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lildoodlenoodle · 1 year

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Why I think Spider noir is on the younger side(18-20) in the new spiderverse movie per my previous post:

Let’s break it down by Context, Timeline, Mood, and ATSV

Context:

Spider noir has two comic runs that happen before COMICS spiderverse. With that said, there were like inter dimensional energy vampires and that’s obviously not the direction the spiderverse movies went with. So we’re going to largely disregard them for this. To expand, there was a big time jump between that last noir comic and the spiderverse ones. Peter would be closer to mid/late 20s at the start of the comics spiderverse and therefore ITSV if we were to integrate and replace the timelines, BUT I always hated the way they did that time jump in the comics and what it did to Peter’s character.

It felt like they were trying to tie him into 616 Peter wayyyy too much by making his love interest MJ(who we rlly haven’t seen and what we have seen hasn’t had good chemistry), have a good relationship with May(they rlly brushed him shooting someone in front of her and calling him an animal under the rug Huh), and going to college(I get it I do, but unlike most universes I don’t think this Peter could ever stop spiderman enough). There wasn't really any mention of Felicia, Urich, or Robby and their past. They also changed his webbing, his look, and his spider senses.

I felt like that was completely getting rid of all of Peter's characterization and he just becomes the spider with a gun from the 1930s. But the point is they clearly went in a very different artistic and narrative direction after the time jump to a point where it doesn’t feel like the same character.

Refitting the timeline:

So, scrapping the comics spiderverse timeline, I don’t really see a reason for a disjointed time jump. And after those first two comic runs it can be argued, for this Peter, that ITSV happens much sooner for him after that second run, possibly even after the first comic. Then ATSV would happen after that second run. There is an 8mo. time jump between the two runs so it is definitely feasible.

But let’s talk about mood between the runs.

We all know at least somewhat this Peter's origin, and if you don’t, to sum it up: organized crime, monsters, socialism, cannibalism.

The first run ends, Peter beats the goblin without killing him and he’s feeling pretty good about himself/confident. But he’s still got a lot of well deserved angst and self hatred. His uncle is dead, his new mentor/father figure is dead, his relationship with May is on the rocks to say the least, and there’s the whole Felicia thing. He’s still a high schooler and in that teen range, but a big ass lanky teenager who's only solid looking because of the gear he wears. I’d place him around 16-18, a case could be made for 15 but I’m going to politely disagree. ITSV could very easily be fairly soon after these events.

It’s 8 months after the first run. He becomes cocky and overconfident this whole next issue, possibly because of an interdimensionally inflated ego? Point is he feels on top of his game. Also worth mentioning, he’s ignoring MJ this whole issue to the point the audience knows basically nothing about her while he is having a very intense relationship with Felicia(which we already know how I feel about that whole mess) and who MJ is very blatantly and very badly a foil to.(I love MJ she is just not well written here).

The second run ends, his best friend/possible love interest(I said what I said), Robbie, is dead and unavenged.(I can talk a lot more about Robbie and what effect he had and will have on Peter going forward, also the disservice of his ‘death’) Felicia is disfigured and blames Peter. Peter not only blames himself for all this but the comic ends with him saying he feels powerless and a constant sense of impending doom. He really did not get a single win during this comic, man got the shit beaten out of him too. The age at the end of this comic is 17-19. After the last comic dude was messed up but still had hope, after this one we don’t see the fall out, but I can assure it was BAD. That whole ‘you don’t have to kill the bad guy thing’ is probably out the fucking window. I’m more hesitant to think ITSV happened after this run because of that. He isn’t just depressed or self loathing anymore, he isn’t just playing fast and loose with his life to get results. He does not care, he has no hope, and he doesn’t see a good future.

Pre - ATSV predictions with mild spoilers:

With the year and a couple of months time jump for ATSV it’s very plausible that the events of that last run plus possible spider task force shenanigans could happen before the movie. For more context in the comics spider noir was a recurring spider in the ‘elite strike force’. Personally, if he was invited, I could very much see him accepting, especially with his current mental state, and being very aggressive about it. Which, theoretically, could cause him to get kicked off or make a rash decision to leave bc fuck those guys. But the point is at the end of that last comic this man really doesn’t have a single win, he is in a prime state to be manipulated in.

Edit: my dumbass forgot literally the most important detail. The year 1933 is when ITSV noir comes from which matches this timeline with the comics as well.

To sum everything up, the reason why I think spider noirs age is in the 18/20 range is because it fits the above timeline, which I believe to be the most probable timeline of events that are canon by the movies while also staying consistent with at least some of the original comics. It should be further noted there is no evidence of his age throughout the ITSV movie, besides him being played by Nicholas Cage and being tall. In fact, I’d argue due to his excessive use of slang it would naturally place him in a younger category as well as the classic melodramaticness that can come with being a coping teenager. The most important thing that makes his age and at what point in his storyline he’s in up to interpretation is the fact that we see his face once and it’s heavily shadowed. If we saw his face more I’d feel better about giving him a more solid age, but till then context clues for the win. But anyways, this was long and I still have more I could get into/say and I will eventually. Feel free to ask any questions or even tell me why you disagree!

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gooselycharm · 1 year

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hi there! i'd just like to say that your kris and noelle "something else" comic has been driving me insane /pos and i'd love to hear more of your thoughts on those two!! their relationship is one of my favorite things in deltarune and your comic just got everything about them so right 🙏

thank you for reading "something else"! oh man, [more of] my thoughts on kris+noelle.... i sure got some of those.

this was one of the first tweets i made after finishing chapter 2 nearly... freaking 2 years ago. and basically i've just been saying that over and over again in different ways because i'm still not tired of the concept yet and probably wont ever be LOL. i'm obsessed with how badly the narrative wants to force them into an easily categorizable dynamic, especially the romantic one in snowgrave. the literal THORN RING, the more possessive dialogue options, spamton calling noelle a side chick LOL... it all creates this unnerving visual novel bad end atmosphere that feels manufactured by someone who's only ever learned about romance through secondhand sources. they're two queer teens trying to navigate their changing relationship with the only role models they know being their parents' own failed heterosexual marriages. they're so divorced² (divorced children of divorce).

i also like that for being so tragically doomed coded they can be funny! both in a dark humor way and also like, genuinely funny, like the stories of them as kids with kris covering themselves in ketchup and hiding under noelle's bed lmao. i mean there's even something funny about the romantic trappings of the snowgrave route, like trying to put wedding cake embellishments on a crime scene... you know, funny like kids trying on their parents clothes but they're too big and for some reason they're also crying and covered in blood? um.

i'm also SOOOO interested to see how snowgrave will continue in chapter 3! i really liked the hopeful note chapter 2 ended on (well. i took it as hopeful anyway). there's that bit where noelle is talking to herself and she says something like "recently kris has been acting so strange and no one else has noticed... i have to figure out why" and then kris jumpscares her LOL but i think i took that one line and really ran with it. noelle really is the one who knows kris best and despite how scared she is, she's still determined to help them... i like the little subversion of victim/hero going on, the implication that kris might be the one who needs rescuing.

the additional story/lore that came with the spamton sweepstakes made me CRAAAZYYYYY like my GOD... it's cute that noelle likes glitches/creepypasta when kris is kinda a walking creepypasta <3 also, god, noelle falling asleep listening to kris playing piano in the other room... there's so much like. wistfulness and nostalgia and this like... distant/detached intimacy packed into how noelle narrates that scene. it's kind of funny how much there is to dig into when like on a surface level they're just fairly regular childhood friends who grew apart LMAO they're extremely deep to me okay...

on another note i guess i do ship them? i like their dynamic whether it's platonic or romantic (the best is a weird mix of both 👍). it just can't be boring LOL like... this is one ship where trying to apply cookie cutter tropes to them really falls flat and the game is ahead of you on that anyway. in terms of romantically shipping them, i honestly don't think they're doomed to repeat patterns forever... i think they could actually be good for each other! but that's not really the aspect of their relationship that interests me akldjf;alk;sdg maybe i will make 60 page comic of kriselle going to couples counseling some other time

ANYWAY i'm going to cut myself off here, because i really could go on forever lol. i'll give you some links for further reading though

hellspawnmotel's deltarune art

lula pillowbug99's deltarune art

this art by raspbearis which features prominently in my internal kriselle bible

my own unfinished kriselle playlist

my own essay on gender & allegory in deltarune if for some reason u are not tired of hearing me talk yet

okay bye now & thanks again for reading my comic!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#deltarune #kriselle #im post #im really posting now. i be talking.

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one-squash-one-end · 6 months

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once again rambling about Adam Parrish

Hi! This still belongs to my big Raven Cycle analysis, click here for the masterpost.

For most of the characters I obviously read a lot into subtext and speculate about how they're absolutely not straight, but lucky for us, we do get canon queer characters!

So let this be me talking about Adam as bi representation and also throwing in (other people's) gender headcanons. As always, please tell me your thoughts in the notes <3

c) Adam Parrish

Sadly, I cannot speculate too much about Adam’s sexuality, as he is canonically the mean, witchy (and bitchy) bisexual.

There isn’t much I can say, really. Throughout the book series he displays interest in both Blue and Ronan. And also Greenmantle, but I would like all of us to ignore that because I want to believe Adam has good taste. Blue and Ronan as his love interests are essentially seen as equal. While I would say he had already had some repressed attraction for Ronan (see: him calling the swearing melodic, black-painted poetry- you normally wouldn’t feel like that for someone who just called you a motherfucker) in book one while dating Blue. Yet it becomes very much clear that he did have romantic feelings for Blue. Yes, the two of them were doomed from the start (but still pretty cute I’d say! Until things went to shit, that is), however, Blue is not treated by the narrative as some mistake before Adam figures out he’s actually gay (looking at you judgingly here, Rainbow Rowell). Neither was Ronan a quick, silly thing to see how it would feel to kiss the same gender. That is, like, very much very obvious, through the last five books. They are boyfriends, your honor.

At this point I would also like to give a shout-out to Adam Parrish and the Crying Club (which would make for a fire band name, just saying). This little group of queer people Adam collects at uni (in Call Down The Hawk) has my whole heart and I so wish we would have seen more of them, I am forever mourning their potential of silly, reoccurring side characters. What I’m trying to say though is this: The fact that Adam builds a group of queer people around himself (another one apart from the Gangsey) proves his sexuality even more, because we all know queer people flock towards each other.

Either way, canon bisexual, we love that. Moving on.

Honorary mention to the transmasc Adam headcanon that Tumblr user @barbaricpoetic compiles especially well in a post. I personally do not follow that headcanon, like of course I do not think Blue is supposed to be written as genderfluid in the books, but somehow I believe even less in trans Adam, but either way I do agree there is a lot of strong source material to support that headcanon. Check out the original post for a lot more detail, I don’t want to plagiarize all of that here either way, but here’s two especially solid hints: First of all, he does everything to appear more masculine, like working in typically male-dominated fields and dressing accordingly to that, while orientating his behavior on Ronan and Gansey, who, ironically, do not try as hard as him. Secondly, there’s physical descriptions, Adam being a lot more “elegant” and delicate than the other (Raven) boys Blue knows, with unusual features, and “blue eyes pretty enough for a girl”. Yeah, might be a coincidence, might be solid, queer truth.

This would all make so much sense, even within the books and all, there is just one, considerably big thing, that would not add up with this in canon. Adam’s rural-conservative shitbag of a father would never use the correct name and pronouns for his ftm child.

Either way, there might still be something fun going on with his gender that defies the binaries. Why do I think so? Well, Gansey says a very interesting thing. “Henry was a boy. Adam was a─ Gansey didn’t know.” I wish he would have told us what makes them different. What is it that Adam was? A man? A demiboy? A nonbinary person? A dinosaur in disguise? Please do enlighten us, Gansey. I’m assuming it’s got something to do with Adam being more mature than Henry (he definitely is), but like with Blue and the 300 Fox Way Women, it might be a gender thing, at least you can very easily lay it out to be that way.

To conclude as I will conclude every character part, I think Adam might possibly wear a crop top (might take him a while to accept masculinity is everything you want it to be and not just a certain aesthetic standard though), but absolutely not regularly and not around strangers or his parents.

#so what we learn is that Gansey headcanons all his friends as trans #trc #the raven cycle #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #the raven king #the dreamer trilogy #call down the hawk #adam parrish #ronan lynch #pynch

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iravaid · 1 year

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(in reference to your reblog)

I would absolutely love an exhaustive breakdown of all of your decisions regarding ‘Simon Riley in Situations’

That series consumes me. Much like in the way that Simon was consumed by the desert. I have been fundamentally altered by it.

Oh my god, genuinely thank you so much for asking

This became a very long set of rambles that I have two split in two, possessed by the talk too much demons... sad! Here is the first part, the second part I'll tack on in a later reblog.

More below, I get a little bit Pepe Silvia in this, but oh well lmao

An Introduction

I’m going to preface this with stating that the comics are bad. On an artistic and writer’s standpoint, their net value is negative. I have read those six wretched issues at least seven times through and feel confident in that assertion. I have no idea why people think they’re actually good, in the face of muddy rendering and an overall displeasing art style, Americanised writing with poor panelling and pacing and dialogue, among other torture-porn related things.

That being said, there are moments of competency that shine through, past the early 2000s edge and casual sexism + racist stereotypes, which in turn irritates me because it does show there could have been a better story here. And Yet. But the comics have been a well of spiteful inspiration, first with Except You, and second with In The Desert (and perhaps more to come), and I do want to talk about that. (and I do know that the comics aren’t necessarily canon for the reboot Ghost, but like. C’mon. Work with what we’ve currently got. Even if my money is on Makarov in the reboot having something to do with Ghost’s past, considering the knowing look he and Price share upon seeing the photo.)

Simon is a character that has been doomed by the narrative since day one, and while it would not be a surprise if he survives MW3 on account of the company wanting to make money off his multiplayer counterpart, there is a certain compelling grief in knowing his fate was always going to be how it was in the original trilogy. Simon suffers: Simon dies; Ghost suffers: Ghost dies. There is no other way this story ends. And there is something about the cyclical nature of his life, and patterns to be found in a such a story, which I think are extremely fun to try and enforce, as well as emphasise. It’s this, among other things, that makes him a compelling character to me. Well – that and him being tall, built like a brick-shithouse, gravelly voice, wears a skull mask, has a strong sense of loyalty and compassion for fellow soldiers… (but that’s beside the point!!!!).

The things he went through in the comics had occasionally been so over the top that I need a moment to stand back and go ‘… really? Like. Really? After all that, you put him through more?’ after every reread. It’s not enough that his entire family was murdered but also his psychiatrist and superior officer, and so on and so on. But unfortunately, I have to reiterate that the comics have been a source of inspiration. ‘Simon Riley In Situations’ is an extension of this spiteful motivation to retell/improve upon what the comics were trying to do, as well as occasionally extrapolating on them, or even warping canon to better accommodate my own headcanons/the rebooted universe.

I love stories were a main/side character goes through an incredible change, to the point where they’re noticeably and irreparably different to how they were at the beginning of the story, for better or for worse. Examples that come to mind, currently, are Jinx from Arcane, Zuko from ATLA, Ahsoka in Clone Wars, Steve from Stranger Things. To me, the transformation of Simon into Ghost is something very compelling. The Simon Riley that’s about to fly to the states with Major Vernon is a man very, very different to the Simon Riley freshly recruited into the 141 by Shepherd. But fundamentally they’re still the same person, and that can be an important facet for a big change in a character imo.

I like using a lot of poems and songs and the occasional bible reference in my works. I know it’s fanfiction and maybe for some people that’s overdoing it, but I love it. I love how art informs and inspires itself, and I love using the inherent emotional and cultural connections attached to a specific work in order to enhance that of my own writing. I think it’s good practice, and maybe it doesn’t matter that it’s expressed in the form of fanfiction. I’m a better writer because of it, and that’s something of significance to me: I never studied English lit/creative writing at a higher level of education, so this is where it will be expressed.

Skulls, Death, and the Ghost

Skulls haunt Simon throughout the comics; in turn, Simon has been haunted by the Ghost he’s doomed to become for a very long time. Roba wears skull face-paint when torturing and attempting to brainwash Simon, Simon’s father used to wear skull face-paint when performing, Simon smeared toothpaste on his face when in recovery from Roba’s captivity and it resembled a skull, Tommy wore a skull mask to emulate his father, and Simon hallucinates skeletons/skulls at different points in the comics. Finally, when his family are killed and Simon goes on his revenge mission, he wears the same face paint as he did during Día de Los Muertos when Roba captured him. He claims that the brainwashing didn’t ‘work’ (as the comics put it), but here Simon is, wearing the same mask as his tormentors. I wanted to stretch that recurring imagery by adding the vocalist wearing the skull face-paint in chapter one of Except You. Something there about returning to form, or perhaps finally looking back to see what exactly is that thing who’s been lurking in the back of your mind. I describe the skull reoccurring as “morbidly familiar” in that this has always been Simon’s fate, and it doesn’t matter what he does to try and escape, because he will always return to it.

It can also be stretched to symbolise his close relationship with Death. Simon has ‘died’ a lot of times in the story. At first he believes he’s dead on a subconscious level (nightmares with Roba’ saying he killed him), but then issues 3+4 happen, and that belief escalates into a conscious conviction that he died on the concrete floor in Roba’s captivity; he died out there in the desert; he died surrounded by his family’s corpses on Christmas; he died the moment he killed Roba; he died for good at the end of MW2. Roba killed Simon, and Ghost put whatever ‘Simon Riley’ once was to rest in the funeral pyre of his childhood home. Ghost has always had to everything on his own up until this point: even give himself a proper sendoff. A part of me wonders if Ghost believes himself, on some level, to be the keeper of Simon’s memory and identity. That is what a ghost is, right? The thing that lingers after a tragedy.

It's something incredibly interesting to consider present-era Ghost. Does he still think he’s dead? Is he waiting for the rot to set in? Has he been so dissociated from himself for so long that he doesn’t know how else to function, and on some level is terrified of what might happen, should he in turn look back to face whatever is left of ‘Simon Riley’? Maybe Ghost can be interpreted as the one that came back ‘wrong’, and he’s waiting for other people to notice that there’s nothing left but a corpse. He has gotten very little help by way of therapy/counselling, and probably doesn’t have the tools nor language at his disposal to neither work through these things, nor know how to voice them in the first place. That’s one of the reasons I wrote Simon as not fully aware of the definition of ‘child abuse’ and how it related to him. He knows Nigel (his father) was a cunt and a wifebeater, but he doesn’t know those necessary psych terms to properly begin processing what happened to him both as a child and adult, because who could have taught him? He never got the chance to go to DBT or CBT, and that hazy moment of time with Dr Halloway probably wasn’t conducive to learning about things like CPTSD and trauma and abusive households. I tried to extrapolate this, with Simon’s internalised ableism also being a block to fully accepting or even processing those terms. He’s in a lot of pain, and he very, very desperately wants to move on, to return to how he used to be before all of ‘this’. Will talk later on about how the military factors in to keeping the status quo of ‘the Ghost’.

In tarot (love you tarot love symbolisms in it love when it’s used in media mwah mwah), the death card symbolises major change, rebirth, and endings and beginnings.

If anything, Simon Riley is defined by his deaths and rebirths, how he keeps forcing himself to change in order to survive a brutal narrative set for him. And Ghost, who bears a skull-face not dissimilar to the grim-reaper, perhaps wears this taboo symbol to ward off ‘evil’, or to use that fear in order to keep people at arm’s length, in response to these injustices done to him by fate and the machinations of people far crueller than Simon. He has been through a lot, and still he keeps moving, keeps completing missions and being a ‘good soldier’, because that’s all Simon knows. He’s like a shark in that way, or a well-trained dog: he was never taught, nor given the chance to learn, how to not be a soldier. This is something me and @narramin, affectionately refer to as hound-coding, which, god, really suits Simon. Will talk about it further on.

Roba Himself

Manuel Roba is certainly there. It’s honestly incredibly disappointing to see how this specific character was handled, how heavily the writers leaned into stereotypes to depict Roba – there’s a panel of him holding a burrito for fuck’s sake. This caricature of a villain is both lazily written, but also serves to reduce the impact he has on Simon. This man is supposed to be the primary antagonist, above Simon’s abusive father. He is the reason that Ghost exists, the reason the Riley family are dead, and can be considered the primary catalyst for most of the comics’ plot. And yet this man, and all that he represents in Simon’s suffering, is reduced to the fat ‘El Gordo’ with dialogue lines that are ultimately meaningless, a personal motivation that is only said in his dying breath without further exploration, and ultimately is a villain without any teeth. I think Roba has the potential to be a terrifying figure, one this kind of dark story needs in order to ensure that Simon’s suffering isn’t made a joke when compared to the one at the source of it all.

There are moments of competency and personality that shine through here and there. The pink deck chair in the sensory overload room, the ‘plant flowers over [the grave]’ line, as well as Roba choosing to make himself appear as the grim reaper himself as a way to express ultimate power over his captives’ lives (and, in turn, Simon killing Roba and choosing to don the skull-face could be seen as him taking that control back).

There is a set of panels, one from issue 5 and another from issue 6, that piques my attention when placed together (seen below). Simon has tried so hard to convince himself and others that he is fine, that Roba’s brainwashing failed, that he is not deeply affected by the seven months of torture and humiliation and dehumanisation. But then he comes back from the dead wearing the same face-paint as Roba. He refers to himself as death, as does Roba. That man has his claws deep in Simon, and Roba knew this, and he died with a smile on his face because of it. As quoted by his final words: in the end Roba is just one man. Killing him won’t bring back the Rileys and it won’t stop the pain Ghost is in (but by god is it Ghost’s right to put that man down for what he did to him.).

The following paragraphs will discuss the torture Simon was subjected to in Roba’s captivity and features discussion of the sexual assault he experienced, as well as being him drugged + detailed acts of dehumanisation. The section itself will be bracketed with a ‘-’, feel free to skip to the final paragraph marked of this section if you’d prefer.

In my writing I want to show a competent, terrifying Roba. He should be purposeful in how he goes about breaking these men down in order to build them up into the dutiful hounds Roba so obviously wanted. That’s part of why I think, and wrote, Roba having never touched Simon, he made sure it was his men assaulting Simon while he watched (for one reason or another). And when they were finished Roba would try to manipulate the situation into one being Simon’s fault and that Roba, and only Roba, could fix for him. Simon needed to see Roba as the one with the power to control all these awful things happening to him, and that his own obstinance is the reason he’s suffering. Roba would make an offer – if you listen to me, follow what I say, I can make this stop. I can stop them from touching you ever again. It’s purposefully and insidiously phrased, he’s trying to make all this seem like Simon’s fault for not ‘giving in’. In turn, the prolonged torture and dehumanisation would best be served as well-thought-out tactics.

I’m not a fan of how every other captive was noted as too ‘weak’ or whatever to hold out against all that Roba was doing to them, only for Vernon to say that his methods were ‘genius’ – not with a near 100% mortality rate it fucking isn’t. It would be interesting to explore a fic where Roba was actually competent enough for those aforementioned super soldiers to be a real thing (and we’ll make death proud of us touches on this very well I recommend this fic). But, regardless, I find exploring the ways Simon could have been dehumanised/tortured without succumbing to infection or shock or a sudden heart attack from the sheer amount of stress and trauma to be morbidly interesting. I’m a morbid person, so this tracks lmao (it’s regardless a matter of balance, though, because we’re trying not to fall into that Edge the comics loved so much). I also want to note that Roba rarely, if ever, called Simon by his real name. It’s always ‘English’ or ‘Mr. Death’. A name is a powerful thing to control, stripping a person of their name is a common dehumanisation tactic, one that even the military has been known to use in order to get all these individuals into acting as one mass. It’s also a sign of non-acknowledgement, in my eyes. Simon was not a person to Roba, not really, just a dog that needed moulding. In a way, Ghost referring to himself as ‘Ghost’ may also be a tactic to distance himself from Simon in order to cope with the Everything that’s happened to him.

The next point is just as important as the prior ones: what kind of effect would all this have on Simon in different stages of the comics? And what kind of inner monologue and mindset would he have in order to endure these awful, awful things? And how would he heal from it, considering how the events of the comics went down? He has no control over the situation as a whole, but I imagine that Simon is the kind of person to try and grasp for anything to have control over regardless – he’s exhausted but he still might try to lay in a way that keeps him protected or stills his roiling gut, he’ll occasionally still try to lash out against the narcos, he’ll try and joke with Sparks and Washington in order to help them cling to their humanity (as well as preserve his own identity as a protector, which I want to get into later). He especially utilises dissociation as a ‘tool’ developed from living under the same roof as Nigel Fucking Riley. It provided a very necessary reprieve, and Simon probably believes he’d been ‘broken’ by his father long before Roba ever got his hands on him. Simon at this point probably (maladaptively, in the long run) perceives his ability to dissociate from the body to be a way to control what he truly feels. He can get some kind of control over experiencing multiple instances of sexual assault, over MONTHS, by creating a clear delineation between the body and the person. I wonder if this laid the groundworks for the self-perceived split between Simon Riley and Ghost.

He’s out of that place, Roba is dead and whatever was left of the Zaragoza cartel is hopefully long gone. But where does that leave Simon, whose primary coping mechanisms are either feeling horrific, yawning numbness, or forcing all that pain and fear and humiliation into over-powering anger? All these things kept him alive then… but now what? He has been subjected to a horrific slew of experiences in seven months, over two-hundred days. How do you approach that kind of deal and unpackaging and addressing of that trauma? It’s something in and of itself would be a compelling story to tell, especially with his childhood trauma informing how he processes those experiences. Simon has been physically and psychologically changed by Roba, even if he tried to ‘resist’ – even though interrogation resistance training only lasts for so long.

Sometimes I wonder at what point did Simon realise they weren’t torturing him for information, but to make him into something that wasn’t human. At what point did he realise that there was a reason they made him crawl down the hallways on his hands and knees with a collar around his neck, or that they fed him dog food off the ground, or that he might have been kept in retrofitted dog kennels, in a long-abandoned dog fighting pit.

I wonder if there were times he wished he’d just let go and listen to Roba, and kill the people the latter wanted him to kill; just so that the pain would stop, and he could be more than this thing surviving on the concrete floor. Very interesting to consider, what with the comics implying that Sparks and potentially Washington were also drugged in order to force a dependence on them, as a way to further exert control over them. I’m not sure why Simon didn’t also experience this. Yet another Comics Cringe Moment.

Ultimately, when I see Roba I think of a Judge Holden-esque figure: an intelligent man who has taken a step back, looked at the violence of the world, and ultimately came to the conclusion that, 1.) It is in man’s nature to wage war and be violent, and 2.) It is Roba’s right to control that flow of violence. He had Simon, Sparks, and Washington, and others who came before them, tortured, brutalised, dehumanised, starved, assaulted, and vivisected with intents to brainwash them into his own personal soldiers/bodyguards. He wanted to perverse nature and control something that was never his to control, and I think a character like that should ooze calculated cruelty and a disdain for the optimistic/what he perceives as weak. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, in Roba’s eyes, and he wants to be the one holding the leash.

Dogs and Hounds

Speaking of dogs, let’s get into hound-coding. Dog/hound/wolf metaphors are used for characters in a plethora of ways: dogs and other canines are embedded deeply in a lot of cultures and that can be seen in how disparate a dog can be used in symbolism. The rabid dog that requires put down, versus the loyal-to-a-fault dog whose diligence will be its downfall. The dog that hunts you down relentlessly against the dog that protects and nurtures. Vicious and borderline obsessed, pursuing a singular goal with tunnel-vision; dangerous predator stalking you from the shadows; wholly dedicated to a sole purpose in life; kicked to the point where anger lines their teeth and they meet the world with a bite, because they’ll never let anyone hurt them again; a caregiver and teacher, sometimes even a leader that will look out for who they see as family.

With Simon Riley, I feel he is a hound, the kind that’s been kicked enough times to know to bite first and ask questions later – but can someone please be gentle? Please, can’t someone let him rest? Then the narrative slaps his muzzle and tells him the story isn’t done yet. Simon, off the coattails of escaping his childhood home as a teenager, finds purpose in the military and clings to it. So much of Simon’s identity can be tied to him being a protector, as well as a soldier; he’s proud of his achievements within the SAS, cocky, even. He is well trained in violence and well experienced, too; he’s risen above to make a reputation for himself as a tough sonofabitch within the SAS, which is pretty famously full of that type of person.

The dog can be moulded into a lot of different things in fiction, just as it has in real life. So can Simon, so can Ghost: he’s a character that has been subjected to extreme kinds of change, with some very clear distinctions between Pre-Roba Simon, During-Roba, Post-Roba, Post-Family Massacre, and Post-Jungle Raid. That’s one of the reasons why I think the dog metaphor, and its imagery, can provide very impactful parallels for Simon. What is a dog, if not loyal and loving? Didn’t we make it that way? And what is a dog, if not defined by the job it can fulfil. We made it that way. What use is Simon to the military, if he won’t do what he was trained to do. I wonder if he worries about that in between missions: losing his purpose and identity one way or another.

Ghost is a good leader; he knows how to direct a team and how to keep Soap calm during the chaos in Las Almas. I imagine he found sanctuary in the camaraderie that can be found in a military environment, compared to his chaotic homelife. He doesn’t necessarily have to be open about it, or all that externally happy. But it’s regardless a community that has provided Ghost with some form of support (ironic, again, considering it’s the military, but that is how it works). Like a pack animal, one might say.

His potential relationship with Soap, if people take it that way (I do and will be talking about it more later #peaceandlove), reminds me of the poem ‘bait dog’ among others, here's an excerpt from the end of it: “And she still flinches / When I reach to pet her / but she smiles / once I get behind the ears / you will not heal from everything / that does not mean / you will stop being loved.”, and I feel that’s a very lovely image when applied to Soapghost, y’know? Simon has been through a lot, and Soap is emotionally mature enough to recognise that and give him space, while still putting in that necessary work to bridge certain gaps. Kind of like the slow burn of getting a rescue dog to trust you, except it’s your human superior officer with CPTSD and an edgy comic book backstory. They will doubtless have issues and bumps in the road, but they’ll also have shitty jokes and a lot of patience to keep things buoyed. Love wins or WHATEVER.

Roba tried to make Simon into an attack dog, too. Treated him like one, and I imagine there was a point where Simon was starting to believe it. Then he gets buried alive and has to dig his way out. He has to drag himself through the desert (more to come on that) and survive months of recovery until he has a chance to return to the state he physically was. I imagine this time of injury was awful for Simon: he felt incompetent on top of the other churning emotions one would have after surviving so many months of All That. Simon, I imagine, has always defined himself by his ability to provide, protection or otherwise, as well as his own physical prowess. It’s what kept him and his family safe all this time. It also led to him being picked for that fateful mission. I think Simon is a man shown to be capable of that single-minded focus of a hound that’s caught the scent, especially when he spent months tracking down Roba in the jungle.

Simon is a dog constantly having to remember its teeth. There is a lot to be said about dogs that learn to bite back.

I have reached a character limit here but still have a lot to talk about, please hold (and tysm, again, for the ask)

#ask #codposting #simon riley #ghost mw2 #cod mw2 #call of duty #rape mention #shaking my fist at the sky every time i think about the comics. god.#This is LONG and it's not done yet... freak

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chainofclovers · 1 year

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Ted Lasso 3x12 Thoughts

I have always loved, and still love, that Ted moved to London and loved it. He acclimated, or more than acclimated. The three years was a story about new places and people and experiences and old ghosts that followed him there. I understand that the one thing in the middle—a kid, not a ghost, who still exists in the place left behind—necessitated him making a painful decision. I am mourning that because Ted had to make the decision to leave London, the magic of arriving in a place and never wanting to leave has been broken. He had to re-outsider himself, and I can imagine many complex (and realistic, damn it) futures for him, including futures that would involve him spending significant time back in that place, but there's a real sadness in just...the leaving. He's doomed to return (or not return) instead of just getting to exist there, after we've gotten used to seeing him in an environment that suited him.

Something I'll love when I'm able to be more mature about all this is that Ted doesn't argue with Rebecca when she tells him she wants him to consider the possibility that Richmond is his home.

Something I love now--as painful as it is--is that Rebecca seems, in a lot of ways, like she's in love with Ted. He's slipping away, and instead of wailing about how much she'll miss the biscuits, she sits herself down in front of some croissants. (And while I don't particularly like that the Dutch man has returned to her life in such a magical, serendipitous way that only timed out because of her tremulous, seemingly to-the-wire decision not to get on that plane or say anything more to Ted, a charitable and practical part of my brain is glad she'll have companionship if she couldn't have what she spent most of this episode seeming to believe she wanted. Even if what she wanted wasn't actually romantic. Or wasn't supposed to read as romantic. Even if it did.)

The immediacy of Ted's emotions in 3x11, when he has the fight with his mom and it's so clear that he's got to go back and face what he's run away from, reminded me of how sharply he can feel. So it was really hard to watch him be almost stoic throughout this episode in the way he pulls away. He leaves everyone well, but everyone else's feelings are so big and he's kinda glazed over, and I didn't expect to feel the wind knocked out of me with the force of Rebecca's longing for him to stay.

(And I'm so glad that Rebecca didn't sell all of the club, instead taking her ownership down to just 51%, but I'm also glad she cares enough about Ted to have genuinely considered it. I'm so glad she and Keeley are going to work together to form a women's team. I'm so glad she promoted Roy to head coach, and that he's actually going to work on himself now that he knows he'll be working to be his best self rather than someone else. I am glad Ted was only dreaming about Beard and Jane marrying at Stonehenge--Ted has never understood how seriously bad that relationship is. I'm glad life is moving on, but it's just. So. Painful.)

I know a lot of people will talk about how this was a disappointment after all--a savior story with a pat, happy ending, rather than a true love story. But my feeling is that it genuinely was something better and sadder than a savior story...a narrative about choice with a tragic end. (And I don't mean "tragic" to imply that he shouldn't have gone to be with Henry, because I think he needed his reconnection with Henry to take place in Kansas, very essentially. It's just that everything else about the ending is tragic.) Maybe Ted spent the last three years at home, and maybe it won't hit him until much later, the magnitude of all that he's left. I like that it wasn't a happy ending, even if there are happy parts. I don't like that people will mistake it for a happy ending, even if a happy ending that angers them. I don't expect people to feel good about this paragraph, but it's the thing that's saving me where this show is concerned.

This is my favorite show. I've never obsessed over or connected to a piece of media quite like I have with this. I don't particularly care about the better things out there, and I'm not particularly curious what my next obsession will be because I'm still in this one. The finale didn't ruin the show for me, but I feel like I'm being stabbed by the last ten minutes, by the pain of the end really being about that impossible choice feeling impossible for as long as our eyes were trained on his face.

#ted lasso #ted lasso s3 spoilers #ted lasso 3x12 #meta by me #ted lasso meta #hot dork club #ted x rebecca

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askdacast · 9 months

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since I started liking/posting stuff related to the funny boomer Minecraft Youtubers playing an improv death game, I'm probably gonna post more opinion or lore posts occasionally when I have time; the Life Series is like one of my pet obsessions I circle back to every time a new season comes up like most people.

(to my friends/other followers who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sorry)

I don't usually watch the main Hermitcraft/other SMP videos because they aren't my thing compared to the Life Series SMPs, but I do enjoy what the creators put out and they all deserve lots of praise for the hard work they've put in (especially after a lot of unwarranted criticism lately over Secret Life + Hermitcraft Season 9)

and now for a scorching hot take that will disappoint a lot of fans

I really like the Desert Duo...but only platonically, and lemme tell you "platonic" and "Hermitcraft/Life Series fanart" go together about as well as water and oil

I'm already not a fan of shipping in general as a personal taste, but when it comes to shipping real content creators, my discomfort is doubled. If you ship them I'm not gonna hate on you or ask you to stop, you're free to do as you like and I'm not the internet police.

That being said, Grian and Scar are super close friends iRL (if you include Mumbo, I consider them a "DO NOT SEPARATE" trio) and it's honestly really heartwarming to see them in other series just goofing around and even doing RL meet-ups (mostly Grian/Mumbo). To me I've always loved seeing really close friendships like these, and I will try to refrain from snarking about how people on the internet are really bad at distinguishing Philia love (friendship, really deep friendship) from Eros (romantic love).

The point is, I kinda feel uncomfortable when I see shipping of them cuz it feels like willfully misinterpreting the bond of actual real people. I know a lot of people say "separate the CCs from their personas in the series/lore," and I understand why, but the whole practice doesn't sit well with me. It almost feels like instead of creating something actually derivative of the real people, it's like smooching two dolls that just happen to be labelled "Grian" and "Scar". And as a writer myself for other things, I really like to pay respect to the subject matter I'm writing about, and that includes real people. And considering Grian iRL is a straight married man who's said before he doesn't really like the shipping (Scar to my knowledge has not given his opinion on it), it feels even more uncomfy to me when people try to ship him with one of his actual close best friends.

Yes in a way the real people are separate from the personas they put in Hermitcraft or the Life Series. They're like actors, doing it for the job and the sake of us the audience. (Considering I'm a big fan of Vtubers, I'm very acquainted with this paradox) Even still I can't help but always be cognizant of how they're still real people trying to put out their heart and soul to the public, and we enjoy what they do with deep respect for what they're doing. Shipping, especially if they've voiced their disapproval for it (even though they haven't banned it), feels just a tinge not respecting them as actual people, and feels a bit parasocial-y.

But again these are just my personal feelings, this is NOT a hate/call-out post to anyone in the fandom or demanding anyone to stop shipping the hermits. That being said you're likely to not get any out of me for the reasons I've stated above.

and a side note to talk about lore specifically, I just think platonic Desert Duo (for the Life Series specifically) is even more interesting than taking the romantic lens, because we can still have the angst and the doomed narrative and the unsaid trust between Grian and Scar, and still be able to celebrate each of them individually as respective players/creators, without having to make every achievement they make be about 'oooo because fate'

I haven't seen anyone yet posit the theory that (CHARACTER) Grian has distanced himself from (CHARACTER) Scar not because of just trauma but also that Grian thinks Scar is perfectly capable of holding on his own (shenanigans and carelessness aside). Like he's known Scar long enough to trust that he can survive on his own, and thinks that they should try to not hold each other back, and depending on who you ask this was either a really good or REALLY REALLY BAD CALL in Secret Life (because Scar did win on his own merits, but was left all alone)

#rant #rambling about minecraft youtubers #trafficblr #traffic series #traffic life #traffic life smp #secret life smp #life series #life smp #grian #goodtimeswithscar

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witch-from-a-block-of-flats · 4 months

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Rules: make your ships in this adorable picrew, then give me their song. Tag some friends to share too!

Thank you for the tag @cleric4vampire, this picrew is so amazing, I'll be using it in the future. I also decided to share some lyrics (yes, you inspired me) <3

Tagging (no pressure ofc): @chodzacaparodia, @miyamiwu, @boinin, @night-in-a-jar (don't be shy bestie, share your blorbos with the class) and @milkteansugar

1st Astarion and Solveig

My traumatized babies are finally in a happy and healthy relationship. They deserve all the happiness in the world after what they've been through. It took me 15 minutes to decided which horns are the best for Solveig - in game she has small but curved ones and I couldn't find a perfect match but I'm happy with the result. Their hands are my favorite part of the whole pic tbh, it's a small detail but carries so many emotions.

We'll never have sex by Leith Ross Oh, you kissed me just to kiss me / Not to take me home / It was simple, it was sweetness / It was good to know

2nd Gale and Ylva

I made this to look like a moment from their wedding that's why they are wearing tiaras. I feel like Gale would totally shed a tear or two at his own wedding. Looking back at members of my party from my Ylva run, their wedding was probably hilarious - the other two companions were Astarion and Lae'zel. Imagine Lae'zel as a bridesmaid and Astarion giving best man speech.

My heart belongs to only you by Bobby Vinton There were sometimes when I was doubtful / Of this new love affair / But now my mind is no more doubtful / I've found my heaven with the help of a prayer

3rd Snowid and Tomira

You've never heard of these characters? I would be more surprised if you did because they are from the book I'm writing - urban fantasy where Slavic myths meet steampunk. I want to talk about them for a bit so bear with me. Snowid (btw. his name means "the one who sees dreams" and I think it's so cool) is to put it simply a monster hunter and was cursed as a child with having visions of the future. Tomira is a child of a shapeshifting monster (most of the time she/her but can shapeshift and has a fluid relationship with gender). As many Slavic monsters do Tomira's mother had kidnapped a baby girl from a young couple and replaced it with them. Couple years later Tomira became a spy for one of the biggest crime organizations in the city and has been tasked with infiltrating the monster hunter corps. I think you know where this is going. My tragic, doomed by the narrative (aka by me) babies.

First love/late spring by Mitski

And I don't wanna go home yet / Let me walk to the top of the big night sky/ Please hurry leave me / I can't breathe/ Please don't say you love me

And this is th end! Thanks once again <3

#tag game #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 tav #tav x astarion #tav x gale #my ocs <3

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enemyoflactose · 3 months

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Ryou Bakura for the... ass-breaking-down game? I don't know what else to call it

How I feel about Ryou

Despite all that I post about Ryou, he is in a very weird spot for me. I absolutely love him. He's a character that managed to make me feel like I wasn't a failure and could actually make friends that loved and cared for me. But I only felt that when I watched season 0.

I only began to see Ryou as something more than a character that had a cute design and was doomed by the narrative, after I learned that he originally saved his friends from Yami Bakura, and didn't just get saved by Yami.

The scene where Ryou sacrificed himself for his friends because he loved them and didn't care about dying for them, practically broke me. Before that, I just assumed that Ryou was like he was in the first series anime, a place holder friend. A friend you didn't willingly hang out with, but would talk to when necessary and you still felt obligated to care for. This unfortunately made him really relatable to me. I hadn't seen a character like that before. All the shows I'd seen prior had everyone as a big group of friends, or people like Ryou had another friend group that was their main group. Seeing that Ryou had neither, just made me happy.

When I began to find out more about Ryou, his interest in occult, TTRPGs, and horror just didn't connect in my head for a bit. I didn't know that he even had interests other than dueling because it was never said in the anime. I found out he liked cream puffs, didn't like oysters, was waayy taller than me, preferred games over girls, and was narcissistic. It all hit me like a sack of bricks at once, and it took a long time for me to accept some of these.

It took even longer to accept that even after finding out how much more there was to him, I still relate heavily to him.

He's in my top 5, but I can't say that he'll ever be my favorite character. I love him dearly though, and I always will.

All the characters I ship romantically with Ryou

Honda

Yami Bakura

Marik

Anzu

Mai

Kaiba

Zorc Necrophades

Dark Master Zorc

Otogi

Aigami

My non-romantic OTPs for Ryou

Heartshipping, fragilshipping, puffshipping, ouijashipping

My unpopular opinion about Ryou

I don't think he's stronger than Yami Bakura. Mentally, physically, whatever. I think he could trick him a few times, Yami Bakura is a desperate man, but I don't think he could fool him for very long.

One thing I wish had/would happen to Ryou

He never gets any kind of closure or repercussions for anything. He never gets any kind of apology from Marik or Aigami for what they did, and Ryou himself is only ever shown getting a stern talking to from his friends. Especially after the Darkpg thing is when I think Atem should have just yelled at him a bit.

Thank you for the ask. Sorry if that first section was a little too personal. Ryou means a lot to me.

#yugioh #ryou bakura #ask game #i don't have much of the manga #please don't give me anymore ryou spoilers #i want to find them on my own

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garglyswoof · 4 months

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The Weight of the Tide

@kastleexchange Come What May Day 2 (use set pics/bts to inspire)

A/N: This is more of an experiment in writing action and way less karen-centric, but it was cool to stretch some muscles today and try to write. i cant believe how the last line of dialogue ended up and cant decide if it's perfect or cheesy lol. title from a gomez song. They said he never misses, well let Frank paint a big target on himself then, to draw him out, keep him away from Karen. The skull’s become an advertisement, changed as most things do when they hit the public eye. To him, it would always be a symbol. He looks at the skull and hears his daughter asking him to read a story, he looks and sees the blood on the carnival grounds. But yeah, yeah, let Bullseye know he was coming for him. One batch, two batch, penny and dime.

It’s what he’s good at, after all. A trail of bodies is an easy way to instill that sense of impending doom, amp up the panic. He just hopes Bullseye isn’t crazy enough to not feel fear. Some guys were like that, shit, he’d had one in his unit, used to just stare lazily at the DI when he was barking orders and they’d all get punished for it. Crazy fucker died in a firefight outside Tarin Kowt and Frank hadn’t lost any sleep over that one, like he would have for the other troops, his brothers. Like he would have for Billy, back then.

He’s been back in the city for only a few weeks, that headline in The Bulletin sitting him straight up from where he'd lounged on the bed, and ten minutes later his bag was packed. L.A.’s “finest” would be waiting for him when he got back, but he was not gonna miss something happening to his… to Karen again. She hadn’t talked about it at the hospital, but he should have brought it up. How he’d screwed up, not being there for her, not keeping tabs on the city like he should’ve.

He should have said a lot of things that day. He hoped what he didn’t say now would be enough. He slides the vest on and looks into the mirror above the dripping porcelain sink and sees The Punisher staring back.

--------------------

The fire cuts into the body he’s pulled in front of him, and he feels the impact of the bullets as they riddle the flesh in his hands. He roars and tosses the body away, diving behind a parked car. Red is on the other side of the street, flanking the shooter, and despite that advantage, Frank knows Bullseye has the real advantage and he’s gotta flip the narrative fast or this fight’s gonna end quickly.

He takes a grenade dangling off the side of his vest and pulls the pin, tosses it into the street where Bullseye is hiding somewhere behind an armored truck caught between bank transfers. He’s aimed it to push the guy towards him in reaction, sees a flash of movement as the grenade lands and detonates. The guy is fast, for being paralyzed just a year ago. Gotta be implants Frank lets himself think for just a second as he follows Bullseye’s movement, heading diagonally up the street that will place him just ahead of Frank. He grips his leg where the shrapnel from an exploding vehicle sliced a line of fire across his thigh, then gets up and runs, low and quick, belying his bulk.

He’s like a freight train hitting a car jumping the tracks, if Bullseye didn’t react lightning fast and shift his weight off his right foot, taking the hit and spinning with it so that Frank’s momentum swings him past in an arc from his hold on the shooter’s waist. Frank scrabbles for traction, left foot on the tarmac, knee bent, twisting from it and aiming a knee at the fucker’s balls, once again missing. Those lightning fast reflexes, man, he’s gotta stop this guy.

He hears the jangle of empty casings before seeing them streak across his face, clipping his right eye, the distance too close for Bullseye’s throw to have any heat on it but the distraction enough. Frank throws a left jab but it’s weak, ungrounded, and Bullseye bats it away before the muzzle of a gun settles on Frank’s forehead, the empty click a life sentence.

Shit. Down to five lives, he thinks as his left hand comes down on top of Bullseye’s wrist while his other grabs the muzzle and pushes up. There’s a satisfying grunt and the gun is high in Frank’s hand and sweeping down across Bullseye’s face in a downward whip. The crunch of bone sounds, just audible amid the sound of incoming sirens. They’ve got to finish this fast.

“What are you even doing?” Bullseye spits through the blood from his broken nose. “You’re not part of this goody two-shoes squad. What the fuck is in this for you?” He’s swaying from the combined pain even as he slides a knife out of a leg holster and slices a line of agony across Frank’s side, just below the edge of the vest.

Frank raises his arms, holding them up at an angle to ward off the blows from the knife. This isn’t Bullseye’s strength, close quarters fighting, but still Frank is wondering where the fuck exactly Red is. Seconds stretching out in the haze of battle, he can’t rely on him, he can’t, he needs to end this. He spots the moment.

“Sometimes,” he says, staring into the manic eyes of Bullseye as he answers the earlier question, “you need to hold on to something with two hands, and never let it go.”

It’s an answer and a strategy as he grabs the man's neck with both hands, pulling his face into his knee before twisting and resting Bullseye's head on his shoulder, almost gently.

The crack sounds and the body slumps and Frank melts into the darkness of the city, to find her and finally say the unspoken.

#kastle #kastleexchange #kastlenetwork #kastle ff #kastle fanfiction #come what may

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atopvisenyashill · 10 months

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What if Rhaenyra had a twin brother? Does she marry him? Is Aemma's death butterflied away if Viserys already has his male heir? What happens?

okay so the thing about aemma. is that i know george can be very weird about gendered deaths, but women do in fact die in childbirth even today. or have complications that, in a period with the technology of westeros, would have killed them. like, people you know have probably had serious complications that might have killed them had they been born in a different time. aemma is 13. she is the age sansa is in affc, the age show sansa is in the first season, the age dany is when she loses rhaego. i canNot overstate the inbreeding here, we are talking levels higher than charles ii of spain. it makes complete sense that aemma has a hard time conceiving & that it ultimately kills her. there’s also no guarantee viserys stops wanting kids after one son; jaehaerys forces gael on alysanne and they’re supposed to be this great love, it is not out of the realm of possibility viserys does the same to aemma. she’s narratively doomed for a reason, unfortunately. so i’m not sure aemma does live even in the scenario that she has twins.

but. yes, rhaenyra and her brother would be married. they’d probably marry around 15-16, and no one would really expect viserys to remarry if his male heir is still alive, healthy, married, and starting to have kids. does this completely avoid the dance tho?

well. i mean, viserys doesn’t have to remarry but that doesn’t mean he won’t remarry. alicent is still hanging around at court. the velaryons may still take offense if viserys marries alicent. daemon has probably spent the last several years making his annoyance at his loss of status in the line of succession the problems of the innocent people in the stepstones, got bored of that, and has now decided to make it viserys’ problem again.

not to mention that heirs die all the time! aemon died! baelon died! baelor breakspear will die before daeron, daeron & aerion will die before maekar, and even outside the targaryens, edric dies before cregan, the arryns are on the brink of extinction every twenty years, and halys & daryn hornwood both die soon after each other which leaves hornwood hall’s inheritance in question. there’s like six potential political assassinations in the period just before the dance! there’s a lot of people with big egos and dragons running around, and i yet again cannot overstate how fuckijg inbred rhaenyra and her twin’s children are going to be.

imo daemon is Thee biggest problem in this scenario. he wants to be viserys’ heir so bad, and while he never takes any violent action against viserys, bc he loves viserys, i think rhaenyra existing with no man having a “claim” on her really placated daemon bc it made him feel he had a shot at staying somewhere near power through his wife (and like. he wasn’t wrong.) but if rhaenyra is spoken for, that changes daemon’s relationship with her AND viserys drastically. there’s so many options here for him to take to be a thorn in his brother’s side, from cuckolding his nephew to out and out murder, and if Viserys does remarry, or if Rhaenyra dies & her brother remarries, there is going to be more fighting and Daemon is gonna settle himself right in the middle of that. And that’s not even taking into account whatever the fucj Otto is doing because you know he’s doing something bc he is second born & has a complex over that and he hates daemon’s ass (and daemon hates him right back). larys and criston are still running around somewhere. qoren is still trying to dunk on corlys in the stepstones. i think so long as daemon is flying around on caraxes, he is still gonna amass a large group of haters, and both he and those haters are gonna bring that mess into the line of succession & viserys is too conflict avoidant to deal with him, which means it’s gonna become his kids’ problems and we know daemon is not above child murdering.

so can the dance be avoided? the casualties of it can certainly be avoided but the chekov's gun of "women cannot inherit" is still there waiting to absolutely FUCK house targaryen up, and with a royal family that is a little too eager to use dragons to fix their problems, there was likely always going to be some conflict. If Rhaenyra or her twin dies, or if they only have girls, and Daemon, Otto, Larys, Criston, and Corlys are all still running around trying to get their blood on the throne, there was inevitably going to be a conflict; it just might get pushed to be about Rhaenyra's children then about her and her twin brother.

#valyrianscrolls #i woke up in a hater ass mood i'm sorry alkdsjfd #rhaenyra targaryen #the dance of the dragons #asks

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gingerylangylang1979 · 1 year

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So a lot of people still not feeling ANY romance on this show, even with new girl.

I have to laugh at the comments on the latest trailer “Carmy Meets a Girl”. I was I guess expecting more people to be into Carmy and Claire but actually a lot of people are raging about the show jumping the shark, not wanting any romance, how dare they. I thought the dislike would mostly be from Carmy x Sydney shippers but actually it seems like a lot of people really just don’t want ANY ROMANCE. This is interesting because it shows that a lot of people are earnest in their desires for no romance and it doesn’t matter if it’s with Sydney or someone else and people really hate romance. I just didn’t know that sentiment was this big culturally.

I’m wondering at what point do people think a show turns into a romance? I don’t think Carmy flirting with a girl and exploring dating as he’s trying to get his life and business on track equals the show is now a romance. It’s a drama. Dramas sometimes have romantic elements. That doesn’t make them romantic dramas. I think there are a lot of unrealistic expectations about what a show that is exploring a young man’s life should include and not include. Like, do they JUST want shots of cooking, crying, and screaming?

This reminds me of fandom angst within my other favorite show The Chosen. I mostly stay out of that fandom because my brand of Jesus believer doesn’t vibe with the random shenanigans and drama. Christian show + fandom = eek for the most part. Anyways, a big controversy is how much of the script is not exact scripture and people want a copy of the Bible reenacted word for word. These people don’t realize that doing that would not translate marvelously onscreen. I love the Bible but I don’t think it’s a screenplay. There are elements of backstory and side plot you need to add to make it a compelling onscreen narrative. People balked at one of the characters having a crush and they stopped that storyline, it seems. But it wasn’t this OTT romance. He’s autistic and it was really cool seeing him explore those feelings and being understood in a time and place that didn’t even know what autistic is. So it wasn’t just to have a romance, it was to show character development and inclusion. I didn’t even think they would end up together, that was just part of the journey. But, I guess they gave into a loud minority of fans who were bothered. The point is that storyline didn’t derail anything or ruin the tone. It only enhanced those characters.

Anyways, back to The Bear. I don’t think people realize what they would be missing character wise if we really just only saw miserable chef Carmy being miserable in his restaurant, being miserable in his apartment, with an occasional side trip to Cicero’s or Sugar’s. You may think you want three to five seasons of ONLY that, but that would get stale as fuck. I think it’s actually sad when I see tags saying oh he’s miserable and alone, just like me, HE SHOULD STAY THAT WAY FOREVER. Talk about hopeless doom generation.

I’m depressed and struggling and anxious too but I want to see someone navigating away from that onscreen. My current therapist is trying to coax me back into dating because she views it as part of healing. I’m the one that’s bitter and doesn’t want to do it but guess what she’s right. If someone has desire for intimacy, they should have it, even if it’s messy and not at the “right time” and even on a show that’s not a romance. Carmy deserves healing. And if part of that is oh horror, having a crush, a date, maybe some sex, so be it. I don’t even ship him with this girl but I’m excited to see it. I want to see Carmy explore this part of himself because he’s a person and he obviously cares about it, and I think he deserves all the things.

#the bear fx #carmy berzatto #jeremy allen white

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merionettes · 6 months

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rubicon ask!!

first off I'm so so delighted that I picked up FE3H last summer and that it led me to finding your writing & especially this fic. what an amazing experience, what a treat with every update, I have all these fun memories now of places I was when I got the update email (and screamed internally every time). a little collection of sense memories colored in.

as for the actual question: very curious about your process. did you have an outline going in? I have to imagine yes (or else you're braver than black friday shoppers). how did you go about structuring this, ie did you have a series of Moments in your head that you wrote around and connected, or did you try to build scenes to fit the arcs you had in mind, or a mix of the two? anything and everything you want to share, I'm 🤲

you're killing me!!! man, thanks so much, seriously.

as for the actual question, indeed. hahaha. ha. i delayed answering this for so long because it kept devolving into an essay about the emotional experience of writing a novel for the first time. well i give up. this is now two posts. one is the actual answer to your question, only ten times longer than it needs to be. the other is an essay about the emotional experience of writing a novel for the first time. so… caveat lector.

first part under the cut. ← not kidding about the caveat!!!!!!

i've talked a little about the process before, so i'll piggyback on that post and dig a little more into the differences between the original idea and the finished product, including spoilers i couldn't get into when i'd only posted 55k. ("only." god.)

technically this did start with an outline. technically because at the time i was brand-new to fe3h and hadn't written anything but a few friend-ficlets in about 8 years. thought "skating au!!", spent a fevered weekend outlining all the major scenes, started in on the writing, and…. very quickly realized that i was nowhere near competent enough to actually. write it. "intensely frustrating" does not even scratch the surface, lmao, of what it felt like to have this thing in my head and only be able to produce what felt like the worst clumsiest tritest version of it. very apropos for skating, actually.

looking back on that outline, it had almost nothing to do with the finished product, especially on felix's side. it didn't have the nationals flounce, the timeskip, training in vancouver, the lake, the nhk trophy sports anime climax, the backstory reveal meltdown. (it did have the redemptive healing free skate.) what, critically, it did have was sylvain's personal arc—burned out, desperate to quit, wants to go to college. it ended at exactly the same place as the actual story, with sylvain and dorothea's final skate together. the last line was one of the earliest things i wrote.

in other words, even though almost everything between the first and last scene changed WILDLY in the process of writing, i always knew exactly what i was working towards and that was invaluable.

insert two year timeskip here! during which i would occasionally reopen the skating doc, take a stab at another scene, feel this ominous sense of foreboding, and give up lol. you can thank the 2022 winter olympics for making me get serious, specifically 1) yuzuru hanyu going out in a blaze of bittersweet doomed quad axel glory 2) shoma uno losing to some eighteen year old. i believe my exact words were (consults notes) "anyway time to go back to my fic where i control the narrative and i decide who wins." idk what made this attempt different than any of the others—right time, right inspiration, right circumstances—but this time it caught fire. in uh. in a big way.

so that's when i wrote what i refer to in that post as a skeleton draft and what i've since come to think of as a storyboard on steroids. this is when felix's arc really took shape, beyond "he is sad… he is mad… he is perfectly positioned to see right through sylvain." the fallout from nationals crystallizing, in particular, was one of the things that snapped felix into place and helped determine the tone and focus of the story overall. (that initial outline had much more of a romcom/classic fwb-to-lovers feel.)

the other thing that did this, of course, was sylvain's narrative voice. when i committed to "burnout who is controlling every single word of every thought to avoid admitting that he is burned out" was when this story became what it is. the voice dictated every single scene, the tone, the shape, what was revealed, what was implied, what was never making it on the page. it led me places i didn't anticipate. it made the cuts for me! cute scene you've got in that outline lol sylvain would never.

i see past me in that post dancing around the length, lmao. well the ""storyboard"", the skeleton, whatever you want to call it, was over 100k. and yet even then, EVEN WITH 100K ON PAPER, there was still so much i had no fucking clue was coming! felix pushing sylvain on what he wants was there, but sylvain never explained what happened. my oc jm gautier (thanks for nothing, three hopes!!!) was an ominous presence, but he wasn't the final boss. there was no memory of the first time sylvain and dorothea met. (<- insane.) there was no glenn skate. i had to write to discover all of that.

so like—i cannot emphasize how much i grew as a writer through the experience of writing this story. prose, structure, character arcs, thematic arcs. i was harder on myself than i've ever been. and if i hadn't had that end goal in sight i don't know if i would have made it through all those iterations—storyboarding, drafting, rewriting, editing. wanting to deliver that moment powered me through any amount of frustration/exhaustion/bewilderment.

wow this post sounds almost normal. nothing about this experience was normal. which is why you're getting a part 2.

#sorry op for hijacking your ask for my own personal catharsis #extremely long post #rubicon #writing #ask

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