#this series is executing some tried and true tropes so well

[ellsieee]

Oh how I squealed. This is not normal.

Yup. Same boys. Same.

Win is confused and doesn't know what hit him.

Sound is much less so. I think he's well aware he's caught feelings.

All aboard the side couple train. Can't wait for TiwPor.

[popculturebuffet]

Transformers Cyberverse: Megatron is My Hero Review (Patreon Review for Brotoman.exe)

Hello all you happy autobots. If you've been missing my look at more than meets the eye, don't worry as we're back with some robots in disguise. Transformers ONE is here and it is incredible and while i'll gladly review it next week for now we're looking at something related, another look at Megatron as he broke bad, the Transformers Cyberverse episode, Megatron is My Hero.

Transformers Cyberverse is a series I tried but could not get into. I loved animated, tried prime but fell behind on it, and fresh off getting into MTMTE I very much wanted more Transformers. I tried the first ep.. but it's just bumblbee using the radio gimmick and Windblade being the straight man.

Cyberse's problems, as I expected and tv tropes helpfully confirmed come from executive mandates: exceutive swanted Bumblbeee to have his car gimmick from the movies, which dosen't work nearly as well when you can't lisence songs or car commericals for it, the heavy flashbacks. These were ditched with season 2 and apparently the show picke dup from there so i'm more than happy to give it a full look at some point, as it does seem to get genuinely better and has an arc focusing on my boy hot rod. That alone is enough.

For now we're looking at an early episode under the cut as Bumblbee makes friends, gets throat crushed and otherwise is kind of an accesory in his own memories

We begein with Bumblebee is in his mind palace , which I suspect was a way to let bee talk normally before doing away with the voice box gimmick the second they could in season 2. He's reliving his past memories of Megatron and opens with Bee in the past chilling with Shockwave of all bots as they watch Megatron easily win as a gladiator.

Megatron as a gladiator happens in way more continuties than I realized which I found out thanks to reddit, starting wtih the UK G1 comics and continuing into both IDW continuties , the alligned continuity and more. I mostly associate it with IDW where he went from miner to gladiator hero. It's a backstory I like, that he was a hero of the people.. but in a way that still kept him down as like gladiators of old he has little choice

Here it's santized slightly being more like pro wrestling, though Megatron still beats the crap out of his opponent, gladly working the crowd. Bumblbee also high fives Shockwave, an image I will never forget and will treasure forever.

So Bumblebee declares Megaton is his Hero and this annoys his mind palace roomate Windblade. Windblade is a recent addition to the franchise, being added in the idw comics but quickly appearing in cyberverse and elsewhere. She's a cityspeaker, who can talk to city sized transformers and is generally pretty goo din the comics. In this season she's more an overprotective big sister and gets mad at an amnesiac for not remembering his greatest foe sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms. So she gestures him to a ... memory of Megatron holding a rally.

Rather than talking about his good friend hanniballectertron, Megatron is a good politican with an actual point: that cybertron needs to be better and optimus and co are all behind him.. literally and figuratively.

So to help the next memory... abrubtly skips to Megatron being awful.

Yeah this is what happen when you DEMAND the writers make every episode self contained yet also part of a larger story.. in 11 minutes. Hasbro.. thought none of this through and as such the crew kinda had to speed run his origin, which means the key pieces that make Megatrons origins in IDW and One so intresting.. are missing. We don't know WHY he went from a beloved politican to having his minons torture people and a tense conversation with optimus. Marc Thompson does a good job as Megs, easily.. but he dosen't really get filled out. He just goes from seeming genuine and helpful to

He COULD have been faking, true.. but we never get that. Or any sense at least in this episode WHY he's like this. I get it's from Bee's perspective, but we know Bee looked up to him, genuinely idolzied him and we could've gotten some insight into who megs is and why he became the monster he did thorugh how he handled bumblbee's disllusionment. Instead by the time we catch up Bee's already mildly scared of the guy. We miss a whole chapter of Megs life that explains why shit is this bad for him just in his villian later chilling and vaugely threatning optimus and bee.

That said the crew still did their best and the final scene.. is genuinely chilling. It's also one Windblade is TRYING to keep from Bee, wanting him to stop digging as she apparently just realized "Shit he'll probably relive the worst moment of his life" as it involves megatron.. and thus Bee directly looks for it.l

Bee was on a mission for the autobots early in the war when , despite his best efforts he was captured and taken directly to Megatron. Megatron is at his best all episode here: he offers bee a choice, making a case for how the strong must rule and all that jazz. Well okay maybe not that Jazz he's on the Autobots but Megatron is working on him. Bee refuses.. and Megatron shifts, revealing his evil plan and i'ts chilling: to make EVERY cybertronian a decepticon wether they want it or not. Peace through Tyranny. It works well.. and it makes what he does next chilling.. so Bee dosen't tell anyone.. he crushes his throat. And while we don't SEE most of it, we hear it and it.. is chilling

Bee takes it in stride, restored in who megatron was.. and okay with it. He can talk in his brain at least.. and talk and talk and.. maybe shut up now please?

Megatron is my hero is .. okay. That last scene does most of the lifting, but i'ts a hint at what the show COULD be and apparently is after this point. It's very much a one sccene an done high five episode but at 11 minutes it wasn't painful either. It was just kinda there. Still it does have me curious about the rest of the series at least so that's.. something. Thanks for reading

[morphogenetic]

i recognize this might be a bat to a hornets nest but curious about more in-depth ndvr3 opinions

hi anon im sorry this took one million years to answer properly (bc i never got an answer back about how long you wanted this to be) but im answering it now. spoilers for v3 and very concentrated dislike of dr as a series (and especially v3 lol) below the cut

as a whole, dr does a very poor job at making its characters feel fleshed out. this is, i know, kind of the point - they're all supposed to essentially be very exaggerated versions of some specific tropes common in jp media, i.e gundham being an extreme chuuni. after the first game though, which feels like more of a proof of concept than an actually well-designed game, the extreme flatness (ironically shown very well by the pop-up-book art style lol) just gets worse and worse and the characters in v3 in particular are even less fleshed out than before. i realize that for v3 this is somewhat a consequence of them trying to drive home the 'these are characters written by someone else' point, but like.......even if you're trying to make the point that someone wrote the characters to be like that, you can still write the characters well if you're trying to pull off genuinely emotional moments w them. e.g. every time they tried to make kaito's illness sad i could not give LESS of a shit about it because he just has the one-note personality.

dr has always had the problem where characters - outside of komaeda and hinata in sdr2, who are IMO the best developed characters in the whole series, especially komaeda - are only as well developed as the amount of time you spend doing their social links (or occasionally the particular trial that focuses on them, if that applies). of course, it's literally impossible to complete everyone's social events during the main mode of the game - unlike, for example, p4 or p5, where you can at least get close if you dont finish the whole social link. as such, it is extremely difficult to form an attachment to more than 1 or 2 characters before they kill/are killed. this is especially true when it's immediately obvious who has less of a personality than everyone else - or has more of a trope of a personality - and it's intensely predictable who is going to die early. for example, in v3, it was almost immediately obvious to me that tennis guy, maid girl, and angie and tenko were not going to make it to the end of the game, and were all early deaths, because of how paper-thin their personalities are. of course, this meant that i didn't bother doing their social events at all, so i had no attachment to them when they did inevitably die. this is a problem w every single dr game but its especially bad with this one.

(don't even get me started on how ive been able to figure out the majority of the solution to each case before the trial even starts or gets farther than like 30 minutes in. or how the issues that the students raise are often incredibly stupid and take WAY too much time and energy to shoot down when its so obvious that they're completely wrong. it's just. filler for in so many of the trials and it is incredibly annoying. the amount of filler before seesaw effect made me insane.)

now for my main v3 specific complaint: the fucking ending.

i actually like meta endings, you must understand that about me before reading the rest of this. meta in video games in general is something i love as long as it's well executed. i adore how uchikoshi handles it in [GAME REDACTED TO AVOID SPOILERS], for example, even though a lot of people seemed to have missed the point with it entirely.

the key word there is "well-exectued." v3 is not.

first of all: if you're trying to make this a meta case where v3 is part of the ongoing DR series....why are you trying to say that the video game you're playing is part of a TV show???? it feels as natural to say that a TV show you're watching is secretly a book someone else is reading. it's not a natural jump between mediums in the slightest, and what makes it even more annoying is that dr as a series is a primarily-video-game series!!!!!!!!! what on EARTH are you doing trying to be meta about your video game secretly being a TV show. it makes no fucking sense. if they tried to say that it was a mixed-medium franchise, that I would accept, because DR IS a mixed-media franchise. but it feels incredibly stupid to retroactively say that 'these two video games we wrote in the past are actually tv shows.' what? no. that's not how mediums work.

secondly: the meta does not work effectively in a series like dr to begin with when it already is constantly breaking the 4th wall for comedy - which i don't actually have any significant problems with. i personally think it's a lazy way of trying to be funny when it's the primary way you try to make your game funny, but i can accept that it works with the general character trope adherence of the series as a whole. however, because of how meta is often used as a joke in the series, when they suddenly try to make the meta serious, while also still keeping elements of the meta comedy at the same exact time that you're revealing that the meta Is Dead Serious Stuff, the complete tonal dissonance really works against you.

lastly: it does not really feel like the writers wrote v3 as a whole to be meta, if that makes sense. [redacted uchi game] feels like it was always meant to be that way, and so it feels completely natural that it leans into fourth-wall breaking all the time. however, the way that the meta ending comes across in v3 is just that they didn't have any other better ideas on how to end the game/were running against a time deadline and just threw in the 'ehhhhhhhhh we're already meta all the time for comedy let's do that for the ending but serious this time' towel. as i said earlier, i like meta in games when it's well-exectued, but poorly executed/written metanarrative always sticks out, and in the case of v3 it is especially bad because it doesn't even seem like they wrote the first case AFTER the last case....which you need to do in order to successfully pull off the meta in a case like v3. and is also wild considering the very beginning of the game makes it clear that they did actually go back and try to drop foreshadowing earlier without editing much of the rest of the game to accommodate for that.

tldr the writing around the metanarrative ending is just so intensely bad that it's kind of unbelievable to me that people think it's a good ending.

sorry if you like dr but tldr its a mediocre series and its baffling to me how it got popular, but also people saying v3 is better at being meta than [redacted uchikoshi game] is an opinion ive seen more than once that just makes me fucking laugh.

[saturnsorbits]

i didn’t get a chance to reblog, but i wanted to say that i really loved the rewrite you did of the epilogue of play away !!

i think the change to the larger plot holes fits the reader you created and satisfies real life expectations as well. overall the situation was messy and no matter who they ended up with, all relationship would already be “tainted” and entangled in the mess of their break up.

oftentimes, we want to wrap up stories with a bow and give the reader back to who we know, but sometimes, much like in real life, someone else comes along, and it’s just a little better, cleaner without the insecurities of being cheated on etc.

i’m not sure if you took it down, but i think the choices you made as a writer follow the storyline well !! you’re fantastic at your craft, and i’m always delighted to read what you write.

you took a topic/trope that is usually unbearable for me to read (cheating always makes me sad), and you turned it into a intricate story of unrequited love and the true mess that can become of things when you’re not honest with yourself and other people.

and it also showed that sometimes reconciliation is not even possible. even if you want it badly, sometimes it just doesn’t work.

you’re amazing and i hope you know that!

Okay, so I’ve been hoarding this ask for a while like a little manic dragon; bc it keeps making me smile.

You hit on all of things I was trying to do with that series, which I think the epilogue tried to do (Although, as you can probably tell with it being gone - it still missed the mark for me). It’s so nice to see that the little nuances I was trying to work through it landed, even with the execution lacking and that you took from the piece what it was designed to elicit!

In the original draft, way back when it started life out in a notebook, I had planned for the epilogue to just focus on Readers date with Shindo Yo. No-one else actually appeared in it at all and it was revealed during their conversation over dinner what had happened (Sero decided to take some space after the realisation that he was in love with Reader. Bakugo threw himself into work and was beginning on a journey of self-discovery, starting to date men as well as women and Kirishima moved away - shunned by the friend group and overcome with guilt and hurt. Which kind of echo’s what you touched on with more realistic happenings: I think!). Ultimately, I scrapped that - even though I really wish I hadn’t - and decided to just bow it off with a happy ending.

Still, it’s so nice to hear that you enjoyed the more ‘down-trodden’ ending - bc that was my main worry!!! Would people want to read something that was so… Dull? Normal? If that makes sense; but it genuinely fills my heart with so much joy that you did!

Thank you so much for dropping into my ask; this genuinely made my week! I hope you have a good day/evening 💕💕💕

[wondereads]

Books I Read in January (2023)

For more in-depth explanations, look below the cut! (Note that Stealing Thunder was actually a 5/10 and I DNF’d The Octunnumi)

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater (10/10)

Maggie Stiefvater is just a master with interpersonal relationships. The sigh of relief I gave when Adam and Gansey seemed to finally get it together was more pronounced than if they had gotten out of a near-death situation. The plot is progressing slowly but surely, with a great twist at the end, and the writing is beautiful as always.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett (9/10)

It's rare that I use the word "fun" to describe a book that deals with faerie lore, but this one fits the bill. Despite the darker elements, this book manages to stay lighthearted most of the time. The journal format works well, and Emily is a great main character. Her and Wendell reminded me very strongly of Sophie and Howl, which I loved.

Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden (5/10)

I really wanted to like this book, but it was pretty disappointing. The author is clearly passionate about the topic, as the incorporation of trans characters into the world and the descriptions of a Pakistan-inspired world are very good. However, the actual plot is aimless, jumping from conflict to conflict with no consequences, and the characters are very flat with the main character being virtually devoid of flaws

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (10/10)

The conclusion to the series! I was pretty much perpetually stressed while reading this book, especially since there's a lot more going on than in the previous three. The relationships, both platonic and romantic, were stellar as usual with some amazing lines. There are so many perspectives, but it never felt crowded. A great conclusion to the series, and it sets up the spinoff well.

Defy the Night by Brigid Kemmerer (8/10)

This was just a solid read. It wasn't particularly anything special, using tried and true tropes and characters, but it executed it well. The plot was a strong point, and although Tessa and Corrick were pretty typical for YA protagonists they were well-developed and likable. They were a pretty decent portrayal of enemies to lovers as well.

The Octunnumi by Trevor Alan Foris (DNF)

The concept of this book is very intriguing, even if it is a fairly dense fantasy. However, the breaking point for me was the page-long focus on the second major female character's outfit with undue attention to her chest complete with "jiggling across the room." I'm sorry, what? It was infuriating, ridiculous, and pretty much ruined any chance this book had with me.

[makeste]

some follow-up thoughts on BnHA 306

mostly Deku angst, but also a little Baku angst (and some TodoBaku angst) mixed in for good measure. because there’s plenty of angst to go around.

1. “if I’d only been stronger...”

I’ll talk more about Deku later in this post as well, because there’s definitely plenty to talk about; this is the most character development he’s gotten in almost 200 chapters. but for starters, I want to discuss the possible parallels between Deku’s current character arc, and what is arguably the most iconic moment of angst/character development in the series.

remember how this kid, who up until this point had rarely seemed to give two fucks about the world around him, suddenly revealed that he blamed himself for being the downfall of All Might? remember how it came almost out of nowhere? how he’d been hiding it, and trying to suppress it? “but even if I try to forget... sometimes it all just comes rushing back.”

yeah. so anyway, I got to thinking -- if being the cause of one hero’s downfall could affect someone this badly, what about being responsible for the downfall of all heroes?

what if a boy who wanted nothing more than to keep people safe suddenly found himself at the epicenter of a disaster that killed hundreds, possibly even thousands of people?

now obviously, this is not the sole thing that’s troubling Deku right now; this kid has a whole array of traumas as of the War arc. like, you know it’s bad when Society As We Know It Coming To An End Partially Because Of You is the least of your problems. but still, I think this is worth bringing up, because the hero kids blaming themselves for things that aren’t their fault is hardly anything new. and yet, what with everything else that’s been going on -- all of the Todoroki drama, and Vestige revelations, and hospital antics, and political strife -- I feel like it’s easy to forget or overlook this little detail.

the fact is that AFO put this entire plan into motion solely in the hopes of finally obtaining OFA. every single thing that happened at Jakku -- Tomura powering up; Machia waking up and going on his rampage (after being ordered to do so by Tomura); and even Dabi/Touya choosing this moment to finally strike (because he knew this was when the reveal would do the maximum damage -- when people’s faith in heroes was already wavering) -- every last bit of it can ultimately be traced back to AFO’s desire to steal OFA. which, obviously, makes it AFO’s fault, not Deku’s. but then, Kamino wasn’t actually Katsuki’s fault either. it wasn’t his fault the villains went after him (but he blamed himself anyway), and it wasn’t his fault that people got hurt in the ensuing battle to save him (but he blamed himself anyway).

just. I think we’re underestimating just how strong of an impact all of this likely had on Deku. we haven’t really had the chance to see him process it yet. he’s been too busy, and there have been too many other things going on. but I’m telling you guys, that empty look in his eyes in the final page of the chapter? I can all but guarantee you that at least some of that emotional weight is coming from this.

sure would be nice if he had a friend who knew exactly what that was like, and could help him process the guilt and all of the other associated emotions, just like Deku once helped him. unfortunately I’m not so sure things will be that easy this time around. anyways though let’s move on to a couple of other thoughts and speculations.

2. “...and I bullied him.”

one of my least-favorite BnHA fanfic tropes is the one where the rest of class 1-A somehow finds out about Katsuki and Deku’s history -- i.e. that Katsuki bullied Deku throughout most of their childhood. mind you, it’s not the concept itself that I dislike; it’s mostly how it’s used. a lot of times it’s just an excuse to have all of the other kids turn on Katsuki and ostracize him; either because the author thinks that’s what he deserves, or else so that Deku can eventually come to his rescue and defend him and shame the rest of the class for not seeing how much he’s changed. either way, it’s usually pretty awkward to read, and more often than not the characters are pretty OOC (especially Ochako and Todoroki).

however! there’s a big difference between fanfic and canon, and just because I’m not a fan of this trope in the former doesn’t mean it couldn’t be executed well in the latter. and lately I’ve been thinking about this a lot. mainly for three reasons:

the recent (can we still call it recent?? well whatever) scene where Katsuki confessed to All Might that he used to bully Deku is now one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, and proof that this can be executed well.

both Todoroki and Deku have finally had their respective big secrets revealed to the rest of the class. so like, idk. feels like it just might be secret-revealing season now, you know?

and lastly, as a result of Deku’s secret about OFA finally being revealed, the rest of 1-A now either knows, or can extrapolate, that he used to be quirkless.

and from there, I feel like it’s not all that hard to put two and two together with how terrible Kacchan and Deku’s relationship was when they first started at UA. that’s not a terribly difficult puzzle to solve. so I feel like it might come out anyway, and if so, I’d prefer Bakugou telling them himself, and taking responsibility as part of his atonement process. because we know that he regrets it. we know their relationship has changed. we know that he has changed. and so I think I might like to see this.

alternately, if confessing to the entire class is too much, at the very least I could see him confessing to Shouto, because I’ve always felt like this was one of the big things that made Katsuki so resistant to letting Todoroki call him a friend. because I feel like there’s a part of Katsuki that saw the parallels between Endeavor’s abuse of Shouto and his own bullying of Deku, and thought, he wouldn’t be so quick to call me his friend if he actually knew the truth. and so there’s actually been this roadblock wedged between them this whole time that Shouto doesn’t even know about. because Shouto hates Endeavor. and so it’s not such a leap to assume he’d hate Katsuki too if he knew just how terrible he’d been to Deku when they were younger.

not that I think he actually would! actually I don’t think either of those things is actually true (because Shouto clearly doesn’t hate his father either, in spite of everything that’s happened). but the point isn’t what I think -- the point is what Katsuki thinks. and I really do think there’s a good chance he’s worried about Shouto hating him, and it’s one of the things that’s made him so reluctant to accept his friendship. anyway, so I’m really just rambling now, but you get my point. I don’t know if this is actually going to happen, but it’s a scene I would like to see if Horikoshi decides to indulge me.

3. “...so when you wake up, please give him my best.”

and now, as promised, back to Deku.

ngl guys, when I first saw this image, my immediate thought was that Gran must have died. because I mean, hello, leaving U.A.?? donning himself in his teacher’s old cape?? empty, exhausted look in his eyes?? what else were we supposed to think lol.

but maybe that was an overreaction. because when I think about it more, Gran’s death isn’t strictly necessary in order to push Deku over the edge. first of all, there’s already the whole “hero society is in ruins now because of you” thing I mentioned earlier. but also, there are just so many other things. like, let’s just list them here because omg. what a rough couple of days this kid had.

he was forced to battle TomurAFO and was terribly injured in the process (most of which was his own fault, but he wouldn’t have gone that far with OFA unless he felt like he had no choice)

and it wasn’t just him that was injured, either. in fact, even though he tried to act as bait to keep everyone else safe, he wasn’t able to stop three of the people closest to him from nearly being killed right before his eyes

and of course that last one was especially traumatic, because it was Kacchan, and because he had to watch Kacchan nearly die just to protect him. out of all the things that Deku witnessed in this arc, this might be the one that had the biggest impact on him

he was also basically helpless to do anything to protect Shouto and Endeavor when Dabi showed up. so again, we have this running theme of people he cares about being hurt and him not being able to save them

and he also got sucked into the OFA Interstellar Dream Vortex for a brief spell during the battle, during which he learned that AFO had possessed Tomura. more importantly, he learned that Tomura was Nana’s grandson, a fact which was only briefly touched on during that scene, but which I think wound up being the trigger to the whole avalanche that ended with Deku leaving UA. but more on that in a moment

anyway so just to wrap this all up, the battle eventually ended, Tomura got away despite all of their efforts, and then Deku wound up comatose in the hospital for two days. which brings us to the most recent chapters, during which

Deku learns that he will be the last wielder of OFA, whether he likes or not

Deku learns the identity of the last two mystery OFA users

and then at some point, he wakes up and presumably talks to Gran, and winds up with his cape

something happened during these last two scenes which helped to push Deku over the edge. I won’t delve into the matter of the Second or Third users for now, although most of you already know my suspicions regarding that, and I do think that would fit into the general pattern here (that is, the pattern of Deku feeling more and more strongly that he is putting the people around him in danger, and his fear of losing them becoming so overwhelming that it eventually pushes him to leave).

but that’s not what I want to talk about for now. what I want to talk about is Gran. specifically, what it is that Deku discussed with Gran. and this is where we come back to that reveal I mentioned earlier -- that Tomura is Nana’s grandchild.

basically, what I think happened is that Deku mentioned seeing Nana in the OFA Zany Psychedelic Spirit Void, which led to the topic of Tomura, and the fun fact Deku recently learned about him being related to Nana. this, in turn leads to Gran divulging his various regrets about everything that happened with him and Nana and Kotarou. his intent is to apologize to Deku for placing the burden of their failures on him. unfortunately, the part that Deku actually gets fixated on instead is this:

All for One hunted down and killed Nana’s son (and probably her husband as well), and stole her grandchild and psychologically tortured him into becoming a mass murderer, for no other reason than that Nana had once held OFA

in other words, AFO can and will hurt and kill anyone Deku is close to, anyone who has any kind of connection to him at all, without mercy, and regardless of whether it actually gives him any kind of tactical advantage or not. he’ll do it simply to hurt him. no other reason necessary.

I don’t know about you, but for me that would be a terrifying realization. and for Deku, I think it just might have been the tipping point.

so, let’s recap.

Deku learns that AFO is after him

AFO/Tomura very nearly kills several of Deku’s most important people, including Kacchan

and then he learns that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and realizes that all of their lives are still in danger and will continue to be as long as Deku is AFO’s target

and then add to all of this the misplaced guilt about society already being shambles, and the heroes already having more than enough to worry about. they’re barely holding things together as it is. and we already know how Deku feels about being a burden to them:

and so instead, he leaves. of course he does. in hindsight, I think this was inevitable.

the question is, did anyone else also put the pieces together in time to realize what Deku was planning before he actually left? specifically, did Katsuki, who understands Deku’s self-sacrificial nature better than anyone else, see the signs and put two and two together? like he did back at Jakku?

and if he did, would Deku have been willing to accept his help again?

somehow, I can’t help but think it might not be that easy this time.

anyway, so that was a lot of rambling, lol. sorry about that. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS about all of this angsty shit. tired nomad Deku needs hugs and comfort and someone to reassure him that he doesn’t have to face this alone, and that everything is going to be all right. HE IS JUST A LITTLE BOY. this is too much, and I cannot handle any of these feels, and oh my god, somebody please help him.

[shihalyfie]

@sage-striaton replied to your post:

Idk how people can say Frontier has characters that lack depth. Imo it’s a very psychological season. The whole adventure thing is aimed to making them grown in their behaviours and feelings, it’s a big metaphor of their development

I’m sorry for hijacking your response to my post to segue this into another rant of mine, but I want to emphasize that one of my goals with this blog (if I can be said to have any) is that I really, really, really want people to re-examine whether they actually believe in the rhetoric that’s been dominating this fanbase for two decades, or whether there’s more to it. This is especially in regards to the fact that we’re talking a series deliberately written in such a way that it’ll change meaning and nuance as you get older, so it can “grow up” with you in a sense, and yet it seems like -- especially in regards to Adventure through Frontier, due to their position as the oldest series that the majority of the fanbase was elementary or preteen age during -- people are still regurgitating the same rehashed twenty-year-old ideas like they’re undeniable law. It’s one thing if they’re saying it because the series didn’t sit well with them the first time and they don’t want to watch it again, but we’re reaching a recurring problem where it’s sort of “brainwashing” even people who don’t actually believe it but feel compelled to go along with it, or wouldn’t feel that way if it weren’t for peer pressure. Obviously, there are dissenting opinions, and ones that are even very loud about that, but that pressure remains.

The mainstream opinion in the fanbase is that Adventure is untouchable and impervious to any criticism, 02 is its inferior sequel with half-baked characters, Tamers is an auteur work that’s the “deepest” of the original tetralogy due to being dark, and Frontier is devoid of much substance at all. Even those who don’t really believe in this will still be pressured to go alongside it, those who like 02 or Frontier will be pressured to consider it a “guilty pleasure”, and it’s only very recently when certain events revealed that the idea of 02 actually having quite its own fervent and passionate fanbase that likes it on its own merits became properly recognized. (I have actually noticed a huge uptick in 02 fans, especially casual ones, being more shameless in talking about liking it in the last two years; you’re still going to get the obnoxious person “reminding” you how bad it apparently is if you bring it up, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it used to be.) I’m not talking about whether something is a “good” or “bad” series -- that concept doesn’t really exist to me as much as whether it’s “to one’s tastes” or not, and I think one of the joys of this franchise is that it has things that cater to people with vastly different preferences -- as much as a lot of potential for analysis and intimate thought about these very fascinating series. Even if 02 and Frontier were as shallow or half-baked as they were accused of, I wouldn’t think it’d be shameful to like them for one’s own reasons anyway, but what frustrates me is that I just don’t think that’s true in the first place!!

Not helping is that there’s still a refusal among the fanbase to admit that there were substantial differences in American English dubbing (especially in regards to Adventure and 02), which I don’t mean as a bad thing in the sense that some people prefer to stick only with that dub and consider that version what they want to work with, but in the sense that the treatment of them as “the same thing” has been horribly detrimental when two people, one coming from that dub and one coming from the Japanese version (or a dub more closely based on it), will end up often having an argument doomed to go nowhere because they were never talking about the same thing to begin with. Recently, a friend admitted to me that although they’d switched to the Japanese version a long time ago, they still couldn’t get the image of Daisuke and Takeru having an inherently hostile relationship (they don’t) out of their head due to the influence of that dub, and although they consciously knew better -- at least enough to admit this to me -- it wasn’t helped by the fact that the fanbase itself continues to reinforce this image because of how normalized it is to treat the dub version and the Japanese version as “virtually the same” and for Western fanbase discourse to assume you should be projecting those takes into the Japanese version. If you’re hanging out in English-speaking circles but are working from the Japanese version or a dub directly based off of it, you do actually have to filter out a lot of takes you’re hearing because they won’t actually apply to the version you’re watching, but not a lot of people realize this.

All four of Adventure through Frontier share tons of key staff, especially Seki, known for her focus on wanting the kids in the audience to be able to empathize with and relate to the characters on screen. All four share some of the best character work I’ve seen not only in this franchise, but also in kids’ media in general, and I also stress that a lot of this has a ton of nuance that isn’t always apparent unless you read between the lines. I do understand that a lot of this probably went over our heads as kids, and I won’t say that the choice to execute it this way should be impervious to criticism, but nevertheless, I think it’s important to call attention to the fact it is there, and much of it becomes recognizable once you see it that way; for instance, so much of "it's contradictory character writing!" comes from the fact that the series tries to represent humans in their inconsistent, messy ways, and while it'll feel "messy" from a writing trope perspective, when you think about it as "since this person has this mentality, does it make sense to approach this with this mindset?", suddenly it becomes very consistent. The supposedly “shallow” 02 and Frontier characters will act in ways that match existing psychological profiles meant for actual humans to terrifying degrees, in ways that you might actually recognize even better once you’ve hit adulthood and start intimately understanding things like depression or anxiety in ways you might not have before. Shockingly, “having heart, important themes, and kindness towards the human condition” are completely valid reasons to uplift a creative work in ways distinct from technical writing or cerebrality or how many tropes they subvert or whatever.

On the flip side, people praise Adventure and Tamers for being the naturally “superior” works with better writing, but when it comes to talking about why the writing is supposedly better, a good chunk of the reasons stated don’t actually explain anything substantial, or go back to actually being passive-aggressive dunks on the other series in some form -- it’s because 02 and Frontier’s character writing sucks that badly, or because Adventure had the “best plot” (which may be true if by “best” you mean “easiest to understand”, but that doesn’t mean much to someone who might not be very happy about how its story progression is just a boss rush), or because Tamers is the “deepest” when by “deep” they actually mean “cerebral, dark, and unsubtle about it” without any further meaning (as if Adventure and 02 were idealistic series that never went into anything nuanced and not, say, the fact they went very viciously deep into societal issues between parents and children, psychological horror, and intimate takes on the human condition). I’m personally saying this as someone who does think Adventure and Tamers have a lot to praise in terms of their approaches to realism and the unique aspects each bring to the table, and I feel that people like this are doing them more of a disservice by not bothering to uplift them for any reason that isn’t actually just inherently condescending. I mean, even taking this outside of the original tetralogy for a bit, when I was plugging Appmon earlier, there’s a reason I focused more on its theme and character writing and the use of “dark” writing to convey its sheer range, rather than trying to boil it down to a shallow “it looks cheery but gets really messed up later!”, which is unfortunately an argument I’ve been seeing about it lately.

In the end, when I write my meta, I write it "making a case" for my point of view, and I welcome others to disagree, but if you disagree, I really hope it'll be because you personally disagree, and not because the entire fanbase has been saying otherwise for twenty years and I sound like a radical. I’m not saying that everyone’s consensus takes are completely unfounded, but frankly speaking, this fanbase has some really bad takes, and in the past few years I’ve found it freeing to not only “say what you feel without worrying what others think”, but actually go out of my way to outright try and purge all the preconceived notions and pick only the ones I agree with because I actually agree with them. I encourage you to do it too! And if you do, you might find things about something you like that you didn’t realize before.

[ellasadventuresinfandoms]

Okay, back in May @isolatedphenomenon asked me if I had an les mis fic recs and I went "oh boy do I !" and then promptly fucked off and disappeared from tumblr for like 6 months...

Anyway on the off chance people are interested, here is my vastly too long list of  my favourite les mis fanfic (that I'm almost 100% sure I'll have accidentally missed some of my favourites off of...)

The vast majority of these are main pairing Enjolras/Grantaire, so I've put those first, divided into multi-chaptered and then one-shots. Below that will be other pairings!

Multi-chaptered

• Witch Boy Series : magic AU, starting with Grantaire solving Enjolras' curse - this is just Incredible world building which gets better as it goes on - my favourite is the Babet interlude

• World Ain't Ready : you know how fandoms tend to have a fic that is just associated with it ? in my experience, for les mis this is it - and well deserved ! High school, fake dating AU with some of the most engaging writing

• BE : Enjolras is dragged back into theatre production, helping Eponine put on a production of Hamlet - really love the characterisation in this, and this is really one of those modern AUs that actually feels like real life - really good writing

• After the End : the definitive apocalypse AU in my eyes - les amis are an underground resistance to the dystopian government - really wonderful characterisation of Grantaire and the amis

• You never have to wonder; you never have to ask. : I tend to find fic by scrolling through bookmarks of a pairing, which means I often see repeats; this is a fic that if I see I just re-read cause I know I'll enjoy it - the amis sparked a failed rebellion, and now 18 months later Grantaire ends up staying at Enjolras' after returning to Paris for Marius and Cosette's wedding

• Your Heart on Your Skin : Soulmate AU with flower tattoos marking important emotions and events - wonderful concept and world building 

• Impatient to Be Free : Daughters of Bilitis AU - if that doesn't make you excited I don't know what else to say to convince you (aside from saying the author is a simply wonderful writer)

• You Dance Dreams : Okay. Not to be over dramatic, but this fic did genuinely qualitatively change my life, in that it was the first thing that got me looking up contemporary ballet and now that's like one of my favourite things and big hobby So. Also its really great writing; music/creative arts school les amis with Grantaire choreohraphing the ballet for Combeferre's opera, with a heavy emphasis on Grantaire realising he really never actually got over Enjolras

• philia : this one is an absolute classic to me, but not given nearly enough recognition - one of the more realistic college AUs ever written, and the writing of Grantaire is so good because it hits the perfect balance of sympathy and annoyance about his behaviour (that's a genuine compliment) 

• Coffee Hooligans : fucking tragedy this never got properly finished, Enjolras leads the amis as social justice vigilantes and tries to hide the criminal bits of his life from R

• Fighting the Hurricane : Pacific Rim AU that's less an AU and more just placing the les mis characters in the Pacific Rim universe. Really good and riveting read, also super interesting depiction of Grantaire

• Weaving Olden Dances : Fairy AU - Grantaire "claims" Enjolras to prevent his execution - really good writing, love Grantaires characterisation 

• Paris Burning : canon era (sort of) where cities have a physical being - Grantaire is Paris and becomes entangled in Enjolras' revolution - oh the world building is truly *chefs kiss*

• Euphoria is You For Me : Enjolras and Grantaire keep meet cuting in a wonderfully written Brooklyn - feels like a love letter to Brooklyn at times, and I really like the characterisation of Grantaire 

• so please just fall in love with me this christmas : Enjolras works for the environmental company Grantaire volunteers at, and keeps getting secret gifts at Christmas - I sound a little like a broken record but the Grantaire characterisation is very good

• You Are the Moon : Wild West esque Space AU - Grantaire has to call on the amis to help rescue Valjean and Cosette, despite Grantaire leaving the amis 6 months before. On re-reading the Enjolras characterisation feels a little rushed, but overall fantastic story telling and the Grantaire arc is a Delight 

• Pandemos : Enjolras is aphrodite, and seeks peace from all his suitors in R/Hephestus' cave

• Pining for You : Hallmark christmas romance - Grantaire returns home to work on his father's tree farm, and Enjolras is the lawyer helping prevent the farm being sold - cute as shit imo

• Once We're Kings : Fantasy AU - a country hosts a ball to marry Prince Enjolras and the rival country sends Grantaire as a fuck you - one of the best ways of doing Enjolras as a prince in a fantasy and just really nicely written

• Never Bitter and All Delicious : Fairy Godmother AU - yes really, yes its genuinely a very good read

• On One Condition : Fantasy AU - Enjolras is a bored knight who finally goes to check out the local dragon, which turns out to be Grantaire - I really like how they capture Enjolras' stubborn nature and it's such a well written soft growth of love between them

• That's How Easy Love Can Be : Les Amis work at a primary school; and its secret santa time! very fun portrayal of Enjolras

• The Lark and Her Lieutenants : re write of canon where Cosette is the leader of the revolution - just *chefs kiss*

• If You Tickle Us, Do We Not Laugh : Grantaire is Enjolras' secret android - really good at writing a relationship that's incredibly loving but just keeps being antagonistic and coming off wrong 

One Shots

• True Colours : AU where you leave colours on the people important to you - Enjolras and Grantaire falling for each other is so soft and gently written its lovely, this is genuinely one of my favourites

• Keep It Kind, Keep It Good, Keep It Right : this one is so good to me, because it builds off my pet hatred of everyone assuming Enjolras doesn't care about (or at least actively show he cares about) his friends

• blooming : very soft post-dystopian utopia that has just a really wonderful sense of hope and light to me

• and the wall leaned away (or: The Pros and Cons of Tilling) : perfectly realised characterizations of the amis, Grantaire needs a date to her final year art exhibition - deals with anxiety over protest in a way that actually hits for me

• not just one of the crowd : R helps run a leftist bakery and bike repair shop - very cute characterisation, and I think more les mis fanfic should link to anarchist essays

• Lovesickness : Enjolras is an idiot and thinks he's sick rather than having a crush - the writing of Joly and Combeferre in this is some of my favourite depictions of these two

• If there's a rocket, tie me to it : absolutely heartbreaking sci-fi AU about the amis as doomed mecha pilots

• Where I Fall is Where I Land : Enjolras is a Roman commander as Rome's power is leaving England, and then meets the pict Grantaire (+ fun soulmark stuff !)

• You Started Foreign to Me : Enjolras moves to america and R is the overnight grocery clerk who helps her learn Spanish - cute fluffy lesbians with a wonderfully written driven Enjolras

• Love Is Touching Souls : very cute soulmate AU - and one I really love for really truly considering the implications of soul marks and creating historical lore around it

• Ten Years : R is a musician, and it non-linearly charts his relationship to Enj from high school to 10 years later

• put up with me then I'll make you see : Grantaire lives above Enjolras, and its christmas - I find it to have a very fun interpretation of pining Enjolras

• A Cat Called Trash Can : this was one of the first les mis fics I ever read (yes I know it says it was published in 2020, but I think it has to be a re-upload or something?) and it does still have a special place in my heart - Grantaire rescues a cat, but Enjolras is the only one with an apartment free to look after it 

• Still I'm Begging to Be Free : inception AU where les amis have to rescue a sleeping R from his own brain

•I'm in it for You : cw: illness, cancer - R has cancer and is being a martyr about telling his friends so Enjolras drives him back from chemo

• walls come tumbling down : sky high au - a very good high school AU with the perfect level of campy superhero powers

• This brave new world's not like yesterday : Enjolras needs a job, so ends up working in a bowling alley with Grantaire and bonding

Enjolras/Grantaire/Combeferre

• In Defiance of All Geometry : les amis are a student co-op house, Enjolras and Combeferre are pining friends and Grantaire is the newbie

• Still the Same : this is very good writing and very compelling - if you can get over the (imo) plot hole of Enjolras working for the FBI. R was an art thief Enj put away and is briefly helping the FBI out, and Combeferre is Enjolras' husband

• To Kingdom Come : cw: war and PTSD from that, Enjolras and Combeferre are part of a group of refugees that have crossed into a more fantasy land, and Grantaire is a lone traveller from that land that attempts to help - that was a shit summary of this very emotional, wonderfully written fic about war and love in all forms

• Gonna need (a spark to ignite) : I always love a twist on a classic trope, and this is a very fun take on the soulmate AU - Enjolras loses feeling in his soul mark as a child, falls in love with Grantaire and then his soulmate, Combeferre, turns up

Eponine/Cosette

• Pretty Girls Don't Know the Things That I Know : simply stunning writing - perfect example of soft writing about a harsh world

• she knows her way around : Eponine and Cosette bond, ostensibly so Eponine can find out about her for Marius, and their interactions are so playful and realistic, its wonderful

• always find me floating on oceans : Cosette stows away on Eponine's pirate ship - I do always have a soft spot for eposette fics (not just cause I ship it) because they truly characterise Cosette in a really considered and interesting way

• There's No Making Love : I'm putting this under eposette even though there is some significant enjolras/grantaire content, because the Cosette characterisation is so fun and cute

• round and round again : this fic really beautifully translates Cosette's bad childhood and then isolated teenage years, and the impact that would have on her as an adult into a modern AU

• Underwater Thunderheards : this is based off the book The Scorpio Races, and is just a really nice short fic  about longing

• How To Change The World Without Taking Power : Marius has a crush on Cosette and she's tried being polite and subtle in turning him down, so just ends up fake dating Eponine instead

• blood red fruit and poison's kiss : Snow White AU - Cosette as Snow White

• The Winters Cannot Fade Her : Snow White Au 2.0 - Eponine as Snow White - this was written as a pair to the one above which is just so cute to me

• marriage à la mode : Cosette and Eponine run a bridal shop together and it's very cute !

• Temporary Hold : I personally find this a really fun and very unique take on Cosette - with exams coming up she decides she needs to get laid on the reg and so hits up Eponine to act as if they're already long term girlfriends

Combeferre/Courfeyrac

• better than you had it : fake dating but kick it up an emotional notch - Courf and Ferre pretend to still be together after breaking up for a family event

• take flight, come near : nice and cute low fantasy, where Combeferre runs a dragon sanctuary and Courf finds an injured dragon

Rare Pairs

• The Future's Owned by You and Me : cute Enjolras/Feuilly with actual radical politics and real life organising difficulties and wins

• First Dates and Other Dangers : Combeferre and Grantaire agree to go on a blind date and it's awkward until it isn't - just cute !

• after midnight : Combeferre has insomnia and meets Grantaire in various all night fast food chains

• as you are : Bahorel and Jehan getting ready together

• Almost Romantic : Jehan works at a museum, and takes Combeferre on a little tour

• Understudy : Jehan/Combeferre, with Combeferre's insecurities regarding being seen as second best to Enjolras

• Here There Be Dragons : Courf/Enj/Ferre - Courf and Enj are superheroes and Ferre is the doctor that patches them up

• To Let it Occur (Laisser Faire la Nature) : Feuilly has a stupidly long stopover in Paris and meets Enjolras

• rule of three : Courf/Enj/Ferre as spies and loving boyfriends

• Good Rhetoric : snapshots of cute cuddly courf/enj/ferre

• subluxate, dislocate, replace : found family and chronic illness with Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta

• Strike stone, strike home (like lightning) : so this fic took one minor piece of lore about Tolkien's dwarves and made a beautiful j/b/m fic from it

• Almost Inevitable : Bahorel/Feuilly friends-with-benefits

• god only knows (what I'd be without you) : Bahorel/Feuilly with a closeted Feuilly and a beautiful Feuilly and Eponine friendship

[hamliet]

The Girl Who Gets to Have It All: Buffy Summers

So with @linkspooky​‘s encouragement, I have binged Buffy the Vampire Slayer and relived my childhood culture. And, it's a 10/10 for me. Not that it doesn't have flaws, but it's genuinely one of the best stories I've seen, with consistent character arcs, powerful themes, and a beautiful message. It's also like... purportedly about vampires and demons and superpowered chosen ones, but it's actually all about humanity.

Buffy was able to be a teenage girl, allowed to like the things teen girls are scorned for (boys, shopping, etc), to be insecure about the thing teenage girls are insecure about (future careers, dating, school, parents), and to be a superhero with its good and its bad aspects. The story wasn’t afraid to call Buffy on her flaws (sometimes she got in a very ‘I am the righteous chosen one’ mode) and to respect and honor each of her desires (to be a good person, to be loved, and more). The story listened to what she wanted and respected her desires, giving her the challenges needed to overcome her flaws while also never teaching her a lesson about wanting bad boys or romance is silly or any manner of dark warnings stories like to throw at teenage girls. 

It respected teenage girls--nerdy girls like Willow, jocks like Buffy, lonely wallflowers with trauma like Dawn, and popular/snobby ones like Cordelia, girls gone wild like Faith. It never once reduced them to the stereotypes that were lurking right there: each character was fully rounded, human, flawed and yet with respected interests and goals. This is so rare for a story that I’m still in awe. 

The story as a whole follows Buffy from 15 to 21, of her as she grows from teenager to adult. She acts like a teenager and grows to act like a young adult, wrestling with loneliness and duty. The adults, like Giles, Joyce, and Jenny, are not perfect either, but neither are they “bad parents” or “bad mentors” necessarily. Joyce in particular says something terrible to Buffy, but she tries to do better, and it’s rare to see a parent in YA stories shown with such nuance. Basically, it wrote the long-lasting adult characters as human beings, too. 

Speaking of growing up, I appreciated how Buffy’s love interests mirrored this. Angel was someone Buffy loved and admired, wanted to be like, but who was always either extreme good or extreme bad, and combined with Buffy’s own tendencies towards black-white thinking, made for a beautiful relationship to help her grow, but didn’t necessarily form a foundation for a long-term partner. Spike, on the other hand... they both saw each other at their worst and were drawn to each other even then, and were inspired to become better because they couldn’t bear to be a person who treated the other person so wrongly. They pushed each other to become the best them they could be, and believed in each other. Also, Spuffy is an enemies to lovers ship for the ages. 

(Also, most of the other ships were well-done or at least can be understood. Riley was very obviously wrong for Buffy which paralleled Harmony and Spike in being 100% wrong for each other. Cordelia and Xander were a fun ship even if we all knew it would never last, and Willow and Oz were beautiful and cute. But Xander and Anya and Willow and Tara? OTPs. As were Giles and Jenny, the librarian and the computer teacher.) 

That said, it’s not a perfect series. No story is. All of the characters and ships had problematic aspects to them worthy of critique, and the writing is very 90s in a lot of ways. It’s a product of its time, and in many ways it’s good society has progressed beyond some of the tropes/metaphors used in the show. In other way, though, the show was ahead of its time, and in a good way it wasn’t bound by the fear of purity policing with its takes on redemption (many characters would never fly today). 

So, in order of seasons ranked from my very favorite to my “still enjoyed it very much” (no season was actually bad, imo), here’s my review. I’ll also review my top 10 villains in the show, because Buffy does villains very well in terms of the redeemable and irredeemable.  

Season 7:  Yep, the final season was my favorite. 

Overall Opinion: Buffy's finale is literally "f*ck them men, our power is ours" and while it seems cheesy it actually works (also, f*ck in both a literal and figurative sense). The series strongly hit all the themes: love as strength, and redemption. Buffy consistently shows love as her strength--*all* kinds of love. Friendship w Willow/Xander, familial with Joyce/Dawn, romantic with Spike/Angel. These types of love are also never pitted against each other as is so often the case in current-day media. It's beautiful. Also, Spike’s confrontation with Wood was so powerful in terms of exploring forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation: where they overlap and where they don't, and what it means to move forward. 

Unpopular Opinion: I have seen a lot didn’t like the inclusion of Potential Slayers, and while I agree they could have been better incorporated/characterized, it was a great way to show Buffy’s final stage of growing up to be ending her chosen one status and projecting/multiplying her powers over the world. 

Biggest Critique: Kennedy was female Riley--the anti-Tara to Riley’s anti-Angel (by ‘anti’ I mean opposite in every way). Kennedy was annoying and immature. Her role, like Riley’s, was less about exploring her as a character and more about her just being stamped as “love interest: lesbian.” 

Favorite Episodes: Beneath You, Lies My Parents Told Me, Touched, Chosen

Season 6: 

Overall Opinion: I said this on Twitter, but I felt like this was Buffy’s The Last Jedi or Empire Strikes Back moment. It is polarizing and dark, deconstructing the tropes it stands on--but by digging to the core of these tropes, it actually makes what’s good about them shine brighter. Everyone’s enemy was the worst versions of themselves. Giles left Buffy, Willow's struggle to relate to the world led to her trying to destroy it, Buffy hurt everyone through her anger, Xander abandoned Anya at the altar, Spike... yeah. It ages well as an integral part of the story, and the Trio were eerily prophetic. 

Unpopular Opinion: Dawn is a great character with a good arc. A traumatized teen acting out and struggling to come to terms with loss and identity? She wasn’t whiny; she was realistic. 

Biggest Critique: Willow’s addiction coding (I’ll discuss this below) and Seeing Red as an episode. I see the argument for both of its controversial scenes from a narrative perspective: Willow starts the season not grieving Buffy but instead being determined to fix it with magic and needs to learn to grieve, but. Still. Bury your gays is not a good look. For the Spike scene... he conflates sex/passion and violence (”love is blood, children” is something he said way back in season 3), but like Tara’s death, it had more to do with Spike (as Tara’s death did for Willow) than with Buffy’s arc, and as for the actual execution... they really botched that. Did it like... have to go on that long or go that far? No. Also, the framing was good, but inconsistent with the rest of the series (Xander to Buffy in the hyena episode, Faith to Xander and to Riley, etc.) 

Favorite Episodes: Once More With Feeling, Smashed, Grave

Season 3 (tied with Season 5):

Overall Opinion: The opening continuity of Buffy meeting Lily/Anne after saving her life in Season 2 was sweet. The Witchhunt episode had really powerful subtext: stories of deaths that aren’t even true are actually demons that possess the town and convince them to turn against their children in the name of protecting the children. It’s a good commentary on, oh, everything in society. Faith’s character arc was fantastic, and her chemistry with Buffy was off the charts (look, I may be Spuffy all the way, but Fuffy has rights). The finale was satisfying in so many ways, seeing the entire graduating class unite to destroy the Mayor and the school with it, symbolizing Buffy et al’s readiness to move on to college. Oz's relationship with Willow was very sweet and meaningful for a first romance for Willow. 

Unpopular Opinion: I actually don’t really have one. Maybe that the miracle in Amends was earned? I think you can make a decent case that Season 3 is the best written of the seasons, but can only truly be thematically appreciated to its full potential in the light of subsequent seasons (which finish Faith’s arc and deconstruct Buffy’s).  

Biggest Critique: It forgot Buffy killed the hyena guy in Season 1, making her continual insistence that she can’t kill people very ????? 

Favorite Episodes: Lovers Walk, Amends, Graduation Day Part 2 

Season 5, which ties with Season 3:

Overall Opinion: The entire season is about family and what it means, from Tara’s to Buffy’s to the Scoobies. I loved Glory aka Enoshima Junko as the Big Bad, I loved Dawn’s interesting meta commentary on retconning (like, the fact that she’s retconned in matters), and most of my ships are still alive. Joyce’s relationship with Spike is one of the most heartwarming aspects, and Spike’s arc’s desire is clearly highlighted: he wants to be seen as a person. The episodes after Joyce’s death are the most honest portrayals of grief I’ve ever seen, and absolutely brutal to watch. 

Unpopular Opinion: Buffy’s choice at the end seems a deliberate inversion of her choice at the end of Season 2 (sacrifice a loved one to save the world), but it actually isn’t: much like at the end of Season 2 where Buffy skips town because she’s devastated after killing Angel and doesn’t want to sort out being expelled, her mom knowing she’s the slayer, and her own trauma, Buffy’s sacrifice here was as much about her wanting the easy way out of relationships, family, college, etc. as it was about saving Dawn. Buffy’s death is coded as a suicide, which Season 6 emphasizes as well. 

Biggest Critique: Like Season 3, I don’t have a lot to critique here. I wish the suicidal coding had been a little more obvious in Season 5 itself, but also I’m not sure it could have been more obvious; it’s pretty apparent if you pay attention. Maybe also that Buffy and Riley’s relationship failing should have been more squarely blamed on Riley, you know, being insecure and cheating. 

Favorite Episodes: Family, Fool for Love, Intervention. 

Season 2:

Overall Opinion: Heartbreakingly tragic but exciting and revealing at the same time. It asked the viewer interesting questions about redemption and forgiveness and atonement through Angel being honest about his past, and then decided to show us his past now reenacted, challenging us. And still, we saw them save him in a parallel to saving Willow in Season 6 (but Season 2 was tragic because it wasn’t enough, while Season 6 was not). Jenny’s death was agonizing, and the scene were Angel watches Buffy, Willow, and Joyce get the news through the window was powerful. We didn’t have to hear them to get the grief. 

Unpopular Opinion: Jenny’s death isn’t a fridging; it works for her arc too when you consider her history. She worked to save the person whose life she was tasked to ruin, and it cost her her own--yet she still succeeded, because Jenny brought joy and wisdom to the show. Kendra’s death, on the other hand... was because they needed the stakes to be high--but we already knew that before she died. So, her death was useless. 

Biggest Critique: The subtext was Not It. It was essentially “do not have sex. Your older boyfriend will lose his soul, kill your friends, you’ll lose your family, your school, your home, and have to kill your true love or else hell will literally swallow earth.” 

Favorite Episodes: School Hard, Passion, Becoming Part 2.

Season 1:

Overall Opinion: I really liked it; it’s just lower on this list because the others are just better. It’s a great introduction to the series and to its characters, from Giles to Buffy to Willow to Jenny to Cordelia. It has great subtext a lot of the time (for example, Natalie French as She-Mantis is a literal predatory bug who engages in predatory behavior with students). Additionally, it subverts the typical YA trope of two guys and a girl, in which the girl is usually the least interesting character. Buffy and Willow were both fully fledged characters from the beginning with distinct strengths (even before Willow became a witch, as she wasn’t one in season 1 yet), while Xander was the more ordinary of the group. 

Unpopular Opinion/Biggest Critique: Xander’s arc showed its first flaws that unfortunately continued throughout the series: his writing was either very good or very indulgent in ways it never was for other characters.  (cough, the hyena episode, cough, in which he gets to skirt responsibility--and acknowledges that he is skirting it--for something the show will later hold others to account for). Xander’s just kind of inconsistent, which weakened his character over all. (Which is why both his love interests--Cordelia and then ultimately Anya--were good for him: they did not indulge him.) 

Favorite Episode: Witch, Nightmares. 

Season 4:

Overall Opinion: it’s still a good season. It’s a good portrayal of college and the growing pains of branching out, the strains of college growth on relationships (romantic and platonic). It shows us the first hints of Spuffy, giving us some serious Jungian symbolism between Spike and Buffy early on, and does well in establishing Xander/Anya and Willow/Tara as beautiful OTPs. Faith and Buffy’s foiling is fantastic. The Halloween episode was very fun as well. However, it suffers because its Big Bad, Adam, is not all that compelling thematically--yet, he could have been. See, the final battle pulls off the Power of Friendship in a really strong way but notably the season does not end there. Instead, it ends on dreams of each character’s worst fears, continuing what we saw in Nightmares in Season 1. Why? Because it shows us that the characters’ wars aren’t against monsters, but monsters of their own making: their flaws. Adam, as a literal Frankenstein, exemplifies this, but it wasn’t capitalized on as well as it could have been. 

Unpopular Opinion: Beer Bad isn’t a bad episode, at the very least because Buffy gets to punch Parker. It’s not one of the series’ best, obviously, but it does give Buffy an arc in that she gets her daydream of Parker begging her to come back, but she has overcome that desire and her desire for revenge. If we wanna talk about bad subtext in Season 4, Season 2′s Not It sex subtext continues in the Where the Wild Things Are episode in this season; it’s a powerful callout of abusive purity-culture churches, until the fact that the shame creates a literal curse undermines the progressive message it’s supposed to send. Also, the Thanksgiving episode (Pangs) is a nightmare of white guilt and Oh God Shut Up White People. 

Biggest Critique: Riley is awful. Like Kennedy, he had “love interest:normal” stamped on him and that was it. The thing is, he could have worked as an Angel foil, representative of the normal-life aspect of Buffy to Angel’s vampire/supernatural aspect, but the writers never explore this and seemed to even try to back away from that later on. They threw all the romantic cliches at the wall to see what sticks, from klutzy “I dropped my schoolbooks, that’s how we met” to cliché lines that had me rolling my eyes. Do you know how bad a romance has to be to make me dislike romantic tropes? 

Favorite Episodes: Fear Itself, Hush, Restless

Villain rankings: 

Dark Willow, the only villain to be truly sympathetic. While the addiction coding was insensitive and, while unsurprising for its time, aged extremely poorly. That said, Willow’s turn to the dark side after Tara’s death worked well for her character and the story: it was believable and paid off what had been building since Season 1's “Nightmares” episode (Willow’s inferiority complex). 

Glory managed to be genuinely terrifying, and humorous/enjoyable too. Her minions and their numerous nicknames for Glorificus were hilarious, as was her intense vanity. Her merging with Ben--a human being who genuinely wanted to be kind and good--added complexity and tragedy to her role. 

The First. A really good take on Satan. The seventh season as well as the First’s first appearance in season 3′s “Amends” had kind of blatant Christian symbolism, and so the First being essentially Satan works. Their disguising themselves as dead loved ones and the subtle manipulation they used to alienate people was really disturbing and well done. 

The Mayor, who was a terrible person but a truly good father. He provided an interesting contrast to the normal ‘bad dad’ bad guy character, in that he provided Faith exactly what the other characters refused to: he saw the best in her and offered her parental support, while the heroes didn’t and wound up pushing her away. 

The Trio, who were villains ahead of their time: whiny fanboy reddit dudebros, basically. The stakes seemed so much lower than fighting Glory, a literal god, the previous season. But that’s why they worked so well for Season 6′s human themes, and were especially disturbing because we all know people like them. I also appreciated the surprisingly sensitive takes on Jonathan and Andrew, who got to redeem themselves, but Warren did not, and I don’t think he should have either. 

Angelus + Drusilla. I’m ranking them below the Trio because Angelus was just sooooo different from Angel that it was difficult for me to feel the same way for him. He was still Angel, so it wasn’t possible to enjoy his villainy, but he also wasn’t nearly as sympathetic as Dark Willow, had no redeeming qualities like the Mayor, and wasn’t as disturbingly realistic as the Trio. However, the emotional stakes were excellently executed with him as the Big Bad, in that you were never quite sure how to feel and it just plain hurt. Also, Drusilla was a favorite recurring character. She was sympathetic and yet batsh*t enough to be enjoyable as a villain at the same time. 

The Master, who was just completely camp and really worked as an introductory villain. He was scary enough to believe he was a threat, and was funny enough to introduce the series’ humor as well. He was, like Glory, an enjoyable Big Bad. 

The Gentlemen, the one-off villains of Season 4′s Hush who were genuinely terrifying. It’s not as if they got a lot of explanation or any backstory, but they didn’t need it. 

Caleb, the misogynist priest. Fitting with the First’s Christian symbolism, Caleb serving as a spokesperson of all bad religious beliefs felt appropriate. He was also a good foil to Warren--being actually supernaturally powered instead of a wannabe--and to Tara’s family in being full-out evil. I despised him. 

Snyder. Okay Snyder is not a Big Bad like Adam is, but let’s face it: Adam is lame compared to the other villains. But Snyder as a principal? He was so irritating and yet really well used in the series to critique overly strict, hypocritical teachers. Like, we all know teachers like him. I loved to hate him, and his ending was so satisfying. 

[absolutebl]

Thai BL: Best Trope Execution Awards

Being an entirely arbitrary and opinionated decision making process of one... me. This is a decade long retrospective. During Award Season I’ll do one specifically for 2020. 

THE WINNERS!

Did You Bring a Towel? - there are more tropey executions of this (the sponge bath and the bridal hair dry in Make it Right come to mind), but when I think about towels in BL it’s always Win yanking the towel off Team that comes to mind, so WinTeam takes this category for Until We Meet Again. 

Proximity Alert - a hard fought category what with Puppy Honey's paint splatter incident but I have to give it to Ae & Pete and the bicycle meet cute because it’s two perfectly executed tropes in one. And because I love them so much. Love By Chance wins. 

Minister to my artful injury? - Pick & Rome in Puppy Honey because they manage to be both caring and silly about it, and it happens multiple times. 

The Fast and the Bicurious - another one I dithered over. In the end I went for Forth & Beam in 2 Moons 2 because it’s so in Forth’s character to scare Beam into dating him, and also I like that they played with the trope in a different way. 

The Heart Knows - I’m giving this to Can in LBC2 because he goes through it the most and takes the longest to realize what’s happening. Poor Can. 

Hair Tousle - okay so Sarawat and Ae do this trope the most, King and few others have very significant moments of head touching, but it’s going to go to Type in TharnType. These two aren’t the hair tousle kind of couple, but this marks the first time Type voluntarily initiates physical contact with Tharn entirely of his own free will. It’s also precipitates my favorite kiss in all BL, so they take the cake on this one. 

The Hand Hold – although Dean & Pharm hold hands the most, and I adore Tee & Fuse on the train, I have to give this trope to Phun & Noh in the bookstore in Love Sick. I doubt any other romance, let alone BL, will come close to the angsty teen pathos of that one moment. 

The Piggyback of Nobility - Korn & Knock in Together with Me. It marks a kind of breakthrough in their relationship and they’re so sweet about it. Plus I like the way the piggyback connects their adult love to their childhood friendship. 

Post-it Love Note - again one that probably should go to Sarawat & Tine but I just can’t with the product placement, plus Pete & Kao in the swing with the post it notes is so flipping precious. So Dark Blue Kiss it is. 

Pinky Promise - has to got to Mes & Thun in He’s Coming to Me partly because of the wistfulness of not being able to touch but still believing in the promise. It’s beautiful. 

Share My Earbuds? - this goes to Sarawat & Tine in 2gether, of course. Who else has the balls to share earbuds and listen to music at someone else’s concert?  

Bath Time! - oh Fighter & Tutor take this one, hands down (innuendo intended). Why R U? for the win. 

Kiss Me In The Car - Ae & Pete get this one in Love By Chance. It’s their first kiss, it starts as an accident, and goes from there. And Ae actually talks about it and tries to explain his feelings. It’s adorable. 

The Cheek Kiss of True Love - oh this one goes to Solo in Oxygen, who kisses Gui super early on in their relationship and as a way of making his intentions perfectly clear. It’s beautifully done. 

Clutch That Pillow - this one goes to Zon in Why R U? who does it multiple different times and in multiple different moods. 

Meet Me in the Library - King & Ram in My Engineer, of course. Dean & Pharm are adorable in their library kissing scene but King’s love at first tattoo is so good. Also (see with proximity alert above) I like when a trope is combined with a meet cute. 

This Pool Was Meant for Kissing - I am sorry to the other contenders, like Fighter & Tutor and Solo & Gui, but this was always going to go to Pete & Kao. Partly because it’s the first time we see Kao kiss Pete (in Kiss Me Again) and also the last time we see him initiate a kiss (in Dark Blue Kiss). I am a big fan of the uke showing sexual agency. 

Let Me Sing You My Feelings - I rightly should give this one to Oxygen since it beats our ears with this trope constantly, but it’s going to Ingredients for Ep 16. The number of emotions that cross Win’s face in the course of two songs while he watches Tops flirt with someone else is INSANE. Win keeps singing yet you see him go through an entire identity crisis - realization of love, jealousy, fear, adoration, loss, and more. It’s brilliant. And Jeff’s voice is crazy good. Even if you aren’t a fan of this series, you owe it to yourself to watch this episode.

In the next episode he sings, plays, and acts all at the same time. So yeah. Sorry everyone else. Win wins. 

I Saw You Feed Him! - Dean & Pharm. DEAN & PHARM. DEANANDPHARM!!! Like there is ANY other choice. Until We Meet Again is basically a love story to Thai desserts... with some reincarnation thrown in. 

Lie on the Ground, Stare Winsomely the One You Love - King & Ram take this category too for My Engineer. What can I say? When it comes to pining, no one does it better. 

Put Your Head On My Shoulder - although Kong & Arthit execute this one very very well it’s going to Phun & Noh because it’s such a signifiant moment for them in Love Sick 2. 

There’s Something About the Way He Swallows - a hotly contested category with every studly seme weighing in from Sarawat to Fighter to Forth. But it has to go to Tharn in TharnType. He basically seduced Type away from heterosexuality by drinking from a water bottle. That’s some seriously powerful swallowing.  

That’s MY BOYFRIEND - there are lots of good public claimings, and it’s one of my favorite tropes, but I’m giving this one to Arthit who does it twice: 

in front of all his friends in SOTUS, 

and then in front of all his co-workers in SOTUS S. 

(Look yes, Can kissing Tin in LBC2 is probably the single most impactful example of this, but Arthit did it first and did it twice, so I have to give it to him.) 

I Touch My Lips and Think of Kissing - I’m giving this one to Saint who does it as Pete and as Tutor, but totally differently each time, because he’s a genius actor. Normally I prefer to award characters, not actors, but for this one I’m making an exception. So Why R U? and Love By Chance take this category. 

Best Thing About a Boyfriend? His Closet! - giving this one to Sarawat & Tine because the matched jersey is such a thing for them. I wanted to give it Phun & Noh because of the uniform plot point in Love Sick, but the visual in 2gether is just too powerful. 

Under My Umbrella - oh it should be Pha & Yo in 2 Moons. It’s such a significant moment in that story and it basically established this trope for Yaoi. Except, then SOTUS comes in and sweeps this category with this gem... 

Baby is a Floppy Drunk - Tine is hands down the best comedic execution of this trope, and Captain gives us the best in character performance as drunk Noh in Love Sick 2, but it plays the most significantly into Tee & Fuse’s story arc so Fuse wins this category for Make it Right. 

K’ that’s it. Which trope did you want to see that I forgot? I’m sure I missed some. 

[gallavichthings]

Hi guys! I, @thevioletjones​, am back again as guest mod, because I wanted to be the one to talk to this week’s author, @lan-jev​ aka LanJevinson on AO3. She’s the writer of fandom classics, The New Year, and its sequel, Bird Set Free, as well as the equally bittersweet 1,000 Times. She also sometimes wrote more lighthearted fare like the Mickey Tries New Things series. She’s one of my fandom besties and we had fun reminiscing, so it's a loooong one. Enjoy!

VioletJones: Are you ready?

LanJevinson: Yep

Weirdly nervous lmao

VJ: lmao... why? It's just me

LJ: Idk man

VJ:  it's very much not a big deal... you'll be fine

First of all, why are you such an angsty bitch?

LJ: Lol

VJ: 😂💀I'm joking, but it's also a legitimate question. I just wanna know.

LJ: God, I have no idea. I just really love that feeling of reading (or writing) a fic that makes your heart break only to carefully pull it back together.

VJ: Obviously. That's your M.O. Lol

LJ: I have a hard time even reading fic without angst to be honest. It has to be a just-right fic in every other way

VJ: How do you balance the angst with the right amount of sweetness and resolution?

LJ: That’s a hard question. I think as the author we know our purpose and our characters and story so well that it can be difficult to make it satisfying for the reader in the end. I definitely haven’t hit it right for every reader! I’ve had comments expressing dissatisfaction with the resolution of my stories before. Primarily, I write for me—and if I’m satisfied with it, I write it that way.

VJ: I mean, at the end of the day, we have to execute our own vision. I've seen people modify their story based on what people tell them and you can always tell it would've been better had they stuck with the original plan.

That includes letting stories sprawl out without end and become repetitive as hell, imo. Lol

LJ: For sure. Not fun to read a fic that literally loses the plot midway through. Or writing a fic for the clout—because you know a/b/o is a trending trope, for example.

VJ: True. People who follow the trends get the hits.

Do you ever cater to what you think the audience wants, or are you always staunch about your inspiration and intention?

LJ: I have worried about the choices I made and if people would like it, but rarely enough to change the direction of a fic.

For every person that hates it, there’s going to be someone who likes it. And if not, I like it. Haha.

VJ: Lol. That's a good way to look at it. You know I get too caught up worrying about what people think, and I hate it so much.

LJ: I know. You’re so not alone in that though. I’m the anomaly.

VJ: Idk. Some people don't take it so seriously. You're lucky, though...

I feel like we know each other pretty much as well as two people who've never met in person can. Lol. What do you want the fandom at large to know about you?

LJ: I don’t know, I’m just really thankful to have stumbled into the fandom. It was my first time writing fic after a long break, my first time writing m/m fic, and in the case of The New Year in particular, my first time really letting my muse just take the reins. I’d written as a teenager, but was one of those people who assumed when my “life” began that I wouldn’t be into fanfic, but I am so glad to be wrong about that. In high school I dreamed of going to college for creative writing. I’ll probably never get around to writing original fiction, but writing fanfic has been so fulfilling.

VJ: When and what was your first time with fanfic and fandom?

LJ: I started writing fan fiction before I even knew it had a name, predictably, for Harry Potter around age 12? I kept a plastic container full of notebooks under my bed and filled them with ideas. I’ve always been a purist—canon divergent was my jam even from the beginning. I even published a few of them on ffnet. I vividly remember paying money by the minute to go onto a computer at LAX during a family vacation to check my email to see if I had any comments! During my later teenage years I wrote and published Gone with the Wind fanfic. Despite writing fic, I didn’t know what a ‘fandom’ even was until I searched for Shameless fic on the good old ffnet, somehow hopped over to AO3, and then subsequently discovered tumblr some months later.

And fandoms are such a trip. It’s really cool to gather with people who love the same characters and books and shows as you, but also sort of all-encompassing? For a while it felt like my life revolved around the Shameless fandom and fic. It was almost a relief when canon failed me and I started to step back.

VJ: Yeah, girl. You all left me. I keep trying to get to the other side. Lmao. Soon!

When did you join the Gallavich/Shameless fandom?

LJ: I started writing The New Year in April 2016 after I finished watching season 5. It feels like so long ago. I know it was just on the cusp of the first exodus of the “OG” writers.

VJ: Yeah, you came in right before I did. What made you want to write for them so badly?

LJ: It was mainly the shock of the season 5 ending that did it. I started out watching as a fan of the show in general, and wasn’t even super invested in Gallavich until later. But Gallavich was really the perfect ship for me— so many opportunities to write and read nuggets that weren’t included in the show, since the viewers saw so little of their relationship.

VJ: Yeah, it's pretty crazy to think about how little total airtime they've had together over the course of the entire show.

For those who don't get the reference, please explain the origins of LanJevinson and why you chose it as a pen name.

LJ: Lan Jevinson is the code name Dwight gives to Michael’s boss, Jan Levinson, when she unexpectedly joins them at Casino Night in the warehouse on The Office. I just love a good Office-themed pseudonym! I really wanted to use the Warhol-esque portrait Jan has of herself up in her office in one of the later seasons as my profile picture on AO3, but I couldn’t find one, so I went with Prison Mike instead. It always makes me laugh when I see the little picture pop up next to my name when I comment on fics.

VJ: Lmao. I love that it has nothing to do with the actual fandom. So random.

Have you ever thought about writing a fic that has a sitcom feel to it like The Office?

LJ: I’m firmly in the dramedy category. I’ve thought about writing some elements related to The Office, like the workplace setting and the mutual pining of coworkers, but without a lot of the comedic elements, and not for Shameless certainly. I’m way too anxious in real life to be quick-witted. I’m better in writing, but it’d be far out of my comfort zone!

VJ: What was the most fun aspect of writing Gallavich for you?

LJ: I’ll be honest, at the beginning it was more of a compulsion than something ‘fun’. Not to sound too hokey, but The New Year just had to be written, it almost felt like an out of body experience. I had the most fun with my one shot pieces, and it’s definitely because I could be creative in ways that I’d missed, but was still able to tether myself to canon, to write for characters to whom the readers needed no introduction. Also I just really freaking love mutual pining!

VJ: It doesn't sound hokey. I think the reason most people are compelled to write fic for the first time is that they want to see an exact idea executed in a way they haven't been able to find in someone else's fic yet.

And you get to ride the high of a newfound inspiration.

LJ: Which of your fics were you most compelled to write would you say?

VJ: Definitely the first one. Backdrifting. It can happen with fics that come later, but I think there's something about the first idea and the way it becomes an obsession until you just start writing it.

LJ: I remember reading it and it felt so refreshing—you never avoid real-life things, like having other partners or past history, or not falling head over heels immediately. It’s not Backdrifting, but a different one of yours I remember commenting how so true to life the dialogue and relationship was. Like conversations I’d have in my own marriage.

VJ: Aw, thanks. Realism is something I appreciate in my fiction. Lmao. I do remember that you would sometimes try to dissuade me from writing stuff that you thought the fandom wouldn't go for, particularly in regards to Mickey. Like, I wrote Bad Date to prove you wrong that the premise wasn't perfect for them. Lollll... Did you ever hold back because of stuff going on in canon or the fandom? Ideas you thought wouldn't fly so you suppressed them?

LJ: Did I try to dissuade you from writing stuff?? Damn I’m a bad friend lol. The publishing of my Big Bang fic [1,000 Times] was really poorly timed although beyond my control. At the time the fandom was still recovering from the Mexico border goodbye (I think...), and I remember getting this long pleading comment from someone basically begging for me to give them a happy ending because the wounds were too raw from canon. I did agonize a bit about that before posting. And I worried a bit about giving Mickey a partner he loved and lost, as well as a second child in TNY. People still don’t understand my reasoning behind that one. It’s complicated but I don’t regret it, although I did worry how it would be received.

VJ: Yes, well, speaking of that whole mess, you also clowned me for how much I cried while reading your epic angst fest. I read both parts in full over like a long weekend or something, and I definitely got mad at you multiple times. Lol. And you called me a baby.

Anywayyyyy... I did plan on bringing it up, but you did first, so... What do you have to say to people who still think your treatment of Ian was harsh in The New Year series, and/or couldn't deal with your Mickey/OMC subplot?

LJ: I’ve never been one to shy away from con-crit if I think it’s deserved and written in good faith. As far as Mickey/OMC goes, I think that’s more of a personal preference thing. It’s unrealistic IMO to expect one or both of them to never hold strong feelings for another person while apart (though some may argue it���s less likely while in prison). As far as Ian goes, firstly I needed to come up with a rational explanation for the porch breakup in canon, which wasn’t easy. And then I had to further emotionally stunt him so he could leave Mickey to rot for eight years. From there he could only go up. It made sense at the time. Lol

Maybe I just wanted to punish him a little. It was a dark time for the Mickey Milkovich Deserves Better crew. Newer readers really can’t get into it. TNY series is one of those fics you ‘had to be there’ for.

VJ: Oh man, that's so true. I never was down for the Ian punishment though. You know this. But, me loving your writing despite all the pain it inflicts when I read it should be seen as a testament to your talent. Lmao. It hurts so good. I wouldn't sit through all that for just any writer.

Was there anything you ever struggled with when writing them?

LJ: Not them specifically, as far as their characterizations go (though I do find Mickey easier to write than Ian, generally), but I’ve never been great at fleshing out my stories with detail and descriptive emotions. I’ve tried not to write so bare bones, but I guess it doesn’t suit me.

VJ: You definitely have a clean and to-the-point style, unlike me. Lol. But yeah, it's what works for you, because that's your voice. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, obviously. You've gotten plenty of well-deserved compliments about your fics both here and in other fandoms.

Is Mickey being easier to write something that makes you prefer his POV, or do you enjoy writing Ian's POV too?

LJ: I like writing both, but Mickey is more fun to write because he’s funnier, more insecure, all around a bit more layered than Ian (IMO). Not that Ian isn’t interesting—he definitely is. But Ian’s harder to read. Maybe it’s partly the way the actors play their roles, too.

VJ: Do you think Ian being more of a blank canvas makes him easier to project onto? I think we've talked about relating more to Ian in some obvious ways, even though there's also emotionally relatable things about Mickey too.

LJ: Yeah, I think that could definitely be part of it! Writing Ian isn’t nearly as much of an escape as writing Mickey is, and I totally get why you and other authors like to keep Ian’s bipolar out of fics. I channeled myself into Ian in the last non-drabble piece I ever wrote for Gallavich. It was cathartic though!

VJ: What other Shameless characters do you enjoy, both on the show and in fics?

LJ: The first few seasons of the show were so good. I loved Lip and Fiona. I got told often that I must hate Lip based on how I write him 🤷‍♀️ but just cuz I write him as a bit of an asshole doesn’t mean I dislike him as a character! I loved writing Carl the most of all the Gallaghers, though. He’s got such a flat affect on the show, it was really fun to build on that and just make him this irreverent, unfiltered grownup with a big heart.

VJ: Lip and Fiona were the only other characters I really cared about in the early show seasons as well. Never cared about reading or writing the other siblings much, tbh. How do you feel about the Milkovich siblings? I like writing Mandy. Although I acknowledge fic Mandy can be a lot different than canon Mandy sometimes. But she's yet another character that canon did dirty, so I'm ok with giving her a better life and closer relationship to Mickey.

LJ: I do love writing Mandy. I have complicated feelings about canon Mandy that are too difficult to put into words. I wrote something pre-canon about Mandy really early into fandom just because, and I still love it even though it only has like 100 total hits, LOL. As for the other siblings, they make decent background characters but I never really invested in them. We’re not even sure who’s a cousin and who’s a brother! I’ve read some awesome fics that incorporate Iggy in fun ways, though.

VJ: Same. I never understood the Iggy thing as more than a secondary comic relief type thing.

Angst aside, what types of fics do you prefer writing, both in terms of length and content (genres, tropes, et al)?

LJ: I always say when I estimate how long a fic is going to be in the planning stage, the reality will be less than half the length. My preference across fandoms is for multi-chapters, but I like a good short one-shot too. My biggest hang-up in terms of tropes is my attachment to canon. In every fandom I’ve read or written for, I vastly prefer canon and canon-divergent to AUs, and especially for Gallavich, even had a hard time reading AUs if they didn’t suit my standards. The characters still have to feel like themselves for me to get invested— otherwise they feel like stand-ins for original fiction. The 3 AUs I wrote for Gallavich, were still deeply rooted in canon. Two of the three I would actually count as pre-canon divergent. Canon aside, there’s got to be some element of smut, even if it’s not explicit (even though I find the act of writing the smut in itself pretty torturous). Mutual pining, miscommunication. It all leads back to angst, predictably.

VJ: Lol. Fuck canonnnnnnn... AUs forevaaaa!!! I know what you mean about preserving the characterization within the different universes though. That's important to me too.

Walk us through what your writing process looks like.

LJ: Firstly, I sit on an idea for at least a week. Maybe longer. Thinking about various story plots in the shower, during work, etc, as we all probably do. When I finally open a doc it’s a jumbled mess of random lines and plot points. After that, I make myself write out a basic outline. And from there I start filling in things as they come to me, moving things around as needed. I’m not much of a multiple-drafts person, and if the words aren’t flowing the way I want them to right away, I get pretty frustrated. I also write 95% of my stories on my phone— I have a very nice laptop that only comes out when I have a large chunk of time to myself (very rare) or if I’m ready to edit. I’m a terrible editor, too. Bad autocorrects in particular are my nemesis, which is what I get for phone writing. Time permitting, I’m either going to write almost an entire chapter or one shot in 1-2 sittings, or I’m going to struggle to write three sentences over a month period. It all depends on how the muse is feeling. I’m big on not pushing myself to write when I’m not feeling it. Basically, I’m a hot mess and it’s remarkable I’ve managed to publish anything at all!

VJ: I was aghast when you told me you wrote everything on your phone. That's crazy pants to me. I did enjoy betaing for you though. You're very accepting of my edits and comments.

How much research do you typically do?

LJ: Generally, very little. Sometimes I’ll get a wild hair and NEED to know the specific street coordinates of the L train. I try to ask myself if not knowing the exact detail will pull a reader from the story. I do get jealous of fics where the author clearly has drawn from real-life experience as a barista/lawyer/world traveler. My life experience doesn’t give me much inspiration.

VJ: Interesting. Your stuff never comes off as unresearched or inauthentic. I bet you're more inspired by your own life and knowledge than you think.

LJ: I don’t know. I’ve been extremely blessed to know very little trauma or heartbreak, aside from my own struggles with depression and anxiety, which isn’t altogether uncommon. It’s probably why I’m such a canon hoe tbh. No good AUs rattling around in here.

VJ: Lol. You always talk about being all about canon, but I think you lie. You've always read and liked AUs. 😂

LJ: I do like reading AUs definitely! (Not so much writing them). It just takes me a while in each fandom. I start out with canon and canon divergent, then when I exhaust those I move onto the AUs.

And then I find myself enjoying them. Especially in its heyday, the Shameless fandom was/is blessed with many excellent authors.

VJ: Yeah, so you ease into different types of fanfic, but you never rejected AUs that I could tell.

What's your favorite Gallavich fic that you’ve written and why?

LJ: I like them all for different reasons, but I go back to The New Year series, specifically The New Year itself, the most often. Like we talked about before, there’s no love quite like your first love. It helped me make deeper connections with other fans in ways I was not anticipating. And while it might not be my best work (across fandoms) it remains the one I’m the most personally proud of.

VJ: It's a great fic! Even if a part of me hates it, because it makes me cry all the tears in my well reserve. Lmao

I'm gonna do a re-read soon. Even though I said I'd never read it again. 💀

What are some of your favorite fics and/or writers in the fandom?

LJ: This is such a difficult question because a) it’s been so long since I’ve really read Shameless fic, b) I have a really terrible memory for both fics and authors, it’s a character flaw, and c) I am the world’s worst bookmarker.

I will say that Avalonia’s fic, The Russian, is an absolute diamond that no one has read. Boomer OGs include segs, romanticalgirl, magneticdice (I unconsciously compare every other grim reaper AU I read to theirs [Company Man]). Gen X OGs: you of course, grumblesandmumbles, loftec. Millennials: biblionerd07. This is a terrible analogy.

VJ: Lol. Thank you for mentioning Biblionerd, because I forgot to mention them in mine, and Broad-Shouldered Beasts is definitely one of my picks for best written series in the fandom.

And thanks for the shout-out, babes. 💕

What are your favorite tropes as a reader?

LJ: I love miscommunication, mutual pining, enemies to lovers, friends with benefits turns into love. I’m a sucker for supernatural elements. I once told a friend from a different fandom how I found friends to lovers to be unrealistic, and she asked me how many people I knew who had fallen for someone they hated, and I was like... touché.

VJ: Lmao. I've done both IRL sorta, tbh.

How about fic pet peeves?

LJ: The first one is both obvious and a little subjective, but poor characterization will nope me out of a fic right away. Daddy kink, age difference (even if both adults), and mpreg are also not for me. Also, very specifically, fics in which the characters play Never Have I Ever or Truth or Dare.

VJ: Lmfaooooo

No party games for you? Is it too cheap a trope, you think?

LJ: Just a little too cliche maybe? Idk. Just a weird pet peeve.

VJ: Ok, let's talk about the show a little bit. What is your favorite season and episode of Shameless?

LJ: You are making me dive deep into the vault here. We already talked about how the first few seasons were the best in general. The Thanksgiving scene with Monica, with Fiona and Ian holding one another. Fiona going to prison. Lip’s freak outs every time he inevitably had to put family in front of his dreams. JAW is so great. Specifically with Gallavich, I loved Ian running to Mickey’s house for comfort and the look Mickey gives him, telling him they’ll meet at work. The scene where Mickey gets out of juvie and catches Ian behind the bleachers. The entirety of season 5 (except the ending).

VJ: Yeah, Jeremy and Emmy were always my favorite actors on the show along with Noel. Obvs, Bill Macy is great, but I just can't care about Frank 95% of the time.

Do you have a favorite Ian & Mickey scene, or is it something you mentioned above?

LJ: They’re all great for all sorts of reasons. It’s probably not a popular opinion, but I did love the earlier seasons when Mickey wasn’t quite ready to be out, but still clearly cared, was jealous, etc.

VJ: I mean, as sad and frustrating as that was, it was definitely dramatic gold. My main wish is that we had just gotten more screen time for them both.

LJ: Totally agree.

VJ: Which is actually a good segue for this... If you could go back and change one thing in canon, what would it be?

LJ: I’ve always wondered what would have happened if the back door had been locked the day Frank walked in on them. I’d also really have liked Mickey to not have gone to prison, or if he’d had to, not escaped from prison and gone to Mexico and then subsequently snitched on the cartel. That was dumb.

VJ: 😂Succinct.

Ok, the million dollar question... Do you think there's anything that could ever persuade you to write Gallavich again?

LJ: I’ll never say never, but unless I ever decide to binge the show again, I don’t think I could ever get in the headspace to write them again.

VJ: And I'm guessing you don't plan on rewatching the show after all the trauma it inflicted on us over the years? Lol

LJ: I have far too many tv shows on my to-watch list for that!

VJ: I figured. And it's understandable. But I had to ask! So now other people won't, hopefully.

Last question! Now that the show is over and done with, do you have any parting words for the fandom? Once more, with feeling.

LJ: My time in the Shameless fandom will forever be special to me. I made amazing connections and some real friends. I got to push myself creatively in ways I never thought I would do again, and it turns out I’ve got so much more left in the tank! It’s been truly unforgettable.

Thanks to everyone who’s read my works, sent me encouragement, food for thought, con-crit, cried and obsessed with me over these two dummies. Most importantly, so much love to every Gallavich and Shameless content creator who gave me hours and hours of entertainment and got me through some tough times personally. We are a small and mighty bunch. I hope we meet again in another fandom!

VJ: Awwww, I echo your sentiments. Thank you for being one of the people who gave us amazing fanworks. And on a personal level, I'm so glad we "met"!

LJ: Me too, so much!

VJ: END SCENE.

[lidoshka]

I follow you on Deviant Art and I discovered my favorite Voltron fanfictions thanks to your fanarts. How did you find them? I loved, among the others, "Where the light doesn’t reach", "Eternal Night", Discordiansamba's ones and "Desideratum": do you have more suggestions? We could do an exchange of fanfiction reviews if you want. I like long, well-written stories with Keith as a main character, space worldbuilding and deep emotions. With the Galra Keith trope also.

 You started reading Voltron fics because of me? Really?! That’s really cool!

ヾ|*ﾟ∀ﾟ*|ﾉ

Ahh! Yeah, I totally agree, we need more fanfic recs… in the last few months I’ve been doing art for other fandoms, so I haven’t checked new fics, but I do have some I like here so I’ll start!

Now, I don’t think any of these fics is longer than Eternal Night, but they are still cool, I also added some info of what I remember from each fic:

cobbled glass by ShirosRedKnight (SweetFanfics) One of the first things Keith learns about himself is that he is different. AU where Keith was always part of the Blades of Marmora and the Paladin's of Voltron come looking for the Red Paladin.

[Keith is galra but looks human] [can’t remember any pairing]

It's A New Start Series by Darkscales In which Keith, raised Galra and forcibly drafted into Zarkon's army, escapes from the Empire and proceeds to steal (then subsequently become adopted by) the Red Lion.

[Keith is very galra] [can’t remember any pairing]

 your sharp and glorious thorn by arahir

To end the war they inherited, Keith marries the King he lead an army against

[Sheith] [mostly Keith POV] [Keith being galra but still human-looking]

 Collision Course by winterysomnium Keith gets adopted by the Galra empire rebellion, basically.

[Keith being galra but still human-looking]

 Secret of the Blood by exclamation AU version of season 2. When Keith and Shiro were thrown from the wormhole, they crashed by the Blade of Marmora headquarters and were captured. When the Blade reveal the secret of Keith's heritage, Keith must decide if he can trust these people... and if he can trust himself.

[Keith angst] [can’t remember any pairing] [Keith is galra but looks human]

 The Blade of Memory by exclamation (ß same author as previous one!) Kan has no memory of his life before he was found injured and adrift by the Blade of Marmora. When he comes across a slave that seems to be the same species as him, he decides to rescue him. But saving Matt broke a number of the Blade's rules and helping Matt further would mean going against Kolivan's orders.

[Keith angst…ish] [can’t remember any pairing] [Keith is galra but looks human]

 hound by story_monger (is there any rec list that doesn’t include this one?? XD) Keith has a lot of practice being alone; you might almost say he's good at it. When he finds himself seriously injured and stranded on an unknown planet, he knows he's not alone there

[Keith angst] [can’t remember any pairing] [Keith POV] [beign galra is not part of plot]

 baby, you're a dark star by Thesis When the Lions are separated from the castle, hurled out of the wormhole into distant corners of space, Pidge still finds Allura within an hour. Then Shiro, alone, injured, delirious, asking if they've found Keith yet. They force him into the healing pods and get back to searching. They find Lance, they find Hunk. But they don't find Keith for sixteen months. And now that they have, Shiro is starting to think - maybe he didn't want to be found.

[Sheith] [Keith is galra but looks human]

 Insomnia by GriffinRose They reunite after the Wormhole Incident all in one piece. Mostly. But some scars can't be seen. Keith can't sleep, no matter how hard he tries.

[mostly Keith POV] [being galra is not part of plot…or was it?]

 nothing can breathe in space by idrilka The truth is: what Keith wants or doesn’t want won’t bring Shiro back. The truth is: nothing can breathe in space. (Or: the story of how Keith and Shiro come together, come apart, and come together again.)

[Sheith] [Keith angst] [being galra is not part of plot…or was it?]

 The Heat Was Hot and the Ground Was Dry by justheretobreakthings A glimpse into Keith's year living in a shack in the desert.

[Keith POV] [Keith angst…ish] [has a Spotify list on the last chapter] [can’t remember any pairing]

 Small Heart, Made of Steel by inkfishie The fight with Zarkon, the battle with the Galra fleet, the crash; It came back in small measures. Keith finds himself stranded and alone.

[mostly Keith POV] [Keith angst] [survival stuff] [being galra is not part of plot]

 For Everything a Reason by flyingisland

In Keith's life, the only true absolute was that everyone would always leave in the end.

[Sheith] [very Keith angst] [Keith POV]

 these old bones by achievingelysium

He’s always been fascinated with dinosaurs. Keith isn’t entirely sure why—maybe it’s because their footprints are still here, even after so long. Maybe he’s hearing the echoes of history calling for him. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because he sees himself in those old bones. A Keith character study told in three parts.

[Keith angst…ish] [can’t remember any pairing] [being galra is not part of plot..or was it???]

 The Long Way Back by fio As a gladiator, and now Champion, Shiro has given up hope of ever returning to Earth. But when his captors deliver his 'prize'—an omega, a descendant of both Galran and Altean blood used by the Galra to breed with the strongest aliens they capture—he's offered a chance to escape. There's just one catch: Shiro has to get him pregnant to do it. [Sheith] [it’s 40k words] [smut but I can’t remember in which chapter] [Keith is very galra]

 The Faeries' Midwife by zjofierose the line between dream and nightmare, between asleep and awake, has always been a hazy one for Keith. Voltron makes it all that much worse.

[short] [Keith angst] [can’t remember any pairing]

 Sands and Stars by Neyasochi Keith’s no stranger to shit going sideways, but mistakenly assaulting and robbing a crown prince is definitely the peak misfortune of his considerable criminal career. Suddenly in the custody of the royal guard and slated for a swift and unceremonious execution, he figures his short life is over. Imminently. But then Prince Takashi offers him an alternative.

Part 1 of the Bond and Blade Series

[Sheith] [slow, slow burn] [mostly Keith POV] [Keith is galra but looks human] [It’s medieval!au-ish babe!]

 familiar voices and careful hands by bobtheacorn Keith hesitates, then lifts a hand to pat Hunk's arm. It's awkward returning the comforting gesture, but it seems to help Hunk calm down so Keith is glad that he does it. He keeps reaping the rewards of reaching out to the people he cares about, even if small things are the only ones he can manage right now, and he can't help feeling grateful.

[can’t remember any pairing] [team bonding] [keith angst…ish]

 i never meant (i only wanted) by ADyingFlower It's a lot farther to Arizona from Washington D.C. than he thought it would be. The sun beats down on his scalp and dark clothes as he travels the roads of national highways, occasionally trying to hitchhike when he could. Not often, though. His soles burn into his feet, but he doesn’t dare stop.

[Keith POV] [Keith angst] [being galra is not part of plot…or was it???]

+

Well, that’s my fav ones about Keith... I didn’t add any WIPS nor any of Discordiansambas’ cause you know those ones already, but just like you I also like long stories with lots of worldbuilding, angsty stories... I love stories where they explore what being a galra hybrid means to Keith!

[smalltownfae]

Unpopular Opinions Book Tag

1. A Popular Book or series that you didn't like.

“The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss, “Prince of Thorns” by Mark Lawrence and “The Last Wish” by Andrzej Sapkowski. Oh what a surprise! All straight white men with sexism in their books :) Very beloved for some reason that escapes me. I don’t read entire series if I don’t like the first book. Who even does that???

2. A Popular Book or series that every one else seems to hate but you love.

Hmmm I don’t think I love any book or series that a lot of people hate. I have good taste ahah Seriously, nothing comes to mind... and if it’s popular doesn’t that mean a lot of people love it anyways? Or is it popular because it’s trash? XD Anyways, I got nothing. The best I can do is books I love that no one talks about. One example would be “The Seventh Bride” by T. Kingfisher.

3. A Love Triangle where the main character ended up with the person you did NOT want them to end up with (warn ppl for spoilers) OR an OTP that you don't like.

Most books I read don’t have love triangles and even less have love triangles that I am invested in so... an OTP I don’t like is Fitz and Molly from the Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb. I love them separatelly but not together. Molly deserves better tbh. But, I don’t even think they are a popular ship ahah I also don’t like Fitz x Kettricken or Carson x Sedric or Malta x Reyn (ew ew ew) or Tats x Thymara or Brashen x Althea...from the same series. Are they even popular? Seriously, Hobb sucks at writing canon couples.

Rin x Nezha from the Poppy War series by R.F. Kuang I also hate because Nezha is my 2nd most hated character of all time. What else is there... Tbh I don’t care enough or hate most canon couples in anything ahahah omg Fanny and what’s his face... Edmond (?) from “Mansfield Park”. If it’s straight and canon there is a 90% chance I don’t like it I guess.

4. A popular book Genre that you hardly reach for.

Latelly I have been reaching for a lot of different genres so... hmmm does non fiction count? I also don’t like true crime and romance is an hard sell for me too because I don’t care for sex scenes and most of those books include many of those and long ones and it bores me as much as the fight scenes in fantasy books.

5. A popular or beloved character that you do not like.

Damn Nezha from the Poppy War series ahah Kvothe from Name of the Wind, but I think not even the fans like him much. Those are my major ones I guess or at least the only 2 that come to mind because they are my most hated characters ever. OH Reyn from Realm of the Elderlings :x Carson too but does anyone even care much about him?

6. A popular author that you can't seem to get into.

Besides the authors of the books mentioned in question 1, Becky Chambers :( I like her ideas so it’s too bad that her execution bores me to tears and feels lackluster. Just not for me.

7. A popular book trope that you're tired of seeing. (examples "lost princess", corrupt ruler, love triangles, etc.)

Is pedophiles portrayed as good guys a trope? Because I sure am tired of that. I think most tropes can be done well if something new is added to the plot or characters involved. The problem for me never seems to be the trope, but the execution.

8. A popular series that you have no interest in reading.

Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (to be honest I tried the 1st book. Didn’t get very far) and anything Sanderson has ever wrote or will write. Same for Mark Lawrence. I tried two of his books and he is not for me. Same for Becky Chambers. Anything written by the authors that are not my cup of tea and are hugely popular. Sarah J. Maas too. No interest whatsoever. The Outlander series, etc etc etc.

9. The saying goes "The book is always better than the movie", but what movie or T.V. show adaptation do you prefer more than the book?

If I read the book I probably haven’t watched the movie and if I watched the movie I probably don’t want to read the book. I am not much of a fan of repetitiveness unless I really love a story. What I will say is that “The Princess Bride” movie is great and I doubt that the book is better. Oh, wait, I guess I liked the “Stardust” movie better than that book by Neil Gaiman.

[captlok]

Pacifism Isn’t A Character Trait

Or: MLK Day is Upon Us so Let Me Do You a Learn

Or: As An Aang Stan I Got a Bit Over-Zealous But Lemme Explain Why For A Hot Minute

Plus some History and Tumblr commentary that even non-ATLA fans can chew on

And by ‘hot minute’ I do mean this is going to be a long meta, so strap in.  For those of you who just might be tuning into this debacle, I, a person who has not used Tumblr, much at all, except for the last half year, ran into some trouble. 

If you wanna skip the whole TLDNR interpersonal stuffs and get straight to Why Aang is the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, I will embolden the relevant parts, and italicize the crit of Korra, if you want that alongside.

I was excited that ATLA was seeing a resurgence due to the Netflix remake. I wasn’t even trying to apply any steep expectations for it. (learned not to do that the hard way with the last live action adaption, and to a much lesser extent, ATLOK, since it had good . . . elements, *ba dum tsshh*) 

So, these are a couple aspects of the issue: (1) Even on the internet, I am extremely introverted and until recently mostly came for content, not socializing. My main online interactions thus far have been in forums and artist-to-artist on DA. Tumblr is still very strange to me because it splits up its ‘threads’ so you can’t see all the replies if a certain pattern of users responds in their own space. I’m not even 100% sure it’s in chronological order, and replies are not nested next to each other so you can look in the comments and someone will be replying to something you can’t see in that window. And also since it is a bizarre hybrid of a blogging system, posts are somehow considered ‘owned by’ or an ‘extension of’ OP in a way forum threads are not. (2) ATLOK was good in a cinematic and musical way, to be sure. It also had some good concepts. I can go into it just appreciating it for the worldbuilding and be somewhat satisfied. But the execution was terrible. I was on AvatarSpirit.Net for years, and If I had maintained my presence on ASN to current day and had gotten around to downloading their archive now that the forum is dead, I would include some links to other peoples’ detailed analyses on just how flawed both the plotting and Korra’s frustratingly flat learning curve was especially in the first two seasons. But, that is a task for another day, and only if people are interested. 

No, what I’m addressing today, on the issue of Korra as a writing exercise, is how Mike and Bryan said specifically they wanted to make her ‘as opposite to Aang as possible’ and in so doing, muddied the central theme of the original ATLA series.

Now, again, I was mainly an art consumer for my first major round of ATLA fandom. Tumblr is an alien beast to me. But, after I write my first major Aang meta, talking about how amazing it is that he has the attitude he does, and how being content in the face of this overwhelming pain and suffering is an ONGOING PROCESS and an INTENTIONAL DECISION and not a simple PERSONALITY TRAIT, I start hearing that Aang gets a lot of hate from the fandom. Now this would be bad enough if it were merely people not liking his crowning moment of pacifism because they don’t understand the potential utility (I’ll elaborate on that in another post) or the ethics involved.

Aang is easily the most adult member of the Gaang. But he apparently gets hate for his few moments where he actually acts his age, a preteen, and maybe kisses a girl in a historical timeframe in which ‘consent’ discussions were probably nonexistent. Even in the present day, we are still practically drowned in movies that reinforce this kissing without asking trope. And even some female bodied people complain that asking kills the mood! But somehow he is responsible and reprehensible for this, even though the first time she kissed him back. I’m only going to get into the pacifism discussion today, but that was just another layer of annoyance bouncing around in the back of my head.  Other peoples’ crit of Korra that was stewing in my subconscious, plus this Aang bashing, which thankfully I had not directly read much of, made up the backdrop of gasoline for the match that set it off.  Even that seems a pretty melodramatic way to phrase what I actually said, which was: Aang, on the other hand, lost dozens of father figures and was being steamrolled by Ozai who was gloating about genocide TO HIS FACE, yet he still reigned in all that quote, ‘unbelievable rage and pain’ (The Southern Raiders). We Stan Aang, the Superior Avatar. No I did not f**king stutter. #AangSupremacy In another meta, someone complained that I was too defensive of Aang as a character and didn’t apply literary analysis enough, which I quickly rectified.

What set this off? Someone was kind of indirectly praising the line from Korra,  “When I get out of here, none of you will survive” To them it was emotionally resonant or whatever, and I have to point out that no, it was a martial artist not having control of their state of mind, as is the bedrock of the practice. It was never addressed by the narrative, which is a severe oversight.  I had a conversation with someone in the chats, making this distinction between Korra’s character traits and life philosophy. If she were to kill people while enraged and she was fine with that, that’s one thing. But if she regretted it, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. People argue that she comes from a warrior culture, unlike Aang.

Never mind that warrior monks are a thing. That’s what Shaolin monks are. You can be a pacifist and skilled at fighting. Those things are not mutually exclusive, which is the whole point of Bagua, Aang’s style.  And also, Katara’s style. 

That’s one reason I like Kataang so much- their congruent styles. Both of their real world martial arts are dedicated to pacifism, even though ATLA specifically doesn’t spell that out for Katara and her learning arc. 

There was a meta where someone briefly tried to argue that knowing “martial arts” is against pacifism. No. Quite the opposite. I’d argue that you are not a true pacifist unless you know exactly how to handle yourself if someone attacks you.  If you are not in a position to make conscious decisions about how much force to use, rather than merely operating on survival instincts, that is not pacifism. Or at least, not any energy or effort towards pacifism as a practical everyday tool.  I’ve made a few attempts to learn some tai chi and aikido, and it’s improved my physical and mental health, but some other things have gotten in the way. #lifegoals

I’m not going to tag the unfortunate soul whom I was replying to, because they’re probably tired of all this, but I’ll be sending them a PM to say that I’ve made this into a different post, because as I mentioned before, threads are somehow considered “owned” by OP, so it’s been pointed out to me that I should separate it.  I also said, I have basically ZERO respect for Korra uttering violent threats when the writers already minted a far more emotionally devastated and yet still resilient and centered character earlier in their franchise. People always try to excuse away people who genuinely like Aang more.  As if it’s just nostalgia or whatever. For me, no, it’s absolutely not. It is respect for a character who stands toe to toe with real people who are kind in the face of overwhelming injustice. (I have another meta on that). 

Both OP and people in the chats try to make excuses that she wasn’t raised as a pacifist, and that would be fine if they had addressed it with Tenzin and she had stated outright that she was rejecting pacifism and mind training. As it is, we are left with this nebulous affair where the lines between ideology and personality traits are blurred. 

We are told she “has trouble with spirituality” but what does that even mean? Does she have trouble with focus? Does she have trouble relating to the canonically real spirits? And pacifism specifically nor inner peace that it flows from is never even talked about as an extension of spirituality, which is canonically tied to airbending.

“Aang didn't have to deal once with the loss of his autonomy in atla” OP claims.

This was after I had noted that Aang was getting kicked around by Ozai and was most likely going to die.  Similarly, someone in the chat rejected the idea that a 12 year old trapped in a stone sphere that is heating up under a cyclone-sized blowtorch feels powerless. 

Sorry but that’s flat out ridiculous.

No one wants to admit that both of these people were faced with similar situations, and when push came to shove, one showed his LIFE PHILOSOPHY through conscious effort, and the other was abandoning the basis of martial arts, which is, no matter what the situation, keep thinking. Hold the panic at bay. Non-attachment would have served her well in this situation. Tenzin should have told her this. Before, or afterwards. It should have been addressed in the writing.  

People see this as “bashing” Korra, and oh well, can’t help that. If I think the writers didn’t follow through on their themes, that is my concern.  OP said I was “offended.” No, not really. 

I wasn’t offended by the post itself, or its commentary. Thought I made that pretty clear.

This is not dramatics. Let me be blunt.

As a ideological pacifist, and an actual practitioner of meditation, based on Buddhism, NOT just the fan of some show, I am for calling out writers who write one way from the survivor of genocide, and then stray from that ‘thoughtless aggression is immoral no matter HOW hurt I am’ to ‘let’s not address this character’s aggression in the narrative whatsoever.’ OP attempted to derail by accusing me of being racist or sexist against Korra. Also ridiculous. It honestly should have set me off more, but it didn’t. 

Meditation is about reigning in your emotions. Managing your anger when it gets out of hand, and digging down to the roots of it. Being responsible for your own behavoir. Acknowledging ownership of your own actions. Not blaming anything YOU DO on anyone else or any circumstances in your life. Like an adult, or should I say, an enlightened adult.

Or at the very least, that is the ideal ypu strive towards while being imperfect in the present.

. . .

Now.

I’m going to quote a passage in a Google Doc of mine, even though I’d really prefer if you asked to read the whole thing, with context.

“What do humans do when it is necessary to, or greed makes a nation want to recruit?

They go to the army to get trained, right?

Granted, having someone scream and get spittle on your face is, in the grand scheme of things, poor preparation for having bullets whiz past your chest and grenades shatter your ears. And, what do you do to prepare you for the pain of getting your leg blown off? Hopefully, nothing. Like taking a test where you only got half the study guide. But, it’s about the most ethical way to go about it, right?

Not everyone even sees action. So any more more extensive mental preparation for physical pain than that, and you’d have people definitely protesting.

Well, as it turns out, pacifistic protestors themselves, if they were in the right time and place, also very intentionally do this type of mind training. Except, when they did it, they actually did sit still and took turns roughly grabbing each other and throwing each other down and in some cases, even kicking and bruising each other.

Turns out, those pacifists are, in some ways, more hardcore than the army.

Why is this?

Because a pacifist’s aim, unlike a unit, who wants to gain the upper hand in a situation, is to grit their teeth and grind their way through all those survival instincts, and totally submit.

In this, they aim to get the sympathy of the public, who clearly sees they are not aggressive, or a danger, no matter how much the footage is manipulated or suppressed.

In this, they hope to appeal to their attacker’s better nature.

Make them stop and think, wait a second, are these people a threat like we’re told they are? I’m attacking someone who’s letting me beat them up. Or a bunch of people. All forming a line, and letting us peel them off. Or sitting, and bowing their heads. If I’m on the ‘right’ side of things, the law, why am I doing this?

It’s not like a bully, who’s just a kid.” They’re more self-aware.

And might I add the situation influences a pacifist’s actions too. There’s no reason to let a single or a few random attackers beat you up if you can evade or disable without permanent damage.

Pacifism is a dynamic set of responsive actions informed by values. Not a proscribed set or a checklist.

But in terms of organizing against state power, and recording wrongdoing, which unlike during the Civil Rights can happen from all angles from smart phones nowadays, these are the motivations.

“So, the pacifist knows this, and that’s why they go through all that trouble of training themselves to, not only submit, but not turn tail and run, either.”

See, a character trait is something like being a morning person, or ways of handing information, or a given set of emotions a character feels. Once you cross over into actions, you must make the distinction of whether an impulsive character agrees with their own uncontrolled actions, or is embarrassed or remorseful. Those are life philosophy. Now sure, one type of person or character may be more likely to subscribe to pacifism, but there is no gatekeeping on what you have to feel or how you look at things. You can be easygoing, or feel all the rage in the world, but as long as you at least attempt to have a handle on those desires and feelings to where they do not cross into actions, you are still doing the work of metacognition, which is what martial arts and its accompanying mind training are for.

It’s what we see Aang do.

He’s informed us, during the Southern Raiders, on how much rage and pain he feels.

Pain points, TRIGGERS, that were directly struck at when Ozai gloated over him.

He joins with all the past Avatars for several moments, and just like every other time he is in the Avatar State, he is enraged. He wants to exact revenge on the unrepentant grandson of a baby murderer.

We see it when he turns his head away, face still screwed up in anger.

For another example, I could cite my difficulties in being aware and reining in my tongue sometimes. I know the roots of these issues and I seek to let them go.

It’s just that process takes way longer than Guru Pathik would have us assume.

In fact, I would even say that Aang’s portrayal throughout the three seasons is not strictly a realistic representation of at least the sad side of grief. I addressed that a little when I talked about real life figures. But what it IS, is a metaphor that cuts very deep to the heart of pacifism. As I showed in that Doc . . . There is no limit of suffering a pacifist is willing to go through, internal or external, for the preservation of peace.

This was demonstrated during the Civil Rights, and with Gandhi and all his followers beforehand, inspiring them. The pacifists’ method of swaying hearts is probably the reason BLM exists in such numbers as it does today. Will the types of narratives that correspond with their full stories of the way they collectively planned and trained for and approached conflict make it into fantasy media? I’d say, probably not. For a host of reasons.

It could be hoped for, I guess.

But we DO have Aang.

As for myself, whether speaking sharply is an “action,” per se is up for debate- certainly it doesn’t seem to violate the non-aggression principle put forth by the vision of a “stateless society.”

For another example, let’s take my explanation at the beginning. I am examining how circumstances affected my actions, and now am attempting to fix it, if indeed it needs to be fixed. 

At least one person said that it not so much what I said, but how and when I said it. I don’t actually think I’ve said anything “wrong” per se. So I have to figure it out. 

[I’m considering splitting up this next part into a second post, as it only slightly relates to pacifism itself and is just kinda some more commentary on Tumblr itself- Tumblr discourse, as it were]

[I’ll put more brackets when I’m done in case you want to skip this part as well]

An interesting social difference between Tumblr and other places is this command you often get, “don’t chat/reblog/message me back.”

This is interesting for several reasons. For chats and reblogs, other people may be following the “conversation,” so it’s actually pretty rude and presumptuous to tell a person not to respond to whatever you said, because other people watching still may be interested in your take.

In a forum setting, if someone involved in a conversation doesn’t have anything left to say, usually they just don’t respond.

This method would work perfectly fine for Tumblr, but for some reason, maybe its super odd format, probably due to the “ownership”/“extension of self” I mentioned at the beginning of the essay, people don’t tend to do this.

Now, in comment sections, sometimes you’ll run across an amusing sort of “mutually assured destruction” where two people both say this to each other. You’d better stop responding. Omg just give up. Why are you still arguing. Etc.

But see, no matter where this behavoir pops up, and no matter who starts in on it, those who do this usually want to have the last say on the matter.

Instead of merely not replying, they want to assert verbal control over the conversation.

Tumblr, in its weirdness, is also sort of like a mutant comments section. You can post comment section threads as your own post.

Which is one reason why I’m puzzled when people say ‘don’t read the comment sections’ when Tumblr is so popular.

I’m an oddball in that I browse comment sections for fun.

Probably due to alexithymia, I didn’t really comprehend the emotional toll it takes on many people, so the warnings to “stay out of comment sections” read to me like “hey don’t eat that dessert.” After I’m done with the ‘meal’ of an article or art, I like to see what lots of different people have to say about it. The fluff. Anything vitriolic I either blip over, or extract anything useful, or if I judge the person is reasonable enough, I might engage.

Sometimes I mis-judge on how reasonable someone is, and I shrug and move on after being cussed out or whatever.

In this, I suppose I succeed much of the time in being a verbal pacifist.

[But let’s get back to the more serious stuff.]

We’re talking about what is done in life or death situations, here.

For myself, I may in the near future be working more with dangerously mentally ill people. I’ve had a little exposure to it through various means. Nurses are obligated not to retaliate against patients, and those who have, have been fired in some situations. Again oddly, this is not primarily what triggers my anxiety. Unfortunately enough, this requirement has also resulted in nurses getting seriously injured and violated. I hope to influence whether “no harm” techniques such as tai chi and aikido and arm locks may be allowed. The voluntary philosophy I was luckily already on board with is enforced by bureauacracy, directly relevant to my potential profession.

Were someone to get involved in a dangerous profession, such as a police officer, their moral duty would also be to own up to any spur of the moment anger or fear they acted on. 

It’s just that their bureaucracy acts differently, in excusing their actions.

Ideally, they would be taking steps far in advance, to avoid this often-cited fear of death reaction. As training pacifists like Aang do. 

And yes, army people are trained differently than police officers because the army, often, even when threatened, is supposed to avoid engagement or deploy deterrents that are non-lethal almost all costs, unless ordered otherwise. Whereas American police are given pretty much complete discretion and often not taught de-escalation techniques. Even police from other nations are better trained in that regard.

Enter the ironically named @avatarfandompolice whose account description should really speak for itself. Combative, dismissive, and their attention-hungry bread and butter is to find people they think it’s acceptable to ridicule.  They basically tried to say trauma was a valid excuse to take out your anger on other people, and in this situation, potentially kill. 

Now, does this hold up in the real world? Yeah, sometimes. Especially if some law breaker or law keeper has not been given the anger management tools, they perhaps could be excused, or better yet, rehabilitated.

But especially if anyone finds themselves in dangerous situations, or intends to put themselves in such, it falls to them to do this preparation.

As an aphant, I am at a bit of a disadvantage, compared to an average martial artist, being unable to visualize an attacker. But I still attempt it.

As the main “police officer” of the world- the coincidentally blue clad figurehead that is supposed to keep order, it is apparently fine for Korra to not do the work Aang did to keep level. To blow it off as too much trouble: clearing the First Chakra of fear. For herself or others. And its resultant anger. Had she had access to the Avatar State, the authority figure pretty much would have killed people.  This is what the “fandom police” and a certain chat goer ultimately support. Maybe they didn’t understand it that way, and since the second had blocked me, they will also never see this explanation. Unless I were to share it in Google Doc form I suppose.

So, I responded. “Remember kids, you are not responsible for your own behavior if you have the excuse that someone else did something bad to you.” A frighteningly common sentiment on this site.

When it’s low stakes like CAPSLOCKING or internet fights, that’s not such a big deal. But what happens if this attitude leaks into the real world? This isn’t even about Korra or Aang anymore, it’s about toxic mindsets. I didn’t know fans taking pro-Korra posts as anti-Aang was a common in the fandom. I’ll say again I’ve only just gotten really active on Tumblr like the past few months. This is about pacifism itself. MLK and his hardworking, training followers (yes some of them sixteen and POC and not super-powered like Korra) facing down firehoses and staging sit-ins long trained for would shake their heads at this defense of reactionism. 

Pacifism is not a Personality Trait.

It is deliberate actions and preparation taken over a period of time.

Then the “fandom police” tried more of this, and these two conversations ensued, the comments with another user resulting in the title and main thesis of this essay:

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638777472806273024/avatarfandompolice-response-to-my-independent

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638806142933467136/the-plight-was-not-what-i-was-getting-at-it-was

[softer-ua]

in regards to what you pointed out a few posts ago, ngl one of my least favorite fandom things is when they make Kaminari the Har Har Stupid Joking ADHD Bi Playboy Who Is Never Serious Trope. like, he's very smart, 'worst in ___ area of a UA course' is very impressive and I don't remember if it even said that or just that he was studying with some other students, worried about his grades overall, calls himself stupid with implied insecurities about it, and didn't think he was very smart compared to the other people in the course. quirk overuse makes him loopy, incoherent, and think everything's funny. and yeah, he's a bit of a flirt and made a few perverted comments and actions that he clearly didn't think through that well. I'm pretty sure he's not ever stated to be bi in the manga because it was written by a coward, so I think people should think more about why they're associating and pairing together the idea of "hot flirty playboy who if legally able would sleep with everyone he meets" with emphasis or joke in the captions of whatever the content is on him being bi. I don't think this is inherently bad, even put together, but the execution feels kind of :/ and shallow. and I mainly just wish they'd pause to consider if there's any reason (subconscious or intentional) why one of those makes them think about the other, and at the very least lean back to see if they're blatantly making those traits centric around each other and tweak how they're showing them a little. Part of this is also because it's basically his fanon sexuality, but then they stick together "oh he's bi and everyone thinks that" and "he's made flirty or perverted comments and actions in canon at some point" and then mentally exaggerate and have this Canon Image of him as *waves hand at above* and I don't think that's happening consciously in most cases but. again. Cookiecutter Bi Party Playboy Who's Made a Date Offer to Everyone In The Building. not a flirty Person or a Playboy who is bi and flirts with more than one genders

I myself headcanon him as adhd and while the exact sexuality depends on my mood I think of/have him as bi in a lot of my content, but it's the same thing with why non adhd people see how he acts and label "adhd!" Especially about comprehension speed and derpy acting and intelligence and attention span jokes/tropes. Again, not bad in and of itself, but the specific parts of his behavior that make them think he's adhd, or that they start making jokes about or Ha Ha ADHD'ing, or that they think is why we project ADHD on him, (which they aren't necessarily wrong about, but like right in a really disrespectful look at how funny this is oh look squirrel way that's only funny when adhd people are doing it and it isn't all mocking like that) when they see other people calling him adhd, are the wrong ones, I think, and it shows in their characterization of him.

I'm not saying that any of those traits are bad in a character, but as a queer adhd girl with very high annual test scores and Gifted Kid Intelligence but extremely poor grades, focus, and brain damage (admittedly nothing like his, it was a longterm passive thing that mainly just made me have a Lot of Really Bad headaches, and closest thing it did to me was make me sluggish and emotional on bad days and also techincally have the potential kill my language bit if left untreated or the surgery messed up, which it didn't, and it won't be a problem again. but even after explaining that it wasn't cancer or any sort of tumor, and after seeing it do very little at all to affect my behavior outside of irritability and performance, because y'know, constant migraines, gone after the surgery but this was before that, Certain People I Was Vaguely Kind Of Acquaintances With started to treat my like I was a fragile glass thing going to to drop dead and revive myself speaking like a comic relief cartoon crazy person at any moment which was. patronizing.) I've since had surgery for, the way the fandom combines them into stereotypes and portrays them really just rubs me the wrong way- "Flirty Bi(tm) Playboy" "Har Har ADHD Can't Focus Or Get Things After They're Explained To Him, He's Still Confused And An Idiot" "Stupid Person With Brain Damage Who Can't Take Care Of Or Think For Themself And Acts Stupid And Funny For People To Laugh At" which tbh is super ableist even and especially when people irl do fit that description, and also reminds me of the Autistic Person Freaking Out And Being Dramatic sense of humor. And I know it's not helped by canon, because it done for comic relief and to limit his powers, but explored more I think it as a limitation could have been used way more interestingly than canon did and also call me biased but that quirk induced brain frying sounds at least as concerning as Izuku's quirk's backlash.

And it's a shame!! Because he's so much more interesting than that! Instead, the fandom gives me the Cookicutter Funny Bi ADHD Flirt Who's An Idiot and I am sad about it.

tbh it reminds me of what happened to percy jackson, esp with the ADHD Idiot Trope thing. which sucks because apparently it originated in the author making up stories around characters like his adhd and dyslexic kid inspired by Greek myths to tell him after running out of actual myths because it was his special interest and he wanted more. and then the series got kind of all over the place and the fandom processed that the adhd and dyslexic main character who does dumb things sometimes but is very combat smart and great at strategizing and leading gets bad grades and has trouble focusing and has, y'know, adhd, and made him the ADHD Idiot and erased his Gifted Kid girl friend's traits and ADHD and dyslexia into No Nonsense Calls Him an Idiot And Thinks He's Stupid And Has To Tell Him What To Do And Manage His Life For Him and honestly that just kind of sucks and it reminds me of what happened to fandom Kaminari. and now that I think of it people have jirou like that around him a lot too.

im fine with you answering this publicly if you want or have something to add but probably tag as ableism and maybe a biphobia mention content warning for people who don't have the energy to deal with thinking about those kinds of negative things rn because I kind of Went Off About It

I love this! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences 💚(and double thank you for tag suggestions)💚

I couldn’t agree more that a lot of fandom has messed up Kami’s character, which is why I’ve kinda been posting more about him cause he’s just stuck in my head.

I think a lot of fandoms have trouble with characters like this, people have a hard time with duality in characters and fast/fun posts are easier to make if you flatten a character down.

The did it to Kami, they did it to Percy, they did it to Ron Weasley, they do it to Thor, the list goes on. If being the Smart One ™️ isn’t your thing and you can be goofy than you get pigeonholed into the idiot trope.

I feel for Kami a lot(probably because I have adhd/brain damage too)

It sucks when you’re smart but it’s not the traditional, measurable kind of smart(even if by national comparison Kami technically is).

I got terrible grades growing up, and I pretty much got the absolute lowest gpa you can get and still graduate. But absolutely no one would have known if I didn’t tell them, because I’m not dumb.

(It’s okay if you are “dumb”, I love me a head empty just vibes friend. You’re 100% valid, stil worthy of joining discussions, and should be listened to and taken seriously. This just isn’t about that tho)

I joke sometimes that I’m clever and witty but not smart, because that’s exactly what it feels like.

I have lots of thoughts and ideas that I think I articulate pretty well, I am excellent at finding the humor in things and expressing it in a way that’s funny to others too, and there is almost zero problems I can’t find a work around. And the people in my life love it, and they love to use it.

But eventually everyone in my life finds out that I’m not smart. They see the way I have to pause to Google how to calculate a tip, that I don’t know the name of all 50 states or even where to find them on a map, or I legitimately just can not spell (if you ever see a post where it looks like I used a weird word choice it’s probably because I tried 4 times and autocorrect+Google couldn’t help me and voice to text wasn’t an option)

No one ever questions my intelligence until they find out about my adhd and/or catch me struggling with it. After the mask comes off it’s like they can’t even hear me anymore, nothing I say could be true or matter because I’m now just the goofy accident prone spacy girl. My family literally calls me Spacy

And ya know what sometimes I just let people think that because it’s easier, it’s easier than explaining that I’m dyslexic and that I didn’t have a single geography/history clas until 10th grade and shocker the capital of Iowa doesn’t come up much by then. And it’s easier for me to laugh off losing my keys again than dwell on the fact that sometimes it feels like I’m losing my marbles.

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if after this post I get a lot more “fact checkers” and push back on anything else I post.(not talking about people who want to genuinely engage,y’all are always welcome, I’m talking those people who don’t wanna look it up themselves but no longer trust me to know what I’m talking about)

Kami is a sweet brilliant boy. He’s in a nationally high ranking school, he loves the weather channel, he’s careful about his quirk that could easily hurt his friends in combat, he has a very high emotional intelligence level, he wears dorky shirts with electricity puns on them, and he pays attention to his friends and remembers a lot of little things about them.

He wants to be a hero and he takes that seriously, and the series has tried time and time again to tell y’all that smiling and laughter are an important part of that. Kami excels at this part! So what if his history grades don’t rival the top of the class, the top 5 students would struggle hard to do what Kami does.

Iida can’t relax, Momos rather shy, Todo struggles with social cues, Midoriya is canonically not funny, and jfc where to even begin with Katsuki. I’m certain they’ll all grow up to be excellent heros in their own right, but none of them are going to bring the level of joy and camaraderie that Denki can. You can’t test that into someone.

Kami also just notices people differently and has any easy way of joining in with them, he doesn’t struggle approaching Katsuki or Shinso. Sure he doesn’t hit the the nail on the head the same way Deku does but he’s the only one who has the guts and skills to try. Also he’s not that kinda friend, he’s not looking to a save these guys but pal around with them

I think Kami 100% realizes what a special case and tough nut to crack Bakugo is, I don’t think he’s just careless or too dumb realize his life’s at stake or whatever.

I think he’s purposely testing Bakugos boundaries all while trying to not be a threat to Katsukis actual ego and calling Bakugo out when he needs it in a way that not to serious. Kami knows how to be just goofy enough that he’s approachable. He’s also keyed in that the way to Bakugo is through Deku, meanwhile everyone else is stuck believing the opposite.

Kami also realized how important music is to Jiro and saw an opportunity to let her display her skills and combin the two worlds she lives, and he wasn’t afraid to get some back lash from her for it.

Like Deku Kami isn’t afraid to be uncomfortable. You really can’t teach that level of social ease, you can teach the posture and feed people a couple of lines but it’ll never hit the same. Funny approachable people have spent a lifetime learning the craft, usually out of necessity.

It’s actually what gives me the biggest adhd vibes from him, because adhd is (speculated to be) a dopamine deficiency disorder. People with adhd are constantly trying to raise their dopamine levels, and that means looking for praise and reward and nothing makes the human brain light up faster than postative human connections.

Adhd children struggle a lot with connecting with peers and often find making people laugh a fast way into people’s circles and makes it more likely people will overlook being interrupted or spaced out on.

Also adhd people are pretty much forced by their own brain structures to be genuine in all they do, low dopamine levels make it very hard to do things you don’t enjoy because there no promise of dopamine from the activity and you don’t have enough to spare, plus impulsiveness makes it really hard to not show when you do or don’t enjoy something.

I agree that Kami is also painted as overly perverted at times, he’s a little flirty but in a fun casual way but it’s not the foundation of his personality and it’s really mellowed out over the course of the series.

And while I subscribe to the bi hc from his interactions with Jiro and Shinso, we should all be very mindful that we don’t lump these characteristics together. The are separate facets of his personality that are not dependent on each other in anyway.

Kami deserves all the respect and love, I can’t wait to see our electric king again 🖤⚡️🖤

[tlbodine]

A Horror History of Werewolves

As far as horror icons are concerned, werewolves are among the oldest of all monsters. References to man-to-wolf transformations show up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, making them pretty much as old as storytelling itself. And, unlike many other movie monsters, werewolves trace their folkloric roots to a time when people truly believed in and feared these creatures. 

But for a creature with such a storied past, the modern werewolf has quite the crisis of identity. Thanks to an absolute deluge of romance novels featuring sometimes-furry love interests, the contemporary idea of “werewolf” is decidedly de-fanged. So how did we get here? Where did they come from, where are they going, and can werewolves ever be terrifying again? 

Werewolves in Folklore and Legend 

Ancient Greece was full of werewolf stories. Herodotus wrote of a nomadic tribe from Scythia (part of modern-day Russia) who changed into wolves for a portion of the year. This was most likely a response to the Proto-Indo-European societies living in that region at the time -- a group whose warrior class would sometimes don animal pelts and were said to call on the spirit of animals to aid them in battle (the concept of the berserker has the same roots -- just bears rather than wolves).

In Arcadia, there was a local legend about King Lycaon, who was turned to a wolf as punishment for serving human meat to Zeus (exact details of the event vary between accounts, but cannibalism and crimes-against-the-gods are a common theme). Pliny the Elder wrote of werewolves as well, explaining that those who make a sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus would be turned to wolves but could resume human form years later if they abstained from eating human meat in that time.

By the time we reach the Medieval period in Europe, werewolf stories were widespread and frequently associated with witchcraft. Lycanthropy could be either a curse laid upon someone or a transformation undergone by someone practicing witchcraft, but either way was bad news in the eyes of the church. For several centuries, witch-hunts would aggressively seek out anyone suspected of transforming into a wolf.

One particularly well-known werewolf trial was for Peter Stumpp in 1589. Stumpp, known as "The Werewolf of Bedburg," confessed to killing and eating fourteen children and two pregnant women while in the form of a wolf after donning a belt given to him by the Devil. Granted, this confession came on the tail-end of extensive public torture, so it may not be precisely reliable. His daughter and mistress were also executed in a public and brutal way during the same trial.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? 

The thing you have to understand when studying folklore is that, for many centuries, wolves were the apex predator of Europe. While wolf attacks on humans have been exceedingly rare in North America, wolves in Europe have historically been much bolder -- or, at least, there are more numerous reports of man-eating wolves in those regions. Between 1362 and 1918, roughly 7,600 people were reportedly killed by wolves in France alone, which may have some bearing on the local werewolf tradition of the loup-garou.

For people living in rural areas, subsisting as farmers or hunters, wolves posed a genuine existential threat. Large, intelligent, utilizing teamwork and more than capable of outwitting the average human, wolves are a compelling villain. Which is probably why they show up so frequently in fairytales, from Little Red Riding Hood to Peter and the Wolf to The Three Little Pigs.

Early Werewolf Fiction 

Vampires have Dracula and zombies have I Am Legend, but there really is no clear singular book to point to as the "First Great Werewolf Novel." Perhaps by the time the novel was really taking off as an artform, werewolves had lost some of their appeal. After all, widespread literacy and reading-for-pleasure went hand-in-hand with advancements in civilization. For city-dwellers in Victorian England, for example, the threat of a wolf eating you alive probably seemed quite remote.

Don't get me wrong -- there were some Gothic novels featuring werewolves, like Sutherland Menzies' Hugues, The Wer-Wolf, or G.W.M. Reynolds' Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, or even The Wolf Leader by Alexandre Dumas. But these are not books that have entered the popular conscience by any means. I doubt most people have ever heard of them, much less read them.

No -- I would argue that the closest thing we have, thematically, to a Great Werewolf Novel is in fact The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Written in 1886, the Gothic novella tells the story of a scientist who, wanting to engage in certain unnamed vices without detection, created a serum that would allow him to transform into another person. That alter-ego, Mr. Hyde, was selfish, violent, and ultimately uncontrollable -- and after taking over the body on its own terms and committing a murder or two, the only way to stop Hyde’s re-emergence was suicide. 

Although not about werewolves, per se, Jekyll & Hyde touches on many themes that we'll see come up time and again in werewolf media up through the present day: toxic masculinity, the dual nature of man, leading a double life, and the ultimate tragedy of allowing one's base instincts/animal nature to run wild. Against a backdrop of Victorian sexual repression and a rapidly shifting concept of humanity's relationship to nature, it makes sense that these themes would resonate deeply (and find a new home in werewolf media).

It is also worth mentioning Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, published in 1933. Set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian war and subsequent military battles, the book utilizes a werewolf as a plot device for exploring political turmoil. A #1 bestseller in its day, the book was a big influence on the sci-fi and mystery pulp scene of the 1940s and 50s, and is still considered one of the best werewolf novels of its ilk.

From Silver Bullets to Silver Screens 

What werewolf representation lacks in novels, it makes up for in film. Werewolves have been a surprisingly enduring feature of film from its early days, due perhaps to just how much fun transformation sequences are to film. From camera tricks to makeup crews and animatronics design, werewolf movies create a lot of unique opportunities for special effects -- and for early film audiences especially (who were not yet jaded to movie magic), these on-screen metamorphoses must have elicited true awe. 

The Wolf Man (1941) really kicked off the trend. Featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as the titular wolf-man, the film was cutting-edge for its time in the special effects department. The creature design is the most memorable thing about the film, which has an otherwise forgettable plot -- but it captured viewer attention enough to bring Chaney back many times over for sequels and Universal Monster mash-ups. 

The Wolf Man and 1944's Cry of the Werewolf draw on that problematic Hollywood staple, "The Gypsy Curse(tm)" for their world-building. Fortunately, werewolf media would drift away from that trope pretty quickly; curses lost their appeal, but “bite as mode of transmission” would remain an essential part of werewolf mythos. 

In 1957, I Was a Teenage Werewolf was released as a classic double-header drive-in flick that's nevertheless worth a watch for its parallels between werewolfism and male aggression (a theme we'll see come up again and again). Guy Endore's novel got the Hammer Film treatment for 1961's The Curse of the Werewolf, but it wasn't until the 1970s when werewolf media really exploded: The Beast Must Die, The Legend of the Wolf Woman, The Fury of the Wolfman, Scream of the Wolf, Werewolves on Wheels and many more besides.

Hmmm, werewolves exploding in popularity around the same time as women's liberation was dramatically redefining gender roles and threatening the cultural concept of masculinity? Nah, must be a coincidence.

The 1980s brought with it even more werewolf movies, including some of the best-known in the genre: The Howling (1981), Teen Wolf (1985), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and The Company of Wolves (1984). Differing widely in their tone and treatment of werewolf canon, the films would establish more of a spiderweb than a linear taxonomy.

That spilled over into the 1990s as well. The Howling franchise went deep, with at least seven films that I can think of. Wolf, a 1994 release starring Jack Nicholson is especially worth a watch for its themes of dark romantic horror. 

By the 2000s, we get a proper grab-bag of werewolf options. There is of course the Underworld series, with its overwrought "vampires vs lycans" world-building. There's also Skin Walkers, which tries very hard to be Underworld (and fails miserably at even that low bar). But there's also Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps, arguably two of the finest werewolf movies of all time -- albeit in extremely different ways and for very different reasons.

Dog Soldiers is a straightforward monster movie pitting soldiers against ravenous werewolves. The wolves could just as easily have been subbed out with vampires or zombies -- there is nothing uniquely wolfish about them on a thematic level -- but the creature design is unique and the film itself is mastefully made and entertaining.

Ginger Snaps is the first werewolf movie I can think of that tackles lycanthropy from a female point of view. Although The Company of Wolves has a strong feminist angle, it is still very much a film about male sexuality and aggression. Ginger Snaps, on the other hand, likens werewolfism to female puberty -- a comparison that frankly makes a lot of sense.

The Werewolf as Sex Object 

There are quite literally thousands of werewolf romance novels on the market, with more coming in each day. But the origins of this trend are a bit fuzzier to make out (no pun intended). 

Everyone can mostly agree that Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was the turning-point for sympathetic vampires -- and paranormal romance as a whole. But where do werewolves enter the mix? Possibly with Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter books, which feature the titular character in a relationship with a werewolf (and some vampires, and were-leopards, and...many other things). With the first book released in 1993, the Anita Blake series seems to pre-date similar books in its ilk. 

Blood and Chocolate (1997) by Annette Curtis Klause delivers a YA-focused version of the classic “I’m a werewolf in high school crushing on a mortal boy”; that same year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the small screen, and although the primary focus was vampires, there is a main werewolf character (and romancing him around the challenges of his wolfishness is a big plot point for the characters involved). And Buffy, of course, paved the way for Twilight in 2005. From there, werewolves were poised to become a staple of the ever-more-popular urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre. 

“Sexy werewolf” as a trope may have its roots in other traditions like the beastly bridegroom (eg, Beauty and the Beast) and the demon lover (eg, Labyrinth), which we can talk about another time. But there’s one other ingredient in this recipe that needs to be discussed. And, oh yes, we’re going there. 

Alpha/Beta/Omegaverse 

By now you might be familiar with the concept of the Omegaverse thanks to the illuminating Lindsay Ellis video on the topic (and the current ongoing lawsuit). If not, well, just watch the video. It’ll be easier than trying to explain it all. (Warning for NSFW topics). 

But the tl;dr is that A/B/O or Omegaverse is a genre of (generally erotic) romance utilizing the classical understanding of wolf pack hierarchy. Never mind that science has long since disproven the stratification of authority in wolf packs; the popular conscious is still intrigued by the concept of a society where some people are powerful alphas and some people are timid omegas and that’s just The Way Things Are. 

What’s interesting about the Omegaverse in regards to werewolf fiction is that, as near as I’ve been able to discover, it’s actually a case of convergent evolution. A/B/O as a genre seems to trace its roots to Star Trek fanfiction in the 1960s, where Kirk/Spock couplings popularized ideas like heat cycles. From there, the trope seems to weave its way through various fandoms, exploding in popularity in the Supernatural fandom. 

What seems to have happened is that the confluence of A/B/O kink dynamics merging with urban fantasy werewolf social structure set off a popular niche for werewolf romance to truly thrive. 

It’s important to remember that, throughout folklore, werewolves were not viewed as being part of werewolf societies. Werewolves were humans who achieved wolf form through a curse or witchcraft, causing them to transform into murderous monsters -- but there was no “werewolf pack,” and certainly no social hierarchy involving werewolf alphas exerting their dominance over weaker pack members. That element is a purely modern one rooted as much in our misunderstanding of wolf pack dynamics as in our very human desire for power hierarchies. 

So Where Do We Go From Here? 

I don’t think sexy werewolf stories are going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no room left in horror for werewolves to resume their monstrous roots. 

Thematically, werewolves have done a lot of heavy lifting over the centuries. They hold up a mirror to humanity to represent our own animal nature. They embody themes of toxic masculinity, aggression, primal sexuality, and the struggle of the id and ego. Werewolf attack as sexual violence is an obvious but powerful metaphor for trauma, leaving the victim transformed. Werewolves as predators hiding in plain sight among civilization have never been more relevant than in our #MeToo moment of history. 

Can werewolves still be frightening? Absolutely. 

As long as human nature remains conflicted, there will always be room at the table for man-beasts and horrifying transfigurations. 

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