#this happens for me in so many fandoms tbh

[sokkastyles]

I'm genuinely confused by the shift in attitude towards Zuko tbh. Like he used to be the golden boy of fandoms. Edgy, kind and the redemption arc was parroted every. Now, it's like, I see more people accusing Zuko of being abusive, the evil sibling, the real mean one especially compared to Azula and I'm like ???

We can argue 2000s-2010s misogyny all day and night, but we can't deny Azula is definitely the villain and the wayyy crueler one between the two.

And yet, Zuko is the abusive one?? And to Azula?? Wha??

It's because Zuko is the golden boy that this happens. Make no mistake, in the wider fandom, Zuko is still the fan favorite and generally considered one of the best written characters in pop culture. The tendency for people on tumblr to pretend they're performing activism by hating him are just acting on a combination of sour grapes and special snowflake-ism.

You see this in all fandoms with insanely popular characters. What's funny is that so many people want to pretend they don't like Zuko when they obviously still do, which is why you see metas about how the way THEY like him is so DIFFERENT, which is almost as obnoxious as people pretending he's the real villain of the series.

Me, I'm not so insecure as to care whether the things I like are popular. I'm way too old for that kind of nonsense.

[decepti-thots]

i don't even like cygate that much tbh, is the thing? it's Fine in canon but largely it's not super compelling to me, and tbqh the fanon around it is so saccharine and dull a lot of the time, i largely ignore it. however i DO love cyclonus as a character and given how often he gets reduced to a cardboard cutout so people can treat him as a prop for tailgate to fawn over and nothing else, i do like reminding everyone cyclonus is in fact bringing an enormous amount of pre-tailgate baggage to the table in that relationship. because literally everything that he did and/or that happened to him pre-LL is like, ridiculous. it's absurd. what the fuck is any of the phase one cyc lore, tbh. and, you know, he has a wild-ass personality and weird opinions and is in many cases a genuinely unpleasant guy with a ton of flaws! he is not just Nice Husband: The Prop! AND he has other relationships outside shipping, which tbh i cannot lie the insistence he doesn't (except when whirl- incorrectly gets labelled a Ship Cheerleader and nothing else) really makes me. like that ship less lmao. anyway rant over this is just me saying i love cyclonus and i wish fandom didn't act like his sole purpose is to be ship bait lmao

[mephoj]

nickel and balloon would be so much more interesting if people explored the way nickel became everything awful that balloon used to be but so much worse ironically all in the name of "protecting" everyone from that history repeating. and not softboy tsundere yaoi or whatever is going on in those tags rn

[xxri]

maría for the ad astra zine! lc u will be missed T_T

[bellamyblake]

hi!! I’m a former HUGE fan of the 100 and bellarke, but after the final season completely shattered my heart and destroyed my trust in showrunners 😀, I haven’t been able to really return to the show or ship at all.

Did you have a similar experience? How do you still enjoy it without the sting?? 💔 Just curious, thank you!!

I understand that this is how it is for most fans, that everyone pulled away because of the ending and I understand and respect that.

I think for me, it's simple, i'll be honest that I never expected Bellarke to happen as much as I wanted it and for me the simple reason why was because of the way things happened back in season 3 with Lxa and everything else. I wanted it, of course, I was hopeful for it, especially after 6x10 and I wished for it to happen but when we found out Bob needed time off, I understood that decision and I understood why it won't happen. Yes, I still think that it was just JRoth being absolutely bitter making that ending, they all admitted it, even the writers that for example Levitt's ending where he gets hurt in the final episode was supposed to be Bellamy but that didn't happen because Bob needed that time off. And yes, I am pissed because of the fact that she killed him, I don't think I'll ever get over it but I just...find it to be absolute bullshit and that is because of the way Clarke's character is ruined to me rather more so than Bellamy's.

I know people talk about him being OOC in s7 and him never doing that, never believing Cadogan, I get that. I do agree that it is somewhat OOC. BUT

I have always been a person to look at all sides about this and that is why I survived season 3 and the way fans were back then (may I remind you the bellarkers hated Bellamy and people were awful to him) and I do think that I find it i my mind the reason why he chose that side. I have my own theory about Bellamy's choices about season 7 but I won't indulge here in that because I'm sure I'll bore you to death (It's a Jasper-Monty-Bellamy meta that I have talked about before I think and for me they are still the only three characters who reached a sort of understanding of how to survive/not survive in this world but who separated themself from the cicle or wheel that Clarke talked about in s7 and who saw things for the way they were, as grim and sad as they happened to be at the time-again, another meta if you want me I can indulge).

But the truth is I have always been realistic about Bellarke and them not happening (Not that it didn't hurt me that they didn't happen, i catch myself wishing I saw a kiss) but I also cannot say I was too surprised. For me, and people talked again a lot of shit about Bellamy in s5, but I do think Clarke is a lot more different in s5 than she was before and I think from there on now we don't see the character we first saw, just glimpses of her. The problem with s6 as much as I like it and find it interesting is that we don't see Clarke much in it since she's kidnapped and I hoped we did saw her in s7 but I feel like she wasn't really herself back there.

So...anyway I can talk a lot and probably bore you to death, but I don't want to do that. The simple truth is that I CAN thankfully separate myself from the show and what I love. I know it was shitty what happened, I cried and still cry when I think about my boy Bellamy dying (Because I will be honest, I was always a Bellamy fan first and Bellarke second, I even write more familial fics with Bell than I do Bellarke, that's how I am) but I can find my reasons behind his actions and no, I'm not blindsided by my love for him, I know his mistakes, I can point them out and I can explain why they happened.

I really have no other simple explanation other than I chose to enjoy what I love and have always loved and ignore the last part. I know most people can't and I do not judge them. He brings me joy. Bellarke do bring me joy still, I love think, headcanon and meta about them and just because someone was bitter and because they didn't really show any understanding and BECAUSE and let's be honest, he didn't want to make Bellarke because Bob and Eliza happened and he refused to play into the narrative of actors being married in real life and indulging fans in the fantasy one, is not my problem.

I often think about JRoth and how shitty he was on more than just the Bellarke occassion (that's another meta) but just how much he, because he is an a**, hates religion for example, so he absolutely demolished it and made fun of it and then used it to show stuff in the most awful of ways just like not just with the deciples btw, but starting from season 1 where he crucified the kids on the trees, how he made fun of the grounder's religion and the commanders, everything JRoth did was a mockery caused by his own inability to deal with his problems so ...honestly WHY would you give away something you love to that guy? I think that's just bs.

Again, I am sad and devastated, I always will be but I choose to separate myself from this narrative, enjoy my Bell and writing about him, enjoy reblogging gifs and making gifs in our now little circle, I enjoy seeing new fans of the show too and them reblogging our stuff. That's basically it.

My love for Bellamy Blake is stronger than JRorth's bs.

[sskk-manifesto]

Finally got around to watching ep 11 (´；ω；｀)

[realititrip]

a glitch in time changed my brain chemistry i will never be the same

[kyouka-supremacy]

Mmmhh...

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

//rant.

[gay-victorian-astronomer]

i would loveeee to hear ur kimnapping fic idea….

It's really not a super fleshed out idea— the most I have actually pinned down is 1) Kim (& maybe also Harry) gets kidnapped 2) some amount of whump occurs which involves 3) Kim Survivor's Guilt Kitsuragi being a self-sacrificial little shit and 4) mutual unrequited pining that the kidnapping situation forces them to resolve. Basically all of the details are up in the air— this makes great "think about at bedtime" material because I don't need to care about those. If I were to turn it into an actual fic I would need to actually iron those out.

Honestly the biggest plot hole is that I can't figure out who is kidnapping him and why— there's the old standby of Oh Shit It's the Moralintern, but that's also kind of already been done. It could be the Madre or one of the other besmerties— but I still need to figure out why. I like the idea of it being related to something in Harry's past— it plays nicely into the self-sacrificial themes I'd like to include if it's Kim getting caught in the crossfire of something, or the kidnappers using him as bait to get at Harry somehow... things I'd need to flesh out.

The only other little thing I want to make sure I include is somehow using Kim's notebook against him— I see that working well with the unrequited pining situation, especially if he's written stuff about having feelings for Harry in the notebook and the kidnapper reads it...

[guardian-angle22]

If this theory about Gabriel actually happens, I will be so upset and it will 100% taint the wedding for me. Especially if there’s no time jump between that and them getting married.

[charcubed]

genuinely believe lots of people are voting mulder/scully on that poll out of spite or just because they think it'd be funny to make destiel lose in round 1 lol.

[galacticlamps]

actually ascension needs its own post since that's the one with the most details to speculate over and im starved for soho talk so i will talk to myself if need be

First the cover again, because I kinda can't get over it:

my only thing is that I had been hoping we might get Lizbeth on a cover again since she's never been on one of the boxsets before, despite being the 2nd person credited on all 4 of them (even if that's just alphabetical, still, she's the only one of the four main characters who never makes the cover)

But letting that go...

I know we already kinda knew the brief for this one but damn I didn't expect it to go quite this hard. Maybe that's just because the Parasite & Ashenden covers were (comparatively) similarish to each other and I was so pleased with Unbegotten's, and then got so used to it as the placeholder for Ascension while they kept postponing it, I wasn't expecting anything this colorful or detailed or with what I can't help but register as Fun New Outfits even though these are still like, pretty damn basic as far as costumes go. Still, it's a different vibe from everyone in suits and trenchcoats on every cover, technically. (Oh the woes of being an audio fan such that two characters owning sweaters actually does qualify as new information)

On top of just being visually delightful though, I know we knew religion was gonna be a fairly big part of this one, but I didn't actually expect to get quite this much of it - though I'm glad of it for a number of reasons. The BF twitter already made the ineffable joke so I don't have to, but also yeah I did very much spend all of season 2 episode 4 of good omens half convinced Samuel Barnett & Dervla Kirwan were about to pop up around any given corner (if you will go around being gay supernatural and horrible at your messy bureaucratic jobs in midcentury soho then I'm sorry, this is where my brain's gonna go) - so, fuel to that fire. But in terms of actual important things, at least one of my Soho wishes looks to be being granted because we have a Rev Edward Folgate on the cast list, which must mean we're finally meeting Norton's father, even if his mother & brother don't appear (which they could, technically, I've definitely seen BF not list all the doublings on their cast tabs before). Religion, domesticity, and the nuclear family are all things that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to Norton's character, so getting any amount of story involving his father & his church is something I've been actively hoping for for a long time now.

(I will say I'm a tiny bit bummed Saffron Coomber isn't on the cast list to play Mia again, but I kinda figured she wasn't going to be since Greg Austin's Armitage, who's making his first recurring appearance after originating in Unbegotten, was listed ever since the boxset was announced - presumably if she was also returning, that would've been handled in the same way. But since Unbegotten ended with Lizbeth and Mia going on a date, I still held out hope. Who knows though, maybe things did go well for them and Lizbeth just has a better work/life balance than Norton so she can date someone without them getting dragged into every scifi plot. I know that's not a very common accomplishment for any Torchwood agent, but a gal can hope)

At this point I know I'm completely in the realm of speculation & even wishful thinking, but I'm really really hoping we get some more clues as to Norton's overall timeline in this one, and I have a feeling that even if there's nothing as direct as dates given, the events of a plot like this one are going to heavily influence my personal interpretation of it.

To say that life & death are major themes for the soho crew feels wildly reductive, but even by Torchwood's standards and taking into account its origins as a piece of media with Jack Harkness & his newfound immortality at the heart of it, the living/dead status of this bunch has always been fantastically up in the air to me. Obviously Ghost Mission introduced Norton as kind of a ghost before revealing more obvious ghostly characters later on to which the title might have been referring, but his being from the past did beg the question of his survival into Torchwood's present era all the same, which Outbreak later alludes to much more directly, and his habit of showing up via hologram in multiple stories only further obfuscates any certainty we might have about where & when he definitely can be said to be alive and well. Then you've got Lizbeth and Gideon both being effectively 'brought back to life' via paradoxes that prevented them ever having died in the first place. Again, they are very very far from being the only Torcwhood characters this happens to (for a sprawling EU, it's really rather impressive how often & in how many different ways Torchwood as a whole manages to circle back to being about like. chaotic undead queers at the end of every day. though I suppose that consistency is part of why I keep falling in love with its different iterations again and again). That's without even getting into the question of Norton's dubious fate in God Among Us - and I say dubious because I know some people take that to be his ultimate death, but I personally think that reading something as vague as that as having any kind of finality rather goes against the spirit of this whole world/series, not just because I want him to live. (There are obviously other ways to make him survive/reappear, but I don't see this as a River Song scenario where we can safely assume one of his earlier-released adventures had to happen at the end of his personal timeline). But wherever God Among Us falls for him, he does very much meet God in it - or at least, a god, since the sentinel in Unbegotten is also described as a god of sorts, and even if he doesn't ultimately have the status of the god Jacqueline King is playing there, Unbegotten is still full to bursting with ghosts/undead/came back wrong/echo characters to continue underscoring that life/afterlife theme.

So all things considered, even allowing for the fact that we know Norton's twin hobbies are lying about himself and abusing time travel to suit his own ends/ever-shifting alliances, I find it difficult to believe we could get through a whole 6-part boxset about religion & death without something providing some kind of compelling evidence about where this adventure fits in among his other run-ins with apocalypses and gods and ghosts and dead-but-still-here characters/creatures, so I'm very much looking forward to any further exploration on that front.

And lastly, and least intellectually, I really want to know what the hell 20th-century Torchwood's obsession with Reginalds is. Reading through the cast list, I had to do two separate doubletakes over the character 'Sir Reginald Peebles' - firstly, because I had Reginald Rigsby on the brain, this being Soho (and the other Troughton brother being so active on BF's releases for this same month) - and secondly, because reading this in conjunction with the announcement for the July monthly adventure in which the new main Torchwood guy of the 20s is apparently called Sir Reginald Dellafield, there was a brief moment where I took that monthly release to be a tie-in with Ascension. I don't expect it to be, but damn. was it really so popular a name?

anyways, catch me thinking about those stained glass windows for the next couple months I guess (and knowing Torchwood Soho, for a long long time after it comes out as well lol)

[bylertruther]

literally all the proof for the final and true fight being between will and vecna lies in the parallel between the s1 flashback scene when will and joyce are saying that sometimes the bad guys are smart too and that's why will the wise needs his fireballs vs s4 ending with will saying (that it's not enough to spy back) they need to Kill henry once and for all aka fireball his ass

[ladysqueakinpip]

anyways I genuinely feel so grateful for the rise apritello server I almost started crying on the way home bc I was filled with such joy. legit the best thing that happened to me in 2023 second only to maybe going to key west.

[buddieboos]

My dad just gifted me a Harry Potter mug.