy of sorts with her first three films. In 2013’s It Felt Like Love, a young teen woman in Brooklyn convinces herself to pursue a callous and contemptuous boy in order to lose her virginity; Beach Rats (2017) follows the trevails of another Brooklyn-based teen, as he attempts to pursue his interest in men while continuing to maintain his bro-heteroness. In her new film, she has moved the setting to a hardscrabble town in rural Pennsylvania, but her characters remain familiar. Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a dour-faced high schooler has discovered to her horror that she’s pregnant, and too far along to get an abortion without her parents’ cosign, something she wants to avoid at all costs. Enlisting the aid of her cousin, the feisty, resourceful Skylar (Talia Ryder), the pair head off to New York, where Autumn can get the procedure without her parents’ knowledge. With little money and no earthly clue about the city, the two young women are forced to endure a vagabond lifestyle, spending the nights on train platforms, or endlessly going from station stop to station stop, until Autumn can be properly treated. Hittman’s eye for detail and emotional complexity  —  her characters can rarely articulate anything their experiencing  —  is incredibly acute, and she pulls tremendously understated performances out of her two leads. In the film’s most searing scene, Autumn goes through an exhaustive intake interview with a sweetly caring counselor. Shot in a long single take, the back-and-forth covers the most basic details of Autumn’s life and also some of her most buried pain and trauma. The camera stays fixed on her face, as she is asked to finally unpack some of the misery she has worked so hard to tamp down, and the result is one of most devastating sequences you will see this year.

Black Bear: What to make of Lawerence Michael Levine’s meta-within-meta film in which the first half is a specific sort of indie drama in which a young couple (Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon) living up in a glorious lake house away from New York get visited by an actress-turned-director (Aubrey Plaza), there to work on a new project; and the second half is, essentially, the Noises Off-like behind the scenes riff on how the trio (now with the actresses’ roles switched) worked together to produce a variation of the film we were just watching? In part one, dubbed “The Bear in the Road,” Plaza’s character is territorial and coquettish, instantly attracted to Abbott’s lonely musician, and enticing him into disavowing his care for his pregnant partner. In Part two, “The Bear by the Boat House,” Abbott is now the film’s director, and Plaza is his wife, also the star of the film in which she is now the clingy partner, as Gadon arrives from the city on a visit. There is a lot to unpack here  —  or, alternatively, there isn’t terribly much at all, depending on how you see it  —  it being the kind of film that begs for further viewings to untangle its many layers. Whether you will want to put that sort of work into it is unclear. Still, the leads are all tremendous  —  Plaza, light-years removed from her “Parks & Rec” days  —  is a revelation of ferocious, billowing emotion, and Levine is clever enough with his structure to keep things rolling along.  

The Night House: The Midnight slate at Sundance, as with most such designations at other festivals, is by nature a roll of the dice. Some nights, you’ll find something absolutely brilliant (The Babadook, The Nightmare), many other nights, something a good deal less so. David Bruckner’s ghost story isn’t close to one of those conceptual masterpieces, but does offer some serious jumpscare thrills en route to a far too explicated finish. Rebecca Hall plays Beth, a grieving widow, whose architect husband just left their modern manse overlooking a lake to shoot himself in their wooden rowboat. Obsessed with trying to find why he might have done such a thing, Beth slowly begins to unravel his dark, secret life, even as her dreams become waking nightmares of visions, blasts of music from their downstairs stereo, and seeming visitations by either her husband or another dark force from behind the veil. With a sadistic sound design that periodically shocks your system, and a beseeching performance from Hall, who carries this film from first frame to last, Bruckner’s effort dutifully serves up enough genuine creepiness to earn your attention, even if the story slowly devolves into something out of the Final Destination franchise.

Tomorrow: Utilizing a slightly more sane pace, I start the day with Dee Rees’ Shirley; check out the much lauded doc Boys State; get my ‘80s on for The Go Go’s; and finish up with Miranda July’s long-awaited next film, Kajillionaire.

Into the frigid climes and rarefied thin air of the spectacular Utah Mountains, I've arrived in order to document some of the sense and senselessness of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Over the next week, armed with little more than a heavy parka and a bevy of blank reporter's notebooks, I'll endeavor to watch as many movies as I can and report my findings.

[mademoiselle-luz]

The Bells ; GoT s08e05 : a Rant

I saw the last GoT episode last night, and I am livid. This episode is an insult.

It's an insult to GRR Martin, and the wonderful world he build for us ; it's an isult to the actors who spend almost a decade of their lives giving life to that story ; it's an insult to us, the fans, who have been enthousiastic about this show for years and years ; and it's an insult to these characters who we saw growing up through the seasons.

They erased years of characters' development for shock value. Sure, we didn't see this coming, but it's not because it's genius, it's because what you wrote went against any logic and consistency.

The characters' choices made no sense. Their actions were so OOC it would be ridiculous if it weren't so tragic.

I like Varys. He may have made problematic choices, but it always was for the greater good. Choosing a Targaryan over another because he has a cock is straight up ridiculous, even insulting to his character. Varys (like Theon) spend his life being the butt of every cockless jokes (shame on you Tyrion), and his entire argument about Jon being a better ruler than Daenerys is centered around the idea that because he has a cock, because he is male, he's worthy of the throne ?

I'm not saying Varys choosing Jon is OOC. I'm saying the arguments he used were problematic and highly simplistic coming from him. And his death in the middle of the night, on the sly, is an insult to him and to Daenerys.

Daenerys Targaryan is the Queen. If she is to execute a traitor, she will do it in broad daylight, in front of her people, to show her power. She was so OOC these last episodes, it was sickening : the poor woman can't keep a clear head !

Her line about "So it will be fear" (or something to that effect) was insane. Because Jon rejects her as a romantic/sexual partner, she turns into that bloodthirsty Mad Queen ?

Maybe I could see it if Jon had rejected her authority and went for the throne for himself, but that's not the case.

Daenerys is not perfect. But I think she is perfectly capable of drawing the line between her love life and her duty as Queen. Explain to me how she could go from "I don't want to be Queen of the ashes" to Mad Queen over fucking bells.

That bell thing was a hot mess. Tyrion obsession with those bells was so cringey. Subtility is dead, my friends.

Now, there is one person I could see going mad over those bells and it's Cersei fucking Lannister.

Cersei is a villainess, yes, but she is a good one. I don't like her, but I understand her, I know where she's coming from : the way Robert and Tywin treated her, her hatred for Tyrion, her uncondional love for her children, even her complicated relationship with Jaime. We are given reasons, explanations.

The Cersei I saw in this episode wasn't the Cersei I saw all those past seasons. Cersei is proud, she's strong. She's not some whimpering mess that let others tell her what to do (Qyburn ? really ?) and doesn't want to "die like this".

Of course she doesn't want to die like this, like a coward. If she has to die, she will take the whole of King's Landing with her.

When the bells rang and she understood that the Lannister Army surrendered, she should have burnt the city down with wildfire. She deserved to be the Big Bad and do what the Mad King couldn't.

She send Bronn to kill Tyrion and Jaime both. Her reunion with her twin should never have gone this way.

No mercy. No surrender.

That is Cersei Lannister.

And Jaime... gods... Jaime...Take a shit on seven seasons of character development, why don't you !?

The Jaime I saw was the one I met in the first episode of the first season, the one who'd do anything for Cersei. How can you make him say all that rubbish about not caring about people, innocent or not ? He killed the Mad King for those people. He sacrificed his reputaion, his honor for them.

For years, we saw him struggle between his devotion for Cersei, and his honor, what he knew was the right thing to do. Brienne is the embodiment of his better side. His retationship with her was a reflection of his inner evolution. And now he's choosing Cersei over her ?

I'll be honest, when he left Brienne in Winterfall, I had hoped he'd kill Cersei, to have a kind of closure knowing she would die by the hand of someone who understood and loved her.

It would have gone great with all the prophecy business too, but who's bothering with coherence nowadays...

Why giving us Braime and then... that...

I swear to the gods, if ser Brienne of Tarth is pregnant with a Lannister baby, I will kill someone ! My only remaining hope at this point, is for them to do right by Arya Stark, at least.

Arya Stark is a Master Assassin. She is a Faceless Woman. She killed the Night King. She is strong and she is committed, and above all else, she is a survivor. Not the lost little girl I saw last night.

She rejected Gendry's proposal to go kill Cersei Lannister, because Cersei imbody her family fate. For Arya, Cersei is the one person responsible for destroying her family. Killing her is more important than killing the villain, more personal than killing the Night King. It's achieving closure. It's avenging her family. It's putting her ghosts to rest.

And they robbed her of that and for what ? Showing us just how mad Daenerys went ? The amount of screen time spend on all that suffering made me sick. Honestly, it was gross. How many burning, bleeding bodies do we need to see ?

Okay, we get it : Daenerys Bad, Jon Good. You don't need to shove it down our throats like that. Seriously, that was gratuitous violence at its finest. That was not a battle, it was a senseless bloodbath.

I miss the Battle of the Blackwater and the Battle of the Bastards. Those were good, proper battles, with real tactics and strategies, not the clusterfuck we witnessed.

And what is that mess with the Hound ? Yeah, it's cute how they went from Mortal Ennemies to Pseudo Father/Daughter Relationship, but dear god, how patronizing can you be ?

Arya doesn't need Sandor Clegane pernission to go on with her life. She's a fighter in her own rights. Again, she killed the Night King. Sure, she had help, but in the end, she was the one to do it, to save Westeros. If she is to abandon her plans, to abandon the whole reason for her whole character arc, at least, let her do it on her own.

She doesn't need some pseudo-father figure to tell her she's wrong. She's a grown woman, not some little lost girl in need of guidance. Not anymore.

And seriously, the way she acted after her decision ? Has she lost every skills she ever possessed ? Episode 3 was all about her stealth and assassin skills and now she's bumbling around like an idiot ?

If Gendrya isn't endgame and Sansa Stark doesn't end up being Warden/Queen in the North, so help me god, I will spontaneously combust from sheer rage !!!

[closetofanxiety]

50 Wrestling Questions: Why Not

Remember this? It’s been a while. Let’s do this again. Let’s twist again like we did last summer. Or the summer of 2017 in this case.

1. What got you into wrestling?

People ask me this all the time, and I don’t really have a good answer. I’ve liked it on and off since I was very young, and who knows why you like the stuff you like when you’re a little kid? 

2. What is your favorite wrestling promotion?

Of all time: ECW, even though I would probably think of it very differently if it were happening today. Currently: Beyond Wrestling. 

3. Favorite male wrestler of all time?

Gorgeous George, but if we’re talking about people who were alive when I was alive, Dusty Rhodes. I want to say Bruiser Brody, but in my heart I would know I was just saying that to look cool. 

4. Favorite female wrestler of all time?

Gail Kim. For the longest time, she was the only woman in a major global wrestling company who got over based on her wrestling ability. She was doing stuff in TNA that was years ahead of its time, and could adapt her style to get great matches with a variety of opponents with very different backgrounds. And she can still go, as she showed in the match against Tessa Blanchard the other night. I know it would be cooler to say Bull Nakano or Chigusa Nagayo or something, but I don’t know enough of their stuff to make that claim credible. I am who I am, a person who goes to the mall to buy shoes. 

5. Favorite current male wrestler?

Nick Gage

6. Favorite current female wrestler?

Momo Watanabe 

7. Favorite theme song?

Joey Janela’s music captures his vibe perfectly, and sounds great being blasted out of PA speakers inside a small bar or VFW hall. Of all time, probably, I don’t know, Honky Tonk Man? In an ironic way that slowly becomes sincere?

8. Least favorite theme song?

Ricochet’s WWE theme music is pretty dreadful. 

9. Favorite gimmick?

Currently: Orange Cassidy. All time: Road Warriors maybe? They were almost 100 percent gimmick, and they were the biggest tag team in the world at a great time for tag team wrestling. 

10. Least favorite gimmick?

All the racist and gay-hating gimmicks that have been used throughout the years are more or less equally horrible. If we’re talking about a terrible gimmick that was non-malignant, I’d say it was taking giant indestructible ass-kicker Mike Awesome and making him “That 70s Guy.” 

11. Best entrance (either their usual entrance or a special one, like a Wrestlemania entrance)?

Gorgeous George had the best entrance of all time, and it’s been copied ever since (Ric Flair’s entrance is basically Gorgeous George’s, scored with a different piece of classical music). The Sandman also had a great entrance. He was kind of all-entrance, now that I think of it. I also love those old shows in Japan where Brody would come out to “Immigrant Song” running through the crowd, swinging a fucking chain over his head like a lunatic. An entrance that makes you fear for your life: mission accomplished. 

12. Best Undertaker Wrestlemania match?

I am not the right person to ask for Undertaker superlatives, but the Lesnar match had a legitimately shocking conclusion that I still appreciate 

13. Most overrated?

I’m tempted to incur the wrath of the online by making a contrarian hot take selection like Ken Omega, but in reality it’s probably the Undertaker. 

14. Most underrated?

There are a million choices from before the 1980s, the Before Time of contemporary pro wrestling. Edouard Carpentier, say; he was having matches in 1970 that would not look out of place in 2019. Since the 1980s, I’d say Jerry Lynn is a very strong contender for most underrated. The popular choice would be Sid or Lex Luger, but I think they’re pretty much rated exactly as they should be. 

15. Have you ever been to an event? If so, which one?

I certainly have been to many pro wrestling events. I go to one or two a month. Like a lot of things, wrestling is pretty much always fun in person. It helps that the Northeast has a ton of good companies within easy driving distance. My favorite show of all time might be Americanrana 2016. 

16. Who has the best merch?

We’re in a weird period where people on Instagram are making better shirt designs (in insanely limited editions) than the vast majority of wrestlers or wrestling companies. I will say that Kris Wolf has yet to make an ugly or boring piece of merchandise, which is a huge complication in this day and age. 

17. Do you own any merch?

Nope! Wait, I mean, “yes, entirely too much.” Shirts, 8 x 10s, DVDs, magazines, random pieces like fancy enamel badges and a stack of Okada bucks. The one thing I’ve never gotten into is action figures, and that’s probably good for the ol’ bank balance. 

18. Best nickname?

"The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes is an all-time classic. 

19. Worst nickname?

"The Game” is a dumb nickname. “The Cerebral Assassin” is also a dumb nickname. Are assassins supposed to be stupid? I bet they’re typically very smart, although of low moral character. “Triple H” is his only good nickname, and even that sounds like the nickname of a guy who owns a car dealership out by the highway.

20. Best mic skills?

Nobody was ever better than Bobby Heenan, who had incredible range and versatility. He could do comedy and he could do menace. He could do calm and he could do spitting rage. He had an uncanny sense of timing and was quicker on his feet than almost anyone. No one really comes close at matching his astonishing depth, but Dusty Rhodes was an all-time great promo. He really made you care about wrestling matches, which is not an easy thing to do.

21. Most annoying?

I mean, it has to be Vince McMahon. 

22. Most attractive male?

Is Tanahashi too obvious a choice? Best hair in wrestling. It’s incredible and luxurious, like an untamed mountain stream. Andrade “Cien” Almas or whatever they’ve shortened his name to (”And”) is a handsome man. Killer Kross: very handsome. We live in a golden age of attractive wrestlers. Just look back at the gassed-up Zubaz mastodons of the 1980s, or the territories-era guys who all looked like they were 48 years old and had pot bellies. You almost have to try to find unattractive wrestlers. Nick Gage, for instance. But I’m sure even he has his swooning admirers. 

23. Most attractive female?

Again, what a time for attractive wrestlers. It may be shallow, but wrestling is a business that’s at least partially cosmetic. Attractive people sell tickets. I would, and have, bought a ticket to see Hana Kimura. 

24. Favorite faction?

Of all time? Probably the Barry Windham-era Four Horsemen. More recently, Team Pazuzu. 

25. Worst faction?

BULLET CLUB. No, it’s not the Bullet Club, as exhausted as they’ve become. It’s probably the nWo after early 1998 or so, when they had like 60 members and dragged down every storyline. 

26. Best ring gear?

Su Yung and Pentagon Jr. 

27. Who do you think would be the nicest in real life?

I bet Jerry Lynn is a good guy to know. People in wrestling universally praise Little Guido, which is very rare. The Young Bucks seem like they might be decent dudes. Willow Nightingale told a story on a podcast about Nick Gage excitedly playing with Solo Darling’s dog backstage, so you never know. 

28. Who would be the rudest in real life?

On the indie level, it’s probably someone who doesn’t work very much. Above the indie level, I bet some of those British guys are secretly horrible, like Jimmy Havoc. 

29. Favorite heel?

Currently it’s a tie between MJF and Alisha Edwards, two of the only people who can regularly get indie crowds to boo them. Of all time, heel Flair was hard to beat. 

30. Most hardcore?

It’s definitely either a guy in Japan or a guy in Mexico, and he’s definitely been burned by explosive charges multiple times. Onita? It’s probably Onita. Or Jun Kasai? I think Onita has probably been exploded more times than Jun Kasai. 

31. A wrestler you could beat?

At wrestling? Not a single one of them. Nicholas, the small boy who won the WWE tag team championship with Braun Strowman, would wipe the floor with me. Even the most callow bodybuilder-turned-wrestler would not break a sweat beating me senseless. But writing talking points for senior administration officials in preparation for legislative testimony? Now you’re on my turf. Not so tough now, huh, Nicholas? 

32. Best story line?

Freebirds vs. Von Erichs or Stone Cold vs. Vince. My heart says the former, my head says the latter. 

33. Biggest missed opportunity for a story line?

The WWE blowing the invasion angle after purchasing WCW is the obvious one. More recently, they blew it by not turning Reigns heel. 

34. Worst story line?

Ha, so many of them. Impossible to choose just one. At least most of the dumb embarrassing Russo ones in WCW and TNA were basically harmless, like the time Samoa Joe got kidnapped by ninjas. The Chuck and Billy wedding thing was far worse. A low point even by Vince’s impressively cretinous standards.

35. Which wrestler should turn heel?

I’d like to see a Jordynne Grace heel run in Impact. Heel Finn Balor would also be good. 

36. Which wrestler should turn face?

Samoa Joe has a good fiery babyface, “I’m tired of doing your dirty work, McMahon!” run in him. 

37. Who would be the worst to room with?

Can you imagine sharing a living space with Enzo Amore? Or the thicket of twee Disney merchandise you’d have to negotiate every day if you lived with Johnny Gargano?

38. Who would be the best to room with?

I bet Eddie Edwards would be a surprisingly thoughtful roommate, like he’d always do the dishes “because I love doing them!,” that kind of thing. I have nothing to base this suspicion on, he just seems like my old roommate, Shane, who was like that. 

39. Who would be your best friend if you were a wrestler?

I’d like to say Jushin Thunder Liger, and posit that we would go on exciting adventures, but the answer is probably something like “Comp Time” Terry Dandridge, who wrestles monthly for 2Xtreme All-Pro Wrestling Alliance out of Euphoria, Kansas and has a 9 to 5 as a hardware store manager. 

40. What would your job be in a wrestling promotion?

I’d normally make a self-effacing joke here, but I do social media training at my real job, and so many wrestlers are badly in need of help in this area. 

41. Favorite wrestling podcast/Youtube channel?

I like AIW’s “The Card is Going to Change” podcast a lot, and there’s one by the owners of RevPro that’s pretty good. It’s hard to find a well-produced wrestling podcast that talks about independent wrestling. My favorite wrestling YouTube channel is OSW Review. 

42. Favorite finisher?

BURNING HAMMER

43. Least favorite finisher?

The Bayley-to-belly suplex. HOW IS THIS A FINISHING MOVE

44. Favorite match?

Kerry Von Erich vs. Jerry Lawler at Superclash III. It was a bloody, weird, engrossing spectacle, and it was the symbolic end of the territories era. 

45. Favorite PPV?

Royal Rumble is the last PPV my casual fan friends reliably want to see, and with good reason: it’s engrossing.

46. Guilty pleasure wrestler?

Big Banter Baron Corbin, but I feel no guilt here. He rules. 

47. Favorite submission?

THE KATA HA JIME, otherwise known as the Tazmission.

48. Most entertaining to watch?

All time? Randy Savage. Currently? Io Shirai. 

49. Best spot?

Anyone spitting mist into the unsuspecting eyes of their foes

50. Who do you most respect?

I respect you, booker man.

[mako-nekoo]

Good morning i’m still upset about Banana Fish’s ending

Tbh I’m worried that it’s ruined the entire show for me. Which makes me sad because ... I loved it so much.

I just don’t get why they would create a character like Ash and make us root for him, and put him through so much pain, make him watch everyone close to him suffer and/or die, let him get raped by just about every other guy he meets, make him fight and struggle for his life, only to then get killed off during the last five minutes. What are we supposed to take away from this story?

And I think I could have accepted him dying if it had been done in a different way. Let’s say ... if he’d died in Eiji’s arms after taking a bullet for him or something, idk. The only other show I can think of right now that ended with the main character dying was Assassination Classroom. And I was devestated by Korosensei’s death, but after I was done crying, I was okay with it because it made sense within the narrative for him to die. It wasn’t just a senseless tragedy.

But Ash ... I rooted for him so much. I wanted him to be happy so bad. (btw it says in my bio “I get way too emotionally attached to fictional characters”. this is what i’m talking about.) What he and Eiji had was so beautiful. And the things he went through ... Ash’s story may be unique, but abuse is not. It happens all the time. So many people have gone through similar things. How beautiful it would have been for them to see this character overcome his past and thrive and be happy. Instead we get an ending where he essentially gives up and thinks it’s better for Eiji if he dies quietly in the library (the anime kinda left this a bit open, but that’s how I interpreted it).

I hope someday I’ll get to the point where I can separate the ending from the rest of the show and still enjoy this beautiful story and these characters I’ve come to love.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, ch 29-38 (Epilogue 7)

Hoo boy, she’s back. *rubs hands together, cackles*

...actually having read the chapter that’s not a lot to get excited about. content note that this epilogue features a physical assault turning into a sexual assault, and then its aftermath and further violence, in chapters 32 and 37.

also like heavy depression and ennui in general

Chapter 29

...is so short it fits entirely on my screen.

Whatever alt-Calliope has been waiting for, hanging about on the asteroid, is here. Not ‘the Prince’ (i.e. Caliborn), but... someone.

Not Vriska either, we can presume, given the use of ‘he’ pronouns.

Chapter 30

Jake, laying it on rather thick, goes to Jane with bad news. Her father is apparently dead, having (supposedly) taken a bullet rocket for ‘the human president’ to save him from one of Karkat’s assassins. There is no body to dispose of, because his body was destroyed.

This has ‘obvious ruse to cover a defection’ all over it to me, but Jane wouldn’t see that I guess.

Jane takes this the prompt to escalate her war against the trolls to full-blown genocide - total war of extermination, shouting like a cartoon villain. Gamzee, the only troll present... jokingly calls this xenophobic - and turns it into a flirt.

Jane decides now’s the time to stop this whole hateflirting thing, and has her guards take ‘this troll’ off her bridge. To be executed with all the other trolls, presumably. Though he’s not dead on-screen yet.

It’s a very strange mix of cartoon-villain ridiculousness, ordinary ridiculousness, and like... the word genocide.

Chapter 31

Back to John and Vriska, with pretty much no time having passed. John gets her up to speed. Her reaction is predictable...

(VRISKA): ...

(VRISKA): ...

(VRISKA): That’s...

(VRISKA): Th8t’s the........

(VRISKA): Stupidest *F8CKING* thing I’ve ever heard!

Also she’s the (Vriska) in this scenario, because Vriska Lalonde was ‘here first’ lol

Anyway, Vriska confirms very definitely that Lord English is not dead, she was indeed on the battlefield, and she’d prefer to get back there. John brings her up to speed - by this point he’s blaming himself for the decision that broke ‘cause and effect’; everyone got what they thought they wanted and it turned out to be a horrific catastrophe.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, Gamzee - who is not, it seems, dead - shows up. He attempts to set this incandescently angry Vriska on the course of “redemption”...

Chapter 32

This chapter features Vriska beating the absolute shit out of Gamzee for... a whole lot of paragraphs. I guess everything Gamzee was all just setup for this.

This features a lot of named moves, like European-style Uppercut and Reverse Hangman. Probably a wrestling thing.

Which, well, I thought this was just going to be a fandom-catharsis, what if Vriska (avatar of People Who Like Vriska) fucked up Gamzee (avatar of Those People Who Like Vriska Dislike) really fucking hard, but I reckoned without V ‘lick the troll’s armpit’ and her sense for the perverse. tl;dr: Vriska beats the shit out of Gamzee, Gamzee gets horny for it, starts licking her foot; Vriska goes and starts a hate-makeout with him.

The existence of kismesisitude really fucks with any concept of telling someone to go and get fucked, huh. Literally no fucking clue what to make of this at this point.

Chapter 33

Rose comes to talk to John. At this point, it’s very clear that things are far from the rails of ‘canon’, whatever that means anymore.

It’s nice to have Rose back, to say some longwinded philosophical bullshit. She talks about happiness, by way of her wizard fanfiction: in short the implication is that knowing one is in ‘heaven’ destroys (the ability to enjoy) it.

ROSE: But that isn’t me anymore.

ROSE: I am blind against the veil of this world.

ROSE: It’s all ambrosia to me.

ROSE: I don’t care if it’s not true. I care even less if it’s not canon.

ROSE: I have a beautiful wife who I love more than I thought possible, and a daughter who I am immeasurably proud of.

ROSE: It can all be senseless, ephemeral noise that dissolves in the void. A whisper swept up by the wind before it’s uttered.

ROSE: I’m still grateful to have felt this way.

Glad someone isn’t miserable.

The chapter ends with a hug as the bombs go off, and John deciding ‘finality’ was always his to decide, now they are no longer part of ‘the story’.

Chapter 34

Back to Vriska Lalonde and Harry Anderson. Vriska’s involved in the war, although not taking it all that seriously at all. Apparently this Vriska is having a kismesis with Tavros, although rather tame compared to the Alternian version.

They have a fairly inconsequential conversation and then Vriska catches sounds of Gamzee, and goes to investigate... and comes face to face with (Vriska) hatefucking Gamzee, I guess.

Homestuck... was a mistake?

Chapter 35

Vriska POV chapter.

She’s having a meltdown over having just made out with Gamzee. This includes dwelling briefly on her own Awful Childhood:

She remembers the shame and excoriation of her childhood—the fear, the pressure, being coerced to do awful things to undeserving kids. All that embarrassing effort she spent trying to emulate her ancestor. She threw every bit of herself into the role, but in recent years reflecting on the charade has only made her cringe.

If this is going to be going through the same beats as Gamzee’s joke “redemption arc”, that would be something.

Anyway, Vriska furiously demands Gamzee not tell anyone - Gamzee, meanwhile, is starting to feel, more and more, that ‘he was taken advantage of’, that what just happened was sexual assault - that he’s outright feeling unsafe as a result.

I am really fucking lost as to what this is all “saying”, at this point. Is the point that, by making Gamzee out to be so reprehensible, we inclined not to sympathise when he’s sexually assaulted? To like, look out for those we hold to be disposable, to recognise that even shitbags can be harmed?

Perhaps there isn’t a conscious point.

Regardless, Vriska is so desperate to brush over what she’s done that she chokes him to death. He’s not a ‘real’ God tier, so she can just do that. Unfortunately for her, Vriska Lalonde is there to bear witness.

Chapter 36

Back to John, who is contemplating existentialism. Only for... Jake to arrive, having finally fled his horrific abusive relationship with Jane.

Love that letter J.

Anyway John is so apathetic now that he can barely bring himself to care about Jake more than ‘a sim stuck in a pool’, but he does manage to get shaken out of it by realising there’s a kid stuck in the equation.

Jake’s question... was I a bad person? Jake says he’s so used to letting other people control him, he never took responsibility when it mattered.

John makes a token effort to encourage Jake to look to the future - and Jake suddenly brightens up in a way that’s clearly suggesting something is still very much up. He invites John to dance.

It’s all a bit much huh.

But it’s enough to convince John that even if this Roxy isn’t ‘real’, he still ought to make up with her.

Chapter 37

Vriska [Vriska Lalonde] and (Vriska) [Vriska Serket] catch up, which means the text colours and the character prompts are quite difficult to distinguish.

Vriska Serket laments that John is an idiot, but holds power that the rest of the cast could never hope to have (his retcon powers etc.). Vriska Lalonde is dismissive.

Vriska Serket reminisces about the awful shit she’s done in her life - to Tavros, to Terezi, to the other Vriska who was, for a while, happy in the dream bubbles. She tries to convince Vriska Lalonde that this is bad, and not to be like her. She’s not very convincing.

But utlimately... they come round to talk about Terezi. Not by name, though.

(VRISKA): May8e that’s why I h8’d my ghost self so much?

VRISKA: Why?

(VRISKA): 8ecause I just had a sense.

(VRISKA): On some level I knew she was right. She was happy and honest with herself. And that’s what made her...

(VRISKA): A version of myself who was actually worthy of someone I cared a8out.

(VRISKA): Don’t get me wrong, we had a nice time for a few years living on that meteor.

(VRISKA): It was a good, sta8le pale relationship. 8ut that’s all it was.

(VRISKA): We couldn’t really connect in a deeper way 8ecause I was still... the way I am, I guess?

(VRISKA): Layers and layers of armor and defenses.

(VRISKA): And I had some mysterious feeling that weak ghost version of myself was always meant to form the kind of connection with her that I never could, 8ecause she didn’t have any of that stuff getting in the way.

At that point it comes out that Vriska Lalonde nicked John’s phone, giving Vriska Serket the chance to finally... well first read back their entire conversation, and then at last to text her.

Chapter 38

God this particular Epilogue is going on a bit huh! There’s only two chapters left for the final one.

There is also very little room for any sort of ‘resolution’. Of relationships, maybe... we might get to see Terezi and Vriska reunited at last. But the war and so on... are not going to be wrapped up in three chapters, though they’re not the point. The metaphysical weirdness is unlikely to receive much of an explanation.

It’s going to be a bittersweet ending, at best...

Anyway we open with Roxy, looking forward to meet up with John again. It’s nice to finally get a little Roxy POV.

John tries to explain his whole theory that the ‘candy’ choice has basically robbed everyone else of choice. Roxy meanwhile is rather back to her old self - perhaps she never left it. She won’t have any of it. She wasn’t acting like a doormat to John because of some metaphysical non-canonicity bullshit - that was just where she was.

JOHN: i just kept wanting to find ways to make everything make sense, you know?

JOHN: but maybe it just fucking doesn’t.

ROXY: i know we became grownups in a world built specifically n cosmically for us

ROXY: so i get wanting to find a pattern in everything

ROXY: but not everything has 2 b that deep

so then they move on and we finally learn a bit about where Roxy’s been at that’s not filtered through John’s perspective. It turns out that Roxy is our putative nb character I guess:

ROXY: i had all these conflictin thoughts abt how to be me in the first place

ROXY: like what it meant to date a beautiful skull alien

ROXY: sexualitywise and genderwise and person in generalwise

ROXY: for a while there i didnt know if i wanted ppl to think of me as a woman at all

But ultimately... she just drifted apart from Callie, and it wasn’t something she felt comfortable talking about with John.

I’m not going to just quote this entire chapter, but there’s some compelling, truthful stuff about Roxy’s self-conception around gender, how it changed when she got pregnant... obviously my experience of transness is in some ways quite a different one, but still.

Roxy speaks of like, the future to come, that she’s expecting to change in many more ways yet, that it doesn’t matter if it’s the ‘most true’ path, but it’s the one she’s on... it sounds corny summarised like that, but it feels a lot more real than Jake’s whole thing.

end of epilogue 7

so adulthood huh... adulthood is a fuck. being human in general is a fuck. fucked up that we gotta be a bag of seawater with a subjectivity and all that.

we’re moving to the end here. the struggles... the war and so on... it’s not really about that, they’re just set dressing. the point is just, what it is to live in a world as fucked up and pointless as this one, I guess. classic existentialism jazz. (editor’s note: bryn has not read an existentialist philosopher in her life, and the extent of her knowledge of the subject begins and ends with the videogame NieR: Automata.)

the struggles within that cycle...

[acsversace-news]

With its fourth episode, entitled “House By the Lake,” this season of American Crime Story is really starting to take shape for me. Off the bat, I was expecting it to go like this: a murder involving a high profile figure happens, a media hoopla ensues, followed by a trial where we get a little more into the head of the accused while simultaneously forcing us to take a look at how we were as a society and culture at the time, the end. That’s more or less how The People Vs. O.J. Simpson went. But I did not know the story around The Assassination of Gianni Versace. I never heard the name Andrew Cunanan before this. And so when the first three episodes were not what I expected them to be, I was a little thrown.

It is apparent now that this series, though we have the bulk of the season still ahead of us, will be most memorably about the killer Andrew Cunanan, and what led him to commit these atrocities. Everyone else thus far has taken a back seat. The last two episodes did not even feature Gianni, his love Antonio D’Amico, or his sister Donatella (played by Ricky Martin and Penelope Cruz respectively, who you would think other networks besides FX would fret over putting on the bench for weeks at a time). Last week’s episode was another jump back in time before the murder of Gianni Versace, which we saw in episode one, that time focusing on the murder of Chicago architect and closeted homosexual Lee Miglin. This week we go back in time not long before those events to Minneapolis, where Cunanan was staying with his boyfriend David Madson (Cody Fern).

It is another eerie opener. We now have a sense of what a simultaneous loose canon and calculating monster Andrew Cunanon can be so almost every scene, every line he delivers, is filled with tension. Nobody is safe around him (that is, if you’re like me and don’t recall the actual events). Living in the warehouse district of Minneapolis, David just lands a big job over the phone and is excited to share with Andrew. Andrew is not so pleased. He’s invited their mutual friend Jeff Trail up to the apartment, which David isn’t happy about. He’s about to get a whole lot less happy.

When Andrew brings Jeff up to the apartment, Andrew immediately besieges him and beats him to a bloody death with a hammer. David sit in shock. If you’re the type that yells at the screen, you would probably do a lot of hollering at David this episode. He doesn’t run. He doesn’t call the police (well, he does once, but hangs up when Andrew passively threatens him with a gun). And that’s exactly why this episode stands out from almost any of the series to date, especially season one. We don’t have any record of what went down between David and Andrew. Why didn’t he run? The writers have to piece things together, and can only go off assumptions, whereas almost every corner of People Vs. O.J had been well laid out for them.

We know that Andrew and David stayed in David’s apartment for two days after the murder of Jeff. We know that they were seen walking David’s dog together the day before they ran off, leaving Jeff’s body wrapped in a rug in the apartment. We do not know for certain whether David was an accomplice or a sort of prisoner of Andrew’s. The writers decide to play him as innocent, too afraid of Andrew to make any big moves, eventually coming along for the ride with him to Chicago to see Lee.

But it’s in this vagueness the writers find some time to insert interesting character studies, even if they are just conjecture. David later in the episode questions if he ran with Andrew because he was afraid of him, because he wanted to avoid jail time, or… was it because he was afraid what the world would inevitably find out about him, i.e. his homosexuality? What does this say about how hostile we were (perhaps still are) as a society towards gays when a man would rather go on the run with a murderer than come out of the closet and face us?

Through an effective series of flashbacks to when David was younger in which he interacts with his blue-collar father, the writers and Fern create a character that feels real and that we are sad to see go by the end. We knew it was coming because we know that David is not present with Cunanan in Chicago when he meets with Lee. In the end, he tries to get away and Cunanan executes him, leaving him in a field off an interstate highway. Another tragic, senseless death under Andrew’s belt.

Next week I assume we will flash back earlier than Minneapolis, though I also understand if the writers take us back to the present to show us what is going on with the Versaces post-death. But I am really digging this criminal profile of Cunanan and how they are unfolding it. I almost would be okay with the rest of the episodes were just surrounding him (Darren Criss is killing it, in more way than one). But I finally get what they are doing and am completely on board after being hesitant the first few weeks.

[yuzuria]

I-Z-U-V :P

Thanks~! :p

i - has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

If we’re talking about not liking fandoms anymore and not the series/franchise itself, of course, gintama fandom attitude drove me off its fandom and made me dislike a huge portion of content in the series because of a lot of toxic people, even people I had never talked to have me blocked for some reason, because I dislike their waifu then gotten me involved in their shit talking in their public platform which is hilarious if not I feel sorry for that deranged person, no bitter feelings attached personally but I dislike that person because of them attacking my friends but since it still has a special place in my heart as one of my favorite series, i still enjoy the content exclusively with my friends and I refuse to search for fan content anymore unless I happen to see it in my dash/timeline. Other than that I haven’t liked the series itself because of tumblr, gintama was the first series I became active in in fandoms and tumblrr, I was a lurker most of the time in my previous fandoms and didn’t get myself involved with drama or loud people so I just naturally stopped liking them.

u - three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Komaeda Nagito from Danganronpa: My ultimate favorite at this moment, to make things short he’s all in one package I’ve always wanted in a character: soft demeanor, sparkling fake that’s not considered charismatic by others ^_^✨, morally gray with idealistic view that eventually destroyed him, contrasting complex personalities that I never get tired of analyzing and each day I learn new things about him, has a tragic past that didn’t hinder nor trapped him forward but rather shaped him for who he was and moved on (he honestly gets little appreciation in this department, this boy had been through so much but smiles and accepts what was to come in full arms, in a way makes him so emotionally strong yet fragile at the same time) and ultimately, his death broke my heart the most, not because he died but his intention behind it made him capture my heart and crashed it literally with spear.

Toph Beifong from Avatar: My childhood sweetheart

Imai Nobume from Gintama: I fell in love with her even before I caught up the first episode she’s in. She’s so gorgeous and I love girls introduced to be ruthless and deadly, and her first appearance did that. She’s trained as an assassin as a child and had been cutting down people since then, even though she appears to be an emotionless killing machine, she has a sense of humor fitting to the series, has a childish streak and with that she gets along well with other (sadistic) girls (kagura and soyo), doesn’t give a fuck to senseless uninteresting things, and will bring down people she deems bad with no hesitation. Her story with sasaki is really emotional to me, the most this series has ever made me feel, I love them and their found father/daughter relationship. I love how her development went too in farewell shinsengumi arc, how of all people it’s kagura who understood her and saw her tears, telling her to stop fighting and live how she wants, that she can be more than assassin she grew up as and no one can stop her, not the organization who raised her to be a killing machine and not the promise she had with sasaki where she’s the one who’s going to end him as an assassin. I love the moment kagura told her too that earth is the star of freedom.

v - which character do you relate to most?

Ahh this is difficult, I never try to see myself in a character and ~relate~ to them, as much as possible I make myself disconnected to the characters, not associating them to myself. The only time I ever considered relating to a character was punpun lmao, I relate to his pathetic-ness when I happened to read oyasumi punpun during dark times.

z - just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (prompts optional but encouraged.)

okay, i haven’t considered making a fanfiction ever but there’s an AU i’m fond of, AU with no hpa and where Komaeda and Servant(Meshi) are brothers and kamukura and hinata are twins :D In this setup it’s focused to meshi and hinameshi with kamukoma in the sideline uuuuu anyway it doesn’t go well, i have no concrete plotline and ending, all i thought of are sad stuff. Komaeda in this AU still has his cycle of good and bad luck but with meshi’s presence as his older brother(a year or two, i’m pretty undecided), and not so good relationship with their parents, he swore to never leave komaeda’s side so he’s the one who caught all the bad luck komaeda’s cycle produced, marking him the “unlucky child” in the family while komaeda is credited with the good luck he brings, although it doesn’t necessarily means he’s treated much better. (Anyway it’s my hc komaeda doesn’t experience bad luck himself unless there are no people around him therefore the bad luck he experienced with the kidnapping and diseases was because he already lives alone in that time) So with that, it was Meshi who experienced and endured the terrible things to keep Komaeda and other people from harm. I’m undecided if I’ll also include the cancer and dementia...

Things are rough from here, I’m still contemplating how Meshi would act in this setting and how similar it would be from dr:ae so i could change stuff from here. izuru, hinata, and komaeda were high school classmates where they all met each other. all of them have their internal conflicts which is similar in canon but with no hpa presence, meshi has a complicated relationship and attachment with hinata who feel overshadowed by his twin, meshi doesn’t like izuru, izuru and komaeda kind of get along as outcasts and hinata is intrigued with the komaeda brothers. Four of them used to hang out though, meshi and komaeda can’t cook so the twins come over from time to time to keep the house from burning and feeding them. Sometime after meshi graduated, there’s a shift in his relationship with hinata and the two started going out, meshi told about him and komaeda and hinata wanted to change it but how? when the three graduated, komaeda and meshi moved out and disappeared with no contact. Time skip happens and few years later, and things get even messier, komaeda is in uni and part times as a librarian while meshi doesn’t and works as a bartender (possibly fools around too), i’m still not sure what hinata does besides being in uni but he stumbled upon komaeda one day and brought the news izuru is in coma for overdosing. Hinata and meshi tried (or not) to reconcile due to their disappearance for years, and later komaeda took his own life... aha...

questions meme

[gch1995]

I’m a Dearie/Rumbeller who finally quit watching after S5, and honestly, I should have quit watching before that after 3x11. The show had already been tearing at the seams in S2, and it was seriously problematic from day one. But after “Going Home” (3x11), it was clear that they didn’t care about telling any sort of story for the characters organically and satisfyingly that made any sense. It was all about magical PLOT twist fuckery, Drama™️, painful character assassinations contrived, OOC, and melodramatic, illogical, mutually toxic, and stupid romatic melodrama, heroes who weren’t really all that heroic anymore, now meaningless morality, everyone acting like Rumple was the “worst” on this show, even though they also all sucked as people now too with no meaningful values anymore, hero versus villain bs, and A&E deliberately whiplashing their audience with shit that didn’t make any sense out of nowhere that didn’t add up to what was previously established every time things started to seem to make sense because that was “genuis” storytelling.

I still love a lot of the characters and ships, but I don’t acknowledge any of the nonsenically OOC nonsensical bad writing choices and/or cartoonish one-dimensional mischaracterizations in favor of contrived magical fuckery character destroying magical Drama™️ twists in the PLOT or A&E’s and these writers favoritism from 3B-S7 for Emma, Hook, Rumple, Belle, Regina, Henry, Snow, or David because it’s obvious that they were all victims of A&E’s and their team of hacks contrived external forces.

But yeah, S1-3A (two-and-a-half seasons) was all they could handle of geniuinely entertaining story for these characters and relationships. After Nealfire got killed off, though, it was a total shitshow, and none of the remaining main characters were all that recognizable in canon anymore, especially not Emma, Belle, or Rumple.

A lot of people have come to the conclusion that the only reason why there was any actual organic character development, consistency and relatability of characterization, realism, cohesion, or growth at all in the first two-and-half seasons was because Damon Lindlelof from Lost outlined it for them, and that’s why a lot of the original characters, such as Rumple, Emma, Henry, Snow, and David in particular feel like they’ve been so denigrated with the most egregious mischaracterizations and character assassinations to the point of essentially being completely different characters in the 3B-S7 era of OUAT to the characters we fell in love with written/outlined by Damon Lindlelof from S1-3A.

There were always issues with canon!Belle’s writing, even before they completely destroyed her and Rumple going all the way back to early S2 because she was more of a PLOT device then an actual character who they started ruining with the whole morality pet/conscience trope for Rumple. I just think they became more flanderdized and pronounced, and they removed her intelligence and capacity for self-respect and empathy from the end of 3B-S6 (and even in S7). Regina was taken care of by Adam Horowitz from 3B-S7. He was also a hack, but less of one than Eddy, so her original characterization didn’t seem as egregiously affected from 3B-S7 character destroying fuckery. Eddy Kitsis took over the writing for Emma, Hook, Rumple, Nealfire, and Belle from 3B-S7, which is why their characterizations seemed the most egregiously fucked up. He uses all those cheap shock value and one trick pony, bizarre, cartoonish, OOC, toxic, and nonsensical, misogynistic, and magical PLOT twist fuckery characterizations that come and go out of thin air for senseless Drama™️ of “WTF? This makes no sense, and doesn’t add up”storylines from 3B-S7.

Me, an unpaid amatuer writer: I better stop and make sure that all these plot points connect properly and support the overall plot. Also are the motivations and consequences clear and understandable and reasonable? I should definitely make sure it all falls in line.

Adam and Eddy: OUAT Seasons 4 through 7.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, KAITLIN!

You have been accepted for the role of SERGEI VALKE. Admin Bree: It’s no secret to anyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention that we’ve been not only wanting, but desperately needing a Sergei for quite some time, and this time around, we were blessed with not just one, but two wonderful apps for him, both of which certainly did him considerable justice. But Kaitlin, yours stuck out—yours made me uncomfortable at times, yours made me nearly hate him, but there was still evidence of the boy he once was, too—his love for his little sister, and for his wolf. You brought him to life, you made him real, and you did it beautifully. I couldn’t be more confident in your ability to portray him. Well done! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Kaitlin

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/her

AGE: 20

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST. I think you guys are fairly familiar with my activity at this point, but personally I’d put it around a 6, maybe 7. There are off days and there are good days! I can be relied on to post at least every other day, sometimes multiple times a day sometimes only once. Depends.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: You know, but Anton Lantsov & Adeline Calore.

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Sergei Valke, for all intents and purposes.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? I mean, what didn’t?

It took me awhile to kind of get in the same headspace as Sergei; he’s undiscovered territory for me, if you will. The more I went back and re-read through his bio though, the more I began to understand what it was about Sergei that kept drawing me in: Sergei is an antagonist, but he is not the villain of his own story – far be it from that, he is the protagonist of Fjerda’s. That is why I love him. He’s a messiah and a monster wrapped up in ice and charm through sheer force of will. He is not some passive villain.

He’s a boy come in from the wild and the curve of his smile got turned into a weapon, the kind-hearted boy he could have become lost to the wild hunt (because I firmly believe Sergei is a monster by nurture, because I cannot make sense of this evil just for evil’s sake – he was conditioned into his belief’s, and Ravak threatens those). Sergei drew me in because as much as he is an antagonist, he is not a traitor. The only comparisons to Judas that an be made are they plot the death of gods-turned-human. But there is no betrayal in Sergei’s deceptions, and as his deception darkened eyes ghost over the royal court, drinking in and learning everyone’s secrets, he tastes the burning pride his true God must feel for him, to be dedicating himself so thoroughly to the cause of his people.

He has left his home, and this time he volunteered, was excited to leave behind the familiar. There will be no valiant escape plan, no possibility of his own survival once he completes his task. This is what defines Sergei – his actions are not done in the name of greed or evil, but in the name of love, in the name of holiness. Sergei Valke sees himself as a hero, a savior; he knows himself to be a martyr in the making.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

I. ROME IS BURNING. There is no surviving the assassination of a God, this much Sergei knows, but all must beware he who is willing to bathe in fire and ice to complete the deed. I think this is what breaks my heart the most, that his death is pretty much a done deal. It’s not really possible for this particular story, I don’t think, for Sergei to complete his goal – but what a fucking curveball would it be if the Fjerdan spy managed to charm his way so thoroughly into the court that he could succeed in his task? Sergei has walked into Ravka with canines bared and axes sharpened, content in his human flesh so long as his blades are sharp enough to cut through divinity. Sergei, who is unbearably unloved, a violent boy teetering on the precipice of giving hope to his nation, may just make a martyr of himself yet. Per ardua ad astra; through adversity to the stars.

II. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. On the other hand, having it all be for naught, while heartbreaking for the sake of love for Sergei, would certainly be an excellent plot device for the group as a whole. Finding Sergei out, after having hidden under their noses, would be a very, very motivational event for Anton and Gemma. They are two people who need things to go their way, who need to prove themselves the whirling hurricanes of power they are. Sergei knows he is in his final chapters, that the only words left on the pages of his life are kill, kill, kill. He is the living breathing example of transcendence, of recognizing himself not as the god he once wished himself, but the hand destined to slay divinity – this could very well be his undoing. I’m not exactly sure that I’m looking forward to this particular plot, but I think that there’s a kind of poetry to his death being at the hands of the Ravkan throne, to his death coming before he has a chance to succeed in his mission, a kind of irony. Through his attempts to steal a life, he loses his own, just as his attempts to steal bread to save his life are what made him lose the life he had known as a boy. Tragic, in the most traditional sense of the word.

III.WHAT’S A KING TO A MANY-FACED GOD? This is lame but I’m honestly just really excited about the prospect of writing out his interactions because he is not the mindlessly violent thing that some may see him to be. He is a fucking survivor, and he is charming and clever enough that Fjerda sent him literally into the heart of their enemy to try and take them down. There is no senselessness to his violence, nothing shallow or petty about his intended destruction. Every single move he makes is calculated with no intent to benefit himself, and even as prejudice burns like battery acid in his heart, he is careful to make sure no one at court can see it – and that’s fucking incredible. What kind of suave but simultaneously distant guy must he be? This is something I’d really like to explore more, this deceptive, manipulative, side to Sergei that I think is probably pretty new to him as well.

IV. ENEMIES TO FRIENDS. The least likely plot I can see happening, though certainly the most appealing to be honest just because it will mean my ice baby gets to live (maybe) would be that Sergei finds himself at odds with the teachings his nation had instilled inside of him. This boy, with nothing but murder on his mind, takes a liking to someone at Ravkan court, finds himself attracted to them in the kind of way where their thoughts matter, the things they hold dear to their heart matter to him, and it causes this backlash of stubborn, infectious humanity to take root inside his heart, wrapping itself around the prejudice he so dearly clings to. His prejudice against the witches is all he has ever known, all he has ever been taught, but now all he sees are Grisha, left and right and all around him, and some of them are kind, some of them are funny. I wonder if his isolation, if all the distance between Sergei and Fjerda, could be enough to turn his prejudice to mere dust and ash blowing in the breeze.  

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE? I love Sergei to bits and bobs, but I do think that his death could be really interesting for the group if it’s in the kind of situation where it was during an attempt on someone important life or something. I couldn’t really see it happening just as an emotional stimulus or what have you, just because he doesn’t exactly have a lot of close friends that it would affect, but as a plot device, it would definitely be beneficial to the group… So yes, basically.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

I. In his own country, Death can be kind.

“This one’s yours, Valke,” his commanding officer says from the right, the words sending a shiver of excitement down Sergei’s spine where others would have felt fear, should have felt disgust. Sergei felt nothing but pride, and the sneaky smile that crossed his face was a dead giveaway to that fact. His hands should shake, perhaps. His hands should b so slick from sweat that the new gun he’d gotten from Novyi Zem should slip through from his grasp, perhaps. There should be a ringing in his ears, his heartbeat so deafening he couldn’t even hear his leaders voice beside him, perhaps.

Instead he is stone. Instead he smiles.

“Yes, sir.”

Swiftly and without any hesitation, he lifts his boot and kicks down the door before him, knocking it in with a single blow.

He was hit by the stench first.

From somewhere unidentified filters out the rotten smell of dead and decaying things, the putrid scent filth beneath his feet rolling off of the floor in waves and the smell of excrement and curing meats mixes together a nearly toxic concoction. One would think the sight of something such as this would turn his stomach, would make him feel badly about taking something so precious as child from a family who already had nothing, but he felt little remorse for the sins he was committing this day, and Sergei resists the urge to to bring his arm to his face in an attempt to hide from the disgusting smell – he would need both of his hands tonight.

In the dark of night, it’s difficult to see into the small house he’s just entered, lit only by the small flicker of a candle in opposite corners of the first room. Sitting there, or perhaps a better word would be cowering, in the frozen darkness, was a single woman and her daughter. He’d been prepared for this, the sight of suck fragile innocence; the witches always looked like the rest of the humans, some of them even looked like angels sent down to bring their souls to heaven. This girl just looked damp, her clothes and hair slick with sweat, where her mother looked terrified.

He didn’t see the father until it was too late, and a fist had come down hard on his face.

A lesser man would have fallen to the floor from the impact, but pride was a sick, addictive substance, and it burned inside of Sergei like stomach acid. A lesser man would have gotten angry. Sergei got even, reacting to the impact with the kind of cruel savagery that could only be likened to the animal he sought to emulate, flipping his gun around to smash the butt of it into the other man’s own face. There is no remorse in his heart, save for the stains this blood would leave on Sergei’s new boots.

The walls are hard stone and when the man knocks into one, the crack of his head against the roughness pleases Sergei. There’s a flash of silver, a simple flick of his wrist, and suddenly the girl once grasped so tightly in her mother’s arms stood at the whim of his blade.

He opens his mouth then, his voice patient, unhurried, as head dips down to speak in the small girls ear. The way she trembles almost amuses him – why did they bother to liken themselves to Gods when they shuddered at the simple sight of a blade? “You’d do well not to fight me, or my friend over there is going to slip his knife between your Pa’s ribs.” And as though they were one mind, one body, his partner pushed the blade more firmly against the father’s waist – a threat and a promise all wrapped in one.

Shows of power, after all, were nothing if not useful.

There are two more men standing in the doorway, another fresh-faced first-timer like himself, and the other more seasoned. It wasn’t difficult to tell which was which. Pathetic, he thought absentmindedly. Sergei liked being the best, but he’d have preferred not to go on a mission with a puppy. He shakes his head once and then turns his gaze away from his men, beginning to push the girl in his grasp towards the doorway. No one could have predicted what would happen next. After all, the Drüskelle were supposed to be good at catching Grisha.

His leader, once someone admired and revered by Sergei, dropped his blade and began clutching at his throat, his other hand clawing at his chest as though desperate to rip out the beating organ there. “Bloodletter,” hissed Sergei immediately, shoving the girl into the wall hard enough that he hoped she would lose consciousness.

Distantly, as though a thousand insignificant miles away, he heard the mother screaming.

What happened next wasn’t clear. They say your instincts kick in, that every detail can be remembered with painful clarity, but it was like some other person had taken over Sergei’s body, and when it was over they’d taken the memories with them. One minute the witch was killing his commanding officer and the next Sergei had buried his silver dagger in the man’s voice box. One minute he was Sergei, and the next he was Death riding in on a pale white horse, black cape billowing out behind him.

Word spread fast around the Ice Court, the story of how a young Drüskelle successfully took out a full-grown witch on his first try. It was sad, really, how impressed his fellow soldiers were with the story. They should all be capable of the same thing.

After all, Sergei had thought the whole thing fairly easy.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

I. You will always be dead, in a city of ice, snow falling into your ear. Sergei Valke was not always named as such. Once there was a boy named Dimitri Sergei Halvorsen, a half-moon boy whose idea of the honeyed warmth of love had been long ago warped by the harsh cruelties of ice and hunger. A peasant boy, with hands stained red by thievery, lips more often blue than pink – an unfortunate side effect of spending every night cold and wanting. Dimitri, wolf-boy, drawn taut and savage by a squalid home that could barely be called a home. Not only a middle son, but a young middle son, Dimitri was abandoned before he was born, more often left to use his own wits and wiles to secure food than he could rely on the woman called mother; he doesn’t blame her, not anymore, not when he remembers the way his father used to scold him and leave bruises on her arms, but at the time he had blamed her, and it had sent him running and running and running until one day he was caught. He was caught and using the very wits his mother had forced him to hone, he became someone else, someone forged anew. No longer Dimitri, the poor peasant boy who had frostbite more times than he could count on his fingers and toes. Instead he took the name Sergei Valke; his last name for its proximity to the animal with which he identified, the volk, and Sergei, so that he might take a small piece of his old world and build himself something new from it. Dimitri: earth-lover. Sergei: protector. Halvorsen: firm.

II. You are going to break your promise. I understand. He had promised to always protect her. Maya was his safe haven, a field of poppies not yet turned into poison. His younger sister, the seventh child of his family, born a mere nine months after him. It was Maya that kept his heart softened, not quite as black as the business of starvation should have made it. Dima, she’d cry out, fling herself into his arms when he’d return from his misadventures away from her. He had promised to always protect her, but even he couldn’t protect her from a bad heart and deadly frost. One day her heart just stopped beating, and his tether to those he was meant to call family came to a snap. He can still see the soft haven of her starlit curls as they bounce around her heart-shaped face. If he presses his hand to his chest just so and closes his eyes tightly, one palm laid flat in the middle, he can almost remember the way it felt when she tucked her head into him, can feel the wound where soft light still seeps in. Maya: illusion.

III. I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. He walked for weeks, not what felt like weeks, but actual weeks, perhaps even months passed by before Dimitri would reach his final destination – not that he had really been walking with any semblance of a plan or destination in mind. He set off, leaving behind what “family” he had left with Kari nipping at his heels, and for the first time in his life he was almost never hungry; relying on himself and only himself did Dimitri good. He no longer had to accept the fact that he did not have the means for that extra meal, and instead did all of his own hunting. Deep in the darkness of forest is where he fashioned his first bow and arrow, a weapon he would later leave in his past but would always hold a special home in his heart. He walks and he hunts and he runs and he runs and he runs until one day he finds himself standing at the entrance to this new city, this new life, fourteen years old and already tougher than all of the other gutter rats he found.

IV. Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight. There’s a reason the Drüskelle leaders chose Sergei to go on the mission, and it was not because he was a man with no real family to speak of, it was not because he was expendable. It’s because he was invaluable. On the day that he was caught stealing and spared his hands, he vowed to make them the most useful weapon in the Drüskelle’s arsenal. From the moment Sergei began his training there wasn’t another soldier who could beat him in combat; he was the sharpest sharpshooter the Drüskelle had seen in what felt like centuries, capable of shooting a rabbit in the eye from distances none of his comrades could, and for every bruise that flowered like lilacs underneath of his skin, twenty more could be found on his opponents. And like all lambs led to the slaughter, Sergei took his fate in stride, accepted the fact that because he was the best, he would be the sacrifice, the offering Fjerda would make to Djel to attain greatness. He is the best Drüskelle they’ve seen in years, and he’s proud to die for that fact.

V. I am selfish. I am cruel. My mate cannot be less than I. He named her Kari, for the way her howls carried themselves along the frigid winds of Elling’s bitter frost. She was just a small pup when they first set out on Dimitri’s new life, the runt of the litter, the least favorite pick of the group – Dimitri had taken to her with a kind of urgency and love he’d only ever before been able to give Maya. She grew with the same tenacity Dimitri had himself, a sure-footed and savage creature, capable of the kind of stealth that would later nominate Sergei as the best Drüskelle in the company. He misses her every single day, and thinks about her much more than he would ever admit: only another Drüskelle could understand that kind of bond. Before he left his home for foreign country he’d taken her back up to lands around Elling, left her trotting along the western seaboard as he took in for the last time the familiar scent of salty air. Kari: pure, the embodiment of wind.  

VI. Men die. It’s practically what they’re for. He kept his name, though at first he didn’t plan to. Perhaps it is because he was afraid, afraid that if a wolf went into a lions den wearing a lion-hearted name he too would come out on the other side a lion. Perhaps it’s because for all that he was raised Dimitri Halvorsen, Sergei Valke was always the man he was destined to become, and if he was going to sacrifice himself in the name of his nation, then he wanted to do it wearing the name he had built for himself. So he stayed who he was, but he molded himself into a Ravkan man. He’d done his research, found a man with the surname Valke, a weapons specialist who had spent most of his life living at the Chernast outpost; it was sheer luck of the draw that he’d had Sergei’s name, making it easy for him to track the man down and claim to be his long-lost son. Sergei had been ready to force a letter claiming him to be the old man’s own, but he was so daft and dumb he’d actually believed Sergei. It didn’t take much coaxing or coddling at all to convince him to send his new son to Os Alta to demonstrate the new weapons.

VII. Just tell yourself a story that’ll satisfy you and pretend he told it. Sergei is not kind, and he does not freely give himself away to those around him, but it takes a degree of finesse, of charm to convince not only an entire court that he is who he says he is, but a man had never known before he had a son actually believed him when he claimed to be so.

VIII. I say these things, and the world listens. This one isn’t necessarily fully-fleshed out and understood by me yet, but that’s only because I don’t have all of the cards needed to understand the Fjerdan religious system quite yet. I’m in the process of reading Six of Crows where its more fully fleshed out, but I definitely believe Sergei to be a believer. I imagine it was probably something that had to be instilled in childhood, his parents having had their own hard-set defined belief system that went right along with the rest of Fjerda: the witches need to burn. I don’t think Sergei could dedicate himself so whole-heartedly if he didn’t believe Djel would be looking after him.

EXTRAS:

I have a mockblog & a pinterest board, both of which helped me to find my muse, but probably won’t give you much material to help judge my application.  

I listened to My Petersburg a number of times while thinking about teenage Sergei running through the streets of Djerholm, and definitely took a lot of inspiration for his personality during that time of his life from the lyrics!

ANYTHING ELSE? Inkheart is my favorite book :)