#want to talk to the showrunners so badly

[sand-boxed]

echo is such a good character. theoretically at least. actually the definition of wasted potential hes the most interesting member of cf99 and hes barely in the show im sobbing.

i wish there was actual buildup to echo leaving or something showing his dissatisfaction with being in the batch. like something about having to kill his brothers, or even with the whole being sold as a droid thing which i know its a haha funny bit but that shit was actually so fucked up ???? we dont talk about that one enough that was so insane of hunter 😭😭 if u think abt his backstory then it makes more sense but theres barely anything in his behavior that suggests conflict with his own goals and the interests of his team by the time he leaves. ig its also one of the issues is that the show doesnt have enough time. maybe echo should have left later on in the show or something but i can also think of some midder episodes that are just hunter and omega but again that could have been replaced to give this guy or wrecker some actual characterization. no shade to them ( kinda bc most of the best episodes are the ones where theyre not there) but save some for the rest of us bc they dont need half the show do they

also istg they (writers and the batch ) forgot echo used to be a "reg" i feel like its so strange for the batch to be all pissy abt reg clones and have a weird superiority complex early on in the show when like. echo is there he was once one of them and now hes not. theres so much the writers could have done to tackle echos feelings abt being othered by the reg clones and inadvertently ostracized by his team. theres so much he probably sees different from thebatch bc of their separate upbringings where echo was part of a collective and the batch were singled out as individuals. does he view killing other clones in a different light bc he was also the type to follow orders blindly once??? how does he feel abt the chips as a pow that spent around a year unable to control his thoughts, having his mind stolen from him??

something i wanted for his character was for him to have a connection pre-citadel that he loses during his time being frozen bc he would have to cope with that loss and adapt to the batch at the same time. yes this is another excuse for me to talk abt fives but who else. echo doesnt talk to anyone except him in basically every scene b4 the citadel. echo feeling messed up abt it bc just all of a sudden his world has been turned upside down and all he can do is move on. thats absolutely terrifying to think about bc the war has taken away most of everyone hes ever known. there was no goodbye, nothing for him, they were just here one moment and gone the next for him. too bad we dont get to see any of it lmaoooo

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

The Missing Piece

@rey-jake-therapist and I have been brainstorming and theorizing about what went down at the finale between Sauron and Galadriel.

From my part, I’ll suspend my dislike for the cringeworthy dialogue and the evil theatrics, because, personally, I didn’t like that scene (sorry) and I think it was badly-executed and that’s what causing the trouble here. The show focused more on spectacle than on the emotional weight of that scene, making it look as if Sauron was only manipulating and deceiving her (he wanted the rings and nothing more), and that Galadriel had no inner conflict whatsoever (she stops when she sees Halbrand, but it's for 2 minutes tops). 

Many of you have already mentioned how Sauron forced Galadriel to bind herself to him (by stabbing her with Morgoth’s iron crown) and that his plan was to make her a Ringwraith (like the Nazgûl of the Nine), but she jumped off a cliff (I will always hate this, sorry).

When I first presented my theory that Galadriel would be wounded by Morgoth’s iron crown at the finale and during her fight with Sauron (you can laugh at it, now), I also speculated that she would be left in a state similar to Frodo’s in “Fellowship of the Ring”, when he was injured by a Morgul blade (also forged by Sauron). And this wound will never heal, meaning she’s now bound to the darkness and to Sauron forever (or until she arrives at Valinor at the very end of the story). I have nothing to add here. 

In “Fellowship of the Ring”, when the Witch-king of Angmar stabs Frodo (at the ruins of the Tower of Amon Sûl), the blade dissolved soon afterwards, and a fragment of it remained within Frodo’s wound, working its way towards his heart and threatening to turn him into a ringwraith. He was saved by Elrond at Rivendell, when he was able to remove the shard and heal the wound, but each year on the anniversary of receiving the injury, Frodo became seriously ill, and only his departure to Valinor offered a permanent cure.  

Morgoth’s crown wasn’t missing anything (I believe), but it was created and used by Morgoth himself, meaning it’s power and dark magic is much stronger than in the Morgul-blades Sauron gave to the Nazgûl. Dealing with this will be, probably, Galadriel’s plot in Season 3, and kick-out her “Lady of the Light” arc. Because we all know the "final" result of this wound for Galadriel:

There seems to be a piece missing to complete this puzzle, emotional-wise, and provide this scene with that emotional weight that's lacking. And it always goes back to the “crack theory” of “it was Sauron on that tent scene of 2x07, and not Elrond”.

I’m aware some like this theory, some don’t (mostly because they believe the showrunners would never go there). I’ve already presented enough evidence on why it’s actually Sauron on that scene, so I won’t repeat myself here. If anything, 2x08 provide us with even more clues.

Adar's Death

Adar's death scene in 2x08 appears to parallel a scene we already saw on "Rings of Power". And I'm not talking about the opening scene of 2x01, which is the obvious answer.

In 1x06, when Halbrand/Sauron wants to kill Adar, for the first time, in the middle of the woods, but is stopped from doing so by Galadriel. During this scene, Adar tries to make sense of why this "mortal man" wants to kill him:

"A woman? A child?" Adar asks Halbrand/Sauron.

At this moment, in particular, this interaction was meant to be a clue towards Halbrand’s true identity (“he is Sauron”), because of Adar being the one responsible for destroying his previous physical form in betrayal. Halbrand wants to kill Adar with a spear (Sauron’s weapon of choice). 

However, in 2x07, Adar really does causes pain to the woman (she-elf) that Sauron loves. At the Battle of Eregion, Adar displays Galadriel trapped in a cage, and has one of his Orcs pierce and bled her neck with... a spear. 

And how does Sauron have Adar killed, at the end? In the middle of woods, like he meant to in 1x06. Using his children to cause him pain, and kill him. And Sauron does it in front of Galadriel, the woman he loves and was, previously, hurt by Adar. 

There are more references to 1x06 in 2x08, because when Sauron appears as Halbrand, he repeats to Galadriel his words to her in those same woods he wished to kill Adar.

Hence: this parallel can mean that Sauron, in fact, witnessed Adar flaunting and hurting Galadriel on the battlefield. I actually joked with @rey-jake-therapist about Adar being toasted after he pulled that off, because there was no way Sauron would let him get away with hurting his Queen... and I was right. 

We know, Sauron was at the walls of Eregion at the time, with Celebrimbor and the guards, and they all saw the arrival of the Elven army led by Elrond. And, yet, the show has given us no reaction from Sauron’s part on what was happening to Galadriel, after he spent an entire season obsessing over her. 

Glûg's death

Glûg’s death has "well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions" vibes for having betrayed Adar and sided with Sauron, instead.

At first, I thought this plot of having Sauron just talk to the Orcs and gain their loyalty so easily was kind of stupid. But when discussing it with @rey-jake-therapist, we got more insight.

Tolkien never specifically wrote about the Orcs lifespans: we know they aren’t immortal like the moriondor (Adar and the other Elves corrupted by Morgoth) and they reproduce like every other “humanoid” being. Meaning, Glûg has never met Sauron before, and has only heard the tales. He was already suspicious that Adar was sacrificing the Orcs for nothing, with other Orcs believing he was chasing a ghost. Well, when Glûg meets Sauron for the first time, he’s shocked to discover that he’s not terrible or cruel like he was told, but rather “nice” and soft-spoken (even asking his name). And, so, Glûg has the confirmation that Adar was, in fact, wrong and killing off his children for nothing... (well, he came to regret that at the end). 

However, Glûg is the one who places a blade at Galadriel’s neck during the “Adar and Elrond tent scene” in 2x07, and we see Elrond’s reaction to it. And so, if Adar was to give the order, it would have been Glûg who would kill Galadriel in that scene.

More: when “Elrond” taunts Adar about sacrificing the Orcs’ lives, the camera lingers on Glûg’s reaction... and guess who’s the first to side with Sauron in the next episode, and strike the first blow against Adar? 

In 2x08, Sauron kills Glûg after Galadriel throws herself off a cliff and he believes her dead.

Many assume this was done in a rage fit, but this isn’t Sauron’s character. And he already lost control with Celebrimbor in this episode and that’s why, according to Charlie Vickers, he cries in that scene: Sauron recalls his time at Morgoth’s side and doesn’t want to end up destructive and nihilist like his master was.

So I would argue the “rage fit” explanation is not it. Could it be, that Sauron - who is always gaslighting others and in self-denial trying to find justifications for his own actions and project them onto others (as Celebrimbor told him in 2x07) - kills Glûg because this Orc was the last being he saw threatening Galadriel’s life? And projects his own guilt onto him? And how could he know that, unless he was the “Elrond” in the room? Because Sauron is powerful, but he isn’t able to see everything just yet. 

Where do we go from here? 

With this insane among of clues and evidence, and how everything falls into place, there is no way the person in that tent with Adar is Elrond. Because if it is, there are plot holes the size of black holes in the story. If it's in fact Sauron everything fall into place and makes sense. And it would also explain the lack of "emotional weight" on their scene at the finale.

Season 3: there is the possibility the show might hold on to this reveal for next season. Since in 2x08, we see Sauron brutally killing both Celebrimbor and Adar, and later stabbing Galadriel, revealing this plot twist to the audience could be a little “WTF” and even lose its meaning. And it wouldn’t match the vibe they were going for with Sauron’s character in 2x08, especially since Sauron and Celebrimbor was the core of Season 2;

Ambiguous or "abandoned plot": this is my concern.

[ilikekidsshows]

Look, I know one shouldn't be so harsh on how badly it was handled that Marinette never has to face any push back from Adrichat for her own massive flaws, and instead she's just validated and all her wrongdoings get swept under the rug

But I still think it's WILD that Marinette in Pretention was made to at least somewhat acknowledge in front of Adrien that her stalking was bad, and yet she straight up justified it by saying "I did it out of love" (which only make her sound MORE like an ex-stalker???) while full blown pouting that she has to even accept that "much" accountability in the first place:

Like, girl, come on. What even IS that? xD

It is almost hilarious how pissed Marinette was written to be about giving such minimal lip service to the character growth the show pretends she had somewhere OFF-SCREEN. She is literally acting like a person who wasn't actually held accountable but was forced into begrudgingly accepting that maybe what they did wasn't as perfectly justified as they thought and now is giving a puddle deep apology they don't truly mean.

---

Marinette only ever apologizes these days when she also has a justification, which makes her apologies sound just like a Youtube Apology Video(™): “I’m sorry if I offended the viewers, but I was totally justified (and therefore would do it again).” She only apologizes to placate the audience. And that scene isn’t even an apology, it’s her giving excuses because Kagami dared to call her out on acting no different from the Adrien fans Marinette herself was criticizing. The showrunners are trying so hard to counter common criticisms of the show to the audience and it shows.

It’s also really obvious that the writers think that “I did it for love” is a suitable excuse. This has always been the distinction between Marinette and the hordes of Adrien groupies the city of Paris is crawling with: Marinette loves him genuinely. All those other people just gush about Adrien and follow him whenever they spot him around town because he’s a hot model while Marinette gushes about him and follows him around because he’s a hot model who was nice to her that one time. Clearly that makes Marinette’s love more pure. Besides, Marinette has already claimed Adrien by the Right of Protagonist, so she has the right to know what he’s doing every moment of every single day while those other people are creepy stalkers.

I also find it hilarious that they make her talk like a recovered ex-stalker when, once again, the writers are claiming something that’s never been shown. There is no evidence Marinette has “recovered” from her stalking habit, because the reason she stopped stalking Adrien isn’t that she had some kind of realization that what she was doing was too far or uncalled for, it is that she stopped having a reason to stalk him. First she isn’t stalking Adrien because she’s convincing herself she’s no longer in love with him. Her not being in love means there’s no reason to stalk Adrien. After that Adrien starts dating her, meaning she already has what she wants: Adrien to herself, so there’s no need to stalk him to make sure no other girl sinks her claws into him. She might not really know Adrien at all, but she at least knows enough to know he’s loyal.

And, like, even after they started dating, Marinette has gone behind Adrien’s back to the Agreste Mansion because he’s “keeping things from her” or because she has to question Nathalie about his whereabouts. This girl is so obsessed with knowing every detail about what Adrien is doing, getting what she wanted only mitigates it. Which is why she’s back to spying on him with binoculars in the sneak peek for the upcoming season 6.

[youmakethelight]

I find it viscerally offensive that the show is called TWD: Daryl Dixon when Carol is literally in it.

I don't know why I'm not hearing it talked about more.

All the time that the title focuses solely on Daryl, it will always be an excuse to elevate his story above Carol's. And it will always be a justification for NR to have top billing while Melissa McBride has second billing. And it will always feel like the female character is less important than the male, no matter what does or doesn't happen in the story.

I'm literally so tired of anyone saying that maybe MMB doesn't mind or anything along those lines. First of all, given that we don't know her feelings on it, that's not ever a reason to just be content with what looks like blatant sexism, and would be recognised as such in almost any other workplace context. I'll advocate for equality until I hear her say for herself that she adamantly does not want it. Willing blissful ignorance so that you can carry on with indifference is not how to be an ally. And I'll be honest, it doesn't come across, to me, like being a genuine ally to Melissa; it comes across like just not wanting to have any 'negativity' interfere with shipping characters.

And besides that, it's offensive as fuck to all women, it's not entirely about Melissa McBride. If you aren't personally offended by it, good for you, I guess. I am. It sends a distinct message about how women are valued and it has direct implications for women in the entertainment industry and in society generally.

It's not like I want these issues to spoil the fun. But frankly, the men in charge creating these issues are the ones spoiling the fun. I am so, so tired of men behaving badly, and then the way women react to it is what gets the heat. If the actions of a male showrunner are making loads of female fans feel like shit, why are the female fans the ones getting attacked for their response? I need some of you to check your internalised misogyny.

The "it's just a TV show" response is also getting exhausting to hear. No, it isn't. It's a product of the minds of real-life people, where there are real power imbalances, and it's consumed by real-life people. All of this means that it represents a microcosm of society, it has a direct impact on the people who work on the project, and it has a very real influence on societal attitudes. If a TV show teaches that it's normal and acceptable for a female character, who is objectively just as important and whose actress worked just as hard, to be excluded from the title, while the male character is elevated, this affects how people view women's role in relation to men. At this point, responding to these real issues with "it's just a TV show" is a weak attempt to undermine advocacy for genuinely positive social progress. And for the same reason, it's not just a case of "well, don't watch it then".

I'm so tired of keeping my voice muted.

[fernsnouveau]

Not really the issues I was talking about, there's the "make your own posts" etiquette, etc

If the Miraculous writers want to make the point that abuse victims are immature and infantile and volatile and need to be controlled by an authority for the sake of their own and the greater good, and therefore Adrien simply cannot be treated as an equal to the Great Marinette, then... I don't think they should be writing the two of them as a romantic couple. The inherent power imbalance is just no good.

(Don't get me wrong, even more so I just think that they shouldn't have taken that stance on abuse victims to begin with.)

[a-lilac-lyric]

 Possible explanations for why King Roland made his first wish on the Wishing Well

Now all of these aren't so much theories per say as “throwing stuff on a wall and seeing what sticks” because the showrunners could not delve into topics like this in the actual runtime, and it probably wouldn't have been very relevant to the story that they were trying to tell anyway, so nearly every theory has an equal likelihood to be true more or less.

  (I'm also not going to mention this in my write ups for the possible reasons for the wish, and we have no way of proving this one way or the other, but I'm always inclined to prefer the thought that Roland II had discussed making the wish with Lorelei before he actually made it since it would be something that would affect both of them. Even if it only physically affected one of them. Because this just seems like the type of thing you should tell your partner about if you do it).

 This is a long post (Over 2000 words), so I'm putting it under the cut, but TLDR there are several different magical and physical reasons that are possible.

 General content warning for discussion of topics that are too dark/medical to ever be shown in a kids show. Spoilers for Forever Royal.

 We should first start off with what the wish was in the first place in case you don't know or need a refresher. Word for word, this is how it's stated in the flashback scene in the episode Forever Royal:

  “In the nearby castle lived King Roland the Second, who had wanted a family so badly he tried making a wish in a wishing well. The wish came true, and twins were born. But the Queen fell gravely ill….* The children were happy but never knew what it was like to have a mother.”

 * The quote never says that she is dead in so many words, but the visual on screen is of the queen arranged on a bed with her eyes closed, holding flowers. There's basically no other way to interpret it except that she's been laid out for a funeral.

 Now, as a note, we never actually get to hear what her name is in the show, but the creator of the show Craig Gerber made a Twitter post saying that her name was Lorelei https://x.com/CraigGerber_/status/1038831208430370817?mx=2 (as a personal note I normally consider stuff that show creators or writers say on Twitter or other social media as secondary Canon, but I basically completely accept this because we don't have any alternative name, and it works. And I'm sure that they'd use it in the sequel series if they ever talk about her.) So I'm going to be referring to her with that name for the rest of this post.

 When analyzing this quote, it seems that “wanted a family” basically means “wanted to have biological children” since we know he already has a wife and family members like a sister and a mom. I just think it's interesting that they word it this way because it kind of masks what his actual wording would have been to the wishing well. Because in the episode “When you wish upon a well” the well did grant Amber’s second wish in a way that fulfilled the basic criteria of her wish, and yet caused an unintended side effect that deeply distressed Amber and put Sofia in danger. So, it could possibly be that the way Roland wished for children could also be interpreted as accidentally directly causing Lorelei’s death. But we don't know what the words were, so we don't know if that was what happened or not. “Fell gravely ill” is a vague enough statement that it can basically be interpreted to fit any kind of theory.

 So without further ado, here are almost all of the ways I could think of that could be motivation for making the wish. (AKA infertility theories.)

Magical reasons:

 In this world, magic is an everyday fact of life, so they could have been unable to have kids because of a curse! Now it could be a curse on either Roland or Lorelei, and then the curse was just too strong to be broken by regular magic, but the Well’s magic was strong enough to get past it, (permanently or temporarily). The possible motives could be basically anything. It could have been cast by a jealous ex-lover, or a person who thought that the union was bad for political reasons.

 But I did come up with a fun little theory that maybe it was a curse that was intended to be benevolent, behold: The Double Bloodline Curse!

 We know that the throne of Enchancia passes from oldest child to oldest child, and the same seems to be true for the royal wizard as well. Both lines are hereditary, and both are always parallel to each other. It makes sure that the reigning monarch always has a royal wizard and vice versa. But it is interesting because Roland the First and Goodwin the Great are approximately the same age, same with both of their sons, and both of their granddaughters to an extent, although the age difference is seemingly larger between Amber and Calista.

 Now this could be just a coincidence that the people in these families born for 3 generations are very close in age, but what if it wasn't? What if there was some kind of spell or curse set on the people from both bloodlines so that they wouldn't be able to have children until their counterpart(s) was/(were) also in a position to be able to have children. Let's say that Roland the Second married and tried to have kids, but both Cedric and Cordelia were not married or seeing anyone and/or just neither of them were interested in having children at that time. Therefore, the curse activated to prevent Roland II from having any children.

 And this curse was probably put on the line by an actual royal wizard from it, assuming that it would be better off for both families and the sake of the kingdom if the new monarch and the new wizard were always peers age wise so that they could both ascend to their positions at the same time. Is that flawed reasoning and ultimately going to hurt their families more than help them in the long run? Absolutely! But it wouldn't be the craziest or worst thing that someone from either of these families has done.

 It's definitely possible for it to be magical reasons and would be interesting to explore in fanfic, but this isn't the only possibility.

Biological reasons that are linked to infertility:

 The first one is what if Lorelei was unable to biologically have children.

 It's popular fan-cannon (and I have seen it used in several fan fictions), that Lorelei was too physically weak for her body to/she had some kind of physical condition that meant she couldn't bear children. But the wish overrode that condition and after giving birth she was so weak that whatever possible illness/birth complications/regular pregnancy recovery happened afterwards she wasn't strong enough to survive it.

 In my opinion this one seems plausible, but I personally do not like it and do not think it makes sense for the characters. If she seemed medically unfit to give birth before the wish, then it would be ludicrously irresponsible for Roland II to make a wish for her to have the kids that didn't also strengthen her in a way that she could have them and survive. Additionally, I believe that if there was a lot of worry throughout the pregnancy that she might not be able to survive it, that Roland would have just made a second wish for her to be strong enough.

 Some may argue that it wouldn't have been possible to strengthen her enough to be able to survive giving birth, but may I point out that the wishing well has the ability to turn a regular human girl into a cat. Like literally change your species. Strengthening someone enough so that they can survive a pregnancy seems pretty minor compared to turning someone into a cat.

 And Roland is normally pretty good at noticing when people he loves are in distress, he'll stop what he's doing and talk with them and try to make the situation better. Now if Lorelei was hiding her physical symptoms from everyone for whatever reason, it could be possible to do that with others especially servants who she didn't spend much time with, but considering how much time Roland spends with Miranda he probably spent the same amount of time with his first wife. If they were in close proximity to each other that often for months on end he would notice if something was wrong and ask her about it and try to solve the problem. Therefore, I personally don't subscribe to it in my own headcanons.

 Another interpretation of this is that Lorelei was the one who is unable to have children, but it was because of some type of condition that was not due to weakness but another type of biological factor(s). The wish allowed her to have the kids, but then she died because the Well directly took her life as a price for the wish/because of how the wish was worded. Or she just happened to get unlucky and die from one of the several medical reasons that a person can die from giving birth no matter their physical strength. It's pretty similar to the first one but I am much more inclined towards it.

 But what if Roland was the one who was biologically unable to have children?

 This one doesn't seem to be explored in any fan fictions I've seen but I think this one is interesting to consider as well. I think most people's reasoning is that if Lorelei died from the wish, then the wish must have just physically affected her and therefore cause [wish] equals effect [death], but if it was going to take her life as a price/consequence for the wish anyway, it may not have necessarily needed to have affected her physically at all. Or the Well never took her life at all, she just got really unlucky and died from random chance. And there's plenty of medical reasons that men can be unable to have children. We don't know what kind of medical knowledge they have in Enchancia, but it may not have been advanced enough to find a solution for Roland or even know that he was the one who was infertile.

 He could have caught an illness as a child that had adult infertility as a side effect (angst potential. If he was also isolated for a long period of time away from other kids this could also partially explain why he became estranged from Cedric). Or it could be a genetic reason, like being intersex (I say as I read that one of the most common noticeable effects of Klinefelter syndrome is being tall. And it would fulfill a certain letter for possible LGBTQIA+ headcannons). Or he could have been severely overworking and under eating (there are a few times in the show where he does this, albeit not to a self-destructive extent, and that’s after he’s had kids and been king for years, also angst potential).

 If this was true, then it could also be possible that he was only temporarily able to have kids depending on how the wish worked. Or depending on the wording of the wish he might only be able the have kids with Lorelei exclusively. So if he and Miranda wanted to make a kid together, they might not be able to (more angst), unless another wish was made (but I doubt he would risk it).

 And a really dark possibility for Roland being infertile is that maybe the wish did NOT make him fertile but instead had a, what I am going to describe as a “love potion” effect on Lorelei and she got pregnant from someone who was not Roland. Now I think that this possibility is really horrifying for a number of reasons, but I've never seen it used in a fanfiction before and I'm not sure if anyone else has ever thought of it, but it exists now. I say that Amber and James do look like Roland, but I would also say that they definitely look more like Lorelei than him, so if you wanted to do a horrifying big drama fanfic this is a possibility for that.

Biological/other reasons that are not infertility:

 But what if their trouble with having children wasn't linked to infertility?

 There is the possibility that Royal Prep/other schools they had gone to had such a terrible sex education class that neither of them knew how to get pregnant and at this point were too afraid to ask. So they wished for it instead. I think this one only works if you're going for an adult humor fanfiction because, this just seems really unlikely to me. Even if they hadn't been educated in school, they would probably still ask someone or have been told by someone or have read it in a book by this point. Especially since part of their job as ruling monarchs is to produce heirs, I'm sure someone in the court would have explained it to them if they didn't know.

 Another slightly more reasonable but still unlikely reason is that maybe one or both of them was asexual. So they needed another way to start the pregnancy and decided magic was a good way to do it. I feel like if this was true then they could have just solved this by going to an actual wizard or doctor and getting help from them, so I don't think this is very likely but I'm trying to go through all the possibilities here.

 But on a far more serious note there as been a possibility I've been thinking about lately that does seem likely considering how often it happens in real life. It could be possible that Roland and Lorelei had already tried to have children, and she was able to get pregnant, but it ended in a miscarriage or a stillbirth. Maybe she was already pregnant by the time Roland made the wish, and he wished that this time it would be a successful pregnancy. The way he looks in the flashback makes it seem like Roland is really sad and kind of desperate about the whole situation and if this possibility was true, then it adds an extra layer of sadness to the whole ordeal.

 ****Also, this isn't attached to any single theory but I wanted to add this: I think that whether the wish caused Lorelei’s death or she died from completely natural causes, it must have happened fairly quickly. If the illness that she got after giving birth lasted a long time, then wouldn't there have been enough time for Roland to have made another wish to save her? Meanwhile if it happened very quickly or without much warning then he may not have had enough time to save her. If it happened quickly, it would also mean that there was less of a chance for the doctors or midwives or sorcerers to do anything to save her.

 *****And regardless of whether it actually was the magic of the wish that killed her or it was from the same causes that any non magical birth can suffer from, I think Roland believes that it was his fault that Lorelei died. He probably doesn't know for sure whether it was the wish that did it or not, but that wouldn't matter if he felt like it was his fault. His exact words to Amber about it were: “My wish didn't turn out so well either.” But we know that he loves Amber and James, and he's very proud of them, so the quote isn't about being a father to them or their existence. So the only other possibility for him saying that it didn't turn out well is what happened to Lorelei.

On that note, those are all the reasons I could think of. Feel free to say in the reblogs or comments which one you think is most likely and/or which one is your favorite. Here's a cookie for getting to the end of this post 🍪

[pepperf]

A good tragedy should be about a) inevitability, and b) what you are ultimately fighting is yourself. The reason TUA s4 failed so badly was that it felt extremely evitable, given their history, and what they were fighting was a combination of their sort-of stepmom and sort-of brother the Giant Blob. Like. That was not the inexorable hand of fate. That was weird city-eating goop set in motion by an arch-villain. Any half-decent superhero show would figure a way out of that.

And, sure, they might have made a tragic ending work for these characters, but they needed to show the inexorable steps that led them there from the start. Instead, all their past history shows us that they will make a terrible mess, they will try to fix it haphazardly, with everyone pulling in different directions, and end up creating a different mess instead, and none of them will ever cooperate with Five's plans.

Heck, they weren't even responsible for this one, it was their dad and stepmom's actions that brought it on. They were merely a side-effect. It's not their hubris - so it's not satisfying (in a tragic way) to see them be destroyed for it.

I get the aim of making a superhero show that has the superheroes be the problem in the end (tbh, this has been done a million times already, I don't know why SB thinks it's so clever), or having them sacrifice themselves heroically and no one knows - but like, it needs to feel earned, it needs to feel like the absolute last resort, that they've tried everything else and this is it, the only option. But they didn't try much else, here - even with all their enhanced powers, which had the potential to throw in some wildcards. No - they tried talking to and then hitting the Bennifer Blob, and then...blergh, we give up, let's all die and hope that fixes things. It was an unspectacular end, and it felt like such a waste of all that potential - of the show, the characters...

I know SB has said he planned this from the start, but it honestly didn't feel like it. Maybe he planned the general idea of them failing but never worked out the exact details, and when it came down to it, he didn't have a good apocalypse in mind? That certainly feels like his MO - lots of build-up, and then no follow-through. idk, whatever it was, it was just kind of a lame end to a show that I'd loved so much -and that was what really gets my goat. I wanted to feel like, whatever the ending, they'd thrown their hearts into it, and instead I was left feeling like the showrunners had already kind of moved on with their lives, it's only a TV show, just hit some popular beats, stick an ending on it, shove some CGI in, and hope the next thing we're pitching gets picked up. And it did feel very much like a showrunner issue, bc the actors did their absolute best to sell it. But there's only so much you can do with being eaten by a CGI blob.

We had three good seasons, and I am going to move on, once I've got some fic off my chest - but I'm just kinda disappointed that we didn't get one final season of great material, some stuff that makes me keep wanting to think about how it works, what happens next, how to explain X or Y - all that fun, fandom stuff.

Anyhow, much like Steve Blackman, I don't know how to end this. Peace out, y'all.

[morecowbell7]

It's absolutely soul-crushing how the industry treats animation so badly that we've gone from the industry standard season of animated television being 20-30 episodes long to 10-12 episodes long. Like think about how many episodes were in seasons of Adventure Time in 2011. And now think of how many episodes were in Hazbin Hotel. This post isn't specifically about Hazbin, but I watched that recently so it's what I'm going to talk about. Hazbin Hotel is 8 episodes long. That is so fucking depressing for many reasons. It signals to me that the industry standard for animation is only getting worse, people have waited almost a decade for this show to come out only to be disappointed with the almost painfully short run time. On top of that season 2 supposedly won't come out until 2027. Too many showrunners already have to work under this immense pressure nowadays to fit everything they want into a 12 episode season, which is already ludicrous to me, but an 8 episode season??? It feels like Amazon set the show up to fail. Watching the show, it felt like the writers panicked because they didn't know if they would be able to develop every character properly (which is to some degree on them as writers for not shortening the main cast or only focusing on 2 or 3 leads, but the stupid short number of episodes ordered did not help them) which leads to the entire show feeling way too fast paced and rushed. I hope we can get out of this rut, I'm excited to see where this show goes but the way it was handled leaves me feeling grim towards the state of cartoons as a whole.

[minnaci]

okay. whipped out my laptop again for apology tour. same disclaimers apply: i'm not a hellaverse blog (or, if i am, i'm very much in denial about it), i enjoy the show and the characters, and my opinions are informed by my personal lived experiences. apology tour spoilers ahead.

i've done a lot of scrolling through comments and posts since watching apology tour and, while many good points were made, i'm not sure that any of them sufficiently sum up how conflicted i feel about this episode. i'll try to hopefully stumble my way into a coherent analysis.

full warning, it will be blitz-centric, but there is enough nuance in my heart to be sympathetic to stolas, too. both of them fucked up! i just happen to identify more strongly with blitz.

tldr: the showrunners said it best. stolas is not quite as self-aware as he should be, and blitz... is blitz. cw for spoilers and discussions of american racism (particularly antiblackness) and classism.

this crux of the issue in apology tour continues to be miscommunication, which is heavily influenced by 1. both blitz's and stolas's pasts and 2. the sociopolitical context in which they operate.

1 . STOLAS

stolas was a victim of emotional neglect in his childhood, and then a victim of his emotionally abusive wife in his adulthood. he, as he so aptly implies in apology tour, has never truly felt wanted beyond what he could provide to his family. one of the only times we have ever seen stolas happy was at the circus as a child, where he developed a fleeting, parasocial admiration for blitz.

in this way, stolas is painfully, achingly relatable. while he grew up in a disgusting amount of material wealth, he has been deprived of the one thing you cannot buy with money: unconditional love. he yearns for the type of romance he reads about, the type of passionate desire that he watches in his telenovelas, and when blitz comes along— the one, shining memory in stolas's otherwise dull childhood— stolas falls into the fantasy.

and that's exactly what it is. in the beginning, stolas doesn't really want blitz. he wants what blitz represents— a charming, seductive figure to ravish him, to hold him close, to show him that he is desirable and make him feel wanted. it's a fantasy at the price of the key to stolas's job— a fantasy that is, from an outsider's perspective, easily explained by racial fetishization. more on this later.

to stolas, it's a small price to pay. the grimoire, a token piece of power to the goetias, in exchange for the one thing that stolas has always wanted? sign stolas up! stolas has never had to worry about his livelihood, nor his safety— not in any way that matters. not in any way that blitz would have had to.

stolas is ignorant. he is naive and unaware of how the world works. this remains true when he falls for blitz, when he plans to "set them free" (a la "when i see him"), even after he confesses and his fairy-tale fantasies come crashing down around him. he is not in a place where he can comprehend the effects of class on his relationships because it is not something he has ever had to consider before.

all that said, none of that invalidates the way that stolas feels when blitz explodes at him in full moon. stolas setting his boundaries at the beginning of apology tour ("i feel uncomfortable when you talk to me that way") is valid. it's actually an example of communication gone right in this episode, in that stolas explicitly communicates how blitz's actions make him feel.

his resultant upset when blitz keeps pushing him and antagonizing him is similarly valid. his decision to go to verosika's party is valid. my main point here is: while i don't particularly enjoy stolas's actions in full moon or even in apology tour, i can empathize with wanting to be wanted by someone so badly that it basically ruins your life.

again, stolas is ignorant. he lacks self awareness. he is emotionally immature and lacks empathy. but the message here isn't "rich people can't feel heartbreak", at least for me. the message is "even though he is hurt, stolas needs to understand that his actions have consequences, and that blitz experiences relationships (and the world) in a fundamentally different way than stolas as a product of the differences in socioeconomic contexts in which they were raised."

2. BLITZ

oh, blitz. where to start? this is where i admit that there are a lot of similarities between the way blitz and i grew up, and a lot of similarities in the ways that we view relationships now (read: i may project a bit. apologies in advance).

from when he was young, blitz has learned that the only successful type of love is love that is transactional. he loved his mother, and she died in a fire he started. he loved fizz and barbie, and he ruined their lives. the only "successful" love he has experienced is love where he provides something (read: gets "used") and receives something in return. so, unless he can provide something of value to his partner, blitz prefers to keep it casual. in blitz's mind, people don't care about blitz, and people shouldn't care about blitz. loving blitz has always been a recipe for disaster, because in his perspective, if he can't provide something to his lover that offsets the destruction that he causes, then he's not worth it.

it's normal for blitz to feel used. it's normal for blitz to feel less-than, or unwanted, or unloved, and it hurts blitz less to believe that. sex is fun. he can "do sex", and he can do sex good, and maybe to him, that's all that he can do good. he certainly can't hold down a relationship. his employees only care about him because he provides a stable source of income. his daughter only cares about him because he gives her shelter. it's normal. blitz feeling hated is normal, and the normalcy brings him so much comfort that he purposefully pushes people away to maintain that awful, vicious cycle of a status quo. it's a self-fulfulling prophecy.

blitz's approach to stolas in the beginning of apology tour is his desperate bid to return to normal. stolas being so short and angry with him is almost comforting— blitz knows how anger feels. he knows how hate feels. stolas is just another person who finally, finally realized what blitz knew all along— love is something that isn't possible for blitz, because he always fucks it up (at least in his perspective). and if stolas lets blitz fuck him, lets blitz provide this service to him, then maybe, blitz can "earn his way to earth" (read: "earn" stolas's affection back). affection, to blitz, is something for him to work tirelessly and endlessly to receive— a sisyphean affair. he is not ever intended to actually receive it.

stolas doesn't recognize this. stolas doesn't even try. but in stolas's defense, blitz doesn't exactly make it easy. i may empathize with blitz, but i think i would also be a little less prone to empathy if the object of my affections mocked my feelings by brushing them off in favor of sex and then screaming "GAY" in my face when i refused.

the rest of blitz's apology tour is borne out of pettiness towards stolas, because in his eyes, stolas is the one who wronged him. stolas was the one who accepted the rules of engagement with blitz (i.e., a transactional relationship: the grimoire for a bit of fun, kinky sex). stolas is the one who has all the power. stolas is the one who can choose to ruin blitz. stolas is the one who ruined the good thing they had going.

except... blitz doesn't really believe that. deep down, subconsciously, blitz knows he loves stolas, and by being in love, he's done to stolas what he did to his mother, to fizz, to barbie: ruined his life. maybe, if blitz could seduce stolas and make their relationship transactional again, he could correct their course and save stolas the pain of believing that blitz is deserving of love. it's a trolley problem: pull the lever, and blitz is the only one who gets hurt. let the trolley continue, and stolas will inevitably get caught in the crossfire of loving blitz.

blitz can handle a little pain. he handled it when his mother died. he handled it when fizz hated him. he handled it when barbie left him. he handles it over and over again, being used as tool for sexual pleasure or physical violence. he earns his pain, just as he feels he must "earn" the grimoire. just as he feels he must "earn" the little tokens of stolas's affection.

as an aside: the grimoire is more than a symbol of blitz's livelihood. it's a physical representation of the stark difference in class between blitz and stolas, as well as a representation of the transactional nature of all of blitz's relationships, not just the one between him and stolas. it is one magical book among thousands that the goetias own— a veritable drop in the bucket of the immense power, wealth, and influence that the goetias, and by extension, stolas, wield. that same book which is inconsequential to stolas and the goetias is everything to blitz. without the grimoire, he loses his job and everything that comes with it, including (in blitz's transactional view of relationships) millie, moxxie, and even loona's companionship. but i digress.

it's been said before that there is nobody who belongs at the blitz hate party more than blitz himself, and it's true— there is nobody in hell who could hate blitz more than he hates himself. because as much as he might present himself as a little dumb, he's anything but. he knows what he's doing will destroy him. he knows if he continues to do what he's doing, he'll "die alone", which, in some ways, is what he fears more than anything. he even tells verosika that he "doesn't want to be like this forever", but he can't seem to stop himself. he doesn't know how to stop himself.

after all, he's right. everyone hates him. it's evident in the party they've thrown for him. and the worst part thing is: it's his fault, and he knows it. he knows he's hurt all of these people, and even though he plays at callousness, he can't quite hide his hurt that stolas in particular won't hear him out. he can't hide his hurt that stolas can't seem to understand where blitz is coming from. because blitz does try to talk to stolas in apology tour. he tries to tell stolas what he's feeling, and how he regrets how he's spoken to stolas, but stolas is too drunk and too upset to care (which, btw, not blaming stolas for that. if i were a drinker, i'd be right there beside him).

stolas, in this moment, focuses entirely on himself and the pain that blitz put him through (again, not blaming stolas for that), but it tells blitz that stolas really, really does not care about him anymore, if he ever did. and wasn't that what blitz wanted? isn't that what blitz deserves? so it's easy to let a bigger, taller, more handsome, more suave imp sweep stolas off his feet and out of blitz's life. the imp is, by his t-shirt's estimation, "better than blitzo", after all. and don't they say that to love someone is to let them go?

verosika's advice to blitz only cements this. stolas is moving on. stolas deserves better. and blitz? all blitz deserves is to be used, so can he really be mad that some better imp is giving stolas what blitz never could? and again, blitz has dealt with the people he loves hating him before. his father sold him for $5. his best friend hated him for years. his sister still does. at least with stolas, he got the asmodean crystal out of it, and he won't lose the only semblance of companionship he has left.

3 - SOCIOECONOMIC CONTEXT

i saw a post that said that fans are focusing too much on the class difference between stolas and blitz, and i couldn't disagree more. in fact, i'd say that we are not focusing enough on the class difference between stolas and blitz.

all of stolas's ignorance is magnified tenfold by his lack of understanding of how their class and race difference colors their relationship. all of blitz's self-hatred and self-worth issues are exacerbated one-hundredfold by these same class and race differences.

classism and racism go hand in hand, especially in america. in helluva boss (and especially in the beginning of the stolitz dynamic), there is an implication of racial fetishization. blitz, the "lower-class" poor imp, fulfills stolas (an "upper-class" wealthy elite)'s fantasies of being "ravaged" and "taken" in his own home. stolas canonically enjoys the rough treatment, enjoys the taboo feeling of having blitz fuck him. it's very evocative of how some white american women fetishize and fantasize about black men— a fetish that has its roots in white supremacy (and especially the enslavement and ongoing oppression of black people in america.)

that said, in the context of helluva boss, it is very clear that blitz is aware of his socioeconomic standing the implications thereof— more aware than even stolas, who has ostensibly been educated on the social and economic nuances of the realm he helps to rule. he tries to tell stolas about how this difference in class affects him and amplifies his already awful self-worth ("you're a prince. it's hard to believe you would want me. that anyone would want me"), but stolas is incapable of hearing him.

all this to say, blitz is not solely to blame for their current relationship. that isn't to say that blitz is blameless. in fact, blitz isn't the most emotionally mature either— most of what i have written about him are things that i doubt he consciously realizes about himself. but stolas's ignorance and lack of willingness to consider where blitz is coming from, both emotionally and socioeconomically, make up a huge part of why stolitz continues to miscommunicate.

anyways. yeah. viv was right. things sure did happen.

[chaifootsteps]

I don't think anyone making the 'it's wrong to argue the show abandoned its premise' argument has really engaged with what the problem here actually is

there's often this bad faith painting of everyone with the same brush that they're just complaining because they thought they were being promised one thing and got another and that's their only problem.

besides the fact it's not exactly wrong if you thought you were getting steak only to be disappointed when the show served up slurry instead, it's ignoring the bigger problem.

the premise of the show is supposed to drive the story and without that frame, a lot of stories lose focus. and hb is very much one of those stories. We have a story where the writers are increasingly disinterested in the emotional state of their own main character, and as far as the Stolas plotlines go...oh boy.

So Stella had moved out by Ozzie's yet we're now approaching ten episodes later and the divorce is still not finalized, who knows what's even going on with that at this point. Doubtless it will form the backbone of s3 if they make it because that and stol!tz are the only things the show has left going for it.

And that means the writers have to drag out both plotpoints as long as possible because nothing else matters at this point. If what they're going for now is drama and not comedy I would like to point out most prestige drama has multiple plotlines with its ensemble cast. HB has set up plenty of avenues for that and done nothing with most of them. They have no road that would feel natural to develop because they've left themselves no options.

Also - and it probably goes without saying but I'll say it anyway - 'will a character divorce his evil wife' and 'will that same character successfully bully his love interest into being his idea of the perfect partner' are not good driving questions for long form drama. We know Stolas is definitely going to leave Stella so there's little dramatic tension outside of her trying to get petty revenge, which is dumb since Stolas has the god powers to just body her if he wanted to. And the second one assumes the audience is invested in the will they won't they of Stol!tz - and given how unlikeable Stolas has become more fans are getting turned off from ever caring if they will (and the showrunners already spoiled the ending on that, so extra who cares?)

it's the exact same logic people use to dismiss anyone saying 'X character is badly written' when they snidely respond 'you're just sad your headcanon the show never said it was going to give didn't come true'. It's a neat little trick to avoid why critics hate how Stolas, Stella, Millie etc. are written (or underwritten)

Well said. But then, "bad faith painting" is nothing new to the crowd of people we're talking about. I think they actually know full well what the problem critics have is, but resorting to strawmen arguments is all they've got.

[dotthings]

The denialism and revisionist history going on pushing the fairy tale that Nexstar CW is the only CW era with problems that required calling out, and the invalidation towards any criticism of the pre-Nexstar eras, have gone completely off the rails.

Perpetuating these fairy tales and the erasure of CW Network's long-running history of issues helps enable the broken system people claim they care about denouncing.

The reality of CW Network history: Racism, homophobia, poor set practices, toxic abusive showrunners, systemic failure to support actors especially in marginalized groups, and fan base after fan base used for engagement and then treated badly.

These are systemic industry issues, not confined to any one network. CW became a lightning rod for it because it was unusually concentrated from one platform, so it stuck out and CW earned a terrible reputation, long before the sale.

To combat the revisionist history and denialism, behind the cut is a timeline with a few of the egregoius systemic problems that have plagued the CW historically and reflect severe enabling and lack of oversight on the part of the network.

Nexstar Media era acquired the CW on October 3, 2022.

The harm starts at the very beginning, though. On January 24, 2006, The CW was born. In its founding, The CW destroyed an entire slate of Black-led series on UPN and the resulting network was extremely white.

Candice Patton, in EW, reflecting on the early seasons of The Flash and how she had to speak up and advocate for herself and for Iris West (date of article May 23, 2023, but refers to pre-Nexstar CW) “The scariest thing is speaking up, and I had a hard time talking about it for such a long time because you're so afraid of being seen as problematic," she says. "That's a word that no actor wants to have follow them around. But I think we're learning that speaking up and speaking out is the only way for change. And it's not about blaming people or canceling people, it's about just really being able to have a conversation so that the industry changes for the better. And I hope that whatever struggles I may have had, doing that has made it even the smallest amount easier for the next crop of actors coming up who feel like they need to be heard and seen and accommodated for."

July 8, 2022, EW. Candice Patton reveals how she considered quitting The Flash in S2 due to racist fans and The CW and WB didn’t give her the support she needed, and reflects on how she was treated differently than her co-stars:

"Even with the companies I was working with, The CW and WB, that was their way of handling it. We know better now that it's not okay to treat your talent that way, and to let them go through this abuse and harassment. But for me in 2014, there were no support systems. No one was looking out for that. It was just free range to get abused every single day. There were no social media protocols in place to protect me, so they just let all that stuff sit there….It's just not enough to make me your lead female and say, 'Look at us, we're so progressive, we checked the box.' It's great, but you've put me in the ocean alone around sharks. It's great to be in the ocean, but I can get eaten alive out here…It was more about the protocols in place and the things I see happening for my white counterparts that's not happening to me. Seeing how I was treated differently than other people, seeing how I'm not protected by the network and the studio, those were the things that not necessarily hurt me but frustrated me."

January 28, 2022, Sunstroke Magazine - Looking Back On Kat Graham's Racist and Anti-Semitic Experience on 'The Vampire Diaries’ A summary: * Kat Graham endured racist and antisemitic comments from a co-worker. * The show forced her to wear a wig when she recommended using her natural hair for Bonnie * Ian Somerhalder had to step up to protect Kat, threatening to quit the show if Bonnie was killed off or written out * Showrunners shot down the idea of Bonnie being queer and was patronizing to Bonnie fans * Here’s a compilation of Kat Graham and her character Bonnie being mistreated during the run of TVD:

October 2021, EW and THR - Ruby Rose accuses CW and WBTV of bad set practices and that they were forced to keep filming 10 days after major surgery she had to undergo after being injured doing a stunt and called out bad practices that harmed crew and endangered everyone on set. CW and WBTV denied everything

June 7, 2021, Hypebae, Candice Patton speaking on issues concerning how PoC are treated at CW and systemically in the TV industry

November 22, 2020, Popsugar - The all-black cast of the superhero series Black Lightning have to find out from social media that the show is cancelled and are given no advance warning. China Anne McClain reveals she was going to quit the show even if it had continued: “For different reasons, that, to be honest, I don't want to go into. I just want y'all to trust me on it."

November 9, 2020, Slashfilm - 'Superman & Lois' Writer Nadria Tucker Says She Was Fired After Raising Issues With CW Show's Sexism And Racism

San Diego Comic Con 2017: the cast of Supergirl singing a song to mock a predominantly queer fanbase for the Supercorp ship

March 14, 2016, Variety - “What TV Can Learn From ‘The 100’ Mess” in the wake of The 100 killing off Lexa, an openly queer character.

April 6, 2016, EW - The 100: Ricky Whittle says showrunner 'abused' him off the show May 6, 2015 - Season 10, episode 21 of SPN "Dark Dynasty" airs, killing the show's only recurring openly queer character at that point, Charlie Bradbury.

It’s common knowledge Daman Salvatore is bi in The Vampire Diaries books. The character on the show, one of “classic CW”’s biggest hits, was straightwashed.

2013: Misha Collins at NJ Con comments on how women are treated on SPN:

2024: Misha Collins at Purcon 8 shades the CW for placing representation caps on queer rep at SPN

The fact CW had other queer rep does not preclude the existence of pinkwashing, queer erasure, or queer censorship)

November 2020: in the wake of Castiel's romantic love confession to Dean Winchester and in the immediate aftermath of the end of SPN, the nature of the confession was ommitted in all official promotional material and Misha Collins hinted he was told he couldn't talk about Cas's pov. Eventually, Misha Collins was able to speak openly that the writer intention and the story and everyone who worked on the scene intended it as a romantic love confession and that Cas is queer and in love with Dean.

---

Love the shows. Support the shows. Support the creatives who were trying to make things better from within the system.

The megacorporation does not love you.

Stop bootlicking for the megacorporation.

[sukibenders]

I really enjoy Yellowjackets but the way it throws its poc characters to the side, the way the fandom does is so unsurprising but saddening at the same time. Shauna is one of my favorite characters, she's cool and stuff but, being honest, the trope of housewife having an affair because she's bored of her current life has been played before. So what if this one had certain elements outside of it, it's still common so it kind of grew tiring to see Yellowjackets constantly shove this plot at me when Tai's storyline is right there.

Taissa, a biracial woman who, even after living through something horrific as a kid, "bounced back" and lived the life she always wanted. She was a lawyer, now ran for and won a position in office, married a beautiful and smart woman and had a son, has a whole perfect family who she loves. Only for the trauma, the aspect of her life she promised herself and others to never talk about, is now coming back and in the process causes her to do things she doesn't want to do. The plot that could have come from Taissa alone is out of this world. You mean to tell me that a biracial lesbain running for office wouldn't be more entertaining than Shauna's storyline? Why couldn't Tai be the main focus?

And I don't even want to get into the fandom, but I have too. Listen, I like TaiVan for all that they are. They helped each other survive during a time where they thought it would be impossible. But what annoys me and, sadly, almost pushed me away from this ship, was how the writers and fans treat Simone and Sammy. Like the shows only way to have Tai together with Van was to put her wife in a coma and abandoned her son? That really does not sound like Tai, who fought to get her old life. And very insidious how some fans make certain jokes that just reek of "Let's push away the black characters to make room for the yte ones", because I've seen people call Simone the villain, to other things, just because she told Tai to get help all while framing Van as the better option. I've seen people in the fan call Sammy unnatural or even a demon just because he exists in a way that is not natural, by that I mean acting out and expressing coping mannerisms because he saw a version of his mother who terrified him but can't express, but I forgot because he's a little black boy who needs help people will ignore him or dehumanize him, because that's how this works right? The shows main, and only dark-skinned black characters were quickly pushed aside by the plot for what?

And I have a feeling the show may make us watch Taissa go through great lengths to keep Van alive (even though I do want Van to live), but won't extend the same want to Simone, which will read badly with the undertones in so many ways.

And the fandom treats Tai poorly as well (don't even get me started on some pretending to care about her family just to hang it over her head and call her a deadbeat) and reaching some nearly very ableist thinking when talking about her. Taissa deserved so much better, from the show and the fandom, and I hope they do better in season three but I'm not so sure to be honest, because most of the scenes even having mentions of Tai's blackness were because of Jasmine, not the showrunners, who it would be fine if it were small things here and there but to add so many crucial parts to your character because others won't begins to become a pattern.

[drakaripykiros130ac]

I’m sorry to blow up your asks, but I wanted your opinion since I know you don’t like HOTD’s adaption of F&B.

What do you think about the way they handled Laena’s death? I’ve seen people argue that they prefer the book and the shows versions for different reasons. For me, it was one of the changes in the show that I actually liked over the original.

They not only showed the difference in Daemon and Viserys��� character with the way Daemon refused the c-section after learning Laena wouldn’t survive it vs Viserys saying to do it, but we also got to see Laena die on her own terms (as much as she could given the circumstances). She asked Viserys about Vhagar as a child and eventually bonded with the dragon she yearned for, and I find it bittersweet that she was able to go out in her own terms by the dragon she wanted so badly. Not to mention the symbolism in it; she knew she would be buried at sea like a Velaryon, but she was also able to have a dragonrider’s death with Vhagar like a Targaryen.

(Disclaimer: I am talking strictly about her death. I could write an entire doctoral thesis about the way they slaughtered Daemon and Laena’s relationship and the relationship they had with Rhaenyra, and Daemon’s character as a father to his children.)

I personally greatly dislike how they had Viserys make that decision for Aemma. It wasn’t like that in the book. Aemma Arryn died in childbirth period. Viserys had nothing to do with it.

As a side note, the showrunners have made plenty of decisions to make Viserys and Daemon look bad through the way they treat women (it wasn’t like that in the book).

As for Laena’s death, while the show version is definitely more epic, I think that it was executed poorly. I mean, Laena, while giving birth, barely able to move and in tremendous amount of pain, manages to move past all those people in the room and get to Vhagar? There’s seriously no one who saw her leave? And how could she just leave? Normally, she shouldn’t have been able to move.

Overall, the showrunners choose epicness over good sense.

[ikamigami]

I have my own reasons called personal experiences to not believe Sun that he's mental state was great till Eclipse's return..

I call bullshit when I see it lol

Sun is just like me fr fr nah he's better actually

Also I want for Sun's suicide plot to happen because it would be so cathartic to me

Ofc I'm not saying that I want Sun to succeed, no..

The best scenario would be Sun trying to kill himself or harming himself badly and someone sees that and stops him from doing more damage to himself or from killing himself

Or scenario where someone finds out about Sun being suicidal while talking to him is also a good one

But if showrunners go for Sun attempting suicide - like I said in this post - I'm all for it.. Sun doesn't have to even die, he can end up being in a coma or just being severely damaged or have a near death experience

But I want for this plot to happen.. I need this to happen..

If you don't understand what I'm saying then.. that's great ✨ I mean it.. Go, be yourself and enjoy your life <3

[sapphoshands]

Agatha Harkness + 11, 14, 17, 20

belated, sorry! but yes please let me talk about agatha.

11. ...how well I actually understand them. Do they feel like a very vivid character to me or are they kind of bland and hard to get invested in?

i feel like this is at least two questions in one and also possibly a false dichotomy? because, i mean, agatha harkness is many things, but BLAND is NOT ONE OF THEM. but do i fully understand her? probably not fully, just because there are so many layers to her. i think i get a lot about her, though. i absolutely understand her defensiveness, her drama, her hurt, her greed, her ambition... yeah. i get her. and i am very, very invested.

14. ...what I think they want more than anything else.

ohhhh my god. well. she wants power. that part is simple. but to an extent she wants power because she's been denied so many other things in her life. it's certainly not as simple as that she wants power because her mother never loved her, but i think she leans into her desire for power as a way to avoid thinking about what else she wants. which is certainly... connection, love, acceptance. you know, all those things she had with rio before going mad with grief and driving the love of her life away.

17. ...how well they'd do if they got dropped in a horror movie.

oh, please. agatha is the horror movie.

20. ...my queer headcanon for them. Unless they're canonically queer, in which case whether or not I think they're good representation or kinda badly explored.

what even is good representation. idk, idk. i hate that as a category. i guarantee you that my idea of good representation differs greatly from that of many others on this website.

things i did not love about agatha's storyline: well, she ends up a ghost. did not love that because of the long history of ghostly lesbianism in literature and culture. she's not really a dead lesbian (though if we don't get her back in a real body at some point i will be Angry), but i do not love that in her own show, she did die.

that said, fuck, i love that she's queer. i love that she's queer! not least because she was SO queer and camp in wandavision and i am so delighted that the showrunner actually understood that.

i absolutely fucking love that she is a queer mentor. how often do we get that on screen? even in a niche queer show? this is a marvel show on disney plus and we got a queer woman telling a queer man never to apologise for or feel ashamed of who and what nature made him. like genuinely what the fuck.

i love that she is a terrible person and she's queer. you know? fuck that kind of good representation.

i love that she's in a situationship with death, which is just the ultimate in dyke drama.

i love that SHE is not ashamed of who she is.

i just love her. she makes me so happy and i love her.

ask me more things!

[rewatching-sam-and-dean]

The Schrödinger's SPN Revival

So, recently there’s been a lot of talk on here and twitter because a couple articles have been published citing Jared and Jensen (or just Jensen in one POS article) mentioning discussing possibilities for a revival. Does this make it any more likely to happen or closer to being realized? I don’t know, but the guys have been mentioning it off and on for years already, so I’m not sure it’s any more likely now than it ever was. Also, with networks and the whole industry in seeming disarray, even if J2 want to get a revival going, I’m not sure it will happen.

But, let’s speculate anyway. Shall we?

(I CANOT get the link to work for some reason!!)

My thoughts on this, under the cut.

I’m no authority on anything in the TV industry, but I have watched our little show a lot, so I have thoughts. Let’s take look at each person on this poll.

Kripke - Obviously, he understands Sam and Dean. He created them after all. But, would I trust him with the revival? Well, judging by The Boys, he seems more focused on shock value than tight storytelling these days, so I’m not sure I would want to see an SPN on a streamer that he ran. It might become a case of all fireworks and little to no heart. Also, if he had ended the series in Season 5, both Sam and Dean would have been trapped in the cage forever. Not exactly a happy ending. Still, is he capable of manning a revival snd doing a decent job? Yes. Would I totally trust him with it? Maybe. Maybe not. Do I think he even has time to do it? Not really.

Jensen - Come on, people! If you want him to reprise his role as Dean, then he isn’t going to be the showrunner. Also, he’s an actor, not a writer, so it’s not even in his wheelhouse. So, no. This wouldn’t be a good idea. And after The Winchesters, I think it’s extremely unlikely that he’d be put at the helm in this way. The only upside to Jensen being a show runner? We know damn well Destiel would be ignored as vigorously as it deserves.

Robbie Thompson - Exhibit One: The Winchesters. So, no. Also, while he has written some episodes that I like of SPN, he was always trying to make the show something it wasn’t, whether it was Fairytale time with Charlie or trying to shoehorn romance into a platonic brother love story, he’s shown that he shouldn’t be trusted with the OG show in a position of power.

Sera Gamble - Season 6 while having some absolute bangers, was also a bit of a mess in some ways. And Season 7 was more so. How much of this was due to Gamble hersel and how much was due to Singer tugging at the reins, I don’t know. She is a proven showrunner, so I believe she could do it. She actually understands and enjoys Sam, so that would be a huge relief for those of us who actually care about Sam and want to see him get his due on screen. Also, she has never written Dean badly from my observations, despite certain past claims by “some people” on women not writing male dialogue well. In a lot of ways, I think she could be a good choice. But, would she be interested even? I have no clue.

Andrew Dabb - NEXT!!

Jeremy Carver - For reasons relating to Season 11, I would like to see him helm a revival. He can clearly follow through with a connected and coherent arc. However, for reasons relating to Season 8, where he had characters do a few hugely out of character things for the story’s sake? No. For Season 10 snd the bore thst it was for me personally (though that potentially had something to do with pressure that came from Singer)? No. All in all. I think he’d be capable of ruining a revival, but something tells me he isn’t particularly interested and they guys may not be that ready to chose him, either (purely just my gut).

Robert Singer - No. I believe he interfered with Gamble and Carver’s plans; I just don’t know to what extent. And worst of all, he did nothing to help steer Dabb away from the mess that was much of Seasons 12 to 15. Also, he’d probably bring Buck-Lemming with him. And can I just say a big, “Fuck no,” to that.

Again, all of this is just me rambling. I have no real idea how likely any of them would be to come back for a revival. And I also don’t know how much J2 would want any of them to run a revival, or whether they’d want to just get someone new who might be more likely to listen to their ideas. I don’t even know if J2 would have an easy time agreeing on who would make a good show runner from that list because I think they might not even agree on who they considered to be better writers, or be better candidates to showrunner. For example, I think Jared might be more enthusiastic about Gamble than Jensen would. And Jensen would probably welcome Singer more than Jared would. Again, I don’t know any of this for certain, but it just my impression based off of things they’ve said over the years.

If a revival happens what do I want?

First, it sounds to me like if there is one, J2 want to be a big part of it with Sam and Dean as central focus. This is what I would want. I watched the show for them. I stuck it out through the rough seasons for them. The only way I would watch a revival was if it heavily featured both Sam and Dean. Second, I think I would enjoy if they did a revival during the years (according to J2) between Episodes 19 snd 20. I would like this because it would make the likelihood of angel or demon interference minimal. And this would be the more likely scenario for us to get a more old-school creature hunting revival. We could still see Jody and co for those who care about that. There would be no need for Cas or Jack to show up, which I would prefer. Yet, it would be easy enough for them to make a brief appearance if J2 wanted to pander in that way. Also, I’m so very sick of Angel BS, and this seems like the best way to avoid it. Third, I could be interested in a bit of a prequel with John and the boys, if they could find a way to include J2 without making it convoluted and pointless. Finally, if they come back from heaven for some reason, I think it would be hard for the revival to have much in the way of stakes. And I really wouldn’t want a huge dose of Cas, which we’d potentially have in that case.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the potential revival, thoughts thst no one asked for admittedly. Lol.

If anyone read this far, what are your thoughts on a revival. If it happens, who should run it and what would you want to see happen?