#they literally asked if she was happy with the choice AFTER she lost everything because she was unhappy with them forcing her

[seleneastra]

I recently read Heartless by Marissa Meyer and I just want to say Romeo and Juliet who?

“Over everything, I choose you.”

“Murderer. Martyr. Monarch. Mad.”

“Impossible is my specialty.”

[runawaycarouselhorse]

What made both her sacrifice for her team mates’ happiness in Pocket Monsters (2019)/Pokemon Journeys episode 95 and the fact that she thought this would be her end more poignant for me is that being completely alone is what Musashi hates the most. She lost her (single) mother as a child and was never adopted, going from foster home to foster home... ;_;

After many failures (like being unable to graduate from a school meant to train literal Pokemon Nurses, because she couldn’t do what Chansey do, despite studying hard and being adept at skills like bandaging…) and having her heart broken and being disappointed (she let a boy she loved go alone so she can pursue idol dreams with some friends, who all made it… without her, so she lost a possible love for an impossible dream)…

She couldn’t bond with her partners and left them to be injured, just to save herself, during her training days at Team Rocket. She’d become selfish and self-preserving… in the Japanese version, the others called her “shinigami Musashi” according to Yamato (Cassidy), likening her to a reaper of souls… but James refused to run away, sick of living a life where he ran away from all his problems. He’d sacrifice himself for her and Meowth’s safety, getting badly injured and nearly missing their final exam, hospitalized. The first time they uttered the beginning of their motto was when she believed she was all alone again, much like in this scene… the Rockets in the Japanese version repeat the last thing someone else says as if to answer a question (the “nanda kanda to kikare tara” = “if you ask us about this or that” is mostly filler that could be substituted with anything else.)

Musashi (Jessie): (dejectedly, as she walks away alone as the final exam begins, even being questioned by Nyasu/Meowth where she’s going): Is this all that there is…?

Kojiro (James): (answering while leaning posed against a tree, covered in bandages, but they were only wrapped over his clothes so he could whip them off dramatically) If you ask us 'if this is all that there is,' our answer will be the universe’s compassion!

She’s so moved, she turns away to wipe her tears. “A team mate who won’t run away…”

I think that’s the first time they ever see her cry.

Jessie desperately wants family, belonging, that’s why she falls in love so quickly, she wants a family more than anything—James had everything material growing up, but not love… Musashi had near to nothing material growing up, BUT she had her mother’s love… until she lost her very, very early. They contrast each other! They’re soul mates, eternal partners, whether you ship them or not. Meowth, too, was orphaned as a kitten, never even named, and an outcast his whole life. He's also always falling in love easily, seeking a home... the trio should never be separated, they are each other’s sought-for home.

I think the falling snow in this scene, where she runs off in tears, after wearing a brave smile and telling James it’s okay to stay with Cassidy, is a very deliberate choice, as Jessie loves snow. One of her few happy memories of her depressing childhood is being made treats made of snow to eat. She unknowingly lost her mother in the snowy Andes mountains, seeking Mew, put into foster care, while Miyamoto tried to make money to give her a better life... glittering snow and sparkling tears…

For Meowth too, she lets him go. She just wants everyone to have their chance at love.

So, her believing she’ll end up dying alone, as she’s always feared, Musashi here laments her luck, but also has a beautiful little dream of her friends saving her.

Once again, similarly to the break-up episode of DP, she was the one who calmly and gently encouraged James to pursue a possible love. She also broke Dustox’s pokeball, in tears, not wanting her to make the same mistake she did, giving up on an attainable love for an unattainable goal (and, indeed, Jessie did not win the Grand Festival, despite her skill at Pokemon Contests… she made the right decision for Dustox’s happiness.)

Jessie loves her friends. Sure, she’s caustic, rude, temperamental, bitter, and self-absorbed, but she prioritizes love and their happiness. She doesn’t want them to be alone and abandoned the way she felt as a kid. She loves them so much so, she’s satisfied to die alone and suffer her worst fear if it meant they get to be happy. That’s self-sacrifice.

She doesn’t resent them one bit, saying it’s a nice dream when she thinks she’s imagined them saving her life… she thought it was her mind comforting her before her death, accepting her fate, rather than realizing it’s effectively a premonition of what will be reality… and when she realizes?! She initially reproaches them, looking mad, because she thought they abandoned their happiness for her! But no, things didn’t work out… this is where they’re meant to be: by each other’s side.

James also knows how much marriage means to her, even though he’s so traumatized by it, the word “fiance” triggers literal flashbacks for him and he climbed up a tree to get away from a teenaged girl who called him that. Yet, in XY episode 63, where she fell for Dr. White...

Kojiro: (with head down, eyes shadowed) If Musashi (Jessie) wants to pursue her happiness as a woman, shouldn't we give her our blessing?

Nyasu also had his misfortunes in love... they sympathize and empathize.

"Let's show her we're men and leave without saying anything..."

As Kojiro runs away, he sheds tears, wishing her happiness and bidding her farewell, silently. The scenes in these two episodes are clear parallels.

But in the end (including the final episodes, as rushed as that plotline was although I still loved Wobbuffet acting exactly like a troubled child of parents going through a messy divorce), they’ll always realize their happiness is by each other’s side as a trio.

"Sometimes you get good pulls, sometimes you get bad ones. Sometimes they're good, even if you think they're bad. Sometimes they're bad, even if you think they're good."

[panlight]

I.e. Bella not suffering any consequences: what I find even more annoying is that Meyer makes such a big stink about the books being about choice but only BELLA gets any big choices. Every other member of the Cullens was forcefully turned, either entirely against their will (Carlisle, Jasper) or to save their life (Alice, Edward, Emmett, Esme, Rose). Every shifter is forcefully turned due to the vampires; not even Jacob chose it in the end and actively fought against it. Imprinting is forced. Don't get me started on Leah. And even if Nessie wants Jacob in her life, the book heavily implies that she wouldn't have a choice either way. Also, she has to stay with her family because she'll never look old enough, isn't as invulnerable, etc. Literally only Bella has any choice over life-changing decisions (even Edward claims that he never had a choice in loving Bella). Bella chooses Edward (actively endangering herself and others), chooses to be a vampire (supposedly an evil, immoral life endangering others), chooses to give birth to Nessie (possibly an inhuman killing machine while endangering herself and others), and so on. And instead of ANY consequences AT ALL for what appear to be TERRIBLE choices (based on every single book except the back half of BD), she's ALSO the only one who gets pretty much everything she ever wanted while everyone else has to live with whatever crumbs of happiness they can eke out. It's infuriating if you care about anyone AT ALL other than Bella.

Totally agree! It's always been amusing to me that SM says the books are about choice. The apple being offered on the cover presents a choice: do you take it or not? Do you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Do you take the apple from the old woman who might be a witch or evil queen in disguise? And the original name of the book was "Forks;" obviously for the setting but also for the idea of forks in the road: which path you will choose?

But Bella's the only one with any real choices here. She actually has a lot more agency than a lot of people give her credit for. SHE chose to move to Forks. SHE chose to pursue a relationship with Edward. SHE chose the reckless actions in New Moon. SHE chose to ask Edward to sit out the fight. SHE chose to become a vampire. SHE chose to keep the pregnancy. She certainly suffers hardships, but they almost all come from choices SHE made for herself.

And the negative effects of those choices are temporary or unimportant to her specifically. Her scars from James are healed in the transformation; Emily's face is still scarred. The toll her pregnancy took on her body is erased in the transformation, but Esme is still 'rounded and soft' from her pregnancy, and Alice is 'thin in the extreme' from her malnourishment. Bella doesn't even burn for the full three days, only two! There's even a line where Edward literally says something like, "Renesmee's eyes are exactly your color, so that wasn't lost after all." She gets to keep Jacob literally forever (he has no choice) and she gets to keep Charlie when no one else got to keep their human families in their lives. Irina dies, but Bella doesn't know her so it doesn't matter.

I fully understand the main character is the main character for a reason; because they're special, because their journey is unique, etc. But this is also the reason I tend to find main characters annoying. This is not a Bella problem or an SM problem but a me problem. I feel similarly about Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen as I do about Bella Swan. I like ensembles; I like when there are lots of narrators, or when there's no obvious 'main' character. And if there is a main character, dollars to donuts they aren't my favorite; I will 100% always sympathize more with the secondary characters and find them more interesting.

Bella gets to choose what she wants for her life and it all works out for her. Good for her! Genuinely! But it's a glaring contrast to the stories of virtually all the supporting characters and, to me at least, less interesting. Forever disappointed Bella being a newborn was such a non-event. I was looking forward to it for three and a half books and she just basically carries on her life like nothing has changed. Meh. The supporting characters not having many choices and making the best of things is personally more interesting to me.

[abhorsenkatiel]

Just finished watching the new Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake and I really want to say how much I appreciated the way they handled the Simon and Betty relationship.

I legitimately cringed when they when went into depth about the beginning of their relationship. It was established back at the end of the original series that Betty had made a big sacrifice by giving up her expedition in order to stay with Simon, but now we also learn that she was a student and he was an established professor who she deeply admired when they met. The love between them was genuine, but there was also a very clear power imbalance. I cringed because I believed this would just go unacknowledged, as it does in so many stories, as if the authors are not even aware that such a power dynamic would have an impact on a relationship regardless of how real the love is. Or worse, that such (gendered) power imbalances are a natural thing to be expected in romantic relationships and are therefore not worth commenting on.

But then we get to episode 9, literally titled "Casper and Nova" after the hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-hammer obvious metaphor, and it becomes clear that it was absolutely the writers' intention to highlight and critique the power dynamic of Simon and Betty's relationship. Betty had already realized her part in the tragedy back in the original series, that she had given up her own life too readily and that she regretted it. But now we finally get acknowledgment of Simon's part, that he was irresponsible with Betty's love and devotion. That he didn't see how much he was taking and took for granted how much she was giving up. His tragedy is not that he passively lost Betty to some outside force, but that he made active choices which eroded her autonomy and didn't notice until it was too late. That their relationship, despite being genuinely and passionately loving, was unbalanced from the start, and he used that to his advantage and her detriment even if it was unintentional.

The gendered dynamic of this story is important too. I've met so many women throughout my life, even some who are my age now, who when you ask them about their lives come to a point where they shrug and say some variation of, "and then I met the man who I altered the course of my life for" and that's the end of their story. I remember hearing those stories when I was a child and something about the expression those women made or their phrasing, or their tone of voice gave me a visceral negative reaction. Some of them were openly bitter about it, and told me to never make sacrifices for a man, but even the ones who weren't bitter, who seemed to be happy in genuinely loving relationships, would still give some sense of longing or regret when it came to that part, like they were still thinking about what their life could have been.

It's a common story for women. Even now it's still an expectation that we give up everything for love. It's romantic sure, but I appreciate that we have a story that really makes you look at the tragic side of it as well.

[realchemistry]

About Maddie's reaction to ~the incident

One of the things I think is important to point out, because I haven't seen or read anyone talking about it, is Maddie's reaction when Buck told her the truth about the basketball incident. When Buck first arrived, she was all smiles, probably happy to have Buck there. Then she asked about how Eddie was doing and Buck said he hadn't talked to him because what happened on the basketball court was not an accident.

Buck confessed that he might have meant to hurt Eddie because he was pissed, felt left out, and he guessed he was trying to get Eddie's attention (I’m not gonna go Buddie here, but he legit literally said exactly this which !!!).

Her face started to morph, the change in her whole demeanor, the horror of it all... she was really really mad. I don't think JLH got the proper credit for it. It's truly remarkable, her face spoke volumes about everything that was going through her head at the moment. You could see Maddie thinking about her past, about Doug, about how he hurt her and the terrible ways in which he justified that behavior as she was telling Buck that you do not hurt people to get their attention and not to do it again.

The episode didn't make that connection explicit (they had her babbling about Sarahs instead, more on that in the last paragraph), and I KNOW that if roles were reversed, part of the fandom would've lost their mind, since they love to portray Eddie as violent and abusive towards Buck when there's nothing in canon to back that up, quite the opposite as of this episode actually. Since Eddie was the one who got hurt, it was no big deal, it was pretty much forgotten immediately after. I thought it was a huge deal, I thought tptb didn't really address how problematic that was. I thought the only one who reflected the gravity of the situation was Jen, maybe thanks to her character's past.

BTW, I don't think it's in character for Buck to do this, I think he does know better, and he really isn't and hasn't ever been the type to resort to violence. Having said that, that's what tptb decided to do on screen, maybe as a way to show he was struggling with his identity... But that’s kinda terrible, like, he’s confused at this point about his feelings so his first instinct is to harm his friend out of jealousy? Also, we didn't get to see anything else on the matter after. It was such an odd choice, tbh, cause yes, Buck and Eddie probably talked about it for a second and then made up offscreen, but to have a character be violent towards his friend just to push a storyline forward, a storyline about bisexuality of all things, disregarding everything about said character and then not acknowledging it... Some very bad choices were made. Once again, I think tptb prioritized moving the plot forward over making sense and that's just something I truly hate with my whole heart.

Characters cannot have their choices and actions dictated by the plot or, at least, it can't feel that way to the audience. That's just bad writing through and through. Tptb did this a lot this season, and I understand that time was pressing because of the strike and all, but they need to do better. They are professionals getting paid to do a job, the least they can do is actually make it all make sense for the fans and stay away from toxic portrayals of LGBTQ+ characters (Hen cheating, anyone?).

The whole story about the Sarahs was really kinda ridiculous, honestly, I think they just had to give Jen more to do but a follow up without it would've been much better. Of course, seeing as their intention was to completely ignore the gravity of the situation, they simply couldn't mention Doug at all cause that would've required Buck and Eddie discuss this seriously instead of completely forgetting about it.

[ponyosmom35]

Fight

simon ghost riley x reader

synopsis: simon finds out that Makarov was back, and he had information on them all, putting all of their loved ones in danger. He had to go back, despite the big wedding in a few months. Now he had to break it to his fiance.

warnings: cursing, angst, fighting, yelling, crying

Takes place hours before ' Nightmares'

https://www.tumblr.com/ponyosmom35/724577494896885760/nightmares-simon-ghost-riley-x-reader-synopsis?source=share

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Simon asks as she walks into the house holding their coffees. 

“Sure” she says as she walks into the kitchen where he stood. She sits at the barstool and hands him his coffee. “Whats going on, you sound upset” 

“I have to leave” he admits, watching as her happiness disappears, being replaced with a hurt expression. 

“What?” she asks 

“There’s a mission, Price needs me to come back”

“Can’t you say no?” she asks, he scoffs and shakes his head. 

“Not exactly” 

“Laswell has no other options?” 

“Because there is nobody else who can get this job done the way that we can” he responds, instantly getting frustrated at her reaction. 

“But you said you didn’t have to go back until after the wedding”

“Can’t control the bad guys love” he says sarcastically

“Thats bullshit” 

���Why is that?” he asks crossing his arms 

“We’re getting married in 4 months, Simon! I need you here, I can’t do this all by myself” 

“I wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t necessary” 

“Jesus christ” she responds shaking her head 

“What do you expect me to do about this huh? You think I should sit back and let the most dangerous man in the world roam free to do whatever he pleases? All of that blood would be on my hands, that ain’t somethin’ I’m okay with” he responds, raising his voice. He couldn’t understand why she was refusing to see the bigger picture. 

“No I obviously don’t think you should sit back! I know how important you are, and I know that you’re the only ones who could take this guy down” she says, throwing her hands up in the air. 

“So what’s the issue then eh?” 

“The issue is that once again I have to watch you walk out of that door, and I fear that it’ll be the last time I ever see you. The fucking issue is that we can’t even have a few months of peace before you get pulled back in!”

“You knew what you were gettin’ into bein’ with me”

“You also told me that you wanted to retire, you wanted to be done with this life”

“You’re taking my words too literally love, I didn’t mean I was gonna retire right this second” he snaps 

“Why say it then? Why get my hopes up, because I was under the impression that this was something you had really been considering, now you’re talking to me like I’m the fucking crazy one for wanting you to be here to plan our wedding!”

“You’re right I should’ve kept that to myself” he nods “didn’t think this would be a fight, there ain’t shit I can do about it. I go when I’m needed end of story”

“And what about me? What if you miss our wedding?”

“I can’t give you a timeline on how long it takes to bring down a terrorist, could be a week, could be months. It ain’t up to me”

“Jesus” she says running her hands through her hair angrily as tears fill her eyes and her lips tremble. “No don’t worry about me Simon, I’ll just be here at home, wondering if you’re alive or not. I’ll be here waiting for you to come home. What you’re not understanding is that I won’t be there on base to patch you up. I won’t see you everyday, it was hard enough back then, but now? You took me off the team! You had Laswell send me home! Now I’m stuck here while I‘m fucking terrified that I’ll lose you before you’re even fully mine!”

“You know why I did that! I had no choice!”

“But you did have a choice and you chose wrong!”

“I did it to protect you! you were a hostage! I almost lost you, I can’t risk that happening ever again. Do you have any how fucking scared I am to lose you? You are everything to me! I chose you always. Don’t tell me that I don’t fucking understand. I see it all perfectly clear! I don’t wanna hear anything else about something I have no control over!” he roars, his chest rising and falling as he stares at her in anger. 

“I’m allowed to be upset Simon, thats not a crime” she says wiping her tears as she leaves the kitchen and runs up the steps, leaving her coffee untouched and cold. 

Simon curses and runs his hand through his hair in anger. He knew he should’ve handled that better. He wasn’t even truly upset with her. What he would never tell her is the reason he’d accepted the job was due to the fact that the man they were going after, Vladimir Makarov had information. Simon refused the offer at first, for the same reason she’d been upset, their wedding. However Price showed him the intel they picked up. Makarov had names, he knew Simon and he knew her. He knew instantly what he would have to do, Price helped him with the plan. After he left for the mission, he would have to fake his death, in order to keep attention off of his lover. He would break her heart in order to save her. He knew that she’d never be safe as long as he was still ‘alive’. She’d be used against him and he would never risk that. Price expressed how delicate this mission was, they weren’t sure who to trust as there had been so much corruption. This will be for the better.

ghost master list:

https://www.tumblr.com/ponyosmom35/733401347573088256/simon-ghost-riley?source=share

[darkmasterofcupcakes]

Does Lute ever wish that She, vaggie, and Adam were an actual family?

Not really, not until Adam was killed. When Vaggie was growing up, Lute never really had any wish for the dynamic between the three of them to be anything other than what it was. She and Adam had the two sides to their relationship - the commander and lieutenant professional relationship and the friendship that they fully allowed everyone to know about, and the more intimate relationship they tried to keep secret. They kept that up for a very, very long time and there was never any reason to change it in Lute's eyes.

Even after Vaggie was born, things didn't really change with how Lute felt about things. She loved both of them - though she'd never admit how she actually felt about Adam - but also knew Adam wasn't really up to being a father to Vaggie, nor did Lute ever really feel like he needed to have that kind of role in her life. So she was happy keeping her two-sided relationship with Adam, and also raising Vaggie herself.

But, after Adam died, part of Lute wished she'd made different choices regarding her relationship with Adam, at least after Vaggie was born. Even if it was just being honest to Vaggie when she asked if Adam was her father, when she was old enough to be able to understand that there was a reason Lute didn't want everyone in Heaven to know that. But at least then they could have been more of an actual family, in their own strange way.

Because after Adam died, Lute felt like she lost literally everyone she loved. Her parents were still in Heaven, but she'd been dead to them for over two hundred years, ever since Vaggie was born. In her eyes and her heart, her daughter had been dead for years. And now the man she loved was also gone. She literally lost everything and was left to grieve something she never had, but only realized how much she really wanted it, after it was already gone.

[marchiveeee]

HSL episode 12 is so unhinged/chaotic (?) [a long post with many screenshots yayyy]

As you guys might know, we can get up to 6 illustrations on episode 12, so A LOT happens. Some of those things are very laughable, but others are not so much... I'll talk about everything in order of occurrence.

!!!: I'm sorry if "unhinged" or "chaotic" is not the right word for what I'm trying to say. although I'm confident enough in English, it's still not my 1st language. btw, i tried to post this 3 times and something always goes wrong, I'm stressed, so I'll be really happy with an interaction

btw again, if you're brazilian and would like to see this in Portuguese on Twitter or here, please let me know!!!

Mrs. Shermansky being toxic af and the exact opposite of how a good educator should act [in my opinion]

So... I get that she was worried about Candy and Castiel getting lost. But if you really think telling a teenager that the only thing they have ever done is to cause trouble is a good way to advert/encourage them to do the right thing next time is the best approach, please rethink your ways.

2. Mr. Faraize being a sweetheart, he is such a nice teacher

I'm not saying that to be a nice teacher you have to sugarcoat everything all the time and just not scold your students at all. But Mr. Faraize was so nice about it all, he just seemed happy/relieved to know his students were well and safe.

Side [angry] comment about episode 11: Bro, that race was so unorganized!!!! The least the school should have done was provide extra maps in case of accidents like the one that happened with Candy and the LI. Mr. Faraize was wrong too, he shouldn't have let Candy and the LI [in my case, Castiel] proceed after hearing that we had been fkn lost bc we lost the map and we were just wandering until we found the right track. UGH... If that happened irl with my little brother or idk any kid that happens to be in my life, I'd be so furious... ANYWAYS!

3. Born to be a star

He is loving the attention!

4. Violet, as always, being the most precious being in that school. [I'm sorry about the screenshot I used, I forgot to take others]

She's just so sweet and adorable, I want to hug her. YOU'RE NOT DUMB, BABYYYY.

4. Armin's reaction to Alexy's secret admirer

before the declaration:

after the declaration:

Honestly, I was just so happy to see that Armin didn't out his brother when he heard that a girl was interested on him. I didn't remember the details of this scene bc I was probably 12 y/o when i first played it.

5. Candy being paranoid that half of the boys at SA will turn out to be gay/not straight

This girl cracks me up istg... and why the fuck

she was just so worried to ask Castiel bc she thought he would get angry. Girl, we don't do fragile masculinity here.

6. Candy goes completely sidetracked on her CasLys fanfic just to check Lys's tattoo and witnessing one of the biggest bombs of MCL

I didn't get many screenshots from this part, because it's just sad when you know what it's all about in the end... but yeah instead of spying on Lys, Candy ends up seeing Nath's bruised body and is also caught by him.

Someone has probably done this already idrk, but I'm gathering some screenshots of moments that foreshadowed that something was just not right at Nath's and Amber's house... It'll probably take a while for me to post, but I'll try.

7. Nath being for real

He was so right for calling her dumb!!!! I think I was ranting about this on Twitter recently when I replayed the beach episode…

8. Lys’s reaction to the whole story [an icon]

I regret not taking screenshots sooner, but I was just too distracted laughing my ass off! There literally was about 2/3 scenes of just: 

Lys: 🤨[...] Candy: [Doesn’t know what to say/says something stupid] Lys: 🤨[...] Candy: [Doesn’t know what to say/says something stupid

Again, she doesn’t say anything [to get the image you need to go for this choice]

And then he shoes you his tattoo! Bro, he was SO COOL about it! If Candy had just asked nicely… But no, she has to complicate everything omg istg 

I still laughed a lot tho, I think at some point in this episode Cas said that this trait of Candy and her need to know and talk about everything is what makes her fun. I agree with him. She is annoying sometimes but definitely entertaining for the gossipers.

9. May the fanfic continue

Insert some dialogues here: Basically Cas sees Candy near them listening to their conversation and he asks what’s up. Candy approaches them and is like “uhhh…. Are you……….?” Then Castiel says:

For my mind’s sake let’s just imagine that the “offended” was not for “I’m offended you thought I was gay”, but for “I’m offended that you thought I’m dating Castiel when he’s not on my level of gentlemanliness and when I deserve so much more than this grumpy angsty tomato head” (don’t get me wrong, I love Castiel and I’d die for him, but it’s either that or think of a homophobic Lys, which I don’t think it’s the case for him)

10. Castiel shoots his 29482904 shot with Candy, but she’s stupid

Actually, one thing that I like about this scene is that it leaves open the interpretation of Castiel’s sexuality. Saying that he likes girls doesn’t necessarily mean that he is straight. I love to see that. And disclaimer: if you prefer to think that Cas is, in fact, straight, go ahead. That’s not a problem. He is not a real person and we’re allowed to imagine and speculate things, so this is just a headcanon of mine that he might be bi/pan or just simply not straight.

11. Amber and Kentin kiss

That alone is just unhinged and chaotic. I don’t need to say much. 

BUT I’M SO GLAD HE IS BACK!!! He’s gonna be a little shit for a while, because I think my Candy lost some points with him bc of a wrong choice after he left, but that’s fine! I MISSED HIM!!!

----

I hope you had fun with this little throwback!

[alainapaloosa2]

Glorbie Actress AU headcanons:

Hey guys, before you read this, the story is actually out and in progress now

(And by headcanons i mean more of a story outline)

Gloria is a behind the scenes worker, usually either working on sounds or sets. She’s been doing this a long time and enjoys her job but she’s always dreamed of doing something more.

She secretly has always wanted to be an actual actress but with her daughter, her struggles to make ends meet, and like 25 other problems, she just never got around to it.

Then one day, a new actress comes. Her name is Barbara Handler but she goes by the stage name of Barbie.

She’s unlike anybody that anyone’s ever seen before. Gorgeous, bright, bubbly, always happy and with a smile that literally lights up a room. Everyone’s in love with her

So, Barbie’s at Gloria’s studio working on a new movie. It’s already planned to be a hit and production is going to be long and tiring.

At first, Gloria isn’t sure what to think of Barbie. She sees how everyone else around them practically fall onto their knees the second she enters a room, and the blonde does seem really kind, but Gloria feels like it’s just an act so she doesn’t try to engage in anything with the actress.

But she is secretly crushing on her. So secretly that she doesn’t even know.

And for some odd reason, Barbies taken a liking to Gloria.

Everyone is of course, jealous of this and Gloria has no idea what’s going on but she pretends to not like Barbie, but Barbie talks to her anyway. Eventually, Barbie worms herself into Gloria’s life and the two become friends. They hang out and Barbie takes Gloria out for lunch a lot.

When the movie is finished, Gloria doesn’t hear much from Barbie again and she thinks maybe they’re not friends anymore until Barbie invites her to the premiere about a year later. Barbies pretty famous now.

When they’re there, Gloria mentions she’s been having trouble finding work.

The next day Gloria gets is offered a job at the next movie Barbie’s staring in and very happily takes it.

Barbie also has a boyfriend now. They’re not really in love (Gloria doesn’t know this) and it’s more of a publicity stunt her manager gave her. She’s not a fan of it but she goes along with it because she has no other choice.

Barbie and Gloria get closer and hang out a ton. They have a lot of sleepovers at Barbies fancy place together and just talk and spill their problems to each other. They’re practically best friends and they both secretly want to be more than that.

One night, Barbie takes Gloria out for drinks. She gets pretty drunk and spills a lot of stuff that she shouldn’t and Gloria comforts her. Somewhere along the way they end up kissing and Gloria freaks out, thinking Barbie’s relationship with her boyfriend is actually serious so she leaves.

Then the next day it’s announced Barbies boyfriend left her and it’s everywhere on the news. It’s not pretty.

Barbie is more upset about the fact she lost Gloria but she is also a wreck about that. She’s performing badly and her manager is pissed at her (he sucks in general).

Things just go badly until Gloria stands up for Barbie against her manager and tells him off. Barbie asks Gloria to talk to her and Gloria is a little wary but agrees. So Barbie asks her to come with her to a fancy event.

They go together and talk things out and become friends again. A few people ask if they’re a couple and after the third time of being mistaken for a couple, they just say yes.

Maybe there’s some dance scene because those are incredibly necessary, and maybe they kiss during it. Maybe they go home together and everything is perfect again.

Soon enough, the news is completely focused on Barbie, the star, and her girlfriend Gloria, the upcoming actress

[bestworstcase]

Hello! I’ve enjoyed reading your rwby analysis posts, especially the things you’ve had to say about Penny. The amount of care you put into thinking and writing about her is great. I’m curious what you thought about Penny getting turned into a human, because… I personally really didn’t like it. It just really hurt me that after she was attacked repeatedly because she was built differently, that the solution to that was to remove everything which was different/unique about her and make her “normal.” And then have the actual physical representation of her differences violently die and then be obliterated like they were some horrible, hideous thing.

A good chunk of her story seemed to revolve around being just as much a person as anyone else even though she had a body that worked differently. And I sure did relate to that irl! But then turning Penny human seemed to send the message that Penny could only actually be a full and happy person (such as immediately discovering how wonderful hugs feel) if she was normal. I want to believe I’m taking that scene the wrong way, but… I’m not sure how else I can interpret what happened. So yeah, I’m curious what you think! I’ll be interested to read your thoughts, whatever they may be.

ooh, well, i’m not keen on the way the fandom writ large interprets the scene (as ‘penny became human’/‘penny became real’) and i like how it was done because imo it is really NOT framed as a positive transformation?

there’s an element of relief and joy to it of course—because everyone’s glad that penny survived this ordeal with the virus—but, as you say, the self-destruction of her robotic body is a big focal point of the scene and it is done in a very horrifying way, with the camera moving between penny’s POV as she watches it happen and her robotic body’s POV as it desperately tries to reach her before succumbing to the virus. and penny herself is profoundly disturbed by the experience—she’s not happy to be ‘free’ of that body at all, and ruby hesitantly asks if she’s alright because penny clearly isn’t. 

so while penny does then find a small thing to appreciate about her new flesh body and that momentarily alleviates the horror… the tone is very much set by the amount of focus given to penny watching a part of herself die and, after that small burst of joyous relief, watching her old body crumble into ash and flinching away with horror again. 

to me, this reads as a rebuke of how flippant yang was about the loss—“the mechanical parts are just extra,” except penny’s body isn’t truly equivalent to a prosthetic, right? that’s just her body. 

it’s not all she is, but it’s also a lot more like the arm yang lost than it is like the prosthetic yang got afterwards. penny loses a core part of her identity…

…which is reinforced later, inside the portal, when penny is taken off guard by the abrupt realization that she no longer has floating array. weapons are a fundamental part of huntsmen identity, seen and understood as “extensions of our selves,” and penny’s is literally destroyed by her involuntary transformation—involuntary in the sense that it’s a choice she was forced to make under extreme duress thanks to watts—and she has to recreate that piece of herself with magic.  

and there’s smaller, subtler things wrong, too. i think the amount of focus put on her bare feet is meant to highlight that she does not have thrusters any more—an essential aspect of her natural mobility is just gone, again leaving her dependent on the maiden powers to do something she used to be able to just DO. 

or consider how disoriented she seems right before cinder gets her. in her original body, penny had sophisticated tactical software built into her sensory array which among other things made her virtually immune to emerald’s semblance. she could see infrared light and aura and the tactical analysis program worked much, much faster than any human could keep up with—because her physical brain was a computer! and then she loses that and spends the entire fight mainly getting clobbered and then struggles to keep track of what’s even happening when cinder gates her off from her allies!

her new body is healthy and whole by human standards, but measured against what penny had before… the narrative gives, like, a LOT of attention to signaling that penny has been measurably disabled in a multitude of ways. if she wasn’t also the winter maiden—& bear in mind that penny only became the winter maiden BECAUSE of what her original robotic body could do!—penny would have been rendered utterly helpless by this transformation. no weapon, no flying, in a much more fragile and vulnerable body that could feel pain. (think about how much screaming she does during that final fight, compared to the time she gets flung several blocks by a grimm so hard there’s an impact crater and she’s like “ouch! :)” about it)

and obv, that fragile new body is the only reason cinder was able to kill her at all. i think that’s sort of the point: penny did the equivalent of *barely* surviving a debilitating illness, went from her sickbed to a battlefield, tried to fight like that, and died because she in a state of extreme physical vulnerability due to recent illness. that’s why all of her friends were so insistent that she not participate in the fight—she wasn’t ready to be fighting! if she’d lived, she would have needed to spend quite a long time recovering, learning and accepting her new limitations, and training within those new limits.

so, to me? the narrative framing of the transformation feels somber, with “she lived! it worked!” being the silver lining on what is otherwise a tragic outcome. watts infected her with this brutal, horrific virus and the only way to save her life was to sacrifice a fundamental part of her self, in this acutely traumatizing way. i think the fandom collectively sort of tunnel visioned on the pinocchio narrative of ‘becoming a real girl’* to such a degree that the bittersweet framing and the underlying horror of what happened to her gets widely overlooked. and i don’t think those tragic/horrific notes are there by accident—the narrative puts quite a lot of emphasis on them, and deliberately bookends the joy of “do hugs always make you feel this warm?” with those moments of intense horror with the violent death and then destruction of her robotic body. 

(*something that… really isn’t a prominent theme with penny?, because her struggle with personhood is centered on how *other people* treat her like an object and i would argue her pinocchio ‘becoming a real boy’ moment is actually her acceptance of the maiden power—not because that ‘proves’ she’s a person or whatever, but because it’s a moment of emotional self-actualization where she chooses to do the right thing according to her own judgment instead of mindlessly following orders like the puppet ironwood expects her to be. it’s symbolic! & that gets called back to explicitly by winter, later, with “you were *always* the real maiden, i was the machine,” the ‘realness’ in the pinocchio narrative here is about emotional authenticity and refusal to sacrifice conscience or heart in the name of following orders.

rwby is… pretty profoundly uninterested in the question of ‘does the robot girl count as a person?’ because it answers that within literal seconds after revealing that she is a robot with an emphatic ‘yes, obviously, she has a soul, zero ambiguity here’ lmao. what it does do is leverage pinocchio to explore themes of dehumanization and personhood within an authoritarian military regime.)

so yeah, that’s how i read that. it’s joyous because she lives but it’s also not a victory earned without grievous loss, and the tragedy is exacerbated because she *does not have time* to catch her breath / process / learn how to live in her new, disabled body before cinder… cinders.

[mulderscully]

tenrose u will always be famous

rewatching rtd-dw now after pushing it away for so long is so nice because i am seeing it with new eyes in a way. i see so many things now that i didn’t as a teenager. i think i understood the basics of why ten and rose’s arc worked so well, but not the deeper narrative technicalites of it.

what i loved about ten is that his era really is about the beauty of what it is to be human, to be ordinary. i think davies’ choosing to destroy gallifrey was an incredible choice, it gave the show a new start in every way and it was a restart for the doctor - within and without the show. under the cut bc this got long.

first of, it’s absolutely PIVOTAL to meet him to understand the tenth doctor, if you skip nine you will never understand ten. ten is who he is directly because of who he was as nine.

nine had lost everything, he was alone, he was angry and in pain. he had a warmth to him, always, but he was closed off. he meets rose and she becomes the first person he has. he has no one til then, he was alone. 

and rose is so fucking ORDINARY. and it’s beautiful. she’s funny, she loves life, she has a big smile. she has a family she loves and is devoted to. she’s so, so, so beautifully human. she’s selfish, she’s emotional and unfair. and it’s beautiful because she’s imperfect. 

nine doesn’t do families, he doesn’t do humanity. but as the first season go on we slowly see him letting that stuff in bit by bit until we get to “street corner. two in the morning. i’ve never had a life like that.” we see him start to open up to hope and love, in it’s many forms. when rose is dying he kisses her to save her. he literally does this knowing it will kill him. he dies to save her, because he loves her. because he has grown to love and forgive HIMSELF. “you were fantastic, absolutely fantastic. and you know what? so was i.” his last words as nine are him professing his love to rose and to himself.

when he’s born again as ten, he is born out of these two things. loving rose, loving humanity. you can immediately see the shift in him when he regenerates. he has a big smile, he’s HAPPY, he has hope. he willingly spends christmas at the dinner table with rose and her family. 

this is the catch: to understand the tenth doctor’s ending and to understand tentoo, you have to understand that ten was born actively wanting to be human. and you have to understand that what makes rose who she is is that she is human.

first episode that really got me on this rewatch was school reunion. when rose asks if he’s gonna leave her behind. the CONVICTION that he says, “no, not to you.” is so jarring. the way dt and billie played this scene is phenomenal. rose can’t fully grasp how he’s going to have to watch her die someday and the doctor can’t deny that living on alone is a curse. 

when you move farther into the season and as their relationship become more intense you see that as loyal as the doctor is to rose, she is just as loyal to him. but there is an inherent issue with this. he is not human. she CANNOT be as loyal to him as he is to her. she cannot stay with him forever. she will die. sure, they could’ve made her immortal or whatever - but that would defeat the beauty of who and what she is, and what the doctor loves about her.  

and i think rose loves being human. i actually worried i had read their relationship wrong, maybe she SHOULD have gotten to be immortal and travel forever but i still think that she doesn’t need that. she doesn’t even want that. it’s the moment in the impossible planet for me, how much the idea of being stranded on a planet with the doctor EXCITES HER. how she lights up thinking about having to get jobs and a mortgage and house with him. you can literally feel her heart racing watching it. and you can feel in that moment, he wants it too. he doesn’t think he can ever have it, but you see he wants it. 

i audibly gasped when jackie asked rose if she would ever settle down and rose says “the doctor never will so i can’t. i’ll just keep traveling.” because it’s so obvious that while she loves to travel it’s not even about that anymore. it’s about him. about loving him, wanting to be there for him. and while this is so beautiful: it’s unhealthy and unfair. to her AND the doctor. deep down, they are hurting each other because of the impossibility of their relationship.

now, we all know what happens here. they get torn apart. almost as if the universe didn’t want them to be together. as if... it were almost a kindness. but even then he says, “here you are. living a life day after day. the one adventure i can never have.” with the most longing i could ever fathom.

but even in their long separation, they are always so deeply tied. you almost feel rose’s presence the MOST during her absence. he miss her so much, and you can see him hanging onto the hope and humanity she gave to him because they are so deeply entwined together. but he does it. and while i have issues with the episode, seeing ten become john smith in human nature is so.. there is just so much to unpack about it.

first of all the way he chooses to do this in the first place. second off, the way he cannot stop dreaming of rose despite essentially becoming a different man. the way him being human and rose are tied, once again. ok literally who CARES about joan. joan is a stand in for rose.

“that's all i want to be. john smith, with his life... and his job... and his love.”

DEEP DOWN, THIS IS HOW THE TENTH DOCTOR FEELS. HE FEELS IT SO DEEPLY THAT HE CANNOT LOCK IT AWAY. AND IT DIDN’T OCCUR TO HIM TO FALL IN LOVE BECAUSE HE LOVES ROSE SO MUCH.

this all culminates to the fact that they would both bend reality to be together. she would cross dimensions and he would stop himself from regenerating for her. and in doing so, during this act of love, he accidentally creates another version of himself. he literally SPLITS IN TWO FOR HER. this is what i think i was always trying to articulate but couldn’t when i was ohtentoo. 

tentoo isn’t a clone, because implying so negates the impact of what the doctor did. he did not clone himself in a lab. it was not synthetic. he poured his own energy into his own body (part) and split into two people so one of them could be with her but who are both GENUINELY him.

and this is bittersweet. because on one hand: what we all celebrate! the tenth doctor gets to be human like he always wanted to be. the tenth doctor gets to be with the woman he loves. the tenth doctor will never regenerate. he is like he said in his first episode: a LUCKY man.

yet... ten is also the doctor. they’re both him, so ten is essentially living in two timelines after rose and tentoo kiss. there is one branched off and closed ending where they kiss and live happily ever after. and this is REAL and true to their relationship AND IT MAKES COMPLETE SENSE. he loves rose so much that he found a way to be with her forever. instead of changing her into something that would destroy what he loves about her, he becomes like her because he always WAS like her.

rose asking them to say “i love you.” is such a moment of... it’s powerful because it’s her finally understanding that as true as it may be that he loves her, the doctor would never be with her like she needs in real time because he wouldn’t be able to bear watching her die if he gave himself to her fully. 

she knows what he was going to say, but she needs to hear it. they could travel forever but they’d never be TOGETHER. tentoo is a doctor who is free of that burden so of course he says it and of course she kisses him. her choosing a part-human doctor is her choosing the truest and freest version of ten that there is. her choosing tentoo is her choosing herself too. that’s why it’s important to respect that decision. 

but there is this other timeline where the universe remains cruel, where he loses her again and loses her knowing that somewhere else he does have her. and i think that as much pain as he is in, knowing that he and rose are happy somewhere does keep him going in a way- but it also drives him to madness. he NEEDS her, more than ever after losing martha and donna too. he is the loneliest he has ever been, the most broken he has ever been, but he still doesn’t want to change. he wants to hold on because changing means losing his last ties to rose. 

in the end, ten was so human that he saw regenerating as dying. that’s why the ending to his arc and the way eleven feels like a different show manages to work. the way that i have always seen it is when ten regenerates that version of him genuinely does die in a sense. when he becomes eleven, he’s so detached of all the loses he has just experienced because ten is dead. sure, he remembers! but does he FEEL it as much? no, i truly do not think so. i think that ten continues to live on as tentoo, so ten literally is actively now a separate doctor who got to have a separate life.

he got to spend his life with rose. he got to have a life day to day. he got to have that adventure. he got to be human. and rose didn’t have to change or become anything else than the beautiful and messy human that he fell in love with for that to happen. she did stay with him forever, he just changed his forever for her.

[daintydoilypon]

It's time for tmi tuesdaaaaay! Question, did you ever have a moment where you were just in peak enjoyment and happiness during a moment of chaos irl that you just smiled and went "not my circus" and watched the chaos in peace?

Are you ready for some TEA? Here is a helpful diagram as I guide you through this drama. Or at least the quick bullet points. There's another layer with another couple, but we're talking about happiness at the enjoyment of others' dumb choices.

So, Utter Trash would complain about her husband so much that I gave her advice "Get therapy and it fixes things, or it answers all the could've, should've, would'ves, and you get an amicable divorce." She snapped at me for offering a healthy suggestion whilst the other couple I mentioned above suggested to Trash Man to GO FOR THE MARRIED WOMAN. So, they start cheating.

Like, she wanted to do a SUCCUBUS PARTY and have all of us women dress scantily for this neet, borderline incel TM. She would sneak into TM's room at cons, even though her husband asked her not to. Or she and TM would stay in a SEPARATE HOTEL ROOM TOGETHER when the husband wasn't on the trip. Like, it was OBVIOUS. I kept warning her, that this isn't fair and is cheating, and she said "I need QG's money, I can't afford this house and my school." I just needed SOMETHING currently happening to let QG know, for him to catch her-

Then one night, Ogre calls me and says he saw TM go into UT's house when QG wasn't home! The lights are out! Everything! And he asks me what to do. I say "Tell QG. If she told him TM was coming over, it shouldn't be a big deal! I tell Will when I have a friend over, after all!"

She didn't tell QG. And this spiraled into the biggest NOT MY CIRCUS, NOT MY MONKEYS. So, she attacks us for calling her out, even though we have receipts of her cheating, and the friend group is severed between literally everyone else vs her and that other couple.

Things actually get better in our friend group. No more drama. Everything's healthy. It was for the best! And lo, this January, they filed for divorce! She's losing the house, she has to pay her own payments to her school, and she lost an entire friend group since, it seems, even the other couple are now avoiding her! So, I've been going over to Ogre's house to help with their new Basset Hound puppy and am enjoying the air of awkwardness when I pass by and the little dribbles of info of her misfortunes. Because once all that happened, I signed off. It was a one woman circus with one paying customer that left halfway through the act it seems. Was it worth for her? Definitely not, but QG is now in his own place, new car, and away from his abusive ex-wife. That's all we could ever ask for.

[gralunaisland]

I wish Juvia never existed, she's so creepy , ever since I saw her as a child I couldn't help but hate her especially in the scenes with Gray though with the continuation of the series I started to become indifferent towards her except during the scenes where she harassed Gray and even cried a little bit at her death but I have been away from the fandom for 5 years because I couldn't like ft anymore, I was really nostalgic though and heavily missing ft so I wanted to start it from the beginning but I don't know if I can anymore . I came to know that Gray has lost all personality in 100 years quest and becomes mushy for Juvia just at the mention of her name. I can't watch or read a series only to know that a character I loved has gone through "utter character assassination" . What's more insufferable is that during the ending of ft when I read it 5 years ago I myself couldn't see Gray with anyone but Juvia no matter how much I hated this pairing , Mashima forced this pairing so much that now I feel like I have no choice but to ship them, but this much of annihilation of Gray , I just can't take it anymore.

When Mashima already killed Juvia , there was no need to revive her , her death was heartwrenching for the kid me during that time even though I never liked her but his revival of all the dead characters ruined the series for me. Natsu and Gray's fight was also utterly ridiculous. And there were a whole lot of reasons.

Atleast Gray would have been single and hadn't gotten his brain been made into a mush or would have ended up with another character and honestly Gray can be shipped with so many characters whether male or female in the series, his dynamics were so interesting with so many characters but ,no, Mashima had to force him with Juvia out of all the characters.

If Juvia was an ugly character or a male character nobody would have shipped her with Gray , just because she's attractive she is shipped with him even though she is literally a stalker who sexually harasses him physically and mentally all the time. She treats him as an object of her perverted desires rather than a human being. She's obsessed with him and not in love with him. If she loved him even a little or even cared she wouldn't have crossed his boundaries all the time and neither would she have been so jealous of other characters having healthy interactions with him. I honestly think that if she never existed atleast Gray's life would have been a lot happier. Atleast after suffering so much , Gray deserved to be happy instead of being with his creepy stalker.

Ft is only successful because of fanservice now atleast in the beginning the series was actually good, the series has given me so many great memories only for them to get muddied because of the direction this series took.

Your blog is a breath of fresh air , really good work!!

Miscellaneous Thoughts on gr///via

First of all, thank you so much for your patience! I'm sorry it's taken so long to get to your ask!

And secondly, I love how much effort you put into your ask! Honestly, my thoughts aren't even needed here; you really hit so many good points about gr///via. And thank you for sharing your experiences with FT with me. I agree with practically everything you said!

Despite this, as always, I'll run my mouth down below.

I was the same as you, Anon, where I hated her immediately when she met Gray when I was a kid first watching FT. I'm glad you could also tell how awful her character so soon as well. I personally never became indifferent to her and dreaded seeing her whenever she was onscreen, since even the super rare parts of the anime where she supposedly isn't thinking about Gray are still tainted by her mean-spiritedness and disingenuousness.

I also never fully read or watched juvia's death because I dropped the very end of the series thanks to gr///via and it just not being very good or intriguing, so I can't say I've cried at her death, but I think that shows how compassionate you are if you felt sad for such a disgusting individual! I've seen panels and I've heard what happened, and it is absolutely awful. The whole fight is shoehorned in just to ship gr///via and guilt-trip Gray into taking juvia's completely insane and gross advances seriously for once, when literally any of his other guildmates would have killed themselves for him too and have tried to before, and he'd never fall in love with them, but nooo gr///via must be forced down our throats to appease the fans and fulfill Mashima's weird fantasy.

As for nostalgia, I totally get you, because after a while I always find myself drifting back to rewatch it eventually. I used to watch every scene with her in it, but on my last watch-through, I basically skipped most of her scenes. That's how I survived it, Anon, so maybe you could try the same! Though, I feel like for my next watch-through, I'll sort of have to watch her scenes and make something like a mega masterlist of how she sucks every time she's on screen lol. That sounds so painful but perhaps that's a necessary project for my blog.

I so agree with you, Anon, that I can't bear to see Gray's character assassination in 100yq, which is why a very kind Anon created a masterlist of every gr///via moment so I could read it and avoid gr///via entirely. I'll link it right here for you if you ever desire to take a gander at the admittedly apparently terrible 100yq except for Lucy's new empowerment.

I agree that juvia should've stayed dead as well. Besides me just hating her and wanting her to be gone from Gray forever, her death (and the other characters who died for that matter) really should've never been revived because it just cheapens the sacrifice they made from a story standpoint. For juvia at least, it's like "oh well i didn't lose anything in the end but now i seem like a good person! Woopdidoo". Plus, it just makes none of their deaths have any real impact. It was just for shock factor, and we all know that Mashima really doesn't like to make lasting changes. He did the same thing all the way back in the Edolas arc when he made it so that Lisanna never died, which was a terrible decision. @perfectlyimperfectcharacterfan actually gave a much better suggestion, where Lisanna actually died and the Lisanna in Edolas was in fact Edolas Lisanna, and then Natsu would get to talk with her and learn to let her go and heal. Honestly gives me goosebumps just to think about it; it's so much more mature and moving than pulling a psych on everyone.

Gray being single would've been so much better than this gr///via garbage, Anon, you're so right! Even as an avid GraLu shipper myself, I would be perfectly fine with shipping them without it being canon (as I am now), but nooo, now I have to do my best to blot such an ugly, toxic ship out of my mind.

I really have nothing to say about your 4th paragraph because I hold those opinions completely. I call out the double standard of how people treat juvia's behavior all the time, and she definitely has "pretty privilege", though personally I do not find her pretty. Gray is an object for her to obtain indeed, and I concur, he would've been infinitely happier without juvia.

And yeah, I agree that unfortunately Fairy Tail has fallen off in terms of quality hard, with the criminal pushing of gr///via going off the rails in 100yq and the lack of good story telling in general. Even the end of the main story was unravelling. Sometimes, Mashima, it's better to end and preserve your legacy. Right now, you're beating a dead horse.

Thank you so much for your kind words! So sorry I took so long to get to your ask: it was a delight to read and so very insightful!

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

I have watched Loki's second season, and I have so many feelings... I apologize for the rant ahead!!

This season feels like the writers listened to fan's critics. But somehow, they managed to get it wrong anyway... Take Loki's role: he is, without a doubt, the lead character this time. They even have him speak about his past (another big complaint about the first season) and they have him literally say what his motivations are (he doesn't want to be alone, he is searching for a place to belong), but it feels so damn wrong! Yes, it's true, belonging is a crucial point for Loki, and I would have been very happy to see him finally finding a place to call home, but.... the TVA 2.0?! Seriously?! And it's all so rushed. Almost overnight, the TVA becomes now a good thing, its new purpose is to protect all timelines and prevent Kang's variants to start another war - yes, there is a small group of people who still believe in pruning the other timelines, but the problem is easily and quickly contained and forgotten. I really have to believe that such a big and complex organization, with countless brainwhased "workers" and soldiers, just because Mobius (an obscure analyst), Loki (who for everyone is still a dangerous variant) and B15 (a rogue hunter, previously detained) say so, suddenly becomes the new Amnesty International. I mean. It could have been a great story of change and renewal, if only they would have taken the time to actually tell it...

Sylvie deserves a moment all for herself. I don't like her, and I didn't like her romance with Loki, but the writers put her in this show, they created big expectations on her role, and in this second season they just... forget about her, without a reason. They even have erased the romance between her and Loki, and again, I didn't like it, but if you want to erase a romance, then do it properly! Instead, it feels like it never happened. Loki was very clearly attached to her in the previous season - he wanted her to be okay, he even asked her to figure out their lives together, after everything, and sure, they had a big fight in the last episode, but... again, it's like it never happened. Now Loki doesn't particularly care about Sylvie (yes, she is in his group of "friends", but nothing more), he just feels somehow inexplicably guilty when she is around, and Sylvie seems like she has troubles remembering who he is... Not to mention her choices after she kills He Who Remains. Again, I really have to believe that after all her trauma and tragedy, after all the travels around worlds and apocalypses, apparently all a norse goddess might want is a job at a MacDonald. What a terrible lack of imagination... And I get the "I want to live a humble, simple life, to enjoy little pleasures", it's a beautiful concept, really, but I'm not exactly sure that working in a fast food chain is such a heavenly and simple life - ask real workers how beautiful and full of little pleasures that life really is. But no, here it is the new american dream. To sell hamburgers on a minimum wage.

And yes, the ending was good. To see Loki finally secure of himself, to see him finding his purpose and his powers, it was cathartic, even if bittersweet: we already knew he was capable of great things! And, at least to me, it didn't feel much like a sacrifice: he does not die, he does not suffer; yes he is alone (side note: at least Mobius has the decency of feeling sad to have lost his friend, Sylvie simply doesn't care, which is unlikely even for her, but they wrote her like that, so...), but he has the means to travel across time and space whenever he likes (he literally spent centuries studying physics! Who knows what else he could do!), he is not trapped inside the time branches. He becomes the most powerful being in the MCU so far, truly a God, and in that his ending is way better than Thor's ending (poor Thor...). But Loki gets here for all the wrong reasons, and the thing that I hated the most is that he needed Mobius advice. So, in the end, Mobius gets to say that he always felt like pruning timelines was a heavy burden, but a burden he chose to bear for a greater good in lack of better options. Seriously?! And we have to pause and think "oh, you see, he wasn't really a mindless killer, he had pity, empathy, especially for children, poor him, he was just trying to do the right thing..." and we have to accept that what Loki does in the end is inspired by him, can be compared to what TVA did for centuries. In fact, what Loki does is presented as an improvement: TVA's purpose was to avoid the multiversal war and to avoid the distruction of all timelines by protecting just one of them, they did it as best as they could given the impossible circumnstances, now thanks God (literal God: Loki) someone else can keep all the branches alive without the whole world collapsing, so they can focus on finding Kang's variants and avoiding the war, yay!

I have much more to say, but I ranted enough for now. Thanks for reading all this :)

Loved the rant! 😉

I'm glad to hear he wasn't sidelined in this one. It's crazy because I remember a review published before the series aired saying the exact opposite, so… I'm glad they were wrong.

No wonder it felt rushed, 6 eps are not enough to tell a good story, not when they pretend to take the lead character from point A to B with a completely different characterization/motivation. And I suppose it's made worse by the fact that Loki was always this complex character so trying to tell a story where he's hilariously basic just can't work out.

They're wasting an outrageous amount of money on these eps, making a longer series is unattainable, especially when everything I have read on the matter states these streaming services are not making huge numbers, if anything Disney+ is losing money.

I'm not surprised the TVA are shown as good though, Marvel thinks they're Shield. If they refused to acknowledge that Shield was corrupted in its core, they were never going to do it with the TVA.

Why does Loki feel guilty around Sylvie though? Are they still claiming he was in the wrong in the S1 finale? That's insane!

I couldn't agree more with you about flipping burgers at McD's. It screams of elitism that these execs are so stupid they think these jobs are what… humbling? A life lesson? If Sylvie wanted a simple life you can't give her a mid-life crisis or a break where she does something a human would do. She's not human, she's a goddess.

I feel bad that they ignored her though. It seems she didn't have as big a fanbase as we were led to believe but to write her as the main character in S1 only to push her aside in order to show more Loki/Mobius is just wrong. The problem with Sylvie is not that she exists, is that she was written only to take the spotlight from Loki and make him look bad, she never had a complex story of her own.

And with Mobius… the very same guy who said the TVA was his glorious purpose, the same guy who said he didn't waste time in questioning anything and he just accepted what was, the same guy who put Loki in a torture chamber for escaping them… we have to fall for that "I was doing it for the greater good"? Come on, now! 🤦‍♀️😂

[rainbowcarousels]

Nicki for the character asks thing

Sexuality Headcanon: Somewhere on the bisexual spectrum but god only knows where. I think it's harder to label him because he doesn't really ascribe to them, but the way I see it, Nicki finds someone interesting or he doesn't, what's under their clothes is generally not part of that decision making process.

Gender Headcanon: Cis dude.

A ship I have with said character: Lestat/Nicki might be my OG m/m ship. I did ship Buffy/Faith Back In The Day, but this was the ship that lit things up for me because the interplay of them being sort of Sun and Moon really appeals to me. The bitterness of it and the beauty, that it's a tragedy that leaves such a mark on Lestat (and I think to a degree, Armand because of where he was mentally at the time) and that they got to have this brief period of being happy lost boys before they lost each other.

A BROTP I have with said character: I mean, I did literally write Nicki & Bianca's Excellent adventure but I understand why that might be a strange choice. Other than that, definitely Eleni, like she gets him and he doesn't want to set her on fire. That's as close as it gets.

A NOTP I have with said character: I don't know if I have one. Maybe Louis, actually, because I feel like he'd gack at the idea of it.

A random headcanon: That he talks to himself a lot, but it was generally under his breath before he became a vampire or just looked like pacing. Post-death, it comes out in full blown alliterative monologues. I think I showcased it pretty well in the disobedience that holds us together, but I think it's just that switch between being able to show a level of control and losing that control so everything just spills out like a broken faucet. I love looking at what gets amplified by the process of being a vampire and I think a semblence of civility is up there for Nicki, like the control of his mental vs what comes out is definitely compromised.

General Opinion over said character: He's an asshole and I love him. There's just something about the sheer will of it, like discovering the thing that brings you joy a little bit too late and wanting more time but the moment you get more time, you're too broken by a traumatic experience with a cult and the sense of betrayal with Lestat.

It is something I think gets forgotten sometimes, that he got gaslighted over his experience of seeing him pulled away out the window and everything he see's at Renaud's is dismissed so he spirals. Music is the only thing that makes sense and there's all this desolation of the soul wrapped up in that.

Also, he was Armand's first connection to the world after being out of it for so long, and I think some of that bitterness towards the world did infect him too. Nicki has one of the strongest imprints on the series while having so little 'screen'time, his ghost haunts those hallways and leaves its mark everywhere. There's always going to be something of him in Lestat's shadow.

[ennas-aesthetic]

Read your newest part of the retired!dream, loved it! Dream finally knowing what it feels to be truly loved was so heartwarming🥺. I'm a bit lost though, when did Dream get that scar? He said he kept it but I don't remember in the comics him getting injured

Aaaw thank you! I put Dream through the wringer in my last fic, so I guess he deserves the happiness he gets in this AU. :'DD

Re: the scar on Morpheus' cheek, that's actually a GREAT question, but I'm afraid we're going into spoiler territory for this one. So this is a fair warning to anyone and everyone who might see this and not want the Sandman Comics spoiled. Spoilers Zone from here on out:

You're sorta correct on Morpheus never getting injured in the comics. The Endless are more than humans, more than gods. It would take an entirely eldritch and primordial being to hurt the Seven enough to make them bleed.

Which is why the one time Endless blood WAS SPILT, it was both blood-curdling and terrifying, because YOU KNOW that it is a grievous threat indeed.

Dream gets the scar on his cheek during The Kindly Ones (volume 9). When he goes to Nuala after she called him for a boon, the Furies through Lyta Hall were able to enter the Dreaming so they may destroy it. After he comes back, Dream confronts them and demands them to leave; in retaliation they struck him with their barbed scorpion whip on his cheek.

Below is what the scar looks like up close.

In the next few panels Lucien actually asks him if he would be keeping the scar. In turn he says this:

And (hoooo boy prepare yourselves for this one) until his last conversation with Death, you can actually see that Dream still DOES have the scar here. He has it until he... well, you know what happens after this conversation.

The scar is quite significant arc-wise for Dream. In the panels above he says that Alianora foretold that he would receive two scars: one on the cheek, one on the heart, the way he did to her. This is expounded on in Sandman: Overture, where Alianora, his former lover, got a scar on her cheek when she defended and rescued Dream from the two gods who held him prisoner. (Of course, the scar in her heart was when Dream tire of her and grew cold and distant. Seriously, if anyone reading this hasn't read Overture yet, check it out. It'll reframe everything you know about the original comics in the best, most heart-breaking way possible.)

In the AU, while I'm keeping the details of HOW Dream gets to walk away very vague, I'd like to think that most of the events during The Kindly Ones STILL happened. I'd also like to think he kept the scar because while his self-destructive spiral was averted, Dream still hasn't fully healed and processed his issues, and thus considers it to be a literal symbol of self-flagellation. He is fully capable of erasing it, but it remaining there is a choice he made.

What he hasn't calculated is that people will be kind and caring and concerned. What he hasnt calculated is that being human means being subjected to the mortifying ordeal of being known, to reap the rewards of being loved. 😌

Hope that answers your question! :DD