#the lack of canon girl characters on the show though damn

[mothmanssweetsucculentass]

Ellen Joe Headcanons

I can’t help it I love this shark girl

Like I stated in my previous ZZZ headcanon post, Ellen meets a lot of shark character stereotypes, including having a love for seafood, needing to be constantly fidgeting/moving, and going apeshit around blood or enemies who struggle

After that one incident where she almost attacked Corin after the poor girl cut her hand on her own sawblade by accident, Lycaon has had to keep an eye on her and make sure during missions from clients that she doesn’t jeopardize the objective due to her uncontrollable thiren instincts

She doesn’t actually care for the taste of blood, but whenever it’s spilled, her instincts go into overdrive and she has to sink her teeth into whatever’s bleeding

She likes fighting and doing combat missions for Victoria Housekeeping Co because of how often she gets to go bonkers on things that put up a fight

Too much movement in one area really stresses her out though. It overloads her sense of smell and makes her feel dizzy and overwhelmed

Obviously has an incredible sense of smell. How else would she be able to tell if you’re hiding candy from her?

I’m making it canon she owns at least 4 Blahaj

Like??? In official media about her they show that she has shark themed items like the blanket from that one video, of course she’s gonna have shark plushies

Despite being a very perceptive person she’s oblivious to the fact Corin has a crush on her

Corin thinks Ellen is playing 4D chess with her emotions but nope Ellen genuinely has no clue Corin has mental breakdowns over how hard she’s crushing on Ellen

Ellen is nonchalant around everyone but usually talks to Corin about stuff in her personal life that’s bothering her, like school stuff or friend drama

Ellen is the exact opposite around Rina. Ellen’s smart enough to know how manipulative and nosy Rina can be, and how any information can be used against her, so she’s pretty curt and tight lipped around the creepy esper lady

Ellen doesn’t really see Lycaon as anything but her superior, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t respect him. Usually it’s in her own way, though. Like, Ellen probably doesn’t take orders from him super well, but she’d be damned if she let anyone in Victoria Housekeeping go down first in battle. What she lacks in obedience she makes up for in loyalty tenfold

He’s also the one that provided her her massive shears, outfitted with the same ice technology his boots run on

Before being gifted the shears, Ellen’s weapon of choice was a pretty standard sword

Besides the massive tail and sharp teeth, Ellen also has gills running along her ribs just below her breasts

She’s like, the only one who knows about it though cause no one has seen her shirtless before.

When she’s at the beach or pool with friends she wears one piece suits

She can breathe underwater, but chooses not to most of the time because it’s either chlorinated (stings), or too polluted/muddy (makes her cough a lot)

Is good at holding her breath regardless

Besides the tattoos on her tail, she has a tattoo of a dorsal fin on her back, and a small tattoo of ocean waves with a little shark fin poking out on her right ankle

Has a very high pain tolerance

Has a very low bullshit tolerance

Once when running a solo escort mission through a hollow, her shears were knocked out of her hands and fell down a chasm. Her backup weapon? Her actual goddamn teeth

Like she’s a shark she’s gonna bite and she bites HARD

Has an impressive bite force, can chew through a ton of soft metals and most fabrics

She’s tried chewlery before but unfortunately no matter what kind she buys she always shreds it within a week

LOVES jawbreakers and other insanely hard candy

The fastest way to win her trust is to gift her candy, especially hard candies, as evident in the Victoria Housekeeping story quest

While she heavily prefers hard candies she also loves gummies. Yeah especially the shark ones

Her tail is pure thick muscle btw. Being smacked with that thing feels like being whacked by one of those punching bags that’s heavily weighted

She’s not always cognizant of where or how she’s moving it too, so it’s better to steer clear from walking behind her

That thing is the entire length of Xiao Genshin and also half of her entire body weight, no wonder the girl keeps having energy crashes, she’s carrying that thing around

The bite mark on her tail is unfortunately self inflicted. Years ago she got stuck in a hollow for over a week and grew desperate for food. Soon after having to do that to herself, she was rescued

Used to have chewing on her nails and cheek as a nervous stim but now has better outlets for fidgets and chew stims

Sure, chewlery didn’t work, but no one’s stopped her from making her own out of scrap metal. It gets the job done surprisingly well. She’s even gotten somewhat good at biting metal into fun shapes

Corin made a joke about it once about how Ellen could totally sell the bitten shapes and Ellen genuinely offered to make her one of her bear

Corin stores all her favorite trinkets in a box under her bed. So far the only things in there are the button eyes from her oldest stuffed animal project, and the bent, bite mark ridden metal piece shaped like a teddy bear

Ellen isn’t an impatient person, but she heavily values her free time, which is why if you idle in the game for too long she gets pissed

She totally suffers from a thing called Sharkolepsy and totally doesn’t use it as an excuse to get out of work or school sometimes

[in-g-major]

ATLA Unpacked: Ty Lee's Potential

One of the many things we missed out on from ATLA Book 3 was a Ty Lee character arc. Of Azula's trio she's ultimately the least explored and most auxiliary, which is sad. The possibilities were certainly there: a girl who seems too good-natured for the ruthlessness of the Fire Nation, coerced into helping Azula, seemingly naive about what her nation is doing or perhaps too timid to voice her concerns. Gee, all that sure rings a bell doesn't it? So, here are some things that I think could have been done w/ Ty Lee given what we know about her. 1. Friendship with Zuko and eventual Redemption Arc Canon screwed this one up during "The Beach," but there's no reason it had to be that way. Ty Lee should have been the person Zuko warmed up to the most given that they're both more caring people than Mai and Azula. With Ty Lee and Zuko, you have two sheltered and privileged teenagers who don't quite fit the mold of what Fire Nation children are *supposed* to be. As a result, Zuko is banished and Ty Lee leaves her aristocratic home life behind. Zuko's banishment and journey across the world helps him realize that the Fire Nation's war is wrong. Ty Lee, who was part of a traveling Fire Nation circus and eventually traveled the Earth Kingdom with Azula, could have easily come to the same realization. We never even get her perspective on the war in canon! Just imagine Ty Lee and Zuko bonding over martial arts, theater, and collecting pretty sea shells. They bring out each other's best qualities and motivate each other's redemption. 2. Standing up to Azula This has been commented on before, but Mai being the one who defies Azula instead of Ty Lee during "The Boiling Rock" is not a satisfying emotional climax. Mai happily left her boring life behind in "Return to Omashu" as soon as Azula gave her an opportunity, and she openly defied Azula's orders with no fear of retribution at least once. What Azula represented for Mai wasn't fear. Azula was the metaphorical "devil" on Mai's shoulder, distracting her from her lack of emotional fulfillment with fun and thrills. The one who was genuinely afraid of Azula, and abandoned her passion out of that fear, was Ty Lee. Ty Lee standing up to Azula and emerging victorious is far more emotionally and narratively satisfying given their dynamic. It also gives Mai a more character appropriate choice to make in the situation. Which leads me to my third point 3. Mai and Ty Lee marsreds made a fantastic commentary I read years ago. I'll link it in the comments, but her point was that throwing Mai into an awkward and uninteresting relationship with Zuko took the focus away from her relationships with Azula and Ty Lee and made her character arc about a boy. It's a pretty damning commentary on the sexism that seeped into the way ATLA's female characters were written, and how that became the norm for the franchise by the time of the comics. Anyway, a hugely missed opportunity for Ty Lee and Mai was their relationship with each other. Even though I am pro MaiLee, I won't make this ship heavy. Ultimately the writing has to come first, but Mai and Ty Lee do have a fun and touching dynamic. Ty Lee is even more playful and affectionate with Mai than she usually is, and Mai shows genuine care and empathy for Ty Lee. When they reunite in Omashu, Mai asks Ty Lee what happened with her joining the circus. Then, during "The Beach," Mai is the only one who stands up for Ty Lee, telling Zuko to back off and figuring out the root of Ty Lee's desire for attention. We never see Mai this invested in someone else's feelings and well-being with anyone else. The character appropriate choice for Mai in "The Boiling Rock" wasn't betraying Azula for teen love. It was choosing between the friend who encouraged her better self (Ty Lee) or the friend who kept her from growing as a person (Azula).

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

https://www.tumblr.com/xabura/752028677741608960/bryke-confirming-that-katara-loves-aang-like-a?source=share

What do you think of this? Apparently Bryke themselves said Katara loves Aang like a babysitter or brother. I don’t understand it? This is coming from the actual creators of the show even though I never got that vibe from Kataang despite what the ZKs say. Does that mean they were right?

If Bryke had said "Ozai is not abusive, he is just strict" it would not suddenly erase the canonical proof of abuse that is literally burned into Zuko's face. Yang can say he didn't write Zuko to be an abusive piece of shit in the comics, but I saw him literally throwing Azula in a place that, by Yang's own admission, only made her condition worse.

I saw Katara get jealous when other girls were paying attention to him as early as episode four of the first damn season, and then ten episodes later looking intrigued and even happy at the possibility that maybe they are fated to get married when they're older.

I've seen her blushing next to him like she did with Jet and Haru. I saw her doing a romantic dance with him. I saw her wanting to kiss him and then getting offended when he said he didn't want to kiss her.

If I saw a babysitter doing that to a child, I'd call the freaking cops. And if Katara had done any of that stuff with Sokka, Nickelodeon would not have let Avatar air (I'm still surprised the bedroom scene in The Awakening didn't get scrapped or at least severely altered).

And speaking of Sokka, I never saw Katara teasing Aang in a sisterly way like she did with Sokka, and with Zuko. I never saw Aang say that, when he thinks of "mother", he thinks "Katara" like Sokka does.

Instead I saw Aang and Katara hanging out, and him reminding her, IN THE FIRST EPISODE, that she was ALSO a kid. And then Katara immediately got attached to him because, in her own words, he had brought FUN back to the vilage.

(And before someone inevitably brings up her dressing up as his mom in "The Headband" - she also dressed up as Sokka's heavily pregnant wife. Read into it if you want, but be consistent. You can't cherry-pick one aspect of the scene and ignore the entire context).

They're children. They're peers. They're friends. Maybe Bryke wanted to add a "But she's also the mom/older sister/babysitter" aspect to it, but if that really is the case, then they fucking failed at it in an absurd way.

Like, if you want her to be "the babysitter" make her baby him, not treat him as an equal even when she's in the role of Sifu with him as the student.

Now, if Zutarians want to use this word of God moment as undeniable proof that Kataang is "weird", fine by me. I'll disagree because I actually DO like "weird" ships and Katang didn't interest me for the longest time exactly because it LACKED any weirdness, but whatever.

But if they expected that shut down differing opinions, once again, they gotta be consistent: Bryke also said that Zutara is toxic, would have no future, and that characters don't like each other like that.

If they want to have the right to disagree with them on that, they can't turn around and say "But you gotta take their word as law when it validates half my point!"

Either everyone is free to agree to disagree, even if they're disagreeing with the creators of the show, or no one is. Either everyone can engage in Death Of The Author when they genuinely think the intention doesn't match the text, or no one can.

If they wanna disagree with Bryke on the anti-zutara thing, but agree with them on the babysitter thing, fine. But they don't get to act all shocked when people do the reverse and pretend it's somehow hypocritical of us to do the same thing THEY are doing.

(Also it's very funny of zutarians to constantly cry "Male gaze" because "Oh, it's just young boy having a crush on an older girl" like they aren't CONSTANTLY using "What girl goes for the younger guy instead of the older one?" as an argument for their ship. Funny how fantasies and tropes are only bad when it's not THEIR fantasy or prefered trope)

[enquiringangel]

Statements like: ‘None of the Lost Boys like Star’ lack a firm basis in canon. Talking just movie canon here rather than novels, scripts, etc. which actually add a bit more nuance to the whole thing.

Star's place in the story is as Michael's comphet love interest and as window dressing, because all movies must include a hot chick(tm). She has very little agency or role in the plot other than to lure Michael into the vampires' world. The story could have easily worked without her with only a few minor changes.

But that's typical of the film industry doing lady characters the dirty. We all know this. And we all know that characters of her type are widely disliked across Fandom as a whole for a bunch of reasons, one of which is probably that those of us who identify as women became sick to death of being portrayed as objects without agency because it can hit too close to home. Let's not flog that dead horse anymore.

Back to her relationship with the boys: they don't share enough screen time for us to definitively say they feel any particular way about her. Aside from Paul briefly saying "Ah, chill out girl" when she tells them off for hazing Michael, the only one who interacts with her at all is David. And that is very limited too: after the two scenes where she gets on the back of his bike, he basically pays her no attention for the rest of the movie. Though it is implied that they have some conversations off screen (about making Michael her first kill, etc.) that we don't see .

The boys' focus moves to Michael, and on male-male bonding. (I am very straight-faced while typing this.) Star fades away into the shadows during Michael's initiation not only because she was unable to stop him from making her mistake, but because her presence is unwelcome. It would be like someone's girlfriend going along to a wild bachelor party: probably doesn't happen that often and likely to be uncomfortable as hell. It's a boys' night. She'd cramp their style.

Whatever the writers' intentions may have been, any attempt at creating a rivalry between David and Michael for Star's affection falls flat on its face because David simply does not care to play that role. He does not seem to give a damn that Michael is obviously lusting after her, and shows no signs of being bothered about them sleeping together. In my view the scene where he makes Star get on the back of his bike instead of Michael's has very little to do with Star - that triumphant smirk makes it clear he's trying to get a rise out of Michael.

From the little interaction David does have with Star, I get the impression that their relationship is one of ownership. He views her as belonging to him, but obviously he has no problem sharing her if it means he gets what he wants - Michael joining them. For her part she comes across as being a little afraid of him, which is understandable considering the boys are literally horror movie monsters who brutally murder people. (Contain yourselves you monsterfuckers, yes I know, we all love them because of, rather than in spite of this.) But the way she laughs while riding on the back of his bike, the sheer joy in her eyes, it makes me think that's not all there is to it. There is happiness in her time with them as well.

[leastdatablebracket]

ROUND 2, MATCH 32

Propaganda under the cut!

The Red Prince

Propaganda

When you first meet him he sizes you up as a potential slave by checking your teeth and asking after your culinary skills. If you recruit him, his storyline is about hooking up with another lady of his race so that she can birth true dragons again. You can still romance him in spite of his prophesied babymaking. No matter what choices you make though, at the end of the game he point blank tells you that his divinely chosen baby mama is still the One For Him, but you're welcome to return with him to his home country as his sex slave. He's terrible.

Cullen Rutherford

Propaganda

stupid racist cop creep whose fans cry about how hes "changed" and "you can't judge him he was addicted to magic drugs" nah he still chose to be a racist cop and abuse his power over innocent people and i hate him. the writers making him romanceable in da:i after how blatantly horrible he was in da:o and da:2 is baffling but i guess they had to appeal to the part of their audience who watch those "mafia boyfriend" videos on tiktok or whatever

He's creepy in origins, though still 100% willing to kill the female mage pc he's crushing on, as well as all the other mages trapped in the circle with him. He's the second-in-command in an even worse circle in 2, listening to and defending the increasingly obviously insane meredith until literally the end. He's one of the people still pushing for the circle system by inquisition, and yes he's going through withdrawals and working through the traumas of previous games. And to be brutally honest his was the first romance i took and while i don't remember much from it, its not worth all the girls going absolutely nuts over knockoff terrible alistair.

He's basically a cop who thinks being born a certain way can revoke personhood and by Inquisition still thinks mages are monsters to be controlled, not people. He gets a fairy tale cutesy romance that focuses on his personal struggles with addiction while showing absolutely no regard to the atrocities he committed and still thinks were justified. He can be romanced BY A MAGE and his actions and beliefs are just glossed over. He believes mages are 'not people like you (Hawke) and me', but if the Warden was a female mage he canonically had a crush on her and would deliberately hang around her despite the fact that he was her *jailer*. If that Warden romanced Leliana, there is war table dialogue in which he pesters Leliana for news of his 'former' crush despite her repeated statement that she doesn't want to talk to him about her. All this shitty behavior and lack of introspection gets swept under the rug by the game, not even giving the PC the chance to really challenge his beliefs. Like damn even Fenris could apologize when he lashed out due to past trauma with mages, and if anyone has a reason to hate mages it's Fenris. If you want an ex Templar hottie Alistair is RIGHT THERE. Tbh I know Cullen is a popular romance and I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do or like in a video game, I'm just saying I think he is deeply undateable

Spends the first two games as an antagonist, fervently devoted to the cause of subjugating mages, then a bunch of "character development" happens off screen and the games treat him like he's completely reformed. However he's actions make it clear he still sees mages as dangerous and lesser. Not to mention if you romance him with an elf he doesn't pay your culture more than lip service respect like most of the devout characters 

He was a total villain in the first two games who was violently prejudiced against mages and uses one single bad experience as an excuse for it (a bad experience that is pretty much exactly what he in his job subjected graduating apprentices to, mind you, but this is never brought up). Now he says he's changed, but his words and actions say otherwise. He still distrusts mages, sympathises with the rebel Templars trying to kill them, and he never owns up to the terrible stuff he did and helped others do in the past two games. He totally knew what Meredith was doing and says he doesn't, and he still tries to defend her intentions. And you have no option to call him out on it. If you romance him as a mage, he angsts about how he might have seen you as subhuman in the past but NOW you're one of the good ones, and when you ask him if he'll kill you if you get possessed, he dodges the question. And the PC is written as being almost sad that she's a mage? Like 'can you love me despite what I am??' Also if Leliana romanced a female mage PC in the first game who is still alive, he asks her creepy questions about their relationship. Fitting considering his original purpose was to be creepy to the female mage Warden. 

I hate him and want to cause chaos. Plus his VA is an asshole.

Cop

I think you covered almost everything but don't forget that beautiful moment in DA2 - Act 2 where you find out some templars had a petition to lobotomize all mages and Meredith, THE HARDCORE TEMPLAR LEADER, rejects it, but Cullen says they got a point. Despite the fact that we just found out that those templars were using lobotomy (or the threat of) to rape people and get away with it. And then Cullen in DA:I is whining that anything that happened it's not his fault because Meredith kept the worse away form him so he didn't know, but also that anyway Meredith had a point and did what she had to do. Meredith does not go mad until Act 3, before she was of sound mind and Culllen was her second in command BECAUSE he hated mages as much as (or even more) than her. What the FUCK did she even hide from you, Cullen. Oh, but he changed! Because the writers make A VICTIM OF THE TEMPLARS say so. And anyway he only says so BECAUSE HE READS MINDS not because Cullen did anything to show it. Also the narrative wants to sympathise with Cullen for his drug problems while Cullen is openly attacking the only other character with the same problem for...having the same problem. And he's the antagonist, so there were OTHER things Cullen could be mad about. But he is mad about the drug problem. Also I'm not an expert on writing characters with addictions but he is an addict only when it's time to have a cut scene where you pity him. Otherwise it has zero impacts on everything else.

[staraxiaa]

i really enjoyed porcelain! i loved how u repeated different phrases and lines throughout the fic to show how deeply the readers upbringing has been pressed into her character and her belief system. i thought that it was really realistic in terms of how abuse can look. i liked the different types of relationships she had with shouto and how that evolved over the course of their lives. it was really sweet how similar their thoughts about each other were but how their upbringings and fears held them back from being with each other earlier. i also really liked the brother character in terms of how he stood up for the reader at times but was also similarly trapped. i like the idea of them going no contact with their parents and the reader having her brother in her life as someone she can actually talk to and rely on. i think it’s really great that she’ll have someone other than shouto who knows intimately about her childhood and how she was raised. i also loved loved loved the intimacy that she and shouto had. it felt very natural and quiet but still very powerful in how it was expressed and constantly proven. i liked how shouto was there to talk to her about what she went through and what her life is like without pushing her. and i wont lie i did want them to kiss so bad, i really wanted reader to experience physical intimacy that’s just so different from what she’s used to, but i ended up glad that it wasn’t shown on the page and we got a scene of them dancing instead. it felt very reminiscent of their childhood which was very sweet. like damn at the end of the day they’ve been in love since they were kids and in some ways they’re picking up where they left off and in other ways they’re entirely different people. either way i thought the development of their relationship was very romantic but also so so sweetly platonic and trusting.

i yapped a lot

girl (gn) im ugly sobbing omg. first of all, thank you for taking the time to write this! im really glad you enjoyed my usage of repetition and how i portrayed the abuse (in as much of a non-fucked up way as possible) bc those were some of the things i keep on worrying about the most as i finish up this series sdjfklfsdj. like if the repetition is too much / the style i write it in is too soft yk!! like honestly big sigh of relief that u just thought it contributed more to her character / belief system. i

also YAY another brother stan omg u put so much depth to him. like that's exactly what i wanted to portray!! i actually thought there were several ways it could go - i think the concept that started him was 'golden child', 'favored one', but i also think there's also so much more to this dynamic than the stereotype, though it does exist like that ofc. now i actually wish there were more scenes for him LMAO it's gg. anon you've written him better than i ever will. this is canon now idgaf lastly, ugh im literally like. happy beyond words that you enjoyed the intimacy between her/shouto. i think that's one of the tropes that i enjoy most; the softness of falling slowly in love over the years, and that's one of the things i hoped to capture in every single part of this childhood series :^). also! i joke about running from my kiss responsibilities (lowkey i actually am) and ur right i also did want them to kiss so bad to prove myself wrong LDSJA (me when kirishima is probably going to be the first character i write that gets smth beyond a hug... it's So Over). BUT im glad you ended up enjoying it as it was either way. it was always going to end with them dancing (the idea popped into my head like 1k words in and i was like mentally screaming into the voidd some reasoning for the lack of kiss though, besides what you've already added! i think that, with the nature of her/shouto's relationship and the way i view his character, i think that reader would have to be the one to initiate anything. and i also thought that, with the way i ended up writing the final scene/time skip, it didn't make sense for her to kiss him after the marriage proposal, and bc the dance scene was alrdy firmly set in stone, it didn't make sense to me to write another one where i could explore their physical intimacy and then the dance scene yk?? ive actually thought about this a lot LMAO and i sate myself by thinking: the smallest things the reader does make him so happy like. slowly. you guys are already holding hands, so a kiss on the cheek would make him the happiest man on earth. oh here's a bonus scene: at some point he takes you out to see the fireworks. the two of you are sitting, you're tucked snugly into his side, you're watching the fireworks, but when you turn, he's watching you. it's so stupidly romantic. you probably ask him what he's looking at and hes just like 'you'. you flush a little. he kisses the top of your head, grinning like the little shit he is.

i also think it'd take a length of time to get married, so you guys probably do kiss sometime before then. no clue about the scene. but canonically (aka in my head) you guys are just having a normal conversation. like Normal Normal. nothing fancy. and all of a sudden you just lean in and kiss him on the corner of his lips. he touches it, and you can see the shock on his face. dunno if you lie and say 'something there i was just getting it for you' bc im a sucker for that but he only leans a little closer and asks you to do it again. i'd like to think man is patient even tho he desperately wants to (like to the point it's painful to watch) so you have to tell him straight up it's okay to do anything, when you're ready: i.e. initiate kisses and anything else later down the line. once he gets the green light though there's no stopping (he will immediately if u ever tell him) like in my head this man has been basically touch starved all his life and he YEARNS. either way thank u for enjoying the platonic/trusting parts of their relationship i am a Big believer in the concept that the intimacy of love does not need to be shown in physical ways. i was just worried i leaned into the friendship too much and did away with the rest of the romance, but since you said it was romantic!!! i hope these scenes will sate your wish for them to kiss just a little <3

[saintsir4n]

Hi Girl,

I’ve literally just come back from work but I’ve been thinking about you all day none stop and felt like I had to get this out, I want to thank you for your stories and your art as it never fails to amaze me. It’s artistically beautiful the way you write these characters being in love with their respective black love interests. Growing up as a bookworm, I found it impossible to find stories or especially fics that have black love interests not written in specific ways. However, you manage to achieve this so naturally and make it heartwarming to be seen as a possible love interests to characters that we’ve either fell in love with or thirsted over. I just finished Stereo Love and your Saltburn fic and both are just written in a way where it’s obvious the main character is the centre of her love interests world and that she truly is the epitome of beauty to them. Growing up, it’s been hard for many black girls (including myself) to feel desired and loved romantically, so thank you truly and I so can’t wait for what you have in store for us. Most importantly, looking after yourself is the most important so just know we your fans truly have the best interests for you in terms of treating yourself kindly. All the best lovely, I thought I would just give my two cents.

PS: do you mind giving your top ten male crushes (they can be fictional, from television or movies) and these can be current or like childhood crushes?!

Lots of love- 🐜

Honestly, this love and appreciation is making me cry. The type of support I’m receiving today is amazing and very heart warming. I try to write my characters as authentic and true to not just me to black readers, black girls and women. Growing up being black wasn’t as popular or glamorous as people showcasing today and I’m glad our people are being made to feel like themselves in spaces where we’re usually ostracised, so I’m glad that these stories speak to or help people. When I write my OCs I like to write them as desired, or loved, considering the lack of roles for black women in shows/films/books where we are seen in such a way.

After understanding the love interests (Felix Catton and Brian O’Conner) and how they view their respected partners I find it easier to insert my OC, of course I have to acknowledge the role of their race before hand whether it’s subtle or integral to the plot of my stories or canon.

At first when I started writing I didn’t know which part of the black experience to include, without bringing people out of their “fantasy”. Many people equate blackness with struggle or negativity, when there are so many positive and popular things we do whether it’s our hair, our style, our music or just us overall especially in the eras these films were set in/ released (early 2000s)

I’m glad you’re enjoying my stories, the next one I’m publishing is a House of The Dragon book, hope you’re interested. And I also hope you’re taking care of yourself as I try to. I’m so blessed to have this comment honestly as well as fans like you!

And atm for my TOP TEN MALE crushes (fictional/non fictional):

1. Jon Snow. Kit Harrington this role… I can’t get over his season 6 appearance. Most Targaryen men are good looking and yes people still say he’s a stark, which he is but damn, he’s something else.

2. Xolo Maridueña (Miguel Diaz from CK) love the actor in the show, he’s fine as hell especially with his longer hair and is thankfully older than me.

3. Damson Idris. Stunning, great smile, talented too!

4. Cillian Murphy. Must I explain this one?

5. Dylan O’brien. ALWAYS I just hope he doesn’t do some bs and let me down.

6. Brian O’Conner (specifically in the first and second films)

7. Kingsley Ben Adir. This man is just tall and fine.

8. Zayn. Been rocking with him since 2011 and his amazing voice.

9. Hector Bellerin. Just like Zayn, they’re fine men. And even though I don’t watch football, I watch his clips and that’s enough.

10. Lando Johnson. I only watch clips of All American Homecoming, I watched the original show up until season 3 and won’t start watching the spin off until I find out Simone ends up with Lando and his beautiful self.

This list took me a WHILE, especially for top 1, but I landed on Jon Snow, because how he is with a sword, his hair and how everyone in Westeros calls him pretty. Plus I did write a story for him a while ago, which I want to add to or change up in the future.

[soul-wanderer]

I'll admit that it took me almost seven years to both understand and appreciate Octavia as a character, and it's partially because of how she was initially portrayed, though in hindsight it makes a lot more sense now.

We get to know Octavia as the girl who had to hide for her whole life, who was punished for being born, and whose mother was floated for giving birth to her.

At first, Octavia seems to be this naive young girl who needs protection from her big brother. Then she becomes this defiant girl who keeps pushing the rules and boundaries, and truth to be told, this annoyed me at first, like "hey, your brother is trying to keep you alive, and you're just trying to make his life harder".

But then she progressively turns into that girl that desperately seeks connection and a place/people to belong to, but in the process of that search, she also turns into someone who, for one reason or another, starts killing people left and right. Especially when they're in the bunker, I started to question her motives, and at that point I was pretty much outright annoyed at her solving every problem through deciding that people needed to die. Back then, those actions made her character seem so flat and unlikeable.

But then I realized something - something very, very important: OCTAVIA WAS STILL ALMOST A CHILD.

Okay, yeah, that's slightly exaggerated, but does not make this any less true. Octavia is, canonically, anywhere between 16 and 17 when they get to earth. That girl's brain hasn't even fully developed yet, and she has already faced a lifetime of trauma and lack of social interaction/learning. But instead of this being a fresh start for her, it only turns into a brutal reminder of what she's been through and how much she doesn't belong. Of what she has missed out on. Of what ADULTS have put her through. She was punished for existing, and she realizes that she's done with them. She's not going to forgive them for what they've done and fuck, that is one of the sanest things we see on that show.

And it's one thing that she walks away - and a whole other to survive on earth without belonging to any group. But she somehow manages to find her people and quickly figures out how to survive - and she also learns that life on earth also often means death. And as a side note: Despite it being the norm that literal children are trained for war and death on earth, I will still criticise how easily Octavia was groomed for the role she would later take on. That girl was looking for family - not to be turned into a leader who had to decide over life and death. In a way, that does not make everyone involved any better than those who punished Octavia on the Ark, simply because Octavia had little to no saying in her own fate without severe repercussions.

And AGAIN, by the time she wins the conclave, she is still a minor! Freaking hell, an actual minor, no matter how mature she has to be, is supposed to decide the fate of all of humanity? I mean, what the hell, WHAT THE HELL? And she does an absolute remarkable job at it, too, and she does not nearly get enough credit for that.

It is only then that we actually see her struggling, like truly struggling, and saying that she doesn't want to be a leader to all those people. But does she have a choice? Of course not! Which, quite frankly, is not something I am willing to forgive those around her, no matter how extreme the circumstances might have been. So of course Octavia has to somehow figure out how to keep all those people alive and from killing each other, and honestly, that would have been a damn near impossible task for a grown ass adult. Instead, they put that burden on her, an almost child that grew up isolated and in fear and there is just. no. escape. I am honestly amazed we didn't end up seeing more psychological damage after all of this, though I am certain that girl didn't have a good night's sleep a single day of her life, so there's always that.

All that to say: Octavia was used and abused by everyone she was supposed to be able to trust. First she fell victim to laws on the Ark (laws she did not actively break) and then she was used as a chess piece in a seemingly never-ending war. She never got to just be herself, first she was the poster child of ruthless laws, then of ruthless wars and honestly, if she had one day snapped and killed every single person around her, I would have been fine with that, too. But she did not, and damn, what an incredible - though forced - strength she has shown, even after everything that's been taken from her and everything that's been demanded from her.

She is not this bratty, naive 16-year-old girl - she's always been this isolated, scared 16-year-old girl who has been asked to do things that no one should have asked of her to begin with, but she still rose to the occasion and somehow survived it all, which easily makes her the most compelling character on this show, and I'm sorry that I did not see that before

[miyu-writings]

Fairy Tail Reread 2023 part 2

It's been hard to sit down and read all of a sudden. Whew. It's quite annoying to want to do this but not having the chance. Sheesh.

Anyways~

Welp, I really am forgetful.

I mean, I like the Galuna Island Arc because it's the first time where we learn about Gray's past. What can I say, Gray's type is right up my alley, trauma included lol.

Moving on to the actual story in this book...

So, Natsu and Lucy are going on their first mission ever. Woot! Natsu behaves like Natsu and gotta love the twisted sense of humour as we're seeing that old saying "to those who love ugly, it looks pretty" - I couldn't think of an English saying that expresses that so, there, literal translation. There's something in the servants that makes me think of Oda's writing (or, drawing?) - the type of gag at least.

Anyway, look, it's a library!! And Natsu gets where he is!!! Wow. Such a difference... I wonder what happened... to make Natsu behave like Natsu here and then later he's a toddler. Seriously, Igneel would cry over how Natsu's being written in 100YQ - good thing he stayed in the canon story and didn't go to the sequel. Or so I hope, I have no clue if he appears once again.

Okay, Natsu finds the book, Daybreak! MC sure is lucky... xD

And then we have the opening for a fight scene. Very tense, very serious, very... Lucy? The way she's entranced in the book cracks me up. And she leaves Natsu HANGING to go read further in a calm corner! I love how shameless she is. But at the same time, seriously? Are you for real, girl???

Good thing that Natsu doesn't seem to mind. He's there to kick ass and that's what he will do. Even though two against one is quite unfair. Natsu was assessing his opponents, also letting them get close enough to hit him, to then give the final punch. No surprises he won.

One thing I quite enjoyed about the worldbuilding in the manga was the trinkets and whatnot, sometimes things that would be so damn useful irl. I wish I had those glasses Lucy wears - I would be finishing a few more books instead of just spending my time reading fanfic. Haha... It also does inspire me to add little artifacts and such while writing - I like to add to the lore lol.

Anyway, we're back to Lucy and the bad guy has caught her. He's such a disgusting dude. Very skeevy, makes my skin crawl and Lucy's too, tbh. Though, well, everyone has their taste at what they like - even lecherous and disgusting people like Count Ebar. YKINMK and all that.

The problem with being a celestial mage though is that if Lucy doesn't have her keys, she's toast. So far, Happy has been coming to her rescue quite a bit. And, is it me or in that mansion, Lucy is the only person with any actual reading comprehension? xD

The actual story of Daybreak is sad. I mean, how it came to be. And then Lucy fights!

How the fuck did Natsu survive the travel with Virgo - we will never know... only shows how super-human he kind of is... ('nuff said for now...)

But the battle was won, the Count was punished (and lost his remaining hair) as well as the book.

Good on Lucy, to give the punchline - you're just a secondary character - she's quite proud of completing her first mission, she's an actual member of Fairy Tail.

Then, we finally get the actual story of the book. Seriously, so much lack of communication and empathy. I mean, as a child who was kind of abandoned by his father, then seeing him chop off his hand, no discernible reason, and after writing such a pitiful book - a shameful book, even! - Kaby really wasn't very forgiving of his father. Going to the extent of really ignoring the words his bedridden father was telling him.

Lucy did great with unlocking the hidden words. Daybreak became Dear Kaby and I like the magic here. All the potential, the wonder and whimsy that is shown to us. How in the end, love does end up speaking louder. I'm a sap so yeah, this is touching.

Natsu waving off the fee - and seeing Lucy basically seeing the jewels gaining wings and flying away from her grasp, that made me laugh a bit.

And here we learn yet another important thing about Lucy. Her goal is to write a novel too, she wants to be a writer. In a way, I totally relate with the cringe of someone irl seeing what I've written.

Hang in there, Lucy! 😂

Next chapter: we're introduced to Erza!

So the chapter begins with Lucy adjusting to life at the guild. All the missions one can choose from are on the mission board and we also get to see a bit more of the background characters.

Mirajane tells Lucy that the Master is away for an important meeting and, just like that, we're given information of what's coming towards us. More of the magical artifacts (this magical pen is just neat!) and that's a small touch I really like. It helped quite a bit with settling the world we're in. Anyway, exposition about how the world is organized - with the guilds and whatnot - and Natsu gives Lucy a fucking scare!

His face cracks me up every time. He's such an asshole. 😂

He wants to team up with Lucy but Gray and Loke scoff at how badly served she would be. And it's back to reinforcing Gray and Natsu's rivalry and Gray's penchant for losing his clothes.

Natsu and Gray fight. Their rivalry was such an important element at the beginning, as well as a comic relief moment. Loke tries to flirt with Lucy but upon realizing she's a celestial mage, he's running away as if the hounds of hell were at his heels. This bit of foreshadowing is well-played, I find. It had happened already but twice is a pattern and it makes one wonder "wtf is wrong with him?" but then he comes back with urgent news.

Erza is back!

The faces of horror will never cease to make me laugh.

Next thing we know, the air in the guild has changed. And we get to meet another very important character.

Erza Scarlett.

Girl, you're insane! 😆 Such a badass.

Most of the members of the guild barely dare to breathe with her there. She definitely imposes respect.

The boys here make me laugh. It is quite a common occurrence in the beginning but throughout the story, their relationship changes and they do become friends. In the meantime, it's hilarious to me seeing how they change completely the moment Erza is mentioned.

Lucy (and us readers) is shocked! Natsu who, so far, has been both assured and goofy - he acts in this very out-of-character way now. And Mira isn't that good at drawing. 😂

Back to business. Erza has something to propose, she needs Gray and Natsu's help. A huge shocker because Erza is pretty much at the top of the guild, powers-wise, so why would she need them?

Mirajane's mumblings surprise Lucy but, well, she might be new but she trusts her elder and if Mira says that could be the strongest team at the guild, then it most certainly might be!

Gray's self-awareness...

(Also, it might be just me but he looks cute here...)

And Natsu is goofy.

At him being topless I just wondered if Gray wasn't being a bad influence already. Also, I realize I didn't remember that scar he has on his neck. Then again, when I visualize Natsu he's wearing the scarf...

Lucy looks cute in Natsu's clothes. Her "I'm so done with you" expression makes me smile a lot. Happy's such a troll.

And for the end of the chapter, we have a small yet ominous introduction to what certainly is the bad guys.

OoOoO

So yeah, here we go for the Lullaby Arc! I feel like I should be listening to the OST, because the music really helps with the whole ambiance.

///\\\

Gotta love how full of themselves both Natsu and Gray are. Of course that the whole rivalry is at play here but Mira sure set Lucy up. However, she was so right in toying with them. Just saying "Erza" and the boys were all buddy-buddy. Very well-done!

Erza sure is an exaggerated person. All that luggage. Sure, she can carry it all but, goodness. There's so. much. stuff!! Mte, Lucy, mte.

Then a small touch at "serious business" with setting up a match, which Natsu is sure to win. Of course...

And then the dichotomy: Natsu all fired up vs Natsu all passed out.

It's a funny gag.

Also Erza is tough and she likes to spread some tough love too. Poor Natsu, no wonder he got K.O. - how does he have the gall to challenge her and say he's going to defeat her when this also happens? Well, he's in a moving train but still.

The trepidation in Lucy's voice while addressing Erza... totally understandable to happen at this point but fun to see how their relationship evolves.

Then we have Gray demonstrate his powers and Lucy has that lightbulb moment as to why they are so at odds. Seriously, that's the foundation of things for me and I'm fine with it, haha.

Now with a passed-out Natsu, Erza gets down to business. She relays what she heard - and it's bad news. A dark guild is never good news, this is what we're learning. More so when they can get their hands on dark spells and use them.

The conversation is so serious that everyone forgets Natsu - even Happy! And the train is moving again so he's kind of defenseless. And we meet the next character.

Ahh, Erza is so tough that punishment is hitting. Why did she ask Lucy for that? I can't help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation because on the one hand, there is serious and important stuff happening but at the same time, all the Fairy Tail mages are super weird. Even Erza who looks so serious and straight-laced is so silly!

But back to the serious matters, Kageyama is with a big conversation about legal guilds and illegal ones and the indoctrination seems to have been successful to him. And as Natsu is in such a low shape, he has the chance to kick him and have high airs. But Natsu does fight back, when the train stops. And we get a glimpse at the flute though we do not know its importance at first.

Natsu is crazy. He jumped out of the train because it's better to face death than to stay in that shitty contraption for another second. Lucky for him, his friends are there. And what's better to cushion a fall than your rival/friend's forehead? The bonk noise their heads made was enough to incapacitate a normal human. Fortunately the insanity coursing through both Natsu and Gray's bodies saves them from that fate.

Erza was quite unreasonable though. Natsu was totally out of it and they, idk, left the train while having the conversation - how was Natsu supposed to know he had to apprehend Kageyama? As far as Natsu knew, the dude was just an asshole from a dark guild and while dark mages should be stopped or whatever, he wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on if he started apprehending all the assholes that crossed his path, right? (Lucy noticed it but, rightfully, didn't dare say a thing)

Lucy's bookish knowledge allows her to connect the dots. And that makes our friends have a new goal.

The bad guys are making their move and we now have a better realization of the stakes. It's a race against time!

Everyone is moving towards the most logical place.

The Oshibana Station.

I find that this Erza from the beginning was so awkward and funny. Love how tough she is in her own way of being. I ask you a question and you don't answer? Forehead knock is the answer! xD

Now Lucy understands the respect (yes, we'll call it that) everyone has for Erza even further. So scary. xD

And before nothing, they're facing the bad guys. And learn their actual plan to spread the sound of the Lullaby.

Many fights are about to begin and, as Natsu said, at least now he's in firm land and the terrain is a bit more leveled.

Yet, Eligoal seems to have something more up his sleeve. It doesn't look like it's going to be easy...

And the book ends here.

OoOoOoO

I was going to ramble about the whole Lullaby arc but this book's ramble has taken me two weeks too long to write (RL is a mess rn) and so I'm doing this book by book, apparently? Or, maybe not. I'm just rambling about silliness so yeah.

It's quite noticeable how the characters were still at the early stages, their quirks and whatnot still being defined, the art was kind of charming and the silliness and moments where you just go "wtf?" abounded a bit. It's nice. I'm quite fond of this beginning.

@watcher-ofthe-sky hope your reread is going better than mine. Or at least faster.

Hopefully, will have time to go through the next book sooner. But I can say that rereading this is making me smile and in a way find my love for the characters back again. Super needed that. And a good revision of the characters, as I need to have them present for the wack-ass AUs I'm placing them in. 😅

[takaraphoenix]

Batman Beyond: Neo Year

I did it, I finished Batman Beyond: Neo Year - which means I officially read every single Beyond comic to date.

Bummed it ended on such a bad note. I mean, seriously, out of all of them, this was just... the worst. From every angle imaginable.

Rebooting this universe after over twenty years, but not in a manner that actually feels like someone wants to improve - because, yes, there sure are elements that could have been handled better - more like someone rebooting it who doesn’t give a shit.

I mean hot damn they literally threw every single character aside from Terry and some minor Barbara out of the story. This feels like it was written by someone who maybe watched the show but honestly more likely just read the cliff-notes version and decided they could do it more edgy.

They literally made the biggest mistake any (Bruce) Batman writer can do.

Think that Batman is at his best when he is broody and alone. When in reality, what makes Batman good is the Bat Fam, is him interacting with others, working with others, the relationships and trust he had build over the years.

Not only did this comic scrap all the obvious developments post-show canon (Dick, Tim, Damian, Elainna, Nissa, Melanie), it... it also scrapped all the show-canon connections. By making him go “off the grid” in the very first issue, effectively cutting his mom, Matt, Dana and Max out of the plot. Heck, that started by this one killing off Bruce right at the start, to have Terry truly alone.

And in a manner that doesn’t even make sense. Max is one of the most brilliant hackers of this timeline. The main bad guy of this run is an AI. You know, the kind of enemy it might be helpful to have a hacker against.

Out with the old, in with the new, was the motto of this run though.

Because Terry isn’t left entirely alone... newly introduce is Sunbeam ‘Beam’ Boonma. The “only good cop in Gotham”. The... new... love interest...

Which, damn. Last time the comics ditched Dana in favor of a new girl, they at least had the courtesy of actually developing the relationship. This one? Completely rushed into. They talk for the very first time and Terry already describes himself as “heart-eyed” and with zero romantic development are they just suddenly dating by the end of the run.

Now, Gestalt, I don’t mind. Interesting character concept. Always in favor of a villain turned good. I just mind that the new characters came at the cost of the old.

So, the non-existent care for the universe’s actual lore really pisses me off for one - I mean, come on, there is a well of characters, dynamics and story to be build upon and they scrap every damn thing about it to strip it bare to its bones until it’s just Terry and a bit of Barbara on the sidelines? - but it wasn’t actually all.

The way this story was written was just... taxing. I have never had to read through that much monologuing before. Sure, Terry’s always narrated a bit in a voice over, but these constant letters he was writing to Bruce, half the issue had no dialogue and only windows of monologue. Which does kind of figure considering this ran on bare-bones character involvement. Not many people to talk to when you are Batman all alone, huh.

The plot was lacking too, honestly. I mean come on, Gotham City comes to life by developing an AI conscience and she’s now killing people? It’s kinda dumb and feels a bit like a “been there, done that” on account of the killer AI seeing as we spanned a huge crossover event taking care of Brother Eye.

If the scrapping of all the development the comic universe had achieved over the past twenty years would have been the cost for a fresh start that’d show love for its source materials, I wouldn’t even be mad. Have another run at it, let things unfold differently, work with characters in a different manner. But they kinda chose not to work with the characters...

I know, the beauty of reboots is that you can just ignore their existence - which, by everything holy, I am absolutely going to do here - but that doesn’t dampen the frustration of the old dying. Because there was still so much potential left in Batman Beyond past Vol 6 and thanks to this lackluster reboot, that potential’s dead and the next continuation I’m gonna see is of... this? Damn.

[gandalfthemorallygrey]

Weren't you writing a Stranger Things fic?

I was. Then I thought it was terrible, so I put it on hiatus and rewrote it. Then I thought that rewrite was still terrible and haven't gotten around to rewriting it again. But maybe writing it all out--what I think is wrong, how I want to fix it--will help. Suggestions appreciated: I really want to make Home is Behind, the World Ahead (TWA) the best it can be.

The core problem with TWA right now, in my eyes, is the lack of character development. I got so excited to get from Point A to Point B that I failed to reasonably show the characters changing and growing in order to get there, too. The most egregious in what is posted currently, I'd say, are the Ronance bits: I honestly kind of forgot Nancy was dating Jonathan, which is a pretty big no-no on account of it being a massive influence on both girls' actions. So I rewrote that arc to be a slower burn out of necessity of the extenuating circumstances. But that isn't the only example.

Chrissy's whole character is another massive one. The whole point of the fic is an Eddie & Chrissy friendship, because I really liked them in their few minutes of screentime together and wanted to see more. The canon Chrissy we got was very anxious and fairly stifled by expectations; she's buckling under all the pressure. That's Point A. The Point B I wanted to see was a Chrissy who still embraced femininity and more or less retained her interests from before the events of season 4, but was freed from those expectations and was overall more confident and sure of herself. She would be doing those things out of her own enjoyment of them, not because others wanted her to. I definitely wanted her to pick up some of Eddie's damn-them-all-I-do-what-I-want attitude, but to apply it to a much brighter and traditionally femme aesthetic, because the problem isn't her fashion or hobbies, it's the external pressure she gets to be doing those things the right way. Something something joy is radical, you know the quote (or at least I hope you do, because I've forgotten it).

But in my excitement to get Chrissy from that stifled Point A to that joyous Point B, I forgot to justify it. I forgot to show how Chrissy got there in her mindset. This also plays into how I write Chrissy defying Vecna: by being so disruptive, so undeniably there that he cannot ignore her to go after his other victims. That's a very punk mindset, I think, and it would be a great thing for Eddie to impart on Chrissy in a touching heart-to-heart conversation that leaves her determined to prove why she deserves to live, as miraculous and perhaps undeserved her survival feels. Too bad we don't have one of those.

Good thing I'm the writer and can give us that. But that unfortunately takes time and effort and I am chronically unable to focus on just one thing for an extended period of time. But mark my words: I will rewrite TWA again, and I will make it a thing worthy of reading or something equally melodramatic (I am very tired as of writing this). In the meantime, any flaws you yourself see in the fic? Point em out! And maybe send some of your favorite Stranger Things fics my way. They help me get inspired!

(Though preferably no smut; I can see the appeal in a theoretical way, but I am very asexual and just get uncomfortable and bored)

[daincrediblegg]

the terror ! chernobyl! <333

THE TERROR

Favourite character: Who else but Francis Crozier? My Darling? my beloved? the love of my life? Funniest character: Thomas Blanky (THE MVP!!! though Francis is also close second the man is funny as fuck TO ME) Best-looking character: Also Francis and I will NOT be challenged on the subject (but also in fairness there's a few other hotties on there like JFJ and Neddie and Jop and BLANKY and silna and everybody... but Francis still takes the cake) 3 favourite ships: well obviously the very canonical Lady Terror x Crozier (I am biased and I'm not sorry about it ) or Amelia x Crozier or JFJ (I am biased and I'm not sorry about it) OR Lady Terror x Amelia x Crozier x JFJ (I AM. BIASED. AND I AM NOT SORRY. ABOUT IT.) (no but in fairness in my periphery Silna/Goodsir, and the occasional rossier or fitzier when I start going mad with lust from the lack of reader fic) Least favourite character: rAT BITCH HICKEY( I keep making that Lady Terror with a boat knife joke for a reason. listen I appreciate his character and the role he plays in the narrative and how vital it is, but also he just sucks as a dude in general what with the racism and sexism and how he weaponizes that to inspire it in everyone else when they're vulnerable. like forget the cannibalism there are a great many reasons to throw that whole man out) but also low-key Sofia (look girl I understand where you're coming from but the guy really said there is nowhere I'd rather be and whichever direction leads the altar. no it's not a good match and you're right but still HE IS HEARTBROKEN- I don't feel so bad now bc Lady Terror is on the case but still. I just feel for the fella ok?)

Least favourite ship: Crozier x Sofia (HE! CAN! DO! BETTER!)

Reason why I watch it: reasons are myriad and plentiful (as you damn well know cherry). I like a damn good gothic story and this one is slowly becoming one of my favorites of the lot (and I basically have a concentration in this genre for my major at this point so that says a lot). Never has the rot of empire been laid out so clearly so carefully with a wealth of characters that bring nuance and insight into the subject and especially (and importantly) Inuit perspective on the event. It has so much weight and depth to it and Crozier in particular holds my fascination for his narrative in superposition between colonizer and colonized and just the IMMENSE weight of his internal struggle that is laid out for him throughout the course of the series. Of course naturally I saw that and went "I want to fuck him" because with all that on the line how could I resist (not to mention with how revealing his conversations with Sofia are he's absolutely a romantic at heart I know it) ? But honestly without all that insanely in-depth character work (as played by the ever brilliant ever enrapturing Jared Harris) I would not be as down bad as I am about it. Not to mention just how well it's written how detailed the character work is how ACCURATE everything is to period down to set dressings and props. I'm just bloody in love with it all ok? ok.

Why I started watching it: I was bored and I think we were a few months into the pandemic and I was like "hey I've been meaning to watch this" and then I did and all I knew was Jared Harris and Tobias Menzies and the fella from game of thrones. And then I did another re-watch a few months back (induced by Chernobyl which was induced by TLOU coming out) and here we are now the brain rot has fully taken hold.

CHERNOBYL

Favourite character: Hard tie between the trio but then again... I end up writing for Valery more often than not so... Yeah unfortunately my bias is showing it's Valery.

Funniest character: The Miner Crew Chief. motherfucker really said bare ass into the nuclear reactor tunnel but keep the hats on as a malicious compliance maneuver. Absolute legend (though Boris is close second with his little meltdown like jfc I scream about it every time. And also Valery being an awkward little bean half the time brings me nothing but sheer joy)

Best-looking character:... As TASTY as Valery is technically speaking Boris is more well put together imo (but still... Valery's old man shuffle and pudgy belly have captivated me)

3 favourite ships: Valery x Ulana x Boris are such a supreme ot3 for me (and Intercalculation on ao3 has spoiled me for life) and honestly that's the only one I really have (Well... other than Valery x Boris x Cherry's unnamed Baker OC ofc. and perhaps everyone/lead shielding)

Least favourite character: Dyatlov. Imagine being horribly irradiated and asking for a butter and caviar sandwich? wretched gremlin behavior and fucking criminally negligent to boot! (second only to the fucking snake and head of the KGB himself Charkov. the prick.)

Least favourite ship: ... anyone x the exposed reactor core

Reason why I watch it: I mean honestly? I watched it when it came out (or at least around the time) and it's such a ballsy show for the time. I mean it was pre-pandemic, middle of the trump era. And here's this show critiquing absolute faith damn near to the point of zionism in the state (when the state is, in fact, horribly HORRIBLY flawed). Granted, the manifestation in the Soviet Union is much different than it was in america, but the takeaway (again delivered with insanely remarkable gusto by Jared Harris) remains so profound and pertinent. The "lie" in what is arguably the best tagline ever written isn't about the actual state secrets that allowed chernobyl to occur itself. it's the very idea in the government's infallibility that is a lie- and anyone in my generation knew that before this series, but considering when it came out? it's SO ballsy to say that. And has never been more important. And I just keep coming back to it for the magnificent performances to that end (and especially Jared. love of my life)

Why I started watching it: Lol I remember seeing it and thinking "yo radiation scary" but then the above hit. it was incredible.

[the-sinful-voice-witch]

Here I am, I'm going to talk about one of the most wholesome potential sibling relationships in my opinion along with Shadow and Rouge 🥰🥰🥰:

Amy Rose 🌹 and Knuckles the echidna 🍇:

This 2 got really deep inside my heart as a really sweet brother and little sister relationship and unlike with Shadow and Rouge that despite consider them completely as siblings (big sis and little brother in that case, even with Shadow being 50 he is mentally 15 and Rouge is the one in the big sis role after all XD) i don't mind read and see fanart or fanfictions of them being a couple but for Knuckles and Amy is physically impossible to me 😂😂 i simply can't, feels so wrongly incestuos to me, and now my points:

1. First of all I just love that they have matching designs and in addition they both match Sonic's shoes 🤣🤣🤣 what do I mean? You see Amy first appearance had the same hairstyle as Sonic but the modern look she has her hair down like knuckles but shorter and also she wears red decorated with white like knuckles is completely red with a white waning moon in his chest that it's similar to the white collar of Amy's dress. This just makes me see them more intensely as siblings due that Amy's modern looks makes her looks like him.

2. Power characters: Amy in my pov should be seen as a power like character if she isn't seen as one already, i mean... She uses a damn huge hammer bigger than her head to fight, this shouldn't be even questioned. I really hated how in Sonic x her skill with the hammer was over all used as a funny gag of: ow look that crazy mad stalker whiny girl swinging a hammer like a psycho because she got mad sonic isn't paying attention to her how scary....🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 I like the scary woman with a weapon gag but no If that mean making her look childish and obnoxious, and of course she wasn't allowed to fight big battles 😡😡, her childish personality in that show didn't make enjoyable her relationship with knuckles... Well sometimes, when she was normal and teased him but damn it that show didn't make her justice 😑😑.

Fortunaly things change with time and her current portrayal is a lot better! Starting with her classic self:

Come on, this was totally on purpose! SEGA sees them as siblings too!!! And look at her!! Smashing things with Knuckles YASSSS POWER SIBLINGS 😁😁😁 they are family your honor.

Also her love for boxing 🥊🥊 hello?

Whoever draw this, bless you. And you're so right 👌👌👌👌👌 ITS CANON, SHE LIKES BOXING another thing in common with Knuckles onichan 🧐🧐🧐 and recently and more important:

HE. FUCKING. TRUSTED. HER. THE. MASTER. EMERALD. 👌👌👌😖😖😖😖 , Of course he would trust that task to his worthy warrior little sister.

3. Dynamic: i can't say I'm satisfied with the portrayal of their relationship in the shows they appear together, Sonic X and Sonic Boom in one Amy was childish and obnoxious and in the other she treats Knuckles too condescending and critical of his lack of intelligence 😔😔 and no sorry no... With Sonic and Tails they manage to make it... Fun but with Amy is just mean... AND AMY SHOULDN'T BE MEAN! (Also they fucking flirt in the show! Joke or not Joke is a BIG NO🥲🥲)

I HATE THIS!!!

I'll talk about Sonic Boom another time... Fortunaly Archie fed me with what I needed and gifted us with this:

Amy being what she's meant to be: supportive, sweet and affectionate and I love his protectiveness with her 😭😭😭😭😭👌👌👌👌

Final thoughs... Wouldn't it be marvelous if Knuckles was like a protective big bro who doesn't approve any potential sister boyfriend?😏😏😏

Anyway I need more of this 2, in a way when they are separated from Sonic and Tails... They are just like Sonic and tails 🤣🤣🤣 i mean isn't Tails like a little brother to sonic?🤔😉

So SEGA please be kind and feed us with more POWER SIBLINGS scenes, wherever you want, videogame, comic, tv show I'll take anything.

[demonslayedher]

Hi! What are your opinions on Kanao? Like how her trauma was dealt with/developed, how she was just characterized in general? I sort of want to write a fic and I was wondering if you have any tips on how you would write her?

Gut reaction opinion: She’s baby.

But, to think more deeply on Kanao (a few thousand words more), I hope you don’t mind me borrowing a few lines from one of my own fics about the pre-canon Butterfly Mansion:

“Deep down inside, Tsuyuri may have always had the spirit of a Flower Breath user. She withered early in life, but she’s got roots, slowly, slowly strengthening her. She’s got Kanzaki to prepare food for limber and strong limbs, little ones to shade and protect, and a shower of love to help her grow. Deep in her heart, sleeping quietly, she may possess the will of a weed.” “The Wasp's Nest” – Chapter 5

If I bring up this fic a lot, it’s because it’s the result of all the questions I’ve asked about Shinobu, Aoi, and Kanao, especially in light of the Taisho Secret before Chapter 164 which details how Kanao learned Flower Breath by watching, and despite not thinking for herself, she decided of her own accord to do something as drastic as joining the Final Selection. I was stunned by that Taisho Secret, as without it, I would have interpreted Shinobu and Kanao's relationship completely differently, with Kanao having been raised to use Breath Technique and been told to go participate in the Final Selection.

Some of my reasons for that: 1. In the flashback extra chapter of Shinobu complaining to Kanae about Kanao being unable to think for herself, she says its “dangerous.” I had misremembered this as being in reference to taking her to battle, though the actual text doesn’t necessarily imply that. 2. In Chapter 100, Gotou describes Kanao as a seriously weird kid who doesn’t even talk, and that she’s been made to fight demons ever since she was a child. 3. The fact that we had zero indication of Kanao having made a choice on her own prior to Tanjiro’s influence on her.

The most damning evidence of the three of these is Gotou’s comment, though it’s possible to explain this in-universe as Gotou’s erroneous assumption. He’s not far off, as the other little girls might not have been forced to fight demons (perhaps for lack of aptitude) but they do have to work as nurses for slayers with gruesome injuries. What’s interesting is that in the manga, we aren’t presented with Kanao’s back story until after hearing that she makes decisions by flipping a coin, whereas Ufotable shaped our perception of the coin flipping scene with Tanjiro by giving Kanao’s back story and Kanae’s “when she meets a boy” commentary an episode earlier. (Also, the glittery-eyed moment with the wind sweeping by her is anime-only, and they removed the part with Kiyo startling her and making her fall off the engawa.) A part of me suspects this change in presentation order is because Kanao was a hard character for Gotouge to get right. Wani-sensei probably wasn't decisive on the skirt length and then blamed it on Maeda, I bet. There was a vision in mind for Kanao all along (no pun intended), but like the rest of the cast, she was extreme in ways that didn’t totally come across without more explicit explanation, and Gotouge might have gotten to know her better over the course of writing her. I also suspect that, in light of the cruel realities of fighting demons and the strictness that requires, and already being a world in which children often undergo grueling Breath technique training, the original intention might had been for Kanae to have taught her Flower Breath all along. However, this idea might had gotten ret-conned via Taisho Secret to soften the image of the Kochou girls and show them raising orphaned girls purely out of the goodness of their hearts, not to pass on their demon fighting legacy to the next generation of swordsmen, even though this is exactly what we see Shinobu doing by raising Kanao as her Tsuguko.

While I’m not an expert in trauma and recovery (and I look for a story to be convincing as opposed to realistic), what I found most jarring in Kanao’s development was the switch from Shinobu as “Shihan” (Master) to Shinobu as “Neesan,” and if it was always meant to be a “Neesan” relationship all along, then why did only Kanao, among all the other Butterfly Mansion girls, get this extra level of closeness? Those were questions I wanted to wrestle with in fic, which was why I created Tsuguko OCs to try to unravel how the Butterfly Mansion dynamic became the way it was (ultimately that fic is just my own personal take on how canon might had come about, but in the end it is still fanfic and can’t speak for canon, and everyone is entitled to their own imagination on how to work with any given character in fic. I still like my version, though).

So, with this as background for how I am most curious about Kanao’s development, let’s look at her from a chronological perspective with what clues canon provides.

Childhood: Sucked.

According to the second fanbook, Kanao was the eighth of eleven children, we know that at least a couple of her brothers died, and their bodies were just left around to be cold by morning. They were especially punished if they cried, which was why Kanao desperately tried to avoid that. She refined a skill of narrowly avoiding being hit in her vital spots, but one day, it was all too much, and something in her snapped, and she didn’t feel anything anymore.

We do see some light return to her eyes when she encounters the Kochou sisters. By that time, she is covered in filth and bugs, so much so the man who expects to make money off of her doesn’t even want to be physically near her. To expand on this, I’ve copied about half of this post of random Kanao thoughts: I was reading the section in this book about Kanao being sold as a child, and they theorized that between being sold to a factory or do agricultural labor or being sold into prostitution, she was most likely sold into prostitution, for she could be sold into prostitution to be a Kamuro at a younger age than she could had been sold to other places. Her parents likely could had gotten a higher upfront price for her this way (somewhere around the range of 1M-3M yen in modern currency) and gotten rid of her earlier. This makes me wonder if the reason we only see brothers in her flashbacks is because any older sisters were already long gone, and they had to hang onto the boys until around age 12 when they could legally work in factories. As for the man who bought her finding her so dirty that he kept her on a rope, the book proposes that perhaps like the Yarite of the Ogimoto-ya spotting a beauty like Inoko under all the ugly makeup, he also had a good eye for spotting diamonds in the rough and getting them for cheap. As for Kanao’s age, this is a bit of a mystery to me, as there is a big difference between her height and Shinobu’s, implying that Kanao is very, very young. However, I think there’s only a four year window in which this encounter could had possibly taken place, and given that Kanae is wearing that haori (though it’s possible she wore it since before becoming a Pillar) and Shinobu seems drawn more similar to the flashback in which Kanae dies than in the light novel chapter when the freshly orphaned girls meet bother Himejima, that makes me narrow it down to more like a 2-year window, and to keep Kanao on the very young side, I’m making a big assumption by saying she’s a very scrawny 10-year-old.

But it’s just so hard to see this Shinobu as 12! I tell you, one of the facts that shakes me the most, still!!! Is that when canon takes place, Shinobu is 18 and Kanao is 16. SIXTEEN!!!?? But… but she’s baby… but also, like how do they even know that!?!? She didn’t know her own birthday, so they picked they day they found her (which Ufotable totally did not follow, as they set this against winter scenery and the day they took her home was May 19). So were they like, “so how old are you? Aoi’s age?” and Kanao didn’t deny it, so they just decided, okay, she’s the same age as Aoi (even though she clearly seems younger, it must be due to undernourishment and trauma, right??? Did they not see she’s baby???)

So anyway. Baby who they have decided is only two years younger than Shinobu needs a name. We do not know if Kiyo, Sumi, or Naho were around yet, but Aoi sure was, though not in a Corp uniform yet. We also do not know what Aoi’s relationship with the Butterfly Mansion was in the first place. Aoi has her own story and we can make guesses but we will never know it. What we do know is that the four girls made a game of letting Baby choose her name, writing some ideas for names down (and I assume having read them aloud to her as I doubt she’d have ever been taught to read—she probably got a lot of education to keep her busy after entering the mansion). Among the first names, Shinobu added some fishy names that she didn’t realize would sound weird, and Kanao was about to go for “Kamasu” (barracuda) when Aoi swept it out of her reach. As for surnames, they let her pick this out too and gave her options that included “Kochou” and “Kanzaki” but she went for the rare (but existent) surname Tsuyuri. As for Kanao’s name sounding so close to Kanae’s, there is a theory in the Japanese fandom that there is a pun woven into it which shows Kanae’s wishes for Kanao.

Kanao doesn’t go out of her way to interact, and but will cooperatively do whatever she’s told. As a reminder, she was in such a state that even with her stomach growling with hunger, she won’t eat unless she’s told to (probably a rule around her family home about not eating without permission). With all her sense of suffering having snapped, she might not had even recognized that’s she felt hungry, and I’m willing to interpret her as having had other emotions, but being unable to recognize them. After all, years later when she’s slaying demons, she is still convinced that everything is “whatever” so there’s no need for her to decide a thing; it has been 5 to 7-ish years since Kanae told her to make decisions with the coin and Kanao has been doing exactly that for this whole time. At some level, Kanao has chosen via indecision to remain as she is, giving herself no pressure to get in touch with her own feelings.

However, she does have them.

When Kanae died, Kanao was distressed, and recognized this—was even troubled by the fact that she was distressed, and felt she should be crying, but could not. This was a moment when Kanao was forced to recognized that there was something wrong with herself, despite having given herself permission—by way of indecision—to remain in a numb “whatever” state in which she doesn’t need to face her own heart, and the pain it carries. She wasn’t only experiencing a physical inability to cry due to her history having to keep from getting physically harmed, but was forced to peer into her own Pandora’s Box. While we wasn’t aware of it, at the time she was probably facing a decision: open the box more, or close it? By way of indecision, it stayed as it was.

Kanao really couldn’t help that she felt pain and sympathy and righteous anger, especially when seeing (specifically, according to that aforementioned Taisho Secret) how Aoi and the little girls had lost their families to demons, and how Shinobu lost her parents, her sister, and her Tsuguko to demons. Kanao knew she had to do something,  but since she wasn’t good at nursing work like the other girls were, she became a demon slayer. THIS WAS A DECISION. The Taisho Secret makes it absolutely clear that this was Kanao’s will, even if Shinobu worried that this was a decision Kanao made because of the environment she was in instead of this being a decision Kanao wanted.

So maybe the voice in Kanao’s heart is small, and she still relies on the coin even for small things like whether or not she wants to train with the boys (the coin said not, at least in the anime, because the anime added tons more breathing room (no pun intended) to the Functional Recovery Arc) and whether or not to say anything to Tanjiro (the coin said yes). However, these are pretty innocuous decisions; Kanao has zero confidence in deciding what she wants, and is used to not even asking herself. It’s easier not to. It’s also easier not to get emotionally involved with other people…

…because Kanao has does care very, very deeply for other people.

While I considered more about Kanao’s potential relationship with her other siblings on this Ask, what I want to focus on here is that Kanao was of course scared for her own physical safety, but she had to watch her siblings suffer and die. Kanao, who was willing to risk her life because of the injustice she felt for her new housemates/sisters-ish, probably could no longer take helplessly watching her siblings perish.

I really like that one of the ways Ufotable added to her story was in a scene where the Kamaboko boys are training together, Kanao is watching, and Shinobu suggests she join, after all, they’re from the same batch (translation: You need friends, Kanao). Kanao silently smiles and bows and nopes off to the side (which Shinobu probably was resigned to expecting), and after pondering them a moment, Kanao flips the coin. The kicker is that Kanae instructed Kanao all those years ago to use the coin “when she can’t decide” and in this moment, Kanao really didn’t know if she wanted to train with (aka, bond with) those boys. Caring about people opens oneself to being hurt; it’s safer to feel nothing.

But let’s look back at that big decision Kanao made, resolutely. She went to that Final Selection and came out without a scratch. This was not due to any external pressure put on her or instruction whatsoever, Kanao knew to do this without a doubt. Her selfless empathy and righteous anger drove her to that, no matter how much she believes she doesn’t feel anything.

So anyway, Kanao, in this resoluteness while also being untouchable for as long as she never makes the decision to peer into her own heart, blasts through the first five of ten ranks within a couple months. Baby is bonkers, I hope Shinobu was astounded. But then Tanjiro BOOM-BOOMed his way into Kanao's life with his Functional Recovery period, and took the top of her box and threw it away as forcefully as he threw her coin. Kanao’s locked away emotions stood no chance.

Let’s be clear, Kanao might had fallen in love with Tanjiro in that scene, but it wasn’t until his declaration of how he was going to wrestle that box open one away or another—I mean, not give up if the first coin toss failed. No, Kanao was emotionally invested for other reasons. It was all a safe, if not awkward conversation until Tanjiro took possession of her coin, and Kanao fretted about having given someone the power to make decisions for her which might have emotional consequences; until this point it’s always been easy to follow instructions as long as she’s numb to the results either way. She’s put herself in a vulnerable position by letting Tanjiro hold that coin, which is for when Kanao is emotionally invested in something enough to not be able to decide something. But then when Tanjiro tosses it, she’s eager to know what fate will decide. On the one hand, she’s terrified of the result Tanjiro wants. Listening to her own heart means being vulnerable, to care, to suffer. But on the other hand, she does want this, but has been too scared this whole time to make the decision to do anything with that partially open box. Having someone else force the decision on her is what she’s been pining for all this time, a push which neither Kochou sister ever gave her, hoping she’d come around in her own time.

And then, once the box is open and the decision is made, Kanao’s changes are fast.

At least, in comparison to the numb-by-virtue-of-having-decided-nothing state she in for years, her changes are relatively rapid. It’s not overnight, but as Kanao learns to confront her own vulnerability, she is likewise able to better understand what she likes, and what she wants. Fanbook 1 tells us that she used to be happy just to sit and stare out into space when not training o on missions, but lately she’s been actively blowing bubbles (BABYYYY), helping cook, buying little candies and presents for everyone back at the mansions when she’s sent to run errands, and poking the pads of cat’s paws (BAABBBYYYYY). Now that she’s open to positive emotions too, she’s exploring the world with wonder for the first time. (BAAAAAAAABBBBBBYYYYY.)

This development as a human being seems to have come at the expense of her progression in the Corp, but Shinobu likely does not push this at all, now that Kanao is finally coming around and expressing her own tastes and interests (and defying a Sound Pillar’s orders, as one does). I dedicated a whole post to pondering how and why her accession through the ranks slowed so dramatically after she got Tanjiro’ed, including pondering in more detail why was at those particular ranks. We also see in the light novels that Kanao is progressing in her friendships with Aoi (who still found it hard to communicate with Kanao even after all this time) and Inosuke, whom she goes so far as to have an argument with when he’s being insensitive about Kiyo being distraught over losing one of her butterfly hairpieces from Kanae (righteous anger!), but when appreciative of him later, she asks Aoi to help her make tempura for him. Within the pages of serialized manga, Kanao can even listen to her heart when it wants everyone to SHUT UP because Tanjiro is sleeping. We see time and time again how Kanao’s deep emotions stem from how much she cares about others.

A big turning point, one which Shinobu points out, is when Kanao verbalizes an “I want” statement. She wanted to train with her own Shihan. This is when Kanao graduates from doing things for others like an extension of doing what other people would want her to do, to taking up her own space in the world. This when Shinobu can finally feel that Kanao can act as her own person, but this means she can also be trusted with the full responsibility of a Tsuguko.

(Quick tangent here. Kanao totally took part in the other Pillar Trainings and I wish we could had seen how it went. Any bad blood between her and Uzui? Blowing through Muichiro’s training like its nothing and making everyone else watching feel as inadequate? Her greatest difficulty in Flexibility Training being surviving a hug that’s too tight? Showing up to Snake Pillar training and hitting it off with a friendly snake only to have the Pillar say his training isn’t suitable for girls and sending her on her way? The meditation with the Rock Pillar being refreshing but then who knows if and how she succeeded at moving the rock? Showing up ready for hard training with the Wind Pillar but he goes very obviously easy on her because he doesn’t want to be the one to harm Kanae’s adoptive sister? No wonder Kanao would have wanted to train with her Shihan if she lost out on so much of it elsewhere! But at least she got to see a snake and that was cool, right?)

So. Kanao is now getting instructions from her Shihan which are hard to stomach (again, no pun intended), but it’s the true test of her abilities now to follow these instructions while also having vulnerable emotions.

Growing up: Sucks.

Even if she was prepared, Kanao is consumed with righteous anger and a slew of other ugly emotions when Shinobu is killed right in front of her, and this is when Kanao really must step up and live out her decision to be a demon slayer. That means keeping her cool, not being numb. That means making decisions in the moment, including social decisions to keep Douma distracted. I don’t think she planned everything she said to him; that was the ugly depths of Kanao’s heart open and doing all the talking when she told him how she felt about him. There was zero hesitation in saying any of it. Even if she was still in the habit of flipping a coin by that point in the story, she wouldn’t have felt even an itch of temptation for it because she felt those words so strongly. Taking her own place in the world means not only knowing her own likes, but also discerning her dislikes.

And man, she slays and slays hard. While the fight against Douma is impressive enough as it is (and yes, unlocking her ability to cry at the end of it (right before that big Taisho Secret reveal) is indeed a major moment in her character arc, as she’s finally been able to unlock that last hidden piece of vulnerability), the fight against Muzan? Everyone else went down, down to bits and pieces, she is deeply shredded with injuries that were too fast to avoid, but she still managed to avoid getting hit in her vital areas and, even if she fell to her knees, she did the best at standing her ground. When I had originally read that chapter (that awful, heartbreaking Chapter 191) I took this as Gotouge not wanting to rip the girls apart as viciously as the boys, which was why Kanroji was already removed from the fight, but haha… hahahaha…. Clearly this was never a concern and I was naïve. No. Kanao was not lucky. Kanao was acting on deeply rooted trauma and narrowly avoided getting hit in a “bad place.”

Sorry, my writing is getting all over the place as I’m mentally reliving this arc and how much pain it put me through as I was following week to week. My gosh, though, can we give it up for that Kakushi who was charging in to save her without a shred of hesitation? Charging straight toward a direct hit from Kibutsuji Muzan himself? Kanao was totally doing her best, deciding as hard as she could to stand up and keep fighting, she wanted more than anything to do that but she physically could not.

So anyway. After this, Kanao disappears for a while, which is why I called it when I suspected Kanao might be the key to dealing with demon!Tanjiro. I was right although for totally unexpected reasons, but dang, THAT WAS AWESOME. The final, defining Breath of this whole manga was Kanao’s, it was her moment, and she was amazing. She was still bleeding from her abdomen and limping and gasping for air (this is our 24-hour Total Concentration Breath pro, you know panting like that is a bad sign) but she knew she could do it and she did it. You’re amazing, Baby. I know I’m getting off-track, but if we bring this back to being a moment of characterization for her…

…Kanao, at some level, still believes in fate.

She believes in a reason for things happening, like every time she flipped the coin, the universe was making a better decision than she could. When she knows what she needs to do in this moment, she feels this must be the reason fate left her with one eye left. She is still a deeply emphatic person who cares about the welfare of others before her own; as she approaches the Kamado siblings she’s moved with pity for them.

Zero hesitation.

Kanao has reached a point of peace with herself that can she act on these feelings, which is what points in her in the direction of wanting to practice medicine. Although being vulnerable makes her open to pain, it makes her open to joy, she and doesn’t hesitate in embracing what she likes—and we can assume, she doesn’t hesitate about what she wants, either. The fact that she believes in fate may be something that helps her. It wouldn’t have been possible for her while she was numb to everything, but now she sees how good things came from the painful sacrifices, and she’s ready for all the suffering and joys life still has ahead. While every fic writer is welcome to take their own approach because that is how fic works, I choose to write my post-canon Kanao with a generally positive outlook. I don't write her with survivor's guilt; instead of wishing she could had died in her sister's place she wishes that no one had to die in the first place, and she remains filled with gratitude for her sisters. In the case of TanKana developments, I write her as knowing what she wants, being decisive about it, and embracing the joys as well as the suffering. I was never really sold on her being a capable doctor if she's freshly (near) blinded and never showed much aptitude for tending the injured slayers before, but I suppose where there's a will there's a way, and Kanao's got the will of a weed.

[leastdatablebracket]

ROUND 4, MATCH 8

Propaganda under the cut! (tw rape)

Alfani

Propaganda

He is also part of the Brothel route (he and Dorain Grey share it). He is a prostitute at the Oscar Wilde brothel, and he has absolutely no problem raping MC under his bosses orders, not letting her leave and overall assists his boss in turning MC into a brainwashed sex slave.

Cullen Rutherford

Propaganda

stupid racist cop creep whose fans cry about how hes "changed" and "you can't judge him he was addicted to magic drugs" nah he still chose to be a racist cop and abuse his power over innocent people and i hate him. the writers making him romanceable in da:i after how blatantly horrible he was in da:o and da:2 is baffling but i guess they had to appeal to the part of their audience who watch those "mafia boyfriend" videos on tiktok or whatever

He's creepy in origins, though still 100% willing to kill the female mage pc he's crushing on, as well as all the other mages trapped in the circle with him. He's the second-in-command in an even worse circle in 2, listening to and defending the increasingly obviously insane meredith until literally the end. He's one of the people still pushing for the circle system by inquisition, and yes he's going through withdrawals and working through the traumas of previous games. And to be brutally honest his was the first romance i took and while i don't remember much from it, its not worth all the girls going absolutely nuts over knockoff terrible alistair.

He's basically a cop who thinks being born a certain way can revoke personhood and by Inquisition still thinks mages are monsters to be controlled, not people. He gets a fairy tale cutesy romance that focuses on his personal struggles with addiction while showing absolutely no regard to the atrocities he committed and still thinks were justified. He can be romanced BY A MAGE and his actions and beliefs are just glossed over. He believes mages are 'not people like you (Hawke) and me', but if the Warden was a female mage he canonically had a crush on her and would deliberately hang around her despite the fact that he was her *jailer*. If that Warden romanced Leliana, there is war table dialogue in which he pesters Leliana for news of his 'former' crush despite her repeated statement that she doesn't want to talk to him about her. All this shitty behavior and lack of introspection gets swept under the rug by the game, not even giving the PC the chance to really challenge his beliefs. Like damn even Fenris could apologize when he lashed out due to past trauma with mages, and if anyone has a reason to hate mages it's Fenris. If you want an ex Templar hottie Alistair is RIGHT THERE. Tbh I know Cullen is a popular romance and I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do or like in a video game, I'm just saying I think he is deeply undateable

Spends the first two games as an antagonist, fervently devoted to the cause of subjugating mages, then a bunch of "character development" happens off screen and the games treat him like he's completely reformed. However he's actions make it clear he still sees mages as dangerous and lesser. Not to mention if you romance him with an elf he doesn't pay your culture more than lip service respect like most of the devout characters 

He was a total villain in the first two games who was violently prejudiced against mages and uses one single bad experience as an excuse for it (a bad experience that is pretty much exactly what he in his job subjected graduating apprentices to, mind you, but this is never brought up). Now he says he's changed, but his words and actions say otherwise. He still distrusts mages, sympathises with the rebel Templars trying to kill them, and he never owns up to the terrible stuff he did and helped others do in the past two games. He totally knew what Meredith was doing and says he doesn't, and he still tries to defend her intentions. And you have no option to call him out on it. If you romance him as a mage, he angsts about how he might have seen you as subhuman in the past but NOW you're one of the good ones, and when you ask him if he'll kill you if you get possessed, he dodges the question. And the PC is written as being almost sad that she's a mage? Like 'can you love me despite what I am??' Also if Leliana romanced a female mage PC in the first game who is still alive, he asks her creepy questions about their relationship. Fitting considering his original purpose was to be creepy to the female mage Warden. 

I hate him and want to cause chaos. Plus his VA is an asshole.

Cop

I think you covered almost everything but don't forget that beautiful moment in DA2 - Act 2 where you find out some templars had a petition to lobotomize all mages and Meredith, THE HARDCORE TEMPLAR LEADER, rejects it, but Cullen says they got a point. Despite the fact that we just found out that those templars were using lobotomy (or the threat of) to rape people and get away with it. And then Cullen in DA:I is whining that anything that happened it's not his fault because Meredith kept the worse away form him so he didn't know, but also that anyway Meredith had a point and did what she had to do. Meredith does not go mad until Act 3, before she was of sound mind and Culllen was her second in command BECAUSE he hated mages as much as (or even more) than her. What the FUCK did she even hide from you, Cullen. Oh, but he changed! Because the writers make A VICTIM OF THE TEMPLARS say so. And anyway he only says so BECAUSE HE READS MINDS not because Cullen did anything to show it. Also the narrative wants to sympathise with Cullen for his drug problems while Cullen is openly attacking the only other character with the same problem for...having the same problem. And he's the antagonist, so there were OTHER things Cullen could be mad about. But he is mad about the drug problem. Also I'm not an expert on writing characters with addictions but he is an addict only when it's time to have a cut scene where you pity him. Otherwise it has zero impacts on everything else.

[dxringred]

HELLO FELLOW ST/DDIE NOT-QUITE HATER BUT JFC DO THE DOUBLE STANDARDS REALLY NEED TO BE SO OBVIOUS?

i love the fandom, but this issue has been present since. forever. since steve stans were shitting on nancy after the halloween party scene, making fics and long-ass paragraphs bemoaning steve’s puppy-dog eyes when he heard that nancy say that she was pretending to be in love. as if the scene wasn’t about NANCY and her grief??

and then again! when robin came out, the initial “holy shit, we finally have some canon queer rep of quality!! robin’s such a cool character, and this was a beautiful scene!” people immediately latched on to the fact that she didn’t label herself explicitly as a lesbian in order to shove her and steve together. and again, the steve stans raved about what an excellent ally steve was, when the scene was about ROBIN and pushing past her obvious fear to tell steve something like that.

and most recently, with the vickie and robin scenes. i personally don’t ship them, but even that was, apparently, content tailored for the steve stans. the fact that the directors might be leading into an actual romance life for a canonical lesbian character (though nancy has literally been right there. even the actors are in support of the ship)? unimportant because look!! look how proud steve looks in that scene, look how happy he is for robin. wtf.

steve’s a great guy, a fun character and he’s got depth and kindness etc etc. eddie… i mean. he’s also really cool and i get why people like him, i really do. but he barely had a season’s worth of character development, and already he’s a fan favorite. i like the ship, but i hate the fact that once again, the fandom is full-on obsessing over the “cute white boys” and neglecting the wlw pairings

and it’s so much more than a bunch of people upset that their ship isn’t as popular. this is an actual issue, where the lack of wlw content and attention is forever being overshadowed by the mlm pairings.

damn, i didn't even know it was possible to send asks this long-

sadly, i don't know any history of the stranger things fandom since i've never watched the show, let alone engaged in the fandom, but i can attest to the rock/ie one since i've seen several posts mentioning how steve looked like a proud parent or w/e, and then others being all "poor steve" since he's single while robin has vickie and nancy has johnathon. (for now.)

on his own, steve's an okay character to me. his development was good until 4B messed it up with him latching onto nancy again, but even with that, i've never gotten the impression that there's a lot of. depth to him? like it's very much the basic character arc of "popular highschool asshole realizes it is bad to be an asshole and that he actually cares for others". totally fine but hardly groundbreaking lol. and if i see his chest hair one more time-

i haven't watched the show, so i can't attest to eddie outside of gifs, but again. nothing special from what i've seen. his little arc seems to be 'manning up'? instead of fleeing like he did with chrissy (which i thought was a perfectly valid reaction, frankly), he dives into lover's lake, helps save steve and then sacrifices himself which ultimately then lowkey negates the development because he's fucking dead lol.

maybe it's just because he's a far cry from my type of male character, but. yeah, don't get the fan favorite thing. don't get the petition with 75k signatures. don't get the ship (no issue with it yet though) when they barely had any scenes. it's definitely a case of them both being (arguably) attractive white men. cishet girls in particular will eat that shit right up.

the fact that ste/ddie shippers are now going around reporting ronance shippers and calling them names for giving them a taste of their own medicine and/or politely asking them to tag their fucking fics correctly is disgusting imo. it's giving lesbophobia. they seem to think their ship is more important, and therefore nobody else's tags and spaces matter. the way they behave, you'd think the average age of that fandom is 12. (and i wouldn't be surprised if it is, honestly.)

the only canon lgbt+ character is wlw. (i can't speak for will. i don't know if his sexuality has actually been definitely stated yet, and it hasn't in the show as far as i'm aware, so. vickie also isn't confirmed anything as far as i know.) and yet somehow mlm pairings with minimal scenes are heavily overshadowing any wlw content. (first it was billy/steve which. what the fuck, actually. now it's ste/ddie.) i don't know what the huge disparity is rooted in (lesbophobia, misogyny, mlm fetishization, all of the above) but it's fucking annoying and boring. broaden your horizons. get a grip. uggggghhh.