#the idea that these characters were never inherently bad and that they can always choose to be better

[jesse-pinko]

Me when a character is relentlessly looked down on and ridiculed and dismissed by everyone around them including the people they love so they start to believe in and actively play into people’s negative perceptions of them but at the end of the day they still make the choice to be better and do better bc they always had the capacity for good and so much love to give they just had nowhere to put it

[lhuxlux]

Meeting the right people in the wrong time, unfortunately. It happens a lot, that's just how life is. They were happy together as a couple, but they had flaws and they couldn't learn from them and grow as people. Things could have been better, according to Betty. But there are no regrets.

I think it was a beautiful moment because it's true things can always be better once you realize your mistakes and have a happier outcome for the two of them, but that doesn't mean they were miserable. That's just how we learn things. And they learned they had different points of view and their own flaws, which made the relationship not as equal as they thought.

In Adventure Time, we see Betty finally realizing her own mistake, all the things she has done for Simon, she had to neglect her own needs. No one forced her to do that, it was her own decision. Simon was repeating Betty's mistakes in Fionna and Cake, he became obsessed with the idea of having her back. And I think Betty making Simon realize his flaw was cute.

She didn't hate him, she never blamed him, because she understood it was just an honest mistake and he didn't realize until he had to choose between two options in the book he was reading with Beth.

The book itself is a nice metaphor about life choices, there are no do-overs, choices aren't inherently good or bad, but you have to face the consequences later on, maybe you dislike the lack of options to choose from if you aren't careful. Beth said it clear, maybe if Simon paid attention to Nova (Betty's representation) and not only Casper (Simon's representation), things would have been different and he could have had more choices.

But now he cannot hold onto the past. He needs to live, and not for Betty's sake. She didn't want that when she finally managed to undo the crown's wish. Betty wanted to do that because she felt like it wasn't ok leaving Simon cursed.

The bus scene is so powerful, because it shows you the better outcome for the two of them (but maybe not for characters Simon finds later on like Marceline), but he knows it didn't happen like that and there are no do-overs. That's when Betty says her last words, showing no regret and gratitude to Simon for being in her life. Simon doesn't get on the bus, they don't share the same objectives anymore, and they have to take different paths. It was a beautiful goodbye. Some people make us happy when they appear in our lives, but they aren't meant to be in our lives forever.

[cardentist]

I'm like, 70% sure this is only an issue with the gravity falls fandom on twitter, but if I don't say something I think I'm gonna explode

there Doesn't Need to be a bad guy between fiddleford, emma-may, and ford ! we can recognize one character causing harm to another, both directly and indirectly, Without framing it like it's intentional or that it makes any of them inherently bad.

in particular, I think there's been pushback against people vilifying ford (both in general and as angst material for other characters) by just. shifting that blame over to another character instead and running with it.

so to get this out of my system:

Yes I agree that fiddleford and ford have a lot of queercoding between each other. I think it's always been there to an extent, but it's absolutely been reinforced with the book of bill and "thisisnotawebsite."

and even if you choose to read their relationship as platonic (which is fine ! a lot of people like to read ford as aroace, for instance), it's very clear that fiddleford's relationship with ford heavily put a strain on his relationship with his family and ultimately lead to his and emma-may's divorce.

and there's nothing wrong with exploring that! exploring how it hurt emma-may and tate, exploring how it's another facet of fiddleford ruining his own life without even thinking about it, exploring the complicated feelings that were happening in that cabin. and I don't even think there's anything wrong with joking about fiddleford being a cheater or ford and emma-may being rivals.

but it Really grinds my gears when people frame fiddleford as being inherently in the wrong for taking the job with ford, as if he was intentionally hurting his family or that he Genuinely went there to cheat.

1: one of the first things we're told about fiddleford in journal 3 is that he was raised dirt poor and wanted to climb the latter in the scientific community to give his family a better life than HE had.

and that's Exactly why he took the job in gravity falls ! it was someone he trusted as his good friend AND someone he trusted academically. the whole idea is that this was supposed to be a temporary job that would Both help a dear friend of his And open up opportunities for his future.

and like, this aspect of his character isn't insignificant. he is Very Much So an archetype of a poor person, and has been since his inception. it's part of what Makes him a match for ford, he's an intellectual match yes but he's also an Outcast that wants more out of life than what he has. this aspect isn't Malicious by any means, but it equally lead them to hurt people they cared about.

Yes he left emma-may and his young son, but it was Never supposed to be forever. he left FOR them, which is half of what makes what happened so tragic in the first place. in many ways, he hurt them Because he cared about them.

and Yes, I do love a queer reading of these characters (and I'll get to that), but it's Very clear in the source material that fiddleford Does care about his family. a big part of his falling out with ford in the first place was because Fiddleford thought they both needed to leave gravity falls to raise their own families, and it's something that fiddleford brings up earlier on in their stay together as well.

that doesn't excuse how he'd mistreat emma-may at all. she was absolutely in her right to divorce him (which I thought even before the book of bill dropped). but I feel like we're letting the subtext overtake the TEXT while examining these characters and their dynamic.

2: lets assume that fiddleford IS a closeted gay man (or bisexual, or that he and emma may are in a lavender relationship, or-), as I so often like to do.

while exploring the pain that could cause emma-may and tate is Very Interesting and fun, I think we're ignoring the systemic homophobia in the room.

fiddleford was born in the 1960s to a religious poor rural southern family, and emma-may and fiddleford's relationship happened in the 1980s.

I Do think fiddleford is definitely progressive for his time (and just overall a very chill dude), but his upbringing Also very clearly had an affect on him. if it's possible for a man who believes the world is a simulation to also believe in jesus then fiddleford's the one to have done it.

and this is implied directly in the text mind, whether fiddleford is still actively religious or not he gets on ford for doing things like taking the lord's name in vein. not something that someone who Wasn't affected by a religious upbringing would do.

there's also the textual (rather extreme) anxiety, and the Implied ocd (the hair pulling, the cubix cube, the moral fixation, etc).

with all that said !

YES it would be extremely painful for emma-may to be in love with a gay man who had a crush on someone else, whether fiddleford was aware of or even acted on those feelings or not.

but I do hope we can all understand why it's Not Great to frame fiddleford as being inherently in the wrong for this right? for either not realizing his feelings at all or deliberately repressing them in the wake of Probable religious trauma and Definite safety issues in the society he lived in? Yeah?

no we should not treat emma-may like she's "getting in the way" of our beautiful yaoi, but ignoring systemic homophobia to vilify a queer man being afraid of appearing as anything but straight in the 1980s is. um. Bad.

the thing that's Most interesting about this whole situation is that it's a tragedy through and through. you can't inherently blame Any of them for what happened, and trying to do so loses what actually makes the situation so complex and painful.

because fiddleford clearly DID care about them, ALL of them, very dearly. and he obviously wanted to do the right thing. and yet he hurt them all, and yet his entire life and mind fell apart to ash in his fingers.

it's Crazy, and it absolutely does a disservice to the situation to frame it as fiddleford just being a slutty lying cheater (or ford Ruining a perfectly good man by being abusive, or emma-may getting in the way of our old man yaoi).

except bill, we can vilify bill. I think he'd like that

[ineffable-endearments]

From "And furthermore, I don't think it's our place to start suggesting that there should be a suggestion box!"

I'm not even entertaining the idea that anyone else could possibly have ideas more worthwhile than whatever Heaven's upper brass is telling me God wants. The System is perfect.

to "You can't judge the Almighty, Crawley."

OK, so not everything God does makes moral sense, but that's just because it's too ineffable for us to understand.

to "I don't think that's what God wants. And I don't think you want it, either."

I don't always believe Heaven is right. Something in me is incompatible with the System. I'm hoping there's a greater good than the bureaucracy I work for.

to "I'm not consulted on policy decisions, Crawley."

I'm tacitly admitting that I don't like what Heaven is doing here, but I'm powerless within the System.

to "If I were thwarting you, Heaven couldn't object!"

You've helped me believe Armageddon isn't part of the Ineffable Plan after all. Now I believe I CAN do something to stop it.

to "I have no intention of fighting in any war!"

I'm making my own personal decision here, without consideration for what the System wants.

to "I can make a difference!"

I'm certain that I personally have ideas more worthwhile than the rest of Heaven. I can change the System.

The growth is happening. I know it's slow (well, if you're a human, anyway), but it's happening.

I am wondering if this character development is going to work like a huge outward (inward?) spiral. Take steps to add a new perspective, then use that to start working on the next Big Problem, then circle back to the old problems and start dealing with them with the new perspective. Things are kind of circular, but on a different level every time, hence the spiral.

The first three are like: Refuse questioning Heaven's judgment on moral grounds -> Accept that some questioning is natural but God/Heaven are always right -> Accept that maybe my personal judgment is not always compatible with Heaven's. OK, now I've tentatively accepted that I have my own morality outside of Heaven's, but that is SO uncomfortable.

The second three are like: I have my own moral judgments, but I have no way to enforce them because of what is expected of me -> Maybe there is room for my own judgment in Heaven after all -> Actually, my judgment is important enough to refuse to do what is expected of me regardless of anyone else's Plans. OK, now Aziraphale can use his own judgment within the System.

And I don't know for sure, but maybe - hopefully? - the last three will be like: I trust my own judgment -> My judgment never succeeds when I try to force it on others -> Everyone needs to be free from coercion and I'm going to help that happen by doing things to undermine the System.

That last bit is written with an assumption that the Ball and Gabriel and Beelzebub's ultimate decision are a little bit of foreshadowing: Aziraphale seizing control in a way that is sort of scary, having a bunch of Experiences(TM) with other people including Crowley, then realizing that the only reasonable way to handle people "outside the system" is to let them do what they want. If that's NOT foreshadowing, or if it's different foreshadowing than what I think it's going to be, obviously this is completely off.

Also, I feel like if I'm right, this could illuminate the horrible things Aziraphale says in the Final Fifteen a little bit. I believe he has moved up slightly from thinking Good and Evil are absolutely inherent and immutable, and now believes they are literally Sides that can be chosen. Of course you wouldn't choose to work for the side that has explicitly characterized itself as Bad, even though we both know you didn't have a choice to start with! I'm giving you a choice now! He hasn't "gone backwards." It's just that he's embraced the "doing good is a choice" lesson without internalizing the "you can't divide people into Sides and enforce it using a system" lesson.

[wherevenusholdssomeofficespace]

Why the Llama Incident works

The noodle incident is a trope done in A LOT of shows (PNF has a whole TV tropes page dedicated to its noodle incidents). Technically getting disowned and raised by ocelots is a noodle incident in pnf... we never do know what gets him officially disowned and how he ends up in the care of the ocelots). The noodle incident is meant to just showcase that this character has a history of some sort.

Generally speaking, explaining a noodle incident is a bad idea because the unknown has infinite potential. The intrigue is part of what makes it interesting. People can come up with ideas that are absolutely out there themselves. Usually, coming up with something that will live up to the hype is impossible because the hype of the event has built it up to impossible levels.

Emphasis on the usually.

They literally called it a llama incident. They knew what a noodle incident was, and were purposefully playing with our expectations that it would be an unrevealed event. And, as I said before, PnF has already dealt with its fair share of noodle incidents that go unexplained.

And as a noodle incident it served its purpose. Generally a noodle incident will provide context on what the status quo is without spelling out the details. In Rollercoaster the Juggling Monkey's noodle incident tells us that this is not the first time Phineas and Ferb have had a Big Idea (in fact we never do get what Phineas and Ferb's first Big Idea was). In Milo Murphy's Law the Llama incident tells us that Milo and Melissa were getting into Murphy's Law shenanigans long before Zack came into the picture. Showing us that they're so familiar with each other that situations that might require more context to another person doesn't.

Now bear with me as I go on a bit of a tangent that I promise is related.

The main cast of Milo Murphy's Law is a trio, and one of its members is defined by being the new guy. Zack is kind of an audience surrogate. Melissa is Milo's childhood friend and Milo has lived with this all his life. Generally, they don't need to explain anything to each other, nor do they need to explain anything to their class who is already at least passingly familiar with Milo. But they do to Zack.

I don't necessarily think MML NEEDED the audience surrogate character per se. Quite frankly I think audience surrogate characters are rarely necessary. You can always just start with a group of friends and fill in context via implication. I think it's just significantly harder, because you run the risk of alienating your audience by not allowing them to get settled in what is going on or having your characters talk about things like they don't already know what is going on.

But I don't think its at all an inherently bad storytelling method. I personally find outsider POVs delightful, and a good audience surrogate character is an outsider POV, at least at the start. Zack being new to the whole Murphy's Law allowed him a story about choosing to engage with the hazardous kid, winning him loyal friends and a set of skills he never would have dreamed of before. We get to see him grow, and we wouldn't have seen that if he was Milo's friend the whole time.

On the other hand he also has a bit of a wild background, as the former lead singer of a locally famous lumberjack themed boy band. Which gives Milo and Melissa the chance to join a band. Or for Milo to have a real birthday party. A change in status quo provides opportunities for growth and change, for the whole cast, which is useful in more overarching stories... like MML. It's not NECESSARY of course. Zack could have been a classmate that had always kept his distance before he accidentally got tangled up with Milo and decided he was cool. But there's nothing wrong with him being straight up new either.

And at the most basic level, Zack's complete unfamiliarity provides a nice contrast to Melissa's familiarity and Milo's day to day life. Zack is starting from 0 while Milo has been dealing with this every single day of his life.

So Zack isn't going to know what the Llama Incident is. And while noodle incidents being unexplained is fun for the audience, it isn't going to be so fun for someone who is constantly living with people who know what this Llama Incident is. Of course they could have told Zack the noodle incident off screen, it would have made for a good gag to cut into the story with Melissa and Milo finishing telling Zack the story. But instead, we are treated to an episode that has Zack really beginning to slot into his life as Milo's friend.

Back to the main point.

MML is one of the only shows with enough sheer chaotic energy that it could actually pull off making a group of seemingly unrelated references into a cohesive genuinely interesting story. The whole show is things that could feasibly be noodle incidents, which makes it easy to get a baseline for what could have happened. Milo uses stuff in strange ways all the time, getting tangled up with weird animals and ending up in strange situations. There's no REAL reason to feel like we're missing out on too much. It sounds like a normal Milo situation, just with only him and Melissa... and the fact they keep bringing it up.

And really, if you think about it, its just Planned in Advance Meapless in Seattle. Meapless in Seattle was meant to be a bunch of unrelated clips meant to be a noodle incident of sorts. We wouldn't know what exactly would go down in that fake episode. But they managed to bring everything together into a really fun episode that made sense and honestly lived up to the hype. (At least for me). I mean. They somehow made it work. That's a feat in of itself.

The episode "Llama Incident" starts out implying a completely different noodle incident. We never learn how the kids end up on that branch. That's not important. That stuff happens all the time. Is the Llama Incident more interesting than the other stuff Milo gets into? Not particularly, but it DID involve him using more stuff he didn't normally use.

And the Llama Incident is told in the format of a story. Changing up the format of the episode is always a good way to make an episode feel fresh. I mean, look at The Remains of the Platypus. It's just an episode told backwards but its delightful chaotic fun. Or Delivery of Destiny. Really the only difference is the day follows the perspective of a delivery guy, but we get all our normal plot beats. But both are some of my favorite Phineas and Ferb episodes. If you remove their gimmicks they're pretty basic. Phineas and Ferb build a cheese themed amusement park, and Doofensmirtz's plan is only slightly more novel with brainwashing Perry. Phineas and Ferb building a ride and Doof juicing city hall are pretty typical of them, but Paul's semi-outsider POV (and being one of the closest characters we get to having the full picture of the story we the audience see), makes it feel fun and fresh. It makes the Llama Incident feel special. Even if it isn't my favorite unique episode format, it's still something fresh and fun.

So Milo and Melissa sort of tell the story a bit out of order, because they forget what pieces Zack would and wouldn't have context for or would or wouldn't find interesting. And, again, it's told as a story to Zack, so he asks questions. It's told while they are hanging from a branch, where they cut back to every once and a while to remind us that hey, the group is in the middle of a whole other Murphy's Law incident. We're getting two for one today.

But through the episode we get a bit of a Zack character arc. We've already established that Melissa and Milo are used to this, even if you weren't aware the way they were casually rating it at the beginning of the episode should tell you all you need to know. But Zack isn't completely used to this yet, so he's just nervous. He spends the episode using the story as a distraction, but being genuinely invested. In the end, the story acts as an inspiration to Zack, and he's able to help the group get out of the situation. AND for his trouble, he gets his own mysterious incident to reference. After half a season, he's truly part of the group now. He will continue to grow of course, trying to become braver and cleverer, and he's already made strides since the first episode. But even if Zack isn't really any less part of the group before or after its still a significant moment in Zack's character arc.

And then the Llama Incident comes back the next episode. The date was memorable to Milo, even throughout all of the other chaos in his life. And sometimes that's just how life is. And he uses his knowledge of the event, the way it stuck in his mind, to save him, Dakota and Cavendish from Pistachion's in Missing Milo. What we thought was going to just be a noodle incident, a running gag that functioned to establish just how used to this stuff Milo and Melissa were, turned out to be a plot point. To be fair we didn't NEED to know what the Llama incident was for Milo to choose to go there. We didn't need to know about the Llama Incident to know it was typical Murphy's Law shenanigans. It could have just been more out of context llama stuff. But now we the audience are in on the joke, so when Cavendish and Dakota express confusion, we can revel in the fact we know something they don't. Especially about two characters who themselves were slow revealing information about themselves to us... sure by that point we know their deal but at one point they were as mysterious and out of context to us as the Llama incident. And now we know what the Llama Incident is, and what their deal is.

The Woodpecker incident also is vaguely referred to later with the woodpecker whistle. We may not know the full story there, but it is still satisfying to see Milo's adventures giving him the skills and tools to deal with bigger, actually hostile, threats.

And at the end of the day, even if the Noodle Incidentness of the Llama Incident is ruined, it was immediately replaced with the Woodpecker incident. Which admittedly is never mentioned, but it doesn't need to be. The point of the Llama Incident was to draw attention to a specific incident to make a gag out of it. But they have incidents all the time. And we're privy to most of them. We sometimes get references to other incidents that we never fully get the context for. But we don't need context. We know how it'll go anyway because we have a whole show of effective noodle incidents.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

I think everybody has certain things where they prefer the fanon/headcanon version and certain things where they prefer canon. I know I do.

For example, I like to headcanon that, in a scenario where Anakin turns back earlier and he and Obi-Wan are both still alive but Order 66 still happened, that Obi-Wan would not and could not remain friends with him. He might forgive him, but that forgiveness would look more like choosing to let go of his own anger and do what he could to help Anakin let go of the darkness for the sake of the galaxy. In canon, we see Obi-Wan seem pretty happy to stand next to Anakin as a ghost, with the implication that he's decided bygones are bygones and he's just happy to have his brother back or whatever. But that doesn't work for me, so my headcanon is that the only reason he can do that is because they're both dead and still semi part of the Force at that point, so there are things Obi-Wan can let go of in death that he couldn't have done in life.

A LOT of my favorite ships are ships that don't exist in canon because I don't LIKE the ships that exist in canon, and I prefer to allow my faves to find happiness with characters I like better.

But I also prefer the way Lucas's canon handles the Jedi, their culture, their teachings, their position within the narrative, etc. I tend to HATE the way fandom treats the Jedi, I hate their headcanons about the Jedi being "dogmatic" or "old-fashioned", I hate the headcanons about their relationships with the clones most of the time because so often it treats the Jedi either like abusers or like children.

And there are some canon ships I absolutely ADORE and never want to change anything about them ever.

So I don't think it's inherently a bad thing for people to prefer their own headcanons or a popular fanon over canon. It's not even inherently bad for fanon to become so popular that people might not realize it's fanon sometimes. What gets frustrating is when people act like it's canon and get rude at people who don't adhere to a particular fanon/headcanon in their own interpretations, whether they prefer their OWN headcanon or canon itself. You see this primarily in the debate over the Jedi and the way this idea of the prequels being about how the Jedi were corrupt was always the intended message, and people are just SO attached to this that even when they're shown multiple quotes from Lucas himself saying otherwise, they'll refuse to believe it or they'll just dismiss Lucas's intentions and decide that their interpretation means more than the author's actual narrative. And like, if the only way someone is capable of enjoying Star Wars is to view the Jedi as abusive monsters, then fine, whatever, that's their deal. But it should be recognized AS A HEADCANON, as a personal interpretation of the media, and NOT peddled as the intended narrative of the story when it's so easy to find examples of the author saying otherwise.

Headcanons and fanon can be SO MUCH FUN, there's so many that I've seen people come up with that I have adored, I've come up with a lot of my own that I still really like and have fun playing with from time to time. But headcanons being fun doesn't make them canon. It never has.

[sunspotmangafan]

I hear the sunspot and disability representation: agency and respect.

Note I will be talking about ableism in media; if that is uncomfortable, feel free to scroll past.

So the other day I was watching your average media analysis videos on youtube and I came across this video that discussed disability representation, specifically in reference to deafness. I’ll be discussing it and such with how it relates to sunspot but I do recommend you check it out if you’d like.

There was the discussion of how in a fair amount of shows like medical dramas, when they have episodes that focus on a deaf/hard of hearing person and the decision of going with surgeries like cochlear implants that help them hear better, it seems as though the actual disabled persons opinions don’t matter because at the end of the day the kid is gonna get the ‘treatment’ to essentially ‘fix’ them in a way. If the person explicitly states they don’t want the implant, it doesn’t matter, they will ultimately get the implant because the narrative thinks it’s inherently better and will ‘help’/‘fix’ the person.

Like watching a video where they paint the parent who agrees with their disabled kid to not go with cochlear implants as a bad person/in the wrong.

Or shows going out of their way to give deaf characters surgeries like that to ‘fix’ them in a way. Such as deliberately not going to the parent that supports/listens to their disabled kid, or have the narrative change so that will make their child have the surgery that parent by the end as their arc.

It’s constantly giving “disabled people’s opinions and agency doesn’t matter because we as able bodied people know that they’re intently better if they’re more like us. Life will be inherently be better if they gonna conform to our world.”

I understand that ‘it’s better for you if you’re more like us’ mentality as an autistic person. But this so about Kohei and his journey in Limit as a hard of hearing protagonist.

In the Limit trilogy, a part of his arc is heavily considering getting a cochlear implant. The doctor goes over the pros and cons of it, and how even those who get it, they may not use it after the fact because it wasn’t for them or they experienced complications or whatnot, especially with how with many people who were deaf since birth (like ryuu), it’s not exactly gonna be always the best option. And how ultimately it is just a way to fit more into the hearing world.

And the most important thing here is this. KOHEI. GETS. TO. CHOOSE. FOR. HIMSELF!!!!

THEY LET THE DISABLED CHARACTER PONDER AND THINK FOR HIMSELF!! We don’t even get people ushering him to get one. In fact it’s mainly Ryuu who’s just like “dude you don’t need it”.

Ryuu is also great because he provides that push and extra perspective on his own terms using the language he’s most comfortable with to give himself the voice to challenge kohei’s internalised ableism.

(As Kohei said. He still looked down on those who couldn’t hear. He felt weak when he had to ask people to repeat themselves)

Also side note. IHTS really helps essentially destigmatise sign language. As the video says about the stigma around sign language. It’s nice to see people like Chiba, Ryuu and such be respected by the narrative when they talk about how they genuinely love the language. Kohei and Taichi are both endearing characters whose arcs involve learning to sign. Kohei starts to respect Chiba because he’s so good at not just signed Japanese, but actual JSL. It’s really refreshing!!

And you know what. While he did say that because he has late onset hearing loss, he was definitely drawn to the idea.

HE DECIDED NOT TO GET IT. AND THE NARRATIVE FUCKING RESPECTS HIM FOR IT!!!

They show that for Kohei, him getting better isn’t essentially a surgery to make him seem less Hard of Hearing. It’s about knowing he can be understood, and about knowing he can genuinely understand people, and that’s not inherently tied to hearing.

And they never act as though he’s made a grave decision, the narrative never acts like Kohei is in the wrong. It’s actually treating it like a happy ending, because it is, Kohei’s stopping thinking about a past where he may become completely deaf as though it’s inherently something he should try to avoid (a thing Ryuu helped him reconsider his personal feelings on which may have been shrouded in internal ableism) and start living in the present with a person that already respects, understands and cares for him, and who, at least now, he can hear as clear as day.

And we can’t help but be happy that he’s happy.

[messrsrobyn]

I am here to request more hat stall Pete ramble

AHHH and i am here to ask for your hand in marriage now. yes yes yes always here to ramble about pete.

(long yap sorry x)

OKAY SO!!!

the only two hatstalls we know about are minnie (gry x rav) and pete (gyf x slyth) - when i yapped about it on tt people mentioned hermione and neville, they were close but didn't actually hit the five min mark.

WHICH IS SO INTERESTING WITH PETE !!! so interesting with his deflection but i'll run over my basic thoughts on pete as a hatstall:

(first of all, this is irrelevant to whether he was placed naturally or begged to be put there, because i think either way he'd have the same dilemmas)

1) The Prank - this is my roman empire with pete!!

the fact that he was a hatstall between these two houses, he spends five years sitting and questioning which side of him is the "real side", wondering if the hat made the right choice. trying to suppress everything slightly slytherin about himself to fit in with james, to be someone that james - against slytherins - would be okay with, yk petes a v insecure lil man.

and then he watches sirius do the prank. he watched sirius get sorted into gryffindor quicker than him and defy the entireee history of his family yk? hes so inherently gryffindory that he Breaks Tradition... and then he does that???

NOW IMAGINE pete who's already battling with these two parts of himself, wondering why on earth he was a hatstall. why did the hat deliberate with him, who has only ever tried to be like and be liked by his friends, and yet someone who has slytherin practically engrained in their blood did that?? what even is a real gryffindor?

THIS is my breaking point for pete. this is where his morals get very switched. this is where he watches sirius get forgiven for this unforgiveable thing, and all of his morals start getting cloudy. the prank is where all the marauders fall apart and i've said this before. it's where wolfstars communication during the war stems from, it's where sirius and pete become fractured, it's the beginning of the end for them (in my opinion). it's where pete starts questioning good and bad people, starts questioning what makes a person what and how it's determined and generally??? just where in my mind he stops trying to repress that slytherin side, because he now knows that 'true' gryffindors can do bad shit too.

it's also said by minnie that pete "hero-worshipped" james and sirius and then he watches sirius do that? and watches the group recover again? SO MUCH DEPTH

2) the betrayal

we will neverrrr know what made pete betray the potters, not entirely. we have all our ideas and theories but we will never know. which i like. i like that we don't know. i like that we get to play around with characters and apply our own moral dilemmas of "is it justified to do this if xyz?" "could xyz cause this?" blah blah blah.

this moral compass is SO strong with gryffindors, yes? a lot less strong with slytherins. how does that balance out when you're both? when you're not quite sure the hat put you on the right side, when you're fighting alongside people braver than you? where does that leave your moral compass?

he's this mix of self-preservative and cunning, and courageous and brave. maybe, he was tortured 🤷‍♂️ maybe he had to choose between being brave and being self-preservative. maybe he just didn't have the same courage as his friends to be able to go straight to the frontlines of a war. maybe his morals weren't as clear cut as his friends and he often lost sight of what they were fighting.

see here: my idea of pete trying so so so hard those first few years to be the perfect gryffindor and earn his place there, to then enter a war and watch the numbers drop with little care from dumbledore, to watch how he weighs out lives and realising that being on the morally just side, doesn't mean all of the actions within that are morally just.

IT'S SO COMPLEX !!!

but i think there's so much more to explore with his betrayal if we take the hatstall into account. i see the torture idea a lot (and i've adored every version of it i've read) but i would LOVE to see more of pete getting tortured by DE/voldy, and he doesn't give himself up because he's hurt or because he's sad or whatever - he does it because at his core, he's always been a but too self-preservative to fight alongside gryffindors.

i.e in poa: pete - what would you have done? sirius - i would've died (courageous and brave vs self-preservative, true gryffindor vs a 'lesser one'

tbf minnie also called him "never quite in (sirius and james') league talent-wise" which could work either way. either wasn't strong enough to fight it and gave up, or knew he wasn't strong enough and turned to self-preservative methods instead.

but also... he manages (likely) a blasting curse that explodes a whole street and destroyed the sewer systems, can perform AK in tgof (which takes an immense amount of intent and magic) which he did with a wand that was NOT under his allegiance??? anddd is able to brew potions that are classes as dark magic? not in their league talent wise, or maybe his talents were meant elsewhere?? was he weak or was he just more dark than them naturally?? we know that dark magic calls to some wizards more so i don't think it was weakness in my opinion.

and i say 'lesser gryffindor' in quotation marks in point one there becauseee...

3) the hat stands by its decision

this is so often just forgotten but the hat insists that it's correct with pete's sorting (unsure if this is book canon, but jkr talks about it on pottermore which ik some people dont take as canon lore but i do. she's gotta fill her own plot holes somehow 🤷‍♂️)

BUT BASICALLY the hat claims that pete dying via his own silver hand is proof that he's a gryffindor because his conscious clearly disagrees with whatever he's done. debate that as you will because i'm not even sure how i feel about it??? i feel like it just doesn't match the perception of pete that i've built up here :/

like maybe he does regret it, i reckon he would. but i reckon it would be a bit complex thing between his bravery and self-preservation (but maybe his death is both. maybe his last act is a brave one based in some twisted backwards self-preservation. maybe the best thing he could do for him was end it, and that was a brave thing to do)

but the hat insists he's a gryffindor which adds SO much depth to his hatstall and just... him

OVERALL!!!

it just challenges the entireee notion of gryffindor vs. slytherin.

"there's not a witch or wizard that went bad that wasn't in slytherin" - we know that to be wrong obvs, pete. and we explore that a lottt with regulus and his deflection, a lottt with draco and narcissa, but not very often in depth with gryffindors, even harry and his deliberation with the hat.

i ADOREEE looking at pete in school as like... an actual marauder. being insecure that he doesn't fit in with them? yes absolutely. but i like to view more as an internal struggle with alllll of this rather than remus/james/sirius just being closer, yk?

oh my god this turned into a whole essay and i tried so hard to keep it brief. be glad this is the brief version. oh my god.

anyway. live laugh love peter pettigrew being a hatstall.

[fandomtrashhh]

Sam & Powers

I can never articulate how disappointing it was for Supernatural to focus so much of their time and effort on Sam’s powers and everything that comes with it in the first 2 seasons only to bring it back in season 4 and even season 5 even more in depth than before to then just drop it after that and only mention it once every 2 seasons. I feel like it was such a core theme in the beginning of the show that was used so well to tie up what they thought was going to be the season finale in season 5 that once they realized they were going to continue the show they decided it would become too boring or repetitive or something to use more when they were SO wrong. Sure if that’s ALL they focused on then that would make sense but what they did didn’t make any sense at all because how can you take something that was such a big part of one of the main characters and erase it all? One of the things that drew me to Sam’s character in the first place and that helped cement me as a Sam girl was the fascination with his powers that he was slowly coming to terms with. What made his powers different than a lot of other pieces of media that I’ve consumed is the concept that they were forced upon him by a DEMON through his BLOOD! How is that not compelling?? He literally states in the show that he has a sickness that is pumping through his veins that he can never get rid of so why shouldn’t he do good with them? Like !! There was so much potential here!! I’ve always felt when they said that Azazel’s death just...made Sam’s powers “go away” it was a flimsy excuse to get rid of them and only use that plot when they felt like it (i.e drinking demon blood) but if they never had Sam’s powers function like that they could have created a whole plot where Sam comes to terms with his powers and realizes they aren’t going away but they aren’t inherently bad, that he can choose what he wants to do with them, re cementing his autonomy that is so often lacking in the series!! He chooses to help people with these powers (without needing to drink demon blood) and explores them and accepts them!! The route that the show ended up taking never sat well with me because it felt like he just internalized his powers because of what other characters said about it and how people literally tried to kill him because of it and that just feels wrong. Like the show tried so hard to just magically turn him into this Normal Guy TM when Sam is Not Normal and that was the whole point!! He deserved to be as freaky and as comfortable with it as he wanted!! And then in season 15 I almost felt like they were going to do something freakish with his character again because of Rowena’s comment about him being the “closest to a witch” among the characters in the room and then she left her spells and potions and everything TO SAM and it would’ve been so cool to have him dabble in witchcraft and would make so much sense with his character yet he uses them once and then it’s never mentioned again. By the end of the show he’s living this normal life when after everything he went through and everything he discovered about himself throughout 15 YEARS, I don’t think that’s what he would’ve wanted anymore. Supernatural had so many brilliant ideas & concepts which is why I think I’ve continued to be so obsessed and intrigued by this goddamn show, but so so many shortcomings.  

[a-student-out-of-time]

I think Linuj'a problem is that he's borderline unable to make irredeemable characters even tho he WANTS people to percive them that way, we see a glimpse of it with Kizuna in the first game and it just gets amplified to a thousand in the second because of its themes.

Which reminds me how i don't like the ending of Sdra2 at all because it just confused me, it spent a bunch of time showing us that Sora is not the same person as Akane, she has he own thoughts, opinions and feelings and should be seen as separate from her, yet the game ends with Sora paying for Akane's crimes which just cements the idea that they ARE the same person.

If Sora is meant to be seen as a person of her own an not Akane virtual version then she SHOULDN'T have to play for what Akane's done.

Maybe i misunderstood because of how messy chapter 6 is, but it genuinely left a bad taste in my mouth and made my enjoyment of the game go down severely.

//Now you're seeing my real problem with SDRA2's story. Namely that, while the Voids were a unique idea, they ultimately do more harm than add to it by leaving you both with more questions than answers and the idea that we're supposed to see them only as villains, despite that going against both the information presented and the basic messages DR is about.

//Like, it really confuses me when creators fixate so much on the darker elements of DR, because that's really not what the games have ever been about. It was never about the executions, the investigations or even the trials. It was about the people involved in them.

//If you're going to tell a story like this, where you repeatedly fixate on the blood and violence, and the only thing you have to say about it is "Isn't the one doing this a bad person?", I have to ask why you bothered with a very basic truism ^^;

//There's also this very damaging approach to media analysis where people decide, unless a character has literally done nothing wrong, any bad action they take equates to them being the "true villain." Even when the entire point of the story is that heroes and villains are titles, not an actual moral status.

//You can't claim to be having a deep and engaging moral analysis when all you do is decide that people who do anything bad are inherently horrible. Call them monsters if you must, but never act as though someone can be fundamentally incapable of doing wrong of any kind, because that's blatantly untrue.

//And with the DR2 example, the point of that one was NEVER "Look how horrible the Remnants of Despair are," it was ALWAYS "You guys used to be pretty fucked up, but you can still choose to be better, because that is always an option."

//LINUJ is just not very good at exploring the idea. He can make great characters, as he's shown over and over again, but he really doesn't know how to handle them in stories. Especially not when he's willing to make massive changes to that story that ultimately do more harm than good.

[demani-dusk]

I really loved Babel or the Necessity of Violence a lot and I want to get some more of my own thoughts out.

What I liked: I mostly read/listen to/watch scifi/fantasy stories, and while I love scifi/fantasy for allegory and metaphor that can focus in on and provide sharp commentary on the real or how the hyper real can heighten the emotions of a real thing, it turns out it was very grounding to read a story about empire set in the actual British empire about people who would have been its actual victims. And even then, I really do love the fantastical elements of the setting and the way silverwork and translation convey the ideas and themes so well.

I like the way the premise of the story and the positions of the characters so clearly and directly conveys the exploitation and extraction of imperialism, the way educating and shaping Robin into an Oxford student is so deeply and inherently abusive. I love that actual real world translation work from the time fits so neatly into the story. Commentary on everything being translated into English but rarely would something be translated from one colonized language to another. Commentary on the way imperialists treat texts written by cultures they don't respect. It all works together so satisfyingly well.

Translation as a kind of magic, as a central theme is also just such a great tool for a writer to do fun and good writing stuff with. I love the way etymology and translations give weight and new layers of meaning to the text the way other literary devices might. It's a book where the thinness of any single language is part of the conceit of how the magic works and Kuang is like, supplementing the inherent thinness of language by offering the reader translations as supplement, trying to get *us* closer to the "realm of true meaning" as it were.

I love very much Robin's internal turmoil throughout the first 2/3 or so of the story. His love and hatred of Oxford. His inability to choose between his father and his brother. His fear, his wonder, his resentment. The way he feels extremely at home and never at home at Oxford. It's all done extremely well imo.

Things I'm less sure about:

I really wish Victoire were more fleshed out earlier in the book. I think what we get makes sense with the story being Robin's perspective, because Victoire and Letty are pretty much always together and Letty has a way of sucking all the air out of a room. But I still wish more room had been made for us to learn more about Victoire before the last act.

I would like to see a little more about sexism and Letty's relationship to feminism. We know she is very aware of the sexism she faces at Oxford but what does she think of suffragists? I can imagine white feminist Letty supporting women's suffrage and still not taking racism or imperialism seriously, and I can also imagine ivory tower rich girl Letty being entirely skeptical of addressing any social issue in a way that isn't about personally fighting to improve your own position, including sexism. I also think Victoire's experience of misognoir is relatively underexplored and that's too bad.

There's also this thing in the writing I'm not sure how I feel about. That is, there are a couple of intractable arguments characters have repeatedly on and off the page. I found myself not loving this as a reader, but I'm somewhat convinced that the way I didn't like it was that it effectively conveyed the boredom and discomfort of having the same argument over and over without making progress, and isn't that the book doing its job well? I still sort of feel like it would help to get these arguments in ways that highlight different character's perspectives each time or something. Or like, ifl having the same best reappear in a story you want the circumstances to change such that the thing happening feels importantly recontextualized, and I didn't always feel like this was happenijg. idk I'm not sure my instincts about this are good.

Anyway, it's a good book, I liked it a lot.

[randomnameless]

I'm beginning to think there might have been discourse/debate between KT and IS regarding the Fodlan games. We'll never know of course but it would be amusing if that's the case considering how it translated to their audience.

lol

Some people already thought about it, and while Nopes was a heavily marketed/produced product by KT, at the end of the day, even for FE16, IS had to pop in and give a sign of approval.

I think the interview for Engage more or less revealed that while the two games weren't developed together, they were thought of as being wildly different experiences - both in gameplay and story, and while I have my own gripes with Engage's story especially in the last chapters, Engage's big character resolution is

Alear coming to terms with what they were born as, but deciding, nonetheless, to use their power to be and act as the divine dragon Lumera was, aka use their power to do something "good" even if they were born as Sombron's kid thus supposed to do "bad" things.

Compare this with "crust BaD" - nowhere in the Fodlan games is it ever mentionned, by one character who has a crust, that crust is only a power and not inherently bad or good, it's what you decided to do, you as someone who has the opportunity to use this power, who ultimately choose to do the right thing, or the wrong thing.

Hell, it's only when Fodlan met another game (fully developed by IS, for better and worse) that his question is raised, and quickly eluded by Supreme Leader warping away from Lissa, because hey, in an IS game, that question would have been raised, and defaulting to "crusts BaD" has never been the house's recipe to make a game - especially since this specific recipe has been overused, first in FE Jugdral (Loptyr blood isn't inherently evil, that was the teaching Blaggi tried to promote that was later ignored and then forgotten), then, sort of in FE6 (no Fa, divine dragons aren't doomed to become souless war dragon producing machins or humanity's enemies!), in FE13 with Robin and their fell blood, and finally, in FE17.

I think, even if FE16 still sells a lot of alts in FEH and DLC and what not, the lack of side materials and goodies is, imo, telling enough about what IS wants to do with it - FE17 got a manga release on the shonen jump + (i think?) even when the sales are inferior to FE16's (granted, if we compare something that was around for 4 years including 2020 to a game released in January, that's not very fair) - Nopes's DLC was called off and bar FEH milking the Fodlan verse to sell units, imo, IS wants to drop it and move forward.

And while it makes me sad because there are things I'm legit interested in (war of heroes guide like the tellius recollection guide plz), given what "Fodlan" ended up when KT was left (mostly?) alone in the form of Nopes (you effing beat up refugees to steal their gold! Like, we're the red units beating the green npcs, or the bandits burning houses??) - I am less and less sure I want to see more Fodlan content, even if I was pleasantly surprised with the Fodlan content - especially regarding Nabateans who are completely ignored by their source game - IS made up for FEH.

Sure we have some issues that are inherent to FEH's nature as a gacha selling game cajoling units who can sell a lot (Hilda's family never had slaves unfed servants! Syrup just had some adventures in Goneril!) but to the FEH team - from IS - Sothis is more pissed at Agarthans for having genocided her children and turned them into pincushions than for Billy's dad's death.

Hell, for what it's worth, Emblem!Dimitri mentions how much he likes the idea of a world/place without discriminations based on origins or races, something he cannot say in the KT Fodlan games, because it stars Ms "You are a Nabatean, you should not rule over Humans!" as the main character of the game - so it's not a lot, but imo, FEH + FE17 gives us clues as to what IS would have done with the Fodlan cast -

Even if I'm not kidding myself, Hresvelg Tea was always supposed to be the main selling point of that verse, so while I don't think we would have had less uwus, maybe we might have had some sort of "sekrit brainwash" to make Ashnard in an onesie still be marketable for FEH.

[thedeafprophet]

ambition swap au?

ough ive had many thoughts for Ambition Swap concepts but the big one I have is for Alex doing Nemesis with Jamie being the one killed

general warnings for discussion of major character death obvs and spoilers for nemesis

The general timeline and balance of the backstory here is inherently shifted - since Josephine's brother wasnt killed in this timeline, this means she never ends up at the school, and never met Alex and Jamie (and never will meet Jamie). Alex and Jamie do end up meeting the same way, but without Josie there to balance out the dynamic things are steadily more codependent between the two of them, and the arguments also a lot worse. Both of their experiences are impacted by the fact neither of them meet Josephine, but especially for Jamie to have never had their first friend.

Alex has always been in a more of caretaker role with Jamie when they were younger, even more so here. Jamie's mental health situation develops much quicker in this timeline, a crudge between the two of them with Jamie's unhealthy habits. Alex storms out of the apartment one night after a particularly bad argument.

That was the last time he ever saw Jamie alive

Loosing Jamie is a fundamental crack in Alex's psyche, and not something he would ever be able to move past. I always like that trope in stories where the protagonist hallucinates/maybe sees the ghost of their lost one, so that would be at play here (See: The Mad Ones or Next To Normal). In the story this would serve as a outword vocalization of Alex's doubts as he argues with the figmant of what remains of his friends memory. He can't bear to let go of even this unhealthy aspect. There's nothing else left.

In the main timeline, Alex is never a fan of murder and will always choose to deal with things in other ways if he can. That is not the case here. The ambition would resolve with a full murder route, a hollow and empty conclusion, but a conclusion none the less

(bonus: i like the idea of Alex finding a way to get some of Jamie's writing published after they passed. So something of theirs can live on; what they always wanted)

Send me a potential AU and I’ll tell you five fun facts that would happen in a story.

[cholatey]

Honestly, sometimes it makes me confused why so many people decide to dye their hair weird colors. Growing up, I never really got the chance to be considered a person per se. I was a hyper-visible minority in a country where no one looked like me, and I sort of had to deal with the consequences of that my entire life. If you can imagine being a five-year-old biracial child in a train car with a bunch of Asian adults staring at you, and when you look back at them, they look down at their phones like they’re afraid of making eye contact with you. And just, day in and day out, that being your reality with you growing up with that as your baseline. I felt like a monster at times, I’d get angry, and I glared at them when they stared at me, relishing in the idea of them freaking out at the way I looked. Sometimes, I’d get really sad, and sometimes, I just listened to really really loud music. I had bad social anxiety. To be fair, it wasn’t me being overly paranoid; people really were staring at me. I think it was a completely rational reaction to how people were treating me, but of course, it was bad for my productivity skills, so it was definitely unhelpful for me.

To be fair, my life was not hard. I grew up in a fairly progressive space, and within, you know, my school, I felt at home with people who looked kind of like me. Still, there was always an expectation, or at least I felt like there was an expectation, that there was something inherently interesting or radical about my existence. I never really felt like I was a person of my own that I could cultivate meaning by myself of myself. And I think I just never learned how to do that. To this day, I don’t really know how to be a person. I feel more like a zoo animal. Or like a person on display.

I feel, at times my life is an experiment on what happens when you put a child through severe social alienation and expect them to be OK. Sometimes, I wonder what it’s like to be visually disabled, to sort of have to deal with that everywhere you go. I watched the movie Wonder when I was in- I don’t know, middle school, high school? And when the main character said something along the lines of “There is a second where people register my face, and they see me as a freak. They try to hide the face, but it always comes out”. That made me cry at the time, as I wanted to watch Deadpool and not really this movie, but it also really bummed me out because I realized that what was that was what was happening to me my entire life. I don’t really know what to do about it. I think- well, you know, I take my antidepressants, and I don’t have to feel these emotions if I choose not to, which is cool. Still, I sort of want to be a person of my own making, being myself and not necessarily a representation of other people or what things could be your political values or anything. I just wanna be myself, and I don’t think I’ve ever been a person. I don’t think I’m ever gonna really be allowed to be a person.

I really love boring people. I love born people because I feel like I was never able to grow up being a boring person. My number one wish is that I could be boring, I could be unremarkable, I could be nothing when I walk down the street.

I have this character in my head, and she’s well- she’s tall because I’m short, and her face isn’t really a face, it’s a white circle, and the white circle has no facial expression has no emotion unremarkable you can’t really feel anything from it. You know, it doesn’t really show any reaction to anything you do to it. It’s just a white circle. And sometimes I think about her tall and lanky, just walking around the world, and no one seeing her, and I think, ‘Wow, that would be nice if it was me’.

[leftsidebonfire]

Western One Shot Horrors: How a Forever-DM can still make for a shitty player.

Im venting here, about what happened last night. Full context and all.

As far as this story goes, it's not the worst horror story in terms of creepy behavior, but this just happened, and it was easily the most frustrated I've ever felt while playing dnd.

For context, our dnd group plays with the main story for 3 weeks, but then the fourth week, one of the players takes a turn running a one-shot so the Forever-DM can have a break from writing and play. There are 7 of us in total and we rotate one shots so everyone gets a chance to show off their DM skill and it's always fun.

The irony of this, is that the DM is the biggest problem player that we have. I love playing in his campaign each week, but when it comes to him as a player in someone else's game, he becomes extremely annoying. I understand wanting to break free and let loose once a month, maybe cause some chaos in a fun little one shot, but I'm talking about the full murderhobo character, Every. Single. Time. He always needs to destroy the town were in by the end of it, or brutalize the enemy. There was even one time he kept interrupting the other players to butt in about how he was going to kill the villain. It's one shots, so it's never a *huge* problem, but it does get annoying.

But the biggest frustration happened just last night. The only people who have any part in this story are me, the DM for the night, and him.

B=Problem Player, playing a Fire Genasi Rogue.

I created a homebrew world for my one shot. It's themed to be the old west with cowboys and guns, and I even created homebrew subclasses for them to try out for a little extra flavor, as well as hand drawn maps, with the idea that they will finish in one city and then decide where to go, so the next time it comes around to my turn, I'll have time to plan and prepare for the city they choose to explore. I have very few rules for the game, but one of them is to play it a bit more seriously. No joke characters. To be clear, I want my characters to have fun and joke around, but just to play it a bit more seriously, like a regular campaign.

We start the game and everything is going great, the group is absolutely loving exploring my town and Gambling, but B continues to go off away from the party. It's not inherently bad at first, but it is kind of annoying when I wrangle everyone together so I can continue and he just disappears again.

B and another player try to talk to the Sheriff NPC, but he's got a certain time that he's supposed to come in, and that's later. I let them talk to a receptionist at the Sheriff's office and tell them that he's out patrolling right now and will be back in later if they're looking for him. Basically my way of saying “this quest is not available yet, go find something else to do.”

Then B decides to go try and get some money "for gambling" by doing chores around the stables, but his real plan was just to shovel horse manure over the fence so he could collect it. He takes two balls of manure, goes over to the church in town (the plot point for later, where the battle was going to take place) Lights them on fire, and hurls them at the church.

Now I had two options for what might happen at the church. If the group were to investigate, they could learn some history about the town and the door would be locked. Or, if they tried to break in or destroy the church at all, it would rouse the sheriff. The plan was that once they meet the Sheriff, he asks them to help on night watch, which then pushes them right into the next plot point where they see creepy things happening at night. If the sheriff was angry, then he would offer to sweep it under the rug if they agreed to help.

I thought I had planned for everything. Clearly, I had not.

So, I come in as the sheriff, asking him what he thinks he's doing setting the church on fire. And then I propose the deal that we can put this all behind us if B and his group can help on Night Watch.

And B is absolutely not accepting it. He argues with me for probably 20 minutes of real time. I absolutely cannot make it any clearer that he is supposed to take this plot point. I repeat myself over and over. I threaten him with a night in jail for trying to vandalize the church and burn it down? He always says “You can TRY to hold me.” All smug. I tell him his only options are either a night in prison, or night watch. He keeps trying to say I'm a bad sheriff for not being around when he went to the Sheriff's office. I explain AGAIN why the sheriff was away, and he just tries to claim that he was summoning him here and it worked.

The reason he was even TRYING to summon the Sheriff was so that the OTHER PLAYER could talk to him! Not even him! And I told him that they'd all be able to talk on the night watch and they could ask any questions they wanted. He kept arguing saying it “wasn't his decision to make.”The entire time, B kept acting like he had anything to negotiate with. As if he wasn't the one hurling FLAMING HORSE MANURE AT THE CHURCH. There was seriously nothing I could do to get this to move along. Putting my foot down didn't even work. I was holding my ground about this and he still found a way to undermine me. I just kept repeating the ultimatum of “do this quest (the plot) or you go to jail for destruction of property” and he RUNS AWAY. He runs back to the gambling hall to “bring the sheriff to where the group was.”

I really didn't want to concede to this, but I did, and I snapped at him a bit, kind of implying that the sheriff only follows him and doesn't attack him for running away because we've got a **plot** we still have to follow. (And B tells me to calm down under his breath). I push past the argument and just continue to read the plot as written but B seems really checked out for the rest of the session. He wasted probably 20 minutes of actual game time trying to argue with me about the plot and wouldn't take my No for an answer. Not once did he ever take the hint. 

Now, let me make one thing very clear. If this were a long-standing campaign, I would have been more open to it. Maybe some drama, arresting him, letting the group do a jailbreak plot. But this was a one shot. We had 4 hours to get through what I had in mind and then it was done, for good. Sometimes a bit of light railroading is necessary, and I still was trying to let people have their fun. I'd spent a month planning this one shot and putting in all my hard work, so I don't think it was too much to ask that the players follow my storyline.

I am not a professional DM. I've run a couple of one shots before and that's about it. I've been playing for years, but only rarely DMing, so I don't always have the ability to think on the fly like that. As I look back on it, I see how I could have handled it differently, like going out of character to just tell him outright that he needs to listen to me, or something like that. But I was determined to resolve it in character, thinking there was no way he would keep fighting me about this for that long. Every time I tried to get him back on the right track, he found another way around it. And not only that, he also is very bad at taking criticism in the past, so I feel like this situation would have gone bad either way. I had a million things running through my mind at that point and of course, I always think of what I could have done differently after I've had time to reflect.

I had thought I'd lost my temper, but my cousin who was also playing told me later she thought I handled it very well and I seemed calm and level headed about it. That made me feel a bit better about things. I have an entire world with 9 more cities everyone is excited to explore, but this experience has really made me not want to DM for B as a player anymore. The rest of the group was wonderful, and I really like them all. And I (usually) like B as a DM, too. But this one thing has really shown me a lot about B as a player, and if he's going to act like that, then I don't want him playing in my games just to purposely ruin them or be difficult.

He told me later he was “trying to speed things along” but all he proved to do was grind us to a completely impassable roadblock. I wish he would have just listened to me and trusted my story. I tell him “be a bit more serious for this world” and he throws around flaming horse poop and won't listen to me.

Anyway, this was honestly mostly a way to vent my frustrations, because I had been having a wonderful time that night until that useless argument kind of just ruined my fun.

[princeescaluswords]

McCall hunter Anon. I understand exactly what you mean when it comes to AUs that change the open and dynamic for everything. However I argue that the reason I myself don't like them too much is because folks that do such things don't think about the butterfly effect one has on everything else that comes next.

I love your take on it and yes the Argents backstory would be the same however you've given me a question I never thought to ask "why wasn't Scott trained?" I have my own answer for why Melissa gave up the life. But I never thought to ask about Scott and the answer would be he was the opposite of Kate. And on the spot idea would be that Scott was too pure. In a world of boys will be boys Scott idolized and took after his mom with he wanted to take care of people he wanted to take care of everybody even his hyperactive friend styles he took care of when injuries came. He mimicked his mom and her attitude when she was studying for her medical degree. And, Melissa looks at Scott and says I don't want to take taint this. As far as we know, as according to the Argents, females were leaders and men were soldiers. And, if he doesn't fit the roles of either then why not make him something different; a healer.

Using your thoughts a dynamic that I now want to explore is Deaton. If Mel has the backstory that she has then that would mean she knows who Deaton is. What if Scott's whole Outlook on life to help everyone and job came from a change of heart hunter and a heartbroken emissary? Such a thoughts, both minds and yours, I feel wouldn't change the story but it would change\depend the dynamic of a few people.

For me, I always prefer the simple answers. When it comes to "why wasn't Scott trained the way canon Allison was?," Occam's Razor suggests that regardless of what type of Hunter the McCall's would be, Scott's asthma would be an obstacle. Unless you want to make the McCall parents as bad as Gerard, they're not going to ignore the fact that it would not be very good if a hunter has an asthma attack in the woods in the middle of the night. I'm sure that there are other roles an asthmatic Scott could play in a McCall Hunter AU, of course, but it remains a valid possible reason for him not being trained.

I want to push back on any description of Scott as pure. I don't think you meant it in the way it's usually taken, but it is still a dangerous idea to me. Canon Scott is not so much different than any other teenager in the show: Stiles, Jackson, Danny, Lydia, Isaac, Boyd, Erica, etc. He's ambitious to make first line, to make something happen in a life he sees as 'sitting on the sidelines'; while he falls in love with Allison, he is definitely lustful; he is resentful of his father's absence. Melissa may have encouraged him to be compassionate and courageous, but he's not inherently better than any of his peers. When it comes down to it, he's the heroic protagonist because he makes better choices according to his own judgment.

"Purity" as a trait in fiction appears as often and can be as damaging as "destiny"; they become shorthand for "the hero is the hero because he was always meant to be the hero and thus has an advantage in being better." Which means, of course, that those who aren't heroes were never meant to be the heroes, and thus somehow have a disadvantage. I feel this is what leads parts of the fandom to dislike Scott because they, wrongly, feel that his role as heroic protagonist means their favorite character is supposed to be seen as inherently bad. (For many, this offends their racism.) This isn't true. Scott not only could have chosen wrong but he sometimes did choose wrong. He's the hero because, in the critical moments, he decides to do the right thing. For example, he had every reason to listen to Stiles and abandon Derek to his fate in Formality (1x11), but he didn't. He needed to save Allison, and no matter that Derek had just betrayed him to Peter and just tried to kill Jackson, Scott believed that Derek was the type of person who would help him.

But pushing back against "purity" also means I have to look at Scott's relationship with his mother. I don't think we're supposed to take Melissa as some sort of perfect parent. She's not portrayed as such. She's never shown as uncaring about Scott, but she is significantly detached from his life, even during Season 1, in a way that no other parent (aside from Corey's) is indicated as being. I feel this is a function of class and narrative necessity, considering how much her work is empathized. Fandom makes a joke about Melissa doing everything at the hospital, but I don't think we're supposed to dismiss it. Melissa always being at work isn't laughed off by the narrative and that makes her distant. Unlike the Sheriff for example, she has no idea that the sacrificial ritual is causing her son any problems. She misses Scott's uncharacteristic aggression toward Isaac and is confused by Scott's lack of control in Anchors (3x13). And what's more telling is that even after these situations -- she never follows up. This never changes. The scene at the start of Creatures of the Night (5x01) demonstrates this. Scott isn't "pure" because Melissa is always there for him; he makes good decisions despite Melissa being involuntarily neglectful.

I push back on this because of the way parts of the fandom try to insinuate that Scott didn't earn the True Alpha status or even something like a positive relationship with his friends. Or that he was given special treatment instead of the bullshit he was put through. It would have been very easy and justified for Canon Scott to have actually hated Derek enough to leave him to his well-deserved fate, and very easy and justified for Canon Scott to have let the Knowledgeable Adults have their way and execute Void Stiles, and very easy and justified to spend the ten episodes after Status Asthmaticus (5x10) waiting for himself to heal and let other people deal with the Doctors, the Beast, and Theo. But he didn't. And it's that choice, not any inherent quality, that makes him the heroic protagonist.