#ty to everyone who liked this unhinged series!

[thelordofgifs]

Part 3 - time for some rare fanon theories! Each of these is mostly based around a single fic/tumblr post.

Gil-galad is Elladan, time-travelling from the Fourth Age. This is courtesy of the absolutely stunning The Long Road by @kazaera. Hands-down the actual best Gil-galad origin story. It's so good. Not only the best Gil-galad story, but one of the best time-travel fics I've ever read. Please let Elladan see his brother again. 10/10.

The Noldor did Weird Science, and Gil-galad is simultaneously Maedhros', Fingon's and Finrod's baby. Will I ever stop reccing fics by @arrivisting? No I will not! This is the scion verse, in which the Eldest Cousins decide to produce an incontrovertible heir to the throne with the aid of a wineglass and a friendly river spirit. I need to put a serious health warning on this series. You will be lured in. You will read my description and the first (short) fic and you will say, "This is funny, cracky and beautifully written. I am going to click Next Work." This is the devil talking. Before you know it you're reading an additional 12k about Fingon post-reembodiment still struggling to reckon with what Maedhros became after the Nirnaeth, and how he still loves him, and how he's still waiting for him, and then you will sob for days. Was recently updated so that this line could be seen by the world: “I hate Maedhros Fëanorion afresh,” Turgon said, very precisely, “every day, for what he’s doing to you even now. I hate him because you won’t come home until he does. And he never will.” god I'm so upset again. Cannot recommend this highly enough. So much 10/10.

Someone (Celebrimbor) got bored and made Gil-galad out of scrap metal. I SWEAR I saw a tumblr post about this long ago when I was lurking without an account. Will actually gift a fic to anyone who can find it for me (if that's something you want). It is very funny, but unfortunately doesn't stand up too well to my Celebrimbor-related objections from Part 1. Also actually has fairly serious metaphysical issues, the Flame Imperishable, etc, etc. It's funny though. 6/10.

The Gil-galad persona is a front for several people. The idea here is that Ereinion, Finellach and Rodnor are all different people with different lineages, who cobble together a High King of the Noldor between them. I've seen a couple of great tumblr posts with this theory that I now can't find! Here's an excellent fic: by any other name by Dorkangel (no known tumblr). Thanks to @notreallystars for bringing this to my attention in the tags! The theory overall is fantastic, a perfectly weird solution to a weird mystery. 9/10.

Gil-galad is Fëanor, reincarnated. Full credit goes to this post by @first-son-of-finwe! This is another very funny crack theory. My objection is mainly metaphysical; elves don't reincarnate. Presuming Fëanor was reborn without his memories, I have literally no other issues with this. 7/10.

Gil-galad is the product of a threesome between Celebrimbor, Orodreth and Orodreth's wife, who happens to be Fingon's daughter. cf this excellent post from @cuarthol. I... I have no words. Honestly astounding. That is SO insane. 9/10 for now but I can't wait to read the fic!

Maeglin galad. As I understand it, the idea here is that Maeglin somehow survived the Fall of Gondolin and then became the High King. This wasn't on my list until @jaz-the-bard mentioned it in the tags, so I haven't read any fic for it, but I'm very intrigued. Maeglin definitely has a solid reason to lie about his identity! Also he's clearly a competent administrator and an excellent soldier, both of which Gil-galad also were. Objections: why on earth did Idril and Tuor go along with this? Also, this voids Eöl's prophecy about Maeglin dying the same way he does, and I do quite like that detail. 6/10, but I’m open to changing my mind.

Gil-galad son of Sauron. I keep seeing this mentioned and I really don’t know what’s going on. Someone please explain to me why you came up with that. No fic recs. 2/10 and I’m not open to changing my mind.

And finally - a couple of theories I came up with myself! Disclaimer: it’s possible I read these somewhere, absorbed them and then completely forgot I hadn’t thought of them myself. If any of these is actually your theory, please please let me know so that I can credit you!

Orc bank. Okay, so this requires you to have first read the amazing elves, once by @ceescedasticity (go and read it right now if you haven’t. Seriously, I’m not joking. The post will still be here when you get back). An excellent premise of the excellent orc bank theory is that it’s technically possible, for two orcs who sincerely want to have a child together, to birth a new elven fëa, rather than a recycled one from the Crucible of Souls (cf Khitwê and Risyind my beloveds - I think about you every day ❤️). Technically, this is only possible when the Shadow is in retreat, so I’m not sure it could be done in First Age Beleriand, but. I would like to present to you Gil-galad child of orcs (but very much an elf himself)! He has a very solid reason to lie about who he is, after all! Idk there are probably issues in this that need straightening out BUT I LIKE IT OK. Giving myself a solid 9/10.

Gil-galad is somehow related to Gildor Inglorion of the House of Finrod (maybe his son?). This is in my notes, but I’m not really sure what to do with it - I was just rereading lotr and wondering anew who on earth Gildor is meant to be. This isn’t really a theory at all, just a vague acknowledgment of another plothole. Not very exciting. 2/10.

Gil-galad is actually Argon Nolofinwion, who faked his death and disappeared. This is in my notes so I have to put it down now, but I genuinely hate it. It’s so random? Why would you go for this over the objectively superior Fin-galad theory, if someone has to fake their death? Nobody cares about Argon anyway? Why did he fake his death and disappear for 500 years? Why didn’t Idril recognise him? Honestly not sure what was going through my head here. 1/10.

Gil-galad SON of Argon. Hypothesised in the shower while I was once again hating on theory 3. But now I actually like it! Consider: Argon fell in love during the crossing of the Helcaraxë, let’s call her Mirildis bc that’s a random name on my list of Quenya names. Towards the end of the journey, they secretly get married. Argon dies before anyone can notice in his eyes/voice that he got married. Soon after, Mirildis realises that she’s pregnant. I haven’t actually read LaCE (it sounds deeply weird) so I’m not sure it’s possible for a child to be born after its father is dead, or if that’s too great a strain on the mother or something, but whatever. Mirildis doesn’t want to tell Argon’s family about the secret marriage bc she thinks it might make them sad? Who knows. She leaves the Noldor host and lives with the Northern Sindar from then on. Nobody notices she’s gone until it’s too late, because they're distracted by the general disaster that is Mithrim politics shortly after the rising of the Sun. Later, Gil-galad. One of my favourite things about this is that it means every single Nolofinwion had a tragic romance of some sort. Poor Fingolfin. This is a bit random to be honest, but I don’t think it has many logistical issues, at least. I kind of want to write fic for this but I’m not really invested enough - anyone else who wants to, please do and send me a link! Giving it like 5/10.

Gil-galad didn't exist. A theory born of spite, from someone who has spent far too long reading about Gil-galad theories. Important to distinguish this from the excellent "Gil-galad was multiple people" mentioned above - I mean Gil-galad was literally zero (0) people. He was invented by a malicious scribe or a confused hobbit custodian of the Thain's Book, take your pick. Say it with me, Boromir-voice: THE NOLDOR HAVE NO KING. THE NOLDOR NEED NO KING. "But Gil-galad tried to come to Elwing's aid-" That was Círdan. "Gil-galad led the Noldor of Beleriand in the WoW-" actually, the exiled Noldor followed Maedhros and Maglor during the war, but they were all too ashamed to admit to that after the final theft of the Silmarils. "Gil-galad mistrusted Annatar and sent him away from Lindon-" shut up. That was Elrond. "Gil-galad personally fought Sauron and defeated him-" OH MY GOD. fucking elves once again inserting their historical OC into a story about the heroism of men! SO typical of them to diminish Elendil's courage and sacrifice like that. this is why the two kindreds became estranged in the third age. I'm personally attached to this one now. 9/10.

and we're done. wow. I have created a monster. I never need to type the name Gil-galad again.

A Completely Objective Rating of Gil-galad Origin Theories

So! My Research(tm) has informed me that Tolkien conceived of at least four potential parentages for Gil-galad, last High King of the Noldor, at various points. This plothole/controversy/mystery is deeply, deeply funny to me, so I decided to make a post arbitrarily rating various Gil-galad theories and providing examples of fics where they appear.

Some disclaimers:

I am very very new to the silm fandom and also tumblr and don't actually know anything! so there is a very high chance something will go wrong here

in compiling this I was very much indebted to this post by @sweetteaanddragons and this one by @tanoraqui

your headcanons, of course, are extremely valid! no shade at all to anyone who likes one of the theories I’ve rated a bit lower, and thank you for doing your bit to deepen the controversy. the more Gil-galad theories the better

Unsurprisingly, this turned out LONG. I split the parentages into four sections: Part 1 covers supposedly canon/canon-adjacent Gil-galad theories; Part 2, popular fanon theories that I've seen in a variety of places; Part 3 will cover rare fanon theories that I've only seen basically once, and ideas I literally just made up myself.

Baseline assumptions I'm using:

The "historical record", in-universe, is primarily the Quenta Silmarillion which states that Ereinion Gil-galad was the son of Fingon; and other documents variously suggesting that he was the son of Orodreth or Finrod, or a descendant of Fëanor. Sources give him the additional names Finellach and Artanáro/Rodnor.

It's fairly widely agreed-upon that Gil-galad was an adult and the High King by the time of the Third Kinslaying, when he was based on Balar and came too late to Elwing's aid.

(This means I won't further consider some rather fun, cracky theories that are based on the argument that Gil-galad only became the High King after the War of Wrath. That seems like a slightly excessive amount of historical revisionism for my taste, when he's named as the High King well before the WoW.)

So, with those established, what makes for a good Gil-galad parentage theory?

It has to make the confusion in the historical record, in-universe, make some sort of sense. Would someone with this parentage have a claim to the crown? If not, do they have a solid motivation to lie about it? Providing a neat explanation for other aspects of Gil-galad's characterisation and the way he rules would also be a bonus.

A storytelling concept I call weird questions must have weird answers. Neat origin theories that "make sense" tend to score low on this metric. The Gil-galad controversy is funny and needs to be kept that way.

How narratively satisfying is the theory? Does it ruin anyone else's arc, or fanon I personally like? Then it's scoring low.

This is already so long-

Time for looking at the four canon-ish Gil-galad parentages!

Gil-galad son of Fingon and, presumably, some unnamed wife. This is rubbish. Makes no sense. Not a fan. No. Primarily, it is boring, the death knell to any Gil-galad theory. Also, Fingon is never actually mentioned to have a wife because he's married to Maedhros and, while textual ghosts are obviously common in the Silm, I find it slightly harder to believe that a High Queen of the Noldor managed to escape being named anywhere. You could, I suppose, argue that she died before Fingon became King, but I don't want to. The confusion in the historical record also seems unnecessary here, because Fingon's son would presumably have a pretty ironclad claim to the crown after his death and certainly after Turgon's. No fic recs here, I don't like this theory. 2/10.

Gil-galad son of Orodreth and brother of Finduilas. Even more boring, and also makes less sense. Was Gil-galad in Nargothrond during Leithian and up to its fall? In that case, why wasn't he mentioned at any point, and if he survived the fall of Nargothrond and escaped, why didn't he go after Finduilas? If he wasn't in Nargothrond by the time of Turin, we can at least forgive his failure to rescue his sister, but why was he sent away from Nargothrond when, prior to the building of the bridge, everyone believed it was safe - and why wasn't Finduilas sent away with him? Again, there's no particular reason for obfuscating this parentage, so it fails on that metric too. At least Artanáro/Rodnor is a good Finarfinion name. Fics which use this theory: What is Wrought Between Us by @nikosheba, which voids all these objections of mine quite nicely - Gil-galad son of Orodreth, adopted by Fingon and Maedhros! Also it's one of the most heart-breaking, beautiful, canon-compliant Russingon series around, go and read it. That excellent example aside, 3/10.

Gil-galad son of Finrod and (iirc) a wife called Meril. An earlier version of the legendarium discarded when Finrod was made childless. This is potentially my least favourite of the four canon-esque theories, because Finrod's childlessness is imo a fairly important part of his arc, and Meril was replaced by Amarië, to whom Finrod was very much not married at the time of his death. Pretty much the only positive is that, again, Artanáro/Rodnor suits well as a name for Finrod's son. I don't think many people like this theory - we need not consider it further here. No fic recs. 2/10.

Gil-galad descendant of Fëanor. By far the most intriguing and also most implausible canon-esque theory, and as I understand only from one early draft of the legendarium. But there is so much to play with here. If Gil-galad's father is one of the sons of Fëanor, he has a rock-solid reason to lie about his parentage. His claim to the throne is also dubious, because Maedhros abdicated on behalf of the entire house. This gives excellent con-artist Gil-galad flavours to play with. On the narrative/emotional arc metric, this one falls a little short, though. We don't need another descendant of Fëanor in the Second Age struggling with the dark and messy legacy of their family - we have Celebrimbor! And Celebrimbor's status as the last scion of his house, and how his eventual tragedy owes so much to his heritage, is very important to me. Besides, the house of Fëanor going from 7 sons in the first generation to literally just one grandchild is so haunting. On a more practical level, I also don't think Gil-galad reads as particularly close to Celebrimbor? They seem more "distant relations" than first cousins. On the other hand, if Gil-galad simply doesn't know who his parents are, a lot of these problems disappear. We can also double up a few textual ghosts by making his mother one of the unnamed wives - preferably Maglor's or Caranthir's, because Gil-galad son of Curufin feels. doubtful. Fics which use this theory: A Gift from Father to Son by @amethysttribble explores every single potential Fëanorian parentage which is very fun, for a value of "fun" involving "sobbing on the floor about how terrible all these people are". Check it out! Theory as a whole gets 5/10.

[f14fun]

pixelated love (!simmer x mv1) - chapter 4

synopsis: in which the famous three time world champion max verstappen wants to learn how to play the sims 4. except, he doesn't really know how to. so what does he do, search up a youtube tutorial. low-and-behold, y/n's video is the first he watches.

smau ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ profile | masterlist ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆ prev | next | series index ˚୨୧⋆｡

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yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, landonorris and 162,823 others

yourusername: AYEEEE wedding day in mc! not the type of content that i usually make but here i am getting married to maxie poo in mc! plz pu 😈💐👰🏻‍♀️

view comments:

user1: rip all ppl who actual believed that this is an ACTUAL wedding LMAO. the biggest joke that she's ever made she is actually executing 🤣🤣🤣

maxverstsappen1: What are you talking about?

maxverstappen1: This IS a real wedding??

maxverstappen1: Huh? I am lost.

user2: out of EVERYONE playing into the joke i didn't expect max to go full on roleplaying mode ��

maxverstsappen1: I am not roleplaying ❌🤷🏻‍♂️

user3: BYE HE IS SO UNSERIOUSSS 😭😭

yourusername: CANNOT WAIT TO FINALLY MAKE BOO MY BOOOOOOOO

maxverstappen1: 😘😘

user4: aight y/n the jig is up you can STOP COMMENTING FROM UNDER MAX'S ACCOUNT 😀

yourusername: what are you talking about... 🫠😞🔐

landonorris: I am still baffled how you got this man to do so many things, oml...

yourusername: he luv luv luvsss me cuz of my beautiful smile and amazing smexy humor 🥰😌😇🤭🤭🤭

maxverstappen: Oh, okay! Believe what you want!

user5: HE ATE HER UP I FEAR LMFAO

user6: DAMN SAVAGE MAX 😭😭😭

user7: bro im so glad we r getting unhinged max bc of y/n omgghhh 👺👺🤡

user8: BYE i need to see max in full wedding smexy smexy smexy attire UGH pls y/n i beg of u to PLS make him show up in a tux on streammmm 😇🙏🏻👼🏻🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

yourusername: 🤭🤫

maxverstappen: 😐

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taglist: @hiireadstuff @sinofwriting @mehrmonga @the-untamed-soul @glai1023-blog @loloekie @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 @sheastri @llando4norris @gwginnyweasley @carmenita122 @ririyulife @pausmoon @ur-fav-ave @eveninggstar @maddie-naps @erin-odonnell04 @rexit-mo @ems-alexandra @si1ver06 @iamred-iamyellow @bibissparkles @percypie @formula1blog @lanadelray1989 @rylieverstappen-sargent @luvsforme @eiaaasamantha @kaysmiles42 @mvaldez7821 @stinkyjax @sweate-r-weathe-r @laneyspaulding19 @mingyusbigrighttoe

some of these didn't get tagged, and i'm having trouble (?) it's being very weird, idk, so please let me know if your name is here and it didn't tag you ❣️

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author's note: ty guys for reading this fic! 😍��🏾

lmao i lied again, part FIVE i swear will actually include the mc wedding, and for al of y'all's confused, ITS FAKE LMAO they are not actually getting married for reals, just for funsies (shout out to my moots for letting me know this bit was a tad confusing 😭)

i'll see if i can get part five out tmr afternoon or evening!

comment if you want to be added to the taglist! ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

[oklotea]

Tintin Character Requests! Pt. 1

The series where I draw Tintin characters in funky little outfits cuz they truly are funky little characters

In the first picture, we've got toxic yaoi, well, no, the first request was these two on their own but because I love them so much and their interactions in the 2011 movie I drew them together, and wow I am actually quite proud of how it ended up looking like!!!!! (Probably one of my favorite out of this batch of sketches)

Ty @mis3rabl3m3lody and @libraryidealist for the request!!!

Aaand behind curtain number 2, we've got certified best boy, Chang!!!! Where is he running off to? Idk. I would be embarrassed to admit how much time I spent figuring out how running looks like cuz I just suddenly forgot wtf running looks like

Ty @myfunnyvalentine !!! For the request!! You seemed quite enthusiastic

Next up, we've got AHHHHH MY SILLY MY GOOFY MY FAVORITE MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL!!!! PROFESSOR CALCULUS!!!! I drew him in polite little vest and turtleneck combo and some patterned pants, politely waving at you! I was watching a few episodes recently and AGEHHDHDHH I FORGOT JUST HOW ENTERTAINING AND AMAZING AND ICONIC THIS MAN IS he's so silly he's a genius he has no idea what's going on most of the time <3333 we need him in the hypothetical 2011 sequel (it's coming guys trust me)

Ty @unlikelyintelligent and @akasanata for the request!!

TADAAA!!!! IT'S GENERAL ALCAZAR!!! ok. As you know I've only recently started coming back to Tintin, and I'm ngl I forgot who general alcazar was. Then I watched Tintin and the picaros and pretty quickly I remembered. THIS GUY WAS SO COOL. my dumb kid brain didn't entirely grasp what was going on in that episode, BUT NOW I DO KNOW. AND WOW THIS EPISODE WAS WILD. every Tintin episode is on a spectrum of insane but this one tips closer to the more unhinged end. GENERAL ALCAZAR IS SO BADASS, HES LEADING A REVOLUTION, HE'S A MALE WIFE, HE IS A PRESIDENT NOW??? I miss the guy. ALSO I LOVE HIS DESIGN.

(Also if your wondering if every Tintin post I make I'll include a tangent of just gushing about how much I love some aspect of Tintin you better get used to it cuz I love rambling about how much I love Tintin)

Ty @tintinology for the request!!! AARRRGHRHRHHH GENERAL ALCAZAR!!!!!!

here's a couple characters ik little about, ik they were the original antagonists of the secret of the unicorn but that's about it! It's the bird brothers!!!! They're in some fancy suits, judging everyone they pass, their probably grumbling about something. From their appearance they look like their never happy sjhfjdjf

Ty @jimmyandthegiraffes for the request! :D

And last but definitely not least, IT'S JOLYON WAGG!!!!! if only the editing was better so you could bask in his graceful and obnoxious glory. I really like his voice! I really like his wardrobe! And he is some sort of anomaly to me, hes just popping up in the most random times, and most of the time it's to be an annoying little bitch (endearing), he has a medal of honor btw! If I ever met him, I would at first be very charmed, but then realize this is an entirely one sided conversation that'll go on for hours and hours that I won't be leaving anytime soon, and when I eventually get home I'll be completely exhausted by how much social energy I was using up just trying to keep up and look like I was really really invested in whatever this man was rambling about

But anyway he's silly and whimsical so I still really like him

Aaannnddd that's it folks! I'll eventually work on the other requests I have!!!! Have a good evening!!!!!

[noriko04]

Tagged by @eternal-echoes (ty ^^)

1) The last Podcast you listened to? with reasons.

some months ago I listened to a podcast about the damaging effects of mouth breathing . Maybe for those who never heard about it this may seem... both weird and boring but as a teen I discovered I have this subconscious habit and even though I now mostly fixed this issue I sometimes still have some interest in informing myself more deeply about it.

2) what was the last fanfic you read? What did you like about it?

Oh boy, it's been a while since the last time I've read a fanfiction. It was one year ago, roughly, and it was about Hakuoki (I think it's easy to infer that this series is my current fixation XD). I think there was some angst involved though I don't remember well. And the way feelings were described... Amazing. Very beautiful, there a lot of very talented artists in that fandom.

3) You favorite discord server?

I don't have a discord actually and I don't feel the urge of making an account for it at the moment. Maybe in the future I'll do.

4) open Pinterest and show the first think it recommends you!

ok :)

kitty, some nature pictures and Hakuoki related stuff (beautiful fan art btw). Yup, undeniably my account

5) If your comfortable, show me something from your notes app!

Uhmmm.... I use my notes app mainly to write down passwordS, pins and other personal information so I'll pass on that (I know this is probably not the best way to store this stuff. I'll organize myself better... Once I'll overcome my laziness lmao).

6) Show us who you last gave a like on Tumblr! And why?

Link: https://www.tumblr.com/myrcellathemarred/109213275952?source=share

I love this so much so I think I'll reblog it too. There are times where I feel in the mood for spam reblogging/spam liking old posts about HIM and this is the period. And by HIM I mean Okita Souji from Hakuoki.

For those who don't know him... well you can see that he can be very unhinged. But he is at the same super sweet once you get to know him in the game (in the anime too, but in the visual novel he's explored more deeply) . He is very complex and I can say with convinction that he has occupied a very special place in my heart <3.

I wonder if I'll ever get cured by my Souji-addiction (but frankly, I don't event want to be :) )

7) Show us a picture that's in your galary that you are proud off/like/are comfortable sharing.

I think I'll pass on that too. Most of the stuff in my gallery are boring screenshots. I have personal photos too but I'm not comfortable sharing them here.

8) final question, what was the last YouTube video you watched?

Tarot card reading based on my zodiac sign lol. I'm not sure I fully believe in this stuff but I still find it interesting.

I don't know if everyone feels like participating in this so as usual no pressure. Tagging: @krisomela, @flowerynameslover, @himiko-omikami, @nuriakendo, @riveroflonging, @mydemonsandme

If I forgot some people on this list who want to participate feel free to tell me and I'll tag you as well.

[ko11ok]

Just wanna say ty for being some of the chosen Kollok people that carried the hashtag and are still around

hahaha yeah ofc!!

honestly i still need to like. actually finish series 2 (cannot call it kollok because kollok 1991 is always just kollok in my heart) i got maybe three episodes in because personally I wasn't enjoying the direction they went with it. i think it would've been better as an independent series, it just didn't have the heart and soul kollok 1991 had.

okay. i was like. i don't need to go on a rant....but i want to >:)

one of the things I liked about kollok 1991 was how messy it was, it was messy and fun and dark at the same time, there was a lot of cool stuff about it, and it felt like watching someone's beloved homegame with their unhinged dm, where not everything got wrapped up neatly and you never quite knew what was going to happen next.

the second series felt to clean to me, everything was put together, very streamline, very neat. it didn't have the edges or the humor 1991 had that was integral to [of course], my personal enjoyment of it. i feel like the ascended in general felt flat to me as well, like they were trying so hard to get us invested and interested in them that they wrapped back around to myself feeling like i didn't know them at all.

i think they tried really hard to do a little bit of everything, trying to let old fans see the legacy cast and their story, bring in a new audience with the ascended and the new story. it just all felt like? too much? like by catering to everyone and anyone they catered to no one. I remember zac saying that he wanted the second series to be something that anyone who'd never heard of kollok before could pick up and start watching, but to me that was so incredibly flawed. 1991 by its nature is a complex story, even if you created something new in the universe, the deeper lore and characters are still there, especially with how it was written.

my only pet peeve with zac's gaming style is that it's clear he almost always bites off more than he can chew, and when he needs to reconcile what he's bitten off, he almost always just spits it out (retcons) rather than just tries to swallow it (improvise, shift). he has extremely rich backstories and background written, and he likes to drop hints and ideas, but he never reveals any answers that are truly satisfying. (which maybe I missed because i didn't watch the second series). he likes to tease his audience, but never truly satisfy, in my opinion the most satisfying moments almost always came from the players.

imo legacy and the ascended should've been two different shows. they could've had the same format, they even could've existed in the same universe! [BIG BIG, "this is coming from someone who watched only like the first few episodes"], they could've just broken them up into separate shows at separate times. they could've given the old fans a satisfying ending, and given the new fans something to chew on with the ascended.

in my like. dream scenario, legacy's timeline instead takes place in 2002. (i've mentioned how i think a "kollok 2002" would be really cool, another palindrome year, most of the cast would be 11 years older, and in their late twenties/early thirties) they could still have mallory having gone into the black rock, tibby wracked with guilt, and the others sort of far flung. i think they could've pulled the same stuff and gotten a good result!! they could've even kept the timeline!! the ascended would rebel shortly after, the could've even done a series about that, which would've felt very similar, and ended where the show eventually got to, with the disillusioned ascended trying to figure out what the fuck they were going to do

idk! just my ten cents on it. sorry for taking your message and doing a lil rant lmao hope you don't mind

maybe i should do a sweet kollok rewatch in the future soon....like 1991 is pretty long but maybe i could swing it again >:)

[stepswowdsen]

【KagePro】 -from the darkness- 🖤💛🐍

Doodles

Outer Science is the 14th song of the Kagerou Project series, and Kuroha's main appearance. You can check out the Outer Science MV here!

Intro rambles

Kuroha/Saeru (Me ga Saeru Hebi, "Snake of Clearing Eyes") is my fave KagePro chara. Murderous mad man!

Inspired by the Outer Science MV, and my fave Kagerou Daze (LN) cover: Vol. 7 -from the darkness-

I'll clean this up later 🙏

Outer Science: Intro rambles

This rearrange cover ft. Kagamine Len is my fave Outer Science fan-cover~ I honestly prefer it over the OG cuz the tuning is better and the adlibs and robotic tones/voice effects really add sm. Has so much more oomph than the OG.

Ty vgperson for carrying the Vocaloid, KagePro, and RPG Maker games communities. Their TLs are so good.

KagePro: Intro rambles

KagePro is a multimedia project/franchise that originally started as Vocaloid songs. It also has a light novel, manga, and (shitty) anime adaptation. These music videos would tell the story of a group called the Mekakushi Dan (Blindfold Gang), teens who died on August 15th and entered the never-ending world called the Kagerou Daze (Heat Haze Daze) and came out with an eye ability.

Kuroha (Dark Konoha) or The Snake of Clearing Eyes (Me ga Saeru Hebi), is the series' big bad antagonist. He is one of Azami's snakes who possesses humans' vessels. He usually possesses Konoha's body, and kills everyone in the Mekakushi Dan to force Marry, the current holder of the Queen Snake (and granddaughter of the original Medusa, Azami), to reset the timeline, thus, forever repeating the "never ending tragedy."

I'm still amazed by Sidu's MVs. Outer Science is still my fave KagePro song and MV. Sidu's art style is so nice and their MVs are gorgeous. Sidu really appealed to my aesthetic tastes when I first saw this MV in 2013 as a 12 year old, I was immediately enamoured with it. They have such great aesthetic sense.

The colours and chosen visuals… How every single scene has so much attention to detail and connects to the story…

My origins with KagePro

I first got into KagePro when I was 12, so Kuroha was my 12 year old self's big fave~ KagePro was my kid self's first fandom interest.

12 ~ 16 y/o me was OBSESSED with this mf and the KuroEne ship 😭 Ene my wife… 🥺💙 Cuz I shipped them when Kuroha was originally thought to be a dark alter ego of Konoha/Haruka. That got debunked but the ship brings such great angst fuel

The Kuroha liker in me coming out with the unhinged anime man / meow meow mf core taste, HAHA.

I love smug evil bitches with black/white design aesthetics 🐈‍⬛ I love his expressions ✌️ And Kuroha has a great song and MV too~

The Kuroha (2013), Saeran (2016), Judar (2022) pipeline!

Art Inspiration

I did a quick Kuroha doodle. God the lowkey buff-ification is happening just like with Unknown/Saeran, but oh well LOL

Oh I think I also want the KagePro LNs 🙏 Sidu's gorgeous Kagerou Daze VII (7) cover with Kuroha on the cover 🖤💛 This will always be my favourite cover. Sidu's art style is IMPECCABLE I love their aesthetics sm… The pose and blood splatters and Kuroha and Azami's expressions… AHHH IT SLAPS SO HARD

I thought of a composition where all the "Keep out" tapes bind around his hands and arms just like in the LN cover.

It's based on the "Welcome to my womb" (Youkoso waga tainai he) line in the Outer Science MV and my fave Kagerou Daze (LN) cover -from the darkness- 🤭✨

I remember drawing fanart of it when this LN first got announced and came out in 2016, but my old art looks like frigging doodoo so I did a quick doodle redraw of it. I wanna draw JuAli, Saeran/MC, and KuroEne, soon, but grrr school!

Sen's KuroEne AU 🖤💙

The first ship I was obsessed with as a 12 year old was KuroEne cuz it was based off the popular fan-theory that Kuroha was a dark alter ego/corrupted form of Konoha, and so, that would've given the ship a connection (due to HaruTaka and KonoEne)

It got debunked by MCA (Mekakucity Actors), the KagePro anime, in 2014, since Kuroha was revealed to be Saeru, the Snake of Clearing Eyes, so ever since, I preferred dealing with KuroEne in lighthearted AUs instead.

But I also like thinking of KuroEne in canon-verse angst AUs where Kuroha messes around in the routes (timelines) and pretends to be Konoha. He decides to befriend the Mekakushi Dan members before k*lling them this time, and Ene projects her feelings for Haruka and Konoha, onto Kuroha (who she thinks is Konoha…)

2 years ago, before Ene lost her human body and became a cyber girl, she was Takane, a special needs student who had a chronic illness that would cause her to constantly faint and feel tired no matter how much she slept.

She was put in the same special needs class as Haruka, her friend and classmate who she eventually fell in love with. She never got the chance to tell him her feelings before she died. When she entered the Kagerou Daze and gained an eye ability, she gained a body that never needed sleep in response to her wish back when she was alive.

Haruka was an artist, and designed game avatars for them back then - Ene and Konoha. In the present day, 2 years later, when she meets Kuroha, she recognizes his appearance, and thinks he's Konoha. After seeing Kuroha, who she thinks is Konoha, she's surprised to see "Konoha" in the flesh...

In my KuroEne AU, Ene thinks that Kuroha is Konoha with Haruka's memories, because Kuroha/Saeru remembers previous routes (timelines) and thus knows her true name (Takane) and context.

I'm insane LMAO. I love angst!

I'm just thinking about how much I mellowed out over the years, cuz my ship AUs for LimGuda (Douman/Ritsuka), IdaTatsu (Idate/Tatsumiya), XanLena (Xanxus/Selena), JuAli (Judar/Alibaba), etc., are super fluffy and focused on the characters' relationship development and moments of emotional intimacy, building rapport and connection... These AUs are overall happy/have a happy ending! I want my faves to be happy <3

But the ship AUs I made when I was a kid, like for KuroEne (Kuroha/Ene), were angsty as hell. I think it's just cuz Kuroha's setup and role in KagePro's plot, as the big bad murderer that kills the entire Mekakushi Dan, just makes it so that any KuroEne AUs (and Kuroha ships in general tbh), that take place in canon-verse, will always end tragically. Good thing I still got it in me to be able to write angst/tragedy... hehe.

Ofc, I will delve into light-hearted AUs with them too that take place outside of canon~ I want to write/draw KuroEne in a much more fluffy and lighthearted setting too.

My fave screenshots from the Outer Science MV!

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

i’m being predictable but if no one else has asked yet… bosselot (for the ask game)

Congrats you ARE the first!

Send Me a Ship

Ship It

What made you ship it? Ok so let me start this off by telling you a bit of a story. My introduction to Metal Gear was MGSV. I played Ground Zeroes and then started up Phantom Pain. I straight up thought that Ocelot was Kaz because hey it's been 9 years I've only seen a handful of Kaz and then Ocelot is introducing himself and telling me I know him and I'm like 'Nah dude I really don't.' AND THEN AND THEN. EVERYTHING HAPPENED. Within maybe..3 hours of playing I determined 3 things about Ocelot: Cowboy Gay Evil By the time I finished MGSV, listened to all the tapes and saw the CIGAR SCENE. I had to know more immediately. More I played through the series more I got into Bosselot. By the end with Ocelot's fuckin' finger guns call back and BB's graveyard I was A SOBBING DISASTER THAT GOT SO ATTACHED AND ANYWAY.

What are your favorite things about the ship? I already had a huge weakness for 'evil freak painfully devoted to one person' (re: Yoshitaka Mine, but also I like that kinda thing in general) and Ocelot delivers that in SPADES. (Also their WIG fight? Hello? BB might have a sex drive once a year and wouldn't know romance if it hit him in the face and took his other eyeball but sir, son, my friends; that man likes what he sees). It's extremely funny to me too that EVERYONE calls BB out for helping Ocelot-and asks him why, and he's just *genuinely baffled* "I..don't know...I just had to." Because you like him sir it's okay it's fine. I also don't think BB gets enough credit for enabling Ocelot. I think Ocelot could do whatever he wants and BB's unhinged self would openly encourage him. Ocelot lived and died and brought down the Patriots for Big Boss. Ocelot devoted his ENTIRE LIFE to this man. That is some *chews on glass* worthy shit there. "In love with the legend not the man" my entire ass. If anything he transitioned from loving the legend to loving the man, and stopped associating the two as one in the same. IT IS THE MESSIEST THING EVER. But also weirdly romantic in a way that makes sense to them. Perhaps. Romance can be romance without being sweet-or good. I have more thoughts I'm sure but this is getting long oops.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? No authority on this here again but I don't think the power dynamic isn't quite as it seems. Ocelot is completely, 100% life long devoted to Big Boss, but that devotion is where the ball is in HIS court. Ocelot could take that devotion away at any given moment should he choose; and there'd be NOTHING Big Boss could do about it. The iron grip Big Boss holds on Ocelot is because he knows Ocelot WON'T because Ocelot is terminally in love and obsessed with him. But this isn't a weakness so much on Ocelot's part as it's a known fact. Which can make it a weakness in the right hands. Also, as tying into the above, Ocelot's really bad at hiding it. His enemies might not know jack about him, but his Big Boss open weakness is known to those who can REALLY use it against him (such as Zero).

THANK YOU FOR SENDING IN <3

[cattatonically]

The Hitman's Guide to Tying the Knot Without Getting Shot - Alice Winters (The Hitman's Guide, book 3)

Synopsis

Leland Is a nice little wedding with Blow-up Randy and Jackson My Love too much to ask for? Clearly, because someone’s trying to kill one of us… again. Generally, this would be my thing and I would jump right in singing my murder song, but they want Jackson dead and I will do anything (and I mean anything) to keep him alive—including and not limited to: ten Dobermans, bulletproof glass, and dragging Cassel in with the promise of more Jerebear. These people have no idea what they’ve done targeting the man I love because I’m coming after them. But when it feels like everything might be lost, I start to understand that I have a family now who will stand by my side and do everything they can to make sure we end this on our terms.

Jackson When someone attacks me, it’s clear they want something from me. The issue is that I have no idea who they are or what they’re after. And if I don’t figure it out soon, I’m afraid Leland is going to smother me with his overprotectiveness (or put me in a bubble at the top of a tower). The issue is that time is ticking and with the price tag on my head, there’s no telling who is coming for me or when. Together, Leland and I have to decipher who is telling the truth in this game of life or death because I have plans to marry the man of my dreams and no one is going to stop me—especially with Leland by my side.

This 100k word book contains humor, action, romance, bad behavior on a golf course, sort of abducting a child who lacks kung fu power, enough car chases and shooting to make even Leland happy, and spontaneous singing.

My Thoughts

A idle Leland makes for a very, very annoying Leland. I’m usually very amused by his brand of chaos, but I’m finding that enough is enough. It’s not that I want him to be less unhinged – I do like him unhinged – I think I’m just quite tired with the over the top silly antics, and everyone around him falling for it every time. At some point, learning to manage the antics has to happen, or nothing else can be taken seriously.

All that being said, when Leland is focused on something – in this case, finding out who’s trying to have Jackson killed – he’s on point and unbelievably focused. All while also planning their wedding. (As someone who fully gave up on planning a wedding, major kudos, because that shit is stressful and infuriating.)

The last couple of books have done deep dives into Leland’s past, which made for an interesting twist when the tables are turned on Jackson. Jackson hasn’t spoken much about his time in the military, and now we know why. And we also know that this has a connection to the hit out on his head. And Leland isn’t about to let that stand.

I’m familiar with the pattern now, which meant I was able to see the twist before it came. That also meant I was able to read in anticipation of when Leland and Jackson would figure it out. And their reaction was exactly what I expected it to be.

All in all, this is a very fun, medium-stakes action-filled adventure series. While Leland’s antics are starting to get annoying for me, I can still enjoy the levity of his character, and the story this series is telling.

[faithfromanewperspective]

This is true but also in some ways--we do see it in the way he behaves. In how easily he lets Kit in when he very rarely lets anyone in. Livvy notices it and tries to make sure Kit doesn't hurt him. Everyone else notices when they kinda just expect them to be together. I know it's not the same, reading between the lines, but it's super precious to me and I know we will get more of his POVs and get to see that and after so long--I think it'll be worth our while. I love both of these characters so much. And

I also think Ty is very overwhelmed for much of the series especially QOAAD and in some ways I think he realises what he's feeling in retrospect and so even his narration if he did have POVs may not answer all of our questions. But to me the little things make it so obvious that this is something really special, even if it might not look necessarily exactly the same on both sides--he could fall in love with the vibe or personality Kit gives off or just how well they complete each other before he pays attention to looks (or maybe the other way around! who knows really, we're in such a sweet spot in time when we get to speculate).

As for whether he's angry, I think the hurt and everything that's happened to him kinda just cumulates and his feelings are more complex and messy than anything--like he definitely feels hurt but I think at some point he knows what he was doing was absolutely unhinged and kinda gets it from Kit's perspective even if he simultaneously hates being lied to. And overall big feelings are overwhelming, especially when conflicting, and Ty's been through so much already--plus I think what's between him and Kit feels sacred and there wouldn't be many people he's even know how to be open about that with (I'm a lot like that as well). And whether he finds Kit's jokes to be funny I think matters less than that he knows the intent behind them, he feels Kit reaching out in friendship to him and it doesn't matter if he doesn't get the specific joke straightaway. It's something relatively new and delicate and so special and exactly what Ty needs even if it's not something he's able to let his guard down for straightaway. So welcome to speculation. I want to know what you read of him and if you agree!

Just thinking about the fact that we never really got to see Kit through Ty‘s eyes. Does he think Kit‘s jokes are funny? Does he think about Kit‘s beauty as much as Kit does about his? When did he fall in love with him? Was he angry at him after the events of TDA?

I just need to know these things…

[vyeoh]

this is your chance: wax poetic about an Empires or DSMP character of your choice to a fan who is new to both. Explain why I should love them. I need guidance in this new and meme-populated land.

okok this is a lot of pressure haha. Spoilers for EmpiresSMP and DreamSMP below, obviously. I wrote a lot so prepare yourself, anon

I watch a lot of empires POVs but the ones I most anticipate every week are Scott and Sausage.

c!Scott (I'll call him Smajor for the sake of simplicity) starts off the series chilling, not really getting involved with the rest of the server, and staying aggressively neutral. After all, he's an elf. He has lived far longer than most of the other rulers already, and will most likely outlive them for many years. So, the best thing is to stick to his mountains and not get invested in the dealings of mortal affairs, maybe sometimes causing problems on purpose and dipping because what's life without a little spice right.

But then, this demon comes to the server, Xornoth. He's going around causing havoc and wants to send the world into an eternal winter, but he doesn't bother the kingdom of Rivendell much so Smajor stays tentatively cautious but ultimately unbothered. But then, the puzzle pieces start falling together. The first thing that the audience noticed was was Xornoth sounded like Smajor, but we mostly thought that this was just due to cc!Scott voicing both of them and there was nothing more to it. However, then, the people the demon starts possessing start chanting in elvish. The demon hates mortals, and the elves are conveniently one of the two confirmed not fully mortal races in Empires.

This culminates when Smajor stumbles across a cave that contains the backstory of the patron god of Rivendell, Aeor. Basically, there's two opposing forces, Aeor and Exor, and both have a champion. In a previous life, those champions were two brothers, where Aeor eventually prevailed and banished Exor. In this life though, the champions are - you guessed it - Smajor, and the demon Xornoth.

So now Smajor is like. Well fuck. It's my literal god-given destiny to be responsible for defeating this demon who is technically my brother, and if I fail the server gets plunged into an eternal winter. And I have no fucking clue what is happening because I've just been here on this mountain actively trying to stay out of the issues outside my kingdom. We watch him panic and teeter on the verge of spiraling for an entire episode, and when the followers of Xornoth go to the End to kill the dragon, releasing Xornoth's full powers, he fails to stop him. Smajor is a character who was used to being the smart one, the prepared one, the one who has the least deaths on the server. But he's also a character who runs away from his problems and ignores them. Before and during the dragon fight, we hear the desperation in his voice, as he's thrown into a situation he is wholly unprepared for, and it's bigger than him going to the Cod Empire to kill their king, or assisting in other people's plans to kill the codfather. He can't run from this. cc!Scott plays this scene so well as well, as I've said before, one of the best parts of Scott's acting is how he's never super dramatic, but he's so effective in the little things like inflection to make you feel, viscerally, the panic and dread.

So after the dragon fight, Smajor realizes, I can't do this on my own. I've tried and failed. So he gets allies. We watch him, someone who has so strongly been an isolationist, learn the benefits of allies and watch him learn to trust others and watch him learn how to get that trust in return.

My favorite thing about Smajor's characterization is that he's an incompetent protagonist, but not in the way of the "plucky young adventurer". He's capable skill-wise, and fairly jaded and very pessimistic. However, his issue is that up until recently, he did not care about the rest of the server at all, and by the time he learned to, it was way too late.

Also, in 3rd Life, cc!Scott and cc!Jimmy were canonically married and they reference it sometimes in Empires. Like, Scott goes over to the Cod Empire every so often both in and out of character to kill and/or flirt with Jimmy, the ruler of the Cod Empire, which may develop as a secondary plot into the future who knows. So ty Scott for giving the gays what they want o7

Now onto Sausage: his is a story of Icarus, his hubris and ambition being his downfall. He's one of the two followers of Xornoth, who promised him endless power in exchange for his servitude. He started the series being eccentric, but not outright unhinged, but slowly gets more and more extreme as the series progresses, as he gets brought more and more to Xornoth's side.

One of the best parts of Sausage's character, in my opinion, is how his gradual corruption affects the people around him. Initially, he got into a conflict with the Cod Empire and was allied with two other people in the Witherrose alliance. They were allies, but also close friends. The fandom liked to joke that the three had sibling energy, and I'm pretty sure the ccs played to that even more lol.

It was painful to watch the other two members, Gem and fWhip, watch Sausage get corrupted right in front of them, and see them desperately clinging on to this old idea of Sausage in their head because if they faced the truth, it would mean that their friend was gone. Eventually, they do finally cut him out of the alliance, leading him to fully commit to the side of the demon. Sausage felt very clearly betrayed by this, and declared the remaining two Witherrose alliance members to be enemies.

He gets more and more possessed, and we even see the other Empires, his enemies even, slowly realize that something is very wrong with the ruler of Mythland. He starts doing more and more evil things, like killing people more, making sacrifices to the demon, and eventually helping to kill the dragon to free Xornoth. So things are good for Sausage, for a bit. He won, and is more powerful than ever. Then he finds out: he's going to die. Xornoth's possession is slowly killing his soul, and eventually, his body going to be fully taken over and he himself is going to be trapped in the spirit realm. So how do you react to this? Over the next few episodes, we watch Sausage struggle between "the demon is literally killing me" and "the demon has given me so much, and I love it", all while Xornoth takes over more and more of him. We hear him exclaim that "don't worry!! I'm still about 15% there!" while trying to downplay every time Xornoth completely takes over his body. We watch him willingly oppose anyone who is trying to end the thing that is killing him.

My favorite thing about Sausage is that he is undoubtedly evil and proud of it, but he's also undoubtedly human. If you like to watch evil characters go absolutely feral, he's the guy for you. He makes the deal with Xornoth in the beginning, knowing and fully embracing the evilness of the demon, but at the same time he knows what he's doing is detrimental to both himself and everyone around him, but he's gotten in way too deep at this point, and to be fair the demon has held up its end fo the bargain, right?

Also, I would be damned if I don't talk about cc!Sausage's editing. Every one of his videos is like a movie. The way he does camera angles and uses music is so skillful- every lore scene feels like something out of a high fantasy action saga (think: LotR). Every big lore event I always wait in anticipation for Sausage's ep because his editing truly takes lore to another level.

I'm just generally very excited to see where this series goes. Empires is such a good mix of talented builders and good lore. Part of the reason why the series is so immersive for me, beyond any other lore smp, is that they have the settings to back it up. There is a certain charm to the DreamSMP's objectively terrible builds (with a few exceptions) but in Empires, the settings help sell the plot so much.

Another part of why I love EmpiresSMP is how much the ccs are involved with the fan community. I'm sure you've seen the memes about Scott being on tumblr, and Sausage regularly goes through the EmpiresSMP fanart tag on Twitter and likes art, even ones not related to Mythland. Most of the ccs, in fact, have brought up tumblr content on stream at some point or another. Like, several ccs have said that they read tumblr lore theories and hcs and stuff and sometimes take inspiration from them. Fun fact: Rivendell's church was inspired by my pinned drawing; confirmed by Scott Smajor himself. It's just such a good cycle of ccs and fans being excited about each other.

As for DreamSMP, I'm gonna be honest here, the only person I really am invested in in Technoblade. I started watching when he joined the server, and he's the only person whose lore I keep up to date with.

Techno's fun to watch because he's like the Deadpool of DreamSMP. Virtually unkillable, very skilled and scary, but consistently cracks jokes and breaks the 4th wall during plot. His POV is just fun. Like, he does wild plans and gives speeches and some of the stuff that happens to him should be called deus ex machine if it wasn't for the fact that Technoblade is the one who's doing it, and all the stuff is grounded in the fact that cc!Techno is just that good at the game.

However, the fact that he rarely takes anything seriously makes the few times Techno is 100% serious so much more impactful. His whole character has a basis in being perceived as inhuman and being treated as such, and therefore in return trying to hide his humanity. So, when he shows that humanity, whether that's fear, anger, or genuine love for his friends, it really makes you go "oh shit."

Techno's often said not to have character development, but I'd argue that while he remains steadfast in his moral code, he develops leaps and bounds as a person. Like, at the beginning, he's brought onto the server to help Wilbur and Tommy overthrow a government; them knowing he's 1) an anarchist and 2) very very powerful. His character was more of a plot device at that point and was treated as such in the canon. Wilbur and Tommy straight-up lie to him about their plans to establish another government after they overthrow the current one, while he was led on to believe that they were abolishing all governments in the area. But he isn't a plot device. He's a person, as much as he only shows the terrifying, blood god side of himself.

After the establishment of New Lmanburg (the new government its a long story), his friend Phil joins. And for the first time, we see him be fully human with someone and we see someone treat him like a human. Like, we saw glimpses before, with Wilbur and Tommy in Pogtopia, but Phil is the first person we noticeably see he trusts 100%. Then Doomsday happens, and Techno essentially retires to the tundra. During this time, we see Techno learn to be more human, first with Ranboo, then Niki when he establishes the Syndicate. In fact, the two of them, along with Phil, canonically throw him a birthday party, which is a far cry from his treatment in Pogtopia.

Techno's development is one of a god learning to be human, and I just think he <3

[wiener-soldiers]

so, you’re real - tommy shelby

summary: while high off his ass, tommy shelby is approached by a mysterious woman offering him something more valuable than drugs: information. your services become essential to how tommy conducts business, but your anonymity means he can’t help but fall in love with you from a distance.

words: 5.4k

pairing: tommy shelby x fem!reader (race non-specific)

warnings: tommy shelby. that’s the warning.

a/n: first tommy fic :D he’s one of the most beautifully complex characters ever in television imo but that also means his kinda nightmare to right. so,,, he might come off a little ooc because he’s very soft!tommy in this. i also wanna write a tommy fic based off ‘why’d you only call me when your high’ by arctic monkeys for obvious reasons.

masterlist | add yourself to the taglist! | faq

Tommy Shelby could count the number of people who’s seen him high as a kite on opium with three fingers. Arthur was the first; he drukenly stumbled into Tommy’s room instead of his own one night and the smell of the pipe sobered him enough to start asking questions. Tommy shoved him out and by the morning, Arthur was too hungover to remember a thing. The next was Polly; Tommy stumbled down the stairs as he was high around three in the morning once as he searched the house for more booze. Polly watched from a distance as he sat himself on the kitchen table and wept, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his ears with his hands. She chose not to mention it the following morning, but a perscription for morphine found its way to Tommy’s desk a few days later.

The third person... was you.

You didn’t know the Shelby’s personally. You were the assistant of a local Small Heath accountant that dealt with Birmingham’s most infamous clients: local coppers, factory owners, politicians, even gangsters. Your boss was known as the Devil’s Safe—nothing that came in went ot without the client’s consent.

But you weren’t a saint. Being so close to his office at all times and knowing far too much about where the most influential people in Birmingham got their money and where they spent it, it was nearly impossible to keep your mouth shut.

So, you didn’t. At a price, of course.

You quit your job and created a small network of spies that could feed you information about anyone or anything at anytime, using your knowledge about the Devil’s Safe as leverge. You charged whoever could afford for your services, coppers and criminals alike. Some self-righteous copper tried to shut you down once. Keyword: tried. There were too many spies all over the city to try to arrest (that is, if he could find grounds to arrest them), and you were too important to too many important people that arresting you would likely have him assasinated.

That, and you tipped him off about a corrupt police captain who had been trading orphans for cash. It got him a promotion and you a protective shield over your dealings from the coppers.

Tommy first met you at the races. You were hanging off the arm of Roberts, Billy Kimber’s advisor, and he briefly caught your eye before returning his gaze to Grace who stared at him lovingly. He didn’t know it then, but you were analyzing him. His posture, his facial expressions, how he spoke to Kimber, and most importantly, his books that Roberts happened to have a copy of. Nothing went unnoticed by you. The Shelby’s were starting to cause ruckus all over the city and you were interested. But, to maintain your facade, you snuck a few kisses to Roberts’ neck to distract him from your snooping.

When Tommy returned to the table with the bag of cash his brothers had collected from the Lees, you were gone.

---

The second time he sees you, he isn’t even sure if it’s you.

It’s late at night as he approaches The Garrison when he notices Polly standing with another figure in the alley. He slows his steps and silences his breathing, trying to catch the end of your conversation.

“You’re sure this is where she is?” That’s unmistakingly Polly’s voice.

A soft chuckle rips through the air and Tommy suddenly wonders what your voice sound like. “There’s only so many women carrying a newborn and looking that terrified of what may be behind her,” the other voice says. It’s not soft or angelic, Tommy notices. Nothing likes Grace’s. It’s deeper, smoother, and he can almost hear the smirk in her voice.

“How do I know you’re not lying to me?” Polly asks back skeptically. Tommy has the common sense to realize she’s talking about Ada who had gone into hiding after Freddie was arrested. Polly hadn’t been able to stay in the same room as him for very long since.

You pull out another envelope from your coat and teasingly dangle it in front of her. “Here’s the list of all of Ada and Freddie’s known addresses. The Communists have them move every few weeks; the address I gave you is Ada’s current address. Go there tomorrow from seven to nine in the morning. Ada’ll still be in bed and Karl will still be asleep. Then, you’ll know I’m right, you’ll give me the full payment, and I’ll give you the rest of the addresses.”

Tommy is slightly stunned at what he’s hearing. They had been trying to look for Ada for nearly two weeks to no avail, but this woman was able to find her that easily?

The woman turns to walk away before Polly can respond and in the street light, Tommy can make out the outline of your face. It was so brief that he couldn’t tell if you were actually there or if he imagined your face in the darkness.

Polly doesn’t notice him as she makes her way back inside the pub. The following afternoon, Polly is pounding on his office door saying she’s found where Ada had been hiding.

---

The third time he sees you, he’s sitting in the empty Garrison with a bullet wound in his shoulder, whiskey coursing through his veins, enough meloncholy and anger to swim in, and a broken heart.

Billy Kimber was dead. Campbell was gone. But, so was Grace.

It was a series of emotions he hadn’t felt in a long time: relief, then anger, then happiness, then frustration. Then the shovels started. Then, it all got too loud and he slipped his opium pipe into his coat pocket before going to The Garrison to drink his sorrows away. He had never taken the pipe out of his room before. In that state, he didn’t care.

He doesn’t really know how you got in; he had angrily yelled at everyone to leave the bar when the night was late enough for him to feel emotion and locked the door behind him. Maybe I didn’t lock the door right, he thinks. In reality, you had picked the lock.

“I could’ve told you she’d been working with him,” your voice calls behind him. He’s still hunched over his drink, the pipe lying next to a nearly empty bottle of whiskey. He didn’t need her to clarify who she was talking about.

“You could’ve, eh?” Tommy mumbles dangerously. He felt light, but his eyes and his heart felt heavy. He hated the feeling. Oh god, he hated it.

“Hmm,” you hum back, taking a seat next to him. You reach behind the bar and pull out a bottle of gin and poor yourself a drink. Tommy watches you do so. You don’t look like you pity him, in fact, you don’t even look at him. Instead, you focus your attention on the drink.

After taking a sip, you reach into your coat jacket and pull out an envelope, slidding it over to Tommy. You had clearly seen the opium pipe that still had smoke coming out of it, but you gently pushed it out of the way so the envelope rested in front of Tommy’s drink.

“What is this?” he asks, still too high to think straight.

“Consider it a resume,” you quip back, taking another sip of your drink as you study the collection of liquor and spirits on the back shelf of the bar.

“For what?”

“My services.”

“You a fuckin’ whore? You think that’s what I need right now, eh?”

“What I think you need right now, Mr. Shelby, is a sense of security. To be ahead of the enemy. I can give that to you,” you reply smoothly, barely flinching. Tommy notices your voice doesn’t falter even at his jab. He begins to sober up, finaling looking at you.

You had an air of mystery and intrigue. Your eyes looked all-knowing and the corner of your lip was quirked. A white blouse was tucked into a deep red skirt with your black wool jacket overtop of it all. If he was a different man, he surely would have taken you home.

“Why are you telling me this?” he finally asks.

You look back at him, the smirk on your lips growing. “Because I quite like your family. Polly is quite intelligent and Ada is a delight. I also know far too much about you, so it’d be a shame if someone paid be good money to tell them everything there is to know about you. But if you came to me first, there wouldn’t be much of an issue. The rate for ratting out one of my clients is ridiculously high.”

So, it had been you with Polly that night, he thinks. “You’d work for me?” he asks again, tone getting more serious. The last time a woman worked for him, it didn’t end particularly well.

You laugh and Tommy is momentarily stunned. It’s a beautiful laugh that appeared in an awful moment. “I don’t work for anyone, Mr. Shelby.”

And then you left. Tommy stares a the door for a few minutes after you’ve left, wondering if he had imagined your visit the whole time. When he turns back to his drink, the envelope you left behind is a sign that you had been real. He hesitantly opens it and his jaw unhinges at the contents inside: there were several documents, reports, and even pictures tying Grace Burgess and Inspector Campbell together. It seemed so plain and simple once it was laid out in front of him.

Under the flap of the envelope was an address as well as a rate of service. It was high, Tommy couldn’t deny it, but he also couldn’t deny how the pressure on his chest eased for a moment when he was with you. Even more so when you had left the address.

The next morning, a wad of cash from Shelby Company Limited shows up at one of your drop locations. It’s more than you asked for and quicker than you expected it to come. You smirk softly and get to work.

---

Tommy doesn’t see you again until he pays a visit to Sabini’s club a few years later as he works on his London expansion. He had been a client of yours for nearly two years now and he was continuosly impressed with your work. You literally had eyes everywhere; there wasn’t a place between Manchester and Brighton that you couldn’t get to. You had been the one feeding him inside information about Sabini’s operations in London, as well as how to get Alfie Solomon’s attention.

Despite all this work, he hasn’t seen you since you approached him when he was high in the empty pub. He gets all his information through courriers, telephone calls from messengers, and packages from drop locations all over the city. He asked a courrier once why he hasn’t seen you since.

“No one really sees her, sir. We just get orders in one way or another, we excecute them, and then money shows up. She doesn’t want anyone to tie her to her clients or the boots on the ground.”

“She’s clever.”

“She’s bloody brilliant, is what she is. She’s set up this system so bloody tight that no one really knows how it works except her. One lad up in Coventry tried to turn her in. Went missing a few days later.”

He doesn’t think about you often, but when he does, he’s reminded of that night in The Garrison; how mysterious and beautiful and dangerous you looked, how his chest seemed less tight with you around. Maybe he’s imagined it. Maybe it was the opium clouding his vision. So, he pushes those thoughts away because as far as he’s concerned, you’re an enigma.  Hell, he doesn’t even know your name and he’s been paying you big money and giving away too much of his plans.

But he sees you that night when he and his brothers storm Sabini’s club. You’re sitting on a fancy velvet lounging chair, tucked under the arm of what Tommy assumes is a wealthy banker or socialite. You don’t see him (not yet, at least) but Tommy sees you. All Tommy sees is you. The smoke that flows out of your nostrils as your lips curl at whatever attempt at humour then man with you made draws Tommy in. So does the cut of your deep blue, satin dress. He knows it then, that you’re real. That you’re not a figment of his imagination.

“This place is something else, innit?” Arthur remarks as they make their way deeper and deeper into the club. Tommy is still drawn to you as his brothers gawk at the permiscuous behaviour around them.

The party atmosphere doesn’t last long however, as the boys make a show out of trashing the place. Tommy makes sure to put on a performance, to play up the fear. When he shouts something along the lines of being on a holiday, he happens to catch your eye and the first thing he notices is the smirk playing on your lips. He’s first confused as to why but he understands: you had a large part of the London expansion and you also likely knew that Tommy was going to be there that night. You weren’t there with a man. You were there to see him. You were there to see his reckoning.

The image of you tattooed itself onto Tommy’s brain and the feeling he felt in his chest was something he craved to feel again.

---

The next morning, the brothers stumble into Ada’s home, uninvited. Their younger sister begrudgingly lets them in, still clad in her nightgown, and hastily tells them to keep their noise level down as Karl was still sleeping.

It doesn’t last very long.

“You shoulda seen their bloody faces, Ades!” John hollers, mouth full of biscuits and tea. Ada hisses at him for spewing food across the table.

“Didn’t know what was coming, the lot of them,” Arthur adds, already taking a sip from a flask. He was barely sober from the night before and it wasn’t even eight in the morning. “Fuckin’ Sabini, Ada. He won’t know what’s bloody comin’.”

“Sabini, eh?” Ada plays along, still slightly annoyed but now intriguied. “You didn’t happen to hit up his club last night, did you?”

“’Course we did!” John snickers. “What’d you think we’d do, start small?”

Ada’s facial expression suddenly changes into one of slightly more concern. Arthur and John don’t notice, but Tommy does. “I was hopin’ you would,” Ada plays it off but Tommy notices.

“Ada?” he asks, voice stern but eyes curious. His sister was intelligent, so much so that her mouth was as good at getting her out of trouble as it was getting her in it. Tommy was sure that there was more than what she let on.

“Tom?” Ada says back, not meeting his gaze and instead taking a bite out her toast and jam.

“Why’re you so hung up on Sabini’s club?” Tommy asks  directly, slowly getting tired of his sister’s semantics. He mommentarily understands how Polly feels when he keeps things from her.

Ada sighs, having also attracted attention from her two other brothers. She sets down her toast and looks directly at Tommy. “You saw her, didn’t you?”

“Saw who?” Arthur asks, booming voice too loud for the sudden change of tone in the room. Ada grimaces but still stares at Tommy.

Tommy knows exactly who she’s talking about. But he wonders how Ada does.

“I did,” he says simply.

“Who’re you talkin’ about?” John asks next, looking between his siblings. Arthur shrugs at him.

“Did you say anything to her?”

“No.”

“Good,” Ada says too quickly. Tommy narrows his eyes at her.

“For God’s sake!” Arthur says again, slamming his tea cup back down onto the table. “Who in the bloody hell are you talkin’ about?”

Ada rolls her eyes and continues eating and Tommy is left to stare at his brothers. He wants to answer. He wants to answer so badly. But he doens’t even know her name.

“I—” Tommy trails off. He’s rarely rendered speechless, but he is when it comes to you. Who were you? Why did Ada know you? Why can’t he get you out of his head? Why does he hope you’re standing there in the shadows every time he steps out on the street?

“You? You what, Tom?” John asks this time, equally as exasperated.

“He doesn’t know and it should stay that way,” Ada says simply. “She offers you a service, you pay her, end of transaction. Stay away from her Tommy, I mean it.”

“What service?” John asks again, still getting more questions than answers.

Tommy sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “After Grace, she offered me a service. Cash in exchange for information. Said she knew that I needed a sense of security.” She was right, Tommy thinks but doesn’t dare say.

“Information about what, exactly?” Arthur asks, voice dropping an octave as he leans forward.

“Everything. Anything and everything. She knows everything. I don’t have the slightest clue how,” Tommy answers honestly, his own disbelief being obvious for the first time.

“She can betray us...” John warns, skeptical especially after Grace.

“She won’t,” Ada says simply.

“How do you know?” John challenges.

“She won’t,” Ada reaffirms with a glint in her eye. John immediatley backs down. Ada doens’t trust easily, especially after Freddie.

Tommy believes her. You know too much, far too much. More than he or you had bargained for. You also gave too much. Tommy asked for one thing, you gave him what he wanted and more. Tommy wanted a brief description of the shipping business in Bristol, you gave him an itemized list. Tommy asked you to keep an eye out for any potential threats, you gave him incredibly precise weekly reports. He asked people what your service was like as if he didn’t already know himself: you were never this thorough. He knew you wouldn’t betray him because you would have done it already. The question is, why did Ada trust her?

“You know who she is, don’t you?” Tommy asks his sister once again, doing his best to intimidate her. It’s no use.

“I do,” Ada says simply.

“Even her name?”

John scoffs. “You don’t even know her bloody name and you’ve got that look like you’re in love? Jesus, Tom! You need a good fuckin’, I’m telling you.”

Ada ignores her brother’s comment. “Even her name.”

Tommy gestures for her to elaborate and Ada hesitantly continues, “Polly paid her to find me after Karl was born. She found me personally, not through a messenger. We got along quite well, she was very honest about what she’d been hired to do. She gave Polly that information she was looking for, but we kept in touch. Personally, I mean. I like her.”

“Tell me her name, Ada.”

Ada makes a face of fake appeasement. “Can’t do that, sorry Tom.”

Tommy’s jaw clenches. “Ada...” he warns.

Ada’s glare mathces his own. “Her identity is all she’s got Tommy. The minute a client knows who she is, it all falls apart. For the love of God, for your safety and hers, don’t find her.”

And hell, does Tommy want not to listen. He wants to find you again. To see you. To speak to you. To learn your name. To feel the weight in his chest lighten once more.

But you remained impossible to find. Even with his London expansion, he wasn’t any closer to finding out who you really were than the day you first spoke to him at The Garrison.

So, he tried to push his thoughts away. He didn’t get so lucky.

---

He was used to receiving messages from you on Sunday evenings before the week began and Thursday mornings before the week ended. Sometimes, they’d be in the form of a phone call from a messnger reading a message written by you. Other times, he would visit a drop site where he picked up parcels of information and evidence you had collected. Fridays were paydays, so he’d get a Blinder to drop a parcel of cash (though they never knew it was cash) at a drop site and wait for a courrier with a blue ribbon pinned under the lapel of their overcoat to retrieve it.

All your foot solidiers and clients wore the ribbons. You avoided paper trails so everything was with symbols. Ribbon colours were a discrete way for both the client and the courrier to tell who was who. Clients wore white ribbons, courriers wore blue ones, messengers wore green ones, and red ones were used for emergencies.

That’s why Tommy panicked when a man burst into his office late at night the day before he was set to take down Sabini, urgently lifting his lapel to show his red ribbon.

“What’s happened? Are we in danger?” Tommy asks immediatley, standing up from his chair.

“No, sir,” the foot soldier said. They were never allowed to say the names of clients, only sir and ma’am. “I have a message from her. It was urgent and couldn’t have waited until Thursday.”

The man gives him a sealed envelope before bowing and leaving as quickly as he came. Tommy checks to make sure that he is alone before ripping it open. It wasn’t a message, but a phone number and the word clairvoyant scribbled quickly with fancy ink.

Tommy furrows his eyebrows but picks up his phone and dials the operator. The other end picks up immediately. He hastily says the number he wants to be patched through to as well as the word scribbled below it. The operator says nothing else and he hears the phone ring again before a female voice finally picks up.

“Mr. Shelby, I was waiting for your call.”

It was you. Tommy’s heartbeat quickens. You continue to speak, oblivious to his shock, “I don’t make calls myself unless absolutely neccassary. You don’t need to worry about privacy; I have connections with the operating center that patched you through. They won’t say a word to anyone, telling them that you called and they won’t be listening.”

Truthfully, Tommy hadn’t even been thinking of that. He was still slightly shocked that he was hearing your voice, the same voice as nealry three years ago. The opium fucked with a lot of things, but not his sense perception. Your voice was as beautiful as he remembered it to be.

He forces the thoughts out of his head and finally speaks. “What’s happened? Is there an emergency?”

“You aren’t safe at the races tomorrow. There will be an attempt on your life.”

Tommy is not entirely surprised. “I’m sure you can put two and two together; what I plan to do at the races is practically a suicide mission, dear. Of course there’ll be an attempt on my life.”

You scoff at the other end of the line. “Mr. Shelby, I’ll rephrase: you may succeed in your plan tomorrow, but something will catch you off-guard. Something big.”

“What is it, then? If you’re so sure,” Tommy challenges, but is taken aback by the silence.

You sigh, defeated at the other end of the line. “Mr. Shelby, I’ll be honest. An Inspector Campbell approached me this morning, asking for my services to give him everything I knew about you plans tomorrow. I took his money.”

Tommy’s jaw clenches. “You called me to tell me you’re a fuckin’ conspirator against me now, eh?”

“I resent that. There’s a reason I ask you not to tell me anything about your business aside from what I need to know to do my job,” you snap back. “Campbell gave me money to tell him information I didn’t have. So, I took the money and told him lies. He didn’t pay enough money to turn me against one of clients anyway and I don’t negotiate.”

Tommy laughs in slight disbelief, “You clever bloody woman.”

You can’t help but grin at the other end of the line. “He let it slip that he had something planned, though. That you weren’t getting out of this alive. Thomas, I don’t know what and I don’t have enough time to find out, but you needed to know,” you say before soflty adding, “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t tell you.”

Tommy nods solemnly before saying, “That’s the first time you’ve called me Thomas.”

You laugh and Tommy’s heart clenches at the sound. “Is that what you choose to focus on?” you ask, amused despite your worry.

“I’m not afraid of death. Not anymore,” Tommy answers.

“It’s a shame. There seems to be a lot in your life that’s worth living for,” you reply, your voice softer that Tommy’s ever heard it.

“Will you do me one final favour? Take it as my dying wish.”

“Thomas—” you start before he cuts you off.

“Can you tell me your name?” he finally asks, but he’s met with silence. He clears his throat and adds, “Please?”

You sigh at the other end. This is not how you were supposed to conduct business. Anonymity was the only thing keeping you from being excecuted at the hands of the Crown or a crime-boss. But here the feared Thomas Shelby was, asking as his dying wish to know your name. You don’t know him aside from your brief interactions and stories from Ada. But strangely, you trust him with the key keeping your identity safe.

“Y/N. My name’s Y/N.”

---

The following evening, Tommy trudges home covered in mud and blood. His encounter with the face of death was anticipated, but still left him scarred. Despite his success against the races and against Sabini, he felt trapped. With a success in the business, he still finds himself indebted to Winston Churchill. He’s exhaused of this cycle and in the moment, he embraced his fate just a little.

As he pushed the door to his home open, his eyes are immediately drawn to crackling fire. He hadn’t expected anyone to be home, as the family was staying in London with Ada to celebrate their successes.

So the sight of you, sitting on his couch and staring into the fire shocked the life back through him.

He takes of his hat and stares at you in slight disbelief. “So, you’re real.”

You turn to face him and the tension previously present in your features fell and the corner of your lip quirked upwards. “You’re alive,” you state the obvious.

“The Devil’s tried too many time to kill me, I’m starting to wonder if God does exist,” he says plainly, taking off his coat and taking a seat on the other end of the couch from you.

A small laugh escapes you. “He has jokes, does he?”

Tommy smiles softly but shakes his head and stares at you. “You’re really real. I was starting to think I was imagin’ ya.”

“Ada says you’ve been asking about me.”

“I have. She wouldn’t tell me your name, though.”

“You got it anyway.”

“Who’s to deny a man his dying wish?” Tommy darkly jokes again.

“I can’t go back to operating how things were. Even you knowing my name is too much,” you say softly, turning back to the fire. You were slightly frustrated with yourself. Years and years of building a network built around your anonymity destroyed by one man. Deep down, you felt that it was time.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Tommy says simply.

“But you’d want to be in my life,” you say back, still not looking away from the fire. “I’m a woman, but I’m not stupid. I know why you tried to look for me.”

Tommy sits back and watches her. A woman’s never been more direct with him before. Even Grace, who had just asked him to lay with her one final time before moving back to America at the races, had never laid out what she saw so simply and bluntly before. She was right. Tommy wouldn’t tell anyone your name if you asked him to, but he would still want to see you. The only thing more painful than not knowing who you were was knowing and still not being able to see you.

“You could start again,” Tommy says. He barely recongizes the softness in his own tone, but he decides the change is good. “You could work for me, have your men join the Blinders if they wanted.”

“I don’t work for anyone, Mr. Shelby,” you say again cheekily, reminding him of the first time the two of you spoke. You turn to face him and stop to admire his beauty—how the fire cast beautiful shadows across his face, how the moonlight sparkled in his eyes.

“That you don’t,” Tommy hums in agreement, still looking at you. His gaze hadn’t left you since he came home.

It’s silent for a few moments before Tommy says, “Stay.”

“With you?” you ask in slight surprise.

“With me, in Small Heath, with the company—whatever you want. Just stay.”

“You barely know me.”

“Then let me get to know you, Y/N,” Tommy answers, finally saying your name for the first time. He loves the way it spills off his tongue and you equally adore the sound of his voice when he says it.

You nod softly, agreeing with his hearfealt proposition. The two of you spent the rest of the night staring into the fire, allowing your heartbeats and breaths come into sync as you slowly fell asleep.

---

It’s been five years since you had started working for Shelby Company Limited as Tommy’s senior advisor and security specialist, four years since your network of spies had merged with the Peaky Blinders, three years since you and Tommy got married, two years since you gave birth to a set of twins named Benjamin and Mae Shelby, and one year since you had also become a political advisor to your husband and his allies in Parliament.

With your years together, the Shelby family found you to be an intriguing, fascinating, and intimidatingly wonderful woman. They couldn’t comprehend how right you seemed with Tommy. They also couldn’t comprehend how involved you were in their success without them even knowing who you were. However, they love to poke fun at Tommy for basically falling in love with from two interactions.

You were currently at the Arrow House doing the final touch-ups to your makeup for the gala you were hosting in your home. It was a typical charity ball that made sleezy politicians look good in the eyes of their constituants, but you had pressured Tommy to allow you to host it on behalf of the Shelby Family Institute. He had been skeptical, but relented when you reminded him that it wasn’t about giving them a platform to look good, but using their ego to benefit the institute.

“I’ve put the children to bed,” Polly announces as she walks into the master bedroom. The room is obscenely large with a king sized bed in the middle, but Polly can’t help but feel pride every time she visits. It was the both of your hardwork that you got you here and she was proud. “Ben passed out almost immediatley, but you’re right about Mae. She’s a trouble maker.” 

You give Polly a smile through the mirror of the vanity you sat in front of, “Thank you, Pol. Really.”

“Where’s that bastard husband of yours?” Polly jokes as she stands behind you, inspecting her pearls in the mirror.

“His study, no doubt,” you joke with a slight smirk.

“The faith the two of you have in my is astounding,” Tommy says sarcastically, immerging through the en-suite dressed in his tuxedo.

Polly rolls her eyes and leaves the room, leaving the couple to stare at each other.

“You clean up well, Mr. Shelby,” you state, smiling as he approaches you. “Though I’m not sure if that’s because of you or your OBE.”

“Sometimes, I wonder if I should have continued loving you at a distance,” he comments humourously.

You laugh—a real laugh—and wrap your hands around his neck while his arms immediately find themselves around your waist.

“How’re you feeling, darling?” Tommy asks, referring to the mental and emotional preparation for the event that was about to start downstairs.

“I’m not the biggest fan of a lot of your colleagues, Tom,” you say honestly. “Their wives however...they give me thousands of pounds worth of information every sentence.”

“You never cease to amaze me with that mind of yours,” he tells you honestly.

“And you never cease to amaze me with how verbally affectionate you can be,” you quip back lightheartedly before Tommy softly kisses your lips.

“How ‘bout this?” he says once you pull away. “I take care of getting donations, you take care of getting more leverage on the labour bill I’m looking to pass.”

“Done,” you say with a smile before Tommy kisses you again. You begin to hear cars pull into the driveway when you try to pull away, but he keeps you close.

“Tom,” you giggle, breathless. “Tom, the guests are arriving.”

“I’ve waited for you for years, they can wait for you a little while longer,” he replies with a smirk before kissing you deeply once again.

[maoam]

some sns stans said sasuke is just as obsessed with naruto as naruto is with sasuke.. wth? sasuke is not that crazy for naruto pls naruto isnt even on his mind 24/7, he is a very focused goal oriented person who put duty over indulging his personal feelings.

who is the one who chased/stalked the other across the world, threatening to break his legs if he wouldnt come back to him, wanting to die together and be with each other in the afterlife, went crazy when a creepy old man claimed posession on him, constantly harrassed him when they were younger (even tying him up😏), have fantasies and think about him at night, etc…. they want the traits that define naruto as a character for sasuke its so funny.

Well as I said Sasuke is unhinged in his own way (him thinking he'd need to kill Naruto with his own hands to be alone lol) and I do think Naruto is irreplaceable to him, my issue is more how people kind of switch their dynamic and make Sasuke act more like how Naruto would act (or often not even how Naruto would act, but just some guy from a women's romance series or something).

And like I have mentioned people have this obsession to have Naruto loved and worshiped by everyone (having many boyfriends for example) while Sasuke exists only to validate and love Naruto. People will squeeze content out of Naruto and Shino while Sasuke can't even have Taka as friends because they are ignored totally. It's irritating.

I don't like how people try to push the innocent, always sweet Naruto narrative. Naruto can be difficult as well. It's like people completely erase Naruto's negative or difficult traits for the sake of 1000 gif sets of Naruto looking innocent and being "sunshine". It's boring.

[foulfirerebel]

Crass language aside, I absolutely agree with @crimsonaxe on this one. For all the OP dives into Arcane, Spiderverse, and Total Drama (with good points to make on the concept of character focus), they've missed the mark with RWBY by several miles.

Just my two cents: perhaps some people could stand to watch RWBY again? The whole series, reading the books as they go along. It's not that big a time commitment and there is a lot to process.

Just saying, if you can handle Arcane and all the stuff it throws at you, you can stand to rewatch RWBY from the beginning again and possibly read the novels. In fact, do read the novels.

I do so every time a volume ends and before one starts, so I recall everything well enough. In fact, if you'd prefer, a friend has shared a comprehensive RWBY viewing guide. Goes into everything you might need to know, though the version I have doesn't go into V9. V9 is required viewing though, for all that @crimsonaxe said above.

In short, the analysis of RWBY by the OP is flawed at best and at worst extremely uncharitable and in incredibly bad faith. My eyes literally glazed over when I tried to read the volume summaries.

More under the Readmore, RWBY volume 9 spoilers ahead~

["Season 9: UH... (That's not me not knowing what happened in 9, they just climbed out of the hole, basically, as the season has nothing to do with Salem's forces.)]

Team RWBY reunites, and out of all of them Ruby doesn't have Crescent Rose. Everyone else seems to be more or less stable.

Weiss suffers a lot by trying to make sense of the nonsensical, eventually rolling with it.

Blake takes temporary leadership since Ruby is checked out for most of the volume. Her worries are first that they're ruining the book and becoming more cautionary tales, but then for her team as they continue onward.

Ruby starts showing signs of her trauma getting to her, little by little, until she eventually explodes over having to be the positive one all the time among other issues. Jaune doesn't help matters, but more on that later.

Yang at first is angry that they're there with her, thinking she died. It takes a couple of pep talks from Ruby and Blake before she gets somewhat back to normal, though still worries about Ruby, Blake, and Weiss.

Speaking of Little, the best mouse ever, they meet Ruby and start the volume themes of Purpose and Identity.

They realize they're in a fairy tale realm, The Ever After, from a book they all read as children aka The Girl who Fell through the World. Basically, Alice in Wonderland.

The world isn't the same as the book, tying back to the Volume 1 theme of the world "not being like a fairy tale". For instance, the Jinxy Peddler (a thieving raccoon auctioneer) is older than in the book, a bratty Red Prince is in place of a wise Red King, etc.

The Curious Cat (bastard, malicious) shows up to help them after an altercation with The Red Prince in the form of a (epic) chess game. They are incredibly curious, but also seem like they're hiding something about Alyx aka Alice.

Blake and Yang get closer together, culminating in them becoming a couple. That's an incredibly shortened version of them getting together, it's really much better watched.

Team RWBY face down their past selves, all resolute in their newfound purposes and what they want from life...except Ruby, who falters and is on the verge of succumbing to despair if not for the Cat. She remains so throughout the volume.

Neopolitan, who likewise fell with them, menaces Team RWBY with clones of a powerful creature that can destroy everything called a Jabberwocker. She does so several times after her first appearance, for the sole purpose of killing Ruby in revenge for Torchwick's death.

Jaune Arc, who also fell, ends up in time travel shenanigans and becomes the heroic Rusted Knight. This doesn't help his psyche either, as it turns him into a more controlling (yet still friendly) and unhinged type of hero who keeps his charges from ascending and achieving more with their lives.

The Cat and Jaune, both having conflicting accounts about what happened to Alyx, argue at a critical juncture and the Cat abandons the group in disdain.

Neo attacks the heroes and Ruby is unable to defend herself owing to her PTSD and trauma. Jaune doesn't help matters afterward, driving Ruby away after she explodes by having his own explosion. This is after the village drowns during the attack, of the Paper Pleasers' own volition.

Neo corners Ruby with not only illusions of Roman, but illusions of everyone else she's been associated with that died. It's basically a massive guilt trip that culminates in Ruby drinking the Ascension Tea. The Cat shows up to try possessing Ruby, seeing her as naught but an empty shell. They fail thanks to Neo.

Neo, on the other hand, has no motivation after seeing Ruby fall. Her entire motivation has just been revenge all this time and having it seemingly complete leaves her hollow. The Cat possesses her as a result. It's not pretty.

All the while, Team WBY (who did their best to comfort Ruby, saw Ruby in distress and tried to be there for her, but likewise tried to be there for Jaune because his breakdowns were more noticeable) show Jaune that he really hasn't failed again like he thought he did. The Paper Pleasers he was helping? They ascended into Crystal people, proving their belief about ascension correct.

Jaune was under the false impression that the tree was death, Alyx was selfish, and that Lewis (her brother) died. The opposite was true. Alyx had a change of heart, Lewis left, the Cat killed Alyx when she didn't keep her promise to them to take them to Remnant (seeing it as an act of utmost betrayal rather than someone learning from mistakes).

Ruby. at the end of it all. After learning her flaws, her mistakes, don't make her a failure, had the choice to be someone else. She chose herself. Because she, at the end of it all, is enough. With her having bounced back, she and her team defeat the Cat.

Neo, seeing the love and life that Team RWBY had, decides not to attack. Not to continue revenge seeking. But ultimately tips her hat in thanks, and embraces the Tree's aid and possibilty of changing herself.

We, alongside team RWBY, learn the real origins of the "Gods" of Remnant and Remnant itself. We learn about Alyx, and how her last wish was to help Jaune. We learn that Team RWBY has done good, as Little evolved from a small mouse into Somewhat: the new and significantly bigger defender of the realm.

They exit the Ever After, seeing all the people that answered Ruby's call for aid in Volume 8 in Vacuo. Ships from across Remnant are arriving at Shade Academy. Proving Ruby's plans were right.

In short order:

Team RWBY, Ruby especially, are more resolute in their paths. Ruby's trauma doesn't have the hold over her like it once did. Blake and Yang, all doubts and fears removed, are a couple and have each other's and their team's back. Weiss is firm about who she is and knows Atlas' fall wasn't her fault. Jaune finally has all those notions about being THE Hero(tm) driven away from him. Neo, a threat since V2, has started making peace with Torchwick's death and is on the verge of becoming better.

None of this is filler. None of this unimportant. All of this matters. Hell, my long ass summary CANNOT and DOES NOT do V9 justice. The sweeping music, the character moments, the callbacks to V2 and before, the character growth each of them go through.

"They just get out of a hole."

I truly, truly wonder why this is the take the OP chose. As I truly wonder why people call ANY of this filler. V9 deals with longstanding issues, has plenty of call backs to fit an entire book, progresses the characters. If we immediately cut to Vacuo after V8, then everything would be rushed through.

I do hope this...rather in depth summary has helped. If I left anything out, please blame my shoddy memory.

If anyone else wants that comprehensive list, I'll be sure to share it.

Is Screen Time An Issue For A Character?

That’s a tough one.

I see quite a few arguments about some shows I’ve watched that ‘oh, this character is bad because they have too much screen time’. Or ‘I wish this character had more screen time to be interesting.’

Basically, too much screen time is now a valid critique to describe why a character is bad or doesn’t work for you. And to that I say…

Uh… no?

I’ll give some examples where I see this critique, but for now I want to state a case of examples where I expected to see this critique online, but didn’t, and I wondered why.

SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE SPIDERVERSE SEQUEL:

The main character of the Spiderverse movies is Miles Morales. Clear as day if you see ANY promotional concept art. The movies nail that home and give you a solid POV character among the Multiverse chaos.

The sequel begins with an over twenty minute backstory sequence involving Gwen Stacy, a side character in the first movie.

(Fun fact: When me and my dad went to see it in theaters together, he said that backstory was over twenty minutes long and that he thought they could've trimmed it down. Animated-phobia gives you weird opinions. He didn't watch Arcane with me and thought nothing of it because 'it was an animated show'. Not kidding.) (Both of my parents are like this, sadly.)

Now, in the context of the movie, it makes sense to include this to understand the full POV of her character going forward. As she is pretty vital to the story.

I tried imagining a version of the movie where we DIDN'T get this intro, went straight to Miles, and we just had to put the pieces together involving Gwen and her actions. And I don't think the movie would've worked nearly as well.

This brings me to another point involving Gwen Stacy in this movie: She's kind of become a protagonist as well, next to Miles.

Is this screen time theft? Under the screen time critique, it probably would seem that way.

And yet nobody I've seen complains. If anything, this solidified her as one of the best movie adaptations of Gwen Stacy out there. In my opinion.

Unlike the first movie, this one is not driven by the narrative of the main character, but rather multiple.

This is not uncommon. And it's an even bigger case with Arcane.

Yeah, this show is phenomenal everyone who says so is right Jinx is an icon Vi is my cartoon crush next to Petra I was crying so hard at the ending and for that alone this show deserves every ounce of praise it gets and I'm kind of an Arcane stan-

*Inhales*

I think I just have a thing for dystopian stories where characters walk through hell.

(Yes I consider TD a dystopian setting, that'd be a nice hot take to tackle one day.)

The Hunger Games is my favorite dystopian setting that I've seen, just because it's very memorable and inspiring. But Arcane is objectively the best dystopian story out there. If I fade out of my Total Drama obsession, this show might be my next target.

Cupcakes. El fin.

I could stop there, but lets talk about why we're here.

Arcane does not focus on the two main characters only as the driving force of its narrative.

Advertisement tell you that our main characters are the two growing war machines who go around calling each other sisters, Vi and Powder (Jinx. Idk how mad people get for which name I use for her. Sorry if I offend you). In fact, there's evidence to back that up. Other than they're the people with dyed hair, that's instant main character. They're the first characters we meet in the entire show. They're the characters with the final scene that closes off the season. EVERY ending to an act is with them. They're the main characters. Boom.

But wait. Nearly TWO THIRDS of this show doesn't even focus on them!

We have all the Piltover characters we keep switching back to. Jayce, Viktor, Mel, Caitlyn for Act 2 pretty much, Silco kind of becomes his own protagonist in Act 3. Really, the only people who remain consistent side characters are Ekko, and the two boys that get blown to pieces by Powder. And... some other people I'm forgetting the names of. (Sorry, I only had two watch throughs of this show so far and I know nothing about League other than the sisters become enemies.)

Now, why?

Why is this the case? I'm not saying characters other than our mains don't get fleshed out at all, but to the point where they're basically major enough to carry their own show? That SOUNDS like a detriment to the story if anything, especially how unfocused it kind of all gets until the end where everyone's in the same room.

Had Vi or Jinx interact with these characters, their fleshing out makes sense, and you definitely see that with characters like Caitlyn and Silco, who kind of need them to function.

But the Piltover gang? Jinx doesn't meet them at all, neither of the sisters meet Viktor, and Vi does meet Jayce, but in Episode 8 of 9.

Why does nobody complain about this? If anything, these guys are stealing screen time.

Well, it turns out, this is all done in Arcane's benefit, rather than fault. We are all the protagonist of our own story, and there are multiple POVs regarding the world.

It's basically if Hunger Games was third person instead of first, and we actually got a chance to flesh out the other rebels/children.

Me personally, and I know I'm not the only one out there, but the sisters were the most interesting thing about the show, and other characters that talk to them were how they caught my attention. That in no way means I don't care for anyone though, and it's COMPLETELY a PERSONAL thing.

So whenever we DO focus on the sisters and their story, not only do we get these other POVS on the scene that could clash with our view of them, but it makes it so that EVERY. SCENE. MATTERS.

No scene is wasted in fleshing out the sister's story. Everything has a purpose and drives it all to one heartbreaking simulation. There's no wasted space, there's no lack of attention to a certain detail, darn it, it's just right.

(I mean, I guess I would've liked to see what they went through in that time skip, like how Jinx was raised by Silco and processed her new identity, or better yet how tf Vi survived prison when it's heavily implied she beat people to a pulp and got solitary multiple times. But I think Season 2 is gonna cover it.)

Seriously, imagine a version of this show real quick.

Imagine a version of the show that took the Hunger Games approach, and used first person POV on one of the two sisters, doesn't matter which one, they'd both work. Cut out scenes not involving that sister. The other characters that appear revolve around scenes they're in with that sister.

Would that work nearly as well?

I don't think so.

Now First Person POV isn't necessarily a bad thing. Danganronpa is first person. Minecraft Story Mode is first person. Those are probably not great examples, but it can work. (TDDRI, a fic of mine, is first person, and I had to work around that to flesh out everyone else. It can work.)

This show is very hot topic and weirdly paced than what I'm used to. So take everything with a grain of salt as I am nowhere near an expert with this show. The show's story doesn't even get started until Episode 4, as the first three episodes are all flashback to explain where our characters are and why they're motivated to do what they do.

Again, I tried imagining a version of this show where we DIDN'T get those first three episodes, we started with Episode 4, and we just had to ASSUME all the backstory involving the sisters and the titular arcane and put the pieces together through Vi's words and Jinx's hallucinations. I don't think we would have been nearly as invested.

So with these two examples, WHY does nobody complain about screen time involving a character?

Is it because they're just really good pieces of media? Or is there a reason for this?

After all, Spiderverse and Arcane fall under the category of an 'ensemble cast'. A cast of characters in a story where there is no titular main character to drive the narrative, and everyone does instead. It's like if Harry Potter was 'Hogwarts' instead, or some title like that.

But lets take a look at some examples of ensemble casts where there's been a complaint of some sort with screen time:

Total Drama and RWBY.

Now I only like one of these two shows, so I'm gonna put that aside for now.

Total Drama. It has an ensemble cast. The show is about teenagers suffering-I mean competing for a prize, eliminating each other bit by bit as it goes along. Naturally with that setup, early boots are left to dry. But that doesn't stop people from complaining.

Ezekiel gets the most flack for too little screen time, and major fanboys say he should've had more focus. Personally I don't get that based on what role he's deigned to play. Caleb is a more recent example. I thought he was gonna have a bigger role and character than he ended up having, and him being a first boot gag makes even less sense than Zeke. Dawn is a fan favorite who isn't even in that many episodes. Axel is a ripoff of Shawn because of her lack of screen time. Scary Girl is... Scary Girl, who I don't see the fuss about her little screen time as she's comic relief, but the complaint is there. There is SO MUCH bashing about Noah's lack of screen time it is not even funny. So much so that he's sharing screen time with another person.

And who is to blame for this: Well, the characters who make it really far into the game, or course! How dare they steal screen time away from these guys!

I feel like Ripper is the most recent example of this. His character arc was about him breaking a world record. He broke it. It's Episode 5. Now he can leave the show, right-

Nope. He's around till Episode 8. Out of 13. And even then, in Episode 13, he's Millie's partner, which means screen time.

It sounds unjustified because it is. I'm not the biggest Ripper hater, but I definitely see the complaints. (Ripper and Damien swapping places are the only part of the elimination order I would change. Everything else is pretty spot on.)

We already have MK as a pre-merge antagonist and Julia as a post merge antagonist, we don't need this rando bully character as well as it adds nothing. Maybe Ripper would've been better liked if he wasn't a bully and just some morally average comic relief guy, but also... probably not.

But he's not the only fart based character in this show that gets complaints about screen time. Here's where I talk about the first gen.

For what I have seen, the ones with the biggest screen time complaints are Owen, Duncan, and Beth. I don't count Heather cause it's on purpose. I count Sierra because it's a personal gripe I have.

Owen was the original winner of TDI, came back on the show in the second season for a mole subplot nobody likes, and merged season three. He and Noah also got a spinoff.

Beth was the finalist of TDA.

And everyone hates it, including myself.

Then there's Duncan. Easily the character the show focuses on the most. Season 1? 4th place. Season 2? Winner. Season 3? Gone half the season so he's only in 8 episodes not counting what he didn't compete in, but he scored 5th overall. Season 5? Weakest performance, but he still merged. That's 8th place by the way.

By far, THIS is the character in this show that gets the MOST horrendous flack for his screen time. And from what I've learned, if you think this, you probably hate Duncan as a character.

Like, I haven't watched Winx, but I saw videos on YouTube that made fun of Bloom for getting too much screen time.

Somebody do those but with Duncan! I'm not a Duncan hater, but I would like to get a laugh!

So it'd just be easy to say the writers played favorites, it was an issue, and be done with it, right?

Except no.

My GF watched World Tour just recently. (And she was mixed on it.) Her comments regarding Duncan and Gwen were that she wished they had more interactions to sell them (she was routing AGAINST Duncney, basically) and it didn't help that Duncan was gone half the season. She said that it would've helped all the characters involved if he stayed to flesh that out.

To that I went: "Huh. That's interesting how you take no issue with this character's screen time."

But why though? She's not a stan of him, she's a casual viewer, so that can't be it.

And that's when it hit me.

Beth and Sierra. These two make it through an entire season each. And we both collectively hate them as characters. And we hate seeing them on screen.

That's because it's what the characters DO with their screen time.

See what I'm talking about:

Season 1: Duncan is an established character that develops relationships and friendships and learns to open up to people outside of his comfort bad boy zone.

Trent spends 16 episodes sitting still and looking pretty with a guitar. (Okay that's probably not a great example, and I don't hate Trent, but you kinda get it)

Season 2: Duncan is dealing with revenge on Harold for his spoiled relationship with Courtney where he gets abused by her, fights to hold his own, and dumps her.

Beth spends the entire season talking about a fake boyfriend and cheating on it.

Season 3: Duncan, again, is only competing in 8 episodes out of 26, but what does he do? He establishes a new relationship with Gwen, gets her cancelled, forms a friendship with Alejandro, and gets played.

Sierra is there the entire season sexually harassing Cody and passing it off as quirky. We hate to see it. (Seriously, you guys think the love triangle is worse than this? My GF and I agreed we would rather watch the love triangle ten times again, over Sierra being on screen at all.)

What's the difference here? STORY.

Certain characters have story to follow, that NEEDS that screen time to work. Ironically, the plotline of Duncan's that comes across the least genuine, is the season where he's on screen the least. (Not counting All Stars, but they're kind of equal in episodes Duncan's in.)

Again, imagine if we never had that backstory sequence of Gwen Stacy. Yes it eats up screen time, but without it? She would come across as an ingenuine traitor who supposedly ditched her dad for some cool spider society. We NEEDED that sequence.

Duncan is always doing something when the screen is focused on him.

The reason Beth and Sierra don't work despite having all the screen time in the world is that they do NOTHING with the screen time they get. Nothing of value at least. We could've learned a lot about their origins, Beth's underdog status, or Sierra's fanclub, flesh them out as dynamic characters to route for, with different sides of them that slip through time to time that gets the audience thinking.

Nope. Sexual harassment makes up for all of that. (I question why I put up with this show sometimes.)

That would be the case and that's the answer, just do something with your screen time and you're free to have as much as you want.

Except there's ANOTHER key to the puzzle here.

Duncan is in the top 4 of the TD cast for a reason.

He's a main character.

Something Jaune Arc is not.

Hello nemesis my old friend.

Look, I respect people who like RWBY. People can feel any way they want to about a show. Opinions are valid.

If you think Arcane is the worst show ever made, that's valid.

If you think Velma is the best show ever made, that's valid.

It's all VALID.

With that said I think this show is an absolute trainwreck when it comes to writing characters.

Now hold on before you say I hate everything about it, I don't. This show does have SOME merits to it. The music is stellar and I actually listen to the soundtrack from time to time. For a limited budget animation, it's impressive. The choreo is neat. I want these weapons. I actually like quite a few of the side characters. Keep in mind I said side.

But what I look for in a good show is a compelling story and interesting characters to follow.

Something this show just does not have in my opinion.

I keep saying I'll do an analysis post on why Team RWBY are awful protagonists, but I've been busy and my plate has not emptied. But one of my main points regarding them is screen time.

Keep in mind, I've only seen fully up to Season 8. I've only seen clips of Season 9, so whatever I say about 9 may not be accurate.

Team RWBY are the main characters of the show, and yet they have not done a single main character thing throughout EIGHT SEASONS. It's kind of incredible.

If I didn't know the name of the show but saw a clip, I'd assume the main character was Jaune, or Oscar, more on them later.

What have these girls contributed in the battle of Salem's forces?

Season 1: Blake helped stop a robbery. Not even all four of them, just Blake. (So did Sun and Penny.)

Season 2: They broke into the White Fang's secret operation and busted a train into the city to fight off some Grim, in time for Team CFVY to wipe them out. (Those characters appear TWICE in the ENTIRE show, this is the first time. Just to speak my point.)

Season 3: Yang got framed for assault which helped the bad guys. Ruby watched Pyyra die and she blasted an eyeball off Cinder.

Season 4: UH...

Season 5: They housed Oscar, they met Raven, and they took place in the battle of Haven where Yang got the relic. (So did Oscar, JNR, Qrow)

Season 6: They took the relic to Atlas. (So did Oscar, JNR, Qrow)

Season 7: They lied to the general about vital information that could've helped them get one on Salem, and doomed all of Atlas.

Season 8: They caused the death of a kingdom and fell through a hole.

Season 9: UH... (That's not me not knowing what happened in 9, they just climbed out of the hole, basically, as the season has nothing to do with Salem's forces.)

Now, because the main characters are not involved with the main plot very much, does that make them bad?

No. There ARE ways to utilize them outside of driving the external plot.

Some stories are Character vs Self, Internal Conflict. The basis of this show's story is that these kids who grew up to be military soldiers are learning that their lives and the world is not a fairy tale, and they're not the good guys. That SOUNDS like the show is all about internal conflict, right?

Well it's not.

I mean, they DO realize this and make a morally questionable choice with consequences they regret.

In Season SEVEN.

And even THEN, they're treated by gods themselves like they've done nothing wrong!

If you ask me, it should have happened a LONG time ago.

What internal conflicts do these girls have?

Ruby is a naive prodigy who wants to be a huntress and live out a fairy tale reality. And she lives out that dream. Then Pyyra dies and she loses that home. And then she's back to fairy tale land, just doing more crimes and hating authority. And I GUESS she learned a lesson in 9...? I just saw her as depressed.

Weiss is an heiress of a rich company trying to overthrow rule of her father, who hates her. She hates Faunus. She learns not to hate Faunus. And she gains a lot of powers.

Blake is part of a civil rights movement with Faunus and she likes assaulting her own kind and burning their homes. She also has an abusive boyfriend and kills him with a girlfriend by her side.

Yang lost her mommy and wants to find her. She loses her arm. She finds her mommy but doesn't give a s**t because plot. She also gets a girlfriend.

That's like Vi and Jinx's reunion, only they didn't care about seeing each other again after years, they just pointed fists and guns at each other and said, "Where's the arcane?! Where's Silco?! I'm not here for you, I have a police GF now!" "I'm not here for you, I just wanted an easy route to blast Piltover to pieces! Mwahaha!"

See where I'm going with that?

Internal conflict is a key to making characters screen time worth while.

But lets face it, Team RWBY not having very well established internal/relevance to the external conflict is not the full reason why this is a problem with their screen time.

It's their lack thereof.

Three quarters of every season, they're just sitting at some random place that's not even pretty to look at, and the SIDE CHARACTERS do all the plot relevant stuff.

See why I like the side characters better?

Lets look at that chart again:

Season 1: Sun and Penny stopped that robbery.

Season 2: Team CFVY stopped the Grim invasion.

Season 3: Pyyra's story and downward spiral to her death.

Season 4: Nora and Ren the season.

Season 5: Oscar. The tribe.

Season 6: Oscar again as he's responsible for the exposition involved in that season.

Season 7: Ironwood's descent into insanity AND Penny's descent into accidental heroism.

Season 8: Both those characters die. Everyone dies.

Season 9: ...okay, good point, there was no one else.

Okay so maybe Season 9 gets a pass, but the others? Can you really put Team RWBY in a plot summary?

And that's just external conflict talking, let's talk the MAIN CHARACTER with the INTERNAL conflicts throughout the ENTIRE show.

Jaune Arc.

A SIDE character, voiced by one of the writers, has some of the most plotlines to follow due to his internal struggle and conflict in this new war throughout the entire show.

He has something to do in MOST of the seasons of this show. Not unlike Duncan. The only time I think he didn't have anything going on was Season 7.

In the very first season, Jaune has an entire character arc surrounding him trying to find his inner strength with a one off bully character as an antagonist. That sounds fine, so what's the issue?

This character arc takes up FOUR episodes out of 16. A WHOLE QUARTER OF THE SEASON.

"Well, maybe those episodes cut away to other people at some points-"

No. They don't. It's all Jaune in all these episodes.

Season two is less so Jaune focused, but he has a little subplot surrounding letting go of his feelings for Weiss and finding another girl who would gladly take him. I guess it's priority respect because Neptune was into Weiss at the time? But those two wound up never being a thing, so...

The whole time I thought Weiss was just asexual, but then 9 came in to screw that idea.

Season three focuses on Pyyra, Jaune's love interest, and therefore he's vital to her story and her thought process, so much so that the big angst moment in the season is with him and their death kiss.

Season four and five are focused on Jaune's thirst for revenge on Cinder, a member of Salem's forces, for killing Pyyra. He learns about Salem's forces along the way, makes his own opinion about all this lore, and decides to help out due to his personal necessity.

Wow. He has an internal conflict going on, AND he's active with the external conflict. HMM...

Season six is him letting go of his grief after his moral failure from the Battle of Haven nearly getting Weiss killed. And also he pins Oscar to the wall because why not. It's brief but it's also a full on character arc.

Season eight, he kills Penny, a girl he has never interacted with before this point, and he's a grieving mess. So much so that season nine also includes Jaune dealing with MULTIPLE grieving instances and personal failures.

Everyone else got a seasonal break from the story, and yet Jaune could not.

Now, is this a screen time issue?

Yes.

But NOT for the reasons you might think.

Let's go off of Duncan again, a character with a major status in the show's story and conflict from day one. He was designed that way.

Jaune was not designed that way. BUT I don't actually hate his story for the screen time he gets. In fact, he's probably one of the most interesting characters in the show because there's so much time dedicated to his struggle and his story.

The elephant in the room isn't because Jaune has a story.

It's because the main characters don't have a story.

Again, Arcane, that show focuses on a LOT of characters that aren't Vi and Jinx. You could argue Jayce is the Jaune in their universe. But why does it work? Because there is NOT a neglect of characterization of the leads.

In RWBY, there's a serious neglect issue.

And it's not just Jaune. There are other side characters who've been stealing time away from the leads.

Oscar, ever since he debuted Season 4, has been devoted to screen time stealing, and stealing the main character status with a Chosen One narrative and a pretty offensive way of portraying Multiple Personality Disorder. He's the one with the chosen one story, he's the one who interacts with the bad guys, he's toe to toe with Ironwood, he's the one related to Salem, and he does all of it with the personality of a hollow pine tree.

I mean I guess he also has a crush on Ruby, but... I don't want to get into that.

Hell, CINDER, an ANTAGONIST of the show, has more conflict and screen time than the leads. And she's one of my least favorite characters in the entire show, isn't that sweet?!

On top of that, she's a VILLAIN. We shouldn't be routing for her!

Then there's the rest of JNPR. Nora and Ren have a season focused on them, that being season 4. Pyyra is the same case with season 3. Pyyra dies in that season, so she's obviously not getting screen time any further. But Ren and Nora are alive, AND they have a subplot in the Atlas arc. Having a subplot isn't a problem, it just becomes jarring when the main characters don't have an arc and they do.

Penny gets revived and dies in the Atlas arc. That's also a thing.

The fix here should be really simple! Swap roles! Have the side characters sit in the houses with their little arcs, and have Team RWBY on the fields reacting to everything. It wouldn't excuse their lack of inner struggle, but at least they'd be involved with the plot.

There are many ways you could fix this. Like Oscar's role of being related to Salem. Ruby's mom is dead, but like, what if her mom was Salem and was taken out in war and revived/corrupted into this monster figure? That'd be an interesting narrative.

And RWBY is not the only show, the previous season of Pretty Cure, Delicious Party, ALSO has this issue. And arguably they did it worse because I don't even care for the side characters there either. I'd be repeating myself with criticism there:

Yui, the supposed main character, has no character trait other than be a glutton and a stand in for her grandmother, the other Cures are also irrelevant to the plot and just spend their time eating. The boys of this magical girl show are the focus and have all the wishy washy plotlines, and none of them are even that interesting.

I will give RWBY this over Delicious Party to prove I can see its merits:

At least they only have ONE forth wall narration and do know boundaries to that stuff, as opposed to Delicious Party that thinks their viewers are IDIOTS, and needs a narrator to explain EVERYTHING. CONSTANTLY.

(What a new low for that franchise, am I right? At least we have Hirogaru Sky.)

So what have we learned here?

To answer the question: Is Screen Time An Issue For A Character?

No. It's not that simple.

It's what the character DOES with that screen time that matters. And their role in the story that warrants this screen time.

They need to have all the details of their story laid out for you to care about them.

They need every scene involving their story to matter.

They need to have a plotline that justifies the screen time, small role or big role.

They need to be involved with the main story if they are a major character.

They need an internal conflict to keep the time on them engaging.

They need to be doing something.

If they are a minor character, additional screen time is not a bad thing.

A minor character with a lot of screen time could be there to advance the world building, they could be heavily connected to major character, relationship or otherwise.

But the minor characters don't become favorites and neglect focus on the people the story is revolving around.

First Person POV is a difficult storytelling technique when it comes to screen time, but it's not a bad tool. It can be used as a certain perspective for every character involved if done properly.

And just... screen time alone isn't a valid criticism in my opinion. It's WAY more complicated than that.

What's your opinion? Reblog your thoughts, I'm very curious, especially with media with this issue I did not cover.

[beifongsss]

playing with fire prologue [sokka]

Pairing: Sokka x f!reader

Requested?: Nope! just writing for my own pleasure bc I had a very cliche romance idea and bc i love sokka.

Summary: You’re a Fire Nation citizen who saves Sokka and Katara from some angry villagers. Aang "convinces” you to come along with them, finding your knowledge of the nation useful. Not everything is smooth sailing though as both Water Tribe siblings have their doubts about you.

this will be a series :D it begins in between The Northern Air Temple and The Waterbending Master!

.masterlist.

~

It had taken you months to earn the trust of the citizens of the small village you currently resided in, and you would be damned if two Water Tribe teenagers ruined it all for you.

You had run away from home two years ago, spending a year traveling before finally settling down in a small Fire Nation colony. You yourself were from the Fire Nation, but you were from the capital and the colonials didn’t trust you. And so you spent many months taking odd jobs around the town in order to be left alone by their so-called “military”.

And now all your hard work was at risk because these two dumbasses couldn’t hide in time.

“W-We’re not Water Tribe!” you heard the boy with the ponytail yell, hands up as a few of the military men surrounded him and the girl. The girl rolled her eyes before smacking the boy. She then turned to face the men.

“What my brother means is that we are simply travelers,” she stated nervously. “We have recently visited the North Pole, which is why we have these clothes.”

“We saw you waterbending!” one of the men cried out, aiming his spear at the girl. “Waterbenders are not welcome here. The governor will be pleased with your capture.”

“Please don’t,” the girl cried, trying to back away. It was futile seeing as how they were surrounded. The girl crouched down slightly, prepared to fight, and the boy reached for the weapon strapped onto his back. You decided it was time to step in.

“Gentlemen,” you said, drawing everyone’s attention to you. “Is there a problem here?”

The men’s eyes narrowed as they landed on you, standing in the middle of the path with your arms crossed. A blank look was on your face and you didn’t shy away from their glares.

“Yeah, there is,” one of the men finally replied. “These two are Water Tribe and you know they’re not welcome here.”

“Well they are welcome here,” you shot back, your expression never changing. “I hope you’re not trying to capture my servants.”

The boy’s jaw dropped at your words and he stepped forwards, ready to argue your words. The girl grasped his arm gently, pulling him back as she gently shook her head. She didn’t know what was happening but if your words kept them from getting captured, then who was she to argue?

“These Water Tribe scum are your servants?” the man asked, looking at you incredulously. His face suddenly hardened and he pointed his spear at you. “Why are they out here alone then?”

“Because they know better than to disobey me or try to run away,” you said harshly, moving your outer robe to the side to show off your sword. “They know that if they run, I will find them. And they will be punished.”

The men all exchanged uncertain glances before looking towards their leader.

“Now,” you continued, tone still sharp. “I suggest you leave, before I make you.”

You glared at the men’s leader for a few seconds before he finally turned away. He gave you one last nasty glare before whistling sharply and leaving the clearing, his buddies following after him. Your gaze drifted over to the two Water Tribe teens, who were still crouched and looking at you suspiciously.

“You should get out of here,” you said, your voice a lot softer than it had been when addressing the men. “They might come back.”

“Why did you do that?” the girl demanded, water now enveloping her hands as she stared you down. You stared back at her blankly before turning around and walking away.

You didn’t get too far before you felt a water whip strike you.

“Hey!” you cried, rubbing the sore spot as you whirled around. “What was that for?”

“I said, why did you do that?” the girl asked again, her face still angry. You opened your mouth to answer before your eyes landed on the boy, whose leg was currently bleeding heavily.

“He’s injured,” you answered instead, not looking at the girl. “Come with me, I can help.”

“Katara’s a waterbender, she can heal me” the boy snarled. You rolled your eyes at his words.

“If you don’t sit down or rest soon, she won’t be able to,” you snarked, meeting the Katara’s heated glare. “He’s losing a lot of blood.”

“Why should we trust you?” she asked, her hands still up in a defensive position “You’re just Fire Nation trash. How do we know you won’t capture us?”

Sighing, you loosened your belt. You tossed your sword to the two of them before holding your hands up in surrender. “There’s my sword. I am now powerless against you. I’m not a bender, I swear on my life.”

The boy looked at his sister and shook his head. “No, we can’t go with her.”

“Sokka, you don’t look good,” the girl replied. “We need to get somewhere safe so that I can heal you.”

Biting her lip, the girl snatched up your sword and handed it to her brother. She turned to face you, her expression a little bit softer. “We’ll go with you. But you walk in front of us and if you try anything, I won’t hesitate to hurt you.”

You nodded silently before turning around and walking towards your home. Luckily, you lived close by and you managed to make it there without incident. You huffed lightly as you pushed open the door, leading the way to your little seating area. Sokka immediately collapsed onto the ground, landing on some of the cushions that were lying around. Katara rushed to his side and began to heal him, her gaze snapping to you when you walked toward your kitchen.

“Relax,” you said, not turning to look at her. You looked into the pot on your counter, stirring the contents as you inhaled the smell. “I’m just getting us some food.”

“I’d rather not be poisoned today, thanks,” the girl said harshly, glaring at you as you stirred the pot. You chuckled softly before looking at her and taking a large spoonful of the food and shoving it into your mouth.

“It’s not poisoned, see?” you said, a cheeky smile on your face. You served the food into three bowls and brought them over to the teens. Katara stared at you warily before accepting the food. “It’s jook, freshly made. You guys look like you can use some warm food.”

You began eating, noticing the way both teens looked at you before hesitantly beginning to eat as well. “You aren’t from around here? Why were you two in the woods?”

“Why did you help us?” Sokka retorted, his gaze still suspicious.

You opened your mouth to reply when your door suddenly burst open, causing you to yelp and fall onto your butt.

“Katara! Sokka! We have to go. Now!”

A young boy stood where your door once was. He was short and bald, a blue arrow tattoo visible on his head. He looked around the home, his grey eyes widening when they landed on you. He gasped softly before taking a fighting stance and facing you. “Fire Nation!”

“Aang wait,” Sokka said, rolling his eyes as he looked at you. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but she actually helped us earlier. Don’t worry about her.”

Aang relaxed at Sokka’s words before turning to you and bowing shortly. “Hi! I’m Aang. Thank you for helping my friends.”

You smiled softly at the boy’s words, your heart melting slightly at his wide smile. “Nice to meet you Aang. I’m (Y/N). Oh, and it was no problem. This town’s military is a bit unhinged.”

At your words, Aang turned back around to the two siblings. “Yeah, about that. They’re currently after me.”

“What?!” the Water Tribe siblings yelled in unison, scrambling to their feet as they took in his words. “What happened?”

“They’re trying to capture me!” Aang exclaimed. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re the Avatar,” you said softly, catching Aang’s attention. “You’re in Fire Nation territory, of course they want to capture you. You have to get out of here now.”

Aang helped Sokka get up and the trio made their way to the door. Halfway there, Aang paused, turning to you with a smile on his face. “Thank you (Y/N).”

You smiled back, bowing to the young boy before straightening up. “You’re very welcome Avatar Aang.”

Unfortunately, the trio didn’t make it very far. As soon as they stepped outside of your home, they were surrounded by the men from earlier. Inside, you heard Sokka yelp and you quickly realized what was going on. You swiftly picked up your sword and ran outside, immediately jumping into the fight. Katara and Aang were doing fine on their own; it was Sokka who was struggling a bit considering he was still injured. You stepped in front of him, brandishing your sword as you made eye contact with the men’s leader from earlier.

“They’re your servants huh?” he snarled, lunging at you. You easily sidestepped his attack, bringing up your sword and hitting him in the back of the head with the hilt. He collapsed immediately and a smug smirk made its way onto your face.

“Are you okay?” you asked Sokka. The boy nodded and you pushed him away. “Go. Get your sister, get the Avatar, and leave.”

Sokka ran off, turning back to look at you once more before grabbing Katara. You looked around to see Aang taking on three men and you lunged at them without hesitation.

“Run!” you yelled at the Air Nomad, barely managing to dodge a strike from one of the men. You gasped loudly when you felt a hand entangle itself in your hair and pull, exposing your neck. You elbowed the man, causing him to hunch over but he still didn’t let go of your hair. Aang took this chance to run, looking at you worriedly before Katara pulled him away.

“We may not have captured the Avatar, but I’m sure that the governor will be glad to hand a traitor like you over to the Fire Lord,” the man hissed. He let you go before tying your hands together, making sure that you couldn’t hit anyone. You felt your breath leave your lungs at his words. You had run away from the Fire Nation capital and now here you were, about to be sent back again. You swallowed nervously, the thought of returning making you feel nauseous. You could only imagine the punishment you would receive from both the nation and your family.

You were thrown to the ground by your captor, and you shut your eyes tightly as they all laughed raucously. At least you had helped the Avatar escape. That’s what mattered.

All of a sudden, everything went silent. You opened one eye cautiously, turning to look at the giant animal that was flying in the sky. Your mouth dropped in surprise as you stared at the sky bison. You thought that they were extinct.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Aang cried, already by your side and undoing your restraints. You scrambled to your feet and barely had time to breathe before Aang was pulling you to the sky bison. You stopped suddenly, pulling away from the young boy. “What’s wrong?”

“My sword!” you cried out, rushing back to where you had been laying.

“There’s no time! Let’s go!” Sokka yelled.

You didn’t listen, instead sprinting over to where you saw the glint of the weapon. You picked it up and began rushing to the sky bison, only making it halfway before being tackled from behind. You struggled for a few seconds before rolling onto your back, coming face to face with the man you had knocked out earlier.

“You’re not getting away that easily,” he growled, trying to pin you down. You fought hard, managing to bring your legs up to your chest and kick him off. In fact, you were so focused on fighting that you didn’t notice the sharp blade in the man’s hand until it was too late.

A sharp cry left your lips as he stabbed the blade into your abdomen. You stumbled back, swiping your sword across the man’s arm. The man yelled out loud as your sword sliced his arm and he stumbled back slightly as well as he clutched at the wound. You used the distraction to run to the sky bison, hurriedly climbing the animal and apologizing whenever you thought you pulled his fur.

Aang pulled you into the saddle and Sokka wasted no time in having the sky bison take off. “Appa, yip-yip!”

You grunted softly as you rolled onto your back, your hand automatically going to your wound.

“Katara! She’s hurt!” Aang yelled, panic appearing on his face as he noticed the dagger. “She was stabbed!”

The pain hit you like a tidal wave as your adrenaline subsided. You muttered incoherently, clutching at the knife before yanking it out even though Aang was yelling at you to not do that. You lifted your hand to your face, a wave of nausea suddenly hitting you at the sight of all the blood.

Your eyes began to flutter shut and the last thing you saw before you passed out was a pair of scared grey eyes.

~

taglist!

@musicalkeys, @mywigglybaby​, @bubblebars​, @iguessthefloorislava​, @dekahg​, @boxofteenageideas​, @bottledcostcowater, @butterflycore​, @coldlilheart​, @the-firebender-girl​, @ajediherowitchrunner​, @lammello​

[fostersffff]

The Big Gundam Watch, Part 2.1: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Episodes 1-25

Originally, my plan was to do these posts after finishing each series/movie/OVA, but at the point I’m at in this particular series, I already have more to say than I did about Mobile Suit Gundam. It’s also entirely possible that by the time I finish, some of my current observations will be less relevant, so I’d like to crystallize my thoughts at this halfway point.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam! For as long as I can remember, Zeta Gundam has been hyped up as one of the best series that the Gundam franchise has to offer. Or at least that’s what I remembered hearing years and years ago, and maybe that was only in reference to the Universal Century shows. Either way, I was a little more apprehensive going into Zeta than I was with the original series because I remember it being hyped up, and nothing is more disappointing than accidentally setting your expectations for something too high.

So, how has it turned out so far? Get ready, because it’s a lot of text below the break.

BLACK AND WHITE, AND KAMILLE:

I really need to start this off with my two biggest complaints about Zeta Gundam, especially since they wind up tying into each other: first, the conflict between the AEUG and the Titans is less interesting than war between the Federation and Zeon, and second, the morality of the conflict between the AEUG and the Titans makes Kamille come across as completely unhinged for way too goddamn long.

The reason I say the conflict in Zeta is less interesting is because the sides are so much more black and white than in the original series That probably sounds weird, because the villains in that series were a family of out-and-out fascists, one of whom interpreted a comparison to Hitler as flattering. However, there are two critical things to note: because the One Year War was an actual war, you would wind up seeing examples of Zeon’s military who are just soldiers with no ideological investment in the war (which is a separate ethical can of worms not relevant to this particular discussion), and the fact that the Zeon leadership was pretty clearly evil didn’t mean that the Federation leadership was strictly good. Scenes like the Zeon pilots going to check up on the widowed mother and her kid after they split up from the rest of the refugees, or the squad that tried to blow up the Gundam driving up to the White Base in plainclothes so they could meet Amuro and the crew face-to-face without fighting anymore, or the Federation generals telling Bright and Mirai straight-up that they’re going to be decoys for the real military, or the woman who takes care of the war orphans at Jaburo matter-of-factly telling the White Base crew that “these kids are the future of the military” all add up to paint a picture of the reality of war being grayer than just “good and evil”.

In Zeta, the Titans are a unilaterally evil force. At first it was subtle, in that I figured by nature of the Titans being an elite faction of the Federation military, it would be occupied exclusively by varying degrees of sociopaths. But their cruelty ramps up at an alarmingly fast rate, culminating in seeing Titans leader Jamitov Hymen sitting on a throne that looks exactly like Degwin Zabi’s (it might actually be Degwin Zabi’s!) while he receives an oath from Scirocco literally signed in blood. By that point, it’s abundantly clear that top-to-bottom, no member of the Titans deserves even a consideration of sympathy. The sole possible exception is Sarah, who’s clearly being groomed by Scirocco, the same way that he seems to be trying to groom everyone under his command (successfully with Jerrid and unsuccessfully (so far) with Mouar), but I don’t have a clear enough picture of her besides that to really call it one way or the other.

On the other side of the conflict- and this is the real meat of the issue for me- the AEUG is unilaterally good. It can be argued that they’ve done bad things, which can be summed up as “taking [action] knowing the Titans would retaliate in a way that could get innocents harmed”, but that’s really it. There are no sinister ulterior motives, or even selfish ones. I keep waiting for Wong Lee to reveal that he’s actually a war profiteer and he’s bankrolling the AEUG just so Anaheim Electronics has a reason to keep manufacturing mobile suits, or maybe Blex would reveal in a private conversation with Quattro that he’s a spacenoid supremacist, or something from someone. But no; at least to the halfway point of the series, it seems everyone is operating on the same level, and for the same unquestionably good goal of stopping the Titans. Having the protagonist’s faction actually be as well meaning as they appear isn’t bad writing, but it feels less ambitious, especially coming off Mobile Suit Gundam where I was expecting the Federation to be presented as total heroes.

This would lead me to starting to talk about Kamille, but before that, I need to talk about fanfiction. Despite Mobile Suit Gundam and Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam being written by the same person, the more I thought about it, the more Zeta really comes across like Gundam fanfiction. It was present right from the start, where within the first half of the first episode we see Char (who is no longer Char but still has a special red mobile suit) wondering if he just felt AMURO RAY [pause for audience applause] or perhaps LALAH SUNE [pause for continued applause], but I gave that and some of the other stuff like it a pass because in Zeta’s original context of “sequel to a cult show that first aired half a decade ago”, fanservice is not only expected, but appreciated. There’s also the legendary status of Char and Amuro, with the two of them regularly being alluded to without prompting, but again, ok: Char was Zeon’s super ace and legendary for his skills even during the original series, and Amuro Ray is this universe’s version of Audie Murphy. I also noticed was how often everyone was hitting each other compared to the original series; I don’t know if BRIGHT SLAP™ was a fandom meme back in the 80’s, but I feel like it must have been considering how much more of a staple “corrections” are in Zeta. All the proper breeding pairs from Mobile Suit Gundam wound up together too, with Bright and Mirai (which I have more to say about in a different section), Fraw Bow and Hayato adopting Kikka, Katz, and Letz, and even an explicit mention that Amuro is still carrying a flame for Sayla. The sealer, though, was after Mirai asks Amuro if Kamille is like him, and he essentially replies “no, he’s better”, followed by the start of the next episode with the blunt as a sledgehammer “FOUR COULD BE MY LALAH!”

After that, everything kinda fell into place as I realized that Kamille is just Amuro with everything about him cranked up, in the way many fanfiction writers will model their OCs after a character they like, just cranked up. Amuro liked to mess with machines, Kamille designed mobile suits as a hobby. Amuro had a strained relationship with his parents who were separated and his dad was overly invested in the military, Kamille had a totally fractured relationship with his parents who were in a toxic marriage and BOTH of them were overly invested in the military. They were both 17 when they wound up getting involved with a huge conflict after hijacking a Gundam, but their responses to the nature of their respective conflicts is where actual problems start to manifest for me.

Amuro was a moody teenager who would react in frustrating ways, but those frustrating reactions made sense and were well motivated. He refused to sortie after a number of conflicts because the responsibility of being the Gundam’s pilot was overwhelming him, and he had only survived so far by virtue of how powerful it was, not because he was particularly talented. He deserted and stole the Gundam because being the Gundam’s pilot had become central to his identity, and the idea of losing that was unacceptable. He constantly expressed resistance and reservations about actually being conscripted to the Federation military because he didn’t trust them, and he was right not to, because they were considered canon fodder by all of the brass.

Kamille is a very moody teenager who tends to react in even more frustrating ways, and like Amuro, there’s motivation in his character: he has an insanely short fuse, and no ability to think even ten seconds into the future. I was originally hung up on the way he attacked the MP who was detaining him, but it ultimately wasn’t all that different from running up on Jerrid because of an off-handed comment about his name while he was surrounded by other Titans. All the mobile suit hijacking and constantly, flippantly disobeying orders also ties into this aspect of his character. The thing I’m still hung up on, though, is how fucking long he spends mistrusting the AEUG for no actual reason. 

As previously established, the AEUG is exactly as well-meaning as they say they are, and never do anything to betray the fact that their stated goals and actual goals are one and the same. It would be one thing if he had been dragged to the Argama by force after he stole the Mark II just to get revenge on that MP, and was now involved in a conflict he had no interest in, but he willingly walked over to Quattro and crew and said “yeah I’m with you guys now”. The crew of the Argama were exceptionally patient and kind with Kamille while he stole mobile suits and threw tantrums, not actually suffering any repercussions until Wong beat the shit out of him, at which point Quattro and Emma say “we probably should’ve been sterner with you” and then don’t actually change the way they handle him.

His reluctance to fight gets more and more irritating as you find out more and more about how bad the Titans are, too. I figured the moment when he witnesses the aftermath of the chemical attack on Colony 30, and specifically kneels over the mummified corpses of a mother and her infant child, he’d come to some kind of realization about the necessity of fighting against the Titans, but the next episode is instead spent throwing a fit because he was uncomfortable having killed Lila. In fact, he spends most of this run of episodes yelling “WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THAT?” whenever he kills an enemy pilot, and all I can think is “what did you think mobile suits are for, dude”. The absolute most frustrating instance of this was during his date with Four: she laments the fact that they’re destined to be enemies, and with a completely straight face, he says “only because of the imaginary lines drawn by adults”. Moments later, he asserts that the AEUG is different from the Titans when the Titans start firebombing the city, but at this point he’s witnessed the atrocities the Titans are capable of multiple times over a very short period of time. The idea that even if he was just talking with his dick he would seriously try to pull a “both sides are bad” is just unbelievable.

A better arc for Kamille would have been if if he was totally on-board for fighting and supporting the AEUG’s cause from the start. Make him teetering on bloodthirsty, since that’s the impression you get based on his actions in the first few episodes, and have that aggression cranked up even higher by the deaths of his parents. Then, after witnessing what happened on Colony 30, he’s still eager to fight, but his motivation starts to shift from just wanting to lash out at the Titans to realizing that if they aren’t taken down, people are going to continue to get hurt the way he’s been, and worse. In all this, he’s still very emotionally charged and prone to fly off the handle, but the motivation for why he’s doing it feels more natural. Then you have him kind of cool down to the stable level he seems to be at by the time he gets back into space, because now in addition to having met his idol Amuro and realizing he’s carrying a ton of baggage because of the war, he also reflects on how callous Quattro was in light of Roberto’s death, and how he doesn’t want to be like that. His reaction to Quattro’s reaction was the first instance in the series I really felt in tune with Kamille, and I feel like they didn’t give it nearly as much time as they should have.

I guess three full word processor pages complaining about the main conflict of the story and protagonist might lead you to believe I haven’t been enjoying the show, but my poor attention span wouldn’t actually allow me to watch 25 whole episodes (with 25 more to go) if I didn’t actually enjoy it. So now let’s take a break from problems and talk about…

THE STUFF I LIKED:

The improvement in production quality is insane. Just a few years and there’s no more of the aggressively scratchy lines that seemed omnipresent in the original series, and that’s not even talking about the completely gorgeous theatrical quality openings and ending. As a side note, while it’s disappointing that the Western release of Zeta doesn’t come with either original opening or ending track, the replacement music they use feels perfect, although it definitely sets a different tone.

Originally, I thought it was intended to actually be a secret that Quattro is Char, but that instantly goes out the window narrative and then in-universe shortly afterwards. Literally everyone either gets the vibe that Quattro is Char, or knows outright. That’s actually a more interesting dynamic, though, than “could Quattro be Char”, because the Quattro disguise is ultimately just for Char himself.

I mentioned that I really liked Haro as a mascot in Mobile Suit Gundam, so I was really happy when he suddenly showed up again. I did get worried he was going to overstay his welcome with how much more immediately present he was than in the original series, but they dial it back after an episode or two. I also had a good laugh at gags like tripping Reccoa so Fa could sortie in the Methuss. Speaking of:

I really like Fa and Katz, because while the two of them trend towards being colossal fuckups, they’re still endearing in doing so because they’re well motivated. Fa really wants to be helpful, because when she first joined the Argama she felt completely powerless to do anything, and on paper serving as a mobile suit pilot is the most helpful thing she can do. As such, she made like all the other protagonists and started jumping the gun to get into combat, but unfortunately for her, she’s The Girl™ of this series and thus has completely eaten shit every singled time she’s sortied. Katz has a slightly better action track record, including (shockingly) single-handedly rescuing Kamille from Jerrid and Mouar, but he fell for the classic “surely this cute girl can’t be an enemy” blunder. And you know what, I’m not even going to hold that against him too hard (for now) because one of the several people who told him not to get close to Sarah should have specified “it’s incredibly obvious you have a crush on her and are emotionally compromised”.

Despite all the grousing I did about the conflict being less interesting than Mobile Suit Gundam’s, the antagonists in Zeta Gundam, particularly Jerrid and Scirocco, have been way more engaging. I actually think Jerrid has the most clear and concise character arc in the series so far: he’s a typical privileged bully content to spin his wheels under the assumption he’ll naturally move up in the ranks until he meets Lila, who humbles him hard enough to realize that he needs to be better. In particular, her final chat with him about not becoming like Jamaican is what primes him to become a willing pawn for Scirocco, because Jerrid is capable of recognizing that Scirocco is different from the other Titans COs, and stands to gain valuable knowledge and experience by sticking by him. On that note (and following up on my fanfiction observation from earlier), Scirocco is Super Char: in addition to being an ace Newtype pilot, he’s also a wellspring of charisma, easily able to manipulate the Titans brass with basic gestures of submission while also effortlessly cultivating a faction of Titans loyal to him, like Jerrid and Sarah. MSG’s archvillains definitely suffered from the episode count being cut, and I’m sure The Origin and all of the stories that take place during the One Year War will properly establish the likes of Gihren and Kycilia as monsters, but for now, Scirocco has easily been the greatest individual threat to date.

I read that at some point after the release of Char’s Counterattack, Tomino specifically singled out and thanked BL fans for sticking with the Gundam franchise more reliably than any other demographic. Fujoshis do tend to be the most ride-or-die part of any fandom, even if it’s only in that specific way, but I never got much of a sense of any chemistry besides a generic “two cute boys” between Amuro and Char. Zeta’s a whole different story, though; there’s a thick level of homoeroticism palpable through several female surrogates.

The pacing of action scenes in this show is nearly immaculate. Combined with how good it looks even without comparing it to Mobile Suit Gundam it’s been incredibly easy to get totally absorbed and blow through a bunch of episodes right in a row. I do have issues with the non-action scenes, but that may be because…

THE (other) STUFF I LIKED LESS:

I mentioned that I’m watching this series in Japanese, and unfortunately, the subtitles available for Zeta Gundam seem less good than the subtitles for Mobile Suit Gundam. Best as I can tell, the subtitles on the blu-rays are the same as the ones I’ve been able to find online, which I believe were sourced from the original Bandai DVD releases. I often found myself having to rewind multiple times to understand what was meant for a particular scene, or even switch over to the English dub for a second and go “oh, it’s just phrased weird in the subtitles”. 

For example: there’s a scene where Henken’s complaining that they didn’t manage to destroy any of the Titan ships while leaving Amman; the subtitles translate what he’s saying as “we can’t attack Jaburo if we’re supported by the people from Grenada”. I interpreted the line as “due to the support of the people of Grenada, we are unable to attack Jaburo” and I couldn’t understand how that made any sense, until I switched to the dub, where the line was “how can we expect them to take Jaburo if they’re so timid?”

There’s another scene where, after Beltorchika gets the cold shoulder from Amuro, she asks Mirai “won’t you tell me about the person Amuro fought”, and I assumed she meant Char and got confused as to why the following conversation got so heated. Switching over to the dub made it much more clear that she was actually asking about Lalah, which was not properly contextualized in the subtitles.

The last thing I’ll mention on this subject is that I also noticed a typo where Blex referred to Zeon Zum Deikun as Zeon Zum Daikun, which is the straight romanization of the character’s name. All this leads me to believe that the original subtitle track was at least partially a machine job, which makes it a real bummer that it hasn’t been touched up since.

Newtypes are more present than ever now, but they feel even more ambiguously defined than they were in the first series. I was under the impression that the designation of “Newtype” referred specifically to the extrasensory perception abilities that allowed Amuro to start pulling superhuman combat maneuvers towards the end of the war and, more concretely, allowed Lalah to control the Elmeth’s bits. I would have thought that the existence of Cyber Newtypes like Rosamia and Four and the related phenomena they display, especially with Four and the Psycho Gundam, would lock that definition in, but the term also seems to be used interchangeably to refer to a generational and/or living divide between Earthlings and Spacenoids. Further complicating matters is when other characters discuss Kamille or Amuro and say that they haven’t “awakened” as Newtypes, when like… yes, they have. Kamille and Amuro themselves tend to deny the idea that they’re Newtypes, which I interpret as them saying “I’m not special” rather than actually thinking they’re not. I get the impression this is something that’s lost in translation again.

Something that probably can’t be chalked up to rough subtitles is that this series has a serious grudge against exposition. The use of opening narration from the original series is almost entirely gone, and characters tend not to introduce themselves or firmly establish the names of locations or even mobile suits. Seriously, I don’t think anyone says Henken’s name until he leaves the Argama.

The mobile suits in this series are pretty cool all around, but I don’t like how there’s no clear design distinction between sides like in the original series. I understand and like the idea behind having a lot of the Titan’s mobile suit designs hew so close to Zeon mobile suits, but I don’t think they lean into the concept as much as they should have. Maybe the Mark II Gundams could’ve had more Zeon mobile suit design element, which in addition to making them look more in line with the Hizacks and Marasais, would also create a much greater contrast when the actual Zeta Gundam shows up looking like a true successor to the RX-78. Or maybe the Hizacks and Marasais could’ve incorporated some Federation design elements by being more angular, but still having the distinct mono-eye. I think the closest anything comes to actually executing on this hybrid concept is the Galbaldy. I also feel like none of the AEUG’s original mobile suits have any design commonalities between them, which is lame: the Rick Dias, Hyaku Shiki, and Methuss are all cool designs, but they feel like they could have come from three totally different series.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

I can’t imagine the back half of the series is going to have any moment funnier (and more cathartic) than this:

Also funny: much like “blame it on the misfortune of your birth”, even when you know “I came here to laugh at you” is coming from a mile away, it's exactly as funny in context as it has been out of it. Maybe even funnier!

Resource considerations seems to come up way less as a plot point in Zeta Gundam than it did in the original series, which I had originally marked down as a negative. As hamfisted as it could be sometimes, it did help sell the “real robot” feel that Mobile Suit Gundam was going for. But after I thought about it, I realized the reason resource considerations haven’t come up as much is because there really hasn’t been a situation where the AEUG hasn’t been isolated from supporters, compared to White Base being on the defensive and in hostile territory for more than the first half of the series.

I mentioned before that I understand Char’s legendary status in-universe, but what I really don’t get are people like Kai and Hayato asserting that he should be a politician. I don’t know if it’s intended to be the conventional wisdom that a distinguished military career eventually leads to a career in politics or something about Char specifically, but even if the entire human race somehow found out about how Char fought for Zeon in order to get revenge on the Zabis (and maybe they did, based on what Hayato says), I don’t quite get why everyone would feel so strongly about him taking up politics.

Not sure if Kamille’s comment about noticing more and more women on the battlefield is further acknowledgement of the fact that there’s very little left of humanity to fight wars so women are more prominently involved than they would have been in the past, or a nod to the fact that there were like four women total outside of White Base involved in the One Year War, or I’m reading into it too much and it’s just an incidental sexist remark because it’s the 80’s.

So, Bright and Mirai. I’m happy about the pairing because Bright and Mirai were my favorite White Base crew members, but their relationship feels kinda arbitrary and a little out of nowhere. Bright very obviously had feelings for Mirai, but she never once reciprocated them or even seemed to acknowledge he had them in the original series. Plus, a lot can happen in eight years, but Mirai going from rejecting her arranged fiancé because he wanted to keep her out of the war to becoming the ideal tradwife/Yamato Nadeshiko is a weird trajectory for her. Of course, I bet the actual reason they wound up together was because they both have those funny cartoon eyes.

Also on the subject of Mirai: you can tell this series was made in the early 80’s because of how many women have fucking terrible haircuts. She hasn’t shown up yet, but I’ve known about Haman Karn’s goofy pink broom for years, and Emma’s solid orb of a pageboy haircut is truly awful, but worse than either of them is what they did to poor Mirai. Her hair in Mobile Suit Gundam was a perfectly acceptable mom haircut, they didn’t need to age her 40 years with this new abomination. Congratulations to Fraw Bow, though, for making it to the new decade without winding up with an awful hairdo.

Despite being a total nothing character, I thought they managed to do a lot with Four’s handler, Namicar. She’s shown to be extremely sensitive to motion sickness, having to grab onto the sides of moving platforms or sit down with a handerkerchief while they’re on the water, but the moment she’s under duress she forgets about her weak constitution and becomes ultra competent and assumes control of the situation. Just a fun bit of physical character work I noticed and appreciated.

The second opening seems to confirm a suspicion I had that Rosamia and Four are related, because in addition to both of them being Cyber Newtypes and Four’s name being “Four”, the girl in the intro looks and is dressed like Four, but has Rosamia’s hair color. However, I’ve also been wondering if Beltorchika is somehow related to the Cyber Newtypes too, specifically because she has the same colony drop nightmare that Rosamia talks about, and even refers to it in the same way as “the sky falling”.

There’s a line in the subtitles where Kamille refers to himself as “an autistic child”. I originally brushed that off as another example of poor translation, but it got me to thinking about if that was actually intended, and if autism research was even at a place in the 80’s where people would know about it. According to a bit of light search engine legwork, the 1980′s is actually when autism spectrum disorders started to be understood the way they are today, so it’s entirely possible that Tomino intended for Kamille to be on the spectrum. But I’m not really qualified to talk about it much more than that, both because I haven’t finished the series and I also only have a very surface level understanding of autism.

Final thought that only occurred to me as I finished writing the last two points: is it possible that Kamille is actually a Cyber Newtype? This one feels like a stretch for a number of writing-related reasons, but it would go a long way towards explaining why Kamille is emotionally unstable the way that the other Cyber Newtypes we see are. I doubt this one, but it’ll be fun to revisit later if I turn out to be right.

Onwards to the back half of the series!

[mythia]

♊︎ 9 Great Gemini Characters in Anime ♊︎

Gemini characters in anime/manga are RARE, and Gemini characters that aren’t deluded, deviant, unhinged, or warped are even rarer (think Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter). Therefore, I compiled this list to bring some light to characters that are doing the Gemini name proud! None of these characters are without their own personal demons and struggles, but all of them, in my opinion, are redeemable, complex characters who exemplify the Gemini archetype. Note: This list is in no particular order, I love all these characters equally haha!

 1. Shouko Nishimiya from A Silent Voice | Koe no Katachi

June 7th

Shouko Picture Link

Shouko is a gentle, sweet, and overall kind soul who struggles to communicate and connect with other people because of her deafness. Despite the barriers she faces, more than anything she yearns to communicate and socialize with others and hopes to make friends. Because of this desire, in grade school she uses a journal to communicate through writing, and she often urges her classmates to write in her journal in order to talk to her. This is certainly fitting, because Gemini, being ruled by mercury, is all about communication—whether through body language, speech, or writing.

Shouko faces many hardships throughout the story—such as bullying, the worsening of her hearing, and her grandmother’s death—but through it all she smiles to mask her deep inner pain and to ease the minds of those she cares about. This reluctance to engage negative emotions, and desire to not trouble other people with one’s own emotions, is truly characteristic of Gemini energy.

Gemini energy is associated with the third house—the house of communication, short distance travel, and siblings—and as such, it’s no surprise that Shouko has an extremely close connection and relationship with her sister, Yuzuru.

2. Shoya Ishida from A Silent Voice | Koe no Katachi

June 6th

Shoya Picture Link

Shoya is a deeply troubled character who struggles to connect with other people because of his intense anxiety, self-loathing, and remorse over his past mistakes. His past consumes him, and the mistake that troubles him most is the fact that in elementary school, he bullied Shouko Nishimiya, a deaf classmate.  

In grade-school, Shoya was a social boy with many friends despite his propensity towards rash, reckless behavior. But things changed for him in sixth grade. Keenly observant, Shoya noticed the frustration of his friends and classmates that developed because of Shouko’s seemingly “special” treatment. Additionally, Shoya felt the dynamic in his friend group changing. In his immaturity, he blames these changes and his frustrations on Shouko, and begins to bully her as a result. Part of the tension between Shoya and Shouko was that Shoya could not understand Shouko or communicate with her. Above all, understanding and communication are central to Geminis, and so it’s no surprise that this lack of understanding is what leads to major tension between these two characters.

Shoya is shown to be an intelligent person; for example, when Yuzuro decided to give school a second chance, it’s Shoya she seeks out in order to tutor her. He is also shown to be a gentle person. For example, when it comes to his family, Shoya is shown to deeply care for his mother, sister, and niece—he works extremely hard to pay back his debt to his mother, and he is always gentle, kind, and attentive towards his little niece, Maria.

3. Mamushi Hojo from Blue Exorcist | Ao no Exorcist

June 4th

Mamushi Picture Link

With her textbook tsundere personality, Mamushi embodies the Gemini archetype of “the twins!” On the surface, Mamushi is aloof with an independent personality, however, underneath her cold social mask she has a deep affection for her family (especially her sisters), and her mentor, Todo. Also, later on in the series, her husband Juzo comments that she has a soft side to her personality, too. This extreme duality is quite characteristic of Gemini energy.

Unfortunately, it is her misplaced affection, loyalty, and trust towards the traitor Todo that leads to her betraying her family in the Impure King arc of the series. However, once she realizes her mistake, she is genuinely devastated and remorseful because she cares for her family and is devoted to her responsibilities to the temple and as an Exorcist.

Mamushi is a calm and studious person with a strong sense of loyalty and justice. Mamushi seems to experience some degree of anxiety when it comes to socializing, partly because she is a serious individual who prefers to keep to herself and her close friends. She seems to enjoy nature and the company of animals, and takes great care of her Nagas (snake demons), for which she has great affection.

4. Kōshi Sugawara  from Haikyu!!

June 13th

Suga Picture Link

Suga is a dependable pillar of support for the Karasuno volleball team and is known as “the indomitable setter” because of his enduring nature. Though Suga has a predominantly calm, gentle, and nurturing presence, when he gets impassioned he shows no qualms about yelling at his team from the sidelines or saying what’s on his mind. Suga also has a good sense of humour and enjoys teasing his teammates! Despite his calm demeanor, he has a prominent mischievous side, too; for example, he encourages Hinata to crash the Youth Camp and finds it hilarious that Hinata does indeed go ahead and attend uninvited. These noticeable dualities are definitely characteristic of Gemini energy!

Suga truly wants what is best for the team even though it means allowing Kageyama to be the team’s main setter without protest, despite the fact that Suga has seniority. Though he is often sidelined, Suga is an intelligent and observant player, who excels at detecting the mood and state of his team-mates. Further, he is good at coming up with new and clever game plays and tactics. He is also shown to be a studious individual who prioritizes studying.

5. Umetarou Nozaki from Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun | Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

June 6th

Nozaki Picture Link

Of all the Geminis on this list, no other better represents the Gemini archetype of “the storytelller” than Umetarou! He is a passionate mangaka who is wholly devoted to the art and craft of producing his shoujo manga, “Let’s Fall in Love.” Umetarou is an observant person who constantly looks for story ideas in his everyday life.There is a strong duality to Umetarou’s personality—underneath his serious demeanour, he has an incredibly imaginative and playful nature that  comes out when he tests possible story-lines for his manga out on his friends.

He is a gentle, social, and considerate person who goes to great lengths for his friends. When his assistants/friends gather at his apartment, he’s a thoughtful host who makes extra food for everyone, and he genuinely seems to enjoy sharing meals with other people and attending to guests. He even often lets his male friends stay overnight. He also allows his friend Mikorin to stash his suggestive manga, dating simulation video-games, and figurines at his apartment (talk about a good friend!). Also, Umetarou does his utmost to ensure Chiyo is happy—her distress is shown to greatly unnerve him. Umetarou is also close with his siblings despite living apart from them.

Though Umetarou is intelligent, he is emotionally dense. He doesn’t recognize that Chiyo has a crush on him even though her feelings are incredibly obvious. It’s unclear whether he TRULY doesn’t realize her feelings, or if he is only pretending to be oblivious because he is uncomfortable with his emotions and Chiyo’s emotions. Since he writes a manga about love, his discomfort with romance is pretty ironic! However, discomfort surrounding difficult emotions is quite characteristic of Gemini energy.

6. Mitsuri Kanroji from Demon Slayer | Kimetsu no Yaiba

June 1st

Mitsuri Picture Link

While all the characters on this list have an inherent caring, gentle nature that is characteristic of Gemini energy, Mitsuri takes it a step further! In the tarot, the card associated with Gemini energy from the major arcana is “the lovers.” This is certainly fitting, as she is the Hashira of love. On top of that, her goal is to find a partner who is stronger than she is to marry.

Mitsuri is passionate, sweet, and affectionate. She greatly admires her peers and compliments them nonstop in her own mind—though, her shyness prevents her from voicing these thoughts aloud. Additionally, Mitsuri’s being and personality embodies duality; though she has a gentle personality, she is a fearsome fighter with great agility and strength.

Like others on the list, when it comes to difficult emotions, Mitsuri becomes withdrawn. It’s clear that Obani Iguro is in love with her, yet she remains largely ignorant of his emotions. She also seems to experience some degree of anxiety and overthinking when it comes to expressing herself to her peers, and is most comfortable residing in her own world inside her mind.

7 & 8. Kaoru & Hikaru Hitachiin from Ouran High School Host Club | Ōran Kōkō Hosuto Kurabu

June 9th

Hitachiin Twins Picture Link

The mischievous and witty twins, Kaoru and Hikaru, certainly tap into the gemini archetypes of “the trickster” as well as “the twins.” As twins, the two have a deep sibling bond. Both are intelligent, witty, and curious.

They both have a great capability for affection, however, before joining the host club, Kaoru and Hikaru are shown to be somewhat aloof with everyone but each other, leading their peers to think they are simply stuck-up. The truth is that their distant, cold exteriors mask a deep turbulence and sadness within them that arises due to an inner isoation and loneliness that both of them carry. Identity is a key theme for the twins because other people cannot tell them apart. The failure of other people to recognize them as individuals brings both of them great inner sadness, but at each of their cores, they long for true connection and friendship with people other than each other.

Easily bored, these two enjoy playing jokes and tricks on their friends. They both have playful personalities, and don’t mean harm, but at times their playfulness moves beyond mischievous toward manipulative. Personality wise, Hikaru is more expressive, open, and emotionally immature than Kaoru, whereas Kaoru is more observant, reserved, and attuned to the emotions and expressions of other people than Hikaru.

9. Ryota Kise from Kuroko’s Basketball | Kuroko no Basuke

June 18th

Kise Picture Link

Of the “Generation of Miracles” characters, Kise is arguably the most gentle— next to Aquarius Kuroko, that is! Kise has a sweet and friendly personality with a bit of a competitive edge. Emotionally, Kise is quite expressive, even crying upon his first ever basketball loss.

Kise is extremely intelligent and observant. Additionally, he is an insanely fast learner. His “special talent” is the ability to see any basketball move once, analyze it, learn it, then execute it as if it were his own all along. This exceptional ability to mirror others’ and learn quickly certainly plays into the strengths of Gemini energy!

When it comes to basketball Kise starts out as a competitive and selfish player, but after losing to Kuroko’s team and realizing he can’t win on his own, he begins to lean on his own team-mates more and appreciate them. All in all, he is a popular person who cares about his friends and prioritizes developing his friendships. Kise clearly desires a friendship with Kuroko, as he makes every effort to seek him out and talk to try to establish a deeper connection despite their situation as rivals from different teams.

The End! Notes:

*apparently May Gemini’s don’t exist in anime which breaks my little May Gemini heart 😭

* Keep in mind this list is limited to characters that I have personally encountered in anime and/or manga or light novels :)

Tell me your favourite Gemini characters!