#truly though this episode is SO gay. i might write a whole thing on it later | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

Text

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

#I don't actually know how to tag this #representation #maybe?#C needs help feeding the dinosaurs #because this is very much about being a fandom old #probably also #driveby meta attack #because that's where I keep my impromptu rambles #CR spoilers #technically I guess?#there's one line that references the finale #fandom history

6K notes · View notes

unlikely-course · 2 years

Text

D’you think the attempted tooth-pulling is the closest we’ll get to a sex scene? <-THIS is the dumbass sentence I was writing when it finally hit me. It’s like pulling teeth. with them. To get them to admit what they feel for each other. Literally, Allison is having her teeth pulled rather than have an honest emotional conversation with Patty. Get it? Good. Let’s get into it.

Lord but the show does love its little metaphors. This week’s even more so than usual. Pickup from last season’s Allison is fast food and this one’s Allison is cigarettes, Allison is now liquor. In fact we get so direct that it seems less for us and more like the universe is trying its damnedest to spell it for her: you both drink the same amount, but Patty gets stuck with the hangover, Allison. You do not because “Kevin is rubbing off” on you.

And it works! We see real time she has a “my actions…affect Patty negatively….especially if I leave” realization complete with flashback montage. Beautiful! We love to see it. Now if only she could have another reflective flashback montage to realize a few other things! Including the fact that you maybe should not sic your terrible husband on Patty’s girlfriend! Even if it would solve one problem it would create like three new ones at least. God but it’s wild that we only have two episodes left. There’s no time for anything! Especially everything happening with Neil and Diane and whatnot. I’m not even sure what exactly is happening with Neil and I’m in no mood to guess. Diane however I’m much more concerned about. That convo in the diner with her and Allison—“I always felt like I had a girl.” I had to go like stare into the back patio for a while. My heart.

Tammy was funny—I truly think she was so hoping Allison would be able to give some dumb explanation for the footage, she just wants this to not be a thing so badly but she’s also incapable of dropping it. Still, Allison almost certainly confirmed to Tammy that she was involved. And I thought the guilty little way Allison straightened up when Tammy came in was great—she’d been so oriented to Patty before. You ever think about how much more they’d touch if Patty would allow it?

Anyway I do agree with Tammy that Patty’s been weird lately. I think the end of 2x03, when Patty tells Allison to be Gertrude, it kind of…took all the fight out of her, almost? There’s such an air about her of “this might as well be happening.” She’s resigned to losing her. I think it’s made her much more likely to openly be fond of Allison (why pretend she doesn’t enjoy her, at this point?) while at the same time made honest conversation about certain things much less likely. I’ve also been mulling like…the haircut and that new coat she has in 2x05. They’re not very big changes but all I can think is “she’s moving from moxie-filled sitcom sidekick to police procedural girlfriend.” Patricia do you know what happens to girlfriends on those shows?? Especially gay ones???

Anyway next ep looks dicey for sure. At least we know kitchen scene is in there? And like…it’ll probably work out for them because it’s the second to last episode? I must admit I never considered the bad ending route but the chance I suppose is never zero. It would be weird. The season as a whole is much more diffuse than the first, not as tight or precise—makes sense, given there must have been some pivoting with the cancellation. Still good though, and definitely with many things to say and saying them well. Have no blessed idea what it’s going to do with two hours on the clock though.

#I do think Patty would be a good nurse but I almost don’t want that to be what she really wants just for like the hours alone #take a break babes!#kcfh #kcfh spoilers #kevin can f**k himself #kevin can fuck himself

51 notes · View notes

sortasirius · 4 years

Text

What the Fuck Happened to the SPN Finale?

Okay so here it is, my Charlie Kelly style manifesto.

Before I get into it, I recognize that I will look like this to many of you, and that’s okay, I understand:

Secondly, your personal Takes about the writers don’t interest me, I don’t need to hear them. This, as I’ll explain, is going to remain a writer positive blog, and that’s the end of it.

Third, and most importantly: some of what I’m going to talk about is fact, and some is highly educated speculation. I will notate what is speculation, just so there’s no confusion or hot takes in my inbox that I’m a conspiracy theorist or stirring shit up for no reason.

A list of what I’ll be discussing

The episode in regards to the rest of the season

The episode issues: length, editing

Scene placement and speculation of scenes cut

The scrubbing of Jack, Cas, Eileen

Network involvement and general timeline of when things were cut

Misha: theories on where he was, official company line, why we can’t expect to hear anything directly

The silence of the cast post episode (in Misha’s case, mid episode) and what this might mean

Jensen speaking with Kripke about the ending: why it doesn’t mean what you might think (also why kripke remained positive on the ending)

Walker, and why this episode had a major shift

Why the network would do this or get involved

Why the writers of the show simply aren’t the bad guys here, and what I “want” out of this post, since I know it’ll get asked

This is very long and under a cut, but I hope you’ll give it a read.

The Episode In Regards to the Rest of the Season

So, I’ve discussed this already here, but it’s the most obvious thing to me, and that’s the way this episode simply doesn’t fit with the rest of the season.

These people in this room have, truly, been nothing but consistent when it comes to their arcs, especially this season, and the marked dropoff in quality for the finale episode is just too sus to discount to me. Dabb’s whole focus has been character-based. In his seasons, we’ve moved far away from MOTW and bro-codependency, the found family taking it’s place. Does it really sit right to anyone that that was all thrown away in literally the last episode of the entire show?

This is speculation on my part, but as a writer myself, there is no way I would be happy or willing to stamp my name on something that I didn’t think would, at the very least, wrap up the season+ character arcs that I and my team had been crafting.

And before anyone comes in here saying, “well GOT did that!” Bruh. The writing was on the wall for GOT long before the final episode. You could tell that the showrunners just wanted to be done (not only from the plot, but from the fact that they lobbied for a shorter season). Miss me with that, it doesn’t apply here. Andrew has, besides Singer and J2, been with the show longer than anyone. He cares, he is meticulous and detailed, and this ending feels worse than anything Bucklemming has ever written, let alone Dabb.

Additionally, I’ve seen a lot of people say that Dabb was never behind Destiel, that it was all Bobo and Meredith and no one else. That is reductive to the point of insult of the work Dabb has done to get this greenlit. This man did not write the s13 Dean grief arc to be slandered like this. That being said, YES, Bobo and Meredith were the leads on the DeanCas arc this season, but ANDREW IS THE SHOWRUNNER, TO GET EVEN THE CONFESSION APPROVED BY THE NETWORK HE WOULD HAVE TO HAVE THEIR BACKS. AND HE DID.

Finale Issues

So, now that we’ve gotten the fact that this episode doesn’t hit on any of the major themes the show was barrelling towards all season, let’s discuss the fact that the episode is just...weird.

Not only is it shorter than any other episode (I think with the intro and the credits/crew thing at the end, it was around 38 mins), but it was also...idk, 90% filler?

One of the lovely humans in the POLOL server did the legwork here, and broke it down:

This is weird, y’all. Most series finales are LONGER than normal (Lost, SOA, Longmire are the ones I can think of off the top of my head), and for the final episode to be this? I saw more than one person point out that we only really needed 19 episodes, what was the point of 20? AND THAT’S EXACTLY IT? WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS FINAL EPISODE IF THIS WAS ALL WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GET?

It simply doesn’t make any sense, the first half of the episode was rushed, a final monster hunt gone wrong, but in the second half? Nothing really happened? Sam lived his entire life and Dean just drove around. It doesn’t make sense to have all the emotional arcs left unaddressed in an episode that definitely needed some kind of spark.

Here’s the speculation I have: the episode seemingly went through a lot of changes between the initial inception of the final season and when we actually got it, but I think it would have been passable (as in, we wouldn’t be sitting here asking each other why each arc feels incomplete) until the editing room got ahold of it. The only think that makes this episode make sense is network fuckery. Truly, that is the only thing. It explains the weird, cuts, the rushed pacing of the first half followed by nothing in the second half, the double montages of “Wayward Son” back to back, and Dean just...driving around for the last half of the episode.

Scene Placement and Speculation of Scenes Cut

Before I get into this section, the info of the shots in the episode I have come from a source that @occamshipper got a week or so before the finale. She’s talked about this here.

So here’s what Min was given:

1-5: 1 INT MEN OF LETTERS – DEAN’S ROOM Dean is greeted by Miracle

6-10: 6 INT MEN OF LETTERS – HALLWAY/SAM’S ROOM Sam has his routine

D1 1 11-15: 15 EXT FARM HOUSE Establishing

N1 1/8 16-20: 19 Dad’s journal, marker, drawing of masked man in journal.

21-25: 23 INT IMPALA – PMP Driver picks the music

N2 1 3/8 1,2 26-30: 28pt2 INT BARN: A face from the past

28pt3 Sam and Dean say goodbye

28pt4 Shot early for technical reasons, presumably the overhead shot

N2 31-45: 41 INT MEN OF LETTERS – SAM’S ROOM Sam’s alarm goes off D4 1/8 1 46-60: 56 INT N7glasses for Sam, laptop.

So...it all fits right? It all tracks with the actual episode, where it lands, etc. The issue is between shots 29-40 which were apparently “too big to spoil.” Uh. Where are they? And where’s 28 pt4?

After Dean dies, the next scene is Sam burning him, then shot 31, the shot of his alarm going off.

So. Where are those 11ish shots?

PLUS we have the boards, which are scenes we KNOW were actually shot:

As well as scenes for 20 that were shot in 19.

It’s just...weird, it’s weird and again hits on the fact that the episode is so short and like 80% montage.

The Scrubbing of Jack, Cas, and Eileen

So now we have to reckon with the fact that Eileen was last mentioned by Sam after she got snapped by Chuck, Jack’s last mention is that he’s off being God somewhere, and Cas’ last mention is a ~knowing look~ between Dean and Bobby.

I’m sorry, make it make sense:

???????? That’s the end if it? They don’t need to be discussed after this??? It’s just simply not something a writer would do, they would not introduce these characters, these arcs, without thinking there’s going to be some kind of follow through here.

So not only were three major characters (including two leads and both of the original characters’ love interests) completely wiped from the finale episode, it was as though Sam and Dean never even needed them, which just...ain’t it.

So why Eileen and Jack too? Why not just take Cas out of it if they were afraid of the gay? Because, ultimately, the episode went back to Kripke’s original story: just the bros, they only need each other and no one else. They don’t want anyone else, they don’t need anyone else. Easier to go back to something they knew was successful than trust the writers and their audience and take a big leap.

Alex even said he shot for 20 with “some of the guys” here. What happened to that footage?

The complete 180 of it all still shocks me, I still cannot believe that we were essentially at the finish line, and the network just stopped short, and decided to go run another race, at the expense of the arc of this fifteen year legacy show.

Network Involvement and When Things Were Cut

Okay, now into the juicy stuff.

So I’ve pretty well established that network fuckery is clear, but how much did they get involved, what was the original intent?

Well again, we may never actually know what Andrew’s original script was, but I think, at the least, it would involve Dean speaking his truth to Cas and Sam living a life with Eileen.

Now, it seems today, that Misha said that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale in one iteration of the script, and while initially my brain was like “that truly makes no sense and he’s either straight up lying or telling a half truth,” I think what may be happening is Misha talking about as much as he can right now.

So Jimmy right. Weird as fuck. Why would he been in the Roadhouse and not Cas? My current thought (this is about as reachy as I’ll get) is that Jimmy had no lines, could he have been in the Roadhouse as a red herring, like it said “Jimmy” in the script but it was just Cas in human clothes, a way to get around the network saying Cas couldn’t be in the final scene. Also, you’ll notice that Misha didn’t say that Cas wasn’t supposed to be in the ep at all, just Jimmy in the last scene.

All this to say, there have clearly been multiple versions of the script, getting lighter and lighter with Cas and Eileen as the network pulled further and further back. Remember, Dabb has to get things approved before they get shot, and if the network kept asking and asking and asking to cut Cas and Eileen, he had to find a way to work around it. Granted, I still think that if we had been able to get a Dabb script that wasn’t torn to shreds in editing, it wouldn’t be so bad. It may not be what a lot of us wanted (Dean speaking his truth to Cas and a reciprocation), but doing everything he could to give it to us in subtext or visual clues.

Plus, in all honesty, my man can’t keep his story straight anyway. He said twice in his panel that the Empty and offscreen Heaven ending weren’t his original ending either.

In addition, remember that Jensen did ADR post episode 18, AND said in a meet and greet last weekend that Dean’s reaction to Cas’ confession was “cut down.” (Source here). Many of us clowns got excited when we first heard about ADR, because we thought it would be upping the ante on Dean’s reaction, but I remember being a little sus when it was just crying. My speculation on that is that they cut out Dean actually SAYING something, @winchestersingerautorepair spoke about that here.

The biggest sins were, in my opinion, committed during editing, where the network got too gun shy and sliced the episode until it was nothing but a heartless bro-fest of a finale, not mentioning anything about the other major characters that we all love, and letting the boys just suffer in separation until Sam died and finally joined Dean in Heaven. The editing came by cutting all the major emotional beats between anyone other than Dean and Sam, leaving the skeleton of the story intact, just shorter and less...poignant than it was ever supposed to be.

Misha

We know Misha was in Vancouver, we know he quarantined, but we also know he wasn’t in the final scene, when he spoke about being in the last moment of the show months ago. We were not crazy, he was there, he quarantined, and, in all likelihood (speculation but fitting with the timeline), he actually may have shot something (not much, but something).

I have sources here, here, here, and here showing where Misha was at that time.

Remember, the man was completely open about coming back until they finished shooting (look at this thread). The switch happened, just like everything else, halfway through them shooting.

Please also remember Jake Abel posting his “Where’s Misha” video here. Jake isn’t malicious, he isn’t being nasty here. Misha was there, and everyone that’s trying to convince people he’s wasn’t just...isn’t telling the truth about it.

This is one of the things that makes me really mad, because they’re literally attempting to gaslight people into thinking, “oh we were totally wrong he was never supposed to be there” WHEN HE WAS THERE, WE KNOW HE WAS THERE.

So we’ve already heard from several people (Meghan Fitzmartin, Jay, a PA on the set of 19 (WHO WAS NOT WORKING FOR 20), Misha himself) that this was all down to Covid restrictions. Ultimately, as this post says, we’ve heard FIVE versions of where Misha was. None of it makes sense, but the Covid protocol seems to be the company line that others are repeating.

You may ask: why? Why lie to all of us when we have questions? Why, in Jay’s case, say that we’re all spreading false lies to stir up trouble, when we just have questions and things that do not make sense. Simply? Warner Brothers is absolutely massive. These people have their careers to protect and are likely all under NDAs. They want to work for WB again and don’t want to burn bridges, including Misha. It sucks, but that’s why it’s unlikely that we’ll hear someone come out and say, “yeah we’re lying to you.”

Silence of the Cast Post Episode

So this is...probably the worst part of all this, at least in my opinion.

The guys had all been pretty excited about the end of the show (especially Jared, but Jensen’s panel last week was Jensen as happy and jokey and positive as I’ve ever seen him. He was so excited about episode 18, about what it meant for Dean and for Cas, and I just cannot buy that he would have been that excited unless he thought there was something more in the episode.

Misha live-tweeted the episode, and was watching it with his kids. It’s well known that Misha and the kids don’t watch the show because it’s too scary, and let’s ask ourselves, why would he have them watch an episode that he’s barely even mentioned in?

He also stopped live-tweeting at a very specific point in the episode (Dean’s death) and has not mentioned Supernatural since then.

None of them, not Jared, Jensen, Misha, or even Alex, said anything about the episode for nearly 36 hours, when Jensen posted a salty photo on instagram. It’s just...not what you’d expect for the end of a 15 year show, when the cast and crew are so close to the fans, so close to each other.

My theory? They didn’t know. They thought Misha was, at least, going to be in the episode in some way, and when he wasn’t, they decided not to say anything.

You really think that Jensen “Heller” Ackles would have been so excited about the end of the show last week if he thought Cas wasn’t going to be in it at all? Nah son, doesn’t make any sense.

Even today, in Jared and Misha’s panels, they seemed sad and...more than a little careful, both saying that there were things they couldn’t say, both talking around things that we all have questions on.

Jensen Speaking with Kripke

So this is where a lot of people are getting fodder to take shots at the writers, saying that Jensen hated it from the beginning, but I don’t think so. I actually think I know what Jensen went to him about, and it wasn’t the lack of Cas or the weird pacing or the montages (which I don’t think were there when Jensen got the script); I think it was the manner of Dean’s death.

I know a lot of people were upset about that, upset with how...normal it was, coming off an episode where they literally beat God. I actually didn’t mind it, I thought it was an interesting thematic take to be like: you can be a hero all your life, but sometimes shit happens, and you just die.

But imagine how hard that was for Jensen to read. He would run to Kripke for that, because for him, Dean dying by being impaled by a piece of rebar had to be tough to swallow.

So, why didn’t Kripke say that? Why didn’t he say, “oh well he had a problem with Dean’s death, none of that other stuff was in the script.”

Guys. Why would he get involved? He’s not going to burn bridges any more than anyone else is. He said the ending was good because it’s the easy thing to do, it’s simple, will cause him no problems in his career, and he can just ignore the people trying to engage with him on it.

Walker

Something else to talk about is the major shift this episode had from the rest of the season: the shift from Dean to Sam. I am NOT saying that Sam isn’t important, he definitely, absolutely is, but it was DEAN who really needed to wrap up his arc, Sam just needed to move on, get married to Eileen, become the leader he was always meant to. So what changed? What was with the shirtless scene, the Austin number and random case there, most of the episode being heavily Sam focused, going through his entire life in a montage?

Anyone else notice the 375 Walker promos, or Jared’s little spiel about Walker and how he hoped SPN fans would “come along for the ride.”

It’s...kinda obvious? CW wanted to appeal to who they think the key demographic of SPN and Walker is: rural areas in the South. It would explain a lot, why so much editing, why so Sam focused, the Austin number, the number of Walker promos, all of it.

I’m not saying this is fact, I don’t know that it is, but it is a little suspicious that even in Jared’s panel today, he talked A LOT about Walker and how he hopes SPN fans will watch it.

Why Would the Network Get Involved?

Simply put: $$$

If they think Walker can be the new SPN, and that those crazy SPN fans liked it originally, it’s a lot safer to go with the “original intent” of the show than do something risky (like making one of your two original leads queer).

And? They don’t care. They don’t care that the episode didn’t make sense, they don’t care that all the emotional arcs were left hanging, they don’t care by (potentially) smashing together two of Dean’s monologues (one to Sam, one to Cas) that it came of as...gross. ( @curioussubjects wrote a beautiful post showing how part of that death speech was likely meant for Dean here). They don’t care, they never have, they just want to make their money and move on from the too-loud fandom that fought for representation too hard for too long.

It can’t help but feel insidious, which, honestly, it might be, but it really all comes down to the next cash cow, which, they think, is Walker, even at the cost of the fifteen year legacy show.

The Writers and What I Want

So here it is, all this weird, sus shit laid out on the line. And you know what? To me, there is no way to blame the writers, because they didn’t want this.

I don’t think Dabb and Bobo would have gone ahead with the confession in 18 without thinking that there would be some closure to that arc, they wouldn’t have done that not only to the fans, but for the sake of their own story as well: no writer wants to start something that they can’t finish. (And this applies to both Cas and Eileen).

Here’s a basic rundown of what I think happened: they had a clear arc from 18-20, ending in reciprocation at some level from Dean, Sam marrying Eileen, Hunter Sam as the new Bobby, Dean in heaven with Cas and big roadhouse reunion at the end. Covid prevented a good amount of that. Network had to stare at big gay 18 for six months, got cold feet. Thought about Walker, target audience and alienation of the rural areas if it went full gay. Misha quarantined and likely shot something (not much), he was then cut by execs and went home. They likely added in lines referencing Eileen and Cas to make it clear but more subtextual. They wrap, editing gets it and hacks it to pieces, so we get a shorter episode that’s mostly montages and jarringly bro-centric with nothing else. Arcs are left hanging. Dabb gets episode but it’s too late, there’s nothing he can do. Actors aren’t told so they can continue to do positive PR for the ending, they all found out at the same time we did: hence almost complete silence about the finale.

And you know what? They warned us. I talked about it here, but they’ve been telling us all season that Chuck wasn’t the writer, he’s the network. I don’t think, still, that they thought it would be cut up like this, into something so unsalvageable that it’s been panned by almost everyone, even people who didn’t care much about Dean and Cas.

Finally, a masterpiece can be ruined by editing, and while I’m not sure even the script they ended up shooting on was a masterpiece (due to the network meddling already), but to me it’s blatantly obvious that it’s no one but the network that caused this, that took away closure for Dean, Cas, and even Sam.

So what do I want? Nothing really, there’s nothing we can do, but I wrote this mostly to show people that the writers are not your enemy. In fact, to the people trashing them? You’re doing exactly what the CW wants you to: blame the obvious targets, blame Misha, blame Jensen and Jared, blame Dabb. Scream and yell at them on Twitter and about how the show is ruined because of them. The network keeps their engagement levels high, they don’t get as targeted for their behavior, and just keep moving along.

Just, please, think about who did this, Mourn the show, be angry, but not at the people who fought tooth and nail for this for literal years, not the people who wanted it more than we did, not the people who cannot say anything because of their careers and the NDAs they’re bound by.

Someone is going to spill eventually, but until then, we just have to wait, and continue to be loud.

#my writing #my meta #supernatural #spn #spn finale trash fire #MY MANIFESTO IS DONE

3K notes · View notes

yjwhatif · 3 years

Text

With the semi/cryptic confirmation of Ed and Barts relationship in the series I have a question:

Do you think everyone knows about them (in world) or do you think they’re keeping it secret from some?

It’s just a thought that’s been in my head recently. It is most likely fuelled by the whole drama of G&B not being able to depict a “specific character” (it’s definitely Bart) as gay. They’ve had to hide the relationship from their audience - because of ridiculous reasons - but there are still moments that bring up the question - Are they? Before the reveals from AskGreg, I kinda thought- well they are clearly not together yet, but perhaps they both have feelings for one another and are just waiting for the other to make the next move because they’re nervous idiots who don’t want to have read the situation wrong — all while their friends are like - seriously guys? just get together already. Kinda like they did in s1 with Wally and Artemis - and I guess early Supermartian as well - which I would have been okay with... though with the likelihood of there being at least another two year time skip you’d probably have missed the getting together moment - which would kinda suck. Anyway. With the information about the chances being they were supposed to clearly be in a relationship throughout S3 — which makes the whole structuring of ILLUSIONS just make sense — it’s got me viewing their moments with a whole new energy. Also, I saw this post by Greg —

And let me just clarify, I have no idea if this is actually referencing the Ed and Bart stuff, it might not be (probably isn't). This is purely me speculating.

My reading of this is they got told they couldn’t depict Bart as gay pretty late on and that specifically affected ILLUSIONS where they likely intended to confirm the relationship with that first shot - the kiss on the cheek moment. Even now that moment is just odd - because it’s there but it’s not - because technically there is no actual kiss… which I think is absolutely the point. It plants the seed without actually breaking any rules - all by keeping the momentum but removing the specific kiss frame. It’s the only moment that I feel is explicit in saying they are in a relationship - everything else you can just read into and imply there’s something - but they technically don’t confirm anything.

The whole thing is actually quite interesting - despite the reasoning for it being totally ridiculous. By keeping/showing what they did... People notice it. People talk about it. People reflect on it. More people talk about it. People writing. Make. Create. Discuss it. An entire audience is formed who want and support it. It’s a whole thing now because people noticed it and generated a positive response to it - and that was before all the AskGreg information. The whole reason YJ got a season 3 is because the fans fought to get it back. Enough people talked about it - and kept talking about it - to convince TPTB that the show should come back. Greg and Brandon know this. They know the power the fans have and maybe they hoped that power would help them again in freeing Bart from these ridiculous restrictions. #letbartoutofthecloset

Obviously, we can't know until S4 is released whether G&B got the permission to confirm Bart's sexuality the way they envisioned - but maybe the responses that came during the release of 3b were enough to convince TPTB that they were fighting a losing battle. But who knows, people in power can be very stubborn at times, so we will just have to see what we get. Fingers crossed they eased up though - and not just because of the Ed/Bart relationship (which I am obviously a fan of -- it's fine if not everyone is) - but because these restrictions on LGBTQ+ content shouldn't be a thing and need to stop -- there is just no validity in them.

Anyhow. despite their not being allowed to officially confirm the relationship, Greg's comment about Ed's having a boyfriend they can't name basically confirms the fact without technically breaking any rules again. Masterfully done Wiesman. With this, it implies the pair are in fact dating during S3 which brings us back to the original question... but who knows??

With the comments of Virgil during ILLUSIONS, it's easy to assume their friends do in fact know. They also seem to have no problem being close and interacting with one another whilst in the presence of others -- that is, except for one moment...

Ever since the first time I saw this episode (ELDER WISDOM) I have always found this moment strange - because Ed seems to get kinda awkward when Barry comes to check on Bart. (Or that's how I see it at least.) He realises Flash is standing there and immediately pulls his head down averting his gaze -- almost like he doesn't want to be seen by the elder. But why? Does Barry not know about the pair -- or maybe he doesn't know about Bart and Ed thinks their current closeness is too revealing -- who's to say Bart's even fully out to the world yet -- who's to say either of them are? We certainly don't since we weren't allowed to be shown. We can't know until we know - so until then we can play the speculation game while we wait.

Bart is certainly a bit of a secret keeper when it comes to being himself. I'm still convinced the Bart we see onscreen is merely his interpretation of what he thinks people expect from a speedster in this time. We saw 'real' Bart, he was snarky and cynical and nothing like the Bart we've had for the past two seasons. He said it himself - he's playing a character - and I don't think he knows how to break out of it - not while the possibility exists that it might hurt those he's grown to care about. Bart wants to be seen a certain way to avoid acknowledging the truth of the past - if people see him as happy and smiley, then no one will question him on things he doesn't want to talk about. The problem with that is you can't hide yourself forever - cracks begin to form and eventually, the truth comes out whether you want it to or not. So who knows how comfortable Bart is revealing any of his true self to those he cares about. Maybe his relationship with Ed will be the thing that finally helps him find comfort in being himself, whilst also trusting others to still accept him as himself... and maybe getting him that bit of therapy he really needs.

This brings us to Eduardo… First, can I just say it made me so happy to see Greg’s confirmation of Ed being gay - though it is slightly annoying that he was robbed of his explicit onscreen reveal in S3 thanks to the drama with Bart. His whole relationship to his powers in S2 to S3 fits the representation of coming to terms with your sexuality/identity from a very negative point of view. Feeling like it’s something that needs fixing or needs to be “cured” - to then finding the light and freedom in accepting yourself for you. His growth between seasons is brilliant. He understands the hate and insecurity the teens are feeling because he felt it himself. He does all he can to help them because he never felt he got that help when he needed it - and no one deserves to feel worse for being who they are. Obviously, the things he talks about are framed in the context of dealing with/accepting the meta-gene - yet there are certain moments where it seems he’s saying more than that…

All of which got me wondering - why did Ed originally runaway? It certainly wasn’t because of the meta-abilities he did not yet have. All he’s ever said on the subject was he thought he wanted to be with his father - the man it seems he barely had a relationship with. No, I think Ed has been running from himself for a long time and his dad just happened to be an actual direction for him to aim for. The way he speaks about his wanting to be “cured” and “praying to get rid of his powers” suggests an upbringing around religion and traditional ideas of there being a ‘normal/proper’ way to be — while anything that doesn’t fit that way is treated as other or something that needs to be changed or 'fixed'. Maybe he ran to avoid being found out and run the risk of being ostracised by those he loved. Or maybe he was found out and leaving wasn’t entirely his choice*. If this was the case, I can certainly imagine him not wanting to come out to his dad for fear of his reaction and completely losing all chance of that father-son relationship they’re both trying so hard to keep. It can seem easier to live in secret than risk the reality of loss. So while the meta-gene likely wasn’t the main thing he was angry about in S2, it was able to become a physical thing he could blame and focus his anger on - without having to think about where his issues truly lied… Though with a bit of time it also became the thing he was comfortable conveying his feelings through...

“I’ve learned to accept, even love my meta-abilities”

I love this line so much and it’s all because of the delivery by Freddy Rodrigues. There is the slightest hint of a pause before he says “meta-abilities”, which gives the impression he was about to say something else before then remembering himself and who he was talking to. Then there’s the small inflecion he put on “love”, which makes it sound like it’s the first time he’s heard himself say the words out loud. I don’t hear him talking about the gene - I hear him talking about finally accepting himself - all of himself - for the first time in maybe ever and finally feeling happy because of it. I hear growth... From being the angry 14-year-old skater who just wanted to run away and escape any way he could. To the 16-year-old councillor/Outsider jumping straight into the danger to protect and inspire those who need it. Both he and Bart are such strong characters with so much more to be seen - especially when it comes to the insecurities which lie behind their masks. They both compliment each other pretty perfectly - both powers-wise and personality-wise - meaning while they try to hide themself from others, I don't think it'll take long for them to realise they can't hide from each other.

Anywho, that’s all the speculatary nonsense I’ve got for today. This turned into such a patchwork of vaguely linkable thoughts I’ve had which barely relate to the one I started with - but that is usually how it goes. Take it as you will…

Also, completely unrelated to YJ, but Bi Tim Drake now exists in dc canon which is really cool - seeing all of the joy it’s sparked has really given me something to smile about this week… There is hope after all. 🌈

— LB ⚡️☀️

* OK so here’s a little random snapshot into the chaos of my mind— as I was writing the Ed stuff I had a scene pop into my head of Ed finally -for whatever reason- having to tell his dad that he didn’t leave his abuelo’s home - he got kicked out. His dads confused about this and asks Why? What did you do? And Ed’s like Nothing… I didn’t do anything wrong… he just… found out something. So Seniors like Found out what Eduardo? And Ed’s getting really nervous now because he doesn’t want to say it - That I, um… I’m… Senior step a fraction closer as he picks up on Ed’s anxiety but remains an appropriate distance - Son? Then after a tensening silence he finally says it - sounding the most vulnerable he has ever been - I’m gay… The silence is there again, heavy and unnerving, neither saying a word. Ed can’t move as he’s lock in his elders unreadable glare. Expecting the worse his head drops to take in the floor - anything that isn’t the disappointment ahead - he feels the urge to disappear burning up inside him - consuming him. Then just as he’s about to escape he’s suddenly grounded by a steadying hand rooting itself on his shoulder. Tentatively he lifts his gaze to witness his father, there, with nothing but love and support in his eyes - Mijo. The clamping in his chest dissipates as all the tension escapes at once, along with the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. Ed embraces his dad and the elder embraces his son. Together. A family.

Anyway. That’s probably a load of rubbish but hey my minds full of it… but basically I really want to see a tender moment between Ed and his dad. For whatever reason. Something where Ed’s in a vulnerable state and in need of some emotional support from his father - and without hesitation his father steps up - because that’s what we haven’t seen from them yet. It would perfectly portray the strength of their relationship as father and son - despite their previous struggles - and prove that Senior is willing to support his son no matter the situation as the father - not just the scientist. Its the final step in their healing journey and I wanna see it so bad!!

202 notes · View notes

wistfulrat · 4 years

Text

a 4-part rec list of my fave drarry fics - the thrillers, dramas, soft bois, and wankbanks getting me through 2020′s shitstorm

[the soft boi list is here and truly i’m not surprised this rec is going to be the longest bc if there’s one thing a bitch is going to do, it’s yearn.

as always! if you love a fic, follow the authors, leave kudos & comments, send them nice msgs bc free art is still labor xoxo]

part 3: soft bois

mood: for when I need respite, a balm to the all-consuming shittiness of life

includes: fluff, comfort, low-stakes, slow-burn fics. a wistful look, a rainy morning, an unexpected grace, a stupidly disarming joke. i could live inside these fics. the smallness of human lives removed from the site of that which hurts & irreparably changes. the story-equivalent of a deep breath after a long day. pregnant silences & pensive mundanity & shy smiles. banter with bite but without the cruelty. the color lavender. weirdly whimsical. soft fics are not necessarily conflict-averse (no drarry fic rly can be, considering the context) but, they offer the reader a generous distance from the initial harm. they’re the quiet cleaning up after a storm. sometimes healing is an exacting surgical knife and other times it’s a slow scabbing. you read these fics to be reassured that the way forward is not always ruthless. and honestly?? they deserve a semblance of peace godDAMmit.

The Way Down by @letteredlettered - 65k - T “and I thought that if someone talked to you as though you were a human being you might—maybe you could act like one” --the way i think about this line daily. the characterization of draco in this fic is one my favorites bc he’s earnest and neurotic and tired of harry’s shit. which is to say, he cares so so much. and harry doesn’t know what to do with that bc he’s got a monster in his chest and lives as a recluse. but they both humanize each other in ways no one else can. “you’re just a person” has to be some kind of drarry ethics of belonging and it makes me CRY. -

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them by @greaseonmymouth and dustmouth - 96k - T “Maybe it’s not about deserving it? Maybe you just get to have it anyway. . .I’m allowing myself to want something and to let myself have it and to fight for it.” --harry runs a daycare and also works at a library. draco spends a lot of time in said library. they bond over sci-fi books and therapy anecdotes and quiet philosophical conversations held over cafeteria soup. and harry’s struggling to understand his asexuality. draco’s learning how to live with anxiety and depression. they both want to be deserving of love. incredible fic with beautiful art by dustmouth. -

Open for Repairs by @drarrytrash - 35k - T “A few leaves rustle in the gutter and the muggle world pays no mind to them, to two lost boys holding on for dear life.” --all of their fics feel exactly like this. like you’ve been allowed to look at something private, tender, unexpected. draco, known abba fan, is a repairman in the muggle world & harry can’t stop breaking thrifted things in order to see him? say less, i'm thERE. also “I think I have a crush on you” goddddd - other faves by them: Counting Down By Ten - 2k - T: draco’s stepped outside of the party for a smoke. harry follows him bc of course he does. i could read this 100 times and not get tired of it. - Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon - 36k - E: FUCKING HILARIOUS I CACKLED THROUGH THE WHOLE THING. draco’s wolfy problem and harry helping him and harry being flustered by how much he likes draco and draco’s hot heroic moment. shutup it’s perfect. “He almost asks if Draco ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit all the time, but he knows that he, personally, never ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit.” and “It’s the traumas,” Harry says gravely” --lines that live rent free in my head -

Harry Potter and the Future He Doesn't Really Want, Thanks by seefin - 70k - E “That was the only logical thing to do here, wasn’t it? It was the next step, it was the end of hurting each other and the beginning of the exact opposite.” --harry lives with luna and neville and also he dreams about the future sometimes? and he keeps running into draco. draco thinks this is sus as hell, until he doesn’t. feat. taxi rides, museums, cinemas, rooftop conversations beneath a lunar eclipse, mid-sex innocuous banter, draco and harry discussing nicki minaj. this fic charmed my ass off. seefin writes the most effortlessly hilarious dialogues. i smiled at my phone like an idiot at least 7 times. - other faves by them: Wild - 93k - E: “he liked feeling needed, for the things that he was needed for back at the house in Ireland. For cooking and gardening and driving. Easy things.” --this shit makes me cry it’s so good. harry lives in Ireland with these three brilliant, hilarious, wandless witches and draco’s a potions student who's come to study under one of the housemates and the boys have so much shit to work through but their love becomes so tender and honest. draco yells at harry a lot and harry lets him and they both keep each other grounded in something real and fuCK. - Divination for Dickheads - 7k - G: “I’m terrible at having crushes. I’ve never played anything cool a day in my life.” -- oh harry, we knOW. a bus ride, a fortune teller, an aquarium birthday party. god i love this fic. -

Modern Love by @tackytigerfic - 61k - E “But we’ve worked so hard at this, haven’t we? Yeah, I know it’s a horror to have to talk about it, but fuck it. We’re friends now, but it took so long to get here. Have you ever had to work so hard at something before?" --the steady blossoming of their friendship in this fic is so goddamn beautiful i want to yell. it’s draco and harry learning to trust each other and the whole thing unfolds so slowly, in this whimsical mix of london streets, wizarding politics, church halls feat. a Hot vicar, and a magical antique shop owner who’s married to literal poseidon?? goD the environment of this fic. immaculate. [also there’s a tender shower scene that makes me cry every single fucking time so if you read this fic pls dm me so we can be embarrassing about it together tbh] -

Nice Things by aideomai - 22k - M “He kept waiting for the weird shock of touch to not knock him clean out of his head, leave him quiet and warm and happy.” --8th year. harry forms an unlikely friendship with draco that begins with smoking weed on a windowsill. harry is touch-starved and draco touches him like he touches all his close friends - like it’s easy. the quiet affection in this fic, the way harry burrows himself into touch bc he’s been without it for his entire life. reading this is like being held. -

Running On Air by @tinyhistory - 74k - T “do you remember when we were eleven?” --alexa play coldplay’s the scientist it’s sad girl hours and we’re about to fucking yearn. you’ve seen this fic rec on every drarry list under the sun and i'm here to be redundant. the hype is so goddamn real. this story is a lyrical masterpiece held together by lines that act as refrains that will rattle around your brain until you die, probably. draco’s been missing for 3yrs. harry goes to find him. it’s their odyssey of homecoming. -

Title of Their Sex Tape by @cibeewastaken - 12k - T “But Draco, Draco was everything but boring. Draco made sitting in the rain watching an empty house fun.” --auror partners pining and draco being eccentric and harry being very earnestly gay about draco’s eccentricities!! god this fic is so genuinely fun skskd feat. undercover missions, murderous faeries, a book heist, a stunning navy dress, harry’s eyelashes. -

How We Throw Our Shadows Down by @thistle-verse - 14k - T “Draco is about to say something else— to thank Potter for what he’d done, however poorly— but Harry is smiling at him again, and it’s so soft and perfect that Draco holds in any inadequate words, lest he spoil it.” --draco collects tea cozies and of course harry has the one he wants. the sad and tender gays are at it again feat. conversations in the rain at a train station, melancholy Blaise, muggle photos, wizarding e-bay, the Dursleys. -

Helix by Saras_Girl - 92k - E “Draco sighs in his sleep and Harry clings on to consciousness, needing to hold on, to give this tiny, insignificant moment the attention it deserves” --I think maybe you can describe every soft Saras_Girl story as giving tiny, insignificant moments the attention they deserve. like, this is an 8th year fic about snails and it’s full of whimsy, grief, compassion, and easy humor. an absolute must-read author in this genre if you want languorous, episodic fics full of distinct OCs and affectionate creatures. - other faves by them: Light up the Night Sky - 98k - M “Draco, sometimes you make my head feel like soup” --the one where harry is a fireworks artist and has a pet chameleon named ken. draco is on the wizarding arts council. they both pine like hell. - Headlights in the Snow - 71k - M “they stare at each other in silence, Harry’s heart beating so loud in his chest that he thinks the biddies must be able to hear it over the sound of their card game.” --the one where draco drives the knight bus and carts around the biddy club, a group of rambunctious old ladies who knit and drink tea and gossip. harry can’t help but fall in love with the everything about this. -

Follow the Water by @xanthippe74 - 38k - T “Harry’s heavy thoughts lift at the sight, like dark clouds blown away from the sun by the wind. The tent doesn’t feel so cramped and stifling now. It feels cozy. And safe. It’s the same feeling that Harry gets when he’s at the Burrow for Sunday roasts, when a group of people who care for each other deeply are crammed into too-small a space.” --harry wanders to the lovegood house on a sunday afternoon. he’s baffled to see that luna’s taken pansy, greg, and draco under her wing. what follows is a summer of forest walks, scavenger hunts, gardening, water fights, odd cakes, faerie rings, and picnics. so many picnics. i love the pace of this fic, the innocent return to childhood things, the way luna brings out the best in all her friends. reluctantly soft slytherins are just *chefs kiss*!! -

Going Postal (A 125pg comic) by dustmouth - T what. a. beautiful. ass. comic. the wizarding fashion, the textures, the character design!! harry travels a lot for his job as a resourcer. draco works in the regulations dept. they pine like a bunch of lovesick idiots via field report notes. god i love dustmouth’s art. -

All the Earnest Young Men by @tepre - 29k - E “Draco is twenty-seven layers of personality wrapped up in drama and humour, and a wit so sharp it still stings when he doesn’t see it coming. But there is something below that, too. Something that makes Harry ache just looking at him.” --the way i would lay down my little life for tepre’s characterization of draco, whom invented the word earnest. he’s a magical art theory expert and portraits are disappearing all over London and harry’s the auror assigned to this case. and well. they’re both so very avoidant about how gay they are for each other and it’s like!! shutup and kiss!! which they do in fact, shutup and kiss. -

Trenches by sara_holmes - 3k - M “Somewhere in the distant part of his mind that hasn't frozen solid, he thinks that maybe he and Draco are about to become more than auror partners, smoking buddies, wine-mates and co-inhabitants of a snow filled trench somewhere in western Scotland.” --the plot line here is literally “it’s cold and i need a fucking cigarette” but let me tell you how I never tire of the shared loaded-silences of two emotionally repressed gays. -

The Years Before Love by lomonaaeren - 13k - M “That’s one of the meanings of peace, he thinks, as Hermione hugs him...That he can do things slowly, softly, without worrying that they won’t be there tomorrow.” --andromeda taking harry under her wing and harry finding solace in teddy. narcissa and draco showing up and the tentative relationships that slowly develop in the quiet calm of andromeda’s house. found families and kisses in the snow and special xmas gifts ugh what’s not to love -

The Moon Looks Lovely Tonight by Omi_Ohmy - 35k - M “I want this to be a house where people are welcome, where they don’t have to be any one way or another” --in which harry collects lost things--owls, best friends, inept bakers, potions experimenters--and turns the mausoleum that is grimmauld place into a home. feat. your fave drarry tropes like shared-beds and reluctant waltzing partners. -

[part 1: thrillers | part 2: dramas | part 3: soft bois | part 4: wankbanks]

#drarry fic rec #drarry fic #soft drarry #OK FINE I RAMBLED BUT WHAT DID WE EXPECT #alexa play futile devices

861 notes · View notes

lifewithdavefarts · 3 years

Photo

DaveFarts - Episode 13 “When She Finally Leaves” [Episode List] Dana spends the whole day at Dave’s place. When the girl leaves, Tim, who’s now Dave’s roommate, finds out how much gas a man can hold in just to not look gross in front of a girl.

When She Finally Leaves

In the last few weeks I’ve been spending more and more nights at Dave’s place, whether because I needed a place to work, write my essays, or simply to spend some quality time watching bad films and drinking beer. It was Dave himself to ask me to “marry him” (as he jokingly put it), basically becoming official roommates, which also meant dividing our tasks and obviously splitting the rent.

And honestly we were having a great time. We both had jobs, fortunately, which were not much but they did pay taxes for now and it was overall a great experience. Friend or not, Dave is an excellent roommate, being pretty good at cooking and organising chores; the same could be said for me actually, though in some cases we have our own preferences; for example Dave prefers cooking (the fact that I’m bad at it it’s purely coincidental) so we agreed I’ll be the one doing the dishes.

We also had our buds crashing over what is now *our* place a couple of times, which resulted in more bad films and beer, or even nerd stuff such as gaming together. Of course however, the person who most often came over is obviously Dana, Dave’s girlfriend. She’s pretty cool though we don’t really hang out with her when Dave’s not around, though as I said she’s pretty easy-going.

Tonight we’ve been watching a trash movie. Yes, the three of us. Don’t worry, I was a welcome addition today. Dave would usually just tell me to leave for a few hours if sex was on the table (sometimes literally on the table, the one where we eat our food…) as we respect each others enough to just be straightforward whenever we needed some privacy. Tonight however it was just chilling like three friends hanging out together (knowing however that Dave would just give me a signal should things get more heated up you know).

We were in the living room. I was on an armchair, working on my laptop, despite the poor wi-fi. On the long wide couch beside me, Dave and Dana chilling and watching the movie with more attention than me, my bud’s left arm around his girlfriend, sometimes making remarks on how bad it was. We all had a can of beer, because of course we did.

The couple brought some takeouts for dinner, some fast-food a few blocks from here (Dana’s idea, actually, which we were both thankful for). Dave, chilling next to Dana, was wearing his signature casual outfit: a grey shirt and pair of dark blue loose jeans, details that my gay-ass eyes immediately noticed and more than once stared at.

“Oh wow the helicopter just blew up I’m speechless.” Dave said, sarcastically.

“A Subversive Masterpiece: that’s what they were going for when they wrote this.” Dana added, and they both chuckled.

I also did my fair share of sarcastic remarks though work got most of my attention, even though it was nothing urgent, just me trying to get some stuff done as fast as possible.

“Did the shark just wink at him?” my bro commented.

“They’re best friends now.” his girlfriend explained. What a great film.

After 15 more minutes the movie ended with the three of us clapping at a shot of a man and a shark exchanging a look of gratitude to each other, as the Sun set into the never-ending ocean. Drugs played a big role into the making of this move I’m 100% sure.

“Well, that was enlightening, but I gotta head back home. The Uber’s almost here.” Dana said, as she got up and reached for her purse and some other stuff.

“You’re really sure about that? Come on, stay here for the night.” Dave suggested. “I taught Tim to play dead. We can throw food at him.” he then joked.

“I can also bring you the newspaper upstairs, tomorrow morning.” I played along.

Dana chuckled in response. “I’m sure you’ll win the next contest you two, but I gotta wake up super early tomorrow.”

The couple walked towards the front door. The entrance was next to the living room, a few steps behind the couch. Dave and I sometimes darkly joked that any assassin could easily ambush us because whenever we’re on the couch anyone could sneak into the house behind us, with enough care (we then prefer to drink about it).

“Call me when you get home.” Dave said and the two shared a quick kiss.

In the meantime I moved on the bigger (and more comfortable) couch, more or less in Dana’s spot, as I also have better wi-fi reception there. I left my laptop on the small table in front of me because apparently all of my laptops have to be shitty and take some time to even the most basic stuff. As I inspected the wi-fi icon flashing on the screen, I heard Dave shutting the door and walking back to the couch. After a few steps his tall figure was already towering over me.

“Yeah the reception is pretty bad lately.” he commented, and then collapsed next to me.

Only a few seconds and he already had that well-known smirk drawn on his face; he then quickly adjusted his position. He completely laid down, extended his demin-clad legs, with his left one resting on the back of the couch, ending right behind my neck. In a moment, Dave ended up showing off his loose, almost-sagging jeans-clad ass directly next to me, as his legs trapped me into a gentle yet strong grip. Seeing both that “wall” made of jeans and my bro’s smirk at the same time was a sight I never truly got used to. He was just lying there, next to me, with his ass pointed at me, as if it was one big prank, even though he knew exactly how much I enjoyed that.

“Bro you’re ready?” he asked, still sporting that smirk.

When even Dave goes as far as asking me if I’m ready, then I knew that the fart was going to be gargantuan. And I realized why: Dana has been with us and my bro the entire day, so it’s possible that Dave just held all of his gas in for hours. We all experienced this, then when the girl leaves, men get to “relax”. Other than that, Dave had tons of beer and junk food. I stared at that denim butt, for the first time almost scared of what my bud was capable of; I knew a fart was coming, and I knew it was going to be big.

But what Dave said next really once again confirmed how chill he is around me.

“Believe me: you might want to get closer for this one.” he said, laughing a bit.

He sported weirdly reassuring smile, Dave’s millionth attempt at saying “It’s ok, Tim.” as he probably noticed now nervous I became when he assumed that pose.

The teasing bastard then went full bully on me and simply reached for my head with his long right arm and gently pulled me down, as if I was bowing to that still silent denim-clad ass. I just heard him laugh like an idiot, as it usually happens. Despite my head being down and in front of that ass, I could still see Dave’s face and that smirk. He raised his eyebrows and half-closed his eyes as he started pushing, but he didn’t need to put all that effort into ripping that blast.

It’s like the fart was barely contained in the first place: it immediately exploded with a loud sound right into my face. Dave closed his eyes and kept his smirk as the blast probably surprised him as well. It was low-pitched and dry, a completely natural gas-eruption that sounded like an engine. The stench was unbearable, a mixture of beer and junk food, surprise to no one.

While farting, Dave adjusted his position as bit, spreading his legs bit more, with my face getting almost planted into that denim-clad butt as he effortlessly kept ripping that immense flatulence. Hours and hours of gas being erupted as if I was in front of a dormant volcano that just woke up. And I feared that “hours” was what he was going for ‘cause after 20 seconds the fart didn’t even lose power.

Dave still had this smirk drawn on his face and occasionally stared down at me as he completely destroyed my face and nose with his incredible farting skills, skills that constantly let me speechless, fetish or not. He was the fart master, a showoff with a manly talent that I could only bow to and endure in the hop-

“Sorry, I forgot my house keys.”

The fart immediately stopped and it all went silent: It was Dana.

Dave turned his head to his girlfriend, greeting her with the stupidest smile you can think of.

“Oh stay there no worries, they’re right here.” I heard Dana say as she reached for keys, probably hanging right next to the door, my face still almost planted in my friend’s denim ass. That felt surreal.

I completely froze (not that I could move) but I knew that she couldn’t see me (just like I couldn’t see her) as I was lying down. All she could see from where she was standing was Dave’s head and his right leg resting on the back of the couch, since the entrance was behind our couch.

I was terrified, while Dave was doing his best not laugh like an idiot.

“What’s so funny?” Dana asked, laughing a bit herself, definitely noticing her boyfriend being weird.

My teasing bro quickly glanced down at me, almost losing it (and still holding holding the fart in, which didn’t stop the smell from burning my nostrils).

“N-nothing’” he stuttered. That’s it, he was gonna laugh like an idiot.

“Okay” I heard Dana, not really convinced of the boyfriend’s answer though.

There was a moment of awkward silence and then we heard a car honk, thank goodness.

“Oh… it’s my Uber. Bye!” the girl said, quickly leaving the house and shutting the door behind her.

Another moment of silence followed, Dave still staring at the entrance. I was shaking, I was legitimately scared that someone was gonna find out, which was weird given the hotness I was experiencing in that moment, even without the fart being ripped.

“Ok… where were we?” Dave asked, turning back to me, with a smirk. “Oh yeah!”

And he effortlessly resumed farting, just as loud, proud and powerful as it was before the interruption, directly into my face. The terror I experienced moments before was blown away by that incredibly blast and me being rock-hard, as it usually happens when Dave showoffs his gassy talent around me, or on me.

Dozens of seconds passed and at this point Dave just played along. He nodded at me, faking a serious expression, as if he was listening to something actually interesting instead of his own loud fart still going on strong; after about ten more seconds he checked the time on his wrist-watch and acted surprised, then stared down at me as if he wanted to say “damn that is long!”. We both however actually lost the track of time and he simply relaxed as if I wasn’t even in front of his ass, all while the fart was still being blasted in my face.

Dave then reached for my head again and gently pushed it inches closer to his roaring ass, and I felt the vibrations of his rip all over my face: it was literally an earthquake.

How long was it lasting? More than 1 minute perhaps? How much gas can a man hold in? Dave certainly was pushing for a record. All I knew is that I felt privileged witnessing that, even though I was beyond being a mere witness since no particle of gas missed my eyes and nostrils.

However (finally, actually), the fart seemingly started to lose power, the once-continuous sound starting to “stutter” and turning more into a fast series of loud farts, fired back-to-back. The show (because that’s what it was: a show) ended with a loud, 5 seconds blast, and Dave’s laughter.

I slowly got up, sweaty, my nose burning, with a startled look to which my bro reacted with another immature cackle. I was now sitting next to him as I was before, and looked back at my bud, who in the meantime re-adjusted his pose. He was still lying down, still kind of showing off his loose-sagging ass, but in a less “menacing” way: now he was just chilling.

“When’s Dana coming over again?” I joked. I mustered all the courage I had left to say that. I was impressed by the fact that I could still speak considering that all of my blood probably flooded my boner at that point.

Dave laughed at that lame joke, thank goodness. “As if I need Dana to blast you like this.”

He raised one leg, again showing off his sagging denim ass in my direction. He quickly sucked some air in and after a few moments and weird noises a loud 6 seconds fart erupted. For his standards, that’s basically a weak one.

My friend just casually joking and bragging about facefarting me and then farting on command to prove it made me lose it, as I felt my boner… dampening. He didn’t notice it but he knew that I had a hard-on, that’s for sure.

I didn’t want to just rush into the bathroom so I just stared at my laptop, still on the table, in front of me: the wi-fi signal was stronger than ever. I jokingly like to think that Dave’s blast was so powerful it actually influenced the signal somehow and improved it.

I turned to my bud, still lying on his side of the couch, just checking his phone and being… casually hot.

“Thanks man.” I said, not for the wi-fi though.

He lowered his phone, revealing a blank reaction “Really?” he said, rolling his eyes, with a bored expression. “Stop being cringe and do the dishes.”

Fuck, I totally forgot about those. We had takeout food but we still used some of our dishes. I immediately got up and rushed to the kitchen, hoping that Dave was distracted by his phone enough to not notice by boner through my sweatpants.

Once in the kitchen, a place that wasn’t tainted by Dave’s gas, my nostrils could still feel my bro’s fart-stench. That’s how soaked up in his gas I was. Even my ears needed some time to adjust to the silence, now that I didn’t have a deafening fart being ripped right into my skull.

And I just knew that this wasn’t the last time this was gonna happen. I’m Dave’s roommate, and being roomies means we have to divide our tasks: he’s the farter, I’m the sniffer.

End of Episode 13

#fart story #eproctophilia #fartkink #davefarts2 #gayfart #malefarts

73 notes · View notes

gay-otlc · 3 years

Text

Keepers Of The Chaos (Chapter 1)

The first chapter of the Tumblr KOTLC Fandom Fandom story is here!

Summary: Tam, Linh, Keefe, Biana, and Fitz are part of the tiny fandom for Keeper of the Chaos, and Tam and Linh's podcast convinces some of their other friends to watch it as well. The group finds themselves strangely invested in this show, where students at Tumblr High School who work together to write about an elf named Sophia, cause incomprehensible chaos, and fight their rival Pinterest High School.

Content warnings: Cursing

Word count: 1204

Read on AO3

Linh leans into the microphone. "Welcome to the Twins of the Chaos podcast," she says.

"Where some chaotic twins discuss our favorite show, Keepers of the Chaos," adds Tam. He tugs at his silver tipped bangs. "I'm Tam, and my sister's Linh, and today, we're going to be talking about why you should watch KOTC. Now, if you're one of our five regular listeners, you've probably already seen it, but feel free to share this with a friend or relative to convince them to watch this show!"

Smiling, Linh takes the microphone back and continues. "In this show, there's a group of very, very chaotic friends who all go to Tumblr High School together. As soon as they return after New Year's, their principal informs the school of a writing competition taking place between high schools, with other opportunities for extras like drawing or animation. Every member of the winning team gets a free scholarship to an arts school the characters all want to go to, but don't like their chances of getting in normally or paying, so they sign up. Through the nine episode season, taking place over the month of January, the characters in the writing competition start on the premise, get sidetracked, come up with some truly horrifying ideas, write some gay short stories, and, as the title promises, act very chaotic."

"Now, the writing prompt that the group has to build on is kind of... fuckin' weird," Tam says, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "They have to write about a girl named Sophia, who's twelve years old and can read minds, who meets a teal- yes, teal- eyed boy named Finn, who tells her she's an elf. Then, she travels to the elf world, where she struggles a bit at elf school, makes friends with some other elves, learns that she is an illegal creation of a rebel group called the Dark Duck, and another rebel group- the Rarelynoticed- tries to kidnap and kill Sophia and her friend Deck. And yes, we're aware that the names are shitty but the characters in the show really get into mocking them, so that's an upside."

Linh laughs a little at the names. "There are a lot of rebels, you might have noticed," she adds.

Tam nods. "Yeah, I noticed. There are a lot of rebels because their government sucks. There's a council of twelve really old elves, and only two of them are alright, then one of those two dies, and then one of the previously bad ones turns good."

"The characters in the show were given a very detailed list of worldbuilding, plot, and character details. We don't have to read the whole thing, though- they just consult it when it's relevant."

"But writing about Sophia and the Dark Duck isn't the only plot of KOTC, thankfully. We also get to see the competitors writing Dark Duck interact with one another and have fun. It makes connections to real life events- mainly through Bernie Sanders memes, but whatever. Bernie Sanders memes are funny."

"Bernie Sanders memes are funny," says Linh, nodding seriously. "And yes. There are some romantic ships in there- like Amelia and Akki, or Shai/Lynn/Tater, but there are also close friendships, and you get to see the group bond over their shared desire to get the scholarship, and their collective love of chaos, so the more platonic aspect is definitely given screen time as well."

"Which, given how often shows center only on romance, is really great," Tam agrees.

"The show also does really incredibly with including diverse characters. Pretty much none of them are both straight and cis, and most of them are neither."

Tam grins. "Right, and no one really makes a big deal about it. They mention it when relevant, of course, and some have homophobic parents, but they have depth beyond getting the authors ally cookies or whatever. Everyone uses correct pronouns, or apologizes when they screw up, and everyone's pronouns are validated no matter how 'weird' or 'confusing' it might be."

"The show also has a lot of good religious diversity, with quite a few Jewish characters, who make sure it's very clear that they're Jewish."

"Yeah, one of the characters- Shai- starts a movement to turn all the Sophia and the Dark Duck characters Jewish as well."

"It doesn't succeed, but good job to aer for trying," Linh says, sighing sadly.

They fall silent for a little while as Tam checks their episode outline, scribbled in Linh's rather illegible handwriting. "Linh, what the fuck does this say?"

Brow furrowing, Linh asks "You can't read my handwriting?"

"No, I can't!"

She sighs. "It very clearly says 'great characters- discuss,'" she huffs.

"Yeah, no one can read your handwriting. Also, we should probably cut this out when we edit."

Linh nods. "Probably, yeah."

Tam leans in closer to the microphone and starts speaking into it again. "The competition has fifty something participants- fifty two, was it?" He looks to Linh for confirmation, who nods again. "Fifty two. But somehow, all of the characters have their own distinct personalities and stories and interests, and they're shown as complex human beings."

"Yeah, that's always been my favorite part of the show. The characters are just so interesting. Canon manages to focus on them a lot more than I would have thought possible, but it still doesn't give us all the details- since it has to balance so many people, it can't spend a long time focusing on just one- so there's a lot of room for speculation in the fandom. Some get noticeably more or less focus than others. Like, Lynn and her fiancees get kind of a lot, while I wish some of my favorite characters like Specs or Charlene got a bit more screen time. But everyone gets some, no one gets too many, and the fandom is there to fill in the gaps!"

"Yeah, and the fandom is fantastic," says Tam. "There aren't a whole lot of us, which we wish would change because the show is really great, but we're a good fandom to be in. There's not usually a lot of discourse, and there are so many talented people making content. lordofthesnuggles's theories for season two are always so detailed and logical that I lowkey suspect he writes for the show, and thehunkiestofhunkyhair makes fantastic fanart."

Snapping her fingers, Linh exclaims. "Oh, and les-biana has the best fanfictions."

Tam coughs, and mutters "Yeah, you like Biana's fanfictions."

"Oh, like you're any different with Keefe," Linh huffs.

There aren't any visuals, so no listeners of the podcast can prove Tam was blushing. "Anyway, the first- and currently only- season starts with everyone signing up for the competition, no idea what they're in for, and ended with half of them wearing sleeping masks with teal eyes painted on and the other half watching the chaos with mild amusement. It's entertaining as fuck, and very well written, so do go check it, recommend it to your friends, let Keepers of the Chaos take over the world, whatever you like."

"Thanks for listening to the Twins of the Chaos podcast, and have an amazing day!" Linh finishes, and she stops recording.

#shai types things #tumblr kotlc fandom fandom #cursing tw #shai's writing

59 notes · View notes

finaledenialist · 4 years

Note

so in one of your asks you said you dont think cas was in love with dean since the beginning and idk its interesting to me because everyone seem to think he was from the start so what is your take on that? idk im just curious haha

ohhh I wanted to make a post about this so thanks for asking!

disclaimer: I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade I just have a different take on this whole thing!!!

So. I see people are like: OMG he was in love ALL THIS TIME SINCE 4x01 and I am like: no.

Was he lost since he laid his hand on Dean in hell? Yes. Was he instantly in love? Nah.

See, Cas in season 4 and 5 is starting to feel. He is conflicted, he is questioning, he doesn’t have ‘people skills’, he is confused by what he feels, he knows there is a ‘profound bond’ between him and Dean and he is rebelling for Dean, because Dean has a point and Cas feels Dean is right and apocalypse and destruction are wrong, and this human is so human and he never had that connection before. Add the sexual innuendos, the eye fucking and the tension between those two and this is what i call ‘classic destiel’. I do have a strong feeling this is partly Jensen’s and Misha’s fault though haha but I am also convinced that the jokes like ‘Cas, get out of my ass!’/’Blow me Cas’ are purely for ‘comedic purposes’ because haha gay so funny (keep in mind it’s still 2008/2009 and things were so different then BUT we still got Endverse which had not only sexual stuff implied but romantic as well - ‘all we have left, Dean and I, is each other, if Dean says it’s time to go in a blaze of glory, so be it’ (I am writing this from memory so these might not have been exact lines but you know what I am talking about).

And then in season 6 and 7 is where things start to get romantic. ‘I watched you rake leaves’, Dean’s blind faith that no, Cas can’t be working with Crowley behind their backs because come on it’s Cas and the whole 6x20 episode is *chief’s kiss* and then season 7 and Cas dies to make things right and Dean keeps his trenchcoat and moves it from every car they have been using that season to always have it with him because part of me always believed you’d come back. OK, but I was meant to be talking mostly about Cas’ point of view. Which takes me back to 7x23 and I’d rather have you, cursed or not. I think these words had a major impact on Cas. Something just clicked. Because he realized that he could say these exact same words to Dean and they still would be true.

And then we got season 8 which was a major shift and it really moved stuff from ‘sexual tension’ to ‘romantic tension’ and it’s still called ‘season fanfiction’ because I wanted to keep them away from you in purgatory and Cas generally not feeling worthy of anything but I think this is when he started to realize that what he feels is not like ‘brotherly friendship’ but something much deeper but he had his issues (I don’t deserve to be saved from purgatory thing) so he kind of kept it buried. But this was when the Real Love really started. But did he admit it to himself? Well I am not in Cas’ head but something must have been on his mind - Naomi had access too his mind and she immediately recognized that there is a certain Feeling that is dangerous and Cas needs to be fucking lobotomized (I still have shivers thinking about it). Did Naomi knew it was love? Idk, but she felt something was going on - that is why she tried to mess things up between Dean and Cas (I only wish he felt the same way ouch my heart....) and Metatron also recognized it, quicker and better (maybe because he spent much more time on earth and was generally a little more powerful and knowing as the scribe of God) and he immediately used Cas’ grace to banish angels from heaven because Cas was feeling love for a human. But did he, himself recognized it as love? Did he admit it to himself? I still have a feeling that no. I still think that his ‘I don’t know’ after Dean’s ‘What broke the connection?’ was honest.

Now let me fast forward to season 12, because this post is getting too long already and while seasons 9-11 had some good episodes and even good destiel scenes I feel this was the time many people - rightly so - were starting to lose faith in canon destiel, starting with Dean not letting Cas stay in the bunker in season 9 and bros acting like they only call Cas when they need him. I repeat - there were still some good episodes, even great ones. And we were shown Cas worried about Dean and being there for him anytime Dean called, there was so much pining but once again let me raise The Question: did Cas know what he was feeling was love? Or was he still confused, not letting himself believe, not being able to name his own feelings and emotions? And this is merely my opinion but this is also time where many people started to be bitter and negative by how writers treated Cas (and other characters in general but I am not gonna dive into that dumpster now, especially the Cas-having-sex-with-a-reaper thing which was awful, but in retrospect is even more awful because if it was Chuck’s writing this seems like some kind of sick attempt to do a conversion therapy and I want to throw up; plus he thought? he was into his boss at gas’n’sip and he thought she was into him and what even was it if not a. bad writing; b. Cas being confused; c. Cas being confused about this bad writing).

So season 12. First of all 12x12, when Cas thought he is gonna die and the infamous line ‘I love you. I love all of you’ happened. I am 100% sure this is when Cas realized. This must have prompted questions for him. Why did I say what I said? He blurted those words out but why like that? Aaaand after some thinking I think he realized why. He must’ve been like ‘oooops’. But then Jack was about to be born and he had to protect Kelly and then he died.

And then he is in the Empty who says - I know who you love, I know what you fear, there is nothing for you out there. She doesn’t know shit, she just has access to Cas’ mind and apparently those were his thoughts, already at that time, he thought there was nothing for him out there (again, his depression issues) BUT THEN CAS, MY SWEET CAS, THIS BAD ASS MOTHERFUCKER says fuck you Empty in one of his best monologues (before 15x18 I’d say it was his best but here we are) and she yeets him out, because HE decided HE is already saved and he doesn’t need a permission and you can preen and you can scream and yell and remind me of my failings but somehow, I'm awake. And I will stay awake and I will keep you awake until we both go insane. I will fight you. Fight you and fight you for... ever. For eternity.

And then Jack dies and he takes the humiliating deal. And now we’re at 15x18 and he says: ‘I have always wondered.... ever since I took that burden.... What my true happiness can even look like... Because the one thing I want is the one thing I can’t have’. SEE THESE WORDS HERE ARE WHY I CAN’T SLEEP AT NIGHT. BECAUSE THEY IMPLY at least to me THAT:

1. He was aware of his feelings, he knew what he felt was love at the time he took the deal. and after that he was like ‘I guess I am immortal now’ because the one thing I want is the one thing I can’t have so nothing else is going to make him truly happy; this also implies that there is only one thing he truly wants and the rest is just not that important, whatever else happens won’t make him happy which is heartbreaking;

2. He knew what he wanted, so this means that at some point he wondered, he imagined, he took his time to picture the ‘thing’ he wanted. Which is life with Dean. Because he is in love. LIKE HE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS, HE REALLY DID AND HE CONCLUDED THAT THIS IS OUT OF HIS REACH (now people argue if that is because he thinks it’s unrequited or because he thinks that something something hunter life-fighting all the time-no attachments lifestyle won’t allow them to have this sort of life - and frankly, knowing that he learned everything, or almost everything about emotions from Dean, who isn’t really good at them, I am not surprised if he is sure that this feeling is one-sided, because maybe he conquered his fears in the Empty the first time around but taking the deal must have made him anxious and Chuck still calls him self-hating so he probably thinks this is one-sided and he is unworthy of love anyway);

3. He tried to imagine different scenarios that would make him happy but eventually it all came down to That One True Scenario, out of his reach, that couldn’t compare with anything else, and he tells Jack - you know about that deal, it’s ok, I don’t see myself becoming happy anytime soon AND IT HURTSSS

so to conclude and tl;dr - I think Cas realized that what he was feeling was love after 12x12 although he felt it before but might have been confused by it. I do not think he was ~in love~ since 4x01. There was tension and there was pining but no. This feeling evolved, it didn’t *just* happen in the barn.

also i am so sorry this took so long but i have thoughts and feelings and can’t form a coherent sentence since november 5th anyway thanks for asking nonny, ily!!!!

#ask #asks #anon #long post #destiel is endgame #cas is in love #everything is beautiful but it hurts #spn 15x18 #spn spec #spn speculation #Anonymous

217 notes · View notes

white-queen-lacus · 3 years

Text

Frederica and Homura as potential love interests?

Ok, before writing this post, I must admit that this thought has been wandering in my mind for some time and I will do my best to be as analytical as I can in the explanation. First of all, I've truly and wholeheartedly supported Shinkane since season 1 and I am sure that before or after, they will be endgame (in Psycho Pass' meaning, well... offscreen if we're lucky enough), so this post is just an attempt to see what is happening.

Let's make a premise: PP3, among all the seasons of PP, is the one that addressed romance in a more evident way, somehow. Not that it is a priority and it's fair as it is, since the focus of the series is basically human nature and its reaction to a world dominated by AI, but among the three seasons, PP3 caressed the topic. Not that it wasn't already addressed in the previous installments (Shion and Yayoi, Kaori's wedding, Akane's growing fascination, and not-so-well-hidden attraction and love for Kougami, Mika and her schoolmate, just to say), but starting with Sinners of the System, something else happened. Masaoka and Sae, Sugo and his friend's wife (tell me whatever, but he seemed to care a little bit too much and I found something similar in Arata's behavior towards Maiko)... and in season 3, the already mentioned Arata, both with Maiko (the hospital scene) and Karina, but also with Irie and Mao (I loved the whole music box scene) and Mao *not-so-well-hidden* fancying Kei. Did I mention the brief and glorious Shinkane's scenes? The cherry blossoms in First Inspector screamed "LOVE" in caps lock.

Well, ladies first, so let's talk about the mysterious and glamorous agent of the SAD: Hanashiro Frederica. When her character was revealed, all of us (or at least, the majority) thought that she could be a potential threat or a possible enemy. So far, it seems that apart from bigger fanservice than all the girls in PP, a still-secret agenda, and the fact that she managed to recruit Kougami, Gino and Sugo in her team (as well as granting them some privileges), there isn't any evidence that she could be an enemy. Yes, the whole Ministry of Foreign Affairs/SAD goals and mission aren't clear, that's why I hope we might get PP4 or a dedicated special, in order to understand more about them and her apparently personal motivations too. Now... thanks to the lovely @kumapillow who kindly translated the SAD extra chapter, something made me wonder. I already said in another post that Frederica seems to have a soft spot for Kougami. Just a few words about Kougami. So far, with the exception of the novels, where his feelings are clearer, he's never shown particular interest in women (or relationships in general). In the profiling book, it's said that he doesn't remember his first love, but it's also said that he would let Sybil choose for him once the time comes, until the movie updated version when it's said that his favorite type of girl is a companion who can keep up a conversation. Considering that in season 1 he was revenge-driven and Makishima-absorbed, romance was practically out of question (also, if we consider that he's been a workaholic since he was an Inspector, I'm not this impressed if he never had a proper relationship). Complete silence in season 2, then in the movies he said that wherever he goes, he's punctually involved in some conflict, aka... no time for romance again (for ghost!Makishima's joy). I read sometimes that the fact that he declined Shion's advances in episode 18 with the sentence "I don't think we are each others' type" was eloquent about his sexuality, since he probably is gay or bi, at least. I don't think he is, but simply, being the kind person he is, Kougami just found a colloquial way to remember Shion where her heart truly laid (and in the novel, it's more obvious). No surprise, during the fight against Rutaganda, when the mercenary said that listening to Kougami made him happy like he was listening to some Wagner's piéce, Kougami promptly answers that he could have rather listened to those words from a glamorous beauty than from him (he used the word "bijin" there). I won't mention all the Shinkane subtle of the movie, but it was truly obvious how things had changed for Akane and Kougami and what could have been happened if the mercenaries hadn't come. Case 3 shows that his relationship with the fair sex still hasn't progressed this much... though I LOVED Kougami's interactions with Tenzing and the teasing of the little girl who said that he reminded her of her dad (ok, that's progress, since in a radio drama both he and Gino made a small child crying because of their idiocy) and I headcanon that in the years past Case 3 Kou had some chances to hear back from Tenzing (because of MoFA and Frederica's care), when it comes to the blonde colleague... I guess that things haven't changed this much. Now, so far, Kougami has NEVER shown any sign of reciprocating Frederica's possible feelings, but it seems that he's the only one who knows how to cheer her up or to understand her. Coming back to Frederica, after this digression, that's the core: she technically has all the qualities Kougami would possibly need. She's a glamorous beauty (hello there, reference to the gekijouban). She's a companion who could keep up a conversation. This point is trickier, because the conversation under the moonlight (now that it comes to my mind, it was also said that if he ever had to set a date, he would probably talk about work or taking somebody to stargaze), which largely reminds me of his conversation with Akane in the movie (I'm talking about the structure of the scene in general), shows that

Frederica too is perfectly able to lecture Kougami and pull the shits out of him about his true motives for keeping on traveling, she's been interested in him since the lessons with professor Saiga, but also... the fact that she mentioned his mother, I think was some kind of a rehash of the novel version of the conversation between Akane and Kou. I was under the impression that Ubukata and Shiotani were trying to test the waters... Also, Frederica is a skilled fighter, she has a no-nonsense attitude and she's pretty harsh in what she says, but she's also friendly, humorous, and caring (the days they spent together with Tenzing). Then the renowned scene of the two of them making the deal... ok, I need to admit that in the beginning, I didn't see it as malicious, neither I do it now, but... mhhh... sharing the same bottle of water to make a deal... well... kinda intimate, right? Not that Kougami made a fuss, but Frederica was... pleased? After all, she didn't do any of this with Sugo (also, her approach to him was more formal) and we still don't know how she recruited Gino (I think it happened because of Kougami, after Akane's demotion)... I don't know, but it seems to me that her approach toward Kougami (at least in Case 3 and in the manga extras) is more personal... after all, when she approached him the first time, she was quite intrigued, since she wanted to take a look at the face of a celebrity like him (all said while pleasantly smiling). The extra chapter shows that while Gino and Sugo's efforts to help their chief were wasted (not for us who read), only Kougami's proposal was well received by her. Shooting like in a guerrilla field... after all, Frederica is a tough one (just like Akane) and Kougami knows it very well... like Gino adds at the end, she's definitely a female version of him, but she also is somebody able to kick Kou's glorious ass (just like Akane). Now, time will say where the truth is, but I feel like that if Ubukata and Shiotani keep on following the route "there's a deep respect and a bond which goes beyond love and romance between Shinkane... and also Kougami doesn't see Akane in that way", and instead they choose to spice things up (but I don't think so) Frederica might be the one chosen. Luckily enough, our dear former Enforcer seems to have chosen the celibate warrior monk route, but I'm still sure that things can change and in the end, the most natural outcome will be Shinkane. Well... since the post has become longer than I expected, I'll write another time of Shizuka and Akane, but thanks for reading until now!

#psycho pass #psycho-pass #psycho pass 3 #psycho pass sinners of the system #sinners of the system #characters relationships analysis #kougami shinya #hanashiro frederica #tsunemori akane #shinkane #does a frederica-kougami ship exist?#I can't write fregami because in Italian has a certain mean XDDDD

25 notes · View notes

veeranger · 4 years

Text

So you want to watch Precure!

Version 1.3

(Google Docs Vers & Changelog)

Maybe you follow people who like it, maybe you just love magical girls and never got into Precure, but there are over a dozen seasons and you don’t know how to jump in. Never fear, this masterpost is here to give you a rundown of Precure, and hopefully by the end you’ll have an idea of where you want to start.

What Is Precure?

Precure (short for Pretty Cure) is a Toei Animation franchise started in 2004 and has been on the air nonstop since then. It’s a magical girl franchise, y’know like sailor moon or ojamajo doremi or other such shows. The main demographic is children so you don’t have to worry about any weird “fanservice” or panty shots or anything nasty like that, it’s very G rated.

What Are The Shows About?

In a general sense, Precure is about a team of 2-6 middle school age magical girls fighting bad guys and giant monsters and saving the world on a weekly basis with pretty outfits and big flashy finishers and the power of love and friendship. Each season follows a pretty standard formula (toku fans should be pretty familiar with it for the most part), and each season is around 48-50 episodes long.

In keeping with this toku-esque formula, most seasons will feature mid season additions to the cast, in the form of new precure heroes. For the sake of not spoiling these shows, these mid season cures will not be mentioned in our plot overviews unless they appear extremely early or something like that. Just know that almost every season will feature an additional cure joining the team later in the show.

Additionally, every season has at least one movie, these days there’s usually two per season. Usually you’ll find the movies are a standalone self-contained romp, and a crossover movie with the preceding seasons, with a focus on the most recent 2-3 teams. These movies might as well exist in a continuity of their own, and have absolutely no bearing on the plot whatsoever, save for one except which I’ll mention when we get to that season.

Why Should I Watch Precure?

Because it’s good. It’s a really stellar franchise with a ton of content and genuinely engaging characters and stories. Also this isn’t your mom’s magical girl show, these girls throw punches, and kicks, and big lasers. Precure is pretty well known for being extremely hands on with its combat compared to other magical girl shows, though don’t expect the same kind of fights you’d find in kamen rider or anything. Also a main draw for a lot of people is the amount of gay subtext in, frankly, every season. While there’s only one season with an explicitly confirmed gay relationship between two cures, every season has varying levels of subtext between cures, it’s pretty cool. We won’t discuss the subtext in every season overview but trust us, it’s in there.

What Show Should I Start With?

It doesn’t actually matter which season you watch, every season is a new setting and with new characters and set in a new world (except for two sequel seasons i’ll explain later), so you’re free to watch whatever you want in any order! We’re going to spend the rest of this post talking about each season to give you, the beloved reader, a glimpse at what each season has to uniquely offer. Don’t worry, there’s no spoilers down there.

Futari Wa Precure (We Are Pretty Cure) & Futari Wa Precure Max Heart

The original precure show that aired in 2004, and even received an english dub. Misumi Nagisa is a star lacrosse player living a normal life until one day a shooting star she wishes on turns out to be a fairy that careens right into her room, or rather, smacks her right in the face. The fairy, named Mepple, explains he comes from the Garden of Light, another world that’s been taken over by the evil Dark King and his Dark Zone in order to capture the Prism Stones, a number of heart shaped crystals that, if collected, could give Dark King the power to destroy not only the Garden of Light but also the Garden of Rainbows, Earth itself. Meanwhile, Yukishiro Honoka finds a box in her grandmother’s shed containing an item just like the one that smacked Nagisa in the face, and inside is the fairy Mipple, who explains the situation to Honoka. The two fairies, seeking to be reunited, drag Nagisa and Honoka along and the four of them end up meeting up, but are attacked by an emissary of the Dark Zone. Mepple and Mipple grant the confused duo the power to transform into the warriors of legend, Precure. As Cure Black and Cure White, Nagisa and Honoka manage to fight off their attacker and protect their new fairy partners. The girls are then more or less dragged into the battle against the Dark Zone, as the only hope for both Gardens, they fulfill their duty as legendary warriors despite their hesitations and desires to go back to being normal teenagers.

Futari Wa doesn’t exactly have any major themes to speak of, it’s just your standard magical girl vs evil bad guys kind of thing, forgive it for being the first season. What it does have to offer is the relationship between Nagisa and Honoka, as well as the action in fight scenes. The girls don’t start the season as best friends, in fact they barely even know each other’s names when they’re first flung together. It takes a few episodes and a major fight between the girls for them to really start opening up to each other, but soon enough they become inseparable and support each other in everything they do. It’s clear, especially near the end, that the girls cling to each other for support and strength in the face of the increasingly overwhelming odds they face as the Dark Zone gains strength. It’s very compelling to see their relationship deepen in the early season and see how deep their bonds truly go near the end.

Futari Wa received a sequel show, Futari Wa Precure Max Heart, picking up the story where it left off in the first season’s finale. Honoka and Nagisa are still the main characters, and they’re still fighting the Dark Zone, but this time they’re joined by a mysterious girl named Hikari, who can transform into Shiny Luminous, not a precure but precure-ish. This time the girls are trying to recover the heart and soul of the Queen of the Garden of Light, before the Dark Zone can recover and destroy the queen in her weakened state. Also their precure costumes have changed slightly.

The first season (that is to say, not max heart) is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll

Futari Wa Precure Splash Star

Hyuuga Saki (Cure Bloom), a tomboy who loves playing softball, and Mishou Mai (Cure Egret), a quiet transfer student and aspiring artist, meet each other by chance one day under the Sky Tree, where they discover two creatures from the Land of Fountains named Flappy and Choppy. The two girls transform into the legendary Precure and are tasked with restoring Princess Filia and the Seven Holy Fountains, which were sapped of their power by the evil forces of Dark Fall.

Splash Star's main theme is the appreciation of nature. The main focus is on the girls rediscovering their relationships with their town and the nature and people in it. You get to meet a whole cast of characters in their community, who have a lot of heart and charm behind their writing and the show does a good job of getting you genuinely invested in their stories.

Unfortunately the romance in Splash Star isn’t much better than Futari Wa's (sorry to any Fujimura/Kazuya fans), but the main girls themselves are so engaging that it's easy to ignore. The villains are pretty goofy, but entertaining if you can accept that the show doesn’t take itself very seriously. There are two villains in the latter half of the season that really stand out, though. Without spoiling too much, I can promise you their character arcs will tear at your heartstrings in the best way.

If you've watched Futari wa Precure, Splash Star will probably feel familiar. Although it's the first "reboot" series in the franchise with completely new characters, Toei overall played it safe and Saki and Mai in many ways still feel like "Nagisa and Honoka 2.0". Splash Star is different in enough other ways to make the show stand on its own merits, but if you watch it immediately after Futari wa you might find yourself feeling some deja vu. Personally, I think it's interesting to see what Splash Star builds on and explores when compared to Futari wa, since it has many of the same themes and character archetypes but they play out quite differently.

Yes! Precure 5 & Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!

Nozomi is a cheerful, carefree girl, but she doesn’t have a dream. One day she meets a hot guy and finds a mysterious item called the Dream Collet, capable of granting any wish once all the fairies known as Pinkies are gathered inside it, in the school library. She discovers that the hot guy is actually a tanuki from Palmier Kingdom named Coco, and that the Kingdom has been destroyed by the Nightmare. Coco’s dream is to restore his kingdom using the Dream Collet, and Nozomi decides to make it hers as well.

She’s joined by her jock friend Rin, Urara, an aspiring actress, Komachi, a writer, and the rich student council president Karen. Together they form Yes Sentai Fiveranger Yes Precure 5 and work together to prevent Nightmare from obtaining the Dream Collet before they can gather all the Pinkies. They also save Coco’s “”””””friend””””””” and fellow hot guy squirrel, Nuts, and he joins them as the second mascot/handsome love interest.

The theme of Yes is dreams and heterosexual furry romance. It pulls off the dreams part very nicely. The het furry romance is bad, mostly because Coco is Nozomi’s teacher at school and also her love interest. However, Coco and Nuts are fairly gay and if you look past the romance part they have very good dadly relationships with the rest of the team.

Yespre, like Futari Wa, received a sequel show, Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!. After the defeat of Nightmare some time ago, a new faction called Eternal rises up and starts stealing treasures from various dimensions. When Eternal targets the Rose Pact belonging to the Cure Rose Garden, the precure are called back into action to fight against Eternal, with new cure outfits, a new fairy named Syrup, and a new cure-like teammate named Milky Rose.

Fresh Precure!

Fresh is sort of the defining series for modern Precure, introducing a lot of plot and thematic elements to the franchise that would be used repeatedly later on.

A concert Momozono Love attends is attacked by a monster called a Nakewameke. When Love stands up to it, she is nearly killed, but is saved when she is chosen by a mysterious power to become Cure Peach. She is joined by Inori and Miki as Cure Pine and Cure Berry, and, together with the talking ferret from the Kingdom of Sweets, Tarte, they have to prevent Labyrinth, a grey world led by Mobius, from taking over the Parallel Worlds and transforming them into identical, machine-like dictatorships, and also figure out the secret behind the Magic Baby, Chiffon, that Tarte is entrusted with.

Fresh’s themes are happiness and nature/technology and donuts. The donuts are important. Labyrinth operates by gathering misery; the Nakewameke are created from it and their function is to create more of it and fill the Sorrow Gauge. All the girls (and the mascot) have love interests and their familial relationships are explored a lot to bring out the general stakes and emphasise what they’re fighting for.

While Fresh is very strong in characters, plot, and thematics, its lack of budget is very apparent. It looks terrible. Fortunately, it isn’t that difficult to get used to the bad animation once you get into the show, although the lack of means tends to show up at inopportune moments, like new powerups.

Heartcatch Precure!

Featuring character designs and art direction from Ojamajo Doremi’s character designer Umakoshi Yoshihiko, and written by Ojamajo Doremi and Onegai My Melody writer Yamada Takashi, Heartcatch should look and feel familiar to fans of either franchise, especially Doremi.

After having a reoccurring dream about someone called Cure Moonlight being defeated trying to defend the “Great Heart Tree”, the shy and reserved Hanasaki Tsubomi moves in with her grandmother and ends up inheriting the will of Cure Moonlight and becomes the newest precure, Cure Blossom. Finding out her grandmother used to be the legendary Cure Flower, Tsubomi vows to protect the world as a precure and learn to change herself for the better. She’s joined by her new friend and the first person she saved as a precure, Kurumi Erika, a loud girl with a big heart who means well, but doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind. Erika becomes Cure Marine and the two become Heartcatch Precure, the newest precure in the long legacy of those who have stood up to the evil Dune, a mysterious invader who destroys planets and turns them into lifeless deserts. Heartcatch Precure fights against Dune’s minions: the mask wearing Professor Sabaku, his Desert Apostles, and the mysterious Dark Precure. Along the way they meet the former Cure Moonlight, now stripped of her power, and try to help her cope with her defeat.

Heartcatch Precure’s main theme is flowers and flower language. Everyone has a “heart flower” that the Desert Apostles take and use to create their monsters every week. As an interesting result of this, the monster of the week will be the main character in the plot of the week and often their big monster form will vent about their issues which will usually lead to a resolution when the precure return them to their regular bodies. Heartcatch also has a very nice backstory and lore to it. Unlike most iterations of precure, the Heartcatch girls are not the first precure to exist in their world, there are dozens maybe hundreds of precure that came before them, fighting against Dune and his forces for hundreds of years. It adds a lot to the narrative in small ways, especially later on in the season. Also the fight scenes are extremely excellent, especially when Moonlight is involved.

Suite Precure♪

The musical paradise of Major Land falls under siege by the forces of Minor Land, led by King Mephisto. His goal is to steal the living notes of the “Melody of Happiness” and remake them into the “Melody of Sorrow”, throwing the world into a permanent depressive state. As a last resort, Queen Aphrodite scatters the notes into the human world and tasks Hummy, the cat-like fairy, and the Fairy Tones, to find the notes before the forces of Minor Lands can capture them. In the human world, Hummy meets Hojo Hibiki and Minamino Kanade, two girls who were best friends as children, but drifted apart as teenagers because of their tendency to bicker with each other. The two find themselves thrown together again by fate and transform into Cure Melody and Cure Rhythm to protect the things they hold dear. Not long after, the two rekindle their relationship and become closer than before, despite their bickering. Soon the girls run into the mysterious Cure Muse, a girl who appears to be a precure like them, but hides her face with a mask and refuses to join in their fight, claiming to be neither friend nor enemy. Melody and Rhythm battle against Minor Land and the giant Negatones they create from the notes they gather, as well as Siren, another cat-like fairy who used to be Hummy’s best friend before turning to evil and joining Minor Land.

Suite Precure’s main theme is music, and it is a very encompassing theme. Hibiki and Kanade bond over their piano practice, the town they live in celebrates music frequently and is aesthetically music themed, and their powers take the form of musical instruments. Harmony is also a large theme for the two girls. Their precure power increases as they harmonize with each other, and the early season is very much about them learning to harmonize with each other. Suite also features several extremely well done mystery arcs, about the identity of Cure Muse, and various other things that I can’t very well talk about without risking spoiling things myself. If you manage to go into Suite not knowing anything consider yourself extremely lucky and be super sure not to get spoiled. The show staff went to great lengths to hide certain things, including leaking fake cure designs, and creating a second version of the second dance ending to further mask the identity of Cure Muse until her true reveal.

Also something to note, usually precure movies have nothing to do with the plot of the show itself and can be watched whenever but the Suite movie is best enjoyed right after the arc revealing Cure Muse’s identity is concluded, it has a nice resolution to plot elements in that arc and sets the stage for the last few arcs of the show, so be sure to watch it then.

Smile Precure!

Written by Kamen Rider Kabuto head writer Yonemura Shoji, Smile Precure is the second season to feature a 5 girl team after Yes! Precure 5 Gogo!. Running late to her first day of school, resident happy-go-lucky klutz Hoshizora Miyuki runs face first into a small creature called Candy, a fairy from a place called Märchenland. The two are attacked by an anthropomorphic wolf named Wolfrun, and Miyuki transforms into Cure Happy to fight against Wolfrun and the big clown faced monster he summons called an Akanbe. After Candy explains that the legends say there are five precure, Miyuki recruits four new friends: the hot blooded Akane (Cure Sunny), shy artist Yayoi (Cure Peace), responsible older sister Nao (Cure March), and refined student council vice-president Reika (Cure Beauty). The five of them become Smile Precure and fight against Wolfrun and his allies in the Bad End Kingdom, who attempt to revive the slumbering Pierrot by trying to put the world in a “Bad End”.

Smile Precure’s main theme is fairy tales, in a general sense. The Bad End trio are based off of the big bad wolf (Wolfrun), the oni from Momotaro (Akaoni), and the witch from Snow White (Majorina), and Miyuki herself is utterly captivated by fairy tales. The secondary theme is happiness, and the happy go lucky tone of the series often turns on its head during serious arcs to deliver extremely powerful emotional moments. Smile Precure is light on plot, and most episodes are an ultra happy experience, but the show knows how to get serious when it needs to and Smile is exceedingly competent at pulling off drama when the time comes. Smile knows how to get you invested in its characters and use that to pull on your heartstrings during the big moments. The last 10 episodes of the show are the absolute pinnacle of the show’s emotional drama, and each cure gets her own episode for closure before the finale sets in and emotionally destroys you. Also you get to play rock paper scissors with Cure Peace during her roll call so that’s always fun.

Doki Doki! Precure

Doki opens with Trump Kingdom’s destruction by the Selfishness as Cure Sword looks on, helpless. Switching to our world and brighter topics, we meet Aida Mana, Student Council President of Oogai Middle School, whose dream is to become the Prime Minister of Japan. Whenever Mana sees someone in trouble, she’ll help them out, so when a monster attacks the city, Mana does the obvious and tries to stop it. And when, chosen by the fairy Charuru (Charles? Cheryle? Cherry?) to become a Precure and defend the world, she meets Cure Sword, she has to befriend her and help her restore Trump Kingdom and find her happiness.

Mana (Cure Heart) is joined by Rikka (Cure Diamond), her studious companion and supporter, and also the immeasurably powerful and rich (in that order) Alice (Cure Rosetta). Together they have to unravel the mystery of the man who gave them their transformation items, the missing princess of Trump Kingdom, the strange, evil girl called Regina, and Ai, the chaotic neutral baby who hatches out of an egg.

Dokipre’s theme is love and selflessness. It also has Deep Lore, a lot of which is established in extra-series material. The show does try to explore concepts like past cures and manages a very nice repeating pattern effect with the plot, in terms of past and future happenings. There’s a lot of foreshadowing. Compared to most Precure seasons it’s very plot-heavy and even the filler usually ends up being plot-relevant.

Happiness Charge Precure!

The 10th anniversary of Precure! The Phantom Empire is spreading across the world, and Precure are rising up all over the globe to fight them off. In Japan there are two active cures, Cure Fortune, strong and capable, and Cure Princess, scared and unsure of herself. As Cure Princess, Shirayuki Hime, struggles desperately to do her duty as precure, Cure Fortune refuses to work with her for reasons Hime doesn’t fully understand. Realizing her only hope is to find a partner to work with, Hime bumps into Aino Megumi, a super friendly girl who has a tendency to drop everything and help others any time she sees someone in need. Megumi becomes Cure Lovely, and bolstering Hime’s confidence, the two of them become Happiness Charge Precure, tasked with protecting Japan from Queen Mirage and her Phantom Empire. The two are joined by Cure Honey, and eventually Cure Fortune, and the four of them receive support from Blue, the God of Planet Earth. As the girls continue to fight and defend Japan, they are assaulted by Phantom, the ruthless Precure Hunter who has defeated and trapped countless Precure in his Precure Graveyard, and the Oresky Trio, the Phantom Empire generals who oversee the invasion of Japan.

Happiness Charge Precure’s themes are romance and happiness. There are several arcs dedicated to the budding romances of the cures, and the backstory of the show is heavily tied to romance. Happiness might as well be Megumi’s middle name, she makes it her business to spread happiness to as many people as she can, and takes every chance she can to help others. Happiness Charge is also the first season to have form changes for the precure, each cure has a small selection of forms they can change to for different big attacks, and this concept would later be expanded and used as a core concept in Maho Girls Precure. Like Heartcatch before it, Happiness Charge exists in a world where multiple precure exist, but unlike Heartcatch all those precure exist at the same time in the present day. Other precure teams make cameos every so often and the concept creates a great world in which the whole planet is being protected by teenage girls with superpowers, creating a wonderful sense of scale that really makes the big victories of Happiness Charge Precure feel even bigger.

Go! Princess Precure

The first precure series to take place at a boarding school! Years ago, a young girl named Haruno Haruka meets a very royal looking person named Kanata who gives her a Dress-Up Key, a big key shaped like a dress. A teenager now, Haruka starts attending Noble Academy, a prestigious boarding school, all the while holding tight to her dream of becoming a true princess, in a quasi-literal sense. Not long after starting the school year, Haruka meets Pafu and Aroma, two fairies from the Hope Kingdom desperate to revive the legendary precure to fight back against Dyspear and her minions who steal dreams to create their giant Zetsuborgs. Realizing what her Dress-Up Key is meant for, Haruka uses it and the Princess Perfume to become Cure Flora. Together with student council president Kaido Minami (Cure Mermaid), and Amanogawa Kirara (Cure Twinkle) a fashion model with huge aspirations, they become the new Princess Precure, tasked with learning to become true princesses along with protecting the Dress-Up Keys from Dyspear’s forces.

Go! Princess Precure’s main themes are princesses (duh) and dreams. Dreams are a driving force behind all of the cures, and most of the plot of the week characters. Dyspear steals dreams to make monsters, and the precure fight to return those dreams. Characters follow their dreams with conviction, pride, and full commitment. This is also where the princess theme intersects, since it’s Haruka’s dream to become a true princess. One should note that princess is used sort of liberally in this series, it’s not that Haruka wants to somehow become someone of noble birth or have political power, she just wants to be strong, kind, and beautiful, the traits of a true princess in Princess Precure’s own terms. Also she wants to wear pretty dresses and such but who can blame her really.

Mahou Tsukai Precure! (Maho Girls Precure!)

Quite literally putting the magic in magical girls for the first time in the franchise, Mahou Tsukai Precure was the first season to have its cures be actual magicians. Izumi Riko lives in the magical world, a world where magic is real and she attends a magical academy to hone her craft. She leaves the magical world to travel to the “non-magic” world, to search for a legendary item called the Linkle Stone Emerald. In the non-magic world she ends up catching the attention of another girl, Asahina Mirai, who sees her using magic. After trying to show off some magic and messing it up, Riko is attacked by Batty, a servant of the dark wizard Dokurokushe, who is seeking the Linkle Stone Emerald as well. As fate would have it, both Mirai and Riko carry stones that turn out to be the Linkle Stones Diamond, and the two of them use them to become Cure Miracle and Cure Magical, the legendary Mahou Tsukai Precure. Additionally, the power of the Linkle Stones grants life to Mirai’s lifelong companion, a teddy bear named Mofurun. Having discovered the world of magic and become a precure, Mirai is invited to spend time in the magical world learning magic alongside Riko, before the two, joined by Mofurun and a baby fairy named Ha, return to the non-magical world to search for the Emerald and protect it from Dokurokushe and his minions.

Mahou Tsukai Precure’s main themes are bonds and separation. It’s strengths lie in how it shows the relationship between Mirai and Riko. The show takes its time building their relationship in the first dozen or so episodes of their adventures in the magic world, highlighting their similarities and differences as they grow closer and learn to live with each other and fight as precure together. Well before the halfway mark it’s clear how strong their bond is and how deeply they care for each other, and the lengths they would go to for one another. Mahou Tsukai is an emotional ride in so many ways, every emotional moment hits its mark and the more you get attached to the characters the more the show will hit harder and harder with its moments, both sad and happy. Even side characters get satisfying and emotional conclusions to their storylines outside of the episodes they’re introduced in, it’s all wonderfully crafted.

KiraKira☆Precure A La Mode

Another return to the five cure format, Kirapre is also the second season to feature a sixth team member after Yes! Precure 5 Gogo!, as well as the second season to feature high school age precure after Heartcatch Precure. Usami Ichika is in her second year of middle school and loves sweets, especially making sweets. One day a hungry fairy named Pekorin finds her way into Ichika’s kitchen, and after being fed teaches Ichika about Kirakiraru, an energy source that exists in all sweets, and something that can be stolen and used for evil, leaving the sweets gray and tasteless. Utilizing the power of kirakraru in the shortcake she baked for her mother, Ichika becomes Cure Whip, one of the legendary patissiers, Precure. One by one other precure appear, the smart but shy Arisugawa Himari (Cure Custard), the rock band headliner Tategami Aoi (Cure Gelato), the fickle catlike Kotozume Yukari (Cure Macaron), and the responsible and helpful Kenjou Akira (Cure Chocolat). The five of them fight against the evils of Noir and those he has influenced: Julio, the mysterious masked boy who runs “experiments'' using kirakiraru, and Bibury, a mean spirited girl who uses her talking doll to steal kirakiraru and create monsters.

Kirapre’s main motifs are sweets and animals, and it has a pretty general togetherness and happiness theme going on, the standard precure stuff, mostly viewed through the lense of sweets and sweets-making. All the precure work as patissiers for one reason or another and it’s the main way the team bonds early on. The team, as well as the people of their small town, love sweets as a part of their culture and sweets maintain an important role as the emotional tie that binds most things together in the story. Overall Kirapre is a wonderful show with a great cast on both sides of the conflict, and a lot of care has been put into the show to make sure characters have their moments to interact with each other as well as have their own stories , even on a team of six every precure gets more than enough time to shine on her own. Kirapre is at it’s best when it takes two girls and puts them together for an episode, letting each unique dynamic play out in a fun and satisfying way. Kirapre is also noteworthy for the almost inarguably canonical relationship between two of the cures. It's not exactly explicit and it does leave something to be desired, since this is a Toei children's show, but there’s not really any other way to read the evolution of their relationship or their duet song, so I’m more than satisfied calling it canon.

This season is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll

HUGtto! Precure

Precure’s 15th anniversary! This season is in many ways a celebration of all things Precure, bringing together a lot of familiar elements from past shows into one. Hugtto! is another five cure season whose main themes are destiny and future. Nono Hana (Cure Yell) is a thirteen-year-old girl whose dream is to be a "cool and stylish woman," although she worries that others see her as childish. One day, a hamster named Harryham Harry and a magical baby named Hugtan fall out of the sky into Hana's house. They're being chased from the future by an evil organization called Criasu Corporation, who are trying to use Hugtan's power to freeze time forever. Hana makes friends with two of her classmates: the responsible class representative Yakushiji Saaya (Cure Ange) and the reclusive ex-figure skater Kagayaki Homare (Cure Etoile), and together they fight Criasu while taking care of Hugtan and figuring out the many mysteries surrounding her. Expect some light sc-fi elements and an emphasis on modern technology/social media.

Hugtto! explores its themes primarily through the lenses of childcare and the workplace, giving us a look at how each girl comes to terms with the transition from childhood to adulthood. This season does a good job of letting each member of the team shine; you spend several episodes with each girl (or duo of girls) and there's a real sense of a complete character arc for all of them. The romance aspect is, unfortunately, pretty bad: there’s a return of hetero furry romance between Harry and Homare, and Hana’s love interest exhibits some really creepy behavior towards her. There’s uncomfortable age gaps in both of these relationships too so it’s a just a bit…. Yikes. Thankfully, it’s fairly easy to ignore like past seasons, but a warning for it nonetheless.

Something that makes this season stand out is its LGBT subtext; there's a TON of it even compared to the normal amount that Precure is known for. Without giving away too much, two of the cures this season are heavily coded as lesbians (though not with each other per se), and there's a subplot concerning a side character who is pretty explicitly (well, as explicit as Toei dares to be) a gender non-conforming man/nonbinary person in love with another man, and it's all very wholesome and presented in a positive light. Again, this is Toei, so don't expect anything too radical, but I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised with how Hugpre handles it.

Finally I'll just say that while Hugpre is a fantastic season on its own, I would personally recommend waiting to watch it after you've seen some other seasons (notably Futari wa). It's not required, but since Hugpre is an anniversary season, there are a few episodes (especially near the end) that will really hit different if you have an emotional connection to the franchise already. Ultimately though this is a fairly minor part of the show, so watching this season first won’t ruin it or anything like that, it’s just something to keep in mind.

Star☆Twinkle Precure

Precure… in space! Our protagonist, Hoshina Hikaru (Cure Star) loves space and cryptids, to the point of drawing her own constellations. One of her constellations is an adorable alien puffball, who warps into Hikaru’s room almost immediately after she draws it. The puffball quickly befriends Hikaru, who names her Fuwa. They are later joined by Prunce, the team dad friend/alien mascot, and Lala (Cure Milky), a humanoid alien who is an adult in her own culture. After our initial duo gets off to a bit of a rocky start, they are joined by the student council president, Kaguya Madoka (Cure Selene) and a biracial upperclassman who is considered to be the “sun” of the school, Amamiya Elena (Cure Soleil). Together, they explore the universe and befriend all sorts of aliens, while also defending them from the Notraiders, who want to rid the universe of all imagination. On top of that, the universe is dying and the cures need to find the 12 astrologically themed Star Pens to save it and the 12 Star Princesses. This series is notable for attempting to break the “monster of the week” format, instead making it a “fight of the week”.

The major themes of Star Twinkle are space, imagination, and maturity. The cures have to explore the universe to find the Star Pens, and in doing so, visit a bunch of different planets. About half the series is spent on Earth, but the world still feels developed! Honestly speaking, the theme of imagination is forgotten pretty quickly and I’d refer to it more as free will. The theme of maturity is where Star Twinkle really shines. All of the cures have had to grow up too fast in some way, and the series is partially about just allowing them to goof off. Lala is considered an adult on her planet, and this plot point is treated realistically. Well, as realistically as it can be. This is one series I’d recommend avoiding spoilers like the plague for, because part of the fun is in how the plot twists are pulled off. Also Star Twinkle is notable for featuring the first ever dark skinned precure, as Elena is half-hispanic.

Healin’ Good Precure

The currently airing Precure season, as of this writing. The Byogens seek to revive their king by inflicting viruses on Earth, the Healing Garden sends three medical interns to combat them. These interns, fairies named Rabirin, Pegitan, and Nyatoran, along with a baby fairy princess named Latte, journey to Earth to find partners to become Precure. They end up meeting Hanadera Nodoka, a kindhearted girl who was hospitalized for most of her young childhood. After Nodoka risks her life to protect Latte, Rabirin chooses her to become Cure Grace. Joined by older sister type Sawaizumi Chiyu (Cure Fontaine) and the outgoing Hiramitsu Hinata (Cure Sparkle), they form Healin’ Good Precure, and defend their friends and the Earth from the Byogen’s newest wave of attacks.

This season is currently one of the few seasons available with official english subtitles on the streaming platform Crunchyroll.

Where To Watch Precure Online

Unfortunately for us, Precure isn’t really a thing in the west. There was a dub of Futari Wa back in the early 2000’s and Smile and Doki both got “adapted” into Glitter Force over on netflix (I don’t really recommend checking those out), but really Precure just doesn’t exist over here.

However, as mentioned above, there are currently three seasons avalible for streaming on crunchyroll. The original Futari Wa Precure, Kira Kira Precure A La Mode, and the current season, Healin’ Good Precure.

Beyond these isolated examples of official releases, you can really only watch precure online on streaming sites or through torrents. You can find precure pretty much on any major anime streaming site, kissanime, gogoanime, the works. You can also try your luck torrenting the seasons, i’ve found that pretty much every season has a working torrent you can find on sites like nyaa.si or the like. For more recent seasons you should have little difficulty getting torrents, and last time i checked every season was on one of the aforementioned streaming sites. What I’m saying really is there’s no single place to find precure, but it’s not impossible to find for sure.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope you decide to check out precure and I really hope you end up loving it.Thanks to my wonderful friend @meltorights for writing the sections on Yespre, Fresh, and Dokipre, to @wonderlilane for writing the sections on Splash Star and Huggto, and @cure-cosmo for writing the segment on Starpre.

If you have questions feel free to drop me an ask I’d be happy to help. I will literally go out of my way to help you if it means getting someone new into precure so please do not hesitate by any means.

#Apple Post #precure #pretty cure #magical girl #anime #toei animation

1K notes · View notes

vaguely-concerned · 4 years

Text

X-men Evolution; the great 2021 rewatch liveblog

exactly what it says on the tin, about halfway through the show I had TOO MANY FEELINGS and had to start writing some of them out haha (gets quite gambit & rogue/gambit heavy in the latter half, Because of Who I Am as a Person)

- this is my childhood’s x-men, my formative experience with them, and I’m happy to report that still seems like a good thing. the little eleven year old within me gets to geek out and have a good time with the characters and the surprisingly good animation and writing, adult me gets to CACKLE at regular intervals at the fashion/technology/absolute bonkers hot garbage comic book nonsense they use to justify a storyline every now and then, it’s been a good time

- I was like ‘ah well it is super dated it probably won’t be quite the same now’ and then rogue’s HAIR did the THING in the opening and ‘it’s all coming back to me now’ started playing in the background... the little baby queer in me swooning across time and space

- such a good beast, both his design and the writing, my heart aches for him all the time. he’s just so passionate! about being a teacher! helping young humans learn the stuff they’ll need in life! the most wonderful nerd man, just let good things happen for him

- I’m going to go ahead and assume that rogue’s ‘crush’ on scott is more of a deeply complex psychological process about desiring normalcy and intimacy and trying to figure out if she’s queer and dealing with her emerging sexuality and latching on to the first and best safely unavailable and nonthreatening older boy to project these issues onto rather than actually being a real thing, because I respect her so much as a person and I cannot bring myself to imagine she’s honestly attracted to a man who has POSTERS OF CARS on his bedroom wall. (I’ll give jean a break just because she seems to have a longer deeper history with him that might counteract some of that libido-kill, and also she’s a jock so lol)

like I am very sorry but can u imagine being a teenage girl with any interest in a boy with model cars in his bedroom when gambit’s swanning around being a much, much, much worse choice on almost every possible level but in a teen girl kryptonite kind of way? inconceivable

(I drag scott quite a few times in this and it’s not because I don’t love him, it’s just his tragedy to be the most draggable man in the world)

to be fair by the time gambit shows up that whole Situation has mostly played itself out I suppose but still

- toad’s design is so ineffably brilliant, I can’t quite tell you why but that ugly cute charm has really stuck with me, he’s one of the characters I remembered the best to this day just visually

- poor evan... he truly never had a chance, did he, they just saddled him with the most 90s teen bullshit they could come up with like he’s some kind of ‘what adult writers think teens like’ frankenstein’s monster ;______; it’s not your fault honey

- poor poor POOR storm, she gets one focus episode and they were like ‘we’re going to make an episode so racist -- ‘

I’m still STUNNED at how bad it was, but undeniably I laughed hysterically to the point that my neighbours were probably worried when that dude was earnestly like ‘He [stunningly breathlessly racist caricature of a ‘witch doctor’ guy] has stolen her powers, and he’s going to use them to take over Africa!!!’ fhajsdlfhsakjldfh oh really? tell me more, like how the fUCK this could be on television within my life time fasdlfhsdkjfhsad f just... fahjksdfh

- it’s a testament to gambit’s appeal as a character that his charm can survive what they’ve done with his hair and beard choices in this one fajskfhs regrettable but true I still fuckn LOVE him and in my highly biased yet Correct opinion he should have been around much more. get you a man who manages to stay hot through sheer Vibes even with a bowl cut

- aw scott/jean is kind of sweet in this show even if it’s taking them forEVER to get there, I like it

- it’s very nice of rogue to not mention magneto’s romantic daydreams and nostalgic memories about charles xavier after touching his face that one time... or maybe her brain did her a service and repressed it, there’s some stuff you shouldn’t have to know about your father figure

- the danger room is the very definition of ‘why do we even have that lever’ and I wonder what the fuck prof x does to have enough money to replace everything that gets busted all the time

- I’d say that a lot of the writing holds up surprisingly well! (but some of it is also incredibly inexcusably racist in ways that beggar belief, so... not full marks here) the characters have distinct voices and their arcs are set up and delivered on solidly for the most part, and there’s a lot of love showing through in small moments that are just there to have a funny/interesting thing to say about the characters and how their powers work separately and in combination. listen, sometimes I get so thirsty for like. basic goddamn competency in storytelling, let me have this

- ugggggh why is there captain america in my x-men have I not suffered enough... very very funny when prof x goes ‘sounds like you knew rogers personally’ and logan is like ‘I did ;)’ *all the students ganging up on steve rogers* “did you fuck our teacher, captain america?!”

- fskadfhas WHY are you showing me hot young-ified magneto’s ass fksjahfskj charles is not even here to see it, what a tragic waste erik

- ...I was sort of kidding before but uh I think logan genuinely did fuck captain america (or at least wishes very much that he did lol)

- wanda can have a little watching the world burn. as a treat for the way every single adult in her life has fucking failed her (’aren’t they treating you well here’ professor x she’s in a straightjacket)

- poor rogue tho can you imagine finding out after your biggest crush on a girl yet that she’s your fucking MOM in disguise... I would break out in cold sweat every time I thought about a boob forever after

- well seems like they really just had all that homoerotic rivalry stuff between quicksilver and spyke in their first ep only to never do anything with that again ever?? I mean even without the gay undertone that seems like a dynamic you spent most of an episode setting up writers what the hell haha

- dslhfkasjlh GAMBIT THERE HE IS MY BOY IS ON THE SCENE THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! I don’t even care about his awful hair situation or the fact that his eyes are wrong here (coloured contact lenses, maybe, for a watsonian explanation? though he’d probably have to get them made special, considering he needs the sclera and the iris covered up in different ways, I’ve seen some comic panels indicating he has been known to?)

(cute little detail: when he shuffles the cards the first time we see him he ends with removing the top card to show the ace of hearts beneath <3 foreshadowing baBEY he’s a... good-ish boy deep down. hey he tries okay shit gets complicated sometimes lol)

- cracking UP at gambit perched cheerily on the edge of a crate dispensing cards in the middle of the battle... he’s like ‘eh it’s a livin’ sfsajkhf remy stop working for supervillains just because you had nothing to do on a thursday afternoon and they said they’d pay you

- I’m guessing magneto must have imposed a strict order of silence on these guys or something because I cannot imagine any other reason for him to shut up, especially once he notices rogue is a QTE (or, far more likely, they hadn’t settled on any voice actors for the new characters until next season haha. it is kind of odd that they’re all keeping up near monastic silence, though, even sabertooth lol)

- WHAT an epic first meeting for us rogue/gambit fans here... first his shadow like there’s fireworks going off behind him lighting him up and then he gives her the fuckn king of hearts and she’s so enchanted by his dumb handsome face she doesn’t even notice it’s about to blow up in her hands and it all happens in heavily meaningful silence afjsdfjashjk no wonder this ship ingrained itself in my hindbrain

yeah look smug while you can remy she’s gonna have you on your knees one day and you’ll be happy about it lol

- god storm is so COOL, everything just fading out of focus when she really gets going... give her more screen time, show!!

- mystique is every person... this person... that person... that bird... that cat... that wolf... I’m not even sure she’s not also me... are you sure she’s not you?

- holy fuck I respect the hell out of the decision to just... blow up the entire status quo in a season ender, I only vaguely remembered that (actually in general I appreciate how good the continuity is -- buildings and places that get damaged in battles need to be repaired or rebuilt, it makes the consequences feel more real even when no one gets seriously hurt. where they get the money to restore scott’s car and logan’s motorbikes every time they go cablooie is still an open question tho lol is it credit card fraud, professor? is it telepathically acquired blackmail???)

- I first watched this when I was nine or so, so it’s a real experience to go from my starry eyed intrigued ‘oh my god... they’re teenagers’ to my horrified adult perspective of ‘oh my god... they’re TEENAGERS D:’

that goes double for the brotherhood boys honestly, I’m here with tears in my eyes like ‘I’m sorry the system has failed you so badly you’re all just a bunch of dumb kids whose caretakers clearly fucked up spectacularly’

like lance is always waiting for mystique to come back because she’s the closest thing he has to a safe parental figure, may we speak about how crushingly depressing that is

- rogue is so ready to throw hands at literally any moment and for that I love and treasure her immensely (I think getting to see her be so surly and unreasonable and sometimes difficult and jealous, like any teenager, meant a lot to me as a kid who was not really allowed to be any of these things, this version of the character has stayed with me so deeply. she holds on so fiercely to her right to feel what she feels and be what she is even when it’s ‘ugly’ or unreasonable, which I think plays in really interestingly with how her powers involve getting invaded by other people’s thoughts and memories to the point of overwhelming her own sense of self and the fact that she clearly has a lot of self-loathing and self-consciousness and confusion about her identity as well. I love her so much)

- oooof this is the ‘the gang experience a microaggression’ episode huh (well more like macroagressions really)

hits a bit different with adult eyes and perspective huh

- hearing jean sound almost like a child when she says ‘that’s so unfair!’ somehow has me like ;______; -- she has to be so adult and responsible all the time, and having her be reduced to the kid she still is and should get to be in front of this awful awful man she could squash like a bug with the flick of a thought... ugh I’m Big Sad (it is funny that jean seemingly plays Every Sport tho djfhaskj)

- MY BOY IS BACK!!! this time with the duster coat and his eyes the right colour, im so happy (too bad about the subdued colour scheme tho; I adore his dumb bright pink getup with my whole heart)

it’s kind of adorable that he takes the time to take the bullies aside and go ‘I know these guys can’t wreck you without getting expelled, but I think you’ll find no law set down by god or man would stop me from doing so whenever I wanted to. so piss off and leave them alone’ lol he’s looking out for them, in his own way

- in this episode: remy lebeau wrangles some kids while looking bored yet mildly amused the whole time. what the fuck does magneto have on you for you to agree to this level of babysitting duty buddy

- fun detail I noticed b/c when I get a fave I hyperfixate: he gave rogue the king of hearts before, but he ‘introduces’ himself to the brotherhood here (lol) with the jack of hearts, probably to symbolize he’s here as someone who works for magneto in this setting and not as his own man? it’s a demotion he’s given himself there, anyway, might be he’s not very pleased about his current position huh

- I like it when rogue and kitty team up, they’re not very effective together but their squabbling is so cute and non-aggressive

- pietro is what draco malfoy would be if I ever found malfoy interesting to watch for even one moment, every time quicksilver talks I’m like ‘what wonderfully insufferable thing is going to come out of your mouth this time you little shit :’)’

- a) why are scott and logan shirtless for this scene? I am not complaining on the logan side of things at least but why and b) I laughed so hard I almost fell off my couch when scott asked logan if he’d ever been in love and he was like ‘once. she was the most beautiful bike I ever saw’ falsdfhaskjfhsakjlfhasklhjfd THE BEST VERSION OF WOLVERINE EVER, ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES

- mystique’s sheer dedication to being a petty bitch is kind of inspirational tbh, almost makes me want to go on a completely bonkers and extra crusade of personal revenge myself

- oooh they’re doing some genuinely cool things with vision/lack of vision in this one (it’s the scott left on his own in the desert without glasses one btw) even visually, dang! I’m so sad this show didn’t get more seasons than it did, honestly, it deserved it

- hell yeah jean wreck her, go get your man with the suspiciously specific clothing damage normally done to female characters

awww :’) okay yeah they’re super sweet, I love the tiny loving animation details like how he leans his head against her and her stroking his hair away from his eyes

- nooo don’t bully evan leave my t0tally r4dical sk8er boy alone :(

- I love the running joke of people fleeing in blind panic only to reveal that what they’re running from is kitty’s cheerful well meaning little face fskfaskh

- scott and jean are already peak married after officially being together for one episode and it’s adorable, and they just stone cold threw logan under the bus, rip wolverine we hardly knew ya

fjasdlfasldfhslajdkfhsadkjlfhsdkjalfhsdakfh h jean establishing herself as the alphabitch of this relationship by throwing her man to the wolves right after dsjfhaskjfhaskjhfsakjdhfaskjhfaskdhfskjahfskdajhf get smarter or get volunteered scott

- ...eyepatch lady is so hot ngl

oh evan went to the place hank used to go to calm down ;________; (honestly he’s kind of won a place in my heart just by being a pretty normal teenage boy haha)

- jesus fucking CHRIST can you imagine being storm having to look her sister in the eye as she tells her ‘I lost your only child, he’s *vague gesture* somewhere in the sewers we think’ this poor woman

- amanda the self admitted monster fucker you are so VALID (I love her and her family’s design so much tho!)

- it’s so cool that even in his human ‘disguise’ kurt’s fingers follow the shape of his actual hand beneath it rather than moving like a five fingered hand, it’s such a lovingly consistent little detail

- magneto and mystique in a breathless race to see who can be the shittiest parent... tune in next week for yet another parental nadir (also some low-poly gambit appearances in this one, for those at home keeping score (me), he’s in the background looking like someone drew him with their eyes closed fakjldfhasd look how they massacred my boy)

- someone please teach the brotherhood boys about consent huh

- jean ‘soccer mom before her time’ grey and her SUV dfhakjlhds :’)

- im sobbing rogue baby girl i’m so sorryyyyyy, this voice actress is so good, my parental instincts suddenly kicked into overdrive hearing the crack in her voice :( (bb me was right tho rogue centric episodes ARE the best episodes. that tension between ‘do I identify witn this character or am I crushing on her?? both???’ now has the fun new addition of ‘oh god oh no you are a baby I want to shield you with my body from everything trying to hurt you’)

- mystique is like ‘so you see despite you telling me you never wanted to see me again I completely disrespected that and posed as a friend your age, manipulated you by offering you the mirage of direly needed emotional intimacy and belonging and added some sprinkles of homoerotic tension to it just to massively worsen your already existing grievous psychosexual trauma and identity issues... out of love’

god go jump in a black hole you fucking monster

- there’s some very interesting and quite subtle subtext about the people she’s morphing into and what that says about her mental state/how it shows off some of her emotional baggage with the rest of the team. it’s like she’s switching between people/powers that fit the purpose as if she’s going through cycles of fight/flight (and then bursts of freeze where she’s herself, which is... so sad)

- this whole episode is hurting my heart but rogue at full power is undeniably epic

- ‘professor x get your goddamn act together and get this poor girl some fucking tHERAPY’ challenge

- SAFE PAPA LOGAN ;_____;

- EYYYYYY opening straight on My Lad, I cannot stop winning!!!!!

fasdfhsad disintegrating the window with a smiley face... remy I do love you more than my heart can bear honestly, hello may we speak about the fact that his urge to be a little shit is so deep and strong it survives mind control (that little breathed out ‘hiah!’ as he vaults the fence too dsakfjsd)

hahaha and he does up the coat fhsalfdsaj

- magneto dismissing other telepaths like ‘puh-lease, your Meaningful Looks have got nothing on my ex-husband’s’

- :’) rogue and kurt sibling timeees

- say what you want but this pyro guy’s got job satisfaction in being a creepy arsonist with a weird recurring horse theme (well at least twice but still weird)

- I love how beast is the kindest man to ever walk the earth but also straight up savage, this man drags people so hard their ancestors wince in their graves

- gambit taking the time to complete the guard’s game of solitaire -- this episode is giving me everything I want. u little disgrace mr lebeau

and THEN he takes the spider out in the most hilariously bonkers way my heart is so FULL

(I love that when magneto moves by he looks startled and has to quickly move his head out of the way to avoid getting kicked in the temple too that’s a fun detail)

I’m so INTO how this sequence shows off that his greatest strength isn’t even his powers (which are pretty straightforward, really, he makes go boom, longer time and bigger thing bigger boom) but that he’s clever and creative and always extremely ready to be the most harebrained-bananapants-extra-in-a-deceptively-laidback-sort-of-way person in the room (I actually have some genuinely Deep Thoughts about how his whole character does a really interesting thing with having the straightforwardly destructive nature of his powers yield to what his nature as a person is, and how using the playing cards play (heh) into it, maybe I’ll write it out some day. just the fact that he could use anything, but he deliberately chose something that adds style and playfulness and corny charm to it and that also limits the damage of the explosions compared to if he habitually used something with more mass... I find it fascinating how much he’s made a story around himself with it and how deeply it shows he does have a good heart, at the end of the day, in almost a metatextual way. he doesn’t want to destroy things or people, he’s at worst (and best lol) a thief.)

- I honestly have literally no memory of white nick fury (which seems so weird now isn’t it funny) in this series from when I was a kid, he clearly did not make an impression on me lol

- mr wolverine ‘assigned canadian at birth’ x-men

- oh man I dig the androgynity of x-23′s outfit (even tho they had to compensate with the long hair, which... kind of doesn’t make sense in-universe but does on a design level because it’s a crucial thing that she’s a female clone of logan so yeah okay fine whatever have your arbitrary gender markers if you must haha)

ooooooh that’s actually really clever, they make her gender gradually more obvious as she unravels through the episode and her outfit changes -- first the mask coming off, and then her jacket opening to show her silhouette more clearly, that’s cool!

- my god what really sets this show apart is how much it invests in little character and relationship moments, it’s just so fucking GOOD! it gives laura looking in on those moments such depth and weight because it’s new to her but established to us as an audience, this is how you make found family devastating people (storm growing bonsai trees is so charming too haha)

- ooof this is honestly quite harrowing

SHE’S SO SMALL COMPARED TO HIM I’M CRYING (at least that part of his genes translated over faslkfsjdh short king, I say this with all the love and support of a fellow short monarch)

- tabitha seems to just be running around doing precisely whatever the fuck she wants and you know what I support her even if she is an asshole her father left her a bunch of trauma and no fucks left to give

- still thrilled about professor x explaining the spider key fuckup to magneto after the fact like ‘magnus you dumb bitch this is why we split up’

- awww kitty has anime and movie posters on her wall and sleeps with a stuffed toy :’)

- remy rogue

🤝

doing completely unnecessary parkour around the brotherhood living room seemingly just for the hell of it... I’m not saying soulmates but fucking soulmates

- fhsadkjlfhsakjldfhsadjkfhsdajkfh just as gambit’s soul-level need to be a little shit survived his bout of mind control, rogue’s deep and urgent desire to kiss gambit full on the mouth survived hers I can’t breathe

she looks so pleased with herself too GOOD FOR YOU GIRL at least get something out of this other than more trauma

also not only the fact that he’s smart enough to figure out what’s going on (though he’s only partially right about who’s behind it. I do so enjoy gambit/mystique deep and sincere antipathy as a constant across all universes tho lmao pure wlw/mlm hostility) but also that he keeps fending her off like he’s not trying to hurt her even though she’s in nigh on unstoppable and invulnerable terminator mode... awww

- gambit having absolutely no patience for wolverine and sabertooth’s bullshit macho-off and consistently being this little biker trio’s one brain cell is adding years to my life with every passing moment

his voice is a little different in these scenes too, a bit softer and less like he’s trying to impress someone, it’s nice

- hank: well I barely recognize any of these (completely made up) ‘ancient egyptian hieroglyphs’ but from what I can make out -- *proceeds to infodump a perfect coherent narrative* fjdhfak

listen this whole thing is such nonsense on so many levels, I’m just turning my brain off so I won’t have to think about it okay, the compulsion to put ancient aliens in egypt haunts us as a culture

- I am CACKLING about gambit in the snow after having to listen to these two chucklefucks ooze testosterone at each other for hours

he started out taking it in good cheer and is now reduced to ‘dieu would both of you just jump off this fUCKING mountain please’

- ah. a little oops-a-daisy there, we seem to have unleashed the apocalypse. please stand by (they really don’t pull their punches with the season cliffhangers in this show haha)

- opening the season on gambit’s merrily grinning face is the easiest way to gain my favour. yes good this season may commence

baby u r my

ANGELLLLLLLL

(he’s so cute here tho haha I think it shows the design isn’t unsalvagable, just get him better hair and stubble more like logan has and you’ve basically got it)

love his exasperated eyeroll when the dude gets spooked (by his eyes? or just the general weirdness?) too

he’s just trying to keep this crazy family of evil mutants together and unmurdered by one another until they’ve managed to avert the end of the world, bless him

- oh NO rogue’s LIP wobbles my hhhhhheart ;____; such a good animation detail to put in

- like... I know kurt is just a sad scared teenager with a lot of shit going on and all the adults are too busy averting the end of the world to help him... but buddy maybe don’t ask your sister to wake her abuser (who forced her to kickstart the end of the world!!!!!) when she feels utterly unsafe even with her statue version around huh

- ...wanda is good and I want only good things for her. and for her dad to be disemboweled for what he did to her both the first time around and when he forced her to forget I mean what

- magneto throwing an epic satelite-slinging tantrum b/c ‘no I am the biggest sexiest strongest mutant of the pack :(’... erik fucking get over yourself

- yes boys absolutely go along with a plan suggested by a dude who looks at you like this

nothing bad can come of this surely asdfkhsa

- lance’s quarter of a braincell always trying to go ‘hey wait, maybe... not do this???’ and it never helps lol

- in this episode: Logan Has A Bad Day

...some very specific bondage positions he’s held in here, I am sure this episode awakened something in someone once upon a time lol

- logan shielding x-23 with his body... im fine it’s okay I’m not crying don’t look at me

- afsdhlsdfjasdlk those sure are some ‘scottish’ accents flsadkjhkdsjahfsd

- scott relieved to finally be able to cede the position of ‘charles xavier’s least favourite son’ to someone else fjsaklfhsajd (poor scott it’s not your fault honey)

supremely cowardly to suggest there is an ex-wife involved rather than charles slutting his way around the british isles back in the day but okay

- kurt with a cold is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. it’s okay kid it’ll get better soon

- ...is there an implication here that professor x is naturally blond. because I am losing my entire little mind about it (i mean he at least has to carry the gene, as does this lady?)

ETA: upon doing some research into this I can indeed confirm that charles xavier does seem to be naturally blond, and after this knowledge I will never be the same

- “listen, dracula” fskdafghasd oh scott you sweet baby angel I love you

- I know jean’s abilities are a bit ‘as strong or as weak as the plot needs right now’ at this point (so you can have the setup for what’s going to happen with them eventually and she’s basically invincible ;____;), and normally I’m cool with it but god I want her to just squash lucas like a little bug

- ewwwww please don’t ever say ‘daddy’ like that again

- ...what the fuck is even going on this episode’s a mess

like okay the split personality thing could be something but the way it’s done... what just happened lol

- MY BOY EVAN IS BACK! with a real glowup too (...though kind of weird how he suddenly looks like a grown man)

- augh scott’s eyes are so pretty oh my god ;__________________________;

- that episode in the first season where evan makes the ‘this is my new family!!’ video is so sad now (also, again, his poor poor parents)

- time for: life affirming road trip with gambit (involuntary) faskljdfhaskjd

stunt therapist remy lebeau

- I mean the way he goes about it is batshit insane and it’s very much secondary to what he’s actually up to but this is the first time rogue’s sounded genuinely hopeful and confident and like herself in like a season <3

- he is disconcertingly pleased about her nearly throwing him off the train, and may I just say I agree it’s so nice to see rogue with her old fire back

- the first time I watched this it was of course dubbed into norwegian, so I had no idea either of these characters were southern lol (though to be fair I probably wouldn’t have had much context for what it meant exactly either, I was like ten at the time and not too interested in america) I seem to dimly remember the norwegian voice actor did a little more of a ‘french’-tinged accent for gambit all over tho haha

- you know what respect where it’s due, pyro dude knows to live his life for the lols and one has to admire his sociopathic dedication to it

interesting that he, too, seems to have fucking hated magneto -- I wonder if the implication here is that he kept all the acolytes in line with blackmail or by keeping something/one hostage? (except sabertooth maybe he’d just have to say ‘you get to fuck shit up and fight wolverine’ and that’d be enough)

- fsdakfhsd he’s so focused on her he doesn’t notice that guy about to hit him fkafhsa

- fuck everything else except whatever the hell these two’ve got going on

- it’s weirdly cathartic to have rogue have a conversation with someone who was not happily adopted as well, I don’t think kurt like. gets it because his parents loved him unconditionally and still do

birds of a feather motherfucker

- fun detail: when the x-men team are on the shore and logan is sniffing around scott is stepping in something and trying to wipe it off his boots in the background

- when he wakes up after passing out from the touch he’s smiling even though she’s standing over him looking like the rage of god outlined by the moon fsajfsa well the last time he passed out like that it was from a kiss, maybe he still has some hopes and dreams in that direction lol (also he recovers from the tumble down the hill first and is checking on her before accidentally brushing her cheek with his hand, which I thought was sweet)

and it was in that moment he knew he fucked up *passes out*

- ‘I can explain’ can u remy. can u

- did it ever even occur to you to just. ask her. to help you. I mean I know it didn’t but like rogue’s always one second away from throwing hands with some bully and is stupidly ride or die, if you’d given her the puppydog eyes she would have crumbled immediately (fair enough I guess this entire episode is telling us he’s not from a background where he has much experience with people just helping him without a price haha)

- his eyes glowing when he’s angry or upset or using a lot of his power is undeniably cool as all hell. I’m just saying it would be Big Sexy if they sort of flickered with light in moments of genuine vulnerability okay

- his coat... his coat is what makes the Silhouette tm and I could not be happier about it

- another parent of the year contestant enters the running lol “hey remy have you ever considered that you’re more of a walking bomb factory than a person? that’s certainly how I think of you hahaha c’mon kid let’s go”

- the running joke of jean luc getting dollar signs in his eyes seeing the other mutant powers and gambit being like ‘nO!!!!’ and pulling him along is amazing haha

- from the way he looks when he touches rogue accidentally and the way he talks to his dad I’m sort of getting the feeling this gambit might actually be a bit younger than he looks?

here too -- idk why but it’s making the ‘wait is he baby???’ alarms go off in my head haha. very early twenties at most.

- and we’ve officially seen him with all the face cards in the heart suit folks! (yes this is the sort of thing my brain notices no I don’t know either)

- poor logan running his ass off this whole episode in a panic and then she’s like ‘nah he’s fine (in several meanings of the word ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ) please put him down’ hfaskfsda

- rogue without makeup!!! her eyes look so naked like this haha <3

- oooh here’s a really interesting thing that tickles my brain a bit in this specific part of the scene where gambit frees his dad -- the part where he’s leaning against the door frame waiting for jean luc, who’s about to suggest using the opportunity to ruin the rival gang from the inside rather than slipping away while they still can

from his expression here he knows what’s about to happen, what jean luc is about to say, and it’s clearly a ‘man who thought he’d lost all hope loses last additional bit of hope he didn’t even know he still had’ sort of situation. he KNOWS what jean luc is like, and it still hurts that he really, honestly can’t give him even this, can’t appreciate that remy’s already done all this shit for him when he extremely didn’t have to, without immediately (no really, it took him less than ten seconds to go there? jesus) demanding more.

remy tells him “I’m just here for you” and jean luc does not understand it. remy seems to be sincere in this motivation -- rogue certainly thinks so, having experienced it second hand and found enough at least emotional merit in it to decide he was worth saving even after all his bullshit (lol a bit of a running theme maybe. I think it’s very telling that after she absorbed mystique she was like ‘what the FUCK you’re a fucking monster’, and after she absorbed gambit she went ‘you did the wrong thing for the right reasons’ after she got over the first wave of outrage)

there’s also what he says as he stands there: “You don’t need me for that”, with the distinct implication that jean luc would only keep him around because he has a use for him and for no other reason -- and then jean luc shamelessly doubles down on that by specifying that it’s not even him he’s got a use for as such, just his powers. that’s some kicking puppies level of deliberately missing the point, it’s almost impressive in how cheerfully mean it is haha

this idea of using people is really important in this episode because remy’s doing basically exactly the same thing to rogue to begin with; it doesn’t really matter to his plan that it’s her that’s with him through this, just what her powers are. (I think it’s p r e t t y solidly implied that he does actually like her a lot outside of that too and maybe there is some comfort in having her around for this, but mostly he’s behind a smokescreen of lies through the whole thing sooo I doubt he’s even aware of it, honestly)

but then it does matter that it’s her when she comes back for him, even after what he did. and unlike jean luc he understands what that means, that she did that for him, and that she didn’t have to. and instead of asking her for more, in return he gives her the thing it’s been established is what he considers the most valuable thing he has; his ‘last card’, the thing he’s credited with keeping him alive many a time, basically. it’s gone from using to mutuality, a tentative place of friendship, and at the end of the day he is a different man than his adoptive father, with a capacity for selflessness and love he lacks. which is of course some of the same stuff going on with rogue and mystique too, except rogue acted from a more fragile and unstable place and did something she regrets, or at least has a LOT of doubts about now, and she found some catharsis in helping someone make a different choice in a similar situation. man there’s some Stuff going on under the surface here haha

(by the way it’s a weirdly... meaningless yet intensely meaningful thing, the gifting of a symbol? of an idea? but he’s putting something very crucial of himself into her hands, is the subtext, and he expects her to understand, which she also does seem to do. at the beginning of the episode he’s proving that he’s seen something true about her -- “You’re such an unhappy girl”, knowing where she comes from, the way she’s mourning her lost confidence and autonomy with her abilities -- and here she’s proving she’s seen something true about him. :’) I wish this show had gone on long enough for this dynamic to progress, it’s really interesting and touching)

- gambit dragging himself up onto dry land seeing someone approaching (to help?!): :D

gambit seeing that it’s logan and the look on his face: D:

- rogue using her powers so confidently and fearlessly in this episode tho!!!!

- *me crying* and then her FAMBILY comes to take her home and he says he’s looking out for her too and kurt still loves her even though they’re having a conflict thing between them and she’s finally able to use her powers without so much fear again and --

- ...did I just watch some baby lesbian love at first sight shit right now???

- okay last two episodes let’s go

- HELL YEAH STORM (I love that she’s like ‘don’t give me a dumb order like that and I won’t have to disobey it’ too sdfjsaj) her voice has such command I’m usually very much not the ‘step on me’ type butttt

- y’know I feel like apocalypse’s main fault across all versions I’ve seen of him is that he’s like an immortal superpowered god king and he’s not even sexy. like at least make him hot if he’s going to be insufferable in every other way

- also callout post for apocalypse: one time he made gambit into the Horseman of Death... and didn’t even make him sexy!!! you were handed remy lebeau, supreme bi disaster slut of the x men universe, and you couldn’t even make his brainwashed superpowered evil side hot?? a beautiful stubbled twunk with glowing red eyes and extremely charming :> face practically delivers himself into your hands and you do that to him???? I mean I’m sure apocalypse did some other bad stuff too but that was the worst one

(comics are so dumb y’all)

- having to watch jean cry is emotional terrorism!! ;___; she has such older sister/mom energy, whenever she gets sad and helpless it hurts

- oh, OH so PROFESSOR X you’ll make into a hunk and ~*strategically*~ rip his clothes to show off a nipple and a flawless pec in a way that makes me extremely uncomfortable because he’s like The Dad??? apocalypse you are rotten to the core this is unforgivable

- so wait wanda never actually gets her real memories back. what the FuCk I hope that was a dropped storyline because they ended the show tragically prematurely rather than like. the plan

- why is spyke calling storm ‘storm’ show that’s his auntie o!! >:(

- as a society we need to acknowledge that apocalypse looks like a fucking clown

- ooooh yeah I have been thinking that this show’s greatest visual weakness so far has been not having a visual way to show telepathy/battles of the minds, but this is a pretty cool way to do it! better late than never

- I’m so happy rogue gets to end this herself, since she was forced into starting it against her will, it’s just nice and neat storytelling

- YEAH FUCKING TELL HER KURT AND ROGUE I AM SO PROUD OF YOU and she has the temerity to look pissed off oh my god

the only valid thing mystique has done in her entire life is be in love with destiny. literally everything else she gets up to is a travesty. like I know objectively she’s hot but my loathing for her stops me from even appreciating it. I do enjoy loathing her tho so please don’t change her haha

(a bit odd to have kurt’s attitude to her swing so much but I’m just going to assume he and rogue had a good long conversation after ‘cajun spice’ and that he understands what’s going on better now)

- this last part is such a cruel tease faskdfhsdaj ‘here are all the cool-ass things we had planned. sucks you never get to see it huh’ im devastated

- magneto without his helmet and playing charmingly with children like charles is going ‘well at least I saved my marriage finally’ fsadkhfjsd (honestly tho I would be super interested in seeing how they’d redeem this magneto because he’s been a real bitch the whole time lol)

there’s an interesting thing here where magneto looks down at wanda as the last thing he does on screen before this epilogue part (yeah I hope it fucking haunts you forever what you did to her erik you absolute piece of hot garbage) and the last thing charles does is look at jean b/c he knows what’s going to happen to her and it breaks his heart... Dramatic Parallells

- just the hint of jean as the phoenix has me in full D:D:D: mode tho maybe I wouldn’t have survived it

- gambit in the last groupshot with his arm around rogue ;^) I mean I’m sure they’re headed for some turns and roundabouts along the way but what’s that thing she says as her wedding vow, that she’ll always find her way back? anyway that got me in my heart

- man I really wish this show had been given more seasons, we were barely even getting warmed up here :’(

#x men evolution #x men #gambit #rogue x gambit #aaah this is like therapy for me... just dumping all my emotions into a tumblr post and then let them go into the ether #I am now wondering if I'm desperate enough to go all the way back to the x-men animated series (which I've never seen before!)#like am I willing to go there for more Contente. time will tell I suppose #happy tag #...this is very long #MAN why can't I channel this dumbass energy into fiction writing I'd get so much DONE

85 notes · View notes

road2nf · 3 years

Text

I could be both gay and nerd at the same time without being shunned for being one or the other.

I wish I had the time to write a dissertation, oh my God.

I started down the (short) path to becoming a Nerdfighter about a year ago--saw the videos, had seen some in the past though they didn’t really register in my mind--because what I saw before me was a lot of things.

I’m a literature student, and I’d actually heard of John Green as a writer before I’d heard of him as a Vlogbrother. I know how preposterous this sounds, at least to me, as the Nerdfighter movement easily transcends his novels. In fact, I had bought The Fault in our Stars as a Christmas gift for my sister: I saw it on the top Amazon books of the year in 2012, recognized the author as someone I’d wanted to read for a while, and saw the label “Young Adult.” I knew she was into young adult fiction, so I bought it for her, hoping she might lend it to me once she was done. She really liked it, of course (and we’ve made promises to see the movie together when it comes out [or will make promises, I’ll see to it {Don’t you just love convoluted parenthetical passages that end with three different kinds?}]), and then I read it and also really liked it. Really there wasn’t much more to it for me; maybe it wasn’t life-changing, or inspiring, for me. It’s just a really damn good novel, with a positive role model for a subset of people who deserve the kind of representation this book gives its readers. So, I read it, and I loved it. And then I started watching the videos.

I’m one of those few (?) Nerdfighters who decided they wanted to trek through every single Vlogbrothers video of the past. Now that was a huge challenge for me, because imagine watching a TV show that had over a thousand episodes, even if they were all four minutes long. That’s still 70 hours or so of TV, which, believe it or not, is a whole lot longer than most current TV shows get in the limelight. And as a gamer, in gameplay terms that’s longer than most common JRPG’s. Going through all of those videos was a real time investment for me, but I like to think it was worth it, because what I saw was this winding narrative, this plot consisting of two brothers and their community of do-gooders, fun-havers and fans. Watching the Nerdfighters grow from this little YouTube community to something as large as it is today is truly an experience to behold. I find myself wishing I could have been a part of that peep-eating, book-clubbing, brother-punishing, forum-posting, wonderfully awesome people that started and launched the Nerdfighter group. Sometimes I wonder if Hank and John remember or think about those times when they were so small, when they began each video with “Brothers on a Hotel Bed” by Death Cab for Cutie.

That community broadcasts a message of acceptance I’d never really seen before. If you were gay, whatever, that’s cool. Nerd? Obviously you were accepted. And I am both of those things.

Part of the issue I face both in the nerd and the gay communities is that, if either of these communities have anything in common, it’s a disparate and distant relationships; they have nothing in common, and it might not be too wrong to state they actively dislike each other. Slowly they’re starting to come together lately: comics and video games are utilizing more LGBT- friendly characters, and I’ve started to meet more and more “gaymers,” too. But the Nerdfighters space was the first group where I found I could be both gay and nerd at the same time without being shunned for being one or the other. It is literally the most accepting community I’ve come to find myself in.

I don’t really know what else to say. The Nerdfighters and the Vlogbrothers mean a whole lot to me. And, yeah, Hank and John make me laugh.

-Zachary Armstrong (bad-wolfos.tumblr)

41 notes · View notes

kaylorrehabcenter · 4 years

Text

Rating Every Song on Fearless Based on How Gay it is

Hello friends! I still have a few song analyses in the pipeline (and one on Lover the album) but today in honor of Fearless (Taylor’s Edition) being announced and Love Story being released in a few hours I thought I’d do something fun to celebrate!

And you know what? Fuck my usual disclaimer, I am the word of god here. Try and change my mind about any of these. I dare you. (I kid I kid this isn’t that serious and you’re free to disagree <3)

1. Fearless 15/10

Everything about this song is so fucking gay oh my god. This isn’t a fruit, this is a whole ass edible arrangement. As a small rural town Gay (my hometown has a population of less that 4,000 and where I’m living now has a population of 2,500) this uh. Hits.

“And I don't know how it gets better than this/You take my hand and drag me head first, fearless”

Y’ALL

The idea of falling in love with someone who makes you less afraid of your homophobic small town…….it’s getting to me.

“My hands shake, I'm not usually this way but/You pull me in and I'm a little more brave/It's the first kiss, it's flawless, really something/It's fearless”

This is making me emotional, I'll be honest. I see so much of my friends and my experience in high school in this song.

This quote I found on genius is from when the album was released on BMR’s website.

“When I wrote ‘Fearless,’ I wasn’t dating anyone. I wasn’t even in the beginning stages of dating anybody. I really was all by myself out on tour and I got this idea for a song about the best first date. I think sometimes when you’re writing love songs, you don’t write them about what you’re going through at the moment, you write about what you wish you had. So, this song is about the best first date I haven’t had yet.”

This just screams baby Tay writing gay folklore to me, about the gay stories she wish she had. Notice how there are no pronouns in this song??? Fruity I’m telling you.

All that to say. I’m crying because the linear note says “I loved you before I met you” and I want to go listen to Long Story Short and cry now.

2. Fifteen 1/10

Objectively pretty straight as she’s singing about her and Abigail’s dating boys in HS. And Taylor got with a senior guy. Good for her I suppose.

Unless he was one of the shitty ones in which case.

“This is life before you know who you're gonna be”

This however, is a cute line and the whole song makes me warm and nostalgic. You can also hear her crying after the line “and Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind” which makes me emo and I’m sure will take on new depth after Abigail’s divorce and hurt me even more.

Other highlights that make me sob include.

“When all you wanted was to be wanted/Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now/Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday/But I realized some bigger dreams of mine”

Bigger dreams of hers indeed :’)

(Also how can you say she’s a gold star lesbian when this song exists. She was obviously dating boys in high school and even if you think she’s a lesbian. Comp het is a hell of a drug kids.)

3. Love Story 8/10

Tried to change the ending indeed.

This is THE Taylor Swift song, and maybe it’s the nostalgia talking but damn I still love it. Written because she wanted to change the ending of Romeo and Juliet (how anyone likes RandJ enough to want to rewrite I have no clue.) and/or because her parents didn’t approve of a guy she was seeing. (according to genius, it would’ve been too early for Joe J so it could possibly be Boys Like Girls frontman, his image did clash with hers and they did release some cute songs together. However if you want my take it’s probably folklore about Emily, take for what you will)

This song has very oft gay vibes with the ‘They don’t approve of our love angle!’ but uses male pronouns so points redacted for that. HOWEVER this is a very early use of ~the male perspective~ in Taylor’s songs and for that it deserves all the love.

“ So I sneak out to the garden to see you/We keep quiet, 'cause we're dead if they knew/So close your eyes/Escape this town for a little while”

More rural town angst!!!

Nothing gets me more than rural town angst.

“Romeo, save me, they're trying to tell me how to feel/This love is difficult, but it's real”

Originally the lyric was “this love is different”. Granted I do not remember the source, i’s just lore implanted into my brain, but make of that what you will.

“"Marry me, Juliet, you'll never have to be alone/I love you, and that's all I really know/I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress/It's a love story, baby, just say "Yes"”

Marry me Juliet from the male perspective :)

Also worth noting. This is Karlie’s (and Kim K’s lmao) favorite Taylor song which. While basic as hell. Makes this cover sad as hell to this former Kaylor. (thanks @swiftgron-get-married for the tears <3)

Also not to make this about a man AGAIN but the secret message is “Some day I’ll find this” AND SHE DID IM CRYING.

4. Hey Stephen 1/10

The one thing Camilla Cabello and I have in common is loving this song, so I have to live with that for the rest of my life.

This song is very painfully straight.

How can you think this woman is a gold star lesbian.

The only noteworthy thing is that this is one of the few songs she confirms who it’s about. The secret message is “Love and Theft” which is the name of a country music duo who went on to open her Fearless tour. Which, does make me side eye this song a little bit.

Still a cute song.

“Hey Stephen, boy, you might have me believing/I don't always have to be alone”

5. White Horse 1/10

Oh look. It’s track five.

You know maybe this is just me being a bitch but in my ranking of track fives this is. Pretty low. Maybe on the bottom.

Like I don’t have a lot to say about it.

She’s going through it over a guy. He was a cheating dickweazel.

“'Cause I'm not your princess, this ain't a fairytale/I'm gonna find someone someday/Who might actually treat me well”

“Try and catch me now, oh/It's too late/To catch me now”

These lines hit though!!

And she found Joe!! Who treats her well!!!! And she isn’t the princess, she’s the prince who dropped her sword and knocked on her door!!! But this time if they come for them she’s ready!!!

Yes I will make every song about Long Story Short <3

6. You Belong With Me 5/10

Ah yes. The other THE Taylor Swift song.

You know. If I went to a high school with a cheerleading squad. And I had a crush on a cheerleader. I would blast this song. So for that it gets a 5/10. Otherwise. Fairly straight and fairly iconic.

7. Breathe 8/10

Well. We know this one is about a woman. (Emily Poe for those not in the know. Ha. A rhyme!) That alone has an 8/10. And it’s the first time she has a featured artist so bonus points for that!

It was nominated for a Grammy and it fucking lost to Jason Mraz. When’s the last time you thought about Jason Mraz.

I will not have Kaylor feels on a fucking Fearless song but damn is it VERY easy.

“Never a clean break, no one here to save me/You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand”

“It's 2 A.M, feeling like I just lost a friend/Hope you know it's not easy, easy for me”

Also this bridge? Goes off. HIGHLY underrated.

8. Tell Me Why 3/10

You know. Maybe this album isn’t as gay as I once thought.

This song does bop though, not as good as her other angry songs on this album. But I can vibe with this you know. Why are you being an asshole mysterious man.

“You could write a book on how to ruin someone's perfect day”

This has to be one of baby Tay’s best burns. Damn.

“Why do you have to make me feel small/So you can feel whole inside?/Why do you have to put down my dreams/So you're the only thing on my mind?”

Men ain’t shit kids. However, bonus points for the shade.

9. You’re not Sorry 1/10

Ok, ok. Maybe this was a foolish endeavor.

Because yet again we have a very straight song. A good song. That was on Taylor’s episode of CSI. But oh dear. Very straight. Gets a measly one point. We started this post off so very very gay but damn. We seem to be nearing the end on a very straight note.

10. The Way I Loved You 20/10

Hey Remember what I said about this album being very straight.

WELL THAT WAS A LIE.

Is this a comphet album or am I projecting.

This is one of my favorite baby gay Taylor songs. Her masterful use of pronouns (he is sensible! And so incredible! And all my single friends are jealous! But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain, when it was two am and I was cursing your name!) makes the other person she’s singing about completely vague, while we know she isn’t happy with whichever guy she’s dating.

Mayhaps an early reaction to PRomances?

Either way this song is so good, truly an underrated gay gem I mean. Look at it.

“Breaking down and coming undone/It's a roller coaster kind of rush/And I never knew I could feel that much/And that's the way I loved you”

AND THE BRIDGE. Do all of her gay songs just have kickass bridges?

“He can't see the smile I'm faking/And my heart's not breaking/'Cause I'm not feeling anything at all/And you were wild and crazy/Just so frustrating/Intoxicating, complicated/Got away by some mistake and now…”

Damn. I’m imaging this with 2020 vocals and fucking ascending.

Also please watch the live performance of it from the Fearless tour. It’s such a damn shame this got cut from the movie and some woman in the front row is wearing a cowboy hat. Everyone is holding up those cameras everyone had to have before smartphones. Taylor is being endearing. It’s a good time.

11. Forever and Always 6/10

Bonus points for the ~drama~ of it all. Added last minute to the album? The iconic throwing of the chair in live performances?? All of it very dramatique and for that we stan.

Still pretty straight.

Also Joe Jonas responded to the song and why do I find his response so damn funny. “It’s part of being a musician, I guess. You write songs about each other.”

This is another song where the idea of Taylor’s grown up vocals on this is………..whew

12. The Best Day 0/10

This gets zero points because it’s about her literal mom.

Still makes me cry.

God bless Andrea Swift indeed

13. Change 13/10

We start the official tracklist with a gay song. We end it with a gay song.

We will ignore that it was originally written for Scott and BMR and instead induct it into the hall of gay pride anthems, as it should be.

“We're getting stronger now, finding things they never found/They might be bigger but we're faster and never scared/You can walk away, say we don't need this/But there's something in your eyes says we can beat this”

“This revolution, the time will come/For us to finally win/And we'll sing hallelujah, we'll sing hallelujah”

The music video is cringe though lol

14. Jump then Fall 10/10

This song is gay because I choose it to be. <3

Like. Picture baby Taylor writing this song and playing it on her guitar to a girl she has a crush on telling her that she’ll protect her and they’ll be safe and in love and happy together. Gah, maybe I’m ~projecting~ but this sweet ass song always gets me and is EASILY in my top five Taylor songs. Super underrated and hecking cute.

“We're on the phone and without a warning/I realize your laugh is the best sound/I have ever heard”

Like. Look at this shit.

“I watch you talk, you didn't notice/I hear the words but all I can think is/We should be together”

Tell me this is about the first time you get a crush on a girl and she’s your best friend and she’s amazing and beautiful and you realize you kinda want to kiss her and you hope she wants to kiss you too.

“I had time to think it oh, over/And all I can say is come closer/Take a deep breath and jump then fall into me”

And she’s the Romeo who's going to protect her!!!!! She’s the knight in shining armor in this song and I love that for her??

“The bottom's gonna drop out from under our feet/I'll catch you, I'll catch you/When people say things that bring you to your knees/I'll catch you/The time is gonna come when you're so mad you could cry/But I'll hold you through the night until you smile”

I won’t divulge into full on analysis here because. This is what this post is about but PLEASE listen to this song more. It’s such a gay little gem.

15. Untouchable 9/10

How does she make a cover sound gay.

It sounds so gay.

“You got to come on, come on, say that we'll be together/Come on, come on, little taste of heaven”

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

16. Forever and Always Piano Version 1/10

This song gets 1/10 because I don’t like it. There. I said it.

17. Come in With the Rain 3/10

I can see why this is a bonus track. It doesn’t hit me as much as the other songs on the album.

But damn if I don’t want to scream sing this one driving down a high way.

18. Superstar 7/10

You can’t tell me this song is about a man. I simply won’t entertain the idea.

You cannot prove to me that this song is about a man. There is not a male pronoun in sight.

>:)

19. The Other Side of the Door 6/10

Is this song about having a fight about being in the closet? Probably not. Will my gay little brain make it about that? Yep!

And that, funky little queer pals, is my gay rating of every Fearless song. Like and subscribe, #t3atmidnight

#long post //#fearless the album #gaylor #what do i tag this for it to show up for peope??#gay rating

68 notes · View notes