#the characters are really likeable

[borgialucrezia]

"I play a tortured character who asks questions of pride, ego, and responsibility, and is always found wanting. Poor Juan Borgia. He failed despite trying so hard. I guess sometimes we get dealt a hand we can’t win, however hard we might train, change the rules, or cheat." — DAVID OAKES

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

This is going to sound SO prissy and pretentious but genuinely it is so much more rewarding to be interested in characters with a little distance sometimes like yes you can love them as people but the ability to see them as cogs within a narrative driving forward a point is so powerful to utilise sometimes, partly because it means you can engage with narratives presented to you more thoroughly but mostly because it makes you feel like you've been injected with adrenaline or perhaps taken one (1) drug

[ysaefinn]

on the topic of knight suguru, I imagine that if you do have to get married, he'd be sneaking in your room the nights before the wedding and just gently watching you sleep, he gifts you a necklace to wear everyday, he's taking you to the medows to be alone together etc. he's soaking up as much time together, he's a little (a lot) bitter and sappy about it on the inside

(on the flip side, once he's adjusted to it all, he definitely tries to wedge himself in the marriage in all the subtle ways he can, and make sure that your knight is more important than your betrothed lol)

Anon, I'm gonna yap so hard i hope you don't mind.

I do think about this a lot actually, about how you'll eventually have to take a noble spouse buuuutt it won't be as bad as you think.

Suguru can't keep eliminating all of your suitors because he will at some point get caught, and in that case not even you can save him since he'd be at the mercy of the king.

The thing is, this does tie a lot to the characterization of reader, if you've noticed from My Sword Insures Your Crown (the yan knight!suguru fic) reader isn't exactly normal lmao, they're pretty nonchalant about the whole murder thing, what threw them off was seeing their typically calm and composed knight in that state. But they are very much aware of the guard dog/owner dynamic they have, despite that they're very much in love lol.

I never got to chance to fully showcase this so I'm gonna tell you this rn, royal!reader is a pretty controversial figure in medieval royalty standards, they're not gonna sit still and look pretty and nod at everything the king says like an obedient little princess, royal reader really really REALLY hates their father (for reasons I'll get into some other time) they're not straight up bratty either, very calm, composed and would much rather play the long game, with that being said, royal!reader isn't going to be obsessed with their image, so trust and BELIEVE their affair with Suguru is going to be an open secret. So what if their spouse finds out? They never had a romance to begin with so what exactly did they expect?

Suguru's perspective tho is different, his love for you isn't just tied to the crown, he does adore seeing you stand tall and shine bright but he will never join your admirers in reducing you to "the next in line for the crown" (by this I don't mean greed, I mean the image and appeal of a prince/princess) he loves you wholeheartedly, in any universe in any reality Suguru will love you, your raw unfiltered self, he got the chance to meet who truly wears the crown and it's all that clouds his mind. Of course, he treats you with the same respect as all your other servants, of course he takes his duty in protecting you very seriously, of course there's a power dynamic , but when it's just the two of you, it's truly just the two of you. All of this is to say that suguru's dream is to take you far far away and marry you, that way he can protect AND provide for you. He already considers himself to be your real husband because he called him that on multiple occasions, he knows only he holds your heart,

Suguru is not going to let you go anytime soon, he knows you'll protect him from your spouse so he won't shy away from subtly rubbing it in their face either lmao

[ellemest]

jeff as the guy that started shauna's descents

in the teen timeline: jeff as the conflict point (via cheating/pregnancy) between jackie and shuana -> fight between shauna and jackie -> jackie's death (i am purposely ignoring their nuanced dynamic rn)

and also shauna and jeff's baby dying -> the switch in shauna's kickstarting her sprialing

in the adult timeline: blackmailing her and the other yjs -> almost all the adult timeline events -> like killing adam and feeding melissa her arm to name a few

[bonetrousledbones]

so far the craziest thing about deltarune to me is the fact that when i play undertale i always consistently love all of the characters right, like i know every line but they never get old and i like befriending them so much that i haven't done anything other than true pacifist in nearly ten years

and then i play deltarune and interact with those same characters twice maximum before i start gettin fed up

[namusass]

literally every single time hyunju was on screen i was screaming "shes so HOT AND SEXYYYYYYYY" the entire time. because she's hot and sexy i love her so much i know shes prob gonna die and i wil be devastated but for now im gonna be Very Emotionally Attached to her

[bartletslesbians]

I'm rewatching West Wing and Amy Gardner was just introduced.

I am trying very hard to like her but it's really not working. Please give me propaganda, she seems like a cool character in theory.

Ohhhh hell yes! I absolutely love this question (and I'm so flattered you asked me? You know I love talking about any of the women on this show but especially the disliked ones lmao)

Okay. Now I wanna say that I completely understand why she rubs people the wrong way. One thing I'd like to start with is that, in order for the show's portrayal of feminist issues to work, she has to be Like That, and that's really shameful to see? In the same episode where she's introduced, CJ is arguing about Qumari women's rights, and in order to not to have to dig too deep into the actual things she's saying, she is written to be so stupidly over the top and emotional and unprofessional for most of the episode, that even if you start out agreeing with her, she loses you because of the way she's acting. Similarly, the temp calling out Sam's comment in Night Five, written to sound as dramatic as can be, so her actual point doesn't need to be taken seriously.

Amy Gardner is the embodiment of that type of writing. Her whole character seems to embody the "angry feminist" who might have a good point or two, but you just can't take her too seriously because "she's always irate about something".

That framing means that if you just never vibe with her? Can't blame you. It's a major (and I don't think accidental) flaw in how she's written. It also means that my main suggestion is to try and look past that, in a way? See it for a writerly Thing, and not the character's own fault? I'm not sure how much sense that makes put into words.

But okay. Things I love about Amy Gardner!

One of the things I really adore about her, honestly, IS that she ruffles a lot of feathers with the way she acts and the things she argues. She knows what she believes, and she's not a part of the administration, she's working for several feminist lobbying organisations and such. This means it's not her responsibility to be nice to republicans or balance any budgets or make sure centris democrats don't get too offended; her responsibility is to make the white house listen to feminist concerns (and point out the myriad of ways in which they fail to). And she is not afraid, in any way, to be seen as too much, too unlikeable, too demanding, too ANYTHING, in her pursuit of real feminist policies. Which, even today, women are punished for being too loud, too mean, too aggressive, too anything, so quickly; I love that she does not give a damn. I love that unapologetic energy around her.

And I like that she does a lot of different things in that vein! We see her pursue that agenda working for Abbey, we see her run the Women's Leadership Coalition, we hear that she was a director at EMILY'S list, we see her work with that temporary democratic presidential candidate (and explicitly tell Josh that she pokes the President BECAUSE she loves him and believes in him, she just doesn't want to see him drift to the center too much), we see Santos call Amy for debate prep because he knows she's helped dozens of Congresswomen with their debates and campaigns. She has her loud opinions, but she's also spent a career putting her money and time and experience right where her mouth is. And I love that drive.

Another piece of propoganda is to ignore her relationship with Josh if you have to. I think they're a fun temporary thing, personally, there's chemistry and matching levels of insanity. But, especially from a josh/donna perspective, and the fact that it very obviously would not work longterm, I get that that's hard to enjoy! Amy's character suffers from being almost entirely written around being Josh's love interest (similar to how Andy suffers from not existing in the story outside of Toby's plots). Like, one of Amy's most loveable moments by far, in my opinion, is when she's having drinks with Abbey, CJ, and Donna, and Josh is not really talked about. Or when she's coaching Santos, and they don't have to talk about Josh. Bless Josh Lyman, but it helps to think about Amy as a person outside of him, immensely. (Imagine an Amy Gardner but she's single and a good friend of CJ or Abbey or Donna? Or still with Josh, but given more moments developing her character outside of him?)

And then, personally, I just love the chaos. Just like how I enjoy seeing Toby at his desk burning papers he's writing on, and the ridiculous lengths Charlie goes to pranking CJ, I love when these characters are a little over the top. Amy has more of those moments than anyone else, and some ARE bothersome, that's fair! (Which, imo, does come back to "she has to be a little insane, lest we take her policies too seriously", but alas). The dead fish? Overdoing it. But personally the phone in the stew? Like yeah, RUDE, but also it's immediately followed by her cutting her OWN phone cord, and it's followed by Josh getting her fired, so I love it as an example of how over the top both of them are willing to go to do their job. (Which is why they like each other, and why it'll never work). I think part of really enjoying her character is taking those moments for the dramatics they are and enjoying that. Where I think part of it, not to get back to Josh but, Josh clearly does not seem to mind outside of being frustrated over the issue itself. The phone and the job aren't the end for them, we still have a season and a half of their chaos to go, so I don't want to take it as more of an offense than Josh himself does? They're two impulsive and competitive people playing the game, and that's fun to watch as long as they're both vibing with it.

Some small moments I love with her: the fact that she plays nintendo, her practicing balloon animals for her nephew, giving Santos the advice of always keeping extra pantyhose in your bag, being SO direct about "are you dating your assistant?" and "are you in love with Josh?", resigning as COS of the First Lady because she knows when she's not in the right place and she's not one to pretend, the whole ice cream eating thing is cute as fuck, the way she's playing with Abbey's dress when they're drinking, the way she eats the shrimp during Process Stories, the fact that she runs a huge betting pool on election night. She is SUCH a chaotic character in this sense. I love watching her.

But in general, I think it really comes down to that she's confident and sexy and so loud about her opinions, designed to rub you the wrong way while having so much to say and putting in so much work for real important causes. She's a little out of her mind, she's ready to fight at a moment's notice, she's not trying to get anybody to like her. She exists so incredibly unapologetically, and I think that is my personal favourite thing about her. There is no attempt at making herself more palatable, and that will naturally lead to big chunks of the characters and the fandom disliking her, but I genuinely think it's fun and refreshing to see. She doesn’t give a damn, while caring a Lot about the issues that actually matter. It's admirable.

[liriostigre]

💌

[expelliarmus-percabeth]

this is not that hot of a take and has been said before but the hottification of the TSH characters is directly antithetical to the message of the book. there are characters who have been stated to be canonically not conventionally attractive (henry, francis, bunny in richard's opinion). I've seen some people claim that they facecast these characters (particularly henry) as hot because it directly affects how they feel about the character and how redeemable they seem to be, which is like, that is EXACTLY richard's flaw throughout the whole book lmao. im not like trying to control how people consume media or anything and if you want to view TSH as a guilty pleasure sexy dark academia novel with sexy characters committing crimes in a dark mysterious and cool way that's totally your choice but you should at least be aware that that romanticisation is exactly what donna tartt set out to criticise when she wrote TSH

[randomnameless]

:)

Why JP!Cyril's reaction at Hilda "violent Almyrans" or just, lolcalised "fierce Almyrans" was nuked?

He tried to bring nuance to Hilda's assessment, maybe as a throw back to their support convo where she realises Cyril is "one of the good ones"?.

Imagine if, in her native route, we later learn that this axe was someone who was slaughtered and who is still in semi-sentient state?

That'd make the comment about that someone's remains not being "cute" kind of assholish, right? I wonder if this is why Pat erased the "cute" mention, maybe to preserve and salvage Hilda's character and likeability for the fandom? Just like Cyril casual "it's not they're almyrans that they're all violent" reminder?

[curious-shadow-cat]

.....

I think it's obvious Stolas is the abuser and he's r*ped Blitz. Why are we still on this? Just because Stolas cries about him not wanting him doesn't mean shit and Blitz doesn't owe him anything.

Stolas isn't stupid, he's done this with other imps clearly when he's argued with Stella after he cheated on her. Can we even say he cheated when they were clearly never in love? I feel like everything Stella's said and done is a cry for help to get out of their marriage, like "Not divorced party" really?? But somebody turned it around because they needed to make Stolas out to be a misunderstood gay man in an abusive relationship....when he himself is being abusive towards his victim that he calls 'boyfriend'. He's acting like Stella and being a selfish spoiled ass hat to Blitz. Except instead of being angry he's just crying constantly and whining.

Stolas is a piece of shit that should've been killed off by Striker and Blitz.

I feel more bad for Stella than Stolas at this point since she was the one who was forced to marry him against her will and carried his kid when she never wanted her. I can understand why she would want nothing to do with her kid since she looks like the guy that she hates. She did originally have Stella's hair but they changed it. Yeah it sucks for Via and both her parents don't want her until BOTH of them needed money. Stolas didn't give a shit until he lost his money and power and it doesn't help when he once sang to her a lullaby that she'll be fine without him around when he was rich and powerful. If him being nearly killed by his wife wasn't enough to make him scared for Via's safety and more upset that Blitz didn't text him back more is clear that he doesn't care about her.

[amelikos]

Friede being that bridge between generations and the beloved student of Liko and Amethio's parents, to the point Liko's mother entrusts her daughter's safety to him and that Amethio's father acknowledged his work and kept his ID card long after Friede left Exceed and trusts him enough to let him know he always has a place with him..

Something something, once a student, now the mentor guiding their kids.

[echoishere69]

I started watching Transformers Earthspark. Immediately got attached to Robby, Twitch, Mo and Thrash. Then to add to it you gave me a non binary, CANON, non binary transformer (Nightshade my beloved) and gave the four already great siblings more siblings??? This is amazing. Not to mention, Bee is so silly in this series. I love him.

My only gripe? No Thundercracker 😔

As soon as they announced seekers showed up, I got really excited especially when they said it was Skywarp (btw I’m all for woman Skywarp) but then I find my boy is replaced. Save me. Save me from the horror. My boy ☹️

[beedreamscape]

I hope Suvi does get over the Citadel's influence but I hope that by the end of it, she's still an ass because why can't a woman be a little unlikeable ffs

[waltzing-rats]

It seems that merging completely unrelated hyperifxations of mine has become the jist of my art so BEHOLD ‼️‼️ HTTYD GYOMEI

@trippygalaxy

[zoieru]

selfshipping on any level with kaiser is funny because it's like I can see you all at a function at lil play dates with your bllk men like they're dogs meeting their friends and I can't bring mine because he's too misbehaving -

I'm just watching like this 🧍‍♂️🐩