#that's partly why the little throwaway line

[maliciousandcrude]

Welp. After some time. I present whatever the hell this is. Game Over lyrics with Xeno and Omega because... One not?

Note: I am NOT a lyrics writer so this probably sucks.

Omega: Oh... I shouldn't have gone down that cursed pipe... Well, Whatever this place is, I will survive!

Xeno (Faker): Hey buddy, is something wrong? you seem quite lost.... How about some assistance from this hedgehog?

Omega: I know your rules, You are the type to play cruel, so why don't you come out?

Xeno (Faker): Whatcha talking about?

Omega: You're one of trickery, But I, by mockery so why don't you come clean?

Xeno (Faker): Don't be so mean! Don't you need any help from me, the hero of Mobius?

Omega: You're a mere fake!

Xeno (Faker): Come on raccoon, your accusations are crude! It's driving me insane.....

Xeno (Partly revealed): GAH! You damn bastard! You've broken right through my shell! But that doesn't matter, cause right now you're in my hell!

Omega: While I would like to stay, I got to go to my stage! There's a show going on and I'm the co-star!

Duet 1

Xeno (Partly revealed): You won't be able to go to that damn stage yet, I've gotten a new plaything, and that new plaything is you! Play with me...

Omega: I... Got... No... Time... To entertain you and your rigged games! So, it's about time I bide adieu!

Duet 2 (running section)

Xenophanes: Where'd you think you're going?! This game has just started! Think that you can outrun SONIC? Don't be a fool! You're not smart, just uncool! That tail of yours won't bring you far! You're just a subpar! Throwaway.... Minion... Just a distraction, for satisfaction, of Ultra M! Do you think, he'll even notice?!

Omega: Must... Find... That... Pipe... Fasten up with quick speed, or else I'll bleed! At the hands of a filthy false god! Wait, were you talking shit? I wasn't paying attention! Do you even know what you're saying?! Mediocre insults won't hurt my pride! But it seems I've hurt yours!

Duet ends

Omega: You, look quite upset!

Xenophanes: You, are only a pest! Caught up in the roots, of my cruel games!

Mini duet

Xenophanes: What's the worst in having another soul to play with? Especially one with a sly tongue like yours?

Omega: I've already gotten a person to serve! If you're looking for another soul don't you dare choose me!

Mini duet ends

Omega: Did, I strike a nerve?

Xenophanes: Oh, do you observe! Now seize your language at once, for this is absurd!

Omega: Seems like you are fuming! Glad to know my words are really making you fall apart at the seams! (The "Innocence Doesn't Get You Far" line is instead replaced with "Thinking outside the box now, are we?")

Xenophanes: Come back! You cheeky rat! This chase is getting old!

Omega: Can't catch this shooting star! For I break all of your molds!

Xenophanes: Come back! You are not sly! Why don't you just die pesky fly?

Omega: Think you can catch me with my speed? An All Stars I will be!

Duet

Xenophanes: What a brat! You little rat! You think you're special? You're nothing more than a pawn, designed to be discarded! Once I get my hands on you, your fate, on a stake, it shall be!

Omega: Having trouble keeping up "SONIC?" Thought you're supposed to be the fastest thing alive! Why do they call you a blue blur when you can't even keep up with me~?

(Tails head shows up here)

Xenophanes: Well, What do we have here? Yet another soul! Ripe for the taking, suffering the death toll!

Mini duet

Xenophanes: It's always the same, in this hell, I call my own game!

Omega: Oh fuck, What the hell is this now? Is this where I'll bury my tomb? I think I'm actually screwed!

Mini duet ends

Xenophanes: What a shame! I had such fun! Doing this chase!

Mini Duet

Xenophanes: But now, it's time, for my bloody gorefest! Eye for an eye, swear on my soul your heart shall be, torn out by me!

Omega: Nowhere to run, no place to hide, my own fun is done! Perhaps I've underestimated the stuff you can do, the powers that makes you!

Duet 3

Xenophanes: There's no place to go now! So come and take your last bow! You've tried and yet you've failed to outrun SONIC! Claws and fangs shall graze upon your heart! Tear it all away, till there's no soul! Use... Less... Creation.... You've lost the game, so give up it's in vain! For you are up against a god!

Omega: Are.... you.... Kidding me? This is my fate?! At the hands of a fake?! Oh how cruel! At this pace the warp pipe's a mere drool! Truly an unfair match! Is there really no patch? I'm not super sure if I can outlast! My life, I have lived, shall become the past! But maybe there's a small chance for me!

GET BACK HERE!

Xenophanes: GET RIGHT BACK HERE THIS FUCKING INSTANT! THIS GAME ISN'T OVER YET! TRY AND RUN WITH YOUR MIGHT! IT WON'T GET YOU FAR!

Omega: Getting furious?

Mini Duet

Xenophanes: NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY, HOW FAST YOU WILL GO, YOU WILL NEVER EVER GET OUT MY SIGHT!

Omega: Come on now, false superstar! You thought you could get this showman? Oh such a pathetic thought you had! I know surely you're mad now! And now you'll suffer this tow! Gotten through this, through hoops and mischief! And pass your facade!

Xenophanes: NO NO, NO NOT YET!

Duet 4

Xenophanes: YOU MAY HAVE WON THIS GAME! BUT I'LL WIN THIS WAR! AND IN THE END, YOU'LL SUFFER THE SAME FATE! NOW, KNEEL BEFORE ME FOR I AM GOD!

Omega: Outrun your lucks worth! No more of your sapphire suns! Oh I've had such fun! Playing this game of cat and mouse but now it's time I bid Adieu!

...

OMEGA HAS PASSED HIDE AND SEEK!

[soyouareandrewdobson]

The hypocrisy of the theoretical bear

Dobson was a bully.

I kinda wanted to make that statement only later in regard of another comic I am already writing about, but when you really boil it down, that is what Dobson genuinely was towards other nerds. Under all the pretense of just trying to talk about feminism and hoping that nerd culture can do better and become more progressive, he was just trying to shame people for enjoying different stuff than him, not sharing his opinions, or being overzealous in ways that were different to him.

Among other things, he would e.g. post this picture in regard of a certain fantheory when it reared its ugly head in season 3 of Miraculous Ladybug…

mocking a specific person for misinterpreting an animation smear for a genuine clue and instead of trying to politely explain it to them, instead shame then on twitter…

And eventually make THIS shitty SYAC strip, shaming the person even more, by making them specifically the butt of a non existing “joke”.

I kinda want to talk about these two instances now, why I think the comics are not funny as well hypocritical and rather dumb in hindsight. But first, the obligatory digression

I unfortunately agree with Dobson partly, that fan theorizing can at times go WAY too far. I myself have no issues with theorizing a little or playing with ideas of how a certain story could play out in the end. But I think there is a difference between looking at some little things, trends and recurring themes in a story and making a throwaway assumption like “oh yeah, that could happen down the line” and making a 40+ minute rant video on perhaps one little background thing blown out of proportion.

I also genuinely despise “review” channels such as The Roundtable or Film Theory for making clickbait videos based on dumb fan theories that they try to exploit for views, while actually not contributing anything of substance or of their own to the debate or elaborate on the craft of animation and storytelling. Being more of trend chasers than anything else.

That said, I think fans theorizing about stuff is an integral part of fan culture and can be fun. It can e.g. inspire people to create their own stories/fanwork based on such theories. Such as this actually pretty decent piece of Miraculous Ladybug fanart, that Thomas Astruc even liked and shared on twitter and blows everything Dobson did for the show out of the water.

Plus, even as Dobson kinda admits, some shows and stories are deliberately made to “reward” fans for their theories.

However, already in the way Dobson formulates that, he is making a mistake.

See, these shows aren’t “rewarding” people per se for their theories. They simply confirm that the fans may have successfully cracked completely (or at least partly) an aspect of the story’s integral mystery/plot, at times left intentionally by the show creators themselves.

Just to give an example: Hunter’s nature as a Grimwalker in the Owl House.

Hunter aka “The golden Guard” was first introduced in the last episode of the first season of the Owl House, face still completely covered. Then later episodes not only revealed his face, but also his name and that he was supposedly Belos nephew. Something that already raised a few eyebrows for people, cause Belos was not only confirmed in the show to be at least over 50 years old, but some couldn’t image that a character falling into the classical evil overlord archetype, could really have a “nephew” as young as Hunter. And then in the episode Eclipse Lake, which starts off in Belos secret lab with a shot of some items on the ground, people saw this:

A page of a book, indicating to be an instruction on how to create an artificial human, with mentioning of a creature introduced and seen earlier in the season (in the proper debut episode of the Golden Guard nonetheless) and with the human creatures eyes in the book implied to have the same color as Hunters.

As such, the theory of Hunter being an artificial human was born and later on, got properly confirmed through dialogue and other visual revelations in the story.

Sometimes, storytellers (particularly once who want to craft a decent mystery or overarching narrative) will just leave little clues in their creation, for people to theorize about and to assure they are getting further invested in the story. The reason for that ranging from the author trying to tell a decent mystery without having to pull the revelations completely out of their ass (unlike Dobson in the story with Sam and his dead sister!) or revealing too much all at once, to just having fun with fans and sometimes also simply because they want to add something to the story, even if by that point in time they may not have yet entirely in mind what that something is going to be.

Such as Rebecca Sugar actually throwing the term “Cluster” around in Steven Universe, before even having an idea what it was supposed to mean in context of the story.

So in that regard, fan theories are just attempts to explain stuff the show runners may already have in mind to be important anyway and therefore different from lets say someone obsessing over background colours being symbolic of gay relationships for example

But now back to the two comics. The first one, showing us a weird expy of Bill Cipher with a card exclaiming “Adrien is a Sentimonster”, may be kinda confusing, so here is a bit of context: Dobson tries to poke fun at the “Adrien is a Sentimonster” theory of the Ladybug fandom, by having the “subject” of another, extremely niche fan theory claim it is baseless and wild. That “subject” is Tad Strange. Now if you are only familiar with the show Gravity Falls, you would know that Tad Strange is that guy…

the most average, boring person in all of Gravity Falls, part of an almost Family Guy level cutaway gag in one episode of Gravity Falls. But supposedly (I at least never saw it), when the name was first mentioned somewhere by Hirsch long before the episode introducing Tad properly aired, people came up with the theory that “Tad Strange” may be a secondary villain akin to Bill Cipher, if not even a relative to him. And that is what Dobson tries to mock here. I say “try” cause honestly, who would even get the idea of what sort of joke Dobson tries to tell, if they aren’t familiar with the theory. A theory that was so niche, Dobson would have to explain the intention of the comic somewhere down the line even.

And to quote the Joker…

Furthermore, while the theory of “Adrien is a sentimonster” was kinda wild after only introducing the fact that even humanoid, sentient creatures could be created by the power of the Peacock Miraculous (in the episode simply called “Ladybug”) recently to that comic being made, it wasn’t really that wild when people thought about it.

After all, Ladybug at its core was still a magical girl show. And them doing twists like that (such as Chibiusa being Sailor Moon’s daughter from the future, Galaxia being the original first Sailor Senshi, Witches being corrupted Magical Girls etc) was not necessarily unheard off.

Though Dobson, when told it could still be a possibility, not only would act rather condescending, but furthermore went on to also piss against Ladybug’s leg, by stating “the show’s writing is not good enough to pull that off”. Which okay, he is right, the show is one of the dumbest written magical girl shows I have ever seen, the man behind it is essentially Dobson with a career.

But, two seasons and a few years later….

YOU ARE A SENTIMONSTER

YOU ARE SENTIMONSTERS

WE ALL ARE SENTIMONSTERS!!!!!

At least Adrien is not alone?

Yeah, Dobson can eat a dick in that regard. I mean, I think the reveal and how they played out the mystery wasn’t all that good (in my opinion, Astruc and his team winged it in) but not only was his dismissive behavior insulting to begin with, it also shows that he has very little understanding of how to utilize common tropes in fiction and cartoons in particular, despite consuming them en masse. Plus you know, kinda insulting to Thomas Astruc, who by that token proved to still be at least more succesful than Dobby-dumb-dumb bear

Also, as much as I like Gravity Falls, neither it or Steven Universe had in my opinion quite from the get go an idea where to head with their mysteries. Alex Hirsch having confirmed, that Bill Cipher becoming a character and not just a symbol, was something he came up with only halfway working through the concept phase of season 1. And the Rose is Pink reveal? My memories regarding that show are a bit rusty, but when was that actually hinted on in the show? There were massive hints that Pink Diamond didn’t get killed by the rebellion or that things were more complicated. Not that Pink pulled essentially a Darth Sidious on everyone just to live on earth and have sex with humans. Especially in season 1 to 3.

But really, the picture is just something that to me has just aged poorly.

The comic on the other hand I genuinely want to smack Dobson over the head for.

Again, I myself think that yes, people can go too far at times with looking for clues or making up their theories. But personally, I think there is a difference between making a general statement about it and giving a specific example, like Dobson does here. Sure, he may not show the username of the person who made the video or the comment, but it is still pretty condescending and a dick move, made by a guy who may be 10+ years older than whoever made the video referenced here.

Dobson essentially punches down, instead of punching up. A at the time at least 35/36 year old man acting like a mean school girl online to mock some random person, who just made a dumb theory and then moved on with its life.

Though it isn’t just that one user specifically he is essentially punching down. Here is the text by the author coming with the comic

“You guys should all take a chill pill for getting angry and upset at the creator”

No. No they kinda don’t. I mean, yeah some people can take it way too far with how invested they are in the stuff, but people have every right to also call certain plot twists hack writing, if it is so. Like how the reveal of Rose having been Pink had essentially ruined Rose Quartz and as such also put in question any of the “morals” she supposedly lived by. And considering she was something of the “moral center” for the show and many characters as well as fans, that just immediately made fans feel betrayed about having believed in her in the first place. Don’t get me even started how it essentially confirmed that Pearl is the worst gem of them all, for having always been in love with a version of Space Hitler. Furthermore, Dobson is not really someone to talk about that sort of shit like he has a higher ground, considering how he at times demands of other creators to fall in line with his ideas

If anything, it just feels similar to other comcis he made in his last years about cartoons: Him trying to defend the shitty writing and work put into stuff he likes, because a) how dare people insult something he likes and b) he thinks he and Rebecca Sugar, Thomas Astruc and Alex Hirsch are kinda brothers in arms. Meaning if you insult them, you insult him and the great art he has created and is an expression of his “talents”.

But most importantly about the comic, it is just not funny.

It is simply Dobson “lecturing” in the green void and with emerging shit in the background for which he could be copyright striked into oblivion, how he thinks “x is bad”. And you know, personally I prefer being entertained over being lectured. Or try to do both, which you know, certain people can, cause they have one thing Dobson does not: Talent.

The sad thing about it being, Dobson could have actually managed to make the subject of “overanalyzing via fan theory” funny quite easily. All he had to do was just tell a small “story” about “fan theories” as a plot element, rather than a subject for a lecture.

Here is my idea for a small comic, and if you have input to give or want to adapt it, I would be glad:

Dobson watches some show only to pause when he sees something in the background.

Next thing we know, we have Pam visit Dobson one week later to see if he is doing okay, only to find him unhinged and covering over a bill board with strings regarding his fan theory why these characters are a couple. Insert him either going completely or partly into a “Pepe Silvia” like rant

And yeha, I know the “Charlie’s string board” thing is an overused meme by now in itself, but hot dang is it still funny…

Only for Pam to say “Andy, the next episode dropped yesterday and they are not a couple” Ending the comic with her showing him the episode and Dobson be like “oh… well, at least the resolution was decent”

A comic of that kind would also have the advantage of Dobson actually doing one thing, he certainly haven’t done in years by that point: Make fun of himself too.

See, that is likely another problem with Dobson: He was so preoccupied in using SYAC as a soap box for his opinion, he was completely blind to the fact that he could avoid being conceived as one of the internets biggest douchebags, if he poked genuine fun at himself via his work once in a while. Make the Dobbear the one living by example about what Dobson talks, instead of just ranting about it, you know?

But hey, I am not Dobson.

A guy who tells people to not overanalyze everything via fantheories…

But has absolutely no problem to fawn over some dumb Zelda theory -as long as it is by him- or whine about people not liking HIS theories on Steven Universe, without actually bothering to even explain what his theory is about.

Then again, I take Dobson making dumb theories about shitty cartoons and calart lesbians over him genuinely falling for real world related conspiracy theories, like how 9/11 was staged.

Yeah, that was a thing.

[leejenowrld]

Hey Sophieee🫶🏼

During the last chapter of Bty, there was a moment where Y/n acknowledges the fact that she has warned Karina not to hook up with Jaemin a few times, and yet they continue to do so. I wonder why that is? Why does she not want Karina and Jaemin to hook up, is it related to anything about Jaemin’s past that Karina doesn’t know, or is it the fact that y/n notices what effect the time they spend together has on Karina? It could also be something else, so please tell me🤓

Also when did y/n first warn Karina about Jaemin, what led to that, and how did the situation unfold?

Love you loads🥰

-💕

hi angel 🫶🏼 this is such a thoughtful ask — and you’re completely right to clock the weight in y/n warning karina about jaemin. that line in the final chapter wasn’t just a throwaway. it’s a loaded little breadcrumb, and you’ve picked up on exactly why it matters. let’s break it down:

why does y/n warn karina about jaemin?

it’s not jealousy. it’s protection — and not because she thinks jaemin’s dangerous, but because she knows how effortlessly he can be misread. jaemin is charming. hot. fast. magnetic. he gives attention like it’s air, and he makes you feel like you’re the only one in the room but he doesn’t always mean it long-term. y/n’s seen it happen before. she’s seen people fall into the idea of him, into the glow, the thrill, the flirtation and she’s seen how jaemin quietly backs away once that glow becomes expectation. he’s never cruel about it. he just stops holding eye contact. stops making promises. and people are left confused, thinking but we had something, didn’t we?

y/n knows karina. knows that she doesn’t do casual easily. she doesn’t half-feel. and she sees how soft karina gets after being around jaemin, how she tugs her sleeves down over her hands, how her voice gets quieter when his name comes up. it’s subtle, but it’s there. so y/n warns her. not because jaemin is bad. but because jaemin doesn’t always know when he’s playing with glass.

is it about jaemin’s past?

partly, yes. y/n knows more than karina does. she’s watched jaemin burn bridges with people he didn’t mean to hurt. she knows about the situationship that went too long, the mixed signals, the crying in stairwells someone else once did after thinking jaemin wanted something serious. he doesn’t lie. he just lets people believe the best-case scenario.

jaemin, at his core, fears being known. y/n understands that. which is why she knows how dangerous he can be when someone like karina , someone open, romantic, hopeful, tries to get close.

when did y/n first warn her, and how did it go?

it was early. maybe the first time karina mentioned he’d offered her a ride home and played her music the whole way. karina said, “it wasn’t even flirty, he just made me feel really comfortable.” and y/n, who knows jaemin too well, paused and said, “don’t let him make you feel like you’re different.”

karina brushed it off at first. said, “i know what i’m doing.” and y/n didn’t push. she just watched. and every time karina came back a little giddier, a little pinker in the cheeks, y/n bit her tongue. until the rooftop party. when she caught karina looking out over the balcony, phone in hand, checking if jaemin had texted.

that night, y/n pulled her aside. didn’t make it a lecture. just said, “he’s not going to stop you. you’ll have to be the one to know when to stop.”

she didn’t listen to her lol

[cleave-and-plough]

oh wow, i totally missed this because i forgot to follow you (but thankfully the ratgrinders AMV just crossed my dash to remind me)! thanks for responding and for such a thoughtful answer! i definitely sympathize with identifying porter as a perfect lens through which to critique the way schools and adults fail students, especially likewise as someone who works in an education-adjacent role with young people - would've loved to see that explored more deeply in terms of his interactions not just with the ratgrinders, but with gorgug and fig as well. it's interesting to imagine what that would look like, since it seems he'd still have to be a twist villain to avoid the bad kids wanting to fight him as soon as he's revealed (unless he were to leave the school or something), and yet his insidious influences would need to be apparent throughout - like you say, in many ways this was so close to happening but was deflected. (also kipperlilly x lucy is so real - i so wish there had been more with lucy in general)

i also agree that mice & murder deserves its flowers - even though for me the ending did sort of sour it a little (not so much because of what happened but because it seemed more rooted in a miscommunication between brennan and rekha than a genuine wildcard move from rekha, whose plays i love), it's still one of the most enjoyable seasons by far, both comedically and narratively. even without a grand overarching theme/message, it was just a really satisfying cast and story, and well-organized even in the zoom format.

what you said about "things the creators didn't have time for" is very illuminating and gives me something to think about with regard to fan theories around TTRPGS, which are by definition full of those kinds of ideas: throwaway jokes, unresolved plot lines, sidelined minor characters, each of which is something for the audience to run with and expand. taste-wise, it may remain something i observe in the fandom more than participate in, but i see why it's so exciting to be sure, and why it's particularly compelling when the holes are bigger than normal!

looking ahead, i think you're right that it may be impossible for them to capture the lightning-in-a-bottle of the earlier seasons now that they've expanded so much as a series, and the side seasons now present more of the opportunities for fresh voices and stories, but i hold on to a bit of hope partly because they've scaled back the IH seasons to one per year (which i hope gives them time to rest and re-energize) and partly because i hope they learn from this season's filming schedule and recognize that it's not sustainable for their work/wellbeing. and while i hope that they do senior year more like a miniseries, i have to imagine emily will finally get to play a new character and that in itself may revitalize the party/create a new dynamic to explore. that said, i don't see them doing so any time soon, and i think that's good - more than anything this season, with its wealth of callbacks and loose threads from freshman and sophomore year now fulfilled, presents the opportunity to reflect and think about what comes next. we'll see!

in the meantime (speaking of taz lol), it's been fun to check out other shows/systems & see what else is out there beyond the 5e-sphere - eidolon playtest has been a favorite lately. are there other APs you've gotten into outside D20?

hello, this is the anon who sent august that really long fhjy ask - thanks for your thoughts!! they helped me understand some of the season's strengths that weren't as apparent to my tastes - i think you're so right that the temple was a high point and i greatly sympathize with the sentiment of like, it all could've been so much more compelling if the bad kids had keyed into that more (which i think is also partly on brennan's presentation of info as GM, ofc - not saying it's anyone's responsibility alone). i'm still not sold on porter that much, but i can understand your perspective and i do appreciate some of his moments - i enjoyed him being a terrible teacher to gorgug because of the tension it created within the party (isn't this bad teaching? is it not? that self-doubt was really dramatically satisfying, especially in the twist payoff). i also think you're right that the finale truly muddies the waters of what the ratgrinders' thematic positioning was - as much sense as it makes that they're genderbent foils, it feels like each member gets less and less pointed - kipperlily and riz are the clearest parallel followed by kristen and buddy, but then like ruben and fig's interactions were essentially just bits, oisin and adaine basically boil down to differing access to generational wealth, and then gorgug/maryann and ivy/fabian are basically just like rage/apathy and ranged/melee. and i don't necessarily think fleshing this all out would've made the season good, but i think (and i want to say this came up in the podcast) it was overambitious/overcomplex to combine the ratgrinders' story with porter's - hence the very confused finale. on a more positive note, i actually totally agree that the downtime system was fun and thematic! the reason i cited that aspect as a negative is more because of the eventual execution, where a lot of the ratgrinder elements got sidelined and relegated to "we'll resolve that later" - as flavorful as it was, there were times when i felt like it didn't mesh with the beats brennan expected or it stymied the group's efforts to investigate things in favor of siloing them. this is a more meta criticism but another reason i don't quite gel with the porter story is because it's the reason brennan asked emily to play as fig this season even though she didn't want to, and while i trust that she genuinely chose to go along with him in that, it definitely felt like she (and brennan) struggled to find a new throughline/arc for fig (especially since the ruben thing went nowhere) and i don't feel like that sacrifice was worth what we got with regard to porter (and ruben, as her foil) - when i think of fig's storyline this season it just feels kind of empty/reactive. anyway, i hope it's clear i don't say this to argue with your opinions and i certainly don't begrudge anyone hoping for a satisfying narrative from d20 especially considering their past successes (i couldn't agree more that fhsy and tuc are some of their finest work in this regard - easily two of my favorite seasons alongside acofaf!). i'm still exploring my relationship to subtextual readings of actual plays - i love literary criticism so i appreciate many fan theories as emotional/philosophical exercises, but with TTRPGs i often have a harder time as compared to pre-written material given their more improvisatory/fluctuating nature. as such, the shooting schedule looms large here, and i mourn What Could've Been if the cast had gotten to rest and reflect between sessions right alongside you... ah well, there's always another season <3

hello!!! thank u for a really great ask!!! sorry it took me so long to get to it, i literally haven't been logged into tumblr on desktop since i saw it and typing up a good reply on mobile would've been impossible LOL

i pretty much agree with all your points here; especially the one with fig's arc this season. i think emily should've trusted her gut and retired her after her near perfect arc in fhsy, and that brennan shouldn't have had her in this season just for the porter reveal (which could've been a fun twist even with a new character, given that emily would've still had her suspicions). her arc this season is rly meandering and inconclusive which is such a shame. the problem is that i just REALLY love porter as a villain LOL. or rather, i love porter as a concept of the villain he could've been but that was never really treated seriously as such by the show. he represents so much of what i thought this season's themes would address--he's a symbol (as a teacher) of the unfair and fucked up school system and the power it holds over kids, as well as the concepts of rage and manipulation and radicalisation and revenge. that shit is super interesting to me (also as a teacher), and if all of this was engaged with it would've been incredible. alas!

but yeah me and august were talking abt ur ask like ur literally right and we wish we had ur foresight for the season tho LMAO. like perhaps my blinders were on because truly up until the last three episodes brennan was giving me everything, conceptually, that i wanted. i wanted trg to be sympathetic villains, and they were! i wanted kipperlilly and lucy to be best friends and have tragic yuri potential, and they did! i wanted jace to also be a victim of porter's, and he was! there was a moment before the last three episodes where i was convinced nothing could go wrong and this would be my favourite d20 season ever LMFAOOOOOO OH HOW THE PRIDE COMES BEFORE THE FALL

wrt literary criticism and d20, i totally get what you mean. i've been a real hater about this season but i'm usually pretty forgiving about the improvisatory and comedic aspects of d20 seasons believe it or not LMAO. m&m is one of my favourite d20 seasons of all time, i do not care that the ending flopped spectacularly bc of the tone, dice rolls and bad jokes. acoc is another one of my favourite seasons of all time, but the back half of it is super lacklustre in comparison to the first half, and i was completely zoned out of the rushed and anticlimactic final combat until calroy came in. these things did not taint my enjoyment of the show--it's always been forgivable and understandable to me because well, yeah, comes with the improv liveplay territory!! i love analysing the shows thematically and have my critique but ultimately understand there's things no one can predict or account for. i think fhjy's case in particular was just so egregious to me; the themes felt so much more obvious, the character hooks right there, the set-up so good, that i truly had never been so disappointed by a d20 finale helppppp

like i'm used to d20 seasons not having themes that are perfectly executed or followable; when i make my posts about wishing that fhjy was about the unfair school system, it's more like... wishing that anything could've happened that would've made it possible to come to my own conclusions on that theme. i'm ALWAYS reading too deep for my analysis of d20, and i'm super aware of it--this is part of the fun of it for me, thinking about implications and characters the creators didn't have time to, fleshing out ideas and subplots that didn't go anywhere, death of the author and all that. it's just that this season's main plot and themes, more than any other d20 season for me so far, felt so completely incoherent, despite its direction being so completely obvious to me, that i couldn't even pretend to come up with coherent analysis for it and i was left absolutely flabbergasted LOLLL

and maybe that's on me! it's definitely not a mistake i'm going to take into another d20 season, i've actually made my peace with the fact im probably never gonna get another fhsy or tuc or even acoc from d20 again (or at least the main IH cast) and that's okay..... i actually almost relapsed into taz the other day i was so desperate for a good ending AHJFSKFSFSFS

anyway this got long sorry i had a lot of thoughts. thank u for ur messages anon!

[tacticalmaladjustment]

Just some thoughts on episode 9. I think everyone already has expectations that it will turn the spotlight on Kyutaro Kugi (九棋久太郎), whose name, fun fact, contains the character 「九」, which means '9'.

In episode 8's ending, Ogino says that the organization trusts Kyutaro, as he hands the picture to him. Why even mention it, almost as if to emphasize the importance of keeping one's loyalties straight? And here, i think, it wasn't some throwaway line but a reminder to him that 'we're on to you. prove your loyalty'.

Just as the boss deliberately sending Rei to dispatch his own mentor was his twisted method of drilling into his own son exactly what happens to those whose objectives do not align with the organization's, Kyutaro himself is being tested by the organization in this particular case.

Because i believe that the organization already has an inkling of Kyutaro's hand in Rei and Kazuki's surprise family. Something that he should have snitched on yet kept under wraps. The picture he was given was of Kazuki and Miri at the supermarket on the day Rei met the boss. Which leads me to think that Kazuki's involvement in Rei's life has been surveilled for quite some time already, possibly for the entire 3 years that he's lived with Rei. And if so, they would know that Miri has been to Cafe Mistletoe a few times already.

And what's more, I have a feeling that Kyuu-chan himself is aware that they know, that they are onto him. Unfortunately, he will share some of the information that the Suwa boss ordered. And he will be cold about it, and very businesslike. I don't think he's naive to think that he'll be able get away with hiding anything from them, big scary shady organization and all that.

But Kyuu-chan is smart. He is very sharp and observant. He must have anticipated this, and Rei and Kazuki will definitely receive a heads up of what is happening. On his end, i have a hunch (unjustified) that he has something prepared--something to use when straits are dire. Or, perhaps, he and Kazuki, whose specialty seems to be infiltration, a little identity theft, and information, will cook up something. And, who knows, maybe even some sleight of hand will come into play.

When he pronounced 'have no regrets' in episode 5's bar wedding scene, while it was addressed to Kazuki and Rei, i feel that he was also partly directing it to himself. As Kazuki and Rei were, metaphorically and subtextually, tying the knot their lives to this family, Kyutaro is aware that by choosing to not do anything about it that he has already sealed his fate with theirs.

[itsclydebitches]

Ever think about RWBY's weapons? Ruby's is a harvesting tool - she reaps Grimm to protect Remnant's eco-system. Weiss's rapier is the only non-transformative weapon and relies on her inherited Semblance and the resources her family exploited their employees to mine. Blake's weapon is versatile as she's internalised all the different ways of social protest but we never see this. And Yang's weapon is also her hand, implying a potential for violence and kindness but we never really explore this.

God yes -- I particularly like the first two readings. RWBY barely explores this, but what little we see of Patch appears a) fairly isolated (a small island) and b) full of forest with residents possibly getting by on personal/communal farms. Is it common then for Signal students, when given the opportunity to design their own weapons, to adapt their farming tools into deadly resources? Is Ruby nodding at Oscar’s throwaway comment about running the occasional grimm off with farm equipment like yeah, of course, those of us outside the major cities have always had to rely on whatever is on hand to keep ourselves safe. Uncle Qrow modeled his weapon after the Grimm Reaper, and I modeled mine after his, but Maria (or whoever inspired her) first adapted their everyday tools into a serviceable weapon. And we’ve been improving them ever since until we got “one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed.” We harvest grimm, cutting through them as quickly, efficiently, and in as large swaths as our crops.

Don’t get me started on how the ENTIRETY of Weiss’ style is tied to her family, so where does her desire to gain distance from her parents end and the love/determination to improve the Schnee name begin? She uses a rapier (elegant, sophisticated, associated with showy, formal combat more than “real” fighting) that she rarely ever uses to cut/stab with, instead relying on the dust mechanism because -- you guessed it -- her family owns the major dust company. She never runs out because of a combination of exploitation and the story forgetting that the characters need to buy supplies on occasion... But even that’s now taken a backseat to her genetically inherited semblance that she was instructed to unlock partly to escape her family. That's a loaded dilemma. Weiss’ go-to move is summoning up enemies she’s defeated, literally dredging up the past when she’s trying to move forward, even if these are technically celebratory moments.

RWBY’s weapons have SO many awesome themes and implications just hanging out on the surface, unexplored. Why isn’t Blake’s weapon versatile in the sense of coming from multiple, diverse communities? She’s a member of the faunus elite AND a former White Fang member AND an activist AND she grew up “outside of the kingdoms” AND she’s chosen a “normal” huntsmen route by attending Beacon. Why isn’t Yang’s weapon a part of her (now forgotten...) journey to improve her emotional control, with Tai pointing out that yeah, your style boils down to, “Punch the thing really hard in anger”? What are Jaune’s thoughts on changing an ancient weapon/shield to honor his fallen partner? How did Nora wind up with a hammer (because the characters don’t know they’re flimsily based on historical/mythological/fairy tale archetypes)? Will Ren use his father’s dagger in combat, or is it purely ceremonial now? Why is Qrow’s weapon inspiration reduced to a single line in Volume 6? Shouldn’t he be begging Maria for stories and advice? I love the contrast of our youngest character now carrying a cane, but no one ever comments on it. Does anyone have iffy associations given that a well known criminal (Roman) was using the same? Much more importantly imo, Oscar expresses no desire to have his own weapon, or discover his own semblance, despite supposedly trying to hang onto his identity. Penny got all of ten minutes with her Maiden-summoned swords. Blake’s weapon snaps and it’s just casually fixed off screen. Will the weapons lost to the Wonderland void be given any more attention? At this point I doubt it.

And yeah, as always, in another story this stuff would be purely cosmetic. Cool headcanons! But the show doesn’t have to get into all that. RWBY though is based around the combat and right from the start emphasized the importance of the characters’ weapons. From Ruby considering them more interesting than the people who carry them, to Jaune being the only one walking around with a hand-me-down, all the way to the fact that they need these weapons to survive every episode, you’d think they’d be at the forefront of our characterization... yet we don’t even know most of their names in-canon.

[aliwritesfic]

The Night Shift Part 6 (F!Reader x Frankie Morales)

Summary: It's Saturday, your dickhead boyfriend is out of town, an old friend is in town, and it's time to get drunk!

Warnings: Drinking, mention of drug use, crippling self doubt

W/C: 4.3k

Spotify

Part 1 Part 7

Somehow, the week went exceptionally well. You bugged Frankie each day for the photo he promised you, and each time he grinned and told you that good things came to those who waited. On Wednesday you received a call from the vet telling you the kitten was going to be fine, and she would be put up for adoption when she was old enough. You were initially crushed that the kitten wasn’t going to be yours, but told yourself it was good she was bound to go to a good to a family. You couldn’t give the kind of life a cat deserved.

But most of all, you were almost unreasonably excited for the weekend. You bounced with excitement every time you thought about it - hell, even things with Kurt seemed to be going better. He had planned a hunting trip up north with a few of his friends, and would be gone from Thursday til Monday. He had brought you a bunch of flowers when he ‘broke the news’, not your favourite kind but it was the thought that counted. An entire four days to yourself was more than enough incentive for you to almost force him out the door on Thursday afternoon. With a kiss and a packed lunch and a promise to call, he was gone and the apartment was blessedly empty.

Even better, your best friend Sara was in town.

Fifteen minutes after you watched Kurt’s car pull out of the apartments parking lot, watching the window carefully to make sure he didn’t come back, you called her.

“Can we do something on Saturday? Get drunk, do bad things, anything?” You said by way of greeting.

“Oh hell fucking yes, I’ve been waiting for you to be fun again!” Sara said. You knew that was a not so subtle jab at how much you had changed since Kurt entered your life. You ignored it, like you usually did.

“Saturday sound good to you? I work Friday night and I can’t take it off.” More like you didn’t want to take it off.

“Saturday sounds fantastic. There’s a big fight night happening, and I wanna watch some hot sweaty guys pummel each other.” Sara said. “We can get drunk at the same time. Also I can get some molly if you want.”

“I’ll think about it,” you said, not entirely opposed to the idea of spending the night high as shit. Especially if Kurt wasn’t going to be there to yell at you for it.

“Let me know, sooner rather than later so I can sort it out with my guy,” Sara said. “Anyway babe, I’ve gotta jet, I’ve only got five minutes left on my break and I haven’t eaten yet, love ya!”

“Love you too,” you said, meaning it with your whole heart. Out of all the friends you once had, Sara was the only one who had stuck around after you started dating Kurt. At first, you had choked it up to jealousy, convincing yourself all your other friends were envious of your perfect relationship with a perfect guy. Now looking back, you could see what really happened: you had ditched them. Completely and utterly. Kurt had taken up all of your time, convincing you to stay in when you had plans to go out, telling you that the girls you would have trusted your life with only barely put up with you and it was just so obvious to anyone with an outsider's perspective that they didn’t really like you. You were grateful for Sara, more than words could say.

~*~

Saturday came quickly, and before you knew it, Sara was slamming her fist on your door, a bag stuffed with alcohol slung over her shoulder.

“Bitch!” she screamed in greeting when you finally opened the door, still wrapped in your towel from your shower. She was already dressed, in a tight gold 70s style jumpsuit that made her dark brown skin look like it was glowing from the inside out.

“How do you manage to look so good all the time?” You said, stepping aside to let her in.

“Witchcraft,” Sara said, pulling a bottle of prosecco out of her bag and popping it open. “And like, this whole thing took me all day. Why aren’t you ready yet?”

“I’ve been sleeping all day,” you said, plucking the bottle out of Sara’s hand and taking a swig. It was cold and crisp and filled your partly empty stomach. You continued to take small sips as you got ready, occasionally asking Sara for her girly wisdom on what to wear. She picked out your outfit as you applied makeup. It felt almost foreign, using something other than a mascara and brow pencil. The use of colour and shimmers almost felt like breaking some unwritten rule you had created for yourself since dating Kurt.

“What happened to all your fun clothes?” Sara whined, going through your wardrobe. You shrugged, carefully applying bronzer. Honestly, you weren’t sure. Sometimes things just went missing - you didn’t really question it anymore.

“I’m a miracle worker.” Sara declared after almost fifteen minutes of searching. You looked up at her, then at the small bundle of clothing in her arms. She grinned and flung the pile at you. You held up a black pleather skirt that you hadn’t worn in almost a year, and a black body suit that dipped low in the chest.

“Christ,” you muttered.

“What’s wrong with it,” Sara sounded exasperated, like she had been expecting this from you.

“It’s just-” you hesitated. “I’m not going out to get dick, you know? What’s wrong with a pair of jeans?”

Sara rolled her eyes. “What’s wrong with a pair of jeans? I’ll tell you what: everything. You don’t have to have dick as the aim of the night to look cute. You can look cute for yourself. You know just as well as I do that skirt makes your legs and ass look amazing, especially when paired with the shoes I’ve brought for you. Plus, if someone out tonight decides you look cute enough to buy you drinks, then even better! Because free drinks! You don’t have to fuck them as a thank you, you can just turn around and walk away. So, get dressed and stop complaining.”

You considered Sara’s words for a moment. She was right. After you changed, you admired yourself in the mirror. Your ass really did look amazing, and the strappy black heels that Sara had loaned you accentuated your calves magnificently. Sara stood next to you, arm linked through yours, almost a foot taller in her platforms and with her afro teased to the high heavens.

“God, we’re sexy,” she murmured, taking another swig out of the bottle. “You’re absolutely wasted on Kurt.”

You didn’t bother with your usual retorts to that kind of comment. She’s wrong, you’re lucky to have someone to love you like that at all, no one else would want to if they got to know you, you told yourself. It’s what he had told you over and over again, the words searing themselves inside your brain to repeat each time you began to truly doubt with him.

You finished off the prosecco while you waited for the Uber to arrive, enjoying the warm buzz it left you with. Sara whipped out her phone and began to take photos of the two of you. At first, you shied away from the camera, the words Kurt had said once in a throwaway comment, surely not designed to hurt but did anyway, rang in your ears. You don’t look very good in photos, why do you take so many? After that, you would spend hours staring at old photos of yourself, the flaws that were invisible now glaringly obvious.

Tonight though . . . Tonight you felt pretty. You posed for the camera, following Sara’s instructions as best you could. You took photos of each other throughout the entire ride to the venue where the fight night was taking place.

It looked a little shabby on the outside, overgrown hedges snaked up the walls, covering the windows. A smoking area was off to the side, crowded with people. The inside was even more crowded, with bodies pushing up against the horseshoe shaped bar and surrounding the ring. Two women were in the ring, both bloodied and swinging.

“God there is just something so arousing about hot people consensually beating each other up,” Sara said, unable to tear her eyes away from the ring.

“Babe, you’re drooling,” you joked, stepping in line for the bar.

“I can’t help it, I have an overactive salivary gland,” Sara sighed, tearing her eyes away. “At least my dentist says so.” You grinned at her and ordered three vodka sodas each. It was a tradition with the two of you that you would always order three drinks at a time. Less back and forth, you had reasoned. Although, usually as the night progressed, three drinks were downed in the same amount of time it took to drink one, so it really cancelled itself out in the end.

As tradition warranted, you and Sara cheersed and swallowed your first drink in one breath.

Several more fights occurred, the divisions eventually changing from women’s to men’s. Neither you nor Sara paid much attention to the first few fights: “amateur hour” Sara had said to you “I’m waiting for the good stuff.”

The good stuff, it turned out, started almost an hour and 5 drinks after you arrived.

“Next fight, King V Miller!” The announcer shouted into the microphone to the cheer of the crowd. Sara’s head shot up as if she could sense the sudden change, and she grabbed your hand, tugging you closer to the ring.

“Oh, my god look at him,” Sara said, gesturing to the ring. You knew instantly which one she was talking about. He was tall, with shaggy blonde hair and lean muscle corded over his body.

“He’s pretty spry,” you said, and instantly cringed. Spry? Really?

“I wanna fuck him tonight,” Sara said. Then her voice took on a determined edge. “I am going to fuck him tonight.” Manifestation, Sara called it. If you told the universe what you wanted, the universe would deliver.

Apparently.

“I am going to get more drinks,” you told her. She nodded, not tearing her eyes away from the fighter. You went to the considerably less crowded bar- it seemed like everyone was now watching the fights- and leant against its sticky surface.

You shouted your order over the noise of the crowd, and scanned the bar as you waited. Most faces were familiar in the way that you knew when you had seen someone before, but you didn’t know when or where. That was, until you landed on one dazzlingly familiar face, standing almost right next to you.

“Frankie?”

~*~

Frankie startled at the sound of his name. He looked around, expecting to see one of the boys or maybe an old work friend from the mechanics. The last person he expected was you. But there you stood, looking so good that he was momentarily lost for words.

“Frankie!” You said again, with a huge grin on your face this time.

“Hey!” He grinned back, “what’s a girl like you doing in a dump like this?” His tone held a flirty edge, one he wouldn’t dare have used if he hadn’t already had several bourbon and colas.

“Oh you know, I plan on accosting the winner tonight of all their prize money and taking off into the night, never to be heard from again,” you accepted three drinks from the bartender as you spoke. “What about you?”

“My friend Benny is fighting tonight. He’s actually up right now, the blonde one.”

Your jaw dropped. “No way! My friend wants to fuck your friend.” You pointed your chin towards a tall black woman, dressed like she had wandered out of Studio 54. “Is he single? Can we play wingpeople?”

“He is, we can.” Frankie nodded confidently. Maybe it was the alcohol controlling his brain, but any excuse to spend time with you seemed like a good excuse. “How should we do this?”

“Does your friend Billy-”

“Benny.”

“Benny stick around after the fights?”

“Yeah, he gets free drinks,” Frankie said. You nodded approvingly, taking a sip of one of your own drinks. Frankie watched amazed as you somehow held the two others in one hand, your fingers curling around the hard plastic cups.

“How do you do that?” He asked.

“Do what?”

“Hold your stuff like that,” he gestured to your fingers. You looked down, confused.

“Whatta’ya mean?”

“With your fingers.”

“Oh! Um, I dunno, I just do.” You shrugged and placed the now empty up on a random table, and started on the next drink. It occurred to Frankie that you were well on your way to being very, very drunk.

The crowd cheered loudly as Benny knocked out the other guy with a bloody grin. Frankie whistled his support and Benny caught his eye, saluting tiredly. Santi also caught his attention, and even across the room Frankie could see the wicked grin form on his face. Frankie looked away quickly, not willing to give the bastard any ideas.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Frankie asked, trying to keep his voice casual.

“Some stupid place doing some stupid hunting,” you said with a roll of your eyes. “Fuck him anyway he never lets me do anything fun.”

“What do you mean ‘lets you’?” Frankie said, his brow furrowing.

“I mean, he’s a controlling dickhead!” You said, then slapped a hand over your mouth. “Don’t tell him I just said that! Please!”

“I won’t, I promise,” Frankie said.

“Just forget I said anything,” your voice had taken on an almost desperate edge.

“It’s forgotten,” Frankie lied. He didn’t know how, but he was going to bring it up later. The idea of your boyfriend ‘not letting’ you do something had taken root in his brain, and somehow it made him furious. He took a deep breath, counting slowly to calm himself down.

“Who’s that guy who keeps making faces at you?” You asked, gesturing across the bar. Frankie sighed.

“Santi.” Frankie rolled his eyes at his old friend and waved him over. His curly hair friend bounded over, flashing you with a brilliant white smile.

“Well, hello there,” he said, winking at you. “Santiago Garcia, but you can call me whatever you like.”

You smiled sheepishly and gave him your name, “I work with Frankie.” Santiago’s grin widened at this piece of information, and Frankie groaned internally.

“You’re the girl Frankie told me about.”

“Chatting shit, I’m sure,” you laughed, but Frankie didn’t miss the questioning glance you sent his way when you spoke.

“Santiago was the one who took that photo I told you about,” Frankie said quickly, not wanting you to get the wrong idea. You nodded and leant over towards Santi.

“He keeps promising to show me but he’s yet to deliver,” you said, winking at Frankie. His stomach jumped, breath caught in his throat. He knew you were joking but he couldn’t help but feel like he had disappointed you somehow.

“That’s my fault,” Santi said, “I keep meaning to get him a copy but since he’s sleeping all day I haven’t been able to.” You nodded and turned to Frankie.

“I should go find my Sara before I lose her for the night,” you said, looking at Frankie. “Come find me - I mean, us later? With your Benny?”

“Yeah, of course,” Frankie said, watching as you disappeared into the crowd. The urge to grab you and kiss you grew with every second, but he restrained himself. He wasn’t that kind of guy, and no amount of drinks would make him think it would be a good idea to do that to someone. Let alone you.

~*~

Frankie’s head was cloudy with alcohol, he couldn’t stop thinking about how good your ass looked in that tiny skirt, how he wanted to plant his face directly in your chest.

“Fucking hell, get a grip,” Santiago said, shaking his friend by the shoulder. They were back in the locker rooms, Benny was buzzing with his win. He and Will were going their post match ritual of smacking each other on the back and releasing loud “woo”’s.

“I’m fine,” Frankie insisted, and Santi scoffed.

“You’re full of shit,” he said. “Ironhead, tell this idiot he’s full of shit!”

“You’re full of shit, Fish!” Will said automatically. “But what’s he full of shit for?”

“He’s in denial about pining for the chick he works with,” Santi said. “Look at the poor bastard, it’s written on his face.”

“Fish, you’ve never been good at keeping a straight face when it comes to emotional crap,” Benny said. “All other stuff, you’re great. Just not when it comes to matters of the heart. Or the dick.”

“You should’ve seen the way he was looking at her,” Santi laughed. “And the way she was looking at him, making bedroom eyes at each other.”

Frankie rolled his eyes, ignoring how the last comment made his heart leap. “You’re all stupid, she’s just a work friend saying hi. Nothing more.”

“Full of shit!” Benny cackles. “Look at his blush!” Frankie groaned. They were right about him at least. He had it bad for you.

But that didn’t matter. You had a boyfriend, and even if everything Frankie found out about the guy made him resent him a little more, he couldn’t change that one important fact. And he wasn’t stupid enough to ruin the beginings of his friendship with you over a stupid fucking crush. He just wasn’t.

Benny showered, singing You Belong With Me and switching out the pronouns as he did. The man was an unashamed Swiftie, claiming that she had a song for every situation. Frankie pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep swig of his beer. Will sat beside him and nudged him gently.

“What are you gonna do?” he asked.

Frankie frowned. “What? I’m not gonna ‘do’ anything. She has a boyfriend, end of story.”

“Sorry to hear that man,” Will said, sounding sincere. He knew Frankie wasn’t the type of guy to wreck someone else's relationship for purely selfish reasons. “You’re a good man.”

Frankie wished he wasn’t.

Benny changed into his regular clothes quickly, and said something about needing a drink. The four of them left the locker room and made their way to the bar, and Frankie couldn’t help but look around for you. When he couldn’t see you, he bit back the slight disappointment that sank in his stomach. Benny brought a round for the group and they found an empty table to sit at. The employees of the bar were dismantling the ring to make room for a dance floor. Loud, thumping music started playing and within moments the floor was packed with bodies.

“Frankie! And Frankie’s friends!” Frankie looked around at the sound of your voice, which was high with excitement. You bounded over, clutching the hand of the friend you had pointed out earlier. You introduced yourself and your friend Sara to the group and pulled up a chair for you and Sara each. Frankie didn’t miss how you placed Sara’s chair next to Benny, or how Benny was staring at Sara with his mouth slightly open. He also noticed with a slight pang how you sat yourself between Will and Santi, directly across from him.

What he didn’t was how much you kept looking at him. Lucky for him, Santi and Will noticed plenty.

You and Sara spent a few hours with the group, until a not so inconspicuous Benny and Sara both disappeared, Sara throwing a wink towards you as she left. Will left not long after, saying that his bed was calling his name. Santi stayed a little longer, flirting with you much to Frankie’s annoyance. To his credit, he didn’t show you the catfish photo. Frankie wanted to show you that one himself, when you were both sober.

“I better head out,” Santi said as it rolled past three in the morning. “I’ve gotta babysit Lee tomorrow, and you know how hyper he is.” He turned to you and kissed your hand. “It was the deepest pleasure meeting you, don’t be a stranger. Frankie.” Santi raised an eyebrow and shot him a meaningful look.

“Good night,” he said a little forcefully, shoving Santi towards the door, mainly to get him to stop flirting with you. He knew the flirting was just incentive to spur him into some kind of action with you, but it wasn’t going to work.

“Your friends are nice,” you said, struggling to connect the straw of your drink with your mouth.

“They’re assholes most of the time. They’re just nice to beautiful women.” Frankie regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Shit! Now she thinks I think she’s beautiful. She is! But she doesn’t need to know I think that! Frankie finished off his drink to avoid looking at you.

“I’m attractive til they get to know me,” you said with a snort.

“What makes you think that?” Frankie asked, confused as to how that could work.

“I don’t think,” you said, “I know. It’s a fact. One that cannot be argued.”

Frankie was about to argue with you about this when you turned away, stumbling as you did. She’s super fucking drunk, Frankie thought, grabbing your arms to steady you. Your skin was so much softer than he anticipated, sending a jolt through him. He let go quickly, mouth going dry as you beamed up at him.

“You saved me!” You declared, then finished your drink quickly, emitting a small burp. “To thank you, I must give you a token of my gratitude. I know! A drink! Three drinks for the kind sir! And three for me!”

“Jesus, how much have you had?” Frankie asked, laughing.

“Only a little bit,” you shrugged and thought for a moment. “Maybe like, a dozen vodka sodas and some shots and also half a bottle of prosecco. And also a teeny tiny bit of molly, but that was hours ago, so it’s basically gone.”

“Maybe I should walk you home,” Frankie suggested gently, amazed that you were still upright let alone getting served. You shrugged.

“I can just get an Uber or something, it’s fine.”

“No, no, don’t waste your money, let me walk you.”

You looked up at him with slightly unfocused eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

The cold air outside hit the both of you like a wall. Stars scattered across a moonless sky, leaving Frankie wonderstruck for a moment, until he noticed the goosebumps on your arms. Without a second thought, Frankie took off his jacket and placed it gently around your shoulders. You looked up at him, a surprised look on your face.

“Frankie, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so, I have this friend, right? And she’s been dating this guy for years now. They live together, no kids or anything. But she told me a little while ago that she’s been feeling . . . trapped.”

“Trapped?”

“Yeah. Like, she doesn’t think she loves her boyfriend anymore. At least, not in a way that she should. And he’s so mean to her, too. He doesn’t hit her or anything, but he’s also not super nice to her, and-and she doesn’t always know what she did to deserve it. She doesn’t know what to do.”

“Can she leave?” Frankie suspected you weren't talking about a friend, but he didn’t press beyond what you were willing to tell him.

“Not easily, I don’t think. She doesn’t have enough money for her own place and- and she’s afraid.” Your face flushed.

“What’s she afraid of?”

“Being alone. Unloved. She doesn’t have any family or anything and her boyfriend is the closest she has to that. So um, if she was your friend, what would you say to her?”

Frankie was thoughtful for several moments. He didn’t want to fuck this up. If his suspicions were correct, you were talking about yourself. “Well, first of all I would tell her that her boyfriend is a massive dick, even if he doesn’t hit her, boyfriends shouldn’t make their girlfriends feel like shit. I would tell her to talk to her friends, ask for their help. I would also tell her that being alone doesn’t have to mean lonely, and it certainly doesn’t mean that she’s going to be unloved.”

You nodded thoughtfully at this. Frankie took this as a good sign. “She can’t know for sure what her life will be like, but my guess is that it will be better if she chooses to leave this asshole.”

The rest of the walk was spent in silence. Frankie knew you were thinking about what he said. He too, was lost in thought. Trying to figure out a plan to help you in any way he could. All too soon, you arrived at your apartment building.

“Thanks for this,” you said, taking off the jacket and handing it to him. Frankie nodded.

“You needed it more than me,” he said simply. “I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow?”

You nodded, and then as if you weren’t entirely sure if what you were about to do was a good idea, you wrapped your arms around him. Frankie stiffened for a moment before hugging you back, holding you to him tightly, breathing in your scent of perfume, sweat, and alcohol. You were warm and soft and everything in him was screaming don’t let go.

“Thank you,” you whispered in his ear, and he knew you weren’t talking about the jacket.

Taglist: Taglist: @hnt-escape @sharkbait77 @1800-fight-me @annathewitch @darnitdraco @frankiecatfish @punkerthanpascal @nakhudanyx @gracie7209

[circular-time]

All caps for my favorite for each Doctor and bold for my alltime fave; I've listed a smattering to give you glimpses of most of the companions and some vague non-spoilery comments since different stories appeal to different tastes.

First Doctor: The Daleks although slow-paced by today's standards set the show on its feet as the second serial and there's some extraordinary visuals for a 1963 show with no budget and almost no precedents to work from; The Aztecs has Babs being awesome some interesting perspective on white saviour syndrome trying to avert colonialism filmed when the last of the British Empire was still throwing out the Brits (also blink and you'll miss it gender discussion), THE ROMANS is a Funny Thing Happened on The Way To the Forum Meets Doctor Who, The Dalek Invasion of Earth was groundbreaking for the time (post-apocalyptic Earth was not yet a setting many mainstream audiences had seen outside of a few blockbuster films) a chewy story plus the first companion departure

Second Doctor: MIND ROBBER is just fun watch it, Enemy of the World with actual ( gasp) sharp acting all around partly because Troughton is the villain as well as the lead

Third Doctor: Spearhead from Space so you get at least one with Liz who is Great and the Brig in fine form, a lot of fans will rec Inferno for very good reason but be warned it drags in the middle, Terror of the Autons for a great Jo & Master story, The Daemons ditto plus one of the Brig's signature moments, no one ever remembers Carnival of Monsters because it's not important or epic and there's a lot of running about but it's a fun little D&D adventure like Ghost Monument, THE TIME MONSTER which is a bit naff but we love it to bits as The Gift That Keeps on Giving there's so many dumbass and funny and heartwarming moments in it

Fourth Doctor: MASQUE OF MANDRAGORA fun melodramatic costume drama with bonus gay couple don't talk to me I shipped Marco/Giuliano before I knew what gay WAS, Brain of Morbius has Sarah Jane and the Sisterhood of Karn and Four in fine form with bonus throwaway Hey That Totally Screwed Up Canon (What Canon?), The Deadly Assassin which established Gallifrey as we know it today and therefore pissed off fans tremendously, Face of Evil as an all around fun story introducing Leela Who Is Great I wish I could rec more of hers but i've already got too many of Four here; Horns of Nimon for a drinking game ep that's so bad it's hilarious (moreso if if you know the camp villain was considered for the role of the fourth doctor) but Romana is in a different story acting her socks off LIKE A BOSS, City of Death aka the Doctor and Romana's Paris honeymoon, Keeper of Traken because I just love it (preview of my favorite companion though she's only a side char) plus it kinda sets up spoilers spoilers still relevant in new Who

Fifth Doctor: Castrovalva is a fun regeneration story but find the Blu-Ray if you can where they were finally able to achieve the MC Escher effect intended, Black Orchid (I dunno why some people dislike this one it's Who meets Agatha Christie!), Kinda which is a little crack but there's some great acting and classic quotes even if my fave is out with a migraine, Mawdryn Undead for an interesting reunion with an old friend even if the writers once again can't juggle an ensemble cast, ENLIGHTENMENT is awesomesauce ok not as much now as then when the first cliffhanger literally pulled mom and me out of our seats but the story has aged well even if the FX now look quaint, Planet of the Shorts of Fire for some Master/Doctor shipping although they nearly had the Master say he was the Doctor's brother and cut the line mid-word!

Sixth Doctor: oh this poor guy didn't get enough good scripts until the audios showed just how fantastic he can be but The Two Doctors (which shows his era had gotten a bit grim for classic Who, but it's good), VENGEANCE ON VAROS which believe it or not predates the reality TV fad and I haven't seen it since the 80s but it was a damn good episode at the time

Seventh Doctor: Delta and the Bannermen is nutty and joyful and unique and a palate cleanser after Sixie's era got too dark and I will defend it to the death even if it's kind of insane, The Happiness Patrol for a strong Sylvester ep with Ace being great (these two are always great), BATTLEFIELD with the Brig (both of them!) and a girlfriend (we wished) for Ace and random Arthurian bullshit and Kate Stewart's mom and oh this was LOVE when it came out Doctor Who was BACK baby (poor Colin), Remembrance of the Daleks which should have been the 25th anniversary special and we all pretended it was and there is the most awesome cliffhanger ever (it's like the punchline to a joke 25 years in the making for fans) but really it's so good the guest chars in this story have a popular multi-season spinoff audio series; Survival as the very last story of classic Who with more Doctor/Master shipping which may have been deliberate and this time we know Ace's "girlfriend of the month" plotline was deliberate although it's coded and cloaked because the queer author had to slip it past the censors

Okay so I'm continuing to venture through Classic Doctor Who. I've watched chunks of Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker and adore the TV Movie. I've also seen a few of the "specials" like The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors. I know some episodes are considered much better than others 👀 What's your favourite or must watch episode??? Help me out

[dwellordream]

“If any character in English popular culture stands for the sheep, it is Griselda. Her chief detractor is, not surprisingly, the shrew. In Robert Snawsel's A Looking Glass for Married Folks, Eulalie preaches the Griselda gospel to Xanthippe and Margery, urging them to bear their husbands' blows and drunkenness with meek loving kindness. This is too much for Margery: "Are you a woman, and make them such dish-clouts and slaves to their husbands? Came you of a woman, that you should give them no prerogative, but make them altogether underlings?" Margery's scornful reference to slavery goes to the dark heart of the Griselda myth. Folklorists have argued about the ancestry of the famous tale for more than a century. 

William Edwin Bettridge and Francis Lee Utley have made a strong case that Griselda owes her features to a folktale from medieval Smyrna called "the Patience of the Princess." A prince buys a poor girl from her father and lays a wager with her that she will not be able to submit to all his demands with utter composure. The prince shuts her in a tower alone and tests her for twenty years, repeatedly impregnating her and then taking away her newborn infants, telling her that he is going to kill them. She builds a mother doll out of clay to talk to and cry to but never loses her patience, and in this way she wins the bet. 

The tale, which matches the European narrative more closely than any other yet found, throws into stark relief the specter of female sexual slavery that haunts Griselda's story. The most striking variance between them is that the girl from Smyrna is sold into involuntary servitude by her father, whereas Griselda has a choice and agrees to voluntary and total obedience. Passing into European culture, the story came to Boccaccio. In reworking it for the Decameron he reclothed it in local garb, fashioning his novella partly in terms of Italian wedding and dowry customs that were sharply weighted against brides and wives. Boccaccio thought Griselda's story significant enough to give it pride of place as the last tale on the book's final day of storytelling. 

Petrarch read the novella and converted it to an exemplum in Latin for male scholars. Griselda entered English culture through Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale," which is largely based on Petrarch's version. Plays, ballads, and pamphlets on Griselda issued forth on the continent and in England throughout the early modern period, with a cluster of publications and performances in the mid- to late sixteenth century. Arguably the most radical change between versions occurred when Petrarch reworked Boccaccio. The Decameron's final tale is told by the satirist Dioneo, a crucial choice by Boccaccio. Refusing to let the happy ending stay happy, Dioneo spells out the political import of the story and caps it off with a horn joke against the marquis: 

Everyone was very happy with the way everything had turned out ....Gualtieri was judged to be the wisest of men (although the tests to which he had subjected his wife were regarded as harsh and intolerable), and Griselda the wisest of them all ....What more can be said here, except that godlike spirits do sometimes rain down from heaven into poor homes, just as those more suited to governing pigs than to ruling over men make their appearances in royal palaces? 

Who besides Griselda could have endured the severe and unheard-of trials that Gualtieri imposed upon her and remained with a not only tearless but happy face? It might have served Gualtieri right if he had run into the kind of woman who, once driven out of her home in nothing but a shift, would have allowed another man to shake her fur to the point of getting herself a nice-looking dress out of the affair. 

Scholars often downplay Dioneo's bitter words about pig-tending and his final putdown of Gualtieri, attributing it to his cynicism; but their labors to match the tale's disturbing sadism with an uplifting exemplary meaning are less than persuasive. The passage is much more than a glib throwaway, as Edward Fechter points out: "the climax angrily repudiates theological allegory and exemplum." Certainly, it seems fitting that the last lines of the last tale in the Decameron should recapitulate the Boccaccian theme of cuckoldry as female revenge. Dioneo's parting shot about "the shaking of the fur" is also an invitation to his listeners and the book's readers to come up with better interpretations than do the silly sheeplike courtiers of the tale, who judge "Walter wise and Griselda the wisest of all." 

Furthermore, it is a jest that asks for scornful laughter, especially from listeners who have grutched throughout the tale at Walter's arrogance, egotism, and sadism. Petrarch told Boccaccio that the story so fascinated him that he decided to spread the tale to scholars abroad. So "snatching up my pen, I attacked this story of yours." The angle of Petrarch's attack on the novella (which he termed "a little too free at times") becomes manifest at the cuckoldry-free conclusion of "A Fable of Wifely Obedience and Devotion," in which he erases Boccaccio's satire and his bawdy call for female revenge: 

This story it has seemed good to me to weave anew, in another tongue, not so much that it might stir the matrons of our times to imitate the patience of this wife-who seems to me scarcely imitable-as that it might stir all those who read it to imitate the woman's steadfastness, at least; so that they may have the resolution to perform for God what this woman performed for her husband ...Therefore I would assuredly enter on the list of steadfast men the name of anyone who endured for his God, without a murmur, what this obscure peasant woman endured for her mortal husband.

Petrarch's straight-faced version has none of Dioneo's political satire or irony. He is writing in Latin to male scholars, not in vernacular Italian to women and men, as Boccaccio had done. Nonetheless, it is Petrarch that Chaucer credits by name in the vernacular, mixed-audience "Clerk's Tale," although he departs from Petrarch in crucial ways. The Clerk does follow his source in insisting that his moral applies not to wives but to all humankind: This storie is seyd, nat for that wyves sholde Folwen Grisilde as in humilytee, For it were inportable, though they wolde; But for every wight, in his degree, Should be constant in adversitee As was Grisilde .... (I 142-47)

Chaucer actually intensifies Petrarch's warning that wives should not try to imitate Griselda, calling her example "inportable," or unbearable. (The Merchant, whose turn comes next, blatantly ignores this caveat, complaining "Ther is a long and large difference I Bitwix Grisildis grete pacience I And my wyf the passyng crueltee.") Still, scholarly attempts to align Chaucer's Walter with God do not work because Walter is described as "tempting" his wife, a word almost always associated with sin and vice. In another departure from Petrarch, Chaucer's Clerk breaks in several times to condemn the marquis. After Walter first decides to try his wife, the Clerk interjects hotly what neded it Hir for to tempte, and alwey moore and moore, Thogh som men preyse it for a subtill wit? But as for me, I seye that yvele it sit T'assaye a wyf whan that it is no nede, And putten hire in angwysshe and in drede. (45?-62) 

Chaucer's version subtly calls Grisildis's ovine quality into question. The lamb of God is Christ, of course, and Grisildis' meekness when her daughter is taken away resembles his suffering: "Grisildis moot al suffre and al consente, I And as a lambe she sitteth meke and stille" But "moot" she? Within English popular culture, sheep and lambs do sometimes stand for the positive values of resignation and endurance-for example, in emblems on patience. But there is no doubt that sheep generally connote passivity, cowardice, and stupidity. In terms of sheer frequency, the negative secular connotation overwhelms the positive religious one.

 A related complicating effect is the criticism leveled at "the unsad" (that is, fickle and sheeplike) people of the realm, who at first deplore Walter's acts but change their minds when they see the pretty new queen (actually his daughter), leading "sadde folk" to exclaim: "0 stormy people! unsad and evere untrewe!" As the Clerk finishes his tale, he shows that he is fully aware that not all his listeners will appreciate Griselda's virtues. With teasing wit he acknowledges the Wife of Bath, who has been called the tale's motivating force and dialogic counterpart. Just before the comic envoy he promises "for the Wyves love of Bathe" to gladden her "and al hire secte" with a song urging them to ignore Grisildis and revel in shrewdam (rr69-74). 

By shifting the Clerk's role from that of the preacher of a pious exemplum to a merry jester-singer, Chaucer undercuts his clerkly authority and blurs the moral legibility of his tale, already obscured by Griselda's lack of moral agency and her husband's viciousness. Nonetheless, Griselda quickly proved alluring to husbands, and she retained that allure despite proving highly problematic as a pattern for wives. Like the new husband in the jest about the pottage, men who wanted very much to promote Griselda as a model found her too hot to handle. 

In the training manual he prepared for his young wife in the 1390s, the Menagier de Paris offers a confused and troubled account of why he wants her to learn about Griselda. He rushes to assure his wife that he'll never torment her "beyond reason" as the "foolish, arrogant" Walter does Griselda, nor does he expect such obedience: I have set down this story here only in order to instruct you, not to apply it directly to you, and not because I wish such obedience from you. I am in no way worthy of it. I am not a marquis, nor have I taken in you a shepherdess as my wife. Nor am I so foolish, arrogant, or immature in judgment as not to know that I may not properly assault or assay you thus, nor in any such fashion. 

God keep me from testing you in this way or any other, under color of lies or dissimulations …I apologize if this story deals with too great cruelty-cruelty, in my view, beyond reason. Do not credit it as having really happened; but the story has it so, and I ought not to change it nor invent another, since someone wiser than I composed it and set it down. Because other people have seen it, I want you to see it too, so that you may be able to talk about everything just as they do.

What he really wants, it seems, is for his wife to be au courant. Griselda had "much currency off the page as a talking point in the late fourteenth century" and was "a subject about which wives might be expected to have an opinion." Codified as a way to get women talking (instead of shutting them up), the narrative about testing is itself a means of testing a woman's opinions and conduct. Is Griselda sick or stoic? Enslaved or free? Is hers a saint's tale, with Walter an abstract tool in the central mystery of her endurance, or is it as much a story about Walter and his court? Is he a cruel tyrant or a stern but loving husband with every right to test his wife? Is Walter God and Griselda a female Christ or Abraham or Job? All these positions have been argued during the six centuries of the debate.

Some recent readers still find Griselda admirable and even question whether she should be regarded as a passive victim. Harriet Hawkins has argued that Chaucer's tale should be read as a criticism of unquestioning obedience to authority, even divine authority, while Lars Engle hears "an implicit voice of sane moral protest" in Grisildis's mild objections to her husband. Such strained attempts at recuperation show that Griselda disturbs more than she edifies, raising but failing to answer questions about the limits of obedience in the face of tyranny and the conflict between Christian duty and wifely subjection.”

- Pamela Allen Brown, “Griselda the Fool.” in Better a Shrew than a Sheep: Women, Drama, and the Culture of Jest in Early Modern England

[pagesofkenna]

ok so unless i missed it its literally just said once, really early in, and i couldn't even get context screenshots because it's while two different conversations are happening at the same time

it's practically a throwaway line from the fake philosophy play the coven is writing to distract armand while they go about preparing to kill louis and claudia. santiago is on stage waxing poetic about the tragic nature of the vampire (or whatever - there's not even enough lines to tell what the conclusion of the philosophizing is) and also mentally coordinating his scheme

the script cuts to present-day!Armand admitting that he was the one being made a fool of, then past!Santiago (with no context for the audience) says '...illuminated by light. like the light by which god made the world before he made light.'

its kind of a hilariously bad line. in my opinion. but it's also used in such a way that its badness feels intentional? which is probably why i keep thinking about

like i said before, unless theres some deep catholic lore i'm unaware of, light was literally the first thing god made. its literally the first verses in the bible. what world did god make before light?? its trying to suggest primordial darkness but evoking a mythology that negates the very metaphor; its such pseudo-intellectual BS lmao! (also 'light' be repeated three times feels awkward to my editor brain, im itching to leave a suggestion in a note)

but also. its a tiny little line in a scene where our main manipulative schemer is being manipulated by a scheme. its a small note paired exactly with armand calling himself a buffoon. armand is literally trying to pull one over the coven and then the script literally says 'illuminated by [a load of nonsense]' while we watch the coven pull one over on him. the title of this episode is 'you think you're being clever but you're being played' and it's partly about armand but it's also about louis and it's also about the whole show

i want to ramble on about what a poetic lie this phrase is but i have to rewatch the episode so i can remember how the nonsense line is actually used

[braincoins]

yslanam

replied to your

post

:

Hey, Netflix? How much money do we have to bribe...

from the end of s2 but minus shiro’s disappearance since it’s clear they didn’t actually have a plan for that

I thought about that, but... I’d like to see what actually-decent writers can do with it.

Because what I thought was gonna happen with the Lion Swap was that it would be super temporary, partly as a shout-out to the 80′s, partly as a way to show the team’s struggle to be a team w/o Shiro, and partly to do more with that whole “Allura’s life force is bonded to the Lions” thing. 

And, frankly, I was looking forward to the team learning to come together and really be a team without Shiro around, as well as Allura bonding more with the team directly as they all searched for Shiro. So that, when Shiro came back, they’d all be that much STRONGER of a team, that much closer of a found family. I thought that, with the whole “Keith and Hunk in the weblum and Shiro, Lance, and Pidge off springing Slav from space jail” thing, we were starting to see some of that, and that s3 would continue it out of necessity with Shiro’s absence.

Of course - ha ha, silly me! - the “Allura is bonded to the Lions” thing was apparently a throwaway line referencing one of her many One-and-Done superpowers. How silly of me to expect that the Lion Swap would be temporary, even though all the other 80′s references in seasons 1 & 2 had been quick and soon over with! And, now really, why would I expect the show to continue to make sense? Why would the show continue to prioritize the character bonding? Allura said in s2, “We are always stronger together,” but why would anyone pay any attention to the black woman who is a princess and one of the last survivors of genocide and who knows the Lions better than anyone still alive? THAT’S CRAZY TALK! No, we’ll just stick her in a Lion because paladins are the only ones who are worth anything, but we’re going to put her in the “training wheels” lion because she’s a helpless little princess and then we’ll just have her do what Keith tells her to do even though she used to be a leader in her own right and Keith is still trying to figure out how to lead and doesn’t even want to be a leader and instead of developing the character into a leader we’re just going to keep him exactly the same and tell everyone - including Allura and the audience - to shut up and fucking deal with it and oh btw he’s a great leader and the true Black Paladin because he’s half Galra and...

ANYWAY.

My point is, I think there are interesting things to be done with Shiro’s disappearance, assuming you do actually put some thought into where Shiro (and his body) went, how he wound up there, what happens in his absence, etc. 

[love-takes-work]

I shouldn’t argue with people on Reddit

My clown encounter

I was talking to someone about the Camp Pining Hearts graphic novel on Reddit, and among other things, I made a joking comment about how Mr. Frowney appearing in the audience of the Camp Pining Play to watch Mr. Smiley perform might mean they’re married now. Someone in the comments had this to say to me:

Reddit clown: 

That would imply that anyone on SU cares about developing characters.

Follow the jump if you would like some bloviating about how this show fails at complex relationships, a funny conspiracy theory about how fan response directly controls which characters appear and what plots the Crew writes, and a smug conclusion that No One Can Answer This Deep Question and Therefore SU Is A Bad Show.

Reddit clown:

It’s clear that the author is trying to prop up their ship by purposefully making Amedot out to be unhealthy and problematic, even if it means derailing established personality and history. It’s pretty childish really.

“Does that imply what I think it does about Mr. Frowney and Mr. Smiley? Hey, maybe they’re married now. :)”

That would imply that anyone on SU cares about developing characters.

I addressed part of the Amedot comment and also said this:

Me:

Re character development: This graphic novel was not written by anyone who writes for the show. There's not really any constructive conversation I can have from here if your position really is "no one on SU cares about developing characters," though. This just seems like such an unnecessarily negative "lol this show sucks, edgier-than-u" comment that I don't know where it can go from here and I'm not planning to follow wherever you're trying to take this.

Reddit clown:

Well in general, the show doesn’t have a good track record for character dynamics

[link to a blog post on Tumblr which is literally a one-sentence repetition of what they just said about bad group dynamics]

And given that Frowney only appeared once, sadly there’s zero chance of him and Smiley ever getting back together. Same with Mystery Girl and Pearl.

lol ok

people who have only shown up once obviously won’t ever show again

no source needed on having a good track record, we’ll just believe it’s obvious if you can find an example of someone saying this on a Tumblr blog somewhere agreeing with your assessment

Me:

I have no personal stake in whether a rare character appears again--I'm not yearning for either of those people to return--but it's straight-up weird to say someone will never show up again because they only showed up once.

Then again, I remember how confident people were that Bismuth would never return (and how consistently they coupled their absolute certainty with sneering comments about how the voice actor was surely too expensive), so I guess it's not too surprising to me that some folks still think certain characters are guaranteed to never return. Bottom line is you never know when the throwaway mailman character in episode 3 will turn out to be a regularly returning character starting in episode 56. It just doesn't make sense to pretend such things are obvious. You do not know.

As for the continued weirdness of claiming that this group of characters has no character dynamics to speak of, I mean, it's literally one of the things I've appreciated the most all along about the show, and . . . I don't have to exaggerate or read into what I see to find it, nor am I confused about whether it's actually there. I again have no personal stake in whether you feel that way. It just strikes me as a bizarro world kind of comment. You're having a VERY different experience of this show from the one I've had.

Reddit clown:

That’s different. Bismuth was brought back thanks to fan demand. Meanwhile, these are specifically one off characters, especially considering the show’s halfway over. Not everyone can rise above a one shot character.

And can you name any notable character dynamics not attached to Steven? Compare that to say Adventure Time which had great character dynamics.

Oh god

“”””Bismuth was brought back because of fan demand””””

““““Can you name any notable character dynamics”“““

Dear lord what show is this cheese log of a person watching?

Me: 

It's really weird that you think Bismuth was brought back because fans "demanded" it. You don't know how the show works at all. 

And "then name character dynamics not attached to Steven" is a bizarre request. If you truly did not see the literal thousands of years of history between characters that enhanced who they are and how they act long before Steven was there, me trotting them out isn't going to help you believe it's there. Steven being the strict point of view character creates a situation that Adventure Time doesn't have, so it's weird to expect the show to diverge significantly from the lens it's designed to be viewed through, but believing you've presented a gotcha here is basically admitting you haven't noticed any of the relationships between the characters that Steven actually spent a ton of time discovering--whole episodes were even dedicated to relationships between characters who aren't Steven or aren't relating to Steven when they're revealing such things. It's not even subtext.

Reddit clown:

Well after fan backlash from the episodes Bismuth, they basically had no choice but to bring her back. And given how expensive the VA is, it hurt their budget. And really, what relationships? The whole thing revolves around Steven. The Gems are Steven’s moms, Connie is Steven’s love interest, the town is Steven’s friends. The only interesting dynamic is Lars hating Steven and even then he joined the Steven cult. Look how wasted Lapis and Peridot became when they escaped Steven’s clutches.

Oh 

Oh this person is one of those

““““the steven cult”“““

The objectively only interesting thing is when someone hates someone

Cartoon Network’s budget was exploded by hiring a voice actor oh god

Me:

Wow. Your obliviousness and misplaced confidence is baffling, but . . . to be honest I feel like I'm watching someone who doesn't understand they're embarrassing themselves, and it's getting uncomfortable.

I know that you don't know what's going on behind the scenes of this show, but it is really bizarre sometimes that fans believe their behavior and their outrage is changing the writing or influencing what characters they use.

You really think fans raging about things is an actual "demand" they respond to. That they "had to" bring back Bismuth because of something FANS DID. Yikes. But I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that people are still saying things like this. Some people still think the writers stole plot elements from fan theories. I don't know why some people in fandoms think they're that important or relevant. The show is not being controlled by our responses in any way. If "fan backlash" worked to bring characters back, there are many others who would have returned long ago. 

And isn't that lovely, you've got a little conspiracy theory about how paying the scads of money you imagine are required for Bismuth's voice actor have "hurt the budget" (oblivious to how many voice actors on this show have done more episodes despite being more famous/having higher net worth). You clearly have zero clue about how any of this works, and you shouldn't keep pretending you have knowledge about it, especially not while talking to people who do.

As for relationships, you're not really asking me. Like I said, if I wasted my time trotting out descriptions of relationship dynamics that you should have seen for yourself if you watched the show, there's no way that would convince you they were worthwhile, well-developed relationships if the show itself didn't. I see complex and multifaceted relationships, growth, change, conflict, and resolution, in so many relationships, like Greg and Rose figuring out what love is to them, Ruby and Sapphire growing into a healthier version of who they are together, Pearl learning to think independently of serving Rose even as she struggles with her nature, the long history of Pearl with Garnet, Amethyst with Pearl, even Greg with Amethyst (all things Steven has to discover and understand only partially as the show goes on) . . . but if you truly believe characters in this show who existed before Steven appeared 14 years ago have shown no evidence of having layered relationship dynamics that do not focus on him or depend on him, I don't know what show you're watching and I can't help you.

I don't know why you're even here since just about every bit of content you've posted here is "the thing you like sucks" and completely unsupported comments about why, sourced in nothing. It's just like . . . not even an argument, it's just a weird demonstration that you don't get what's going on so you've concluded nothing is. It's weird, and normally I've got no problem with criticism or spirited discussion, but these comments are just . . . they're empty. They're demonstrations of obliviousness or willful ignorance. It's just so, so weird to talk to someone who thinks they're laying down critical points but reads as so ignorant of what even happened in the source material or behind the scenes.

For the record, this person was going on in other threads about how Amedot is better than Lapidot “objectively” and partly because “it looks cuter,” saying the writing on the entire series is garbage, that “Steven as a character doesn’t make sense,” and that the show’s writers have no standards. Wow edgy.

Reddit clown:

I mean think about it; a famous celebrity gets more likes around the same the animation goes down hill?

And I would consider the following on the writers stealing fan content; keep in mind that Rose being Pink Diamond was a widely circulated fan theory and people were very stubborn about it. It could be that the crew felt like they needed to validate them. This lead to them to an unsatisfying and out of left field twist.

And I simply don’t see the powerful character interactions people brag about. What’s the character dynamics of the Gems? Again, the blog post I posted is the gotcha moment that no can answer.

I reiterate that the blog post referenced here is one sentence, and it says, “For a show that revolves around a group of characters, SU doesn’t have very interesting group dynamics writing (when they bother having them at all).” That is this person’s “gotcha.” That is this person’s “NO ONE CAN SATISFACTORILY ANSWER THIS” criticism.

omg I’m so confused and weirded out by this.

But

THINK ABOUT IT

A CELEBRITY “GOT LIKES” AND THEN THERE WAS A SPECIFIC TIME WHEN THE ANIMATION GOES DOWNHILL

It’s obviously because Cartoon Network was bankrupted in their ANIMATION BUDGET because they had to pay Uzo Aduba

And this was “”””forced”””” to happen by FAN BACKLASH

When we whine about wanting a character back we decimate the animation budget and make it go downhill guise

AND THIS PERSON ALSO ADMITS TO BELIEVING THE SHOW WENT IN A DIFFERENT “UNSATISFYING” DIRECTION THAN THEIR ORIGINAL INTENT BECAUSE THE CREW NEEDED TO VALIDATE STUBBORN FANS. AND THEY THOUGHT THE PINK DIAMOND REVEAL WAS “OUT OF LEFT FIELD.” YIIIIIIIIKES. 

I had to stop replying here (and should have much earlier) because like

wow, how can someone have NO ABILITY TO INTERPRET THE CONTENT OF A SHOW and then still be this smug about thinking they’ve got its mediocrity nailed? While also being so confident about thinking they know fans control the structure of the storytelling? Unnggggh 

[thecloserkin]

fic rec: Are You Mine? and I Want Some More by PoetHrotsvitha

fandom: Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate

pairing: Evie Frye/Jacob Frye

word count: 54k and 50k respectively (one is a direct sequel to the other)

Is it canon: yes

Is it explicit: this is the most explicit material i have thus far reviewed on this blog

Is it endgame: yesssss

Is it shippable: yes

One thing you guys should know about me is I don’t read a great deal of smut. I don’t actively avoid it either, and I for sure consume more smut in the context of fanfic than in professional published fiction because I feel the following quote in my bones: “It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” So when I stumbled on this fic that is 80% smut stretched over the thinnest pretext of plot, based on source material I have zero familiarity with, what did I do but fall headlong for this pairing and this story. Bless you, anon who brought Fryecest to my attention, and praise the Lord for modern AUs where knowledge of canon is not mandatory.

Jacob and Evie Frye are twins born into an Assassin family and raised by their exacting taskmaster of a father to take down the Templars. There’s no Templars or Assassins in this modern AU of course, just Evie’s looming A-Levels and their absent academic of a father. Evie’s still the golden child, of course—she’ll follow in their father’s footsteps and get her Ph.D. Jacob is the problem child. He’s already fallen in with the Wrong Crowd, he’s impulsive, he drinks and gambles and mostly solves problems with his fists. His relationship with their dad is hella strained. And because this is supposed to be PWP the author wastes no time in ratcheting the sexual tension up to 11 by having Jacob pick Evie up from her posh school on his MOTORCYCLE, each of them pretending not to be so turned on they could have combusted from desire by the end of the ride. Cool cool cool.

Their relationship begins barreling in a dom/sub direction almost from the word go. Evie is one thousand percent the take-charge, Type-A personality, so the idea is that she needs to relinquish that control in the bedroom, and Jacob is the only one she trusts to dominate her. Because they’re twins and they balance each other out adfkdfkdfjdkfd. The scene in the beginning where Jacob tells her not to button up her blouse while she’s making breakfast, and she actually listens to him instead of ignoring or insulting him, holy shit that was hot. It starts so small but eventually he’s got her wearing a wireless vibrator to class and begging for her “punishment” when she takes it out without his permission because it was too distracting.

I imagine this is what the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon was about. I haven’t read 50 Shades of Grey myself, but I’ve interacted with people who rave about it and clearly got something out of those books, bad as they were. I’m not trying to compare the quality of this story to 50 Shades of Grey—it’s lightyears superior to that dreck—just that when I finished this fic I had the dazed realization that this was why people read smut.

There’s a throwaway line in Jacob’s internal monologue where he muses “they seem to be going about this backwards,” because he’s buying flowers for her the day after fingering her to a screaming orgasm, and yes I am 100% here for this trope. Ffs he sits with her in the library to keep her company while she studies! He waits for her/escorts her to her one hundred and one extracurricular activities! He’s a really immature 17-year-old and he’d never dream of doing this for anyone else, but when it comes to Evie he becomes suddenly sweet and thoughtful and solicitous. He’s constantly pausing in the middle of sex to ask for her enthusiastic & affirmative consent and reminding her to use the safe word. At the same time he’s madly jealous when anyone else shows a flicker of interest in her and he regularly makes her admit he “owns” her during their role-play. They are each other’s firsts which for some reason is really important to me in these kinds of they’re-teenagers-exploring-their-sexuality setups. This is Evie hitting up the lingerie boutique in preparation for their FIRST WEEKEND GETAWAY:

“I’m going away for the weekend with my-” Evie almost stumbled on the word, “-boyfriend.” What a strange concept.

I AM TRASH FOR THIS INCEST TROPE i love the way she stumbles over that word. Bc that’s not the box that Jacob occupies for her, is it? He’s much more than that. I love the way she alternates between begging him to put it in her cunt and calling him a prat and a shitheel; just because he’s the love of her life doesn’t make him stop being her insufferable little brother. You know what else I’m trash for? ALL the sneaking around tropes. One time while sexting with him in a storage closet at school she’s busted by one of the teachers and only barely has time to lock her phone before he confiscates it.

So the first fic ends with their dad finding the sexts and nudes on Evie’s phone, disowning them both, and Evie choosing to go to University of Edinburgh because their dad knows too many people at Oxbridge. The twins get a flat together and it’s happily ever after. Except no! In the sequel it’s ten years later and Evie and Jacob have returned to the house they grew up in to say goodbye to their dying father, and they’re ESTRANGED OH NO WHAT HAPPENED. Evie has a four-year-old in tow. We find out in fairly short order that the kid is Jacob’s, but Jacob doesn’t find out the truth until we’ve sent him through the angst wringer. The fic is about how they grieve and reconcile and how Jacob learns to parent, and this one is actually like 60% plot and I think I like it even better than the first one. This author’s note really spoke to me:

I’ve read a fair number of sibling incest modern AU fics in a few different fandoms and they all tend to end at “and then they ran away from their families and lived happily ever after/epilogue of sexy fun times possibly with the introduction of hey they've had a kid!”. And I mean I love that, don't get me wrong. But I guess I’m also weirdly preoccupied with the part about what comes after that, because it always seemed far too dreadfully simple an outcome. Normal relationships are rarely that easy, so why would these be? Then again I'm probably putting too much thought into a porn fic, LOL.

DEAR @poethrotsvitha, THIS IS A SIGNED PETITION TO PLEASE NEVER STOP OVERTHINKING THE PLOT OF YOUR PORN FICS. Like, nobody starts fucking their brother unless they really mean it, because the risk of the relationship going pear-shaped and the two of you still being stuck in each other’s orbit because there’s no “breaking up” with family? That’s a big risk. And also why incest pairings feel so high-stakes and I am trash for them, obvs. One of the reasons the dom/sub dynamic is so integral to their relationship was because Evie had a tendency to dictate to Jacob what he “can and can’t do,” and he understandably chafed against it sometimes. It’s what led to their breakup five years ago. And so him taking charge in the bedroom is a kind of counterbalance, and there’s a scene in this fic where she lets him role-play a noncon situation as a way to partly soothe his jealousy.

To a large extent it’s their son who brings about their reconciliation, but their son is also a hyperactive little git who throws a monkey wrench in their sex life, so now instead of hiding their relationship from their dad they’re tiptoeing around a four-year-old. And the big character development that happens on Jacob’s part is him recognizing that Thomas is Evie’s #1 priority now, and there comes a moment where he has to make a difficult decision to prioritize the two of them in his own life, too (by quitting his job and ending a toxic relationship). The other thing I really liked was how Jacob thinks ruefully he could have gone a another round if he were ten years younger, which he’s not, but Evie seems satisfied and that’s what matters. The recognition that he’s not a teenager anymore, and doesn’t have the stamina of one, but he’s also more mature and this time he’ll be able to give Evie what she needs? Oh, my heart. Like I said I loved them being each other’s firsts as teenagers but this, this second chance they’ve got as adults, this is beautiful.

Ok so this is Evie begging Jacob to fuck her in a closet in the middle of their dad’s funeral service??!:

“Please, I just need to forget. Just for a little bit- I need to forget, please-” Oh, God, this was a terrible idea. A terrible idea that she would die before she stopped- she felt like an addict after years of sobriety, pushed by stress and grief to needing that all-consuming high that she'd never quite been able to forget. Her fingers worked at his belt, pulling it open, unbuttoning his trousers to draw the heel of her palm along where he was already hard. “Evie,” he rasped, shuddering against her touch. “Shh,” she said, tucking his pants down enough to pull his cock free, giving it a few firm strokes. “Shh.” If they talked, it would be too real. It had to be rushed and frantic, to feel like it was just the once, to ease the ache in her chest.

And this is after they finish (“if only it could have lasted forever”):

Silently, she turned to let him zip up her dress … There was a warmth against the back of her neck as she felt him draw her hair aside and press a kiss to the sensitive skin, hesitant and uncertain.  "Thank you," she breathed into the darkness, listening to the click of his belt as it slid back into place.  He just sighed, leaning his forehead against her shoulder, saying a million things without speaking a word. 

LEANING HIS FOREHEAD FOR A MILLISECOND AGAINST HER SHOULDER OMFG I AM DECEASED

Ok so to return an earlier point: When you want a canon incest happy ending in a modern setting (as opposed to if you’re both Targaryens) the most popular option is run away and live as an unrelated couple, which necessitates cutting ties with everyone you’ve ever known. This may be more or less difficult depending on the quantity and quality of those ties; unless this is Flowers in the Attic and you’ve literally been locked in the attic for years there’s bound to be people you care about other than your sibling so this is a monumental ask. The Fryes choose option B, “living openly as siblings and keeping the incest on the dl”. This option is not without risk, of course, since exposure is always a possibility, and Evie has to put up with the other moms at Thomas’s preschool eyeing Jacob like a piece of meat. Still, it means Thomas gets to bake cookies with his grandmother, who would not have let Evie and Jacob back in her life if they flaunted the truth. I mean, it’s not that she doesn’t know her kids are fucking, it’s just that a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy allows everyone’s relationships to remain intact:

She seemed to be struggling to get the words out. “Is Thomas…” There were a few ways that this question could go, as far as Jacob could see, and he didn’t particularly want to deal with any of them. He leaned against the counter, palms rigid against the cold surface. “I’m really tired, Mother.” “I know. I just…” There was a terrible pause. “Are— are you and Evie…” Still facing the toaster, Jacob closed his eyes. He couldn’t muster a lot of fake outrage, but he planned to deny everything anyway. He didn’t care about how plausible it was. It was easier for everyone that way, especially Mother. Before he could open his mouth, though, Mother’s chair scraped back. “Actually, never mind. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Every Wednesday Evie (who’s moved back in with her mom) leaves Thomas with his grandma and goes to “book club” which is really date night at Jacob’s. And the two of them get right up to their old tricks:

When he gave her just the slightest nudge upwards with his hips, she finally let a broken whisper rasp out. “I can't- I want- please-” Jacob clicked his tongue. “You know what I want you to say.” She twisted her neck around again, and he could see that her eyes were now glassy with longing. “Huh?” “It's simple— just ‘My greedy cunt belongs to my brother’. “ “I will not."

The process of turning that initial “no” into a “yes” is scorchingly hot so there you go, I love these two, I love this fic, I have definitely seen the light and I'm ready to embrace smut.

[forestwater87]

Odd question. If you were doing a wing fic (shorthand: everyone has some kind of wings on their back; up to you if they're always out or if they can be banished and summoned at will) for Camp Camp, what kind of wings would the cast have?

Oooh I love wing fics! Hmmm, let’s see . . . 

David’s would be a little small for his age/size, and he’d probably be kind of embarrassed about that. He can still fly just fine with them -- which he’d say, defensively, if anyone pointed them out -- and they’re very fluffy, white, with little speckles of green flecked throughout.

Now I know most wing fics stick with feathered wings, but it did occur to me that some sort of insectlike wings -- all delicate-looking and iridescent like the surface of a bubble -- would also suit him very well. They’d be a bit more natural and forest-y, but would still have that element of embarrassment and shyness (he was probably called “fairy” a lot growing up, and it’d be a sore spot for him).

That being said, the idea of David having massive wings was suggested by @ciphernetics​, and I must admit that the idea of him either wrapping them around people to protect or comfort them is super cute. Also in a protective moment he could like fwoosh, out they come to shield the campers and it’d be badass. It’s not my preferred hc for him, but there are some lovely ways to play with it.

Gwen’s would be . . . serviceable. Dull, easily overlooked, probably some shade of gray or that kind of dun mousy brown that looks greyish in the right light, bigger than David’s but neither unusually large or small, not especially fluffy but not kind of molted the way some sick people’s are . . . they’re just sort of there. (She was probably nicknamed Pigeon by a lot of people, both as an affectionate term and a derogatory one. And like pigeons’ wings, there are little patches of color among her wings that are hard to see unless you’re looking for them it’s a metaphor get it? aren’t I clever ohoho)

Campbell’s are humongous. The biggest wings ever. He is a mountain of a man, with massive pure-white wings. Some people are convinced he genetically modified them somehow, and they do have this uncanny radioactive glow in the dark but don’t worry about that, it’s perfectly natural and not at all suspicious!

The fun thing about this is that they can get increasingly bedraggled as Season 3 progresses, until they’re drooping and muddy.

Quartermaster has bat wings. I don’t give a fuck if literally every other character has angel wings, QM’s are bats and that’s just the way it has to be.

I like the idea of the campers having small wings that can fit under their clothes, because they haven’t really grown in yet. I imagine maybe Nurf might be an exception, since he seems to be either older or just bigger than the other campers, but for the most part those kiddos look just like their normal selves. That being said, a few ideas of what they might look like grown up:

Max -- black, maybe a little big for his age, like a crow or raven’s wings. When he gets annoyed they puff up and slip out of his hoodie, and it’s a pain to put them back in which annoys him even more and gets them more puffy and hard to stuff back . . . it’s a constant struggle. Pity the poor kid.

Neil -- I’m torn between going with his hair color and giving him some hawklike brown-and-white wings, which I think would look nice with his coloring, and just going hog-wild and giving him wings like a bluebird because of his eyes. I think the latter would be too showy and embarrass him, but there’s something kinda cute about that too. His wings would be like his dad: impossible to ignore and much louder and more obnoxious (in his POV) than they need to be.

Nikki -- big and flecked with golden-orange. Of all the characters I think hers would have the most modifications, because as a kid/young adult she wasn’t careful with them and got them all torn up -- maybe to the point where she can’t even fly with them. But she has Neil and he’s a smart cookie, so I like to think of her wings having a vaguely-steampunk element of mechanisms and patches keeping them together.

Harrison -- white or a very light gray, like a dove’s. He paints the tips gold when he’s older as part of his illusionist costume.

Nerris -- I’m just thinking pure eastern bluebird, orange at the base and then exploding into brilliant blue. I think she’d love how flashy they are.

Ered -- Somehow I want her to have dragon wings. I have no idea why, or how, but I think it’d be extremely cool, and Ered is nothing if not cool. Especially if they’re really rare, almost unheard of, and she’s put a lot of work into transforming herself from the tomboyish freak with the demon wings and gay dads into something to be envious of. Besides, it’s easier to do sick stunts without having to worry about your feathers getting caught on stuff.

Nurf -- All right, I wanna get emo for a moment and say that his wings have been hacked either partly or entirely off by the time he’s an adult. We know he’s been abused in canon, and I think that people like that would go for the easiest target to hurt you, and that target is probably the delicate feathered things sticking out of your back. Bonus points if they’re somehow kind of girly, which coincides with his more sensitive nature and how he initially wanted to do ballet as a kid (especially since I don’t think that was well-received by his family). So, like . . . what remains are very fluffy and sweet-looking, maybe pink or pale yellow and orange or something, but they’re either little stubs he covers up all the time or they’ve got big chunks missing out of them but who’s gonna point that out to the huge guy with a pissed-off expression?

Preston -- Rainbow, like the most extravagant bird of paradise. Does he paint them himself, or are they as natural as he claims? 

Dolph -- Probably something very average and serviceable, in the brown/gray/white family, but they’re always speckled with paint because he’s not very careful with them and especially the long feathers at the bottom trail along the ground while he’s painting, or get stuck to his art if he turns around too suddenly.

Space Kid -- I’m thinking of a duck, for some reason. Partly because they’re aquatic and I just connect the ocean and space for some reason, partly because they’re very ordinary and that’s kind of how SK rolls, and partly because ducks can just flap for insane distances without getting tired (thank you Animorphs!). Space Kid is like that, I think -- very diligent, keeps his head down and gets things done, not very bright but he works so hard it makes up for a lot, and that’s why he’s going to be an astronaut someday. Mallards have those pretty green feathers, too, and I think those would look nice with Space Kid’s eyes.

Jasper -- Peacock. Obviously. He is the most garishly-dressed person in the show and his wings would match. Not that you’ll ever know, because he never gets to grow up and have real wings :( 

So those are the mains! As for some of the less-important characters, I don’t really have too many interesting ideas, but a few throwaway ones:

The Flower Scouts all have pink wings, either feathers or bug/fairy ones. I think maybe Tabii has a chunk missing from one of hers, from a fight or something, and the other girls made a patch so no one can tell and she can fly properly. Erin’s might be just slightly different colors -- one with an orangey tint, one with a blue.

A fun thing about bug wings is they could buzz when the girls are angry. So Sasha’s are basically always going, poor thing.

The Woodscouts probably have their wings bound, clipped, and constantly ready for combat flying. I’m thinking, like, the military-haircut version of wings.

Daniel’s . . . I mean, I don’t care about Daniel because he’s trash, but I do love the idea that they’re not naturally white and he dyes them. It’s my favorite Daniel hc and I need it to appear in every AU.

So that about covers it!

EXCEPT

Then I was talking with Ciphernetics about wing AUs, and I mentioned that in some wing fics (namely the awesome one by setepenre-set, though there are probably others) the wings’ size are based on how loved someone is. Which led to the below cuteness. Warning: shameless Gwenvid and Makkiel ahead, along with me insisting that Cameron Campbell isn’t the worst person in the entire world because I’m love him

Ciphernetics: Max’s wings growing during camp!Max voice: who the FUCK is loving me I specifically requested the opposite of thisDavid: You can even fit them in your hoodie anymore awwwwMax, struggling to pull it on over his wings: the hell I can't

Forestwater:(what if they come in the color of the person who loves you's hair)(so at first it's just this line of red that he knows is fucking David, goddamnit and then all of a sudden start sprouting these mint green and brown ones and my ship takes off)

Ciphernetics: Max, disgusted, throwing an auburn feather at David: get LOSTMax, looking over his shoulder in the mirror at the brown ones gathering at the tips and the mint ones scattered chaotically throughout: huh

Forestwater:Oh no what about when Nikki and Neil's start getting flecked with black, small and easily tugged out like they're ashamed of being there

Ciphernetics: The small really curly little feathery down that like to hide under other feathers(Gwen's had auburn in her wings since almost the first summer but lately it's started to overpower the rest of the colours. Not completely, it's just... Noticeable how much of it is the same colour now.)(She knew David loved people quickly and easily, it's just suddenly a lot more)(or she just wasn't paying attention)

Forestwater:What on earth would David's reaction be to suddenly finding some of Gwen's?I like the idea of her feathers being two-toned

Ciphernetics: I'd love if he's had a very small, slowly growing patch since they met (just a handful more each summer) but some event happens and suddenly there's a lotOh absolutely two tonedHey how about some angst;David's been waiting his whole life for Campbell's hair colourToday at 9:32 AMHe'd never say it but Campbell makes so many throwaway jokes about David being the son he never wanted but it rings a little hollow when there's not when one little brown/grey feather

Forestwater:until the end of season 3 when there's like . . . twoLISTEN I NEED MY TRASH GRANDPA

So that’s just a little bit of extra silliness for added angst/romance/fluff.

Hope this answer isn’t too long, but I was having fun.

[ninemoons42-lestallumhaven]

(this is kind of sad, because the idea was a little sad to begin with. thanks to @milodrums​ for spurring me to write sad WOR Promnis, by sending me a link to this. thanks also to @makikoigami​ for hosting the writing sprint in which I drafted this.)

Quick Fic Pick 70: silver and ash

For once it’s a sound that forces him to swim up and out from the murky depths of sleep and the tangling cords of his nightmares, the low-level dread and the low-level wariness that he still can’t seem to shake off and that he’s almost accepted as the part of him that’s grown in the absence of the sun, in the absence of the stars, in the cold wash of the moon, and he opens his eyes and places his free hand over his heart. Presses the palm in over the weary too-tripping beat, the spiking pulse in his veins, and he feels that same pulse jump again in alarm when the bulb in the rust-eaten lamp next to his side of the bed sputters and throws the room into jittering shadows for only a moment.

The light that returns is a wan mockery of warm inviting gold, and he won’t ask for anything newer or better, because others need that better light, that brighter light. He can manage the semi-lit conditions of this falling-apart-at-the-seams camper for now. He can manage the spiderwebbing rays, the dust in the corners.

Soft complaining sound next to him: and Prompto reacts with all of his instincts. Hauls that wiry scarred form close. The circles he presses into the exposed skin of Ignis’s shoulder waver, and aren’t entirely perfectly shaped, and it’s still a surprise when that warmth seems to be enough, when the quiet broken notes falling from his lips seem to be enough. Some throwaway one-hit wonder that had been all the rage all those years ago, and why does he remember the tune and the words, why is there some part of his mind that won’t let the stale bubblegum-pop go? No one sings about hearts and stars and flowers any more.

Ugh, dark thoughts, he thinks, and he has to make an effort to push those away: so he presses his nose into the back of Ignis’s neck, and he draws in a deep heave of a breath. The strangely fragrant waft of -- old soil under harsh floodlights. The patient coaxing of hands stirring through small half-cracked pots, sowing little seeds, guiding the struggling plantlets. Maybe in a week or in a month or in a year Ignis will succeed, and he’ll at least be at home in the varying sharp savory wafts of green herbs, of plants that can be used to heal.

Maybe, Prompto thinks, and he clutches Ignis closer and try as he might, he can’t make himself go back to sleep just yet, and he doesn’t even know what that sound that had woken him up had been, and he opens his eyes and gets an elbow braced underneath the rest of him so he can lean up and over and -- well, at least he’s gotten over himself and learned to watch Ignis, watch over him, and make sure he gets the rest he needs.

Ignis is -- still bandaged all over, but at least he’s no longer completely helpless, not that he ever actually was in any sense of that word. Just -- hobbled, perhaps. Held back by darkness.

But Prompto remembers watching him earlier, the bright whistling arc of a staff in his hands, and the swift martial song of his movements as he played out the entire length of that weapon and used every last inch to his own advantage, and there’d been no need to worry about blindness, about accidents, now that he could move with lethal and precisely focused intent once again.

Intent like what Prompto knows lives keen and bristling in his own skin and nerves, wired straight to the guns he wears like neatly grounding weights at his hips, when he’s out hunting.

Intent, that he thinks he feels still crackling in Ignis’s own sleeping form, the hunch of him in his bones and his muscles, like lines wearing in deeper and deeper and the changes in their own bodies, constantly deprived of warmth and of sunlight --

And it’s a surprise, and it isn’t, when his eyes catch on the light-colored strands of Ignis, the wisps of untamed hair just at his ears: light enough and pale enough to be nearly bleached.

Oh.

Ignis is going gray, and it’s almost a wonder that it hasn’t happened sooner.

Sooner, what with the stress of three and four lifetimes crammed into something so much shorter. The stress, the rage, the bitter mourning tears, the sheer jagged pain. The bruises still yellowing on too-pale skin, a shocking contrast to stark purple-brown of scars born from magic and from fire.

Prompto has to bite hard at the inside of his cheek so he doesn’t burst into tears, so he doesn’t wake Ignis, so he doesn’t give in to the thorns and the weights around his heart. The hollowing howling agony that refuses to dull, that’s anchored firmly into the hollow spaces between his ribs.

And still that flaring bright pain doesn’t let him stay silent: so he presses his mouth to Ignis’s temple instead, and mutters small apologies as soon as he feels the tears come streaking and splashing down, damp and gathering in the short strands of hair, the vivid burn-lines.

“Prompto,” and the single word is clogged with all the world, all the emotions that he can now feel, jagging in Ignis’s heartbeat that he feels out with his other hand.

“Sorry sorry sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Not for that.”

And it’s his turn to be turned around, to be held: the entire breadth of Ignis pressed against his back, the bellows of him expanding and contracting in forceful breaths.

Prompto sobs, only a little, only enough to be heard and hushed and pulled closer, and he clutches desperately at the hand over his heart, until he can force himself to let go of his tears.

“Will you tell me?”

It’s a small thing, it’s such a stupid detail, and yet he says it out loud, because he can’t not say it. Because Ignis is asking him to say it out loud, and he gave up hiding secrets from Ignis -- from any of the others -- a long time ago.

So he says, small and clear and still fearful anyway, “You’re going gray.”

Still, silent, broken only by a startled breath.

And: “Am I?”

Prompto grabs that hand of Ignis’s in both of his own. “Yeah.”

Shaky laugh, unexpected, the exact opposite of the words that follow. “I thought I’d already gotten started on that.”

“This’s new. I think.”

“I believe you, Prompto. I just don’t believe -- myself.”

There’re too many layers in those words, and the layers make Prompto ache and make him wince, and he turns around and he covers Ignis’s temples with the palms of his hands, so he can pull him down, so he can kiss him.

Soft whispers against his lips, against his teeth. Ignis’s head falling back, opening up, baring himself, and Prompto redoubles his efforts and lets Ignis tug him closer, lets Ignis sift careful calloused fingers into his hair.

“And you,” he hears Ignis ask, gasping for breath, clothes pushed partly away, flat on his back.

Prompto shifts on him where he’s straddling those narrow hips, those muscle-corded thighs, and shakes his head. “I -- probably. Scratch that. They’ve gotta be there. I just can’t find them.”

“Then we can match.”

He laughs, a little, and he hears the edge in the sound and knows it for what it is, and he can say, “Yeah. Yeah we can.”

[wingskribes-blog]

Black Panther (17/20): There is SO Much To Talk About Here...

Oh boy, there’s a lot to say about Black Panther. We’ll begin spoiler-free of course, but we might have to stray a bit. I’ll let you know before we drift into dangerous territory. Seriously though, we have a lot to get through. So let’s figure this out.

(Actually, before we get into it, I just want to note something that struck me. There’s a lot of hype surrounding this film. Much of it is because it’s a pretty damn good movie. But a significant amount is due to the fact that it’s a black super hero movie with a mostly black cast, written and directed by a black filmmaker. And yes, I agree, not only is this awesome, but these levels of excitement are exactly the correct response. What struck me however, (and what impressed the absolute hell out of me) is, though representation and race are vital elements in the meta-narrative of the film’s release, they actually play extremely small roles in the in the story itself. No, the MCU’s first black super hero movie isn’t about racism. It’s about toxic nationalism. About tribalistic selfism. Not unrelated, I know, but as a theme it allows for a more nuanced, more interesting moral discussion. And it’s at least as topical as race. There is no doubt in my mind that Black Panther was written partially in response to the modern political landscape. I love the front it chose to fight on. It didn’t just go for the low-hanging fruit, and that’s rare.)

 (Okay, back to the review.)

 Black Panther easily stands out as one of the best films in the MCU franchise. Partly, this is due to the fact that it sets aside a lot of the baggage and detritus that’s built up over the many, many … many installments. Partly (of course), because it’s the well-conceived, well-executed passion project of a group of very talented people. Partly (and I may be alone in thinking that this is the smallest part of it, but even so it’s fairly significant), it’s because the film offers a fresh aesthetic that we (or at the very least, I) have never really seen in this kind of movie before.

  DEFINITELY A MARVEL MOVIE

To begin, while in many ways it offers refreshing film-going experience, I wouldn’t dream of saying Black Panther is a game-changer for the MCU. Here’s why:

- The cinematography is very much in line with the rest of the franchise. We’re given dozens of hero-shots, rotating cameras, and sweeping arcs over grand structures and landscapes. Colours are bright; costumes are busy and elaborate. Action is smooth, fluid and easy to follow. All of this is what we usually expect to actually see in a MCU film.

- So too does Black Panther’s tone match other in-franchise films. Action-heavy, quippy (we’re going come back to ‘quippy’ later), never too dark, never to serious, with character tragedy that exists for the sake of plot rather than emotion (using pain to motivate characters to act, rather than to draw any strong feeling from the audience).

- Additionally, the tropes surrounding character motivations are vary-much in line with what we have seen before: Proving yourself worthy. Daddy issues. Old enemies returned. Secret histories discovered. Etc.

Now to be clear, I’m not saying any of these things are bad. Or that they automatically make for a good movie. Not at all. Hero shots are awesome. Marvel has carefully cultivated an extremely watchable balance in the tone of their films. And the motivations I mentioned are used so often because they are both relatable to the audience and chocked full of drama. But these are merely the composite parts with which the MCU likes to construct its films. Black Panther is no different in this regard. It is, however, a variation in the construction.

  DIFFERENT THAN OTHER MARVEL MOVIES

This can be seen in a distinct lack of incestuous MCU Mythology. There are no major heroes or villains from other movies here. No carried over plot-lines or setting up future, bigger plots. But then, that’s hardly unique in 3rd Generation MCU, Hero-Introduction Films. (Though I would argue Black Panther is 4th Gen.) While Spiderman is balls-deep in mythology, both Ant-Man and Doctor Strange stand fairly isolated. But common to all three is the creation of a pre-packaged hero ready to ‘be the person they were meant to be’. Ready to join the fight. To become a piece of the larger mythology. Such intentions are unmistakable in these films, a character-shaping trope not present in Black Panther. Black Panther stands on its own four paws. It barely hints that it might be a part of a larger universe, a reality it almost seems to want to hide. This self-containment comes out in levels of creative freedom rarely found in present-day Marvel films.

 I mentioned above how quippy dialogue gives the film a measure of MCU-ness. This however, was only a partial truth. I mean, it does, but less than we’ve come to expect. The watchable tone I mentioned above has caused MCU films to drift together. With a few exceptions, every character sounds the same. Most the major heroes are all arrogant smartasses. Everyone’s quippy. All the time. And as the franchise has advanced, this glibness has become more central to character and dialogue. To the point where character and honesty to the moment is regularly sacrificed for the sake of a cheap laugh (what I like to call, ‘crank calling the Hux’. At its best we get a legitimately fun and funny moments like the banter between Thor and Hulk/Banner in Thor: Ragnarok. But more often than not we get Doctor Strange’s cape acting like a Disney animal sidekick. Black Panther’s quippiness on the other hand doesn’t feel like painted-on humour. Jokes suit the characters telling them. Also, rarely are they told in a vacuum. Most often they fall into beats that actually advance the plot. They’re fewer and further between so the film feels less jokey. But ‘jokey’ is a crutch and this film doesn’t need.

 But more than anything, Black Panther benefits from its MCU divergence in the formulaic plot structure / character type formula it avoids. We see it again and again and again and again in these movies, and when people say, I’m sick of these Marvel movies, there’s little doubt in my mind, this is why. Black Panther breaks away from this structure. It offers narrative scape I’m not actually sure I’ve ever seen before. It’s as fluid as the most formulaic MCU film but with the energy and excitement of one willing to break away and follow its own unique path.

 So let’s stop comparing it to other films and talk about Black Panther by itself.

  THE GOOD

I walked out of Black Panther with no real gripes about the film. I mean, I thought of one or two small ones later, but in the moment, none. Loyal readers will know just how rare an occurrence this is for me. I ALWAYS have something to complain about. Because so much of the film was done right.

 The Characters: This film is its characters. There are more interesting, distinct, watchable characters than I really knew what to do with. Six characters that could easily have carried their own movie—including T’Challa (the Black Panther) himself, of course. They’re interactions were strong and felt extremely honest, giving life and substance to the film.

The Visuals: I mentioned above, both that the film closely follows Marvel visual tropes and offers a fresh and appealing aesthetic. This aesthetic is a beautifully crafted vision of what we might see in terms of art, architecture, design, fashion and just … in the appearance of society if an technologically advanced African civilization came into existence without any outside influences. It is gorgeously imagined and fashioned and it permeates the film, adding a level of beauty from which it’s hard to look away. Not than a layer of paint really, but much more mural than roll-on.

The Action: Again, Black Panther’s action can best be expressed in a comparison to other MCU films. (Sorry, but that’s just how it is.) Something about its many fights chases and battle sequences feels cleaner than most the action in Marvel films. It took me a while to figure out why. But it’s this: virtually all the action onscreen moves the narrative forward. Each beat of each fight is a turn in the story. This is to say there is very, very few shots of people doing cool fight moves just for the sake of showing cool fight choreography. As a result, the action sequences all have very well controlled pacing and never slow down the film’s narrative.

The Structure: Okay, here’s one of the things that I found really interesting (and unfortunately this is where things are going to get spoiler-y. So if you haven’t seen it yet, and you don’t want it spoiled for you, I’m afraid this is where we must say ‘goodbye’. Thank you for making it this far though my oh-so-long, and ever-so-dry review of the film! I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!).

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 Okay, here’s the thing about the film, and it could very well be considered a flaw, even a plot hole, but I don’t actually see it like that. Anyway, I certainly found it interesting. So you know how Killmonger shoots Klaue and dumps his body to the border to gain access to the city and make his challenge? Well, why didn’t he just do this to begin with? The whole second act of the film has little to nothing to do with the rest. It could be cut away altogether and nothing would change.

Or would it…

Let’s look at Act One:

1)      T’Chaka confronts his brother

2)      T’Challa pulls Nakia from her mission

3)      Klau and Killmonger steal the axe

4)      The Challenge and ascension ceremony

5)      T’Chall goes to the Plane of Ancestors and returns to the throne as king.

An apt title for this part of the story would be T’Challa takes his place as king. Act One. But after this—immediately after this—we get two little throwaway scenes that absolutely define the rest of the film. First, T’Challa and Nakia walking the streets and Nakia urging him to open the border and offer help to the rest of the world. He resists. The next scene is T’Challa and W’Kabi, the leader of his War Dogs. Here we get W’Kabi urging him to open the borders and enforce justice on the rest of the world. And yes! THIS! These two scenes encompass the entire conflict of the film—just moments before they get distracted with chasing Klaue. And of course, these are what come through in spades when Killmonger makes his challenge.

You see? All through this unnecessary second act, we have a shadow act in the background, hidden in plane view. It is there. Right up until the second challenge fight, it’s the film’s actual second act. The Klaue scenes are more or less an short film overlaid over top of it.

So why Klaue at all then? Well it gives T’Challa a chance to see Killmonger’s father’s ring so he can learn the truth about what happened. But that’s just exposition. They could have done that any number of ways, including showing the same explained flashback after Killmonger enters Wakanda. No, that whole thirty or forty minutes is there because if he just showed up at the border with a body and demanded to challenge T’Challa, we the audience wouldn’t have given two shits. It’s expository alright; it’s not informational exposition though. It’s dramatic exposition. Those thirty or forty minutes where they’re chasing Klaue, attach dramatic significance to him. And the rather intense scene where Killmonger (who at that point has done very little in the film) shoots him, transposes that significance onto him. So when we learn Killmonger’s heritage, when he appears to make his challenge, none of it feels out of nowhere. It feels like he’s the rightful villain of the film. It’s great.

Now, of course, there are other ways this might have been accomplished. I can think of one or two. I think most of these however would likely have veered dangerously close to the formulaic MCU plot structures I mentioned above. This does not. I’m not saying it’s an intrinsically good structure. But it’s interesting. And, in this context at least, it’s new. And best of all, it’s elegantly executed.

  GRIPES

As I mentioned, I left the film with noting to complain about. Of course, I have since been able to find some things. But these are very minor.

First, when Killmonger throws T’Challa off the waterfall and his not-quite-dead royal body shows up in exactly the place his loved ones flee to. That’s some pretty damn strong plot armour. Ultimately, I found this fairly forgivable. Of course we knew he was going to turn up. And the act of ‘killing him’ led to some pretty strong moments in the story. Like when Nakita assumes Okoye will flee with her and Okoye is shocked at the idea. That was a beautiful scene.

Also when the M’Baku tribe shows up like the riders of Rohan, just when things in the battle are starting to look grim. That was both clichéd and overly projected.

Also, some tiny gripe about when they choose to speak English and when they don’t, pulling me out of the movie. But this review is already way too long. This didn’t actually bother me at all, I just kind of noticed it because I was looking for it. So fuck it.