#there are hundreds of people in the fandoms who rewatch shit all the time HOW IS THAT NOT ENOUGH?

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

What the fuck is wrong with the executives behind streaming services and why do they hate cartoons. Do they have some bull shit excuse for the garbage they pull? Did cartoons kill their grandma!? WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM???

[bleuberries-and-video-games]

content warning: vent

Dear Old Guard Star Wars fans,

You've been a staple of my life for the past couple decades. A lot of the stuff you do has deeply impacted the directions Star Wars is taken, and members of some of the greatest fandom sectors of the Star Wars community have, the 501st legion, fantastic artists, lore curators, have been able to participate in the creation and the propagation of Star Wars content, both officially and unofficially for years.

This has been some of the coolest fucking shit I've ever seen, the most awesome collaborative efforts, and some of the most interesting stuff both visually and engagement wise I've been able to interact with. Star Wars has been a major thing in my life since I was very young, it is a very deep and important part of who I am.

I was a Star Wars fan since I was five or six years old. I remember watching all six movies back then and being enthralled by it. My dad introduced me to it, a lifelong love and passion for a bunch of space stuff that kept me rewatching and rewatching and searching for more. And there was plenty to do, plenty to fucking do, tons of imaginative texts and ideas and games, there was a surplus. As I got older there was the Clone Wars, I got better at battlefront, and I played Republic Commando.

I have been just as participatory in Star Wars as anybody else. And I feel very much capable of saying that despite that fact I have felt like I haven't belonged until now.

I grew up in the tumultuous era when the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy were constantly butting heads. I didn't like talking Star Wars with people around me because they were always fascinated by things I just didn't care for it in Star wars. So I just went on my own and did my own stuff, enjoying Star Wars in my own capacity and just sort of existing, passively accepting the fact that I just didn't Jive with everybody in that way.

Then the sequels came out, and I was excited for the first time for Star Wars content since the Clone wars. I exited the Last Jedi and thought everyone would be on the same page, and instead found that most people thought the Last Jedi was shit.

Most annoyingly vocal Star Wars fans felt the need to tell every single goddamn person they knew that the movie was shit and terrible and made everyone look like pansies and didn't make sense. In a universe where people move objects with their mind, droids are sentient, and there are fish the size of Manhattan, the fake logic of a fake scientific principle is where you draw the line.

We saw a Resurgence of people so angry about their Universe being supposedly sullied that they bullied people off of social media, actors in the movie to be specific, and that is fucking insane to me. It Harkens back to Ahmed best and Jake Lloyd, and in all honesty, that's fucking stupid.

I beg of you please grow the fuck up. There are more things in the world than you. Than your perspective and how you understood star wars. You got everything handed to you on a fucking silver platter and it wasn't enough. You got several award-winning games, multiple MMORPGs, and endless library of books with infinite pseudo philosophical bullshit, countless comics, hundreds of thousands of action figures, cartoons of plenty, for all manner and all ages. You got everything, it may not have been a movie, but if that was your line, no wonder you fuckers feel entitled to this fandom.

If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty details as to why you didn't get a movie, it's because of your bullshit. It's because of your fucking needless shit. You made the prequels a miserable experience for the director you so supposedly loved, to such an extent that you have irreversibly damaged people's perspectives on what are essentially pretty good movies altogether, and now despite the fact that I know a good number of you hated those movies, hearken back to that time, as if you have a Nostalgia for them, when I remember being bullied or bullshited or completely disregarded by you for enjoying the very movies you now praise.

I get this has been said a million times, because this is about entitled fans and those are plentiful everywhere, and super prominent and vocal, but I will say it again: mourn your loss somewhere else and grow the fuck up you losers.

I'm going to enjoy the book of boba fett, the mandalorian, Andor, Rogue one, solo, and every other thing as much as I want to. Because I'm entitled to that. Because I haven't had that. And it frustrates me that I haven't had that, because I didn't feel like I belonged, because I didn't belong, because it was a story told for a bunch of people who didn't need a story told for them. People who had thousands of stories.

I looked at Rose Tico, Jyn erso, Rey Skywalker, and finally saw somebody I actually jived with. They didn't seem distant or dead for plot convenience, they were there and acting. I remember feeling that, that tiny vestige, when Ahsoka debuted, and finding out that everyone either hated Ahsoka or wanted to bang her, and she was 14 so that's fucked up.

And at the time, I too hated her, because everyone else hated her, because if I didn't hate her, I would actually have to except the fact that I liked her, and I only started liking her after everybody else started liking her. I regret doing that, I've always liked to soca, and I remember when people didn't. I don't want anyone to tell anyone else that there wasn't a time that a lot of these characters weren't hated.

You know what the best part is? You're going to get your fucking movie. Your shit show Legends movie. The culmination of Legends storytelling being brought back into the Star Wars universe, even for the fraction that it is. You're getting thrawn back. It is what they're calling the mandoverse, and honestly, that fucking sucks. Not only are you getting the movie you want, you're getting one of your most infamous villains, played by an amazing actor, and it's the culmination of something that should have been its own thing. That would have instead stood on its own two feet and been its own thing, instead of referencing and adding characters that it didn't need to tell a story that didn't fit. Instead of shoehorning a villain that we've already had multiple stories for over the course of several decades, using a new villain. But instead you're getting your fucking movie. You're getting your best villain on the big screen. And I hope you're fucking happy.

Because I for one am tired of the same five villains. I want something compelling and terrifying and interesting. I do not want to see the yuuzhan vong again, I hope they never get reincorporated into the Star Wars Universe outside of a maybe passive reference in a very interesting way. I'm tired of the emperor but better and also smarter, I'm tired of constant cow-towing to needless fans who are never pleased unless they quite literally have their dick sucked by Shaak ti, and I am tired of hearing the constant bitching about how Star Wars has been ruined by some fuck nugget for some stupid reason. Star Wars is a story. First and foremost. And a good story doesn't always stay with the characters forever.

Especially if their story has been told seven times over.

A good story moves on to the next chapter, it knows when it's time to end and find the next story.

Because I'm tired of hearing that Star Wars sucks now. I'm tired of hearing that Star Wars is not fun anymore, you don't like it. Cuz of course you don't like it, it's not for you.

Star Wars doesn't suck anymore, you just grew up and stopped playing with the toys.

Now you don't recognize them. now you don't recognize any of the characters, the stories being told, the logic and reason doesn't make any sense because you fell out of the story and just came back in the middle chapter of another one.

And you can do two things with that information, two fucking things: grow up and realize that the story isn't yours anymore to tell or engage with in the same way that you used to, you can never go back to that time, or be a needless whining bitch complaining about every God damn change that happens. You can make me, a Star Wars fan, somebody who has enjoyed this fucking franchise since I was six, almost 20 years ago now, feel out of place and miserable because you're out of place and miserable. You don't get it and you don't understand it and you don't like it. And you won't engage with it. You can either appreciate the fact that you had it and now someone else has it, or you can fucking be the worst person, did your heels in, and be a monstrous asshole for no goddamn reason.

You can either let people play and enjoy the story, what it has to say and the substantial stuff it is engaging with, or you can be a stick in the mud and make everyone feel bad for liking something you don't like. And honestly? If the latter is what you want to be, then please take less than a minute of time out of your day to watch this game Grumps video for no particular reason.

Sincerely tired fan who just wants to enjoy Star Wars in peace.

[mybrainproblems]

#i think everyone should do a writers watch like i only just started mine#and i chose buckleming of all people but. it's interesting to dive into the complexities of everyone's writing!#especially when the fandom at large would have you believe everyone who's not ben edlund or the like#is just an idiot keyboard smashing their way through an episode script. which is obviously not the case#for a show with hundreds of writers the fact that there's really only three or four the fandom consistently bitches about proves that#(also some of the people y'all are bitching about are actually good writers too coughcoughdabbcoughcough)#so yeah i definitely recommend doing a rewatch by writer. or at least go on the wiki and check out which episodes belong to who#there's a lot to unpack by doing so (@samsrowena)

aye. this one too. tbh i'd argue that bedlund is so well-remembered mostly bc he was an outlier in earlier seasons, where a lot more writers were doing episodes that leaned into the meta aspects of the story and were also putting our characters in Situations by the time he left. his more experimental and meta episodes would not be out of place in s11-15. like, truly the bar for writing quality was raised from s7/8 onwards... and i say this as someone who thinks s1 is largely banger after banger. (and i only say s7 bc robbie got hired lol, the season is very hit or miss otherwise.)

also like. as you know, i am Always On My Dabbnatural Shit and it bothers the hell out of me how much ppl seem to enjoy his episodes as long as his name isn't attached. also attributing dabb-loflin eps solely to him even tho i think he takes a massive step forward after they split (not to say the horrendousness of some of those eps are loflin's fault alone but i think dabb grew as a writer and person over the years and that deserves some recognition).

it really strikes me as odd how adversarial fans are about the spn writers and talk about hating them or thinking they're bad at writing. because 1) they're the ones creating/continuing this piece of media that you clearly do love or at least care about and 2) if they were genuinely bad at writing, you wouldn't be here. the show would've fallen off the viewership and ratings cliff and would have been cancelled years ago and not run for fifteen seasons.

and these folks will have the one or two writers that they stan but will claim they're the only ones who knew what they were doing and honestly? 4 episodes in a 20-23 episode season does not carry a season/show. no single writer is carrying an entire season on their episodes alone and it's not like they weren't conferring with each other at all during the writing process.

idk. it just feels really really weird to see folks be so negative about the ppl who are creating the thing that they supposedly love, and it seems like a really miserable way to engage with a piece of media. not to mention that tbh it's pretty disrespectful to the writers to assume that they have no knowledge of their own craft. the majority of writers on spn have been at worst competent (i am setting aside the content of their writing bc that's a separate issue. sera gamble die by my sword.)

and tbh so much of what ppl talk about in terms of writerly incompetence just comes across as personal gripes about the plot not going in the direction they wanted or an inability to grasp that spn is a goddamn genre show and not a family drama. genres have their own language and trope toolboxes and you need to meet it where it is, not criticize it for being something that it isn't and never was intended to be.

[gloriousmonsters]

I'm you're still doing the ask meme can we hear about Blorbo from your shows? Tragic lack of good Su Minshan content in this fandom.

one aspect about them i love

absolute king for disrupting the entire plot with an unrelated personal grudge. the beauty of the Hundred Holes Curse being revealed, WWX being like 'why did you do that? I've never done anything to you, hell I've never even met you before to my knowledge' and SMS just being like 'yeah because not everything is about you, I cursed jzx for personal reasons, dumbass' lives on in my heart.

(also cherished of my heart in that scene: the exchange where LXC is like 'why do you dislike Wangji :(' and SMS is like 'wHy Do i DiSLikE LaN wANgJi do I need a fucking permit to not like Lan Wangji? HE'S AN ASSHOLE')

one aspect i wish more people understood about them

so i just spent most of the day ranting about some particularly egregious things 😂 because in my perusal of the sms tag on here and ao3 and my occasional forays to twitter i have seen about every possible bad take known to man. On a general level I just want people to comprehend that he's a complex character who's clearly, like jgy and xy, meant to be a mix of villainous and sympathetic, and not Flat Joke Villain #9. I would just like people to acknowledge he has aspects at all, lol.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character

Moling loves him. I like to write it as a merchantile-heavy city that never had a comfortable relationship with the 'we are above earthly things' Great Sect nearest to them, and didn't have any smaller sect in the area, so when one of their own came back and set up a new sect instead of staying at that stuck-up Lan sect a lot of people were into it. Also in the bent of 'things from the earlier draft aren't true unless i like them', I generally keep as canon the detail that sms did well during the Sunshot campaign (look, he was almost suicidally depressed during that time and life loves giving him exactly what he doesn't want atm. him actually winning some shit by trying to throw himself into unwinnable fights feels like exactly the black comedy his teen years were made of) and hc that it was close enough to Moling that a lot of people are impressed by that as well. not to mention he has connections to the Jin, which bring more money into town! Absolute local legend. Only flaw is that he keeps turning down suggestions of marriage, but we can live with that.

essentially, you know how the Moling Su disciples start fighting with the Lan disciples in that one scene about 'WELL, MAYBE HE'S GREAT ACTUALLY, COULD YOU START A SECT'? the whole city of Moling is Like That.

one character i love seeing them interact with

...jin guangyao. i mean, can i put anyone else. when i type 'e' into my browser bar it defeatedly directs me to Untamed Episode 26 because I have rewatched jgy and sms' first meeting for the seratonin so many times. It's just so good to see JGY being polite and considerate to him, and sms first reacting with shock and then Insane Levels of Devotion (I usually talk book version more, but shout out to Feng Cong for nailing this facial progression in CQL, watching him as SMS going from distress to confusion to more confusion to slowly dawning joy is so good.) And the later Moments Indicating Long-Held Intimacy between them are. Really something, I think about SMS taking the bottle out of JGY's hand because JGY is struggling with it and giving him the medicine, and JGY giving him the medicine packet later (shoutout to CQL for turning that into a whole period-romance-level hand focus moment), not to mention sms bandaging his shoulder with strips from his own robes, d a i l y.

writing this, I love how much of their intimacy is based in wounds and the care thereof? jgy receives a loooot of casual and not-so casual violence in the narrative and rarely receives any sort of care for it (the only other person who tends his wounds onscreen is uh... lxc, who immediately follows it up by stabbing him) so sms' attentiveness to his physical damage and pain, and clear familiarity with is almost a shocking level of care and intimacy. just. jin guangyao gets his arm cut off and su minshan screams. jgy is out of medicine because, presumably, he gave the last of it to sms just a few minutes ago. i'm on to something here. or possibly just having a breakdown. give me a minute.

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more

I put wishing for more sms-xy interaction on xy's question, so for this one I'll put that (book canon) I'd kill to see him run into mianmian again. CQL canon, I wouldn't have minded a few more scenes with LXC or LQR back in the day.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character

more CQL flavor, but him and lan wangi actually got along well (?) for a little while when they were kids. literally all it consisted of was that they silently worked in the library around the same time and one time sms passed him an inkstone, but they're both people that feel the concept of Parallel Play Work Counts As Social Interaction in their souls. this only contributes to sms being even more pissed at lwj for not getting over his whole betrayal moment, and lwj being more angry about sms failing morally, and also some people being very confused about how intensely both of them treat their Grudge™ despite apparently? never speaking? you weren't actually friends or anything right? (lwj: he passed me an inkstone wwx: is that slang for something i don't know or-- sms: i passed him something once! we had a silent understanding! xy: you are completely insane)

[mariaiscrafting]

can i ask why you dislike dream? im not being passive agressive or something lol i am genuinely curious

S’all good, kinda figured you weren’t being, and a lot of people have asked me this lol. There are so many reasons, and I’ve said this so many times already, but I’ll try to go over some of the main things I can remember:

1) Arrogance: kinda put me off how he’s always responded to criticism. Always kinda had an air of superiority about shit, and it never really bothered me on its own because I think lots of CCs are arrogant & I’m arrogant myself, but combined with all of the following, it became a reason for me to dislike him lol

2) Manipulation of his audience: look, I kinda always knew that CCs with huge fanbases, especially CCs who grow this quickly, have some kind of grasp of how to treat and foster their audience to their greatest advantage. I’ve always been wary of CCs that put on soft or nice personalities, especially since the whole Shane Dawson debacle. But with Dream, it’s been a whole other thing ever since his cheating response video, and I’ve never been able to see him in a good light in regard to how he responds to his fans, ever since. I went into it in a lot more detail back when I first watched the video, the day it dropped, but I’m too exhausted to scrounge that post up, so I’ll summarize: that video had a very specific strategy that he used to victimize himself and appeal to his fans’ compassion for him, and after rewatching the video for the third time that day, it felt gross and calculated to me. The way that he focuses very little on the actual mathematical part of his argument. The way he frames the issue of the mods having favoritism or bias. It was already proven on Reddit and throughout Twitter that the numbers the mods looked at were for good reason, and not because they just wanted to pick the numbers that made Dream look the worst, but that’s how he framed the argument. When I logged onto Twitter and Tumblr that day, there were thousands of fans who had latched onto what he said in the latter half of that video and coming to Dream’s defense, and that’s kinda when it hit me: this guy fucking knows what he’s doing, and he’s doing it well, and I really really dislike it. There’s about a hundred other ways he manipulates his audience, including not coming to people’s defenses when huge chunks of his audience attack them (even though the people had respectful and correct criticisms of him), defending stans so adamantly in the face of antis, and posting periodic alt tweets that help garner the illusion that he super cares about his fans; but, that cheating response video was the major red flag, for me.

3) Cheating & lying: as is likely no surprise to y’all, I think Dream cheated lmao. At first, I was ecstatic that he had actually made a detailed response video and put out a report with the help of an actual professional, but as I read up on his supposed statistical argument and dissected the parts of his argument that felt off to me, I realized maybe he had cheated. Talking to some STEM major friends of mine, who weren’t into MCYT but had obviously heard about the whole debacle because they like Twitter and Minecraft, kinda put the nail in the coffin for me. I’m not nearly smart enough or have a good enough memory to detail exactly why I think he cheated on this blog, right now, in April, but essentially: his main argument relied upon claiming mod bias, instead of a sound mathematical or statistical argument; there’s no way of proving that the world files he provided to the mods and in the open source weren’t altered; the statistical problems he points out (i.e., stopping effect) don’t actually skew the original mods’ model nearly as much as his supposed PhD guy would say; and the odds he comes up with might not be nearly as impossible as 1 in 7 trillion, but they still come up to around 1 in 100 million, which is still fucking ridiculous, considering that there are only, like, 120 million people in the world who play Minecraft.  Not impossible, but laughable that he expects people to believe that. But... I guess they did, lmao. The thing that peeved me the most about the whole thing was the adamant lying lmao. When you look at the situation from the perspective of “dream cheated,” you realize just how fucked up all his Twitter responses, his adamance in streams and that video, and the general mood among his friends is... idk man, it’s just highly fucked.

4) Relationship with stans: look, there are significant numbers of  his fans that take part in Twitter cancelling vendettas, who spread around information about other CCs and their fellow fans that is false and meant to villify them, etc., and he never fucking says anything. It really, really bothers me. There are too many instances to enumerate, but a few that have caught my eye were when Dream stans would attack Techno, prior to their battle and when a Native American woman politely explained why he shouldn’t use Native music, he responded and said he wouldn’t, but tons of stans continued to attack her in her replies for “being so harsh/mean.” Like, he knows that just one word from him will make his fandom follow his beck and call. All it would’ve taken was one fucking word. There are so many fucking people that have been harrassed off of social media platforms because of the hivemind that is dttwt, for christ’s sake.

5) Reddit posts: All of the above were reasons for me to mildly dislike the guy prior to the Reddit posts, but they weren’t really enough to make me stop posting about c!Dream or reblogging fanart or reading DNF fics or watching Manhunts. I kinda just clowned on the guy, answered the occasional ask about the cheating thing or something related, and left it at that. The Reddit posts not only pissed me off for their content, but for the lying, as well. Do you think I fucking cared about him cheating at speedrunning Minecraft, of all games? Fuck no. What I cared about was the adamant lying that went into the whole debacle. Kinda the same with the Reddit posts. I’m one to usually forgive creators who acknowledge past errors, obviously. It is creators who try to brush stuff off, or even worse, create an elaborate lie to cover up allegations, that put me off a fuck ton. This is the reason I could never be comfortable with watching Pewdipie after I realized all the shit he had brushed off, and it’s now the reason I can’t go back to watching Dream. There is so much evidence that points to guilt, including but not limited to: his first move when the slideshow dropped (before posting to Twitter) being deleting as many old Discord messages as he could, the contradiction between him at first denying the account was his at all then changing the story to say he shared it with a friend, the wording and phrasing in the political posts being almost identical to the non-political posts that were clearly him (i.e., the one that explains his demographics perfectly), and the timing of the political posts (some of them being posted mere minutes after posts that were verifiably him, like the picture of Patches to the cats subreddit). People can claim that he’s likely changed, and what this it matter, as long as politics don’t affect his work now, but I can’t believe this fundamental misunderstanding of why bigotry in entertainment matters. I’ve always had a problem with the adoration this fandom has for cishet white men, and the constant criticism of non-cishet, non-white, non-men, but this really feels like the final slap in the fucking face. It’s like everyone truly believes that it doesn’t matter, that his beliefs couldn’t have possibly affected the way he’s treated fellow CCs in his circles or any of the number of people that depend upon Dream, directly and indirectly, for employment/CC clout. It’s like everyone truly believes that political ideology has no effect on the way we perceive, treat, and behave around other people in literally any field, not just politics. I, just... Christ. I don’t really wanna unpack my emotions about this whole thing right now, so I won’t. I’ll just say: I dislike Trump supporters and ex-Trump supporters alike, I dislike conservatives who claim they’re centrists (every fucking guy my age does this, it’s infuriating and makes me want to bash my head into the nearest wall), I dislike people who levy their fans against criticism - even when it’s righteous - and I dislike people who lie about their past actions; Dream fits all those categories, so I dislike him.

[sinnabonka]

Honestly seconding the mental parkour thing. I am literally getting physically sick and this stress is not helping. I'm a responsible adult, but this year has been shit on top of shit and this is a Certified Neurodivergent ™ special interest of mine so taking a step back? Not possible. Not to be that kind of fan but I wish they'd just show the final episodes all in one go because this is torture. To curb this, I'm doing self care to the max, sleeping as often as I can, and just saying "sorry no" to anything not obligatory.

Hi, nonny.

First of all, feel free to pop in my inbox if you ever need to talk. These are the most challenging times of my life, jokes aside, and I know I’m not the only one. We can get through it together! Just saying, anyone is welcomed! 💙

I totally understand how you are feeling! I don’t sleep more then 4 hours a night (I literally went to bed at 4 A.M. yesterday), I forget to eat, I’m in full obsessing mode for the last, like, ten days. My past week consisted of me trying to do something useful and eventually giving up and reading / writing meta, rewatching my favourite moments of the show, reblogging all the stuff that just hits differently now.

My advise for you: stay positive. Not in the smile-and-wave way, just please don’t let yourself spiral down the bottomless pit of despair.

Follow more people with positive mindset, check the tags I put under this post, check some hopeful metawriters, rewatch some funny moments with these two dumbasses being dumb together. Pull yourself out of it, one toe at a time. It’s small thing that keep the light on!

(Rewatching “destiel being boyfriends for 20 minutes” literally added ten years to my life, cleaned my skin and cured my migrene. Even now just thinking about it, I can’t help but smile.)

Whatever happens next, we still have these moments. And we still know that Cas loves Dean. And Destiel is canon. And Destiel is forever.

Everything happening on the show kinda already happened, we have no control over it. People who do have that power already did everything they could and thought was best for the story. All we can do now is let them tell it.

(If we don’t like it, there’s always fix fic and hundreds of beautiful souls in this fandom ready to provide 💚)

Everything happening now is for PR reasons. It sucks, I know, I hate it, too. But it’s just people doing their jobs. Imagine if the whole season indeed happened all at once? There wouldn’t be the Rayban - Putin - Destiel - Nevada fiasco, for starters, and it literally saved my life after 15*18 aired.

We were promised an ending “for the fans”. And it will be the ending for the fans. It will be gut wrenching, I’m sure, but in a good kind of way. People doing the show now love the show just as much as we do.

Cmon, who the hell makes the author / God/ the main antagonist if not the self aware and ironic showrunner who is in love with the story itself?

Take care, nonny. Fill your days with all sorts of stuff that cheer you up, drink more water, watch some “silly cats compilations” or whatever usually brings a smile on your face, have a good meal (something you order or cook on the days you feel blue).

Good things do happen, my dear 💚💙

[jyndor]

Cop-thing-anon here:

(I don't believe in the blue lives matter thing by the way)

I do get where you're coming from. I guess I see the thing about cops and cop AUs differently because the police is different and not as fucked up in my country. The thing about the fanart is just..I think you're reading too much into it. I don't think the artist really focused on the skin colour of Sokka, I mean, it's a kids show. Skin colour was never really mentioned or important in atla. But Sokka's personality is most likely why the artist was inspired to draw him as a "gangster", with azula (the villain) being a cop. It is kind of insensitive to draw that with the events going on, but I think that a lot of people in the fandom take some things way too seriously, for a kids show back in the late 2000's anyway.

hey anon, I say this with love and I am being sincere. I'm gonna need you to rewatch the show if you think skin color didn't matter. and it doesn't matter where you live because there is no part of the world, no culture, that isn't shaped by colonialism. I don't mean to be condescending so please bear with me, I truly believe in educating people as a part of allyship and anti-racism.

Anon, please know that I am not angry or anything but sincere in what I’m about to say. Just bear with me because I know that unlearning shit is difficult and can be painful, but we’ve gotta do it. I do appreciate you wanting to have this conversation at all. And I’m not writing this just for your benefit - this is for anyone who wants to learn about why A) race is a part of ATLA’s narrative and B) why critical analysis of mass media is actually important. So I’m not assuming you don’t know basic things about this stuff, I’m not trying to be condescending.

Now we’re gonna fix colonialism and imperialism XD wee okay here we go.

No matter where you live in the world you have some awareness of skin color. Your understanding of race might be different than mine, in fact it probably is. Race as we know it today is a social construct that stems from many things (and I wrote several hundred words on it but it was too much and too far removed from the point I’m trying to make so I edited all of that out. Yay.)

You don’t usually see imperialism, one of the major themes in Avatar, without colonialism. Imperialism is slightly different than colonialism - you can think of it like the ideology behind the practice of colonialism.* Imperialism can be used to describe expansionism in general - which has been going on since the bronze age lol humans, I stg - but usually when people today refer to colonialism and imperialism they’re talking about imperialism starting in the 17th century.

Now imperialism is not just a European concept. ATLA is set in a world that we know is supposed to be like a combination of different Asian cultures (with some influences from the Americas). And the Fire Nation is clearly influenced by Imperial Japan. So briefly:

Japan had a policy of sakoku (chained or closed country) which kept it mostly isolated (out of concerns that Japan would fall victim to something like the Opium Wars in China, among other things) from the rest of the world for a couple hundred years until the 1850s when a US Naval commander named Matthew Perry (I am not kidding) forced Japan to open its borders for trade to the United States by gunboat diplomacy, an oxymoron if I have ever seen one before.

Japan ended up signing unequal treaties with a lot of Western countries, and this bred xenophobia and hostility in Japan. The Emperor who signed these treaties died of smallpox, and after some internal conflict his son decided try to renegotiate these treaties. The US and European countries were not interested in renegotiating dick but the mission wasn’t unsuccessful because the diplomats A) exchanged some islands with Russia and B) were inspired by western economic policy and society to “modernize” Japan. Japan began industrialization and it converted to a market economy with the help of the US and other western powers.

So over many years, Japan went to war with China, Korea, Russia (and took back some of the land they exchanged with them), and others. From wikipedia:

Using its superior technological advances in naval aviation and its modern doctrines of amphibious and naval warfare, Japan achieved one of the fastest maritime expansions in history. By 1942 Japan had conquered much of East Asia and the Pacific, including the east of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, part of New Guinea and many islands of the Pacific Ocean.

But ATLA is not a Japanese story. The Fire Nation is not Imperial Japan. The Earth Kingdom is not China or Korea, the Air Nomads are not Tibetan monks, and the Water Tribes are not Inuit. The creators definitely drew heavy inspiration from all of these places and others, but ATLA is a story written by American people in the United States for American kids. It is an American story.

And it was created at a time when the United States was victimizing people in Afghanistan and Iraq (and other places) in many similar ways to how the Fire Nation victimized people. In fact, the show starts in the Southern Water Tribe, which represent Inuit people, indigenous people in Alaska, Canada and Greenland, I think it’s safe to assume that the genocide being referenced here is not one by Japan but rather by European colonizers and later by the United States and Canada.

Imperialism is in the show’s DNA. 

And so is racism. In our world they are inherently connected. And visual cues from the show along with things the characters say suggest that we are meant to make the comparison between our world and the ATLA world. Every story has a purpose - it doesn’t have to be political, but for Avatar it is political, it is anti-imperialist.

In this article about how ATLA resonates with us in 2020, Aina Khan of the Guardian interviews Professor Ali A Olomi about using ATLA to teach at Penn State. “One of the things we see with the Fire Nation is the ideological justification for what they’re doing. We are a glorious civilization. We have abundance, we have wealth, we have technological advancement; we need to share it with the rest of the world. That’s almost word for word European colonisation.”

Zuko and Azula both call Katara a peasant. In fact, Azula calls her a dirty peasant. This is one step away from calling her a s*vage I mean come on. While peasant might just be purely classist (lol no) because Zuko and Azula are royalty, um it’s clearly racialized classism because of real life context. There is real history with colonizers calling indigenous people this, dismissing their cultures as primitive and barbaric.

Add into the mix colorism, which is bias against darker skin and privileges fair skin (which is a byproduct of imperialism) and you have clear race shit happening in Avatar.

When I saw that fanart, I was immediately reminded of black lives matter of course, but mainly of the fact that indigenous peoples are also at high risk of being victimized by police. Not just in the US. And how gross it is to depict a colonizer like Azula as an angry cop (representing the state) turning her gun on an indigenous man who is dressed like a gangster which... yike.

Mass media influence everything we do. The messaging we get, our politics, what we want to eat for dinner because we’re hungry and have been writing this stupid essay for three hours LOL. It’s important that people think critically about what they consume. Otherwise you get the goddamn United States with half of our population stanning a racist fraud. You want to know why US Americans are so ignorant? Because our education system sucks, because we don’t have any real media literacy. But apparently the rest of the world has some fucking nerve making fun of Americans** because all of us suck at it. No one is thinking critically about media.

A really terrifying thing about people is our ability to take whatever message we want from stories, even if it is in direct contradiction with the narrative of a story. There’s a movie called American History X which is explicitly anti-fascist, but because it’s a drama and Ed Norton is cut and looks badass and uncucked or whatever LOL, the iconography in that movie is fairly popular with neo-nazis. Yike. This is not at that level of course, this is some random niche fanart for a rare pairing.

For better or for worse, US media and entertainment gets a lot of attention and people around the world eat it up. Maybe you don’t need to know every little detail about US American shit, and I know we tend to dominate media, but black lives matter is not just a 2020 thing. People have known about it for years, since it started. If that fanart was created in 2019, which I think it was, the BLM movement had already existed for six years. If you’re watching an American show like Avatar and you’re making fanart on social media but you don’t know what BLM is in 2019... well educate yourself lmao.

Considering that Black fans have expressed frustration and discomfort in fandoms over and over again, and I am sure indigenous fans have too because fandoms are racist sometimes, it’s important that white fans help make fandoms better. And I am a white fan, and I consider myself an anti-racist. Which means I have to be active about racism when I see it.

btw I found this great essay by @cobra-diamond which you should read if you want more details about the similarities between Japan and the Fire Nation.

* that is very reductive but it’s fine lol

** I am kidding, unless you are english feel free to make fun of americans for non-gun, non-trauma related things pls

[greyias]

OC Asks 3. How did you choose their name?

Also asked by @captainderyn​

Hahahahaha… okay, the short answer?: I’m an idiot. I didn’t realize I was going to love this game or this character as much as I did.

The long answer, well, I’ve alluded to it once or twice in the past, but I guess I should actually delve into it for real. But under a cut, because it’s probably going to get long.

I’m not sure if this should come with any kind of warning, but it’s kind of long and does delve into some personal stuff. So hopefully that doesn’t bother anyone!

Okay, so, when I first heard about this game in 2011, I had been out of fandom for several years, and had played a few MMOs here and there, but never really got into them for very long, mostly because I got bored very quickly with how repetitive they were. And then I read about this supposedly story and character-driven MMO, and I was intrigued. I was talking to my sister-in-law at the time about it, and ultimately realized I’d never be able to play because I didn’t have a PC capable of running it, and I was heavily into debt because of medical issues, to the point where I was having a difficult time affording my car payment, mortgage, and groceries.

So then Christmas rolls around, and my family has just about finished all of the presents when my brother and his wife go and bring in a special gift they’d been working on for several months: a frankensteined gaming PC that had one game installed on it, with several months of a subscription pre-paid: Star Wars the Old Republic

Needless to say, I was kind of bawling because no one had ever done something that nice to me before. And like? It’s kind of hard to describe what that previous year had been like without having a long, long side story but… it was difficult. It kind of sounds melodramatic to say it was hellish, but looking back on it? It kind of was. I was barely doing anything besides surviving, much less having fun. And here my sister-in-law had actually listened to a one-off conversation about how I was interested in this game but probably would never be able to play it, and like… took it upon herself to make that happen.

So of course the first thing I do is hook up my brand FrankenPC, load up the only game on it, and create a character! But it’s a MMO – and even though it’s billed on being story and character-based, I kind of don’t really believe it? Or at least don’t think my character is going to matter. So I do what I did with every other MMO, I used my online nickname to make a character (Greyias) so my friends can recognize me if they’re in-game, create a character that vaguely looks like me, and get to adventuring! 

The last name came when they rolled out legacies, and hey, I used “Highwind” for my short-lived Pirates of the Caribbean MMO toon. It’s also the last name for one of the main characters in my abandoned steampunk novel series, but that’s another story for another time.

(And then after about three days of learning the mechancis, re-roll said character on a different server, because OOPS! That wasn’t the server my brother and sister-in-law had started their guild on. She looked a little less like me this time. Probably should have changed the name, but I just wanted to see how the story turned out and eventually quest with my fam)

I realized my mistake around Coruscant when Kira joined up as a companion and I went “…uh oh.”

Because I’ve started to recognize I get a certain feeling when I like something, really like something to the point when I get… ideas. Story ideas. Character conversations and wondering “what if”. Of course, this is still in the open beta period, the game hasn’t even launched yet, there’s still long queues to log in and the grind is real, and I just want to see where this story is going and what Darth Angral is going to do, and why is this character so damn sincere and genuine and I don’t like characters that are the literal embodiment of sunshine, I like snarky snarksters and–oh. No I actually do like the Sunshine Jedi. A lot.

Now, a few of you may be like “I really don’t see what the problem is” – this is kind of an old school thing, and something that seems to have thankfully gotten a lot of pushback in the time since I had left fandom and the time since I rejoined it, and that is: The Dreaded Mary Sue

From about the time I had started writing fic when I was in my early teens and onwards it had been drilled into my head that Mary Sues were a bad thing. And self-inserts were worse. Especially if they were *gasp* FEMALE CHARACTERS. (We can’t have those girls having characters they identify with now, can we?) And like, those very relevant discussions aside, I was kind of… ashamed? That I had made a self-insert without realizing it? Despite the fact that like, the character that resulted from my playthrough was very much not me. Like, a significantly different person.

But I was starting to get story ideas and snatches of character bits, and like, I hadn’t written in so long, I hadn’t been inspired in so long. And honestly I just loved this little do-gooder goober, in all of her naive, happy-go-lucky glory. As well as her red-headed sidekick and this amazing dynamic that I had only really seen depicted between male characters previously. And so I promised myself if I got a story idea, I’d write it out and… just change Grey’s name to something else. So no one would know my secret crime, and I would be free, freeeee to scribble in the margins of canon.

It was a great plan, except, I had been playing with subtitles for the game on, so every time Grey would speak, her name would appear above it. And wouldn’t you know? I associated that name with that face, and well, I didn’t get that story idea yet, so it was. Fine I tell you. FINE.

I kept playing the game. In fact, I played the game a lot in the middle part of 2012, because wouldn’t you know? I had another round of medical issues that put me on short term disability and I actually had to retrain my body to sit in a chair for long periods of time (look, it’s a really long story, and this post is long enough as it is). So let’s just say… I got really attached to my little Sunshine Jedi who could go out and save the galaxy when I could barely walk a hundred feet.

And continued to play it off and on over the following years, until finally, finally the devs removed the grind wall in preparation for KotFE, and I was able to finish the Jedi Knight storyline and see where her story ended up. Then I played the next expansion on Makeb. Which was fun. Then I made the mistake that we all know I was eventually going to make: I played Shadow of Revan.

And met Theron fucking Shan. And my perfect little Jedi suddenly fell in love and oh crap. I’m escaping out of cutscenes to rewatch them. Like rewatching them an absurd amount of times. And as I’m going to sleep I’m like, getting entire bits of narration and brand new scenes and fic ideas in my head, and oh god. It finally happened. I try and resist the pull, but I play up through KotFE and I have no more story to stall any more. And the snippets just keep lulling me to sleep every night and… okay.

I probably need to rename this character now. Like, there’s an actual ability to do that in-game so I should get to it. Chop chop.

Nothing works. Nothing at all works. This should not be that hard, she can have any name, no one will know. Why can’t I think of a different name? I go to every single name site known to man, and none of them are her. Besides the fact, that’s her name, and I’m starting to feel kind of guilty for taking it away from her. Poor girl has been through so much in canon and now I’m taking away her name? What kind of monster am I? Okay, fine. I roll up a different Knight during the Dark vs Light event, gave that one an actual name that was not my online writer name just to see if I could trick my brain into writing about them.

Nope.

Maybe I’ll change my online name? “Let her keep the name Grey and I can just have a different name and…” – at this point I’m starting to realize I might be getting slightly neurotic over this whole thing.

Completely annoyed with myself for spending nearly a year trying to come up with a new name I’m starting to get desperate, thinking up ways to maybe just… write around it and not let people know her name until they maybe fall in love with her and hopefully just forget how it’s weird. That can work right? Okay, whatever at least I’m writing and it’s shutting these two up, and it’s all going good for several stories in and then suddenly I get to a scene that has more than one female character and I’m like “Shit… the jig is up.”

Meanwhile, I’ve started up a Dragon Age Origins playthrough, and like a dumbass, DO THE EXACT SAME THING with a female Cousland, and start whining to poor @for-the-flail on Twitter, on my fainting couch about how I can never write this character’s name because I named her after myself, and, bless her heart, she’s just like: “…um. Why?”

And I’m like “Because… we share a name… and that’s weird for people…?”

She goes “It’s not that weird. Why don’t you just write your stories? People will like them or not.”

And sheepishly, I realized she was right, and stopped being so diligent about hiding poor Grey’s name, and eventually, because you are all such lovely and encouraging people, eventually embraced it. (Come to think of it, I never did wind up writing about poor Cousland!Grey. Oops.)

So! That’s the long and ramble story of how she got her name and why it never changed despite my best efforts.

In summary: I’m an idiot 🤷‍♀️ but I think you guys love me anyway?

[bobbyischill]

My Relationship With Andi Mack

Two years ago, when I was in 10th grade, my GSA advisor was telling me and a friend about a Disney Channel show. She hadn’t watched it yet, but apparently one of the main characters had just come out as gay! I was really happy for Disney and glad that queer kids all over the world had someone like them to look up to. However, I, a 15 year old, a mature teenager, wouldn’t really enjoy a kids show, right? So I went about the rest of my day without giving it a second thought....

Until I went home and opened up Tumblr. One of the first posts I saw was someone giving props to Disney for making such a diverse, inclusive show that was actually GOOD. They said it reminded them of Girl Meets World, except it was a million times better and diverse. Okay fine, I thought. I guess I’ll check out Andi Mack. (BOOYY I HAD A BIG STORM COMING)

I opened up my iPad around 10:30pm and decided to watch an episode or two, depending on how tired I was. After the very first episode, I recognized that this show was special. Like, REALLY special. The characters were fleshed out and unique. There was the “twist” about Bex being Andi’s mom. The friendships and relationships felt real. I knew I was going to binge the whole show that night.

That night, as I continued on with the show, I fell in love with each one of them. They all had their own quirks, they were all nuanced. I fell in love with how competitive, protective to a fault, and caring Buffy was. I fell in love with how awkward and goofy and relatable Cyrus was. I fell in love with how kind and oblivious Jonah was. I fell in love with how hard-working and funny Andi was, and how much she cared about certain things and the people around her. I fell in love with the dynamics between certain characters and how they were always changing. I loved how it tackled racism in school (Buffy had to change her hair or be sent home), how unfair dress codes are to students (especially girls), how you need to take a stand for what you believe in (the prison uniforms), and how stepping out of your comfort zone is a good thing, even if you get hurt (Andi watching a horror movie and being terrified, but not regretting it). This was all in the first season.

This show already meant so much to me. And then Cyrus looked back at Jonah. In the words of Jonah Beck, “I cried”. Just that hint of representation was more than I had ever scene on Disney or any other show marketed to kids.

And then Cyrus came out to Buffy. I, a pansexual who was out to my friends but not any of my family and who still struggled with intense internalized homophobia, burst into tears. I related to how ashamed and afraid Cyrus looked. I needed to hear Buffy’s heartfelt response. “You may be weird, but you’re no different.” That phrase was constantly bouncing through my head for at least the next few days (and if I’m being honest, it still is). I wrote it all over my notes and assignments because it was literally all I could think about for such a long time. I saw the sign on the wall that said “G: for General Audiences.” That showed me that Disney (or at least Terri Minsky, my queen) truly felt that I wasn’t a freak. I didn’t need to hide my identity from anyone if I didn’t want to. My identity wasn’t a mature subject; it was for general audiences. (Also, I just want to add that Sofia and Josh’s acting in this scene was absolutely fantastic. It was so raw and emotional, and it still makes me cry every time I see it.)

And then in that same episode Cyrus and Buffy talked about his crush on Jonah. They did it so casually, and my mind was blown. At this point, I had honestly never seen so much gay representation in a show as this.

That night, I stayed up until 5am. I was rewatched Cyrus’s coming out scene about 10 times. I fangirled about it on Tumblr. I added “Tomorrow Starts Today” to my Spotify playlist. I even wrote a diary entry about it. (I only write in my diary when I’m feeling very intense emotions that I need to write down in order to figure out.)

The next day at school, I told all my Gay Friends about Andi Mack and how amazing it was. A few of them got into it, and it was fun talking to them about it, but after a while I was pretty heavily hyperfixated on it and I needed more. And I felt like I was bothering my followers with constant posts about how much I loved Andi Mack. So I made this blog. @cyrus-made-tshirts. I haven’t changed the name since. That’s how I became an official part of the friendom.

I love this fandom. I don’t even know many people personally or have made many friends through it, but this fandom was everything to me. I loved the posts, the crackhead theories, josh’s account. I loved the crackships, the real ships, the overanalyzing of every line, of every movement, of every promo. I loved watching the reactions on YouTube. I loved making posts about the show and having hundreds of people relate to it or find it funny, especially the gay ones. My very first post to get more than 50 notes was one about how Miranda and Bex would make a cute couple (this was before Miranda was revealed to be a snake.)

For the past year and a half, Andi Mack has been my life. I have survived the many ship wars. I have survived the months-long hiatuses. I have survived the ominous tweets and posts Josh has made and the frenzy of panicking everywhere that followed it. And I have loved every minute of it.

I’ve seen these characters I love grow up before my eyes. They’ve all changed and evolved and matured so much. There’s so much more representation since I started watching the show. There’s a character with a learning disability, characters with anxiety, a homeless character, a deaf character. There’s been multiple episodes celebrating Jewish and Chinese culture. I’ve seen Cyrus go from nervously nodding in agreement that he liked a boy to unprovokingly telling his friend he liked that boy to flat-out telling his ex-crush he is gay to holding hands with his crush in public. I’ve seen all of Cyrus’s friends support him unconditionally. I’ve seen him find his happily ever after (for middle school, at least).

And then the last episode aired. I knew I was never going to be prepared for it, but HOLY SHIT, it’s over. And the finale was like a fanfiction it was so good. I watched it live on Thursday night at midnight. I freaked out about it online for three hours, then watched it on Disney Now. I pulled an all-nighter because I just kept rewatching it online until Friday night, when I watched it air on Disney. The way Cyrus and TJ sang Born This Way with the rest of the characters cured my depression, cleared my skin, and watered my crops. The bench scene was so fucking beautiful and romantic it caused me to hyperventilate. The acting from both Luke and Josh was incredible. Honestly, Luke crushed it the entire time as TJ and the bench scene was the icing on top. This scene meant more to met than some people could ever know.

A couple months ago, I was in a pretty shit place emotionally and mentally. Literally the only thing stopping me from killing myself was the guilt of leaving my friends and family behind. I needed another reason to stay, something to keep me grounded. And that reason became Andi Mack. I promised myself I would live to see the day Tyrus became canon. And I did it. I’m in a much better place now, and I’m not going to do anything stupid now that Tyrus has become canon (TYRUS HAS BECOME CANON!!! AAKDBEISSHSB I STILL HAVENT PROCESSED THAT YET!!!!). But at the time, I really needed Andi Mack to help me keep fighting. And it was there for me. And I will always be indebted to it for my life.

This show has helped me in so many other ways. It’s helped me drastically reduce my internalized homophobia. It’s given me a community of people that understand me. It’s created so many characters that I love. So thank you to Terri Minsky for creating this show and amazing characters that I will love forever. Thank you to Disney for funding it and not completely censoring it. Thank you to the crew for working tirelessly to make this happen. Thank you to Peyton, Emily, Asher, Josh, Luke, Lilan, Trent, Garren, Sofia, and every other actor for pouring their heart into this show. A special thank you to Josh and Luke for making me feel safe and loved and for caring so much about their story arcs. (And their political activism is pretty awesome, too.)

I’m really going to miss screaming about this show with you guys. I really hope that some people keep creating fanart and fanfics and keep making memes and crackships. I hope the friendom never dies. Because every one of you is so special and fun to hang out with online. And I’m really gonna miss it. And now I’m crying, and this is getting WAYYY too long, so I’m gonna stop talking now lmao. But I want to say this show has changed me in so many ways and I’m grateful to every single person involved, including the amazing friendom. I’ll love you all forever. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[itsediadmlove]

8X04

People I am about to confess you a secret; I LOVED THE EPISODE. And speaking the truth I’ve had enough on people posting bullshit, no one felt good about the Red Wedding, and yet it was amazing, one of the best plot twist I’d ever watched. If you just want everything to be perfect and epic go rewatch the lord of the rings; this show isn’t for you. 

-never knowing how it’s gonna end

-suffering along your faves

-spending hundreds of hours thinking ‘bout the outcome

-then trying again

This is GOT. You thought you were going to be gifted with... That’s bullshit, you will suffer and struggle to the very end. You will be surprised (mostly in terrible ways), you will doubt, you will feel like nothing makes sense... The Night King is dead and what does that mean? We are back to good old shitty life, we are back home. I’m tagging this post as Jonsa because it’s my north, the corner of the fandom I belong to, and I am not breaking faith today, I am telling you, I don’t know how long will this post will be, but I am doing it even if I consider it to be a pain in the ass, and if anyone feels like having a deeper conversation, or need reassurance or anything, well, I’m her for them, and I will continue to do so as well as I can.

Personally I consider this episode to be everything Kit promised: a huge bunch of questions, the wheel is moving again and we are clueless. But I don’t get what people is crying all over, yes, the long night is over and yet everyone in the fandom found themselves in their darkest hour, it was tragic, it was full of angst, fuck, it was sad and yet nothing is over.

- Sansa (of course): well today (I live in Europe and I don’t wait ‘till 4AM to watch episodes) I got more confirmation (after 2 almost empty episodes) of Sansa being in love with Jon. She finally got to know who he really is. It sure was disappointing not to see Sansa’s reaction on screen (I yelled at my computer like for half an hour, but it’s not as if it wasn’t important for her, it was just hidden from us) yet we got to see her concern for Jon and even him being a Targ she still wants him to stay by her side. She couldn’t stand to watch him and Dany look happy (for the 10 seconds it lasted) And Tyrion felt something was wrong with her. I believe her telling Tyrion was the beginning of what Sophie said about turning on her family, and she was clearly pissed ‘bout the idea of Jon not coming back North. And yet she did amazing by telling Tyrion, just by that she is jeopardizing Danie’s court: that’s my girl.

- Daenerys Targaryen, the breaker of chains, khaleesi of... And all her shit: Amazing episode. She was smart (not just for the Gendry stuff) and completely right in her convo with Jon; as long as westeros recognize him as the true born son of Rhaegar her claim doesn’t exist. And don’t get it wrong it’s not like he has a super strong claim (she was right about Jon’s only witness to be Sam and Bran, your little brother and best friend saying you are the true heir sounds fishy), just look at Stannis, he was right all along as he claimed to be Robert’s heir and no one gave a shit because they never wanted HIM as a king. As Dany is not the stupid brat a lot of Jonsas seem to believe she knows that every single time westerosi lords want to disobbey they’ll have an excuse by accepting Jon’s claim as true, his identity will constantly jeopardize her authority just because he exist, it doesn’t matter what he wants ( Dany and Varys are right here) Just as Dany, Varys and Tyrion know it will happen with Sansa (something Daenerys was right as well). DARK!DANY is on the motion already. Varys knows it, Sansa knows it, Bran knows it, Arya knows it and both Jon and Tyrion were realizing it this episode ( I will come to that later). It was even fun to watch her say to Jon how she his subjects will force him to use his claim to take what is hers (if he has the claim, doesn’t it mean it was never hers to begin with?). It’s the first time that she feels all; powerfull, angry and scared at the same time. Emilia deliverance all the episode felt amazing.

-Varys and Tyrion: we still have to see Varys die... but mates i felt heartbroken for him today. I’ve loved him since season one (something that didn’t happen with Sansa for example) he is a schemer and yet he is so moral. He has been making the right points all over the show and has been our warning about Dany for 2 seasons already. Yet this is the first time I’ve seen him emotional. I am of the opinion that Tyrion is in love with Dany, he is smarter than Jorah and he knows he doesn’t have a chance and doesn’t even pretend but he is loyal to her, truly loyal, this kind of loyalty that is born on someone who feels fully validated and trusted by someone when no one else would... Except for Varys. The Eunuch has been his truest friend, the one who was willing to see him for what he was despite of everything apart of Dany, but he loves her and we all know the crazy shits Lannisters do for love. By the end of the episode Varys implied she has to die. I loved it because it teared this weird and constant duo apart, and Varys went emotional for that. I strongly believe he will sell him to Dany (who, by the way, had Varys warned already) and if this happen fellows shit is going to hit the fan: first of all their conversation paralleled the conversation Tyrion had wwith Bronn about murdering Joffrey (at least in the books, I don’t remember the show properly) the sentence we are speaking treason sticked to me while watching. The poetic part of it is that, at least in the book, such conversation was brought by Varys during Tyrion trials to proove him guilty, Him playing the same move on Varys seems so good to just let it through (maybe he won’t expect him to be executed or it won’t happen at all). In any case, if it happens, Dany will  learn why he was plotting (that is Jon), and them both knowing the truth would confirm Dany’s fear about his claim.

-And finally Jon: Plenty of people have been posting complaints about Jon’s behaviour, pol!jon being debunked because of his behaviour... I laugh at it. First of all, those who believe that Jon would just use Dany and just tell her fuck off are as delusional as Jonerize shitters said. Pol!jon was not about betraying Dany but about taking her north, and he did. It’s not on Jon’s nature to betray people. He is meant to do such a thing because of circumstances not because he wants to turn on people (he is not a Frey for god’s sake), the treason for love was never intended, events would put him in such spot. I still believe he is not in love with Dany yet he was trying his best; he ows her a great deal, she loves him a lot and she is pretty (may not be much of a reason yet is far from bad), he may think he could build his love stone by stone. And still he had to close his eyes to kiss her and stopped as soon as he looked at her (rewatch folk, rewatch)... While speaking with his family he made them swear not to tell the secret to anybody, and you know what, for me he looked scared as hell. Why? Because he was telling them something that would put them in danger (’’we can all live together’’, ‘’we can... I just told you how’’ now this was a fucking threat, and Emilia’s voice just let through it was not a fuckingocasional statement this time). Now about political Jon in particular yesterday’s episode has the boldest move he has ever plaid on her, I will give you a clue; it was during the war council when they were speaking about how they would go south, it was subtle, without a single word (we were distracted by Dany and Sansa being at each other throat), and yet he failed to get his way, Grey Worm corrected him... Now can someone who is not to focus on how much Sansa and Dany hate each other tell me what move he was trying to pull on Dany? (Rewatch folks, just rewatch) 

[esteliel]

I’m still vibrating with energy so this is going to be absolutely incoherent, but what an incredible episode to end this series on!

I am so so happy - I got indeed not only everything I’ve been hoping for, but they kept dialing the intensity and shippiness and UST right up to 100 to the very end.

The barricade was the best I’ve ever seen. Musical barricades are usually my cue to either get a drink at home, or keep watching tied up Javert by the side of the stage, but this was SO WELL DONE OMG. I even had Enjolras/Courfeyrac feelings for a moment there, and I never care about amis shippiness whatsoever. But Courfeyrac was SO GOOD, and I very much enjoyed Enjolras’ swordfight, and that entire scenario might even have been fannish catnip for me if I had watched this adaptation 20 years ago. ALSO lol at Grantaire’s “piss on your blindfolds” - the incredibly rare moment when I actually like a Grantaire for a second! :D

Also Gavroche absolutely stealing the show once again!! I hope he goes on to have an incredible career!

They even had the mattress aaaah! <3 Valjean didn’t get to be quite the pacifist he’s in the Brick, but at least he wasn’t shooting people left and right like in the musical, so that has my okay from the POV of having to deliver tense action shots to us here.

And the Valjean/Javert encounter in the tap room, holy shit! I was so tense through all of it, and then they did it again - gave me MORE than what I was hoping for! That was SO INTENSE!! Can’t you just KISS, you idiots??? >:(

I’m going to have to rewatch all Valvert scenes a hundred times tomorrow.

Also holy shit, Javert starting to derail in the office and everyone of course waiting for his boyfriend Rivette to arrive and talk to him! <3 Rivette’s obvious concern for him! <3 RIVERT BEING CANON omg Rivette trying to fix Javert’s clothes for him omg you cannot tell me that Andrew Davies doesn’t secretly write fic!

And that scene with Valjean absolutely exhausted and at his lowest there at Javert’s feet at the exit of the sewers is the very fabric my id is made of. It’s like if I were to write fic about that moment, only now I don’t have to, because all the emotions the Brick doesn’t delve into is already there on the screen?

(Admittedly I would have lingered on Valjean pleading for ten minutes, which is why this adaptation should have been 12 episodes, but oh well.)

The AKWARD CARRIAGE RIDE! <3 I cannot believe we really got a full awkward carriage ride, and I CANNOT believe that Javert is just JEALOUS because he thinks Marius is Valjean’s lover, lol. (I KNOW that he’s shaken by Valjean showing compassion to a man he hates, okay, but let me have my dreams.)

And also, Valjean being attuned enough to Javert to realize that something is not quite right with him? <3 And Valjean running out after him and shouting for him? <3 <3 <3

ALSO holy shit but this Valjean’s journey through the sewers, with all of his self-hatred rising up to swallow him until he’s choking on those feelings just as much as he’s choking on the sewage. I never thought that ANY adaptation would delve so deeply into Valjean’s trauma! I’ve never ever seen a Valjean who hates himself so much before, and unsurprisingly I am ABSOLUTELY here for it!

And when he surrendered himself to Javert, it was literally just like in fic: Valjean being glad that now he doesn’t have to do the hard work of leaving/punishing himself, but that Javert will do it for him. ;_;

Only then his new dom ghosted him right away there on the street. RUDE, JAVERT! >:(

(This will SO get fixed in fic, omg. This Valjean needs to be spanked with Javert’s belt, and he’s going to get it, and then they can have a nice cry together and no one’s going to die.)

Also how heartbreaking was Javert’s suicide? Everyone knows I’ve been team Oyelowo right from the start, and even though most people hated his take on Javert I’ve been having the most fun I’ve ever had with a Javert in my fandom life so far. (With an exception for Ed Watts I guess.) But to take Javert all the way to 1000% as he did in the last episode, and to then take him from THAT performance to the point where he just absolutely shatters in this episode, where he becomes all silence and murmurs and confusion - that was just SO well done, and I see a lot of good actors every year, but man the things I would do to be able to see him on stage!

Argh I cannot get over his tears! And the way he had this little breakdown, just for a moment, where you thought that yes! Just once, he’d flinch back from the abyss just in time and get it all out in a healthier way!

Of course that wasn’t to be, but he was SO CLOSE. So close. I just want to rewatch this scene and cry about it forever. ;_;

And then I want to send Rivette to the bridge. And then Valjean. And write a hundred different Post-Seine AUs because damn it Javert YOU WERE SO CLOSE!

Maybe I’ve just watched Hadestown too often but seriously, every time you hope that THIS TIME, it’ll turn out alright. ;_; And they’ve never come so close as they came in this adaptation. WHERE IS MY POST-SEINE SEQUEL, ANDREW DAVIES!

And I have so many Valjean feels too aaaaah. All of his self-hatred. That conversation with Marius was so good. Why do you do this to yourself, Valjean. Just let people love you. You deserve to be loved. ;____;

I’d read that it would all end in the garden in Digne so I was prepared for the timeskip, but I was NOT prepared for that ghastly wig. Seriously, wtf costume department! He’s dying, but that doesn’t mean you have to make him wear THAT! :/

Still, I like to think that weighed down by the mountain of shame for all of his ~sins, Valjean has done what a certain dom who ghosted on him had promised he’d do, and given himself the shameful convict shave again because it’s what an awful thief and convict like him ~deserves (and he didn’t have his coin for self-branding anymore).

That said, his death actually made me tear up a little, and I can’t even tell you anymore how many Valjean’s I’ve watched die in my life. ;_;

Just, it was all so good. Valjean was so good. I love how they’ve really delved into the full range of Dominic West’s emotions here in the series - all the anguish, all the tears, all the shame and the guilt and the fear and paranoia. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any adaptation that deeply interested in his psyche and trauma. (Admittedly also interested in him shouting at people, but he’s really not the monster fandom wants him to be in this, and there’s just SO MUCH and such a range from him that I’m not that bothered by the parts that don’t quite work for me. And again, there’s nothing that couldn’t be fixed by Javert’s belt. :D)

Augh I am so full of feelings, I have no idea how I’m going to sleep tonight, but maybe getting it all out in an incoherent mess of emotions will help? It better had to, because once I’m no longer vibrating with energy I need ALL THE FIC! <3

[mutherplocker0665]

11 Questions (x3)

I’m sorry it took me so long to answer this! I got tagged by 3 lovely people!

Because I got asked so many question those tagged are free to answer 11 out of any of these 33 questions :D

Rules!

1. Always post the rules

2. Answer the questions given to you by the person who tagged you

3. Write 11 questions of your own

4. Tag 11 people you want to get to know better

***

@cocxaiscanonking Questions

1.  Do you have any guilty pleasure songs?

Yes…Rewatching old 2007 AMVs…like Romeo & Juliet for Kataang...

2.  The weirdest experience you’ve had in Public?

Seeing someone take a shit in an alley LOL

3.  Any other fandoms you like?

OMIGOD NO TOO MANY!!! Here are a few: ATLA, Naruto/Boruto, OW, KHs, VLD, Zootopia, HTTD, Ranma, TeenTitans/DC, Avengers/Marvel, FT and hundreds more...!!!

4.  Favorite animated movie? (can be anything!)

Complete tie between: How to Train Your Dragon 2/ Rise of the Guardians/ The Incredibles 2

5.  What do value the most in a friendship?

Sincerity and Loyalty. Friends that stick through with you no matter what.

6.  Do you watch any Anime? If so, any favourites? (or y u don’t watch it.)

I do…UGH SO MANY AGAIN! But recently I have been keeping up with Boruto and just finished Servant x Service!

7.  Least favorite Disney movie?

Disney has never been my favorite but probably Snow White…I’m sorry!

8.  Which VLD character do you relate to the most?

Lance’s insecurities, Shiro’s need to find balance, and Pidge’s curiosity. Also Coran is my incarnate.

9.  Have you watched the original 80s Voltron DoTU?

YES!

10. Does your star sign match your personality?

mmmm Maybe?? I’m a Libra-Scorpio Cusp :3

11. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

Introverted

***

@rueitae Questions

1. Movie(s) that had a great impact on you as a child - you know, the ones you vividly remember watching as a kid?

Casper the Friendly Ghost, Appleseed, Ed, Edd & Eddy, and How to Train Your Dragon is what made me decide to become a Vis Dev artist.

2. What is your occupation? Or what do you want to do as a career? Tell me about it!

Oh! NICE^^ As a said above I am a Vis Dev artist who does Character Design! I’m close to graduating soon and hope to move down to LA after :D

3. Spinning rides or Up and Down rides?

BOTH!

4 What is the most neat place you’ve ever visited? Would you live there?

I’d love to live in Japan for a while but Cali Suburbs will always be my favorite. Also Machu Picchu NEVER gets old!

5. How did you find your current fandom?

Uff…I saw a trailer on Netflix in 2016 the day before VLD was released and I never looked back. Cue also around the same time I was finally convinced to make a Tumblr!

6. What’s the hottest wing sauce you’ve ever eaten?

I’m no good with spoocey…. :(

7. What’s the fic/art you’ve always wanted to write/draw but haven’t gotten to for any reason. OC? Original story? Tell me all about it!

I have an original idea that I have loved and developed since childhood but never have actually done anything official for it…maybe I will…

Also the plance fic that I just can’t get around to fucking finishing… >:|

8. Comfort food. If there is one snack/meal that is your go to - what is it? Maybe it’s a drink?

Oatmeal, mini Quesadillas, and Cherry Tomatoes!

9. One person you really look up to as a role model.

Lots of artists and right now I’m mildly obsessed with being as good as Max Grecke

10. Favorite color combination?

Blue and Green  (//^o^//)

11. What is your favorite outfit? That one clothing combination that makes you feel hip or comfortable or both.

Black leggings, big ass sweatshirt, long scrunched down socks and my high top vans, and a big ass jacket to feel extra fluff!

***

@vivalachocolate Questions

1. What sort of animal person are you? Dog person? Cat person? Horse person? Rat/Lizard/Snake/Rabbit person? Are you an animal person at all?

I’m a die hard Dog/Snake lover but I’d be happy to be suffocated by ALL pets.

2. What’s the weirdest dream you’ve ever had (that you remember)?

I was shot in a dream once cuz my phone rang so when I woke up clutching my stomach and answered the phone I yelled at my brother for getting me killed -_-

3. What’s your opinion on betta fish? Yea or nay?

Meh?

4. What’s the most unexpectedly delicious meal you’ve ever had?

Potato Salad!

5. Who’s your favorite DC Comics character? Or, if you’re one of those people, your favorite Marvel Comics character?

DC is def Beat Boy and Marvel is def (a tie between) Deadpool, Captain Murica, and Spidey :3

6. Does your personality actually fit your Western and/or Chinese zodiac? If it does, how so?

Answered this previously~

7. What is the one pet peeve that drives you absolutely bonkers?

When people either do things while you talk to them or don’t make eye contact. It feels like I’m not being heard. Also I hate flip-flops…I don’t like toes lol.

8. If you had to choose between living in a forest for the rest of your life or living in a hot air balloon for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

Hot air balloon!!!

9. Favorite non-popular mythical creature? Dragons, unicorns, and fairies are not suitable answers.

Big Foot!

10. Favorite holiday? Your birthday doesn’t count.

Christmas *.*.*

11. What is your definition of happiness?

Doing what makes you feel the most accomplished.

***

I’m tagging @daft-punky @planced @heraimisgettinbetter @badwhalenikki @elen42564 @elby-the-megnet @swindle94 @xpyzkx @bibohbii @vallahisenbiliyorsun @pidgeonlance @nicollini

[rainbowitup]

Long Live

It’s a typical Friday afternoon, and I’m in the car on the way to pick up McDonald’s for lunch. There’s construction on the overpass, which means traffic is backed up and barely moving at all. But all of that is okay because today when I got in the car, I chose to listen to Taylor Swift’s Speak Now album. Couldn’t even tell you why, other than it just struck me like it was a good idea.

So I listen to Better Than Revenge, then Dear John, and then Long Live comes on. And I’ve always had this strange connection with this song - something about the melody or the instruments or something has always kind of pulled at me. 

And today, it brought me to tears. And it’s funny, because really, Long Live is about Taylor and her band, and how after years of being made fun of and laughed at by other musicians and critics, they finally made it. And I mean, I’m happy in life - with my friendships, with my marriage, my children, my home, my hobbies, and my job - but I haven’t made it. I’m not famous. This song shouldn’t resonate with me so deeply. I really don’t relate to the story she’s telling. Except I kinda do. Let me tell you why.

I said, “Remember this moment,” in the back of my mind. The time we stood with our shaking hands...

I was in Chicago and at my first ever Supernatural convention. I was in a line up in the hallway standing with hundreds of other Misha Collins fans, but I was alone because I didn’t know a single one of them. Turns out that didn’t matter. When I finally got into the room could see that I was actually standing in the same room as Misha Collins I couldn’t contain my excitement, and after literally flailing, the girl in front of me joined in and we became fast friends.

My hands were shaking. My heart was beating so erratically I felt like my chest was vibrating. I couldn’t feel my legs, and I was sweating profusely. It was the most excited/nervous/petrified I have ever been in my entire life, and I’ll remember that moment for as long as I live.

I said, “Remember this feeling.” I passed the pictures around...

In Toronto, at my second Supernatural convention, I was sitting alone and knew from prior experience it would be so much more fun if I made friends with the people I was sitting with. I’d be sitting with them all weekend, after all! So I did. I remember it started when somebody on stage made a mean (but harmless) joke about Misha, and I booed - loudly. The girls next to me nodded in agreement, and that was it, we were friends. After every op, we’d grab our pictures and then run back to our seats to share them with each other. We’d point out what we liked and what we didn’t. We’d go over every word, every look, every second of what it felt like to be close to our favorite people and we knew that we understood each other’s excitement and passion. We had found our people.

And it’s the same online after every convention. I sit and stare at pictures of my friends with their favorite people for way longer than I should. I listen enthusiastically and yell in all caps when they tell me about THE LOOK Misha gave them right before the picture was taken, or when Rob said, “Nice to see you again,” or what it felt like to have Jared’s giant body wrapped around them.

We pass the pictures around enthusiastically in this fandom.

I was screaming, "Long live the look on your face!"

It was one of my first ever photo ops, and it happened with Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster. I wasn’t even huge fans of them at the time (BUT I AM NOW) but man, I was still excited. The best part for me during this op wasn’t meeting the famous people, though. It was sharing this op with my online-turned-real-life best friend, Michelle. We live in different countries, but I flew to Chicago and we roomed together. And Michelle was a huge fan of Kim and Bri. We had our photo op, which was one big squishy hug for the four of us, and while I thought it was fun and screamed at Kim and Bri how pretty they both were, Michelle was star struck. I can still see her face as clear as day in my mind today, a year later. She had tears in her eyes, and she was doing her damnedest not to cry, but the joy and awe she felt were broad casted all over her face. I loved her then and I love her now, and this is what I thought of when I heard that line today. “Long live the look on your face.” If I could create a world where she was that happy every single day, I would do it in a heartbeat.

This is what really got the tears flowing though: Can you take a moment? Promise me this: that you’ll stand by me forever. But if God forbid, fate should step in and force us into a goodbye... If you have children some day, when they point to the pictures, please tell them my name. Tell them how the crows went wild. Tell them how I hope they shine.

I have made friendships through Supernatural that I know will last a lifetime, but I’ve also made friendships that are strong and fulfilling in this moment that I know will not last forever. Because some of them are based solely on the fact that we are enamoured by the same show and the same people who are in the show - and that’s okay. Not every friendship is going to last forever. But that doesn’t make it any less meaningful.

So when I think about eventually losing touch with some of the people I spend so much time talking to now, this is what I think about. Please tell them my name. Tell them how I hope they shine. Because, God, even if I never talk to you again, you have no idea how deeply I want good, beautiful, long and shiny lives for you and your children. For the people you love dearest.

I hope one day when you’re old and grey, you find these dusty photo ops that we paid an obscene amount of money for, and you show your kids. I hope you tell them how awesome it was to squeeze our favorite people, and I hope you still smile about it thirty years from now. But more than that, I hope you point me out. I hope you show them who I am, and that you have a funny story to tell them about a time I made you laugh, or maybe a story about when you had a really bad day and I popped online at the right time and was able to make you smile instead. I hope you tell them about my kids, and funny things they said, and I hope you know that no matter how many years it’s been since we’ve talked that I will stand by you forever.

And I was screaming, "Long live all the magic we made!"

Listen, a lot of you create. You create art, and stories, and music, and poems. Your minds are unbelievable, and I spend a large chunk of my time sitting here wondering how I’ve become friends with some of the brightest, sharpest minds I’ve ever known. You help make the things I create better. You put feelings into words, give love to characters who need it, make fantasies become reality, and you support one another every single day whenever we do it. We share, and comment, and recommend what we love to other people who might love it, too. We might not love these characters or ship these two people together forever, but fuck if I don’t think of you guys when I hear: long live the magic we made. Because we have made magic, and we made it together.

And lastly: I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.

We’re not going to be this passionate about this TV show forever. We’re not going to rewatch the same 400 episodes (TULPA) enough to re-watch them and analyze them and GIF them and make up headcanons about the things that are never explained properly for the rest of our lives. We might love it forever, but it won’t always be exactly like this. There won’t always be conventions. There won’t always be opportunities to hop on a plane to go watch our favorite band play together. There won’t always be another new fan fiction story to read and discuss.

But for the record, for however long this phase of my life lasts, goddamn did I have the time of my life with you guys. You helped me discover who I am. What makes my blood start pumping. You helped me learn things about myself I never would have learned if it wasn’t for a TV show. You made me love who I am, exactly the way that I am. You showed me that friendship between two people can be deep and fulfilling even when we’re not in the same country. You have made me laugh more in the last two years than I’ve laughed in the last twenty, and I’m not exaggerating.

You have yelled for me when a picture of my favorite person literally made me breathless. You have watched me cry when I didn’t get the experience I hoped for during an autograph session. You have spent days being my tour guide in New York City. You’ve invited me into your home. You’ve spent hours creating art for stories I’ve written just because you wanted to. You’ve sent me songs that made you think about my characters - and you were so spot on I cried. You’ve sent me birthday cards and gift baskets and even wrote me porn. You held my hand virtually when my aunt was diagnosed with cancer and all throughout the years she was fighting it. You pretended to care when I vented about shit you had no idea what I was even talking about. You’ve had my back and fought my battles when I wasn’t strong enough to do it myself. You pushed me into doing something I was afraid to do, and the payback was enormous. Your wit, your GIFs, your minds, and your commentary have brightened my life exponentially in ways I will never be able to express.

In a nutshell: I’ve had the time of my life with you.

Long live, you guys. Long live all of this and all of you.

[takaraphoenix]

Shadowhunters?

I feel like that show is like nearly unfair to ask because I feel like I already put all the thoughts into the A/Ns of my Shadowhunters fics. Like, if you’d go through them chronologically, you’d probably get the answer. But sure, I got a couple hours to spare to do it in one go :D

And sorry for the long wait, but I knew from the moment I got this ask that this one was going to be the longest. Gotta find the time to write that down too.

I, quite obviously, love the show. But it might also be one of the most flawed shows I’m currently watching.

The thing is, when I started watching it, I binged the first season after it first aired and then turned my back on it because it was just Not Good. Like, at that point I was 100% convinced I would not tune in for season 2.

About nine months later, my parents were interested in watching it - we have those family TV nights, it’s a tradition - and I figured, oh well, won’t kill me. And what can I say? I actually liked it more.

That is a hundred and fifty percent thanks to Amelie Plaas-Link.

Amelie lends her voice to Clary in the German dub - and she completely saved that show for me. Like, there’s a lot of plot that bothers me a lot about this show - and I will get into that in a moment - but my rule of thumb is “If I can’t stand the main character, I’m not gonna force it” (that rule was established when I finally managed to give up on Grey’s Anatomy after too many wasted years of trying to watch it for the sake of everything else).

Now, in the German dub I realized, she’s not that bad, it’s Katherine McNamara. Like, yeah, she’s a cutie and she looks good in the role. But she does not act well in that role. At least not in season 1. Season 2, she’s gradually getting better at acting, but oh dear, her performances in season 1 are downright painful. Her constant flat whining and the line-deliveries were so nerve-grading that not even the gloriousness that is Dominic Sherwood could have saved season 1 for me.

But Amelie Plaas-Link gives Clary a more grown-up feeling. She delivers the same dialogue, but with more conviction, more feeling and definitely less childishly high-pitched whining.

Where Katherine’s line-delivery makes Clary feel like a whiny, entitled brat, Amelie gives Clary the feeling of a traumatized, scared girl, which she should be.

So that rewatch in German? That was what ultimately got me hooked and made me watch season 2 in English - and yes, Katherine does get better in this season, thankfully enough.

Now let’s talk plot.

Season 1 forced the “Love at first sight” trope way too hard. Between Clary and Jace, as well as Magnus and Alec and even to an extend Simon and Isabelle gave the same vibe for like the first half of season 1. It’s like the writers instantly decided that to write a plotline that includes characters falling in love would be too exhausting to write?

I’m very grateful - but also confused - about the turn Simon and Izzy took. Where the first half really made it look as though he was instantly hooked on her and she was interested in him, they didn’t push that. I think they could have, you know, still let the two have screentime with each other in 2A because completely dropping all interactions between them was also not the best move, but I appreciate that they took 2B and have the two now slowly inching closer together again. To make this one love-story maybe an actual falling in love slowly thing instead of the love at first sight.

I don’t have the malice to get into why I dislike Clary and Jace as a couple. I just do. And that Jace instantly was so obsessed with her that he basically threw everything else over board for the sake of helping her just made the “hook” for that couple really awful for me. Like, you do not treat your family and friends like shit just because you’re busy mooning over a chick you literally just met. And yes, Jace is my favorite character, but his behavior in the first half of season 1 in particular was just not good.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do love the show and I had my “hook”. My hook being Jalec. That’s also the reason I started watching this show. If I’m going to repeat everything I said in A/Ns before, I’ll also repeat that part.

I watched the movie, back when it came out, and instantly adored Jalec and was hyped about it. Then there was no second movie. By the time the show rolled around, I only have vague recollection of two things - there was a female lead who seemed badass and there were a dark-haired grump who was canonically in love with a very cute blonde twink.

Show!Jalec are just such an improvement to movie!Jalec, to be honest. And yeah, every single parabatai-magic scene in season one had me at the edge of my seat squealing with OTP feels. When even Clary commented that that looked awfully intimate, I wildly agreed. They were just so precious, I loved it.

And then there was Malec. I was aware of its existence - after watching the movie, I went to the fandom sure that it must be flooded with Jalec, but instead there was only Alec with this guy who had like five minutes screen-time in the movie and wait what? So yeah, bit disappointed when I read online that Jalec was not endgame. And thus I also knew what to expect in the movie.

But it was, again, this love at first sight thing. At least on Magnus’ end. I do like how it took Alec some convincing, but generally their plotline was what I disliked the most about season 1 - not due to my personal feelings about the ship but due to how badly it was written.

It was the cheapest rom-com plot of all rom-com plots. “Let’s invent a female OC just for the sake of drama! And oh, let’s squeeze a wedding in here even though we are waaay too busy with actually important stuff!” and that Magnus literally came in the “Speak now or forever hold your piece” moment and Alec dashed over to him to kiss him.

I’m pretty sure this fandom would have at least a 100 better Malec fanfiction of how they could have gotten together, but the show just turned it into such an overused rom-com trope that was also so poorly executed.

Let’s be real, the “Malec” episode was a giant Malec fangirl using her old fic plot. It was so over the top, they should have gotten together on a private level and not in public literally in front of the whole Institute. It was way too rom-com… as Simon even points out afterward and yes, Simon’s reaction was exactly what I picture the writer must have squealed like when pitching the plot.

I really wish they had given the ship a more dignified way to set sails instead of such an over-the-top squeaky fangirl fanfiction way. And yes, I’m aware I’m hitting a stone-wall with the shippers there because they’re just happy their ship sailed, but what I’m saying is there could have and should have been a better written way to make them sail.

Not to mention the reactions. I’m sorry, but… Robert and Maryse took that shit like fucking saints! Like. Seriously. This isn’t even about Alec being gay, this is about Alec being the one to propose to someone, Alec being the one to try and better their family’s image by doing so and then Alec kissing someone else in the middle of the wedding with everyone watching.

As a parent, I would have been furious. It was Alec’s idea to rush this proposal. Yes, a political marriage was the idea of his parents, but Alec chose Lydia and Alec was the one who decided to rush this whole thing.

And then they have this glorious wedding where I’m assuming everyone with a name and who is important was present because the whole purpose of the wedding was to better the Lightwood name and to do so you gotta show off. And then Alec just rans off into the arms of not just someone else but a male Downworlder.

And even without that “male Downworlder” part, this would have already been a publicity nightmare for the Lightwood family, but considering their society and what we heard and learned of Shadowhunters to that point, the “male” alone would have been an outrage but the “Downworlder” part on top of it should have like… caused at least some outrace? A little bit? But it was all totally polite. And yes, the Lightwood parents expressed their distain but let’s be real for a second, that was justified.

If my kid came out to me like that and then introduced a centuries old guy to me with the word “No, no, we’re not dating, it’s love” - because it wasn’t at that point, it wasn’t about the true love get together but about Alec admitting to his own sexuality and I do like that addition and that they acknowledged it instead of looking at it through pink-tinted glasses, but honestly that must have been such an additional blow? Like, “Okay, you just ruined our reputation. For a guy. Who’s a Downworlder. But at least it’s True Love, right?”, grasping for straws but then to have your son essentially laugh in your face?

Holy shit, during that whole scene, Robert and Maryse were saints, in my eyes. I mean, this could have gone down way different. On a homophobic level, on a racist against Downworlders level, on a ruined reputation level. There were a lot of angles that could have been used to have either or both Lightwoods lash out and for Alec to face serious reprecussions, but instead he just got a mild warning about how he should watch out because the guy he chose had quite the reputation. And like? Wow, you had more luck than brains there, Alec.

So yes, as someone who loathes rom-com movies because they’re brainless and have the most ridiculous excuses for loads of drama that could be avoided if people talked to each other, the way they handled Malec’s getting together was just not satisfying to watch.

On that note, I want to talk about Magnus for a moment. I love the guy! Magnus was literally my biggest surprise in this show, because going in, I was semi determined and sure Magnus would end up being a character I wouldn’t like because he gets in the way of my OTP and I get very protective over my OTPs. Instead, he became my second favorite character within the first season.

His flourish, his charms, his wit, his smirks, his outfits, his magic, his personality - literally everything about him. Magnus Bane is amazing and I love him - and Harry Shum Jr only makes him all the better. He plays him so brilliantly, I was baffled. I only knew Harry from Glee and he didn’t get a lot of chances to really act there because he was such a background character, but oh boy, that guy can act.

And thus my OT3 for this show was born, because is Jalec is OTP and Malec is canon, let’s just throw them all together and see how Magnus and Jace work (spoiler: they work so well and Jagnus fast rose up to become my second favorite pairing for this franchise).

So, as you might have noticed at this point, this particular review is a bit of a mess and all over the place, but let’s stay with the characters for a while.

Simon didn’t really do enough to get me interested in him until season 2. Like, he was just… there. Like in the movie (I legit do not remember a single thing about him in the movie). And while the same could be said about movie!Izzy, she did really get me hooked in season 1 already.

I love it when the gorgeous, sexy girls are also smart and can kick ass. It’s normally either only one of those three very amplified or a “You can have two out of three”-kind of deal. Very rarely *cough* Buffy *cough* do you get all three of them. And boy, is that woman gorgeous and deadly.

Let’s circle back to Lydia for a second. I know she’s a show OC and she was really literally only created for the above mentioned rom-com drama, but she shot up to become my third favorite Shadowhunters character. Particularly due to the “Malec” episode, because she took that was so much grace and kindness.

I would have slapped Alec in the face? Like? No matter that it’s a political marriage and neither of them are in for the fuzzy feels. If I get a wedding dress and got important people watching me… and then my groom-to-be runs off with the High Warlock? Wow. That woman definitely has more understanding than imaginable. The way she handled and took that made me admire her for her strength and kindness and it really made me headcanon very hard that Alec and Lydia would become the best of friends (Lydia needs to return to the show).

Since we’re circling through characters here; Luke. Luke was the first thing that really got my attention in the show, because Oh my gosh, it’s the Old Spice Guy! I love that guy! And his voice! *squeal*. Which, yes, that was exactly my reaction when Luke first showed up. I really like Luke and I love the change they did from the book, that he’s a cop here. It just… fits really well, to get them involved with those cases, to have an in into all the supernatural attacks through the cop investigating them.

I just wish that, down the road, that would have been a bit more fleshed out. With Luke and Alaric being partners, both being wolves, I kind of assumed that the precinct was crawling with Downworlders and that they were… organized. Which would just make so much sense, world-building wise. You infiltrate police, hospitals and fire departments with Downworlders, you have a network of them to control Downworlder business leaking into the mortal world. But if they’re not aware of each other, or end up partnered with a mundane, that’s just… chaos. And aren‘t Downworlders really around long enough to actually organize this?

I would have expected the captain to be a Downworlder, who keeps track on the Downworlders on his force and specifically asigns them the Downworld-related cases and keeps the mundies busy with mundie stuff. That is what would make sense, to me. And that is what’s lacking. They started the police-thing with a good idea behind it, but they didn’t flesh it out in a way that would have made more sense in the context of this world.

Now, the last character I want to get into is Camille. Camille doesn’t make sense to me. She’s the powerful leader of the vampires of New York, which sounds like a good deal. She’s been around for a long time so she must know how to survive.

But… still she just randomly decides to turn a totally random mundane into a vampire, even though she must have known the price it’d cost her? Why would she risk that, aside from “We need it for plot because we need vampire!Simon”? That was one of those writing decisions again that just happened for the sake of plot.

Other things about season 1 that bother me and were poorly put together/written out (to wrap season 1 up and move on to season 2):

Circle members frolicking outside of cells. This is a point that will be proven by season 2 again and again too, but we already encounter it in season one with not just Hodge but also the Lightwood parents. They’re essentially the Shadowhunters equivalent to Nazis and terrorists, Circle members I mean, but… they get off with a slap of the wrist? Because they… changed? Imagine real life news about someone involved in the Third Reich and who pleads he got better. Yeah, no, you going to jail for crimes against humanity, man. That those three not just didn’t get thrown into the City of Bones, but also get to walk around freely and that, on top of that, the Lightwoods seriously are the heads of the Institute? Like? Imagine that. I mean, really truly imagine that, former terrorists get to basically work in the White House. Something just doesn’t feel right there. And yes, the Lightwoods did change… but Hodge didn’t. And if they had fucking thrown their former terrorists into cells to rot in, then the entire thing about the Mortal Cup wouldn’t have happened. It’s just, and we’ll get back to this for season 2A, the juridical system of the Shadowhunters is juridiculous.

The fact that no one questions anything in this show, if being oblivious fits the plot. Like, when Clary and Jace went to that parallel world where they were dating and then moments later, learn that they’re siblings. And neither of them pause and think “Mh, how utterly strange that Valentine was a good guy and good dad to Clary in that alternate reality, but that Jace wasn’t raised as her brother then? And that they were dating and neither Jocelyn nor Valentine had any problem with that? Mh. Maybe that is worth investigating. Maybe we should like make a blood-test to see if the sociopathic manipulator really told us the truth.”. I mean, science exists in this world. How does no one make a test but instead just take the words of the genocidal maniac at face value? How is that a thing? Aside for the purpose of plot and tension.

Same goes for the reveal of Michael Wayland being alive slash not alive. Like. “Oh, wow, we found a guy in a closet in Chernobyl where we were brought to find Valentine and changing faces is A Thing Shadowhunters Can Do Easily, but we won’t question it at all” - even without the thought that Valentine could have been Michael Wayland all along.

Which brings me to the first time I legit was impressed by Clary. Because she actually didn’t buy it and she didn’t let Valentine fool her into giving him the Mortal Cup and I was Very Relieved by that because at that point, the story-telling was just too many convenient closed-eyes and turned-aways to allow plot to continue. It wasn’t clever writing, it was forced writing - and I’m not a fan of that.

If you have to force your characters to do Stupid Shit that doesn’t make sense if one were to use at least half their brain, just for the sake of creating obstacles and making the plot last longer, then I got some bad news about your writing abilities. They are not good. Because a good writer would be able to achieve those things in a natural flow and create tensions that fit the plotline instead of forcing a square through a hole, so to speak.

So yes, all the things I just mentioned as badly written character and plot decisions in season 1 were the reason I decided that I wouldn’t put up with season 2, topped off by my dislike for how Clary being played.

Then I rewatched season 1 with a superior dub for Clary and that improved the show a lot - seriously, the main character is a very important key-figure and it’s supposed to hold the show together if that falls flat, then the whole show might come apart by the seams. I also really fell even more in love with Jace when rewatching it and by the end of season one, when he sacrifices himself to keep his friends safe, I was left thinking “Okay, I really wanna know what happens to the puppy and if he’ll be safe”.

So I watched season 2.

I genuinely feel like they switched writers for that season, because season 2 has an entirely different feeling than season 1.

Where season 1 had a lot of awkward writing, it at least did have better pacing. Season 2 had more evened-out writing, but awful pacing (particularly in season 2B).

Season 2. Let me start off by what I said earlier I’d get back into; the juridiculous system of the Shadowhunters. The above mentioned unpunished terrorists aside, they throw Jace in jail. Like. He got abducted and tortured - and you see the torture on him when he arrives, he was not having a fun trip with daddy dearest. But they just… torture him even more and then throw him in jail? A society that fails to punish its own terrorists throws a victim into jail? And something just really went very wrong there.

And let me stay on the note on how ridiculous the Shadowhunters’ society and particularly their politics really are.

They change leaders more often than some people change their socks, for fuck’s sake. We started season 1 out with Robert and Maryse in charge. By 1x08, Lydia Branwell arrives and takes over. By 2x01, Victor Aldertree is the leader. But that changes when in 2x11 Imogen Herondale takes over, but no worries she passes on the mantel to Jace in 2x13, who instantly passes it on to Alec.

They have a total of seven leaders of the New York Institute within two season. Seven. That’s pathetically ridiculous. Whenever one thing goes wrong, their immediate solution is “put a new boss in charge” and their preferred method of doing so is “get someone who has no idea about the NY Institute”, like Lydia or Victor or Imogen. I mean, holy shit, how is that a thing? They’re in the middle of a war and instead of reinforcing their troops and helping out, they just change the leader to confuse everyone and make their own troops even more unstable? Wow.

Not to mention that, while personally I think Alec is a very good leader, he should have never gotten the position? I mean, Jace was more of a stand-in appointed by Imogen and how did neither she nor the Clave have any protests when Jace appointed Alec Lightwood, after the entire point of this game of musical chairs was to remove the Lightwoods from their position in power? Within two episodes of him being head, the Clave should have come knocking at their doors and, considering their track-record so far, put a new envoy to the Clave as the head instead of Lightwood Junior.

Moving on. Let’s get back into characters, because another major player is introduced this season. Maia Roberts.

I’m inclined to say that I don’t like Maia’s character, but then I feel like I can’t really say that because she doesn’t have a character. She is the single best example of this show’s inconsistent writing. It baffles me. I want to like her and I like the idea of her and I like how fanfiction interprets her, but her show version?

It’s ridiculous. She is introduces as “I don’t give a fuck about laws, I will downright murder you even though I have no proof at all that you’re actually the killer of my friend and even after it’s revealed you’re innocent, all you get is a lot of shit from me”. Then she changes into this cool character as a friend of Simon’s, who’s understanding and sweet. And then she flips the switch back on as she goes onto “I don’t give a fuck about laws, I will downright murder you because you could potentially active that Soul Sword and I don’t care that you’re my Alpha’s daughter, essentially, and that we could look for a better solution”. And then she switches right back to Simon’s friend who is cool. But then she goes back to being a total bitch toward Jace once again and acts like she really hates him - which, okay, I could live with because not everyone has to be friends with everyone - but then she sleeps with him.

Most of the time, show!Maia feels like they should have invented a second character and split her plotline up into the homicidal maniac bitch OFC and Maia, the good friend of Simon and loyal pack-member of Luke’s. Because those two characters squeezed into one? They clash. Trying to murder Clary clashes with being absolutely devoted to Luke, as she has been at literally every other instance of this show. Sometimes, I’m convinced show!Maia might be bipolar or schizophrenic, because those manic phases and mood swings kind of remind me of that.

Let’s talk about Victor Aldertree. While not being a Circle member, he’s is not a good guy either and he should have never become head of the Institute to begin with.

From his questionable methods of torturing one of his own soldiers who got abducted by the enemy, to randomly torturing Raphael a little later and best of all, getting one of his soldiers addicted to drugs.

I mean. There is? No fucking way? That Victor didn’t know how addictive Yin Fen is? He literally warns Isabelle about it, but he warns her in a “This stuff is addictive, watch out. Here, have the entire jar of it, I totally trust you not to get addicted and use it moderately even though it would have been ethically correct to order you to come to me or the infirmary once a day to have it applied”-kind of way that’s just really not right? And I have literally no idea why. If he were a Circle member and if this was a method to sabotage the good guys - getting her not just hooked on drugs but preventing her from entering the citadele - that would have made sense. But Aldertree isn’t a Circle member, so what exactly was his motivation behind this…?

And while we’re at it, let’s talk about Jocelyn.

I do not like Jocelyn. I mean, that woman is a walking Bad Decision after the other. From the moment she decided that having her daughter’s memories wiped instead of telling her truth would be a good idea? Even if she never introduced Clary to the Shadowhunters, she could have at least taught her that it was real and that Clary needed to watch out. Particularly as a child, Clary was vulnerable to attacks and she would have been safer if she too knew what to look out for. Not to mention the incredibly invasive decision to wipe Clary’s memories.

But hey, at least she’s a bad mom to all her kids, so there’s that. I mean, in that brief time she thought Jace to be her son, she shot him with the intention to kill him. Not based on anything Jace - or Jonathan - did recently, but solemnly based on the fact that baby!Jonathan had the ability to kill plants.

Based on something a toddler who couldn’t even talk or walk or use the potty did, she decided that her son was irredeemable. That he never learned how to control his powers - just like he never learned how to talk or walk or use the toilet, right? Because we have completely reached our full potential as toddlers and can not be taught anything anymore, right? Especially not control, of course.

Even if Jace had been Jonathan, there was a huge chance that he could have learned to control his powers over the past eighteen years. Because I actually believe that if Jonathan hadn’t been raised by the cruel, soulless and heartless Valentine, he too would have had a chance to learn how to control his urges and powers.

Not to mention, killing a couple plants is not exactly evil incarnated. If he had used his powers and accidentally killed like… the neighbors. Oh yeah. Heck, even just the neighbor’s cat would have already been more justified. But it were just a couple flowers that a baby who could not even control his bladder yet had killed.

Holy shit, you’re the worst mother on this planet. A good mom would have tried talking to her son first, would have clung to the smallest chance of hope that her son wasn’t the Antichrist. Instead, she doesn’t take any of the very valid doubts that sprung to my mind instantly even remotely into consideration and immediately decides to kill her own son.

Yeah no, I’m not sad that they killed her character off.

Let’s move on to happier topics, because I’m already getting a headache here.

Jace moving in with Magnus will forever be the best decision this show made and I will always cherish it and to my dying day, Jace is living with Magnus at the loft in all my fics and no one will ever take that away from me.

Ithuriel looked pathetic when we first met him. Like, I get that he was run down and exhausted, but his wings were the cheapest props I’ve ever seen. You can literally go to any convention ever and you’d find at least two cosplayers who made more convincing and realistic wings than that cheap shit and I am quite frankly embarrassed by what the show pulled there.

Not to mention, those angelic powers are Really Plot Convenient. Once again.

Clary and Jace share the same angelic blood. But the angel only calls out to Clary. Because if he’d also call out to Jace, then we might get suspicious that he doesn’t have demon blood, so conveniently that only works on one. And conveniently, Jace’s angelic blood powers only kick in after he is told that he even has them - and never-ever before in his entire life. Sure.

I do not support the show’s decision on making Raphael feed on Isabelle. He is old and experienced and asexual enough to deny her. And yes, that last one also plays into this, because if Raph was just a straight horn-dog, then I would have bought the old and experienced vampire being tempted by young, gorgeous, sexy Isabelle into feeding her and then also having sex with her. But since that angle falls flat, I really don’t see why that old and experienced vampire would have been weak enough to be tempted into that.

Robert and Maryse. Oh gods, I’m so angry about this, I don’t know if I have the energy to type it out.

I hate Maryse Lightwood and fuck you, show, for attempting the cheapest, flatest, dumbest redemption-arc in the history of redemption-arcs! Just fuck you!

Maryse Lightwood is Not A Good Mom and Not A Good Person.

She made Isabelle’s life a hell so far by emotionally abusing her. And yes, I see the way Maryse treated Isabelle as abuse. She has hugs and warm smiles for her sons while she treats Isabelle like… Cinderella, essentially. She has nothing but coldness and disappointment for her daughter and I’m sure that emotionally crippled her.

Maryse told Alec, when Jace was still on board of the Morning Star, that he should abandon his parabatai. Not just his adopted brother and best friend, but his parabatai. She, who she adopted Jace and should view him as her son, tells her biological son to cut all ties. She also can’t make the time to be at her son’s bedside when he is literally dying because he’s trying to use the parabatai-bond to find Jace.

Maryse repeatedly tells Max that Jace isn’t his brother, because a child that age doesn’t pick shit like that up after only once. She said it often enough to warp Max’s mind to the point that Max flat-out tells Jace to his face that he isn’t his brother.

And after Jace’s fears manifested thanks to that demon at Magnus’ loft during the runeing party, and he actually apologizes as though he has done something wrong, she needs to be arrogant about with that high-and-mighty “No, stop. I don’t want to hear your apologies”, visibly deflating Jace just to continue as though it’s a grand gesture “I’m the one who should apologize to you”. Fuck yes, you should? You gave up on him when he was abducted and tortured, you didn’t stand at his side when he was thrown in jail and you told both his brothers that he’s not their brother like he’s not even part of your family.

And then the show puts the weakest excuse ever up as a reasoning? A sob-story on how Robert cheated on her? Oh, if you know me a little you know where I stand on cheating - cheats are the scum of the Earth. But being cheated on does not justify that kind of behavior. Fuck, it doesn’t justify any of it and even though cheating should not have been the solution - a fucking divorce would have been - I completely understand why Robert sought out love from someone who, I don’t know, doesn’t have a heart of ice? Yes, he should have gotten divorced from her and cheating is Not Okay, but just because your husband cheated on you, that doesn’t make you as The Victim all of a sudden a good person? The whole “Something bad happens to character and suddenly everyone coddles character and everything is forgiven”-plotline is the most pathetic cop-out imaginable and neither of her four children should have that easily forgiven her past wrong-doings just because she sobs a little.

It is not a justification for child neglect or child abuse when your husband cheats on you. It is not.

Robert, I don’t give a flying fuck about. Like, in season 1 he was set up to be the better parent of the Lightwoods, but now he’s sorted into the category of scum of the Earth, so yeah. I vote for Luke to adopt the Lightwood kids and be done with it.

The reveal that Jace is not Clary’s brother was, again, so forced and awkward. Like, touching the sword makes you say the truth but only if you’re actually asked something and Valentine essentially blurts out all the things even though he doesn’t have to? Just for the sake of reassuring Clary and Jace shippers that their ship would still be able to sail? Really?

The entire eleventh episode of season 2 is just one giant fucking mess, if I’m being honest. Like, if you’d ask me to point out the most flawed episode of the show? This would be it. “Mea Maxima Culpa” even beats “Malec”, because that episode was only messy due to an overdose of forced rom-com elements. This episode however is a total mess.

First we got Isabelle, who’s trying to get over her addiction but still Alec leaves her unsupervised in a fit of Very Bad Withdrawl, which was already Bad Decision 1.

Then Isabelle goes out to find vemon, is attacked by the demon and decides to go home with total stranger Sebastian Verlac, Bad Decision 2. For all she knows, he could have been a Circle member, for heaven’s sake. His story was so shady and that odd coincident of “Hey, I was addicted to Yin Fen too!”.

Sebastian offers her a wonder-drug that’s supposed to help her overcome her addiction faster, but she never heard of it - and she still takes it. She takes a drug from a total stranger that’s supposed to speed up recovery. That is literally how her Yin Fen addiction started, for fuck’s sake. Bad Decision 3.

Isabelle stays with Sebastian instad of immediately returning, or at the very least instantly calling her brothers to let them know that she was alive and safe. After all, she was attacked by that greater demon so she knows there’s something dangerous going on and she should have known that Alec would notice she left. Bad Decision 4.

They don’t track her fucking cellphone. She disappears and they don’t track her cellphone - which regular mundanes can do, for heaven’s sake - and we see her having her phone at Sebastian’s. Bad Decision 5.

They don’t track her runes. In a later episode, we learn that the Clave can track all their Shadowhunters via their runes. So how do they not use her runes to track her? Bad Decision 6.

No, instead of any those things, they of course decide to go and as Valentine for help. That sounds like it should be more than just Bad Decision 7, really.

But it’s instantly followed by Bad Decisions 8 and 9 - because both Clary and Jace, out of everyone, think that listening to Valentine of all people is in any way or shape a good idea. Out of all the characters in this show, those two should really know best not to trust the manipulative asshole, who also happens to be locked into a cell so why should he know anything about what is going on outside.

Bad Decision 10 goes to Magnus for actually helping the idiot Shadowhunters in summoning a Greater Demon. That in itself sounds like such a bad idea, but considering that idea was suggested by Valentine, how in the world does the High Warlock not nope out of that and whack them upside the heads?!

So, yeah, I consider season 2 episode 11 to be the lowest point of the show, because its writing has more plot-holes than is justifyable for an entire season of a show, much less for one episode. It comes off as so forced due to the bad writing and they should have worked through this in a way that would have made at least a little sense.

How exactly is ‘Sebastian Verlac’ not instantly thrown into the City of Bones? He literally abandoned his Institute. Isn’t that high treason? Like, the exact same thing Jace got thrown into jail for? At the very least they should have questioned him? A lot? About why he abandoned his Institute and why he came to New York. And if not the Clave, at the very least our Shadowhunters should have been so much more suspicious.

But what I legit hate is how they reveal from the first episode on that he’s not a good guy. I haven’t read the books so when this new character came dashing in, saving Isabelle, he could have been a good guy. But they had to ruin it - in episode 11 already - by showing how Sebastian burns his own hand over the stove and you instantly know “This guy ain’t sane or good. Something’s seriously wrong with him” and that just… it completely ruins the reveal of him being not a good guy. Sure, the show caters to the book-readers, but couldn’t we like pretend that a lot of people actually have their first contact with this story through the show? And it would have been an amazing reveal later on, if we had Sebastian introduced as just this random new good guy, in the same way Lydia had entered the show later in season 1, to just join the cast. If we came to trust him like Isabelle did.

But instead, they instantly ruin the surprise and then they just… don’t really use Sebastian? I mean, he really doesn’t do a lot in the whole infiltration thing? They could have really used him better, made him actually a part of the team, have him properly befriend - or more - Isabelle, have him properly try to get to know Clary and Jace. But he just… awkardly stands in the background and then pushes himself onto the missions. The entire Sebastian-Jonathan plotline could have been written so much better so it’d have been an actual huge surprise.

I really don’t wanna get into the racism debate of 2x13, to be honest. It was handled and written so poorly. The message was clear, but… it felt so entirely out of place and forced. If those killings of Shadowhunters would have started a couple episodes before then already and we’d have build-up to this, but to squeeze it all into one episode and have the Shadowhunters instantly snap from “We’re supposed to protect mundanes and Downworlders” to “Let’s racially profile all the Downworlders and also right away start chipping them like dogs” was just… too much. It would have come off as a slightly more… believable reaction if the panic about the attacks had been looming for a little longer, but this way it was just far too forced and came off as a very strong over-reaction from them and not as something those characters would believably do.

I dislike how Aline was treated like such a throw-away character. They introduce this new Shadowhunter and have her barely be in any scenes before she leaves again. The lack of recognizable non-main character Shadowhunters on the show is one of my big problems with it, actually.

I mean, Isabelle, Alec and Jace grew up in that Institute. But aside from Raj… there’s kind of no Shadowhunter who actually gets a speaking role? Did they never make any friends? Like? I want to see casual interactions between them and other Shadowhunters, I want reoccuring faces with names. I want Alec to send not just the main characters on missions, but like have nine people on the meeting and Alec assigning teams and us seeing other Shadowhunters being sent out there too. Because the show mainly feels and comes off as “We have Alec, Jace, Isabelle and Clary. They handle All The Missions, while all other Shadowhunters just aimlessly walk around in the background”.

And when they introduced Aline, I thought we’d get another reoccuring Shadowhunter who is friends with them and who has, even if just brief, interactions with them. Instead, she’s right away sent off again.

The Seelie Court was also painful to watch. That Clary was doe-eyed enough to let Simon tag along, I’ll buy. But that Jace can’t stand his ground was just ridiculous. And that Simon was actually dumb enough to think that being vice-class-president in middle school qualifies him to meet a millennia old supernatural queen is pathetic. That episode would have been more believable if they hadn’t written in that clause about how only Jace and Clary were supposed to go on a mission. If they had just set it up as a regular mission and Simon as part of the team would have made this feel so much less forced.

Also, that episode and what followed was what officially made me dislike Clary. In season 1, she just annoyed me due to the actress’ shortcomings. In the German dub of it and then in season 2A, I actually grew very fond of Clary.

But Clary dating Simon, who has been pathetically in love with her for so many years, just to try and get over her feelings for Jace, but then failing and still being hung up on Jace, but not enough to actually give him a chance, was just… a sign of bad character, really. And I mean “personality”-character here, not “fictional character”-character.

How she had to tell Jace that it meant nothing and then just… avoided him from there on out was so childish and annoying. And the return of season 1′s whiny, entitled Clary when she kept bothering Simon and trying to cling onto Simon and force herself back into his life was just so not appreciated by me. Like. You just broke his heart? And you expect him to right away be okay again and be there for you? Holy shit, you really are an entitled, self-centered brat, no, stop it, I had grown fond of you, damn it, keep it together, Fray.

I feel like I should also mention Dot before I get closer to the end of this. Her character doesn’t make much sense too. Like, to me, she already died like four times. Every single time she appears, I am literally surprised because I thought she died the last time we saw her. But still, she always returns and it confuses me so much? Because if she keeps living, how is Clary not more determined to save her from Valentine?

And then she finally is freed and suddenly, she’s… Magnus’ ex-girlfriend? Whut? That was a really weird moment to me, personally. Because the two of them felt more like old acquaintances, certainly not like friends and especially not like former lovers, back when we saw them first interact in season 1. When she nearly kissed Magnus, knowing he had a boyfriend, she completely fell through for me. As before mentioned, cheats are the scum of the Earth - and that goes for both parties. If you tempt someone who’s in a relationship and you know that other person is in a relationship, you’re a fucking asshole who’s deliberately hurting the person the cheater is actually dating so fuck you too. I’m really glad that Magnus pulled back before kissing her, that his integrity was preserved there.

I hate that it even got that far - because Magnus can’t talk to Alec at all. Like. Malec is an unhealthy relationship in the sense that they completely lack communication and that is the key element to a healthy relationship. They don’t talk about anything. Ever. It takes Alec far too long to push Magnus about the body-switch trauma. Magnus never voices when something is bother him - like how Alec was seriously rude and unfair to Magnus when he learned about Isabelle’s drug addiction, or how Magnus was obviously not a fan of separating their work and romantic relationships. But instead of talking to Alec about these things, because Alec has never been in a relationship before so a few guidance pointers would be appreciated and communication is key to a healthy relationship, he just swallows everything Alec says and does with a sharp not of the head, until it all becomes too much and he explodes and breaks up with Alec. Which, yeah, everything considered and topped off by the lie about the Soul Sword, totally reasonable conclusion to be honest.

It was obvious they’d get back together because they’re canon’s endgame, but I don’t think they should have gotten together before the end of the season already. That should have been one of the hooks for season 3. “Stay tuned to see them get back together again!”, because you can not tell me that any Malec fan watching was seriously heartbroken in the sense that they believed this to be the end of their ship. Of course will they get together again, but I’d have preffered for it to be a slower process of actually talking about their feelings and mending that they broke in the course of season 2B, because both of them made mistakes. Instead, it’s again a rushed mess of “And they’re back on track! No worries!”, even though there really was never anything to worry about, because everyone knew they were going to get back together.

And on the note of rushed things toward the finale, let’s talk about the Mortal Mirror.

This show and its characters have an amazing track-record of missing the obvious. It took them decidedly too long to figure out where the Mortal Cup was, it took them way too long to realize the Soul Sword was not “in the citadel for cleaning purposes” (what the fuck kind of bad lie was that anyway? Like? How did not everyone instantly know that while Valentine had been captured, the Soul Sword had been stolen by a third party?”.

But Clary instantly knows that not only was the pocket-mirror a ruse, she also right away realizes that the real Mortal Mirror is a lake - and she even instantly figures out it’s Lake Lyn?! Particularly that last one was downright unrealistic for her to already realize. That was, really, an act of “We’re on episoe 18 of 20 so we need to make something happen that moves plot forward because we don’t have the time for them to slowly and realistically figure out where the Mortal Mirror is”.

Personally, I think the entire second season had the potential to be two seasons, if you had stretched it to twice the size and for that, slowed down the pacing and had the twists and turns more realistically. It’d also have given for more character interactions and sub-plots, like for example on Luke because until the last fourth of the season, him being pack Alpha and having wolf-problems really fell flat.

Okay, three more things and I’m done.

First of all, the Seelie Queen. Her obsession with Simon is just creepy. And Simon is a total moron for not just provoking her and thus leading to Maia’s abduction, but for then striking a deal with her to free Maia instad of consulting Magnus and Luke and literally anyone else for help first.

The main characters believing that Sebastian|Jonathan died when he was stabbed and pushed off the bridge was just embarrassing. I mean, not to sound like Simon, but do Shadowhunters not watch movies? At all? The bad guy never dies when pushed off a bridge, they always manage to crawl on land. Not just did the show use such an overused trope here, but they also didn’t have scouts out to find said body? Really? Really?

And the very last thing is Jace’s death. The death itself was good. I liked how he was literally stabbed in the heart by his father-figure. All the angst. Love that.

Clary has a serious problem with letting people stay dead though. Let’s turn Simon into a vampire. Let’s owe a shady warlock some kind of unknown favor so she brings back mom. Let’s ask the angel to bring back Jace.

Not to mention that I find it nearly baffling that, considering unlike in the books, the show killed Jocelyn first, Clary wouldn’t wish for her mother to be back. Or, at least phrase the wish differently “I wish those I love would be back”, or something along those lines.

Way too fast. Jace’s death, just like Malec’s reuinion, should have been left hanging for season 3. It should have ended with a cliffhanger as Jace lays dead and we see Alec’s reaction to that death.

Because - and say it with me, children - it was obvious that he wouldn’t stay dead. As obvious as the fact that Magnus and Alec would get back together. He’s literally the male lead of this show and that kinda status keeps you safe from permanent death. Especially with a franchise taking place in a supernatural world where virtually everything is possible.

Instead, Jace is brought back like three minutes after dying. And it’s such a let-down. Those would have been two huge hooks for viewers to keep them on their toes for season 3, without being risky hooks, aka hooks that run the risk of chasing viewers away and making them stop watching out of protest. Because everyone who seriously thought Jace would stay dead or Magnus and Alec wouldn’t get back together, well, I marvel at their ability to completely turn off their brains while watching a TV show. Safe but suspenseful hooks for the next season.

And that, to sum it all up briefly, is one of the show’s biggest problems. It doesn’t know how to handle suspense. Every time something happens that is potentially suspenseful, they ruin it somehow - by the instant reveal of Sebastian being not a normal guy, by instantly bringing Jace back, by rushing all of their big reveals all the time.

I am praying so hard for the pacing of this show to be better in season 3. For them to take things slower and stop rushing them, keep suspense to give it the chance to properly build up.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this show. I truly do. Among all the shows I watched, it easily climbed up to my number 5 spot of favorite TV shows. But I don’t believe in the concept of blindly loving anything. I need to be able to see its flaws even if I love it. And this show is very flawed.

[shayspieterse]

So… Today’s the last time we’re ever going to hear ‘Previously on Pretty Little Liars’. and today’s the last time we’re ever going to tag our posts with ‘pll lb’ and today’s the last time we’re ever going to freak out over PLL together, live. Today’s the last time non-American fans are going to be desperately looking for good livestream websites so they aren’t behind when the episode airs, and today is the last time we’re ever going to see our girls try and find out who A (or, A.D) is. Today is the last time we’re gonna spend all night pacing around our rooms, trying to figure out what just happened. Today is the last time we’re gonna cry over a new OTP moment, and today’s the last time we’re gonna rewatch the whole series to make up new theories about who the fuck A could be. Today’s the last time we’re gonna gif the crap out of the new episode and our OTP’s new scenes. Today’s the last time we’re going to see parallels between episodes and gif them, or try to get what they could mean.

It’s been seven years and nineteen days since the pilot episode aired. These seven years were a roller-coaster. We definitely wanted the show to be cancelled more than once. And we sure as hell hated this show to death for more than one season (cough, 5b, 6a, etc). But we also grew fond of the five liars, and while all of them have made terrible (and terribly stupid) mistakes, we love them. It’s been such an eventful journey. There’s no possible way to count how many tears and laughs we’ve shared together. How many times we’ve yelled at the screen because of how frustrated we were with how stupid the characters acted. How many times we’ve spent on Tumblr scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through a shit ton of theories, gifsets, and funny text posts. How many times we’ve been disappointed with the writers, and how many times we’ve been disappointed with how badly the characters were being treated. This show doesn’t have good LGBTQ+ rep, and basically almost everyone in Rosewood is white. This show has got more than a hundred plotholes that probably won’t be answered. This show has been my enemy at times, and I have to admit, I’ve thought about quitting more than once. But, as this old proverb I saw on twitter says, I can’t help but love my enemies. I truly love this show to Pluto and back. It’s the first (and probably the last) show I’ve ever been this attached to. I can’t thank this show enough for everything. It gave me something to look forward to every week. For me, this show was my safe place to land.

I sometimes truly think I lived in Rosewood for the past 7 years. I love the twisted people in Rosewood. I love the liars. And I love the amazingly talented, gorgeous women portraying our favorite characters. Lucy, Sasha, Shay, Ashley, Troian, Janel, Torrey, Vanessa,Andrea… This show wouldn’t be the same without them. As ridiculous and as cheesy as this sounds, PLL really taught me a lot. From friendship to how to hide a dead body properly (I learned from their mistakes). From love to knowing that I should always call the cops if I ever get threatened by an anonymous person. And, I want to take a moment to talk about the most legendary ship in Rosewood, as well. Emison. 

Emily and Alison are the most amazing characters for me. If they weren’t, this blog wouldn’t be dedicated to them. I don’t have enough words to describe what I feel towards them, and in fact, I don’t have any words. Emison is the most legendary ship out there. They have been through so much - separately and together - and they never stopped loving each other. Their relationship is nothing but love and loyalty towards one another (although both have made mistakes in the past). Emily never stopped caring about Ali, and Ali never stopped caring about Em. The connection they share is absolutely astonishing, breathtaking, and stunning. The Emison fandom has survived a war, literally, in 2015. I’m not going to remember all the details, but if you’re an Emison shipper reading this, you know. And we still never lost hope. Legends only. And the way Sasha and Shay portrayed these two great characters is just hypnotizing. And although both Alison and Emily (and Sasha and Shay) are sometimes the source of my pain, They’re both extraordinary and have a very, very special place in my heart. I’m gonna stop talking about them now because if I don’t, I’ll die.

Even though I have been watching PLL for about six or seven years, I only made this blog in 2015, I think. And I definitely don’t regret it. I have so many amazing memories with this fandom. I have made so many amazing friends that I’m never going to forget. Ever. Every single one of you have changed me as a person. You’ve shaped me into someone I never thought I’d become (a lazy ass hoe who doesn’t leave her room). And I’m forever grateful. Thank you to every person who has ever reblogged my posts. And thank you to everyone who has followed my trashy blog. I didn’t expect this post to be this long, but never mind. 

It’s done. Tonight we find out who A is, and as much as I want to, we won’t see a promo for season 8. You might think the game is over, though. But, to quote Sherlock Holmes, the game is never over. But there may be some new players now. And the new players will never realize how hard it was to sit around and wait for a new episode, how much suffering we went through when there were hiatuses, or how much we hated I. Marlene King sometimes. The soundtracks, the webs of lies, the plotholes, the characters, the church, the brew, the people, the radley, I’ll miss everything so much.

The characters that made us love them so much, they will always live in our hearts. Rosewood will always exist. We’ll always go back to rewatch the show, and re-read the books, and we’ll always remember them. We’re stuck. Forever and ever and ever and ever. And that, is immortality, my darlings. ;)

Excuse me for this very, very, very cheesy letter. 

But, for the last ever time… 

Happy Pretty Little Liars day! I love each and every one of you. :)

[dilkirani]

replying to the EvB meet and greet a month later ‘cause apparently this is how behind I always am...

and since so many people replied to this part:

One of my bridesmaids, the lovely @leiascully, gave Scully’s “like a switch has been flicked” speech as a toast and I was dyyyyyying. I assume other people just thought she was being super sweet lolol.

This got looooong, so:

@consoledacup replied to your post “EvB meet and greet”

UGH that video and all her recordings! Break me. And I’m more than happy to guide you with the Myers-Briggs (igfjjfne one) test. I’m fascinated with that shit!

I just got to that ep on my rewatch and lost it all over again. I’m even more upset after the framework. Jemma Anne Simmons has survived too much to not get her happy ending with Fitz, okay. And sure, hit me up!

@itsavolcano :

your xf fics weren’t terrible!!!

girl, bye. hahaha.

@catchylove�� :

the maveth videos!!! those are just heartbreaking - they make me cry every time! excellent choice!! and that’s so cool about your wedding cake - it’s great you’ve got a husband who either shares your obsession or is just really understanding lol. either way, that’s lovely!!

haha, we first bonded over the x-files! He gets pretty obsessed with things too, although he’s not much involved in fandom so I get to be his guide. (He’s really understanding about Iain de Caestecker at least....)

@waitingforeleven :

ahh another parks and rec fan! Ben and Leslie were my original OTP before FS. :)

Yay parks and rec! I actually just started s7 on my rewatch, and I’m not ready for it to be over again. When they got engaged, my husband and I were watching with my best friend, and we were NOT expecting it and my friend and I SCREAMED. And then we all went out for celebratory waffles, not lying. It was amazing.

@howtocatchatardis :

parks and recreation is definitely one of my all time favorite shows!

It’s so great! I got my brother-in-law and his wife into it and it’s made family gatherings much better hahaha.

@somethingmarvelous :

Omg I love how delightfully nerdy your wedding was!! If I marry I totally want to use action figures as wedding cake toppers, that’s just so cool

I highly recommend it! Maybe it’s just the circles I run in, but so many weddings I’ve been to lately have incorporated really nerdy things, and it’s always fun!

@florchis :

Wow. I’m not much of a poetry fan, but I just went and looked for the poem tou recommended and discovered that the right way to interact with poetry may be by the voice of the author. Wow. Thank you.

Ohh, I’m so glad! I love poetry, but in a way that’s like...I’ll read something and just get obsessed with the voice of it. I don’t feel educated about poetry at all, but some poems are so perfect to me and I go back to them again and again. 

@unbreakablejemmasimmons :

OH MY GOD X-Files caketoppers that’s amazing. I too got my fandomy start with X-Files fic, and have had a soft spot for MSR for a hundred million years. So I love all of that so much!

I actually knew you were into XF from stalking your tumblr when I first got into FS fandom hahaha. Maybe we knew each other! That fandom was so huge though, in comparison at least. 

@tashonix :

Ooo as a Pisces and a fellow 30 year old you must be an ‘87 baby too :D I also love all of the moments you’ve picked - that was so hard to narrow down! That sounds like an awesome wedding too :)

Yes, I am! Yay another 30s person, haha. And omg yeah, it’s really too hard to pick. Hopefully they’ll give us something to blow them all away in s5 lolol.

@leopoldjamesfitzs :

Ooh!!! You watched txf too? I watched it a couple of years ago and fell in love. It’s such a different show, but such a good one. I commend you for watching it live (if you did) because the slow burn was slow enough that I was nearly screaming at the screen sometimes, and I had another episode to go to immediately. Welcome to team engineering, mighty warrior, I can’t wait to serve with you :D

I didn’t get into it until s6/7 (when I was in middle school!), so luckily I didn’t have to suffer ALL of the INCREDIBLY SLOW BURN live. But it was still difficult--like having to wait for reruns(!) of the eps I missed or for friends to send me VHS tapes(!) or spending 45 minutes on dial-up internet to download a music video. I mean, sometimes I can’t believe I survived all that haha. 

But yes, the slow burn is why I found it so funny people freaked out about it taking until s3 for Fitzsimmons to kiss. Back in my day, I had to analyze freaking lingering glances for years. But that said, can I please have more FS kisses, Jesus, show.

Thanks!!! Yay team E!

@marvelouswhovianfairytales :

I also wrote xf fanfic. ^_^ my first fics were for mighty Morphin power rangers though.

Yesss, more of us! I never wrote power rangers fic, but Kimberly and Jason were like my first ship, when I was a wee child haha.

@the-nerdy-stjarna :

I wrote Gilmore Gilmore fanfic like ten years ago. And our wedding dance was the waltz that Lorelai and Luke danced to at Liz’ wedding AND then late their own wedding (which was obviously after my own wedding which made me cry so hard). Our husbands are very patient with us.

Omg I love that that was your wedding dance! It’s so perfect for you! And yes, they really are!

@ifwehadamonkey :

i had never seen a single episode of the x-files until last year. i watched seasons 1-9 in about a month, maybe? i binged real hard. have you watched the new ones? are they worth watching? cause i’ll be real honest, i did NOT like the way s9 ended, or the movie rather.

Ahhhhh this makes me so sad because I loved XF so much and it was such a huge part of my life for a really formative part of my life, but I just...it needs to be taken away from Chris Carter. It ended terribly, and then the movie was terrible, and I still got my hopes up for the miniseries but I, yeah, can’t recommend it. Maybe some of the other XF people can give their opinion? I thought of the six eps there were two good ones? I actually haven’t rewatched since s10 aired. One ep was trying to make A Statement but was just Islamophobic. Then there was a cliffhanger. They were broken up at the beginning but then everything was just normal investigating partnership like always. I disliked what they did with a recurring character or two. I really think CC just does not understand why people loved the show and also he just got lucky. I don’t know. But I’m freaking invested forever so I’ll watch s11 too I guess. But I’m sad.

@bigfunnywords :

I am LIVING for the mulder and scully wedding cake toppers, omg.

I mean, go fandom or go home, right??

@aosfangirl81 

OMG, so, so, so much awesome cred for what you did at your wedding!! That is so awesome. Did you have a lot of X-Files fans as guests? Although, really, in the end, it only matters if you wanted it :)

Thanks!! A lot of our friends were either fans or at least understood that it was a reference, and my long-suffering mom had lived with me long enough to get it all. But I think a fair number of people didn’t haha. One of Matt’s uncles thought the cake toppers were supposed to be us, like?? I’m Indian?? We don’t work for the FBI?? But yeah, at first I was worried about people thinking we were weird or something but everyone’s just really happy and it’s fun, and it makes it more special for you if you personalize it how you want it. :)